The Notorious Pagan Jones

by Nina Berry

  “What’s the latest from Nicky Raven?” Pagan asked, her voice bland, her face a study in casual.

  Linda inhaled sharply, her hand with the peroxide-loaded brush stopping in midstroke. Carol’s grip on Pagan’s hand tightened.

  “Nobody cares about that guy anymore,” Carol said a bit too forcefully, and ducked her head down to keep filing.

  “Yeah,” Linda chimed in. “He’s no Elvis.”

  So much for any attempt to fish news of Nicky out of them. She had thought they’d be eager to get the “real” story on her famous thwarted romance, but that pesky Devin Black must have given them a gag order. Fine. She could play that game.

  Carol gestured at the bottles of nail polish and said into the awkward silence, “I hope you like pink, ’cause that’s what they told me it had to be. But you can pick which one.”

  “That one’s pretty.” Pagan pointed to a rosy shade with her free left hand. “So, was it Devin Black who told you how to do my hair and nails?”

  “No.” Linda had finished applying the peroxide solution and was folding Pagan’s laden hair into a plastic cap to sit until it lightened. “It was the head of makeup at Universal, Josie McIntyre. She said she’d discussed your look with Bennie Wexler.”

  “Oh, of course,” Pagan said. “I remember Josie.” She did, too—a nosy, middle-aged woman with an amazing ability to make your nose look slimmer or your eyes bigger. Pagan had been hoping these girls could give her more insight into the role Devin Black was playing in her life. But it sounded like Neither Here Nor There was being handled like any other movie.

  So the evidence continued to support the fact that Devin was just a junior publicity flack charged with ensuring Pagan didn’t make any trouble for the film. But Pagan had met a lot of executives in her time, and Devin Black was from a different planet entirely.

  “Oh, my God, have you seen the clothes Helen is laying out for Pagan to try on?” Linda took the cap off Pagan’s hair and prepared to wash out the peroxide and apply the toner. She placed a hand on Pagan’s shoulder and looked at her in the mirror. “The studio got some special designer things for you. I heard Helen telling Devin. Didn’t hear which designer, but he told her to get something specific for you, and the head of costume pulled a lot of strings to get it.”

  Carol let out a little squeal. “Oh, can’t wait to see what it is.”

  “Oh, me, too!” Pagan widened her eyes to look excited and kept her fingers splayed so as not to mess up her manicure as Linda guided her to stand and go over to the sink.

  The next couple hours with Linda and Carol crawled by as Pagan racked her brain, trying to figure out why Devin Black would ask for a particular outfit for her, and what it could be. If it was from a well-known designer, it couldn’t be something too strange or revealing, though her mind went to all sorts of weird places trying to picture what sort of clothes a sleek, well-dressed man like him would have demanded for her. She tried not to tap her fingers and ruin the polish as she sat under the dryer with her newly platinum hair pinned up in big rollers.

  Finally, her eyelids were lined with winged black and her eyebrows were darkly penciled high at the arch over her wide brown eyes. Dots of foundation and blush had been blended over her moisturized face, then a quick fuss with the contouring brush, new pink coral lipstick from Lournay, and lots of powder.

  Pagan stared at herself in the mirror. It was as if she’d gone back in time. Her cheeks had lost some of their baby roundness in the past year, but they were gently flushed, and once again her hair glowed softly white gold against her pale face, setting off her dark eyes and brows.

  It all looked so natural, so real. All the illusion needed now was the right clothes. She thanked Linda and Carol, then let them follow her toward her own bedroom, where Helen waited with a movable rack of clothes on hangers and several things laid out on the bed.

  Pagan glanced around the familiar room. She hated its pale lilac walls, the high white canopy bed piled with pillows and stuffed animals, the shelves lined with pretty dolls in frilly dresses, classic children’s books, and official portraits of the family taken over the years.

  What if I just painted everything black? she thought, and immediately felt guilty. How disrespectful to wipe away all of Mama’s efforts to showcase the perfect little girl’s life.

  Her eye landed on the last family photo Mama had been in. They were all smiling dutifully in front of the Christmas tree. Next to it was a framed shot of Pagan, grinning on Clark Gable’s arm as she held up her Golden Globe award.

  Mama had died shortly after that Christmas photo was taken, and Pagan had been so tipsy at the Golden Globe Awards that she’d tripped over her long gown and was hustled into a limousine by her publicist, sent home before the parties were over.

  It was all so far away, as if it had happened to someone in a book, not to her. Clark Gable had died of a heart attack last year, and the attorneys had put her Golden Globe and BAFTA in a vault.

  The fake glossiness of it all made her a little sick. Then she caught sight of the creation laid out on the foot of her bed and gasped.

  Helen, a tall former model type dressed in a sleeveless red shift, clapped her hands together in delight. “Yes! It’s the Dior suit dress Mister Black insisted we get for you. Isn’t it spectacular?”

  It was more than spectacular. It was perfection. Somehow Devin Black had obtained a brand-new suit dress from the house of Dior. The rich dark brown wool was sewn to look like two pieces—a full flared skirt that hit around the knee belted wide and tight at the waist, and a body-hugging bolero jacket with a crew neck, two almost invisible chest pockets, and three dark shell buttons down the front. But it was really all one piece, a dress so chic and modern she could barely breathe.

  She watched Helen unbutton and unzip the dress for her and remembered now. She’d mentioned the Dior suit dresses offhand to Devin Black when they’d first met. The design was new that year, available only to the very rich and privileged. Soon they’d be copied by the department stores, but for now they had to be special-ordered from Dior at an exorbitant cost. It hadn’t occurred to Pagan to request one for herself. She couldn’t imagine how Devin Black had gotten it here in just a few hours.

  As she pulled on the girdle—Lord! How she hated those things—and clipped her stockings to her garters, she couldn’t figure out how to feel about the dress. Was it a kindly gesture, meant to welcome her? Or was it a display of power, a sign that he was paying attention to her every word and could conjure anything he desired at a moment’s notice?

  Knowing what little she did of Devin, it was both of those things. And more.

  She didn’t look at herself in the mirror until the dress was fully zipped, her feet were slipped into a pair of kitten-heeled Dior pumps, and soft black leather elbow-length gloves were slid on over the dress’s tight sleeves.

  The women were shaking their heads in appreciation, eyes wide. She stepped up to see her reflection and stilled. The dress was more than flattering—the warm brown complemented her eyes, the skirt tapered to make her waist look impossibly slender, showing off her calves and knees, and the bolero jacket widened at the bust to give her curves where it counted. This was a dress meant to make things happen, to let her move through the world with confidence and grace.

  Her throat tightened. Could she ever be that girl in the mirror again?

  Something dark moved in the reflection, and she whirled. Devin Black was leaning against the bedroom doorway, arms crossed, regarding her. One corner of his mouth deepened admiringly. “Glad to see it fits.”

  Pagan opened her mouth, not sure what to say, gratitude and resentment battling inside her.

  Helen made a tsking noise. “Mister Black, please! Girls only in the bedroom!”

  Devin gave her a little bow and faded down the hallway.

  Pagan’s eyes filled up,
threatening to send mascara dripping down her cheeks.

  “Excuse me,” she muttered, and ran into her bathroom, shutting the door and grabbing a tissue. The girl in the mirror looked uncertain now, overwhelmed, and not nearly mature enough for her outfit.

  She took another tissue out of the box sitting on top of the toilet tank and had a sudden memory—of sliding a half-empty pint of vodka into that tank, about a year ago. She had concealed bottles all over the house, but that was one of her best hiding places. However much the maid scrubbed the bowl, she never bothered with the tank. No one did.

  I’m not going to take it. I’m not going to drink it. I just need to know if it’s still there. That’s all.

  Breathing a little harder than she should, Pagan removed her gloves and lifted the top off the toilet’s tank.

  Nothing. No bottle of vodka. Just clear water, rods, valves, and the float.

  She let the tank lid fall back into place with a clang, then her knees buckled and she sat down on the lilac bath rug.

  Someone had found the bottle and taken it away. After the accident and the discovery of her ridiculously high blood alcohol level, her father’s attorney had probably had a team go through the entire house to get rid of any damning evidence.

  She wiped her eyes carefully and blotted her wet cheeks with some toilet paper. She looked down at the fluffy lilac rug and a tiny laugh escaped her. How ridiculous she must look.

  Get off the floor in that Dior, Mama would’ve ordered, and then would have looked blank when Pagan laughed out loud at the inadvertent rhyme.

  She climbed carefully to her feet, smoothing the skirt of her splendid new suit dress. It was unblemished, beautiful.

  She looked at her face in the mirror. If she schooled it just right, she almost looked happy.

  And she had a job to do. Mama would approve of this refusal to give in to insecurity. Where had Mama gotten that strength, and why had it crumbled so disastrously?

  She threw away the tissue and put her shoulders back, chin up. She looked good, strong, thanks to the perfect structure of the dress.

  Clothing wasn’t magical. There were no fairy godmothers, and she hadn’t been transformed. But no way was she giving up the Dior suit dress. One day she’d make it fit, inside and out.

  In Daddy’s office there was a safe. Once Devin left for the night, Pagan would see what she could find inside. She was on a mission in Berlin. Not only to revive her career, but to learn more about Eva Jones, and maybe, just maybe, feel as happy as she looked.

  The door to Daddy’s study was locked. Pagan rattled the doorknob again, not believing it. Daddy had never locked the office after Mama died; it was she who had kept the girls out, saying she didn’t want them spilling things on her important papers. Daddy had liked having them in there, settling Ava on his lap to act as his secretary or helping Pagan build a fort out of books.

  It was late, but Devin Black was unaccountably still here. Pagan found him lounging with rather too much ease on the sofa in the living room, feet up on her mother’s rosewood coffee table, reading the New York Times.

  “Can I have the key to my father’s office?” she said. “It’s locked for some reason.”

  He didn’t look up from the paper. “I don’t have the key.”

  She stared at him. He kept reading. She pressed down the irritation of being kept out of a room in her own house and put on a smile. More flies obtained with honey and all that nonsense.

  “Who would lock it?” She arced her voice up to sound puzzled. “Daddy never locked it.”

  The paper rustled with his shrug.

  She’d changed into the silk pajamas and robe Helen had included in what they called her “trousseau.” For a moment, she imagined herself a frustrated housewife talking to her indifferent husband in a silly Rock Hudson comedy. “I do need to get in there and go through a couple of things. Who do you think would have the key?”

  He folded down one side of the paper to look at her. “The trustee to your estate, I imagine.”

  “Oh, right.” She sat down on the tasseled ottoman in front of her father’s favorite leather chair. The room still smelled like Daddy, of cigars and leather and citrus trees. She blinked, forcing her thoughts back to her plan. “That’s Daddy’s lawyer, Mister Shevitz. A bit too late to call him tonight, I guess.”

  “I guess.” Devin slapped the paper back up and continued reading.

  Pagan stared at his Italian leather shoes on the coffee table. “Speaking of it being late, isn’t it time you went back to your own lair?”

  “This is my lair, for tonight,” he said from behind the paper. “I’m in the guest room.”

  She found herself on her feet, her face flushing against all her efforts at control. “You can’t stay here!”

  He laid the paper on his lap and folded his hands over it. “Oh, but I can. I’m your new court-appointed guardian.”

  “But…” She didn’t like how this information was agitating her. “You’re a kid! You’re too young to be anybody’s guardian.”

  “Not according to Judge Tennison.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” She rounded the edge of the couch, rattled down to her bones. “I just met you today. You’ve got no connection to my family, no history of trust or…of anything!”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “There’s no need to get flustered. I won’t be lurking in your closet all night. Or sharing your bed.”

  Heat shot up her spine. He was goading her now, and she wasn’t about to cooperate. She calmed her voice down to a level of rational concern. “What if the tabloid magazines found out that you and I spent the whole night alone in my house?”

  He appeared unworried at the prospect. “They won’t.”

  “What if Linda, Helen, or Carol sell that information to a journalist?”

  That thought seemed to entertain him. “They won’t.”

  “What if I sold that information?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” She smiled. “It’s not as if I have a reputation to protect. Think of the delicious headlines—Killer Starlet Shacks Up with Her Blackmailer.”

  “I offered you an opportunity—” he began.

  “So you’d get an opportunity with me?” she finished.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” He put the paper back up and ran his eyes over the print, but she knew he wasn’t reading a word.

  “And in Berlin?” she pressed. “How are you going to keep your court-appointed guardian eye on me there?”

  “You’ll have your own room at the Hilton,” he said.

  “But you’ll be in the room next door.”

  He smiled, confirming her guess. “It’s new, but the Hilton’s already the best hotel in town. They have a restaurant on the roof with a great band that plays on fine summer nights.”

  “Good,” she said, and walked decisively toward the door. “The music will cover your scream when I shove you over the edge.”

  He laughed as she ran up the stairs to her room. She slammed the door, taking fierce pleasure in the wall-­shaking crash. Oh, he was irritating. But that would only make her focus more on how to get around him. He had to sleep some time.

  She brushed her teeth and got in her fluffy white bed at 10:00 p.m., then turned out the light, wide-awake and determined to stay that way. She rolled from one side of the huge bed to the other, punching the pillows piled around her. Back in Lighthouse, Miss Edwards had confiscated her only pillow, a pathetic, paper-thin affair half filled with feathers from anemic birds. So Pagan had spent the past nine months sleeping without one. She’d dreamed about having all her pillows back. But now their lift and softness crowded oddly around her head. Quietly, she shoved one after the other onto the floor then lay back flat, listening for Devin’s footsteps.
>
  She snapped awake at midnight at the sound of a lock clicking into place. She sat up. It sounded like a lock on her door. But it couldn’t be. She’d already locked her own door, from the inside. Fully awake, she tiptoed over to her door, listening as Devin’s steps faded down the hall and vanished into the guest room. She unlocked her door, turned the knob, and gently tugged.

  It didn’t budge.

  She pulled harder, fumbling for the key to make sure it was really unlocked. Her fingers met a smooth plate of metal above the doorknob. What the hell was that?

  She flicked the light on her bedside table to life and stared at a brass plate she’d never seen before, newly installed over the doorknob. Someone had installed a dead bolt on the exterior of her bedroom door.

  Not someone. Devin Black. He’d locked her in.

  Towering, head-clearing rage surged from her heart and out of every pore.

  She wasn’t a criminal. Well, if she was, she’d served her time. This was her house now, and she had every right to come and go as she pleased. How dare Devin treat her like his own personal prisoner? Guardian or no, he’d gone too far.

  He thought he’d boxed her in, giving her no choice. Well, he’d learn soon enough. If you were willing to go far enough, to think hard enough, there was always a choice.

  She donned a pair of pants and hoisted up the largest window overlooking the oak tree outside, glad to note the window was still well oiled and silent. She’d used it this way many times over the years, usually to sneak out to see Nicky.

  The tree branch looked farther away than she remembered, but she’d been drinking back then. If she could bridge the distance between window and branch after chugging vodka, she could sure as shooting do it sober. She grabbed the house keys, shoved several pins into her hair, and lifted herself onto the sill.

  In a blink she was straddling the branch and climbing down the tree, finding all the old handholds like good friends, waiting. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she sped down the side yard and entered the house again through the back door using her own key, careful to lock it again behind her.