Born Under a Lucky Moon (25 page)

“Yes,” I said as I pushed on toward Grandma.

“She's trying to catch a cold,” someone yelled after me, “but she's not running fast enough!”

Very funny. I saw an opening in the crowd and made a break through it. I was yelling her name now. “Pearl! Pearl! Come back here!” My face was bright red, and it wasn't from exertion. She looked over her shoulder and caught sight of me, but instead of stopping, she sped up. Grandma's wheelchair clipped a table ahead of me and knocked it over. Paper cups and lemonade went flying, and two little girls started crying. When their moms ran over to see what was wrong, the girls pointed at my grandmother. “That mean, naked lady knocked over our stand.”

The red and white paper tablecloth from the stand was now entangled in the wheelchair. Grandma, seeing I was gaining on her, stood up and moved faster than I have ever seen her move. Boobs flopping, butt swaying, she ran toward the only open space, the street. If she kept going, she was in danger of being run over by the fire truck leading the parade. Forgetting my complete embarrassment, I darted and dodged through the crowd even faster. I had gone from thinking I would be teased unmercifully for the rest of my life to thinking I was going to be responsible for letting my grandmother get squashed by a fire truck.

“Please, someone stop her,” I yelled out. A few men standing on the curb glanced over and saw the commotion. One of them jogged over and grabbed Grandma by the wrist. They struggled long enough for the fire truck to pass by without incident. But then Grandma twisted away from him and ran into the baton twirlers who were leading the band. She bumped into one short-skirted, tassel-booted, glittery girl, who dropped her baton. Like a trouper, the girl picked it up, glued her smile back on, and proceeded up the street. The rest of the parade parted to go around my grandmother, who was frozen in the middle of the street.

“Excuse me,” I said to a group seated around a picnic table as I swept aside paper plates and plastic forks. “I need this.” I pulled the paper tablecloth off and took it with me into the street and wrapped it around my grandma. She was shivering. Mindless of the band that was making its way around either side of us, I rocked her back and forth as I'd seen my father do to my mother. I lay my head on top of hers. “It's okay,” I soothed. Someone had retrieved her wheelchair and, in a break in the parade, raced it out to us.

“Thank you,” I murmured as I lowered my grandmother into her chair, careful to keep the tablecloth wrapped around her. With my head held high, I wheeled her to a side street and headed for home. When I opened the gate to push the wheelchair through, Tom came running to help me.

“Is she all right?” He looked down at her, concerned.

“I think so.” I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “She's pretty shaken up and I'm not sure she knows where she is.”

Tom took command and pushed her up the ramp. Then he lifted her, still wrapped in the tablecloth, out of the chair and carried her upstairs. I followed and, after gesturing to Tom to leave the bedroom, helped Grandma swing her legs up and into bed. I threw the tablecloth into the bathroom wastebasket. After making sure she was asleep, I went back outside. “Thanks, Tom,” I said.

“No problem,” he said. He took his hat off and rubbed his head while he looked out over the garden. “One day we all might be in that situation. I just hope my family is around to help out like yours.”

I sat down cross-legged in the grass and plucked a dandelion puff that Tom had missed. “You don't think we're all crazy?”

“I didn't say you weren't all crazy. But I've never seen a family pull for each other so much. That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.”

“Sometimes I think it's actually a curse,” I said, staring at the grass.

“Then think of it as a warm and comforting curse.” Tom ruffled my hair and went to put the lawnmower away. I looked closely at the white spokes of the dandelion, then brushed its softness against my cheek—little seeds just waiting to land somewhere, plant their roots, and start growing on their own. I closed my eyes, blew on it, and made a wish. When I opened my eyes, the white seeds were floating around my head, catching the sun.

Chapter Twenty-two
April 2006

T
he next morning was spent with Stripe going over his special shoot concept. Stripe insisted that Katsu be in the room with us. “So we'll start the piece with a man entering the alley with a gun.”

“Stripe, that's brilliant,” Katsu solemnly intoned, “simply brilliant.”

He said something to this effect after practically every word Stripe uttered. I kept quiet, took notes, and tried to figure out how we were going to shoot this within budget.

The afternoon was spent trying to persuade the star of
Jet Fuel
, Jeff Cross, to fly from New York to Los Angeles for an advertising photo shoot. Normally I would have done the shoot in New York, but the rest of the
Jet Fuel
cast—who also needed to be photographed—was still here in Los Angeles. Also, the concepts for the poster called for the talent to be shot on the fabulously expensive film sets that had been created here on the studio lot.

“I'm not coming,” Jeff told me on the phone after he had slurped noisily through a straw. With my elbow on my desk I rubbed my forehead. This was the third phone call I'd had with him. And the answer was still the same. No. Jeff continued, “I haven't seen Stephanie in almost a month so I'm staying here with her in New York.”

I didn't have to ask who Stephanie was. Jeff Cross and Stephanie Langer were a hot item and had become darlings of the press. Stephanie, in addition to being a well-known movie star, was the lead singer of a band that had shot to the top. The two of them had been nicknamed Jeffanie and they couldn't even go to Starbucks without attracting throngs of paparazzi.

“What if we fly Stephanie here with you? I'll put the two of you up in a suite at the Four Seasons,” I begged.

There was a long pause. Then, “First class plane seats and spa treatments every day for the both of us,” he announced. I perked up. This wasn't so bad. These were pretty typical demands. I quickly agreed and hung up. Then I juggled phone calls and meetings and reviewed tapes of trailers and TV spots that needed major revisions. All the while I waited for Aidan to call me. But no.

When I finally looked at my watch it was almost 9:30 at night. I decided Aidan and I needed to have a long talk.

When I entered Aidan's door a half hour later, I was startled to find him in the living room with two women. One of them happened to be the number one female star in America and the other was Montana. Aidan and I would have to put off our talk for another time.

“Hi,” I stammered to Veronica Robison as I put down my backpack. “I'm Aidan's girlfriend, Jeannie.”

Veronica took my proffered hand. “I'm Veronica. It's nice to finally meet you. Aidan talks about you all of the time.” I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was every bit as beautiful in person as she was on-screen. Not only that, but she actually seemed like a normal human being. I became uncomfortably aware of my tangled hair and lack of makeup. By the end of a day, I pretty much looked like I had been through the wringer, as my mom would say. Montana looked elegant and confident as she lounged next to Aidan. She had a polite smile glued to her face that told me I had interrupted a pleasant evening.

Aidan asked me if I wanted a drink, but I shook my head. What I really wanted was to escape to the bedroom, quickly put some lipstick on, and lose ten pounds before I reappeared. “We were just discussing our next film,” Aidan told me. I was pleased for him. He had been trying to land Veronica Robison for almost two years.

“Then we got on to the subject of babies,” Veronica smiled.

“She saw the photos of my stepbrother and -sister and thought they were ours,” Aidan explained.

“I would love to have a baby,” Veronica said. “But I seem to keep doing movies one after another that involve either some nudity or stunts or both.”

“Aidan loves kids,” Montana cooed. This was true. Aidan made sure he spent time with Max and Audrey, his half-siblings. He'd taken them on ski trips and had hosted many a birthday party. He genuinely liked their company and I did too. They were fun, smart, and funny.

Having a baby still seemed like an abstract idea to me. But both of us could hear my biological clock ticking loud and clear. Since I was the last kid in my family, I had never really spent time around babies. I had never done any babysitting. Instead, I had worked at jobs like making twirly cones at the Whippi Dip.

“Yeah, I really want a couple of kids,” Aidan said.

Montana looked at me pointedly. “Well then, honey, you'd better hurry.” Bitch, I thought. Like I needed any reminders of my age.

“I'm trying to have a baby,” Montana announced. I snapped to, fast. Whom, exactly, was she trying to have a baby
with
? Which is what Veronica asked her. “I don't really care. I just tell my latest and greatest that I'm on birth control. Men are so stupid; they really are such trusting creatures.”

“What happens when the lucky man learns that you're pregnant?” I asked as politely as I could.

“I'll tell him the birth control failed. Then we'll discuss child support and that will be that.” Was it my imagination, or was she staring straight at Aidan?

“You would do that to some poor guy?” My brain knew that I should let the subject go, but my mouth couldn't.

“Yeah. I'm raising it so what's the big deal?” Montana recrossed her long legs.

“I could never do that,” Veronica said softly. “I couldn't imagine having a baby without the right person.” She stood up and shook hands with Aidan. “I have to get going. But I look forward to working with you.” She smiled at me and barely nodded her head at Montana. Aidan walked her to the door. Montana left soon after, kissing Aidan on the cheek, while barely acknowledging me. Clearly, she was pissed off that I had challenged her, particularly in front of Veronica. Aidan and I cleared away the dirty glasses.

“Congratulations on landing the one and only Veronica Robison,” I said and kissed him as I passed by with my hands full.

Aidan yawned and stretched. “She really likes this script, so it looks like it will go into production soon. Probably shooting in Australia, but Montana is going to do the day-to-day production duties there. I'll handle things here in Los Angeles. But after tonight, I hope she can work with Veronica. I'm not sure the two of them will get along.”

“Aidan?”

“Yeah?”

“Has Montana, you know . . .” I looked down in embarrassment. “Well, with all of this talk about wanting a baby, has she come on to you lately?” When Aidan didn't respond right away, I looked up. “Well, has she?”

“Sweetie, you know I love you.”

“That's not an answer,” I said.

He hugged me tightly. “I love you, I'm not in love with Montana, and that's that.” I hugged him back, but I was thinking it still wasn't an answer. Aidan as usual fell asleep the moment the lights went out. Despite three Tylenol pms my head spun its constant chant: Lucy arrived in two days. What if Aidan found out Lucy was in town? Did my good blue blouse come back from the dry cleaner's? Why was Rachael throwing me under the bus at work? I needed to call Sammie and apologize for our big fight. Not to mention Elizabeth. My car had needed an oil change for seven months. When was I going to do that? Why was Katsu trying to get me fired?
Was
he trying to get me fired?

I turned over to look at the clock every twenty minutes until finally, just past 3 a.m., my eyes closed for good.

The next morning Aidan packed his single carry-on bag with military efficiency. With a kiss good-bye we parted ways. He was off to Vancouver for production meetings and to check locations on yet another film. Even though it was Saturday I headed for the office. Lucy was coming the next day, and if I got enough done today I could take some time off on Monday to be with her. She had said her depositions didn't start until the afternoon.

At the office I plowed through emails that had piled up from the week. Anything that wasn't urgent I saved for the weekends or late at night. One had come in from Rachael late yesterday. It asked when the final poster for
TechnoCat
would be ready to go up in theaters. Shit, I had forgotten to let our print production people know that the poster could go to print. The poster was late and we had all been on pins and needles trying to get the talent approval, which I had gotten days ago. I had simply forgotten about it. What was happening to me? It was like my brain was liquefying.

I went to the office kitchen to make microwave popcorn and try and calm down. Of course, the communal microwave was filthy. Why did people nuke spaghetti and then not clean up the red spatter? I spent fifteen minutes cleaning it out and then I scrubbed the countertop for good measure.

Returning to my office, I decided to not bring attention to my mistake. I replied to Rachael that it could be up in Los Angeles and New York in two days and the rest of the country within three.

Then I sent an urgent email to the ad agency and our print production people. All talent had approved, I typed, the poster numbered 43B Revised. Please push the final artwork and printing of this poster through at all speed.

After another couple of hours, I shut off the lights and headed to my house. First, I stopped by Gelson's to pick up groceries. Lucy would starve with what I kept in my house. After putting everything away in the fridge and cupboards I tackled the guest room. It was already immaculate, but I washed and dried all the sheets and pillowcases anyway. Then I put some yellow daffodils I had bought into a vase and placed it on the guest room nightstand.

Later, curled up with a book in my living room, I idly stared at a framed family photo circa 1982 that sat on the side table. I had really missed Lucy and realized I couldn't wait to see her. Of course, Lucy would want to see Elizabeth and Sammie while she was here, too. I hadn't quite figured out how to deal with that one. Obviously Lucy knew that my other two sisters were angry with me. Our whole family knows every detail of every argument within hours of its occurrence. My mom had been fielding phone calls about my behavior from both Elizabeth and Sammie for weeks now. I knew that because Evan told me. When I tried to tell him my side of the story, Evan had simply said to leave him out of it and let him know when it had blown over. Typical Evan. My dad hadn't said one word about it and probably wouldn't. He had learned a long time ago to stay out of the frothing waters of family drama.

I looked again at the photo of our seven smiling faces and really hoped Lucy's visit didn't turn into a disaster.