Lovers

by Judith Krantz

  “A man who doesn’t care intensely what he does could never interest me,” Gigi said slowly, choosing her words with care. “But, Zach, you can’t be so centered on your needs that you don’t realize that what I do is exactly as important to me as what you do is to you.”

  “I do! I would—”

  “Wait. Don’t answer too quickly, Zach. I know that you’d make a valiant attempt to value my work if I made a lot of money at what I did, if I were a success in the eyes of the world. But what if I decided to go to college—I never have, you know—or learn Italian or … oh, make my own pickles or play the piano or hybridize roses—what if that was how I wanted to spend my time? How much would you value what I did then?”

  “I’ve had a whole endless year to ask myself exactly those questions. You were right when you called me a liar and a hypocrite when I promised that I’d take your job seriously—I couldn’t possibly have given you more than lip service. All I could see was that advertising took you away from me, and I tried to make it sound like something no intelligent person could possibly want to do. That was contemptible.”

  “It truly was.”

  He looked at her unflinchingly. “Whatever you choose to do with your life will be as meaningful to me as directing a film. I promise you that with all my heart.”

  “Then that’s one problem settled. One of several.” Gigi paused to see what he’d say next.

  “Gigi, I could shoot myself for forcing myself on you and then … saying that you were asking for rape, that all you wanted was to get my attention.”

  “That really stank. Even Ben Winthrop wouldn’t sink that low.”

  “I can’t say I didn’t mean it at the time,” Zach said, determined to be honest, “only that I didn’t mean it a hundred percent.”

  “What exact percent did you mean it?” she asked with disarmingly wicked interest.

  “Too much. Even one-tenth of one percent was too much. How can I ever apologize?” he beseeched her.

  “Forget it, you can’t. Just—don’t shoot yourself.”

  “Gigi, I know I’m controlling, I’m manipulative, I’m overbearing, and I’m relentless about getting results.”

  “You know all that? No kidding? Still … you’re not all bad.”

  “I’m not?”

  “You know yourself a lot better than you used to,” Gigi said gravely.

  “A year of missing you almost twenty-four hours a day gave me a lot of time to think.”

  “Why ‘almost’?” Gigi demanded.

  “Sometimes I fell asleep—after I’d watched The Way We Were.”

  “The Way We Were? Good Lord, I haven’t seen that in years,” Gigi said in amazement. “Zach, do you think that you’ll ever stop being controlling and all those other things?” Gigi asked quietly.

  “Not … not basically. That’s what I am, that’s my character, it’s all part of a piece. If I weren’t sure of my point of view and didn’t need to make it prevail, I’d be doing something different, instead of directing movies. Maybe we’d both be making pickles, maybe we’d build a huge pickle empire together.”

  “Not bloody likely,”

  “Yeah, that’s going too far. But I promise you one thing absolutely. I will not behave like a director when I’m with you.”

  “Do you truly believe you could be in charge of the universe on the set and then come home and switch all that off?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” he said soberly. “I know I could. You’re not an actor. I’ll never again try to talk you into living the way I want you to live. You own your life. It’s as meaningful and important to you as mine is to me. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  Gigi nodded soberly at his words. She could tell how deeply he meant them. “But,” she asked intently, “what about all those location trips that take you away for more than half the year?”

  “I’d cut down. I can pick and choose my jobs now—so I’d simply stay close to home.”

  “Or … I could come with you, once in a while. We could … oh, God … we could compromise,” Gigi sighed, hating to use the horrible word, but realizing it was only fair.

  “Compromise?” Zach asked, startled. “You’d really be willing to compromise?”

  “Not all the time,” Gigi amended hastily, “far from it, but I wouldn’t want you to turn down a truly wonderful script you were dying to do because it meant a few months of travel. Now and then, that is.”

  “How could you get away from your job?”

  “I’ve decided to freelance,” Gigi admitted. “Immodest as it sounds, I seem to be outrageously in demand. I’m never going back to a regular job. Whatever it takes to be a team player or a businesswoman, I don’t have it. I’ll work on my own things—and, oh, Zach—they can be just about anything I want!”

  “You mean,” Zach ventured, looking at the clear presence of a multitude of possibilities in her eyes, “you could do your work anywhere?”

  “Don’t get carried away,” she remonstrated immediately. “I want a real home, I don’t intend to be the female equivalent of the Ancient Mariner or the Flying Dutchman. And—now listen carefully to me, Zach Nevsky—there are two more things that you have to agree on. First, you can’t be available to needy actors every night of the week. I’m not prepared to share you on a daily basis with your groupies. It’s your own craving to tell people what to do that’s the problem. You’ve got to discipline yourself, cut them down to three nights a week, and throw them out by ten o’clock. I’d like to limit you to two nights a week, but I know you too well, so this is another compromise and I want full and grateful credit for it. Continuing credit … never take it for granted. And second, Zach Nevsky, if you invite people for dinner, I want to know about it well before they show up, and if they don’t know my name I’m throwing them out. Before they eat.”

  “I agree to everything,” he burst out. “I’ll sign any document you want, in blood.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Gigi responded, trying to look away from the shape of his demanding, reckless mouth, wringing her hands together to keep from putting them in his. “I trust your word.”

  “What … what … name were you planning on using for dinner guests?”

  “Gigi,” she said, allowing him to look into her eyes and see his destiny flower.

  “Gigi Nevsky?” he pleaded, entreaty as strong as passion.

  “It seems to have a certain … inevitability …” Gigi whispered, looking at him helplessly. How had she been able to exist without him for an entire year? The rapture of uncomplicated love was wearing down her defenses.

  “May I please come and sit next to you now? Please?”

  “Oh, yes!” Gigi was prodigal with permission, unconstrained, blissfully released from the hard questions that she’d had to nail down once and for all before she could allow this difficult, miraculous, invasive man to once more take charge of her heart as he had so many years ago. Her first real love and, if truth be told, her only one.

  “Darling, I’m taking you home right away,” Zach told her exultantly, in instant command of the situation, now that he knew she wouldn’t mind. “I love you so much I can’t—damn, you left your car at the studio.”

  “No, I didn’t. My father picked me up and dropped me off.”

  “You just … went out, like that, without a ride home?” Zach asked in disbelief. Nobody, absolutely nobody who lived in Los Angeles, would do such a wildly impetuous and reckless thing.

  “What’s so strange about it?” Gigi laughed, with a gesture of noble negligence.

  How long, she wondered, was it going to take before it finally sank in that he’d met his match? She had to give him another few weeks to figure it out for once and for all. Men took longer to understand certain things than women did, Gigi thought, so transfigured by love that she was prepared to be amazingly generous.

  Zach swept her up in his arms and kissed her lips over and over in front of everybody in the crowded pizza place, provoking a
rising storm of cheers, hoots, and whistles. Gigi finally heard them and kicked mildly, in half-hearted protest. Zach finally came to his senses and carried her off to his car. Lying safely cradled against the vast warmth and strength of his chest, she felt so incomprehensibly happy that it was too much to cope with all at once. She turned her mind to details, her head began to spin busily with plans for the wedding, a really small wedding, just Billy and Spider and her father and Sasha and everybody’s kids and Josie and Burgo and … oh, no!—Ma! She could manage Ma, Gigi told herself firmly. And now Sasha would be her sister-in-law as well as her stepmother. Sasha Nevsky Orsini and Gigi Orsini Nevsky? How on earth had that happened? Gigi dismissed the complications in free and airy jubilation. There were so many better things to think about.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JUDITH KRANTZ began her career as a fashion editor and magazine article writer. Her first novel, Scruples, was an immediate top bestseller, as have been all her subsequent books—Princess Daisy, Mistral’s Daughter, I’ll Take Manhattan, Till We Meet Again, Dazzle, Scruples Two, Lovers, and Spring Collection. Her latest novel is The Jewels of Tessa Kent. She lives in Bel Air and Newport Beach, California, with her husband, movie and television producer Steve Krantz.