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Oh, she tried to hide her sadness away, but beneath her brilliant smile, lurking in her eyes, Lexi could see her mother’s confidence fading like a blazing comet coming to its end. Having built her entire career around them, her fading looks and the subsequent decline in quality roles were a bitter pill to swallow.
Instead of the sexy love interest, recent offers were for a depressed divorcee and an angry single mom set to take on her son’s elitist school.
As if one parent’s issues weren’t enough, her dad’s job as CEO of Pinnacle Studios seemed to be taking a toll on him, if the increasing gray hairs that peppered his usually dark head of hair was anything to go by.
Stonewall had been doing the job for close to three decades now, rising through the ranks from lowly development exec to VP of production and beyond. Promoted some five or six times, he knew the business like the back of his giant hand.
A smooth operator, he conducted work and pleasure with the ease of one who had never worried for anything — what then could be troubling her father enough that it caused endless late-night phone calls?
Her gaze slid over to the pile of manuscripts that were stacked beside her desk. For the past year she had been working full time at her father’s studio reading script submissions and writing coverage reports for them.
She — among a handful of others all doing the same job — formed the first line of defense, wading through the millions of screenplays that were sent through for consideration by agents, managers, producers, and actors. She would read the scripts then fill out a detailed form summarizing the story, if she thought the film would do well and whether it should be considered for the studio’s upcoming development slate.
Right after college, Stonewall had offered her a job as an executive in his company bypassing the entry-level position, but Lexi had declined. She’d wanted to work her way up — just as he had — earning her own stripes. It was important to her that she worked, that she earned her own salary, especially when she still lived at home.
Truthfully, she didn’t have to do either: on the day she turned twenty-one, she’d been given a trust fund that her parents had set up when she was born. As a matter of pride, however, she hadn’t touched a penny of it other than to donate the interest it accrued to charity.
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.
“Come in,” she called out.
Their housekeeper Ruth entered, carrying a tray with a chicken salad and some fruit she had arranged into a pretty platter.
In her sixties, she was a petite woman with salt and pepper hair that was tied up in a neat bun. She always had a warm smile on her face though presently, her brow was creased into a frown that she turned on Lexi.
“You need to eat something! All you do is work! You’re as bad as your father.”
Without waiting to hear whether Lexi wanted the food or not, she set the tray onto the desk, automatically starting to tidy the mess on it.
“I’m fine, Ruth. I don’t need you to keep making me lunch—“ Lexi began only to be cut off from alookRuth shot her.
“Your excuses didn’t work on me then and they won’t work on me now. Either you promise you’ll eat or I will sit here watching until you do.”
Lexi knew she meant it too. With a laugh, she hugged her small shoulders, dropping a kiss onto her lined forehead. “I promise I will.”
Patting her hand, Ruth nodded, appeased. “I want to see everything gone. An empty plate is a happy plate after all.” She quoted the saying she often repeated to Lexi as a child, whenever she was left to look after her on Mandy and Stonewall’s frequent absences.
Ruth still treated her like the child she had half-raised, but Lexi didn’t mind: the woman was like family. She was the one who taught her how to tie her shoelaces properly, and they had spent many a happy afternoon baking chocolate chip cookies that they had eaten on the terrace. She was the one Lexi had run to, hiding herself in her apron when kids at school had been mean.
“I need to get back. So much to do today.” Ruth was half out the door before Lexi could reply, but she didn’t leave right away. There was a look on her face that Lexi couldn’t discern, a wariness, no. Concern?
Before she could ask what was troubling the other woman, the look was gone, replaced by a harried smile. “A happy plate, remember.”
The door closed behind her.
At the smell of the food, her stomach rumbled. It probably was time for her to eat something. She started for the plate of salad when real-time footage of the wildfires appeared on the giant plasma television that covered the width of one of her walls.
Smoke billowed, crowding out what would have been a Californian blue sky. The bright sun shining down onto Sonoma County was at complete odds to the dystopian scene being broadcast as firefighters, their figures shockingly small against the blazing landscape, fought bravely on.
Unable to hear any more of the tragedies taking place, Lexi muted the television. Appetite abruptly gone, she turned to study the rail of designer dresses in front of her.
It felt so wrong to be doing something so shallow, and dare she say it, privileged, that she felt no pleasure at the task ahead. All around the city, families were losing their lives and homes, yet here she was deciding which designer dress she should wear for her big event.
Her eyes roamed the room she had grown up in, at the oversized King bed she slept in with sheets that were imported from Paris — as they were known to be the best — with a price tag to match. Truthfully, she hadn’t picked anything in her room: their interior designer had taken care of it when they had created this wing for her. It was only when a curious schoolfriend had asked about them that Lexi discovered her entire bedding had cost some five figures.
Or, as her short-lived relationship with the friend had put it, “more than my family spent on our car.”
After that, she was careful not to ask about prices anymore, and certainly knew never to pass on that kind of information to anyone outside of the family.
