by Maggie Marr
“Oooooh,” Maeve said and pressed her finger to her lips. “Shhh, you’re going to get in very deep trouble for mentioning those-who-must-never-be-named.”
“Right. So those are a load of secrets we’ve kept from Amanda and Sterling.” I turned toward my sister. “Not really the best foundation for a relationship.”
“Those aren’t the reasons,” Maeve said. She flipped onto her back. “You’re scared.”
“What?”
“You’re scared. You don’t want to fall that much in love and then have it ripped away because Sterling can’t keep it in his pants.” She looked over at me. “I mean the inability to be faithful destroyed Steve’s marriage and Papa’s. That’s what you’re afraid of.”
“Mama and Papa would be furious if I ended up with Sterling. You should have seen Mama the morning after Sterling was here. She was nosy and judgmental and worried.”
“Don’t let her fool you, you’re going to get those reactions no matter who you’re with. She’s just as worried as you are. Think about it, her best friend of thirty years slept with her husband, destroyed her marriage, and then practically died a saint. Then Mama stays here to make sure that that friend’s children don’t end up drug-addled or suicidal. I mean, Mama is a bit of a martyr.”
“Seems as if you’ve gotten all our familial dysfunction sorted out while you’ve been traveling.”
“Ha!” Maeve said. “That’s a laugh. I can look at everyone else and think I know how to fix them but, as for me?” She glanced up at me and I saw that her lips were pulled down. “As for me, I’m as messed up as the rest.”
“Well, little sister, at least you’ve got company.” I picked up my cell phone from the nightstand and flipped it over. It was still early in Los Angeles, but it was early afternoon in Dublin. I tossed back my covers. If I could catch Papa before he left for the pub I had a much better shot of reasoning with him when it came to The Lady’s Regret.
I wasn’t holding much hope that Papa would change his mind. I’d heard him rail on and on about the script. Once Joanne died he believed the script should have been destroyed because he thought no other woman could, or should, ever play the part he’d written for her. I walked down the hallway toward the kitchen. Mama was an early riser. She liked to paint early in the morning, but there was no sign of her today. I made a cup of tea, grabbed a blanket, and went out the front door. Once I was settled in the porch swing I dialed Papa’s number.
“Rhiannon!” His voice was happy and light. “What a surprise.” He must have had a good morning with his writing. He didn’t sound nearly as cheery when things weren’t going well.
“Papa, you sound so happy. I love to hear you happy.”
He laughed a deep and hearty chuckle. “News of your art show traveled all the way to Dublin, my love. I hear you were a spectacular success.”
“Oh, Papa, thank you.”
“I’m proud of you, my girl. You know that, yes?”
“Yes, Papa, I do.” I pulled my blanket closer to me. We talked about Dublin and Los Angeles, and Maeve’s arrival. We discussed my newest series and how I felt stuck in my painting. He reminded me that art couldn’t be forced and that it would come when it was good and ready and not necessarily on my schedule. His jovial and kind words buoyed me. But a tingling went through my fingers and my chest grew tight when our conversation was drawing to a natural close. I had to ask him about The Lady’s Regret now or not ask at all.
“Papa, there was something else. Another reason that I called.”
“What is it my darling? You know I’d do anything for you, my love.”
“It’s about The Lady’s Regret.”
There was silence. I could feel the shift in my father’s energy from thousands of miles away. It was as though a dark thunderhead had rolled over the sun.
“Anything but that,” he said. His tone was clipped and short. “Did that damned devil Steve Legend put you up to calling?”
“Papa, it’s not Steve who has the script. It’s Sterling and Amanda,” I said.
“Half-spawn of the devil,” he muttered. “There was a reason your Mama and I let you leave Los Angeles when you did and it wasn’t just because of me. You do know, don’t you my love, that apples don’t fall far from the tree that bore them. Sterling is his father’s son.”
The hypocrisy of my father’s words hit me in the chest. He too had strayed in his relationship with Mama, and yet, I could not say those words to him.
“Papa, Sterling and Amanda aren’t just Steve’s children.” My half-spoken point of fact caused more silence from my father. I knew that Papa had fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with Joanne Legend. Whether Joanne returned his love, I had no idea. I wondered if Mama wasn’t right, that Joanne was too deeply damaged to love anyone.
“Rhiannon, the script was written for one person.”
“The same person who left the option to her children.”
“Children who have no idea what the script means or meant to me and to their mother. The time for the project has passed.”
“Papa, they have a director, they have the financing, they have an actress and they simply wonder if you’d give them more time.”
“What a coward,” Papa spat out. “To have you call me. Sterling is a worthless cur of a man. He is just like his father.”
My heart hurt to hear my father speak so harshly about Sterling. “Papa, I’m the one who offered to call you. I offered yesterday when they were discussing the project. It’s such a beautiful project.”
“For those who didn’t experience the torture that came with its creation, perhaps,” Papa said. His tone was soft, but filled with pain. “The option’s not yet run out. They’ve got time to get into production. If they can’t get The Lady’s Regret into production before the option lapses then the project is to be finished. I’m sorry, Rhiannon, I’ve no desire to see the project on the screen.”
“Papa—”
“Rhiannon, I won’t change my mind, not even for you, and I definitely won’t change my mind for Sterling Legend either. That boy is not good enough for the likes of you. Remember, my love, remember what you saw and what you know; a man usually follows in the steps of his father. I don’t wish that kind of heartache on you, my girl.”
“I love you, Papa,” I said. I didn’t want to fight with him. I wouldn’t get anywhere by arguing with him. Once Papa made up his mind he was an Irish kind of stubborn.
“My love to you as well,” Papa said. “Good luck with the art. Come home to see me soon. I miss you.”
“And me, as well.” I clicked the off button on my phone. The call had gone as I’d expected. Papa gave me a solid no on the extension of the option that Sterling and Amanda wanted. If they wanted to make The Lady’s Regret, they’d have to be in production in the next six weeks.
Papa’s other words, the things that he’d said about Sterling, hurt my heart. My back pressed into the wooden slats of the porch swing. I tucked my feet up onto the seat and wrapped my arms around my shins. Was Sterling just like his father? Was it impossible for him to commit to one woman? And why did I care? How had I gone, in a matter of weeks, from being completely sure that nothing would happen between Sterling and me to now contemplating his ability to be part of a monogamous couple?
Was Maeve right? Was I using the past to try and halt my love for Sterling? Panic and uncertainty washed through me. There were so many things that Sterling didn't know about his family and mine. If I wanted to be with Sterling, I had to tell him about Joanne and Papa and Sophia, Ellen, and Rhett.
“How is your father?”
Mama stood just inside the front door with a cup in her hand. She blew on her coffee and walked toward me. I lifted my shoulder and shrugged. Uncomfortable anxiousness drifted through me when discussing one parent with the other. Even in the most innocuous of circumstances.
“He seems well,” I said. “He sounds as if his work is good right now.”
Mama settled onto the porch swing b
eside me. “He’s always content when the work goes well. I remember those times as his happiest.”
I looked out at the open expanse of the front yard. Grass kept green by sprinklers sloped into an oval hill.
“Does he share my thoughts on The Lady’s Regret?”
“I don’t know what your thoughts are,” I said. My tone was sharp. Sharper than what I usually used when speaking with Mama.
“Really? Am I that obscure? I would have thought there was great clarity regarding my feelings for that script.”
“It wasn’t the script that destroyed your marriage.”
A sharp intake of breath came from Mama. I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together.
“No,” Mama said, “it wasn’t. Nor was it my best friend sleeping with my husband. Unfortunately, after seven years of hindsight, I should have seen the freight train headed my way. If it hadn’t been Joanne it would have been someone else.”
“Don’t say that about Papa.”
“It's not your father’s fault, alone. Any marriage requires two people to kill it.”
Cool morning air rushed into my lungs. A hard feeling clamped within my chest. I didn’t want to discuss my parents’ separation. I did not want to discuss either their now-extinct marital relationship, or the flaws of that relationship. Mama had spent seven years ruminating about that here in the safety of the top of her hill. I’d simply wanted to check with Papa about the option on The Lady’s Regret. That’s all.
“What does he think of you seeing Sterling?”
“I’m not seeing Sterling,” I said. Again, that harsh tone. The tone that sounded like me at fifteen.
Mama was silent. She sipped her coffee and followed my gaze over the rolling hills that lead to the ocean. “I was just a tiny bit younger than you are now when Joanne and I moved to Los Angeles.”
“I know the story.” I tightened my arms around my shins.
“It was me that Steve first asked out,” Mama said. “Did you know that part, too?”
I turned my head and my cheek rested on my knees. “Did you go out with him?”
A smile split Mama’s face. “No. Absolutely not. I knew from the moment I met him that Steve Legend was bad news. I had a bit part on one of his films. By the time he asked me out, he’d pretty much slept his way through every woman on set.”
I smiled. Steve was a legend all right. “So how’d he end up with Joanne?”
“Wrap party,” Mama said. “I took her with me to the wrap party. Her career hadn’t blown up yet, but it was about to. She came with me and when those two saw each other”—Mama closed her eyes and shook her head—“it was as if the sun had exploded. You could feel the energy between them. They had this nearly indescribable chemistry.” Mama glanced at me, “Seriously. Like Liz and Burt. Just magnetic. Joanne was the only woman Steve truly loved.”
“How can you say that? He was with hundreds of women even after he married Joanne.”
Mama nodded. “But, for Steve, those women were just sex. For him sex and love were two very separate things. He loved Joanne. He gave her his heart, his name, she bore his children. And in some very strange way Joanne understood that about her relationship with Steve. She chose to look the other way. She was Steve’s wife and the mother of his children and she knew that meant something. It wasn’t until she found out about Rhett, Ellen, and Sophia that she nearly lost her mind.” Mama shook her head. “I don’t want that for you.”
“Sterling isn’t Steve.”
“No, darling, Sterling isn’t Steve, but he is a Legend. I don’t want you to give your heart away to someone who doesn’t give you as much as you give them. Steve gave Joanne all that he could give. He could never give her monogamy and she knew that. They had this unspoken arrangement, but when she found out he’d broken his end of the bargain by having a family with someone else, well, that’s when she broke her end of the bargain.”
“The affair,” I whispered.
“The affair,” Mama said. “But it was more than that. Your father fell in love with Joanne and maybe Joanne fell a little bit in love with your father, too.”
“Did you ever speak of it? When she was sick? Before she died?”
Mama’s eyes looked so sad, so filled with a deep pain. She had loved both her best friend and her husband and she had lost them both. Mama stood by Joanne all through Joanne’s illness; she’d helped to take care of Joanne’s children even after she died.
“Once,” Mama said. She turned to me. She reached up and her fingertips stroked through my hair. “Once, just before she died.”
Mama looked away from me and toward the ocean. “Time makes most things less of a burden. I wanted to be able to say that I had been my best self with my best friend when she was dying. I’ve gotten to watch you grow up, even if it was from afar most the time.” A smile curved over her mouth. “Rhiannon, please remember, that to be a Legend can be the most horrible of blessings.”
I closed my eyes and pressed my lips tight. How could I be involved with Sterling? My parents had suffered so much pain because of their love for Joanne. Now, I forced them to relive the events by first asking Daddy to extend the option on The Lady’s Regret and, second, by surrendering to my attraction to Sterling. Daddy would never accept Sterling as my lover, my soul mate, and I doubted that Mama would ever accept Sterling either. Our family history was simply too dark and too painful and too complicated.
Chapter 15
Sterling
“Seriously?” Cami Montgomery’s look of shock surprised me. She sat back against the red velvet booth at Soho House. “You want to put Kiley Kepner in the lead role for The Lady’s Regret?”
I nodded. “If it’s the only way to get the film made, then yes. If Tom won’t extend the option, then I want Kiley to play the role and we can go into production.”
Cami examined me as though she was unsure of who she was looking at. “You remember,” she said softly, “that this role was meant for your mother.”
My heartbeat spiked. “Right, but this is an amazing script that will make a great movie.”
“But is it worth it to put Kiley in that role just to get the movie made? What does Amanda say?”
“She doesn’t like the idea.”
Cami lifted her drink. “It’s Kiley or no one at this point, right? You’ve got four weeks on the option. You have to attach your female lead and cast up and then go into production, or Tom gets the project back.” She took a drink of her beer.
“Yep, you’re absolutely right,” I said.
“And her fee?
“SAG minimum plus ten percent”
“Annnnd, what else?” Cami asked. “I know that’s not all Kiley would have asked for.”
“Producer credit and points. None of it’s unreasonable.”
“No,” Cami said. “None of it’s unreasonable, until we get on set and she starts acting like the nutcase she is.”
“Will your Mom cash flow with Kiley in the lead? If she won’t, then we can’t use Kiley.”
“We’ll have to ask. Mom was close to Joanne and she really loathes Kiley as a person, but Mom is all about business when it comes to money. She understands the marketplace and how Kiley makes the film a solid investment for her.”
My eyes scanned the horizon and I took a sip of my beer. This could get ugly. Amanda had been clear with me that she’d rather the project die than have Kiley in the role, yet here I was with Cami, asking my director to cast Kiley in the lead. If Amanda couldn’t put aside her personal feelings about Kiley for business reasons, then that was her problem. I just wasn't going to make it my problem.
“Let's sit down with Elizabeth and see what she thinks.”
“You got it,” Cami said. “I’ll get a meeting on the books.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m interested in what she has to say about making this film with Kiley in the lead.”
*
The phone call interrupted my pre-run stretches but I accepted it nonetheless.
The voice was older, a bit austere, and very direct. The type of voice that commanded attention, the kind of voice that would prompt you to do whatever the person wanted.
“Mrs. Montgomery,” I said.
“Elizabeth, please. I thought we determined that when last you were here.” I heard her smile. “While you and I haven’t spent much time together, I was too close to your mother for her son to call me anything but Elizabeth.”
My shoulders relaxed. The fact that Elizabeth Montgomery considered me a family friend, and my mother one of her best friends, were reasons for me to hope that I could secure the financing I needed for The Lady’s Regret. Even if it meant casting a woman she disliked.
“I wondered if you might come up to Montecito tomorrow and stay for a few days.”
“Of course.”
“Cami can’t join us until she finishes a commercial she’s shooting.”
“Right, she mentioned that.”
“Shocking how much they spend on commercials. Millions of dollars for thirty seconds.”
Commercials were a primary source of income for a huge number of directors. Many directors actually took a pay cut to shoot their first full-length feature film. Sometimes directors went from an income of millions of dollars a year to the DGA minimum of two hundred and fifty K. Nothing to sneeze at either way, but a gigantic pay cut nonetheless simply to get a film in Hollywood.
“Great gig if you can get it,” I said.
“Exactly. Listen, Sterling, I wondered if you might bring someone with you who I am desperate to meet.”
Who could Elizabeth Montgomery, a gazillionaire who sat on a multitude of boards, a well-known philanthropist, be desperate to meet?
“Of course, any way I can help.”
“I extended the invitation to Rhiannon Bliss but, as you know, the girl is a bit of an introvert and the poor thing doesn’t drive.”
My stomach churned at the mention of Rhiannon’s name.
“I’m a huge fan of her work,” she continued. “I purchased Malibu #3 from your sister’s gallery. I know Rhiannon is a very private person.”
