Indiscretions (14 page)

She ran a finger across the paint as if wanting to touch Jenny. “This has always meant a lot to me,” she said. “I’ve no idea what it’s worth …?”

“Take it, take it,” said Stan. “I told you not to worry—it’s yours.” It wouldn’t have been worth that much at auction—though possibly the studios might have paid a decent price … still, the kid wanted it, didn’t she? He lit an immense Romeo y Julieta, puffing on the cigar and waiting.

“I don’t know whether I should ask for this,” said India, “because like Vennie, I’ve no idea what it’s worth. I guess it’s expensive, but it does mean a lot to me.…”

“Yeah? What is it?” asked Bill.

“Do you remember the ring she always wore? The
ruby? My father gave it to her in Kashmir when she told him that she was pregnant with me. It was their ‘engagement ring.’ I never saw her without it.” Her sad brown eyes met Stan’s. “I would dearly like to keep it, if that’s possible?”

“Sure. Sure, it’s yours, India.” Stan spoke quickly before he could change his mind. That was a bit pricier than he had bargained for. Still, didn’t he remember that ruby being flawed?

“And Paris? What about you?” India looked anxiously at her sister. Paris looked so pale, she was afraid she was going to faint.

“Jenny came to see me a couple of years ago,” said Paris, so softly that it was as though she were speaking to herself. “It was winter and the weather was icy and crisp, and the sun shone. Jenny was wrapped in this amazing fur that she’d bought from Fende, a softly sheared mink, dyed to such an odd olive tint. She looked so Parisian in it, and for once we looked like mother and daughter.” She turned to look at her sisters. “It would make me happy to have that coat.”

“Done,” said Stan, glad to get out of this one without it costing
too
much; it would have been embarrassing to have to go back on his word. Picking up his briefcase, he opened the door. “So. If you need any advice, you know where to come.”

Paris doubted that they would.

Bill Kaufmann felt pleased with himself. It had been easier than he had thought, no tears, no recriminations—no fuss. “That’s everything taken care of, then,” he said, following Stan through the courtyard.

“Right, Bill,” said India, “everything’s taken care of.” She held out his jacket. “You forgot this.”

Bill slung the jacket over his shoulder and headed for the street.

“Thanks for everything, Bill. Drive carefully now, in that fast car,” called India.

Did her tone hold a touch of irony? Surely not. After all he’d done? No one could expect him to do more. Could they?

“Well, then, it’s good-bye, I suppose.” Stan shifted his cigar from his right hand to his left and offered his firm grip to each girl in turn. “Perhaps Mrs. Reubin and I’ll be over in Paris in the spring. She likes to get around—do a bit of shopping there, ya know? Listen, Bill, what’s that restaurant you raved about? Lasserre? How’d you rate that one, Paris? Good, huh? Well, you count on joining us for dinner there one evening. Something to look forward to, right? And that goes for you other girls as well, if you’re in town. Be quite a family reunion.” Clamping the big cigar back in his mouth he headed purposefully toward the gleaming, blue Rolls Camargue parked behind the Porsche.

Bill Kaufmann quickly kissed each girl on the cheek. “Anytime you’re back here,” he called, making for his car, “let me know. Myra’d love to have you stay … she was very fond of Jenny.”

He slid behind the wheel, waiting impatiently for Stan to turn the Rolls. Why the fuck didn’t he hurry up? Thank God, that was it, he could be off! He shifted from neutral into first, enjoying the growl of the engine as it responded to the pressure of his foot. At least it hadn’t come out that he was now Rory Grant’s agent and Stan was Rory’s lawyer … not that there was anything wrong with that. Bill lit another cigarette. It was just show biz!

He pressed the button to lower the window, leaning out ready to wave and smile, but the heavy wooden gate was already closed. Goddamn, they might have waited, after all he’d done for them.

India flung herself onto the sofa, pounding the cushions angrily with her fists. “Bastards!” she screamed. “They’re nothing but a pair of
bastards
.”

“India!” cried Vennie, shocked.

“Can
you
think of a better name for those two? Do you have any idea of
how much
they must have made from Jenny all these years? It’s a lot more than you or I are left with, I can assure you. They were employed—
paid
—to
look after her!
God, it makes me sick just to think of it. As soon as things became a bit rough they just left her to it. Oh, no, Vennie, there’s no doubt about it—they are a pair of
shits!
”

“Well?” asked Paris. “What happens now? Do we sit here and rehash Jenny’s last few years and all her problems and blame her for losing all her money?”

“It wasn’t her fault,” cried Venetia defensively. “She earned all her money and she had every right to do what she wanted with it.”

“Did she, Vennie?” Paris’s voice was bitter. “Parents have a responsibility toward their children, you know. Even though she wanted us to make it on our own, I think she might have given
us
a thought before she made all those wild investments—especially as we had no fathers to help us.” Paris was close to tears, and she clasped her hands together tightly, digging her nails into the soft palms. She thought of Amadeo and how desperately eager she had been to get his financial backing. “Oh, damn it,” she shouted, unable to keep back her resentment any longer. “Why, why,
why
didn’t she give me the money I needed! I would have been a better risk than the ones she was taking. Don’t you see? She frittered it all on those young men, while I struggled …”

Tears spilled down her face and she dashed them away angrily as Venetia and India helplessly watched.

“I’m sorry,” sobbed Paris. “I didn’t mean it, really I didn’t.” She fished a Kleenex from her pocket and
dabbed her eyes. “You’re right, Vennie. She’d earned it the hard way and she had the right to do what she wanted with it. She was foolish, that’s all—and alone, and vulnerable.” And, she added silently, nobody understands that better than I do.

Venetia stared out of the window at the expanse of ocean and the evil yellow haze of smog on the horizon. A typical Hollywood day. Every time she returned to this town she knew again why she could never live here. Hollywood’s blue skies and sunshine and laid-back casual life-style was the surface that camouflaged the scheming and striving for its glittering show-business prizes. The city enclosed the vulnerable in its luxurious tentacles with a gripping relentlessness, until they were trapped in its tinsel values. Jenny had fought against it—and sent her girls away from its seductive pressures—but in the end she had conformed; for her, too, God lived in Hollywood.

Venetia longed suddenly for the anonymous, rain-washed freedom of London and the casual give-and-take of the Lancaster household. So, what next? She would be all right; she had her diploma and she’d meant to begin work catering directors’ lunches in the City, and doing parties and dinners. Kate Lancaster had told her of a good agency to use. She imagined India would continue doing what she was doing—things seemed all right with her, except for Fabrizio Paroli, of course, but that was part of the game. It was Paris who was going to be most hurt by this situation. She was so completely alone. As far as Vennie knew there was no man in her life, all she had was her ambition, and even with her undoubted talent it was going to be a long, hard struggle to make her name as a designer now that even the hope of her mother coming to her help had gone. There was just ten thousand dollars for the three of them. Ten thousand dollars …

“Paris,” she said, startling her sisters from their brooding silence, “I want you to have my share of the ten thousand. Maybe it’ll help toward putting together your collection.”

Paris’s dark blue eyes lit with a gleam of hope. But no, she couldn’t. “It’s sweet of you, Vennie, but I can’t let you do that. You’ll probably need it yourself one day.”

“You can have my share too,” said India. “Didn’t you say you were a better investment than Jenny’s young men? You’ve got the only talent in this family, Paris, and all of Jenny’s ten thousand dollars will go to underwrite the first Paris Lines collection!”

Paris Lines … ten thousand … it wasn’t nearly enough to do it properly—but it was all they had, and it was a hell of a lot more than zero, which was all she had had before. Oh, God, they were marvelous, her sisters. Paris flung her arms around Vennie and then India in an enormous grateful hug. “Only if you’re sure?”

“Of course we’re sure.”

“It’s such a responsibility—
all
the family money.” Paris looked at them nervously, her silken black hair framing her anxious face. What if she weren’t good enough after all? No! She
was
good, she was sure of that. But so many things could go wrong.

“Don’t worry, Paris,” said India reassuringly, “the money’s yours, with no strings attached. If you choose to spend it on riotous living, that’s your affair—we don’t want to know. No strings, okay?”

“No strings,” repeated Paris. She would repay them, she’d be the success she’d always known she could be, and then she’d take care of them both—the way Jenny should have done. “You won’t regret it,” she promised.

“It’s time to go, then.” India waved from the deck to the two guards idling on the strip of beach in front of the house, occupying themselves by spinning pebbles across
the waves. They waved in reply and headed back toward the house.

“Well,” she remarked with a sigh, walking towards the door, “this is it.” She turned for a last look at the pretty room. The white sofas were crumpled where they had been sitting and ashtrays and empty glasses littered the tables. The big windows framed only the blue-gray ocean and a cloudless sky. “You’d better say good-bye,” she whispered.

Paris and Venetia gave the room a last lingering look. It seemed different now it was no longer theirs, thought Paris, a bit shabbier, a little bit tired—the home of a stranger as a prospective buyer might see it.

“I can’t bear to go into Jenny’s bedroom,” whispered Venetia.

“Nor I.” Paris turned away.

“I wonder which Jenny it was,” said India, locking the door behind them, “who left Beverly Hills to take that last ride down Malibu Canyon. I’d like to believe it was the indiscreet, sexy Jenny heading for an assignation with some new man.”

“No! It was Jenny in a romantic mood, longing for a glimpse of the full moon on the ocean.” Venetia was sure of it.

Paris was silent. Or maybe, she thought as they walked away, it was the fading movie star of the slightly blurred beauty whose career was going downhill and for whose mismanaged life there seemed no future—except at the bottom of Malibu Canyon.

5

The young valet at the parking lot on Rodeo who looked as if he should be manning the life-saving station on Zuma Beach flipped Rory Grant his keys and gave him a winning smile. One day he, too, would make it big like that; it could happen, you know, this was Hollywood.

Rory sauntered down the street, checking his appearance in Bijan’s window as he passed. He looked good, the all-American—or maybe all-Californian—guy with his hair casually longish, casually “sun streaked” and springy, cut so that he could run his casual hand through it in the engaging gesture known to millions of viewers; faded blue jeans, Nike tennis sneakers, expensive Italian polo shirt from Jerry Magnin, and a Missoni sweater tied by the sleeves and slung casually across his shoulders.

He wasn’t sure about the sweater—did enough people know that it was Missoni and was almost
too
expensive? Would he have been better off with the plain blue cashmere or maybe the Armani? What the hell, the sweater had cost enough—more than his dad had earned in a month, more than a lot of people earned in a month. He
checked his appearance again in the shop window.… You’re looking good, Rory, real good, like the superstar you are—almost. That’s what he wanted to talk to Bill about.

Bill was waiting at a table in the Café Rodeo. He’d been waiting for twenty minutes and figured that Rory would be exactly half an hour late—that’s what they usually were when they reached this point of success; after that it was anybody’s guess. They had been known to turn suddenly polite and easygoing, but that was rare.

“How’re ya doin’, Bill?” Rory acknowledged various greetings from around the room and flung himself into the chair opposite Bill.

“Pretty good.” This was going to be a complaint, Bill could see it coming. There was a dissatisfied scowl in Rory’s unsmiling greeting.

“Salad,” said Rory to the waitress, “avocado, shrimp—tell them to add some alfalfa sprouts and some wheat germ. And Perrier.” Ever since Jenny had put him on his diet, whittling down his hundred and sixty-five pounds to a muscular hundred and fifty, Rory had been careful what he ate. It was a pity, thought Bill, that he wasn’t as careful with what he took. That perpetual sniff wasn’t becoming to television’s newest star.

“Ya should cut out the coke, Rory,” he advised. “You’re fucking up the membranes.”