Once Upon a Day: A Novel

by Lisa Tucker

  He knew that she was a little uncomfortable with how rich he was. Or actually, how she would fit in such a wealthy world. She’d never had a massage or been in a sauna or shopped at Saks or owned more than three pairs of shoes. She had a little of her own money from the film, but she would never have spent it the way Charles spent his, without seeming to give it a second thought.

  About a month later, when Charles was at the studio working with the editors, Lucy and Margaret were sitting on the couch in the hall, flipping through stationery books, trying to pick the perfect paper for the wedding invitations. The studio had insisted they invite half the town to the ceremony, and Lucy had convinced him not to fight them on it. If it helped the movie release, great. It wasn’t like they were lying.

  Margaret was excited about such a big wedding. They’d decided to hold it on the east lawn of the house, and she was doing the planning. Lucy had readily admitted she had no real knowledge about any of this.

  One of the things she liked about Mrs. Keenan was how willing she was to teach her everything she knew. And Charles’s mother never acted like there was something wrong with not knowing already. If anything, Margaret tried to make Lucy feel better. When Lucy seemed shocked by the prices in the stationery book, Mrs. Keenan put the book down on the coffee table and patted her hand.

  “You know, Charles did not grow up with this kind of money either. We lived in a small apartment most of his childhood. I think that’s why he’s always insisted I live with him. He wants me to have a better life too.”

  “He told me his father was a policeman.”

  Mrs. Keenan looked surprised, and Lucy realized it wasn’t true. Charles hadn’t told her; she’d read about it in some sleazy tabloid that Janice unearthed and stuck in her face, claiming it was another weird thing about Charles.

  “Director’s Father Killed in Shoot-out with Real-life Bank Robbers: Source for Keenan’s Westerns Found in Tragic Incident of Childhood.”

  When Lucy admitted her mistake, his mother nodded. “He never talks about what happened. He was just a boy; who knows why those silly papers would find this interesting. His father was off-duty, and Charlie was the only witness… . In some ways, I don’t think he ever recovered. I think in his soul he’s still that eleven-year-old, wanting to make the good guys win for a change.”

  “But he’s turned it into art,” Lucy said. “He’s made films that mean something to millions of people.”

  Mrs. Keenan smiled. “Most people in the business just humor Charles. He’s always been aware of this. They have to give him a grudging respect given all the money he makes for them, but they really think he’s out of step with the times. But you don’t feel this way, do you, Lucy? You really admire his way of looking at things.”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “I’m so glad he found you.” Margaret put her arm around Lucy and gave her a quick hug. “Oh goodness, you’re such a little thing. Who would guess a tiny slip of a girl like you would be the one to save my son?”

  Lucy remembered this conversation later that night, when Charles took her to a fancy seafood restaurant in Santa Monica. He was talking about finding a house in this area, so Lucy could wake up every morning and hear the ocean. “Beverly Hills is the wrong place to raise children,” he added. “It’s far too decadent.”

  “You’re probably right,” she said. She loved how Charles talked about their future children like they were a given, though sometimes she worried that he wanted them sooner than she did. Production companies and agencies were sending her projects every day now, and she wanted to give her acting career a chance before they started a family. Of course she couldn’t sign on to any movie until she knew if Charles needed her for his next film. She’d rather work with him than anybody else.

  “I was talking to your mother today, and she said the strangest thing.”

  He looked up from his lobster.

  “She said I was tiny and—”

  “You are.” Charles took her wrist between his thumb and index finger. “Your bones are as delicate as a baby bird’s.” He grinned. “Although there are parts of you I wouldn’t call—”

  “And,” Lucy said.

  “Go on. Sorry.”

  “She said I’d saved you.”

  “Because you did.” He picked up the lobster fork and took another bite.

  “That’s it? What does it even mean?”

  “You are my sweet Lucy. Of course you saved me. You’ve given my life a purpose: to protect you and make you happy.”

  She smiled and he reached for her hand across the table.

  “I’m thinking a boy and a girl and another boy and another girl. Keep going until we’ve made more children than movies.” He squeezed her hand and laughed. “Seeing you pregnant will be like seeing a twig that swallowed a bowling ball.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe I’ll get fat everywhere.”

  “Fine. You could weigh three hundred pounds and you’d still be beautiful to me.”

  Lucy’s smile grew even broader when she realized he actually believed this. How could she have gotten so lucky?

  They spent the next few days trudging around the area with Charles’s real estate agent. Lucy felt like she was trudging anyway, and she wondered why her energy level was at such an all-time low. She wasn’t working; she hadn’t really lifted a finger in weeks. Charles’s servants did all the cooking and laundry. He even had a servant to bring them tea and the phone and hand them a towel after swimming.

  They finally found the perfect house on the north side of Malibu. It was smaller than the Beverly Hills house (which Lucy was glad about), but very private and absolutely gorgeous. Lucy felt like she’d wandered into heaven as the real estate agent took them around the grounds, showing them all the fruit trees: orange and persimmon, fig and pomegranate, lemon and lime, and avocado. There was a guesthouse for his mother, and a pool surrounded by the most beautiful garden of lilies, begonias and roses. The main house was set high on top of a hill; nearly every room had a view of the ocean that took Lucy’s breath away. Three of the bedrooms had views of the mountains as well, and the master bedroom had both a huge balcony and a rock fireplace. The front hall even had an impressive staircase that reminded Lucy of her mother’s favorite movie, Gone With the Wind.

  There were also six bathrooms, and Lucy felt like she knew them all after she and Charles spent the night there, to make sure they were comfortable before he made an offer. It would have been a romantic night, sleeping on a futon in the empty mansion, except for the fact that Lucy kept throwing up. A few days later, the doctor confirmed what she suspected. She was already pregnant.

  When Charles found out, he picked her up and twirled her around until she was dizzy. He was so ecstatically happy that Lucy put aside all her concerns about it being too soon. She just laughed when Janice told her no man was that happy about a pregnancy. “Unless he’s one of those macho pigs,” Janice threw in. “All about knocking up their women, extending their line.”

  “You know he’s not a macho pig,” Lucy said into the phone.

  Charles was sitting at his desk, sorting through his mail. He looked up. “But I am a pig,” he said, and made a silly snorting sound.

  Janice heard him. “It must be the end of the world,” she said. “Charles Keenan, trying to be funny.”

  Lucy didn’t say anything, but she wasn’t that annoyed. Janice disliking Charles was like the smog or the traffic in L.A.—something she was getting used to. The few times she’d gotten them together, Janice gave him dirty looks and sulked, but he treated her in what Lucy thought was a perfectly lovely way. He even offered to help Janice get started in the business, but when he asked her what she wanted to do, she said she didn’t know and she didn’t feel like discussing it. So Charles dropped the topic, but he stayed pleasant. He told Lucy it was easy to be nice because he knew how nice Janice had been when Lucy first got into town. “Any friend of yours,” he said, but then he admitted he was glad she didn’t have any other
friends who had a grudge against him.

  “What time are you coming home?” Janice said. “It’s like ten, isn’t it?”

  Lucy had promised she would stay at their place for the last two weeks before the wedding. Janice wanted her to, and Lucy had told Charles it might be more romantic if they didn’t see each other every minute right up until the big day. He’d agreed, but that was before this afternoon, when he discovered she was pregnant. “I don’t like you in that Venice dump anyway,” he’d said. “It’s not safe, especially now, when you’re sick and you’re a hundred times more vulnerable. I want you here, where I can take care of you.”

  “I’m not coming home,” Lucy told Janice.

  “At all?”

  “Well, I am getting married in twelve days.”

  “I know that. I’m your maid of honor, remember? But I thought you were going to stay here until then.”

  “I was,” Lucy said. “But things have changed.”

  Janice exhaled loudly. “What you really mean is he changed his mind. Jesus, Lucy, what is he, your master?”

  “No, of course not,” Lucy said evenly. “But he wants to take care of me, and I think it’s really nice.”

  “All right,” Janice snapped. “Go back to your Fantasy Island.” But then she said more softly, “Wait, don’t hang up yet, Lu. I just realized I didn’t even say congratulations. I’m glad for you, really. I know you guys will have an adorable baby.”

  “Thanks,” Lucy said. She was honestly touched, which was why Janice’s next comment hurt her so badly.

  “Wonder if it will have that weird eye.”

  Lucy slammed down the phone, and ran into the bathroom to vomit again. Charles followed to hold her hair and put a cool washcloth on her forehead. Afterward, when she was lying with her head in his lap, she wondered aloud why Janice had turned mean.

  “What did she say this time?”

  She looked at him, and his small eye was twitching a little, the way it always did when he was very tired. She reached up and put her hand on his cheek, and he leaned his face into her palm and kissed it.

  “I don’t want her at our wedding,” she said suddenly.

  “Wait and see how you feel about it tomorrow.”

  But the next day, Lucy’s feelings were the same. She called Janice and told her if she wouldn’t accept Charles, they couldn’t be friends anymore. She was hoping Janice would say something to change her mind, but she didn’t. She didn’t even say goodbye.

  nine

  ON TUESDAY EVENING, Janice was sitting in traffic on the 405, heading to UCLA Medical Center and gnawing a hole in her cheek, wondering what she was going to say to her old friend. That she would be seeing Lucy in the hospital was part of the problem, but what really made her nervous was that this would be the first time she’d seen Lucy, period, in almost five years.

  During that time, Janice’s own life had changed dramatically. She’d gone back to college and finished her degree in social work; she’d fallen in love with Peter, a lawyer and activist for the homeless; they’d gotten married and just bought their first house, a fixer-upper in Moorpark. And Lucy’s life had changed too. Janice knew this because she’d kept up with Lucy by reading articles in newspapers and magazines. At first, she did it because she couldn’t help herself, but after a while, she realized she wanted to do it, even if she didn’t really understand why. Of course it wasn’t the same as the friendship she used to have with Lucy, but it was something, this connection she felt to all the things that happened to Lucy, the newsworthy ones anyway. Janice had never thought of herself as someone with a good memory, but she could remember exactly where she was when she found out about each big change in Lucy’s life. She even remembered more clearly what was going on in her own life during those times, as if Lucy’s news shaped Janice’s personal history, the way other people remembered things by where they lived or where they worked or who was president or how long it had been before or after a particular earthquake.

  Her husband, Peter, knew about this, but Janice had no intention of telling Lucy herself. For one thing, she figured it might seem a little weird, even for a movie star like Lucy, to discover that a former friend had been so interested in your life. And even if she took it the right way—as a sign Janice had never stopped caring about her—it could still lead to trouble if Lucy asked Janice what she’d thought of any of the things she’d read. Not surprisingly, Janice still had her opinions. No matter how much Lucy and Janice had changed, the one thing that hadn’t changed was how strongly Janice reacted to certain facts of Lucy’s life.

  This was how the problem between the two friends had begun: Janice had reacted, and Lucy had called out of the blue and fired her from the wedding. At the time, Janice told herself she didn’t care, she’d always hated weddings anyway. She also told herself she would ignore the big day completely, but the morning after the wedding, she found herself irresistibly drawn to the papers and she sat down and read it all, from full articles to brief mentions to everything in between.

  It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that it had gone well, from the point of view of the reporters, true, but Lucy and Charles certainly looked happy in the pictures. Too bad nearly every article focused on him. Janice nearly gagged when she flipped to the entertainment section of one Santa Monica newspaper:

  “An Old-fashioned Wedding for an Old-fashioned Man: Director Charles Keenan Weds in Front of Hundreds at Home in Beverly Hills.”

  Where was Lucy Dobbins in this? The third sentence. The third sentence of her own wedding! And another thing. The eighth sentence down, in a quote from the great man himself: “my sweet bride.” Why did he have to call Lucy “sweet” every damn chance he had? Wasn’t he a writer? Couldn’t he come up with “dear” or “darling” or “honey” or something, anything, else?

  In the only close-up of Lucy, she did look a little lonely. She had no maid of honor or any bridesmaids at all. She had nobody to give her away either (a stupid tradition, Janice thought, but still). He had his mother and the people from the studio and all the women he’d dated, most of whom were at the wedding, according to Sunday’s gossip column. And who did Lucy have? No one.

  And whose fault was that? Janice thought. Her own. Why the hell had she said that about Charles’s eye? But she had no intention of apologizing. Lucy was off honeymooning on some exotic island, while she was sitting alone in an ugly coffee shop on Wilshire, with her fingers turned so black from newsprint there were smudges on the brick-hard bagel she hadn’t been able to finish.

  Deep down, Janice felt sure that eventually Lucy would apologize to her. After all, which was worse: making a dumb comment about his weird big eye (which even Lucy herself had joked about once or twice) or dumping your closest friend? How could Lucy live with herself after not even sending a small note when they sent some flunky to pick up Lucy’s things and give Janice a check for Lucy’s half of the rent until the Venice lease expired? Where was the female loyalty here?

  When Lucy returned from her honeymoon, she did call. Janice was right, though the call didn’t work out the way Janice hoped. If only Lucy hadn’t handed the phone over so quickly to Charles. Janice was both happy and incredibly relieved to hear Lucy’s voice, but the next thing she knew, Lucy said, “Hey, Charles has an idea. He wants to introduce you to a friend of his who’s starting a production company,” and then she was gone. If only Charles hadn’t made her so angry with his Great Man routine. Like she would be oh so grateful to have a job working for his producer friend. “Assistant,” Keenan called it, but Janice knew that meant glorified secretary. And even if it didn’t, what made him think she wanted to be in production? She’d gone to a lot more auditions than Lucy ever had. She’d even taken acting classes for months. The fact that she’d never even had a speaking part and Lucy was about to become a star was just another sign of what she’d always thought: that the world was profoundly unfair.

  By the time Lucy got back on the phone, Janice felt so humiliated that she
didn’t want to talk anymore. When Lucy asked if she wanted to get together, Janice said she’d have to check her work schedule. “Should I call you?” Lucy said, and Janice said no, she’d do the calling. Lucy was moving into her new house, and she gave Janice the number, but somehow Janice managed to misplace it. Later, she couldn’t remember if she’d even written it down. It didn’t matter since she probably wouldn’t have called Lucy anyway. She sensed that this was some kind of mercy meeting, and the last thing she wanted was Lucy’s pity. She also didn’t want any of the furniture Charles and Lucy were giving away, stuff from his Beverly Hills house that wouldn’t fit with the decor of their new place. When Lucy called about that a few weeks later, Janice laughed harshly and reminded Lucy that an eighteen-foot couch wouldn’t fit with her decor either, since it wouldn’t even fit through the front door. Lucy said the couch was only one of the things they didn’t need, but before she could name the rest, Janice said she had to go.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” Lucy said quickly. “I was really just trying to help.”

  “What makes you think I need your help?” Janice sputtered. “Because you’re rich? Or is it that you’re married and I don’t even have a boyfriend?”

  “No,” Lucy said softly. “It’s not like that.” She waited a moment. “I really miss you. It’s kind of hard being pregnant and—”

  “You know you can come over here any time.” Janice’s voice was curt, but she was looking at the wedding present, still wrapped and sitting on her kitchen table. It was an enormous vase, intricately cut glass, the kind that splayed light on the walls if you placed it in the sun. Janice had planned on giving it to Lucy before the wedding; she wanted to be alone with Lucy when she opened it because it had a special significance. Whenever the two women had gone shopping together, Lucy had invariably pointed at something like the vase, large and heavy and beautiful, and said she wished she were the kind of person who could own that. Janice would ask her what she meant, and Lucy would mumble something vague about moving too much. Janice bought the vase because she thought she finally got it. Even if she didn’t understand anything else about this marriage, she knew it had to be important to Lucy that her days of living on the street were over. She’d have a settled life now, a real house of her own.