The Year Everything Changed Read Online Free PDF

something stupid—like forgive him? “It’s not a good time. Rehearsals start next week, and Harold said he’d fire my ass if I missed another shift.” Harold threatened to fire his waitresses on an ongoing, rotating basis, but Randy didn’t know that. He only knew that if she lost her job, he might be forced to find one.
    “Shit—it’s not like he’s asking you to move in with him and call him Daddy. Think about it. Wouldn’t you rather be sorry you went than regret you didn’t?”
    “Why do you care?”
    “Self-protection.” He gave her an unconvincing smile. “I don’t want to have to listen to you whining that you should have gone after it’s too late.”
    “I have to think about it.”
    He took the letter and read it. “It says here that he’s paying for a car and hotel, too. If you want, I could go with you. We could trade that first-class ticket for two economy and probably have money left over.” After several seconds he flashed her a conspiratorial smile. “Or . . . you could turn this in and we could use the money for Illegal Alien .”
    Their independent film, a documentary— Illegal Alien —had consumed every dime and dollar she’d managed to earn, beg, and borrow for the year and a half she’d known him and was still months from being completed. To help him, Christina had gone from the relative comfort of Enrique’s monthly stipend during the five years it had taken her to earn her degree at the University of Arizona to working two part-time jobs and living on the edge of poverty.
    She was twenty-six years old, and it was getting harder and harder to maintain the fantasy that her big break would come when the film started winning awards. She either got to L.A. in the next year or settled for growing old in Tucson directing community theater productions and staring in underpaid, late-night used-car commercials.
    “If I turn in the ticket”—could she get a refund on something she hadn’t bought herself even if her name was on it?—“how would I get to Sacramento if I decided to go later?”
    “Put up a notice at school and see if anyone is headed that way?”
    “Why not UPS? A little bubble wrap, a couple of Power Bars, I’d be set. And if you had me delivered to the office, we might be able to get a refund on the limo, too.”
    “Look, all I’m saying—”
    “I know what you’re saying. And I know what you were thinking—but there’s no way in hell I’m going to hitch a ride with some pervert so you have money to go back to Texas for a couple of pickup shots.”
    “All I need is a couple of days, a week at the outside.”
    “Then get off your ass and get a job. If those extra shots are that important, it seems to me that you would be willing to flip burgers for a month to pay for them.” They could be having a playback of the argument they’d had a dozen times already. She didn’t think the shots were necessary, Randy believed they were crucial. She liked mean and lean, he liked long and lingering.
    He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her into his side. “Think about it, Christina,” he said, effectively ignoring her outburst. “With that kind of money not only could we get the scenes we need, we could get some more footage of that cop in Phoenix.”
    Randy wouldn’t leave Tucson until Illegal Alien was in the can, and she’d stupidly promised she wouldn’t go without him even though they could finish the editing as easily in L.A. as in Tucson. She grounded him. She was his inspiration, his drive to succeed. Besides, he loved her. And if she was into believing everything she was told, she might as well buy into the line that thong underwear was comfortable.
    She was his meal ticket, pure and simple. She knew it, and she put up with it because she wanted the film finished even more than he did. Not only had she worked on it as hard and long as Randy, she’d contributed every spare dime she’d earned and all the Christmas and birthday money her