Change of Scene: A 100 Page Novella

by Andrews, Mary Kay

  Except for the one thing she didn’t even know she wanted, Greer thought. A grandfather. A father. And maybe a real life outside a darkened movie house.

  As she drove back to Villa Encantada to pack up Lise’s belongings, Greer brooded over her last conversation with Lise about her own father. What if things had been different between her parents? What if she’d known Clint had attempted to attend her high school graduation? What if Lise hadn’t cast him as the villain in their family soap opera?

  She rubbed wearily at her eyes. What if, what if, what if? Lise was dead, and if Clint had any real interest in reaching out to his daughter, he could easily have done so by now.

  But it was too late now. Wasn’t it?

  CHAPTER 18

  On Monday, Greer arrived at the Hollywood Forever Funeral home with the outfit her mother had picked out. It was a slinky, floor-length silk dress in Lise’s favorite shade of coral. She’d also brought along the flashy rhinestone earrings and cocktail ring Lise had specified, and a pair of high-heeled gold sandals.

  When she walked into the home’s reception lobby, she spotted CeeJay, sitting on a high-backed leather chair with a small rolling suitcase sitting on her lap.

  “Hey,” CeeJay said, jumping up to hug her best friend.

  “What are you doing here?”

  CeeJay gestured toward the suitcase. “I wanted to do something for you, but I’m not really the casserole or flower-arranging type. So I thought I’d come over and get Lise ready for her final close-up. Hair, makeup, like that. If that’s okay with you?”

  Tears of gratitude sprang to Greer’s eyes. “Oh, my God. You know how vain my mother was. She would have totally loved having you do her face and hair. You sure you don’t mind? I mean, working on somebody…”

  “Not at all,” CeeJay assured her. “Back in Lansing, before I came out here, I used to do my grandmother’s friends’ hair all the time for funerals. The tips suck, of course, but on the other hand, you don’t get a whole lot of complaints.”

  Greer laughed. “Nobody but you would think of that.”

  *

  The service was brief. A couple dozen people, including Lise’s agent, two of her costars from Neighorhood Menace, old friends, and most of her neighbors from Villa Encantada sat on folding chairs in the viewing room.

  As per her mother’s written instructions, (and with the help of a Xanax supplied by CeeJay) Greer somehow found the composure to stand at the front of the room and recite Lise’s favorite poem, which wasn’t a poem at all, but the lyrics to Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

  Nobody in this room at the Hollywood Forever funeral home seemed particularly surprised to hear an elegy consisting of a song from a movie soundtrack instead of a psalm or a Bible verse at Lise Grant’s funeral.

  Movies were her mother’s s true religion, Greer thought, and in Lise’s Panavision, Technicolor version of the sweet hereafter, bluebirds really could soar over rainbows and troubles really did melt like lemon drops. Or at least like matinee Milk Duds.

  After Greer sat down, Dearie, nicely coiffed and attired in a pale lilac dress with a matching sweater, leaned over and pointed at an older woman across the room. “Who’s that?” she whispered.

  “I’ve never seen her before,” Greer admitted. “I thought maybe it was somebody you knew.”

  The woman looked to be in her mid-sixties, with shoulder-length silver hair pulled back from her face with barrettes. The only makeup she wore on her smooth, unlined face was peach lip gloss. She was dressed in a nondescript dark gray pantsuit and had wire-rimmed glasses.

  Ten minutes later, as the last of the mourners drifted out of the room, the woman in gray approached Greer.

  She put out her hand, and Greer took it in hers.

  “Hello,” the woman said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Your mother was … very special.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met before.”

  The woman glanced around the nearly empty room. “Is there somewhere we could talk privately?”

  *

  They found a room with a brass placard on the door that said FAMILY LOUNGE.

  There was a somber-looking blue leather sofa, a pair of high-backed armchairs, and a couple of highly polished mahogany end tables. Greer sat in one of the armchairs and the mystery woman sat in the facing one.

  “Well…” Greer said, trying to fill the awkward silence. “Um, how did you know my mother?”

  “She worked for me.”

  “Lise did? I’m confused. When was this?”

  “Right up until a week or so ago, when she was, well, too sick.” The woman paused. “I’m Rhonda. I own Special Friends.”

  “Which is what?”

  “I think of us as intimacy consultants, but you’d probably call us a sex chat service.”

  “Oh.” Greer’s eyes widened.

  “Your mother was the very best at what she did. She had a gift, you know.”

  Greer blushed deeply.

  “I know you didn’t approve of what she was doing,” Rhonda said. “She knew you wouldn’t, which is why she kept it a secret for so long.”

  “I don’t want to be rude, but can I ask what this is about? Why you came here today?”

  “I wanted to meet you. Lisette was so proud of you. She talked about you a lot.” Rhonda reached into her pocketbook, brought out a manila envelope, and handed it to Greer.

  “I wish you wouldn’t call her that,” Greer said irritably. “Her name was Lise. Anyway, what’s this?”

  “I guess you’d call it your inheritance.”

  Greer opened the envelope and a check slid out. She stared at it, and the numbers seemed to swim on the paper.

  Finally, she looked up at Rhonda. “This is for $149,595.”

  “I know. I told you, Lisette, I mean Lise, was our most popular girl. If there was an Oscar for our line of work, your mother would have won it. Her clients adored her. I adored her. She was a total professional. Truly, we are all devastated at her passing.”

  Greer couldn’t stop staring at the check. Her cheeks burned with shame.

  She handed the check back to Rhonda. “Here. I don’t want this. I’ve got enough to deal with. I don’t want the law and IRS coming after me.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Rhonda snapped. “It’s perfectly legal.”

  “You’re telling me Lise’s last paycheck was for nearly $150,000? For doing phone sex? I don’t think so.”

  “Take the check,” Rhonda said, her eyes taking on a steely glint. “Your mother wanted you to have it. She called me last week, told me it wouldn’t be long now, and asked me to look you up … afterward.”

  “I still don’t understand any of this,” Greer said.

  “It’s really very simple. Your mother was a natural at the job. Even at the beginning, she was pulling in five thousand, six thousand a month. Net. More, after she got the hang of it. But she was always broke. That fancy Mercedes was always in the shop. Then there was the rent on her apartment, all the designer clothes she liked to buy, and I think she ate out at restaurants three meals a day … she was burning through all her income. Finally, I convinced her to let me invest some of her earnings.”

  “You?”

  “What? Do you think I’m some kind of pimp or something?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Greer admitted. “This whole thing. It’s so surreal. When Lise died, she had a couple hundred bucks in her checking account. That’s it. Then you show up today and hand me a check for $150,000. I keep thinking this must be some kind of stunt or something.”

  “It’s no stunt,” Rhonda said. “This may be hard for you to believe, but I’m a damn good businesswoman. I offered to help Lisette invest some of her income. I opened a joint account in both our names, then took half her income right off the top every month and invested it. Two weeks ago, she called to tell me, well, that she had to quit. Because of her health. After I saw the obituary in the L.A. Times, I liquidated the account. These a
re the proceeds.”

  “She told me she’d only been doing phone sex a few months.”

  Rhonda smiled. She had perfect teeth. “More like two years. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead but Lisette and truth didn’t have a close relationship.”

  “My grandmother says Lise always created her own reality.”

  “Your grandmother is a wise woman,” Rhonda said. “Maybe that’s where Lisette, I mean Lise, got her common sense.” She studied Greer for a moment. “You look like a smart woman yourself. Keep the money. Your mother earned it, and she wanted you to use it to take care of your grandmother.”

  “She told you that?”

  “She did. Lisette told me the cancer was spreading, and she didn’t intend to do anything to drag things out. She was worried that you’d turn down some job, because you felt responsible for her. You’re a location scout, right?”

  “That’s right.” Greer ran a finger across the crisp paper of the check. “I think she willed herself to live long enough to see that I was okay, and then decided to let go to prevent me from staying in L.A. to take care of her.”

  Rhonda stood and smoothed the nonexistent wrinkles in her pantsuit. “That sounds like her. Such a strong will she had. I’ll let you get back to your friends and your family now.”

  Greer slid the check back into the envelope and followed her to the door. “You’re positive that this is legal?”

  “I’m positive. But feel free to consult your attorney if you don’t believe me. And please give your grandmother my condolences.”

  *

  CeeJay was wheeling Dearie toward the parking lot when Greer emerged from her unexpected meeting with the lady in gray.

  “Did you find out who that woman was?” Dearie demanded.

  Greer’s mind was racing. There was no way she was going to tell her grandmother about Lise/Lisette and her business relationship with Special Friends, or about the source of the unexpected windfall the stranger had just delivered.

  “She used to work with Mom,” Greer said.

  “Doesn’t look like anybody I recognize,” Dearie said, watching Rhonda as she walked briskly toward a gleaming gunmetal gray Jaguar.

  “Her name was Rhonda. She, uh, worked in casting. I think she got Lise one of her last acting roles,” Greer said. Which was true.

  From her stance behind the wheelchair, CeeJay raised one eyebrow in question, but Greer subtly shook her off with a look that said, “Later.”

  “Guess who just texted me? Bryce! His plane just landed,” CeeJay announced. “He wants to know if you can meet tomorrow.” She paused. “I told him you might not be up to it just yet, with Lise’s funeral and everything.”

  Greer thought back to one of the last conversations she’d had with her mother. Lise had been right. It was time to get back in the game.

  “Tomorrow’s perfect,” she said.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Are you nervous?” CeeJay asked as Greer slid into the passenger seat of her car the next morning. “Don’t be nervous. Okay? He’s a total sweetheart. A little intense, but after you get to know him, he’s amazing. And you look great, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Greer said. “I wasn’t nervous until you suggested I should be.” She peered into the mirror on the sun visor and checked her makeup, on which she’d just spent an unprecedented thirty minutes.

  “You’re pretty quiet today,” CeeJay observed. “Aren’t you excited?”

  “I sort of am,” Greer said reluctantly. “I guess I was just thinking … about Lise. She was so anxious for me to get this job, to get back to work again. Even after she knew she was dying…”

  Greer dabbed at her eyes. “She made me promise that if Bryce offered me the assignment, I’d say yes. It was almost her last request.”

  “Almost? She had another?”

  Greer stared out the window at the passing scenery. “Well, the other thing was more like a demand.”

  “What?”

  Greer rolled her eyes. “It was about my dad. She had a crazy idea that I should reach out to him.”

  “Your dad? For reals? Where did that come from?”

  “You’re gonna laugh. They were Facebook friends.”

  “Wow. That is crazy.”

  “Right? She’d told him about everything—including the phone sex and her cancer. He wanted to fly out to see her, but Lise didn’t want him to see her sick. What she did want was for me to connect with Clint.”

  “Does he know she’s dead?”

  Greer shrugged. “Not from me.” She thought guiltily again, about the slip of paper with Clint’s contact information. “Let’s talk a little more about my meeting,” she said abruptly.

  “Just two words of advice,” CeeJay said, appraising Greer’s handiwork.

  “Low-key, right?”

  “Well, yeah, that too, but I was actually thinking more along the lines of lip liner.” CeeJay slapped a tube of her own peachy-bronze liner into Greer’s hand.

  Twenty minutes later, CeeJay pulled her MINI Cooper into a driveway flanked by a pair of tall, ivy-covered pillars. Beyond a scrolled wrought iron gate, Greer got a glimpse of rolling green lawn, and at the far end of the drive, something vaguely castle-like. Even for Holmby Hills, it was an impressive pile of rocks and lumber.

  Greer leaned forward to get a better look. “Here? Your boyfriend lives in Downton Abbey?”

  CeeJay rolled her eyes. “He’s leasing it, okay? And stop with the gaping. We’re on closed-circuit camera.” She opened the window and addressed a discreetly hidden stainless steel panel. “Hey. It’s me. Open sesame.”

  The gates slid noiselessly inward and CeeJay drove through, with Greer whipping her head back and forth to get a panoramic view of the property.

  “I still can’t believe you’re sleeping with Bryce Levy.” Greer hung her head all the way out the passenger window to get a better look as the gray cobblestoned drive approached an imposing Georgian brick and limestone manor house that looked as though it had been lifted intact from the English countryside.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny those rumors,” CeeJay said primly.

  Greer snapped her fingers. “I know this place! They used it for the exteriors of Remains of the Day, right?”

  “Maybe.” CeeJay shrugged. “Before my time. I think it used to belong to an old-style movie star, somebody like Doris Day, or maybe Jane Powell? The last guy who owned it was a white rapper. Lil’ somebody. His label cut him loose after he was arrested for running over his manager. Bryce is leasing it from the bank that now owns it.”

  “Unbelievable.” Greer’s location scout eye took in the boxwood-outlined flower beds, the stacked rock pergola, and the row of white columns marching across the front of the house. A large rectangular reflecting pool was sunken into the lawn directly in front of the mansion, and a bronze statue of a nymph spewed water from its upturned lips.

  “Wowsers,” Greer whispered.

  “You’re gaping again. Be cool, okay? Bryce is very, very low-key.”

  The drive came to a Y a few yards in front of the fountain, and CeeJay followed the right fork as it skirted the house. The drive ended in front of a two-story carriage house built in the same style as the mansion. Two of the three bay doors were closed, but the rear of a black Mercedes peeped from the third bay.

  CeeJay reached up to the sun visor and tapped a small black box clipped there. The bay door on the far side rose, and she pulled the MINI Cooper into the garage.

  “Home sweet home,” she said brightly, opening the door and stepping out.

  Greer followed her friend out of the dim garage and into the back entry of the house, into a sort of mudroom.

  “C’mon,” CeeJay said, pushing through a swinging wooden door and leading the pair into a true vestibule, with more oak paneling, worn Oriental carpets dotting marble floors, and a soaring ceiling that held the biggest crystal chandelier Greer had ever seen. Half a dozen snarling taxidermy animal heads stared lifelessly from the wal
ls. “Don’t judge,” CeeJay whispered. “The house came furnished.”

  “Ceej?” A man’s voice called from somewhere else in the house. “I’m in here, in the study.”

  *

  He sat behind a huge mahogany desk, tapping on a laptop and frowning. Thin white wires from a set of earbuds were connected to the phone on the desktop.

  Like most successful Hollywood men Greer had met, Bryce Levy had that air of casual high energy. He had to be at least twenty years older than CeeJay, but there was no denying his attractiveness. He had a full head of graying sandy blond hair, a high forehead, and expressive blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses perched on a generous nose. He was laughing explosively at something his caller was saying.

  He looked up, blew CeeJay a kiss, and nodded a wordless greeting to her friend.

  “Okay, look, a couple of gorgeous ladies just walked in here, and one of ’em gets very jealous if she thinks I’m not paying her the proper attention. Yeah. I’ll get you the figures by end of business today.”

  He removed the earbuds, grinned, and gestured toward the blonde. “C’mere you.”

  CeeJay plopped herself down on his lap and wound her arms around the director’s neck, kissing him passionately.

  Greer felt herself blushing.

  “Okay, enough,” Bryce said, laughing again. “We’ve got company, remember?”

  CeeJay made a face, but slid out of his lap. He stood and reached across the desk to shake Greer’s hand.

  “Please, sit,” he said, gesturing toward a metal-studded leather armchair.

  “At long last we meet,” he said, settling back in his own high-backed chair. “Although with as much as CeeJay talks about you, I feel like we already know each other. Plus, I think we have lots of mutual business contacts.”

  “Not too many, I hope,” Greer murmured.

  Bryce frowned. “You’re referring to that thing up in Paso Robles? With Hank Reitz? Nobody in town believes a word that comes out of his lying mouth. I wouldn’t worry too much about him.”