Read Online Chocolates for Breakfast by Pamela Moore - Free Book Online Page A

exactly nothing.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, watch out for him?”
    â€œHe is the sort of guy you would like, being an artist type with intellectual pretensions and also having some charm for women. Also, he is around your villa a great deal as your mother provides him with occasional drinks and dinners and finds him amusing. So don’t you start to get interested, because he is a real shit-heel guy.”
    â€œAl, I’m not interested in anybody—and not anybody of Barry Cabot’s age,” she said patiently. “I’m just a kid, you know.”
    â€œI don’t know. You are a woman, and an attractive one. There are some guys around here who would take advantage of that.”
    â€œWho are these kids in the pool?” she said, changing the subject.
    â€œTwo of them are the sons of a television producer, and the third is the son of a director. They’re here for the summer. Want to meet them?”
    â€œNot particularly. They’re making a lot of noise.”
    â€œI’ll introduce you to them. They’re kind of young for you, but they’re nice kids. A couple of years older than you.”
    â€œI’ll meet them when they get out of the pool,” she said without enthusiasm.
    Al lay for a few minutes in the sun.
    â€œSweetie, I want to talk to you about your mother,” Al said in a confidential tone. He looked around him, but no one was nearby. “She would be the last one to tell you this, but I figure you ought to know,” he said in a low tone. “She is about to go into bankruptcy, unless some break comes along awfully fast.”
    Courtney frowned, puzzled. “But her contract . . .”
    â€œThe studio is not taking up her option. There’s a chance that she might get the lead in Nick Russell’s new picture, and that’s about the only hope she has. You know, she isn’t the draw that she was a year ago. They’ve been tightening up, as you probably know, and actors are being let out of their contracts by carloads. She’s very much in debt, and unless she gets this assignment I don’t see anything for her to do but declare bankruptcy. Those last two pictures were really bombs, and everybody’s so frightened they’re not able to take a chance on her now.”
    â€œBut what about the Plaza, and the Garden, and the house she’s going to get in Beverly Hills this fall?”
    â€œBaby, you know your mother as well as I do. She’s a screwball, and she thinks that money will always be provided for her by some invisible power. She can’t believe that she is broke, so she just goes more and more in debt, figuring that at the last minute something will come along.”
    â€œMr. Micawber,” Courtney mused.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œSo, kid, that’s how things stand. I thought I’d better tell you, because you’re the only sensible member of the family, and maybe you can keep her from crazy shopping binges and all that. Also, I didn’t want all this to hit you like a bomb. I wanted you to be prepared, because you’re old enough to handle these things.”
    Courtney was reminded of what had been said to her all her childhood as she was handed responsibility that a child should never have, and as she was made aware of realities that a child should ignore until the child himself chooses to step down from his tower of fantasies to the plain of Babel. She sighed inaudibly.
    â€œI’m glad you told me, Al. Maybe you and I together can make her act a little sensibly, but I doubt it. Anyhow, I’ll try, and I’ll try not to ask for money or clothes or things, so she won’t be tempted to go more into debt.”
    She saw the house in the hills above Beverly Hills become indistinct in the sunlight, merging with the pastels of this most unreal of real worlds. What the hell, she thought, I didn’t base my decision to come out here on