*****108:

Austin sat across the table from Tracy, watching her adjust Danny's napkin. "I hadn't really expected you to bring the kids." He said, but not with rancor. Her eyes shot up.

"Does that bother you?" she returned to eating her lunch. They were seated in a booth in a very posh restaurant in Hollywood, and Lisa was at Austin's side. Again she raised her eyebrows at him as if reminding him about his agreement as well. He had said it would be just the two of them, and she had agreed, but then he'd called about an hour ago to tell her that Lisa wouldn't allow him to have lunch with her alone. He felt he understood her reasons for it, she was insecure with them being alone, and didn't want any unusual press either.

"No." he answered, but it was easy to tell that there was a tension now that the three children had joined them.

Lisa plopped a bite of salad into her mouth. "I guess we should just talk about what we came here to talk about." She gave Tracy a knowing look.

Tracy cocked her head to one side. "Really? What exactly did you come here to discuss? I was under the impression it was lunch between old friends."

Lisa laughed outright. "Lunch between old friends? Well, in case you aren't aware, this old friend is engaged. It's no longer appropriate for him to have lunch with an old female friend alone without me there."

"Well, you are here, and when an old friend gets engaged in my book, the old friend's fiancé is part of the old friend." Tracy answered and gave Austin another look. "Anyway, was there an agenda?"

Austin cleared his throat. "I think it would be wise to completely clear the air about any issues we all feel necessary."

"Okay." Tracy said easily and wiped a little spit up off Megan's chin. "I'll start. First I need to profusely apologize for the sad display that met your eyes the last time I saw you, Lisa. I wasn't myself at all. I hope you can forgive me for letting things get so out of hand." She stared directly into Lisa's blue eyes frankly and saw the slight blush. There had been several accounts in rag mags about that incident that could have come only from Lisa as the source.

"All is forgiven." Austin said magnanimously.

"But not forgotten." Lisa said evenly, giving back the same stare. "What I saw was horrific." (this had been one of the quoted words in one of the rag mags. It wasn't the first time someone close to her had washed their hands of their friendship in order to get a little press for themselves. Tracy's smile was frosty.)

"Understandably grief stricken." Tracy said. "People handle grief in different ways."

"I find your way to be extreme, Tracy, to say the least. And I still don't feel that your little breakdown has been completely cleared up."

"And what do you see now that would lead you to believe that my children or I are suffering in any way?" Tracy said calmly, but she put her hands in her lap to disguise the clenched fists that wanted to throttle this girl.

Lisa's eyes wavered over the children. There couldn't be anything. The twins were dressed in identical pink overalls with identical white long sleeved flowered t-shirts, and little pink Nike's. The bows attached to their heads were both in place, and they were both clean and perky, eyes bright and cheeks fat and blooming. Danny was dressed in a blue corduroy suit, with a red button down shirt, and a red and blue floppy billed old fashioned hat, the height of little kid fashion to be seen in Hollywood, and photographed out with his Mommy, and future Aunt and Uncle. He sat like a gentleman, used his fork, no untoward outbursts, and absolutely no goofiness. He was adorable, and drawing stares from those seated close by, whose comments were astounded at his manners. Whatever Lisa said right now would be met with eyewitness accounts of the little grieving family's perfect decorum. Tracy knew without a doubt how to play the image game, and she would win.

"It's all for show, Tracy. What I saw couldn't have been gotten over that easily."

Tracy's lowered her eyebrows ominously. "And you would know because you've recently lost a fiancé, a child and a husband? Say in the last year or so?"

"Okay, girls, that's enough." Austin held up a hand warningly.

"She mocks my grief, when she knows nothing about it." Tracy said in what for her could have been considered harsh, but she'd also learned how not to alarm her children. "While we're thinking about this issue, Austin, I want you to know, both of you that I am perfectly capable of taking care of my family. I had a lapse. If my lapse isn't understandable to you or Lisa, I apologize. There's no way for either of you to truly understand what I have been through. It's only been six weeks. If that seems long enough for you, Lisa to get over this kind of loss, then I applaud you. But since we both pray that you never have to find out, I also bow my head and acquiesce to my own experience."

Lisa leaned over and whispered to Austin. Tracy took another bite and looked away from them. She'd known right when Austin called that this was an issue, but she hadn't really been prepared for how large of an issue it really was.

"If you have something to say to me, I suggest you say it to my face, Lisa."

Austin's smile was genuine. "She was asking about the use of that word."

"You're a journalist aren't you?" Tracy smiled. "I've been assured that you're a published reporter. Surely the use of so simple a word...."

Lisa's face had lost expression at Austin's disclosure. He was showing her his own displeasure at her attack of his friend.

"I want to hear it from you, in front of him, what the relationship between you is." Lisa bit out without fanfare.

"I met Austin two years ago over the negotiations for a movie we were about to embark on. We've done several together, you know. The extent of our friendship is what I would call... shall we say... Hollywood brother and sister?"

"I wouldn't qualify it as Hollywood, Trace." Austin said. "It's no secret. She's like a little sister to me, and Hollywood or no...."

Tracy waved a hand at him. "You're right. I simply used the term because this kind of arrangement is so acceptable here. It's so natural for people to share deeper bonds that have no sexual attachments. Here." She added.

"Right. No sexual attachments." Austin echoed carefully, a smile on his face as he said the words that completely hid forever his one time attraction and feelings for this beautiful woman before him. His eyes met hers, and gratitude and a poignant sadness engulfed them both. Tracy's shrug was infinitesimal. As if to say, this is what you needed me to clear up, right?

"Was there ever anything between you?" Lisa's voice had lost some of its bravado.

Tracy didn't even glance at Austin's face now. Her eyes bored into Lisa's. "There's never been anything sexual between us, Lisa. We're friends, and we've worked together, he was a very close friend, but since he's met you there's not even been that normal closeness. He's truly bound himself to you in every way that our religion would dictate. Both of us have always honored our covenants.

"You were married, Tracy, and having an affair with Richard Mann. It's common knowledge." Lisa shot back, and then bit her tongue and glanced around to see if anyone had heard her.

Austin leaned over to whisper something to her and her face turned a few shades of red. Danny's eyes had turned also to look up at the adults around him, but he remained silent.

"Well, I suppose that's why I'm here, Lisa, to refute any common knowledge errors you may have. Since you have no problem reading the tabloids... for your information, dear, Richard Mann is my friend. I've never had an affair with anybody. Not that it's anyone's business, or concern, since Hollywood itself is full of illicit sex and no one cares, except to thrive on it, in a perverted sort of way. Why would my affairs be of concern at all?" she held up a hand to thwart any answer. "The fact is that I am held to a higher standard first as a member of the church, as you've pointed out on several occasions, though why you would when you spent the night in Park City alone with your intended, just the same as I did, is beyond me." she smiled chillingly. "The fact remains, that my status as a mother, the caretaker of the great Casey Crandall's child, and the widow of an esteemed Navy pilot, also set me apart, and everyone is watching my every move... and apparently reporting on it as well. I fully expect to see a version of even this conversation in some tabloid or on the internet within a few hours."

"Now that was uncalled for." Austin refuted.

Tracy's look slapped him with the proverbial wet fish. "Will you deny being the source for the article found in Hollywood Talk just after your visit to see me in ParkCity a week and a half ago?"

"It was picked up by several magazines and sites, Tracy. I could hardly have been the only source. Why not ask your member friends in Utah? The ones who came in and cleaned?" Lisa's dry clip had no affect on Tracy's aplomb.

"I trust them." she said flippantly, the insinuation clear that she did not trust Lisa.

"Wow!" Austin slapped his forehead in rising agitation. "I didn't realize this is what we were here to discuss. Perhaps we should take the bitch slapping party to a more private place."

"Will you deny being the source?" Tracy hissed.

Lisa shook her head. "I won't deny it. What of it?"

Tracy shrugged. "You don't see me refuting it. Even though it damages our friendship, or any future relationships on a very primitive level. I suppose it's your way of ensuring that Austin doesn't hang out with me anymore. Fine. I'll see him when I see him." She put her fork down and wiped Danny's mouth with his napkin.

"Trace, this wasn't what we were here for." Austin gave Lisa a pointed look and held her arm as she would have caught him and kept him from rising when Tracy did.

Tracy stood up and attached the twins' car seats back onto the portable stroller. She gently hugged Danny and told him to hug Uncle Austin. "We'll just have to discuss that other stuff another time." She said to Austin, not to Lisa who was sputtering now, trying to get Austin to sit back down.

"Lisa, stay put, I'm going to walk Tracy out and help her with the kids."

"She obviously doesn't want help with her kids." Lisa pouted and gave Tracy another venomous glare.

Tracy didn't bother to acknowledge that last quip, but pushed the stroller through the restaurant quickly, smiling as prettily as she could. They got out to the front and a valet brought her new mini-van around. She strapped all three children into their seats and stowed the stroller while Austin stood there with his hands on his hips.

"This didn't go at all like I planned." He said.

"Not really like I expected either, Austin." Tracy got in the driver's side door while several flashes went off and people shouted her name. Austin leaned in the window.

"When can we talk?" he whispered.

She gave him a look. "If at all possible, sometime without her." She indicated with a nod of her head and then smiled at him in fake assurance. "I feel awful about this, but I guess it's better to know now, isn't it?"

"Trace...."

Tracy shook her head and bit her lip. Her eyes met his amid all the cacophony of paparazzi making what they would of this dramatic encounter, whether it was really dramatic or not. "I'm going surfing tomorrow morning at five. You can come along if you want. It wouldn't be the first time, and it's very peaceful out there. I can see that being a fairly safe haven."

He nodded and slapped the side of the car as she pulled away. What he didn't hear was her long drawn out sigh, or the catch in her throat as she answered Danny's questions and then turned on the DVD player so he could watch Transformers while she drove the hour and a half back to her home at the beach.

******