Sins of Omission

by Fern Michaels

  Reuben tipped her face up to his with a gentle touch. When his lips met hers, his kiss was tender, moving across her mouth slowly, meltingly. Then he pulled away, looking deeply into her eyes. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

  Her answer was to move back into his arms, holding him tightly, offering her mouth again to the tenderness of his. More than anything else, she had needed this, had wanted it for so long. Her heart ripped open then, and great wrenching sobs escaped her parted lips. It had been so long since she’d been held this way, and never by the man who was holding her now.

  “What’s wrong?” Reuben asked softly, searching her eyes for the answer in the dimness from the night-light near Bebe’s side of the bed.

  “Nothing. It’s just that I need you, Reuben,” she said honestly. “So very much, I need you to love me, for now. I need you to want me, for now.”

  Their nightclothes fell from their bodies like the petals of summer’s first rose. His body felt strange and unfamiliar against her own; the stubble of beard on his chin was soft, the way she’d imagined it would be. His touch was searching, tender, as though he were charting her body.

  She sighed deeply, urging him on with his search. His lips traced lazy patterns along the sweep of her shoulders and down to her breasts. His effect on her was hypnotic, sensuous, and Bebe willed herself to surrender to the moment and the man. She accepted his nearness, his touch, his kiss on the most intimate parts of herself. She accepted these things the way she would have taken food or warmth or air to breathe, because she desperately needed them to reaffirm herself as a woman.

  Bebe lay quietly in Reuben’s arms, listening to the furious beat of his heart. There were no beautiful words saying she was desirable and loving and warm. And she felt she had no right to expect them. He’d brought her body to life with his hands and lips. But it was her soul that needed to be reached, and he could not touch it.

  Her body was satisfied, her ego fed, yet misery lived in the core of her being. There was no future with Reuben, and she knew it; he’d told her often enough, and this evening’s lovemaking reaffirmed any doubts she may have had. What was she to do now—forget this had ever happened? Forget that she could feel alive only when she was with him like this? Choking back a sob, she leaned into her husband’s arms, waiting for him to tighten his hold on her shoulders. Instead, he sighed deeply and rolled over to his side of the bed. Their brief moment was over.

  Reuben lay quietly, his mind and body filled with wonderment. He’d finally sustained an erection under normal conditions. He didn’t give a second’s thought to Bebe; she was someone he’d used to regain his masculinity, the virility he’d thought was gone forever. And it was true: he could function now, like other men. The dreaded pitchfork nightmare was gone. The urge to hop out of bed and dance a jig was so strong, he buried his face in the pillow and dug his knees into the soft mattress.

  He was a man again.

  Dillon Tarz was born nine months to the day from the night Reuben made love to his wife for the first time. Seven and a half pounds of solid pink flesh with rosy cheeks and a crown of soft golden fuzz on his head…and so beautiful that Reuben could feel the sting of tears in his eyes.

  His creation.

  Two weeks after Dillon’s birth Reuben picked up the phone to hear Daniel’s hushed voice. In silence, his guts churning in protest, he listened to what his friend was saying. “I don’t understand, Daniel, how can that happen? All right…yes…I’ll start right now. Don’t forget, you’re going to be Dillon’s godfather. Of course, you have to bring a present. Look, we’ll talk later, Daniel,” he said in his haste to get off the phone.

  Forty minutes later Mort Stiner stared with openmouthed astonishment at his client. “Let me understand something, You want me to sell everything, the whole kit and kaboodle? Reuben, that’s suicide! Some of your stocks are way down. I suppose your other, ah…friends want to sell, too?” The thought came to him that this wonder boy of Hollywood had always been on the money even when he himself hadn’t agreed with his buy orders. The second or third time around, though, he himself had acted on some of Reuben’s orders. So something was definitely up. The market had been crazy for a while now.

  “That’s a fair assumption,” Reuben replied matter-of-factly. “I’m speaking for Max Gould and Jane Perkins.”

  Stiner’s thin eyebrows shot up, and his glasses slid down the bridge of his nose. Sol Rosen, the head honcho at Fairmont, wasn’t selling, but Reuben Tarz was. His gut rumbled. Rosen had borrowed heavily when his blocks of stock were inflated, but they were down now. It would be just like this wonder boy to cash in and snap up the whole ball of wax. “You’re sure this is what you want?” Stiner asked again.

  “Where do I sign?”

  The broker handed over a sheaf of papers. “Bottom line on all of them. When will your friends be in?”

  “Sometime today. I’ll want cash on this, no checks. The green stuff, and I’ll take it in thousand-dollar bills.”

  When Reuben pulled his car to the curb outside the Mimosa Club, Max was walking through the door. “Hit the bricks. Max,” he said tightly as soon as he finished explaining the situation. “The sell orders are all drawn up. Take cash. The order’s in. You got transportation?”

  “I’ll take a hack, you look like you got better things to do than ferry me back and forth. Is it going to work?” he asked anxiously.

  Reuben shrugged. “No reason to believe it won’t. But there’s no guarantees on anything, so bear that in mind.”

  Max grinned. “On behalf of my mother’s old age and my own, thanks.”

  Reuben drove like a bat out of hell all the way back to the studio. The powerful car roared through the gates, the guard racing after his snappy-looking blue and black hat. “What the hell!…” he cursed.

  Reuben ground the car to a halt outside the doors of Lot 6 and raced inside. “That’s it for today. Close up shop! Jane!” he bellowed. “Come with me….”

  “Daniel told me the market’s going to crash,” he told her as she hurried after him. “You have to get out now. If you don’t, you could be wiped out. I got you into the market, and I don’t want you going to the poorhouse.”

  Jane laughed. “Slow down, Reuben. Listen, I got out a couple of months ago. I started to get nervous. I was making money, so much that I got scared thinking how I would feel if something went wrong. I’m not the smartest person in the world when it comes to stocks and bonds. It was a gut feeling. I bought real estate and I have a good healthy chunk in the bank.”

  Reuben stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at Jane and then burst out laughing. “You really got out, you aren’t pulling my leg?”

  “Honest. I got scared. Should I take my money out of the bank?”

  Reuben frowned. “Are you still in that apartment?”

  “No. I moved to a house, nothing grand, but it has a pool and some other things. I paid cash for it. Did I do the right thing? Reuben, can I lose…What’s going to happen?”

  “I think you should go to the bank—now. Tell them you want your money in cash tomorrow. They’ll need time to get it together. In the meantime I’ll give you the name of a man who will install a safe for you. Other than that I don’t know what else to tell you. This thing has me to the wall. Daniel…when Daniel was at Harvard he made friends with some incredibly wealthy young men. They warned him and he warned me. All the other tips I passed on came from these same young men. We weren’t bamboozled, even once, so there’s no reason to doubt those guys now.”

  “I see…. Okay, look—I’ll head over to the bank now. Give me the name of the man for the safe and I’ll go over to his shop as soon as I finish. Reuben, I don’t know how to…First you get me a job at the studio doing something I love doing, then you help me with the market, and now this. I know you get all flustered when someone tries to thank you. You aren’t really as tough as you appear. Thank you for being my friend.” She leaned over, her eyes moist, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Maybe someday I
’ll be able to help you.” She laughed. “That’s probably the biggest joke of all time, me helping you.”

  Reuben felt drained to the bone. The hell with the studio, he was going home to his family. Shaken and still unnerved by Daniel’s bombshell, he forced himself to drive slowly, so slowly that other cars honked their horns at him. At last he pulled to the side, not caring if the blaring horns sounded or not. Should he have warned Sol? If the crash was as imminent as Daniel said, Sol would be wiped out. If Sol was wiped out, he could step in, cover his losses, and take control of the studio….

  Reuben hadn’t been home during the day in over a year. The Laurel Canyon estate was beautiful, even majestic, and bought and paid for with his own money. Daniel had advised him to pay off the mortgage as soon as he could, and he’d done just that. He’d also socked away enough maintenance money for at least three years so the house couldn’t be yanked away for taxes. The money was in a safe in his dressing room behind his shoe rack. Even Bebe didn’t know it was there. In that particular safe he had envelopes with notes written in his own hand—one for insurance, one for the house, one for Simon’s and Dillon’s education, one for walking-around money, and one for investments. He had no idea what the grand total was, but it was substantial. In another safe in the basement he had other money, money enough to see him through five lean years. That had been Daniel’s idea, too. Also in that safe were three bulging envelopes bearing Daniel’s name. Now it looked like he would have to install a third safe. And it was time at last to hand over Daniel’s share of the investments.

  He and Daniel had come a long way since meeting in France, he reflected. He was thirty years old and rising in the film industry. Where in the hell had he gotten the moxie…to move in the way he’d done. Guts? Stupidity? Probably a little of both.

  The day would come, he knew, when he’d be in total control of Fairmont. To date he hadn’t made a wrong decision. He’d come close with his doubts concerning Moses on the Mount and Witches and Ghosts, but they were proving two of the biggest money-makers of the decade. He was aceing out Warner with sound, something he was still uneasy about, but his gut told him it would work once the fine details were worked out. Sol had vetoed the idea in the beginning, but when he’d consulted his friend Tom Edison in the East, he’d gradually come around to Reuben’s way of thinking. Reuben knew that by the close of the year, synchronous sound film would be the universal form of the future. He’d have 116 recording machines, 20 more than Warner had. Half of all his theaters were being wired for sound production. He’d convinced his sound technicians that the system using optical patterns along the edge of the film, rather than the discs Warner Vitaphone used, would provide more reliable synchronization. It was a race now between him and Warner Bros., and he knew he’d win—he had to win, to prove to Sol and the other studio executives that he knew his business. The patents were in his name, and that was all he cared about. One day they would make him a multimillionaire.

  And now, all he’d done, all he hoped to do, was in jeopardy if the market crashed as Daniel’s friends predicted.

  Reuben walked into the house with shoulders slumped and a heavy step. Bebe stood silently behind the dining room door, surprised and unnerved at the look on her husband’s face. Simon clung to her skirts. “Shhhh,” she said. “Something’s bothering Daddy. Let’s get Dillon and go outside in the sunshine. Remember what I told you, Simon, sunshine washes away gloom. Go along now and wait for me on the terrace.”

  Bebe tiptoed into Dillon’s nursery and picked up the sleeping baby. “It’s all right, Mrs. Peabody,” she told the nurse. “My husband is home and we’re taking Dillon outside for some fresh air. His buggy is on the terrace. You look like you could use a nap. I’ll keep him till dinner.”

  Bebe was halfway down the steps when Reuben caught up to her. He’d changed from his business suit to casual slacks and a bright blue pullover sweater. Bebe was amazed at how she could still react to his handsome good looks. “Why are you tiptoeing around, and where are you going with the baby?”

  “Why, I…You looked so…fresh air…I didn’t want him to cry and…Why are you home at this time of day?”

  “Here, give him to me. Why don’t you get us some lemonade and we’ll have it on the terrace with the children.”

  Bebe’s face brightened. “Like a real family. That’ll be nice, Reuben. Simon is on the terrace waiting.”

  Simon looked up from the puzzle he was putting together on the wrought-iron table. “Hello, Daddy,” he said in a reed-thin voice.

  The child was as thin as his voice, Reuben thought. He was a fussy, picky eater, preferring water and soda pop to milk. He gagged on vegetables and refused to chew meat. Most of the time Bebe cajoled, bribed, and spoon-fed him. If the boy had any endearing qualities, Reuben had yet to find them. Simon went back to his puzzle, his thin fingers picking through the mound of pieces that represented a blue sky. Reuben hugged Dillon to his chest. This bundle in his arms was normal in every way.

  These days he was giving Bebe an A for effort but wondering how long she’d stay on her good behavior. Knowing his wife, he took it one day at a time.

  “I added some cookies,” Bebe said gaily, but Reuben detected a nervousness in her voice. Obviously, he’d upset the daily routine by coming home early.

  It was a pleasant interlude, he thought later, sitting with his family in the late afternoon sunshine, the scent of the garden all about him. Simon had giggled once when his mother tried to draw him out. Reuben thought it a strange, alien sound. Dillon continued to sleep in the crook of his arm.

  Bebe struggled to keep the rare time alive by talking of inane things, household matters and Dillon’s bris. Reuben responded in kind, smiling and gazing down at the sleeping infant. His wife pretended not to see the worry in his eyes. “We’re having turkey for dinner even though it isn’t Thanksgiving,” she blurted out. “I know how much you like turkey…cranberry sauce, too. You’ll like that, Simon, it’s sweet. And for you, Dillon, a nice warm bottle.”

  Reuben shook his head. “I’m sorry, Bebe, I won’t be here for dinner. I’ve some urgent business to attend to. I’ll catch a bite somewhere along the way.”

  Bebe’s heart fluttered in her chest. If only she could steal this moment, preserve it somehow. Suddenly she felt bereft when she looked at her husband, who was saying words that meant nothing. She wanted to cry out, to reach for him and hold him close; but she couldn’t. It was the same feeling she’d had so many times before when she’d wanted to reach out to her firstborn, John Paul. So much of her life had simply passed her by, and what was left was slipping away from her even as they sat together as a family.

  The sun was starting to set when Reuben handed Dillon over to Bebe. “Well, I’ve got to shower and change. Don’t wait up for me, Bebe.” He bent over to plant a kiss on top of his wife’s head. He patted Dillon’s blanket and smiled at Simon, who ignored him.

  Bebe continued to sit on the terrace until the cook called her to dinner. Somehow she knew that this was the last of what she called her family moments.

  Bebe Rosen started to grieve then, the way she’d grieved when she’d made the decision to give up John Paul.

  Three weeks later, the stock market crashed; it was the blackest day Americans had ever seen. Believing, yet disbelieving, Reuben tried to go about his normal business at the studio, but it was impossible. Instead of feeling smug that he’d gotten out in time, he felt depressed with what he was reading in the papers and seeing all about him. And even though he’d acted quickly on Daniel’s advice, he’d still lost twenty-five cents on every investment dollar. Fortunately, Jane’s small fortune was intact, and Max…Max accepted his fortune without a whimper.

  Inside a week, Sol Rosen turned into a haggard, white-faced caricature of himself. His eyes were bitter, his mouth a grim line as he worked the columns of figures that spelled disaster for the studio. He’d borrowed heavily when the price of his stocks was inflated, and he’d paid off Mickey. Now Philipp
e Bouchet could come in and wipe him out completely. If not Philippe, then that devil Tarz. The very real possibility that he would be out in the street with Fairmont falling into other hands was a fact he couldn’t dispute.

  Things couldn’t be bleaker; friends, acquaintances, and even relatives were jumping out of windows left and right as their livelihood slipped away from them. Every day it seemed he was attending a funeral, the mourners’ faces as dead as that of the person being lowered into the ground.

  A month after the market crash Sol trudged into Reuben’s office and slapped a sheaf of papers onto his desk. “I can’t meet these payments. The banks are going to call in my stock. I’m wiped out.”

  Reuben thumbed through the papers, and his eyebrows shot up at the amount Sol owed. “I know this is none of my business, but what do you do with your money? You made a fortune in the commodities market. Who the hell is Philippe Bouchet, and what’s this…what does the Morgan Guaranty Bank have to do with Fairmont?”

  Sol’s eyes turned mean and calculating. “As if you didn’t know…. I’ll say this much: when Bouchet comes to takeover this place, you ain’t going to be here. That’s my personal guarantee. I’ve been waiting a long time to see you fall on your face.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Sol.” Reuben’s pen flew down the pages, ticking off amounts of money as though they were items on a grocery list. “I can bail you out,” he said when he was through.

  “Bail me out! Just like that!” Sol said. “And what do you get in return? The chance to suck my blood, dance on my grave?”

  “Your stock, what else? You can stay on here doing exactly what you’ve been doing. No one needs to know but you and me. I can have Daniel Bishop do the legal work. Fairmont will belong to me…on paper.”