He pulled her closer against him. This time, in this relationship, he felt her warmth, he felt her sincerity. Was it because he had gotten her while she was young and inexperienced? But what would time and fame do? She was hot, and this film would probably make her hotter. She could negotiate any deal she wanted. She could also take any man she wanted. Would she keep wanting him, or was this merely an adventure? And was she old enough to know?
He ran his hand along the sensuous curve of her side, letting it rest on her hip. His hand was trembling, so filled with desire that it seemed to have taken on a life of its own. It ran over the smooth skin of her behind, and then slipped between her legs. He buried his fingers in her pubic hair and cupped her sex in his hand. Holding her there, his palm at the mouth of her femaleness, both soothed and further aroused him.
Then he felt her wake. “Oh, Sam!” she breathed, her voice thick with sorrow, sleep, and drugs. He nuzzled into her neck and kissed her there. He felt her move her head. Was it toward his caress or away?
“Oh, Sam! Mai. She’s dead, Sam. I’m all alone again.”
His own voice seemed husky with his restrained lust. “You’re not alone. I’m with you now. I’m with you, and I’ll never leave you.” He rose on his elbows and covered her mouth with his own. She tasted of tears, and the metallic tang of the sedative. He couldn’t bear to take his mouth off hers, or to wait a minute more. He’d never felt this for a woman, any woman, ever. He could hardly stand it. He spread her legs and entered her swiftly, then held still, his body shielding hers.
“I’ll never leave you,” he promised.
45
“I can’t believe she just disappeared!” Sharleen said to Dobe. “I mean, I just can’t.” Sharleen was seated at the redwood picnic table in her backyard. Flora Lee’s letter was before her. She looked up. Dobe was preparing to barbecue ribs. Sharleen watched as he turned a slab of ribs over in the marinade with the long-handled fork. Then he sat down at the table opposite Sharleen.
“It’s for the best, Sharleen,” he told her, his voice serious and low. “We had a long talk. She was ashamed of what she was, and of being a burden on you. She thought this was best.”
Sharleen shook her head, indicating that Dobe shouldn’t speak in front of her brother. “I don’t know what he’ll think,” she said softly to Dobe. Dean was sitting on the grass, tossing balls to the dogs, who chased them across the lawn. Oprah sat upright at Dean’s side, unmoving.
Sharleen smiled at the picture Dean and the little herd of dogs made, then looked at Dobe. “We’re goin’ to miss her, Dobe,” she said.
“I ain’t,” Dean said, not looking at anyone. “Not Flora Lee. She wasn’t my momma. I’d know Momma in a Texas minute, and that weren’t her.”
“What makes you say that, Dean?” Dobe asked.
“ ’Cause of the way she smelled. Like my daddy used to. But Momma, she used to smell different than him. All sweet, like clean laundry.”
Sharleen knew that in a way Dean was right. Their momma had always smelled good. She remembered it, too. Momma was always washing herself, her clothes, her hair. Sharleen remembered how she used to brush her momma’s hair, after it was washed, for what seemed like hours, and her momma would nod off to sleep while Sharleen brushed.
“No,” Dean said, “I’m glad Flora Lee’s gone. Now I can go back to rememberin’ my momma. That was better than having Flora Lee here.” He stood up, and all four dogs jumped to follow him. “I’m goin’ to do their tricks one more time with them, make sure they got it right, then I’m goin’ to come back and show you all. All four of them. How much longer for the ribs, Dobe?” Dean grinned. “I could eat a calf and a half.”
“You got time enough to play with the dogs. But the hot dogs is done. Help yourself. They’ll hold you for a while.”
They watched Dean walk away, the dogs bounding around him, each trying to get the hot-dog bits that Dean began tossing at them.
“I’m surprised he said that, Dobe. I guess most folks would say Dean is simple, but it seems to me he gets most things right. Still, I feel scared about Flora Lee. Should we do somethin’?”
“Sharleen, I’m here to tell you some home truths, unless you don’t care to hear ’em.”
Sharleen looked at him silently, then visibly took a breath, but said nothing.
“Sharleen,” Dobe continued, “your momma, who ain’t your momma anyhow, is—excuse my language now—nothin’ but a whore, and maybe a little bit worse.”
Sharleen winced, but she continued sitting, silent and still, except for a tear that flooded over her lower left eyelid and began a slow course down her cheek. “I don’t say this to hurt you, girl. I say it to clean out an infected wound. I know it pains you, but you gotta know.”
“Didn’t you think I did?” Sharleen asked quietly.
Shamed, Dobe looked away. He had underestimated her. “I had to be sure you knew. ’Cause she’s gone away and she won’t be back. She’s taken care of—least as well as she can be, till someone puts an end to her, or she puts an end to herself. And there ain’t nothin’ you can do to change that, Sharleen. Not one damn thing.”
“I know that, too,” Sharleen said. “I watched my daddy dyin’ for years. But Momma—Flora Lee—well, maybe she wasn’t my blood kin. But she was good to me. And she is my family.”
“Family ain’t what you inherit, girl, it’s what you make with those you love who love you back.”
Sharleen thought about that for a while as the ribs sizzled on the grill. “I wanted to be a good daughter,” she said. “Maybe, if I’d done better, she could have…”
“Ain’t no one can be a good daughter to a bad mother,” Dobe interrupted. There was silence between them for a long while.
“I’ll tell you what’s funny,” Sharleen said. “Seems like I lost my real mother early, but I was given Flora Lee. She was a good stepmomma, Dobe. Honest she was. She treated me good as her own child. Never made no difference between me and Dean. I never blamed her for leavin’. My daddy would have killed her. But I did sorely miss her, all them years. Then we found her. And here’s the funny thing: I missed my momma most, right here in L.A., after she came to us. It was like I’d lost not only her but her good memory, too.”
“I know how that can be, Sharleen,” Dobe said. “I was married once.” He stepped away from the grill, wincing at the smoke. “Sharleen,” he said, “I want to give you this.” He handed her a key.
“What is it to?”
“A safety-deposit box at California Central Bank. It has important papers there. Papers from your momma. I want you to have the key for safe keeping. Go look at ’em someday.”
The phone rang inside. “I’ll get it,” Dean said, and jumped up. He returned with a portable phone, and handed it to Sharleen. “It’s Mr. Ortis,” he said. Dean made it his job to answer the phone, to make sure Sharleen didn’t get any of them dirty calls.
“Hey, Mr. Ortis. What’re you doin’ workin’ on Sunday afternoon?” But Sharleen knew that Mr. Ortis always worked, and always called her with more work for her to do. Sharleen listened to his excited voice.
“I’m not doing it no more,” she insisted. “No more albums. It ain’t right. It ain’t me singing, no matter what you say. No. No. I mean it.” She hung up the phone.
Dobe raised his eyebrows as she’d raised her voice. “Another problem, Sharleen? Sounds as if you do got a lot of troubles.” His eyes wrinkled in a smile. “It’s ’cause you’re such an important person.”
“It’s a good thing you know me, Dobe. ’Cause sometimes I begin to wonder about that. But then I look at you or Dean, and I know. I’m just regular folk.”
“Well, it seems you’re folk that can sing.”
“Dobe, I ain’t kiddin’. I can’t sing.”
“Well, you could have fooled me. I heard that record. They’re playin’ it on the radio night and day, and, Sharleen, you can sing, girl.”
“That’s just it, Dobe. That don’t even sound like
me. Sy says they can fix your voice with all that technology they got. I mean, you sing any old way, but they can do lots of things with all that stuff, make you sound different. But I think they just called in another girl. One who can sing but ain’t famous like me. Somehow, it don’t seem fair, do it?”
Dobe chuckled, then looked at her troubled face and shook his head while he took the ribs off the grill. “Ever hear of con games, Sharleen? Almost anyone can play ’em.”
46
“Miss Irons?”
If she heard her name one more time today, she would cut someone’s throat. She answered the steward without looking up from her notes. “What?”
“The captain asked me to tell you we’ll be landing in Oakland in fifteen minutes. Is there anything I can get for you?”
“No,” she snapped. “Just make sure my car is waiting.”
“I’ve already called ahead. It’ll be on the apron as you deplane.”
April waved the steward away, made a few last entries on the page, and closed the leather-bound book. She looked around the cabin of the Cessna Citation to the only other person on board and beckoned to her. The woman came immediately and stood beside April. “Yes?” she said, simply. No “Miss Irons,” April noticed. At least this one was learning. “Did you get him?”
“No. I left three messages that you wanted to speak to him, but he hasn’t returned your calls. His secretary said Mr. Shields was working on a scene with Miss Moore and wasn’t to be disturbed.”
“Does he know I’m coming?”
“Yes, since yesterday.”
April shook her head, then handed her secretary the notebook and snapped, “Type this. I want it by the time we get to the set.” She watched the woman move forward, sit down at the word processor, and begin to type. A hundred words per minute, but what the fuck was her name? she thought. April had been through three or four of these bitches in six months and couldn’t remember one from another. A thousand bucks a week to type and place phone calls, and they couldn’t take the heat. Not one of them. Well, the next one’s going to be a man, she told herself. Like the old queen Samuel Mayer had. In his fifties, on top of everything, and loyal to a fault. Except they don’t make executive assistants like that anymore.
April looked down onto the Pacific coastline, and saw the waves pounding the nearly empty beaches. Somewhere down there, on one of those beaches, was the cast and crew of Birth of a Star. Fucked up and out of control. All of them bending under the pressure.
Michael had been whining to her on the phone all week. “I’m not going to take a dive on this one, April. I can’t even get to see the dailies. No one can, for the last three weeks. Sam has that flunky kid leaving the set every night with them and a fucking security guard. They’ve started to call the kid ‘Tsar of All the Rushes,’ security’s so tight.”
She knew that. Sam had stopped sending them to her, too. And she was the fucking producer! “What’s your read on this, Michael?” she had asked.
“What’s my read? Jesus Christ, April, you have a director just out of the gate who’s taking a week to set up a two-character beach scene—the fucking beach is already there, and he’s three weeks behind schedule. And over budget. Performances suck, morale is worse. And no one gets to see the dailies. Plus, he’s holed up all the time with the dumb bitch. What’s that tell you? If this film goes down the tubes, I’m fucked!”
Everything had gone wrong. Michael fucking Jahne. Sam fucking me. Sam fucking Jahne. Michael giving it to Sam for fucking Jahne. Christ, they were all skittish. Michael was the bankable star; the movie rode on his back. Also, he had to be asking himself, Is this my last romantic lead, or only my second to last, or third to last?
And Jahne Moore, nervous as a cat. Well, of course. Her first film. Would the transition from the little box to the silver screen work? April had seen personal lives fuck up her deals before, from the Julia Roberts-Kiefer Sutherland breakup to getting caught with a Madonna-Sean Penn deal on the table. But she’d never had a film where the female costar had fucked the male lead and the director. And certainly not when she, April, had also been fucking the director.
She gritted her teeth. Sam Shields and she had come to an understanding: she had forgiven the dalliance with Crystal Plenum, but before she signed him to direct this turkey, she had made it clear that from that point on she expected loyalty and continuity.
Now the shmuck was sleeping with Jahne Moore, and April would lose face. Not to mention money. Sam had dipped his wick and lost control. Control of himself, the crew, the project, the budget.
April was coming to fix all that. Everyone would be punished.
The plane banked to the right, and the seat-belt sign came on. April noticed that her secretary fastened hers but kept typing. Now, if she could just get that kind of work out of the artistic assholes she was on her way to see, she’d have a movie. Maybe not a box-office smash, but at least respectable return on investment.
They taxied to a stop outside the private terminal. April stood up, smoothed her skirt, and motioned for her secretary to pick up her briefcase. She walked down the lowered steps to see the black stretch limo pulling up. The back door opened, and a young man stepped out, holding the door for her. It wasn’t Sam. She couldn’t believe it. April strode over to the door and looked at him. He smiled, a light mist of perspiration forming on his upper lip. “Good afternoon, Miss Irons,” he said, as she was about to lean forward and step into the car.
When he made a move to follow her into the back seat, she paused, turned, and looked him over from head to toe. “Who the fuck are you?” she snarled.
The skinny kid jumped back. “Joel Grossman, Miss Irons.” He spoke quickly. “Sam’s assistant director, Miss Irons. We met in L.A. I mean, I was at the meeting when Sam hired me and I saw you, Miss Irons.”
This was as good a place as any to start meting out the punishment, she thought. “What do you keep saying my name for? Afraid you’re going to forget it?” She ducked into the car and sat, not moving over to make room for him.
“May I join you, Miss…I mean, do you want me to ride in the front?”
“Am I supposed to move?” she asked. He didn’t answer. Instead, he closed her door and ran around to get in the other side. The secretary got in the front, next to the driver.
“Okay,” she said, when he’d got in and closed the door, not looking at him. “What are the problems, and what are the solutions? In twenty-five words or less.”
“No problems, no problems,” he hurried to explain. “We’re just a little bit behind because of the weather. Other than that…”
“You got ten more words left. Better talk to me straight.” Just as I thought. This asshole is going to try to make a fool out of me.
“Well, Miss Irons,” he said, really getting into it now, “you know what an artist Sam is. Everything has to be perfect. In that way, he’s a lot like Oliver Stone—he’s dragging it out of himself, relying on personal experience…”
Oliver Stone! Why not quote Oliver Hardy? She held up her hand. “Just tell me one thing. Was it your idea for you to meet me today, or was it Sam’s?”
The kid’s face dropped. “It was, uh, Sam’s, Miss Irons.”
She flicked the switch on the intercom to the driver. “Pull over. Right now.”
The long black car came to a quick halt on the shoulder of the highway back to town. April turned to the kid. “Get out,” she said, looking into his eyes. “And tell Sam he should never send a boy to do a man’s job.”
“But, Miss Irons, we’re on a highway! It’s three, four miles to the next exit.” She saw his lower lip begin to quiver.
“You’re an AD. Be resourceful. Now get the tuck out of this car,” she told him. She hated it when they made her have to do this. But, goddamn it, I got forty million bucks riding on my ass, she reminded herself, and this little shithead is going to fuck with my head? “Out!” she repeated.
Joel stumbled out, his face imploring her.
; “Shut the goddamned door. I’m in a hurry.”
The set on the otherwise deserted beach was chaotic. Goddamn it, the set costs were astronomical. And what for? They were shooting the ocean, not some dotty Ferdinando Scarfiotti folly. Klieg lights were on all over, but no cameras were running. How much was that costing her? Another indication that this film was getting away from Sam. If he couldn’t keep the crew running smoothly, he wasn’t going to be able to make a film.
Where was he? Busy playing with Jahne Moore’s clit? The movie was the only important thing right now, she reminded herself. Not Sam, not who was fucking who. Just the movie, and her forty mil. Well, not hers, but gotten on her name from the sons-of-bitches at American National Bank and Trust. She thought of Sam, wasting her money and gritted her teeth again. She would never allow her credibility to be undermined by anyone, whether she was fucking him or not.
She sat in the car for a few minutes, waiting for the location manager to notice the only goddamned limousine on the beach and come to her. Finally, he did. “Get Sam,” she spat through the open window, then rolled it up in his face as the old guy started talking.
Another ten minutes; then Sam knocked on the door. This was the part she hated the most—wiping asses. She didn’t mind it so much with actors. They approached life events as if they were movie roles. They were like troublesome children. But directors—they believed that life was a fucking movie. “Get in,” she said, not bothering with preliminaries. “I haven’t been getting dailies lately, and you haven’t returned my calls.” She watched as Sam brought back his head and stared for a moment at the ceiling of the car. “No bullshit, now, Sam. I mean it.”
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