“Surreal, honestly,” I tell her with a laugh. “But I was under the impression that this is Veronica’s home now?”
I watch her carefully as I say it, looking for I’m not sure what. Some sign of discomfort, angst, something. Whatever it is, I don’t get it. In fact, Melanie laughs—a real laugh and not that weird tinkling sound she usually makes. “Forgive me,” she says after a moment of unchecked mirth. “Here in Hollywood we aren’t used to your East Coast bluntness. But yes, this is Veronica’s house now, though she lets me stay here whenever I’d like. She’s also lovely enough to still let me call it my house, though it’s not anymore. But that’s the kind of woman my daughter is, Ian. Lovely all the way through.”
“She absolutely is,” I agree, relaxing slightly now that I can see the woman behind the Hollywood mask. Or, more accurately, see that whatever else Melanie Romero is, she is a mother who loves her daughter very much.
Melanie switches the light off as we head out of the room. “What would you like to see now?”
“Wherever you’d like to take me. I saw most of the house the other day, during the photo shoot.”
“Did you? And still you took me up on my offer of a tour when you could be upstairs dancing with my daughter?”
I shrug. “I wanted to see how your tour differed from hers.”
“Of course you did.” She crooks a brow. “Always the reporter, Ian?”
“Always the writer,” I correct her.
“Is there a difference?”
“Sometimes.”
She laughs again, ushers me along. “You are entirely too affable for your own good, you know that?”
“And here I thought being affable was a good thing.”
“It is…as long as it’s not a mask to hide something else entirely.”
It’s my turn to crook a brow. “I thought I was the profiler here?”
“Darling, you don’t survive in this town as long as I have without knowing how to read people.”
It’s the opening I’ve been waiting for. “Do you ever make mistakes in reading people? Ever trust someone you shouldn’t?”
“Not very often.” There’s a long pause before she admits, “But that just means when you do make a mistake, it’s a big one.”
“I can imagine.” I follow her down another staircase to the second floor, where Veronica’s and her suites are. “Your daughter seems to feel the same way. She’s very guarded.”
“She’s had to be.”
“Growing up as the adored only child of Melanie and Salvatore Romero…it must have been a lot.”
Melanie stops and looks at me for long seconds and I wonder if I pushed too hard too fast. I want to ask her about Veronica’s childhood and about William Vargas, but if I seem too invasive I’m pretty sure Melanie will clam up and that’s the last thing I want.
“She handled it very well,” Melanie finally says. “Veronica has always been a trooper. Not that growing up our daughter didn’t also come with some fabulous perks, because it did. But yes, she always dealt with the more difficult parts of fame very well—even from an early age.”
“I’m sure it helps that she had such a supportive mother. I think that makes up for a lot.”
“I wish you’d tell her that,” Melanie says with another one of her tinkling laughs. I’m already paying close attention—to everything that’s being said and everything that isn’t—but hearing it puts me on hyperalert again.
“She doesn’t see her childhood that way?” I ask.
“Oh, she does. Most of the time. But all parents have to make decisions their children don’t agree with at one time or another. Sometimes I think Veronica remembers those times more than she remembers the good ones. I mean, it’s hard to forget a cruise around the Mediterranean on a private yacht or skiing in Patagonia in July, but I think sometimes she manages it. The money’s always been there, you know, so things like that get taken for granted, I think.”
Or they’re overshadowed by other, darker things. Things that no vacation, no matter how exciting, can make up for. I don’t say that, though. I can’t, when I still don’t know exactly what it is I’m looking for. “What was your favorite vacation with Veronica? Your favorite place to visit?”
“Oh, there’ve been so many. And not just vacations. Salvatore shot movies in some of the most gorgeous and interesting places on earth and I was in a number of them—which meant we got to live different places for six months or so at a time. Athens, Sydney, Vancouver, Tokyo, London. I would have done anything for that kind of life when I was a child.” She sighs, her eyes taking on a faraway look for several seconds before she seems to come back to herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go down memory lane like this.”