Turning Point

by Lara Zielinsky

  “Cameron?” She stepped forward, pushing in, and froze.

  Cameron sat on his power-napping couch. A petite short-haired blonde had her head in his lap. Cassidy’s face heated when she realized the woman’s head was bobbing enthusiastically. Cameron’s head lolled back on the cushions as his fingers moved through the woman’s short hair.

  “Cameron!”

  The woman abruptly fell back onto the floor as he sat up, closed his zipper, and came to his feet. “What the hell do you want?”

  Cassidy straightened. “God, Cameron, here?”

  “What’s it to you? You dropped me, remember?”

  “You are really fucked up. You take Chapman’s words as some sort of dare and change a script into a horrifying character assassination, which I have fixed by the way. Now…you’re into underage girls?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw the girl pulling her top together. “How the hell old are you?”

  Cameron retorted, “Well, you won’t have to worry about me after this. Thanks to that shit Chapman pulled last week, Victor has moved me over to another series.”

  Cassidy jabbed a finger at the girl. “Is she your new assistant?” Feeling absurd and angry, Cassidy swiped a hand over her face to calm herself and turned on her heel. She took some pleasure in shoving the door into the wall with a loud thud as she left.

  Collapsing against the wall outside the studio offices, Cassidy waited for her heart to stop racing. She was not jealous, she realized. She was appalled, realizing that at some point that could have been her.

  She crossed the open lot and re-entered the soundstage, finding a chair where she could sit quietly. If someone needed to see her they could, but the single chair didn’t invite others to come and chat. She swallowed hard, accepting some of the responsibility for the situation. She had allowed herself to become wrapped up in Cameron to such an extent that she had culpability in this mess.

  Her mind tumbled over the other news she had gleaned from the confronta-

  tion. Cameron is off the series. She exhaled. Maybe now things would calm down on the set. Chapman would not be able to get In Cam’s face every day, demanding things. She wondered who would take over the writing and what the change would mean to Chapman — or any of them. It would not break the show, but some people were bound to see his departure as her fault.

  With a sense of the inevitable, she covered her face with her hands. After a moment to settle her nerves, she left the set behind, along with all its troubles, lookŹing forward to seeing her first Thanksgiving Day Parade in L.A. She had promised Ryan they finally would attend one.

  Chapter 26

  Moving with the traffic flowing away from the Los Angeles International AirŹport, Brenna watched Kevin adjust more comfortably into the passenger seat. ThoŹmas and James sat quietly in the back, elbows on the windows, gazing out at the passing traffic. The radio played so softly she could not identify the song. She was quiet, still absorbing that Kevin was here, in L.A., with her. Her gaze kept sliding sideways to watch him.

  He wore a forest green polo shirt instead of the familiar suit and tie, and she wondered why. Previously whenever she had asked him to change into something more casual, he had insisted that a candidate should always look professional. NerŹvously she rubbed her hand on the gear shift.

  Kevin’s hand covered hers. She glanced away from the road long enough to catch his smile and offer a faint one back. She turned her hand over, palm up, and briefly squeezed his fingers before looking once in each rear-view mirror. She put both hands on the wheel to change lanes. Her hand never returned to the central console.

  “How are Ellie and Marie?” she asked.

  “Eleanor, if you please, and Marie Curie,” Kevin supplied wryly. “Eleanor’s been trying to find the ‘most grown-up gown’ to wear to the Christmas dance at the church, while Marie can’t be bothered. She’s taken an interest in physics and joined a rocketry club last month. Her entire room is papered with trajectories and math equations that are years beyond me.”

  Brenna suppressed a chuckle. “I bet there’s a boy involved,” she surmised.

  “That’s what I thought too. She and a classmate, Kirsten, both joined up. Heard it might get them an angle on a scholarship, I think.”

  Shaking her head, Brenna shrugged. “If she likes it…” She changed the subject. “How’s Ellie’s dress hunt coming?”

  “My sister took her shopping last weekend. Five hours and not a single thing she found suitable. They’re going out again this weekend.”

  Brenna let the silence grow, but it did not feel the same. Usually silence between them was light, a time of communion. She felt anything but communal at the moment, so she concentrated on the road.

  After catching the temperature on a bank sign as they passed, Kevin filled the void. “It’s warm here. Barely in the mid-thirties back home.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. We had snow two nights ago. Just a couple inches, but it’ll probably stick. Nice white blanket for Christmas, I figure.”

  “It was almost seventy when we were camping,” Thomas interjected.

  Kevin turned around in his seat. “When did you go camping?”

  “Last weekend,” Brenna supplied. “Thomas had taught the LAKE kids to climb, and this was their first chance on something other than the gym wall.”

  “Yeah, everyone did great, even Cassidy.”

  “Cassidy?”

  “Yeah, that blond actress from Mom’s show.”

  Kevin studied Brenna. “Sounds like you had fun.”

  She shrugged and considered what to say to that. Knowing he was not inclined

  to go camping, she had not even thought to invite him. Is he bothered thai I had a free weekend and didn’t come to see him? He didn’t sound upset, but she could not see his face. Damn. Brenna wished she were not driving so she could study his face and come up with the right thing to say. Instead she shrugged again. “Yes. I think everyŹone had a good time.” Her brow furrowed a little even as she tried to stifle it.

  There was silence again; she almost reached for the radio dial to break it.

  Kevin looked out the window, then mused, “I passed up riding in the parade at home today. Do you want to go see yours?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I was just noticing the signs blocking off the route and indicating parking. Would you like to go see the parade?”

  “But, the crowds…” Brenna felt she would much rather spend the morning at home. The turkey was already in the oven, but she liked puttering around the kitchen. It always reminded her of Thanksgivings as a child.

  Kevin shrugged with unconcern. “We’ll just be a few more nameless faces in the madness.” He put his hand on her knee as he turned around and addressed the boys. “What do you think, guys?”

  “If we get somewhere near Del Ray Drive, maybe I can find Marcie. She said she and her family were going to view things from there.”

  “I’m sure there’ll be too many people to find just one.”

  “We haven’t seen a parade that you weren’t in, in years, Mom,” Thomas coaxed. “Come on.”

  Paused at a stoplight, Brenna looked from one face to another, then into Kevin’s hopeful smile, and she conceded to the majority. “All right.”

  To guard against too much sun, they purchased hats from a street vendor hawking “LA 2000” downtown revitalization project logo gear. Thomas and James turned theirs backward, sauntering along with big grins until Brenna turned and gestured once with a finger. Sheepishly they both turned the caps around properly and straightened their shoulders.

  Brenna pulled a golf-style visor low over her sunglasses and looked up as Kevin pulled the baseball cap brim low over his eyes. He wrapped his left arm around her bare shoulders and tilted his head to capture her lips.

  She stiffened in surprise, then forced herself to rest her hand against his cheek, and willed the kiss to tantalize her. When Kevin pulled away, she blinked.

  That certainly didn’t work
, she thought, thankful the glasses hid her eyes. She was very aware of how different his kiss was from Cassidy’s — less absorbing, less able to take her to a realm of forgetting where and who she was. With a sense of loss, she turned away to watch where they were walking.

  Thomas flanked her left and James took Kevin’s right, slipping behind the adults when the path narrowed. Brenna worried that the boys would be bored. Adults liked parades for the nostalgia, and little kids liked them for the colors, noise, and candy at the end. She remembered herself as a teenager finding parades painŹfully dull unless she was surrounded by friends.

  “I’ve missed you,” Kevin whispered against her ear, brushing the lobe with his lips. His left arm moved down her back, then abruptly he grasped her hand.

  She offered a tremulous smile. “So, where should we sit?”

  Thomas and James forged ahead through the crowd. Brenna and Kevin folŹlowed, ducking the elbows of in-line skaters and holding their hats against the jostle

  of the rest of the crowd.

  “Are you sure this was a good idea?” she asked.

  “Sure. See?” They broke through the line, and Brenna lowered herself to the curb behind the parade rope next to a pair of preschool-age children licking fruity-smelling Italian ices. She inhaled appreciatively, identified grape and cherry, and wrapped her arms around her upraised knees as Kevin reached down, brushed a spot clean and sat next to her. Thomas and James crouched behind them.

  James leaned forward, putting a hand on his mother’s and Kevin’s shoulder. “Mom, can I go look for Marcie?”

  “There’s no way you’ll find us again if you leave,” she protested.

  He looked up and pointed across the street. “That’s the Piccadilly’s. Only one for miles. I’ll meet you back here in one hour, I promise.”

  Brenna looked to Kevin, who pursed his lips, then nodded reluctantly. “I guess it’d be all right.” She grasped her youngest son’s hand. “Be careful.”

  “I will.” James disappeared into the throng before she could change her mind.

  Thomas’ gaze was fixed on something, Brenna realized, as she turned and caught his face. “You aren’t going to leave, too?”

  “Well, I don’t know. So far I haven’t seen a prettier lady to spend my time with.” He laughed. She grasped his chin and caught his kiss on her cheek as he patted her shoulder. “So, what’s your favorite entry in a parade?”

  Brenna opened her mouth to answer, when Kevin began offering his response. “The bands. Not that I’d be biased, having played in one all through high school myself, of course.”

  Thomas laughed. It hurt Brenna to see Kevin smile at her, pleased by her son’s reaction to him.

  “What about you, Mom? What’s your favorite part of a parade?”

  She fell back to a time decades earlier — a parade with her brothers. She couldn’t have been more than seven. She saw painted faces, smiling, dancing eyes that made everyone laugh. Telling stories from behind masks that hid the truth. “I like the clowns,” she said wistfully. “I always have.”

  Kevin put his arm around her shoulder, and they leaned forward to look down the stretch of road for any signs that the parade was nearing. Calliope music, accomŹpanying the opening float, reached them over the din of the crowd laughing and holŹlering good-naturedly around them. Kevin’s arm nudged her backward, and she felt her shoulders conform to the curve of his chest. Gradually she relaxed her posture until he was almost completely supporting her. She felt his cheek nuzzle her hair and closed her eyes, waiting for the magic.

  Tears gathered instead. She did not feel a wash of protectiveness or the sudden rush of blushing affection. His hand was caressing her lower back, but it raised no tingles. Cassidy had raised so much more from across a campfire. She opened her eyes, startled that the blonde was once again foremost in her thoughts, and leaned back harder against her husband’s chest. As if on cue, Kevin wrapped his arms around her, catching her hands in her lap as his body hugged hers. “Bonny Brenna’s got a blush on,” he said in her ear.

  She was not blushing because she had shared her childhood fondness for clowns. As her mind filled with the memory of a woman who was forbidden, the first marchers turned into teary blurs before her eyes. She turned her head away, lifted her sunglasses and brushed at her cheeks.

  Filled with renewed misgivings, Cassidy viewed the crowded street. She grasped Ryan’s hand more firmly as the flow of bodies around them threatened to tug him away from her. She thought about just sitting right there, but the view of the parade would be less than optimal, and she wanted Ryan’s first memory of the pagŹeantry to be the best possible. She looked around and located the entrance to PiccaŹdilly’s. The route mapped in the paper had shown this as the location of the parade’s second turn. She scouted the area, looking to avoid the crowd-scanning cameras. Ryan tugged her leg. “This way, Mommy.”

  He was gesturing toward the curb nearby, and she decided it was suitable. Tucking herself on the edge, she positioned him between her thighs. Cassidy circled her arms around him and pointed out the blue and red uniformed band marching past. “Would you like to play music someday?”

  “Yes!” He jumped excitedly. “Drums!”

  Cassidy ruffled his hair as the drum line marched past, feeling its rumbles clearly beneath her sneakers through the surface of the road. She resisted putting her hands over her ears and instead sat back, listening as Ryan named off the other instruments they were seeing. He paused when he could not identify one.

  “What are those gold things? Tubas too?” He pointed to a golden line.

  “Those are called French horns,” she explained. “Don’t ask me why.”

  “Why?”

  She sighed and hugged him. “Probably because they were first made in France or something. I’ll ask the score director at work.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. “Okay.” Then he paused. “Mommy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you see that lady at work again?”

  “Which lady?”

  “Ms. Lan…gan?”

  “Lanigan. Yes, of course.” Cassidy thought of the compact woman and smiled wistfully, wondering what she was doing this holiday morning. She frowned. ProbaŹbly waking up with her husband, she thought wryly.

  “Will you tell her I like her hat?”

  “What hat?” Cassidy was confused. Brenna had not worn any headgear on the camping trip, which had surprised Cassidy, actually. She still remembered the sunŹshine on the titian locks as they paused on the mountainside during Sunday’s climb.

  “The one she’s wearing.” He pointed.

  Cassidy followed the line of his finger through the break in the parade. She recŹognized Brenna, but certainly not because the woman was trying to be recognized. A sun visor was pulled low over her face and her sunglasses hid her eyes. However, there was no mistaking that jaw or the soft lines of shoulders bared to the sun.

  Cassidy swallowed. Or bared to her husband’s touch. She had never met Kevin Shea, but that had to be him, curled around Brenna’s body, his hands stroking her shoulders. Her throat tightened.

  “Mommy?”

  “Yes?” she managed.

  “Will you tell her?”

  “I…I’ll try to remember. I’ll certainly try.” Cassidy sat up as the street became busy again, filling with the GE “Bright Ideas” float moving past, surrounded by dancing light bulbs, one of whom dropped candies which Ryan scrambled to get.

  She caught his jacket tail, preventing him from going too far, and soon he was back in her arms, watching the rest of the parade as Cassidy contemplated how

  Brenna looked, enclosed there in Kevin’s arms. She looked away from the street to brush her eyes and saw couples walking hand in hand, occasionally looking at the passing parade but more often wrapped up in each other. The whole tableau made her sigh. Her gaze slipped back toward the street, and she saw a couple on the near curb from the back, one’s hand tucked into the other’s rear jean pocket. O
ne brunette head turned and two sets of soft, feminine lips connected.

  Normally one to glance away from public displays of affection, Cassidy dropped her chin lightly on top of Ryan’s head and let herself covertly study the lesŹbian couple with great interest. She felt a swirl of arousal in her groin. When their kiss ended, the smaller woman tucked her head against the other’s shoulder. Cassidy felt a twinge in her own arm around Ryan, which she now recognized as the need to hold, to cherish. She watched as the women caught pieces of candy thrown from the float and unwrapped them, offering the pieces to each other.

  She swallowed and finally turned away, glimpsing Brenna on the other side of the street. Her arms were tucked around her knees and her mouth was open, laughŹing. Cassidy felt a pain in her chest. She sat back, releasing Ryan for a moment as she tried to catch her breath.

  Ryan took the opportunity to bolt out for another piece of candy. Cassidy righted herself and grabbed for him, but missed. She looked at the oncoming parade and did not hesitate. She leaped for her son, now in the middle of the street as the mounted division of the Los Angeles Police Department clip-clopped past. The horses that might have stepped on them stopped instantly. The disruption of their rhythm made a few officers look down.

  “Back to the side, ma’am.”

  Cassidy stood, walking around the two horses to reach the curb.

  It was not her curb. Disoriented, Cassidy had sought a section of empty curb, thinking it was where she and Ryan had been sitting.

  “Hey, Ms. Hyland!”

  Recognizing Thomas Lanigan’s cheery voice, Cassidy looked up as she sat, realŹizing she was about to sit on Brenna’s feet. The other woman moved, drawing Cassidy’s bewildered attention to the shadowed face. Heart hammering, Cassidy lifted her chin and met the curious expression on Kevin Shea’s face.

  Cassidy shook herself and looked at Thomas. “Hi. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you here.”

  “Looks like Ryan was getting himself in trouble again,” Thomas said. “Saw him dart out ahead of the horses.”