Judith Krantz (50 page)

“Right. It was one of those crazy last-minute sort of things. If only we’d had a little notice … well, I know you’d have liked the job but you just weren’t around and I had to give them a quick yes or no.”

“You could have phoned me in New York yesterday. I could have taken the red eye, been back in plenty of time, or I could have flown directly to Detroit.” Jazz said with calm precision.

“I didn’t think of that … and the phone call came awfully late in the day, New York time. I’m really sorry Jazz, I guess that should have occurred to me, but I knew how busy you were with the Pepsi people and there was Gabe with nothing special to do—”

“Every word you’ve said is a lie.”

“Jazz, I see you’re upset, but that’s no reason to insult me!”

“Shut the fuck up, Phoebe. Are you trying to tell me that Magic would attempt to give a surprise party on the spur of the moment, considering how complicated, how damn near impossible it is to get players here from other teams all over the country?”

“You know me, Jazz, I try to rise above the unimportant details—I just look for the essential point of the job.” Phoebe tossed her blond split ends vigorously. “Even if he had been planning this in advance, he only needed a photographer yesterday. Somebody must have let him down at the last minute, is all I can imagine.”

“No possible way, Phoebe. It could never happen.
If Magic had a photographer set, he’d have had one in reserve, maybe two. Few things in life have to be as carefully planned as a surprise party, any surprise party, and certainly one like this.”

“Oh, Jazz, you’re blowing this entirely out of proportion.”

“Magic asked for me first, didn’t he Phoebe?”

“Honestly, Jazz, just because you’re a big fan …”

“He did, didn’t he? I can check it out with one phone call.”

“Oh, so what if he did, Jazz! O.K.? Are you satisfied now? Honest to God, you make me sick! Here I just got you the biggest commercial account you’ve ever had, you’re going to be making more money than anyone else has ever made on commercial print ads, and you begrudge Gabe one little job, just because you want to be at the party yourself. Talk about selfish!”

“How long ago did you throw the job to Gabe?”

“I didn’t ‘throw him’ the job—I made a career decision based on what was best for you, which, I might remind you, is the reason I’ve been so successful as your rep ever since you started in this business.”

“You made a ‘career decision’? No, Phoebe, you talked me into going to New York on an unnecessary errand. You got me out of the way so I couldn’t hear anything about the surprise housewarming until it was too late. You
gave
Gabe an assignment that Magic wanted me for, a job I’d give anything to be doing.”

“As usual, you’re overdramatizing, Jazz. You’re making more of this than it deserves because you’re seeing ghosts, the unlaid ghosts of you and Gabe.” Phoebe flung her head back and looked Jazz straight in the eye, daring her to make more of a fuss.

“What did you say?”

“You and Gabe. Do you really think I didn’t know? That’s what this childish fuss is all about, isn’t it? Not one job, not one party, but Gabe and you and the way it was between you, way back when. Poor Jazz—I had no idea that you still cared so much.”

The two women stared at each other in silence for a second, Phoebe with a small, knowing look of amusement that tried to taunt Jazz into thinking that the only way to retire from this struggle with her pride intact was to abandon it. Instead Jazz took Phoebe by her prominent shoulder bones and held the skimpy flesh steady with her fingers. Her voice was calm and low and unmistakably truthful.

“It has nothing to do with Gabe. It has to do with trust. We’re through, Phoebe. You don’t represent me anymore. I’ll send movers to clear out the studio next week. Merry Christmas.”

Jazz released Phoebe gently and walked out of the door of Mel’s studio knowing that she would never enter Dazzle again.

“More stew, Casey?” Susie Dominguez asked.

“No thanks,” he said, looking at Jazz sitting with him at the kitchen table. Red and Mike were spending a last night at Red’s house, which had been put on the market. Jazz had arrived an hour ago, in time to join him for dinner, but she’d been so choked with outrage that she hadn’t tasted the excellent lamb stew, so furious about being cheated out of her chance to photograph Magic Johnson’s Christmas housewarming that she literally hadn’t been able to stop talking about it for a minute.

“If you want my opinion,” Susie continued, finally able to break into Jazz’s monologue, “why blame the whole mess entirely on Phoebe? You’re being much too easy on that bum.”

“Gabe?”

“You know perfectly well I’ve never said his name since”—Susie glanced at Casey—“since that misunderstanding you had with him. But to my way of thinking, it’s impossible that he didn’t know exactly what it meant to you.”

“I told you, Susie, he’s not interested in basketball.”

“How long has he been back in Los Angeles?”

“I haven’t kept track,” Jazz said mulishly.

“Months?” Susie persisted.

“I guess.”

“And in all these months, working out of the same place as you, surrounded by the people who know you best, he hasn’t even heard how hooked you are on the team? You’ve never mentioned the Lakers in his hearing? Listen, Jazz, you’ve been a hero-worshiper since Magic was a rookie more than ten years ago. I don’t even follow basketball, but I feel as if the whole team grew up in my house, I even got a contact depression from you when Kareem retired, I know exactly how to pronounce Vlade Divak’s name, I hear about it every time A. C. Green gets a haircut, not to mention the wonders of gravity defying Orlando Woolrich, bicep-and-tricep king of the NBA, and I try not to pay attention, because, as I keep telling you, football’s my game, but I’d have to be deaf for it not to sink in. Casey? Has Jazz ever mentioned the Lakers to you?”

“Constantly. Do you want to know how many triple-doubles Magic and Worthy have this season?”

“No thanks, I’m aware of them. Now let’s say that someone asks you to be the official photographer at Magic’s party—wouldn’t you absolutely have to at least wonder if that wasn’t a job that should go to Jazz?”

“Susie, stop badgering Casey. He doesn’t have to have an opinion on this. We’re not taking a vote here.”

“I’d know,” Casey said. “I wouldn’t wonder, I’d know.”

“But Gabe wasn’t told about the job until the last minute,” Jazz objected. “Phoebe set the whole thing up.”

“How could she have counted on that bum being around and available?” Susie asked. “If he really didn’t know about it, he might have gone out of town for Christmas. Then Phoebe would have had to turn the Lakers down, and they’d have used another photographer. She’d have lost her rep’s fee, which would
be cutting her own throat. So, according to your own reasoning, when Magic asked for you and she gave it to that bum, it must have been a sure thing, set up a long time in advance.”

“Good God, Susie, you sound like Agatha Christie,” Jazz objected vehemently. “You should have been a rep yourself.”

“Insults so soon, and the weekend hardly started.”

“I’m sorry, Susie—I should stop talking about it. At least Bill Laimbeer won’t be invited either. I’ll put it behind me. Sorry to be so boring. I’ll see the pictures in the newspapers.”

“You just don’t want to blame him,” Susie insisted rebelliously. “You still buy his line.”

“Damn it, Susie, stop nagging at me!” Jazz jumped up from the kitchen table, turned on her heel and took off in the direction of the living room.

“Now I’ve gone and done it,” Susie said to Casey after a minute’s remorseful silence. “I made her feel even worse. But that bum—between us, that bum’s strictly a no-good son of a bitch!”

“Mike told me about Gabe,” Casey said.

“Then you understand my feelings. How she can even talk to him after what he did, I’ll never understand.”

“Susie, aren’t you being … overprotective? Their romance, or whatever you want to call it, took place more than ten years ago. Weren’t they allowed to fall in love and fall out of love just like other people do?”

“Sure. When Jazz went away with him, that’s what I told Mr. Kilkullen. I said all the kids are doing stuff like that, you’ve got to accept it. But when they were planning to get married and Mr. Kilkullen flew over to Paris and then came back almost before he’d left, with poor Jazz—looking like she’d never recover
—deserted by that bum the night before the wedding
—no! That’s where I drew the line. Nobody can do that to my girl! That’s not falling out of love, Casey, that’s unforgivable.”

“Mike never actually said they were planning to get married.” Casey spoke slowly.

“That’s not the sort of thing I get wrong, Casey. I don’t know how long it took Jazz to get over that louse.”

“Maybe she never did.”

“Who knows? What a family! How about some cherry pie, as Agent Cooper would say.”

Casey joined Jazz, who was deep in thought in front of the fire. He could see from her brooding expression that she hadn’t been able to take her own advice and put the matter behind her. Her face was pale with fatigue, she obviously hadn’t thought about touching her makeup since she’d left Mel’s studio, and her eyes were tight with unshed tears. He imagined that she’d looked like this when she’d been a little girl and someone had hurt her feelings but she’d refused to cry. He felt that he knew things about her that no one had ever told him, least of all Jazz. Had she always been so proud, so defended, so difficult to reach, so burdened with memories? He had to make her smile.

“Would you like to hear me sing again?” Casey offered. “I know the lyrics and music to everything Rodgers and Hart ever wrote—also Harold Arlen, the Gershwins—anything Ella Fitzgerald can sing divinely, I can sing badly.”

“You’re being very sweet.” Jazz looked up and really noticed him for the first time that evening. “The multitalented Casey Nelson, snappy dresser, Cow Boss and occasional troubadour.”

“I can tell you’re not in the mood for music. Would you like to play two-handed solitaire? Saddle up a couple of horses and go for a moonlight ride? Play spin-the-bottle?”

“Nope.”

“We could go to the Swallows and trade the world’s oldest dirty jokes.
Muy atmosférico
. We could watch television—I’d let you flip the channels. Or we could take a hot bubble bath. My tub is plenty big enough for two.”

“Nope.”

“We could trim the tree.”

“It’s all trimmed. Who did it?”

“Red, Mike, Susie … I strung the lights.”

“Oh, you sucker,” Jazz said mockingly. Casey felt triumph. Mockery was close to smiling.

“They saw me coming,” Casey admitted. “Next year I’m going to get new lights.”

“Next year you won’t be here.”

“Right.”

“You’d really forgotten, hadn’t you?”

“Yeah, I was thinking of something else.”

“How come you didn’t go home for Christmas?” Jazz asked.

“It seemed like too long a flight for just a weekend,” Casey replied.

“Too long for a four-day weekend? Wouldn’t Dad give you any extra time on either end?”

“I didn’t ask—figured I’d better stay here. A Cow Boss should be constantly available, like a gynecologist. Come on, Jazz, let’s go and poke around in the archives. There are some photographs of yours I’d like to look at again.”

“You’ve finally made the right offer,” Jazz said, with determination to change her mood. She unwound herself from the depths of the chair in which she’d been huddled as Casey tried to get her to cheer up. “I’ll go and brush my hair and splash some water on my face and I’ll join you there—Dad said you had a key.”

A few minutes later they sat on the bench beside the long wooden table, opening a portfolio of Jazz’s photographs from 1976, the year Jazz was fifteen.

“Those five little kids are Fernanda’s boys and Valerie’s girls,” Jazz explained. “Heidi, Fernanda’s youngest, wasn’t born yet. They were here for a few weeks during that summer and I never stopped taking pictures of them. There’s nothing like shooting kids before they’re old enough to be self-conscious. You’ll meet them all on Sunday, when all the family descends
on us, but you’ll never be able to recognize them from these shots.”

“I saw them at the Fiesta, all but Heidi—but I was a little confused that night.”

“You were a perfect asshole that night!” Jazz smiled at last, and Casey shoved the portfolio gently out of his way. He was going to seduce this foul-mouthed, sad, magnificent, obstinate, antic girl under any roof in the world including the Sistine Chapel, he thought as he began to slide toward her on the bench.

“Anyway,” Jazz continued, “Sam will be meeting them for the first time. I pray that the girls don’t act too impressed, but that’s probably too much to hope for. Fernanda, of course, can be trusted to make an utter fool of herself.”

“Sam?” Casey’s progress along the bench halted.

“I felt sorry for him, all alone at Christmas, homesick for Australia, so I invited him for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

“That was thoughtful of you.”

“It seemed like the decent thing to do,” Jazz answered with what seemed to Casey to be a smug, shifty, self-satisfied look. He closed the portfolio and went over to the shelves on which all the others were ranged by the hundreds. He fumbled as he returned it to its place, stunned by the emotion he felt. At random he started poking around among the portfolios, his back to Jazz, afraid that if he turned to face her, she’d be able to read the jealousy he knew must be visible on his face, a jealousy he had no right to feel. No right at all.

“Come on, let’s see something from—I know—1910, before World War I,” Jazz commanded, as she had once conjured up past worlds from her father after dinner, and lived for hours in Hugh Kilkullen’s photographs.

“Let’s see … 1910 … that should be on the top shelf,” Casey said, relieved by the distraction. He searched at length for the 1910 portfolio, and as he finally pulled it out, he noticed another portfolio that
had slipped down behind the shelf and had become wedged in behind the many albums that covered the wartime period at the ranch. It was not green, like the others, but brown and almost invisible against the wood. He would never have noticed it if he hadn’t been deliberately taking longer than he needed so that no trace of his jealousy would remain for Jazz to read. “Look, Jazz, here’s a lost sheep.” He put it on the table in front of her. “Have you ever seen this before? It doesn’t seem to belong with the others.”