Skygods (Hydraulic #2) (18 page)

I white-knuckled the armrests of my business class seat. The dry, recycled air on the plane made a static mess of the hair I’d carefully groomed, and I was ready to sweep it into a ponytail. Around me, tired-looking passengers either caught some shut-eye or read magazines under yellow oases of lights. The strong-jawed man next to me typed away on a laptop. I tried not to disturb him with my fidgeting.

I’d caught the evening flight from Denver to Los Angeles, which gave me roughly three hours to freak out over the banana bread and airport coffee I’d carried onto the plane for a nightly fix. But neither my latte nor my mantras erased the palpable fear that I was too backwoods to be Samuel’s publicist.

I’d barely talked to Samuel; I had been so busy putting my affairs in order before I blindly hurled myself into the maelstrom of his messy life. After Samuel’s phantom-like appearance on my doorstep, he’d vanished just as mystically. I’d begged him to stay the night, if for no other reason than to prevent him from falling asleep at the wheel on the road to Lyons.

“Samuel, stay,” I cajoled, wrapping two tempting arms around his middle. “You don’t need to drive all the way to your parents’ house tonight.”

He groaned and leaned into me. “Firecracker, I can’t. I have things there that…that I need.” His voice faltered as my thumbs kneaded the tightness in his back. Every cord of muscle gave way and I thought I had him.

“Stay,” I whispered against his neck. “I don’t care what you sleep in. You can buy something to wear tomorrow. You can even borrow my toothbrush. Just
stay
.” He knew what would happen, what I wanted to happen if he stayed the night. With a reluctant sigh, he untangled his arms.

“I’ll call you when I get to Lyons.” Kissing the top of my head, he slipped away into the night, leaving me frustrated in a silent apartment. Early the next morning, before I’d even poured my cereal, Samuel had traveled directly from the Cabral home to Denver International Airport, and flown to LA.

And now, a week later, I also slipped away into the night, cutting through black clouds and stars thousands of feet in the air, putting hundreds of miles between me and everything I’d ever known. Everything, save for Samuel.

Despite my age, I’d seen embarrassingly little of the world. Samuel was the one who had an insatiable wanderlust for faraway places. I’d never desired to stray beyond my mountains unless it was by his side. Lyons knew me. I defined myself in the comings and goings of its greasy diner and rusted-out gas station. I breathed with the ebb and flow of St. Vrain water sloshing against creek banks, a trickling current of life. I marked my years in tree rings. If I left, how would I know me? I began to understand why Samuel seemed so lost. I was already homesick for the Rockies and I’d barely left.

Fingers trembling, I peeled open the package of banana bread and dipped it in my coffee. Once again, I stared at those spiky designer shoes.

Own the shoes…own the shoes…

They mocked me, those pointy suede beasts nestled under the seat, next to my old ballet flats. The elegant curve of the peep-toe, the sharp stiletto heel…Danita said they were sexy. Molly said they could double as a lethal weapon if I needed to take out the competition. She even stole all of my ballet flats and sandals (save for the pair I’d snuck into my suitcase). For all I knew, they were now displayed on shoe racks at the local Goodwill.

“You’ve seen the way women dress in southern California,” Molly asserted as she played tug of war with me and a tasteful dress I’d tried to cram into my suitcase. “Show off those beautiful shoulders of yours. And your legs. Honey, let them come out to play!”

I gave a sharp tug back, yanking Molly over my chair and woefully stretching my dress in the process. “Molly, that’s television. Real publicists don’t dress like hookers, even if it’s LA.”

In the end, I compromised and bought three new shorter, flashier dresses and two very expensive pairs of shoes, including those Prada monsters, which, at the moment, were giving me a bad case of buyer’s remorse. Fortunately, my friends were more concerned with how I could prep for a publicity tour in five days than whether my skirt hit above or below the knees.

“Let’s be realistic,” Danita had said at Fisher’s Deli Monday morning. “Los Angeles is a big pond compared to our little puddle—a shark-infested pond at that. An overpopulated, California shark pond that will go into a feeding frenzy at the first sniff of blood in the water and rip apart fresh meat.”

My mouth fell open. “I know I don’t have the experience for this—”

“But you’ve got great instincts,” Molly interrupted, glaring at Danita. “You’ll get the experience on tour.”

“Kind of like being dropped in the middle of the Congo with no translator,” Danita added. “You’ll learn to speak Bantu really fast.”

I didn’t even blink. “Your Discovery Channel-esque metaphors strike fear in my heart, Dani, truly. However, Samuel has my back. I trust him. And there are a whole team of people who will be a phone call away if I have questions. Caroline will also be there for movie publicity. I’m sure she’ll help.”

Molly and Danita stared at me dubiously.

“Okay, so I’m counting on assistance from my stressed ex-husband and his bitter ex-girlfriend. On paper, not a good idea. Which means we need to come up with a game plan as of yesterday.”

“Kaye?”

“Shoe thief?”

Molly grinned. “I bought you a US travel guide. Let’s plan this mutha.”

For five long days my TrilbyJones staff made calls, researched, and connected with other literary publicists. We tinkered away at Caroline’s original PR plan, hammering out a rough “quality, not quantity” strategy to present to the NYC dream team. Our TrilbyJones intern lackeys finally had a chance to prove their mettle. Friday afternoon, when our new temp overnighted the last hard copy proposal to New York, Molly and I collapsed around our break room table in silent back-patting.

“I bet Gail’s ready to go vigilante on Samuel and hunt him down with her pitchfork,” Molly had teased.

I frowned. Ever since I’d made my intentions to go to Samuel in LA known, many of my acquaintances had cast themselves as foreboding soothsayers. My dad’s girlfriend was angry at me for “chasing some man” to Hollywood, as if I’d met him on the Internet. Hector was angry because he thought I’d bail on the Longs Peak climb. And Danita was just angry, period. But Mom had been supportive, in her way.

“Actually, no. Mom seems fairly calm about the whole thing. She said ‘you gotta do what you gotta do,’ and left it at that.”

“Strange.”

But I knew what Mom meant.

Now, the new PR plan rested on my lap, the luminescence of my tablet dimmed so as not to disturb the passengers in the cabin. Most of them appeared to be business travelers who grasped at their valuable moment of imposed cell phone silence to rest. I turned to my small window. Dusk chased the last rays across a patchwork land far below, and then entire cities flickered to life, their trailing interstates like the haunting glow paths of the fireflies we used to catch in the forest line of the Cabrals’ backyard.

My thoughts turned to my mother. She had always been a woman of few words. Mostly, she was simply uncomfortable without a garden spade in hand. When I was a teenager, there were times I intentionally tried to tick her off, just to evoke some sort of feeling from her. I remembered one particular occasion when I was fifteen, right after my father quit his third job that year. I’d gotten my belly button pierced despite my mother’s “ears only” rule. As I’d made breakfast two weeks later, I’d stretched and flashed the bit of metal, and it was downhill from there.

“Dad doesn’t care,” I spat at her.

“Your father probably doesn’t know.”

I flinched. It was true…not because I’d hidden it from him, but because he spent so much time at Audrey Wexler’s place, I hadn’t even seen him long enough to show him. Mom saw the flinch, though, and her eyes softened.

“You can’t let him move in with Audrey,” I’d whispered, my voice hoarse.

“Nothin’ I can do about that, baby.”

I shook my head, begging her. “Yes you can. You can tell him you still—”

“No. It wouldn’t make a bit of difference. I did what I had to do a long time ago, and it didn’t change a thing. Still, I did it.” She ruffled my hair, then put on her stern mama face. “Take that thing out.” She flicked my belly button ring. “You’re grounded for two weeks.”

After that, my mother and I had an unspoken comradeship. Out loud, our official position was “Audrey’s a nice woman.” But really, we both desired to see Tom kick her to the curb. And that was why, when I told her about my plans to go to Samuel in Los Angeles, she told me “you gotta do what you gotta do” and I knew exactly what she meant…

“Excuse me, miss?” The man’s voice broke through my wandering thoughts. I turned to the strong-jawed passenger next to me, in the aisle seat. “The flight attendant asked if you’d like a beverage.”

“Oh!” How long had I been staring at my heels like a space cadet? “Nothing for me, thanks,” I said, nodding to my cold Starbucks cup and bread.

The passenger eyeballed me like I was nuts. He may have believed there were tiny bombs nestled in the soles of my Pradas. If he did call an air marshal, I couldn’t blame him—if I sat next to a high-strung woman muttering Stuart Smalley affirmations while glaring at teal pumps, I’d call security, too.

Glossy hair streaked with silver curled around the edge of his earlobes, short enough for the boardroom but long enough for the bedroom. Tan, pressed, and expensive, he looked like he’d stepped out of an advertisement in
Golf Digest
.

Before long, the captain’s static voice crackled over the intercom, announcing our descent into Los Angeles. With a sigh, I struggled into my new heels and tightened the strap, girding my ankles for battle. The man lifted an eyebrow at the death traps.

“I’m a publicist,” I stammered.

“Ah.” Apparently that was all the explanation he needed. “What sort of publicity do you do?”

“Mainly tourism, arts, and culture, but I’m venturing into celebrity PR.”

The man flashed a row of capped white teeth, reminding me of a grinning giraffe. “Well, young lady, you’re heading to the right city. With all the agent jostling and back-biting that happens behind those pretty faces you see on television, LA could support a football franchise. The
Los Angeles Spin Doctors
, don’t ya know?” The man barked at his own joke.

I gulped. “Banana bread?” I offered.

He shook his head, giving me the once over. “A bit of advice. If you really want to exude high-power take-no-prisoners ball-buster, wear your hair up. Coupled with those heels, you’ll seem six feet tall.”

I blinked at him, wondering how Molly had disguised herself as a middle-aged, male jet-setter. “I’ll ruminate over that.”

I. Was. Toast. Even Mr. PGA Tour knew more about making an entrance than I did. Flipping snowboarders, I was going to break my ankles. I’d de-board the plane, then promptly flail into my tanned airplane buddy and together we’d tumble onto the baggage claim conveyor belt, be rendered unconscious, and cycle through those black rubber flaps with unclaimed duffel bags until airport security handcuffed me and wheeled me away to some secret Homeland Security holding pen. Then they’d send me straight back to Lyons with a stern warning to never,
ever
again set my Prada-clad foot in Los Angeles.

And Caroline would sneer and say “I told you so.”

The man watched me expectantly, and I realized I’d missed part of what he said. I fumbled back to our conversation. “So are you in the business, too?”

He whipped out his wallet and slid a crisp white card from its folds. “My wife and I are what you’d label ‘behind-the-scenes’ people. We used to be in the thick of celebrity networking, but we’ve scaled back to a select few. Still, call me if you or your clients need a consult.”

I read the card:

Patrick O’Malley

Arts & Entertainment Publicity

“
Helping your talent shine through”

Cute. A publicist for a publicist: Welcome to Hollywood. I smiled and thanked him for his offer to make me over, then stuffed his card in my purse.

“If I may, who are your clients?”

“Oh. Um, Samuel Cabral,” I answered tentatively. “Have you heard of him?”

The man’s eyes widened and he whistled. “Who hasn’t? Not only is he a brilliant writer, he has the ‘it’ factor—sexy and elusive. And in the entertainment business, people gobble up that stuff. Every producer, media hound, leading lady, and purse poodle wants an hour with that man. Very humble guy, though, on the few occasions I’ve met him. Refreshing—‘humble’ isn’t even
in
this industry’s instruction manual.”

Pride snaked up my back and I straightened my shoulders. “Yes, he is a very good man. Definitely in-demand.”

Patrick’s mouth curled knowingly. “So you’re more than his publicist. You’re his manager.”

“I…no. Sort of.”

Patrick nodded thoughtfully, sizing up my frizzed-out hair and unpolished nails in a new light. “Word is the
Water Sirens
movies will blow the vampire boys out of the water. We’re talking a mass-media franchise potentially worth billions of dollars. There are a lot of jobs and money tied up in Mr. Cabral’s yays or nays. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.”
Or yours, for that matter
, he added wordlessly with a piercing gaze.