Talk of the Town (26 page)
I stopped a minute to write some things on my notepad, and Donetta started to talk. “Wait,” I said. “I got more. Call Brother Harve and O.C., and ask them to check for Verl at home, and if he’s not there, to hightail it over to The Junction. Verl’s probably laid out in his truck in the parking lot, as usual. Tell Harve and O.C. I don’t care if they have to pick him up and carry him here, I need him over to my place. They can’t let anybody follow them. If they think they got a tail, they’ll have to take evasive maneuvers.”
“Good gravy, Imagene, you’re making this sound like a spy movie. O.C. and Harve are gonna laugh me off the phone.”
“Just tell them it’s important. Tell them it’s for Amber. Brother Harve’s always had a soft spot for the Anderson kids.”
Donetta sighed. “All right. I’ll do it. Anything else?”
I stopped to think, looking at my list. “See if you can line us up someone who knows how to drive a pickup that’s haulin’ a fourhorse slant trailer. Someone who ain’t busy this afternoon. Don’t tell them who it’s for yet. Where’s Amanda-Lee?”
“Still in bed, I think. I haven’t heard a peep from her so far this morning. Carter passed through here on his way back from breakfast a while ago. He said he guessed she’d turned in early yesterday evening. He helped her plug her computer into the phone line when they got home from the fair, and that was the last he heard of her.”
A sense of something not right tickled the short hairs on the back of my neck. Why would Amanda-Lee sleep past eight o’clock on the day her crew was headed up from Austin to film Amber’s show? “Well, that don’t seem right, does it—considering she’s got a big day today and all?”
“No, it don’t,” Donetta agreed. “Reckon I ought to go wake her up? I haven’t even heard a toilet flush up there or nothin’ all morning. Women always go to the pot first thing.”
“Donetta, for heaven’s sake.” Some of the things Donetta would talk about!
“Well, they do. That’s always how we knew when to put out the breakfast trays—soon as the toilets started flushin’.”
“That’s just two things it don’t seem should be associated—breakfast trays and toilets flushing.”
“Well, you know, out one end, in the other.”
“Donetta!” I couldn’t help it, I laughed and DeDe laughed, too. For a minute, I forgot what we’d been talking about and why I was at the window with a notepad in my hand.
“You know, when she leaves here, she’ll be followed.” Donetta’s words floated loosely around a thought about the low branches on the live oak trees needing to be trimmed.
“Who’ll be followed?”
Donetta coughed into the phone. “Amanda-Lee. Wake up out there, Imagene. When Amanda-Lee leaves the hotel, these reporters are gonna follow. You shoulda heard them asking Lucy did we have the people from
American Megastar
registered here, and was Amber and Justin Shay upstairs, and so forth. They’re hanging around by the doors, waiting for anyone to come out of the hotel. When they see Amanda-Lee’s car pull out, they’ll be hot on her tail.”
“We can’t have that. She’ll lead them right here.” I stopped to think about the problem. “All right, I got an idea. Give Harlan a call on his cell phone and find out how soon he’s gonna be back through town on his mail route. Whenever he comes by the Hair and Body, he can go around back and pull on into the garage. Amanda-Lee can load up in the back part of the wagon and have Harlan drive her out here, and them reporters won’t have a clue.”
Donetta was quiet for a minute. I had a feeling she was staring at the beauty shop windows, trying to get a vision of whether or not the plan would work.
“It might do,” she decided finally. “It just might do.”
“It’ll have to do. I don’t have any other ideas. You?”
“If I did, I woulda said so.” Donetta sounded a little peeved. It wasn’t normal for me to be the one doing the planning and giving the orders. It felt good to be thinking on my own. All my life, I’d had someone else thinking for me—first my daddy, then Jack, now these last months Donetta and my sons. It was a powerful thing, finding out I had a mind of my own. I felt like I was on the roller coaster again—bold and free and full of life. “Have the countertoppers get busy serving up some Amber Anderson stories. Maybe Brother Ervin can offer to show them the church where Amber used to sing, maybe even let them think she might show up there today—that wouldn’t be a lie exactly, would it? To let them think that, I mean? Ervin could hint without actually saying so.”
“I think it’d be all right. It probably ain’t a sin to mislead reporters, anyhow.”
“No, probably not, I reckon.”
Donetta let out a long sigh, and I could hear her fingernails tapping the phone. “What exactly are you gonna be doin’ while I’m calling half the county?”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, Netta, I can’t spend all morning on the phone. I got boys to feed, and then after that I got Hollywood comin’ to my very doorstep. I need to get busy and clean my house.”
Donetta just smacked her lips, huffed into the phone, and hung up, of all things. Even with all the years we been friends, there’s times when Donetta Bradford can be just plain hard to get along with.
The Ferris wheel sat waiting with one empty seat as David and I strolled through the fairgrounds, taking in the scent of funnel cakes and corn dogs, the richly blended sound of voices, the mechanical clicks and swishes of rides, and the tinny melodies of carnival music. By the Ferris wheel gate, the old ticket taker stood waiting, his body bent and wrinkled, a stark contrast to the smooth satin of his candy-striped vest and tall white top hat. He waved me over, and I tugged David’s hand, pulling him toward the Ferris wheel.
David leaned away, laughed, and said, “What’s the hurry?”
The ticket taker beckoned, and I tried to pull David closer. Any minute now, the gate would close, the Ferris wheel would spin upward, and we’d miss the ride. “Come on,” I pleaded. “It’s almost too late.” High overhead in the seats, I could see my sisters, my nieces and nephews, and Paula in her bridesmaid’s dress with her laptop computer, cruising
Mydestiny.com
.
Mydestiny.com
. Something vaguely disturbing, mildly threatening, crept through my mind. I looked up at the blanket of night sky overhead. What could possibly be wrong here?
The ticket taker was closing the gate, his movements slow and deliberate. “Let’s go,” I said, trying to move forward. The gate was closing. David’s fingers slipped from mine, and I didn’t look back but ran for the opening, slipping into the last seat as it started upward.
“Pardon me, ma’am.” I turned, and Carter was standing on the girders, riding the upward swell like a sailor on the rigging of a pirate ship. “I have to test this ride for safety.” Swinging forward, he landed in the seat beside me.
“How did you . . . ? Where . . .?” I looked over the edge, and David was below, waiting in line to purchase food. He bought a caramel apple on a stick. A television crew walked up the midway with cameras, and David prepared to give an interview. Ursula slipped the apple from David’s hand, took a bite, and smiled up at me.
“Don’t worry,” Carter whispered. “It’s only a dream.” I turned my face toward his, and he kissed me as we spun upward into a shower of stars.
The metal cowboy smiled, and atop his hat, the blue gorilla smiled, as well.
The gears of the Ferris wheel knocked, then buzzed, then knocked again, a steady, rhythmic sound. Someone below called my name.
“Amaaanda-Lee . . . Amaaanda-Lee . . . you awake in there, hon?”
The Ferris wheel, and the midway, David, Ursula, Carter all vanished. I opened my eyes and took in Elvis, larger than life on a black velvet tapestry.
I was vaguely aware of my cell phone vibrating toward the edge of the bed and someone knocking on the door. My face felt crusty, my eyes swollen and sore. My cheek was stuck to something furry and plush. For a moment I thought of the blue gorilla and drowsily considered the possibility that I’d fallen asleep with it.
“Amanda-Lee? Amanda-Lee-ee? Hon, it’s Donetta. I just wanted to check on ye-ew. It’s almost eight-thirty. Don’t you need to be gettin’ outta bed?”
Eight-thirty? I jerked upright, taking in the room, my computer on the floor, the fish in a bathroom glass, the anatomical alarm clock, flashing 8:30, 8:30, 8:31. My cell phone vibrated on the bed again and everything came back to me in a rush—the fair, the roller coaster, Carter, the fish, my computer, Paula’s instant message, the painful revelation about David . . .
“Amaaan-da-Lee-ee, you all ri-ight in there?”
Pushing off the bed, I stumbled, stiff-legged, toward the door. When I opened it, Donetta was on the other side with cinnamon rolls and a glass of orange juice. “I thought ye-ew might want somethin’ to eat, hon,” she said, then inclined her head to one side and frowned sympathetically. “Ye-ew all right, sweetie? You don’t look so good this mornin’. Ye-ew sleep all right last ni-ight?”
“Fine, thanks.” I set the rolls on an ornate white and gold washstand by the door. “A little too well, I guess. Thanks for waking me up. I can’t believe I overslept.”
Donetta peered past me into the room, curiously taking in the fully made bed, the computer on the floor, all of my things in a compact pile by the chair, as if staged for a quick exit. “It’s no problem at all, darlin’. We were just worried, that’s all. Carter come by on his way to the café for breakfast and said he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of you since yesterday evenin’, and then I called Imagene, and she said you had a big day ahead today, and we figured I might-should wake you up.”
“Yes, thank you for checking on me.” I stepped back from the door, preparing to throw on some clothes, then get busy making final preparations for the day and checking on the crew’s ETA. That was probably the crew chief, Rodney, calling on the phone right now. Or Ursula.
I turned toward the phone as it buzzed a second ring. It could be Paula, calling about David. . . .
My stomach sank and fresh tears prickled against my throat, stinging like salt in an open wound.
Donetta’s hand touched my arm, rubbed up and down with the faint scratch of long fingernails. “Is somethin’ wrong, hon?
You look like somebody died.”
Somebody did. Me. Mandalay Florentino, happily engaged girl, killed in a train wreck of my own making
. Scattered around the wreckage lay scores of details—wedding plans to cancel, a dreaded call to my family, an even worse call to David. What would he say? Would he deny everything, try to explain it away, or just admit that while I was planning our wedding, he was making sure there wasn’t something better to be found. Some
one
better.
I wanted to crawl back onto the hairy bed and bury myself in it. Why was all of this happening at once?
Swallowing the tears, I gave myself a mental shove.
Time to pull it together, Mandalay Florentino. Quit marching in the pity parade; step up and salvage what’s left of your life
. It wasn’t too late to do a fabulous job on Amber’s hometown segment, return to LA in triumph, and help Amber and her little brothers in the process. The personal wreckage would have to wait until I had time for it. At least I still had my career. For now.
“I’m fine,” I assured Donetta. “I just didn’t mean to sleep so late. I’ve got to . . . a lot to do today.”
She nodded in a conspiratorial way. Glancing up and down the hall, she leaned close and said, “Can I come in for a minute, hon? I just talked to Imagene, and we’ve run into a little hitch this morning.”
I stepped back, allowing her into the room when what I really wanted to do was slam the door shut. I couldn’t confront one more hitch today.
Please, God, no more hitches, okay? My fiancé is trying to date my maid of honor over the internet. That’s enough for one twenty-four-hour period, all right? Please?
I was surprised to find myself praying, but I probably shouldn’t have been. Desperate times breed fervent faith, my grandmother always said. These were desperate times. If my career tanked today, I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t.
Please help me make this segment a success. . . .
Donetta must have sensed that I was close to the breaking point. She interlaced her fingers and folded her hands against her chest as if she were praying, too. “Imagene and I got it all figgered out. I been makin’ phone calls, and everyone in town wants to hay-elp.”
Making phone calls? To everyone in town?
My mouth dropped open. Donetta took my hand between hers and patted and rubbed it vigorously. “Now don’t panic, hon, but thay-re’s reporters downstairs. A lot of reporters. . . .”
Panic, why should I panic?
Just because Amber’s hometown segment would be ruined, along with her chances of making it into the Final Showdown? Just because she and her brothers would continue to live in poverty? Just because Ursula would kill me, then terminate my employment, and I’d be lucky to get a job entering news copy into the teleprompter somewhere?
“We got a plan,” Donetta went on. “It’s gonna sound a little crazy, but we think it’ll work. First of all, y’all go ahead and git yourself dressed and git your things together, then just wait here until I call for you. Don’t dare go downstairs, and stay away from the windows, because if those folks see you, they’ll be all over you like stink on a skunk. They’re watchin’ the hotel, the car, everything. Bob said some of them’s hid out behind pallets and trash cans in the back alley, tryin’ to figure out if Amber’s in the hotel with Justin Shay.”