Power Games

by Victoria Fox

  As her car joined the Mass Pike, she tried calling Noah. He was on location, shooting a romantic comedy whose script they had giggled over in bed.

  ‘Hey,’ he’d kissed her tenderly, ‘so when are you gonna be my leading lady?’

  She wished it were that simple. Noah was Hollywood royalty, the industry’s most sought-after bachelor. Every project he took he was ambushed by female co-stars, and while it wasn’t Angela’s style to be jealous it couldn’t help but sting.

  ‘I only want you,’ he told her every time, and while she wanted to trust him, she was no idiot. Noah had been a player from the moment they’d met.

  She was scared of getting hurt again. Giving herself to him totally, risking it all. At the same time, he wouldn’t wait for ever.

  After her father’s revelation, she wondered why she bothered concealing it from him at all. Donald had no intention of empowering his daughter with muscle in the business, now or ever. What difference did it make who she dated?

  But the itch remained: Tell him this and it’s over for good.

  Donald hated Noah. He hated everything Noah stood for. He hated Noah’s past. He hated Noah’s family, where he had come from and where he had wound up. Countless times Angela had promised her father that the friendship was at an end.

  To confess the betrayal would be kamikaze.

  Noah’s cell went to his machine. She listened, just to hear him; her heart lifted at his voice but she decided against leaving a message. In any case, he’d advised her against the Boston trip—he himself never returned to their childhood ground, the place owed him nothing and the memories were raw—and would be frustrated that she’d come. Donald needed time, he had promised, to realise the mistake he’d made. Angela was amazed at Noah’s reluctance to take sides, at his fairness. After all Donald had thrown against him, still he didn’t resort to cheap shots.

  ‘I love you, and you love your father,’ he said. ‘That’s all there is to it.’

  She ended the call as they pulled onto Bourton Avenue. Hers was a majestic neighbourhood, lined with giant Victorian brownstones, grand porticos and gated driveways. Sunshine glinted on the Charles River. There was the Amity Street Church where Angela had spent reluctant Sunday mornings as a child, the Preston Historical Institute where many a school trip had wound up, and the Clemency College of Dance, where she had made out once on the steps with Henry Lambert. So much was unchanged, yet Angela didn’t feel the same. Boston was her heritage, but now its magnificence seemed outlandish and silly. Coming in past the flagship Silvers Hotel, its peaks like turrets on a castle and its doormen tipping their caps, and the inaugural store her great-grandfather had founded, here, at least, they were royalty.

  Commonwealth House was the most splendid on the street. The car eased through and Angela stepped out, thanking her chauffeur and breathing the old air.

  She was home.

  ‘Hello?’

  Inside, the hall was vast. Her enquiry echoed, bouncing off the marble chequered floor. A staircase that wouldn’t have been out of place in the world’s most celebrated museum divided beneath a portrait of her great-grandfather, stern in his suit, his black walking cane in one hand. Cabinets housed relics from their schooldays—sporting trophies, certificates and photographs. In one portrait, a teenage Orlando and Luca were suited for their aunt’s wedding. Angela stood between them, scowling because Orlando had told her she couldn’t come camping at the weekend. Another was a still from Angela’s tenth birthday party—she’d been a pain in the ass in those days. All the guests were in pink frilly frocks apart from the birthday girl, who wore a Back to the Future T-shirt and denim shorts, and was sticking her tongue out.

  ‘In here!’ Her mother’s voice drifted through from the kitchen.

  Angela emerged into a bright, richly scented space. The kitchen faced out onto rolling lawn, at the foot of which shone a serene lake, a rowing boat tethered in the reeds. It smelled of warm bread and rosemary and the spice of a cooking oven. Isabella was prepping salads, joined at the counter by Angela’s nonna, and on the veranda a bunch of her extended family were drinking wine and mingling.

  Angela kissed the women. ‘You know I’m not staying for dinner?’

  ‘Of course you are,’ said Isabella.

  ‘My return flight’s booked—it leaves at nine.’

  ‘And your father isn’t home until this evening, so you’ll have to cancel.’ Isabella slapped her hand away from the just-baked ciabatta. ‘Eh, smettila, Angela!’

  ‘Is Orlando here? Luca?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  Isabella clicked her tongue. ‘I wish you three would not fight all the time.’

  ‘I wish for a lot of things, Mom.’

  ‘Life is too short to argue. Respect your father’s decision.’

  ‘I do respect him. If only he’d extend me the same courtesy.’

  ‘He loves you very much.’

  ‘That isn’t the same thing.’

  Angela bit her tongue. Isabella didn’t understand her wish to take the spotlight. As far back as she could remember, whatever her fathers and brothers were doing had been infinitely more exhilarating—the closed doors, the hushed voices, the secret conversations, the covert business trips. Angela didn’t care about baking and flower-arranging and the correct way to iron a suit shirt, and while she adored her mother, as women they couldn’t be less alike.

  Home wasn’t enough.

  Angela wanted more.

  She preferred the south steps to taking the main stairs. ‘Why?’ her girlfriends used to pout, as they flounced prettily down the banisters like Cinderellas at the ball. ‘It makes me feel like a princess!’ Which, Angela saw now, was precisely why.

  Her old room was on the second floor. The bed, immaculately made with peach sheets and silky fat pillows, was against the window. A stack of plump, fresh towels was arranged at its foot. Angela pressed one to her face and inhaled.

  She settled on the linen, listening to the delicate tick-tick of a carriage clock and the occasional flutter of birdsong. In her bedside drawer were a collection of journals (ANGELA’S DIARY: KEEP OUT!), trinkets, postcards and jewellery.

  Inside one of the diaries was a photograph. Her fingers traced its familiar edges. Slowly, she drew it out. Noah.

  Her favourite picture of him, on that first summer they spent together.

  Scruffy blond hair, bronzed skin, mischievous blue eyes …

  He’d been the neighbourhood bad boy: bad family, bad schooling, bad all over. They had come from different ends of the earth.

  But Angela hadn’t cared. Not even then.

  Everyone else had treated her like a queen—but not Noah. Noah had treated her like a friend. They had both been outsiders, in their way. He had been ostracised by the rich for failing to meet their standards, while Angela, wealthy beyond reason, harboured her own kind of leprosy: ordinary people were too afraid to touch.

  She leaned on the windowsill, her chin resting in the heel of her hand, and looked out at leafy Bourton Avenue. She remembered waiting here on sultry nights, waiting for Noah to arrive on the steps so that they could exchange dreams with each other long into the dark. Outlawed by her father, they had held the secret of their friendship, and Angela had longed to be able to reach down and take his hand. Noah had written her poems, thrown the words up to the open window like whispered confetti.

  She touched the silver band she wore on her first finger.

  She knew what she had to do. She had to set the past to rest.

  Noah, I’m yours. She would tell her father tonight.

  Donald Silvers’ library was rich with leather and the scent of wood. Behind him, through the arched portico, Italianate lawns were aglow in the glare of the outdoor lamps, the fountains on, spraying the grass with diamond dewdrops. Their empire stretched as far as the eye could see: her father’s, Orlando’s, Luca’s … but not hers.

  ‘Skip the bullshit.’ Angela cut to the chase. ‘Why not me?�
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  ‘The boys are ready.’ Donald eased back in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘It’s time they stepped up to the plate.’

  ‘It’s time you credited me. I know why you did it. It’s because I’m a girl.’

  ‘It’s because you’re the youngest.’

  ‘Orlando, fine—but Luca? You saw what a mess he made of the hotels—’

  ‘Luca requires discipline. Management will give him that.’

  ‘So Luca fucks up and you reward him, is that how it works?’

  ‘I’m not discussing strategy with you, Angela.’

  ‘Maybe I should require discipline too; then I’d get a break. Or else it would give you an excuse to get rid of me altogether—’

  ‘Calm down.’

  Nothing fucked her off more than being told to calm down. She met the wall of her father’s inscrutable glare and every frustration she’d ever had against him boiled over. ‘I’m through,’ she lashed. ‘I’ve done everything to earn my place. I’ve achieved twenty times what they have and if you’re too blind to see it, if you still make this decision, it isn’t my issue. I’m done.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘That’s it? Good? After letting me lose sight of what’s important—my friendships, my relationships? Because there’s something you should know—’

  ‘Yes,’ Donald cut in, ‘you are through, Angela. And you are done.’

  She fought to get her words in a line. ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘You are ready. I’ve known it for a while.’

  ‘Then why—?’

  ‘What I want you to do for me is vital. It’s more important than anything Orlando or Luca could offer.’ He spoke slowly, each word measured. ‘They’re not capable of this, Angela. Only you are. You and I have serious business to share.’

  She waited, sceptical and excited. Her father watched her, curiously, gently, and, in his eyes, she saw something that was new to her: a need, nascent and afraid.

  ‘I want you to listen very carefully,’ said Donald Silvers, ‘for if you choose to accept, our empire is yours. Everything. You take over. But be ready, Angela: because what I am about to propose will change your life for ever.’

  6

  In a hotel suite across town, Kevin Chase woke suddenly, his skin dripping with sweat and his heart hammering wildly. The room was pitch black. He had no idea where he was. His breath rasped dry and painful, as if he had swallowed razor blades. Groping in the dark, he fumbled towards a switch. When the room flooded with light, it was painfully bright. Images from the nightmare were still scorched on his mind: the red flames engulfing the jet, and the descent … the horrifying, inevitable descent towards death.

  Briskly he patted around to make sure he hadn’t wet the sheets. Mortifyingly, it had happened in the past. Joan had even gone through a phase of laying diapers on top of the mattress, until one day Kevin had lost it, yelling at her so loud and for so long that she had whined about tinnitus for a week—and Joan knew how to whine.

  Apart from a patch of hot perspiration, it was dry.

  Trembling, he closed his eyes. It seemed important to pick out the details.

  The nightmare had been real—real enough to touch, as if he had been there, as if it had happened! They said you couldn’t dream your own death; you woke before it ended that way—and Kevin was certain, certain, he had been about to die. Dark sky all around, thick black dark, and the ground rearing up to meet them—or rather the sand, for it had been a beach, yes, a beach, the contrast stark even in moonlight between the thick water and the alabaster shore. Kevin grasped at the people he had been with, for he had not been alone, but their outlines were dissolving, leaving only ghosts. All that was left were the screams of panic ringing between his ears.

  Fear swamped him.

  He was never setting foot on an airplane ever again.

  But even as Kevin thought it, he knew it was an absurd notion. International commitments meant he got thrown about the globe like a coin in a pinball machine.

  What choice did he have? What choice did he have about anything?

  The phone rang. It was Sketch.

  ‘Ride’s outside, buddy.’ His manager’s voice was drizzled thinly over a nub of hysteria. ‘You’re behind time. Again.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Everything OK?’

  Shit. Kevin checked the time. Double shit. He had a show at the TD Garden in an hour. These days his power naps were turning into induced fucking comas.

  ‘Be right down,’ he snapped, hanging up.

  A freezing cold shower slapped him to his senses. Afterwards, in the foggy mirror, Kevin grimaced at his reflection.

  Come on. Why did he look so goddamn young?

  Miserably he plucked at a single chest hair straining from his diaphragm. It was like a blade of grass in the middle of a barren desert. What the fuck? Where was his chest rug? Couldn’t he sprout just a few more?

  He was nineteen, for crissakes, and yet he had the torso of a ten year old.

  The grimace deepened. That wasn’t even the worst part.

  Glancing down, Kevin loosened the towel around his waist. He assessed the feathery covering of pubic hair scarcely concealing his miniature prick, and howled.

  It was a worm dangling between two berries. Shrivelled berries. The whole thing was shrivelled. Why wouldn’t it fucking well grow?

  Was he balding? But how could he be balding if he’d never had hair there in the first place? Kevin howled some more, and the phone resumed its grisly summons.

  Despite turning up ninety minutes late to the arena and enduring a cacophony of boos, the gig went down OK. Kevin knew how to charm his Little Chasers. Normally he refused to venture into the crowd—he didn’t want their sticky fingers pawing all over his designer outfits—but to appease the irate parents, and on Sketch’s counsel, tonight he made an exception. At one point, during a rendition of ‘Fast Girl’, he thought he was about to get torn limb from limb, his white suit strained into a crucifix by a pie-faced chick pulling him one way and a blubbing pre-teen the other.

  The noise was thunderous—’Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!’—and the venue alight with the glitter of camera phones. When he crooned his mega hit ‘Adore You’, the sparkle swayed back and forth, arms in the air, kids at the front crying into their Kevin Chase T-shirts and gripping, white-knuckled, crudely assembled banners that bore confessions of their undying affection: KEVIN CHASE PLEASE BE MINE; SARA & KEVIN 4 EVER; I LOVE YOU KEVIN; I’M YOUR NO. 1 LITTLE CHASER …

  After a hundred-minute set and two encores, he was beat.

  Backstage, Sketch congratulated him with the unwelcome announcement that they were expected at a children’s charity gala downtown—there was a galaxy of names attending and it was a wise gig at which to be seen. Kevin wanted badly to creep into bed and had to suppress the familiar flare of upset at this fresh injustice.

  He wished he had someone he could call, a buddy, a friend, anyone who’d listen and tell him it was OK, just to keep at it, all this was bullshit anyway and it didn’t really matter. He wished someone out there thought that he mattered—not his records or his hairstyle or the new mansion he was bought to live in like a fucking Ken Doll—just him, the real Kevin, the regular kid. But Kevin saw now that he would never be a regular kid, and he’d never have regular friends. What even was a regular friend? He’d watched movies about them, read about them as if they were exotic, elusive creatures prowling a distant landscape, but he’d never had one of his own. Kevin had the starring role in the movie of his life, and everyone was an actor.

  In the beginning, it had been fun. Signing the contract in Sketch’s old office on Santa Monica, then in the weeks that followed, a storm of crazy parties, premieres and photo shoots—but nobody had told him then what was being sacrificed. No one had said, OK, Kevin, it’s this or it’s this: which life do you want?

  He didn’t want this one.

  ‘They’re loving you on Twitter,’ reassured Sketch as Kevin changed out of his clothes. Sketch omitted to
mention the burst of hostility that had accompanied the star’s fifth late arrival this season, trending worldwide as #KevinsLosingIt. Not ideal.

  Outside, bodyguard Rusty was waiting with a yapping, wet-nosed Trey, cradling him because Kevin didn’t like Trey to have to sit on the ground. The dachshund was clad in a blazer, baseball cap and sneakers to match his owner’s—they’d had a whole wardrobe tailored bespoke. Snatching the pooch, Kevin was swallowed up by the car’s interior. He felt like a vampire, if not confined to the night then confined to the inside, skulking around behind closed blinds, hiding beyond a tinted window or crawling about in the endless dark. He held Trey’s fur to his mouth and quietly kissed his neck. You’re the only one who understands.

  Kevin demanded to drive the Audi R8 and Sketch hadn’t the strength to refuse—after all, the kid had his licence, even if he did kangaroo-hop the vehicle into gear, the exhaust exploding behind them.

  ‘You take your vitamins today?’ asked Sketch as they whizzed through the city. He caught Rusty’s eye in the rearview mirror.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, course I did,’ Kevin lashed. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  They approached a red light and the brakes shrieked.

  ‘Sure I do, kiddo.’

  ‘I want a lion,’ said Kevin, out of nowhere.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Like that one we saw at the zoo. Get me one.’

  Sketch chuckled. ‘It ain’t that easy, pal …’

  ‘I’m Kevin Chase, course it’s that fucking easy.’

  ‘Why a lion?’

  ‘Why not? They’re cool, aren’t they?’

  ‘They’re dangerous.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re cool.’

  ‘You won’t be able to go anywhere near it.’

  Kevin swigged from a can of energy drink. ‘Sure I will, if it’s tame.’

  Sketch bit his tongue. What on earth was his client talking about?