by Maggie Marr
I ripped my gaze from the ocean that beat against the shoreline and turned to where Sterling stood beside Elizabeth. Lately, moments from the past, from that summer, flooded my mind. First in sleep and now whenever I let reality slip away. Elizabeth and Sterling were deep in conversation and I wasn’t being a good guest. I’d walked away from the movie talk and stood against the balcony that ran along the back of the house.
“Miss Bliss, more wine?” Jonathan asked.
I nodded and he refilled my glass.
“How do you find your cottage? Is there anything you need?”
“I find it to be lovely,” I said. “I am especially fond of the paints and canvases.”
“Ah, yes,” Jonathon said. “Mrs. Montgomery hoped that you might enjoy those while you’re here. That cottage has served as inspiration for many of the world’s most revered artists. Some of the most beautiful work comes from there. It’s almost magical.”
“I can see why,” I said. “The light, the openness, the closeness of the ocean and yet the privacy. You could stay forever and feel as though you were in a different world, living a perfect life.”
“Yes, yes,” Jonathan said. “But that can be the difficult part, too. The reentry into the real world can feel a bit abrupt once you’ve ended your stay at the yellow house. Of course, you know that you and Mr. Legend are welcome to stay for as long as you desire.”
I trailed Jonathan through the French doors and stopped beside Sterling and Elizabeth.
“Jonathan was telling me that the yellow house has quite a history,” I said.
“Oh yes, my dear! It’s been the inspiration for many artists, and not just painters. The work they produce at that place is beyond compare. That’s why I put the paints and canvases there. I hope you didn’t think I was being too forward. I simply wanted you to have them should the yellow house cast a similar spell upon you.”
I nodded. Perhaps they would. The pull to the canvases had grasped me just before we left for dinner, but I’d not yet picked up a brush.
“You should look at the guest book. So amazing. Everyone who stays at the yellow house writes a little note. I hope you two will do so, too. It so pleases the guests to read the notes from the past to the guests of the future.”
“Almost sounds like a film,” Sterling said and tilted his whiskey to his lips.
“Perhaps once we finish The Lady’s Regret,” Elizabeth said and held her glass to toast Sterling.
“You two have come to terms?” I asked. My heart beat a bit faster. I felt a little like a traitor standing beside Sterling and Elizabeth celebrating the film that Papa didn’t want to see made.
“I believe we have,” Elizabeth said. “How can I say no to a script that was written at this very place? The very place in which you are staying.”
I was momentarily confused. “What?”
“Tom wrote the script at the yellow house?” Sterling asked.
Elizabeth nodded. “I thought you knew. Yes, of course. He and Joanne came up here to write. Where it was quiet and calm and away from you four children.” Elizabeth smiled a matronly smile. “Which, as the mother of seven, I completely understand. I offered and they accepted. The work they did was exceptional, wouldn’t you agree?”
“When was that?” Sterling asked.
“It was the most unfortunate of times,” Elizabeth said. She grasped his arm and squeezed. “The summer before Joanne’s diagnosis.”
Sterling’s nodded and took a final sip of his whiskey. The left side of his mouth crooked upward.
“Well, I think it’s time for me to get back, Rhiannon. Will you join me?”
“Of course,” I said and handed my empty glass to Jonathan, who again appeared as if by magic.
We said our good-byes to Elizabeth, declined Jonathan’s offer to drive us back to the cottage, and set out on foot for the magical yellow house that held more secrets than we had ever imagined.
Sterling
“Cami, she said yes.”
“Of course she did,” Cami said. “I never would have come home again if she’d said no.” I could hear Cami’s smile and her teasing tone, but realized that what she said wasn’t far from the truth. “What about the lead actress?”
“She’ll defer to us.”
“How much time before the option expires?”
“Three weeks,” I said. “Not long. We have to begin the first day of shooting within twenty-one days to trigger the purchase.”
“Now that we’ve got the budget can’t we just buy it outright? Send Tom a check for the purchase price and then start when we want?”
“We could if we weren’t in the last ninety days of the option. The last ninety days the only way we can buy it outright is if we show progress to production which, for Tom, means we are about to start shooting.”
“Three weeks isn’t long to find an actress.”
“No,” I said. “Not one who can support this film.”
The silence was loud, nearly deafening.
“You want to make the call or shall I?” I asked.
“We might as well do it together.”
Rhiannon
The sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the bedroom, casting a brilliant light through the white eyelet curtains. Sterling’s voice came from the other room, a low throaty hum. The scent of coffee filled my nose and an overwhelming urge to touch canvas burst through my fingertips to my brain. I threw a sundress over my bare skin still lush and filled with the warmth of Sterling’s kisses. The light in the open living room was just as exquisite. Sterling’s shadow was on the back deck and I heard his voice. Phone calls. One of the primary requirements of producing was hundreds and hundreds of phone calls.
I poured my coffee and my gaze traveled to the easel and the canvas on the far side of the room. The urge was undeniable—not just a want, but a need to mix paint, to feel the wood of the brush handle against the skin of my fingers. The fluttering feeling of my brushstrokes over the canvas. The release of the image that pulsed in my brain.
I settled onto the barstool in front of the easel and took a sip of my coffee. My fingertips trailed over the blank white of the canvas, leaving no marks. The tactile feeling of the cloth against my skin caused a thrill in my body. This canvas would nevermore be blank. Soon the canvas would be filled with paint and colors and the vivid picture that filled my brain. I reached for the paint and squirted some onto the palette and began to mix. My mind had floated away. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. The room around me was void. Filled only with me, and the canvas before me, and my paint and my brush, and the visions that flew from my fingertips onto the canvas over and over again.
*
The muscles in my shoulders tensed and I rolled my head along my neck.
“Hey,” Sterling said softly. His hand settled onto my shoulder and massaged the deep hard knot. “You about ready to take a break?”
A break? I looked around the room. Darkness had fallen. The room no longer lit by the light of a day. Instead lamps that I had not turned on lit the yellow house. I looked up at Sterling and my eyes widened.
His lips pressed the top of my head. “You were deep into it, all day,” he said. A smile played along the curve of his mouth. “It was beautiful to watch.”
My eyelids fluttered and I was back—back here in this reality instead of being caught up in my vision and my paint and my brushes. I stretched my arms and rolled my head. “Wow,” I said. I hadn’t done that in a long while. I looked toward the painting and was mesmerized by the work that my hands had created.
This was not the Venice series. This was Sterling. Or a version of Sterling that only I or him or someone close to him would recognize, but the picture was Sterling. His blue eyes bit through me, as did the sharp curve of his jaw. The painting would take weeks to finish and yet there was Sterling, beginning to stare out at me from my canvas. An unsure feeling quivered along the edges of my gut as I surveyed my work. My uncertainty wasn’t about my work, but ab
out Sterling’s reaction. It was uncommon for anyone to see my work before I finished. I didn’t often paint people. What had compelled me to begin a portrait of Sterling Legend? My eyes glanced from the painting and I turned toward him. He stood behind me, his eyes fixed to the canvas in front of us.
“That’s me,” Sterling said. His voice was soft.
“It would seem so,” I said. “Are you angry?”
“Angry?” He turned to me and his eyes were filled with the light of love. “How could I possibly be angry that you chose to paint me? I’m flattered. Your talent strikes awe within me.”
I dropped my head. A sort of pleasure mixed with embarrassment over Sterling’s praise cascaded through me.
“Rhiannon,” Sterling said. He turned me to him. His hand reached up and held my chin. “I want you to stay. I need you to stay. I am desperately in love with you and I have been since I was seventeen.”
His eyes were so serious, his tone so earnest. I knew that Sterling had these feelings for me, and suddenly instead of feeling caged by the idea of being in California with Sterling a great freedom pulsed through me. A huge desire to be with him and have him be with me and share all the laughter and the love that was innate within us. All that stood between us no longer seemed insurmountable. Our parents would learn to adjust, they would have to.
“Sterling, I love you, too,” I said.
His lips were on mine, a soft and lovely kiss filled with promises for our future. His hands on the sides of my face. Then the heat shifted between us, taking us, consuming us, and we were two becoming one again.
Chapter 19
Rhiannon
“What were you doing with Sterling?” Mama asked. Her voice held judgment mixed with fear, and her eyes blazed. Her gaze trailed up my body and my disheveled clothes. I tugged at my shorts. My hair was filled with tangles and leaves from being with Sterling, from kissing him, from him running his hands through my locks and me clasping for his skin under his shirt.
“Nothing,” I said and brushed past her toward the hall that led to my room.
“Nothing?” Mama said. “Well, that nothing can ruin your life. Have you slept with him then? Were you having sex?”
“No!” I said. I turned back to her. Mama had no right to the private parts of my life. Since Papa had left she smothered us like a bear protecting her cubs. There was no room to breathe, no room to be, she was constantly hovering around me and Maeve. Asking and interrogating and expecting and needing¸ Mama’s constant needing made me tired. She needed someone, anyone, to fill the hole in her life that Papa had left.
“He’s not the right boy for you. He’s too old and he’s much too experienced.”
“Experienced? Mama, what does that mean?”
“He’s like his father,” Mama said. “And now, to be honest, his mother as well.” She shook her head. “I always excused Joanne’s behavior. She’s been my best friend since I was your age.” Mama closed her eyes and shook her head as though she couldn’t bear the facts that lay before her—the knowledge that her best friend and her husband were having an affair.
“Have they heard anything from the doctor?” Mama asked. Who else could she ask? She wasn’t speaking with Joanne and she wouldn’t ask Papa.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“I don’t want you involved with Sterling,” she said. “I’m certain your father feels the same.”
“Papa? Really, does it matter what Papa thinks? As though he has the moral high ground? Mama, he’s left us for another woman. Another woman who is your best friend—”
“Enough,” Mama said. She took three steps toward me. Three heavy footfalls with a menacing look that ravaged her face. Mama had never frightened me, but in this moment my rage slipped from me and was replaced by fear. Her anger burned with a deep ferocity.
“You’re not to speak of it. Not to me, not to Maeve, not to Amanda or Sterling. Do you understand?”
I nodded slowly. Forbidden. My parents had not forbidden anything before this. Now I was forbidden from Sterling and forbidden from speaking about Papa’s deceit. My throat tightened. Hot tears that pushed into the backs of my eyes suddenly flooded and my lips trembled. How had this happened to me? To us? And why was Mama so mean? So very cruel. “I love Sterling.” The words jolted out of my lips as I fought to regain my breath. Tears streamed down my cheeks. “I love him.”
“You are fifteen. You’re too young to love anyone. You have a physical desire for Sterling, but that desire is not love. You won’t know love until you are much older, and as for Sterling Legend? I doubt he has the ability to ever know love at all.”
I opened my eyes to sunlight. So many painful dreams filled with the past. Reminders of why Sterling and I would never work as a couple.
“Have you looked at this?” Sterling turned the corner to our room. He wore only jeans slung low on his hips and no shirt. My body tingled with the sight of his skin, his muscled chest, his arms bare in the sunlight. A desire to kiss him and run my hands over his body overcame me. He held an open book on the palm of one hand and a coffee mug in the other.
“What is it?” I pulled the sheet over my bare breasts. A smile captured his face as he looked at the book he held open. He settled beside me on the bed and set his coffee on the nightstand.
“This guest book goes back forty years.” He flipped to the front of the book. “Seriously, Steve McQueen stayed here and Elizabeth Taylor and Bill Murray. Even Hunter Thompson was a guest. They all left a note. Listen to this one from Liz Taylor.” Sterling read the inscription. “‘The yellow house is a timeless magical place. Where artists’ dreams become their reality.’” He looked up from the book. “Seriously, there is a story here. I’m not sure how to crack it, but there is. With the right screenplay writer there could be a movie or a TV series. There’s more than one way into this story.”
His exuberance pleased me. Experiencing the creative fire in Sterling caused a smile to break over my face. His happiness helped me to ignore my fears.
“I love this idea,” he said and continued flipping through the pages. “I wonder if there is anything in here from Mom. She stayed here with your dad when they wrote The Lady’s Regret.”
Cold fear sliced like a knife through my heart. What if Joanne had left an inscription? Or Papa? What would it say? Would Sterling finally discover the truth? He turned the pages of the book.
“Here,” he said and pointed at the page. “This is around the time they would have been here. He turned the page and his smile widened. “That’s Mom’s handwriting.” He looked at me and pressed his hand to his forehead. “It’s amazing to actually see her handwriting, and to know that she was here.” He started to read, “‘This place is magic. More magical than any moment in my life. My expectation was to come to the yellow house and write a bold and beautiful script with a dear friend.’” Sterling turned to me and wiggled his eyebrows. “That is exactly what they did right? I mean the script is brilliant.” He took a sip of coffee and turned back to the page and continued reading aloud. “‘This script that we created was meant to bring my career to where I wanted. But the magic of this place brought me so much more. So much more than just a simple piece of beautiful writing, (as though that were so easy), this place brought me my first real and pure love in the form of my friend. A man who I have trusted and enjoyed has turned into more than a friend. More than I could ever expect …’” Sterling’s lips continued moving and his eyes widened, but he no longer read aloud the words his mother had written.
A shiver chased down my spine. I pulled my knees to my chest. His brow pulled tight with deep creases as he regained his voice. “‘A man so fully embraced by love, so giving, so warm I feel as though I have been resurrected and brought in from the cold.’”
Sterling stopped reading. I cast my eyes downward toward the sheets. The cloth twisted in my hand.
“There’s another from your Dad,” he said. He handed me the book, heavy in my hands. I pressed it closed, not needing to
read the words of love Papa had written about another woman while married to Mama.
“It’s true then,” Sterling asked. His gaze landed on me. “Did you know?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I was fifteen, I’m not certain what I knew.”
“But you suspected.”
I nodded slowly, afraid that once I’d admitted my suspicions Sterling would leave me. We’d finally been together and I’d finally surrendered to the love between us. Would I now be pushed aside by Sterling because of what our parents had done?
“You never said anything.”
“I left, I had to go and then we never talked and now, it’s so long ago. What is there to say? Why say it? Joanne is gone, my parents’ marriage is over. What good would me telling you something I only suspected do?”
“And Gayle? Your Mom?”
I nodded. “She knew. She doesn’t talk about what happened and the one time I brought it up and asked, she told me to never speak of it. Not with her, not with Maeve, and definitely not with you or Amanda.”
Sterling looked at the page. “The date indicated they were here during that summer. Right before that night when they split up, the night Dad called her a whore and then I bruised his fist with my cheek.” He looked past me, through the tall bedroom windows with a view of the ocean.
“And Gayle took care of us,” Sterling said. “She took care of Amanda and me all those years. She took care of Mom when she was sick. After Dad moved back in and you and Maeve had left and”—his eyes met mine—“She took care of my mother after what my mother did.”
“Yes,” I said. “Mama has always been loyal. She doesn’t turn her back on those she loves. It’s not her way.”