Poppy shook her head, disgusted.
If there was one thing she did know from her experiences in the past, Hollywood would never change.
And like it or not, she was about to act in front of a camera again for the first time in over thirty years.
Chapter 3
Poppy stood outside on the perfectly manicured lawn of the mid-century home she had just purchased in the Movie Colony, supervising the four hulking moving men who were unloading their truck with her belongings, most of which had been stored at a facility ever since she had been forced to leave the home she had shared with her late husband, Chester, and move into a small apartment with her daughter, Heather, almost three years ago.
It had been a trying time. After his unexpected and tragic death from a heart attack, it had come to light that Chester had essentially been living a double life—loving, doting, financially conservative husband when he was with Poppy, but a wild, irresponsible compulsive gambler when he was not. Ultimately, Chester frittered away their nest egg leaving Poppy nearly penniless on the day she buried him in the ground.
It had been a long fight back, but she had done it, despite a number of setbacks, most notably her only daughter Heather’s myriad of legal challenges. Amidst all the drama, Poppy had managed to get her fledgling private investigation firm off the ground, and now it was flourishing, boasting an impressive list of wealthy clients in the Coachella Valley who had discovered the Desert Flowers Agency through positive word of mouth at cocktail parties and on the golf course.
And now, two and a half years in, Poppy had made enough of a profit to finally move out of Heather’s humble abode and buy a home of her very own in a nice neighborhood, and boy, did it feel good.
She felt she had finally turned a corner, and was on the road back to her old life, and on this sunny warm day in beautiful Palm Springs, absolutely nothing was going to sour her bouncy mood.
That is until one of the moving men, Hymie, a ruggedly attractive man in his early forties, let a vase he was carrying off his truck slip through his fingers and smash to pieces on the ground.
Poppy’s mouth dropped open in shock.
Hymie, a sheepish look on his face, squeaked, “I’m sorry, I hope that wasn’t too expensive.”
“No . . .” Poppy moaned. “My husband and I bought that from a pottery maker in Istanbul. It just has sentimental value . . . and was one of a kind . . .”
Hymie grimaced. “I’ll be sure to take that off your final bill.”
Poppy nodded, resigned, while two more of Hymie’s guys, younger and even less careful, trotted down the plank set against the back of the truck, one on each end of a flat-screen TV that was heading to the living room.
“You guys be careful with that!” Hymie warned.
One of them stopped and asked, “What?”
The other kept going, still carrying the TV, causing the one who had stopped to let go, as one side of the TV crashed to the ground. Both of the young movers stared nervously at Poppy, who shook her head.
“I’ll be sure to subtract the damage from that, too,” Hymie promised before quickly disappearing into the back of the truck, probably to hide from his increasingly agitated customer.
Poppy’s best friends, Iris Becker and Violet Hogan, also the co-founders of Poppy’s detective agency, emerged from the house. Iris had her eyes fixed on the two young moving men who were bent over inspecting the cracked screen on Poppy’s TV while Violet was waving a newspaper in her hand.
“Poppy, did you see the real estate section? You’re on the front page!” Violet cooed.
“Yes, it’s so embarrassing,” Poppy groaned. “The last thing I need is for everybody to know where I live! There goes any sense of privacy.”
“It is good for business!” Iris barked in a thick German accent. “People will see how successful you are and they will flock to us in droves with all their problems for us to solve!”
“The only reason they’re writing about me buying this house is because Ava Gardner lived here in the late nineteen fifties for something like three months after she divorced Frank Sinatra. She didn’t even own the place, she was a renter,” Poppy said, irritated. “If I had known what a fuss the press was going to make of another actress buying this house, I would have kept looking.”
“You cannot buy this kind of publicity, trust me on this,” Iris said gruffly before returning her gaze to the two young movers who were still bent over the damaged television set.
“Do me a favor, Iris . . .” Poppy began.
Iris didn’t respond. She kept her eyes fixed on the two young muscular movers.
Poppy folded her arms. “Iris?”
Violet sighed, and nudged Iris next to her. “Will you stop ogling the man candy long enough to answer poor Poppy?”
Iris snapped out of her fantasies and threw Violet an annoyed look, then turned to Poppy. “What?”
“Make sure the movers don’t break everything of value I own.”
Iris nodded. “Of course. With pleasure.”
And then she happily marched over to the two moving men and began barking orders at them. The two young men scurried back inside the truck to join Hymie while Iris lustfully kept her eyes on their backsides as they fled.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of you, Poppy, how you just picked yourself up by the bootstraps after Chester nearly ruined you. You just plowed ahead, determined to start over, and look at you now, at everything you have accomplished,” Violet said breathlessly.
“Thank you, Violet,” Poppy said. “That’s sweet of you to say. We’ve all worked hard. You, Iris, Matt . . . Desert Flowers is all our success.”
Poppy’s phone buzzed.
She checked the screen.
It was her daughter, Heather, calling.
Hymie breezed past them carrying a box labeled “Kitchen Utensils” in black felt marker.
“Violet, could you
