Love for a Price

Working for my mom’s catering company back in the 90s didn’t usually cause any problems. I could help out wherever she needed me, as server, cook, or driver. Or all three if I were running one of the food trucks solo.

But this was a party at some rich guy’s place in the hills above the city. I had on our typical almost-uniform of black jeans, cross-trainers, white shirt, paper hat, and colorful smock-style apron with the Andover’s Catering logo. We’d been there since 10 a.m. preparing food that we started serving around noon, and had just begun clean-up around five. Long day.

And the whole day through, there had been this old guy hanging around watching me. Not quite creepy, but close. He wore nice clothes so I assumed he was one of the guests, though older than most of them. I figured him as being past seventy, nearly twice Mom’s age or close enough.

Like I said, he dressed well, and even managed to stand out in the crowd of Hollywood-types at the party. Expensive-looking oxfords, gray tweed trousers, a pale blue shirt with a nearly invisible purple stripe, a bolo tie with a heavy silver cabochon closure, an open gray sweater vest, and one of those flat caps like in a lot of old movies. Retro but stylish.

The old man had a mustache, the kind you see guys wearing in some of those movies, too. The ‘stache made me think of Walt Disney, but taller. He might have been old, but he was over six feet tsneeZZZall and didn’t hunch to hide it.

He seemed friendly. I saw him talk with lots of people, and he spoke to me several times. While I sliced racks of ribs into two-rib portions he said, “Hope that’s not anyone I know.” I barely heard him but it made me grin and he smiled back.

Then while I filled a tray of water glasses from a pitcher with hardly a drop hitting the tray, he said, “You should be running the weather service; we’d have rain where we need it instead of in the streets and the ocean.” That gave me another grin and when I looked at him, he winked at me.

Uh-oh.

I’m James Randall Andover, and my mom is Janice Randall Andover, but when she was a kid, she was Janey Randall and played the girl-next-door in one of those old 60s sitcoms. A real cutie, and most of thirty years later, she’s still good-looking. And I look a lot like her, generally, or what she looked like then. At least in the face, I do.

Dreadfully thin, I weigh only 108 pounds, despite working around food all the time. I have a too-round face for a guy, my hair is limply blond, and my eyes are that gray mud-color that looks green in some light. I’m barely five-nine, a skinny blond kid of eighteen, hanging around the fringes of the Industry, as movie-making is known in LA.

Because of Mom’s connections, I’ve had a few parts in commercials but I’m not really an actor or model. They tell me I have a look, and that the camera likes me, but I don’t see it. Whatever, more than one girl has told me that I’m just too pretty for a boy, usually right in the middle of turning me down for a date.

One girl even came right out and told me that she made it a rule not to date anyone prettier than herself. Ouch. And I still don’t get it, whatever it is other people see in my looks.

So, I’ve gotten a few passes from men, and now that I’m legal age, I’ve been getting more. It’s kind of a nuisance since I do like girls, even if they haven’t had much use for me in years. I got all my height I was going to get by the time I was fourteen and I had lots of dates that year. Not so much since then.

No, now I get invitations from older guys. Once at a late night party we catered, I got invited to stay for breakfast by the beefy action star host. In another similar situation, a frequent talk-show guest whispered that I was a perfect twinkie, and he wanted to replenish my creme filling. Shudder.

I took this old guy for maybe a producer or some kind of executive for one of the studios, he had that look and this was that kind of meaningless party somebody might attend just to be seen. Which meant I didn’t want to offend him because Mom depends on guys like that for her catering contracts.

I looked back at him warily, but he only tipped a finger to his hairline, like an ironic salute, then moved away when people showed up to take the drinks I had poured.

“Who’s that?” one young woman asked the man who handed her a drink off the tray I was offering. She tilted her head to show she meant the old man.

“You should know our host,” the man answered. “That’s Zane Lloyd Price; this is a party he’s throwing for the birth of his great-granddaughter. Born on his birthday, too.”

Another man commented, “I hear the grandson named her Zanie, after the old man.” Several people laughed but then they moved off, perhaps looking for something to drink that had a little more kick than water.

I carried the tray back to the bar which we had set up as a wait station. Zane Lloyd Price was one of those guys people who go to see movies almost never hear about, but everyone in Hollywood knows their name. He was a money man, the silent partner of a lot of producers who got to put their names on the movie.

I was impressed. I hadn’t really been listening when Mom told the crew whose party it was we were catering, but it did explain the huge mansion in Beverly Glen. The Glen was one of those places where the Quiet Money liked to live, not flashy like The Hills (Beverly Hills, natch). No Rodeo Drive to shop in or Miracle Mile to be seen on, tooling around in your Bugatti Roadster.

Just a quiet road lined with mansions hidden behind greenery. Enough servants to keep you comfortable, and a discreet industry catering company (like Andover’s) to throw your parties for you. Must be nice.

In fact, it was nice. What would it be like to live in such a place? Art on the walls: I thought I had recognized a Renoir that I’d seen in a textbook somewhere, of a girl in a red cap walking through a garden. At least, a beautiful painting done in Renoir’s style. There were marble statues in little nooks, and more and larger ones outside in the garden.

Carpets, rugs and drapes of obvious quality lay on every floor. I stood on one that had an intricate design of shapes that were not quite leaves and flowers, all in green, black and yellow on a vibrant red background. I’d never seen anything like it except the one in the next room.

Money. “Yow,” I said quietly. Mom and I, and our crew, made our livings in the presence of money but this house touched a whole other layer of gelt. I watched the old man walk away with a new measure of respect.

* * *

Later, while our crew and some of the household servants were engaged in clean-up, Lonnie Fisk, one of our bartenders, dropped a tray of glasses, making a horrible mess of broken glass.

“Not my fault,” Lonnie complained. “Most times we’re using those plastic ones, and I forgot these’d be heavier.”

“Try to remember next time,” I told him. No need to waste even an eye-roll on such a lame excuse; I just joined in the clean-up. We figure such accidents into our overhead, because this kind of thing happens. “I know they weren’t too heavy for you, just caught you by surprise?”

He was a big guy, six inches taller and probably ninety pounds heavier than me. He worked out, too, and liked to tell people about it, so I guess I was sort of ribbing him about it. A few people snorted.

“You’re not gonna fire me?” Lonnie still seemed startled that he wasn’t in trouble.

“Not my job,” I told him, smiling. “Mom does the hiring and firing. And your job is safe, at least until we get everything cleaned up and the trucks moving toward home.” I probably shouldn’t have said that part.

Poor Lonnie didn’t seem to know what to think, glancing over at Mom who wasn’t even looking toward us.

Ruth Shepherd, one our other servers, took him off the hook. “Jamie’s having fun with you, Lon. Nobody gets fired for an accident.”

I laughed. “Spoilsport,” I accused Ruth. “Let’s get this finished so we can go home.”

Relieved, Lonnie went back to work, smiling a bit when I grinned at him. Seriously, a tray of twenty margarita glasses cost about ten dollars, not that big of a deal when we charged thousands for catering a party like this one.

* * *

We’d almost finished loading the trucks when I saw Mr. Price talking with Mom. They seemed to be enjoying themselves; Mom even laughing, probably in response to some dry comment by the old man. I lost track of them for a bit and then I caught sight of him, heading in my direction, making his way between statues of Ganymede and Phoebe near the moon-shaped pool. (Round—but moon-shaped sounds cooler, doesn’t it?)

Mr. Price was smiling so I smiled back. “I forget, sir, was it your birthday or your granddaughter’s?” I asked, just to have something to say to him.

He twitched the corner of his mouth. “Great-granddaughter’s and mine, both. Together we average forty-one-and-a-half.”

“Yes, sir,” I said with probably more of a chuckle than that deserved.

“Your mother calls you ‘Jamie,’” he said and I nodded. “Is that what everyone calls you?”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed.

“Okay, Jamie,” said the old man, reaching into his sweater pocket to pull out a small, leather-covered box. “I’ve been watching you all day, and I think you’re just the one I’ve been looking for.” He handed me the box.

I took it, staring. It looked like a jewelry box. “Huh?” I said.

“Open it,” he told me.

I opened it and stared in confusion at the gaudy, diamond-encrusted ring inside. I glanced back at the old man, blinking. “What?” I asked.

“Jamie Andover,” said Mr. Price. “This is going to sound strange and sudden, I know, but I’d like you to consent to marry me.”