Lovers and Liars

by Brenda Joyce

  Thank God I’m leaving for location today, she thought. It was the coward’s way out. She could postpone a decision until she returned.

  “Vince, I’m sorry, I wound up celebrating yesterday. I got home buzzed and shut the phone off.”

  “You’re leaving today.” He sounded both hurt and panicked. “I thought we were going to spend last night together.”

  “I never said that.”

  “I just thought … Look, I’m working, but let me drive you to the airport.”

  “No, that’s okay,” Belinda said quickly. Right now she couldn’t handle him, especially being alone with him. If he drove her to the airport, he’d probably wind up giving it to her in a rest area. And that she didn’t need.

  “Then stop by the job on your way out.”

  “Look, I’m running late.” She glanced toward the hallway. Adam was still dressing in her bedroom. She really felt like a shit with him there and Vince on the phone like this.

  “Belinda, I want to see you.”

  She knew Vince. Although he was responsible, as far as she went he was like a pit bull. She imagined him leaving work and barreling over to her house to catch her before she left. “Okay, I’ll stop by.” Just as she hung up Adam came walking out. Belinda began to blush.

  “Who was that?”

  Belinda looked at him levelly. “Somebody I’ve been seeing.”

  Adam stared. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

  “You never asked. It’s not serious, Adam.”

  There was a long pause while Adam gazed at her, making Belinda feel naked. “Are you going to keep on seeing him?”

  “That’s not fair, Adam. We haven’t discussed anything, and I haven’t thought about it.” Her tone was sharp. “I have to start packing.” It was strange, but she realized that she didn’t feel any closer to Adam today than she had yesterday.

  His about-face was immediate. “Call me from Tucson so I have your number,” he said, looking at her warmly. He gave her a long kiss. Belinda couldn’t help it, her impatience was overwhelming. Finally, finally, he released her and was out the door and gone. His Mercedes was still turning over when she dragged a suitcase out of the closet. And began to face the knots suddenly twisting in her stomach.

  She sat on the side of her bed and took a deep breath. Her nerves grew in intensity instead of dissipating. She was so tense, she almost felt sick. Why am I feeling this way? It was like being afraid. And she had to face it—she knew why she was suddenly sick with anxiety. It wasn’t just because she was going on a shoot for the first time in her life. God.

  He probably wouldn’t even remember her.

  She had stood him up. He would remember, all right. Once he saw her, at least.

  What did she care? So what if he was upset or angry.

  So what? He had to have a monstrous ego. No, he did have a monstrous ego. Not only did she know it from meeting him once, but she had heard all the stories about how difficult he was on the set, how demanding he was, how impossible to work with. And she had stood him up. He was the star. What if he insisted on a new writer? What if he got her thrown off the production? Damn! If he was holding a grudge, he could really damage her, really damage her career. Maybe he would be totally indifferent. Maybe he would be graceful about what had happened. Maybe he really wouldn’t remember her.

  Jackson Ford.

  Jackson Ford and her mother.

  30

  She had no idea what time it was.

  She thought she was going to die.

  Mary moaned and rolled over, her heart going wild, her head throbbing, her throat dry. Water. She desperately needed water. With a great effort she sat up and looked at the clock. How in hell had she gotten so fucked up last night?

  Vince.

  It was all coming back …

  She had spent the afternoon with Beth. Then … laden with guilt, and a little high—she had gone to the store, come home, and fixed Vince a perfect dinner. He had been hours late, and when he had arrived he hadn’t even been hungry. Mary had been hurt and furious.

  And the more she thought about it the more she realized she hardly ever spoke to Vince these days. Sex was less frequent, down to about once or twice a week, and he was constantly distracted. She knew there couldn’t possibly be another woman—could there?

  Vince was not the type to have an affair.

  He was home most nights; six out of seven were spent with her. That one other night, well, he deserved that one with the guys. That was only fair. But … no, he had to have been with the guys that night.

  He couldn’t possibly know about her and Beth.

  Or could he?

  Wouldn’t he confront her if he knew?

  Mary got up and took a shower, starting to feel better but still horribly hung over. Cocaine hangovers were the worst—they left her physically depleted. With rising panic, she kept thinking about Vince. Come to think of it, when was the last time he had made love to her? She thought and thought and decided it must have been two weeks ago. That definitely meant something was wrong. She knew him too well. His sex drive was as Taurus as the rest of him—steady, consistent.

  For some reason the thought of losing Vince terrified her.

  Her mother would laugh and tell her she’d never hold a man unless she lost weight. That, of course, was bullshit. Or was it?

  Beth would be thrilled. Beth was crazy to think she’d even consider it. Fooling around with a woman on the side was one thing; living openly with one was another. Besides, she loved Vince.

  Didn’t she?

  Thoroughly worried now, Mary threw on one of Vince’s big flannel shirts and padded into the bedroom. She opened her underwear drawer and sorted through the cotton garments, then pulled out a tin box. In it were vials, a mini-scale, straws, razor, cash—but no foil packets.

  Fuck! She was out.

  She’d had no idea she was getting so low.

  Quickly she counted the cash—one hundred seventy-five dollars. She couldn’t believe that figure either. An eighth was three twenty-five. She had nothing left. How in hell was she so short? She certainly hadn’t done up all of what she was supposed to sell, had she? If she remembered correctly, she had dipped into what she was selling twice—two half grams. That didn’t make sense. Had she fronted that stuff? And if so … damn, she couldn’t remember to whom!

  She began to think up lies in order to get some money from Vince. They needed groceries—she had invited friends for dinner this weekend. Perfect. Except she’d probably only get fifty or so out of Vince.

  There was her mother. Her mother—shit.

  Her mother would give her the balance, that was no problem. But she would gloat. Smirk. Because her daughter had to come for cash to her instead of Vince.

  Her life was falling apart. She was out of blow. Vince was tired of her. Maybe he was having an affair …

  First things first. She would go down to the job and see if she could get some cash from him. Then she would call Ben. Maybe he would let her owe him—he had done that before. If she could remember who her customer was (and it would come back to her), she would call him and pressure him. And there was always her mother …

  First she would go see Vince.

  31

  He hated school.

  “C’mon, Rick.” Jack was shaking him. “Time to get up. Hey, kid!”

  “Ah, shit,” Rick mumbled, sitting and rubbing his eyes. When he opened them Jack was gone.

  He hated school, he always had, but he especially hated this one. They were all faggot pansies and snobs, every single kid there, looking down their Valley-girl and Valley-boy noses at him. Shit. He stumbled into the shower, full of dread, the same dread he felt every morning when he woke up. At least in Houston the dread had only been once and a while—not like this.

  But he knew what it felt like to be in a cage, and that was the worst kind of dread you could feel.

  He pulled on torn and faded jeans, black, a pale green muscle shirt, a fa
ded black denim jacket. The standard garb. Already he was smoking a Kool. Jack hated his smoking and had told him he was forbidden to smoke anywhere except in his room or on the balcony. Fine. When Jack wasn’t home he smoked in the living room, drinking beer and watching the big-screen TV.

  Now that was one helluva TV!

  But then again, so was everything in the three-bedroom condo in Westwood that Jack owned. He hated L.A., true, but he liked the condo almost as much as he liked the ranch house in Santa Barbara. Both homes were small compared to the mansions that lined Rodeo Drive and the rest of Beverly Hills, but to Rick they were palatial. Just living in digs like these justified the school shit.

  He finished the smoke and felt in his rear pocket, pulling out a five. Damn! He was short by forty bucks. Jack gave him a decent allowance—fifty a week—which was supposed to cover transportation, food, cigarettes, and anything else—such as albums and a new shirt and movies. But it was barely enough for the cocaine Rick liked freebasing. However, the other day he had tried crack for the first time and had liked it. For ten bucks he could get enough crack to stay high for a couple of hours. Maybe he’d forget about freebasing and stick with crack. It was a lot more affordable.

  He knew if he asked Jack for more money he’d want to know whatever it was he needed it for. He’d already spent this week’s allowance. Jack was too fucking sharp and suspicious. Fifty bucks a week! The guy could afford to give him twice that.

  Rick sauntered out into the kitchen, where Jack was placing a bowl and coffee cup in the sink. Jack gave him a friendly smile, which Rick knew was phony. After all, the guy was an actor, wasn’t he? Why should he care about him? Some kid off the street? He still couldn’t figure out his angle. He guessed it might be guilt.

  “I’m leaving in a few hours,” Jack said. “I hope you’re going to stay on the straight and narrow, Rick. I’m trusting you. Please don’t give Ruth Goodman a hard time,”

  “Yeah, sure,” Rick said. Jack didn’t trust him, and he knew it. Ruth Goodman was evidence of that. Christ! A babysitter!

  “I’m going to try and fly back next weekend,” Jack was telling him. “Please be nice to Ruth. And no playing hooky. I mean it, Rick.”

  Rick mumbled an affirmative. He was thinking about how, if he could get extra money, he could buy crack and beer and skip school and just party out all day every day and Jack probably wouldn’t find out for a couple of days. On the other hand, then the shit would hit the fan. Jack might even fly back immediately to deal with him. Shit. He’d have to be careful. There had to be something around here that Jack wouldn’t miss if he pawned it. The guy had so much stuff.

  “I won’t see you later, kid,” Jack said, looking him right in the eye. “You need anything, you got a problem, call me in Tucson, okay? The number’s taped by the phone.”

  Jack hesitated, then finally left. Rick debated what he wanted to do. He would go bananas if he had to stay straight another day. The man would be around today and then not again until Friday. Not that he couldn’t score off the street if he had to, but it was easier this way. He walked into Jack’s room and stood looking around.

  The room was completely modern, all white except for the bed, which was king-sized and black. Black-and-white striped comforter, black-and-white striped sheets. Jack and women in and out of it constantly, explaining to him the second night he was home that he had a lot of women friends. Friends. Right. The noises some of them made kept him awake half the night. If there was anything he admired about his brother it was his love life—he had it in more than out. Rick was definitely envious on that score.

  Rick found the gold-and-diamond cuff links he’d seen Jack wear once. They were tossed carelessly in a crystal ashtray that contained all sorts of odds and ends—some single dollar bills and change, receipts, a silver bill clip, a gold tie clip with a diamond in the center, a tie, matches …

  He debated between the tie clip and the cuff links. And finally opted for the latter.

  32

  Jackson Ford and her mother.

  Even now, with the wind whipping her hair as her red MR2 barreled down the freeway, the knowledge was devastating. It made the knot in her guts expand, choking her. There was no reason she should care. None. But she did.

  It felt like betrayal.

  Belinda took a few deep breaths. She was impossibly wound up. How could she be a professional on the set when she was so agitated? She was sorry she had ever followed her mother to the powder room at that damn party. Sorry she’d ever gone. Sorry she’d ever laid eyes on him—on Ford.

  And the worst, the absolute worst part of it, was that she had wanted Ford. Badly, Really wanted him. He exuded total sexual magnetism. A woman was helpless under his onslaught. If he chose to turn it on. She knew that instinctively. Had her mother been helpless too?

  She had been anticipating leaving Majoriis’s party to meet Jack, trying to figure out how to get Adam out of the picture tactfully. Her gaze, unfocused, had wandered and then, startled, she realized she was looking at her mother and her father and Jack Ford in a distraught conversation from across the room.

  There were no smiles. Belinda thought, puzzled, Do they know each other? Then Abe grinned, but there was nothing pleasant in his expression; rather, it was volpine and triumphant. Jack turned abruptly and rigidly away; and then Nancy was suddenly running across the room in her Jourdan heels and Ungaro silk, disappearing down a corridor. Belinda got a glimpse of Nancy’s face—enough to see that her mother was upset to the point of tears. She looked back at Abe. Ford was gone, but her father was pleased. What has he done now? Belinda thought grimly.

  She found her mother in the powder room. “Mom, let me in. It’s me, Belinda.” She could hear her weeping through the door.

  Finally the lock turned, but Nancy barred the entrance, her makeup streaked. “Belinda, please, not now …”

  She was a pitiful sight, and Belinda was stunned. “Mom, what is it?”

  Nancy crumbled anew.

  Belinda shoved into the bathroom and stood, unsure, wanting to hold her mother, but she’d never comforted her before. So instead she laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Mom? Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I hate him,” Nancy raged through her tears. “I hate him!”

  “What has Abe done now?”

  “Not Abe! Him! Jack Ford!”

  Belinda stared, shocked.

  The story of their brief love affair tumbled out amid Nancy’s sobs.

  Belinda still, for the life of her, could not picture them together, even though she had seen them together. And now, thinking back, she remembered how he’d looked her right in the eye when she’d barged in on them as they were fucking. Now, thinking back, she saw his eyes the way she had at the party, and there was no more doubt as to the chauffeur’s identity.

  Nancy had fallen in love with him.

  Belinda clasped the steering wheel, now wet beneath her hands. Impossible to believe, another facet of the betrayal. Her mother in love with Jack Ford? Carrying on her secret affair? And what about Abe? It was one thing to screw around, it was another to love someone else. That was the ultimate violation.

  But didn’t Abe deserve it?

  God! Imagine if Abe ever found out—he would kill Nancy! He would probably kill Ford too!

  Belinda wasn’t heartless. Despite her shock, she had tried to understand at the party, just as she was trying to understand now. But for some damn reason compassion was elusive. Though she could empathize with Nancy’s loneliness and imagine how Ford would be impossible to resist on a daily basis, she almost hated them both. Maybe she did. Thinking of them together made her sick.

  If only she hadn’t gone to the North-Star party, she wouldn’t be in this damn spot!

  Thank God she had learned the truth. Thank God. Because she had been anticipating the evening ahead with more enthusiasm than she’d felt in a long, long time. Now, knowing how close she had come to sleeping with her mother’s ex-lover, well, she couldn’
t handle it. She expected a man to want her exclusively, just as she expected him to walk away and remember how good it had been. Belinda did not try and fool herself. She knew it was not ego, not really, but more of an insecurity. After she’d been so badly screwed over by that faithless prick, Rod, the aftershocks still rippled and demanded an extreme opposite effect. She had thought Rod had loved her, but one night he had just disappeared without a word. Six months later he had married. The betrayal had been devastating. She knew that was why she had avoided relationships ever since. But Ford attracted her so strongly that she would want him for more than a night or two. Even though she knew that the last thing in this life she needed was to get involved with a man like Ford, her instincts warned her that if she slept with him, she’d be lost. And if she had gone to bed with Ford and then found out about her mother, it would have been another terrible betrayal.

  She almost missed the exit for the construction site. As Belinda whipped off the freeway she said a short prayer of thanks to whomever might be listening, for the fact that she hadn’t slept with Ford, that she had stood him up. She resolved to be completely professional with him, no matter how unprofessional he was with her. She would not lose her cool; she would not show contempt; and she would pretend that she had no idea that he and her mother had once been lovers. If she had to, to keep her job, she would kiss his ass. No matter how much she hated doing it. Yes, that would be her operating principle—kissing his ass. Because seeing this production through to the end was the most important thing in her life.