Chapter 22

We went for the option of sleeping at Mel’s place that night; she’d quickly made clear that she was desperate to finally welcome me to her own space.

I drove home to grab a few things, and then retraced my steps as far as Woodland Hills, stopping at a convenience store to fill the short list she’d texted me once she’d had a chance to look in her own fridge.

I immediately saw a bit of the darker side of fame; my arrival in her driveway was greeted by a harsh glare of security floodlights, and even though she was expecting me, there was still a pause before she opened the door. She closed and locked it as soon as Max and I were in, setting bolts home top and bottom.

There was a shelf to the side of the door, holding a rape alarm and a can of pepper spray. She noticed my glance, and a sad expression came over her face. “I keep my address as private as I can, but you never know. I don’t worry too much about being recognized by chance; the film makeup mostly made me something I’m not, and it’s not like the camera was concentrating on my face. There are one or two MILLION other blondes my age running around SoCal, so I always deny the connection if I’m challenged, which happens occasionally. I just say that other people have confused me for that lady. The big issue is that my real name is out there, connected with Atlanta, and in this town...”

I hugged her. It seemed to help; she was a little less tense after a minute. I whispered in her ear, “I know it. All too well. Everything is for sale. I had to introduce really punitive non-disclosure contracts at the hospital; a year or two back a couple of celebs almost had their medical details leaked. If we hadn’t had their files flagged up for detecting unauthorized access, we’d have been deep in the doo-doo. The scandal sheets were offering so much for a leak that it was almost worth losing a job; we just made sure that it meant losing a career as well as all their earnings for the next thirty years.”

She let go of me and checked again that the door was locked. That action worried me a little, “Do you have security on call?”

She grimaced. “Not in our part of the movie industry. The Hollywood stars who get paid ten, twenty million per picture? Most of that goes on agent’s percentage, PR, lawyers, personal staff, house staff and general hangers-on to the lifestyle. They can afford a full-time team of professional bodyguards. I couldn’t pay for a security service, not even if I was working every day of the week. My agent gave me some good advice about personal security, but that’s about as far as it goes. An even though I’m now in production and post-production, those movies will always be out there, and there will always be some oddball I’ve never met who reckons I’m crazy about him.”

She paused for breath and a sigh; “It’s the lone stalkers and religious nutjobs we worry about most; the paparazzi aren’t interested because there’s no real market for scandal in what we do and who we’re seen with, not unless there’s another celebrity involved. It’s not like any of my films has ever premiered at the Chinese Theater, and I’m never going to get to join the Academy, no matter how great a filmographer I become. No magazine is going to pay for a topless shot of me when they can take a screenshot from one of my movies and it won’t cost them a penny. So I can’t afford to employ my own security to keep the press and fans away, I just have to watch out for myself.”

I grunted. That was a little scary; I’d seen the news stories of deranged fans physically stalking their favorite celebrity; it had never occurred to me that I’d ever be seeing someone who did fall into that ‘celebrity’ category.

I wasn’t a follower of the gossip columns, but I’d seen the odd Hollywood scandal show while channel-hopping. The ‘A’ list celebrities in their Beverly Hills fortresses could afford to keep their fans at a safe distance; I knew exactly how much it cost us to employ ordinary uniformed security guards at the hospital, and I could guess that the bonded and vetted specialist VIP bodyguards with the expert training, the security clearance and the range of skills must come in at five or ten times the basic daily rate, even if they didn’t actually receive that amount themselves.

“Add me and Max to the security team. We’ll do whatever we can to keep you safe.”

She giggled at that. I assumed that she was pleased by our dedication rather than amused by our presumption. Max and I are both a little too much on the cute-ish end of the scary scale. Max is blessed in one way I’m not; it would take me days to lick an intruder to death. He’d have them crying ‘uncle’ in minutes.

We put the grim mood to one side while Mel took great pleasure in showing me around her house. It wasn’t quite a home; there was no doubting that a single woman lived there with her dogs, but it was a little too neat and impersonal. I quickly realized that it meant a whole lot to her; not the house itself, but the fact that her name was on the papers, she was a homeowner building up equity rather than paying rent, and she was doing it without having to share with another girl to help pay the bills. She wasn’t boasting, she was quietly proud that she’d pulled herself up from renting to owning her own place, and I tried to show my pride in her for doing that. We finished our quick tour out in her fenced back yard; I noted that she had more security cameras and motion-activated floodlights. “I guess the girls are always setting the lights off?”

My girlfriend chuckled. “Yeah, whenever I check the footage they’re in the frame. I freaked out the first night it happened, before I realized it was them. Still, that’s a small price to pay for their company.”

She made me laugh when she played me a You Tube clip about her alleged net worth, which claimed that she drove a half-million dollar Ferrari, and displayed an image of a modern glass and steel mansion that must have run to five thousand square feet. She told me that they’d done a shoot there, which was probably why it was connected with her. She giggled at my expression when the final net worth figure came up at $4.5 million. “Relax, honey, it’s nowhere near that, maybe a tenth. You aren’t digging for gold. You’re still going to have to bring the money home if you want to eat; you can’t live off my past earnings. Hell, I can’t do that, that’s why I’m still working!”

I joked back at her, “Darn it! I thought I finally had it made. A beautiful, rich, sexy, insatiable woman who is actually dumb enough to like me and keep me in a luxurious lifestyle!”

Her face fell; I didn’t quite yet know her well enough to tell whether she was genuinely upset or merely acting upset.

“I just knew it! You only see me as a potential trophy wife!”

Her eyes had sparkled mischievously as she glanced at me. Now, that gave away what she was doing.

I grabbed her and hugged her tight. She’d outed herself as a tease, but I wasn’t going to let this potentially contentious subject go undefended and fester. “Mel, sweetheart, I’m not looking for a trophy wife. That’s the absolutely LAST thing I want. I’m looking for a best friend, a life partner, a soulmate, a companion through good and ill, a great mother to our children, a listener who will cheer me up when I’m feeling down, an equal who will tell me straight when I’m being an asshole, and a superfan who will help me make the most of my life. You qualify on all those counts. You want to argue any of them?”

She grinned and hugged me back, putting a finger on my lips to keep me quiet. “You’re setting low expectations there, Mike, missing a few essential characteristics. Someone who shares your weird sense of humor and who’s great between the sheets? I can do those as well. My spaghetti would have won awards if there had ever been anyone to eat it with me, and I’m way too low maintenance to be a true trophy wife. And I’m all me, no surgery at all. I absolutely don’t fit the criteria.”

I kissed her thoroughly; that was the only way to deal with the wench. Trouble was, she started kissing me back, and I kinda lost track of where I’d gotten to on the argument about the kind of wife I wanted.

She led me back to her bedroom. As she cleared off the cushions and covers of the king sized bed, she assured me that I was the first man to set foot near it since it was delivered and set up.

There was a small delay in proceedings. Kara and Tara weren’t pleased to be excluded from their usual place beside her, but they did get to share the kitchen with Max. The doors in between were firmly shut.

Even after our energetic weekend, we managed to christen her bed twice over, once with Mel and once with Atlanta, and then fool around in her shower in the morning. I’d watched several clips of her having sex in a bath or shower, and in my opinion it was even better in real life. The continued Los Angeles water shortages mandates required that the shower wasn’t actually cascading water over us all the time, but that’s no bad thing.

Then, sadly, our first full weekend together was over and it was time for us both to get to work. The temptation to call in sick was strong, but she promised me that she and the girls would be over at our place in the evening;

She let me out through the garage. She told me that she always drove in using the remote control and waited for the door to close behind her before unlocking her car door. Her garage was totally bare, mainly so there was nowhere for anyone to hide, but also because she had so few possessions. A lawn service took care of her yard; she called a contractor whenever work needed doing on the house. She didn’t even own a ladder of any kind. I hugged her in sympathy; once again, it proved that this house of hers was just a place for her to sleep and keep her stuff, not a truly welcoming home. A fortress rather than a sanctuary.

My commute was a little further in distance; quite a bit longer in time. So what. Being with Mel was definitely worth it.

Naturally, I had a very curious secretary waiting for me when I got in to work; Helga gave me a hug when I reported that it had indeed been a great weekend. Then she went over my appointments for the day.

You know the saying ‘back down to earth with a bump’? It wasn’t a long day, but it was not an easy one either. Hey, it was a Monday. Look ‘Monday’ up in the dictionary. It’s about three-fourths the way between ‘Mayhem’ and ‘Murder’.

Nope, it wasn’t THAT bad. ‘Miserable’ and ‘Moping’? ‘Mix-up’ and ‘Muddle’?

Helga and I had no time for gossip; we both earned our money that day. Still, as she said when she brought me a sandwich at my desk, it could have been a whole lot worse. The mess-up over the examination rooms scheduling could have come to light Friday, and THEN I’d have spent most of that evening eating crow to angry doctors, instead of being on the beach with Mel. Once the Head of IT had worked out exactly what had gone wrong and allowed multiple bookings of the same slot, all I really had to do was ensure that feelings were soothed, the people who’d been bumped had replacement bookings this coming week, and authorize some expenditure on small gifts of apology. It’s the little slip-ups that always cause the most stress.