The ice-cream container in her lap tilted. She grabbed for it. Too late. It tumbled to the floor.
Amazing, how great Chunky Monkey looked in a carton and how less than appetizing it looked in a puddle on a faded rug.
Lissa shot to her feet, got a handful of paper towels from the kitchen, cleaned up the mess and dropped everything into the trash, even the chocolates.
She couldn’t live on what she earned at Grandma’s. She had car payments to meet and a car wasn’t a luxury in L.A., it was a necessity. A roof over her head was a necessity, too. So was food on the table.
So was restarting her moribund career.
Maybe she’d call her agent. She hadn’t heard from Marcia in weeks, but there had to be some kind of decent job out there, and wasn’t that what an agent was for? To get you a job? You’re developing a somewhat difficult reputation, Marcia had said the last time they’d spoken, and she’d come within a breath of telling her that it wasn’t true, that Raoul had fired her for being a prima donna, which was the rumor he’d spread, but the truth was so ugly, so humiliating…
Brring brring.
Lissa glanced at her watch. Eleven o’clock. Who’d be phoning at this hour? Not her brothers. It was one in the morning in Texas. Besides, they’d called her on Skype early this morning, singing “Happy Birthday,” telling her how much they loved her.
“Even if you’re gettin’ old,” Jake had said, and she’d laughed the way she knew they expected even though the truth was that she’d felt maybe a day short of one hundred.
She’d thanked them for their gifts. Wonderful, thoughtful gifts: an autographed copy of Joël Robuchon’s version of the Larousse Gastronomique, a first edition of Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire, a signed and framed photograph of Julia Child and Simone Beck grinning into the camera from a table at a Paris bistro.
Brring brring.
Her sisters had Skyped her next, singing “Happy Birthday” the same as her brothers had done.
“Except,” she’d told them, “you guys sing on key.”
They’d laughed and she’d thanked them for all-expenses-and-then-some weekend they’d arranged for her at, as Jaimie described it, “a super-deluxe-oh-how-amazing-you’ll-never-want-to-leave” spa just outside San Diego.
“We left the dates open,” Emily had added. “We know how busy you are.”
Busy frying chicken parts, Lissa had almost said, but hadn’t.
Even her father had phoned from wherever he was. Well, not exactly. An aide had placed the call for him. “Hold, please, for General Wilde,” an impersonal voice had intoned, and then her old man had said Hello, Lissa, how are you, happy birthday, did you get my present? and she’d said Hello, father, I’m fine and yes, I got the Tiffany’s gift certificate, thank you very much, and she figured she deserved bonus points for not telling him precisely what he could do with that certificate and all the personal warmth it brought with it.
Brring brring.
Where had she left her cell phone? It was right where it should have been, in the rear pocket of her jeans. She grabbed it and glanced at the screen.
Talk about coincidences…
“Marcia,” she said brightly, “you must be telepathic! I was just thinking about you.”
“Haven’t heard from you in a while,” her agent said briskly.
“I know. Well, the last time we spoke—”
“Listen, I know it’s late, but I have something for you and I need a quick yes or no.”
Lissa sat up straight. “Something good?”
“You want some blunt advice, toots? You’re not in any position to be asking me questions like that.”
“Meaning this isn’t something good?”
“Meaning, how about if I ask the questions? Did you ever do any real cooking?”
“What are you talking about?”
“See, you’re approaching this the wrong way. What’s with the attitude? It gets you in trouble all the time. Mouthing off to Raoul What’s-His-Face like you did—”