Playing for Love

by Mel Curtis

  Amber realized she was face to face with a drawing of a garden – dirt giving way to stems, stems blossoming into various flowers, some in glorious bloom, others with petals crumpling. The garden was one of her father’s favorite themes. This was just one of many on display throughout the house.

  And Amber was going to have to live here, encased in energetic, retro color. “I feel sick.” She couldn’t decide if she was going to vomit or succumb to a migraine.

  Trina closed the distance between them and hugged Amber. “Losing a parent is tough, even when it’s Dooley Rule you’re losing. We’ll take it slow. Where do you want to start?”

  “The office.” Amber led the way down a hall, high heels dragging in the shag.

  “You really think Dooley kept files on you?”

  “He was always asking me questions and scribbling in his notebook.”

  “That doesn’t mean – ”

  “I was featured in three Foundation infomercials.”

  “But – ”

  “And four books. Strangers know intimate details about my life.” Like how the popular girls in junior high had taken a picture of Amber changing clothes for gym class and posted it on My Space. According to Dooley, she’d learned how to move on with his help. Not.

  “Point taken.” Trina paused in the middle of a series of her father’s pictures lining the walls. “Zoinks. I see naked women in every one of these garden pictures. Am I supposed to see that? Was he like a male Georgia O’Keefe or something?”

  “Trina.” This was why Amber had never invited anyone over to her father’s house. Amber turned, her hand resting on the door to the office as she captured Trina’s gaze. “You can look at the pictures later.”

  “You’re right.” But her blue eyes drifted toward the colorful collection of flowers. “I’m just overcome by the vibe. I expected it to end in the living room.”

  “I assure you. The entire house is like this.” Amber sighed and at that Trina straightened her shoulders, nodded solemnly and said, “I’m here for you…sister.”

  Rolling her eyes, Amber opened the office door half expecting to find her dad at the desk, doodling with colorful pens on his blotter. But the room was empty, the desk devoid of a computer. On the floor in the corner a picture of a garden filled with delicate blue starflowers leaned against an empty silver frame, waiting to be put together.

  “It does exist,” Trina breathed reverently, crossing to the far corner where a three foot tall cylindrical lamp hung from the ceiling on a bronze chain. “You told me about this years ago, but I thought you were joking.”

  The lamp was a classic, or so her father claimed. The pagoda-style top and base were connected by three bronze columns and criss-crossed with wire that, when the lamp was lit, carried drops of oil from the top to the base. A buxom, naked woman was the trapped centerpiece, arms and face raised as if caught in the midst of a joyous dance.

  “Sweet Venus,” Trina murmured while studying it, striking a pose similar to the lamp Goddess. She smiled over her shoulder at Amber, who lagged back by the door. “It’s tacky, but geez, she’s hot. Why didn’t your dad put this in the bedroom?”

  Amber’s shoulders tensed again. “This is tame compared to the bedroom.”

  Trina looked at the lamp and then back to Amber, sending her dangling gold earrings swaying. “We’re searching that, too, right?”

  “Curb your enthusiasm. This is my life.” My home. The headache won out. Amber pushed her thumbs into her temples.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry.” Trina immediately backpedaled. “It’s just this house is like stepping on a Disneyland ride. The details are so complete, it’s hypnotic.” Trina took in the floor to ceiling shiny orange curtains, vintage metal teacher’s desk with a row of troll dolls, tie-dyed desk chair and stuffed white owl on the book shelf. “Is that a real owl?”

  “Trina, focus,” Amber said through gritted teeth. “His laptop must be at the Santa Monica office. I’ll take the desk. You try the credenza.”

  “Right. Ok.” Trina looked abashed. “What exactly am I looking for?”

  “Files with my name on it or in it. Video of me. Manuscripts that mention me.” Amber drew a breath.

  “Groovy,” Trina said, once more in the spirit of the house, adding a quick, “Sorry.”

  “Just look.” Amber’s hands trembled as she opened the first drawer filled with colorful file folders.

  There were hundreds of files. It took them nearly an hour to go through them all because they paused several times to share the name of a famous client, most of whom were dead or retired from the limelight. In the end, they found five folders of various colors with Amber’s name on them, but there was nothing in the files that was of any use.

  Regardless of whose name was on the tab, Dooley’s files contained one or two faded sheets from a yellow notepad sparsely covered with gibberish – snatches of phrases that rhymed or made no sense, intricate doodles of kaleidoscope circles emitting rays of sunshine or his more familiar flowers budding, blooming and dropping petals. All drawn with painstakingly short, fine strokes.

  “Your father was either an idiot,” Trina said, putting ransacked files back where they belonged. “Or brilliant. And we’re just too cross-eyed and numb to know the difference at this point.”

  “There’s nothing here that would embarrass anyone.” Amber sat on the floor surrounded by open files, cold despite the sun streaming through the window on her. “So what if some A-list star had life coaching? You can’t tell what they came to my dad for.”

  “And that’s why no one’s ever been able to pry secrets out of the Dooley Foundation.” Trina scooped up another armload of files. “You don’t have to worry anymore.”

  Amber shook her head, unable to shake away the fear. “I don’t believe it. We’ve got to be missing something.”

  “If you say so, we’ll look again. We’ll turn the house upside down, search the office, check his safe deposit box.”

  But Amber didn’t share Trina’s optimism. “It would be just like my dad to leave no trail, to look down on us and laugh knowing that he’d left a clue somewhere but that we’d never find it,” Amber said, realizing that she was trapped into doing her father’s bidding, only she had no idea how to coach anyone. She was going to be the laughingstock of L.A. Thanks, Dad.

  Amber’s muscles tensed until she worked herself into full panic mode, words racing each other to tumble from her mouth. “What if this is all the notes he ever took? His books are all about the power of positive thinking and taking advantage of golden opportunities. How did he coach these people? Did you see anything about what he did or why?” Blinded as she’d been to protecting her privacy, Amber hadn’t realized how important the nuts and bolts of her father’s program were until now.

  Amber sifted frantically through several open folders on the floor and began reading aloud. “Arrogant. Impatient. Self-absorbed. Tippy-top. And then he drew a droopy flower.” Amber tossed the file aside and arched her aching back. “I’ll never be able to help anybody. They’ll all demand their money back.”

  “He’s got to have methods.” Trina knelt beside Amber, gathering up more files. “He had people working for him, right? They had to know what to do. Come on. Let’s dwell on the good news – there’s nothing incriminating here about you or anyone else. You can panic about the coaching later.”

  “Sales are down and if they stay that way I’ll lose funding for Hathor House.” The home for young women with eating disorders that had helped Trina and continued to help others, regardless of their ability to pay. The Dooley Foundation was their biggest contributor.

  “Hey, snap out of it.” Trina gently shook Amber’s shoulders. “Things are not all doom and gloom. When Michael Jackson died, his CD sales skyrocketed.”

  “Please don’t compare my dad and the Rules of Attraction to Michael Jackson.” But Trina’s distraction did the trick. Amber was able to breathe again.

  “That is a stretch,” Trina allowed. “Bu
t you can hope, can’t you?”

  “I can hope there are folders outlining his programs and life coaching strategies at the office.” Amber checked the time on her cell phone. “And that I’ll get there before Blue.”

  “If you’re still worried about Blue selling secrets, don’t be. Chances are you’ll find more of the same at the office.” Trina stood, taking the folders with her. “And maybe there’s nothing to find. I mean, all these people are old geezers and has-beens.”

  “Thanks.” Amber stood, clutching the files with her name on it, casting about for her high heeled sandals.

  “Except for you,” Trina hastened to add, shoving folders back into the stuffed drawer. “His more recent files are probably in the Santa Monica office.”

  “Along with his computer.” Amber spotted her shoes in the corner. “I’m going over there right now.”

  “But first, can you show me your dad’s bedroom?” Trina grinned devilishly. “Please-please-please?”

  She shouldn’t. It was mortifying. But if Amber didn’t do it now, Trina would bother her until she did. “Fine. But only to make sure he didn’t leave his laptop in there.”

  He hadn’t. But there was something poking out from under the floor length red satin bedspread that flowed over the round water bed in the center of the love pit her father called a bedroom.

  Trina ogled at the mirror on the ceiling, the Kama Sutra wallpaper, the whips and chains on the wall, and the in-room Jacuzzi tub watched over by a naked Grecian goddess. None of which Amber could get rid of.

  “We should order this wallpaper for the bathrooms at Tingle,” Trina said, leaning in to peer at a naked couple with legs entwined in a pretzel knot.

  “There’s enough sex going on in Tingle’s dark corners already.”

  “How would you know? You haven’t been inside at night in months.”

  True. Amber and Trina had dinner together nearly every night before Trina opened the nightclub, but Amber invariably headed back to Pasadena by nine. And yet Amber knew the L.A. club scene from previous experience. “Are there still dark corners in Tingle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then people are still having sex there.” Amber bent to pick up a woman’s shoe beneath the bedspread, a black sandal with rhinestones and a six-inch heel meant to titillate. Not a speck of dust on it.

  “Great,” Amber dropped the shoe on the white carpet. “On top of everything else, my dad had a better sex life than I do.”

  “Yeah, well. He didn’t wrap himself up like a mummy and hide in Pasadena.”

  Chapter 5

  “We’ll let you know.” Cy Maxwell, Evan’s agent, finished a call before falling into step with Evan outside the Flash’s practice facility. “Sorry I missed practice. How’d it go?” Cy glanced at Evan and then did a double take. “Is that a…Did someone give you a black eye?”

  “It’s nothing.” Evan fingered the swelling over his cheek, which didn’t bother him near as much as hearing the bitterness in his former college teammate’s voice a few minutes earlier.

  Cy barred Evan with an arm. Since he was a head shorter than Evan and about thirty pounds lighter, that arm was level with Evan’s solar plexus and only courtesy made Evan stop twenty feet from the early welcome to the NBA gift he’d bought himself – a spanking new, stop sign red Ferrari F458.

  Cy checked to make sure they were alone before speaking. “Tell me there’s someone else who looks worse than you – and I’m talking visible damage.”

  “I didn’t play nice in the sandbox, Mom.” Evan had given nearly as many dirty hits as he’d collected.

  “You have a kick ass rep on the street thanks to the AND1 streetball team. We want to go up from here, not down.”

  Evan brushed Cy’s arm aside. “Now you sound like my dad.” Which was not a compliment as far as Evan was concerned. “Besides, I thought fighting added to that bad-ass image sponsors like.”

  “Only if it’s you doing the swinging.” Cy hop-stepped in front of Evan in his Hollywood uniform – blue button down, khakis and loafers. “We had it good at AND1. We left too soon.”

  Evan liked Cy. He worked at Multistar Talent Brokers, where Cy had created a symbiotic relationship to promote his diverse list of clients. That’s how Evan had ended up at the Flash game with actress Mimi Sorbet the other night. She’d put on quite a show for the press at the game, after which they’d parted ways over her double cheek air kisses.

  And Cy was well connected when it came to endorsement opportunities and a damn good negotiator. Cy’s one weakness was he wouldn’t let crap go. When Jack Gordon approached Cy about Evan, Cy had nearly turned him down without asking Evan what he wanted to do.

  “Remember the Lebron James dunkfest?” Evan asked, referring to a popular YouTube video of a high school kid dunking over Lebron, making him look like an amateur. “I left AND1 before some high school punk out-played me.” Age was Evan’s enemy. Sure, Evan was in his prime at twenty-eight. But his training routine and drive would only sustain his speed for so long, an attribute necessary in streetball. It was time to break into the land of the giants. At six-six, Evan was short for the NBA. But he could outrun a seven-footer on his worst day and outwork guys his own size with superior strategy, foot speed and skill.

  “You had years left on the street,” Cy protested, like any good agent would when his client was taking a risk.

  “And if I play my cards right I’ll have a career when my NBA playing days are over.” Coaching or managing. Evan unlocked the Ferrari. “I thought agents were supposed to think long term.”

  “And I thought you hired me to make you a shitload of money,” Cy countered.

  Those were his father’s words. Evan’s fist clenched the strap of his workout bag. “That was seven years ago. And maybe you don’t recall, but I’d just been signed by the Seattle Supersonics.”

  “And subsequently shot.” Cy glanced significantly at Evan’s right thigh. He was one of the few people who knew the real story about Evan’s injury. “Most agents would have dumped you then.”

  But not Cy. The ballsy young agent had taken what should have been a career-ending event and come up with a cover story about Evan being a streetwise kid and a backup plan that had taken them this far. But Evan wasn’t going to settle for less than his dream.

  “I don’t want to be one of those guys who says I had my chance and I blew it.”

  Cy considered Evan’s words and then gave a curt nod. “If that’s what you really want, we’ll go for it. But I’ve got to warn you, Jack Gordon is out to screw us, but good. He wants to add a rider stating you have to lead the team to six wins by the end of the season or we only get one point five million with a thanks but no thanks if you wanted a new contract in May.”

  “Fuck that.” The Flash had fallen apart without Zee Johnson, the point guard sidelined with a knee injury. It took time for a team to gel and there were only ten games left before the playoffs. If Evan was to produce those six wins, he’d have to be a one-man show, which could only happen if his Flash teammates created opportunities for him to put the ball in the hoop. They were more likely to trip him on the court than stand in Evan’s defender’s way so he’d be open to score.

  Evan glanced around the parking lot for something to take out his frustrations on, but there was only his shiny three hundred thousand dollar gamble. “Fuck me.”

  “No.” Cy shook his head. “Fuck Jack Gordon. It’s not too late to go back to AND1.”

  “We had a verbal agreement.” A handshake over beer at some crappy sports bar where Evan had been hard pressed to contain a goofy grin. Evan’s fingers curled. He wanted to plant his fist in Jack Gordon’s face.

  “In principle, the terms were agreed to, but Gordon is a tricky SOB.”

  “You’re supposed to be trickier.”

  “You met him without me.” Cy might as well have said I told you so.

  But Cy was right. Evan had backed himself into a corner. He still had an open door in the European lea
gues, although the pay wasn’t as hot as AND1 or the U.S. NBA. And there was always Australia, only he’d need crash pads and a helmet to play there, along with a good doctor and a low key lifestyle to fit their pay scale.

  Evan stared at the Ferrari’s low slung body and swore again.

  “It gets worse.” Cy looked grim. “I just got off the phone with AND1. They don’t want tarnished goods. The only way you’re going back to them is if you make a big splash in the NBA. If you sign with the Flash…losing is not an option.”

  A little after five, Amber turned into the Dooley Foundation’s parking lot at the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, just in time to see Blue pull into the CEO’s reserved parking space. Frowning, Amber parked her Mercedes coupe next to Blue’s vintage Austin Martin, got out of the car and waited for her brother, wrapping her Pashmina around her shoulders.

  Blue stood, cradling something in the crook of his right arm. Something poofy. That moved.

  “You have a dog?”

  A tiny gray poodle, not much bigger than one of the sandals Amber wore, peered at Amber beneath teased curls and blue ear bows.

  “It’s dad’s dog.” Blue locked his car and led the way to the rear door.

  “Dad didn’t have a dog.” Amber reached out to pet the little thing, who was really cute, in a bug-eyed sort of way.

  The dog growled and pawed wildly as if it was going to leap on her.

  Amber snatched her hand back and gave Blue plenty of room to open the side door and ascend the back stairs to the second floor.

  He adjusted his grip on the beast. “Dad had a dog. Mr. Jiggles here. Dad took him everywhere.”

  Try as she might, Amber couldn’t visualize Dooley carrying around a rat with pom-pom bangs. “Did you pick him up from the house? Because I was just there.” And Amber didn’t like the idea that Blue had a key to her father’s Beverly Hills place.