Shall We Dance?

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Shall We Dance? Page 8

by Lynn Patrick


  She turned back to face him. “He was too busy to indulge his youngest child, I guess.”

  “I don’t see a parent’s being close to his child as indulgent.”

  She sighed. “Those are my words, not his. We never really discussed what was wrong. And now it’s too late. Dad died a few years ago.”

  Gabby sounded so sad and angry and cheated that Kit wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her. Instead, he shoved his hands into his pockets and concentrated on moving out of the way of a larger wave.

  “At least you had your mother,” he finally said.

  “True. We’re best friends. I have to admit that I felt a certain amount of hostility toward you when we first met because of the special relationship I have with Mom.” She appeared a little guilty. “I couldn’t help it. I was being protective, equating you with your father and expecting the worst.”

  “Please, I’m nothing like him.” Kit thought her look said that he was fooling himself, but if so, she didn’t put the thought into words. “Was the closeness with your mother the reason you wanted to go into show business?”

  She shrugged and began walking again. “I never analyzed it before. I just always knew what I wanted. Ever since I can remember I used to put on ‘shows’ for my family and people in the neighborhood.”

  “By yourself?”

  “No. I was always able to talk other kids into helping. Friends from dance or voice classes, mostly. My older brother and two sisters were never interested in the same things I was. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been close to them.”

  “If I’d been lucky enough to have a sister or brother, I would have been sure we stayed close,” he said.

  “If you’re so sure you could do that with siblings, why not with your father?”

  Because Kit didn’t have an answer—at least not a valid one—he changed the subject. “Maybe we should turn around and go back. Get back to work.”

  “I thought we were through for the day.”

  “Dancing, yes. But we should decide whether or not we need props or special lighting. And we can listen to the music of the other two pieces we decided on.”

  “And watch the originals?” she asked.

  “We could do that,” he said grudgingly.

  Kit wasn’t thrilled about doing that, but he knew Gabby had her heart set on it. And he had to admit her suggestion hadn’t been a bad idea. Their “Mesmerizing You” would be similar to their parents’, yet have a stamp of individuality that satisfied him.

  Feeling close to Gabby—whether from dancing or their personal revelations or both—he didn’t want to see the day end.

  “And afterward I don’t want you driving off into the sunset,” he told her. “Not when we could share it over dinner. How about it? Will you stay? We could even take a swim if you like.”

  “I don’t have a suit.”

  “You don’t need one,” he said, quickly adding, “I have a couple of extras for guests. One is bound to fit you.”

  “I guess I could stay. I just hope Mom won’t be disappointed.”

  “She’ll have enough company at Lucille’s.”

  “True. It’s just that she might have been counting on me to go somewhere with her.”

  “You can call to make sure it’s not a problem.”

  Kit hadn’t realized how dependent Anita was on Gabby. Then again, they were on a vacation of sorts, albeit a working one. He was a little envious of their special closeness. He and his mother got along well, but she’d always been working, often on location.

  He put all negative thoughts away, however, as he and Gabby headed back toward his house and to what he told himself was the start of a professional friendship.

  DELIGHTED THAT GABBY had something fun to do with someone her own age, Anita was looking forward to spending an evening with her own contemporary. She was dining out with Lucille. She was standing in the hall of the mansion, waiting for her old friend when Harvey Morris came down the stairs, smoothing the sides of a bad toupé. He was dressed in an aged brown suit with checked vest and matching bow tie.

  “Are you going out with Lucille and me for dinner?” she asked the comedian.

  “Uh, no. Why?”

  “Well, you’re all spiffed up. So where are you off to?”

  He checked his watch nervously. “I’m going to find a friend, that’s all.”

  “Can we give you a lift?”

  Harvey became downright agitated as he backed away from Anita. “No, I’ll get along just fine in my old junker. I don’t need someone else’s limo to impress anyone.”

  Anita thought the comment puzzling, but before she could ask him to explain, Lucille started down the stairs and Harvey ducked out the front door. Frowning, Anita stared after him.

  “Something wrong?” Lucille asked, adjusting her mink stole over her gray lace cocktail dress.

  Anita shrugged. “Harvey’s acting awfully peculiar.”

  “I think something’s been buggin’ him, but he mostly keeps to himself. Oh, well, I suppose we’ll get the scoop soon enough.”

  “I suppose.”

  “C’mon. Let’s roll.” Lucille tucked her hand behind Anita’s arm and headed for the door. “I’m so hungry I could eat a rattler. Raw.”

  They were in the limo and well on their way before Anita thought to ask where they were going.

  “Chasen’s. I thought you’d get a kick out of going back to the place.”

  Anita didn’t say anything. She remembered it all too well. Price Garfield had often been her escort.

  A fit of nerves made Anita’s stomach clench. How ridiculous. She had to stop reacting every time something reminded her of her former partner. She’d already determined to deal with the past. But that reminder didn’t make her any less nervous as, a quarter of an hour later, they entered the restaurant with its pine-paneled walls and were seated at one of the large red leather banquettes. The waiter took their drink order and left them with menus.

  “Rumor has the ghosts of W. C. Fields, John Barrymore and Errol Flynn haunting this place in search of the glory of Hollywood’s good old days,” Lucille said. “Look. There’s a live one—Debbie Reynolds. Chasen’s chili is her favorite.” Lucille laughed and lowered her voice. “She had buckets of the stuff shipped overseas when she was filming The Singing Nun.”

  Anita was looking at her menu. “That must have cost her a small fortune. The chili has got to be the most expensive in the world.”

  “Maybe, but it’s worth every penny. Matter of fact, that’s what I’m gonna have.” Lucille grabbed her purse and started to slide out of the booth. “You take your time figuring out what you want to order. I gotta powder my nose.”

  “Wait. I’ll go with you.”

  “Nah, I don’t need a chaperone. I’ll be right back.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  Anita felt strange, no doubt because she was in an old haunt, alone with her memories. She wasn’t aware that someone was staring at her until a single rose crossed her menu. Eyes wide, she looked up over the top of the banquette and took a deep breath. Her past had come to face her whether or not she was ready for the experience.

  “Hello, Anita,” said Price. “Aren’t you going to invite me to join you?” When she didn’t answer, he slid in beside her and casually asked, “So, how have you been?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” Anita asked as her shocked expression faded. She picked up the rose and set it away from her. “How was life for the past fifty-five years?”

  “Has it really been that long?” Price asked innocently, knowing full well exactly how many years, months, weeks and days had passed without her. “You’ve kept count. That must mean you still care.”

  “Care? You’re having delusions.”

  “I care about you.” He couldn’t believe how beautiful Anita was—just as he remembered her. “I always have cared and I always will.”

  “Hah!”

  He stared into her angry aqu
a eyes, their sparkling color complemented by her light blue flowing dress. “We both made mistakes, Anita.”

  “You’re the one who made the mistakes.”

  “What do you call your going off and leaving California and the career that was so all-fired important to you?”

  “What do you call marrying the first starlet to come along?”

  “That was a big boo-boo,” he admitted. “Four out of my five marriages were mistakes of varying degrees.”

  “You really loved one of your wives, then?”

  Price smiled to himself. She actually sounded a little jealous.

  “A man can’t pine away for one woman forever…though I seem to have done a pretty good job of it. What about you?” He leaned over the table and tried to take her hand, which she jerked out of his grasp. “Did you love your husband?”

  “Of course I loved Robert, or I wouldn’t have married him!” she said indignantly.

  Still, something in Anita’s eyes gave her away. “So you never thought of me?”

  “Oh, I thought of you, all right—whenever I saw a promo for one of our old movies on television.”

  As feisty as ever. And as evasive. Price sensed she wasn’t telling the entire truth. But he would get it out of her if it was the last thing he did. From the corner of his eye Price saw a waiter approach with two drinks on his tray.

  Waving the waiter away, Price told her, “I thought of you all the time.”

  “Between marriages?”

  And during. “There wouldn’t have been other marriages if you hadn’t been so stubborn,” he told her, irritated that she was making him feel guilty that he hadn’t been able to forget her. “You should have married me when I asked you.”

  “You mean when you demanded I do so. You were smothering me, Price. Your trying to get me to the altar every other moment was a prime example of the way you were trying to take over my life!”

  Old wounds didn’t always heal with time. Price felt his dander rise at the all-too-familiar accusation. “So instead of sticking in there with the man you professed to love and teaching me better, you walked out of mine!”

  “Well, well, the two of you are going at it just like in the good old days,” Lucille said, dropping her clutch purse onto the table. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

  Price groaned and leaned back against the red leather cushion. Couldn’t Lucille have stayed lost just a little while longer?

  Her expression suspicious, Anita looked from Price to her friend. “You don’t seem surprised to see Price. Could it be you knew he was going to be here?”

  “Now don’t go blaming Lucille,” Price told her. “I found out where the two of you were having dinner and decided to drop by to say hello.”

  That was at least partly true. Setting up this meeting had been his idea, although Lucille had been happy to go along with the plan.

  “You found out how?” Anita challenged him.

  “Whoa!” Lucille put out a hand and sat on Anita’s other side. “Listen, you two, knock off the arguments and try to be civil to one another. Try to be friends…for your kids’ sakes.”

  The last thing Price wanted to be was Anita’s friend, but if she agreed, it would be a start. At least he would have a chance with her.

  He held out his hand for a shake. “Friends?”

  “I’d sooner grab hold of a viper,” Anita said with a sniff.

  “How about if we agree not to disagree, then?” Price said.

  “We won’t be seeing each other enough to worry about it.”

  Sighing, Price rose. His dejected air wasn’t an act. “If that’s the way you want it, Anita. I thought…well, never mind.” He turned to go.

  “Wait.”

  Smothering a smile, he turned back to her. “Yes?”

  Small nose in the air, Anita held out her hand. “Friends. For our children’s sakes.”

  “Great,” he said, the smile now irrepressible.

  “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you at the opening of Cheek to Cheek.”

  “You’ll be seeing me, all right,” Price promised while thinking that if he had anything to say in the matter, it would be before the opening. He strode off, his step jaunty.

  Her emotions in a turmoil, Anita watched him leave with a sense of loss. The room suddenly seemed empty without him.

  “You okay, toots? Maybe you wanna go home, huh?”

  Lucille’s gravelly voice snapped her back to her reason for being there.

  “Home?” Anita echoed. “Whatever for? We’re out for a night on the town. Right?”

  Lucille winked. “You betcha.”

  The waiter returned with their drinks and took their orders. Throughout dinner Lucille kept her entertained with stories about Hollywood personalities. Wisely she left the topic of Price Garfield alone. After dessert she suggested they go to a night spot for a drink, but Anita begged off when she noticed that her friend was tired. Lucille had more than a decade on her.

  When she left the table, Anita took the rose. And during the drive home, the conversation with Price replayed itself in her head, especially the part about Robert. She’d been truthful when she’d told Price she had loved her husband, though perhaps she hadn’t loved Robert enough. For years she’d waited for Price to realize his mistake, divorce the starlet and come after her. Then she’d hardened her heart toward him and started dating other men seriously. Robert Lacroix had been easy to love. Who was to say that all relationships and the emotions that went with them should be equal in intensity?

  Ironically, a few months after her marriage, Price had obtained his first divorce….

  Faced with a love that had been locked away but never really put to rest, she’d wept. She had also renewed her determination to be the best wife Robert could hope for. She did love him and the four children they were blessed with. She had been happy most of the time, only getting maudlin when she was alone and foolish enough to watch one of her old movies.

  Somehow, though, Robert had looked into her very heart and recognized the truth. Anita knew that was the reason he’d eventually insisted she get rid of all her Hollywood memorabilia. She’d refused and they’d never spoken of the problem again, but their relationship had changed subtly.

  Her reverie was brought to an end when they arrived at the Beverly Hills mansion. Anita made her excuses and went up to the third-floor suite. The first thing that caught her eye when she entered the sitting room was the scrapbook Lucille had left on the coffee table. With a sigh of resignation she sat down and traded the rose for the scrapbook. She flipped the pages until she found what she was looking for.

  The picture was black and white, but Anita remembered the exact shade of her peach dress studded with sequins. She touched a fingertip to the rose in Price’s lapel. He had given it to her when he had picked her up for the premiere of Tap Me on the Shoulder, but she had insisted he wear the token of their love.

  That was the night Price Garfield had proposed for the very first time….

  Hollywood, 1953

  ANITA LEFT the studio limousine for the blinding world of flashbulbs outside the Los Angeles Theater.

  “Miss Brooks, this way.”

  Her smile extending from ear to ear, she turned toward the unfamiliar voice, posed and waved as another flash went off in her face.

  “Anita, is it true that you and Price have carried your on-screen romance into your personal lives?”

  “Price and I are very close friends,” she told the reporter.

  Right behind her, Price placed an arm around her waist and pulled her along the red carpeted path cutting across the terrazzo sidewalk. Passing through the massive columned facade, they entered the lobby decorated with glittering chandeliers, monumental mirrors and a dazzling crystal fountain.

  “Gosh, this is an exciting night, isn’t it?” Anita whispered, thinking that her fondest dream was about to come true.

  “More exciting than you realize now,” Price said.

  Perceiving his nervousness, she blamed
the hoopla surrounding the premiere. Price hated publicity, and the studio was promoting Tap Me on the Shoulder as the motion picture of the year. No expense was to be spared for the party following the screening, and everyone who was anyone in Hollywood was there to see and be seen.

  This was the most important night of her life!

  She went through the next few hours flying on a cloud, greeting famous and infamous stars, posing for photos, answering reporters’ questions, but Price stayed in the background whenever possible. The best moment of all came after the film screening. The house lights went up and she and Price received a standing ovation.

  She waved and threw kisses while Price jammed his hands into his trouser pockets and tried to smile.

  The audience then retired to the basement of the theater—a ballroom where everyone could eat and drink and dance to a combo playing music from the movie. A special projector showed Tap Me on the Shoulder for a second time on a small screen.

  “Anita, can we slip away?” Price murmured into her ear. “I have something important to ask you—”

  “Slip away? Now?”

  Before Price could say what was obviously on his mind, Lucille Talbot and her rawboned husband, Jim Dix, stopped to toast them with champagne.

  “Hey, how does it feel to be a star?” Lucille asked.

  “Wonderful,” Anita answered. Price said nothing.

  She could tell he was itching to get away from the gala event and the hundreds of noisy people. The knowledge spoiled her pleasure. She wanted to bask in the spotlight that had finally fallen on them with this, their fifth picture together. She’d been waiting for fame for what seemed like her entire life. Now that she and Price had obtained it together, he wanted to retreat.

  “You two make a dandy couple,” Jim said, “both on the screen and off.”

  “Especially off,” Price stated.

  “So when are you going to rope this little filly before she has a chance to get away?”

  Price looked around nervously. “Listen, would you two mind if I got my girl in a corner all to myself for a while?”

 

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