Moira dealt with a bunch of phone calls that started as soon as the broadcast ended. Bill didn’t have anything to do, so he paced from room to room, window to window, from one end of the house to the other and back again. He paced. Moira talked.
Bill still had a headache that had been hounding him for days. Realizing that he was hungry, he went into the kitchen to look around for anything easily edible. He wondered why he was so hungry, when it hit him that he hadn’t eaten anything in something like twenty-four hours. No wonder he was hungry. Duh!
He wasn’t comfortable going through someone else’s refrigerator, even when they were right in the room, so he grabbed a banana off the counter and started with that. A banana helped but wasn’t nearly enough. Seeing what Bill was up to, Moira pointed to a bag on the counter near him. He opened the bag and found a sandwich from one of his favorite take-out places. If he hadn’t been so hungry, he would have wondered how the woman knew so much about them, but at the moment he was hungry, and there was heavenly food within inches. Questions could wait for later.
Even though the taste was as wonderful as he remembered, Bill was starving, so he wolfed down half the sandwich without really taking the time to savor the taste. Pausing before he ate any more, he looked out the kitchen window just in time to see me drive in and get out of my car. I unlocked the door and went inside my house.
Bill tapped Moira on the shoulder and pointed. “Mark’s home.”
She ended her phone call, popped a disk out of a machine he hadn’t seen, and walked out the back door saying, “Wish me luck.”
“I wish you all kinds of luck.”
If he thought he had been restless and anxious before, that was nothing compared to how he felt now. Now, when something was happening within a few hundred yards of his present location, he was ten times, no, a hundred times, more anxious. He stood at the kitchen window and watched until he couldn’t bear to stand still any longer. He paced back and forth from one window to the next and back again. He had given up on any thought of food at the moment. His entire being was seemingly twisted into a terrible knot as he waited anxiously to see what was going to happen.
A few minutes later, Moira exited the apartment and walked back to her house.
Before she was even inside the door, Bill asked, “What happened? Did he watch the recording? Did you show him? What did he say? What was his reaction? How did he look? Can I go out there? Does he want to see me? Is he still mad at me? Please tell me!”
“Well, if you’ll shut up for a minute I will.”
“Sorry.”
“I showed him the recording. We watched it all the way through, and then we watched it again. Then I answered questions. I don’t know what he’s thinking. He told me he needed time to think.”
Further conversation was interrupted when they both heard the sound of a car in the driveway. They looked out the window to see the SUV driving down the driveway and out of sight. “Where’s he going?” Bill asked, a touch of desperation in his voice.
“I don’t know. He didn’t say anything about going out. He probably wants to go somewhere, walk and think for a while.”
“What’s there to think about? He saw the story, didn’t he?”
“I told you that he would listen, but that it might take a little time before he could hear.”
Chapter 24
The Other Side of the Story
AFTER watching the recording Moira had made, I needed some time to think. I also needed some confirmation of what I had just heard. I grabbed my phone and called the studio. In Bill’s absence, I had been assigned a primary point of contact. Since we had spoken often, I called her to try to get one additional piece of information. I didn’t know if she would tell me, but it was worth a shot.
My call was answered immediately. With no hesitation, she told me, “You have unbelievable timing. I’m headed there right now.”
“Can I go with you?”
“Where are you?”
“Work,” I lied.
“I’ll pick you up—say in about ten minutes.”
“I’ll be standing outside waiting.”
“On my way.”
So I drove to work, parked my car, and waited for my ride. It only took a few minutes before I saw the big black limo drive into the parking lot. Without any hesitation, I walked over and got inside and we were off. There was a lot of traffic, but it did not slow us down as we drove to the airport.
When we got near the airport we turned into a road I hadn’t seen before. A guard stopped our car at the gate, but the driver apparently showed sufficient identification and authorization to get us inside. The gate was raised, and we moved forward.
“Where are we going?” I asked, confused.
“We have a separate exit for high profile travelers. It’s usually more efficient to whisk them in and out by this way rather than try to escort them through the terminal.”
Our driver pulled into a numbered parking spot that was angled for fast and easy exit. The car idled but was not turned off.
“How long will we have to wait?” I asked.
“Not long. His plane’s already here.” She pointed across the parking lot at a door, which seemed to open as if on command. We couldn’t have timed it better if we had tried. And there he was. The driver opened the door to the back of the car, and suddenly I was face to face with the man who had ruined my life. He did not appear pleased to see me. There was a decidedly unhappy look on Mr. St. James’s face when he saw me in the car.
I don’t know if he expected ranting and raving or what, but I was stone cold, silent. I simply stared at him but said nothing.
“Welcome home, sir,” my traveling companion said. “Good trip?”
“It was fifteen hours in a flying tin can. What do you think?”
“I think I’d probably be ready for it to be over.”
“Bingo, sweetheart. I thought you’d be alone,” he said to his escort.
“I needed to speak with you.” The first words I had uttered since we picked him up.
“About what?”
“About what really happened. Did you have sex with my boyfriend? Is he your ‘boy toy’, as the newspaper called him? Simple things like that.”
“No, I did not have sex with Bill. No, he is not my ‘boy toy’ or anything else other than my friend.”
“Then how do you explain this?” I asked, handing him the two newspapers.
“I was set up.”
“Who set you up?”
“It turned out that my wife’s father had gotten himself onto the film crew. He wanted to take me down. I knew he’d hated me for years, but I’d never met the man. I didn’t know what he looked like, so I didn’t recognize him. It appears that his number one goal in life was to ruin me. Plain, pure and simple. He wanted only to destroy me. Bill was a pawn in his game. Is he okay?” he asked with concern in his voice.
“How the hell should I know?” I said.
“You’ve talked with him, haven’t you?”
“Only briefly when he tried to get into the house last night. But fortunately Moira had all the locks changed so that he couldn’t get in. I told him where I’d thrown his stuff and told him to get lost.”
“Why?”
“Simple. I don’t trust you. You’ve had eyes for Bill from the first time you saw him. I know you wanted him. Why should I believe any of this cock-and-bull story about you being set up? It sounds all too convenient to me.”
“Mark! I would never do anything to cause harm of any kind to either you or Bill! Please, you’ve got to believe me on that one.”
“I believe one thing.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I believe that you are an exceptionally good actor.”
“I’m not acting when I tell you that you need to believe me. You two are very important to me, and I would never want to come between you two or see any harm come to either of you. Please, Mark, please.”
I had been paying attention t
o the conversation and not to where we were driving. So it came as a surprise to me to see the car stop in front of Moira’s house.
“You kicking me out?” I asked.
“What?” he said. “I’m here to meet with Moira.”
Speaking of the lady, I saw through the window that she was walking out to the street toward the car, with Bill trailing along behind her. The limo driver opened the door for the star to exit. She and Bill both looked rather surprised, to say the least, when they saw me step out of the car behind the star. They both looked expectantly at me.
“I wanted to talk with him to get his side of the story before you all had a chance to compare stories and circle the wagons.”
“And?” she said.
“His story matches yours.”
Bill smiled and started toward me. But I held up my hand to stop him. “Not yet.” A pause. “Not yet.”
“Why not? You said he confirmed what I said and what you saw on the news?”
“Just… just leave me alone for now.” And I started walking down the street away from the house. My car was over in the parking lot of my workplace so I needed to pick it up, and walking seemed like the right thing to do at the moment.
I half expected Bill to follow me, but he didn’t. When I got to the parking lot and unlocked my car, Slatter was just leaving the shop. I had forgotten that he had the closing shift tonight. I saw him before he saw me. Driving up alongside him I asked, “Need a ride?”
“What are you doing here?” he asked, somewhat surprised to see me there so late.
“I caught a ride to the airport in a studio car earlier, so I had to walk back and pick up my car.”
“Why’d you go to the airport?”
By that point he’d hopped into the car and I was driving him toward the campus. “I wanted to talk to the great and mighty actor himself, to get his side of the story before he had a chance to confer with anyone. So I caught him as soon as he cleared international arrivals.”
“And what did you learn?”
“That flying from Australia leaves even good-looking men looking like crap.”
He hadn’t expected me to be funny.
“You seem to be in a better mood than I thought you’d be in.”
“Not even close. You’d think having your world fall apart once is enough. But to have it fall apart, pick up the pieces and start to try to move on, and then have it all tossed up in the air again, that’s just too much.”
“I saw the news tonight. It sounds like Bill is not guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Probably so.”
“So then why are you here driving me to campus?”
“I’m not going back.”
“Not going back where? To campus?”
“No. I’m driving you to your dorm—on campus. But I’m not going back to deal with him tonight.”
“Why not? I’d think you’d be happy.”
“I said some pretty hateful things last night. I threw all of his stuff out. How do I take all that back? It can’t be done.”
“You don’t have a choice. You do it.”
“Why?”
“Because it gets you back to the life you knew and loved.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think we can go back. How can we regain what we had after everything that’s happened over the last month? How could anyone do that?”
“You do it because it’s what you have to do.”
And I yelled at him. “How? How do I go back and suddenly say, ‘Oh, forget all the hate I was spewing. Let’s pretend it never happened. Let’s pretend you didn’t abandon me. Let’s pretend none of it happened’? It happened. Maybe he didn’t cheat on me with the studling star, but he did choose acting in that movie over me.”
“As he had to do. You encouraged him to take the part. You have to admit that.”
“I admit nothing.”
“You need some sleep. You’re not making a lot of sense.”
“I won’t deny that I need sleep.”
As we pulled up in front of his dormitory he said, “Can you get home safely?”
“I’m not going home.”
“Then where are you going?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea. Maybe I’ll just drive.”
“That’s not a good idea. You just said you’re tired and need sleep. That’s not the time to be going out driving for half the night. Why don’t you stay here tonight?”
“Where?”
“There’s a lounge with a sofa just down the hall from my room. You can sleep there.”
His idea held some appeal. “Okay,” I said. I parked the car and walked back to where he was waiting for me at the door to his dorm. Upstairs I sat down on the sofa while he went to get a spare pillow and a blanket. By the time he was back I was already asleep. He shoved the pillow under my head and covered me with the blanket, but you couldn’t have proven that by me.
Chapter 25
Who Blinks First
WHEN I next opened my eyes I had the same experience Bill had been having of late—I couldn’t figure out at first where I was. It is very difficult to wake up in a strange place and feel so lost and disoriented. Whenever it was, it was bright outside, and a lot of sunlight was coming in the windows of the lounge.
Trying to brush some of the sleep from my eyes, I sat up, and suddenly noticed that I was not alone. Much to my surprise, Bill sat in a chair a few feet away from me, seemingly just looking at me.
“Hi,” I said, not knowing what else to do or say in such a circumstance.
“Hi,” he said.
“Um, what are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“Okay. How’d you find me?”
“Moira called your friend, and he told her where you were.”
“Well, I’ll have to have a talk with him,” I observed.
“I’m sorry,” Bill said.
“Why are you sorry?”
“For causing you such pain.”
“Seems to me that I’m the one who should be apologizing right now.”
“I love you,” he said, “more than I’ve ever loved anyone else my entire life. Thinking of you was all that kept me sane while I was in that hellhole. I can’t tell you how many times I nearly lost it. But thinking of you pulled me back together and helped me hold it all together for another day.”
“Sorry you had such a tough time over there. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t hear anything for weeks on end. Not a phone call, not a text message, not an e-mail, not even a smoke signal. Nothing. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. And then… then all I heard was that you… well, you know what I heard. That was the first word I’d seen or heard about you in weeks. Let me tell you—not a good way to live. I can’t do that again.”
“And I promise I’ll never put you in that position again.”
“Until the next time.”
“There will never be a next time. My movie career is over. Finished. Ended. Complete.”
“You can’t say that. What if they came back and offered you something bigger and better? You’d have to do it.”
“If anyone wants me to do any more acting, it would have to be on my terms.”
“And what are those terms?”
“I have to be home to sleep in my own bed with you every night—no exceptions.”
“I don’t think you get to dictate terms like that unless you’re a big star.”
“Then they don’t want me, because those are the terms.”
I nodded. We were both silent for a few minutes. “I missed you.”
He smiled. “I missed you too. Every day.”
“I’m embarrassed,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“I said some pretty awful things to you the other night.”
“And you had every right to, given what little information you had to go on.”
“I know, but I’m still embarrassed about what I said
. I was really angry. I still am in a lot of ways.”
“You have every right to be angry. I’m angry too.”
“What are you angry about?”
“I’m angry about the whole mess. I’m angry for allowing myself to get talked into going away in the first place, and over the holidays especially. I’m angry at being separated from you with no way to communicate with you for so long. I’m angry that I left you alone with no idea of what was happening.”
“Okay. We’re both still angry. I don’t think we’re going to get over our anger right away. I think it’s going to take some time. It sounds like we’ve both got some wounds that need time to heal.”
“Can we go home?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got to go to class. I haven’t been kicked out of school. That would be you who isn’t a student any longer.” No, no bitterness in me.
He sighed. “I know.”
“Knowing doesn’t change it. You’ve lost your financial aid. You’ve lost your place. You need to reapply all over again now. You may never get such a sweet deal again.”
“I know,” he said glumly. “If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re not doing a very good job of it. When do you finish class today?”
“One o’clock.”
“Then are you coming home?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I start work at two o’clock. We have to pay the rent, buy food, put gas in the car, things like that. And I have to pay tuition for the next quarter.”
“Since I won’t be in school for the remainder of this quarter, I’ll find some work to bring in some money.”
I didn’t say anything but simply nodded. Looking at my watch, I saw that my class started in five minutes. “Oh, crap, I’m gonna be late.” I shoved my feet in my shoes, grabbed my backpack, and raced down the hall to drop off Slatter’s pillow. Bill ran with me all the way across the campus. Part of me still didn’t entirely believe that he was back.
I arrived at the door to the class one minute late, but it appeared that the professor was even later than I was so I was actually okay. Or so I thought. Panting, I started to step into class when Bill stopped me and wrapped his arms around me, giving me a hug that I’d needed and missed for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I lost it. The tears came out of nowhere, and I couldn’t stop them. I put my arms around him and simply cried. And he cried, and I don’t want to think about what everyone around us thought.
Go West Young Man Page 17
