Naked in LA (24 page)

“Maybe. I guess I’ll find that out when I get back to LA.”

I let myself out, walked back to the main street and got a cab back to the airport. I never hated myself more.

Chapter 33

When I got back to LA I drove up the coast, back to Big Sur, found the little beach where we had swum that day. It was early morning and there was fog along the beach, muting every sound. As I trudged along the tide line the seagulls took off at my approach.

I wondered where Reyes was and when he would be back. I guessed he was in Cuba. It wasn’t hard to figure why, probably running messages for the government outside official channels.

When I sat in that little flat in Miami, I swore I’d never be poor again, vowed I would do anything to drag myself out of that mess and I had, I was as good as my word. Maybe I would never be happy, but I was going to be the richest sad girl in Hollywood.

He sauntered out of the fog and skimmed a stone on the water. Then he put his hands in the pockets of his white linen suit, stood there with his hair straggling over his collar and shook his head at me. “When are you going to listen to your father, cariña?”

“He’s never going to find out, right? We can go on like nothing ever happened.”

“Of course he’s going to find out. If one of his shady little associates doesn’t tell him then Angel will. You played right into his hands.”

“What am I going to do?”

You want my advice, cariña? You can’t change what you’ve done; you can only make it better tomorrow.”

“He told Inocencia he loved me. So he’ll forgive me right?”

He grimaced. “Maybe.”

Even a ghost can lie.

The morning sun started to burn off the fog and Papi faded away too. But his advice stayed with me; yes, of course Reyes would find out. All I could do was tell him that I was sorry, promise him it would never happen again. I’d beg him if I had to. I would tell him he was right about me but that I’d learned my lesson and that I wanted him back forever. Hadn’t he said it was fate?

He had loved me from the moment he set eyes on me, he said so himself. So we could get through this one thing, right? This was just one stupid mistake, he would see that. Perhaps he even had some secrets himself. We would tell each other everything and then start over again, it would all be okay.

My new picture with Steve McQueen was getting great reviews. Sinatra had offered me the lead in his next picture. Nothing could go wrong now. From now on there would be a new Magdalena Fuentes.

Everything was going to be okay.

When I got home there was a telegram waiting for me. But it wasn’t from Havana or even from Miami. It was from right here in LA. He was already home.

The front door was open and his bags were in the hall. He was out on the pool deck, with his back to me, his feet on the balcony rail, smoking a cheroot. He had his head back, staring at the darkening sky. I ran up and threw my arms around his neck. His embrace was cool. He knew, of course he knew.

This was how I remembered him the very first time I saw him, he was wearing a dinner jacket and crisp powder blue shirt, looking like he was about to go out and play cards - or get lucky. “You’re all dressed.”

“I’m taking you out to dinner.”

I glanced at the bedroom. “But you’ve been away nearly two months. I thought perhaps we could reacquaint ourselves first.” I put my cheek next to his and softly bit his ear. I thought I was pretty clear about what I wanted.

He ignored me and went back into the house. “Get a dress on,” he said. “We’ll go to the Beachcomber.”

One of the perks of even minor stardom was to be able to show up at a restaurant unannounced and have the maitre d’ scurry off to find a table. Once, I would have had to queue for a seat by the washrooms with everyone else.

Reyes was in a belligerent mood. From the moment we sat down he ignored the menu and ordered another rum and coke with lime. Cuba Libre. Was that a clue? I braced myself for the inevitable.

“What’s the matter, princess? You look like you’ve swallowed a pigeon. Is your conscience bothering you?”

“Should it?”

“You had me followed in Miami.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I thought you were having an affair.”

“We’re not married, so even if I was, it wouldn’t be an affair.”

“Call me old fashioned.”

“I’m disappointed. I’ve always been honest with you, princess, I asked you to move in with me. I didn’t have to do that. If I was still out tomcatting, why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. How am I supposed to know anything about you? You are always going off and you never tell me where you are or what you’re doing.”

“Let’s keep it that way. It’s safer.”

When the drinks arrived he raised his glass. “So I hear congratulations are in order.”

“Thanks. It’s my first leading role.”

He raised an eyebrow. So, there was at least one thing the great Reyes Garcia didn’t know before anyone else.

“I wasn’t referring to your film career.”

“What then?” I looked him right in the eye. If he’d acted hurt I would have been on my knees begging forgiveness, but his belligerence just antagonised me.

“It’s all over town,” he said. “Either you’re having an affair with our nation’s top executive or he was interviewing you to be the next Defence Secretary. Cuba should be top of your list of “Things To Fix” if you want my advice.”

I couldn’t answer him, couldn’t remember any of the pretty speeches I’d prepared.

“You couldn’t get the richest boy in Havana, so you’re now aiming for the most powerful man in America. You never take a backward step do you?”

“Please, Reyes.”

“You still think you’re the only girl at the party and that every man wants you to fill his dance card. You’re treading dangerous ground here, princess. He has women everywhere. He’ll have one of his secretaries put you on the White House Christmas card list and that will be it, you’ll never hear from him again.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like? Tell me?”

But I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Please don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, I admire you. You worked two jobs to pay your father’s medical bills, you finagled money out of a mafia prince to bankroll your little adventure here, you got yourself a leading role in a Hollywood movie while fucking the President of the United States. I’d say you were a high achiever. But stay away from Jack from now on. European royalty don’t mind humble beginnings but the Kennedy’s only marry Ivy League. Besides, he’s already spoken for.”

“Please, don’t.”

“You know, this is the sort of thing that can end a promising career.”

“Ironically, Ted seems to think it will be good for me.”

“I wasn’t talking about him. This whole country is in love with his wife, do you not see that? I thought he would have learned his lesson after Marilyn, but there must be a self destructive streak in him, same as there is in you.”

I wanted him to forgive me, I wanted him to pretend that none of this had ever happened so we could drive out to Big Sur again and have a picnic on the sand. I wanted him to make love to me tonight in his bed with the blinds open and the cool night wind rippling the surface of the saltwater pool. I wanted to wake him up with steaming coffee and scrambled eggs with lots of pepper the way he liked them. I wanted to lie on the grass and watch the sunset with my head in his lap while he read my latest script. I wanted to watch him smoke a cheroot on the deck and hear him laugh at some stupid cartoon on the funny pages.

I took his face in my hands and made him look at me. “I love you, Reyes. I’m so desperately sorry. You have to listen to me.”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“But you don’t understand.”

“I think I do.”

“I made a mistake, Reyes.”

“Yes, you did. You’ve made several. Enough, let’s not drag this out.”

“But I mean it, I love you.”

“But I mean it - I don’t care.”

He looked so tired and so indifferent. He didn’t even look like he was listening anymore. “You can’t just stop loving someone.”

“You stopped loving Angel when you saw him for what he was. Now I know the feeling.”

“Please don’t stop loving me,” I said, but my voice was strangled and I couldn’t even be sure that he heard me.

“Princess, I loved you as much as I ever loved any woman. But I can’t risk it again. Maybe you do love me, but I tore up my rule book for you, and the rules say if you ever forgive a woman once, she’ll make you keep doing it for the rest of your life. For a moment you tempted me to change my mind about all that, but it seems that it was a good rule after all. I’ll not be made a fool for love ever again. There’s a romantic inside me and I have to beat him down before he undoes me. For God’s sake, don’t cry, princess.”

“I can’t help it.”

“If I believed that, then I really would be lost.”

“You remember that night when you showed me how to dance?”

“I remember it very well.”

“You said it’s not about knowing the steps, it’s about knowing the soul. Don’t you see my soul, Reyes?”

I saw something flicker in those dark eyes but I couldn’t decipher it. “That was then, this is now,” he said. “I’m a little older than you, princess, and I have had a lot of experience and it tells me that people don’t change, they just become more desperate.”

“But I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

“Well I guess we’re both about to find out.”

“Please don’t leave me.”

“Princess, I’m already gone.” He pushed his chair back. “I almost forgot,” he said. “I brought you back a present.”

He went back out to the car and came back in with a tattered parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. I stared at him in bewilderment.

“I was in Havana. Don’t ask me what I was doing there. But while I was there I got you this.”

I tore off the brown paper. Inside were three photograph albums. My hands started to shake. I opened the first album and there was a picture of my mother taken on the Malecón, by the sea wall, back in the early fifties. She was holding me and pointing to the camera. I supposed my father must have taken the picture.