“I had no idea weddings took so much out of you,” Jeff said, accepting another Scotch, while Simon poured himself a brandy.
“Neither did I,” Simon admitted. “Ours was pretty small. But I know Blaire has always wanted to go all out for her daughters.”
“She can do it for Sam,” Allegra added, still shaken by the battle with her mother. They were both tough and the compromise hadn't been easy. And more than anything, she hated waiting five whole months till the wedding.
“We'll manage,” Jeff reassured her, kissing her, and then she went out to the kitchen to talk to her mother. When she got there, Blaire was in the kitchen, blowing her nose. She'd been crying.
“I'm sorry, Mom,” Allegra said, contrite for any harsh words. “I just know what I want, but I didn't mean to upset you.”
“I want it to be beautiful for you, I want it to be special.”
“It will be.” As long as Jeff was there, that was all that mattered. The whole idea seemed stupid to her now, and she was sorry they weren't eloping like Carmen. It would have been so much simpler. And she had a suspicion that it was all going to get worse before it got better.
“What about a dress?” her mother asked then, moving on to another topic. “I hope you'll let me help you choose one.”
“I started looking today, at lunchtime.” Allegra smiled at her and told her where she'd been, what she'd seen, and what she wanted. Her mother thought that short was a good idea, but she still thought she should go dressy, maybe with a big hat, or a small veil.
“I saw Dad while I was shopping. I had to bite my tongue not to tell him, but I wanted to tell him with you, and Jeff, so I didn't.”
“What was he doing shopping on Rodeo Drive?” Particularly since she knew he didn't like to shop under any circumstances. She did all his shopping for him.
“He wasn't. He was at the Grill, having lunch with Elizabeth Coleson. They were talking about a picture. I think Daddy's probably trying to hire her for one of his movies,” she said conversationally, and went on to discuss whether or not she wanted bridesmaids. She hadn't decided, but she noticed something strange in her mother's eyes, and when they went back to the living room, she saw Blaire glance at Simon. They all went on talking about the wedding until the young couple left at eleven. And just before they left, Blaire said something odd to her daughter, and Jeff overheard it.
“You'll have to call your father,” she said quietly as they stood in the doorway, and Allegra looked at her uncomfortably, and nodded. A few minutes later, she and Jeff were in the car on the way back to Malibu, exhausted by their first dose of wedding arrangements. It had been quite an evening.
“What did your mother mean?” he asked casually, as they headed toward the freeway. Allegra had leaned her head back against the seat with her eyes closed.
“We should have gone to Vegas and called them afterward,” Allegra said, sounding exhausted.
“What did she mean about ‘telling your father’? What does that mean?” But Allegra didn't answer. She just sat there, with her eyes closed, pretending to be sleeping. But he glanced at her, and sensed the tension in her silence. He didn't understand it, and he gently touched her cheek with his fingers. “Hey, don't ignore me. What did she mean?” He had instinctively sensed something painful.
Allegra opened her eyes and looked at him. “I don't want to talk about it now. Tonight was bad enough.”
They drove in silence for a while, but Jeff refused to be put off. Her reticence disturbed him. “Allegra, isn't Simon your father?” There was a long, long pause. She was looking for an escape, a way not to tell him. She hated talking about it, even with him. It was too painful. She shook her head sadly, but she still didn't look at Jeff. She just stared out the window.
“My mom married him when I was seven.” For Allegra, it was a terrible confession, something she hated talking about or admitting.
“I had no idea,” he said cautiously, not wanting to tread on old secrets, but he was marrying her and he wanted to help her if he could, if this was as painful as it appeared from her silence.
“My ‘real’ father is a doctor in Boston. I hate him and he hates me too,” she said as she looked at Jeff finally. It was a difficult subject to pursue, and he decided not to for the moment. He just touched her cheek gently again, and at the next light he leaned over and kissed her.
“Whatever happened, I just want you to know that I'm there for you, and I love you. No one's ever going to hurt you again, Allegra.” She had tears in her eyes when she kissed him and whispered “thank you,” and they drove the rest of the way to Malibu in silence.
In Bel Air, the Steinbergs were in their bedroom by then, and Blaire was watching Simon take his tie off.
“I hear you had lunch with Elizabeth today,” Blaire said coolly, pretending to rifle a magazine, and then she looked up at her husband again. “I thought that was all over.”
“It never began,” he said quietly, as he unbuttoned his shirt and walked into his bathroom. But he could sense her just behind him. She had followed him in, and her eyes bored into his when he turned around to face her. “I told you, it's strictly a working relationship.” He said it very calmly, but her shoulders sagged as she watched him. She felt so old just looking at him. He was having lunch with women her daughter's age, and he still looked so handsome. And she felt so faded and barely a woman anymore. She was a has-been, even professionally. And now she was the Mother of the Bride. She felt ancient.
“What were you working on with her in Palm Springs?” Blaire asked quietly.
“Don't do this,” he said, turning away. He refused to play the game with her again. They had done this too often already. “We were just talking. That's all. We're friends. Let it go, Blaire, for both our sakes. You owe me that much.”
“I don't owe you anything,” she said, with eyes full of tears as she left his bathroom, and then she turned to look at him again from the doorway. “Are you offering her a picture? That's what Allegra said.”
“That's what I told her. We were just talking. That's all. She's going back to England.”
“And you?” she asked sadly. “Are you shooting your next picture there?”
“We're shooting the next one in New Mexico,” he said, and walked slowly out of his bathroom to put his arms around her. “I love you, Blaire. Please know that…. Please don't push this anymore…. You'll hurt both of us.” But she wanted to hurt him, as much as he had hurt her when she found out he was having an affair with Elizabeth Coleson six months before. He had been perfectly discreet. No one else had ever known. But she had. She had found out by accident when someone saw them in Palm Springs, and reported it to her without realizing it. But she had understood instantly. A chill had run down her spine the minute she heard it. And he had denied it, of course, but when she saw them speak to each other for a few minutes at a party, she had been certain. They had the look of people who had told each other secrets in bed late at night, that private conspiracy that only happens in the bedroom. And when she'd pressed him about it again, he said nothing. And she knew then that she was right about her suspicions.
Allegra didn't know about it. No one did. Blaire had never told anyone. She just kept it inside, as her soul slowly wilted, as it had again tonight when Allegra had said she'd seen them.
“Why do you have to go to a restaurant with her? Why can't you just see her in your office?”
“Because if I did, you'd think I was sleeping with her. I thought it would be better to see her in public.”
“It would be better not to see her at all,” Blaire said quietly, her whole body seeming to sag as she sat on the bed, just as her soul did. “Maybe it doesn't matter anymore,” she said softly, and went to her own dressing room, and he didn't follow. Things were so difficult now. They hadn't slept with each other in months. Without even discussing it, they stopped once she knew he had had an affair. She felt he didn't love her and didn't desire her and she was growing older.
He was reading when she
got back to the bedroom in her nightgown, and he looked at her kindly. He knew how painful it had been for her. He had regretted it terribly, but it was one of those things that just happened. And there was no way to undo it. He knew now, much to his chagrin, that Blaire would never let him forget it. And perhaps he deserved that. He accepted his fate at her hands and always wished that there were some way to let her know how much he still loved her. But she never believed him. All she ever focused on, other than her show, was Elizabeth Coleson. He wondered if the wedding would change all that and lift her spirits. He hoped so.
“I'm happy for Allegra,” he said quietly. “Jeff is a nice guy. I think he'll be good to her.” Blaire shrugged. Simon had been good to her too, for more than twenty years, and now it was all changed. They had been so happy, they had been so close. They had considered themselves special, and among the lucky ones, untouched by the hand of fate. And then, finally, it had touched them. And now everything was different, and it would never be the same again. He knew that. Even if he had broken it off after Palm Springs. It was too late now.
Blaire got into bed, and picked up a book. It was Jeff's new one. She had bought it the week before, and now he was going to be her son-in-law, but she could hardly think of him now, all she could think of was Simon having lunch with Elizabeth Coleson again. She couldn't help wondering what else they'd been doing. Was a lunch out in the open simply a brazen, sophisticated cover? She turned to look at him then. He had fallen asleep with his glasses on, and his book in his hands. And she lay watching him, feeling the ache where her love for him had once been, and now it was all so painful. It had been that way for months. As she closed his book and put his glasses away, she wondered if he had fallen asleep like that when he was with Elizabeth Coleson.
She put her own book away, and turned off the light. She was getting used to the pain and the loneliness. She had learned to live with them, but she remembered too well what it had been like before, before things had changed between them. And as she lay there, remembering the past, she forced herself to think of Allegra's wedding. Perhaps they'd be luckier than she and Simon had been. Perhaps the hand of fate would never touch them. She wished that for them, as she silently prayed for her daughter.
CHAPTER 13
For an entire week after they got engaged, Allegra felt as though she'd been hit by a hurricane at the office. Practically everyone she represented had a problem of some kind, a new deal being made, or a licensing arrangement that someone had offered them and that needed to be investigated. It was as though someone pulled a rip cord somewhere and was trying to drown her.
And when Jeff called his own mother to tell her about their engagement, it only made things more complicated. Her only comment was that it seemed rather hasty, since she'd never even heard him mention her before, and she hoped he wouldn't regret it. She'd spoken to Allegra for a few minutes, and she told Jeff that she certainly hoped they would come to New York, at least for a few days, so she could meet her.
“We really ought to go before they start to shoot in May,” he had said after they'd talked to her, but Allegra couldn't begin to see when they'd do it. She was still much too busy at the office. But she promised him that they'd manage it in the next few weeks, come hell or high water.
The one thing she didn't do that week, and again her claim was that she was just too busy to do anything, was call her father. Jeff avoided pressing her about it, but she had eventually volunteered that her parents had gotten divorced and there was a great deal of bitterness between them. She had only seen him a few times in the past twenty years, and it had never been pleasant. He seemed to hold her responsible for her mother's actions. “He always tells me how much like her I am, and how spoiled we are, and how he disapproves of our ‘Hollywood lifestyle.’ He acts like I'm a go-go dancer and not a lawyer.”
“Maybe he doesn't know the difference.” Jeff tried to inject a little humor into it, but it was very clear to him that Allegra was not receptive. His own mother was not overly fond of Hollywood, and everything she thought it represented. She was highly suspicious of what he did there. But the situation with Allegra's father sounded a great deal more serious. And he got the impression that there was more she wasn't saying. But Jeff decided sensibly that she would tell him when she was ready. He couldn't help wondering though if this was the reason for the difficult men she had previously gotten involved with. If her father had rejected her, perhaps she was looking for men who would do the same, in which case she was going to be seriously disappointed in Jeff. He had no desire to reject her.
On the contrary, he loved their quiet days, their afternoons in bed, their very rare lazy mornings. The weekend after they'd told her parents, they finally shared a quiet evening at home. And on Saturday, they even managed to go to a movie. They had gone to bed as soon as they got home—they could never resist making love—and they were drifting off to sleep in each other's arms when the phone rang.
Jeff was inclined to ignore it, but Allegra never could. She was always sure it would be some major crisis that she had to handle for one of her clients. And sometimes it was, admittedly, but more often than not it was a wrong number.
“Hello?” she said, sounding groggy, and for an instant there was silence. She was about to hang up, and then she heard a sob. “Hello?” she said again, frowning now as she waited. “Who is this?” There was another long beat, and then another sob, and then a strangled voice at the other end. “It's Carmen.”
“Are you okay?” Had there been an accident? Was something seriously wrong? Was she hurt? Had Alan left her? What could possibly have happened? “Carmen, talk to me,” she said, trying not to sound exasperated, as Jeff groaned on his side of the bed. Every time Carmen and Alan had a fight, Carmen called, hysterical, and Jeff did not find it amusing. He was extremely fond of them, but he didn't think it was Allegra's job to solve their minor marital problems. After all, everyone had them, and most people did not call their attorneys and expect them to solve them.
“He's leaving,” Carmen finally managed to force out, and then she collapsed in fresh sobs, and Allegra could hear someone shouting in the background.
“What's going on?” Allegra said, trying to exude calm to her through the phone, but it wasn't working. “Is he leaving you?”
“Yes, he's leaving.” She gulped, and then the phone was taken out of her hand and Alan came on, sounding angry and exhausted.
“I am not leaving her, for chrissake. I am going to Switzerland to make a movie, and I am not going to be killed, or have an affair,” he repeated for the ten thousandth time that night. “I'm going to work, that's all. And when it's over, I'll come home. This is what I do for a living.” With that, he handed the phone back to his hysterical wife, who was just crying harder.
“But I'm pregnant.”
Allegra sighed. She got the picture now. Carmen didn't want him to leave to make the movie. But he had a contract, and a very handsome one at that. He had to. “Come on, Carmen, be fair. He's got to do this. You can fly over and visit him before you start work in June. Go now, for heaven's sake. You can stay over there for a month before rehearsals.” The sniveling suddenly stopped and there was silence.
“I could, couldn't I? Oh, God, thank you, Allegra, I love you.” Maybe she did. But Allegra wasn't sure that Alan would be just as thrilled. When she wanted to be, Carmen could be terribly clingy and distracting. “I'll call you tomorrow,” Carmen said hastily, and literally hung up on her. Allegra shook her head, turned off the light, and went back to bed with Jeff, but he muttered into the pillow as she snuggled closer.
“You have to tell these people to stop calling you every five minutes like a ten-cent shrink. It's ridiculous. I don't know how you stand it.” Allegra knew it really bothered him, but he was a pretty good sport about it. He knew her clients had done that for years. Carmen certainly, and Bram Morrison's wife, and even Bram when he felt he needed to, and Malachi every time he got stoned or drunk and thought he had a brainstorm, not t
o mention when he got into trouble. And even Alan. And the others too. That's what L.A. attorneys did, and if these people didn't call their attorneys, they called their agents.
“It goes with the territory, Jeff. It's hard to get them not to expect that.”
“It's neurotic. What happened then? Did they have another fight? This is going to seem like a very long marriage, if we get a call at midnight every time they have an argument over who's taking out the garbage.” In truth, their garbage had to be shredded and then locked up with a combination lock, so no one would steal it. “If you don't tell her, I will.”
“She doesn't want Alan to go to Switzerland next week. She wants him to stay home with her and the baby.”
“There is no baby yet,” Jeff said, even more annoyed at her than he had been. “That's really stupid. She's ten minutes' pregnant and she expects him to stay home with her for nine months?”
“Only for seven and three quarters. She's already five weeks' pregnant.” Jeff groaned again and Allegra laughed. It really was silly. But it was real to Carmen.
“Maybe you should go into antitrust work,” he suggested, and then finally decided not to waste the opportunity, since they were both wide awake now. He rolled over toward Allegra and started making serious overtures to her. At least it put him back in good humor. And this time, when they fell asleep, there were no more interruptions.
The Oscars distracted all of them the week after that, and Carmen was busy making plans for their trip by then. They were leaving two days later. She and Alan were both nominated, though neither of them expected to win this year. But it was great for their careers to be nominated, though Carmen seemed completely disinterested in her career. The only thing she cared about at the moment was the baby, and, of course, Alan.
Allegra and Jeff saw her parents at the ceremonies, and Simon's picture won five awards including Best Picture, much to Allegra's delight. Her mother looked thrilled for him too, but Allegra kept noticing something taut about her whenever she saw her. She wasn't sure if it was the state of her show, or just a mood, or Allegra's own imagination, but it was something she felt more than saw, and she kept trying to put her finger on it when she talked to Jeff, but he swore he didn't see it.
The Wedding Page 25
