“I cut my foot,” Greer said, leaning back on her elbows and extending her feet for inspection. “And it’s all your fault.”
CeeJay stuck her largish Italian nose into the air and sniffed. “It smells like a dive bar in here. And it’s only ten in the morning.”
“I had a few friends in last night. I was just starting to clean up when you barged in. I was so startled I dropped a wine bottle,” Greer said.
“Likely story.” CeeJay reached down and gingerly touched a strand of Greer’s lank hair. She frowned at the dark circles under her friend’s eyes, the faded, shrunken Mickey Mouse tank top, and the plaid cotton pajama pants that rode loosely around Greer’s hips.
“Pathetic. Just pathetic.”
CeeJay, of course, was fresh as a daisy. A month ago, she’d been sporting a pink Mohawk. But now her hair was shoulder-length and platinum blond with what was, for her, a conservative streak of neon green down the left side of her face. She wore a sleeveless, bright blue crop top that exposed her pierced navel, tight white jeans, and gold-studded white sandals with a six-inch wedge heel. Her makeup was flawless, and a large vinyl Trader Joe’s tote bag was slung over her shoulder.
“How do you do that?” Greer asked, sinking down onto the sofa.
CeeJay was in the kitchen, dumping bottles and cans into a trash bag to clear a space on the counter. She began unloading the shopping bag’s contents; bottled water, fresh fruit, almond milk, and a huge bunch of leafy green kale.
“Do what?” she asked, rinsing off strawberries and blueberries.
“You know. Show up at ten a.m. looking like a cover girl for Elle magazine. Grow your hair ten inches in a month. Skin that looks like a baby’s butt. Bambi eyelashes. Like that.”
CeeJay pulled the cap off the bottle of almond milk and poured it into the blender on the countertop. She added the berries, chunks of banana, and torn kale leaves.
“The hair and lashes are extensions. I drink sixty-four ounces of water a day, take Vitamin E, no hard liquor, well, some tequila, SPF eighty sunblock, weekly microdermabrasion. I use my own private label foundation and lipstick. C’mon, Greer. This is what I do for a living. If I walked around all day looking like you do…” She shrugged. “I’d be out of work. Like you. Now. I don’t suppose you happen to have any chia seeds?”
Greer made a gagging noise.
“Acai berries?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” CeeJay flipped the switch on the blender, poured the contents into the only clean glass she could find, and presented it to Greer.
Greer looked dubiously at the lumpy green sludge in the glass. “Looks like sewage.”
“If it were sewage it would still be healthier than whatever you’ve been consuming for the last week or so,” CeeJay said, again thrusting the glass in her face. Greer pushed it away.
“Don’t make me call your mother.”
With a sigh, Greer took the glass and sipped. She grimaced, then drank it down.
“Satisfied?”
“It’s a start,” CeeJay said. “Now, you go hit the shower. And while you’re getting cleaned up, I’ll shovel this dump out.”
“I don’t need to clean up,” Greer said. “I’m off the grid.”
“Oh. You’re a survivalist now? If so, this is a pretty high-priced cave you’re hiding out in.”
Greer sat back on the sofa with a mutinous expression.
“I know what you’re doing, but it’s no good. I am not leaving this apartment. Until the end of the month, that is. When I take up residency in my Explorer, down by the river.”
CeeJay’s expression softened. “Are things really that bad? I thought you had some money put away for a rainy day.”
“I took some bad investment advice.”
“What about Lise? Could she help you out?”
“Lise talks a good game, but she hasn’t really worked in, like, forever. You’ve seen her place over there in Villa Encantada—I don’t even want to know what her rent must run.”
“I could loan you some money. Until your next job.”
“There is no next job,” Greer said. “Hank Reitz made sure of that. Everybody in town knows about my colossal fuckup in Paso Robles. Old Man Miller is suing the studio, the studio is suing Hank Reitz. The only good news is that nobody’s suing me, because they know I don’t have any money.”
“The fire wasn’t your fault,” CeeJay said. “Everybody in town knows Dave Walker is a pyromaniac. Those special-effects guys get their rocks off that way. It’s totally a sexual thing.”
“Thanks, Dr. Freud. But it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. I was the location manager. I should have made damn sure nobody lit a match without the right permits, no matter what Hank or Dave wanted. More importantly, I never should have believed Garland Miller owned that ranch. The guy was a total skeev. I should have gone down to the courthouse and checked the tax records. I’ve done it hundreds of time before—why didn’t I do it this time?”
“Because you had a director breathing down your neck, changing his mind at the last minute, like they all do. Because the shoot was way behind schedule, like it always is. Maybe you did screw up a little. But there’s plenty of blame to go around, and it shouldn’t all be on you.”
“It is on me,” Greer said. “It’s all on me. I’m through in this town. I had two more features tentatively lined up after Moondancing. But now that’s all dried up. Other plans have been made. Other scouts have been hired. And none of them are named Greer Hennessey.”
“Not all the work has dried up,” CeeJay said. “I happen to know of an upcoming project, being shot by the town’s hottest young producer-slash-director.”
“Are we talking about Mr. X? Your new squeeze?”
“Maybe. Now get yourself showered, and I’ll tell you all about it once you’re presentable.”
“No. Like I said, I appreciate it, but I don’t want your charity. I don’t want a pity job. I promise I’ll shower and take out the trash and eat my vitamins, if you’ll just go away and leave me alone.”
“Not happening,” CeeJay said. “This is not a pity job. It’s a great project, with a major studio, and he really, really wants to talk to you about it.”
“Right,” Greer said. “Like I’m the only location manager in town. Come on, CeeJay. Get real, Mr. X never heard of me before. What he wants is you. And you happen to have a screwup best friend who, right now, can’t even get arrested.”
CeeJay didn’t answer. She took Greer’s discarded glass into the kitchen and rinsed it out in the sink. She went to the door, paused, and turned to deliver the exit speech she’d known she’d have to deliver.
“I’ll go. You stay here and wallow in self-pity. Let the dirty laundry pile up. Get yourself half a dozen stray cats and start hoarding empty tin cans to add to the hermit ambience. You want to continue your self-destructive bullshit? Be my guest.”
“Thanks, I will,” Greer shot back.
“I’m going.” CeeJay opened the door.
“See ya.”
CeeJay slammed the door and stomped down the hallway, her footsteps echoing in the high-ceilinged stucco space. She went out to the street and stood by her car. She waited five minutes.
The French doors opened. Greer stepped gingerly onto the tiny patio and looked over at her waiting friend.
“Are you gonna just stand there? Or are you gonna get your ass in here and do something about my hair?”
CHAPTER 6
The next day, Greer considered the stack of bills, unopened junk mail, sale circulars, and back copies of the entertainment trade journals. Living off the grid, she’d deliberately ignored the outside world, but now that CeeJay was forcibly hauling her back to reality, maybe she should catch up. The lead story in Variety was about a rumored studio merger. She was tempted to leaf through to see if there were any new accounts of the calamitous events at Paso Robles. But no. Not going there, she told herself.
She stuffed the mail and the papers into a tra
sh bag, then deliberately dumped coffee grounds, a carton of rancid yogurt, and the remains of a stale bagel smeared with peanut butter atop the papers before knotting the bag and taking it downstairs to the Dumpster.
Greer was at the stair landing—the halfway point on her exciting journey to the Dumpster, when she heard her phone dinging. She set the bag of trash down and stared at the text message from CeeJay.
“X wants to meet u and talk about project ASAP. What’s ur sked?”
Greer didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her schedule?
Her fingers trembled as she typed a reply.
“How’s right now? Tomorrow? Day after? I got nuthin’.”
Outside, she stood for a moment, blinking in the blinding sunlight and blistering heat. When had she last been outside? Just as she was hefting the garbage into the Dumpster, her phone dinged again. She stayed in the shadow of the reeking steel bin, breathing through her mouth as she read CeeJay’s text.
“Cool. X flying back from East Coast 2nite. Meet @ end of week.”
“Yes!” She broke into the crazed little jig that she thought of as her happy dance. X wanted to meet her. He had a job. A project. If she could hang on a little longer, her luck would change. A job would turn up. .
Coming back from the Dumpster, she encountered her downstairs neighbor Kevin loading suitcases into a rust bucket Pontiac. Kevin was tan and buff, and wore his usual too-tight gym shorts, a rakish smile, and not much more. They’d met the previous year when he moved into the building. He claimed to be an actor. She wasn’t positive, but she suspected most of his work was clothing optional.
“Greer! How ya doing?” He didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was checking her out. Kevin checked out every woman under the age of eighty.
He ran a fingertip down her forearm and leered. “I love that outfit on you. Totally hot. Prada?”
She took a step backward and glanced down at her ensemble—a pair of bleach-spattered cutoff yoga shorts and an old Goo Goo Dolls concert T-shirt.
“Close. It’s Stella McCartney.” She gave him a wave. “See ya around, Kev.”
*
For the first time in nearly two weeks she recognized a faintly familiar sensation. That glimmer, that something? It was hope. She felt hopeful enough to bathe, clean house, and even empty the half bottle of rotgut swill she’d started thinking of as emergency relapse gin down the kitchen sink.
When her phone rang, she grabbed it, assuming it would be CeeJay, calling to set up her meeting.
“Hey, girl, hey,” Greer said excitedly. “What’s the news?”
Not CeeJay. Not even close. It was her mother.
“The nursing home called. We have to move your grandmother. Again,” Lise said.
“We?”
“Okay, fine, act like a brat. I have to move her again. I thought you might be interested in your only grandmother’s welfare, but apparently, you inherited your father’s talent for self-absorption.”
Greer decided to let that pass. If Lise was invoking her father’s name, things must be bad. Very bad.
“What’s Dearie done now?”
“What hasn’t she done? Let’s see. She called one of the nursing supervisors a fat cow, to her face, then she organized a hunger strike on her floor because the new dietician had the Coke machine removed from the building. But, oh yes, her latest offense is that she was caught leaving the men’s memory care unit at three this morning.”
“It’s not exactly a school night for people their age. So what’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that Dearie was stark naked when she was apprehended.”
Greer guffawed. “Good ol’ Dearie.”
“The nursing home wasn’t amused. So now Dearie’s back out on the street. But I guess that’s not your problem, is it?”
“Okay, okay,” Greer said quickly. “I’m sorry I popped off like that. So, what are we going to do about Dearie? They didn’t actually kick her out already, right?”
“They would have,” Lise said, her voice sour. “Until I went all batshit emo on the head madam, or whatever she calls herself, and threatened to sue for elder abuse. They’ve agreed to let her stay, in what amounts to granny lockdown, for another week. Two at the most. After that, Dearie and Pleasant Point Senior Living are parting ways.”
“Have you started looking for a new place to move her?”
Lise sighed loudly. “There aren’t a lot of places for somebody like your grandmother. She’s got basically no money, and let’s face it, her permanent personal record is spotty.”
“But she’s got Medicaid, right? And her studio pension, right? That should pay for something.”
“Something isn’t enough anymore, Greer darling. It’s this goddamn healthy living you millennials are so nutty about. No smoking, no drinking, no red meat, no free radicals. Yippee skippee! We’re all super healthy, which means the life expectancy is now longer than God ever meant anybody to live. Have you looked at the obits in Variety lately? People are hanging on into their eighties and nineties. It’s ghastly.”
“I’m not sure Dearie would agree with that,” Greer said. “She seems pretty happy to still be kicking.”
“Of course she is,” Lise retorted. “She gets to sit around in some cushy retirement home, being waited on hand and foot by hunky male nursing aides, watching Lifetime television all day. I’d love to have your grandmother’s life.”
Uh, except for the hunky male nurses, as far as Greer could tell, her mother did have that life. Oh, sure, Lise was still eternally on the hunt for an acting gig, any gig at all. She went on auditions, read the trades, but mostly, she sat around reminiscing about her glory days or talking dirty to losers for what everybody claimed was great money.
“Well,” Greer said slowly. “CeeJay thinks she can get me a new job. If it works out, I think I could help out a little with Dearie’s expenses. Maybe kick in a couple hundred a month? Would that help?”
“Anything would help,” Lise admitted. “So what’s the new job? Who’s the director?”
“It’s too soon to talk about. I don’t want to jinx it.”
“Oh, all right,” Lise said petulantly. “I hate the thought of taking money from you, but on the other hand, I hate the idea of her coming to live with either of us even more.”
“Oh no,” Greer said. “I love Dearie, but I’ve only got the one bedroom.…”
“Say no more,” Lise agreed. “I’ve had some stuff come up lately. I have one little fucking fender bender, and now the insurance company wants to jack up my rates. Again. Not to mention the Mercedes needs new tires, and those aren’t cheap. If I have to take time off to go hunt up a new home for Dearie, I’ll have to take time off from my, uh, day job. But I suppose I could take the bus.…” Lise sighed audibly and paused to let the guilt trip sink in to her only child’s psyche. “Although you are the professional location scout.…”
Greer winced, remembering how haggard her mother had looked when she’d last seen her. Relocating Dearie was the least she could do since she wasn’t working at the moment. “Okay. If you’ll get all her paperwork together, I’ll give it a shot. I’ll find Dearie a new place.”
“That’s my girl,” Lise said approvingly.
CHAPTER 7
The Motion Picture and Television Country Home looked uncannily like the glossy photos she’d seen on the home’s impressive Web site. Impossibly lush, despite the drought, with a putting green, walking trails, rose gardens, and a cluster of low-slung stucco cottages with red-tile roofs, it reminded her of something out of a Nancy Meyers film.
Compared to the drab concrete-block assisted living facility where Dearie was currently on time-out, this place was a Modern Maturity dream come true.
Greer had a 2 p.m. appointment with the home’s admissions director. She’d dressed carefully, in the only conservative dress she owned, a sleeveless black linen sheath, and a pair of Lise’s black slingback heels. But her most important accessory was an inch-thick fil
e folder with every piece of paper Lise had been able to gather documenting Deidre Kehoe’s entertainment career and current (depressing) financial status.
As she sat in a chair opposite the director’s imposing mahogany desk, Greer realized her palms were sweating, leaving unimpressive damp marks on her already rumpled dress. She tried to sit back and relax, but found her entire body tense as Jon Bentley leafed through the folder. Everything depended on this interview. Dearie needed to live in this place.
He looked up and smiled at her through wire-rimmed glasses. He had graying light brown hair with John Denver bangs that brushed his forehead, and a pleasant face, like a mild-mannered accountant, or an easygoing actuary.
“Your grandmother had quite a career. She acted for what, five, six years? In the late forties?”
“Until nineteen fifty-one, when she had my mother,” Greer said. “She went back to work after her divorce, when my mom was three or four, but as a seamstress at one of the studios. I actually can’t remember all the costume shops she worked in, but it’s all in the file.”
“Joined the Motion Picture Costumers Local in 1957, so that’s good.” Bentley nodded. “Sometimes our elderly applicants aren’t able to provide documentation for their work history, but the trade unions keep great records.”
“Your Web site says she’d need twenty years consecutive employment in the business to meet your eligibility requirement, but Dearie actually worked for closer to forty years, although the last ten years or so she was more like a contract worker,” Greer volunteered.
“Dearie?”
“Her given name’s Deidre, but everybody always calls her Dearie,” Greer said.
He continued reading the papers in the file, and smiling, so Greer actually found herself unlocking her knotted shoulders and settling back into the leather chair.
“Well, Dearie certainly qualifies for residency here based on her work history,” Bentley said. “And from the look of the financials, it seems she could use some assistance.”
Greer felt her face flush as the topic of money reared its ugly head. “It turns out she has a small long-term assistance policy she forgot to tell us about, but I’m sure it wouldn’t come close to covering your fees here. Um, my mother and I think we could possibly help, too. But we’re both in the business, and neither of us are currently working, so it would have to come out of our savings.”
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