Rio may be a boy, but she's not saying

Rio's Bargain

5. Uber Black

by Lulu Martine

I held the phone out to Gwen who was just walking up beside me at the railing. She looked me in the face, "You okay?" she asked.

I nodded. "I got the job," I said. "They need me tonight, so they're sending a limo to pick me up."

"A limo?" she repeated, looking around. The other girls had drifted nearer, and Monica overheard.

"You got the job? Who sends a limo to pick up a new hire? For that matter, who hires someone over the phone?" Monica wanted to know.

"I need you to go to work for me tonight. I'm on 4:45 to 10:30," I told her. "Call your sister and tell her."

Monica got her phone out. "Wow, if I catch her before she leaves, she can come pick me up." She dialed quickly. "Is this working for that asshole was hitting on you last night? Julie told me about him."

I didn't answer her because suddenly everyone was talking at me.

Jenny: "Good thing you got your new shoes. Are you going to be on your feet a lot?"

Naomi: "A limo? How cool is that! What the heck are you going to be doing?"

Gwen: "Why don't you keep the phone? Then I'll stay off it, and you can get it back to me, but you'll have a phone where we can get in touch?"

Me: "They're like high-end caterers, yeah, I'll be on my feet a lot. They have a dress code, but they'll loan me some money to get clothes, and probably shoes. I'm going in early so one of the office girls can take me shopping. And thanks, Gwen, I appreciate the loan of the phone."

Jenny and Naomi squealed, a startling thing since Naomi is a big girl, and Jenny is tall. Monica put a finger in her ear and moved away from the group, scowling.

Gwen just nodded at me with a murmured, "Uh, huh," and a grin.

"I've got to get to the west entrance where the Uber is coming," I said, putting the phone in a coat pocket, and heading for the escalator. We all started down with lots of chatter, but I wasn't paying much attention anymore. It felt like my stomach was filling up with spiders, chills ran down my arm and legs, and my face went numb.

"Hey, guys!" Monica squealed when she realized we had left the Food Court balcony without her. She caught up with us at the big doors to the parking lot, grabbing my arm. "Julie says the guy seemed sketchy to her, huh? She wants you to be careful."

I nodded. Because I'm small and don't look my age, my friends are all protective of me. It can be annoying, but mostly I appreciated their concern. Naomi and Jenny pushed the doors open, and a wind that seemed to have come off a frozen mountain somewhere grabbed at us.

"Whoa," Jenny said. "Someone tie Brooke down, so she doesn't blow away."

"How did it get so cold in the middle of the afternoon?" Naomi complained.

The clouds had thickened, but I still needed my borrowed sunglasses since we were facing west, and the hidden sun made a bright patch in the overcast. "Can I get these back to you tomorrow?" I asked Jenny.

"Yeah, sure," she agreed with a wave. "Does it look like it might rain to you?"

"Maybe, but it almost never rains in LA before Thanksgiving," Gwen said.

"Especially not in the middle of the Valley," added Monica. "But it's almost never this cold in early November either."

Everyone took their phones out to check the weather. No rain forecast and several sites reported the temperature as sixty-five degrees. "Sure feels colder than that," said Naomi with a scowl at her phone.

I had my borrowed one out, looking for the Uber app. "Okay if I download Uber on your phone?" I asked Gwen.

"Sure," she nodded. "Gonna check to see when the limo arrives?"

"Uh, huh," I said. My hands didn't look as if they were shaking, but my fingers felt like Jello noodles. We all huddled against the wall where the wind only hit us in gusts.

"They always measure the temperature at the airport or the city hall, someplace where no one lives," complained Monica. She didn't even have a sweater on, just a long-sleeve t-shirt.

I opened my coat wide, it was way too big for me, anyway. "Get in here," I said. "We can keep each other warm." Holding the phone in my left hand, I pulled my right arm out of the jacket sleeve, so Monica could have more of it.

Giggling, and Monica was usually another non-giggler, she snuggled in, wrapping the corduroy around her. "Cozy," she said, her face right next to mine.

The app was still downloading. I felt a little unreal. I was taking a job where my boss thought I was a girl and apparently expected me to dress like one. Had my life always been so strange?

Monica leaned even closer and rubbed her cheek against mine. "You are a girl, y'know. You've got like no whiskers, Brooksie."

"I know," I sighed. Her comment matched my own thinking. Maybe she was a mind reader.

I opened the app and started creating an account. I'd never used Uber before, so I set the new account name to Brooke Riordan. That be would be the name I intended to use at the new job.

Monica could see what I had typed and gave me a squeeze. "Welcome to the pink side," she whispered.

I rolled my eyes and giggled. Pasting the info from Nader's message into the Uber app showed that the car would arrive in less than ten minutes.

"If we don't freeze to death first," Monica complained when the wind came around the corner and tried to get into the corduroy coat with us.

With my new shoes on, I didn't need to stretch to kiss her behind the ear.

"Jeez!" she squealed. "Like I'm not cold enough, you did that on purpose just to give me chills."

"Yup," I said.

*

I called Mom while we waited. She was in the middle of wrangling my sisters and her crews; we couldn't talk long. I said I was going to be working a new job that probably paid better, but that I'd get my check from SvenKafé to her in the morning, and maybe we could figure a down payment.

"How late you going to be getting home?" she asked.

"I don't know yet," I told her. "Probably after eleven."

"School tomorrow," she mentioned.

I snorted, and she laughed. We both knew I already had enough credits to graduate. If I passed all my exams in December, I could get my diploma at the end of January.

"Gotta go," she warned me before hanging up.

I didn't tell her I was going to be working as a girl.

*

The big, black car arrived three minutes early. We had decided to wait for it just inside the mall doors, out of the wind, but the app beeped at me to let me know. "Driver's name is Rodolfo," it said, which agreed with what Nader had told me.

"It's here, guys," I said. I could see it pulling into the loading zone just outside the bollards around the mall entrance. I got kissed and hugged four times and given more advice but only Jenny and Gwen went with me outside. Naomi and Monica went back to chatting up the boys who had followed us down from the food court, eventually.

"Oh, em, gee," said Jenny. "Lookit the driver."

A large man in a California-style business suit got out of the car. His pants were black, his shirt creamy gold, and his jacket electric blue. No hat or tie. He had curly black hair styled in a blocky razor cut, and more of the same curls showed at the neck of his shirt. He looked like Antonio Banderas's kid brother, the one that works out a lot.

"Miss Riordan?" he asked, smiling at us.

I nodded, holding my hand up.

'I'm Rodolfo," he said. "It's probably going to take us half an hour to get back downtown. So we best get on our way." He had, not an accent, but a bit of a Latin flavor to his speech.

Jenny gave my arm a squeeze then pushed me forward.

Gwen made a noise and grabbed my hand, adding, "I've got an odd feeling about this job."

"So do I," I confessed.

"Do you want to sit up front or in the back, Miss Riordan," Rodolfo asked. "There's an entertainment center and a refreshment bar in back, though you can have refreshments up front, too. Just not alcohol."

"I'll sit up front," I said. The wind had died down a bit, but it was still cold.

He beamed at me and started around the car. I followed, still holding Gwen's hand I discovered. Jenny took up the rear, commenting, "Some car, it must take an hour to get it shining like that."

Rodolfo turned to smile at her. "It does," he agreed. "Most of an hour." Then he opened the front door for me, holding out his arm if I needed help balancing.

Gwen gave me a peck on the cheek then I imitated what I had seen my friends do so often getting into a tall car, step up, sit down, then bring both feet inside at once. Rodolfo's arm turned out to be handy; it was a higher step than it had looked.

After closing the door, he rushed around to the driver's side, sort of shooing Jenny and Gwen in front of him to get out of the way. But he was smiling. Maybe he said something because they laughed. He opened the driver's side door and slid into his seat. "This your first day working for Pearl East?" he asked.

I nodded, waving goodbye to my friends, just as Monica and Naomi came out of the mall to join Gwen and Jenny in waving back. "Yeah," I said, realizing he might not have seen me nod. "Do you work for them, too?"

"No, I'm a contract driver for Uber," he said. "But they pay me to be on call in the afternoons, so they know they will have a limo."

"Oh," I said. I wasn't sure how that would work. "Do you, uh, do you pick up, um, other girls to take them to work? At Pearl East?" Other girls? I suppressed a cringe.

"Sometimes," he agreed. "Or to the airport, the beach, the marina—wherever they need to go." He smiled, showing a surprising dimple in his cheek. "I do have one question for you, though," he said. "How old are you?"

"Oh," I said. "I get that a lot, I'll be nineteen in January."

He nodded, but I could tell he had a doubt. "This January? In two months?" He pulled out of the parking lot, taking Van Nuys back toward the freeway.

I laughed. "Six or seven weeks, actually."

"You look about fifteen, maybe...." He let that trail off.

"Maybe twelve?" I suggested.

"I'm sorry," He apologized. "When someone sits up front with me, I tend to get a bit nosy."

"I know what I look like," I told him. I glanced down at my chest. "Maybe I should pad my bra? Except I'm not wearing one." A giggle escaped. I really am flirting with this guy, I decided. Practice?

He turned as red as someone with his dark complexion can.

I decided I better stop teasing him. "How long have you been doing this job?" I asked.

"Driving for Uber? For Pearl East? Or just driving for a living?"

"Um? All of the above?"

"For Uber, about a year. For Pearl East, almost as long, ten or eleven months. But I've driven cabs, limos, or trucks almost since I got out of high school." He glanced at me sideways. "Do you drive, Miss Riordan?"

I shook my head. "Lessons aren't free, but if this job works out, maybe I'll learn."

"Oh," he said. "It's curious, but almost none of the Pearl East girls drive. I get to play chauffeur a lot."

I laughed again, and he chuckled. "I like driving," he said. "I especially like driving pretty girls around."

Yeah, I thought, now he's flirting with me.

*

After half an hour of thick traffic in the Cahuenga Pass, we pulled into a parking garage under the building on Figueroa and up to a sort of underground lobby entrance. A guy in a business suit stepped up to the car and opened the door for me.

"Take care, Miss Riordan," Rodolfo said, smiling.

"You too," I told him. "And thanks." I almost felt we had become friends. I smiled back at him, and he winked. I shook my head and laughed.

The valet, doorman, or concierge, whatever, offered me a hand to help me down, and I took it. The limo was really an SUV and a bit high off the ground for someone as short as me, even with my new shoes. Once on my feet, I looked around, but it was pretty unremarkable. It could have been any hotel or office building with an underground entrance.

"Is this your first time here, miss?" the man asked. I saw his name tag read Jacob and that he wore a wireless earbud-type phone.

"Yes, it is," I said. "Jacob," I added and smiled at him.

"Pearl East Reception is on the sixth floor," he said with his own smile. "They have that whole floor and the one above." He motioned that I should follow him toward a set of automatic doors. "Just take the elevator up, and you'll see the desk to the right as soon as you get out of the lift."

"Thank you," I said. "I guess you know where I'm going because of arriving in Rodolfo's limo?"

"Yes, miss," he said as we went through the electric doors. "But I always send pretty girls up to Pearl East, anyway." He grinned. "Besides, they called down to tell me to watch for you." He tapped his earphone.

I laughed but hurried toward the elevators because it was the second time in less than half an hour someone had called me a pretty girl. I know I look like a girl, but I'd be more likely to be considered scruffy than pretty, I thought.

The impressive lobby of the building had a multi-story atrium, marble floors and gleamed everywhere with metal and glass. I didn't spend time gawking though, but hurried through, feeling horribly underdressed in my school clothes.

*

I rode the lift to the sixth floor, trying not to feel nervous about what I was doing. I hadn't had any time alone to think about it. What if they found out I was really a boy? I'd probably lose out on the job, but I didn't see where anything terrible would happen. Judging from Jenny's reactions, and Nader's last night, I could pass for a girl without even trying.

Sort of depressing if I spent much time thinking about it, but also funny. Unlike a lot of males, I didn't have that macho ego thing. I knew I was never going to be a manly sort, and that didn't really bother me. But could I do this job? What had Nader said: pour coffee and look pretty?

I knew I could pour coffee, and apparently I looked pretty enough for him to offer me a job. Makeup would probably help, and Nader had asked me if I had a dress then offered to have his office girl take me shopping when I said I didn't. It would be weird to wear a dress, but my friends had teased me often enough about getting me into one that I did feel curious.

It occurred to me just before the elevator door opened that no one of them —Gwen, Jennifer, Monica, or Naomi— had tried to talk me out of this. Thanks a lot, guys, for keeping me from doing something stupid, I said to myself.

So, I was already smiling when I stepped out of the elevator and turned to my right. Sure enough, there was an entryway there with tall wooden doors, and out in front of them, a slender pretty woman with lots of curly blonde hair stood at a skimpy desk.

She wore an earbud phone, too, like Jacob downstairs, and had a tablet in her hands. Her skirt was business-like, short, black and slim. Her sleeveless blouse was frilly and pink, and cut low enough to show a tasteful amount of cleavage. Long earrings, multiple rings, necklaces, and bracelets showed an abundance of bling, but I didn't see any tattoos or odd piercings.

She smiled back at me, taking a step forward. "Hi," she said in a cowgirl drawl. "I'm Lou Ellen Briggs, and you must be Brooke Riordan."

"I am," I agreed. "Or a reasonable approximation, at least," hedging a bit since Brooke really wasn't my name.

She laughed a delighted giggle. "Aren't you just the cutest thing?" She actually said 'thang,' but I'm not going to try to spell her accent. We both put out our hands and touched fingertips; we didn't know each other well enough to hug. I was glad I remembered that girls almost never actually shake hands.

"Mmm, hmm," said Lou Ellen, looking me over. "It's going to be fun shopping for you."

"You mean it's going to be a challenge?" I suggested.

She laughed again then wrinkled her nose. "What I mean is, I like your shoes, but that corduroy jacket has got to go."

I opened the coat and looked at it. "This old thing?" I said, just as if she had complimented me on my sense of fashion.