Fringe Benefits

by Christine Pope

  “No,” he replied, and he smiled slightly. At my ignorance, no doubt. “I am not an art dealer, although on occasion I have passed on information regarding the possible acquisition of certain important works to those who are more schooled in such things than I. The piece in question is a bar.”

  “A bar?” I repeated, not quite sure I had heard him correctly. “For serving drinks?”

  “That would be the purpose for which it was built, but I very much doubt Mr. Freeman will allow anyone to set a drink on its surface. It is exactly the proper size to fill the back wall in his study. We have been looking for the right piece for quite some time.”

  “Oh,” I said. Furniture had never meant too much to me. My parents had the usual oak farmhouse-style stuff, as well as some ugly floral couches that everyone in the family except my mother hated. And with an apartment decorated in Early Garage Sale, I had a hard time understanding the concept of throwing a party to celebrate getting a bar in your house. Especially when it seemed as if the new owner had no intention of using it for its original purpose. “So how much did this bar set him back—if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Not at all. It is the business I am in, after all. And you now as well.” Van Rijn sipped at his wine and added, “A quarter of a million dollars.”

  The wine I had just swallowed seemed to get caught about midway down my throat. I tried to cover the gasping sound I’d made with a half-hearted throat-clearing that wouldn’t have fooled anyone, let alone my boss. After I’d recovered a bit, I said, “You’re joking.”

  “Not at all.”

  Holy crap. That was probably more than my parents’ house was worth. For a piece of furniture. A purchase like that spoke of a dizzying kind of disposable income. Still, further betraying my complete cluelessness on the subject didn’t seem like a very good idea. I set my salad fork down on my plate and remarked, “I’d hate to think what he must pay for his homeowner’s insurance.”

  Van Rijn actually smiled. “He hasn’t divulged the particulars of that line item to me.”

  At that moment the waitress returned with our entrees. All efficiency, she removed our salad plates, set down the food in front of us, and then asked if we needed anything else. Van Rijn murmured a polite demurral and I shook my head, after which she took our discarded plates and disappeared again.

  The scent of the carbonara sauce wafting up to my nostrils was beyond marvelous, and I prayed my stomach wouldn’t choose that inopportune time to growl. I also realized I’d have to eat very, very carefully. One sauce splatter on my green silk dress, and I was done for.

  I rearranged the napkin in my lap to cover as much surface area as possible. “So what does Mr. Freeman do?”

  Van Rijn paused in cutting his veal piccata. “He is a film producer. I do not follow the industry closely, so I cannot say which films he’s been associated with. But I hear they are quite successful.”

  Obviously, or the guy wouldn’t be out there dropping a quarter-mil on a piece of furniture. I was still having a hard time trying to process that particular concept. Oh, I knew there was a lot of money in this town, and people who seemed all too willing to spend it, but somehow having a concrete number like the one Van Rijn had just casually tossed out made the situation seem more real. It also made me wonder what sort of a commission my boss had made from this one little transaction. Even ten percent was more money than some people—myself included, at least before I’d landed this job—made in a year. And how many similar deals did he broker in the course of just a single month?

  No way to know for sure; I’d only supervised the drop-off and pickup of a few shipments. However, the manifests for those shipments had contained a cryptic code that of course Van Rijn must be able to decipher but which was beyond me. It wasn’t as if someone was going to put a dollar amount on the paperwork for just anyone to see. While Van Rijn didn’t seem to have a problem with me answering his phones or typing his correspondence, he sure as hell hadn’t entrusted me with anything pertaining to the financial side of the operation.

  He was still watching me with that half-amused expression on his face, so I said, in carefully flip tones, “Don’t mind me. Where I come from, people tend to spend that kind of money on a house, not a piece of furniture. I guess I’m still having a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept.”

  “True, Los Angeles can be a foreign place.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to that comment. Had he found L.A. even more foreign, coming as he had from the Netherlands, or did his family have the kind of money where he was used to traveling in these sorts of circles? There were different types of culture shock, after all. But once again, I didn’t know, and I couldn’t think of a way to frame the question without it sounding unbelievably crass. Instead I lifted my shoulders and replied, “Tell me about it. I’m still trying to get used to paying for parking.”

  The laugh lines around his eyes seemed to deepen for a second. “A barbaric practice, to be sure.”

  To my surprise, I found myself smiling back at him. “Maybe it’s because everyone out here seems to be obsessed with cars. Back in Billings, Mercedes were pretty rare, but you can’t throw a rock without hitting one in L.A.”

  “Something I wouldn’t advise, considering the litigious nature of the population here.”

  Had he just made a joke? From the little glint in his eyes, I assumed he probably had. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

  “Of course people in Southern California spend a disproportionate amount of time in their cars,” he went on. “Everything here is quite spread out, after all. Then there is the less than optimal public transit system.” He paused to pick up his wine glass. The liquid inside gleamed like a garnet necklace my mother always wore around the holidays, and he stared down into for a moment. His expression was almost pensive. “There is more to it than that, of course. The craftsmanship, the technology, the thought that goes into fine automobiles is to be respected and admired. At its highest levels, it can be an art.”

  I thought of Leslie, saving up two weeks’ salary to buy a set of new-old-stock wheels for her ’Vette, and of the pieces of shining chrome that hung from the walls of her brothers’ hot rod shop. Some of the vehicles that had rolled out of that place were absolutely stunning. Other people must have thought so as well, since the shabby office at the front of their building was decorated with a large collection of trophies.

  “I guess I never really looked at it that way,” I said. “But think I can see what you mean.”

  He gave an approving nod. Again I had the impression of those sharp blue eyes somehow seeing into me. I had to make myself hold his gaze until it softened, and he returned his attention to his plate.

  From there the conversation progressed normally enough, with him telling me a bit more about Howard Freeman and the search for the bar that was the reason for this night out. There were even spans of several minutes here and there when I could almost forget Van Rijn was my boss. Not that the meal had the feel of a real date, but at least I stopped worrying whether every other sentence coming out of my mouth sounded too stupid for words or if I had committed some gross breach of table etiquette because I hadn’t broken my bread into small enough pieces. Almost before I knew it, we’d finished our food. At least, he had; I’d only managed to eat a little over half of what was on my plate, but I decided it probably wouldn’t be a great idea to ask for a doggie bag.

  The waitress reappeared. Van Rijn didn’t even wait for her to inquire about dessert but instead handed her a black credit card that glinted with gold lettering. Her eyes widened slightly, but she took it without comment and disappeared in the direction of the lobby.

  Apparently there was something significant about the stealth-looking card, but I had no idea what. Her departure gave me the excuse I needed to run to the restroom to touch up my lip gloss, so I murmured an excuse to Van Rijn and fled. A quick inspection of my appearance in the bathroom mirror told me at least my dress had survive
d dinner unscathed, so I pulled the tube of gloss out of my purse and made some hasty repairs, then checked to make sure my nose hadn’t turned shiny and my hair hadn’t fallen flat. Everything seemed reasonably intact, thank God.

  Van Rijn was just signing off on the bill when I returned to the table. He folded his copy of the receipt and put it away in his wallet, then stood. “Ready?”

  “Sure,” I replied, hoping I sounded a little more confident than I felt. So I’d managed to survive dinner. Big deal. I still had to get through an evening full of entertainment types who apparently thought nothing of dropping six figures on pieces of furniture.

  For a second I thought Van Rijn was going to offer me his arm. I even started to raise my left hand in anticipation. Instead, he gestured toward the front door, and I reached up to adjust the purse strap on my shoulder. I hoped he would think that was what I had intended to do all along.

  I picked my way across the brickwork outside the front door. Funny how that plate of pasta carbonara hadn’t done much to blunt the edge of that half-bottle of wine I’d just drunk.

  I hoped we had a little bit of a drive to get to this Mr. Freeman’s house. My current lightheadedness would have been pleasant under other circumstances. Now, however, I was too worried about making an ass of myself to enjoy the mild swimminess I was currently experiencing.

  But I managed to make it to the valet station without stumbling or otherwise acting like an idiot. The car was brought up, and Van Rijn waited to make sure I was carefully stowed in the passenger seat before he went around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

  Then we were off.

  Five

  Don’t ask me exactly where Howard Freeman’s house is located. Someplace high up in the Hollywood Hills, on a promontory where you have an almost 360-degree view of the Los Angeles basin. The sun was just kissing the Pacific Ocean as we pulled up into the sweeping driveway, and the haze of smog looked romantic and blush-colored instead of its usual dirty dun hue. A red-jacketed valet appeared at once to take command of the car, while another hired hand showed up to open the passenger door and help me out.

  The house itself was some sort of quasi-Tudor monstrosity of the kind you could only find in L.A. No wonder Mr. Freeman wanted real antiques to fill it up; maybe he thought they would lend it more of an air of authenticity. I didn’t get much more than a confused glimpse of a wide green lawn hugging the circular drive and moody landscape lighting that illuminated some incongruous banana plants before I followed Van Rijn inside. More blurs of dark wood and gilt-framed paintings, Persian rugs on the marble floors, as we went down an impossibly long corridor and emerged in the backyard. Well, maybe “backyard” is the wrong term to use, as it resembled all the backyards I’d ever seen in sort of the same way a dinghy resembled an aircraft carrier—they were both boats, I suppose, but that was pretty much where the similarities ended.

  I have no idea how they got such a large expanse of flat land up in the hills. Probably through some marvel of geological engineering that still might end up in the canyon below if the Big One ever did hit Los Angeles. In the meantime, though, it had room for an enormous infinity pool, a rose garden, and an expanse of lawn so huge you could host a pro football game on it. For the party, large white tents had been put up on the lawn, their roofs all swagged with white fairy lights. It was the sort of setup that put my cousin’s country club wedding to shame. And all to celebrate the purchase of a piece of furniture.

  Van Rijn ushered me into one of these tents. Someone called out his name, and he turned, murmured what sounded like a brief apology, and then disappeared into the crowd.

  Fabulous. Not knowing what else I should do, I let one of the uniformed waiters who were wandering amongst the guests hand me a crystal flute of champagne. No plastic cups with screw-on stems here, that was for sure.

  I sipped at my champagne, fixed what I hoped was an appropriately bored expression on my face, and stared off at an indeterminate point in the shrubbery. Everyone around me looked glossy and perfect, and I wondered if they could tell just by looking at me that I’d gotten my dress off the sales rack.

  God damn you, Van Rijn, I thought. What the hell did you bring me here for, if you were just going to dump me at the first opportunity?

  “Hey,” said an unfamiliar voice from somewhere in the vicinity of my left ear.

  I jumped, sloshing a little bit of champagne on my hand, though not, thankfully, on my dress.

  “Sorry,” said the stranger, after I’d turned around to see who was addressing me. He appeared to be around my age, maybe a few years older, and his jeans and untucked dark shirt looked wildly out of place in these glitzy surroundings.

  I wondered if he was a late-come valet or waiter who hadn’t figured out where to change into his uniform. But his next words blew that theory out of the water.

  “You came here with Pieter Van Rijn, didn’t you?”

  So that was Van Rijn’s first name. You learned something new every day. “That’s right,” I admitted.

  A pair of hazel eyes laughed down into mine. “He’s mixing it up, isn’t he?”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, sorry.” The stranger thrust out a hand at me, and I awkwardly shifted my champagne glass to my other hand so I could take his. “I’m Jonah Freeman. Howard Freeman’s son,” he added, apparently at my blank look.

  “Katherine Wheeler,” I replied. “I’m Mr. Van Rijn’s assistant.” I didn’t want to call myself a secretary—there was something about the term that just smacked of fetching coffee and taking dictation, neither of which had been required of me in my current position. Well, at least not yet.

  “You’re not his usual type, that’s for sure.”

  I’d heard something along the same lines from the FedEx delivery guy, but I didn’t particularly like hearing it from this Jonah character. “Oh, he has a type, does he?” I retorted.

  Something in Jonah’s face altered subtly. “Uh—I didn’t mean it exactly that way—”

  “How exactly did you mean it?”

  Jonah stared down at me for a second, then shook his head. “How about we start over? Hi, I’m Jonah Freeman.” And he stuck out his hand again.

  Despite myself, I laughed. Maybe it was the champagne on top of the wine I’d had earlier. “Katherine Wheeler.”

  “I think that might have been a new record. Usually it takes me at least five minutes to go from zero to asshole.”

  Oh, he was cute. Extremely cute, in a rumpled, scruffy sort of way. “Impressive,” I said. “Should I feel honored?”

  “Absolutely.” His expression sobered a bit. “But you know, when I said you weren’t Van Rijn’s usual type, it was a compliment.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah. You seem like you have at least fifteen or twenty brain cells firing in there.”

  “Gee, thanks.” My tone was nonchalant, but of course Jonah had me wondering exactly what kind of bimbos had worked for Van Rijn in the past. He didn’t seem like the type of person to put up with incompetence, so why he’d apparently continued to hire on the basis of looks instead of skill was beyond me. “Are you this charming to all your father’s guests?”

  “Only the special ones. Actually, I just came here for the free food.”

  “You don’t live here?”

  His eyebrows shot up. “In the museum? Are you kidding? One ring from a wet glass, and I’m disinherited. Besides, the fembot and I don’t get along.”

  My brain felt a little overloaded. I didn’t think it was just from the alcohol. “The fembot?”

  “Dad’s third wife. I’m sure we’ll bump into her eventually. I have a theory that if you were ever able to tunnel beneath all the silicone, you’d find circuits and wires instead of flesh and bone.” He grinned. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “Billings, Montana.”

  “I thought so. You still have a whiff of the great outdoors about you. Or maybe it’s just that you haven’t spra
y-tanned yourself into Oompa Loompa–ville yet.”

  All the pop culture references compelled me to inquire, “Are you in the movie business, too?”

  Jonah gave me a fake-horrified look. “Don’t you know we prefer to refer to them as ‘films’?”

  I waved a hand. “Whatever.”

  “Don’t say that in front of my father. Anyway, yes, I suppose you could say I am also in the movie business, as you so crassly put it. However, I have no desire to produce this generation’s opiate of the masses by cranking out blockbuster after blockbuster. Film school at USC cured me of that.”

  His tone told me he wasn’t taking any of this too seriously. “So what do you do?”

  “Besides trying to convince my father he should produce my latest opus, which he invariably shoots down as not being commercial enough? I just wrapped up A.D. work on a television pilot.”

  I hadn’t spent much time with television and movie people, despite my former naïve notions that I’d be knee-deep in celebrities once I was living in L.A. “A.D. work?”

  “Assistant director. Necessary stepping stone to greatness…or so I’ve heard. Anyway, I’m working, which is more than I can say for about seventy-five percent of the wannabes in this town. Not that I’m going to flatter myself and say it’s for any other reason except who my father happens to be.”

  Even someone as naïve as I still somehow managed to be after more than six months here knew that nepotism ran rampant in Hollywood, but I was still a little startled to hear Jonah being so forthright on the subject to someone he’d just met. Then again, maybe he was just trying to impress me with a lack of respect for his origins. Sort of a reverse psychology type of approach.

  A glint of light on pale hair across the way caught my eye. Mr. Van Rijn stood next to a stocky dark-haired man with a spectacularly endowed blonde on his arm. If that was the fembot, I could see what Jonah meant. Her boobs probably could shoot bullets. Several other women, all of whom looked as if they might be refugees from the pages of Playboy, stood near them, apparently listening to the conversation with rapt, wide-eyed attention. Or maybe that was the only expression they could manage after all the Botox.