“That’s Zelda Quinn!” Marissa gasped after the KSMY reporter and her beleaguered cameraman had pushed through them and were hurrying down the corridor toward the ICU.
Holly shook her head. “Oh, this is bad.”
“Very bad,” Dot agreed.
And it certainly had that potential. With a dramatic streak of white hair traversing an otherwise jet-black coif, Zelda Quinn was a very recognizable presence in the community, ferreting out stories or, on slow news days, fanning smoky wisps of gossip into sizzling segments that she passed off as news.
And, having been temporarily forced out of the market by the smooth-talking (and conservatively coiffed) Grayson Mann, only to be reinstated after Mann’s career meltdown and subsequent lockup, Zelda Quinn still harbored feelings of insecurity that (in a classic case of overcompensation) resulted in over-the-top reporting. Zelda Quinn wanted stories with flair! A sense of urgency and drama! And this story certainly had that. Plus the godsend of a celebrity connection!
Ratings would be through the roof!
Los Angeles markets might even see her!
And there was that elusive Emmy she’d always dreamed of accepting.
So Zelda Quinn had big plans to get to the bottom of what she had dubbed (without thought to alternate interpretations) the “Girl Hurled” story, and those plans included getting an interview with (or at least some really fine footage of) that hunka-hunka heartthrob Darren Cole.
Even if that meant camping out at the hospital.
Or breaking a few silly rules.
The public had a right to know!
So. Zelda whooshed down the hallway to pursue an Emmy, while Marissa and the others whooshed down the elevator to pursue Sergeant Borsch.
Which left Sammy in Room 411, all alone.
Down in the cafeteria, Rita was quickly approaching a breaking point. After Darren and Lana had joined her and Hudson, Lana had revved back into diva overdrive, complaining about everything from the coffee to the air-conditioning (which was, admittedly, on the chilly side), to the hospital’s “complete and utter disregard for a parent’s agony.”
“Stop!” Rita finally begged her daughter. “This isn’t helping anything!”
“She’s just worried,” Darren said as he texted a friend of a friend of a neurosurgeon at Stanford.
“And I’m not?” Rita snapped.
“Oh, forgive me for not wanting to chitchat about the weather!” Lana snapped back.
“I barely mentioned it!”
“And I barely mentioned the air-conditioning! Which anyone can tell is set to subzero!”
Rita turned to Hudson and said, “I need some fresh air.”
Lana gave a little snort. “Isn’t that typical?” She turned to Darren. “You wonder how I got so good at running away from my problems?” She pointed to Rita. “There’s your answer!”
“That does it!” Rita said, standing up. “It’s time you stopped blaming me for all your problems and took a good hard look in the mirror!”
“Me?” Lana squeaked. “How about you? You were so strict with me, but you let Samantha run wild!” She leaned in closer to her mother. “Why do you think we’re in this predicament?”
Rita’s jaw dropped.
Her cheeks flushed.
And finally alarms began clanging in both Darren’s and Hudson’s brains.
This was more than another mother-daughter spat.
This was serious!
“Fresh air sounds like a very good idea,” Hudson said, moving his sputtering wife toward the exit.
“Lana’s just exhausted and worried,” Darren called apologetically.
“And I’m not?” Rita spat out. “But you don’t hear me blaming her for this.”
“Me?” Lana cried. “Me? How could you possibly blame me?”
And, incredulous right back, Rita took off the kid gloves and let the verbal knuckles fly. “Where have you been for the past three years? Seeing that your child was safe and secure and tucked in every night? No! You were too busy pampering your overblown ego!”
“My what?!”
Hudson cut in, calling, “We’ll meet you upstairs in a while,” as he swept Rita out the door.
“Can you believe her?” Rita cried when they were outside. “After everything I’ve done to help her live her dream, this is the way she looks at things?”
“She feels guilty,” Hudson said quietly, keeping his arm around his wife as they walked along.
“No, she doesn’t! She’s pointing the finger at me.”
“You’re her scapegoat, sweetheart,” Hudson said. “She knows that she’s done a lot wrong—it’s just too painful to face.”
“So she’d rather point the finger at me?”
“It’s easier to point the finger at you.” He gave his wife’s shoulder a little squeeze. “You have every right to be mad. But I almost pity her, Rita. She missed so much.”
They walked along, silent but for the click-click-click of Rita’s heels on the sidewalk.
Which soon became the (somewhat duller-sounding) click-click-click of Rita’s heels on asphalt.
“Where are we going?” Hudson asked, because his wife was now walking in that determined way that women do when they have something urgent to take care of.
“I need to change my clothes,” Rita said, beelining toward Hudson’s car.
“But … what’s wrong with what you’re wearing?”
Rita replied with the mantra of women everywhere: “My shoes are all wrong.”
“Your shoes?”
“Yes,” Rita cried (and she was now also crying), “my shoes!”
Hudson said, “Ah,” then drove her home, where Rita switched into jeans as he located the red high-tops Sammy had given her the year before.
Rita wept the whole time she was changing, but as she snugged up her shoelaces, her eyes began to dry, and by the time the second shoe was pulled tight and the laces tucked away (as she’d seen Sammy do nearly every day of her teen life), she’d found another reserve of strength.
“To the Highrise,” she said with her chin pushed resolutely forward.
And although Hudson really wanted to ask, “Uh … why?” he again simply drove her where she wanted to go.
“Park here,” Rita instructed, a full block from the building, then led her husband on a long walk around the Highrise to the fire escape.
“I’m surprised the area isn’t cordoned off as a crime scene,” Hudson said. And as his wife started up the fire-escape stairs, he couldn’t help but ask, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Positive,” Rita replied.
When they reached the third-floor landing, the pair looked over the edge. And when Rita began visibly shivering, Hudson wrapped her in his arms and said, “Why are we here?”
But Rita simply shook her head and dug down for strength. Then she checked the third-floor door (which was locked and latched) and went up to the fourth floor. “This is the spot where she scared that man to death,” she said, referring to a night Sammy had surprised a man with a weak heart and a guilty conscience as he’d tried to slip out of the building unnoticed. “That was quite a night.”
“You do this like a pro,” Hudson said as they continued up to the fifth floor.
“I’ve been up and down a few times,” she replied, then looked over her shoulder at him. “Mostly the time Lana let Samantha’s cat escape.”
At the fifth-floor landing, Hudson looked back down the way they’d come. “The reality of this is much different from the theory,” he remarked. And after a moment of visualizing Sammy using the fire escape, day and night, to school and back, to the market and back, to the mall and back, to his house and back, for years, he asked, “How did she do this in the rain?”
Rita stood beside him and looked over the railing—a terrifying view. “She never complained,” she said, moving away from the edge. “She just did it.”
“And the door?” Hudson asked, turning around to face it. “How’d it st
ay unlocked?”
“Bubblegum,” Rita said, pulling it open and showing him the large, pale pink wad in the jamb. “The door looks and feels locked, but it’s not latched.”
Hudson studied it a moment. “Shouldn’t we remove the bubblegum, now that you no longer live here?”
But there was something about the secret back entry that Rita wasn’t ready to let go of. Something about knowing she could come and go as she pleased, without notice or questioning. It was more than a matter of holding on to the past.
It was the sheer sleuthiness of it.
Although what, exactly, she was sleuthing, she didn’t know. Clearly, there was nothing to be seen regarding what had happened to Samantha. And why else would she want to be there?
Still, removing her granddaughter’s bubblegum was like voluntarily closing up a secret passageway. A passageway that suddenly reminded her of things she’d read about in books as a youth. Like a revolving bookcase that led to a labyrinth of secret hallways and spying portals. Or the hidden door behind a heavy velvet curtain! Or the floor panel under the old rug that exposed a staircase going down, down, down …!
Granted, this was just a steel door into a decrepit building full of old people, but it was as close to a secret passageway as she’d ever come.
So Rita simply said, “Not yet,” in response to Hudson’s question and led him down the hallway to where her old apartment awaited its new resident. “This is very strange,” she whispered, hesitating at the apartment door.
They stood there for a full minute, and when he just couldn’t stand it anymore, Hudson asked, “Is there a reason we’re here?”
Now, not knowing that Sergeant Borsch had done almost the exact same tour hours before, Rita determined that the best course of action was to knock on neighbors’ doors and ask a few questions.
So that’s what she did. But unlike the encounter Gil Borsch had had with twitching noses and squeaking voices, Rita was assaulted with full views of her former neighbors and a flurry of accusations and cutting remarks.
“What are you doing back here?”
“Oh, look. It’s the bride.”
“Get a load of those shoes. She must think she’s a hipster or something.”
“You never once knocked on my door before, and now you expect me to give you information?”
“Just ask the police, why don’t you?”
“Yeah. That pork belly was here earlier.”
“Or watch the news. It’s all over the news.”
And then the conversation switched. Instead of the neighbors directing what they said at Rita, they started talking to each other as if Rita and Hudson weren’t even there.
“Who was that girl, anyway?”
“They didn’t say.”
“But her father’s someone famous.”
“He is? Who?”
“They didn’t come out and say, but that Zelda Quinn’s hyperventilating about it. And apparently the mother was on a soap.”
“Do you think it might have been Lords?”
“Could be.”
“Why in the world did they end that show, anyway?”
“Who knows? You see what’s on TV now. Ridiculous smut.”
“But … who was she on the show?”
“I already told you. They didn’t say. It was a teaser. The full story comes on tonight.”
“On KSMY?”
“Yes.”
“I had no idea there were any celebrities in Santa Martina!”
“Not unless you count Mayor Hibbs.”
“Oh, he thinks he’s a celebrity.”
“He has such a paunch these days, have you noticed?”
“Our tax dollars, hard at work.”
“Forget about the mayor! If there are real celebrities in town, I have to tune in!”
“Me, too!”
“Say, I have some vin rosé left in my box—I could bring it over later.”
“I have a can of olives!”
“I can bring crackers!”
“Let’s do it! My place! Five o’clock!” Then this hostess with the mostest turned a harsh eye on Rita and said, “Residents only,” and closed her door.
Suddenly alone in a quiet hallway, Rita took a deep breath and said, “Why do I feel like I’m back in school?”
Hudson chuckled. “Clearly, they have yet to graduate.”
He kissed her temple, then said, “Shall we go?”
Rita nodded, but rather than go out the way they’d come in, she said, “Let’s take a shortcut.”
Hudson laughed again. “Sounds appropriate.”
So they went down the hallway to the elevator, and down the elevator to the basement, where Rita was planning to lead Hudson down a corridor to a side exit. If her former neighbors hadn’t conveyed that a policeman had already been there, she would have braved the booming voice and good-intentioned questioning of Mr. Garnucci, but she saw no reason to do so now.
And had Rita been alone, she would likely not have gone down to the basement exit. Once past the laundry facility, the corridor was dim, and the exit itself was in a somewhat remote location. Rita had only ventured out of it once before, when she’d run out of fabric softener while doing her laundry.
But she had Hudson with her now, and the route made sense because the basement exit would let them out near the place Hudson had parked the car. And everything would have been fine and straightforward had Rita not peered through the laundry-room doorway and noticed the furtive movements of someone digging through an open dryer.
In the instant it takes to put two and two together, Rita grabbed Hudson’s arm and pulled him out of sight, then inched forward to peer around the doorway.
“What is it?” Hudson whispered.
“Shh,” Rita replied, not quite believing what she was seeing. But after another few seconds of observation, she went from shock to certainty. “Quick,” she whispered to Hudson. “We need to call Sergeant Borsch!”
9—ODD DUCKS
While Rita and Hudson were sidetracked by their shocking discovery in the Highrise basement and the six-pack of teens were across town attempting to track down Sergeant Borsch, Lana’s stress level was being pushed to an all-time high.
“Marko’s here?” she asked Darren in a way that was both accusatory and derogatory.
To Darren’s surprise, the drummer for the Troublemakers had, indeed, just entered the cafeteria. With his shaved head and the piratey look of a rock star, there was no mistaking him, and with him came (for Darren) a sense of enormous relief.
Now, this was not the complete relief Darren would have felt had he just learned that Sammy was going to be okay. Rather, this was the shoulder-lifting, burden-sharing sort of relief that comes with friendship.
A friendship forged by childhood adventures (and misadventures) and decades of being (both metaphorically and musically) Troublemakers.
“Dude!” Marko cried when he spotted his best friend. And after dropping the bag he was carrying so he could wrap Darren in a long (somewhat crushing) man hug, he pulled back and asked, “She hasn’t come to?”
Darren shook his head.
Marko studied his best friend a moment and recognized that Darren was dancing on the edge of despair. So he got to work shoring him up. “But it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours, right? And she’s a pint-sized prizefighter, right? So she’s going to pull out of it.” He clasped Darren by the shoulders. “Dude, she is going to pull out of it!”
The thing about a best friend is that they manage to carry authority without knowledge. You believe them, even if they have no idea what they’re talking about. Largely, this is because you want to believe them, and partly it’s because they’ve spoken authoritatively about things in the past that they’ve also had no actual knowledge of, and they’ve turned out to be right.
In friendship (especially those of the male variety), a few tallies in the Right column easily overpower a plethora of points in the Wrong column.
That’s just how it is. br />
The upshot of this being that Darren immediately felt better.
Lana, not so much.
The sad fact was, Lana had no friend like Marko. No sister or sis-ta. Any overtures of friendship from other young mothers had been met with a detached coolness.
Lana’d had plans beyond the jungle gym.
She’d needed to focus on her goals.
And once she’d returned to Hollywood, she’d found she needed to focus even harder. It was impossible to trust competing actors, and every role seemed to become a ruthless competition.
It was also hard to make friends when you were hiding your real age, your embarrassing past, and the fact that you had a teenage daughter.
So Marko’s sudden appearance at the hospital was, for Lana, a reminder of what she’d sacrificed.
Plus, Marko was … childish.
And always tapping on things.
And how many times could a grown man say “Dude!” anyway?
Lana knew better than to express her disapproval at the Troublemaking intrusion … but then came the shoes.
“Dude, you’re gonna want to have these on when she wakes up,” Marko said, handing over the bag he’d brought. And when Darren saw that the bag contained the high-tops Sammy had given him, he immediately sat down, wrestled out of his boots, and laced on the shoes.
Lana knew that these shoes had been customized by Sammy—“scribbled on” by her with little sayings and inside jokes. They were very similar to the shoes Casey had given Sammy for her fourteenth birthday, and they were, in a word, ugly.
(And in another word, childish.)
(And in a third, ridiculous.)
(And in a … Well, it was best not to get her started.)
The bottom line was that Lana just didn’t get it. Not about high-tops (which seemed flat, ill-fitting, and with their clownlike extension in the toe, not at all flattering), or the need to deface with Sharpies something that was ugly to begin with.
So with the shoes out of the bag, the disapproving vibe coming off of Lana was now palpable.
But Darren (being both male and in the presence of his best bro) was oblivious. “So glad you’re here, man,” he said as he grasped Marko in another quick hug.