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Los Angeles, California
Then
Lucy froze.
Hiding in Mama’s bathroom.
Holding Mama’s special scissors, unable to escape.
How many times had she heard, “Don’t touch Mama’s things” from her mother, and now she was going to be caught.
She bit her lip. She wasn’t supposed to be in Mama’s suite, and she especially wasn’t supposed to be stealing the scissors, but she needed them to trim her own hair, which Mama insisted couldn’t be cut.
She was used to sneaking into Mama’s room and going through her things, playing dress-up, pretending to be a big-time movie star like Mama, who had changed her name from Christy Smith to Tina Champagne the day she’d landed in Hollywood—or so Lucy’s older sister, Marilyn, had confided. When no one was looking, Lucy had slipped into Mama’s superhigh heels, donned her sparkly sunglasses, put on her lipstick, and tried on her hats. Lucy was familiar with everything in Mama’s wardrobe and had lots of time alone to explore and touch, especially the items she was forbidden to, warned against. Even when Mama said, “That’s expensive, don’t touch Mama’s Fabergé egg pendant, oh, no, no, no,” or “That bracelet is diamonds, dear, a gift from your father who gave it to me so I wouldn’t divorce him, well, it didn’t work, now did it? But please, Lucille, leave it be,” or “You know you shouldn’t be going through Mama’s drawers, not even this nightstand. That gun is loaded, so hands off, missy. It’s very, very dangerous, but Mama needs it for protection. Dear Lord, Lucy, am I going to have to put a lock on my door?”
But she never had.
And now, if Mama were to come into her bathroom . . . Lucy would be in big, big trouble. Slowly, silently, she backed away from the door that was only open a crack and into the shower room. Heart pounding, she sent up a prayer to God that Mama would go right to sleep.
Then Lucy could sneak down the hallway to her own room.
Mama was rustling in the bedroom, the frame creaking slightly as she settled into her canopied bed with its twinkling fairy lights, the radio playing softly, a tall glass of her clear drink, Mama’s “nightcap” or vodka, as Marilyn had told her. Now the glass was nearly drained, a few ice cubes melting.
Good!
If Mama would just fall asleep, then—
She heard footsteps in the hallway and silently cursed her older brother and sister. It would be just like Clark and Marilyn to come bursting into Mama’s bedroom and ruin everything.
The door banged open.
“What the—?” Mama said, obviously surprised. “What’re you doing here?”
“I live here,” a gruff male voice said, and Lucy’s heart sank. Ray. Mama’s boyfriend, her “boy toy,” as Marilyn called him.
“Not anymore.” Mama’s voice was firm. Harsh. Even now, it made Lucy cringe. “Get out.”
He was big and muscly, his teeth a slash of white in a jaw that always looked like he needed to shave, and he didn’t walk so much as swagger.
Lucy didn’t like him, didn’t like the way he looked at her.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he said, slurring his words. “We need ta talk. We got problems, we both . . . we both know it.”
“Our ‘problems’ are because you can’t keep your hands off other women. Younger women. Much younger women.”
“Thaaas what I wanna talk about—”
“Leave now, Ray. Or I’ll call the police.”
“C’mon, babe, you don’t mean it.”
“Try me.”
Lucy’s throat went dry, and though she knew it was crazy, she inched forward in the darkened bathroom to the doorway where she could peer with one eye into the bedroom, lit only by the fairy lights vining over the crossbeams of the canopy. Mama was lying in her usual spot, her silky sleep mask pushed over her forehead, her red hair poking out at all angles.
Ray stood next to the bed, that knowing smile pinned to his face, a drink in one hand.
But Mama wasn’t buying it. Lucy saw the fury in her mother’s face. Tina Champagne didn’t like to be bothered when she’d gotten ready for bed, her face slathered in some kind of miracle antiaging cream. Mama never allowed anyone to see her less than “camera ready.” Lucy knew it, and her sister and brother knew it, and stupid Ray should know it, too.
