Los Angeles
Sam Stern: Dee’s dad, a voice actor
Mindy Baruch: TV writer
R.J. Morrin: TV writer
Pria Hart: Michael’s ex-girlfriend
CHAPTER 1
Dee watched her best friend check out the potential gold mine across the narrow country road from them. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, which made her nervous. Patience was not Dee’s strong suit—and with the high stakes of her current situation, waiting for a response from Jeff was torture.
Jeff shifted position. Dee’s hopes rose. But . . . nothing. The only sound came from the rustling of leaves by a spring breeze and the caw of a hawk circling above them in a brilliant blue sky.
Unable to take it anymore, Dee gave up on patience. “Jeff, please. I really want to know what you think.”
More silence. Then . . . “It’s definitely cool,” he acknowledged. “And the setting is spectacular.”
He squinted. Dee couldn’t tell if it was to get a different perspective or the beginning of a frown.
“I get impulse buys,” he said. “I really do. That’s how I wound up with a case of anti-balding cream from a deal I saw on TV.” Jeff touched a hand to his tight copper curls. “Do you think it’s working?” he asked, hopeful but insecure.
“Yes,” Dee said. It wasn’t a complete lie. Jeff’s curly ginger hairline did seem to be receding at a slightly slower pace.
“Awesome,” he said, relieved. “Anyway, like I was saying, I do get impulse buys. But . . . a motel?”
“Not just any motel. This one.”
Dee made an expansive gesture toward the worn, yet charming, rustic mid-century lodging in front of them: the Golden Motel, the lone hostelry in the tiny village of Foundgold, California.
The motel was nestled amidst a grove of pine trees at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains and the southernmost tip of Gold Rush Country. Behind it loomed the incomparable beauty of Majestic National Park, whose entrance was a mere few miles up the winding two-lane road fronting the motel.
Built in the early 1940s, the property consisted of a quaint, single-story redwood lodge containing ten guest rooms. A one-bedroom apartment, which counted as living quarters for the motel owner, was attached to the small, low-slung lodge’s lobby and lounge. Ten cozy cabins, also of redwood, were scattered in the woods behind the lodge. A pool shaped like a gold nugget claimed the western edge of the property, but instead of water, decaying pine needles filled its bottom. A large neon sign sporting another gold nugget advertised the motel’s name in bright yellow. Or would have if some of its lights weren’t out.
“You really want to buy this place?” Jeff asked.
“Yes. It’s a motel that feels like a hug.”
He gave her a skeptical look and Dee hastened to explain.
“It gives off this really warm, cozy vibe.” She gazed at the Golden as two squirrels skittered up the giant ponderosa pine standing guard in the grass oval at the center of the motel’s graveled circular drive. “You know how miserable I’ve been lately.”
Jeff’s expression softened. “You’ve been through a lot.”
Dee responded with a grateful smile. “I only drove up to Majestic to get out of L.A. for a weekend. I wanted a simple, pretty place where I could think about how to get my life back on track.” She motioned to their surroundings. “I can’t believe I’ve lived in California my whole life and never been here. It’s so beautiful. And peaceful. You know my feeling of burnout?” Dee waved her hands in the air as if waving away bad spirits. “Gone.”
“Peaceful? That’s a switch. You always said you were a city girl and the country creeped you out with all the quiet and dark.”
“I know. I didn’t appreciate it until now.”
Jeff gestured to the motel. “How’d you find this place?”
“I drove in the north end of the park, but I drove out the south end. I rounded the bend and there it was. The For Sale sign was like a sign to me.” She tapped her chest. “It’s the one-eighty career change I’ve been looking for.”
“Career change or running away?” Jeff sounded dubious. “I’d hate to see you make a huge decision like this for the wrong reasons.”
Dee knew her friend’s concerns were well-intentioned. And not far off the mark. Her mother’s unexpected death, the end of her second marriage, a career downturn—it all added up to her very own “annus horribilis,” to quote the late queen of England.
“What about your job?” Jeff asked.
“This hiatus showed me I need to move on. Every time I think about going back to work when it’s over, I get a sick feeling here.” Dee formed two fists and placed them on her stomach. “Duh! is a kids’ sitcom, which I could live with. But it’s a bad one. The job is just as hard as when I worked on network and streaming shows, but the pay is half, the staff hates being there, and the writing is terrible. Even my own.”
The expression “what goes up must come down” was never more appropriate than when applied to a Hollywood career. Ever since breaking into television in her mid-twenties as a writer-producer, Dee had scored jobs on decent, workhorse sitcoms that garnered viewers, but not accolades. Without an award-winning hit credit to take to the bank, as she aged out of being the latest shiny object, job opportunities went from few to nonexistent. After a year of unemployment, the sole offer she’d received during the recent staffing season was from Duh!, a cheesy sitcom for kids about tween superheroes attending a middle school on New York’s Long Island.
“I was going to tough it out, I really was,” she continued. “Work my butt off to write and produce the best scripts I could. But then I found out that when I turn forty in December, I’m eligible for the union’s career longevity committee. And that pushed me over the edge.”
“Longevity sounds like it’s a good thing.”
Dee shook her head so emphatically that the ponytail corralling her thick chestnut hair whipped her in the face. She rubbed her cheek. “It’s not. It’s the opposite. It’s a euphemism for ‘too old to hire.’ ”
“How can writers be too old at forty?” Jeff wondered.
Dee shrugged. “It’s Hollywood. Everyone’s too old. I know a writer who made her six-year-old lie about mommy’s age on a kindergarten school project. Another friend knocked five years off her dad’s age in his obituary to make herself younger.”
Jeff looked appalled as he took this in. “Ouch. But being in tech, I guess I’m not one to talk. They started calling me ‘the old guy’ when I turned thirty.”
