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“They’re fine,” Jason assured her, taking the phone. Perfect Jason, as he was known among her friends and family, P.J. for short – good-looking and strong and capable. One of Lottie’s more tactless friends had even wondered if it was fair of Lottie to take a six-footer out of the dating pool. “That’s a foot more than you need.” Of course, Lottie saw it differently – she had to marry up, literally, so her children would have a fighting chance to escape the curse of her genes. How she had worried, every year, over the height percentiles. So far, both children were reliably above the eightieth percentile, but she had been fairly normal, too, until puberty. Jason said she worried too much, but show her a unit production manager who didn’t. It was practically the job description.
“If we get a pickup,” Lottie said to him now, after checking in with both children, “we could live here. We could live like kings, in fact. You can buy a Victorian mansion for the price of a two-bedroom bungalow in Glendale.”
“It will all work out, even if the show doesn’t go,” Jason said. “You always find a gig. You’re in demand.”
“I want a gig that allows me to live with my family full-time,” she said. “I want to look after my own children, not tend to those who simply behave childishly. But – shit.”
“What, babe?”
“Fire.”
“You had to fire someone again?”
“No, there – I think – look, I have to go.”
Smoke was creeping under the door, lazily, almost prettily. Her mind detached briefly, as if she were watching an effect created for the screen. Nicely done. Sinister, yet not over the top. She willed herself to be calm and approached the door with a tentative hand. It wasn’t warm to the touch. Cautiously, she opened it, peering out. The hallway was filled with smoke, although she couldn’t pinpoint the origin. She groped her way toward the elevator, pushed the buttons, then remembered that she should take the stairs. Where was the stairwell? At the other end of the hallway. She crouched low, practically crawling. The smoke seemed to be thi
Once outside, she gulped for air, and it was almost as if she could taste it, drink it down. She walked to the edge of the parking lot before she called 911 from the cell phone in her pocket. The fire station was mere blocks away, and it was a great comfort to be able to hear the sirens start seconds after she called, although it was also u
PART THREE. DESPERATE LIVING
SUNDAY
Special to the Beacon-Light
Firefighters and police were summoned yet again to the production offices of Ma
Only one person was on the premises, unit production manager Lottie MacKenzie, and no one was injured in the incident, which appears to be another in a series of pranks that have plagued the production.
Asked if she thought the smoke bomb had been planted by someone unhappy about Ma
Firefighters have been called three times before to the Ma
More seriously, the production office was the site of a murder earlier this week, but police are adamant that there is no co
“Still, every incident like this is just another example of Ma
Chapter 26
“And Greer said, in that terribly earnest way she had, ‘But it’s chartreuse, Mr. Tumulty.’”
The mourners laughed in that delayed rueful way common to memorial services, as if they needed a second to grant themselves permission. Tess had to admit – Flip was a good public speaker, and he had found the perfect tone for his eulogy. Thanks to him, the service was doing what a memorial or funeral should do, but so often didn’t: respecting the memory of the deceased while cheering people slightly, but not too much. In Flip’s experienced hands, Greer’s story became one of a hardworking local girl who hadn’t been afraid to reveal her ignorance if it meant doing her job better. It was a nice story. Tess wondered if any of it was true. She wondered if it mattered if it was true. Probably not. God forbid that anyone tell the truth at her funeral. Maybe she should write that down somewhere, leave it behind in a safe-deposit box with the will she had yet to write: No truth telling at my funeral!
Flip’s achievement was all the more remarkable when one considered how few genuine friends Greer had among the cast and crew of Ma
Flip paused, taking a sip of water, and Selene’s voice jumped into the silence – that is, the ring tone on Selene’s cell phone, blaring her pallid cover of “Call Me,” made its presence known, buried deep as it was in her huge leather bag, a designer brand Tess couldn’t identify, although she was fairly sure it cost as much as her first car, even after adjusting for inflation. Before Selene could grab the phone, Whitney literally slapped the girl’s hand, reached into the bag, turned it off, and then put it in her own purse. Tess had other reasons for wanting Whitney with her today, but chaperoning Selene through a memorial service had turned out to be a job that required both of them. Just getting her properly dressed had taken hours, as Selene’s idea of suitable garb ranged from a thigh-high skirt to an overly theatrical black Dior suit. The suit would have been appropriate under some circumstances, but it made Selene look like a little girl playing dress-up – a Eurotrash princess or the grieving widow of a president cut down in his prime. “No one has ever confused Tess or me with Diana Vreeland,” Whitney had hissed at one point, “but I think even Vogue agrees that funerals require panties.” In the end, they had managed to assemble a safe-for-Baltimore outfit of navy dress and cashmere cardigan.
“I can’t be photographed in this!” Selene had protested. “I’ll be on the ‘What was she thinking?’ list in the Star.” Tess pointed out that because the memorial was on private property, the landlord was within his rights to restrict press access, just as he had forced the steelworkers to hold their informational picket on the narrow strip of grass alongside the parking lot. As it turned out, press in this case was a lone Beacon-Light reporter, juggling a notebook and a video camera, and two of the local television crews, no reporters in tow. Would the memorial have attracted more attention if Greer’s homicide was still considered an open case? Or was Baltimore simply getting blasé about Hollywood? Tess wanted to believe it was the latter.