Secrets (34 page)

Like everyone else, Gabby was secretly worried about the competition, but the next morning they all knew Mel had been right. The ratings soared and they had had the lion's share of the television audience. The country was crazy about Manhattan. And all of his predictions came true. Their agents were going nuts with calls for interviews, photographs, offers of parts during their next break, and everyone wanted posters of Sabina, Jane, and Gabby. Even Harry was going nuts. Playgirl wanted a centerfold of Bill, and Cosmo offered them more money for the same exposure. The five of them were suddenly the biggest stars in the country. Mel had predicted it all, but it had been hard to believe. It was understand just how it would feel, until it actually happened.

Sabina could hardly go anywhere anymore without being mobbed by men and women alike, people begged her for autographs, and a man she had never seen before grabbed her outside the Beverly Wilshire and kissed her and then ran off screaming, I did it ' I did it! ' I did it!

Was I right? Mel gloated over breakfast the day before they left for New York. He had given her a huge, eighteen-karat marquise-cut diamond ring the day the ratings came in, and there was a pressing question he had been wanting to ask her. But he was biding his time. There was still too much excitement about Manhattan.

You were. She lay catlike on the couch in his living room. She preferred eating there, and she was reading the latest stack of clippings her press agent had sent her. It was all so damn much fun. She loved it all, the excitement, the recognition, and the money. She didn't even have to worry now. If anything ever happened to her, she was all set. She could have retired and lived well for the rest of her days, and left enough behind to quell all her worries. And she glanced up at Mel, with a warm smile and a look of pleasure. He was so good to her, and she had never dreamed of owning as much jewelry as she did now ' or the furs ' he wanted to buy her a sable coat for the trip to New York. It won't even be cold when we get there. She laughed.

It will be when we leave. And every girl needs a sable. It was like a dream, a dream she had always had, and it had finally come true, and this was just the beginning.

He had chartered a plane for all of them to go to New York, and she had to pack that afternoon. They all had lots of last-minute errands to do. Jane was spending the day with the girls, who were awestruck by it all now. Their friends had practically assaulted them in school the day after the first show. Her son had called from college, and they were establishing some kind of rapport again. Jason had finally understood that his father had been grossly unfair to her, and they were all coming to respect her career as important. She had even invited him on the set, and he had come and been enormously impressed. And she had introduced him to Zack, and Jason was surprised by how pleasant and unpretentious he was. Not like a big star at all. Just like a regular person. The three of them had dinner at a small restaurant Zack knew, and they drove him back to Santa Barbara that night and Jane had cried on the way home. She felt as though she had a son again, and she hadn't in over a year, thanks to her ex-husband.

You're lucky you have such wonderful kids, Zack had said quietly as they drove back to L.A. It was the one thing he envied her, and it was the price he had paid for the mistakes he had made in his youth. And at times, he regretted it deeply.

She was spending the night at Zack's on then last night in L.A., and Gabby was busy at Bill's. She had taken the dog to the vet, and she had had to pack up her whole apartment that weekend. She was moving in with Bill. There was no point paying rent on an empty apartment for two months, and when they came back, she was going to be living with him. He had finally asked when they got back from Maine, and she was thrilled.

Did you pack my socks? He hurried in with a whole stack of jeans, and she grinned. It was as though they had always lived like this, and she laughed as she told him she had. She had packed for both of them.

Mel was working late that night, and Sabina's new maid had put all her Vuitton bags in the hall. She thought it was Mel calling to say good night when the phone rang, but it wasn't. It was the call she had dreaded for years. And she sat terrified. She had to go to San Francisco that night, and she couldn't leave for New York with the cast of Manhattan.

She dialed Mel at home, but he wasn't there yet, and the phone in his office was turned off. She packed a bag, and made a reservation on the last flight out of L.A. And she was already dressed to leave when she tried him one last time, and heaved a sigh of relief when he answered.

Her voice was nervous and stiff as she talked to him and he knew instantly something was wrong. I can't leave for New York.

My God ' why? He was stunned. What was she saying to him? Are you sick?

No, I'm not. I'll come as soon as I can. You'll have to shoot around me this week.

But we can't do that. You're in almost every scene. Sabina, what is it? ' He had never heard her sound like that before, and it stirred a distant chord of memory for him, but he couldn't remember quite what it was. What's wrong?

I can't tell you, Mel. It was the first time she had shut him out since she had refused to go the Bahamas with him. I'm sorry ' I just can't.

What the hell am I supposed to tell the cast? He was tired and angry at her for not telling him why she couldn't go. That we're going to New York for a vacation?

I can't do anything about it. She looked at her watch. I have to go. I'll call you in New York. And with that she hung up, grabbed her overnight case, and hurried out the door, as Mel stared at the phone in his hand in fury and frustration.

Mel did something to her he had never done before. He called an investigator to find out where Sabina was. But the only thing the man could find out was that she had left the night before. Her doorman knew she had gone to the airport, but for two days he was unable to discover anything else, and then finally he found a stewardess who remembered seeing her on the plane.

Where did she go?

San Francisco. She had mentioned it to him before. She went there periodically to see friends. But we can't find her in any of the hotels.

Damn. It was unlike Mel to swear or pursue anyone like that, but she was the star of his biggest show, and he wanted to know where she was. And there was more to it than that. He wanted to marry her, and he wanted to know to just what extent she was making a fool of him, and who with.

They were shooting around her in New York and it was making everything difficult, and he didn't hear a word from her. But the investigator called again after two more days. She's in Palo Alto, possibly staying with friends. It's a simple house, near the university.

He wanted to ask if she was with a man, but he was embarrassed to. But the investigator made it easier for him. The only people that go in and out are three women. They seem to come and go in shifts. They all wear coats when they arrive or leave, but they appear to be nurses. Apparently, she's with someone sick. She's only left the house twice, for a walk herself, and she looks very subdued. We have photographs we can express-mail to you, Mr. Wechsler. She's wearing dark glasses and a hat, but it's her. It was a sick lover, then ' maybe someone she'd been involved with for years. But why hadn't she said anything? She owed him that much. We'll stay on it.

Thanks. He hadn't heard a word from her in four days, and he was still furious with her, but she called him the next day. She sounded bone tired, and he didn't even recognize her at first.

I'll be in New York in a couple of days, Mel. I'll start shooting the first of the week.

Thank you very much. Where the hell are you anyway? The anger in his voice rang out, but she was too tired to care. She'd tell him something when she got to New York. It was all she could do. This was a part of her life that belonged to no one else but her.

I'm staying with a sick friend. It was exactly what the investigator had told him.

Why couldn't you tell me that before you left L.A.?

I didn't have time to explain, I had to catch the last plane.

To where? He wanted her to tell him herself, she owed him that much.

It's not important where. I told you all you need to know. Her voice was cold and hard. I'll be there in two days. And then, Don't push me, Mel. This has nothing to do with you.

Apparently. He was deeply hurt. I thought we were closer than that, but maybe I've been deluding myself.

She didn't have the energy to deal with his fears and jealousies and she had no intention of telling him the truth when she got to New York. She had never told anyone. Please don't take it personally.

How do you expect me to take it, Sabina? You disappear in the middle of the night, no one knows where you are ' who you're with ' or why ' what am I supposed to think? She could imagine what he was thinking then, that she had run off with another man, but it was so much more serious than that. But for a moment, she felt sorry for him.

I'm sorry, Mel. Maybe we'll talk about it sometime.

You're damn right we will. But his forcefulness only drove her away, and she hung up without telling him anything more. She sat in the small darkened living room in the ugly little house in Palo Alto. She had come here every month for years. Sometimes more often than that, when she wasn't working. Sometimes she stayed for weeks, but it depressed her terribly. And now he had almost died. That was what they had told her the night they called her in L.A.

Can I get you anything, Miss Quarles? The nurse on the night shift walked into the room with a gentle smile. It was odd seeing this side of her. On television she was so beautiful and glamorous, and here she looked so tired and almost old. She hadn't worn makeup since she arrived, and she looked as though she hadn't combed her hair in days.

I'm all right. How's Anthony?

He's asleep. Poor little thing. He's so tired, but he'll be all right. She went in to sit beside him then, as she had since she'd arrived. She had slept in the chair in his room, night after night, holding his hand. It was an agony, watching him, and yet she would have been nowhere else.

She took her place at his side again, and watched the exquisitely etched face in the soft light. Sometimes he looked so young, and at other times so old, his whole life had been an agony, a struggle to survive, and there was so little they could do for him. It was a miracle he had lived this long. He had been born with congenital deformities, he was paralyzed from the waist down from birth, his lungs were weak, and he had a severely defective heart. And at first transplant techniques hadn't been developed enough to operate on such a young child. They had operated six times before he was a year old, and then all but given up on him. They had tried again when he was two, and by then he had other problems, and the surgeons insisted that transplants were never done on children so young. Now he was old enough, but no one was willing to take the risk. He wasn't strong enough to survive the surgery now. So instead he lived less than a half life in the house she had bought for him years before, a stone's throw from Stanford Hospital, attended by nurses night and day, watched relentlessly, and one day it would come anyway, the end they had prolonged but that no one could defer forever.

He stirred as she watched him breathe, the monitors given to them by the March of Dimes years before ticked quietly. She was used to watching them now, after years of it. The proceeds of every film poured into an account for him. And now she didn't have to worry about that anymore. That was a blessing anyway. It was why she had agreed to do Manhattan the year before, because she knew what it represented to him, and there was always the terror that something would happen to her, and then he'd be alone with no one to provide for him. His father had been horrified when he was born, married to someone else, and passionately in love with Sabina, he claimed, but not so passionately that he wanted to stand by Anthony, with all his problems. He hadn't even given him his name. He had given her a ten-thousand-dollar check, which hadn't even paid for the first surgery. And now she had everything she needed for him ' everything ' except that she couldn't buy what he had never had. She had been thirty-one years old when he was born, and they had never known why he was born that way. She didn't take drugs, she didn't drink, just an accident of nature, they said ' some accident ' a child born with almost no lungs, a damaged heart, an injured spine, and yet she loved him desperately, perhaps even more than she would have otherwise. She had wept for days as she held him close to her in the intensive care nursery, monitors attached to him everywhere. And then the surgeries ' she hadn't worked for a year, but she finally had to go back to work, to pay the bills that were mounting up. It had been a constant struggle for fifteen years. Until Manhattan came along. She owed so much to Mel, but she couldn't tell him about this. She had never told anyone, never trusted anyone that much. She didn't want Anthony's life, what was left of it, turned into a travesty, with reporters worming their way in, and photographers, especially now that everyone was so interested in her. She could just imagine what they'd do to him. She was always terrified that one of the nurses would talk, but they'd been with her for years now.

He stirred again, but she saw that he looked better. The doctor had said that he was out of the woods again, for the time being. They hadn't even moved him to the hospital this time, because there was no point, Dr. Waterford said. It was going to happen one day anyway ' please God ' let it be peacefully ' let me be here with him ' she had prayed that so many times, whenever she was away. It was why she had had to come back to him when she'd been in New York, and not gone to the Bahamas with Mel. She owed him that. She had given him this broken life, it was all her fault, it had to be. She had always blamed herself. He was fifteen years old and he looked like a five-year old, as he lay dozing in the huge hospital bed in the bedroom that was his prison.