Maxine (38 page)

“
On national television?” said Catherine.  “Get real.”

“
Everyone wants to be on national television,” said Scooter.  “Besides, no one will watch unless the women are beautiful, and if he’s not rich, he’d better be good looking or have something special going for him.”

Henry Wallace, the producer and boss, made a few notes and closed his folder.  “Cat, we’ll meet at ten in the morning to go over the details.”

Her co-workers rushed from the room like rats leaving a sinking ship, and Catherine was left sitting alone in the middle of an empty, but messy room with a pot of fresh coffee and a presentation to work up for Henry by morning. 

As the hours passed, she sketched out one plan after another.  She knew what Henry expected, but the details to make this show work weren’t coming.  If the guy was too much of a loser, it would show in the way he presented himself, and most women had to work for a living.  Taking a month off work to live in a mansion and play games was out of the question when you had bills to pay. 

Finally, she rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes.  A drop-dead gorgeous guy with dark hair, sparkling brown eyes, and a killer smile haunted her dreams.  A dozen tall, beautiful women strutted around in expensive evening gowns, showing their stuff.  And there was short, dumpy Catherine, in her baggy shirt and wrinkled slacks, her curly red hair slipping out of the knot, and her glasses sliding down her freckled nose.  The man pointed to her and crooked his finger, probably to tell her she’d be the first woman on the show to be rejected.  No surprise there.  No guy worth having wanted her.

A hand on her shoulder woke her from her strange dream.  Sunshine streamed through the dusty windows, and she groaned.  Morning already?  She didn’t have a thing to show Henry.

“
Sleeping on the job, Cat?”  Scooter glanced at the doodles on the pad of paper in front of her.  “Productive work session, I see.”

She wanted to tell him to shut up.  Instead, she said, “It’s all in my head.”  God help her when Henry found out she didn’t have anything sketched out for this show. 

An hour later, Henry called her into his office, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to her.  “I’m intrigued by your idea.  An average, but great looking guy who lives with his mother.”

Catherine sipped her coffee and tried to clear her sleep-deprived brain.  She had nothing to show him, so she talked it out.  “The women can be single moms, average girls with frizzy hair and freckles, and some beauty queens to keep it interesting.  We’ll let him see them all in the beginning, but they won’t exchange names.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because we’re calling the show
Blind Love
, and he’ll be wearing a blindfold when he interviews them.  He’ll have to make his first few cuts based on personality and compatibility.”

Henry chuckled. 

“
It evens the playing field.  She’ll have to intrigue him in the interview or she’ll be out the door.  On the other hand, some guys can’t see past a girl’s appearance, and she won’t be as intimidated if he’s not staring at her boobs or the zit that popped out on the end of her nose.”

Henry’s gaze slid down to Catherine’s chest.  “I see what you mean.”

She sipped her coffee.  “Having the guy eliminate the first few girls before he sees them would add an element of risk.  What if he gets rid of all the pretty ones?  He’ll have to see them when he sends them away, and the look on his face when he realizes who he’s rejecting should be interesting.”

“
How much do we tell the women about him?”

“
Nothing until he’s eliminated the first half of the girls.  After all, this is...”

“
Blind Love
,” they said together.

“
I like it.  See if you can find a guy who fits the profile and a location to film it.” 

He bought it.
 
Catherine couldn’t believe that Henry actually bought one of her ideas.  They usually got shot down as soon as they left her mouth. 

If they got the right bachelor, it could be an interesting show.  On the other hand, it could bomb and end Catherine’s career.  The thought of going home to her father and admitting she was a failure made her stomach hurt.  He already thought she was a failure or he would have kept the family business for her instead of selling it to the highest bidder when he retired.

<> 

Tony Donatelli sipped his beer and scanned the room.  He could barely hear the mournful country tune on the jukebox over the murmur of conversation and laughter.   He’d been spending his evenings renovating a house, and tonight he wanted a date with a sexy blonde.  If he could find one. 

He made eye contact with several women, but the one that interested him was a tall blonde playing pool with another woman.  She tossed her hair over her shoulder and leaned over the table, her tight jeans cupping her behind.  She walked around the table, where he got a good look at the rest of her.  “
Oh, yeah,”
  he said under his breath.  He wondered if she’d come with a guy or if she was here alone.  He didn’t date women who were attached. 

A cute little brunette sat at the stool beside him and eyed his body.  Throwing a come-on smile his way, she ordered a drink.  She obviously wanted company, but he didn’t want to tie up his evening with the brunette if the blonde was available.  He’d always preferred blondes, especially tall ones. 

He wore a tight black T-shirt that hugged his chest and arms, worn jeans that fit like a second skin, and boots that added another inch to his six-foot-two-inch frame.  He knew he looked good, and as he wandered toward the pool table, he was aware of several sets of eyes following him. 

“
Hey, Tony,” a man called from across the room.  It was one of the men on Tony’s construction crew.  He was with another guy and two women.  Tony waved and kept walking toward the pool table.  The two women at the table stopped playing and looked up.  The blonde holding the cue stick gazed directly into his eyes, but she didn’t smile. 

“
Mind if I watch?”

“
Are you Tony Donatelli?” asked the blonde.

“
Yeah.  And you are...”

“
Not interested.”  She turned back to the table and sank another ball.

Her companion said, “A woman was in here a few minutes ago looking for you.”

“
Oh, yeah?  Did this woman leave a name?”

“
Melissa Juno.  She said you’d had a fight and you’d probably try to hit on another woman tonight.”  She cocked her head.  “How many months along is she?”

“
If she’s pregnant it sure as hell ain’t mine.”  Melissa was a gorgeous brown-eyed blonde, but there was something important missing in that pretty head.  He’d taken her out to dinner once, but when she invited him into her apartment for an after-dinner drink, something told him to back off.  So he did.  She’d insisted on making him dinner a week later, and all through dinner, she talked about having his babies.  He got out of there in a hurry.  Two lousy dinner dates and she was knitting little booties?  She was out of her ever-loving mind! 

Tony’s mother kept pushing him to find a nice girl, settle down, and give her more grandbabies to love.  He loved women, but he was a long way from happily ever after.  Besides, he had enough responsibility without taking on a wife, especially a crazy one like Melissa Juno.

He glanced back at the bar to see the brunette hot and heavy with another guy.  No woman in her right mind would date him now, not after Melissa spread her lies.  Damn!  What would it take to get that woman off his back? 

Feeling the need to hit something, Tony finished his beer and went to the gym. 

<> 

Catherine spent the rest of the week reviewing the files of men who’d been considered for previous shows.  Most of them had stable jobs and their own homes, or at least their own apartments.  None of them lived at home or owed back child support or had any of the other negatives that could be a surprise at some point in the show.  Some were just too young.  She didn’t want to put a twenty-year-old male model looking for a way to ease himself into an acting career on this kind of show. 

There was a thirty-year-old firefighter who looked good.  He was Mr. July on a calendar last year, and he shared an apartment with his divorced and unemployed brother.  It wasn’t quite the same as living at home with Mama, but he might do in a pinch.  At least he didn’t live alone. 

She found three possibilities in the women rejected by other shows.  They were all tall, slender, poised, and beautiful.  One was a former model, retired at the age of twenty-five.  Another was a former Miss Florida.  She was thirty-three.  Half a lifetime ago, she’d gone to boarding school with the third one.  Jenny was now a twenty-nine-year-old single mom. 

She was still plowing through applicants for the new show when she received a phone call from Santa Barbara.  “Catherine, this is Fawn, your father’s fiancée.”

Fiancée?
 
She had to be kidding. 

“
I tried to call you last night after the paramedics took Walt to the hospital.  He had a dizzy spell and fell down the stairs.”

Catherine’s relationship with her father had been strained the past three years, but she didn’t want him hurt.  “Did he break something?”

“
His leg and hip,” said Fawn.  “They put an artificial joint in his hip this morning.  I don’t know how he’ll climb these stairs when he gets home.”

Catherine swallowed a groan.  As much as she wanted to handle this project herself, it was out of the question now.  Henry had preliminary approval from the network, and it looked like
Blind Love
would be filmed this summer.  It was already March, and nobody had been interviewed except the fireman. There was still a lot of work to do, but she wouldn’t be here to do it.

Someone would have to take care of her father, and there was no one else.  Catherine’s parents were divorced, her mother lived in San Diego, and her aunt had moved to France with her new husband.  Fawn didn’t sound like the caregiver type, and Father wouldn’t listen to any of the household staff.  As if they’d dare say anything to him.  He was a tyrant, and keeping the house staffed had always been a problem. 

Catherine tapped on Henry’s open office door.  “I hate to bail out on you, but my father had a bad fall.  I’ll have to stay with him until he’s able to bellow at the staff without ending up in the hospital again.”

“
How serious is it?”

“
His girlfriend of the month said they had to put in an artificial hip.  His leg is broken, too.  She wasn’t too clear on the details.”  Her father had always managed to pick brainless bimbos, but this one was over the top.  She thought they were getting married. 

“
Keep in touch, and we’ll expect you back as soon as the crisis is over.”

She handed him the folder with her notes.  “I haven’t interviewed any of the girls yet, but I did interview the fireman.  He’s handsome and personable.  He doesn’t live with his mother, but she lives down the street, and he’s supporting his unemployed, divorced brother.  I’d planned to look for other candidates, but I ran out of time.”

Henry scanned her notes.  “Looks like you’ve gotten quite a bit accomplished.  What about the location?”

“
I thought I’d ask Cara Andrews if we could use her estate.”

“
That would bring in viewers, but if it doesn’t work out, we’ll find another place.”

She pointed to the sticky note on the inside of the folder, where she’d listed her email address and cell phone number.  “I’ll have my laptop with me, and my cell phone.” 

Catherine walked out of the office wondering who would be put in charge of the project.  Probably Mitzi.  She was the only one who could screw up a simple concept, and if she messed this up, they could both be out the door.

Days like this she wondered what she was trying to prove, living in a place she hated and working around the clock with a bunch of people she didn’t like.  Mitzi looked down her nose at her, and Scooter acted as though Catherine were a brainless twit.  The only one who treated her with any respect was Henry, and that was probably because he knew she was Catherine Anne Timmons, of the Timmons Hotels family.  If her father hadn’t sold the hotel business, she wouldn’t be working for Henry. 

Her co-workers didn’t know that she’d someday inherit enough to buy her own production company, and she wasn’t about to tell them.  At work, she was simply Cat. 

<> 

Catherine heard her father’s voice before she reached his room.  He was complaining about something, as usual.  “Hello, Father.”  She plopped her bag on the wide windowsill and stood beside his bed.  “Fawn called me.  Where is she?”

“
At the house.  It’s been weeks since I’ve heard from you.”  There it was, the disapproval she’d come to expect.  She’d only been home four or five times since he’d sold the hotel business, and she’d never invited him to LA.  It was impossible to have a civil conversation about anything with the hotel business hovering between them like a giant over-inflated balloon that could burst at any second.  “How are you feeling?”