Damage Control

by Jae

  “Then come on.” Lauren pointed to one of the cafés lining a square.

  “Are you sure we can still get something to eat at this hour?”

  “This is Paris. People eat pretty late here.” Lauren asked the waiter for a table on the outside terrace.

  Glad to sit, Grace stretched out her legs beneath the small table. She looked around, charmed by the atmosphere. On the square, crowds were gathering, and street performers were playing the pan flute and strumming a soft melody on a guitar.

  Lauren looked over the menu, which at this hour was limited. “Oh, you should try the croque-madame. It’s like a grilled cheese and ham sandwich, just better.”

  Grace’s stomach growled its approval, but she shook her head and looked at their choices of salads. “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on.” Lauren gave her a gentle nudge. “We’re in France. You need to try some of the local food and broaden your horizons.”

  “You mean broaden my waistline.”

  Before Grace could make a final choice, an ooh and aah went through the crowd on the square.

  Grace looked up from the menu. Her breath caught. The Eiffel Tower was sparkling with thousands of lights that blinked on and off. A beacon on top of the tower sent out two light beams in opposite directions, sweeping the sky over Paris. The spectacle lasted for several minutes. When the glittering finally stopped, Grace turned toward Lauren. “You know, for a woman who refuses to write love stories, you’re pretty romantic.”

  “No, I’m not. I just thought you might enjoy it. So, do you want to share the croque-madame?”

  Grace sighed and gave in. Lauren wasn’t just a romantic, she was also pretty hard to resist. If Grace were gay, she might really be in trouble.

  They paused in front of the door to Grace’s suite. Key card already in hand, Grace turned and looked at Lauren. “Thank you for kidnapping me. It was a wonderful evening.” Her eyes shone.

  Lauren could tell she wasn’t acting now. She’d really enjoyed their adventure, and so had Lauren. She hadn’t wanted the evening to end, and they had lingered over dessert—crème brûlée for her and fruit salad for Grace—until the café closed. “No need to thank me. I enjoyed it too.”

  They looked at each other.

  This was starting to feel like a date, with neither of them knowing how to say good-bye. It’s not, so just say good night and leave, idiot. Lauren shuffled her feet. “Well, then, good night.”

  “Good night. Sleep well.” Grace hesitated, then leaned up and kissed Lauren’s cheek before sliding the key card through the lock and disappearing into the dark suite.

  Lauren stood staring at the closed door. Slowly, she lifted her hand and touched her overly warm cheek. What the heck was that? She shook herself out of her daze. Just a simple kiss on the cheek, a gesture of gratitude, nothing more. But as she walked toward her room, she trailed her fingertips over her cheek, where she could still feel Grace’s lips.

  Grace leaned with her back against the closed door and lifted her fingers to her tingling lips. She scolded herself for giving in to that spontaneous impulse. What if she was giving Lauren the wrong signals?

  Calm down. She’d kissed Jill on the cheek many times, even after finding out that she was gay, and Jill had never mistaken it for anything more than what it was—a gesture between friends. But kissing Lauren had felt different from kissing Jill.

  She pressed her hands against her temples as if that would stop the thoughts. Exhaustion swept over her, making her lean against the door more heavily. She couldn’t deal with this now. It was probably just stress, lack of sleep, and all that talk about Lauren possibly being interested in her that made her so hyperaware of her interactions with Lauren. Reading that Central Precinct fan fiction hadn’t helped either.

  Without turning on the lights, she tiptoed across the living area so she wouldn’t wake her mother.

  The lights flared on before she could reach the safety of her room.

  One hand pressed to her chest, Grace whirled around.

  Her mother sat in the armchair, dressed in her nightgown and a bathrobe. Now she rose and walked toward Grace. All the Botox in the world couldn’t hide the frown on her face.

  Grace suddenly felt like a teenager who’d stayed out after curfew and had been caught sneaking back home. She tried to remind herself that she was an adult woman with the right to do whatever she wanted, but she couldn’t help feeling guilty.

  “What were you doing out at this hour? I was scared to death when you weren’t back at midnight!”

  “Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”

  “Obviously, you didn’t, or you wouldn’t go out alone in the middle of the night, in a city you don’t know!” Her mother was shaking, but Grace wasn’t sure if it was caused by rage or fear.

  “Please calm down. I wasn’t alone. Lauren was with me. We just went to see the Eiffel Tower. That’s all.”

  If she’d thought that would soothe her mother’s concerns, she couldn’t have been more wrong. “So that was the ‘interview’ Ms. Pearce told me about.”

  Grace lowered her gaze to the carpet. She wasn’t proud of lying to her mother. Well, strictly speaking, it had been Lauren doing the lying, but Grace knew she wouldn’t have told her mother either, even if she’d known where Lauren intended to take her. “I’m sorry for not telling you, Mom.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Because I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

  “Darn right. I don’t like it one bit. You should be here in Paris, enjoying the city of love and the great reviews of your movie with your husband, not with…with that woman.”

  At her tone of voice when talking about Lauren, anger sparked inside of Grace. She struggled to keep her voice down. “Nick is shooting in LA, and he won’t be my husband for much longer. You know that. And that woman is my publicist—and my friend.”

  “Well, if you enjoyed spending time with Nick as much as you apparently do spending time with that so-called friend, then maybe Nick wouldn’t be your soon-to-be ex-husband,” her mother said. “I always thought there was something strange about your marriage. You kept using your schedule and Nick’s as a convenient excuse not to spend time together. I would give anything to be able to spend just one more minute with your father, but you…”

  The rare reference to her father distracted Grace, so it took her several moments to realize what her mother had just said. “You knew I wasn’t happy in my marriage? You knew and yet you never said one word, never asked me how I’m doing?”

  Now it was her mother’s turn to study the carpet. “I wasn’t sure, and it’s not my place to interfere with your marriage.”

  Since when? Grace almost asked. Such concerns had certainly never stopped her mother from interfering with her life before. She bit her lip, afraid what would happen if she started speaking openly. Something told her that it might start an avalanche that could ruin her relationship with her only remaining parent forever.

  Her mother pulled her to the small sofa and sat next to her. “What’s going on with you, darling?” She smoothed a strand of hair back from Grace’s face.

  Grace leaned into the motherly caress for a moment before pulling back. “What do you mean?”

  “You lied to me. You left a party full of important people who could be essential to your career…just to do some sightseeing with…with Ms. Pearce. I don’t understand.”

  If she tried to see it through her mother’s eyes, Grace wasn’t sure she understood it either. Her career had always been the most important thing in the world to her, more important even than her marriage. That was why she’d never seen the Eiffel Tower before. She’d been too busy working, attending red-carpet events, and schmoozing with the movers and shakers of the entertainment industry. Yet when Lauren had whisked her
away from the after-party, she had followed her without much hesitation. “I don’t know, Mom. Maybe…maybe my priorities are changing.”

  Her mother regarded her with an alarmed expression. “Changing? How? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Grace said again. “Maybe it’s the upcoming divorce or Jill’s diagnosis or turning thirty that made me think about my life for the first time.” She gave a little laugh that sounded fake, even to herself. “Maybe I’m going through an early midlife crisis.”

  Instead of lecturing her about her priorities, as Grace had halfway expected, her mother surprised her by taking both of Grace’s hands into hers. “Whatever it is, I’m here to help you deal with it, okay?”

  Sudden tears burned in Grace’s eyes. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just nodded.

  Her mother rubbed her hands and stood. “Now go to bed. We have a plane to catch early tomorrow morning.”

  When the bedroom door clicked shut behind her mother, Grace slumped against the back of the sofa, trying to keep up with all the emotions this evening had brought and failing miserably. Maybe she’d slipped in and out of too many roles over the years, and now she felt like a stranger in her own life.

  She shook her head at herself. It was two o’clock in the morning, after a week of not enough sleep. Hardly the perfect time to reflect on her life. She forced her tired body up from the sofa. Her midlife crisis or whatever it was would have to wait until after Ava’s Heart had been released.

  CHAPTER 22

  Lauren pretended to pick some morsels from the buffet table while she eavesdropped on a conversation between two film critics who’d just attended the premiere in Los Angeles.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d find her believable as a farmer,” one of them said.

  The other chuckled. “I know what you mean. With a body and a face like hers… That’s just not how I imagine a farmer from Georgia.”

  Lauren gritted her teeth. People might think that Grace’s looks had paved the way for her in Hollywood, but in truth, the way she looked made it difficult to be taken seriously—as more than just a pretty face and a hot body.

  “But by the end, I really bought it,” the film critic said.

  Now more relaxed, Lauren filled her plate and looked around to find Grace and tell her the good news. Instead, she found Jill, who leaned against the other end of the buffet table, looking as if she were about to fall face-first into the shrimp cocktail.

  Lauren put her plate down and hurried over. “Jill? Are you all right?”

  Jill straightened and smiled. “I’m fine.”

  “Sure. And I’m a Catholic nun.”

  “I’m really all right, Sister Lauren.”

  “You don’t look all right,” Lauren said.

  “You need to work on the way you’re complimenting women.”

  Grace joined them as if sensing that something wasn’t right with her friend. “Everything okay? You don’t look so good, Jill.”

  A groan escaped Jill. “Not you too. I’m a little tired. That’s all.”

  “Come on.” Grace wrapped one arm around her and tried to lead her to the exit. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Let me do it,” Lauren said. “Your mother will have my head if I let you leave another after-party early.”

  “Don’t I get a say?” Jill asked.

  “No,” Lauren and Grace said at the same time. They grinned at each other. Lauren added, “I need you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Good Morning America tomorrow.”

  Jill grumbled but finally gave in. “All right. I’ll try to be bright-eyed, but I refuse to be bushy-tailed.”

  “We’ll talk about it on the way to your house.” Lauren turned toward Grace, trying to ignore the little jolt she felt every time she looked at her. Any lesbian would react to the sight of Grace in the emerald-green, strapless cocktail dress she’d chosen for the LA premiere. Oh, yeah? Jill doesn’t seem to have a problem keeping her eyes off Grace. “Don’t stay too late either.”

  “I won’t. I’ll try to make an escape in half an hour max.”

  Jill hugged her friend, and after a moment’s hesitation, Lauren followed suit, managing to keep it short and not give in to the pull of gravity her body seemed to experience whenever Grace was near.

  Even when they finally stepped outside, she could still smell Grace’s perfume and feel her warmth imprinted on her body. This is work. Focus. As soon as they had settled on the backseat of a limousine and were on the way to Glendale, she pulled out her phone and reviewed the schedule for the next few days.

  Good Morning America tomorrow. Then The Today Show and the premiere in New York City the day after. Once the movie was released to the general public this weekend, things would hopefully settle down a little.

  “I bet that thing is very popular with your girlfriends,” Jill said, breaking the silence in the back of the limousine.

  Lauren looked up. “Excuse me?”

  “That thing.” Jill gestured at the cell phone in Lauren’s hand. “I bet your girlfriends don’t appreciate playing second fiddle to it.”

  For a moment, Lauren considered giving just a noncommittal shrug, but she knew such personal details about Jill’s life that it didn’t seem fair to just brush her off. “What can I say? I’m much better at building relationships with the press than with women.”

  “Have you ever tried to change that?”

  Lauren dropped the phone to her lap. “Not really. I guess I just haven’t—”

  The phone started ringing.

  “Um.” Lauren itched to pick it up or at least check who was calling, but she didn’t want to prove Jill’s point, so she let it go to voice mail.

  Seconds later, the phone rang again.

  “I guess it’s important,” Lauren said.

  Jill nodded at her to go ahead.

  Half turning to face away from Jill, Lauren checked the caller ID and grimaced. Her boss calling her at this hour couldn’t be good. She lifted the phone to her ear. “Hi, Marlene. What can I do for you?”

  “Did you see the gossip blogs?” Marlene asked.

  “No. I was at the premiere and then the after-party with Ms. Durand and Ms. Corrigan. Is something going on I should know about?”

  “Hollywood Affairs just posted another article about Ms. Durand,” Marlene said, ratcheting up Lauren’s tension another notch. “Apparently, Mr. Sinclair’s new girlfriend couldn’t keep her mouth shut. One of her friends leaked the divorce to the press.”

  Shit, shit, shit. Lauren pummeled the leather seat with her free hand.

  “What happened?” Jill mouthed.

  Lauren held up one finger, signaling her to give her a minute. “What else does the press know?”

  Marlene laughed without any humor. “What don’t they know? They emphasize the being-left-for-a-younger-woman angle; they know that the girlfriend is a dancer…and that she’s pregnant with his baby.”

  This time, Lauren cursed out loud. “I’ve got to call Grace right now and warn her before she leaves the party. Update you later.” Not waiting for her boss’s reply, she ended the call and lowered the privacy screen while dialing Grace’s number with the other hand. “Turn around,” she said to the driver.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “You want me to—?”

  “Turn around and drive us back to the party,” Lauren shouted. “Now!”

  Grace’s relief at getting her mother to leave the party early lasted for exactly one minute. The moment she exited the expensive hotel, strobe flashes went off all around them, blinding her. She raised one hand to shield her eyes. “Come on, guys. Didn’t you get enough photos of me earlier?”

  The paparazzi continued snapping pictures. They pushed and shoved each other, trying to get the best vantage point. These weren’t the w
ell-dressed photographers who’d been at the premiere. This bunch wore jeans and looked hungry for pictures they could sell.

  There was even a camera crew shoving a microphone into her face.

  They were shouting questions, and it took Grace several moments to make any sense of the cacophony of voices and understand what they were asking.

  “How do you feel about the baby?” the loudest reporter shouted.

  “When will the divorce be final?”

  “Is there something going on with Jill after all? Is that why he left you?”

  “Is it true that she’s expecting twins?”

  Grace froze in her tracks. An icy hand closed around her heart and squeezed. Oh God. They know. They know everything.

  Her mother grabbed her arm and tried to push and shove her way to the limousine waiting nearby.

  The paparazzi didn’t budge.

  “Let us through, tabloid rabble!” Her mother swung her purse as if wanting to club them with it. “If you don’t get out of our way, I’ll make sure none of you take as much as a photo of a cockroach ever again!”

  “Hey, Grace,” one of the paparazzi shouted. “Is his bitchy mother-in-law the reason Nick wanted a divorce?”

  The others laughed.

  Grace pressed her teeth together so tightly she thought her molars would shatter. She wished Lauren were here to help her deal with this craziness.

  The limousine driver must have realized what was happening. He backed up toward them, forcing the paparazzi to scatter.

  Grace and her mother made a run for the limo. She shut the door as fast as she could. Her heart pounded so hard against her chest that it took her a moment to realize that it wasn’t just her thrumming heartbeat—the photographers and reporters were slapping their hands against the glass, the force of their bodies making the limo wobble. With trembling hands, she reached for the seat belt and buckled up before gesturing at her mother to do the same.