Reilly's Return

by Tami Hoag

  That thought provoked memories of her own ideals, memories of how determined she had been to succeed when she’d left Notre Dame and headed west. She’d been so enthusiastic when she’d set out to chase that rainbow. What had happened to that enthusiasm? What had happened to that dream?

  The rainbow had faded. Her priorities had changed. Or had she let them go?

  They entered the hubbub of the airport in silence, encased in a grim bubble of stillness amid the noisy confusion of passengers departing and arriving. Jayne stood by and guarded Reilly’s duffel bag as he bought his ticket. She walked beside him in silence to his gate, where passengers were already boarding the plane.

  She hated airports. They were such public places to express private good-byes. Good-byes that always had the potential of being final. Her last good-bye to Mac had been at an airport. She’d kissed him at the gate and waved as he’d disappeared down the tunnel to board a plane that had never brought him back.

  She’d known a vague sense of dread that day. It hung over her today as well, a black shroud of depression that threatened to smother her.

  Reilly was leaving. He was going back to Hollywood where he was adored by nearly everyone. And she was staying behind to write what would undoubtedly be a scathing review of the movie he had worked so hard on. She couldn’t escape the feeling that he wouldn’t be coming back except to collect his dog and his Jeep.

  “I’ve got to board, luv,” he said softly, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

  His heart ached at the thought of leaving. It ached at the expression on Jayne’s face and the tears pooling in her eyes. He hated leaving her, especially this way, when they’d been fighting. That stupid bracelet of hers had her convinced something terrible was going to happen, and no doubt she thought he wouldn’t be coming back. His heart wanted to give her some positive proof that his love for her was true, but it also wanted her blind trust.

  Two fat tears slipped over the barrier of Jayne’s dark lashes as she looked up at him.

  “I’m sorry we had to fight,” she whispered, more tears choking her voice. She and Mac had never fought. They had existed on a plane of spiritual harmony. She and Reilly fought all the time. This was probably just another sign that they didn’t belong together, she thought, her heart sinking lower still.

  Reilly brushed one crystal drop from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “A fight ain’t the end of the world, Jaynie. We’re friends, remember?”

  He bent down and kissed her softly, his lips caressing hers with all the tenderness and love he could convey. Her small fists clutched at the worn leather of his jacket in an unconscious effort to hold him there while the flight attendant made the last call for passengers to board.

  “Good-bye,” he murmured against her lips.

  Jayne watched him walk away, but she didn’t wave. She stood at the window, her right hand rubbing absently at her left wrist, feeling half of her heart being pulled away from her as Reilly’s plane taxied down the runway.

  She loved Pat Reilly as she’d never loved anyone, but he was no more right for her now than he had been when she’d been MacGregor’s wife and Reilly had been MacGregor’s best friend. As she’d known from the first, his intensity had set her on fire, but now she was alone and so cold, she shivered as she turned and headed for the exit.

  ELEVEN

  “‘THERE HASN’T BEEN a bomb like this since Hiroshima,’” Alaina Montgomery-Harrison read aloud. She lowered the newspaper just enough so she could stab Jayne with a look.

  Jayne came to her own defense halfheartedly. “Well, there hasn’t been. Deadly Intent is the worst waste of film I’ve seen since Ishtar.”

  “You have an unfortunate penchant for bald honesty, Jayne,” Alaina declared. She took a sip of the milk the diner waitress set before her and grimaced. “Gawd, I hate milk. If I ever see a cow in person, I’m going to go right over the edge.”

  “Maybe Reilly won’t read the review,” Faith Callan said, eyeing the golden-brown pancakes the waitress set before her. “You said he wasn’t expecting a good review from you, so why would he read it?”

  “He’ll read it,” Jayne said fatalistically. “He may not be expecting a good review, but he’ll be hoping just the same. I know how his mind works. I know how hard he worked on this film, how he did it to help out a friend, how he’s been going through this rough time and needs my support. I can hear him say it—Where I come from a man helps out his mates and that’s that. He’ll think I’ve betrayed him when all I was doing was my job.”

  She looked down at the plate the waitress slammed in front of her. Runny eggs and soggy toast that looked as if they may have had a close encounter with the kitchen floor. She looked up at the waitress, who glared at her.

  “Bonzi,” the woman snarled.

  “Well, I have to hand it to you, Jayne,” Alaina said with a sigh as she folded the entertainment section of the paper in half and laid it on the table. “You’ve managed to turn all of womankind against you in one fell swoop by panning Reilly’s movie.”

  “But I said nice things about Reilly!” she wailed.

  “You said he does what he can with a script that would have been better printed on toilet paper. Jayne, couldn’t you have just given the guy a break and called it a so-so movie?”

  “But it wasn’t a so-so movie. It was a skunk. I couldn’t compromise my standards on this movie just because Reilly is in it. That would have been selling out.” But what good would her high standards do her when she was old and lonely? She swallowed down her tears and spoke her thoughts aloud. “Should Reilly have expected me to give in because of our relationship? No. I can’t take personal factors into account when I review a film. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who count on my column to steer them to a good movie or away from a bad one.”

  Faith chewed thoughtfully on a bite of pancake then dabbed syrup off the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “Jayne, do you really think Reilly expected you to do him a favor? Do you really think this will have any effect on your relationship at all? Maybe you’re blowing this review thing out of proportion.”

  Jayne stared down at the newspaper, her eyes drifting over the splashy article on the premiere of Deadly Intent. The accompanying photograph showed Reilly waving to the adoring thousands outside the theater with one hand while he wrapped the other around the slender waist of his co-star, the disgustingly beautiful LaReina Shelby. There they were, hundreds of women ready and willing to fling themselves at Reilly’s feet, ready to worship the ground he walked on, and two columns over she had called his movie a flatulent flop.

  Why did she have to be so brutally honest, she wondered. And why did Reilly have to be so stubbornly loyal to people who made bad movies? And why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a placid person like Mac instead of a bull in a china shop like Reilly?

  He was right. It had been easier loving Mac. Loving Mac had been soothing and calming. Loving Reilly was like strapping her heart to a roller coaster—all breathtaking highs and belly-scraping lows.

  “I guess you’ll find out tomorrow night, won’t you?” Faith said.

  “What?”

  “At the play. Reilly’s going to be here, isn’t he? It is opening night for A Taste of Starlight.”

  “Umm …” Jayne hesitated, realizing every ear in the place was trained on her. Advance tickets for the play had sold out within hours. The town had been buzzing for weeks about Pat Reilly’s appearance to benefit the theater company. But two days had passed with no word from Reilly. He was supposed to be at dress rehearsal later that night. Jayne tamped down her own secret fears that he wouldn’t show up and forced a wan smile. “Of course he’ll be here.”

  Immediately the sounds of breakfast being ordered, served, and eaten resumed. Jayne breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’m glad you were able to talk Bryan into being Reilly’s understudy,” Faith said, sipping at her coffee. “He needs to get involved in something.”

  “I had to promi
se him he would never have to perform,” Jayne said, hoping she wouldn’t have to renege on that promise. “He wasn’t very happy about having to fill in for Reilly at practice these past couple of days.” She checked her watch and sighed. “As a matter of fact, he’s at the theater now helping Timothy hang the new curtains. I told him I’d pick him up at ten. I guess I’d better go get him.”

  She pushed back her chair and slung the strap of her enormous purse over her shoulder. “Y’all coming to opening night?”

  “Of course,” Faith said with a smile. “Shane and I have front row seats.”

  “Us too,” Alaina said, her lush mouth lifting at one corner. “I, for one, happen to enjoy Reilly’s performances—even the lethargic, lackluster ones.”

  Jayne made a face at her friend and left the restaurant just in time to see Deputy Skreawupp stick a citation on the windshield of her car.

  “Failing to prominently display proof of insurance?” she questioned, staring in disbelief at the ticket.

  “It’s on the books, sweet cheeks,” the big cop intoned in his Joe Friday voice, shaking his stubby pencil at her, “and I know those books eight ways from Sunday. You’d better get with the program, or I’ll crack you like a rotten egg, and I can do it.” He started to stalk off down the street, but turned back. “And another thing. Deadly Intent was the best movie ever made.”

  “Everybody’s a critic,” Jayne muttered as she climbed into the sports car.

  She pulled up in front of the theater just in time to see Bryan being assaulted by a woman who’d mistaken him for Reilly. The woman had him by the collar of his shirt and was hopping up on her toes to pelt him with kisses as he tried to pull away. Timothy Fieldman danced around the fracas with his hands in the air.

  “Oh, gosh! Oh, gee, Mrs. Meinhampf, that’s not Mr. Reilly! I’m going to have to call the police if you don’t stop this outrageous behavior!”

  Jayne pulled up with one front wheel on the sidewalk and blasted the horn. The diversion was enough to break Mrs. Meinhampf’s concentration and allow Bryan to escape. He lost part of his chambray shirt in the process, but didn’t look back as he vaulted over the door and into the passenger’s seat, shouting, “Go! Go!”

  They peeled away from the curb and headed out of town without looking back.

  “Jayne,” Bryan said, straightening his glasses. He plucked a scrap of paper out of the pocket of his torn shirt and jotted himself a note. “I love you like a sister, but don’t ever ask me to do this again.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, giving him a worried look.

  She dug a hand into her purse and tossed out an array of strange objects, including a book on astrology, a camera lens, and half a dozen tubes of lipstick, before coming up with a lace-edged hanky. Dividing her attention between the road and her friend, she reached over and attempted to wipe the lipstick off Bryan’s cheek.

  “I never meant for things to get so crazy. Shoot, all I ever wanted was self-fulfillment and spiritual bliss.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Bryan asked dryly. He took the hankie from her and directed her hand back to the steering wheel. “That’s a pretty tall order, honey.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we can’t orchestrate our lives, Jayne. We can’t know what the future has in store for us. We have to take our happiness where we can get it. I thought you would have figured that out when you lost Mac.”

  “Well, … yes. I cherish the time I had with Mac. I cherish the time I’ve had with Reilly,” she said reflectively as she turned the car in at her drive. “I only hope that wasn’t all the time I’ll ever get to have with him.”

  “You love him.”

  “I’ve loved him for a long time. There’s just so many things I’m not sure of,” she said miserably as she parked the MG haphazardly in the yard. She looked over at Reilly’s Jeep, where Rowdy had been sitting in the driver’s seat for two days diligently awaiting Reilly’s return.

  “You’ll have the answers, the answers you need, honey,” Bryan said. “Don’t you trust your bracelet anymore?”

  “I don’t have it,” she admitted. “Reilly took it away from me. He said I was silly to believe in it and he took it away from me.”

  A slow grin spread across Bryan’s handsome face. His wise blue eyes sparkled with secret humor. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get it back.”

  “You think it’s going to try to tell Reilly something?” Jayne snorted. “Reilly wouldn’t believe it if the chain wrapped itself around his throat and tried to choke him.”

  Bryan chuckled. “He’s that stubborn?”

  “At least.”

  “But you love him anyway?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should just hit me in the head with a brick.”

  Bryan leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Hang in there, sweetheart.”

  Candi was sitting at the kitchen table when they walked in, practicing her breathing exercises by panting on her newly painted lime-green fingernails. She looked up at Jayne and frowned. “Oh, it’s you. The one person on the face of the earth who thinks Pat Reilly’s films should be shredded and used as packing material.”

  “Did I get any calls?” Jayne asked.

  “You had a death threat. I told them to call back later.” She nodded her spikey head in the direction of a package on the table. “There’s the mail. The box came express.”

  Jayne eyed the box warily. It looked ordinary enough. The label was typed. The return address was a gift shop in Encino. She pulled a paring knife out of a drawer and slit the tape. Inside was a letter taped to a black box.

  “‘Dear Calamity Jayne,’” she read. “‘If you think my film stunk, just wait until you get a whiff of the stink bomb you set off by breaking the tape on this package. Regards, Reilly.’”

  “I don’t smell anything,” Candi said, sniffing the air.

  In the next instant the room was inundated with an aroma so rank, it threatened to peel the paint off the walls. They ran from the kitchen out into the yard, choking and gagging. The noxious fumes rolled out behind them in a bilious green cloud.

  Candi’s eyes were watering so hard her mascara was running a muddy river down her cheeks. “Jeez, Jayne, good move,” she said with a sneer.

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “It was your rotten review.”

  “It was Reilly!” Jayne shouted, stamping her small foot in aggravation.

  All she’d done was her job, and everyone was treating her as if she were a villain. This was all Reilly’s fault. And if she ever saw him again … she was going to kiss him senseless.

  TWELVE

  THEY WERE GOING to be playing to a packed house, so long as there wasn’t a riot first, Jayne thought morosely as she peered out from between the edges of the stage curtains. Act One wasn’t to begin for ten minutes yet and already every seat in the place was taken. The faces in the audience were alive with excitement and anticipation. Murmurs of Reilly’s name rose above the general din and rippled across the surface to assault Jayne’s ears.

  There were 1,140 people sitting out there, each and every one of them waiting to see Pat Reilly. Pat Reilly who had yet to return from L.A.

  She hadn’t heard a word from him, not counting the stink bomb that had driven her from her home. He hadn’t shown up for dress rehearsal. There had been no call, no letter, nothing. Jayne felt as if she’d been cut adrift, her emotional connection to Reilly severed by feelings of betrayal on both sides.

  If only they could start fresh, she thought. If only they could start together to follow new rainbows. She’d thought of little else for the past few days—pursuing her abandoned dream of writing and directing movies, of directing Reilly in a really good film, a film worthy of his talents. But as show time drew near, she couldn’t help but think that new rainbow was going to be washed away by a tide of regret before she had the chance to chase after it. She’d held back too long, watching other people live their dreams while she hesitated, calling
her cowardice peace and contentment.

  She was guilty of exactly the same thing she had accused Reilly of. She had a talent she had turned her back on. It had simply been easier to abandon her dream than to follow it. Chasing a rainbow meant taking chances, risking rejection, disappointment. But there was a wonderful treasure at the end of it if one had the courage to go after it.

  It was a lot like falling in love.

  “Oh, gosh, I’m so nervous, Miss Jordan,” Timothy whined, flipping through the pages of instructions on his clipboard. “Are you sure these curtains are all right? I’m sorry they’re not the ones you ordered. We hung them just as you instructed, but—”

  “They’re fine, Timothy,” Jayne said a bit sharply. Her own nerves were just a little too frayed to contend with a stage manager who had the disposition of a poodle.

  She eyed the filmy curtains and shook her head. They had ordered heavy brocade drapes. They had received white diaphanous sheers. It was a bad omen. Once the house lights went down the audience would be able to see everything that went on while sets were being changed and actors were taking their places. The whole mood of the play would be disrupted, but there was nothing to do about it now. Sheer curtains were better than no curtains at all.

  “Dim the house lights at eight sharp,” she instructed, “and bring up the spot on Desiree’s bed. The curtain goes up on my cue.”

  “But Mr. Reilly isn’t here yet!” Timothy exclaimed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as if it were a cork. He fussed with the white tape holding his glasses together. “I certainly hope he gets here in time.”

  “I don’t think we can count on that,” Jayne said, her heart aching as she spoke the words. She checked her watch and blinked back tears as she felt the last of her hope slide away. “Please tell Mr. Hennessy to be ready. He’ll have to go on in Reilly’s place.”