Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 02 - Brilliant Actors Read Free Page B

bracelet. Annie Otis opened her mouth, but nothing came out, at first. I stepped into the shop, which took all my courage—even though I had spoken with the queen of the Netherlands once—and walked up to my customers.  
    “Mrs. Berg, Mr. Sturgis. What can I do for you? My name is Calendar Moonstone. Welcome.” Without either stuttering or blushing. Well done, Calendar girl.  
    Nicole Berg gave my useless shop mannequin an amused glance and actually offered me her hand. “Hi, you have a splendid style on display. Would you mind showing me some of your pieces?”
    Under the eyes of a bored star photographer, a frozen employee, and a whining micro-dog, I took Nicole through the highlights of my collection. As it turned out, she had seen a piece of my work in last month’s Vogue magazine, where a super model had featured a sexy combination of D&G, Holland’s, and Moonstone’s. Nicole accepted a coffee, her friend, too, and they left after a purchase of a very nice pink diamond bracelet. Rent paid for the rest of the quarter, and it was only February!
    I closed the shop door behind them and watched them vanish in a dark British Bentley limousine. After spending a minute wondering whether to slap Mrs. Otis or to dismiss her for the rest of the day, I simply ruffled her pink-and-black hair, and she gave a small jolt.
    “ Notting Hill !” Annie Otis uttered suddenly.
    “Excuse me?” I asked, bewildered but happy that Mrs. Otis was back among the living and her old confused self.
    “ Notting Hill , the movie? The bookshop scene, Julia Roberts as the famous actress in Hugh Grant’s rundown travel bookstore.”
    “And your role would be…?” I tried to hold back my laugh.
    She thought for a second, still dazed and confused. “The shy gay shop assistant, of course.”
    “As far as I remember, Hugh Grant managed to say at least three silly things to Julia. And spilled OJ on her breasts. With you, I counted about…zero?”
    Annie Otis shrugged, ruffled and sorted her feathers. “Sorry, it was kind of overwhelming. What was she doing in our shop?”
    “Shopping. She left us with an average monthly revenue by buying my most expensive bracelet.”  
    “She bought the Panamericana bracelet?” she asked in awe.
    “Mrs. Otis, you were here. Were all of your sensory inputs temporarily disabled?”
    “Seems like I missed most of the details. I was concentrating on her aura. Wow, I got something to tell the Dude tonight. Even he will be impressed.” The Dude was her useless surfer bum husband. Her functions were returning to normal, and she started cleaning up the coffee cups and saucers, pausing for a minute when she saw Nicole Berg’s lipstick impression on the rim.
    In my boss’ voice, I warned her, “Don’t even think about it!”
    Annie Otis actually gave a small blush and put the cup into the small dishwasher after a quick rinse. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    I walked back into my workshop and told her over my shoulder, “I could see ‘Sell it on eBay’ etched on your forehead, Annie.”  
    Later, I caught her rubbing her forehead with her hand in front of the dressing mirror.  

    That had been our short introduction to the shopping style of the very rich and very famous. I filed the episode under “only in LA” and bragged about it in front of my parents and friends. My wannabe-lover-reduced-to-best-pal Mundy got my okay to use the incident for a small piece in the local paper, which made us Redondo Beach people feel like we were in the middle of Tinseltown.  
    I would have never expected an encore or a sequel, but “only in LA” had even stranger coincidences in store for me. Nicole Berg’s shopping day had been the Monday before the Oscars that usually fell on a Sunday in March. The Wednesday paper featured Mundy’s piece, and in the days that followed fans found their way into my shop, half of them just browsing my expensive and less expensive collections, the other half asking about