Heartbeat (11 page)

Bill stayed in the studio till they went on the air, and watched the entire show, satisfied that everyone was handling the new plot turns and the new script well, and when it was over, after congratulating everyone, he went back to his office. It was half an hour later when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom, and told him there was someone to see him.

“Anyone I know? Or are we going to keep it a secret?” He was tired from his long nights of work, but he was pleased that things were going well. It was mostly due, he felt, to a tremendous cast, two terrific writers, and an outstanding director. “Who is it, Betsey?”

There was a long pause. “It's Miss Stewart.”

“Our
Miss Stewart?
The
Miss Stewart we've looked for all over the state of Nevada?” He raised his eyebrows with interest.

“The one and only.”

“Please show her in. I can hardly wait to see her.”

Sylvia walked in the moment Betsey opened the door. She came in like a frightened child, and she looked more beautiful than ever. Her long black hair hung down her back like Snow White's, and her eyes looking at him remorsefully seemed enormous. Bill stood up as she walked into the room, and stared at her as though he had just seen a vision.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked ominously. And for a moment she didn't know what to expect, so she started to cry as she watched him. “We've been going crazy, calling all over Las Vegas. The kids from
My House
said they left you with some guy. We were going to call the Nevada police and report you missing.” He had been genuinely worried about her for the past week, frightened by what might have happened to her.

She let out a sob and sat down on the couch as he handed her some tissues. “I'm sorry.”

“You should be. A lot of people were worried about you” It was like talking to a child, and he was suddenly relieved that in at least one way she was no longer his problem. “Where were you?” Not that it really mattered now, as long as she was back, and unharmed. That was what had worried him. Some nasty things had been known to happen in Las Vegas. Particularly to girls who looked like Sylvia Stewart. Especially when they slept with strangers.

But she was staring at him now, and started to cry again. “I got married.”

“You got
what?”
For once, he looked stunned. He had suspected everything but that as he had tried to figure out what might have happened to her. “To whom? The guy in your room the other night?”

She nodded and blew her nose again. “He's in the garment industry. From New Jersey.”

“Oh my God.” Bill sat down heavily next to her on the couch, wondering if he had ever known her. “What ever made you do something like that?”

“I don't know. I just …you always work so hard …and I've been so lonely.” Christ. She was twenty-three years old, drop-dead gorgeous, and she was crying about being lonely. Half the women in America would have given their right arm and more to look like her, and she had married a clothing manufacturer she didn't even know, and had spent a weekend with in Las Vegas. And Bill was suddenly wondering if it was his fault. Maybe if he hadn't neglected her, if he hadn't been so wrapped up in the show … it was a familiar refrain. In some ways, the chorus went all the way back to Leslie. But was he responsible for all of them? Was it really his fault? Why couldn't they adjust to the way he lived? Why did they have to run off and do something crazy? And now this foolish girl had married a total stranger. Bill looked at her in amazement.

“What are you going to do now, Sylvia?” He could hardly wait to hear.

“I don't know. Move to New Jersey next week, I guess. His name is Stanley, and he has to be back in Newark by Tuesday.”

“I don't believe this.” Bill laid his head back against the couch and started to laugh, and in a minute, he couldn't stop laughing. Betsey could even hear him from her desk outside his office, and she was relieved that he wasn't shouting. He seldom did, but she had figured that Sylvia's disappearance might just do it to him. “You and Stanley have to be back in Newark by Tuesday … is that it?”

“Well …” She looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Sort of. Except that I know I have a contract to do the show for another season.” The truth was that she had figured he would kick her off the show after calling the other night, and in a panic she had married Stanley. She had no idea what she was getting, and yet he had been very sweet to her, and he had bought her a rather handsome diamond ring in Las Vegas, and promised to take care of her once they got to Newark. He had promised to get her a great modeling job, and if she wanted
tq
she could do acting jobs in New York, like maybe even on commercials, or the soaps there. It was a whole new horizon opening up for her, and in some ways being married to a man in the garment industry in Newark wasn't a total miscast for Sylvia Stewart. “What am I going to do about my contract?” She looked pleadingly at Bill and he almost started to laugh again. It was all so absurd, he almost couldn't stand it. It was impossible to take it seriously. It was life imitating art in the extreme, and he wasn't crazy enough not to see the humor in it.

“You know what you're going to do about your con-tract, Sylvia? You're going to give me two more days, today and tomorrow, on the set, for old times' sake, and we're going to kill you off in the most dramatic scene you've ever seen on Friday. And after that, you're free to go. You can go home to Newark with Stanley and have ten babies as long as you name the first one after me. I'm releasing you from your contract.”

“You are?” She looked astounded, and he grinned at her in amusement.

“Yes, I am. Because I'm a nice guy, and I gave you a hard time by working my ass off and not paying enough attention to you. I owe you, sweetheart. And this
is
the payback.” He was just grateful she had turned up at all. It was going to allow them to tie it all up neatly. John was going to kill Vaughn on the show, because she had seen him murder the pusher. And the saga could continue from there, ad infinitum. “I'm sorry, baby,” he said to her gently then, and he meant it. “I guess I'm not much of a catch these days. Never was, in fact. I'm married to this show.”

“It's okay.” Sylvia looked at him almost shyly. “You're not too mad at me? … for doing what I did …for getting married, I mean.”

“Not if you'll be happy.” And he meant it.

Her arrangement with Bill had been a passing thing, and they both knew it. It meant very little to either of them, as she had proven by spending the weekend with a stranger in Vegas, and Bill suspected correctly that that was exactly why she had gone there.

“Do I get to kiss the bride?” He stood up, and she stood up, too, still astounded that he had let her off so easily. She had expected him to be furious and to kick her off the show without releasing her from her contract. It would make it a lot easier for her to get work in New York if he let her go this way. And she turned up toward him now, ready for a passionate embrace, for old times' sake, but he kissed her gently on the cheek, and for an instant, he knew he was going to miss her. There had been a sweetness about her he liked, a kindness, and they had had fun together. She was familiar to him, and they were good friends, and now he was alone again. But it would be easier not to be involved with someone on the show. It was a mistake he wouldn't make again, a form of extreme self-indulgence. There was no woman in his life, and for the moment he wasn't even sure if he minded. “What are you going to do about your stuff at my place?”

“I guess I'd better pick it up.” She had forgotten all about that. There wasn't much, but there was about a suitcase worth of clothes she had left in his closet.

“Want to go get it now?”

“Sure. I have to meet Stanley at the Beverly Wilshire at four o'clock. But I have plenty of time.” There was something else implied in her voice, but he pretended not to notice. It was over for him now. She had done what she'd done and he bore her no malice, but he no longer wanted her either.

He left his office with her, and he was sure that everyone thought they were going back to his place for a quickie. But he only laughed and drove her to his apartment and helped her throw all her things into boxes. And then he drove her back to her apartment.

“Want to come up?” She looked at him sadly for a minute as she took the last of her boxes out of his woody, but he only shook his head. And a moment later, he drove off, and that chapter in his life was over.

W
HEN
A
DRIAN GOT HOME AFTER THE SIX O'CLOCK
news, the phone was ringing, and she grabbed it just as the message on her answering machine went on. She spoke into the phone hurriedly, turned off the machine, and answered, still juggling her handbag and the newspaper, and some things she'd bought at the drugstore on the way home, and everything stopped when she heard his voice. It was Steven.

“Are you all right?” He sounded anxious and tense, and she instantly realized why. “I've been calling you all afternoon. Why didn't you answer the phone?” He had been desperately worried about her all day and he had been calling since noon and only getting the machine. He was frantic by seven o'clock when she finally got
in
₉
and it had never dawned on him to call her office. Nor had she wanted to call him. She needed time to think about telling him she hadn't had the abortion.

“I wasn't here,” she said almost remorsefully, realizing that she had to make a quick shift of gears. She had come to terms with everything that was going on in their lives early that morning. But he had no idea what she'd done, and he still assumed that she had had the abortion.

“Where were you? Did they keep you at the doctor's all day? Did something go wrong?” He sounded frantic and she felt sorry for him, but she was also angry. He had been willing to let her go through with the abortion all alone, and he had tried to tell her it was no big deal, which it was, or would have been. And now she was still mad at him for it.

“Nothing went wrong.” There was a long pause, an endless silence, and she decided to tell him right away and not lead him on. “I didn't do it.”

There was an instant of silent disbelief and then he exploded into the phone. “What? Why not? Was something wrong with you that he couldn't?”

“Yes,” she said quietly as she sat down. She felt very old suddenly, and very tired, the emotions she had repressed all day suddenly rushed back at her and she felt drained as she listened to her husband. “Something was wrong. I didn't want to do it.”

“So you chickened out?” He sounded horrified, and now he was furious, too, which upset her even more and made her even more angry.

“If you want to put it that way. I decided I wanted to have our child. Most people would be flattered by that, or pleased, or something a little more human.” But they both knew he wasn't human on this subject.

“I don't happen to be one of them, Adrian. I'm not touched … or flattered … I think you're a fool. And I think you're doing it to try to get at me
in some
way, but I've got news for you, I'm not going to let you do it.”

“What are you talking about? You sound like a crazy person. This isn't a vendetta, for chrissake …it's a baby …you know, small person, made by you and me, blue and pink, cries occasionally. Most people can adjust to that, they don't act as though their lives are being threatened by a Mafia hit man.”

“Adrian, I'm not amused by your sense of humor.”

“And I am even less so by your sense of values. What is wrong with you? How could you leave me like this and just expect me to go out and get an abortion? It isn't the minor procedure you think it
is
, it isn't 'nothing.' It's something. It's a big something …and one of the reasons I didn't want to do it is because I love you.”

“That's bullshit and you know it.” He sounded threatened and cornered and extremely frightened by everything she had just said to him, and Adrian realized they weren't going to solve it on the phone, and possibly not even in the near future. He was just going to have to calm down, and see that the baby wasn't going to ruin his life. But first, they were both going to have to stop being angry.

“Why don't we talk about this calmly when you
come
home?” she said sensibly, but he was irate now.

“There's nothing to talk about. Unless you come to your senses and get an abortion. I'm not going to discuss anything with you until you do. Is that clear?” He was screaming at her in the phone and he sounded like a madman.

“Steven, stop it! Get a grip on yourself!” She spoke to him like a child who was out of control, but he was beyond being able to calm down. In his hotel room in Chicago, he was shaking with fury.

“Don't tell me what to do, Adrian. You betrayed me!”

“I did not betray you.” She almost laughed, he sounded so absurd, but the truth was, it wasn't funny. “It was an accident. I don't know how it happened or whose fault it was. It doesn't matter anymore. I'm not blaming you, or myself, or anyone. I just want to have the baby.”

“You're out of your mind, and you don't know what you're talking about.” He sounded like someone she didn't know, as she closed her eyes and tried to stay calm.