“So what about it?” Eileen asked. “Are you coming on the set with me tomorrow or not?”
“I have no reason to avoid him. If he feels uncomfortable having me there with this lawsuit hanging over our heads, it serves him right.”
Alice stood back at a discrete distance as the actors rehearsed the scene. She couldn’t help but laugh to herself at the travesty of a production. The leading lady’s inability to act did nothing to aid the preposterous dialog. And he had the audacity to ridicule our scripts! From Peter’s weary face and defeated posture, she suspected he held the same opinion. Or maybe he’s just hot.
Peter, Cleo, and the director were discussing the blocking when Peter said, “What if, right after that, she turns around with her back to me so we are both on camera. Then my reaction to her lines will be more ominous as I come up behind her.”
Alice burst out laughing and, even covering her mouth with her hands, could not control herself. Peter straightened and faced her, his intense gaze squelching her laughter. He said something to the director, prompting the latter to call for lunch, and then strode directly toward her as her eyes widened at his approach.
“You find something amusing, Miss McGillicutty?”
“That’s soap opera blocking!” she said with an incredulous grin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What you just suggested to the director – you got that from us!”
He didn’t refute it. “How…how have you been?”
The memory of their last meeting rushed through her, and her face heated with the awareness of that encounter.
“I heard you were here,” he said when she didn’t answer.
“I thought you were filming in Toronto.”
“We did for a month, then production moved here.”
“If I had known you were here…”
He finished her thought. “You wouldn’t have come.”
His eyes held her in place with the force of gravity, and a curious lump formed in her throat. For a moment, one brief moment, she forgot why she hated him – his arrogance, his vanity, his concupiscence – but then Cleo’s voice rang out calling his name and popped the bubble that had surrounded them.
“Just a minute,” Peter called out.
Alice shook her head to clear the dizziness. “Peter, this movie.”
“I know.”
“The dialog.”
“I know.”
“And vampires in Louisiana? How original.”
“I signed on when, well, things were different. More as a favor for a friend.”
A vaguely familiar actor whom Alice had seen in several scenes but didn’t know by name walked up to them. “Hey, Pete, who’s your friend.”
Peter cringed and sighed. “Alice, this is Dirk – Dirk Schoenstein – he plays Portia’s nephew. Dirk, Alice is the head writer for All My Tomorrows.”
“You’re kidding!” Dirk said as he shook her hand. “I was on that soap for two years.”
Peter scowled at this information. “You never mentioned that.”
“Oh, yeah! Sienna’s first lover. She gave up the Church for me.”
Alice laughed. “Oh, so you’re the one! That was before my time.”
Dirk’s eyes were smiling and friendly. “I’m sorry I missed you. Or maybe I just don’t remember because of my amnesia.” He and Alice laughed.
Peter said, “Seems like everyone on the show has slept with Sienna except me.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dirk said. “I heard about the ‘shocking revelation.’ So how is Giselle? I haven’t seen her in a dog’s age.”
“To be honest, she’s having a rough time right now,” Alice said then turned to Peter. “You know, your friend is a real ass.”
“Why? What happened?” Dirk asked.
“Giselle and this guy were dating, pretty seriously she thought. Then once his pal Peter was off the show, she never heard from him again. Bitch-buttoned her calls, wouldn’t reply to her texts. No fight, no break-up email, nothing.”
“He sounds like a douche.”
“That’s what I told her, that anyone who would do something like that didn’t deserve her; but she’s still really broken up about it.” She glanced at Peter for his response, but he just frowned and squinted at her. “You’re not going to defend him, are you?”
“Peter!” Cleo’s voice rang out from the other side of the set.
“You better go,” Alice said. “If she screams again, I might have to strangle her.”
He smiled and walked away.
CHAPTER 11
Alice, Eileen, Evan, and Dirk made up an odd foursome at a corner bar with an eighties cover band, but of the Def Leppard/Bon Jovi variety. No fear of hearing “Careless Whisper” there. Alice had volunteered to get their third round of drinks but had waited so long holding up a twenty trying to get the bartenders’ attention – the bevy of girls with breasts as fake as their IDs having rendered her invisible – finally she inhaled fully and exhaled a lengthy, aggravated breath and lay her head on the bar, the strains of “You Could Be Mine” mocking her as if the band spoke of her longing for the sour mash just ten feet away.
“Get me a Jack Daniels and ginger ale and a double Jack on the rocks.”
The voice. She heard it just as his presence compressed the humid air against her back, its timbre as sultry as the Louisiana heat. Stop that!
Without lifting her head from the bar, Alice turned her neck to glance up at Peter, his eyes and mouth smiling at her. Arrogance, no doubt, as the bartender set two plastic cups in front of him within seconds.
“I guess it pays to be a movie star when you want a drink,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get his attention for twenty minutes.”
“I’m sure it’s just because I’m taller than you. Stand up, Alice.”
Alice stood, and he plucked the twenty from her hand, replacing it with a plastic cup—half ice, a quarter Jack, and a quarter ginger ale. For a second, she thought he intended to keep the bill, but he slipped it into the pocket of the sundress she wore with a disconcerting familiarity while she was distracted by finally taking a sip of the long-sought yet disappointing cocktail, which almost caused her to do a spit-take. Although he had once been far more familiar with her still, their chests pressed against one another.
No! Mustn’t think of that! He had disappeared the next day, taking with him the man who had broken his sister’s—well, his fake sister’s—heart.
She started to protest but could tell from the glint in his eyes that he expected her to do just that, and so she chose to disappoint his expectations instead. He drank as well, his gaze never leaving her face, although her eyes wandered back to her table of friends—now joined by Cleo.
At that moment, a stool adjacent from where they stood became available, and Peter pulled it around and nodded for her to sit. Which aggravatingly enough she did.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said, the song having dipped to a volume over which he could speak.
“How come?”
“I just followed the eighties music.”
Tilting her head to her shoulder, she said, “Ha. Ha. What are you really doing here?”
“Dirk told me he was meeting you here.”
They both glanced back at the table where Cleo had taken her stool. Too bad you can’t get skinny off a seat like herpes. But it would probably come with that duck face.
“And you and Cleo decided to join us? Slumming it, I see.”
“Not at all. I just thought, well, earlier we didn’t have much of a chance to catch up.”
She raised her eyebrows, a wrinkle forming above her nose. “Catch up?”
Catch up. About what? The lawsuit that could destroy the show or almost coaxing her into his bed the last time they were together. Although, to be fair, not that it would have taken much coaxing until she had come to her senses.
Alice chomped on ice as she looked back at her table of friends, longing to return to them. Her best friend stare
d her down, shaking her head with eyes bulging that might have been intended as a telepathic signal for Alice to keep her mouth shut had it not been so blatant. Alice rolled her eyes and offered a single nod of acknowledgment, which caused Peter to glance over his shoulder at the table before returning his focus to her.
“Something I should know?”
“No, just something between Eileen and me.”
He leaned against the bar near her as the band segued into “Wanted, Dead or Alive,” and Alice scoured her brain for any safe topic of conversation. She couldn’t slam him about his hypocrisy regarding the lawsuit, which essentially meant the soap, er, daytime drama was off-limits as well. His agent and her friend were on opposite sides of a lovers’ spat, so they certainly couldn’t gossip about them. And one thing for certain, they definitely could never, ever, ever, ever discuss the night of the cast party.
His implacable face gave every indication that he could be content with no conversation at all, which only compelled Alice into wanting to force him to talk. She finished off the small amount of liquor in the ice-filled cup, soothing her throat and heartening her confidence.
“Thanks for the drink,” she yelled over the band, and he glimpsed up at the bartender with a nod and two fingers raised before returning his attention to her. “How’d you know I liked Jack and ginger?”
He blinked and his brows drew together in puzzlement, as if surprised. “From eighties night, at that club.”
Oh, thank God! A safe topic of conversation.
“I gotta admit, you impressed me with your knowledge of George Clinton.”
Their drinks arrived, and he handed her a full cup. “George Clinton?”
“Taking Eileen to task—” Yeah, well, she deserved it at this point… “about the Parliament song.”
He grinned down at his shoes then back at her. “I’m surprised you didn’t think I was an arrogant prick for contradicting her like that.”
She smirked back at him because she had. “I like George Clinton. His other band Funkadelic recorded one of my all-time favorite songs. Amazing guitar line.” She closed her eyes and shook the song playing beside her out of her head to pull the chords of Funkadelic into her head. “Definitely in my top ten guitar players.”
When she opened her eyes, his features had softened; but as he drank again from his cup, she realized it must be the Jack Daniels relaxing him, as he leaned closer toward her on the bar. He had to, regardless, to speak in her ear so she could hear his words over the band.
“You have a top ten list of guitar players?”
She grinned and squinted playfully. Yeah, the JD had definitely affected her as well. “Of course! Doesn’t everyone?”
“Maybe Rolling Stone magazine. So let’s hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“Your top ten.”
“Oh! Well, number one has to be—”
“—Eric Clapton,” they said together.
She laughed and he smiled, his eyes roaming over her in an unsettling way that caused her chest to tighten. She ignored it and said, “Well, he is god.”
“True enough. And who’s next on your list?”
“David Gilmour. George Harrison.”
“And here I thought you only liked music from the eighties.”
“Well, Prince is in my top ten, too.”
“Prince?”
“Have you heard his rendition of ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’?”
“Ah, that’s Harrison again.”
“Prince was amazing.” She counted off on her fingers. “Carlos Santana. Joe Walsh. And I think Lindsay Buckingham is highly underrated.” She drew her brows together. “Is that an oxymoron?”
“At least we have progressed to the seventies.”
Peter looked even more handsome when he smiled, his teasing tone translating on his lips. Alice hadn’t seen him smile often, not even on screen since he usually took dramatic roles. His smile—magnetic and contagious—sent a ripple of remembrance through her, of his hands on her bare skin, along with an awareness of the minute distance between them, and she leaned away from him.
Right then Dirk popped up on her other side, and she smiled as she expelled a breath of relief.
“I thought you might need a hand,” he said, his eyes flicking from her to Peter then back again. “You left a lot of thirsty people over there.”
She grimaced. “I—uh—I’m sorry. I had a hell of a time getting the bartender’s attention. Then Peter showed up in all this state to intimidate me with his celebrity.”
“Is that true, Pete?”
Peter sniffed, still smiling at Alice. “I have no reason to deny it because you and I have been acquainted long enough for me to know you are not impressed or intimidated by celebrities.”
To Dirk, she said, “I am when it can get me a drink.”
“I don’t think my face is famous enough to pull that act,” Dirk said, then managed to wave down the bartender. “Two Turbodogs and a cosmopolitan,” he called out.
“Peter,” she said with a smile and widening her eyes in challenge, “don’t deny that you expect special treatment because you’re a movie star. The first time I saw you on the set of All My Tomorrows, you…” She broke off when she spotted Eileen from over Peter’s shoulder, slashing her finger across her throat while staring arrows at Alice. She wanted to tell Dirk everything, about what a pompous prick Peter had been from day one. How even now he had a pending lawsuit to keep him off a show he found so beneath him. Instead she stared down into her plastic cup.
“C’mon, let’s hear it,” Dirk prodded. “I’d like to hear how Pete behaves around mere mortals.”
“Go ahead, Alice,” Peter said, prompting her to look up at his smiling face. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“He, uh.” She spoke to Dirk, but Peter’s eyes held her trapped. “He tried to refuse the role of Tristan. He thought it was beneath him to take another actor’s part, like he was an understudy.”
“That was only at first. I had never been in a soap, er, daytime drama before, so I didn’t understand that—in that context—such a thing would not be considered unusual, let alone implausible. But it was your writing, Alice. Your writing has helped me make the role my own.”
She frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but confusion had rendered her mute.
“Peter!” Cleo’s childish whine preceded her as she filled the narrow gap between them and turned her back to Alice. “Where’s my Chardonnay?”
With lips together in a tight line, he lifted his eyes to the ceiling as if he might find a bottle of white wine above them. He said something to Cleo, which Alice couldn’t hear over “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” but Cleo walked back toward the table. The bartender returned and set two bottles of beer and what might have been a cosmo in front of them, and Alice pulled the twenty from her pocket and handed it to him, asking for another Jack and ginger.
As Peter ordered a Chardonnay, which the bartender said they did not have, and Peter told him something to the effect of just give him any white wine—she won’t know the difference anyway—Dirk grabbed the cosmo and one Turbodog, leaving the other on the bar as he said, “I’ll be right back,” then stepped away to deliver the drinks to Evan and Eileen.
“Now where were we?” Peter asked as he stepped closer to her barstool.
Alice blinked rapidly, shaking her head. “Huh?”
“Your top ten list. Guitarists. I believe we left off with Lindsay Buckingham.”
“Oh, right.”
“What about Stevie Ray Vaughan?”
“Yeah, he makes the list because I appreciate his talent. I just don’t really like his musical selection.”
He leaned against the bar, turned so they were face to face. “You don’t like the blues?”
“Oh, no, I do. It’s just a geography thing.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Geography?”
“Yeah, I have to be there. Just like big band music. I love to hear it performed live, but it’s
nothing I would have on my playlist.”
He finished off his drink then spoke not loud but deep enough for her to hear despite the band. “If you like to hear blues guitar played live, we’re in the right city. I know of several clubs near hear, one even on Bourbon.”
“Oh. Um. I think, uh, everyone is pretty comfortable here.”
He responded with a barely perceptible motion of his head in the negative. “I just meant the two of us. You and me.”
Confused, embarrassed, mortified, she knew the dim lighting and fog of tobacco smoke would have hidden the warmth that rose in her cheeks, but not her expression or the way she dropped her gaze.
Dirk and the bartender arrived at the same time, and Peter straightened up. The barstool next to Alice’s was then vacated, so Dirk sat down and took a swig from his bottle of beer while the bartender apologized to Peter for the pink wine in the plastic cup.
“Sorry, man, that’s the best I could do. White Zinfandel.”
Peter smiled with that ironic sniff of his and handed the man a hundred then walked off to bring Cleo her “Chardonnay.”
“So how do you like New Orleans? Is this your first time here?”
She turned her full attention to Dirk and her back on the others at the table. “No, I’ve actually been here a few times. In general, I love it; but the heat is killing me. And look what the humidity has done to my hair.” Smiling, she pulled at a ringlet and let it spring back into place.
He laughed as his eyes traveled around her head then back to hers. “That’s from the humidity? Well, I think it’s very pretty.” His eyes glanced past her a moment. “So what were you and Pete talking about so seriously over here? You had Eileen in a panic.”
“Well, she shouldn’t have worried.” Actually, she was probably right to worry. If I’d had Peter alone… “We were just talking about music.”
“Music?”
And from there they proceeded to talk of music and movies, places they’d been, people they knew in common. Dirk didn’t have the charming good looks of Rich, and he wasn’t drop-dead-gorgeous like Peter; but he had an open and fun personality that reflected in his face. The more they talked, the more they flirted; and the more they flirted, the more Alice liked him.
The Proud and the Prejudiced: A Modern Twist on Pride and Prejudice Page 11