Star Maker (33 page)

“Wake
up, sleeping beauty. Time to get ready for your big day.” Kit’s eyes
fluttered open and she saw Sully approaching her, carrying a tray of food.

She
grinned sleepily. “What are you up to? What is that?”

He sat
on the edge of the bed and put the tray on her lap as she sat up. “I made you
breakfast. Thought it would be a good start to your day.” He leaned forward
and kissed her.

“Thank
you. This looks great. You woke up early to cook for me?”

He
chuckled. “As much as I’d like to take credit for that thought of yours and
say yes, I can’t in good conscience do that.” He held his hand to his heart.
“Truth is, I’ve been up all night writing. Couldn’t sleep.”

She
raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I was
out back in the studio. That studio is bonkers! I love it. Anyway, that’s my
story and I’m sticking to it.”

She
giggled. “I really appreciate it, babe. You know I love when you cook for me.
The food you make is always really good.”

He
shrugged his shoulders. “Hidden talents. Do you need anything else? If not,
I’m gonna get back to it.”

She
pulled him toward her. “Just a kiss.”

He leaned in and smiled. “I can certainly do that.”

Kit sat
in the office that was now hers and had once belonged to Don. It was on the
thirteenth floor, the executive floor, of the Diamond building located on
Sunset Boulevard. She felt awkward in her new office. Don’s things had been
moved out, but it was hard for her to relate to it as her own on her first day
as chief counsel. Her office sat in the southwest corner of the building,
giving her a southern view of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. She had her
back to her office door as she looked out the window. Not too shabby, she
thought to herself.

A
charming female voice with an accent caught her attention. “Hey, Kit.”

She
turned around and smiled when she recognized Giselle Machado, a very young,
petite brunette with long, wavy, dark brown hair, gorgeous, light brown skin,
and beautiful, big, hazel eyes. She had been Don’s executive assistant and
legal secretary for the last two years and had the fastest fingers on the
planet. She could type like a speed demon and Kit was wholly looking forward
to her assistance. “Hey, G.”

“How
are you doing? Can I get you anything? Coffee maybe?”

Kit
nodded and grinned, hearing the trace of a pleasant accent again of some sort
that she couldn’t place. She wasn’t sure where Giselle was from, but she could
get used to being waited on hand and foot by her. She was so used to doing
everything on her own. “Coffee would be great. Cream, no sugar, please.”

“You
have a meeting with Lew in a half hour. To view the rest of your schedule, hit
shift S on your keyboard. I’ll be back in a sec.”

Kit sat
down at her desk and was reviewing her schedule when Giselle returned with her
coffee.

She set
it down on the desk. “Do you have any questions?”

Kit
shook her head and chuckled. “Not yet… and I stress yet.”

Giselle
smiled. “You’ll do just fine, Kit. You’ve got your hands in more of this than
you think. Don has given you a lot over the last six months that he normally
wouldn’t hand off. I think he knew it would come to this, but didn’t think it
would be so soon.”

Kit
nodded sadly. “How is she doing?”

Giselle
shrugged her shoulders. “Same. The doctors are saying she has four weeks at
most.”

Kit
took a deep breath and let it out slowly thinking how heart wrenching this must
be for Don. He’d been happily married to his wife for thirty-two years. She
shuddered at the thought of something like that happening to Sully. She
quickly cast the idea out of her mind—it was much too disturbing.
“Anything we can do for him?”

Giselle
shook her head. “Not right now. If he needs anything, he’ll let us know.
Twenty minutes ‘til you’re up with Lew.”

Kit
nodded. “Thanks, G.”

As she
walked over to Lew’s office on the northwest corner of the floor, she reminded
herself to breathe. She was nervous. She had dozens of successful meetings
with Lew over the last two years, yet she felt like she had been sent up to the
major leagues from the minors and was expected to hit a home run right out of
the gate. Immense pressure ensued.

Lew’s
assistant, Mindy, gave Kit the high sign to go ahead into Lew’s office. She
walked in and noticed he was wrapping up a call. He grinned, waved her in, and
motioned for her to sit down on one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Lewis
Diamond was a stocky man of medium height. He had a fairly rugged look that
was enhanced by his thick New York accent. He was in his mid-sixties, but
easily looked ten years younger than that. He was balding and had on stylish
eyeglasses. His sharp brown eyes twinkled whenever he displayed one of his
warm, friendly smiles. He treated every single employee at the company as
family and was respected by virtually everyone in the music industry, often
being referred to as an icon and one of the original pioneers of the modern day
music business.

He hung
up the phone and smiled. “Kit, you’re here!” He rubbed his hands together as
she chuckled. “How was that vacation of yours? Bali was it?”

She
smiled. “It was great.”

“And
how’s your other half, Sully, doing?”

“He’s
amazing, as usual. Planning to go back into the studio with the band so he can
rip up the charts yet again with the next album.”

Lew
laughed. “God bless him. I’m sure he will. I want them back in the studio as
soon as possible. Like yesterday. They’re hot right now and Sully’s
Rolling Stone
cover certainly didn’t
hurt.”

They
dug right in and got down to business. Kit was pleased that she had overestimated
how much work there was to do. She was actually ahead of the game and was
happy to learn that being in the office on a daily basis wasn’t required of
her. Lew was giving her free reign to work out of her home office and only
come in for high profile meetings. She was relieved. They had run through
everything on the agenda that Mindy had handed to her before walking into Lew’s
office. She glanced at her wristwatch and figured they’d be wrapping up any
second. An hour had flown by quickly.

Lew
leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. “That’s about it, Kit.”

She
reviewed the agenda one last time. “Yeah, I think that about covers it.” She
got up from her chair and he spoke again.

“Actually,
there is one more thing. Take a seat.”

She sat
back down and looked at him in anticipation. “Ok.”

“Since
you’re an executive of Diamond now, you’re entitled to certain perks. I
covered most of them when we talked a few weeks back, but there was a small one
I forgot to mention.”

She
stared at him. “There is?”

He
nodded. “It’ll be delivered today.”

“It
will? What is it?”

He
grinned. “Your company car, Kit. It’s leased so you can’t go crazy on
mileage. It’s to get you around town from A to B for meetings. We have a
certain standard we like to uphold. Not to say there’s anything wrong with
your current car, we just like to reinforce our brand image. It’s got a pretty
heavy-duty sound system so that you can evaluate anything that’s given to you
on the fly by an artist if the need arises and trust me, you’ll get hit up
constantly now.

“When
you come to the office, park over by the northwest entrance at the front of the
building. There are only a few spaces and they are marked. There is one with
your name on it. Your car is being delivered this afternoon and Mindy will
make sure it’s parked in your designated space. She’ll come by your office
with the keys once it arrives.”

Kit’s
eyes widened. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Wow! Thanks, Lew.”

“You’re
welcome. We’re really grateful you’re helping us out in such a pinch on short
notice. It means a lot and I’m certain you’ll do great.”

She
grinned. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Ok,
kid.”

She got
up from the chair and headed for the door to leave his office. She turned to
him and grinned. “See ya later, Lew.”

He nodded. “Yep. Catch ya on the B side, Kit.”

Mindy
wasn’t at her desk when Kit had planned to corner her and find out what kind of
car awaited her in the lot outside. She shrugged her shoulders and headed to
her office. She kept on thinking about the company car. The suspense was
going to kill her all day long. In a daze solely weighing the possibilities of
whether or not the car was German, Italian, Japanese, American, or British, she
missed the fact that Giselle was trying to grab her attention as she walked by.
She walked into her office and froze.

Giselle
came up behind her. “Ah…yeah. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I tried. Looks
like your man really wanted to show you how proud of you he really is.”

Kit
stared in amazement at the interior of her office that was so crammed with
large arrangements of roses that it looked like a florist had exploded. Not to
mention two large bouquets of balloons half of which said, ‘congrats’ in big
letters. She shook her head and started laughing. She looked at Giselle. “Oh
wow. He’s gone way over the top. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so
crazy in my life.”

Giselle
handed her a sealed envelope with her name on it. She recognized Sully’s
handwriting. “The delivery people handed me this.”

She
raised her eyebrows. “Delivery
people
?
There was more than one?”

Giselle
gave her a playfully disgusted look. Her voice was heavy with sarcasm when she
spoke. “What do you think?”

She
giggled and tugged on the string of one of the balloons as she looked up at it.
“He’s definitely outdone himself this time.”

Giselle
chuckled. “I’ll say. Good luck getting to your desk.” She winked.

Kit
maneuvered her way to the desk and sat down. She opened the card. A wide
smile spread across her face as she read its contents. She had guessed that
Sully would be supportive of her going forward with this opportunity. He had
seemed fairly neutral about it when she initially told him. Now, she
understood that was only part of his scheming and that he was not only happy
for her, but tremendously proud. She sighed with contentment and picked up the
phone to call him and thank him.

Giselle
poked her head into Kit’s office a few hours later. “Goodnight, Kit. I’m
outta here. See you tomorrow.”

“Hey,
G, before you go, can you see if Mindy’s still around? She was supposed to
drop off some keys for me.” Kit had been in suspense all afternoon and was
still waiting.

Giselle
eye’s widened as she put her hand over her mouth. “I am so sorry, Kit. They’re
on my desk. They’ve been sitting there since four and I totally forgot to give
them to you.”

She was
relieved. “No problem, G.”

Giselle
handed her the sealed manila envelope that had her name scribbled on it. “Here
you go.”

“Thanks.
Have a good night, G.”

“You
too.”

Kit
gathered up her things, including the precious manila envelope and headed
toward the elevators. She was excited to see what awaited her in the parking
lot. She had called Fred and coaxed him to come pick up her BMW that
afternoon. He was headed to the house anyway to work with Sully in the studio.

She
strolled out of the lobby and out the doors to the northwest corner of the
parking lot, where the executive parking spaces were located. Her mouth
dropped open when she approached the spaces and noticed a brand new, black
Mercedes-Benz 560SEC. It had paper license plates that read the dealership
name, ‘Mercedes-Benz of Beverly Hills.’

She
shook her head in disbelief. She scrambled to take the keys out of manila
envelope. She inserted the key into the lock on the driver’s side door and it
opened without a hitch, inviting her in to experience a taste of luxury at its
very best. She plopped her belongings onto the passenger seat and as she did,
she noticed a car phone. She chuckled. This was getting better by the minute.
She then remembered Lew’s earlier comment about the sound system.

As she
started the car and revved the engine, she smiled. She retrieved the cassette
tape of Gypsy Tango’s latest album from her purse and popped it in. It sounded
amazing. She put the car in reverse, backed up a few feet, stopped, and shook
her head again. She was still in disbelief and thought it was silly, but had
to double-check that this car was meant for her. She put the car in park and
got out.

She
carefully strolled over toward the front of the car and looked down at the curb
for the parking space that read ‘K. McKenna.’ She squealed like a little girl,
jumped up and down, and then immediately composed herself, making sure no one
saw her as she slid back into the car. She put it into drive and headed home
to show Sully her new toy, courtesy of Diamond Records.