Diane Lane wore a white fur headband with a fluffy head, looking very cute. She took off the warm down jacket she wore when she went skiing at Rockefeller Center and sat down.
On the sofa in the living room.
"You guys go to the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Is it fun there?"
In the afternoon a few days before Christmas, Diane Lane returned to New York after completing the filming of "The White House" in Canada, and walked into Aunt Karen's house, feeling depressed and silent.
Donna got Ronald to get VIP tickets for the Rockefeller Center skating rink through connections and went skating with her. Diane regained some of her energy.
"The lights on the big Christmas tree in front of Rockefeller Center are very beautiful. Someone proposed in public at the ice rink today. The ice rink played the wedding march to match." Donna replied with a giggle.
Diane Lane changed her sitting position on the sofa, "Why do some people get divorced after getting married?"
Ronald and Donna exchanged glances. They knew the source of Diane's bad mood. Her mother had abandoned her since she was a child. This time, she and her new husband found the Canadian filming location, and argued with Bert that they should reconcile with Diane. "
"Compensation" for the debt owed to my daughter over the past 15 years.
"Hey, everyone is like this. Laura Dern, who played the punk girl with me, her parents also divorced when she was very young."
"Hey, half of the couples in America... end up staying together until old age." Ronald said a cold joke.
"Hahaha..." Diane understood the dry and cold smile, "Ronald, can I ask you a personal question?"
"Just ask."
"Did your parents love you before their accident?"
Ronald thought Diane was going to ask him about his views on love, but he didn't expect it to be this question. He was speechless and didn't know how to answer.
"I'm sorry for making you sad, Ronald. I can tell they must love you because you love them too."
"I just found out that my mother had a fight with my father and divorced when I was two weeks old, and now she says she loves me. I really don't know whether I should believe her or not."
"Parents love their children. Maybe your mother has some last resort, right?" It turns out that was the reason for Diane. No one can let go easily when meeting such a mother.
"Did you know? My mother was a singer who sang in clubs and was a Playboy center page girl in 1957."
"It seems you got a lot of your mother's inheritance," Ronald said.
"She said she took care of me when I was a child until I was three or four years old, but I can't remember it. Later she and her boyfriend moved to Georgia. New York State law does not support interstate custody transfers, so I stayed with Burt.
Life.
My memory of being a kid is sitting in the passenger seat of Bert’s taxi and driving with him.”
"Looking at it this way, your mother didn't mean to leave you, but it was a legal issue. She must love you."
"You're right," Diane Lane became happy again, "so I decided to have Christmas dinner with Bert."
Ronald gave him a thumbs up.
"By the way, I heard from Donna that you were nominated for a Golden Globe Award?"
"Yes, will you go too?" Ronald became more energetic when he heard this. He was also an insider who could attend the Golden Globe Awards dinner.
"I won't go. The Golden Globe is just a trophy I bought."
"How do you say this?" Ronald saw Diane's disdainful look. He mentioned that Diane entered the film and television industry much earlier than him, so he quickly asked for advice.
"Haven't you ever heard a proverb? Buy a Golden Globe, win an Oscar. The Golden Globes will call the stars and ask them if they will attend the awards dinner. If the stars are willing to attend, they will give them the award.
If the star doesn't go, the second-ranked nominee will continue to play. This shady story was exposed before, and FTC was suspended from NBC's broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards for several years, and it has just been restored."
"It seems that the Golden Globe Awards has less than 90 judges, and it is still easier to operate than the Oscars." Ronald thought to himself.
"But I will go to next year's Oscar ceremony. If you can also be nominated for an Oscar, we can meet at the Dorothy Chandler Palace. I think the theme song "Fame" is also pretty good. You have a good chance.
." Diane Lane pretends to be old-fashioned.
"I'd like to give you some good advice, Diane. Which movie do you hope to be nominated for an Oscar for?" Ronald asked.
"Hey, not even one. It was my agent who arranged for me to be the female companion of other male stars."
…
“jingle bells, jingle bells,
jingle all the way.”
A few days later, on Christmas Eve, Ronald went to Aunt Karen's house for Christmas dinner, and there was jingle bell music all the way.
As expected, Diane went back to Bert's house to spend Christmas with her old father.
Aunt Karen prepared ham to replace the unpalatable turkey, then vanilla bread, and desserts with various fillings.
"Amen..." The three of them prayed, and Ronald opened the red wine bought at the grocery store and poured it for everyone.
"cheers!"
"Diane finally reconciled with Bert?" Ronald asked Donna.
"A temporary ceasefire. Just like the Soviet alliance in Afghanistan."
"Um, I thought she moved back home..." Ronald replied.
"Ring ring ring ring..." the doorbell remembered.
There won't be a falling out so soon, Ronald thought to himself.
"Here it comes." Aunt Karen stood up and went to open the door.
The person who entered was not Diane, but a middle-aged black woman. As soon as she entered, she hugged Aunt Karen and cried bitterly.
Ronald took a look and found out that it was Mrs. Davis, a good friend of Aunt Karen, the widow of his uncle's comrade in arms, and a partner in the leg warmer business. He was also the salesman and security guard of the leg warmer company, Bud David Jr.
Si's mother.
"I don't know what to do. Little Bud was arrested and they said they're going to charge him with a federal felony. He's still a kid..."
"What's wrong with little Bud? Isn't he working for a leg warmer company?" Ronald was surprised. He had always thought that the child of his uncle's comrade was working in the company and had already taken the right path.
Mrs. Davis told Aunt Karen, crying, the circumstances of Little Bud's arrest.
It turned out that little Bud was helping to sell leg warmers in the rtkd store, and was ridiculed by a group of "brothers" for doing business with women. Little Bud, who was hot-headed in his adolescence, gave up this well-paid job and went to sell pirated tapes to the "brothers"
.
Thanks to some high school girls he met while selling leg warmers in a store, his pirated tape business actually did well and soon became one of the top sellers.
But he didn't expect that during a clean-up operation organized in New York before Christmas, he was caught on the spot and all the stolen goods were stolen. In addition to his small amount of goods, the so-called "brothers" also planted all the inventory in the inspected warehouse on the minibus.
The prosecutor, who has obtained all the evidence, is preparing to prosecute him for a felony on charges of piracy, illegal organization and selling of unlicensed goods, infringement, etc.
"Why didn't you come to me sooner?" Aunt Karen blamed Mrs. Davis.
"We black people are often arrested innocently and are usually released without incident. But this time, little Bud's so-called friends framed him and put everything on his head. The priest of the church said that this time his serious crime was very serious.
There may be no escape, unless you have a good lawyer..."
Well, it turns out that Mrs. Davis thought that at most she would be arrested and imprisoned for a few days, beaten and then released.
Seeing Aunt Karen's eyes asking for help, Ronald had no choice but to pick up the phone. Who knows that his uncle and Bud Davis were comrades in life and death? They died together in Vietnam, and Old Bud was seriously injured trying to rescue his uncle.
, the two widows have a very deep relationship.
It was not easy for lawyers to work on Christmas Eve, so Ronald told lawyer Lindsay Dole about the situation, and she promised to ask him tomorrow.
"The matter with your aunt's friend's son is very troublesome," Lindsay Dole called Ronald back the next day. "If a lawyer could get involved early, then his case would be a misdemeanor at best and the value of the goods would not be high.
But now the accomplices responsible for manufacturing and wholesale have pinned all the blame and evidence on Little Bud. They also concocted so-called witnesses, and it turns out that Little Bud is the person in charge of wholesale.
Although the accusation made by this witness is ridiculous, the value of the seized pirated tapes has exceeded the upper limit of a misdemeanor, and the prosecutor must charge him with a felony. Even if there is a good result in court, he can be suspended.
But the felony will follow him throughout his life, and he will have great obstacles in working and going to school in the future. Employers in New York State have the right to investigate whether employees have felony records before hiring."
"No way, how many tapes can he sell?"
"We found a warehouse in a public housing building next to the subway station in Harlem, with goods worth tens of thousands of dollars."
"Why don't you like working here? Little Bud." A few days later, Ronald met Little Bud together with Eugene, a big black lawyer who was a colleague of attorney Lindsay.
Little Bud pretended to be strong at first, but after Eugene explained to him the meaning of a felony and the impact it would have on him in the future, he faded away.
It seems that Mrs. Davis taught him well. Little Bud did not turn into a black man in a real violent neighborhood. He had a negative view of social order and became a supporter of gangs.
"I'm sorry...it's just that they always laugh at me for being a pussy and selling things for girls. I..."
"So our best outcome is to get probation and then appeal to cancel the felony record?" Ronald asked Lindsay and black lawyer Eugene in the law office.
"I'm afraid that's the case," the lawyer lady replied while reading a copy of the case materials.
"Okay, at most, let him come to the leg warmer company and then be a salesperson." Ronald thought, it seems that little Bud can't find other jobs, and he can't continue to go to public high school. He can continue to sell goods.
, he has Mrs. Davis to restrain him, so there won't be any problems for the time being.
After this incident, he should know what happened to the so-called brother. He was nothing more than a free channel and a qualified scapegoat.
"You're not black, you don't understand, Lindsay." Eugene smiled and interjected. Ronald hired him to handle this case because of his experience in handling black cases.
"We can make him plead guilty to a felony, and then..." Eugene whispered his opinion in Lindsay's ear.
"This? I've only seen this kind of operation in Harvard law textbooks. Is it still possible to do this in New York now?" Lindsay asked, her eyes widening.
"Of course, this requires the cooperation of the assistant prosecutor in charge of the case. I remember that your roommate Helen Gable is the assistant prosecutor of the Manhattan Judicial District?"
"Yes." Lindsay glanced at Ronald and said, "Let me ask Helen..."