“What happened?” he asked, his face flushed with concern as he slid his arms under Mercy’s shoulders and knees. “Is she hurt? Are you hurt? Was there an accident?”
Mercy turned toward the sound of his voice and groaned. Juliette had had to stop three times on the road from Florence and the smell of drunken vomit was undeniable.
“Oh,” Gabe said, his voice losing its edge of panic and concern. “Great. Is she one of ours?”
“Not exactly,” Juliette started to say, tugging him away from the car, but it was too late. Mercy’s head lolled back, and even in the twilight the sharp chin, the fine bones, not to mention the white-blond hair, were unmistakable.
“Jesus Christ,” Gabriel said, looking for a moment as if he would drop her where he stood. “What is Mercy fucking Talbot doing in your car? And why did you bring her here? God almighty, Jules, you were only gone for five hours! Where did you find her? George Clooney, I hear, is installed at his villa on Lake Cuomo; will he and your superstar boyfriend Michael O’Connor be joining us, too?”
“Shut up,” Juliette said, shoving him now into Casa Padua, one of the houses that was part of the castello. Anger always brought out the Boston in Gabe and his voice bounced off the stone of the courtyard like a brawler in a bar fight. “Everyone will hear you and the next thing you know, you’ll be a download on TMZ. And,” she added, punching him in the shoulder that did not cradle Mercy’s head, “Michael O’Connor is not my boyfriend.”
“That’s not how you were talking a few nights ago after you got a few shots of limoncello in you.” Gabriel kicked at her feet in response to the punch but followed her.
“God, why do I tell you anything? No, upstairs,” she said, motioning to the uneven stone steps that led to two of the bedrooms. “I had slept with him once—well, twice—but then things got complicated.”
“If you hang out with complicated people,” he huffed, unceremoniously dumping Mercy onto the bed, “that will happen.”
“Says the king of the olive groves?”
“Says the king of the olive groves,” he agreed, nodding. “She looks terrible,” he added, surveying Mercy with a clinical gaze. “What’s she coming off of? Meth? Coke?” He lifted up her wrist and felt her pulse. “Thready, but she seems to be breathing okay. She’s cold, though,” he said, feeling her arms, her cheeks. “I’m telling you, if this girl goes belly-up here,” he said, straightening Mercy’s legs, putting a pillow under her head, and piling blankets on top of her, “I am going to be totally pissed. Someone’s going to have to sit up with her,” he added, putting an ear to her chest. “And it isn’t going to be me.”
“She’s fine,” Juliette said, steering him out of the room, trying not to think of St. John’s story of the double resuscitation. “She’ll be just fine.”
“She better be,” Gabe said, following her down the stairs. “But I ask again, what in the hell is she doing here?”
In as few words as she could, Juliette described the afternoon’s events. Gabe groaned. “What, you couldn’t take her to the Four Seasons? Call her damn mother? Seriously, Jules, I don’t want some drug-addled starlet rattling around here, having the DTs, and mugging for the paparazzi. These people never travel alone. They don’t understand the concept of alone. This isn’t the Pinnacle.”
“I know this isn’t the Pinnacle,” Juliette snapped, her own exhaustion and agitation catching up with her. “If it were the Pinnacle, I could just call Promises or Resurrection and have them send the rehab cab for her. But it isn’t. And she, okay, she’s famous and a big mess, but she’s also just a kid. Who was in a bad situation and needed some help. Last I heard,” she said, glaring at her cousin, “looking out for drunks and addicts was your prime directive.”
“Primary purpose,” Gabriel said, taking a seat on the window frame in the living room. “If you’re going to quote the Big Book, at least get it right. Though how you know the lingo is beyond me, since you don’t even go to meetings. Because, of course, you still drink. Not that it’s any business of mine.”
“Recovery is a personal journey,” Juliette said. “And I may still drink, but I’ve been clean two years longer than you, so don’t lecture me.”
Gabriel shoved his hands in his pockets and snorted. Along with Cerreta, she and her cousin had shared, for a time, a New York apartment and a fondness for, then dependence on, cocaine. Gabriel’s abuse extended to alcohol, crack, and finally heroin, before he dragged himself half dead to an AA meeting. Over the years their habits, and then the breaking of those habits, had shaped and threatened their friendship. Juliette still drank occasionally because drinking had not been a problem for her, except when paired with drugs. But in the world according to Gabe, addicts were addicts and she was living on borrowed time. Although she was very happy her cousin was sober, Juliette found his hell-and-brimstone devotion to abstinence—from everything, including aspirin—just another example of his lifelong tendency toward zealotry.
“Shit,” Gabriel said now, rolling his eyes. “Tell me you did not bring Mercy Talbot here so I could lead her to sobriety. Because I do not have that kind of time or patience.”
“I did not, as a matter of fact,” Juliette said testily, “and I would appreciate it if you would keep your platitudes to yourself and just leave her be. She’s been through every recovery program on the planet. I don’t think you in all your shining glory will provide the defining moment.
“Sheesh, Gabe,” she went on more gently. “I brought her here because she was having a nervous breakdown in public, because the Medici wouldn’t have her back, and because I couldn’t think of any better place to take her. She can sleep here, and maybe eat something. If she wants to get loaded, she’ll have to walk down three miles of gravel road and hitch another five into town, where no one speaks very much English, and frankly I don’t think she has the appropriate footwear. Seriously,” Juliette said, putting her arms around him and leaning her forehead against his, “it will only be for a few days. Then her mother can come get her. Or her manager. Or whoever the hell is in charge of her. But she’s a nice kid, I think, or she was, underneath it all.”
“Underneath all what?” he asked, briefly submitting to her embrace before shaking her off and heaving himself from the sill. With his scruffy beard and what was left of his brown curly hair, Juliette thought he looked like an overeducated, severely pissed-off shepherd. “She didn’t have more than three stitches on, and if she weighs ninety-five pounds, most of it’s teeth and collarbones. Do what you want,” he said airily, waving his hand, “it’s your house. But if she croaks during the night, I don’t want to know about it. Just drag her over to the quarry and heave the carcass in. And you better go through her luggage, if she has any. I don’t want any of that shit here, and I do mean that.”
“Okay, okay,” said Juliette, palms up. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. She’ll be fine.”
Gabriel stood in the doorway and shook his head. “Little Juliette. You always think you can fix it. Still. After all these unfixable years.” He smiled at her then, fondly and just a little sadly. “Just promise me,” he said as he stepped into the fragrant dark, “that this isn’t the start of a long line of horrifyingly famous people and their assistants demanding sanctuary and much better towels than I have on hand.”
“I promise,” Juliette said, laughing at the resigned set of his shoulders as he crossed the silent courtyard under a high, clear crescent moon and a ridiculous number of stars.
Mercy did not die during the night; she didn’t even wake up. Though unwilling to sit by her bedside like some Jane Austen character, Juliette slept on the wide window seat across from the bed. The walls of Casa Padua were thick and she didn’t want the girl to pull a Jimi Hendrix and choke on her own vomit. But aside from a few moans and the occasional thrashing, it was a fairly quiet night, and when Juliette woke the next morning, Mercy was nowhere to be seen. Following the smell of burning coffee, Juliette found her sitting at the small wooden kitchen table, dip
ping pieces of bread into a jar of honey and looking out the open window. Clouds moved steadily through a bright blue sky like celestial commuters, their bottoms pressed flat as if they were sliding on glass. On the stove, the espresso maker bubbled and hissed, smoked and boiled over.
“You’re supposed to put the water in the bottom,” Juliette said, snatching it off the burner. Mercy turned at the sound of her voice and smiled. Radiantly.
“Oh,” she said. “It really is you. When I woke up and saw you there, I thought I had dreamt you up. There was a fountain and three nuns, a bunch of cameras, and then you. And you brought me to a castle in the woods. Which also seems real.”
“Yes,” said Juliette gravely. “And I tucked you into bed, fed you bread and honey, then took all of your drugs and flushed them down the toilet. Just fyi.”
Mercy shrugged, ripped off another bit of bread, and dragged it through the honey.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t really want them.”
“There were an awful lot of them not to want,” Juliette said. “I didn’t even recognize half of them, but then I haven’t been in the market for a while.”
“I’m not even sure how I got them,” Mercy said, taking another tiny bite of bread. “People are always giving me things. And then I had them, so I took them. Because why not, when there’s nothing else to do? But here,” she said, gesturing toward the window, with its view of the vineyard and the forest and, on a far-off hill, the ruins of an abbey, “it looks like there’s lots of things to do.” She gave Juliette another wide-eyed smile, but her hand shook as she toyed with her bread and her face looked raw and bruised in the morning light, flesh clinging to bone as if for dear life. A wave of what Juliette assumed was nausea seemed to sweep over her, and she put her hand to her forehead.
“Did you really chuck the Oxy?” she asked, abandoning for a moment the childish singsong. “Because that was a real prescription, you know. I have joint-pain issues.”
“This is an Oxy-free zone, I’m afraid,” Juliette said. “But help yourself to Advil. And I’d drink some water. Water is very good for the joints.”
Mercy sighed. “Oh, well,” she said with a tiny smile. “One day at a time. Again.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Juliette, dumping the contents of the espresso maker. “And the first thing we’re going to do is call your mother, or your agent, or whoever you call at a time like this. This isn’t a hotel or a rehab center and I’m not a sober buddy or a star-sitter. I’m a private citizen on vacation and I don’t need your people or Us Weekly or a bunch of producers accusing me of aiding and abetting you going AWOL.”
“I’m not AWOL,” Mercy said, examining her fingernails. “I’m supposed to be shooting a movie in Rome. Except crazy old Lloyd Watson had to hang himself in search of the perfect orgasm.” She flicked Juliette a tiny sliver of a look.
“Hang himself? I thought he overdosed.”
Mercy rolled her eyes. “That’s what they’re saying, because the truth is too embarrassing. And whenever one of us goes down, it’s always all about the toxicology report. I mean, he might have overdosed, too. But he definitely hung himself. I should know. I found him.”
She paused for a moment and there was that look again, that swift flash of golden eyes, gauging Juliette’s reaction. Juliette steeled herself and waited.
“It looked like it was an accident,” Mercy continued, “like he was whacking off, you know? Autoeroticism? That’s what the police said anyway. But I didn’t buy it. We fucked a few times and he was pretty vanilla. You couldn’t even touch his hair because he had so many plugs, and he was always worrying about bite marks and bruising, for godsake. So I really don’t see him putting a noose around his neck. I tried to tell the police that, but my mother was afraid they’d only care that I’d fucked him. Sell it to the tabloids or something. It was pretty awful, actually.”
Shaking her head, Mercy returned her attention to her bread and honey.
“I can’t imagine,” Juliette said, refusing to react at all to this strange welter of information. It was way too early in the morning to cope with such things, and anyway there was a fairly good chance Mercy was lying. Or exaggerating. Or trying to impress her somehow. The whole rant had a scripted feel, as if Mercy had been sitting here, just waiting for Juliette to show up so she could deliver this monologue. Juliette wondered how loaded she still was.
“Really?” Mercy blinked. “But your husband was murdered a few months ago, wasn’t he?”
“My ex-husband,” Juliette said automatically, refusing to show the surprise she felt. Somehow she felt she had to keep control of this conversation, that if she did not, she would never regain her footing and Mercy would run amok and bring down the very walls of the castello.
“Right, your ex-husband. They found him in the park right before the Oscars, didn’t they? With his throat cut.”
The way Mercy innocently enunciated the words made Juliette’s teeth clench; the coffee began to boil, so she turned the flame off.
“So you know, right? How awful it is, the police asking you things and the people looking at you like you know something . . .”
Images rose up in Juliette’s mind, images she had flown thousands of miles to a whole other world to forget. Once again she felt Devlin’s arms around her, holding her up as he told her Josh was dead; once again she saw the implacable look on the police detective’s face as he asked where she had been that night, once again she watched Michael O’Connor lie and say she had been with him. That night when everything changed and her life became unrecognizable. She had not killed him, but in a way, she was the reason he had died. If he had not left her, he would probably be alive today. And she would not be here.
Mercy mistook Juliette’s silence for anger and seemed to realize she had crossed a boundary. Led by her shoulders, her body began to wilt. “Sorry. It’s been a tough week. I guess I went a little off the rails,” she said, laying her head down on her arms.
“A little,” Juliette said stiffly. She actually did know what Mercy was talking about, and knew also how much worse the gauntlet must have been for the girl. Not only did she have to cope with the shock of the death and all the questions, but then there was a whole other level of scrutiny and cover-up. Juliette remembered all the damage control and spin that surrounded Josh’s death, and he had only been a screenwriter. It made her woozy just to think of what insanity had swirled around Lloyd Watson. All she would have to do was click on the Internet to get sucked right into it all once again.
For a minute she wondered how quickly she could get the young woman on a train to Rome, but, glancing at her, she relented. With her head tucked down, Mercy looked like a schoolgirl punished for talking in class; her hair lay on the back of her neck like the tail of a pale heart, making her seem incredibly young and vulnerable.
“Mercy,” she said with an exasperated rush of sympathy, “I’m sure whatever happened was pretty terrible. But I don’t think running away to Florence and snorting your weight in cocaine is the best option. Why don’t you just go home for a while? Take some time to, I don’t know, regroup. Preferably without the drugs you say you don’t care about. I can’t imagine that filming is going to resume anytime soon.”
“That’s not what Bill Becker says,” Mercy said, speaking into the fortress of her arms. “He told me to stay put and he’d have someone cast in a week. Two at the most. He sounded fairly confident. But I didn’t like Rome. Everyone seemed to be watching me. Like I had something to do with it. Like I gave him drugs and made him crazy. Which is pretty funny, considering. I was trying to help him, you know? Which is why I think he got in trouble. You really flushed everything?” Mercy asked, raising her face, now flushed and slightly sweaty. “You didn’t keep anything? Not even for yourself? I’d totally understand if you did—”
“Wait,” Juliette said, ignoring Mercy’s words, which still seemed studied in the way she rattled through one digression to another. “Wait, so Bill Becker’s compan
y is making this film?”
“Um, yeah,” said Mercy, frowning; this was not the response she had expected, but she quickly adjusted accordingly. “Ol’ Bounceback Bill. It’s an international thriller, sort of like The Da Vinci Code only with flashbacks. A detective and an art historian who fall in love just like an artist and a nun did, only there’s a murder involved. Or something like that. I haven’t read the script all the way through. Why? Do you know Becker? He has a fairly high creep factor—the whole thing with the cigar.” She shuddered delicately. “But he seems to know it, and I like that about him.”
“Oh, I know him, all right,” Juliette said, reaching for the bread and the honeypot, thinking of the last time she had seen Bill Becker, how Bill Becker was another big reason she had fled to Italy. Bill Becker and Michael O’Connor, with his wide-screen charms to which she had been mortifyingly susceptible. “Now we’re definitely calling your mother.”
“No,” Mercy said, closing her eyes and grabbing the arms of the chair as if Juliette were going to drag her away somewhere. After the previous meanderings between self-pity and cheerfulness, Mercy was suddenly quite focused. “I just won’t. I can’t. Not now. Please, Juliette, seriously, I’m begging you,” she said, her voice teetering on the edge of hysteria, her fingernails scoring the inside of her arms. “I’ll wind up like Lloyd if I let them near me. I just need a break. Just a tiny little break. So I can figure out what to do. Regroup. Like you said. Here. I can regroup here. I know I can.”
“I said I was going to call your mother,” Juliette said. “Not the police.”
“I wish you would call the police,” Mercy said. “Like the American police. But it’s probably too late. I’m sure everything in that room is now up for sale on eBay. But there’s no way my mother would allow me to talk to the police now. The woman is about spin. Don’t you see?” Mercy turned her attention once again full force on Juliette. “I just can’t deal with her right now. Or those sober buddies she keeps hiring. Or the rehabs she keeps shoving me into. She sucks all the joy and meaning out of everything. I’ll die if I have to go back.” Mercy pulled herself into a small bony huddle, wrapped her arms around her legs, and rocked. “I’ll just die.”
The Starlet Page 3