by Kim Boykin
To hear her talk, you’d never guess she was from the South, but whenever she talked to me, she let down her southern drawl.
“Well, bless your heart for about five minutes and get off your ass. Come on, Tara, we’ll have a blast. Not to mention what it will do for your sales. And packaging your romances in a side-by-side display with the book is genius, like when stores put the battery displays with the Fifty Shades books.”
“When would the tour start?”
“The book’s so hot, I can get you in soon, like two weeks.”
Maybe Marsha was right. My husband was gone, but I had the beginnings of a successful career. What did I have to lose? “Okay.”
“Yay.” Erin’s drawl made the word sound like seventeen syllables.
“Oh, lucky you. You’ll have to move heaven and earth to get her in,” I heard a man say in the background. “And where in the hell did the southern accent come from?”
“Shut up, Jake,” Erin sounded like a New Yorker again.
“Who’s that with you, Erin?”
“Jake’s a fellow publicist and sometimes friend, when he’s not being an ass.”
“Hi, Tara, don’t listen to Erin, she really loves me.” He laughed. “And no offense about the heaven and earth thing.”
“None taken, Jake.”
“Get out of here, Randall. Go annoy the hell out of someone else.”
“Bye Tara. You and Erin have fun.” That laugh again.
“Okay he’s gone. So, you’re saying yes to the tour? Wow, that was really easy.”
“I’ll explain over a glass of wine when I see you.” She ran down the cities and the tour events. It sounded exciting. Maybe this would be good for me.
“I’ve got us set to kick off on the Today Show, The View, and maybe a couple of other shows, but there is one thing I’m going to give you a heads up about. Janzen Industries, a huge event company who handles big celebrity tours wants a piece of this.” I smiled. Lilly would get a kick out of her mommy being called a celebrity. “They’re booking you in the same cities I have us booked in, in small venues.”
“Venues? How small can a venue be?”
“They’re theaters that hold somewhere between two and five thousand.”
“People?”
“Kit said when you shot down the tour, she didn’t think there was any point in mentioning it, but they’re offering you a minimum guarantee of ten-K per show. Sounds exciting.”
“And terrifying.”
“Don’t worry about anything. I promise I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“Oh, God.” I didn’t have a choice. “Am I really am doing this?”
“Not bad for two little southern girls from Summerville, South Carolina, huh?”
“No, and I appreciate your hard work more than I can say.”
“Well, don’t you worry your pretty little head about anything from here on out, this is going to be fabulous. Look, I’ve got to run, but we’ll talk later.”
I tucked the phone back in my pocket and went up to the house to coax Lilly into eating something. She looked so peaceful, I wanted what she had. Until I realized Lilly had left me too.
Three hours later, I was okay enough to drive to the vet. We got there just before they closed at eight o’clock, but the vet tech let me sit with her as long as I wanted. He explained that the company who did their cremations had a beautiful spot near Boone in the North Carolina Mountains, fifty acres where they spread the ashes of beloved pets, a fitting resting place.
It sounded like a wonderful place for Lilly, but I wasn’t ready to let her go. “I want the ashes. How long will it take to get her back?”
“They send someone to pick up on Mondays and we get the ashes in a few weeks. They’re good people, but they don’t have the fastest turn around. A lot of vets use them, so there’s a good chance it might be later.
“With their deluxe package, you can pick from one of these.” He opened a three-ring binder and flipped through a few pages filled with every thing from tasteful urns to tacky rhinestone ones. “You get these little wooden boxes with the middle package, and then there’s the basic package.”
“What does that one come with?”
“The ashes are packed in a Ziploc bag and then shipped to your home in a cardboard box.”
“I need something that travels well.”
Now he looked a little weirded out but nodded. “She’s a small Jack Russell, I think this one would work well.” He pointed to a picture of what looked like a miniature coffin, measuring five by eight inches. “I’ve got a couple of these at home. You can take the little screws out on the bottom. It comes off and then you can take the ashes out to look at them or to hold them.” Okay, now I was weirded out.
“I’ll take the little coffin one, and can you put a rush on it? I’m leaving in two weeks and won’t be back for a while.”
“I could have it FedExed to your house, maybe have it to you by then, but it would cost extra.”
I nodded and tossed my credit card onto the counter. The only thing left to do was go home to an empty house.
Chapter Four
‡
Waiting for Lilly’s ashes to arrive, I didn’t make my plane, and Erin didn’t miss a beat. With a few clicks of her mouse, she got me on the next direct flight out of Charlotte set to arrive at LaGuardia, around six.
A few days earlier, when we were going over the final itinerary, she’d asked me if I was okay. I didn’t answer her question but told her I wouldn’t leave home without Lilly. Erin suggested she meet me at the airport, we’d chat about the tour on the way to the hotel. She’d wait while I got settled in and then we’d have dinner at the little pizza place she knew I loved in the East Village.
“I know you’re sitting there, holding Lilly, at the terminal—” she stopped like she was rethinking her choice of words, and I shifted around in my seat, looking for the hidden cameras. “Tara, I know you’re still grieving, but I need you to be up when you get here. So take a walk. Go to the place in the middle of the airport that has all the rocking chairs and play the game you told me about.”
Erin was as sharp as they come, but she’d obviously forgotten the game I’d told her about was Jim’s creation. He’d made it up ten years ago. We’d been in Aspen skiing and were headed back to Charlotte but got snowed in at the Denver airport. While I read the latest Nora Roberts novel, he people-watched and tried to guess their names based on their looks. Sometimes after he’d called to them, they actually turned around like he’d been right, and he claimed to have a system. Really young good-looking guys were always Brad or Jason. Bald brainy looking guys were Stanley or George. Tall leggy blonds were either Heather or Ashley with an occasional Jessica. Katherine or Jennifer were safe brunette guesses, but redheads were always Chiara, which I always found odd because it’s not a common name. But like everything Jim did, his game drew me in, and we played it religiously in airports, even though he always won.
“Tara, listen to me, Lilly wouldn’t want you sitting there with her ashes in your lap, crying.”
“Are you watching me?” I shifted the miniature coffin from my lap to the chair beside me and covered it with my flouncy skirt.
“Look, we haven’t known each other very long, Tara, but I know you. You’re like an older me.”
Great. Now I’m abandoned, grieving, and at forty, I’m officially old. My caller ID flashed the number of some nuisance company who kept trying to give me a lower interest rate for a credit card I didn’t have. I thanked her for fixing my travel arrangements. “I’ve have another call, got to go. I’ll see you soon.”
I put Lilly in my giant wheelie bag that held my brief case and my handbag, and headed up to the atrium. A martini bar was nestled next to a Bath and Bodyworks store that looked out of place in an airport. I did exactly what the annoying announcement told me not to do, left my luggage unattended, and went to the bar. A perky blond named Heather handed me the menu with forty-seven drinks. Since I
only had two hours to kill, I ordered the first four that appealed to me.
“Do you have some more people joining you?” she asked as she swiped her key card and rang up my order.
“No. Just me. I’ll be sitting on the rocker in the middle of the concourse.”
She shrugged and tossed a clean martini shaker in the air à la Tom Cruise from that old movie about bartenders that Jim loved. In a few minutes, she’d brought this handy little side table for me, like a TV tray for martinis. “Here you go. The Wedding Cake, Between the Sheets, Over the Hill, and, last but not least, The Gates of Hell.”
I thanked her and slipped her a twenty. “Things might get a little rowdy over here. Will you look out for me?”
“You go, girl.” She fist bumped me. “My brother works at the tapas bar. I could text him to bring you something to eat. You’re gonna need it if you drink all of these.”
“I’ll be fine,” said the woman who hadn’t drunk more than two glasses of anything simultaneously since her thirtieth birthday. She thanked me for the big tip and turned to go back to her kiosk. “Can I ask you something, Heather?”
She flashed a blinding smile. “Sure.”
“Is that really your name?” I pointed to her nametag.
She smiled and nodded warily, like I was a serial killer looking for perky blonds named Heather.
I raised my glass to her. “Thanks.”
The Wedding Cake was a little too sweet but went down easy, and the buzz was kicking in before I had my first sip of Between the Sheets. With the peach schnapps, it was much more to my liking. Yes, I was feeling much better. I took my sweater off and laid it over Lilly’s coffin. The airport wasn’t very busy. People came through the security gates in spurts, hurrying toward their gates. A tall thin fiftyish looking man with thick glasses, pushed through the crowd and looked like he was walking straight for me. I couldn’t help myself.
“Stanley,” I called as he neared, but he didn’t respond. “George.” Still no response. The man had passed me and was almost to the moving sidewalk when I stood up from my rocker, being extra careful not to spill my drink. “Larry.”
He stopped dead in his tracks, turned and looked at me. By that time, Heather had figured out what I was doing. She kept an eye out for security and shushed me when I got too loud. In less than two hours, I’d scored eight points, an all-time high, even for Jim. I was nursing The Gates of Hell when Heather came back to my rocker. “You sure you don’t want anything to eat?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Wanna play?”
“No thanks. What time does your flight leave?”
I looked at the clock. “Oh, shit. Erin will kill me.” I stood up too quickly and plopped back down. “My flight’s leaving in fifteen minutes.” But my legs wouldn’t work.
“Sit tight, my boyfriend works for Special Services.” She sent a text and in no time a gorgeous guy showed up in one of those little carts that transports old people to their gates. Heather looked like she wanted to eat him up, and together, they looked liked like they could be one of those half-naked model couples in the Calvin Klein cologne advertisements. And his name was Declan. Of course.
He loaded me and Lilly up, and I made the flight. Barely. The older flight attendant kept giving me the stinkeye like I’d made her wait, and who knows, maybe Erin had worked her magic and held the flight. It wasn’t full, so I slept the whole way with Lilly on the seat beside me. When I arrived, there was Erin, holding the sign with my name, upside down. She took one look at me and knew I was beyond tipsy.
“Don’t give me any shit,” I said. “It’s wearing off.”
“Trust me, it hasn’t worn off. Your pupils are huge and your cheeks are flushed.” I hugged the smartass anyway, and she steadied me when I wobbled a little. “I think I’m going to have to cut you off, chief. No beer with your pizza tonight.”
The more she talked the more southern she sounded, making me giggle that her inner Carolina girl was in full-blown drawl by the time we reached the baggage carousel. “That’s mine.” I pointed to a hot pink overstuffed Vera Bradley suitcase I’d had to pay extra for because it was a mere fifteen pounds over the fifty pound limit.
“I’ll get it,” Erin said.
Erin is delicate and birdlike. I was old and sturdy and tipsy. “I’ll do it.”
“Go for it.” She stepped aside with a smirk on her face that said I’d be on my ass in about five seconds.
I steadied myself with my shins against the carousel, ready for my great big bag. Ready for anything. After all, I was the reigning champion of the Name Game. I was starting a new adventure. I yanked the bag off of the belt and Erin screamed.
“Oh, my God, Erin, I’m so sorry.”
“Get it off.” She was crying, pointing my bag, which looked like it was attached just below the top of her thigh. “Oh, shit.” Her face was red and the veins in the side of her neck were bulging.
A tall man with glasses jerked the bag away. He said he’d been a medic in Iraq and looked at her foot. It was swelling, straining against her adorable strappy little black sandals. He helped her over to a seat, got down on his knees and tried to slip the shoe off. “You’d better hold her up. She might pass out from the pain.”
I did as I was told and grabbed her hand. She was trembling hard, either from the pain of having her foot crushed by Vera Bradley or from holding back the urge to kill me.
“It’s swelling fast.” He looked at me. “Do you have any manicure scissors in your bag?”
“No,” we shouted.
“My guess is you’ve broken several bones,” the guy with glasses said. “You really need to get to the ER. Got to warn you though, they may cut the shoe off.”
“Try again,” Erin said through tears. They were really cute shoes. I held her hand and she swooned a little when the man finally slid the strap down her heel. That seemed to relieve enough of the pressure he could work the shoe off. Every time he moved it, she said she was worried she’d throw up on me. I deserved at least that.
“There.” Glasses Guy finally handed Erin her shoe. The Donald Pliner logo explained why she was so adamant about saving it. He helped her out to the town car waiting for us, and I followed with Lilly and the offending bag.
I spent the next three hours at the ER with Erin, and one of the nurses discreetly told us we could count on at least another three. At least they’d given her a little something for pain, but I don’t think it did anything more than take the edge off. I went into the bathroom and splashed just enough cold water on my face to make what little mascara I had on run. I dabbed at the gray streaks on my face and headed back to tend to Erin.
“You need to go, Tara. Check into your hotel.” I started apologizing again, but she’d had enough, and held up her hand for me to shut it. “You have the Today Show tomorrow.” I was still drunk enough to see the humor in what she’d just said, but didn’t dare laugh. “I called my boss, she’s sending another publicist tomorrow. Don’t worry, he’ll have all my notes, everything will be fine.”
“But you’re going to be okay. I know you are. Remember we were going to do this together and it was going to be fun?” I sounded like a three-year-old.
“Tara, I played sports growing up. I know what broken bones feel like. This isn’t something that will be fixed tonight.”
Erin’s cellphone rang and she talked to her sister who was freaking out because she was stuck in traffic and wanted the doctor to wait until she got there to operate. Erin looked at me a couple of times and tried to smile. When she ended the call, she looked relieved. Maybe she was glad to be relieved of me.
“When you were in the bathroom, I ordered you a pizza. It’ll be at the hotel soon. Be sure and eat. Drink plenty of water.” She said there was a town car waiting for me outside the hospital. They’d have me at the hotel in fifteen minutes and pick me up just before 5:30 in the freaking morning. “You’re going to be fabulous tomorrow, and you’re in luck, they’re sending Jake.”
Jake
? Hopefully it wasn’t Jake the ass.
Chapter Five
‡
Jake Randall ran his hand over his face and sighed into the phone. Barely thirty, he was too young to be this tired. “Where is she now?”
“She’s in the bathroom,” Erin said.
“God, I’m so tired of these people, and this one sounds like a train wreck.”
“Stop being such an ass,” Erin snapped. “Tara’s dog just died. Her life is shit right now, but she’s great. You’ll see. Besides you’ve begged for months to leave the diva side of the business and come over to the real author’s side. I just sent her itinerary to your phone, this is your chance.”
It was true. Just after college, Jake joined Penguin as a lowly publicist’s assistant, moving up through the ranks before ending up as a publicist. He had a talent for handling celebrities who couldn’t write a book if their life depended on it. Yet, there he was carting them around the country while they signed ghostwritten books and complained about everything from the inept design of Sharpies to hotel sheets with the incorrect thread count. Like they’d actually taken the time to count and knew the sheets were six hundred instead of sixteen hundred.
“I’m supposed to start my vacation tomorrow, which I need. A lot. But I’ll do it. Just don’t make it sound like you’re doing me a favor. She showed up drunk and broke your foot.”
“Hang on a second, the doctor is here—No, I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Some water, maybe around eleven this morning.” Jake could hear a woman explaining that Erin’s foot was broken in three places and the procedure for the surgery. Another voice said something about starting her IV and drugs. “Go slow, please, I have to finish this call.” She sounded shaky. “Jake?”
