She stood from one of the benches that lined the little park at the north studio entrance. One of the bronze muses caught her eye.
Joy lowered her head and walked toward the gate. She didn’t need the muse’s somber stare to know it was time for her to leave the whimsy of fantasyland and deal with the reality of a harsh world.
Two
FOURTEEN MONTHS LATER
Joy leaned back in a booth at Harry’s Brew and Bake and let the air-conditioning do its thing. Being a native Southern Californian, she’d had no idea that Chicago summers sweltered. Wasn’t this supposed to be the land of frigid lake winds and blizzards that brought the city of broad shoulders to a halt? The mixture of heat and humidity in the air this afternoon had her wilting by the time she hit the second step outside her front door.
“Oh, look,” Sarah Weisman, a fellow teacher at the Steadman School, exclaimed, pointing out the window. Outside on North Avenue, a bus paused at a light. An advertisement for the movie Maritime looked oddly colorful and surreal on the mundane city bus, the bored profiles of passengers in the windows above the poster only adding to the impression. “I read in the Tribune this morning that the Midwest premiere of Maritime is going on in Streeterville tomorrow,” Sarah continued excitedly. “You’re going, right, Joy?”
“No.” Joy laughed. She fingered her short tresses. Her hair was growing back after her cancer treatment, and she was almost back to her usual weight. She’d been fastidious about taking care of herself—regular diet, exercise, vitamins and supplements out the wazoo. Still, she was hardly up for attending a high-profile, gilded event.
“Why not? Don’t tell me you didn’t get a ticket?” Max Weisman, Sarah’s husband, asked, his brow bunched in consternation.
“No, I could go with my uncle if I wanted,” Joy said quickly. She thought she understood Max’s confusion. Sarah and Max both taught with her at an art school for gifted high school students. The entire staff had been involved in the hiring process, so they’d all seen Joy’s résumé, including her mention of having done makeup on several high-profile movies, including Maritime. “A movie premiere isn’t really my scene, that’s all,” Joy said, taking a sip of her iced chai tea.
“You’re crazy,” Sarah said with typical bluntness. “I’d give my right butt cheek to attend that premiere.”
“I’d give my left one to make sure your buttocks stay exactly the way they are,” Max said drolly to a smirking Sarah. He leaned toward Joy, suddenly intent. “You’re not going doesn’t have anything to do with how you’re feeling, does it?”
Joy’s cheeks heated. She hated the fact—despised it, actually—that the teachers and administration at her new job knew about her cancer diagnosis. It’d been necessary to reveal the basics of that information since she’d chosen to take a half semester off from the school where she’d taught in Los Angeles while she’d undergone six cycles of chemotherapy followed by radiation. After her treatment and recovery, she’d decided to move. Start anew. People asked questions about a missing chunk of time in a résumé, though, and Joy had felt compelled to tell the truth, even if she kept her explanation to the bare minimum. It made her feel guilty, knowing that her good friends in L.A. knew less about her illness than near strangers at her present school. Not that Max and Sarah were near strangers, but still . . .
“Max, you have the finesse of a dull ax,” Sarah mumbled, obviously noticing Joy’s discomfort.
“No, it’s okay,” Joy assured. “My health is perfect, aside from the fact that I melt every time I go outside in this humidity. I can’t believe you two grew up in summer saunas like this.”
“She changes the subject to the weather,” Max said archly to Sarah, sipping his coffee.
“I am not changing the subject,” Joy said, laughing. “Look, if you like, I could ask Seth to get you two tickets. He’s staying at the Elysian Hotel over on Walton. If he has a couple tickets, you could pick them up after we finish here. I’ll call him right now,” Joy said, extricating her cell phone from her pocket.
“Hold the phone,” Sarah said in an odd, tense tone that made Joy glance up. She’d thought Sarah had been referring to the call she’d been about to make, but Sarah’s turned head told her that her friend wasn’t even aware of Joy’s actions. Instead, she stared fixedly at the entrance. Sarah jerked her hand down, slapping Joy’s thigh. She squeezed convulsively at the same time she placed her other hand over her heart. Joy glanced around her shoulder, curious as to what had transfixed a usually practical, down-to-earth woman. She saw a tall man wearing a newsboy cap and a gorgeous woman with long golden hair tumbling around her shoulders entering the coffee house.
“It’s Everett Hughes,” Sarah said in a strangled voice. “Everett Hughes just walked into Harry’s Brew and Bake.”
“You’re losing it,” Max told his wife as he scowled at the couple. “You’ve got Maritime on the brain.”
“It is Everett Hughes,” Sarah hissed at her husband as if she were a poked snake.
Joy craned to see around Sarah. The man who was the focus of Sarah’s undivided attention had a tall, lean frame and filled out his jeans in an eye-catching manner. He was nice to look at, but she suspected Max was right in thinking Sarah had Hollywood on the brain—until the man tilted his head back to study the blackboard menu. Beneath the bill of a newsboy cap that had seen better days, Joy glimpsed the profile of one of the most famous faces in the country. He sported a short, golden brown goatee. Besides the newsboy cap and well-worn jean
s, he wore what looked like a vintage bowling shirt. It was awful. The fact that the man made the shirt look like the height of careless-sexy said a lot about him.
“It is him, Max,” Joy said, sitting back in the booth and smiling. She’d grown up in the land of movie stars and was used to occasionally glimpsing a celebrity. It was strange how her heart had lurched upon seeing Hughes’s profile. Perhaps it was because he was one of the most super of the superstars she’d ever witnessed combined with the strangeness of it happening in an innocuous coffee shop in Chicago. “Er . . . Sarah, can you release the death grip on my thigh?”
“Oh sure, sorry,” Sarah said distractedly, still watching Hughes, but now straining to do so in a less obvious manner. Even though she’d consented to releasing Joy, she continued to grip her leg until Joy manually removed her hand.
“He’s here for the premiere. Is that his wife?” Max asked in a hushed tone.
“He’s not married.” Sarah scowled, her gaze still trained sideways, her entire attention seemingly focused on the single point of Hughes. “How could you not know Everett Hughes is single?”
“What do I care if he’s single or not? What’s so great about Everett Hughes? The guy dresses like a bum,” Max mumbled under his breath. “His friend there—now she’s a different story.”
Joy chuckled at the same moment that Sarah whispered, “Be quiet. He’s coming this way.” Joy glanced in the direction where Sarah was staring and suddenly found herself looking into shadowed, gleaming eyes that were trained directly on her.
A memory flickered in Joy’s brain and faded elusively. Something inside her quickened.
She looked away. It must be true what they said about Everett Hughes: His insouciant good looks and easygoing charm reputedly had the power to stun a woman. His sex appeal was utterly effortless, but that didn’t make it any less potent. She was vaguely aware that Sarah went stiff as a board next to her.