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  For the one who strayed off the path: your journey is just as amazing.

  Starting Point

  * * *

  MORPHEUS : Neo, sooner or later you’re going to realize, just as I did, that there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

  —The Matrix

  July 31

  From: Olivia Russell

  To: Victoria Aquino

  Subject: Callback

  * * *

  Dear Victoria Aquino,

  We have reviewed the sample video you submitted to our open call for a new television food-show host. West Coast Eats would like to invite you to audition in person. Attached is our callback schedule. I look forward to speaking with you to confirm your appointment.

  Sincerely,

  Olivia Russell

  Producer and Editor

  West Coast Eats

  1

  VICTORIA

  August 8

  The best part of the journey is the beginning: the anticipation, the planning, the ability to dream about and map out its greatest potential. With very little exception, everything is possible. Days are a blank slate, and only good moments can be envisioned.

  It’s at the beginning of my trips that my Bullet Journal gets the most use. I fill pages with scribbles and wannabe self-taught calligraphy, with inspirational quotes like “Be in the moment” and “Face to the sun.” Tiny doodles of flowers, arrows, and hearts trail across the pages in different thicknesses and textures from gel pens and markers. The optimism shines like the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge through the Northern California fog: unstoppable. These journals are the inspiration and launchpad for my food and travel blog, Gutóm—or hungry, in Tagalog—where I’m free to wax poetic and make a living at the same time. Best job ever.

  Yet, rarely do my journals show the middle of my journey, where the road muddles and detours and sometimes dead ends, nor do they depict the shuddering realization that I’ve accidentally taken a wrong turn. These pages don’t reflect my moments of despair, my decision to turn around, or my panic-driven desire to head back to the starting point, back to my Pollyanna attitude.

  They surely don’t tell me what my next step should be.

  Hence why I’m here, at Golden Tattoo. Time to chart my own course. Sitting on one of the shop’s black pleather couches, feet propped on an ottoman, I’m flipping through a scrapbook of sketches and completed tattoos. Pages worn at the edges, corners bent by previous customers, the book contains every design imaginable, though none are what I’m looking for.

  I lean my head back, suddenly tired at the effort, and stare up at the ceiling, at the exposed rafters and metal beams. My mind wanders to my sister’s and cousin’s compass tattoos, a similar design with two perpendicular intersecting double-pointed arrows, with the letters N, E, S, and W in their respective directions. They’d each gotten them inked at a time when they needed to jump-start their lives. “To help me remember my true north,” they’d each said, almost verbatim.

  I want a compass, too, but instead of reminding me what my true north is, of what’s behind me, I want it to show me what’s up ahead. The future. I shut my eyes to envision the art I want on my lower back. Perhaps I could have a map tattooed in the background? Or maybe, instead of arrows, I could have swords à la Game of Thrones to signify the crap I’ve had to fight through.

  It could be in color.

  “Miss?”

  My eyelids jolt open and I sit up on the couch. For a second I’m discombobulated, but the lingering salt and lemon citrus taste, and the heat of four tequila shots I drank earlier, snaps my memory back into place. “Yes?”

  The tattoo artist—I forget his name—wearing skinny everything, arms covered in sleeves of ink, comes from behind the reception counter and sits on the ottoman in front of me. He rests his elbows on his knees. “You’ve been looking through this album for the last hour, and it’s 9 p.m. We close in an hour, and this process takes a little time so . . .”

  “I know what I want, but not exactly. You know?” My tongue feels a little slower than my head, but I push on. “And I don’t know how big I want it.”

  “We can work with that. I can draw something custom for you, and we can tweak it until you’re happy. We stencil it on your body before you fully decide.”

  “Well, then, let’s get started.” I jump to my feet, but when the room tilts, I reach out to the couch, and sit back down. I readjust my glasses and find them slightly askew. Huh.

  Tattoo Artist’s eyebrows rise into his forehead. “Um, are you here alone?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Did you have something to drink?”

  I frown. Nod. “So?”

  “See that?” He points to a sign with some pretty impressively drawn scrollwork that makes my calligraphy look like a kindergartener did it. “We do not ink on drunk people.”

  I gasp. “I’m not drunk! I drank, yeah, because hello, I’m about to get a tattoo.” Except the last part of the sentence sounds like Imagetatoo. Dammit, tongue. Why aren’t you working?

  It’s Tattoo Artist who stands this time, so I follow his lead, cradling the portfolio in my arms. It feels a little like a game of Simon Says.

  I giggle at the thought of it, then am suddenly mortified that maybe the guy is right. And sure enough, when I see the reflection of my profile in a mirror on the parlor wall, with my bun floppy and loose, my posture off-kilter, realization descends slowly despite my carnival mirror–skewed vision.

  I’m definitely buzzed.

  Oh no, no, no, he can’t not tattoo me tonight. It took me all day to work up the courage to get here. After a swift decision that I was ready to get on with my life, eleven days after I’d come home from Phoenix with my heart broken, I wasn’t going to walk out of here without one. “I’m not drunk,” I repeat, enunciating each word like a spelling bee champion.

  Tattoo Artist gently takes the portfolio from me, then guides me by the elbow past the reception counter toward the front door. “You know, I’m not the kind to say no to business, but I can’t in good conscience give you a tattoo in your state.”

  “Then don’t say no.” Whining, I wiggle my elbow out of his grasp.

  “Miss—”

  “My name is Victoria.”

  “This is a small town; I know who you are. You’re Bryn Aquino’s sister; she owns the culinary retreat at Dunford Vineyard.” He walks ahead to the glass front door and opens it. The bell above the door jingles. He gestures outside, with a look of impatience. “You should go home and sleep it off. Come back tomorrow, and I’ll be more than happy to draw you a beautiful tattoo.”

  Of course he knows my sister, Bryn. She and her boyfriend Mitchell were stars of a live-streamed renovation show called Paradise in the Making. But what started as a show to feature Paraiso Retreats, my sister’s culinary retreat, became a romantic drama that unfolded in front of thousands of people.

  I’m so proud of my sister, her business and her blossoming relationship with Mitchell, but right now I wish I wasn’t recognizable so Tattoo Artist would reconsider.

  “That’s the thing,” I plead. This guy wasn’t understanding the importance of this moment. “I’m leaving tomorrow, for a job
opportunity. This tattoo was supposed to signal the start of a new beginning.”

  “I get that whole idea, believe me. Every single one of my tattoos means something. Hence my rule.” He shakes his head. “Tattoos are permanent.”

  “It’s pretty presumptuous that you think I don’t know that.” I laugh. This entire scenario is playing out like something out of a vivid dream, like I’m present but don’t have full control of what’s going on around me. That I’m moving without actually taking a step, and I’m speaking though no one seems to understand my words. “I’m picking something meaningful to me, too. I want a compass on my lower back with a hint of House Stark.”

  Tattoo Artist rolls his eyes at me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I gasp. “What. You’ve never watched Game of Thrones?”

  “Excuse me, is there a problem in here?” A deeper voice interrupts the conversation, and thank God, because I’m not ready to leave and I need a second to plan my negotiation. I look from Tattoo Artist to the guy who’s walking in through the front door. He’s about six feet tall, has short dark hair and a beard with a sprinkle of silver through it like a burst of stars in the night sky. Dark eyes, dark lashes, tanned skin. And oh-so-fine.

  My view begins to tilt . . .

  “Whoa, Vic!” someone says. Both bodies are on me now, one on each side, hands on my arms and waist. “All right, stand up . . . there you go.”

  “My legs felt weird for a second, but I’m fine,” I hear myself say. I blink through my thoughts as my brain catches up. Right, I know the guy that just walked in. I’m triumphant when I declare, “Joel. Joel Silva. I didn’t recognize you without your friend.”

  “My friend?” His gaze darts from me to Tattoo Artist, confused.

  As if he didn’t know. I sigh. “The camera, duh. You’re sexy with it, but way sexier without it,” I whisper.

  Except my voice isn’t really a whisper.

  Oh my God.

  Did I just say that?

  My cheeks warm at my inhibition. I try to look away from Joel’s face, but can’t. I’m curious about his reaction, and when his lips curl up at the corners a smidge, I am fully, utterly humiliated.

  “I mean.” My brain recovers when a plan emerges in my head. I splay my hands on Joel’s abdomen, his strong, firm abdomen—focus, Vic!—and beg Tattoo Artist. “This is Joel, the cameraman for the live stream? Anyway, we’ve known each other for what . . . two months now? He can vouch for me. So, can I get my compass tattoo tonight?”

  Tattoo Artist’s gaze flies to Joel, ignoring me altogether. “Mr. Sexy, can you take responsibility from here?”

  Take responsibility? What am I, a child? “Oh, hell no.” But at the same time, Joel nods, and his grip on my waist tightens.

  His deadpan face flits from me to Tattoo Artist. “I’ll see her home.”

  “Hello. I am right here. I will see myself home. And”—I pause, pointing at Tattoo Artist—“you lost a good customer.”

  Anger builds from inside, from the tips of my toes to my knees and torso. I’m done with people feeling sorry for me; I’m done with feeling sorry for myself. I’m tired of remembering that in the span of one road trip, I’d gone from a self-confident woman to one who was catfished.

  Catfished. The word is like a thorn on a rose. I was lured by the gorgeous petals of the flower, its intoxicating smell. I reached in to pluck the flower without looking, without considering that something so beautiful could cause so much pain. I didn’t see the thorn and how sharp it was, how it would make me bleed.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I’m a good person, supported by a wonderful family, successful in my career. I’m an optimist by nature. I trusted my heart completely to promises, to empty words.

  Well, no more.

  No more words for me. Only action and movement to somewhere without looking back. If this tattoo shop can’t give me what I want, I’ll go somewhere else.

  With the surest steps my feet can take, and with my chin high in the air, I walk through the tattoo studio’s front door and into the empty street.

  2

  JOEL

  “Vic, wait up.” I follow Victoria through the door, looking back one last time at Jake Pruitt, Golden Tattoo’s owner.

  “Sorry.” He shrugs, arms crossed. The shadow of his body is covering the doorway and light spills around him. “Not going to make an exception for her. You should see how many tourists I get in here piss-ass drunk with the bright idea to get inked. Not gonna do it.”

  I nod, not having much of a choice since Jake doesn’t wait for an answer and steps back into his shop, promptly closing the door behind him.

  I follow the woman taking off down the street.

  What a weird-ass night this has become. Today was the last day of filming Paradise in the Making, and I was in the middle of packing—begrudgingly—to head back to my home base, my sister’s house in hot-as-hell Alford, California. As much as Golden is the tiniest city on the planet, the weather here, in the other wine country of California—the Sierra foothills, a couple of hours east of Sacramento—is perfect. Now, in the first week of August, the days are bearable, and nights like this are cool and refreshing.

  I’d left my hotel room and was heading to the souvenir shop up Main Street, which was dark and empty as usual on weekday nights, when I passed the tattoo shop’s front windows. The two people inside were obviously in an argument, arms gesticulating wildly, faces scrunched into frowns. I stopped to watch. As a cameraman, that’s the kind of stuff I like to shoot. The nonverbal communication. I’ve learned by looking through a lens, among other ways, that the truth is in actions, not in words.

  But when I peered closer, I realized that the woman was Victoria Aquino, the younger sister of the live stream star I shot for the last two months, with her glasses askew, long blond-streaked brown hair in a sagging bun. Gorgeous still, but clearly upset, hip cocked to one side as if she was taking a stance.

  I had to make sure she was okay.

  Now, I’ve got to make sure she gets home safely.

  “Vic!” I pick up my speed and catch up to the woman. Arms crossed and head tucked into her chest, she looks like she’s shivering against the cold. And though she’s taking quick steps, I can tell she’s unsteady, her posture unbalanced. We’re still about a half mile to Paraiso Retreats, where her sister lives.

  Protectiveness shoots me to her side, and as soon as I’m in smelling distance, I pick up the faint scent of tequila. She raises her eyes to me when I catch up, and even through the dim light cast by the moon and the streetlights, I can tell they are bloodshot and puffy. If I hadn’t known she was drunk, I would’ve assumed she was crying. I’ve seen Vic through the lens, watched her expressions and movements closely, and this view of her now isn’t right.

  Not that she’s any less stunning now. Victoria might not know it, but she’s got her own following on the Net, her own set of groupies that want to see her do a spinoff. While her sister’s got a fierce edge to her, Victoria’s vibe is all curlicue—sweet, kind, and cheerful. I’ve never heard her curse, and she can breeze into any room and start a conversation.

  Which makes it imperative for me to make sure she makes it back to Paraiso, to her bed, before she does something she might regret in the morning.

  I pull the first thing I can think of out of my ass. “How about I walk you home? I’ve got to grab something up at Paraiso anyway, and you can keep me company for the hike up the hill.”

  Can she even make it the half mile home? Shit.

  “I’m fine, Joel.” Her voice slurs like a car executing a California roll at a stop sign, subtly. “God forbid I wanted something done tonight before I head out of town, but as per my luck these days, the universe doesn’t care much for my wants.”

  This tone is different, and it takes me aback. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Not really.” She sighs, face falling. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Can we just be quiet?”

/>   “Yeah, sure.”

  We make it to the edge of town, to Second Street. From here, it’s a block to the Dunford Vineyard sign. As we’re waiting under the streetlamp for a car to pass, my phone buzzes in my pocket. Taking it out and seeing my eight-year-old nephew’s face smile back at me from the caller ID, I debate sending it to voicemail. I quickly change my mind. This phone call is our nightly thing, rain or shine.

  “I’m going to have to take this,” I say to Victoria. When she nods, I press the green button and put the phone against my ear. “Hey, what’s up, you?”

  Seth doesn’t bother with pleasantries, and his voice catapults me to his side. “Uncle Joel, guess how many Jolly Ranchers I have in my jar?”

  “Hm. Twenty-eight?”

  “No, silly. One! That means you’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Jolly Ranchers are the way Seth likes to keep time. I count out how many days in between visits and put the same amount of candies in a big jar. He gets one piece of candy a day. When he was younger, I could fudge the amount of candies in case I was held up at whatever job I was doing, but he’s now too old and way too wise for me to even try to trick him.

  “I sure will. But, hey, can I call you back tomorrow?”

  “Promise? I have to show you my Rubik’s Cube. I’ve got the green squares done.”

  I laugh. “I knew you could do it. Yeah, promise. I’ll call before I get on the road. Talk to you soon.”

  I put the phone back in my pocket, my heart lighter as I jog across the street. Victoria’s already climbing up the gravel drive beyond the Dunford Vineyard sign. The path is even darker because of the tall lavender bushes that bank the road. I turn on my phone flashlight, illuminating the path before us.

  Finally, Victoria breaks the silence, her speech languid. “We’ve known each other since June, and that’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak. It’s like you disappear behind the camera, and when you are away from it, you forget you have a voice.”