Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now (6 page)

Mick smiled,
but it was an emotional smile.
 
Only
around Roz could he ever let his guard down.
 
Nobody else.
 
Just Roz.

“Now give me
a hug,” she said to him, “and get your ass to work too.”

Mick smiled,
and hugged her.
 
But if she was expecting
a quick hug and go, she was mistaken.
 
Because he untied her robe, reached inside of her robe, and hugged her
bare flesh.
 
He unzipped his pants and
pulled it out.
 
And just the feel of that
flesh again had him horny again.

Before she
could remind him that they were already late for their respective jobs, he was
turning her back to his front, leaning her over the center island, and putting
it inside of her again.
 
When he began to
move, all thoughts of jobs and lateness flew out of the window.
 
And she leaned up, reached back, and wrapped
her arms around his neck, as he fucked her.

Mick closed
his eyes, relaxed his body, and fucked her hard.

Afterwards,
he carried her upstairs and they showered together.
 
While Mick dressed again, ditching his brown
suit for a blue suit and blue tie, Roz put on her bathrobe and made her way
downstairs.

By the time
Mick made it back downstairs, ready to get to work, he stopped by the Nursery.
The two nannies had just relieved the overnight nannies, and were still
cleaning up the far end of the room.
 
They didn’t notice him at the door.
 
But as he had expected, Roz was there, sitting in the daybed with her
back against the wall, holding both twins in her arms.
 
They were smiling and trying to eat their
little thumbs, and she was nodding off.
 
Mick watched as her head kept jerking back when it appeared to lob
forward into a hard sleep.
 
She was still
tired.
 
She was still attempting to get
back the herculean stamina she used to possess before the pregnancy.
 
But it wasn’t back in full yet.
 
And as Mick stood in the doorway of that
Nursery, watching her, he felt a twinge of guilt.
 
He knew the fact that he wore her out twice
this morning, before her work day even began, didn’t help.

But he felt
guilty for another reason too.
 
He was
now the father of three grown children and two newborns.
 
That was daunting enough, especially since he
was now the involved father he never was in the not-too-distant past.
 
But he also ran an international corporation
that required his full-time attention, and an underground syndicate that kept
him and his family alive because as long as his enemies knew he was still in
the game, and the master of that game, they wouldn’t dream of fucking with any
of them.
 
He was relying on Teddy to
carry that mantel forward, and be the family’s protector when he was no longer
around, but Teddy had disappointed him already.
 
It was all daunting and draining too.

When the two
nannies realized Mick was standing there, they immediately stopped what they
were doing and gave him their full attention.

Mick pushed
away from the doorjamb and began walking further into the room.
 
“Excuse us,” he said to them, as he headed
toward his family.

“Yes, sir,”
the head nanny, Miss Habersham, said with a slight bow of her head.
  
And both nannies left the room.

Mick stood
at the daybed as Jacqueline turned her big green eyes up at him, while Mick,
Junior just sat there, mesmerized by the way his mother’s head lobbed forward,
and then jerked back.
 
Every time she
jerked her head back, he jumped and frowned.
 
Already, Mick thought with a smile, that kid was on guard.

Jacqueline
smiled and reached for her father, and he smiled back at her and pulled her
into his arms.
 
“Hey, little girl,” he
said as he held her.

The release
of weight on her lap caused Roz to finally wake up.
 
When she saw Mick standing there, she
smiled.
 
“You haven’t left yet?” she
asked him.

“Not yet,”
Mick said, looking at his son.
 
Mick,
Junior was now grabbing at his mother’s nose, as if he thought her nose was the
reason why she couldn’t keep her head up straight.
 
“I told Blair I’d be in late.”

“Yeah, I called
my office too,” Roz said.
 
“Then I found
myself in here with our children, and I think I might have dozed off.”

Mick
smiled.
 
“You think?”
 
He sat on the daybed beside her.
 
Junior leaned against his mother and stared
at his father.
 
He wasn’t too sure about
him yet.

Roz leaned
her head against Mick.
 
Mick wrapped his
free arm around her and Junior.
 
Junior
felt his touch, and seemed to relax again.

And all four
of them sat there, quietly, as the twins stared at these giants that were
holding them, until both giants fell asleep and their nannies, gingerly, were
back in the nursery and taking them away.

Annalise
Perry sat in the lobby of the Graham Agency, a huge building of granite and
glass, and stared out the front glass window as a Bentley drove up.
 
It stopped in the parking space reserved for
the CEO.
  
“She’s here,” she said into
her cell phone.
 
“I’ll call you back.”

“You think
she’ll help you?” her boyfriend asked anxiously into the phone.

“She can be demanding,
and a bitch sometimes if you ask me.
 
But
she’s fair.”

She saw Roz
get out of the Bentley, grab her briefcase off of the passenger seat, and began
making her way toward the entrance.

“Dang, she
can dress,” Annalise said as she admired the light purple Versace pantsuit Roz
wore, and the matching hat.
 
“Gotta
go.
 
Talk to you later!”

She ended
the call and quickly stood up.
 
The
agency was ever expanding, with a slew of agents working nearly every avenue of
talent, and the lobby was filled with the actors and writers and singers and
dancers they represented.
 
But when there
was a serious issue, an on-the-verge-of-losing-the-contract issue with any one
of them, the directors/producers/CEOs didn’t call the agent of record.
 
They called Roz.
 
Just as Annalise was certain that Marty had.

And that was
why, as soon as Roz dawned the door of the lobby, Annalise hurried to tell her
side of the story.
 
“It’s not my fault,”
she said quickly.

Roz didn’t
miss a step.
 
She continued walking.
 
She was already super late.

Annalise
struggled to keep up.
 
“I declare it’s
not my fault, Miss G.”
 
Roz had been
married to Mick for well over a year, but because of her agency name, and the
fact that she was known as Roz Graham throughout the entertainment industry, an
industry she’d been a part of, first as a struggling actress and now as a
successful talent agent, for well over fifteen years, she rolled with it.
 
To those in the profession, she was still Roz
Graham, or Miss G.
 
To everybody else on
the planet, she was Mrs. Mick Sinatra.

But today,
to Annalise Perry, she was her lifeline.
 
She was the only person who could save her career.
 
“I did everything they told me to do,” she
pled her case.
 
They were at the
elevators now.
 
“But it was sabotage I’m
telling you.
 
They fed me the wrong
lines!”

“That’s what
you said last week when you messed up,” Roz said as she repeatedly pressed the
elevator button.
 
She had gotten the call
from the director while on her way to work.
 
She was already fed up with Annalise and her diva ways.
 
Now this.
 
“That was the same excuse you gave the week before that.
 
And the week before that.”
 
She looked at her client.
 
“Those people aren’t stupid, Ann.”

“But I’m
telling you they gave me the wrong lines!
 
It was their fault this time, and their blaming me!”

“How many
performances have you missed this month?”
 
Roz asked her.

“Only
three.”

Roz couldn’t
believe it.
 
“
Three
?
 
So Marty was
right!
 
I told him there was no way you
would have missed that many performances.
 
But he said you did.”

“I was sick!”
Annalise yelled.
  
“What the hell did
they expect me to do?”

“First of
all,” Roz said, “get that bass out of your voice.”

Annalise
calmed back down.
 
“I’m sorry, Miss
G.”
 
Tears were now in her eyes.
 
“But I’m no kid in the industry anymore.
 
If I lose this gig, I’m done for.”

Roz knew
what she meant.
 
Before Roz gave up
acting, just after she met Mick, she was past that magical, mythical age of
thirty too and couldn’t get hired as an understudy, let alone a lead in
anybody’s play.

“You know
what it’s like to be in your thirties in this industry,” Annalise said,
reminding her of her own struggle.
 
“They’re sabotaging me.
 
Roles
just aren’t there.”

“That’s all
the more reason that you work your ass off to keep the roles you get,” Roz
said.
 
“I had to call in favors to get
you that part, Annalise, and you’ve been doing everything in your power to lose
it ever since.
 
It’s sabotage
alright.
 
But you’re the saboteur!”

The doors to
the elevator opened and Roz stepped on.
 
Annalise stood there like the scared, aging actress she was.
 
Roz knew she didn’t deserve it.
 
She knew she should have allowed those doors
to close and
Annalise
to face her fate alone.
 
She did this to herself.

But Roz had
been there before.
 
Sometimes you
couldn’t do right even when everything within you wanted to.
 
A group of young actresses jumped onto the
elevator just as the doors were about to close.
 
Roz, reluctantly, stepped off.
 
The doors closed behind her.

Annalise
looked at her agent with renewed hope in her teary eyes.
 
“You’re going to do it?” she asked
expectantly.
 
“You’re going to make them
keep me in the play?”

Roz wanted
to roll her eyes.
 
This woman.
 
“
Make
them
?” she asked.
 
“
Make them
?
 
I can’t make those people do anything, what
are you talking about?
 
It’s their play!”

“But Marty
likes you.
 
And respects you.
 
If you go to bat for me, he’ll give me
another chance.”

“For
what?
 
For you to squander it again?”

“No, ma’am,
I promise!
 
I’ll work my ass off, just
like you said, to make this work.
 
I’ll
be there early, I’ll leave there late, and I’ll do everything they tell me to
do.”

Roz
exhaled.
 
She didn’t have time for
this.
 
“This is what’s going to
happen.
 
I’m going to tell Marty to
expect a visit from you.”

Annalise
smiled.
 
“Okay,” she said happily.

“You will go
to that man’s office,” Roz said.

“Yes, I
will.”

“You will
apologize for your behavior.”

Annalise’s
smile began to fade.
 
“Apologize?”

Roz looked
at her.
 
“What did you think you were
going to do?
 
Just show up and act as if
they never fired you?
 
Hell no, you will
not.
 
You will ask for his forgiveness,
beg for it if you have to, and then show some respect for the people who hired
you.”

Annalise
eventually nodded.
 
She knew there would
be a price to pay.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” she
said.

“But I’m
telling you now, Ann, if you blow this opportunity,
it’s
over.
 
I will not stick my neck out for
you ever again.
 
I will deem you
unreliable, drop you from this agency, and you’ll be on your own.
 
Do you hear me?”

She was far
more willing now.
 
She knew how badly she
needed Roz, a former actress who understood, in her corner.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.

Roz pressed
the elevator button again.
 
“Go to his
office, but wait until I call you.
 
Then
you go in.”

Annalise
smiled.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” she said and gave
her a hug.
 
“Thank you, Miss G!”

Then she
waved goodbye, and left.
 
Stu Scott, one
of two talent scouts working for Roz, came up behind her.
 
“Why do you bother?” he asked.

Roz looked
at him.
 
She hadn’t realized he was even
there.
 
She looked back at the
elevator.
 
“She’s worth another try.”

“She’s a
loser.
 
Trust me, I know.
 
Nobody wants to hire her.”

The elevator
doors opened.
 
“Not now they don’t,” Roz
said, as they stepped on.
 
“But they
will.
 
Which floor?”

Stu
smiled.
 
He was a nice looking
African-American, tall, slender.
 
“You
don’t know which floor my office is on, do you?”

“I didn’t
even know you had an office,” Roz said with a smile.
 
“My talent scout should be out and about
scouting talent.
 
Not sitting behind some
fat desk in some fat office.”

Roz pressed
the top floor button.

“I’m on
five,” Stu said.
 
Roz pressed the fifth
floor button.

“How are
things going overall?” Roz asked as they began moving upward.

“Things are
going good.
 
Haven’t found any star
caliber talent yet, but I’ve found some decent prospects.”

“Any with
breakout potential?”

“A few,
yeah.”

“Then focus
on them.
 
And please don’t bring me any
more great lookers with zero talent.
 
Talent first.
 
We can make anybody
look good.
 
But they’ve got to have what
it takes.”

The doors to
the fifth floor opened.

“I’ll try my
level best,” Stu said as he stepped off.
 
“You deserve the best.
 
I’ll give
it to you, don’t worry.”

Roz smiled,
pressed the close button, and was off again.
 
In any other life, Stu would have been exactly her type.
 
Easygoing, smart, keen.
 
But she had Mick and all of his baggage.
 
As the elevator doors opened on the top
floor, she smiled again.
 
No comparison,
she thought.

But her
gaiety eased when she stepped off the elevator and saw J.J. Crane waiting
outside of her office door.

“J, is that you?”
Roz was floored.

J.J. stood
up, smiling.
 
“Roz, is that you?” J.J.
asked as both women hurried to each other and hugged.

When they
stopped embracing, Roz looked her over.
 
“What in the world are you doing in Philly?
 
I thought you moved to Belize?”

“I did!
 
And I’m still there.”

“Why are you
here?
 
On business?”

“Personal,
child.
 
Real personal.”
 
She glanced over at the lady behind the
receptionist desk.
 
She wasn’t looking
their way, but J.J. could tell she was listening to every word.
 
“You have a minute for an old friend?”

“Of course!”
Roz happily and took her by the arm.
 
“Come on in!”

Roz unlocked
her office door and they entered, with Roz closing the door behind them.
 
“Have a seat.
 
Want anything to drink?”

“No, I’m
good.”
 
J.J. sat in front of Roz’s big
desk.
 

Roz sat her
briefcase on top of the desk and sat behind it.
 
She crossed her legs.
  
“So what’s
going on, girl?
  
It’s been more than a
minute, hasn’t it?”

“More like
five years,” J.J. said.
 
“When I heard
you left New York, I said not Roz Graham.
 
Not Miss Broadway!”

Roz laughed,
especially since she was a Broadway actress who never quite made it to
Broadway.

“And then,”
J.J. said, “when I heard you’d met and married some rich white guy and was now
a major talent agent in Philly, I had to see it to believe it.”

“I don’t
know about all that major,” Roz admitted.
 
“But I’m glad you came.
 
Plan to
stay long?”

“Can’t.
 
I really don’t have any business being here
at all.
 
I have a family to take care
of.”