Playing for Love

by Mel Curtis

  “Kremer’s wife was taking care of him. I just picked him up.”

  “And they asked you to take Mr. Jumpy – ”

  “Jiggles. Mr. Jiggles.” Blue continued up the stairs. “And they didn’t ask me.”

  Understanding dawned. Amber hurried after him. “That’s your task? Adopting dad’s dog?”

  “I expected to see you carrying his cat,” Blue countered.

  Amber didn’t take the bait. “Dad didn’t have a cat. Or a dog.”

  “And you know this because you visited Dad all the time.”

  She hadn’t, of course, but neither had he. “So now you have a dog.” Blue was so not the portable dog type. He wasn’t a dog person period.

  Blue spun on the landing to face Amber. “Yes. For a year I’m going to be a glorified pet sitter, 24/7. Are you happy now?”

  Amber slowed, studying the poodle. “He’s cute in a homely sort of way.” Amber reached out to pet the dog once more and Mr. Jiggles bared his teeth.

  Blue did, too. “Tell me you’re going to suffer all year.”

  “Well, I…” All of a sudden, living in a 1960s shrine didn’t seem like such a hardship.

  “That’s what I thought.” Blue produced a key and turned to the door, which was framed with the Rules of Attraction – Choose, Voice, Trust, Welcome.

  “Hey, I’m going to suffer. Have you seen Dad’s house? All that shag and nakedness.”

  Blue swore. “It figures. You got Dad’s house. I got a rat with bows.” He pushed into the office.

  A very vacant office.

  Oh, it was beautiful and calming, with a muted red Oriental rug and live bamboo plants against smooth celery colored walls. The office furniture was a deep cherry and the lighting soft. The effect was more like a luxury day spa than a place of business. Nowhere did it say: Secrets stored here.

  The reception desk appeared occupied, with colorful paper clips, pens, Post-Its and a desk plate introducing Gemma. But the first two offices on each side of the entry were sterile and bare, as was each office down the long hall. Only their father’s office showed signs of life.

  In it, a hanging macramé planter with spider plant tendrils spun gently beneath the ceiling vent in the front corner. A three story Lego castle was the centerpiece on the credenza, colorful knights defending it from a dragon attack. Neon pipe cleaner sculptures of flowers and grinning faces danced next to thin, colorful markers in a psychedelic red coffee mug. A fire engine red laptop – her father’s laptop – sat on the desk blotter surrounded by an intricate pen doodle of a miniature foofy dog barking at tulips twice his size.

  Amber made a beeline to the computer.

  “I was going to fight you for Dad’s office since it has the best view of the Promenade, but I think not.” Blue set Mr. Jiggles on the floor.

  The little ball of fluff pranced over to the fichus in the back corner and lifted his leg.

  Amber paused, totally repulsed. “Maybe dad did have a dog.”

  “Now I really don’t want this office,” Blue said.

  “You’re going to clean that up.” Amber commandeered the large tan leather chair behind the desk while Blue grumbled, but obeyed. Whatever her dad was hiding, it was in the laptop. Amber could feel it.

  It didn’t take her long to power up the computer and be stopped by password protection. She sagged into the chair. So close. “It’s locked.”

  Blue stomped paper towels into the soft gray carpet. “Maybe he trusted the receptionist with his login.”

  Or maybe he’d written it on a Post-It and stuck it in his desk. Amber rooted around in the slender center drawer. An opened roll of mints. A pair of reading glasses. An orange index card with more doodles. Deeper and deeper Amber explored in the mess until her hand encountered something she couldn’t identify by feel. She promptly pulled it out.

  Shrieking, Amber flung a black G-string across the room.

  Mr. Jiggles pounced on the scrap of lace and carried it out to the lobby as if it was some kind of prize. Dooley had probably thought so.

  “It’s a wonder dad only had three kids from three different mothers,” Amber said.

  “That was probably the receptionist’s. You know dad likes ‘em young and with attitude.” Blue winked, tossing the soiled paper towels in Amber’s trash.

  “Really, Blue?” Amber wrinkled her nose and turned away from the offending aroma and her tacky brother. Trouble was, Blue was most likely right. If her father was doing the receptionist, he probably shared other, more personal information with her as well.

  Come Monday, Amber was going to check out Gemma very carefully. For now, she continued her search for secrets and a Rules of Attraction how-to bible by opening the one file drawer in her father’s desk.

  She found the same sardine like kaleidoscope of colored folders that she’d found in her dad’s home office. Amber drew up the first one just enough to peek inside.

  Rats. Same yellow notepaper. As in singular sheet. The same scribble-doodle note system.

  Before Amber could tap the folder back down, Blue held out his hand. “What’s that? A client folder?”

  “Maybe.” Amber passed it over.

  “L.A. Flash.” Blue read the tab as he sat down across from her. “Now that sounds promising.” He opened the folder and quickly scanned the contents. “What the…” Blue held the yellow lined page up so Amber could see.

  “Let’s get wiggy with it,” Amber dutifully read, giving only a cursory glance at a drawing of a bouquet of tiger lilies.

  “He was probably sleeping with a Flash cheerleader and sent her a bouquet of flowers.” Blue placed the paper back in the file slowly, as if it contained some very important information they couldn’t afford to lose. “Give me some more files.”

  “They’re all like that,” Amber said, grabbing several. “At least the ones I found in Dad’s house were.”

  While Blue got up to speed on the files, Amber poked through the credenza, which was filled with Rules of Attraction books, DVDs (still in their cellophane wrappers) and promotional materials her father handed out at motivational conferences.

  That same panicky tightness she’d felt earlier this afternoon at her dad’s house started to take hold.

  Amber spun back around in the chair in need of a distraction. She picked up one of her father’s business cards from a shimmery blue pottery bowl on the corner of his desk. She flipped it over and then covered her mouth.

  No. No-no-no-no-no.

  “There’s nothing here.” Blue pushed the files away from him. “I’m hoping you know how to apply the Rules because otherwise we’re in deep shit.”

  “We’d be in waders regardless.” Amber snapped the business card face down on the desk between them. Blue leaned forward, presumable reading: Live a richer, fuller, happier life! Life Goals, Career Goals, Family Resolutions, Relationship Counseling, Sports Performance, Sex Therapy.

  “We’re in deep shit,” Blue announced unnecessarily.

  “These are serious issues. Except for…I mean…sex therapy?” Amber’s cheeks burned as she tossed the card back in the bowl. “Dad’s laughing at us, you know.”

  “Don’t lose your mind, too.”

  Amber pumped her temples with her thumbs, unable to believe her life, that had been so perfect a week ago, was now spinning out of control.

  “Yeah, well, maybe it won’t be so bad,” Blue said, turning to watch Mr. Jiggles trot in with the G-string wrapped around his neck. “Maybe I could provide sex therapy, like, to women.”

  “Besides the fact that what you have in mind is probably unethical, the ick factor is huge. Huge,” Amber repeated, just to make sure he heard her.

  But as she left Blue and his attack dog, Amber wasn’t sure he had.

  Chapter 6

  L.A. Happenings by Lyle Lincoln

  …Think Mimi Sorbet is underdressed and overexposed? Check out the Flash cheerleaders’ new uniforms. Jack Gordon, the fire and brimstone owner of the L.A. Flash, ordered the alread
y miniscule scraps of material further minimized and apparently fired those on staff who protested. This is as close to naked as you can get in public without being at the Playboy mansion. And yet, with the Flash playing so poorly, despite the addition of delicious Evan Oliver, there’d have to be nude dancers to fill those empty seats…

  “It’s really run down,” Amber said to Blue, who shushed her. “Well, it is.”

  “Not another word.” Blue had been annoying and snappish since signing the will. Being blackmailed could do that to a person. “You promised to let me do the talking.”

  “No. I promised I’d never say the words alibi and retraction.” To the police.

  “Whatever. Just remember why we’re at the Forum.”

  How could she forget? Four days after reading the will Amber was an emotional wreck. With only a handful of clients remaining, the Flash was their best shot at meeting their sales goal. She was stuck. In a prison she’d checked herself into. With her father’s empty Rules and his nearly empty bank account. Dooley had taken his life coaching secrets to the grave and Amber had been given no time to mourn her previous Blue-less, Rule-less life.

  And those files filled with Hollywood secrets? They – along with the Foundation’s part-time receptionist – were nowhere to be found. Amber held out little hope that he’d stored anything of value on his password protected laptop. She’d searched most of the rooms in her father’s house and all of the unlocked file cabinets and storage cupboards at work. Bupkiss. At any moment, Amber expected someone – probably the AWOL receptionist who had UCLA tuition to worry about – to leak Amber’s secrets.

  “Hurry up.” Blue adjusted the bulging specially designed leather messenger bag on his hip.

  “I am.” Amber walked as fast as humanly possible through the concrete corridors of L.A.’s formerly Fabulous Forum, following Blue and a security guard, both of whom had legs far longer than her own and were unhindered by five-inch reed thin heels.

  The Forum had once been the gem of sports arenas and home to the Los Angeles Lakers. Now the Lakers played at the newer Staples Center and the Flash had taken up residence in the arena. But the team had yet to catch on with the who’s-who of L.A. It was unlikely you’d find Jack Nicholson ringside at the Forum, unless the Flash was playing the Lakers.

  Amber’s heel hit a too-smooth patch of concrete and she skidded, barely clinging to her dignity and her balance with toes clenched inside delicate Italian leather. Skyscraper heels were dangerous, bad for her posture and a must if one went out in the L.A. scene. Lyle Lincoln, Hollywood gossip guru, had once said that without a pair of statement making heels, a woman barely stood a chance in L.A. of moving her career or making a hook-up.

  Although Amber was currently in a three year hook-up drought, as a Beverly Hills native, she believed the shoe adage. Case in hook-up point: the dustless stiletto at the foot of her father’s bed. Size ten, rhinestone studded black, come-and-get-me leather. Yes, her dad had a better sex life than Amber did. Either that or he’d been a cross-dresser.

  “Do you think Dad was happy?” She struggled to keep up with Blue.

  Blue shrugged. “He used to laugh.”

  “He laughed too much.” Mostly at Amber. She pointed at the gray tea cup poodle whose growling muzzle was poking out beneath Blue’s messenger bag flap. “He’s probably laughing now.”

  “Nobody laughs where he is.” Blue nudged Mr. Jiggle’s pom-pom head back out of sight, as if carrying around a little dog everywhere was normal for him, rather than a condition of their father’s will.

  Amber wasn’t fooled. Blue’s dark hair spiked up at an uncharacteristic angle. Blue may have gotten custody of a Rottweiler in a poodle’s body, but at least he didn’t have to move back to Beverly Hills, the happy hunting grounds of rabid paparazzi. Thank God they didn’t know she was living in a shrine to the seventies, which included a master suite filled with S&M toys. It made her craftsman style house in Pasadena look like Glenda the Good’s fairy tale home.

  “Let’s hope Jack Gordon is an animal lover.” Because Mr. Jiggles was thirty pounds of attitude in a three pound dog. And Jack Gordon, the owner of the L.A. Flash, was rumored to have the temper of the devil, especially when his team wasn’t winning.

  Angry jeers rumbled through the walls.

  “They’re losing, aren’t they?” Amber asked, remembering the way Jack Gordon publicly blackballed his media agency, the Los Angeles City Council and his own mother, a staunch Lakers fan who’d opposed her son investing his time and money in LA’s third NBA team. Blue had to handle Jack with the appropriate finesse or –

  “Get a grip on that overactive imagination of yours, Amber, before you ruin it for both of us.” Blue looked back, his jaw ticking as the messenger bag started twitching again. “You didn’t bring anything lethal, like a water pistol, in that bag of yours, did you?”

  “It’s a wonder you asked me to come along,” Amber mumbled, nervously checking to make sure the top button was fastened on her cornflower blue sweater. The sweater was the same color as the flowers on her sweetheart neckline mini and covered her cleavage.

  “I asked you because you occasionally show some brains.” Blue’s temper frayed and he spun on her, pointing. “But I expected you to dress like a normal person, not like a grandmother on her way to the church social.”

  “Well…I…” Amber had toned down her L.A. body revealing style three years ago when her natural double D assets and Kent Decklin’s public betrayal had earned her a porn movie proposal. If her mother’s string of reconstructive procedures hadn’t resulted in bloody drainage bags, crimson stained bandages and less than natural results, Amber might have considered breast reduction surgery. Instead, she dressed in layers, which made summer nearly unbearable and exposed her to ridicule whenever she left Pasadena.

  “What was Dad thinking, making you CEO,” Blue muttered.

  Amber faltered. She’d asked herself that question countless times in the past few days. With Blue’s degree and work experience, he was the obvious choice. Amber was clearly an amateur blackmailer who couldn’t let her brother have the last word. “CEO? Ha. Dad could have meant Chief Electricity Officer.”

  Blue made a strangled noise, turned back, grabbed Amber’s arm and hauled her along with him.

  Ahead, the burgundy jacketed guard opened the door to a luxury suite. Amber caught a glimpse of plush charcoal carpet and a black leather sofa as he announced them.

  The crowd’s displeasure was deafening now. Amber hesitated in the doorway. So much rode on this meeting…if Amber cared about the Foundation’s survival. Which Amber didn’t…except for those dividend checks that might dwindle down to nothing.

  Hells bells.

  Blue put a hand between her shoulder blades, ushering Amber into the presence of L.A.’s cockiest new-made money.

  “He’s playing like shit.” There was no warmth in Jack Gordon’s expression as he gave them a dismissive glance. Impeccable black hair, haunted black eyes, a black Armani suit. Jack Gordon was darkness in the City of Angels as he poured a whiskey straight up.

  “How many of our millions is he getting a year?” A cool blond eyed Amber and Blue disdainfully. Her body was fashionably ultra thin. Her leather mini and knee-high boots were hot-out-of-the-showroom designer. Blondie’s gaze strayed to the flirty hem of Amber’s mini dress…and then rolled away. Smoothly lined lips curled up in a superior half-smile.

  Amber’s dress was new and the latest fashion, which must mean…Amber’s skirt was caught in her panties.

  Why did she have a hang-up about going commando? Heat shimmied from every pore in Amber’s body, which meant her pale Irish skin was probably growing red as a tomato. As inconspicuously as possible, Amber tugged her skirt, which was too loose to be sticking anywhere.

  And then she remembered Blue’s assessment of her sweater: Grandmother.

  Amber stopped herself from stammering that she sacrificed fashion to protect her personal space. Having secluded herself mo
st days in Pasadena, where there was an unspoken rule that you didn’t flaunt your God-given assets like you did in Hollywood, Amber wasn’t used to being one of the fashion scorned.

  She fingered the top button of her blue sweater, needing to back out of there, gracefully, if at all possible.

  Amber dropped back a step, but Blue’s hand was firm on her shoulder as he whispered, “Stay. We have business.”

  Amber froze, more obedient than the dog in Blue’s bag.

  “Oliver will only get four of my millions if he performs the last four weeks of this season.” Jack Gordon downed his drink with a white-knuckled grip. Something in his eyes promised Armageddon. “There is no our anymore. Or have you forgotten our divorce, Viv? Understandable since it’s been so…amicable.”

  “Until we finalize the terms or you buy me out, I’m still half owner of the Flash.” The soon-to-be former Mrs. Gordon extended one thin shapely leg so she could adjust her boot. “But it’s so boring when they lose. And the fans…” There was a rumble of displeasure from below. She allowed herself a small smile. “I’m sorry. You don’t have many of those left, do you?” The ice queen stood and did a catwalk strut Heidi Klum would be proud of, nudging Blue’s messenger bag with her hip as she passed.

  Mr. Jiggles gave a little growl and sent the bag dancing.

  Blue spun away.

  “If anyone tells you money can’t buy you happiness, they’re wrong,” Jack Gordon said, rolling his shoulders after his ex-wife left. “Last year we sold out nearly every home game. We gave the Clippers a run for their money.” The crowd booed and Jack fixed Amber with a stare that probably disintegrated most mortals. “Evan Oliver missed another shot, didn’t he?”

  Amber belatedly realized she was still whole and breathing, and glanced down at the court, nodding absently. This was where Blue made their pitch. Amber was just the inexperienced figurehead.

  Nothing happened.

  Amber glanced at Blue, but he was waging a war with Mr. Jiggles, trying to keep him hidden.