Most of the time, he didn’t hit her. He’d just remind her that without him she had nothing. In a way, it was a crueler weapon— the reminder that she was powerless.
“I pay all your bills, Beckett,” he’d smugly say. “One word from me and this all ends for you. You’d have to sell yourself— become one of the yacht girls.”
Rooster was always ranting about yacht girls and escorts. Yacht girls were where the fallen starlets went when they couldn’t book a job anymore, or sometimes when they’d never booked a job at all. They were props on the yachts at Cannes, Saint Tropez, Saint Barths. Rich men hired them for their own entertainment.
There was nothing lower, according to Rooster.
She hated when he threatened her, more than anything. This had been what she’d feared the most— that by accepting Rooster’s help, she’d also agreed to a deal with the devil.
Yet most of the time, he was the same man she’d fallen in love with. He was supportive, caring, and protective. For every cruel word he hurled at her, there were a hundred loving ones. And maybe this was what passion entailed.
Either way, what was she without him?
He wasn’t wrong. Without him, Dee had nothing.
The day she found out she’d gotten cast as the female lead on a new police-procedural called The Good Cop, she’d been thinking about her sister.
Dee had been in LA for almost a year and a half now and yet sometimes it felt like it had been a decade. She missed the slow pace of the Florida panhandle. She missed checking in snowbirds from Canada and standing on the pool deck watching in awe as they’d swim in the Gulf in the middle of January as if it were July.
Dee missed her father. She missed a man who loved her just as she was and without strings attached.
The idealized notion Dee had of life in Panama City Beach didn’t quite match the reality.
Meg was struggling.
Her father had been spending more time with the bees and his tupelo honey dreams than with The Siesta, and things were starting to fall apart.
Meg closed a block of rooms in order to cannibalize them to keep the other accommodations up to par. When the picture on a television set got too wavy, rather than buy a replacement, Meg would have the maintenance man pull one from the shuttered rooms. Same thing with parts for malfunctioning AC units. Whatever was needed came from “the graveyard” as she’d taken to calling the half dozen rooms that were no longer suitable for use even as a homeless shelter. Even lightbulbs were pulled from them to save a few dollars.
On top of all that, the second person in a week had died after a fall from a balcony at The Seashell Inn, just two doors down. It cast a pall on the entire Redneck Riviera.
Meg sat in her office trying to balance the books in a way that made sense while Aria Skye, a bleached blonde with impossibly white teeth chattered away on the TV in the corner.
Meg never seemed to find the time to watch any of the shows she used to enjoy, and she hadn’t been to the movies since high school, so she got her entertainment fix by watching Celebrity Tonight!, the gossip show on the BDE Network.
“Breaking news today as casting is finally complete for the most anticipated drama on the fall docket, The Good Cop. We reported last week that Emmett Stonewall would play the male lead, and just this afternoon BDE named his co-star, and the news has sent shockwaves through Hollywood. We go live to our studio in Burbank, where Flint Nichols has more. Flint?”
Meg glanced up from her paperwork. Emmett Stonewall was strikingly handsome, and she intended to make room in her schedule each week to watch The Good Cop.
However, her jaw fell open when she saw who Flint Nichols was interviewing.
“Thanks, Aria, I’m here with Delilah Goodacre, and if you don’t know the name now, you will soon. All the way from Tupelo Cove, Florida, population 363, comes the new star of The Good Cop. Delilah, I have to say, this is some of the most exciting news I’ve…”
Meg furrowed her brow. Delilah Goodacre? Tupelo Cove?
Those names didn’t mean anything to her, but the girl standing next to Flint Nichols was unmistakably her sister, Dee. A much skinnier and highlighted version of her sister, but her sister nonetheless.
Meg screamed so loud that a couple walking back to their room from the beach came rushing into the lobby to find out what was wrong.
The only thing that was wrong was that Robert wasn’t there to watch the news with Meg.
Meg had to call him. More than that, Meg needed to call Dee.
Thirty-Five
There were plenty of very smug and cynical blog posts written about what an interesting coincidence it was that Delilah Goodacre, girlfriend of Alistair McCoy III, should come out of nowhere to snag the leading role in a major network drama with a ton of buzz surrounding it.
Fortunately, along with her agent and manager, Rooster had arranged for the best PR firm in town to handle her press, snagging her features in People, Cosmopolitan, and US Weekly to talk about Delilah’s humble upbringing and fateful rise to new stardom.
It took a week for Meg to finally get connected with her sister.
Dee had been excited to call home after she got the news, but life had become a whirlwind of press and meetings and squeezing in time with Rooster and she somehow hadn’t gotten around to it.
She’d changed her number several times since moving to California, and the most recent number her family back home had for her hadn’t been active for a month.
After a hectic day of photoshoots and acting classes, Dee had come in and immediately collapsed on her bed. Rooster appeared from the balcony where he’d been involved in a shouting match on the phone and leaned over to give her a kiss.
Amidst their small talk, he casually mentioned, “Your sister has been blowing up your email. You should call her.”
After she’d moved in, Rooster had made Dee give him the passwords to all her social media and email, and he’d changed them all, in order to “protect her.” She hadn’t seen her email in weeks.
Dee sat up suddenly and smacked both hands onto her temples.
“Oh my god! I never called them!”
Rooster laughed. “Beckett, when I told you to forget about all other men, I didn’t mean your own father. You should call home. Share your good news.”
The medication they had her taking, the constant grind; Dee was exhausted all the time. But this was terrible. Unforgivable, really.
She figured the time in her head and realized it was late in Florida, probably past her father’s bedtime, but Dee figured Meg might still be awake.
Meg picked up on the first ring, sounding sleepy.
“Hello?”
“Meg, it’s me.”
“Huh?”
“Delil – Dee. It’s Dee.”
“Hey, sis. Oh! Dee!” Meg now sounded wide awake. It had just taken her a minute to register.
It was sad that after being nearly as close as twins for so many years, they hadn’t spoken on the phone in a couple of months.
“I saw you last week. On Celebrity Tonight!,” Meg enthused. “That’s amazing! Dad is over the moon. But you’ve got to call him. He put your name up on the sign at The Siesta. It says, ‘Delilah Goodacre slept here.’ He had Dee Beckett at first, but then he changed it. Dee Beckett isn’t even on your Wikipedia page. Did you know you have a Wikipedia page? Of course you do. You won’t believe this, or maybe you will, but there was an article in the paper about you getting the show and they interviewed Dad and he went out and bought up every copy he could get his hands on. He says he’s going to have them all framed. He wants to hang a copy up in every room at the motel. He’s losing his mind. This is all so crazy!”
Dee just laughed. Rooster stood nearby, grinning.
“Tell me everything! They said on TV that Amber Andrews and Celia Sumter were up for that part! Is that true? Did you meet them?”
Dee couldn’t stop smiling. God, she’d missed her sister. Hearing Meg’s excitement caused Dee’s polished faça
de to fall apart and her Floribama accent came back, full force.
She explained to Meg that she had indeed auditioned against some huge names, and that she had met Celia Sumter, the star of all those Cosmic Clash movies.
Dee told Meg all about Rooster and how wonderful he was, which caused Rooster to sit down on the bed next to her and start kissing the back of her neck.
Nothing turned Rooster on more than hearing the sound of his own name.
Dee giggled and tried to remain focused on Meg, playfully pushing her beau away.
Talk turned to the motel, to their father, and Meg chose to be honest with Dee, despite not wanting to spoil her happy moment.
“It’s that bad? All those rooms?” Dee asked. She couldn’t believe things had slid so far, and that their father refused to raise rates. The entire enterprise was hanging by a thread.
“I’ll help. I swear. It’s not like you see in movies or whatever, I didn’t get some huge check up front or anything,” Dee promised. “But I have some money and I’ll have more. Those rooms will all be open by the time spring break season rolls around again. I swear it. And I’ll try to come for a visit real soon. Oh, Meg, I’ve missed you so much. And Dad. Will you hug his neck for me? I’ll try to call him tomorrow, I really will.”
As the conversation wound down, however, Meg went in a direction Dee had prayed she wouldn’t.
“Okay, everything else aside: Emmett Stonewall? Seriously? I know you probably can’t give away any of the plot or anything, but are you two… I mean do you two hook up in the show? Do you get to kiss him? He’s so hot!” Meg squealed like a love-sick adolescent.
Rooster had still been kissing Dee’s neck and playing with her hair, and he was close enough to her to hear Meg’ side of the conversation.
When Meg mentioned her co-star, his demeanor changed. He put a hand on Dee’s shoulder and squeezed. Hard.
Dee could see their reflection in the mirror over the dresser, and his eyes were cold and unmoving.
He squeezed until her entire arm went numb, and she stifled a cry, which she covered up with a cough.
A tear ran down her cheek as she answered Meg. “I haven’t shot many scenes yet. I’ve barely met him. He’s not really my type anyway, you know?”
“Not your type? He’s everybody’s type. What’s your boyfriend’s name? Rooster? I’m sure he’s great, but Emmett Stonewall is a whole other level.”
Icepicks stabbed into Dee’s shoulder.
“Hang up,” he hissed into Dee’s ear.
“Meg, I gotta go, it’s late for you anyway, I’ll call Dad soon, love you, bye!”
At “bye,” Rooster smacked the phone out of her hand and shoved her down onto the bed, his hand closed around her throat. He got so close to her face that their eyelashes nearly touched.
“Let’s get this straight right now. You’re mine. Mine! Emmett Stonewall is nothing. Nobody.” Dee was close to blacking out from the choke and she was sure her left shoulder would require medical attention. She couldn’t raise her arm.
Dee closed her eyes and tried to go to a different place in her mind. She prayed he wouldn’t leave any bruises on her face. That was the most she could ask for. She’d become so used to these outbursts that she convinced herself they weren’t doing any damage. Dee had accepted this was the price of loving Rooster.
Once he was finally done and had left the room, she fumbled around for the pills she kept in her bedside table. She needed them to sleep. And to forget.
She thought about calling her sister back. She needed Meg’s voice again, a reminder that she was loved.
But she decided against it. There wasn’t time.
She had an important scene to shoot the next morning.
Thirty-Six
Back home in Panama City Beach, Meg and the rest of the town were none the wiser.
The entire city was so proud that one of their own had made it. Suddenly everyone in Dee’s life claimed to have been her best friend. They all had Delilah Goodacre stories to tell.
Meg was stunned by the change. She’d never really believed Dee would do it, if she was being honest. It seemed like something that really never happened to anyone, after all. This was the stuff of modern fairy tales.
Robert Beckett, on the other hand, had been sure all along.
“I knew my daughter was destined for greatness from the day she was born,” he told anybody who would listen.
Local radio and television stations couldn’t get Delilah Goodacre for an interview, but they could always count on her father to give them a sound bite. “I’m just happy the rest of the world caught up.”
Dee, true to her word, had sent some money, enough to right the ship at The Siesta. The shuttered rooms were re-opened, and carpet that had been in place since the Carter administration was finally replaced. The place didn’t get a complete facelift, but it was brought into the late 20th century.
Viewing parties in Panama City Beach didn’t help ratings much, but they hardly needed it. The Good Cop won its time slot from day one, and by the time the fourth episode aired, the second season renewal was announced. Critics generally liked the show, and they especially loved Delilah Goodacre and her chemistry with Emmett Stonewall.
All of Dee’s Hollywood dreams were coming true.
For everybody except Dee.
When she removed herself and looked at the bigger picture, yes, she had become a star, a legitimate actress who was being mentioned for movie roles and being asked to shoot covers for the biggest fashion and entertainment magazines. Nobody expected her to win, but there were even murmurs of an Emmy nomination.
The reality behind the glitz and glamour was very different.
Rooster was gone more than he was home, traveling constantly, and was almost impossible to get on the phone.
In his wake, he left a minder, a craggy-faced man named Jed who was her constant companion, watching her every move. Jed never changed expression and rarely spoke, but he was always there. He even slept in the condo when Rooster was away, and he clearly reported back to Rooster based on things Rooster would accuse Dee of when he was back from his trips.
“Who was that guy you were talking to at craft service on Tuesday? The tall guy with the shaved head?”
Dee had to wrack her speed-riddled brain to recall, but he was just a bit player on the show, somebody who played an informant and appeared on two episodes. He’d just been making conversation.
When Dee told him as much, Rooster cussed her out, told her she was a liar, and that she should stop trying to “trade up,” that there was nobody to trade up to, and that he’d “send her back to the trailer park” if she didn’t quit trying to sneak around on him.
It chilled her to the bone when he mentioned that he’d read somewhere: “The gators down there grow really big, right? And a scrawny thing like you would just be a light snack.”
His voice was cold, filled with malice. She had no doubt he’d kill her if she pushed him. Or if he imagined she was pushing him.
Because the truth was, all she wanted to do, even after all of this, was make him proud, to love him, to have him love her.
As sure as her professional life was skyrocketing, her personal life was circling the drain.
Her only hope was that eventually he’d believe her when she told him he was the only man she wanted and loved. It had to happen eventually, didn’t it?
She’d thought about leaving him, many times. But she knew it would be a disaster and she’d come this far.
It would get better. It had to.
Something had to give.
Thirty-Seven
Dee’s first day on the set as Delilah Goodacre hadn’t gone exactly as she’d envisioned it would.
There had been this idea in her head, for one thing, that she’d have some clout— or at least a small amount of power.
She was the co-lead on a major network television show, after all. Sure, she was brand new to the business, but she figured that at a minimum s
he’d at least get some respect.
“They weren’t kidding,” Emmett Stonewall, her co-lead on the show and love interest said to her as she walked into his trailer to introduce herself for the first time. “You’re a hot piece of ass. Damn. Don’t tell McCoy I said that though. He’d kill me. Like literally murder me.”
Dee had been completely taken aback.
Josh had been with her and instead of scolding Emmett for his vulgarity, he’d laughed with him, even slapping his back as they quickly left Emmett behind to go to the set, Dee having never said a word in response.
“What the hell was that?” Dee snapped as soon as the door shut behind them. “What an asshole!”
Josh stared at her, confused.
“If that bothered you, I’m afraid you’re going to really need to gird your loins, sweetheart,” he said. “This is show business and set life is what it is. My only advice is to grin and bear it. Because Emmett Stonewall is the star of this show. Remember that.”
Dee was less than satisfied with Josh’s answer, but she decided that she could go along with a little bit of hazing, that it really wasn’t that bad, and ultimately a small price to pay for achieving her Hollywood dreams.
She began to dread going to the set each day, knowing the gauntlet of predators she’d have to run through just to finally get something in front of a camera that the director deemed worthy of making it into that week’s episode.
Her tops were never quite tight enough, her skirts short enough, nor did she sway her hips suggestively enough when she walked.
No matter how perfectly she delivered her lines, she was criticized and made to repeat them again and again. In the meantime, Emmett Stonewall showed up drunk, half-assed his way through scripts, and he was given nothing but positive feedback and encouragement.
She used to roll her eyes when she’d read interviews with models who complained about long hours or shooting in bikinis in freezing weather and think that they were whiny babies, but she was beginning to understand that everyone’s problems and issues were relative and no matter how good somebody seemed to have it from the outside looking in, the reality could be very different from the perception.
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