Change of Scene: A 100 Page Novella (13 page)

“And what’s happened to change your mind? I mean, I can’t get over the idea that you’ve actually been in touch with that bum.”

“Who says Clint’s a bum?”

“What else would you call a man who walks away from his marriage—and his only child—without a backward glance?” Greer countered.

Lise closed her eyes again and leaned her head against the back of the chair.

“What if I told you maybe our split didn’t happen the way you think it did?” Lise said.

“So what? You’re rewriting history thirty years later? Why now?”

“Maybe because I’m dying?”

“Don’t talk like that!” Greer said fiercely.

“It’s not like I enjoy saying it,” Lise said. “But it happens to be true. And maybe it also happens to be true that Clint wasn’t the only one to blame for our divorce.”

“So it was all your fault?”

Lise made a gesture of impatience with her good hand. “You always want things to be either black or white. A hero and a villain. But it’s not that easy. Maybe I could have done a better job of explaining things to you back then, I don’t know. I was young and dumb, and angry. At both of us, for not being able to make the marriage work.”

“Did you have a fight and throw him out?”

A prolonged silence.

“Mom?”

“I don’t know. We were fighting all the time. I was pissed at him for buying some stupid old car, and he was furious that I bought some sexy outfit for a callback, even though we were pretty broke. We were always broke back then.”

“But you did kick him out, right?”

“Maybe. What does it matter now? He left, that’s all.”

Her frustration boiled over. Greer bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood.

“It matters a lot to me, Mom. I’ve spent a lifetime believing my own father didn’t love me enough to hang around and help raise me. You know what? I’m thirty-six years old and I can’t figure out how to have a meaningful relationship with a man. What’s wrong with me? Why do I always latch on to the creeps and losers, but then pull away from a guy who seems like a decent, caring human being?”

“Are you saying it’s Dearie’s fault you’re still single? Or mine? Or Clint’s? For the love of God, Greer, do you know how crazy you sound?”

Greer nodded emphatically. “I know exactly how crazy it sounds.”

Lise pressed her fingertips to her temples as if they were beginning to throb. “What I’m trying to say is there are no absolutes. I’m trying to tell you that your dad isn’t a bad guy, and I wasn’t some plaster saint.”

Her mother’s voice sounded strained and sad, and suddenly old. “Let’s just drop this, can we? Let’s talk about you and when you’re going back to work.”

“Work is the last thing I need right now. What if I get a job that sends me to some far-flung place just when you need me most?”

“You know what would make me feel better? Knowing that you’ve got a J-O-B. That you’ll be able to support yourself after I’m gone.”

“I’m supposed to have a meeting—sort of an interview—maybe later this week.”

“Tell me!” Lise’s face was suddenly animated.

“It’s a new project, a feature for Bryce Levy.”

“Bryce Levy!” Lise whistled her approval. “Hot stuff. How did you manage to hook up with him?”

“He’s CeeJay’s new squeeze.”

“Good for her,” Lise said. “What’s the project?”

“Top secret stuff. So top secret, in fact, that the only information I could wheedle out of CeeJay was the setting. It’s supposed to take place at a small-town beach. When I meet Bryce I’m supposed to act surprised. I haven’t even seen a script. All I know is he wants a sleepy Florida beach town. No high-rises, something with a pre-Disney vibe.”

“That’s it? How are you supposed to scout locations from something like that?” Lise demanded.

“I’ve done some advance work online,” Greer said, being deliberately evasive. There are a few towns that look like possibilities, mostly in the Florida Panhandle.”

“Maybe Clint could help you out. I think the place he’s living now is near the Florida Panhandle. They’ve got nothing but beaches there.”

“So I’ve heard,” Greer said, rolling her eyes. “I do this for a living, remember?”

“Hang on,” Lise said. With some effort, she got to her feet and went into her bedroom. When she came back a few minutes later, she held out a slip of paper.

“This is Clint’s phone number. If you get to Florida you should call him.. He’d get a kick out of hearing from you.”

“Maybe,” Greer said. She tucked the paper in her pocketbook and motored for the door, intent on leaving before her mother dropped any more bombs.

“He’s your father, for God’s sake.”

“Technically, yeah. I guess he is. If you say so.” Greer was aware of just how bitchy she sounded, but she didn’t really care.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lise demanded.

“What it sounds like. He hasn’t been a real father to me since he left, right? Where was he all those years when I actually could have used a father? I’m thirty-six now, so I don’t actually need a daddy anymore. And I don’t see why it’s so important to you that I go visit a man I barely remember, and who hasn’t lifted a finger to see me in years.”

“Humor me, will you?” Lise asked, sounding exasperated. “Clint really wants to see you. I think he feels bad about the way things ended up with us. He’s not all that bad a guy, you know.”

“Then why’d you divorce him?”

“It was a long, long time ago,” Lise said. “We were kids. He loved to party. And I was fed up, you know? We were a couple of stupid, stubborn kids.”

“Mom, even if I do go to Florida, which I’m not saying I will, I won’t have time to go running off for some half-baked father-daughter reunion. If I get the job, I could be gone for weeks and weeks. Months maybe. I’m not even sure I should take it. I mean, what if you really need me by then?”

“If you promise me you’ll make an effort to see your dad, I promise I’ll try not to die while you’re out of town.” Lise favored her with a wry smile, but her daughter could see her energy was flagging.

Greer gave a noncommittal shrug. “I know you’re already sick of me, and you resent my interference, but I feel bad about just going off and leaving you. Who’s gonna wipe your butt?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Lise said. “You might not know it to look at me, but I’m really not the dumb blonde I play on television. Hell, I’m not even really a blonde.”

“I shouldn’t go,” Greer said.

“Sure you should,” Lise said. “Not forever. Just for now. It’s time to get back in the game. We Kehoe women have never been quitters, you know.”

Greer cocked her head. “Kehoe women, is that how you think of us?”

“Sure. It was Dearie’s maiden name. I always liked it.”

“What about the whole Cary Grant thing? I mean, you never used Kehoe professionally. And you never took Clint’s last name either. Do you honestly believe Cary Grant was your father?”

Lise’s lips curved up dreamily. Her eyelashes fluttered and she settled back into the sofa cushions again.

The pain pills had kicked in, Greer decided. And maybe it was time to give this particular topic a rest.

But Lise wasn’t done. “Doesn’t matter what I believe,” Lise said finally. “Dearie told me that story when I was just a little kid. Did I ever tell you the details?”

“I was always afraid to ask,” Greer admitted. “I remember when you told me not to put it on that family tree project I did for school.”

“You were in fourth grade. That teacher—I can’t recall her name—she hated show business people. Always looked down on me because I was a single mom.”

“Mrs. Roeback,” Greer said.

“I used to pester Dearie all the time about who my father was. All she’d tell me was that my father died when I was a baby. So one day, I guess she was tired of me asking, she said Cary Grant was my dad—but it was a big secret! We never talked about it after that, but when I started acting, I decided I’d be Lise Grant. I might have told a few people I was Cary Grant’s illegitimate daughter. He was long dead by then, so who was going to contradict me?”

“Do you think it could be true?” Greer asked.

Lise’s eyes closed briefly. “Hmm? It’s possible. I found an old scrapbook when we were selling her house. There were postcards and pictures, movie stubs, even some telegraphs. I know Dearie and a girlfriend got to go to Europe when they got cast in a movie Cary Grant was making in Germany. They made that movie in nineteen forty-nine. And I was born in nineteen fifty.”

A thought occurred to Greer. Was Clint Hennessey
her
real father?

Lise read her mind. “Don’t you even think it. Clint absolutely is your father. I have his baby pictures somewhere. You look exactly like him at that age.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” Lise sighed and closed her eyes again. “Look, I’ll be right here, and I swear, I’ll be good. No more cooking or driving. You can deputize Sean and Luis to spy on me. I’ll even give up being Lisette, since it makes you so nuts.”

Greer leaned over and pried one of Lise’s eyeballs open. “You’re going to quit doing phone sex?”

“Intimacy counseling,” Lise said. “It’ll make Clint happy, too.”

“You told him about Lisette?”

“Mmm-hmm. Anyway, it was getting to be
so
boring. These guys—they think their fantasies are so wild and mind-blowing? They’ve all read
Fifty Shades
.
Big
deal. Nobody has any really original fantasies.…”

“Lise?”

“Sleepy.” Lise’s eyelids fluttered rapidly.

“Does Clint know … about the cancer?”

“Yeah,” Lise said, her voice trailing off. “He wanted to come see me. But what’s the point? I look like shit. Better he remembers the hot young blonde he married all those years ago. Right?”

She turned her head slightly and gazed woozily at Greer. “Don’t be mad at me for telling him, but not you, okay?”

Greer looked away for a moment.

“Please, baby?” Lise reached out with her bandaged hand. Greer touched it lightly.

“I’m not mad.”

“Cross your heart…?”

“Hope to die,” Greer whispered.

Her mother’s breathing was deep and even. Greer tucked a blanket around her shoulders and dropped a kiss on Lise’s forehead.

“Stick a needle in my eye,” she said.

She fetched a saucer from the kitchen and laid Lise’s pain pills out in it.

She was a Kehoe woman. There would be no more unfinished business.

CHAPTER 15

Nothing about her meeting with Lise’s oncologist had gone as Greer had expected.

For one thing, she hadn’t really expected her mother to actually follow through and schedule the meeting. On the Friday morning of the meeting, she’d arrived at Villa Encantada to find Lise dozing on the sofa in her apartment.

“Mom?” She leaned down and gently shook Lise’s shoulder. After a moment, Lise managed to rouse herself.

“Hey, little girl,” Lise said softly.

“How’s the hand?”

Her mother extended it for her to inspect. It had been a week, and Greer had dropped by the apartment every day to clean and dress the burn. It hadn’t been easy. She’d had to steel herself to the ugliness of such a wound, but she’d decided if Lise could endure it without complaint, she could stand it, too.

Carefully, she unwrapped the gauze bandage and inspected her handiwork. Today, the flesh was still pink and inflamed, but less raw, a fact for which she was thankful.

Now she glanced down at Lise’s apparel. Her mother was still dressed in a T-shirt and drawstring pants, and her hair hadn’t been combed.

“You’re going to the doctor like that?”

“Didn’t get much sleep last night, and I’m not feeling so hot,” Lise said. “How about you go without me?”

“What’s wrong?” Greer said, on full alert. “Where does it hurt? Do I need to call an ambulance?”

Lise shook her head irritably. “It’s my back. There’s nothing they can do for me at a hospital that I can’t do right here. If you will, just get me my pain meds and a glass of water.”

Greer brought both, then sat on the chair beside the sofa. “I think maybe I’ll just skip the meeting and stay here with you. I’ll call the doctor’s office and ask if we can reschedule.”

“No! You go ahead,” Lise ordered. “You don’t need me there.”

“You sure?” Greer reached over and tucked a strand of Lise’s hair behind her ear. She was startled to realize that her mother’s hair had seemingly turned silver overnight.

“Positive. What do you hear from CeeJay’s director?”

“Well, I think we’re set to meet as soon as he’s back from New York, and CeeJay claims he’s anxious to meet me. We’ll see.”

“You’re a shoo-in,” Lise said. “Now get out of here, so I can get some sleep.”

*

Greer hadn’t expected that her mother’s oncologist would be a woman, or that a doctor named Himmali Patel would have a Southern accent as thick and sweet as pecan pie.

“Gree-yur?” Dr. Patel said, clasping both her hands around Greer’s. “So good to meet you. Your mama has told me so much about you. I understand she’s not feeling so well today?”

“Uh, no,” Greer stammered. “Excuse me—but where are you from?”

Dr. Patel’s laugh was soft and throaty. “I get that a lot. Everybody expects me to sound like one of those offshore tech support types from Gujarati. Actually, I was born and raised in Atlanta, went to Georgia Tech undergrad, and Emory for med school.”

“That explains a lot,” Greer said. “Mom wasn’t up to coming today. She was complaining of back pain.”

“Please sit,” Dr. Patel said, gesturing to a floral-print wingchair that faced her desk. She seated herself behind the desk and booted up her computer. She tapped some keys, and scanned the screen.

“What questions do you have for me today?”

Greer blurted out the first one on her mind. “Why does her back hurt? I mean, she’s got breast cancer, right?”

“Lise didn’t tell you the cancer has spread to her spine?”

For a moment, Greer thought her heart had stopped beating. The room was so quiet, she could hear the clock ticking on the wall.

“She just said … it had metastasized?”

Dr. Patel nodded. “I’m so sorry. Yes, we got the results of her latest scan last week. It’s metastasized to her lymph nodes, lungs, and her spine. That would explain her back pain.”