Page 51 of Just Like in the Movies

When he knocked on the door five minutes later, his palms were damp. He rubbed them on his jeans.

His mom opened the door with a flourish. Dressed in one of her multi-coloured silk lounging kaftans, her feet bare, her toenails painted mailbox-red, her defiantly raven hair wrapped in a matching silk bandana and her still virtually unlined skin devoid of make-up she looked as if she were about to open a production of Woodstock the Musical.

‘Luke, my darling boy,’ she said, throwing her arms around him in an extravagant hug and surrounding him in a cloud of patchouli perfume as she air-kissed him on both cheeks. ‘What a wonderful surprise, you’re early!’

‘Yeah, surprise,’ he said, playing along half-heartedly, as he gave her a brief hug, kissed her cheek and stepped into the room to slam the door behind him. ‘What did you need to talk to me about, I haven’t got long.’

‘Luke, will you stop it with the grumpy attitude.’ His mother chastised him. ‘I haven’t seen you in months. Come in and sit down – I thought I could order us up some lunch.’ She sent him a blinding smile over her shoulder as she wafted into the Suite’s elaborate lounge area which had an impressive view over Green Park.

Luke wasn’t impressed.

‘And you can tell me all about Ruby,’ his mother added. ‘I love her already and I haven’t even met her.’

Ah-ha, so that’s what this is, the perennial probe into my love life.

‘No lunch, I haven’t got time. But I’ll take coffee, if you’ve got it.’ He felt himself relax a little as he sat down on one of the suite’s matching leather sofas. His mother’s intrusion into his private life was nothing new. ‘And, FYI, Ruby and I are not dating,’ he added, getting straight to the point. Telling her the subject of Ruby was off-limits would only encourage her curiosity; better to simply nip that line of enquiry in the bud.

‘Which is precisely what makes her so intriguing,’ his mom replied, not having her bud nipped in the least. ‘She sounded so sweet and adorable on the phone,’ she added as she fired up a state-of-the-art coffee machine on the sideboard.

‘You can be intrigued all you want, we’re still not going to be dating any time soon,’ he said. ‘She’s not my type. Way too sweet and adorable,’ he added, with a theatrical shudder.

His mother laughed, the deep throaty laugh he had once adored as a kid because it usually meant she was about to spring something fun on them – like a spur-of-the-moment trip to Disney World, or VIP tickets to see the Yankees in the play-offs, or a road trip to Maine so they could hang out with Bill Newman, Jack’s dad, for the summer. But he’d learned to like that laugh less and less as he grew older and discovered the fun almost always came with a price. A price which he would usually be forced to pay.

‘Touché,’ his mother said. ‘But I believe the fact she’s not your usual type is another thing which makes her so intriguing. Is she pretty?’

Stunning.

The thought echoed in his head, as the memory of her a week ago with wet hair and a saucy smile echoed in his groin. And of the days since, whenever he’d bumped into her at the theatre. He’d spent far too much time in the last seven days watching her go about her business each morning, usually while humming a show tune, as she held her grief in check.

‘She’s okay, I guess.’ He shrugged. ‘If you like wholesome.’ And built and hot and honest and smart and brave.

‘Hmmm, I see,’ his mother said, her eagle-eyed gaze not buying his indifference. ‘Funny that for such a wholesome girl she managed to get you arrested.’

‘She didn’t get me arrested. I got me arrested. And it was only a misdemeanour.’

‘A misdemeanour that got you slapped with community service that you’ve relocated to London and rearranged your whole schedule to accommodate. And you’re still speaking to her. In fact, you’re not just speaking to her …’ She ladled fresh coffee in the machine and flicked on the switch. ‘Don’t think I didn’t notice how you rode to her rescue last week when your big bad mother started harassing her with her over-sharing.’

‘She was crying. I needed to close it down. You know how tears freak me out.’ Not true, but he wasn’t above using his mom’s fake-shrink shit against her. ‘And I agreed to do the community service because it was a court order, and The Royale needs work – most of which is cosmetic, luckily – before she can sell it.’

His mother’s hand jerked, splashing milk over the two china cups she’d laid out on the sideboard. ‘Why is she selling Matty’s Cinema?’

‘Because we have to. It hasn’t been economically viable as a business for over a decade, and there are a ton of debts to pay,’ he said, glad to offer up the information if it would shove his mom off the topic of him and Ruby. Weirdly, though, he’d heard the distress in his mother’s voice when she’d mentioned her brother’s name and for once, it didn’t sound like an act.

‘We?’ She wiped the milk off her fingers. ‘Why we? Did Matty leave a share of the cinema to you?’

Shit.

He’d been busted, giving up information he hadn’t intended to give up. But what surprised him was his mother had jumped so quickly to that conclusion thanks to his slip, that was spooky intuitive, even for her … unless …

Maybe she knew more about her brother’s bequest and the reasons behind it? Hadn’t she said something last week on the phone, about a story she had to tell him and Ruby about Matty and her and Falcone? He shook off the moment of curiosity.

Whatever story she had to tell – and he was sure it was a doozy because his mom’s stories always were – he’d already figured out the reason behind his uncle’s surprise bequest.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Your brother left me a half-share in the movie theatre in his will. And the rest to Ruby. He must have figured I’d cover the debts. But that’s not happening,’ he reiterated, for his own benefit as much as his mother’s. ‘I’m a property developer, not a cinema owner. And I’m not interested in becoming one.’

He braced himself for his mom to attempt to change his mind. She was the queen of emotional investments after all – one of the reasons he’d spent so much of his childhood living out of a suitcase. But instead of commenting, she sat down in the chair opposite him. Not sat, kind of collapsed. Gracefully, because she did everything with grace. But her hands were shaking and her face had gone a sickly shade of grey. For a moment, he tried to convince himself it was another of her acts. But even she wasn’t that good an actress he decided. Her lucid eyes lifted to his and when she spoke, her voice quivered with emotion – genuine heartbreaking emotion.

‘That’s not why Matty left you a half-share in The Royale, Luke.’

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