Chapter 8: Sierra

TWO MONTHS LATER, Abi was singing as she worked in the kitchen, rolled, turned, floured the pastry and rolled again. So she didn’t notice the girl until late. She was surprised to see a very pretty young girl walk past the Coach House kitchen window and around to the unlocked kitchen door.

At her old apartment, there were occasional fans who would congregate outside, but only at the times when she had a higher profile on the show. When her character was about 15, her on-screen mother died in a dramatic hit and run accident over the Christmas holidays, peak viewing for the weekly omnibus edition. That brought her a lot of attention. Although her current scenes returning to the show and reintroducing her through the familiarity of her on-screen father, wealthy businessman, councillor and long-serving Mayor, and her on-screen Step-mother, former local beauty, Carnival Queen and hairdresser with a drinking problem, have just been broadcast, they were still low-key and building her appearances up slowly. Her developing on-screen romance with Gavin was currently being filmed and in the can, but the opening scenes of this storyline were not due to be aired for another week or two, and to be followed by a long gradual increase in screen time for the pair. Nor had there been any publicity yet about the plot line, with security absolutely watertight, to ensure the sizzling romance over the Sheraton furniture had maximum impact, due to be screened with increasing exposure until culminating in Gavin’s character proposing to Abi’s character during Christmas week. There was usually six to eight weeks between filming and screening.

The girl walked right in through the kitchen door as if she owned the place.

“Hello,” said Abi, “can I help you?”

Sierra looked up and down the domestic help that Daddy had clearly hired. The cook was quite petite and dressed the part, with old ski pants and tee shirt, an apron, floured hands, and a dab of white flour on her forehead where she must’ve pushed her long hair out of her eyes. Quite young and pretty, no rings on her fingers, but she might have taken them off to make ... Sierra looked on the worktop ... a pie with the pastry top cut to shape and in the process of being placed on whatever the filling was but not yet crimped around the edges.

“Yeah, ma’am, I’m lookin’ for yah boss, Mr Pickering. I know he lives here, Is he in right now?”

“No, I’m sorry, Miss,” Abi smiled, “he’s at work today, all day. Who shall I tell him called?”

“Sierra.”

“Sierra... ?”

“He’ll know who I am right enough, ma’am, just tell him, Sierra.”

“All right, Sierra, I will. Now, how can he reach you? Does he have your, er, cell number?”

“Maybe, I guess ... damn no, he probably don’t, it’s kinda newish. Anyways, it’s switched off at the moment.”

‘A runaway?’ Abi thought. ‘Turning her phone off so her mother couldn’t speak to her, or even trace her, maybe? She’s American, so she’s clearly not a fan of our UK-domestic-only show. Definitely not here for me or she’d’ve recognised me even without my wig with bangs that I wear on the show. She’s a kid, barely legal, as they say, so thirty-two months ago when Walker left the States, she’d have been an even younger kid. Now Walker never said anything about having a kid.’

Abi started to wash the flour off and dry her hands, thinking, ‘Deep as Walt may be, he might well have kept quiet about a kid who still lived at home with his lying, cheating ex-wife and poisonous step-Dad, with all that entails.’

“Honey, you wouldn’t happen to be Miss Sierra Pickering now, would you?”

“No, well, yeah, maybe, but at school I’m registered as Sierra Mackenzie. My passport says Sierra Mackenzie-Pickering and that’s not what I want to be known as right now. Even better, would be just Sierra Pickering, but I dunno if that’s even possible.”

“Changing names is just a legal procedure, but you probably don’t want to do that when you are upset, it might have ramifications that you are not aware of. So where are you staying and, anyway, how’d you get here? How’d you even get in through the security gate?”

“Huh? Well, the gate was easy, I tried a hunch and it has the same code number as Daddy’s condo in Burbank. I flew from LAX overnight, hired a car at the airport and I expect I’ll be staying at Gramma’s-”

“Does your Grandmother even know you’re here?”

“Not exactly, I ain’t been round her place yet. I rang her from LA and asked for Dad’s address and zip so ... well, I told her so I could write him. She was surprised ‘cause, though I ring Gramma every month, I’ve never asked her anything about Daddy, before now. She told me this address, so I came straight from the airport in a Mini automatic using the SatNav in the car and parked out front by the gates. Boy! It feels strange driving on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road, and your roads around here are real narrow!”

“Yes, I felt strange driving in LA, too. It took me a good couple of weeks to get used to it.”

“You’ve been to LA?” Sierra thought they must pay domestics a lot more over here than they do back in the States. She hadn’t expected the home help to be Mexican or South American like usual back home, of course, but assumed they’d be minimum-waged and middle-aged. This woman was neither, in fact, when she smiled, which she seemed to do a lot, she looked real cute with them dimples in her cheeks. She was certain Bull Donald woulda hired her as the family cook like a shot and eaten in every night instead of going out.

“Yes, I worked there for about four nearly months earlier this year, then for a week a couple of months ago, oh, and an unforgettable two-day flying visit to a specialist jewellers there last month. Are you from the LA area?”

“Yeah. I was living with my Mom. Now she’s talking about possibly splitting up from my Dad, er step-Dad, but they are thinking of going for couples counselling. Anywho, I found out, well, my Mom sat me down and told me she’d been telling me and everyone else in the world lies about my real Daddy all this time...” as she was talking, the girl started to tear up.

By the time Sierra was crying real tears, Abi had her arms around her shoulders and moved her from the hot kitchen into the cool, dark lounge to sit down on the couch before she collapsed.

“Mom told me all these lies about Daddy, and when I asked Daddy about it the last time I spoke with him, which was more than five years ago, he wouldn’t say nothing about it. He said I had to ask my Mom.”

“Yes, I am sure your Daddy would say that, honey. He wouldn’t want to say bad things about your Mum, she would have to do that to you herself. So you had believed what your Mum said?”

“Uh uh. It wasn’t just her, it was all in the papers too, Google search was all up bad, and the YouTube videos...”

“Yes, it was a shock when I saw the video, too.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know it was all fake, did you?”

“Fake?” Abi was incredulous, “Really? It looked unstaged and the way Bull Donald went down from your Daddy’s punch, looked real enough.”

“Oh, that tape. Yeah, that other tape’s real, at least I think so. I don’t know much about that tape. It’s the video and still pictures of Mom’s facial bruises and closed up black eye, after she was supposed to have been beaten up immediately after that video was taken, that was all faked within the hour by the Studio.”

“I didn’t even know about...”

“Well, Mom’s now told me they were produced quickly to keep Dad quiet, to get him to settle out of court and not hurt Mom or my Step Dad’s public image as stars of the show by talking about it. The video was shot while Mom was still shocked by being discovered by Daddy to even think straight, she told me. She just went along with what the studio wanted. Everybody bought it, even I did, so that’s why my Daddy has been out of my life for the last five and a half years.” The poor girl started sobbing again, and Abi pulled her into her chest. “I have totally blamed him for breaking up with Mom, when it was Mom that had the actual affair and was lying to me about Daddy beating her up all the time. Trouble for Mom was that the police wouldn’t press charges, so by the time the Studio, Mom and Bull took Daddy to court, he had been sent a tape like the one on YouTube but two minutes longer, it showed Mom coming back with not a mark on her. Meanwhile, the security gate had photograph evidence and signature showing he signed out 90 seconds after he punched Bull, so no way he could’ve beaten Mom up. The case was thrown out and Mom was nearly convicted of perjury.”

“Your Dad’ll be home soon, sweetheart. Would you like to stay here rather than at your Grandma’s? We’re a little upside down as we’ve only been in here for a couple of weeks and still waiting for the main house to be made habitable. We’ve already packed up half your Grandmother’s stuff in boxes because she’s moving in here as soon as we move next door. I can make up a spare bed and get that room ready for you, if you’d like?”

“Yes, I would love that, I so wanna see him, but I’m sure Daddy’ll be real angry with me. I, I said some horrible things to him last time, when I shouted that I hated him down the phone and ... and he may not want to see me, even talk to me. But I had nowhere else to go. He left me the keypad code to his condo, but I didn’t want to stay there on my own, I want to see him.”

“Believe me, honey, he’ll want to see you as soon as he can, and you’ll always have a place here at your Grandma’s, or next door where we will be living soon, either place you can call home. I might even ring Walt at work so he can come home early if he can get away.”

“Walt?”

“Sorry, honey, when we’re at home alone I get to call him ‘Walt’, it’s a bit of a joke between us.” Abi smiled, but then thinking about Walker always made her smile. “He calls me ‘Baby Doll’ when we’re alone at home, you know. It’s quite sweet, really.”

“So, you’re not just the cook?”

“Oh, I do some of the cooking, not as much as Walt does, though. We are supposed to be taking it in turns, but you know, life complicates our schedules all the time. He enjoys cooking so much, and other than some of his experiments where he tries to overextend his culinary skills, he’s really pretty good, proper chef standard.”

“So you’re not even hired help?”

“No, Sierra, I’m Walker’s fiancée, I’m Abigail Anderson, but you can call me Abi.”

“I am so sorry, but you look kind of young...”

“That’s all right honey, I am 22 years younger than Walt, but when you know you’ve found him, that he’s the one, the one and only, well, age is really no barrier at all to love.”

“Oh, when she finds out, Mom is gonna be so pissed!” Sierra had stopped crying and was suddenly animated. “You must tell me all about what Daddy’s doing now and how you met and how you fell in love and —”

Abi laughed. “All right, but first I must finish that blackberry and apple pie and get it in the oven, we’re having grilled salmon with a light salad tonight, so we need something more substantial for afters. Then, young lady, we’ll sort out your bedroom, and while we’re doing that, I’ll tell you all you want to know. After that, I think we better call and let your Mum know where you are, she must be worried sick.”

Abi sealed and crimped the pie crust, coated it with more egg and over sprinkled with a little sugar and put it in the oven, while telling Sierra how she met Walker and how they were both working on the show, with her playing the subject of one of the prime leads which will be the main drama viewed over Christmas, which will need to be filmed during October.

“So why are you not filming today?”

“I was scheduled to, but Gavin had to fly to Australia, a bereavement in his family. He’s not due back until Monday, so we’ll have a couple of intense days’ shooting to catch up next week.”

“So, is this Gavin a hunk, and do you have to film some steamy scenes with him?”

“Yes and yes, young lady, but I regard Gav is a brother that I have very much grown up with, we have both been on the show together permanently for over eight years, so we are very comfortable around each other and we both have significant partners, his being a polite young Portuguese man. We are professional actors, who can put on a convincing performance of steamy sex as far as the flat two-dimensional TV screen is concerned; but honestly, when you’re surrounded by 20 technicians breathing down your neck, it isn’t even remotely romantic. Besides, this is daytime television, so it doesn’t even get all that steamy at all. The way it will be shot will leave plenty to the imagination of our usual target audience, women of all ages at home in the afternoon. We have had to shoot some of the less fully dressed scenes already, before I start to show.” Involuntarily, Abi rubbed her tummy.

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yes, eight weeks.”

“So I’m going to have a sister or a brother next year?” Sierra was excited.

“Maybe one of each. At the clinic a week ago they thought they detected two heart beats but the image was unclear. I’m down for a scan next Wednesday, so we’ll know then.”

“That’s cool!” Sierra said, “Oh boy, Mom’s gonna be really pissed! When she told me that her present marriage might be coming to an end, she wondered if there was any chance she and Daddy’d get back together, because Mom speaks to Gramma every couple of months and she thought he was still, well, unattached.”

“No, honey, he’s well and truly attached now all right and I’m not letting him go. I know what your mother forgot, that I’m onto one really great thing here and I’m going to do everything in my power to make him my main focus in life.”

“Good. That bitch fu- er ruined Daddy’s and my life once, she ain’t gettin’ another chance to screw up.”

“Well, we’ve got something in common already, honey, we both love your Daddy. I think we’ll get along just fine.”

“So how long has Daddy been on the show?”

“Not long. Less than three months, full time. He started when I returned to the show after a sabbatical, shooting two films back to back in the States. He did have a few earlier walk-on sessions while I was filming in the US. But he is not just an extra now, he is one of the technical consultants, and recently been confirmed as a permanent member of staff. My on-screen boyfriend Gavin plays the son of the owner of a furniture maker, under pressure to produce some bespoke furniture for the guy who plays my Dad in the show. The producers want to reduce the presence of the older ones and the two of us and the other youngsters are getting bigger parts and stronger dramatic story lines in the series.”

“And does Daddy and this Gavin get on?”

“No, not at all.” Abi laughed, “I’m used to Gavin, he’s a lot older than me, early thirties, possibly 35 even, I think, but he’s baby-faced cute and he looks a hell of a lot younger than he is, particularly on the screen. We are both playing kids in their late teens and early twenties, so this is very much a sweet but awkward ‘first love’ scenario, with a few trials and tribulations along the way. Gavin’s character has supposedly been in love with my character for years, but been too shy to say anything. He’s had a lot of failed relationships including one with an older woman, so the audience will be assuming he is not serious about me. I play the sweet innocent thing just back from a private girls’ school, and absolutely clueless about boys. The twist will be that he is more serious than ever before and I’m completely impervious to his charms for a while. Then, when I give in and Gav appears to get what he wants, instead of dropping my character Heather, he reveals how serious he is and the girl gets to decide over the Christmas omnibus edition whether she wants to keep him or not.”

“And do you?”

“I don’t know! They won’t even tell me! Gavin pretends he knows, telling me he has ‘seniority’, but he’s bluffing. All the while this is going on, Gavin’s character is supposedly hand-making this beautiful range of Sheraton Regency reproduction furniture, that your Daddy is actually making by hand. It will be auctioned off for the Children In Need charity next year. Apparently, a Chinese International Hotel Company have already seen some of the pieces and have offered ten thousand for the lot to put in one of their function rooms, consisting of two carver chairs, eight standard chairs and this huge table.”

“What kind of show is this supposed to be, real life?”

“It is afternoon viewing twice a week, a soap if you like, with an omnibus edition on one of the minor channels on Sunday evening. It is about a High Street that only exists in make believe, with a café, pub, convenience store stroke post office that sells everything, a ladies’ hairdressers, a couple of take-aways, a florists and the furniture factory out back with a retail store on the High Street front. The show’s been running for over forty years now and is sort of stuck in a time warp. This drama about the furniture shop hinges on a new modern multi-store mall opening up outside the town and some of the High Street shops can’t compete and are closing. Hardy’s, the name of the shop, hope to survive by making bespoke furniture. One of the first to go to the wall was a milliners—”