Sins of the Flesh

by Fern Michaels

  “Darling, is that rejection I hear in your voice? After all these years. I know, you found someone else, is that it? And now you don’t have time for me. I thought more of you, Rajean. If I’m not mistaken, we had an agreement, you and I, that we’d tell each other if we found someone new.”

  “I don’t remember that agreement,” Rajean said thickly.

  “Listen, sweetie, I have to run now, I’m meeting a client for a drink. I’ll stop by, oh, let’s say nineish, and you can give me that little gift you picked up for me. I have one for you, too. I’ve been saving it for just the right time. I’ll call before I come over, is that okay? In case you have…other company,” Teddie said slyly.

  Rajean didn’t bother to respond; she couldn’t, her tongue was too thick and glued to the roof of her mouth. She lurched her way to the hotel dresser, where she’d placed her watch. Narrowing her eyes, she tried to decipher the time. Seven-thirty. That meant she had an hour and a half to shower, fix her face, and dress in the scandalous black nightie.

  She couldn’t do it, Rajean decided when she climbed from the stinging shower, gripping the shower curtain so she wouldn’t fall. Her hair felt sticky and stringy, and her face was stiff from the effort it cost to keep her eyes open. She slapped haphazardly at the steam-coated mirror with her sodden washcloth which came back to slap her in the face. A hag stared at her from the streaky mirror. She had to do something; Teddie would be here soon.

  Frustrated, she kicked at one of the baskets of flowers she’d moved out of the bathtub. Purple shasta daisies spewed onto the tile floor, little pieces of greenery scattering about. “Goddamn flowers!” she muttered as she opened her purse for the vial of Benzedrine Teddie had given her a long time before. She reached for the gin bottle, knocking over a second flower arrangement. The pill bottle dropped from her hands, and the sodden towel slipped as she bent to search for the tiny pills among the flowers. “Goddamn stupid flowers,” she muttered as she dropped the pills back into the bottle. She had to get herself together before Teddie arrived! She cried as she struggled to reach for the pills and the gin bottle.

  The moment she swallowed the three pills she knew she’d made a mistake: she’d taken the sleeping pills instead of the Benzedrine. God, she’d sleep for a week if she didn’t…

  She staggered to the bathroom and stuck her finger down her throat. Nothing happened. “Damn, damn, damn!” She sat back on her haunches at the edge of the bathtub and picked up one of the wilting daisies. “Teddie loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me not.” When the last purple petal fell she blubbered, “Teddie doesn’t love me.”

  Her hands on the edge of the bathtub, Rajean used it for leverage to get to her feet. She laughed then, a sickly sound, as her toes squished the flowers on the floor. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered. She had to get dressed, Teddie would be here soon…. Teddie, Teddie, Teddie. Why weren’t the damn pills working? Then she remembered that she’d taken the wrong ones. To sleep. To sleep in bed.

  The black nightgown was a gossamer web threatening to choke her. Squealing, Rajean yanked it away from her face. The damn thing just didn’t feel right on her skin. She staggered to the closet door and stared at herself in the full-length mirror. No damn wonder, she had it on backward! Her left breast was spilling from the tight band on the back reinforced to keep the straps intact.

  God, she was so tired; she had so many things to do yet before Teddie arrived, but her brain wouldn’t function. Clumsily she yanked at the black gown, hiking the fullness of the back up over her breasts. Teddie would like the rosettes. The hell with it, she’d lie on her stomach for Teddie to admire them. The hell with everything. “Daniel, where are you?” she moaned.

  Rajean whirled around, stumbling against the bed, her eyes on the colorful flowers all about the room. As soon as she took the Benzedrine she would get rid of them. Teddie would never believe she had another lover who would send her a ton of flowers. She’d made a fool of herself.

  On hands and knees, Rajean crawled around to the side of the bed, doing her best to fight the blanket of sleep that threatened to engulf her. By sheer will alone she searched until she was sure she had the right pill bottle in her hand, then tossed a handful of Benzedrine pills into her mouth. Grasping the pitcher of water on the night table, she raised her head and slurped.

  She was on the floor now, at the foot of the bed, flower baskets all around her, the designer nightgown hiked up around her thighs. Strange mewing sounds escaped her lips.

  “Daniel, take me home, I’m sorry. I didn’t…I’m sooooo sorry, Daniel. I need you, Daniel,” she cried.

  Twenty minutes later Rajean’s eyes popped open and her head snapped backward. She was on her feet now, walking jerkily about the room, touching this and that, trying to straighten things and making even more of a mess. Catching sight of her reflection in the floor-length mirror, she started to cry again, the same sick, mewing sounds as before. Everywhere she looked there were flowers, more on the floor than in the baskets now. How had that happened, she wondered. The hotel manager was going to have a fit. Well, let him have a fit, she didn’t care. Love Everlasting, she snorted. Love never lasted. There was no such thing as love. Love was a game. One person gave and gave and gave and the other one took and took and took. “All my pride, all my self-esteem, all my money, all my emotions, and all of my conscience. Teddie St. Claire, I hate your guts! Daniel, I need you, Daniel,” she moaned.

  What time was it? Teddie should have been here by now. Rajean jerked her way to the dresser, her arms puppetlike as she reached for her watch. Quarter past midnight. Teddie wasn’t coming. Daniel wasn’t coming. No one was coming.

  “The hell with all of you!” Rajean screeched as she reached for the sleeping pills. If no one was coming, she might as well go to sleep. She downed three of the tablets and crawled into bed. “You can all go to hell,” she muttered as she drifted into a drug-induced sleep.

  At twenty minutes of two, Tedra St. Claire sashayed through the door Rajean had left open for her, her jaw dropping in shock. Her eyes began to water immediately with the thick, choking smell of the flowers and burning candles. She plucked a card from a luscious arrangement of pink roses. “Who the fuck is L. E.?” she muttered.

  She looked around the room, her narrowed eyes taking in the half-empty gin bottle, the pill bottles, the strewn flowers, the messy bed. Then she saw Rajean sprawled across the bed, her nightgown on backward. “Must have been a hell of an orgy,” she said, slipping out of her coat as she approached the bed. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  She sat down next to Rajean and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Rajean, darling, wake up, Teddie’s here, darling. I’m sooo sorry I’m late. I see that it doesn’t matter; obviously you had…other things to do and didn’t miss me at all. I am so disappointed, darling. Rajean, wake up. Come on, Rajean,” she called harshly, forgetting to sound loving and concerned. “Where the hell is my fucking present?”

  Teddie was strong, muscular actually, and regularly worked out with weights, but Rajean’s inert figure was almost more than she could handle. She was angry with herself even for coming to the hotel, and she wasn’t leaving until she had her present. If there was one thing Teddie hated, it was a woman who couldn’t handle her liquor or her drugs.

  “Dammit, Rajean, wake up, I want to talk to you!” Teddie snarled. How had she ever allowed herself to get involved with this stupid woman? Abruptly she poured the contents of the ice bucket all over Rajean’s head. The moment Rajean started to sputter and struggle to wakefulness, Teddie yanked her upright with one hand. “I thought you were going to wait for me. Shame on you, Rajean, after all we’ve meant to each other.”

  “What time is it?” Rajean asked thickly.

  “After midnight. What a beautiful gown,” Teddie said, fingering the soft material. It must have cost a fortune. I hope he or she was worth it. “Darling, who is L. E.?”

  “Love Everlasting,” Rajean said, flopping back against the pillows. />
  “How…cute,” Teddie drawled. “Male or female?”

  “Does it matter?” Rajean responded groggily.

  “I thought we were as…one. The present you mentioned is my good-bye gift, is that it?”

  “It’s on the dresser. Lock the door on your way out.”

  “No, no, darling, I don’t accept any tacky gifts. Where’s the real present?” Teddie cooed, searching in Rajean’s shopping bags.

  “Don’t you dare go through my things!” Rajean cried as she tried to make her arms and legs work.

  “Oooooh, how absolutely stunning!” Teddie exclaimed, having unwrapped the Tiffany’s gift box. “You have such exquisite taste. Thank you so much. I can’t believe you’d give me such a generous good-bye gift. I’ll treasure it, darling, forever and ever and ever.” She leaned over and brushed her lips against Rajean’s cheek. “Poor darling, you look so…tired. Here, sweetie, take these pills and you’ll sleep like a baby. Sorry, I used all the water, so you’ll have to take them with gin. You’re going to sleep like a log if you don’t die first from all these flowers. Sleep now, darling, and I’ll stay right here with you until you’re fast asleep. It’s the least I can do for you for this wonderful gift. Teddie loves you,” she crooned over and over.

  “Do you really, Teddie, do you really love me?” Rajean asked pitifully.

  “Darling, you know I do, and I don’t want you to forget me when you go to California. Promise me you’ll send a Christmas card.” When Rajean didn’t respond, Teddie pulled the spread up to her chin and smoothed out the wrinkles. How peaceful she looks, Teddie thought. She reached out to pluck a rose from the closest flower arrangement and placed it on the coverlet.

  Teddie danced her way to the door, careful to lock it with the key, which she slid back under the door. Then she flipped over the DO NOT DISTURB card. Rajean would need her rest in the morning. Her hands caressed the crystal statue. Joyce was going to love this little trinket. “Bye, bye, Rajean,” she chirped happily.

  Seven days later Rajean Bishop was buried in Mary Mount Cemetery on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. It was a private service attended only by Daniel, Nellie, and the detective Daniel had hired to follow his wife.

  The coroner’s report read: Possible cause of death, suicide. Above-normal readings of alcohol and drugs contributed to this death.

  Daniel put the Georgetown house up for sale the day after Rajean’s funeral. On the second day he set the wheels in motion to close his Washington law office. The third day was spent settling all his accounts, paying bills, and transferring his personal affairs to Los Angeles. On the fourth day he left for California with Nellie.

  Neither of them looked back.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Reuben Tarz contemplated the cerulean sky from his position in the hammock, wondering if a cloud would appear anytime soon. The dazzling jewel-like sky was beginning to give him a headache, or was it his thoughts that were causing the dull ache in the back of his head? The last time he’d seen such a vast expanse of blue was in a meadow in France that was covered with bluebells. Mickey’s meadow. Mickey’s bluebells.

  Was the brilliance overhead an omen? Possibly, since he was leaving the next day for Andrews Air Force Base, where he would be flown to England as part of The New York Times’s foreign news team covering the war.

  Today was his to do whatever he wanted. All his good-byes had been said but one. The servants were dismissed with generous paychecks, and his sons, Philippe included, had been notified. It was the last good-bye that was bothering him; until this moment he’d more or less decided to ignore Bebe. By now she probably knew he was leaving, so what was the point in making the trip to Benedict Canyon?

  Now he was annoyed, and when he was annoyed like this he argued with himself, and he always ended up doing what he didn’t want to do. He owed his almost ex-wife a good-bye, not that she would care one way or the other, he told himself. But he wasn’t going to argue; he was going to do it, later, after the sun went down and it got dark. This day was his to plan a new life—a life without Fairmont Studios and the power he had wielded there, it was true, but nevertheless one that carried with it an element of danger and, yes, excitement. He was almost to the halfway mark in his life, a successful man by most standards, but unhappy for all that. Now he was going back to France, to find Mickey and set things straight, twenty years after the fact.

  Reuben laced his hands behind his head. The years hadn’t dulled his memories of Mickey; if anything, they were sharper than ever. How beautiful she’d been, how loving—and so very lusty. Older, yes, but that hadn’t made one bit of difference to him then. How would she look now, he wondered. Daniel had said she was the same, still as beautiful. His heart began to pound as he tried to envision their first meeting. That is, he thought dismally, providing I can find her. Now that the time to leave was drawing near, he was starting to realize the enormity of the task he’d set for himself. It had been pointed out to him by his friends at the Times that he could lose his life. But he was adamant—right or wrong, he was going, and that’s all there was to it.

  Reuben’s eyes fell on the notepad on the glass-topped table, the journal he was planning to keep for his…memoirs. The story of his life, from the beginning, of course, from his first meeting with Daniel and up through the present with this war in progress. It would be a tale of friendship, of love, of success and failure. Perhaps it might even make a fairly decent script for a film. Of course any story, any film, had to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Yes, yes, yes, and there would be an end; that’s what this trip was all about. But could he get it all down on paper? The acid test. He had to do it, not just for himself, but for everyone involved.

  Reuben gazed out over the wide expanse of apple-green lawn. A sparrow sailed gracefully from its perch to light in one of the flower beds. Immediately it began to search for worms. There was a nest high overhead; Reuben had seen it from his bedroom window. The feeders and birdbaths he’d set out were used constantly by the winged inhabitants of his yard. He made a mental note to load the feeder. How would the birds manage while he was gone, he wondered. They would survive; after all, they were creatures of the outdoors. Feeders and birdbaths just made things a little easier.

  This…thing he was considering, his memoirs, if done right could ace Selznick’s Gone With the Wind and reap huge box-office rewards. It would have everything Wind had, even more, except the fire. For Christ’s sake, he had two wars going for him, and a love affair that spanned twenty years. Women were addicted to love stories and handsome actors. And according to box-office receipts, women were also the principal moviegoers.

  So, he asked himself for the hundredth time, is this why you’re going to France, to find the ending to your story? You could make one up, he argued with himself. It wouldn’t be the same. I want it to be factual. So factual you could die over there and it won’t get finished. I have to try, I owe…I owe so much. I have to put back, pay back somehow….

  And exposing Mickey, not to mention everyone else, to the public will be acceptable to everyone? You can’t please everyone. It’s what’s best for the majority, in the final analysis. The box office is the ultimate test. But you don’t work at the studio anymore. That’s true. There are other studios, other actors beside the ones at Fairmont. Jane might like it enough to want to produce it. But what about Philippe and Bebe? They control the studio, they call the shots, Jane works for them. “I’ll find a way,” Reuben muttered.

  Reuben jammed his hands into his pockets and started down the flagstone steps. He walked quietly so as not to startle the bathing birds. He grinned. “It’s okay, ladies,” he said, turning his head. For Christ’s sake, Daniel’s trip to France while the war was going on would be so stupendous, the public would gobble it up and beg for more. He was a filmmaker, and he knew what the public wanted and didn’t want, and he knew they were just waiting to sink their teeth into this one. As soon as he had an ending.

  “You are a son of a bit
ch, a real bastard. You’d go to these lengths just to come out on top,” his other self picked up on the previous argument. “Yeah, if that’s what it takes, then that’s what I’m doing. I don’t want any more argument from you. I’ve thought this through, I’ve planned it, and I’m going ahead with it. Enough!” he roared to his conscience. Startled birds took wing, their feathers rustling with indignation as they lighted in the branches of the trees.

  His thoughts beginning to race along the corridors of his past, Reuben stared down at the blank pad. Already he itched to put words on paper, but it wouldn’t be real if he started now. No, he had to begin on the plane and then whenever he had a few moments to scribble. If this was going to work, it had to be authentic, from word one.

  Reuben stared at the notepad so long, he grew drowsy, his thoughts far away, not in France this time, but in Benedict Canyon. He was tempted to go into the house and call the studio to see if Bebe had taken over yet. Some instinct told him she hadn’t, that she was waiting for him to leave first. This pleased him, it meant she wasn’t the vulture she used to be, waiting to pick at his bones.

  What was he going to say to her this one last time? Make apologies, explanations? Ask her to be more generous than he deserved in forgiving him? “You had it all, the whole ball of wax, and you didn’t know what to do with it,” he muttered. To kill his thoughts Reuben allowed himself to drift into sleep, where only nightmarish demons prevailed. Those kinds of demons he could deal with in the bright light of day.

  The sun inched its way across the blue sky, fluffy white clouds in its wake. Orange blossoms fluttered downward, some of them settling on Reuben’s sleeping shoulders; birds flitted close at hand, eyeing the still form in the chaise longue. Reuben slept deeply and peacefully, so deeply he remained unaware of the steady progression of people coming to visit him for one more good-bye.