Spoiled (6 page)

He hung up with a dispirited punch to the phone.

“Sorry about that,” he said, turning to Molly. “My lead actor is a
yutz
and so is his manager. I mean, we can’t do it without polar bears. White fur is the apex of fear. Everyone knows that.”

“And it’s probably hard to find mountains off the coast of Florida,” Molly attempted, sensing the situation demanded sympathy
even though she felt a bit out of her league in this conversation.

Brick frowned. “My God, you’re right. This will not stand. I don’t care how much he spent on his bungalow. Just give me a
minute to call him back.”

He scuttled down the hallway, leaving Molly totally alone. She paused and rubbed her forehead, vainly hoping that would help
make sense of what just transpired. This day was getting more surreal with every moment that passed, and it made her want
to lie down for a second. She assumed the driver had gone in the general direction of her room—so, upward—but Brick said he’d
be right back. Should she just sit there and wait?

The air conditioner whooshed on right over her head. Molly broke out into goose pimples.

“Home sweet home,” she whispered to the cold and empty room.

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER BRICK DISAPPEARED
, Molly cursed herself for sucking down that coffee drink in the car with such abandon. Now she was stuck in a stark white
entryway with nothing to distract her from her screaming bladder but a potted ficus, an elaborately carved antique table (whose
sole purpose was holding a perfectly centered bowl of mint green Tic Tacs), and a midsize knockoff of Michelangelo’s
David
near where the two staircases met—which seemed less like the taste of a single action hero and more like the decision of
an interior designer who hoped he’d find it a flattering comparison and invite her to move into his pool house.

She felt rude going rogue to find a bathroom but decided Brick probably wouldn’t mind, so Molly hopped up and
tiptoed around the room. A house this big ought to have tasteful wall-mounted placards with arrows pointing to the ladies’
room, like a hotel lobby. After a few dead-end peeks through open doorjambs, Molly noticed the faint outline of a knobless
door to the left of the Tic Tac table—the kind of thing that matched the molding so perfectly you could barely tell it was
there. Molly had seen doors like these only in the movies, so it was almost logical that she’d encounter one here. She smacked
it with her palm, and the ease with which it sprang open almost knocked her off her feet.

It wasn’t a bathroom, but it was arguably even better: The closet was the size of her living room back home, and teemed with
sporting goods—two snowboards, a jai alai basket, three tennis rackets, an archer’s bow and arrows, surfboards, what looked
like a polo mallet, and a fishing pole with a tag still hanging from it. The right hanging bar was stuffed with women’s coats
of every color and fabric imaginable, including fur, while the left featured twenty-five versions of what looked like the
exact same black jacket. Molly whipped out her cell phone and snapped a photograph. Charmaine was going to love this.

“Documenting your new home?” a voice asked behind her.

Molly whirled around and came face-to-face with a bespectacled guy holding a clipboard and sporting more scruff on his chin
than on his entire head. She held her breath. Snooping through the closets before she’d even unpacked probably didn’t make
her look very good.

“Don’t worry,” he said, his eyes twinkling behind round wire-framed glasses. “I’ve worked here for seventeen years and every
day I see something I want to photograph, just to prove that it happened.”

He stuck out his hand. “I’m Stan, Brick’s assistant and expert orderer of custom-made black coats for every temperature between
fifty-two and seventy-six.”

Molly broke into a relieved smile. “Back home, fifty-two can feel downright balmy.”

“Give it a couple of years.” Stan grinned back. “We’ll make you a thin-blooded California girl in no time. Come on, let’s
get you settled. I bet your friends in Indiana are going to be way more interested in your new room than the coat closet,
anyway.”

Molly grabbed her backpack and trailed Stan up two flights of marble stairs to the top floor. He was not the kind of person
she’d imagined would work for Brick. She’d pictured an aggressive twentysomething wannabe drinking smoothies in borrowed Louboutins;
Stan was middle-aged, lean with a slight potbelly, and wore a thumb ring. He was a turtleneck and a clove cigarette away from
reading poetry at open mike night in a coffeehouse. Still, he seemed smart and genial—the perfect concierge.

When they alighted on the third floor, a sunbeam from the domed skylight hit Molly in the face with such bright force that
she reflexively pushed her sunglasses down from the top of her head onto her nose. Apparently, she was going to need to wear
SPF even inside the house. To her
right, past the mouth of the other staircase—was one for up, and one for down?—was a door with a large velvet “B” hanging
from the knob.

“Welcome home,” Stan said, leading Molly to an unmonogrammed door across the way and ushering her inside.

The vastness of this room,
her
room, was so great that Molly almost tripped on the carpet fibers in her hurry to digest it all. Everywhere she turned, there
was something to admire: In the corner, a well-stuffed chair sat by a fully stocked bookcase; a flat-screen TV hung over the
desk, which had a shiny red laptop on it; across from the bed was a vast fireplace, presumably for those brisk fifty-two-degree
nights. Ahead of her, French doors led to a balcony overlooking a flourishing rose garden, and to her left, yet more sunshine
spilled onto a mahogany four-poster bed outfitted with a cream linen canopy and illuminated what looked like a spa-quality
bathroom (and thank God for
that
, since Molly’s bladder wasn’t quite as enchanted as she was). It was a dream room, the kind of place she’d only ever seen
sit empty in the pages of a catalog, inviting you to find happiness by spending two grand on throw pillows and chalkboard
paint. Molly wished Laurel were there to see it.
Of course, if Mom were alive,
I
wouldn’t even be here to see it
.

“There’s a linen cupboard in the bathroom and a mini fridge in the closet,” Stan said, ticking off items on his clipboard.
“Dinner is at six thirty sharp because Brick doesn’t like to metabolize anything after seven. If you run out of towels, soda,
snacks, term paper ideas, whatever, this is the
household intercom. Push one for me, two for the cook, three for housekeeping. Double-oh-seven buzzes Brick’s study, but he
never hears it, so don’t even bother. Brooke doesn’t have a code. She said it’s demeaning.”

Molly cracked a tiny smile. “I can’t wait to meet her,” she said. “Is she home yet?”

“Nope. She said something about a fashion emergency and ran out of here about an hour ago,” Stan said. “From experience, I
know those can take anywhere from five minutes to five days. Now, is there anything else I can do for you? Any questions,
concerns, dietary restrictions, conscientious objections?”

“I think I’m all good, for now,” Molly said. Stan’s briefing had been so thorough, she wondered if she was meant to tip him.

“All righty. Settle in, unpack, take some photos,” Stan winked. “From the balcony, if you look left, you can see half of the
tennis court. And if you stare really, really hard at the right side tree line, you’ll see Britney’s roof. Honest to God.”

Stan began to close the door but stuck his head back in the room at the last minute. “Brick is really happy you’re here,”
he said. “I know sometimes he’s a little larger than life, but he means everything he says. He’s been looking forward to this
ever since you called.”

Molly blushed a bit and stared down at the floor. “I’m glad I’m here, too,” she said.

“Also, Molly…
Rad Man
was my first job with Brick, so I
knew your mom,” Stan said, his tone dropping a notch. “Laurel was one of the coolest people I’ve ever met.”

Molly’s throat tightened.

“And you should also know that Brick adored her,” he continued. “I saw it myself. She wasn’t just some random woman to him.
It was real.”

Molly stood there in silence for a moment, trying to come up with the words to express how tremendous it was to hear that.

“Thanks, Stan,” was all she could manage.

Stan smiled at her with supreme understanding, then shut the door and left Molly alone in her new kingdom. She swallowed a
few times, hard, to regain her composure. Her heart wanted to call Danny or Charmaine, her head wanted to busy itself with
unpacking, her body wanted to go jump in the pool, and her bladder… well.

This is too good to be true
, she thought a few minutes later as she ran her hand along the edge of the giant Jacuzzi bathtub. Even the walk-in, beige-tiled,
glass-walled shower had four jets in the walls aimed at all angles and a large shelf stocked with about twenty different Kiehl’s
products.

Her suitcases had already been wheeled into the walk-in closet, but before getting to work, Molly decided to follow Stan’s
advice and head out to her balcony. The air smelled faintly of jasmine, and her terrace was so large it contained two chairs,
a glass-topped table, and a chaise longue. In the distance, she could indeed see red Spanish tile, and she
wondered if Britney was under it somewhere doing the “Baby, One More Time” dance that Molly and Charmaine had tried (and failed)
to master back in elementary school.

Molly pulled out her phone and took a picture, then texted it to Charmaine with a note that read,

GUESS WHO MY NEW NEIGHBOR IS? HINT: SHE’S TOXIC.

The reply came back two seconds later:

!!!!!!

Molly had to agree: Brick seemed nice, Stan was cool, this house was a palace, and it was August and there wasn’t even a hint
of humidity in the air. Okay, so she hadn’t met the mysterious Brooke yet, but as Molly closed her eyes and let the fragrant
breeze play on her face, even that didn’t feel like a problem. It turned out optimism was pretty easy to muster on her own
private balcony overlooking a peaceful Southern Californian paradise. She’d waited this long to find out about Brooke Berlin;
it wouldn’t kill her to wait a little longer.

“So then I said to Wolfie, ‘I think the Puck stops here!’ ”

Silence.

“The Puck!” Brick repeated. “Get it?”

Molly realized too late that this was Brick’s punch line. She wasn’t surprised that, based on his résumé, he was better at
landing
actual
punches.

“That’s hilarious!” she mustered. “Um, I love Wolfgang Puck’s frozen pizza.”

“He lives up the street. This steak is from his restaurant, you know,” Brick said proudly. “And my cook did the sushi. He
used to be an Iron Chef.” He shot her a sheepish smile. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like.”

Molly gazed at the juicy filets mignons and beautiful, precisely wrapped sushi rolls on the plates before them. She was starving.
But the food sat untouched. Molly’s eyes flicked up to the empty seat across the dining table and wondered which was eating
at her more: hunger or curiosity.

“I’m going to call her,” Brick said, frowning at his watch.

Molly’s good mood from earlier had devolved back into nerves. She’d sworn she would greet Brooke with a relaxed and positive
attitude, no matter what, but that vow was a lot easier to make when their meeting was just an abstraction. In the two hours
since Molly’s arrival, which she’d spent putting approximately one shirt in each of the zillion drawers in her walk-in closet
and watching a marathon of
Teen Cribs
, Brooke’s continued absence became a silence that was very loud indeed. Brick seemed so anxious about it that Molly wondered
if she should be offended by the vanishing act.

Suddenly, the echo of a large door slamming reverberated through to where they sat.

“That must be her now,” Brick said, relieved.

“Sorry, Daddy!” a voice floated in from the foyer. “Ari had a Prada emergency.”

Brisk footsteps clacked closer and closer toward the dining room door. Molly sat on her hands to keep from chewing her fingernails.
Despite her best efforts, her foot, which had begun bouncing manically five minutes ago, would not stay still. She forced
herself to make eye contact with the threshold Brooke Berlin was about to cross, and, for the second time that day, felt goose
bumps push up through her skin.

Here we go
, she thought.

“
YOU MUST BE MY NEW SISTER!
”

A tall blonde with bouncing curls glided into the dining room, bringing with her the shortest skirt, longest legs, and tallest
stilettos Molly had ever seen. It was Brooke Berlin in the flesh, and showing off rather a lot of it.

“I’m so happy to meet you!” Brooke squealed, hugging her before Molly even had a chance to get out of her seat. “Welcome to
our wonderful home!”

Brooke had her clasped so tight, she was practically lifting Molly out of her chair. Molly, taken aback, breathed in sharply
and almost inhaled a chunk of Brooke’s hair.