Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(14)

Anyone in Hollywood could see a script a mile away. Stack of three-hole paper fastened with brass brads or a brightly colored agency cover. Courier font. The text was arranged toward the middle of the page where dialog was formatted. Action stretched across the margins and long chunks of it were unheard of. Movie scripts didn’t look like TV scripts. They were fatter and the paper was all white instead of color coded for last-minute revisions.

So. Movie script, folded to the middle. Paula’s voice lifted to the window. It had no inflection or accent whatsoever. She sounded like a machine.

Brad had his elbows on the table. Even from two stories up I could see his right leg bouncing. His entire body thrust forward in laser-like attention.

Then he said something. I was too far away to discern his words. Possibly a repetition of what the blonde said, but also completely robotically.

Not in years of working for producers and actors had I seen this method, and I thought I’d seen everything.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Nicole said from the bowl. I crouched down in front of her.

“Yes.”

She motioned me to come very close, so I leaned forward. She cupped her hands over my ear and whispered.

“I like my daddy.”

“Really? Well, that’s good. I like him too.”

I didn’t mean any more than that, but hearing myself say it in my own ears made me think a little harder about it.

Did I like him?

Besides the obvious stuff. The stuff you could see and hear. Did I like him, and did it matter?

“It’s a secret,” whispered Nicole. “You can’t tell.”

Who did she worry I’d tell? Brad? Her mother’s ghost?

“I won’t tell.”

She put her thumb and pointer at the corner of my mouth and drew it across.

“Zip it, lock it, put it in your pocket,” she said, locking my mouth and putting the invisible information in an equally invisible breast pocket.

“Done,” I replied with a nod.

“I’m ready!” Nicole singsonged with her arms out. I helped her off the bowl.

We cleaned up, and I held her up so she could wash her hands. We’d need to get a stool for her bathroom. I usually came in after a consultant, or the parents had some experience with children. I’d never been in a house where so many of the little things had been missed.

“Where do our bones go when we die?” she asked, rolling the soap between her palms.

Perfectly normal question, but I had to tread lightly. She was asking about her mother.

“Back into the earth where they make flowers and fruit.”

“And what happens to our skin?” She put the soap down and rotated her hands under the running water.

“It goes back into the earth to make trees and grass.”

“Does it hurt?” She held her dripping hands out.

“No.” I snapped the pony towel off the rod.

Nicole rubbed her hands on the towel.

“Are we lonely in the ground?”

“We’re not inside our bodies anymore.”

This was going places I shouldn’t be taking her. Brad had been raised Southern Baptist, so though he and I hadn’t discussed it, that was the theology I was going to spoon-feed Nicole.

“Where do we go?” The expected question, delivered like a train into the station on time. I crouched to her. She was so beautiful and guileless. She didn’t understand her own pain, what had happened or why. And it wasn’t going to get any clearer when she got older. All she wanted was to know her mother was all right. To make sense of it.

“She’s in heaven playing with God.”

“Playing what?”

“I don’t know.” I smoothed her dress down. “What did she like to play with you?”

“Ponies. She made them talk.”

“Then I bet she’s playing that with God right now.”

It felt like a lie. I didn’t think Brenda Garcia was doing any one thing or another. I had no idea, but I couldn’t tell this little girl that. I cared about her more than I wanted to admit. She was thoughtful, graceful, kindhearted, and methodical in anything she touched. If I could have a little girl of my own, she’d be just like Nicole.

Stop. That’s enough.

“There are flowers outside,” Nicole said, rescuing me from my own thoughts.

“Yep. Want to go look at them?”

“Yes, please.”





CHAPTER 11


BRAD


“He can tell me what to do,” I said. “He can send me a thousand miles away. He can put as many pounds on my back. Take my land. Take my home. He can break my back . . . hell, he can break every bone in my body. But he can’t tell me where my heart lies, and my love, it lies deep inside you.”

Paula didn’t move a muscle, but the air played at her hair, teasing out a few strands and waving them. When we’d been in high school she kept it in a ponytail with wispy bangs. After we moved to LA she made it more like Redfield than before. The bangs got thicker and the rest of the hair stayed a noncommittal shoulder length as if her way of being hip was to be so unhip it was cool.

I tried to gently break up with her before I came to Los Angeles, but let’s just say it didn’t work out that way. She was a very persuasive woman. We came to LA together, but she knew it couldn’t last. Not when the business and all the women in it were ready for me. We broke up cleanly. She dated. I dated. She came back as a friend a year later, when my career became 50 percent acting and 50 percent shit-I-didn’t-want-to-deal-with—her accent and manner were too comforting to resist.