by Ward, Susan
He stands.
“Your room is at the top of the stairs, to the left, second door. We’ll have dinner in an hour,” he says.
He walks away, not waiting for an answer. My limbs start to quake. Instinct warns me to leave now, but my disastrously low bank balance reminds me that I can’t. For better or for worse, Alan Manzone is my employer, and I can’t risk him firing me.
After a minute or two of just sitting in the room, trying desperately to gather my rampant emotions, I spring from the couch and head for the stairs.
Top of the stairs. Second room to the left. Christ, there better be a phone in my bedroom. I have a sudden, desperate urge to call Jack. I need to hear his voice in the worst way. Nothing calms me faster than talking to Jack.
I slam the bedroom door behind me and try to still my frantic pulse. I spot a phone on the night table and my suitcase lying on a bench at the foot of a mahogany bed facing the fireplace.
I drop down heavily into a chair and reach for the phone.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Hello?”
I exhale. Jack. “Hello, stranger.”
“Linda.”
The way he says my name, mostly breath, make me tingle.
“You having a good day, Jack?”
“It’s always a terrific day when I get to talk to you.” A pause. “Are you OK?” His voice changes. “You just called yesterday. You don’t normally call two days in a row.”
I tense and curl the cord around my arm. “I have four days off, remember?”
“Don’t remind me. Fuck, I wish I could fly there now and be with you.”
“So do I, Jack.”
Silence. “So what are you going to do with your four days of leisure?”
I’m trapped with Alan Manzone. “Nothing. Sleep. Read. Do nothing.”
He laughs and I feel on the verge of tears. I’ve just lied to Jack and I don’t know why.
“That sounds like a nice plan. I wish I was there to share it with you.”
“I wish you were, too.” A long pause, and something inside me begins to spin out of control. “I know you can’t fly to me in September, but what do you think of me flying to you? If I were in Santa Barbara we could find some time together, couldn’t we?”
Tears fill up my eyes.
“Whoa, Linda. Slow down. Why are you crying? Why are you upset?”
Oh God. Why the fuck am I crying? The second I heard Jack’s voice something frantic started to race through me.
“I just miss you,” I whisper.
“Are you OK?” he presses more insistently. “Did something happen?”
Oh crap, I’ve worried him, and I don’t want to.
“Nothing happened.”
“Then why are you crying, sweetheart?”
Because Alan Manzone touched me and I felt something and I didn’t want to. I roll my eyes. Jeez, that sounds so pathetic even only in my head.
“I’m just emotional today.”
I bite my lower lip hard in an effort to stop my tears.
“Is there anything you need to talk to me about?”
I tense. Why does it feel like he knows something? Or is that my own guilt?
“There’s nothing, Jack. I just wanted to hear your voice. I should let you go.”
I expect to hear the click. Instead, he says, “Tell me about London, sweetheart.”
I curl around the phone, feeling miserable because I’m not in London, but I talk to Jack as though I am. I’m not exactly sure why I’m doing it. But I feel better, so much better, just talking to him.
~~~
I go into the bathroom to wash the smeared makeup and tear stains off my face. I pat dry, and leave the bathroom. I pull from my suitcase my baggy, slightly faded black USC sweats. Perfect outfit for dinner with Alan Manzone. No makeup and frumpy clothes.
Maybe in trying to fit into the stylish, trendy scene of Alan’s universe, I’ve been accidently putting out the available vibe, or worse, the looking-for-something vibe. It’s time to make it clear I’m not doing either.
I pause in front of the full-length mirror. I study my short, curvaceous frame and my very not beautiful features. Without my dramatically applied makeup and sexy clothes, I look like what I am. A tough girl from Reseda. Good. Time for round two. Game on.
When I step into the hallway, the house is quiet, more quiet than I’m comfortable with. Alan said to expect dinner in an hour. I’ve been in my room nearly three. It surprises me that he didn’t come and try to get me out of there. I’m relieved he didn’t, I definitely needed time to compose myself, but I don’t take Alan as a sit around and patiently wait kind of guy.
I make my way to the stairs, struggling to pick up sound, anything that will tell me where he is in this monstrously large dwelling. I can’t hear him. I don’t know how to find him, but loudly calling out for him seems definitely inappropriate here.
I stare down into the entry hall. Why am I making such a production out of this? Dinner is most probably somewhere on the first floor.
At the base of the stairs I hear faint music. What the fuck is that? A male tenor. Opera? I follow the sound and step into the kitchen.
I don’t want to be enthralled by this but I find that I am. The kitchen is bathed in soft candlelight, with only a single fluorescent light above the cooking area, and there are two places set on the large center island, crystal wineglasses and china plates, and that music, that fucking music, soft and haunting in the room.
Alan is focusing at the stove. Whatever he’s cooking smells delicious. Jesus Christ, who would have thought the kid cooked?
Shaking my head, I study him for a moment. He’s casually dressed in a V-neck cashmere sweater, soft faded jeans and loafers, but oh, this look becomes him.
I struggle to organize my thoughts and find a way to launch into this. “What am I listening to?” I ask.
Alan looks over his shoulder, black eyes twinkling, and smiles. “I take it you’re not a fan of opera. It is Turandot. Puccini.”
I make a face at the way he says Puccini, like I should know it. I sit on one of the tall stools at the island.
“I’m surprised you’re a fan of opera.” Without asking I reach for the open wine bottle and fill my glass. “What language is he singing in?”
“Italian.”
“Do you understand it?”
“I should. My father was Italian.”
I stare at him, surprised. Another news flash I didn’t know. But it makes sense. He’s dark haired with olive skin, Mediterranean looking, not British looking at all.
I take a sip of my wine. “What did your father do?”
“He was a tenor. You’re listening to him.”
My brows hitch up. “Really?” I smile. “Now I know where you get your extraordinary voice. You sort of sound like him.”
That comment Alan ignores, and he looks kind of angry. Jeez, what did I say to piss him off?
“The music is beautiful,” I say to break the acutely tense silence. “What is the opera about? What is he singing?”
He doesn’t look at me. “It’s about a man who falls in love at first at sight. He must answer three questions to claim his bride. He answers the questions, but the princess doesn’t want to marry him. She recoils. So the man puts a challenge to her. She has to tell him his name by morning. If she does, she can execute him. If not, she has to marry him.”
For some reason, I’m captivated by this. Maybe it’s the sound of his voice. Or maybe it’s the story. In a convoluted way, it’s so Alan.
The music changes and he looks up and smiles. “Ah, this is my favorite aria. ‘Nessum Dorma.’”
He starts to move the contents of a dish into the pan with a knife, and I listen. I’m not an opera fan, but for some reason I’m deeply affected by this. It’s haunting and beautiful.
I run my wineglass along my lower lip. “What do the words mean?”
The song ends a
nd he flicks a button on a wall panel which kills the speakers in the kitchen.
Those mesmerizing, potent black eyes lock on me. “‘None shall sleep! None shall sleep! Even you, O Princess, in your cold bedroom, watch the stars that tremble with love and with hope! But my secret is hidden within me; none will know my name! No, no! On your mouth I will say it when the light shines! And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!’”
A jolt shoots through my body. Fuck, I’m feeling it again. Intrigued, aroused, and attracted to him. Only this time, he didn’t even touch me.
Crap.
I watch him as he adjusts the flame on the stove. I change the subject. “So why are you so paranoid about people finding out you used to be an actor?”
He moves the contents of the pan with a spatula. “It can only end up one of two ways. People might take everything I’m trying to accomplish as a joke because I used to be Alfie Wells. A musician can become an actor without it tainting his musical reputation. It doesn’t work the other way. I never wanted to be in the acting profession and I don’t want it to be a part of me anymore.”
I nod. “I see your point. That TV show was a killer for David Cassidy and he was one of my favorites growing up.”
Alan laughs. “I would never have taken you for a Partridge Family girl.”
I smile. “Why not? They were happy. The entire family traveled around on a school bus singing. A dream for a girl like me from Reseda.”
Alan gives me an amused, sympathetic smile. “Remind me never to invite you to watch a movie. Your taste in television is dreadful.”
I laugh at the way he says dreadful, push the hair back from my face and follow him with my gaze as he moves to the butcher block island to chop vegetables.
I frown. “What’s the second reason you don’t want people to know you used to be an actor?”
Alan gives a slight nod, but he doesn’t look up from his task. “Ah, the band might catch on only because people used to love the movies I made. Either way, unwanted result, and I won’t ever know what people really think of my music.”
I reach across the counter for the wine and refill my glass. “I see your point,” I concede, and I do.
He’s looking for personal validation and affection and he wants it honestly. It’s almost like he’s playing roles in real life—though I am sure he doesn’t know it—-somehow thinking he can recreate himself, or maybe, just sever ties with his own nightmarish early years.
I watch him transport the contents of the cutting board into the pan. Alan is cooking me dinner. This I never expected. Setting the table, pouring the wine, the music, and the candles—it’s almost like he’s pretending we’re on a date.
In my mind flash images of him with the band and on the road. His vile antics are very different from this guy in the kitchen with me tonight.
My eyes narrow as they fix on him and suddenly everything makes sense. Oh, no wonder it has felt as if I’ve not really met him yet. I haven’t. He never reveals to anyone the real Alan. He plays different roles, depending on who he is with, trying to fit in somewhere, anywhere. With the band he’s one of them from the gutter. Here with me he’s a perfect gentleman. Pinocchio wants to be a real boy and doesn’t know how to.
It is completely crazy, and a touch sad. And it’s not going to work. Nothing is ever going to make Alan Manzone an Average Joe. He is him.
Alan will never be ordinary; he was born a star.
Six
I open my eyes to a room of mid-morning light, surprised by how rested I feel. I did not expect to sleep well here. And definitely not alone in a house very near him.
I sit up in bed, pushing the hair from my face. When things change in my life they change quickly. Yesterday morning I believed I worked for Sandy Harris. Today I know that my financial stability while in the UK and my ability to finish school rests in the hands of Alan Manzone.
Crap. It’s bad enough to know Alan; it’s worse to know I work for him. Frowning, I can’t help but wonder what else has changed, if my agreement with Sandy Harris is going to be kept at the end of the tour and if I’ll get my part-time job in the public relations office in London so I can go to school as planned.
But that nagging voice of instinct warns me that nothing is going to pan out simply. The strangeness of my circumstance is mind-blowing. I wonder why Alan withheld that relevant tidbit that he would be my employer before I was hired. Even stranger, he picked me to be…what was it he said?…someone to talk straight to him and protect his interests.
The kid is one fucked-up, paranoid dude. I shake my head. Brilliant and amazing, too. Alan is definitely on a fast track to superstardom. Once he crosses the pond to the States, it will happen quickly, like the fast drop of a rollercoaster. American girls are going to go wild over him. And what the girls love, the guys buy. That’s the recipe for stardom and Alan has every ingredient. That’s the only thing I’m positive of today.
I debate with myself whether to call Jack. He’s always so practical and rational. He’d know what I should do. What I should watch out for. But I don’t want to worry him with three back-to-back daily calls, or the predicament I unknowingly stepped into with my job.
Instead I shower quickly, pull on an unspectacular outfit of jeans and a black pullover sweater, and brace myself for more minutes of getting to know Alan Manzone. How the heck am I going to survive another three days alone with him here?
Downstairs I start poking my head into rooms, but I don’t spot him. Jeez, it’s a big house, and I struggle to remember where the kitchen is. I make my way to the back of the house and I freeze in the doorway.
Holy hell.
The room is immaculate, so clean that it looks like no one cooked here last night. Only Alan cooked. He made quite a huge mess across the black marble counters and the center island, and dirtied more pans than I would have ever done cooking a single meal.
I don’t recall him washing dishes. We had brandy in the sitting room before bed, and I know I heard him on the stairs twenty minutes after I left him, but—poof—this morning everything is perfect again.
The pristine look and orderliness of the room is a touch unnerving. Weird, but it is. There is something not right, wound too tightly, about this guy.
Jesus Christ, did he get up in the middle of the night to clean the kitchen?
I note that someone has already made a pot of coffee and I cross the white marble floors and grab a cup. I’m just taking my first sip when Alan appears in the room.
“Good morning,” he says dryly, sinking onto a stool at the center island.
To my disappointment, my knees weaken at the sight of him. God, he is gorgeous, but he looks very different today. He’s casually dressed in a long-sleeve button-down cotton shirt and faded jeans, resembling something more like what Jack would wear than that I’ve ever seen Alan toss on.
His usual just-fucked look to his tousled hair is absent. The dark black shoulder-length waves are neatly combed, and the overnight stubble on his face…why the fuck didn’t he shave…adds a look of maturity to his too perfectly formed features.
He doesn’t look like a kid anymore. Not that he ever did. Not really, and that delusion isn’t helping right now, not that it ever really helped block the physical reaction I get at the sight of Alan. The way he looks sitting at the center island makes it a pointless endeavor to continue calling him the kid in my head.
Alan Manzone is not a kid, Linda. He’s a man. And it’s better to remember that, especially with how he looks today. Like a man who’s climbed from bed, purposely dressed casually chic, and hurried in here without appearing like he hurried.
Oh fuck, he’s created a new role. He’s trying to be Jack appealing. Casually chic. That last thought does me no good and my stomach turns over as another thought soars through my brain. Fudge, the coffee. He was awake before me, when Alan hardly ever wakes before noon.
My eyes narrow as I study his face. What the hel
l is he up to today?
“You slept late this morning,” he says in a way that makes me aware I’ve been standing here mute, staring at him. I fight hard not to look flustered. “I trust that you slept well?”
“I s-slept,” I stutter, and I note that he’s containing a smirk. Damn him, he knows he’s unnerving me.
I turn back to the coffeemaker and refill my cup, which is a totally stupid gesture because I’ve only taken two sips, but it gives me a reason not to look at him.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
I hear him rising from the stool and I turn back to face him.
“Listen, kid—” I feel heat rise on my cheeks. What the devil made me call him that? “—I can fix my own toast, thank you. And I’m really getting sick of whatever this game is you’re playing with me. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on so I can decide if I want to stay here or hop a plane back to LA?”
“Are all American women as suspicious as you?” He pauses and frowns. “Politeness doesn’t normally stir paranoia in the UK.”
The way he says that turns my lightly pink cheeks to crimson.
“Politeness, my ass.” I stare at him, frustrated. “American women don’t like to be fucked with. Remember that.”
I slam my coffee down on the counter and move toward the door.
“How would you like your eggs?” he asks pleasantly.
Is he deranged?
I whirl around to face him and then wish I hadn’t. He’s smiling, his face washed with humor. It’s impossible to stay mad at him when you look at him. Especially when he’s being uncharacteristically not difficult.
“Please sit,” he says softly. “Why don’t we start this morning again? While I make your breakfast, you can tell me what’s gotten you so pissed off. It wasn’t my intent to piss you off.”
It’s just sunk one level beneath wretched. Alan being the bigger person. I stare at him, suspicious, and then I drop heavily onto a stool.