Ginny Blue's Boyfriends (23 page)

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Authors: Nancy Kelly

BOOK: Ginny Blue's Boyfriends
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And maybe I did. Maybe I needed a complete exorcism of Don the Devout. Maybe Black Mark was my subconscious way to put that into effect. It sure as hell worked.
Now, I looked out the window of our trailer and watched Will at work, adjusting the cameras, looking through the viewfinder. I gazed past him to our gondolas and our wilting partiers. Idly I wondered why a drink with decidedly Spanish origins was being promoted with Italian accoutrements.
Barb broke into my thoughts. “Your mother called.”
“Here?” I demanded, turning on her. Mom’s eye surgery was scheduled for this morning. I’d called her cell phone several times but only reached her sunny, Real-Estate-Lady voice: “Hi, this is Lorraine. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you!”
Barb nodded. “She said she was in good hands and not to worry.”
“Well, I’m worried.” I checked my watch. “Don’s picking her up because I can’t and it just pisses me off.”
“You’re lucky there’s someone there to do it for you.”
I gave her a long look. I absolutely hate it when people point out how ‘lucky’ I am about anything. She sensed my mood and turned away from me. I hoped, probably in vain, that she was actually going to do some work.
Holly swept in from outside, banging the trailer door against the wall, shaking the whole kit and caboodle. “What?” she demanded, picking up the vibes.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said you were worried about your mother,” Barb corrected. “That you were pissed off that you couldn’t be with her.”
Holly frowned. “What’s wrong with your mother?”
“She’s having her eyes done,” Barb put in. “A friend of Ginny’s is picking her up.”
“So, there’s no problem?” Holly asked me.
“None at all.”
Holly shot a glance at Barb, then me. I turned to my erstwhile coordinator and commented, “Way to be a suck-up.”
“What do you mean?” Barb asked, but she subsided into injured silence, not as obtuse as she would have me believe.
“I hope Mom’s on her way back to my house,” I told Holly. “I just can’t reach her on her cell.”
“You don’t want her to be alone.” Holly’s frown deepened. She wanted me at work, but it was hard to deny the “sick mother” card.
“No, I’m sure she’s with Don the Devout. Everything’s fine.”
Relieved that I wasn’t bailing, Holly swept into what she needed me to do to finish up the day. By the time we got through all the notes and checklists, an hour had passed. Holly headed out and I turned back to the myriad phone messages I needed to follow up on. Most of the rest of the day Barb ignored me, favoring me with her rigid back, but when I looked up suddenly, drawn by a kind of subliminal magnetic force—a sixth sense you don’t even know you’ve engaged—I caught her laserlike gaze drilling into the back of my head. She dropped her eyes swiftly, but it was too late. I knew. But I didn’t have the energy to be totally bugged. I reminded myself that we only had a couple of more days of working together. Then I could leave her to her own personal weirdness and move on.
Unfortunately, only a couple of more days with Barb meant only a couple of more days with Will.
“Who’s Don the Devout?” Barb asked.
It was a rarity when she addressed me directly. She must really want to know. I punched out my mother’s cell phone number again. “Ex-File Number Five,” I said unhelpfully.
“Is he—religious—or something?”
“Yep.”
“You say it so disparagingly.”
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she said primly.
As I counted the rings I noticed it then: the charm bracelet that swung from her wrist. It had been tinkling and chiming away for days, driving me crazy. With sudden insight, I zeroed in on the chatty jewelry and realized all the charms were religious icons of one kind or another.
“Don’s a priggish, judgmental pain in the ass. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with him.” I added pointedly, “Some people are just made that way.”
It went sailing right over her head. She scolded, “Maybe you should call him something else, then.”
I thought it over. “Like Don the Dickweed?”
Her neck flushed and she bent back over her work. I could tell by the pinch of her lips that I’d really pissed her off. This made me feel inordinately good as I gave up on my mom’s cell number and called my condo.
I was relieved when Don picked up. “Virginia Bluebell’s residence,” he said in his careful way.
“Damn it, Don,” I said without heat. “The name’s Ginny. It’s not that hard. Get it right. Is Mom there? How’s she doing?”
“She’s fine,” he said coolly. “She’s resting on your couch.”
This was the couch I’d chosen as my new bed because as much as I love my mother, I didn’t feel like sleeping with her. Unfortunately, the past couple of nights I’d been teetering on its edge. Maybe that’s why I’ve been testier than usual.
“May I talk to her?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I’ll take her the phone.”
Well, finally. Hallelujah. Don had clearly not improved with age. I probably should have been thankful that Don had stepped in as my mother’s chauffeur when it became clear that I couldn’t. But Don has a way of scraping my nerves raw. After Lang I was looking for stability and stoic strength, two qualities I prized to the exclusion of ones more in keeping with my nature: flexibility and the need to get the hell out of trouble first, ask questions later. Don definitely possessed stability and stoic strength. But I’d long since gotten over my need for those traits above all else.
Sometimes I wonder how I ended up with Don at all, but the truth is, I’d definitely been physically attracted to him in the early days. At that time his hair had been reddish-blonde—not gray—and he’d been as fit as a man could be: rock-hard muscles, taut skin, strong limbs. Not that Lang had been any slouch in that department, but Don was like Atlas.
And he was nice to me and showed me attention. He made me feel like I was first ... something Mr. Famous Actor could never have done. So, I fell in lust/love with Don. And then I fell out. But it took a couple of years in between. And then five months, two days, and nine hours with Black Mark. Good God, this skipping along the Ex-File lane was enough to make me rethink my heterosexuality.
“Hello, Ginny?” Mom said into the phone, sounding a little shaky.
“Are you all right?” I said with concern.
“Oh, sure. Don’s been taking great care of me. But my face is swollen.”
“Kind of to be expected?”
“Thank God for pain pills, huh?” She laughed softly.
“You’re going to look beautiful,” I told her.
Sometimes I shock myself at what a liar I can be. Not that I was really lying. I was just soothing. But it’s so out of character for me to be a caregiver that I marveled at how quickly I went into this mode. Zero to sixty in one second flat.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m sleeping on your couch. Will you be home soon?”
“As soon as I can make it,” I promised, suddenly wanting to be with her with every fiber of my being.
I hung up, torn. I wanted to leave right then and there. This was irrational, as I knew Don would take better care of my mother than about anyone else on the planet could. But
I
needed it. I wanted it.
I was about an inch away from just running out on Barb and Holly and the whole commercial and damn the consequences when Barb, seeming to sense I was a flight risk, said quickly, “I’m sure your friend Don’s taking great care of your mother. He sounds perfect for the job.”
She only wanted me to stay because she was afraid of the pile of extra work. If it weren’t for that I knew she’d be waving the flag in front of my face, urging me to tear out of there. She was the kind who would love to have me do something serious enough to jeopardize not only this job but my career. It gave me pause.
And that was just long enough for Holly to bang open the trailer door one more time and say, “That new PA got in a traffic accident. Fucked up the rented van and broke his leg.”
Barb gasped. “Not Daniel!”
“Is he all right?” I asked.
“At the ER. He’s such a moron. What is he, like fourteen?”
“Twenty,” Barb assured. Then, “Maybe nineteen or eighteen.”
“Call Sean,” I said.
“Why wasn’t he on this job, again?” Holly asked as she headed outside.
I shrugged, looking through my cell phone listing. Should I mention that Sean wasn’t much older? That most PA’s were young? That Sean had a tendency to smoke that devil weed?
“Hey, Sean,” I said to his cell phone’s voice mail. “It’s Ginny. We could really use you on the Tuaca job. If you haven’t already got another—” I heard a beep in my ear alerting me to a call coming in. Guessing it was Sean, I hung up and answered.
“Hey,” Sean said, not bothering to hide his surprise. “You leaving me a message?”
I explained that we needed another PA, adding, “If you’re not on another job, please, please ... jump on board.”
“You sure you want me?”
I made myself not be irked by his need for affirmation. After all, I’d been bobbing and weaving where he was concerned and he wanted to pin me down. “As sure as death and taxes.”
“Yeah ...” That confused him, but he said cheerily, “I’m ready to go. Tell me where and I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Any chance you could be here today?” I glanced at the clock. It was five P.M.
“Will I get paid for a whole day?”
“I guarantee it.”
He whooped with delight and clicked off.
Barb said, “Nobody seems all that concerned about Daniel.”
“Oh, we are,” I assured. “It’s just that we don’t have time right now.”
I banged out of the trailer, too, glad, glad, glad to be away from the cloying atmosphere Barb created. If I had to direct and film the goddamn commercial myself, I was going to get things going.
“Let’s get on with this,” I told some grips and others hanging around smoking, watching Will and the first AD do their thing. They all gazed at me like I’d lost it. No one pushes the director.
“Must be PMS,” one of them drawled and the rest snickered.
“It’s my mother,” I said.
“Same thing,” one said dolefully, shooting me a look of commiseration.
 
 
I didn’t succeed in speeding anything up. When I approached Will I lost my nerve. Also, I was distracted by his forearms, peeking out beneath rolled up taupe sleeves. There was just something muscular and male about him that called out to me. When he glanced around, saw me, and faintly smiled, I melted a bit. I stood on the periphery with Holly who endeared me to her when she said, “That Barb. She’s got a rod up her butt. Why’d we hire her?” It was as close to a joke as Holly ever made.
“Lapse of judgment?”
“Serious lapse.”
I was pleased that it looked like this would be my one and only assignment with Barb.
“So, you’ve got a thing for Will, huh?” she remarked.
“What? Where’d that come from?” I studiously plucked a piece of lint off my sleeve, struggling for nonchalance.
“The drool in the corner of your mouth.”
“That’s not drool,” I said. Then a moment later, “My mouth’s too dry for drool.”
“He is good-looking,” she agreed. “But beware.”
“Of what? The dreaded girlfriend? Temporary liaisons destined to fail?”
“His temper,” she said.
Once more, Black Mark came to mind. With a strength of determination I normally failed to draw up when thoughts touched on Mark, I decided I was going to look him up in San Diego
tout suite
, possibly this weekend, and put the ghost of Ex-File Number Six to rest once and for all.
 
 
By the time I got home it was after nine P.M. I let myself in softly, lest I wake my mother, who had sounded as if she planned to park it on the couch for the entire night. I was tiptoeing near her, as she was indeed asleep, when my condo phone started ringing, sounding like a series of raging Christmas bells, loud and insistent with false cheer. I snatched up the receiver and whispered, “Hello?” inordinately angry with the caller on the other end—as if they could know my mother was recuperating from surgery.
“Blue?”
It was Daphne. I wanted to kill her. My mother made a sighing noise as I carried the handset toward the stairway, whispering harshly, “My mom just had her surgery. I’m taking this upstairs.”
“Oh. Sorry! How is she?”
“I haven’t had a chance to find out. I just walked in.”
“You want to call me back?”
No, I didn’t want to call her back. I didn’t want to hear about another session with Dr. Dick. “No, go ahead. What’s up?”

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