The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes

by David Handler

  Dear Olive Oyl and Sir Reginald—

  I am so glad that you girls are together again. I want you to spend some time getting reacquainted. You two are sisters, after all. You need each other, perhaps now more than ever. I promise that I will be in touch again very soon.

  Love,

  Dad

  Monette stood there frowning at it. “It’s . . . not much, is it?”

  “No, it’s not,” Reggie said.

  Monette gulped back a sob. “This is all so strange.”

  Reggie nodded her head, swallowing. “I—I know . . .”

  The Aintree sisters stood there, struggling to hold their emotions in check. They couldn’t. Both let out huge sobs before they threw themselves into each other’s arms.

  “I’ve missed you so much!” Monette cried, tears streaming down her face.

  “I’ve missed you!” Reggie cried.

  “You were my best friend. I have no one. No one!”

  “I know.” Reggie hugged her big sister tight. “I know.”

  “Damn, this is one awesome Instamatic Moment,” Boyd said. “I wish I had my camera. They’d plaster this on page one all across America.”

  “I’m so—so glad you’re here,” Monette sniffled, swiping at her eyes. “We’ll have a party tomorrow to celebrate. It’s Joey’s birthday.”

  “I don’t want a birthday party,” Joey reminded his mother.

  “It’ll be fun. We’ll swim. We’ll cook out.” Monette hesitated before she added, “And your dad wants to come. He’d like to see you. Both of you.”

  Joey shook his head at her. “Mom, how many times do I have to tell you? I don’t want to see him. Ever.”

  “I feel weird about it, too,” Danielle said.

  “Well, he’s coming,” Monette informed them. “So deal with it.”

  “Will he bring Kat?” Danielle wondered, her voice heavy with dread.

  “Oh, he’ll bring her,” Elliot answered. “No way those two can resist that army of tabloid lemmings camped outside the gate.”

  “I hate this,” Joey fumed. “When do we get our lives back?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart,” Monette said. “I wish I could tell you. But we’ll have fun, I promise. Maritza can make steak fajitas on the grill. And I’ll bake you a cake. Any kind you want. How about my triple chocolate?”

  “Don’t bother. I’m not coming.”

  Monette looked at him in dismay. “Joey, you’re not going to hide in your room, are you?”

  Lulu let out a low warning growl.

  “Why is she doing that?” Joey asked me, his voice rising in alarm.

  “She doesn’t intend to let you hide in your room.”

  “Shall we say noon?” Monette suggested. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Mom, why do you keep saying that?” Joey demanded. “It’s going to be the worst day of my entire life!” He went storming off into the house, enraged.

  Monette watched him helplessly. “Talk to him, will you?” she asked Danielle.

  “I’ll try.” Danielle started inside after him. “But he doesn’t listen to me.”

  Maritza came out of the kitchen with a tray of guacamole, salsa and tortilla chips. Then she brought out a bucket filled with soft drinks, mineral water and long-neck bottles of Corona.

  “What can I offer you?” Monette asked Boyd.

  “I have to scoot,” he said, glancing at his watch. “There’s a mandatory team meeting at 6:00 pm every Friday at every HWA office across the globe. But I’ll see you tomorrow. If I’m invited, that is.”

  “Of course you are,” Monette assured him.

  “I still want to have a word with you, bright boy,” Elliot reminded him.

  “Fine, whatever,” Boyd sighed, retrieving his briefcase. “Follow me to my car.”

  The two of them started down the path toward the driveway, sniping at each other. Monette passed bottles of Corona to Reggie and to me before she opened one for herself, gazing at Reggie. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”

  “Believe it,” Reggie said. “It’s all part of Dad’s plan.”

  Monette furrowed her brow. “Why is he doing this? What does he want from us?”

  “Olive, my dear, I don’t have the slightest fucking idea.”

  We ate our dinner of grilled tuna with black beans and rice out on the patio. Joey was still smoldering with anger. Refused to speak or make eye contact with anyone while he bolted down his meal. Seven minutes. He stayed at the table for seven minutes. But Danielle lingered there long after she’d finished eating, the better to soak up her mother and aunt’s giggly girlhood reminiscences of slumber parties and adolescent crushes way back when they’d lived in the leafy New England town of Woodbridge outside of New Haven, back before their father became a world-famous author and their mother hurled herself off the roof of that East Village apartment building. Monette seemed genuinely thrilled to see her kid sister again. And Reggie acted as if she was happy to be there. Hell, for all I knew she was. Reggie had always been a searcher. Maybe finding herself face-to-face with her big sister for the first time since the seventies was just what she needed. Who was I to say otherwise? The two of them were still reviving giddy girlhood memories for Danielle when I excused myself and left them there.

  I took Lulu for a stroll around the grounds. We paused when we reached the front gate. It was nearly ten o’clock. The paparazzi had gone home for the night, but a pair of uniformed cops remained parked there in a black-and-white cruiser anyway. Monette’s well-heeled neighbors insisted upon it, I suspected.

  After our walk we retired to the pool house. I stretched out on the bed and called my phone machine in New York. There were more messages from reporters who wanted to talk to me. I paid them no mind. There was still no message from Merilee in Budapest. This I did mind. We were often on separate continents for days, sometimes weeks at a time. That didn’t bother me. But I didn’t like it when I had no idea how to reach her. It unsettled me.

  It was just past eleven when I slid under the covers and turned out the light. Lulu stretched out next to me with her head on my chest. I lay there in the darkness gazing out the open window at the lights in the windows of the big house. Gradually, the upstairs lights went out one by one. Then most of the downstairs lights went out. The last one to go out was the light in Maritza’s room off the kitchen. The house was totally dark after that.

  I continued to lie there watching the darkened house in the moonlight. Soon I heard the kitchen door open and close, then soft footsteps on the path that led to the pool house.

  Lulu let out a low growl. I shushed her.

  And then someone was tapping quietly on the bedroom window. A voice whispered, “Hoagy, are you still awake?”

  I threw on my dressing gown and went to the door and opened it.

  My late-night visitor wasn’t Reggie. It was Monette who stood there looking nervous and big-eyed in the soft blue glow of the swimming pool’s nightlights. She was wearing a matching sweatshirt and sweatpants of what appeared to be lightweight powder blue cashmere. She had her long blond hair gathered up in a bun with a few loose strands tumbling here and there in a way that was meant to look casual but I felt quite certain wasn’t. Absolutely nothing about Monette was casual. She was barefoot. “I wondered if you felt like a nightcap,” she asked me hesitantly. “Perhaps out by the pool . . . ?”

  “There’s some single malt in the cupboard. I’ll be right out.”

  I put on my jeans and a T-shirt and brought the bottle and two glasses out with me. Monette was stretched out on one of the lounge chairs facing the pool, her feet crossed at the ankles. I poured us both generous slugs of Scotch and took the lounge chair next to her. Lulu settled on the pavement between us with a disapproving grunt. She doesn’t like to have her beauty sleep disturbed, especially by tall, attractive blondes who aren’t named Merilee Nash. It was very quiet out and the cool night air was scented with the fragrance of roses and honeysuckle. I sipped my Scotch and lay there,
gazing up at the three-quarter moon overhead while I waited Monette out.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed finally. “I’m too tied up in knots about Patrick. I don’t know what to say to him when he shows up here tomorrow. Honestly, I feel as if I’m about to explode inside.”

  “Why don’t you just tell him to stay away?”

  “He’s Joey’s father. He wants to bring his son a birthday present.” She gazed at me warily. “Did he say anything to you about us?”

  “He said that you were class and he was trash. That he felt trapped here and he had to get out.”

  She thought this over, her chest rising and falling. “Anything else?”

  “Just that he wants to quit the TV business and move to Maui.”

  “Is he still talking about that? My lord, he’s been spouting that pipe dream for so many years that I’ve lost count. He never actually does a thing about it. The producers give him plenty of hiatus time between seasons. He could fly over there, find himself a piece of beachfront property and put his money where his mouth is. But he never does. He hasn’t even been to Maui for ten years. I doubt he’d recognize it.” She heaved a long sigh. “How did he seem to you?”

  “He’s a mess. Surely that isn’t news to you.”

  “No, it’s not. Patrick’s a deeply unhappy man. His work doesn’t make him happy. His family doesn’t make him happy. I certainly don’t. The only thing that seems to give him any pleasure whatsoever is running around with trampy young girls, which explains why he and I are through.”

  “He treated me to quite a vivid display of mood swings, including full frontal rage. Is that typical?”

  “It didn’t used to be. I always thought of Patrick as laid-back and easygoing. That all changed a few months ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “He decided that he looked like a flabby old man next to all of those young hunks in the cast, so Lou upped their workouts and started feeding him megadoses of energy-boosting minerals.”

  “They’re not energy-boosting minerals.”

  “I didn’t think so,” she said bitterly. “That fool. That vain, stupid fool. I understand from Elliot that Lou deals illegal drugs.”

  I nodded. “He made a delivery while I was with Patrick. In fact, I watched Patrick snort up four lines of coke and go through half a six-pack of beer at ten o’clock in the morning. I don’t know if you still care about him . . .”

  “He’s the father of my children. I’ll always care about him.”

  “But he’s on a stairway to nowhere. I’ve been on it myself. I fell a long, long way before I hit the bottom. That’s what will happen to Patrick. He can’t keep on going the way he is.”

  “I’d help him if I could, but I’m the enemy as far as he’s concerned. Kat will have to be the one who straightens him out.”

  “Is it true that he isn’t the father of her baby? That he’s had a vasectomy?”

  “Yes, it’s true. The vasectomy was his idea, not mine. Quite a few sexually active men out here have been getting them. Especially high-profile ones like Patrick who are targets for paternity suits.”

  “I understand why he’s kept silent about it. He’s loving the tabloid heat. But why haven’t you spoken up?”

  “I don’t wish to play that game.”

  “This is no game, Monette.”

  She gazed out at the pool. “I’m taking the high road. I don’t care how much mud he drags me through. I won’t give in. I won’t,” she vowed defiantly. “Do you believe me?”

  “I’d like to, but you haven’t been totally honest with me.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Why did you tell me that Patrick didn’t know that your dad called you Olive Oyl? He did. He does.”

  “Because this project isn’t about him,” she answered brusquely.

  “That’s not a helpful answer.”

  “It’s the only one you’re going to get.”

  “That’s not helpful either. Patrick did threaten to break both of my legs.”

  Her eyes widened in alarm. “Why would he do that?”

  “He wants me to leave town. If I don’t, he intends to sic Lou on me.”

  “Does this mean you’re going to quit?”

  “No chance. Nobody hands me my Olympia and tells me to leave town.”

  “You’re a stubborn man in your own odd way, aren’t you?” Monette glanced over at me for a moment, then looked back at the pool. “I noticed those scars on Reggie’s wrists.”

  “So did I.”

  “When did she do that?”

  “Three years ago, she said. I wasn’t in the picture.”

  “Neither was I. I should have been. I’m her big sister. She needs me. She acts all feisty but she’s not nearly as tough as she thinks she is. She’s very sensitive. Mother was the same way.” She took another sip of her Scotch, smiling at me faintly. “This is nice. I miss having someone to sit back and talk things over with late at night when it’s quiet. May I ask you a somewhat awkward question?”

  “You can ask me anything.”

  “Do you trust Boyd Samuels?”

  “No one trusts Boyd Samuels.”

  “Yet Harmon Wright speaks very favorably of him. And I must admit he’s done right by me so far.”

  “It’s early. He still has plenty of time to hose you.”

  “Elliot thinks he’s an amoral sleazeball.”

  “Only because he is. Why are you asking me about Boyd?”

  “Because I found it very strange the way he suddenly showed up out here today. Has it occurred to you that this business with Dad could be an elaborate hoax that Boyd’s cooked up to revive his own career? Or am I being paranoid?”

  “You’re not being paranoid. The thought’s occurred to me, too. But the letters do appear to have been typed on your dad’s Hermes. How would Boyd have gotten hold of it? And how would he know that your dad used to call you girls Olive Oyl and Sir Reginald?”

  “Someone else would have to be in on it with him. A member of the family. Someone who knew where the typewriter’s been stashed.”

  “Someone like who?”

  “Someone like Reggie,” she said bluntly.

  “She and Boyd met for the first time right here this afternoon. I introduced them. They didn’t know each other.”

  “Are you sure? How do we know they weren’t faking that for your benefit? How do we know she isn’t responsible for this whole crazy business? Her writing career has evaporated. She sits alone in a stone hut in the woods all day. She’s suicidal. Tell me, how do we know?”

  “We don’t.”

  “So it has occurred to you that Reggie could be behind it.”

  “Of course it has. Same as it’s occurred to me that you could be behind it.” Not to mention Patrick. Not to mention one or possibly both of their extremely bright children. The old Hermes could be hidden away in this baronial pile of bricks somewhere. Elliot Schein was also in the mix. So was Alberta Pryce. They didn’t call her the Silver Fox for no reason. And they didn’t call me the publishing world’s preeminent ghost for no reason. I trusted absolutely no one. Everyone was in play. Everyone. “I got the impression that you were happy to see your sister.”

  “I am. I guess I don’t understand why she’s here.”

  “Because it’s what your dad wants. Or so it would seem.”

  Monette fell silent for a moment. “We’ve followed each and every one of his instructions so far. You’re here, Reggie’s here, we’re all here. What happens if he doesn’t write us again?”

  “He will.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?”

  “Then I go home, Reggie goes home and your life returns to normal.”

  “Good lord.” She tossed down the last of her Scotch. “What a truly horrifying thought.”

  Chapter Six

  It was a warm, dazzlingly bright morning and the kitchen was abuzz with activity. Maritza, who today wore a dental hygienist’s uniform of pale pink, was mar
inating flank steaks in garlic, jalapenos, cumin and lime juice. Monette and Danielle were hard at work on Joey’s birthday cake, Monette measuring and sifting the dry ingredients while Danielle melted chunks of bittersweet chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Danielle wore a white bikini under a man’s unbuttoned lavender oxford-cloth shirt with sleeves that came down to her knuckles, which was a popular look among preppy teenaged girls that season. Boyfriend shirts, they called them. She was a small-breasted girl whose legs were uncommonly long and well muscled. A runner’s legs. Monette wore a long-sleeved blue chambray shirt over a jade green tank top and white linen pants. There was no mistaking the cake bakers for mother and daughter. Not only because they were both tall, slender and blonde but because they wore the same exact expression on their faces. Grim.

  “Is Reggie up?” I asked Monette after I’d said good morning.

  “She is,” Monette answered distractedly as she powered up her KitchenAid mixer. “She’s . . . somewhere.”

  Lulu and I wandered off to find her, Lulu’s nails clacketing on the oak-plank floors. We found her seated on the conservatory floor in the lotus position facing the morning sun. She was not naked, in case you were wondering. She wore a T-shirt and shorts. She was, however, sobbing.

  Lulu climbed into her lap, tail thumping, and got busy licking her nose, which has been known to stem the flow of tears in no time. Or start them.

  “What’s wrong, Stinker?”

  “Not a thing,” she sniffled, patting Lulu. “When I emptied my mind of willful thoughts and let the chi flow through me I just started crying, that’s all. I think it’s being around family again. These people are my only living relatives. Other than Dad, I mean. I was thinking about that all night. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “You should have visited me.”

  “I did.” She squinted up at me in that way of hers. “But you already had company. You and Monette were sitting by the pool sipping brandy.”

  “Single malt Scotch. And you could have joined us.”

  “No, she wouldn’t have liked that. Trust me.”

  Elliot Schein and Boyd Samuels were the first to arrive, in Boyd’s rented black Lincoln Town Car. Elliot resembled two overstuffed marshmallows in magenta Nike warm-up gear today. Boyd had swapped his official HWA black suit for the unofficial Hollywood pool party ensemble that had been popularized several years earlier by Grant Tinker, the Babe Paley of the power set—a pastel pink sweater thrown over his shoulders and knotted loosely at the throat, a sky blue polo shirt, cream-colored slacks and loafers. Each man clutched a mobile phone in one hand and a small gift-wrapped box for the birthday boy in the other.