“You won’t be,” CeeJay said. “I love Lise and Dearie, but you’re not like them that way. You’re the most focused woman I know. By the time you’re sixty-five, you’ll probably own your own studio. Or be married to somebody who does.”
“Married? That’s a laugh. I haven’t even had a date since Sawyer. Two years, CeeJay.”
“Sawyer was a dickhead. He’s dead to us,” her best friend said. “Anyway, when will you be back in town? I want you to meet you-know-who.”
“Mmm. We’ll be up here for another week at least. I’ll call you. I definitely want to meet Mr. Not-So-Married.”
“Done. And, hey, don’t sweat the fire. I’m sure it’ll all be good.”
Greer clicked her phone off and went back to work, finally drifting off to an uneasy sleep, with her notes scattered all over the bed.
CHAPTER 5
It didn’t take Hank long to decide where to place the blame for the debacle at the Miller farm. Not even four hours.
She was in her motel room in Paso Robles when her phone pinged to alert her to an incoming text. Hank Reitz was the sender. It didn’t come as a surprise. She’d already started packing up her files, but it hurt, nonetheless. Only two words, but they cut like a knife.
“You’re fired.”
No phone call, no “Sorry kid, it’s not really your fault.” Nothing to soften the blow or mitigate the damages done.
Just those two ugly words. So this is what it’s like, she thought. She’d never been fired before.
It sucked.
And it sucked even more, because she’d had a bad feeling about this shoot from the very beginning, but had somehow convinced herself that things would all work out in the end. Why hadn’t she listened to her gut instincts?
*
The drive from Paso Robles to L.A. was only three and a half hours, but to Greer, it felt like years. Traffic on the 101 was brutal, and as she got closer to her apartment in Westwood, she felt an overwhelming sense of dread. There was an open parking spot directly in front of her building, an unheard of occurrence, but she cruised right past it without slowing down.
It wasn’t until she was half a mile away that she was forced to admit her destination. She was headed to Lise’s place. Running home to Mommy.
And why not? As much as anyone, Lise could commiserate with her on the vagaries and bad breaks of show biz. With any luck, she and her mother could indulge in a full-blown mother-daughter pity party. After that, Greer promised herself, she’d go home and face her empty apartment. And unplug from life.
As usual, Greer felt a little flare of jealousy when she parked in the “visitor’s slot” in the lot beside her mother’s apartment complex.
A bougainvillea vine spilled shocking pink flowers around the wrought iron archway with the cursive letters that announced she’d arrived at Villa Encantada. The vest pocket lawn was a deep green, and palm trees and ferns and hibiscus shrubs lined the courtyard garden, where two of her mother’s neighbors sat in the shade of a green-and-white-striped umbrella, sipping their de rigueur afternoon cocktails.
“Hey, Greer,” called Luis. “Where you been?”
“Come have a Mai Tai,” urged his partner, Sean.
“Sorry, girls, can’t right now. Maybe later?”
Her mother’s unit was one of the sought-after second-floor corner tower apartments, one of only a pair of two-bedroom units at Villa Encantada, which itself was a highly sought-after address in West Hollywood.
There weren’t that many original 1920s bungalow complexes left in L.A. Once, young actresses like Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner had lived in bungalows like these. Kim Basinger’s call girl character in L.A. Confidential had lived in one that looked a lot like Villa Encantada, although Greer was pretty sure it wasn’t this one, and Lise claimed that Errol Flynn had once lived in her unit.
Greer herself had used the villas for two television commercials and a film shoot, which had, unfortunately, gone straight to video. Which did nothing to lessen the charm of Villa Encantada.
The dark oak door into the complex vestibule was ajar. Greer climbed the Mexican-tiled stairs to the second floor. She rapped the brass doorknocker and waited. And waited. She frowned. Lise’s aging Mercedes was parked in its slot in the lot across the street, so she was sure her mother was home.
She knocked again, then began to worry. She fished a key from her purse, unlocked the door, and stepped inside the apartment.
When she heard her mother’s low voice coming from the bedroom she relaxed a little. Lise was here, and on the phone. She started toward the bedroom, noticing that her mother’s normally spotless apartment seemed unusually messy. A trail of crumbs littered the hardwood floor from the kitchen to the living room. Magazines were piled on the coffee table, along with a cereal bowl and an overturned glass.
Greer picked up the glass, sniffed, then set it back, upright, feeling guilty but relieved.
“Hey, baby,” she heard her mother purr. “Are you ready to get naughty?”
Greer froze in her tracks.
“Me?” Lise’s voice was smoky. “Mmm. I’ve got on that black leather garter belt you like, and some six-inch black patent-leather spike-heeled boots. And I’m wearing crotchless panties and a black lace bustier, too, but it’s so tight. I think maybe I’ll unhook just the first hook. Would that be all right with you? Hmm?”
Greer felt her face in flames. Was her mother with a man? She turned and began to tiptoe back the way she came.
Before she could make her escape, the front door suddenly swung wide open.
Sean burst into the living room brandishing a silver cocktail shaker. “Greer! You can’t sneak out of here that easy. It’s Luis’s birthday. How about some…”
“Greer?” Lise appeared in the bedroom doorway, dressed not in black leather and lace, but in an oversized L.A. Dodgers T-shirt and navy blue leggings that bagged in the seat and knees. She was barefoot, and wore a telephone headset that made her look like something out of a late-night infomercial.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Mom? What the hell are you doing? Who is that on the phone?”
Lise’s pale blue eyes narrowed. “None of your business. How long have you been creeping around out here?”
Sean looked from mother to daughter and began to back slowly away. “Um, well, it was good seeing you both. Greer, don’t be a stranger.” He turned and fled. They could hear him clattering down the stairs, presumably two at a time.
Lise turned her back to Greer and spoke into the headset in a low voice. “Sorry, baby, I’ll have to call you back. Yeah, I know. Okay, call it a freebie. Bye now.”
She removed the headset, looped it around her neck, and sat down on an armchair facing the couch, bumping her shin on the edge of the heavy marble coffee table.
“Ow.” She winced, rubbed her shin, then looked up at her daughter.
“Well, that was awkward. You might as well sit down, since you’re already here.”
Greer plopped down onto the sofa and stared at her mother, or rather, a stranger who bore a vague resemblance to her mother.
When had she last seen Lise? Had it been almost a month? More like six weeks?
Her mother’s thinning blond hair was longer than she’d worn it in years, and mussed, and showing at least half an inch of gray roots. Her makeup was smudged, with wobbly-looking brown eyeliner, and unevenly applied blusher. She wore no lipstick, which was in itself fairly shocking, and her wardrobe looked like thrift shop rejects.
“Mom? Are you sick or something?”
Lise put a glass in the cereal bowl and got up to head for the kitchen.
“Why? Do I look sick?”
She paused before an ornate gold-framed mirror on the breakfast room wall and peered anxiously into it. She patted her hair, wet a fingertip, and dabbed at the wayward eyeliner, but to no real effect.
“You want something to drink? Some green tea maybe?”
“No tea. But maybe a li
ttle sympathy?”
Lise leaned forward and clutched at Greer’s hand. “I knew it. I had these weird vibrations all morning long. And then you drop in here, unannounced, which you never do. What’s wrong? I thought you told me you’d be up in Paso for at least another week.”
Greer felt her lower lip tremble with barely suppressed tears. “Weird vibrations, huh? Wish I’d known that before I took this job.”
“What is it?
She let out a long ragged breath. “It’s a long, ugly story. The short version is, I let myself get conned on the location, there was a fire, and now Hank is blaming me.”
She told Lise the whole story, even played the recording she’d surreptitiously made on her cell phone, with the director admitting he’d ignored her advice about getting a burn permit.
“Hank Reitz. That asshole,” Lise said, her voice dripping venom. “It doesn’t matter that you can prove the fire was his idea, although it just might keep this Miller character from suing you. Hank will still try to crucify you in the trades. We should make a preemptive strike and sue him for slander or something. Thank God everybody in town knows what a big fat liar he is. Him and that pencil-dick Allen Talbott.”
Greer laughed despite herself. “He sends you his love, by the way.”
“He should go fuck himself,” Lise retorted.
“Enough about all that,” Greer said. “You tell me what’s going on with you.”
“Nothing’s going on with me. I audition, I pester my agent, I go out on cattle calls. I did get a callback for an adult incontinency commercial, but I heard they hired Suzanne Somers instead. Same stuff, different days.”
Greer shook her head impatiently. “I meant, what’s going on with you and your, um, friend you were on the phone with when I walked in here.”
Two bright pink spots bloomed on her mother’s cheeks. “You heard, huh?”
Greer nodded vigorously. “Oh yeah. Unfortunately.”
“It’s an acting gig,” Lise said. “That’s all.”
“Oh, my God, Mom. For once in your life, tell it like it is. You’re giving phone sex. To strangers. For money.” Greer clutched the arms of the sofa so tightly she feared she might tear the fabric.
“Damn good money, at that,” Lise said with a half smile. She gestured around the room. “How do you think I pay for this place? And keep Dearie in the style to which she’s become accustomed?”
“Your Neighborhood Menace residuals, right?”
“Hah! Are you really that dumb?”
Greer’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand. You don’t still get residuals?”
“Not in a couple of years,” Lise said sadly. “All anybody wants to watch these days is reruns of Friends and Seinfeld. I still go to auditions, but my so-called agent won’t take my calls anymore. You’re in the business. You know what it’s like. There are only so many parts for women my age, and my name isn’t Meryl.”
“But phone sex? That’s, like, one step away from prostitution.”
“Not to me,” Lise said sharply. “Anyway, it’s my life. I don’t exactly need your permission, you know. Or your approval.”
“Of course not,” Greer said. “It’s just … I mean, how safe is it, doing something like this? What if one of these pervs figured out where you live, and like, came over here, looking for you to do more than talk dirty to him?”
“Don’t call them that,” Lise snapped.
She tapped on the glass-topped coffee table with one ragged fingernail. “I’m not stupid, you know. I take precautions. I don’t use my real name. My clients call me on a toll-free number. They think I live in Miami. It’s perfectly safe. And it’s really, really lucrative.”
Greer couldn’t help herself. “But it’s so sleazy.”
Lise sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. Which is why I never let you know how I was really making a living. I’m not going to debate this with you, Greer. I’m performing a valuable service. My clients? My regulars? They’re nice guys. They’re lonely. Some of them are widowers, some divorced. Yeah, a few are total losers. So what? Losers have needs. They’re happy to pay to talk to me, and I’m happy to take their money and make them feel special. Now. Can we change the subject?”
“Sure,” Greer said, standing. “I need to head for home, anyway.” She brushed a kiss on her mother’s cheek, noticing for the first time a large, blooming bruise on Lise’s wrist.
*
Luis and Sean were still sitting in the courtyard under the umbrella, but now they were sharing a takeout pizza.
“Oh, my God, honey, I am so, so sorry I busted in on you and your mom that way,” Sean said as she approached, standing to give her a hug.
He glanced over at Luis. “Quel embarrassing!”
“It’s okay,” Greer said, sighing. “Can I ask you guys something?”
“Sit down,” Luis urged. “Have a cocktail. It’s after five.”
“I really can’t. I’ve got to drive home, and the last thing I need right now is a DUI. I just wanted to ask you about Lise. And I want the truth, please. Do you guys think she’s drinking again?”
“No,” Sean said promptly. “She goes to her meetings once a week down at the Methodist church. I give her a ride sometimes.”
“We’d know if she were drinking. And we definitely would have called you,” Luis added.
“Well, something’s going on with her. She’s stopped coloring her hair, she’s too thin, and her makeup looks like it had been put on in the dark. And did you see how messy her place is? You know how she is. That’s not Lise.”
“Maybe she’s just busy with work.”
Greer gave both men a long accusing stare. “So, am I the last one to know just what kind of work it is she’s been doing recently?”
“She made us swear not to tell,” Luis said. “She was afraid you’d freak out.”
“Of course I freaked out! She’s giving phone sex.”
“Intimacy counseling,” Sean corrected. “It’s totally harmless. And it’s fabulous money. Did she tell you she’s thinking of buying her place?”
“No,” Greer said. “She just said she’s performing a valuable service. In her mind, it’s just another acting gig. She’s in total denial. Just keep an eye on her, will you? I’m really worried about her.”
“We will,” Sean promised, crossing his heart with a slice of pineapple and pepperoni.
*
Greer was on day ten of her self-imposed house arrest. Ten days’ worth of mostly untouched pizza boxes and takeout containers littered the polished hardwood floors around the bedroom in her studio apartment. Dirty clothes overflowed from the hamper, because going down to the first-floor laundry room meant leaving the apartment, which she wasn’t about to do.
Leaving the apartment meant running into her neighbors—neighbors such as Teresa, who was a script supervisor for a Fox reality show, or Malcolm, who built sets on the Universal lot, or even creepy Joe, who worked craft services at Paramount.
Nearly all her neighbors were in the business, and all of them, in fact all of L.A., knew about the spectacular way her career as a location manager had literally gone up in flames.
Her laptop stood open on the rumpled bedcovers with ten days of unanswered e-mails piling up. Her phone was dead, so she wasn’t receiving calls or texts.
“Off the grid,” Greer muttered. She took a sip from the last bottle of wine she’d found squirreled away in the now-empty liquor cabinet. Some Two-Buck Chuck—a birthday present from Dearie that still had the scratch-and-sniff teddy bear stickers her grandmother had affixed to the label.
“I am off the friggin’ grid,” she repeated, upturning the bottle for one last drop of sub-par cabernet.
Of course this was not technically true, since she still had Internet and cable—at least until the end of the month. After that, who knew? Her work had dried up just as quickly as her liquor supply.
She heard the ring of the doorbell, which startled her so badly she dropped the wine
bottle, which promptly shattered all over the floor.
“Go away,” Greer hollered. “I don’t need any more pizza or pad thai. I’m off the grid.”
Someone rang the doorbell again.
“I mean it,” she called out, trying to sound menacing. “Go the hell away. I’ve got a dog in here. A vicious, uh, vicious, Doberman. He’ll rip out your throat.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t have a dog and we both know it. Greer, dammit, it’s me,” the voice called back. “Open the door.”
“Me who?” She knew exactly who was at the door.
“CeeJay me, goddamn it.”
She wavered. CeeJay was her best friend, her only friend, come to think of it, now that she’d destroyed her career, which, after all, was her life.
But no. She didn’t want CeeJay’s pity.
“Go away,” she said, her voice softer. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
“I’m not going away, and you know it,” CeeJay called back. “Now open this door immediately. A crowd is gathering out here.”
Barefoot, she stepped off the bed, and immediately a shard of glass dug into the heel of her foot.
“Shit!” Greer howled. She stepped sideways, landing squarely on another piece of glass.
“Ow, ow, ow.”
CeeJay banged on the door. “I am not leaving here until I see you—face-to-face.”
Greer sighed and limped slowly to the door.
She cracked the door open six inches and stuck her head out. “See? I’m alive. But I’m not currently receiving visitors.” She was about to slam the door, but CeeJay wedged her foot inside and shoved the door open with one thrust of her bony hip, sending Greer sprawling backward onto the floor.
CeeJay gazed around the room, taking in the overflowing trash, the miniscule kitchen counter littered with empty beer cans, liquor and wine bottles and dirty dishes, the unmade bed, and the now blood-streaked floor.
“What the hell has been going on here? Are you having animal sacrifices?”
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