Hot in Hellcat Canyon (6 page)

“Kinda busy. You know, with my twenty-ish jobs.”

The real reason was that she’d feel like a liar if she dodged questions about herself, and someone was bound to ask if she got close to them. Everyone in Hellcat Canyon kind of seemed to take her, and like her, at face value. She didn’t think anyone had even noticed she might be a bit guarded.

But sometimes feeling ashamed felt like an additional job she had to do, and took up emotional real estate she would otherwise have given over to having or being a friend. She didn’t know how to articulate this to Laine, who would only worry.

Mostly Britt was pretty content with the way things were these days. She could probably coast along the way she was forever.

Laine wasn’t about to abandon the topic. “I’m just worried that if you only ever socialize with a nine-year-old, a ninety-two-year-old, and me, you’re going to forget how to communicate with regular adults, not to mention men. Not every guy wants to talk about butts.”

“Are you saying
you’re
not an adult, Laine?”

“What I mean is an adult who hasn’t known you since you couldn’t pronounce your ‘f’s. How’s that puzzy cat of yours?”

When Britt was about three, she’d resourcefully substituted in “p”s for “f”s in all words until she got a handle on the “f”s.

“He’s fine. And fat.” She had perfect control of them now.

“Give him a scratch for me.”

“I will. Lainie, I talk to people at the diner every day. Speaking of which, I have to get some sleep now, or I might drop plates tomorrow.”

“Can’t have that! Okay sweets, love you. Alley-oop!”

“Love you, too. Alley-oop!”

The thing she used to say to Britt just before she was tossed up to the top of the cheerleading pyramid. Britt had
always
wanted to be on top, risk be damned. The view from there, she claimed, was better.

And the screen went blank.

Britt stood up abruptly. She realized her lungs were moving shallowly. “Jeff.” Just the sound of that name could get residual panic circulating in her bloodstream.

She deliberately took deep, long, greedy gulps of warm night air, and tipped her head back to luxuriate in the scenery—yep, trees, stars, mountains, dirt, Hellcat Canyon. Home. Far, far away from Southern California, where she had once been happy and where everything had gone shockingly to pieces.

“Oop!” She gave a start. She’d just remembered it was garbage collection tomorrow.

She opened the latch on Mrs. Morrison’s gate and dragged her trash can and recyling bins out to the side of the road, and then she dragged her own bins out, and the physical exertion made her feel a little better.

Then she returned to the deck and with one final bracing breath for courage, typed the rest of what she’d sat down to type almost a half hour ago.

“. . . Cord.”

She hit return.

Good
God
.

Such a torrent of information appeared, he was actually categorized by
topic
.

She tentatively clicked his Wikipedia entry and scanned the headings:

Early Life.

Blood Brothers
.

After
Blood Brothers
.

Personal Life.

Controversy.

Imagine an entire life summed up in a series of categories. Imagine the internet deciding for you what the peak of it was, and arranging everything else as “Before” and “After.”

Then again she supposed her life had “Before” and “After” portions, too. Not to mention a “Controversy” part.

She swiftly scrolled through. Born in the Tennessee Mountains. He’d just turned forty. His mom died when he was ten. He married at eighteen, divorced a year later, joined the army at twenty, then settled in Los Angeles.

According to Wikipedia, that was the sum total of his life up until the television program
Blood Brothers.
He was twenty-three when it started.

It was a top-rated drama/comedy for seven years. Wildly popular. Umpteen Emmy nominations and awards for the show, including four nominations and two wins for Tennessee McCord as Best Actor, playing Blue Summerville, a cop. The character’s signature phrase (“Daaaaamn!”) briefly took over the nation, but was primarily beloved of frat boys. The series had turned both Tennessee McCord and Franco Francone, who played his partner, into big stars. The series finale broke television viewing records. It had ended in 2005.

After one sentence about his first and only wife to date (one Denise Ray), “Personal Life” was devoted to Rebecca Corday.

The whole
world
knew who
she
was.

They were together for about five years. A pretty long time in Hollywood terms. It had ended for good a year ago, and with quite a bang, at least according to Wikipedia.

He hadn’t been linked to anyone seriously since.

Rebecca Corday, on the other hand, had been linked to Sir Anthony Underhill ever since.

The “After
Blood Brothers
” section was short, too: he’d been in two types of movies, the kind with explosions and car chases, and one romantic comedy. One had tanked, the other two had limped to a break-even status, all were derided by critics, though his performance wasn’t blamed and he was generally considered the best thing about either movie. Several years later his performances in two independent films that almost no one saw were lavishly praised. One of them was shown at Cannes. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for the other one,
Agapé
. Somewhere in his downtime between films he’d acquired a black belt in karate.

A year later he signed on to play the lead role in a series set during the Gold Rush in California, called
The Rush
,
due to air on cable television beginning in 2017.
It would be filmed in part on location in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California, site of the Gold Rush itself.

Right near Hellcat Canyon, which was why he was here, of course.

On his way to that wedding Casey mentioned.

The “Controversy” section was naturally where all the juicy stuff was.

A playful rivalry between him and his friend, co-star Franco Francone, had gotten genuinely ugly when Rebecca Corday left Francone for Tennessee. There was something about a fistfight in a parking lot, but no photographic evidence of that episode apparently existed. McCord had once punched a photographer who had allegedly said something unspeakable to Rebecca Corday. He drank a bit too much more than once. Toward the end of the series, he developed a bit of a reputation for being difficult on set, showing up late from time to time.

A few years after his show had ended, he’d demanded, “Do you know who I am?” of a cop who had pulled him over.
Wow.
That one was wince-worthy.

It was nearly full dark outside, and she’d begun to hear the stirring of nocturnal animals—raccoons and possums, probably, but hopefully not a coyote—by the time Britt decided to look at the photos.

She clicked “John Tennessee McCord—’90s.”

In photo after photo he was untenably gorgeous, almost dewily young. The girl was different (if equivalently beautiful) in nearly every photo but his expression was about the same: a sort of wicked, mischievous, slightly dazed grin of a man who just
cannot
believe his luck. Her father would have called it a shit-eating grin. But he’d never really looked innocent. Even at that age he’d had the presence of someone who’d
seen
things. A bit of an edge that conferred dignity beyond his years.

There he was sitting with David Letterman, whose head was thrown back laughing. Accepting an Emmy for his role in
Blood Brothers
, slim as an arrow, devastating in a black tuxedo. Beaming and leaning over the red velvet rope cordoning off the stars on the red carpet from the dazzled hoi polloi, a sea of paper and pens and hands thrust out at him. Posing with a state trooper who had pulled him over for speeding. The trooper was grinning as if he’d caught the biggest bass in the lake.

“I’ll be damned,” she said softly, amused. It was the same red truck in that photo that she’d seen parked on the street today. Circa 1990-something, if she had to guess. Kind of like her own car.

There were the magazine features: “Why John Tennessee McCord Is Kryptonite.” “John Tennessee McCord: Serious Actor, Olympic-Caliber Flirt.”
At least one of those things was very likely true, as far as Britt was concerned.

On YouTube she found something called “The Tennessee McCord ‘Daaaamn’ Supercut.”

It turned out to be a few dozen spliced-together scenes of him delivering his character’s signature word in every imaginable inflection. An impressed “Daaaaaamn, son!” A frustrated “Daaaaaamn, Lorelei!” A furious “Daaamn, Lieutenant!” He’d somehow managed to deliver that phrase each time with impressive and convincing nuance.

There was a muttered “Daaamn,” bitter and aching, as someone in a coffin was lowered into a grave.

The very last one was a scene of his character in bed next to a woman, the room shadowy, their faces nearly touching.

“Daaaaaamn,” he whispered with a sort of tender awe.

“Jesus,” Britt whispered in reply, with closed eyes and a silent apology to Mrs. Morrison.

She suddenly felt about ten degrees hotter. The sound of his voice was like a tongue down her spine.

It was like he’d literally been born to murmur.

She read a few of the comments below.

Ha ha he’s so funny he was my favorite

Whatever happened to him?

Click here if you want a larger pen1s.

“Who doesn’t?” Britt muttered.

Despite what she’d told her sister, it wasn’t as though she didn’t get lonely. It was just that getting back up on that horse often seemed more daunting than never experiencing another “pen1s” again, and she could live with a bout of loneliness now and again.

There were other videos, too: snippets from talk shows and red carpet interviews. A John Tennessee McCord supercut of some of the dangerous stunts on
Blood Brothers
. She’d take a look at those later.

She flipped back to the photos.

With a peculiar reluctance she hesitated to examine too closely—because it actually felt like jealousy, which was patently ridiculous—she chose the “Tennessee McCord with Rebecca Corday” category.

God, but Rebecca Corday was pretty. Miles of titian hair and a face that was delicately, distinctly chiseled apart from a big soft set of lips. She offered something fascinating and magnificent to the camera no matter what part of her was turned to it. There were posed photos, both of them dressed like royalty, beaming, their arms linked with a sort of triumphant possession, on various red carpets. There were everyday moments caught by some stalking photographer: walking together down some sidewalk, each of them wearing jeans and a T-shirt and carrying a grocery bag. Standing in a park so closely their foreheads touched, each of them wearing a smile.

There was John Tennessee stepping out of swim trunks on a beach in some glamorous tropical locale, clearly nude—a modest black rectangle had been photoshopped over his penis—and there was Rebecca stretched out on a lounge chair, smooth pale perfection in two scraps of cloth some people might call a bikini covering her privates.

Just lots and lots and lots of photos of the two of them. She always seemed to be laughing. He always looked proud and possessive.

The magazine covers: “Rebecca Corday: Why John Tennessee McCord is the perfect man for me.” “Everything you wanted to know about Rebeccasee! How they met, their first kiss, and More!” “How Keeping Separate Pads Keeps Rebeccassee’s Romance Piping Hot!” “Why Rebecassee doesn’t need to be married to feel committed.”

Then there were a couple of paparazzi photos of them stone-faced, walking side by side, in Los Angeles. One of what was clearly an argument, judging from her clenched fists and drawn-taut features and open mouth. She didn’t look very pretty, then.

He stood a few feet away from her, his face angled away, hands shoved in his pockets, face thunderous.

The last video of him she could find was one that was almost a year old, courtesy of TMZ.

He was rushing through a busy airport, head down, a knit cap pulled down over his head. Clearly some kind of failed attempt at disguise. When the entire world has seen you walk and talk on screen for nearly a decade, it must be pretty hard to hide.

“Hey, John Tennessee! We hear Rebecca Corday dumped you in Cannes. What did you do to deserve it?”

“Yeah, what was the last straw for her? Your last movie embarrass her?” another reporter chimed.

The assholes were laughing at him.

John Tennessee McCord flashed a single look at the camera lens. His eyes were shocking. Hunted, haunted, hollow, stunned and weary. About a day’s worth of stubble covered his grimly set jaw.

Britt’s heart lurched.

He said nothing to the jerks with the camera. Kept his head down, kept walking. Faster.

And still the cameras followed him.

“We heard she left with Sir Anthony Underhill. Guess there’s no more Rebeccasee, eh? Guess it’s Rebeccathy now, eh?”

Britt leaned back in her chair.

Suddenly she was deeply ashamed. She felt no better than either one of those stalking videographers, poring over the digital artifacts of a man’s life.

And she didn’t really know anything more about him now than she had before she Googled him.

That made her no better than a voyeur.

The “Olympic-caliber flirt” had scribbled a note on her order tag. But then, his livelihood depended in part on his ability to charm women to their eyeteeth and hypnotize them with his blue eyes.

Perhaps it was no wonder he was the only man she’d seen in probably two years who had all but literally set her blood on fire, and he’d managed to do it with a single glance and a few words.

Still.

She watched that video until the end. She watched as he skillfully slalomed through the crowds and lost those photographers, who kept their cameras on him until he became just another black speck in the airport crowd.