Talk of the Town

by Lisa Wingate

  “How did you … ? Where …?” I looked over the edge, and David was below, waiting in line to purchase food. He bought a caramel apple on a stick. A television crew walked up the midway with cameras, and David prepared to give an interview. Ursula slipped the apple from David’s hand, took a bite, and smiled up at me.

  “Don’t worry,” Carter whispered. “It’s only a dream.” I turned my face toward his, and he kissed me as we spun upward into a shower of stars.

  The metal cowboy smiled, and atop his hat, the blue gorilla smiled, as well.

  The gears of the Ferris wheel knocked, then buzzed, then knocked again, a steady, rhythmic sound. Someone below called my name.

  “Amaaanda-Lee … Amaaanda-Lee … you awake in there, hon?”

  The Ferris wheel, and the midway, David, Ursula, Carter all vanished. I opened my eyes and took in Elvis, larger than life on a black velvet tapestry.

  I was vaguely aware of my cell phone vibrating toward the edge of the bed and someone knocking on the door. My face felt crusty, my eyes swollen and sore. My cheek was stuck to something furry and plush. For a moment I thought of the blue gorilla and drowsily considered the possibility that I’d fallen asleep with it.

  “Amanda-Lee? Amanda-Lee-ee? Hon, it’s Donetta. I just wanted to check on ye-ew. It’s almost eight-thirty. Don’t you need to be gettin’ outta bed?”

  Eight-thirty? I jerked upright, taking in the room, my computer on the floor, the fish in a bathroom glass, the anatomical alarm clock, flashing 8:30, 8:30, 8:31. My cell phone vibrated on the bed again and everything came back to me in a rush—the fair, the roller coaster, Carter, the fish, my computer, Paula’s instant message, the painful revelation about David …

  “Amaaanda-Lee-ee, you all ri-ight in there?”

  Pushing off the bed, I stumbled, stiff-legged, toward the door. When I opened it, Donetta was on the other side with cinnamon rolls and a glass of orange juice. “I thought ye-ew might want somethin’ to eat, hon,” she said, then inclined her head to one side and frowned sympathetically. “Ye-ew all right, sweetie? You don’t look so good this mornin’. Ye-ew sleep all right last ni-ight?”

  “Fine, thanks.” I set the rolls on an ornate white and gold washstand by the door. “A little too well, I guess. Thanks for waking me up. I can’t believe I overslept.”

  Donetta peered past me into the room, curiously taking in the fully made bed, the computer on the floor, all of my things in a compact pile by the chair, as if staged for a quick exit. “It’s no problem at all, darlin’. We were just worried, that’s all. Carter come by on his way to the café for breakfast and said he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of you since yesterday evenin’, and then I called Imagene, and she said you had a big day ahead today, and we figured I might-should wake you up.”

  “Yes, thank you for checking on me.” I stepped back from the door, preparing to throw on some clothes, then get busy making final preparations for the day and checking on the crew’s ETA. That was probably the crew chief, Rodney, calling on the phone right now. Or Ursula.

  I turned toward the phone as it buzzed a second ring. It could be Paula, calling about David… .

  My stomach sank and fresh tears prickled against my throat, stinging like salt in an open wound.

  Donetta’s hand touched my arm, rubbed up and down with the faint scratch of long fingernails. “Is somethin’ wrong, hon?

  You look like somebody died.”

  Somebody did. Me. Mandalay Florentino, happily engaged girl, killed in a train wreck of my own making. Scattered around the wreckage lay scores of details—wedding plans to cancel, a dreaded call to my family, an even worse call to David. What would he say? Would he deny everything, try to explain it away, or just admit that while I was planning our wedding, he was making sure there wasn’t something better to be found. Someone better.

  I wanted to crawl back onto the hairy bed and bury myself in it. Why was all of this happening at once?

  Swallowing the tears, I gave myself a mental shove. Time to pull it together, Mandalay Florentino. Quit marching in the pity parade; step up and salvage what’s left of your life. It wasn’t too late to do a fabulous job on Amber’s hometown segment, return to LA in triumph, and help Amber and her little brothers in the process. The personal wreckage would have to wait until I had time for it. At least I still had my career. For now.

  “I’m fine,” I assured Donetta. “I just didn’t mean to sleep so late. I’ve got to … a lot to do today.”

  She nodded in a conspiratorial way. Glancing up and down the hall, she leaned close and said, “Can I come in for a minute, hon? I just talked to Imagene, and we’ve run into a little hitch this morning.”

  I stepped back, allowing her into the room when what I really wanted to do was slam the door shut. I couldn’t confront one more hitch today. Please, God, no more hitches, okay? My fiancé is trying to date my maid of honor over the internet. That’s enough for one twenty-four-hour period, all right? Please? I was surprised to find myself praying, but I probably shouldn’t have been. Desperate times breed fervent faith, my grandmother always said. These were desperate times. If my career tanked today, I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t. Please help me make this segment a success… .

  Donetta must have sensed that I was close to the breaking point. She interlaced her fingers and folded her hands against her chest as if she were praying, too. “Imagene and I got it all figgered out. I been makin’ phone calls, and everyone in town wants to hay-elp.”

  Making phone calls? To everyone in town? My mouth dropped open. Donetta took my hand between hers and patted and rubbed it vigorously. “Now don’t panic, hon, but thay-re’s reporters downstairs. A lot of reporters… .”

  Panic, why should I panic? Just because Amber’s hometown segment would be ruined, along with her chances of making it into the Final Showdown? Just because she and her brothers would continue to live in poverty? Just because Ursula would kill me, then terminate my employment, and I’d be lucky to get a job entering news copy into the teleprompter somewhere?

  “We got a plan,” Donetta went on. “It’s gonna sound a little crazy, but we think it’ll work. First of all, y’all go ahead and git yourself dressed and git your things together, then just wait here until I call for you. Don’t dare go downstairs, and stay away from the windows, because if those folks see you, they’ll be all over you like stink on a skunk. They’re watchin’ the hotel, the car, everything. Bob said some of them’s hid out behind pallets and trash cans in the back alley, tryin’ to figure out if Amber’s in the hotel with Justin Shay.”

  She paused to check her watch, holding her arm out and squinting at the numbers. “In about forty-seven minutes, the mail wagon’ll come through town and pull into the auto shop out back, and then …” She continued on with a plan that sounded like an ill-advised cross between a Grisham novel and a scene from Petticoat Junction. My mind rushed to keep up, hurriedly taking in details that included me stowing away in the back of a mail truck, O.C. tracking down Amber’s grandfather, the Baptist pastor creatively misleading reporters into thinking that Amber might be marrying Justin Shay this afternoon at First Baptist Church in Daily, some woman named Lulu locking the gates to her RV park, a man named Doyle waiting until Amber and the crew had arrived at Imagene’s house, then stalling a gravel truck in the road so as to prevent anyone who didn’t know the back roads from getting to Imagene’s farm.

  I let my head fall back and exhaled slowly. “This is never going to work.” Pacing a few steps toward the front windows, I peeked into the once-quiet street, now filled with cars, media vans, RVs, and satellite trucks with logos on the sides. Most of them weren’t local. Overnight, the Amber-and-Justin story had mushroomed, attracting the interest of every tabloid newspaper, broadcast magazine, and entertainment show in the country. I didn’t even want to think about what Amber had done to arouse such media attention. Maybe she really was planning to be Justin Shay’s next wife, or victim, which was pretty much the same thing.
He’d have her sign a prenup, and in a year she’d be left with nothing but a tabloid history, a broken heart, and a ruined life.

  By the door, Donetta cleared her throat with determination. “Ye-ew just go on ahead and git dressed, and let us handle the rest. Some folks ’round here might not seem like the sharpest knives in the drawer, but I’ll stack Daily people up against a bunch of outsiders any day of the we-eek.”

  She departed in a blur of big hair and red lipstick, leaving behind a cloud of perfume. My cell phone buzzed again, and I grabbed it as a text message came through. Paula. She was in a meeting this morning but she wanted to make sure I was all right.

  I messaged a reply while fishing through my suitcase for clothes. Doing OK. Big shoot today. Overslept. Talk later. Love you—M

  Paula sent back kisses and hugs, and three little words, girlfriend to girlfriend. Men are scum.

  Apparently Paula’s latest internet date hadn’t worked out too well, either. When I got back to LA, it would be just Paula and me again, single in the city, eating dinner at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant she’d discovered and bemoaning the fact that the fickle butterfly of true love never seemed to land in our rose garden.

  What a depressing idea. I didn’t want to go back to hanging out with Paula, whining about the lack of decent, available men in LA in the over-thirty set. I didn’t want to be unhappily unengaged. I wanted to rewind four days to Paula and me, jubilantly discussing bridesmaids’ dresses and wedding plans over lunch under an umbrella in sunny California. This time, I’d stay away from Madame Murae and her hexed roast beef.

  Ah, love awaits. Boy, was she ever wrong.

  The phone blurred before my eyes as I checked the list of missed calls. Three from Rodney, my crew chief for the Amber segment, one from a number I didn’t recognize, two from Ursula, and one from David early this morning. I thought of David, calling to say good morning, and my heart failed to do the engaged-girl handspring. Instead, it crashed against the pavement and lay bruised. David wasn’t who I thought he was.

  As soon as the sentence crossed my mind, I realized it wasn’t true. David was exactly what I’d always feared he might be—an unsettled, emotionally disconnected, self-focused individual with one bad marriage behind him already. He wasn’t looking to form a partnership of hearts and lives; he was looking to take someone into his life, without having to give up any part of himself.

  The truth was that I’d known it all along. I’d lived in denial for six months. No matter how much I wanted it to be, our relationship wasn’t love at first sight. It was two people trying to put together puzzle pieces that didn’t fit, trying to ease the fear of growing older alone, lacking the faith to continue searching for that one perfect soul mate in a confusing world of possibilities.

  I laid the phone on the vanity, wiped my eyes, and got ready to take a shower. I had to pull myself together before getting on with the business at hand. Rodney’s calls undoubtedly meant something was wrong—Rodney didn’t call just to vent and issue threats like Ursula did. Right now, the crew would be high in the air, somewhere over the southwest, with their cell phones turned off at the pilot’s request.

  By the time I exited the shower, the phone was ringing again. Wrapping the towel around myself, I picked it up and answered. The number on the screen was listed as unknown.

  “Mandalay Florentino.”

  “Geez, Ms. Florentino, where’ve you been?”

  “Butch?” The midwestern accent and the use of Ms. Florentino immediately revealed the caller’s identity. Nobody except Amber, and her hopelessly polite former handler, Butch, ever referred to me as Ms. Florentino.

  “Yes, ma’am, it’s Butch. Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to call you all morning on Rodney’s phone.”

  “You’re with the crew?” Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Ursula fire you two days ago?

  “Not anymore. I’m on an air phone now.” Leave it to Butch to hopscotch into useless details. Amber and Butch got along so well because they were equally clueless.

  “Butch, what’s going on? Why are you calling me? Where’s Rodney and the crew?”

  “They’re on their way. I got an earlier flight to Austin. I’m about to land.”

  “Butch, Ursula said she’d fired you. Why are you flying to Austin?” My mind rushed to sketch out some scenario that made sense.

  “I got rehired this morning. Right after they found out Amber’d disappeared.”

  “Amber did what?” Please tell me you didn’t say disappeared. “Butch, where’s Amber?” The line clicked and filled with static. I clutched my phone tighter, imagining that I could pull Butch through the ether. “Butch, are you there? Where’s Amber?”

  “Nobody knows. When the limo showed up for her this morning, she wasn’t in her hotel room. The desk clerk said she went out the back door last night with her suitcases, and the parking attendant saw her get in a private limo. She left a message at the studio saying she had something to do and she’d be in Daily for the shoot Saturday noon. The paparazzi have gone nuts. I bet there’s ten of them on the plane with me. Word on the street is that Justin Shay’s private plane left the airport this morning and filed a flight plan for Texas.”

  Closing the toilet lid, I wrapped the towel tighter and sank down, my wet hair dripping little streams of water down my back. When I caught up with Amber Anderson, I was going to wring her scrawny neck. How could she do this? Didn’t she realize how much was riding on this day?

  Butch went on talking. “So, Ursula calls me this morning and figures maybe I can find Amber, and the next thing I know, I’ve got my job back.”

  “Ursula’s in on this?” A tiny, foolish part of me had been clinging to the hope that, since Ursula was in New York for Cal Preston’s segment, Amber’s disappearance had been kept between Butch, Rodney, and the crew. I should have known better. The crew didn’t breathe without first asking Ursula’s permission.

  “She’s on her way … to Texas.” The words were an apologetic whine. Butch knew that Ursula on her way to anywhere was not good news. He finished with a hopeful, “If she can get a flight out of New York City. They’ve got bad weather there right now—no planes taking off.”

  An impossible heaviness settled into my chest. This situation was falling apart faster than I, and the whole town of Daily, Texas, could rake it back together. “Butch, we have to find Amber before Ursula gets here,” I said, secretly praying for airline delays, overbooked flights, more inclement weather between here and New York—anything that would delay Ursula’s arrival or, better yet, prevent her from arriving altogether. This sweet, sleepy town wasn’t ready for Ursula Uberstach, and more important, Ursula wasn’t ready for Daily, Texas. The two would collide like opposing storm fronts—hot and cold air clashing somewhere high in the atmosphere, producing a disaster of global proportions. “Butch? … Butch? … Are you still there?”

  He didn’t answer. Static overtook the line. Undoubtedly, Butch’s plane was coming in for a landing. Maybe he’d get lucky and trip over Amber at the airport.

  I tried not to think about where Amber might be as I braced up my sagging moxie and called Ursula’s cell number. Cold sweat beaded on my neck and joined the tiny rivers dripping down my back. One ring, two, three. The tidal wave of tension dissolved into a pool of relief when her voice mail picked up. Best to keep the message short and to the point, considering that the details would sound ridiculous. “Mandalay, checking in. Everything’s set on location. As soon as Amber gets here, we’ll start shooting. I talked to Butch. He thinks he knows where to find her. I’m headed to the location now, but I’ll have my cell if you need to contact me.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I quickly hung up, hoping Ursula was stranded on a tarmac somewhere.

  With the obligatory Ursula call out of the way, I hurriedly dressed and prepared for the day. Standing at the mirror, clipping up my hair, still curly and damp, I had a sense of the surreal, as if all of this must be some sort of strange dream—on
e of those nightmares in which disaster looms and you try to run, but your legs won’t move. Surely, any moment I would wake up, gasping for air with my heart pounding. I’d realize none of this was happening, and then I’d lie back down on the bed and wait for the morning to melt into focus.

  The hinges next door squealed as Carter went into his room. Exiting the bathroom, I stood momentarily in the alcove. For an instant, I felt warm and settled. My cell phone rang again, and I answered it, thinking of Butch.

  David was on the other end. I could hear an engine revving as he said hello. He was probably on the highway somewhere up the coast, headed for the posh party of his female client.

  “Hey, baby,” he yelled. “Hang on, let me roll up the window.”

  I waited for the background noise to quiet. Even after it had, I didn’t know what to say.

  David was in a talkative mood. He usually was when business had gone well, or when we were out on the boat. When David was in his element, he had the charisma of a politician and the charm of a Casanova. “Tried to call you earlier this morning. How’s the Texas job going? Think you’ll be home by Sunday? The boat’s ready for a day out.”

  For a nanosecond, I considered not saying anything about Paula or Mydestiny.com. Part of me wanted to just leave things as they were, forget the past, concentrate on the future.

  What kind of a future can you build on lies, Mandalay? I knew it was true. Any future David and I built would be like the biblical house constructed on sand.

  “David, I have to ask you something important.”

  “Yeah? More wedding stuff?”

  I took a deep breath, then let the words rush out. “No. Not about the wedding. I want to know why you still have a profile on Mydestiny.com.” Please, please don’t lie this time. Please tell me the truth.

  He paused and I heard the car downshift. The engine quieted to a mild rumble. “Oh, that’s old. No big deal.”