The Homewreckers(7)

4

Saving Savannah




Mo called Rebecca during his layover in Atlanta on the way back to L.A. “I’ve got something for you,” he said, trying to sound cool, despite the rising excitement he’d felt while banging out his pitch back in his Savannah hotel room. “The concept for my next show. Something really different.”

“That’s nice,” she said, her tone noncommittal.

“When can we meet? Tomorrow?”

“I’ve got a huge meeting with Krystee and Will’s people first thing tomorrow morning, and then I’m having their agent over in the evening, nothing fancy, just drinks and sushi so we can hash out some issues.…”

He swallowed his disappointment. “Okay, then dinner?”

“It’s wall-to-wall meetings. All day. Why don’t you call Asha tomorrow and tell her I need her to schedule us for breakfast—no, scratch that, I’ve got a breakfast thing Wednesday. Let’s say coffee, mid-morning. Can you do that?”

Mo sighed. Asha Singh was Rebecca’s longtime assistant. Getting past Asha was like getting into Fort Knox. “Yeah. I’ll call her.”

“Great. See you then.”

He dozed fitfully on the flight from Atlanta to L.A. Two hours into the flight, he gave up, retrieved his laptop from the seatback pocket, and went back to the pitch.

He rubbed his face wearily, rolled one shoulder, then the other. He actually liked working on planes, enjoyed the forced solitary confinement. He donned his noise-canceling earphones and read back what he’d written.

Saving Savannah. Definitely. It was a solid concept. He’d downloaded a dozen of the best photos he’d shot around the Savannah historic district, and he now attached them as a slide show at the top of the document. The arching live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, the rows of nineteenth-century town houses, front stoops and window boxes exploding with colorful flowers, and yes, the Tattnall Street house, along with the series of shots featuring Hattie Kavanaugh and her foreman, Cass.

He’d gone back to the house early this morning, and waited, with two cups of iced coffee, until the construction foreman, er, forewoman, arrived.

Time was short. He handed her one of the cups. “Cass, right?”

Cassidy Pelletier looked down at the coffee, which was in a Foxy Loxy cup. She tasted it. Her exact order. Iced mochaccino, extra cinnamon.

She eyed Mo warily. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess. Anyway, can we talk? My flight leaves in a couple of hours. Your friend turned down my offer to work on this new show of mine, but I think maybe you could change her mind.”

“If you think that, you really don’t know Hattie,” she said.

“She’s in financial trouble, right?” he pressed.

“Yeah.”

“This show could change all that. She’d get a regular paycheck. You would, too. And once the show airs, Kavanaugh and Son will be on everyone’s radar, and business will take off. You’ll have more work than you can handle, and you’ll be able to name your own price. No more crappy bathroom renos, excuse the pun.”

Cassidy Pelletier didn’t seem impressed. “So you say.”

“It’ll mean jobs,” Mo went on. “We hire at least twenty people during a typical taping cycle. Camera operators, audio engineers, assistants, drivers, hair and makeup people, set dressers, catering. A nice boost to the economy.”

“Sounds good to me, but if Hattie says no, she usually means no.”

“Maybe you could help me change her mind,” Mo said.

“Why would I do that?”

“You’re best friends, right?”

“Right.”

He gestured at the Victorian. “She’s losing money on this place, the company too. She takes that personally, right?”

“You don’t even know. Tug and Nancy, they’re not just the company. They’re her family. She feels responsible. Tug’s getting close to retirement age. Already had a mild heart attack. It’s killing Hattie.”

“They’re actually her in-laws, right? What about her own family? Where are they?”

“Down in Florida. Her mom, anyway. Don’t know about her dad. Her parents split up when we were in high school. Her mom packed up and left, but Hattie wanted to stay and finish out the year at St. Mary’s. She moved in with my folks; it was supposed to be just ’til summer, but she ended up staying two more years. After graduation, she got a little bitty basement apartment all on her own. She worked days for Tug and took night classes at Georgia Southern, paid her own way, all the way. That’s Hattie. She’s hard-core.”

“And her husband? How did he die?”

Cass gave him a sharp look. “She told you about Hank?”

“Just that he was dead.”

“He was killed in a motorcycle accident. Almost seven years ago.”

A truck pulled up to the house and beeped the horn. Cass looked at her phone. “Look, my crew’s here. I can’t stand around talking to you all day.”

He handed her another business card. “I’m headed back to L.A. and I’m going to sell this show concept to the network. But it won’t work without Hattie. And you. Can you try to talk to her? Make her understand that this is a way to turn things around? If not for her, for Tug?”