The Cast

by Danielle Steel

  Maeve went back to see her then, Agnes went with her, and then Nancy joined them. And Abaya a little while later. The four women sat together and took turns comforting her and holding her, and telling her how sorry they were as Kait just cried and nodded. All she could think of now was how beautiful Candace had been, what a sweet child she was, her first daughter. It was unthinkable, unimaginable that she was gone.

  The others left the set long before Kait left her trailer with her four friends right behind her, and they drove her to the hotel. She had thought of going back to New York that night, but there was nothing there except her empty apartment. She was better off here with them, until Tom called her to say he was ready to leave London. Kait called Stephanie from the hotel, and the others left her alone to talk to her daughter and cry. Stephanie said she’d come home in two days. And this time, Agnes said she was spending the night with her.

  “You’re just trying to get even with me for sobering you up,” Kait joked through her tears, and Agnes laughed.

  “No, I just like your hotel better. And your TV is bigger.”

  They all sat with Kait until long after midnight, and she felt like she had her family with her. Zack called and she talked to him, but afterward she couldn’t remember anything he’d said except that he was sorry, and he was crying. Everything that happened to her was a blur. And finally, at sunrise, she fell asleep as Agnes sat watching her.

  They canceled shooting for the day, with Zack’s permission, and he told Nancy he didn’t care what it cost them. They could afford to take a day off. Kait never left her hotel room, and the women she was close to came and went all day and sat with her. And Tom called her to say he was in London, and would be in New York in two days.

  Two days later the whole cast gathered around in silence when she left, and she saw that some of them were crying. She was planning to take a week off, until after the funeral, and Zack told her to take as much time as she wanted.

  It was hard for the others to go back to shooting without Kait. Her absence was sorely felt, and her sorrow weighed on them, but their performances were moving and wonderful, and all their compassion for her came out in how they acted. Maeve and Agnes particularly did one of their best scenes since they’d started shooting.

  When Kait got home, she called a funeral home and started to make arrangements. They were going to hold the service in a small church near the apartment, and Kait was working on the obituary when Stephanie walked in, rushed into her mother’s arms, and burst into tears.

  Tommy landed at midnight that night with Candace’s body, or what remained of it, in a casket. Kait had a hearse waiting for them at the airport to take her to the funeral home. They had decided to keep the service private. Kait couldn’t face her daughter’s childhood friends. Tommy and Maribeth were at the apartment by one A.M., and they sat around the kitchen table, it was nearly four when they went to bed. Kait couldn’t sleep, and neither could Stephanie, and finally they climbed into Kait’s bed together, and were still awake when the sun came up.

  Kait sent the obituary to The New York Times the next morning, and the BBC was planning to deal with the British papers. They made an announcement on the air, with a touching tribute to her, which they sent Kait by email.

  The church service Kait had arranged was a brief agony compared to all the rest. The shock of her death had been brutal. The family spent the weekend together. And on Monday, barely able to tear themselves away from each other, Stephanie went back to San Francisco, Tom and Maribeth flew to Dallas, and Kait sat in her living room, lost. She felt as though her life was over. Nothing mattered anymore.

  The cast was back in the city by then, and they were planning to start shooting on Long Island on Wednesday, but she felt too disconnected to talk to them or go back to work. Carmen and Paula Stein from Woman’s Life had called her when they saw the obituary, and were devastated for her. Jessica and Sam Hartley sent her flowers. And so did Maeve, Agnes, and Nancy. Zack had sent a huge arrangement of white orchids to the funeral home, from him and the entire cast.

  Kait felt as though a part of her had died with her daughter. Tommy had arranged for Candace’s things to be packed up at her London apartment and sent home to her mother. She couldn’t bear the thought of going through them when they arrived. Every inch of her soul seemed broken. They had not only blown Candace’s life to bits, but Kait’s as well.

  Agnes called her that afternoon to make sure she was all right, and Maeve shortly after. They were relieved to be back in New York, and so was Kait. Both women offered to come over, but Kait said she wanted to be alone. She didn’t have the strength to see anyone. Suddenly everything except Candace seemed unimportant.

  Kait was sitting in her kitchen two days later, thinking about her friends in the cast, when suddenly she wanted to be with them. They were her family now too. She put on jeans and a T-shirt, didn’t bother to put on makeup or do her hair, and, wearing a pair of sandals, drove out to Long Island. They were shooting at the airstrip that day. It was Phillip Green’s final scene as Loch. Everyone looked shocked when they saw her get out of the car, and they all rushed toward her. Candace had been gone for a week by then, and Kait felt as though she hadn’t seen them in months.

  Agnes walked toward her as the crew went back to work, and she smiled at her. “Good girl. I knew you’d come. We need you. And that asshole is cheating on Abaya again,” she said to bring her back to the present, and Kait laughed. She felt decimated inside, as though a part of her were torn where Candace had been ripped from her, and the rest of her was just a shell around the wound, but it felt good to be with them. She had brought a bag so she could stay at a nearby hotel if she didn’t want to go home that night. And after she watched Phillip Green’s last performance, she thanked him before he left.

  “Nick Brooke will be here tomorrow,” Maeve reminded her, as they walked along the airstrip during a break.

  “Oh shit, I forgot.” Meeting him seemed so far away now.

  “He’ll only be here for two days to shoot his part in the final episode.” They had booked him at a time that worked for him since he had a busy schedule. And they would continue shooting other episodes after he left.

  “How’s Charlotte doing?” Kait asked, concerned.

  “Still bitchy, but impending motherhood has improved her slightly,” Maeve said with a grin. She didn’t like her, but she was a decent actress, and a necessary evil on the show, just as Dan was.

  “Agnes says Dan’s cheating on Abaya again. Who’s he after this time?” Thinking about it was a good distraction.

  “One of Lally’s assistants. The one with breasts the size of my head.”

  “And Abaya doesn’t suspect it?” It was a relief to talk about the problems of the set, instead of thinking night and day about Candace.

  “Not yet. She’s convinced he’s changed and she’s madly in love with him. She has a nasty shock in store when she figures it out.”

  Maeve went home to check on Ian that night, which was what she liked about working on Long Island, and she was glad to relieve her daughters for a while, so they could get out and see friends. Agnes and Nancy had dinner with Kait at the hotel. They didn’t mention her daughter, but they could see how ravaged Kait was. She still wasn’t herself.

  She went for a long walk alone on the beach the next morning, before she came to the set, and when she returned, she saw a crowd of people around a car, and a man in a cowboy hat get out. There were often fans hanging around the outer perimeter of the set once they knew who the stars were. A moment later, as they cleared a path for him, she saw that it was Nick Brooke. He looked no different than he had in Wyoming, and he smiled when he saw her at the edge of the crowd and approached her with a serious expression. He waited until the others had given them some space.

  “I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter, Kait. I read it in The New York Times. I’m gl
ad I met her.” Kait nodded with tears in her eyes and couldn’t answer him, and he gently touched her shoulder.

  “Thank you” was all she managed to say, and accompanied him to his trailer so he could drop off some things.

  “I want to write to Tom and Stephanie if you give me their email addresses.” She nodded in answer, and they went into his trailer. He looked satisfied as he glanced around, but he was anxious to see the old planes and went to find the hangar where they were kept. She followed along with him, and they walked in silence until he saw the planes, and gave a whoop of pleasure. “I like planes almost as much as horses.” He examined each one, and they were there for a long time before they wandered back. By then she had regained her composure. It felt like seeing an old friend, and it meant a lot to her that he had met Candace on their Wyoming trip. Kait smiled remembering that Candace had wanted to fix him up with her mother, which Kait didn’t tell him. But the warm, easy connection they’d had in Jackson Hole had followed them to Long Island.

  She introduced him to the rest of the cast when they got back, and he and Maeve chatted for a few minutes, and he told Agnes how honored he was to meet her. He liked Abaya immediately, and was gracious to everyone he met. At lunch, she told them about watching him ride the bucking bronco, and he laughed.

  “I got nailed by a good one two weeks ago. I think I may have cracked a rib,” he said, putting a finger on it gingerly. “Maeve had better be gentle with me in our love scene or I’ll cry.” The others laughed when he said it. Maeve was in good spirits because Ian had been doing better when she saw him that morning.

  Lally got Nick’s costume pinned and rapidly sewn for him, and by one o’clock, after they lit the scene, they were ready to start shooting. It was his opening scene with Maeve, and they were breathtaking together as she saw him for the first time when he came to meet her, as a friend of her late husband’s, and asked her for a job flying cargo. The moment was electric and by the end of the episode, passion had overwhelmed them. There was instant magic between them on the set. It ended just as quickly when Nancy gave them the sign to cut, and started again with the next take. It was fascinating watching them work. They were the best actors Kait had ever seen, with the exception of Agnes, who left everyone speechless every time she had a scene to perform, but she had none today. All the action was between Nick and Maeve. They worked straight through till six o’clock with only one brief break, and Becca and Kait sat on the sidelines following the script. Neither one of them ever missed a single line.

  “They’re amazing,” Becca whispered to Kait, who nodded in agreement. She almost wondered if they’d ever had a spark of romance between them in real life, they were so convincing in their roles, and the chemistry between them was like fireworks. They were a joy to watch as they brought the characters to life, whether fighting or falling in love. All of Anne Wilder’s years of loneliness erupted in passion in the scene with Nick.

  “That was a great, great day,” Nancy complimented them both, as Maeve headed to her trailer to take off her makeup. The head of production ran up and shouted that he had an important announcement to make, and everyone stopped in their tracks and waited to hear what it was.

  “Zack just called from L.A. The network just greenlighted us for season two!” He was ecstatic. It was big news. “They didn’t even wait for the ratings. They love us! They want a full twenty-two episodes right off the bat this time!” It meant that the network was thrilled with what they were doing and thought the show would be a hit. Becca and Kait were already writing the second season and had several scripts complete. “Congratulations, everyone!” There was a hubbub of conversation as people talked about it and hugged each other, and Kait was delighted too. At least the show was doing well, even if she felt as though she’d been hit by a wrecking ball. It also meant that Nick would be with them for the second season.

  He had dinner with the principal players that night. They went to a seafood restaurant nearby and drank a fair amount of wine, except for Agnes and Kait. Agnes was solidly sober again, and Kait didn’t think she could handle alcohol in her fragile state. Nick sat next to her and kept a close eye on her all night, and afterward walked her back to her hotel. The others had either gone ahead or lagged behind, and Nick and Kait found themselves walking alone.

  “I’ve thought about you a lot since your trip to Jackson Hole,” he said quietly. “I had a wonderful time with you and your family at dinner.”

  “So did we,” she said, remembering it, and what a gracious host he had been at his ranch.

  “You’ll be going on hiatus soon. Maybe you could come back again. Wyoming is beautiful in the fall,” he said, but she didn’t want to think about traveling at the moment, she wanted to stay close to home. And she had promised to visit Stephanie in San Francisco, and Tom in Dallas. “I’d like to see you again, Kait. Not just at work.” He was making his interest in her clear. “We’re going to be busy when we start shooting again. And maybe you could use some downtime now.”

  “I’m feeling kind of lost at the moment,” she said honestly, “like everything inside me is broken, since last week.” He nodded, and his eyes were kind when he looked at her. “It’s going to take time.” She wondered how much time, if Agnes was still heartbroken about her son forty years later. Kait had the sense that there would always be a part of her missing now. The piece that had been her daughter.

  “I’ve got things to do here occasionally. Let’s try to get some time together, and you have an open invitation to the ranch if you want to get away,” he said, as the others caught up. Dan walked by with an arm around Abaya, and Nick spoke softly to Kait. “What’s with that guy? I get a bad feeling about him. He feels as phony as a three-dollar bill to me.”

  “You’re right on the mark,” she whispered back. “He’s cheating on her, and she’s the only one who doesn’t know it. She’s madly in love with him.”

  “She won’t be for long when she figures it out.” It made Kait think about the story he had told her, about the wife who broke his heart. It happened to most people at least once, and hopefully never again.

  Nick was staying at the same hotel she was, and he walked her to her room and said good night with a warm smile. She knew she had long hours ahead, wide awake. She hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since Candace died. “A walk on the beach in the morning?” he asked her. “It clears my head before I work.”

  She nodded and disappeared into her room, and it was another painful, restless night, but she got a few hours’ sleep before the sun came up. He called her in her room then, and reminded her of their walk. Ten minutes later, she was outside waiting for him, and they headed for the beach.

  “Bad night?” he asked her, and she nodded. He wasn’t surprised. “Are you feeling guilty, like there’s something you could have done to stop it?”

  “No, not really, just sad. She had the life she wanted, and she knew the risks. Her life just wasn’t long enough for me. I don’t think she’d have given up her job, even if she knew how it would end. I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and Tom is right. It was a choice she made, just not one I liked. Your kids are who they are, right from the minute they arrive. She wanted to change the world all her life.”

  “Is that what you want to do with the show? I’ve read all the scripts. There’s some great stuff in it.”

  “Thank you. I just want to pay tribute to how brave some women are, how hard they fight to do the right thing, even in a world that doesn’t understand them or want them there.”

  “Isn’t that what Candace was trying to do?” he said gently.

  “I never thought about it that way,” she said pensively. “My grandmother was that kind of woman.”

  “So are you,” he said. “Women have to fight a lot harder to get where they want to go than men do. It’s not right, but that’s the way the world is. You have to have the strength to open the doors you wan
t to walk through and then have the guts to walk in. It’s still a man’s world in a lot of ways, although most people won’t admit it. I’ve been reading your agony columns. You give good advice.” He smiled at her. “Maybe Candace was trying to do what your grandmother did, in a different way. Maybe you are too. You raised a great family, Kait.”

  But now part of it was missing. Candace would never be there again, that was what hurt so much. She was never coming back. She had gone to fight her wars and died trying.

  “Your story about the Wilder women is about winning when no one will let you play,” Nick continued.

  She liked the insights he had into her story. “My grandmother fought to save her family. She gave us all an incredible gift. Not the money, although that was nice, but she refused to give up and be beaten, and she saved all of us, not just her children, but three generations. She wasn’t lucky with her own kids.”

  “It works that way sometimes,” he said, as they turned back. He had to be in hair and makeup soon. “Your kids are great. All of them. Candace was too.”

  Kait nodded, and they walked along until the hotel was in sight again. “Thank you for saying it,” she said softly.

  “Thank you for picking me for this project,” he said, and she smiled at him.

  “Thank you for accepting it.”

  “I almost didn’t. But something told me to do it. Maybe my intuition.” They went back upstairs to get what they needed for the day, and he drove her to the set in the car he’d rented. She left him in hair and makeup and went to her office in the trailer, and was startled to find Abaya waiting for her, crying. Kait suspected what was coming. Long overdue.

  “I think he’s cheating on me. I found a pair of red women’s underwear on the floor of his car last night. He tried to act like he had no idea how they got there. He must think I’m an idiot.”