Hollywood Beginnings (A Novella) (3 page)

"I'm good."

This time he smiled directly at me and with way more wattage than the waitress had gotten. This one made it all the way to his eyes where the laugh lines were so appealing a woman would want to trace them. Not me, but other women would, the waitress for example.

And then I realized saying
I'm good
generated the smile, and I blushed. I felt the mild heat of it and hoped it didn't deepen to actual red. I was 35 and divorced for cripe's sake. I couldn't remember the last time I'd blushed or had a male flirt with me. Although he was less flirty than he was really paying attention with a kind of organic man-ness. I really needed to leave.

"Amy, I just want to talk to your mother, and frankly I think she needs to give me this interview."

I'm sure my mouth fell open in protest. I might have even used a mild swear word or a hard core one. I don't entirely know, but the waitress fled.

Brian shook his head. "Your mother has a history in this town, like it or not."

I squinted at him, the sun and my anger a bright haze in my vision.

He leaned in. "How do you not have sunglasses? You know, they're the snow tires of Southern California."

I tried to hold it together. "My mother made one movie, chaperoned by her mother, so any gossip you've heard isn't even in the ballpark of something true."

"You like baseball?"

I tried to process the unexpected question.

"Do you like baseball?"

"Uh, yeah, it's America's frickin' pastime! Now leave my mother alone."

"How about basketball?"

What was wrong with this guy? Was he a sharky paparazzi with attention deficit disorder? Maybe I should find out before I let him have it. "Alright. One, basketball is infinitely more entertaining as a spectator sport. That's a given, and two, are you crazy? I mean, do you have some..." I tried to think of a subtle way to ask, but I'd never been good at subtle. Okay, I sucked at subtle. "Do you possess a
disability
of some kind?"

He shook his head, but I could tell he was trying not to smile. Still, he hadn't answered. "Are you now or have you ever been
diagnosed
or forced to self-medicate an
undiagnosed
mental illness?"

He shook his head, his lips coming together as if he were barely holding in his amusement.

"Alright then." I spoke slowly and deliberately. "You will stop…" I rapped my knuckles on the table, "digging for lies about my mother."

He didn't respond, just watched me. "Have dinner with me, and I'll think about it."

Think about it? Shit. I needed better ammunition than an imaginary attorney.

And then I caught him checking out what even a heavy cotton blouse couldn't hide. In a land of size 0's, I might have a couple of things that could change a man's mind.

He was right that I'd inherited two of my mother's assets. I'd never used them for evil, just sex. I felt a little dizzy when the word
sex
ran through my
celibate-because-I-never-got-around-to-having-a-life-after-my-divorce
brain. In fact the word ran naked in my brain, and it had big hands, strong thighs, and a six pack of abs.

His head tilted to the side. "Where'd you go?"

He waited for an answer, and I had one. "Yes, but only because that gives me time for a more detailed conversation with our family attorney."

"Of course."

"Meanwhile, you seriously consider whether or not your career can sustain the kind of damage a libel lawsuit can inflict."

He stood, took my hand briefly to help me up. I was no tiny woman, but his hand was wide and mine fit into it and looked softer and whiter than it ever had before.

"Amy Moore, I will think about my whole life."

Brian let the waitress refill his coffee but couldn't manage to return her interested smile. He didn't want to think about his entire life. Lately he'd done nothing but examine things. Piecing together a story like Van Baron's would do that to anybody. The end of a lifetime poorly lived ought to give the whole of Hollywood a wake-up call, but it wouldn't. There ought to be a footnote on the Hollywood sign, a warning that callous disregard for anyone but yourself wouldn't get you applause or a happy ending.

Not every self-centered human lived in the greater L.A. area. There just seemed to be a high concentration of them, and the movie business did spawn a unique breed of asshole. To be fair, he'd met a few real pricks wherever he'd gone. When he'd briefly played professional basketball in Italy, mostly to postpone a real job after college, there'd been a Russian forward who should have been banished to Siberia.

But even at his most cynical, he had to admit decent humans were probably in the majority. He thought of Amy Moore defending her mother, who still had one fan. He hadn't meant to ask
Miss
Moore to dinner when he only needed to talk to
Mrs.
Moore. But, hell, even the Beach Boys sang the praises of the
Mid-West farmer's daughter
.

She was a little tough on the outside, maybe, but the fact that she'd brought her mom to L.A. so she wouldn't have to attend a funeral alone, well, that was sweet as hell. Charming even.

And charms Amy had. Not just the smart eyes that called
bullshit
when she spotted it, but also her very low skill level when it came to lying. She'd gone on about a family attorney, but he could see her discomfort. Even that was cute. And what was wrong with him? She was clearly an honest person. He wished he could let the past be, but it was still part of the present and maybe the future too.

He hoped after dinner she'd let him talk to her mother, although Miss Moore was no push-over. With her knock-a-man-to-his-knees curves, the same kind that made her mother a star, Amy Moore was the kind of woman who could get her way. But she didn't seem to have a clue about that. He'd bet she relied on being a smart, nice woman and didn't even understand the power she could wield over a man. She didn't wear a ring, so those boys back in Minnesota had resisted her obvious charms.

The boys back in Minnesota needed an IQ test.

Brian vowed to concentrate on the task at hand and not be distracted. Amy had come to L.A. for two days, and she deserved to leave for Minnesota without bringing home Hollywood troubles. Brian wasn't doing anything the way Van Baron had.

Mom and I headed out of the hotel for the Walk of Fame where celebrities found concrete immortality. I watched her stop in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, head down, studying the pink stars embedded in the sparkly charcoal stone. Marion Moore had always just been
mom
. She was still beautiful, anyone could see that, but she had a settled look that satisfied people have, and I'd always thought of celebrities as glamorously
dissatisfied
.

She stopped beside me, reached into her handbag, and I could hear her charm bracelet jingle. She wore conservative walking shorts, practical sandals, and a camp shirt not unlike my own. Her bracelet has always been the only quirky thing about my white bread mom.

For as long as I can remember, she's worn two pieces of jewelry consistently, her wedding ring and a coconut charm bracelet. The ring is a plain gold band that over the years has softened to a burnished gold and left a slight indentation on her finger. It matches my father's ring, although the fit on his is tighter as he's gone from a 20-something groom to a healthy but heavier man of sixty-five.

The bracelet is something else entirely. White gold, it has dozens of coconut shaped charms on it, another added every year on her birthday. I loved it as a child. With its different metals, some enameled, some bejeweled, it fascinated me. Later I wondered why, if she loved coconut so much, we only had it at Easter. She dyed the shredded stuff green and put it on cupcakes so jelly beans could hide in the
grass
.

But I never asked about the bracelet, and she never said. Asking her questions is not the way we work.

When we reached Lassie's star, she pulled a tissue out of her bag to brush some dust off. "Wasn't she a great dog?"

"I think
he
was several dogs."

Mom sighed. "The world's a little less special without Lassie."

She said it so quietly that I had to look at her closely. I had no idea she harbored strong feelings about a dog that barked every time a boy fell in a well.

Was this an ounce of regret for what could have been? I took a chance it was an opening, a rare opening, between her life and the past she never wanted to discuss. I mean, we're close in the way of normal mothers and daughters. We never swap clothes or boyfriends, thank God, like some of my friends with young, flaky mothers, but we're on the phone regularly. While I sometimes roll my eyes at her when we chat, I do know she'd jump in front of a bus for me. Then she'd scare me straight from even wanting to be near a bus and probably make me soup. "Mom?"

She looked up at me, so I went on. "Do you think about it?"

"Well, it
was
a very good television show."

"Not Lassie. Do you think about Hollywood?" I motioned around the place where tourists like us took pictures of the stars who were nothing like us. "You know, leaving it behind?"

She laughed then, a sweet one, light. "Heaven's no."

Heaven
was probably the key word in that statement. Brian Keller
did
not
know my mother. She's a force for good, always has been. And she's been very successful raising my sister and brother. They are as cautious and law abiding as any parent could hope. They did what they wanted with their lives and were lucky enough that it lined up beautifully with what the family and the congregation wanted for them.

When it comes to my siblings, Mom's right when she says,
the good lord has a plan
. But mine hasn't been revealed to me yet. I thought it was Duane Frandsen, but his plan was to know as many women as possible in
a biblical way
so clearly I was mistaken.

Mom stood up, smiling down at the dog's star.

Who knew she could feel so strongly about a TV show? "You really miss
Lassie
?"

"Oh." Her smile changed to something a little sadder, and she shook her head. "It's hard to explain to someone your age."

She'd closed the door again, always the mom-in-charge, only dispensing advice and not revealing more than that. It wouldn't do any good to push her. I shook my head. "It's hard to explain to your daughter, you mean."

She considered that for a minute as we moved down the starry walk. "I have a regret just like you do, Amy. I've just lived with it longer. Your marrying Duane is a
new
mistake."

My head snapped like I'd been hit, but she was a star ahead and didn't notice. I wanted to defend myself, even though marrying Duane
was
something I regretted like hell.

She sighed. "At my age, it's more like a kind of
nostalgia
, an understanding that what's gone is truly a long way behind and fading further all the time."

She stopped, looked down, and then her head came up, and she searched the street. "Oh, there's a dress shop. You need a new outfit."

I looked at the stores ahead, their awnings chichi enough they'd be called
boutiques
, and the mother I knew did not pay
boutique
prices.

She waved me along. "You go on in. I'll be right there. My treat."

Had she temporarily lost her Minnesota frugality? I should have said
no
, but I make a measly amount of money designing flaming basketballs for Joe's House of Balls and smiling hamburgers for the Beef Barn menu. And I did have a dinner ahead where only two things could persuade one Brian Keller to be very, very sorry.

Well, as my grandmother used to say, women in our family
do not raise dummies
. I shot off to the nearest store, and only at the door did I glance back to see she'd stopped at Baron's star.

***

The boutique was beautiful, and I fell in love with a dress I'd never wear once I left L.A. I'd even gotten shoes, a semi-bondage pair of sandals I could walk in but not far. Back in the hotel, I hung the dress on the bathroom door and admired it before, during, and after my shower.

I owned a basic black dress or two, of course, but they were the kind that a cotton cardigan would dress
up
. This one was a sleek hour glass, and it didn't even have me in it yet. The lingerie straps and sweetheart-shaped lace bodice could have looked like a bra, except the whole dress was so beautifully done, it rose to slutty elegance. And it didn't even need a bra because a solid push-up number was built right in. Even I had to admit it put the girls to their best advantage, and I wasn't a gender that normally noticed that kind of thing.

Mercifully, my mom had headed off to an evening church service and for the first time in my life she hadn't
suggested
I go with her. I didn't even make up an excuse for staying behind that was worthy of my teenage reputation. It had been a while since I'd needed to run some smoke and mirrors by the parents, but I should still be able to. Instead I told her I was going out to get some dinner, and she left for the service.

I think she wanted some time alone, and I could see she'd turned inward already. It looked the same to me, the face of someone really praying or meditating or fly fishing or even focused on a hot cup of tea when it's cold out. I'd never understood, even as a minister's daughter, why people didn't see that a prayer wasn't a thing so much as it was a way of doing things. I like to think it's how I look when I paint, not when I'm making the art I'm
paid
to do but creating what comes from within.

My mom looked like that when she left, and she hadn't even been curious why I needed a dress. As far as she knew I hadn't been on a date since the divorce. And I wasn't telling, or counting, the coffees with a couple of sad divorced men and one older guy who'd been a set-up by a friend. That was the last, worst date. The man couldn't have been less interested in me. He only wanted to talk about his cholesterol levels, how much he missed his ex-wife's potato salad, and the joys of Classic Meadows, which was, according to him, the best public golf course in Brainerd, MN. I kept saying,
I did not know that
, and then I said
I am never dating again.