by Ames, Alex
Britta shrugged, her posture becoming the aggressive girl. “Life!”
“Come on, you should find a better excuse to steal from a shop. Had this been some masterminded heist like ten hooded skaters stripping the Apple Store bare with the help of an old Dodge, a sledge hammer, and some wire cutters, I would have accepted the life explanation.” Louise sat beside her on the bed.
“No, I mean it. Life. It is hard to be popular. It is even harder when your outsider friends start to look at you as if you are from Mars.”
“You mean, because I stepped into your lives?”
Britta nodded.
“Your friends are giving you a hard time? Because of me?” Louise asked to confirm.
Another nod. Louise stroked Britta’s wiry curly head. “Sorry about that—it has to suck. Anything I can do to help?”
Britta shook her head. “That’s something I have to figure out myself. I learned from Agnes. She also had managed to solve some serious boy troubles two years back on her own. Dad was too occupied to notice, juggling life after Mom. He still doesn’t know.”
“That’s very brave, but there is no shame in asking for help if you need it,” Louise said.
“I might. But I won’t.”
“Not your friends anymore?”
“After the shoplifting bust, definitely ex-buddies. What kind of friends take off the second it gets critical? My skater pals Terry and Wright at least came back to me and admitted they felt bad and sorry for taking off and leaving me to take the fall. With them, I am good again.” She paused. “Are you going to tell Dad?”
Louise was torn between her loyalty to Rick and to her fragile new relationship with the kids. As a rule she had no secrets from her partners, but there had never been kids in the mix in the past. So this was to become the first exception.
She shook her head, and Britta was visibly liberated from that sword dangling over her. “Thanks, Lou!” she said and wrapped her arms around her. Louise felt a bit awkward being hugged by this big kid who was almost a woman. Now she understood what Rick had meant by arriving.
Rick
The Oxnard Police Department was about four hundred people strong, sworn officers and administrative staff, and about 150 of them had turned up with family in tow to the picnic and barbecue section of Oxnard’s Southwest Community Park. Chief Zoe Paris, a small, compact woman, very energetic, had greeted the Flints with open arms and introduced them to her own family and then to various other officers. Rick could have sworn that Chief Paris had been winking at Louise, but he could have been wrong. The Flints ended up eating barbecue—Britta didn’t even complain about the lame veggie salad alternative—and chatting at a family table, answering good-humored questions like “So how is it to live with a superstar?”
Louise was the center of attention. The chief kept by her side as a chaperone, and fought some of the overeager police officers’ attempts to get too touchy-feely while taking selfies. Then Chief Paris got up on a makeshift Ford pickup stage where they had installed a pair of loudspeakers. “Thanks for coming, everyone. It’s great to see you all in good spirits. It is my pleasure to introduce you to a wonderful lady and a generous friend to the OPD. She offered to join us today and also lead us through the raffle drawing. Here she is, Louise Waters!”
Louise gave Chief Paris a hug, took over the microphone, and turned to the audience. “Thank you for having us in your midst. I want to thank you so much for the security that you provide to my new family and myself here in beautiful Oxnard.” Calls and whistles and handclaps.
“Let me tell you about my new life here. At my house in Bel Air, I had two gardeners and three maids plus a pool man to fish out drowned mice from the pool. Here in Oxnard, I have a boyfriend with a rotten boat in his shipyard, four kids, a sink full of dishes, and a cat that comes home every third day to throw a dead mouse into the pool.” Laughter. This makes me feel like I’m sixteen again. How could I have ever given this up?
“I asked Rick, the man in my life—he is sitting over there—‘Honey, how do we get the dead mouse from the bottom of the pool?’ He is a practical man, builds ships, so the water is not unknown to him.
“He kissed me and then threw me into the pool. That’s how much he loves me. I heard it’s called the Oxnard baptism.
“That’s me now, born again in Oxnard. It is a new life for me. When it’s my turn to pick up the kids from school, I wait with the other mothers in the parking lot. In the not-too-far past, everyone probably had a smoke; nowadays there is only small talk to kill you. We talk about how we spent our morning. Bruce’s mom, Helen, is like ‘I went to the mall for the Nordstrom sale; found a nice pair of Armani Exchange jeans, 50 percent off the sticker price.’ Appreciative nodding from all of us, so savvy this Helen! Tina’s mom tells us about how she helped out in the soup kitchen lunch handout. That is way cool. And then of course, all eyes turn to me. What did I do that day? First a phone conference with the head of Sony Studio for the computer game rights of my latest movie. Then an early lunch meeting with Tom Cruise to discuss options for his new wife to take over my Fire and Stone movie franchise. Afterward I rented out my Bel Air estate to singer Sam Smith, showing him the house. He played a few songs for me on my Steinway, before I hurried back to school to execute my newly found mom duties.”
Oohing and aahing from the audience.
“I look at Helen and Tina’s mom and all the other bystanders eager to hear of my day. I shrug and say, ‘There was a dead mouse in the pool!’”
Later that evening there was dancing to old Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald records, and after an endless string of police suitors, Louise was able to be led by Rick for a change. The attentive DJ put on some romantic tunes, so the couples could dance cheek to cheek.
“You were good up there, honey,” Rick whispered in her ear.
“I know. It was fun, too.”
“Not sure how you felt, but you looked ten years younger. Like a time warp.”
“It felt like standing up in a comedy club ages ago. Once you’ve done four hundred gigs a year, you got it in you.”
“Where did you come up with all that stuff?”
“Believe it or not, those things are simply in me. I look at a situation and the absurdities and the laughs become obvious. And the greatest thing is that if I prepare five minutes of material, I will automatically get spontaneous ideas for five minutes more, just by telling the prepared stuff.”
“The incredible gag machine. A new side of you.”
“Not new, another side. We’ve been together for what—a little over two months?” Louise asked.
“Eighty-four days and about twenty-three hours.”
“Why, Mr. Flint, I never took you as a romantic!”
“I don’t count the minutes,” Rick defended himself.
The music continued to be slow, and they simply swayed and shuffled on the grass, various other couples doing the same, some kids imitating their parents with enthusiasm, some playing hide and seek or soccer on the fringes of the picnic, dusk falling, the first stars showing in the darkened summer sky. The songs were gentle ones, simple, about love and longing, and they wished that the evening and song would never end.
“But I do, Rick,” Louise whispered, almost inaudible. “I count the minutes.”
eighteen
Under the Great Wide Open
Louise
Louise was about to leave for Europe and Asia on her planned trip to promote her upcoming sequel Fire and Stone: Hard Knocks, one of the agreed and accepted legacy activities that Louise had to perform due to her contracts. One week of grueling interviews and premieres, hopping from city to city, from continent to continent. Izzy had tried to get her out of it, citing the upcoming lack of press exposure and lower market value of Louise, but the studio had insisted and the risks to be sued were simply too high.
To appease Izzy, Louise gave him a surprise visit after Arielle and she had gone through the last minute trip planning.
Izzy glowered at Louise.
“What?” Louise asked innocently. “I understand you don’t like it, but I wanted to try to at least to get out of this.”
“I think this was the first time I ever tried to downplay one of my stars. I had to convince him that your market value has gone down and that you are a bad deal! Fortunately for me he did not believe a word I said.” Izzy shook his head in mock despair.
“How is the rest going?”
“Arielle was able to cancel most of the contracts early. She did good work, eager beaver. Fellow Cosmetics is bitching and threatened to use your face based on the old campaign material even after the contract has expired. But my lawyers are talking to their lawyers.”
“Meet them halfways. They get another year, half the price, based on the old material. They should have tons of stuff they have never used before.”
“Louise, one call and we continue to be in the game.” Izzy hovered his finger over the speed-dial button.
“Don’t you dare! You don’t give an alcoholic the bottle.”
“I do, if it means a seven-figure commission,” Izzy said.
Rick
Agnes’s eighteenth birthday was approaching, and discussions were under way about how to celebrate it. Rick had proposed a garden party so that Agnes could invite all her friends and have a great late afternoon and evening. Louise offered her boat for a party tour. “Forty people on my boat is not a problem, including catering and DJs. And as soon as we are out there, we can turn the music up.”
“The boat? Are you out of your mind? You and me between LA and Catalina searching for someone fallen overboard among a group of drunken teenagers.” Rick saw it right in front of him.
“There will be no alcohol. Just a party!” Louise pointed out.
“They will smuggle that on board. I know how I did that in my days.”
“You went to parties on the boat of a movie star? Security will be so tight, you will need to smuggle the vodka bottle in a body cavity.”
“Even worse—then we need to deal with all the infections . . .”
Agnes became enerved. “Hey old parent and new parent, I appreciate the offers. If it were up to me, I would have a girls’ night out with Teresa and Yo-Ma. And maybe some cake in the afternoon with you guys. But nothing big.”
“But honey, eighteen is a big thing. Let’s not let it go to waste.”
“Dad, honestly, I am okay with a small thing. And it is your thing. I don’t want to celebrate something that I had nothing to do with anyway. It is important for you, because you held me in your arms when I was little. But not for me. There are bigger things upcoming in my life.”
“You are aware that you are offending your family and all of your friends, except Teresa and Yo-Ma . . .” Rick said.
“We are not offended, but you are special to us and it is a special occasion,” Louise threw in.
“Stop it! Nice try, thank you, no! Cake with you guys, girls’ night out, nothing more.” To end the discussion, Agnes got up and walked upstairs to her room.
Rick scratched his head. “That was the first row we have had since her mother has died.”
“The first? You call that a row? That is so scary. Has she been on drugs the last years?” When Louise saw Rick’s stare, she mock-ducked. “Okay, not funny.”
“I thought we had agreed not to play your hundred-million-dollar card in our relationship.”
“The boat party trip, you mean?”
“That is exactly what I mean. Meet Louise Waters, my new stepmom. We are on her cool yacht . . .” Rick gave a bad Agnes impression.
“Oh, come on, Mr. Right!” Louise raised her hands and her voice. “We have been on the yacht a few times now, we have planned a great trip with the whole gang for next week. And yes, it did cost thirty million dollars, but it is mine, like the little sailing boat is yours. I’m a part of this family now, so it is okay to go sailing on yours but not on mine?” She gave him a look worthy of of a Disney evil witch that made Rick shift in his seat.
“That’s not what I meant,” Rick tried to soothe her. This part of Louise’s temperament had been hidden from him so far.
Louise got up, pointing at Rick, raising her voice. “Just out of spite, to drive you up a wall, I hereby declare that I, Louise Waters, will gift your daughter a trip to New York with her stepmom, no expenses spared, no extravagance too small. Private jet from Oxnard, heli ride from Teterboro to Manhattan, penthouse suite, exclusive access . . .”
“But that’s—”
“Flint! If you say one more word, I will make this a Paris trip! Though I would have preferred to do that with you alone.”
“I . . .” Rick muttered.
“Well, what will it be, Mr. Richard Flint? New York or Paris?”
They could hear Agnes shouting from upstairs, “I take both!”
Rick wanted to give an answer but then raised his hands and waved Louise off.
“Wise choice, buster!” Louise said, went inside and slammed the terrace door.
Now that’s what a fight looks like with Louise Waters. Not over picking the wrong cereals, that’s for sure, Rick thought.
A week later, the Flint family and Louise took a boat trip up the West Coast, cruising from town to town up to Seattle. The small hired crew took care of the travel overnight, and the Flints controlled the boat by day if they were not off board discovering small towns like Grover Beach, Carmel, or Astoria or hiking in Big Sur or Smugglers Cove in Portland. They all had a blast in Seattle and took a private plane back.
Rick and Agnes took a trip the following day to check out some college towns in the East. Agnes’s SAT score had turned out to be a whopping 2360, which put her into the top four hundred student candidates in the United States, which meant that she could write her own ticket to any college.
“You don’t look motivated,” Rick said as they buckled up in their economy seats.
“The East Coast is so far away. Plus it is unfair to the West Coast doing this trip in summer.”
“You’re basing your college selection on the winter weather?”
“I am a California girl, Dad! I’ve never seen snow in my life.”
“We went to Mammoth for skiing. If I remember right, you were twelve years old.”
“That was ages ago. I remember that I felt like a sausage in my thick clothing and that I hated the ski overall’s color. But I honestly don’t recall the feel of snow. Skiing felt like being on a white paved highway.”
“A true Angeleno analogy. We can repeat the trip around Christmas if you have a developed a preference to do a cross weather check. I can tell you that I hated the seasons at first when I lived in Maine. But you get to enjoy certain aspects of it. Makes you appreciate the warm weather more, you have your home in much more cozy state . . .”
“All right, Dad, no need to sell me on this trip. I’m already on the plane with you, and the door is about to be closed. But don’t expect too much of me here.”
“I’ll zip up my mouth now and will hide behind my book for the rest of the trip.”
Agnes looked out the window and watched the last of the luggage being loaded.
nineteen
The Wear and the Tear
Rick
There were some instances where their two worlds collided and left marks on their relationship. Louise’s constant absence for business-related trips was one. There was always one more promotional event or some contractual obligation like an AIDS gala here or a patron-of-the-arts event there.
Worst were the events that happened close to home, as expectations in the movie community grew that Louise Waters would show up with her new boyfriend instead of with some token company, like a fellow actor or her agent.
“Uh-oh,” Louise said when she read the invitation card that had been hand-delivered to Oxnard a few minutes earlier.
“What is it?”
“Farber Sellman has invited me to his yearly barbecue next Sunday.” Sellman was the owner of the last ind
ependent studio of the former Hollywood studio system and an éminence grise of the industry. He was the maker and breaker of careers, and one could be sure that he had the first-view rights of most upcoming talents and scripts. “Not good.”
“Why? Just say no, say you have a migraine. Or that you need to attend Dana’s daycare summer fest.”
“Frack! That is next Sunday, too! You are right. And, oh my gosh, look what Farber wrote on the back. ‘Dear Louise, so excited to get to know your shipbuilder.’ You are invited, too!”
“Well, Dana is Dana, and Sellman is who, exactly?.”
“You really don’t know who Farber Sellman is?”
“I know that he is a big studio boss and an important player. And I remember the tragic kidnapping case of his daughter in the eighties.”
“Farber is the man. He is like the Godfather, Darth Vader, and Colonel Kurtz, all rolled into one.”
“Didn’t you forget Hannibal Lecter and Lord Voldemort?”
“Don’t joke about that, I mean it. Nothing happens in this town without him.”
“This town meaning Oxnard?”
“The fact alone that he knows where you live and that I am here with you today shows us how serious Farber is. With one snap of a finger, I am unemployed and discredited for the rest of my life.”
Rick stared at her. “You mean, if I showed him the finger, he would make sure you never get invited anywhere again? Wouldn’t that be a genius solution to clearing your calendar for good?”
Louise held her head in her hand. “This is a nightmare.”
“Lou, isn’t that what you wanted A life with us outside of the industry?”
“Yes, but not this way. I want to have a soft landing, not crash and burn. I’ll have a hard time explaining why you couldn’t come with me.”
“Nothing hard to explain, my daughter comes first; he will understand. He once had a daughter, too.”