Page 62 of All That Glitters
Now, contrast the Preston Jordan in the photos with the one tonight, camped out on his office couch beneath a wool blanket he’d picked up on the drive over. A coffeepot sat on his desk next to a half-open suitcase of clothes that was starting to smell a bit rank. This was his new home. This was what happenedwhen your wife found out about a starlet named Bambi and also happened to own a shotgun.
A soft, intrusive knock came at the door. It creaked open, and a weaselly assistant with a perpetually nervous expression peeked in. His name was Percy, and he had the uncanny ability to appear at the most inopportune moments.
“Your wife still isn’t letting you go home?” Percy asked.
Preston shot him a frown. Of all the stupid questions. He was sleeping on a couch, surrounded by the ghosts of his own success. Of course he wasn’t here by choice.
“No, Percy,” Preston said, his voice thick with sleep and irritation. “I just thought I’d sleep here for the hell of it. It’s a new wellness trend. Corporate camping. It’s very big in Japan.”
“Sorry to hear that, sir,” Percy said, completely unfazed by the sarcasm. “But maybe this will cheer you up.”
Percy scurried over to the large TV mounted on the wall and flicked it on, immediately turning it to the channel for ‘Hollywood Gossip.’ It landed in the middle of Lauren Zales’s chaotic interview with some kid at the cemetery.
Preston frowned. “You barged in here, interrupting my restorative corporate camping experience, to show me a gossip show?”
“Take a look at the guy they’re interviewing,” Percy said, pointing a skinny finger at the screen. “Recognize him?”
Preston stared, but it didn’t ring any bells.
“It’s that writer who broke into your house trying to sell his script. The one who was hiding in the closet.”
Preston sat bolt upright. He stared at the screen, his eyes narrowing. He did recognize the kid. The same wide, stupidly hopeful eyes. The same messy hair. It was him. The catalyst for his entire domestic implosion.
“Someone bought that piece of crap?” he muttered in disbelief.
“It’s an indie production company,” Percy explained. “A group of… shall we say, unconventional financiers. They’re filming over at the cemetery. It was their production that caused the fire.”
Preston’s face was a mask of pure contempt. The world had no justice. Here he was, a proven hit maker, a titan of the industry, exiled to his own office couch, while this punk, this amateur, this home-invading little pecker was getting interviewed on television.
“So explain to me, Percy,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet, “how this kid’s success is supposed to cheer me up.”
Percy’s face broke into a knowing, conspiratorial smile. “Well, sir,” he began, “I know how much you enjoy crushing people.” He paused, letting the words hang in the air. “So I thought… maybe for fun… you could destroy this writer’s career.”
Preston stared past the screen, a new light flickering in his eyes. For weeks, he had been awash in a sea of misery and self-pity. But now, Percy had thrown him a life raft. A beautiful, cruel, vengeance-fueled life raft. The morose, defeated energy that had surrounded him began to burn away, replaced by something sharp and cruel and wonderfully invigorating. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face. He felt alive again.
“Percy,” he said, his voice full of a newfound vigor that was almost startling. “If you were a slutty girl, I’d kiss you.”
“I thought that’d make you happy, sir,” Percy beamed, basking in the praise.
“It does,” Preston said, swinging his legs off the couch. He was no longer a man in exile; he was a shark who had just spotted a lone, wounded swimmer. He felt powerful again. “First thing tomorrow, I want you to find out who’s renting them their equipment. Every light, every camera, every cable. And then I want you to call the rental houses. All of them. Tell them Preston Jordan has a new slate of films, big ones, and I’ll be takingmy business elsewhere if they continue to work with these… amateurs.” He practically spat the word. “We are gonna make sure this film never gets finished.”
“You are a confident, attractive woman,” Debbie repeated along with the overly enthusiastic voice on the cassette tape. “You deserve love and happiness. You are—” She paused the tape and tried again with more conviction. “You ARE confident. You ARE attractive. You DESERVE—”
Her Honda wheezed as she took the off-ramp, the engine making sounds that suggested it was running on hope and determination rather than actual gasoline.
“Okay, breathe,” she told herself, pulling into the parking lot of Tony’s motel. The neon sign flickered weakly, casting intermittent pink light across her windshield. “You can do this. You’re going to march up there, tell Tony how you feel, and—”
She ejected the tape and grabbed her overnight bag, checking her reflection in the rearview mirror one more time. The confidence tape had helped a little, but her hands were still shaking slightly as she walked toward room 237.
Knock knock knock.
“Tony? It’s me!” she called softly, not wanting to wake the other guests. “I made it without killing anyone!”
Silence.
She knocked again, louder this time. “Tony? Your favorite disaster-prone best friend is here!”
Still nothing. His car was in the parking lot, so he had to be around somewhere. Maybe he was in the shower? She pressed her ear to the door but heard nothing except the muffled sound of a TV.
