I shoot her a look that says why the hell is there a strange man in the house? This isn’t even the first time I’ve had to use it.
“Didn’t we discuss not having strange men over without alerting the other person?” I whisper hiss, pointing to myself in case there was any question who the other person is.
“Darby ain’t strange.” She throws a sassy look at a smiling Darby. “Are you, Darb? I mean you do like to do that thing with your toes, but that’s more kinky than strange.”
Jess snorts. Diet Coke shoots down the wrong pipe and she coughs until I’m forced to lean over and pat her back.
A phone rings with an incoming text message and Darby fishes a cell phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. “My Uber ride is here. Bye, Sugar.”
Then I have to suffer through watching him place a chaste kiss on Mona’s lips, which she turns into a tonsil hockey session.
“You have Uber out here?” Jess mutters, genuinely surprised.
“No,” Darby clarifies. “It’s my son. He does his own thing, driving people around. But it’s like an Uber.”
“Uh, okay,” Jess replies, obviously confused.
Darby exits and I glance at the clock on the oven and see it’s feeding time for the horses. “Now that Mona’s kinky lover has departed, can we get to business?”
“Wouldn’t hurt you to get one too, ya know,” Mona volleys back with a wink and a satisfied smile.
I direct my growing impatience at Jessica. “Can we get to the reason for your visit?”
“Okay, yeah, so… Aidan Hughes was arrested for reckless driving and it’s his third offense.”
Celebrities flexing their sense of entitlement is not uncommon in L.A. No doubt he’ll get off scot-free. I’m just not sure what this has to do with me.
“Seems like a real winner,” I murmur as a growing sense of dread creeps up on me.
“As part of the plea deal, he needs to complete three hundred hours of community service—”
“Can I get the Cliff Notes to this story?”
“––and three months of house arrest.”
“Heartbreaking. I’m weeping inside. What does this have to do with me?” I can’t help myself. My patience is running on empty and my workday is only starting.
Biting her lips, she adds, “I sorta pitched this place.”
After parsing the words carefully, it still sounds too far-fetched to be real. “Pardon? When you say you pitched this place, do you mean planet Earth, Ojai in general, or this ranch?”
“This ranch… specifically, the rescue.”
Have you ever been in a car crash? In the split-second right before impact, everything slows down. You start to see and feel things like you’re observing it from afar. Then it speeds up all at once and your world explodes with confusion and pain. We are at that moment in the story.
“You told your boss that her criminally-negligent client can come here? To this ranch?”
The wide, toothy smile that spreads across Jess’ face feels like a personal attack. “He can complete house arrest and community service at the same time. And what better way to clean up his tainted image than by taking care of rescued animals?” Then, musing to herself, she says, “It’s next-level genius.”
She follows it up with a fist pump that scares the living daylights out of me. Jessica’s unbridled ambition is a relentless beast needing to be constantly fed.
“Were you high when you did this?”
There’s a reason I moved out here far away from the hustle and bustle of civilization to work with animals. I don’t do well around people anymore. I used to. I used to love being around people. A lot. Now I don’t love it. Most of all men. Particularly men.
“And the judge agreed,” she continues not even a little discouraged by my horrified expression. “Isn’t that great?”
The judicial system in this country is broken.
“No. It’s not. This isn’t a halfway house for overprivileged losers. Besides, Mona will never allow it.”
“I’ll allow it,” Mona bursts out, a little too cheerfully if you ask me.
“Mona, please stay out of this,” I hiss.
“And miss out on all the fun? I’d rather not.” Sashaying to the coffee pot, she pours some into a mug which reads: In My Defense I Was Left Unsupervised, which basically sums up the entirety of Mona’s very colorful life.
“Boo,” Jess pleads, pulling out the heavy guns––her pet name for me. “It’s my chance to show Cruella that I’m an indispensable asset to the agency. I’m tired of being a glorified assistant. I’ve paid my dues, dammit. I’m begging you.”
“We’ll help you,” Mona adds, brightly. “Right, Blue? Isn’t that what girl power’s about? Jessica needs us.”
“Girl power?” I mutter. “Mona, do you have any idea what this means? There won’t just be Hughes to watch over––very carefully, I should add––but probably an entourage, as well. Our little sanctuary will be overrun with L.A. assholes.”
“Oh, honey, you know I can handle those Hollywood types in my bra and panties with one arm tied behind my back.”
I suck in a breath, picturing the very real possibility of this happening. “Please tell me you don’t mean that in the literal sense.”
“I haven’t even told you about the perks yet,” Jess says, interrupting the dark path my mind’s traveling down, which ends with a certain movie star criminal requesting a restraining order against Mona. “He’s prepared to make a sizable donation to the rescue.”
Between the merchandise I’ve been selling and my steady and loyal followers on Instagram and Facebook who have bailed the rescue out of a number of animal-related catastrophes (medical and otherwise), we’ve been getting by. Barely, but we’ve managed to stay in the black.
Are we always in need of funding? Sure. Of course. Rescues don’t happen on a schedule, and saving lives is costly. The vet bills alone are enough to keep me up at night. What I am not willing to do, however, is compromise my mental health for a few extra bucks.
“No amount of money would tempt me.”
“Then think of it as part of your personal growth,” the master negotiator also known as my best friend quips back. “Like therapy––but you get paid for it.”
A small whine comes from across the counter. My attention shifts to Mona who takes a slow sip of her coffee, her groomed eyebrows steadily climbing up her forehead. “I guess this is as good a time as any…” she mutters.
“A good time for what?” I ask hesitantly. Very hesitantly.
“To tell you that I’m a little behind on the property taxes.”
If I don’t have a heart attack today, nothing will ever kill me. “How behind are you?” I force myself to ask even though I really don’t want to know the answer.
“Two years.”
“Two years! How much?”
“I got a little confused with the past due dates,” I hear her say under the rushing of blood in my ears. “Andy said we can negotiate…”
Andy, her attorney. He’s supposed to be managing her finances. Which begs the question… what else has he screwed up?