Time's Up (23 page)

Choking, fake-coughing assistants desperate to keep straight faces shuttled Leticia and me off the stage as the frantic director and producer gathered around Juliana and Alec and tried to calm the talent.

Leticia salsa-stepped next to me. “Damn, that was fun.”

“Leticia,” Daicen called, trotting down the hallway after us. He caught up and nodded appreciatively at her. “May I congratulate you on a drubbing of epic proportions?”

Leticia squinted at him.

“Mincemeat, baby.” Daicen held up his hand and she high-fived him. He tipped his head toward me. “Would you be good enough to give Maisie and me a moment alone?”

“Tha's cool.” Leticia danced down the hallway and disappeared into Wardrobe.

Daicen laid a hand on my shoulder and peered at me. “Are you all right, Snap?”

“Sure.”

He dropped his hand. “I apologize for the ambush. Sterling caught me unawares.”

“Sterling?”
Try Da.

Daicen carefully straightened his shirt cuffs. When he looked back at me, his dark eyes were solemn. “I had no idea about Da. None of us did.”

Bliss popped in between us, throwing an arm around our shoulders. “Fan-
freaking
-tastic!”

Daicen's brow creased. He was not an interruption kind of guy. “Hello, Bliss.”

“Oh!” She pressed two fingers to a Secret Service–style phone headset, almost invisible beneath her auburn hair. “Hang on,” she said to the person on the phone and raised a finger to us. She gave us an openmouthed, head-bobbing smile, still talking, “Absolutely. Of course. I've got her agent right here. Okay, then. You bet. 'Bye.”

She spun a perfect pirouette on the heel of her stiletto and threw a fist in the air. “They want her.”

“Who, specifically?” Daicen said. “And for what?”

“Leticia. Hannity. Cooper. Muir. Beck. You name it.”

Bliss and her five-inch heels clattered down the hall and into Wardrobe to tell Leticia the good news.

Daicen sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maisie—”

“Go. I'm fine. A-okay,” I said, while my hands went independent, gesturing like a third base coach on Ecstasy. “I . . . uh need a little—” I tapped my forehead and rubbed my shoulder. “Fresh air.”

“Conference Room G has been reserved for us,” he said. “Any page will escort you there. Yes?”

I nodded.

I walked down the hallway to the elevators, shell-shocked and empty. A maroon blazer said something to me, but he might as well have been speaking Japanese. I got in the elevator and pressed the lobby button.

The actual Rolling Stones played overhead. Poor Mick Jagger. Must be rough, transitioning from rock god to Musak musician. Of course, it wasn't like his dad swiped his entire career out from under him.

I didn't know what hurt worse—Da's Judas routine or my own mortifying state of utter cluelessness. My entire life was family. Because the family always has your back. Except, I guess, not always.

My face itched.

The doors opened, I took four steps out into the shiny granite-pillared lobby and froze.

Six-foot-three of steel and sex appeal in a slim-fitting black suit and open-necked slate-colored shirt was simultaneously charming a maroon-blazered page and a receptionist.

“Hank?” My voice rasped like a rusty gate.

He looked up.

The maroon blazer hustled past me, catching the elevator I'd just vacated. Hank said something to the receptionist and came over to me.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“I figured you might need me.”

Pretty much the coolest moment of my entire life and I couldn't pull myself together enough to enjoy it.

“You figured right,” I said.

He put an arm around me. “Let's go home,” he murmured against my hair.

I nodded.

He walked me out of the studio building, put me into the backseat of a waiting Lincoln Town Car, and waited curbside as the maroon-jacketed page scurried out of the building with my things. Hank tipped him, put my purse and backpack at my feet, and slid in next to me.

The chauffeur stowed my suitcase in the trunk and got behind the wheel.

“JFK, sir?”

 

Hank's sleet-gray eyes scanned mine. I couldn't handle it and looked out the window. He put his hand on mine, and I started to shake.

“You're okay,” he said.

I nodded and tried to swallow.
Keep it together.

He squeezed my hand.

Mine is the
Hindenburg
without the girth.

Hank let go, removed his cell from his inside suit coat pocket, sent two quick messages, and replaced it.

The drive to the airport was uneventful. Hank merciful. Cooler than glacier water, he didn't say a word, letting me find my center. People are rarely ever really quiet. I know I'm not.

Besides, I couldn't say anything without bawling, and honestly, what was there to say?

 

Inside JFK, we walked right up the first-class line to the Delta counter, bypassing the gajillion customers who didn't think paying an extra $886 was really worth a free drink, unlimited peanuts and seven more inches of legroom.

If I'd have been able to care, I might have thought about the obscene number of miles he used to purchase my first-class one-way ticket home.

The gate clerk entered our information on a keyboard hijacked from a 1970s middle-school computer room and asked if I wanted to check my suitcase.

“No, thank you.” Hank picked up the suitcase by the handle and we walked away.

“It has wheels,” I said.

He smiled and shook his head. “Silly rabbit.”

We hit Security and he flashed ID and some sort of pass. We bypassed the regular-schmo line and got the preferential wand treatment by the two TSA agents who never step in and help the other TSA agents no matter how busy Security is.

Fifty yards farther, Hank stopped at an unmarked door in the wall, took a card out of his wallet, and swiped us into a posh reception area.

“Hello, Mr. Bannon.” The attractive woman behind the desk smiled at him. “So nice to see you again.” She nodded to me. “Welcome to the Sky Club.”

Hank handed her our tickets.

“Delta flight thirteen-seventy-five, gate seven. I'll make sure an attendant notifies you twenty-five minutes prior to departure, Mr. Bannon.”

We moved out of Reception into a clubby lounge with soft music, dim lighting, flat-screen TVs running close-captioned and intimate living room–style groupings.

Hank set my suitcase down in front of me and pointed at a couple of armchairs in a private corner. “I'll be over there.”

Huh?
“And where am I supposed to be?”

“You look as cute as a button, Slim, but are you sure you want to be serving peanuts on the flight?”

I was still wearing that horrible meter maid costume.

“There's a restroom at the end of the hall.”

The sky lounge's bathroom was pristine, modern, and thankfully empty. I dumped my gear on a leather bench, went to the sink, and unpinned the
Project Runway
reject excuse of a hat. I grabbed a couple of thick paper hand towels and scrubbed the pancake makeup off my face, careful to avoid smudging my triple-layer false eyelashes. No sense in wasting Chazz Blue-Hair's professional makeup magic just because my life was circling the drain.

And it wasn't entirely.

I grinned at myself in the mirror.

I had an eternity to think of my family's betrayal. And I'd rather slide down a fifty-foot razor into a pool of rubbing alcohol before I was going to do that.

I shimmied out of the suffocating polyester tube of a mini, put on the skirt of my snappy Marc Jacobs I'd planned to wear in the interview, and unbuttoned the uniform shirt. The pale blue poly didn't move, clinging to my skin like perfectly hung theater curtains off the tops of my breasts.

It took both hands to free each side of the blouse from the secret-agent movie-star adhesive.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Not bad if I ignored the ghastly bruise spreading across my abdomen. Black push-up bra with two palm-sized pieces of double-stick tape riding on the tops of my breasts. I peeled at the edge with my thumb. Nothing doing. I worked up a lip of the adhesive and yanked. Not much.

I took a deep breath, dug my nails under both tape edges with both hands, exhaled slowly, and yanked.

“Aaaaaiih!” Tears filled my eyes. I scraped the tapes off my hands onto the counter and jammed my palms against my breasts, breathing in short pants. It stung so bad I couldn't even swear.

Cool paper towels didn't ease the sting or lower the raised red skin squares.

I put on my suit coat sans shirt, and found Hank. He was watching the market ticker on FBN, two vodka martinis—three olives—on the rocks on the table. I sat down in the chair next to his.

“Ouch.” His eyes flickered over the exposed corners of the red squares on my chest. “They set you up with a little defibrillator action back there?”

“Ha. I could have used one after Juliana.” I pulled my jacket open a little wider. “Wardrobe tape.”

“Nice,” he said. “Liquid soap didn't loosen the adhesive?”

“Might have.” I sucked in my lips in a combination of chagrin and regret. “Except I didn't think of that, Mr. Science.”

“Should've called. I'd have been happy to help.”

Oooh.
I wanted to say something flirty back but my throat closed up. I picked up my glass.

Hank raised his and clinked it against mine. “Here's mud in your eye.”

I took a drink and didn't stop until it was gone.
Vodka. The water of life.
I planted the glass with a
clunk
on the table.

He sat back and signaled the hostess, who immediately brought me another.

“God, you're wonderful,” I said.

“Check your messages yet?”

“I can't bear to.”

He tapped his finger on the table. I got the iPhone out of my purse and slid it across the table to him.

He scrolled through the text messages, listing the senders. “Mom, Flynn, Cash, Mom, Rory, Mom, Grandma, Pads, Cash, Koji, Mom, Grandpa, Lee Sharpe, Mom, Lee Sharpe, Declan, Mom, Mom.”

“And voice mail?” I asked.

Hank swiped through the screens. “Three from your mom, J. Lince, Cash, N. Peat, Lee Sharpe, and Sterling Black.”

I raised the plastic sword with three olives to my mouth. “Wow. I'm practically famous.” I bit one off.

He smiled. “Practically.”

“Are you sure there isn't one from Coles?”

“He probably left that on Leticia's phone.”

“Funny.” I swiped my thumb through the condensation sweating up the glass. “Give it to me straight. Was it as bad as it felt?”

Hank tipped his hand from side to side. “Yes.”

I drained the second martini to make sure I wouldn't be bothered by it.

“Another?” Hank asked.

“It's ten-oh-five in the morning and I can't feel my teeth.”

He caught my chin in his hand. “I'm the cavalry, Baby Doll. Walking, weaving, or wedged, I'll get you home.”

“Hit me,” I said.

Hank caught the hostess's eye and jerked his head back.

“You knew, didn't you?” I asked. “That's why you told me to quit.”

“Not for certain.”

I put my elbow on the table and rested my chin on my hand. “Why didn't you tell me?”

Hank's mouth went tight. “Not my place.”

Ouch.
I squinched my eyes shut.
I'm already down. Why bother kicking when stamping on my heart is so much easier?

“Sport Shake,” he said. “It may not feel like it right now, but you've pretty much won the lottery of life.”

“Oh yeah?”

“No one has a family like yours.”

“Then no one is a one hell of a lucky son of—”

Hank laid two fingers across my mouth. “Don't say it.”

A snake of anger roiled inside my belly, twisting my guts tighter than a Speedo on a Euro-trash sunbather. I bit the insides of my cheeks, hard
.

I clinked the ice cubes from side to side in my empty glass. He slid his hand up the nape of my neck, and I almost melted onto the table
.
Riding the Duncan Yo-Yo string between humiliation and elation.