Starstruck

by Anne McAllister

  “It’s all right,” Liv said awkwardly after a moment, beginning to understand that his withdrawal had not been meant as a rejection of her. “It’s—”

  “It’s not all right! It’s my life! It’s your life! What right do they have to stick their noses into it?”

  “You earn a lot of money,” Liv said slowly. “I guess they figure they own you.”

  “They don’t.” His voice was murderous. He was cradling the knife across both his hands now, elbows resting on the table as he contemplated it glittering silver and gold in the light. “You know,” he said carefully, “that’s the biggest temptation of Pio and Elena.”

  “What is?”

  “Writing it. Not acting it. Being behind the scenes. Letting someone else be owned for a change.” He sighed and set the knife down on the edge of the plate the waitress had just brought and set in front of him. “This wasn’t exactly how I planned for the evening to go,” he said ruefully. The anger in his voice was fading, replaced by a sort of wistfulness that assuaged Liv’s hollowness better than the best moussaka in the world could have done.

  “I know.” She did, finally. She understood now that he had been as upset about their comments as she had been—and for much the same reason apparently. Suddenly she felt like singing. She smiled at him over the top of her wine glass. “Let’s just forget them,” she suggested, and was amazed that she knew she could. “They don’t matter now.”

  Joe rubbed his eyes. “I’ll try,” he said. He drew his glasses out of their case and put them on. “I thought I’d be over this headache by the time I finished the speech. Seems like they’re going to make sure I keep it a while longer.” His mouth lifted in a faint grin.

  “Perhaps you’re just hungry,” Liv said, but he didn’t seem to relish his meal much either, good though it was. She ate heartily now, enjoying her moussaka to the fullest, but Joe picked at his shish kebob and shoved most of his rice from one side of his plate to the other. When Liv had finished and he was still rearranging his rice, she reached over and touched his hand. “Tired?” she asked.

  “Sort of. Probably a combination of jet lag and stage fright.”

  “Well, if you’re ready to go home, I am.”

  Joe struggled to sit up straighter. “I thought we’d go to the Twelve Apostles Keller later. You can’t miss that.”

  “We can go another night. I’m tired, even if you’re not.” Liv stifled a yawn that she didn’t even have to pretend. “Truly,” she said when he looked skeptical.

  “If you’re sure,” He didn’t look as though he would take much convincing, and when she assured him again that she was, he signaled to the waitress for the check and escorted Liv to the door.

  “God,” he said when they finally got back to Uli’s mother’s flat and he opened the door to let her in, “This is the first night I’ve ever been alone with you, and all I want to do is sleep!” He looked positively disgusted. “Listen to your body,” Liv counseled, and Joe grinned. “You never said that any other night!” he accused.

  “No, but tonight I’ve only got to look at you to know where you belong. To bed, Mr. Harrington. Right now. I’ll see you tomorrow when you’re wide awake.”

  Joe looked forlornly up the stairwell. “You’re really going to make me trudge up two more flights of stairs?”

  “You were the stickler for chivalry,” she reminded him. “Besides, how much rest would you get on Mrs. Carvalho’s couch?”

  “She has twin beds in the bedroom.”

  “And you’d stay in yours?”

  “Well…”

  Liv gave him an arch look.

  He yawned. “All right. You win. When I take you to bed, I want to be awake enough to remember it.” He ducked his head and gave her an almost brotherly peck on the cheek, which only served to emphasize just how very tired he was. She watched as he slowly mounted the curving stairway, wanting to follow him and love him, but knowing that tonight at least the time was not yet right. She heard him open the door of Uli’s flat two floors above her. Then the door swung shut with a soft thud, and, chilled, she eased her own heavy door shut and extinguished the light.

  By eleven the next morning Liv’s second pot of coffee had grown stone cold. Tired Joe might have been, she thought, but this was ridiculous.

  She had got to bed by ten and had awakened early, refreshed and ready to start the day. Knowing that Joe wouldn’t likely be down at seven, she had busied herself writing postcards to Ellie, Frances and the kids. Then at nine she had made the first pot of coffee and had set out Mrs. Carvalho’s rolls and jam, to be ready when Joe arrived, She finished off the first two-cup pot and made another. That one was half gone now and there was still no sign of Joe.

  She poked through Mrs. Carvalho’s cupboards and, finding a tray, set it with a plate of rolls, napkins, butter, jam and two mugs. Then, adding her freshly brewed third pot of coffee, she carefully mounted the stairs to Uli’s flat.

  She rang the bell three times before she heard him shuffling around. “Come on, sleepyhead,” she called thinking that the smell of the coffee would surely wake him up.

  The lock scraped back, the door opened and Joe stood before her, bleary-eyed and unshaven, wearing only a pair of faded denims. “Hi,” he said dully, motioning her in, stepping back so that she could pass him. “I’ve got a headache.”

  She peered at him closely as she passed. “Oh Lord, Joe,” she murmured, setting the tray down on the wooden countertop with a thump. “That’s not all you’ve got.”

  “Huh?” He padded past her into the kitchen and perched on a bar stool, bending his toes around the bottom rung.

  She reached out and touched a tiny clear blister on his cheek. “You’ve got chicken pox.”

  Chapter Ten

  “That’s not even funny.” His head was pounding and he wanted to press his face against her breasts and feel her arms close around him. How could she joke when he felt so rotten?

  “Oh, Joe.” Her voice was wistful, gentle, and she smiled at him the way his mother used to smile whenever he had done something particularly stupid with the best intentions in the world. “I’m not kidding.”

  Her hand brushed softly against the roughness of his cheek, belying the harshness of her words, and he looked up at her stricken. His toes tightened convulsively around the metal rung of the stool. “No,” he muttered. “No.” It was as though someone were clubbing him senseless; his mind was blown, his hopes and plans for the rest of the week in ashes at his feet. He closed his eyes against the pain of it. The throbbing in his temples grew.

  “Oh Joe,” she murmured again, and stepped back to inspect his torso for more of the telltale blisters. Her fingers roved through the hair on his chest, and he felt a shudder course through him. “All those days with all these scabby kids. Why didn’t you say that you hadn’t had them?”

  “I thought I had,” he mumbled. “All kids have ’em.”

  She looked at him in dismay. “Apparently one didn’t. I feel terrible.”

  “You do?” Oh, not her too!

  “Not sick,” she explained quickly. “Just terrible that my kids gave them to you. I feel so responsible. Oh, Joe, I’m sorry!” Then she did hug him, and hungrily he drew her between his legs as he hunched on the bar stool, luxuriating in the silkiness of her hair against his forehead and the cool hands that stroked his bare back. She rained gentle kisses onto his hair.

  “I’m not sorry,” he quipped hoarsely, managing the tiniest of grins. “Not if it gets me this.” But he was, because it ruined everything. He’d had such plans— places to go, restaurants to try, favorite haunts to share with her, a day trip to Salzburg.

  And now there was nothing. His throat tightened as he thought about it. He couldn’t even look forward now to spending the week in bed with her. Who would sleep with a man covered with chicken pox?

  “How about a roll and coffee?” Liv interrupted his self-pitying thoughts.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Too bad,
you have to eat anyway,” she said, and moved away from him to break a roll and butter it. He watched her glumly, remembering that she’d said the same thing to Theo in much the same situation.

  “I’m not one of your kids,” he bristled.

  “Then don’t act like one.” She handed him the plate with the roll on it and then poured him a cup of coffee. “Here.” She thrust it into his hand and then perched on the counter beside him, watching him like a mother eagle while he choked it down.

  “Satisfied?” he asked finally, wiping his mouth on the napkin she gave him.

  “For now. Back to bed with you, I think.”

  Joe groaned, but one glance at her implacable face and he slid off the bar stool and shuffled back into Uli’s sitting room-bedroom and flung himself down on the crumpled eiderdown. “Care to join me?” he asked, wishing that she would. She was standing over him, looking all sympathetic, but he wanted more than that—much more—and he tried to grin, “I bet you’ve never been propositioned by a man with chicken pox before,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “Never,” she agreed. “It’s a first.”

  “Damn.” He slammed his hand into the mattress.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything. Me. You. This.” He managed a shaky laugh. It was better than crying, which was what he felt like doing. “I can’t believe this. Chicken pox!” His fist slammed down again. “I didn’t want it to be like this!”

  She looked at him uncertainly. “It’s all right. I mean, of course the chicken pox are rotten. But I think you’ll be okay if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “It’s not. Anyway, what about you?” He couldn’t contain his bitterness. “What’ll you do all week?”

  “Stay with you.”

  He snorted. “Some holiday that’ll be.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I do. You’d better fly home.”

  She looked at him horrified. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m not leaving you here alone and ill.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  She looked exasperated. “Of course you will. But I’m not leaving you, either, so just drop that whole idea right now.”

  He rubbed a hand through his uncombed hair, blinking his eyes, hoping he masked the relief he felt. “If you want,” he mumbled, ridiculously glad she wanted to stay. It shouldn’t matter that much, he told himself gruffly. He’d got along fine on his own all these years. Surely he didn’t need someone holding his hand now. But, almost without thinking, he reached for her. Her cool, gentle hand slipped inside his hot one, and the other caressed his cheek softly.

  “Sleep now,” she advised. “I’ll go back downstairs. Come down when you feel like it.”

  “Yeah.” He felt her draw away, and bereft, he rolled over onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow, moaning softly as he heard the door close behind her. So much for the romantic American hero who swept his lady off her feet in enchanting old Vienna. He bet Steve Scott never got the chicken pox!

  “Bored yet?” Joe asked when she opened the door downstairs to let him in three hours later. He brushed past her into the living room and dropped disgustedly onto Mrs. Carvalho’s chintz-covered sofa.

  “Not a bit,” Liv replied. She had spent the time writing the rough draft of her Vienna article for Marv and, finishing it, she opted for watching a soccer match on television. “How are you feeling now?” she asked him. He looked slightly better for all that he had three or four more pox visible on his face. He had dressed in a pair of gray corduroy jeans and a light blue polo shirt, open at the neck, and had made an effort to comb his hair, though he had not shaved. Liv found that she rather liked the effect of the stubble. It made him look even more roguish than usual.

  He caught her glance and rubbed a rueful hand across his chin. “Like it? It’s my new look. I can’t shave until these things are gone.”

  “Oh!” The idea startled her. She’d never had to consider that with the little boys. “I hadn’t thought about that!”

  He grimaced. “Neither had I. Bad enough feeling lousy. Now I’ll look it too.”

  Liv grinned. “A little movie star conceit?”

  “No,” he snapped, his voice harsh, and she was surprised by the vehemence of it because she had only meant to tease him.

  “Actually I think you look quite dashing,” she told him. He did—rather like a pirate, a glum, disgusted pirate who’d had a buried treasure snatched from beneath his very nose.

  “Now you do,” he grumbled. “Tell me that in a week.”

  “In a week you’ll look more like a werewolf.”

  “Thanks very much.” Joe looked even more glum at that and she decided that maybe teasing wasn’t the answer. He was taking this all far too seriously.

  “It won’t matter,” she assured him.

  He snorted. “We’ll see.” But she could tell he thought he knew exactly what he would see—that she and everyone else would take one look at him and run for cover.

  “Do you want something to eat?” she asked as he thumbed through one of the magazines she had been reading, then dropped it on the sofa and picked up another.

  “No.”

  “Want to watch a soccer match?”

  “No.”

  “Listen to a tape?” Uli’s mother had a tape deck and some very tempting tapes, but Liv couldn’t interest Joe.

  “No.”

  Who said two-year-olds had a monopoly on negativism? “Go to bed with me?”

  “N— what?” His head jerked up and the green eyes snapped open.

  “Just wanted to see if you were paying attention,” she said lightly.

  “I am now.” His eyes sparkled with amusement as well as with fever.

  “Good. Give me your key and I’ll bring your things down here.”

  “What for?”

  “To move in. You can’t be alone while you’re sick.”

  Joe stared at her for a long moment before he fished in his pocket and handed her the key. “Would you have made the invitation if I were well?” he asked wryly.

  Liv considered this, then met his eyes frankly. “I came to Vienna with you, didn’t I?”

  Joe let out a deep breath. “Yes,” he muttered. “You did.” He shut his eyes and looked suddenly so pained and ill that Liv was concerned.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Super.” It was not convincing.

  “Take it easy, I’ll be right back.” She began to feel faint pricklings of worry. He really did not look well at all. Was it worse, she wondered, if one had chicken pox as an adult? Were the complications more serious? At home she could have called a doctor friend and asked. In Vienna all she could do was bring down his suitcases and wait. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll feel better,” she said hopefully when she returned.

  “I doubt it.” He touched one of the blisters on his face gingerly. “Stephen didn’t. Nor Theo, nor Jennifer.” His hand dropped limply to his side. “Hell,” he muttered. “Oh hell.”

  “It itches.”

  “Yes.”

  “Cripes, here’s another one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn it, how could anybody get them between their toes?”

  “Stop picking at them! And don’t scratch!”

  “Or I’ll mar my handsome movie star face!”

  “Yes, and everyone will say, ‘Joe who?’ this time next year.”

  “The werewolf of Vienna you mean?”

  “Exactly.”

  Joe groaned. “It’s not funny.” He was sitting on the edge of the other twin bed in Mrs. Carvalho’s bedroom, wearing only a short, light-weight blue robe of Uli’s. “Tomorrow” he had not felt better, just as he had predicted, and as more and more pox popped out, broke and began to itch, he had shed more and more of his clothes, until finally only Uli’s robe kept him within the bounds of decency. “Have you counted them?” He sounded incredulous. “I quit at four hundred and twelve, and those were only the ones I could see
.”

  Joe was a dreadful patient. Sometimes, of course, he was stoical, uncomplaining and grateful. More often he was irritable, touchy and worse than Stephen, Theo and Jennifer combined. But when Liv finally said so, he replied fretfully.

  “Yes, well, I’ve got it worse than the three of them combined, too.”

  As this was nothing but the truth, she shut up and brought him another glass of juice.

  He had been sleeping on and off since she had brought his things down the previous afternoon. His head ached and his fever raged, and when she shut out the light and crawled into the twin bed across the room from his that first night, fully expecting at least one provocative comment, she got only a croaked “Good night, Liv” before she heard him shift onto his side and fall into the deep, even breathing of one obviously asleep. He awakened several times, parched and miserable, and Liv brought him juice or water, feeling oddly unselfconscious in her thin nightgown. Perhaps, she thought as she crawled back into bed for the fourth time, because he only saw the glass she held to his lips, never her.

  By the morning much of his fever had subsided, but his irritability definitely had not. He seemed to take each new blister that appeared as an affront to his dignity or his masculinity or some ridiculous thing, and, in spite of her better judgment, Liv found it almost funny.

  Joe did not. “Stop smirking,” he ordered crossly. He glared at her as he sat hunched on the bed, his hands dangling between his knees. Irritably he leaned over and scratched one of the pox on his calf.

  “Baking soda baths help stop the itching,” she reminded him, hoping to find a useful distraction. She and Joe had run countless tubs of water for the children.

  “If you want to look like a prune,” he countered, wrinkling his nose.

  “It’s up to you. Would you rather be a prune or itch?”

  “Some choice.” But he hauled himself to his feet and walked gingerly across the oriental carpet to the bathroom. “God, they’re even on the soles of my feet!”

  “I’ll get the baking soda,” Liv volunteered. She made a dash for the kitchen and began poking through Mrs. Carvalho’s cupboards, sniffing and rattling, trying to decipher the German as much by texture and smell as by the words on the box. At last she found something white and powdery and carried it back to the bathroom.