Captain of Industry

by Karin Kallmaker

  “They truly are a wonder. I’m curious—will you be doing more television than movies in the future?”

  “I’ll consider any role that pays.” It was her stock answer. “Signing on to do a limited role in a series often dovetails perfectly with filming schedules too. American Zombie Hunters wraps up about the time I’ll be starting promotion tours for Rope.”

  “I’m looking forward to that. Did they have to make many changes because you’re not Jimmy Stewart?”

  Jennifer desperately wished she could remember the woman’s name. “Most of the changes were due to updating for a contemporary time setting. I loved doing a one-set movie. Not like hunting zombies, which is exhausting.” She quickly added, “Not that I’m complaining. It’s great fun. It has been a good change for the industry, letting go of the idea that performers are locked into one medium or the other.”

  “And it’s also good that production companies can create projects without a mandate to reach the eighteen-to-twenty-year-old male demographic.” Lena had joined them. “How have you been, Clementine? Your mother is recovering well?”

  “Mad as a hornet that she waited to get a new knee. Claims I never told her it would improve her life. Listen, Lena, can put a word in your ear about something?”

  “Sure.” Lena turned away as Jennifer realized she’d been chatting with Clementine Molokomme. She hoped no one had taken a picture or BeBe would demand an explanation as to why her client was talking to a rival agency. No amount of saying it was just at a party would make a difference and she’d be sending muffin baskets for a week.

  “You’re heading back tonight?” Gail, being Gail, looked genuinely interested in Jennifer’s answer.

  “Yes, early call. It’s the final weeks of the shoot for the season.”

  Gail leaned closer. “You can tell me—who’s going to die?”

  “I would never say. You know they make you sign the confidentiality agreement in your own blood.”

  “Spoilsport.” Gail was about to add something when Lena gestured and she immediately joined her.

  Jennifer tried to summon up the ill will to think of Gail as Lena’s lapdog, but she was suddenly just too tired. Her brain was spinning in too many directions. It didn’t help that Suzanne was in her line of sight and something she’d just said made the woman she was talking to laugh with delight.

  Duh, she thought. Of course Carina Estevez would be here. Perfect. The living proof that Suzanne had moved on. She knew Carina’s serene face from too many Google searches for updates when a random headline had made it clear the two were dating. Jennifer felt like a painted doll next to all that fresh, unblemished, naturally tawny skin.

  Well this night just got better and better. She was surrounded by lesbians who thrived, two exes and she was wearing pajamas. It was like an anxiety nightmare. She was in the wrong place. Hadn’t studied for this test. She was the thing that wasn’t like all the others and everyone would notice.

  They had all figured out something she hadn’t and taken chances she didn’t have the guts to take. It wasn’t a nightmare, this was the life she’d earned. Suzanne had had it right all along: she was a coward.

  She knew Carina and Suzanne had stopped dating after a year or so. Like everyone else, she had no idea why. They had clearly remained friends. What did it matter? Jennifer was no Carina Estevez. In this little triangle there was the smart one, the good one and the bitch, and Jennifer had no illusions about which role was hers.

  It’s nothing to you, she told herself. Nevertheless she took a deep breath and went to make her thanks for the evening. Life just wasn’t complete until you’d met your ex’s ex.

  Carina was still laughing as she said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Lamont. I am a big fan.”

  “Jennifer, please. And likewise.” There was nothing to indicate Carina was being ironic or even knew that she and Suzanne had a history. “Did I miss a joke?”

  Suzanne assumed a too-innocent expression as Carina explained. “The person who bought the sculpture is that so-called family values preacher. The one with the three-thousand seat church up in Orange and a dozen Rolls Royces.”

  “Oh no! What a waste.” Jennifer glared at Suzanne. “Why did you stop bidding?”

  “I think I got twenty thousand more out of him than he wanted to pay, which feels good.”

  “And—” Carina pinched Suzanne’s arm playfully. “She just sent texts to take out full page ads in the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register thanking him.”

  Jennifer shook her head. “I’m missing something.”

  Suzanne’s expression was smugly pleased. “One of the major beneficiaries of his largess is Planned Parenthood. I think people should know what a swell guy he is.”

  Jennifer’s hoot of amusement turned heads. “You’re going to post copies on the net, right? I’ll retweet that image.” She thumbed her phone back to life. “Twitter, follow… @MasonGeekGirl… Got it.” She caught Suzanne giving a little nostalgic shake of the head and for a moment Jennifer was back in that tiny electronics shop in Times Square, getting her first lesson in mobile messaging. “You’re right. He needs to be thanked. Loudly.”

  Carina turned to wind her arm around another woman’s waist. After a smooch on Suzanne’s cheek, the couple made their way toward the front door. A glance at Suzanne’s face didn’t reveal any particular reaction. Jennifer didn’t know why she was even checking.

  “I really must be going. I have an early wake-up.” She gestured at her clothes. “Thank you for the pajamas.”

  “You’re wel—” Suzanne broke off to exchange a hug with someone Jennifer recognized as a local luxury car dealer. It was rare, a woman with an auto empire. “Thanks, Anna. Regards to your better half. She’s stuck at home with the offspring?”

  Suzanne wandered away and Jennifer felt dismissed. What else had she expected? All that was left was fetching her dress from the low bookshelf where Suzanne had tucked it. Unlike the Choos, the dress could be repaired.

  Her phone pinged again. Another direct tag to a clever little GIF someone had created putting the pictures of her falling in order. Nearly as good as video. Thankfully it ended while Suzanne was still blurry.

  Dress over one arm, she hiked up her pajama pants hopefully for the last time, and joined the queue for the valet. Suzanne towered over everyone the way she did in any crowd. Jennifer mused on that first party at the loft when Suzanne had been eager to fill her world with a crowd. In Santa Cruz it had definitely felt as if she needed space and distance from people. That phase was obviously over—this house was large enough to hold a battalion. It was also a long way from CommonTech’s offices, but with the latest in modern technology Suzanne was certain to possess, distance meant nothing, she supposed.

  She discussed the state of her cocktail gown with several other women as they stood in the rapidly shortening queue. “I’m lucky only the shoes got hurt. When I turf out, I turf out hard.”

  As everyone nearby laughed she noticed that Suzanne had withdrawn to one side. She’d gone very still while staring at her phone. What had popped up on the web now?

  She excused herself and as she neared Suzanne her curiosity turned to dismay. Suzanne’s skin had gone translucent around her eyes—she was clearly shaken.

  “What is it?” She glanced at Suzanne’s phone display but saw only the usual text messaging screen.

  “Annemarie. She’s in the hospital. She stopped breathing.”

  “Oh no!”

  “The text is from an EMT using the ICE list on her phone. She’s breathing again. I’ve got to get myself to San Francisco. I’m family. I have—all her papers.” Suzanne’s voice was tight with worry.

  “The helicopter to the airport?”

  “It did its last run twenty minutes ago, and the last flight to the Bay Area leaves in twenty anyway. Believe me, I know them all.”

  “I am literally driving right past LAX to get home. If the traffic is good and the cops are sleeping, I cou
ld drop you off in ninety-five minutes. If they have flights. Or a charter.” She clicked through the freeway map in her mind. “Even better, John Wayne Airport is maybe an hour from here right now.”

  “Checking.” Suzanne rapidly tapped at her phone. She was so pale her lips were tinged with blue.

  “Sit down,” Jennifer ordered. “Before you fall over.”

  Suzanne didn’t check for a chair, just began sitting. Jennifer kicked an ottoman under her in the nick of time. “John Wayne will be just about done for the day. I sometimes fly out of there too. At LAX I see a cluster of flights leaving for San Francisco or Oakland. One will have an empty seat. It’s too close to departure to use online booking. I’ll try calling or just chance it at the airport.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  Suzanne looked up from the phone as she had only just realized who she was talking to. “I can drive myself.”

  “You won’t need to waste time parking. Plus you can call the airlines and the hospital while I drive.”

  The woman who had been Suzanne’s shadow most of the evening suddenly appeared, tablet cradled in one arm. “Is there something I can help with?”

  Suzanne got to her feet, the color coming back into her face. “I have an emergency and need to leave.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing.” Fingers flew over the surface of the tablet. “I’ve got the caterers to oversee and the cleaning crew in the morning. I’ll have all those delicious leftovers to myself.”

  She seemed efficient, but kind of fidgety, Jennifer thought. Did she live here? Amanuensis? Girlfriend? Not your business, she reminded herself, even as Suzanne ruled out that last possibility by rapidly going over several points of security and assuring the planner it was fine if she held on to the card key until Suzanne claimed it.

  Jennifer’s hybrid Lexus was promptly retrieved by the valet. They were settling into the car when Jennifer said, “What about luggage?”

  Suzanne held up her wallet and cell phone. “My place in San Francisco has anything else I might need. If I have no luggage to check, they’ll let me on with only thirty minutes ticketing.”

  “Seat belt.”

  Suzanne buckled up and muttered to herself, not appearing to notice that Jennifer was well over the speed limit as they left the cliffside community, then whipped past the gates to the university. The medical center flashed by, then they were northbound on the freeway.

  Suzanne was prodding her phone. “Tell me which flight has a seat… Come on,” she urged. “That is so my password, what the hell?”

  Jennifer kept her eyes on the road. Password rage was not something she wanted to interfere with.

  “Finally. Who designs these protocols? One but not all capital letters, no special characters and no repeating numbers or letters. This is why twenty percent of email generated by business is password resets.”

  “Perhaps that’s something your think tank could work on.”

  It was as if she hadn’t spoken. There was more muttering, then a small noise of success. “There are three that say they have seats.”

  “Good. Hopefully there won’t be construction to slow us down.” She often took off her shoes to drive, so being barefoot didn’t bother her. One eye checked continually for CHP in the rearview mirror while she stuck with the strategy of being the second fastest car on the road.

  Suzanne finally looked up from her phone. “You’re going very fast.”

  Jennifer eased over a lane, let a black Bugatti go by and then moved over to the fast lane again. “That guy is volunteering to take the ticket, so it’s all relative. Until you invent a transporter, this is how I roll. Literally.”

  Suzanne called first one and then a second airline and ended up with an unticketed booking. “Into Oakland, but same difference at this hour.”

  “The GPS says we’ll have about ten minutes to spare.” Jennifer tapped the display on the dash. “It factors in my, uh, average speeds.”

  “Your feet are so dainty. Who knew they were made of lead?” Suzanne screwed her earpiece more firmly in place. “Trying the hospital now.”

  She listened as Suzanne convinced someone she was Annemarie’s next of kin.

  “An infection? She had the flu—it’s not the flu? I know. I know.” She clenched her hands into fists, then visibly relaxed them as she took a deep breath. “I know. Is she in any danger? Well, what can you do to bring down her temperature?”

  Camp Pendleton was behind them when Suzanne dropped the phone into her lap. She’d left messages for several staffers and called the hospital again for another update.

  “Does Annemarie live in San Francisco? Where did they take her?”

  “She’s near the Presidio, so they took her to Cal Pacific.”

  “An infection?”

  “She thought she had the flu, but they think it’s bacterial pneumonia.”

  “Then antibiotics will help right away. It’ll be okay.” She tried to lighten Suzanne’s tension. “I’m not a doctor, but I have played one in the movies. More than once.”

  Suzanne seemed to relax slightly. “I think she’ll be okay. She called 911 herself. Which is contrary to her whole superwoman ethos.”

  “Hang on.” She eased off the gas and changed lanes, slowing until she could slip in between two trucks. A black-and-white zoomed past them, lights flashing. She gave it a moment, letting by several cars all using the high-speed corridor the CHP car had created, then moved back into the fast lane. “I never heard how you two met.”

  “I hired Annemarie at Connecks, way back when. I wasn’t so evolved and she called me out for the lack of women in management. She suggested I could right many of my wrongs by hiring her. We’ve been friends ever since.”

  Talking seemed to slow the nervous jiggling of Suzanne’s legs. Jennifer picked up more speed as the freeway finally opened out to five lanes. Road work near Disneyland didn’t even slow them down.

  Suzanne finished another update call to the hospital. “Still running tests which means they’re waiting for results.” Pointing at the sign listing upcoming exits, she asked, “Wait, we’re nearly there? We want Century, right? Did we fly? Is this Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

  “Fun movie.”

  “The book is better.”

  “It always is. And no, we didn’t fly. I have mad skills at speeding. You live in LA for long and it’s what you do. Plus it might not be fair, but I have good success at talking my way out of tickets.”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  It sounded like a compliment, or at least Jennifer was pleased to take it that way. She made all the lights on West Century Boulevard, more cautious now that she was nearing the well-patrolled airport zone. Suzanne pointed out the airline and Jennifer looped to the correct approach lane.

  “I appreciate this.”

  “You’d have found a way, but I was going right past,” Jennifer repeated. She didn’t want Suzanne to think this created an obligation. A perfect stranger could have made the same offer. “I really hope Annemarie is okay.”

  “Me too. She’s very fit, but heart issues run in the family and she’s already got a stent. So any infection is risky. She has this really obnoxious brother who thinks he should run her life, and even though she’s signed a ream of papers stating he is not to ever have a say in her care or funeral or anything, the last time she ended up in the hospital he showed up and tried to get me thrown out of her room. I’m the bad influence, you know.”

  “I bet that confrontation was epic.”

  “It was. I’m not ashamed to say I used influence, bribery and threats to get him removed. He’s picked up where her father left off harassing her. Religious bigot wingjob.”

  “And that explains why you’re so pleased to get those full page ads.”

  “Who knew money could buy irony? Irony is funny when it happens to other people.” Suzanne grinned suddenly. “Annemarie will choke up a lung laughing.”

  “I rather hope not.” She evaded a security patrol to pull u
p behind the only other car, a slowly departing taxi. “Have a safe flight. Give her my best.”

  “Maybe not. She’ll choke up the other lung.”

  “True.”

  Suzanne opened the door, then turned back. To Jennifer’s surprise, she cupped her face and kissed her, slowly, softly, and lingering long enough to brush her nose to Jennifer’s. “We might never meet again. That’s a better memory.”

  Jennifer couldn’t catch her breath as she watched Suzanne lope through the doors and hurry up to the lone ticket agent. Free to stare for the first time all evening, there was no denying that Suzanne was devastating in Armani. Something she said brought a smile to the young man’s face. He handed her a boarding folio and she dashed away. Jennifer eased the car forward along the curb, able to keep her in sight until she turned into the security corridor.

  Would it be the last time they saw each other? She hadn’t intended to see Suzanne again, ever. Now—now the idea that she’d just watched her walk away for good was twisting her heart in two.

  What a fool she was. Suzanne hadn’t looked back and there was no point in telling herself that the kiss had been anything but goodbye. For good.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Annemarie pushed away her hospital tray, croaking, “I’m not eating that.”

  It was a welcome sign of life. Though dinner was long past, the nurse had decided to leave the tray in the hope that Suzanne would be able to coax Annemarie into eating something. Intravenous feeding could only do so much. It was nearing the twenty-four hour mark since admission and, even though Suzanne had told them that a healthy Annemarie was still a picky eater, the lack of interest in food was causing concern.

  Her back creaked alarmingly as she rose from the stiff hospital chair. She hadn’t moved since she’d gotten back from her quick trip to the cafeteria. She was regretting the burrito, but it had been the most appealing item on offer.