ACT II: Scene 4
Deliciously Dirty
STILL DITHERING AT THE BUS STATION, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA
Wherein our heroine comes to a momentous decision, based on a false assumption.
No, no! Polly couldn’t do this. Not to Henry Lyon. He seemed perfectly nice. My life choices might not have been my parents’ favorite, taking on the Ph.D. challenge and then dropping it to be a nanny for a complete puff-piece like Mo-No, but at least to this point I could say that I had never intentionally hurt anyone, not in all my born days.
“Polly.” I had to stop her. “I don’t think—”
“Why?” Henry asked, bypassing my interruption. “Is there a showing of it nearby? That’s nice and all, but I really do need access to an international phone. This place only has a pay phone that calls locally, and I need to make an overseas call, and—”
“How about this, Henry?” Polly rubbed her chin as if she were an old man stroking his beard in thought. “We need someone to do a project with us for two weeks.”
Two weeks! I spluttered beside her, not knowing how to stop this fast-moving freight train. Did she even know what she was saying?
“At the end of two weeks, if you can accomplish what we need you to do—all of it being totally legal and above-board, I promise—I’ll make sure you get an international phone.”
“Two weeks…” Henry frowned. He didn’t have the confused look of earlier, but he didn’t seem to be rejecting it. “What exactly are we talking about?”
“Oh, it will be fun. Lots of fun. You’ll get to dress in nice clothes, meet wealthy people, go to at least one nice party.”
I’d rather work for Mo-No forever than hurt this guy who was worrying about the helicopters and the water in the river and his fanciful realm of reality-forged-of-imagination. For as whacked as it was, his crazy worldview definitely did seem harmless, sweet almost. And his Australian accent, now that it quit plaguing me as I tried to decipher it, was totally engaging.
We could not set him up.
However, Henry didn’t look appalled; he looked intrigued, if that was possible, through the grime. “My Fair Lady. I get it. But in this case, I’m the lady.”
“You saw the movie?” I asked stupidly, as if it mattered, and almost slapped myself for it. “Look, you don’t have to do this, Henry.”
“I’ve already missed my big meeting with the geneticist.”
Geneticist! My heart lurched.
“Are you ill?” This was getting worse and worse. He had a chronic illness, and we were taking advantage of him while he was down and weak, and—
“No. Healthy as a horse, especially now that I’ve had some good seafood. Why?” But he didn’t wait for my answer, even though I was about to explain that geneticists are for sick people, and—
He’d turned back to Polly.
“What’s the point of this exercise? In the movie there was a wager.”
“No bets, I swear it.”
Oh, I was on the verge of betting, believe me—betting that I would kill Polly before I let her get away with this.
“All you have to do is clean up and act charming for two weeks. I’ll make sure you get enough to eat. Steak every day like it’s a weekend, if you like. Then, a phone.”
“An international phone. Although, at this point, any phone would do. I need to call the geneticist, too.”
“But you’re not sick, even though you need to talk to a doctor?”
“No, right as rain. Besides, my geneticist isn’t a human doctor, anyway.”
This whole thing was rolling forward so quickly, a tremendous boulder gathering speed as it coursed toward the horrific drop-off at the end of the slope. Polly and Henry were shaking hands, and I couldn’t figure out how to stop it.
My phone rang. “Oh, no.”
“Mo-No?” Polly asked.
“What’s a mono?” Henry asked, as if we were all the sudden pals who shared details about phone calls from employers with each other.
“It’s—er,” Polly faltered, “a woman we want you to meet. She’s beautiful. Eliza works for her.”
“Eliza, huh?” His eyes raked over me once, and I almost felt them tangibly caress my curves, and then they landed at my face to rest in approval.
My face blazed. Up to now, I hadn’t even given him my name, and my best friend had just hired him to play an elaborate prank that would require him to spend two weeks of his life at my side in San Nouveau. With those gorgeous teeth, and that confident swagger.
Oh, and his rattling mind.
I bit my lip in worry. Being on the island would take Henry away from his precious station, where he might worry about the river or the helicopters of his mind—especially considering that helicopters were the main form of transportation to and from San Nouveau. Oh, this terrible idea just got worse.
“Eliza Galatea. I should have given you my full name earlier.” My blush deepened when he reached out and took my hand. Wow, nice calluses. I was a sucker for a guy’s hardworking hands.
Dang it.
Because if Henry was at San Nouveau for the next two weeks, he’d be in my close, personal company. And those eyes that made my face blaze and the teeth that made me think unclean thoughts, would be there right along with him.
“I know it’s crazy, girls,” Henry said, smiling for the first time and making my knees go a little weak. “But I think I’ll take your little deal. Polly, Eliza, I’m in. I’ll do it.”
“No, Henry. I’m sorry. I have to stop this whole thing.”
My phone buzzed a text. I’d missed Mo-No’s call. She probably just couldn’t find her Jimmy Choo kitten heel sandal and needed me to tell her to look in the closet. I ignored it because I had a runaway freight train to stop here.
“Henry, you have no obligation to do this. I’ll figure out how to get you an international phone. In fact, just tell me the number you need to call for your geneticist right now, and…”
Polly kicked me hard under the table.
“No, a deal’s a deal, Eliza.”
When he said my name, it had a hint of Elizer to it. My heart fluttered around like a pile of autumn leaves in an eddy of wind. Stupid Australian accents. American women were powerless to them. Why, I had no idea. What was it about the difference between Eliza and Elizer that made my name sound so sexy, instead of just a little old fashioned? That deserved more study. Just not with Henry Lyon as my study subject. That wouldn’t be safe.
“We can’t ask you to do this, Mr. Lyon.”
“No, I insist. I’m not the type to take a handout.” He looked at his four empty dishes. “Current meal aside, I mean. Severe hunger in time of desperation is different.”
Right. Of course. Now that he’d eaten, his demeanor had brightened so much I hardly recognized him as the pitiful mass he’d been before. His sunburn almost looked like a healthy glow at this point. He had dignity. We could not rope him into this tawdry little prank.
“No, no. I insist. In fact, I’ll head to the store right now and get you whatever you need.” I don’t know what I was thinking with that little offer of charity there. Getting a phone like he was asking for might take what was left in my bank account, considering I’d paid my tuition for this semester, despite my lack of progress on my dissertation. “International, you say? North American continent, or further?” There might be a difference. People from L.A. called Mexico all the time, no big deal. It might be as simple as grabbing a phone card from a convenience store if he just wanted North America.
My phone buzzed again. Mo-No. And I saw six texts had come in since she last called three minutes ago.
PICK UP YOUR PHONE.
PICK UP.
PICK UP NOW.
IF YOU DON’T PICK UP YOU ARE FIRED.
I’M CALLING WITH YOUR LAST CHANCE.
Fine.
“Hello?” I cringed, knowing I’d caved to the demands of a spoiled thirteen-year-old in a thirty-year-old’s body.
“Eliza. I have been trying to get a hold of you for the past five minutes. You’re impossible.”
I refused to respond to that point. “What do you need, Monique-Noelle?”
“I need to tell you that Sylvie’s father” —she spat this term, as if she weren’t married to MacDowell Bainbridge by her own volition— “has exercised his parental rights to change Sylvie’s schedule. She will be gone until Friday, at which point you will pick her up at the helipad at eight a.m. Not one second later.”
Holy cats. That gave me the week off, unless Mo-No had other plans to control my schedule as if I were her personal servant, or that of her friends.
“Friday?” I asked, tentative at the dangled carrot of hope.
“Oh, I see. You thought I meant next week.”
She meant tomorrow. My heart flopped into my boots.
“And what are your plans until then?” I asked, bating my breath. Surely she couldn’t expect me to return to the Bainbridges’ mansion tonight. Even under normal circumstances when Mo-No wasn’t adulterous-affair-hunting, I couldn’t bear to be there without the breath of fresh air that was Sylvie.
Still, usually when Sylvie went with her father, Mo-No needed my help finding her shoes or making her special vegan gluten-free lunch sandwich or unloading her shopping bags. It rankled. After all, Mo-No also employed a whole bevy of other staff, from a personal chef to a twice-weekly cleaning service. However, the pay was killer—enough for tuition, which I had to keep paying each semester to keep my dissertation hopes alive—so I’d been gritting my teeth and enduring the tantrums.
“I know what you’re getting at, but I won’t be needing you for personal assistance for today’s events. I’ve got that hunting excursion planned on the mainland with my bestie Dreena.” She obviously knew I saw right through that euphemism for attempted cheating on their husbands. “We don’t need any tagalongs.”
“No tagalongs. Right.” Ah. So that’s what I would be if coerced to follow them into their sordid world. More like a hostage, I’d call it. “Good to know you won’t need me along.”
Even better, I was free to not be in her company, and in fact I’d be free from her texts and demands for a few hours to hopefully get some serious progress on my dissertation research.
How wrong I was.
“Oh, I didn’t say I won’t need you.” Mo-No hadn’t completed her pronouncements. I’d jumped to a happy conclusion far too quickly. “I’ll just need you here to take care of Chachi. How soon can you arrive?”
No. I was not skipping my day off with Polly to babysit a dog. Forget it. There had to be an out.
“You’re not taking Chachi?” Chachi, the dog she treated more like a child than her actual child. “Poor Chachi.”
“Oh, you’re right. Chachi is only happy when she’s with me.” She made a kissy sound on the other end of the line, and I knew Chachi was on her lap. Where Sylvie deserved to be instead. “Fine. I’ll need you in the morning, though. Promptly at the helipad.”
Bullet. Dodged.
Sort of.
Frankly, it came as no surprise she was taking her dog while foisting her daughter off on others. I knew Mo-No’s code for when she claimed her husband was exercising his parental rights. It meant Mo-No had complained enough to MacDowell Bainbridge that he’d agreed to spell Monique-Noelle from all her exhaustive labors of parenting and take Sylvie to her elderly grandmother’s house in San Jose.
“Right.” I exhaled like I’d been given a week’s shore leave from my prison ship and not just a few moments’ reprieve from Her Majesty’s edicts.
“I’m excited for my little hunting trip, whether you approve or not.”
I could hear the defensiveness in her tone. I hadn’t pretended I thought she was doing the right thing, and Mo-No clearly felt judged. Well, if it stopped her from doing it, great. If not, it just made me look judgy.
“In a way, Eliza, you could consider this phone call your de facto two weeks’ notice because if this outing goes as planned, and it will, Sylvie will be spending a lot more time in San Jose, and you won’t be needed—at all.” She hung up with no response from me.
So, not only would Mo-No fire me, but she’d also give up any literal parental rights to Sylvie? My heart did three flips and landed in a hot, bleeding mess in my stomach, next to the ulcer Mo-No’s voice always inflamed in me.
If this actually happened and Mo-No snagged a hotter guy, with better hair, what about Sylvie? Was she really ditching that precious child? The baby girl would grow up knowing her mother had abandoned her in search of more money. She’d be irreparably damaged.
I turned my eyes to Henry.
“She’s a hunter now, is she?”
I blinked. “You heard?”
“That woman’s voice really carries.” He shrugged. “I somehow can’t imagine someone with a voice that shrill carrying a gun.” Henry nailed it in one overheard phone call. “I’d steer clear of that aim.”
“I’m afraid, Henry, I’m changing my mind.” This was all for Sylvie’s sake. “I’m going to ask you to step directly into the crosshairs of that aim.”