Picture Perfect (31 page)

“Dahhhling,” Giles pouts, carefully sidestepping the giant hole my husband was just lowered into, and coming in for a hug. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine. Thank you for being here, Giles.”

“I wouldn’t miss it. It’s the least I could do for my best client. Did you get the flowers?”

“Oh, I got them all right.” Giles had sent a massive bouquet of exotic flowers so large it practically filled my doorway.

“And the muffins? You got those, too?”

“Yes, I got them, too. They were delicious.” Knowing my love for reduced-fat lemon blueberry muffins, Giles sent me two massive baskets full of them. I’m slightly ashamed to admit it only took me four days to eat them all. Of course, Justine helped a little.

“So, when are we going shopping again? It’s been too long. And just because you’re now unemployed doesn’t mean you can’t still look gorgeous.”

“I’m not unemployed, Giles. I’m
self
-employed. Just like you.”

“Promise me you won’t sit around your home office in a pair of sweats. Tell me you’ll still put on your Louboutins and Prada to have lunch with me now and then.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to be slumming around in fleece pullovers and khakis. There will still be plenty of occasions for you to dress me up.”

“Oh, good!” Giles claps his hands together excitedly. “I would hate to see all my hard work go to waste. I’ve spent years getting you out of no-name jeans and cotton Ts and into designer cashmere and silk couture. I couldn’t bear it if you reverted now.”

“I think we’re safe,” I say. “Hopefully, there will be lots of wrap parties, red carpet premiers, and awards shows still in my future.”

“Excellent,” he trills, throwing his arms around me. “I gotta scoot, but let’s hit the nail spa next week. I know your cuticles are due for a good soak.”

Giles scurries across the cemetery lawn to meet up with a man in a long dark coat waiting by a red sports car. They kiss, and I smile. This new guy is just one in a long line of Giles’ suitors. Being the celebrity stylist to a former murder suspect has gained him a lot of attention. Hopefully, he’ll put that tabloid-worthy drama to as good a use as I am.

“Ready?”  Justine asks, as several people dressed in black make their way across the lawn to their cars.

Alan’s graveside funeral drew a decent crowd of showbiz types. Not only the people he worked with, but those he would have loved to have worked with. No, Robert De Niro didn’t show, but I think Alan would be happy with the turnout, nonetheless. 

“Yeah, let’s go. I’m starved. Is it lunch time yet?”

“It’s only eleven,” Lucas says. “Bit early, don’t you think?”

“A perfect time for brunch,” Justine says. She gives Lucas a playful jab with her elbow.

Lucas arrived yesterday afternoon and he and Justine have been acting like smitten teenagers ever since. Perhaps it took her seeing me lose Jack for her to realize how fragile relationships are. At least my loss is her gain. I’m glad to see her embracing the idea of coupling up and not running from commitment. I don’t know if Lucas will make it past the end of the semester when they get back to New York, but I really hope he does. He’s certainly crazy about her. In fact, in his eyes, Justine could do no wrong. Of course, she hasn’t accused him of murder.

“Let’s push on then, shall we?” Lucas says, offering his arm to Justine. “Brunch does sound brilliant now that I think about it.”

Justine slides her arm through Lucas’ and we head across the lawn toward my BMW. I’m grateful for the wedge heels I decided to wear this morning as I watch several women in tall, spikey shoes sink into the ground on the way to their waiting cars. One by one, a long line of luxury automobiles winds its way out of the small Pasadena cemetery. And it breaks my heart to see them all go. It’s as if their departure is the final curtain on Alan’s life.

I turn to take a last look at the place where my husband will spend eternity, but instead of seeing only the rectangular hole surrounded by flowers, I see Jack, his head bowed and his motorcycle helmet under his arm.

“Jack,” I say to myself.

“What?” Justine asks, whipping around to look in the direction I’m staring. “Is that Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to speak to him?” she asks, nudging me with her elbow.

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him since he stormed out of my apartment the morning I accused him of murdering Alan. I doubt he wants to talk to me or he would have already.”

“He’s here, though,” Lucas says. “Guys are less about talk and more about action. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t still care.”

Justin nods. “Don’t let him walk away this time.”

I take a deep breath and head over to the open grave, hoping this will not be both the site of my husband’s burial and that of my relationship with Jack.

The collar is flipped up on Jack’s leather jacket, and his hand is shoved in the front pocket of his jeans. He looks as if he’s just lost his father, and it occurs to me that I still don’t know if he’s Alan’s son. He may, in fact, be mourning the death of his father.

“Hi,” I say as I approach him.

He lifts his eyes to mine. “Hi.”

“I wasn’t sure if I would ever see you again.”

“I wasn’t sure either,” he says.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” I say. “I was wrong, and it’s no excuse, but I was under a crap load of pressure. I suspected everybody. Everybody except the person who actually did it.”

“I don’t blame you,” he says. “I guess the evidence did look pretty incriminating. Especially when you didn’t have all the facts.”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

He takes a step toward me. “I’ve been thinking about that. About a lot of things, actually.”

“And?”

“And I realized that we could never have a relationship that wasn’t built on trust.”

“Oh,” I say, my heart sinking.

“That’s why I had to find out the truth. About my father.”

“Your father?”

Jack reaches into his helmet and pulls out a piece of paper. “I should have been honest with you from day one. From the first time I suspected that Alan was my father. But I think I was afraid to learn the truth. So, I hid my fears. I think if I hadn’t done that, we would never have gotten all mixed up. I never would have gone to Mexico. I never would have worried you.”

I stare at him, wondering what is going to come out of his mouth next. Jack actually blames himself for me not trusting him. What kind of a man does that?

“So, I asked my mom to be straight with me,” he continues. “And she told me everything. Finally. After twenty-seven years, I know who my father is.”

“Who?” I ask, cautiously.

Jack holds the paper out toward me. “Here.”

I unfold the document. The header says it’s from a lab in Simi Valley. I scan down the page looking for Alan’s name, but it isn’t there. Instead I land on the phrase,
Steven Carter,
biological match.

“Steven Carter?”

“My dad,” Jack says, almost proudly. “I met him last week. He’s a nice guy. He owns a body shop in Culver City. He’s divorced. He has two daughters. One is a freshman at UCLA and the other is in tenth grade.”

As he talks, I notice a little brightness in his eyes.

“He digs bikes, and we both like working with our hands. We went to a Laker game, too. I’m not really into hoops, but it was fun just to hang out with him.”

I can’t help but smile, seeing the beginnings a father-son relationship at work. The way Jack talks about his newfound pop, you’d think he was in love. Maybe he is. In love with finally knowing where he comes from.

“You seem happy,” I say. “I’m really glad you connected with him.”

“And I’m really glad he’s not Alan,” Jack says, the corners of his mouth tilting up.

“Me too,” I say, a warm fuzzy feeling taking over my body. “Would you like to come to brunch with us?” I ask, thumbing in the direction of Justine and Lucas waiting patiently by my car.

Jack purses his lips. “I could eat.”

“Great,” I beam.

“On one condition, well, two.”

“What conditions?”

“One, you let me treat. I just got a lead role in a major motion picture, and I expect to be rolling in piles of cash very soon.”

“Deal,” I say, my smile growing. “What’s condition number two?”

“We take my bike.”

“Your bike?” I say, scrunching up my nose. “Why?”

“Because I want to feel your arms around me.”

I give him a coy grin. “We don’t have to take your bike for that.”

Jack leans down, his lips covering mine in a soft kiss. I wrap my arms around him, and he drops his helmet to the ground. That familiar warmth radiates from his body as he envelops me, and I feel certain it’s burning even hotter than ever before.

Jack releases me from his kiss and cups my face in his hands, lifting my chin. “I missed you,” he says.

“I missed you, too.”

One side of his mouth turns up and he gives his head a little shake. “You’re a pretty amazing woman, you know that?”

“You wanna see amazing?” I say, as we stroll, arm in arm, in the direction of Justine and Lucas. “Wait ‘til you see me put away a stack of pancakes so tall you can barely see over them.”

“That
would
be amazing,” he says. “So how many sausage links do you think you could eat in one sitting?”

“Oh, fifteen, easily.”

“Have you ever thought about competitive eating?”

“I may have to look into it,” I say.

“Yeah, I think it’s a sport sorely lacking in female competitors. You could really clean up.”

“You could be my coach.”

“Lauren, I could be your everything.”

I snort with laughter at his corny line, but inside I’m gushing over him.

The End

Also By Lucie Simone

Chapter 1

“Nothing too hard. Just hand jobs
,” said Roka, an older Iranian student whose designer wardrobe was as rich as her accent. “Is good for to keep me busy. I practice English.”

“Uh, actually, you don’t want to call what you’re doing a
hand job
,” Trina quickly replied.

“No? But is job with hands. I put shoes out and purses, and I only use hands,” The fifty-something siren waved her bejeweled hands in the air. “No brain work.”

“Yes, but we don’t want to say
hand job
. That, uh, has another meaning.”

Gazing around the sterile, white room at her mixed assortment of students, Trina Stewart contemplated explaining the meaning of masturbation to them. An uncomfortable situation to be in, certainly, but one would be surprised at how often she had to face this kind of decision at work.

Teaching English as a Second Language was not exactly what she’d envisioned doing when she first arrived in Los Angeles nearly a decade ago. Nor when she’d enrolled in one of the nation’s best film schools. But ten years in Tinsel Town, and she was no closer to her dream job now than the moment she’d first laid eyes on the famed Hollywood sign.

That
freaking
sign. God, how it irritated her. It just sat there, day in and day out, clinging to the mountainside, taunting her, mocking her and her Hollywood dreams. She was starting to hate that damned sign and the way it glared at her whenever she looked at it. Reminding her of just how terribly unsuccessful she still was. Lately she’d been entertaining some not so savory plans for that sign. Plans that included a blowtorch, spray paint, and a wrecking ball. If she could just get rid of that friggin’ thing once and for all, maybe she would even find a job. A proper Hollywood job. And considering she’d just graduated from a prestigious film school with a Master of Fine Arts, no less, one would think it not such an insurmountable task.

“What kind of job is hand job?” Roka asked, and Trina’s mind slammed back to the task at hand.

“Okay. Well, it’s not actually a job. It’s a sort of sexual activity.”

“Ooh. What kind of activity?” Roka’s eyes lit up, and she pulled out her notebook.
 

“A hand job is slang for, uh, well, when you use your hand to, you know.”

Roka leaned forward in her chair, and, Trina noticed, so did her other students. Eagerly anticipating the explanation, they sat perched on the edge of their seats, eyes fixed on Trina. Roka was not a timid woman, so Trina wasn’t worried about offending her. But the rest of the class was made up mainly of young Asian girls whose traditional parents may not have appreciated the kind of education Trina was providing them.

“Yes? What do I do with my hand?” Roka pried.

“You grab, er, stroke—”

“What is stroke?”

“All right. I’m just going to show you.” She made what she believed was the international symbol for jerking off.

Roka screwed up her brows. “Gamble? You throw dice?” 

Apparently, it wasn’t as widely known as Trina had thought.

“No. Masturbation!”

Trina jumped up from her chair and wrote it on the whiteboard in huge black letters. Roka dived into her electronic dictionary, frantically clicking in the letters just as Kyoko, Trina’s sixty-year-old Japanese boss walked in with a teenage Japanese girl hooked to her arm.