Extreme Bachelor (22 page)

“Well . . . apparently he was thinking about
me all that time,” she said as a sheepish but gleeful little grin
curved her lips.

Trudy suddenly thrust forward, her face in
Leah’s. “And just what was he thinking?” she asked with a salacious
grin.

“Shut up,” Leah said, pushing Trudy when she
handed her the hat.

“I won’t shut up. Come on, come on, tell
me!” Trudy pouted. “You know I live vicariously through you. The
only thing Rick ever thinks about is what he’s going to eat and
when he’s going to get laid, in that order,” she said, swiping the
hat from Leah’s hand.

“Well . . . he said that
he can still
taste
me, and he can still
smell
me, and
feel
me, and that basically, he would walk through
fire to come back to me. But a lot more eloquently than
that.”

“Oh. My. God!” Trudy
shrieked, and bent backward so far that Leah was afraid she’d fall
before bouncing back up, her brown eyes blazing. “That incredibly
gorgeous man said that to
you
?” she cried.

“Hey! Don’t sound so shocked.”

“Oh girl, I am shocked right out of my
shorts, but worse, I am also pea green with envy. Tell me
more.”

“Well . . . he’s taking me
to the premiere of
The
Hero
. And he has given me the name of a
costumer who will put me in a dress for it. And that’s where I am
going now, and you are invited . . . if you want to
come.”

Trudy’s eyes went wide,
and then she let out a
whoop
and linked her arm through Leah’s. “Are you
kidding? Of course I want to come. Good for you, sweetie—you
deserve this. Everyone should have one great love in their life. So
let’s go. I want to see what you’re going to wear.”

Leah hadn’t actually said
anything about one great love. She was privately afraid to say
anything like that, afraid of putting labels on the white flag
she’d held up to Michael. Nor did she want to be too hopeful, or
disinter
any intense feelings of love.
Even if she managed to do it, and she wasn’t certain she could, she
wasn’t sure she could trust Michael. And if something awful
happened, she was one hundred percent sure she could not survive
emotionally. Best not to go there at all. Best just to take this
one baby step at a time.

Starting with a fabulous new dress and a
Hollywood premiere.

So she let Trudy drag her to her car and
drove to the workshop, where Michael’s friend was expecting
them.

“Hi, I’m Beverly,” she said as Trudy and
Leah opened the door and stepped in. “You must be Michael’s latest,
right?” she asked cheerfully.

That was such an odd thing
to say that Leah didn’t know how to respond. So Trudy did it for
her. “She’s Michael’s
last
,” she said with great
authority.

“Oh,” Beverly said, and the fact that her
eyebrows nearly reached her hairline did not give Leah a good
feeling. But Trudy was dragging her into the middle of the studio
and a rack of clothes.

“Ohmigod, these are gorgeous!” she
exclaimed. “Do you sell them?”

“Not really,” Beverly said as she walked
over to stand next to Leah. “Every so often I will. I usually end
up using them on a film somewhere.” She looked at Leah. “So are you
Michael’s fiancée?” she asked with a twinge of incredulity in her
voice.

“Oh no,” Leah said, and shook her head,
laughed as if that was hilarious. “I’m really just a . . . ah . . .
a friend. My name is Leah.”

“Nice to meet you, Leah. You’re lucky.
Michael doesn’t usually do this for his friends.”

What did
that
mean?

“Help yourself. This rack over here probably
has something more appropriate for a major studio premiere,” she
said, pointing to the corner.

Leah and Trudy instantly made their way to
the rack Beverly had indicated and started sorting through
beautiful dresses and gowns.

“Why can’t I ever get a role where the
character wears this sort of thing?” Leah sighed as they looked
through. “Why do I get the role where I have to wear camouflage
gear or bathrobes?”

“At least you have a part in a movie,” Trudy
said. “Think of all the poor schlubs in America who never get to
come to a shop like this. Are we lucky, or what?” She picked up a
floor-length yellow chiffon number and held it up to Leah.

“That was made for Nicole
Redding for a scene in
Washington
Square
. But it ended up on the cutting
room floor.”

Trudy wrinkled her nose
and very carefully stuck it back on the rack. “Oh! Look at this,”
she said, and withdrew a knee-length, turquoise blue sheath from
the rack, held it up to her body, and twirled around to the mirror.
“This is
gorgeous
. And this would look absolutely fabulous on me.”

“Actually, it would look fabulous on her,”
Beverly said, and gingerly took the gown from Trudy and handed it
to Leah. Leah had no compunction about stepping directly in front
of a gaping Trudy at the mirror and ignoring Trudy’s protest that
she found the gown first. She held it up to her. It was beautiful.
She could just imagine Michael’s face when he saw her in this, the
little smile lines around his eyes, his eyes going dark—

“Try it on,” Beverly urged her, and pointed
to a curtained area.

“I don’t think I could fit into that in my
wildest dreams.”

“You
are
a little big through the hip,”
Beverly said, eyeing her critically, but then she smiled. “I can
alter it. Just try it.”

For the chance to try it
on, Leah could ignore the hip comment, and stepped behind the
curtain Beverly indicated and started peeling off her clothes. But
as she was struggling to pull the gown up over her hips (she
did
seem a little big
through there), she heard Beverly ask Trudy how long Michael and
Leah had been an item.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Trudy said. “They used
to be in love, and they broke up, but then they found each other
again, completely by accident, and it’s love again. Isn’t that
wild?”

“It’s really wild. The last time I spoke to
Mike, he was seeing Nicole.”

Great, that one again, Leah thought. Trudy
must have given Beverly a look, because she quickly said, “Oh, I
don’t mean anything. It’s just interesting, because Michael . . .
well, he’s a good friend of mine, but let’s just say he gets
around. And they always think he’s the one. I think even Nicole
thought he was the one.”

“Huh, that’s interesting,”
Trudy said, and Leah could tell by the pitch of her voice that she
was uncomfortable, “because Leah
is
the one. He told her so.”

Oh nononono, Trudy, don’t
do that
! Leah silently begged her. In some
respects, L.A. was a tiny little town, and remarks like that got
around.

“I’m not saying she isn’t,” Beverly
graciously agreed. “It’s just that he’s such a great guy, and he’s
so charming and handsome, and I was just making a point that a lot
of his dates think that it’s a bigger deal than it is.”

“Well, this is the real deal,” Trudy said
emphatically.

“That’s great!” Beverly responded, and it
seemed to Leah that she was getting a little irritated with
Trudy.

Leah managed to get the dress on and zipped
it up as far as she could before flinging the curtain open.
“Ta-da!” she sang.

Trudy squealed with
excitement. “It’s
gorgeous
! You’re gorgeous!” she
cried.

“Can you zip it?” Leah asked, hobbling
around in the skin-tight sheath.

Beverly tried with a lot of huffing and
puffing and finally said, “I can’t zip it all the way. I’ll have to
alter it.”

Leah took a deep breath and, holding her
arms wide to keep herself from teetering over, turned around.

Both Trudy and Beverly stood back and
nodded. “Perfect,” Trudy said.

“The dress was made for Renée Zellweger, but
you’re a lot bigger than her. You might want to think of losing a
few pounds,” Beverly added.

“Thanks,” Leah said.

Beverly grinned. “So what do you think? Do
you like it?”

What Leah thought couldn’t be put into
words. She felt transformed. The dress was absolutely beautiful. It
had a plunging neckline, open to the waist, and a bare back. It was
belted at the waist, and a slim sheath hugged her to the knees. It
was definitely movie-star fantastic, and Leah felt like a million
bucks in it.

“Let me make some quick measurements, and
we’ll get you some breathing room,” Beverly said, and walked away,
leaving Trudy and Leah alone.

Trudy smiled broadly, nodding her approval.
“Girl, you are going to knock his socks off.”

Leah smiled.

“Don’t worry about Beverly,” Trudy
whispered. “She’s jealous.”

Beverly reappeared with a yellow tape
measure and a bit of chalk. She made several marks on the dress
then promised to have it ready by Friday afternoon, just in time
for the premiere.

“Thank you so much,” Leah said, shaking
Beverly’s hand.

“It’s my pleasure,” Beverly said. “Michael
is such a good friend.”

As they walked outside,
and Trudy paused to light up a smoke, she said, “I have the
distinct impression that Beverly wants to be
really
good friends with
Michael.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel
better.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“Okay, so what if I am? You just look so
gloomy. But hey, who’s getting the dress? And what shoes are you
going to wear with that? Okay, here’s what I am going to do for
you. I am going to take you to Goodwill to get some shoes—”

“Goodwill
?” Leah cried as they got
in the car.

“Yes, Goodwill!” Trudy replied, clearly
affronted. “Do you have any idea what the fine ladies of Brentwood
and Bel Air toss out to Goodwill?”

Actually, Leah had no idea.

THAT afternoon, the women suited up in
camouflage again (with a lot of grousing at the wardrobe guy about
how fat they all looked), took up empty paintball guns, and walked
through the blocking. Tomorrow, they would take the blocking into
an old back lot set that had not been struck and still had housing
facades up from the last film.

When they broke for the day, Trudy stopped
to talk to Michele and Jamie, and Leah walked back to the locker
room. As she neared the commissary tent, a familiar face stepped
out into the sunshine, grinning broadly, his arms wide. “There you
are, the flower without the light for the cigarettes.”

“Hello, Adolfo. Still lurking about looking
for a light, I see.”

“No, no, this is not true. I am waiting for
you.”

“Me?”

“Si
. You do not recall? You did not give me your
name.”

Leah laughed, put the tip of her gun to the
ground, her elbow propped on the butt. “I don’t know if I should
give you my name. What are you going to do with it?”

He smiled—a very lovely smile, in all
honesty—and said, “You will not give me your trust, no? Ah, but if
I have your name, I will do nothing but whisper it to the stars
when I wish for you.”

“And you said you weren’t any good at
lines!” she exclaimed with a laugh.

Adolfo looked positively wounded. “You do
not believe me. Why is this? Do you not believe a man can see a
woman as beautiful as you and wish for her to be his?”

Leah couldn’t help smiling. Cheesy?
Absolutely. Flattering? Hell, yes. “I think that when a man sees a
woman, he’s usually interested in something else.”

Adolfo grinned at that. “I did not say that
I am not interested in this something else as well, sweetheart.” He
winked.

Leah had to laugh. At
least the guy was honest, she had to give him points for that, and
he had a way of saying
sweetheart
that could turn a grown woman to
jelly.

“If I may, nameless one . . . why do you
have this gun?”

She glanced down at her firearm and picked
it up, pointed it directly at Adolfo’s chest. He instantly threw up
his hands, his eyes going wide. “If you aren’t careful, I will
spray you with red paint.”

“You may spray on me whatever you wish,” he
said, slowly lowering his arms, and took a tentative step forward
and casually reached for the gun, took it from her, and turned it
around, pointing at the tent. He brought it up to his shoulder as
if he meant to fire it, looked through the site, pulled the
trigger—and of course nothing happened. He laughed and lowered it.
“This is useless,” he proclaimed.

“I should hope so. It’s a prop.”

“Prop? What is prop?” he asked, handing the
gun back to her.

“An inanimate object used on a movie set,”
she said, and cocked her head to one side. “What did you say you
did around here, again?”

“I did not say. But now that you have
expressed such keen interest, I shall tell you. I am the person
with lights,” he said, and gestured heavenward.

“Lights?”

“Yes, lights. The things that hang down from
the sky while you make the movies.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “Which film are you
working on?”

Adolfo smiled. “Which film? Many, many
films. And which film are you?”

“War of the Soccer
Moms
.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “A very fine film.
You are the star, no?”

She laughed roundly. “No.”

“No? How is this possible?” he asked, and
touched her chin with his fingers, admiring her face. “You must be
the star.”