California Dream (8 page)

“Nobody really wants to hear the truth,” Eggers commented in a casual tone of voice, though his message came across loud and clear.

Lee gave him a serene smile. “I think I’m wise enough to separate fact from fiction,” she said quietly before turning her attention to the papers on her desk. She wished Mr. Eggers would just leave her alone about Roddy. The last thing she needed right then was someone dredging up things she didn’t want to think about.

“I’ve always thought you had a level head.” Mr. Eggers gave her a fatherly smile.

A compliment from him was rare, and Lee recognized it as more of a warning.

“I like to think so,” she told him as she rose from her chair. She made an excuse about needing to find a book so she could leave the room and end the tedious conversation.



Life in Minneapolis was a veritable haven in comparison to Roddy’s existence in Los Angeles. From the moment he drove over the California border, he forced himself to put Lee out of his mind, at least for awhile.

He drove straight to Eddie’s house in the Hollywood hills, and walked in without knocking. Claire had the nerve to still be there, draped uselessly over a couch, and she glared hatefully at him as he strode past her without so much as a hello. Roddy made his way back to the study where, as expected, Eddie was nursing a huge bottle of whiskey, despite his promises not to drink until Roddy arrived.

“Roddy!” he cried, lurching out of his chair to enfold his best friend in a bear hug. “I knew I could count on you. I’m glad you’re finally here.”

“What is Claire doing here?” Roddy asked without preamble.

“Whoa, calm down, man,” Eddie slurred, backing up and falling into a chair. “I had to keep her quiet somehow until you got here, so I told her she could stay.”

“I thought I told you to stay sober.” Roddy glared at Eddie, hating that he had to assume the big brother role yet again. He knew from experience that nothing else would work when his friend had been drinking, though.

“Shyeah, easier said than done with Claire in the house.” Eddie laughed grimly and then sloshed more whiskey down his throat.

“Have you at least talked to your lawyer?”

Eddie wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yeah, I’m not completely stupid. He told me I should pay her off if that’s what it takes to shut her up and get her out of here.”

Roddy snatched the whiskey bottle before Eddie could hit it again and slammed it decisively on a table.

“I’ll do what I can to help out,” he said with a stern glare. “But you need to make me a promise, and keep it this time. Sober up, and don’t drink another drop until I get Claire to sign something and get her out of here. That means all her stuff, too. I want her gone for good this time.”

She appeared in the doorway almost instantly. Roddy noted that as usual, her hair looked perfect, and why wouldn’t it? A woman like Claire had absolutely nothing to do with her time but perfect her appearance. Her bottle-blonde mane and traffic-stopping body were stuffed into a short miniskirt and a halter top, and she looked ready to pose for absent paparazzi. He supposed he might have found her beautiful if not for her self-serving, greedy nature and the petulance marring her features.

“What do you want?” she asked coldly from the doorway.

“I think it’s more like, what do you want?” Roddy stared her down.

Spots of color appeared in her cheeks as she worked herself into a snit. Red-tipped fingers clenched in fists at her sides, and she stepped angrily into the room.

“Did he tell you that he
hit
me?” she screeched.

Roddy gave her an infuriating smile. “I heard his side of things, yes. So what do you want?”

“An apology, for starters.”

Roddy’s smile disappeared. “Perhaps I should rephrase that.
How much
do you want?”

“I don’t think money can compensate for the hell he’s put me through!” Claire whined, her lower lip stuck out in a girlish pout.

At that moment, an image of Lee flashed through Roddy’s mind. He knew Lee would never act like this. She would never be with a man for his money and fame, he was sure. Lee would also never dye her hair such an obvious color, paint her clothes on, or wear that much make-up before the sun went down.

Roddy clenched his teeth. Why was he doomed to compare every damn woman he saw to Lee?

He turned his frustration on Claire. “Cut the crap,” he snapped, startling her somewhat. He knew she needed to be treated with an iron fist in a kid glove, but he was just plain tired of her and everything she stood for. “Most women I know wouldn’t call your life in Hollywood, or shopping on Rodeo Drive, hell.”

Claire tossed her head. “What about his sleeping around? Putting up with that is hell.”

Leave it to Claire to suddenly care about that.

“I don’t see a ring on your finger,” Roddy reminded her, deliberately bringing up a sore point. Claire had been unsuccessful in her attempts to get her hands permanently on Eddie’s money.

“I never asked her to marry me!” Eddie chose that moment to interject. He earned two icy glares for the effort.

“A man shouldn’t have to be married not to screw around,” Claire complained.

“Maybe not,” Roddy agreed, thinking that if Lee lived with him, he wouldn’t have the desire for another woman, much less the energy. “But I don’t think you were ever under any illusions.”

“Of course not.” Roddy quietly disagreed. Despite the situation, though, he would not voice his opinion in front of Eddie. He didn’t give a damn about Claire. He sighed and forced himself to sound calm and reasonable while he lied through his teeth. “It’s obvious you and Eddie cared for each other a lot at one time, but things just aren’t working out anymore. I’m sure Eddie’s sorry about your fight and everything that happened. I know he didn’t mean to hurt you, but maybe you’ve hurt him a little, too.”

“Hurt that reptile?” Claire huffed.

Roddy’s eyes got steely. “I’m prepared to take Eddie on every talk show in the country with two beautiful girls who will go on and on about how sweet he is. You know that’s gonna shoot all kinds of holes through your story about abuse, and it’ll make you look like nothing more than a gold-digging bitch who couldn’t get her claws in deep enough to get a ring on her finger before he tossed you out.”

Claire got quiet all of a sudden. Roddy knew she enjoyed her status in Hollywood as the live-in girlfriend of a famous rock star. Her image would be irreparably tarnished if Eddie went on TV and badmouthed her to the world. She would be a laughingstock. With her limited talents, it would seriously hamper her chances of hooking up with another guy of Eddie’s stature.

Roddy watched her calculating her options before she turned to him and said, “I’ve been living here for two years.”

“I’m sure Eddie is willing to compensate you for all the effort you’ve made toward the upkeep of his house, and for making him so deliriously happy all that time,” Roddy forced himself to say. It was hard to do without curling his lip.

“Fifty thousand,” Eddie suddenly said decisively from his slumped position in the chair.

Claire’s lips thinned for a moment, but then she nodded. “Okay.”

Roddy felt in that moment he could almost read her mind. He knew she hated him for stepping in and ruining her plans. Though their relationship had been rocky, Claire would have a hard time finding another man like Eddie. Roddy knew her original intent had been to get Eddie to hand her a large sum of money, and then to stick around to keep milking him for more. Of course, Roddy had ruined that for her and now she was on her way out of his life for good.

“She better not come back,” Roddy warned Eddie once she left the room. He couldn’t explain why she had been allowed to stay as long as she had. “If you let her back in here, I’m not going to help you out again.”

Eddie laughed, already forgetting his problems now that Roddy was making them go away. “I must’ve interrupted something good!”

Roddy met his careless comment with a glower. “We aren’t going to talk about my love life today.”

Eddie ignored the warning. “So now it’s love life instead of sex life, huh? I knew it. I knew the minute you started writing that damn song you’d lost it. It had to happen sooner or later.”

“Bummer she lives so far away.” Eddie changed the subject back to Lee as if Roddy had not spoken. “What are you going to do about that?

Roddy noticed his friend no longer seemed so helpless, or drunk. Instead, he seemed to be having fun playing devil’s advocate. He was forcing Roddy to think about things he wanted to push out of his mind at the moment. And, he was planting ideas in Roddy’s head that he shouldn’t entertain.

Sending Lee a ticket to LA was a crazy idea. She had a job and friends and a life in Minneapolis and wouldn’t be willing to leave it all behind. Still, Roddy couldn’t quiet the little voice in his head that kept saying her life there was so unfulfilling she had dropped everything and thrown herself into a weekend affair with him without having to make even a single phone call.

He left Eddie’s house in a pensive mood, damning his friend for planting seeds in his head. Just like that, his mind was working on solutions to problems that had seemed insurmountable only a couple of days ago.

Before he could effect any changes in his life, though, he did have one person he needed to see. It had been ages since Roddy paid a visit to his mother.

Margaret O’Neill lived in a modest house in Pasadena. Roddy wanted to buy her something much grander, but she insisted on staying in her small, two-bedroom dwelling in its quiet, unassuming neighborhood.

Some days, Roddy was glad she had insisted. Every time he went to visit her, it brought him back down to earth, which he especially needed after the hype and glitz of a concert tour. Sometimes he needed the reminder that underneath it all, he was just an average guy who happened to have a lucrative career. He didn’t want to start believing his own press, which was easy to do when he retired to a beautiful home in Beverly Hills at the end of the day.

Roddy’s mother was having coffee with a neighbor when his Maserati pulled into her driveway. He noticed her through her kitchen window when he hopped out of the car and loped up the front walk. She met him at the door, and he enveloped her in a bear hug, then twirled her around in circles.

Her neighbor said a smiling hello, then excused herself, knowing Roddy hadn’t been to see his mother in months. Roddy knew she would get all the details of his visit later on.

Margaret laughed and demanded Roddy set her down before her neighbor had closed the door. “Even after all those girls on tour, you’ve still got so much energy!” she remarked.

“I’m fine, dear. But I have to admit I’ve been a little worried about you. Eddie told me you had to take care of some kind of business in Minneapolis.”

Roddy scowled. “When did you talk to Eddie?”

Margaret made a face and waved her hands. “When that Claire was making her threats. You weren’t here, so he called to ask me for advice.”

“I can’t believe he dragged you into his problems,” he grumbled.

“It’s okay, Roddy,” she said gently. “Eddie needs a mother, since he hasn’t spoken to his own parents in over ten years. By the way, how is he?”

Roddy sighed long and hard. “He’s okay now. He paid Claire off and I dropped her at a friend’s house to make sure she really left.”

“I can’t figure out why he ever let her move in.”

“You’re not alone,” Roddy mused. “He seems to like having someone around. Maybe it gives him some sort of security to keep someone soft and warm at home, no matter how far he travels.”

Margaret nodded wisely. “I’m just glad she’s gone. I never liked that woman.” She paused a beat, and then fixed her son with a look. “I’m sure that girl in Minneapolis would never behave like her.”

Roddy turned away and said nothing for several seconds, then slowly turned to regard his mother through narrowed eyes. “Probably not.”

Margaret just stared back at him for several seconds before she finally said, “What are you going to do about her, Roddy?”

“How do you even know about her, Ma?”

She gave him a long, hard stare that told him he couldn’t hide anything from her. “Eddie told me, of course. He seems quite happy for you, too, since I convinced him you will still be able to function, even if you are in love.”

“Ma! For God’s sake! Why does everyone keep saying that?” Roddy ran his hands through his hair.

“Because you drove halfway across the country just to see her, that’s why,” was Margaret’s calm answer. “And Roddy O’Neill hasn’t crossed the street for a woman since he got rich and famous.”