by Lora Roberts
“You slapped me.” My voice shook. Naomi read that as a sign of fear. She smiled in slow satisfaction.
“Damned straight I did, and if you give me any more trouble—”
Her face, gloating in my discomfort, loomed over me. Her voice, that hectoring voice, set up strange vibrations in my head. Many years ago, I was married to a man whose hobby was beating me up. I had spent a long time trying to get out of that situation, and a longer time trying to figure out why I’d let myself stay in it. I was no longer a person it was safe to hit.
I slapped her in return. Her head rocked on her skinny neck. She backed away, tripped over a footstool, and sprawled on the floor.
Hannah made a high, strangled noise. I looked down at Naomi, who had her hand up to her face, her eyes wide in astonishment.
“Hitting is wrong,” I said. “And one of the reasons why is because when you hit, people tend to hit you back. Nobody hits me, certainly not some tinpot food dictator. I’m making a full report of this incident to Judi Kershay. I don’t expect anyone will be up for escorting you folks, once it’s known you add physical abuse to verbal abuse.”
I picked up my knapsack and turned to go. Hannah rushed up, right past Naomi, who was getting herself off the floor with no assistance from anyone else. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“You fired me.” I tried to have patience, but I wanted to slap Hannah too. “And your associate hit me. In my book, that means I don’t work here anymore.”
“You can’t just leave.
“Watch me.”
She grabbed my arm when I would have opened the door. “No, I mean it. I didn’t mean you were fired, just that you didn’t do your job properly.”
“You said fired. But if you’d rather, I’ll quit.”
“No, no. I want you to stay.” She glanced at Naomi, who was anxiously scanning her face in the mirror. “Especially now. I like a woman who stands up for herself.”
“I don’t like a woman who stands by while her subordinates are battered.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps we don’t pay you well enough. Let me double your salary.”
“It’s not about money.” I tried to find words of one syllable. “You can’t treat people like this and keep them working for you. You’re supposed to be so good at everything. Didn’t you ever learn how to manage people?”
“Just stay through the next couple of days. Naomi won’t bother you again. Will you, dear?” The question was acid-sweet. Naomi didn’t bother to reply. If looks could have killed, Hannah and I would both be occupying slabs in the morgue.
“Judi would hate for you to leave. I would have to insist that my publisher no longer use her, and I could have her blackballed by everyone else, you know.”
“You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl. Are your threats better than Naomi’s slap?”
She sighed. “You’re right, I know. I just feel a little desperate at being abandoned like this.”
She looked desperate, to tell the truth. That’s the reason why I stayed. Later, when I tried to explain it, no one believed me, but I truly felt sorry for the woman.
More fool I.
Chapter 6
I called Judi Kershay from the television studio. We had scurried around to set up the mock kitchen with Hannah’s pretty dishes. A carnival-glass bowl held raspberries for the crêpes suzette garnish, and an elaborate copper chafing dish was set up next to the disputed crepe maker. Kim had already used this to fix a quick dozen crepes with some of the batter she’d made earlier. Following her instructions, I’d poured whipping cream into the mixing bowl and sprinkled the raspberries with liqueur and sugar. She had set out a pitcher of orange juice and another pretty bowl, a little one, with orange zest.
Hannah was getting made up in her dressing room. I had checked before making my phone call. Naomi, despite her tight-lipped anger at Hannah and her venomous glares at me, hovered over the stylist in a proprietary way, telling him what shades of foundation to use and how to do the famous hair.
My face still stung from Naomi’s slap, and my mark still reddened her cheek. Kim had cast speculative glances and evidently had pieced the story together, if her comforting pats on my shoulder were any indication.
I called from the only place that was relatively quiet, the hallway outside the sound stage. Judi’s office phone had rung unanswered, so I’d tried the second number.
“I don’t understand. What happened?” Judi faded in and out intermittently. I deduced that she was in her car. It was nearly five o’clock, the time of going home from work. I wouldn’t get home for hours.
“Hannah fired me. Naomi slapped me. I slapped her back. Hannah rehired me.”
“Hold on. I’m pulling over.” The static faded, and Judi’s voice came through stronger. “Naomi hit you because Hannah fired you?”
“Not exactly.” I told her how the whole thing went. “Could Hannah really take away your business like that?”
Judi’s sigh came through loud and clear. “She could make things uncomfortable, but since no one wants to work with her, it might backfire.”
“Well, I’m staying on the job for the time being.”
“Bless you. Are you at the TV station?”
“Yes. Hannah’s getting made up. Kim is a wonder; the prep is done for both events, and she’s tuning up the crepe maker. I’ve checked with the FanciFoods contact, and we’re all set there. In fact, they delivered the groceries to the hotel, which was a big help. If it wasn’t for the people in charge, this would be a piece of cake.”
Judi sighed again. “Well, hang in there if you can. But you’re absolutely right. Nobody hits one of my employees. I’ll have a word with the publicist.”
“Would you find someone else to do this, before I totally alienate them?”
She hesitated. “That won’t be easy. Can you stick it out just for tomorrow? After that, I might be able to take over. That would be punishment enough for Hannah.”
“Why is she angry at you, anyway?”
“I promised I would never tell, and I keep my promises, so I can’t tell you.” Judi giggled. “You’d feel a lot better if I did, though. Suffice it to say that to a small extent, she’s in my power. And I’ll use that leverage. Just stay with it, Liz.”
My turn to hesitate. “I can’t make a firm commitment. If Naomi hauls off and hits me again, I’m gone. But I’ll do my best.”
“That’s the most I can hope for.” Judi sounded resigned. “Keep me posted.”
I turned the phone off and stowed it in my knapsack. I slipped through the studio door, glancing at the enormous clock on the wall. The increase in frenzy of the people swarming around the stage would have told me it was nearly showtime, if the clock hadn’t displayed the minutes ticking away until five. The audience area was only a hundred seats, and most were occupied. The kitchen set on the right side of the stage, empty now that Kim had finished her work, was unlit; intensely bright light was trained on the other side of the stage, where a desk with a few chairs made up the traditional talk-show milieu that had been around since the last time I owned a TV many years ago.
Kim came up and grabbed my arm. “You’re supposed to be backstage before they start, because otherwise you’ll have to stay out here, and then if something’s needed there’ll be trouble.”
She hustled me along a twisting path through huge mechanical demons, stepping over piles of cables. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
“I helped with a couple of TV appearances in Boston. People would go out front so they could watch; this one girl who was Naomi’s assistant wanted to be in the audience so she could try for a vacation cruise they were giving away as a prize. But when Naomi needed a copy of Hannah’s new book—I believe that one was Hannah Does Desserts—the assistant was nowhere to be found. There was an incredible scene over it.”
We scurried around the last big camera, just as theme music surged. “Welcome to Studio Three, where we’re Live at Five,” a disembodied voice said with incre
asing hysteria. The audience erupted into applause. Watching on the video monitor as a camera panned over the rows of people, I thought everything looked different; the studio looked bigger, the audience looked bigger.
The show’s host bounced out, to more applause. Kim tugged me further into the recesses of the sound stage.
“Where’s Don?” I had just realized that although Don had ridden to the studio with us, he had promptly vanished.
“He’s set up over there.” Kim pointed to the side of the stage where the kitchen was. The bright lights on the host’s side made it hard to see into the shadows of the sound stage. I could vaguely discern a tripod, with a lanky form behind it. “He can’t use a flash when he photographs her doing TV so he has to have a tripod and special lenses to deal with it.” She hugged her arms in excitement. “We can see the kitchen area from here.”
I wasn’t thrilled to listen to the host ask vapid questions of a series of guests, many of whom were excessively animated. My attention wandered to the audience members, and then farther afield, toward my house in Palo Alto, where Barker, my dog, would be pacing restively from the front door to the side door in the kitchen, waiting for me to come and take him for his evening sniff patrol.
Paul Drake would have to handle dog walking; he’d be home in half an hour, unless something came up at his work. He’s a police detective with the Palo Alto Police Department. Our once-sleepy town is now considered a hot shopping and dining destination, and the crowds of people who throng University Avenue bring trouble in their wake, trouble that it’s up to Drake and his fellow public servants to take care of. I hoped he would get off work in time to placate Barker. I wished I was there, laying a fire in my fireplace for evening warmth, going over to Drake’s kitchen to see what he was cooking for dinner.
Kim poked me. “Hannah’s up.”
From our vantage point we could see her thread her way behind the scenes until she reached the kitchen set. She stepped behind the counter, and the lights above her blazed.
She was a pro, I had to admit. Transformed from the dowdy, nondescript woman she was without makeup, she smiled her motherly smile and took the audience into her confidence about how to zest an orange, how to make the crepe batter, how to use her newest device, the crepe maker which her staff had developed following her instructions. That was what she said, anyway. I didn’t dare look around to see how Naomi took that. In fact, I was surprised she didn’t storm the stage. Hannah plugged the evening’s appearance at FanciFoods.
By the time Hannah was through, I thought how easy crêpes suzette was and how I should cook it for Drake sometime.
“Damn, she’s good.” Kim was grinning. “She leads them along, but doesn’t talk down to them.”
“Yeah. Why can’t she be like that in life?”
Kim shrugged. “Typical celebrity behavior. Once a big movie star came into the shop. She was doing some event in Boston. She wanted us to cater a big party she’d decided to have that very night. We told her what we could do at such short notice, but that wasn’t good enough. She had to have all this complicated food. We said no thanks, and she pitched such a hissy fit you wouldn’t believe. Screaming, literally. And then she stomped out, and this woman in the street stopped her to tell her what a fan she was, and we saw her oozing gracious charm. They just have different buttons than real people, that’s all.”
The host escorted Hannah to his desk, showing the copy of Hannah Hosts Brunch that I had placed there earlier. She smiled and nodded, answering questions, laughing at his jokes, and served him some of the raspberry-sprinkled crepes with their aromatic liqueur-laced sauce. She was far more at her ease in front of a camera than I could ever be.
The audience enjoyed it too. They were smiling, laughing, hanging on Hannah’s every word. After my gaze circled the auditorium, I saw Naomi standing a few feet from us. She, at least, was not impressed. Her face wore a malevolent scowl as she watched Hannah perform.
“Don’s packing up,” Kim said, nudging me. In the shadows behind the now-darkened kitchen set, we saw Don fold his tripod and stuff cameras into a bag. “We’d better do the same.”
She slipped around to the kitchen set, and I followed, wondering what we could do when the show was still going on. Swiftly, noiselessly, Kim packed all the dishes in the carriers, sliding the leftover food onto a disposable tray she’d brought along. I tried to help, but she was much quieter than I was.
The host announced a commercial break, and Kim started hustling her crates and cooler bags onto a hand truck. Don came over to help us. The stagehands just watched. “Union,” Kim hissed when I complained. “They have very strict rules.”
We called the limo around and got everything put away, then went back up to wait for Hannah to be through. She was still on the show, relegated to a farther chair, chatting a bit with a glossy-looking young woman whose picture I’d seen in some checkout line somewhere. The young woman confided artlessly that she planned to marry soon, and what would Hannah suggest to serve at the wedding?
My attention wandered again. I needed to keep track of the time to make sure we got to the FanciFoods demonstration by six-thirty, to allow time for setup. It worried me. If Hannah chose to stick around talking on TV, I didn’t know how I was going to stop her. Go on camera and drag her off? Not acceptable. I decided to leave that particular worry to Naomi, who probably had ways of dealing with any such problems.
Naomi wasn’t standing at the side where she had been. She wasn’t anywhere in the audience that I could see. Troubled, I poked Kim, who stared entranced at the glossy young man who’d replaced the glossy young woman at the host’s side.
“Where’s Naomi? How do we spring Hannah?”
“Relax,” Kim whispered back. “Hannah knows what time it is. We don’t have to leave until six, you said.”
“That’s if traffic is not too bad.” The FanciFoods store in Pacific Heights was halfway across San Francisco. If traffic was gridlocked, it could take closer to an hour to get there, and Hannah’s class/demonstration began at seven-thirty. “Where’s Naomi, anyway?”
“She probably went to Hannah’s dressing room to get everything ready. Hannah won’t wear that TV makeup for an instant longer than she has to. They really glop that stuff on. But she’ll be quick getting it off, and then we’ll go. You’ll see, Liz.”
I worried for nothing. In a few more minutes, another commercial break came along, and this time, in the game of talk-show musical chairs, Hannah was out. She thanked the host and was ushered off the stage. Kim led the way to a corridor with dressing rooms opening off it. “Let’s just wait here,” she suggested. “Those rooms are tiny, and there’s nothing to see anyway.”
There was nothing to see, but plenty to hear. “Can’t get away with it,” Naomi shouted shrilly. “My attorney—”
Hannah’s words were harder to discern. “Signed the agreement—”
Naomi cut in. She was practically gibbering, but as far as I could tell, she’d moved the argument away from the crepe maker. “Morton … investigation,” we heard. Kim and I looked at each other, raising our eyebrows.
Hannah’s answer came in a lull in the incessant noise of the stagehands. “If it’s investigations we’re talking about, what about your brother Tony’s death? That was convenient for you, wasn’t it, dear?”
Naomi was silent for a moment. I looked at Kim. Her face was white. “What’s she talking about?” she whispered to me. “My uncle had a heart attack. We always joked about him using so much butter and cream. No one was really surprised.”
I strained to hear Naomi’s reply, but for once she wasn’t shouting; all that came through the door was a low rumble. The doorknob turned.
“Let’s get back a little,” I hissed, and we stepped quickly away. I was acting on instinct; something told me that if they knew we’d overheard their conversation, things would be even more unpleasant.
Hannah swept out of the dressing room, followed by Naomi with a more than usually sour expres
sion on her face.
“Let’s go,” Hannah said brusquely. “Where’s my water?”
She looked at me, but I hadn’t thought to provide myself with water.
“It’s in the limo.” Kim threw herself into the breach.
“Let’s move then. We can’t hang around here anymore.”
We followed her into the elevator and out to the car. No one spoke. Hannah scowled. Naomi sulked.
Don brought up the rear with Kim, but his teasing didn’t make her giggle as it usually did. When we got to the limo I would have to paw through the cooler bags to find the bottled water. “Did we bring a glass?”
She looked at me blankly, then seemed to hear what I said. “I sure didn’t. She’ll have to swig from the bottle like everyone else does.”
“Kim—about what she said—about your uncle—”
“I can’t talk about that now. I can’t even think about it.” Kim pressed her hand to her throat, as if to hold her head on. “I’m sure it was just a lie. My aunt might be hard to get along with, but she’s not—she wouldn’t—”
Hannah reached the limo; the driver opened the passenger door at her regal nod. Kim turned away.
Hannah slid onto the seat, then stopped.
I peered over her shoulder into the limo to see what the hang-up was. She stared fixedly at the square white envelope that rested on the leather seat.
“Someone left you a fan letter, looks like.” I thought that would make her happier and relieve some of the tension she exuded.
I was wrong. She looked at the envelope as though it was a snake. Finally she reached to pick it up. She looked at Naomi, who had gotten in the other door. Naomi looked back, her eyebrows raised in a silent question. Don resumed his seat by the chauffeur, and Kim and I crawled into our seats facing backward. But those two didn’t even notice me scrounging through the bags. They were busy staring at each other.
Finally Hannah turned away, tucking the note into her handbag. I noticed she used only her fingertips, as if she was saving the fingerprints. Naomi noticed too.
