suggestions. And Meg was no better. When she saw Georgie carrying around her video camera, she draped a scarf over her head and pretended to be one of Michael Jackson’s kids, which was funny but not exactly what Georgie had in mind to record. She finally shut herself in her room to reread
In the afternoon she set the table. Despite the possibility of rain, they were eating on the veranda, which managed to stay dry during all but the biggest storms. She arranged a centerpiece of artichokes, lemons, and eucalyptus leaves in a blue pottery bowl. It was a little lopsided, but she liked the way it accented the bright yellow place mats and cobalt plates. Once she added a couple of chunky candles, it would be perfect.
She sensed Bram coming up behind her just before his hand curled around her bottom. “Why’s the table set for seven?”
“Seven?” The time had come to deliver the news, but she acted as though she’d never heard the number before. “Let’s see. You, me, Dad, RoryandTrev, Laura, Meg…Yes, that’s right.”
His hand, which had been exploring her bottom, came to a dead stop. “Did you say…Rory?”
“Uhm…”
“Rory Keene is coming to dinner tonight?”
“You never listen when I tell you things. I swear, my voice is just white noise to you. It’s like we’ve been married forever.”
“I’m positive I mentioned it.”
“I’m positive you didn’t! Are you crazy? Your father hates my guts. I only have two and a half weeks left until that option expires, and I don’t want him anyplace near Rory.”
“I’ll take care of him.”
“Like you’ve done such a good job taking care of him so far.”
“I thought you’d be happy.” She attempted a pout and wasn’t surprised when she couldn’t pull it off.
“Rory loves that script,” he said more to himself than to her. “If I could just get her to trust me.”
“From what she told me, that’s probably a lost cause.” As he paced the veranda, she replayed her conversation with Rory. When she finished, she said, “Why did you bring those cretins out to L.A. with you?”
The bitterness he kept tucked away escaped. “Because I was a stupid kid. I didn’t have a family, and I thought-I don’t know what I thought.”
Georgie had a fairly good idea.
He hunched his shoulders and looked away. “The guys told me Rory made the whole thing up. I wanted to believe them, so I did, and when I finally wised up, she was long gone. By the time I found her, my career was in the tank, and let’s just say she doubted the sincerity of my apology.”
“And now she has her revenge.”
“It’s not over till it’s over. She wants that script, and she can get it a lot cheaper working with me than trying to snatch it up after my option expires.” The same guy who’d once blown off three days’ shooting to go deep-sea fishing was suddenly all-business. “We need to be on top of our game tonight. She likes you, and I’m fully prepared to take advantage of that. Lots of touching. Affection. Not a single wisecrack.”
“Everybody will think we’re sick.”
“I’m counting on you to help make sure I get some time alone with her.” He took in her lemon and artichoke centerpiece. “See if you can find a florist. I’ll hire a bartender and someone to wait tables. And we need to get a real chef in here.”
She held up her hand. “Stop right there. No florist, no bartender, and Chaz is making do-it-yourself kebabs. Chicken, beef, and scallops.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t serve Rory Keene kebabs.”
“You’ll have to trust me. Remember, I have a purely selfish interest in convincing Rory to back your project. If you screw this up for me…”
“Georgie, I told you. Helene has to be cast-”
“Leave me alone. I have things to do.” Mainly she had to help him convince Rory that he was the person to make the film. If Rory saw how well he could behave these days, she might forget his past idiocy.
Unlike Georgie, who couldn’t forget a thing.
After he left, she busied herself setting candles around the veranda, but eventually she couldn’t resist grabbing her video camera. Today of all days, she should leave Chaz alone, but what had begun as a whim was turning into an obsession. In addition to her fascination with Chaz, she was also falling in love with the whole process of recording other people’s lives. She’d never imagined how absorbing standing behind a camera instead of in front of one could be.
She found Chaz in the kitchen making a ginger-garlic marinade. When she spotted Georgie, she slammed her chef’s knife down on some garlic cloves. “Get that camera out of here.”
“You won’t let me help. I’m bored.” She panned around the kitchen, taking in the well-organized chaos.
“Go film the cleaning people. You seem to have all kinds of fun doing that.”
Did Georgie hear a note of jealousy? “I like talking to them. Soledad-she’s the tall, pretty one-sends most of her money back to her mother in Mexico, so she has to live with her sister. There are six of them in a one-bedroom apartment. Can you imagine?”
Chaz rocked the blade over the garlic. “Big deal. At least she’s not sleeping on the streets.”
Georgie’s skin prickled. “Like you did?”
Chaz dipped her head. “I never told you that.”
“You told me about the accident and that you got fired after you broke your hand.” Georgie zoomed in. “I know your money was stolen. It’s a fairly obvious conclusion.”
“There are a lot of kids on the streets. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Still…It had to be especially hard for you. All that mess and no way to clean it up.”
“I handled it. Now get out. I mean it, Georgie. I have to concentrate.”
Georgie should leave, but the turbulent emotions bubbling behind Chaz’s tough facade had drawn her in from the beginning, and somehow the camera demanded she record it. She shifted her questioning. “Does fixing dinner for more than one person make you nervous?”
“I fix dinner for more than one person practically every night.” She tossed the chopped garlic in a bowl with some peeled ginger. “I feed you, don’t I?”
“But you don’t put your heart into it. I swear, Chaz, even your desserts taste bitter.”
Chaz’s head shot up. “That’s a crappy thing to say.”
“Just a personal observation. Bram loves your cooking, and so does Meg. But then you seem to like Meg.”
Chaz pressed her lips tight. Her blade moved faster.
Georgie stepped to the end of the counter. “You’d better watch yourself. Great cooks know that extraordinary food is about more than mixing ingredients. Who you are as a person-how you feel about other people-shows up in what you create.”
The rhythm of Chaz’s chopping slowed. “I don’t believe that.”
Georgie told herself to let it go, but she couldn’t, not with the camera in her hands, not when this seemed so right. A wave of compassion overcame her, along with an odd sense of understanding. She and Chaz had each found her own way of coping with a world over which they seemed to have little control. “Then why do your desserts taste so bitter?” she said softly. “Is it really me you hate…or is it yourself?”
Chaz dropped her knife and stared into the camera, her black-rimmed eyes wide.
“Leave her alone, Georgie.” Bram spoke sharply from the doorway. “Take your camera and leave her alone.”
Chaz turned on him. “You told her!”
Bram came into the room. “I haven’t told her anything.”
“She knows! You told her!”
Chaz’s anger and self-hatred were visceral, and Georgie wanted to understand it. She wanted to film it as a testament to all the young girls consumed by their own pain. Except she had no right to invade her privacy like this, and she made herself-forced herself-to lower the camera.
“She doesn’t know anything you haven’t told her with your big mouth,” Bram said.
Once again Georgie ordered herself to leave, but her feet weren’t moving. Instead, she said, “I know you’re not
