“Hang on, I want Ms. Dixon in the loop on this. I’ll call you right back once I track her down,” Mr. Morris said.
While he did that, I called Dad. He was finishing up a golf lesson with Kana and Ai. I asked him not to start anything new for a few minutes because I wanted him in on this call. Five minutes later, we were all on a conference call.
“You’re going to go broke with legal fees if you keep this up,” Ms. Dixon teased.
I didn’t want to think about that part of it. She was right in thinking this might get expensive. I quickly got to business because they were charging me by the minute. I outlined what had happened, and Dad added some clarification.
“When I was at the NCAA, I long suspected something like this was going on,” Mr. Morris said. “Everyone hears rumors, but we couldn’t act on them without proof. This might be the incident that finally breaks this practice wide open. You should know that no one will be happy when this gets out. If your name is associated with it, you might never play a down of college ball,” he ventured.
“What should we do?” Dad asked.
It seemed he finally saw the seriousness of all this. Up to this point, he was pretty clueless.
“First, I need to see the video and start piecing this all together. I’m not ready to reach out to anyone at the NCAA just yet,” Mr. Morris admitted.
“What about the FBI?” Ms. Dixon asked.
I felt my heart jump into my throat. Until she said that, I hadn’t considered that this might be more than an NCAA infraction of some kind. There might be laws being broken, and people could go to jail. Personally, I didn’t want to be one of them.
“That’s not my specialty,” Mr. Morris said. “You should get someone familiar with that area of law to look at this too.”
“I think I know just the right person. I’ll see if they’re available,” Ms. Dixon said.
“And I’ll have our security people put everything together and send it to you,” Dad assured them.
“Scan the two pieces of paper they gave you and send those as well,” Ms. Dixon said.
There was a knock on my trailer door; that was the signal that I needed to get back to work.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Good call on getting us involved now,” Ms. Dixon said.
I wasn’t sure I agreed. Given a choice, I’d rather not be associated with this mess, period. I hung up and trotted off to the set.
◊◊◊
Halle and I did scenes together until about three. Kitty told me that I was free to leave, and they would call me when they needed me again. I walked to my trailer to take a quick shower to rid myself of the makeup. When I arrived, I found Aubrey Dunham there with a phone in her ear. She was one of the managers Kent had hired on my recommendation. Aubrey and I had met in Miami and then again in London.
I left her to work while I cleaned up. When I came out, I had a text from my dad.
‘
I had no idea what that meant, but I was headed that way, anyway. I figured I could wait to respond. It amused me that they’d sent Aubrey as my PA because she was busy being one of our managers. From what I overheard of her conversation, it sounded like one of our clients was having some trouble, and she was trying to solve the problem remotely.
I convinced Fritz to swing by a grocery store. We needed to have model food on hand if Adrienne and Sarah were going to be here this weekend. I also had Fritz buy a couple of cases of wine that was recommended. If Adrienne was going to be around, I wanted to up my chances of spending some quality time with her.
That was something that Brook and I had talked about. She gave me one free pass so long as I spoke to her about it first. Brook was evil and said she wanted hers to be with Dare. I’d almost backed out when I heard that, but we were talking about Adrienne, the Sports Illustrated and Victoria’s Secret supermodel. Dare might just have to disappear if Brook got serious about cashing in.
We finally got home, and Dad met me at the garage door that led into the kitchen.
“I have to go home,” he announced, looking panicked.
“Why? What’s wrong?” I said, while visions of accidents or something horrible happening raced through my brain.
He just pointed out the kitchen window towards the pool. Aubrey, Fritz, and I looked out to see what the problem was.
“Oh, goody,” Aubrey said and headed that way.
“I can now die a happy man,” Fritz said.
Laying out around our pool were Adrienne, Tyler, Sarah, and Lexi … all nude. Aubrey was losing clothes as she sauntered out. I called Brook, and she didn’t answer since she was still in school. So I took a picture and sent Brook a text.
“Fritz, open a couple of bottles of wine while I make appetizers.”
Dad still looked panicked.
“What will your mother think?” Dad asked.
I dialed her number.
“Hey, Mom, jump onto video chat,” I said.
She did, and I smiled at her.
“Look what I found. Can I keep them?” I asked.
“You’re not getting a puppy or kitten. We’ve … oh, my. Where’s your father?”
“I have him and Fritz organizing drinks.”
