The Cast

by Danielle Steel

  “If you screw her over, I will personally kill you,” she said in a low voice so only he could hear her. “She’s a lovely girl, and a decent human being, if that means anything to you.”

  “I’m falling in love with her,” he said, looking righteous. Kait didn’t believe a word of it. Working on the show was an education for her too.

  “I mean it, Dan. Don’t play with her. You can have anyone you want. Don’t screw around with her for the hell of it.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own business, Kait?” he said roughly, and shoved past her into Abaya’s trailer. Kait was steaming by the time she got to Maeve, who was having an iced tea with Agnes, waiting to get her hair and makeup done before their next scene.

  “I hate that guy,” Kait said as she sat down. The three of them had become fast friends.

  “Who?” Maeve looked startled at the uncharacteristic vehemence in Kait’s voice.

  “Dan. He’s going to break Abaya’s heart. He doesn’t give a damn about her. He just wanted to win her over because she didn’t want him.”

  “Hell hath no fury like a narcissistic actor who’s been spurned,” Agnes said wisely, and Maeve agreed. They’d both seen it happen hundreds of times over the years.

  “She thinks he’s falling in love with her and he ‘respects’ her,” Kait said, worried about Abaya. Kait was sure he’d be cheating on her within days, or already was.

  But despite the personalities involved, Charlotte’s pregnancy, and Dan’s budding romance with Abaya, due to the professionalism of the cast, the actual filming was going smoothly, and much to Zack’s delight, they were ahead of schedule, which would give them the time they needed to shoot the nine additional episodes.

  Maeve’s and Agnes’s performances had been astoundingly powerful. Becca’s scripts were working well. They were still saving Nick Brooke for the final episode of the season, and fitting the additional nine episodes in before that. Kait and Becca were working on them.

  And by mid-August, they had finished the scenes they needed to with Charlotte before the pregnancy, and she looked great. And Abaya absolutely glowed, she and Dan had become inseparable on set and off. They were going back to Long Island in two weeks to shoot at the airstrip again, and everyone was pleased. The heat had been blistering in upstate New York.

  * * *

  —

  Kait was surprised one morning when Agnes didn’t show up for her call. She went to find her in her trailer and she wasn’t there, and hair and makeup said she hadn’t come in yet. It was the first time she’d been late, and Kait was concerned that something might have happened to her, so she drove the few miles to her motel. It was a dismal place. There was no answer when she knocked on Agnes’s door, and she borrowed a key to let herself in. She found Agnes blind drunk on the floor with a bottle of bourbon next to her. She tried to sit up when she saw Kait and couldn’t. Kait pulled her up onto the bed, as Agnes rambled incoherently. She kept talking about Johnny as though Kait knew who he was. She thought she meant the young pilot on the show, but her ramblings made no sense. Kait texted Maeve, who showed up twenty minutes later, and they got Agnes in the shower together, with her clothes on. She was only slightly more sober when they laid her back down on the bed and got her into dry clothes. She sat up on the bed then, and stared at both of them.

  “Go back to the set,” she said sternly. “I’m taking a day off today,” and then started groping around the floor, looking for her bottle, which Kait had taken away. It was almost empty, and Kait assumed she had drunk almost all of it the night before.

  “Let’s get you some air,” Maeve said, and the two women half-dragged her outside, but the heat was so oppressive, it didn’t help.

  “You know what today is, don’t you? He was out on the boat with Roberto. It wasn’t Roberto’s fault. They got caught in a storm on the way home.” The two women exchanged a look but didn’t comment, and helped Agnes into bed. “Leave me alone,” she said to both of them, with an authoritative tone, and they went outside to confer for a minute.

  “What’s going on?” Kait whispered to Maeve. “Who’s Johnny?” It no longer sounded like she meant the pilot on the show, but someone else.

  “She and Roberto had a son,” Maeve said in a conspiratorial tone. “They kept it very quiet. In those days having a child out of wedlock would have been a huge scandal and hurt her career. I don’t know all the details, but Roberto had him out on their sailboat. They got caught in a squall on the way back, the boat overturned, and the boy drowned. He was eight. Today must be the anniversary of his death. She may have started drinking then. I know she took a couple of years off. According to Ian, Roberto blamed himself forever. She was never quite the same after that. She has never admitted to having a son, or that he died. I heard it all from Ian. It was one of the great tragedies of her life. The other was losing Roberto.”

  Kait’s heart ached for Agnes at the story, and she was sorry she hadn’t known about it sooner. Maeve went back into the room where Agnes was sleeping, and Kait went to the desk to inquire about a local AA meeting. They said there was one at the church down the street every night. It was about a mile away. She thanked them and went to find Maeve.

  “You have to go back,” Kait told her. “You have a scene with Abaya this morning. I’ll stay with Agnes. They can manage without me for the day.”

  Maeve nodded. “I’ll come back when we finish shooting. We should probably just let her sleep it off,” Maeve said sadly, and Kait agreed.

  “I’ll take her to an AA meeting tonight. There’s one down the street.”

  “She may not want to go,” Maeve said, glancing at her.

  “I’m not giving her the choice. She can sleep it off now, and I’ll try to get some food into her when she wakes up. Tell Nancy to do her scene tomorrow. She can work with you and Abaya all day today. Dan can spend the day learning his lines for tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Maeve said as the two women exchanged a look of understanding, and a minute later, Maeve went back to the set.

  Agnes didn’t wake up until five o’clock, and when she did, she saw Kait sitting quietly in a chair in the corner of the room, watching her.

  “I’m sorry I fell off the wagon,” she said in a hoarse croak, she looked old and beaten, as she had when they first met. Kait didn’t ask her why it had happened, she knew enough from Maeve.

  “It happens. You’ll get back on it.” Kait came and sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you want something to eat?”

  “Maybe later. Thank you, Kait, for not telling me what a loser I am.”

  “You’re not a loser, I’m sure you had your reasons,” she said quietly, not judging her.

  Agnes lay on the bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling, remembering. “Roberto and I had a son. He drowned in a boating accident with Roberto when he was eight years old. Today is the anniversary of when it happened.” Kait didn’t tell her she already knew, she just gently patted her hand.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine anything worse than losing a child. It must have been terrible for both of you.”

  “I thought Roberto was going to try to kill himself. He was so dramatic anyway. He’d been trying to get a divorce before that, so we could get married. His wife wouldn’t agree to it, and there was no divorce in Italy then. So he tried to get an annulment. But he gave up on it after that. He gave up on a lot of things. He was never the same again. It was good for his work, but not so good for us. We got drunk a lot together, it was the only way we could get through it. He stopped drinking eventually and went to AA. I never really did. I’d stop for a while and then I’d start drinking again. Today is always a hard day. The worst day of the year for me.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “Why? Nothing you could do would change it,” she said with a deep well of despair in her voice. “And now they’re bot
h gone.”

  “I could have spent the night with you.”

  Agnes shook her head, and a little while later she got off the bed and walked around the room.

  “Let’s go get something to eat,” Kait said. There were a coffee shop and a grocery store across the street. Kait was starving. She hadn’t wanted to leave her and hadn’t eaten all day.

  “Let’s go get a drink instead,” Agnes said, only half-joking.

  “We’re going to an AA meeting at seven,” Kait said firmly.

  “They have one here?” She looked surprised when Kait nodded.

  “I’ll go with you, but I need something to eat before we do.”

  Agnes went to comb her hair and wash her face, and she still appeared ragged when she came out of the bathroom wearing black slacks and a white blouse and sandals.

  They went across the street to the restaurant. Kait had a salad and Agnes ordered scrambled eggs, hash browns, and black coffee. She seemed better but still desperately sad, and she said very little. At a quarter to seven, Kait walked Agnes to her car and they got in.

  The meeting was in the basement of a church. Agnes asked Kait to go in with her, and it was very moving. She shared about her son’s death, and the fact that she had just blown five months of sobriety, but by the end of the meeting she looked better, and they stayed to chat with the others for a few minutes. They all expressed their sympathy, since during her share, no one was allowed to speak. And she had cried when she told the story.

  Kait drove her back to the motel then and followed her into the room. Maeve joined them a few minutes later. The three women talked for a while, and Agnes turned on the TV. She told them she’d be fine now, but Kait knew she only had to cross the street to buy a bottle at the 7-Eleven, and she wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “Like it or not,” Kait told her, “I’m spending the night with you.”

  “I’ll be fine tomorrow. I’ll be back on the set.”

  “I’m staying anyway,” she said, and Agnes smiled at her.

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “You’re right, I don’t,” she said, and all three women laughed.

  “Fine, if you want to be that way,” but she was secretly grateful. Half an hour later, Maeve left to go back to the hotel where she and Kait were staying. There hadn’t been enough room for all of them at any one hotel, so they’d booked rooms all over the area in small, ugly motels.

  Kait walked Maeve to her car, and they both turned when they heard voices coming out of another room, as the door opened and two people came out. They glanced instinctively, and there was no mistaking who it was. It was Dan, with one of the hairdressers he’d been sleeping with before Abaya. He was shocked when he recognized the two women, and he stared at Kait with defiance and terror. He was already cheating on Abaya. Kait turned away as he hurried to his car, like the rat he was, and she and Maeve exchanged a long look.

  “I was afraid of that. I knew he’d cheat on her,” Maeve said sadly.

  “So did I. I loathe the guy. She doesn’t deserve this,” Kait said angrily.

  “Are you going to tell her?” Maeve asked, and Kait didn’t answer.

  “Are you?” Kait wondered, not sure what to do.

  Maeve shook her head. “She’ll find out soon enough. Someone will tell her, or she’ll catch him. He didn’t have any scenes today. He’s probably been here all afternoon.”

  “I hate him for what he’s going to do to her,” Kait said with feeling. Maeve nodded, got in her car, and drove away, and Kait walked back into Agnes’s room, feeling sick. Dan didn’t deserve their silence to protect him, but Kait knew that telling Abaya would be even worse. He was a lowlife, and Kait was sorry they’d hired him for the show. But whatever they did now, Abaya was going to be wounded, and it would hurt like hell.

  Chapter 13

  With the help of nightly AA meetings after her slip, Agnes got back on track pretty quickly. She was a strong woman. She didn’t talk about her son anymore, but she thanked Kait for saving her, again.

  They were all anxious to get back to the city. The heat was oppressive, the town was boring, and the cast was starting to get on each other’s nerves, which wasn’t surprising. They needed a break. Nancy had been driving them hard, and they wanted to return to New York and their significant others, and start shooting again on Long Island. At least there’d be an ocean breeze there, and some of them could be at home and commute from the city.

  A week before they were due to leave, Maeve got a call from Ian’s doctor. The medicine wasn’t working as well, and he thought Ian was slipping. The situation wasn’t at crisis level yet, but they knew his condition could change very quickly. Her daughters were taking turns watching him with the nurses, which gave Maeve enough relief to continue working. She was ready to leave at a moment’s notice, if she got a call. It added an additional layer of tension to the atmosphere, although nothing showed in Maeve’s performance. She was a total pro, and had adjusted to the new scripts where her daughter Chrystal told her she was pregnant, and the sixteen-year-old boy who had gotten her that way had run away. She had to admit to her mother that she wasn’t even sure if he was the one who had gotten her pregnant. There was a heart-wrenching scene where she decided to keep the baby and Anne promised to support her. It wasn’t what she wanted for her daughter, but she was willing to face it with her. And there was a brilliant scene between grandmother, mother, and daughter, where Agnes delivered an unforgettable performance, begging her daughter not to let Chrystal destroy them, and to send her away to have the baby, and Anne refused.

  The new script Becca had written for the scene had brought out the talent of each one, and they delivered their best performances. And Nancy had directed them like an orchestra of finely tuned instruments. Kait had cried as she watched them do the scene.

  And ever since she had seen Dan at the motel, he had avoided her assiduously. He was sure she would tell Abaya. But she didn’t have the heart to. She had decided to let her find out for herself. It was only a matter of time before she would, and Maeve had agreed. He wouldn’t be on the show much longer anyway, since he died in the first season.

  Kait was going over one of the new scripts again with Becca, refining it and discussing it with her, when one of the production assistants came to tell her that her son was trying to get through to her and hadn’t been able to reach her. She had forgotten her phone in Maeve’s trailer earlier that afternoon. She was surprised that he had called. They’d spoken two days before, and she’d talked to Maribeth and the children too. She’d been meaning to call Stephanie, but she’d been busy. And she hadn’t heard from Candace in a week, but knew she would be back in London soon. She used the landline in her trailer to call Tom.

  “Hi, what’s up?” she said when she got him on the line at his office. “I’m sorry, I forgot my phone in someone’s trailer.” For a moment, he didn’t answer her, and when he did, she could hear that he was crying. “Tommy? What’s wrong?” Her heart nearly stopped, thinking that something had happened to one of his children. “Is it the girls?”

  “No,” he said, trying to pull himself together, for his mother’s sake. It had taken him an hour to get up the courage to call her. “It’s Candy,” he said, using her childhood name. “Mom, I don’t know how to tell you this….She was killed last night in a bombing….They bombed a restaurant she was in. Thirty people were killed, and she was one of them. I just got a call from her boss at the BBC. They tried to call you on your cell and couldn’t get you, so they called me. I’m next on Candy’s list to call in an emergency. It was a freak thing. They were coming back today.”

  Kait felt like she’d been shot as she listened to him, and Maeve walked into the trailer with her phone and saw her face. She wasn’t sure whether to leave the room or stay.

  “I don’t…are you sure? She wasn’t just injured?” she said, clutchi
ng at straws, her face contorted in pain, as Maeve went to her and held her shoulders. She couldn’t leave her like this.

  “No, Mom, she’s dead. They’re sending her body back to England. I’m going over in Hank’s plane and I’ll bring her home.” For a moment, Kait was bereft of speech as the pain of it sliced through her, and then she sobbed uncontrollably as Maeve held her. “It’s going to take a few days to get the paperwork in order.” He was still crying too.

  “I’ll go to London right away,” she said, as though it would make a difference. But this time it wouldn’t. The worst had happened. Candace’s chances had run out. It was too late.

  “Don’t come, Mom. There’s nothing you can do. I’ll meet you in New York. Maribeth is coming with me.” Kait nodded, unable to speak for a minute. “We should be back in New York in a few days.”

  “I love you. I’m so sorry….I kept telling her to stop. She wouldn’t listen.”

  “It’s how she wanted to live her life, Mom. She wanted to make a difference, and maybe she did. She had a right to make that choice,” he said, regaining his composure.

  “Not if it killed her,” Kait said in a whisper. “Did you call Steph?”

  “I just did. She’ll be home as soon as she can. When I get back from London, I’ll help you make the arrangements.”

  “I can do that before you get home,” she said, looking dazed. She felt disoriented as she glanced around her trailer and saw Maeve. “Thank you for telling me,” she said softly.

  “I love you, Mom. I’m so sorry. For all of us. I’m so glad we had that vacation together.”

  “So am I,” Kait said, and after they hung up, she fell into Maeve’s arms and sobbed. “They bombed a restaurant she was in. They were flying back to London today.” Maeve didn’t ask her what country she had been in, or who had killed her. It made no difference now. Kait’s assistant on the set stuck her head in the door then, saw what was happening, and retreated immediately. And after a long time, Maeve came out and went to find Agnes to tell her. The news was all over the set within minutes, and they stopped filming.