Ginny Blue's Boyfriends Read online

  Kane Reynolds became Ex-File Number Two. I’ve heard he’s a motivational speaker these days. Garnering national attention, no less.

  “I gotta get to the right restroom,” I said to Sean.

  “Hey, maybe later ... you and I could do that Bud thing on the beach?”

  “Sure,” I said lightly. Later was unspecific enough to mean never in my book, if I so decreed. Sean was cute, but twenty-three. There was no getting around the age difference. And I really wasn’t into dope smokers. Or wannabe actors.

  I left him to his joint, wondering what it says about my character that I wasn’t having a shit-fit that he was smoking dope at the office. I’m pathologically nonjudgmental, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but since the rest of the world seems to run on passing judgment as if it were fossil fuel, I figure somebody has to take another tack. If it had been Holly who’d discovered Sean’s extracurricular activities, his ass would be on the street.

  My conscience chose to recall my conversation with Kristl the night before and I realized I might be wrong about myself about the judgment thing. But honestly, the words I spoke to her came right from my heart: she was worrying me sick.

  Jill called and asked if I could take time out for a long lunch at the Farm of Beverly Hills. Much as I love In-N-OUT burgers, the Farm has this fantastic apple and brie sandwich on wheat bread that could drop you to your knees. It’s as close to health food as I dare, but at the mere mention of the Farm my mouth started salivating as if I’d taken Sean up on his earlier offer.

  “I’m there,” I said, and headed out to meet her with some vague excuse to the Holy Terror who eyed me with intense suspicion. When you’re working with Holly she feels she owns your time. Production can be one of those slave-labor-type-jobs—hour upon hour, sometimes sixteen hour days, but it pays well. Still, I figured I deserved a lunch hour ... or two.

  Jill was already seated when I arrived, which was just as well because the place was packed. People were standing around the bar waiting for tables that hadn’t cleared yet. She was at an outside table in front, under the awning, a great spot for watching the world pass by.

  The Farm is on Beverly Boulevard and it’s chic/country. Inside, the pitched ceiling is supported by exposed, stained rafters; the entire place reminiscent of a really clean barn. The tables are cute and clustered, but the prices on the menu are not for the faint-hearted. I squeezed by the other diners to join Jill who had ordered a bottle of wine. I eyed it with some reluctance. “I don’t think I can drink,” I said. “It’s Monday and I’ve got tons of pre-pro before next week’s shoot.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll drink. You listen.” She’d also ordered a salad, which had arrived before I did and she stirred the lettuce leaves around with her fork. None of them made it to her mouth.

  “You’re going to finally spill about Ian?”

  “Sit down. It’s long.”

  I groaned as I took my chair. “Then you’re going to have to buy me lunch.”

  “Done,” she said flatly, topping off her glass with more Chardonnay. The waiter came by and I ordered my sandwich before she could launch into her tale of woe. I was pretty sure I was going to need sustenance. As soon as he left Jill drew a breath and said, “I’m breaking up with Ian.”

  Jill-Ian? Turning to just Jill and just Ian? Unheard of.

  “You know what he did, the fucking asshole? He started putting restrictions on the marriage offer.”’

  “What kind of restrictions?”

  “Dos and Don’ts or no nuptials. Those kind of restrictions.”

  “I thought that happened after the wedding.”

  “I’m not marrying him.”

  “I know. You said so.”

  She gave me an assessing look, as if deciding how much to tell. I wasn’t really certain what my role was here. Did she want me to probe and pry? I gave it one try. “Was there a particular do or don’t that pissed you off?”

  Her eyes were directly to the barely touched salad, but she muttered, “He said if I wasn’t keen on getting married, then the offer was off the table. Asked for the ring back, for God’s sake.”

  “I thought you didn’t take the ring.”

  “I didn’t wear the ring. But I took it. Now he wants it back.” She swirled her glass of Chardonnay, frowning down at it. “I should have said yes.” She fell into a morose silence and I wondered if I’d been too hasty about turning down the wine. I saw our waiter heading our way with my sandwich and my mouth watered. He put it in front of me and I grabbed it with gusto. Melted brie dripped over the edges of the crust. I stuck out my tongue and caught some.

  Jill swirled her wine and frowned. “Did I make a mistake?”

  I shook my head. “Kristl just got engaged ... again ... and there’s something almost pathological about her need to be married.”

  “That’s not the way it is with Ian and me.”

  “Yeah? Well, last week you thought it was all some strange plot on his part. I thought you might even break up with him.”

  “Never,” she murmured, nose in her glass.

  “You’re nuts,” I decreed. Okay, okay. I am judgmental sometimes. Just not most of the time.

  “I love him, Blue.”

  I gave her a look. “Is that any reason to get married?”

  She snorted on a laugh.

  “I think arranged marriages might be the way to go,” I said. “This searching for the right partner takes too much effort, and the results aren’t any better than having someone say, ‘Hey, you. You’re with him now. Congratulations.’” I paused, intrigued by my own idea. “I need a yenta.”

  “If you were in love right now, you’d think differently.”

  I shook my head. “Love only lasts two years, three at the most. That’s when the endorphins, or whatever the hell, wear off. And your serotonin levels go up, I think. Those levels are depressed when you’re in love, and that’s why you can’t think about anything but this wonderful other person. It’s kind of like obsession. Obsessive people have depressed serotonin levels.”

  “I’m not depressed,” she pointed out, annoyed by my tangent.

  But I was on a roll. “So, when you’re all obsessed and in love, it’s a chemical imbalance. And you know stalkers, the really, really obsessed people? Their serotonin levels are way down. They must be terribly depressed.” I paused. “Or, is it way up? No, I think it’s down. So, they focus on someone and really think they’re in love. So being in love is kind of like being a stalker. Luckily, if you both feel the same way, it doesn’t really matter. You can stalk each other.”

  The look on Jill’s face caught me up short. It was fear mixed with realization. “What?” I asked, wondering what I’d said that had actually gotten to her.

  She put her mouth over the edge of her wine glass and mumbled, “I guess you could say I kind of stalked Ian last weekend.”

  “You mean ... what? You drove by his house a few times?”

  She drew a breath and said, “You know after we went to see Kristl? And then you went home because we saw Nate with that girl?”

  “Tara, yes. The teenager.”

  “Well, I took the long way home and drove by Ian’s place and there was someone there. I’m pretty sure. I think I saw her. He had the blinds down but there was someone there.”

  I thought that over. If Ian were really with someone else, I was going to have to totally rethink my opinion of him. Frankly, I’d never felt he possessed the balls. It’s not that he’s a wimp. It’s just that he’s so serious and careful and truly in love with Jill. “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I heard them, Blue. The window was open and she was laughing. And it was that kind of flirty laughing. She was into him.”

  I slid past the issue. “I wouldn’t call that stalking. That’s wanting information. There’s a difference.”

  “It gets better,” she warned.

  “Oh, goody.” I braced myself.

  “The next day I went over early. I was going to ta
lk to him, but then this girl came out.”

  “Of his apartment?”

  “I think so. It was one of ’em. Maybe it was his neighbor’s. I don’t know. But I just wanted to kill him, y’know? So ... I followed him.”

  “You followed him in your car?”

  “Yeah. Only it was CeeCee’s car. We’d switched.”

  I finished the last bit of my sandwich and chased crumbs around on the plate with my licked index finger. “I know I’m going to hate myself for asking, but why did you switch?”

  “Because I didn’t want him to see me following him, okay?” She stirred her salad with renewed vigor. The motion was as if she were cooling off a bowl of soup, except the bits of salad were getting mangled, crushed, and pulverized.

  “And CeeCee went for this?”

  “Stop sounding so judgmental.”

  Momentarily I was stopped. Am I going to have to completely rethink my own vision of myself? I put that aside for the moment. “Following Ian around sounds kind of boring to me. Where’d he go? The gym?”

  “He went over to his friend’s place and they just hung out for a couple of hours.”

  “You didn’t wait the whole time.”

  “No.” She shook her head. Something about her body language bothered me.

  “How long did you wait?”

  “Okay, fine! I waited the whole goddamn time. Happy now?”

  I lifted my hands in surrender and noticed a bit of brie stuck to my wrist. I debated licking it off, but I do occasionally try to have some class so I wiped it off with my napkin instead. “You wanted me to listen. I’m listening. I’m just not sure what I’m hearing. Last week you were pissed off because he asked you to marry him, and now you’re following him around like a jilted girlfriend. But just because he took the ring back doesn’t mean you’re completely through. You guys are still Jill-Ian,” I said with more conviction than I felt. I watched her carefully. Her head jerked in a nod. Then to my surprise her eyes filled with sudden tears. She seemed not to know what to do about them, so I awkwardly handed her an unused cloth napkin I filched from the just-set nearby table. The waiter gave me a dirty look, but didn’t complain when he saw Jill press the cloth to both eyes.

  “He called last night and broke up with me,” she choked out. “The fucking asshole.”

  “Oh ... .”

  “I should have told you. I know. I just can’t believe it.” Her face contorted in an effort to stem more tears.

  Jill and Ian had been Jill-Ian for so long that this sudden switch was difficult to process. Okay, she’d had a brief delusional moment when she’d been starry-eyed over Jackson, but she and Ian had never fully separated, even then. From a purely selfish standpoint I liked the idea of Jill being free. Ian seemed to just always be so there. But her pain distressed me. She’s usually so good at hiding her feelings. This really hurt.

  I tried to come up with something sage and truthful and helpful, but my mind was a blank. And fresh off how badly I’d wounded Kristl, I didn’t think any militant feminist stuff from me about how she was lucky to be rid of the fucking asshole was going to be the answer.

  I said, “You need something stronger than Chardonnay.”

  She blinked at me. “What exactly are you suggesting? Straight vodka?”

  “Not a bad idea ...”

  Her gaze sharpened on me. “Something even stronger? Something ... illegal?”

  “No. Well, I don’t think so.” I was surprised by the way she jumped to that conclusion.

  “Well, what then? You sounded so ... nefarious.”

  Had I? I really had only meant to comfort. But seeing the interested look on her face—the only glimpse of hope that she might actually ascend from the depths of wallowing grief—made me suddenly want to help her out chemically. I said, off the top, “I caught one of our PAs smoking dope in the men’s room at work. I didn’t tell Holly. I don’t know exactly why.”

  “ ’Cause you hate being a rat. You’re almost pathological about it.”

  “I like the guy, and he likes me. I could probably score you some, if you’re interested.”

  She sank back into her chair, defeated. “I fear I need more than marijuana to kill this pain,” she said.

  “That’s about as far into controlled substance procuring as I go.”

  She thought it over, shrugged, and said, “Okay, why not?”

  I hesitated a moment, not certain quite how I’d suddenly become the pusher. This was not a role I’d ever been in before. It was definitely outside of the Ginny Blue boundaries for okay behavior.

  Then I looked over at Jill. Her unhappiness was huge, practically a living thing. Medical marijuana helps glaucoma and is helpful in controlling pain in cancer patients. Maybe this would do some good. And dope was a notorious trigger for the munchies. Jill might actually eat something.

  I’m all about rationalization sometimes.

  I said, “We’ll talk again at 2100 hours.”

  “Oh, Blue.”

  “Get the check and let’s skedaddle.”

  Chapter 6

  Sean came back to the office in the afternoon for a delivery and pick up. I followed him outside and caught him at his car, a Jeep, as he was just about to leave on another run. He looked at me expectantly. For a moment I was tongue-tied. What had sounded like “help for a friend” at the restaurant now didn’t seem like such a hot idea. Was I really going to ask this kid for some dope?

  “I’ve got this friend ...” I started lamely.

  “Yeah? A guy friend?” He gave me a look and a smile, the kind that says he finds you attractive.

  I suddenly worried about my hair, my clothes, my lack of discernible makeup. I was on a job for pete’s sake. In jeans and a green T-shirt. He couldn’t expect me to look like a model, could he? As soon as these thoughts crossed my mind I wanted to slap myself. I was not, not, not interested in Sean. “No, it’s my friend Jill. Rough time with the guy she’s been with.”

  He waited patiently for the point. My mind wandered, briefly, as I considered what he would look like without his shirt. Like me, he was working, and you never knew when that could involve lifting or minor carpentry or, in my case, a six-page document on cost analysis. You had to be ready for anything. Still, I catalogued his denim jeans and shirt and work boots and wondered what his real wardrobe was like. I pegged him for rumpled, like Nate.

  “She’s incredibly depressed. I think she needs medication.”

  “Prozac? That stuff ’ll dead’n ya.”

  “I was thinking more like—dope. Could I buy a joint from you?”

  He laughed. “Hell, no. Man, that’s commerce, y’know? Bein’ a dealer? Forget it ... here.” He dug into one of his pockets and pulled out two rather beaten-up joints. “They’re yours. Have fun with your friend.”

  I felt a warm feeling for Sean as he handed over the contraband. And that’s when I said it, just off the top of my head. “My friend—another friend—is having a birthday next Saturday. We’re celebrating. Having a party.”

  “You inviting me?”

  I nodded.

  “Cool,” he said, and the lifted brow he sent me was decidedly flirty.

  I gave him a long look over my shoulder as he left and he did the same. For the rest of the afternoon and into the rest of the week we caught each other’s eyes and smiled. It was so high school it made me giddy. I didn’t ask myself what I was doing because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to know the answer.

  As luck would have it, I didn’t connect with Jill until the weekend. By that time I’d nearly forgotten about the dope and CeeCee’s birthday party. Sean, however, had entered a new space in my mind. I listened for his return and took extra effort on my appearance. I even found myself plucking my eyebrows Thursday night, a bit of personal grooming I’d let slide those last months with Nate. It was curious how unable I was to conjure up Nate’s face. I was shocked one morning when I realized I hadn’t required tons and tons of counseling from my friends. My God! It
was highly possible they didn’t even all know yet. Had I told CeeCee? Kristl?

  Liam Engleston himself called on Tuesday. I was surprised not to speak to an underling, but upon hearing his supercilious voice I made an executive decision and said, tersely and sharply, “I’m sorry, Mr. Engleston. We have hired a different catering firm.” I hoped Jill was up for the job. I should have nailed this down earlier. I had a memory of the defeated slump of her shoulders at the Farm and worried that I should have made a greater effort to contact her over the course of the week.

  There was silence on Engleston’s end. When he finally spoke, I could tell he was trying extremely hard not to scream. He asked for my superior, one of his favorite lines, apparently, and I waved at Holly who just happened to be walking by at that moment. She silently queried me with furrowed brow as she took the receiver. I mimed that I was eating.

  “Hello?” she said in a cool voice, glaring at me. She expects me to handle all problems. I lifted my palms in surrender, but then whatever Liam was saying snapped her attention to the matter at hand. She listened for a solid ten seconds and then said crisply, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about anything you’re saying. Either deal with Ginny or get off the phone.” She handed the receiver back to me without a word and kept walking.

  Tom started choking on one of the Jolly Ranchers he likes to consume by the truckload. I could tell he was about to burst as I gingerly put the receiver to my ear. “Mr. Engleston?”

  There was only dead air. I hung up and Tom hooted with laughter and gave me a high five. I grinned. I decided I liked Holly. I really, really liked her. Okay, I knew that would last a New York minute, but I love it when someone steps up and takes care of things just the way you’d like them to be done.

  Friday morning I was driving west on the 10 at breakneck speed when my cell phone started singing. It was Jill. She needed to see me right away. She and Ian truly were split up, apparently. I found this notion so hard to wrap my brain around that I couldn’t quite process it as truth.