Lucky Stars

by Jane Heller

  “In an exclusive interview with Variety,” the article stated, “Chellus declared that he is innocent of all charges and said he is just one of many theater owners trying to survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace. ‘This is a tough business,’ he told Variety. ‘People like to kick you when you’re down. But I can assure the entire entertainment community that I’ve done nothing wrong.’ Chellus pointed out that his theaters provide hundreds of jobs around the country—from Charlotte and Akron to Nashville and Kansas City—and that he is a longtime contributor to charitable organizations. ‘I take my responsibilities as an American businessman seriously,’ he said. ‘I would never even consider cheating another company, let alone break the sacred covenant between theater owner and distributor.’ ”

  I let the article fall to the floor as I digested what I had just read. I felt sick, shaky, out of control, but forced myself to process what I’d learned.

  For one thing, the fact that Victor had been accused of being such a crook years ago—in an actual magazine article, not simply in a conversation between Rosa and Carlos—was more proof that my instincts about him were correct and that my mother was indeed at risk of being conned by the man she loved.

  But it was the fact that Jack had been privy to all this and not told me—Jack, the man I loved, the man who was supposed to love me, the man I trusted—that made me doubt my instincts. For months he denied knowing anything about Victor Chellus, despite my concerns over my mother’s safety. And now it turned out that he knew plenty about Victor, including that he was implicated in not one but three cases of fraud. Moreover, it was Jack himself who conducted the interview for the magazine, Jack who spoke directly to Victor about the accusations, Jack who was at the center of Variety's coverage of the whole Victory Theatre mess. And yet he never said a word to me. Not when I told him Mom was dating Victor. Not when I told him she was serious about him. Not when I told him I suspected him. of being a no-good scumball who would end up hurting her. Was it possible that he didn’t remember that he’d interviewed Victor? Of course not. But then why had he acted as if it didn’t happen? And was his eagerness to keep it a secret the reason why he always begged off whenever I invited him to join Mom and Victor and me for dinner?

  “Maybe he has a good excuse,” said Maura after I called her on the set of her show.

  “Like what? He has amnesia? That may work on Days of Our Lives but it doesn’t cut it on Days of My Life.”

  “Are you going to confront him?”

  “I think that goes without saying.”

  I rehearsed the scene on and off during the day. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, didn’t want to be too shrill or judgmental when Jack came home from work and I hit him with my little bombshell. On the other hand, I was terribly upset. I thought I’d finally found my soul mate, finally found a man who would be honest with me, and now it seemed I was mistaken.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” he said when he walked in the door that night and tossed his jacket onto the bench in the foyer. “What a wicked day I had. We had technical problems that delayed the taping and threw everybody’s schedule off.”

  I didn’t respond. His technical problems weren’t a priority.

  “How was your day?” he asked as he headed for the kitchen to sort through the stack of mail on the counter, next to which I had strategically placed the Variety clipping.

  “My day?” I said, trailing behind him. “It wasn’t too hot, either. I’m hoping you’ll be able to make it better.”

  “Better?” He didn’t look up from the mail. “How?”

  “By being straight with me about a subject we’ve tried to discuss before.”

  He groaned. “This isn’t about Victor, is it?”

  “It is.”

  “But we agreed that you weren’t going to ‘investigate’ him or meddle in your mother’s relationship with him.”

  “We didn’t agree to any such thing. You didn’t want me to meddle. Why was that, Jack? Refresh my memory.”

  He finally glanced up at me. “Okay, Stacey. What’s the matter? I’m totally in the dark here.”

  “Then let me turn on the light for you. If you check the counter, to the right of your mail, you’ll see exactly what the matter is.”

  He pushed aside all the letters and magazines and junk flyers and picked up the Variety clip. After reading the headline and, presumably, recalling that he did, in fact, interview Victor and write the article, he flushed slightly but otherwise maintained his composure. A second or two passed before he said, “Where’d you get this?”

  I didn’t want to ruin his surprise party, really I didn’t, but I couldn’t very well withhold the truth from him, particularly since my principal beef was that he had withheld the truth from me. I told him about Kyle’s phone call and how he’d asked me to find the old clippings and that I hadn’t merely been poking around in his files in my spare time.

  “I’d like an explanation, Jack. Why didn’t you ever tell me you had information about Victor?”

  He was silent briefly—a rarity for him. “It’s complicated,” he said at last.

  “Complicated, huh? Well, how about laying the explanation on me and we’ll see if I’m capable of understanding it.”

  “Please don’t be sarcastic, Stacey. This is hard for me.”

  “Hard for you? What about me? I’m the one with the mother who’s in love with the lowlife you wrote about. I’m the one with the boyfriend who keeps secrets.”

  He nodded, took a breath. “I didn’t tell you what I knew about Victor because”—he paused, took another breath—“because it would have meant kissing my professional reputation good-bye.”

  “Excuse me?” I was incredulous. “You lied to me in order to protect your reputation? What on earth does your television career have to do with admitting that you once wrote an article about Victor?”

  “As I said, it’s complicated. Actually, I’d prefer not to go into it.”

  “Not to go into it? You’d rather we leave it that you were so afraid of tarnishing your precious reputation that you would jeopardize my mother’s well-being by letting her fall for a man accused of cheating his business partners?”

  “He was accused of engaging in questionable business practices, but I didn’t consider him a danger to Helen and I still don’t. If I did, I would have told you about the article.”

  “Okay, I get it now. You and Victor became buddies after you padded the article with that crap about his sacred covenant and his charitable contributions. That’s what happened, right? You figured that your friendship with a crook, years ago though it was, could sink your career if people found out about it?”

  “There was no friendship, believe me.”

  “Believe you? Why should I? Not unless you tell me the whole story, Jack.”

  “I can’t. I won’t allow everything I’ve worked so hard for to be destroyed.”

  “But you will allow everything we’ve worked so hard for to be destroyed?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’m the woman you say you love, Jack. What could be so awful that you can’t tell me about it?”

  “You don’t understand, Stacey. You really don’t.”

  I was seething now and beyond crushed. I had given him a chance, given him the opportunity to unburden himself, but he wouldn’t. “Here’s what I understand,” I said. “You had some sort of association with Victor and you don’t want it to become public, because you’re worried that your ratings will drop and your show will be canceled and that nobody will suck up to you anymore.” I looked at him, looked at the man I adored, and wondered if I ever saw him. “You’re a cool customer, Jack. I should have realized that after you trashed me in Pet Peeve. Take the way you approach movies, for example, a medium you claim to revere. You stand back and analyze films, critique them, hold yourself above them. You’re the judge, the person who distances himself by making pronouncements about other people’s abilities. If you ask me, you’ve got an intima
cy problem. Maybe it’s because of your parents, of how they treated you when you were growing up. Maybe your childhood turned you into someone who doesn’t really involve himself emotionally in anything or anyone.”

  His eyes blazed. “That’s not accurate and you know it. I’ve been involved with you emotionally in a way I’ve never been with anyone else. I love you, Stacey.”

  “When you love someone, you don’t betray their trust, not about something that’s important to them. But then, as I’ve just pointed out, your entire persona is about analyzing and critiquing others, about being right. But here’s the irony, Jack: You were wrong to trash me—I wasn’t all that bad in Pet Peeve—and you were wrong to withhold information about Victor.”

  I waited a few seconds, hoping he would break down and tell me what he was keeping deep inside, what he couldn’t or wouldn’t reveal. But he didn’t. So I grabbed my purse and moved toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, his voice low, drained.

  “Home,” I said. “I don’t feel comfortable here anymore.”

  “Stacey?”

  “What?”

  “I wish I could tell you, but I can’t.”

  “And I wish I could rewind the tape and play back the night we fell in love, but I can’t.”

  My lower lip was quivering and my eyes were welling up, but I refused to let him see me cry. Instead, I put a pin in my pain, made myself hold it in for just another few seconds so I’d have the presence of mind to reach inside my purse for the key to his house, place it on the kitchen counter, and walk out.

  Well, you’re two for two, Stacey, I thought, as I finally allowed the tears to flow freely. First, your mother. Now, Jack. A swell night all around.

  twenty-eight

  I didn’t hear from Jack for two days, and they were the longest two days ever. I had expected him to call the first night after I’d left his house, expected him to say he was sorry for not being more forthcoming and then to enlighten me about the “complicated” story he couldn’t bring himself to tell me, but he hadn't. On the mother front, I had tried to reach Mom without success. She wasn’t speaking to me, she reiterated, before slamming down the phone when I called. “We’re officially estranged unless you come to your senses about Victor and me,” she barked. Yeah, like that was going to happen. To say that I felt alienated from the two most important people in my life was an understatement, but then came a break in the action. I had just returned home from a thrilling eight hours at Cornucopia! when Jack appeared at my door. He looked drawn, tired, not his cocky, dapper self. My first instinct was to wrap my arms around him and comfort him, but I resisted the impulse.

  “Hello,” he said softly. “May I come in?”

  “If you’re here to explain,” I said.

  “I’m here to explain,” he said, and so I let him inside the apartment. As we walked into the living room, he suggested we sit down together.

  “I think I’ll stand, thanks.” I couldn’t bear to have him near me. I didn’t trust myself next to him on that sofa, the scene of our first night of passion. I needed a clear head for whatever was coming next.

  “Suit yourself.” He sat down. “I really did come to talk.”

  “I’m listening.”

  He cleared his throat. “Let me begin by apologizing for not telling you what I knew about Victor way back when you first asked me about him. That must sound pretty hollow to you now, but it’s sincere. I’m not proud of how I handled the situation.”

  “The situation? Jack, you outright lied to me.”

  “Yes, but there was a purpose to the lie.”

  “The purpose being to protect your almighty career.”

  He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair. “Stacey, I’m not the unchivalrous person you make me out to be. It’s true that I wanted to protect my career, but not for the reason you think.”

  “Okay, then what’s the reason?”

  “The reason is Tim and my ability to support him. If my career went to hell, so would my income. My brother’s expenses aren’t insignificant, as you’ve observed.”

  “Right, and you know how much I admire you for supporting him. But I’m not making the connection here. What docs supporting Tim have to do with withholding information about Victor from me? And why would an article you wrote years ago, about a guy nobody in this town really remembers or cares about, affect your career?”

  “Are you sure you won’t sit down?”

  “Positive.”

  Instead of resuming his story, he handed me a piece of paper that he’d pulled out of his jacket pocket. “What’s this?” I said as I unfolded it.

  “Read it. Then I’ll tell you the rest.”

  I read what appeared to be a draft of an article, with Jack’s name on the byline. It contained some of the same details that were in the Variety piece—how Victor was rumored to have cheated his distributors, as well as his investors, when he was running Victory Theatres—but there was no exclusive interview with him, no declaration of his innocence, no fluff about what an honest, hardworking businessman he was, nothing about a “sacred covenant,” nothing about his donations to charities, nothing that let him off the hook or cast him in a positive light. Instead, it was more of an expose about him in which anonymous sources within his company were quoted, along with executives at the studios, saying what a scoundrel he was, how recklessly he ran Victory Theatres, how his word meant zero within the industry, and how no one wanted to do business with him anymore.

  I looked up at Jack. “You wrote this?”

  “Yes, but I never turned it in to my editor. The piece you found in my file is the one I turned in, the one that actually ran.”

  “But why didn’t this one run?” I said, giving him back the draft. “What happened to make you scrap it?”

  He swallowed hard. “I’ll start by taking you down memory lane,” he said. “When I got the job at Variety, I was young and ambitious and chomping at the bit to write about movies. A few months in, I realized that I was bored to death, because I wasn’t writing about movies, I was writing about the movie business. Still, I thought the job would lead somewhere, so I kept at it. And then one day my editor assigned me a story about a troubled company named Victory Theatres and its flamboyant president, Victor Chellus. I was bored, as I said, so I took it upon myself to do a little more digging than necessary for a trade piece. I spoke to people within Victory. I spoke to distributors who’d dealt with Victor. I fancied myself as a regular Woodward or Bernstein, even though the level of wrongdoing was hardly on a par with Watergate. Victor, I discovered through my interviews, was a sleazy businessman—no more, no less— but I was going to make a name for myself by exposing him. If Variety couldn’t use the material, I was going to try to sell it elsewhere.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Because I got a telephone call—a call that changed everything.”

  “It was from Victor. That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “Not at first. He invited me over to his house. ‘For a friendly chat,’ he said.”

  “And you went?”

  “Sure. I thought it was my big break, my shot at getting an interview with the key player in the story I was chasing. Imagine my surprise, my naivete, when this little eager-beaver cub reporter arrived at Victor’s and discovered I wouldn’t be getting an interview after all. Not a legitimate one anyway. After some pleasantries—I think he actually offered me a cigar—he asked me if I was interested in taking a bribe.”

  “A bribe? You? You’d never—”

  “Yeah, I’d never.” He laughed ruefully. “Victor said he’d been hearing rumblings that I was asking a lot of questions about him around town. So he hired someone, a private detective, I guess, to check into my background. He said, ‘Jack, I understand that you’ve got a brother named Tim living in Newport Beach and that he’s disabled from an accident. Swimming, wasn’t
it?’ I was stunned, completely thrown. It never occurred to me that the weasel would dig up information about me. ‘What’s your point?' I said to him. ‘People in wheelchairs cost money,’ he said. ‘Rumor has it that you’re the one who takes care of his bills. Must put a lot of pressure on you, son, especially since you don’t earn a helluva lot at your job. I’d like to help out if you’ll let me.’ ”

  “That dirty son of a bitch!” I said. “You told him to shove it, right?”

  “I think you should sit down.”

  “I’m not sitting down! Just finish the story.”

  “Okay. The answer to your question is: no, I took his money—in exchange for burying the article I was planning to write and substituting the puff piece you saw in my file.”

  I literally gasped. After a second or so, I decided I’d better sit down, and parked myself on the sofa. “Go on,” I said, wide-eyed.

  “I took the bribe, the payoff, whatever you want to call it, Stacey. I took it because I was killing myself trying to make enough money to support Tim on my salary. I took it because I felt I had to.”

  I shook my head. “This is a disgrace.”

  “What is? That your boyfriend was capable of doing something so low?”

  “No, that my mother’s boyfriend was capable of doing something so low.” My God. So he took the money to protect his brother, I thought. He took the money and then carried the guilt around for years. How awful it must have been to be put in such an untenable position. No wonder he’d denied knowing Victor. There was too much at stake for him not to deny it. It all made perfect sense to me now. “Oh, Jack. I wish you’d told me this months ago, but I understand why you couldn’t. I think it’s noble what you did for Tim. Noble and loving. I know you must feel ashamed and scared and worried that your career could come apart if people ever found out, but they won’t find out. Why should they?”