DORIS I looked out the window of Arthur's private plane. I was sad to leave Norway, but happy that we were about to land in Madrid! The landing was smooth, and we were rested and excited. "I can't believe we're really in Spain," Mia said. "I've been dreaming about this my whole life." "You didn't even know where Spain was until last week," Arthur said. "That doesn't mean I didn't dream about it," she answered back. "Well, I've been dreaming about it too, pumpkin. And I knew where it was." Clearly, Arthur and Mia were just as excited as I was. Arthur didn't tell us exactly what he had planned, but I was sure he had arranged something great. We debarked from the plane, and we all piled into an extra-long white limo with Spanish bulls painted on it. I couldn't help but smile as
DORIS"Is that France?" Mia asked, leaning over her father and pointing out the plane's small round window."That’s Paris, yes," Arthur said."Can we sing French songs and eat French fries?"Arthur and I laughed."Of course, pumpkin."We went to the central park right away, and Arthur asked someone for directions to the carousel in what sounded to me like perfect French."I’m impressed," I said."Don’t be," he responded. “I speak French, Spanish, Hindi, and Mandarin, and I butcher them all.""It sounded pretty good to me," I said."It sounded like blah blah blah blah blah blah to me," Mia said.We found the carousel. It didn’t look exactly like an American one. The animals were more fantastical, like something out of an old-fashioned children’s book.The carousel was also larger than I had expected, much larger.It wasn’t moving, so it was easy to walk past pink lions and purple and blue striped zebras to the octagon-shaped center column.We had to walk around three sides before we fo
Annabel introduced us and then said to her husband, "Let me tell you quickly what is going on."And then, in the fastest French I have ever heard, which sounded like a-shoo-blah bahn-swah-blah, voo-lez-blah, cush-evec-blah to me, except everything sounded like she was speaking through her nose, Annabel caught Anton up on the story and brought him up to speed.Anton and Annabel turned to us and smiled.We all walked into the kitchen."Look at the tiles," Anton said. And I did. They were all very light blue except for six large tiles that were paintings of different famous Paris landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, the carousel, the Louvre Museum, etc."I will go get my tool kit," Anton said.“What are we going to do?" Mia asked.Arthur looked at her. "We’re going to carefully remove the tiles.""How?"
DORISWe were standing outside the hockey arena, but we didn’t go in."What are we waiting for?" I asked."Nathan’s cousin, Jin-hoon, and his family," Arthur said.No sooner had Arthur finished saying that, and we looked up, and there was a man who looked a lot like Nathan. He had the same handsome Korean and French features. When he got closer to us, I could see that his eyes were blue. Whereas Nathan’s eyes were brown."You must be Jin-hoon," Arthur said, extending his hand for a handshake."I am," Jin-hoon replied. They shook hands and then Arthur introduced us, and Jin-hoon introduced his wife, Nancy, and their eight-year-old daughter, Brittney, who was wearing six pink and purple bows in her hair."I’ve never been to a hockey game before," Brittney said in perfect English."You’ll lo
DORISWe got home to New York City just in time for me to change into one of my new performance dresses and get to The Sultan Room. Arthur came with me to the gig.I was singing the last song of my first set when there was a commotion near the door. I looked to see what it was, and when the small group of people parted, I could see it was Lisa Zenya, the hottest actress in Hollywood!During my break, I watched everybody fawn over her, and when somebody came up for an autograph, how gracious she was. During my second set break, she came over to me."You have an amazing voice. I really enjoyed the show so far."I was speechless. To have somebody so famous compliment me was a big surprise. I was probably still a little jetlagged from the return to Europe because my mouth hung open for way longer than was polite, and I didn’t say anything for a minute.Lisa laughed. "I’m serious. You have a great voice. It’s sultry and beautiful and very unique."My eyes widened. I couldn't believe Lisa
DORISWe were at the Cheesecake Factory having dessert when Mia put her hand on her chest and seemed to have trouble breathing."What’s wrong?" I asked her. Mia's eyelids drooped a little, and she looked woozy."I don’t know, Mommy."Arthur didn’t take any chances. We rushed her to the hospital.Sitting in the waiting room was agony. Arthur’s face was tortured. I held his hand and grabbed it tightly while we waited for news. When they rushed Mia to the emergency room, they told us she was having an irregular heartbeat. That had been an hour and a half ago, and we still hadn’t heard anything new.Finally, an older doctor, a white man with thinning gray hair and large glasses, came up to us."You’re Mia’s parents?""We are," said Arthur."We’ve had to put in a pacemaker to regulate her heartbeat. The surgery went fine, and she’s completely stable. You can see her now. She’s under heavy sedation, and she needs her sleep, but you can go in and sit with her."The doctor took off his gl
DORISMia was taking an after-lunch nap. She looked adorable and peaceful. Her color had gone back to normal.Cathy had called and insisted she would stop by later in the evening. I had decided I would leave before she got here. There was no point in me sticking around. Unfortunately, she arrived two hours earlier than expected, just when I was preparing to leave.“Hello, everyone,” Cathy said in an overly cheery voice. She swept into the room like she owned it.The first thing I noticed was she was wearing an extremely sexy black and silver dress that showed a lot of cleavage.“Auntie!” Mia said, looking extremely happy to see Cathy. “Beautiful darling,” Cathy said, fawning over Mia. “I brought you some gifts.”Cathy opened a big pink shopping bag. "First, my darling Mia, for my brave girl..." Cathy took out a little purple stuffed bear holding a red heart. The heart read, 'My Good Girl' in white letters on the front.I didn’t like that Cathy gave Mia a heart with the words my
DORISWhen I got home from eating lunch with Nina, I had that post-afternoon slump that came from too many french fries and not enough coffee. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Nina had said. If Cathy was desperate, she would do anything.But why would Cathy be desperate? I thought she had a great singing career, lots of friends, lots of fans, and lots of money.I remembered what Nina said about Google-able, so I googled Cathy. What I found surprised me. First was the information about her band. She hadn’t exaggerated. They were famous within the alternate rock niche. There were plenty of pictures of Cathy performing.But when I looked carefully at the more recent articles, I found out that her drummer had stolen all of the band's money. The drummer, who was also her ex-boyfriend was a scum-ball of the highest order.The drummer had not only stolen the band’s money, and Cathy’s money, but also hacked into all of the other supporting team's bank accounts and stolen their money from
ARTHUR"Have you packed your bags yet?" I asked Doris when we finished lunch. Her eyebrows went up, and her facial expression said she was clueless.I waved my hands open. "The Oscars, Little Dove. The Academy Awards. They're tomorrow. I thought we'd fly to Los Angeles tonight and stay in a fabulous hotel. A friend of mine owns it. If we leave tonight and stay there, we'll be fresh for the red carpet tomorrow."She put both hands to her cheeks, a character of surprise. "Oh, my goodness, with all that's going on, I didn't realize they're this weekend.""They are," I said."I have nothing to wear!""You could wear that beautiful Dior dress that you wore to the wedding." I couldn't bring myself to say Andrea's wedding or my mother's wedding, so I guess I was still angrier than I thought.Doris didn't say anything, so I said, "Or we could spend this afternoon randomly shopping for a new dress, or Wheaton Werther, who I just happened to finance when he was still in fashion school, might ha