Live Love Rewind: The Three Lives of Leah Preston (21 page)

“Danny will behave,” Leah said.

“How do you know?”

“He promised.”

“Well, then. An actor’s promise to a producer, you know that’s rock solid.” Gil rubbed at the temples of his head. “Filming starts in three weeks. We’re at Mach Five and building. Some sweet day, you’ll have to remind me how this whole thing started.”

Chapter Nine

From somewhere inside the blackness,
Me and Bobby McGee
sang out from her bedside stand. Immediately worried –
What’s wrong? Did something happen to Mom?
– Leah fumbled for her cell phone.

She rubbed at her eyes, blinking blurrily at the caller ID: CLINTON LEFORTE.

She tried to make sense of the name she was seeing. Had the director somehow misdialed?

“Hello?”

“Lee-Lee? It’s me. Clinton.”

Leah pulled the phone from ear.
2:14 AM.
All she could think to say was, “Yes?”

“Gil didn’t want me to call you. He thinks he can fix this but he can’t. It’s not working.”

“Clinton, can I speak to Gil, please?”

“No,” he said, as maddeningly full of himself as ever. “Hollywood has its unwritten rules and your partner knows them by heart. He lives by them. You don’t.”

Leah ended the call. If LeForte was calling to insult her, he could at least wait until she’d had her morning coffee.

Immediately, her phone rang.

Answering the call, she said, “During your deposition, you told the lawyers I was a stone cold bitch. You thought you’d seen a bitch before? Dial this number before the sun is up and you’ll live to regret it.”

LeForte said, “I need you.”

Which was so surprising, she fell silent.

“Gil knows the town’s golden rule,” he continued. “Never piss off the talent. If a big name wants to walk from a picture, you let him, even if it costs your company a few bucks. The big name will owe you and you’ll get something in return someday. Probably.”

Leah remembered Gil saying something along the same lines. When she’d pursued the lawsuit despite his objections, LeForte’s agency had called, spouting a version of the same nonsense. So had two different studio heads.

“Our movie’s in trouble,” LeForte told her.

“Now it’s our movie?”

“Danny’s decided he’s a big star. We’ve got more than half of the thing in the can and he’s demanding rewrites. More personal drama, more opportunities for goddamn emoting.”

Leah couldn’t believe LeForte hadn’t faced a similar situation in the past. “Have the writer pound something out, give our lead a few pages to chew. You’ll cut it in editing.”

“What about the alligator?”

“Yeah?”

“Danny refuses to enter the water tank. Refuses to help with pick-up shots near the swamp. He wants the alligator out of the picture.”

“We spent seven million dollars on that robo-beast,” Leah said. “You wouldn’t let us go with a green screen.”

“Raymond Service fighting a CGI gator? It won’t look right, it never does. You swore you’d let me do it my way.”

“Yes, I know.” He was such a pain in the ass. “The alligator is the picture’s final Big Bad. The climax doesn’t work without Raymond Service going into the swamp and facing the monster. Facing his fears.”

“That’s what I said to Danny. He won’t listen. Not to me, not to Gil, not to anyone. I can shoot around him for a week or so but we’re dead after that.”

We’re so screwed,
Leah thought.

Their insurance covered a personal tragedy or an Act of God but it wouldn’t pay a penny to reward a star’s bad behavior. Leah could threaten Danny with the courts but the process was time-consuming. By the time all of the appeals were completed, their production company would be history. 

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Fix this. Fix Danny, like you fixed me.”

“How?”

“Come to Mississippi and do what you do best. Be a stone cold bitch.”

“Words aren’t going to matter to Danny. He knows when a threat is empty.” Then a new idea fluttered to mind.

She reflected on it.
Yes
.
Absolutely.

“There’s maybe one thing I can do,” Leah said. “Not right away, though. I’ll have to drive to Mississippi.”

“Drive?”

“Don’t ask me why, I just do. It’ll take a couple of days.”

“You need to hurry,” LeForte said.

Chapter Ten

The Mustang convertible growled as it topped the hill, its powerful engine taking the climb with satisfying ease. Leah’s hands-free mobile phone sat beneath the car’s console, waiting for her next command.

What she wanted to do was to call Tanner Boyd but his home telephone number was unlisted. Because of local police protocol, it was buried under such a deep cover that even her best researcher hadn’t found it.

Leah had no better luck when she tried to get the information. The Tilton County Sheriff Department’s dispatcher had been friendly-sounding at first, indicating a star struck interest in helping someone from a Hollywood production company. The moment Leah gave her name, the dispatcher’s tone grew cold. She refused to even take a message for Tanner.

Leah didn’t understand why but, now, she had no choice. Unable to think of any other option, she told the mobile phone, “Call Marlene Preston.”

“Calling Marlene Preston,” a mechanical voice confirmed inside her ear.

Her mother picked up on the first ring. After chatting about her next door neighbor, her arthritis, her latest quilting project, and some delightfully cute male singer on one of the countless television talent competitions she watched, Marlene finally asked Leah why she’d called. “Are you coming to visit?”

“Not this time. I have to find Tanner, Mom.”

For the first time since she’d answered the phone, Marlene was speechless. Recovering, she said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I don’t have a choice. He’s the sheriff –”

“Not for much longer. Elections are coming up and he isn’t on the ticket.”

“Really?” Leah took a moment to process this new information. “What’s he going to do?”

“I’ve heard he’s moving to Nashville. Vanna has family there.”

Vanna.
Leah still couldn’t understand why Tanner had married that black-haired shrew. Except for her big-breasted, perfect body and her beautiful, unlined face, she was a complete and total bitch.

Of course, Leah’s opinion wasn’t exactly unbiased. Ever since high school, she’d disliked Vanna Janssen and Vanna had hated her.

“She doesn’t deserve him.”

“Pardon?” Marlene asked.

“Nothing,” Leah said. “Tanner’s the sheriff until the end of his term, anyway, and that’s a start. Can you ask around, see if you can get his phone number? I’m headed his way.”

“Now?” She sounded surprised. “You don’t want to return to the Grove. It’s only going to create problems.”

“I’ll be good, I promise. But I need his help. I’m in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Leah wanted to choose her words carefully. Marlene was inordinately proud of her daughter’s success in California, as small as it was, and Leah didn’t intend to worry her. “It’s nothing I can’t handle, as long as Tanner is willing to help.”

“There must be someone else you can contact.”

“If there was, I wouldn’t be calling.” When her response went without answer, Leah said, “Hello?”

Slowly, Marlene said. “Leah, dear.”

“You never call me ‘dear’.”

“I do, too. Just a few weeks ago, I remember.”

“You remember because you use the word so rarely,” Leah said. “You only use endearments when you’ve done something wrong.”

“Darling.”

Darling?
“Mother, what did you do?”

“Tanner isn’t exactly married.”

Leah heard her speak but the words didn’t make any sense. Four months after she’d left Mississippi, Marlene had emailed her, telling her of Tanner’s sudden engagement and almost immediate betrothal to Vanna Janssen.

Staggered by the news, Leah had wept for days. “You sent me his wedding invitation.”

“Psssh. You can get those made on the internet. They cost less than ten dollars.”

Leah started to shake. She hit the car’s brake sharply, sending the Mustang across the road’s center divider. Yanking at the steering wheel, she brought the vehicle under control. The wheels bumped off of the asphalt, kicking dirt as she pulled to a stop on the side of the road. Putting the car in
Park
, she turned off the engine.

“It was for your own good,” Marlene said. “He was holding you down. You were in Hollywood but you weren’t dating anyone, seeing anyone. You’d have abandoned your dreams for him.”

“Shouldn’t that have been my choice?”

“It would have been the wrong choice.”

“That’s not for you to say.”

“You see? You’d have ended up married. You’d be poor.” Her mother spat the last word, as if she couldn’t imagine a worse fate for her daughter.

Leah covered her face with her hands. She felt like crying but didn’t.

She didn’t know what she should do.

“Leah?”

“Marlene,” Leah said, using her mother’s given name because she was angry at her. “What’s happening with Tanner?”

“I’ve already said.”

“Is he seeing someone? Married? Engaged?”

“How should I know? I don’t keep up with the Boyds.” Marlene’s snooty tone vanished as she remembered what she’d done. In a smaller voice, she said, “I’ll try to find out if you want.”

“What about Vanna?”

“She’s such a strumpet. Bobby Tringale knocked her up. She had the baby six months ago but she’s still as big as a horse.”

Disconnecting the call, Leah removed the earpiece from her head. Marlene would call her in a few minutes and she’d send her to voice-mail. In a week or two (or three or four), she’d forgive her.

Not anytime soon, though. Not even close.

Reaching for the ignition key, she started the car’s engine.

# # #

“You shouldn’t have come here, Leah,” Sharon Perna said. “I’m not going to help you find Tanner. After I send word, nobody else will, either.”

Standing behind the screen door of her modest two bedroom house, Sharon glared out at her visitor. Leah had been in her home before but it was apparent she wasn’t welcome on this visit.

“Why?” 

“You broke his heart.”

“Is that what Tanner told you?”

“My cousin doesn’t share his personal affairs with other people. You don’t have to be family to know. He hasn’t been right since you went to California.”

Leah shifted the handbag on her shoulder. She felt a trickle of sweat run down her spine, a reminder of the heavy humidity she’d thought she’d left behind. “I need to see him.”

“A little late for that, wouldn’t you say?” Sharon folded her heavy arms across her chest. “Go into town, all you’ll find is Deputy McNaught. I’ve let her know all about your behavior, I’ll tell you that much. She sees your candy apple car, I imagine she’ll find a reason to impound it.”

The woman’s florid face was flushed a deep red. This level of anger didn’t make sense.

Leah said, “I acted a little hastily when I left, granted. Maybe I should have tried harder to keep in contact. But it goes both ways, doesn’t it? Tanner could have called me.”

“You think? And what was he supposed to say when your husband answered the phone?”

“My husband?”

“We all heard. Four months in Beverly Hills and you latched onto a rich man. Married him as quick as you could, without saying boo to anyone. It was a thumb in the eye to the people here, the ones who used to care about you.”

“I’m not married,” Leah protested. “I’ve never been married!”

A mean smile played over Sharon’s face. “You’re a lying little sneak. A week after the wedding, your mother sent a copy of the invite to the Sheriff’s Office.”

She slammed the door closed. Leah stood on the porch, stunned.

Driven by her fear of poverty, Marlene had done the unthinkable. All it had taken was something as simple as a pair of wedding invitations –
Psssh. You can get those made on the internet. They cost less than ten dollars
– for her to achieve her goal.

She’d kept Leah and Tanner apart. Each convinced that the other was betrothed to someone else, they hadn’t even reached out to one another.

The cell phone buzzed in Leah’s handbag. When she retrieved it, she saw her mother was on the line.

“Damn you,” she told the phone, throwing it onto the porch. Without thinking, she drove the spike of her heel through its screen.