“It’s maroon.”

“Thank you,” Fenny sighed. “It’s supposed to be mauve.”

“Why?” Paul asked.

“Not a clue. I, unfortunately, am not in charge.”

“So that’s the plan for the day, making it mauve?”

“No, I’ll deal with that later. Today we need to make a bedroom. The theory is that the builders have it built already, they just never informed me, and the director assumed that I could read his mind and is currently pissed that I didn’t figure out what he wanted me to do. So, we’re making a bedroom.”

“Fenny.”

“Crap,” she murmured as the booming voice echoed around her. She turned to face the director. “Yes?”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, this is Paul, he’s volunteered to help me with that backdrop you need.”

“Really?” the director asked, narrowing his eyes at him. “Had much experience in set design, have you?”

“Sure have,” Paul chirped.

The director still looked uncertain. He liked to have absolute control over his production, and strange little foreign men with paintbrushes didn’t figure into his plans.

“There’s no way I can get it done today without help, and since there’s no one else around to help me…”

“You mess this up and your ass is grass,” the director barked and stormed away.

“Things always this bad around here?” Paul gasped.

“Only because it’s getting so close to the opening, and we’re all running behind. Are things not this hectic in your production?” Fenny asked.

“Of course not,” he said, “we’re professionals, we’ve got big names! We know what we’re doing.”

“You’ve just never noticed because you’re the one screwing everything up,” Fenny mused with a smile. “C’mon, help me set up the paints.”

Gina stepped out into the parking lot, a warm wind scattering her hair in all directions. Brad was halfway to his car, and Gina all but ran to her little rented number in a visitor spot that seemed miles away. She smiled to herself as she pulled out into traffic two cars behind Brad; she felt like she was in a detective novel, and with all her running around Australia, she figured she would be pretty good at this sneaking around thing.

After about ten minutes of cruising through surface streets, he pulled onto the freeway, and Gina lost him almost instantly. Crushed and defeated, she got off at the next off ramp and decided to stop somewhere for breakfast. A dozen scenarios ran through her mind of where he could be going, what he could be doing, and whether or not there really was a child in the picture.

“It’s primed and there’s a cream base coat just like you asked,” Paul announced, pleased with himself as Fenny wandered back to the rear of the theatre.

“Very nice,” she nodded. “Um, where’s the roller?”

“Oh, I chased around some little girl on the lighting crew until she took it away from me.”

“I’m going to hope you’re messing with me and just thank you for getting started.”

Paul raised an eyebrow and shrugged at her. “Figured out a motif from the director?”

“The dude has no clue what he wants. ‘Something in the country’ he says. It’s his play and he’s read the script and he doesn’t know what kind of a room. ‘Lots of wood paneling, elegant wallpaper, and a fireplace off to the left.’ That’s just to fuck with me.”

“Come on, let’s get this done,” Paul chimed and dug around in Fenny’s box of tools for a pencil. She watched for a moment as he made broad sweeping lines across the face of the wall.

“What’s that?” Fenny asked.

“Fireplace,” he announced.

“Shouldn’t it be, I dunno, attached to the floor somehow?”

“Well if you wanna get all technical about it…”

“You’re gonna get me fired, aren’t you?” she sighed as she plopped herself on the floor dejectedly to hunt out a sponge and a couple of wide brushes. Paul took to drawing a more reasonable fireplace. “We need wallpaper. Flowery, viney stuff.”

“Sure,” Paul grinned and took to the wall again as Fenny started pouring paint into her mixing cups. After a few minutes she looked up to check his progress.

“I’m not sure I like the way you’re smiling to yourself,” she said warily.

“That the paint for the vines?” he asked, grabbing a cup of green paint and a brush. “Look what I did.”

Fenny watched as he traced out one of his lines with the subtle green paint. She stepped back to investigate the image forming. “Oh my,” she giggled. “I should’ve known your phallic fixation would follow through into this.”

“You like it?”

“There’s a giant dick on my wall.”

“Yes there is,” he smirked.

“You’re going to get me into so much trouble,” she laughed, but decided to just go with it and started painting in the fireplace bricks, leaving Paul to do his worst on the wallpaper.

After spending the afternoon soaking up the Los Angeles culture by way of a bit of window shopping and star searching, Gina decided to head to Fenny’s theatre to see if maybe she could use a bit of help finishing up her backdrop before heading out for dinner. She stopped at a light and continued fiddling with the radio dials. All she could pick up was talk radio, Britney Spears and rap. A cyclist in skintight silver spandex shorts caught Gina’s attention and she scowled at him as he whizzed past her car. Her scowl deepened when something more disturbing caught her eye. “Dancing Like a Monkey.”

Gina glanced up; Brad’s car was parked alongside a spacious park snuggled in amongst a few shops, quaint restaurants, and small offices. It was full of trees, and a small playground was set up across the way. There, under a tree, was a figure that looked remarkably like Brad Sherwood. With a baby in his lap. Accompanied by a pert little blonde. “Shit,” Gina cursed as the light turned green and she parked around the corner. She crawled out of the car and headed for the park. Unnoticed, she snuck up on them and sat against the tree trunk about fifteen feet behind Brad and strained to hear.

“…think she’s over her cold. She looks so much better than she did last night.”

“Every time I hold her she falls asleep,” Brad chuckled.

“She’s comfortable with you.”

“Maybe I’m just boring.”

“Lilly knows you’re her daddy and that you love her,” the woman declared.

“I do love my little girl,” Brad cooed, and the baby let out a tired little gurgle.

“Fuck,” Gina thought as she held her head in her hands, “fuckfuckfuck. Fenny was right. God, what am I gonna do?”

“Look, it’s a fireplace,” Fenny announced as she finished and dropped the sponge into the bucket of water. She glanced up to check on Paul’s progress. The foliage now added to his original lines detracted somewhat from the design, but it was still a very phallic image. “And it’s a flowery penis. Almost subliminal, really.”

“Just doing my part to corrupt your country’s theatre,” he smiled.

“And doing it well,” Fenny nodded. “Come here, you got paint on yourself.”

“Where?” Paul asked, rubbing various parts of his face with the back of his hand.

“Right here,” she laughed, and with three deft strokes left a black smiley face on his cheek.

“What have you done to me?” he shrieked and began running in panicked circles around the backdrop.

“Wait, come back,” Fenny giggled and grabbed him halfway through his third lap. “Here,” she smiled and added a pair of horns. “Now you look the part. You should be required by law to wear a fiendish smiley on your face as a warning to the human population.”

“And you, Zeppelin Girl, deserve no less.” With one hand clamped over the top of her head, he painted a lilac blimp on her forehead.

Sebastian wandered by and glared at the pair before wandering away, and Fenny and Paul collapsed into giggle fits. “Hey look, it’s 4:30, you should probably get back home, start dinner,” Fenny smiled. “I’ll call Gina, have her meet me at a café or something, and you’ll have free reign.”

“You’re sure? I mean, you can finish up here, and you don’t mind me taking over your kitchen?” Paul asked.

“I’m positive. This room’s almost done. Go win over your woman. Just, try not to destroy anything.”

“Don’t count on it,” Paul chuckled. “I’ll see you later, huh?”

“Yeah. I’ll send Gina over around six, ok?”

“Wish me luck.”

“All the luck in the world.”

Gina decided she had to tell Fenny. She wouldn’t like it, she’d be mad as hell, but anything was better than having her confused, worried, and wondering if he still loved her. At least Gina hoped Fenny’s reaction would be better.

She couldn’t call her, she had to find Fenny and tell her, so she headed for the theatre. All the way there, she ran through possible conversations in her head, how to break the news gently. There really was no way. She ran through possible reactions trying to think how Fenny would take it. None of them were good.

Gina assured herself she was doing the right thing and just drove.

“Hey Fenny, there’s some Australian chick out front looking for you,” Larry called.

“Yeah, ok, send her back,” Fenny smiled and dropped her things on the floor as Gina appeared. “I was just gonna call you, have you meet me for coffee or tea or something.”

“Why do you have a blimp on your face?”

“Ask yourself if you really want the answer to that question,” Fenny smiled.

“Right. Look, Fenny, is there someplace we can talk?” Gina asked carefully.

“Um, no, not really, this place is a madhouse, we’re tremendously swamped, and I’m kinda in the middle of something here. Why, is something wrong?”

“Well, you see, I was, ok, I was following Brad.”

“What?” Fenny demanded.

“I wanted to find out what he was doing, you know? I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I did. I lost him for a while, then I ran into him in this park,” Gina shrugged. Fenny glared at her and she decided to get to the point. “Ok, right. Remember when we were at the baby shop, you ran into that blonde with the cute little baby?”

“Yeah,” Fenny said slowly.

“Well, I figured out why the baby is so cute.”

Fenny frowned at her, terribly confused.

“She’s Brad’s kid,” Gina announced.

Fenny continued to frown at her but said nothing.

“Don’t you see what I’m telling you, Fen? You were right, Brad’s got a daughter.”

“You’re full of shit,” Fenny snapped. This didn’t go with her ultimate plan, therefore it wasn’t happening. Brad was just busy, and he loved her, and there was no child.

“I saw him with the woman from the boutique with Lilly. He said right out loud that he was Lilly’s daddy.” Gina flinched a bit at the sound of the word “daddy” escaping her lips.

“Why would you make something like that up?!” Fenny screamed.

“I wouldn’t,” Gina yelled back. “I’m fucking serious. I’ll take you to him for god’s sake, he’s probably still there.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Fenny hissed and groped for a paintbrush.

“Fenny, listen to me,” Gina demanded and grabbed Fenny by the arm.

“Leave me the hell alone,” Fenny barked.

“Greg told me that that All-Star thing he was doing actually happened three weeks ago. Who knows what else he’s lied to you about. I saw him with his child and some other woman. You go from paranoid to denial and back again, you’ve got to stop doing this to yourself. Now come on, I’m taking you to him.”

Something began to sink in, and Fenny allowed herself to be dragged to Gina’s car. It was a short, silent drive and in a matter of minutes Fenny and Gina were parked across the street from the park, watching. Brad had the sleeping baby cradled against his chest as he and the woman Fenny instantly recognized from the baby store headed for their cars. He kissed the baby, his daughter, before buckling her snuggly into a car seat in the back. He and Lilly’s mother slipped into the car and it quickly disappeared into traffic.

“Take me back to the theatre,” Fenny said softly.

“Fen—”

“Please, I’ve got work to finish.”

Shaking her head but deciding not to argue, Gina started the car and headed back to the theatre.

“ ‘…two tablespoons of butter, a teaspoon of Worchester sauce’—where’d it go, I thought I—oh it can wait a minute, ‘a quarter cup of red wine vinegar, and a half teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Simmer fifteen minutes.’ Oh this is so not going to work,” he grumbled to himself as he stirred the contents of the pot for a moment. Paul frowned at the photo in the cookbook, a beautiful piece of chicken breast covered in a shiny gooey glaze sitting in a pool of succulent sauce, one slice taken away to show the perfectly moist quality of the meat. “Fuck you,” he growled and dropped what remained of the stick of butter on the photo and went to hunt for the Worchester sauce.

Fenny had confessed to being a far from spectacular cook and instructed him on which of her cookbooks were easiest to follow and explained that any recipe with a plus sign next to it indicated she had been able to make it without any disastrous effects and assured him that he could cook too, it was just a matter of following instructions and not getting frustrated. He was beginning to get frustrated and figured that compared to him, Fenny must be Wolfgang-fucking-Puck.

“Aha!” Paul cried as he spotted the Worchester sauce in the back of the pantry. He turned back to the stove just as the contents bubbled over the pot and hissed angrily against the burner. “Damn it!”

“Do you think they’re sleeping together?”

The first words Fenny had spoken since, “You think you could handle painting these blocks just plain brown, it’d really help me out.” Gina had agreed to stay and help Fenny finish with her backdrop with the hopes of maybe getting her to talk about what had happened, get her to acknowledge the fact that there was something wrong, get a little upset, but she’d slipped defiantly into stoic denial.

“I don’t know,” Gina shrugged.

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to make love to me. He’s tired of me, he likes her better.”

“Fenny, Brad loves you, we both know that. You’ve been through too much for you to question that. Look at that rock on your finger.”

“Then what the hell is he doing running around with a cute little blonde and their cute little baby, huh?” Fenny demanded. “Why the endless lies?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m really starting to wish I didn’t love the asshole so much, y’know? He keeps hurting me and I keep going back to him. All his lies… It’s not fair, it’s really not. Why can’t life be like a John Cusack movie, huh?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” Gina mused.

“No. No, I’m glad you told me. Thank you.” Fenny sighed and looked at her watch. “Look, it’s almost six, why don’t you go home, get yourself some dinner. I’ll be home soon.”

“You sure Fen? Because I can stick around if you need me to.”

“No, it’ll take me fifteen minutes to finish this up. I’ve just got some cleaning up to do, gotta chat with the director.” Gina looked up at her. “Please, just go. I’ll be fine.”

Gina nodded and stood to leave. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she ordered.

“You either,” Fenny said with a smile.

“Shit, it’s six,” Paul grumbled as he regarded the mess he’d made of Fenny and Brad’s kitchen. The chicken pieces were sitting in the casserole dish waiting to be dealt with, but the boiling over fiasco and the butter melting into the cookbook and the paprika tipping over to leave a cloud of red dust and broken glass in the kitchen and the poor cat being traumatized by his constant screaming and the burn mark across his elbow did nothing to facilitate dealing with the chicken, and Gina was due to appear at any minute.

As Paul fiddled with the stove knob to find the elusive happy medium between scalding and off, the door sprung open. “What the—Brad?” Gina called as the burnt smell hit her and she scurried into the kitchen. She froze instantly. “Paul?!”