Bungalow 2 (12 page)

“We go to Tahoe in August. We rent a house there every year. The kids love it, and we have a good time together. Peter and I were talking about taking the kids to Europe next summer. We haven't been in years. It was too hard when the kids were small.” She felt foolish saying things like that to him. He couldn't care less about what you did with kids when they were big or small. And a rented house in Tahoe must have sounded pathetic to him, compared to a two-hundred-foot yacht on the French Riviera. The absurdity of the comparison made her laugh, as she ordered an iced tea. She was planning to work that afternoon.

“I spend two months on the boat in the South of France every year,” he said as though it were commonplace, which it was to him. “I go to Sardinia, too. It's great. And Corsica. Capri sometimes, Ibiza, Mallorca, Greece. If you take your kids over next summer, you'll have to come on the boat for a few days.” He rarely extended invitations to people with children, although it was a long way off. But how much damage could they do in a few days? He suspected hers were probably civilized. She certainly was. He assumed her family was well behaved, and he knew they were college age. He never would have invited people with young children, he assumed they'd probably get seasick anyway if he had them on board for an extended time. A weekend would be fine.

“They'd love that. I can't wait to tell them I met Ned last night, and Jean. They're going to be very impressed with me.”

“They should be.” He smiled. “I am. A lot more than with Ned and Jean,” although Tanya thought he had appeared to enjoy his conversation with her. Admittedly, Jean was a kid. She was spectacular looking but seemed young for her age. Actors seemed to lead sheltered lives in some ways. They lived in a tiny little bubble while making a movie, out of touch with the real world.

“They seem like kids,” Tanya commented as he ordered another Bloody Mary.

“They are. All actors and actresses are children. They live in cocoons, protected from reality. It's always been that way. They play dress-up and have fun. Some of them work hard. But they have no idea how the rest of the world lives. They're used to having agents and producers baby them, and shield them, and cater to their every whim. They never really grow up. The bigger they are, the more unreal it is. You'll see when you work with them. They're incredibly immature.”

“They can't all be that way,” Tanya commented with interest. They were damning statements from him, but he knew the business well.

“No. But most are. They're narcissistic and spoiled, and all about themselves. That gets old very quickly. That's why I never go out with actresses. They're way too high maintenance for me.” He looked into Tanya's eyes as he said it, and she looked away. Something about him made her uncomfortable. He always crossed some invisible boundary between them. He kept himself just out of reach, yet was always just a hair too intimate with her. Or more than a hair. Without moving an inch, he invaded her space.

They ordered lunch after that, and she asked him a number of questions about the picture, and the meetings they were having next week. She was planning on doing a final polish on the script that weekend, and there were some changes he wanted her to make. It all sounded fine to her. He was finding her easy to work with and entirely reasonable. She seemed to have very little ego about her work.

They had finished lunch by the time the conversation got personal again. It was always Douglas who brought it there. He was hungry to know more about her. He asked her about her childhood, her parents, when she had started writing. He wanted to know everything about her early life, what her dreams and disappointments were. She was surprised by the intimacy of his questions, and he volunteered nothing about himself, which didn't surprise her. He was a man who gave nothing away.

“It's all pretty ordinary,” she said comfortably. “No tragedies, no dark secrets. No serious disappointments. I was sad when my parents died, of course. But Peter and I have been very happy for twenty years.”

“That sounds pretty remarkable,” Douglas said somewhat cynically.

“I guess it is these days,” Tanya said pensively.

“It is, if it's true,” he said, looking at her, and she was annoyed at the way he examined her, as though he didn't believe what she'd said, and would see the truth in her eyes.

“Is that so inconceivable to you, that people are happily married?” It seemed lucky but commonplace to her. They knew a lot of couples in Ross who had been happily married for twenty or thirty years. A lot of their friends were, although she and Peter seemed the most solid of all. And admittedly, some of their friends had gotten divorced over the years. But many of them had remarried, and were happily married again. She lived in a wholesome little world that seemed far from here. In Douglas's world, people rarely got married, and when they did, it was often for the wrong reasons, mostly for show, power, or material gain in some way. And he knew a lot of men married to trophy women. There were no trophy wives in Marin, certainly not among the people Tanya knew.

“Both of the women I married were huge mistakes,” Douglas said conversationally. “One was a well-known actress, thirty years ago when I married her. We were both ridiculously young. I was twentyfour, just a kid starting out in the business. I wanted to be an actor then, too. I got over that very quickly. And I got over her very quickly, too. We were married less than a year. Thank God we never had kids.”

“Is she a big star now?” Tanya asked out of idle curiosity. She wondered who it had been, but didn't dare ask. She knew he'd volunteer it if he wanted her to know.

“No.” He smiled. “She never was. Pretty girl, though. She gave up acting, and married a guy from North Carolina. After she married him, I never heard from her again. I heard from a mutual friend she had four kids. She never wanted much out of life except a husband, children, and a picket fence. I think she got all three, but not from me. That wasn't my thing even then.” Tanya believed that readily from everything he had said. And he still wasn't that type now. Tanya couldn't imagine him with children.

“The second one was more interesting. She was a rock star in the eighties. A huge talent, she could have had a hell of a career.” He sounded almost wistful as he said it, and Tanya watched his eyes. She couldn't interpret what she saw there. Regret, pain, maybe grief, disappointment. That had obviously come to an end, too, since he wasn't married anymore, nor wanted to be.

“What happened to her? Did she quit the business, too?”

“No, she died in a plane crash when she was on tour. She went down with her whole band. The drummer flew the plane, and he wasn't much of a pilot. He could have been stoned. We were already divorced when she died. But I was sorry anyway. She was a sweet kid. You've probably heard her name.” Tanya was impressed when he said it. She had loved listening to her music when she was in college, and still had some old tapes. She remembered when the plane went down. It made headlines at the time. She hadn't thought of her in years, and it was odd hearing of her now in such a personal way. She could see Douglas's sadness over her in his eyes. It humanized him to Tanya. There was a soft side to him after all.

“Why was she a mistake?” Tanya asked gently. She was turning the tables on him, asking him questions this time, curious about him, just as he was about her.

“We had nothing in common. And the music scene was crazy even then. She did a lot of drugs, although she said she wasn't hooked. She wasn't an addict, just a crazy, beautiful wild girl. She claimed she sang better when she was stoned. I'm not sure it was true. But she had one hell of a voice,” he said, with a dreamy, distant look that made him look like a different person, somewhat softer and more human than he was today. Tanya wondered if she had been the love of his life, or if there was such a thing in his world. “We got divorced because we never saw each other. She was on tour nine or ten months a year. It didn't make much sense, and I was producing by then. She was a handicap for me. She got too much bad press over the way she behaved. Coke was pretty fashionable back then, or pretty common at any rate. She got arrested a few times. It didn't sit well with me.” Nor had the men she cheated on him with, but he didn't say that to Tanya. “Those were crazy years, and she was a pretty outrageous girl. I never liked being around drugs, and I still don't. It went with the territory for her. She wanted kids, too. I couldn't see myself having babies with her. I figured they'd all be drug addicts by the time they were six. That's really not my thing,” he said again. “It never was. I was too busy trying to be successful, making a living. I produced my first movies then. Having a wife in rehab or jail wouldn't have done much for my career, although it happened to plenty of people back then. I was always scared to death she'd OD. But she never did.”

“So you divorced her?” It sounded like a calculated move to Tanya. She had been bad for his career, so out she went. It was obvious what his priorities were. It sounded as though there had been more to it than that, but she didn't want to pry. It was intriguing, though. She wondered if that was why he was so closed, or if his sealed-off quality predated all that. She didn't have the impression Douglas had ever been warm or close to anyone, or if so, not in a very long time since his youth.

“Actually”—he smiled at Tanya—“she divorced me. She said I was an uptight, pretentious, arrogant, opportunistic prick. And all I cared about was money. And that was a quote. She was right, too.” He said it without guilt or apology. He had said it many times about himself ever since. “Unfortunately, all those things she mentioned are a recipe for success. You have to be all of those things to get ahead in this business, and I was very determined to make some big films. She was a star in her own right. She didn't need help from me.”

“Did that bother you?” Tanya asked, curious about what made him tick. He was a complex man.

“Yes, it did,” he answered her question. “It bothered me that I had no control over anything she did. She didn't listen, she didn't ask for advice. She never told me what was happening with the band. Half of them had been in jail for drugs at the time. It didn't hurt her in her business, but it would have in mine. People who consort with druggies don't go far in any line of work, at least not in those days. Things were still a little more uptight twenty years ago. And in those days people still believed that coke wouldn't do you a lot of harm. We've learned a lot more about it since. I think sooner or later she would have either gotten badly addicted or wound up in jail. Maybe it's better that she died.” It seemed a hard thing to say.

“Were you in love with her?” Tanya asked sympathetically. It was a sad story either way, and a waste of a young woman's life, and all those who had died with her. Tanya remembered it perfectly.

“Probably not,” Douglas answered honestly. “I don't think I've ever been in love. It's not something that I missed. Most of the time”— he smiled ruefully—“I like deals better than girls. They're easier to manage.”

“But not nearly as much fun,” Tanya chided him.

“True. I have no idea why I married her, except I think I was impressed by her at the time. She was a knockout-looking girl with a hell of a voice. I still listen to her music sometimes,” he confessed, and Tanya smiled at him. She hoped they were becoming friends.

“So do I,” Tanya added. She knew she had put away tapes from her college days, and had kept a few out to listen to occasionally.

Douglas seemed depressed by the subject, by the end of lunch. He hadn't thought of his late second wife in a long time. It was kind of a tender memory to ponder now, except for all that had led up to the divorce. Afterward she had gone to jail twice for drugs, which was unthinkable for him. He was glad he was out of it then. He could still remember his feelings of outrage at the time. She had been a lost soul, though an extremely beautiful girl. He had loved showing her off when they were married. He said she had been the closest he had ever come to a trophy wife. He had never wanted another one since then. He was a man who functioned better on his own. And in later years he had little need for companionship, except for some entertainment in his bed now and then.

He never engaged in matters of the heart. His heart was never involved in his sexual endeavors. And when he wanted a woman on his arm, he chose carefully. He liked intelligent women who were interesting company, didn't outshine him, and looked well in the press with him. They were usually major, established stars, well-known writers, the occasional married politician, or even wives of his friends who were out of town. He was interested in companionship and suitable women, not fodder for the tabloids. His reputation was that of an important man who had made a mark on the world. His love life was of no interest, even and perhaps especially to him. He would have been content to take Tanya out with him, once he got to know her better, and had thought of it the other night at his dinner party. She was interesting, intelligent, and had a good sense of humor, and she was a pretty woman. She was the perfect profile of the kind of woman he liked having on his arm. And she sparred well with him, another plus to him. In a sense, he was auditioning her as a potential companion for social events, or even as a hostess at his dinner parties. He liked everything he had seen about her so far. And their working together for the next several months would make appearances in public together seem quite benign. He didn't like being gossiped about. And Tanya looked so respectable that that seemed completely unlikely. She was the kind of woman who drew praise, not criticism.

“What are you doing this weekend?” he asked casually as their lunch came to an end.

“Going home.” She beamed. Her total delight at the prospect was evident, even to him, although he thought it somewhat silly. He didn't have a sentimental bone in his body.

“You really like all that Marin County housewife stuff, don't you?” he said, trying to shame her into admitting she didn't.

“Yes, I do,” she said happily, “especially my husband and my kids. They're the best part. My whole life is about them.”