Another peanut followed the first into my mouth, the resulting chew squirting in beautiful salty goodness. “Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is Codia. Cole and Nadia are the glue that holds our picture perfect world together. The glittery ideal that we all strive to become. They are at the center of our world and the forefront of the public’s eye. They buy each other extravagant gifts, have ridiculously hot sex, and vacation on yachts in St. Barths. Codia can’t fall apart, they can’t get divorced, they can’t even squabble over dinner reservations! And they certainly can’t have Cole attempt murder on Nadia’s lover!” His voice squeaked, and I saw, for the first time in four-and-a-half months, a break in the perfect landscape that was his forehead.
I pointed a finger in wonder. “I think you have a wrinkle.”
“What?”
“On your forehead. When you were just yammering on about Cadia. Your forehead actually moved.”
“Codia. Not Cadia. Codia.” His chair shot away from the table, my internet performance forgotten, his smooth-soled shoes heading to the bathroom in search of a mirror.
“Whateveria,” I mumbled, stepping to the fridge to grab the sweet tea. I refilled my own and then poured him a glass, setting it down with purpose next to his energy drink. I didn’t care if it happened the last day of his visit. The man would, eventually, drink my sweet tea and love it. Ben stepped from the bathroom, his hand on his forehead, his face irritated. I waited until he sat down before I spoke.
“I got a call from the sheriff.”
Aww… the cute little wrinkle reappeared. “About?” he asked anxiously.
“Cole Masten. Jeff’s worried he’s violent. Doesn’t want him in our town. He’s gotten some calls from voters.”
“Voters?” The wrinkle deepened, and I fought back a smile.
“It’s an elected position. Being sheriff, I mean. Votes are everything, especially in an election year.”
“Which, I assume, this is.”
“Yep.”
“Of course it is.” He groaned. “Of all the things I worried about, Cole Masten’s risk to townsfolk was never one of them.”
“The sheriff’s not as worried about our townsfolk’s safety as…” I shifted against the counter and found a new position.
“As what?” His hand closed around the tea glass, and I mentally urged him on.
“Well.” I shrugged. “This is a carry state. We value our personal safety. I think he’s a little concerned your Californian Golden Boy is going to get himself shot.”
The glass of tea froze halfway to his lips. He coughed out a laugh, then smiled cautiously. “You’re kidding.”
“I am definitely not kidding.”
“You can’t shoot Cole Masten. No one is shooting Cole Masten.” He stood as if he was going to defend Cole himself, the base of the tea glass hitting the table, a splash of it coming out. Well damn.
“Well, sure. As long as he isn’t running around hurting people. But you might want to have a chat with him. Let him know these country bumpkins are armed.”
“Nobody just ‘has a chat’ with Cole. He has layers of people to go through for that.”
“Well, then.” I waved my hand. “Tell all those people.”
Ben stared at me for a long moment, a twitch in his jaw jumping.
“You want dinner?” I finally asked. “I’m making fried catfish.”
“Yes.” The word was out of his lips before I even named the meal. I turned back to the fridge, the furious tempo of his fingers against keys resuming. The poor man. I swore, at the way he scrambled for food, I didn’t think, prior to Quincy, he’d ever been properly fed.
CHAPTER 14
When you spend half a decade of your life with someone, the ending should occur in a personal fashion. Face to face, hand in hand. Words spoken out of lips kissed, tears shed on seen cheeks. It shouldn’t be easy; it should be painful and honest; it should take hours instead of minutes; it should involve yells and cries and discussions, but it should be substantial. A moment thought over and worked out. Not the casual and simple act of a stranger handing over a legal envelope.
Cole was in the downstairs gym when it came, on his back, his arms straining upward, his third set almost done when the door opened. He stared at the ceiling, and worked through the remaining reps, his breath huffing out on each upward press, his mind thinking through what he would say, and how he would say it. The apology, that was what he was stuck on. Was an apology required when he injured someone who she was fucking? It wasn’t just the fucking that was the problem. Fucking wasn’t allowed, but it was understandable, the animalistic need of one body to couple with another, a million years of survival instincts pushing through veins eager to procreate. The issue was that this hadn’t been just fucking. This had been a relationship, an affair. Cole had heard her tell that prick that she loved him. That was the problem. And a hundred sets weren’t fixing the problem. He racked the barbell and sat up. Looked right, his bare chest heaving, he was surprised to see a man in the doorway. Not Nadia after all. All that deliberation over what to say, for nothing.
“What?” he called out, his voice echoing slightly in the big space.
“I’m with Benford, Casters, and Sunnerberg, Mr. Masten.” Way too many names stacked in one short sentence. Cole wiped his forehead warily and saw his assistant standing behind the man, his face tight.
“And?”
“I’m just dropping this off.” He held out a crisp white folder¸ COLE MASTEN stamped on the front as if born that way, the folder thick enough to contain a hundred headaches. A lawsuit. Probably from that prick director. He was surprised it had taken this long. It’d been almost four days since that night. He nodded to Justin, and his assistant sprang forward.
“I’ll take it.”
“We’ll just need your signature of acceptance, Mr. Masten,” the stranger said.
Cole held out a hand and accepted the clipboard and pen, his hand damp when it gripped the instrument, his signature sloppy across the bottom of the receipt. He held it out, ignoring the man’s words of thanks. Leaning back on the bench, his hands wrapping around the iron, his palms bit into the grip.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Justin spoke from the doorway.
He didn’t lift his head, didn’t look away from the ceiling. “Let Tony handle it. Settle with the prick.”
“It’s from Nadia.”
That caused his head to lift, and he ducked out from under the bar, his eyes meeting Justin’s. “The package?” Reality didn’t come in a sudden burst of understanding; it was a slow dawn. Not a lawsuit. If not a lawsuit then… “No.” He shook his head. “No.”
“I haven’t opened it, but…”
“She’s just mad. Embarrassed. Hell, I don’t know how cheating wives feel. But she wouldn’t have…” He pushed to his feet, grabbing the envelope out of Justin’s hands, his fingers ripping at the seal, pulling out the thick stack of documents, stapled together at the top, the court’s stamp already present, crooked in its imprint, as if this life changing document hadn’t been worth a straight stamp. Jesus, the paps would have it by now, the news, his agent… he flipped the first page over. “Has Owen called yet?” Owen Phiss, his publicist. Also Nadia’s publicist. Christ, how intertwined could two lives be? He thrust the papers at Justin and stepped away, his hands clenching into fists, his mind trying to sort through too many emotions at once, the wave of them competing for the narrow channel that was his sanity.
“Call Tony. Get him that.” Tony Fragetti, his attorney. An entertainment attorney, not necessarily the strongest card right now. Yet Tony—like everything else in this house, in this life—was also Nadia’s. “Stop.” Justin paused, his cell phone out, and looked up. “Wait.” Cole walked to the wall and put his palms on the surface, his fingers pushing into the padded wall covering, and he wondered, if he punched it, what would break. He let out a long, controlled breath.
“Don’t do anything.” When the words f
inally came, they had purpose and direction, and he pushed off the wall and walked to the door, grabbing his water bottle off the floor and finishing it off. “I’m going to find Nadia.”
CHAPTER 15
Yes, for a girl like me, twenty thousand dollars was a lot. The most money I had ever seen. Enough for a ticket out of this town, enough to get my own place far from here, in a city that didn’t crown a Peanut Princess every August. Twenty thousand was enough for me to buy a reliable car, some clothes with new tags on them, an education. But after careful financial calculations done, it wasn’t enough, not to properly set up Mama in a new place, one with a rent payment and deposit. I stood in the kitchen and watched her iron and wondered if I could really leave her. Pack my bags and kiss her cheek goodbye. Wondered how much of her support was a farce, and how much was real.
I needed more out of Hollywood. As much as I could get. I grabbed my keys off the ring and a Cherry Coke from the fridge. “I’m running into town,” I called to her. “Gonna track down Ben. I’ll be back later.”
She waved, a smile crossing her face, her eyes darting back to the tricky collar of the shirt before her.
Ben and I were almost done. The spots had all been picked, fields cleared for set construction, the old Piggly Wiggly parking lot rented for the trailers. Quincy didn’t have enough lodging, the crew and cast booking up every hotel room in the surrounding five cities—Tallahassee only forty-five minutes away. But forty-five minutes, according to Ben, was too far, so the Piggly Wiggly lot was now a mini-city, RVs and trailers stacked so close together it looked like a refugee camp, if a refugee camp had million-dollar RVs. It was hilarious. It was entertaining. And it was exciting. Really exciting. I had shook hands next to Ben, examined shooting schedules and saw budgets, rent figures and payouts of sums that made my jaw drop. It was a world I had never known, never expected to know, but was suddenly in the middle of, stubbornly stuck to Ben’s side like a tick that wouldn’t give up. And he didn’t try to pull me away. He needed my connections as much as I needed the excitement. We prepped and prepared for August, and I anticipated it with fevered excitement and also dreaded its arrival because that meant our work would be done, and I would once again be an outsider, my nose pressed against the glass, watching the ball with no ticket to attend.
There were five weeks left. I needed a ticket. It was time to lean on Ben.
He opened the door in a bathrobe; the sash pulled tight, my eyes went to the monogrammed design on his breast before giggling.
“Shut up,” he intoned, spinning on a heel and moving into the room, taking a seat at the desk, my hand carefully swinging the door shut behind me. Ethel Raine owns the Raine House, a matriarch who considers powerful sneezes as noise disruptions worthy of eviction.
“I just find it amusing that—when packing for Quincy—you thought elegant loungewear was needed.” I smirked, launching myself on his meticulously made bed.
“And I thought the rule of the South was to call first,” he pointed out, raising a carefully plucked brow at me.
“Well, you singlehandedly ruined that tradition,” I said, picking out one of his pillows and stuffing it behind my head. “I didn’t want you to be alone in your offensive sea of faux pas.”
“How gracious of you,” he drawled in his best Southern imitation.
“It’s true, I am a lady.” I dipped my head. “Speaking of which, how is local casting going?”
He took the abrupt topic change in stride. “Already spent your cash?”
I shrugged, rolling on my side. “Just wanting more of it.”
“A company out of Atlanta is casting the filler parts. Grabbing authentic country bumpkins from up there.”
I made a face at him. “I should have clarified. I need a job, not a role.”
“Do you have any experience? With lighting, camera work, costumes?” He groaned when I shook my head. “Didn’t you work on a school play at least?”
“Nope.” I rolled to a sitting position. “Keep thinking.”
“Let me call Eileen Kahl this afternoon, once California gets up and moving. See what she has.”
“Who’s she?”
“The AD. Assistant Director,” he added, at my blank look. “But it’s probably too late in the game, Summer.”
“I’ll fetch coffee, do laundry, anything,” I drawled, kicking my feet out from the bed.
“I’m gonna remember that when you call me, bitching about picking up Cole Masten’s used underwear.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Okay. Forget the laundry position. Though…” I said thoughtfully. “I bet a Cole Masten authentic used brief would fetch a hundred bucks on eBay. I could start a side business: The Cole Masten Gently-Used Underwear Store. Free shipping on all orders!” I imitated Ben’s sparkly hands, and he raised his eyebrows primly at me, as if he was uber sophisticated and above all of my adolescent activities.
“Oh please.” I rolled my eyes. “You know you’ll miss me in Vancouver.” I hated to bring it up, had avoided thinking about Ben leaving, the writing on the wall beginning to taint our time together. We were almost done. He’d have no need to stay once filming began. I remembered our initial meeting, the conversation in our kitchen. Five months of his time, he had said. Five months that was almost up.
He surprised me by coming over and hugging me, his grip surprisingly strong. “Promise me that you’ll bathe daily. And wash your face. And use that Dior mascara that I gave you.”
I pushed him off with a laugh. “I’ve got five more weeks with you. Plenty of time for you to compile a better list of guilty promises to swear me to.”
He smiled and tightened the cinch of his robe. “Want to hit Jimmy’s for lunch?”
I stood. “Sure. I’ll go and grab us a table. Let you get…” I waved a hand at his outfit. “Dressed.”
He mocked my hand wave. “Done.”
I tossed my Cherry Coke in the trash and left. I would miss Ben. I would miss our job. I would miss the excitement and energy of Something New and Different. I didn’t want to go back to a life where my most exciting moments were when the next Baldacci novel released.
I jogged down the staircase and smiled at Ethel Raine, a woman who had warmed tremendously to me after Ben and I reserved every room in her B&B for the next five months. The rooms here would be for the Directors, Assistant Directors, Producers, and Production Manager and Designers—the key people who deserved more than a bunk bed but didn’t deserve an entire house like Cole Masten and Minka Price, for which we’ve rented out the Kirklands’ and Wilsons’ homes. Minka Price—if she didn’t succeed in backing out of the project—was bringing her family, so she got the more ‘comfortable’ of the two homes. We had prepared/hoped/squealed for Cole Masten to bring Nadia Smith but, from the latest issue of STAR, I no longer expected that to happen. They were as done as our Waffle King after the Cow Incident of ‘97.
“Is it normal?” I asked Ben, biting into one of Jimmy’s subs. The secret to a successful Jimmy’s experience is to befriend his wife, Jill. I coughed over a first cigarette with Jill, decorated the homecoming float next to her, lent and borrowed tampons in times of distress. I was in, no questions asked. Ben… it took him a few months of properly coached ass-kissing and attention-giving. Now, at the last leg of his stay, he got the best cuts, could call in an order on his way, and was allowed to sit at one of the window tables. Fancy stuff.
“Is what normal?” Ben responded, loudly sucking on his sweet tea’s straw. Yes, sweet tea. I had actually converted him into a human being.
“A star trying to quit a movie this late in the game. We start filming in less than a month—doesn’t it seem like…” My sentence trailed off in the face of an overdramatic amount of shushing coming from Ben. He glanced around furtively as if the CIA was trying to listen in.
“Not here,” he hissed.
I took my own loud suck of straw, shaking the ice in the cup as I did so, frustrated. But Ben was right. Everyone in Quincy was straining their d
elicate ears to get every bit of information they could about the movie. You wouldn’t believe the stupid things I was overhearing:
“Did you know that Minka dyes her hair blonde? She’s a natural redhead… that’s what Emma Statton said, and she might be hired to do makeup.”
“I heard the movie’s big scene at the end involves an explosion, and the Miller plantation is going to be blown up. Trace Beenson ordered the dynamite yesterday for it. Four tons of TNT.”
“I just heard from my sister’s dentist that Cole Masten and his wife are swingers. The Kirklands’ place is gonna be like that Playboy Mansion up in California. Johnny said Mr. Masten’s requested to have a stripper pole installed.”
There was so much bullshit flying around that our flies were confused. Every once in a while, I’d hear something with a grain of truth in it, but it was rare. The Fortune Bottle was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to any of us. And I—I was seeing a little of my black curtain of disgrace lifted. Random girls had been calling up ‘just to chat’ and ‘God, we’ve missed you.’ Ghosts of my past wanting to reconnect, their hidden motivations clear. This town had grown up and forgotten me, my actions from three years ago putting me firmly in the We Don’t Know Her pile. Summer Jenkins, voted Most Friendly, class of 2005? That girl got buried after high school. When the ‘smart kids’ went off to college, when the farm boys moved into the family business, when the cheerleaders and Home Ec princesses got married and had babies, I floated, lost in the wind of this town. When I scored Scott Thompson, my stock had shot way up. When it fell, I landed in the town’s bad graces and stayed there, a small piece of Quincy that got looked over. Sure, everyone had always acted friendly, chatted with me in line at the IGA, asked about Mama, complimented my baked beans at Sunday church dinner, but any calls, any friendships, any social engagements had petered off years ago and stopped completely after the Disaster of 2012.