“Melina Eunice Hodge!”
The use of her middle name was meant to bring her back into focus and force her to pay attention. All it really did, or had ever done, was make her cringe. God, she hated her middle name, even if it was because her mother’s mother was a Eunice— and someone Melina had really loved. It still sucked.
The use of her middle name also sent a shiver along her spine.
Something wasn’t right. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m distracted. It’s been a crazy week, and Stan’s been gone a long time. So I’ve been a little cranky.”
“Looks like he’s gonna be gone a whole lot longer.”
“Say again?”
“Girl, would you please sit still and just listen to me. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, Mel! You were always a fidgeter. I need to talk to you. Now be still and quit fussin’.”
Her fingers stopped moving upon command, her stomach jolted.
“Stopping. Because now you have me worried. Are you sick, Dad?”
Her worst fear since her mother had died five years ago was losing her father, too.
“Good, and no, I’m not sick. Not unless you count my God damn acid reflux and bursitis. Oh, and my knees. They drive me to drink.”
“It isn’t your knees that drive you to a Schlitz, Dad, and you know it.” Mel smiled, pulling her own knees up to her chin. Well, almost up to her chin. If she could just lose those last fifteen pounds, she’d be closer to her fighting weight.
Okay. Maybe the real number for her fighting weight was twenty-five total pounds, but she was trying to remain realistic at forty. And twenty-five pounds wouldn’t allow for the occasional Choco-Bliss or ranch dressing on her salad instead of the fresh juice of a lemon.
“Listen, breadstick, you got trouble comin’ your way.”
Just as those words sank in, Mel heard someone yell, “It’s her!”
Her head popped up at the thump of feet on the pavement, coming from across the street. A throng of cameramen and smartly dressed reporters headed her way like a pack of salivating dogs.
The paparazzi. Here?
Huh.
She wrinkled her nose in total distaste. Shitty bastards. How had they found her? Stan kept her dance studio like some would a dirty little secret. She suspected he let her keep the studio open to keep her from complaining about his long stints away from home.
Stan had little tolerance for what he called her wish to save deprived children with a silly waltz. He’d declared the caliber of dancers she was drawing beneath him in almost as many words.
While Stan had been a well-respected, famous choreographer in the world of Russian ballet, he wasn’t a household name until Dude, You Can Dance. Now everyone wanted a piece of him, and anyone who was directly related to him. They especially wanted a piece of the woman who was married to him because Mel fought so hard to stay out of the limelight. She was an enigma and a constant source of speculation.
Not that Stan was all that interested in having her share his limelight. He didn’t want to do that with anyone. He especially didn’t want to share it with Mel because he said lately she looked like she’d eaten too much borscht.
Which had hurt. But then, even if she wanted Stan to love her for who she was on the inside, Mel had to admit, the outside was a little like a can of freshly opened dinner rolls— sort of oozy in some places.
Lightbulbs were suddenly flashing, and microphones were shoved in her face as she attempted to slide to an upright position in the midst of the chaos. “Melina! What do you have to say about Stan and Yelena?”
Her father’s squawking fell on deaf ears as her phone slid from beneath her chin. She shoved it into the pocket of her ankle-length sweater.
“So what do you have to say about Yelena?” someone repeated.
Yelena. Like the newest choreographer Yelena from Dude, You Can Dance who had a body so hard even a wrecking ball couldn’t crack it?
Like the Yelena with no last name, Yelena?
What could Mel possibly have to say about her, and what did she have to do with Stan? Other than the fact that he was her boss as executive producer and head judge of the show?
Mel’s breath quickened when a male reporter she vaguely recognized from Hollywood Scoop turned to the crowd, froth but a bead of saliva away from forming in the corners of his mouth, and yelped, “Holy shit! She doesn’t know! Back off, you bunch of piranhas. I got her first!”
Not to be out-frothed, a salivating blonde from another tabloid show with makeup too harsh for daylight hours gave the Hollywood Scoop guy an elbow to the ribs and jammed a microphone into Mel’s face.
There was a flash of pity in her overly charcoal-lined eyes, and then she went all viper. “How does it feel to be left for a woman almost half your age? Have you seen this? It was taken by a fan of the show.” She shoved a picture of Stan and Yelena in Mel’s face.
At some Wisconsin cheese festival. At least that was what the banner said. Holding hands while Stan swallowed Yelena’s lips whole.
It was clear they’d been caught off guard. Stan’s eyes were wide with surprise in the shot.
The ground beneath Mel wobbled and shifted, her vision becoming blurry and distorted. Thankfully, her tongue neither wobbled, nor blurred.
She forced her shoulders to lift in an indifferent shrug. Like it was no big deal Stan was sticking his tongue down Yelena’s throat while experiencing the splendor of aged sharp cheddar. “How does it feel to spend a good portion of your paycheck from Satan on all that per-oxide?”
The blonde’s eyes narrowed for only a second before she regained her composure. Just as she was gearing up to lob another question at Mel, another reporter shoved the blonde to the side while yet another crowded her up against the building until she almost couldn’t breathe from their close proximity.
Fighting down a sob of rage, she stooped, hoping to gather the rest of her things and run as far away as she could, but they had her packed too tightly against the building.
Fuck her antibacterial soap. She grabbed at the important stuff, her wallet and her keys, her fingers scraping the concrete as she did.
Mel rose, sucking in a harsh breath at the head rush that assaulted her, and in stoic silence, began to push against the cluster of hands holding microphones, her heart crashing out a painful rhythm in her ears.
Some of the neighboring store owners had begun to gather along the sidewalk, their obvious curiosity stung just as good as any sharp slap across her face. Their whispers made her sad. No one made a move to help her fight her way out of the throng of cutthroats.
And she’d once thought they were all sort of like neighbors. Like the kind that always had each other’s backs when vulture reporters were breathing down your neck? Nice neighbors, the lot of ’em.
Definitely not Mr. Rogers approved.
Biting her lip, while making a conscious choice not to let the scourge of humanity get one single word from her, Mel went at them headfirst, bulldozer style.
Her yelp was warrior-ish and meant as a warning when she lunged into the crowd, caring little if she stepped on toes.
Then Tito Ortiz, twelve, and on his way to a brilliant Latin ballroom dancing career if his father would get over the “dancing is for girls” thing and let him, grabbed her hand. “Ms. Mel! Hurry, follow me!” He gave her the last yank she needed to break free. Mel crashed into a cameraman, hissing when their shoulders made hard contact as Tito tugged her to freedom.
She clung to his sweaty hand, tripping on the edge of the sidewalk while trying to keep up. The distinct crunch of her toe, encased in canvas slip-ons, forced her to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from crying out.
“I know a shortcut, Ms. Mel! Run faster, they’re catching up!” he yelled, dodging and ducking until they reached an alleyway she was unfamiliar with. Tito stopped short at the end of it, gasping for breath in unison with Mel.
He took her forearms in his hands and squeezed them. His dark eyes, filled with concern, pierced hers. “You stay here, Ms
. Mel. I’ll get Mama. She’ll bring you home, okay?”
Mel nodded mutely, letting her head fall back on her shoulders while she fought to catch her breath. Her toe throbbed with a hot ache, but it didn’t match the throb of humiliation or the sharp stabs of pain to her heart.
“Wait right here, Ms. Mel. I’ll make sure they don’t find you.”
Tito’s words, so sweet and reassuring, brought her reality into focus.
Stan was schtupping Yelena.
In Wisconsin.
During a cheese fest.
The bastard would pay.
Then a thought hit her. No. He wouldn’t pay. Not in houses and diamonds anyway.
A tear slipped down her cheek. She swiped at it in an angry gesture when it fell into a patch of sunshine pushing its way through the two buildings.
It was such a nice day. Wow. It truly sucked to find out your husband was banging some hard-bodied choreographer on such a nice day.
News like that should only come on rainy days.
“Daddy?” Mel sobbed into her dying cell phone almost ten hours and a hair-raising escape with Tito’s mother from the alleyway later. Hating how weak she sounded, she stiffened her spine and clenched her teeth.
“Ah, pork chop, I thought you’d never call back.”
The gruffly gentle, sympathetic tone of her father’s voice made a fresh batch of tears fight to seep from her eyes. “I think I need to come home now. Do you have room for me and Weezer?”
“I always have room for you, Grape-Nuts. You come on home and we’ll make everything all right. Together. Just like we used to.”
Like they used to. As if a banana-split sundae could make this better. Well, maybe it could. If it had sprinkles. The chocolate ones.
She shook her head at the memory. Her breath shuddered on its way out of her throat, her pride shattered. “I think I need to borrow money to … buy a ticket …”
There was a grunt on the other end, a familiar one of angry discontent. “That sonofabitch!”
Oh, if he only knew the half of the sonofabitch Stan was, Mel thought, taking one last look at her house in the Hills, her locked house in the Hills, before getting into her friend Jackie’s SUV, giving Weezer, her Saint Bernard a nudge into the backseat. “I …” She couldn’t speak.
“You just get to LAX, Mel. I’ll make sure a ticket’s waiting for you and Weez. A ticket and a big hug from your old pop when you get here.”
Mel choked on her gratitude. Jackie grabbed the phone from her.
“Mr. Hodge? It’s Jackie Bellows, Mel’s friend here in L.A. I’ll make sure she gets to the airport, and I’ll have what that asshole left her, which wasn’t much, by the way, shipped to your house. Don’t you worry about anything but catching her at the other end.” Jackie nodded at the phone, then ended the call with a short goodbye.
Mel curled up in the passenger seat, pressing the side of her face to the window while she watched her house turn to a tiny dot among hundreds and simmered.
Jackie reached a hand over the console, squeezing her knee.
“Stan’s a fuckhead-fuckwad.”
Mel nodded. He certainly had the “fuck” part covered— in all contexts of the word.
Jackie shook her head of spiky, platinum blond hair. “You need a good lawyer.”
That got a reaction out of her. “For?”
“He locked you out of your house, Mel, and took the studio away. How can he do that shit? No warning. No nothin’? He just blindsided you. Not okay. Not legal by California law, either. This is a community property state. You need a lawyer to straighten this out.”
Mel let her head sink to her hands. Where had this come from?
Stan might not have been the most supportive, loving husband in the world, but he’d never been cruel.
Jackie slapped her hand against the steering wheel. “But it is legal— if you signed a prenup, that is. You didn’t …”
Oh, but she had. “I did. At the beginning of our marriage. I thought you knew that.”
“Then we got trouble.”
Mel’s smile was watery and grim. “Right here in River City.”
“You could always come stay with us, Mel. We have plenty of room.” And they did. Jackie and Frank had eight thousand square feet, a guesthouse, four kids, two rabbits, a snake, five dogs, and a tarantula. All on three glorious acres.
Helpless rage sank to the pit of her stomach. “And do what? I have nothing, Jackie. No money. No job skills. I don’t suppose you know of anyone hiring chubby one-time ballroom and Latin champions, do you?”
Jackie grunted at her. “You let that shit make you think you’re fat. I’ve only told you a thousand times, Mel. You’re not fat. But Stan is a fathead. Yes, that fucker is.”
Yes. That fucker was.
“And you don’t have to work, honey. It’s not like we’d charge you rent. It’s not like we’re not filthy rich, you know. Why don’t you just come to the house— let me baby you for a little while. I’ll make pasta alla vodka,” she cajoled, mentioning one of Mel’s favorite dishes. “In the meantime, maybe Frank can talk to one of his lawyer buddies while they play the stupidest game on earth, golf, and we can figure out a way to squeeze something out of Stan’s pocket. Nothing’s ironclad anymore.”
She used the corner of the collar on her sweater to wipe more tears from her eyes. “I think I just need to see my dad, Jackie. But I appreciate the offer.” No way was she leeching off her rich friend while she hunted for a job at Target and planned Stan’s homicide. The fewer people involved in the crime, the less she’d have to worry for their safety.
“I can’t believe he put his shit out there on national TV like that. I didn’t like Stan from the moment I met you two, and you know it, but I never thought he’d do something this craptacular.”
That much was true. Jackie had never hit it off with Stan when they’d met at a function twelve years ago for a children’s cancer charity. She hadn’t been afraid to share that they’d never do couple things together, but she and Mel had been almost inseparable since.
“Do me a favor, would you?” Mel asked her friend.
“Just ask.”
“You’ll probably travel in the same circles as Stan, you know, being married to a big television producer. The next time you see Stan at some party or charity event, flip him the bird for me. In fact, use both hands when you do it.”
As they pulled into LAX, Jackie growled, “You got it, BFF. Now you do me a favor?”
“Because I have so many to give.”
“Don’t rule out coming back to L.A. Living with your dad in a retirement village is not the place for a forty-something, beautiful woman who has hips that should have been registered as lethal weap-ons back in the day. I’m just not a Jersey, The Situation, Snooki kind of girl. New York I can do— there’s shopping. But I’m not sure I love you enough to fly to Jersey just so we can grab a hamburger and mar-garitas at some diner for BFF night.” Jackie followed her joke with a warm grin.
Mel wanted to chuckle. She just couldn’t. “I’d say I’m hurt, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing left on me to hurt.” Mel popped open the door before Jackie could feel any sorrier for her, reaching back in to grab Weezer’s leash and her wallet. The first step she took made her teeth clench.
Jackie was out and around the car in seconds, wrapping her slender arms around Mel’s neck. The scent of her perfume made more tears sting Mel’s eyes. “Make sure you ice that toe— it’s broken. It’s broken because of that fuckly fucker,” she snarled.
“It’ll be fine. I’ve broken worse than a toe before.”
“Yeah, but now you’re old and fat. Takes longer to heal,” Jackie joked.
Mel gave her one more squeeze, forcing back the bitter flow of tears threatening to fall. “Thanks, Jackie. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come to check on me.”
Jackie leaned down and gave Weezer’s big head a scratch. “You take care of Mommy, ’kay, pal?” Then she whipped a
round, her finger pointed. “And you,” she yelled to a man, hovering in the departures area with a camera around his neck. “If you take that picture, you’ll find out how yoga gives this woman a strong core.” Turning back to Mel, she said, “Hurry up and get out of here before I have to embarrass Frank all over Tinsel Town.”
Mel gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll call you.”
“You’d better.”
She gave Weezer’s leash a tug, hobbling behind him before turning one last time to wave goodbye to Jackie.
And every single thing in her life as she knew it.
CHAPTER TWO
Six months later . . .
“Myriam Hernandez!” Mel skidded to a halt at the exit door of Leisure Village South’s rec center, wincing when her still-sore toe caught on one of the vacant chairs left at table number nine. Her breathing was irregular, and her heart beat a dance in her chest so harsh, she thought it might pound out of her.
She really needed to build her endurance back up— or maybe actually move occasionally. When a seventy-year-old could beat you in a sprint from one end of the room to the other, it was time to reevaluate your mattress time versus your upright and awake time.
Taking a gulp of air, she bellowed, “Myriam!”
Myriam’s silver head cocked at the sound of Mel’s voice for only a moment, clearly considering an escape route, then she made a break to pop open the door and flee her bad behavior.
But Mel was too quick for her. She planted herself in front of the steel door on a stumbling skid, crossing her arms over her chest, and cocking an eyebrow in inquiry.
Myriam gave her a brief guilty look, but her thinning, coral-glossed lips said she knew her sharp tongue was going to have to atone. She narrowed her dark eyes at Mel, preparing her defense.
“Who was it? Damn Nancys, the lot of them,” she grumbled.
“You mean who nearly knocked me over to tell me your latest madcap entry to the Pillage and Plunder Diaries?”
Myriam grunted, her smile begrudgingly tinted with a hint of admiration. “You’re funny.”
Waltz This Way (v1.1) Page 2