From what Mike had told me, they had been good friends, until Mike started taking unsanctioned time off from filming because he couldn’t leave the tables in Vegas.
Hugh had ended up having to replace him in the last movie they tried to do together, but the chemistry hadn’t been the same and the movie had pretty much flopped.
I had encouraged Mike to reach out to Hugh and apologize, which he had done a few days ago, but . . .
“Why does Hugh Phillips’s assistant want to talk with me?” I asked.
“Just talk to her,” he said, extending the BlackBerry again.
“I’m cooking.” I pointed my wooden spatula at his tomato, goat cheese, spinach, and egg-white scramble.
“I got this.” He pressed the phone into my hand, then nudged me aside and took the spatula from me, so that he could finish his own eggs.
Now I had never seen Mike volunteer to make his own food. During one of our sessions, he said with some pride in his voice that even when he didn’t have a dime to his name, he had successfully begged for meals, not groceries.
So seeing him scrambling those eggs got me convinced that this must be important.
I put his fancy cell phone to my ear. “Hi, this is Davie,” I said.
“Hello, Davie, this is Martha,” said a woman with a crisp and efficient English accent. “I’m calling on behalf of Hugh Phillips.”
“Yes, so I’ve been told. What’s up?”
“Well, Hugh wishes to employ your services.”
“My services? Um, I don’t do the Soul BunnyGrams anymore.”
“I’m not quite sure what that is,” she said. “But Mr. Phillips would like to use you in the same capacity as Mike Barker.”
“Oh, you mean he wants me to un-fuck-up his life?”
A pause. Then: “Yes, I suppose you could express it that way. Apparently Mike has been singing your praises and says that you’re best guru he’s ever had. Hugh is intrigued.”
I looked at Mike, who was transferring his scramble onto a plate next to the turkey sausage I had already made. He just grinned at me.
“Oh, I see. Well, I think Mike might have really exaggerated my status. I’m not a real guru or life coach or anything.”
“I understand that your services are discreet and exclusive,” Martha said. “Please let us know what would need to be done to get Hugh on your calendar.”
“Um, seriously, I’m not a real therapist. I don’t even have a master’s.”
“Yes, I understand, full disclosure,” she said. She was disturbingly okay with my lack of credentials. “When is your next availability?”
“Well, I think I have about one more month to go with Mike, then I guess I could, um, meet with Mr. Phillips.”
“Please call him Hugh. And how much do you charge for the initial meeting?”
Mike held up two fingers. “Two?” I said, confused. He really expected me to charge two hundred dollars, just for meeting with a guy? Was he out of his mind?
“Two thousand it is. I’ll call in a month to schedule the meeting, and I’ll have a check along with a nondisclosure contract for you to sign when you come up to the house.”
I stood there frozen. Did she say two thousand dollars?
“Hello? Hello? Have we lost the connection?”
“No,” I somehow managed to croak out. “I look forward to setting up the meeting next month.”
“Yes, I’ll talk to you then. Thank you.”
Martha hung up.
I stood there, frozen, unable to form words. Two thousand was almost what I made in a month at Nicky’s.
Mike sat me down on one of the kitchen island’s bar stools.
He then took his BlackBerry out of my hand and replaced it with a glass of water. “So I guess I got to stay serious about getting over this gambling problem,” he said, “because you’re already getting booked up, girl.”
. . .
But of course, all these glad tidings couldn’t last forever. The Celeb Weekly with the Congressman Farrell article hit the newsstands the following Wednesday.
I know it was Wednesday, not because I went out and bought the issue, but because Veronica Farrell showed up at the club that very same night and tried to kill me.