Starstruck

by Anne McAllister

  “No. I’ve given four today already. That’s enough of inflicting myself on the public for one day. But,” he added, “I must admit, the crowds are good. And if they come to hear me because of Steve Scott and all that rot, at least they seem to leave thinking a bit about the future of the world.”

  Liv shifted in the chair and thought how amazing it was to be sitting in her kitchen with a pile of jeans to be mended and the evening paper scattered on the table in front of her, and to be talking to America’s great heart-throb. Somehow he didn’t fit the image, and not because he was less but because he was more. A real, living, breathing man, not some publicist’s dummy. She felt herself warming all over as she listened to him talk on, telling her about the places he’d been today, the people he’d seen—the hordes of young women and the hamhanded public officials who’d dogged his steps—with a surprisingly self-deprecating sense of humor that poked as much fun at his own image as at people who let themselves be swayed by it. She grinned when he paused and told him, “It’s just that you’re so wonderful.”

  “I know. I could tell how impressed you were yesterday.”

  “That didn’t really have anything to do with you,” she told him now, realizing for the first time herself that it really didn’t. It wasn’t Joe, the person, she was annoyed at, it was the symbol of male freedom that he represented to Tom and men like him.

  “Explain,” he insisted.

  But she couldn’t. Not to him, not yet. He made her feel strange, alive, real—and the feelings scared her. She had to think about them, digest them, come to terms with them. Rationalize them, she mocked herself. “I don’t think I want to right now,” she said because, somehow, she felt that tonight he had given her a taste of who he was as a person, not a sex symbol, and she owed him the same honesty. “But I am sorry I took it out on you. This call must be costing you a fortune.”

  “Don’t you think I can afford it?”

  “Probably.” He probably could own the phone company if he wanted to, “But I have this whole stack of mending to do and I haven’t—” She was babbling now, nervous.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “I get the picture. Say hi to the kids for me.” And he was gone. Liv held the buzzing phone to her ear for a full minute before she replaced it on the hook, and when she did so she felt unaccountably lonely. No, not unaccountably. The reason was obvious—and ridiculous—she was missing Joe.

  She drifted through the whole next day, responding absently to Marv’s requests and Frances’s observations, nearly forgetting to attend Noel’s baseball game, and marking all of Stephen’s multiplication homework wrong because she thought it was addition.

  “Mom!” he howled with an eight-year-old’s righteous indignation. “You were just s’posed to look and see how well I knew ’em, not mark all over ’em with your dumb red pencil!”

  “Oh?” It barely penetrated the fog that was her brain. It was like being an adolescent all over again—the constant mooning and aching, the I-wonder-what-he’s-doing-now syndrome that affected her every waking second. Lord, I should be locked up, she thought, shaking her head and trying to act like the sane, sensible mother of five that she had been up until two days ago. Next thing you know I'll be reading movie magazines, she thought as she scorched her good ivory blouse and decided that she’d better stop ironing before she burned the house down.

  It was a delayed reaction to being exposed to a celebrity, she decided. But that was absurd because she’d met former President Carter, Robert Redford and Mother Teresa of Calcutta in the course of her work, too, and none of them had caused her to forget the sevens multiplication table or burn her blouse.

  “Phone, Mom,” Ben hollered.

  “Is this the old woman in the shoe?” Joe’s voice asked when she answered.

  “You!”

  “You were expecting maybe Warren Beatty?”

  “I was expecting the termite exterminator,” she said, heart aflutter.

  “Disappointed?”

  “Not very,” she admitted. “He has at least as many children as I do.”

  “God save us,” she heard Joe mutter.

  “What do you want?”

  “To talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “That’s what I like about you. You’re so direct, so straightforward.” He was grinning, she could tell. “What did you do today?” he asked.

  Burned a blouse, tied my typewriter ribbon in knots, thought of you, ruined Stephen’s math homework, spelled “through” five different ways in one seven-inch story, thought of you… “Not much,” she said. “Is that why you called?”

  “Partly. And partly to tell you the weather in Hawaii is rotten, the surf stinks, the girls are ugly—”

  “And you just wanted me to know that?” Liv felt laughter rising within her.

  “Sure,” he said simply. “Tell me about Noel’s ball game. Did he get a hit?”

  She was more than a little surprised that he even knew about it, and said so.

  “Of course I know. Remember, we talked about it at dinner, over the chicken-and-rice casserole.”

  Liv remembered kisses at dinner and little else, but she stammered, “Oh, yes, er, well, his team did win. He got a triple, I think.”

  “You think?” Joe sounded horrified. “Don’t you know? Ah, well—” his tone turned philosophical “—my mother never knew how well I did either. Or when I struck out.”

  Liv thought that Joe Harrington’s even having a mother was novel. She hadn’t considered him as a part of a family, somehow. It made him seem far too human. “So what did you do today?” she asked brightly, keeping such thoughts at bay.

  He told her about a marvelous reception at the airport in Oahu and about the fabulous luncheon he had attended.

  “I thought you never ate,” she said. “I thought you gave the speeches while other people ate.”

  “I’m learning to survive on flattery and the smell of food alone,” he told her. “I’ll be nothing but skin and bones by the time you see me again.”

  With a blonde on your arm, in some weekly gossip magazine, Liv thought with a grimness that surprised even her. “Poor guy,” she commiserated. “Want me to send you a care package?”

  “Only if you’re in it.”

  “Joe!” But she knew he was only teasing, and anyway, the threat no longer existed. He was thousands of miles away and her chances of seeing him again, other than in two-dimensional black and white or living color, were virtually nil.

  “Tim’s banging on the door,” he said then, and she heard him put his hand over the receiver and shout, “Come in.” Then he said. “I have to go. I’ll call again.” And he was gone.

  She never did figure out what the purpose of the call was. But it effectively brightened her mood for the rest of the evening. She hummed her way through folding the laundry and even managed to be pleasant to Tom when he called to say there was absolutely no way he could take Noel and Ben waterskiing that weekend as he had promised.

  Joe’s calls kept coming. Not always in the evening. At odd moments throughout the day or night the phone would ring and it would be Joe. They would talk for fifteen or twenty minutes—usually just the banter of good friends—sharing what they had done that day, teasing and laughing, and Liv stopped being surprised to discover the call was from him and came to look forward to it.

  We’re friends, she thought, pleased, and didn’t bat an eyelash anymore when Frances put on her knowing leer and asked if Joe Harrington had called back. It was a standing joke between them now. Frances never knew that, in fact, he had, and that the secret admirer she teased Liv about, whose calls always made her smile for the rest of the day, was none other than Joe Harrington.

  So Liv had no one to talk to about her feelings when the day came that he didn’t call. For over two weeks she had heard from him every single day. And then one Friday no call came. He had been in Miami the night before, and she knew that his schedule would be hectic all that afternoon and evening, so she
had expected to hear from him in the morning. Marv sent her to Sauk City to interview a potter and she didn’t get back till almost noon, but there were no messages on her desk.

  She camped by the phone all afternoon, and while it rang often enough, none of the callers was Joe. Each time it wasn’t, her hopes fell a little further, and by the time she dragged herself out to the car that night, she was convinced that she would never hear from him again.

  After all, who could expect a busy, influential, sexy man like Joe to call and call and call. He was bound to get bored with her and her mundane existence sooner or later. What else could she expect? But it would have been nice, she thought, if he had had the finesse to say, “It’s been nice knowing you,” during their last conversation. Something to let her know that their friendship was over. She stared at the phone during dinner and while she and Noel did the dishes, but it didn’t ring.

  Watched phones never do, she told herself. She decided to paint Jennifer’s room that evening and forget him.

  She tried. She got Noel to watch the younger kids, and coerced Ben into helping her paint. Between them they had three periwinkle-blue walls by ten o’clock.

  “It’s getting late,” Liv told Ben finally. “You go take a shower and get into bed. I’ll finish up.”

  There was only the one wall left to paint and she wanted—no, needed—to finish it tonight. The kids went to bed and the phone was silent and Liv continued to paint. The night air cooled surprisingly for mid-June, lifting the curtains and chilling Liv as she stood in her T-shirt and jeans and regarded her handiwork. There was a storm coming; she could feel it in the air. She laid the roller carefully on the tray of paint and trekked down to her room to find a warmer shirt.

  “Ring, damn it,” she muttered to the phone on her bedside table. But she knew it wouldn’t. However wonderful it had been having a friend like Joe, she knew it wasn’t destined to last. She saw his sweat shirt lying on top of her dresser and her hand reached out to pick it up and rub it gently against her cheek; she still found in it the faint aroma of Joe.

  It’s warm and I’m cold, she rationalized, and he’s never coming back. She slipped it over her head, snuggling into its warmth, pierced by a loneliness she wouldn’t have thought possible, and squared her shoulders and went back to paint.

  She finished by eleven o’clock. The last wall wasn’t as neatly done as the first three. She kept jerking the roller every time she thought she heard the phone ring. It never did, though she had run to her bedroom to answer it ten times at least. By the end of the evening all she had to show for her diligence was a bruise on her shin where she had banged against Jennifer’s toy chest and lots of periwinkle-blue spatters on Joe’s shirt and her own jeans.

  Exhausted and depressed she dragged herself to bed. Stop it, she commanded. But she didn’t. Her eyes ached, her mind ached and she felt absolutely empty. Flicking off the overhead light she kicked her jeans into a heap on the floor and fell into bed. It’s a virus, she told herself. I’m coming down with something. She didn’t want to think about what.

  “Shhhhhhh.”

  Giggle. Creak. Shuffle.

  “Hush.”

  Clink.

  “Is she still asleep?”

  “Stuff it, I said.”

  Liv squeezed her eyes shut against the sunlight. “Go ’way,” she mumbled.

  “See, she is, too, awake.”

  “Barely.” The voice was dry, amused, and very masculine.

  Liv’s eyes flew open.

  Joe stood at the foot of her bed holding a breakfast tray complete with pancakes, bacon and a bouquet of daisies. He was surrounded by a horde of grinning children. Liv dragged the covers up under her chin, stunned and staring. Only the smell of the bacon and the chirp of the flicker in the tree outside the window convinced her that she was really seeing him.

  “Wha… what?” she croaked.

  “Sit up and feast, Sleeping Beauty.” Joe carried the tray around to the side of the bed and stood over her, tall and devastatingly attractive.

  What a dream, Liv thought. It must be possible to smell bacon and hear birds in one’s dreams. Don’t let me wake up, she prayed, but then, in the same moment, realized with dismay that she had.

  “Sit up and eat, Mommy,” Jennifer commanded. “Joe and us made you pancakes and bacon.”

  “They were swell. We ate most of ’em,” Stephen piped up.

  Liv looked from Joe to the kids and back to Joe, feeling rather like a rabbit caught, in a trap. He had his tiger’s eyes again. “How long…” she began. “Where did you ”

  There seemed to be so many questions. Mainly, of course, what was he doing here? He looked tired, despite the grin on his face. He was wearing a pale blue and white striped open-neck sport shirt and a pair of jeans even more faded and disreputable than the ones he’d left on her bathroom floor. And—oh dear, she remembered she was wearing his sweat shirt! She scrunched even further under the covers till only her nose, eyes and tousled blond hair were showing.

  “Just let me get dressed and I’ll come into the kitchen to eat,” she mumbled beneath the blanket.

  Joe shook his head. “Humor us. We shouldn’t have to go to all this trouble to give you breakfast in bed for nothing. I mean how often do you have breakfast in bed?” His eyes were mesmerizing her, drowning her in the deep-green sea of his gaze. It terrified her. Joe Harrington at two or five thousand miles was a wonderful friend—at two feet he was capable of inspiring only panic. But he wasn’t going away, and neither were the five other pairs of eyes that were fastened on her, waiting for her to sit up and eat her breakfast. Slowly, nervously, feeling as if she were disrobing in front of him, she did.

  “Very good,” she mumbled around her first mouthful of pancake, awash in syrup, and six smiles beamed back at her. Then five of them vanished in a flurry because it was really rather boring to sit there and watch their mother eat. The sixth, unfortunately, didn’t move an inch.

  “What a surprise,” she said stiltedly into the silence that enveloped them. “Thank you.” She could have been eating file cards for all she knew.

  “You’re welcome.” He looked excessively pleased with himself, and Liv recalled the misery she’d felt when he hadn’t phoned last night.

  “What are you doing here?” She demanded. “Really?”

  “Would you believe that I came for my jeans and sweatshirt?”

  Liv’s hand went to her breast, her face flamed.

  “But I’ve changed my mind.” He grinned. “The shirt looks far better on you than it ever did on me.”

  “Anyhow, that’s not really why I came.” He stuffed his hands into his back pockets and wandered over to stare out the window, away from her. His back was to her and she traced the line of his shoulders, then let her eyes drop lower to the elbows jutting out behind him and the narrow line of his hips. “I came to find me a house,” he said.

  Chapter Four

  “To do what? What did you say?” Liv looked stunned.

  “A house.” Joe wiped damp palms on the sides of his jeans and continued to gaze blankly out the window, hoping that the famous Harrington acting ability wouldn’t desert him now. He hadn’t felt like such a nervous, fumbling, moonstruck schoolboy in years.

  “Why on earth are you looking for a house?” Liv sat up and set the tray aside on the table, wrapping her arms around her knees like a young girl. He darted a glance at her, taking in the rumpled, defenseless gentleness, and the ache in his insides sharpened perceptibly. He couldn’t even look at her without wanting her. And on that bed! In his sweat shirt! It didn’t bear thinking about.

  He flung himself across the room to the other window and stood leaning against the frame, looking out into the garden, taking deep, slow breaths that some drama coach had once told him would calm him. He hoped so. He needed a bit of calm now. He’d been strung up since he’d met her.

  “I like it here,” he said to the garden. “I want some peace and quiet to work on a screenplay that I�
�m interested in. I’m fed up with emphasizing acting.” Not bad, he thought. His tone was carefully nonchalant, controlled. He managed a slight, self-mocking smile and turned so that she could see his profile. “And there are other advantages in the immediate neighborhood.” He allowed himself a quick, leering glance in her direction, the sort that Steve Scott would have sent his leading lady to let her know she interested him. He only wished he felt as confident of Liv as Steve Scott felt of his ladyloves.

  You’d have thought he was trying to get up the courage to ask a girl out for the first time, he thought. He almost snorted with impatience at his own ineptitude. Liv was looking at him, obviously flustered, the color high in her cheeks. At least he seemed to have put her off balance with his statement as badly as he was off balance himself. Quite likely she didn’t know what to make of him, either. Superstar playboys must be as foreign to her as lovely, normal, sane women were to him. Neither one of them seemed to know how to act.

  “Well,” she said, with the spunk that he had found so appealing the first time he was here, “you had better clear out of my room, then. I’m certainly not getting up and dressing while you’re here.”

  “Why not?” Joe smiled, feeling immediately more confident. This kind of light, sexual bantering came all too easy.

  “I need to think of my children,” she said softly, not bantering at all.

  Joe felt as though she had knocked the breath right out of him. He felt certain she must see the dull red he knew was creeping above his collar. But if she did, at least she was kind enough not to comment on it. It was bad enough that he felt his remark was cheap.

  “I’ll wait in the kitchen,” he mumbled, backing toward the door. “There’re plenty of dishes to do.” He couldn’t get out of the room fast enough, not even when a part of him truly wanted to stay. Scruples? he chided himself. At your age? He shook his head in disbelief and started clearing the dishes off the kitchen table, scraping the plates and stacking them in the sink. But he couldn’t deny it. Something about her made him want to clean up his act. He hadn’t wanted to be caught leaving her house early that morning when he had spent the night, and he didn’t want to embarrass her in front of her kids. He wanted their friendship to be aboveboard, clean, not a gossip monger’s delight. He turned on the water and stared out the window above the sink at Theo and Jennifer, who were playing in the yard. Nice kids. He liked them. He didn’t want to feel embarrassed or awkward in front of them, either, he realized. And that was an alien feeling, too.