The Front Door

“Oh, I see my bag. Yeah, I’ll text you when I’m in the car.”

Julia hung up the phone and put it in her trench coat pocket as she maneuvered her way in between the crowd of people clamoring around baggage claim. It was three o’clock in the morning and she had just come in on the red-eye from New York to Los Angeles where she was the keynote speaker at a conference centered on restorative architecture. She was exhausted and the only thing on her mind was walking through her front door, letting go of her suitcase and going to sleep. Well, only for four hours and then she had to be back at her office because you don’t become the face of an entire industry by sleeping in. At least that’s how she justified her sleep deprivation. She pushed through the the horde and found the least populated part of the carousel to wait for her bag to come around. She had spent a lot of time in airports in the past decade as she climbed her way to the top of the architecture world and was always baffled as to why people decided to gather in one central spot where the bags are spit out.

Do none of you understand how a carousel works?

Her metal suitcase slowly moved its way towards her as people dipped in and out of sight collecting their luggage. Her turn finally arrived and she reached down, grasped the side handle and heaved her bag off the carousel and onto to its four wheels. She pressed down on the button to raise the top handle to waist level as she completed step one of her journey home. She took her phone back out, opened her Uber application and ordered a black SUV to pillar 2N. Shams, her driver with an impressive 4.98 rating, was on his way and would arrive in twelve minutes. She made her way up the ramp from baggage claim and out through the sliding doors, crossed the street to the outside curb for passenger pick up and waited for carriage to take her back home. As she waited, she looked at the center structure of LAX, the iconic Theme Building and wondered how a place could look so futuristic and at the same time be so incredibly inefficient. The power of architecture strikes again. Her phone buzzes and she looks down to see a notification that Shams will be arriving in one minute. She looks to see what the license plate of the car is, “4F29083”, and eagerly looks up at the line of identical SUV’s to find the license plate that matches. She spots the matching plate and waves to the driver. He puts on his blinker and pulls up to the curb and out hops Shams, a short, fifty year old, mostly bald man in a blue button up shirt, black dress pants and sporting patent leather shoes.

“Hi there! Julia?” Shams said with a smile that was rather unnerving for three o’clock in the morning.

“Hi, yes that’s me.”

Julia handed over her suitcase to shams.

“Careful, it’s a little heavy.”

“No worries, I got it.”

Shams pressed the button on the top handle and shoved it down, then grasped the side handles to lift the suitcase into the car. The bag proved heavier than expected, forcing him to set it down and readjust his stance so that he could put a bit more legs into his second try. He managed to get the suitcase into the trunk and pressed the button on the lift gate to close it. He opened the rear passenger door for Julia and she stepped inside the SUV, set her handbag on the captain’s chair adjacent to her and sat down. Shams closed the door, hustled around to the driver’s side, jumped in and shifted the car to drive. Julia took her phone out and composed a text to Audrey, her lifelong friend who happily obliged to house sit for her while she was gone.

“Just got in the car, 25 mins. Dinner is on me tonight.”

Julia and Audrey’s relationship went deeper than the label of “friends.” Their mothers had met in a “mommy and me,” class in the mid-eighties in Los Angeles. The two were even born on the same day, in the same hospital, in adjacent rooms. By the time they were early adults, they were introducing each other as their platonic soulmates and lamented about the fact that they were both unfortunately attracted to men. Julia was Audrey’s maid of honor at her wedding and also provided Audrey refuge after her divorce. She was her partner in crime, her Thelma to Julia’s Louise. The phone went back in her pocket as Shams managed to expertly exit the hellscape that is LAX.

“Any water or anything, ma’am? I have still and sparkling if you like. It’s just in front of you in the seat back pocket.”

“Wow, you’re amazing. Thank you.”

Julia grabbed the miniature bottle of Fiji from the pocket and gulped the whole thing down in one go. She heard someone say to never have water on airplanes because of all the bacteria in the ice and since then she has always either purchased water at the airport beforehand or left whatever airport she flew into extremely parched.

“I also have gum if you like. Spearmint or winter green?”

“Shams you are too kind to me. I’m okay with the water, thank you.”

She gazed out the window and watched the street signs pass as Shams drove down Sepulveda Boulevard on their way to the 405. Julia lived on the San Fernando Valley side of Beverly Glen Boulevard where she had just finished construction on her new home. She designed the whole thing meticulously from scratch, did all the interior design herself and even did some of the construction work with the crew she hired to build it. Unlike her obscenely wealthy neighbors, Julia could earnestly say she built her house. They made their way up the 405 and Julia couldn’t help but notice the fact that three-thirty in the morning seems to be the only time there is no traffic in L.A. Shams exited on Sunset Boulevard and they made their way towards Beverly Glen.

The comfort of the captain’s chair combined with her exhaustion from her lack of sleep on the flight caused Julia to start to doze off. She had never been able to sleep on planes and forgot to take her Xanax with her on the trip and it was all starting to catch up with her. She was fast asleep as they reached a windy section of Sunset just before the turn-off for Beverly Glen and was quickly awakened by the sound of police sirens. She looked around to see where they were coming from when all of the sudden three police cars whisked by at break-neck speed forcing Shams to pull over at the last second.

“Uh-oh, that’s not good,” said Shams.

“Seriously! Did you see how fast they were going?”

“Crazy.”

Shams checked his rear-view mirror to see if anymore police were coming and continued on the route to Julia’s house. He made a left onto Beverly Glen and they began their ascent on the long hill up.

“So how long have you lived here?” Asked Shams.

“I’ve lived in LA my whole life but I just moved into this house this year actually.”

“Oh wonderful. Do you like this area?”

“Yeah it’s great. The views are beautiful and it’s nice and private.”

“Yeah, it’s a beautiful neighborhood.”

“It really is.”

Shams made a right onto Julia’s street and Julia took out her phone. She clicked Audrey’s name on her phone in an attempt to call her but there was no answer. She tried to call again and still the same result, forcing Julia to resort to text.

“Hey, just turned onto the street. 2 mins away.”

The message delivered but Julia noticed that this text and the previous one still hadn’t been read. She looked out of the windshield, eager to see her home and finally get some rest when she noticed police lights.

What the hell is this?

They drove closer to her home and noticed three police cars and an ambulance parked outside of her home. Multiple officers went in and out of the house while two others unrolled police tape to section off the house. Shams parked the car a little bit down the road and Julia jumped out and ran over to her house.

“Sorry ma’am, this is an active crime scene. We can’t let anyone in,” said an officer approaching Julia.

“No, this is my house. What is going on?” Said Julia frantically.

“We received a call about a break in-“

“Someone broke into my house?! What the fuck? I need to get inside, please let me in.”

“Ma’am, this is an active crime scene. I’m sorry but we can’t let you in until we’ve cleared the area. We’re still looking for the shooter.”

“What shooter?!”

Julia was doing her best to look past the officer and see what was happening in her abode. Panic-stricken and sleep deprived, she was doing her best to maintain her composure. That composure fell apart like shattered glass when she saw two EMT’s wheeling out a stretcher with a sheet covering a body who she immediately knew to be Audrey. She collapsed to the ground, a piece of her soul ripped away from her in the very house she had poured her everything into.