Impossible Glamour

by Maggie Marr

  “I don’t want to lock her away.”

  “Webber.” She tilted her head to the side. “I’ve been your mother’s doctor for a lot of years. I don’t want you to lock her away either.”

  I nodded. Another deep breath.

  “Some of these are places that are daytime care facilities that might help stimulate her mind. There are a couple that are residential, but they’re very close. Great with Alzheimer’s patients.”

  “Right.” I glanced at Mom, who couldn’t seem to remember how to work her straw. My heart careened in my chest. I looked toward the doc and she squeezed my arm.

  “Webber, I know you do everything in your mother’s best interest. I simply want you to have options. If not for now, then when these options become a necessity.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” I shoved my hand into my pocket.

  She turned to leave, then turned back. Worry creased her brows. “You call me for whatever you need. Got it? These aren’t easy decisions.” Dr. Minkey looked over at Mom and then back to me. “For anyone.”

  A lump choked my throat. Damn, this was my mom. The woman who’d given me life and taken care of me since she brought me into this world. I couldn’t imagine abandoning her. Doctor Minkey walked down the hall.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I slipped it out. “What’s up?”

  “Uh, meeting? With Jeff?”

  My fingers tingled and my chest tightened. “Fuck! That’s today?”

  “That’s now,” Dick Munch said.

  “Stall him.”

  “Your mom?”

  “No way, man, do not tell El Jeffe about Mom.” I glanced through the window at the lady I loved even though she totally didn’t know my name. “Not using her as an excuse. Besides, I don’t want that dick nugget knowing anything about my personal life.” I scrubbed my hand over my jaw. “I can be there in twenty.”

  “Got it.”

  I pressed the Off button and reentered Mom’s room. She was happily playing with a stuffed animal that looked a lot like Agnes. A smile. Her unfocused gaze landed on me. Another loose-limbed wave. Jeez, this disease was fucking torture on the people that still had memories of the patient pre-Alzheimer’s. Mom, aside from her KO punch to Marisol yesterday, seemed to be content in her own world. Wherever the hell that was.

  Too much. Too much going on. Cool, calm, and collected had left the building, and after I said good-bye to Mom so would I.

  Ellen

  Two hours into what might have been the world’s longest rounds, my phone buzzed. I scanned the group. I was near the back—I could risk it. Kazowski was in deep with her patient, quizzing her on when the pain in her abdomen began. She wouldn’t notice. I slipped the phone from my pocket.

  Daddy is being released in an hour.

  My heart thumped. I wanted to be there to help him get home, or at the very least out of the hospital.

  Rounding, I texted Sophia, not that my reason for not being there would make a difference to my twin. She’d understand if I said fitting or auditioning or whatever else she did…modeling, runwaying. But me doing rounds during my surgical rotation made as much sense to my runway-model sister as organic chemistry.

  “Miss Legend, too busy today to be here with us?”

  Heat barrel-rolled through my chest. I closed my eyes and slid my phone back into my pocket.

  “No, Doctor, of course not. Just…” I looked at Kazowski.

  Her lips twisted into a smirk. I didn’t want to mention Daddy, besides she already knew about his surgery and that he was a patient in the hospital. Everyone in this group knew. In fact, Kazowski was the only person who hadn’t had the decency to ask about him.

  “A personal matter,” I said.

  “A personal matter,” she parroted back in a voice that screamed, how impudent of you.

  “Yes.”

  “Might I suggest that you take your personal matter to a personal location.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry for the interruption.” I glanced down at my tablet.

  Two of my classmates shuffled their feet beside me. Silence. I lifted my gaze and met Kazowski’s glare.

  “Now, Miss Legend. I want you to leave now.”

  I swallowed. My hands grasped my tablet tighter and I pressed it to my chest. My face was impossibly hot, which meant it had to be a bright shade of red.

  “Excuse me,” I whispered to a resident who stood between me and the door. I couldn’t see anything. My vision blurred. My fingers grasped the doorknob and I was out and hustling down the hall. No one got booted from rounds. No. One. Especially not me, the student who up until my surgery rotation had been number one in my class. I rounded a corner and yanked at the door of a service closet. Lucky me, it was actually unlocked. I didn’t even flip on the light. The door slammed behind me and I bent forward. Giant heaving sobs broke free. Head-pounding, rib-shaking sobs.

  I pressed my hand to my mouth. That bitch. That horrible bitch of a woman. What had I done to piss her off? I’d prepared. I’d overprepared. I took notes, I answered questions, I rounded…what the hell had I done?

  I stood and scrubbed my fingers under my eyes. Nope. Not going out there until I had control. Well, fuck her. Maybe I would simply drop out of med school, right? Wrong. No way. I counted to ten, on each beat filling my lungs with Windex-soaked air.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket.

  Now! Where are you?

  On my way, I texted back.

  If I was going to get kicked out of rounds for the day, at least I had a patient of my own to visit.

  Chapter 19

  Ellen

  “Doll, don’t you need to be at the hospital?” Daddy asked.

  Carlyle, the personal male nurse that we’d hired, walked around Daddy’s bed and plumped his pillows. There would be no young female nurses for Daddy. Nope. Not risking the possibility of a repeat cardiac event.

  “I took the day, Daddy, so that I could help.” No reason to tell him I’d been thrown out of rounds. Why have him worry? Or worse yet, why let that Legend temper work him into a froth over Kazowski?

  “Well, doll, that’s nice of you, but I’ve got plenty of people fretting over me. You don’t have to stay.” He reached for his water and took a sip.

  Across the room, Mama’s suitcase was open. She’d already started unloading her clothes into Daddy’s gargantuan closet. In here? Mama was sleeping in here with Daddy? His king-sized bed had seen more action than the Vegas Strip. I glanced up. Yep, the mirror was still there. Above his bed.

  Sophia rushed into the room with her phone pressed to her ear, “Daddy, it’s the president of Worldwide Studios. He wants to speak to you.”

  Daddy shook his head and lifted the remote. “Not now, doll, way too tired. Tell him I’m good, and if it’s about the dough I owe him from the poker game, I’ll call him in a couple of days. Otherwise, if it’s business tell him to go through Webber.”

  Sophia flashed me a cockeyed look and pressed the phone to her ear.

  Warmth flushed my cheeks. Nope, definitely not copping to any sort of action with Webber. Sophia cooed into the phone, speaking for Daddy and setting up a lunch meeting for herself with Worldwide’s President of Production. She was such a Legend.

  “So, doll, what’s this I hear about all this new action?”

  I coughed. “Action, Daddy?”

  “Dean Talbot mentioned that you were considering a different residency. Maybe not surgery?” He tilted his head and looked over the top edge of his glasses. “I thought you loved surgery? Wanted it since undergrad.”

  “I do. I mean, I did…I…” How to answer these questions without sending Daddy’s heart rate shooting toward the moon? “I’m not sure anymore.”

  “Squeamish?”

  “Exactly.” Not of blood or guts or knives but of one doctor who made me feel like a giant pile of dog doo.

  “And what about Webber?”

  “Webber?” My voice rose two octaves and I cleared my throat.

  “Isn’t h
is mom in the hospital too?”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, I did know that.” I crossed my arms over my chest and sat on the side of Daddy’s bed. “I guess she has Alzheimer’s, right?”

  “Damn sad,” Daddy said. He set the TV remote on the bed. “She was a great lady. One of the best character actors I ever knew.”

  “Webber’s mom was a character actress?”

  “Yep. And he could have been better than her from what I hear.”

  “Webber?” I tilted my head. “The same Webber Connor that is your agent was an actor?”

  “Exactly right, babe. Left it all. Stopped the whole show when his mom got sick. Started in the mailroom at CTA. Wanted the steady work with benefits. Knew one day he’d be taking care of his mom. One of the reasons I gave him a shot. He may be young, but he’s dedicated and sincere”—Daddy looked over the rim of his glasses at me—“and doll, you have to know after watching me and Rhett and Sophia in this biz, a lot of people populating the Industry aren’t long on dedication or sincerity.”

  “Never would have guessed that about Webber.”

  “He’s got some depth. For an agent.” Daddy lifted the remote and pointed it toward the giant TV screen. “Wouldn’t want one in the family, but he’s good to have around. So what’s going on with Webber’s mom?”

  “Guess she punched her nurse? Knocked loose a tooth.”

  “What the hell? That woman had a backbone of steel but never knew her to get violent. Damn, that disease is the worst.”

  “I think maybe they’re releasing her today.”

  His gaze met mine. “I’m surprised you know all this.”

  “We talked the other night after we were with you. Remember, you told me to get some dinner with Webber.”

  “Riiiight.” Daddy tapped his finger against the remote. “You plan on seeing him again?”

  “Who? Webber?” I scrunched my eyebrows tight. “Daddy, are you kidding? Webber is Webber. He’s like a kid brother that hangs around. He’s your agent. And Rhett and Trick’s agent. Why would I see Webber again”—I lifted my shoulder—“except, you know, if he came by to see you or there was a family thing he was invited to, or—”

  Carlyle, daddy’s nurse, walked into the room. “Mr. Legend, it’s time.”

  Saved. I wasn’t much of an actor, and from the look on Daddy’s face he was getting a little bit suspicious of my going on and on and on about Webber not being important in my life.

  “Bye, Daddy.” I bent forward and planted a kiss on his now-smooth cheek since Carlyle had shaved him. Daddy smelled fresh like soap and clean sheets. “I know you must be much happier here at home.”

  “Oh yeah, doll. Nothing like sleeping in your own bed.” He squeezed my arm. “Plus now it really feels like home with your mama sleeping in it too.”

  What the hell? I froze a smile onto my features. I couldn’t even begin to understand what that was about. Their relationship was too much for me to process. I promised to stop by tomorrow, and Daddy told me to concentrate on my rotation. Ha! I wasn’t even sure I had a rotation to attend on Monday.

  I rounded the corner and trotted down the stairs, slipping my phone from my pocket. Hmm, nearly eight and no Webber? Maybe his mom got released.

  “What the hell is going on?” Sophia stood at the bottom of the stairs, hip cocked with one hand on it in the familiar I’m the bossy twin and I’m going to force you to tell me what I want to know stance. She’d presented me with that body language since we were four years old when I’d attempted an appendectomy on her Miss Hollywood Barbie.

  I brushed past her. “Sophia, please, some of us have things to do other than our hair.”

  “Obviously, by the looks of that mess on your head.”

  My hands flew to my ponytail bun. Not my best look, but I’d slept with a man last night and showered, gotten ready, and gotten my ass to the hospital. What had Sophia accomplished?

  She leaned forward. “I want to know what is going on with you and Webber,” she hissed.

  “Nothing is going on.”

  “Liar,” she singsonged. “I know for a fact Daddy told you to go to dinner with him, and then you didn’t come home last night.”

  Heat flamed my face. “How? What—”

  “Trick and I were at the hospital just after you and then I had to go by the town house for a jacket I wanted. You and Drummond were both missing.”

  “I…I got home later.”

  “Another lie, because Trick and I stayed there.”

  “At my house?”

  “Technically my house too, until the wedding. You never came home, so what exactly is going on?”

  “Nothing.” That I was telling my sister about. She’d love to have this bit of gossip to hang over my head or tell Mama or Daddy or Rhett or Amanda or Sterling for no other reason than to embarrass me.

  “Whatever is going on, I’d end it, because if Daddy finds out—”

  “What? I’m a grown woman, what can he do?”

  “Fire Webber.”

  My blood chilled. “What? Why?”

  “Why?” Her brows knitted and she cocked her head to the side. “Seriously? Because you’re his precious little brainiac, that’s why. He doesn’t want you slumming with an agent. You’re supposed to become a Nobel laureate prizewinner or whatever the hell it is. You are expected to marry up. How do you not know these things? You’re smart—don’t you know that Daddy has expectations of us all?”

  My heart beat a frantic rhythm in my chest. “He’d fire Webber?”

  “In a heartbeat. And probably kill anyone else for even looking at you sideways. Don’t you get it? You are not to settle for anyone in the Industry, you are going to be the Legend that proves we all have brains.”

  “Whatever.” I slid past my sister, but an uncomfortable feeling churned in my belly.

  “Okay, don’t listen to me,” Sophia called. “Just saying, if this gets out, it won’t be good for anyone and especially not for Webber’s career.”

  Webber

  “I’m out,” I said and threw my suit jacket over my arm. What a fucking day. I’d been chasing my schedule since I walked in the door, plus I’d slid in an afternoon break to take Mom home and get her settled. “I need to make a couple of personal calls in the car, then we’ll roll calls.”

  I hadn’t checked in with Ellen. Not a call I would do in the office because Dick Munch was privy to all my calls. That I was seeing Ellen Legend wasn’t a rumor I wanted circulating through the halls of CTA. Pretty sure that Steve would slice and dice Big Boy if he knew what was going on between me and his little girl.

  “You heading to L’Ermitage now?”

  I stopped and spun on my heels. “What the fuck is at L’Ermitage tonight?”

  “Webber, dude, don’t you check your schedule? I put it in our shared calendar, I e-mail you updates, I text—”

  I held up my hand. “Okay, whatever, I get it. You’re awesome at CYA. Just tell me what the hell is on my calendar tonight, because I have some personal plans.”

  “Selena. L’Ermitage. Eight p.m.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.

  “She wanted a Friday night so your schedule was free on Saturday.”

  “Cancel.”

  “Dude, you cannot cancel. You’ve rescheduled this like three times. The partner vote is next week. What the hell?”

  I hated it when Dick Munch sounded just like me.

  “Fine,” I said. “Call her assistant and leak it about my mom.”

  Dick Munch’s eyes widened. “Dude, really?” He lowered his voice and leaned toward me. “I mean, Selena might be a man-eater but I hear the meal itself isn’t half bad.”

  I rolled my gaze toward the ceiling. “This isn’t about Selena. This is about something…personal.”

  “Okay, right. The guy who eats, sleeps, and lives his whole life for agenting has something personal to deal with.”

  “Uh, my mom?”

  “Oh, so you’re serious? This really is
about your mom.”

  “Fuck no,” I said. “You idiot. I’m using my mom as an excuse, which I absolutely do not want to do, but I have something personal that I need to take care of. Tell Selena’s assistant about Mom and how this drink at L’Ermitage is not an overnight.” I backed away from Dick Munch and toward the elevator. “Do it now.”

  He saluted and turned back to his computer and phone. I hopped on the elevator and slipped my phone from my pocket. Seven thirty-eight. No messages from Ellen; no surprise there. Damn, I needed to pull my life together if I was going to be able to keep Ellen, and I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. What a new fucking feeling for me, to actually care if a woman other than mom was happy or not.

  I could text, but I wanted to hear her voice. I pressed her number. Straight to voice mail. Ouch! Was she pissed that I hadn’t called?

  “Hey, babe. I have a work thing for a couple of hours. Hope the invite is still good. Planning on bringing Agnes and heading to your pad around ten if that works for you. Let me know.”

  Damn. Had I already messed up with Ellen?

  *

  “Webber, I’m so sorry to hear about your mama.” Selena reached out and pulled me into a hug. Her hard softball-boobies pressed against my chest.

  “Thank you.” The bigger the secret, the faster it traveled in Hollywood.

  “I ordered you a drink.” She ran her hands over her hips. The black dress could put her at a cocktail party, a premiere, or a gentleman’s club. Nothing left to the imagination. “Whiskey neat.” She sipped her wine. “I know you like things neat.” She lifted an eyebrow. The bar at L’Ermitage was quiet and the lights dim. She leaned toward me and pressed her hand to my thigh. “You know what I do when there is stress in my life?” Her lips were bright red and close to my ear.

  “Tell me.” I grabbed a handful of hot wasabi peas from the bowl on the table.

  “Fuck.”

  I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs. “That’s a good one.” I tossed a wasabi pea into my mouth. “You know what works for me?”