Page 41 of Seven Minutes In Heaven
Carmen also had invaluable tips about managing motherhood, marriage to a famous producer, and maintaining one’s own acting career. It had helped that she had been in the peak of her own career when she married Arthur, whereas Claire barely had a career to speak of, but Carmen spoke as if Claire were an A-list superstar who walked the red carpet of every event.
Claire was amid writing down,“Have a personal assistant for domestic matters, and one for professional,”when Juanita the maid hustled into the salon with a dire look.
“On the TV right now… all over the internet!” she announced in Spanish. “Ms. Dominguez, you have to look!”
That was when she remembered that Jake and Claire were present. Juanita’s face was whiter than Gloria’s after finding out that her daughter had a shotgun marriage.
Jake pulled out his phone. Carmen thanked Juanita for her concern, but did not turn to the nearest screen. Neither did Claire.
She was too busy having a bad feeling.
“Holy shit.” Jake approached his wife and handed her his phone. “You won’t believe it.”
Claire could guess what might be on her husband’s news app. After all, the first thing to pop into her head once everyone started losing theirs was that Arthur was somehow involved.
He was.
“Dozens of Women Accuse Big Hollywood Executive of Sexual Misconduct – On Twitter.”
Claire looked up. “I thought they were waiting to file and then go to the press?”
“Keep reading. It looks like one of the women dropped out due to some unrelated issue and decided to take her grievances straight to social media. All the women backing her up have nothing to do with the lawsuit. Either they declined joining in, or not even the likes of Ophelia knew about them.”
“Oh my God.” No matter how much Claire scrolled, she couldn’t reach the end of the accusations. They kept coming, mostly from women she had never heard of before, as well as the occasional B-list actress who insisted that something similar had happened to them years ago. One even claimed that Arthur had threatened to blacklist her as recently as that past Christmas. All of it over a role she wanted! “He hasn’t even tried contacting me.”
“Nor me.”
Carmen finally checked her phone. “Oh, look. The bastard sentmea message.”
“Is this your doing, you jealous bitch?”Arthur had so succinctly texted his ex-wife. “I’ll have your fucking head if it’s true!”
Carmen filed it under“For the lawyer”and put her phone down. “He always was such a charmer.”
