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Oh, well, she could make this fun. “You drive a hard bargain. I know exactly the place.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Done.”

  Merry grinned. She was going to show him. “Okay, you’re on.”

  Chapter 5

  Jake parked in front of her house, a small bungalow in a quiet Pasadena neighborhood situated on a large lot. The house looked small from the outside, with huge hydrangeas flanking the sidewalk leading up to the shaded front porch. Large live oaks towered over the bungalow. A huge orange-colored cat sat on the first step, staring at him.

  He walked up the pathway approaching the cat. The cat didn’t even blink as he put one foot on the step. He walked up to the front door and almost fell in love with its old-fashioned rounded top and small stained glass window set at eye level.

  He punched the doorbell and, after a moment, heard the sound of footsteps from inside. Merry threw open the door. The cat darted inside, gave a slight meow and disappeared down the hallway. Merry took one look at Jake and shook her head. “You’re wearing a suit.”

  “We’re going to dinner.”

  “A casual dinner,” she said with a sigh.

  She wore a stylish white sundress with red polka dots. The hem ended midway between thigh and knee, showing off her long, slender legs. The sleeveless dress displayed her toned arms. Her feet were decorated with expensive sandals that had ribbons that wound around her ankles. If not for the fact that he worked with so many fashion-conscious women, he would never have known they were Valentino. He caught a whiff of her perfume and inhaled the heady scent. He tried to identify it but couldn’t. And he thought he knew his perfumes.

  “Nice shoes,” he said.

  “I know. Shoes are my kryptonite. The secret is out. But if it makes you feel any better, I found the dress on sale at Saks at the year-end sale. Perfect for the beach.” She tilted her head.

  “You didn’t say we were going to the beach.”

  “I said cheap. I thought we decided on the kind of cheap that doesn’t include Hugo Boss suits and ties.” She eyed him critically. “Lose the tie and hopefully no one will notice.”

  He found himself peering over her shoulder, trying to get a feel for her house. She raised her eyebrows. “Would you like to come in a moment and see my home? It has quite the history.”

  She opened the door wider and he walked inside, his shoes loud on her wood floor. The hallway spanned the center of the house. On his left was a medium-size living room decorated in blond-colored wood furniture that had a definite arts and crafts look to it.

  “The house used to belong to Ernie Cordova.”

  “He was a singer. Did a string of Busby Berkeley musicals back in the thirties and forties. This house was party central. In fact, you are walking on floors that supported the weight of W.C. Fields, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.”

  He didn’t want to be impressed, but he was. “That’s quite a history.” He’d expected a very different house from what she showed him.

  He expected to find a house filled with clutter, with drawing materials everywhere. Instead, she showed him a tidy dining room and the kitchen. Each room was a masterpiece of arts and crafts simplicity, with elegant art deco Erté lithographs on the walls and a few canvases that she explained had been painted by her mother. Even her office was a surprise. He had thought it would be filled with tons of photos of herself and the awards she’d won. Instead, he found a couple of photos on one wall and two awards tucked away inside a bookcase.

  “I’ve been in many of my clients’ homes,” he said as he looked around at the office, which had been tastefully decorated with wood panels, bookcases, a tilted drawing table with a gooseneck lamp and a tidy wooden desk. “They have photos of themselves everywhere.” Especially Annie Gray, whose small condo was literally littered with her stuff. “Why not you?”

  “That’s my past,” she said, touching the corner of a photo of her and her costars from Maddie’s Mad World. “It’s fun to remember my acting days, but I think the future is much more exciting. Every day is a mystery and a challenge.”

  He was dumfounded at her answer. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “From what I see, you deal with the worst of celebrities. You wouldn’t have a job if the majority of the people you deal with were financially responsible. Does that change your opinion of me?”

  Every moment with her was a surprise. A surprise he found he liked. His own clients were so predictable and Merry was so charmingly unpredictable. Even if she was going to make him walk in the sand at the beach.

  Usually he was right on the money with people. He could tell by just looking at them how financially strapped they were. Usually the more expensive their clothes, the more in debt they were.

  Merry was so very different from the character she’d played on Maddie’s Mad World. Chloe had been kooky and a bit naive. Merry was so different—more like the savvy girl next door. She was quick and smart, always ready with a comeback. Chloe had been easily led astray. Merry was focused and on task almost all the time. He was starting to like Merry the woman better than the Chloe he’d had a crush on. Chloe had been charming in her way, but Merry was devastatingly delightful.

  She led him out onto the back patio to a long, narrow yard filled with a jungle that was taller than he. In the middle of the jungle he saw a pool, the blue water sparkling in the sun.

  “You like the garden,” he said.

  “Actually, I like to swim. My gardener likes to garden.” She led him down an overgrown path to the pool, which was more a lap pool than for playing in.

  Again, he was surprised. She looked at her watch. “We’d better get going. You look like you’re brooding, so let’s go have some beach time.” She turned back to the house.

  He opened the door to his Mercedes sedan and she slid into the passenger seat.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Venice Beach,” she answered.

  “What’s in Venice Beach?”

  “The world’s best-kept secret.”

  He pulled smoothly out onto the street and headed for the freeway. He liked the way she looked in his car with her cheerful dress and her long legs crossed neatly at the ankles. Her ponytail swayed gently as he turned onto the entry ramp. He caught another whiff of her subtle perfume.

  “So tell me,” he said as he merged into the freeway traffic, “what was it like being an actress?”

  She tilted her head as she thought. “That’s a broad question.”

  “Did you like being a child actress?” he said.

  “All the time,” she said. “I loved it. I loved the hard work, the energy. By the time you’re six or seven you stop believing in make-believe, but as a child actress, I got to stay inside that make-believe world until I was almost eighteen.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have stunted your growth in any way.”

  “My parents were very grounded, which was good for me. Because if I’d had crazy parents, I probably would have ended up crazy. One of the best things my mother did was value artistic expression, but she was still practical. She would never have abandoned us and run off to Tahiti to pursue her art. She might have made us all move with her, but she’d never do anything that put her art first. And that’s what I learned. I could be an artist and still live in the real world. What about you? You grew up with an amusement park as your playground.”

  Jake found himself smiling. “It was fun. I could ride the carousel for as long as I wanted. But I never knew if my friends wanted to hang out with me because they liked me or because they wanted free tickets.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. It was easier to have friends in the business.”

  “Was your sister jealous?”

  She turned to study him. “What’s with the deep and personal here?”

  “Just asking.”

  “Noelle had her own interests that my parents encouraged. She can draw and paint and sculpt and create exquisite glass sculptures. She can make something out
of nothing.”

  “What about what you do? Your house is a show place.”

  “Say what you will, everything in that house is something I love, and the lucky part was that it all worked together.”

  Traffic was heavy for a Saturday. It seemed that, with the prolonged hundred-degree weather, everyone was heading for the beach. They fell into silence as Jake concentrated on driving. He thought about Merry and what her childhood had been like compared to his own. As a child, he’d loved the park, but he’d grown to resent it as it had consumed his father’s time.

  Not until he was an adult and graduated from college did he realize all the advantages the park had given him. It had paid for his education. He’d learned to deal with difficult people. He could operate every ride and even do some simple fixes when something broke down. He’d learned to handle money.

  His father had made sure he could do everything, and after a while he’d realized the park was a family business even though he and his sister had chosen very different paths. He wondered if his father had been hurt by the direction his life had gone. If so, he’d never said a word. Thinking back on his life, his father had subtly encouraged him to seek his own way.

  He realized his father didn’t want to retire. His father loved that park. He’d helped build it with his own hands; he’d put his soul into it. Which made Jake start thinking about his grandparents and how they must have felt when his father had decided to build the park instead of farming.

  “You’re frowning. What are you thinking about?” Merry asked.

  “My father,” he said. “He always encouraged me to go my own way, but I started wondering what he really wanted for me. I know he would have liked me to take over the park, but I didn’t have any interest in it and neither did my sister.”

  “My parents weren’t too thrilled about my acting. I had to do a lot of tap dancing and make a lot of promises to get my mom to take me to auditions.”

  “What kind of promises?”

  “No grades lower than an A minus, and I had to sign a contract that I would go to college.”

  “You’d think your mother would support a daughter in the arts. After all, she’s renowned for her stained glass.”

  “Yeah, with her degree in political science. My parents were the hedge-your-bets kind of people. After all, look how my acting career turned out.”

  “Are you unhappy with what you’re doing?” he asked, wondering if his father had made a mistake hiring her.

  “I love what I’m doing.” She leaned toward him. “But don’t tell anybody, I like set design a lot more than I ever liked acting.”

  He glanced at her, totally surprised. “I would never have known that.”

  “Acting is a lot of pressure. Pressure to remain thin, pressure to look a certain way and everything I did was scrutinized. I couldn’t take a lunch break at McDonald’s without someone taking a photo. And it’s even worse now with Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Honestly, I do not miss the spotlight, but I do occasionally miss that feeling of being special. It’s addictive. But long-term relationships are hard to maintain.”

  As they approached the beach, they exited the freeway and fell into a long line of cars snaking down the boulevard.

  “Being a celebrity did not do many of my clients any favors.”

  “You have to realize that the second you become a commodity, people treat you differently. Some people don’t tell you no, letting you have whatever you want whenever you want it as long as you’re famous. The second you stop being famous, everything goes away, and a lot of people will start telling you no, and you don’t know how to react to that. A case in point is Maddie. She was cute and perky as a child and everyone loved her, but the minute she blossomed, her career went away and she couldn’t manage the change. A lot of child actors get lost and never recover. My parents kept me grounded, and every day I feel lucky.”

  “Are you saying you’re lucky to have survived your career or not to have had a longer one?”

  “Both,” she said. “Turn right at the next light.”

  People walked along the sidewalks carrying picnic baskets and towels over their arms, wearing big-brimmed hats that shaded their faces. He could smell the salt in the air; seagulls floated overhead.

  “Turn down that alley,” she said.

  “But there’s no parking,” he protested as he turned into an alley shaded by large palm trees swaying in the ocean breeze. Carports opened onto the alley. He glimpsed tiny yards. The salt smell of the ocean was stronger than before, and he knew they were a block, maybe two, from the beach and that this area was prime real estate.

  She directed him to a covered carport halfway down the alley.

  “We can’t park here. This is private property,” he said, though the thought of trying to find parking in a public lot would be daunting on a day like this.

  “This is my grandparents’ house. Trust me, we’ll be fine, and at the same time I’ll find you something to wear besides a black suit.”

  He parked his Mercedes in the carport and she jumped out of the car, a set of keys in her hand. “I come here all the time. They won’t mind.”

  Inside, the cottage was small but tidy. Painted in soothing blues and grays, the furnishings were a little worn but comfortable. The rooms smelled a little musty, but Merry cranked open the windows and fresh air, along with the scent of some flower, blew in and freshened the room.

  “Now,” she said, hands on her hips as she studied him, “to find you something to wear.”

  “Nothing too loud.” Visions of plaid shorts and a blaring orange shirt filled his head.

  “My grandfather is very conservative.”

  “Then nothing too old man,” he replied, thinking he would come out smelling like mothballs.

  Merry laughed as she walked down a narrow hallway. He stepped into the small living room. Four overstuffed chairs skirted a coffee table and shared space with a baby grand piano that barely left any room to maneuver. Behind the piano, sliding doors opened onto a large patio so overgrown with bushes and flowers he thought it was a jungle. On top of the piano were dozens of photos in plain frames. He glanced through them and saw Merry and her sister in various stages of growth, from babyhood to college graduations.

  “Jake,” Merry called.

  He stepped into the hall and she stood at the end in front of an open door. She held khaki shorts and a purple-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt.

  “No on the shirt,” Jake said.

  “Come help me,” she said.

  He stepped toward her. At the end of the hallway, he glimpsed a bright kitchen that was large and comfortable, and he instantly knew that this room was the real gathering place in the house, with its modern appliances, granite countertops and island with stools situated around it. A fireplace in the corner was flanked by a small sofa and matching chairs.

  He followed her into a small, cozy bedroom decorated in green with a fireplace that was shared with the kitchen and a large bed with a bench at the foot.

  “Something in white,” he said when she pulled out another Hawaiian shirt, only slightly less loud than the first one.

  Merry laughed again. She pulled out a white, short-sleeved pullover and tossed it to him. “The bathroom is through there.” She left, closing the door after her.

  He didn’t feel comfortable in such casual clothes, but he knew he’d start to broil in his black suit once he was out in the sun. He neatly hung his suit coat, shirt and pants over a small wooden valet in a corner of the bedroom and donned the clothes she’d given him.

  When he walked back into the living room, she was rummaging in another closet, and finally pulled out what she was looking for. She handed him a pair of sandals that adjusted with Velcro.

  “Better,” she said, looking him up and down. “Now you won’t stick out like a sore thumb.”

  The sandals were a little big, but he pulled the Velcro straps tight. This was not how he pictured himself. He’d never been a beach person, but he�
�d agreed to a party once, and even though he’d had fun, he hadn’t much liked the sand that got into everything.

  Despite the breeze, the boardwalk was hot. People on skateboards, wearing roller skates or just walking moved along it. Waves slapped against the sandy beach, the roar a pleasant background sound for the chatter of voices. A few surfers sat on their boards a couple of hundred feet out waiting for the next wave. He was surprised at the risk the surfers were taking. Two great white sharks had been caught recently, which was one of the reasons Jake didn’t swim in the ocean. That, and he couldn’t see what was under him. The movie Jaws had scared him enough to confine his swimming to the swim park.

  Two dogs bounded through the surf chasing Frisbees. Shops lined the street facing the beach, and he noticed there was a preponderance of tattoo parlors.

  She led him down the boardwalk, passing a Chinese restaurant, a dozen T-shirt stores, a couple of stores showcasing what his father called TTTS, or ticky-tacky tourist shit, and another two tattoo parlors. She stopped at a pathway between a tattoo parlor and a Thai restaurant.

  “We’re eating at a tattoo parlor!” he said.

  “Get inked while you eat your shrimp tacos,” was her flippant answer.

  He couldn’t help teasing her. “What makes you think I’m not inked? I deal with rock stars and rappers every day. I’m down.”

  She stopped to look at him, eyes narrowed. “Is that an invitation to rip your clothes off right here and see what I can find?”

  “You wouldn’t want to ruin your grandfather’s clothes, would you?”

  She led him down the tiny pathway into a courtyard-type garden with tables clustered around a fountain and striped umbrellas shading the tables. Two tables were occupied, the rest empty. She led him to an empty table covered in brown butcher paper and sat down.

  He sat down opposite her. He couldn’t ever remember eating at a restaurant where he seated himself.

  A man came out with an apron wrapped around his waist, holding a wooden board with a small loaf of bread on it. He slapped the bread down on the table and opened his arms wide.