Except for the Bones (12 page)

“Why would you ditch her? She needs you.”

“I’ve already told you: alcoholics and druggies have no free will. Therefore, they lie. They lie to themselves and they lie to everyone else. All the time. You can’t do business with liars. That’s the first rule.”

“What about Carley’s two-hundred-dollar retainer?”

“It’ll only be a hundred-twenty, after I talk to Diane.”

“Hmmm—”

He smiled at her. It was a playful smile, teasing her. During the drive from San Francisco to the Sausalito Art Fair, then on over the low, brown, sunbaked hills of Marin County to the ocean, Paula had consistently turned the conversation to Diane Cutler—and to their collaborating. Instead of being irritated, Bernhardt had discovered that, surprise, he enjoyed the joust. Why, he wasn’t sure.

“Do you want me to go with you, to talk to her?” she asked.

“No. I’ll do it. Monday. I’ll do it Monday.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” He let his smile widen languorously. It was, after all, a Saturday afternoon, one of the few off-duty Saturdays he’d allowed himself in recent weeks. They were sitting together on an old army blanket, drinking chardonnay from plastic party cups and eating French bread, salami, and Swiss cheese. They’d bought the salami and cheese presliced, but they’d forgotten to bring a knife for the bread. They’d agreed, though, that French bread tasted best torn from the loaf. Because the sky was overcast and the wind blowing in off the Pacific was cold, they wore jeans and sweaters. The beach faced the ocean squarely, unprotected by a cove. The long line of the surf broke endlessly on the sand before them, a timeless connection of the present to the past.

“We should have brought Crusher,” Paula said.

Bernhardt shook his head. “He’d just get into a fight with the first male dog he saw.”

She nodded, then sat silently, her eyes on the ocean. “I don’t think I could live anywhere that wasn’t close to the ocean,” she said. Above the constant constant crashing of the surf, Paula’s voice was soft and pensive.

“As long as I lived in Manhattan,” Bernhardt said, “we never went to the beach much. I never felt connected to the ocean. Not like here—California.”

“Really? You never went to the seashore for summer vacations? I thought that’s what New Yorkers did.” It was more than a casual question. They’d only known each other for a few months, and were still filling in the blanks.

“My grandparents had a place in the Berkshires, an old farmhouse on a few acres. That’s where we went for the summers.”

In unison, they sipped the wine as, side by side, each sitting with arms clasped about knees, they looked out to sea. Along the surf line, Paula saw a man, a woman, two small children, and two barking, frisking dogs coming toward them. As she watched, she was conscious of a void within: an awareness of a dream still unfulfilled. It was personified by the parents and their children, laughing together, touching each other. And yes, the dogs, too. The American dream incarnate.

Her dream, unfulfilled.

She was thirty-four. No husband. No children. No career, really. Except for her parents, all she had was Bernhardt. In the first case, fortune had smiled on her. Both her parents were full professors at UCLA, her mother in sociology, her father in economics. Both parents loved her, their treasured only child.

In the second case—Bernhardt—fortune had smiled again. She’d found a man to love—a man who understood her, a man who laughed when she laughed.

But she wanted more, needed more. She needed a family. She needed children.

At twenty-one, it seemed as if the world would open its arms to receive her. Just out of college, a theater arts major, she’d lived at home while she made the rounds of the studios and the talent agencies, dropping off eight-by-ten glossies.

Like Alan, she’d gotten a fast start in the acting profession. At first there’d been the walk-ons. Then, lo! she’d gotten a few lines in a few second-rate films, plus one good review for the little-theater part of Vickie in Jeff Sheppard’s
Jaguar.

But then, just a year out of college, she’d met David Bell. Her parents had warned her. Almost twice her age, twice married, with two children, David Bell was the most intriguing, most exciting man she’d ever met. A screenwriter with impressive credits, an impressive house, impressive cars, impressive big-name friends, David had asked her to marry him after they’d first made love. He’d given her a week to decide, take him or leave him—his first ultimatum. Hardly had she agreed when the misgivings began: at first the very faint tinkle of a warning bell, easily camouflaged by the excitement generated by her new life.

At the end of the first year, the tinkle was a low, persistent ringing.

Eight years later the booming of the tocsin had drowned out everything. “For God’s sake,” her father had pleaded, “let me get a lawyer. This guy’s going to destroy you. He’s a drinker and a misogynist. And you’re his target.”

So she’d called the lawyer and filed the papers. Then she’d had to get out of town.

And now she was thirty-four.

And she was in love with a wonderful man.

But the wonderful man had had a wonderful wife—a wonderful marriage. Her name had been Jennie. They’d met at college, both of them drama majors. They’d married only a year out of college; they’d both been twenty-two. They’d gone to Manhattan, where Alan had been born and where his mother had still lived. They’d begun making the rounds on Broadway and off Broadway. While he was still in college, Alan had written two plays. Incredibly, three years after he’d graduated one of them,
Victims,
had gotten produced off-Broadway; it had had a two-month run. And, yes, both Alan and Jennie had gotten walk-on parts in a few Broadway plays.

Then, after five golden years of marriage, three teenagers had mugged Jennie less than a block from their apartment. When she’d fallen, she’d hit the back of her head on a curb. She’d died on the way to the hospital.

It had happened almost fifteen years ago. But in Alan’s thoughts, Jennie had found life eternal. Never would she age; never would she be less than perfect.

Alan had talked about it only once. Strangely, perhaps, he’d told her the story of Jennie during the first hour after they’d met. It had happened after the read-through of
The Buried Child,
which he had directed at the Howell. They’d gone out for beer and sandwiches, just the two of them. Exercising his director’s prerogative, he’d wanted to know her story. Where had she acted before? How long had she lived in San Francisco? Why had she come?

She’d told him the whole story; why, she didn’t quite know. She remembered the irony: how few sentences it had taken, really, to tell the story of her life.

Then it had been his turn. He’d told her how his father had been a bombardier in World War II, and had been killed over Germany the month before Alan was born. He’d told her about his mother, the Jewish intellectual whose twin passions were modern dancing and banning the bomb. They’d lived in a Greenwich Village loft, Alan and his mother. She was an only child herself, much loved. Her father was a small clothing manufacturer; her mother played the harpsichord, mostly Bach.

And then, dispassionately, Alan had told her about Jennie, about how she’d died.

And then, still dispassionately, he’d told her the rest of the story. He’d told her that in the year following Jennie’s death, his mother had died of cancer and his grandparents had been killed in a one-car accident, probably because his grandfather had suffered a heart attack.

So, like her, he’d had to get out of town. Even though he loved New York, would always love New York, he’d had to leave. He’d—

“—happened to the fruit?” he was asking, rummaging in the picnic hamper.

“Isn’t it there?”

“No. It was in a separate sack. We probably left it in the car.” Beside the blanket, the depleted bottle of wine had been augered into the sand. Bernhardt lifted the sand-crusted bottle, examined the level of the wine. “Just enough for two glasses.” Invitingly, he lifted the bottle. As he poured the wine, he asked, “What were you frowning about, just now?”

“Was I frowning?”

He made no response. But he was searching her face, looking for the answer. Sometimes she forgot how soft his brown eyes were—and how perceptive.

Did she dare to gamble?

Did she dare to say that she wanted to be married, that she wanted to have children? Did she dare to tell him she wanted to start a family now, before the clock defeated her? Did he know how real Jennie was, to her?

The last question answered the first. No, she couldn’t gamble. Instead, lightly but meaningfully, she could say, “I was thinking about you, as a matter of fact.”

“And?”

“And I was wondering when you’re going to start writing another play.”

“Hmmm.” He was still looking directly into her face, searching for something. Did he realize that her question was a cop-out, a tactical retreat?

“Originally,” she said, “you were going to moonlight while you acted and directed—and also wrote plays. And then you left Dancer, and went into business for yourself. So then—”

“I
liberated
myself from Dancer. I hummed the “Marseillaise” for weeks after I—”

“The point is, though, that you don’t have time to act or direct, since you’re in business for yourself. That’s understandable. Rehearsals have to be scheduled, and that’s a problem, no question. But writing, you can make time for. You could write on stakeouts, I’d think. Things like that.”

“Is this really another pitch for me to put your name on the letterhead? Is that what this is all about?”

“What this is all about,” she said, “is that I care about you. I think you have a gift. I’m a fan.”

He leaned close to her, rocked his body against hers, a companionable nudge. “I’m a fan, too. Your fan.”

“Hmmm.” She nudged him in return. Then: “Don’t forget. Monday.”

“Monday?”

“That’s when you talk to Diane. Monday.”

“Hmmm.”

“I
THINK,” MILLICENT SAID
, “that we should hire private detectives. It’s been two weeks. A private detective can get access to credit card slips, and find out where she is.”

They were seated side by side on the deck, looking out across Nantucket Sound. Millicent was wearing a one-piece emerald-green bathing suit, sunglasses, and a floppy white cotton hat. With her chair tilted back, partially offsetting gravity, her breasts had never looked riper, more desirable. That night, they would make love. Nothing, he knew, disarmed a woman like sex, the more carnal the better. So when—

“—talked to Paul, just before we left New York,” she was saying. “He hasn’t heard a word from Diane.”

“Well,” he answered, “she isn’t going to starve, not unless you cancel her credit cards. And she probably isn’t going to kill herself on the highway. So what can happen to her?”

“Christ, Preston, she’s hurting. She’s my child, and she’s
hurting.”

“She’s Paul’s child, too. Let him take the duty for a while. Whenever the two of you have a fight, she threatens to go to San Francisco. Maybe that’s where she belongs. At least for a while.”

“Paul’s got his own family. And Diane doesn’t get along with Paul’s wife. You know that.”

“Diane doesn’t get along with me, either. In fact, she doesn’t get along with a lot of people. It’s time you faced it, Millie. Diane is disaffected. She’s eighteen years old, and she’s running wild. She should be in—” He caught himself.
In therapy,
he’d been about to say. But secrets came out in therapy.

Did therapists take VISA cards, American Express cards?

“In what?” she demanded. “What were you going to say?”

He lifted a hand from the arm of his chair, let it fall. “Never mind.” He turned his gaze to the beach. An hour ago, Millicent had said she’d go swimming. When she did, he would have his first chance to go into the living room, turn back the rug and pad, look at the floor. He would—

“—private detective, when we get back to the city.”

“Wh—what?” With an effort, he forced himself to concentrate. “Sorry. I was daydreaming.”

“I said, I think I
will
hire a detective. I know I’d feel better if—”

“Let’s not do it yet. Let’s give it another week.”

Above the white frames of her smoked glasses, her eyebrows came together. “But I want—”

He let his voice go flat as he said, “I want to wait, Millie.”

“But why? I don’t see why we can’t—”

“I don’t want private detectives—or anyone—poking around in our life.”

She took off the sunglasses, waited until he looked at her directly. Then, coolly: “What’re you afraid of, Preston?”

“Afraid of?” He drew a deep, deliberate breath. “In what sense?”

“Something’s bothering you. Badly. What is it?”

“If anything’s bothering me, it’s the usual—too much to be done, not enough competent people to do it, take the load off. Except for Jackie, I could fire my whole staff. I swear to God, I think any M.B.A. right out of Harvard could—”

“I’m not talking about business.” A carefully calculated pause. “Am I?”

“I don’t know.” His own pause matched hers. “Are you?”

It had been the wrong response. Millicent hated to fence, hated word games.

“Look, Millie, I—as the saying goes—I’ve had a hell of a week. So if you don’t mind, I’d rather—”

“Did you and Diane have a fight? Is that the reason she left?”

He contrived a weary smile. “I’m always having fights with Diane. So are you.”

“That’s not what I mean. The day she left, did you—?”

As if he were suddenly exasperated, he quickly cut her off: “Millie. Please. We’ve been all over this.
You
were the one that had a fight with Diane just before she took off. Yes, I saw her in the garage after she’d left you. And, yes, she told me to fuck off before she got in her car and drove off. But that’s it. Period. Another hour in the life of Diane Cutler.”

As if she accepted his rebuke, his edict, she made no response. Instead, in icy control, she put the sunglasses back in place, turned her gaze away from him, once more staring out to sea. Another long moment of heavily laden silence passed. When would he be alone long enough to fold back the rug? Should he suggest that she go into town, to shop? They’d talked about buying a painting by a local artist, good community relations. Should he suggest that she—