Chapter 18: Lucky Bastard

The first thing to clue Danny in was when Lucy sent him a message, telling him that she would not need a pick-up at the airport. That was strange. It had been a four-weekly ritual for him to pick her up when her flight from Cleveland arrived, but this time she was flying in from Burbank of all places, and on a red-eye flight to boot, arriving just two hours before the planned shoot.

Danny suspected that Lucy had been trying to find a representative, an agent, to get a foothold in the entertainment industry, but he was also acutely aware that their friendship with benefits would take a severe hit if Lucy indeed would relocate to the West Coast.

Anyway, Lucy had promised to meet with Danny after the shoot, and he withstood the temptation to go to the studio himself. Lucy did not need the distraction. There were things for him to do anyway. Returning from the vacation, the girls had found traces in their room indicating that somebody had gone through their things, and they suspected the building super, Clusky, a douchebag and a pest on his best days. When confronted by Danny, Clusky had told him that it was his prerogative to inspect the rental units, and that he should count himself lucky if Clusky tolerated Lynn sharing the place.

A quick call to the Westbrooks’ real estate lawyer assured him that Clusky had no leg to stand on, and that any inspections had to happen with prior warning and with one of the tenants in presence. Of course, Clusky had a master key, but there was no clause in the rental contract prohibiting Danny and Ashley from changing the locks.

In a hardware store, Danny therefore found a high-quality lock cylinder and even a replacement for the entire lock mechanism which was worn out and unreliable. Adding a massive deadbolt system to his shopping cart, Danny returned to the apartment and began to work. It took him a little over an hour, but then the apartment door was secure against Clusky’s intrusions.

Lucy arrived at the apartment in a taxi cab at six p.m. and Danny noticed immediately that she carried only her purse. Now, here was a hint! Nevertheless he opened the apartment door with a friendly smile.

“Hey, Lucy! How are you?” he asked, but he made no attempt to hug her, let alone give her a kiss.

Lucy had a pained expression on her face, but she smiled bravely.

“Hey, Danny! Long time no see,” she said in an unconvincing attempt at cheerfulness.

“Come in,” he offered. Then, just to get this over, he added, “You wanna have dinner with us, or you wanna get things off your chest first?”

“You know?” Lucy asked.

“I can recognize a hint or two.”

“Can we maybe go some place for dinner?”

“Sure. Let me get my stuff. Any place you want to go to?”

Lucy just shrugged and Danny grabbed his wallet and his keys.

“Lucy and I will go out for dinner!” he hollered to let Ashley and Lynn know, and then he closed the apartment door behind himself. “Let’s go and have Italian.”

In the car, Lucy got started. “Look, Danny, this is...”

She stopped when he held up his hand.

“Just not in my car, okay? I’ve had one girl blow me off in here already; one more time and I can never take a girl in here again.”

He drove her to a nearby restaurant and owing to the early hour, they found an empty table in the rear where they would be alone. They studied the menu in silence and then ordered. When the waitress left them, Danny smiled wryly.

“Okay, shoot!”

Lucy took a deep breath.

“Chris and I have been sending out resumes since May, you know, to talent agencies and casting companies, to test the waters.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Okay, two weeks ago, we got a first nibble. It’s an agency in Burbank, and they wanted to see more clips of us. A few days later, they asked me to fly to Burbank for an interview.”

“Just you?”

“Just me. Chris understands. Long story short, they want to sign me on as a talent, but I must relocate to the West Coast.”

“And you want to do that, of course,” Danny stated the obvious.

“Yes. It’s a big opportunity. I looked up their talent list, and it’s impressive. They get them good jobs, mostly in television, both cable and network. I’d be a fool not to jump on this.”

“Let me make this easy for you. With you on the West Coast, your visits to Philadelphia will dwindle away, right?”

Lucy nodded unhappily. “I just gave Marsha notice. I’ll do one more shoot in three weeks to give them time to rework the ad series, but then that’s it for the Two-Bucks girl. Marsha understands.”

“I get it, Lucy, and I’m happy that you have a chance to go after your goals,” Danny told her, even able to inflect warmth into his words. “I guess I understand the next part too. Our relationship more or less worked because of your regular visits here, and maybe the summer vacations. That’s not going to happen anymore, right?”

Lucy nodded, giving him a grateful smile.

“Yes, that’s it in a nutshell. Danny, we were never aiming for that happily-ever-after scenario, right?”

“No, I remember. You only asked for the use of me, right.” He quoted Lucy’s words so long ago in that dingy Paris hotel. “The Two-Bucks commercials just kept things from ending.”

“Yes. Danny, I can’t thank you enough for being my friend and more for the last years. You and Ashley and Lynn. I won’t disappear from your lives, but it would be unfair for you and me both to cling to something that really has no future. You can’t just up and leave for the West Coast. You have a daughter here who needs you. You have two more years at Penn, and then you’ll probably go to graduate school here as well.”

“Hell, Lucy, you’ve been a damn good friend yourself. Seems like I have to let go of a lot of women this summer. Helen’s found a guy on the beach at Kitty Hawk, Lindy is a bit of a basket case these days, and the twins — well they are not on my Christmas list anymore. It just looks like I have to go out and shop for a real girlfriend.”

Lucy took his hand and squeezed it. “I know I was holding you back too.”

“It wasn’t a chore for me.”

“Thanks, Danny. You’re making this so much easier for me. Look, there’s one more thing I have to ask you for.”

Danny nodded. “Shoot!”

“Well, at the agency they interviewed me a lot, looking for possible warts and skeletons. Our relationship came up of course.”

“What am I? Wart or skeleton?”

“Not you. It’s Irina. They found the newspaper articles about her and the illegal firearms arrest. They dug a little more and found out about her work in Nevada and in that escort ring in Philly. They think it might be toxic for me if it comes out.”

“And?” Danny had a cold feeling now.

“Can you just keep quiet about you and me dating for the last years? You know, not post anything in the social media about knowing me? Not telling your friends about us? It’s a really remote risk, but they insisted that I need a squeaky-clean background.”

Danny felt cold now and his voice reflected that.

“Lucy, my mom is a tax-paying, hard working woman, and she is a success in her new job. How is she going to dirty your background?”