by Mel Curtis
Dinner was more strained than usual. Maddy wanted to tell her parents about her project with the Rules, but they didn’t approve of anything she did that didn’t guarantee a full-time paycheck and benefits.
“Have another helping of tuna casserole.” Judy Polk didn’t wait for Maddy’s acceptance or refusal to plop another helping of twisted noodles and shriveled peas on her plate.
Dutifully, Maddy took a small bite. The empty seat next to her taunted. Poppa Bert used to sit there when he was alive and drop his pearls of wisdom during meals.
“You have to follow your own path, puddin’,” her grandfather used to say when Maddy’s older brother, Carl, would come home with another sports trophy or academic ribbon. “Don’t judge yourself by the path others are on.”
Maddy made mush of her tuna noodles as she stared at the pictures crowded on the buffet across from her. There was Carl graduating from Harvard. Carl with his bride, Delia. Carl in front of the marketing agency he’d started. Carl cradling his first born. Carl, Carl, Carl. The family success story. Tucked in the corner, draped with a ribbon won by Carl, sat a small picture of Maddy with Poppa Bert when she’d won a photo contest at the county fair.
“We need to talk about your birthday.” Her father sounded more serious than usual, perhaps because the day was rapidly approaching. Four months away. The plan was for her to run the business full-time, allowing her parents to work part-time.
The back of her shorts were damp with sweat from sitting on plastic. Her limbs were itchy and restless. Inside, a wrecking ball was making short work of her dreams.
“Your father’s decided to retire on your birthday. Completely!” Her mother lifted her water glass, as if in toast. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
Maddy tried to put a smile on her face. She gave up and went for weak verbal affirmation. “That’s great, Dad…but – ”
“And we’re moving to New York!” Mom couldn’t contain her joy. It frothed around her like clean, plastic streamers. She’d wanted to quit the business for years.
Their decision to move wasn’t a total surprise to Maddy, either. Ever since Carl’s baby was born last year, Judy had been pining to be a more permanent fixture in her grandson’s life. Carl was the perfect one. Why not move closer to him?
“Judy.” Dad sounded exasperated. “I wanted to break it to her slowly.”
“I’m okay with you moving.” Maddy kept her voice even and stood, tugging at her damp shorts. She began stacking dishes to carry into the kitchen. “Did you put the business up for sale? Or are you closing it?” Sometimes pretending to be naïve was better than bravely facing the truth.
“Maddy.” Her dad caught her hand. “We’re relying on income from the business to be able to retire. You’re going to manage it for us. We agreed.”
The world seemed to slow, then pause. Maddy registered the tired look in her mother’s eyes. She noted the wrinkles of worry around her father’s eyes. But her gaze settled on Poppa Bert’s official Army photo and the proud expression on his face. Time began ticking once more, like a time-bomb in her chest.
Maddy gently removed her father’s hand from her arm. “I’m on the verge of – ”
“Oh, Maddy.” Her mother huffed and took up stacking dishes where Maddy left off. “You’re always on the verge of something. It’s long past time you applied yourself elsewhere.”
The heat of disappointment – hers in her parents, theirs in her – seemed to swallow her whole, dragging her down, creating a buzzing pressure in her ears that silenced the world. Maddy had to swallow twice before she could speak. “This is different.” She turned a pleading look to her father.
There, behind the weariness and years of responsibility for family and employees, was a slim resemblance to Poppa Bert – in the accepting eyes, the questioning arch of his brows. A brief flash and it was gone, replaced by resignation. “There’s an expiration date on dreams, Maddy. We agreed to terms when you asked us to pay off your college loans.”
Dishes clattered in the sink. Her mother muttered.
“You agreed,” he added with a sigh. “And your mother’s waited a long time for this.”
Maddy understood. She understood promises and wants and waiting. She understood that more than ever.
Time was running out.
“You’re in early.” Cora glided into Blue’s office after lunch Thursday in that fashion model way of hers – smooth and silent on heels. “No damage from your volunteer work yesterday?”
Mr. Jiggles’ pink pom-pom head didn’t move on his dog bed.
“Just to my pride.” He’d rather have worn a Barney costume to a movie premier than get punched by a dying dude.
“What’re you working on?”
Blue returned his attention to his yellow pad. Dave’s documentary wasn’t such a sure thing. Maddy’s project was looking better and better. He’d decided the only way he could control her project was to control who Maddy filmed. “I’m making a list of candidates for Maddy’s reality show.”
Cora planted her purse on a chair and then propped her hip on the corner of his desk. He’d confessed to her yesterday that he was the Avenger’s target and the star of Maddy’s reality show. “A list of women who don’t hate you?”
“Something like that.”
“A short list?”
“Something like that.” With his phone in one hand and a pen in the other, Blue had only recorded two names on the list and he was up to S in his contact file. Not that his contact file wasn’t full of names. But Blue was gun shy. What if he invited someone and they’d joined forces with the Avengers?
“What about Tara Stevens?” Cora suggested.
“She pretended not to see me at the wedding.”
“Ninevah Tjasidah?”
“Gave me a dirty look at Starbuck’s last week.”
“Nan Forrester?”
“Rehab.”
“Well, at least Nan has an excuse. Maybe now you’ll consider fishing for girlfriends somewhere other than the bitch pond.”
“I’ve learned my lesson.” He scrolled to the T section of his contacts.
Cora caught sight of the print Amber had given him. “What’s this?” She flipped their father’s artwork so it was facing him.
“One of Dad’s drawings. Maybe if I sell enough of them I could meet my sales quota.” And leave this place a rich man.
He’d driven by his Malibu condo this morning. The sun had just started peeking through the fog bank. His neighbors were out walking their dogs. Blue should have been jogging along the beach. Instead, he was skulking around, always looking over his shoulder.
Cora studied the picture. “Amber won’t let you sell pictures of naked women. Kind of kinky that there’s a dog on here, too. But you know Daddy.”
Blue glanced up sharply, but only saw the same picture of leafy stalks, each topped with a single flower. One had a berry. A couple of flowers were shriveled. There was a cutaway view on ground level depicting the thick roots of the plant. “I’m not seeing women or dogs.” And he didn’t have time to look, not if he wanted to stack Maddy’s casting call with friendlies. He moved on to the end of the alphabet.
She put the picture face-to-the-wall. “Are you worried that we won’t meet our quota?”
“No.” He had other, more pressing things to worry about – like his principles and his reputation. “We’ll figure something out.”
“What will you do if we succeed?” Cora toyed with the strap of her purse. “Do you want to work for the Dooley Foundation the rest of your life?”
Blue met his sister’s gaze for the first time that morning. He could make her happy and say no. But he wasn’t in charge of Cora’s happiness. His father had asked him to see she was taken care of. “I might.”
Her gaze hardened. “You don’t know any of Daddy’s choose, trust crap.”
“I know about the Golden Rule.” That would have to do. “I can make this work.”
Bowing to the pressure of Foundation re
sponsibilities and the looming reality show, Blue had tried to read his father’s books again last night. It didn’t help that he struggled with dyslexia. The self-help rules presented by his father blurred on the page. It wasn’t like college where he’d paid a tutor to help him decipher text books. And he had trouble watching the DVDs because the benevolent man in them wasn’t the man he’d called Dad.
Nope. He wasn’t using any choose, trust bullshit. He’d rely on his smile and the bluff.
“The day you prostitute yourself for a buck is a sad day for me. You can’t even see a naked woman in one of his pictures.” Her hand fluttered weakly to the framed poster.
“If Amber and I don’t firm up the Foundation, even if you and I meet our sales quotas, there’d be nothing for us to inherit.” He softened his voice. “If you don’t meet your sales quota, Cora, you’ll have nothing in nine months.”
“I’ll have my freedom and my dignity.” Cora slung her purse over her shoulder. “Have you ever watched a reality show? Those people live to embarrass themselves.”
“We’re Rules.” He sighed, thinking of Winnie’s request for a Freedom Transformation and Ulani’s desire for true love. “Being an embarrassment is in our genes.”
Chapter 11
L.A. Happenings by Lyle Lincoln
…I love any deal closed with the words “just between us” or “under the radar” or “in development and under wraps”. Those catch phrases are a sure indication that someone is going to send me something juicy.
It was a busy Thursday night at the bar. Maddy was still trying to shake off the trapped-in-the-family-business feeling. There was a constant pressure in her head that stuffed her ears and had her asking several of her customers to repeat their requests. She was cranky and couldn’t blame it on PMS.
An older man who looked familiar claimed a seat at one of her smaller tables. He’d been lucky to get a seat, since there’d been a screenwriter’s pitch slam in the ballroom earlier in the evening.
In a red and black argyle sweater that was so not summer appropriate, and glasses that made his eyes look buggy, he ambushed her before she could ask him for a drink order. “Maddy Polk?”
“Yes.” She took a wary step back. This being L.A., when strangers knew your name they were most likely serving court papers. And she’d slammed Dave in her apartment door. Not that she regretted it.
“Who are you?” he asked, throwing her off.
“Isn’t your question redundant? You know my name. Are you a bill collector or something?” Had she forgotten to pay a bill? Had Juan told him about Poppa Bert’s photo albums? If she didn’t sell her project, she’d lose her last intimate connection with her grandfather. Her shoulders tensed toward her ears.
Her argyled customer made a derisive noise. “I’m Lyle Lincoln, author of The L.A. Happenings column.” The way he said it, as if she should know him on sight, made her laugh. He huffed again. “You do know who I am?”
“Yes.” She tried to wipe the smile off her face. And failed. Her being on the verge of a life-changing crisis… “I’m wondering why you’d know who I am. I’m nobody.”
“That’s correct.”
The dig was a downer. Taylor Swift’s song about being mean played softly in the background. Lyle had probably never heard it before. He certainly wasn’t listening now.
“You’ve been to the Dooley Foundation offices recently, Maddy, and I can’t see you, a waitress, being one of their clients.” The bug-eyed gaze was dizzying. “So tell me, who are you?”
He was here about the Avengers. Or Blue. Or her reality show.
Maddy pressed her lips together.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a patron wave to her. “I have other tables. What can I get you to drink?”
“Top shelf vodka with a splash of Moscato on the rocks.”
She hurried to the next table. It took her a few minutes to get back to Hollywood’s premier gossip columnist. She set his drink in front of him. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Yes. You can tell me why Blue Rule would date you.”
Maddy’s jaw dropped. She was used to being unseen and relatively unjudged. But in the past week, she’d been given the dismissive once-over by some toothpick Avengers, Cora Rule, and now Lyle Lincoln. Did no one respect the working class anymore?
Lyle squinted at her. “He’s not dating you. I thought not, but I had to be sure. I’ve seen odder pairings, although not many.”
All he needed to do was say she looked fat in her black skirt and white button down, and the humiliation would be complete. She turned to go.
“Chips and hummus, please. Before my drink warms.”
A few minutes later, Maddy was back with his food. “Are you going to tip me?”
“That depends on you.”
She directed a group of four who hesitated in the doorway to a table in the back. The same table the Avengers had occupied days ago. “Look, if you’re going to stiff me on a cash tip, I’ll accept a little common courtesy.” She wasn’t sure why this wisp of a man got under her skin, but he did.
“You have guts. I’ll give you that.” He chuckled. “You remind me of Amber Rule.”
Maddy weighed his words and decided she’d finally received a compliment. “Thanks.”
“You get an interesting mix of people in here. And the drinks are generous. I bet people talk.”
She had an inkling where this was going. Lyle was, after all, a gossip columnist. And this was, after all, the Beverly Hills Hotel.
“I bet you listen.”
She negated his assumptions with a wave of her hand. “I’m just a struggling cocktail waitress.”
“And yet, you’ve networked your way to the Dooley Foundation.” He crunched on a hummus covered chip. “Enlighten me.”
Her heart suddenly decided she was in danger and pounded a quick time-to-retreat beat. “I have to serve my other tables. The tipping tables.”
The night wore on and Lyle continued his interrogation each time she checked on him, until he was the only one left in her section of the bar.
He held up a fifty dollar bill.
She’d be lying if she said she didn’t read Lyle’s column every day. It was snarky, yet called people to the carpet for being too pretentious. Lyle had no patience with pretense, except when it came to himself. It was almost flattering – in a scary way – that he was interested in her eavesdropping abilities.
And she’d be lying if she didn’t admit she could use that fifty bucks.
She took out his tag and reached for the fifty.
He held it back. “This is a test. I want to know what you heard tonight.”
“I’m not going to tell you what I heard.” She wasn’t even going to tell him what she knew about the financially strapped Rules.
“This is all tip.” He waved the bill back and forth. “I’m paying for my bill with plastic.”
Maddy crossed her arms over her chest.
“Are you saying you can’t be bought?” He glanced around the empty room. “I saw Cal Lazarus over in the corner with…”
“You know who he was with.” Kent Decklin. Actor, hottie, her teenage dream.
“What were they talking about?” The fifty waved to Maddy.
She didn’t wave back. “You can guess.”
“But I prefer to know.” He looked at her over the rim of those thick, unattractive lenses. “Or would you prefer I turn the conversation back to you?” He was a little man, with a big ego, much like most of her famous customers. “Did you know Blue Rule is making a documentary?”
“Reality series,” Maddy said without thinking. Damn. He’d lulled her into complacency and tricked that out of her.
“No. He was shooting a documentary at the Flash practice facility this week.” The fifty came to rest on the tabletop beneath Lyle’s fingers. “Do you want to know who was filming?”
A crevasse opened up in Maddy’s stomach, sucking her in to the storm. “Dave Niles.” His visit hadn’t been
a coincidence. He’d taken Blue’s card. She wanted to kill him.
“I take it this is a surprise.”
She changed her mind. She was going to kill them – Dave and Blue.
She had a deal with the Dooley Foundation. She was scheduled to begin filming in five days – five days! Her pitch had been perfect. Why was Blue going behind her back?
“I’d like to tell you more about it, but in my business, information isn’t a one way street.” His fingertips tapped the bill.
Telling him anything went against Maddy’s principles. But her kick-ass idea was threatened by Dave and Blue. Self-preservation dictated she find out all she could to protect herself.
“This is a one-time exchange,” Maddy said. “And I’m only talking about the patrons in the bar tonight.”
“I understand.” Lyle slid the bill toward her with a smile like that of a drug dealer handing out a free sample.
A woman appeared at Blue’s car window when he pulled into the office parking lot Friday morning.
Blue nearly jumped into the passenger seat, thinking it was a gun-toting Avenger.
“We had a deal.” It was Maddy. Hands on hips, frown on lips. Her dark, blunt-cut hair was buffeted by the ocean breeze.
He got out of the Cayenne, regretting that he’d forgotten Mr. Jiggles’ briefcase carrier and had to come by the office at all this morning. He was meeting Dave at a halfway house for another documentary session. He hoped this one was more successful.
Mr. Jiggles jumped into the driver seat and growled to be picked up.
Blue ignored him, momentarily distracted by Maddy’s curves in black skinny jeans and a clingy, lavender T-shirt. “We still have a deal. You start filming next week.”
“Dave is a dick. Whatever agreement you think you made, he’ll find a loophole and screw you.”
