by Tessa Vidal
Tyler brandished a pair of scissors. “I can open it myself if you like.” He was being chivalrous.
Caro couldn't hide this smile. “It doesn't have a letter bomb in it. Let me have the scissors.” A snip here and a second snip there, and the string fell away. The box was the kind with slots and tabs. She wrestled to pull off the lid.
Oh.
Shell blinked at the object Caro held up. Something very far from all the shiny gifts from Rodeo Drive that surrounded them, something that might be found at the Canton, Mississippi flea market. “What the...?” The question was rhetorical. She could see as clearly as Caro did exactly what it was― a little quilted bag in the shape of a penguin eating an ice cream cone.
There would be no more Judith Leiber bags. Not this year, not for many years to come. “It's from your brother.” Caro held it out.
Shell turned it over in her two hands. This wasn't the gift a rich man with a shadowy background in organized crime tends to slide into a movie star's home. It was humble. Friendly. Almost Mississippi.
“He must be in Witness Protection after all.” Shell sounded baffled. “But he said...”
“Well, now he's saying something else. He decided to walk away from the money after all.”
“It was the only real choice,” Shell said. “But I didn't think he'd be strong enough to take it. I thought...” She didn't say what she thought. She didn't need to.
Caro had thought the same. That Ryder was addicted to the money. That he wouldn't be able to quit. It was good to be wrong about that. In fact, she couldn't think of a better gift from her old friend. Rhinestone-crusted clutches weren't so important in the great scheme of things.
“He's not supposed to be in contact with anybody from his past at all once he's in the witness program,” Shell said.
“But he wanted us to know. He didn't want us to worry. He went to a great deal of trouble to bring it here himself. He couldn't have sent anybody else because Dickens wouldn't let anybody else past the front door. But your twin, that's different.”
Nodding, Shell finally opened the bag. Turned it inside out. But there was nothing else. He'd trusted them to understand.
“He's changing his life,” Caro said. “Maybe one day...”
“Yes. I get the message.” Shell turned the quilted bag right-side-out again. “I'll see my brother again one day. A long time from now, but he's working his way back to us.”
“Is everything all right, Ms. B?” Tyler brandished the phone he was using to snap photos of each gift with its card. “Where should I send the thank-you note?”
“It's all right, Tyler. We'll take care of this one personally.” Caro looked at Shell. Then they both looked at Dickens, who cheerfully pushed his fluffy head against Caro's hand. “How did he know? Even people wouldn't know you're twins unless they were told. You look so different.”
Shell's hand brushed against Caro's when she joined in the scritching. “Dogs just know. They have a scent-based intuition that seems almost supernatural at times. An ancient breed like this... oh, yes. He can recognize a twin.”
“We're bonded, and so your twin is family.”
Tactful Tyler and his young assistant Raul arranged to disappear for a moment. It was Shell, Caro, and Dickens standing together in a small closed circle where they looked more at each other than at the wide table groaning under the collection of glittering gifts.
“Yeah.” Shell touched Caro's cheek. “We're bonded. That's the perfect way to put it.”
“I love you so much.”
“Oh, yes. And I love you so much too.”
SEPTEMBER 9, 2020. This birthday wouldn't be unlucky for Shell Tate. In fact, it was the opposite of unlucky, because it was also the date of her beautiful girlfriend's Los Angeles movie premiere. Caro, Shell, and Dickens walked slowly down the red carpet, the chow holding his curled tail high and his fluffy head higher. Gems flashed in the collar he wore on his aristocratic neck― white moissanite, indistinguishable from natural diamond to the human eye. When the light caught him right, the collar threw little rainbow sparkles all over the room.
Cameras flashed from all sides.
“Caro, Caro. Show us your ring.”
Aloof but cooperative, the cool blonde slowly thrust forward a long pale hand. Her eight-carat gem was a natural canary diamond mined by hand in Arkansas, auctioned and cut in Amsterdam, then returned to America when TV reality star Shell Tate bought it as an engagement ring for movie star Caro Ballad.
More camera flash. Shell appreciated how the fluff around Dickens's deep-set eyes protected him from the army of photographers.
The gossip columnists loved what they called the quirky or sometimes kooky romance between Shell and Caro. Sometimes, it annoyed Shell when a lesbian relationship was described as quirky or alternative, but other times the stock descriptions only made her laugh. To them, her story was a story, and it didn't seem to much matter what was true and what was invented as long as it entertained the public.
In the end, their story had taken on a life of its own. The fact they'd grown up together and then found each other again after eleven years apart read in the gossip columns like yet another carefully crafted Hollywood legend. Heather Heath gleefully reported many of the fans didn't accept the tale at face value. Many insisted, absent any proof except for the way Caro and Shell gazed at each other, that they'd never been apart. In that version of the legend, Caro and Shell had a secret, enduring, on-and-off thing going for years. True romantics, they'd protected their love from the glare of publicity until their careers were secure and the time was right.
One whisper campaign even claimed the whole story about the trailer park and the casino robber brother was just that, a story― a script the two women were planning to turn into a movie. Anybody could see Caro came from a rich family. The way she walked, the way she talked, the glow in her skin that seemed to come from within were all evidence she'd been a pampered princess from the day she was born.
Those whispers talked about a mysterious rich father who disapproved of her relationship with a mere dog trainer. He'd cut her out of the will. Demanded she stop using the family name.
It was all very dramatic. Shell thought Heather Heath probably had a large hand in the spread of such rumors. As did Caro's production company. A princess who was pretending not to be a princess was good publicity, especially for a movie about a princess who had to go into hiding.
Caro nudged her. “Show them your ring too. They definitely want to see this.”
Shell stretched out her hand next to Caro's. Her own eight-carat stone was a padparadscha sapphire, a peachy-orange gem she'd never heard of. Leave it to Caro.
“It matches the canary diamond, but it's not too-too matchy-matchy,” she said.
The gem looked magical on Shell's strong hand. Orange with pink and yellow rainbows trapped inside.
More camera flash, more questions. Although other celebs waited, Caro and Shell's time on the red carpet was being extended. After all, Caro was the movie's star.
“So when's the big day, Caro?”
“Tell us. When are you getting married, Shell?”
“When's the big wedding, girls?”
“And where's the big wedding? Come on, drop us a tiny clue. The fans are clamoring.”
Caro smiled a mysterious smile. As if they'd ever dream of announcing the time and date in advance. That was a guaranteed way to end up with at least one helicopter and three dozen drone cameras flying over your ceremony. The three of them continued down the red carpet without uttering another word.
A glittering crowd packed the theater for the movie's Los Angeles premiere. There were a couple of other celebrity dogs, both of them handbag breeds who yipped a challenge from their owner's arms. Dickens, forever the aristocrat, calmly ignored them.
The spread was impressive, if not necessarily what Shell would have ordered if she was in charge of catering. There were several bars in addition to the champagne fountain. Waiters in black tu
xes circulated with trays of faddish finger foods like gold-flake fried chicken wings.
“I have a philosophical problem with eating gold,” Shell said. “Doesn't seem as if that's something meant to go into your digestive system.”
Caro glanced over to a different waiter. “I think he's got dragon rolls. Maybe we can scoot over that way.”
“Dragon rolls sound good.”
In the crush of people, they made a little forward progress, but not much. They lost sight of the promising waiter and found themselves circling back around to another guy with chicken wings.
Dickens stopped, and then Caro stopped. Shell noticed right away that the dog stopped first instead of responding to one of Caro's silent commands. Then Dickens seemed to shake himself, and they were moving forward again. Whatever caught his attention had gone.
Champagne, gold-crusted finger food, the movie. As the credits rolled, people began to stand and applaud.
“You have a hit on your hands,” Shell said.
A text told them the driver was already waiting. They'd hoped to sneak out early, but it was impossible. People kept pressing in from all sides to tell Caro what a triumph the new movie was. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
Everyone at the premiere had an invitation, everyone was a VIP or the close family member of a VIP. Shell still didn't recognize the faces of all the producers, directors, cinematographers, but she trusted Caro to know who was who. It was a safe place, and Dickens didn't sense any danger, but once again he sensed something. What? Or who? Shell wasn't sure.
Caro's face changed. She was looking in the direction of a couple of women who were all very lovey-dovey. Their club dresses were a little too short for a movie premiere, their bare legs a little too exposed. They wobbled together as if they'd had too much champagne.
“Who's that?” Shell asked.
“We're about to find out.” In two long strides, Caro was face-to-face with the women, Dickens on her right side, Shell on her left.
The bare-legged couple looked at her and began to sing, ever so softly, a duet about being perfect.
“Who are you?” Caro asked. “Who sent you? What was that message about?”
They smiled mysterious smiles and began to walk away. Dickens, on a signal, was somehow tangled up in their feet. They weren't really drunk or wobbly, they'd been faking, but now they wobbled for real.
“You're not leaving until you tell me.”
Not the least bit upset at being tripped up by a fluffy orange dog, they giggled together. Up close, in the light, you could see they were at most twenty-two or twenty-three. Pretty girls, perky. One blonde, one brunette. “We're really not supposed to,” said the blonde.
“But if you insist,” said the brunette.
Their little act had the feel of something choreographed, especially when they pointed across the room to the spot near the champagne fountain where two fortysomethings clinked their flutes together.
“Heather Fucking Heath,” Shell said.
“And... my fucking director. What the hell? What does Miguel have to do with any of this?”
Caro took the blonde's arm. Shell took the brunette's. “I think we need an explanation,” Shell said.
Still giggling, the girls let themselves be walked over to the publicist and director. Dickens, faux-diamond collar flashing, strolled along as their stately escort.
“I think you have something to say to me.” Caro narrowed her eyes at Miguel and Heather.
“Oh, I see you found your cousins,” the director said. “Wonderful.” He meant the two girls. Well, now they knew how Heather got them inside the theater.
Shell pointed at an even more famous director across the room. “Isn't Christopher waving at you?”
He squinted. “Ah. Thank you. I'd better go see what he wants.”
Then it was Heather, the two girls, Dickens, Caro, and Shell. Everybody looked at Heather, who bought a moment's more drama by tossing back the rest of her champagne before she set down the crystal flute with a decisive ring.
“We're waiting,” Shell said. “We're not going away.”
Caro nodded.
“If you insist. But I think you already know what I'm going to say.” She was smiling. “You two girls are perfect together. I made a mistake trying to keep you two on the downlow as long as I did. I thought I was doing the right thing, that I was getting the timing perfect, but I was wrong. And I'm sorry, Caro, if I scared you, but it looked as if you were in danger of breaking up altogether. That was never my intention. I wanted you to be happy, I just wanted you to be happy at the perfect time for the maximum amount of positive publicity.”
“Let me get this straight,” Shell said. “You were wrong to interfere, so to make up for interfering, you decided to interfere some more.”
“I decided to give your relationship one tiny nudge.”
Caro was shaking her head, but she was laughing. “I don't know whether I should fire you or give you a raise.”
“A bonus might be a nice gesture.”
“Why did you choose that message? ‘We know who you are.’”
Heather shrugged. “It worked, didn't it? It made you stop and think.”
“That it did. And for that I guess I should thank you.”
The two fake cousins spotted their moment during the small silence that followed Caro and Heather's staring contest.
“Just so you know,” said the blonde. “We do a lot of reality and improv, but we're also in SAG-AFTRA.” The actor's union.
“Ms. Heath has all our contact information,” said the brunette.
“Of course,” Caro said. “I'll be sure to keep you in mind for the next movie.”
“Actually,” said the blonde.
“We were thinking more about the television show. The reality stuff, you know?” said the brunette. “That's sort of our thing. Real life, live action.”
Shell laughed out loud. “Well, I'll be sure and keep you in mind too.”
Eventually, Caro, Shell, and Dickens did manage to work their way out of the theater. As they snuggled into the back of the limo, their gems caught little flashes of light from the neon streets.
“She wanted us to meet those girls,” Shell said. “She wanted to get the credit for bringing us back together.”
“She could have told us months ago if she wanted the credit.”
“It was more dramatic if we met at the premiere.”
The champagne on Caro's breath tickled Shell in thrilling ways. She slipped a sneaky hand under Caro's designer dress. Caro wiggled in her seat and scooted even closer.
CARO WOULD HAVE QUESTIONS later for her security team.
With the exception of the slippery Ryder Taylor, strangers never got through the main gate at the entrance to this neighborhood. Too many celebrities lived here. But, as it turned out, this stranger was a celebrity himself. He was welcomed not just through the gate but through the front door. It was late morning. Shell and Caro were sharing a breakfast that involved fresh-squeezed papaya juice and a generous fruit tray.
Dickens stood suddenly. Then, confused, he sat again. Then he stood a second time, only a tiny hitch in his step to betray his uncertainty as he moved to step between Caro and the intruder. “It's all right, boy.” Caro said it with her signal as well as her voice, although she wasn't yet sure it was all right. “Mr. Markson. What a surprise.”
“Liam,” he said. “Please call me Liam, or I will be forced to call you Ms. Ballad.”
Caro didn't particularly want to call him anything. “A delightful surprise, Liam.” She didn't attempt to sound all that damn delighted by this unexpected home invasion.
“We met at your premiere.” He lifted an eyebrow at the unfinished fruit tray. “I'm sorry to interrupt.”
I remember where we met. Get on with it.
“Would you like some coffee?” Caro forced herself to be polite. Liam Markson was a powerful producer, and there was no use making an enemy until she had to.
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“I won't be staying.” It seemed he wouldn't be sitting either. The way he hovered on two wide-spaced feet was awkward. His famous six foot six frame towered over the women seated at the breakfast table. “Look, I... I wanted to explain.”
Shell looked from Dickens to Liam and back again. “Maybe you don't have to. Maybe we can guess. Were you the dog's previous owner?”
“I was.”
“You gave him up. You can't come here expecting to get him back.” Her voice was brisk. Shell wasn't a woman who spared much sympathy for people who discarded animals.
“I realize that.” He rocked back on his heels, his hands behind his back. “I've seen him on your show, and I saw him at the premiere, and I suppose I thought it would be good to see him at home. One more time, for old time's sake.”
“Why would you give away a dog like this?” Shell wasn't going to be mollified that easily. “He's a wonderful dog. Beautifully trained. He didn't deserve to be thrown away. You're lucky someone of Caro's caliber was able to adopt him. Chows aren't easy to place.”
“It's the oldest story in the book.” A story he seemed to be in no tearing hurry to elaborate on. There was a long silence.
At last, Caro took a guess. “Jealousy.”
“Yes.” He rubbed his jaw. “It's hard to talk about this, even with my therapist. I was a fool. Lance told me it was him or the dog. It ended up being neither.”
“That's usually how it goes when people try to force other people to choose between them and their pets.” Shell still sounded angry. “Dickens remembers you. He knows you left him. This is confusing him. His loyalty is to Caro now. And you've come into her home.”
“I know. I can see that.” Liam didn't look like a famous producer now. He looked like a lost little boy. “I just wanted to see him one more time. To see how he was doing. And now I've seen. He has a good life here. So I'll let myself out, I don't even know why I came.”
Nobody tried to stop him. Dickens settled back down at his people's feet. Caro poured another cup of coffee and stirred in more cream.