Just South of Paradise Page 6

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asks, rubbing Augustus’ cheeks. He gives her a slobbery kiss.

  Tasha brings them through the house and onto the back patio, where they will be out of her way but have water and comfy beds to relax in while she finishes up. Not long now!

  Tasha fills up a bucket of water and disinfectant and wipes down all the kitchen counters, cabinet doors, assorted tables, and the leather dining room chairs. The only thing left is to clean the floors. Tasha uses the wood cleaner for the hardwood and switches to all-purpose cleaner for the kitchen tile as Laura instructed. By the time she is finished, the house smells lemony fresh.

  “Done,” Tasha says to herself with a happy sigh. She knows better than to wake Candace while the floors are still wet, though, so she goes to sit outside with the dogs for fifteen minutes while they dry out. It’s surprisingly easy to relax and bask in the sun. Poncho falls asleep in her lap, and Augustus does the same with his big head resting on her thigh.

  A scene floats into her head while she soaks in the beautiful LA afternoon. It’s half memory, half dream. Open mic night at some random karaoke bar in Koreatown, on one of her first nights in the big city after making the move from Willow Beach. The song she chose was one of her mother’s favorites, Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” She’d always liked singing it. That night, in that quiet backwater karaoke bar, the future had felt so attainable. Tasha was singing and people were watching and she was finally here, in the city of stars, on the threshold of her dreams.

  If she’d known then that she wouldn’t get much farther in the months and years to come, she might’ve dropped the mic and ran crying into the street.

  But she didn’t know that, and her performance was so much the better for it. She sang, people clapped, and she left the stage with the warm buzz of being at long last where she was always meant to be.

  Her timer goes off, startling her back to reality. The floors are dry. Tasha reluctantly gets up, and she and the dogs reenter the house together, walking to Candace’s bedroom door. She knocks.

  “What?” Candace sounds sleepy and irritated, a deadly combination.

  “I’m done,” Tasha says through the door.

  “Come in.”

  Tasha enters, smiling hopefully. She did everything Candace asked and she did it well. Surely even her grumpy boss can mutter a word of thanks for that.

  Candace is sitting in bed, sleep mask pushed up to her forehead. Her long blonde hair is braided down her shoulder and she is wearing a silky tank top in a delicate coral. She is fresh-faced, cheeks pink, eyes glittering. People are not supposed to look this good when they wake up from a nap.

  “You did it all?” Candace asks.

  “Yep. Bathed the dogs, vacuumed the floors and furniture, disinfected the surfaces, and scrubbed the floors.” Tasha smiles. “Is there anything else you need before I go?”

  Candace’s mouth tilts, and her eyes take on a wicked gleam. “There is one thing.”

  “Uh, sure.” Unease flits through Tasha’s belly. Why is Candace looking at her like that?

  “Tell me why you thought it would be a good idea to slip a script into my Monday delivery.”

  Tasha’s heart crashes through the bottom of her rib cage and sinks into her belly. Oh no.

  “I-I don’t know what—”

  Candace cuts her off. “You do know!” She rips off her sleep mask and tosses it onto the bed. “You thought you could manipulate me. You thought I was stupid enough that I wouldn’t notice! I called my agent to ask about Summer Dreams and he had never heard of Chuck Foster, so I looked him up and, surprise surprise, which little Backstabber Barbie do I find smirking next to him in his Facebook profile picture?”

  “Candace, I’m sorry,” Tasha whimpers, clasping her hands in front of her. “My boyfriend adores you and wrote that screenplay specifically for you. It means so much to him and I would never have betrayed your trust if it wasn’t for a good reason.”

  Candace shakes her head, expression dark. “You should get used to doing the kind of manual labor you did today,” she says. “You’ll never work in Hollywood again. Now get out of my house.”

  “Candace—”

  “Out!”

  Tasha turns on her heel and heads for the front door, taking deep breaths to try to keep herself from crying. Augustus and Poncho jump up from their beds in the living room and follow her, tails wagging. Tasha sinks to the ground to pet them. Her eyes sting.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” she sniffs. “I’m sure the next person will take just as good care of you.”

  Poncho licks her face, trying to get his tongue up her nose. It’s hardly the dignified goodbye she hoped for.

  Tasha kisses each of the dogs on the head and grabs her bag from the foyer. She takes one last look at the house, the dogs, the glamorous life that she never came close to achieving.

  Then she walks out the door and leaves forever.

  Tasha shuffles into her apartment and drops her bag on the ground. She sighs.

  It’s over.

  Her whole career is over before it even began. She has written her name in red ink on the naughty list of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. There’s no coming back from that.

  She enters the living room and is shocked to find Chuck sitting on the sofa, playing on his phone. He doesn’t turn to look at her, which means he’s probably still angry. Tasha doesn’t care. She needs comfort and she needs it now.

  “Chuck?” she says, walking around the couch and sinking onto the cushions next to him. She grabs his hand and leans her head on his shoulder. “I messed up.”

  Chuck sets his phone on the coffee table and pats her back. “Yeah, you did.”

  “No, I don’t mean that.” She sniffs, lip quivering. “Candace fired me.” Tears spring from her eyes and she starts to blubber. “I put the script in the pile but she found out and now she’s furious and she fired me and said I’m never going to work in Hollywood again!” Tasha dissolves into wordless sobs. Her shoulders shake and she gasps for air, feeling the weight of the world crushing her with every breath. It’s all over. She’s finished.

  “How the heck did she find out?” Chuck asks, pushing her up from his shoulder. He meets her gaze. “Did someone see you? How did you mess it up? It should have been easy.”

  Tasha wipes her tears on the back of her hand, frowning. “I didn’t mess it up. She asked her agent about it and he’d never heard of you.”

  “She asked her agent about it?” He brightens. “So she must have read at least a little bit. What did she think? Did she like it?”

  Tasha’s mouth flattens. “I didn’t ask her.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t ask her?”

  “I was a little busy being fired!” Tasha snaps.

  Chuck’s brows pull down in anger. “That’s your own fault! You had a sterling opportunity to talk up my screenplay and convince Candace to back it and you screwed it up!” He stands abruptly, ripping his hand from Tasha’s grip. “You’ve ruined everything!”

  Tasha’s mouth falls open in shock. “I’ve ruined everything?” She surges to her feet. “I put my career on the line for you because you made me feel bad. That’s all you do! You manipulate me into doing whatever you want by telling me how to feel, what to think, what to do. You’re so selfish that you don’t care about how it hurts me in the long run.”

  “I’m selfish?” he sneers. “I have done everything for you!”

  Tasha clenches her fists. “You only help me so you can hold it over my head!” she yells.

  “What an awful thing to say.” Chuck paints hurt on his features, but Tasha isn’t buying it.

  All her frustrations and anxieties from the last two years of their relationship are bubbling to the surface. Tasha tried—she did something stupid to try to help Chuck out and now she has lost everything. Candace was her ticket to fame.

  And now it’s all over.

  “You’re toxic, Chuck.” Tasha crosses her arms, heart pounding. �
��I’ve wasted years believing that I was the problem in this relationship, but it’s you. It’s always been you. You’re a bad person and a bad boyfriend.”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “From experience!” she cries. “You’re controlling. You always have been. From the beginning, you’ve tried to be in charge of everything. You made me shirk auditions that could have been great opportunities because you thought they were too small-time. You told me if I started small, I would always be small. But look where that’s gotten me! ‘Small-time’ would be a step up from here!”

  Tasha always defended Chuck, even to herself, in the past, and suddenly it’s like she has a clear picture of their relationship for the first time. He started out sweet and overly complimentary, building her up so he could get behind her defenses. And from there it was chip, chip, chip away at her spirit. Now, in the heat of her anger and grief, it’s all pouring out like it had been waiting for precisely this moment to erupt.

  “You take me to parties but tell me not to talk to anyone because I’ll just ruin my chances of networking if I do,” she continues. “You treat me like I’m some imbecile you need to herd through the polite conventions of Hollywood society. You even tell me what to wear!”

  Chuck glowers at her. “Green makes your eyes pop.”

  “I know green makes my eyes pop!” Tasha shouts, throwing her hands in the air. “But that’s the thing—you’re not always wrong, and maybe sometimes you do really think you’re helping, but your priority has always been yourself. And now what? I did what you wanted, and I’m out of a job, I’m out of a career, I’m out of everything. All because I lied. For you.” Tasha shakes her head. “You will never love me as much as you love yourself. I will always play second fiddle to your ego.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Tasha takes a deep breath and looks him deep in the eyes. “I’m saying we’re through, Chuck.” Her heart slams against her ribs and she keeps her hands clenched so Chuck will not see them shaking.

  When Chuck speaks, his voice is low and sharp. “You’re making a mistake,” he says. “You aren’t anything without me.”

  “I am,” she responds. “I’m a whole lot of something without you. I just don’t know what kind of something. But I’m going to find out.”

  8

  Melanie

  The piano’s gentle melody floats through the restaurant, winding its way around the diners and swirling down into Melanie’s glass of wine. She takes a sip and can practically taste the gentle chord progressions. The candle centerpiece floods the table in a buttery glow.

  It is the perfect place to spend their anniversary. Derek has been a little absent lately, but he is smiling and laughing now. His blonde hair glows gold in the dim light. It was long when they were teenagers, but now he wears it short and combed back, though with a little curl that sometimes falls over his forehead. His eyes are icy, gray pools. He has a little scar on the top left of his lip from skateboarding, a relic of his past.

  How far they have both come. Her, a veterinarian. Him, an accountant. They did it together.

  A waiter floats by, whisking away the plates from their starters. Melanie can still taste the creamy brie and garlic on her tongue.

  Derek clasps her hand across the table. “I really wanted us to have one more night like this.”

  “We can have an infinite number of nights like this,” Melanie replies, smiling. “I think after being married for so long it becomes easy to forget how nice it is in each other’s’ company.”

  Derek’s smile slips. “That’s not what I meant,” he murmurs. “I’m leaving, Melanie.”

  His voice sounds as though it is very distant, like he’s whispering from the other side of the restaurant. Then it echoes and grows, like waves building as they roll toward the shore, and soon his words crash against her again like a roar.

  I’m leaving, Melanie.

  Melanie shakes her head, laughs it off. A joke, a simple joke, albeit one in awfully poor taste. The candle flickers.

  “Don’t leave before the duck,” she giggles.

  Derek’s eyes glint like steel. His mouth flattens and he pulls his hand back. “I’m serious,” he says. “I got a job driving trucks all over the country. I’ll finally get out of this place.”

  Melanie’s heart thuds in her chest. “Get out?” she asks, panic rising. “But we’re happy here.”

  “No, Melanie.” He shakes his head grimly. “You’re happy here. You always have been. I wanted adventure, and to see the world, and to not be tied down by some soulless nine-to-five. I thought I could ignore my itchy feet but I can’t. Not anymore.”

  Buh-bum.

  Buh-bum.

  Melanie’s heart kicks at the back of her ribs as though trying to escape. She tries to speak but the words come out all garbled and wrong. She tries to reach for him, but Derek is sliding away, fading into darkness.

  Melanie sits bolt upright, feeling at her chest in a panic. Her heartbeat is normal, albeit a little fast. Nightmares will do that to a person.

  She takes a breath and takes in her surroundings. She’s on the sofa in her apartment. Yes, of course. She fell asleep there after Sabrina left. Her head is still swimming from the wine and that horrible dream, more of a memory than a fantasy. Count on her subconscious to bring her back to that horrid restaurant with that horrid man on her birthday, of all days. And of course she can remember every detail of his face still, as though her mind deposited that information somewhere safe so it could torture her with it for years to come.

  Bang, bang, bang!

  It wasn’t her heartbeat at all that she was hearing—someone is banging on the door. She looks to her apartment door and realizes that the sound would be much louder if someone were banging from the other side.

  The clinic!

  Melanie leaps off the couch and sweeps her keys from the kitchen table, then bounds out into the hall and down the stairs. Whoever it is, they keep banging. The sound is like cymbals inside Melanie’s brain.

  She races to the front door, and through the glass can see a man standing on the other side with a mass of fur in his arms. He is tall, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. His chestnut hair is thick and curly, and his square jaw is covered in dark stubble. For a second, Melanie wonders if she’s still dreaming. After all, he looks like exactly the kind of thing her subconscious would dream up as an apology for making her relive the collapse of her marriage.

  Melanie fumbles to unlock the door and holds it open for him.

  “Are you Dr. Baldwin?” the man asks, desperation lacing his voice as he walks inside.

  “I am. What’s wrong?”

  “I was driving … This dog came out of nowhere and I tried to swerve out of the way but it was too late.”

  Melanie’s eyes land on the bundle in his arms, a little black dog with wiry hair. He is panting and whining, staring up at her in fear. His back leg trembles.

  “Let’s get him onto a table,” she instructs as doctor mode kicks in.

  She leads the man into one of the consulting rooms. “What is your name?”

  “Colin Strickland.”

  Melanie nods. “Okay, Colin. I’m going to need you to lay him down on here, but be gentle with that back leg. I think it might be broken.”

  Colin takes a deep breath and lays the dog down with gentleness she would not have attributed to a man of his size. When he pulls his hands away, Melanie notes that they are shaking.

  “Colin,” she says in a soothing voice. “Can you grab me some gloves from that box?” She points to a tray next to him.

  He passes her a pair of gloves. His skin has taken on a sickly tinge, and Melanie wonders if the harsh fluorescents are to blame or if it is simply panic setting in.

  “Is he going to be okay?” he asks. “Oh God, what if I’ve killed him?”

  “Try to stay calm,” Melanie says. “Can you pass me my stethoscope? It’s on the counter.”

  Colin nods repeatedly and ret
rieves the stethoscope. He passes it to her and Melanie meets his eye, taking a deep breath. The man mirrors her. She smiles, and he mirrors that too.

  “Okay.” Melanie sets to work, donning the stethoscope and beginning her examination.

  Colin watches, wringing his hands. Melanie often forgets how stressful situations like this can be for other people. She is used to grisly wounds and working against a ticking clock now, but when she first started vet school, it was a different story. She was just like Colin—sick with worry that she wouldn’t be fast enough, skilled enough, that she would make a mistake that would cost an animal its life. She still has those worries, of course, but they are not productive and she has gotten used to pushing them to the back of her mind.

  Melanie prods the dog’s ribs and neck, happy to find everything is where it should be. His belly isn’t swollen, so she rules out internal bleeding for now. And, now that he is inside and lying down, the dog is starting to relax.

  “You haven’t killed him,” she says, moving down to the suspected leg injury. “I think he just has a broken leg. You probably just clipped him as you swerved out of the way.” She tries to rotate the limb and the dog yelps.

  Colin winces. Melanie rests her hand on his arm, meeting his gaze. “It’s okay, Colin. He is going to be fine. Once we get a cast on him, he will be running around like nothing happened. You would be surprised how resilient dogs are.”

  She gives the dog a little scratch on the head before going to the cabinet and grabbing a syringe and some pain medicine. Colin watches like a hawk as she administers it to the dog, who closes his eyes and happily dozes off.

  “I can see if there is something in there for you,” Melanie says, smiling as she sets the syringe on the side tray.