Follow the Dotted Line Read Free Page B

heard what Lil said. “Let’s do another script together, Lilly. We’ll have a great time. We can do it over the phone. On Skype. I’ll do all the typing.”
    “Really. Mom. I don’t have the time.”
    “I know I could get my mojo back if we just worked together—”
    “Oh, there goes another jet stream. The boys have developed a herding instinct lately. I think I see the twins with diapers down behind the couch . . .”
    “Lilly, I need—”
    “Oops! Gotta run. Love you.”
    Lil hung up, and Andy felt another little slap of futility hit her in the face. Her career really was over. Now her ex was dead and gone. And her leech of a nephew was upstairs in the guest bedroom glued to a novel about the End of Days.

Chapter 2
    Israelites in LA
    If Andy had been insensitive about giving her kids a new last name, her sister had been downright idiotic about giving hers a first one. After only one date with a long-distance truck driver named Phil Davidson, Pam announced she had found the love of her life and was going to marry him. By the third date, she felt they were destined to have a son, and he would be called—Harley. And so it came to pass, both the wedding and the birth. All this might have seemed a little less laughable had Harley been big and beefy and liked motorcycles. But he wasn’t and he didn’t. The Harley Davidson now sharing her domicile was short and doughy. In addition, he appeared to be as dumb as a two-by-four. Even more disturbing was his ambition to become a preacher and establish his own Christian denomination.
    Andy knocked on the door of her former guestroom where the future Reverend Harley Davidson currently resided.
    “Come on in,” Harley said. He laid the paperback across his chest and smiled up at his aunt.
    “How’s the book?” she asked.
    “Just tremendous!” he said. “It’s the third one in the Left Behind series. I love it.”
    She looked down at the dramatic lettering on the cover of the book, The Rise of Antichrist and instantly felt an affinity with the title character. “Shouldn’t you be reading the Bible or something?”
    “This is better.”
    “No doubt.”
    “I mean, it’s fiction, so they make it very exciting,” he explained. “The real stuff, you know, like Exodus and Deuteronomy, is kind of boring.”
    “I see.”
    “In comparison, I mean.”
    Andy pondered this and thought it her duty to encourage him to pay more attention to his studies.
    “Well, I can’t imagine the Bible’s that boring,” she offered. “I’ve worked with a lot of Israelites in the film business, and they’re generally pretty good storytellers.”
    “No kidding? You know some real Israelites here in LA?”
    “In a manner of speaking.”
    He looked at her in amazement. “We don’t have that many back in Omaha,” he said.
    “I suppose you’d have to go looking. But I’m sure they’re there. Anyway, you want some lunch?”
    He hesitated, scrunching up his chubby cheeks.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “I’m kinda tired of burritos.”
    “Okay. Why don’t I take you to In ‘n Out Burger?”
    “Gosh, I love that place, Aunt Andy.”
    “I do, too,” she said. “And I need to get out of the house. Put your cowboy boots on and meet me in the car.”
    Valencia was built as a New Town in the 1960s, completely planned to accommodate a Southern California suburban lifestyle. It was one of the few places in Los Angeles County with actual bike lanes and where you could still get a parking spot at the mall. Andy discovered the little gem of a community when she decided to take up golf ten years ago. The public course was cheap and seldom crowded, plus people rarely scoffed if you shanked your tee shot on the first hole. The town had been annexed a few years back and was now part of the City of Santa Clarita, famous for almost nothing except the Six Flags theme park on Magic Mountain Parkway.
    Harley and Andy sat outside at a round table with a red and white striped