A
bby Simpson was as beautiful as the stars she wrote about, maybe even more so if she believed her coworkers’ gossip when they thought she wasn’t listening. She hated the lunchtime scuttlebutt and thought the comparison preposterous. If anything, Abby took extra measures to downplay her good looks because of their gossip. She’d learned very fast that beauty and smarts weren’t the best mix in her chosen profession. At least not in LA. Inheriting her father’s naturally curly blond hair and clear blue eyes was almost a curse. Factor in a petite frame with curves in all the right places, and she was often mistaken for one of the starlets she wrote about when she hit LA’s hot spots searching for her next story.
A starlet she was
not.
Just the thought gave her a stomachache. And Toots would have been horrified at the comparison.
Abby had been offered a few small acting jobs when she’d first moved to LA but declined them all. All she wanted to do was cover the stories that made for such scandalous entertainment, not
star
in one. She hesitated calling it “news” because it wasn’t news in the true sense of the word. She wrote to entertain, but the core of all of her stories contained the truth. She simply made her articles more exciting to read. No one wanted to read about the perfect lives of the admired and cherished. That would get too old too fast. However, when the admired and cherished went to rehab, gained weight, divorced, or engaged in behavior that showed their humanity, the public loved reading that their idols also experienced life’s tragedies—as everyone else did. She just spiced up her stories a bit.
Now with
The Informer
up for sale, Abby wasn’t sure how long she would even have a job. Had her financial situation been more secure, she would have considered making an offer on the paper, but it was too much of a strain on her already tight budget. She’d invested most of her available cash in purchasing her first home, a 1950s ranch-style house located in Brentwood, an exclusive area west of Los Angeles.
Her mother would have given her the money in a heartbeat if she’d asked, but that wasn’t her way. And there was no way she was going to touch her trust fund. As soon as she’d been legally able to work, at sixteen, she found a part-time job taking in classified ads over the phone for a small family-owned paper,
The Daily Gazette,
in Charleston, working there until she finished high school. She worked as an editorial assistant at a small publishing house while attending the University of South Carolina, where she majored in journalism, and at twenty-eight she hadn’t slowed down and had no intention of doing so until she achieved her dream: owning the biggest and best tabloid possible, one with worldwide distribution.
To some, her goal might have seemed foolish because tabloids were
tabloids.
Abby reasoned that, like anything else, they had their purpose. She smiled when she thought of her mother’s secret addiction to them. Since elementary school, Abby had also had an affinity for them, hence her present employment. So what if they weren’t
The New York Times
or
The Wall Street Journal?
Abby was unashamed of her profession. If anyone gave her grief about it, she dished it right back at full throttle.
Like her mother, Abby rarely slept. When the phone rang around one
A.M.
LA time, she answered on the first ring. “Abby Simpson.”
“Are you awake?” her mother asked.
“Of course I’m awake. I wouldn’t be answering the phone if I weren’t, now, would I? You know full well that I never sleep.” Abby was a noted insomniac. Some of her best work had been achieved during the wee hours of the morning.
“No, you don’t. Your father never slept much, either. At least when he was in bed with me.” Toots giggled.
“Again, more than I need or want to know.” Abby laughed. Her mother was quite the character, but she wouldn’t have her any other way. “Is everything all right? You don’t usually call this late.”
“It
is
almost four in the morning here. But it is earlier in LA, unless I have it backwards—again. Tell me I’m not getting senile.”
“You, senile? Never!” Abby said.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence. I called because I have a surprise for you.”
Oh no,
Abby thought. “Okaaayyy.”
“You don’t sound very happy. Do you have company? Is there something you’re not telling me?” Toots asked.
“I’m fine, and no to both questions. I wish I had company,” Abby added wistfully. “Chester is great company, but he doesn’t always understand what I say.” Poor Chester. She’d spent many a night with him lying beside her, ears perked, head tilted in question, tail wagging patiently as though he were really trying to interpret his mistress’s words. Most of the time, she liked her life as it was and didn’t want it any other way. She enjoyed her freedom and didn’t have time for a serious relationship. Well, there
was
one man she’d been attracted to forever and a day, but she didn’t pursue him because she knew he wasn’t interested in her in the way she wanted him to be. Her dear older
former
stepbrother, Christopher Clay, her protector and biggest ally in Los Angeles. And he just happened to be one of her best friends.
She’d had her eye on him since the first time she met him, and he’d been lingering in her thoughts as a potential lover ever since. She smiled. Lord, he was a hunk of hot maleness!
“Abby, are you listening to me?” her mother queried.
“Uh, yes, sorry I got distracted. Now, you were saying you had a surprise for me. I’m all ears.”
“You know your godmothers are here. They’re sleeping, as far as I know, but I wanted to be the first one to tell you. Sophie can’t keep anything to herself, you know that,” Toots said affectionately.
“Mom!” Abby loved her mother, but her flair for the dramatic got old at times. “Tell me, or I’m going to start singing. And you know I can’t sing.”
“I do, so let me save both our ears. Here’s the surprise: I’ve convinced the girls to fly out to LA for a visit. We’re leaving later today if all goes according to plan. I even hired a private jet.”
“Mom, that’s fantastic news! I haven’t seen my godmothers in forever. I won’t ask how you managed to talk them into this. What about Ida? I thought she had some disease or something? Sophie sent me an e-mail saying she wore gloves all the time.”
Abby heard her mother’s deep sigh across the wires.
“Yes, and it’s not pretty, either. I feel terrible for her. Joe has arranged for her to see a doctor in LA who specializes in obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, they prefer to call it.”
“I’m familiar with it. Seems to be on all the talk shows. I think Oprah did a piece on the subject a while back. Knowing what I know, I don’t see how you managed this, but I know you and your powers of persuasion. I’ll borrow a rollaway bed for Mavis. You and Sophie can sleep in my room, and we’ll put Ida on the sofa. It’s not much, but it’s all I have to offer at the moment. Renovating’s finished, but I haven’t started to decorate the spare bedrooms yet.” Abby had inherited her mother’s love of decorating. When she’d purchased her fifties house, she’d sunk what cash she had left into remodeling, doing most of the repair work herself. She’d pulled out the old carpets and, much to her delight, had discovered solid cherry flooring. When she wasn’t out chasing a story, she’d sanded the floors by hand. It’d taken a couple of months, but her hard work had paid off. The flooring throughout her house was as smooth and shiny as glass. She’d saved the original windows and the French doors that led to an enclosed courtyard, another area she’d admired when she purchased the place. Though it was overrun with elderberry vines, honeysuckle, and morning glory, Abby refrained from cutting them back because their fragrance was so intoxicating. Maybe if she were forced to look for another position, she would use her spare time to work on restoring her garden to its original splendor.
“Thanks, Abby, but I’ve already made arrangements for us to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I rented four of the bungalows. I’m staying where Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned with several of her husbands. I can’t wait. It’ll be like old times, the four of us living side by side.”
Hearing the excitement in her mother’s voice, Abby grinned. She had heard many stories about the years her mother and godmothers had lived within walking distance of one another as teenagers. Some of the stories were so outrageous, it was hard to imagine her four greatest role models actually acting as they had.
“Perfect. Call me as soon as you’re sure of your arrival time, and I’ll arrange for a car to take you to your hotel.” Abby drove a bright yellow MINI Cooper. With Chester always riding in the front, and the backseat packed with her gear, there was no room for passengers.
“Thanks, Abby. That was my next phone call.”
“Then you’d better hit the sack and try to get some sleep if you’re leaving soon. When I see you, I want you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
“On that note, I’ll say good night. I’ll see you in a few hours. Love you, dear.”
“Same here,” Abby said, then replaced the phone in its stand. With only a few hours before their arrival, Abby went on a cleaning binge, something she’d been wanting to do since last weekend but hadn’t had time.
In her bedroom, she stripped the pink floral sheets off the bed, tossing them in a laundry basket for later. Since her washing machine and dryer were located in the attached garage, doing laundry would be last on her list because she had to go outside. She looked down at the Wonder Woman nightshirt she wore.
Abby dusted her bedroom furniture with lemon Pledge, ran a Swiffer across the wood floors throughout the house, then followed that with a quick damp mop. Times like this, she was glad she’d finished the floors with polyurethane rather than a “real” traditional finish. She scrubbed the bathtub and the tile in the shower, cleaned the sink, and returned her makeup to the drawer where it belonged.
In the kitchen, she scoured the counters with a non-scratch cleanser. They were the original Formica counters with metal edging and a light blue-and-gray swirly pattern typical of their era. Abby thought they were the ugliest part of the kitchen. She wanted to replace them with granite, but that wasn’t in her budget either. Soon, she told herself. She wasn’t lazy, and she was patient. In time, not only would she have her little home in tip-top shape, she’d also own and operate her own tabloid. Sometimes dreams came true.
She wasn’t sure on the details, but she knew it would happen because when she wanted something, no matter how hard it might be to obtain, she set her mind solely on her goal and always achieved what she set out to accomplish. At least in her dreams.
A quitter Abby Simpson was not. Like her parents, she believed in hard work and self-discipline. With those inherited traits, Abby knew she was destined for success. Her dreams were all the proof she needed that it could and would happen.
Two hours later, after she’d polished the large picture window in her living room, she sat down on her sumptuous red sofa and fell into a deep sleep.
Upstairs in Toots’s guest room, Ida concluded that taking that first step to control her obsessiveness was the hardest task she had ever attempted in her entire sixty-four years. Removing the bacteria-filtering mask had left her shaken and uneasy, her normal routine completely disrupted by making this trip. It had taken all the willpower she could muster to hire a limo to drive her to the airport. Knowing there had been hundreds of other passengers in the vehicle before her had almost sent her racing back to the safety and hygiene of her penthouse apartment on Park Avenue. The flight had been equally horrendous, with its airborne germs recirculating throughout the plane. She’d persevered because she wanted to see her friends, and she knew that she needed help. Badly. However, at this precise moment, her hands shook, and her stomach was in knots, her palms damp with perspiration, her throat tight and dry. Knowing that the symptoms were the precursor to a full-blown panic attack, Ida removed a small brown paper bag from the zippered compartment inside one of her bags. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she scrunched up the end of the bag, leaving a small hole where she then placed her mouth and inhaled and exhaled slowly. This procedure usually kept her from hyperventilating, even if it was not a surefire method.
Ida inhaled and exhaled into the paper bag for the next ten minutes. While doing so, she took in the room Toots had prepared for her, hoping it would distract her from having a major attack. An antique four-poster walnut bed with a matching armoire and vanity took up one half of the room. Two comfortable-looking chairs were placed strategically in front of a fireplace. Rose- and cream-colored walls gave off a warm and cozy glow. Green plants were placed throughout the room, bringing a feeling of the outdoors inside. Toots was well known for her good taste. Ida was sure the room had not been touched by a professional decorator.
When she felt as though she could stand on her own two feet without passing out, she tossed the brown paper bag aside, praying she wouldn’t need to use it again. At least not that night.
To distract herself from further negative thoughts, she took the germ-zapping light Toots had purchased for her and began her odd—yet comforting—routine. Inch by inch she scanned the guest room. First the doorknobs. After each scan, she removed a Clorox wipe from its container and thoroughly wiped any area that showed the slightest amount of germs. She would then scan each area a second time, making sure she’d removed as many of the deadly microbes as humanly possible.
She scanned the night table, the lamp, the alarm clock. Anything that required touching, she scanned. Seeing that these items were virtually germ-free, she then scanned the crisp white sheets. Upon her arrival, Bernice had explained that she had washed the sheets in hot water and plenty of bleach. Ida was grateful for this because sleeping on the same sheets two nights in a row was nearly impossible for her. Toots had certainly catered to her strange ways, and, sadly, Ida knew she was asking her friends to also act as enablers, but at that point she couldn’t help herself. Removing the mask and breathing unfiltered air was a giant step and a testament to her determination to conquer her phobia.