Genuine Lies (20 page)

Heredity had been kind enough that she had required only minor tucks and lifts to maintain her ingenue image. She still wore her honey-blond hair in the short, boyish style that had been copied by millions of women during her heyday. Her gamine face was offset by huge and guileless blue eyes.

The press adored her—she made sure of it. Always, she had graciously granted interviews. A press agent’s dream, she had been generous with pictures of her one and only wedding, had shared anecdotes and snapshots of her children.

She was known as a loyal friend, a crusader of the right charities, Actors and Others for Animals being her current project.

In the rebellious sixties, mainstream America had placed Gloria on a pedestal—a symbol of innocence, morality, and trust. They had kept her there, with Gloria’s help, for more than thirty years.

In their one and only film together, Eve had played the carnivious older woman who had seduced and betrayed the innocent and long-suffering Gloria’s weak-willed husband. The roles had capped the image for each. Good girl. Bad woman. Oddly enough, the actresses had become friends.

Cynics might say the relationship was aided by the fact that they had never been forced to compete for a role—or for a man. It would have been partially true.

When Eve strolled into Chasen’s, Gloria was already seated, brooding over a glass of white wine. There weren’t many who knew Gloria well enough to see past the placid expression to the dissatisfaction beneath. Eve did. It was, she thought, going to be a long afternoon.

“Champagne, Miss Benedict?” The waiter asked after the women had exchanged quick cheek pecks.

“Naturally.” She was already reaching for a cigarette as she sat and gave the waiter a slow smile as he lighted it for her. It pleased her to know she was looking her best after her morning session. Her skin felt firm and taunt, her hair soft and sleek, her muscles limber. “How are you, Gloria?”

“Well enough.” Her wide mouth tightened a little before she lifted her glass. “Considering how
Variety
gutted my new movie.”

“The bottom line’s the box office line. You’ve been around too long to let the opinion of one snot-nosed critic worry you.”

“I’m not as tough as you.” Gloria said it with the hint of a superior smirk. “You’d just tell the critic to—you know.”

“Get fucked?” Eve said sweetly as the waiter placed her champagne on the table. Laughing, she patted his hand. “Sorry, darling, not you.”

“Eve, really.” But there was a chuckle in Gloria’s voice as she leaned closer.

The prim little girl caught giggling in church, Eve thought with some affection. What would it be like, she wondered, to actually believe your own press?

“How’s Marcus?” she asked. “We missed you both at the benefit the other night.”

“Oh, we were sorry to miss it. Marcus had the most vile headache. Poor dear. You can’t imagine how difficult it is, being in business these days.”

The subject of Marcus Grant, Gloria’s husband of twenty-five years, always bored Eve. She made some noncommittal noise and picked up her menu.

“And the restaurant business has to be the worst,” Gloria went on, always ready to suffer her husband’s woes—even when she didn’t understand them. “The health department’s always snooping around, and now people are crabbing about cholesterol and fat grams. They don’t take into account that Quick and Tasty’s practically fed middle-class America single-handedly.”

“The little red box on every corner,” Eve commented, describing Marcus’s fast-food chain. “Don’t worry, Gloria, health conscious or not, Americans will always go for the burger.”

“There is that.” She smiled at the waiter. “Just a salad, tossed with lemon juice and pepper.”

The irony of that would escape her, Eve thought, and ordered chili. “Now …” Eve picked up her glass again. “Tell me all the gossip.”

“Actually, you head the list.” Gloria tapped her short clear-coated nails against the wineglass. “Everyone’s talking about your book.”

“How satisfying. And what do they say?”

“There’s a lot of curiosity.” Stalling, Gloria switched from wine to water. “More than a little resentment.”

“And I was hoping for fear.”

“There’s that too. Fear of being included. Fear of being excluded.”

“Darling, you’ve made my day.”

“You can joke, Eve,” she began, then clammed up as the bread was served. She broke off a corner of her roll, then crumbled it in her plate. “People are worried.”

“Specifically?”

“Well, it’s no secret how Tony Kincade feels. Then I heard that Anna del Rio was muttering about libel suits.”

Eve smiled as she slathered butter on a roll. “Anna’s a delightful and innovative designer, God knows. But is she so stupid to believe the general public cares what she snorts in the back room?”

“Eve.” Flushed and embarrassed, Gloria gulped her wine. Her gaze darted nervously around the room as she checked to see if anyone could hear. “You can’t go around saying things like that. I certainly don’t approve of drugs—I’ve done three public service announcements—but Anna’s very powerful. And if she uses a bit now and then, recreationally—”

“Gloria, don’t be any more stupid than necessary. She’s a junkie with a five-thousand-dollar-a-day habit.”

“You can’t know—”

“I do know.” For once Eve was discreet enough to pause as the waiter returned to serve their food. At her nod, their glasses were refilled. “Exposing Anna might save her life,” Eve continued, “though I’d be lying if I claimed to have any altruistic motive. Who else?”

“Too many to count.” Gloria stared at her salad. As she did for any role, she had rehearsed this lunch for hours. “Eve, these people are your friends.”

“Hardly.” Her appetite healthy, Eve dug into the chili. “For the most part, they are people I’ve worked with, attended functions with. Some I’ve slept with. As for friendship, I can count on one hand the people in this business I consider true friends.”

Gloria’s mouth moved into the pout that had charmed millions. “And do you count me?”

“Yes, I do.” Eve enjoyed another spoonful before she spoke again. “Gloria, some of what I’ll say will hurt, some might heal. But that’s not the point.”

“What is the point?” Gloria leaned forward, her big blue eyes intense.

“To tell my story, all of it, no wavering. That includes the people who have walked in and out of that story. I won’t lie for myself or for anyone.”

Reaching out, Gloria clamped her fingers around Eve’s wrist. Even that move had been practiced, but in rehearsal Gloria’s fingers had been soft and pleading. In the performance
they were strong and urgent, hardened by genuine emotion. “I trusted you.”

“With good cause,” Eve reminded her. She’d known it was coming, was sorry it couldn’t be avoided. “You had no one else to go to.”

“Does that give you the right to take something so private, so personal, and destroy me with it?”

With a sigh, Eve used her free hand to lift her drink. “As I tell the story, there will be people and events that interlink, that will be impossible to delete. If I left one part out to protect one person, the whole business collapses.”

“How could what I did all those years ago have possibly affected your life?”

“I can’t begin to explain,” Eve murmured. There was a pain here, a surprising one, one the medication wouldn’t touch. “It will all come out, and I hope with all my heart you’ll understand.”

“You’ll ruin me, Eve.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you really believe that people will be shocked or appalled by the fact that a naive twenty-four-year-old girl who fell unwisely in love with a manipulative man chose to have an abortion?”

“When that girl is Gloria DuBarry, yes.” She snatched her hand back. It hovered by the wine a moment, then veered toward the water. She couldn’t afford to get sloppy in public. “I made myself an institution, Eve. And dammit, I believe in what I’ve come to stand for. Integrity, innocence, old-fashioned values and romance. Do you know what they’ll do to me if it comes out that I had an affair with a married man, had an abortion, all the while I was filming
The Blushing Bride?”

Impatient, Eve pushed aside the chili. “Gloria, you’re fifty-five years old.”

“Fifty.”

“Christ.” Eve yanked out a cigarette. “You’re loved and respected—all but canonized. You have a wealthy husband who—lucky you—isn’t in the movie business. You have two lovely children who have gone on to live very tidy, very normal lives. Some people probably believe they were conceived immaculately,
then found under a cabbage leaf. Does it really matter at this stage—when you are an institution—if it’s revealed that you actually had sex?”

“In the bounds of marriage, no. My career—”

“You and I both know that you haven’t had a decent part in over five years.” Gloria bristled, but Eve held up a hand for silence. “You did good work, and will do more yet, but the business hasn’t been the focus of your life for quite some time. Nothing I can say about the past is going to change what you have now, or will have.”

“They’ll slap my face on all the tabloids.”

“Probably,” Eve agreed. “It might just get you an interesting part. The point is, no one is going to condemn you for facing a difficult situation and making something of the rest of your life.”

“You don’t understand—Marcus doesn’t know.”

Eve’s brow shot up in surprise. “Why the hell doesn’t he?”

The pixie faced flushed, the guileless eyes hardened. “Damn you, he married Gloria DuBarry. He married the image, and I’ve made certain that image has never been marred. Not even a whiff of scandal. You’ll ruin that for me. You’ll ruin everything.”

“Then I’m sorry. Truly. But I don’t feel responsible for the lack of intimacy in your marriage. Believe me, when I tell the story, it will be told honestly.”

“I’ll never forgive you.” Gloria plucked her napkin off her lap and tossed it on the table. “And I’ll do anything and everything to stop you.”

She made her exit dry-eyed, petite and elegant in her white Chanel suit.

Across the room a man lingered over his lunch. He’d already taken half a dozen pictures with his palm-size camera and was satisfied. With any luck, he would finish his day’s work and get home in time to watch the Super Bowl.

Drake watched the game alone. For once in his adult life he didn’t want a woman within arm’s reach. He didn’t want any
pouty blond sprawled on his sofa sulking because he paid more attention to the game than to her.

He watched from the game room of his cedar and stone home in the Hollywood Hills. The big-screen TV where the teams had already kicked off and received dominated one wall. Surrounding Drake were the adult toys he used to compensate for those his mother had denied him during childhood. A trio of pachinko machines, a billiard table, a bronze-backed basketball hoop, state of the art in pinball, arcade, and sound systems. His library of videotapes topped five hundred, and there was a VCR in every room of the house. A guest would be hard put to find reading material other than racing forms or trade magazines, but Drake had other entertainment to offer.

In the room beyond, sexual toys were stacked—from the sublime to the ridiculous. He’d been taught from an early age that sex was a sinful thing, and had long since decided in for a penny, in for a pound. In any case, a few visual aids increased his appetites.

Though he had only a passing taste for drugs himself, he kept a stash of pills and powders to trot out if a party threatened to become dull. Drake Morrison considered himself a conscientious host.

He’d refused more than a dozen Super Bowl parties for that Sunday. To him, it wasn’t a game flickering on the screen, something to be enjoyed and hooted over with friends. It was life and death. He had fifty big ones riding on the outcome, and couldn’t afford to lose.

Before the first quarter had ended, he’d gulped down two Becks and a half bag of chips dripping with guacamole. With his team up by a field goal, he relaxed a little. His phone rang twice, but he let his machine do the talking, convinced it was bad luck to leave his perch even to urinate during the game, much less to answer the phone.

Two minutes into the second quarter and Drake was feeling smug. His team was holding the line like bulls. Personally, he detested the game. It was so … physical. But the need to bet was unrelenting. He thought of Delrickio and smiled. He would pay the Italian bastard back, every
penny. He wouldn’t have to sweat when he heard the cool, polite voice over the phone.

Then maybe he’d take a quick winter vacation. Down to Puerto Rico to play in the casinos and fuck a few high-class broads. He’d deserve it after pulling himself out of this hole.

With no help from Eve, he thought and reached for a fresh beer. The old bitch refused to lend him another dime—just because he’d had a run of bad luck. If she knew he was still dealing with Delrickio … Well, he didn’t have to worry there. Drake Morrison knew how to be discreet.

Anyway, she didn’t have any right being so tight-assed with her money. Where the hell was it going to go after she croaked? All she had were her sisters, and she didn’t have any use for them. That left Drake. He was her only blood tie, and he’d spent his entire adult life knotting himself around her neck.

He was brought back to the game with a thud when the tight end on the opposing team sprinted thirty-five yards for a touchdown.

He felt his little bubble burst—as if a balloon had lodged then exploded in his throat. And reached for another handful of chips. Crumbs scattered over his shirt and lap as he stuffed them into his mouth. Didn’t matter, he told himself. It was only a three point spread. Four, he corrected himself, wiping his hand across his mouth as the kick sailed through the posts.

He’d get it back. There was plenty of time.

In his beach house in Malibu, Paul huddled over his keyboard. The book was giving him trouble—more than he’d expected. He was determined to get past his current block. He often looked at writing that way. One wall to scale after the next. He didn’t enjoy it—and it was the greatest pleasure of his life. He hated it and loved it in much the same way he’d learned some men felt about their wives. Writing a story was something he had to do—not for the money; he had plenty— but in the same way he had to eat or sleep or empty his bladder.