Page 2 of Home to Me

Bernie simply said, “If two people are having a conversation, am I rude enough to interrupt? No, I am not.”

Karina laughed again, pointing out, “But you will gladly stand there and listen to it.”

“That's just good business, chickadee,” Bernie pointed out. “At any rate, what I didn't interrupt turned out to be a conversation about how much they liked this area. Stunning natural beauty, they said, and great, big, gorgeous homes. They were tossing around the idea of launching a spin-off show. Home Sweet Vacation Home. How about that?” Bernie looked supremely pleased with himself.

“How about that,” Karina commented flatly.

“Don't you see it?” Bernie asked impatiently.

Both women shook their heads.

“Let me lay it out for you then. They will be looking for a host; preferably a successful local agent who just happens to have star quality, much like they found in one Mr. Ben Stevens.”

Karina and Lauren nodded at him blankly.

“Still no?” he asked, exasperated. “Oy! What would you do if you didn't have me? I'm talking about you, bubeleh! You would be perfect.” Bernie lifted his hand, indicating Lauren.

Still, it took Lauren a moment to grasp the implications of what he was saying.

“Me?” she said, wrinkling her forehead. “I'm not a TV host.”

“Not yet,” Bernie conceded, shrugging. “That would be where I come in. I could represent you, bring you to their attention, broker your deal—”

“Whoa,” Lauren said. “Slow down. Is this spinoff even a certainty?”

Bernie dismissively waved this concern aside. “What in life is a certainty? Only death. Is this death we're talking about here? No, it is not. So there is no certainty.”

Lauren looked at Karina, at a loss for what to say.

“Don't mind him,” Karina said. “He's just thinking out loud. You can always tell Bernie's excited about an idea when he starts going all Yiddish and philosophy on you.”

Lauren shook her head. “I'm sorry, Bernie. I don't mean to be rude. I’m just a little distracted by the scheduling issues today.”

Karina grinned. “Welcome to show biz, babe. It's a hurry-up-and-wait kind of business.”

Lauren couldn’t think of anything worse. “Then I don't think I'm cut out for it.”

Bernie, never one to be easily deterred, said, “Don't rule anything out. We'll talk, we'll talk.”

Lauren opened her mouth to respond but never got the chance. She, Bernie, and Karina were all distracted by the commotion that was suddenly arising at the front door of the house.

Ben Stevens, it seemed, had finally arrived.

--- ~ ---

Ben sighed as he sat in the back of the town car that was sent for him by production. If only everything else in his life that day had gone as smoothly as the car ride from his hotel in Lake Tahoe.

He had to hand it to the Sierra Nevadas, the pine-tree-covered mountains were absolutely gorgeous. The forty-five minute drive, though stressful because he was running extremely late, had at least been filled with stunning natural beauty.

Generally, Ben liked to work in the backs of limos and town cars in order to make good use of the dead time, but today was different. He needed to get his head right. He needed to get into the “I'm Ben Stevens and you're watching Home Sweet Home” mindset. He needed to dial up his personal charisma.

This was an incredibly important episode of Home Sweet Home; it was the celebrity edition with Karina Black. You didn’t get much bigger than Karina ‘Pop Princess’ Black. What a get she was. The network was obviously going to promo the hell out of it before it aired. It was entirely possible that more people would watch this episode than any other in the show’s history. He needed to be on his game today.

Unfortunately, his day had started at two a.m. with a panicked call from his sister and he had been dealing with his mother’s doctors ever since. It took hours to get answers and even more to calm down his sister, but he’d gotten off the phone with both of them thirty minutes ago and they were okay. For now.

Up until today, Ben had been able to keep his personal life completely separate from his professional. Because his personal life was just that...personal. His family and their privacy was his number one priority. Today had tested that boundary. In the end he’d only revealed to production that he was dealing with a personal matter and he’d gotten away with it because after four seasons of never being late, never complaining, never pulling the “personal matter” card he’d built up some goodwill. Still, it didn’t change the fact that his actions had not only put production behind, but also cost them a pretty penny.

Shaking his head Ben tried to clear his cluttered mind. Thinking about his mom, his sister, the fact that he was over eight hours late...well, let's just say it wasn’t conducive to getting himself into his “star magnetism” mindset.

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