Word Gets Around

by Lisa Wingate

  We’d hang out until noon or so, making awkward conversation, waiting for Justin to hold court.

  He wouldn’t like it that she’d just poured a perfectly good bottle of wine down the sink. …

  I moved closer to the patio door, watched her dump out the contents of the bar and pile the empties on the counter. She noticed me coming in from the deck. She smiled and waved, then pulled out a Hefty bag and snapped it open with the efficiency of a truckstop waitress.

  Where did Justin find this chick? She looked about seventeen— petite and slim, even in baggy sweats. I hoped she was more than seventeen. Justin had enough trouble with adult females. The pantry door was still hanging off its hinges, thanks to his last live-in, who had tried to rip it down when she found him in there with a former co-star.

  The door came loose in our newest house guest’s hand before I could get inside and tell her it was broken. She caught it against her shoulder and stood momentarily trapped.

  “Here, let me give you a hand,” I said, crossing the room.

  “I got it.” She shoved it into place with the strength of a welterweight female wrestler. “Ye-ew got a screwdriver and some wood gle-ew? I can fix this thang so it won’t fall on any-buddy.”

  I was temporarily stunned by the thick accent. The words sounded like a foreign language playing on a draggy tape recorder. She quirked a brow over her shoulder.

  Eighteen … maybe nineteen … hopefully. Justin had brought home a very young, strangely perky at early hours of the morning, door-fixing chick who sounded like the Dukes of Hazzard. She was cute, in a down-home way, but kind of … well … plain, for Justin, wearing an oversized T-shirt with a faded high school logo on the front, her hair pulled up in a ponytail, no makeup, and a smattering of freckles over her nose. She looked vaguely familiar.

  “Could’ja gimme a hand a mean-ut?” The last word was a mystery. She frowned at me like I was daft. “Ye-ew all ri-ight?”

  “Sorry.” I realized who she reminded me of. She looked a lot like Justin’s ex-wife, Stephanie—the one he married before all the money, dumped for some British model after his career took off, married again and had two kids with, then lost a second time. I’d always liked Stephanie. She was a genuinely nice person, kind of wholesome and midwestern. She wanted Justin to lay off the partying and stay home.

  The Stephanie look-alike inspected the broken hinges. “Ye-ew got a Phillips hay-ud? Not too big, all ri-ight?” Even the real Stephanie didn’t know how to repair broken hinges.

  I took the door from her hands and propped it against the wall next to the opening. “Let’s just leave it for now. I’ll get somebody out here to fix it.” Mental note. Track down Justin’s personal assistant of the week, Marla-of-the-tight-skirts, and provide notification that the beach house needed some repairs. Justin would never remember to have it done. Leave it be, Nate, I thought. Dude, just get in the car and go home. When Justin calls to see why you weren’t here this morning, tell him you’re going to sit this one out. You’re too old for this stuff. The muscles in my shoulders tightened and my head cramped like I had a hangover.

  The Stephanie girl turned to me and stuck out her hand. “Ye-ew must be Nate,” she said. “It’s so good to meet ye-ew. Justin’s just told me so much good stuff. He says you te-ew are just li-ike brothers.”

  “Just like,” I said, but it came out sounding sardonic. She didn’t seem to notice. She just smiled at me in a warm, genuine way that made me feel bad for being cynical and grouchy. Go figure.

  Why did that smile look so familiar? It was more than just the resemblance to Stephanie. I’d seen this girl somewhere before. …

  I studied her as she peered into the pantry. “I was gonna make some bee-us-cuits, but there’s no flour in here or anythin’.”

  Ahhhh, the part in which the morning girl tries to make Justin a home-cooked breakfast, on the theory that his heart and his stomach are somehow connected.

  “He doesn’t stay here much. Actually, he doesn’t stay anywhere much.” Or with anyone. Do yourself a favor, sweet thing, and move on. The man isn’t relationship material.

  “I been figurin’ that out.” With an exasperated eye roll, she shook her head. “Between all he’s got goin’ on, and then I been tourin’ since the show got over, I haven’t hardly seen Justin these last couple months. If it wasn’t for the project down in Daily … well, I don’t know if we’d ever git the chance to talk at all.”

  Tour … show … project … Daily … My brain revved from dot to dot. Who was this girl? Justin hadn’t mentioned her on the phone last night.

  “Where is Justin this morning, anyway?” As if I didn’t know. Sacked out. Probably hung over.

  She shrugged toward the master suite hallway. “Oh, I don’t know. I was down in one of the guest rooms.”

  Guest rooms … excuse me? Justin brought home a female friend and put her in one of the guest rooms?

  The Stephanie girl turned toward me, her smile fading. “Justin and me aren’t a couple. That’s just stuff the tabloids say. We’re friends, but nothin’ more. I’m engaged to some-buddy. He goes to film school in Illinois.” She held out a hand with a tiny engagement ring on it.

  Tabloids … friends … not a couple … The light went on in my brain, the line raced from dot to dot and everything made sense. Amber Anderson. This was Amber Anderson, the little Texas girl who made it all the way to runner-up on the spring season of American Megastar. She looked different without the stage makeup. Even younger. The tabloids had been having a field day with the romantic hookup between her and Justin for a while now. Apparently, you can’t believe everything you read in the tabs.

  Maybe she was the little sister he’d never had. Maybe Justin was back in one of those sappy, slightly depressed phases in which he showed up at my door, cried on my shoulder, and sounded like a beer commercial. You’re my family, man. You’re the only one who gets it. You’re like a brother to me, dude. You’re all I got. …

  Two months before we were going to get married, Nicole said if Justin crashed a date one more time, and I let him, she was out of there. He did. I did, and she was. The split wasn’t really Justin’s fault. He was just the catalyst for something set to blow anyway.

  “ … and Justin tells me you’re gonna do the scree-upt,” the girl, Amber, was saying. I’d missed a sentence or two—something about having stopped by a grocery store last night. She was pulling bacon and eggs out of the refrigerator.

  “Script?” I repeated, only half listening. A homeless man was walking by on the beach, his trench coat flapping in the salt breeze. The trench coat was coal black, new and slightly shiny. He probably had cameras and an assortment of long-range lenses hidden in his duffle bag. “Don’t go near the window,” I said, motioning toward the wall of glass that fronted the deck. “You’ll be in Celebs Inside next week.”

  Amber scowled toward the door. “I hate those people.”

  I’ll bet you do, I thought. Amber was almost as popular with the tabs as Justin—quite a feat, considering that he’d had twenty years to achieve show-biz notoriety, and she’d only had a few months.

  Outside, the homeless man pretended to watch the surf.

  Amber cracked some eggs into a bowl. “Scrambled or fried?”

  “Not much of a breakfast eater.”

  She smacked her lips playfully. “I can see yer not a farmer.”

  “Really?” I said, holding up a flip-flop clad foot, and she chuckled.

  “You know anythin’ about horses?”

  It was an oddly off-the-wall question. I shook my head. “Not a thing.”

  “Huh … ” she muttered, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows as she mixed the eggs. “I can’t wait to git on back to Texas and have some garden vegetables and farm-fresh hen eggs. I bet these chickens never saw a worm or a grasshopper or a rotten tomato in their whole lives.”

  I squinted into the bowl. I’d never really thought about where eggs come from, or what chickens eat to produce them.<
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  “Ye-ew just wait’ll we get to Texas,” Amber went on, pulling a couple frying pans off the overhead rack. “You’ll see what a rea-ul farm breakfast looks like.”

  “What’s in Texas?” I was almost afraid to ask. This sounded like another Shay special. The last time I got hooked up in one of those, I landed in a hut in Morocco with a hopelessly lousy script, no air-conditioning, an impossible deadline, a director breathing down my neck, and sand fleas in my bed.

  Amber seemed surprised I’d missed the memo. “Way-ull, the ranch, of course. Justin wants to do the movie there, and then, when we’re done, we’re gonna turn it into a place for kids.”

  Kids … Please tell me Justin isn’t planning to start yet another family. He’s paying enough child support already. …

  I considered telling Amber exactly that, but I’ve always been a firm believer in live-and-let-live. Before you try to be someone else’s moral compass, you’d better make sure your own points north.

  Amber went on chattering, “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, but I didn’t figure I’d ever be someone who could. You just never know, though. God can do anythang with any-buddy. I always did believe that.” She nodded earnestly. “Who’d ever think a girl from little ol’ Daily, Texas, would wind up travelin’ all over the place, singin’ and stayin’ in big motels and stuff? And now, gettin’ to sing some of the songs for Justin’s new movie. Well, that’s just past amazin’, huh?”

  “Way past.” I put a hand over my eyes and squeezed my skull, hoping the pressure would block out all other conscious thought. This was overload so early in the morning. Any minute now, The Shay would pop around the corner and say, Ha! Gotcha, dude. Had you going there for a minute, didn’t I? I swear, Nate, you’re so easy …

  “Hey, Nater, you pack your cowboy boots?” It was The Shay’s voice, but not the words I’d imagined. “Amber fill you in on all the details yet?” Justin was sauntering up the hallway, looking surprisingly sober in sweats and a T-shirt. He had a towel wrapped around his neck, as if he’d been down in the fitness room. Hardly likely at eight-thirty.

  “Yeah, not quite,” I hedged. Good to see you, too. How long’s it been … six months? Come to think of it, your company still owes me a couple checks from that Moroccan project—the one that tanked when you plowed your car through the basket factory and got us thrown out of the country, remember that? “What’s up?”

  Justin peered into Amber’s grocery sack and came out with a banana, then proceeded to peel it and take the first bite of food I’d ever seen him consume before noon. Non-processed food, at that. Something that actually grew on a plant somewhere.

  “Dude, you don’t look so good,” he pointed out.

  “Jet lag.” As usual, Justin didn’t get the joke. I’d driven down from the mountains, of course.

  He tossed the banana peel back into the grocery sack. “So, you got your stuff ready, Nater?”

  “Ready for what?” Although, really, I’m afraid to ask.

  “For Texas, dude. You bring your stuff?” Justin shook the sweat out of his dark hair in one of his typical pretty-boy maneuvers, sending a fine spray across the kitchen. Amber, the girl who’d been worried about the grasshopper content of the eggs, frowned into the bowl like she was wondering what might have landed there.

  “That looks good, babe.” The Shay’s dark eyes glittered with more enthusiasm than he’d shown for anything in a long time.

  Hold the phone, Justin’s in love. I know that look. The only thing that made Justin light up that way was a new woman.

  He turned back to me, his face still basking in the soft glow of amour. It was a little creepy. “Man, Nater, wait till you see this place. Two thousand acres of hills and trees, creeks and grass. It’s so quiet, you can hear the train go by in town, seven miles away. We would have killed for a place like this when we were kids.”

  I scratched my head, trying to root out this strange new unreality like a flea. When we were kids, we were sneaking out of Mama Louise’s foster house, hanging out on street corners, playing quarters with the girls, and lifting candy bars from convenience stores.

  “You wouldn’t believe how cheap you can buy land down there. Under four mil for the whole thing. Of course, there’s a bunch to do on the buildings, but that’s the beauty of it, see? We do the film there, and we bill some of it off as production cost. Then we roll the whole place over into the Anderson-Shay Foundation, hire someone to run it all, and let the kids come in. And, we put a percentage of the proceeds from the film into the foundation—good PR, see?”

  “Justin can use some good PR after gettin’ arrested last spring and all,” Amber put in, her enthusiasm jingling like a wind chime. “And the ranch is gonna do such great stuff. Kids who don’t have anywhere to be can come there and stay together with their brothers and sisters, and kids who are split up in foster care can come for a couple weeks in the summer. Isn’t that just awesome?”

  Both Amber and Justin looked expectantly at me, their eyes shining with the dreamy glitter of unbridled optimism. I felt like the only black cloud in the room. The token pessimist. “So, you bought two thousand acres in Texas, and you’re going to turn it into some kind of charity home for kids … after Justin does a film there?” And Amber’s going to sing the songs for the sound track. Don’t forget that part.

  I swilled a mouthful of coffee, trying to think. What kind of Justin Shay flick could possibly be filmed on a ranch in Texas? Justin’s films were all about chase scenes, high-tech planes, trains, and automobiles, falls from tall buildings, and bad guys with state-of-the-art weaponry.

  The Shay struck a pose with his arms over his chest. Sometimes I wondered if, in his mind, the cameras were rolling twenty-four hours a day. “Not just any film. We’re doing The Horseman.”

  The coffee reversed in my throat and went up my nose, and I spewed into the sink, choking on a combination of liquid, air, and a laugh. “Oh, come on.” Any minute now, he’d tell me I was on Candid Camera. The screenplay for The Horseman was a notorious dog that had been wagging its tail around Hollywood for several years now. Bestselling book, poorly rendered for film by the author, who knew nothing about screenplays but owned the rights and insisted on creative control. The media glow surrounding the book had come and gone, and the time for bringing it to the screen was long past. Aside from that, westerns, particularly contemporary ones, weren’t selling. Audiences wanted flash, action, exotic locations, and political intrigue. The Horseman had none of those things. A man-meets-animal piece, heavy on the emotion, was the last thing Justin needed. “It’s a dog, Justin. Everybody knows that project’s a dog.”

  Justin bounced an answer nonchalantly in my direction. “It won’t be when you get through with it.”

  “Not interested. Not my kind of job.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I’d done. I’d said no to The Shay. Actually, it wasn’t that hard. No. I don’t want to be involved in your latest tip-of-the-brain idea. I have a life of my own (sort of) and I’m going back to it. Everyone has to grow up sooner or later.

  Justin stopped foraging in the grocery bag. “Come on, Nate. Don’t chap my a—” Glancing at Amber, he revised. “Stop holding out on me.”

  Amber’s big blue eyes widened, pleading with me. Her lips fell into an unconscious pout, like she might cry.

  Not even for you, sweetheart. I’m not going to Texas to pen cowboy stories. A man can’t write what he doesn’t know. I know cars, planes, trains, and bad guys named Guido with big guns. Sensitive man-bonds-with-animal-and-meets-girl stuff is not for me. It’s not for Justin, either. This thing’ll flop harder than a fifty-pound mackerel. What producer in his right mind would look at Justin for a part like that?

  “Who’s behind this thing, anyway?” Did I say that? Was that me keeping the dialogue going? “I heard that the last guy who attempted to put it into production went bankrupt trying to find backing for it.” Stop. Halt. Alto. Cease. Don’t ask any more questions. Leave graceful
ly. Get in the car and drive north while there is still time.

  “I am.” Justin had the chutzpah to appear proud of the fact. “I’ve got the rights, and I’ve got the creative control. You can do whatever you need to with the script, Nate.”

  A string of expletives pulsed through the space between my ears. I threw up my hands, crossing the room. “You’ve got to be kidding. What? Have you lost your mind?”

  Justin met me as I opened the back door. Pressing his hand against the frame, he pushed it closed again. “Come on, Nate. Hang with me here. Just come and see the place. Take a look at the script. The plane’s ready. We’ll fly down to Texas, take a long weekend, and check it out. If you don’t like it, you can bail. No hard feelings.”

  “Yeah, right.” I muttered something for which Mama Louise would have made me scrub the kitchen with a toothbrush, and then, “How much are you into this thing for?”

  “Enough.” Justin’s gaze lifted and met mine, and I knew what was next. “Come on, Nate. You’re my family, man. You’re as close to a brother as I’ve got. I bought this project for us.” For a rare moment, I sensed the guy behind the mask, the one who hid from the cameras, who hid from everyone. Sometimes I thought there was more to The Shay than people saw. Sometimes I was convinced he was as one-dimensional as the roles he took on. “I’m sorry about the thing with the car last winter.”

  “You almost got us both killed, Justin.”

  “It was a bad day. I didn’t mean it. Come on. We need this project. We need something that … matters.”

  “Right,” I muttered.

  Amber crossed the room, her flip-flops slap-slapping until she put a hand over my fingers, and then Justin’s, linking us like the wire on an electrical circuit.

  “It’ll be good, you’ll see,” she pleaded.

  Her voice was an annoying buzz outside the rush of my own thoughts. “I didn’t bring any clothes.” I’d thrown shorts and a T-shirt in the car, toothbrush, razor, boxers, and that was it. One change of clothes, on purpose. A measure against exactly what was happening now.