Sugar (13 page)

“Shocking,” he concurred with a chuckle, thinking he really ought to get back to work, though so far he hadn’t been able to muster the willpower to get up and get going. Now that the fucking was over, he was just really enjoying hanging out with her. “On the other hand, it’ll be a great detail for your future biopic,
A Porn Star is Born
.”

“Something to look forward to, I guess.” Smile slipping, she dropped her gaze, idly plucking at the faux fur.

Had his joke hurt her feelings? Whatever he’s said seemed to have struck a nerve. Reaching down, he took her chin and tilted her face up to his. “Hey, what is it?”

She sighed. “Would you believe I went to LA with very different dreams, all more or less involving me dipping my hands in wet cement outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre?”

“Seriously?” Until now, it hadn’t occurred to him to wonder, let alone ask, how she’d gotten into porn. She was Sugar, after all.

She sent him a solemn nod. “I’ll have you know I played Juliet to Robbie Sanders’s Romeo at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School.”

“You went to La? No shit?”

Cole was impressed. The magnet public high school for the visual and performing arts had stringent admission requirements, including a live audition. Its roster of acting alumnae, a Who’s Who of Hollywood notables, included Adrien Brody, Jennifer Aniston, Wesley Snipes, and Robert De Niro.

“Oh, if my Theater Arts teacher could only see me now. On second thought, maybe he has.”

“What happened?”

She sighed broadly. “Life happened. Once I got to LA, I found out fast that the streets were in fact not paved with golden-for-me opportunities. I was just another blonde with big dreams and no college degree. Apparently La training doesn’t count for all that much on the West Coast, at least not without the advanced degree to back it up. Actually it doesn’t count for squat.”

“That sucks,” he said, careful to keep his tone even. He suspected if she so much as sniffed pity on him, she’d go ballistic.

“Yeah, it did.” Threading her fingers through the faux fur—a cardcarrying member of the animal rights group, PETA, she apparently really would rather go naked than wear the real stuff—she continued, “Valet parking cars, waitressing, even dog walking—you name it, I did it, and went to auditions in between. But when I couldn’t make rent, I had to decide: either let the dream die or figure out a way to . . . modify it.”

Fascinated, he finished the story for her. “And overnight Sugar was born?”

Again, that half smile seemed to speak volumes. “Not exactly overnight but close enough. I made friends with another AE actress on set, Liz, who took me under her wing and mentored me. And once I met Martin, things really took off.”

“Martin?” he asked, shifting to rest on his other arm, an unpleasant prickle of jealousy disturbing his post-coital peace.

She nodded. “My manager, who I might add is none too pleased about me retiring.”

Her manager, whew! Wondering why he’d cared, even for a few seconds, about who she might have fucked in LA, he said, “Adios fifteen percent, huh?’

“That for sure, but I think he also feels a bit . . . betrayed.”

He felt himself frowning. “But it’s a business relationship, right?”

“It is, but even so, we’ve been together for nine and a half years. He’s spinning my pulling out of this last film project as a leave of absence, but I’ve told him it’s permanent. Hopefully he’s started to accept that decision as final.”

Feeling as if he were holding back from breathing, as casually as he could Cole asked, “Is it . . . final?” On camera or off, the thought of her fucking other guys was . . . Well, he just didn’t like it.

She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, it is. I have other things I want to do with my life, and I’m fortunate to be in a position to be able to take a break while I figure out what’s next.”

“That’s great.” The other day, she’d mentioned getting up early to work. Recalling the laptop lying out on her counter, he asked, “What is next? Are you working on a script or something?”

The frown line appearing on her forehead suggested she didn’t appreciate his prying. “Right now my main priority is Liz.”

That threw him. He’d read that a lot of female porn stars were bisexual in their private lives. Might Sarah and this . . . Liz be lovers? The possibility should have turned him on, but instead it left him feeling lost, empty. Sex with Sarah might revolve around her movie roles, but the overarching fantasy, for him anyway, was that she was all his in every way, at least for the next few months.

Fishing, he asked, “The friend, I thought she was in LA.”

“She retired years ago and moved back to New York. She’s built a freelance graphic design business, a total do over.” He could be wrong, but she didn’t sound like someone talking about a lover.

“That’s great!” Cole enthused, feeling a measure of relief.

She sat up, her eyes dimming. “Yeah it is, or at least it was.”

“I don’t follow.”

She hesitated as if weighing how much or little to tell him. “She’s going through a pretty rough time, coming back from breast cancer. She’s midway through her course of chemo, and things are getting . . . pretty rough.”

“Jesus!” he said. “I had no idea.”

Hugging her tented knees, she said, “Yeah, well, it’s not exactly fuck-buddy chat. Besides, my mom died of breast cancer, so I’ve been having some flashbacks, but they’re no big deal.”

Flashbacks, Cole definitely copied that, except for the part about them being no big deal. He knew firsthand how vivid and crippling the unintentional recall could be, especially when you couldn’t control when or where it happened.

Sitting up beside her, it struck him. “The scenario we just played out. When you said your mother was sick, that’s how you made yourself cry, wasn’t it, by thinking about your real mom?”

She shrugged. “Crying on command is any actor’s toughest challenge. Unlike laughing or yelling, you can’t force it. Drawing on a personal experience is the only way I’ve ever been able to make myself tear up.”

Cole felt like a heel. Their-role playing wasn’t supposed to really have hurt her, not physically and not emotionally either. Stroking a hand along her spine, he said, “We could have . . . skipped those lines, you know.”

She shrugged again. “It was my choice, besides it was kind of cathartic. And it made the scene work better, you have to admit.”

Cole didn’t deny it, but still . . . “Does Liz have family here, people who can help out?”

She hesitated. “Not really. Her mom broke her hip, so she’s more or less housebound, and her sister and family live out-of-state. Jonathan is a really great kid, but I know Liz worries about how all of this may be affecting him.”

“She has a kid, too!” As sob stories went, Liz’s was getting sadder by the second.

“She’s a single mom and an awesome one, but don’t try telling her that. She keeps kicking herself that she didn’t take him to Disney World last year when he asked. Now she’s afraid she might never get to. Even if—I mean when—she’s finished with her treatment, she may not be able to afford the trip. Even with insurance, she’s pretty much blown through her savings.”

Cole nodded. Cancer didn’t only eat away at bodies. It tended to decimate finances, too. He sent her a sideways glance, wondering if she’d been hinting. “You do realize the foundation I run provides programming for kids in Jonathan’s position?”

Her eyes widened, and as good an actress as she was, he felt reasonably certain her surprise was sincere. “I’d read it had something to do with kids and cancer, but I guess I thought it was more like the Make-a-Wish® Foundation, where the kids are the ill ones.”

“We operate on a similar model,” Cole admitted, “only it’s reversed. Our kids submit their wishes for the experience they want to share with their ill or recovering parent. A team of reviewers assesses the viability of each application. Once an application is selected for funding, we work with the recipient, the parent, his or her caretaker, and coordinating health care provider to structure the activity in a way that won’t put the parent or child at risk.”

She looked up at him with shining eyes. “That’s wonderful.”

Cole hesitated. Until now he’d taken his leadership position for granted. Having an office to go into, fund-raisers to preside over, a budget to manage, and a board of directors to deal with provided the structure he needed to keep from slipping away and falling apart. But seeing his role through Sarah’s eyes, eyes that were looking at him as though he was Santa Claus and Hercules rolled into one, had him feeling differently.

Without thinking, he heard himself say, “Maybe I could, you know, meet them sometime, not as any kind of formal evaluation, just a casual get to know you over lunch or a snack or something.”

She slanted him a skeptical look. “You’d do that for me?”

She was offering him an out, but Cole couldn’t bring himself to take it. “Sure, why not?”

Why not indeed? For starters, she was his fuck buddy, not his girlfriend. And not any fuck buddy but an international porn star. Signing up for a public outing where they might be spotted—and photographed—together wasn’t smart. And really, what was the point of him meeting her friends, getting involving in her life? It wasn’t like their “relationship” was any kind of a permanent thing. His offer made absolutely no sense, and yet it felt so . . . right.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, chafing the tops of her arms as if suddenly chilly.

“Does Liz’s kid like pizza?”

His question had her letting out a laugh. As sexy a submissive as she’d made, it was seeing her happy and relaxed that really got to him. “Jonathan’s seven. He
lives
for pizza.”

“Great,” he said, standing. The air conditioning wasn’t turned that high, but unlike her, he was fully dressed. Reaching down a hand to help her up, he said, “I’ll give you a call later to set something up, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, taking hold. Gaining her feet, she added, “But if you change your mind, I don’t want you to feel like—”

Still holding her hand, Cole pulled her against him, cutting her off with a kiss. Refusing to think about what he’d just signed himself up for, he drew back and smiled down at her. “Fuck changing my mind. I’m a Canning, remember? My word is my bond, so consider it a date. Now get dressed. You’re turning blue.”

F
ATE Monday rolled around before Sarah knew it. After the usual twenty or so minutes of snacking and socializing, they started in. When Patrick didn’t dive in as usual, Sarah decided to get her “contribution” out of the way. She was still struggling with whether or not to see her dad, she admitted, hating the hitch in her voice. On one hand, it seemed silly not to reach out to him now that they were living in the same city. On the other, she wasn’t really buying that he hadn’t gotten her voice message. Was it so wrong to expect him to meet her halfway? He’d moved from the Brooklyn brownstone where Sarah had grown up. The last address she had for him was in Astoria, Queens. As Honey and Patrick both pointed out, Queens was another borough, not a foreign country. What would be the harm in extending one last olive branch?

She felt as if, over the past decade, she’d extended not a single branch but the equivalent of an entire olive tree. “I’ll think about it,” she said, signaling to Liz that it was another person’s turn to talk. If her father still wanted nothing to do with her, maybe it wasn’t in anyone’s best interest to push him.

They continued around the room, weighing in on Brian’s situation with his bullying shop boss, AKA “fucking ass wipe,” and Honey’s worries about ending up as an old maid. Apparently her hotshot hedge fund manager had stopped making noises about marrying her now that she’d moved into his Park Avenue apartment. At least her dating a hedgie set to rest Sarah’s suspicions about the source of all those vintage, couture clothes.

Fingering the edge of her headscarf, Liz admitted to sometimes waking panicked in the middle of the night. Her fears about whether her cancer was truly beaten or only hiding made everyone else’s problems, including Sarah’s, seem piddling.

So far Patrick had hardly said a word. Watching him pick an uneaten cookie into crumbs, Sarah could tell something was very wrong.

She and Liz exchanged looks. “Pat, you’re unusually quiet,” Liz prompted. “What’s been going on with you this week?”

“Not much . . . everything . . . I don’t know, maybe I’m just being stupid.”

Sarah reached over and laid her hand on his for a brief moment. “I doubt that. If you think talking about it will make you feel better, then go for it. But it’s up to you.”

Setting his plate aside, he blew out a heavy breath. “So the other day, I took my boyfriend, Pol, out to a romantic dinner at August. My plan was to wait until dessert and then ask him to move in with me.”

“Oh, Patrick, that’s splendid,” Honey cut in. “From everything you’ve told us, you’re positively perfect for one another. And . . . and the most important thing is to enjoy your life, to be happy. It’s all that matters.”

Sarah was reasonably sure that last bit was a direct quote from Audrey Hepburn. It also happened to be pretty good advice. For now, she held back from commenting. Patrick’s grimace gave her a heads up that his romantic dinner had gone anything but perfectly.

“Everything was perfect—the food, the ambiance, the service. I wish I could say that the wine was perfect too, but we’re alcoholics, we met at an AA meeting, so we can’t drink. Still, the Pellegrino definitely had the right amount of fizzle.”

He paused to make way for the chuckles that reliably followed. Sarah joined in, though she sensed he was delaying getting to the real issue.

His blue eyes went around the room, brushing briefly over Sarah’s. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was silently asking for her support, more so than that of the others, which was crazy since they’d only met a month ago. Then again, that was just one week less than she’d known Cole. Thinking back to all the things she’d confided that day in the cloakroom, she supposed it wasn’t the length of an acquaintance that mattered as much as the level of trust. Rightly or wrongly, she trusted Cole not to betray her.