First Loves: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Stone, Jean

  Meg closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. But her gaze was distant, self-protective. “It seemed that way,” she said. “I guess I was wrong. Maybe it would have been better to have kept the dreams intact. Maybe dreams are better than the real thing.”

  Zoe knew that Meg’s dreams had lasted as long as her own, lingering for years in the background, sometimes flickering, sometimes languishing, but never completely disappearing. She put her hand across Meg’s. “Oh, Meg, I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah,” Meg whispered, “me, too.” She stared at Zoe’s hand a moment, then raised her head and said, “What about you? Tell me about Minnesota.”

  Zoe picked up her fork and stabbed a tomato wedge, the way she would like to stab Eric, the way he had stabbed her heart. “I’m afraid my reunion, too, was a mistake. One I’ll be paying for the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, Zoe.”

  Zoe set down her fork and stared into her salad. Suddenly the reality of the last few weeks rushed at her. It had finally happened: all the years of secrets, all the years of lies, had exploded as quickly as a power load of dynamite in a canyon. Exploded, leaving only the craggy, sharp edges of truth.

  “Eric figured out that he is my son’s father.” Zoe looked up at Meg, half expecting to see shock, to see judgment. But Meg’s soft eyes only looked sad.

  And then Zoe began. She slowly recounted the story she had told Meg and Alissa at the spa—the story of her early years with Eric, their escape to Hollywood, her marriage, her stroke, and her seclusion from the rest of the world. But this time she told Meg about her pregnancy, and that Eric was Scott’s father. Then she told her about visiting Eric, about Eric’s surprise visit to L.A., and about Scott’s withdrawal from Zoe.

  “And now here I am, making a comeback. With one half of my life finally coming together again, and the other half completely falling apart.”

  They sat quietly for a moment. Zoe was surprised she wasn’t crying. She felt, instead, numb. Anesthetized. Dead.

  “I think we’ve both learned a major lesson,” Meg said. “That the past is better off left alone.”

  Slowly, Zoe nodded.

  As Zoe lay in bed later that night, she admitted to herself that Meg’s visit actually had made her feel better. “Misery loves company” was a gruesome thought, but it was the best Zoe could come up with. The big difference was, Meg could walk away from her reunion and the hurt would ease in time. But Zoe’s wound was like an abscess: the surface would heal over with superficial skin, but underneath the infection would lie in wait, festering, building, with the constant reminder that Scott had found out the truth about his real father, and that he had found it out the wrong way. And when the pressure became too forceful, too intense, the boil would burst open, poisoning everyone around it again. All because Zoe hadn’t left well enough alone.

  When the telephone rang, it took Zoe a moment to recognize the eerie, digitized sound. She rolled on her side, reached up, and snapped on the lamp by her bedside. As she grabbed the receiver, she glanced at the clock. Twelve-twenty.

  It was Marisol.

  “Good God, Marisol, do you know what time it is here?”

  “We’ve got a problem, Zoe.”

  She sat up in bed. “Scott?”

  “He’s not hurt or anything,” her friend said quickly. “But, girl, he’s run away.”

  Pain seared her heart. She drew her knees to her chest and tried to press it away. “Run away? Oh, God, Marisol, I should have known something like this would happen.” She struggled to catch her breath as though Marisol’s words had tramped on her lungs and squeezed the air from them. “How long has he been gone? Have you called his friends’ houses? He must be at one.…”

  “He’s not.”

  “Well, of course he is. He wouldn’t run away by himself.”

  “Apparently he didn’t.”

  An ominous sickness rose inside her. She closed her eyes. The darkness swirled.

  “He’s gone away,” Marisol said in a flat, even tone. “To spend time with Eric.”

  Zoe screamed and threw the phone across the room. The cord ripped from its socket, the eerie bell jangled in mockery as the phone crashed against the wall and thumped to the floor.

  She screamed again, then fell onto the bed, racked with loud, mournful sobs, hurt like an animal stabbed in the heart. Then she started shaking: her hands, her shoulders, her legs. She lay on the bed, trembling, crying.

  “No,” she said aloud. “No. No. No. No.” The look of pain on Scott’s face when he learned the truth flashed into her mind. Beside it appeared the pain of Eric’s. “No,” she said again. “No.”

  She pulled herself from the bed. She had to call Marisol back. She spotted the phone and jammed the plug into its socket. She held out her hand to try to steady it, then slowly punched each number.

  “What happened?” Marisol answered before Zoe heard the phone ring. “Are you okay?”

  Zoe cried. She couldn’t seem to speak.

  “Oh, God,” Marisol continued, “I wasn’t even going to call you.”

  Zoe’s temples throbbed, her throat remained closed. This wasn’t possible. This wasn’t happening. She heard Marisol’s words as though they were blurred, disjointed.

  “He left a note.…”

  She drew her knees to her chest again and hugged them more tightly, trying to regain control, trying to concentrate on what her friend was saying.

  “He doesn’t want you to come after him. He said they aren’t going to Minnesota.”

  “Like hell,” Zoe heard herself scream. Adrenaline surged and propelled Zoe from the bed. “I’m going to find him. He’s fourteen years old! I’m bringing him home.”

  “Zoe, that’s not a good idea.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s not a good idea! He’s my son, for chrissake. That bastard has no business with him.”

  “That ‘bastard’ is his father.”

  “Don’t be an ass, Marisol.”

  “Calm down. Before you go taking off anywhere, I want you to sit down and take a few deep breaths. Then I’m going to read you the note.”

  “Marisol …”

  “Do what I say. Do it now.”

  Zoe slumped onto the edge of the bed. “Okay, I’m sitting. Read it.”

  “Take those deep breaths.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to suck in a long breath. The air quivered around her pain. She tried again. Slowly, her trembling lessened. She opened her eyes. “Read it.”

  Marisol paused a moment. “Okay,” she finally said. “He says, ‘I want to get to know my real father. I think I deserve it.’ ”

  Zoe felt the trembling return.

  “ ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. He says we can stay together as long as I like.’ ”

  She bit back her tears as Marisol continued reading.

  “ ‘Don’t try to come after me, Mom.’ ”

  Zoe could stand it no longer. “Don’t try to come after him? Is he crazy? Of course I’m going after him. And I’m calling the police. This is kidnapping, Marisol. That bastard has my son, and I’m going to see to it he pays.” Her words spilled out and scattered like nonpareils on a hardwood floor. “He didn’t go of his own accord, you can be sure of that. Eric probably forced him to write that note. Scott would never do this, never.…”

  “He wrote the note, Zoe. And Eric wasn’t even here. I found an envelope addressed to Scottie in the wastebasket. It was postmarked Minnesota. Eric must have mailed him a ticket.”

  Her jaw tensed. “To where?”

  “Don’t know. And there’s something else,” Marisol said quietly.

  Zoe wanted to laugh, a low, primal laugh that would rid her gut of the guilt, of the fear.

  “Scottie also says here that if you try to find him, he’ll call the newspaper and tell them who he is, and who his father really is.”

  She no longer wanted to laugh. Now Zoe wanted to die. She reached up and turned off the lamp. “I don’t care what he’s threatened.
I’ve got to find my son.” She hugged her knees again and rocked back and forth.

  “You’re forgetting one thing, Zoe,” Marisol said quietly. “Eric’s not a villain. He’s mad as hell. But Scottie’s his son, too. And you can hate me for saying this, but as long as everything’s out in the open now, maybe Scottie’s right. Maybe he deserves to know his real father.”

  Zoe squeezed her arms around herself. “Fuck him,” was all she said.

  “Cut!”

  Zoe glared at Cal Baker and stormed off the makeshift set on the West Side docks. She knew she had screwed up. For about the tenth time this morning she had forgotten her lines. She crossed the pier and marched into the motor home that served as her dressing room. She flung herself onto the sofa. How was she supposed to be a supermom of the nineties when she didn’t even know where her own son was? Or if she would ever see him again? The show must go on.… Well, Zoe thought, maybe it’s been too long. Maybe she was simply too old to focus when her own son’s future was at stake.

  The heavy door to the trailer opened. Cal Baker stepped inside. “What’s your problem, Zoe?”

  She turned away so he wouldn’t see her tears. “Nothing, Cal. Just a bad morning.”

  She heard his heavy boots plod across the pink carpet. He sat down facing her. He wore jeans and a blue T-shirt that read “I’m the Boss, That’s Why.” The tan that coated his brow pulled white-lined wrinkles together as he scowled. “You walked off my set,” he said. “Nobody walks off my set.”

  She rose from the sofa and walked to the mirror. Her lack of sleep and tearful night were painted on her eyes: they were bloodshot specks, capped with swollen lids and bearded by dark circles. She ran her fingers across them, then down to her mouth. The left side of her lip drooped, the way it always did when she was tired, the way it always had since the stroke, the stroke that had been Eric’s fault.

  She turned back to the director. “I’m having some personal problems. I just need a few minutes to collect myself.”

  “We’re on a deadline, Zoe. Every minute costs money.”

  She nodded. “I know that. Please, Cal, I’m doing the best I can.”

  He stood and headed for the door. “I took a chance when I hired you. If you really want this career of yours back, you’d better keep that in mind.” He put his hand on the knob and opened the door. “Don’t disappoint me, Zoe,” he said, and went out the door.

  Zoe clutched her hand to her stomach. She stared at the door as it closed after him, as it closed, perhaps, on the rest of her life. Maybe this whole thing has been a mistake, she thought. She still didn’t even know if she was any longer good at acting; she didn’t even know if she still liked it. For the past few days she had merely been going through the motions.

  She looked through the jalousied windows, out at the set. It was a scene on the docks in which Jan Wexler, alone, confronts the gang who is trying to recruit her son.

  Her son.

  Scott.

  Zoe watched the other actors, the grips, the extras, mill around the pier, waiting for her to emerge, waiting for the next take. And then one painful thought crossed her mind: was any job, was any career, worth losing her son?

  She turned from the window and went to the phone. In less than a minute she had Meg on the line.

  “I need your help,” Zoe pleaded. “I have to get off this film. I have to get out of my contract.”

  They agreed that Zoe would have her agent fax a copy of the contract to Meg; that Meg would meet Zoe on the set as soon as she reviewed it.

  “Until then,” Meg warned her, “do what you’re supposed to do.”

  Zoe hung up and chewed on a fingernail. Then she took a deep breath, checked her makeup, and returned to the lights, camera, action of the world that, so many years ago, had seemed so right.

  The rest of the morning was endless. The sun simmered over the bay and boiled off the pavement of the pier. More than once Zoe felt as though she were going to faint. Nerves were frayed. Faces were tense. The child playing Jan Wexler’s youngest threw up; the next to the oldest had a tantrum. Zoe forgot her lines four more times.

  During the lunch break Zoe walked to the end of the pier, holding a cool cloth to the back of her neck. She thought about Cedar Bluff. She wondered how Scott would feel if she had to sell the house; she wondered where he was right now, this minute, in what city, what state. She wondered if he would ever come home.

  “Zoe?” It was Meg’s voice.

  “Meg. Thank God you’re here.”

  Meg wiped her forehead. She looked even more drawn, more distressed than she had the night before.

  “How can you stand this heat?” she asked.

  Zoe shrugged. “That’s show biz. Now tell me, what have we got?”

  Meg pulled some papers from her briefcase. “What we have here is sealed in stone. If you walk off the set, you’ll breach the contract. You’ll not only lose your salary but stand to be sued for more than what you’re getting paid.”

  The air grew heavier, hotter. “Is that legal?”

  “They probably figure the more they’re paying you, the more difficult you’ll be to replace. There’s an escalating clause, too, which simply means the longer you’ve been in production, the more they can sue you for.”

  Zoe leaned against the railing and looked across the Hudson toward the New Jersey skyline. Who was to say that the pressures of tenement life in a gang-riddled city were any worse than those in a two-million-dollar home in a glamorous town? Didn’t people simply make a lot of their own pressures themselves? She blinked against the sun, the heat, the dense blanket of haze. “What am I going to do, Meg? I can’t afford to make my mortgage payment. How can I risk being sued?”

  “You can’t. Besides, you’re just getting started again, Zoe. If you walk out of here, you’ll be jeopardizing your future.”

  Zoe watched a Circle Line tour boat churn through the gray water. She thought about the tourists on board. Were their lives as complicated as hers?

  “Oh, God,” she cried. “I can’t go through this. I can’t take any more.” Tears ran down her cheeks, streaking her makeup with stripes of grief.

  Meg’s arm wrapped around her. “Zoe, what is it? What’s happened?”

  “It’s Scott,” Zoe sobbed. “My son has run away.” She wiped her eyes and looked up at the sky. “He’s gone with Eric. He’s run away with his father.”

  “Oh, Zoe.”

  “I’ve got to get him back, Meg.”

  “Of course. Of course you do,” Meg began pacing. “Do you think they’re in Minnesota?”

  “Maybe. Who knows?”

  “We can find out.”

  “How? Call Eric’s house and ask for Scott?” Zoe closed her eyes again. This was so hopeless, she was so helpless.

  “No. Remember me mentioning my friend Danny? The private investigator?”

  Zoe laughed. “I could probably afford to be sued before I could afford to hire a private investigator.”

  “I said he’s a friend. He’ll do this as a favor.”

  “There will be expenses.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Zoe cast her a doubtful glance.

  “You can pay me back when you’re a star again.”

  Zoe felt the tears well again. “If.”

  “Okay. If.”

  “But even if Danny finds Scott, Scott won’t listen to a stranger.”

  “Danny’s a pro. He’ll know how to handle it.”

  “Scott will be upset.”

  “Do you trust me, Zoe?”

  Zoe looked across the river once more, at the boats crawling over the calm, soothing water. “I never would have told you everything if I didn’t.”

  “Good. Because I trust Danny. And I know he’ll do anything for me—or for a friend of mine.”

  “And no one will find out?”

  Meg shook her head. “Discretion is Danny’s middle name.”

  But discretion or no discretion, Zoe feared that Meg
’s friend would never find Scott. And she feared that once again—because of Eric Matthews—she had blown her chance at what could have been a wonderful new life.

  15

  Later that afternoon Meg sat in the visitors’ room at the city lockup and listened to the whining excuses of her new client, a woman charged with accessory to murder, whose live-in boyfriend, an Austrian with more titles than money, had been indicted for first-degree murder of his wealthy business partner. The prosecution claimed he’d told the woman about the crime. George Bascomb was defending the Austrian; he reluctantly turned the woman’s case over to Meg after Arnold Banks stormed into the office demanding another attorney on the day Meg learned about Candace Riley’s accident.

  “I swear, he didn’t tell me anything.” The overdressed woman pouted now. “He would have if he’d killed him, but he didn’t. We’re both innocent.”

  “The only person we have to worry about is you,” Meg said dryly. Although George maintained the prosecution had little evidence against the Austrian, Meg knew that if his client went down, so would hers. She had to try to keep the two cases separate, if there was any hope at all for her client.

  “Can’t you get me out of here?” the woman pleaded.

  “The bail hearing is scheduled for ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “Do you mean I have to spend the night here?” She glared at Meg as though this injustice were her fault.

  “Afraid so.” Meg tried to sound professional but was increasingly aware of her weariness. Weariness over people who took it for granted that things should work the way they wanted. Weariness over spoiled, indulged, always-have-everything-handed-to-them people, the Holly Davidsons of the world, the Arnold Bankses. They were phony and empty and she hated that she had filled her life with them. She stared at the cinder-block wall. “I take it making bail won’t be a problem.”

  The woman shook her head. As Meg suspected, she must be loaded, or she and her boyfriend could not have retained Larson, Bascomb, Smith, Rheinhold, Paxton, and Cooper.

  “I’ll be here for you at nine forty-five,” Meg said. As she stood, the metal chair scraped against the tile floor. She looked into the woman’s eyes, searching for sincerity. The woman blinked and looked away. Meg realized now that it had taken seeing Steven again to admit what she’d done with her life, that for years she had been helping people she didn’t even know, let alone like. This woman, Meg knew, would be no different.