A Song for Julia

we were through security, I saw our driver, a man holding up a sign with my name on it. We waved and headed over.
    “Do you need to pick up luggage?” he asked.
    “No,” I replied, “we just had carry-ons.”
    Twenty minutes later, we were clear of LAX and headed into the city. In the car, I reached in my purse and took out my heels and swapped them for the flip-flops I’d been wearing on the flight.
    “This is crazy,” Crank said. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
    I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s your music that earned it,” I said.
    “So what’s the plan?”
    “I want you to be charming and friendly. Don’t say yes to anything. You’re the good cop. You be nice and accommodating and make friends. I’ll cut the deal. Does that work?”
    He chuckled. “All right. You don’t trust my negotiating ability?”
    “It’s not that at all. You hired me for this. Plus, this way you get to make friends with people you need to be friends with. Know what I mean?”
    “Yeah,” he replied. He looked out the window, and then looked back and said, “Julia? Thanks.”
    Ten minutes later, the driver said, “Here we are. Seventh floor. Suite 720. We’re a little early, so let the receptionist know you’re here, and they’ll take it from there. And good luck.”
    I smiled at the driver, and we got out.
    Crank stopped outside the door of the building. Traffic rolled by in the street in front of us, and pedestrians were crowding by us.
    “We’re early. I need a smoke.” He lit up and started pacing, his long legs taking him back and forth with nervous strides. After a minute, he turned around, and said, “What if this doesn’t pan out? What about all the money you just spent?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “My dad will have a heart attack, that’s for sure.”
    “You took that big of a risk for me?” he said.
    I took a breath then shook my head. “No.”
    He took a drag off his cigarette. “I don’t understand.”
    I bit my lip, looked at the ground, and said, “It’s like this. Who do you think picked the piano for me when I was two?”
    “Your mother?”
    I nodded. “Yeah … and I’m not ungrateful. They wanted to expose me to music, so they put me in Suzuki lessons. And I’m glad they did. Now … every three years of my life, we moved. Not to a new neighborhood … not to a new state. To a new country. Before I was eighteen, I’d lived in China, Belgium, Indonesia, Japan and France. You know how much input I had in that?”
    He shrugged. “None,” he replied.
    I nodded. “And … how do you think I ended up at Harvard?”
    He grimaced. “Your parents.”
    “Yeah. And you saw them last night.” In a bitter tone, I mocked the words from my father. “’Julia, you’ve always wanted to go into the Foreign Service.’ They don’t even see me. They don’t know what I want, or who I am, or what I want out of life.”
    He stopped pacing, checked his watch, and lit another cigarette. “What do you want?”
    “I have no idea!” I said. “I’ve never had a chance to figure that out. So … I took this risk for me. Because maybe I need to find out what I want to do. Maybe I want to do something completely different. But unless I try, I’ll never know.”
    “I can understand that,” he said. “I had to go my own way. My dad and granddad were both cops. I’m sure they wanted me to do that, too.”
    “So … that’s why I did it. Because maybe instead of going into the Foreign Service and living the rest of my life lonely, moving to a new country every three years, maybe I can ground myself in something that I enjoy. Something that matters to me.”
    “Like music,” he said.
    “Yeah. Like music. I’ll never be a musician, but I bet I can be a hell of a band manager.”
    He grinned. “You’ve already proved that.”
    I snorted. “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, Crank. We might leave LA with nothing at all.”
    He nodded. “Yeah. But we’ll give it our best. Let’s go.”

    I want you guys (Crank)
    So we walked to the elevators, me slightly behind her, so I could look at her butt as she walked. I never said I wasn’t a bit of a pig … or maybe a lot. But some things you just have to appreciate. And Julia, even in a business-like skirt and jacket, is just too hot not to look at.
    I winked at her as we stepped in the elevator. She looked puzzled, but that was fine. A little mystery never hurts. But the second the elevator