Flavor of the Month (102 page)

“For you,” he said.
“Mi casa, su casa.”

She took it. “Does this mean we’re pinned?’ she asked, and laughed to hide the depth of her feelings.

“Do kids
still
use that expression?” He was reading the
L.A. Times
and sipping fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice that he had picked up at Mrs. Gooch’s. As usual, he had opened first to the sports section. She watched him as he scanned the columns looking for his basketball fix. Jahne clutched the key. He had never given his key to Mary Jane. She stared at him. He must have felt her gaze, because he looked up. Another tribute that only an exquisite woman would receive from Sam: he’d even interrupt his fanatical sports-fan pursuits for her.

“You know how I know that I’ll never be a real Angelino?” he asked. She shook her head. “Because I could never, ever love the Lakers.” He turned back to the sports pages. “You’d think, with all the displaced New Yorkers out here, they’d give better coverage to the Knicks,” he grumbled. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Did I tell you that you look better in my sweats than any woman I’ve ever known?”

Demurely, she tucked her legs up under herself and pulled the stretched-out gray shirtfront over her knees. “And have a lot of women modeled your sweats?” she asked. She tried to sound casual, and succeeded, but she cursed herself for asking.

“I’ve had my share.” Sam smiled, looking over the scores. Don’t start, she told herself. But she felt the wave of curiosity and rage grow. Where had he spent the last few nights? In whose bed?

“Sam, how many women have you really loved?” she asked.

He looked up from the paper. “Uh-oh. Is this going to be an ‘I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours’? Because I don’t play that game, Jahne. And if we did, I’d win, because I’m a lot older than you are.” He paused and looked her over appreciatively. “Although I imagine there was a long and distinguished line of high school boys who broke their hearts over you. Not that I want to hear about any of them. After all, I’m more than a decade past
my
sexual peak.”

“Not that I could tell.”

“Ah, you bring out the best in me.” He went back to the scores.

She should read the arts section, take a look at the book reviews, and give it up. Just leave it alone, she told herself, but she couldn’t. It was as if all those years of unspoken jealousy, all those horrible years as Mary Jane, when she lived on crumbs and closed her eyes to everything she couldn’t bear to see, couldn’t afford to see, were spilling out now. “I don’t want to hear about your conquests. I just want to know who you
loved
.”

He frowned, lowering the newspaper. “Now, at last, you’re sounding your age.” He put down the sports section, got up, and came to her, seating himself on the arm of the big chair she was in. “What do you want to know that for?” he asked her, his voice gentle. “Isn’t it enough to know that I love you? Jahne, I’m working so hard to make you look good in the movie. I’m championing you. Don’t you know how I feel?”

“You were married,” she said. It sounded like an accusation, even to herself.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yes, I was married. I thought I loved her at the time, but now I realize that we were both too young to know who we were, let alone who we loved.”

What was she looking for? she asked herself. She didn’t know, but she couldn’t stop. “How old were you?”

“Oh, about your age,” he laughed. “But you have your head on a lot firmer than I ever did.” He reached over and stroked her hair. Then he put a hand on both sides of her face, turning her head gently back and forth. “Yep, this head is definitely on firmly.”

But this wasn’t enough. She had to know. She had to hear it. “If you didn’t love your wife, who did you love?” she went on, relentlessly.

“Jahne, there are questions I’ve never asked you. I felt you didn’t want to talk about them. That was all right with me. Can’t you feel the same?”

“You mean my scars?” she asked. “That’s different. They have nothing to do with you. But who you love,
how
you love, does have to do with me.”

Sam stood up, turned away, and reached for his glass of juice. He took a swallow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his long, graceful hand. She thought he was ignoring her question, closing the subject, and she felt both irritation and relief. Then he spoke. “I once loved a woman named Nora. She was crazy, I was crazy, but I did love her.”

Jahne felt her heart begin to beat harder. Was that it, then? Had he
never
loved Mary Jane? “Did she love you?”

“Who knows?” He shrugged. “She said she did, but she left me for the producer of my first play. I guess she figured producers cast more often than playwrights.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “She was right.”

She couldn’t smile at the joke. “Who else?” she asked. Please, God, she prayed silently, please, God, let him say he loved Mary Jane.

“I loved a woman in New York. Another actress.”

Thank you, God. Oh, thank you. But then it occurred to her that it might not be Mary Jane he was thinking of. It could have been anyone. Bethanie Lake, for all she knew. Jahne felt her heart flutter, then beat even harder. “What was her name?”

“It’s not important now.” He got off the sofa arm and knelt on the floor in front of her, putting his two hands on her shoulders. He looked deeply into her eyes. “I can honestly say that I never loved anyone the way I love you. No contest. Nothing even close. I feel blessed to touch you.” He moved his hands up to her cheeks and lifted her face to his. “Do you believe me?”

So, there it was. The Lord had given, and the Lord had taken away. If he had loved Mary Jane, he was negating it now, even as he told her that he loved her. Tears filled Jahne’s eyes.

“Oh, Jahnie, don’t cry. I knew I shouldn’t have played your stupid twenty questions! I swear that I’ve forgotten every one of them. They don’t matter. There’s only you.” He drew her from the chair and circled her with his arms, rocking her as if she were a child. “There’s only you,” he said.

Jahne stood on the set of
3/4
with all the lights turned on her, Marty and the crew all staring, the cameras rolling. “Perfect,” Marty was saying. “You are perfect.” But then it was Sam’s voice coming from the darkness behind the light. “Perfect,” he said clearly. She was naked, but she stood there proudly, admired by all of them.

Then, “Are you crazy?” Lila shrieked. “Look at those scars! Look at them!” And as they looked, Jahne could feel the scars growing red, glowing. Then, in her shame and horror, she felt her breasts begin to sag, her thighs to bulge, her stomach to hang, her ass to droop, and the men, Lila, and the audience all began to laugh. Neil was there beside her, dressed as a magician. “Ta-da!” he chortled, as he waved a magic wand. “Before and after. After and before.”

Jahne woke from the nightmare in a sweat.

Sam slept beside her, but Jahne was terrified. Her breath came in gasps, but Sam didn’t awaken. Quietly, so as not to disturb him, she got out of bed, left the room, and went into the cold white marble bathroom. It was enormous, vaster even than the one at the Beverly Wilshire, with a big Jacuzzi, built-in makeup drawers, recessed lights, an enclosed toilet, and a bidet. Jahne shivered in its coldness.

Jahne flicked on the light, blinked, and saw herself, reflected in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. She approached it more closely, scrutinizing her face, the face she had bought. She stared into her eyes, her own, unaltered eyes. But in the light of the new bathroom, it seemed to her even her eyes had changed. She couldn’t bear to look at them.

She flicked off the light and wandered into the high-ceilinged living room of her new house. It was impressive. The white tile floor seemed to stretch endlessly into the dining room, the long hall, and through to the kitchen. Jahne drifted toward the glass doors that led out to the pool and garden. The moonlight poured down, one of the few smog-free nights in L.A. Jahne stood and looked out to the perfect terrace, the perfect topiary trees, the perfect Roman pool, the perfect everything. And, La Brecque had assured her, all perfectly safe. Little or no chance of madmen intruders, fans breaching the walls, photographers telezooming in on her.

Too bad she didn’t like the place. It had nothing to do with her, it had nothing to do with her taste, who she was, or the way she wanted to live. It was forced on her, like her fame, like her new life. And it was grand, but no place she wanted to be. She sighed. Her feet were very cold on the tiles of the floor.

Then Snowball, her sleek black cat, rubbed up against her leg. When they had arrived at the house after their trip, Sam had admired everything but Snowball. Back in New York, he had never really liked Midnight, either. The city cat used to pounce on his chest at night and wake him. “Why do women have cats?” he’d grumbled. As if sensing that, Snowball had kept away, but now he nuzzled Jahne’s left foot, as if that would warm her. She scooped him up gratefully and went back to the bedroom.

Sam was awake when she entered. “Where were you?” he asked, out of the darkness.

“I had a dream. It woke me, so I just took a look around.”

He held his hand out to her, tried to pull her onto the bed. “I had a dream, too. It was about you,” he murmured. He tugged at her and she stumbled, almost falling over him. Snowball jumped out of her arms, tried to gain a footing, and took off across Sam’s chest. Sam shrieked with surprise and pain at the scratch.

“Oh, no, Midnight!” Jahne cried. “I’m so sorry, Sam. I was holding the cat.”

Sam was silent for a moment, then longer. In the darkness, she became frightened. “Are you all right?” she asked. He said nothing; then she heard him move, fumble for the light, and the room was ablaze. She blinked in the sudden glare, saw the scratches across his chest, the blood just beginning to ooze up. But it was his face that scared her.

“Not Midnight,” he said. “That isn’t the cat’s name.”

“What did I call him?” Jahne asked. But she knew. The dark, her voice, the cat had all conspired at last to give her away.

Black cats named Snowball, white ones named Midnight. Contrary Mary. “Who are you?” he whispered.

She sat, frozen, at the side of the bed.

“Who are you?” he demanded again, and moved across to her, a hand gripping each of her shoulders. “This has all happened before, hasn’t it? A cat pouncing on me in bed. Except it wasn’t a black cat named Snowball, it was a white one named Midnight.
Who are you?
”

His voice had risen now, and he stared deep, deep into her eyes. Eyes from which she’d removed her deep-blue contact lenses. “Oh, my God,” he said, and she saw the recognition come to his face. But “Who are you?” he asked again.

She felt as if her world were coming apart, as if she were spinning out of control. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

They sat opposite one another, on either side of the kitchen table, the overhead light unbelievably harsh. The clock ticked loudly. A quarter past three in the morning. Sam was pale, his mouth compressed to a colorless line.

“When did you decide to do this?” he asked again.

They had been going around and around. Jahne had never been so tired. She had tried to answer all his questions. Despite her rage, she felt, somehow, guilty. Well, she should have told him. She should have let him make the decision, not forced this on them. But she was tired of all his questions. She had told him the story, all of it, and now he was asking her to repeat, to clarify. Like he was a lawyer, or something. But she owed him at least this, she told herself, and took a deep breath. “In the winter. After you left.”

“Hey, don’t make it sound as if those things were related—our breakup and your surgery.”

“They were, though.”

“Jahne…Mary Jane…you made a decision to slice up your flesh, and you can’t blame it on me!”

“Oh, can’t I? Why not? Didn’t you always let me know I wasn’t pretty enough? Didn’t you?”

“That’s a complete lie! Goddamn it! I never said a word about your looks.”

“I didn’t say that you
said
anything. But you let me know. You slept with all the pretty ones. Because I wasn’t enough. Not the way I was. And then Hollywood agreed with you, and you left me. So I decided to change things. Don’t you dare rebuke me for that.”

“It was all in your head. We broke up because it was over, that’s all.”

Jahne stood up. She felt herself trembling all over, and a heat in her belly and chest that she recognized for the pure rage it was. “Don’t you dare lie to me about that!” she roared, and her own voice filled the kitchen. “I’ve slept with you, and I know the truth. Mary Jane never got a word, never a goddamn word of praise. But Jahne…” She took a breath, lowered her voice and began to imitate his during lovemaking. “You’re so beautiful. Yes, Jahne, yes. God, I love your legs, your breasts. You’re so perfect. You’re…”

“Shut up!” he shouted. Her mimicry had been eerie. He jumped up, striding to the door.

“Where are you going? Don’t you dare leave now.”

“Goddamn it! Don’t tell me what to do!” He tripped over the chair at the counter, and it clattered to the floor. He continued to move toward the door. Jahne knew that if he walked out now she would kill him or she would die. She picked up the heavy pottery bowl from the center of the table and hurled it at the door. It smashed against the wall, leaving a deep scar in the door frame. The shards flew around the room and skittered on the floor. She hadn’t missed his head by much. He turned back to her, blinking his eyes. Was that fear she saw there?

“Don’t turn your back on me,” she warned him. “Don’t lie, and don’t take me for granted. I’m not the same woman you abandoned in New York, you son-of-a-bitch.”

“You’ve lied to me. What do you want me to do, ignore it? I don’t even know who the fuck you are. I can’t ever trust you again.”

“Big fucking deal! Like you haven’t lied to me daily. About the part in
Jack and Jill
, about Bethanie Lake, about April Irons, about who was going to play opposite me in
Birth
, about whether the script was any good…” Despite her determination not to, she began to cry. Because she knew that, in part, he was right. Who was she? The aging, abandoned Miss Havisham, raging in her rotting bridal gown, or was she Estella, the cold revenge? It felt as if she was both, and couldn’t contain them. It felt as if victimized Mary Jane and the new Jahne were tearing at her own guts. She moved to the counter, picked up the vase of anemones, and threw them across the floor. The release felt necessary. She wiped her arm across the counter, smashing the pitcher, the crystal glasses. Because either the glassware or she was going to be smashed. She turned to him. Sam still stood in the doorway, frozen by her outburst. He was not a violent man.