Authors: Mariah Stewart
“The animals aren’t all abandoned. Some of them come from high-kill shelters, places where people dump their animals or puppies from unwanted litters.
You know, your dog gets out of the yard and the next thing you know, she’s giving birth to a litter of puppies on the kitchen floor. You don’t want the puppies, or you give away as many as you can find homes for, don’t want the rest, they go to a place where they’re overrun with animals and can’t keep them beyond maybe forty-eight hours. If they can’t find a home for the animal quickly, well, they put them down.”
“They do that to puppies?” Dallas frowned.
“Unfortunately, yes. So sometimes we get word of a litter that’s at another shelter and about ready to be put down, or we get a call about some really nice animals that are on the short list, and someone’s sending a van to wherever the animals are and they’ll bring some back and try to find homes for them.”
“What happens if you can’t?”
“We only have a few that have been here since we opened that we haven’t been able to place. A couple of the cats seem to prefer staying in the barn. The dogs … well, they followed Paige home, somehow, so they moved into the house with us.”
“That’s nice,” she said. “I mean, that’s really nice that you do that.”
“Well, we’ve got a few good dogs, so it’s not been a hardship.”
Dallas heard the front door close and Berry’s sandaled feet cross the hardwood floor of the foyer.
“Grant, hold on,” she said. “Berry just came in.”
She put her hand over the mouthpiece and called to Berry: “Grant’s on the phone. He wants to know if you’re still thinking about getting a dog.”
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” Berry smiled
and reached for the receiver. “Were you finished, dear?”
Dallas nodded and handed off the phone. She sat at the table and tried to pretend she wasn’t listening to the conversation. When Berry hung up, Dallas said, “So you’re going to go look at this dog, are you?”
Berry nodded and leaned back against the counter. “Grant said it’s an especially nice dog. We can see it tomorrow at four.”
“Did you ask him what kind of dog?”
“No, but I do recall that Cody told him I’d like a nice lapdog. A fluffy little white one, I believe we decided on. I’m guessing that’s what he has for me.” Berry smiled. “Won’t Cody be thrilled when he wakes up tomorrow morning and finds out that we not only have story hour in the morning, but we’re going to look at a possible dog in the afternoon.”
“Ummm.” Dallas nodded.
“What’s that ‘ummm’ for?”
“I’m just afraid that Cody will get overly attached to the dog and not want to leave it.”
“This is a good way for him to prove how responsible he can be with a pet, dear. And when you get home, you can let him get one of his own. Let’s just wait and see how it goes. Why, maybe we’ll come home with two dogs, one for him and one for me.” Berry went to the back door. “There’s a storm coming. Just look at that lightning out over the Bay.”
Berry stood and stared out at the darkening clouds for a long moment. When she turned to close the door against the breeze, Dallas saw a shadow fall over her aunt’s face. But when she turned, her smile was bright and her voice chipper. “Well, dear, I think
I’ll go up to my room now. I’d like to write a few notes tonight and I don’t want to be up too late.” She flashed the smile that once lit up the silver screen and melted many a heart.
“Good night, Dallas. I’ll see you in the morning. Tai chi at dawn, you know.” Berry stopped halfway through the doorway. “Perhaps you’d like to join us? It’s very relaxing. It helps you get in touch with your most peaceful self. It’s a means to find enlightenment. It helps to activate and energize your inner core.” She grinned and added, “It also lowers your blood pressure and keeps you limber, which is mostly why I do it. And of course because I do look so good doing it.”
“You certainly do.” Dallas laughed. She blew Berry a kiss. “Have a good sleep.”
“Will you lock up before you come upstairs?”
“Sure. I’ll be down here for a while, though. I want to make some notes about the screenplay. I’m going to call Norma and talk to her about my new plans.”
“Excellent. No reason to put it off …” Berry’s voice trailed away as she climbed the stairs.
Moments later, Dallas heard the floorboards overhead creak just a little as Berry crossed her bedroom floor. Another minute, then the chair that sat next to Berry’s desk scraped lightly across the floor. Dallas went out onto the back porch and leaned on the railing. A flash in the sky was followed by a rumble of thunder. Overhead the clouds had gathered in a low dark mass and would soon dump their burden on the earth below. The air was electric and expectant and redolent with a combination of salt and ozone and the roses from Berry’s garden. Once the storm began, she’d go back inside, but for now, she wanted to
watch the changes in sea and sky. It had been so long since she’d seen lightning work its way across the Bay.
There was so much on her mind tonight. There was the film she wanted to do—just talking about it to Berry had fanned the flames of her enthusiasm. The more she thought about it, the more realized that she wanted it as badly as she’d ever wanted a part in a film that she believed in. But this was different, it was bigger, and she ached to do it. It was three hours earlier on the coast; she could still get Norma before she left the office.
And then there’d been the news that both she and Grant were here in St. Dennis, both unencumbered. Well, that might not be true, as far as he was concerned, she really shouldn’t make that assumption. Just because he looked at her the way he used to didn’t mean he wasn’t involved with someone else. Funny how things worked, though, how after all these years …
Her phone, which she’d left on the kitchen table, began to ring, and she went back inside to answer it.
“Norma,” she said as she activated the call. “I was just getting ready to call you. I have a project I want to talk about. But you go first. What’s up?”
“What’s up is your divorce is this close to being final. The only hang-up is still the property settlement. As you know, there’s quite a bit of valuable real estate at stake here.”
“I don’t want any of it. Emilio can have it all.”
“Are you crazy? Uh-huh. I’m not letting you give away millions of dollars. Let’s walk through this.”
“I really don’t want it. Emilio picked out all of those houses except the one in the Canyon, and that’s
where he made that damned video. Do you really think I want to ever go inside that place again? Or the one in Palm Springs, where he took that little Brit singer he was playing with last year? I never really stayed in the Manhattan apartment, and I’ve only been to Florida three times.” Dallas frowned. “I don’t have happy memories of any one of them, frankly.”
“Then we’ll tell him we want to sell them all and split the money evenly.”
“He isn’t going to want to do that. He loves his little palaces.”
“Then we’ll split them down the middle. He gets two, you get two.”
“All right, but then you’ll sell my two, okay? I took with me everything that mattered to me when I moved out with Cody. Our clothes, his toys, and some photographs. I don’t care about the rest of it.”
“I’ll see what I can work out with him.”
“If he balks, if he gives you a hard time, you tell him fine, he can keep them all except the apartment in New York as long as when each one is sold, half of the sale price goes into trust for Cody.”
“Dallas …”
“Norma, by most standards, I’ve made an obscene amount of money over the past ten years. Yes, Emilio did spend a lot of it those first few years. But I’ve invested most of what I’ve made since the day I realized what a jackass he is. That was five years ago. I’ve amassed enough to keep Cody and me very comfortable for a very long time. And I’ll offer to not seek child support to keep my investments.”
“I guess now’s the time to tell you that Emilio has asked for alimony.”
Dallas fell silent, then said, “Would he drop that if I offered him all of the properties? On the condition that I mentioned, though, that once sold, half the proceeds go to Cody.”
“He might.” Dallas could hear Norma’s pen tapping on the receiver as she thought over this proposal. “You really want this divorce through now, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I want it over and done with as quickly as you can make it happen.”
“I’ll talk to Emilio’s attorney and let you know what he says. Frankly, I can’t see him turning it down. He’s a fool, but he isn’t stupid.” She thought that over. “Well, yes, he is stupid, but his attorney isn’t. So let me see what I can do.”
“There’s something else I want you to look into for me.” Dallas told her how much she’d loved the book
Pretty Maids
, and her ideas for bringing the story to the screen.
“Wow, what a great idea. I read that book. I can see the story as a film. You have casting in mind?” Norma chuckled. “Like, your aunt as Rosemarie and you as Charlotte? That would be brilliant.”
“Berry would make a perfect Rosemarie,” Dallas agreed. “Once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t imagine anyone else in that role. But as for Charlotte, I actually have someone else in mind for that part, someone who I think would be amazing.”
“Who’d be more amazing than you?”
“Let’s see if we can get the rights, and then see if we can line up a studio. Then we’ll talk casting …”
Dallas closed up the house, locking all the doors and windows, and went into the library and switched
on the overhead light. The storm had blown in and the rain now lashed at the windows and the wind bent the willows over and sent their branches flapping, those long thin leaves outstretched like long arms rustling on both sides of the river. Earlier, she’d counted the number of weeks she had left in St. Dennis, and had come up with seven whole weeks and part of another one. If she worked every day, there’d be time enough to write her original work and possibly start on the script for
Pretty Maids
, if she was lucky enough to get her hands on it.
She sat at her grandfather’s large walnut desk and turned on the small lamp that sat on one corner. The chair was oversize, having been selected for a man of much greater stature than she, and the top of the desk was bare except for a small calendar, a round penholder of worn brown leather, and a faded photograph of her grandparents—Duncan MacGregor and his bride, Sylvie—on their wedding day. She picked it up and studied the faces of two strangers, people she’d never met but had heard so much about. Most of her father’s family died before Dallas was born. Berry and her twin sister had been the youngest of their generation, Dallas’s father one of only three children in his.
She went upstairs and got her laptop and brought it back to the library. She turned to plug it in to recharge the battery, and noticed the row of photos on the bookshelf behind her. She was surprised to find a picture of her and Emilio on their wedding day. She reached for it, then pulled her hand away as if not wanting to touch it. The picture caught the newly married couple on their way out of the church, Dallas
looking deliriously happy next to her handsome groom, who looked, she decided, nothing short of smug. Not happy in love, just … smug, as if he knew he’d scored big by marrying one of Hollywood’s most popular and most beautiful stars. Also, Dallas recalled bitterly, one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors.
Yeah, you really hit the jackpot, didn’t you, you creep?
Her eyes burned for her younger self, who’d believed she’d found the man who would make her happy, the man who’d father their houseful of children. Since the scandal broke, her energy had been focused on protecting Cody, on shielding him from the fallout from his father’s actions as best she could. Even this trip to St. Dennis had been planned with him in mind. She hadn’t permitted herself to dwell on her own feelings of betrayal and loss. Even though she’d known for years that Emilio was a serial cheater, she’d never really mourned what could have been. The blow to her pride when the stories of his infidelities began to circulate had been nothing compared to what she’d felt when she first heard the rumors that he’d married her only to further his career. Having him fall out of love with her was one thing; learning that the love had never existed was something else entirely.
Live and learn, girl. Live and learn
.
What was the point of dwelling on what was or wasn’t there? It was done, and she was moving on to the rest of her life and very happily leaving Emilio behind. She opened her laptop and began to make notes
on the original idea she had, but her mind kept wandering back to
Pretty Maids
.
There’d be no harm in playing around with a few scenes. If her offer was declined, she’d delete them. If Norma was successful in making it all happen, she’d be that much further ahead. She started by making some notes to herself about the characters as she understood them and the setting as she saw it, then began the first scene. Before long, she was lost in the story, seeing and hearing the characters as they came to life on her computer screen.
By the time Dallas turned off the computer at 3:20 the next morning, she had the first scene written and revised. The sense of awe she felt—at fleshing out the two remarkable women in the book and making them real, at having taken the first steps toward bringing their story to the screen—took her breath away like nothing had since she’d seen the first of her own film performances on the night it opened in a small theater in a suburb of L.A. She’d slipped into the back row alone and watched, wide-eyed, as her image first appeared. It had been a very small role in a very small film, but it hadn’t mattered. It had been hers, and she’d been filled with pride in the good job she’d done.
She’d gone alone because it had been a moment too big to share with casual acquaintances. When she left the theater, she headed right back to her tiny apartment and called the one person she knew who’d understand. Berry had already turned in for the night but had been delighted at the call and full of encouragement and pride, as Dallas had known she would
be. For Dallas, the night had been nothing short of magical.