Neighbors

by Danielle Steel

  “Will you think about it?”

  “I don’t know…I was finished with all that years ago.”

  “It would be incredible to have you and Julia in the same film.” Meredith laughed at the thought.

  “Julia making her entrance, and me making my exit.”

  “It doesn’t have to be an exit. You can come back anytime you want. Your fans would go nuts.”

  “I don’t want to make a comeback,” Meredith said firmly. “Let me read the script for Julia’s part, and the sheer pleasure of it. And I’ll let you know what I think when I’ve read it, but don’t get Julia’s hopes up. I doubt I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah said, sounding grateful. She sent the script digitally a few minutes later, and Meredith read it that afternoon. The part for Julia was a fantastic opportunity, and the one for her was intriguing and challenging, a role she would have enjoyed doing, but she just couldn’t see herself making a film, even for Julia. She tossed it on her desk, and Charles noticed it that night.

  “What’s that?”

  Meredith gave him a rueful look. “A movie Julia is going to be in and I’m not. It’s a great script for her. She’ll be a big star after that, or well on her way.”

  “How do you figure into it?” He looked confused.

  “They offered me a part too,” she said in a choked voice. “It’s a very interesting part. But I’m done with all that. I don’t want to make a comeback, like some pathetic old thing trying to cling to fame.”

  “You don’t need to ‘cling,’ you own it. Would you have to go on location to do it?”

  “Just to L.A. They could shoot me in three or four weeks.” Julia had sent her an email that afternoon, begging her to do it, once she knew Meredith had the script.

  “I think you should do it,” he said, excited by the idea. Meredith looked doubtful.

  “I told them I’d think about it. I think it’s a bad idea, for me. No matter how good the part is. The critics will stomp all over me for trying to make a comeback. I don’t want to make a fool of myself, even for Julia.”

  “Can I read it?” She handed it to him, and he read it that night.

  “Meredith, you have to do it. The movie is going to be fantastic. It’s an all-star cast. Your granddaughter is in it. And I want to see you in it.”

  “You’re crazy.” She laughed at him, and he kissed her. “I’m not going to do it,” she said stubbornly, and he ignored her and didn’t comment. She wanted it clear. In her mind, she was no longer an actress.

  It took her three days of long walks, hot baths, grumbling, and thinking of every reason why she shouldn’t. In the end, Julia made the difference. If it was Julia’s life’s dream to be in a film with her grandmother, how could she resist? She sent Sarah Gross a text on the fourth day. “I’ll do it. Top billing, or first name to appear alone on the screen, not billed as a cameo.” She wasn’t coming back to do a cameo after fifteen years. She wasn’t dead yet. Charles laughed when she said it to him. And she agreed to let Sarah Gross represent her. She liked her, and it would be simpler than looking for a new agent, since hers had passed away years ago.

  * * *

  —

  The producers treated her like returning royalty when Sarah told them she had agreed to do the film. The part was a natural for her. Charles said he was proud of her for having the courage to go back. Julia screamed when Meredith told her. Once she accepted, Meredith was excited about it too. It gave her something wonderful to look forward to. She was going to be making a movie in L.A. in June. It was due out at the end of the year, and the fanfare would be tremendous. And best of all, she was making Julia’s dream come true, to work together. Daphne was right. She was a good witch after all.

  * * *

  —

  Meredith hired a famous acting coach to work with her for three months before she had to be in L.A. to start shooting. She wanted to fine-tune her skills again, and try out some nuances for her interpretation of the part. In the end, she and the director were in such harmony about how they viewed it that Meredith felt she had delivered one of the best performances of her career. She finished her role in three weeks, and she had three days of shooting with Julia. It was a thrill for her to watch Julia grow and progress, as she sat on the sidelines on the set. It was one of the most fulfilling films Meredith had ever worked on and she was proud of the performance she’d given.

  In July, she and Charles went to Europe for three weeks, after she finished, and after that, they visited his daughter, Pattie, and her family in Texas. They were nice people. And they visited his son, Jeff, in Germany when they were in Europe.

  They spent as much time as they could in the Napa Valley in August. They had a lovely summer.

  * * *

  —

  Andrew’s trial was set for September, eleven months after his first arrest. They had combined the two cases, and he had hired a hotshot lawyer to defend him. He was known for his ability to create doubt in the jurors’ minds.

  Andrew had been deemed competent to stand trial, and Tyla was dreading it. It was going to be a circus, and they all knew that Andrew was going to lie through his teeth.

  Jury selection was scheduled to start right after Labor Day. The district attorney was still offering Andrew a deal if he pled guilty to a lesser charge. They were offering him two years in prison, but he would lose his medical license forever, and he wasn’t willing to do that. His license was on hold for now, but he hadn’t lost it yet, and wouldn’t until he was convicted. He had been arrogant in all his court appearances. But if he went to trial, and was found guilty by the jury, he could get up to eight years in prison, if they ran all the charges consecutively. It was a tremendous risk for him, and Charles was surprised that his attorney would allow him to take the chance. He wasn’t an appealing defendant. Beating his wife almost to death and terrorizing his children were not acts that would win the sympathy of a jury.

  Tyla had met with the assistant district attorney assigned to the case many times in August. She was their star witness, and she’d have to hold up on the stand. She had lost ten pounds from worrying about it over the summer. Meredith was going to attend the trial with her. Peter, Arthur, and Ava had promised to be there to support her too.

  Tyla was barely sleeping at night. Andrew’s lawyer had finally gotten him released on bail in June. He had put up the deed of their house against five hundred thousand dollars’ bail. Since he had paid for the house, the mortgage was in his name, and Tyla hadn’t filed for divorce yet, so he could do that. She was going to file the divorce after the trial. Her lawyer had said she would get a better deal if he was convicted, so she had waited. And in the meantime, the court order was still in effect giving her monthly spousal support and child support from Andrew’s considerable savings, although his legal fees were eating a massive hole in what he had.

  His medical license had been suspended, so he didn’t have anything to do, and couldn’t see patients. Since his release from jail, he had been granted four visits with his children, with court supervision, but they had refused to go, and had begged their mother not to send them, so they hadn’t gone. By the end of August, he hadn’t seen his children in ten months and blamed it on Tyla.

  Meredith and Charles were having breakfast with Tyla in the kitchen, two days before jury selection was to begin. Will and Daphne had started school the day before. Tyla was deathly pale as she sipped her coffee and read the paper, when Tyla’s cell phone rang, and she saw that it was Angela Luna, the assistant DA. Tyla looked pained as she answered. The upcoming trial had been devouring her life for months. All she wanted now was for it to be over.

  The assistant DA asked Tyla if she could see her.

  “Now? We’re just having breakfast.”

  “I’m already in an Uber, five blocks from where you’re living.” Tyla didn’t particularly like he
r, and the assistant DA was furious at the deal the DA had offered Andrew, with only two years in prison, but he wanted to get rid of the case. She wanted to try him, see him convicted, and send him away for twenty years. She was a bulldog, but her heart was in the right place.

  Tyla told Meredith and Charles that she was on her way.

  “Do you want us to leave?” Meredith asked her immediately, and Tyla shook her head.

  “There’s nothing you don’t know about the case.” The doorbell rang as she said it. Charles went to answer it, and brought Angela into the kitchen. He offered her a cup of coffee and she declined. She looked serious and sat down across from Tyla for what she had to say.

  “It’s over, Mrs. Johnson. I wanted to come to tell you in person.” Tyla was staring at her as though she’d seen a ghost.

  “What do you mean ‘over’? Did they dismiss it? Or did he take the deal?”

  “Neither one,” the assistant DA said solemnly. “The deal is off the table, as of two hours ago. Apparently Dr. Johnson has been seeing a woman since June, when he got out of jail. She’s a schoolteacher at a Marin County school. He’s been staying with her. Two weeks ago she asked him to move out, because he’d been threatening her and drinking to excess. He gave her a black eye last Monday. He put the threats in writing by email and text, and spray-painted the word ‘whore’ on the side of her house. He thought she was cheating on him. He broke into her home last night, and beat her unconscious. She was taken to Marin General Hospital. He was gone when a neighbor went to check on her and found her. They just picked him up. His prints are everywhere. She died two hours ago. He confessed. Because of the threats he made, it’s first-degree murder, which could get him twenty-five years in a maximum security prison. The DA just offered him twelve years, ten for the murder of the schoolteacher, and two for your case, and the loss of his medical license. He’ll never practice medicine again. He took the deal. It doesn’t give you justice to the full extent of the law, but he can’t hurt you again, he’ll be in prison for the next twelve years and you don’t need to go through a trial.” Tyla looked shocked when she finished. She seemed dazed. Meredith and Charles were too stunned to speak.

  “He killed her? What am I going to tell my children about their father?”

  “It could have been you, Mrs. Johnson. What he did last night is a terrible thing, but he could have come here and killed you, or killed you last October. He belongs behind bars. He’s in custody now. He’ll be going to prison in a few days.”

  Meredith came to sit next to Tyla and put an arm around her shoulders. She looked as though she didn’t understand. Andrew had killed a woman. Maybe he really was insane. She had no idea how to explain it to the children, but they were afraid of him too. And thank God he hadn’t killed them.

  The assistant DA stood up, and Tyla thanked her. She said she would be in touch about any further details. But her case had been resolved by his pleading guilty to both cases, and the assistant DA was satisfied with the twelve-year sentence, and hoped Tyla was too. It wasn’t long enough but it avoided the agony of the trial. She still had to divorce him. Her lawyer had advised her to go after the remains of his savings and the house, and he believed she’d get it, which would give her financial security for herself, Daphne, and Will.

  There was silence in the kitchen after Angela left, as the three of them looked at one another. Meredith was remembering when he had gotten her by the throat and banged her head against the wall, and the condition Tyla had been in when he’d almost killed her. She felt sorry for the schoolteacher in Marin, but she was grateful that her friend had been spared.

  “Do you want to go upstairs and lie down?” Meredith asked her.

  “No, I’m so relieved that I don’t have to go through a trial, Andrew isn’t walking around free, and he won’t get out of jail for a long time.” In twelve years, Daphne would be nineteen and Will twenty-three. They had a chance to grow up in peace now, and no one was going to beat her again. But all three of them were shocked about the woman who had died.

  It was a terrible story, for Tyla, for her children, for the woman he had killed. But it was over now. They never had to see him again. She, Daphne, and Will would feel the effects of what they’d been through for years. But they could start over now and begin to heal. And miraculously, Tyla and her children had lived through it, unlike the schoolteacher. They were free of him forever. It was all she wanted, and felt like justice enough to her.

  Chapter 16

  The producers had sent a private jet to pick up Meredith and Charles in San Francisco. It was a G500, and they had a hairdresser and makeup artist on the plane with her. Meredith had brought a long black Dior evening gown with her, and high heels, and she was going to dress on the plane, and go straight from the airport to the premiere. Charles was already wearing his tuxedo. There would be both red carpet and a press conference at the premiere. Julia was planning to attend with an actor she knew. Her father had flown out from New York, and Kendall had sent her regrets, and said she had the flu. Julia said she was sure her mother had never intended to come, but maybe it was just as well. She would have been like the evil witch in a fairy tale, given how she felt about Hollywood. Julia was the fairy princess. Meredith was so proud of her.

  She got her hair and makeup done on the short flight. It was in a sleek bun, and the dress was very flattering. The heels made her almost as tall as Charles. There was a black Rolls with a driver waiting for them on the runway, to whisk them to the theater. It reminded Meredith of the old days.

  “You look beautiful,” Charles whispered to her in the car. Their bags were being taken to a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where they would spend the night, and go home on the same plane in the morning after a press breakfast Meredith had to attend with her granddaughter. The press had been playing up the multigenerational aspect, which had been the whole point of her doing it.

  Meredith headed down the red carpet on Charles’s arm as soon as they arrived, stopping to pose for photographers. There were easily two hundred of them, and the flashes were blinding, but Meredith never stopped smiling. It was like a long forgotten déjà vu for her. When her vision cleared, she saw her granddaughter coming toward her, with her red hair piled on top of her head with a diamond clip, her perfect body poured into a white satin Chanel haute couture evening gown, and a handsome young man at her side. The four of them posed for more pictures, and then several of Meredith and Julia together without the men, and then, waving and smiling, they made their way into the theater, where more photographers were waiting for them.

  When they finally took their seats in the theater, Charles whispered to her, “Is it always like this?”

  “If it’s a major film, it is.” He was enjoying it. Meredith looked radiant. She had been born to be a star. She really was movie royalty, and so was Julia now.

  Charles had seen a screening of the movie with her, but he enjoyed seeing it again. They were inching out of the theater into the lobby with fans and gawkers waiting outside, photographers pushing and shoving them, while Meredith remained gracious and poised with Julia next to her, and her date at her side.

  They were slowly making their way to the door, to get to the dinner and after-party when a man stepped in front of her. He had with him a blousy, heavyset woman, with a bad dye job. She was overflowing out of her dress, and the man was looking straight at Meredith as though he knew her. For an instant she didn’t recognize him, and then she knew who he was. It was her ex-husband, Scott Price, and his wife, Silvana. She hadn’t seen Scott since their son’s funeral, and now she was face-to-face with him. Charles guessed instantly who he was from Meredith’s expression, and he almost laughed when he saw Silvana. Talk about betting on the wrong horse for the long haul. Meredith was as slim and beautiful and elegant and graceful as ever. Silvana looked like a cheap waitress in a borrowed dress. It clung to her like a second skin that belonged to so
meone else. Scott paid no attention to her.

  “You were wonderful in the movie,” he complimented her. “You always were. I knew the part was for you the minute I read it. I’m glad you agreed to do it.”

  “Julia is our star,” she deflected the praise as she always did, and then turned it on him. “I saw your last two movies. They were excellent. Oscar material.” And she meant it. But what felt so odd was seeing him, meeting his eyes, the man who had broken her heart with another woman, risked their son, and had haunted her for fourteen years. He had caused her years of torment, and now he stood there, making small talk as though they were friends. Talking to him, she realized that he was nothing to her now, neither lover nor friend. They were barely acquaintances and didn’t know each other anymore. He could no longer hurt her or cause her pain. He had no power over her. He gently touched her arm and she instinctively pulled away, and then the crowd separated them and he was gone.

  “Are you okay?” Charles whispered to her as they were carried on the tide to the lobby.

  “I’m fine. It was like we never knew each other.” She had loved him so much for a long time. After that, in her heart, he was the man who had killed her son. Now he was nothing. “We’re strangers now,” she said about Scott, and Charles nodded, and held tight to her arm to remind her that he was there in all the ways that mattered and he would let no harm come to her.

  * * *

  —

  It was a long night. The party went on forever, the meal was elaborate. The press stayed longer than usual, and it was entertainment headlines that Meredith White had come out of retirement to appear in a movie with her granddaughter, and they had both been fabulous. Meredith looked better than ever. She was almost more beautiful now.

  Funnily enough, it was as though everyone had forgotten she’d ever been married to Scott. The years had taken a toll on him. He had aged badly. No one wanted pictures of him with Silvana. They photographed him alone. They left the party early, without saying goodbye to Julia. Meredith felt as though she had broken another spell that night. Scott no longer mattered to her. It was good to know.