since I wouldn’t give him my number or email address he gave me his.”
“Were you seriously going to call him?” Cal asked. She’d razzed Abbey enough about her man-less life. Talk about two sides of the teeter-totter. Cal bedded anyone who might help her career, and Abbey stayed arm’s length from just about anything with a Y chromosome.
“Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a moot point now since I lost that slip of paper.”
She looked truly dejected. Poor kid. Julie sympathized.
Scrunching her face up into a pucker, Cal asked, “Jules, have you by any chance heard from Ari about the movie?” Cal wasn’t much of a sympathizer. She was on to the next subject. Something that concerned her.
“Now, girls,” Elena said, leaning forward to set her tea on the table. “No shoptalk. I hate when you two are up against each other. Makes my stomach turn.” She gave Abbey a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
“Ditto,” Cal muttered.
“It doesn’t happen that often.” Julie got up and went to the kitchen. Ari did seem to be taking a lot of time to make up his mind. But things could’ve been happening to slow the schedule. The whole process was out of her control; she understood that. Which was why she never talked about it with Cal and why she wished Cal hadn’t brought it up.
She snatched the real estate section from the counter and headed back to the den. She pulled it apart in four sections and handed one to her mother, Abbey and Cal, keeping one for herself.
“Why are we doing this?” Cal asked. “This is a realtor’s job.”
“Maybe, but we found this place on our own.” Elena grinned, reliving the fond memory.
Julie remembered the excitement of hunting for her first house. She hadn’t even been twenty years old. Instead of a getting the usual one season pickup, her show had been guaranteed at least three more years because of its success, so her mother had insisted she invest in real estate. “Abbey will get some names, but in the meantime, it won’t kill us to see what’s out there.”
“What’s our budget?” Cal perused the first page. “Because there’s a twenty-five-thousand-square-foot place in Holmby Hills on the market for twenty million.” She arched a blond eyebrow.
“What would I do in twenty-five thousand square feet?” Julie didn’t wait for an answer. “I’d get lost. Try for something about a fifth of that size. I don’t need more than three bedrooms. Four tops.”
“Another canyon house?” Abbey asked as she flipped a page.
“No,” Elena answered. “After what just happened the other night, I think we’ve learned our lesson about canyon homes.”
“No offense, Elena...” Cal peeked from over the rim of her paper. “But if someone’s going to be shooting, it’s not going to matter if the house is in a canyon or not.”
Elena arched one honey-blond eyebrow in a clear Mom-glare that spoke volumes.
“Jules, your mom is mad at me. Save me.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Julie said.
Cal glanced at her watch and her eyes opened wide. “Shit, I wasn’t keeping track of time. I have a nail appointment.” She hopped off the sofa, tugged down her thigh-hugging skirt and snatched her frap and bag off the table on her way to the door.
“Are you sure you don’t want to carpool tomorrow?” Julie asked as she followed her. “I don’t like showing up to these things alone.” It wasn’t that she hadn’t walked down a ton of red carpets on her own before, but it never made the process easier.
“I’m sure. I have to leave right after the luncheon. Drew’s at my place for a couple of nights while the house is being tented and I’m still worried about him.”
“Is everything all right?” Elena asked, setting her tea down and joining them at the door as Abbey started picking up napkins and bits of trash around the coffee table.
“Yeah. He’s just depressed. That volunteer thing I sent him to didn’t have a lasting effect and he thinks I was trying to get rid of him. He says I don’t spend enough time with him. It doesn’t matter what I do, it’s never enough so...” She shrugged.
“Oh, sweetie.” Elena hugged her tight and Julie made it a threesome with her arms around both of them.
Julie pulled back first. “I know he doesn’t usually like to be in a crowd, but why don’t you try and bring him tomorrow. Maybe it will cheer him up.”
A smile curved Cal’s lips. “I think he might love that. He really