Nathan was the only person who dared to tease me about my character, and I loved him all the more for it. Our closeness was as unlikely as it was inevitable. My husba nd’s dead body had barely grown cold when my kids gallivanted off to their respective colleges in Northern California—Charlie to UC Santa Cruz and Winnie to Stanford. Nathan, less selfishly, had chosen to matriculate at nearby UCLA. When his father determined his childhood room should be repurposed as a home office, my house became Nathan’s refuge for a good night’s sleep and a home-cooked meal—two things my own children had always taken for granted but he appreciated. Nathan and I were the same: ambitious, hardworking, cast aside by those meant to take care of us. Only difference was, he’d made peace with it, whereas I preferred a more biblical eye-for-an-eye approach. I imagine my nephew thought I was petty for wanting to cut my children out of my will, and that, in time, I would come to my senses. But my senses were keen. I knew things he didn’t. And I had made up my mind.
“Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?” he asked as the teakettle rumbled, and he got up to tend to it.
“I suppose not,” I replied. There was no sense in forcing the matter. If Nathan wasn’t willing to play the role of heir to my great fortune, my grand exit would have zero fireworks, and what’s grand about that? I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I wanted to do this before I deteriorated into a pitiable old hag. Who else could I leave my money to? I’d thought for sure he’d be the one.
I often thought about where I’d gone wrong with my children. Whose fault was it that they turned out to be selfish ingrates, if not mine? I was their mother. If they exhibited poor character, I had no one to blame but myself. I’d made the mistake of buying into the ravings of the foolish early feminists—You can have it all! Fabulous career! A brood of perfect kids! Family dinner on Friday! Steamy sex on Saturday! But the notion of having it all is a lie. Your children loathe you for indulging other passions besides them—even ones that keep them in diapers. You try to make it up to them with things—a guitar, a trampoline, a horse, those fancy sneakers they wanted—but those things ruin them. Yes, it was my fault they were rotten. But that didn’t mean I owed them anything. Was I vindictive? Maybe. But better vindictive than a sucker.
So what to do? I couldn’t leave my estate to charity—that was too complicated, not to mention grossly out of character. And I couldn’t think of anything more repugnant than having my name engraved on a building trafficked by oblivious, entitled university students. Plus I needed help, which meant I needed to co-opt a person—preferably a desperate one. Someone who had never known great wealth, who would thrill in the luxuries it would, for the first time, afford them, and fight to hold on to it.
It distressed me that I hadn’t met that person yet.
But as it turned out, I was about to.
CHAPTER 3
* * *
ASHLEY
Brando tugged on his leash with the urgency of an actress late for a callback. I knew the feeling all too well: running to auditions was my life. “You can’t book the role if you don’t go to the audition,” my acting coach used to preach. Problem was, I couldn’t book the role when I did go, either. And yet I stubbornly kept trying.
“OK, OK, slow down,” I commanded to big, floppy deaf ears. Brando knew once we turned the corner and started heading up the hill, I would let him off the leash, and he was growing increasingly impatient. Our street wasn’t busy, but there were enough cars and other dogs to make me nervous about letting Brando run free, even at this late hour. But once I turned onto the steep cul-de-sac at the end of our block, I often let him run a bit. The hill was dark and not very inviting. Hardly anybody ever went up there, especially on a foggy night like this.
I smooshed my cap over my frizz as we turned onto the dead-end street, then unclipped the leash. Brando ran ahead with reckless abandon, sniffing and raising his leg on everything in his path. I wondered what it was like to get excited about such simple things—A new smell! Kibble! A bush that smells like squirrel! I envied him for not having any ambitions beyond peeing on every tree. Why can’t I be more like my dog?
I know plenty of people are content to lead uncomplicated lives, but unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I probably shouldn’t admit it, but I felt jealous every time I heard about a former classmate getting a big casting. Why them and not me? I tried to be grateful for the journey. I’d read for tons of big-time casting directors, been on the lots of all the major studios, walked the same halls as some Hollywood legends—Elizabeth Taylor, Lucille Ball, Bette Davis. My experiences made me a fantastic tour guide. Customers loved hearing my imitations of casting directors’ monotone line readings and my stories about bumping into famous actors at the Starbucks on the lot. I knew I was torturing myself chasing a love that didn’t love me back, but I wasn’t ready to let go. It’s hard to leave a dream behind if you don’t have a new one to move toward.