Five for Forever (21 page)

“Backrub?”

“Are you out of your mind, Rick Flint?” she started but then saw Rick’s rolling eyes. “Oh, you mean for me? Sure, I couldn’t say no to that,” Louise said, ears turning red.

The video of the two divas crashing into the buffet went viral, to be picked up by Jimmy Fallon on Monday in his opening.

“You probably heard about the fight between Madge Hardy and Louise Waters at a Hollywood party on Sunday. If not, you have probably watched the video. And if you’ve just returned from a trip to North Korea, have a look.” A shaky smartphone video in high resolution showed Louise coming back from the tuna attack, cleaning her hands, picking up a small bowl and a fork. Like a truck, Madge slammed into her, hands, legs, and food flying around, the two women screaming and fighting, people shouting.

“Man, this tackle by Madge? Having seen this, the New York Jets offered her a contract as linebacker.” Big laughter. “Having seen this, the Detroit Lions, not the most successful in their field, offered a contract as guard . . . to the buffet table.”

Agnes sat beside Louise and Rick, who had cuddled up on the couch. “See that was not too bad.”

“Having seen this, Wilson, the NFL equipment producer, offered a contract to Louise Waters . . . as a ball.”

The house came down with laughter. Louise groaned, and Rick had to hide his face.

“Okay, that
was
bad,” Agnes said.

“The NFL protested. They claim that Louise doesn’t fit the measurements of an NFL ball.” The picture changed to Louise picking up the mini mozzarella salad a second before Madge brought her down.

“Louise says, ‘Sure. But give me two months on these mini salads and I’ll be there for Super Bowl.’ Now give it up for the Roots!”

Madge crashed into Louise in slow motion to the tune of Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart.”

twenty

The Hitch

Agnes’s eightteenth birthday fell on a Sunday. Agnes celebrated with her friends the Saturday evening with a restaurant visit, followed by a music club crawl. Floris drove the small group around and got them into all of the trendy spots in LA. A big celbratory toast marked the midnight hour—non-alcoholic of course—accompanied by an avalanche of text messages from family and friends.

Sunday was the birthday’s family day—cut in half, because Agnes slept in until lunchtime.

Her siblings had each prepared a gift. A small crayon drawing from Dana with the four of them on the beach and the number eighteen clumsily written into the blue sky. Charles had found a tiny crystal druse of about one inch in size on a field trip with the Oxnard Science Club. He had recut the stone, polished its exterior and expertly had turned it into a unique necklace. Britta gifted her sister a book from one of Agnes's favorite authors. Rick and Louise held out with their gift until afternoon dinner, when they went out to a local Italian restaurant that everyone accepted and liked.

The dinner was a loud affair. Godfather Hal joined them for the festivity. Agnes sat at the end of the table with her dad on her right. The left chair was empty with a plate for absent Mom, something Louise found moving and lovable, one more of these little family tidbits to remember forever. She sat beside Rick and Hal opposite her and took care of  Dana, who sat beside her in a high chair.

Louise nibbled on her salad and enjoyed watching the family display of banter, loud talking, and eating. She felt bad, because she had threatened Rick with the Paris trip. Such a simple thing, being together in moments like these, was rewarding in a much more profound way than a commercial splurge of fashion, or high-end travel, or a Hollywood party.

“I am stuffed like a turkey,” Britta said to her brother.

“Well, technically you are not, you just ate too much, but I understand your problem,” Charles smiled. He pushed back his leftover ice cream towards Dana who did not say no, stuffed or not.

“Hey guys, your sister turned eighteen today,” Rick started. “I am not doing a big speech thing and tell you what a cute baby you had been and how many times I had to get up during the night for diaper changes and feeding,” Rick continued.

“Don't listen to him. Every time I visited and your mother was on a business trip, he delegated the cruel tasks to me,” Hal reminded him.

“You’ve always been ‘the big sister’ for your siblings, and I can't tell you how glad and grateful I am, that despite hard times, we have stayed closely together as a family. Many more of these moments will come in the next years with all of you kids growing up so fast. But experiencing this moment for the first time, makes me immensely proud. And I bet your mother would be, too. I know, she is with us right now, she never missed a party!” He produced a five-by-five black flat jewelry case. “And it is time to hand over some of your mother’s legacy to you. This has been in Bella’s family forever. Your mother, your grandmother and her mother, too, all have worn it at their weddings.”

“Agnes marries?” Dana chimed from her side of the desk, almost bursting from suspense, staring at the still closed box.

“Not yet,” Charles explained. “She is still missing a man.”

Agnes gave a small shriek when Rick opened the box. Even Louise held her breath. They looked at one of the most beautiful necklaces ever. The pearls were not massive, but you could see they were not artificial but the real deal, neither being totally round, nor perfectly white. Their imperfection even ennobled them in a natural way,

“Dad, are you sure?” Agnes stammered. “These are so . . . Mom!”

“Agnes, your mother is not here anymore to use them. These pearls are made for wearing, and this is what she would have wanted. For someone of the next generation to carry on the family tradition. Turn, honey,” Rick said and fastened the necklace behind her. Everyone
oh-ed
and
ah-ed
when she showed off the necklace to the table. Louise watched Rick swallowing; the pearls looked perfect on Agnes, the way they surely had looked perfect around Bella’s neck. A mental snapshot for eternity.

Agnes had teary eyes and threw her hands around her father.

Rick and the kids waved good-bye to Louise as the limo left the driveway. “Now we are the fearless five again,” Rick said.

“She promised to Skype regularly!” Britta said, patting her dad on the back.

“And there is nothing to be jealous about—they split up right after filming the movie late last year,” Charles stated with TMZ-borne authority.

Agnes and Britta turned red and elbowed Charles, but Rick turned. “What do you mean,
split up
? With who?”

“It’s
with whom,
Dad. Nothing really.”

“Spit it out, son,” Rick demanded.

“Louise and the bad guy in the film she is promoting had a romance during the shoot of the movie. It was all over the media.”

“Who is this bad guy? Mark Petersburgh?”

“No less. You didn’t know?”

“Uh,” Rick said, caught completely off guard. “Uh, no!”

“When you were young, you never Googled your girlfriends before dating?” Britta asked.

“I am pretty sure that Google had not been invented when I started dating your mom.”

“That is gross, so you went into dates . . . blind?” Britta inquired.

“Nice try to change the topic! So is this Mark actor guy someone I . . . we should be concerned about?”

“According to Buzzfeed, he is currently dating Miley Cyrus,” Charles said.

“You have mapped out all of Louise’s former boyfriends?” Rick asked, and when Charles took a deep breath to start listing the results, Rick held up his hand firmly and interrupted, “Rhetorical question, answer neither wanted nor required!” He turned to his kids. “All right, it’s a Wednesday, we are free and single again, at least temporarily. What do we do? Going out for Pizza dinner? A quick evening dip into the ocean?”

The kids were about to give their recommendations when Rick’s mobile phone rang. “Hey, Hal, are you bored on a Wednesday evening?”

“
Au contraire
! We have a problem, my man. We are out of money.”

Rick parked the kids in front of the TV while Hal drove over. They checked the account online. The
Vera
project had been calculated to be an expensive one, and for that reason, Josh had created a special account with access for Flint and Heller Fine Wooden Boats from which they could draw the necessary funding for materials, tools, and the ongoing labor that went into it. Josh’s business associate Zuzu checked the paperwork and made sure that the upcoming monthly budget plus 20 percent contingency came in on every fifteenth of the month. August 15 had been a Saturday, so money was expected to arrive the next working day. But Monday had come and gone without money replenishment. It was now Wednesday August 19, and over the course of the previous day the account had been cleaned out completely. The first check for the cutting and prep fee of the mast tree from the Canadian vendor had bounced, and the vendor had called Hal.

“What I don’t get is this,” Hal said, pointing at the webpage of their online account. “You did good planning. At the end of the previous periods, we always had roughly the contingency amount still showing on the balance. Look here, August 9th: almost thirty thousand dollars.” Hal’s finger went down to the next line of the online bank statement “Our shipyard services charge on Monday morning. Then the account gets wiped completely sometime yesterday.”

“Tried to reach our client yet?”

“Isn’t picking up the phone.”

“How convenient! Tried Zuzu?”

“You have the honor, my friend,” Hal said.

After a short ring, Zuzu picked up. “Yello!” Young, dynamic, energetic.

“What happened to the boat account?” Rick asked straight out.

“What do you mean?” Zuzu replied, cautious. Hal, who listened in with one ear close to Rick’s head, mouthed,
“She knows.”

“Someone stripped the account clean today. An important check bounced.”

“Not again!” Zuzu groaned. “We might have a situation, boys. Nothing to do with you, I assure you.”

“Don’t
boy
us; we need the money to continue the project.” Not to mention that they needed the money for the company to survive, too. “Do you have a number where we can reach him?”

“Eh, that might be difficult. He is . . . on location, yes.”

“For someone with an MBA you are a bad liar,” Rick muttered. “Get us the money. Otherwise, you will need to prepare transport to the East Coast, because we will no longer be working on the project.”

“Don’t do anything hasty. I’ll find out what happened.”

“And you can’t tell us what’s going on?” Rick pressed.

“Won’t. I work for Josh, not for you, remember. Attorney-client.”

“For a business associate, that privilege does not hold,” Rick said.

“It does in my profession.”

Rick hung up.

Hal looked at his friend. “We are in sheep so deep!”

Rick nodded. “Fortunately I have a stinking-rich, super-famous girlfriend whom I can always send away to make money-shoveling movies. What about you?”

Hal put on his lost puppy face and looked expectantly at his best friend. “Do you need a houseboy?”

Rick and Louise spoke on Skype the next day. Rick at home, Louise in Paris.

“I’ve heard of Josh’s cash-flow problems. Rumors only. I mean, it’s hard to believe, right? He has been the most successful actor box-office-wise over the last five years; his contracts are probably 30 percent higher than my own.”

“That doesn’t bug you?” Rick asked.

“Well, it does. On the other hand, I can have multiple orga—”

“Stop talking dirty while you are so far away, otherwise I’ll get too many fantasies,” Rick said. “But seriously, is Josh a gambler? Does he speculate in the financial markets? Does he run a bad business on the side?”

“No idea, but I’ll find out, believe me. Before it was professional, now it is personal.”

“That sounds like a tagline of one of your early revenge movies,” Rick said.

“Come to think of it, it was. It was a line in
A Desire Called Violence
. Caught again!” Louise laughed. “Do you guys need some cash to hold you above water until Josh finds some money?”

“It doesn’t feel right taking it from you.”

“But I don’t mind bailing you guys out.”

“It’s more complicated than that, Lou,” Rick said. “If I were confident that this was only a hitch, I would accept a bridge loan from you, no problem. But the company has been struggling for a while now. Had Josh and his crazy obsession not come along, we would have already closed shop this summer. A lot is riding on Josh’s order. But the fact is, it probably only prolongs the inevitable.”

“Will you tell the team?”

“Sure, tomorrow first thing,” Rick said. “I’ll explain to them that we’re taking some days off. Unpaid. How is Paris?”

“Hot and not a breeze anywhere. All the Parisians are on vacations, so it is mercifully empty. But so beautiful. I took a stroll last night, Floris ten feet behind me. Just drifting, listening to people talking in cafés and restaurants. Would you ever like to live with me in Paris or Rome? Not to travel but really to live in an old city. Get to know the people, dive into the culture . . .” Louise sounded dreamy, imagining an alternate reality.

“If my company filed Chapter Eleven, I would, actually. Dana wouldn’t mind, Charles would be delighted to test his French or learn Italian, and Britta would maybe get better ideas how to dress.” Rick smiled into the webcam. “See, you cheered me up.”

“That’s good to hear. I’ll try to reach Josh from here and remind him of the project. And you keep the troops mobilized.” Louise blew a kiss into the camera, and, as usual, Rick’s heart fluttered and butterflies grew and flew in his stomach. Man, did he miss her. He would never get enough of this woman. But he was pretty sure that they would never live in Paris or Rome.

Louise called up Izzy right after she hung up with Rick. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Yes, beloved ex-client who cost me a new home in Pacific Palisades.”

“Little Izzy holds a grudge?” Louise asked.

“Only ten million dollars’ worth of grudge, don’t mind me. Now, what can I do for you, Lou?”