CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The walls in Leslie St. James’s dining room were covered in a lovely linen paper in delicate blues and greens that gave dinner guests the impression they were dining underwater. The conversation around the dining table had a similar effect on Paige.
Her mother, cool and beautiful as always in a sleeveless ivory sheath, continued her well-reasoned and methodical dissection of where Paige had gone so wrong as to end up on reality television.
“Honestly, Paige.” Her mother dabbed her napkin delicately at the corner of her mouth. “I don’t see why you won’t take some time off to recover from your mishap and reconsider your path in life.”
Paige, used to the criticism, slid her fork through the pepper tuna steak her mother’s cook had prepared.
“I like what I do,” she reminded her mother. She wasn’t about to tell her mother and her sister that she was desperately trying to find a new job. Something, anything, that meant she didn’t have to go back for another season of Kings. She couldn’t stand the thought of working with Gannon side-by-side again, and the further she distanced herself from the situation, the more clearly she saw the role that the production company had played in her humiliation.
The interviews, the suggestive show teasers? There was no way Meeghan Traxx just happened to show up on set that day.
Leslie rolled her eyes in dramatic fashion. “I don’t see what there is to like about it,” she insisted.
Frankly, the only thing Paige liked about her job in this moment was the fact that it irritated her mother.
Her sister Lisa, her long dark hair worn in a sleek French braid over her shoulder, smirked over the rim of her wineglass. “I take it you haven’t gotten a good look at her co-star, Mom.”
Paige shot her sister a warning look, but everyone was a target around the St. James dining table. Pot shots were taken with abandon until someone surrendered.
“I assume you mean that Gannon King.” The disdain in their mother’s voice rang out clearly.
“Rumor has it our Paige is involved with him,” Lisa said, topping off her glass with the very nice Spanish rosé and handing the bottle to Paige.
Paige dumped a generous portion into her own glass before handing the bottle to her mother.
“Involved?” Leslie arched a well-manicured eyebrow at her wayward daughter. “I certainly hope that a rumor is just a rumor in this case.”
Paige stabbed a steamed green bean with more force than necessary. “We were having sex, and now we’re not. Happy?”
Lisa sputtered in her wine glass. Paige had said it for the reaction, but Leslie was too experienced to let anything like surprise show.
“Sex is one thing, but a relationship with someone like that? Ill-advised. At least you’re smart enough to not tie yourself down to someone like that,” Leslie said primly.
“What is it exactly that you have against Gannon, Mom? Besides the fact that he called you out for being rude on the phone?” Lisa asked.
“He accused me of being rude. I wasn’t actually being rude,” Leslie clarified the semantics. Their mother thrived on semantics. “I was having a very natural response to learning that my daughter had been injured.”
Wait for it, Paige counted down.
“The fact that she didn’t see fit to call her own mother to tell her what had happened and that she was all right, well, I feel that’s more of a reflection on Paige’s attitude than my own.”
Paige hid her sigh. Her mother was nothing if not consistent. “So he accused you of being rude, and that’s why you don’t like him?” Paige asked. It shouldn’t matter that her mother didn’t like the man that Paige herself couldn’t stand now, except for the fact that it made him the tiniest bit less horrible in her mind. But that was the rebellion talking. And she should be old enough to know that just because she and her mother agreed on something didn’t mean she was wrong.
Leslie jabbed her fork in her direction. “That’s not the only reason. In my profession, one must have a sense about people, and my sense about Gannon is he’s a loose cannon. And before you even say it, it’s not that he’s a tradesman and works with his hands. Lots of respectable men work with their hands.”
“Mm-hmm,” Paige intoned. She had accused her mother on a handful of occasions of being an insufferable snob. It was one insult that seemed to have stuck.
“For god’s sake, Paige. Sit up straight when you’re being passive aggressive,” Leslie snapped.
Paige straightened her shoulders, a reaction as rooted as Pavlov’s drooling dog.
“I don’t know, Mom. He comes across as more than just a loose cannon on the show,” Lisa insisted.
“You watch my show?” Paige asked, eyebrows winging up.
“Of course I do. I don’t love it, but it’s yours. You read my journal articles,” her sister pointed out.
“And I don’t love them, but they’re yours.” Paige tilted her wine glass in Lisa’s direction in a silent toast.
“I can’t believe both my daughters waste their time on that show.” Leslie shook her head in disappointment.
“We read your books,” Paige and Lisa said in unison.
“Well, of course you do,” Leslie sniffed.
Once the subject changed to Leslie’s new book that she was working on, Paige breathed easier. She was used to being a target for her own work. The criticism usually didn’t do any lasting damage. But with that area of her life as sensitive as an open wound now, she didn’t think she could survive too many hits tonight.
And if her mother caught even a whiff of her dejection, Leslie would have her scheduled for six grad school interviews by noon tomorrow.
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By the time dessert was over, all sniping was brushed under the rug as Lisa spoke in broad terms about a paper on epileptic seizures she was researching for a medical journal. Paige did her best to grill her about Malia’s cancer trial but got the patent and expected answer citing HIPAA and patient confidentiality.
They went their separate ways at a respectable nine o’clock. Leslie upstairs to her study to transcribe her case notes, and Lisa home to grab a few hours of sleep before her early morning shift at the hospital.
Paige stood on the sidewalk outside her mother’s lovely home, debating what she wanted to do. Finding there was nothing, absolutely nothing, she headed east toward the metro station. Her phone rang in her bag, saving her from the monotonous six-block walk to the Great River Train Station.
The picture of Cat mugging for the camera glowed on her screen. Paige debated for a second. She’d been avoiding Cat since shooting wrapped, mainly because she didn’t want to put Cat in an awkward position with her brother… and also so Paige could pretend that Gannon didn’t exist.
It was petty and stupid. She sighed. “Hey, Cat. What’s up?” she asked in what she hoped was an upbeat tone.
“You sound terrible. Where are you?” Cat demanded.
“I just had dinner with my mother and sister in Great River.”
“Well that explains the sounding terrible,” Cat joked. She was aware of and fascinated by Paige’s family dynamics. In the King household, everyone yelled at everyone else and then sat down for a meal. That was their normal.
“You’re not calling on behalf of He Who Better Not Be Named, are you?” Paige asked.
Cat snorted. “I know better than to stick my nose in my brother’s love life,” she promised. “Now yours on the other hand…”
“Ha. Ha. How’s your off-season? What are you up to?”
“So we’re just going to pretend that you and my brother didn’t have a steaming hot affair before some asshat at the network sent that shithead inflatable doll on set to make you look like an idiot?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Paige sighed.
“Okay. Just checking. So I landed this women’s work wear endorsement deal—super cute flannels, jeans that won’t show your crack or rip if you actually move in them, tank tops that don’t ride up to your armpits. My parents were in town visiting for the week. They flew back to Florida wondering what the hell is wrong with their son who’s basically locked himself in his workshop and refuses to come out unless it’s for beer or red meat. How about you?”
“I just had dinner with my mother and sister who think I’m a disappointment in the family because of my job in reality television. A job I can’t go back to after being puppeteered into said scorching hot affair based on lies for a network that made it its goal this season to humiliate me for the sake of ratings at every turn. So now, my only option is to start looking outside the network, which means I’m probably going to end up as a PA on some vapid, disgusting dating show.”
“Oh, so everything’s normal then?” Cat said blandly.
“Pretty much.”
“Then this will just make your day,” Cat announced. “Invites for the network’s real estate hottie guy’s party just went out. You, Gannon, and Meeghan are on the guest list.”
Paige wanted to throw up her tuna steak. “Guess who out of that cozy threesome isn’t freaking going?”
“Guess who isn’t going to have a choice? Rumor has it you are going to be ‘compelled’ to attend.”
“What are they going to do? Fire me?” Great. Then she really would have zero options.
“Probably. Or maybe they’ll threaten to get rid of the rest of the production crew if you don’t play ball.”
Paige growled in frustration, scaring a guy in gym shorts and a tank top walking a fluffy dog that couldn’t have weighed more than five pounds. “That’s not fair! And yes, I know that life isn’t fair, but when I signed up to be a field producer, I wasn’t signing up to be talent and a puppet!”
“Wanna meet for a drink?”