“Not about anything sad, you know that.” Arlene looked around the room, apparently absorbing everything. It was her chosen avocation. There was nowhere that she would rather be than in the center of a party. “They all carry their own little Greek tragedies around with them, or so they think. Much more like pathos or last week’s soap opera. ‘As The Stomach Churns,’ how’s that?”
Johanna laughed. “I think I’ve heard that before.”
“Well, I said it with more flair,” Arlene declared with conviction. “Now, let’s go and ogle some great looking men.”
But Johanna made no move to join the woman. “Where’s Sam?”
Arlene pretended to frown. A second chin puddled beneath her first. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Seriously—“
“Seriously,” Arlene answered solemnly. Then she relented as she gestured vaguely to a far corner of the banquet room toward a cluster of people who were making more than their share of noise. “He’s over there somewhere, probably still with that platinum starlet from Spanky’s Holiday breathing all over him. Dora McDaniels I think. Poor ditzy thing thinks if she gives Sam a little action, he can get her a part in Harry’s film. Life never changes, does it?”
Subtly, Arlene guided Johanna toward a table covered with trays of food. In the center of the long table was a sculpture of a nude female.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Johanna shifted her eyes from the sculpture and scanned the table. Maybe having an hors d’oeuvre wouldn’t be a bad idea after all. “I think it does.”
“Maybe.” Arlene helped herself to a plate full of something that looked like pigs in a blanket. Many pigs. “Trouble is,” she popped one into her rounded scarlet mouth, “it changes for the worse.”
Johanna shook her head. Beneath her wispy bangs, her brow furrowed. “I don’t like to think that.”
“Neither do I, but it’s true.” Arlene stopped eating. “Are you planning to stop the party by breaking into a rendition of Tomorrow and making us all weep into our handkerchiefs?” The hors d’oeuvre hovered an inch away from her mouth.
Johanna guided Arlene’s short fingers to complete the action. Lips met food with satisfaction. “You forgot how to weep a long time ago, Arlene.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She saw someone across the room and sighed. “I weep every time I see a young guy in tight pants walk by and know I can’t have him.”
Johanna handed her plate to an attendant behind the table and shook her head when he tried to offer her more. “If he’s wearing tight pants,” she turned back to Arlene, “then he’s probably gay.”
“Maybe.” Arlene popped two heaping crackers into her mouth and they slid down in an amazingly fast time. “But I’m not prejudiced. Besides,” she spread another healthy slab of cheddar cheese over a tiny cracker, “it would certainly be fun finding out. Hold it,” she called to the waiter who walked by.
“Arlene, you can’t,” Johanna hissed, not exactly sure what her friend was capable of.
“I’m just getting another glass of champagne, Johanna,” Arlene said innocently, her small eyes disappearing into her face as she grinned. “Relax a little.”
The tall, handsome waiter smiled broadly at the two women and lowered the tray to accommodate Johanna’s reach. She accepted a glass, winding her slender fingers around the stem, almost for support rather than having something to drink.
Arlene watched the waiter as he moved away from them. “Just look at those hips, will you?” Her sigh was audibly loud. “Where do you think they get all those gorgeous men from to act as waiters?”
“The unemployed actors line,” Johanna said simply, sipping her champagne.
The drink was bitter and not at all pleasing. Alicia was skimping again. Quantity instead of quality, Johanna thought. But she didn’t set it down. She wanted to have something to do with her hands instead of just knotting them together.
She looked around the huge room for Harry. It wasn’t hard to find him He was now in the center of a crowd. Probably pontificating. The crowd was made up mostly of young women. Once, he had been in the center of crowds of men, men who listened when he spoke. Now he talked to women who pretended to listen and hoped that they could get something out of it.
“Has he left you unguarded again?”
Johanna turned as she heard the deep baritone voice to her left. “Hello, Marty.” She nodded at the assistant producer her husband had convinced to link his name with this movie. She wondered if her smile looked as forced as it felt.
“You know,” Marty slipped an arm around her shoulders, “Harry might be a movie genius—“
“The operative word here is ‘might,’” Arlene said into her glass, but loud enough for Johanna to hear.
“—but he certainly doesn’t seem to know how to appreciate the finer things in life. Now if you were mine, Johanna—“ Lazily, he let his fingertips glide along her bare back.
She raised her eyes to his face. The meaning of his words were very clear. It was an open invitation, any time, any place, anywhere. She felt revolted. “But I’m not, am I?”
“My loss.”
She patted the smooth, handsome face. “You’ll get over it.” She saw the star of Harry’s ill-fated fiasco coming their way, a woman with ivory skin, flowing blond hair—her own—and a figure that was only out done by her insatiable appetite for good looking men. “In about five minutes, I’ll wager.”
Marty looked at her quizzically as she took a step backward, safely away from his arm. Then he saw Tracy and his smile broadened. “Business,” he murmured, taking his leave.
“Of the most important kind,” Arlene laughed bawdily, drawing glances their way. “You know, sweetie, there’s something you could learn from Tracy.”
“What?” Johanna watched the couple disappear in the crowd. “How to carry my own penicillin in my purse?”
Arlene wagged a stubby finger at her. “Tacky, tacky, sweetie.”
Johanna grinned. “But true.”
“No argument. What I was referring to is that Tracy has fun.”
“Fun, to paraphrase, my dear Arlene, is in the eyes of the beholder. Having some handsome, sweaty guy strip me of my clothes and—“
“Stop, you’re getting me all excited.” Arlene fanned herself with her hand as she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling.
Johanna moved away from the buffet table, seeking a quieter space away from the swell of the crowd. “Fooling around just for the sake of doing it is not my idea of fun, Arlene.”
Arlene looked as if she thought Johanna was in serious need of help. “What is your idea of fun?”
Her slim bare shoulders moved up and down shyly. “All the corny things you laugh at.”
“Maybe I laugh at them because I can’t have them,” Arlene said quietly.
Arlene’s answer wasn’t what she had expected and it surprised her. Johanna began to comment on the glimmer of truth she had seen exposed, but Arlene shut it away, her face impassive, her eyes roaming.
“C’mon, I’m going to find you a dance partner. You’re not going to stand here like a wallflower when I know that there are at least a dozen men just dying to hold you in their arms.”
She knew it was useless to argue, but she thought she’d give it a try. “Arlene, why are you so intent on my having a good time?”
“You’ll have it for both of us. Call it vicarious living. I’m a stage mother, okay?”
“You’re not old enough to be my mother.”
“For that, you gain a place in my will. Now c’mon.”
Arlene took Johanna by the hand and led her across the floor. Johanna turned to see Harry pocket something someone had just handed him and then walk quickly toward the bathroom. Her heart sank.
“All right, Arlene, you win. Let’s find me a dance partner. “
Arlene had seen Harry as well. “Atta girl.” She grinned triumphantly.
Chapter Ten
Johanna wasn’t wrong.
She wished she was,
but it was very evident to her that she wasn’t. Harry had scored some cocaine and had snorted it in the men’s room. Even if she hadn’t overheard two men talking about it later that evening, laughing about how pathetically anxious Harry had been to inhale the white powder, she would have seen it in his frenzied behavior. As did everyone else. She felt embarrassed for him, humiliated for herself. Wasn’t he ever going to learn? Wasn’t he ever going to come to his senses?
She knew in her heart what the answer to that was.
His behavior, his gestures, were more erratic, more frantic than ever. Supposedly, according to articles that she had read recently, including a well-researched piece in a national magazine with an astronomical readership, cocaine was on the outs. It was no longer popular nor glamorous to be taking it, either as part of a group activity or alone. Johanna knew that to be a myth. The fact was, she thought dismally, that the drug was still available, that there were still people hooked on it. It was still being done on a daily basis by a lot of people; they were no longer as blatant about it, that was all. Except for Harry. Harry acted as if he could do anything, as if he thought that no one suspected his “secret.”
She saw Alicia Martin smirk and cast her a pitying glance. Harry was a joke to her, an amusing monkey with which to entertain her guests. Johanna was torn between wanting to flee and scratching the woman’s eyes out. She did neither. She stood her ground and held her head up high. Harry’s emotional shortcomings were not going spill out and soil her or Jocelyn. She wouldn’t let them. In that, she knew she was stronger than Harry. She could find the will to rise above this. Harry couldn’t. He had no chance to break free. There was always someone to get him a hit and no one to wag a reproving finger at him. Except for her. And that made her an ogre in his eyes.
Johanna watched as he poured himself over a woman she didn’t recognize. The woman was more than receptive to his blatant overtures. Johanna watched with eyes filled with anger, for Harry, for the woman, for the industry that had made him this way and for herself for staying. The pitying glances from the other women at the party hurt her pride more than watching Harry act the flirtatious lover in search of a willing partner. She wondered why. Maybe because she was finally numb inside. She wasn’t sure.
She missed Paul. He would have kept Harry from making a total spectacle of himself. Paul would have managed to do that for her. But Paul was gone and Harry was out of control. There was absolutely nothing she could do. To try to coax him away from the starlet he was devouring with his eyes would have just made her look like a fool and she couldn’t bear that. Besides, it would have accomplished nothing.
As the long evening wore on, Johanna mingled, talked, and predominantly, endured.
Finally, mercifully, the party began to break up and it was time to leave. Harry made rounds and bid everyone good night by name, so far gone that he didn’t know people were laughing at him and the comical figure he now cut. He didn’t know, but Johanna did. It cut pieces out of her soul. She led him outside, holding onto his arm to keep him from falling over his own feet.
“I’ll drive,” Harry announced when the valet brought their leased Mercedes.
The control she fought all night to maintain finally broke. “The hell you will. Get in on the passenger side, Harry. I’ll drive.”
Sweeping passed him, she took the keys from the valet, pressing money into his hand. She had her hand on the door when Harry pulled her around.
Harry clamped his fingers around her wrist. He wanted to make her surrender the keys, to surrender the superior tone he felt she used. His face was close to hers and he almost snarled. “You hate to drive in London. You said so, remember?”
“I hate to die even more.”
Her eyes were cold, daring him to challenge her. She was aware that the valet had backed away, unwilling to be a witness to the scene. She could hardly blame him.
Harry opened his mouth to curse her, then abruptly shut it, shrugged and grinned foolishly. “Suit yourself.”
He walked to the passenger side of the car on rubbery legs and all but fell in. Johanna breathed a sigh of relief. Her eyes met those of a woman she was vaguely acquainted with who stood waiting with her husband for their car. Johanna raised her chin, smoothed the skirt of her gown and slid in behind the wheel.
The party had been held at a hotel not far from their own. Johanna, her teeth clenched, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, made her way through the sparse traffic on King’s Road and turned right on Sloane Street. She nearly made a wrong turn on Beauchamp Place, but recovered in time, mentally chastising herself. Next to her, Harry sat, humming, oblivious to everything. His very presence unnerved her. They couldn’t reach the hotel fast enough for Johanna.
Wade Masterson snapped to attention as Johanna pulled up to the curb. With agility that didn’t seem possible for a man of his bulk, he was at her side and opening the door for her. Two slightly uneven rows of teeth flashed at her as he smiled down into her face. He had already labeled Johanna as one of the most attractive women he had ever seen the moment she had checked in. The most attractive as well as one of the saddest.
Then Wade Masterson looked at Harry and his genial smile froze a little around the edges.
“Good evening, Mrs. Whitney. Mr. Whitney.” He turned ever so slightly toward Johanna, his considerable frame cutting Harry off. The snub did not go unnoticed. “Will you be needing any help tonight?”
“No.” Johanna smiled her gratitude even though it pained her to have people see what she had to put up with. “I think we can manage very well.” She handed the doorman the spare keys to the car. They were enveloped in a pound note. “If you’ll just have someone put it away.”
“Of course, ma’am.” Masterson touched two fingers to his hat. Mrs. Whitney was a lady, a genuine lady. Too bad her husband was just a miscreant.
She took Harry’s arm, not because she wanted to, but because she was afraid that if she didn’t, he would fall down at her feet.
Harry was busy trying to focus in on the lobby and keep the colors from bleeding into one another. “I can walk, dammit,” he hissed at her.
But she refused to let go of his arm as she made her way slowly, deliberately, to the elevator. She felt eyes following them on their path and told herself that it was only curiosity, nothing more. People were always curious about the rich and famous. “Crawl would be more like it,” she said between clenched teeth.
He wanted to pull away and found he couldn’t quite manage it. But he always had the strength for an icy retort. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To see me crawl.”
She sighed as she pressed for the elevator. Almost immediately, the doors slid open before her. It was empty, thank God. “Not at all.”
“Oh,” he stumbled as he entered and caught himself against the back wall, “the ice princess is back.”
She reached to help him, and then dropped her hand. What was the use? The damn fool would never understand, would he? “I don’t play parts, Harry. I am first and foremost, your wife.”
“And don’t you forget it!”
He drew himself up to his full height. He appeared taller than five ten because of the weight he had lost. He braced himself, holding on to the bar that ran the length of the elevator. Whatever they had given him tonight, it kept coming back in little flashes when he least expected it. He was going to have to ask Garrison to get him more of the same as soon as possible.
“I’m not the one who forgets, Harry.” She was weary of it all. With a sigh, Johanna took his arm once more as the elevator came to a halt.
Harry slumped against her. “And neither do they.”
He was babbling again, she thought, struggling to make her way down the wide hallway as Harry leaned heavily on her. She propped him up against the wall as she took her key out of her clutch purse.
“Who’s ‘they,’ Harry?”
He looked at her contemptuously. She knew who they were. She was their informant. They smuggled information to the head
of the studio. Lies. All lies.
“The guys that were slobbering all over you tonight.”
Oh God, not again. “No one slobbered, Harry.”
The suite was dark and she turned the light on. She hated the dark now, hated it because it brought her thoughts into focus so much more clearly. She wanted no thoughts tonight, nothing. She was suddenly beyond being bone weary of it all.
“Don’t you think I saw them?”
She refused to even look at him. “The only thing you seem to be seeing are things you insist on fabricating in what’s left of your mind.” Angry, she threw her purse down on the coffee table and marched toward her bedroom. She wanted nothing more than to shut him out.
He grabbed her arm and spun her around. The effects of the cocaine suddenly disappeared, as they were wont to do, and he came crashing down to earth with a depressing jolt. A moment ago, he had seemed too weak to stand, but now there was almost superhuman strength in his grip. His fingers pressed into her bare flesh, his face loomed inches away from hers. Every inch exuded malevolence.
“The only reason Marty Scoffield and Earl Haywood want to get your pants down is to get close to me.”
She tried to jerk away and almost cried out from the pain, but clenched her teeth to keep the sound back. “Then why are they bothering with me? Your pants are always down. Not for me, but for everyone else.” With another yank, she freed herself and walked into her room. She tried to shut the door, but he pushed his way in. There was sheer fury in his eyes.
“Are you accusing me of being gay?” The veins on his neck stood out.
The look in his eyes told her to back away, but it was too late for that. Too late for a lot of things.
“No, I’m accusing you of being sick, of using sex to feed that starving ego of yours, of using cocaine to tell yourself that you’re wonderful instead of finding a way to make it all work again for you.”
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