It’s large, airy, and sun-splashed, with a white and dark blue ceramic tile floor and white wicker furniture mat’s pleasantly accented by plump cushions in navy and white ticking fabric. There are lush tropical plants everywhere. The cheerful chirping from several caged tropical birds and the steady trickling of water from a stone fountain in one corner adds to the illusion of being outside.
“Have a seat,” Lita offers in her vague monotone.
“Thanks.”
Rae perches stiffly on the edge of an armchair.
Then, belatedly remembering that she’s still Mallory, she crosses one bare, tanned leg over the other and leans back, as though she hasn’t a care in the world.
“So … good luck.” Lita’s voice is detached.
“Thanks.”
The model nods, drifting out of the room with a gesture that’s really more of a shrug than a wave.
Bitch, Rae thinks. You don’t wish me luck. You couldn’t care less whether I get this role. You probably want it for yourself.
She lets out a nervous, quiet sigh and checks her watch, wondering whether she’s in for a long wait.
Manny looks around the Providence bus terminal, trying to appear to anyone who might be watching as though he hasn’t a care in the world.
Everyone seems to be minding their own business, reading the Journal News or chatting with a companion—except for an elderly lady who’s seated against the wall, sipping coffee in a paper Dunkin’ Donuts cup and munching on a muffin. She looks right at Manny when he glances at her, and she frowns slightly, as though wondering what a boy his age is doing alone in a big, busy bus terminal.
He’s wondering the same thing himself.
Running away might not have been such a good idea, he now realizes. For one thing, the local bus he’d ridden just to get this far had eaten most of the money he’d had with him—which, actually, was the few dollars’ worth of change he’d found when he opened his piggy bank that morning. He’d been stuffing spare dimes and nickels into it for so long that he’d been certain he’d find a fortune, but when he’d added it all up, he was sick.
How far is he going to get?
He’s decided to go to California, because it’s as far away as you can get from Rhode Island and still be in the same country. He figures that he’ll go to Hollywood and become a big movie star. They’re always looking for talented kids now that Macauley Culkin’s voice has changed, and besides, Rhonda said Manny is one of the best actors she’s ever seen.
He feels a pang at the thought of the play he’ll never get to star in. He had been looking forward to getting up there onstage; he’d even dared to imagine that Grammy and Grampa might be in the audience. He had told them about it, and Grammy had said they’d try to come.
There’s only one person he’d been certain would attend his big night. Elizabeth. He knew he could count on her to be there; she had said she was looking forward to it.
As soon as he gets to where he’s going, he’ll call her and let her know he’s all right. He has her phone number in his pocket.
Maybe she’ll even come out and visit him. If he gets a big movie right away, he’ll even buy her plane ticket, to pay her back for all the stuff she’s done for him.
Manny glances out the big plate-glass window at the Bonanza bus pulling into the spot marked Lane Two.
An announcement over the loudspeaker tells him that it will be boarding in five minutes, and it’s headed for New York City via Hartford and White Plains.
New York City.
There are a lot of movie stars there too—aren’t there?
Besides, New York is a lot closer to Rhode Island than Hollywood is. Maybe he should …
He hurries up to the ticket counter and waits impatiently while the man behind the desk tries to explain to some old guy who doesn’t speak English that he just missed the bus to Logan Airport and the next one doesn’t leave for almost two hours.
Finally, it’s Manny’s turn to step up.
“How much is a ticket to New York City?” he asks.
The man looks him over, opens his mouth like he’s going to ask Manny if he’s traveling alone.
“My grandma can’t remember how much the fare was, and I think she dropped her ticket somewhere,” Manny says quickly, motioning behind him in the general direction of the waiting area, where there are at least five vaguely confused-looking old ladies who might be mistaken for his grandmother.
“It’s twenty-nine ninety-five one way,” the man says, still appearing doubtful.
“Dollars?”
The man narrows his eyes, says, “Yes, dollars.”
“Okay, thank you,” Manny tells him, trying to hide his dismay.
Conscious of the guy’s eyes following him, he walks across the terminal and sits next to the muffin-eating, nosy old lady.
He decides he’d better talk to her, in case the counter guy is still watching.
“Are you going to New York City?” he asks her.
She tightens her grip on her handbag in her lap. “Yes,” she says, not unfriendly, but not grandmotherly warm either.
“So am I,” Manny tells her in a conversational tone.
“Alone?” She frowns.
“Yeah. I have to go visit my … sister. My mother’s dead.” Those last words, an afterthought, give him a great deal of satisfaction.
“That’s too bad,” the woman says.
“Yeah.” He shrugs.
The loudspeaker clicks on and a voice announces that the bus for New York City is now boarding in Lane Two.
The old woman stands, brushes the crumbs off her double-knit pink pants suit.
“Do you want some help carrying your bags?” Manny asks, an idea forming in his mind.
“No, I—”
“I can help you. I’m going on the same bus.”
All he has to do is walk next to this lady, and sneak past the guy standing in front of the open luggage bins in the side of the bus, collecting the tickets.
But that’s against the law!
So? You can’t afford a ticket. Someday, when you’re a rich, famous movie star, you can pay the bus company back.
Besides, if you go back home now, you’ll get beat by Grampa for running away, and your mother will come after you.
“All right, you can carry that suitcase,” the old lady has decided.
He obediently picks it up, finding it impossibly heavy. What does she have in there, giant rocks?
He starts lugging it toward the door, noticing that there’s a good long line waiting to board the bus.
He’s just a short little kid in the crowd. They’ll never notice him.
He and the lady wait in line.
“You go ahead of me. Ladies first,” he says as they get closer to the driver collecting the tickets.
The old woman actually cracks a smile and steps in front of Manny.
Finally, they reach the head of the line.
“Ticket, please?” the man says to the old woman.
She fumbles for it in the pocket of her jacket.
That’s Manny’s cue.
Still lugging her suitcase, he sidesteps her, then scoots around the ticket collector, who doesn’t seem to notice.
Home free, Manny thinks, putting one foot on the step.
Then he feels a hand clamp down on his shoulder, and a stern voice says, “Where do you think you’re going, son?”
Rae doesn’t ask Flynn for the news until they’re in the limo, heading down the long, winding drive away from Martin de Lisser’s house.
She tries not to give away her anxiety, but realizes that her perfect French manicure is tapping a furious staccato against the tinted window of the car.
“Well?” she demands, turning to her new agent. “What did they say?”
“First of all,” he says, turning to her, “can I tell you that you were fabulous?”
She smiles.
“You are Mallory Eden,” he informs her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d be s
pooked by you. You look like her, you sound like her, you even have her walk—that slow, nonchalant way she used to move around. How did you do it, and overnight, Rae?”
She doesn’t tell him about the tacks she placed inside the toes of the linen pumps, that every time she sets her feet down, she must do so gingerly, thus naturally slowing her gait and refraining from her usual, more purposeful stride.
“I’m an actress, remember?” is her slightly haughty reply to Flynn, who raises an appraising eyebrow.
“You certainly are,” he agrees mildly. “And your performance absolutely grabbed Martin’s attention. He’s interested, Rae. He and John are going to discuss it …”
Oh, John. That was the studio executive’s name.
“… and he’ll get back to us later on today, or tomorrow. But I really think that it’s possible that you might be cast. De Lisser commented on your reading. He said that it was like watching Mallory Eden’s ghost.”
Mallory Eden’s ghost.
A shiver runs down Rae’s spine, once again, at the persistent image.
Mallory’s dead, she reminds herself.
And she isn’t coming back....
No matter what she promised that long-ago day in Big Sur.
Rae smiles at Flynn, and she gestures at the stocked limousine bar opposite her. “Why don’t you open that bottle of champagne, Flynn, and we’ll celebrate?”
He hesitates.
“Or are you on the wagon again?” she asks, remembering his three-martini lunch just yesterday.
“It’s not … it’s just … I’m trying not to—oh, what the hell. You’re right. We should celebrate. I’ll open the champagne,” he says with a careless laugh.
Elizabeth freezes with her hand on the back doorknob.
The phone.
It’s ringing.
Now.
She was just about to leave.
She falters, turning back to look at it.
What if it’s Manny?
Or …
What if it’s Harper Smith?
Either way, she should answer it.
She’s longing to put her mind at ease about Manny before she leaves; it was an agonizing decision, choosing to go without knowing whether he’s all right.
And if it’s Harper—
She has to act as though nothing’s wrong. As though she’s still planning on meeting him at Momma Mangia’s restaurant at eight o’clock.
She has to thank him for the flowers, even, so he won’t be suspicious.
She can’t make him suspicious.
She needs a few hours to make a head start, to get far enough away from Windmere Cove so that he won’t be able to trace her.
She moves quickly through the kitchen, through the house she just bade farewell.
Grabbing the receiver, she lifts it and says breathlessly, “Hello?”
“Elizabeth?”
“Manny!”
“Elizabeth, I need you. I’m in trouble....”
“What is it? Where are you? Are you with your mother?”
“No.”
He’s sobbing, she realizes, and her heart constricts.
Elizabeth, I need you.
“Where are you, Manny?” she repeats, clenching the receiver in one hand, and in the other, her heavy canvas bank bag, the bag filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in escape money.
“I’m at the bus station in Providence … in the security office … I need you to come and get me.”
“I’ll be right there, Manny. Just hang on, okay? I’ll be right there,” she promises.
And she never, ever breaks a promise.
Harper picks up the telephone, listening to the ringing on the other end of the fine.
He’s about to conclude that no one’s going to answer, when he hears a click, and a voice.
“Momma Mangia’s, can I help you?”
“Yes, please, I need a reservation for this evening.”
“What time, sir?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“How many?”
“Two,” he says, then adds, “and can we have one of the booths, please? Preferably toward the back of the dining room?”
It’s darker there. More private.
“A booth toward the back? I think we can arrange that for you, sir.”
Harper thanks him and hangs up, a smile playing over his lips.
He glances at the clock.
Just a few more hours to kill.
Pamela can tell by looking at the big two-story brick house from the driveway that her parents aren’t home.
Still, she gets out of the car, then opens the back door and unstraps first Hannah, then Jason from their car seats. Holding Hannah’s hand and balancing the baby on her hip, she makes her way slowly up the drive, noting that the garage is closed and neither the Honda nor the Pathfinder is parked in the driveway. Since her parents rarely go out separately, that means one of their vehicles is in the garage.
And that most likely means they’ve gone up to Maine for the weekend.
Pamela has never been to the vacation home they purchased almost a year ago, when her father retired. She doesn’t even know what town it’s in, only that it’s someplace near Camden. She has the address and phone number written down back at home.
She also knows that the place needs a lot of work. Her parents have spent nearly every weekend this summer up there, painting, shingling, and refinishing the hardwood floors.
“You’ll have to come up,” they’ve been saying since they bought the place. But it was out of the question during the rugged winter; it was too far for her to travel in her pregnancy; and when she brought it up to Frank in late July, he had said he couldn’t get the time off.
“Why don’t you and the kids go up?” he had suggested amiably. “Hannah would love the beach, and your parents keep complaining to you about how they’ve seen Jason only a couple of times since he was born.”
Now she realizes he was obviously trying to get rid of them for a long weekend, so he could have his fun with the tramp next door.
“Where’s Nana?” Hannah asks as they stand helplessly in front of the back door, which is locked up tight, the blinds on the window drawn. “Where’s Papa?”
“I think they’re up at their new house in Maine,” Pamela tells her daughter.
Now she wishes she had taken Frank up on his suggestion and visited them there with the kids over the summer. If she had, she would at least know where the house is, and she could drive up and stay with them there.
As it is, she has no place to go.
No place but home to Windmere Cove, and Frank.
“Are you sure I need to go back home?” Manny asks Elizabeth as she pulls over to the curb a short distance down the street from his house.
“I’m positive,” she tells him, glancing nervously at the digital clock on the dashboard.
It’s seven-thirty.
She has just enough time to dash back home, find Frank Minelli and tell him about Manny’s situation, then grab her bag of money and get out of town.
She still doesn’t know where she’s going. It doesn’t matter. She just has to get away, to start driving anywhere. She’ll figure out her destination along the way.
Manny is looking doubtful, shaking his head. “But I don’t want to go home, Elizabeth. What if my grandfather—”
“He promised when you called him that he won’t hurt you, Manny. Remember?”
The boy nods; his eyes aren’t convinced.
“We’re going to do just what we discussed, okay?” Elizabeth takes a deep breath, struggling not to look again at the clock as she says patiently, “You’re going to go back home to your grandparents’ house, and I’m going home to talk this over with my policeman friend next door. He’ll contact your grandparents, and they’ll do something about your mother’s threats.”
“Grammy sounded angry at me when I talked to her.”
I know, Elizabeth thinks. She sounded angry at me too.
> She tells herself that the woman had simply been worried about her missing grandson, trying to dismiss the thought that the grandparents should have called the police when they first realized Manny hadn’t arrived at his rehearsal. The grandmother said she figured he was off playing hooky somewhere and that he’d show up sooner or later.
These people shouldn’t have custody of a child.
They simply aren’t equipped, emotionally or financially, to deal with Manny, or with the threats their daughter has made.
It isn’t that they don’t care, Elizabeth thinks.
The grandmother had sounded relieved when Elizabeth had called them from the pay phone at the bus station, telling them that she was a friend of Manny’s and that he had called her to pick him up there after deciding not to run away.
She didn’t mention the threats his mother had made—that would be up to the police to discuss with them.
Nor did she get into the run-in Manny had had with station security. There was no reason to tell them that. The officer in charge had grudgingly released the boy to Elizabeth after lecturing him about the seriousness of his infraction.
“Providence? How did he get to Providence?” his grandmother had asked Elizabeth in her broken English.
She hadn’t been very happy to hear that he’d taken the local bus alone, transferring at busy Kennedy Square in the heart of the city.
That was when the grandfather got on the phone.
“Put Manny on,” he curtly instructed Elizabeth after she had briefly explained the story again—that the child had run away because he was afraid his mother was going to kidnap him.
And so Manny got on the phone, and started crying, and told the man that he wouldn’t come home until his grandfather promised not to beat him.
He had promised.
Elizabeth prays to God that he meant it.
She reaches out and pulls the little boy into her arms, squeezing him tightly, a painful lump strangling her efforts to speak.
“Will you come back with the police later?” Manny asks, clinging to her blue denim shirt.
She shakes her head, then finds her voice and says truthfully, “I can’t, Manny.”
“But why not? I need you …”
There it is again.
I need you.
Fade to Black Page 20