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Authors: Eileen Goudge
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though I broke into your house? Well, I didn’t actually break in. The door was open.” She hastened to add, “I tried getting in touch with you, but you have more people than a moat has alligators.”
He broke into a grin that showed the trademark gap between his front teeth. “It keeps the press away.”
Stevie felt herself grow uncomfortably warm, reminded that in his eyes she would be the enemy. But he didn’t have to know what she did for a living, at least not until after they’d become better acquainted. Even so, she felt compelled to say, “It hasn’t stopped them.” The press was having a field day with this latest, bizarre turn of events in the Lauren Rose affair. Each step in the woman’s painstaking recovery seized upon, complete with quotes from unnamed, and often fictitious, sources. Yesterday’s tabloid headlines had Lauren providing the district attorney with an account of what had happened the night she was shot that was very different from Grant’s. Grant Tobin, meanwhile, was back in the spotlight, too…and his head on the chopping block.
He shrugged, wearing an impassive look. “I’m used to it.”
Abruptly he unfolded from his seated position on the floor, a bundle of sticks magically assembling themselves into a man standing upright. He yanked open the drapes before crossing the room to where she sat. In the harsh light of day, he looked even older, his face a rutted road in which the ghost of the young Grant Tobin, his flashing dark eyes and the the loose-limbed suppleness with which he’d once walked, glinted like shards of broken glass.
“Yeah, I see it now.” He put a hand under her chin, turning her head this way and that. “You look a little like my mom.”
“Everyone says I look like mine.” From her pocket, Stevie produced a faded snapshot of her mother, circa 1970, in a peasant dress and Birkenstocks holding the infant Stevie in her arms.
He peered at it, frowning, then shook his head. “Sorry. Don’t take this the wrong way or anything—I’m sure she’s a great person—but back then…” He spread his hands in a helpless gesture, wearing a vaguely troubled look. “Like I said, I don’t remember much.”
Stevie smiled to let him know it was okay. Nancy had warned her not to expect too much. She’d been just another groupie, one of hundreds he’d slept with no doubt. The only difference was that she’d come away with something more than bragging rights and an autographed keepsake. Her souvenir had been the six-pound baby girl she’d given birth to nine months later.
Another silence fell, broken when Grant inquired, “Hey, you had breakfast yet?” She told him no. Earlier, she’d been too keyed up to even think about eating, but suddenly she realized she was starving. “Great,” he said, looking pleased. “I’ll tell Maria to set an extra place. How do you like your eggs?”
Stevie’s mind was whirling so, she had to stop and think before she could answer. This whole thing was so surreal. What had started out as Mission, Impossible had morphed into The Twilight Zone. At the same time something was sliding into place in her like the last, missing piece to a puzzle. Rumors about Grant’s dark side, fanned by the former girlfriends who’d come forward with stories of their own in the wake of the Lauren Rose tragedy, crept into her head, but she resolutely pushed them away. She’d been waiting all her life for this moment; she wasn’t going to spoil it.
They lingered over breakfast, talking about everything from Stevie’s passion for muscle cars to the current music scene—Grant, she learned, was a fan of Eminem. He told her stories about Astral Plane’s glory days in the seventies, when they’d played to sold-out stadiums on two continents. She, in turn, told him what it had been like growing up in Bakersfield, where Nancy’s VW bug plastered with left-wing stickers had stuck out like a sore thumb in a town in which pickups with gun
He broke into a grin that showed the trademark gap between his front teeth. “It keeps the press away.”
Stevie felt herself grow uncomfortably warm, reminded that in his eyes she would be the enemy. But he didn’t have to know what she did for a living, at least not until after they’d become better acquainted. Even so, she felt compelled to say, “It hasn’t stopped them.” The press was having a field day with this latest, bizarre turn of events in the Lauren Rose affair. Each step in the woman’s painstaking recovery seized upon, complete with quotes from unnamed, and often fictitious, sources. Yesterday’s tabloid headlines had Lauren providing the district attorney with an account of what had happened the night she was shot that was very different from Grant’s. Grant Tobin, meanwhile, was back in the spotlight, too…and his head on the chopping block.
He shrugged, wearing an impassive look. “I’m used to it.”
Abruptly he unfolded from his seated position on the floor, a bundle of sticks magically assembling themselves into a man standing upright. He yanked open the drapes before crossing the room to where she sat. In the harsh light of day, he looked even older, his face a rutted road in which the ghost of the young Grant Tobin, his flashing dark eyes and the the loose-limbed suppleness with which he’d once walked, glinted like shards of broken glass.
“Yeah, I see it now.” He put a hand under her chin, turning her head this way and that. “You look a little like my mom.”
“Everyone says I look like mine.” From her pocket, Stevie produced a faded snapshot of her mother, circa 1970, in a peasant dress and Birkenstocks holding the infant Stevie in her arms.
He peered at it, frowning, then shook his head. “Sorry. Don’t take this the wrong way or anything—I’m sure she’s a great person—but back then…” He spread his hands in a helpless gesture, wearing a vaguely troubled look. “Like I said, I don’t remember much.”
Stevie smiled to let him know it was okay. Nancy had warned her not to expect too much. She’d been just another groupie, one of hundreds he’d slept with no doubt. The only difference was that she’d come away with something more than bragging rights and an autographed keepsake. Her souvenir had been the six-pound baby girl she’d given birth to nine months later.
Another silence fell, broken when Grant inquired, “Hey, you had breakfast yet?” She told him no. Earlier, she’d been too keyed up to even think about eating, but suddenly she realized she was starving. “Great,” he said, looking pleased. “I’ll tell Maria to set an extra place. How do you like your eggs?”
Stevie’s mind was whirling so, she had to stop and think before she could answer. This whole thing was so surreal. What had started out as Mission, Impossible had morphed into The Twilight Zone. At the same time something was sliding into place in her like the last, missing piece to a puzzle. Rumors about Grant’s dark side, fanned by the former girlfriends who’d come forward with stories of their own in the wake of the Lauren Rose tragedy, crept into her head, but she resolutely pushed them away. She’d been waiting all her life for this moment; she wasn’t going to spoil it.
They lingered over breakfast, talking about everything from Stevie’s passion for muscle cars to the current music scene—Grant, she learned, was a fan of Eminem. He told her stories about Astral Plane’s glory days in the seventies, when they’d played to sold-out stadiums on two continents. She, in turn, told him what it had been like growing up in Bakersfield, where Nancy’s VW bug plastered with left-wing stickers had stuck out like a sore thumb in a town in which pickups with gun
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