A PORTRAIT OF OLIVIA (29 page)

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would like to add that for those of you who feel they may need some kind of spiritual help, there are many churches and religious organizations that are openly accepting of gay men and women. There is no need for you to feel iso-lated and alone…”

“Well, thank you for that, Miss Stuart.” Olivia could not quite keep the pique she was feeling, out of her voice. “Thank you all for your time today—this is Olivia Winters,
live
, signing off till tomorrow…”

Olivia stalked from the set as soon as she was given the sign that they were off the air. She was seething inside with frustration at what she felt had been a loss of control on her part. How dare that woman take her to task on live television—and yet, she could not but feel that she had made a tactical error in her disparaging statements. It had been foolish of her, she now felt, to have played the so-called ‘moral values’ card when she had always been supportive of gays and other minorities. Brenda’s unsmiling face gave her further pause as she walked back to her dressing room.

“That could have gone better,” her manager muttered as they entered the privacy of Olivia’s star dressing room.

“Thanks Brenda, that’s just what I need to hear, right now.”

“Well, you probably won’t want to hear this either, but a couple of the directors have already called saying they didn’t like your handling of the show.”

Olivia slumped deep into her chair and glared at Brenda through her dressing table mirror. “What do they know?” she snarled. “Let them do a live show and see how it comes out.”

“Olivia, it was your idea to go live—I was against it from the start, remember? Ever since you first mentioned having the Hastings broad on the show, I’ve said it was a bad idea.” She stared at Olivia through narrowed eyes. “Sometimes, maybe you should listen to me…”

“Get out, Brenda…I don’t need this crap from you, now or ever…”

“No Olivia, I won’t get out. You’re not going to push me around just to make yourself feel better. You know that was a lousy show, and you know it was a lousy idea. You just won’t admit it. It was mistimed, misguided and misman-aged. It’s time you started listening to other people. Maybe those fags were right after all…”

“That’s enough Brenda.” Olivia jumped to her feet, furious beyond reason.

“I’ll tell you who was right—Brad! He told me to get rid of you, and that’s what I’ll do if you don’t shut up this minute.”

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The two women stood glaring at one another for a long moment, then Brenda turned and slammed out of the room. Olivia drew a deep breath to steady herself. Damn, but she needed to get a grip, she thought. The show hadn’t been that bad, surely? It just hadn’t gone quite the way she had wanted it to. She poured herself a slug of Jack Daniels and threw it back, then followed it with another. That’s better…

A knock at the door made her jump. “Who is it?” she growled.

“Brad…”

“Shit,” she muttered. He’d been on about her drinking too much just that morning…Oh well, too bad. She needed a drink right now. “Come on in,” she said, sitting down at her dressing table again and starting to rearrange her hair.

Brad strode in, dropped a kiss on her shoulder, then frowned as he smelled the bourbon. “Already?” he asked, picking up the bottle.

“You saw the show?”

“Yeah…but that shouldn’t be a reason for you to be hitting the bottle…”

“Chrissakes Brad—you make it sound like I’m an alcoholic or something…”

“You’re well on the way, babe.” He propped himself against the dressing table and looked at her critically. “It’s beginning to show, too. Some of those close-ups were none too flattering.”

“Fuck you!”

“Hey, I’m just telling you for your own good. Booze, too much of it, can ruin your health and looks. It’s happened to hundreds of celebs…drugs, drink…”

“Oh, stop preaching…between you and Brenda I’m having one shit-awful day. The show was hell…that Stuart bitch trying to make me look stupid on live TV…” Her eyes filled with tears of frustration. “I need more criticism like I need a hole in the head…”

Brad pulled her into his arms and held her as she sobbed. “There, there,” he murmured, surprised at her showing such vulnerability. “You’ve survived more than this, Olivia. You’ll be just fine…”

He kissed her and, for the first time, Olivia began to be aware of how much she had come to enjoy having him around. He had filled a need in her and, imperfect though he was, it felt good to have his strong arms around her. As his hands caressed her body and she felt the hardness of his arousal pressed against her thigh, she sighed with pleasure and a certain degree of happiness.

Could it be that this was what she needed after all?

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“I’ll take care of you,” Brad whispered in her ear. “Don’t worry…”

And Olivia found herself wanting to believe him more than anything else in the world.

c h a p t e r 1 8

s

People Magazine

Report by May Coppola

The normally entertaining Olivia Winters Hour was a dead duck the other day when she aired the episode where a guest smacked her on the chops. That guest is now deceased—what say you Olivia? Just kidding. Not sure what Miss Winters was striving for by inviting some ‘experts’ to discuss the woman’s on camera meltdown, but the outcome was pretty lame…

US Weekly

Report by Shannon Delaney

There’s no doubt, guests can make or break a television talk show, and Olivia Winters sure picked a dud bunch for Wednesday’s outing. With the exception of a social worker, Alexis Stuart, no one had anything of interest to say. Amazing, when you think that the subject under discussion was a woman who had attacked Olivia on camera. It should have been a winner—actually I kind of enjoyed watching the ‘violent’ part—but what followed was boooooring. Oh, except for Miss Stuart taking Olivia down a peg or two for some tasteless remarks…

- 186 -

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Reaction to Olivia’s show was, for the most part, fairly muted. It was not the sensational and controversial show she had hoped for—and she knew that to a certain extent, she was partly to blame. It had become a ‘non-event’ instead of the high-watermark show she had intended it to be.

Many critics felt the show took an important subject and treated it in a trite and superficial manner. “Miss Winters’ interviewing technique was sorely stretched in a number of instances,” one magazine critic wrote, “and in a strange switch of character she called gays ‘deviants’ and ‘misfits’—words sure to anger some of her previous guests.”

Another critic wrote; “The only expert who demonstrated any expertise on this particular show was Alexis Stuart, a social worker, who was quick to take Miss Winters to task for her out-of-character remarks about ‘deviants and

‘misfits’. What was our formerly gracious daytime diva thinking? Sure, there will be bigots out there who agree with her, but come on Olivia…Since when did you become a paragon of virtue?”

Brad grinned at Olivia as she flung the reviews in the trash with an angry curse. “Come on, baby. All of this will be forgotten in a few days. Everybody has an off-day, once in a while.”

Olivia ground her teeth as she stared at Brad’s ruggedly handsome face.

“You don’t understand,” she muttered. “I set myself up during that show. I didn’t control what was going on. I let that Stuart dame make me look stupid—and I
was
stupid, letting my feelings get the better of me!”

“What are you talking about?” Brad looked at her, puzzled.

“Oh, a couple of gay guys pissed me off with their high-minded moralizing about having Patricia Hastings on the show in the first place. They got mad and walked out on me after I had arranged a dinner date with them. I guess I wanted to get back at them. That’s why I used those pathetic words on the show. The two words that everyone’s picked up on to make me look like some uneducated bigot!”

“Well…that maybe wasn’t too bright. You know how touchy everybody is these days…”

Olivia glared at him. “Thanks for reminding me…”

“Oh come on, babe.” He put his arms around her and pulled her to him.

“Like I said, all of it will be history in a couple of days. Just relax and forget it…”

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She squirmed a resistance for a moment then gave in to his embrace and his kiss. Neither one of them noticed that Brenda had entered the apartment and now stood staring at them from the doorway, a look of pure hatred and disgust on her face. Joyce, Olivia’s maid, jumped back into the safety of the kitchen as she caught a glimpse of Brenda standing there, so unmistakably angered by what she was witnessing.

Joyce watched through the partly open door as Brenda walked to the office and slammed the door, causing Brad and Olivia to jump apart, startled by the sudden noise.

“What’s her problem?” Joyce heard Brad ask.

Olivia shrugged. “What isn’t, these days? I gotta tell you, she is getting on my nerves big time.”

“I told you to get rid of her, didn’t I?” Brad scowled in the direction of the office door.

“I can’t get rid of her…you know that. She has too much on us—on both of us.”

“Yeah, well she wouldn’t come out of it smelling like a rose, either.”

Olivia sighed and stood up. “I’m going to take a shower…Have Joyce fix us some breakfast. I’ll be out in a few.”

Brad wandered into the kitchen to give Joyce her instructions. “Her lady-ship requests breakfast be served when she gets out of the shower,” he told the young woman, giving her a wink.

Joyce giggled. She liked Brad, and was enjoying the mellower atmosphere he had brought to the household. No doubt he was a bit of a rogue, she thought, but Olivia was a lot less crabby these days. She’d told Larry, her boyfriend, just that.

“Probably ’cause she’s getting laid regularly,” Larry had said, snidely.

“Though he must have a strong stomach to put up with her.”

“Will Miss Shapiro be joining you for breakfast?” Joyce now asked.

“God, I hope not,” Brad said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Don’t think she’s in too sweet a mood this morning from the sounds of things.”

“She did look a bit pissed when she came in.”

“That’s her normal expression, Joyce. Then there’s this one…” He pulled his face into a fierce scowl, turning the corners of his mouth down and gnashing his teeth. “And that’s when she’s in a good mood…” They both laughed then started guiltily as the kitchen door swung open and Brenda stood there, glaring at them.

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“Joyce, get me some coffee, willya? Bring it to the office.” She turned on her heel and left, without acknowledging Brad’s presence.

Brad lifted his middle finger and waved it at the kitchen door. Joyce giggled again, then quickly set about getting Brenda’s coffee ready. She knew better than to keep her waiting. If there was one person who was worse to deal with than Olivia—it was Brenda. Joyce shivered slightly as she remembered the malevolent look on Brenda’s face when she’d seen Olivia and Brad together on the couch.

“Don’t let her scare you,” Brad said gently, noticing Joyce’s trembling hand.

“She’s all bark that one.”

Joyce nodded, but secretly she was not quite sure that Brad was correct in thinking that. In her opinion, Brenda was probably the scariest person she’d ever met.

Peter looked at Anthony over the brim of his coffee mug and felt reassured that his friend was in a fairly decent frame of mind. It had been several days since his mother’s funeral, and although Peter knew Anthony was still grieving for her, he could intuit that there was a sense of relief that it was all over.

“So, how are you and Justin doing?” Peter asked, putting down his coffee cup.

“Just fine.” A flicker of a smile crossed Anthony’s face. “This will most likely sound way too mushy, but I really don’t know how I’d have made it through without him. He has been so understanding—even when things got really nasty.”

“He’s a keeper, all right…” Peter paused for a moment, then said, “I get the feeling there’s something else on your mind…”

“There you go again with that psychic stuff,” Anthony said, with a half chuckle. “You’re right…Johnny’s been handling Mom’s estate for us since she…um, since the funeral…and he came up with a couple of items that have been kinda bugging me…”

“Go on…”

“Well, there are a couple of checks of sizeable amounts that have been paid to a Reverend Fellows…”

“That charlatan?” Peter exclaimed.

“You know him?”

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“Only by reputation. He’s one of those television evangelist characters. Jeff told me he used to be really popular, then he lost a lot of credibility when he said Elmo—or some puppet or other, was gay.”

“What?” Anthony looked at Peter in amazement. “Why on earth would my mother be sending him checks?”

“Well, he was very anti-Olivia,” Peter said, remembering a conversation with Andrew. “He’s been on TV recently urging people to boycott her show.”

“Right…” Anthony thought for a moment. “That could be the connection.

My mother was most likely paying him to do just that. It seems she would have gone to any lengths to get people to listen to her.”

Peter frowned. “But getting mixed up with a flake like Jack Fellows…isn’t that a bit extreme?”

“I don’t think my mother was thinking rationally towards the end,”

Anthony sighed. “I’m afraid she would have been easily swayed by anyone who agreed with her religious beliefs.”

“And Fellows would fall into that category,” Peter mused. “According to Jeff, he’s virulently homophobic—thinks we should all be locked up and gassed.”

“Nice.” Anthony looked at Peter, a glint in his eye. “I think I just might have to pay this guy a visit.”

“Uh, Anthony…” Peter was suddenly remembering a time when he and Jeff had suspected that Anthony had visited his father’s doctor buddy—the man who had sodomized Anthony when he was a child. That doctor had ended up committing suicide. “D’you think that’s a good idea?”

“Probably not…it’ll most likely end up in a free-for-all, but it will bring me a degree of satisfaction to tell him just what I think of him and his gay-bashing doctrine.” He paused then grinned at Peter. “And I’ll ask him to return the money my mother paid him. After all, he didn’t come through, now did he?