Born Under a Lucky Moon (28 page)

I looked up at my dad. I opened my mouth to tell his sad blue eyes it would all be okay. Instead, a wail came out. “Daaad!” He reached down and scooped me up like I was a five-year-old. He hugged me hard and only the toes of my tennis shoes scraped the grass as I hung on to his shoulders. I knew Walker and every neighbor were watching my family and I didn't care. I couldn't stop crying.

Chapter Twenty-six
April 2006

I
gently swirled my glass of red wine. Aidan seemed stricken. “Buddy died?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn't a mistake, like with Lucy?”

“No.” I stared at the fire in my little brick fireplace and readjusted the phone next to my ear. I had been speaking to Aidan for more than an hour now, telling my story.

He sounded like he had lost his best friend. “What happened? Why didn't Buddy get out?”

I thought back to that long-ago night. Once we were allowed back inside, we had talked at the kitchen table late into the evening. Every time Dad and Evan wanted to smoke Mom shooed them outside, just in case the gas had lingered. Grandma was sleeping. Buddy had been wrapped in my favorite quilt and was laid out carefully on the garage floor. I had protested that I wanted him in the house but Mom said that probably wasn't the best idea.

I answered Aidan's question. “Marv found him in the basement. He sometimes slept there on the cool concrete floor. The paramedic said that he probably passed out and never woke up.”

“But you and your mom didn't see him when you were down there.” That fact had tormented me for months after Buddy's death. If we had seen his body in the corner, maybe we could have revived him, but we hadn't. The difference between life and death can be as simple as a glance into a corner at the right time.

“Did your Grandma jimmy with the gas hose?” Aidan asked.

“Yes.”

“That's pretty difficult to do,” Aidan mused.

“Apparently she had practice,” I said.

Aidan's voice was now anxious. “Practice?”

“Yeah, well, there's more to the story.”

“Christ, Jeannie, you're getting to be like Scheherazade. I'm starting to feel like you just keep inventing stories to delay making a decision about us.”

“I'm not making this stuff up, you know,” I finally said.

“I know, I know. It's just . . . just . . . oh, I don't know.”

At this point I was anxious myself. Lucy's plane had landed at 7 p.m. It was now eight thirty and she would be here any second. I pulled back the living room curtains to see if there was a cab coming down the street. “I love you, Aidan. Let's talk about all of this in person. We've been on the phone a long time now and I need to review some stuff for work.”

“Yeah.” Aidan sounded reluctant. “I'd better be going too. I have to get a really early start tomorrow. We're looking at new locations outside of Vancouver.”

After we hung up I sat in front of the fire feeling like a complete shit. I couldn't even understand myself. What was wrong with committing to a man whom I loved? The truth was I hadn't been right about my first husband, Walker, so how could I trust myself to make such a big decision again? Walker thought he could simply ignore my family by never seeing them. But that took too big of a toll on me.

I was so deep in thought that the doorbell jolted me. Running to the door, I swung it open. “Lucy!” I swept her up into a hug.

After I released her I saw that while travel worn, Lucy looked great, as always. Her dark hair was pinned up carelessly and she wore jeans, a sweater set, and a Burberry raincoat that she certainly wouldn't need here in Los Angeles.

She rolled her suitcase inside and smiled at me. “Good to see you, Jeannie.” She continued toward the guest room.

“Where are you going?” I followed her.

“It's 11:45 my time.” She yawned. “I love you but it is way past my bedtime and I'm going to bed.” With a final one-arm hug she disappeared into the guest room, which was just off the living room. Moments later I heard water running in the guest bathroom. I smiled to myself. Good old Lucy.

The next morning, Monday, I took several hours off from work to have some time with my sister. A long walk took us down to Venice Beach, where we found a restaurant on the boardwalk to have some breakfast. We scored a table outside in the sunshine. It faced the boardwalk with the wide beach and the Pacific Ocean lying just beyond.

“I haven't been down here in years.” I marveled at the people slowly cruising by on bikes or Rollerblades. How do these people have the time to be outside on a Monday morning? I wondered.

“Years?” Lucy put her chin in her hands. “You only live about twelve blocks away.”

“I don't get out much. I'm at the office most of the time.” I turned my attention to the menu.

“So I hear.”

Uh-oh. Alert, alert. Was Lucy going to start bashing me right away for not making time for the family? I thought she probably was, but mercifully the waitress showed up just then to take our orders. Lucy either dropped the subject or forgot about it because we spent our time talking about her caseload and my slate of movies. We both had to deal with completely impossible, insane people, and we giggled at each other's stories.

My phone rang halfway through Lucy's pantomime of a client falling out of a window and into some bushes. I checked caller ID and saw it was an Oxford Pictures phone number.

“I gotta take this but I'll be quick,” I promised Lucy. I answered and it was our print production guy.

“Hey, Jeannie, I've got the artwork ready for your approval for the
TechnoCat
poster.”

“Yeah, um, that's great. I'll be in later on this afternoon,” I said.

“It's on press right now. We have a tight schedule, as you know. If we don't start printing it within an hour, we won't be done in time to make FedEx to get the posters out to New York. Then it won't be up in theaters tomorrow like you promised Rachael.”

One thing I knew right then was that I had better damn well not leave Lucy in order to go into work. I always, without fail, approved final artwork before going to press. But I had worked with this print production guy for years. He had an amazing eye for color, and if he said it was good to go, then it was good to go. Which is what I asked him. “Yep, it looks awesome,” he responded cheerfully.

“Then go ahead and print it.” I tapped
END
on my phone and settled in for another coffee and more conversation with Lucy.

Eventually, we made it back to my house. We went to our separate bedrooms to shed our sweats and get into work clothes. When Lucy showed up in the living room I saw that she had changed into a conservative gray suit with a white ruffled shirt buttoned up to the neck. She looked so East Coast that I almost laughed. “Things sure are different in Connecticut. Out here even lawyers show up in the expensive, crumpled, creative look.”

“I guess that explains what you have on,” she said a tad archly.

“What's wrong with this?” I looked down at my high-heeled black boots, black tights, black skirt that was a bit short, and pink and black floral shirt.

“You could button up one more button, for starters.”

I started to retort; then I looked down again. She did have a point. I buttoned up. Aidan had a funny saying he learned in Australia about older women who dress too young for their age. He called it mutton dressed as lamb. I wasn't mutton, to be sure. But I wasn't exactly a lamb anymore, either. I tugged my skirt down a bit, too.

I gave Lucy a ride over to the law firm where she was taking depositions. Then I left her with an extra house key after she assured me she could get a cab back to my place later that night.

Caitlin cornered me before I even opened my office door. “Katsu and Stripe are in the conference room.”

“Doing what?” I was incredulous. Rachael had been very firm with Stripe that I was to be leading this effort.

“Adding scenes to the special shoot. I stayed in there as long as possible to take notes but I couldn't leave the phones unanswered.”

Steaming mad, I stormed into my office and threw my purse on the couch. I was supposed to keep the budget under control. It was my ass on the line if I didn't. And here they were adding more expensive scenes behind my back.

Caitlin followed me. “That's not all.” She handed me that day's
Hollywood Reporter
opened to the eighth page. There was Katsu's photo along with a brief story that Katsu would be handling the advertising for Ms. F.U.'s next film. The article then went on to say that Katsu was “brilliant” and “rising fast” at Oxford Pictures.

Brilliant? He hadn't even done anything yet. I sank slowly into my chair. I had never seen an article like this. Marketing people didn't normally get a mention in the trades just because they were working on this picture or that one. It was unheard of. Something politically big was going on here at Oxford Pictures.

Rachael picked that moment to walk into my office. “Katsu and Stripe are trying to add more scenes to the
TechnoCat
trailer,” she said without preliminary. “Make that go away, Jeannie.”

I stared at her. While the studio rulebook had some blurry lines, I knew it wasn't my job to outright deny a director what he wanted; that was
her
job. Obviously if a few weeks from now the finger of blame needed to be pointed, she was making sure it would be pointed at me and away from her.

“We can't be over budget. I'm under pressure on every one of our movies. No overages. Period.” She stood over my desk and idly rolled my two pens from side to side. “There is no room for fuck-ups on this one.” Rachael headed for the door and then decided to soften the blow. “We really need your magic here, Jeannie.”

After she shut the door, I reached for the two pens. One had almost rolled off the edge of the desk. Very precisely I aligned them back in their proper places.

I knew I should go confront Katsu and Stripe. Instead I slowly reached for the phone. I needed information and I knew only one person who might have it. But dealing with him was like dealing with a dozing rattlesnake. You never knew when you might get bitten. He was the consigliere in the small world of ad agencies that specialized in film trailers. At seventy-five, he was perpetually tanned, sported expensive suits tailored especially for him in London, and wore leather slippers with no socks. Oddly, he carried a silver-tipped cane that he didn't appear to need. A pinkie ring and a Ferrari completed the picture. Since 1964 he'd hobnobbed regularly with top directors, producers, studio chairmen, and movie stars—all the while carefully planting seeds that could make or break a career. Ruben Hoffman, owner of the top entertainment ad agency in Los Angeles, would most certainly be clued in to any deal making at Oxford Pictures.

I worked with his editors and producers quite often but rarely dealt with the Big Man. So I was surprised when he took my call immediately. “Jeannie, love! How are you?” he boomed.

I quickly dispensed with small talk and told him I needed his advice. I could practically hear him rubbing his hands together. He loved being consulted. Leaving out no detail, I recounted Katsu's treachery and my frustration that it seemed like he was out to destroy me.

“You're being a little paranoid,” Ruben answered slowly. My stomach turned. I had just shown my insecurity and weakness to someone who might use it against me. “However, that's not to say you are wrong,” Ruben continued. “You need to think in a different way. For instance, what if you are not the person whom they are after?”

This puzzled me but he kept going. “You, my dear girl, are small potatoes.”

Gee, thanks, I thought. But I knew he was right.

“But if you look bad, who else looks bad along with you?” Ruben asked.

I felt like a simpleton. Devious thinking is not my forte. Stammering, I told him I had no idea. He sighed heavily, saying that I couldn't seem to connect the dots. “Rachael. Rachael looks bad.”

“Why would anyone want to make Rachael look bad?”

“To destabilize the marketing department. Someone who wants to put someone else in the position of president of marketing. A whisper here, a whisper there, and pretty soon Rachael is out of a job.”

“But Katsu just can't be capable of that.” I was starting to catch on to what he was saying. “He isn't powerful enough.”

“No, he's not,” Ruben answered. “Someone is pulling Katsu's strings. Who lately has shown an interest in our young friend?”

For a moment I came up short. Then I breathed, “Stripe.”

Ruben sounded like he was congratulating a particularly slow student on getting something right. “And why would Stripe do that?” He answered his own question. “Because he has aspirations beyond
TechnoCat
. He wants to eventually be chairman of a film studio. First he gets his own loyal team into the marketing department, then he starts to disrupt the production department, and voilà, Oxford is a mess and he comes in to save the day.”

“Where do I stand in all of this?” I had my head down now on my desk.

“Oh, you're just collateral damage,” he said cheerfully. “Keep your wits about you and you might just keep your job.”

I thanked him for his help, and as I was saying good-bye, Ruben casually said, “I hear that new film you're going to be working on,
Cosmic Cruisers
, will be a blockbuster.”