Flash Point (20 page)

“None of it is fair. But don’t endanger yourself.”

“Like you did joining that protest against Pylon outside the TLN Building? I saw you with a
TIMES BE TOUGH MAN
sign!”

“You did? I didn’t see you.”

She didn’t want to tell him about being nearly trampled, if it hadn’t been for Cai and Tommy. Instead she said, “Gran says the depression is starting to lift.”

“I think she’s right. But a lot of people have slipped too far down the economic scale to ever recover.”

“‘Ever’ is a long time.”

“You’re right. I stand corrected. Amy, I’ve wanted to tell you that—”

A car screeched to the curb, even more shocking in that cultured, cheerful, well-mannered place than the homeless man had been. Alex Everett opened the door. “Get in, please. Now.”

Rafe didn’t look surprised, and after a moment neither was Amy. They’d been tracked through their cells, of course. She gave Alex her sweetest smile. “I think we’re not ready to go back yet.”

“I think you are,” Alex said, and a certain quality of weariness about him caught Amy’s attention. A phantom leaped into her mind:
a squirrel clinging desperately to a branch, trying to not fall
. But . . . Alex Everett? A squirrel?

Rafe said slowly, “Something has happened.”

“Yes. Get in. No, Amy, it’s not your grandmother. . . . I’m sorry, I should have said that right away. No one is hurt. But you must come back now.”

They got into the car and it sped back to the hotel.

* * *

“I thought the contractual rules were very clear,” Myra said. Only a throbbing of the skin at her temple belied her calm, set face. “Clear enough that half of the cast would not betray them. Plus one hanger-on.”

Amy and Rafe had not been the only ones who had left the hotel. Across the table from Myra and Alex, in what was evidently the TLN suite, sat Rafe, Amy, Cai, and Kaylie. How had Cai and Kaylie got out? Amy didn’t know, but what mattered was not so much their escape as their destination.

“A dance club!” Myra said, and her tone might as well have said “a circle of hell!” “Cai, how could you be so stupid? You must have known you’d be recognized instantly.”

No one had recognized Rafe and Amy. But the people on Fenton Street hadn’t been in the show’s demographic; Fenton Street was mostly older, richer, more sedate people who probably found Taunton Life Network vulgar and sleazy. Well, it was. Besides, Rafe and Amy didn’t look like Cai. At least half of the Internet furor was over him, mostly from girls.

Kaylie said meekly, “It was my idea, Ms. Townsend, not Cai’s. Blame me.”

Amy looked sharply at her sister. Meekness was not part of Kaylie’s character. But neither was stupidity. If Kaylie had talked a reluctant, infatuated Cai into a dance club, it was because Kaylie had wanted to be seen there with him.

Amy said, “But what actually happened, Myra? Isn’t this just more PR for the show?”

“What ‘actually happened’ was a riot. Cai was mobbed, the cops were called, the club ended up trashed, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. But you’re right, Amy, all of that might just have been PR except for the fact that the mayor’s daughter was there, she got injured in the fight, and the mayor called Mr. Taunton.”

Aha
, thought Amy, just as the phantom leapt into her mind:
the squirrel hanging from a tree branch
. But she never got two phantoms so close together, and never the same one repeated. And Myra, helplessly hanging without a net? Myra Townsend? Myra didn’t care that the mayor’s daughter had been injured. She cared that Mr. Taunton was unhappy with her.

Kaylie repeated, “I’m sorry.” Her big green eyes filled with tears. Amy could have told her that was a futile tactic with Myra.

“I think, Miss Kent, that you should not visit Cai again until the season’s filming has ended.”

Rafe said easily, “And when might that be, Myra? Three more episodes, right?”

“Yes,” Myra said, evidently too angry to remember that she had refused to give out this information earlier. “Surely even young love can wait another few weeks.”

“Cai won’t wait,” Kaylie said confidently, dropping her meekness and meeting Myra glare for glare. “He wants me here. Besides, I live here. My grandmother and sister are here.”

“If I say you cannot be here, then you will not be here. We’ll locate you in another hotel, at our expense, of course. With a chaperone. I’m sure your grandmother will agree.”

“She won’t!”

“Then we will have to relocate her, too. Which may not be good for her precarious health.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“I will do what is best for the show, for you, and for your grandmother. After discussing it fully with her, of course, including the need for your safety.”

Kaylie glared at Myra. “OK, I’ll move. But Cai and I will just see each other outside the hotel!”

Myra smiled and said nothing. After a moment of uncertainty, Kaylie smiled, too. Neither smile conveyed pleasure. Amy looked at Cai. She had no phantom in her mind, but he sure looked like a hanging squirrel to her.

Twenty-one

S
UNDAY

THE NEXT AFTERNOON
Waverly said to Amy, “So you and Rafe are a couple now?”

Amy stepped up the speed on her treadmill. She and Waverly were the only ones in the hotel gym, Waverly dressed in a lululemon workout outfit that Amy had priced online at several hundred dollars. Waverly’s blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and she wore no makeup. She looked beautiful even while sweaty. Amy wore her old yoga pants with a hole in one knee and a tank top that could have been a lot cleaner. For ten minutes the girls had worked out in silence, with Waverly impressive on the Stairmaster and Amy trying to not notice.

“Rafe and I are just friends,” she said over the sound of the treadmill, which was louder than it should be. You’d think that a classy hotel like this would have quieter equipment.

“That’s not what I heard.”

Amy turned off the treadmill. It slowed and stopped with a malfunctional whine. She wiped sweat off her face. “What
did
you hear, Waverly?”

“That you and Rafe escaped last night for a little couple time while everyone else was watching your sister’s riot on the Internet.”

“It was not ‘couple time,’” Amy said, irritated, “and it was not ‘my sister’s riot.’ How did you hear that Rafe and I left the Fairwood anyway?”

“There are precious few secrets in this place,” Waverly said, and that at least was true. “OK, so you and Rafe are ‘just friends.’ Despite the way he looks at you. So tell me something else: What’s eating Violet?”

“What do you mean? Violet’s fine.”

“Have you seen her this morning?”

“No.” Myra had given Amy the day off. Amy had woken when Gran did at four a.m. Gran had been in so much pain that Amy, after frantic calls to the doctor and to Myra, had increased her pain medication. That helped, but Amy had found it hard to go back to sleep. When she did, she slept until noon. She left Gran, who was feeling much better, with the nursing aide and came down to the gym, hoping a workout would restore some energy. So far this had not happened.

Waverly said, “Well, I saw Violet at breakfast. She alternated between gloomy and nasty. I thought you might know what happened with her.”

“Like you care,” Amy said.

“You’re right, I don’t.” Waverly lay down on a mat and began push-ups. “I don’t like weaklings.”

“Violet is not a weakling!”

“Yes, she is, and you’re just too trusting to see it. But I’ll tell you something I’ve learned: You’re not.”

Amy grimaced. She was not going to be taken in by flattery from Waverly.

“I misjudged you,” Waverly said, not even breathing hard. Five, six, seven push-ups—she was strong. “You’re actually a formidable opponent.”

“We’re not each other’s opponents.”

“The hell we’re not. But let me tell you—no, not here.”

Waverly stood up—still not breathing hard—and took Amy’s arm. Amy followed her out of the gym and into the locker room, where it would have been suicide to record anything; other hotel guests stripped here. Nonetheless, Waverly breathed her words into Amy’s ear.

“My father has a lot of money—I’m sure you know that. He also has considerable resources of other kinds. I had his security people run deep backgrounds on all of you. Violet is not what she seems. For one thing, she’s not eighteen.”

“So she turned nineteen recently? Big deal!”

“She’s twenty-six. With a criminal record. And ‘Violet Sanderson’ is not her real name.”

“You’re lying!” Amy pulled away from Waverly. But despite herself, small things that had nagged at her mind before now sprang into it. Violet’s seemingly long dance history, filled with so many stories—would an eighteen-year-old have had time for all that? Violet’s saying she’d planned on watching the show’s debut on a TV in a bar, when the drinking age in this state was twenty-one. Violet’s one, offhand reference to trying out for the chorus of the musical
Great Day in the Morning
, which Amy vaguely remembered as having opened and closed, a failure, while Amy was in the sixth grade. At the time she’d thought she must have been wrong about the date—but what if she wasn’t?

Waverly said, “No, I’m not lying. You’re too trusting.”

Like Amy hadn’t heard that before. She scowled at Waverly. “I don’t trust
you
. Why are you even telling me all this?”

“I can be trustworthy, but I’m out for myself first. So is everybody else, but most people don’t admit it. I do. That makes me honest. And I’m telling you ‘all this’ because I think that you and Rafe are my best potential allies here. Tommy is ludicrous, Violet deceptive without my knowing what she’s really after, and Cai is being led around by the nose by your little sister, who nobody in their right mind would trust. I’d like to form a mutual-help pact with you and Rafe.”

“No.” Amy already had a pact with Rafe and Violet—not that it had yet done any of them much good.

“There’s another reason, too.” Waverly’s face suddenly softened. Amy didn’t trust that and own her face probably showed it, but then a phantom sprang into her mind:
a beating heart, bloody and exposed
. It looked like the one she’d seen during an online open-heart surgery in her science-class software.

Waverly, sounding unlike herself, said abruptly, “My grandmother was the only person in my entire family who was ever kind to me. She died last year.”

“I’m so—”

Waverly’s face hardened. “No false condolences, please. I’m sorry I even told you. Just consider everything I said, including my offer. Or don’t. It’s up to you.” She walked away, ponytail swinging.

Amy called after her, “You’re wrong about Violet. Also about Kaylie!”

“Really?” Waverly said without breaking stride or turning around. “Have you had the TV on this morning? On the Celeb! Channel?” She left the locker room.

No chance of finishing her workout now. Amy took the elevator to her suite. The nursing aide was bathing Gran. Amy called, “I’ll be in when you’re done!” and turned on the television.

Celeb!
ran through a story about one star’s adorable twins, followed by a story about another star’s bad behavior, and then the screen flashed to Kaylie in front of a thicket of microphones.

“In case you missed it,” said the announcer in an awed tone that implied a presidential death or a UFO arrival, “Kayla Kent, sister of a participant on the mega-hit
Who Knows People, Baby—You?
gave a press conference earlier this morning. The fourteen-year-old has—we can hardly believe it ourselves!—been forced by rival station Taunton Life Network into separation from her family, including her dying grandmother. Yesterday evening—”

Kaylie—who was fifteen, not fourteen—wore a babydoll dress, white tights, and flat shoes that made her look innocent and helpless. No makeup. Her dark curls straggled pathetically as she blinked back tears, explaining to reporters that she had been forced to move alone to a different hotel, away from the only family she had left since the death of her mother, when all she wanted was to nurse her dying grandmother: “The person who raised me! Oh, I just want to be with my granny and sister!”

Myra had been outplayed.

“Amy?” Gran called from her room.

She lay in bed, her barely touched breakfast on the side table. The nursing aide sat beside her. Amy saw immediately that the painkillers had not yet worn off. Gran’s eyes were wide and shiny, and her old face wore a drifty expression foreign to its usual serious control.

But there was nothing drifty about her words. “Sit down. Thank you, Solange, you can go. Where’s Kayla?”

“Out,” Amy said. Although probably not for long.

“As I will be soon. I think the tide will go out easy, Amy. No, don’t look like that—we already had this discussion. What I want to talk about is your future. Has this TV show given you a raise?”

“Not yet.”

“Then ask for one. Demand one. Solange was just telling me what a big success it is. But media successes don’t last. Actually, no kind of success lasts forever. I had Solange write down a name on that paper there. It’s a lawyer. I want you to call him today about representing you for your next contract, and about insisting it be negotiated right now.”

“Next contract?” Amy was counting the episodes until she was out of this one!

Gran’s gaze sharpened. “You don’t want to do this more than one season?”

“No. But I will if—” She stopped and looked away.

“I won’t need your money much longer, honey,” Gran said gently. “But you will. You have a good brain, Amy. You
must
get a good education. Kayla, too, although probably not in anything academic. That’s my greatest wish: that you girls get good educations. At least ask TLN for a big bonus. Now, while the show is hot and you have bargaining power.”

“OK.”

“Promise me you’ll try for college.”

“I promise.”

“I mean it when I say that success doesn’t last forever. And neither does despair. Are you watching the news?”

“No,” Amy admitted. Gran thought news, keeping up with the world, was very important. But then, Gran wasn’t dealing with Myra Townsend, Kaylie, Waverly, Cai, or Violet.

“Things reach a flash point, Amy. In 1936.”

“What?” Gran seemed to be wandering—1936 was eighty years ago.

“It could have gone two ways. The height of the Depression, unemployment at twenty-five percent, financial institutions failing, people hungry and displaced—a lot like now. In Michigan, auto workers seized several General Motors plants and held them for forty days. The National Guard was mobilized and we could have gone into revolution—also like now. Cities burning, violence. But we went the other way, with government policies under Roosevelt to get people eating and working. A flash point, Amy. We’re nearly there now. It could go either way.”

Gran’s voice had gone hoarse and weak. Amy was more concerned with that than with whatever had happened in 1936, although she knew better than to say so. Taking Gran’s hand, she said, “Can I bring you anything?”

“One more pain pill.”

“If you first eat a few more bites of oatmeal.”

Gran smiled, eyes closed, and Amy knew she was remembering bribing Kaylie—or maybe even Amy herself—to eat a few more spoonfuls of green beans, a few more spoonfuls of squash, a few more spoonfuls of beets.

When she closed the door to Gran’s room, Kaylie, still in her babydoll dress and flats, stood talking to Solange. Amy said sourly, “I’m surprised you didn’t put your hair in pigtails.”

“Would have if I’d thought of it. How’s Gran?”

“Asleep.”

“Good. I’m going to take a shower.”

“Not run off to see Cai?” Amy didn’t know why she was being so nasty to Kaylie, except that the thought of Cai still made her chest ache and her head feel hopeless.

“Can’t—he’s working.” Kaylie slipped off her dress. “And so are you. I just came from Myra Townsend. She says for you to report to her suite for the next scenario. Oh, and to wear something decent, which probably means not those yoga pants with that hole.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Have fun, sis.”

Ha-ha
.