The Patricia Kiyono Christmas Collection (16 page)

Sophie skimmed through the rest of the
message. Finally, an agent had read and was interested in her work!
She wanted to screech and jump for joy. An agent! She imagined
herself at her next party. “My agent says…” Says what? Chuckling,
she tried again. “Let me discuss this with my agent.” Not bad. She
focused on the plant in the corner. “I talked to my agent
yesterday…”

“
Aunt Sophie, who are you
talking to?”

Joey stood at the archway to the den. “I
came to get something to drink and I heard you talking about your
agent. I thought maybe you were on the phone, but your phone is on
the table. Is somebody here?”

“
Uh, no. Sorry. I was just
— uh — trying out some lines in a script I’m writing.”

“
Oh. Cool.” He went back to
his cartoons.

Pulled back to the present, she refocused on
her laptop. She had more emails to sift through and her to-do list
in her pocket, but she decided to share her good news first. She
emailed her closest friends, and posted it on her social networking
sites. “GREAT NEWS! I HAVE AN AGENT!” Almost immediately, messages
of encouragement and congratulations streamed in.

She couldn’t contain her excitement.

Her cell phone rang. Thinking it was one of
her friends, she snatched it up without checking to see who it was.
“Good morning!”

“
Hi. You’re awfully
cheerful this morning.”

“
Oh hi, Mitch. I guess
sound excited because I just got some great news. An agent in Los
Angeles likes the script I sent him and wants to represent
me!”

“
That’s — that’s great,
Sophie. So are you going to sign with him?”

“
I suppose so. He says I
need to send him some information and some money, and—”

“
He’s asking for money from
you? Why?”

“
It’s for the
administration fee.”

A brief pause. “Administration fee? Listen,
Sophie. Before you send him anything, would you do me a huge
favor?”

“
What kind of
favor?”

“
Wait until I contact some
friends of mine in LA. There are a lot of agents who are dishonest,
and you don’t want to get stuck in contracts with them. I know some
people who can check him out. Give me the guy’s name and I’ll find
out for you, okay?”

“
Uh, sure.” She read the
name and contact information from the email.

“
Got it. Okay, now the
reason I called was to ask if there’s any way you could come over
for a little while. I got some last minute Christmas orders I need
to work on today and planned to do it while Angie was in school,
but with the school closed, she’s home. She’s fine on her own, but
when I’m working I tend to lose track of the time and I’d feel a
lot better if there was someone else here with her—”

“
I’d be happy to watch her,
but I need to stay here with Joey.”

“
Joey will be fine right
here with me.” Joanie entered the kitchen, cradling the baby on her
shoulder as she made her way to the coffeepot. “I’m not bedridden
anymore, now that Abbie’s here. If Mitch needs your help, go
ahead.”

“
Okay, thanks.” Picking up
the receiver, she continued her conversation with Mitch. “Joanie’s
up now, so I can come over. Give me some time to get dressed and
I’ll ski over as soon as it gets light.”

“
Perfect. I’ll see you
whenever you get here.”

An hour later, she glided across the new
snow, breathing in the cold, crisp air. By the time she got to
Mitch’s, she’d worked up a sweat. Mitch met her at his back door
with a cup of hot coffee.

“
Thanks again for
coming.”

“
No problem. It’s actually
quite nice outside — but then I didn’t have to plow through the
drifts to get here.”

Angie bounded in. “Hi, Sophie. What are we
going to do today?”

Sophie opened her backpack. “I was going to
polish my nails today. Do you want to join me?”

Mitch winced at Angie’s shriek of delight.
“I’ll leave you ladies to it, then. Let me know if you need
anything, otherwise I’ll be working.” He went into his office and
closed the door.

Sophie and Angie spent a busy morning
beautifying their fingers and toes and fixing Angie’s hair. At
noon, Sophie prepared toasted cheese sandwiches and soup she found
in the pantry. Mitch still hadn’t surfaced from his office, so she
put everything away.

After lunch, Angie decided to watch some
cartoons, so Sophie took out her smart phone and checked her email.
She opened and read again the message from the agent, Jonas Mack.
Reading the words gave her a warm feeling of pride. But then she
thought about Mitch’s warning. Was it possible the agent was a
fraud? The message looked so formal, so official. There was a link
to a website, and she checked it out. The man had his own agency.
He boasted a success rate of 98 percent. He listed several
well-known television shows that he’d sold scripts to. How could
she go wrong?

“
Is that the guy’s
website?” Mitch asked from behind her.

She jumped. “I didn’t hear you come out of
your office!”

“
I’m at a good stopping
point. So that’s the guy, huh?” He pointed at a photo of a
distinguished looking man, well-dressed, and seated at his
desk.

“
I guess so. Sounds like
he’s been pretty successful.”

“
Anyone can say that. But
asking for money up front makes me suspicious. There are a lot of
sharks out there just waiting to take advantage of
people.”

“
You’re sounding a lot like
my dad. He doesn’t trust anybody.”

“
He’s probably smart. If
you haven’t come in contact with people like that it’s hard to
imagine it happening to you.”

“
Well, I know how to take
care of myself, in spite of the fact that I’m the baby of the
family.”

“
I’m sure you do. I just
don’t want to see you throw a lot of time, let alone money, on
someone who’s going to do you more harm than good. I don’t know how
much time you’ve spent away from Zutphen, but there are a lot of
shady people out there.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I’m a
naive country girl?”

“
I’m not saying that at
all. I’m just saying I spent ten years working in Chicago, which
isn’t as big as Los Angeles, and it seemed like it was much easier
to find a dishonest businessman than an honest one.”

“
I appreciate your concern,
but I think I can handle figuring out who’s one of the Good
Guys.”
Especially if you’re not going to
offer me a reason to stay,
her stubborn
self added. “If Jonas Mack isn’t honest, then I’ll just have to
keep looking until I find someone who is.”

She felt sick with frustration. That morning
she’d been so excited at getting an offer from a Hollywood agent,
and then Mitch had been the one to cast a dark cloud on her
euphoria. Part of her wanted to rip into him for not being
supportive. The other part of her wanted him to plead with her to
ignore the offer and stay there with him. But he wasn’t doing
either, and she wasn’t sure how to take it.

She only knew she couldn’t stay there.

“
If you’ve got enough work
done for now, I need to go.” She tossed her things back into her
backpack and put on her coat, ignoring Mitch’s protests. A moment
later, she was on her skis and gliding back to her sister’s home.
She needed to get away before she embarrassed herself by declaring
her undying love or something melodramatic like that. Maybe she
could put it in her next script.

T
he next morning
she was still in a
sour mood. She knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t
help it. Mitch could have said something like, “Good for you!” or,
“Congratulations.”

Or maybe,
“I’ve got a better offer for you.”

Her cell phone chirped and she set down her
coffee mug to answer it.

“
Hey, Sophie. I’m glad I
caught you at home. Mom says you’ve been really busy.”

Nate. She’d almost forgotten about him. How
ironic. For months after he left, he was all she thought about. And
now she was surprised to hear from him.

“
I’ve been working at the
roller rink and helping Joanie and Dave out with the
baby.”

“
Oh, cool. So you’re at
Joanie and Dave’s house on Elm Street?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Would you mind some
company?”

“
I guess that would be
okay.”
How ungracious.
“
I mean, I’m sure Joanie won’t mind. What
time were you thinking of coming?”

“
I’m not doing anything
now.”

His parents’ house was only a few blocks
away. “Can you give me fifteen minutes? I just got up.”

“
Oh, sure. See you in a
few.” He disconnected.

She dashed upstairs to change her clothes.
What to wear? Nothing dressy, of course. But nothing too ratty or
old. Sweater, fairly new. Jeans, worn but not torn. Hair up in
ponytail. Socks and slippers. No, not the scruffy ones.

Joanie called up the stairs, “Sophie, you’ve
got company.”

Time was up. “Okay, I’ll be right down.”

Deep breath. It was show time. Only a few
years ago she would have rushed downstairs. But she was older and
wiser. Now, she needed to make him wait for her.

He sat on the sofa in the den. Joanie was
nowhere to be seen. Of course, when Nate had disappeared, Sophie’s
older sister had been extremely vocal about her disgust. Maybe it
was better she’d left before she inflicted bodily harm.

Sophie stepped into the room. “Hi, Nate.”
There. Her voice didn’t break and it didn’t sound too much higher
than usual.

Nate looked up and stood. “Hey, Sophie.”

“
Can I get you something to
drink? Coffee, orange juice?”

“
Coffee would be great,
thanks.” He followed her into the kitchen.

Her hands shook as she poured another mug,
but only a little. She got it to the table and set it beside hers,
and Nate sat.

“
So how—” he
began.

“
How is—” she said at the
same time.

They laughed, awkward with each other, with
the situation. She took a deep breath and decided to ask the
question she’d wanted to ask for seven years.

“
Why did you leave without
me?” she blurted.

Nate reared back as if struck. His mouth
gaped open and he said nothing for a moment. Finally he nodded and
sighed. “I suppose you’ve wanted to ask that since the day you
found out I’d gone.”

“
Yes. Do you have an
answer?”

“
Yes and no. I went because
I had a lead on a part. There was a casting call for a role I would
have been great in. I had to get out there right away.”

“
Would have been great? I
take it you didn’t get the part.”

He seemed to shrink even more. “No. When I
showed up, they weren’t even taking people anymore. Said the part
had already been cast.”

“
Why didn’t you come
back?”

“
I was embarrassed for one.
I didn’t want to come back until I’d at least done some acting. And
money, for another. I couldn’t afford a return plane
ticket.”

“
You had a one-way ticket?
So you didn’t plan to return for me.”

“
It wasn’t like that,
Sophie, I—”

“
You never even hinted that
you were leaving. We went out for dinner the night before you left,
and you never said a word.”

“
I wasn’t totally sure I
was going at that point.”

“
You had my phone
number.”

“
I know, but I—”

“
Did your parents even know
you were leaving?”

Nate lowered his gaze and shook his
head.

“
I can believe that. They
didn’t show up at church for a month afterwards. The beauty shop
was closed because your mom couldn’t bring herself to get out of
bed. We were all worried for her.”

“
I never meant to hurt
her.”

“
Well, you did. If it had
been just me you hurt, I would have been devastated. But you hurt
other people I love, and that made me mad. After I made sure your
mom was okay, I went to New York for a couple of years. I didn’t
think about it at the time, but I probably wanted to be as far away
from you as I could. And I went to culinary school. I’d always
liked to cook, so I thought maybe I could make a living at
it.”

“
That’s cool. You’re a
great cook.”

“
Thanks. But I realized
it’s not what I want to do all the time. I mean, I like to cook for
my friends and family, but I don’t want to cook for people who are
going to complain about what they get. So I quit and came home. I
thought maybe I was right the first time, and I need to be a
playwright. So I went to Grand Valley State and got a degree in
theater, with a minor in creative writing. I’ve been working on
scripts and screenplays ever since. Now all I need to do is
relocate so that I can start working.”

“
So you’re going to make a
go of it?”

“
That’s my
plan.”

“
When are you
leaving?”

“
As soon as my agent gets
back to me.”