Love in Reality: A Contemporary Romance (The Blackjack Quartet) (2 page)

“And did she? Fire him, I mean.”

Rand took a slow sip of his beer. “No. I suggested another way to balance the budget, and she backed off.” Basically, Rand had arranged to take a pay cut so Charlie, who was the senior sound guy, wouldn’t get canned. It wasn’t a lot of money from Rand’s perspective, and well worth it when the season had started and everyone could actually hear what the Fish said.

The bartender leaned slightly on the inside rim of the bar. She deftly smoothed her hair over her left shoulder so it didn’t touch the countertop. “I don’t understand this. How can someone get to be a manager if they’re so capricious?”

“Capricious,” Rand chuckled. “That’s a great word for it. Well, maybe it misses her Cruella de Vil qualities, but it nails the lack of rhyme or reason.”

The brunette shook her head. “People surprise me all the time. I think sometimes I’m too naive.” Then she looked him in the eye. “But I don’t have to deal with the insanity you’re describing. Your boss sounds seriously irresponsible.”

“Hey, Lissa!” a voice called. “C’mere.”

The bartender left, heading for the old guy. She froze when the door to the bar opened and a tall, dark-haired man walked in. Something about him caught Rand’s eye, he was that sort of man. He looked like a character from TV or film. Black hair, strong jaw line, natural confidence. The Hero, straight out of Central Casting. Whereas Rand was a Ryan Reynolds type—the boy-next-door with a charming grin.
Hey—not everyone can look like Superman.

“Jacko,” the old guy called out.

“Hey, Barney. How’s Sheila doing?”

“Well enough after the last round of chemo, I suppose. We’re awfully grateful Lissa’s still here. We thought we’d lose her after the holidays.”

The dark-haired man shrugged out of his overcoat. He wore a well-tailored suit, white shirt and red power tie. He looked around, aware of the people in the room but without a politician’s eagerness to please everyone. He even checked Rand out, resulting in a moment of cool eye contact and a faint smile. Rand bent over his phone but continued to monitor the newcomer. “Jacko” had become magnetic north in the bar, pulling Rand’s focus away from the brunette.

The bartender’s head jerked up as the man approached her. Her body language said deer-in-the-headlights, but when she greeted the new guy—“Hey, Uncle Jack. You want the usual?”—her voice sounded surprisingly chirpy and breathy, even—dare he think it?—a bit ditzy.

Intriguing. That wasn’t the voice she’d used talking to Rand. He tried to appear absorbed in his smartphone as he watched the action unfold.

“Uncle Jack” paused near the bar, staring at the bartender. Finally, he turned toward the old guy. “Barney, I need to speak with Alice for a minute. Can you cover for her?”

“Of course, Jack. Take all the time you need.” Barney moved around the back to join the girl behind the bar.

The bartender—
Alice?
—stiffened at this development, then dutifully came around and gave Superman a quick hug. Her hair was brown where his was black but they had similarly shaped faces. Rand could believe they came from the same family, even if “Uncle Jack” hardly seemed old enough to be her uncle. She couldn’t be older than twenty-five and the man mid-thirties, but there was a resemblance. Maybe “uncle” was an honorary title and they were really cousins or family friends. Yet the hug was just awkward enough to suggest a relationship of birth not choice.

They moved to a table a few feet from the bar for a conversation that looked, at least from a distance, like a cross-examination by the man and urgent pleading by the bartender. Rand had to glance down when his phone buzzed with a new text. From Marcy. Of course.

Watched your tapes of the Sophisticate and the Girl Next Door. Are you f’ing insane? I need conflict in the Bowl this year, not dim bulbs giggling about their mani/pedis. Get your head in the game asshole. If it weren’t for your father I’d can your ass & get a real producer. Find me some serious candidates!!!!

Christ. Marcy could give him a full-blown headache faster than it took to air a ten-second promo.

He hit Phil’s number.

“Hey there,” Phil said. “Where are you getting these lame lawyer jokes from?”

“What? Oh, I’m at a bar in South Philly.”

“Scouting for the show? Let me guess, Marcy-the-Monster wants regional accents on this year’s Fishbowl?” Phil laughed.

“Can’t talk about it, but you’re not far off,” Rand conceded. “Look, I’m this close to quitting. Talk me off the ledge.”

“No can do. You should quit. Go get a real job.”

“Go to law school, you mean?”

“And add a JD on top of your MFA in film from USC? Hardly.” Phil sighed. “No, I’m talking about a job with someone who isn’t six inches away from homicidal rage.”

“Wait. You mean Marcy is six inches away from killing someone?”

“Or from being killed. Either way, she’s overdue to lead the evening news. ‘Tragedy in
The Fishbowl
—film at eleven!’” Phil sighed. “Quit now.”

Rand thought about Debbie, Charlie, the crew, the editors. They all needed their paychecks too much to leave in the current economy. No, Marcy needed to be stopped, not left to shift her rage to people who couldn’t afford to quit.

“I owe it to the others to stay. As long as she’s yelling at me, she’s not yelling—well, yelling less—at everyone else.”

“Explain this to me, will you?” Phil sounded exasperated. “You hate the job, you hate your boss, you don’t like reality TV, you think
The Fishbowl
is a puerile, idiotic program, and you want to make movies.”

“Films,” Rand muttered.

“Whatever. Regardless of what you call it, you’re not doing it. Quit.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘No, I’m too damned stubborn for my own good.’”

Rand laughed. “You know me so well.”

“Well enough to know this is all about your dad. You gotta deal with how he affects your decisions.”

Phil had that all wrong. Rand couldn’t avoid his dad, but at least he’d picked the one job his dad couldn’t influence. “Nothing to do with him,” Rand muttered. “But I’ll take your advice under advisement.”

“Very funny. I’ll bill you for your two-tenths of an hour.”

“I’m hanging up now, you money-grubbing freak. Oh, wait, that’s redundant for a lawyer, isn’t it?”

“Bye.”

Time to think about something else. Rand angled his seat so he could observe the bartender in his peripheral vision. She was still talking with her uncle, but the body language had shifted. She leaned forward, trying to convince him of something. Then she sat up straight, put her palms face down on the table, and cautiously relaxed her posture. The uncle sat back, and seemed to consider what she’d said. Rand could see the uncle’s face, but not the bartender’s. There was a long moment of deliberation, then the uncle nodded once, crisply, and her shoulders slumped in relief. He said a few words, they stood up and this time she really meant her hug.

Rand swiveled back to face the bar before she spotted him watching her.

“So how about it, Uncle Jack? The usual?” She used the chirpy voice again, now heady with relief.

There was a tiny pause, so Rand glanced over at the uncle, whose lips twitched. Amusement that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That would be lovely, Alice,” he said finally.

Back behind the bar, she poured some Jameson for her uncle. Wait. Alice? Had he gotten the name wrong? Rand scrolled through his notes. There—Lissa Pembroke. “Lissa” must be her nickname.

One of the regulars on the far side of the bar yelled over to the uncle. “Hey, Jack, who are you puttin’ away this week? T-Rex’s cousin, Godzilla?” A couple of other guys laughed, and the uncle managed a good-humored smile.

The old guy—Barney?—joined in the laughter. “That’s our Jacko, making Philly safer from the dinosaurs left in the Reggiano mob.”

Rand typed “T-Rex,” “Reggiano,” and “Jack” into a search engine. He scanned the results, looking up when Lissa-the-bartender came over.

“Another Aprihop?” she asked. She had a come-on smile and one eyebrow was raised, as if another beer equaled a winning lottery ticket so he couldn’t say no, could he?

“Please.” Rand felt warm, so he moved to take off his jacket. He didn’t have one on. Odd.

He stared at Lissa-the-bartender. She gave off a different vibe from when he’d first ordered. A hot girl’s look-but-don’t-touch vibe. As though a light had switched on behind her eyes. Rand might have thought she was coming onto him except for two things. She didn’t know who he was or why he was there, and she hadn’t been like this when they first spoke. What was up?

Rand went back to the search results. Okay—the uncle is Jack “Blackjack” McIntyre, Philadelphia’s US Attorney. He successfully prosecuted Dino “T-Rex” Reggiano for a number of crimes, including money laundering and tax evasion. One photo, tiny on Rand’s device, showed the uncle with a dazzling white smile a few pixels wide, charisma evident even in miniature.

Which didn’t explain the fraught conversation they’d had. What was the guy’s beef with Lissa-the-bartender? And why had she amped up the wattage after the uncle arrived?

When she brought his new beer, he snagged her attention. “Hey, could I ask you a question?”

She glanced around the bar to see if anyone needed her. Barney was chatting with the US Attorney uncle and one of the regulars, and the few people at the outlying tables and booths seemed happy enough.

“Sure,” she said, a sexy little grin playing around her lips. She wasn’t quite meeting Rand’s eyes. Not flirtatious, then?

“Is that your uncle?” Rand jerked his head in the guy’s direction.

Lissa flicked a glance over at the uncle and nodded slowly. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Blackjack McIntyre?”

She turned back to Rand. This time she met his eyes square on, but her tilted jaw reminded Rand he was an outsider. Her temperature had dropped back to cool. “Why do you ask?”

Rand faked what he hoped was a disarming chuckle. “No reason. I’m from Los Angeles, but prosecutors like your uncle and—”
Hell, what was the name of the US Attorney in Chicago? Oh, right
, “—Patrick Fitzgerald get noticed.”

Lissa cocked her hip as she considered this, eying her uncle carefully. “Yeah, the press loves him. I think it’s the Superman hair, personally. Black, but gleaming with blue highlights like in the comic books. Makes people think he can stop bullets in his press conferences,” she said with pursed lips. She faced him again. “Are you a reporter or a lawyer?”

Rand shook his head. “My best friend is a lawyer, though. He must have mentioned your uncle.” Rand wanted to cross his fingers as he told this lie. Poor Phil, who’d just made partner at his San Francisco firm. Rand wasn’t entirely sure what kind of law Phil practiced, but he knew it had nothing to do with federal prosecutors.

“Lawyers,” Lissa said, then stopped. She pointed to the bowl of Goldfish. “Want more?”

He stood up. “No thanks. I need to get to my hotel.”

Her eyes stayed on his for a long moment. Challenging, shy, businesslike, flirty—what was up with this woman?

* * *

Rand pulled his collar up against the bitter wind and headed for the hotel.

Quit or not quit, that was the question. On the “pro-quitting” side were texts like this one from Marcy:

Watched the girl from Omaha—what a scarecrow! I want someone thin enough for TV but she’s still gotta have the T&A. Jesus Christ, what do I have to do before you’ll get me what I want? And why aren’t you here? I need you to put together a promo list for the network. Whatever you’re doing, get it done and get back here.

When had his life morphed into a Hollywood version of
The Devil Wears Prada
? Only stupider.

Rand stopped in the middle of an empty sidewalk. A movie. Nah, wouldn’t work. He imagined pitching it as a logline for a movie—
Young film school grad gets a job on a reality TV show only to discover his boss is psychotic and evil
—but it felt stale. Anyway, he was hardly a sympathetic protagonist. What was his goal? His external motivation?

He started walking again, shaking his head in self-disgust.

He really needed to stop thinking of himself as a movie character. Especially since his life would make a lousy screenplay. It might start out strong:
mild-mannered Everyman with a domineering dad struggles to find his own path in life
, but it lost all momentum in the first act when our hero struggled to escape the shadow of his powerful father…only to discover he’s in a dead-end job with no means of escape. Not a compelling plot for a movie. Or real life, come to think about it.

He turned onto Market Street, well-lit and lined with businesses still open and bustling this late on a weeknight. A cab slowed but Rand waved it off. More walking meant more time to think.

Realistically, he had three choices. One, he could quit and live off his savings while he looked for another job in production, preferably movies this time. Two, he could quit and his dad could give him a job on either of Minor Developments’ current TV shows or ask a buddy to hire Rand. Three, he could stay with Marcy, knowing he was going to have to bend over and take it every time she went on a rampage.

Choice One was the obvious winner, but Rand resisted its appeal. Oh, sure, he told himself production jobs had dried up in the weak economy, his résumé wasn’t good enough yet, and so on, but it was all bullshit. He didn’t take the obvious choice because he didn’t want to be a lowly staffer in production. He wanted to make his own films, not help other people make theirs. The problem was, that boiled down to “I don’t wanna!”—a whiny toddler even in his own head.

And if he got a job through his dad, the industry would label Rand a whiny toddler needing Daddy’s help, so Choice Two was out.

Which left Choice Three: be Marcy’s bitch.

With the Marriott in sight, Rand suddenly thought of a fourth possibility. Why not make Marcy the antagonist of his fledgling screenplay?
Lowly producer gets revenge on evil, psychotic boss.
Better, but still needs a concept.