Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
And even though there was a lot of it, there wasn’t even a hint of vegetation that wasn’t native. Cacti, succulents, mesquite, palo verde and desert willow trees—all Arizona, all arid, no need for irrigation, not a blade of grass to be found.
There were also well-placed rocks dotting the space that looked natural, as if the house was built among them, but was likely not.
The curved drive at the front was covered in a fine, golden-sand-colored gravel that matched the landscape.
The windows of the home were framed and beamed in wood, boxy and paned, except a large picture one to the right of her front door, which was one big sheet of glass.
As an entity, Mika’s house managed to be out of the way, private, unassuming, yet attractive and impressive.
In other words, it seemed she hadn’t lost her touch.
Tom parked, got out and walked down the middle of the low fence that started wide along the front of the home, but it curved narrow to the wood-framed glass front door, the path seamlessly shifting from gravel to travertine because they both were the same color.
There was something welcoming about the entry, the closing in of the fence toward the front door being like a beacon, inviting you in.
He knocked, both looking forward to seeing Mika again, and not.
Even if he’d disappointed her, he still thought the world of her, and he was glad she’d phoned. Now the seal had been broken, it might give him a chance—not to explain, that wasn’t hers to have—but to get them to a different place where at the very least, she didn’t think he was an ass.
And he thought there was hope that she’d called him in the first place. If you were done with someone, you were just done, no matter what you might want from them. There were always other ways to get what you needed.
But whatever she had to say about Andrew was probably not good, and he wasn’t looking forward to that.
Tom could see her approaching through the glass of the door.
Not Mika.
Her daughter.
Rollo Merriman’s daughter.
And he was taken aback at how much she looked like her father.
He was wondering if that was a balm for Mika, or a bite, as the young woman opened the door.
“Hey,” she greeted enthusiastically, her brown eyes alive.
Not the reception he was expecting from anyone in that house.
“Hey there, I’m Tom. I’m here to see your mom.”
“I know who you are,” she replied, stepping aside and opening the door wider as she did, doing this still talking. “Mom’s in her studio talking to her agent and refusing an offer to sit down with 60 Minutes or 20/20 or some Netflix executive who has some documentarian they want Mom to film testimonials for about her life.”
By this time, he was in a small entryway with beams running across the ceilings, terracotta tiled floors, those tiles cutting through a curved adobe staircase off to the side that had a wrought-iron banister with lazy curls adorning the end.
She was closing the door behind him.
He was surprised the home had a second story.
Mika’s daughter continued to speak as she explained the mystery of the second floor.
This was because she led him down six steps into a room with an extraordinary adobe fireplace complete with high hearth and built-in mantle, all this snug inside sloping adobe walls. The fireplace being the focal point of the room, the hearth was decorated with bright blooms in a bottle-glass vase and wide-matted, colorful photographs of pictures of Mika with her daughter.
A cushiony couch faced this, a long table behind it, end tables beside it, a wooden rocking chair to one side, and off the room, he could see parts of a dining room table.
But that was it.
No TV.
No excess of décor.
It was welcoming and comforting and interesting and surprising and warm and not overdone.
All Mika.
“Like, after her saying no a bazillion times,” the daughter was sharing, “she’s suddenly going to change her mind. Uh…hello. The reason she’s so cool is she doesn’t do lame, fame-hungry things like that.”
“No,” he agreed. “She doesn’t.”
She stopped and pinned him with a very astute stare.
“You don’t either.”
She knew he was coming, obviously.
And now, just as obviously, he knew she’d looked into him.
“I’m in front of a camera or at a microphone enough in my life, I don’t need more.”
“Yeah,” she said and admitted, “I’m not into tennis.”
“Not everybody is.”
“Mom and me, we aren’t sports people.”
“That’s okay.”
“I know. But, you know, it’s weird.”
“Not being a sports person?” he asked.
“No, being one. I can get it, in a way. I’ve had PE. What they do is hard. And there aren’t that many who do it as well as the people who do it for those massive amounts of money. But it’s got kind of this weird…lemming quality about it. I mean, have you heard about some of the crap that goes down at those soccer games in England?”