Adventures with Max and Louise (16 page)

“You know that color doesn’t do a thing for your skin. You have such nice green eyes. I’m thinking that red henna, kind of chunky streaks, would really make those eyes pop on the cover photo. Whaddya think?” She holds up a red talon as her call goes through. “Stephen, baby, it’s Liz D. Yeah, and I’m in town on a shoot. What’s your schedule like for Tuesday morning?”

After a couple more calls, she sets her phone down, then takes a long swig of her cocktail.

“So you had a nice flight?” I ask.

“So-so.” She slides a cigarette out of her purse. “Some schmuck had to vomit up this whole thing about his wife’s breast cancer” (she demonstrates, with horrid sawing motions, a mastectomy) “and his little kids, even though I’m wearing my MP3 player the whole time and clearly not interested. I just keep turning it up louder and louder. Almost went deaf trying to drown that sucker out. You’d think first class would weed out the weirdos. You know what? You get rich weirdos.” She tamps the unlit cigarette on the table as she talks.

“A right Mother Teresa, this one,” Max notes.

I fight the overwhelming urge to run. “Don’t leave, honey, she works for you,” Louise reminds me.

Wolf occasionally gives us a curious glance. He is installing the last painting high up on a wall: a black-and-white photograph of waving grain fields.

Liz is on the phone again. “Yes, five dozen white lilies with red bows. Scarlet. Blood red. No! The bows, not the flowers.” She listens. “Yeah, yeah. That’s it. Ten o’clock tomorrow. The Bullitt mansion, 2600 Broadmoor. Yes.” She hangs up the phone and turns to me. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“How you have to wait for everything. I mean, in New York, when you want something it’s there, twenty-four/seven. You want a ferret dyed hot pink? No problem. A loaf of bread in the shape of a dollar sign? Done. Here they worry about the ferret getting toxins in his little system, and they won’t shape their precious organic spelt loaves into dollar signs because it sends the wrong freaking message. Everyone’s so busy being pc, I don’t know how anyone gets anything done.”

“Tell that to Bill Gates, missy,” says Louise. “I think that boy managed to get a couple things done.”

While Louise talks, Liz cocks her head, appraising me critically. She lifts my hair off my shoulders. “The henna and about five inches chopped off the ends. I’m thinking bangs.” Her phone rings. “With any luck this is the colorist I used last time I was here. She’s a genius. For real.”

While Liz finagles an appointment with someone called Daisy, Wolf rappels down from his perch. He steps out of his harness, then leans back to check his work from the ground. I gesticulate to Liz, indicating that I need to use the bathroom. She waves me off. Passing Wolf, I pause, looking up.

“Looks good,” I say.

“Who’s the chick with the cell phone implant?” He eyes Liz with a Seattleite’s aversion to slick surfaces.

I sigh. “My publicist.”

“A woman who prefers garlic ribs to duck sausage has a publicist?” He grins.

“You do make a killer sauce.”

“It’s the wild garlic.” He nods at the blue window boxes, where a few hardy garlic plants bloom indoors.

“It’s hardly wild.”

“Don’t tell anyone, but I dug up the bulbs from a national forest. Smell ’em.” He reaches forward, clips a stem, and crushes it in his hand.

I lean forward, close my eyes, and inhale. The oniony, earthy bitterness of the scent rises from his soap-scented skin. “That makes you a fugitive from the Parks Department.”

From her table, Liz keeps a close eye on me. She runs her eyes over Wolf as if he’s a horse at auction.

“Escapin’ from the long arm of the law,” Wolf grins.

“You can buy it at a nursery, you know.”

“Nothing else smells like wild garlic. I keep it here to remind me of climbing, I guess. Being outside. I miss it.” We stand there for a moment in the middle of the restaurant. A woman walks around us to get to her table. “Well, I’d better . . .” He jerks his thumb toward his installation.

I rack my brain for words to keep him. His bemused calm is the antidote to jittery Liz. “Is your mom mad about the barbecue thing?” I haven’t seen Sasha since we entered.

“No. She trusts your opinion. The chef, on the other hand, might have found a few lethal fungi to put in your salad.”

I laugh.
Are we becoming friends?

Liz waves her hand. “Molly! Can you make a ten o’clock hair appointment tomorrow?”

I nod. Wolf tilts his head. “What’s wrong with your hair?”

“It doesn’t pop.”

“Wow, how could you leave the house without hair that pops?” he chuckles. I overhear Liz chatting with a local caterer. I recognize the name. She lights her cigarette with luxuriant aplomb. In two puffs a waitress is at the table with an ashtray, whispering urgently that this is a nonsmoking establishment. Wolf rolls his eyes.

“So sorry, no worries,” Liz coos, stabbing out the offending butt.

“Go control that godless creature. She’s ’iring a caterer to cook yer bloody food,” Max screeches. He’s right.

I open my mouth to say, “Excuse me,” but I am interrupted by Louise. “The man’s a friend; you owe him an explanation. Tell him you didn’t hire the woman. She’s part of the book deal. At least tell him the facts before you go teach that she-devil some manners.”

Wolf examines Liz as she reapplies her lipstick using the reflective surface of a knife while talking: “I faxed you that recipe three times. There is no way . . . Okay then, find it. All right. That’s better. We need it all done by noon. I’m hiring food stylists, but we want a genuine, fresh look. I don’t care what it tastes like, just what it looks like. That’s right.”

“She came with my book deal,” I say, shrugging. “I sold a cookbook.”

His face relaxes into a smile. He awkwardly pats my arm. “Congratulations. Really, that’s great. That explains a lot.” He nods toward Liz, clearly relieved that she wasn’t my friend.

“You mean, like why I brought Cruella to your restaurant?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t say that.”

Liz puts her phone down, takes a long pull on her Red Bull, and waves me over, patting the seat next to her. “I swear to God I’m done on the phone. Scout’s honor.”

“She probably eats Boy Scouts for lunch,” Wolf mutters.

“Back to work.” I step backward, toward our table, but something holds me. “You must have a lot of fun, swinging around up there all day.” I point to his climbing gear.

His eyes light up. “Ever tried it?”

I take another step back. “Can’t say that I have.”

“I’ll take you sometime.” He whips a rope and watches it twist in the air. “Hope your hair pops all right.”

I don’t realize, until we get into Liz’s car, that I completely forgot to go to the bathroom.

Chapter Seventeen

“W
HO WAS THAT
man in overalls you were talking to at the restaurant yesterday?” Liz asks as we leave the hair salon. We’re on our way to the first photo shoot for the cookbook. A tiny knot of nerves forms in the pit of my stomach. I don’t bother to tell Liz what I’m feeling. She probably had all her nerves surgically removed as a child. Liz speeds through yellow lights in her rented BMW, zipping up the narrow streets of Capitol Hill, toward the Bullitt mansion. I’ve seen pictorial displays of the mansion, Owl Hollow, in a dog-eared
Architectural Digest
floating around the office a few years ago, the kind of place where the rooms have names.

“Wolf? I guess he’s a friend. I haven’t known him for long.” I examine my hair in the tiny visor mirror. Daisy, the hairdresser, on strict orders from Liz, transformed it from a dullish, wavy mess of split ends into a smooth, glossy shingle that moves in a silky curtain. I look like a L’Oreal ad. I might be worth it, but I’m afraid by the time she’s done with me, I’ll look like Liz.

The car screeches to a halt on a busy street. Liz veers into a driveway guarded by an ornate iron fence flanked by twin stone owls on towering pillars.

Leaning out of the car, Liz punches a speaker button. “Hi, it’s Liz Dolpha from Sidney-Brace with Molly Gallagher.” A camera swivels toward the car like a robotic eye.

“Ohhhh, Diner X. Yes, yes, we’re all waiting,” says a patrician voice through the speaker.

A moment later, sweeping wrought iron gates yawn slowly open. Liz eases the car down the curved gravel drive, past where several antique racing cars rest on the closely shorn grass. The gabled Queen Anne−style stone mansion reminds me of something from
Gone with the Wind
, without the creeping Southern decay. Beyond the wide sweep of the porch is a slate eternity pool. Overtop of it hangs a view of Seattle I’ve never seen in my life: Lake Union, a picture postcard view of downtown. Crowning it, the snow-capped Olympic Mountains.

Liz jumps out of the car like a hyperactive Chihuahua. She leans into a side mirror, applying a fresh coat of lipstick before I’ve even managed to open the door. A second car, with Gerbera daisies glue-gunned theatrically to its dented sides, creeps down the gravel drive. A platinum blonde in a snug zebra-print dress lifts the hatchback, removing armfuls of bags.

“Oh, good, it’s the stylist,” Liz says, oblivious to the struggling stylist loaded with Barneys black garment bags and makeup cases. She’s clearly determined to turn two trips into one, dropping bags haphazardly in the gravel.

I turn to help the poor girl, but Liz gestures impatiently. “Come on, come on!” Skittering ahead, she turns to me as we approach the massive front doors guarded by more stone owls. “FYI, I’m glad he’s not your boyfriend,” she says with a conspiratorial tone. “He looks like the kind of guy who goes barefoot a lot.” Liz wrinkles her nose. “My parents are always trying to hook me up with some stinky-footed nature boy with a useless degree. I’m sure he’s nice and everything, but he’s soooo not someone who you’d want to end up with. Imagine him at a black-tie dinner. He’d be a liability. Believe me, he’s the last thing you need. Not where you’re going.” She winks in what I’m sure she thinks is a friendly gesture. To me it looks sinister.

“He asked me to go mountain climbing,” I say.

She grimaces in mock horror. “Oh, fun. Sweat and rocks. Please tell me you have a boyfriend.”

I’m too happy not to share. “Not exactly, but I’m working on it. Our second date is tonight.”

“Hopefully someone further up the food chain.”

I can’t help but grin like a lovesick teenager. Chas Bowerman is not only further up the food chain, he’s at the top. “He’s working his way up in management at his family’s construction firm. Last winter he used some vacant land to run a free skating rink for inner city kids at Christmas. He got everything donated. Isn’t that cool?”

Liz pauses on the front steps and frames my face with her hands like a photographer. “That look! Oooooohhh, we need that! That perfect, dreamy, love-struck look: the gleaming eyes, the flushed skin, the wide open irises. Do you know how people will respond to that? We need that on the cover of your cookbook. You think you can get lover boy up here before we wrap at eight o’clock? He’s going to activate some million-dollar hormones for us. Not to mention that this shoot will impress the hell out of him. It’s win-win, baby. Win-win!”

My left breast squeezes tight as a tennis ball. I double over with a pained yelp as Max howls, “Nooooo!”

Bent over, I massage my breasts with what I hope are discrete moves. “That hurt!” I hiss into my chest.

“Are you okay, hon?” Liz’s flushed face appears upside down beside mine.

“Fine, fine, just a sec,” I answer, rubbing the pain out. As soon as Liz pops back up, I whisper, still hunched, “What’s wrong with inviting Chas over?”

“Ab-so-lu-te-ly nothing,” Louise sings out, overriding Max’s strident protests. “He’ll love it! You’ll be at large and in charge. This is your show, honey. It’s always a good thing to let a man see you doing your thing; makes him appreciate what he’s got.”

“Bollocks!” Max squeals. “You need to keep him away from Fang! She’s bloody evil and capable of anything.” I know exactly who he means. Liz’s teeth are rather pointy, and her pale skin and black hair make a sinister combination. Still, the idea of impressing Chas with my newfound success is enticing.

Mrs. Marni Bullitt, elegantly coiffed and matronly, pulls open the heavy wooden door. “Diner X, so nice to finally meet you. I have been devoted to your column since day one!” She beams, vigorously pumping Liz’s hand.

“No, no. I’m Liz, her publicist. Diner X is right here.” She bends down to hiss in my ear: “Stand up right fucking now!”

I lift my head, straighten up. “Uh, hi!” I gingerly lift my hand from my breast, afraid of another cramp. In the background, Louise and Max argue their points. Mrs. Bullitt is speaking to me, but I have a very hard time making out what she’s saying.

“One look at Chas, and that piranha in ’eels will sink ’er teeth into Prince Charming like a ruddy sausage roll!” Max yells.

“It’s up to Molly now, isn’t it? You really think she’s so fragile she can’t stand up to one New Yorker? Lord, you’d think she was made of china the way you go on. Lemme tell you something, and you listen to me good: Miss Molly Gallagher can hold her own and do it with style,” Louise says. “And if Charles Bowerman can’t appreciate that, then he’s not worthy of shining her shoes.”

My heart quickens at the mention of Chas’s name.

“Feel that pitter-patter? Now, shut up and take it like a man. You lose, homeboy!” Louise crows.

“Bitch,” Max grouses. My left breast swings toward the right.

I stabilize my breasts with my elbows, hands over my heart, praying Mrs. Bullitt doesn’t notice. “I’m Molly Gallagher; nice to meet you.”

“Are you all right, dear?” she says and bends over me kindly, patting my back.

“I’m fine. Just, um, heartburn.” I stand up, face burning, humiliated. She grasps my arm in her tiny, bejeweled hand and leads me into her palatial home.

“Let me know if you need some antacid. I hope you’re feeling up to this. I just invited a few friends over who wanted to meet you before your little photo session. I do hope you don’t mind.”

We turn a dark corner into a sunlit parlor stuffed with thick Persian rugs and burnished antiques. Seven or eight well-heeled ladies in their sixties burst into golf-round applause.