Lovers

by Judith Krantz

  “That’s fucking sinister,” Vito said after a considering pause.

  “Be serious.”

  “I am serious, kid. He knows about our plan, I assume.”

  “Oh, sure, she didn’t make any secret of it. He thinks it’s a great idea, gives me a lot of credit, says it’s what he’d do himself.”

  “That’s even more sinister than I thought.”

  The day after Melanie had triumphantly completed the second of her big scenes, brilliantly directed by Zach Nevsky, she gave Maggie the long private interview for which Maggie had been preparing.

  “Well?” Vito asked, as Maggie emerged from the hospital room, after her crew had hauled away all traces of their presence.

  “There won’t be a dry eye in the house. She made me cry.” Maggie blew her nose indignantly. “What courage! You were right, Vito. Am I glad I listened to you. And don’t worry, I have some terrific stuff with her and Nevsky, she gave him all the credit.”

  “Stick with me, kid.”

  “I sometimes … almost … wish I had. But it’s too late now, isn’t it, Vito?”

  “Afraid so, my darling. But think how many times we’ll meet again. And in what strange places.”

  “Nevsky, do you have a minute?” Wells Cope asked, approaching Zach outside of Melanie’s room.”

  “Now I do,” Zach said in irritation. “Been enjoying your stay in Kalispell, Cope?”

  “More than you know. But I have a bone to pick with you.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Indeed. When you first found out about the grips, you should have gotten rid of both of them immediately. At once! The minute you knew who they were. That was criminally stupid of you, Nevsky.”

  “Christ! That’s easy enough to say in hindsight, Cope. You’ve got a bloody nerve.”

  “Hindsight? I had to do it on four pictures, Nevsky, and I expected you to have as much sense.”

  “You … you mean she makes a habit …?”

  “Oh, good Lord, you didn’t believe her when she said it was the first time, did you?” he asked, looking at Zach’s face. “By the Almighty, you did, you fell for it. Oh, really, what innocents they allow to make movies these days. She gets off, as they put it so delicately, on jealousy, Nevsky.”

  “She said …”

  “She said she wanted to be free, didn’t she? To be her own woman? She’s always said that. She thinks she doesn’t want to be loved or needed, but that’s just her way of saying she’s the most selfish woman in the world. Melanie needs love … and then she wants to kill it, to grind it in the dust, to watch its death throes, to listen to its final cries of anguish. And then, when that’s no longer amusing for her, she needs to repeat the process. Over and over. It’s a very dangerous way to find pleasure. I’ve told her often enough, but she won’t stop and I can’t make her. So I get rid of the grips—it’s always grips, thank goodness, never actors—and I keep getting rid of them until the picture’s over. I must have bought summer places for half the shop stewards in the IA by now.”

  “Wells?” Melanie’s voice called from inside the room. “Come in here, and bring Zach with you.”

  Melanie was sitting up in bed, still made up for Maggie’s interview. “Did you tell Zach our news, Wells?” she asked.

  “Not yet. I was getting around to it.”

  “When we finish here, I’m going to make another picture with Wells,” she said in her imitable valuable cadence, her fabled climate of seduction. “He’s the only person in the world who understands what an utter monster I am, and I’m the only one who understands what a twisted beast he is—and we forgive each other—so we might as well work together. I’ve thought about it a lot while I’ve been getting better—oh, don’t look at me as if I’ve been hypnotized, Zach.”

  “He thinks I’m some sort of Svengali, darling.”

  “I need Wells and he needs me. But of course the rules are going to be different now. One film at a time, no more multiple-picture deals. Wells is going to let me choose the scripts I want to do, he’s going to let me decide when I want to work and when I want to play, and he’s never going to tell me what to wear to the Oscars.”

  “It sounds like the best of all possible worlds,” Zach breathed incredulously.

  “And I owe it all to you. That’s what I told Maggie, on camera. I knew it would drive Wells mad with jealousy. He pretends not to care, but I know him too well to believe that.”

  Zach looked at Wells Cope and saw a quickly suppressed flicker of pain in the man’s eyes, as if the bright point of a poignard had jabbed his skin. He could almost pity him, Zach thought. But only almost.

  “You both deserve congratulations. I hope you have a long and happy life together.”

  “Thank you, Zach, darling. You are divine. Too bad I was put out of commission … I had such lovely plans for you.”

  “ ‘Only grips,’ Wells?’ ” Zach asked. “Are you so very sure?”

  10

  By the last week in April, as soon as photography had been completed and the cast and crew had packed up and left Kalispell, Maggie MacGregor’s much-publicized news special appeared on the network, drawing such enormous ratings that even Maggie was astonished.

  To Gigi’s surprise, instead of insisting on taking her out, Vito invited himself for dinner that Friday night. After dinner he announced that she and Davy were to join him in front of the television set, resolutely overturning Gigi’s variety of flustered objections. Vito wore a convincing poker face that Gigi, more sensitized than anyone in the world, recognized as personal involvement. Her father was an incorrigible case, Gigi realized, with his way of appropriating the spotlight wherever it was. You might imagine this TV special was one of his own productions, she thought with the special emotion that Vito always aroused in her now, a combination of undemanding, amused love and acute clearsightedness.

  As she had matured from the girl of sixteen who barely knew her father, to the woman who had observed him more and more closely over the years in his many incarnations, usually over a meal they shared alone together, Gigi had become something of an expert on Vito Orsini, not, she realized, a subject that anyone was likely to grade her on, but nevertheless useful if you were his only child.

  “Dad, why are you more interested in this show than you should be?” she attacked blandly, as they waited for the show to begin.

  “Zach’s going to direct Long Weekend for me this summer.”

  “I’ve never heard you mention anything called Long Weekend,” Gigi said, ignoring Zach’s name. “Where is it set—in the Congo, in Australia, in Patagonia?”

  “In Malibu. A fast forty-five-minute drive from here, or three hours, depending on traffic. Never try to drive to Malibu after Thursday night or come back before Monday afternoon, hence the title of the screenplay and the rationale I gave Zach when he asked.”

  “Zach Nevsky?” Davy asked, curious. “What’s he like to work with?”

  Vito glanced swiftly at Gigi’s face and got no message at all from her serene expression. She’s even worse than I am, he thought, appalled, she’s a disgrace. She shouldn’t be allowed out on the loose without a warning sign around her neck. And she used to be such a good kid. Living with Billy all those years ruined her, he thought in a heartfelt moment of paternal feeling. This poor boy hasn’t got a clue. Doesn’t he realize he’s absolutely wrong for Gigi, too normal, too nice? One day—and soon—he’ll bore her, just as he’s bored me, in spite of his sense of humor, in spite of his pleasantness. Undiluted worship, even of my own daughter, gets tedious. It’s unhealthy, for God’s sake.

  “Considering his line of work,” Vito informed Davy, “Zach’s a hell of a good fellow. I can understand why Gigi and he were planning to get married, even if they did break up over some silly misunderstanding six months ago.”

  “DAD!”

  “What?” Vito asked, all injured innocence. “You mean Davy didn’t know all about him, so what’s the big deal? You kids, you’re so stiffly c
ompartmentalized—hey, life is a snowball gathering snow, you roll where you roll, and everything you pick up is what makes you what you are.”

  “You sound like a bad imitation of a fake New Age guru,” Gigi sputtered furiously. “Or Dershowitz defending a serial killer.”

  “Quiet, baby, Maggie’s starting her introduction. I don’t want to miss a word.”

  “Oh, fuck Maggie!” Gigi raged.

  “Now, now, baby, Maggie’s been fucked good and plenty, you don’t have to feel sorry for her,” Vito said calmingly, infuriating Gigi further.

  “When did you start calling me ‘baby,’ you fraud?” she demanded, turning on her father.

  “Shhh,” he said, with a finger to his lips. “Let’s have some quiet here.”

  For the next hour they watched, mesmerized, talking only during the commercials, as the behind-the-scenes footage unfolded and the interviews took place.

  “Wow,” Davy said when it was over, “if the rest of the picture is as good as that, it’ll be the hit of the year.”

  “Oh, please,” Gigi retorted, “Melanie was chewing the scenery.”

  “Gigi, you’re nuts,” Vito said, “she was fantastic, even I bow down to her. She had every bit as much strength and passion as those scenes demanded. I second Davy’s ‘wow.’ She’ll get an Oscar nomination for certain, with a good chance of winning.”

  “I didn’t mean the scenes from the film,” Gig snorted. “They were … convincing—but spare me all the kissy-kissy stuff, the eyes filled with grateful tears while she was so sweetly whimpering to Maggie that she owed it all to Zach, I mean did she really have to cling to his hand and look at him so adoringly? He’s just a director, for God’s sake, he didn’t create her talent.”

  “I don’t think she was putting it on,” Davy protested. “She meant every word of it.”

  “Oh, bull, she was sickening. And Zach looking down at her as if Melanie had just given birth to the Christ Child and he was the Three Kings and all the animals rolled into one … it was a stunt, that’s all. Now we know she can act lying down as well as standing up, what else is new? Doesn’t every woman have to, sooner or later? I thought that part of the interview was grade-A bathos. I’m surprised Maggie didn’t ask tougher questions. And for Maggie to tear up? She should be deeply embarrassed.”

  “Well,” Vito said, getting up to turn off the television, “I’m just glad I signed Zach to direct while the getting was good, ’Bye, kids, I’m off. Thanks for dinner, Gigi. Come and kiss me good night.”

  “What the fuck are you up to, you rotten, meddling blabbermouth?” Gigi hissed angrily in his ear after she kissed his cheek.

  “Me? I just wanted a home-cooked meal, baby.”

  “It’s the last one you’ll get in my house, you revolting old maid!”

  “How come you never told me about Zach Nevsky?” Davy wanted to know as soon as the door had closed behind Vito. His eyes had narrowed into two thin question marks, and his beautiful mouth had thinned and aged.

  “It’s nobody’s business,” Gigi said. “Especially not my damn busybody father’s.”

  “I’ve told you I’ve been in love twice before, but not seriously—I could never have hidden an involvement that almost led to marriage.” He gave a sort of barking laugh that was the opposite of amusement.

  “I have a different attitude about that than you do, Davy,” Gigi said with a long look that took him in frowningly, intently, realistically. “What’s past is past. We started out fresh. I wasn’t interested in your other romances, but you insisted.”

  “Insisted?” He faltered at the word, and then shook his head stubbornly. “It’s not insisting to tell someone you love the important things about yourself.”

  “I never asked you for details, never ever. But you were the one who was curious, right from that first day, remember? You were the one who asked me all those personal questions—”

  “That was Archie and Byron’s idea of a joke, and you know it perfectly well.”

  “You were certainly ready to take advantage of it,” Gigi fumed.

  “Let’s get back to Nevsky,” Davy said stubbornly, with a meanly calculating look. “How long were you together before you broke up with him?”

  “That has absolutely nothing to do with anything!”

  “Did the two of you live here? Is that why you have such a big place?”

  “Davy! Shut up! I refuse to be tormented with questions!”

  He was caught up in an ugly but utterly involuntary mood. “Don’t kid yourself that I believed that story about your ‘need for privacy’—I knew something was going on that you wouldn’t share with me.”

  “ ‘Share’! Now there’s a word I loathe and detest! Shall we invite in the neighbors and all get down on the floor and form a circle and ‘share’ our childhood traumas with each other, Davy? Is that what you want?”

  “Stop trying to avoid my question.” His voice was distorted by the sticky panic and hatefulness of a jealous lover. “All I want to know is why you never told me about Nevsky. Why did I have to hear bout it from your father? I feel as if a part of … of everything … has been stolen, distorted, alienated … because you never wanted to tell me of your own free will.”

  “I still don’t want to! Is that enough to satisfy you?’

  “Gigi! Don’t do this! You’re going away tomorrow to work on The Enchanted Attic, and you know how I feel about that—the very least you can do is tell me about Nevsky.” He grew more and more petty and demanding in his rending distress, unable to stop himself.

  “Davy,” Gigi said, “this is getting ridiculous and absurd—demeaning to both of us. You were miffed at Archie and By at the office Christmas party because they kissed me under the mistletoe … they kissed everybody, even you! Each time I’ve gone up to San Francisco for Indigo Seas, you’ve been suspicious of the Collins brothers, the most devoted family men I’ve ever met. You were jealous of Ben from the first time he came to the agency to look over the setup, and you’ve been getting more and more jealous and possessive ever since, even though you know there’s every reason for me to work on The Enchanted Attic since it was my idea.”

  “Don’t you belong to me? At least a little, considering?”

  “Considering that you want to marry me? I’ve told you and told you I have no intention of getting married. I’m not ready! I may never be! I don’t belong to anyone! It’s intolerable. Don’t ask me questions like that!” Gigi vibrated with her need for freedom, her craving to extricate herself from an ownership she had never wanted.

  “I can’t help it,” he pleaded, “it’s not something I can decide to not feel, don’t you realize that?”

  “I don’t want to mean so much to you! I should never have started this!”

  “No,” he flung at her, “you shouldn’t have!”

  “Oh!” she cried, stung. “You mean it was all my idea? You had nothing to do with it, you went along to be nice to me?”

  “I fell for you from the instant I saw you. I didn’t know I could love anyone as much—but you flirted like mad, you know goddamn well you did, you encouraged me right from the start. You let me make love to you on the rebound, didn’t you, Gigi? On the rebound from Nevsky. That was why it all happened so suddenly. And you don’t have to answer me, I know I’m right.”

  Davy’s face contorted with such grotesque suffering, such absorption in his darkened vision, such concentration on his pangs and perceptions of his injuries, that Gigi couldn’t stay in the same room with him for another minute. He was intolerable. If he’d been a snake she’d have stomped on him without hesitation. A proposal of marriage was a handcuff.

  “I’ve got to pack,” she said, turning to go into her bedroom, “I’m exhausted and I don’t want to continue this conversation. I’ll try to call you from New York.” She closed the door firmly behind her.

  David Melville stood irresolutely in the center of the living room for a minute, and then, afraid of Gigi’s reaction if she should co
me back and find him still there, went down the stairs to drive home.

  Now he knew why she had never let him move in with her or been willing to move in with him; now he knew why she had never let him spend an entire night in her bed and wake up with her in the morning; now he knew why she insisted that he go home to sleep; now he knew why she only wanted to make love on the sofa in the living room; now he knew a million things he had never wanted to know, but had feared without daring to ask himself why.

  Gigi was too angry to go to sleep at all that night. She filled a suitcase with jerky movements and then dumped its contents on the carpet in irritation, knowing that she was taking all the wrong clothes for New York. She rummaged through her closets in disgust, finding heaps of other clothes that were just as unsuitable. She tried, without interest, to invent new combinations of old things, turning California dressing into Manhattan dressing, and then jammed a selection of clothes into her suitcase at random, since it didn’t matter what she looked like anyway on a strictly working trip that would be as short as she could make it.

  She was so furious, as she got ready to go to bed, that her hands shook as she brushed her teeth. She should have known her father was up to something when he proposed coming to dinner at her place instead of picking a restaurant, something he’d never done, although she’d invited him often enough. He knew perfectly well she wouldn’t want to watch that infernal show of Maggie’s, but he’d been so persistent that she’d been trapped.

  But to tell Davy about Zach! It wasn’t a secret, why the hell should it be, but who’d asked her father to get into the act? What was he up to? What right did he have to be up to anything? But Vito never said anything without a reason. Granted, he didn’t know about Davy’s sick jealousy, but he’d talked about her and Zach as if they’d been children. “Some silly misunderstanding” indeed! Patricide had never been so understandable or desirable.

  As far as Davy was concerned, it was over. Tonight had been the end. She wouldn’t go through another one of these scenes. It was becoming impossible to remember the Davy with whom she’d had so much fun during those first months at FRB. Now, whenever she stopped at Bagel Central, the big food table in the main corridor of the agency, to trade office gossip with the group that invariably gathered there, he’d trail along as if by accident, and if he found her in conversation with any man, from the latest office boy to Archie himself, he’d join the talk, using all sorts of subtle but unmistakable body language to indicate that there was something more than creative teamwork between them.