by Marion Myles
“I think the only reason you’re okay to work is because you’re an addict who’s built up a tolerance to narcotics,” she said in an undertone.
“What do you mean?” Cindy asked.
“Liam snuck some pills in the bathroom. You and I have to hunt down every last pill, liquid, patch, and potion because that’s not happening again.”
Cindy shifted from foot to foot, her eyes dropping away from Rebecca. She knew, Rebecca thought. She damn well knew and didn’t warn me.
“What’s the big deal?” Liam asked, smirking over the lid of his coffee. “I’m here and working, aren’t I? I told you all I needed was something to take the edge off.”
Rebecca turned to face him. “The big deal is you can’t control it. You’ve heard the old saying, one is one too many, and one more is never enough? It’s a known fact. They’ve written friggin’ songs about it. Every addict thinks they control the drugs or alcohol or whatever and yet we have thousands of people ODing every damn day. All the rehabs are full up. Those who aren’t dead yet are ruining the lives of everyone they know, not to mention their own.”
“Stop saying I’m an addict,” Liam said, his voice quiet enough she had to lean toward him to catch the words. “I’m not. I don’t see taking a couple of Vicodin as a big deal. My arm was hurting. I was stressed about the last minute changes to the script. That’s all it was.”
“What about last week when you went AWOL?”
He shrugged. “Everybody has to let off steam once in a while.”
Rebecca shook her head. “Not like that they don’t. Not by walking out on their work, disappearing, and forcing someone to fly across the country to drag them home.”
He smiled now, slowly, charmingly, the lines creasing at the corner of his eyes giving him a mischievous look. “It was a lot of fun.”
“I’ll just bet.” Rebecca snorted and straightened in her chair. “Especially the part where you passed out in the bathroom and sliced your arm open. If that’s not fun, I don’t know what is.”
“Yeah, well, you probably wouldn’t know fun if it came right up and kissed you on the lips. I’ll bet you’re one of those goody-two-shoes types who does nothing but concentrate on her job and take care of her twenty cats. Some people want to have a life, you know.”
She noticed Cindy had retreated and was currently standing in front of the house beside a large black box with shiny metal wheels. Rebecca dropped her head and exhaled in a slow, steady stream.
“Liam, I’m not here to debate with you. Frankly, I don’t care if you think you’re an addict or not. I’m here to keep you sober and functioning like a normal human being. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
Rebecca badly wanted to storm away, but since it was obvious she couldn’t leave the doofus alone for a single second, all she could do was sit there next to him and silently seethe. She glanced over to the crew working by the house and noticed they were setting up some kind of miniature train track deal. Soon enough, they had the camera set on the track and tested rolling it along the front lawn and down to the road.
Cindy walked over to join them and offered Liam breath mints and lip chap. She uncapped a bottle of water before handing it to him. Another lady approached, wearing some sort of cloth tool belt and spent a few minutes rearranging Liam’s hair and brushing powder on his face.
Within a few minutes, Liam and Carrie were back at their place on the porch in front of the house. The filming resumed. This time Carrie slapped Liam’s face, and he walked away with the camera rolling along beside him. As before, they did take after take. Then they took another shot with the camera behind Liam while he gazed toward the house and watched Carrie march inside and slam the door behind her.
Rebecca started to lose focus and found her mind drifting. If things were normal, she would still be at the hospital working her shift and happy knowing she could soon go home and collapse into bed. As things stood, she had no idea when they would finally finish shooting this scene. It was coming up on the end of the fourth hour, and things didn’t appear to be slowing down.
Considering it was only the first night, she’d had enough pushback from Liam to understand he was not going to make her job easy. As for Cindy, she’d hoped to find an ally in the woman but now saw her willingness to help only went so far. She wouldn’t put it past the PA to cover for her boss or forget to tell her about secret stashes or habitual routines of drinking and drug use. It would be Rebecca and Rebecca alone who kept this guy upright and functioning for the next four weeks.
In the end, the filming wrapped just after five in the morning. It was still dark, though the horizon beyond Liam’s trailer was showing some brightness. Cindy had Larry prepped for their pick up. After gathering a few bags from the trailer and motioning for Rebecca to collect hers, they bundled into the Navigator.
It took less than an hour to drive up into the Hollywood Hills. During that time, Cindy fed Liam a protein bar and a container of trail mix along with a large bottle of Smart Water. She contacted someone named Simon about making an omelet and discussed lunch and dinner options before asking Rebecca if there was anything in particular she would like for breakfast. With all the talk of food, Rebecca’s mouth had started watering, and she opted for the omelet and toast with a side of berries, the same as Liam had ordered.
Next, Cindy spoke to Gunther about rescheduling Liam’s workout for the following day. She went online to order various items to be shipped to the house. Liam called out his wants and needs from behind Rebecca and Cindy where he lounged on the third row of seating munching on his snacks and scrolling the screen of his phone.
“On the Gibson site, you’ll see strings. Not the Brite wire, I want J200 Phosphor. I go through them fast enough, so you might as well get a couple packs. Jee-sus, Marisa is pissed. Good thing I didn’t see those texts until now. Send her flowers. Lots and lots of them. Something really pretty.”
Cindy tapped her phone bringing up an Evernote App and added those items to what Rebecca could see was a very long list. “Do we know what she likes?”
“Roses?” Liam said doubtfully. “Wait. She did have those big bunchy blue things in her house. Maybe that would be better.”
“Delphiniums?”
“I don’t know. The round ones. About the size of a baseball.”
“Hydrangeas,” Rebecca said. “They’re more of a plant. Calla lilies are nice. Classy, pretty. A little unusual.”
Liam clapped his hands together. “Sounds perfect. Lilies it is.”
“Okay, what about the pool?” Cindy asked. “Do you still want the guy to come today?”
“I guess. You’ll have to handle it ’cause I need to get some shut eye.”
Cindy nodded to herself and continued tapping her screen. “No problem.”
The car turned off Vine and started an incline. The roads were narrow and twisting as they climbed into the hills of Hollywood. Rebecca had only driven through the area a few times to meet friends for hiking. She soon became lost as they continued turning from one road to another.
The farther they ascended, the bigger and grander the properties became. Most were close to the road, but in the final few minutes of the drive, they started passing gates and long, slim driveways winding up to houses perched at the top.
Liam’s house was one of those. The driver turned into the driveway, scanned something from his phone then punched in a six-digit code. The wooden wall in front of them slid off to the side. Up they went, past scatterings of bushes and cacti, and finally the ground leveled out and the home came into view.
It was an adobe design with white block walls and a red-tiled roof. The driveway swept around to the entrance, and they got out of the car under a canopied section opposite the front door. Larry quickly deposited the bags inside the foyer, wished everyone a pleasant day, and then slowly steered the car along the rest of the circular drive and back out toward the road.
Liam walked into the house leading Cindy and Rebecca past the bags and
through a small sitting area, a dining room, and straight into the kitchen at the back of the house. A woman set a circular wooden table with plates and cutlery. She was tiny, likely in her late forties, and of Hispanic descent.
“Good morning, Liam. Good morning, Cindy. Hello, I’m Isabella,” the woman said, nodding to Rebecca.
“Hi, I’m Rebecca.” She wasn’t sure if she should shake the woman’s hand but settled for smiling and giving a little wave.
“Welcome, Rebecca.” She fussed with a napkin on the table before pulling out a chair. “Now, I believe everyone’s ready to eat, no?”
“I’m half starved. I could eat a horse,” Liam said cheerfully.
As far as Rebecca was concerned, he’d been snacking all through the long night of shooting, not to mention eating in the car on the drive there. If anyone was starving it was her. The glorious aromas of buttered toast and cooked vegetables had her stomach gurgling in excitement.
She realized the last time she’d eaten was when she’d made a sandwich while clearing out her refrigerator before coming to work for Liam. When was that? Yesterday maybe? Who knew with the time change from New York to LA and then working through the night.
“Food’s up,” a man said.
Rebecca turned toward the business part of the kitchen with its miles of grey stone countertops and floor-to-ceiling cupboards. She almost didn’t notice the fridge before realizing it was cleverly built into the cabinets and blended perfectly with the rest of the charcoal wood. An enormous range stove with eight gas burners dominated the island, and a copper-colored extractor hood went all the way to the ceiling above it.
The man at the stove was silver-haired though his face was youthful. He was tall—an inch or so over Liam’s six feet—and lanky. It struck Rebecca he looked in need of a meal. Weren’t chefs supposed to be roly-poly from constantly sampling their wares?
“Sit. Sit,” Isabella admonished.
Sliding on oven mitts, the housekeeper hurried over to take plates of food from where Simon had left them in a warming oven, which like the fridge, was built into the long line of cupboards. Liam and Cindy were already seated when Rebecca turned back to the table. She quickly joined them and tried her best not to snatch the piles of golden toast dripping with butter and stuff them all into her mouth in one go.
The omelet was practically a work of art, a perfect half circle with the mushrooms and asparagus equidistant from one another and the cheese lolling between the folds as though it had been surgically embedded. Sprigs of dill and parsley graced the top, nestled in some sort of creamy white sauce.
She spent so much time looking at her food that Liam and Cindy were already chewing and swallowing before she had even lifted her fork. When at last she cut into the omelet and placed a forkful on her tongue, she couldn’t stop the moan.
“Oh, this is…wow…it tastes like heaven,” she finally managed.
“Our Simon’s the best,” Liam said. “I lured him away from Gramercy Tavern in New York. I sure hope you have a good appetite because the man likes to cook.”
“Rebecca, you’d better watch out. I gained five pounds before I got a hold of myself,” Cindy said.
“But…you’re so slim,” Rebecca said.
“So are you. Just be careful is all I’m saying.”
Within minutes, the food had been demolished, and Liam stretched his arms overhead, yawning and sighing. “I don’t know about you ladies, but it’s definitely time for me to take a nap. When’s my call?”
Cindy wiped her mouth with her napkin and consulted the phone resting on the table beside her plate. “They haven’t sent the sheet out yet. Last I heard it was around six-thirty. If it’s any earlier, I’ll make sure you’re up in time.”
“I’m not gonna sleep that long,” he said, pushing back from the table.
“Okay,” she agreed. “Still, I’ll keep an eye.”
“Um…I guess I have a room here?” Rebecca asked.
“Oh, right.” Liam looked at her blankly for a second and yawned again. “Cin, put her in the east side guest with the balcony.”
“That sounds nice,” Rebecca said, “as long as it’s near your room.”
Already on his feet, he paused and turned back to face her. “Come on, Ma Hen, I’m going to sleep. That’s it.”
“You could set her up across the hall,” Cindy said.
He glanced between them, clearly not pleased. A finger tapped against his right thigh. “Okay, fine. Whatever.”
“Great. I’ll grab my bags and follow you up. Then I should probably take a look at your arm.”
Despite his obvious annoyance, Liam insisted on carrying Rebecca’s luggage, slinging the duffel over his right shoulder and using the same arm to carry the suitcase.
“That’s all you brought? Are you having more sent?”
“Nope. This is it.”
He shook his head. “I’ve never known a woman who traveled light.”
“That’s because you’ve never known me,” Rebecca said, following him up the grand, circular staircase.
Liam turned right at the top and took her down a roomy hallway with floors covered in wide, walnut planks so shiny they almost looked wet. Passing two doors, he stopped at the third on the right and carefully using his injured left arm, opened the door.
The room was all sky. The far wall was floor-to-ceiling windows, and the view of the hills spreading out in all directions was breathtaking. The remaining walls were stark white. Bedcoverings and upholstery of the small couch by the fireplace were similarly clothed in palest ivory with the throw pillows graduating from snowy white all the way to something resembling the color of rain clouds. Relief was found in the pale blue wool rug covering three-quarters of the floor space and the jewel-toned glass jars resting on the mantle.
Liam placed the bags down on the fainting couch, also white, arranged with a chair and small table to the right of the bed. “Bathroom’s through here.”
“This is…well…it’s really nice,” Rebecca said.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the view through the windows. All of a sudden, the panels seemed to film over, degree by degree, until she was staring at a wall of light blue glass.
“The control’s here,” Liam said, pointing to a panel low on the wall by the lamp and placed so it could be reached while in bed.
“Of course. I guess it might be hard to sleep with all the light.”
“Let’s do my arm, and then I’ve gotta crash. I’m right over here.”
His bedroom across the hall was easily twice the size of hers and had the same wall of windows directly across from the bed. Not only did this view include Hollywood but looking down, she saw a spectacular infinity pool, sprawling gardens, and closer to the house a patio area with what looked like an outdoor kitchen and dining section.
This room was all wood floor and ceiling beams. The mantle of the flagstone fireplace was done in the same chestnut color. Walls were mid-blue, which—against the floor and heavy wood furniture—should have made it dark and medieval. With the size of the room and ridiculous amount of natural light, it was, instead, elegant and stately.
The mantle, the walls, the bedside tables, were all covered with photographs. Liam in concert. With the band. At fancy parties with beautiful women on his arm. Sun-tanning on a yacht. In a tuxedo accepting an award from Bono.
“So, my arm…”
His voice jolted her back to the present, and she realized she’d been going from picture to picture, her mouth hanging slack while she lost herself in the splendor of his life. During the past twenty-four hours, she’d somehow forgotten who he was. A man who had conquered many a musical mountain and knew pretty much every famous person on the planet. More than that, everyone knew him.
She pulled herself back to the present. “Right. Of course. Bathroom’s probably the best place. Did the doctor give you any instructions?”
He tapped a finger against his right temple and closed his eyes for several beats. “Got
it,” he said opening his eyes into hers.
With the light pouring in from the windows, his eyes showed flecks of green mixed in with the blue. It made Rebecca think of pictures of the Caribbean Sea on travel brochures of tropical islands. The ones she could never afford.
Figures he’d have paradise sea eyes.
“Keep the area dry for twenty-four then change the bandage and wash daily checking for signs of infection.”
Gathering herself, she nodded. “Great. We can do that.”
As he led her to the bathroom, he pulled out his phone. “I think there was a baggie of stuff. Cindy should have it,” he said while he tapped out a text.
In the bathroom, Liam undid the buttons on his shirt and slid it off. Rebecca had spent her whole working life looking at people in various stages of undress while tending to their illnesses, but this moment, for whatever reason, seemed intimate. Determinedly, she took his left wrist and turned to him before gently removing the bandage and lifting the gauze from the wound.
“Not bad,” she commented. “The line is nice and clean, I think it’ll heal well. No pus. A little more swelling than I’d like. You must have some cold compresses around this place?”
“I guess,” he said, gazing down at his arm. “It sorta looks like it could be a knife wound, don’t you think? I’m gonna tell everyone I got this in a bar fight. Should earn me points with the ladies.”
Rebecca couldn’t stop the smile. “I hardly imagine you need to earn points with the ladies. They must be falling at your feet as it is. But you’re right, that’ll sound better than admitting you passed out in an airplane bathroom and slashed your arm open on a forty pounder of Jack Daniels.”
He smirked at her. “God, woman. You’re just never gonna let that go, are you?”
Using the tip of her finger, and with perhaps a little more force than necessary, she poked beside the laceration where the swelling showed. He snarled at her and went to pull his arm away.
Quick as a snake, she grabbed his wrist, holding him steady. “Nope. I’m never going to let it go.”
