Miss 1962 struggled to stand, leaning on her walker and her granddaughter to get back on her feet.
“It’s about time you told them,” Miss 1962 said to Mina, quietly enough that the hidden camera and those in the back of the room might not be able to catch it. I certainly could hear her, and I was relieved to be in a spot to bear witness to the conversation between them. “You shouldn’t be ashamed for loving Brett, even if he was… difficult at times.”
Hearing from this older woman made my mind flash to what Presley had said about her own great-grandmother, about herbisnonnaseeing Brett with another woman. Had that other woman been Mina Davis? It made sense, especially if she’d travelled to Italy with them as part of the film crew. A missing link melded into place.
Mina Davis had worked in L.A. for years. She’d been on—or cut from—a variety of shows before getting behind the camera. She’d been the interviewer on a popular show, which Brett had “won.” According to tabloids, even after Presley and Brett had decided to continue their relationship, Brett had kept his place on the West Coast, living separately from Presley most of the time.
Had Brett had a relationship with someone else on the side? Could that someone have been… Mina Davis? Mina had told me that she’d gotten the gig on this new show for her and Lee. Had she asked Brett directly to let her work with him on this new reality show about Brett and Presley? To travel with him to shoot footage?
And if so, what might peering through the lens of a camera at the man you loved for weeks at a time do to someone, especially if that man was acting like he was head over heels for another woman? A woman like Presley Lombardi.
Silence descended on the room as we waited for Mina to speak.
When she didn’t, I looked at her directly. “You loved Brett, didn’t you?”
Mina, one hand on her gram, looked around at those of us assembled and let loose a heavy sigh. The shadows from the candlelight flickered across her face, and her eyes flitted to the floor for a few seconds before she began.
“I grew up hearing about Gram’s pageant adventures each summer, so I already felt like I knew this place. After I graduated college and moved out of my mom’s house to get a place of my own, I was struggling to make any headway with auditions, so I came home to visit Gram for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2021. Brett just happened to attend that same pageant.” She took her grandmother’s hand, and I could see the love pass between them. “Remember, I even wore one of your vintage gowns?”
Miss 1962 patted her, obviously remembering. “The robin-egg-blue taffeta.”
“Brett happened to be sitting in the audience next to me. We just…” Mina’s eyes welled. “We just clicked.”
I thought of the song lyrics, Brett singing about his girl with the frills and lace, his rose, full of love and grace. I’d thought atfirst that he must have meant Lacy, but that wasn’t it. He’d been referring to Mina. At the pageant, in her gram’s dress.
“Brett called me his…”
“… his dark lady, his rose,” I finished for her.
Mina blinked at me, obviously wondering how I knew those details. “Right. From Shakespeare. Brett wasn’t a scholar, but we did perform in a community theater production ofTamingand we met here, at The Rose.”
I vaguely remembered that play from my sophomore year of high school English. The lead was basically an abusive asshole who tamed a woman into adoring him. That sounded about right.
“So the two of you were together?”
Mina nodded. “Officially, for two years—and, sort of, ever since.”
Their relationship must not have been a secret… at first. It must’ve been later that Brett tried to make it look like they’d never been together. But why?
Every eye was on Mina. Even those in the background and those who’d been waiting at the door seemed to lean in to hear that voice that now spoke with the same kind of authority as when she’d been the interviewer onSmall Town, Big Romance.
“Our relationship was… challenging. We’d break up and then get back together the next day, but I always loved him. Even when we were fighting.” A faint smile. “Brett wrote the song for me after one of our biggest fights. He told me he didn’t want me to be the one that got away, that he didn’t want to lose me.”
Mina sniffled. “I loved the song, thought it was the best kind of twist on a traditional love song. It fit our relationship perfectly. I was the one who told him he should record it, so we scraped together all of our savings and he hired musicians and a studio for a full day.” Mina put the back of her hand to her nose. “No one wanted the song at first, but Brett told me he knew away to get it out there. He spoke to Mr. Finch, who was excited to produce it himself.”
I noticed Savilla’s face fall. Both of us knew that her father hadn’t been excited about being blackmailed by Brett, but we didn’t interrupt Mina.
“We had no idea what a hit it would be. Brett got a manager who said that we should keep our relationship a secret, that fans love a good story. We told friends we’d broken up, and we took everything that made us look like a couple off social media. Even in that dumb music video, he made sure that no one could see my face, could see who I really was. He said it was romantic, that only he would know the identity of the one who got away, the one he still had a hold on.”
I tried not to show how disturbed I was by that last phrase.
Mina met my eyes. “That summer while we were at The Rose, filming the video right before the pageant, I got to hold the diamond that he—and I—would someday inherit. He said that it would be for me, my engagement ring. I begged him to just give up the charade and marry me then, but he said that he had a plan. Mr. Finch was in his seventies, and when he died, he could get the ring without the tax burdens of being given it now. To prove he was committed to me, he even asked Mr. Finch to write into his will that the diamond would need to be used for Brett’s engagement.”
That matched what Savilla had told me in his office, and though it seemed strange, I supposed Brett was nothing if not practical in his schemes.
“Brett had said all along that we were playing a long game. I know it sounds silly, but I got swept up in it,” Mina continued. “I tried to see it as exciting too, like we were sneaking around and we were the only two who knew we were together.” Mina’s eyes grew distant for a brief moment. “He would go do a gig and talkabout the one who got away and then come back and sleep in bed with me that night.”
Mina’s face clouded. “He applied toSmall Town, Big Romancewithout telling me, though. He thought it would make me happy, God knows why. He said I could get a job on-site and we could sneak away when the cameras weren’t rolling. But it was awful watching him with different women each night before he finally ended up with…” Mina pointed at Presley, hissing the final word. “Her.”
