My Fair Aussie

by Jennifer Griffith

  “You’re not taking Chachi?” Chachi, the dog she treated more like a child than her actual child. “Poor Chachi.”

  “Oh, you’re right. Chachi is only happy when she’s with me.” She made a kissy sound on the other end of the line, and I knew Chachi was on her lap. Where Sylvie deserved to be instead. “Fine. I’ll need you in the morning, though. Promptly at the helipad.”

  Bullet. Dodged.

  Sort of.

  Frankly, it came as no surprise she was taking her dog while foisting her daughter off on others. I knew Mo-No’s code for when she claimed her husband was exercising his parental rights. It meant Mo-No had complained enough to MacDowell Bainbridge that he’d agreed to spell Monique-Noelle from all her exhaustive labors of parenting and take Sylvie to her elderly grandmother’s house in San Jose.

  “Right.” I exhaled like I’d been given a week’s shore leave from my prison ship and not just a few moments’ reprieve from Her Majesty’s edicts.

  “I’m excited for my little hunting trip, whether you approve or not.”

  I could hear the defensiveness in her tone. I hadn’t pretended I thought she was doing the right thing, and Mo-No clearly felt judged. Well, if it stopped her from doing it, great. If not, it just made me look judgy.

  “In a way, Eliza, you could consider this phone call your de facto two weeks’ notice because if this outing goes as planned, and it will, Sylvie will be spending a lot more time in San Jose, and you won’t be needed—at all.” She hung up with no response from me.

  So, not only would Mo-No fire me, but she’d also give up any literal parental rights to Sylvie? My heart did three flips and landed in a hot, bleeding mess in my stomach, next to the ulcer Mo-No’s voice always inflamed in me.

  If this actually happened and Mo-No snagged a hotter guy, with better hair, what about Sylvie? Was she really ditching that precious child? The baby girl would grow up knowing her mother had abandoned her in search of more money. She’d be irreparably damaged.

  I turned my eyes to Henry.

  “She’s a hunter now, is she?”

  I blinked. “You heard?”

  “That woman’s voice really carries.” He shrugged. “I somehow can’t imagine someone with a voice that shrill carrying a gun.” Henry nailed it in one overheard phone call. “I’d steer clear of that aim.”

  “I’m afraid, Henry, I’m changing my mind.” This was all for Sylvie’s sake. “I’m going to ask you to step directly into the crosshairs of that aim.”

  ACT II: Scene 5

  Aw, Gawwaaan

  LOS ANGELES & HOLLYWOOD & BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA

  Wherein our hero and heroine go uptown together, and our hero begins to shine up.

  We crossed the asphalt, three astride, while I tried to catch my breath at what had transpired.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, why the sudden change of heart?” Henry Lyon strode along beside me as we followed Polly out to her car. She was on the phone with her fiancé, Geordie, making those cooing sounds no one outside the dual conversation could stomach. “A second ago you were ready to send me packing back to the station.”

  “We’re still at the station, Henry.” I glanced back at the building I hoped not to have to return to anytime soon, whether or not the place had great fish. If Polly ended up craving their tartar sauce, I’d look into a delivery option. “But to answer your question, Mo-No isn’t a hunter in the literal sense. She’s someone who is going to endanger her child if I don’t spring into action somehow.”

  “And I’m part of that?” Henry stood by while Polly searched absently for her keys. “You think I can save this child by distracting her mother temporarily?”

  Putting it that way it sounded too far-fetched to possibly be effective. Honestly, I doubted whether throwing a homeless man at Monique-Noelle was going to make a dent in the armor of her selfishness, even if he had good teeth. Mo-No wasn’t a sucker for shiny teeth; she was a sucker for a shiny metal credit card and a shiny pile of gold in a bank account.

  Frankly, the plan seemed doomed to fail.

  “Remember a minute ago, you said the word desperation when you talked about how hungry you were? Well, that’s how I feel right now. Not on my own behalf, but on behalf of a little girl I take care of who is very dear to me.” Thinking of Sylvie growing up and learning she’d been abandoned, suddenly I felt the tip of my nose tingle, and my eyes got misty.

  Polly was still ensconced in her steamy conversation, which left Henry and me to hash this out, just the two of us.

  “I was serious about getting you the phone.” I sighed heavily, warding off the tears. “I’ll get it now. And you don’t have to do any of this stuff Polly was talking about. It’s more than a long shot. It’s a hopeless cause.”

  “I know a thing or two about hopeless causes.”

  It came out hard and dry, and I glanced at him with fresh eyes at this statement that seemed surprisingly lucid. Gone was the grime, gone was the disheveled hair, gone was the forlorn state. All I saw standing there was a man who’d been at the end of his rope. The way he looked at me, I thought he could see that I was at the end of mine, too, on Sylvie’s behalf.

  As our eyes met, something connected between us. I felt it, and I could tell from the way his breath got shallower and his facial muscles went taut, he’d felt sparks flaring between us, too.

  “It’s because I’ve been associated with a hopeless cause or two in my life, I’m in. This seems like it’s nobler than any other shot at a phone I’m likely to get over the next few days, so I’m game. Count me in.”

  “But you don’t even know the details.”

  “What I do know is that you’re sincere. A little sincerity goes a long way with me.”

  Actually, what was happening was that Henry’s sincerity was getting to me.

  Which meant even more that I couldn’t drag him into this, not when it was doomed to fail.

  “Come on, we’ll go over to the cell phone store and get you set up. Thank you for your willingness to help. We’ll just take this as a bless you for your willing heart moment. I’ll figure out something more practical to help Sylvie.” A plan with a lot fewer holes.

  “Sylvie, huh? That’s a cute name, and I bet the little one’s just as cute, so nope.” It came out more like naw-oip. “I’m here, and I said I’d help. Like I said, under normal circumstances that don’t involve starvation, I don’t take handouts.”

  But he did ask for phones. Yeah, he was still not quite all there, I had to remind myself. Of course, he’d asked for the phone when he was starving.

  He reached over and took my hand, which sent my knees back to Quiverville.

  “I’ll help you—on the terms originally agreed to with your friend there. Two weeks and then you help me get a phone. Sure, Jonno will worry, and my geneticist friend will have to figure I’ve let the ball drop on the bull, but that’s how it’s got to be. A deal’s a deal.”

  Let the ball drop on the bull. What? It might be an idiom somewhere in the Outback of Australia, but it wasn’t one we’d ever studied in my cultural literacy courses.

  “Honestly, two weeks’ work is too long for the payment of one phone, even if it is an international phone.”

  “Would you quit arguing against your case? You clearly need me. Sylvie needs me. And I need the phone, and if the terms are that I work for it, all the better. I’d rather work. It’s in my blood.”

  Hearing that, I felt the rough of his palms, and knew he wasn’t making that up. He’d done work, hard work, over a long period of time. I looked at him again. An earnestness set in his jaw, which I could see even through the grime and many days’ accumulation of scruff.

  “Besides, I still owe you for that meal.” He broke into a grin. “Best snags and mashed spuds I’ve had in ages. This will give me a chance to work off the cost of that.”

  Snags. Those were the sausages. Mashed spuds was mashed potatoes. At least I recognized one Australian term. I didn’t have to completely
hang my head.

  My minor victory softened me.

  “You mean it.” I scoured his facial features and still found nothing but genuineness there. “You really mean it. Well, then, Henry Lyon, since your geneticist and Jonno can wait,” and since he had no criminal record Polly and her team of connected snoops could find, “you’re hired for two weeks.”

  We shook on it, and as I felt the rough cracks and edges of his hands, I told myself ten times, This is for Sylvie. This is for Sylvie. This is for Sylvie.

  “Okay, you two? You get it all sorted? Because I just got off the phone with the coolest person.”

  “Geordie?”

  “Well, he was first, and so him too, but no. I meant I talked with my friend Burt.”

  Burt. I remembered him. Oh, boy did I.

  “The one who works at Continental Pictures?”

  “The movie studio?” Henry asked, holding the door for me. Blast him for getting me a little swoonier with every passing second.

  “Yuh-huh.” Polly nodded with a smug grin of triumph and then opened the car doors. What did she want with Burt?

  The three of us pulled away from the bus station together. It was happening, whether I’d started out this trip to get lunch with this in mind or not. Polly headed us back onto the freeway, while describing Burt’s magnificence in a blue streak of detail.

  Burt did costumes at Continental, one of the bigger studios out in Hollywood. They weren’t MGM or Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, or one of those other colossal money mills, but they were big enough, and they had a solid reputation for costuming. In fact, for the last six years they’d received practically all the award nominations for costumes.

  Burt was their top costumer. He had impeccable taste. He might be up for an award this year, based on his work on a costume drama featuring the cast of Carlsbad Tavern.

  Blah, blah, blah.

  “And best of all, he’s on board.”

  “On board with what?” A sinking feeling filled my shoulders and seeped down through my chest when Polly winked at me as if I should just trust her.

  Our car weaved through traffic, and I turned around to check in the back seat to see how Henry Lyon was doing, whether he seemed anxious at leaving his realm, or all right—and whether he was watching the sky for the helicopters again. Since we had left the station, I wanted to keep a close eye on his stability, make sure it held.

  Henry looked calm. So calm, in fact, that he even had his head leaning back and his eyes closed. Granted, Polly’s car was nice, and the seats were more comfortable than most people’s sofas, even the back seat, since I’d been third wheel on concert and baseball game outings with her and Geordie a few times and knew. But to sleep at a moment like this? When Burt was being described?

  Ha.

  Henry Lyon was a wiser man than I’d pegged him for.

  I whispered to Polly. “Shush up about Burt for a second so I can tell you something while Henry’s dozing.”

  Polly glanced at me, since we were at a temporary halt near an onramp.

  “What? You’re not going to insist I take you to the cell phone store are you, because—”

  “No, no. I need to tell you I think he’s not exactly what we’re thinking he is.”

  “Vagrants rarely have zero past, hon.” Polly always kept a clear head, even when mine got clouded by nice teeth or callused hands. That was why I needed her. For a drama major, she had a surprisingly practical outlook on life. “Just be grateful for what the bus station handed you: its king.”

  She was right. I closed my eyes and reasoned.

  “Because even if this flops, at least I’ll know I tried everything for that child.”

  “You really do love her,” Polly said. “Heinous Mo-No does not know what a gift she has in you.”

  I didn’t know about that. After all, I was plotting to deceive her by using a hot hobo. I was pretty sure that wasn’t Mo-No’s idea of a gift.

  Polly navigated the freeway system through Hollywood, not my favorite part of the L.A. metro area, but it was better than the bus station—mostly. I didn’t know why we were coming all the way out here, but I had learned early on not to be a backseat driver when Polly was at the wheel.

  But then she took the Hollywood Boulevard exit, and in no time we were pulling up at Continental Studios, right to the front gatehouse.

  “What are we doing here?” The sinking feeling came back, this time akin to the Titanic.

  “Burt will find him the perfect things to wear. We just need two weeks’ worth, and they’ll never be missed.”

  “Wait. What? No.” It all fell into place. She’d brought us here so that her costume designer friend could outfit Henry for the role. “We can’t be stealing things from a movie studio. Are you kidding me?”

  “Burt said he’ll even sign for them. He’s that invested. How could he help it once I told him about Sylvie?”

  “You told him about Sylvie?” I blubbered this as the guard waved us through with a Hello, Miss Pickering. How are you today, Miss Pickering? “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Burt’s got a daughter.”

  Well, that was an obvious conduit for empathy. I stared out the window at the big, boring, beige buildings that held so much thrilling color inside. Burt made magic happen with his transformations; he made people believe a person was someone else, someone important. If anyone on earth could turn our bus station bum into a believable millionaire, it was Burt.

  Still, taking stuff that didn’t belong to us, even for a cause like this, wasn’t right.

  “It’s more than clothes Henry needs, though. There’s the general cleanup, the hair, the walk.” Well, I should take that last one back. Henry’s walk was just fine—great posture, nice stride-length, good shoulders.

  Fine, I know I should not have analyzed that walk in so much detail. So sue me. I was attracted to more than just teeth.

  “All those details have been arranged. Burt knows people. Plus, we’ve got Pickering Place to perform the metamorphosis. Oh, did I tell you I once saw a one-man stage play of Kafka’s book by that name?”

  “So you weren’t just having a little phone make-out with Geordie while we waited at the car. You were lining up all sorts of details without checking with me.”

  “This grousing of yours—it all stems from needless worry. Quit worrying. I was watching, and once the guy had some food in him, he had the walk down. Almost like a cowboy.”

  A cowboy walk! That was exactly it. She’d nailed it. And boy did I miss a good cowboy walk. Sure, as a California coast dweller all through college, and now living offshore at San Nouveau, I might live in the western-most part of the American West, but I hadn’t seen a good cowboy walk since I moved from the inland ranching areas—until today.

  Henry had that walk down. Mmm.

  “If there’s one thing besides piles of money Monique-Noelle claims to be a sucker for, it’s a good cowboy walk.” Just like my obsession with teeth, Mo-No loved a bowlegged stroll. It was her kryptonite, she always said. It might not be my kryptonite, but it was definitely on my personal list of knee-weakeners.

  “Well, one look at Henry, and Mo-No is going to be powerless to resist.”

  I just hoped that phrase didn’t describe me, too. With my stupid weaknesses, it was possible that his Straight White Teeth and Cowboy Walk could potentially trump Homeless and Paranoid Insanity and send me into swoonsville, like when he’d given me that once-over and shot my body full of sparks.

  Plus, he really was a genuinely nice person, who got a lady’s door and offered to help a helpless child. Sincerity dripped from him, as did his sense of humor.

  No.

  Just no.

  I shook myself.

  It was time to set my mind back to code here. Sure, we swore no wagers were on the line between Polly and me, but I had to set up a serious rule or wager with myself—no falling for the crazy guy. If I could keep myself from falling for him, I’d quit being such a stick-in-the-mud about d
ating and accept a dinner offer from the next real guy that came along and asked.

  My parents would approve that life choice.

  They said I’d been giving every guy I met the freeze-out for a long time, and maybe they were right. I’d told myself the guys in undergrad were too young; then I’d told myself the guys in grad school were too academic. Now the men on San Nouveau were too married. I’d blown off the gardener and the coffee shop guy and the mail delivery guy, even though they all seemed like great catches from what I knew of them.

  So, okay. I did a mental deal-handshake with myself on this: if I could safe-guard my heart by allowing logic to win over teeth and a confident stride, I’d open it up the next time the mailman asked for my phone number.

  It was time.

  “I didn’t tell you the best piece of all—there’s an event.” Polly looked giddy.

  An event? My newly wagered heart lurched as she jammed the car into park in a VIP slot. Leave it to Polly to finagle a VIP parking slot.

  “What kind of event?” It had better be before Friday when I had to be back at San Nouveau to pick up Sylvie.

  “Burt will get us an invitation. It’s perfect for Henry’s debut. Burt’s studio has a film that’s opening—with the premiere happening tonight. Perfect, right? No waiting around for destiny. It’s a small budget film with a big budget cast, the kind that wins at festivals.”

  Ugh. The kind I hated. I’d rather see an exploding naval battleship than an exploding twenty-year marriage every night of the year.

  “The big stars have invited all their friends, and if we go, we get to meet them, sure, but more importantly, Henry gets to meet them.”

  “You’re saying we can use it as a trial run for the skills we’re going to instill in Henry.” I got where she was going with this plan, even though the thought made me sick, especially when I asked myself how we would be able to observe Henry’s success or spectacular failure. “Like the racetrack scene in My Fair Lady.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Shouldn’t we just head out to the Santa Anita racetrack instead? We could foist him onto all the horseracing fans out there. That’d be more parallel to the original.” And it would serve as a better alternative to embarrassing both Henry and ourselves, and possibly Burt, by dragging a gussied up homeless man into the limelight of a red-carpet event. I didn’t say it aloud, but I was sure thinking it.