Adulation (3 page)

It was almost midnight when Danny pulled into the driveway of his home, a five-bedroom, six-bath newcolonial that was slumming it by most celebrity standards, and spotted an unfamiliar car in the spacewhere Charlene usually parked. The only light in the house visible from the outside came from the livingroom. It was set on a timer programmed to come on at eight p.m. Clenching his fists, he wished for aweapon—pepper spray, a Taser, something—as he made his way up the brick path and toward the door,suddenly grateful for Ella’s physical distance from the house.

He turned the key and slowly opened the door.

“Hello?” he called, his voice cracking on the second syllable.

Silence.

He crept from the foyer to the living room and into the kitchen, turning on lights along the way andwondering whether to start opening closet doors. The likelihood of there being an intruder was remote, hereasoned with himself—Danny lived just outside of LA in a gated community with other wealthy Hollywood personnel and roaming neighborhood rent-a-cops—not to mention he had a state-of-the-artsecurity system, although it was presently turned off (had he forgotten to set the alarm when he’d left forthe office this morning?). But no neighborhood was foolproof.

“I know someone’s in here,” he called out, attempting to assert his voice in a more menacing way,as if that would somehow scare off the perp. He was about to extract one of the knives from the woodenblock on the kitchen counter when the intercom clicked on.

“Upstairs.”

Charlene.

Danny breathed a sigh of relief followed by a huff as he left the kitchen and set the alarm beforebounding up the stairs, two at a time. He found her in his bedroom, leaning back on her elbows near theedge of the bed, wearing nothing but his Armani tuxedo shirt (the undone bow tie hanging lifelesslyaround her neck) and red stilettos. Her hair was pushed to one side and draped over her shoulder in bigcurls, her legs teasingly crossed. She had
 
posed
 
for him. Typical. Clichéd, even. Scripted. But damn, itgot him every time.

The blood rushed from his head, straight down south.

He folded his arms and cocked his head slightly to one side. “I thought you had a benefit tonight.”

“I left early. Blew off the press and everything. Convenient thing, this time difference.”

Danny unbuttoned his shirt and took a few steps toward her. “That was very sweet of you.”

“I knew you’d be sulking by yourself with Ella out of town.”

“How did you know Ella was out of town?”

Charlene frowned. “I listen to you when you talk, you know.”

Danny took another step forward, his shirt completely off and his belt unbuckled. “You scared theshit out of me, you know. Try coming home after a long day and finding a strange car in your driveway.”

“But then you wouldn’t have been surprised.” Charlene propped herself onto her knees and pulled Danny by the arm, and he flopped on the bed beside her. He was momentarily disappointed that she brokeher pose until she proceeded to coo “Happy Birthday” to him in his ear, Marilyn Monroe–style, her voicesoft and sexy.

This
, he thought. It was as good as any drug, any pill, any drink. And he knew this was why theykept getting back together, why he could never bring himself to break up with her completely. She wasintoxicating. She was addictive. And the mere thought of having to get over another addiction, one morebad habit, exhausted and saddened him.

He could barely wait for her to finish singing before he ravished her, and she kindly responded.

CHAPTER TWO

Sunny Smith

October 11, 2010

T
ODAY WAS GOING
 
to be just another day, when it should’ve been something special. Of course, at somepoint I could count on a chocolate cake bought by my coworkers from the bakery two doors down from Whitford’s, the one with the overly sweet buttercream frosting and roses, and a Shoebox card signed bywhoever had been scheduled to work in the store the last two days. And I was scheduled to leave earlybecause my parents and Tim were treating me to dinner at Bobby Flay’s restaurant in Manhattan. But bythe time I was out of Starbucks and on the way to work, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. My throat wason fire, my head was stuffed like a pillow, and I wanted to go back to bed.

Forty.

When the hell did it happen? I remembered my mom being forty. Sort of. And it seemed like onlyyesterday that my brother, Tim, had turned forty, despite its being two years ago.

It wasn’t so bad, really. I mean, aside from the gray hair and the frown lines and the kangaroopouch that seemed  to appear overnight (and even those things weren’t so bad), I didn’t
feel
 
much differentfrom when I had turned thirty.

But wasn’t I supposed to be married—or rather, have
 
stayed
 
married—by now? Wasn’t Isupposed to be living in a colonial-style house and driving a minivan and taking my kids to oboe lessonsand cheerleading practice and hitting up my friends to buy boxes of Girl Scout cookies? Wasn’t Isupposed to be a published author by now?

Wasn’t I supposed to be more than a stockroom manager?

Yes, I was. Yes to all of it.

I ignored the voice of Judi Dench as Armande in
 
Chocolat
 
as she advised me, “Don’t worry somuch about ‘supposed to...’” She wasn’t missing out on the chance to see Bobby Flay, much less taste hisfood.

Just as I was pulling into my usual spot behind Whitford’s Books and Café, the Check Engine lightappeared on my dashboard, and I groaned. My best friend, Theodora, had dubbed my 2002 yellow V olkswagen Beetle “the Old Banana,” although “the Lemon” was a more appropriate moniker. I’d beenso adamant about owning a Beetle that I’d failed to research
 
Consumer Reports
 
. Had I done so Iwould’ve found out that 2001 through 2004 models were nothing more than cute little shitboxes—or, as Tim called them, balloons on wheels. You’d think
 
it
 
was turning forty today.

I grabbed the Starbucks tray and my messenger bag and headed for the back door in the alley. Jingling my ring of fat industrial keys until I found the right one, I opened the heavy back door (unable tosmell the musty odors of metal and cardboard—one more sign that I was getting  sick) and cut through thestockroom to the front of the store. Brightly lit and full of warmth (sunlight permeated the floor-to-ceilingpicture windows during the day), the earthy, autumn tones of orange and yellow and terra cotta seemed tomake the books feel just as welcome as the customers. Honey-colored bookcases were an aesthetic

improvement on the mock cherrywood cases of big-box bookstores, each section labeled in umber, lowercase Helvetica font on burnt orange signage. The industrial carpets (the color of brownies, yet emitting a chemical smell) had been vacuumed and recently shampooed. The café followed the color scheme of the store, albeit amped up in brightness and intensity. Square tables and chairs, boxy couches and ottomans, Plexiglas counters—the place looked like a Mondrian painting if you squinted at it.

Half of Huntington Village was already open, and passersby were already stopping to browse at the best sellers displayed in the picture windows. I’d wished there were room to place some of the café tables there instead, or even outside. Over the years, this part of town had become so populated and active that I called it mini-Manhattan. Outside was thick, noisy, congested with cars. Inside was tidy, quiet, devoid of customers. I loved when the store was like this—so peaceful—and a part of me wished there were a way we could preserve it as our own private playground yet somehow still stay in business. Of course, the thought that followed was
 
Then go work in the library, stupid
, and I pushed it aside to greet Angela, our manager.

“Hey, Sunny. You just get here?” she said.

“Yep. Did a Starbucks run. Here,” I said, handing her the towering cup from the tray. “The pumpkin caramel  latte is back. Venti. Molto venti. If it was any more venti it wouldn’t fit through the door.”

She practically bowed down to me in reverence. “You. Are. A life saver,” she said before eagerlytaking a sip and making swooning noises afterward. She then crossed the sales floor to the café (whichwas going through its own opening ritual), took one of their coffee cups, and dumped the contents of herlatte into it. An employee sporting a Starbucks logo in Whitford’s was as frowned upon as mentioning the A-word—Amazon.

I headed back to my stockroom, disappointed that Angela didn’t remember to wish me a happybirthday (then again, I doubted she’d remember her own birthday, much less her name, before her first cupof coffee). But when I got there, I found my work station decorated with streamers, wrapping paper, and a Photoshopped snapshot of my ex-husband, Teddy, and me taped to my computer screen, with Teddy’shead replaced by that of Danny Masters, the celebrity screenwriter on whom I was rockin’ a massivecrush (yes, that sounded way too junior high for someone who’d just turned forty). He looked determinedrather than carefree, youthfully mischievous, but not gleeful. The caption in a cartoon bubble pointing tohis mouth (a perfect balance of upper and lower lip without being too puckered or feminine) offered to dolewd things to me for my birthday. I couldn’t help but laugh, wondering how I had missed the display onthe way in.

Georgie.

Underneath that, a Post-it note was also stuck to my screen.
 
MUST TALK
 
was scrawled in Georgie’s handwriting with thick black Sharpie, with block caps and underlined  twice. Something to dowith Marcus, his beau, I guessed. I removed the photo and stuck it in my messenger bag, and thentransferred the Post-it to my to-do list.

When I returned to the floor fifteen minutes later, Angela had just unlocked the front doors and thefirst customers sauntered in, one of them carrying a crumpled Whitford’s canvas tote bag and a tallthermos.

“Hey, Ange, when does Georgie get in? I need to kill him,” I said in a tone incongruent with my

threat.

She laughed. “After work, OK? We’ve got a children’s book writing workshop with Emma

Walton Hamilton this afternoon, and he’s going to be stressed. I take it you saw your workstation?”

“I saw the photo.”

“All Georgie’s idea.”

“I figured that.”

Angela grinned. “Well, happy birthday, Sunny.”

“Thanks.”

“So how does forty feel?”

Ah, see? I was right; the coffee had kicked in.

I shrugged. “Like I’ve got cotton in my head. But I suspect that’s this damn cold I’m coming down

with.”

“I thought you looked a little run-down. Why didn’t you call in sick?”

“Didn’t feel so bad when I woke up.”

“Sucks to be sick on your birthday,” she said. I nodded in agreement. “Still, you look good. I mean, you look younger than forty.”

I did a quick inspection of my Whitford’s “uniform” in the reflection of the picture window behind the cash wrap, only this time I took notice of something I’d never  seen before. Sure, the oversized hoodie, straight-legged jeans, and Reebok sneakers were the same. My hair was in its usual ponytail, and I wore no makeup—also the norm for me. But what Angela was complimenting as youthfulness was, in fact, immaturity. At least as far as appearance went.

“Thanks,” I said again, this time stifling a sneeze.