Chapter 100

Amy and the guy from Selinco left the room, and I sat for a while staring at the floor thinking about what had just happened. Monique was gone. She was on a yacht going somewhere with another guy. Thinking back to when we’d been on his boat, I guess that I should have seen how interested he was. He made her Miss Galatea and gave her expensive diamond earrings after all, so I should have known that something was up. She was my girlfriend, how could she run off with someone just because he gave her things?

The door then opened and Amy motioned for me to follow her when I looked up.

We went to a room next to her office, and she said, “You look bummed.”

“Yeah, you guys signed that thing without even asking to talk to Monique. How do you know that she hasn’t been kidnapped or something?”

“I spoke to Alice. She’s been talking with Monique, and she’s convinced that everything is okay. Monique knows what she’s doing, Pete. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime and she wants it very badly.”

“But she’s supposed to be my girlfriend.”

“Since when?”

“Since last weekend.”

“I see. You’ve been going with her for less than a week and you’re pissed off because she ran off with one of the richest guys on the planet. He can make her a millionaire and more famous than she ever dreamed of. Gee, I can’t understand it. Why would she give up being the girlfriend of a high school kid for something as silly as that?”

“Don’t make fun of me, Monique and I have a, uhh, history.”

“Yeah, Mom told me about it a while ago. Monique paid you to have sex with her and she left town as soon as it was over.”

“That’s not exactly what happened, besides there was a reason that she went to New York.”

“It IS what happened. She went to New York to pursue a career. I had a talk with her when she hired on and she told me what happened when I confronted her about it. She may have fallen for you a little, but like it or not, she used you to get what she wanted then, and it sounds like she just did it again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You took her to the yacht where she met that guy, didn’t you?”

“I-I guess so.”

“See what I mean?”

It was like a light went on. Amy was right! She HAD used me again. I couldn’t believe that those had been her intentions, but that’s what had happened. I was pissed suddenly and I punched the wall next to me, not hard, but hard enough to rattle the window and Amy asked, “What the heck are you doing?”

“I’m pissed off and I don’t know what to do.”

“What you should do is get over it! For God’s sake, Pete, you were only going with her for like fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Darn right, I am. We have a lot of stuff going on right now and we need your full attention.”

“We do, don’t we?”

“Yes, an awful lot. Please be home tonight. We need to have a family meeting. Oh, and we all have to be at Mr. Martin’s office tomorrow morning.”

“Why do I need to be there?”

“There’s going to be some big changes, and it’s going to affect all of us. In the meantime, here,” and she handed me a slip of paper with a phone number on it.

“What’s this?”

“It’s Alice’s cell phone. She’s waiting for you to call.”

“When did you talk to her?”

“I talked to her several times. The last time was a few minutes ago.”

“She’ll tell me about Monique?”

“Yes, call her,” and she left the room.

Alice answered on the first ring and said, “You heard what happened?”

“Yes, did you know this was happening?”

“Yeah, she and I have been over all of it.”

“How do you feel about it?”

She sighed, “It’s what she wants, so I guess that it’s okay, but I’m going to miss her.”

“Aren’t you worried about her?”

“Of course, I am, but she says that she knows what she’s doing and that he’s for real.”

“Do you know about the parties that go on on that boat of his?”

“She told me about them.”

“And she’s going to be a part of that?”

“No, and he doesn’t participate either.”

“Why does he let the parties go on?”

“He said that a lot of huge deals happen on the boat, and the party is what brings the big players in.”

“Did she tell you about the girl who was with him?”

“Yes. Her name is Aysun. He lets everyone think that she’s his wife or girlfriend, but she’s actually his sister and a very big part of his whole operation. Molly said that Aysun spent a long time with her before Selin asked her to be with him. She thinks that he was waiting for her approval.”

“What do you mean ‘be with him?’ Is she actually going to like, move in with him?”

“What do you think?”

“But how could all this happen so fast?”

“He’s apparently been looking for a replacement for the Beaute girl. They had their eye on someone else, but he changed his mind when he saw her.”

“What about her moving in with him, what’s that all about?”

“I don’t know and I’m not sure that she does either.”

There was a pause, then, “You know what she looks like, Pete. Every guy she meets wants to be with her. She’s turned down a ton of marriage proposals. She said that he told her that ‘she was going to be with him’ and she assumes it means that she’ll be his girlfriend.”

“So she’s willing to do whatever it takes.”

“Stop it, Pete, she’s not a slut. You’re the only person who she’s ever had sex with.”

Surprised, I said, “But that’s not normal! She’s nineteen years old, she surely must have met someone she liked well enough to, well, you know.”

“I wondered about that too, but she always said that she just wasn’t interested.”

“But she’s interested enough to be with this guy?”

“This guy offered her the world, Pete. He offered her fame and fortune beyond anything that she ever dreamed of, and the only condition is that she be with him. Hell, I’d go with him too if he offered me that deal.”

I angrily spit back, “So she sold herself for money and fame.”

“And that’s something you would never do, eh? Amy told me about you thing with Burgers. I know that you’re seeing Nell Burger and it sounds like the same thing to me.”

I started to say it wasn’t like that when it hit me. It WAS like that. I was doing pretty much the same thing. I would never be the ‘Smiling Burger guy’ if I didn’t have a relationship with Nell. I was trying to think of a way to say that my situation was different, but I decided ‘to heck with it’ and I changed the subject and asked, “Are you sure that she’s not being forced into any of this?”

Alice knew that I was evading the issue, but she answered, “No, she knows exactly what she’s doing. She asked for proof of his intentions. His company has holdings all over the world, including offices here in town. A signed contract and a check was hand carried to me in less than two hours. I have a certified check in front of me right now. It’s made out to our joint account, and it’s for so much money that it scares me to look at it.”

“He did all this in less than three days?”

“I guess it helps when you own the company.”

“And it’s made to your joint account?”

“Yup, I could cash it right now and run away somewhere. I’m sure that Monique insisted on him doing it that way to prove that he’s serious.”

“Do you know that I’m under orders not to contact her or talk to anyone about her?”

“Yeah, I am too. I can talk to her, but I can’t tell anyone about what was said. It’s called a gag rule and they’re not kidding.”

“But you and I are talking about it.”

“Amy said this is an unlisted private line and I’m at my broker’s office waiting to deposit this check.”

“What’s with all the secrecy?”

“Molly told him everything. She told him about us working at Delight, and she even told him about what happened when we filmed you and her at the hotel. She didn’t want any secrets that might come back to haunt her. She said that he never even blinked when she told him and he said that he’s okay with it. There’ll be people watching her every move and trying to find out about her background if she gets as famous as we think she will. We’re not worried about that time in the hotel. We’re pretty sure that guy would never tell. She wore that feather mask as you remember, so there’s really no way to identify her, but they would prefer that her time with Delight didn’t get out.”

“She’s been in newspapers, magazines, and even done a few covers. How are they going to hide who she is?”

“She said that the person the world knows has ceased to exist. She’s going to have a different name, a different look, and they’re going to create a different past for her.”

“They’re going to do all this while she’s on the boat?”

“She isn’t on the boat. She’s on a plane headed for Brussels where they’re going to do something called a blepharoplasty. It’s a minor surgical procedure where they do something to your eyelids.

“She’s going to have an operation?”

“It’s an outpatient thing where they remove a small strip of skin from just above your eyelid. They do it in a fold, so there’s no visible scar and it quickly heals.”

“That’s crazy! She’s one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw. Why would she agree to do something like that?”

“Have you ever seen her first thing in the morning?”

“I, uhh, don’t remember.”

“She has puffiness around her eyes that she usually hides with makeup. She’s been talking about the procedure for some time.”

“Gee, I never noticed. So he’ll be with her while it heals?”

“No, he’s actually headed somewhere else, but she’s going to have a companion with her in Belgium and she’s going to be busy taking a crash course in French.”

“What kind of a companion and what’s with the French lessons?”

“Her companion is a woman who works for his company. She’s going to tutor Molly in French and get her ready for her first igg.”

“Where is it?”

“She told me that you saw the jeweled swimsuit she wore on the boat.”

“Uh-huh, it was unbelievable.”

“She’ll be wearing it again. She’s going to be the queen of the ball at the Diamond Jubilee in Paris a month from now.”

“Wow! That’s fantastic, but she’s not famous yet. What’s with all this secrecy about me?”

There was a pause before she answered, “She told him about her feelings for you. They run deeper than you think. He’s going to have a huge investment in her, and he wants to make sure that you don’t try to contact her and risk the two of you doing something silly.”

“I didn’t realize that she felt so strongly about me. She told me back in school that you were the one who liked me.”

“I know she did. I’m going to tell you something, and then I have to go. I hate the expression ‘He made a woman of me’. I think that it’s stupid and trite, but you changed both our lives the day you made love to us. We’d been planning on leaving as soon as we got the money from the filming, but I fell for you that day, and so did Molly. We toyed with the idea of staying around for a while, but it became plain that there might be problems between us because of you if we did.”

“Gee, I didn’t know.”

“We know you didn’t. One of several things might have happened if we had stayed. One, you could have blown us both off. Two, you could have tried to romance both of us, or three, you could have chosen just one of us. We didn’t want to find out which option you would choose. That’s why we left without seeing you again. I’ve been able to move on with my life since then, but Molly never has and I guess that she told him so.”

“Wow, I had no idea.”

“I have to go now. I want to deposit this check and get to the set. The filming here will be over soon and I’ll be coming home. We’ll talk more then. Don’t worry about her in the meantime, she’ll be fine.”

“Okay, but one more question. Why didn’t she want to tell me about this herself? Why didn’t she want to talk to me at all?”

“She was scared, Pete. She’s was afraid that you’d say something to make her change her mind. You could have, you know. You could have ruined this whole thing for her. She would have run to you in an instant if you’d asked her. She would probably have hated you for doing it later on, unfortunately.”

I stood there dumbfounded when she hung up. I had no idea that either of them felt that strongly about me. I tried to think of how things between Monique and I were when we were together last weekend. She never let me know how deep her feelings were. I tried to think about how I felt about her. It was great to have someone as beautiful as she is as my girlfriend, but I never felt the intensity toward her that I probably should have for some reason.

It was just after three when I got home. I went into the kitchen to get a snack and I sat around in a daze for a while, thinking about everything that happened and the effect that it was going to have on my family. A little frustrated, I finally went out to my room and attacked ‘Killer’. It had been a while since I had a decent workout, and I had a pretty good burn going when my phone went off. Caller ID said that it was Nell, so I answered, “Hi, what’s up?”

“I miss you and I just wanted to say hello.”

“I’m glad that you called. I hear that you and Mom got along very well.”

“I like her. She’s a lovely woman. I see where you get some of your good looks.”

“She likes you too. I think you convinced her that you’re not going to just whisk me away somewhere so that you can have your way with me.”

“Well, I do intend on having my way with you, but I think she knows that I have your best interests at heart. What did you think of the spread in the newspaper, by the way?”

“Very interesting, but I need to ask about something first. How are things going with the takeover?”

“We’re fast-tracking everything. The newspapers should be all over it by this weekend. Why do you ask?”

“You know that my dad works for the airline, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Have you talked with Herb or Cohen about what they intend to do about him?”

“I actually have. Johnson says that he’d be ideal as Director of Flight Operations. Cohen wanted to try him out locally for a while, but Johnson says that he can handle it nationwide and both Cohen and I tend to agree after we talked about it. Johnson knows the aviation industry and he knows your dad. We believe him if he says your that dad can be trusted to do the job right.”

“Has anyone talked to him about it yet?”

“I’m not sure, why?”

“Did Mom tell you what kind of work she did when you and she had dinner?”

“She said that she works for a talent agency, why?”

“It’s more than that. It’s my sister’s business and they run it together. They have an opportunity to acquire two other agencies. They are both located back east, which means that they’ll be gone a lot and I have a concern.”

“It sounds like a wonderful opportunity. What’s your concern?”

“This is a big deal. We’re having a family meeting tonight to talk about it and I’d like Dad to know that things could be changing for him as well.”

“Watching out for everybody and being a good son, eh?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, the deal is far enough along that we can make him an offer. I know that Johnson is friends with your family, so I think that it would be better if it came from him. I’ll call him and call you back.”

I called information for the address of the Grange hall in Cantil when she hung up, then I called Jack Hedden to give him directions. We talked a little about how I’d like him to make a fuss over Denise and he said not to worry, that both he and his sidekick, Jason, knew what to do. I even asked him if he wanted to stay over and ride horses on Sunday, but he said that he was busy.

I’d been on my cell phone and I looked over at my answering machine for the first time. It had sixteen messages on it!

Marla, Tammy, Cindy, Bill, and even Tess left messages commenting and congratulating me on the newspaper thing. There were a few hang-ups and surprisingly, the rest were from kids at school. They were almost all from girls, some I didn’t even know or couldn’t remember, and most of them left phone numbers. I began to realize that maybe being famous wasn’t such a bad idea.

My cell phone rang a few minutes later, and Nell said, “I talked to Johnson and he’s calling your dad right now.”

“Good. Uhh, about tonight, I think we better put this off until you get back, I don’t know how long the meeting will last.”

“Alright, I’m leaving first thing in the morning and I won’t be back until Tuesday night. What about the filming, are you almost done?”

“Yeah, we finished today.”

“Talk to your mom. Make sure that she clears your schedule for at least a month, and keep your cell phone charged. You’re going to be contacted by a man from our office tomorrow. His name is Colin, and he’ll explain what we have planned to you.”

“I wish that you were in town, I’d like to take you with me this weekend.”

“We’ll have plenty of time together. You’ll probably get tired of being around me. Why don’t you take that girl you’ve been seeing lately. I hear that she’s a real beauty?”

“She’s no longer around.”

“Why, what happened?”

I joked, “She left when she heard about you. She knew that she couldn’t stand up against the competition.”

“My goodness, are you trying to turn my head, young man?”

“I’d do more than turn your head if you were with me now.”

“Come over tonight and you can demonstrate what you have in mind.”

“Let me see how tonight goes. I’ll call you later.”

I sat for a while thinking about her after she hung up. She’s the only girl I’m seeing right now with Monique gone and Marla seeing someone else. It seems that I was suddenly pretty popular because of my picture being in the paper, and it looks like I could have my pick of a lot of girls at school. It was tempting, but the thought of what Nell had looked like when we had made love the other night made up my mind. I don’t want to start with someone new. I didn’t know why she liked me as much as she did, and I didn’t know how long it would last, but being with someone as exciting as her was all I could ask for.

I got on Killer again, but I didn’t last long. I was starting to cramp up when my landline rang. I was surprised to hear Dad say, “Hi, Son, I just talked to Mom. It sounds like we both have some big stuff ahead of us,” When I answered.

“You talked to Herb?”

“Yes, I did. I understand that you had something to do with this.”

“A little at the beginning, but I had nothing to do with them wanting you for the Director’s position, that was all Herb’s doing. You’re going to accept it, aren’t you?”

“I hate to give up flying, but it’s such a great opportunity that I can’t turn it down, but that’s not the reason I called. What about you? I hear that you hit it big time?”

“I, uhh, guess so.”

“Is it something that you really want to do?”

“Sure, Dad. Why, are you worried about something?”

“No, it’s just that you’re going to be gone a lot and I hate to see you miss out being with your friends. We were a little short of money a while back, but we’re fine now and it looks like we’ll be a lot better soon, so you don’t have to if you’re doing this for the money. We’ve treated you like an adult for quite a while and you’ve never disappointed us. It’s okay with us if you just want to be a kid for a while.”

“Thanks, Dad, but this sounds exciting and I want to give it a try, but what about you? What exactly will be your new job be and when do you start?”

“They’re using regional flight operations people now and there are too many scheduling problems. I’m going to set up a central system where I can keep an eye on things. It’ll be a little tough dealing with the regional people in the beginning, and I may have to let a few go, but I know how to handle that and it should make things a lot more efficient once I get the system up and running. The takeover will be complete in a couple of weeks and I can’t step in until then, but that’s fine because I want to complete the 747 certification even if I don’t pilot commercially again just so that I can say I did it. I should be home in about ten days.”

“Did you tell Mom about everything?”

“I talked with her right before I called you. She’s really excited about what’s coming.”

“We all are. I love you, Dad. I’ll see you when you get home.”

Mom, Erin, and Amy got home around five o’clock. We gathered in the front room and we talked about the future for the next hour. Amy was always excited when she talked about the agency, but she was practically bubbling over this time, and so was Mom.

I noticed a change in Amy when Mom started working at Stone. I used to listen to Mom and her talking at night, and Amy always seemed stressed. Amy seemed more relaxed lately. Mom told me that Amy still handled the bookings and contract negotiations, but more and more of the business stuff fell to Mom and she said that she loved it. I vaguely remember Mom mentioning that her major in college was business, but I also remember Dad saying he didn’t want her to work full time while she was raising us kids and the dance classes were all she’d ever done until now.

Mom was clearly excited about what was happening now. She stood up and said, “A lot of changes are about to happen. They are going to affect all of us, and we need to talk about them. Some of them also include Myrna Devon. She’ll be here in a few minutes, but I wanted this to be between us.”

She talked about Dad’s new job, what it entailed, and the fact that he was going to be traveling at lot for a while even though he was going to be based here, then she looked at me. “I recently spent some time with Nell Burger, and she told me what Burger’s has in mind for Pete. You all saw the spread in today’s paper. Well, that kind of thing is going to continue. They’re going after the youth market with their music players, game boxes, CDs, and such. He’s going to be their spokesperson, and they are building a huge campaign around him. He’s also going to be gone a lot. They’re going to try to get him an interview at every store, and they have a lot of stores as you know, so he’s going to be gone for most of the summer, then there’s Amy and me. This new thing is big, but Howard Martin says that we can do it and we’re going to meet him at his office and talk about it tomorrow. We are also going to be traveling a lot if we do it. It means that some or all of us are going to be away from home for a while at least. Are there any questions?”

Erin asked, “Uhh, what about me?”

“I’d like you to come with Amy and me for now. New York and Chicago are wonderful places, and I think that this is a great opportunity for you to see what really big cities are all about.”

“But I have friends here and this is all business stuff. Why can’t you go and let Amy stay here with me?”

“Amy needs to be with me. She’s going to be talking with the models about renewing their contracts. Maybe you can help her.”

Amy jumped in with, “That’s a great idea! It’ll go a long way convincing them to stay with us if I show up with Erin in full makeup and I introduce her as ‘Erin Swan, the star of an upcoming TV show’ and one of our clients.” That got a big grin from Erin and a smile from Mom. Things got a little quiet for a few minutes as we sat there thinking about how our lives were about to change.

Myrna and the twins showed up carrying boxes of pizza a few minutes later, and Mom started going over some of the things we’d discussed as were eating. Mom, Amy and Myrna were talking about the business aspects of things Before long, and the twins and I followed her when Erin said that she wanted to go to the kitchen for some ice cream. I was scooping ice cream into bowls when the phone in Erin’s room rang. She grabbed a bowl of ice cream and I began talking to the twins about the weekend when she left. We went over how they were going to surprise Denise by pretending to be old friends and what to expect about being in Cantil. They were excited about spending time with the horses, and they were ecstatic when I told them about the trails and how we would pack a lunch and have a picnic in the mountains.

I then asked something that had been bothering me. “It looks like the director is favoring Erin as much as you guys. Am I mistaken?”

The scar on her chin told me that it was Rose who answered, “No, we told him to.”

“Why?”

“Do you know what it’s like, starring in a weekly show, Pete?”

“I-I guess not.”

“It’s a bitch! Its fourteen hour days and a lot more. It’s hours spent learning lines, more hours in makeup, and weekends spent doing interviews or making appearances. You have practically no life! We know that we’re getting too old to play kid parts. Mom has made some great investments for us over the years, so we have all the money we need and we’re looking forward to relaxing for a while.”

“Wow! I didn’t realize that it was that hard. I thought the business watched out for kids.”

“People did do it when we were young, but the rules began to relax a little as we got older. We were on the set one time for thirty six hours and went through total makeup five different times during the last movie we did.”

“Did you tell Erin about this?”

“We explained it all to her, but she doesn’t care. She wants it bad, Pete, and I’m almost sorry to say that she’s going to be big. Probably very big.”

“So that’s why the director concentrating on Erin doesn’t bother you?”

“Yes. Don’t tell Mom, but we were hoping the show didn’t get picked up before we knew how serious Erin was. We’ll do it if it does, but we’re out of high school now and we are hoping to concentrate on college next year.”

“Can’t you do both?”

“Not really. A weekly show is a full time job and then some. You may find out for yourself if that kiss between you and Erin leads to something, and everybody seems to think that it will.”

“I don’t think that I want to be an actor.”

“Yeah? Well, we’ve heard that before. I bet you change your mind. Let’s talk about this weekend in the meantime?”

“Okay. This is going to be a surprise as you know. Do you mind following me to the house in Cantil?”

“No, we would prefer it that way.”

“Okay, I’m planning on us getting there around five o’clock. I’m going to pick Denise up around seven o’clock. She lives in the house next door. Watch for us until we leave, wait about a half hour, then come to the dance. There’ll be a lot of excitement when you show up. Make sure that you make a big to-do over Denise. She’s a pretty redhead. I’ll make sure that she stays close to me. Jack Hedden and Jason will be there around nine, but they won’t be staying. Oh, Meg and her friend will also be at the house and at the dance. They’re staying Saturday night and they’ll be riding with us on Sunday.”

Rose wanted to know why Jack Hedden was coming, and her eyes narrowed as she said, “You asked Jack Hedden and his butt-boy to come to a dance in some dinky little town so that he could do you a favor, and they said yes?” when I told her that I asked him first.

“Uh-huh.”

“I know you’re not gay, Pete, what’s going on?”

“Their manager owed me a favor.”

“It must have been a big favor.”

Erin came back just then, so I said, “It was. I’ll tell you about it this weekend. Your mom is depending on me to keep my eye on you guys, by the way. You’re not going to cause any trouble, are you?”

She grinned, “It depends, are there going to be some cute guys there?”

I scowled at her and pointed my finger at her. All she did was laugh.

We got to the lawyer’s office at ten o’clock the next morning. It was a sea of glass and chrome, and took up an entire floor of a high-rise building in the middle of Los Angeles. A secretary with movie star looks greeted us in the lobby and Ms. Adams appeared and took us to a huge corner office after she pushed a button on her desk.

Howard Martin was standing behind a desk big enough to host a basketball game, and he came over to us and shook all our hands. We all sat down and he got right down to business.

He said to Mom and Amy, “Ms. Adams filled me in on everything that happened yesterday. You traded a client for a small talent agency, and you have an opportunity to acquire two others, is that correct?”

Mom nodded, “Yes.”

“And you are prepared to run all three if I can help with the financing?”

“Yes.”

“You realize, of course, that you are going to be stretched to the limit if you take this on, don’t you?”

“Yes, we do, but we’re convinced that we can make a go of it.”

“Well, I am too, and I’m prepared to back you if this is what you really want.”

Amy interrupted with, “That’s wonderful, Mr. Martin, and we promise we’ll...”

Mr. Martin held his hand up to stop her and said, “But I have another idea. Have a look at this,” and he pushed a folder in front of them.

Mom and Amy opened the folder and started poring over papers. Mom looked up a few minutes later, and said, “It says here that you are offering to underwrite this entire thing, including something that you’re calling ‘an additional acquisition’. What is it?”