Laying Low in Hollywood

Laying Low

in

Hollywood

Jean Marie Stanberry

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 Jean M. Stanberry

All rights reserved.

ISBN:1482395099

ISBN-13: 1482395099

dedication

Dedicated to my wonderful family.  My husband Gary and my awesome kids Ryan and Lauren.  They support all my crazy projects and are my inspiration for every single moment of my life.   I love them with all my heart.

Chapter 1

  Only two more miles, I told myself, as I fought exhaustion and struggled to keep my eyes open.  I couldn’t remember when I had ever been so sleepy.  The urge to close my eyes, just for a moment, was almost overpowering.  As I struggled with my waning alertness, it became a sincere effort to keep my SUV from sliding off the snow dusted and winding, two lane road.

   Darkness was just creeping over the valley, and a light snow was drifting through the tall pines.  I could only anticipate how good my bed was going to feel when I finally made it home.  I silently reprimanded myself, I should have never attempted the drive down from Denver tonight.  I had already been fighting total exhaustion when my plane landed in Denver, it had been ridiculous to believe I could drive all the way home to Colorado Springs on barely any sleep at all.

   Call it denial, I guess.  I wasn’t as young as I used to be and I couldn’t burn the candle at both ends like I used to.  Now that I was getting older, I had a hard time sleeping on long flights.  I had realized, much too late, that I should have found myself a hotel room and resumed my journey in the morning.  Unfortunately, my guilt over my long absence was overriding my own common sense.  I couldn’t help it, I was missing my husband Greg, and my own comfortable bed. 

   I had just endured more than 30 straight hours of flying and airport transfers, making my way back from Beijing, China to Denver.  When I had arrived in Denver finally, I had foolishly thought I could make the more than seventy mile drive back to my home in Colorado Springs without stopping and resting, but I was rueing my decision now. 

   Seventy miles doesn’t seem all that far when a person has just crossed half the globe, though every inch of my thoroughly exhausted body was protesting loudly right now.  If I could only make it these last two miles, I would be home, I told myself again, in a last ditch attempt to rally my alertness and end my desperate journey.

   The snow was coming down harder now and the wind was picking up, swirling the snow around in little eddies on the blacktop.  I tried to ignore the way it mesmerized me, threatening my alertness.  I couldn’t let my guard down for a single second. I crested a small rise in the highway and was startled when my headlights illuminated a deer, standing there in the middle of the darkened highway.  Despite my sleep deprived reflexes, I managed to tromp on the breaks, causing my SUV to careen sideways across the snow covered road.

   Luckily, my traction control kicked in and my tires suddenly gripped the pavement, allowing me to steer out of the skid, the deer leapt out of the way at the very last second. I let my breath out in a rush, as my heart beat anxiously in anticipation of the impact, that luckily, never came.  I sat there, catching my breath for a few seconds, then I resumed my urgent drive home.

   The radio was playing softly, but I turned it all the way down, in an effort to concentrate on my driving in the now, fading daylight.  I wondered if Greg was even home.  I had called him when I reached the airport in Denver, but he hadn’t answered at home, or on his cell. 

   He sometimes met with clients in the evening, so I hadn’t been too worried.  Though my close encounter with that deer had renewed a concern in me.  Greg was sometimes a distracted driver, he was not good at multitasking.  If his cell phone rang or he was distracted for even a second, in this weather, it could be tragic!  I could only hope that he hadn’t encountered a deer on the way home and slid off the road somewhere.

   Night was rapidly engulfing the valley as I finally reached the curve in the road where our driveway met the main road.   I smiled in relief when I saw our mailbox, leaning crookedly on it’s post, a result of teenagers trying to knock it off with a baseball bat.  I was finally home.
             

   I turned into our blacktop drive, which was already completely covered with snow.  There were no tire tracks to indicate that Greg had already arrived home.  My headlights illuminated the front of our expansive, craftsman style house.  The last golden rays of light were filtering through the clouds, mimicking the muted oranges and pinks of watercolor paintings.  The light was fading rapidly, as the purple shadows of night enveloped the tall mountain peaks which were already covered in snow.  The air was brisk, and a light, powdery, snow was sifting through the tall firs in the front yard.  I couldn’t help but draw in a deep sigh of contentment.  I loved to travel, but coming home to my familiar surroundings was always a joy.

   The front yard was shimmering with it’s light blanket of snow.  I smiled to myself, I loved this time of year.  Fall and winter were definitely my favorite time of year.  Thanksgiving was coming up next week, then Christmas would be here before I knew it.  The valley would be covered in a blanket of snow and there would be all kinds of fun things to do.  Snowmobiling, snowshoeing, and of course, skiing.  I sighed dreamily, I hoped I would actually have time to go skiing!

   I pulled my car into the garage, it was empty, Greg wasn’t home yet.  I looked at the clock on my dash, it wasn’t quite five yet, he wouldn’t be home for at least half an hour.

   The house was chilly and echoing as I let myself in.  I went straight to the thermostat and turned it up to 65.  Greg was an avid energy saver, he was always turning the thermostat down to save energy, a noble cause, but I could never tolerate the thermostat set at sixty.  I rubbed my hands together, trying to warm them, then I turned the gas fireplace on too, as I shivered at the chill. 

   I looked around the house in awe, it looked exactly like it had when I left.  I glanced around, thoroughly amazed that the kitchen was so clean, everything was put away and there were no dishes in the sink.  The wood floors and the leather furniture in the living room were gleaming, there were no newspapers laying around, no soda pop cans sitting on the end tables.

   I smiled in amazement as I looked around our tidy house, I couldn’t believe it.  Maybe Greg was finally growing up.  Usually, whenever I came home from an extended trip, the house was a complete mess.  In fact, since I had been gone more than two weeks I had been dreading coming home at all.  I could barely tolerate the thought of coming home to a house that was completely trashed.               

   It was weird, for someone who was so immaculate in their grooming and organized at work, Greg was pretty much a pig.  For some reason, he never felt the need to pick up after himself.  I found it inconceivable that Greg never seemed to be bothered by his underwear laying on the floor in the bedroom or three or four pairs of shoes laying around in the foyer.  What Greg really needed was a caretaker, he didn’t know what to do on his own, it seemed.

   This fall had been a bit of a shock to my system.  I was forty two years old and Greg and I had just began our first year as empty nesters when our youngest child, our daughter Baylee, had went away to college at Stanford.  Our son Ramsey, who was not quite, two years older, was also away at college, in Boston, and I had still barely adjusted to him being away so much.  My busy life as a wife and mother with two kids at home, had suddenly turned around...now it was just Greg and I.  I felt completely lost.

   For the past ten years our family had been living happily here in Colorado Springs.  We had escaped from our high stress lives in Chicago and traded them for the beautiful scenery of the Rocky mountains and a slower paced life.  Initially, we had moved for Greg’s job, but it turned out that it had been a good move for all of us.

   I had produced TV commercials with an Advertising firm when we lived in Chicago, but when we moved to Colorado, I was happy to have the opportunity to do what I really wanted to do, which was be involved in figure skating.  Colorado Springs has one of the largest and most renowned ice training facilities in the country, and I found myself lucky enough to secure a position there as a figure skating coach and choreographer.  

   Since my own retirement from competitive skating, it was the choreography aspect of figure skating that seemed to be my best talent, so now I had the honor to be choreographer to some of the biggest names in figure skating. 

   Things had started out slow for me, when we moved to Colorado Springs.  I wasn’t as well known as a lot of the coaches working at the rink in Colorado Springs.  My own competitive figure skating career had ended abruptly when I was quite young, and for most of my career, I had traveled in Europe with the European Theater Company’s ice show.  Before Greg and I married, I had continued to travel with the company as their lead choreographer, as a result, I was well known in Europe, but virtually unknown in the states. 

    After Ramsey was born, I needed a job with hours that were more predictable.  I gave up choreography and settled into my desk job.  That had been nearly twenty years ago, so when I arrived in Colorado Springs ten years ago, hoping to step back into the business, I found most people had never even heard of me.  Don’t get me wrong, in many aspects, that was a good thing. Though in the beginning I wondered if I would ever be as busy and sought after as the rest of the coaches and choreographers. 

   Luckily, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before I became the busiest choreographer at the rink.  Now, I could barely keep up, I was so busy with my big name skaters, not to mention all the up and coming skaters clamoring for me to choreograph a program or two for them. 

    I felt elated to finally be back in the midst of things.  I had been forced to abandon my own career in figure skating after a tragic car accident left me critically injured to the point, most people thought I would never skate again.  After an extended recovery, I did manage to return to the ice, though never in the capacity I wished for.  My career as a competitive skater had ended forever, but after my kids were born I was happy enough to have my own life put on hold while I kept busy with all their activities. 

   My husband Greg, an architect, and I had been married for more than twenty years now.  With Baylee going away to college, I had been anxious about my now, empty nest at home.  I didn’t deal well with leisure time, so I had taken on a bit more work than usual this season.  Greg had always been understanding of my travel requirements for my career, but this fall, my cram packed schedule had me out of town almost more often than not, it seemed, and it had become a point of contention.

   Recently, Greg had been very moody, he was not exactly, happy about my extensive travel requirements.  I had gone from being the caretaker of an entire household, to a busy working woman, who was only home a few days a month during the winter months.  All the things that Greg and I enjoyed doing together, like skiing, had seemingly fallen to the wayside. 

   I was enjoying my new found fame as a choreographer, though Greg was not as happy about my new found popularity.  He took it personally, he felt like I was abandoning him.

   Honestly, I thought he was being a big baby, I had waited a long time to pursue my dreams of being a choreographer.  All those years I had given up my own life, to be a mom.  I had to turn down work all the time, as I didn’t want to take off and leave the kids behind. 

    I didn’t want to subject my children to the same lonely childhood I had.  My own mother had been a professional dancer and choreographer for Broadway shows, she had never been around much.  I’d pretty much had to fend for myself for as long as I could remember.  I didn’t want that kind of life for my kids.  I wanted to be a real mother to my children. 

   Greg, on the other hand, was an adult.  When we moved here to Colorado Springs, I had been lonely and missing my career and my friends.  It was Greg, who suggested that I go back to doing ice choreography.  I was overjoyed to be back on the ice, doing what I loved.  I was happy that Greg had urged me to do, what seemed to be, in my blood.  Lately though, all he ever did was complain about my schedule.  He didn’t like it, that I was gone a lot during the winter months.  He was not good at fending for himself, but I figured there was never a better time for him to learn.  I was wrong...

   I curled up on the couch in front of the fireplace to wait up for Greg.  Unfortunately, I was completely exhausted.  I could feel the energy draining out of my body quickly, so after about an hour, I finally dragged my weary body to bed. 

   After sleeping more than twelve straight hours, I finally woke up and forced myself to drag my aching body out of bed. Even with all the traveling I had done lately, I still didn’t deal well with jet lag, though I did seem to be feeling a bit better.

   I pulled my robe on, stretched lazily, and wandered into the kitchen to make some coffee.  The house was empty and echoing, I realized it was nearly nine a.m. and Greg wasn’t home.  I wasn’t sure if I had slept so soundly I had missed him, or if he had never even came home last night.

   As I glanced around the kitchen at the still gleaming countertops and relative lack of clutter, it seemed as if the house hadn’t been lived in for days, in fact, it seemed exactly the same as I had left it, more than two weeks ago.

   My heart was suddenly pounding with worry, what if something had happened to him while I was away?  I had spoke with him before I left China, but that had been more than 48 hours ago now, he could be off an embankment somewhere!

    I was suddenly acutely worried about him, so I called his office and his secretary, Jill put me right through to him.

   “Greg it’s me, are you okay?” I breathed when I heard his voice, I suddenly felt foolish for panicking like that.