Losing Control

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Losing Control

Copyright 2012 RTWD PRESS

All Rights Reserved.

Dedicated to my RD.

ONE

The drive to Connie’s house had
always been a time for peace and the contemplation of nature. Straight up the
Pacific Coast Highway
, 126 miles from
San Diego
to
Malibu
. Blue skies, dreamy beaches and lush
natural parks – there was nothing better for soothing the soul.

And Fawn
Hamilton
had needed a lot of soul-soothing
these days. First there was Connie’s death. Sure, it wasn’t entirely unexpected
– her grandmother was eighty eight years old, after all. Constance Carroll was
once the toast of Hollywood, bona fide movie star and Fawn’s best friend. She
often made the trip up from
San Diego
to spend the weekend with Connie,
who was too elegant to be called Grandma. They would huddle around the flat
screen in the small but cozy living room, watching Connie’s old films while she
kept Fawn in stitches relating inside stories about the directors and co-stars.
Fawn encouraged Connie to write her memoirs, and she had started them, but a
severe stroke ended the project – and broke Fawn’s heart.

Then there was the divorce. Richard,
Fawn’s financial consultant husband, had laid that little bomb on her right
after Connie’s funeral. She figured he chose a moment when she was at rock
bottom emotionally, hoping she’d be too numb to strangle him. She had sat
staring at him with wet lashes and mascara-scarred cheeks, her hazel eyes red
and swollen, while he described his frustration with their ‘shell of a
marriage’ as he put it. For three years they had been trying to get pregnant.
He wanted a son and heir, and Fawn had struggled valiantly through all the
technological miseries of making his dream come true. But sex for him, so he
said, had become a ritual meant only to procreate, no fun, no sizzle, no charm.
Then he met Susie Q – a new intern at his firm, and the sparks had flown,
whipping him up into a whirlwind he could no longer fight or deny. To top it
all off – Susie Q, a fake-busted blonde who could not possibly be over
nineteen, had become pregnant without meaning to (yeah, right, they never mean
to) and they wanted to move to the Bahamas, buy a bar on the beach, and begin a
whole new life together.

Fawn was so overwrought she thought
she would strangle him. How dare he put her through the endless lab procedures
and testing and charting and disappointment and failure and miscarriages then suddenly
decide he didn’t love her anymore? Not that she loved him much then anyway.
Fawn had been raised to do as she was told, whether it was her dad or her
husband who was in command. The conditioning ran so deep she never thought
twice about what was asked of her – she just did it. So when her dad’s fresh
young assistant Richard Hamilton asked her to marry him on her eighteenth
birthday, she said yes, knowing old dad approved of the arrangement. Then she
was passed from one kind of prison to another.

Connie, bless her, had loathed
Richard at first sight, begging Fawn to reconsider. And her mom, June, well,
she didn’t like him but being stuck in the same vacuum as Fawn, she told her he
was a good prospect and left it at that.

Fawn turned her little red MG onto
the side road that led to Connie’s neighborhood. She drove slowly, savoring the
view as she headed towards the driveway, which was nearly hidden by a bank of
bright pink bougainvillea. Looking back, her four years with Richard had been
unfulfilled, empty, a waste, really. Living in a McMansion that he picked out,
full of ugly, over-priced brand name furniture, pretending to be the perfect
hostess to his slimy friends and their trophy wives. She cringed every time she
thought about it, wondering who the hell that person had been. It certainly was
never her.

Today was moving day – the big
hideous mansion had been sold, finally. She had gotten rid of Richard’s
furniture on craigslist. She even bagged up all of the clothes he had bought
for her – things she would not have chosen for herself – and took them all to
Goodwill.

This was to be the first day of the
rest of her life. Connie had left her the hilltop bungalow in her will plus all
of the vintage furnishings within it. Fawn was free to follow her dream – which
was to be an independent jewelry designer. Sure, she’d played around with the
idea since she was a child, making her own bracelets and necklaces from pieces
of antique brooches she found in shops all up and down the coast. She had
hidden her hobby from Richard, who usually laughed any time she showed some
artistic talent, thinking it quaint and useless. But now she had a web site,
and she was planning to use the second bedroom of the bungalow as a craft room.
The reality of it all made her skin tingle with excitement!

Fawn eased up the hill to the
charming stone cottage and parked beside it. Stephanie Hamilton, Fawn’s older
cousin and Connie’s lawyer, was supposed to meet her there to give her the
keys. But Stephanie, doll that she was, had never let punctuality get in the
way of doing business.

Fawn admired the chunky bungalow,
sweeping a cascade of windblown chestnut hair from her cheek and casting teary
eyes towards the seaside patio where she’d spent so many happy summers, tanning
and gossiping with Connie. She walked around to the stone-covered haven and let
the sea breezes caress her body. It was a warm day; she was glad she’d worn
denim cut-offs and the pink tank top. The only possessions she was bringing to
the house were a small suitcase packed with under-things, shorts and tops,
three pairs of flip flops and two big boxes full of her jewelry crafts. Her
entire life packed tightly in the passenger seat and trunk of a midget sports
car. And that’s just the way she wanted it.

Her gaze sailed out over the beach
below the hill. Surfers and swimmers and walkers were enjoying the beautiful
spring day. Then she glanced at the big beach house just to the left of the
hill. It was a sprawling, opulent jewel, rather Old English in design, with a
kidney-shaped pool and a carriage house on the adjoining property. Connie had
owned it in ages past, when her
Hollywood
lifestyle demanded something more
impressive. She had sold it off in the Seventies to a candy manufacturer, Leo
Trahern, whose business rivaled Hershey’s, and kept the former housekeeper’s
quarters, the bungalow, as her sole residence. Of course, she hadn’t lived
there alone, her secretary, Emmanuella “Emmy” de Sica, had kept her company
until her death five years before.

Fawn was thinking that she preferred
the solitude and quirkiness of the stone bungalow to the large, elaborate
design of the beach house. It did fit nicely into the seascape, though, made
you feel you were on the coast of
Dover
instead of
Southern California
.

A sleek hybrid sedan pulled up behind
Fawn’s MG. Stephanie Hamilton eased out of the front seat. Fawn was a bit in
awe of Stephanie. The woman had natural golden blonde hair and jade eyes, her
skin a sparkling shade of sienna – also natural due to her parents’ mixed
ethnicity: her dad, Fawn’s uncle Nigel, was a pale-eyed blond, her mom, Peg,
was an elegant former Super Model from
Namibia
.

“Hey there, girl!”
Stephanie shouted as she came round
to the patio. “Already enjoying the view, I see.”

“Yeah, it’s unreal, isn’t it? I can’t
believe this is my home now.”

“Well, it’s true. Here are the keys
to prove it!”

She dangled the keys at Fawn, who
clasped them and hugged them to her chest. Tears glistened in her eyes.

“Oh, Steph, I’m afraid I’m going to
lose it when I go in. I’ll be seeing Connie everywhere.”

“I know. I’ve done the same thing
every time I’ve come here in the past few weeks. She was a hell of a lady.”

“She sure was. Are the cats inside?”

“Oh, yes. I fetched them from the
sitter yesterday.” She turned towards the windows and laughed. “Ha! They’re
waiting for you! Look!”

Fawn drew her gaze towards the house.
The two female Siamese cats,
Harlow
, and Garbo, were perched on a big
chintz armchair by the bedroom window, staring at the women with languid blue
eyes.

“They don’t seem too happy to see me.
We never really bonded when I came up here on the weekends. I hope we get along
all right.”

“I’m sure you will. Have you met any
of the neighbors yet?”

“Well, I know the Finches, next door.
Connie used to invite them in for tea, since they’re British. And I know the De
Paolos, across the way, very well. We’ve been antiquing together lots of times.
But that’s about it. I think most of the others I knew have passed on.”

“Then you don’t know about him yet?”

“Who?”

“Him.”

Stephanie’s eyes pointed Fawn’s stare
towards the beach house, where a muscled young man with gleaming baby blond
hair and beautiful, broad shoulders, his bare skin as brown as the sun could
bake it, was performing Tai Chi, wearing only a low-slung pair of black shorts.

Fawn stifled a gasp.
“Oh my God!
He doesn’t do that every day, I hope!”

“Not every day. But why wouldn’t you
like it if he did? Eye candy is good for the soul, especially one as hungry as
yours.”

Fawn actually felt
herself
blush, and lowered her head in shame. But her eyes eventually drifted back to
the Adonis by the sea.

“Well, I’ll be too busy to worry
about him. I’ve got a ton of custom necklaces pre-ordered, and I have to finish
them by next week.”

“It’s nice that your craft room looks
out over the sea and the beach house. You can set your work table at the
window, and take a quick glance every now and again.”

Stephanie was grinning. Fawn twisted
nervously in her flip flops.

“I think I’ll go inside now. You can
stay for lunch, if you like.”

“Lovely idea.
I stocked the fridge with all your
favorites! We can sit out here while we eat, and enjoy the show.”

Fawn shook her head, unlocked the
patio door, and slipped quickly inside.