Ooh, La La!, page 20
Kate looked up. “Really?”
“Sure.”
“That would sure take the sting out of the party snub.” Kate’s face softened into a smile. “I’ll call Mom and ask her to bring Skye down after school.”
“Your mom is welcome to stay, too.”
“I’ll pass that along, but I doubt she’ll take you up on it. She doesn’t stay out of the house much.”
“Because of ‘crime’?”
Kate nodded. “She’s becoming something of a hermit. The more she stays in, the more she wants to stay in. But she doesn’t mind driving Skye places. She’ll be happy to pick her up at school and bring her down here. She’s been worried about her.” Kate smiled, her eyes warm. “This is great, Zack. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“My pleasure.” And it was. Making Kate smile like that made him feel good all the way to his toes.
Their eyes caught and held.
“Hey, Zack,” Deb called. “Are you ready to block this scene?”
“Sure.” He turned back to Kate. “The dinner offer stands. Any evening you feel like taking me up on it, I’ll be more than ready.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Come on, Grams. Park the car, already!”
“I can’t just stop in the middle of the street.” Ruth braked as a taxi bullied its way in front of her Toyota. “I have to find a parking place.”
Skye peered out the window. “But we’re here! They’ve got the street blocked off and everything. Just stop, and I’ll get out.” She started to unfasten her seat belt.
Ruth stretched out her arm, as if she were restraining an infant. “Not so fast, young lady. You’re not going anywhere in the French Quarter alone.”
“Awww! At this rate, they’ll be finished before we even get there.”
“Patience is a virtue.” Ruth made a right turn and headed down Conti in search of a parking spot. “I suggest you work on cultivating it.”
Skye rolled down the window as they cruised by two young men with blond Mohawk haircuts. “Hey! Are there any parking garages around here?”
One of the young men pointed. “Halfway up the next block.”
Skye waved. “Thanks!”
A surge of alarm rushed through Ruth. She abruptly hit the window button.
Skye raised up along with the sliding glass to talk through the narrowing opening. “Hey, I like your hair!”
“You can’t just talk to strangers on the street!” Ruth admonished.
“Why not? I found out where we can park.” Skye pointed to the left. “There it is.”
Ruth frowned as she steered the car into the garage entrance. Skye had no idea of the danger out there—no concept of the horrible things that could happen in the blink of an eye. She was still fretting about it as she stopped the car.
Skye rolled her eyes as her grandmother carefully removed her car key from her key ring. “You don’t need to do that. Just give them the whole key chain.”
“So they can make copies of my house key while we’re gone and burglarize my house any time they feel like it? I don’t think so.”
“How would they even know where you live?”
“With most people, they’d only have to look in the glovebox to find the registration papers.” Ruth unlocked her glovebox, pulled out a large white envelope, and stuffed it in her purse. “I don’t believe in giving strangers access to that much personal information.”
“Jeeze, Grams, you’re paranoid. You really oughta see a shrink.”
Ruth bristled. It wasn’t the first time Skye had implied that she was mentally ill. And Kate kept hounding her to get some kind of counseling. Neither one of them knew what they were talking about, though. Neither one of them had ever been inside a mental institution or seen a real mental case, or they wouldn’t make the insinuation so lightly. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I just believe in using common sense and caution, that’s all.”
Ruth handed the single key to the attendant, took the ticket, then followed Skye out to the street. She carefully looked in both directions. “Stay close to me and keep your eyes peeled,” she warned.
But her granddaughter was already striding down the sidewalk, straight toward two unkempt men in dirty jeans. Ruth hurried to catch up with her. “Let’s cross the street,” she whispered urgently.
“But we need to be on this side.”
“Just do as I say.”
“Because of those two guys? Grams, they aren’t going to jump us.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“Jeeze!” Skye huffed out an exasperated sigh but strode across the street with Ruth. The minute the men were past, she darted back across the street.
Ruth was glad she was wearing sneakers and jeans, because otherwise she would have had a hard time keeping up with her granddaughter. Skye hurried down the next half-block, then headed straight into the midst of a crowd that had formed outside a barricade. Ruth followed as she edged her way to the front and started to climb over.
A large, burly policeman stepped in front of the girl, his barrel chest blocking her way. “Hey—you can’t come in here.”
“Yes, I can. I’m going to be in the movie."
The policeman’s bushy right eyebrow rose over his sunglasses. “Oh, yeah?”
Skye tilted her head up in an unconscious imitation of Kate. “Yeah. Right, Grams?”
Good heavens—she needed to sit that child down and give her a serious talk about the correct way to speak to people in authority. Ruth gave the officer a conciliatory smile. “As a matter of fact, Officer, we were invited here by Mr. Jackson.”
The officer’s mirrored glasses turned in her direction. Ruth smoothed a wayward lock of hair in the reflection.
“What’re your names?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“I’m Skye Matthews.”
“And I’m Ruth. Ruth Matthews.”
“Wait here." The officer took a few steps away, pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt, and mumbled into it. The crackle of static could be heard over the murmur of the crowd.
“Are you really in the movie?” A teenage boy standing by the barricade asked Skye.
Skye nodded.
“Wow. Are you anyone famous?”
“Not yet," Skye said confidently.
The officer turned back to Ruth with a diffident smile. “Come right in, Ms. Matthews. Mr. Jackson said he’s expecting you.” The barricade scraped on the pavement as he pulled it aside. “Sorry for the inconvenience. Just doing my job.”
“I understand,” Ruth reassured him. “Thank you.”
Skye sailed past the officer, her head held high. “Told you.”
The girl wasn’t nearly as cocky once they were beyond the barricade. She stared wide-eyed at all the trucks and cables and lights and equipment. “Jeeze, Grams—look at all this stuff!” Awed and silent, she stuck to Ruth’s side, and let Ruth go first through the narrow doorway into the old bar.
The small, musty room was bright as the beach at midday, crowded with jeans-clad people and enormous cameras and lights. Ruth scanned the room, looking for Kate, and finally spotted her across the room, arranging old bottles behind the bar.
Skye dashed over and gave her mother a big hug.
“Hi, honey.” Kate gave a surprised smile and hugged her back, briefly closing her eyes, as if she were committing the moment to memory.
A pang of poignancy shot through Ruth’s heart. These instances of spontaneous affection from Skye were growing increasingly rare. More and more, Skye was pulling away from her mother. Ruth remembered it well—the heartbreaking sense that time was running out, that soon she would no longer be needed; the bittersweet mix of joy and loss as a child disappeared and a woman emerged; the pain and confusion of having a daughter go from biggest supporter and cheerful buddy to severest critic and moody stranger. It was all a part of the process, all a necessary step in separation as Skye grew toward adulthood, but knowing that didn’t make it hurt any less. Ruth was glad to see her daughter get a momentary reprieve from Skye’s sulky advance into adolescence.
The girl stepped back and looked around, her eyes as big and round as circus rings. “Wow, this is cool!”
“It is, isn’t it?” Zack’s amused voice rumbled over Ruth’s shoulder. She turned around to find him standing next to a large camera, wearing a broad smile. “Hi, Ruth—Skye. Glad you two could make it.”
A large, muscled man stepped out from behind the camera. Ruth’s eyes fastened on him like a bug on flypaper and wouldn’t let go.
He was tall, maybe six feet, and built like a Sherman tank— hard and bulky and solid. His gray hair was pulled straight back in a ponytail, his tanned face spotted a thick gray beard, and his nose looked as if it had been broken a time or two. He wore a gold ring in one ear, a black T-shirt, and a pair of faded jeans.
He looked like a muscle-bound Willie Nelson—or a pirate, or an outlaw, or maybe a hit man. If he’d driven by her house, she would have reached for her camera. If she’d met him on the street, she would have ducked into a doorway until he passed. She ought to step back now, but her feet were strangely riveted to the floor.
He was standing disconcertingly close, so close she could see the odd green-gray tint of his eyes. Something about them— some spark or depth or intensity—made it impossible to look away. His gaze held hers like a pair of fur-lined manacles.
“I’d like you to meet Fritz Gibson, our director of photography,” Zack was saying.
The man’s eyes tightened their hold on hers. “Nice to meet you.” His voice was a deep rumble, like the engine of an eighteen-wheeler. He stuck out a large hand. Ruth took it hesitantly. His grasp was gentle, but the callused warmth of his palm exuded a masculine strength that made her go weak in the knees.
He made her feel overwhelmed, overpowered, overcome, but not in the usual afraid-for-her safety way.
Sexually. This man’s power was all sexual. Something about him resuscitated hormones that she’d thought long since expired.
The thought sent a shock wave pulsing through her. She was still reeling from it when she made another startling realization: Fritz was staring at her chest.
At her alarm, he gave a low, appreciative whistle. “Hey, that’s real nice equipment you’ve got there.”
Ruth’s jaw dropped. She’d always heard that people in Hollywood were more open about sexual matters than she was accustomed to, but this was beyond the pale. The situation called for indignation, but all she could muster was shock. “I—I beg your pardon?”
He nodded at her chest. “That’s an ’Eighty-four Nikon, isn’t it?”
Ruth’s fingers flew to her camera. Of course. Why on earth had she assumed he was talking about her breasts? She certainly wasn’t herself this afternoon. “Why… why, yes. Yes, it is.”
“It’s a classic—a real beauty.” His gaze tipped up and trapped hers again. “Just like it’s owner.”
There was no mistaking his meaning this time. Her face suffused with sudden heat. She would have thought it was a hot flash, except for the fact that she was hot in places that hadn’t felt that way in a long, long time.
His eyes were doing that hypnotic, gravitational thing again. They weren’t just eyes, Ruth thought hazily—they were a place to fall into. A place where the world was topsy-turvy and inside out, full of things she hadn’t known she wanted but suddenly craved.
His gaze was positively penetrating. Penetrating and piercing—like arrows, or daggers, or bullets, or…
“So what do you like to shoot?” he asked.
Had they actually been talking about weapons? Ruth could have sworn she’d merely been thinking about them, but when Fritz looked at her like that, she couldn’t be sure of anything. “Oh, I don’t believe in carrying a weapon,” Ruth told him earnestly. “It’s too easy for a criminal to take it away and use it on you.”
Laughter rumbled from Fritz’s throat. “Hey, that’s a good one!”
Ruth grinned nervously, not sure what she’d said that was so amusing but pleased at the way Fritz was smiling at her.
He stepped closer and lifted her camera. He was close, so close she could smell his faintly spicy, leathery scent. As he turned the camera and looked at the light setting, his knuckle accidentally grazed her breast. Her brain felt as if someone had turned on a fog machine. Oh, mercy, she felt nervous as a schoolgirl—as awkward as the time she’d smiled at her ninth-grade crush and accidentally shot a rubber band from her braces onto his forehead.
“So, what’s your favorite subject?” Fritz asked.
He must be telepathic. How else could he know she was thinking about school? Or maybe she only thought she’d been thinking about it, when actually she’d been talking. Either way, he was looking at her expectantly, waiting for an answer. “Well, in high school it was social studies, but I majored in English in college.”
Fritz threw back his head and roared. “I love your sense of humor, Ruth.” He grinned at Zack. “She’s one funny lady.”
A dry smile tugged the corners of Zack’s mouth. “You can say that again.”
Ruth grinned uncertainly, once again not sure what had prompted Fritz’s laughter but more than willing to be the cause of it. “I do my best.”
“Sheeze, Grams. What’s with all the dorky answers?” Skye rolled her eyes and turned to Fritz with a can-you-believe-how-weird-my-relatives-are, see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with look. “She mostly takes pictures of license plates.”
Pictures. He was asking about pictures. Ruth would have wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole, except for the fact that Fritz thought she was witty.
He looked at her now with complete fascination. “Wow, what a coincidence. I collect plates myself.”
Might as well stick with what worked. Ruth cocked her head at a coquettish angle. “Paper or china?”
Fritz’s laughter filled the room. “You’re really something, Ruth.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Good, because it’s meant as one.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. They must have stayed like that for quite a while, because the next thing Ruth knew, Kate was discreetly clearing her throat.
“Do you have a lot of license plates, Mr. Gibson?” Kate asked.
“Call me Fritz. And yeah—a whole wall of my house is covered with them. I’ve got at least one from every state.”
“So does Grams!” Skye interjected. “Not the actual plates, but photos of them. She’s got books and books of license plate photos. And they’re all from vehicles that drove down our street.”
Fritz’s eyes were full of admiration. “Hey, that’s really cool.” Ruth couldn’t resist shooting Kate and Skye a triumphant look. Here, finally, was someone who appreciated her efforts. “I love the symbolism,” Fritz was saying.
Skye’s brow scrunched together. “What symbolism?”
“That the whole world is within reach.”
“Ha! In Grams’s case, it’s more like the whole world is passing her by.”
Ruth felt as if she’d been slapped with a big bag of ice. The words skated through her mind, hard and cold and painful. Was that what Skye really thought? Did Kate think that, too? Worst of all, was it true?
“Skye Marie Matthews.” Kate fixed her daughter with a reprimanding glare. “That was rude and uncalled for.”
“Sorry,” Skye mumbled.
The exchange seemed lost on Fritz. He was still gazing at Ruth admiringly. “I’d love to see your photos sometime.”
Ruth nodded numbly.
“What about tomorrow? We’re only shooting two scenes, so I’ll be free in the evening. I could come by around six, look at your pictures, then take you out to dinner.”
Tomorrow! Oh, dear—he wasn’t talking about an abstract sometime. He really wanted to come over! A wave of panic rushed through her. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of letting a man into her home—into her life.
Her mind starting piling up reasons like sandbags against a spring flood. She wasn’t interested in dating. And she didn’t really know anything about him, aside from the fact that he had amazing eyes and an incredible smile and an apparent appreciation for non sequiturs. He could be an ax murderer, for all she knew. Zack worked with him, but still… People had worked with John Wayne Gacy and never known what he was really like.
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Already got plans, huh?”
“Are you kidding?” Skye exclaimed. “Grams never has any pl—ow!” Skye rubbed her side and shot her mother an accusing look.
Fritz’s gaze stayed on Ruth. “Don’t tell me you’re married.”
“N-no.”
“Seein’ someone?”
“Oh, no, no. It’s just…”
“Grams never goes out with… hey!” Skye rubbed her rib and glared at Kate. “Why do you do keep poking me?”
“Ruth is very cautious about who she sees,” Zack said smoothly. “She doesn’t usually go out with someone she’s just met.” He turned to Ruth. “I can vouch for Fritz. He’s one of the most respected cinematographers in Hollywood, and I’ve known him for years.”
“But Grams never—” Skye began.
“I'd be delighted,” Ruth said abruptly, surprising even herself. “If Zack vouches for you."
“Great!” Fritz flashed that wide grin again, then hauled a small notepad out of the back pocket of his jeans. “I’ll need your address and phone number… and think about where you want to go eat.”
The notepad was warm with his body heat. A hot shiver scooted along her spine as she opened it and jotted down the information. Their fingers touched as she handed it back, and she felt a static shock.
“Hey, Fritz—ya want an uplight here?” a young man in a dingy white muscle shirt called from behind the bar.
Fritz gave Ruth an apologetic smile. “Duty calls. See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Ruth echoed, wondering what on earth she’d done.
She was still wondering about it the following evening as she peered out the window, nervously smoothing the skirt of her long denim dress. Why, oh why had she agreed to this? She didn’t consort with strange men—especially men who looked like pirates and made her feel all jumpy and addle-brained. She hadn’t consorted with a man since Pete. And she had no intention of consorting with Fritz, either.
