The Perfect Christmas (6 page)

‘It’s all there,’ the woman assured her, tearing her eyes away from the baby for a moment. ‘And the contract for you to sign.’

Her friend looked up from the money with cold eyes. ‘She’ll sign when I’ve counted the money,’ she snapped.

The woman was rocking the baby. The girl looked, and saw the baby’s feet poking out of the pink blanket.

‘She’ll get cold,’ she said and she tucked the blanket more snugly around the baby.

The woman stared at her.

‘You are going to sign the papers, aren’t you?’ she asked, her eyes searching the girl’s face.

Her voice was filled with fear, something the girl knew well.

‘I am,’ she said in a low voice. She went to the drawers by the bed and pulled out an envelope, and held it out to the woman.

‘This is for her, when she’s old enough, just in case something happens ...’

The woman tore her eyes from the baby and nodded, her eyes kind, and she took the envelope from her and handed the baby back to the girl.

‘Can I read it?’ she asked.

She nodded and the woman struggled to open the envelope with the baby in her arms. She thought about offering to hold her while she read it but she didn’t trust herself to hand the child back.

She’s not yours now, she reminded herself.

The woman started to read.

She knew the words by heart.

Dear Baby Girl,

I am your momma, and I love you, but I don’t have anything a momma needs to look after a little baby.

I promise you I
will
come back for you when I can. Until then, be happy with this nice lady, who wants to be your Momma for a while. She can take care of you and buy you a four-poster bed and good food and lots of clothes and lots of other things I can’t.

I’m going to be an actress in Hollywood, and when I’m rich and famous I’ll come and find you again and give you everything else you need.

Until then, know that I will always love you, my precious little girl.

Your Momma

xoxoxo

The woman folded the letter and put it back into its envelope and she saw her eyes wet with tears, but still she refused to cry and she handed the baby back to the woman.

Crying never helped nobody do nothin’, her Grammy used to say.

The old woman had been right. Crying didn’t make her rich, or magically give her everything she knew the baby needed. She didn’t have enough money for her own food, let alone to raise a child. How would she clothe her? Educate her? Take care of her in a crisis? God knows she had had enough drama in her own short life to know things happened, terrible things that no child should ever go through.

And there was no way she was going to let her into foster care, not after what she has been through.

There was no point in crying, no point in wishing.

Her friend nodded at her that the money was all there and taking the pen, she signed the papers on the table.

All those years of practising her autograph for when she was famous, and this was the first time she got to use it for something grown up.

With aching breasts and a breaking heart she pushed the papers over to the woman and nodded to her friend.

‘She’s yours now until I can come back,’ she said dully.

‘Would you like to hold her again?’ asked the woman.

She shook her head.

She knew that if she held her baby again, she would never let her go.

‘No, thank you, you’re her momma for now,’ she said, and the woman who at forty-five had had seven miscarriages, blinked and nodded.

‘Please. You should hold her again,’ said the woman as she walked over to the girl. ‘It will help you say goodbye.’

But the girl shook her head and picked up her plastic bag containing her few personal belongings.

‘There’s no goodbye, she said, ‘Just take care of her till I can. I’ll be back for her, I promise and I’ll be able pay you back the money and take care of he myself,’ she said with absolute certainty.

Without a backwards glance, she left the hospital room, her friend following, with a copy of the adoption documents, thirty thousand dollars and a desperate dream that one day she would have everything she ever wanted, including her baby girl

Part One

Los Angeles

January, 2014

1

Zoe Greene checked her reflection in the mirror and carefully blotted her neutral coloured lipstick. Her tawny hair was blow-dried straight, her makeup flawless but subtle. Tonight wasn’t about her; it was about her clients.

The annual
Vanity Fair
Oscars party at the Sunset Tower Hotel was fun for some, but for Zoe it was just another night at the office.

Picking up her Judith Leiber clutch, she left the bathroom, ignoring the attendant’s offer of a spray of bespoke perfume.

She didn’t need a spritz of perfume, she needed a stiff drink, but that would have to come later. First she had the meeting of a lifetime to get through.

‘He’s ready,’ she heard from one of his assistants, who seemed to come out of nowhere to murmur in her ear. Squaring her shoulders, Zoe followed him into the private VIP room, where the truly famous partied together, away from the just merely famous.

Angie and Brad sat in corner, talking intently to Anderson Cooper, Maggie Hall, her best friend and truly famous movie star client, was discussing something at length with Charlize Theron and Sandy Bullock was sitting on Clooney’s knee, laughing like they were the funniest two people in the room.

Actually they
were
the funniest people in the room, Zoe thought as she walked towards Jeff Beerman’s table, trying to act nonchalant, but knowing all eyes were on her.

‘Greene,’ he said with a curt nod of his grey head.

He called everyone by their surnames, as though he was the captain of Hollywood and they were all his junior officers.

‘Jeff,’ she answered with a similar nod, thankful she was wearing a simple yet elegant Calvin Klein black dress. This was not the time for big hair and low cleavage, she would leave that to the starlets. She was there for business and nothing more.

‘Give us a moment,’ he said to his assistant, not taking his eyes off Zoe. The man backed away quickly.

‘Sit,’ he ordered and she did.

‘You wanted to see me?’ she asked, as though she had anywhere better to be than at a private table with studio head Jeff Beerman.

Jeff leaned forward. Maggie and Zoe had always said he was handsome enough to be a movie star, except he loved the business of movies more than the films themselves. .

It had made him a very rich man and at times, a very despised man.

‘I hear you’ve just signed Hugh Cavell,’ he said, his eyes running over her and she squared her shoulders and sat up straight.

‘I have,’ she answered. This must be what it feel like in a high stakes poker game, she thought, trying to be casual.

‘I want the option to his book,’ he barked. ‘How much does he want for it?’

His presumption annoyed her and fuelled by the thought Hugh being her royal flush, she smiled sweetly.

‘You could try asking nicely, Jeff. Manners are free, you know.’

Zoe had never had a formal meeting with Jeff; she had only met him at industry events and parties, where he would usually have a circle of hangers on, and an extremely beautiful girl on his arm when he was in between wives.

Although the Oscars party wasn’t really a formal meeting, she still knew it was going to be the biggest moment of her life and if she was going to take a gamble, she might as well go for broke.

‘Don’t fuck me around, Greene. I want the rights to this book!’

‘You and everyone else,’ she answered, meeting his icy gaze and looking him in the eye.

‘You’re braver than you look,’ he said, leaning back in his chair.

‘You don’t intimidate me,’ lied Zoe with a smile.

Jeff narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, ‘Good for you. Most people shit themselves when they meet me,’ he said, almost proudly.

‘Should I be impressed or concerned for them?’ She asked.

Jeff’s expression changed and he smiled a little. ‘Greene, listen to me, I have to have this book. I can make the movie a huge hit.’

‘So can Harvey, Brian and David,’ she said, listing the three other top studio heads, who had all offered her meetings since word had spread that she had Hugh Cavell in her managerial stable.

‘Yeah, but why would you work with those morons? My studio will make the best picture, you know it and I know it, so stop playing games. What does this guy want? Money? A shot at writing the script? Casting approval?’

Zoe sat back in the leather seat and crossed her legs. ‘Yes, he wants all of those things, and the other studios have already offered them.’

‘So what the fuck else does he want then?’ Jeff looked impatiently at his Breitling watch.

Zoe paused for effect. She might not be an actor, but she knew how to play the role.

‘Actually, Hugh wants me as the lead EP on the film,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t trust anyone to produce it, unless I’m involved.’

‘
What
?’ Jeff recoiled as if she had just announced she was pregnant with his child.

‘You heard me,’ she said calmly.

A passing waiter placed two flutes of champagne in front of them, but Jeff pushed his away.

‘Scotch, neat,’ he snarled at the waiter, who retreated as though stung.

Zoe, glad for the distraction, picked up her glass and took a sip, trying to not let her hand shake.
Show him nothing
, she reminded herself,
not how much you want it, and certainly not how much you care.

Jeff looked Zoe up and down dismissively.

‘Come on, Greene. Get real. You’re a fucking talent manager not an executive producer. ’

‘Yes, I am.’ Zoe wasn’t insulted. She represented some of the biggest stars in town and could pull a deal together faster than any of her peers. She knew her own worth. ‘But that’s about to change.’

‘You’ve got no runs on the board,’ he said. ‘What else can you bring to this besides the author?’

‘My expertise, my people skills, my industry knowledge, I’m good at what I do.’

Jeff rolled his eyes. ‘You and everyone else in this room,’ he scoffed.

Zoe sipped more champagne and felt the amber liquid roll down her throat, hoping it would be an elixir of courage. ‘It’s simple, Jeff. The book comes with me attached as EP, that’s what Hugh and I have agreed, so don’t even
think
about going over my head. We have a contract even you couldn’t pull apart.’

Jeff was silent. Zoe pushed her chair back and stood up.

‘Think about it and call my office tomorrow if you’re interested, my assistant Paul will patch you through to my cell,’ she said, and made to walk away from the table.

‘Sit down and don’t make a scene,’ he snapped and again, she did as he asked.

There was silence, each one holding their cards close to their chests.

‘So you want to make movies, huh?’ Jeff asked finally. ‘Not many women make it in this business. Do you think you can handle it?’

‘Don’t patronise me because I’m a woman,’ she said politely. ‘I can do any job as well as a man.’

‘I’m not. I don’t care what’s between your legs,’ he laughed. ‘I want to know you can handle the bullshit and the drama when your leading stars hate each other and I’m screaming at you on the phone and the directors losing the plot and you haven’t slept in a week.’

Zoe smiled, ‘My film wouldn’t be like that,’ she stated.

‘Oh really?’ Jeff smiled now, and he stared at her for a long time. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Because I would make sure everything was sorted before we got to set,’ she said, knowing she sounded naïve but she believed in thinking ahead, her whole life she had to be one step ahead of everyone else.

Jeff pulled at the cuffs on his shirt, a glimpse of silver cufflinks caught the light and Zoe’s eye.

‘You can’t always be prepared for what happens while making a movie,’ said Jeff, ‘Life throws curveballs at all of us, even me.’

Zoe felt the room’s eyes on her, the sound of gossip and conjecture about why Zoe and Jeff were talking so intently. She heard laughter and some music, and somewhere a glass smashed but it was Jeff’s eyes boring into hers that steadied her.

‘Why do you want to make this movie Greene?’ he asked.

‘Because it’s the most beautiful book I’ve ever read,’ she answered truthfully.

Jeff squinted and frowned and then he rolled his eyes and Zoe laughed as she continued.

‘
And
because its box office gold, the man who learns about love only after his wife is declared terminally ill? I mean, what about that isn’t perfect chick flick fodder?’

‘And the author, do you think he can write a decent script?’

‘Yes, I think he can write a great script,’ she replied, crossing her fingers under the table.

Jeff swilled the scotch in his glass, drained the last of it, then cleared his throat.

‘This is the biggest hit in books since fuck knows what,’ he said. ‘I want this to be the best movie Palladium Pictures has ever produced, do you understand? This is the movie people will talk about when I die.’

Zoe nodded, secretly marvelling at Jeff’s ego. Did he come to Hollywood with that intact or did he earn it?

‘I understand,’ she said and then she appealed to his ego. ‘And this is why I’m coming to you,’ she said. ‘I want to learn from you.’

Jeff watched her as she sipped her drink, his eyes narrowed.

‘How old are you?’ he asked rudely, but Zoe didn’t flinch.

‘Thirty-six,’ she said.

‘You’re too old for me.’

‘Zoe laughed, ‘I don’t want to date you, I want you to teach me. You’re the perfect age to be my wise old teacher,’ she said with a cheeky smile and she saw a flash of displeasure cross his face.

‘I thought you weren’t into men?’

He smirked, but she swallowed her temper.

‘Oh, I am into men, just not old ones,’ she said. ‘I prefer to leave them to the piranhas with silicone breasts and gold digging dreams.

Jeff laughed, ‘God knows there are plenty of those fish in the sea, I even married a few of them.’ Then he looked up at her, his face unreadable ‘But not many like you, it seems.’