Kiss the Girl (41 page)

Nixie blinked at her in surprise.  “Are you wearing
glasses
?”

Sloan touched the stylish square frames on the end of her nose.  “Just for reading,” she said, pushing them into the jumble of glossy curls on top of her head.  She waved a hand toward the coffee table where a few dozen slim folios lay in neat piles.  “I’m looking for my next film.”

Nixie wandered closer, drawn by the scripts.  In better days, picking Sloan’s next project had been a family affair.  Nixie would curl up at her mother’s feet and they would spend hours
digging
through the piles, laughing at some, reading lines from others, imagining the locations, the costumes, the co-stars.  “Anything look good?”

An irritable line appeared between Sloan’s brows, and Nixie tried to keep the shock off her face.  Sloan hadn’t frowned for ten years.  She hadn’t laughed much either.  Extremes of emotion were wearing, she claimed. 

“No,”
she said, tossing
a folder
onto the table.  “It’s all junk.”

Nixie picked up the discarded script.  “This one’s from Lars Von Heller,” she said.

“I know who it’s from, Nixie.”

“He directed you to an Oscar nomination, Mom.  I doubt he’s sending you junk.”  She picked up the slim binder and flipped it open.  She scanned a page or two, then said, “Oh.” 

“
Oh
is right,” Sloan said, sink
ing deeper into her chair.  She crossed her arms, making a shelf on which to prop her boobs.  Nixie doubted she did it consciously.  It was probably just a habit at this point, like not smiling, frowning or eating.
  Nixie cruised through another fifteen, twenty pages, enough to get a sense for the part’s depth and scope, enough to know Lars had offered her mother an
other
Oscar contending role.  Still...
 

“He
wants you to play a grandmother.
”  Nixie bit down on a smile. 

“Do I look like a
grandmother
to you?”

“Well, no.  Not
like
any grandmother I’ve ever met.  To be fair, though, you’ve never looked much like a mother, either.”

Sloan narrowed her eyes.  “Is that a crack?”

“
Mom, you’re fifty. 
Grandkids are on the way
.”

Sloan spread one hand over her cleavage and stared at Nixie.  “Tell me you’re not pregnant.”

“What?  Of course I’m not pregnant.  You stole the last guy who could’ve made that happen, remember?”

“Did I?”  Sloan gave her that naughty kitty smirk she’d been playing off as a smile for the last decade.  “What was his name again? 
Jonathon
? 
Jeffrey
?”

“
James
, Mom.  His name was
James
.  And I’m not here to talk to you about that.”

“No? 
Then why are you here, Nixie?  You haven’t exactly been in the habit of dropping by lately.”

“I need Karl.  Is he around?”

“I’m afraid not.  It’s just your old mom here today.  Want to leave a message?  I’
m sure Karl
can parent you when he gets back.”

Nixie’s anger, already at a simmer over Karl’s high-handed attempts to manipulate her love life, shot straight to a rolling boil.  “I’m sorry, did you want a
crack
at parenting?  You should’ve said something.  Karl and I have established
kind of
a thing these past twenty
years, but
you can step up to the plate any time.  It might damage your image as an international slut, though
.
  Just so you know.
”

Nixie’s heart tumbled as she heard the ugly words fall out of her mouth, but Sloan didn’t flinch.  She actually smi
led.  Better a slut than a
mother, apparently.  Nixie wished her conscience would embrace the idea and quit ordering up the tidal waves of guilt that were currently crashing over her head.

“I think I can afford a little motherly beneficence in the privacy of my own hotel room.”  She
sent the script in Nixie’s hand
a poisonous look.  “I’
ll ask you to keep it quiet, however, out of deference to my career.”  She
put her feet on the floor, folded her hands and channeled the Mona Lisa.  “Come now.  Tell Mummy all about it.  What’s got our level-headed Nixie
pissy
enough to use an ugly word like slut?”

“You really want to know?”

Sloan just looked at her, amber brows cocked expectantly, all attentive patience. 

“Fine.”  Nixie flopped onto the couch across from her mother, twisted the script in her hands into a tube and said, “
There’s a guy
.
”

Sloan waved a hand.  “There’s always a guy, Nixie.”

“Well, I like this one.  I really like him.”  She frowned.  “I think I might even love him.
  He’s being kind of stupid right now so it’s hard to tell.”

“Stupid in what way?”

“He’s got a problem with
fame, money, politics and the press.  Childhood incident, I guess.  I didn’t ask.”

“I see.”  Sloan nibbled one glossy lip.  “Are we talking in code or can we say Erik?”

Nixie slid sideways until she was lying down on the couch, the script over her face. 

“Code it is,” Sloan said.  “Go on.”

The script smelled like toner and her own breath and Nixie liked the feel of it over her face.  It provided a sort of anonymity that made it easier to talk.  To her mother, of all people.  “
He thinks he wants somebody ordinary.  Somebody normal.  Somebody who doesn’t end up in the tabloids every other day.  But I don’t think he’s absolutely sure about that.”

“Why not?”

“Because every time we’re alone together, he kisses me into next week
.
”

“Ah.”

Nixie pulled the script off her face and sat up. 
“So what do I do?  I can’t just hang around hoping he’ll eventually take a chance on me.  But what if I leave?  He’ll probably propose to the first pretty introvert he meets and then it’ll all
be
over.” 

“
Darling, listen to yourself
,” Sloan said.  “
It’s all
he wants, he’ll do, he says
.  What about what you want?”

“What I want?”

“
Yes, you.
”

She twisted the script in her hands.  “I...I don’t know.”

“Of course you do.  Don’t think, just answer.  What do you
want
, Nixie
?”

“Him.”  Nixie’s
heart bloomed
as
she finally said the words out loud
.
  Finally admitted what was in her heart
.
  “I want him.”

“Go get him, then.”

Nixie laughed
, and it sounded startlingly sharp and bitter, even to her own ear
.  “I’m not sure it works like that.”

“Of course it does
.
”

“He doesn’t want me, Mom.”

“Of course he does.  If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be kissing you all the time.”

Nixie thought about that for a second.  “Okay,
so maybe he wants my body but he’s not happy about it.  In fact, I’d say he’s pretty pissed about it.  And now I’m supposed to convince him to not only want the rest of me but to be happy about it?”

“My darling, naïve little Nixie
.
”  Sloan gave a chuckle that was pure sexual knowledge.
  “
Men are very primitive creatures when it c
ome
s down to it.  Keep them fucked,
keep them fed
, and they’ll do about any
ridiculous
thing
you ask
.
  Even marry you.
”

Nixie sighed, stung by Sloan’s retreat into sex pot mode. 
“
God
, when am I going to stop being such an idiot?  Every time
I think you’re going to
actually parent me
, you come through with a
quote from
Cosmo
.” 
Nixie shook her head slowly
and tossed the script onto the pile
.  “
It’s a wonder Lars sent you this role at all
.
  He must really believe in your talent
if he thinks you can be the heart of a family
.
  Even a make-believe family.
”

Sloan rolled her eyes at
the script
on the table
, and Nixie rose to go.  But halfway to the door, she stopped.

“
It’s a good part, Mom. 
It’ll win you that Oscar if you’re not too scared to do the work.”

“Scared?”  Sloan
arranged herself
on the white leather.  “Please.  I’m insulted, not afraid.”

“Okay.” 
Nixie
shrugged
. 
“
Tell Karl I
’m still not going to
Bumani
,” she said
.  “He’ll know what that means.”  She
turned
and walked out the door
.

Sloan watched Nixie walk away with equal parts relief and regret.  She was so brave and strong, her girl.  So much braver and stronger than her mother.  She’d go home and tackle her doctor with the straightforward openness that took Sloan’s breath away every time she witnessed it.
Nobody worked without a net like Nixie.  Sloan had fallen in love with Archer’s courage, and adored it beyond measure in their only child. 

But when s
he’d opened her mouth to
say so, it all fell apart in a rush of cowardice.  She’d wanted to
tell Nixie about Archer, about how loving him had been all breathless passion, unreasoning joy and utter terror.  It was crazy to love like that. 
Sheer
madness.  And it didn’t get better when the relationship got older and children fell into the mix. 
God
, then it just got worse.  She loved Nixie with parts of her so
ul even Archer had never touched
. 

But she’d been too afraid to say the words.  It made her feel too...naked.  Too exposed and awkward and
uncertain.  She’d made her living being every person’s fantasy.  The perfect fuck, the embodiment of beauty, of sex, of mystery.  They all wanted
her face and her body
, and
those
she could give them without turning a hair.