by Mel Curtis
“Do you know who I am?” Isabelle challenged at the same time Gemma said, “Cora, don’t.”
Hopelessness squeezed Randy’s chest as if he was being sandwiched between two huge marble pillars – one his love of playing basketball, the other his love of Gemma. Holding onto both was becoming more and more difficult.
“I appreciate the help, but the wedding…Gemma.” Randy softened his voice in an attempt to disguise his frustration. This should have been between he and his girlfriend. “I have four weeks to elevate my game. We talked about this.”
“Dude, it’s just one night.” Cora again. It seemed Gemma was too upset by his last minute cancellation and the discovery of Isabelle to talk to him.
An older guy in a powder blue tux and Harry Potter glasses poked his head around Cora’s. “Isabelle? Isn’t this interesting. Does your mother know where you are?” He wormed his way past the two Rules. His calculating gaze assessed Randy. “You. Turn around, please.”
“What?” Randy didn’t move.
“Don’t do it.” Gemma spoke, still without looking at him. He could sense her heartache from ten feet away and he regretted being the cause of it, however unwillingly. “He wants confirmation that you’re the one in those pictures.”
“What pictures?” Randy stepped back. Had someone put a hidden camera in the locker room? At his apartment?
“The ones posted on Lyle’s gossip column, farm boy.” Isabelle looked as if she’d just won an Oscar, having bought her votes by sleeping with a very long list of judges. “I’ll never tell who that was.”
“No need to see Coach Farrell from behind.” Lyle smiled cagily at Randy. “I think I have enough for my next column. A pretty little love triangle – Coach Farrell, Glitterfrost Gem, and—”
Gemma made a noise like an angry tigress and lunged for the blue tux.
Cora struggled to hold Gemma back. “In all the time Lyle’s been writing about the Rules, none of us has ever decked him. We’re not starting now.”
Lyle held up his hands in surrender. “We can bargain for something else.”
“Fine.” Gemma freed herself and turned to face Randy, crossing her arms over her chest. Her gaze drifted in his direction, but only made it as far as the basketball under his arm. She looked like she expected to be the last girl picked for the team, like she was always the last girl picked for the team. She never seemed to believe she’d always be his first choice.
Cora exchanged a glance with Randy that seemed to say: Fight for her, dude.
He planned to. “Give me ten minutes.” He’d shower and ride with them to the harbor.
“No need.” Gemma squared her shoulders, as if bracing for a blow. “I’m breaking up with you.”
In the ensuing silence, the air conditioner sputtered to life in the vents high above them, too late to combat Randy’s rising body temperature.
“Go on.” Gemma’s tone was a heart-wrenching combination of fragile determination. “Tell me you agree. Tell me it’s for the best.”
“Babe…” Randy had no words. At least, none he wanted a crowd to hear, because he needed to do some serious damage control, sprinkled with some serious groveling. He’d let things get out of hand the last time they’d been together. They’d generated enough heat to warm them through the next polar vortex. And then to be caught with another woman, no matter how innocently–
Isabelle laughed.
Randy hurried to Gemma, thrusting the basketball into the tuxedoed man’s midsection as he passed. With a winded oof, the old guy surprised him and held onto the ball.
Randy settled his hands on Gemma’s petite hips. “Is this about the other night?” He’d meant what he said about waiting for marriage to make love to her.
Gemma’s cheeks turned a healthy, rosy pink, but she still wouldn’t look at him.
“I need everyone back in the limo,” Cora said. “We’re leaving in five, lover boy. With or without you.”
“I hope with,” Lyle said. “I’m owed an exclusive.”
“I’m going wherever Randy goes.” Isabelle’s chin rose stubbornly. Next to Gemma, her face had a sickly cast.
Lyle grinned. “I love the Rules.”
“I know Isabelle’s agent. I’ll call Cy,” Cora said in that tart tone of hers that indicated she had things in store for the young actress, things she wouldn’t like. Cora took Isabelle by the arm and led her through the lobby doors, the old guy in her wake.
“But we can’t wait for Cy to get here, so she’ll have to come along for the ride.”
“Can this day get any worse?” Gemma blinked rapidly, looking like she might cry.
The outer doors slammed. They were alone.
Randy cradled Gemma’s face in his hands and tilted it to his. He placed a gentle kiss on her lips, then another, until she finally raised those dark, nearly violet eyes to meet his gaze. In hers, he saw doubt, hurt, and hope. “Babe, don’t do this.” Tell me we aren’t breaking up. “You’re everything to me.
“That’s not true,” Gemma said softly. “You dream of playing in the NBA. You love basketball. I’m your ball and chain. An obligation. You can get there, but only if you try without me holding you back.”
His lungs felt flattened again. “I don’t want to play in the NBA if I can’t be with you.” Randy kissed Gemma again, deeper this time. He drew her as close to his sweaty body as he dared, not wanting to ruin her pretty dress. “I’m cramming for my one chance. You understand that, right? That’s the only reason I can’t spend as much time with you as I used to.”
She shook her head. “And Isabelle? Did she surprise you at the Paris Bakery recently?”
“Yes.” How had Gemma known? “She’s as plastic as they come in Hollywood. I’ve told her I’m not interested. She’s not you, Gemma.” He stroked her soft cheeks with his thumbs. “I told you when we started dating that I wasn’t interested in the phonies in Hollywood. Don’t let some spoiled little starlet create trouble where there is none.”
Gemma sighed. “Guys who stand up women for a date at a wedding are usually sending a message. I get it. I don’t want to be the one who held you back.”
“If I tank, it won’t be because of you. You’re the reason I’m trying so hard.” He could tell she didn’t quite believe him. The need to prepare for his tryout battled with his love for her. She was smart and snarky, tough and tender, pretty inside and out. “You have to know how I feel about you.” Even though he’d never said those three words. If he said them now, she’d never believe him.
He made a decision. Practice was over for the day. “You’ll wait for me while I shower?”
She swallowed, her gaze drifting away, making him feel as if he’d already lost her. “We have the groom in the car. We can’t miss the boat.”
“I’ll be right out.” He’d make things right in the car ride or…
He didn’t want to think about or what.
“Winnie, who is that little hussy?” Winnie’s mother, Mary, peered at Isabelle over the top of her round John Lennon sunglasses. “She looks like she’s thirteen and raided her older sister’s closet. She’s not wearing the right brassiere for that blouse. You can see her points.”
“Mama,” Winnie scolded.
Gemma carefully averted her eyes from the competition. It was hard enough to believe Randy hadn’t cheated and didn’t want to break up without seeing what he’d turned down.
They stood outside the limo waiting for Randy, while Cora walked Blue in the hopes of sobering him up. The heat was preferable to being cooped up, waiting for Randy so she could follow through with setting him free.
“But Winnie, I would never have allowed you out of the house looking like that.”
Randy ran out of the gym to join them in a faded navy Holy Southern T-shirt and red basketball shorts. Watching him move was like watching a race horse. He was beautiful a
nd powerful and graceful. His dark hair was close-cropped. His brown eyes honed on Gemma. He came to her side, and took her hand. He smelled of soap, Old Spice, and lost dreams.
She had to let him go. For his own good.
Gemma’s heart panged.
“Are you talking about me?” Dazed, Isabelle stared from Mary to her thinly-covered breasts. She swayed, dropping her purse to the ground, as if looking down affected her equilibrium.
Gemma was determined to end things with Randy. And yet, her hand clasped in his felt so right. If only the fairy tales her mother allowed her to read weren’t all Grimm’s.
She’d been raised to respect herself and to avoid objectifying her body with provocative clothing. This despite a section of the commune being devoted to nudists and Free Love Friday. Her mother had claimed sex was a basic need, something two people who respected each other could satisfy. She’d touted love as a fairy tale created by men to enslave women.
Gemma disagreed. She believed in true love and soul mates. She believed in wedding vows and monogamy. She believed that if you loved someone, you shouldn’t stand in the path of their destiny.
Before anyone realized what Mary was doing, she’d knelt near Isabelle’s large purse and dug in. “I thought so,” Winnie’s mother said triumphantly. She held up a bong and a flask of vodka. “She’s got more problems than using her bazookas as headlights.”
“Hey!” Isabelle jerked her purse away from the old woman.
While Winnie helped her mother up, Lyle’s smile curled to rival the Cheshire Cat’s. He aimed his cell phone at Isabelle.
Gemma snatched it from him. “It’s not right to take advantage.” If every teen who experimented with drugs and alcohol had their picture posted on the internet, no one would ever get a job as an adult.
“Dear thing, that’s how I make my living.” Lyle held out his hand. “Give it back.”
Gemma didn’t want to help the little home-wrecker, but Isabelle clearly needed someone to watch out for her.
Randy plucked the phone from Gemma’s hand, and slid it into the pocket of his basketball shorts. “I’ll return it when the car ride’s over, sir.”
The drugs and/or alcohol had slowed Isabelle’s reactions. “That’s…Those…aren’t mine.” She peeked into her purse, as if to see what else she’d hidden.
“Or those cigs I saw in there either, I bet.” Mary pushed her tinted specs up her nose. “You know, I wasn’t born yesterday and I’m not the police.”
“Won’t anyone take a picture?” Lyle asked the group. “No one’s going to believe Isabelle is high, or that she’s been stalking Coach Farrell without a photograph in my column.”
“Have you been stalking this boy?” Winnie asked jumping in on the bash-the-hussy bandwagon. “That’s very bad form. Hollywood could blackball you.”
“Can we get back in the car, please?” Cora said, shepherding Blue into the limo.
Isabelle paid no attention to Cora. Instead, she curled her lip in Winnie’s direction. “Nobody’s blackballing me. I’m the star of Locker Years. My work keeps over seventy people employed and generates millions of dollars in ad revenue.” What her recitation lacked in pride, it made up for in snobby attitude. “I’m the number one show on my network.”
“Which means you think you can do as you please.” Cora nodded at Lyle. “How many Isabelle’s have you seen?”
“In my lifetime? Or this past year?” He chuckled. “Look at her. She’s one drug hit away from ruin.” He suddenly turned serious, exhibiting nary a sign of cynicism, as if he had a heart. “That means a long term residence in an elite health club with locked gates, sweet pea. Now, who are your homies?” Lyle’s insight fell on deaf ears.
Isabelle continued to sneer. “My homies?”
“If I would’ve known about Rule interventions, I would’ve told you about her sooner,” Randy whispered in Gemma’s ear. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and led her to the limo.
That kiss momentarily distracting Gemma from asking how long Isabelle had been tailing him. He was making it very hard for her to let him go.
Once inside, Randy draped an arm around Gemma’s shoulders and drew her next to him on a side-facing seat.
Her heart whispered: Snuggle closer.
Her head whispered: Break up now.
She did neither.
“Yes, dear.” Outside the limo, Mary took up the cause against Isabelle. “Your peers, your peeps, those hangers on who call themselves your friends. Cut them off and your chances of sobriety increase.” She shuffled in place to face Winnie. “Do you remember when you landed your first role and all those girls from high school, who wouldn’t give you the time of day, suddenly wanted to be your friend? Whatever happened to them?”
“After you forbid them entry into our house? Who knows?” Winnie squeezed her mother’s hand. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for that.”
“It almost makes up for husband number two.” Mary squinted at Cora. “What shall we do with her? I keep hearing people mention boats. Are we going to make her walk the plank?”
“Wait a minute.” Isabelle’s voice twisted higher than a fast whistling kite.
“I have something better in mind,” Cora said. “I texted her agent, who called her mom. They’re meeting us at the dock.”
Isabelle cursed.
“I hope her mama believes in spanking.” Mary accepted Lyle’s help into the limo, taking a seat near the door. “She should take away her cell phone and computer, too.”
“They do that sort of thing in rehab,” Lyle said mildly, helping Winnie into the car next.
“I am not going to rehab.” Isabelle pouted. “People depend on me.”
“We’ll see,” Cora said enigmatically, pointing to the car. “Get in, or we’ll give Lyle his camera back.” She waited for the young starlet to find a seat before doing so herself.
Randy drew Gemma closer. “You don’t really believe I’d dump you for that hot mess, do you?”
Gemma’s throat nearly closed. “I’ve seen guys get rid of nice girls for worse hot messes than her.”
“That’s not me. There’s something special between us. Together we can go places.”
The little girl inside Gemma sighed romantically. But the adult Gemma knew better. Because when it came to other people’s dreams, she was the one who was always left behind.
Chapter Three
If there was one thing Randy had learned about Hollywood, it was that it wasn’t like Indiana. Every day was unpredictable. Every person a wild card. Just look at Isabelle, curled up on a seat, using Mary’s lap as a pillow.
And if there was one thing Randy had learned about the Rules, it was that when they came together, everything always seemed to fall apart. Not that they didn’t manage to pick things up eventually. But they seemed to go at a pace that raced over order and stomped on propriety, galloping hell-bent for leather toward the high profile outcome they desired.
In this respect and many others, Gemma wasn’t like her siblings. She looked before she leaped. She rolled her eyes at blatant displays of ego. She scoffed at pretense. She approached life with common sense.
Everything about his life was uncommon and would be for weeks. Between his crazy schedule and his star-stalker, it was no wonder Gemma was spooked.
Randy rubbed her shoulder. “How’s it going with that client who wanted to lose weight?” Randy didn’t know the client’s name or occupation, only that Gemma had been challenged by her.
Gemma tensed, then admitted so softly that only he could hear, “She fired me.”
Her former client was a fool. “So? What are you going to do? I thought Rules didn’t let clients fire them.”
She shrugged. “What’s the point?”
“The Foundation seems to attract clients at the end of their rope. Don’t give up. If you can’t help her, wh
o can?” And wasn’t that ironic? Randy was nearly at the end of his rope. After weeks of intense training, things weren’t coming together for him. Maybe he should hire Gemma.
“And admit you’re weak?” his father said.
“You think I’m giving up?” Gemma leaned back to look at him. “You think I give up too easily on everything? Including you?”
Was every conversation with her today going to be a landmine? “I was asking about your work.”
“But you think I’m a quitter.”
“I think you’re the most determined woman I know,” Randy countered. “But in some situations you just roll over, as if you were expecting to fail or be rejected all along. Like with this client of yours.” Or with us.
“Whereas you never give up. You’ll try again and again until you get things right,” she said flatly. “Why is being a basketball player so important to you?”
He’d never thought about it. All that came to mind was a fuzzy memory of his father, his wiry frame bent from years of hard work, his skin tan and weathered. “It must have started with my dad. I remember him showing me how to shoot one of those plastic grocery store balls into a toy basketball hoop when we were snowed in one winter. It was the first time I remember him being excited about me doing something. He was always busy farming the land, fixing equipment, balancing the books.”
“He must be very proud of you.”
“He was.” Randy laced his fingers with hers. “But he thinks I’ve gone as far as I can. He’d prefer his only son pursue a career in the family business.”
“There’s a concept I’m familiar with,” Gemma deadpanned. “My dad tied Amber’s, Blue’s, and Cora’s inheritance to their sales goals at the Foundation.”
“But not yours?”
She shrugged. Such a small movement that spoke volumes. Of the four Rule siblings, Gemma had been treated differently by their father. She seemed to believe it was because she lacked something the other three had, although what that could be, Randy didn’t know.