by Tracy South
“Reports of my recent frumpiness have been greatly exaggerated,” Claire said cheerfully.
“I can see that now,” Miranda said, watching as Chris waved weakly to Claire and threw a towel over his face. “I guess that’s what happens when you get your information from unreliable sources.” With one last lingering glare at Chris, Miranda changed the subject. “Listen, I want you to meet some of the other people who are here,” she said. “There are hors d’oeuvres by the pool, so feel free to indulge.” She stepped a few paces ahead of Claire, stepping up to the table laden with food. “I, of course, have to starve myself in the interest of my career, but you don’t have to worry about that. No one expects a reporter to be svelte.”
“No, but I bet they expect their actresses to have chests,” Claire heard herself mutter softly. She knew Miranda couldn’t hear her, but she hadn’t realized that Alec could until she heard him gasp and choke beside her. Unlike many other people, who thought of the perfect comeback hours after the moment had passed, Claire had always shot back with instant retorts in her head. But until this recent crisis with Alec forced her to fall back on her verbal skills, she had never vocalized any of her smartmouthed comments. Now she couldn’t stop.
Miranda turned back to her. “Did you say something?”
Alec answered for her, putting his arm around her again as he did so. “She was telling me everything was so scrumptious, she was going to find it hard to resist the temptation.”
Some kinds of temptation were easier to resist than others, Claire thought to herself as she felt Alec’s arm circling her waist. Stuffed mushrooms and chocolate-covered strawberries were nothing compared to the feel of Alec’s hand on her. Although there was no way she could slip out of Alec’s grasp, she forced herself to ignore him as they listened to Miranda’s introductions to the people around the pool. Claire was ordinarily good with names and faces, but the phalanx of hairdressers, makeup artists, seamstresses, junior publicists and production assistants blended into one indistinguishable lump. The only person who stood out of that crowd was Renee, Miranda’s tall and intimidating psychic. All of them, as Alec had predicted, were munching on pestos, salsas and other vegetarian fare. Miranda’s personal manager, Larry, who was downing shrimp and gourmet meatballs, had joined some of Miranda’s aunts, uncles and cousins in the meat-eating contingent, although the women, at least, were not yet smoking cigars.
A door at the back of the house opened, and Claire recognized the woman who walked out—Christine Colby. Miranda waved her over. “Christine, this is my old friend Claire.”
“Thank goodness you’re here.” Christine Colby walked up to Claire and Alec and shook hands with both of them. “Finally, the friend. Someone who isn’t related to Miranda.”
The friend? As in Miranda’s only one? If that were true, then Miranda had no friends at all. Claire told herself the wealth and privilege accorded Miranda more than made up for her lack of companions, especially if she treated them all as callously as she’d treated Claire. Still, Claire caught herself feeling a bit sorry for her.
Fortunately the feeling passed. Miranda said, “I have other friends, of course, some of the people in my movies, but they’re all tied up in L.A. and New York. An actor I’ve been seeing may fly out here tonight, but everyone else has been filmed at their home base. Christine is going to fit their comments into the show in such a way that it won’t exactly be obvious that they weren’t here. That way, they can be part of this without having to fly out to the middle of nowhere.”
“Isn’t that nice,” Alec interrupted, giving Claire a hard squeeze. She assumed it was meant to be a warning of sorts. If so, she ignored it.
Claire smiled at Miranda. “But I can’t imagine why any of your friends would want to miss the chance to meet the little people who made you who you are.” She indicated the buffet table at the pool, where Miranda’s loud aunt Fay was embroiled in a tussle over the last piece of shrimp with one of Miranda’s more heavily tattooed cousins. “The only ones missing from this event are Scott Granville and our drama teacher, Mrs. Schibley.”
Forcing Scott’s name from her lips took something out of her, and when Christine Colby said, “Actually,” Claire’s heart fell to the floor, thinking she was about to say Scott was there. What would she say? How would she react? Would she want to slap him or run into his arms? Instead, Christine pointed to a far corner of the lawn. There, the cursed Mrs. Schibley was sternly lecturing a man Claire recognized as one of Hollywood’s leading voice coaches, the one Miranda hired every time she needed to transform her native twang into something else.
“Mrs. Schibley,” Claire said. “How nice.”
“Don’t you want to run down and say hi?” Miranda asked.
“That’s okay,” Claire said, pretending to take the idea seriously. “I’ll catch up with her later.”
“Let me show you your room,” Miranda said. Claire wondered why she wasn’t also showing Alec his, but didn’t mention it as they tagged along behind Miranda. Christine said she’d brief Claire later, whatever that meant, and went off in search of other nostalgic prey. They entered the house through the back door near the pool, and Miranda said, “Mama will want to give you the whole tour later, but I’m sure you’re too exhausted now to take it all in. You’ll find an itinerary in your room, but for right now, why don’t you all take a nap, watch movies or whatever, then join us in the casual dining room for dinner at six?” They walked through a sumptuously carpeted hallway, some of the doors down the hall open to identically laidout spacious bedrooms. Miranda stopped in front of an open door and paused, leaning on the door frame. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t convince my family that civilized people don’t eat before eight. Also, you’re in one of the drinking rooms, meaning there’s a minibar stashed in the cabinet. That’s mine and Mama’s compromise, because she didn’t want to have any drinks. I mean, she’s become more open-minded, but her and Daddy’s families. are the same as ever. If you want cocktails, fix them yourself before dinner. That’s what everyone else in the drinking rooms is going to do.”
“And when everyone shows up soused, aren’t your relatives going to think something funny is going on?” Claire asked.
“Oh, well, don’t worry about that,” Miranda said. “It’ll mostly be the personnel I’ve brought with me, and everyone expects show business people to act funny anyway. You and Chris are the only ones who’ll seem odd, and you’re both a little eccentric.” She waited a beat before she added, with a disarming smile, “I mean in a good way.”
“And Alec? Is he in a drinking room, as well? Just so Chris and I won’t be alone in our touched states?”
Miranda raised an eyebrow, and her lip curled up in a half smile. Claire recognized it as her “skeptically amused” look, one she had perfected in an English drawing room comedy they’d done in high school.
“You two are sharing a room, of course,” she said.
“What did you say?” They spoke in one voice.
Miranda put her hand to her throat. “My goodness. For two people who plan to spend their lives together, you two act awfully horrified at the idea of sleeping in the same room.” She put her hands on her hips and said, in an exaggerated accent that had a lot more to do with Dixie than it did with Appalachia, “Are y’all sure you’re engaged?”
Alec laughed, an odd, forced chuckle that cascaded through the large hall. Miranda joined him, and the two of them continued their “ha-ha’s” and “hee-hee’s” as Claire glanced at her watch, waiting for their fit of jolliness to pass.
“What a funny question,” Alec said. He reached for Claire and crushed her in an enthusiastic bear hug. Her neck was twisted, and she was caught off balance, Alec being the only thing that held her up, but she had to admit to herself that the experience was, on the whole, far from terrible. She could feel once again the comforting beat of Alec’s heart, and she could smell his clean, expensivesmelling soap and his well-laundered shirt. “It’s just that Claire told me yo
ur parents were old-fashioned, and so we had steeled ourselves for a night of sneaking into each other’s rooms. I’m so glad that we don’t have to.” He tilted Claire’s head toward him. “Aren’t you, honey?”
“Quite,” she said, the word coming out in a raspy whisper as Alec held her in his solid grip.
Although Claire thought, privately, that anyone with a shred of acting talent wouldn’t have been fooled by Alec’s performance, Miranda seemed satisfied. “Enjoy yourselves,” she said. “Let me know if you need someone to help you with your bags.”
“Thanks,” Alec said, practically dragging Claire into the room with him. He stuck his head back out the door. “Very pleased to meet you, Miranda.”
Claire heard a faint “You too, Alec” before she decided she’d had all the toadying up to Miranda she was willing to tolerate for the day. As she grabbed the belt loops of Alec’s khakis and pulled him back into the room with her, she heard the outside door close at the far end of the hallway. Alec closed their own door behind him, and they were alone together. As one, the two of them turned to stare at the queen-size bed in the middle of the room. Then they turned to look at each other. When Claire saw Alec step an almost imperceptible half inch forward, she moved as well. They looked at each other again, then both of them bolted for it, landing in a tangle on top of the spread. Their voices rose together with the cry, “I was here first.”
NO ETIQUETTE EXPERT or fashion maven had covered the do’s and don’ts of crashing a weekend get-together, so Lissa had to improvise her own guidelines. Scott expected the two of them to be tossed out of Miranda’s within seconds, and she had to admit it was likely. But if for some reason she and Scott—or just her, for that matter—were welcomed into the bosom of the party, she didn’t want to be stuck wearing the same outfit for the rest of the weekend. On the other hand, she mused as she flipped through her closet, it would certainly look presumptuous if she showed up with a well-stocked suitcase full of flashy and glamorous outfits. She compromised, putting together a small collection of pants and tops in complementing colors, along with a variety of accessories. She wanted people to notice how good she looked, while still finding it plausible that she was cleverly rearranging the same set of clothes.
It was Lissa’s experience that planes never arrived until at least fifteen minutes after their announced time, so she got to the airport about twenty minutes past the hour she and Scott had agreed upon. After leaving her car with its flashers on in the passenger loading zone, she made her way to the appropriate gate, expecting to see a lone and tormented bachelor wondering if she’d abandoned him. Instead, she came across a gang of cranky and tired friends and family, all of them waiting for passengers on Scott’s plane.
She found an abandoned issue of Glamour, one she’d skimmed several months earlier. She tried to read it, forcing herself to ignore snoring senior citizens as well as a toddler who was launching kick after kick at the cola machine. When a cheer from the crowd announced the arrival of the plane, she watched, impatiently, as businessmen strode past quickly, and as chattering college kids got off the plane in pairs and groups. One devastatingly handsome man, one of the few solo males not dressed in a suit, got off by himself, looked around for a moment, then walked away. Whoever was supposed to pick him up is missing a golden opportunity, Lissa thought as she watched him disappear. She turned her attention back to the crowd disembarking from the plane, but she didn’t see anyone who resembled Scott. Had he chickened out on her?
Obviously, he had. As the crowds ebbed away, leaving her in the middle of their empty candy wrappers and discarded cola cans, she saw that Mr. Handsome had returned. He glanced around, his eyes passing over Lissa, then returning to her.
“Who stood you up?” he asked. His smile told her what he thought of that person.
She flashed her own set of teeth back at him. “Nobody really. My friend’s geeky ex. What about you?”
“I was going to help some girl reporter out, but I guess she got a bigger story.”
The realization of what they’d each said hit her. “Scott?”
“Lissa?”
“But I’ve seen a picture of you,” Lissa sputtered. “You weren’t at all handsome.”
“That picture in Miranda’s book?” he asked her. “She chose that one specifically because it made me look like a dork.” As they walked to the baggage claim area, he said, “I hope you’re as pleasantly surprised as I am. I had no idea you’d be so pretty.”
She blushed at this bit of flattery, then stopped herself from returning a bit of her own. He was too cute to flirt with casually, and if he was going to persist in charming her this way, they might never get to Loudon. Besides, she reminded herself guiltily, there was Claire. “Scott,” she said, giving him what she hoped was just a friendly smile. “Where we’re going, you’ve got two angry ex-girlfriends waiting for you. Don’t make your life any more complicated.”
Was it her imagination or was his own smile just a little tinged with regret? He picked up a duffel bag at the claim area, and she followed him out the door.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
“Right there,” she said, pointing. Pointing, she realized, at empty space. “It was right there. My car’s been stolen.” She flagged down a nearby security guard. “My car. It was right there. My car’s been stolen.”
“Been towed,” he said. “This is a restricted area. Can’t leave your car there all day.”
“It is a zone for loading and unloading of passengers. It’s not my fault if his airline was so irresponsibly late.”
She turned to Scott, and allowing just the tiniest note of heartbreak to slip into her voice, asked him, “What’ll we do now?”
He put his duffel bag on the sidewalk and sat down on it before saying, “Lissa, honey, I don’t have a clue.”
6
SHE WAS GOING TO HAVE to get rid of that distracting dress, Alec concluded. Put on something befitting a responsible and serious adult, and shed the provocative, playful look she’d tried out today. He would tell her it didn’t suit her. Just as soon as he could make himself stop staring at her.
Claire scrambled to a sitting position on the bed and scooted away from him on the bed. “What are you staring at?”
You, he wanted to say, but he didn’t.
She flipped her hair back over her shoulders with her typical self-conscious gesture, then moved from the bed to the room’s sofa. “You can have the bed,” she said. “I don’t sleep anyway.”
Seeing her there, so distant from him, he became unaccountably irritated. He knew it was unreasonable, but the experience of Claire walking away from him made him feel like a bridegroom whose newly beloved had locked herself in the bathroom for the night. He sat up on the bed, and when he spoke, his voice was harsh.
“You know, statistics show that most of the people who claim to be total insomniacs are actually getting plenty of rest every night. They just like to complain about how tired they are. I bet you’ll sleep plenty tonight.”
He remembered the good old days of a few days ago, when his diatribes left her all aflutter. It was an endearing trait, he thought. Now she looked at him with amusement. “Alec,” she said, “we are not in a competition to see who can down the most sleeping pills in one night’s stay. I only meant that where I sleep isn’t that big a deal to me, so feel free to take the bed. I was just trying to annoy you when I said I wanted it earlier, but now I see I’ve annoyed you even more by not wanting it.” She shrugged, as if to say, What’s a sensible girl like me to do, locked in the room with a maniac like this?
The bed no longer held its appeal for him, since he wasn’t fighting Claire for it. He got up and looked around the room, flicking the light on in the roomy bathroom, opening the empty dresser drawers. He slid the closet doors open and was greeted by a stack of fresh bed linens and a row of empty hangers. “This is the first guest room I’ve ever stayed in where the hosts weren’t using the closets and dressers to store junk.”
> “I guess if you had a jillion guest rooms, you’d probably run out of junk on the first few,” Claire said.
“No. I wouldn’t have any junk to store. You, though, would probably stick something in all jillion.”
She sat up on the couch. “You saw my house. It was clean.”
“Clean, yeah, but I can tell you’re a pack rat.”
“And you aren’t?”
“If I don’t need it, I toss it out.”
“Very cold-blooded of you,” Claire said.
Alec poked around some more, coming across the refrigerator and minibar in the corner of the room. “I guess I win the five dollars,” he said.
“Certainly not. In order for you to win the five dollars, we would have had to see all those people out in the open, drinking. If they’re doing it behind closed doors, then all bets are off.”
“I can’t believe these people,” he said. “They object to seeing an open bottle of wine outside, but they’ll let people fornicate in their rooms all they want.”
Claire put her hands over her ears. “I hate that word.”
“Fornicate?”
“I’m warning you. Don’t say it again.” She shuddered.
Alec sighed and plopped himself down on the couch beside her. “This is a hell of a mess. I’m sharing a bedroom with a girl who blushes at the word fornication. And, you know, you haven’t been as friendly to Miranda as you could be.”
She tucked her legs under her and slid away from him a bit. “You’re wrong,” she said. “I’ve definitely been as friendly as I can be.”
“But can’t you pretend that you’re trying to get right back to being best friends with her? At least for my sake?”
“She’s not going to blame you for my behavior,” Claire said. “In fact, you could probably go up there right now and pour your heart out to her, telling her how difficult and unreasonable I am. Ask her if, as my oldest friend, she has any pearls of wisdom for you.”