by Susan Lewis
‘It’s definitely a no-go,’ Michael laughed, as he opened the passenger door of his Land Cruiser for Sandy to get in. ‘But it feels pretty good getting them on the hop like that. Sam Beckers at Showtime is going to be a whole different ball game. We’re seeing him tomorrow. I’m quietly optimistic on that front.’
Sandy waited as he walked round the car and climbed up into the driver’s seat. ‘What time are we supposed to be having dinner with Tom tonight?’ she yawned.
Michael grinned. ‘Eight, at the hotel,’ he answered, ‘but I don’t think you’re going to make it.’
She looked at her watch. ‘Right now it’s two in the morning for me,’ she informed him. ‘But if I can nap for an hour I should be OK for this evening. Is Ellen joining us?’
‘I hope so,’ he said, steering the car out of the parking lot onto one of the streets that joined up with Ventura.
‘I read the rewrites of the first forty scenes,’ Sandy said, looking around at the startling profusion of restaurants, banks, dry-cleaners, yoghurt stops, supermarkets, music and video stores, and of course the ubiquitous McDonald’s. ‘They’re good. I mean, really good.’ She turned to look at him. ‘What do you think?’
‘The same,’ he answered. ‘It seems Ellen’s got something of a feel for Rachel, or so Tom tells me, that’s why it’s working out so well.’
‘Have they done anything with the ending yet?’
‘We discussed it briefly the other night, but they’re not planning to start work on that until Ellen and I come back from honeymoon.’
Sandy turned away. It made her sick just to think of them together, never mind in the throes of a honeymoon. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked through the dryness in her throat. ‘Or is it a secret?’
He smiled. ‘Ellen thinks we’re going to Hawaii,’ he answered. ‘I’m not sure how she figured that out, but she’s wrong.’
‘Won’t she be disappointed? Hawaii sounds pretty exotic to me.’
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Or so they tell me.’
‘So where are you going?’
‘We’ve got a house in the Caribbean, I’m taking her there. After all the craziness of getting the movie up and running we need to be alone for a while, and a hotel isn’t going to offer that in quite the same way as the house will. It’s what she wants too, but she thinks I haven’t picked up on the hints.’
Sandy could feel her face tightening and she wondered if Ellen had any idea how lucky she was to be so loved. ‘So what happened about Michelle?’ she asked. ‘I hear she’s no longer in the running for Rachel.’
Michael turned his head sharply. ‘How did you hear that?’ he asked. ‘It’s supposed to be under wraps, at least until Michelle’s been told.’
‘Actually, Ellen told me,’ Sandy said. ‘I spoke to her last week about something else, and she mentioned that Tom was now considering an American actress for the part.’
Michael’s eyebrows went up. ‘For American actress read Matty Shelby, Ellen’s cousin,’ he informed her. ‘But she’s right for the part, which was why Ellen fought so hard for her.’
Sandy gazed out at the largely unrecognizable assortment of cars with their crazy number-plates and witty or spiritual bumper stickers. She was suddenly so tired she could hardly think, never mind speak, which couldn’t have been more frustrating when they were right on the subject she wanted to be on. ‘So you agree with the new casting?’ she said, stifling another yawn.
‘Nothing’s in stone yet,’ he responded, ‘but yes, in principle, I think Matty could work out well in the role. Why, you don’t anticipate it having any adverse effect on the European investors, do you?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she answered. Then, laughing, she said, ‘You know, I feel quite humbled by all the responses I got while I was travelling around. Mind-blown at first, then incredibly humbled. I shouldn’t think that as many as half of the companies I spoke to had ever even heard of me, or you, yet somehow I managed to come out of that trip with over five million dollars.’ She turned to look at him. ‘It’s amazing how personally involved you start to feel with these guys after they’ve given you their trust like that, isn’t it? I really want this to work out now, for them as much as for us. Is that how you feel too?’
He laughed. ‘It’s exactly how I feel, especially when we’ve got so many friends and family with their money tied up in it too. Did I tell you my mother gave me twenty thousand pounds – virtually the whole of her life savings – when I was last in London? Seems no-one’s prepared to believe we can fail.’
‘We can’t,’ Sandy said, fishing around in her bag for a throat sweet. ‘Except I have to say I thought you’d be keen to have another big name in the role of Rachel, when the movie’s actually about her, rather than Tom.’
‘But Rachel gets killed two-thirds of the way through, so that makes Tom’s the bigger part.’
‘Of course,’ she said and yawned again.
By the time they arrived back at the hotel she was fast asleep in the seat next to him, and woke only when the car valet opened the door and Michael spoke her name. For a moment she was confused, wondering where she was, and as though reading her mind Michael smiled and said, ‘The Four Seasons. Los Angeles. Heading fast towards the end of the second millennium.’
Laughing, Sandy unfastened her seat-belt and allowed the valet to help her down.
‘I’m coming in to see Tom,’ Michael told her, as he walked round the car to join her. ‘Ellen’s tied up with the wedding organizers for the next couple of hours and Robbie’s staying the night at a friend’s.’
‘Would you like to come and have a drink with me?’ Sandy offered, as they walked past the uncannily lifelike statues at the entrance and went into the crowded lobby.
He laughed. ‘Sandy, you’re so tired you can’t even walk a straight line,’ he said.
‘We could go to my room,’ she suggested.
He looked at her, and despite everything that had happened these past few weeks, and all the guilt and self-recrimination that had followed, he still felt the stirrings of a response to the promise in her eyes. ‘Get some sleep,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you at eight to see if you’re fit to come and join us.’
Though her cheeks coloured at his rejection, her eyes lingered a moment longer on his, before she pressed the button for the elevator and stepped inside.
Going into the bar Michael ordered himself a neat Scotch from the waitress, and sat down at a dark corner table hoping not to be recognized. He wanted a few minutes alone, and though the Four Seasons was hardly the place to get it, he was here now and due to meet Tom in fifteen minutes. He looked at his watch, then taking out his cellphone he dialled Ellen’s number.
‘Hi,’ he said, when she answered. ‘How’s it going over there?’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘We’re just talking flowers. We should be through in about an hour. Matty’s with me, shall I invite her to join us for dinner?’
‘Sure.’
There was silence for a moment, until Ellen said, ‘Did you call for a particular reason?’
He laughed. ‘No. Just to hear your voice. I wish we could get out of tonight. With Robbie at Jeremy’s we could have the evening to ourselves. Shall I cancel?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re going to have all the time we need in a couple of weeks. Did Sandy arrive OK?’
‘Yeah. She’s taking a nap. I don’t think we got anywhere with CBS.’
‘You didn’t expect to. Listen honey, we’re kind of busy here, do you mind if I ring off?’
‘Sure. I’ll see you later. Love you.’
Not for the first time she didn’t say it back, and as the line went dead he could feel the anxieties that had forced him to speak to Matty a week ago starting up again. She was so cold with him lately, or perhaps not cold, just not the way she usually was. And, unless it was his imagination, she wasn’t at all keen to be alone with him, for this was the second time in as many days that she had turned
down the opportunity. So what was going on? Was it really just the wedding that was taking up all her time? Or was there something else she wasn’t telling him about?
His drink arrived along with a dish of olives and pistachios. He watched the waitress walk away, her long, willowy legs moving gracefully through the tables. He guessed she was an actress, most of them were, and the slinky movements were no doubt for his benefit, since she’d called him by name, so obviously knew who he was. She turned and glanced back over her shoulder and, catching him watching her, treated him to a smile that offered all he could ever want. He looked quickly away. Christ, there was so much sex on offer in this town it could drive a man to celibacy.
Clicking on his phone as it rang, he took a call from Maggie telling him to get in touch with the World Wide lawyers right away. Guessing from the tone of her voice what the call would be about, he rapidly dialled the number and was put straight through to George Cohen.
‘OK, Michael,’ the spirited eighty-year-old lawyer began, ‘fasten your seat-belt, because this ride’s about to really take off.’
‘Miramax?’ Michael said, feeling the excitement start to pound.
‘If you’re prepared to sign by midday tomorrow,’ Cohen said, ‘then they’ll go two higher than Fox Searchlight.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ Michael gasped. ‘They’re offering ten million dollars?’
‘You got it. So what do I tell them?’
‘That they’ve got themselves a deal,’ Michael laughed. ‘Jesus Christ, George. How did this happen?’
‘Oh, I guess the fact that I know one of the Weinstein brothers might have helped a bit,’ he said modestly. ‘And they believe in the project, son. And after what I told them about you, they believe in you too.’
Michael was momentarily too overcome to speak. He hadn’t known this man for more than six months, yet Cohen was prepared to do this for him.
‘So, I’m filling up the pen with ink,’ Cohen said. ‘I’ll expect you at eleven tomorrow.’
‘It’s a date,’ Michael told him, and rang off.
He sat for a moment, taking in exactly what this massive investment was going to mean. To begin with, they could go ahead with the building of the sets, lay down provisional shoot dates, start searching for locations, offer pay or play contracts and hire themselves a major publicity firm to start work on the pre-release promotions. In fact there were a thousand things they could set in motion now, and he could barely take in how eminently possible it had all become. Then it started to feel overwhelming, even a little unnerving. There would be no backing out now, not that he had any intention of that, but being this locked in was much more sobering than he’d expected.
Picking up the phone he quickly dialled Ellen’s number again. She was going to be every bit as excited – and stunned – as he was, and there was no-one else in the world he wanted to share this moment with more than her. But she’d turned her phone off, and when he tried the wedding organizer’s number he was told she’d already left.
He tried to think who else he should call, but for some reason he could no longer get his mind to focus on this, as, out of nowhere, he was recalling what Sandy had told him about Ellen during his recent trip to London. He hadn’t given it much thought since, for the idea of Ellen as some kind of aspiring megalomaniac had seemed just too absurd. But lately it was starting to appear much less so. After all, she was pretty much in charge of the movie now, was getting the final say on the script, and had managed to change Tom’s mind about Michelle. She was also the one who was in contact with Richard Conway’s people, who attended most of the meetings with the producers, showed up for a lot of the castings and talked daily on the phone with Vic Warren. Added to that she was as involved as he was with the running of ATI, so had a hand in just about all the packaging that was going on in the agency, and as far as the wedding was concerned he couldn’t think of a single decision that had been his. So maybe Sandy was right, she was some kind of control freak, and because of it she was coming pretty close to burning herself out. It would certainly account for the emotional outbursts and loss of appetite lately, in fact it could easily provide the answers to a whole lot of things that were going on right now.
Sighing, he took another sip of his drink. It was pretty sobering to be finding out you didn’t know the woman you loved right on the eve of your wedding. Not that he was considering calling it off; everything was arranged now, and, goddamnit, he loved her no matter what her faults. But if it carried on this way, with Ellen struggling to gain more and more control, instead of husband and wife they would be arch-rivals for a company whose majority shareholder was a man Ellen had lately been seeing a great deal of.
Just the thought of Ted Forgon made him uneasy, for the statute of limitations was fast winding down, and Michael couldn’t be certain which way the old man would go when he finally came out from under the threat of jail. One thing was certain, he wasn’t going to view Michael as his very best chum, nor was he likely to knuckle under and take some kind of consultancy role. Forgon was used to being the boss, and the minute that limitation ran dry, the driver’s seat would be right where he was heading. And there would be a few old scores to settle then, so just what was Ellen doing making up to the old boy now, when, of all people, she was the one Michael was going to need on his side?
Chapter 12
FOR THE MOMENT Ellen and Tom were the only ones at the table, as Matty had gone to the ladies’ room, while Michael went to wake up Sandy with the good news about Miramax. This was far from being the first time they’d been alone since the night they’d made love, for they’d had several script sessions in the past few weeks – which they’d now relocated to one of the ATI conference rooms – and Tom often stopped by the office to pick Ellen up and take her over to Paramount for the endless number of production meetings they were both required to attend.
So the early awkwardness had already been dealt with and Ellen would forever be grateful to him for the way he had handled things, assuring her that Michael would never learn what had happened from him, and that as far as he was concerned it was already forgotten. She’d laughed at that, and, realizing how ungallant it must have sounded, he’d winked and told her that were the circumstances any different there was just no way he’d be giving her the benefit of his selective amnesia.
Since that day they’d never spoken of it again, and though the attraction she’d felt before seemed to have gone, she sometimes wondered if it was the same for him. But that wasn’t something she was going to get into, for it could simply be her ego at work, still wanting to be admired even though she had no desire whatsoever to be unfaithful to Michael again.
But despite how loving and attentive Michael had been since that night, or how euphoric they both were now, knowing that the movie was going to go ahead much sooner than they’d even dared to hope, there was no getting away from the fact that things between them had changed. And in her bleaker moments she was terrified they would never be the same again. The problem was, the trust had gone. Perhaps if he’d confessed what had happened with Michelle she’d be finding it easier to deal with, except that was crazy, for the last thing she wanted was to be forced into confessing herself. So what the hell she was supposed to do about the way things were she had no idea, for though she desperately wanted everything to be right again, there was a very strong part of her that was still so damned angry that she almost took pleasure in pushing him away. She’d even considered calling off the wedding, though the thought of it filled her with panic. But it was there, on her mind, every minute of the day, and after what had happened with Robbie earlier, she wondered if she wasn’t a whole lot closer to leaving than she’d realized.
Michael didn’t know about it, and she didn’t want to tell him, for the last time Robbie had backchatted her Michael had smacked him, which had done nothing at all to help matters. Robbie saw her as the enemy now, the horrible, evil woman who was coming between his mom and dad and ruining all their lives. He�
�d told her that this evening, right after he’d told her how much he hated her and that he never wanted her coming into his room again. And he wasn’t coming to the wedding, he was going to stay here with his mom, because she was the only one who loved him. After that he’d slammed his door in her face and though she’d heard him sobbing into his pillow, she’d known that she couldn’t be the one to comfort him. So Lucina had gone in, and it had hurt Ellen terribly to hear him pleading with Lucina to make Ellen go away so that his dad could marry his mom.
‘Listen, I don’t want to get personal here,’ Chambers said, breaking into her thoughts, ‘but you haven’t heard a word I’ve been saying, and frankly, you look terrible. Beautiful,’ he smiled, ‘but terrible.’
Ellen forced a smile too. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
He looked into her eyes and let the humour fade as he saw how troubled she really was.
She turned sharply away. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’m just tired, and stressed with the wedding.’
His eyes stayed with her, though she refused to meet them. It went much deeper than that, he could tell, but he didn’t blame her for not wanting to open up to him. Besides, now was hardly the time, as Michael and Sandy were heading towards the table and finding Ellen with tears in her eyes was going to look odd enough, without encouraging her to break down.
Getting to his feet he watched Sandy as she looked first at Ellen, then at him. Had she noticed the tears, he wondered, or had Ellen managed to blink them away?
‘Tom, this is Sandy Paull,’ Michael said, as Tom reached out to shake Sandy’s hand.
‘It’s good to meet you, Sandy,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ but no-one, he was thinking to himself, had told him how young she was.
Her turquoise eyes were shining with interest as she looked back at him. ‘Probably not as much as I’ve heard about you,’ she smiled.
‘Hi Sandy,’ Ellen said, getting up to embrace her. ‘How are you? Exhausted, I imagine.’