Beautiful Mess

by Herrick, John

  “‘Not an object.’ That concept comes in short supply these days.”

  Tristan’s heart went out to her. And she seemed to need someone around with whom she could be herself. Though he tried to convince himself otherwise, he sensed loneliness about her.

  So he decided to take a chance.

  “Nora, I realize we just met, so feel free to decline…”

  Did he catch a flicker of hope in her eyes? Was this happening?

  He pressed forward. “Would you like to go to dinner sometime?”

  She pursed her lips as she studied him. She had exquisite gray eyes that enraptured him.

  Then she responded with a genuine smile.

  “Dinner would be nice.”

  CHAPTER 32

  LATE THAT NIGHT, Nora lay in bed and listened to the quiet hum of a ceiling fan. She’d considered getting a small dog, or perhaps a cat, something to provide companionship, but with her odd work schedule, owning a pet would prove cumbersome. When a film was in production, she would work all hours of the day or night. She could envision the hassle of trying to accommodate an animal.

  Her eyes felt raw. Turning onto her side, she reached for her alarm clock to see how long she’d been lying awake.

  Two hours.

  That evening, the darkness of depression had clinched her in a vise and hadn’t let go. Maybe tomorrow would improve. If only she could fall asleep in the meantime.

  With a huff, she shoved the covers from her body, then padded to the bathroom, where she grabbed a package of sleeping pills from her medicine cabinet. Not wanting to stimulate her vision, she kept the lights off and fumbled with the package until she’d squeezed a pill through the layer of foil. After chasing down the pill with a swig of water, she returned to bed, one phase shy of a walking mummy.

  Nora pulled the covers over her face and waited for nothingness to overcome her.

  CHAPTER 33

  THIS WAS WHERE she lived?

  On Thursday evening, Tristan parked his car on the street in front of Nora’s house. For an actress who had seen such recent success, he’d expected Nora Jumelle to live in a mansion. Instead, she resided in a standard-size home in the Valley, albeit on a semi-isolated cul-de-sac. Nora had few neighbors.

  Peering at his rearview mirror, he noticed the silhouette of a hefty man sitting behind him in an ordinary Chevy. Security, he assumed. She must have kept someone there around the clock.

  Sure enough, as Tristan climbed out of his car, he heard the Chevy’s door slam shut and footsteps approach him.

  “Help you with something?”

  “I’m here to see Nora.”

  “Name?”

  “Tristan Albrecht. She’s expecting me.” Though tempted to try to engage the man in a verbal joust of wit for fun, Tristan noticed the man packed heat. He decided to play nice instead.

  The man had a bushy mustache and huge hands, each one large enough to grip Tristan by the balls and, if provoked, squeeze them till he squealed for mercy. With a nod, the guy gestured toward the driveway, then ambled back toward his car. Leaning against his vehicle, his glare glued to Tristan, as he muttered something into his cell phone. Even when Tristan turned his back, he could sense the dude’s eyes piercing him. Daring him to flinch.

  Before Tristan made it to the front door, it opened, and out walked Nora. With a wave to the security guy, she met Tristan on the front porch.

  At just past dinnertime—they had decided to avoid attention if possible—twilight had already set in.

  Tristan held out a red rose. He’d intended to hide it behind his back and surprise her with it, but when he saw the security guy, he’d decided to keep his hands visible at all times. He wouldn’t put it past the dude to tackle him and kick his ass, right there on Nora’s lawn, before their first date.

  “It’s beautiful,” Nora purred as she took the rose, lifted it to her nose, and inhaled. “Thank you.”

  Tristan nodded toward the Chevy. “Is your friend coming along?”

  “No, I’ll be fine, as long as we go someplace subdued.”

  They climbed into Tristan’s car, and he steered through some local streets until they wound up on the State Route 118.

  “You’re full of surprises,” Tristan said.

  “How so?”

  “The security guard didn’t shock me, but the house did.”

  “You anticipated something bigger?”

  “Can you blame me?”

  She chuckled. “I rented the place when the roles began to look steady. Three roommates at first, and one of them had a dog. The roommates and dog are long gone, but I never got around to finding another place.”

  “You got busy faster than you expected?”

  “This month is the first breather I’ve had since Faces was released.”

  “Doesn’t the paparazzi track you down?”

  “I’ve developed a talent for disappearing into obscurity.”

  As they passed streetlights on the freeway, their beams added a subtle glow to Nora’s gray eyes. They looked like smoldering ashes.

  They opted for a Mongolian barbecue restaurant, a tiny dive which had emptied of patrons by this hour during the workweek. They agreed she wouldn’t attract attention here. Tristan felt like an undercover agent trying to duck a handful of foreign spies. Fun for him, but he wondered how long it had taken Nora to feel trapped. At times, she must have felt like a convict on the run, yet she’d done nothing wrong. Her sin? She had excelled.

  He inhaled the savory aroma of his pork entrée, and once Nora had taken her first bite, he started on his own. Sweet, spicy flavors tingled on his tongue. Nora had opted for a vegetarian meal, which didn’t appeal to Tristan at all, but she appeared to enjoy it.

  With nobody else in the restaurant except the married couple who owned the joint and spoke broken English, Nora looked at ease and chatted at a normal volume. No one would overhear their conversation and turn their heads at the first detail that intrigued them.

  “So why aren’t you working on a movie right now?” Tristan asked.

  “I needed a break. The next shoot starts in April. In the meantime, I’ve been reading scripts.”

  “Anything good?”

  She laid down her fork, her eyes on her bowl. “Would you mind if we talk about something else?”

  “Sure. What did you have in mind?”

  “Anything. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my work, it’s just that sometimes…”

  “You need a break from it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Not the aspect of the career you dreamed about as a kid, huh?”

  Nora regarded him a moment, then swallowed her bite. “Fatigue wasn’t part of my childhood dream.”

  “And her mysterious side emerges.” He grinned at her, and the way she caught his eye in response swept away all doubt that she was interested in him. “So tell me, what was your childhood dream?”

  “You first.”

  “Fine,” Tristan said with a shrug. “I wanted to be Sammy Sosa.”

  “The baseball player?”

  “Don’t judge. What kid doesn’t want to be a superstar?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “What about you? Wait, that’s a stupid question. You always wanted to be an actress, didn’t you!”

  With a roll of her eyes, Nora giggled and covered her face with one hand. Was she blushing?

  “You don’t want to know,” she said.

  “When you put it that way, I do!”

  “It’s silly.”

  “Come on,” Tristan teased, reaching over to nudge her arm.

  “Fine,” she sighed. Peeking through the opening between her index finger and middle finger, she cringed. “I wanted to be an archaeologist.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I told you it was silly.”

  “Not silly, just unexpected.”

  Nora removed her hand and poked at her entrée with her fork. “I always did well in science. Plus, other cultu
res fascinate me.”

  “So, why archaeology?”

  “Structures captivate me. It wasn’t so much the architecture, but the logic that went into why they chose to build a particular type of architecture. The physical representation of the philosophies that guided them.”

  “And the scientific part of it?”

  “I’d love to dig an artifact out of the ground, something that looks thousands of years old, and determine its age using history and chemical testing.”

  “Chemicals? You’re starting to sound dangerous,” Tristan winked.

  “I set fire to the chemistry lab in high school once.”

  Tristan almost choked on his beer. “Remind me not to let you play with matches.”

  Nora laughed, and Tristan could tell she had grown comfortable around him. He enjoyed her company and, for a few minutes, had forgotten about her fame.

  “What can I say?” she said. “I have a tendency to push things to their limits. If one drop of a chemical turns a blue liquid clear, what would five drops do?”

  “Hypothetical question: If I were to run to the restroom, would my food be safe to eat when I return? Or would I need to poke around it first to see if it starts to glow?”

  “Very funny. I’m not that bad.”

  “You admitted to causing a fire in the chemistry lab.”

  She spread her arms in a defensive gesture which Tristan found endearing.

  “It was an accident! Besides, that’s what fire extinguishers are for,” she quipped. “It was just a spark.”

  “You said it was a fire.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She chuckled under her breath, a smoky rasp.

  Nora’s simplicity grew on you. She wore minimal makeup and had no need for it. Her skin resembled porcelain. Stunning, in Tristan’s opinion.

  This must be the true Nora, he figured. The Nora you get when she can be herself. When she doesn’t need to look over her shoulder or protect her privacy.

  The gleam in her gray eyes drew him in, and they locked gazes. He reduced his voice to a murmur.

  “You’re full of surprises indeed, Nora Jumelle.”

  She pursed her lips into a cunning little rosebud, then shot him a wink.

  “And that’s with my clothes on.”

  Tristan rearranged the napkin on his lap to hide his arousal.

  CHAPTER 34

  DEL RETURNED from his morning jog, hopped into the shower, then made himself a smoothie, tossing in an extra dash of spinach.

  As usual, he scanned his Twitter feed, posted a random comment, then moved on to a national news website. And there it was, smack dab on the home page, in big, bold letters:

  MARILYN SPEAKS FROM BEYOND!

  When he clicked to open the article, he found a brief blurb with a red teaser across the top: DEVELOPING STORY. Beside the text was a shot of Marilyn Monroe from one of her films. According to the article, a screenplay had surfaced which, allegedly, she had written. No word on the subject matter or who controlled the rights. A half-page in length, the article contained precious few details, focusing instead on filler material about Marilyn’s iconic career and infamous death. More than anything, it struck Del as an excuse to justify the front-page headline.

  He surfed a few more sites and found the same news phrased in different ways. Word had swept in like a siege of locusts and spread overnight, courtesy of the Associated Press. It was all over the place.

  How could they have heard about this?

  Del’s mind shot to Felicia. He couldn’t imagine she had breathed a word about this. She was a minister, after all. Besides, he sensed she was trustworthy. He felt confident she’d kept her promise to him.

  No, another explanation had to exist.

  He grabbed his cell phone and hit speed dial. Arnie answered on the third ring.

  “Have you seen the big news?” Del asked, giving his tone a curt edge for extra measure.

  A pause, then Arnie replied.

  “Swing by my office as soon as you can.”

  CHAPTER 35

  DEL BURST into Arnie’s office and slammed the door.

  Arnie didn’t jump at the intrusion. Instead, he fixed his eyes on his client. Before Del could utter a word, Arnie held up his hand to stem an onslaught of fury.

  “I leaked the news to the press,” Arnie said. “Anonymously, of course.”

  “What the hell were you thinking, Arnie?!” Del gritted his teeth and planted his palms on the desk with as much noise as possible. He hovered over Arnie and leered at him, Del’s blood in a boil and his heart beating to the rhythm of La Cucaracha. “We didn’t agree to that! You never said a word to me, you never got my permission—”

  “Hold on, Del. Calm down.”

  “One shot, Arnie! We have one shot at this, and you’re gonna fuck it up!”

  At this point, Arnie splayed his fingers and extended both palms in self-defense. “Hear me out, Del. Please.”

  Del plopped into a chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “This better be good.”

  “We needed a preview of coming attractions.”

  “We don’t have our ducks in a row yet. You haven’t even lined up the proof we need that this isn’t a hoax.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered. I know a guy who knows a guy. I’ve already talked to him. He can get the prints verified and confirm her signature isn’t a forgery.”

  “And what if he opens his mouth along the way? You know how delicate this is.”

  “He signed a confidentiality agreement with a strict provision to keep his mouth shut.”

  “But why tease the press so early? They’re gonna speculate, Arnie. We haven’t unveiled who possesses legal guardianship of this script yet. We risk someone stealing our thunder before we can steer the situation. Suppose some schmuck who lives in his parents’ basement spends the next three days pounding out a script about a secret Marilyn Monroe project, then sells the rights to his own script. Did you consider that?”

  “Yes, I considered it, but this current route works more in our favor. Think about it: Better to get the word out now and verify early, while the speculation is underway. Otherwise, if we wait—if we set up the verification process after we announce—can you imagine the circus that will follow? They’ll track down my guy and hound him until he spills what he knows, confidentiality agreement be damned. He’ll fold, and it’ll happen before we line up any power players to read the script. Poof! The whole aura of mystery—gone!” Arnie punctuated his remark with a snap of his fingers. “That would dilute our position of strength and decrease the price of the script. Is that what you want?”

  Del calmed as he rolled the strategy around in his brain. “Of course not.”

  “This way, we maintain control of the process. By the time the media could begin to suspect you own the rights—which they won’t—we’ll already have the verification in hand. We’ll call a press conference to announce you as guardian, but we won’t share our proof of authenticity yet. We’ll lie low with that for a few more days before going public.”

  Del shook his head. “But if we already have our proof in hand the day we announce who owns the legal rights to the script, why should we sit on it? It’s the first question the press is gonna toss at us.”

  “We’ll double our media coverage this way, build some momentum. Let the media ask the question. Let them challenge us. That way, they feel like they’re in control because we’re playing by their rules. If we play by their rules, we can anticipate their reactions—which means we control them.”

  Del clucked his tongue as he sorted through the logistics. He had to admit, Arnie had made an excellent point. The more hype they could engineer, the stronger their position of negotiation.

  “That makes sense,” Del said. “But next time, clear your strategy with me first.”

  “Done.”

  Arnie extended his hand and the gentlemen shook on it.

  The agent scratched the top of his waxy head and eyed Del. A tentative tone hung u
pon his next words.

  “You realize, don’t you, that if we can’t verify the script’s authenticity, we’re in deep shit?”

  “Don’t worry, Arnie. It’s real.”

  CHAPTER 36

  TRISTAN—RUSSELL MERRITT—KEPT his eye on the television while interacting with a client, though the programming had dissolved to background noise. When the noon newscast started, the station’s music trumpeted that an urgent announcement would follow. An attractive African-American anchorwoman spoke with precision, her voice severe.

  “Good afternoon. Breaking news today: Hollywood is buzzing at the alleged discovery of a screenplay written by film legend Marilyn Monroe, mere months before her death.”

  Tristan dropped his hands from the keyboard, grabbed the remote control, and stepped closer to the television, increasing the volume on his way.

  “Few details are known, including the big question: Who owns the rights to the script? The firm representing Monroe’s estate has denied the existence of such a script. Yet news of its existence first broke through a reporter with the Associated Press, who received the tip from a highly credible source, a source who requested anonymity because he did not have official permission to speak on the matter.”

  Tristan couldn’t believe what he’d heard. He’d never watched any of Marilyn Monroe’s movies. They were too old for his taste. Who wouldn’t recognize her name, though? Even with his own limited knowledge, he could picture the iconic images of her leaning toward the camera with her red lips parted just so. Or standing on a subway grate in Manhattan, her white dress fluttering wild in the rush of a passing train.

  “Speculation abounds regarding the content of the screenplay, including whether it was inspired by a possible reignited relationship with Joe DiMaggio, a former spouse with whom Monroe was in touch toward the end of her life.”

  Awestruck, Tristan shook his head at what he’d heard.

  Lucky bastard who owns the rights to that thing.

  CHAPTER 37

  “HELLO, Nora.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You are Nora Tasmyn, aren’t you?”