The Homewreckers(11)

She glanced over at the dog and scratched his ears again. “Come on, buddy,” she said softly. “Let’s go inside.”



* * *



“Hattie?” Cass cleared her throat.

They were sitting at their usual table at Foxy Loxy.

“Hmm?” Hattie was jotting down numbers on a legal pad, scratching through them, consulting her phone, and reading incoming text messages.

Cass gently removed the phone from Hattie’s hand.

“Hey! I’m in the middle of something here. I might have found a buyer for all those damn kitchen cabinets.”

“Great. That can wait for a minute. Something I need to talk to you about. And I need your full attention.”

“Please don’t tell me any more bad news. I really can’t take one more thing right now.”

“It’s not bad news. In fact, I think it’s a way we can come out of this whole Tattnall Street deal smelling like a rose. But you gotta promise to hear me out.”

“Oh-kay.” Hattie sat back in her chair. “Hit me.”

“It’s about that television producer. The one who fell through the floor?”

“Mauricio?” Hattie rolled the name off her tongue. “Mo-reese-ee-oh? Please. Like I’m gonna believe some dude who walks in off the street and tells me he wants to make me a star.”

“No, listen.” Cass pushed aside the plate with the remains of her muffin and placed her own cell phone on the table. “I checked him out. There’s this website? IMDb? It stands for Internet Movie Database. It’s got everything about everybody even remotely connected to show business. Mauricio Lopez is for real. His company, Toolbox Productions, has made a bunch of actual television shows. Look here.” She tapped the phone screen and read off the names.

“Fresno Flip. Beach Dreams, and this garage one, I’ve seen that one.”

“I remember Beach Dreams,” Hattie said. “I couldn’t believe the crazy prices people pay for waterfront houses on the West Coast. Anyway, it doesn’t matter that he’s real. I told him no. Tattnall Street is sold. Like Tug said, I gotta move on.”

“Mo Lopez came to see me Monday, and I think you should listen to his idea.”

“No.” Hattie crossed her arms over her chest.

“You promised to hear me out,” Cass said.

“So I lied.”

“You can’t lie to me. I’m your best friend. We promised each other, in eighth grade, remember? We’d never lie to each other.”

“You lied when you told me you were still a virgin,” Hattie pointed out. “Senior year.”

“That was different. Also, you lied when you told me you thought those yellow-and-red-striped pants I wore to the Cardinal Mooney homecoming game didn’t make my butt look big. You let me walk out of the house looking like a friggin’ circus tent.”

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Hattie said.

“Enough ancient history. You’re going to listen if I have to tie you to that chair,” Cass said. “He wants to do a show called Saving Savannah. About preserving old houses and saving Savannah’s history, one house at a time.”

“Still a no.”

“Would you listen? We’d buy another smaller, more manageable house. Start from scratch. That’s what the show would be about. And we’d get paid. To do the show. It would be incredible publicity for Kavanaugh and Son. Mo says it’d mean jobs, and not just for our subs. Camera operators, sound people, all that kind of stuff.”

“Mo?” Hattie gave her a look.

Which Cass ignored. “He’s flying back here today. We’re meeting with him.…”

“I’m not meeting with anybody,” Hattie cut her short. “Except this builder from Hilton Head who wants to meet me at the storage unit this afternoon.”

“Great. But in the meantime…”

“Ladies?”

Hattie looked up. Mauricio Lopez stood to the right of their table. He had two iced coffees in hand and was gesturing to an empty chair nearby. “Is this seat taken?”



* * *



Hattie Kavanaugh was laughably easy to read, Mo thought. Her previously animated expression vanished the minute he sat down at the table, replaced by pursed lips and a jaw set at an angle between grim and enraged. She regarded him as she would a large, dead rodent, as he handed her the Styrofoam cup with a quivering mountain of whipped cream.

“You’re welcome to sit down, but I was just telling Cass I have no intention of being part of any ‘alleged’ television show,” Hattie said.

“Alleged?” Mo put his hand to his chest. “I’m hurt.”

Cass giggled and Hattie rolled her eyes. “Look,” she said. “I’ve seen some of those HPTV shows. They’re ridiculous. The one where you plop two strangers down on an island and challenge them to build a house together out of palm fronds and driftwood?”

“Castaways? That wasn’t one of my shows, but it was a huge ratings hit. And if that tsunami hadn’t come out of nowhere, it would still be on the air.”

“Didn’t I read somewhere that the woman, Penny, I think her name was? Didn’t Penny end up suing your network?”