Is Wolfe alive? Some people believe that he faked his death. And that the money you got was to buy your silence.
On screen, King gave Pierce a dreamy smile. That was the worst part for me. That smile. Frozen, fake, condescending, utterly unconvincing.
No, that’s untrue.
Wolfe is dead?
He’s dead. It’s in the book, Pierce. It happened just like I said. Don’t go looking for ghosts.
That was good advice. The trouble is that the last time I went looking for a ghost, I found one. Sonny.
“Go to bed, Julie,” Garrett suggested. He was watching me as I sat, lost in my thoughts, empty coffee cup in hand, chocolate on my lips. Go to bed. Yes, I wanted to be in bed, but I didn’t want to go alone. I wanted him to hold me and ravish me. I wanted us both to be naked.
“I need to take a shower,” I said.
“I’ll leave you alone,” Garrett told me.
“No, stay, please.”
He hesitated. “All right.” I could see him wondering about my intentions. I’d been urging him to go, but now I was asking him to stay.
I swayed getting up. Garrett held out his arms as if to catch me, but I didn’t fall. I made it to the bathroom and closed the door and turned on the water for the shower. I bunched my dress and pulled it over my head and dropped it in a silky pile on the floor. Bra followed, then nylons and bikini panties, and there I was, the way I was brought into this world. Steam gathered over my nude reflection. I stepped inside the shower and soaped myself until I was slippery with bubbles. I rinsed off, feeling at least partially human again. I thought: I’m naked, and he’s a man, and he will want this body.
After my shower, I brushed my teeth and slipped into a black, flowered kimono that reached to my mid-thighs. A lot of damp mocha skin was showing. My hair was wet. I swallowed hard as I opened the bathroom door. I wasn’t thinking particularly clearly, and I didn’t really have a plan. I sat down next to Garrett, and neither of us said a word. I was very conscious of my clean bare body under the robe, which had traveled dangerously far up my legs.
Let’s be honest: I was extremely horny.
He stared at me. I wondered what he was thinking. Was he getting aroused with me here, obviously offering myself to him? Or did he not know what was going on? Men are obtuse about such things. In my mind, I was wearing a neon sign that flashed a message like a downtown parking lot. “Enter Here.”
I expected his eyes to wander. I was giving him a lot to look at. I could feel a drip of water traveling in the valley between my breasts. Don’t you want to see where it goes, Garrett? Don’t you want to reach out and touch it? But no. I may as well have been his ugly cousin.
“How are you feeling?” he asked again.
“Better,” I said. “I’m better.”
“Good. I should go. You need some sleep.”
What did I have to do? Stand up and take off my robe? I could have taken a hint, but no, I had to make it worse. I had to make him explicitly reject me. “You could stay,” I said.
There. No games. Stay and make love to me. I tried to sound seductive, but I haven’t had much practice lately.
“I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked him.
Oh, my God, how much worse can I make this? Stop talking! He doesn’t want you, Julie!
“You know why.”
“No, I really don’t. I’m naked under this robe. You get that, right? I’m saying I think we should have sex. You and me. Is that really such a terrible idea? Can you really say you’ve never thought about me that way in all these years? What is it? Oh, Jesus, you’re not gay, are you? I’m so sorry. Is that it? I can’t believe I didn’t know. I didn’t think you were. Are you? You must think I’m an idiot.”
Let’s try this one more time.
STOP TALKING!
I finally took a breath and shut up, which is like hitting the brakes after you drive off the cliff.
“Julie, I’m not gay,” he said, laughing at me again.
“So you’re simply not attracted to me.”
“You’re drunk,” he reminded me patiently.
“I’m not going to claim you took advantage of me.”
“And yet that’s what I’d be doing,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s just one night.”
“I know, and that’s not what I want from you, Julie.”
“What do you want?”
Garrett stood up. He patted my cheek, and I felt like I was twelve, with a crush. “I’ll see you at the office.”
He left me on the sofa, and I felt angry and rejected. Hell hath no fury like a celibate who gets shot down trying to break her vow. At least I knew now that there would never be anything between us.
Or did I?
I heard Garrett hesitate in the doorway. I wondered if he was having second thoughts about my offer. He looked at me on the sofa.
“Have dinner with me tomorrow,” he said.
A date? I volunteer to spread my legs for a man, and he asks me out on a date?
“Okay,” I said.
I tried to sound non-committal and hard to get, which is tough to do when you’ve already suggested sex.
He smiled at me again, and then he left without saying anything more. We had a date, our first date. At least, I think it was a date, but I wasn’t sure. I got the feeling it was harder for him to ask me to dinner than it was for me to ask him to bed. I also got the feeling that saying yes to a night of risotto and wine was a more serious step with Garrett than letting him inside me.
I had no idea what I was doing. As usual.
I’d also forgotten one itsy-bitsy little problem.
I already had a date for dinner tomorrow night. With Thad.
20
It was too much trouble to find my nightgown, so I slept without it. I didn’t even make it under the blankets. My alarm went off ten minutes after I closed my eyes – or that was how it felt to my brain – and I staggered out of my bedroom with mussed hair strewn across my bare torso and my lower body neatly trimmed and on full display.
I don’t usually sleep in the nude, and I picked the wrong night to start.
“I’m pleased to see you’re waxing, my dear,” my mother said.
I screamed.
Cherie Chavan sat on my sofa, right where I’d unsuccessfully tried to seduce Garrett a few hours earlier. She had a cup of tea in her right hand, and my apartment smelled of jasmine. Her owlish reading glasses were pushed down her nose, and she had a neatly folded copy of the Wall Street Journal in her other hand. She observed my body over the tops of her glasses with a mother’s curious interest.
“Three pounds,” she said. “I’d say you’re three pounds heavier than when I saw you last. Don’t worry, though, it gives you the cutest little pooch.”
“I do not have a pooch,” I said.
Cherie gave me a condescending little smile and returned to the Journal.
I ran back to my bedroom, brushed some semblance of order into my hair, and slipped on a sensible cotton robe instead of the sexy kimono that sat in a pile where I’d sloughed it off as I collapsed into bed. I checked myself in the mirror. Definitely no pooch, at least not when I sucked in my stomach. I came back to the living room, and after I kissed my mother’s cheek, she poured me tea.
“I prefer coffee,” I said.
“Tea is better for you.”
“I don’t like tea.”
“Tea has anti-oxidants, and it reduces stress. You look like you could use both, my dear.”
That was probably true. I sank down into an armchair opposite the sofa. I wasn’t sure if I was hung over or still drunk. Either way, I felt like road kill. I humored my mother by sipping tea, which tasted like brown water.
“How did you get in here?” I asked.
“You sent me a key years ago,” Cherie told me. “Remember?”
“No.”
“I told you that if I came to New York and went to your apartment a
nd you were being attacked by some hideous serial killer, I wouldn’t be able to get inside and rescue you. So you sent me a key.”
I did remember. Sending her a key seemed the lesser of two evils compared to listening to more of those stories. Honestly, I never thought she’d use it. (Note to self: Have the locks changed.)
“I meant, when did you get into New York?” I asked.
“I took the red eye.”
My mother is the only person in the world who can get off a red eye flight looking just as good as she got on. Maybe better. Her makeup was perfect. Me, I get bags under my eyes when my noon flight arrives twenty minutes late. Her hair, which is as jet black as mine but much shorter, looked as if she’d stopped at Jeffrey Stein for a blow out on the cab ride from LaGuardia. She wore a red long-sleeved blouse dotted with flowers and a gray skirt, both pristine, like clothes recently unwrapped from a dry cleaner’s plastic bag.
I spotted a garment bag hung over my bathroom door.
“You’re not thinking of staying here, are you?” I asked. “I don’t exactly have room for guests, mother.”
Cherie rolled her eyes. “No, dear, don’t worry.” She gazed unhappily at my apartment, as if she assumed cockroaches were in my kitchen, and added, “What do you pay for this place?”
I told her.
“That’s outrageous,” she informed me. “Who can afford to live here? New York prices are out of control.”
“Yes, and Malibu condos are such a steal,” I said.
“Well, at least you get a view of the beach.”
I sipped more tea. Little tea bits floated on the surface. I do not like bits of things in my beverages. “So what brings you to town, mother?”
“Oh, this and that. Bree and I need to pow-wow about Paperback Bitch, now that Kate is out. Such a shame. She would have been perfect, and she’s fine with nude scenes, which is a must. Bree does get naked a lot in that book.”
“With my fiancé,” I pointed out.
“Water under the bridge, my dear. Cate Blanchett is too ethereal for the part, wouldn’t you say? Blunty is young, but she could pull it off, don’t you think? I like her, that little spitfire. If we go young, we could get Freida to play you. I imagine you’d like that.”
“I want to play me, so I can slap Bree,” I said.
Her tongue clucked. “My, you really hold on to grudges, don’t you? You get that from your father, cheating bastard that he was, may he rest in peace. You need to be more ‘live and let live,’ like me.”
That comment was so outrageous that my mouth dropped open in horrified disbelief, but before I could protest, Cherie marched on.
“Anyway, Bree and I are having lunch. She’s over the moon about all the publicity involving King Royal’s book. Nice job on that, by the way. The man is one weird flower, but it will sell well. Bree and I are jawing over film rights. Would you like to join us?”
“No, thanks. You’re thinking of optioning Captain Absolute for the movies?”
“Thinking about it.” My distaste must have shown on my face, like eating an old piece of sushi. “I thought you’d be pleased, my dear. Movie deal equals more book sales.”
“Just because I’m selling it doesn’t mean I’m a big fan of King or the book,” I said.
“No one says you have to like it. You just have to make money off it. My goodness, where did you get all these principles? It wasn’t from me. That must be Sonny’s influence, too. Mr. Literary Lion. Anyway, voila, here I am, in town to see Bree. And you.”
Don’t forget Thad.
“Oh, and of course, I have to see Thad,” Cherie went on, with a just-us-girls wink. “He told you about our little production venture, didn’t he? It’s not often that actors have two brain cells in their head for business, but Thad is a natural. I hope you don’t mind my little conspiracy about the play, but I gather it worked out well. He tells me you’re having dinner with him tonight. Excellent, excellent. I’d take you out myself, of course, but I want you two to get to know each other again, and three’s a crowd. That’s why I came straight here from the airport so we could have breakfast together.” She swallowed down the last of her tea and checked her watch. “Shower and make yourself presentable, Julie. Hurry now. I made reservations at Sarabeth’s. I don’t want to miss the lemon-ricotta pancakes.”
“About Thad,” I said.
“No need to thank me, my dear. Happy to do it. He’s scrumptious. I just needed to get past that stubborn little hide of yours. Once you saw him, I knew you’d melt. What a team we’ll all make! It’s very exciting.”
“I may need to re-schedule dinner with him,” I said.
Cherie’s face hardened like plaster in a death mask. “Excuse me?”
“Something came up.”
“What?”
I wasn’t going to tell her that I’d drunkenly made another date for the same night and that, in my heart of hearts, I’d rather go out with Garrett. “A work thing.”
“Change it.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
My mother stripped her glasses from her face in annoyance. “Julie, this is important to me. You will keep this date with Thad, is that understood? I’m not asking much of you.”
“No, you just want me to sell West 57, move to Los Angeles, work for you, and marry Thad. Right?”
“Did I ask you to commit to any of those things?”
“Actually, yes,” I said.
“It’s one night.”
“Yes, and it’s my life, mother, not yours.”
That was the wrong thing to say. It was perfectly true, but it was wrong. Cherie leaned forward, and her dark eyes shot lasers at me, and her volatile temper squirted out of her like she’d stepped on a packet of ketchup. I remembered her fights with Sonny in the old days and how I wanted to cover my ears.
You cross Cherie Chavan at your peril.
“Of course, it’s your life!” she roared. “Did I say it wasn’t your life? No! What is my sin, you tell me that! Is it a crime to want you to be happy? Foolish me, I set you up with a man you once loved, who is now as rich as Daniel Craig and looks like him, too. So sue me for interfering, Julie Chavan! Do you know how many women want this man? Do you know how many women would strangle a puppy for the kind of opportunity I’m offering you? You are in a rut, rut, rut, rut, daughter of mine, and you will not see the truth until someone tattoos it on your forehead. You are sitting in Sonny’s office while the whole publishing industry crashes around you, and you don’t know enough to get on a plane and rescue yourself from this Godforsaken place. Well, enough of this, I say. No more of this nonsense. I have sent you your prince on a white horse, and the least you can do is take one night out of your lonely little life and RIDE HIM!”
There were a lot of things I could have said to that speech.
There were a lot of things I wanted to say to that speech.
Instead, I said nothing, because there was nothing to say. My silence was surrender. We both knew I would have dinner with Thad. I couldn’t say no to her. Cherie slapped both hands on her legs and gave me the warmest smile a mother can offer, because she was always gracious when she won.
“Well! That’s that! It’s such a pleasure to see you, my dear. Now into the shower with you. Sarabeth’s awaits.”
My mother was right about Sarabeth’s. The lemon-ricotta pancakes were terrific. I was finally able to get coffee, too. The restaurant is near 80th and Amsterdam, and it was a sea of people squeezed into a tiny space, but they all know Cherie, even though she lives a few thousand miles away. My mother knows how to make an impression. When you get your first hundred-dollar tip, you remember the Indian lady from Hollywood. We got the streetside table by the windows.
After brow-beating me into submission over Thad, Cherie waxed nostalgic. We talked about the past. Me and her. Me and Sonny. Her and Sonny. She had a way of reinventing every story from their marriage to make herself look good, or to make a 15-round knockdown at the Garden as insignificant as a pillow fi
ght. I didn’t care. I really did miss my mother. I had lost one parent, but I still had another parent in my life, and the distance between the coasts felt long, particularly when we were seated together across a small wooden table.
It wouldn’t be so bad to see her like this every day. Right?
Like I say, she annoys me and dominates me, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.
I don’t really remember the good days between my parents. I was too young. People have told me that Sonny and Cherie were a New York glamour couple in the 1970s, and I’ve seen photographs, and I can see why. They were BPs, cultured and ambitious, dressed to the nines, on the invitation list for every see-and-be-seen party from those days. Both of them came from family money back in India, so they started their Manhattan lives in the right neighborhoods. Sonny became an up-and-coming editor at Knopf, with a personal recommendation from Bennett Cerf, and authors and reporters flocked to him for his XXL personality. Cherie was more than just the beauty on his arm. She was a shrewder businesswoman than Sonny ever was, and she still is. She traveled back and forth between the coasts even then, working up film deals on books that Sonny published. They were the king and queen of the Upper East Side. For a while.
By the time I began to remember things as a child, Sonny had started West 57, and life with Cherie had become a series of royal battles. If gunpowder lives in a house with matches, sooner or later, bad things happen. I hated it. The arguments made me crazy. If truth be told, I blamed my mother. I was Daddy’s girl, and she was the one who finally abandoned me and moved west. It didn’t take long for me to learn that there was plenty of blame to spread around for the divorce, and most of it wound up at Sonny’s feet. Or, more precisely, in his bed.
I made the mistake at Sarabeth’s of asking why Cherie stayed as long as she did. It’s not like Sonny waited until the 1980s to begin sleeping around. I figured, she was loyal, she was old-fashioned, but that wasn’t it at all.
“Oh, no, it was the sex,” Mother informed me. She’d rolled one of her pancakes up like a pinwheel and was cutting it into perfect circles. “The man was a horse in bed, my dear.”
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