Betsy smiled. “So what are you doing here?”
Mick looked at Roz. His eyes said what his mouth didn’t have to: get rid of her.
“Can you give us a minute, Bess?” Roz asked her friend. “I think he wants to talk to me.”
Betsy was surprised. Usually the guys picked her first. Roz was usually the one they went to when Betsy turned them down. Not the other way around. “Sure,” she said. Then she smiled at Mick. “Nice seeing you again.”
“Same here,” Mick said with a smile. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Betsy said, looked at Roz again as if it was some kind of conspiracy going on, and then headed for their building’s entrance.
“I didn’t know she was your neighbor,” Mick said.
“Yeah, she is. We live in the same building. That’s how we met.”
“I thought it would be at that acting studio, in your class.”
“That came afterwards. She found out I taught acting and decided she could use some pointers.”
“Is she any good?”
“Actually, she is. She’s one of those natural talents you spoke about.”
Mick nodded.
“Her question, however,” Roz said, “was a good one as well. What are you doing here?”
Mick felt a little embarrassed by the question. It revealed, he felt, more than he ever wanted to reveal. But it couldn’t be helped. “Do you have plans this evening?” he asked her.
Roz didn’t have plans, and she wasn’t going to pretend she did, or that she had to check her calendar first, as if she wasn’t interested. She was interested. When he left her apartment building three weeks ago, she felt as if she had missed some great opportunity. She didn’t like the feeling. This felt like her second chance. “No,” she said. “I have no plans.”
“I have a dinner date with Barry Acker and his wife. I’m sure they have room for one more. Care to join us?”
It sounded almost dream-worthy. The idea that she would break bread with the likes of Broadway Director Barry Acker and his wife. Things like this didn’t usually happen to Roz. “Actually, yes,” she said. “That sounds great. But will I have time to change?”
Mick glanced down at her attire: a nice gray pantsuit. She undoubtedly always dressed nice. But he understood. She wanted to freshen up. “You absolutely have time to change,” he said. “I have some phone calls to make so I’ll wait for you out here. Take your time.”
Roz was pleased to know it was no rush situation. She looked at Deuce, who seemed pleased too. “I won’t be long,” she said, as she made her way across the sidewalk and entered her building. As soon as the door closed, she ran upstairs. If there was a way that feeling like a million bucks could be personified, she was the personification of that feeling.
Mick was sitting in the backseat of the limo finishing up yet another business call when she came back out of the building. He looked at her, intending only to glance, but he found himself looking again. And then lingering in his look. Talk about hot, he thought. She wore a form-fitting black pencil skirt with red piping at the hem, a tucked-in white sleeveless blouse, and matching heels that elevated her average height. Her thick, wavy hair was lifted up and held together by a tasteful pin, while the back of her hair dropped down in curls along her thin neck. The socialites of his past, the wealthy businesswomen and supermodels, did so little with so much. Rosalind was different. She did so much with so little. Because that simple, understated outfit she wore looked more tasteful and ladylike to him than all of those name brand, impractical, and uncomfortable clothes his prior ladies wore as if it were their birthright. Roz looked so sweet to him, and so vulnerable to him at that very moment, that he felt a sudden need to protect her. He felt a sudden need to keep her close. He felt a sudden need to want to do right by her.
Mick ended his business call and got out of his limo before Deuce could get back out and make his way around to the passenger door. Roz was smiling as she came. “Hope I didn’t take too long,” she said.
The way she walked with such bounce in her step, and the way her bright, white, beautiful dimpled smile lit up the night, made it clear to him that she could have taken hours and he would not have complained. “Not at all,” he responded. He was not the kind of man given to sentimentality or any kind of romanticism either, but he felt both tonight.
He placed his hand on the small of her back as she sat in the backseat across from where he had been sitting. He could smell her fresh perfume as she moved past him, and he felt a jolt in his penis when she accidentally brushed against him. If he loved touching her while she was fully clothed, he could only imagine how he was going to enjoy touching her naked body. But all things in time, he thought, as he got on the seat across from her, and Deuce closed the door.
As Deuce got behind the wheel and they began their trek to Jersey, it wasn’t long before Mick found himself slouched, his arm on the middle armrest, and enjoying the fact that she was near. He was a man who always felt tired and on the brink of collapse given his increasingly stressful line of work, but he felt just the opposite around Roz. He felt younger, and vibrant, and bursting at the seams with life and all of its possibilities. It was a strange feeling for Mick, and he was going to savor it.
Roz, too, felt alive and vibrant as they drove to Barry’s house. Although Mick spent a good deal of the ride fielding phone call after phone call, Roz spent that same time observing him. He looked drained to her, as if he was working too hard but had to keep working anyway and nothing or nobody was going to stand in his way. Some women would be offended by his lack of attention, but Roz wasn’t one of them. It was a good sign to her. It was the sign of a man who had his priorities straight. Business and then pleasure. Later, if their association led to something serious, and they actually did become a couple, it would have to flip. Roz would insist upon it. But expecting him to change his style for her now, when he barely knew her, would be ludicrous. Let him handle his business. She was fine with that.
She still didn’t know the true nature of his business, just that he was a businessman, but from the bits and pieces of conversation she couldn’t help but hear, it seemed as if he oversaw a vast empire. She heard him fire somebody, promote somebody, cuss somebody out. He didn’t give a nickel and didn’t take one. Roz was impressed. He could be the most consequential man she’d ever met.
He could also be the most dangerous. She couldn’t say why she felt that way, but she felt that way. He was a bad boy. He’d already made that clear to her. But the fact that he had another side, and she was getting through to that side of him, was exciting. Bad boys didn’t get turned down sexually by some random woman and then show up at her doorstep three weeks later if they didn’t have another side. Mick showed up. He came back.
That meant the world to Roz.
CHAPTER SIX
By the time the limo pulled up at Barry’s big suburban house, Mick was ending his last call. And he waited for the nag. Every woman in his past complained whenever he had to handle business while transporting them to dinner, and he always had to cuss their asses out and remind them that they didn’t mean shit to him and he could put them out right here and right now if they didn’t like it. He was that kind of man.
But Roz proved her mettle again. Because she didn’t complain at all. She seemed perfectly content to sit back and enjoy the ride. Being with him seemed to be enough. Mick wasn’t used to that. And he loved it. She proved her differentness again.
“What are you writing?” Mick asked.
Roz had pulled a slip of paper out of her purse and was writing something on it. “My cell phone number,” she said. “Give me yours.”
Mick smiled at the way she commanded him that way, and then reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, and wrote his cell phone number on the back. He handed the card to her.
“Thanks,” she said, as she handed her number to Mick. “I like to keep the cell phone number of the person I’m out with in case we get separated.”
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Mick smiled again. It would be some trick to get separated like that at a house party, but he didn’t quarrel with her. He liked her efficiency.
Barry Acker and his wife Agnes met them at the door. What surprised Roz was that Barry, a man in his sixties, had a wife who looked younger than Roz. And movie star beautiful too, like a clone of Nicole Kidman, down to the flowing red hair. She wondered if his wife had been one of those brownnosers in one of his plays who had a talent, not for acting, but for wooing directors and producers as if they were born seductresses. But Roz wasn’t going to judge. Maybe it was love.
But when they entered the foyer of the home, and Mrs. Acker made it a point of hugging Mick and then kissing him on the lips, Roz knew better. Love her ass. She was a seductress from way back and even with Barry at her side, she had her sights set on Mick.
Mick, however, immediately pulled back from her, placed his hand on the small of Roz’s back, and pushed Roz slightly forward. “I want you to meet Rosalind,” he said to Agnes. “Rosalind, this is Barry’s wife Agnes.”
Agnes had some acting chops too, Roz thought, because she put on an excellent, Tony-caliber, how thrilled I am to meet you performance. “Hi, Rosalind. It’s so wonderful to meet you!”
“Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Acker.”
She expected Agnes to tell her to call her Agnes or whatever nickname, but she did not. She wanted to keep her superiority intact. But Mick cut her down to size. “Call her Agnes,” he said to Roz.
Roz could tell Agnes didn’t like it, but being the trooper she was, she went along with it. “Yes, please,” she said dramatically. “Or Aggie. That’s what Micky calls me.”
Roz didn’t respond to that. And Barry took over. After finding out what they all wanted to drink, he headed for the bar in the living room while they headed for the sofa.
Agnes placed her arm in Roz’s arm and escort her to the sofa. “Did Micky bore you with silence on the ride over?” she asked. Mick followed behind them. “He’s no big talker, you know.”
“It was a nice ride over,” was all Roz would say about it.
“Yes, but were you bored?” Agnes asked. “Micky never bores me, but I’ve heard from his previous ladies how inattentive he can be.”
But as Roz was about to sit on the sofa, Agnes steered her to the flanking chair. “The best seat in the house for you, Rosalind,” she said, as Roz sat down in the chair. “Or can I call you Roz? Most Rosalinds prefer Roz.”
“Roz is fine.”
Agnes sat in the middle of the sofa, and patted the seat for Mick to sit beside her. He did, but not on the cushion where she was patting, but on the seat beside Roz’s chair. Mick didn’t play games, not even with Agnes.
“So,” Agnes said to him, that award-winning smile again. “I was absolutely blown away when Barry told me you were actually going to come and break bread with us. It’s been such a long time.”
“You know Barry,” Mick said. “He doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“He loves you,” Agnes said. “He worries about you like a brother.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Barry said from across the room, and everybody laughed.
Actresses who worked with him before told Roz that he was a straight shooter who called it like he saw it. He never cast Roz in any of his Broadway productions, only his off-Broadway shows, so he apparently didn’t see any great acting chops in her. But she couldn’t hold that against him. He preferred a certain type of actress, and she wasn’t that type. That didn’t mean she wasn’t a good actress. That didn’t mean she was going to steer clear of every one of his productions. No way. Broadway, and by extension Broadway producers and directors, were as fickle as the rain. One day you’re the toast of the town, the next day you’re just toast. On any given day, any decent actress could get any part. Actresses like Roz lived for those given days.
Mick leaned back and crossed his legs.
Agnes leaned back too, putting herself shoulder to shoulder with Mick. “I was going to set you up with this very nice lady,” she said, “but Barry told me not to do it. He said that was the only way you would come.”
“That’s right,” Mick said.
“I see why now,” Agnes said with that smile again, as she looked at Roz. “She’s lovely.”
Mick looked at Roz too. “I agree.”
“Not the drop dead types I’ve seen you with, but she’s cute.”
The dagger, Roz thought. And Mick looked at her, as if she was going to argue Agnes’ point. But Roz knew her worth. She held her peace.
But Mick didn’t. “I think she’s stunning,” he said to Agnes. “Inside and out.”
Barry, from the back of the bar in the back of the room, watched Mick as he watched Roz. Mick almost never gave his date a compliment like that.
“We weren’t expecting you to bring your own date, however,” Agnes continued. “That’s my point.”
Roz knew this date wasn’t exactly long term planning on Mick’s part, but she at least thought he would have warned their dinner hosts that he was bringing someone with him. But apparently he had not.
“I knew an additional person would not be a problem,” he said.
“But what if I would have defied Barry, as I am known to do, and invited that nice young lady along anyway? This would have been a very awkward situation.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Barry said from behind the bar. “Not for Micky, anyway. He would have told that chick to get lost without giving it a second thought.”
“And by hurting her feelings he would have hurt mine,” Agnes pointed out.
But Barry snorted. He knew his wife too well. “You would have gotten over it.”
“And sooner rather than later,” Mick added, and Barry laughed.
“Very funny,” Agnes said, smiling too.
Barry arrived with their drinks on a tray. Roz took hers, Mick took his, and then Barry gave his wife her drink and sat down beside her. Agnes, Roz noticed, slanted away from Mick and toward Barry.
“So,” Agnes said to Roz, “how long have you known this rascal?”
“About three weeks,” Roz said.
“They met at the auditions,” Barry said.
Agnes looked at him. “Your auditions?”
“Yup.”
“Oh.” Agnes was surprised. “So you’re an actress too?”
“I am, yes.”
“Of any note?”
Roz didn’t realize she had hesitated, but she did. Mick and Barry both were looking at her. “I’ve had some success off-Broadway,” she said.
“When?”
“A few years ago I was in--”
“Not the past, love,” Agnes interrupted her. “The past means absolutely nothing in this line of work. You have to know that. What success have you had lately, not years ago?”
Mick stared at Roz. How did she handle hostility? Because it was clear to him: Agnes was gunning for her.
“I have not had any success lately,” Roz said without flinching.
Agnes seemed to wait for her to give an excuse for her lack of recent success, but Roz didn’t go there. Mick was pleased. Agnes was pissed.
Barry intervened. “Agnes can relate,” he said. “When she was trying to make it she stumbled along too. Until she met me, of course.”
“I wouldn’t characterize my career that way,” Agnes responded. “Unlike her, I had success. And it wasn’t off-Broadway either.”
“No, dear,” Barry said, “it was off-off-Broadway.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Agnes said. “I’ve had great success.”
Barry patted her hand. “If you say so, dear.”
Agnes smiled again and placed an arm around Mick’s and her husband’s. “It’s so good to have my two favorite men together again,” she said.
And it wasn’t until she said that did Mick remember their past. And the fact that he and Barry had had a threesome with her once upon a time, before Barry asked her to marry him. It would not have bothered him a
t all if any other woman was sitting in that chair looking at them. But Rosalind was sitting there. It bothered him mightily.
He remove his arm from Agnes’ entanglement and leaned forward, as if he had to shield Roz from the contamination. It was an absolute rebuke of Agnes, and Agnes and Barry both knew it. Roz knew it too. What she didn’t know was why.
They stayed for dinner, and enjoyed the meal, and Roz even got used to Agnes flirtatious behavior toward Mick. What she couldn’t understand was how Barry was not only allowing it, but seemed to be enjoying it. The sign of a man, she thought, who was doing his own flirting somewhere.
But after dinner, when the Ackers seemed interested in continuing to hang out, Mick said they had to leave. And they knew like Roz knew that when Mick said he was leaving, there was no point in arguing with him. He was already heading for the door.
The drive back was the exact opposite of the drive over. Mick had turned off his phones as they rode in relative silence. She wanted to tell him how much she enjoyed the evening, but that would have been a lie. She enjoyed being with him, but Agnes Acker was a bit much.
“I’m glad you got a chance to spend time with your friends,” she said.
“Thank you. Barry and I go back quite a few years. I own a club he used to manage, before his days on Broadway.”
That surprised Roz. For some reason she never thought of Barry Acker as anything but a Broadway director. “What about Agnes?” she asked. “She seemed very infatuated with you.”
“She’s infatuated with men, it doesn’t matter who.”
Roz smiled. “Really?”
“Really. And I know. Barry seem so enamored with her. And he is. He can fuck any woman he wants, she can fuck any man she wants. They have what they consider a wonderful marriage.”
“They have something,” Roz said, “but I wouldn’t call it a marriage.” Then she looked at Mick. “Were you one of those men?” she asked.
Mick looked at her. To his shock, he didn’t want to admit it. But he was no liar. “Yes,” he said. “Once.” But he quickly added that his taste of her came well before Barry married her.
Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life Page 8
