Wreck Me — Chapter 1
Ginny was already running late to her weekly Sunday sister brunch when the object of her dreams materialized on the side of The 101. Her growling stomach urged her forward, but the universe had just sent her a gift. There were a lot of things in life that Ginny Heppner was only too happy to snub, but the universe wasn’t one of them. Unfortunately, she had three of lanes of crawling, bumper-to-bumper LA traffic to cross and only one hundred or so feet in which to do it.
Eyes scanning rapidly, she slipped into a gap in the lane to her left. The driver in the cut-off vehicle leaned on his horn. “Sorry!” she said, though her windows were rolled up. Only the bacteria currently living it up in her car’s ratty upholstery would hear her apology.
“Two lanes to go,” she muttered, her tongue pressed against her upper lip for courage. Traffic did a mini surge forward, and the slow acceleration of a semi to her left created just enough gap to wedge her rust bucket in. The truck driver communicated his appreciation of her driving prowess by sticking his arm out the window and offering her a raised middle finger.
“My bad!” she yelled uselessly again.
It seemed diagnostic of humanity’s ills that there were no universally recognized hand signals for apology but several for anger. She’d have to think about the sociological ramifications of that later. She still had a lane to go.
The driver to her left, a heavy-set man in a dark suit, glared at her. She smiled sweetly as she pointed toward his lane, but his lip hitched into a request-denying curl. She sent him big, blinking eyes and pleading hands. He laughed, then started matching her speed whether she accelerated or slowed down, trapping her in her lane.
“Oh, it’s game you want?” she said as she squinted toward him in challenge. “Don’t bring it unless you’re ready to play.”
The man’s car cost at least forty times hers, and it was extra clean and shiny. Rolling down her window, she held her travel mug out toward him, lid off. “Want some coffee?” she yelled. “It’s got extra cream and sugar!”
His expression scrunched in momentary worry, but he re-gripped his steering wheel and continued matching her speed. She shifted over as close to him as she dared and tipped the mug briefly, sending a light spray against his window as she made her best “crazy eyes” at him. He mouthed some not friendly words but tapped his brakes.
“I won’t even slow you down, you jerk,” she said as she pulled in front of him and then straight onto the side of the road in one quick movement. “And it’s just water.”
Bringing her car to a stop, she hopped out. A large, antique-looking upholstered chair with shapely wooden legs lay tipped onto its side in the overgrown grass off the concrete’s edge. It must have fallen off the back of a pickup truck, but finders keepers! She’d still need another, but good luck often happened in twos, didn’t it?
She jogged toward it, but her excitement deflated with each step. Its fabric was more red than orange and more modern geometric than vintage floral. Still, fabric could be changed. The real problem was its carved legs, two of which were snapped in half, and its seat rail, which was as splintered as dry roast beef. This chair hadn't just fallen off a truck, it had flown off and crash-landed at meteor speed. All the how-to videos on the internet couldn’t teach her how to fix it and, even if they could, she’d need a fully-equipped wood shop and old-world carpentry skills–neither of which she possessed.
Disappointed, she patted the chair and whispered, “Sorry, old girl,” then trudged back to her car. No gift from the universe today.
Twenty minutes later, Ginny rolled up to the gate of the classic mid-fifties, two-story, Hollywood Hills bungalow that a movie about surfing had funded for her famous little sister, Sadie, and her leading-man husband, Grant. She punched in the access code, drove through, and parked behind her older sister Monique’s red Miata. Knowing her family would be waiting for her, she didn't bother with the front door, but followed the flower-lined, brick path toward the rear patio.
As she rounded the corner of the house, Grant emerged from the nearby back door, a tray of food in his hands.
“I saw you pulling up,” he said, smiling his million-dollar smile. They began walking the last part of the path together. “How does a fennel and gruyere breakfast casserole sound?”
She grinned. “A lot better than peanut butter.” Peanut butter was her go-to breakfast—and sometimes her lunch and dinner too. It wasn’t that she hated cooking; she just couldn’t be bothered. The mere thought of gathering ingredients, following forty-seven-and-a-half recipe steps, and then having to unexplode the kitchen mess afterward ruined her appetite. More often than not, all that time spent in the kitchen left her with a food blob that barely rose above a jar of pulverized nuts anyway, so why not reach with gratitude for a spoon and her trusty jar of JIF?
Her older sister, Monique, sat sipping orange juice at the outdoor table, a stunning overlook of downtown LA as her backdrop. Cotton ball clouds reflected like puffy inflatables in the still water of the kidney-shaped pool. Grant lowered his tray to the table, and he and Ginny each took seats.
Monique, sporting her typical weekend running-warrior outfit of navy-blue sport skort and skin-tight white tank, half smiled at her. This was her “off the clock” uniform, but even in her real estate lawyer’s heels and pantsuit, she always looked ready to run another eight miles. “Please tell me you didn’t put that broken, moth eaten chair in the back of your broken, moth-eaten car?”
Ginny pouted at her, feigning hurt feelings. “You saw me and didn't stop to help?”
Monique slid her eyes away as she tapped the top of her orange juice glass with a red-tipped fingernail. “I don’t highway dive.”
“Well, you’ll be happy to know that it was too broken and moth eaten even for me. I left it behind.”
Monique gave her a visual once over. “Good to know you have some standards. Too bad you didn't leave that T-shirt behind to keep it company. It doesn’t even look clean.”
Ginny glanced down at her ancient, pastel green tee. The words “Where’s the beet?” were just visible surrounding a faded image of the unpopular root vegetable. A few small holes and anonymous grease stains gave the shirt that extra lived-in patina Ginny coveted, but it was clean. Her jean shorts were so ripped up she looked like she’d been attacked by jaguars on the drive over. All in all, it was fashion perfection. “I would wash it, but it would lose that fresh Goodwill smell.”
Monique wrinkled her nose. “I can’t believe our parents raised a hippy.”
Ginny’s stomach reminded her how hungry she was, and she smacked a hand over it to shush it. “I can’t believe they only raised one.”
She glanced toward Grant, expecting one of his warm laughs, but he was staring at the table, ignoring their banter. Wise man. She and Monique could go on like this for hours. For days.
Grant shifted a bowl of fruit salad and a large casserole dish from his tray to the table. The casserole was still so piping hot the air wiggled above it like a breakfast mirage. Ginny wanted to plant her face in it but could just see the next day’s headlines: Burnt-faced Woman Drowns by Cheese. She stared hopefully toward the house for Sadie, but there was no sign of her tardy little sister.
Grant tapped the air. “Oh, that’s what we’re missing—coffee!” He started heading back to the house.
Finally, Sadie appeared in the kitchen doorway, her yellow bikini top and matching sarong brighter than the California sun. Ginny relaxed at the idea that both coffee and casserole would soon be hers, until Sadie had the audacity to wrap her arms around Grant and give him a kiss that he was only too eager to reciprocate.
Ginny groaned as she slumped in her chair. “Now I’ll never get any breakfast.”
“Get a room, you two,” Monique said.
“Or a pool,” Ginny said, remembering the couple’s first kiss.
Sadie ended the embrace, then touched a dainty finger to Grant’s nose. “How about you get the addicts their caffeine while we get the sisterly formalities out of the way?”
Sadie took the chair to Ginny’s right, and the three of them lifted their glasses. Clinking them over the table, they said a solemn, “To Mom and Dad.” It had been seven years since a teen drunk driver had taken their beloved parents from them, but their weekly brunches—Monique’s idea—had kept the sisters close and their parents’ memory dear. Given Sadie and Grant’s celebrity status, they could no longer hold their brunches at Rick’s Diner the way they always had, but they still saw their beloved godfather, Rick, regularly.
Grant soon returned and, just as Rick had always done, gave Monique her coffee black, set Sadie’s mug down along with its own adorable cream and sugar set, and handed Ginny her customary half-filled mug with a cup of ice. Then he took the remaining seat at the four-top.
Sadie turned her coffee nearly white with cream before loading in plenty of sugar. “A man who knows exactly how you like your coffee is worth a million dollars any day.”
Ginny started dumping ice cubes into the space Grant left in her mug, preferring her morning wakey juice room temperature. It went down faster that way. “I think even our man-hating Great Aunt Lydia would have made an exception for Grant.”
The spoon swirling in Sadie’s mug came to a standstill. “Are you saying I should get my inheritance even though I broke the terms of her will?”
Monique scoffed. “You cave you lose.”
“Doesn’t look like she’s lost much,” Ginny said, gesturing toward the view.
Monique rolled her eyes. “She would’ve gotten all this either way.”
With a smirk, Sadie got up, sat in Grant’s lap, and wrapped her arm around his neck, pulling them close. Whenever they were within six inches of each other, they looked like the image on their next movie poster. It was sweet. “But I wouldn’t be married to Farm Boy!” she said in her best imitation of pouty Julia Menlo, the Hollywood superstar who’d tried and failed to steal Grant from her.
Grant slipped an arm around Sadie’s waist but addressed all of them. “Did I miss the sister pact thing? I love that part.”
“No, but we might as well do it now,” Monique said. “No dates for me.”
“Date free,” Ginny said, concluding their second and final weekly brunch ritual. Monique had started making them declare the status of their love lives after the executor of Great Aunt Lydia’s will had explained the details of their surprise inheritance: a million dollars each if they stayed single till age thirty. By Monique’s black and white logic, if they didn’t date, they weren’t at risk for marriage. Of course, Sadie had found the loophole in that by marrying Grant after just three fake dates.
As far as Ginny was concerned, staying single for three more years would be as easy as breathing for three more years. Dates, and especially first dates, were a good day spoiled. Dream dresses and dream proposals were the height of boring. Even if she managed to do all that in the simplest way possible, she still had to get along with the same exact person day after day and year after year till she died.
Who’d sign up for that torture?
Sadie returned to her seat, and Grant started slicing up the casserole. “So, only two are left in the…what did Rick call it?” he said.
Monique held up a hand indicating she wouldn't be having any casserole, then pulled the fruit salad toward her. “Our Sister Spinster Pact.”
Ginny shook her head when she saw Grant lifting out an edge piece for her. “Corner piece, please! Extra big.”
He obliged with a pride-filled grin, and a massive corner chunk soon slid onto her plate. As she took her first bite, fireworks of flavor exploded in her mouth. When she closed her eyes, she could even see them in her mind—bright splashes of mustard yellow and brick red against a deep blue canvas. “Mmmmm. Who needs a million dollars? All I need is Grant’s cooking once a week. Am I too young to retire?”
“Retire?” Monique spluttered. She set her coffee down so hard it splashed out a bit. “Ginny, you know I love you, but how will it be any different than your life now? You’re lucky I’m a real estate lawyer to the rich and famous. My company pays you a ridiculous rate to clean empty mansions before they hit the market, and that’s it. That’s all you do.”
“I also do a little handyman work when a house needs it, but you’re right. I can’t complain. I even like the cleaning. I’m just extra busy trying to finish some repairs to my own place right now, so a little downtime would be great.”
“I’ve got good news for you then,” Monique said. “My team is helping a couple of brothers who are about to make an enormous development transaction. It’s a big hairy deal, and the head of the firm has taken everything else off our plates to make sure it goes smoothly. That means no new cleaning jobs for you for the next two weeks.”
Sadie sent Ginny a look of concern. “Is that going to be okay for you financially? Will you need help with rent or utilities?”
“Nah,” she said around a mouthful of casserole. “I'm fine.”
Monique shook her head. “I don’t see how unless your rent is close to nothing. Either that or you only eat at Sunday brunch. Why won’t you let us see your place?”
Ginny made praying hands, begging for their patience. “I will, I will. It’s just not ready yet. But, I promise, you’ll love it when you see it. In fact, I’ll spend this free time wrapping up a couple of last projects, and then I’ll have everyone over.”
Her family member’s faces held matching worry lines.
“You’ve been saying that for years,” Sadie said. “And you’re always so vague. You won’t even tell us where it is.”
“We could come help you, you know,” Grant said. “I’m good at lifting heavy stuff, and I think our filming schedule is light this week.”
“I can paint and organize things,” Sadie said.
Monique swished her hands through the air as if waving away a bad smell. “Don’t volunteer me for house projects. I’ll pay for a handyman, but I don’t DIY.”
Ginny gave her well-meaning family a look of practiced patience. “Thank you, but none of these projects require lifting or organizing that I can’t handle. And, Monique, I promise I will let you know if I ever need money. You know I don’t like the stuff.”
“I’ve never known anyone so allergic to it,” Monique said.
Ginny shrugged. “Nine out of ten historians say money is the leading cause of war and climate destruction. I know I need some money, but I don’t need very much, and I’m good with that.”
What she did need was two weeks with no outside expectations. Two weeks to do whatever she wanted. Two weeks to be left completely alone so she could putter around her house finishing up the last remaining projects. Two weeks of blessed, lonely heaven.