(Authors note: teenage morons looking for a quick stroke story, please go somewhere else.)
I had a really shitty day.
My secretary quit, to move to Texas with her new boyfriend. Somebody clipped my brand new Porsche in the parking garage, denting the hell out of the passenger side door and both fenders. One of my clients, the Avengers, tore up the hotel they were staying in. And Ozzie Schmuck, the drummer for Snakepit, got busted for coke and can't make the Australia tour.
I'm a talent agent, although on days like this one, I wonder why. Probably it has to do with the money I make, and the chance to know and hobnob with a bunch of talented and famous people. I won't drop a lot of names here, but a lot of them are people you know and admire.
I represent actors, musicians, and a couple of sports stars. In addition to promoting them and setting up appearances, I act as father confessor, ego stroker, and sometime psychiatrist. It's the rock stars that give me nightmares, but they generate such huge sums of money, I put up with it.
My name is Jack Ingram. I'm forty-two years old, still single, and presently unattached, just having broken off brief relationship with an up-and-coming film starlet. She wanted marriage and babies, and that's not in my plans right now.
I keep myself in good shape, running daily and working out in the gym three days a week. I'm 6'2", about 180 pounds, kind of lean, but well muscled. I've got coal black hair that curls just a bit over my collar, blue eyes that betray my Black Irish heritage, a slightly crooked nose that I broke in a college football game, and chiseled features, with a deep cleft in my chin.
I live in a nice, rambling house in the hills above Malibu, constructed of lots of redwood and glass, with a huge deck cantilevered over the hillside that gives me a distant ocean view. It's nice and secluded, with no neighbors in view, and I like it that way.
After the day I just had, all I wanted to do was have a drink, plop my ass in my favorite chair, and let the rest of the world go to hell. I poured myself three fingers of Chevas, kicked off my shoes and socks, flipped on my big screen TV, and sat down to watch the Dodgers play the Giants.
By the fifth inning, I'd downed a couple more Scotches, the Dodgers were kicking ass, and I had tuned out my work life for the rest of the evening. Then the phone rang.
Fuck it, I thought. Let it ring. That's why God invented answering machines. Then I heard the voice on the machine.
"Hi, Jack, this is Nicole..."
I'd recognize that sultry voice anywhere, and I scrambled to pick up the phone.
"Hey, babe, how are you?"
Nicole and I go back a few years; ten to be exact. She will always be the love of my life. We were together for five years, and at the time we thought it would be forever. She was an intern, working in the E.R. at the UCLA Medical Center, when I dragged myself in there to get some stitches put in my leg. Some clown had cut me off when I was riding my bicycle, and some jagged metal on a guardrail had ripped an eight-inch gash in my calf.
She was beautiful; hell, she still is, with auburn hair, milk-white skin with a face that belongs on a cameo, and deep green eyes. While she was stitching me up, I memorized her nametag, and the next day I showed up on her doorstep with a limp and a dozen roses.
She was a single mom, with an eight-year-old daughter, Danielle. She'd gotten knocked-up while an undergraduate student, and broken up with her boyfriend before she ever knew she was pregnant. She never told the guy, and never saw him again.
To make a long story short, we moved in together, and I'd never been happier in my life. Danielle was a sweet child, and we'd talked about me adopting her when we got married. Then tragedy struck her family, and our life came unraveled.
Nicole had come to UCLA from a little town in Iowa, where her father, a G.P., ran a clinic that served the whole community. Doc McGinty suffered a stroke, and Nicole went back to nurse him through his recovery.
Doc never recovered enough to resume his practice. Nic ended up taking over the clinic and helping her mother take care of him. She ended our relationship when she moved back, because she knew I could never adjust to life in the Corn Belt. I don't even like to eat the stuff.
It broke both our hearts when we split, but it never would have worked, and we both knew it. We've remained great friends ever since, and there isn't anything I wouldn't do for her.
"Jack, I've got a big favor to ask you."
"Ask away, you know I'm always here for you."
"Danielle graduated from high school this year, and I promised her a summer in California for a combination graduation and eighteenth birthday present."
"Sounds great! Maybe I could take her to dinner some night when she's here."
"Well, there's a little more to it than that. She was supposed to come out with her girlfriend, but Lindsay's parents had second thoughts and they won't let her go. I don't want her being in L.A. all by herself, and I was wondering if she could maybe stay with you?"
I was silent for a moment. Shit, that's all I needed was some giggling teenager running amuck in my house all summer. This would really cramp my style. But this was Nicole, and I couldn't say no to her.
"Sure she can, Nic. I've got a nice guest room. She'll be welcome." Welcome as ants at a picnic.
"When will she be coming?"
"In a week. I'll email you her flight number and arrival time. And, Jack, thank you."
I poured myself three more fingers of Chevas, and plopped back in my chair. The Dodgers had blown a four run lead in the seventh inning.
Let's see, the last time I saw Danielle she was thirteen; a gangly pre-pubescent, with braces on her teeth, and little bitty bumps on her chest that would become breasts some day.
My car came back from the body shop the day before she arrived. I have a love affair with this set of wheels; it's a metallic silver boxster spyder with a 325 horsepower engine and six-speed stick shift. It goes like a bat out of hell, and sticks to the road like gum on your shoe.
I got to the airport in plenty of time, and hung around the gate, waiting for her arrival. After five years, I didn't know if I'd recognize her; maybe I should have held up a sign with her name on it.
I kept watching as people came down the concourse, but I didn't see anyone I recognized. My attention was diverted by this pair of legs coming out of a short black skirt. My eyes roamed higher, to a pair of hips that swung provocatively when she walked. Higher yet, to a magnificent rack encased in a blue chambray blouse, unbuttoned enough to show a modest amount of cleavage, and long auburn hair that hung down almost to her waist, with a gentle curl on the ends.
As she got closer, I could see her face. It was Nicole's! Nicole's face on a body that would stop traffic. She was a stone fox. Actually, she looked like Megan Fox.
She glanced over the waiting crowd, and finally spotted me. Our eyes locked, and this gorgeous smile spread across her face. She broke into a run and hurled herself against me, enveloping me in a giant hug. Her firm breasts pressed against my chest, and she planted a big kiss on my cheek. I felt a little tingle in my loins, then my brain flashed a big HANDS OFF!
"Hi, Uncle Jack. Thanks so much for letting me stay with you."
"My pleasure. Wow, you sure have grown up. And by the way, let's drop the 'uncle'; just call me Jack."
"Okay, Jack. I know you're not my uncle, anyway."
"We didn't fool you, huh?"