Chapter 103

We arrived in San Diego on the Fifth of July. It’s not as famous as the Fourth of July but there promised to be as many fireworks as the previous few days had offered.

Liz had hosted a rare party at her home Sunday afternoon (July 3rd) to celebrate America’s independence. The guest list had been small and exclusive. Once word had gotten around the Nashville community many people had started to angle for an invitation (either on their own or as a guest to one of the few people Liz had invited).

The party had been semi-planned. She had talked about putting something small together and inviting Conny, Melissa, Chelsea, Lucas and their families (along with those closest to Liz, of course).

Ben would have been invited, too, but he was still in Los Angeles. Liz had decided to expand the list slightly to include a few other people that she knew and liked. She had thought that 25 people would be the correct number (not including children).

The first problem had arisen when she elected to have the event catered. Lynwood hadn’t liked that idea one bit. He had wanted the chance to demonstrate his prowess in front of a host of potential new employers, I thought, since it didn’t appear that I was going to go away anytime soon.

Liz had put her foot down firmly (something, I gathered, hadn’t happened frequently). Not only was Lynwood not going to be cooking, he and his lovely bride had not even been invited to attend.

I believe it was particularly galling to the little man because the rest of the household staff had been welcomed.

Lynwood had pouted and stomped around on Saturday afternoon until Liz had finally been fed up with his antics. She had been hung over from the evening before and she had been trying to coordinate with Skye to ensure everything would be just right.

“Go!” she had finally declared.

Lynwood had lowered his head and started for the rear of the property. She had been pointing to the front door – not the door that would potentially lead to the place he resided.

“Not that way,” she had commanded. “It’s time you find new employment, Dennis. Short of that, it’s time for you to find new accommodations. Either way, I want you and Juliet off my property by the time the sun sets tonight. That gives you a few hours to find someplace else to be. You can come out Tuesday and clear out your shit. I’m done.”

The chef had looked as though he had just watched his father drown a kitten but he had rebounded quickly and puffed himself up like a toad.

“It’s insulting for you to plan a party and then have somebody else cook for you,” he had said.

“It’s insulting for you to think that you get to make commands to the woman that pays your salary,” Liz had countered. “It’s insulting that your wife thinks this is her house and not just someplace she’s living for free. It is my home. I permit you to live here rent free and I pay you very well for a job that does not require much in the way of effort on your part.”

Lynwood had deflated again.

“You’re right,” he had said. “We’ll watch ourselves.”

“If you do, it will be somewhere else besides here,” Liz had told him. “You had to know this day was coming. Well, it’s here. Your employment is terminated. Your housing arrangements are concluded. You’ll need to stay elsewhere until I leave Tuesday morning. You’ll need to have your belongings removed by the time I return Friday.”

I had honestly thought the man was about to start crying.

“I’ll give you an hour to collect some things and let Juliet know what’s going on,” Liz had continued. “But mark my words; you will be billed for any damage to that dwelling or this property.”

Lynwood had nodded and shuffled away to let his wife know their lives had just taken a drastic change for the worse.

I had been in the middle of my pendulum exercises and I couldn’t flee the scene. Thus I had been the one to get the second helping of Liz’s displeasure.

“I’m sure you’re thrilled,” she had said.

I had been bent over with an arm hanging loosely in front of me. I had still managed to lift a finger in her direction.

“I had nothing to do with that,” I had countered. “He and I had reached a truce of sorts. We had not shared a single word in ... more than a month, I suppose.”

Liz had let out a long breath and had shaken her head at me.

“Because you were gone for most of the month,” she had replied.

“That always helps,” I had agreed.

The weather had not cooperated for Liz’s party so we had been compelled to move the event indoors. Her house was plenty spacious enough – despite the fact that the guest list had doubled – but it had made keeping the kids occupied a bit more problematic.

Brian and I had volunteered for that duty and we had commandeered the practice area (that also included my makeshift rehab facility) for the task. Even with all the shit in the room, there had been plenty of room to set up a few games.

I had thought I was helping Liz out by keeping the youngsters (and me) out of the adults’ hair. In the end, it hadn’t worked out that way. She had been peeved at me when everybody went home.

“This was a party we were hosting,” she had told me. “What do you do? You run off and leave everything to me!”

I had looked around for help – but there was nobody left in the house but me and Liz.

“I kept a third of the guests entertained,” I had noted.

My answer had not appeased Liz in the slightest. In fact, her face greatly resembled the hangdog look I had seen on Lynwood’s a day earlier.

“It comes back to communication,” I had tried. “I didn’t know that this was ... our ... party. I wasn’t asked if I wanted to host a party. I wasn’t consulted about the guest list or the menu or anything like that. I thought this was a networking party for you. I thought I was doing something good by freeing up the parents to socialize.”

“I wanted the parents to socialize with you,” Liz had told me.

“And, that’s fine, I guess,” I had said with a helpless one-armed shrug. “Except ... outside of one or two of them, I wasn’t really interested in socializing with them. And, to be honest, they weren’t interested in socializing with me. The ones I liked came in to visit with me and the kids. Evan and Conny played with the little ones. Lucas and Gwen spent half of their time in there. Ryan and Sondra and Dom and Skye and Jill stopped in. Everybody else that was here was here to see you – and be seen by you.”

Liz had sighed and then led me to a couch.

“I wanted people to get to know you,” she had informed me.

“And some of them did,” I had replied. “Jake Stuart and his girlfriend spent half the night doing card tricks in there. They don’t even have kids. The ones that ... weren’t just interested in a free meal and a look inside your home ... they stopped in to visit with Brian and me. I met Jake. I got to talk with Erin Hazelton from your apparel line. I met everybody that you invited out here. The ones that were interested in learning anything about me found a way to do it. But at least half the people here didn’t care if I was around or not.”

Liz had puffed out her cheeks and expelled air.

“This weekend got out of hand pretty quickly,” she had admitted. “Lynwood ... then the party just exploded. I wanted to invite ... people that will like you when they know you. Lucas had told me that Jake wanted to meet you. Honestly, the guy barely said two words to me. He came here to hang out with you because Lucas has been talking you up. I wanted Erin to meet you since you’ll probably be doing some stuff together. The rest was going to be people that you already knew and liked. Then people started calling Skye on Saturday and I didn’t really want to tell anybody not to come – particularly after talking to them Friday night.”

“We’ll put more time into the next party we plan,” I had proposed. “This one was spur of the moment. Maybe we can put together some big holiday event. We can clear out the ballroom and make it a themed party to benefit Toys for Tots or something. We’ll put our heads together and come up with something nice.”

“I’m sorry I got shitty again,” Liz had said. “Nothing really worked out like I thought it would.”

It dawned on me that events like this that Liz might have hosted had previously been planned out to the minutest detail by somebody else. Liz’s job had been to show up and shake hands.

“So not going to drop your day job and become a party planner?” I had asked.

Liz had pushed me gently on the shoulder.

“We’ll have a nice relaxing Fourth,” I had said. “We’ll do our thing in San Diego and then just chill for a couple of days when we get back.”

“My parents and Annabelle will be here Friday,” Liz had reminded me.

“Yeah, so?” I had asked. “They’re our parents. They don’t need to be entertained. They just want to spend time with us. Things will calm down in a few days.”

Of course before life could return to normal, we had a few things to get done on the West Coast.

Liz had assumed ownership of a building on July 1 but had begun renovations far earlier. She had spent whatever needed to be spent to get the offices decorated and furnished in time for the first employees of the San Diego branch of Liz Larimer Entertainment to start work on July 5.

It would be more than just Rick, Sarah and Susan. Liz had a marketing and public relations staff of 31 people – 28 of them whose first day in the office was Tuesday. To that end, we had skipped the fireworks displays and flown out of Nashville on Monday so Liz could be there to greet them when they arrived for work.

The building still had several tenants and Liz also wanted to speak to them. There was a law office, a real estate agency, and two companies that handled consultancy on varying subjects, from what I could discern from their names. Liz wanted to make sure that the tenants knew the leases were still in effect and that she was amenable to renewals.

There were also two telemarketing firms in the building that wouldn’t be renewed. It wasn’t just that everybody hated telemarketers. It was that Liz needed the space for her own purposes. The companies occupied entire floors and Liz wanted that space for LLE’s legal team and the staff she planned to hire to liaise with RaveLand when she signed with them.

There were other reasons we were in San Diego, though. It wasn’t exactly a hotspot for the paparazzi and things had gotten a bit warm for us over the weekend.

Liz had listed her Upper East Side penthouse for sale – for a cool $14.4 million – on the same day that her legal team had informed the owners of the Manhattan office space that LLE leased that the company would vacate the property on Dec. 31.

Both were done on Friday before the long weekend so it took a bit of time for the tabloids to catch wind. But eventually they put two and two together and came up with seven.

“Travis to Liz: The Love Nest Goes or I Go,” blared across the front of one of the city’s most notorious rags. The story inside wasn’t any better.

“Rumors about the goings-on at Liz Larimer’s trendy apartment have long made the rounds in the Big Apple,” the story read. “If recent events are any indication, hunky boy toy Travis Blakely must put stock in what many in the city have long thought to be true. The songbird, fresh off a breakup with her label after a kidnapping plot hatched by her Nashville handlers, has listed her swank digs for a premium price on the same day she informed the employees of her New York office that they’d be out of work unless they wanted to relocate to California. It can’t be a coincidence that Liz is abandoning the Greatest City in the World for the town where her latest love interest hales. After all, Fair Liz has not made an appearance in our city since her new guy has entered her life. We’re left to wonder if Travis has made an ultimatum in light of the penthouse’s long and sordid history – and the many, many previous boyfriends that have paid late-night visits.”

I had laughed it off.

“Rainy, muggy, hateful New York vs. sunny, warm and friendly San Diego,” I had noted. “I can’t see any contest.”

Liz still hadn’t learned to take the tabloids with a grain (or a pound) of salt, it seemed. The story turned up a few places on the Internet and I had been compelled to contact the guy at NashvilleDirt.com to set the record straight. I knew that Liz still hated to be perceived as the villain in anything – even if was just by a few gossip-mongering yellow journalists that couldn’t be bothered to get a few facts straight.

I also had a personal mission to complete while we were out West. After many hours of discussions and negotiations, Susan and Chris had agreed to purchase my home. The renovations were scheduled to start that morning and we were visiting with an attorney in the afternoon to sign the paperwork. To that end, I had practiced signing my name with my left hand – although I could have done an equally good job if I simply held the pen in my teeth.

But getting to the point of closing the sale had been a battle.

Susan and Chris had flatly refused to take a loan from Liz – even though she had more money than many third-world countries. For my part, I couldn’t see how it made a difference where the money came from but they were adamant. I wanted the transaction to move quickly. I saw no need to wait for approvals and paperwork.

I had finally just thrown up my hands in frustration (or one hand, anyway).

“How about this?” I had asked. “I’ll front you the money and you can pay me when you sell your house.”

“How can you afford to front us the money?” Susan had asked.

I had looked to Liz and then to Chris for help. Both had just looked back at me.

“Because it’s all theoretical!” I had exclaimed. “We’ll work it out as a land grant or something. We’ll settle on a price; figure out how much it comes to and then you just send me a check every month. I don’t need it all upfront. Christ, I can sponge off Liz if it looks like I’m going to have to go back to eating Ramen noodles. We’re friends, for crying out loud. You said it’s a perfect place for Amber and the baby to grow up. Liz told me the new gates are up and operational. Susan and Matt are five minutes away. I mean, shit, if you want to pay a bank and a lawyer and Realtor, then I guess we can. But I’d prefer you already be in the house before the new arrival comes.”

At least Liz had waited until they agreed to my proposal before springing the trip to Disney on them.

The security team for our trip was different than usual. Ryan was with us but he was not acting as protection. That’s because Bobbi and Dayton Johnson had started their employment on Friday and he wanted them to get a quick look at the people and the situations they would be around.