by Joan Smith
“You forgot your purse,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He pushed it angrily into my hands. It was the last chance, quite possibly the last time I’d see Brad O’Malley.
Common courtesy, if nothing else, demanded some acknowledgment of his help, and some thanks.
“Thanks for—everything,” I said vaguely. A quick peek at his face showed it was set in harsh lines. “Thanks” sounded woefully inadequate; I didn’t want to leave on such a weak note. Why was I mad anyway? Because he was trying to help, and in the process had unearthed the real me, a bundle of insecurities. He’d discovered my shriveled ego, my smashed heart—the reason I had bowed out of the contest of life, and was content to hide in the woods and write somebody else’s story. Everybody knows you can’t be cured till you acknowledge you’re sick. But I was getting somewhat better. The memory of Garth had faded during the time at Simcoe’s cottage. I had finally met someone who outshone him, and now I’d alienated him, too.
“It’s generous of you not to do the book on Rosalie,” I said. My voice had a ragged, uncertain edge to it.
His harsh face softened almost imperceptibly, but it softened. A faint suggestion of a glow, no more than a glimmer, entered his bleak eyes.
“It’s nothing.”
“Don’t be so modest. It’s very generous.”
“It’s literally nothing,” he insisted.
He meant virtually nothing, but this wasn’t the time for a contest of words. “Thanks for nothing then,” I said with a shaky laugh. Even that sounded graceless, and ironic.
A smile so small it was nearly nonexistent flashed across his face, lingering in his eyes. “It’s been fun knowing you, Audrey. I still feel I know you, even if I’ve turned into a stranger. Why did you say that?” he asked softly.
Over his shoulder, Zeus scowled at me. “It must be the company you keep. Picasso, Zeus—those guys.”
“I’m exactly the same person I was at the cottage. I feel the same way,” he said, not defensively, just stating a fact. “I feel the same way about you,” he added, to make it perfectly clear.
My lower lip moved, but no sound came out. While I stood, hopefully waiting to be rescued, he spoke on. “Audrey, this is ridiculous. Are we really arguing about a set of rooms—about rags and stone and sticks of wood?”
“It’s not that—it’s the whole way of life.” How could I begin to explain my unsuitedness for competing with Hume Mason—was he Hume Mason?— and Rosalie Wildewood, and their glitzy set? He’d only say life wasn’t a competition, but for me it was. Was he clever enough to explain away a life-style?
“You mean the stuff I write,” he said. “I shouldn’t have pretended I was an intellectual heavyweight. I only did it to impress you. Not that you were impressed.”
“Intellectual pretension is one of my dislikes,” I admitted modestly.
“How do you keep track of them all? What do you like, anyway?” Anger tinged his voice again, turning me into a block of stone. He gritted his teeth, mentally biting the bullet, and said, “It’s the age thing, isn’t it?”
I blinked in confusion, “What age thing?”
“The fact that I’m an aging man, and you’re still a kid. Oh, I’ve seen you staring at my wrinkles, laughing at me. I didn’t realize the extent of the difference till I saw you and Jerome together. I felt like his father.”
‘This is crazy . . . How old are you, anyway?”
“Nearly forty. I turned thirty-nine last month,” he said aggressively, “and I have the arthritis to prove it.”
“Really!” I could hardly believe it. Yet I’d taken him for thirty-six or -seven. Two years didn’t make that much difference. It was his saying “nearly forty” that threw me.
On his face I read regret that he’d confessed, since I hadn’t suspected. “Really. The next one’s the big four-O.”
“Life begins at forty.”
“It’s about time. How old are you?” He examined me more minutely than felt comfortable.
“Nearly thirty.”
“That old?”
This was entirely the wrong response. I should have said twenty-eight. “Didn’t Jerome tell you?”
“I was afraid to ask.”
“Now we both know the awful truth. Well, I’d better go."
“No, stay. Ten years isn’t that big a difference.”
“Eleven, actually.”
“Let’s slug it out. This is worth investigating—it isn’t a hopeless case by any means. You’re neurotic and prickly and a sl—not one of the world’s great housekeepers. I’m old, even-tempered, thick-skinned, and obsessively neat. An odd couple, but complementary. And we do have a few things in common. At least we’re both in the same business.”
Hope and joy trembled through me, then I opened my mouth and said, “I don’t see why we can’t be friends.” I wanted to kick myself. To make it even worse, I added, “I always liked visiting art galleries, and it’s not as though I’d have to live here, with the gilt frames.” Brad didn’t bat an eye, but a little flash told me he had in mind more than visits, possibly even some sharing of accommodations.
“It’s a big apartment—two bedrooms,” he mentioned, in a voice I couldn’t put a description on. Sort of diffident.
Some demon of self-destruction possessed me. “Plenty of room for your ego to swell.”
His jaw muscle quivered. “You’re doing it again, Audrey.”
I hunched my shoulders and gave a watery, apologetic smile. “Prickly, that’s me. Since you picked Jerome’s brains last night, you must know they called me the porcupine in college.”
“You’ve changed since college. You were more competitive then.”
Changed for the worse, then. “I still am, but more discriminating. I only compete for things that matter to me now.”
“Don’t I matter to you?”
He looked angry, but I think he was only trying to hide the hurt of rejection. I’m prickly, but I’m not mean. I really hate hurting people. “Like I said, we can be friends.”
“Good friends, I hope?”
“Bosom pals.”
“My favorite kind.” He smiled hopefully, and reached for me.
I automatically took a step back, and regretted it before my foot hit the floor. He advanced another pace—thank God. We were within touching distance, within close eye-contact distance. I could sense the attraction between us like a palpable thing. He was going to kiss me, and I wasn’t going to try to stop him, not even if I had to get a hammerlock on my tongue. When his hand touched mine, I didn’t draw back. I reached for him. My purse slid to the floor, but we both ignored it. We were too involved with other sensations. He pulled me into a crushing embrace. His lips scorched mine, and his hands began a ballet trying in vain to find an entrance through my one-piece dress. When this failed, he began backing into the apartment. At the edge of the rug, he tripped.
“Any special reason why you’ve suddenly gone into reverse?” I asked. As if I didn’t know the destination. Two bedrooms, he’d said.
“What am I going to do with you?” he asked, eyes steaming.
“Succumb to my heaving bosom?”
He went into park, just at the edge of the rug. “Were you really going to walk out on me?” he asked.
“I planned to throw myself under the first passing car, to cause you eternal remorse.”
“A sadist! I should have known it when you hit me with the hammer.”
“I am what I am.”
“I like what you are,” he growled, and began examining my physique by hand. Up over my hips, reaching for my breasts, where his hands lingered before lowering to the depression of my waist, the curve of hips. “What is this, a modern chastity gown?”
A knot hardened in my stomach; then a thrill shivered up my spine and down my thighs as he discovered the zipper at the back and slid it down. If women have loins, mine were shuddering. His hands were on my flesh, lowering the sleeves, while his lips nuzzled my ear. Hot l
ava flowed along my veins.
“Isn’t this better than being run over by a car?” he murmured.
“I prefer the Mack truck all right.”
As the dress slid to my waist, the intercom buzzed.
“That must be the other paintings!” he said, and ran to the door, while I pulled my dress back on, feeling like a damned fool.
Brad came back with four large parcels, each wrapped in brown paper. “Is there a note?” I asked.
“Yes.” He was already opening it. I noticed a tinge of pink starting at his ears and flushing his cheeks as he read.
“What is it? What does it say?”
He gave me a long, wary look before he handed the note to me.
I read:
Brad: I’m sure these will mean a great deal to you. Rosalie would have wanted you to have something to remember her by. I’m joining my mother at Hartland as soon as I can wind down the business here. Do you have any objection to our turning it into a tasteful museum in memory of Rosalie?
Sincerely,
Drew Taylor.
“I don’t get it. Why would Rosalie want you to have her things?”
“It’s not unusual for parents to leave something to their children,” he explained uncertainly.
“She left Lorraine the house. Drew will get it . . .“ I looked at the note again. "'I'm joining my mother at Hartland.’ Drew is really Lorraine’s daughter.”
“She is. Rosalie didn’t have a daughter. She had a son.” It took about thirty seconds for it to sink in. “You! You’re her son!” I stared blankly, trying to make sense of it, trying to read any resemblance between them. “It’s impossible. You don’t look a thing like her.”
“I take after my dad. Rosalie left him a month or so after I was born.”
“I think we’d better sit down. This is going to be a long story, isn’t it?”
“Not really. You were right that she had a child in Europe when she went there to dry out. It was my father’s clinic she went to: He was her doctor. Naturally he fell head over heels in love with her,” he said, settling on the sofa. “Being an old-fashioned kind of guy, he asked her to marry him, and being temporarily in love with her doctor, she accepted. I’m the result, but a marriage, and especially having a child, didn’t jibe with her career plans. I think Dad was sorry he’d ever met her, and was more than willing to keep it hushed up. They got a divorce; she went on to the next husband, and I was raised by my father.”
“Have you always known?”
“Till I went to university, I thought my mother was dead. Only a few people at the clinic knew the truth, and they never broadcast it. The story given to lesser friends and relatives was that my father had secretly married an Englishwoman, who died in childbirth. A proud race, the Irish. He wouldn’t want to admit to the world he’d made a thundering jackass of himself over an actress. They’re just one step above the devil, you know, back home. Dad’s done well—remarried years ago.”
“He’s never admitted all these years that he married Rosalie?”
“He admitted it to me when I was a grown man, by way of warning me to watch out for myself in wicked Dublin. He’s up for a knighthood at the moment, which is why he was worried to hear Rosalie’s life story was being done. I mentioned it to him on the phone. He asked me to see if I could get his part in her life hushed up. I thought tackling her in person was the best way to go about it. Long-lost son, tears and jubilation, all that sentimental stuff. Rosalie didn’t have a sentimental bone in her body. She was coy—said she hadn’t told about Dad, but she thought you were suspicious.”
“And that’s why you followed me to Simcoe’s cottage—to see what I was writing about your father.”
“To prevent you from writing about him.”
“I see. Here I thought it was innocent plagiarism, and all the time you meant to stop me completely. I seem to have an infinite capacity for underestimating you."
“All I found was the bit about gaining weight, so I slivered it out.”
“You’re not writing an article on her then?”
“No.”
“But—and you’re really not Hume Mason?”
“Definitely not,” he said, offended. “Hume Mason’s a woman, Audrey. Nice old gal. I’ve met her at Belton’s a couple of times.”
“Then who are you? And what have you got to do with Belton anyway? What were you writing? And where did you get all the money for this museum?” He looked embarrassed. “Madison Gantry!” I exclaimed, and laughed. “I thought so when you made the spaghetti Caruso. You are he, aren’t you? You had all his books at the cottage. Gosh, it’s better than being Hume Mason, Brad.”
“I tried to tell you I wasn’t Hume Mason. You refused to believe it, so I left it at that. I needed some excuse for wanting the diaries.”
“I would have believed you were Gantry—you could have opened that box of books and proved it. What did you do with them? What is your latest book?”
He gave me a very strange look. I hadn’t seen that wary light in his eyes since the first time he came to my cottage. “I’ll show you,” he said, and went to the office. When he came back, the box had been cut open. He held it out for my inspection. I stared at twenty pink-and-gold copies of Love’s Last Longing.
“I don’t get it. They sent you the wrong books?”
“Unh-unh.” His face was crimson.
“But these are Rosalie Wildewood’s . . . Oh, my God! Brad, you’re not . . . I saw her on TV. She’s a gorgeous redheaded dingbat . . . She phoned you.”
The crimson face deepened to beet red. “That was my front woman. She takes the rap in public—does the talk shows, goes to conventions. She’s also a very good research assistant.”
“You’re Rosalie Wildewood? It can’t be true.”
“I used Mom’s first name, since it’s romantic. Dad’s sanatorium in Ireland is called Wildewood. It’s in Northern Island actually, on Lough Neagh. I changed the location where I was born when I was talking to Drew, as I was afraid she’d recognize the area. I was always interested in history. There’s a lot of interesting history in the Wildewood books.”
I couldn’t suppress a snort, and didn’t try very hard. “Sandwiches of sex and history, but millions of people wouldn’t buy the dry bread.”
He pokered up. “Gourmets like a little spice. You said you liked Rosalie Wildewood.”
“No, you idiot. I love her!” In my excitement, I planted a loud smack on his cheek. “You must admit it is kind of funny, Brad.”
“That’s why I hire Bonnie to do the PR stuff.”
First I stopped laughing, then my smile faded. “It was kind of you to agree not to write Rosalie’s biography.”
“I told you it was nothing—literally nothing.”
“Nothing my eye! Mason’s probably three-quarters finished by now.” I jumped up, panic striking my soul.
He pulled me back down. “She’s not doing it. She couldn’t rake up much scandal, with Rosalie’s chums all dead and buried. I met her in California at the funeral—she went to research it. I convinced her you had a gold mine with the diaries, and she couldn’t hope to compete. She’s doing Fatty Arbuckle instead. A nice, juicy, scandalous life to work with, and lots of public documentation. Fatty’s life was better—I guess I mean worse—than Rosalie’s.”
"That’s why you had her picture by your bed,” I said, touched at the thought.
“‘She gave it to me. She asked if Dad needed money, too. I knew she wanted to leave Hartland to Lorraine, and Dad’s fine financially, so we’re not in the will. His secret would have been blown sky high if we had been. Will you reveal us?”
“It’ll come out some time, but I have plenty to work with, without that.”
“Thanks. That silly knighthood means a lot to Dad.”
“Then it’s not silly to him.”
“I’ll be going over for the ceremony. Care to come with me?”
“I’d like to, but I have to finish my book.”
“I can help. No, I’m not talking about mining it with symbolism. I mean you could use my word processor. It saves a lot of time, Audrey. You’ve got to get one. And we could work right here, in the museum,” he tempted.
My fingers were itching to get at it. “Won’t you need it yourself?”
“It looks like I’ll be busy redoing the apartment. What is it you hate most, or is it the overall impression of greed and ambition that turned you off?” He looked around at his material possessions. “The statue, the Renoir, the Dürer sketch . . ."
“Don’t change the hare for me, Brad,” I said. “I identified with that poor trembling creature, all alone with the modern art. I love it all. Really I do. I was just—not jealous exactly—intimidated by your success, I guess.”
“I don’t see why you should have been intimidated by an old hack writer.”
“No, I was jealous of him—her?” He scowled. “I love your wrinkles. They were the first thing I liked about you. The professor scared me a little. What does ‘prelapsarian’ mean anyway?”
“It’s just a critic’s word for innocent—before the fall. Of Adam and Eve, I mean. Critics are a little like psychologists: they use big words to puff up small thoughts. Hacks like Mason and Wildewood use understandable words.”
“Rosalie Wildewood is not a hack!” I said firmly. Then I stopped and thought. I was boosting someone else’s confidence. That wasn’t my job. That was the role of successful people, like Brad. “Hume Mason is a hack,” I said. “Well-written historical romance can have class. Look at M. M. Kaye, The Far Pavilions.”
Brad looked at me and smiled ruefully. “Look at us, apologizing for using the talents we have. Let the longhairs write for each other. We’ll write for the rest of the world, the real people that want all the lowdown on crime and sex and sin. You’ll see Wildewood’s style pick up, now that he has a great bosom to watch heave. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the word processor.”