by Laura Levine
From the smug expression on Scotty’s freckled face, I bet he did.
Then Elise turned to Missy, shooting her a warning finger.
“Watch out, honey. Just wait. He’s going to screw you over, just like he did to me.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Scotty said, heaving himself out of his recliner. “Time to go.”
Grabbing her roughly by the elbow, he escorted his ex-wife out of the room.
Next to me, Missy sighed.
“Poor Elise,” she said, her speech now slurred from all the wine she’d been glugging down. “Scotty used her savings to pump up his investment portfolio, but somehow managed to ace her out of community property in the divorce. She’s barely making ends meet, while Scotty is hoarding all his money. And she’s right, of course. One of these days, he’ll drop me for a new blonde and leave me without a penny.”
“Don’t worry, Missy!” Dave jumped up to take her hand. “You’ll be okay. I’ll make sure he can’t hurt you.”
Any doubts I may have had about Dave’s crush on Missy were instantly dispelled. Clearly the guy was head over heels in love.
From Missy’s lap, Prozac swatted his hand away.
Watch it, buster. She’s in the middle of a very important belly rub.
We all fell silent just then as Scotty returned to the room, smiling blandly as if the whole scene with Elise hadn’t happened.
“So who wants another mint? I don’t usually give out seconds, but what the heck? It’s almost Christmas.”
“Actually,” I said, eager to get away from this horrible man and his bowl of ancient mints, “it’s getting late. Lance and I should be going.”
“Right,” Lance jumped in. “Must go home and keep an eye on Mrs. Van Hooten’s house. After all, that’s what we’re getting paid for.”
I leaned in to pet Prozac good-bye.
“Nighty night, sweetheart.”
She gazed up at me through slitted green eyes.
Would you mind not standing so close? You’re blocking my view of Missy.
“Thanks so much for taking care of her,” I said to Missy, inwardly seething at my fickle feline.
“Our pleasure,” Missy replied.
“Yes, indeed,” Scotty said. “I checked out the going rates at the pet kennels, and I’m only going to charge you seventy-five bucks a night boarding fee.”
“You’re charging me?” I asked, reeling in disbelief.
What colossal gall!
“Not necessarily,” Scotty said, a sly glint in his eyes, “Seeing as you’re a writer, I’ll waive the boarding fee if you help me polish my screenplay.”
“Your screenplay?”
He nodded proudly. “The Return of Tiny Tim: Vengeance Is Mine! It’s really in great shape. Just needs a tweak here and there. So how about it? You work with me on my script, and the cat stays for free.”
No way was I about to work with this creep on his stupid script. So what if I hadn’t had a writing assignment in three weeks? So what if the bills on my dining room table were multiplying like mushrooms in a rainstorm? So what if I was maxing out my credit cards buying Christmas gifts? I could not possibly bring myself to spend one more minute with this dreadful man.
“So how about it, Jaine? Is it a deal?”
“When do we start?”
You knew that was coming, didn’t you? What else could I possibly have done? Just like with Elise, Scotty had me by the purse strings.
“Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. And bring your own lunch. No more free meals.”
Free meals? I paid fifty-seven dollars for those damn filets!
“Fine,” I snapped.
Oh, what a jolly Christmas this was going to be.
* * *
“Thank God that’s over,” Lance said as we walked in Connie Van Hooten’s front door, me toting a copy of The Return of Tiny Tim that Scotty had given me to read overnight.
“Most miserable meal of my life,” Lance was grousing. “Except for Dave, of course. What a cutie.”
“You realize he’s straight, right?”
“Not in my fantasies.
“After a night like this,” Lance said, plopping down cross-legged on Mrs. Van H’s Persian rug in the living room, “we absolutely must do some deep breathing exercises and expel the negative vibes from our body.”
“Can’t we just have a decent glass of wine? That stuff Missy served smelled like 409.”
“No, Jaine. We have to deep breathe. Now sit!”
Reluctantly I sat down across from him on the rug.
“We will simply slow down our breathing, lowering our blood pressure, bringing peace and calm to our lives. Come on. It’s easy. All you have to do is breathe. Think you can manage that?”
“I’ll try,” I said, lobbing him back a bit of his own sarcasm.
And so we sat there, breathing in and breathing out. Each breath slightly longer than the last.
And guess what? An hour later, I felt completely calm and centered.
Not from the silly deep breathing, of course.
But from the pint of fudge ripple ice cream I’d scarfed down from Connie Van Hooten’s freezer.
Chapter 5
That night I discovered a miracle cure for insomnia:
The Return of Tiny Tim: Vengeance Is Mine!
I hunkered down in bed, fully intent on reading Scotty’s script, but after three pages of his mind-numbing dialogue, I was dead to the world.
I woke up the next morning, the script on my pillow, drool stains on its cover. I was lying there in a mild state of panic, wondering how the heck I was going to fake having read the darn thing, when my cell phone rang.
It was Missy with a last-minute reprieve.
Scotty, she told me, would be tied up with his broker all morning, and wouldn’t be able to meet with me until after lunch.
Hallelujah!
That would give me plenty of time to read the script and make notes.
I sprang out of bed, and several minutes later—face scrubbed and teeth brushed—made my way down to the kitchen to rustle up some breakfast.
Lance was at the kitchen island when I got there, buff as always in shorts and a tank top, whipping up some ghastly green concoction in a blender.
“Good morning, Lazybones!” he chirped. “I’ve been up for ages. I’ve already done my morning workout, showered, shaved, and moussed my hair to golden perfection.” With that, he shook his headful of tight blond curls, which did indeed look like something straight out of a Michelangelo statue.
“And I made coffee, too!”
Don’t you just hate perky morning people?
“Whoa!” he said, as I shuffled over to pour myself some coffee from a fancy stainless steel carafe. “What happened to your hair? Did a bomb go off in your bed last night?”
“This is the way it always looks in the morning,” I replied with more than a hint of frost in my voice.
“You poor thing. No wonder you’ve been so unlucky in love. Here, sweetheart,” he said, handing me a glass of the green glop he’d been whipping up. “I made you a rejuvenating energy smoothie. Drink one of these every morning, and your frizzies will be gone in no time.”
“What’s in this stuff?” I asked, staring down into the green goo.
“Yogurt, wheat germ, kale, and lemongrass.”
Oh, glug.
“Thanks, but I never drink salad for breakfast.”
“Take just one sip. I guarantee you’ll love it.”
And like a fool, I took a sip.
Not that I’ve ever tasted pureed pond scum, but if I had, I’ll bet it would taste a lot like Lance’s smoothie.
“Just a little constructive criticism,” I said, setting the glass down on the island. “This stinks.”
“Suit yourself,” Lance shrugged. “But don’t blame me if you keep waking up looking like the Bride of Frankenstein.”
Eager to get the taste of yogurt, wheat germ, kale, and lemongrass out of my mouth, I headed for Mrs. Van H
’s massive bunker of a fridge and started rummaging around for something decent to eat. I hit pay dirt in the freezer when I found some frozen croissants. I quickly proceeded to nuke one and slather it with butter and raspberry jam imported all the way from Fortnum & Mason in London.
Then I dug into it with gusto as Lance polished off his ghastly green concoction.
“Busy day today,” he said. “Working the late shift at Neiman’s. But first, I’m heading off to get our Christmas tree!”
His eyes sparkled with shopaholic fervor.
“Don’t go crazy,” I pleaded. “The smaller the tree, the less chance of any accidents. We don’t want to damage a millimeter of this fabulous house.”
“Not to worry, hon. I’ll get something perfect! I am nothing if not a master of interior décor.
“I’ll save this for you,” he said, putting my glass of green glop in the fridge, “in case you want a pick-me-up later in the day.”
Yeah, right. I’d rot in hell before I drank that stuff. (Which I’m sure is what they serve down there.)
As Lance skipped off, filled with yogurt-kale-lemongrass energy, I settled down to read Scotty’s script. Actually, I settled down for another raspberry jam and butter croissant, but after that, I read the script.
I’ll spare you the excruciating details and skip to the gist of the godawful plot: Namely, that the great-great-great-grandson of Tiny Tim sets out to kill the remaining members of the Scrooge clan in order to avenge the indignities suffered by his forebears at the hands of Ebenezer Scrooge. In Scotty’s script, the original Ebenezer’s transformation from misanthrope to philanthropist was short-lived, and he was soon back to haranguing the poor Cratchits, canceling Tiny Tim’s corrective foot surgery, leaving him limping for the rest of his short life.
The script was a bloated two hundred pages of wooden dialogue, unbelievable plot twists, and enough typos to sink the Oxford English Dictionary.
I’d mercifully reached the final Fade Out, and was soothing my frazzled nerves with the weensiest handful of M&Ms when I heard the front door bang open.
“I’m back!” Lance called out.
Seconds later he came tripping into the living room with a tree stand. Following him was a handsome hunk of a guy in a blue mail carrier’s uniform, toting one of the biggest Christmas trees I’d seen outside of a shopping mall.
“Right this way, Graham,” Lance said, setting the tree stand between the fireplace and the Rodin sculpture. “Over here.”
The handsome mail carrier toted the tree across the room, almost knocking over one of the priceless gewgaws on Mrs. Van H’s étagère.
Damn that Lance! Why on earth had he bought such a ginormous tree, when I’d specifically told him not to? But if my annoyance was showing, Lance was oblivious to it, too busy gazing at the hunky tree hauler.
“Jaine, say hello to Graham, our mailman. He saw me trying to get the tree up the front steps and was kind enough to offer to help.”
The hunk, who’d now set the tree down into the stand, looked over and beamed me a brilliant smile. He was a studmuffin, all right, with that megawatt smile, rippling muscles, and spectacular tan—a clear candidate for People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.”
Clad as he was in Bermuda shorts (to brave the wilds of L.A.’s Santa Anas), I was able to get a good look at his amazingly well-toned and tanned calves.
He and Lance spent the next few minutes screwing the tree into the stand while I stood around praying the monster pine wouldn’t topple over.
“It’s so nice of you to help out like this,” I said to Graham when he and Lance had secured the tree in place.
“My pleasure,” he grinned.
“How can we ever thank you?” Lance said. “I know! How about dinner? At the restaurant of your choice!”
“That’s not necessary,” Graham said.
“But I insist!” Lance cried, a tad too vehemently.
“Well, okay. How about Chez Jay in Santa Monica? Maybe one night next week?”
“Wonderful!” Lance gushed. “How’s Wednesday? Eight o’clock?”
“It’s a date,” Graham said as he started for the door. “See you both then.”
“Oh, Jaine won’t be able to make it,” Lance piped up. “She’s busy that night. It’ll be just you and me.”
Could he possibly be more obvious? Any minute now, he’d be booking a hotel room.
Lance walked Graham to the door and came floating back to the living room in a goofy daze.
“My God, did you see that smile? That body? Those amazing calves? I think I’m in love.”
“What happened to Justin? Just yesterday he was indelibly etched in your heart, if I recall.”
“Oh, him,” Lance replied with an airy wave. “The more I think about Justin, the more I realize how unsophisticated he was. The man thought Dolce and Gabbana were hit men on The Sopranos. A bit of a lamebrain. Especially compared to Graham, who, I can tell, is a man of great depth.”
By which, of course, he meant a hottie extraordinaire.
“And to think! He asked me out for dinner!”
I didn’t bother to remind him that he was the one who’d done the asking.
“So how about it?” Lance asked, wrenching his thoughts away from Graham and gesturing to the tree. “Isn’t it fab?”
“My God, Lance, it’s ginormous—a pine tree on steroids.”
“A grand house like this deserves a grand Christmas tree. I can’t wait to decorate it! I’m going out to the car and get my ornaments. And I stopped off and bought all the supplies we’ll need to make our acorn garlands and pine cone Santas!”
Inwardly I groaned, wondering which would be worse: working on Scotty’s godawful script or playing arts and crafts with Lance.
After gulping down a PBJ for lunch (with Fortnum & Mason’s scrumptious jam), I left Lance in the kitchen boring holes into an unlucky bunch of acorns.
Then off I trotted to start work on The Return of Tiny Tim: Vengeance Is Mine!—where I would soon learn that Scotty’s script was the clear winner in the Most Dreaded Chore category.
Chapter 6
“This is where the magic happens!”
Scotty ushered me into his office, a dusty room frozen in time somewhere in the 1980s.
A bulky old-fashioned computer monitor sat atop a scuffed desk; rusty metal file cabinets lined the walls; and puffs of stuffing sprouted out from the rips in Scotty’s swivel chair. On the corner of his desk were an ancient TV and VCR recorder, the faint hum of a tape running inside the VCR.
And hanging in a prominent place on the wall behind his desk was a framed poster of Scotty’s long-forgotten remake of A Christmas Carol.
“Sit!” Scotty commanded.
I parked my fanny on a hard metal chair across from his desk.
“Would you care for some coffee?” Scotty asked, plopping down into his chair. “I’ll keep a tab of what you drink and bill you later.”
Yikes. Any minute now, he’d be charging me to sit on his chair.
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“So,” he said, clasping his hands in front of him, eyes bright and eager as a puppy’s. “Did you read the script? What was your favorite part?”
“When it was over.”
Okay, I didn’t really say that. Instead I fumphered: “I can honestly say I’ve never read anything quite like it.”
And for that, I was beyond grateful.
“How about the scene where Tim mows down everyone at the bachelorette party with an Uzi? Or when he sets fire to Bradford Scrooge’s Lamborghini? Or the pit bull scene in the bowling alley?”
His freckled face beamed with pride.
“All so very vivid,” I managed to say.
“Frankly, I think the script is perfect as it is,” Scotty said, “but it’s two hundred pages and most scripts come in at around one hundred twenty. So I need to make some cuts. Did you see any parts we could lose?” he asked, lovingly running his finger over the title page.
“Maybe the decapitation scene,” I said. “That might be a bit gruesome for most moviegoers.”
“Hell, no!” Scotty roared. “People love beheadings!”
I suggested a few more of the many repulsive scenes scattered throughout the book, but Scotty was horrified at the idea of losing any one of them.
“Let’s just go through the script page by page,” he said, “and take trims as we go.”
And so began my stint in script hell.
Every cut I suggested was met with a howl of protest. I could barely get him to correct his typos. Twenty minutes later, we were still on page one. At this rate, we’d be through by Valentine’s Day.
We hobbled along this way, Scotty reacting to my every cut as if I’d just suggested amputating one of his limbs.
I was sitting there, wondering if I should take a cash advance on my MasterCard to pay for Prozac’s boarding fee, when the tape in Scotty’s VCR clicked to a stop.
“Excuse me,” Scotty said. “Gotta change my security tape.”
With that he got up and took out the tape, and reached for another from a pile near the VCR.
“I’ve got security cameras all over the front lawn,” he explained. “To catch any neighbors foolish enough to let their dogs poop on my property. Nobody puts anything over on Scotty Parker,” he added, a poster boy for paranoia.
After he was through changing the tape, we picked up where we left off, slogging through every syllable of his godawful script.
I’d just about decided to go for that cash advance when the doorbell started ringing in loud, insistent bursts.
“Lupe!” Scotty shouted out. “Someone’s at the door.”
The fact that his office was right off the foyer just steps from the front door did not prompt Mr. Wonderful to move his lazy tush.
By now our visitor had given up on the bell and was pounding on the door.
“Damn that Lupe!” Scotty cursed. “Laziest maid alive. Get that, will you?” he asked me.
