“She’s probably already got her release written and edited and rehearsed,” Jake said.
“I still don’t see what you’re getting at,” Celia said.
“I do,” Laura said brightly. “You break the story first.”
“What good would that do?” Celia asked.
“It lets you tell your version of the story,” Jake said. “And it forces Mindy to counter it.”
“Why would they believe my story over Mindy’s?” Celia asked.
“Well ... they might not,” Jake said, “unless...”
“Unless what?”
He told her. She immediately started shaking her head. “No way!” she said. “No fucking way!”
“Think it over, C,” Jake advised. “Don’t make a rash emotional decision in this thing. Try to make the best out of a bad situation.”
And so, she did as advised. She thought it over. And soon, she began to see the wisdom of what was being suggested.
That night, after the show, Celia drank no alcohol and smoked no marijuana. She managed to choke down a respectable amount of food. When they arrived at the hotel in downtown Albuquerque near midnight, Pauline, her manager and business partner, was waiting in the hotel for her. She and Jake got together in Celia’s room for a meeting.
“I don’t know,” Pauline said doubtfully after they explained what they had in mind. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I think it’s the only thing I can do under the circumstances,” Celia said.
“What if Mindy is not really pregnant?” Pauline asked. “What if this is just part of some elaborate game she is playing to break you and Greg up.”
“Well, that part worked,” Celia said. “We are definitely breaking up.”
“What I’m saying,” Pauline said, “is that the only reason we have to think that Mindy is pregnant is her word, which is about a solid as a methane fart from a cow.”
“Greg says he saw the baby bump,” Celia said.
“You don’t think that Mindy, an actress of extraordinary skill and with access to the best makeup artists in the business, could fake giving someone a momentary glimpse of a small baby bump?”
“I’m sure she could,” Jake said, “but she’s not. I know she’s not. I know her and I know how she plays these games. She’s really pregnant, it’s really Greg’s baby, and she really does intend to announce this to the world with her own spin on it so she can lay claim to being the mother of the greatest, most handsome and/or beautiful future actor in the world. It’s how her mind works. She undoubtedly thinks she was being merciful and mature by letting Greg know about her plans before her announcement is made so he could warn Celia of what was coming.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Pauline said, shaking her head.
“I want to do this,” Celia said. “It will let me at least hold my head up as I move through the rest of the tour.”
“Okay,” Pauline said. “I can respect that. Do you think that Greg will be onboard though?”
“He’d fucking better be,” she said. “He owes me this at the very least.”
“All right then,” Pauline said. “When are you going to call him?”
“Tomorrow morning,” she said. “And if he agrees, we’ll have to postpone the second Phoenix show and bump it to Saturday night. It’ll piss people off, but they’ll understand once they hear why.”
Greg was in the LA house the next morning when the phone call came. He was on the couch, still in his dress slacks and Pierre Cardin button-up shirt, his polished shoes still on his feet. He had a throbbing headache, and his mouth was dry. The room was spinning slightly in a clockwise direction. A three-quarters empty bottle of cognac sat on the table next to him. He wanted to get up and go to bed but was afraid he might vomit if he tried.
He was blackly depressed, the thought that his life was in tatters constantly running through his mind. Why did I let her into my room that night? he kept asking himself, over and over. And in between repetitions of this thought, the three-dimensional vision of his final conversation with Celia kept playing over and over. Was there something he could have said differently that would have changed the outcome? No, his mind gleefully informed him. There really was not.
When the phone began to ring, he ignored it, letting the answering machine field it. Even if the machine was not all the way across the room, there was no one on Earth he wanted to talk to at this moment in time. Not even God Himself.
Or so he thought.
“Greg,” came Celia’s voice after the recorded greeting (“This is the Oldfellow residence. Leave your name, number, and reason for calling after the beep and we will get back to you if appropriate to do so”), “it’s me. Pick up the phone if you’re there.”
He leapt to his feet and headed for the phone extension. His feet tangled and he fell down, abrading both of his hands and giving himself a good knock on the forehead. He got back up, feeling his stomach churning alarmingly, and snatched the phone out of the cradle.
“Celia!” he said breathlessly. “It’s me!”
“So it is,” her voice said plainly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was screening calls. I didn’t think you would ... you know ... want to talk to me.”
“I really don’t,” she said, “but it’s necessary.”
“It is?” he asked, feeling a hint of elation. Was she going to attempt to reconcile with him? Why else would she be calling right now?
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said, reading his mind from seven hundred miles away. “I’m not calling to tell you all is forgiven. I’m not calling to tell you that I won’t be filing for divorce.”
“Oh ... I see,” he said slowly.
“I need you to do something for me,” she said.
“Anything,” he told her. “You know that.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “Let me explain what it is. And if you truly care for me, you’ll do it.”
“As I said: Anything.”
“All right then,” she said. “I’ve been talking to Jake and Pauline about this situation. We’ve come up with a plan to keep from being humiliated and to maybe give little Miss Mindy Snow a taste of her own medicine.”
“A plan? What kind of plan?”
She told him. He listened. He then threw up on the carpet.
But he agreed.
Chapter 24: Your Move
Los Angeles, California
February 2, 1996
The Gateway Tower building was not really a tower, per se, certainly not by Los Angeles standards. It barely qualified as a high-rise, standing only fifteen floors above the north side of Wilshire Boulevard in Brentwood. Still, it was an attractive building of modern design and construction, with a wide turn-in out front and valet parking. And the neighborhood was pretty nice as well, quite close to the Brentwood Estates recently made famous by a former NFL football player and his late ex-wife.
The offices of Brackford, Redman, and Jackson, attorneys at law, were on the fifteenth floor of the building and were the only tenants located on that level. BR&J, as the partners and grunts called the firm among themselves, did not have a particular specialty, but, rather, several different categories of law they practiced. There was a criminal defense department, a family law department, a will and probate department, a taxation and incorporation department (this was the largest, with eight grunts, sixteen paralegals, and one partner assigned), a personal injury department (this was the smallest, with only two grunts and one paralegal), and a copyright and trademark department. The firm’s target clients were the upper classes of the southern California region—the real estate developers, wealthy business owners, trust-fund children, and others with a net worth in the mid to high six figures who needed some sort of legal representation—and their hourly rates reflected this. As did the attorneys they employed. These were not sleazy ambulance chasers recently graduated from Billy Bob’s School of Law and Automobile Repair, but top of their class graduates of schools such as Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Gould, or Loyola. Even the most junior lawyer of the firm was a specialist in the area of law he or she practiced and was pulling in no less than a hundred grand a year, not including bonuses and benefits.