“Great, go, get out of here. You’ve done enough.”
Libby left, and it was sweet how much her new old friend seemed worried about her. She hadn’t been mothered in a long time. Goldie was also glad to just breathe, walk around this place, and not be noticed.
Goldie looked at her phone. A text from Tally. It was grim. The house, her salon, and her favorite lunch spot were all under siege from angry fans of the movie franchise she’d just destroyed. Please. She’d had one disagreement over one scene. And the director melts down?
The bottom line was he didn’t want her in the movie. She stood up for herself, and he figured out how to use that to can her. And, in the process, bring down her career.
She didn’t want to think about the deeper problems. Because there were deeper problems.
Goldie had sacrificed a lot, everything, for her career. That it could go up in flames so quickly was hard to process.
Though, if she really thought about it, it had gone up in littlebrush fires after she turned thirty and then a wildfire after forty. She wasn’t fifty yet, and it was gone.
A check of Twitter revealed the hashtag #getgoldiegone was going strong.
The Wi-Fi here was spotty though. Maybe that was a sign to stop torturing herself.
Goldie found the correct bag, filled with her favorite piece of the line of athleisure wear that bore her name. Goldie Laps. That was a dumb name. She should have known that business was a bad idea based on that stupid name.
She did love the clothes, though. Thanks to an old friend, every garment she had lent her name to, she’d stand by today.
Goldie put on a pair of biking shorts and a tangerine t-shirt and tied a little jacket around her waist. Everything was color coordinated. She loved her athleisure line, but alas, Kate Hudson did it better.
Goldie found her walking shoes and decided to walk around a bit outside. She’d have days and nights to look around the hotel. But right now, the lake called to her.
She was used to the spectacular views of the Pacific. It had been a while since she’d seen the pastoral views of her summer haunts. L.A. was crispy in the summer. The foliage usually burnt out. Sure, there were gorgeous beaches and gorgeous people, and the ocean was divine. But there were brown trees and burnt grass a lot of the year.
Maybe she should get a place on the beach?
Goldie slathered on sunscreen and also donned a hat for extra protection. She’d spent a lot of money to keep wrinkles at bay; darned if she was going to let the sun damage what youth she had left.
She recalled days and days of unprotected sun worship here. Her current sunspots were directly attributed to this place, she realized. They used zinc oxide on their noses but only after the skin had bubbled. Wow, she really was dumb back then. Makeup artistshad covered her nose freckles for decades; she blamed her Tecumseh Tan for that.
It was technically still morning, but barely. Goldie was on California time. She’d slept well, despite all the things she had to keep her up at night.
She walked around a bit on the main floor of the old Two Lakes Grove. The main lobby area, sitting area, and kitchen were gorgeous in this place. She took a peak in the main dining room. It was smaller than she remembered. If the hotel was at capacity, it would be tough to get them all in here at the same time.
But what did it matter? She was the only guest. Her old friend had given her a hotel, all to herself, where prying eyes could not find her.
That said, before she went outside, she applied her eyelashes, a light base coat, nude lipstick, and a dusting of blush. Even with all that, it was the least make-up she’d worn outside of her house in years.
She made her way out to the veranda facing the lake and, for a moment, stopped in her tracks.
The blue sky was reflected in the water, making Lake Manitou look like the Caribbean this midday in late July. At the corner of the porch, you could turn to see Round Lake. The two lakes looked more gorgeous than she remembered.
It may be blue right now, like the Caribbean, but there was a different sound to this lake as opposed to the ocean. The ocean roared some days. Other days, there was a steady hum. The sounds of the lake were its own, and today they were gentle. There wasn’t a breeze right now, so the water was still. Small ripples rolled slowly across the surface.
It was calm, not imposing. Sometimes the ocean felt to Goldie as if it wanted to fight her. As if it wanted to swallow her up.
Suddenly, she realized why she didn’t have a place on the beach in California. It was the fight. The strength of the ocean was so powerful it was just one more force she had to workagainst to get where she wanted. She’d fought for her career, contracts, and respect; at every turn, something powerful fought against it.
As she watched a pontoon boat slowly float across the water, she felt at ease in this place. Crickets chirping or a squirrel chittering was as intense as it got here. It also made her feel connected to her family, her parents, even though they’d moved away from here years before they’d passed.
Goldie wanted to get down to the water.
The staircase down to the hotel’s beach was rickety. Goldie carefully made her way down to what was probably once a lovely lawn. Guests would lounge here, layout, play shuffleboard and badminton, and just sit and chat.
The hotel had been here when she was a kid, and now she wondered when it was built. Had her grandparents strolled around these grounds in the forties? She liked the idea. But she knew it was even older than that, more like turn of the last century.
