The One That I Want (26 page)

“No. I called Samuel. He’s going to pick me up in the cul-de-sac behind your house.” He pointed toward our backyard and the tree-lined area that divided our lawn from our neighbors’ garden. Beyond that was their little paved circle.

“That’s not a bad spot,” I acknowledged. “It’s very low traffic. As long as you can get over there without any of the press people out front seeing you.”

“I’m counting on it. I just need to wait for a distraction.”

A distraction? I could only think of one thing that would bring everyone around to the front. I swallowed. “Do you want me to go out there? If I open the door and talk to—”

“God, no. Samuel’s eldest son is going to help me with that. And either he or Samuel will come back later for my car.” Dane suddenly pulled me into his arms and crushed me to him. “I’m sorry for all of this. The sooner I get out of your house, the sooner your life has a chance to go back to normal. I just wish…I don’t know. I wish you could have seen what I saw in us, and that it would have been enough to make all this trouble worth it.”

He gazed at me sadly and kissed my forehead before stepping away.

“Dane—” I began.

There was a weird clattering sound out front, like a motor scooter had just rammed into a couple of metal garbage cans or something and was dragging them by our house.

“That’s my cue,” Dane said, grabbing his things and quietly unlocking the sliding glass door to the back patio. “Take care of yourself, Julia. I’ll talk with you, um…later.”

He poked his head outside to look around. The coast must have been clear in the backyard because he slipped away. As I locked the sliding door behind him, I saw him make a clean dash to the cul-de-sac in the distance and hop into a silver sedan that was idling in wait.

Thanks, Samuel. Take good care of him, will you?

I turned my attention back to the front of my house, just in time to see a jeep with a man and woman in it, driving away. It had tons of metal cans attached to the back, as if the couple were newlyweds. Was that Samuel’s son with his wife or, maybe, his girlfriend? Either way, I mentally thanked them, too.

With Dane gone, I decided to check all of the messages I’d gotten since I’d clicked off the phones. Between the home line and my cell, there were so many voicemails and texts that I had to sit down.

The same “unknown” number—which I now knew belonged to that obnoxious
Tinseltown Buzz
reporter, Caryn-something—had shown up over twenty times.

Shar had texted, saying, “Are you okay?! Yvette said there was a news crew in front of your house…”

Speaking of Yvette, she’d left two voicemails—one on my home line and another on my cell—the gist of which was, “What is going on over there? Do you need any help, Julia? Let me know. I can be right over if you need me!”

Kristopher had sent a text, too. “Hey! Sorry I lost my temper the last time we were together. Can we just let bygones be bygones? Wanna grab some coffee this week?”

Analise hadn’t left a message, but there was an odd, cryptic voicemail from her counselor Shannon. “Mrs. Crane, sorry to bother you. Analise is fine, but there’s this woman who keeps calling the camp and asking questions about her and your family…”

Oh, good heavens.

I called Shannon back first, thanked her for letting me know about this, and told her that this woman was big trouble.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Crane. We didn’t give her any information,” Shannon assured me, “and we won’t. I just thought you should be aware of her questions.”

After being promised several times that my daughter was perfectly fine and safe, I finished my conversation with the camp counselor and gave Yvette a quick call back.

“The news people have been asking the neighbors questions about you and Dane,” she said. “I told Mrs. Lancaster to zip it when she started blabbing to them about how you’d always been a fan of his movies. But, Julia, I don’t know if anybody said anything they shouldn’t have when I wasn’t around. The reporters have been like ants swarming around an ice cream spill on the sidewalk.”

“I know.” I sighed. “Thanks for trying to keep the lid on my personal life.”

“Is there, um…anything actually newsworthy going on over there?” Yvette asked.

“No,” I said quickly. “Dane and I are friends. We were just hanging out at my house.”

“Okay,” she replied. But I could hear the doubt in her voice, and I knew even sweet Yvette didn’t completely believe my story.

I read through the text messages I’d gotten, deleted Kristopher’s immediately, but I did send a short response back to Shar.

“I’m okay,” I texted her. “But from what Dane said, there will probably be some kind of story in the
Tinseltown Buzz
tomorrow. In print, online, or maybe both. If you see it before I do, give me a call. Otherwise, we’ll talk for sure in the morning.”

She replied within thirty seconds. “I’m here for you, girlfriend. Don’t forget that. No matter what happens. I don’t care about any stinkin’ news crew stalking your place either. If you need someone to keep you company, I can be on your front doorstep in ten minutes.”

I loved my best friend.

“You’re the BEST, Shar,” I texted. “But stay home for now. I may need you even more tomorrow…”

~*~

I didn’t have to wait until it was Saturday morning in the Chicagoland area before the shit officially hit the fan.

Nope. I got a text from Dane just after eleven p.m., which would have been after midnight on the East Coast but only nine at night in Hollywood. Guess the reporters didn’t want to delay their attempt to ruin our lives for even an hour longer than necessary.

“You have no idea how sorry I am about all this,” Dane wrote in his message, which included a link to the
Tinseltown Buzz
website. “I’d understand if you wanted me to stay away from you now and forevermore. Far away.”

I didn’t reply to him at first—not for a couple of hours, in fact—because I was too busy reading the “article” (such that it was) and trying to recover from my shock. On the tabloid’s homepage, in huge letters across the screen, it said:

FADING ACTOR & MERRY WIDOW’S SECRET LOVE TRYST!

Oh, shit.

And in smaller letters, a byline with a name I knew: Caryn Dizinger.

I hadn’t recognized her voice on the phone, but she may have been trying to disguise it. After all, I’d done my best to get away from her at both the theater and the radio station. She was clearly mean-spirited, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew I didn’t want to talk to her. And with good reason.

I held my breath as I scanned the opening paragraph. It went from bad to worse to truly appalling:

Aging actor Dane Tyler—on the verge of hitting forty-something status—has bounced back from the crushing blow of being dumped by America’s sweetheart, Emily Brennan. He’s now got an unexpected new girlfriend that has set everyone’s Tinseltown tongues wagging! He and a recent widow—prim schoolteacher and mother, Julia Crane—have been playing house in the upscale northern Chicago suburb of Mirabelle Harbor. It’s reportedly a torrid affair that began in secret months ago. Some suggest that their relationship even preceded the death of Crane’s late husband. Was that, perhaps, what pushed the poor man to an early grave?

I wanted to kill that Dizinger bitch.

Really and truly.

I imagined dismembering her, limb by limb. I didn’t want to read on, but I knew I had to. It would be worse not to know. But, oh God. How many people were going to see this piece of trash and believe it?

One friend of Crane’s, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, stated adamantly that Crane and Tyler had been involved for years. “Julia has been obsessed with him since high school,” Crane’s friend claimed. “I’m not surprised they ended up together. She’d literally do anything to win his affection.”

Who the hell was this supposed “friend” of mine? He or she would be on the executioner’s block, too, if I had anything to say about it.

Sources close to the actor assured us that this month’s tryst with the widow was merely a fling for him, though. “Dane’s known for always having quick rebound action after a relationship ends. But he’s still hurting badly over Emily’s abandonment,” said an actor pal.

Of course, maybe, these revelations about Tyler’s Midwestern and (until recently) married love interest succeed in shedding more light on Brennan’s departure from his life. “Dane has a pattern of infidelity,” another member of the acting community confided, “He’s charming but rarely sincere. Emily knew she couldn’t stick around for more of his bad-boy behavior.”

For however long it lasts, it’s certainly looking as though the fading actor and the merry widow have been enjoying themselves in the Windy City and the surrounding areas. Just look at these exclusive photos below and tell us that you don’t agree that this is a couple who can barely keep their hands off each other.

What followed were a dozen snapshots taken from a variety of angles and in nearly every location Dane and I had been together. Not only did they have candid shots of us together at the theater and slow dancing during the VIP party, but someone had snapped photos of us talking in the hallway of the radio station and also in the lobby of Dane’s hotel—even before he’d started signing autographs. There was one of us by the elevators, too, taken from the back. We were holding hands and leaning in to whisper to each other. I hadn’t realized anyone had been there watching.

And, oh, there were camp photos as well, which looked like they were pulled directly off of Facebook or Instagram and printed without permission. I doubted the people who’d originally took these photos even knew they’d been purloined for this purpose. But, worst of all, there were some long-lens shots of Dane and me in front of my house. Getting out of his rental car. Going inside. Even one fuzzy photo of Dane kissing me by the door. These bastards must have been stalking us for days.

Tyler has spent the past month in the city playing a wild ladies’ man who juggles relationships with multiple women simultaneously in the Knightsbridge Theater production of “The Bachelor Pad.” His performance onstage earned him only tepid praise, but he really seemed to take the show’s lead character to heart. Method acting, anyone?

“It’s a case of life imitating art…or vice versa,” said an observant member of the stage crew. “We all saw Julia at several of the performances, and she was Dane’s personal escort during the Closing Night party. They were very lovey-dovey.” But when asked what Tyler was like when Crane wasn’t around, the crew member laughed. “When she wasn’t there, he was really flirty with lots of other women, especially the many attractive actresses in the cast. He was perfect for the role he played in the show.”

Who knows what’s up next for this unlikely couple? Crane’s emotionally fragile daughter has been conveniently squirreled away at summer camp while Crane has been traipsing around Chicagoland with Tyler. Maybe the young girl will return to a quiet house, though, since the actor is set to return to L.A. soon to begin shooting the film
The Scorpius Project
with director Stan Henley Miles. The upcoming sci-fi/thriller, slated for release next year, also stars Brazilian beauty Cassandra Inigo, a woman that a man like Tyler will be hard pressed to resist. Even the actress herself was reportedly overheard saying to one of her costars, “I’m prepared to be propositioned by him daily.”

Representatives for Tyler refused to comment on the actor’s latest antics, but the
Tinseltown Buzz
feels that a slideshow of revealing pictures more than speaks for itself.

Look for
The Scorpius Project
to open in theaters next November.

I felt positively ill. My “emotionally fragile” daughter? How dare they write that. Please, dear God, do not let Analise read this. Ever.

This whole piece was too atrocious for me to even speak to anyone about yet. Not even Dane. Not even Shar.

How did reporters get away with writing lies like these? Making insinuations that were downright slanderous? Not to mention posting photographs without any consent from the subjects?

I slumped down on the sofa, clutching my churning stomach. I was too stunned to even cry. For half an hour at least, the only thing I could do was stare at the wall and reread the defamatory lines that witch wrote, again and again in my mind. I didn’t even have to look at the screen.

“…a torrid affair…”

“…what pushed the poor man to an early grave…”

“…charming but rarely sincere…”

“…he was really flirty with lots of other women…”

“…emotionally fragile daughter has been conveniently squirreled away…”

Finally, I texted Dane back. “You were right. Completely right,” I wrote. “It’s not good.”

Then I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

Chapter Eighteen

Sleep had a weird way of helping.

Even in wretched situations like this one, just being able to close my eyes and block out the present dreadfulness and misery for a few hours was beneficial.

I had nightmares, of course, but they weren’t about tabloids or brutal gossip.

No. They were all about Adam. About his car crash. About the police officers coming to the door to give me the horrific news that my husband had been pronounced dead on the scene. About his funeral.