Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel (10 page)

“Cool. When did you get your license?”

“Um, well, I’ve been driving for a while,” I said, wondering if I’d ever get one.

“Vintage ’65 Continental ragtop with those cool old doors that open out, like a barn . . . what are they called?”

“Suicide doors,” I said.

“Right, suicide,” she said, tapping a cigarette from a pack. “
Very
L.A.” She lit it, looking at the shredded top, at the bumps and dents I’d accumulated while chasing or being chased, and exhaled smoke. “DUI?” she asked.

“Who, me? No, I don’t drink. It was just, you know, an accident here and there.”

“Looks like my handiwork.”

“You’ve had one? A DUI?”

“I wish it were just one,” she said with a smirk. “I have what is known as a ‘chemical reliance issue.’ ‘Alcoholic’ or ‘junkie’ is probably more accurate, but negative terminology was prohibited at Rancho Salud.” She tapped an ash from the cigarette. “You want one?”

“I don’t smoke either,” I said, knowing it could kill me, but still feeling like a total geek seeing how sultry she looked as a feathery plume leaked from her nostrils.

“Good for you. I’ll quit someday, and then I’ll never have another bad habit . . . well, never say never.” She winked and told me about her latest stint in rehab dealing with a coke habit that had gotten her arrested three times in three years. “DUIs—deweys—are
very
L.A. Angelenos live in their cars.” She’d missed the end of her senior year of high school and would have to re-enroll or get a GED, but it was worth it—at age seventeen, she was clean for the first time in years. When she was released from rehab, her mom and grandpa announced they were traveling to Chicago; Annabelle was determined to keep a constant eye on her. “My mom blames herself for my problems,” she said. “But really, it started with
Two Cool for School.
”

“You mean the TV show?”

“Yeah,” she said, flashing a smile that was both sweet and seductive. “I was the original Becky.”

“I knew I’d seen you somewhere!” I said, thinking of the show that had been a mainstay of my tween years. It chronicled the romantic middle school adventures of bubbly fraternal twins (the “two” in the title) Justin and Justine. The cast included every TV stereotype—skinny nerd, Asian brainiac, black rapper, cynic in a wheelchair, and of course, Becky, the evil blond temptress who constantly got between Justin and his girlfriend, or Justine and her boyfriend. Heather’s dad had been the ultimate stage parent, ushering her into commercials when she was tiny, accompanying her to auditions as she grew, with her mom reluctantly going along. “She was against show business?” I asked.

Heather nodded. “She grew up in it, with my grandpa playing Detective Keegan, and despised it. Her opinion is that being an actor gives a person free rein to slip inside other personalities and behave badly. But my dad won the argument because he was, like, super domineering. To quote the Rancho Salud handbook, he’s a ‘Self-First’ personality. Supposedly he was building my career, but really it was all about him,” she said with a weary grin. “Oh God, we just met . . . is this TMI?”

“What?” I said, fascinated. “Uh, no. Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Addicts
love
to talk about themselves. Especially celebrity addicts. Daytime TV couldn’t exist without us,” she said, and she told me how her dad wrangled an audition that landed her the role of Becky. “The problem is that there’s no such thing as being a kid in show biz. You grow up too fast, learning stuff you shouldn’t.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“The more successful you are, the more you’re treated like an adult. But you’re not.” She sighed. “So anyway, there was this producer on the show, smart, good looking, in his twenties. And so nice to me in a way my dad wasn’t . . . complimentary, a little conspiratorial. We’d whisper together, making fun of the other actors. You can probably guess where this is going.”

“Um . . . I think so,” I said carefully.

“And it almost did . . .
happen,
I mean. I was terrified, with no idea what he was trying to do until the last minute, and then I screamed bloody murder. Seriously, I rattled the Hollywood sign. He ran in one direction, and I ran in the other. The perv quit the show a few days later, with no repercussions.”

“What did your parents do?”

“Parent, singular . . . of course I told my dad first, he was my manager. In typical father-of-the-year fashion, he responded with three commands. First, don’t rock the boat by making a big deal out of something that didn’t
quite
happen.” She smirked. “By that time, the show was huge, and I was its rising star . . . magazine covers, websites devoted to Becky’s bitchdom, amazing money. The second command . . . do not tell my mom because it would upset her, and if I did, he’d be super angry with me.”

“That sucks.”

“I know it now, but then?” she said, looking past me. “Then, I would do almost anything not to disappoint my dad. It wasn’t fear as much as, like, lowering my value in his eyes. It’s hard to describe. It seems like a long time ago.”

“What was the third thing?”

“Hmm?” Heather said, almost surprised to see me. “Oh. The third command was the worst. He told me, a fourteen-year-old, that instead of whining about what happened, I needed to find a way to deal with it. And, oh baby, did I. All the fan, media, and network attention lavished on a kid in a number one show . . . I dove into it headfirst. Adulation was my first, best drug. It’s pure freedom. You can do anything, and I did, drinking and smoking weed on the set because I could. So I went on this awards show completely loaded, barely able to stand, and as I was about to receive the best-little-bitch-on-TV trophy, I vomited on the entire front row of the audience. Until then, the network brushed off the drug gossip about me—the show biz rule is deny, deny, deny—but my puke-a-thon happened on live television. So that was it. Career over.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Any former star who says she doesn’t is a liar.” She blew smoke in the air and said, “It wasn’t losing my job that caused me to crash and burn, though. After I got fired, my dad totally lost interest in me. He said that from an industry standpoint, not only was I damaged goods but I was also past my prime.” She chuckled bitterly. “I’d just turned fifteen.”

It was beyond the realm of imagination that my own dad would ever do anything so hurtful and twisted, and before I could stop myself, I said, “He sounds like a total dick.”

“That’s an understatement. It wasn’t just me, either . . . he did a number on my mom too. The more he ignored me and the more I got wasted, the more she defended me. We’re very democratic about guilt in my family—we all blame each other for everything. That’s exactly what my parents did until it became a divorce. It was so sudden, like, one day he’s my manager and dad, and the next it was ‘See ya . . . marrying someone else, starting a new family . . . later!’ I’m sure he’s got big plans for my little half sister. She’s pretty and blond, perfect for TV. I should know.” She shrugged gorgeously and said, “Oh well. He’ll screw her life up too. Anyway, if I was a runaway drug train before the divorce, afterward I was a tornado of self-medicating destruction. If my mom hadn’t tossed me into rehab, I would’ve been a dead fifteen-year-old. Not that I didn’t try my best at sixteen and seventeen too.”

“All of a sudden a new Becky appeared on the show,” I said. “There was something in the news about the old Becky suffering from exhaustion.”

Heather snorted, shaking her head. “They didn’t even change the name. Just stuck in a new blond girl. Makes sense, I guess. There are millions of pretty little actresses in Hollywood programmed to be the new Becky. The producers picked one from the crowd, gave her my dressing room, and kicked me out the door. Oh well . . . if there’s one thing adults are good at, it’s screwing over kids.” She flicked away the cigarette, put on a diamondlike smile, and said, “So. What’s your tragedy?”

It was a small, amazing moment, as her chin tilted and her eyes scrunched, and I saw that within her blond sumptuousness, she really was a Rispoli. There was humor in her question, but also the empathy of a person who had endured trauma. Our life experiences could not have been more different, but Heather and I seemed to share a strong family trait—we were survivors—and I felt the tendrils of bond sprout between us. Quietly, I said, “It’s almost impossible to describe.”

“So you do have one, huh? I knew it. Not that you’re tragic by any means, but after being in and out of rehab”—she shrugged—“I can sense a vibe.”

“As stories go, mine’s pretty complicated.”

“The ones worth telling usually are.”

“Some other time.”

“Anytime.” She grinned. “I might seem like a talker, but I’m a better listener. Plus, it’s like my mom always says—sorry, signs—there’s nothing in the world that hasn’t happened to someone.”

I thought for a moment and then heard myself say, “Why can’t she speak?”

“My mom? It happened when she was a kid. Boring family anecdote.” Her tone thickened a little with regret. “I’ve caused her a lot of grief. She’s never been as happy as she deserves to be. As they say at Rancho Salud, it’s time to make a deposit in the old love bank, rather than a withdrawal.”

“She seems really sweet.”

“That’s the perfect word for her, for a lot of reasons,” she said. “Like, for example, she possesses a trait that must be in Rispoli DNA.”

“She does?” I said warily.

Heather nodded. “She’s in the family business.”

“She is?”

“And she’s good at it too. She’s been a pastry chef for years. Weird, huh?”

“Weird,” I murmured, relieved but suspicious. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Okay.”

“Speaking of the family business, did you ever hear your grandpa talk about it? Before he got sick, I mean. What the bakery was like when he was young?”

She shook her head. “If he did, I wasn’t listening. Old stuff has never interested me very much. It doesn’t have a lot to do with the here and now, you know?”

“How about your mom? Did he ever talk to her about it?”

Heather arched her eyebrow again. “Why?”

“History,” I said. “I’m into it. Especially family history.”

Heather leaned in, speaking quietly. “Don’t tell her I told you because she’s embarrassed by it, but Detective Keegan’s alcoholism wasn’t all TV fiction. Back in the day, my grandpa had a substance abuse problem of his own . . . another family trait, I guess. She told me once that whenever she’d ask about the past, he’d refuse to discuss it and immediately start drinking. All he ever told her was about a brother in Chicago who ran the family bakery with a family of his own.”

On cue, the back door opened and Annabelle gestured us inside. She was excited about something, and while Heather watched her hands, Uncle Jack approached looking tired and old but hopeful. “We have a proposal, my dear,” he said.

Heather said, “Absolutely not,” and when I turned, she didn’t look hopeful in the least. Her brow was lined and her arms crossed, and even pouting she was sexy. “No,” she said to Annabelle, “I don’t want to.” Her mom’s hands moved, and Heather issued an Oscar-worthy sigh. “I know. Rancho Salud lesson number one . . . everything’s not about
me.
” She flicked her gaze in my direction. “They want to stay.”

I looked past her at a wall clock. “Uh, well . . . it’s pretty late.”

“I mean here, in Chicago. They want to work in the bakery.”

“I don’t understand . . .”

“My grandpa thinks if he’s here while the place is up and running, it’ll help him remember his childhood. My mom will do the baking . . . cookies and simple stuff. They won’t open it, like for customers. It’ll be only us, the family, like therapy.” Annabelle’s hands moved but Heather shook her head before her mom even stopped signing.

“That’s all she said?” I asked.

“She also wants me to enroll in school so I can graduate. Your high school, what’s it called . . . Fep Prep?” She inspected a cuticle and said, “Not gonna happen.”

“I’m desperate, my dear,” Uncle Jack said, drawing my attention. “I have an overwhelming sense that there are things I need to remember about my family . . .
important
things, and that they’re here in the bakery, buried beneath the years.”

“I . . . I don’t know,” I said, my mind clicking with negative possibilities. What if they accidentally discovered Club Molasses? What if someone spotted them through the windows and asked unanswerable questions about my family? And then there was the Outfit—what if some thug noticed the bakery was operational, and that Anthony Rispoli was
still
nowhere to be seen? The risk was too great, and I said, “I’m sorry, but . . .”

“Uh-uh. I know that you have to talk to your parents. You call me tomorrow,” he said, scribbling on a scrap of paper and handing it to me. “I’m proud to say that I can still remember my cell phone number. I put down the name of our hotel as well.”

“Really, there’s just no way . . . ,” I said, glancing at the paper, which read:

thedaley
hotelon
oakstreetuncle
jackscell
phone
number
is . . .

In the same scrunched-together scrawl as
“Volta.”
It was in English, of course, but the handwriting was identical; I’d puzzled over those maddening letters so often that I could identify them in my sleep. With a combination of shock and excitement, I realized that in the distant past, Uncle Jack—young Giaccomo Rispoli—had written the final and most crucially important chapter of the notebook. I don’t know how he did it or why, but it was doubtless that he’d hidden the secret of
potenza ultima
—ultimate power—deep inside
“Volta,”
weaving it within strands and layers of undecipherable Sicilian dialect.

I looked from the paper to his waiting gaze and said, “Buondiavolo.”

Small bonfires of clarity jumped in his eyes. His mind grasped for an elusive memory, touching it with mental fingertips. “It’s a . . . village,” he whispered. “Something to do with . . . with my father?”

“Do you remember Buondiavolese?” I asked carefully, scared of his answer.