Falling Star (40 page)

Her voice became even more somber. "Geoff, I
really appreciate your willingness to discuss this with me. But I
know it's a conflict of interest for you to help a client into an
area where she'll stop generating commissions for Dewey, Climer. I
don't want—"

"Let me worry about my conflicts of
interest."

She eyed him dubiously. "Are you sure?
You—for that matter everyone at Dewey, Climer—have been very good
to me. I—"

"I'm sure, Natalie." He found himself
reaching out to pat her knee reassuringly. He was surprised how few
qualms he felt, because indeed she raised a good point. But he
wanted to help her, regardless of any ill effect on Dewey, Climer.
Plus, in truth, he could always find another high-earning client.
He couldn't find another Natalie.

"Well, then I have a favor to ask you."

"Shoot."

"Will you help me draft a business plan?
That's the next step and I'm out of my depth."

"Sure. I'd be delighted," he heard himself
say. Now how had that popped out? He didn't even like this web
business idea. Then his cell phone rang. "Damn. Hold on a second."
He snapped it open. "Marner."

"Hi!"

"Janet." Damn. He watched as Natalie politely
angled her body away from him. "I'm right in the middle of—"

"This is important." Her voice was excited.
"My mom and I are down to two locations for the reception and I'd
like you to come see them both so we can make a final
decision."

"Fine. We'll do it tonight. I—"

"We have to do it today, not tonight." She
had moved into a scrupulously patient tone, which irritated him.
"We don't have much time."

"I can't do this during business hours." He
kept his voice patient. "I'll tell you what. You and your mom go
ahead and choose. I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever you
decide."

Something in the quality of Janet's silence
brought him abruptly to the realization he had said the wrong
thing. But didn't women decide all this anyway? All they really
wanted was his stamp of approval.

"I'll tell you what," he repeated,
backpedaling fast. "How about I rearrange a few things and meet you
at four?"

That seemed to mollify her. Geoff got the
address, then after a quick good-bye slapped his cell phone
shut.

Natalie angled herself back into a forward
position on the bench.

"Sorry about that." Somehow he felt
embarrassed about Natalie having overheard that call. "It's just
that Janet and I have to pick a place for the reception because the
wedding's so soon." Then he remembered, from the sudden stricken
look on her face that she swiftly wiped off, that Natalie didn't
even know that he and Janet had set a date. Let alone that it was
three weeks away.

"When is it?" she asked.

"October fourth. A Friday because we can't
book what we need on a Saturday at this late date."

An expression of shock passed across her
face. "That really is soon. October fourth," she repeated, and
again she looked pained. "That's the day my contract expires."

"I hadn't thought of that." That felt awkward
though he couldn't pin down why. Why shouldn't he marry on the day
Natalie's contract expired? Yet it seemed disloyal, somehow.

Natalie rose abruptly, rewrapping her
sandwich as she spoke. "I should let you go. You know, with
everything on your plate, I don't want to bother you with this
business plan thing."

"No." He surprised himself with how firm his
voice sounded. "I really want to help you with it."

She looked reluctant, but agreed and thanked
him. Then, without a good-bye, she walked swiftly across Roxbury
Park toward her car.

Dispiritedly, he crumpled his waxed paper
into a ball and tossed it basketball style into a nearby trash bin.
But he missed. His shots were off lately. Everything was.

*

Natalie returned from Roxbury Park to her
KXLA office and found one welcome message among the nineteen on her
voice mail. It was from the longtime secretary to Jerry Cohen, whom
Natalie had tracked down and phoned after she'd found the
plagiarized script.

"Natalie, I'll give you Jerry's address,
but you should know he's undercover in Tuscany working on his
screenplay.
You
he'd like to hear from, I know. So get your
pen. It's—"

Natalie transcribed the unfamiliar address,
in Bagni di Lucca, Italy. She could easily imagine Jerry in a
glorious villa pounding away at a laptop, not waiting for his muse
like Miles did, but being so productive the muse was forced to
visit just to get her two cents in. She smiled, with considerable
fondness. In years past she hadn't understood Miles's antipathy
toward Jerry. Now she did. It was fueled by jealousy.

Was she right to disturb Jerry's sabbatical
with this? Natalie stared at her desk blotter, its neat white
squares marred by appointments noted and stories due. She didn't
want to snitch. And Jerry had chosen to distance himself from
Hollywood. Maybe he wouldn't even care.

But then again, how could he not? Those were
his words and ideas that had been stolen. And she'd found out about
it. If she didn't tell Jerry, she'd be an accomplice to grand
theft. How could she live with that?

Yes, she would alert him, she decided. What
he did with the information was his own call.

Carefully she addressed a big padded manila
envelope and put a copy of the script inside, along with a
Hollywood Insider
item on
Forget Maui
and a
handwritten note.

Jerry, I believe you should see this. I think
of you often, and fondly. Natalie Daniels

She would mail the missive herself, not
trusting KXLA's mailroom to get the international postage right.
But for a few minutes, she didn't budge. She remained at her desk,
surprised how little she now felt for Miles. Disgust, revulsion, an
overwhelming sense of being well rid of him. Even, oddly, a little
pity. But no love at all. Not even its memory.

*

Kelly sat in the study of her Bel Air home,
trying to decide what she really thought of the cherrywood desk
that Grange Furniture had just delivered. It was French, which was
probably why it cost a buttload. But she figured this was the land
of furniture she should have. English Country, the realtor had told
her the house was, so French should fit in. Of course she'd had to
buy the desk and chair on credit, and there'd been a sucky moment
when the first MasterCard she'd handed over got rejected. She'd
laughed it off but still. It was hell being poor.

She stared with disgust at her latest KXLA
payroll check stub, which had come that morning from the Jimenez
Agency in New York. When she'd signed with Rico, she'd agreed to
the usual agent/client arrangement: her paycheck went from KXLA
straight to the agency, he took his ten-percent cut, deposited the
rest in her checking account, and sent her a stub. But after Rico,
the feds, and California all got their take, was she getting ripped
off or what? Of course, the main problem was that she was still
pulling down only seventy-five K a year. So all she ended up with
every two weeks was sixteen hundred bucks. How was a person
supposed to live on that?

It was like how her parents had lived on some
pathetic tiny amount the entire time she and her sisters were
growing up in Fresno. It was embarrassing to be so poor. It was a
sign you hadn't figured out how the world worked. She'd decided
when she was a kid she wasn't going to go through that shit all her
life. It got you old fast—she'd seen that in her mother.

Maybe Rico was right. Maybe she should just
take Scoppio's offer and get more in the next deal, when she had
more experience. Kelly lolled back in her new cherrywood chair and
wondered. Scoppio hadn't budged from his original cheap-ass
position. It was kind of impressive. She'd never met anyone who was
as stubborn as her until she met Tony Scoppio. Plus, she had a
feeling he wasn't as hot for her anymore. It was like dating
somebody. She could always tell when a guy cooled. Now she could
tell that Scoppio had.

So Scoppio offered a hundred thirty grand the
first year, retroactive to the contract date. She pulled out her
calculator to run the numbers. After all the deductions, that would
give her a little less than three thousand every two weeks. Almost
six thousand a month. With that she could swing the mortgage
payments. Plus she'd get a big chunk of change from the deal being
retroactive and could use that to start paying off her credit card
bills, which had reached pretty scary heights.

The doorbell rang. Who the hell could it be
at three in the afternoon? Bel Air didn't exactly get Jehovah's
Witnesses.

Kelly ambled downstairs, still in the workout
gear she'd worn to kick-boxing class, and pulled open the front
door.

"Good, you're here." Miles pushed past her
into the foyer, wending his way through the leaning towers of
Starving Students moving boxes.

Kelly studied him, knowing instantly that
something was wrong. He looked big-time agitated, but ever since
Forget Maui
had started shooting he always did. Or maybe he
was high, though she hadn't seen him do much of that lately.

"You haven't unpacked the boxes yet?" he
snapped at her. "What the hell are you waiting for, the moving
fairies?"

"Fuck you, Miles." Lazily she bumped the
front door shut with her hip. She didn't feel like fighting. "Want
a Gatorade?" She headed for the kitchen.

"No, I don't want a Gatorade."

"So why aren't you at work at three in the
afternoon?" She pulled a lemon-lime Gatorade from the fridge and
twisted off the top. "Or did they cancel the show already?"

"Don't you fucking say that! Don't you
fucking say that!" He was screeching and pointing his finger at
her, his face red as if he was gonna have a heart attack.

She stared at him, kind of amazed. "Jesus
Christ, Miles, what stick got up your butt?"

He started pacing back and forth on her
limestone slab floor, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
All he needed was a brown paper bag and he would've looked like one
of those crazed homeless guys who tromp up and down Rodeo Drive.
What if he did have a heart attack, right here in her kitchen?
Would that be a pain in the butt or what? It would be like her new
house was cursed.

He stopped pacing. "I'm going to need you to
do something for me." He didn't look at her.

Kelly stared at his profile, his hair and
beard grayer than she'd remembered. She'd never been big on doing
favors. "Like what?"

He shuffled his feet and looked out the
window. "I'm going to need you to start paying back the loan I made
you."

"
Now?
" She was shocked. "That's not
the deal. My first payment's in a year."

"I can't wait a year!" he shrieked. Then he
took a deep breath and made himself all calm again. "Something's
happened—that's all. I helped you when you needed it and now I need
you to help me."

He was in deep shit. She could smell it. He'd
told her there were problems on the show, that the studio didn't
like the new scripts. Maybe that was why he was suddenly worried
about money. But she didn't want to start paying him back. She
couldn't afford to.

"So why don't you just give me the signed
loan document," he went on, "and get your checkbook and we'll
figure out how to do this so it's easiest for everybody."

She already knew what was easiest for her.
Not to start paying him back.

She stared at him across her brand-new
kitchen, sunshiny and bright, and had a realization. That's right.
She'd never actually given him the loan document. In fact, she'd
never actually signed it.

But the check had cleared. And now she had
her Bel Air house.

Kelly looked away from Miles and guzzled more
Gatorade, thinking. No one else knew about the loan. How much
easier it would be if it just went away . . . She imagined a life
in which no balloon payment loomed on the horizon, like a tornado
threatening to wipe her out. That would really free her up.

Miles was pacing again.
He doesn't really
need the money
, she decided.
He's loaded, and has the
Porsche and Malibu house to prove it.

But she was just starting out. She did need
the money. In fact, she deserved it. Especially from an established
guy like Miles. He was like a mentor.

Plus, she was sick of him. This would make it
so she wouldn't have to sleep with him again.

She pulled the bottle away from her mouth.
"What loan document?"

"What do you mean, what loan document?" He
looked bewildered. "The one I drew up. Come on, Kelly. Go get it.
And your checkbook."

"No can do, Miles." She was very calm. "You
told me that was a gift, not a loan."

Now it was his turn to stare at her. She saw
something change in his eyes and for a second she got scared. But
only for a second, because she knew she was in charge here.

"I told you no such thing, Kelly." He
squeezed his hands open and shut, as if he were gearing up for a
fistfight. But he wouldn't hit her, because he knew she'd hit him
back. Probably harder.

"Sure you did." She grinned. This was almost
fun.

He came a few steps closer and jabbed his
finger at her, right in her face. Men liked to do that shit, to
prove how big they were, but it didn't work on her. She didn't
scare easy. "The game is over. That was a loan and we both know it.
And I have the canceled check to prove it."

"All the canceled check proves is that you
gave me a hundred fifty grand. A real generous gift. Thanks,
Miles."

Then his eyes got all wild and he started
screaming and jabbing his finger in her face, as if he was going
out of control. He looked like a lunatic. But she didn't budge. She
just waited for it to be over.