by Lexy Timms
Trudy blushed, as though saying anything at all had been a major effort, and smiled and leaned back against Gloria, as though retreating back into her shell. Gloria hugged her and kissed her cheek. For the next little while they were lost in each other, and the rest of the world just let them be.
Linda called out, “Melissa, you must come meet someone!”
Mel looked up at Brant with her best you-owe-me glare. “International paparazzi and I’m wearing a bright red Target dress and wobbling in shoes like a tightrope walker? This day just keeps getting better and better!”
He kissed her then, right in front of everyone. “Be good,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Why?” she asked, returning the kiss until they both breathless.
“You’ll find out later.”
Mel’s eyebrow rose and she turned, pasting her best smile on her face as Linda dragged a sweaty, fat man with a jovial smile across the room. “Dr. Melissa Bell, I’d like you to meet Johnathan Hopkins, head of programming at Universal.”
“Television division.” His smile was almost embarrassed as he offered her his hand. Almost.
She shook his hand, making all the excited gushing sounds he seemed to be looking for, small talk murmurs designed to allow him to talk about himself. It was easier than she’d expected. Much like handling the resort muckety-mucks. All ego, just waiting to be stroked.
Damn, how she hated that.
She waited for an opening in conversation and politely excused herself for a moment. Brant was wolfing down hors d’oeuvres and nodding at whatever some blonde bombshell was saying. She would’ve been worried had she not recognized the girl as some up and coming actress rumored to be more interested in Gloria’s type than anyone sporting chest hair. Mel captured Brant’s arm, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Please pull the fire alarm, or start one, or something.”
He laughed and shoved her back into the fray, just as Linda appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her hand, ushering her back into the previous conversation.
Mel turned back to face the music, pasting a smile back on her face as the television guy, whatever his name was, said something about a new logo they were experimenting with that was the exact same shade of red as her dress. Jonathan. That was his name!
“Isn’t that remarkable?” Mel said, tugging experimentally at her hand to see if the Queen of Stage and Screen was going to let her go any time soon.
Apparently not.
“You know, with all the fuss about the young girl from the jungle and the scandal concerning that nasty little man with the doctor charity,” Linda said, tucking Mel’s arm through hers, effectively keeping her at her side, “I’m quite surprised that you weren’t the center of attention out there with the vultures when you arrived.”
“Oh?” Johnathan’s face lit up with interest. “What’s all this?”
Mel smiled and answered his questions, killing Brant with her eyes from across the room. Wanting the coward to get back over with her so she had something better to hold on to than Linda Phelps, who was effectively cutting off circulation to her hand.
Again.
Chapter 3
Despite a rough beginning, Mel found herself enjoying the meal. Linda had taken it upon herself to play the convivial hostess, and so had seated herself at the head of the table. That put Brant to her left, and Mel next to him. Gloria and Trudy were across from her; they were the only people she’d met before and, despite herself, Mel took a liking to them both. Trudy was especially charming. She had a way of piping up out of nowhere, saying something insightful and clever, and shutting down again. It was like watching a rather intelligent cuckoo clock.
Johnathan Hopkins sat to Mel’s left, and proved to be a congenial man. He wiped his face excessively, but he was an overweight man wearing a suit and the restaurant wasn’t exactly chilly. He regaled the table with tales of when their elegant hostess was new to Hollywood, and still a hopeful starlet with dreams of fame. They’d met on the set back when Linda’s part was to stand in the background and look pretty in a swimsuit, and he’d been an assistant to an assistant director.
Gloria confessed that she’d grown up with Brant; it hadn’t occurred to her what a legend Linda was until she’d been in college and there was an entire film class devoted to Linda’s work. Up until that point she’d just been Brant’s mom. Maybe a little more glamourous than other mothers, but no less overprotective, and certainly no stranger than most Hollywood parents.
Far from being jealous that her future mother-in-law was getting the attention, Mel encouraged the conversation, feeding it whenever things lagged with pointed questions and conversation starters designed to keep the focus off herself. Linda absorbed the spotlight as naturally as a flower turns to follow the sun, and Mel was free to enjoy her dinner without too many worries other than getting confused over which fork to use.
For a short time, she even forgot the glaring red dress she wore. Unfortunately, the conversation eventually turned to Gloria’s white and purple dress that flowed in a cascade of silk, over to the proper pantsuit that Trudy insisted on wearing saying it was practical. She insisted good-naturedly, which no one seemed to mind when the designer was found out and discussed at length, and back over to the stunning gowns that Linda seemed to have at her fingertips. Her choice on this particular night being something she’d worn once in a movie and had been allowed to keep when filming was completed.
As was often the custom among her sex, most material was felt for softness and smoothness. But no one asked to feel Mel’s dress, nor was anyone bold enough to inquire of the designer. It was the elephant in the dining room, the item pointedly not discussed.
Mel’s dinner that had been so delicious moments before sat heavily in her stomach. She tried uselessly to smooth her crumpled skirt, gave up, and stared at her hands clasped in her lap as dessert was brought out. She barely spared the chocolate confection a glance. She couldn’t have been more out of place if she’d dressed as a Denver Broncos Cheerleader. So, while everyone else raved about dessert, and the master chef himself came out for a round of applause, confessing a life-long love for the great Linda Phelps, Mel breathed deeply and just wished the whole ordeal was over.
It was Johnathan, however, who innocently turned the limelight back on her.
“I understand you’re the one the media was pursuing for so long with this whole jungle girl/face lift thing. I mean, forgive me if I’m over simplifying, and I don’t mean to be dismissive, I just don’t know much more than the usual over-blown reports.”
Mel’s head snapped up. Maybe he’d seen the way her hackles had been raised at the first words, maybe that’s why he was backpedaling in such a charming manner, as though a simple smile would negate his gossipy tone somehow. Yet how was she supposed to respond? Wrong dress. Wrong girl. He might as well have come out and said it. She didn’t belong here.
“Yes,” she said after a minute, aware that one of those lulls had appeared in conversation, that everyone there was waiting to hear her reply. “Yes, that was me; Brant…” Her hand found Brant’s arm again, knowing she was digging in with her fingernails but unable to stop herself. Brant flexed his hand in automatic reflex but held steady, love that he was. “Brant did the surgery, he arranged for everything…”
Johnathan would not be detoured. “I cannot imagine trying to run a hospital in the jungle,” he said and, to her surprise, the look he gave her was sincere awe.
Seriously?
And in that moment, she went from flustered to…well, flustered in a different kind of way.
Jonathan leaned forward, eyes intent as though trying to see the jungle through a lens in his mind, trying to see the story as a filmmaker would, she realized. “Just trying to keep things sanitary must be a constant struggle. How remote were you?”
Mel blinked. “Well, it wasn’t so bad as all that, really. We even had a resort a few miles from us—”
“Wait,” Trudy lay down her spoon with a clatter, ignorin
g the last morsel of cake which Gloria stole gleefully. “What resort?”
“The Greens,” Mel answered with a shrug, picturing the European-style monstrosity, thinking it something hardly worth fussing over.
“We stayed there!” the quiet girl nearly exploded, and bounced once in her chair. She turned to Gloria, grabbing her arm so hard that she almost lost the bit of cake on her fork. “Do you remember about three years ago, we had that weekend free and wanted to escape?”
“The one in Belize?” Gloria asked, holding her fork out of range of the enthusiastic girl, squeaking a little in dismay as the cake tumbled…and missed her dress by inches, landing instead on the floor.
“Yes!” Trudy bounced again, “the one with the greasy manager and the woman at the front counter who—”
“…kept listening to all the outgoing phone calls!” Gloria laughed. “Oh, she was horrendous. Do you know her?” Bless her, Gloria rambled for several minutes, taking the attention from Mel. Again. Giving her room to breathe.
“I’ve never been there,” Linda murmured as she spooned sugar into her after-dinner coffee. “But I do recall a time when I was scouting with William. He wasn’t head of the studio then, of course, but we had a deal for a movie that the director wanted shot in… Nigeria, I think it was. It was a western—can you imagine? Well, he and I traveled out there with this director and found a little hotel…” And the queen of the screen was once again doing what she did best, which was stealing the show.
The remainder of dinner passed, and Mel survived all of it, and even at the end found herself enjoying the stories behind some of her favorite movies. She never fully relaxed, though, too aware of how badly she didn’t fit in. While it was fun to visit the world of Hollywood legends, it wasn’t her world, and that was only underscored that much more when it came time to leave.
They gathered for final farewells, adjusting wraps and patting hairstyles into place before queuing up to run the gauntlet of photographers and screaming so-called reporters whose names graced bylines of rags usually seen at supermarket checkouts. To her surprise, Johnathan pulled Mel aside and murmured, “I really would like to know more about your work, young lady,” and slipped her a card. “Please, call my office, lunch is on me. I would love to hear as much about it as you can tell me.”
“Thank… thank you,” Mel said and looked down at the card. There was only a name and a phone number on heavy cardboard, each letter embossed and outlined tastefully in gold. Nothing more. She slipped it into her clutch with a kind of shy wonder, unsure whether she was going to follow up on his offer. But his interest hadn’t been the stuff of the sensationalism that she and Maria had been subjected to not all that long ago. But before she could ask what he had in mind, whether he was talking documentary, docudrama, or something else completely, he was leaving, bowing elegantly to the crowd, his laugh booming out with such absolute joy and delight that she couldn’t help but smile in return.
“Goodnight all!” Johnathan twirled his hat on one finger before dropping it upon his head. “I’ll try to distract them! They don’t know who I am, but maybe they’ll just go after anything that moves!” He laughed at his own joke and charged through the front door, with a jaunty wave and more life and energy than a man half his age. Mel caught a glimpse of him on the other side of the crowd of gawkers, standing on the sidewalk rather nonplussed. He passed right through the throng unnoticed. He looked so disappointed Mel had to stifle a laugh.
Oddly, as the paparazzi clamored and screamed for Linda and Gloria, one or two screamed “DR. LAYTON!” It threw her, not realizing that Brant carried his own fame and followers, despite the way she’d seen the female patients at his office fawn over him. To her complete shock, someone yelled “DR. BELL! OVER HERE!” and she was so flustered that she made the mistake of turning her head in that direction, and was instantly blinded by flashing cameras, and wondered just what ‘Jungle Girl’ headline was going to follow her now.
* * *
They were halfway home before the spots dancing in her eyes faded away.
“How does your mother do that?” she asked, pressing her fingertips to closed eyelids. “She can stand there and just look into those flashing lights and not even blink.”
“Years of practice,” Brant said with a laugh. “I think she feeds off it.”
“Are you okay to drive?”
“I learned at a very early age to never look up when they start calling my mother’s name.” He reached for her hand, bringing her fingertips to his lips, brushing a kiss over each knuckle. “I’m sorry she dominated the conversation. I tried to keep her talking to me so she wouldn’t… but she’s…”
“She’s Linda Phelps,” Mel said without rancor. “I didn’t mind in the least. I was surrounded by people I didn’t know, and if she wants the attention she can have all of it.”
“You didn’t like the night?”
She hesitated in answering. “No, it’s not that. I mean, at first it wasn’t great, but Gloria is so nice and Trudy is so nice…” She shrugged and looked out the window.
“What?”
“Nothing really,” she said quietly. “It’s the shoes, and the dress. I’d never worn it, just dragged it around with me for years… I had no idea it was this uncomfortable. I just want to get out of it.”
“I’d be happy to help.” She could hear the smile in his voice, and just then it was the wrong thing completely. Mel turned her head and looked at him in the dancing shadows of the headlights and streetlights. “Where were you today when your mother had me kidnapped and taken to bridal hell?”
Brant laughed. “It was that bad?”
Mel bit her lip to keep back all the words she wanted to say. Bad? It had been humiliating. His mother had made her feel things she hadn’t felt about herself since the accident. Back in the days when she’d thought herself the most idiotic of med students. It had taken years to lay aside the view of herself, only to have it all undone in the course of one day. One single day with his mother.
No. There was no way to say any of that.
“Just tell me. Please.”
He seemed to spend an awful lot of time changing lanes, using turn signals with exaggerated care. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, the laughter gone. “I just had some business arrangements to make is all.”
Mel let it sit for a moment. Waited to see if anything more was forthcoming. When it wasn’t, she sighed, and asked though she knew she probably shouldn’t. “I thought you were no longer at that office. Are you starting another?”
“Not that. Just… trying to maintain the family money. Investments and so on. Now that I’m between practices, I’m trying to learn the business side of things.”
But you hate the business side of things.
This, too, was something she couldn’t say. So many words better left unsaid. Mel sighed, choosing silence for the remainder of the drive home. Hoping that he would be the one to speak, to clarify things, to apologize, to do something other than sit there and do nothing more than drive. Only, his silence added to hers, leaving no room for words at all until they pulled into the driveway and stopped at the front door.
“I see we got here before your mother,” she said quietly, staring up at the darkened windows.
“Are you upset about her staying here? It is her house.”
“Yes—yes, it is.” Mel didn’t wait for him to come around, though he was already reaching for her door when she opened it herself and hopped out onto the pavement. “And I’m grateful that she took a guest room so we didn’t have to move out of the master bedroom.”
Yet this, too, was a lie. She wasn’t grateful. She wanted this to be their home. Brant’s and hers. She wanted what she’d had for the last three weeks. She wanted her mother-in-law-to-be to stay at a hotel or, better yet, go back to Paris and leave them alone.
She brushed past Brant, ignoring his outstretched hand, and hurried into the house. Her heels clacked on marble floors, each step as loud as a gunshot in th
e cavernous space. To be honest, she didn’t want this home. She didn’t want anything except that space where there was only Brant and herself. She was being a brat, even in her own thoughts, and hated herself for it, but hadn’t figured out how to stop the downward spiral that had started with That. Damned. Dress.
She flung off the dress before she even reached the bedroom, wadding it into a ball and throwing it ahead of her as she came into the room. It flew apart and fell before the bed, sleeves and skirt mimicking the murder victim at a crime scene as she furiously began to scratch at her skin where the dress had touched her.
“It’s like wearing a dress made of nettles,” she muttered, giving the offending cloth a solid kick that only served to move it an inch or so, rearranging the folds around her foot, and tangling in the strap of her shoes. With a scream, she bent to free herself, taking grim satisfaction in hearing the fabric tear. This time when she flung the dress it landed in the wastebasket, where it could stay for all she cared.
She jumped when his hand touched her waist. She captured it with hers. Held it in place because the idea of him moving it was unbearable. He leaned over and kissed her neck.
“Brant.” She pulled away, half twisted to face him. “I’m really sensitive right now. My skin, I mean. It’s… the dress… was so…” She shook her head.
“What’s wrong?” Brant asked, and reached for her a second time. She caught his hand and held it, surprised at just how much she didn’t want him to touch her right now.
“You don’t get it. Here I was… stuffing myself into a red burlap sack and parading myself around with movie stars! I’m walking in heels like a child playing dress up. Hell, I AM A CHILD playing dress up, only it’s formal dress and I’m expected to know how to do things and how to be something I’m not!”
Brant stared at her, eyes hurt and confused. “You don’t have to be anything but you. That’s who I want to marry.”
“Yes!” Mel said a little more loudly than she’d planned. “That who you want! It’s not who your mother wants to marry!”
