Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money Page 3

  And then a feminine voice, outside. “Tycho? Tycho! Get back here.”

  “He’s in here,” I croaked, relief still flooding my body, but not quite relinquishing its hold. A dog. Only a dog.

  A girl poked her head into my room just as I managed to pull myself to a sitting position. She looked 15 going on 24 — smooth pale mahogany hair, well cut chin, carefully tweezed eyebrows and familiar blue eyes — I had no trouble guessing her identity.

  “Ohmigawd! Tycho, you bad boy.” And then to me, “He knows he’s not supposed to be in here. You big goof,” she petted his head affectionately. “I’m Jennifer Beckett. Tyler is my dad.”

  “Hi Jennifer, I’m Madeline.”

  “I know. What a welcome. Did he scare you?”

  I nodded, reddening slightly.

  “Sorry. He likes it in here for some reason. And I don’t think anyone that’s ever lived here has liked him. He’s a little scary looking.”

  I looked at him more closely now that I knew he wasn’t a feral animal. I saw that the girl was right: the dog was a little scary looking. And big. Very big. About 120 pounds, with a coat like an abused brillo pad and ears that looked like they wanted to be erect, but couldn’t quite make it.

  “I guess he does look sorta scary,” I admitted aloud, less embarrassed in the face of Jennifer’s friendliness. “I thought… I thought he was a badger. Before I saw him, I mean. I heard him.”

  Jennifer scratched the dog’s back and he snuffled again, appreciably this time, then shook his back leg comically. “He’s just a big silly, but he’s harmless. Unless you’re a rock lizard.”

  “What’s a rock lizard?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Jennifer replied, absently petting the dog’s head. “I don’t think they’re actually called rock lizards. But they’re little lizards and they live in the rocks on the cliffs next to the house. When it’s warm, they come out and sun themselves. And then dufus here catches them, if he’s quick and they’re old.”

  “Yuck.”

  She nodded agreement. “Pretty much.”

  “Why Tycho?”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Because my dad thinks he’s so funny. The whole story is just too, too dad. You’ll have to ask him about it because I don’t tell it right. See, he’s named for some philosopher guy who exploded at a dinner party.”

  I laughed. “Astronomer, actually. Sixteenth century,” did I see Jennifer’s eyes glaze over as I gave this information? Maybe a little. But it’s fun to haul out bits of knowledge you never thought you’d have a use for again and show them to the light. It makes you feel as though all those books you read getting your degree weren’t a total waste of time. “Tycho Brahe. And, man: that is a funny name for a dog but it totally makes sense, in a weird sort of way.”

  Jennifer shrugged in the completely dismissive way that only teenage girls can pull off properly. “That’s so my father. Weird!”

  The story is actually pretty good, though it was clear Jennifer didn’t want to hear it: she’d moved on to topics of greater interest to her than her father’s weirdness. “Dad tells me you’re a friend of Uncle Sal’s and you just moved here from New York.”

  “Last week.”

  She looked interested. “No kidding? Where did you live?”

  “Manhattan.”

  “Cool. That’s where I’m going to live. When I’m 18. I’m an actress. Or I will be. Dad said you’re a stockbroker.”

  I shook my head. “I was. I’m not anymore.”

  “But you were?” she insisted.

  “Yeah. I was. For a long time.”

  “How’d you get into it?”

  The question made me think about my Dad, Burton Carter. He’d been dead for a long time. I didn’t think about him every day anymore, but I always thought of him with a grateful fondness. My mother continued to provide the safest, most loving zones in my life. But my father had given my adulthood its shape, even if that shaping hadn’t always been intentional.

  Jennifer’s question brought a strong image to my mind. Me: a little girl out for a special day with her father which ended up including an illicit trip to Seattle’s local stock exchange. Illicit because, when I was a kid, the trading floor was no place for a child, my mother had made that clear. I remember the feeling of being adrift in a sea of wool-clad knees, all of them male. The huge room was filled with cigarette smoke and excited shouts and important yells. It was as though the air in the room had its own life: a life different and more exciting than the more mundane air that might be found outside. I never forgot the feeling and, even though the electronic world I was part of had changed the physical aspects of the stock market beyond recognition, the tension and excitement I’d felt that day had never really diminished.

  “My Dad,” I said to Jennifer now. “He taught me about the stock market when I was a little kid.”

  “He was a stockbroker?”

  “Naw,” I said. “He was an insurance agent. He just liked the stock market. A lot.”

  “Why’d you stop?”

  People change careers all the time. There were a lot of things I could have told her. But, as I went to answer, the sight of Jack just before he went down flitted in front of my eyes. I saw his big, friendly face, the welcome on it giving way to recognition of the inevitable. I shook my head, pushing the image away.

  “Sorry, Jennifer. It’s not something I feel I can talk about right now.”

  I could see by her look — smug understanding — that she figured some affair had ended painfully and I decided this wasn’t a bad conclusion for her to draw. Easier for me than the truth. At least for the time being.

  “Sorry,” she said, sounding like she meant it at least a little. “I get too curious sometimes. None of my beeswax. But the stock thing got my dad’s attention,” she admitted. “I think he hopes you’ll rub off on me.”

  I laughed. “That’s funny. I’ve never been cast as a role model before.”

  “That’s my dad: always casting. Goes with the territory.”

  I looked at her thoughtfully. “I guess it would.”

  “And he hates that I want to be an actress, which is also funny. Considering.”

  “Considering…?”

  “Well, the business he’s in, for one. And the fact that his wife is an actress.”

  “Your mom is an actress?”

  “No, my mom makes pots. She’s a potter,” she clarified. “In Taos. His wife,” she jerked a thumb at my ceiling, towards her own part of the house, “is Tasya Saranova.”

  “I saw her in Wings of Dawn. She was wonderful,” I thought of something. “Oh… she’s…”

  “Not much older than me. Well, she’s 27, so she’s a lot older than me, but that’s what my mom said when she found out.”

  “She nice? Tasya, I mean.”

  “I guess. And her and my Dad are crazy about each other.” The way she said it came out sounding like “kar-ay-zee.”

  “That’s important.”

  She shrugged. “They’re gone a lot though. You know, moving and shaking and stuff,” her voice was nonchalant.

  “That rough?”

  “Not really. It means I get the place to myself,” she pulled affectionately at Tycho’s head. “Me and lizard boy here, that is.”

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  “True.” Then a new thought, “Did Dad remember to show you the pool?”

  He hadn’t and the existence of the pool was a nice surprise, so off we went to peek at it.

  Chapter Three

  My own Mom seemed mixed about my new situation. She’s worked hard all her life, for not much return. To her the money I was making in New York was beyond the moon, my lifestyle fabulous outside comparison and I was safe, as far as she could see. Set. Even without a husband. Leaving my job before I had a plan or another position seemed like insanity to her. And since there were moments when it seemed like insanity to me, it wasn’t hard to see things from her point of view.

  On the other
hand, the fact that I was now renting an apartment from her “favorite director in-the-world!” was of considerable interest to her and would earn her some bragging rights with her pals. I’d never heard her mention Tyler until I told her about renting his guest house, but this didn’t minimize her claim.

  “Is he incredibly good looking?” she said on the phone.

  It was one of the first calls from my new nest. A Saturday night around eight o’clock, I was snuggled into the built-in bed, the Pacific Ocean at night a velvet curtain outside my window.

  “Mom, you know what he looks like.”

  “But in person. Does he have, you know, charisma?”

  “He’s married.”

  “Oh. Well. Are you going to be OK for money? What are you going to do?”

  That was a question I was trying not to stress about myself, though this wasn’t something I wanted to tell my mother. “I’ll be OK mom. I need to take some time and reevaluate, you know? I… I need to heal a bit. I feel very raw.”

  “I wish you would have come home,” other mothers might have made this sound sullen. Needy. Mine made it sound factual. It was what she would have wished. On one level, it was even what I would have wished.

  “I thought about it. But it would have felt like coming back with my tail between my legs.”

  She laughed. A cheerful sound. “I understand. But sometimes that’s OK.”

  After I’d said good-bye, I thought about what she’d said. “Home” was a carefully preserved Victorian in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle. From “home” I could walk to my old high school and poke around and look at the latest crop of kids doing early preparation for their lives. I could go a couple of blocks up the street and grab a fish taco or a well made espresso — never tough to find in that city — or travel another block to the friendly little tavern where they poured a lovely ale and the bartender/owner knew you by name. “Home” was a pair of well-worn slippers, comfortable with long use. And thinking about it all now made me wonder if my mother wasn’t right. In New York I’d had a career, friends, a neighborhood I knew and understood. In Seattle I had history and a support system. In LA I had… possibilities. Which was more than nothing, but would it be enough?

  A soft knock on my door broke through my thoughts.

  “Open!” I called, while I swung my feet out of bed.

  “Is open a good idea?” It was Jennifer, smooth in well made jeans and a cutaway blouse, she brought the scent of evening and barbecue with her. Tycho padded in behind her, making amazingly little noise for a dog so large.

  I grinned. “Do you mean, is leaving the door unlocked a good idea?”

  She nodded.

  “Sure. I don’t think anyone could even find me down here. It’s like my little secret skycave.”

  Jennifer hopped up onto one of the kitchen stools uninvited and Tycho plopped himself down at my feet with a bit of a grunt. The place suddenly felt even smaller, but in a nice way. “You thinking about getting, like, a couch or anything?”

  “Not really. I might get a TV for the bedroom, but I guess the living room is going to be about work,” I said, indicating the oversized desk.

  “You’re a day trader?”

  I blinked at her. “Do you even know what that is?”

  “Not exactly. It sounds cool, though. Dad said it.”

  “Well, I’m not one,” I thought, then qualified it. “Yet. I’m not one yet. But I’m thinking on it.”

  “Great! If you decide, you can tell me what it is. Meanwhile, dad sent me down here to tell you to come upstairs.”

  “I’m being summoned?”

  She laughed. “No. Sorry. I didn’t say it right. Dad and Tasya are having some people over and he sent me down here to invite you.”

  “You going?” I asked, curious about who might be there.

  “For a while. Corby is coming to pick me up in a while, though.”

  “Corby?”

  “Boyfriend person.” She looked me over carefully. “The party; it’ll be casual but nice, you know.”

  I looked at my track pants and sweatshirt with a grin. “This is casual.”

  Jennifer laughed. “No, that’s undressed. There’ll be, like, boys and everything. You know: boys your age. Half an hour or so, ‘k?” She pushed herself off the chair. “See ya.”

  I stressed ridiculously over what to wear, which was, in itself, a happy diversion. I knew what to wear to a gallery opening in Soho or for dinner at Balthazar. I could put together a wardrobe for a weekend in the Hamptons quite easily: not that I’d done it so often, but I would have known what to wear. But a barbecue at the Malibu home of a famous director? This was new territory.

  I decided to follow Jennifer’s lead: good jeans and a cutaway top, though not as cutaway as hers had been: some things are best left to 17-year-olds. Soft little sandals on my feet and my hair loose around my shoulders. LA enough, I decided when I surveyed myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.

  The big deck above my apartment had been transformed since I had crossed it earlier in the day. Lit torches illuminated strategic corners, bringing the velvety night alive with golden light. Music echoed from the house and filled the air. People had already begun arriving and were arranged around the deck in little groups, standing and chatting, or sitting on various types of comfortable-looking patio furniture, drinks in hand. Even though it was early spring, the night was mild. I settled in to enjoy my first Malibu party.

  Tyler was holding court from the center of a big-ass barbecue. The barbecue part itself would have done well by a professional chef: huge, stainless steel and commanding. But Tyler’s barbecue was an entertainer’s special. It had a conversation pit built around it, where people could sit and chat with the chef, sip their drinks and taste any newly prepared tidbits he saw fit to offer. With Tyler at the barbecue, you had the impression that the place where he stood was a stage, the seats around him a little amphitheater: the director where you might expect to find an actor.

  “Madeline!” he said when he saw me, sounding genuinely pleased that I’d joined them. “Glad you could come.”

  “Thanks for inviting me. That’s an amazing barbecue, Tyler. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I had it custom made a few years ago,” he said, looking pleased and faintly self-conscious at the same time. “It’s the same old story: When I was growing up in Colorado, everybody had a better barbecue than my family did. Ours was rusty and old-fashioned and terrible. But I loved barbecue. And I resolved…” he spread his hands out, indicating the barbecuing beast at his disposal.

  “You’ve arrived,” I said firmly, with a smile. Understanding.

  He grinned, at once sheepish and proud. “I have. And now you have, too. Let me introduce you around.”

  I was the new kid, and there were a lot of them, so the names soon melded together, especially since, by the time we’d done the rounds, more people had arrived and mixed themselves up with the ones whose names I was trying hard to remember. I saw a few familiar faces, but they looked smaller to me. Diminished in person — looking oddly normal — when I’d gotten to know them on the big screen.

  Tyler’s wife, Tasya, stood out from the crowd. This was partly because of her position as hostess, but also through the sheer force of her presence. Calling her beautiful is too obvious, plus an understatement: she’s an international actress. A movie star. Beauty is self-evident. But it’s more than that. Her look is dark, smokey and sublime. Audrey Hepburn with an exotic edge. Her voice is also smokey, her accent pleasingly esoteric — Eastern European with an overlay of dialect coach — and her cheekbones look as though they could seriously slice anything that ventured too close.

  She brought me a glass of wine. “I’m so glad to meet you, Madeline,” it sounded like “Mad-eh-leen” when she said it. “Jennifer can’t stop talking about you.”

  “Really?” I was oddly touched. “She seems like a sweet kid.”

  “She can be, but she
’s 17,” she shrugged, as though the age alone spoke volumes. I refrained from reminding her she was just a decade older. “I think you will have a good influence on her,” she added.

  I proceeded with caution. “I’m not sure I’ll be in any position to have an influence.”

  Tasya shrugged again, a we’ll see kind of gesture. “It’s a difficult time for her, I think. It’s not so easy to be that age under any circumstances, but she has also had many changes over the last little while,” she indicated herself as part of the change.

  “How long have you and Tyler been married?”

  “Just since Christmas. Tyler and I met in Ibiza. I was in his last movie.” This would, I know, be Dream a Dream, a remake of a Roberto Rossolini film that was yet to be released. The entertainment press was rabid about it, though. At times crucifying Tyler for being pretentious enough to try and remake a European classic, at others shouting that it was going to be brilliant and that in Tasya he’d discovered his Ingrid Bergman.

  “Ibiza. I’ve never been,” I smiled, “but it sounds like it’s the place to fall in love.”

  “It is, though I think it wouldn’t have mattered where we were. We wrapped just ahead of Christmas and Tyler proposed. We were married in Barcelona in a small and beautiful ceremony,” her eyes had taken on a faraway look, remembering.

  “Jennifer flew out there for the wedding,” I ventured.

  Tasya smiled, “No, we surprised her when we came back to Los Angeles.” Her smile faltered. “She was very surprised.”

  I could imagine. And I could also now understand the way Jennifer’s jaw tightened up slightly at the mention of Tasya’s name. Poor kid. Not the thing to surprise a teenager with.

  When Tasya excused herself to resume her hostessing duties, I moved to the edge of the deck, putting my elbows on the railing and straining to see the ocean through the dark. I couldn’t. But, faintly, I could hear it, even above the party noises and music. The night was clear and pleasantly cool, the scent of eucalyptus and salt drifting through the air.

  I thought about what Tasya had said; about my having a possible influence on Jennifer. It alarmed me a bit; made me feel responsible in a way I hadn’t signed on for. Tyler had admitted he’d hoped his new tenant would provide a deterrent for possible shenanigans in the house in his absence. Perhaps Tasya had indicated a deeper hope. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.