An hour later, while Jessie pushed her damp hair back into a loose ponytail and changed into dry clothes, Danny put together a quick picnic lunch in the kitchen. Just as they headed for the door, however, Jessie’s cell phone buzzed from inside her handbag.
“Sorry,” she said as she checked the screen. “It’s Amber calling from the store. I need to take it.”
“Go ahead.”
Jessie pressed the talk button as she headed back into the kitchen. “Amber?”
“Hi, Jessie. I’m so sorry to bother you while you’re on your getaway.”
“It’s fine. What’s up?”
“You’ll never believe who just called the store for you.” Amber didn’t give her time to guess. “Perry Marconi.”
“The—?”
“Stylist to the Hollywood stars!” she blurted. “Yes. That Perry Marconi.”
“He asked for me?” Jessie clarified.
“Yes. He has two clients presenting at the Legacy Awards, and another one nominated!” Jessie’s mind raced with musings on what this had to do with her, but Amber ran her thoughts right off the track. “Guess who it is. The one who’s nominated.”
“I have no—”
“Carolyn Coleman, that’s who!”
“Carolyn Coleman . . .” Jessie had seen every movie the glamorous Carolyn Coleman had ever made. From her beginnings as a teenaged starlet in black-and-white classic movies to her long-running television show in the eighties, the woman had aged with more grace than any of her counterparts. “Wait. Amber. What does this have to do with Adornments?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“No, you’re not. Sit down.”
“Okay.” Still standing. “Tell me.”
“Perry Marconi wants to work with you to style all three of them.”
Jessie backed up to the counter and leaned on it. “He . . . I’m sorry. What?”
“It turns out he’s a friend of Courtney’s,” Amber exclaimed. “Since Courtney’s already off to London to pick up her new little girl, he said she told him you’re the only one he should work with!”
Since the day tiny Courtney Alexis with the contradictory deep, raspy voice walked into Adornments on the day of the opening, she’d been changing Jessie’s life, one opportunity at a time. They’d collaborated on offering styling sessions at the store; then she brought Jessie and Amber onboard to write guest columns for her fashion mega-blog. The two had become great friends, bonding even beyond their love of fashion and the pending adoption of Courtney’s beautiful baby girl. And now this.
“I’m so glad you called and told me, Amber. This is such great news.”
“It’s epic,” she shouted. “The only thing is . . . he wants to meet with you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I told him you were away and could meet with him midweek, but I could hear him waning, and I was afraid we’d lose him. So I said I’d call you and—”
“You did the right thing. Hang on.” Jessie hurried out of the kitchen and into the living room just as Danny came through the front door. Covering the mic with her hand, she winced and tried to convert it to a smile. “Danny? Would you hate me if I asked you to take me home tonight?”
“What happened?”
The alarm crackling in his eyes incited her immediate reaction. “Oh. No. Nothing’s wrong. In fact, something could be very right. A great opportunity for me, but I have to take a meeting tomorrow.”
He smiled. “We can leave within the hour.”
She hurried toward him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
“I still need to stop in Yucaipa to get Kaye’s necklace.”
“Yes, of course.”
“But you’ll be back in Santa Monica in time to get a good night’s sleep.”
Jessie squeezed his wrist and shook it. “Thank you!” Before he could reply, she turned her attention back to Amber. “Call him back right away. Ask him to meet me at the store at noon tomorrow. That will you give you and me the morning to strategize. I’ll be there by nine.”
“I’ll bring the coffee.”
* * *
“I feel sick at my stomach every time I think about it, Grampy.”
I was crawled under the kitchen sink workin’ on the pipe, and Jessie got herself up on the counter, sendin’ her words down the drain t’ward me.
“Why you botherin’ with that, girl?” I ask her. “Ain’t nothin’ you kin do ’til tomorrow anyhow.”
“Yeah, I guess so. But I can’t help myself. Can’t think o’ nothin’ else but that dumb old book report I gotta give in front of the whole entire class.”
“You read the book?”
“Yeah.”
“You write up the report?”
“Well, yeah, Grampy, but—”
“But nothin’,” I tells her. “You done all you kin. Now you just wait ’til the time comes, and you stand up there and tell ’em what they need to know. What’s so complicated ’bout it, girl?”
She set there quiet fer a time ’fore she says, “Why you gotta go bein’ all logical ’bout everything anyway?”
“And why you gotta be a worrywart?”
“’Cause, Grampy. That’s how I was made, I guess.”
Sure enough, she had a point there. The girl’d been worryin’ ’bout things she couldn’t change her whole young life. Her mama used to say sometimes she thought if Jessie was an automobile, worry were the gas that made ’er get up ’n go.
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