Chapter Eight
January 16, 2017— continued
Percy Booth, her father’s Hollywood hero, looked at her sideways as if she were some barrel-chested, tattooed guy named Guido.
“Are you deaf? Who are you?” he demanded.
“I’m Julia Navarro-Nilsson from The Cascade City Chronicle. There’s no need for that gun, Mr. Booth. Please. I have an infant in the car.”
“I don’t want the newspaper.” He tightened his grip on the gun and pointed it at a plaque on the outside wall near the doorway. “Are you incapable of reading the ‘No Solicitors’ sign? I don’t like reporters, and I sure as hell don’t give interviews.”
“Sir, I am not here to sell the paper and am not a reporter. Does Carmen Cooper live here? She was supposed to start work at The Chronicle today but didn’t show up. I’m doing a welfare check.”
“Papa?” came a voice from inside the house.
Booth looked over his shoulder with daggers in his eyes. “What is the meaning of this?”
Carmen stepped onto the front porch, dressed in gray sweatpants and a man’s white T-shirt with grayish armpit stains. “Ms. Navarro-Nilsson? What are you doing here?”
“You were supposed to start today but didn’t come in or call. Is everything all right?”
“I’ve been sick—with the stomach flu. And a bad headache.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I should have. I apologize, but I’ve—I’ve just been so sick.”
“Do you still want to work for us?”
Carmen looked expectantly at the man she called ‘Papa.’
“I can assure you; it won’t happen again, Miss—Nelson, was it?” Booth responded. “Carmen will not be going to work—not tomorrow, the next day, or any day. She does not have my permission.”
“Carmen can answer for herself,” Julia said, feeling ballsy-terrified-empowered-like-she-might-wet-her-pants. “Carmen? You’re a legal adult; technically, you don’t need your father’s permission.”
“Carmen, go inside—now. I want to speak with Ms. Nelson alone,” Booth said in a low growl. “And shut the door. I’ll deal with you later.”
Julia envisioned Carmen’s damaged fingers wrapped in a sorry-ass splint and subconsciously put her hand to her throat.
Carmen shuffled inside and looked out one of the long narrow windows flanking the front door.
Booth descended the steps and stood an arm’s length from Julia. “Before you get the hell off my property, I must offer a word of caution.”
“I’m not interested in your word of caution, sir. It’s getting late, and I have to get my son home.”
“This will only take a moment, Ms. Nelson.”
“It’s Navarro-Nilsson.”
“Does it matter? Now, you listen closely. Long ago, I lived a high-profile life. With it came an army of unwanted and unrelenting attention by the media, money-grabbers, backstabbers, and so-called admirers. I’m old and out of the limelight now, and that is by design. Uninvited visitors are not welcome here. You are not welcome here. If you show up again, I will consider you a dangerous intruder. The law protects a man who acts to defend his life and property. Do I make myself clear?”
Julia’s stomach churned. “Fine. Now you listen to me, Mr. Bath,” she seethed, with the best don’t-screw-with-me-face, she could fake. “I don’t like you and don’t care how rich you are, who you know in high places, or even how much my father liked your movies, which are all boorish and sexist, in my opinion. Carmen came to me for a job, and I came here to speak with her, not you. You’re…” She gulped. “… not very nice, and nothing says ‘crazy old coot’ like bringing a gun to the door when someone knocks. And it looks phony!”
Booth cocked the gun.
She took two steps back. “I have a mind to turn you in for threatening me.”
Booth stood unfazed.
“You know what? This could make a good newspaper story—Hollywood Has-Been Threatens Woman and Baby.”
Booth’s chest puffed up. “Get off my property!”
Before putting the car in reverse, Julia looked toward Booth. Carmen held a piece of paper against the window. It read, “I’m sorry. Please, I need to work.”
“Hell’s bells. That was a close one,” Julia told Trey, now awake and sucking noisily on his fingers. “Kelvin was right. Maybe I should have let this be.” She paused. “Nah. Your momma’s not one to let things be, chiquito. That girl’s in trouble, and someone has to save her.”
****
“Joanne!” she heard Papa Percy shout.
Carmen opened the door a sliver to look downstairs.
“Yes, señor?” her mother replied as she entered the foyer, drying her hands on a dishtowel.
Papa tightened his jaw. “Carmen took a job at the newspaper,” he barked. “Did you know about this?”
“She deed what?” her mother asked. From Carmen’s vantage point, she looked so small and frail in her pink housecoat and sandals, with the silver packing tape holding the heel strap together.
“Don’t play dumb with me. She took a job at the newspaper. Are you saying you didn’t know?”
“No, sir, I do not know. I tell her to queet thee job, okay? That what joo want? Plees, señor, she young ahn make a meestake.”
“Of course, that’s what I want. I shouldn’t have let her go to college. I gave her an inch, and she took a mile.” He glared at her mother, and then his face softened. “It’s okay, Joanne. You’re not in trouble. I’ll be in Dorthea’s room. Bring the whiskey.”
He walked up the curved staircase to the double doors leading to his dead wife’s room. Carmen closed her bedroom door quietly before he reached the final step.
****
Julia arrived home and fixed quesadillas for dinner. No vegetable or guacamole—just tortillas, taco meat, and cheese. “Side dishes are overrated,” she told Charlie, remembering the fluffy Mexican rice and charro beans she used to serve.
“I’m adding pickled jalapeño slices to my quesadilla. Does that count as a side dish?” Charlie asked.
“Yesss.” She pointed to the jar on the counter. “That’s a vegetable, yes, indeed it is. You know, one of these days, I’ll get back to making better meals, singing, knitting, and reading books. And taking a daily shower.”
“Take your time, babe. No one’s rushing you. And you smell fresh as a daisy to me.”
“Daisies smell like poo, Charlie.”
“Like I said.”
Julia threw a crumpled paper towel at him.
They ate dinner at the card table masquerading as a dinette table, and she squeezed Charlie’s hand. She contemplated whether to tell him about what happened with Percy Booth. Percy Booth. A Hollywood movie star damn near tried to kill me. Well, he didn’t exactly try to kill me, but he did stand on his big porch with a gun in his hand, looking flat-out evil. But it’s over, and there’s nothing Charlie can do about it now. Why stress him out? I’ll tell Jerry. I don’t care if I stress him out.
****
Trey went down for the night. Or rather, he went down for his usual one to two hours. In the Navarro-Nilsson house, “down for the night” phraseology was nothing but folklore—more of a stretch goal—a dream state—a damn tease.
Charlie parked himself on the sofa with his laptop to do research for a paper titled “Aligning Technology Learning with Classroom Curriculum.” Julia sat on the bench at the foot of their bed with the phone to her ear. And the bedroom door closed.
“He had a gun on him, Jerry,” she whispered.
“What’s Charlie think about all this? Is he going there to use those finely sculpted muscles to beat the guy to a pulp?”
“I didn’t tell him. Besides, Charlie’s a peace-loving teddy bear.”
“Julia…”
“Why worry him? He’s dealing with enough already.”
“Did the old man ever point the gun at you?”
“No. What difference does that make? He held the thing and looked at me like some homicidal dude in a hockey mask.”
“How could you tell how he looked if he was wearing a hockey mask?”
“Shut up, you blockhead. You know what I mean.”
“Well, don’t bother calling the cops. Holding a gun at his side didn’t break any laws. But it could make a juicy story. I’ll start digging into his past. Illicit affairs, illegal drug use, a collection of women’s dirty underwear. Who knows what I’ll find? I mean, the guy’s a fucking legend.”
“If Carmen shows up tomorrow, I’ll see what I can find out. I’m worried about her, Jer. When Booth came onto that porch, I knew I had to help her.”
“And how exactly will you do that?”
“I don’t have a plan yet, but I’m gonna need your help, that much I know.”
“Uh-huh. Hey, don’t tell anyone else about the big story we’re about to break. I want an exclusive.”
“Big story, huh? Fine, fine. How is your new boyfriend—the attorney?”
“Juan Carlos? He’s full of himself. I dumped him like yesterday’s seven-dollar coffee cup.”
“What’d he do?”
“He called my glasses retro. And I didn’t like how he looked when he said it.”
“You dumped him for that?”
“He might as well have told me I’m ancient. He said they reminded him of Clark Kent. They’re not even the same color as Clark Kent’s.”
“Clark Kent’s a hunk-o-burnin’ love. Think, umm—Henry Cavill, broad shoulders, abs of steel.”
“He meant George Reeves from the 1950s TV show.”
“Jerry, he’s never heard of George Reeves. How old is Juan Carlos?”
“Twenty-six.”
“You’re fifty-seven, Jer. You are ancient to a twenty-six-year-old. Try looking in an upscale grocery store that sells organic quinoa for twenty bucks a bag instead of Prince Hairy’s Banana Boy Bar. The millennial gays hang there. Do they even say ‘hang’ anymore? Christ, I can’t keep up with young people’s slang nowadays.”
“You’re twenty-five, Julia. Don’t rub it in.”
“Goodnight, Jerry.”
“Remember to keep your trap closed about the Booth thing. It could be my big break.”
“And where do I fit in?”
“You’re the connection to Carmen, my dear. What could be more important than that?”
****
Julia walked into the kitchen, leaned over Charlie’s chair from behind, and reached inside his shirt to run her hands across his smooth, muscular chest. He smelled of soap and sandalwood.
He swiveled around to face her. “Whoa, Nellie. What’s this? An invitation?”
“Oh yes, sir, it ’tis,” Julia said in her sexiest bad British accent. She bit her lower lip to keep from screaming. Her desire for sex equaled her desire for gangrene.
“An invitation to what? Can you be more specific?” Charlie undid the tie on her robe.
She shimmied her shoulders, the robe slid down her arms, and dropped to the floor.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Charlie said as he kissed her belly button and deftly slid his hand between her thighs.