Find Me I'm Yours by Hillary Carlip

you’ve been hanging out with,” Blake stated more than asked.
    â€œYeah. And I’ve been thinking about hooking Mags up with him.” She turned to me. “So, do you think he’s cute?”
    â€œSure, whatevs.”
    â€œThen you’ll come with me to his show at the gallery on Monday night. No more Jason. And no more Mr. Could Possibly Be a Seventy-Five-Year-Old Granny.”
    â€œWell, either I go to Jason right now and tell him I forgive him and take him back, or go to the Villa Seaside Apartments. Alone…” I looked at my phone “…at 10:00 at night. Don’t worry, if I get killed at least I’ll serve as a cautionary tale and hopefully save a life or two.”
    â€œYou’re a piece of work,” Coco sniped. “Besides, you haven’t even checked out the website yet. Sleuthy, NOT! Maybe the clues are there, not at the building, and you can stay alive for one more night.” She pushed my laptop back to me and pulled out her phone, holding it so she and Blake could look. We all went to:
    www.VillaSeasideApartments.com
    â€œOK, what do we know from this?” Coco asked. “Let’s make a list.”
    â€œI will,” I excitedly volunteered. I might have even raised my hand.
    What We Know from the Site
    By Mags, Coco, and Blake
    1). It’s an apartment, “Located on the famous Venice boardwalk, just blocks away from the Venice Canals, Santa Monica Pier, Third Street Promenade, and countless other shops and restaurants.”
    2). It’s brick and is four stories high. (Note to self: It actually sort of looks like my apartment! Weird. Maybe our buildings will fall in love?!)

    3). It’s pet friendly—could be important if the dog with the polka-dot tongue lives there.
    4). They’ve got no vacancies.
    5). They put Neighborhood “HANG OUT” as two words instead of hangout. Or is it two words? Will have to put that on another list—Things to Check to See if Spelled Properly. Coco and Blake want it on record that they don’t feel this belongs on our list.
    6). We don’t know shit.
    â€œWait.” Blake perked up. “What stands out on the site? It’s pretty cheesy, especially, like, the animated wagging dog…”
    â€œVery Sandi Stern,” I added. “I’m sure she’d love to have that on DogParksLA!”
    â€œBut then there’s this cool mention about beatniks. And did you notice Jack Kerouac is the only thing that’s a different color in that part?”
    â€œWasn’t he one of those writers in that movie with Harry Potter?” I asked.
    Coco gave me an exasperated look. “What are you even talking about?”
    â€œThat beatnik movie. The guy who played Harry Potter was in it, only in this movie he was totally naked and waaaaay hairy. HAIRY Potter.”
    Coco laughed, but Blake kept us on track. “So let’s look up Jack Kerouac and see what we find.”
    We set out on our own searches and spouted what we came across: “Wrote generation-defining novel
On the Road
,” “Pioneer of the beatniks…”
    â€œOK, this is way cool.” Coco read: “‘Before writing
On the Road
, Kerouac cut sheets of paper into long strips, wide enough for a typewriter, and taped them together into a 120-foot long roll. This allowed him to type continuously without the interruption of reloading paper.’”
    â€œFuck, that’s dedication,” Blake mumbled.
    â€œHold on!” I shouted excitedly. “We saw Jack Kerouac was in bold, but we didn’t bother clicking on it. Try it!”
    Coco and I did, and a quote popped up. I read aloud.
    â€œThe only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders