Brick by Brick (19 page)

His exasperated noise crossed the wires, but he didn’t scold or offer a pep talk. “I was thinking I’d come back Sunday, in time for dinner. Out. You’ll be feeling okay by then, right?”

“I feel okay now.”

“Good. Want to try Scapaletti’s again, or someplace else?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

The dry cleaner saved the linen shift, although it cost extra. If Gage was going to be taking us to nice restaurants, I should probably set up the sewing machine and make some dresses I didn’t hate. And nag James into buying a sport coat or even a second suit.

While I fussed with my makeup, I amused myself with fantasies of chauffeur-driven trips to Rodeo Drive’s exclusive shops, where chic sales people would find perfect little dresses that fit like a dream, with three- and four-digit price tags, plus a shoe closet to match, and last a team of stylists working on my hair and face and nails.

In the mirror I glimpsed a Mona Lisa smile. If I asked Gage for it, my silly daydream could be real.

That was no fun.

The woman in the mirror wore a dour expression now, but her hair looked good. I admired the deep red nail polish against the wheat color of the cheap linen dress. James, of course, didn’t really see me as I was, and Gage’s standards were crazy low if he thought I was a beautiful woman.

Now the mirror me smiled, but only for an instant. It wasn’t me that kept Gage coming back.

* * * *

“I hope you are feeling better,” the same waiter purred, pulling out my chair. Both James and I faced the room, so Gage wouldn’t have to.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. Of course he remembered us, since we’d supplied a movie star, a bloodstain the size of a butter plate, and a tip half the size of the dinner bill.

The table was set for four, but the waiter didn’t scoop up the extra setting. Instead he brought water and the warm bread basket. “A drink, or some wine, until the others arrive?” he suggested.

“I really liked the wine we had last time,” James said, scowling at the wine list, “but I don’t know what it was.”

“Our cellar’s finest white,” the waiter said and pointed to an entry with a jaw-dropping price.

James looked sidelong at me, apparently considering something, then grinned. “Yes. We’ll have a bottle, if it’s already chilled.”

“Of course.” The waiter hurried away.

“You’d better hope he’s buying,” I said, taking a bread stick.

“I’m working on that assumption. Although our credit limit’s high enough if he isn’t.”

“Next time, we’ll buy. Mexican?”

“Good. I can afford that. Here he comes.”

Gage shuffled toward us, his head down. I didn’t watch his approach, since he wouldn’t want me to draw attention to his entry. The woman walking a few feet in front of him blocked my view anyway.

I wasn’t quite surprised when she stopped at our table. Gage pulled out her chair, then slipped into his own.

“I hope this is okay,” he said.

“Welcome back,” I said. “You must be Rowan. I’m Natalie, which you probably figured out, and this is James.”

“Which I also figured out.” She had a lovely smile, wider than her brother’s, but was not a pretty woman. “Pleased to meet you both.”

We women smiled tentatively at one another over our menus. The men’s lust seemed barely contained, the sexual tension across the table thrumming. I hoped it wasn’t as obvious to Gage’s sister as it seemed to me.

She broke the ice, thank goodness. “I’m his half sister, and I drew the short straw. I must look like my dad, because I sure don’t look like Mom. Or the lovely Gage, adored by millions.”

Her brother wrinkled his nose, as adorable as promised. If they hadn’t arrived together, I’d never have taken Rowan for a blood relative. Where Gage was lithe, she was sturdily built. Where his face was long and angular, with a small jaw and semi-Asian eyes, hers was rounded, with a broad smile and large gray eyes. They peeked through reddish-brown hair stylishly tousled and shorter than her brother’s lanky near-black locks. The only trait they shared was creamy pale skin, although her arms were lightly freckled.

It hit me as an afterthought: Rowan not only didn’t look remotely like Gage, she also didn’t look remotely like a drug addict. I’d expected a female Gage, a beauty who’d fallen on hard times, with a skeletal frame and hollow, burnt eyes that had seen too much, not the merry, healthy woman explaining herself to her kid brother’s friends.

“I must look like my dad too,” Gage said. “Beats looking like a skank who slept around and wasn’t smart enough to use birth control on her one-night stands.”

“Watch it. That’s my mother you’re talking about.”

“Mine too. At least you’ve got a picture of your dad. Marty’s production company was going to be in business as soon as the papers were drawn up. He’d have a role written just for Mom. Yeah, right.”

“Nobody’s ever promised you something if you slept with them?” she asked.

Gage scowled at her. She scowled back.

“My dad was Gary,” Gage said, “or maybe Barry. Possibly Jerry, definitely not Larry. A soldier. She doesn’t even know what branch of the military, but she loves a man in uniform. Maybe it was a postal employee.” Seeing his sister’s annoyance, he added, “That’s her shortcoming, not ours, okay?”

Her face relaxed. “I guess. I’ve thought about trying to find Marty, but I never will. He was probably married, and a loser besides.” She frowned at her menu. “What’s good here?”

Our waiter arrived with the wine. Gage glanced at Rowan. “None for me, thanks,” he said.

“Me, either,” she said.

The waiter addressed James. “Sir, if you’ve changed your mind about the bottle—”

“Nope. My wife and I will enjoy it.”

He went through the tasting ritual, pronounced it fit to drink, and watched the waiter pour two glasses, mine first.

“Are you ready to order?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Could we have a few more minutes?”

As soon as he left, I said, “I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable. I didn’t think about both of you not drinking.”

“I’ll drink again,” Gage promised, “since I never had a problem with it. Did you?” he asked his sister.

“No. Well, kind of. I never got the moderation part down, not reliably. So I think I might need to become a nondrinker.”

“We could have the waiter take it away,” I offered.

“I’m okay with you drinking in front of me. Ro, are you?” Gage asked.

“Fine. Enjoy.” She smiled big. False? “I’m going to have to get used to other people doing what they want to do, right?”

“Right,” Gage said. “With help if you need it.”

“I’m good for now. Anybody had the shrimp polenta?”

We followed Pasquale’s recommendations. With a glass of wine in us, both James and I became pleasantly loose.

Gage did most of the talking, entertaining us with a series of little stories laced with wry opinions, most about the last six days he’d spent in Los Angeles.

“My agent had me meet Autumn Lockwood.”

“Who?” I recognized the names of most leading ladies.

“The next big thing, apparently, with these huge perky breasts. An oxymoron—is that the word, Natalie? She was pretty if you like the type, I guess, but all I could think about was, what if they cast me in a role where I have to touch them? They creep me out.”

“You’re an actor,” James said. “Fake it.”

“I won’t have to. My agent said we had no chemistry, and said I was fat anyway. I should have gotten fish and some kind of salad. And no pasta.”

“Then why did we come to an Italian restaurant?” Rowan poked Gage’s midsection with one finger. “Fat, my ass. Well, my ass is fat, but my brother’s not.”

“I’m in love with the cannelloni,” James said, “and you look fine. Both of you.”

I cleared my throat loudly.

“All three of you.”

“Thanks,” Rowan said. “Natalie, do you know where the ladies’ room is?”

“Sure. Mind if I join you?” A glance over my shoulder as we left the table showed Gage leaning toward James, as intent on whatever he was saying as any devoted acolyte.

In the restroom, when I washed my hands, I was careful not to touch the linen dress to the sink. I remembered how the fabric darkened when I’d used cold water on the bloodstain. I moved away to set my purse on a long counter below a big mirror. What was wrong with my hair?

“I’m lopsided,” I said when Rowan joined me.

“Me too. One side’s only a B-cup.”

I laughed. Rowan searched her purse, unloading keys, a wallet, a smartphone in a yellow case, a pack of tissues.

Finding a hairbrush at last, Rowan tried to coax some extra height from her short haircut. “You know, you don’t have to pretend,” she said, back brushing lightly.

“Pretend?”

She bent to examine the lower doors of the toilet stalls. We were alone. “You’re not just Gage’s friends.”

“We like him, a lot.”

“And fuck him, maybe also a lot? Don’t worry, Natalie. We’re all grown-ups here. Whatever you and Gage do behind closed doors is fine with me.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. “Thank you.” I guess.

“Before you start asking yourself how much I figured out and whether you still have to watch what you say, I know it’s James too. Are you both healthy?”

I felt my face warm. Someone knew about us, without so much as a hint or a slip. “Yes. Of course.”

“Fool around with anybody else?” She had the grace to add, “As if that’s my business, huh? Sorry. I guess you never stop looking out for your kid brother.”

I had to return her smile. “Before Gage it’s been just us, for almost ten years.”

“Really, ten? That’s terrific. Really.” She made a face at herself in the mirror. “This is as good as it’s going to get. Ready?”

“Almost.” I found my lip gloss and talked around its application. “What was it like, growing up with Gage?”

“He was just a kid, same as any other kid. Nobody paid him any special attention. Mom was the knockout. She could have gotten herself a real producer.”

She scrunched her hair in her fingers, rearranging the top. “Know what’s funny? Everybody gushes about Gage being so beautiful, and I simply don’t see it. He’s just my brother, no better looking than I am. Now James, he’s gorgeous, you know?”

I did something unusual for me: I hugged her. “I know.”

Back at our table, James had finished his wine and poured himself generous seconds, leaving me only an inch. “Gage has got a problem.”

“What’s that?” Having to wait to screw my husband, at least until we were out of the building? Some problem.

“I assumed I could get Rowan a room at the hotel, but they’re booked. They couldn’t even refer me to someplace nice with vacancies.”

“You’re kidding. What’s going on?”

“Some convention, I forget the name. Who books a convention in Tucson in the summer?”

“Somebody in Ohio, I bet. Sure, Rowan can stay with us. I’d be glad to have her.”

“Well, what I was thinking was she could have my room and I could stay with you. The couch is fine.”

“So’s the bed,” Rowan said. “I know.”

James’s eyebrows were separated by the lightning-bolt crease that meant genuine fury. “Goddamn it, Nat.”

“She didn’t say a word,” Rowan said. “I figured it out. And if it makes you all happy, good. It’s just for however long the convention lasts. Although I’ve got no problem staying in a crummy motel near the highway.”

Gage’s voice was too controlled. “We’ve been over that. No.”

“He thinks I’m going to score, or that the paparazzi will find me and it’ll make him look bad.” Rowan’s grin taunted. “Like they did all the time in LA, huh?”

“Please, can we not do this in front of people?”

Did he think we’d rescind the invitation because he bickered with his sister? “Gage can stay for as long as he needs to,” I said. In my peripheral vision, James nodded his agreement. “Conventions last, what, two or three days? Maybe four?”

“Thank you. We hope it’ll be quick,” Rowan said.

“What’ll be quick?”

“You didn’t tell them?” Rowan asked. “Duh, we just got in, how could you? He’s buying some real estate. I’m moving here. Hey, if I’m going back to the hotel and you’re not, does that mean I get the Porsche?”

Gage narrowed his eyes. “You got a valid license?”

“Of course. You bought me a car, remember?”

Down came the steel curtain behind the eyes, hiding whatever he felt. “Yeah. I remember.” Nobody had to tell us she’d sold it and used the money for drugs.

“Gage, I’ve never had a ticket, not one.”

“You have,” I reminded Gage.

“Fine. Fine! Take the car.”

Later, his small eyes narrowed again as she got in, brought the engine to purring life, found the lights, and pulled away smoothly, not too fast.

“It’s just a machine,” he said to no one. “Meantime, give me the keys, James. You guys have been drinking.”

James handed them over without a murmur of protest. Then I remembered: we’d arrived in his truck. My car had a mushy right front tire, not spotted until changing it would have made us late.

Gage’s face remained neutral as we got in. I tried to see it as he must have, noting the cracked vinyl on the dash, the equally decrepit bench seat’s replacement cover, bunched where butts had stretched it beyond recovery, the dash holders for cell and notepad.

He was lucky not to know what was behind the seat, where James had carefully set the seat console and the aluminum clipboard he used for estimates and orders. He’d literally buried that vital clipboard, tossing empty cups, water bottles, fast-food wrappers and bags, job plans, the paperback I hoped he’d read over lunch, a yellowing newspaper, and, to my amusement, a girlie magazine.

Gage turned the key, gave it a little gas, and cocked his head, listening to the engine’s halfhearted attempt to start. “What is it I say, ‘bitch-whore’?”

“Promise it a rebuild,” I suggested.

“Uncle Olin’s coming out at Thanksgiving. We’ll do it together. I just have to hold on.”

Gage tried again. Nothing. “Come on, truck. We need you, and I swear Uncle Owen’s coming.”

“Olin.”

“Truck, Uncle Olin and James are going to rebuild your engine if you start for us now.” He tried again. It caught. He beamed, put it in gear, and drove.