“Mm, either.” Then, when I didn’t speak up immediately, “You can start with work, I suppose. What happened on set today?”
“Nothing much. We killed David.”
“Oh good,” my mother said, without batting an eyelash. “I didn’t like that Alex person much at all. Gunshot? Woman scorned?”
Heh. Mona always knew far more than she let on. But I didn’t let art imitate life too much—not this time. “Warehouse explosion. Trying to rescue kidnapped Sabrina. Made a good cliffhanger for the season finale. But he’s quite dead.”
“Show the body?”
“Absolutely. Plus we got a nice tight close-up we’re saving for next season’s premiere. So there’ll be no question he’s stone cold.”
“That’s always best. What about your ratings?”
“I think we’ll be okay. I used David’s return to set up a whole bunch of new plot arcs that’ll keep viewers interested. Sabrina can grieve a lot, maybe go off the rails a bit. I even gave Evie her bulimia story line, like Randy wanted.” I sighed. “But I’m billing all those extra sessions with her acting coach to the studio! No way that’s coming out of my budget.”
“Randy isn’t giving you a hard time anymore, I hope?”
“No, he’s staying away from me, letting me work.”
“I’m not surprised, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“I heard why he fired you. It’s rather taken on the air of legend already.”
I felt my cheeks get hot. “Oh. That.”
Mona shrugged. “Someone should have done it years ago. He’s a sexist pig if ever there was one.”
“Mona!”
“Well, he is. I’d like to say he’s the last of a dying breed, but for some reason they just keep on coming. Which is a terrible shame. I thought all this women-fighting-for-control nonsense would have died out by now. I wanted better for you.” She paused as she looked over the table settings, making sure everything was in its place. “To tell you the truth, I wish I’d made that kind of a . . .
statement
myself, when I had the chance,” she murmured. “I’m envious.”
“Don’t be,” I said, recalling the feel of Randy’s damp junk in my grasp. I shuddered at the memory.
“Definitely wasn’t much to grab, if I recall.”
“Mona!” I gasped, absolutely floored.
“Oh, I didn’t
sleep
with him. Please, I have better taste than that. Of course, my turning him down didn’t stop him from chasing me around the pool table at Warren’s house with his privates hanging out.”
“Warren . . .
Beatty?
”
She made a clucking noise. “Come now, dear. You know we ran in the same circles.”
I took a fortifying sip of wine. “Did you sleep with Warren?”
She winked at me. “Who didn’t?”
“Oh my God.”
I was glad when the chef rang the chimes for dinner and Mason and Dominic returned from their male bonding session one floor below. I wasn’t sure how many more of my mother’s revelations I could take.
As Mason rounded the table, he gave my waist a squeeze. “Having fun?”
“You have no idea. How were the ukulele lessons?”
“Foregone in favor of drinking.”
“Wise choice.”
“Rossmerry!” Dominic cried. “You sit, eat! You too skinny. Make you fat, healthy. Sit.”
I obeyed, and let my stepfather shovel more food onto my plate than I ate in a week.
* * *
After dinner, with Dominic nodding over one last drink at the dining room table and my mother instructing the chef to package up some leftovers for us to take home, Mason and I walked down to the beach. The tide was out, and the wind was strong.
“Stay here a minute,” he said, and ran back to the beach house.
I sat on the sand, enjoying the sound of the waves hissing in the darkness. After a while, I heard Mason fussing with something on the patio. He brought out a couple of tiki torches, stuck them into the sand and lit them, then sat down beside me, putting a blanket over my shoulders and a warming arm around me.
“Very nice touch,” I said, admiring the torches. “So—you survived a family dinner with Mona and Dominic. How do you feel?”
“Not as freaked out as I thought I’d be. Your mom is really nice. Nothing like I remember.”
“She’s . . . mellowing. Something’s definitely changed with her lately, for the better. Maybe it was her health scare.”
“Or maybe it’s because you two are closer.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. “Maybe,” I conceded. “But if it is, I’ve got you to thank. You started it—that first night at your house, you got me to look at my mother in a whole different light.”
“I’m glad it helped.” He kissed me, then ventured, “Can I ask . . . um . . .”
“What?”
“How in the
world
did Mona and Dominic get together?”
I laughed. “They met at a charity car auction, of all places. Mona donated her ’66 Mustang. Dominic was buying. It turned out that Dominic does a lot of that—buying things—because he has great gobs of cash. Somehow he and Mona connected—on what level, I have no idea—and the rest, as they say, is history. Quite the pair, aren’t they?”
“What would your stepbrother say? Chalk and cheese?”
“Very much so. But Dominic—weird as he is—sort of . . . grounds Mona. She’s been more
normal
since she’s been married to him than any other time in her life. I always sort of . . . envied them.”
“You? Envy normality?”
“There’s a lot to be said for a quiet life when you’ve never had one.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “You’ve been making me feel pretty normal lately. So thank you.”
Mason got very quiet. The torches guttered in the wind but didn’t go out.
“What?” I asked, raising my head to look him in the eye.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t start that with me, mister—”
He chuckled softly. “No, ma’am.”
“So . . . ?”
“Are we chalk and cheese?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You sure about that?”
“Oh, this isn’t about my mother’s fame, is it? That I have some sort of—what do they call it? ‘Pedigree’? Like a dog?”
“Not a
dog
. You’re Hollywood royalty.”
“Drew Barrymore is Hollywood royalty. Meryl Streep is Hollywood royalty. We’re merely merchant class.”
“Oh, you’re much more than that, and you know it. Your mom is a legend, and you’re fast becoming one.”
“So what’s that got to do with you and me?”
“What if I can’t keep up?”
I reached out, stroked his stubbly cheek. “Are you kidding? I love you. And Mona—and Dominic—love you. You keep me sane. And you make me very, very happy. It’s like . . . you do so much for me, and I don’t . . . do enough in return. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t be allowed to be in the same room with someone as wonderful as you.” He held me tighter, and I drew his face to mine and kissed him. “I want to ask you something.”
“What?”
“What would you think if, after the end of this season, I pulled back a little from
Modern Women,
gave Jaya more control?” I could tell, even in the shadowy half-light of the lanterns and fairy lights on the patio, that I had shocked him. “Oh, I’d stay on as exec producer, but the day-to-day stuff, I’d . . . delegate.”
“But . . . you fought so hard to get back on the show.”
“I did. But . . . it’s not as precious as it once was. And that’s a good thing,” I rushed to add. “And I’m finding out that I’ve got other ideas that I want to investigate. Which brings me to another question for you: What would you say to developing a new series with me, as equals? Based on one of your scripts.”
“I beg your pardon?” He half-laughed, stunned.
“I mean it. You know I love the one about the writer—the one where everything he writes comes true. I like the modern fantasy spin you put on it—very Bryan Fuller—instead of the usual ‘and then everything goes wrong’ horror trope. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“And you think that would make a good series?”
“Isn’t that why you wrote the spec script?”
“I wrote those scripts because all this stuff pops into my head and I need to get it out, so I put it on paper.”
“Well, I think this could go from your head to paper to television. So what do you say?”
“How long have you been plotting this?”
“Just lately. You know, some things in my life recently . . . they got me thinking about making some changes.”
“And what would those things be?”
“I think you know,” I whispered, kissing him again.
“And what happened to your mom—did that affect you too?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I hate clichés, but, you know, life is short. I want to make sure I really live, like Mona, instead of just eating, breathing, and sleeping one TV show after another. Of course, I’m going to have to get a move on if I’m going to have four husbands, like her . . .”
“Well, how about if you just start with one?”
“I suppose—wait. What?”
Mason gave me a tentative smile, reached into the shadows behind him, and placed something in front of me.
“You bought me a plant.” I lifted the pot into the light, examining the spiky green points and tiny purple flowers. “It smells like a roast chicken.”
“It’s rosemary.”
“Oh, very funny.”
“Do you know the meaning of a rosemary plant?” I shook my head. “Remembrance. And fidelity. I figure you’ve got a memory like a steel trap already, but I can offer you fidelity.”
He reached over and rotated the pot gently in my hands. Tied to one of the branches of the plant by a satin ribbon was something small and circular that sparkled in the torchlight.
Mason went on, a nervous note in his voice, “So what do you think? Could you spend the rest of your life with a fusty old writer?”
Tears falling now, I threw my arms around him. “Oh God, yes. You’re all I want.”
“For husband number one?”
“Forever. And you’re not fusty. Mona prefers ‘rumpled intellectual.’”
I kissed him again, and again, and only stopped when he insisted on putting the ring on my finger. There was a rattle behind us, and another faint noise; we looked up, and there were Mona and Dominic, knocking on their living room window and waving.
I pressed my forehead to Mason’s. “Did they know about this?”
“Yep. I dropped off the plant earlier today. And asked your mother’s permission to propose, of course. She said yes,” he added unnecessarily.
“They’re pretty good at keeping secrets.”
“And Dominic told me to tell you he’s going to buy this house so we can get married on the beach, if you want.”
“I thought he wanted to have a beach house so he could go surfing.”
“That too. You’ll just have to keep him from surfing
during
the wedding. Although he would make quite an entrance that way.” Mason hesitated. “Faith, tell me—are you . . . are you sure? That this is what you want?”
“What, a beach wedding? Come on, I’m a California girl. Of course I want a beach wedding. Maybe not with Dominic in a wetsuit, but—”
“No, I mean . . . me. You wouldn’t want to hold out for, I don’t know, some famous actor?”
“That is not even remotely amusing. I want you. I love you, Mr. Professor Mason Mitchell.”
He let out a relieved breath. “I’m glad.”
I sniffed the plant again. “Let’s use some rosemary in the floral arrangements.” Mason laughed, but I insisted, “It’s pretty! All shiny and everything. I’ll put it in my bouquet so I can smell roast chicken all the way down the aisle.”
Mason laughed some more and hugged me. “Whatever you want.”
“So . . .”
“Yes?”
“My name. My legal name. It would be Rosemary Mitchell.”
“I suppose it would.”
“That sounds so . . . normal. I like it.”
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