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“Yeah, well, didn’t have much time for reading when I was working. Now I’ve… don’t got much to do besides watch TV. Did you know they changed the host ofJeopardy?”
“Well, yeah. Alex Trebek died.”
“He did? Damn. I’m so out of the loop. Did I ever tell you your mom and I went to a taping of the show for our anniversary? We thought that was a hot date night.” He snorted. “Culver City! Imagine taking your wife there. Though, you ask me, she had a crush on that host.”
“Yeah, I know, Dad. That was right before Mom got sick. I was already in middle school.” Her mother had talked up going to the game show taping forweeksto anyone who would listen. Even though she was an LA native, Rhea’s mother had rarely done anything celebrity adjacent. She had only been to Disneyland once when Rhea was a kid, and the only celebrity sighting she had out in the wild was when she stood in line behind Ricardo Montalban at Ralphs.She never stopped talking about that, either.
That was one thing Rhea missed about her mother. In a sea of self-absorbed wannabes and social climbers, she lived in a home full of no-nonsense working-class finesse.
Now my dad is sick.The man had never looked as old as he did now, with lines on his face and freshly minted jowls Rhea had sworn she’d never seen before.When did he get those?Between the heart attack and now?
“So?” she asked her father a moment later. “What did you think of the book?”
Danny looked at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about. “It was fine.”
“Just fine, huh?”
He tossed a hand up to his head. “What do you want from me? I can’t say I didn’t like it, because you wrote it. Can’t say I loved it, because you know I don’t really read things that aren’t Tom Clancy or James Patterson. I don’t go for the sappy stuff. That was your mom’s thing.”
“I’d hardly call that booksappy,Dad.” If it was the most recently published one, it was about a family of washed-up child stars who had to attend their stage mother’s funeral. The inspiration was one part Rhea’s experience growing up in Malibu, and another part from the stories Paige told about her clients from work.
“It’s about a funeral, ain’t it?”
“It’s about the relationships between siblings and the traumas they all faced growing up with an abusive mom and being kids in Hollywood.”
“Like Isaid.Sappy.”
“All right.” Rhea dropped it.
Or at least, she tried. Because Danny had something else he wanted to say. “That ain’t about your mom, right?”
“What? Of course not. Mom was great.”
“So why did you make that mom in the funeral sound like a bitch and a half?”
“Dad, I also don’t have three siblings, and I’ve never been in show business. I don’t write stories about my life, or about you, or Mom… most of us writers are making stuff up about other people. Fake people who live in our heads.”
“So why was that one girl working at the Cream Queen? You used to work there.”
Rhea pursed her lips. “To make it more authentic.”
“Is that character supposed to be you? The baby of the family who became a celebrity at five before burning out at twelve and working at the Cream Queen?”
“Dad, it’s a metaphor for what she later did when she was addicted to drugs.”
“You mean the porn stuff? What’s that got to do with Cream Queen?”
“I amnotexplaining that to you.”
“Just sayin’. You could stand to write more about your life.”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t letyouread it.” Rhea eased down on the couch, elbow resting on a factory-manufactured pillow that saidKing of the Roostwith a rooster stitched in the center. “Besides, what are you talking about? Why are you bringing this up now?”
Danny scoffed.
“I’m serious. This isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned what it is I write about and gotten it confused with real life. I’m starting to think you’re telling me something, notasking.”
“You know me. I’m not a real academic type. That’s always been you.” He scoffed again. “Where you get it from, I haven’t the foggiest. I loved your mother more than anything, but a Stanford type she was not.”
