An unchosen assistant
This is the opening scene from the first chapter of Rage Before Beauty. In this scene, Karla and Lynn have a somewhat awkward car ride to visit Karla’s client at the local bed and breakfast, and we get a glimpse into their complicated relationship.
First we have the scene as written in the book from Karla’s point of view. Then, we have the re-written scene from Lynn’s point of view.
Karla’s point of view…
The day of the murder
Karla stomped her foot in the puddle in the driveway. Water splashed all the way to the top of her tall black rain boot, almost soaking her leg.
“I’m coming!” Lynn shouted from the front porch of the cottage next door. “Don’t leave without me.”
“Chance would be a fine thing,” Karla mumbled. She plastered a smile on her face and waved to her mother before opening the car door and sliding into the driver’s seat.
Lynn locked the front door and bounded across their shared lawn with long, high strides.
“Ooh, it’s nice and cool in here.” Lynn declared as she positioned herself in the passenger seat of her daughter’s car. “The rain hasn’t helped the humidity, has it? My right sinus is clear for the first time in days.” She tapped her forehead, just above her right eyebrow, as if that would prove her sinus wasn’t congested. “I predict the rain will end soon.”
Lynn believed her sinuses and hips had meteorological superpowers. She hadn’t been wrong yet, that Karla knew of, but Karla was still skeptical about her mother’s barometric clairvoyance. She was skeptical about Lynn in general.
Lynn fussed with the air vents until the cool air flowed exactly where she wanted, at just the right speed. “Air conditioning is much better than in my day. We had to put up with hot air blowing on us until the air conditioner finally cooled down. It felt like forever.” She buckled her seatbelt and nodded that she was ready to roll. “I’m not complaining,” she clarified. “I don’t miss winter!” She shook her head. “I’ll take the heat over the snow any day.”
Mother nature was giving Bellbrook a preview of the summer heat waves that were yet to come. This was the first heatwave of the year. And the earliest heatwave Bellbrook had experienced in thirty years.
“This winter was the first Bellbrook winter you’ve braved since you were eighteen,” Karla reminded her mother, shifting the car into drive. “When I was ten, I asked why you never came home for Christmas, and you said that you only visited Bellbrook in months without an R because you hated snow.”
“I’ve visited you in the winter,” Lynn defended. “Just not often or for very long,” she added under her breath. “Besides, I spent a winter in Finland once and, let me tell you,” she arched her professionally shaped eyebrows and nodded at Karla, “an average snowfall in Helsinki makes a Bellbrook blizzard look like a lovely spring day.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it since you left me here with Grandma May,” Karla muttered the jab without taking her eyes off the road.
“I’ve got a notebook, pen, tablet, and the charging cord for my tablet,” Lynn said, tapping her orange designer laptop bag with long, French-manicured nails, and changing the subject.
Lynn avoided talking about the past. About how she was an overwhelmed, scared eighteen-year-old girl when Karla was born. About how she left her baby daughter in the loving care of her mother, Karla’s Grandma May, while she travelled the world and lived a child-free, responsibility-free life, leaving someone else to raise her daughter.
“You didn’t need to bring anything,” Karla said. “You didn’t even need to come. My assistant is only a phone call away.”
“She’s also in a different time zone,” Lynn retorted. “She’s too far away and too busy helping the other concierges. You’re the CEO of the company, for goodness’ sake. You should have a dedicated assistant.”
“My assistant has been with me since the beginning,” Karla argued. “She’s fully trained, competent, and she’s my eyes and ears at Just Task Me’s head office.”
Just Task Me! was the concierge company Karla founded after college. They provided twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week personal, discreet service to an exclusive pool of affluent, influential VIP clients. Just Task Me! employed several concierges and concierge assistants, but Karla personally tended to the company’s most elite clientele.
“I know you’re fond of your assistant, love, but she’s halfway across the country. You don’t live there anymore. You live here now, and you need a support system here. She’s great for helping you with emails and phone calls and such, but you need an assistant who’s right here, right now.” She grinned and straightened her spine. “Like me! I’m right here in the flesh. Ready, willing, and able to do whatever you need.”
Karla sighed.
Lynn had been lobbying for Karla to hire her since she’d found out Karla would be hosting a murder mystery weekend in Bellbrook for a VIP client. It was Lynn’s latest attempt to insert herself into her daughter’s life almost forty years after she’d left it.
Everyone kept telling Karla that Lynn was trying to make up for lost time. Trying to build a relationship with her estranged daughter. Karla was trying to be open to Lynn’s bonding attempts, but trust didn’t come easily for her. She and Lynn’s lives were like two circles in a Venn diagram. The only small overlap their circles shared was Grandma May. But she died months ago, and now Lynn was grasping for common ground to keep their circles connected. The distance between them was no longer measured in miles, time zones, or the number of connecting flights, but there was still a barrier between them. A transparent, solid yet intangible barrier. Grandma May would have wanted us to be close, she reminded herself. Do it for Grandma May.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Karla said. “But I don’t need an assistant often enough to justify hiring someone local. Anyway, we already live next door to each other in the same small town. We see each other every day.” No matter how hard I try to avoid it some days, she added in her head. “You know what they say, too much of a good thing is bad.” She smiled, proud of her burgeoning ability to deflect Lynn’s attempts at infiltrating her life. “And you already help by looking after Gucci while I work,” Karla added. “If we work together, who will take care of him?”
Gucci was Karla’s adorable, dishevelled, spoiled terrier. He had a small and scruffy body and a large, endearing personality. Karla loved Gucci. She loved all animals. Animals didn’t lie. Animals were loyal. She didn’t have to study them and catalogue their behavioural patterns, searching for small hints of untruth or insincerity.
“You know I love Gucci,” Lynn said. “I adore my granddog more than any other pet in the world. I can help look after Gucci and help you with Just Task Me! I’m an excellent multi-tasker.”
Funny, you couldn’t multitask motherhood. Karla bit down hard on her bottom lip.
“Let’s see how this weekend goes, and take it from there,” Karla suggested as a way of shutting down the conversation.
“To prove that I’d be an indispensable personal assistant, I’ve created a dossier on your client, Mr. Samir Khan,” Lynn announced, pulling her tablet from her laptop bag. “I’ve researched him and his family on the internet.” She unlocked the tablet screen and scrolled through an already-open document. “Their names are popular on gossip sites. Who knew billionaire tech moguls had such sordid personal lives?”
“Most of the stories on those gossip sites are fake,” Karla informed her mother. “Manufactured headlines to lure people into clicking so they’ll click on the ads embedded in the fake article. It’s called click bait, mother.”
“It sounded real enough to me,” Lynn said. “Did you know Samir’s wife, Millie, was widowed less than six months before he married her? Or that his brother and best friend hate each other?”
“OK, there might be some truth,” Karla conceded, “but it’s reported out of context.” She checked the surroundings at a four-way stop before proceeding through the intersection. “For example, it’s true that Samir and Millie got married soon after her first husband died, but they’d known each other for years. Since their time at Oxford.”
“Now that you mention it, the article said nothing about how long they’d known each other.” Lynn gave her tablet screen a skeptical glance. “Or that Millie had attended Oxford.”
“My bag is on the back seat.” Karla jerked her head toward the back of the car. “Inside, you’ll find Samir’s client file. It’s full of actual information about him and his family.” She stopped at a red light and turned to Lynn. “When you meet them, under no circumstances are you to mention any of the tabloid articles.” She narrowed her green eyes. “Got it?”
“Got it,” Lynn agreed, nodding, then turned her attention to browsing through the real client file.
Karla savoured the blissful silence as they drove and Lynn riffled through Samir’s file.
“It says here that Samir Khan owns homes all over the world. He has homes on both US coasts, India, the UK, and he prefers to summer in his smaller homes scattered across Europe.” Lynn closed the file and returned it to Karla’s bag. “Why would someone with homes in the world’s most glamorous cities spend a weekend in Bellbrook?” She turned to her daughter. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would he stay in a local bed and breakfast when he can stay in the most luxurious accommodation on the planet?”
“The Nestled Inn is a lovely bed and breakfast,” Karla championed for the small, family-owned business. “Samir needed accommodation large enough to house his guests, but secluded enough to ensure their privacy. He said his wife was eager to experience small-town east coast life, and he wanted her experience to be as authentic as possible.”
“How authentic can her small town experience be when she’s surrounded by servants and security people?” Lynn asked. “According to your file, Samir’s entourage of cooks, maids, butlers, and security personnel is the size of a small army.”
“The family and Samir’s guest of honour will stay at the Nestled Inn, and his staff will stay at the Seascape Hotel. I’ve arranged to have them shuttled to and from the Nestled Inn,” Karla explained. “His staff arrived last night to get the bed and breakfast ready ahead of Samir’s arrival today.”
“I still don’t understand why they chose Bellbrook, of all places.”
“Bellbrook is beautiful.” Karla gestured toward the surrounding landscape. The contrast of the bright green foliage against the grey sky and ocean was breathtaking. “It’s secluded enough to afford them more privacy than most destinations, and Samir’s guest of honour lives nearby,” she explained. “This weekend is a celebration. Samir recently added a new app to his tech empire. The app’s creator lives somewhere near Bellbrook. Samir said the app’s creator refused to meet him anywhere else in the world, so Samir came here. The deal is done, but he likes to celebrate his acquisitions.”
Lynn’s blue eyes were wide with fascination and curiosity. “I wonder if it’s someone we know? Do we have any app developers in Bellbrook?”
“I wish I knew,” Karla said. “I’ve asked Samir for the developer’s name and personal information, but he’s been too busy to get back to me, and his assistant won’t divulge anything without Samir’s permission. If he’d at least given me a name, I could’ve researched the app developer myself and found enough information to make them comfortable this weekend and throw in a few personalized touches. Now, I’ll have to figure it out as we go along.”
“I read something about this on the internet.” Lynn snapped her manicured fingers and once again retrieved her tablet from her bag. “Here it is.” She cleared her throat. “TechSavvy, the technology conglomerate founded by majority shareholder Samir Khan, has acquired a new app for its impressive technology arsenal. In a multi-million dollar deal, TechSavvy has purchased Screw it!, an app that allows users to summon local handy people, and trades specialists for small repairs, large repairs, or renovation projects. Screw It! makes finding a plumber, carpenter, or other building specialist as easy as ordering a pizza.”
“I’ve researched the Screw It! app, but couldn’t find any information on the developer behind it,” Karla lamented. “As part of Samir’s deal to purchase the app, he agreed to allow the developer to remain anonymous.”
“Well, whoever this new multi-millionaire app developer is, we’ll figure out together how to cater to them and make them happy this weekend.” Lynn winked. “We’ll make sure they’re so impressed that they put Just Task Me! on retainer, landing you a new, high-profile client,” Lynn assured her daughter. “You’ve always been the type of person who rises to a challenge.” She tapped the v-neck of her white pullover blouse. “You get your spunk and resourcefulness from me.”
Karla’s phone rang through the speakers of her car. Saved by the bell!
Lynn’s point of view…
The day of the murder
Karla stomped her foot in a puddle on the driveway. The water splashed all the way to the top of her tall black rain boot, stopping just short of soaking her leg.
For an instant, Lynn caught a glimpse of the curious, puddle-jumping little girl her daughter once was. The little girl who only lived in Lynn’s imagination because she had hardly known Karla as a child. Lynn had been more like Karla’s mysterious, distant aunt than a mother. A comet that passed through her daughter’s constellation at random intervals and only stayed long enough for a fleeting glimpse.
The car in the driveway blinked its lights and chirped to life.
“I’m coming!” Lynn shouted from the front porch of her cottage. “Don’t leave without me.”
Karla smiled and waved to her mother before opening the car door and sliding into the driver’s seat.
Lynn locked the front door and bounded across their shared lawn with long, high strides.
“Ooh, it’s nice and cool in here.” Lynn declared, positioning herself in the passenger seat of her daughter’s car. “The rain hasn’t helped the humidity, has it? My right sinus is clear for the first time in days.” She tapped her forehead, just above her right eyebrow, as if that would prove her sinus wasn’t congested. “I predict the rain will end soon.”
Lynn’s sinuses and hips had meteorological superpowers. She knew most people rolled their eyes at her barometric predictions, but the joke was on them because her sinuses and hips hadn’t been wrong yet.
Lynn fussed with the air vents until the cool air flowed exactly where she wanted, at just the right speed. “This air conditioning is much better than in my day. We had to put up with hot air blowing on us until the air conditioner finally cooled down. It felt like forever.” She buckled her seatbelt and nodded that she was ready to roll. “I’m not complaining,” she clarified. “I don’t miss winter!” She shook her head. “I’ll take a heatwave over a snowstorm any day.”
Mother nature had gifted Bellbrook with a preview of the summer heat waves that were yet to come. This was the first heatwave of the year. And the earliest heatwave Bellbrook had experienced in thirty years.
“This winter was the first Bellbrook winter you’ve braved since you were eighteen,” Karla reminded her mother, shifting the car into drive. “When I was ten, I asked why you never came home for Christmas, and you said that you only visited Bellbrook in months without an R because you hated snow.”
“I’ve visited you in the winter,” Lynn defended, emotionally stung by Karla’s reminder of her absence. “Just not often or for very long,” she added under her breath. “Besides, I spent a winter in Finland once and, let me tell you,” she arched her professionally shaped eyebrows and nodded at Karla, “an average snowfall in Helsinki makes a Bellbrook blizzard look like a lovely spring day.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it since you left me here with Grandma May,” Karla muttered the jab without taking her eyes off the road.
“I’ve got a notebook, pen, tablet, and the charging cord for my tablet,” Lynn said, tapping her orange designer laptop bag with long, French-manicured nails, and changing the subject.
Lynn wasn’t proud of her past, but she’d given up wishing it could be different. Wishing that her eighteen-year-old self hadn’t been overwhelmed and terrified when Karla was born. Maybe if Lynn’s mother hadn’t been so quick to commandeer her baby daughter under the guise of ‘helping’, Lynn would have grown into her role as Karla’s mother. Instead, the bond between baby Karla and Grandma May became so strong, so fast, that Lynn didn’t have a place in Karla’s life. She wasn’t a child or an adult. She had given birth to a beautiful baby, yet wasn’t a mother. Who was she? She’d had no idea, but figuring it out in Bellbrook was too hard. It hurt too much. So, she left her infant daughter in the loving arms of her mother and travelled the world in search of herself. Almost forty years later, here she was, back where she started: in Bellbrook.
“You didn’t need to bring anything,” Karla said. “You didn’t even need to come. My assistant is only a phone call away.”
“She’s also in a different time zone,” Lynn retorted. “She’s too far away and too busy helping the other concierges. You’re the CEO of the company, for goodness’ sake. You should have a dedicated assistant.”
“My assistant has been with me since the beginning,” Karla argued. “She’s fully trained, competent, and she’s my eyes and ears at Just Task Me’s head office.”
Karla founded Just Task Me! right after college. The elite concierge agency provided twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week personal, discreet service to an exclusive pool of affluent, influential VIP clients. Just Task Me! employed several concierges and concierge assistants, but Karla personally tended to the company’s most elite clientele.
Lynn took pride in her daughter’s success, even if she couldn’t take credit for it. Karla had accomplished what Lynn never could: she had carved out her place in the world and created a life she loved.
“I know you’re fond of your assistant, love, but she’s halfway across the country. You don’t live there anymore. You live here now, and you need a support system here. She’s great for helping you with emails and phone calls and such, but you need an assistant who’s right here, right now.” Lynn grinned and straightened her spine. “Like me! I’m right here in the flesh. Ready, willing, and able to do whatever you need.”
Karla sighed.
Lynn had been lobbying for Karla to hire her since finding out Karla would be hosting a murder mystery weekend in Bellbrook for a VIP client. It was Lynn’s latest attempt to forge a relationship with her daughter. “You’re a day late and a dollar short, Lynn. Story of your life.” Her mother’s voice echoed through Lynn’s head.
Lynn knew she could never make up for lost time, but hoped they could start again if Karla would just meet her part way…
The only connection they had, Grandma May, died months ago. Now, Lynn was grasping for anything to stay connected to the daughter she didn’t raise.
The distance between them was no longer measured in miles, time zones, or the number of connecting flights, but there was still a transparent yet solid barrier between them.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Karla said. “But I don’t need an assistant often enough to justify hiring someone local. Anyway, we already live next door to each other in the same small town. We see each other every day.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You know what they say, too much of a good thing is bad.” Lynn’s heart sank at Karla’s latest rejection. “And you already help by looking after Gucci while I work,” Karla added. “If we work together, who will take care of him?”
Gucci was Karla’s adorable, dishevelled, spoiled terrier. He had a small and scruffy body and a large, endearing personality. Lynn spoiled Gucci. Maybe if Karla saw how much Lynn loved Gucci, she would soften and let Lynn in. Just a little. Lynn had recently made it her mission to love whatever Karla loved. If it meant anything to Karla, it would mean everything to Lynn.
“You know I love Gucci,” Lynn said. “I adore my granddog more than any other pet in the world. I can help look after Gucci and help you with Just Task Me! I’m an excellent multi-tasker.”
“Let’s see how this weekend goes, and take it from there,” Karla suggested.
“To prove that I’d be an indispensable personal assistant, I’ve created a dossier on your client, Mr. Samir Khan,” Lynn announced, pulling her tablet from her laptop bag. “I’ve researched him and his family on the internet.” She unlocked the tablet screen and scrolled through an already-open document. “Their names are popular on gossip sites. Who knew billionaire tech moguls had such sordid personal lives?”
“Most of the stories on those gossip sites are fake,” Karla informed her mother. “Manufactured headlines to lure people into clicking so they’ll click on the ads embedded in the fake article. It’s called click bait, mother.”
“It sounded real enough to me,” Lynn said. “Did you know Samir’s wife, Millie, was widowed less than six months before he married her? Or that his brother and best friend hate each other?”
“OK, there might be some truth,” Karla conceded, “but it’s reported out of context.” She checked the surroundings at a four-way stop before proceeding through the intersection. “For example, it’s true that Samir and Millie got married soon after her first husband died, but they’d known each other for years. Since their time at Oxford.”
“Now that you mention it, the article said nothing about how long they’d known each other.” Lynn gave her tablet screen a skeptical glance. “Or that Millie had attended Oxford.”
“My bag is on the back seat.” Karla jerked her head toward the back of the car. “Inside, you’ll find Samir’s client file. It’s full of actual information about him and his family.” She stopped at a red light and turned to Lynn. “When you meet them, under no circumstances are you to mention any of the tabloid articles.” She narrowed her green eyes. “Got it?”
“Got it,” Lynn agreed, nodding, then turned her attention to browsing through the real client file.
They drove in silence as Lynn riffled through Samir’s file.
“It says here that Samir Khan owns homes all over the world. He has homes on both US coasts, India, the UK, and he prefers to summer in his smaller homes scattered across Europe.” Lynn closed the file and returned it to Karla’s bag. “Why would someone with homes in the world’s most glamorous cities spend a weekend in Bellbrook?” She turned to her daughter. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would he stay in a local bed and breakfast when he can stay in the most luxurious accommodation on the planet?”
“The Nestled Inn is a lovely bed and breakfast,” Karla championed for the small, family-owned business. “Samir needed accommodation large enough to house his guests, but secluded enough to ensure their privacy. He said his wife was eager to experience small-town east coast life, and he wanted her experience to be as authentic as possible.”
“How authentic can her small town experience be when she’s surrounded by servants and security people?” Lynn asked. “According to your file, Samir’s entourage of cooks, maids, butlers, and security personnel is the size of a small army.”
“The family and Samir’s guest of honour will stay at the Nestled Inn, and his staff will stay at the Seascape Hotel. I’ve arranged to have them shuttled to and from the Nestled Inn,” Karla explained. “His staff arrived last night to get the bed and breakfast ready ahead of Samir’s arrival today.”
“I still don’t understand why they chose Bellbrook, of all places.”
“Bellbrook is beautiful.” Karla gestured toward the surrounding landscape. The contrast of the bright green foliage against the grey sky and ocean was breathtaking. “It’s secluded enough to afford them more privacy than most destinations, and Samir’s guest of honour lives nearby,” she explained. “This weekend is a celebration. Samir recently added a new app to his tech empire. The app’s creator lives somewhere near Bellbrook. Samir said the app’s creator refused to meet him anywhere else in the world, so Samir came here. The deal is done, but he likes to celebrate his acquisitions.”
Lynn’s blue eyes were wide with fascination and curiosity. “I wonder if it’s someone we know? Do we have any app developers in Bellbrook?”
“I wish I knew,” Karla said. “I’ve asked Samir for the developer’s name and personal information, but he’s been too busy to get back to me, and his assistant won’t divulge anything without Samir’s permission. If he’d at least given me a name, I could’ve researched the app developer myself and found enough information to make them comfortable this weekend and throw in a few personalized touches. Now, I’ll have to figure it out as we go along.”
“I read something about this on the internet.” Lynn snapped her manicured fingers and once again retrieved her tablet from her bag. “Here it is.” She cleared her throat. “TechSavvy, the technology conglomerate founded by majority shareholder Samir Khan, has acquired a new app for its impressive technology arsenal. In a multi-million dollar deal, TechSavvy has purchased Screw it!, an app that allows users to summon local handy people, and trades specialists for small repairs, large repairs, or renovation projects. Screw It! makes finding a plumber, carpenter, or other building specialist as easy as ordering a pizza.”
“I’ve researched the Screw It! app, but couldn’t find any information on the developer behind it,” Karla lamented. “As part of Samir’s deal to purchase the app, he agreed to allow the developer to remain anonymous.”
“Well, whoever this new multi-millionaire app developer is, we’ll figure out together how to cater to them and make them happy this weekend.” Lynn winked. “We’ll make sure they’re so impressed that they put Just Task Me! on retainer, landing you a new, high-profile client,” Lynn assured her daughter. “You’ve always been the type of person who rises to a challenge.” She tapped the v-neck of her white pullover blouse. “You get your spunk and resourcefulness from me.”
Are you ready for Lost & Drowned: A Bellbrook Murder Mystery Book 3? Click here.