by Jill Winters
"Good. I didn't think anyone would be here."
"I think I left my keys here before," Kit explained, patting the many zippered pockets of her khaki vest as she went around looking under chairs and behind cameras.
"Oh, I'll help you look," Gretchen said, setting down her bag.
"By the way, did you see Brett's cousin?"
With a nod, Kit said, "Yeah, I can't remember his name now, but I ran into them on the elevator earlier—oh! Here they are!" She bent down and apparently retrieved her keys from beneath the craft table, which during tapings was filled with sandwiches and snacks for the crew.
"Except for the hair, I don't see a resemblance," Gretchen remarked offhandedly. Brett definitely had his flaws, but looking like a man-eating giant wasn't one of them. "But then, they're cousins," she added, realizing there shouldn't necessarily be any resemblance between them.
"Yeah. Brett said the guy worships him." Wait... why did that sound familiar? "I guess Brett enjoys humoring his family and taking them around a real TV studio—oooh!" Kit said mockingly. "He had his brother hanging around here two weeks ago, remember? I mean, what is this? Bring Your Star-struck Relatives to Work Month?" There was a trace of bitterness in Kit's sarcasm that Gretchen couldn't define, and with that, Kit saluted a good-bye and wished Gretchen a good night.
His brother... The words echoed in Gretchen's head, though these days thoughts of Rick were never far from her mind. Especially after last night, from which she was still recovering. The whole steamy encounter had ignited her, inflamed her—but at the same time, depleted her, left her limp, enervated... aching for more.
And the gentle, utterly seductive way Rick had left things. He must have known the devastating effect he was having. Thinking about his intense arousal now aroused her even more.
Maybe Rick was moodier than Brett—well, no maybe about it but he seemed much more honest. No, he wasn't unfailingly upbeat, but he wasn't habitually winking either. And he certainly didn't crave the kind of attention and fame that Brett reveled in, despite what Brett had said about him initially. In fact, now that Gretchen knew the real reason Rick had been hanging around TCN, Brett's portrayal of him as some desperate hanger-on seemed especially ludicrous.
Alone on the set now, Gretchen went to do her routine check of the appliances that Susanna would be using for tomorrow's taping. She usually saved this until the end of the day, after she'd finished her other work, because it didn't take long.
Gretchen wondered what expectations would be placed on her when Susanna began filming her prime-time show, Dining Elegance. It was set to start taping in March and would air June through August. Granted, in theory, it shouldn't affect Gretchen; Dining Elegance would have its own set and crew. But would Susanna's reliance on her carry over to the new stresses and issues brought on by the new show?
As she reached to test the food processor to make sure it was in perfect working order, she was only half focused on the blades and how precisely they moved with their various settings. With all Gretchen's culinary training, this kind of thing was pretty much second nature to her now. She could tell by looking at or even just listening to a kitchen device, how well it would get the job done. And Rick was still lingering in that hazy place between memory and lurid imagination.
Next thing to check was the blender—only that wasn't plugged in. She reached for the cord and stuck it in the socket.
Hisssss! Zzzzz!
Gretchen let out a shriek of surprise, as sparks flew before her eyes and exploded loudly in the air. Snap! Pop!
Her heart jumped through her chest as a sharp zing pierced through her hand and shot straight up her arm.
She managed to drop the cord and jump back—her heart racing frantically, the terror and shock of what had just happened still startling her. Breathing hard, she waited to get her bearings. What the hell just happened?
After a few moments, she pressed a hand to her chest, feeling relaxed—relieved—and she leaned in closer to the socket. First of all, the blender had already been set to "on" when she'd plugged it in. But second—and far more important—there was a tiny patch of frayed cord at the very back of the blender, completely out of view.
Chapter 23
The following afternoon, Gretchen was babysitting Shawnee—or "keeping her busy" as Susanna had put it when she'd tried to make it sound less odious than it really was. Intent on making the best impression on Joel when he stopped by to day's taping, Susanna was willing to sacrifice Gretchen's presence on the set if it meant Shawnee wouldn't be there to screw things up with her borderline competence and her lip.
Over the time that Gretchen had been working at TCN, she'd come to sense an aspect of Susanna and Shawnee's relationship that was undoubtedly unbeknownst to Shawnee herself—Susanna felt sorry for her. Gretchen didn't know much about Susanna's family history, but she knew her boss well enough to see that she cared about her niece. Enough to take her in when her sister had begged her to, enough to give Shawnee a job at the network that might give her some direction, some purpose.
Hey, Susanna couldn't control if Shawnee didn't seize the opportunity, but the fact was, Shawnee was so obviously insecure (well, it was obvious to Gretchen, anyway), and Susanna was, too, in her own way. Maybe on some level, she sympathized with her niece or even identified with her at that age. Actually, it would all be touchingly bittersweet... if Gretchen didn't have to deal with it.
But she did.
And the little worker bee that Shawnee wasn't, she wasn't about to argue when she was given a free pass on her work, even if it meant accepting Gretchen's invitation to lunch at the food court. Susanna acted as though she weren't the puppet master behind it all—told them that it was fine, that they didn't have to be on the set today, no problem. Kit, Abe, and the assorted cameramen must've have gotten it, because they didn't question it.
Now Gretchen and Shawnee were sitting at an isolated table in Terra Cottage. It was past two by now, so much of the lunch rush had passed. Gretchen had asked Shawnee about herself, her life in Massachusetts, and it had kick-started quite a tale. Shawnee talked about her high jinks in high school—how she'd been suspended three times, how she'd gotten in trouble for "stealing" her mother's car, how she'd really "stuck it" to the assistant principal once during in school suspension ("Little did he know I'd poured chocolate milk on his chair—when he jumped up and turned around, it looked like he'd taken a big juicy crap right in his pants!")
Then she moved on to the post-high-school years, all two of them. "Yeah, I was gonna work at a gas station, but my mom said I'd embarrass her. As if working at a gas station was somehow 'beneath' our family. She's such a bitch, you know?"
What was Gretchen supposed to say to that? With a vague, noncommittal mumble, she buried her mouth in her Greek pita.
Then Shawnee railed against her suburban malaise—how her mother had begged Susanna to let Shawnee stay with her for a while, and how Shawnee had been thrilled to come, thinking that New York City would be a thousand times more exciting than what she had going at home (which included a 1.0 GPA at community college). But now, Shawnee grumbled, she was stuck with Aunt Suz, who wouldn't let her have any "real fun," whatever that meant.
Boy, once you got the surly thing talking, she was a real chatterbox.
"Uh-huh," Gretchen managed, intermittently nodding, chewing, and sipping her diet soda. "Mmm-hmm, yeah, that's interesting..."
Surreptitiously, she checked her watch. Jeez, was the taping almost done? When could she ditch this girl? Even if she enjoyed Shawnee's company—which she didn't, of course—her time would be better spent doing work than listening to angst-ridden stories of teenage rebellion (Pump Up the Volume once was enough, thank you). Not to mention, Shawnee was twenty—wasn't she a little old for this crap?
"Hey, did I tell you that I used to work at Dick's Last Resort?" she said now.
"Um, no, what's that?"
"You never heard of Dick's Last Resort?"
"I work too muc
h, what can I say," Gretchen remarked blandly.
Shawnee went on to explain that Dick's Last Resort was a restaurant where the wait staff's gimmick was being rude to the customers. Definitely sounded like Shawnee's calling. "So people pay to get treated badly?" Gretchen asked, mildly confused, though nothing shocked her about the general public these days.
"Yeah, but the food's good, and it's not big-deal stuff—just like funny stuff, you know? Like the waitress will eat fries off a customer's plate or when someone asks, 'Can I get another soda?' the waitress will be like, 'No, you can't,' but eventually she'll bring it anyway. It's supposed to be funny." The humor eluded Gretchen, but she nodded along.
"But, like, I was the only one who had the balls to take it to the next level," Shawnee said. "Like people would say, 'Hey, can I have another coke?' and I'd be like, 'I think you've had enough, lard butt!' And the funny thing was: I'd say it even if the person wasn't fat!"
Gretchen frowned. "Shawnee, that sounds kind of mean." She knew it wasn't her place to reprimand the girl, but the lines were pretty blurred at this point, and besides, it was very mean.
"Hey, you get what you pay for," Shawnee stated unapologetically. "But my manager felt like you, I guess, because he fired me. Claimed it was 'cause I was late a few times, but really I think customers complained about me because they're big babies." Then Shawnee's face puckered with mischievous glee and she ducked in closer. "And you know what else?" Oh, dear God—what? The night I got fired, I'd been waiting on this guy and his girlfriend. So I'd been doing the usual—eating fries off their plate, giving attitude; then I made a comment about his chrome dome. I know he must've complained because, oh, suddenly I'm 'late too much.' So you know what I did? I waited for the guy and his girlfriend to leave; then, just as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, I egged them!"
"What?" Gretchen asked incredulously, horrified.
"Yeah, took some eggs from the kitchen when I packed my shit up." She heh-heh-hehed before adding, "Hey, I was just doing my job. They knew when they came that their waitress was gonna be shitty to them, so, fired or not, they were on my shit list for the rest of the night."
Gretchen sat slack jawed, her forehead creased, her brows cinching together, deeply troubled.
"And I kinda got revenge on my manager, too," Shawnee continued proudly. "When the couple was running away from me, I kept throwing more eggs and I yelled, 'You ever come back here, I'll rip you a new one!'" With a gleeful cackle, she noted, "There's two customers he'll never see again."
Gretchen didn't know where to go with this conversation. She did know that she'd lost her appetite. (The thought of two people being bludgeoned with eggs could do that to a girl.) Setting her pita down, she inhaled a breath and tried to rediscover that elusive something called banal small talk. "So, how do you like New York? Have you seen Times Square yet?"
"Times Square? Big fucking whoop," Shawnee replied. "New York sucks. Aunt Suz is a stiff. But it's either this or go back home to my mom and that tool she married and their son—the kid's such a loser."
"How can a baby be a loser already?" Gretchen asked, confounded by that.
With a shrug, Shawnee didn't bother to explain the specific failings of her one-year-old brother. Instead, she expounded on the failings of her aunt. "All I kept hearing from my mom was, 'Oh, visit your Aunt Suz in New York. She rides around in a limo. You can flip the bird outta the sunroof,' the whole bit. But I've been here for almost two months already and we've only used the limo service a few times. And she never lets me open any of the windows. She's a total control freak! Especially when you're in her home, oh, boy, you better do exactly what she says. She even makes Uncle Ed wipe his feet whenever he comes in the door!"
"Well, that doesn't seem unreasonable," Gretchen remarked curiously.
"After he's already taken off his shoes? She makes him take off his shoes out in the hallway and then wipe his socks on a welcome mat."
"Oh," Gretchen said.
"You know, it's probably stuff like that that made him..." Her voice drifted off and she raised her brows suggestively.
"Made him what?" Gretchen asked. She probably shouldn't pry, but what the hell else was there to talk about? The taping wouldn't be over for another half hour, and Shawnee still had a mass of mutilated chimichanga to get through.
"Maybe I shouldn't say anything, but... well... Uncle Ed cheated on Aunt Suz once." Gretchen's eyes widened, her mouth curved into an O of surprise. "Once that we know of, anyway. Hell, he's probably done it, like, a million times. Probably boffed all his secretaries. He's one of those CEO Big-Shot Boff-the-Secretary types, you know? But there was this one time..."
Shamelessly Gretchen waited to hear the gossip instead of telling Shawnee that the conversation was inappropriate. She rationalized it this way: Shawnee had already subjected her to so much that was inappropriate, why stop her now that she was actually about to say something interesting? "You know her agent, Misty? The one who kicked it?"
"Yes," Gretchen replied.
"Bingo, " Shawnee said smugly. "That's who Uncle Ed cheated with! I heard them fighting about it. Apparently he boffed Misty's brains out at the Christmas party this year." (If Gretchen hadn't been so blown away by the information, she might have had to declare a moratorium on the word "boff.") How could Susanna have continued such a friendly rapport with Misty? Was she that good of an agent that Susanna was able to sweep a betrayal of that magnitude under the rug so quickly? Assuming the Christmas party was in December, and it was presently the end of January... the wounds had to be painfully fresh.
"I don't know how Suz found out about it. Maybe Ed confessed out of guilt, or maybe she just suspected—' cuz from what I've heard Aunt Suz say, Misty was a real slut."
Gee, that didn't sound like the usual praise Susanna had had for her agent. Had all of that gushing been an act? A facade?
Of course. This was show business. No, scratch that. It was business, period. Staying in her agent's good favor had obviously been more important to Susanna—and more financially advantageous than confronting what Misty had done.
"I'll tell you, if that were me," Shawnee added, "I'd have gotten revenge."
The comment left Gretchen pensive. If what Shawnee said about Misty was true, it only seemed to confirm what Gretchen had suspected both times she'd met her: She wasn't a very nice person. And if Rick was right—that her death had been accidental—the result of a botched attempt on Brett's life—then whoever was behind it had indirectly given Susanna the revenge she may or may not have been seeking.
* * *
That night, Gretchen was walking around the eighth floor hallway on her way to the elevators, after having done her routine check of Susanna's set. She was glad to see that the new blender she'd sent for had been delivered. The one that had nearly electrocuted her yesterday had been chucked and Susanna had apologized, explaining that it had been her own blender, which held sentimental value. It had hardly seemed old enough to have sentimental value or a frayed cord, but whatever—Gretchen was just glad to have the thing gone.
She'd put in another long day, catching up on paperwork mostly, making up for the time that was lost when she'd been enduring Shawnee's company that afternoon. Now it was nearly nine o'clock; the hallway was deserted and quiet—until Gretchen suddenly heard giggling. Pausing, she followed the sound a few steps to Brett's studio. The door was ajar, allowing the lilting, almost tinny sound of giggles to escape. Then Gretchen heard a deeper voice murmur something. More giggles. Curiously, Gretchen inched the door open a bit more and peeked inside. From this angle, all she could see was the counter and the backdrop of Brett's lighted kitchen set. Then Brett moved into her line of vision, pulling a petite Hispanic girl along by the hand. She was laughing and pretending to follow reluctantly; Brett was beaming from ear to ear.
Wait, Gretchen recognized that girl... She was a PA who'd worked on Tex-Mex Teddy, but now that it was defunct, was working on Juan Mirando's show. Susanna had pointed her out on
ce. What was her name again? Lupe Rodriguez—that was it Lupe was in her early twenties, pretty, wide-eyed, and if she was with Brett, Gretchen would also venture that she dug winking. Captivated by the scene, though she didn't know why, Gretchen watched. Brett brought Lupe around the counter, giving Gretchen his back. Lupe was smiling coyly at him. "Now, where are you from again, little Lupe?" he was saying.
"Mexico," she replied, pronouncing the word "Meh-hee-co" in a tinny, delicate accent.
"Oh, that's right," Brett said, his voice silky and suggestive. "Well, it seems we've got a little something in common. Or should I say a big something..."
"What's that?" she asked and giggled again.
"Hmm, what is that?" he murmured playfully, then shrugged one shoulder. "Feels like an enchilada to me. Maybe you oughta go south of the border and check it out," he finished. (At least Gretchen hoped he was finished.)
She bit her knuckles to keep from gasping, from laughing. What a cheese ball! So this was the legendary Romeo Ramero at work? If Dana ever got lines like this she would absolutely destroy the guy. In fact, this might shatter all illusions Dana had about him. Vain and flirtatious she could work with—but dud one-liners as foreplay? Her cousin wouldn't be having it.
At the same time, Gretchen was thoroughly aware that she should not be eavesdropping on this. But like a movie about killer ants the size of boats, she just couldn't look away.
Meanwhile, Lupe giggled and said, "Otra vez." Another time.
Did she mean let's go "south of the border" another time, or did it mean she'd already tended to his throbbing enchilada once and now he wanted her to do it again?
Brett dipped his head and kissed her. It took a matter of two seconds for them to erupt into a wild, obscene frenzy of ravenous mouths—lips smacking, tongues flapping out, swiping up cheeks and down chins. They rotated their bodies again and again, giving Gretchen every angle.
God, what did Lupe see in Brett anyway? Maybe it was the perfectly sculpted body, or his smoothly handsome face. Okay, admittedly, that was a good start. And maybe it was his fame and the way that people gravitated toward him, and the way he seemed to thrive on that—
