The Cinderella Pact (27 page)

This is a fact that I should have been paying attention to, that I haven't eaten in, oh, thirty-six hours, when a waiter comes out to the deck to bring us our drinks—the “usual” (whatever that is) for Chip and a humongous margarita for me. It has been sooo long since I've had a margarita and even though it is 5 points, possibly more, I take a good long sip.

And nearly swoon.

“You OK?” Chip asks.

“Fine.” I smile, steady myself, and enjoy the waves crashing in the twilight beneath us. “I love the salt air. It's so refreshing.”

“I thought you'd like this place. That's why I wanted to bring you here.”

I eye him slyly. “I thought you were going to take Belinda here.”

“Actually, my intention was to take Belinda out to the cleaners.”

Silence. Cripes. He knows about the Belinda brouhaha. Better take another sip for fortification. “How so?” I ask bravely.

“I guess it's OK if I talk to you about this. From what Lori DiGrigio and my father said, they've made you aware of the general problem.”

“Oh, sure.”

“I think their concerns are well founded. I had my staff . . .”

Staff? He has a staff?

“. . . research this and . . . I better explain.” He leans back, looks out to the ocean, and slides his arm along the back of my chair, exactly like he did in the Mercedes. It is warm and strong. Would it be a crime to wrap it around my body?

“In my father's opinion, a revelation that the ethics columnist violated the basic ethics of, for example, not lying on her résumé, could be a big scandal for
Sass!
”

“Absolutely.” Oh, God do I need this drink.

Chip takes a modest sip of his own and goes on. “Since Lori hired her, he felt there'd be a conflict of interest if she did the investigation. So he put me in charge.”

This is cause to down half the glass.

“I'm the one who has the unpleasant task of outing her. Maybe even firing her.”

I can see the bottom, and it is not pretty. I cannot get over the odds that I have fallen for the one guy who could single-handedly institute my career ruin. The fates, I decide in my tequila daze, are mocking me. Plus, they are thin. I know it.

“And tonight?” I manage to get out two words.

“Tonight, I was going to . . .” He picks up my glass. “I'm sorry. I haven't been paying attention. Waiter?”

Like magic a waiter appears at our side. “Another?” he asks.

“I really shouldn't,” I say.

“Oh, come on,” Chip urges. “I'm driving this time.”

“Well . . . OK,” I agree begrudgingly. “But only if you make it a double.”

Chip raises an eyebrow.

“I'm thirsty.”
And you're cute,
I want to add.
So cute I could pinch your cheek.

Get a hold of yourself, Nola
. It is my inner voice that sounds suspiciously like my mother's. The same one that advised me against the fifteenth floor of the hotel.
You don't want to blow it by making a fool of yourself.

“I won't,” I answer.

“Pardon?” Chip is handing me my drink.

“Uhh . . .” I think fast, which is not easy right now. “I won't tell anyone about Belinda.”

“That's good because as it turns out, I think she's ducking me.”

“Really?” I stir my drink and look around, soaking up the love. Yes, I think dreamily, California is where I'm meant to be. It's so laid-back. So forever young. And isn't that who I am? Laid-back and forever young? “Forever Young.” Boy that was a bad song.

“How did that go again?” I ask.

“What?” For some silly reason Chip seems confused by this question.

“ ‘Forever Young.' ”

“By Dylan?”

“No, no, no. Not by Dylan.” Dylan. Sheesh.

“Billie Holiday?”

“What are you, a ‘Forever Young' expert? I'm talking about the really bad version. And not the Mel Gibson movie, either.” That's when it hits me. “Rod Stewart.” And just to prove how bad it is, I sing my own rendition of “Forever Young,” artfully incorporating Rod's scratchy voice and dramatic hand gestures.

When I'm done and the couple next to us moves to another bench, Chip abruptly gets up and announces that we apparently need to eat right away, though I'm perfectly happy drinking margaritas. What's the big rush? Who needs all those unnecessary food points anyway?

“I'm going to ask the hostess what's going on,” he says.

“Okey dokey.” I watch him walk off in his strut that I'm pretty sure is unconscious and decide then and there that he's mine. Oh, yes, he will be mine.

I take another sip of my double margarita—no salt. It seems weaker than what I would expect from a double margarita no salt. I must speak to the waiter, though he seems to have disappeared.
Poof!

And then I see her. Oh . . . my . . . God. Harley Jane Kozak one table away. I just knew I'd see a movie star sooner or later. I just knew it.

I
love
Harley Jane Kozak. I am like her biggest fan. I loved her as Steve Martin's sister in
Parenthood
. I loved her when she played a virginal nun in
Santa Barbara
. Come to think of it I have vague plans of becoming a nun, which means she is my
role model
. And I need to tell her that
right now
. Even if she was crushed by the letter “C” from a hotel marquee.

I stand and find that the deck wobbles a bit. It must be built on faulty pilings. I congratulate myself on remembering the word “pilings.”

“Harley Jane Kozak.” I wave to her. “Over here!”

Harley Jane Kozak looks up from her salad. She's blonder than I remember. Skinnier, too. But she's dressed down like a real person. Jeans and clogs. “She's one of us,” Fareeq the limo driver would say if he were here. I'm sure she won't mind if I ask her for an autograph.

“I'm so, so sorry to bother you,” I say, teetering over to her table. “But I
loved
you in
Guiding Light
and
Santa Barbara
. You are like the best!”

“Thank you.” Harley Jane Kozak has perfect teeth

Boy these people in California are nice. I
love
California. Have I said that already?

“And I wonder if you could sign your autograph.”

“Sure.” She looks at me expectantly.

Am I supposed to be doing something? Maybe she wants money? But why would Harley Jane Kozak need money?

“Do you have a piece of paper or something?” she prods.

“Oh, right. For the autograph.”

“It would help.”

Hmmm. No paper. I don't even have a pen. I know! My bra! It's white just like paper.

“How about this napkin?” she says, grabbing a Gladstone's napkin as I begin to fiddle with my bra strap.

I remember that I might be a bit tipsy and that I tend to lose things when I'm a bit tipsy. “No . . . that won't do. I'll just accidentally blow my nose on it or something. I have an idea.” I attempt to snap my fingers and miss. “How about my arm?” I push up my sleeve and stick out my arm.

“All right.” Harley reaches in her purse, pulls out her pen, and signs my forearm, even putting a little smiling face on it.

“It's beautiful,” I gush, admiring her pretty signature. “So what are you starring in these days?”

“I'm not doing movies anymore.”

“Oh.” I frown in sympathy as I try to stand straight. It's really, really hard. “That's too bad. I was talking to this girl, uh, Gloria, about how hard it is to be an aging actress in Hollywood. I'm really sorry.”

“I'm not sorry. I write books. Mysteries.
Dating Dead Men. Dating Is Murder
.”

“Hold on, hold on. You write too?”

“In fact I've won several awards.”

“Pretty and smart. Listen. Write those titles down for me.” I thrust out my arm again.

“Nola?”

I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn. Chip. And from the look on his face I can tell he's not here to join in the Harley Jane Kozak lovefest.

“I have a great idea,” he says. “It's gonna take too long for us to get a table. How about I drive you back to the hotel and we get dinner there?”

“Room service,” I declare, my evil brain cooking up an evil plan of Caesar salad and seduction.

“Yes, room service.”

Excellent. He fell right into my trap.

Chip leads me back to my chair, away from my new best friend Harley Jane Kozak, and hands me my purse, telling me—as though I were a child!—to wait for a few minutes while he says good-bye to Harley Jane Kozak. I'm not exactly sure what he's saying, but I overhear the words “I'm sorry” and “the margaritas were too strong.”

The margaritas were, like, so not too strong.

When Chip appears again he reveals that he's brought the car around out front. How he managed to do that I have no idea. He's a miracle boy.

“You're a miracle boy!” I declare for everyone to hear.

“Yes,” he says, trying not to smile.

The drive back to the O is a blur. So is the part where Chip puts me to bed and turns out the light and arranges for a cab to pick me up the next morning to take me to the airport.

It's not until I'm on the plane home the next day, queasy and filled with regrets, occasionally wincing at the LOVE, HARLEY ☺ fading on my arm, that the memories come back to me in bits and pieces.

They're not exactly clear, but of the following I am certain:

I have told him my weight. My
real
weight.

I have confessed that I am emerald-green jealous of my superthin sister, Eileen. (Why did I do that? Why would he care?)

I have revealed that I am, in fact, madly in love with him, Dave “Chip” Stanton and that should he be up for it, I would gladly bear his child. (Yes. That was a nice touch, I thought.)

What I'm not so sure of is whether I've said anything about Belinda Apple, and that is worse than all of those drunken confessions put together. Except for the having his baby part. That was really bad.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Your Chip is David Stanton's son?!”

Lisa shouts this so loudly I have to kick her to shut up. “Shhh. I don't want anyone to know. Plus, he's not
my
Chip. I blew it by getting plastered in L.A.”

This was the wrong thing to say. Lisa whips around to my side of the cubicle. “Did you get drunk and sleep with him?”

“No!” I pretend to focus on the new Holiday Energy Pick Me Uppers column written by a freelancer who can't spell either “and” or “the,” not to mention “energy.”

“Then, what did you do?”

I close my eyes and summon what's left of my dignity. “I did an arresting impersonation of Rod Stewart singing ‘Forever Young.'”

“Get out!”

“Hey, you two,” Joel says, “keep it down. Lori's in Fashion, and she keeps looking over here.”

“What do we care? Nola's sleeping with the publisher's son. She's got clout.”

“What?” Joel raises a bushy eyebrow.

“Don't listen to her,” I say. “She's got it all wrong. You know how book people are. Fiction, fiction, fiction.”

“Devlin!” Lori barks, causing Lisa to scamper off like a scared squirrel. “Stanton wanted you to have a copy of this.”

She tosses me a white paper. It is too much to ask that the Stanton to whom she is referring is “my” Chip. If Chip is as bright as I think he is, he'll have nothing more to do with a weight-lifting, jaw-punching, Rod Stewart-impersonating, overweight souse like me.

And, indeed, I realize with disappointment, the letter she has handed me is a memo from his father.

 
I have already read the memo, of course. And this was the reply I sent.