Dreams Are Not Enough (39 page)

“Smooth and on time,” she said, smiling.

“It’s good to be back in warm weather.”

He took the free chair, which was next to hers. Conscious of the gravitational pull, she leaned slightly in the opposite direction.

“Before you people get down to creative talk,” PD said, “we need to iron out a few details about the business end.”

“The backers?” Hap said.

“Meadstar. You already checked them out.

What’s up? “

“When I came to you with the The Baobab Tree, did I have to sell you?”

“It’s a brilliant script.”

“A project of this scope requires fat financing.”

“What are you trying to say?” Hap asked.

PD ran the bottle over his sweating forehead.

“We needed to find a backer with major bucks.”

“Quit the waffling, PD,” Hap snapped.

“Meadstar is Robert Lang.”

“Long!”

“You think every shmegegge who wants to be in showbiz can come up with twenty-five mil?”

Hap was on his feet. Leaning across Maxim’s desk, he asked in the quiet tone that meant he was furious, “You knew about Lang?”

“It’s like this, older brother,” Maxim replied.

“I’m not the latter-day Father Damien.”

“Cut the sarcasm. Well?”

“Lacking your altruistic faith in humanity, I investigate before signing a contract.”

“So you did know. And never said a word.” Hap’s eyes narrowed.

“Why should I? As you just pointed out, the script’s brilliant.”

“You and PD are both aware I don’t work for guys like Lang.”

“You already did,” Maxim said, glancing at the poster for Transformations.

“Or have these many full moons revirginated you?”

A muscle twitched at Hap’s jaw, and he turned to Alyssia.

“Did you know?”

“I never heard the name Meadstar until last night. When I asked Irving if he knew the company, he said no, but it sounded like Nevada—Lake Mead.” She hesitated.

“I took it from there.”

“I see,” he said, his face expressionless.

“Maxim, any number of top directors’ll be interested in a film of this caliber. You’ll have no problem replacing me.”

PD ran his fingers through his hair and the moist, black strands stood up.

“You mean you’re walking?”

“That’s the general idea.”

“You and your impossibly high moral standards!” PD cried.

“I’m hardly the only person in America who refuses to do business with drug pushers.”

“It’s too late for the ethics shit,” PD said.

“For Christ’s sake, the contracts are signed!”

“You always put in escape clauses.”

“Be serious!” PD was shouting.

“Nobody steps into the ring with guys like Robert Lang.”

“You do business with him often?” Hap inquired.

“Transformations.”

“And?” Hap prodded.

“You don’t know how iffy financing has gotten nowadays,” PD said defensively.

“How often?” Hap persisted.

“Okay, have me excommunicated. I’ve put together five—no six packages with Meadstar as an element.”

“Then by now you’ve learned how to explain a situation like this to Lang,” Hap said.

He walked out of the office, quietly closing the door.

Alyssia rose to her feet. The pressure against her chest was faintly reminiscent of an attack; her thighs felt spongy. PD and Maxim were staring at her. Following Hap would be tantamount to an open confession of everything she still felt for him, and her formidable pride rose up against such exposure. Yet her feet were moving.

“Are you crazy, too?” PD cried.

“Alyssia”

She shut the door, diminishing the sound of his voice to a gnat’s buzz.

Hap stood by the water cooler, his head bent. As she emerged, he looked up.

“Big exits,” she said breathily.

“Why’re you leaving?”

“I’m on your side.”

“Oh?” Again that polite wariness.

“I told you. I was shocked as you about Lang.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to bow out.”

Her knees wobbled.

“I feel a bit shaky is all,” she murmured.

“I’m sorry.” Opening a door, he said, “Come in and sit down.”

His office was as dun-drab as Maxim’s, lacking even the spartan decoration of old posters.

He pulled out the chair facing the desk (even in her wooziness, she noted it was unadorned by a photograph of Madeleine) and she sank gratefully down.

“Let me get you something to drink?”

“Water, please.”

He went outside to the water cooler. She sipped the restorative liquid. They were silent until she set down the Dixie cup.

“That’s better,” she said, her voice still a bit tremulous.

“Sure you’re okay?”

She nodded.

“I can’t seem to remember my line, but it goes something like, ” Lang’s dangerous to fool around with. ”” “I agree. You definitely ought to stay on the film. My decision, though, is made.” He pulled back his chin, a slight but well-remembered gesture meaning he was adamant.

“Hap … you’ve done so few movies lately.”

“I’ve been looking for projects.” He spoke rapidly.

“I don’t need to explain the piles of garbage I waded through before I came to this.

The role’s tailored for you. “

“Is it?”

He tapped his pen on a Filmex program.

“You know it is.”

“I’ve never read the script,” she said.

“But … but PD said you flipped over it.”

“He didn’t give me a copy until this morning.” She patted her Gucci carryall.

“It’s in here.”

“Are you saying you signed without any idea of The Baobab Tree’s basic concept?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“You never used to let PD pick your scripts.”

Her cheeks were hot.

“He told me you’d agreed to direct.”

At a burst of feminine voices and laughter, she looked at the window.

A trio of happy, gesturing, middle-aged women, possibly secretaries, were passing. Composing her face, she turned back to Hap.

He was gazing down at his hands. She couldn’t see his expression but his posture denoted acute embarrassment.

“Enough confessions for the day,” she said lightly.

“May I use your phone? Roscoe’s going to pick me up here—I’m staying with Beth.”

“Jesus, poor Beth,” Hap said.

After Alyssia finished her call, Hap sent out for donuts and iced coffee. They ate at his desk and talked. Alyssia did not bring up The Baobab Tree or Robert Lang.

It was difficult not to stare at Hap, but she managed to chat with him in a reasonably normal tone. The only thing worse than being with him, she thought, is not being with him.

As Alyssia stepped into the Golds’ front hall, she felt smothered by the silence. Clarrie was napping, Beth lunching for charity, and Juanita had gone to Disneyland with Salvador Cardenas, a widower with whom she had been friendly since North Hollywood days. Alyssia raced up the wide, circular staircase, swift as a child. Kicking off her shoes as she dropped the now unnecessary script on the bedside table, she sprawled on the custom-quilted spread.

She gave herself up to intolerable embarrassment. How could she have confessed her never dormant involvement to Hap? And let PD and Maxim in on it, too? What a poor, pathetic masochist she was!

In the midst of her self-flagellation, her mind took the peculiar lurch that she knew meant she was dozing off. Been sleeping a lot the last couple of weeks. , she thought as she dropped into heavy slumber.

A discreet jangle woke her. She toppled the script to the floor as she groped for the phone.

“Miss del Mar?” said the soft masculine voice.

“Robert Lang here.”

Fully awake, she jerked to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Alias Meadstar,” she said tartly.

“It’s one of my corporations, yes. PD told me you left the meeting when you found out.”

“I don’t like games,” she said.

“First of all let me assure you that I have no intention of holding you to any contract that you consider onerous.”

“Good,” she said.

“I’m flying back to France at the end of the week.”

As she spoke, she saw that the spur-of-the moment decision was a perfect retreat from her humiliation.

“I’m releasing you from your obligation,” he went on, “because I feel I owe you something for your work on Transformations.” There was only generosity and respect in his soft voice, yet a chill settled between her shoulders.

“I did the film for PD,” she said.

“Nevertheless I earned far more from it than I had anticipated. Miss del Mar, I attempt to be absolutely fastidious in my business affairs.

I expect others to behave in the same manner. “

“Oh oh—that sounds ominous.”

“Mr. Cordiner signed a contract to direct.”

“He liked the script.”

“Possibly. However, he had turned it down twice before he was informed that you’d agreed to star.”

She gasped, incapable of believing what Lang had told her. If it were true, why hadn’t Hap said something when she’d unbosomed herself?

Lang was saying, “… hoping that you can convince him to remain on the film.”

“He doesn’t direct often nowadays. If he says he doesn’t want to do it, he means it.”

“Miss del Mar, as I just told you, I’m scrupulous in my own dealings.

And I use whatever means are available to me to insure that others behave in the same manner. Mr. Cordiner has a valid contract with Meadstar. I’m suggesting—suggesting strongly—that you convince him not to back away from his commitment. “

Just as the phone went dead, Clarrie shrieked, a cry somehow the more disturbing for being muted by the nursery fire door Alyssia tensed for a second yell, but there was only the muffling silence.

That night the Golds took her to Ma Maison, where the booths were dark and the diners sophisticated enough not to gawk at celebrated faces.

Her mind in a turmoil about the morning’s contretemps and the afternoon’s telephone call, she made a remarkably poor dinner companion.

Back at the house, she was surprised to find Juanita watching TV in her room—Juanita waited up only to help her out of some problematic ally fastened gown.

“How was Disneyland?” Alyssia asked.

“Great….” Juanita’s beautiful eyes sparkled, and she looked no more than five years older than her chronological age.

“Alice, Sal wants me to move in with him.”

Salvador Cardenas, a retired mailman, a short and prim widower, from his manner and appearance would be the last man to live the swinging new mores. Alyssia dropped her red mink and it slithered onto the carpet.

Juanita laughed excitedly.

“Shocked you, didn’t I?”

“Yes. Totally. I thought you guys were, like they say, just friends.”

Juanita bent to pick up the fur.

“Not anymore. He spent the day making plans for the two of us.”

“He really does have it bad,” Alyssia said.

“I’ll ask Barry to send the things you left in France.”

“Sounds like somebody’s trying to get rid of me.”

“Oh, Nita, stop teasing. You know I’ll miss you like cuhrazy,” Alyssia said, hugging the sister who had given her childhood all that it had known of love. As they pulled apart, she couldn’t hide her tears.

“Alice, look, if you need me, say the word. I’ll tell Salvador the deal’s off.”

“I’m just happy for you.” Alyssia blew her nose.

More than anything she longed to go over the day’s events with Juanita—a good talk would act as a cathartic to free her both of humiliation and fear—but she knew that if she mentioned Robert Lang, Juanita would remained glued to her side. How could she kill this long-overdue romance?

After Juanita left, Alyssia stared into the cricket-haunted darkness, unable to sleep. What would Lang do if Hap continued to refuse to direct? / use whatever means are available to me. Switching on the bedside lamp, she opened her blue brocade address book, dialing the most recent number penciled under Hap’s name.

After several rings the phone was answered by Madeleine’s sleepy but irate voice.

“Hello? Hello? Who is this?”

Without speaking, Alyssia hung up.

At ten after eight the next morning she was dialing again. This time the phone was answered on the first ring.

“Hap Cordiner.”

“It’s me, Alyssia. We have to talk. Lang called” — “He phoned you? The bastard phoned you? Did you explain you were quitting?”

“That’s what we need to go over.”

“Was that you last night?”

“Last night?” she inquired, then that infuriating inability to lie to Hap jabbed at her. She mumbled, “Yes, me.”

“How about breakfast?”

With a restaurantful of people watching her embarrassment as she attempted to convince him?

“Eat first and I’ll meet you. Tell me approximately how long you’ll be, and I’ll be walking up Delfern.”

“Say ten minutes.”

That meant he was leaving now. She brushed her teeth, hastily pulled a comb through her tumbled black hair and yanked on a white jogging suit. In the upstairs hall she heard a series of Clarrie’s yells;

downstairs she heard Beth and Irving’s conversation. The last thing she needed now was Barry’s sister and brother-in-law asking questions.

She edged quietly out of the library’s sliding glass door.

An op aline mist hugged the garden, fading the greens to tender grays.

She hurried down the long, brick drive, pressing various buttons on the massive ironwork electric gate that guarded Clarrie’s privacy and Irving’s art collection.

She started along the rustic road, halting as a car slowed to park against a long hedge—there were no sidewalks here. In the fog she couldn’t properly make out the emerging driver, but his height told her it was Hap.

He waved, trotting to her. Gripping her arm, he asked, “What did Lang say?”

“That you’d signed a contract and he expects people to keep their commitments.”

“What about your commitment?”

“He’s not holding me. He feels he owes me one. For doing Transformations.”

“He wasn’t threatening you, then?”

“Not me, no. But he’s serious about you.”

Hap released her arm, and without discussion they began walking away from Sunset in the direction of North Faring Road and the mist shrouded hills.