by Rae Renzi
“Ditsy. No.”
“Okay, okay, I know. Americans and their misplaced morals. But you’d probably get quite a nice jewelry collection. Still, it was presumptuous of him. What if you were happily married instead of wondering if you’ve made a big mistake? That would really have been a squalid thing to do.”
“I’m not—Reed and I…we have a few adjustments to make, that’s all. Our careers…” Casey trailed off lamely.
“Right. Right.” Ditsy munched her pizza thoughtfully. “So, what are you going to do about Jack, or Dylan, whatever?”
“Dits, it’s a dead issue. He’s married.”
“Hmm. But why did he come to see you then?”
Casey gave Ditsy a frown. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. Even if we both weren’t married, it wouldn’t work out. Involvement with a film star, especially a sex god, would completely trash my career. It’s hard enough trying to do research in industry and have the academics take me seriously, but this would be a total deal breaker. And besides, the publicity…”
Ditsy pursed her lips thoughtfully. “There is that.” She looked at the magazines spread around them. “Damn shame, though. He is so hot.”
Half a pizza and an hour later, Casey got into her car and headed home. She’d at least purged a lot of the Jack stuff out of her system—Dits had been a willing audience—but she couldn’t stop thinking about Ditsy’s take on her marriage to Reed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jack was in a black mood when he climbed aboard his private jet and settled into his seat. He felt as though something precious had just slipped through his fingers and slithered down the drain. He didn’t know how to get it back.
He asked for a drink, which was brought to him immediately.
Casey upended him. She’d cut through his layers of image like a hot knife through butter. And then, stripped of his defenses, having only himself, not the fanfare or the hype, no built-up image or fantasy, no scaffolding at all, but only the man he was, Jack had created with her a relationship based on mutual trust and real affection, and enough passion to fuel it forever. It had been frightening and intoxicating, trumping even the moment the twins, now his brothers, had found him, saving him from life—or, more likely, death—on the streets.
The twins, Justin and Nocona, and their adoptive parents, Wink and Emmaline Wiley, had been the constants in his life since he was a child. He found it interesting that in his thoughts of Casey, invariably the Wileys, not the film culture, formed the transparent backdrop of his musings. He finished his drink and handed the empty glass to the attendant as the plane taxied down the runway.
Equally interesting was that he never, ever thought of his wife Ramona in the context of the Wileys. The plane gathered momentum, and he soon felt the familiar gravity of takeoff. He turned his thoughts back to Casey.
After his return from the river, he’d come to doubt his impression of his relationship with Casey. Had he merely reinterpreted events to meet his own needs? Had he been so starved for a real relationship, a real connection, that he invented one? That was why he’d flown here, to find out.
Seeing her tonight had answered those questions. The relationship was real, and it was powerful.
And it was now out of his reach.
Jack looked out the window as the airplane cleared the cloud layer. The sun was dazzling as it edged west toward nightfall. It reminded him of the sunsets on the river, and how wonderful it felt to go to sleep at night knowing he’d see Casey in the morning.
He crossed his arms and frowned. So she had married the guy who’d been her boyfriend. Reed. Would she be happy? He hoped so. Would she be happy with Reed? He hoped not. He didn’t like to think that she could be happy with anyone but him. It was selfish and churlish, and entirely self-centered. But then, Casey was his center, and without her, he was nowhere.
Underneath his cynicism and self-recrimination, he felt a familiar stir of purpose. The feeling was disturbing, but also exciting. He knew what it meant. A small, determined smile formed on his lips. It might take time, but he would get Casey into his life. He needed her and he would have her.
“I know you like this kind of stuff, but I’m not sure this reception is a good idea,” Jack’s agent told him. The organizers of a big conference on film and culture wanted some politically active actors to make an appearance. “You don’t want to get to looking too responsible, you know. It’s not good for your image…”
Jack was silent.
The agent sighed. “On the other hand—”
“Tell them I’ll do it.” If he believed in portents, this was surely one. He knew Casey would be at the conference.
She had to be.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The clock on her desk clicked to noon and, as if signaling an internal limit on attention, set Casey in frustrated motion. She flung herself out of her chair and paced around the ten square feet of her office. When she began to get dizzy—pacing in here was a bit like spinning in a circle—she stopped to look out the window.
Her conversation with Ditsy, and its disturbing implications, had gained momentum in her mind. Casey had pushed her problems with Reed aside, thinking of them as minor potholes in the road, but had she missed the road altogether?
She turned abruptly and took three loping steps before she had to turn and pace back. When she banged her shin on the file cabinet for the second time, she snarled, grabbed her lunch and marched out of the building. She needed some space.
It was a beautiful September day, clear and clean, and merely being released from the confines of the office lifted her heart for a second before her beleaguered mind dragged it back down.
“Be rational,” she told herself. Usually, clear thinking came naturally to her—all those years of training. At the moment, her mind felt like a sheepdog in a thunderstorm, running crazy trying to keep a herd of wayward emotions from mindlessly jumping off cliffs.
Jack. He was the problem.
It wasn’t unreasonable for her to get worked up about Jack. After all, most women reacted to Jack—well, Dylan Raines. There were undoubtedly whole websites devoted to fantasizing, worshiping Dylan Raines. Look at Ditsy, for heaven’s sakes. She practically drooled over him, even though Ditsy, in her own way, was one of the most rational people Casey knew.
As her mother repeatedly told her, chemical attraction—because that was all it could be—was no basis for a relationship. Her reaction to Jack last night had been an anomaly, a knee-jerk response to how things had been on the river, the only place she’d ever seen him. Her feelings were no more real than…her marriage to him.
Her hand drifted to Jack’s ring.
She stopped dead on the sidewalk and looked at the piece of jewelry still on her hand. She set her jaw, tugged it off and dropped it into the side pocket of her handbag.
There.
Now, Reed—he’s real, as real as it gets. Not some image or hyped-up piece of eye-candy. But she and Reed had a few things to work out, and she was determined that it wouldn’t be put off any longer. She called him at work. “Hi, Reed. I feel like going out tonight for dinner. Will you be working late?”
“Probably. Who are you going with?”
Casey rolled her eyes. “I’d hoped to have dinner with you.”
“Oh. I see. Well, tonight isn’t a good night. Maybe later in the week.”
“Hmm. Okay. Say, what do you think about going to see, oh, I don’t know, a play or something this weekend? You know, if you can manage to squeeze your wife into your busy schedule.”
“Casey, what’s with you? You’re acting kind of needy all of a sudden.”
A flush of heat flooded Casey’s face. “Maybe because, all of a sudden, I’m not sure exactly what marriage means to you. This, seeing you only at breakfast—maybe—and when you need an escort to a political function, this isn’t my idea of marriage.”
Reed paused before answering her. “Look, can we talk about this later? I have a meeting in a couple of minutes—”
“Of course you do. You always do—morning, noon, and night. That’s exactly—”
“Casey. I can hear you’re upset, so we definitely need to talk. I get that, but let’s talk in person.”
Casey took a deep breath. “Yeah, sure. When?”
“Um, I’m not sure. Soon. Let me check my schedule, and I’ll get back to you.”
Casey slept late. She’d tried to wait up for Reed, but she was exhausted and couldn’t stay awake past midnight. She wondered irritably what Reed had been doing so late.
That he was already gone when she awoke didn’t improve her mood. If not for the damp towel hung up in the bathroom, she would have doubted he’d even come home last night.
She rolled out of bed and clumped down the stairs and into the kitchen. After putting on water to boil, she washed the coffeepot, annoyed Reed had left it dirty. The voice of fairness pointed out that if she’d been the first one up, she no doubt would also have left it dirty, but she was not in the mood to listen to her better self.
After making coffee, she sat at the small kitchen table looking out the window, her hands curled around her coffee cup. The first cup started some of her brain machinery grinding, but it didn’t really get up to speed until about halfway through the second cup. A piece of toast later, she was ready to face the day.
The first thing she did when she got to work was to shoot off an email to Reed. She’d had enough of sitting alone in the relationship wagon, especially when it looked like Reed had parked it and wandered off. Well, if he expected Casey to stay in a wagon going nowhere, he was in for a surprise. By gosh, she’d get out and pull it herself.
Hi Reed, she tapped out on the keyboard, tried to wait up for you last night, but gave up around midnight.
That should alert him she was paying attention to his activities.
How about dinner tonight? Call me.
She had barely hit the Send key when Harley Holcomb walked in. He looked on the stormy side, but with Harley, it was sometimes hard to tell—his physiognomy called to mind a prizefighter rather than a director of research.
“Found this announcement today. Thought you’d be interested.” He handed her a piece of paper.
The notice was the last call for applications to present a paper at a big annual conference on Film and Culture. The conference organizers expected a large number of applicants, which meant the few papers selected for presentations would be of high quality. The notice invited interested researchers to apply within the week and directed them to a website for more information.
“Thanks, Harley, it sounds great. I’ll have a look at the website. They’ll probably publish the accepted abstracts.”
“Thought you’d want to attend the conference. It’s right up your alley.”
Casey looked up at him, surprised. “Well, yeah, I’d love to go. You’re right, it’s exactly what I’m interested in. But these conferences are usually pretty expensive, so I’ll just wait for the abstracts to be published.”
“It’d be good PR for the company to have its research team represented at this meeting,” Harley growled.
Casey looked up at him, twisting a curl around her finger. She tried to keep the hopeful look off her face, but wasn’t sure if she succeeded.
“Apply. Now. We have the budget.” With a curt nod, Harley turned and walked out.
She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard, but she wasn’t about to question it. An entire conference on Film and Culture, and even a special symposium on Film and Social Change—it was a wonderful opportunity. Casey lost no time in filling out the application. She closed her eyes, uttered a fervent wish that it be accepted, then, crossing her fingers, hit Send. She’d know in a few weeks if her application had been chosen.
It wasn’t until she left work that afternoon that she realized Reed hadn’t responded to her email.
She didn’t have much luck with him for the rest of the week, either, though their paths crossed a couple of time. Reed was apologetic. “Sorry, really. It’s just there’s so much going on right now, and I am in the middle of it all…”
On the one night they managed to have dinner together, he was detached, distracted and a little irritable. He might just as well have been a stranger.
Fortunately, or not, she had her own distraction. Much sooner than she expected, only a few days after she applied, Casey received a phone call from the organizer of the symposium on Film and Social Change.
“Dr. Lord, I apologize for the last-minute invitation, but one of the symposium speakers must withdraw for personal reasons. When we saw your application we wondered if you’d be willing to fill in? Your topic is a perfect fit.”
Casey was speechless—for about a second. Any chance she’d fill in? Ha!
She put her hand over the phone while she cleared her throat and composed herself enough to make an intelligible response. “Sure, I’d be happy to.”
“Great! I look forward to meeting you in L.A.”
L.A.? Casey’s heart dropped into her shoes. She managed to thank the organizer and hang up while she frantically scrabbled around through the piles of paper on her desk to find the original email Harley had given her.
There it was—The Third Annual Conference on Film and Culture. And, in small print underneath, The Warwick Hotel and Conference Center, Los Angeles, CA.
Of course. Film and Culture—where else would it be?
She sat there for a while staring at the piece of paper as images of Jack flitted through her head. She checked the time—five-thirty—then picked up her phone and dialed. “Ditsy, what are you doing right now?”
“Why do you ask?” A sloshing sounded in the background, then a plop.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m soaking in a bathtub of hot water. And taking aspirin. With white wine.”
“Umm…why? The aspirin, I mean.”
“Fencing” was the succinct answer.
Casey pondered this response. “As in garden, or as in swords?”
“Swords. Foils, to be precise. En garde, and all that rubbish.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“Obviously, neither did I,” Ditsy groaned. “It’s not as simple as it looks.”
An hour later they were sitting in a little Italian café lush with wonderful smells and an earthy décor that completely ignored chic to focus on comfort. Ditsy continued the wine part of the post-fencing therapy. Casey joined her.
“So, are you going to see him?” Ditsy asked, her good humor obviously restored by the bath-and-aspirin treatment. The wine probably hadn’t hurt either.
“I hope not,” Casey said morosely. “I think.”
Ditsy gave her a sage nod. “Maybe he’ll give you a bracelet this time.” She beckoned to the waiter for more wine.
“Ditsy, you are so…” Casey trailed off in a sputter.
“Able to accurately predict future behavior from past patterns?”
Casey glared at her. “Ditsy, this is a crisis. I don’t know what to do.”
“Buying new clothes would be a good start.” Ditsy beamed at the waiter who delivered their dinner and sniffed appreciatively as the aroma of good olive oil, garlic and ripe tomatoes enveloped them. “Because the only true crisis you have at the moment is your wardrobe.”
Casey put her face in her hands. “Ditsy, pay attention. Jack. The conference. That’s the crisis.”
“No. A crisis requires immediate action. No action is called for either on the Jack front or the conference front. You most certainly will not decline the invitation to speak—that would be a career-limiting move.”
“Yes, I guess it would be, especially since my boss practically demanded that I apply.”
“Did he?” Ditsy asked, diverted from her single-minded concentration on her food. “That old hard-ass? I wonder why? Westbrooke isn’t exactly academia where this sort of activity is required, you know. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Now that you mention it. I guess I didn’t want to t
hink about it at the time. He was a bit brusque, even for him, but obviously not peeved at me, or he wouldn’t have told me to apply.”
“True.”
“Should I try to contact him, Ditsy?” Casey asked in a small voice.
“Right. Now we’re getting somewhere.” Ditsy rubbed her hands together. “I assume you’re referring to Jack, not Harley. Do you actually have any idea how to reach him?”
Casey looked up from her pasta, surprised. She hadn’t given the how-to any thought. She had been too intent on the whether-to.
“I don’t—unless…well, there are those phone calls from L.A. I never answered. The number might still be on my phone.”
“Undoubtedly a telemarketer if a message wasn’t left. So, then, the matter is out of your hands.” Ditsy dug into her calzone.
“Reed isn’t exactly enthusiastic about me going to the conference,” Casey told Ditsy as she perused a rack of pantsuits.
“He’s afraid you’ll be lured back into the evil clutches of the academic world. He would want to nip that in the bud. Disapproval is a first step.”
“Hmm. You might be right. What do you think of this?” Casey held up a severe black-and-white suit.
In theory, she was fine with buying some clothes. In practice, she couldn’t seem to settle on a look. Unfortunately, her vision of her professional role seemed to be mixed up with less defensible fantasies. She kept drifting toward the frothy, filmy and easy to discard. The suit she now held up for Ditsy’s regard was perhaps overcompensation. Or penance.
“Bleak.” Warming to her subject, Ditsy continued her analysis of Reed. “Of course there’s another possibility. Were I more charitable and he more attentive, I’d remind you the last time you flew west on an airplane, you went missing for two weeks. So there’s the possibility that he’s afraid you’ll disappear again.”
The two of them were silent for a moment.
“Yeah, well, he has an odd way of showing it.” Casey hadn’t seen Reed yesterday at all, and he hadn’t yet found time in his schedule for their talk.