“Is that usual?”
“Every agent is different, but at Moonlight Ventures we want to pass on what we’ve learned and help our clients to be professional. That way they’re more in demand and we all do better. Of course, we’re still working out the best way to accomplish that.”
Cassie cocked her head. “So you’re practicing on your clients?”
“True. Does that bother you?”
“No. I told you that I’ve done some checking and Moonlight Ventures is earning a good reputation.”
“That’s good to know.” Adam opened the envelopes and glanced through the contents. “What led you here? There are other excellent talent agencies in Seattle and we’d like to know what makes people choose us. By the way, it’s all right to say that we were simply the first one that responded.”
“Tiffany was researching talent representatives on the internet and was excited when she saw you and Nicole George were involved with Moonlight Ventures. Basically, this is the first place we tried. Now she follows you both on Facebook and Twitter.”
He nodded. “Social media is one of our tools. We’ll need to discuss the best, safest way for her and Glen to utilize it themselves.”
There was a knock at the door and Nicole George came into the office. She smiled at Cassie. “Hi. You must be the aunt of our two newest clients. Adam thought that since I did teen modeling, it might be helpful if I came by to answer any questions.”
“Thank you,” Cassie said, feeling out of place to be sandwiched between two such glamorous individuals.
* * *
ELIZABETH WILDING FELT almost desperate as she looked at her husband. They’d had a pleasant drive north, but the closer they had gotten to Seattle, the more uncommunicative Dermott had become. Her hope of repairing the bond with Adam couldn’t happen if either of them refused to really talk.
Good heavens, Dermott was stubborn. Adam took after his father that way, though he was like her in others. Or at least he used to be. Because of everything that had happened through the years, she couldn’t honestly say she knew her son any longer. Surely the world of fashion and appearance wouldn’t have changed him too much?
“This is such a pleasant building, don’t you think?” she asked her husband.
“A whole lot of flash and dash if you ask me. It’s good they didn’t tear it down, but the place is nothing but an old factory dressed up to look fancy.”
Small steps, she reminded herself. It wasn’t going to happen quickly. Standing, she went to get a bottle of water from the small refrigerator with a glass door.
The teenager who’d come into the room seemed polite. He’d explained he was waiting for his aunt and hoped they didn’t mind him being there. He was a handsome youngster and Elizabeth had wondered if he was a model.
Since Dermott had determinedly buried himself in another newspaper, she decided to get acquainted with the boy.
“I’m Elizabeth Wilding,” she said, moving to the table where he was sitting.
“I’m Glen Bryant. Uh, Aunt Cassie is meeting with a guy named Wilding.”
“Adam is my son. Are you a model?”
Glen laughed. “Mr. Wilding thinks I am.”
In the background, her husband snorted and Elizabeth couldn’t be sure if it was from something in the news or because of what Glen had said.
“You don’t want to do it?” she asked.
“I guess I don’t mind. I’m going to be a doctor and it’ll help earn money for college.”
“Good luck in getting there now,” Dermott muttered.
Elizabeth glared at his bent head. It wasn’t his business to criticize, especially a kid that he didn’t even know.
“Never mind him,” she whispered to Glen with a conspiratorial air. “We need all the doctors we can get and I’m sure you’ll be wonderful at it.”
Glen’s brow had creased at Dermott’s statement, but now he relaxed and smiled back.
“Do you live in Seattle?” the boy asked.
“We’re visiting from Albuquerque, but we’ve rented an apartment so we can stay and...and see the area.”
“Wow, that’s great. We moved here last summer and Aunt Cassie has taken us all over the place. In May, we went to the Gingko Petrified Forest and we’ve gone to British Columbia twice. We go to baseball games, Mount Rainier and the Seattle Center, along with Mount St. Helens. It’s like...sad, but also rad seeing what happened when the volcano blasted everything.”
What a nice boy, Elizabeth thought. His enthusiasm was endearing.
“Those are good suggestions. I remember when the volcano erupted. It seemed terrible that such a beautiful place got destroyed, but I suppose that’s how it formed in the first place.”
“That’s what Aunt Cassie says. Scientists have done all kinds of studies on how the land is recovering, which is a bunch faster than anyone figured. Some of the eruptions were crazy, mostly just super-heated air and rocks that flattened huge trees like toothpicks.” He made a gesture with his hands that was probably intended to represent the trees being knocked over.
“I hope the park rangers know as much as you.”
“Aunt Cassie tells me a lot and we look things up on the internet and read books. The park rangers are great, too. My uncle works at Mount Rainier. But he’s a backcountry ranger, so we don’t see him much.”
“Your aunt sounds nice.”
“She’s awesome. On Saturday, she’s taking us to a science fiction convention. Aunt Cassie likes that stuff just as much as we do.”
“It sounds interesting.”
“I can’t wait, though we aren’t dressing up in costumes the way the science nerds do in the Big Bang Theory.”
Elizabeth’s lips twitched. She enjoyed the television comedy, though Dermott wasn’t crazy about it. He preferred home improvement shows.
“You probably think I’m too old to appreciate sci-fi, but I love the Star Wars and Star Trek films along with other science fiction or fantasy,” she told Glen.
Once her secret hope had been to get published in science fiction, but while she had written several stories, it had never gone further. She’d been writing since she was a child, but there had never seemed to be enough time or energy to get them ready for submission to a publisher. Now? Well, her stories were probably too dated.
Yet part of her wondered...was there still a chance she could get published? She’d even brought one of her novels with her, thinking she might work on it some more.
“Do
