Comfort 4: Command Performance

by Annabel Joseph

  “What movie is that line from?”

  Mason died a little inside. After weeks and months of emotional closeness, Jess had managed to turn Miri completely against him in one day. “If there’s nothing I can say that you’ll believe, where does that leave us?”

  “It leaves us right where we are, in a relationship built on lies. In a relationship that started with a lie.”

  “You were part of that too,” he said. “I thought we were putting all that away.”

  “Putting it where?” Her eyes filled with tears. “You are your fame and your career. Is there even room for the other stuff?”

  “How can you ask me that? How can you say I’m only my fame? Only my career? Jesus Christ!” he thundered, throwing up his hands.

  “I don’t think I want this, Mason.”

  “What do you mean, this?” His voice cracked and broke on the last word.

  “This. This engagement. This marriage. This life as your arm ornament, your good girl.”

  “Oh, Miri.” He went to her because she was crying, but she wouldn’t let him touch her. She backed away. She backed away from him. “Miri, please.”

  “It’s not just the stuff Jessamine told me. It’s been a few weeks now that I’ve been second guessing things,” she said through tears. “But I thought you were worth it. Maybe you are worth it but I can’t...I just can’t. I started to think about calling off the wedding, but then I didn’t want to set back your image again. You know?” She laughed bitterly. “Is that sick or what? I’m still on your PR team, I can’t help it. I was afraid of what people would say about you if I left. But that shouldn’t be the reason for staying in a relationship.”

  Mason swallowed hard. His heart was freezing into a lump of ice in his chest. It was hard to breathe past the hurt that was choking him. “Really? You’ve been thinking for weeks now that you wanted to leave me?”

  “Yes.” Now her tears flowed in a gush. “I’m not cut out for this, for being your wife. For all the baggage that comes with it. I’m losing myself, and I’m losing my love for you because of it. I’m afraid of where it ends up.”

  “Miri, don’t do this, please. Why don’t we just take a break? Go stay with your father for a while, help him out, think things over. Why does this have to be so rash?”

  “It’s not rash. The night we got engaged—remember? I was going to break up with you. I was trying to think of the right words to pull away from you.”

  Mason knew that. He’d known, which was why he’d proposed to her, to cement her to his side. He realized now he’d only delayed the inevitable. He realized now he’d just caused her a lot of unnecessary pain.

  “I— I knew, even back then,” she said miserably. “I’m sorry. I know this will look so bad, but I promise I’ll disappear. I’ll lay low for six months, a year. I’ll take care of my dad and I’ll find a way to pay you back for the house, and for all the money you gave us.”

  “I don’t care about the damn house or the money,” Mason said. “I don’t care how it’s going to look in the media. Miri, you said you would marry me. Why did you agree if you felt this way?”

  “I don’t know. Because I was starstruck, I guess. Because you put me under this spell. You know, you said you were young, you were immature, that you made mistakes. I think I did that too. I just know I can’t go on like this. I can’t handle it anymore, and I think you know, deep down, that we’re not right for each other.”

  “No.” Mason paled in helpless fury, his hands curling into fists. “I know, deep down, that we’re meant for each other. You’re making a mistake because you’re scared, and yes, immature. I know about that, I know about immaturity and making stupid mistakes and learning the hard way. You take all the time you need, go off and do what you have to do. I’m not going to stop loving you and I’m not going to stop taking care of you. I’ll be waiting for you when you come out of this confusion you’re in.”

  “I’m not confused,” she said, twisting off the engagement ring he’d selected so carefully. She held it out to him. “Take it.”

  He shook his head. “No. Keep it. You’ll need it when you come back to me.”

  Their beautiful love, fractured, defeated by doubt. Well, he didn’t doubt for a second. He looked into her red-rimmed eyes, gazed at his conflicted, sweet girl, and took a deep breath.

  “I love you, Miri. I’ll love you forever, no matter what. Forever. Period.” With those words, he turned his back on her and left. He had someone else he had to talk to. He climbed in his car and roared out of the driveway. He needed to have a few choice words with his ex-wife.

  *** *** ***

  Jessamine barely glanced up as he stormed into her trailer. She waved off the pursuing security guards with an absent condescension that made him see red.

  “Coffee, Mason?” she asked with a smile. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “You filthy, cunty, godforsaken bitch!”

  She burst into throaty laughter. “Childish as ever, with the name calling. Either sit down and be civil, or get out.”

  “You’re going to lecture me about civility? Really? When you’re pouring threats and lies about me into my fiancée’s ears?”

  Jess held up a hand. “I didn’t tell her one lie. Not one.”

  “You scared her. You spun stories to turn her against me. You pulled the rug out from under her, and why? To get back at me like the petty, heartless bitch you are? I apologized for what I did to you, Jess. For what I did with Constance. It’s been two years now. Can’t you get over it?”

  His ex-wife traced her lips, staring down at the script in front of her. “You never apologized.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You didn’t mean it.”

  “And you’ll never forgive me anyway, right? So who cares? Why are you still gunning for me? Why is it so important to you to ruin me?”

  “Oh, come on. Cutting you loose from that Durand twit is hardly ‘ruining’ you. Mason, sit down. We need to talk like adults, as difficult as that is for a manchild like you.”

  “I’ll show you a manchild,” he said, bristling.

  “Ooh, yes, show me, big boy. I miss that side of you. That was the only part of you I ever had any use for.”

  She knew how to push every one of his buttons, knew exactly how to infuriate him and make him feel three feet tall. He sat the length of the trailer away, in her padded makeup chair, as she sprawled with a sigh on the couch. “Okay, talk,” he snapped. “Explain to me why you did what you did today. Explain what I need to do for you to go back and fix things up with your goddamn manipulative tongue.”

  “Oh, I’m not fixing anything up. Miri Durand can suck my left tit. I care even less about her happiness than I care about yours.”

  “Why? What do you have against her?”

  Jess’s eyes widened. “What do I have against her? Don’t you see my humiliation? Of course you don’t. You could never see the shit right in front of your face. How do you think it made me look, you proposing to her? I can’t measure up to sweet, doting Miri Durand, especially with you slavering over her like an idiot. I’m left twisting in the wind like some rejected jackass. I had to adopt a damn baby for damage control.”

  Mason stared at her in horror. “I hope that’s not true. God, Jess, no one was judging you against Miri. That’s all in your head.”

  “It’s not in my head.”

  “To begin with, you two couldn’t be more different.”

  “Exactly. Everyone thinks you gave up this—this!” she said, gesturing to her perfect, svelte physique, “so you could take up with that...that child. You dumped me for not doing your BDSM depravities and then gave all that up for Miss Innocent and Pure. It’s embarrassing.”

  “First of all, I didn’t dump you over the BDSM. That’s your story that you put out there with the help of your lackeys, your story that almost ruined my career. So don’t cry to me now that it’s backfired on you.”

  “Well, I’ll do your kink stuff now,”
she blurted out. “If you’ll get back with me, if you’ll drop Miri, I’ll do your stupid kinky shit. Every once in a while, anyway.”

  Mason gawked. “What?”

  “Look, let’s be professional about this. Our stock was higher when we were together. You know it, I know it. We’re both miserable apart. The solution is simple: Miri dumps you, we stage a big reconciliation, you leave your kinky, base ways behind so you can embrace your life’s true love. Me.”

  He blinked, trying to process her craziness. “You’ve started smoking crack. Is that it? You’re on the pipe now? Because I can’t honestly figure out how you’d come up with such a scheme otherwise. Jessamine, crack kills.”

  “This isn’t a joke,” she said with a huff of impatience. “You could never get serious when you needed to. It’s time to grow up.”

  “If growing up means reconciling with you then I would rather be thrown into a vat of barracudas.”

  “We didn’t have it so bad.” Jess slid him her siren look. The eyes, the lips, the way she held her body. So many times he’d been taken in. “Mason,” she slurred in that sultry lisp of hers. “We belong together. You’re not a one-woman man. When we’re together, I’ll let you mess around as much as you want, just like I used to. When I mess around, I promise I’ll be discreet. We can both have what we want, plus we’ll be fixing our careers. And the baby... Well, maybe we can adopt a sister for her to keep her busy. She’s actually pretty sweet. I named her Jemma. Nice name, isn’t it? Jessamine and Jemma, and Mason, her daddy.”

  “You should have named her ‘Victim’.” Mason shuddered. “Nothing against your little girl, but I’m not interested. I love Miri and I’m sticking with her. She comes before everything else, especially your imagined griefs and shortcomings.”

  “She’s staying with you after everything I said?”

  “No, she’s leaving me. You were successful with that part of your scheme, but the part where you and I get back together? Dream on.” He stood and walked to the door of her trailer, then turned back. Such a miserable, conniving human being. Jeremy always said Jess was a sad person, that all her machinations came from a place of fear, of desperation in her lonely soul.

  Mason didn’t care. She’d hurt him one too many times for him to feel any sympathy for her. “Miri and I belong together,” he said as a parting shot. “And nothing you do is ever going to change that fact.”

  Chapter Sixteen: Haunted

  Leaving Mason hurt like hell, but it also felt like a weight lifting off her. She didn’t have to play the game anymore, didn’t have to put on the show. She turned back into Miri Durand, former child star living in obscurity. She understood now it was better than living in the shadow of Mason’s fame, wanting something she could never have, something that wasn’t realistic. She missed him, but the haze of sex and longing soon cleared from her brain and the reality became clear. They would never, ever have worked out, never made it beyond the typical two-year duration of a Hollywood marriage.

  Now she was back to living at home with her father, who still grumbled about Mason, about depravity and sin and her ruined career. Even so, he cashed the checks Mason sent in the mail. She wished he would stop trying to support them. With the mortgage taken care of and Grammy’s bills paid, they could squeak by on her residuals until she set up some new jobs. Miri would wait a while, until the breakup coverage died down, and then she’d start auditioning on her own merits, not the fact that she was the lesser half of Mason Cooke.

  In the meantime, Miri killed time painting the stained walls of her dad’s house, reclaiming the overgrown yard, putting up wallpaper in the bathrooms. She tried to go through her dad’s things and unclutter the worst areas of the house. She went through Maddy’s old belongings and had screaming fights with her father over letting it go. She ran out of energy when it came to her mother’s things. She felt the exhausting weight of depression dragging her down, but she pushed through. The media barrage burned out, mostly because Miri didn’t participate in it. She asked Mason to stop calling, and when he didn’t, sent his calls to voicemail in self-preservation. He finally gave up.

  Christmas came and went, along with a lonely New Years. She cried on the day that would have been their wedding day, but at the same time, she felt relief. It was over. She put his ring in a small velvet pouch in her bottom drawer, next to her narrow black collar and the framed photo of them at the Golden Globes, burying her mistakes under old workout clothes and underwear. Out of sight, out of mind. Mostly. Then Jeremy and Nell stopped by her dad’s house out of the blue.

  “Sorry we didn’t call first,” said Nell, taking her hand. “We were afraid you’d tell us not to come.”

  “I probably would have,” said Miri, but she let them in anyway. Seeing the two elegant, famous people in her shabby home just validated the reasons she’d broken up with him. You don’t belong. You’ll never belong in Mason’s world.

  Nell sat next to Miri on the couch, making small talk before she launched into the purpose of their visit. “We’ve been worried about you,” she said, taking her friend’s hand. “Why don’t you visit? I miss our tea talks so much.”

  Jeremy leaned forward in her dad’s recliner, concern etched into his features. “We’re sorry about the way things went down between you and Mason.”

  Miri shook her head. “You shouldn’t feel sorry. It wasn’t your fault. It was my fault for agreeing to marry him for...I don’t know. All the wrong reasons. I was so immature.”

  Nell took a deep breath. “It was partly our fault. A lot our fault. See, it was our idea, the two of you. The whole PR thing. Me and Jeremy and Kai and Constance all hatched this scheme to help him, but we never meant to hurt you. Not one of us set out to hurt you, Mason most of all. The thing about Mason...” She paused a moment, biting her lip. “The thing about Mason is he means so well. But he’s kind of like a bull in a china shop most of the time. He’s so generous and funny, but somehow he ends up...”

  “Reeling around and breaking vases,” Jeremy said.

  “Yes, he ends up making a mess of things because he’s kind of impulsive sometimes like...”

  “Like a bull in a china shop.”

  Nell shot an exasperated look at her husband. “Yes.” She turned back to Miri. “What you have to understand is that we’re the ones who put him up to all this. It was our idea for Mason to find a nice girl to reform his image.”

  “It was your idea,” Jeremy interjected.

  “Well, you went along with it right away. In fact, you were the one who said—”

  “I was the one who told him he should just be honest. Lay it on the line for her. You and Constance were the ones who said that wasn’t romantic enough.”

  “Mason is a romantic guy! He can’t be as cold and calculated as you.”

  “Oh, I’m cold and calculated.” Jeremy chuckled. “Like I said, this was your idea in the first place, this whole save-Mason’s-reputation business.”

  Nell put her hands on her hips. “I wouldn’t be so holier-than-thou if I were you. Your solution was for him to fly to France and get an odalisque.”

  Miri held up her hand, although it was fascinating to watch one of Hollywood’s most-loved couples squabbling in her father’s living room. “Really, neither one of us was honest in the beginning. I had ulterior motives too. I thought I could ride Mason’s coattails, but I found out the biz really doesn’t work that way. It all just...didn’t work. Thanks for your concern, but I’ve accepted the fact that we’re pretty toxic to one another.”

  They looked at her. There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Jeremy asked, “Toxic to each other, or toxic to each other’s career?”

  Miri sighed. “Does it matter?”

  “It might.” He rubbed his chin and held her gaze. “Famous people can be pretty schizophrenic. Some of them manage to hold it together, but most develop two compartments for their lives. The fame one and the real one. Sometimes the two sides get confused. Tangled up. It happens a lot.”


  Nell nodded. “Fame makes everything harder in a relationship. You wouldn’t believe the crap me and Jeremy did to each other when we were starting out together.” She cut her eyes at her husband. “Well, mostly the crap Jeremy did to me.”

  Miri recalled a few garish headlines. “Didn’t you shoot your assistant in a jealous rage over her or something?”

  “Not exactly,” Jeremy drawled.

  “That was all a big misunderstanding,” Nell said. “See, there was this crazy stalker woman, and she was holding me at gunpoint—” At the look on Miri’s face, Nell clamped her mouth shut and waved a hand. “It’s a long story. Anyway, Jeremy didn’t shoot Kyle. Jeremy wasn’t even there at the time. He and Kyle are best friends to this day.”

  Jeremy nodded. “We visit him and his wife and daughter in Texas at least once a year.”

  “The media misrepresents everything,” said Nell, “but the truth is still there, and the only people who need to know it are the people in the relationship. And I think—truly—that Mason loves you, and he misses you. I think he needs you. That’s the most important thing. None of the rest of it matters.”

  “If he loves me, if he needs me, why—” Miri looked down, twisting her hands. “Why would he want to be with other people? I mean...sexually?”

  Jeremy and Nell exchanged a long look. “That’s probably our fault too,” he said. “Nell and I are such perverts. We assume everyone will enjoy swinging the way we do. To us it’s fun, not cheating.”

  Nell nodded in agreement with her husband. “We could see Mason really liked you, and he told Jeremy you were getting into the lifestyle together, that you liked exchanging power. So we planned this birthday party to get to know you better. We thought it might bring the two of you closer. You know, to meet all his friends.”

  “And have sex with them,” Jeremy added ruefully. “Maybe we got a little ahead of ourselves. Sorry about that.”