1 Cupcakes, Lies, and Dead Guys Read online

  He passed it to her. She inhaled deeply. Her shoulders sunk from her ears back down to where shoulders should be located. “Thanks.”

  “I am scared of heights. But Annie’s trying to quit smoking so I thought it was best I did this, you know, outside,” he said and looked down on that crazy Sunset Strip. “This time of day, it’s actually almost pretty.”

  “In a man-made comic book kind of way. But is this your story?” she asked. “The UFP script lab deadline’s coming up. You need to submit your story in a pristine script format. No crayons. No doodles in the margins. No meandering first twelve pages. Submit your best work or move back to Iowa. No heights there. Not one hill, no dales.”

  “I actually dated a Dale from Iowa once. And no, the Strip’s been told too many times. I’ll know my story when I see it.” Grady shrugged. Hopefully. He snapped his fingers at Julia. “Stop hogging the pot.”

  Julia took another toke, handed the joint back to him and squeaked as she talked without breathing. “I remember when Annie flunked her first driver’s license exam on her sixteenth birthday. Trust me, there was nothing sweet about that day. Don’t take anything that pops out her mouth right now personally.” She finally exhaled.

  He nodded. “Totally know that. What kind of sick bastard would send those photos to her doctor’s office on Valentine’s Day?”

  “Someone else who hates Valentine’s Day?” Julia asked.

  The patio door popped open. Annie held Teddy the cat in a strangle hold and stuck both their heads outside. “You’re smoking dope and not including me on what’s probably the shittiest day of my life?”

  Grady’s eyes widened.

  “I am so not inviting you to my pot brownie parties in my oh so fabulous future!” Annie slammed the door shut and locked it.

  Grady looked at Julia, somewhere between floaty and unsure. “We’re okay, right?”

  “No, honey. Those pot parties aren’t just brownies. They’re flourless chocolate cakes, carrot muffins… I’m hungry. Let’s order a pizza.”

  “With what? Our imaginary phone?”

  Julia giggled.

  Grady tugged on the sliding glass door. It didn’t open. He felt something brush against his arm and flicked it away. A two-inch spider spun back up its tentacle to a ginormous web underneath the balcony above them. Grady screamed and pulled harder on the door. It was indeed locked. He pounded on the glass. “I’m sorry! I’m scared of heights! I hate spiders! Julia wants a pizza!”

  Julia pinched his leg. “Don’t show weakness.”

  From beyond the sliding glass door a low voice hissed, “I know. I already ordered it. The Super Combo Deluxe. Now grovel.”

  Grady fell to his knees facing the door. “I’m super sorry. I really hate spiders. Julia’s pinching me.”

  “She can be a bully. Pinch her back. Go ahead. I’m watching.”

  Grady pinched her back. Julia swatted him.

  Click. The sliding glass door magically unlocked and opened a crack.

  Grady vaulted inside.

  Julia clutched her stomach and giggled uncontrollably on the patio.

  Annie slammed the door shut again.

  “Oh come on!” Julia said.

  “Pizza’s not here for forty minutes,” Annie said. “Enough time for you to remember why no one likes a bully.”

  “You’re going all Lutheran on me, Mother.”

  “I meant an hour.” Annie shut the blinds.

  Safely back inside the apartment, Grady tried to redeem himself by tackling the bookshelves. Annie winced as she spotted him tossing books into two piles. “Sweetie, be careful with the books. I love my books.”

  “Right. I think I know, but recap, please. Whose are whose?”

  “All cooking and bakery related, mine,” Annie said. Behind his back she grabbed the Xanax bottle, popped a pill and hid the bottle in her recyclable bin. She knew Julia and Grady would try and steal her new prescription drugs. At least good friends were somewhat predictable. “Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, murder mysteries, mine,” she rattled off. “Acting, producing, directing. Being all that you can be. Losing accents. Developing accents. The Artist’s Way. The Artist’s Journey. The Artist’s Journey to the Way. Hollywood: Why are they mean to me? What if Hollywood doesn’t call back? Why wait? You call Hollywood! Those would be Mike’s.”

  “Okay.” Grady placed Annie’s books in boxes marked HERS. Tossed the rest into boxes marked DICK inscribed over a simple drawing of a frowny face.

  The phone rang in the kitchen. Annie sucked on her Bombshell, checked caller ID and hit speaker. “Yeah Mom, hey there, you already know all the news. We’re packing, I love you, let’s talk in the next couple of days ’kay?”

  Nancy’s voice pealed through the speakerphone like church bells at a double funeral, “Annie, I’m worried about you. I called the entire family and everyone is on your side.”

  She winced. “I told you not to tell anyone, Mom. I’m not ready for explanations.”

  Nancy rolled along like an SUV doing ninety that just plowed over a squirrel. “I want you to call me immediately when you figure out who’s the slut in the photos with Mike. And, FBI, everyone I talked to thought Mike was just a little too good to be true. Aunt Susan thinks he might be in a cult. I know you and your brother Carson have your differences, but if you asked him really nice and all, I betcha he’d give Mike a really bad chiropractic adjustment, if you know what I mean. And I just realized I saw a show on Oprah about this mess. Men who are married, but secretively are on the upswing.”

  “Down low, Mom. Those men are on the down low.”

  An ominous pause. “Carson owns guns. Lots and lots of guns.”

  “Thanks. It’s not FBI, Mom. It’s FYI. Love you. Got. To. Go.” Annie punched the hang up button.

  Grady looked concerned and asked the obvious, “Is your mom early Alz —”

  “No.”

  He cleared his throat. “Senile?”

  “No.”

  Julia chimed in, “High school, freshman year. We’d just moved to Wisconsin from Georgia. I thought I’d landed in hell frozen over, until I met Annie in drama class and we started hanging. The accident was that December. Before the prison tattoo incident.”

  “Accident?” Grady asked.

  “Well, of course it was an accident,” Julia snapped.

  Annie sighed. Looked at the vodka. “Maybe I need more to drink.”

  “It was only partially your fault,” Julia said. “You need to let that one go.”

  “Partially? What accident? Prison tattoos? Are you holding out on me?” Grady asked.

  The Bombshell

  Category: Ice Cream Dessert Drink with alcohol.

  Ingredients & Directions: Vanilla ice cream, crème de cocoa (a shot), Kahlua (to taste), vodka (be liberal), chopped Oreo cookies.

  Appropriate Occasions: Filing marital separation papers. Finding a new apartment in one day. Packing to move in one night. Realizing current marital hopes and dreams have been stomped on, kicked around, and thrown off a very high cliff.

  Best Served With: The nicotine patch. Legal drugs. Illegal drugs. Good friends.

  Three

  The Sliding Toboggan

  Derrick held one hand over his heart and strode across the stage. The other arm straight and aimed like a gun at the audience. “I promise…” He pointed at a lacquer-haired, late sixties woman who jumped up and down and screamed excitedly. “You, Mrs. Family Values, Bootsy Bauerfeld! How’s that diet coming along?”

  Bootsy screamed, “I lost five pounds!”

  Derrick winked at her. “You’ll lose all the weight. I lost thirty pounds without dieting. My I Promise method will show you how,” he said.

  And keep jumping, he thought. Jumping burned about five hundred calories per hour. Screaming wasn’t as aerobic. Arm flailing might bump it up another hundred cals.

  Derrick turned, scoped the crowd, and pointed to a woman wearing glasses. She looked like she’d spent her entire life with her
head in an algebra book. “I promise you, Ms. Studiously Sexy, that you will find your soul mate. I did. Once I set my intention according to my I Promise method.”

  Ms. Studiously Sexy regarded Derrick. “I’m thirty-seven. Hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Aah. You doubt,” Derrick said. He loved the doubters. The D-Peeps were at every teaser speech and practically sold his seminars for him. “Follow my program. E-mail me in six months. You’ll be dating a great guy.”

  “I’m not desperate and refuse to settle for table scraps,” Studiously Sexy said.

  Even better, Derrick thought. A feisty D-Peep.

  “I don’t just want a guy. I want the right partner, and I want a family. I want kids.”

  “In a year you and your perfect mate will be looking at rings and baby clothes. If this hasn’t happened, I will not only refund your money, I will personally sign you up and pay for a year subscription to E-HappyCouples.com.”

  The audience applauded reverently.

  Derrick paced the stage like a magnificent jungle cat in the wild stalking his inferior prey. “I promise, you are the creator of our destiny. You attract people, money, and every aspect of your life according to your thoughts and feelings. And I promise…”

  He paused dramatically, and gazed out at the audience. They were enthralled. He had them. He knew it.

  “I can teach you how to completely transform your life with the power of… your intention.” He beamed at his audience, feeling Messiah-like. Some might even say Tom Cruise-like. God, he was good.

  “You can teach me nothing! Bullshit, squat, Dr. Derrick Fuller!” An angry middle-aged male heckler jumped up from his seat close to the stage and shook his fist. “You’re a money-grubbing charlatan who sucks the life blood out of normal people with normal dreams. Your books should scrape runny dog crap off sidewalks. How dare you promise these good people that you’d take out their trash, let alone fulfill their dreams?”

  Derrick looked out at his audience, his flock. They went from spirited to silent in a heartbeat. Some fidgeted. Some squeezed their foreheads into frowns that Derrick knew would never disfigure his handsome face. Bootsy gasped.

  Derrick glanced around the very empty, almost lonely stage. He wasn’t used to foul-mouthed criticism from his adoring audiences. He frowned. He knew the Botox had frozen his frown muscles. And that combo created a look of sincere and heartfelt contemplation. He worked that look for several seconds until his audience leaned forward, googly-eyed and holding their breath. They looked like they might explode with anticipation. He turned to the heckler who was bright red and breathing heavily. Jeez, with any luck, this idiot might explode as well.

  “What’s your name, sir?” Derrick asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. What’s important is my daughter’s name. Sienna.”

  Derrick’s stomach dropped and his pulse raced. He hoped this wasn’t about the time he was majorly hopped on shrooms and unfortunately shtooped a minor. She said she was twenty-one. Come on! Was that his fault forever? He had paid hush money through the nose on that one, as well as the other three. All right, four. The confidentiality agreements were safely stored in his safety deposit box.

  “Tell me about Sienna.”

  Big fat sweat drops fell off the heckler’s face and saturated his shirt. “Sienna was beautiful, twenty years old and innocent. Straight A student, English major at SMC. She was accepted into UCLA on a partial scholarship,” he said. “Until she bought your books and your feel-good, hokey-pokey bullshit convinced her that you’d help her real dreams come true. Sienna deferred her scholarship. Took more dance classes.”

  Derrick felt his blood pressure ease back toward normal. This was cake. Some sweaty bumfuck was no match for Dr. Derrick Fuller. “Tell me more, sir. I really want to know how you feel,” Derrick said. He looked at his audience. They were enthralled. Unbelievable. Lambs to the slaughter. Lemmings jumping off the cliff. It was so predictable. “Let me re-phrase that, Sir. We want to know how you feel?”

  The audience murmured and a few applauded.

  “How do I feel? You don’t know my name, but you want to know how I feel? Did you care or even ask how my daughter felt?”

  “Yes, sir. I assure you I did. Every dream in every life is important. My wish for this planet is that more people realize that, and act according to that principle,” Derrick said. “I don’t know dancing statistics. Educate us all please. We are strong when we are community.”

  “There’s not a huge market for legitimate dancers in Los Angeles. But maybe you felt that already,” the Heckler said and wiped his dripping forehead with the edge of his shirt. “Sienna went to work at a Turkish restaurant in the Valley as a belly dancer. She was approached by a ‘producer’ guy who said she was talented, had great moves and would she like to be in an independent feature? Sienna was ecstatic and said yes. Four months later, a little movie was released straight to DVD starring my baby girl. It was entitled Bellywood. What do you think that gem was rated?”

  Derrick walked across the stage and paused across from the Heckler. “Sir. We know your daughter’s name. When we talk to Sienna, she’s going to want to hear her dad’s name. So shake my hand, sir, and tell me your name.” One of Derrick’s hands rested on his heart. He reached his other hand out to the heckler. Very few people could resist Derrick’s oh-so-welcoming out-stretched olive branch hand.

  “My name is Bill,” the Heckler said, his hand glued to his side.

  Derrick’s hand dropped gently. He smiled. “Bill, we’ll work together. We'll set our intention. We’ll find Sienna and change her course. It’s the power of I promise. Let’s talk about it. Please join me on stage, Bill.”

  “That’s exactly what you said to my daughter last year. ‘Would you like to join me on stage, Sienna?’ That was the moment we lost her.” Bill pulled a gun from his jacket and pointed it at Derrick.

  The audience gasped and screamed. Men and women bolted toward the exit doors. A handful of entrepreneurial souls dove to the floor, ducked behind chairs, and held up their video cells to record for E-Report.

  Derrick slowly backed away. A furrow the size of a sliver materialized between his eyebrows. “But, Bill. It’s not your fault.”

  Bill’s hand that held the gun shook.

  It appeared he aimed for Derrick’s heart, but the shaking severely affected his gun-focusing. “That’s right, you fraud. It’s definitely yours.”

  Annie wrapped her and Mike’s wedding china in bubble-wrap. She placed the china into sturdy boxes labeled, “Kitchen, China”. She felt nauseous.

  Julia and Grady sat on the kitchen floor and shoveled down pizza. “Okay, give on the only-partially-your-fault Nancy accident,” Grady demanded as he picked off the anchovies and confined them to a small section of his paper plate.

  Annie held out a big wide sheet of bubble wrap and waved it in front of Grady. “When applied in a precise manner, this can kill a man far more quickly than a gun that has been improperly aimed.”

  “Oh stop it with the bubble wrap threat. You’re not Annie-tonio the Chinaman Packer,” Julia said and shoved another piece of pizza in her mouth.

  Annie glared at her. “That is not suburban legend. My family’s connected, if you know what I mean. I’m just not allowed to talk about it.”

  “Tell him, or I will,” Julia said.

  “It was my Major Life Debacle Number Four. I generally don’t share them. I was fourteen. The Oconomowoc Interdenominational Faith Council decided to hold their first ever Christmas Carnival. They had food and games and contests. There was a Build a Baby Jesus tent and an Ask the Holy Ghost booth,” Annie said.

  “Ooh, that was my favorite,” Julia said. “We all jammed in, stuck a dime in the slot and the curtain opened. The Holy Ghost flapped his white robe and asked in a spooky voice, ‘What is your holy question?’ Mine was, ‘Will I marry Tommy Thompson even though he’s a junior and has a girlfriend?’ The Holy Ghost said, ‘Highly unlikely. Pray about it.’ It was eerie. I
never did marry Tommy Thompson.”

  “Back to the Debacle,” Grady said and scarfed more pizza.

  “My mom’s a teetotaler,” Annie said. “She just wanted to sit on the sidelines, like always, and sip her hot chocolate. But I was a high school freshman and I wanted a hipper, more radical mom. So, I spiked her hot chocolate with a little vodka.”

  “A little? It was half a fifth. She drank the whole thermos. Remember?”

  “And why do you think I cannot let this one go, Julia?”

  “So, Nancy, fueled by a vat of alcohol and encouragement from her entire extended family, signed up for lead sledder on the Bethel Lutheran Toboggan Team,” Julia said. “It was the Christ Child race-off, the last run of the day, winner take all.”

  “ I hopped on behind her. I was her wingman. When the toboggan stopped, Mom and I didn’t,” Annie said. “We both hit our heads pretty hard. She still blames the Catholics. She thinks they sabotaged the run. Hence the oh so tiny bit of brain damage that led to Mom’s malapropisms.”

  “As well as your weirdo psychic empathic ability,” Julia said. “You face plowed into a snow bank, Rosebud. I slid down the hill and ran to you. You were out, cold. I sat in the snow next to you, completely freaked out and held your hand for one very long minute before you came to.”

  “Thanks. But it was no fun coming to, feeling someone jamming their tongue down my throat,” Annie said.

  “That was your first empathic hit,” Julia said. “You were picking up on the fact that Greg Finklestein french kissed me just minutes earlier.”

  “How big was Finklestein’s tongue?”

  “Oh. This all finally makes sense,” Grady said.

  “Whatever, Mister. This info goes to your grave.” Annie said.

  “Sure. Just don’t lock me on the balcony anymore.” he nodded.

  “Maybe I should move back to Oconomowoc,” Annie said. “Minus forty plus wind chill here I come. I’ll open a granola store. I’ll become asexual. I’ll wear Birkenstocks with wool socks made from free-range sheep. I won’t have a boyfriend for five years since after Mike I won’t trust men anymore.