Limelight (Hollywood Stardust)

by Kim Carmichael

  “Drew!” Erin screamed his name.

  He turned with enough time to watch her tear toward him while trying to keep hold of her rollaway, purse and two shoulder bags. The rollaway tumbled off the porch stairs and she gave up and dropped the two shoulder bags only keeping hold of her handbag as she collided with him.

  “Drew.” She took him by the shoulders and gasped for air.

  “What’s wrong?” Panic took over her face in the form of red splotches and wet eyes. “What happened?”

  “Beaker’s not in the house.” A tear fell and she trembled. “I went to dress him and wanted to discuss what he wanted to bring, and he isn’t there.”

  He knew he was in a bad way when rather than asking what conversation she was having with his dog or why she was dressing him, his heart swelled at the fact she seemed so distressed by his absence. “He’s at the pet hotel.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Hotel?”

  He nodded and allowed her time to process his explanation.

  The red on her face faded. “Is it five-star?”

  "I don't think they rate pet hotels that way, but they've helped me with Beaker since he's been a puppy." If she had decided to go when he asked her they could have taken the dog. It wasn't lost on him that the last two nights Beaker slept with her.

  Her lower lip pursed out. "May I have the name of this hotel?"

  Were they now sharing custody of his dog? They weren't even divorced. Well, they weren't even married. They were only sleeping together, sort of. "Sure."

  "Thank you." She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you for letting me go with you too."

  Where did this Erin go when the one who insisted she had to leave appeared? Now he had Bambi and her on a trip together. He definitely didn't play in this sandbox. "Let me get your things and lock up the house."

  "Thank you. I want this one in the front seat with me." She treated him to another kiss then walked over to one of the bags and picked it up. "I have another suitcase in the house. Maybe if someone does something about our babysitter, he can see what's inside."

  "Let me get it all." At least all her luggage provided him an excuse not to witness the front seat shenanigans. He wrangled everything up, locked down his house and turned toward the SUV.

  Everything was way too quiet.

  He tiptoed toward the vehicle and as he loaded the bags, or more accurately shoved the rest of the bags in the back, a shudder overtook his body at the sight inside the car.

  Only by a miracle, the two females weren't arguing or even shooting each other looks and in a major plot twist Erin was not in the front seat. Instead, Bambi remained up front while Erin had set herself up in the back. With no blood splatters or dismembered limbs, he was going to consider the situation a win.

  He got in the car and put the key in the ignition. No matter what happened now, he had to remember he’d brought it on himself.

  “Drew.” They didn’t make it to the end of the driveway before Erin spoke.

  He glanced at her in the rearview mirror and raised his eyebrows.

  She scooted up behind his seat and put her hands on his shoulders, giving him a light massage. “Are we there yet?”

  In a perfect world they would kiss, maybe decide to get on the road a little later and to back to the house. He could show her a different place to start her massage…with her mouth, or her boobs. The woman’s touch was second to none and for one second he allowed himself to relish in a little muscle relief.

  “Did you get it?” Erin asked.

  He turned, caught sight of Bambi and exhaled. “Get what?”

  “That’s the line Roxy says right before they start off on their journey. We just watched the movie the other night.” As if trying to speak a secret language, she gave his shoulders another squeeze.

  Unfortunately, her words were all too easy to decipher, and Bambi shook her head.

  “You better put your seatbelt on.” He hoped she understood his underlying meaning.

  “Do you think it’s going to be a bumpy ride?” She chuckled and sat back.

  He put his hands on the steering wheel. “I hope we fare better than our film characters.”

  “I hope we don’t have a cliff hanger.” She positioned herself in his rearview mirror, cleavage and all.

  It would be a sin not to take in her chest. “Or fall over a cliff.” He finally turned out of the driveway. Yes, he brought this on himself.

  HOLLYWOOD STARBURST

  DISSOLVE TO:

  PAN OVER THE INDIANAPOLIS

  ZOOM IN:

  INT. INSIDE THE BMW.

  The car is stopped in traffic.

  STEVEN pounds on the steering wheel and turns to William.

  STEVEN

  You know this whole situation is bat shit crazy, right?

  WILLIAM hits his head back on the headrest.

  WILLIAM

  The fact we went to Hollywood Stardust, the fact you left, the fact I left, the fact Roxy is now driving across the country by herself, it’s all bat shit crazy.

  STEVEN tosses a paper at William.

  STEVEN

  What is even more bat shit crazy is that we actually had Charles calculate a formula of when we should pass Roxy on the road and we actually got in the car and thought this would work.

  WILLIAM smooths out paper and tilts his head.

  WILLIAM

  Charles would never give us a formula that wouldn’t work. This whole thing was like one of those crazy math problems that no one can solve but Charles. If you have one car going one way at so many miles per hour and another going the other way at so many miles per hour it will take x amount of hours to meet in the middle.

  STEVEN throws the car in park.

  STEVEN

  Does anyone ever really meet in the middle?

  WILLIAM puts the paper down.

  WILLIAM

  Charles said we should meet in about twelve hours. We can be back by Sunday night and have her school situation fixed on Monday morning.

  STEVEN

  Stop reading the paper and think. What does this problem really solve?

  WILLIAM turns to Steven.

  STEVEN faces William.

  STEVEN

  Are we solving any problem by going after her? She doesn’t even know we are on the way. Does she even want us to come?

  WILLIAM

  Meeting in the middle is not going to work.

  WILLIAM crumples up the paper and tosses it into the back seat.

  STEVEN grabs the steering wheel and stares straight ahead.

  STEVEN

  No one can ever really solve for x.

  Chapter Fifteen

  IN HER TWENTIES, ERIN played the love interest to some super hero whose power was being the smartest being in the universe. The movie wasn’t a blockbuster, only because watching someone sit around and think while the other characters played out the action wasn’t all that thrilling. However, there was one scene where they were both watching the villain on some larger than life screen and her character asked why he wasn’t taking the evil energy sucker down yet.

  The main character then looked at her, took her hand and told her that sometimes the first move in any battle began with sitting back, assessing your opponent, and making them believe you aren’t nearly as dangerous as you are.

  Rather than head in for an attack and thus making her the villain, Erin took the back seat without complaint and used the time not only to get her social media accounts in order, but to sit back and assess her opponent.

  In the process, she discovered something extremely important about Bambi.

  The woman was nothing if not boring. For the two hours they drove down the 15 Freeway she said absolutely nothing. Not only did she say nothing, she did nothing. She didn’t read, didn’t look out the window, and didn’t point out anything. Never laughed, never smiled, and never moved from her position with her feet flat on the floor and her hands neatly folded in her lap. She didn’t even cross her legs.
>
  It was unnatural even for boring, and Erin knew boring. Most of being on a movie set was sitting around doing nothing, but this took the prize.

  For a while, the nothing was welcomed. The quiet allowed Erin the chance to take a few establishing shots for what she decided would be known as a quasi-documentary for Hollywood Glow. It was easy enough to do with the silence.

  What made matters worse was Drew. He did nothing as well. No wonder the great romance between Bambi and Drew didn’t materialize, they had to be bored as hell.

  Drew sat with his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel as if maneuvering down the straight, flat freeway took plenty of driving skill. She knew this road. Normally, the inhabitants of the vehicle would be buzzing with excitement as they drove to Vegas.

  Wait.

  The 15 Freeway only led to one place and that would be the city of lights, fun and sin. She sat up straighter and decided to take a sledgehammer to the silence. “Drew, are we going to Vegas?”

  In what could be considered a miracle, Bambi moved in the form of shaking her head.

  “Erin.” Drew’s voice took on the tone of a parent about to tell a child that instead of getting a pony for Christmas they would instead be getting a picture of a horse.

  “Vegas?” She figured if she said the word with a bit of flair it might make it so.

  “Bambi, do you want to go through the schedule with her since she wasn’t privy to our meetings?” Drew wouldn’t even look in Erin’s direction.

  “Yes, her attendance wasn’t planned.” Bambi pulled out her notebook.

  Still in enemy observation mode, Erin dug her nails into her palm to stop from snapping.

  “Tonight we will be staying in Mesquite, Nevada where we will have dinner at the little diner inside the hotel. Then tomorrow we will get an early start and after having our complimentary breakfast we will go to Payton Utah to Organic Oasis where we will do our presentation on custom formulations.” Bambi inhaled.

  Well, that whole thing was certainly a mouthful. Thus far, her diet would be amazing because there was no way she would eat some sugar laden Danish with day old coffee for breakfast. “Do we get to have lunch?”

  “Lunch will be at the spa.” Bambi turned the page in her notebook.

  Spa? That spoke of potential. She kept her game face on.

  “We will make our way to Colorado and the next day, go to Multimode Health.” Bambi glanced over at her. “Dinner will be in the hotel along with breakfast.”

  She fought the urge to wrinkle her nose.

  “After our meeting, we will be on the road, stopping early so Isaac can get some work done.”

  Well, after all that excitement, Drew may actually look forward to getting work done. Thus far she had nothing for a reality show, and she needed to make sure she didn’t get Bambi, the wonder scheduler, in her shots.

  “After dinner at the local restaurant, we will stay in the hotel and the next day drive to Albuquerque where Isaac will give his lecture at the University. Dinner is still undecided. Lastly, we will go to Las Cruces to the farm where Isaac wants to meet with the owner. The man can’t meet for any meals, so we will find something on the road, and then we will go back home through Arizona.” With a nod, Bambi closed her notebook.

  “Well, that was extremely thorough.” Maybe a second thought should have been in order before she bounded in the car with Drew and the human day planner, but with Drew and her career at stake she truly had no choice.

  “If you would like, I will give you a copy of the agenda when we get to the hotel.”

  She swore Bambi flared her nostrils when she spoke and decided to fire a little ammunition just to get the chemist’s attention. Sort of like a warning missile. “No, it’s good, I got it. Mesquite, Peyton, Utah for the spa, Grand Junction for Multimode Health and work, Albuquerque and the lecture, Las Cruces, then home.”

  Bambi made a noise and turned to her.

  “I memorize lines for a living.” She graced her enemy with a sweetheart smile.

  “Right.” The woman spun back and pulled out yet another notebook. "So, Isaac, I reviewed some of your slides on antioxidant stabilization for your lecture. I wanted to ask you something about it." Bambi brought another notebook out from what seemed to be under the seat.

  "All right." Drew punctuated his sentence by running his hand through his hair.

  Erin held her breath, waiting for the woman to spit it out already. Along with being boring, this person taking her spot in the front seat was exceptionally detail oriented to the point of being annoyingly obnoxious. Erin bet at first most men found it charming, like Bambi was paying attention, then later they realized that the person they were now sleeping with was simply out of her ever loving mind.

  "I changed the picture on the slide about liposome encapsulation. I hope that’s all right." She held up a page.

  Erin glanced over at the blob and shrugged. It looked like the same ball filled with gunk as other pictures she saw in Drew's office.

  Drew quickly turned his head to look at the page. "What's the difference?"

  Erin assumed brilliant minds thought alike.

  “This one has a different color scheme.” Bambi’s tone took on one of annoyance, like she repainted a house and redid her hair and no one noticed. Though Erin had no doubt the walls in Bambi’s home were white, a perfect, pristine white, and her hair, well, whatever.

  “Oh, well, it’s fine.” He returned to concentrating on the road.

  “Drew?” Erin saw an in to the constant chatter about what, she did not know or care, but now she could take center stage.

  His eyes went to the rear view mirror. “Yes?”

  Since he copped looks at her boobs through the whole trip, she slightly adjusted her pose to give him a better view. “What is liposome encapsulation?”

  He opened his mouth.

  “Wait!” She held her hand up, retrieved her video camera and focused to get Drew in the shot.

  “You’re going to film me?”

  “I’m trying something for us and the lab is that all right?” She showed a little more boob and went in for the kill by pursing out her lower lip just like any good sweetheart.

  “Good idea.” He straightened up.

  “Yay.” She flashed him a smile and centered him in the viewfinder. “Now, as we are driving toward Not Las Vegas, Nevada on our road trip to get our Hollywood Glow on, please tell me what is liposome encapsulation?”

  “Simply put, a liposome is like a little bubble or balloon. We can put certain ingredients inside to keep them stable and once the liposome arrives at its designated target inside the body, it will break and those ingredients, like antioxidants or such, can do their jobs.”

  She scooted up and, with some creative contorting, managed to get them both in the picture. “So what you are saying, Mr. Fulton, is that once the liposome is where it wants to be it will burst forth its goodness?” Her comedy was always a little racy.

  With raised eyebrows, he turned to the camera and back to the road. “That is exactly right.”

  “Can we have the liposomes of which you speak of in Hollywood Glow?” She lowered her voice giving it a little growl.

  “I think it’s essential.” The corner of his mouth raised in a smile.

  “I think liposomes are sexy.” Keeping the camera up, she gave him a little kiss on the cheek and hit stop. “This is going to be perfect.”

  “Maybe I should hire you as my marketing manager.” He let out a laugh.

  “I accept.” Actually, the job sounded fun, but she didn’t think he was serious. “Do you mind if I upload the picture I took my first day at the lab on my website and social media sites? I think it will be good publicity.”

  “That’s fine.” He nodded.

  “How about if I start the lab a page?” Wanting to show Miss Changed-the-Color-Scheme how to truly be effective, Erin fired off another round and grabbed her computer.

  “We can’t have a social media page.” Bambi
piped in. “We have FDA regulations and proprietary formulations and other obligations.”

  And finally the little deer decided to take a shot at her, and all with words ending with tion. That made for truly bad script writing unless this was a parody and unfortunately it wasn’t, but it did indicate the time for observation and warnings officially ended. “I counter your objection. Our competition has a page and though it’s none of your concern, I will get Drew’s validation before I post, and I’ll even check my punctuation.” Two could play the words ending in tion game, and she got a couple of extra ones in there.

  Drew coughed, but she was sure he stifled a laugh.

  “You can’t post confidential information.” Bambi continued.

  “There’s no need to have a conniption.” She fought the urge to stick her tongue out at the woman. Score one more for her.

  “Erin, maybe we should check with regulatory before jumping into the social media field,” Drew interjected.

  Bambi hooked her hair behind her ears and sat back.

  No, the scientist wouldn’t win only because Erin didn’t have enough knowledge. What she lacked in the technical aspects, she gained in moxie. “Is Hollywood Glow confidential? I think it’s crucial for marketing. Can that line have a page as long as I get your approval on posts?”

  Bambi didn’t move.

  “That sounds fine.” Drew tilted his head from one side to the other. “But let’s be mindful of the industry.”

  Finally, the woman would learn who the victor would be, and with Drew being amiable, she decided to go in for the kill. Once more, she slid up behind him, but this time wrapped her arms around the seat and treated him to a massage. “Drew, are you tense?”