by Janet Dailey
“It’s tempting.” She brushed a strand of burnished blond hair off his forehead. “But I have some interviews scheduled and-”
Paula’s voice cut in, “I hate to interrupt this intimate little scene, but you’re wanted on the phone, Kit.”
“Who is it?” John kept his hands locked behind her back.
“Maury.”
“Kit will call him back.”
“Tell him I’ll be right there.” She reproved John with a look and reached back to pun at his wrists and separate his hands.
“Forget Maury,” John said as Paula went back inside. “Come to L.A. with me. I want to introduce you to Sid Graham with-”
“No.” She kissed him hard and quick to shut him up. “Subject closed. Now let me go so I can find out what he wants.” With deliberate reluctance, he released her. Kit took a step toward the house, then stopped when he didn’t follow her. “Aren’t you coming in?”
“Nolan’s waiting for me at the airport.” He turned abruptly and walked to the Range Rover. “I’ll call you.”
He knew he sounded angry. Damn it, he was angry. Her blind loyalty to that Rose character was stupid. Noble but stupid. Why wouldn’t she listen to him? He was trying to help. Why couldn’t she see that?
He threw the vehicle into reverse and jammed his foot on the accelerator, spinning tires and spraying gravel as he wheeled out of the ranch yard onto the lane.
Watching the dust and gravel fly when he pulled out, Kit pushed a hand through her hair, suddenly tired, irritated, and tense all at the same time. She didn’t understand what had happened to all the pleasure she’d felt moments ago. She sighed and climbed the porch steps. At the moment she didn’t really care what Maury wanted.
“Why haven’t you called me? You could check in with me once in a while. Let me know what’s going on. How did the interview with People go?”
“Fine.” Kit sat down on the arm of the sofa.
“What kind of questions did they ask? Did they say when the piece would run?”
“I didn’t think to ask,” she admitted.
“I’ll find out. Now don’t forget you’ve got that reporter from the Denver paper coming out on Saturday and some gal with the Aspen-”
“I’ve got it all marked down, Maury. We went over it before you left. Remember?”
“I remember. I’m just making sure you do. All this publicity is starting to pay off, Kit. I’m getting scripts sent to me every day for you to read. I’ve got a bundle here ready to go out to you today. Mark my words, Kit, I’ll have another movie deal sewed up for you before you start shooting this one. People are talking about you in this town. The right people.”
“That’s wonderful.” She smiled automatically and twisted the telephone cord round and round her finger.
“You don’t sound enthused,” Maury accused.
“I am.” She let go of the cord, letting it spring away. “Come on, Maury, you of all people know how much I love acting.” That part, at least, was true. It was the rest-the press, the prejudice, the pushing and pulling, the politics-that she didn’t like.
“And you’re a natural at it, too. I’ve been telling everybody that and they’re finally listening. But I knew we’d do it. I’ve believed in you all along the way.” He rattled on for a few more minutes, then ended with, “I expect you to call me and let we know how those interviews go-and what you think of the scripts after you read them.
“I will.”
“Got to go. Some guy from Paramount is on the other line. Didn’t I tell you I’d make you a star?” he said and hung up.
During the next few days Kit managed to stay busy. Deliberately. She didn’t want idle time to think-or time to delve into the reasons why she didn’t.
Cross-legged, she sat on the floor in front of the oak gun cabinet and dragged out the magazines stuffed on the shelves, mixed in with boxes of ammunition, gun cleaning equipment, oily rags, hunting knives, and an assortment of unrelated items like empty gum wrappers. She briefly wondered how her father had ever found anything in this chaos. But others had wondered the same thing when they saw her closets.
She tossed a three-year-old copy of Outdoor Life onto the growing pile of magazines beside her. A pair of dirty socks fell out from between the pages.
“I’ll bet he never even missed them,” she murmured and moved them to the mound of musty rags, taking care not to breathe in too deeply.
“What did you say?” Paula lounged on the sofa, a beauty mask hardening on her face, her hair wrapped turban-style in a towel, one shapely knee poking through the folds of her turquoise satin robe. She ran an emery board over the tip of a nail while her knee swayed to the slow tempo of a bluesy jazz song on the tape deck.
Deciding the socks were better forgotten, Kit said instead, “I was thinking I should bundle these magazines up and take them to a recycling center-if there is one locally. It looks like Dad saved every magazine for the last three years.”
“Is there anything worth looking at there?”
“Not unless you’re into Field and Stream or Hunter’s Digest.” Kit smiled at the incongruous image in her mind of Paula Grant leafing through the pages of a hunting magazine.
“Hardly,” she murmured in a voice as dry as the stiffening mask on her face.
“Did Chip say where he was taking you to dinner tonight?” She tugged at a magazine jammed in a corner and a whole stack tumbled out. She wrinkled her nose at the new mess and said grimly, “Probably Gordon’s or Pinons.” In the next second she was irritated with herself for remembering the restaurants Garth had mentioned.
“No.” Someone knocked at the door, the series of sharp raps drawing a gasp from Paula and a panicked “Oh my God, someone’s here.” She flew off the sofa and dashed madly for the stairs, one hand holding the towel on her head and the other clutching the front of her robe closed.
Kit rolled to her feet and stepped over the scattered piles on the floor, then waited a beat to let Paula slip out of sight before crossing to the door.
The man on the porch turned when she opened it, a stranger somewhere in his late thirties, dressed in dark khaki slacks, sneakers, and a flannel-backed jacket. His mouth curved in what passed for a pleasant smile, but the sweep of his glance was definitely appraising and analytical.
“You’re Kit Masters,” he said.
She glanced past him at the rental car parked in front of the house, then back to him. “I am, yes.” She smiled politely, then noticed the spiral-bound notebook sticking out of his jacket pocket and a bulge that looked suspiciously like a tape recorder.
“I’m Clancy Phillips.”
“You’re a reporter aren’t you?” She had a feeling she was rapidly getting to the point where she could smell them.
“Free-lance.” He nodded, his eyes watching her closely, no doubt filing away details-like her mussed hair and minimum of makeup.
“Did Maury send you?” Kit frowned, certain there was nothing in her notes about this.
“Maury Rose is your agent, isn’t he?”
“Yes-”
“Look-if I’ve caught you at a bad time, I can come back.”
“No, that’s okay.” She shook her head, preferring to get the interview over with. “It’s just that either Maury didn’t mention anything to me or I forgot you were coming today.” She opened the door wider and stepped back. “Please come in. And please excuse the mess.”
“No problem.”
Within minutes, Kit was curled up in her father’s favorite chair, the tape recorder on the table beside her, and Clancy Phillips opposite her on the sofa. The interview began typically enough with general questions about her background, then progressed to the subject of the movie-and John Travis.
“Care to comment on your affair with John Travis?” he asked with a taunting gleam in his eyes.
Kit laughed quite convincingly. “So now we’re having an affair, are we?”
“A hot one, from what I’ve heard.”
“Do you always believe what y
ou hear?” she mocked lightly.
“You have been out with him numerous times. Surely you aren’t trying to deny that?”
“Of course not,” she replied and left it at that.
“Tell me, what’s it like to date a male sex symbol?”
“John thinks of himself as an actor.”
“He may, but half the female population in this country think he’s a hunk. Didn’t Robin Leach call him ‘America’s hottest sex-throb?’”
“I think he did.” She was becoming irritated with this whole line of questioning, but she was too skilled to let it show. Play the role-that was the key to interviews.
“Does it bother you when you’re out with him and other women flirt and make various attempts to get his attention?”
“Why should it?”
“A lot of women would be jealous.”
“I’m not a lot of women. I’m me.”
“Then that’s not the cause of your fight, I take it.”
“Our fight?” Kit repeated in a blank voice. “What fight?”
“Are you saying you and John Travis aren’t having any problems? That you haven’t been fighting?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” She dropped the role. “What ever made you think we were?”
He shrugged vaguely. “You did fly out here with Travis, stayed in his house, then…abruptly moved out here. Now he’s in L.A. and you’re not.”
For an instant, she was speechless, astounded that he could draw that conclusion from such a flimsy set of circumstances. “John has business in L.A. I have interviews scheduled here.”
“You could have done them out there.”
“Not all of them. Some were local.” She knew she was dangerously close to losing her temper, and struggled to control it. “Can we move on?”
“Did you know Travis met with Kathleen Turner on this trip?”
“And?” She didn’t bother to keep the ice out of her voice.
“She wants your part in the film.”
“Is that supposed to surprise me, Mr. Phillips?” she countered. “The role of Eden is a dream part. There isn’t an actress around who wouldn’t kill to get it.”
“What did you do to get it?” His implication was obvious.
“Really, Mr. Phillips, the casting-couch angle is as old as the hills,” she said in disgust.
“The same thing has been said about prostitution.”
“And both subjects have lost their shock value.” Little alarm bells started going off in her head. “What publication did you say you were writing this for?”
“I didn’t say.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t think you actually said you scheduled this interview through Maury. Did you?”
“No.”
“What publication is buying this story, Mr. Phillips? Or should I start naming off various tabloids?”
“The National Informer has expressed interest in the piece,” he admitted.
“Providing you can come up with a sensational angle. Right?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He smiled a little too smoothly.
“But you don’t deny it either. This interview is over, Mr. Phillips.” She switched off the tape recorder and pushed out of the chair. “Please leave.”
“You’re not being very cooperative.”
“That’s your interpretation.” She picked up the tape recorder and carried it with her to the door. Turning, she pulled the door open and held out the recorder.
“The National Informer has an enormous circulation. You can reach an awful lot of people who’ve never heard of you.” He made slow work out of putting his tablet and pen away and getting up. “You should think about that.”
“I have-every time I’ve read some story in a tabloid that’s full of twisted facts, quotes used out of context, and innuendoes presented as facts. Sadly, too many people believe what they read.” She swung the door a little wider. “Goodbye, Mr. Phillips.”
“I always heard you were very easy to work with, Miss Masters.” He strolled toward the door, “One little taste of success and you start getting temperamental.”
She ignored his baiting. “Your recorder.”
He took it, gave her a long considering look, and walked out. Kit closed the door with painstaking quietness. She heard his car start up and discovered that her jaw was clenched so tightly it hurt. She swung away and recrossed the room. He had gotten to her. Why had she let him? Maybe because she had this ugly feeling all this was just a taste of what was ahead.
She stared at the cluttered gun cabinet and the piles on the floor around it. For once it didn’t work to tell herself to concentrate on something else. The little devils of discontent wouldn’t leave her alone. She curled up in her father’s chair and hugged her knees to her chest. She was still there when Paula came down two hours later, dressed for her dinner date with Chip in a bottle green evening suit of silk velvet.
“That interview certainly didn’t take long.” Paula clipped a faux jewel-studded drop earring to her lobe as she wandered into the living room.
“No, it didn’t.” Kit saw no point in going into detail.
Her glance flicked to the mess around the gun cabinet. “You haven’t made much progress.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
She sent Kit a droll look and sank gracefully onto the sofa. “Careful. Too much thinking can lead a person to a bad end.” She crossed a leg, silk whispering against silk.
“Maybe I’ve already come to a bad end,” Kit replied with rare cynicism.
“Ah, but sin can be such a comfort once you get to know it, Kit,” Paula declared. When her jesting remark failed to elicit a smile, her eyes sharpened on Kit. “What’s bothering you?”
Her shoulders lifted and fell. “Things.”
“That covers a rather broad spectrum.”
A surge of restless energy carried Kit out of the chair and over to the fireplace. “It’s just that-when I was simply another actress on a soap, things were different. I was Kit Masters. I could do what I pleased, say what I pleased, act as I pleased without my every word and action being scrutinized or criticized. I was a normal person. Now, people treat me like I’m not.”
“Didn’t you see that coming?” Paula asked gently.
“No,” she said with a quick, agitated shake of her head. “I was so busy working, chasing parts I wanted that I never gave it a thought. Overnight I’ve become Kit Masters, a possible star, and everything’s changed-everyone’s changed. It’s like they’re suddenly all ready to believe the worst about me.”
“Are you by any chance thinking of John Travis?” Paula asked in a faint, dry drawl.
Kit swung away from the fireplace and released a humorless breath. “And all the talk that I got the part only because I’m sleeping with him, you mean? Truthfully I expected that kind of mudslinging in Hollywood. I expected the pettiness, the jealousy, the viciousness. I think I even understood. Maybe that’s why it never bothered me. I knew mud washes off; it doesn’t scar.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s the way other people have changed toward me. Strangers and people I’ve known nearly all my life. They believe that I have changed, that I think I’m too good for them now, that I couldn’t possibly enjoy doing the same things anymore, that I’ve somehow become morally corrupt-” She stopped, not wholly satisfied with what she’d said. “It isn’t that they believe it. It’s that they want to believe all those things about me.”
“And that surprises you?”
“From them, yes,” Kit replied with unusual sharpness.
“It shouldn’t.” Paula smiled. “What makes you think your friends are any different from the people you know in Hollywood? What makes you think strangers are any different? Egos, jealousy, resentment-such things are hardly unique to Hollywood, Kit.”
“I suppose not,” Kit agreed hesitantly.
“It’s human nature to root for someone on their way up, then try to tear them down once they g
et there. It isn’t that they resent your success. It’s that your success reminds them of their failure. You’ve made it and they haven’t. They can’t stand the thought that it might mean you’re better than they are. Out of self-defense, they have to believe that you did something illegal, unethical, or immoral to get there. It’s nothing personal.” She paused. “I’m not saying it’s right or fair. It’s reality.”
“I still don’t like it.” With arms tightly crossed, she walked to the window and stared at the dusk purpling the sky.
“No one does. But you can’t let it matter. You can’t let yourself care what they say.” Paula’s response was abruptly impatient. “If you’re going to succeed-if you’re going to be a star-you have to believe in yourself totally. You have to be selfish, at times even cruel and calculating, or they will tear you down. It’s all part of the price of fame.”
“But that’s not me. That’s not who I am.”
“Poor Kit,” Paula murmured in an amused tone. “It’s hard to see innocence get its first shock. But you’ll become hardened to it.”
“Should I?”
“We won’t go into that.” Headlights flashed over the windows as a car pulled into the ranch yard. “That must be Chip.” Rising, Paula slung a coat over her shoulders and crossed to the door. She paused with it partway open and glanced fondly at Kit. “Don’t sit and brood over this tonight. You can’t change it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A fire crackled in the massive fireplace of river stone, its cheery light almost lost in the cavernous living room of the log ranch house. Bannon stood in front of the fire, watching yellow flames crawl over the bark of a new log, one booted foot on the raised hearth, a hand braced on the mantel. The faint, soft scratch of pen on paper told him Laura was still busy with her homework. There was a stir of movement in the big chair, followed by the click of teeth biting down on a pipe stem, then the drag of it being removed.
“The Gregorys are selling out, then.” Old Tom tapped the dead ash out of the bowl.
“House, business, everything,” Bannon confirmed. “His wife’s tired of the fight, tired of being chained to the clothing store because they can’t find any help. And, she doesn’t think it will ever change.”