Ocean Beach (15 page)

She held on to her smile while he mulled this over.

“I’ll give it some thought,” he said finally.

“Great.” She continued to hold on to her smile as she called for and then paid the check, being careful not to gasp at the price of their two drinks and knowing that she’d have to tip heavily in case Amherst was looking. She left cash,
as if she had an abundance of it and not because she didn’t have a credit card that would pass inspection.

Nicole was careful not to think about what it would cost to retrieve the Jag from valet parking. Or what this little fishing expedition could end up costing her. It was important to make as strong an impression now as it had been when she’d arrived. The fish was analyzing the bait, but that didn’t mean he was going to bite. Ignoring the noise and laughter around the pool, she kept her eyes on Amherst.

“Here’s my card.” Nicole slid the creamy embossed rectangle toward him. Like the one she’d given away in Palm Beach, it had only her name and her cell-phone number on it. This brought her supply of them down to eighteen.

She stood when Amherst did and offered him her cheek and smiled again when he left, promising to call soon to let her know what he’d decided. Once, she would have known for sure how this would turn out. Hell, once she wouldn’t have cared that much about landing any particular fish. But she couldn’t afford to cut her line or throw any fish back no matter how small or uncertain.

A sudden hush fell over the pool area. Heads turned. Free now to consider her surroundings, Nicole followed the collective gazes in time to see Daniel Deranian vault out of the pool and into a sitting position on its edge. She had hoped the closest any of them would come to him was happening across a photo in some publication or on an update of E! or
Celebrity Roundup.

Nicole edged back behind a nearby umbrella as he stood gracefully, muscles flexing, his suit riding low on slim hips. Like his face, his golden-brown body was perfectly chiseled. He shook water off his dark curls and flashed a white-toothed smile as he accepted a towel from a pool boy. The
assembled crowd, Nicole included, watched him move toward the largest and most secluded cabana, where beefy men dressed in black had been posted at each corner. Inside, a woman lay on one of the chaises. She raised herself up on her elbows and lifted her face to receive Deranian’s kiss. The hush turned to a buzz as Nicole, and presumably everyone else, recognized his equally famous wife, Tonja Kay.

Shit,
Nicole thought, trying to disappear completely behind the umbrella, even though everyone’s attention was pinned to the cabana. She didn’t know if Deranian would even remember or recognize her, but she didn’t want to take a chance.

A flash went off and then another. Neither movie star reacted, but their bodyguards did. One dropped the flaps of the cabana then positioned himself, arms folded across his overly large chest, in front of it. The other strode after the offending photographer presumably to escort him off the premises.

Nicole paid a small fortune to retrieve her car. As she drove south toward The Millicent, she wondered whether Daniel Deranian or his wife had any idea that Kyra and his son were living less than ten minutes away. She hoped not. Wherever the golden couple went, the paparazzi would be sure to follow.

“Gee, Mom, the baby black bugs are really great,” Kyra said.

It was early evening and they sat around the dining room table. Racks of the barbecue ribs that Maddie had brought home were piled on a platter in front of them.

Nicole and Deirdre looked up in surprise. Troy, who’d been trying to teach Dustin how to high-five reached for his video camera. Max smiled, but kept eating.

“I don’t know how you got them to stay still long enough to slather on the barbecue sauce, but…wow!” Chase added.

“It’s true,” Avery said, examining the rib she’d been eating. “There’s hardly any insect flavor at all.”

Maddie wiped her sticky fingers on a wet nap. “You’re never going to let me live that text down, are you?”

“Not a chance,” Avery said. “Or any of the other gems you’ve sent.”

“Not in this lifetime,” Kyra added.

“We’re clearly missing something here,” Troy said, lifting his camera and aiming it at Maddie.

“It’s nothing,” Maddie said, looking away from the lens. The last thing she wanted to do was clue the world into her inability to control her thumbs and her phone. “Certainly nothing that anyone who expects to be fed by me needs to discuss on camera.”

Kyra laughed and applied a damp washcloth to Dustin’s face, which was streaked orange from the pureed carrots that he seemed determined to turn into a finger food. “Let’s just say that shortly after my mother texted from the gourmet grocery store to ask if we’d like her to bring baby black bugs for dinner, I posted her text to
damnyouautocorrect.com
and
whenparentstext.com
.”

“Ah,” Nicole said, motioning with a rib. “So
these
are baby black bugs.” She aimed a teasing smile at Maddie. “I had no idea how tender they would be.”

“I’ve never seen them on a menu before,” Deirdre added. “But then I imagine they’re quite a delicacy.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “Can I help it if my thumbs are too big for that tiny keypad?”

“You should have been in Atlanta right after she got her iPhone and texted all of us her plans to ‘masterbate penis primavera,’” Kyra said, unsnapping Dustin’s bib and scooping him up out of the high chair.

Chase snorted with laughter. Maddie could see the curve of Troy’s smile beneath the camera.

“It seems clear that people over forty should not be allowed to text,” Kyra said.

“Fine,” Maddie said. “Go ahead and make your jokes. You can all yuck it up while you’re on KP duty.”

Max smiled. “If I were still performing, I might write those down. Millie and I often used to play on words. Not dirty ones, of course,” he added. “The audience would never have stood for anything close to profanity from Millie.”

Max pushed his plate aside and Maddie passed wet naps around the table.

“Thank you so much for the wonderful dinner,” Max said with a look to Troy, who set down his camera and nodded. “I’ve asked the boys to set up my film projector and screen in the living room. In case you’d like to see just a little bit of Millie and me in action.”

“That sounds great,” Maddie said, glad for a change of subject and eager to see Max’s Millie. She took Dustin from Kyra and hugged him tight against her shoulder. “I’ll put the baby to bed,” she said. “Kyra, since your young fingers seem to be so much more agile than mine, you can be in charge of cleanup.”

By the time Maddie had changed Dustin’s diaper and snapped him into his pajamas, his lids were heavy and his thumb had found its way into his mouth. She laid him gently into the portable crib, tucked his quilt around him, then carried her cell phone out onto the loggia.

For a brief moment she considered texting both Andrew and Steve, but after all the teasing she decided to phone instead. Andrew’s phone went immediately to voice mail and Maddie left her son a message promising to try him again soon.

Steve’s phone rang for what felt like forever. She sat, listening to the disembodied sound, wanting to share what Chase had said over dinner—that there’d been an inquiry
about Bella Flora and that their Realtor, John Franklin, had scheduled a showing.

What she really wanted was to hear the sound of Steve’s voice so that she could try to gauge where they stood. When the call went to voice mail, Maddie felt a stirring of unease. Was Steve punishing her for not believing in him? She didn’t want to think so. Nor did she want to wonder where he might be on a Saturday night that would prevent him from taking her call.

The living room was dark except for the puddle of light from the foyer and a low-watt table lamp. The ancient sixteen-millimeter projector had been propped up on an end table and aimed at an equally ancient screen. Kyra patted an empty spot beside her on the sofa and took the baby monitor as Maddie sat. Deirdre, Max, and Nicole sat on the opposite sofa while Avery and Chase shared the piano bench.

Anthony threaded a spool of film through the projector, receiving pointers from Max. Troy moved deftly around them, filming the proceedings from a variety of angles. Maddie followed Kyra’s gaze as it followed Troy; her daughter’s body hummed with tension; her lips were compressed in a thin, tight line. The cameraman had an easy way with Dustin and often spoke to him as if he were a peer; his interactions with Kyra, though, were rarely “easy.”

A rectangle of light appeared in the center of the screen and the film began to spool through the projector. At first the rectangle filled with fuzzy gray-and-black shapes that moved and jiggled, but then the images became more focused and a scratchy audio track began to play.

Maddie leaned forward as the couple standing side by side on a brightly lit stage sharpened into focus. One was
a young Max Golden, looking much as he had in the celebrity photos that lined his bedroom wall—with a full head of dark hair, expressive dark eyes, and a lit cigar clenched between his fingers. Although of average height, he had several inches on the petite blond woman in the formfitting strapless gown. Even in black and white you could tell she had milky white skin and lively blue eyes and that her blond hair was more honeyed than platinum. Her lips were painted a deep color, most likely some shade of red.

“She’s beautiful,” Madeline breathed as Millie’s lovely face creased into a smile and she laid one hand on her husband’s sleeve. “And so are you, Max.”

Maddie looked back and forth between Max’s face and the screen. The prominent cheekbones had fallen and the angled jaw had gone slack. The once pronounced brow line above the deep-set matinee-idol eyes drooped, the skin beneath them cratered into deep pockets.

“Look at her,” Max said. “She had ‘no hands.’” He turned to the group, the pride evident in his voice. “That’s an old theatrical expression that means a performer’s so natural she never even thinks about her hands. The only woman who ever played ditzy better than my Millie was Gracie Allen.”

There was a roar of laughter from an unseen audience. On-screen, Millie blinked and looked surprised.

“Now watch,” Max said as Millie shrugged and went about her business. Young Max puffed on his cigar. “Me, I had my cigar. I had to puff on it to let people know I’d told a joke. I was the straight man. We didn’t start out that way, but the audience didn’t want to see anyone, especially me, poke fun at Millie. They were very protective of her. They wanted to see her come out on top.”

Millie smiled and folded her arms across her chest.
When she asked Max where he kept his money and he answered “in a bank,” she asked him what interest he got. Max said “four percent” and she said, “Ha. I get eight. I keep it in two banks.”

“She was different than the other ‘Dumb Doras’ that were popular then because she played her as if her answers made sense.”

“The camera just ate her up, didn’t it?” Kyra asked Max.

He nodded and fiddled with his cigar.

“She was a natural,” he said quietly. “She barely needed me onstage. I was just there to feed her lines. The best part of my act was her.”

They watched the rest of the routine in silence, sitting in their seats long after the last frames of film flickered through the light and flapped to a stop.

“God, I miss her,” Max said, almost to himself. “I don’t really know what the point is without her.” He struggled up off the couch and onto his feet and looked around him as if he’d forgotten they were there.

Maddie’s vision blurred at the pain and loss in Max Golden’s voice. She’d always thought she and Steve would last a lifetime together like the Goldens had, but she was no longer sure of any of the things she’d believed.

She swallowed thickly as he bid them good night and shuffled toward his bedroom. Troy followed Max’s progress with the lens of his video camera. The camera remained on Troy’s broad shoulder long after Max’s bedroom door clicked shut behind him.