by JoAnn Ross
“The short answer is you can’t. The investigators need to go through after cleanup’s done. But, honestly, Jolene, there’s nothing there. The guys who went in clearing the floor, looking for people and pets, report that it’s going to be cinders down to the insulation and charred studs.”
“Well.” Despite, or perhaps because of the additional time in New York, yet more jet lag hit like a sledgehammer. Her mind was fuzzy, and not from all the smoke lingering over them. “Thanks for saving the rest of the building. At least the other two floors are okay. Being homeless is tough anytime.” Having slept in her car when she’d first arrived in the city, she knew that all too well. “But at the holidays, it’s even worse.”
“You’ve got that right. Unfortunately, it’s one of the most common times for fires, what with all the lights and trees and candles people put up. We’ve already put a call into the Red Cross in case anyone needs help getting relocated. Oh, and you haven’t asked, but you should be able to pick up your car tomorrow. Fortunately, with the garage being subterranean, it should be fine.”
That was something, Jolene decided.
The radio on the fire captain’s jacket crackled. “Got to go,” she said. “Take care.”
Jolene looked up at the building one more time, then turned and walked away. The Red Cross van was arriving as Jolene reached the limo. Grateful that she had someplace to go, she called her best friend, a caterer she’d met five years ago on a Western movie shoot in Old Tucson.
“Are you okay?” was the first thing Shelby Carpenter asked her.
“I’m fine. Except for the fact that my apartment is now ashes.”
“Tell me you’re kidding.”
“I wish I could. The fire department’s still here.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. Trying to find a silver lining, either the sight of the cop cars chased the gossip press away, or they decided not to risk getting arrested for interfering with an emergency response. Whichever, I don’t have to answer questions about Chad and Tiffany.”
And fortunately, since she wasn’t a celebrity, she imagined the story would morph into the newly engaged couple’s wedding plans in a day or so and she’d happily disappear back into the crowd of invisible people who keep the industry humming.
“That could be. More likely, in stroke of good luck for you, a certain dick of a director who’ll go unnamed, but those of us who’ve worked on his dystopian teen movies know all too well, just got hit with a flood of sexual harassment accusations. They’ve all run like lemmings up to Bel Air to stake out his mega-mansion.”
“That’s something.” Jolene knew very well who Shelby was referring to. She’d once threatened to contact her guild rep if he dared pat her butt a second time. She’d also been vocal about warning others against working with him. With varying levels of success.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Shelby asked again.
“I’m fine. Really.”
“At least now I can confess I never liked Chad,” Shelby said. “The two of them deserve each other.”
“You won’t get any argument from me about that.”
“So you’re not in tears over him?”
“Hardly.”
“Since we won’t have a night together until after Christmas, Ètienne took tonight off and is cooking. But I can send him to the restaurant if you want to have a good cry and girl binge on junk food and ice cream.”
Ètienne Gardinier, Shelby’s fiancé, was a local chef who had a trendy bistro, Epicure, on Melrose. Every time Jolene ate there with her best friend, she half expected to see Heather Locklear walk in from the Melrose Place apartment complex. Ètienne looked like a god, had a sexy French accent, his food was to die for and, amazingly, he was also a really good guy.
“Big girls don’t cry.” It had been Gloria’s motto, passed down from mother to daughter.
“We’re having beef bourguignon, and unlike in the Julie & Julia movie, it’s not going to be burned to a crisp.”
“I swear, if you don’t marry that man soon, I may break my no commitment rule and try to steal him for myself.”
“Sorry,” Shelby said with the easy confidence of a woman who didn’t have to worry about her boyfriend getting engaged to another woman behind her back. “But I’ve got dibs.”
“If you weren’t my best friend, I’d have to hate you,” Jolene said.
Thirty minutes later, she was at Shelby and Etienne’s decked-out-in-tasteful-white-fairy-lights Venice contemporary that boasted both ocean and mountain views and greeted with a glass of cabernet and hug from Shelby, along with a continental two-cheek kiss from Ètienne, who heartily assured her that the caca boudin wasn’t good enough for her.
“Shit sausage,” he translated when she lifted a questioning brow.
Ètienne was the complete package. Handsome, talented, wealthy, cooked like a dream, had an accent designed to make any woman with working ovaries want to bear his children and he lacked the temper so many male chefs seemed to possess. And best yet, from the day they’d met at Food Fare, one of the most recognized and popular culinary fund-raisers in Los Angeles—he’d treated Shelby like a queen. And tonight, he knew just what to say to make Jolene laugh.
“Proving yet again that French cuss words are superior to English,” she said.
The main floor was open concept, the kitchen boasting a wall of windows to show off the view, sleek black cabinets, a long marble slab for pastry, stainless steel countertops and a French stove like the one Brianna had Seth put in Herons Landing, but this one was even larger, and matched the stainless steel of the countertops.
A twelve-foot-tall white-flocked Christmas tree decorated with porcelain and blown glass food and cooking utensil ornaments added colorful whimsy to a modernist interior that could have easily been stark, but was instead inviting, and cheered Jolene up a bit. Although the tree might be pushing the season because it wasn’t yet Thanksgiving, Shelby explained that since Epicure was booked every day and evening of December with Christmas parties, they were determined to celebrate their first Christmas together in their own time.
The beef bourguignon filled the house with a mouthwatering aroma, served with a rich cauliflower soup swirled with browned butter and a crusty bread that Etienne had, natch, made himself, and baked winter pears with a caramel sauce were as delicious as expected and soothed Jolene after her terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
An hour later, jet lag had caught up with her and, after they both insisted she would not be allowed to help with the dishes after her horrible day, Jolene stumbled upstairs with her luggage to one of two guest suites, washed her face, brushed her teeth, changed into a tank and pajama pants and collapsed into bed. She was just about to drift off to sleep when her phone rang.
Reaching out for it in the dark, thinking it was more press, she was about to turn it off when she noticed the familiar Honeymoon Harbor area code. But it wasn’t her mother’s ringtone.
“Hello?”
“Jolene?” the vaguely familiar voice asked.
“It’s me.” She wondered if it was one of those cases where the spammers had faked the area code to look like one in her contacts list.
“This is Sarah Mannion. I’m sorry to call so late, dear, but I left a message and was afraid you might have missed it.”
“Oh. Okay. Sorry, Mrs. Mannion. I just got back to town a while ago and haven’t checked them all.” Wondering what the wife of Honeymoon Harbor’s mayor could possibly be calling her about, Jolene’s fogged mind suddenly cleared as a terrible thought occurred to her. “Is it about Mom?”
“In a way.”
“Did something happen?” While Honeymoon Harbor wasn’t in a snow zone, it did get its share of cold temperatures this time of year that, when combined with the rain, could turn the twisting Olympic Peninsula roads treacherous. Hadn’t her mother lost her own pa
rents on Hurricane Ridge one winter? “Is she okay?”
“That’s the thing.” There was a long pause. Sarah Mannion was principal of Honeymoon High School and the entire time she’d been a student there, Jolene had never heard the woman at a loss for words. Until now. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to break a confidence,” she said finally.
“Okay.” Could she just get to the damn point?
“There was a suspicious lump on your mother’s mammogram.”
Now Jolene was fully awake. She was sitting straight up, her heart beating like she’d just finished climbing Mount Olympus back home. “And?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know. She doesn’t know. Because she refuses to go in for the ultrasound the doctor ordered.”
“Shit.” Realizing she was talking to her former principal, Jolene said, “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re not alone. Caroline Harper and I are, as far as I know, the only ones she told. And that was probably only because we were getting our hair done at the salon when she got the call. Caroline and Ben have been traveling around the country in their motor home, but instead of staying somewhere warm and sunny like any sane Northwesterner would do, they came home for the holidays this week.
“Which was fortunate, because she kept your mother busy showing off the new spa rooms, while I got your number off Gloria’s phone. It was on the front counter next to the computer, I suppose so she can more easily book appointments that call in.” The fact that the always-composed Mrs. Mannion had uncharacteristically rambled those unimportant pieces of information revealed how upset she was. “But we can’t convince her that this isn’t anything to take lightly.”
“She hates hospitals.” Jolene’s grandparents hadn’t lived long enough for her to have ever met them and her mother never talked about their deaths other than they hadn’t died quickly after their accident. Her aversion to anything medical was so strong that she’d even had a midwife deliver Jolene at home rather than Harbor General’s maternity wing.
“I know. Because of her parents,” Sarah said. “That was a terrible time.” Of course, Mrs. Mannion, who’d grown up with Jolene’s mother, would know more about those days that she would. “But we’ve tried to convince her that she doesn’t even know what she’s dealing with. And the longer she puts it off, if there is anything to be concerned about, she’ll have more problems.”
Jolene blew out a long breath. “I’ll be on the first flight I can get out tomorrow.”
“I hate to ask this of you, because I’ve always prided myself on being a stickler for honesty, but if you could not mention my call...”
“Don’t worry. I won’t say a word. I’ve been working eighteen-to-twenty-hour days on a location shoot in Ireland. Going home for a holiday break makes sense.” Not that anything about today made sense, but Mrs. Mannion didn’t need a play-by-play of unfortunate events.
As she ended the call and opened her browser to look for flights, Jolene’s losses suddenly came crashing down on her. Not Chad. He was already nearly forgotten, and wasn’t she lucky to have escaped falling in love with a man who’d so easily and blithely cheat on her?
But the fire scene, that she supposed her fuzzy, jet-lagged mind had tried to lock away, as was her habit with all things bad, suddenly came roaring back in a blaze. She could smell the smoke that her eyes and lungs still burned from. She could hear the roar of the flames, the pumper trucks pouring what had to be gallons of water through the hoses like gigantic water cannons. A loud generator was running portable outdoor lights and in the glow Jolene could see ashes floating in the air like black falling snow. She heard shouts, the crackling of the radios, the explosion and shower of glass as her bedroom window burst out.
There was a game movie crews often played sometime during their first week on the job. They’d sit around together at the end of the day, drinking, sharing stories about previous projects they’d worked on and asking, “If your home was on fire, what three things would you take?”
Apparently it had started years ago when one of the hairdressers had been going through therapy, and had been given that to do as one of her exercises. It had been designed to get the hairdresser to realize what was truly valuable to her. On a new set, it allowed others on the crew to know a bit about you, that helped with bonding, which in turned was intended to create group cohesion. Of course it was taken for granted that people would lie for fear of revealing too much. But it killed time and as each crew member went on to work on other projects, then those people, in turn, moved on, the game had spread like a virus.
And now, here she was, playing it all alone, in the surreal moment running across the movie screen in her mind in full Dolby Vision HDR 3D.
She was inside her apartment, surrounded by flames, but miraculously safe as she walked calmly around, choosing what she would save.
The first thing was her DVDs of Gilmore Girls, including the revival. She’d started watching the show every week with her mom when it had first aired the year Jolene turned thirteen. Later, she’d bought two sets of DVDs—one she’d sent to her mother—and sometimes they’d watch them together, Jolene in LA, Gloria in Honeymoon Harbor, synchronizing their DVD players, and pausing them when one or the other had a comment.
It seemed that each time they’d watched an episode, they found something new they hadn’t noticed before. Jolene wondered if that was because their relationship, as close as it was, had never been static, and perhaps they focused only on events relevant to where they were in their lives at that time. There was no way she was going to leave those behind.
The second thing she chose was a leather-covered makeup box filled with small bottles of essential oils for making her skin care products. It had taken her months to collect them, and she couldn’t launch her new career without them.
The third, which she had to pass through even higher flames into her bedroom to retrieve, was the needlepoint pillow her mother had surprised her with the day she’d gotten into that junker car and headed off to seek her fortune in California. Given the long hours Gloria worked, she knew it had been stitched late into the night while Jolene had been sleeping. The background color was a cheery sky blue usually seen only during the short summer on the Olympic Peninsula, and the words, stitched a contrasting sunshine yellow, read Home Is Where The Heart Is. Heart hadn’t been stitched as a word, but as a cardinal-red heart.
“Just remember,” Gloria had told her, “wherever you go in your life, you’ll always know that you’re loved. And have a place to come home to.”
In her vision, Jolene’s eyes were clear, but in real life she could feel them filling up.
The scene cleared. The smoke blew away, presumably over the ocean. The fire sizzled and went out. The firefighters wrapped up their equipment and drove away, leaving the ground wet and covered with ash. And the building she’d lived in for eighteen months, longer than she’d ever lived anywhere, was still standing with its third floor looking as if it had faded to black.
“It’s just stuff,” she’d bravely told Shelby and Ètienne, as she had everyone else she’d spoken with that night. “It can be replaced.” But as she opened her phone app to search for a flight, she realized she’d been wrong.
She could buy more oils. And she could undoubtedly find more DVDs online. But the pillow that she’d often hold to her breast while watching Gilmore Girls on the phone with her mom, or when her outwardly gilded life seemed dark or lonely, that homemade pillow that had epitomized all the sacrifices her mother had made with such unconditional love, had been turned to ciders. And was truly gone forever.
Which was when Jolene’s eyes flooded over, and not wanting the couple in the bedroom down the hall to hear, she buried her face in a down pillow and sobbed.
CHAPTER FOUR
AFTER A RESTLESS night’s sleep, and checking out flight schedules, Jolene decided that now that she was back to being homeless
, it made more sense to drive to Honeymoon Harbor so she’d have a car while she was there. Google Maps put the trip at seventeen hours. If she stopped in Oregon for a night, she’d only have a seven-hour trip left, and that would only add a day to the trip. Also, that way, if her mother’s recheck did show anything wrong, she wouldn’t have to worry about a car rental or about searching for a new apartment until everything was settled in Washington.
“It’s a good plan,” Shelby said the next morning. Ètienne had already left to go shopping at the farmer’s market and the laundry Jolene had brought home from Ireland was currently tumbling in the dryer to give her a clean start on her trip. “You said you wanted to take time off to concentrate on launching your beauty line.
“Knock on wood, your mom’s lump is just a false alarm. But, the cosmetics would be something the two of you could do together during any downtime she might have from any treatment she might end up needing. Also, you need to leverage your name recognition from the Emmy buzz. Just because so many people in the business know how excellent you are, you’re not exactly a household name.”
“My name may be mud after signing that #TimesUp harassment list.”
“If they blacklist everyone who signed it, there’ll be no more movies because there won’t be anyone to work on them. But since the breakup and engagement is going to be tabloid and blogger fodder, it won’t hurt to be out of town.”
“True. I’m knocking on wood and crossing my fingers that Mom’s situation is like you said, a false alarm. But I’ve been feeling guilty about never going home. She went through a lot to essentially raise me alone. I owe her.”
“You went home this past summer for that wedding.”
“Just for the weekend.” And, if you discounted Aiden Mannion showing up at the wedding, had survived.