Tangled Hearts (Evermore 4 Book Box Set)

by ANDREA SMITH

  “Very limited knowledge of the language,” he admitted. “Why?”

  “Well, it seems our Richard Blumfield has a mistress with whom he’s fathered a son, Luis, and has a daughter on the way,” I replied, beaming.

  “Bingo!” Malcolm said, holding his hand up to high-five me. “Well done, Neely. Mrs. Blumfield is going to be very pleased with your work.”

  Chapter 2

  “Mr. Montego called you again…twice,” Jazzy said, as I stepped inside our apartment. “Are you sure you don’t want me to give him your cell number? You know, if you weren’t so damn secretive about your number, we could get rid of the expense of having this landline.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you keep telling me that, Jaz. I cover the landline bill, so no worries.”

  She jumped off the sofa and headed into the kitchen. “I just don’t get it, Neel,” she continued, grabbing bottled water from the fridge. “I mean I know you’re making good money, but still, if we pooled our resources and cut out some of the non-essentials, we could get a nicer place, you know?”

  I sighed, collapsing down on our overstuffed sofa and hugging one of the throw pillows to my chest. “It will happen, Jaz, we’re almost there. I graduate in five weeks with my Associate’s Degree, and then I’m sure Malcolm will put me on full-time, at least I hope he will.”

  She plopped down beside me, taking a long drink of her cold water, “Is that what you really want to do?” she asked. “You’re not going for your Bachelor’s?”

  I shrugged. “Not right now. I want to start making real money and do what I love: take pictures. Why not?”

  She sighed, shaking her head. I knew where she was going with this. I could read Jazzy every bit as well as she could read me. I was waiting for her to follow up with her usual ‘you’re not meeting your full potential, Neely.’

  “It’s just that I don’t think you’re really living your dream, babe. You could make better money and take lots more pictures if you’d call Montego back, you know?”

  There it was. Worded a little differently, but the same message rang out loud and clear. I chose to ignore the bait. I didn’t want to go there. I grabbed the remote from the coffee table, and instantly powered the television on. “Shit, why didn’t you tell me it was this late, Jazz,” I bitched finding the station that hosted the show I watched every Wednesday night at ten o’clock. Only now, I’d missed twenty-two minutes of it, and had forgotten to record it.

  Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

  “Oh for shit’s sake!” she snapped, slamming her water bottle down on the coffee table. “You and that fucking show. I swear to God, I’m starting to worry about you. This…this obsession or whatever it is with Seth has gone on long enough, don’t you think?”

  “Shh,” I hissed, “Wait until the commercial if you’re going to bitch at me, okay? I’ve already missed a third of it.”

  She sighed loudly and got to her feet, mumbling something under her breath about me and my goddamn fatal attraction as she went to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. It wasn’t anything new from her. Jazzy really needed to refresh her script.

  Okay, so yeah, I watched Seth’s new show and even recorded the episodes on the VCR when I didn’t forget to set the timer like tonight. What was so bad about that?

  He had a starring role in Bangor. A big step up from his occasional appearances on Lotus Pointe, that was for damn sure. I was glad he’d left that show. I hoped with all my heart that it had left the producers in a lurch having to replace that character for the third time.

  Bangor was pretty interesting. One of the few shows I watched religiously, and not just because Seth played the character, Robbie Spencer, the middle child in the family. His character had an older sister, Dee, who was a doctor, and a younger sister, Sally, who was a wild child. Their mother had passed away and the father was a veterinarian who practiced in the basement of their home in Bangor, Maine.

  Robbie was kind of reckless, but in a non-criminal way which I found kind of endearing. He was twenty-one, the same age as Seth was now, and had a boyish, rakish charm. Seth fit the part perfectly in my opinion, and my eyes were glued to him each time he was in a scene.

  I wondered if they really filmed parts of this in Maine. The scenery at the beginning was breathtakingly beautiful. It was a treat to see real trees that actually changed color in the fall. Not like out here. The contrast was refreshing, and it made me ache at times to go somewhere like Bangor, so I could see the lush autumn foliage and smell the crisp, clear scent of fall in the air.

  I also liked the fact that, up to this point, Robbie had no romantic entanglements going on in the show. He was busy trying to book rock bands for the bar he’d just purchased, and working all kinds of hours because he couldn’t afford to hire additional help.

  I couldn’t control myself. I would always keep tabs on Seth Drake. Part of me wanted to see how far his star would rise, the other part was just because I deserved the raw pain I felt seeing him every week on television, and knowing that he wasn’t mine anymore. Maybe he never had been.

  Jazzy referred to it as ‘puppy love gone psycho.’

  Whatever.

  When the show ended, I immediately set the VCR to tape it each week. I stood up and stretched, a yawn escaped and then I noticed the scrap of paper with Jerry Montego’s name and number scribbled on it still on the coffee table. As if there weren’t a number of these placed conspicuously around the apartment from previous calls over the past couple of weeks.

  Why wouldn’t I return his call? It wasn’t as if Jazz hadn’t been nagging me to do so. After all, she’d bragged me up to Montego. She knew him from some club where wannabe cinematographers (like Jazz), camera, and boom operators hung out after hours.

  Jazz was taking online classes and working now. She’d finished an internship last semester, and landed a job at the studio where she’d interned. She worked full-time and handled her studies. I was impressed she wanted to go on for her Bachelor’s, but I knew I wasn’t going to perfect my craft any more than I had by taking a bunch of frilly General Ed classes. I’d managed to complete the curriculum that fed my passion for photography. And that was what counted.

  Jazzy wasn’t exactly realizing her dream at the moment, but I applauded her determination. Right now, she was the right hand gal for one of the associate producers of a daytime soap. She said she’d do her time, make friends and connections, and eventually get where she wanted to be.

  I knew she would. She had the drive and tenacity needed to accomplish damn near anything she put her mind to. I, on the other hand, was in a rut and I knew it.

  I hadn’t painted or sketched anything for what felt like forever. I had lost my motivation to do any of it. My muse was gone from my life.

  Oh, that was bullshit and I damn well knew it. I had painted lots of different subject matter before Seth Drake had broken my heart the final time. Or had I broken his as well? Is that what we were? Two human beings with fractured hearts for no damn good reason?

  But I had no real proof that Seth’s heart had been broken. Just a look. One soulful look into my eyes that afternoon, when his beautiful eyes had flashed a kaleidoscope of turbulent emotions when the harsh words spewed from my trembling lips and landed between us. I’d even surprised myself.

  Disbelief. Horror. Sadness. Regret. And finally, cold hard resolve. That was what I’d left him with that day. That was what I felt he deserved I supposed.

  Now I wasn’t sure.

  I had every right to be angry and feel betrayed by the events leading up to my outburst, that much I knew. But maybe not entirely at him. It was him I had lashed out at because, in all of the drama that had gone down that afternoon, he had been the common denominator. But he sure as hell hadn’t been the instigator.

  It was water under the bridge now. Why did I continue to allow all of it to torment me? I hadn’t seen or heard from him since, with the exception of his stints on television, or in the entertainment
media.

  Yeah, he was all over that and I was convinced it was God’s way of punishing me for my sins. Of course, nobody forced me to watch Bangor, or to pick up the gossip rags that occasionally had his picture side-barred on the cover. Sometimes he was even with his latest flame. They always changed, and when they did, so did I. Thank God Jazz wasn’t on to me there.

  I ran my fingers through my auburn locks. This was a new color for me. I changed my damn hair color every time Seth changed girlfriends. I admit it. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t probe my inner soul for a reason. I simply changed it to the same shade as his flavor of the month. People began to think of it as my signature thing, including Jazzy.

  “Girl, I swear you’re lucky your hair hasn’t fallen out yet with all those home dye jobs you give yourself,” she’d commented more than once. “Why don’t you pick a color and stick with it for awhile?”

  I didn’t dare divulge my rationale for the recent change, because Seth had been seen and photographed by paparazzi at a New York bistro with Megan Call, an actress who had played a guest role on Bangor. Not as a love interest of Robbie on the show—no, she played some damsel in distress that had brought a dog she’d hit by her car into Dr. Spencer’s veterinarian’s office, freaking out with the comatose dog in her arms, and screaming, “Where’s the doctor? This dog needs a doctor immediately!”

  Seth’s line had been, “Calm down. He’s upstairs, I’ll get him.”

  Were those lines enough to generate some Hollywood spark?

  Maybe.

  Or maybe it was simply two actors having a bite together, but I wasn’t going to take any chances, thus the dye job. The fact that the paparazzi had been on it told me it was likely something more than just two colleagues having lunch.

  Fucking paparazzi.

  Slime of the earth.

  Bottom feeders, the whole lot of them.

  I went upstairs and peeled my clothes off, grabbing clean undies and a tee from my dresser. I went to the bathroom and grabbed a quick shower. I had an early class in the morning and had about an hour of cramming to do before I hit the sheets.

  Just as I pulled my bedspread and blanket back to climb beneath them, my eye caught a note that had been purposely left on my pillow.

  Jazzy

  Call Jerry Montego, Neely. He’s the best and he wants YOU, girl.

  I sighed and went over to the dresser where my cell phone waited. She was right. There was no good reason not to call Montego, and I knew it. Then why had I avoided doing so?

  I knew the reason, and maybe to most people, it was a pretty stupid reason. Most wannabe professional photographers having no more training and experience than I possessed would jump at the chance to be taken in by Jerry Montego. He was, after all, considered big time in LA.

  And, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t met him before, although the circumstances for which that happened still left a dull ache in the pit of my stomach.

  I stood there with my cell clutched in my hand and forced my mind to go back and replay that scene for the hundredth time in my head because I had to, at least one more time, before I dialed Montego’s number. I had to see if I could at least try to shake the stigma of it all, because if I couldn’t, there was no way I’d ever make this call.

  Chapter 3

  April 18, 1998

  I’ve never actually been on the set of a television show. It’s not as if Tiffany hasn’t invited me like a million times before, but it’s just never appealed to me.

  Immediately after I arrive at the gate, I am taken by some shuttle service to the huge back lot that has rows of separate sound stages marked with numbers. They look like airplane hangars, nothing fancy from the outside. But next to the one we pull up to, there are several trailers lined up beside it. Apparently, those trailers are where the actors stay until they are called to the set.

  I’m directed to Tiffany’s trailer, where she’s been anxiously awaiting my arrival. “Oh good, you made it. Come on, let’s get you to wardrobe and make-up. You have a one o’clock call so we’ve got plenty of time to have them do you up nicely for your scene. Aren’t you excited, Neely? Do you know how many real actresses would love to play this scene with Seth Drake…er, I mean Austin Benedict?” she asks, giving one of her schoolgirl giggles for effect. “I mean, yeah, you only have one line, but that close-up kiss? Plenty of girls in the business would do that scene for free, and you’re gonna get paid!”

  “Whoa!” I practically scream, stopping dead in my tracks, “Hold up right there.”

  She whirls around to look over her shoulder at me where I’ve stopped on the concrete pad outside of her trailer. “What?”

  “You didn’t say one damn thing about my having to…to kiss Seth!”

  She looks genuinely confused, which is all part of her acting abilities, I’m sure. Not buying it.

  “That was not part of this deal,” I continue, not bothering to hide my anger. She has duped me on purpose. Whatever game Tiffany is playing is lost on me. To think nobody else could’ve fit the bill for one lousy scene seems ludicrous now that I’ve given it some thought. “You told me the scene is being shot with my back to the camera, you said nothing about a kiss. How could they even do a close-up of a kissing scene if my back’s to the camera anyway?”

  Then she got flustered. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Neely. What is the big deal? You’ve kissed him before, haven’t you?”

  “That is not the point, Tiffany, and you know it! You deceived me on the phone last night. Why?”

  She looks down at her painted toenails that are peeping through the strappy heels she’s wearing. “Well, I thought you might not agree to do the scene if I told you that part, but really Neely, after all this time I don’t see why you’re acting like it’s some big deal anyway. You have your back to the camera when you say your line. Then Seth moves in for the kiss. At that point, Camera 3 will zoom in from the side for a close-up, so the audience won’t really see anything other than your lips pressed to his in a kiss. Then the A.D. will yell, “Cut!” and the scene is over. Then you can leave.”

  “I should leave right now!” I snap. “I can’t believe how duplicitous you’ve been. Why would you do something like this to me, Tiffany?”

  She starts wringing her hands in despair. “You can’t go Neely, please, you just can’t,” she begs. “You see, I’m making my directorial debut on this season finale of Lotus Pointe. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but it really is a big deal. If this falls through, I’ll be in big trouble with the producers. Having experience directing is something every actor wants on his or her resume. It implies versatility in the business. This might be the only chance I get and I can’t blow it. And your daddy, he was so excited and proud when I told him you agreed to do this. Please, I’m begging you; don’t disappoint him no matter what you think of me.”

  Oh she just had to do that, didn’t she? She’s playing the Daddy card. Something tells me there’s more to this story than what she’s sharing with me. Is it possible her days on this television series are numbered? Maybe that’s why she pitched this to me so passionately.

  I give it some thought, trying to rationalize how this might be to my advantage, not withstanding disappointing my father. If Tiffany loses her role, there would be more financial burden placed on my father. In turn, it might have ramifications on his ability to foot my college tuition and I need to finish college.

  She’s watching me intently, chewing on her bottom lip. “Well, will you stay?” she asks meekly.

  I sigh. “Yeah, okay. But I hope you don’t have any more surprises in store today, Tiffany, because I swear to God, I won’t think twice about walking off that set if you do. I don’t give a damn about this show, about Seth Drake, or about your directorial debut for that matter.”

  She nods, but I don’t miss the fact that her eyes have turned to ice. “I promise. No more surprises.”

  Two hours and ten minutes later she calls me to the se
t. The lady from wardrobe, Nellie, I think is her name, takes one last look and beams with pride. “Oh, you are quite exquisite in that dress,” she says with conviction. “You do it more justice than Julia Cantrell ever could. I swear I don’t understand how she got that role.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “Julia Cantrell. The actress who plays Cassidy Ryan—Austin’s girlfriend?” she asks as if I should know all of this. “Don’t you watch the show?”

  “Nope. Never have.”

  And Tiffany Blume knows that very thing herself. Julia, the bitch from Seth’s beach party, plays opposite him on Lotus Pointe. The BFF to Chloe for shit’s sake! “Nellie,” I say, “Is Julia the same actress who played Cassidy last season?”

  “No, both of the characters were replaced by different actors this season. Tiffany Blume was instrumental in getting both of them these roles. I mean, she went way out on the limb for them. I don’t like to speak out of turn, especially where show business egos are concerned if you catch my drift, but she sure was instrumental in getting that last actress who played Cassidy fired. Surprised me just how much power Ms. Blume has—” and then she stopped abruptly. “Oh I’m sorry, I forgot that she’s your stepmother. You won’t tell her I was running my mouth, will you? Dammit, I should know better than to open my pie hole like that.”

  “No worries,” I reply and mean it. “I won’t say a thing. We’re not close.”

  “Come on,” she says, holding the door open for me, “Let’s get you on the set. You’re gonna be just fine, Neely.”

  I don’t share Nellie’s optimism at all. This has all the characteristics of an impending disaster, but I will see it through somehow, if only for the chance to see Seth for the first time since the night of my high school graduation. Maybe it will help in some way to heal the wound I still feel pressing deep in my soul.

  Nellie escorts me to the set and introduces me to a bearded guy named Dan who is the associate director she explains before leaving me there. I immediately look around; there is no sign of Seth yet. Tiffany is standing a few yards away, pointing to one of the multiple lights above and talking to a technician about changing the angle.