Loving Ashe by Liz Durano (22)

22

It’s Only Business

The week that Ashe left for the Asian leg of his movie tour was one of the worst weeks for Riley. She couldn’t quite pinpoint why she felt so sad, depressed and lonely, but she did. Even though Ashe kept her abreast of his schedule each day by giving her his itinerary and daily timetable, it wasn’t enough. Along with rumors that he was still pining for Isobel (the PR machine hard at work, she figured), there were unofficial reports that Ashe had been officially dropped from the movie Alabama Rain.

Then two customers told her that someone had posted a review on a business review website that they’d seen a huge rat scurrying into the back room of the cafe. The news made Riley almost spill the espresso she was making.

“Excuse me? A rat?”

“That’s what we just read,” said a young woman who introduced herself as Natalie. Despite reading the review, she still came in. “I’ve been coming here, for at least a year, Riley, and I’ve never seen even a hint of dust on your counters, so it could be some competitor. I hear they do that these days.”

“Didn’t they close down that donut shop uptown?” asked someone further back in the line. “They caught it all on camera! Rats tasting the—”

“All right, that’s it,” Riley said, turning towards a stricken-looking Martin. The last thing she wanted was a stampede of customers out the door at the mention of a rat tasting the pastries. “Can you finish this order for me? I’ve got to check the back.”

Riley tried not to panic as she went into the back room and inspected everything, looking for rat droppings and finding none. She went online to find the one-star review that mentioned the rat sighting, but as soon as she found it, Riley felt her surrounding spin in front of her.

It was signed by someone named coffeeofficionado, but before Riley could counter the review with a response, her notifications app beeped, letting her know that there was a news report on Ashe. Of course, she had to stop everything and click on that.

Riley was crushed. She couldn’t help but see Ashe’s replacement as a sign of Isobel getting her way and punishing Ashe for dumping her. But at the same time, Gareth had nailed the accent, so maybe it was just business. But Riley wasn’t worried about Gareth, for her thoughts were on Ashe and how he would take the news.

Even Paige was disappointed, when she called Riley five minutes later, considering that the three of them were now private investors in Rowan Productions, the company that Ashe and Hazel had set up when they’d first acquired the rights to Conley Brennan’s songs. It would have made sense for them to have acquired the rights to his life as well, Riley thought. But then she remembered what Ashe said, about having the power to release—or withhold—the rights to the songs that Reign Productions would need for Alabama Rain. And the movie would need it.

Maybe it was only business, Riley reminded herself long after Paige had hung up after telling her that there were still other projects in development. It was only one battle lost, maybe a few bruised egos and nothing more.

When Ashe called her while she was in the back office, Riley felt relief wash over her at the sight of his face on her phone screen. She was happy to see and hear him during his video calls, made whenever he could find the time, even if it was early in the morning wherever he was, and he only had a few minutes to spare before he had to do an interview. Ashe was stifling a yawn as she adjusted her phone settings, propping it up in front of her against Plath’s book of poems.

While it was 4:30 in the afternoon in New York, it was 6:30 the following morning in Tokyo and already Ashe was dressed in a suit. According to the itinerary that he had given Riley, it was Ermenegildo Zegna, tailored to perfection and packed along with his luggage, every piece of clothing he wore during the tour chosen by a stylist. In the background, Riley could see another man adjusting his tie.

“That’s my interpreter, Takeshi-san,” Ashe told her. Hearing his name mentioned, the translator turned to the camera and nodded his head repeatedly, saying something that sounded to Riley like ‘arigato.’

Though Riley wanted to know if he’d heard about losing the lead in Alabama Rain, she began with some easier questions. How was Japan so far? (Exciting and different.) What was the food like? (He was eating too much sushi.) How was he getting on with the language? (He hadn’t a clue, hence Takeshi had been assigned to him for the duration of the trip.) How was he feeling over-all? (A bit jet-lagged, even though he’d rested a full day after arriving in Tokyo the day before.)

“But the people have been fantastic,” he grinned. “I’m having a great time here, though I wish you were with me, Riley. Yesterday they took me on a tour of the city, and it was fascinating, like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” His brow furrowed. “Why the long face?”

“Besides having to deal with an alleged rat problem in the shop, I’m disappointed for you, of course. Haven’t you heard yet?” Riley asked.

“Heard what?”

“About Alabama Rain,” Riley said, biting her lip.

“If you mean about Gareth getting the role of Conley Brennan, my agent told me about two hours ago.”

“I’m so sorry, Ashe,” she said.

“Why? It’s no big deal,” Ashe said. “Cookie Brennan has the final say, and if it’s her decision to let Gareth take the role, then so be it.”

“Is there any way that you can still—”

“No,” Ashe said firmly. Someone spoke to him off-camera, and she heard him say ‘Yes’ and ‘I’ll be ready in two minutes.’ Ashe turned to look at her again. “I’ll be fine. These things happen all the time, Riley. That’s why my agent keeps me busy with so many projects.”

“But how could Gareth do this, and Isobel? Does she hate you that much? I read a blind item that-”

“You’ve got to stop believing blind items, Riley. It’s not Gareth, nor is it Isobel. It’s just how the business works. It’s how movies are made, the deals that go on behind the scenes. There are a lot of bargaining—in the millions of dollars—and also a lot of compromises, whether for talent, crew, budget or whatever else. And then there’ll always be the gossipmongers searching for whatever news they can find and pass off as truth,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Cheer up. I’ll be home in a few days, and we can talk. In the meantime, I probably won’t be able to talk to you for a while, but I will text you.”

She touched Ashe’s screen face lightly with her fingers. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Riley-I-am,” he said, touching her fingers to the screen with his own just as Takeshi said something to him about the time.

“I have to go, petal,” Ashe said, touching a button to end the call. As Riley watched her phone go dark, she realized that Ashe was probably right. There was no point in getting worked up over something she had no control over.

The rat problem was another matter. She did have some control over that, and she was going to get to the bottom of it. Either someone had spotted a rat in the cafe—which, if it were true, would spell bad news for the business—or they had just made up a lie that could cost Allen his life savings — and hers.

The call from the Health Department was the last straw, sending Allen into a panic and causing the Library Cafe to close two hours early. During the next two hours, Allen went to the office store to pick up file boxes for the books that needed to be removed from the shelves in case the rat chewed on the pages, and Riley, Tess, Carl, and Martin cleaned and scrubbed the food-handling areas till the cafe was immaculate.

“Maybe it would be better just to take all the books out,” Allen said to her. “What do you think? Maybe it’s time to take the shelves off, too, and give the cafe more space.”

“There’d be no point in calling it the Library Cafe then, would there?” Riley said. If Allen asked for a vote on whether the books stayed or went, she was for the books staying.

Through it all, there wasn’t a single rat dropping to be found. They’d managed to move everything from the walls and inspect it all, ending the day exhausted, fed up, and utterly convinced that someone was attempting to shut them down. The food service area and the entire back portion of the cafe were so clean that Riley was convinced they could all eat off the floor if they had to.

Since Allen needed to be upstate for his granddaughter’s birthday party, Riley decided that she could put the books away on her own. He had already brought in the boxes, and she needed to be doing something instead of moping around the apartment missing Ashe.

So, after she’d sent everyone else home, ignoring Tessa’s offer to skip class that night and help out, Riley began to remove all the books from the shelves and arrange them in the file boxes. Some of them ended up on piles on the floor as she foolishly tried to organize them by author or genre. She wiped down each shelf with a solution of bleach, searching for rat droppings or chewed paper but finding nothing.

Outside it had begun to rain, and Riley wondered how much longer she’d have to stay. But she’d taken down all the books from the shelves and couldn’t leave them out on the floor till morning. That would make everyone believe that something was wrong.

A tap came on the glass window above the front door at 9:15, startling Riley. She thought she had lowered the blinds on all the windows after the last of the employees had gone, but the lower portion of the front door screens was still raised after one corner had snagged against the Closed sign.

As Riley approached the door, she recognized the easy grin right away, the green eyes behind thick dark lashes that twinkled as she approached. She frowned. The nerve of him to come here! Hadn’t he caused enough pain already?

“Riley, open up,” Gareth shouted from outside the door. “We need to talk.”