One Way to Succeed (Casas de Buen Dia Book 1) (12 page)

“Rick,” she said, “pick up your phone.”

Rick picked up the receiver, and connected himself to the only line that appeared to be in use.

“Yes?”

“Rick, I don’t know what to do with this guy,” Amy said over the phone.

“What guy?”

“On the phone. He is insisting that he talk with you, but he won’t give me his name. I tried to brush him off but he said he quote ‘didn’t think that was wise’ unquote. The tone of his voice indicates he’s going to cause some kind of trouble. Do you want to talk to him?”

Rick had no idea what kind of trouble anyone could cause for him, but he didn’t like someone trying to intimidate him or his staff by threatening it. He thought for a moment.

“Tell him I’m busy and take a number. See if you can’t get him to give you his name. Tell him I will never talk to people unless I know who they are.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” Amy said. “Now hang up, and I’ll get him back on my line.”

“Thanks,” Rick said, barely getting the word out before she cut him off.

Five minutes later, she stepped in to put a note on his desk and walked back out. He picked it up.

Beau D’Matrio. 503-225-9928
.

A relative? Rick wondered. He had no first cousins that he knew of, and had never met his second cousins or any other shirt-tail relative. Who could be trying to reach him now, and why?

Rick shook his head and threw the note in the trash. If the guy couldn’t leave more of a message than that, he wasn’t worth worrying about. Whether he had Rick’s last name or not.

Amy put aside the work she had intended to finish that afternoon to build the Buen Dia Facebook page. She had hoped to make appointments for the final building inspection at both the old Dew Tune Inn and the single-family home, which were both nearly complete and just waiting for final occupancy permits. She’d also hoped to make some progress on her own secret project—finding the Mexican woman who owned those beautiful empty lots she’d discovered at the beginning of the week.

Guy brought over a thumb-drive full of photos of past projects and headshots of the Buen Dia staff, and Amy downloaded them onto Facebook. She filled out the basic information required to open a business page, and set up a BlogSpot address where she could send page visitors to read the weekly blog she would now be writing on a weekly basis.

Glad to have an excuse to get out of the office, she drove over to the Corona Inn and located Tom, who turned out to be the man she had seen Rick talking with earlier that morning. The contractor had been waiting for her; apparently he was very excited by the news Rick had shared of the upcoming Facebook page and his starting role in it.

Amy took her own camera and shot photos of Tom and his crew in front of the construction project. She got enough information about Tom to write a nice, flattering blog about him for the page. The project was finished before she left for the day, but she didn’t publish the page. Rick would have to approve it first, and she didn’t want to risk talking to him at the end of the day. He’d undoubtedly try to suggest “working late” with him again.

Besides, it was five o’clock and she was meeting Katie for drinks and dinner at the bar at Sammy G’s on Palm Canyon Drive.

“Are you sure that you have to choose?” Katie asked as soon as Amy had filled her in on what had happened that day.

“I think the question is, do I have a choice?” Amy said. “I have to leave. If I stay there, I’m stuck in an admin role because that’s all he thinks women are capable of. And, I will be so angry with him for it, it would destroy any relationship we might try to have.”

“Well, why don’t you leave and just date him?”

“I can’t do that,” she said. “I like the job, I could be COO if he’d let me. I’ll resent him for not letting me stay. Let’s face it, the relationship is over. It’s all fucked up.”

“Maybe you’re reading too much into things. Maybe he chose those three men because they’re the best qualified,” Katie said. She seemed determined to find a way for Amy and Rick to continue having a relationship.

“I know for a fact that they’re not,” Amy said. “I did the research. Two of the women on that list were better qualified than two of the three he chose. Hell, even I am a better choice than at least two of those guys.”

“But you said the kiss was fantastic!” Katie wasn’t ready to give up.

Amy nodded, and let herself think about Rick in a way she hadn’t allowed since that morning. She’d pushed him out of her mind as much as she could. She refused to think about how attractive she had found him from the start, and how incredibly sexy he had made her feel Friday night in the casita. Now, she shuddered at the powerful sensation of remembering his touch. How could she give that up forever?

“I really have no choice,” she said, putting her drink to her mouth to hide the quiver in her lips. She was going to cry right there in the bar if she didn’t change the subject soon.

“But what about you? What’s new in your life?”

“Nope,” Katie said. “I’m not letting you off the hook that easy. My god, Amy, you forget who you’re talking about here. It’s Rick D’Matrio. Half the women in this valley would give their entire handbag collection just for one date with him. What’s wrong with you? Haven’t you ever really fought for a guy before?”

Amy put her drink down and scowled at the question. Had she? Had she fought for Rob, or had she just let him go? Had she let him go when he started sleeping around? Or had she given up way back when he started showing up in the society pages with all those beautiful women on his arm? Had she not fought back because she didn’t care or because she didn’t think she could win? And did she now regret it? 

Katie wanted to visit another bar or two and continue their discussion, but Amy declined. Sharing her problems with her best friend was one thing, and probably something most people would consider normal, but letting Katie obsess vicariously with them was something entirely, unsettlingly different. One of the reasons Amy had stayed out of those society pictures with Rob in the first place was that she didn’t like letting her personal life become public. Maybe she’d even have trouble ever getting married because of it, she surmised. What business did the rest of the world have in knowing whom she was sleeping with or committing her life to?

Amy walked back to her car, which she had parked a few blocks north of the restaurant to force herself to get in a few more steps. She was getting a lot less exercise than she used to when she waited on tables, and while she hadn’t started putting on weight yet, she didn’t want it to sneak up on her.

She sunk down into the driver’s seat and started the Z3’s engine. Its low roar attracted a wolf whistle from a gaggle of guys leaving the Legion Hall bar, and she waved. She put the car in gear and took off quickly, hoping to avoid any approach she might have encouraged by acknowledging their approval.

She drove north and turned around the block to drive down Palm Canyon Drive through the heart of downtown. Traffic was more congested than she would have expected for a week night during the shoulder season, and she had plenty of time to look around at the proliferation of public displays of affection on the sidewalks on either side of the street. The warm evening not only brought out the skin-revealing outfits, it apparently gave everyone permission to act like they were off at some adult-only beach resort where deep kissing and fondling in public wasn’t just tolerated, but expected.

What made her so obsessed with privacy? she wondered. She couldn’t think of any family history that explained it—any embarrassing scandal that had burst into the public eye. Perhaps it was simply the weariness she’d felt by the time she was fourteen from the attention her looks had attracted. She had matured from a cute adolescent to a precocious beauty in a matter of only about eighteen months, and neither she nor her mother had enough time to prepare her for it. She hid behind dark-framed glasses that she barely needed and a style-less ponytail for most of her high school years, just to avoid uncomfortable advances from adults, including teachers, who should have known better.

She wasn’t conscious of it at the time, but a relationship with Rob, who was so pretty himself, let her off the hook. People would look at him as often as they would focus on her, and that only became more common the more his celebrity rose. In tiny Billings, Montana, he was about as high on the A list as the mayor, and by the time he had hopped his way up to evening anchor in Palm Springs four years later, she had managed to fade into the background, a place she found comfortable.

Amy’s cellphone rang in her purse, and she waited until she stopped at the next red light before pulling it out to see who had called. As if she had conjured him up by thinking of him, it was Rob. She caught her breath quickly, and then wondered what that meant. Was she excited to hear from him? Shocked? Obviously, by her reaction, it wasn’t disinterest. She let the call go to voice mail. She wanted to sort out those feelings before she called him back.

~

Rob was coming back to Palm Springs the next weekend to visit. According to his lamentations on the phone the next evening, when Amy finally felt composed enough to call him back, he was lonely.

He had been hired to be the morning news anchor with the promise that he might be promoted to the evening news if his ratings rose high enough. But in the meantime, he was leaving his house for work at three in the morning, which required him to go to bed at six at night. If he didn’t, he didn’t look rested enough for today’s High Definition TVs. No wrinkles were allowed! No dark circles under the eyes, either, which was cutting into his happy hour partying as well. So far, his weekends had been eaten up by celebrity appearances at county fairs and animal rescue rallies, which were boring him to tears.

“I’ve got no social life at all,” Rob whined.

Amy imagined that it was tough on him to go from the hottest anchor in a small, trendy town like Palm Springs, to a relative unknown cutting ribbons and being ignored as he sat in charity dunk tanks in a city as obsessed with celebrity as L.A.

“And, I miss you,” he added.

“Of course you do,” she answered, trying to keep her voice even and not reveal the contempt she felt growing stronger the more he talked.

“You miss me too, right?” he begged, as if he already believed that and just wanted to her confirm it.

“You miss being the center of attention, Rob. You don’t miss me.”

He paused. Apparently, that wasn’t the answer he expected.

“No, I really do, Amy. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, and I really need to see you.”

As much as she tried to block it, she couldn’t help noticing the boost of confidence she was getting from hearing him profess so much longing for her. Since this thing with Rick wasn’t going to work out, maybe she could follow Rob to L.A. after all. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to be such a bad idea. Certainly the job market was bigger, more varied there. Even if she didn’t see a future with Rob, perhaps while he was occupied with his climb up the TV ladder, she could focus on continuing her career there. Or on finding a career there, as it appeared she still hadn’t started one yet.

~

It wasn’t that far from Rob’s apartment in south Los Angeles to Palm Springs—maybe two hours of driving, maybe five, depending on how bad traffic was on the 405 and the 10. But he had plenty of money these days, and perhaps he meant to prove it to Amy by flying into Palm Springs. She picked him up Friday evening at the airport, and felt a little tightness in her chest when she saw him come through the tall glass doors of the central terminal and walk toward her car. 

His smile was sincere, that was for sure. He was clearly happy to be there.

She waited for him at the curb in the Z3 and watched as he strode toward her, opened the passenger door, and dropped into the passenger seat, placing his small overnight bag between his legs. He leaned over to give Amy a peck on the lips.

“You are so wonderful” were the first words out his mouth, and they made Amy smile. If it was the first thing he thought to say when he got there, it gave her hope that for a change, his focus might be on her, and not on his career, or his popularity, or his ratings. This might be the best couple of days they’d had in years, she thought.

She drove straight to the condo, and he leapt out of the car like an eight-year-old glad to be back from a summer with grandma and grandpa, ready to get back to the home he loved. Half-way up the sidewalk, he turned to her and opened his arms. He buried his face in her hair and whispered.

“I’m so happy to see you,” he said. “Thank you so much for being here for me. I need you so much.”

Now, the clichés felt strangely scripted: how wonderful she was, how happy he was to see her, how much he needed her. Amy wondered if she had read his sincerity wrong all along. Was there anything real and sustainable about this, or was he just reeling from a couple of months of loneliness—a couple of months of being off the social radar? Was he just saying what he thought he had to? And why? What did he want from her?

Amy decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Let’s see how the weekend goes before jumping to conclusions,
she thought.

After all, what did she have to lose? Any affair with Rick was doomed. Even when she moved on to another company—which she now considered just a matter of time—she was going to resent him for refusing to give her a chance. That was no foundation on which to build a relationship. It was over between them, however much she still fantasized that it wasn’t.

~

Amy had steaks in the refrigerator and some potato salad courtesy of Ralph’s grocery store. Once inside, she headed directly for the wine refrigerator while Rob stored his overnight bag in the bedroom. She opened a bottle of pinot noir, and was about to turn around to pull some wine glasses down from the cupboard when he slipped behind her and threw his arms around her waist.

The maneuver reminded her of Rick’s approach in his mother’s casita. She smiled at the memory, and then she was surprised by a sudden anger. What the hell had Rick been after? Why would he seduce her, flatter her, depend on her to do so much, and then dismiss her—and every other woman in the world—as unworthy of his partnership.

Amy turned a looked up into Rob’s face.

“What do you want from me, Rob?” she asked. Her voice must have revealed more emotion than she intended it to. Rob stepped back, letting his arms drop to his side.

“Are you angry?” he asked. “At me?”

Amy let out a deep breath she didn’t even realize she was holding and smiled, apologetically.

“No, I’m not,” she said, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking of something else.”

“Do you mean someone else?”

“No,” she lied. “I was thinking about work. I’m going to let it go, though. It’s just about you and me tonight, okay?”