Tracy

013:

Kirk and Coral had long since put the longest telephone cords they could buy on their phones and made them go all the way out to the pool. Tracy now straddled her floaty, Danny in his ring tootling around her, the phone on the cement nearby and her ear to the receiver.

She'd already talked to Casey (twice) and capitulated as he begged and cried to get her to understand things from his point of view. He hadn't done the best he could after Pepper's broke up. Drugs got in the way. And lack of creativity. He couldn't lose her and Jules now. And Julian had threatened to ditch him if he kept Danny from her ever again. As usual he promised he would not.

Tracy made other calls, many of them overseas, as that was where most of her family-- her biological family-- was. Not to mention her best friends that were more like family than anybody else.

Finally she made the call Casey had begged her to. She felt a strange impending doom in her gut and wondered about it. Was it just because she didn't like talking to strangers? That couldn't be it-- she talked to strangers all the time. Hadn't she talked to one and gone surfing with one just last night?

That thought made her glance at the plastic bag Kirk had wrapped her leg in so she could go swimming. It was beaded with droplets already.

"Hello?"

"Hi, is this Austin?"

"It is, and this is?"

"Tracy McCaffrey, I was told to give you a call."

"Oh, yeah!" The male voice on the other side of the line was distinctly pleased. "I talked to Casey just a few days ago about using you in a project I am currently working on."

"He mentioned it."

"Thanks for getting back to me so quickly." She heard shuffling as if the man in question was moving things around, or driving. But that couldn't be, unless he had a satellite phone, she knew some people did these days.

"No problem. What is your project?"

His tone was cajoling, wheedling, as if he expected her to reject him right away if he didn't sound enticing enough. "I am looking for an actress--athletic, gorgeous, and musically talented. I am currently in pre-production with Warner Brothers on an action spy thriller. My partner and I both feel you'd be perfect."

"Me?" She blurted in shock. She'd thought this invitation was going to be one to compose a musical theme score or something, and she'd been relishing the challenge.

"We-- my partner and I-- ran into Casey at a club downtown recently and were talking casually about your accomplishments. He is very proud of all you've been able to do since Pepper's broke up. He mentioned you'd done a little acting."

"I'm not an actress." She clarified, her heart sinking and her smile fading. She wasn't. She knew she wasn't. She'd been forced to act several times--Pepper's had done a couple of full length movies like the Monkee's or the Beatles-- that style. She hadn't been a big fan. It took a lot of time, and she didn't feel any music when she was pretending to be someone else.

"I've seen your work, and I think you could be the perfect fit for our----."

"I totally thought this was a call to write a musical score. I'm a composer, and a singer. Did Casey mention I am in college? Did he mention I have a solo career? I'm sorry Mr. McQueen, I think you've been misled."

"Tracy, don't hang up. My partner and I have done our research, and we've beta tested and auditioned a few other gals who met the criteria, but none of them had the exact qualifications you do. We sincerely hope you would give us a shot. Would you consider meeting me at Whiskey a Go-Go in L.A. to discuss it?"

"I don't do clubs." She said pursing her lips, thinking that she had been known to do clubs if she wanted to. Looking at Danny she knew she didn't want to go clubbing with this guy. "Hey, are you producing this? Directing? I thought Casey said you were an actor."

There was a slightly stunned pause on the other end and Tracy held the phone away from her ear looking at the base to see if the light was still green indicating that she was still on. She was. "Mr. McQueen?"

"Call me Austin, please." He said in exasperation. "You really don't know me?"

"This is the first time we've talked." She confirmed in confusion, rescuing Danny from slipping out of his tube. The phone clenched between ear and shoulder. She was half afraid it was going in the drink. The cord pulled and stretched, but it held.

"Well, then, that's interesting that you'd call at all, I thought perhaps my reputation had preceded me, and that was the enticement."

"I'm sorry. You were simply a favor call for my friend." She didn't mean to sound rude, but it was obvious he thought a lot about himself, and little about others or he'd have known she was unsuitable as an actress.

His barked laugh caught her off guard. She hadn't meant to be funny, but she was relieved he'd taken it that way. "Will you at least meet with my partner and me for drinks one night this week? Will you at least look over the project and give us a chance? We put a lot of thought into your selection. Please think about it."

She did.

Anat and phys.

Church in the morning and the flight back to Idaho. Papers due, homework crowding her thoughts, a few more moments with her sweet toddler. And the music in her head that needed to get laid down with Michael before her head split in two.

"I'm really sorry."

"Tracy-- please! Don't hang up."

"Austin, I simply can't think of even one more thing I can squeeze into my schedule. It's just not possible. I'm surprised Casey would have suggested it, frankly."

"Meet for drinks."

"I don't drink." That was true, since she'd joined the church, she didn't drink, although she'd been known to drink before that. Even though she wasn't yet twenty-one.

"Dinner? Tonight." He sounded desperate, really desperate. Which tugged slightly at her heart strings. Dang it, why did they all have to sound so desperate?

"I have plans."

"Tomorrow?"

She sighed. "I have church from nine to noon. I'm having lunch at my parent's home in Huntington Beach, you can join us here for an hour and do your pitch, but I'm warning you now, one: I will be distracted by my three year old, and two: you will be distracted by my three year old."

The three year old in question swirled in his ring, splashing his Voltron guys at each other and giving Tracy a toothy grin.

There was another longer pregnant pause. She knew his next words would be he didn't know she had a three year old. She waited. He said it. She smiled.

"He's right here with me right at this moment. I assure you, he's real."

"I didn't exactly think he was an excuse not to do my project." Austin's voice was still anxious, wondering perhaps how her child did fit in. "You just caught me off guard, I wasn't aware that you had children."

"I don't have children. I have one child." She pushed herself over to the edge of the pool sensing that the conversation was drawing to a close. "If you still want to discuss your project, tomorrow, noon, Huntington Beach. See you then."

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