by Ward, Susan
Lying back on the bed, I grow impatient as the phone rings and rings and rings. Shit, I don’t want to go to the service. Answer the phone, Maria!
“Parker residence.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Maria. It’s Linda. How are you?”
“Chica, it is good to hear your voice. Señor Jack will be so happy to talk to you.”
I frown. Maria has that worried tone of voice. She may be only the housekeeper, but there isn’t anything that happens with the Parker family that she doesn’t know about.
I sit up, suddenly anxious. “Is everything OK?”
“Ah, Chrissie,” is all she says.
My anxiousness moves to alarm. “What do you mean, ah, Chrissie? Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened. Not really. The fighting. It is not good for mi niña.”
Fighting; Jack’s court battle with Walter.
“Has something new happened that I haven’t read in the papers?” I ask more impatiently.
“No. It is just that mi niña is very, very sad. She does not talk to her father, but she is very troubled and Señor Jack is very worried. I think she knows what is happening. I do not know how she knows. Señor Jack he does not talk about Señor Walter. It is not good for a child to know this.”
I shake my head, a touch exasperated. “There is no way for her not to know, Maria. It’s in the papers. Kids are rotten. It’s unavoidable with all the press this is getting that someone would say something to her about this.”
“I do not like this fighting.”
The way she says that pierces my heart. Jack doesn’t deserve any of this. None of them do. I feel an almost crushing wave of sympathy for Chrissie and I haven’t even met the girl.
“I don’t like it either, but it will pass. I promise, Maria. There is not a judge in the world that would take Jack’s daughter from him.”
“I hope you are right,” Maria says sadly.
“I am. Is he there? Can I speak to him?”
“He is working. He is in the studio. It will take me a moment…”
“No, don’t interrupt him,” I say quickly over her. “I can call tomorrow.”
“Señor Jack says whenever you call I am to give him the phone. Does not matter what he is doing. Linda comes first.”
My heart does a pleasant little flutter, and I relax back into my pillows, waiting. I can tell by Maria’s heavier breathing and silence that she’s moving through the house toward the studio.
I hear the sound of a door opening and then music. The music shuts off.
“Hello?”
Jack. A smile fills my face. “Hey stranger, it’s Yolanda.”
A low, husky laugh. “Oh, somebody misses me tonight.”
“I miss you every night. I even miss you sometimes during the day.”
“Always a wisecrack.” A long pause. “I miss you too, baby. I wish you were here.”
The way he says that makes tears rise behind my lids. “I wish I were there, too. You doing OK, Jack?”
“Better. Now that you called.”
I can tell by his voice that he’s smiling, but I can also hear that he’s worn out by all the goings-on in court.
“Tell me about your day,” he asks.
“No. I want a happy thought.”
I hear laughter and a squeaky door opening this time. Ah, he’s on his way out to the patio to sit in a lounger and stare at the ocean while he talks to me.
“A happy thought, huh?” Jack murmurs. “I dreamed about you last night.”
I make a face at the phone. “I didn’t say a nasty thought. I said a happy thought.”
Jack laughs. “The nasty thoughts are happy thoughts. However, I didn’t say it was a nasty dream.”
“No?”
“No,” Jack counters firmly. There is the sound of wind and the ocean whispering through the phone now. He’s on the cliffs. “I dreamed that you were here and we were sitting on the cliffs at night together and you were laughing. I love your laugh, Linda. It was nice to have you visit happy in my dreams. See, not nasty at all.”
I curl around the phone. “No. Definitely not nasty. Definitely a happy thought. And you avoided my question. Are you doing OK?”
He lets out a ragged sigh. “You see the papers, Linda. No need to rehash what you’ve already read.”
I crinkle my nose. “It’s not that bad, Jack. It won’t even be a footnote in anything anyone ever writes or remembers about you. You’ve done too much good, for too many people, for anyone ever to waste ink on this.”
“Well, they are spending ink by the barrel loads these days. They like to build you up, Linda, but they love even more tearing you down. I don’t give a shit about me. It’s Chrissie I’m worried about.”
“Screw the press, Jack. How is Chrissie?”
“She is still with Walter in Pasadena for the summer. I’ve gotten to visit her twice. She hardly spoke a word to me. I don’t know what sort of crap Walter is telling her, but she becomes more withdrawn every day. I get Chrissie back next week until school starts at the end of September. And as for how my baby girl is, well, I would say sad, worried, and hating me.”
“Jack, she doesn’t hate you.”
“You haven’t seen how she looks at me.”
I make a sympathetic face even though he can’t see it. “I don’t need to. There is no way that girl hates you. You are a wonderful father.”
Another heavy exhale of breath.
“Wonderful father or not, I’m about to be put under a microscope,” Jack says solemnly.
“Microscope? I don’t understand.”
“Walter requested a psychologist’s evaluation of Chrissie, me, our relationship and my parenting before the next hearing and the judge approved the motion, Linda.”
“What?”
“Yep. Random visits through the month of September so they can submit a report before the next court date.”
“This is insane,” I exclaim, half in anger and half in disbelief.
“Insane, but it’s going to happen. Which brings me to my next unpleasant tidbit of news.”
I tense. “What?”
“I can’t travel to the UK in September to see you as we planned. I can’t risk not being here with Chrissie and having the psychologist arrive with me gone. Earliest I can get to you is mid-October. I’m sorry, baby.”
“Oh, Jack,” I whisper, fighting the lump in my throat. “Don’t you dare apologize to me. I’m sorry you’re going through this. But we both know that Chrissie has to be the priority.”
“We have so little time together and Walter’s managed to fuck even that up.”
He sounds angry and mildly defeated.
I slowly run my tongue over my dry lips as I search for the right words. “Walter can’t fuck up anything where we’re concerned. It’s just a delay. Nothing more. I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”
“I love you too, Linda. I’m all in. I don’t think I could make it through this without you.”
I smile sadly. “I’m all in, too.” In an effort to lighten his mood, I add, “And you are in for big trouble in October. Two months without seeing you is long enough. Three months could be downright dangerous for you.”
Jack laughs. “I’m looking forward to it, Yolanda. In October I’m all yours.”
Pleasant tingles move along my nerves as flashing images of being with Jack fill my head.
“Definitely dangerous for you,” I whisper. “At least a dozen times a day I think about packing my bags and hopping a plane home. I’m miserable without you.”
“Are you doing OK?” he asks.
Jack sounds serious and concerned. Shit, he doesn’t need more dumped on him by me. He’s going through enough right now with Chrissie, Walter and the court battle.
“I’m great. Just homesick and missing you,” I say. “And very ready for this tour to end and school to start.”
“Ah, so our young supe
rstar in the making is still giving you a hard time, is he?”
I scrunch up my face. Crap, I don’t want to talk about Alan Manzone.
“The kid is rude, obnoxious, and goes out of his way to abuse and offend everyone. And yet everyone jumps through hoops for him. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. They all put up with it. The label. The promoters. The manager. Everyone. He kicks them in the face and they say do it again.”
“They see dollars, Linda. The potential for big money makes everyone crazy enough to eat shit. The kid is brilliant. A once-in-a-generation find. They all know it. They are desperate to latch on and get a piece of him.”
“Well, I’d like him in pieces,” I state in exasperation. “If this tour wasn’t almost over and if I didn’t need my job, I’d quit. Alan Manzone gives me nothing but fits 24 hours a day.”
“You don’t need the job, Linda,” Jack says quietly. “I’ve always been willing to help you in any way you’ll let me. I plan to spend the rest of my life with you, taking care of you. I’d do it now if you’d let me.”
“I’m not letting you take care of me. I don’t want this discussion again. It’s important to me to take care of myself. I take care of me, Jack. Those are the rules of being with Linda.”
He sighs heavily. “You’re a frustrating woman. Have I ever told you that?”
“About a million times,” I tease.
Jack laughs. “So is the kid just giving you shit or is he trying to hit on you too, sweetheart?”
My cheeks flush as the picture of Alan on the bed with his lovelies flashes in my head. Every muscle in my body tenses. I rapidly assemble a response that isn’t a lie.
“That’s ridiculous. I’m too old for him. He’s barely nineteen. Why would you ask that?”
“You’re a beautiful woman, and you’re only twenty-two. You’re nearer his age than mine. If I were him, I’d hit on you. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”
“You did hit on me,” I remark playfully, hoping to change the subject away from Alan Manzone. “And you did it exceptionally well.”
“Exceptionally well, huh? Good, because I plan on keeping you.”
His voice is light, but a hint of something puts me on edge.
“You don’t have to plan on keeping me, you’ve already got me, Jack.”
“Do I?”
That question surprises me and my muscles tense. “Of course you do. Why would you ask that?”
A long pause. A heavy sigh.
“I’m sorry,” Jack says heavily. “This being apart is making me a little crazy. These days it feels like I can’t hold anything together in my life. With all the shit I’m making you go through with me, I don’t know how you put up with me.”
“There is no shit with you, Jack. There is nothing but wonderful. All the nonsense happening now is not your fault. You bring nothing into my life but happiness.”
“I just wish this were behind us.” Jack sounds grim again.
“It will be soon. And you are my happiness, Jack. That’s what you are to me.” A deliberate pause. “Oh, and really great sex.”
Loud laughter floods the receiver. I smile.
“Just great sex?”
I start to laugh also. “I’m not telling you how good you are. Especially since it won’t do us a damn bit of good because you are not here.”
Jack’s laughter slowly melts and fades away. “You’re right. Not a good thing to do. I am very ready to see you.”
“I’m very ready, too.”
“I love you, baby.”
“I love you, too.” I check the clock. “I should let you get back to work. I really need some sleep. I have an early day tomorrow.”
“Pleasant dreams, sweetheart.”
I hear the phone click before I answer him, and I smile sadly. After losing both his wife and son, Jack hates to hear goodbye. There is always a click before I can say it.
I set the phone onto the base and refill my wineglass. I should be sleeping. Tomorrow will be another grueling day of Manny. I grab a document from the bed, a summary report on Alan’s life, and start to read:
Alan Wells has lived his life on stage since birth and probably hasn’t known a second of the real world in nineteen years. The most promising and talented in the third generation of a renowned British theatrical family, he spent his childhood in an elegant flat that was more like a museum, where your fingers got slapped if you touched anything, called his mother Lillian, and spent his days learning Chekhov instead of Dr. Seuss.
By the age of six he’d moved from stage to cinema, and carried on the bony shoulders of a boy the pressures of an industry giant: endless work, endless high expectations, the endless stress of having an entourage of people depending and making their livelihood off him. In a period of three years, he starred in nine movies.
Lillian had been a grotesque mother, dragging her sweet young son—who would have preferred to stay in his room composing music—to a never-ending stream of rehearsals and performances. When he refused, she was brutally manipulative, mental warfare her most accomplished skill since ruthless intelligence runs in the family, though she was not beyond physical abuse when the situation required it. If he had a bruise on his face when it was time for the cameras to start rolling, the artistry of makeup concealed expertly from the viewing millions that his life was little more than hell.
He can bring emotion to the surface with such sincerity most of the time you will not know if it is true or untrue. Tears, laughter, and his smile are mastered inventions of his craft.
He severed ties with his family at the age of eighteen, leaving behind a nine-figure bank account, and disappeared. The Oscar he won at age eight was the first thing he hocked when a heavy addiction to heroin had exceeded his meager savings. He surfaced a year later playing with a band in some of London’s least fashionable clubs, with a new name and a new look far removed from that clean-cut English urchin who had at one time claimed six figures even if he walked onto the set to speak two lines.
His whereabouts from age ten to eighteen are unknown.
Christ, this reads like a nineteenth century British novel. Frustrated, I toss the report on the floor and then shove the rest of the papers there with it. Who cares why Alan is fucked up? It doesn’t give him a right to be so hideous to people.
I climb beneath the blankets and turn off the light. So Alan Manzone had a fucked-up childhood. Do they expect me to care? Who didn’t have a screwed-up childhood? Fuck, growing up I never knew my dad and I was raised in Reseda.
Three
Who the hell is pounding on my door? I quickly rinse my hair but the soap runs into my eyes. Wincing, I rapidly rub the towel hanging over the rail against my lids, trying to stop the burn.
The pounding has stopped. Crap, I didn’t need to hurry and then get shampoo in my eyes. I’m about to ease back into the hot stream of water when there is another imperative rap of knuckles against wood.
Fuck, this had better be an emergency. Irritated, I shut off the shower, hastily wrap the towel around my head, and take another from the rack, securing it round my body without drying off.
Hurrying across the bedroom, I note that it’s only 9 a.m. I jerk the door wide.
“Rough, sleepless night, love?”
I don’t know which surprises me more, that Alan is here early or that he’s smiling.
“Sod off,” I snap before I can stop myself.
Those black eyes begin to sparkle. “You shouldn’t say such things, Linda. It doesn’t sound at all charming coming from the mouth”—his thumb lightly brushes my lower lip and a current of electricity jolts through me—“of such a beautiful American.”
More than a little rattled by being touched by Alan and definitely on full alert with his body just a smidge too close to mine, I fight desperately not to show it as I arch a brow severely.
“Go away. The car is at ten. I’m not ready to deal with you yet.”
He
laughs and brushes past me into my room.
“You asked me to be on time,” he says, turning back to face me. “And here I am. Dressed and ready to be handled by you another day. And you are still not happy.”
Through my capering senses I note that I’m still clutching the door for support and staring at him. He’s dressed in the type of clothes he wears for interviews. Tight leather pants and a flowing white shirt that reminds me of something I once saw Jim Morrison wear in a photograph.
And crap, if Alan doesn’t look even better in that shirt. There is something about him that gives anything he wears a look of sexy chic. It’s probably because he was raised with money. Jack has it too, the ability to toss on anything and have it look casually chic. Alan: sexy and chic. Jack: casual and chic. Both men epically beautiful.
I shut the door. Alan settles on my couch without asking if he can and pulls from his pocket a pack of cigarettes.
He lights one and stares at me through the smoke. “You can finish dressing. You won’t disturb me. Not a bit.”
Rude, arrogantly spoken and yet tingles move along my nerve tips. He watches me through the smoke, takes another long drag, and in defiance of my want, my gaze locks on his lips as he lets the white puff slowly curl from his mouth into the air.
“You’re full of surprises today,” I say, moving toward the bathroom. “Unpleasant as always, but punctual for a change.”
He laughs. “I’m always punctual, love. It’s half the reason everyone tolerates me.”
I refrain from rolling my eyes. No one gives a fuck if he’s punctual. Have you looked in a mirror, Alan? That’s the only reason anyone ever tolerates you.
I go to the bathroom, grab my modest, full-length white robe and quickly shrug into it. I tie the belt tightly around me and then unwind the towel from my head. I give my hair a few fast rubs to remove the dampness, and scrunch my curls with my fingers.
