No Way Home (15 page)

She was pedaling along, scarcely watching where she was going. She didn’t really need to pay attention. She had lived her whole life in this town and she knew the way to the Millraney farm by heart anyway. They had been there a few times, she and Grayson. Each moment she had spent there glowed like burnished gold in her memory.

The first time she hadn’t wanted to go there, but Grayson convinced her it was okay. Nobody was living there. It was a property that Grayson’s father had for sale. Old man Millraney had died and his only heir was a nephew in Chicago who just wanted to be rid of the place. But nobody wanted to buy it because it was old and in bad condition. All the furniture and years of accumulated belongings were still in it. You didn’t even need a key to get inside, Grayson told her. And he was right.

Allene felt as if she was pedaling through sorghum, so leaden did her heart and limbs feel as she rode along. Maybe there will be no one there, she told herself. Maybe you are blowing this whole thing out of proportion. You hear that he is talking to a pretty girl and the next thing you know you’ve already condemned him. She put on the brakes and wobbled to a halt. She balanced on one leg along the roadside, the other leg still on the pedal. If you just go home now, maybe everything will be all right. She stood there for a moment, staring, unseeing, across the road at the crisp brown ribbons of leaves that rustled on the dried-up cornstalks.

She had to know for certain, so she got back on the bike and rode on. She came to a bumpy, narrow road and pedaled past a large, empty field. Around the next bend was the old farmhouse. The last rays of the afternoon sunlight streaked the gabled roof and glinted off the dusty windows of the old place. Behind the house was a barn with a hole in its roof and a weathered split-rail corral. Not far from the back door of the house was an old stone well. The first time Grayson brought her here he had given her a penny and told her to make a wish. And then he had whispered what he wished for in her ear. It still took her breath away to think of the warmth of his breath on her, the brush of his lips against her ear, the feeling of his hand gripping hers, leading her, weakly protesting, faint with desire, into the house.

Emily Crowell’s red sports car was parked in the driveway, outside the back door. She knew it was Emily’s. Not many kids at school had a car, and Emily was old enough to drive. Her father was some big shot at the bank, so Emily had a red sports car that Grayson had often admired aloud. It glowed now, ruby red, in the driveway, and the sight of it sitting there was like a knife through Allene’s heart.

She got off her bike at the foot of the driveway and balanced the bike against her trembling hip, gripping the handlebars with cold, sweaty hands. She knew which one was the bedroom window. She knew where they would be. She remembered the first time, when he had lured her in there with words of love and she had wanted to go, even though she knew it was wrong. When she closed her eyes she could still feel the nubby texture of the bedspread beneath her bare skin, and the fullness of him inside her, and see that beautiful face contorted with desire as he reared above her, moaning.

I don’t want to go to the window and look in, she thought. The actual sight of them together could be no more vivid than what she saw in her mind. But some need to know beyond any doubt forced her forward. As she approached the window little fragments of prayers formed in her mind. The glass panes were dirty and reflected the fading light. She made her hand into a fist and carefully rubbed clean a spot in the low corner. All the while she said to herself that there might be nothing to see. Maybe they were studying. She knew he did some tutoring. He’d tutored Tyler Ansley before Tyler went off to military school. They used to meet up here. He told her so. Perhaps he was tutoring Emily now. The corner was rubbed clean and Allene gripped the grimy sill and looked in.

He was on top of Emily, the nubby spread tangled in their legs, her round white breasts flattened against his golden chest, her black hair fanned across the pillow. Their eyes were closed, their mouths open, and they moved together like a wave.

Allene jerked away from the window, feeling that she wanted to throw up. She could walk in on them if she wished. The back door would be open and they would probably not even hear her coming. But what for? Her humiliation was already complete. She had offered him her love, her body, her very soul. And it had not been good enough to keep him. Soon everyone in school would know it too. Her love for him would be a joke that everyone would laugh at.

And then another thought jolted her. Was it possible that they knew already? That she was the last to know? How long had he been lying to her? The night of Founders Day, when he said he wanted to hang out with his friends. Emily had been at the picnic. Allene vaguely remembered seeing her there. And how about the weekend when she worked on the posters, and he said he had to stay at home? Had it been going on all that time? The possibility of it overwhelmed her. Allene had never dreamed that you could feel so bad and still be alive. She turned the bicycle around, mounted it, and started back toward town, while, in a wretched whisper, she sobbed his name.

“YOU,” CYRIL CARTY SAID
as Jordan hung up the phone after talking to Lillie. “Into the makeup room. You messed your eyes up.” Jordan obediently trailed the mincing steps of the makeup artist into his domain and sat down in the chair. Mark O’Connell, the network publicist assigned to Secret Lives, appeared in the doorway and announced to Jordan, between bites of a ham sandwich, that Walter Soames was here to see him. “You want me to get rid of him?” Mark asked.

Walter Soames was a furniture upholsterer from South Jersey who still lived with his parents. He was a well-mannered young man who enjoyed a certain status of familiarity around the studio on West 68th Street because he was the president of the fan club that Jordan shared with Lorna Maxwell. For most of his three years in the cast of Secret Lives, Jordan’s character, Paul Manville, had been romantically involved with Lorna’s character, Jennifer Taylor. In her private life, Lorna was married to an optometrist and had a two-year-old daughter. Jordan occasionally had lunch with Lorna, and every year he went to the open house that she and her husband gave in their East Side duplex at Christmas. Otherwise they were not inclined to socialize. But in the minds of the viewers, they were so enmeshed that it was inevitable that they should have the same fan club.

“You want me to tell him you left for the day?” Mark asked.

Jordan knew better than to shake his head when Cyril Carty was working on his eyes. “That’s all right,” he said. “Tell him I’ll talk to him after the next scene. I’ll be done for the day then.”

“Hold still,” Cyril commanded, licking his lips in concentration.

“He’ll probably want to pump you about your daughter,” said Mark, sticking the last of his sandwich into his mouth and pushing back his long hair with mustard-stained fingers.

“It’s not a secret,” Jordan said. He did not have much use for O’Connell, who was the biggest gossip of them all and yet maintained a cynical veneer that suggested he was above such petty concerns.

“The fans, you know. They love a story like that,” Mark observed.

“Go ahead,” Cyril said brightly, patting Jordan playfully on the backside. “Go.”

Jordan checked his tie and his hair in the lighted mirror before preparing to go back on the set. “Their sympathy is more genuine than a lot of people who really know me,” he said.

“Oh, puh-leeze, Jordan,” said Mark. “No wonder they love you. You’re so corny.”

Jordan stifled a sigh. “Let him wait in my dressing room.”

Walter Soames was seated in a swivel chair in front of the mirrored wall in the dressing room when Jordan finished his scene. Everyone on the show, except the original star, the venerable Margaret Clarke, shared a dressing room, but they often shared with people who taped on different days. So most often the dressing room was relatively private. Walter leapt to his feet when Jordan entered, and Jordan extended his hand to the sallow-skinned, overweight young man and told him to sit.

Jordan began wiping off his makeup and changing his shirt. “Walter,” he said, “I was very touched by the wreath that the club sent. It was beautiful.”

“You’re welcome, Jordan. I took the liberty of buying it out of club dues because I knew it was what the members would want to do.”

“Well, I appreciate it.”

“I don’t want to intrude on you in your time of grief,” said the solemn-faced young man, “but I did want to express my sympathy to you in person.”

Jordan had slipped into his street clothes by now. He ran his fingers through his hair to loosen the spray and mousse cement job that Cyril had done on him earlier. Then he sat back in his swivel chair and sighed. “Walter, she was my only child. And I was not much of a father to her.”

“Oh, no,” Walter said quickly. “I’m sure you were. You’re a very good person.”

You have me confused with Paul Manville, Jordan thought.

“Not Paul Manville,” Walter said earnestly, as if reading his thoughts. “You. I know a lot of stars, Jordan. Believe me. I know what I’m talking about.”

Jordan’s sad eyes smiled at the boy. Walter was not dim, just politely persistent. He knew very well which actors snubbed him, which laughed behind his back as he pursued his enthusiasms for TV stars.

“Walter,” Jordan said sincerely, “that means a lot coming from you. You brightened my day.”

Walter smiled broadly.

“Look, I’m heading home. Do you want a lift downtown? I’ll be going right by there.” Jordan knew that the fan club president took the bus to the Port Authority for his visits.

“No, thanks. I’m seeing Lorna after the taping. She’s got some new snapshots of her daughter for the newsletter. Thanks anyway.”

Jordan shook Walter’s hand, excused himself, and headed down the corridor, bidding those he passed a good night. He went out the double set of doors to the lobby and asked the security guard who he liked for the evening’s football game.

“Giants, of course,” said the guard.

“Of course,” Jordan repeated, waving as he headed out into the street. He shivered when he got outside. It was cold and gray and the city had a kind of dreary, romantic gloom to it. Jordan hailed a cab and directed the driver to Sheridan Square. He bought a six-pack of beer and a TV dinner in a market on West Fourth Street, then headed for his apartment. He figured he would look at his script for a while and then heat up the dinner during the game. His heart sank as he came around the corner and recognized the girl seated on the stoop of his building. Amanda stood up when she saw him approaching and gave him a dazzling smile.

“I was having my hair cut on Christopher Street and thought I’d drop by. Like it?” Amanda gave her impressive curls a shake.

“Very nice,” said Jordan.

“Feel like company?”

“Sure,” he said with a forced smile. “Come on in.”

He unlocked the outer door and the familiar musty scent of the hallway greeted him. He heard her chattering behind him but he was already trying to figure out what he was going to do with her. He had seen her twice since he got back and he knew it was going nowhere. He had hoped she felt the same, that she understood why he didn’t call her. But she was clearly not ready to quit without an explanation. Well, he thought, he could take her out in the neighborhood for dinner and then put her in a cab. That way he might catch the second half of the game. The TV dinner would keep for another night.

He unlocked the door to the apartment and Amanda flounced in and made herself comfortable on the sofa. Jordan opened the refrigerator under the sink and popped the TV dinner into the tiny freezer. He opened a beer and offered her one. She played with the neck of the bottle with her tongue but Jordan pretended not to notice.

“I had an audition today,” she said. “A household cleanser commercial. I don’t think they’ll give it to me though. I was the wrong type. They wanted a kind of frumpy housewife type. I wish my agent had told me. I would have worn an old kerchief on my head or something.”

“No, that’s not you,” Jordan said politely, taking another swig.

“Listen,” she said. “While I was sitting out there waiting for you I got a great idea.”

“What?”

“Are you planning on going up to your country place this weekend?”

“I haven’t made up my mind,” he said warily. “Why?”

“I thought you said you went every weekend.”

“I do usually.”

“Well, I was thinking that I could go over to Balducci’s and pick up some really nice food for us, and we could go up there together. We could relax and just hang out. I’d really like to see the place. And that’s the kind of setting where I’m really at my best. Out in nature. You’ve never seen that side of me.”

The idea of her invading his mountain place did not appeal to him. Under the best of circumstances it was not a place that had ever worked out well with women, even when he took them full of optimism and romantic plans. He knew without even imagining it that it would not work with Amanda. “Look,” he said awkwardly, “my, um, storyline is heavy right now. I really need the weekend to study scripts and kind of regroup. The timing wouldn’t be right.”

Amanda studied him for a minute and then set the beer bottle down on the coffee table with a crack. Her voice had an edge to it. “You know, Jordan, I thought we were having a pretty good time together. What happened all of a sudden? I thought I turned you on.”

“Amanda, it’s not you, really. It’s my fault. I’m kind of low these days, after what happened…”

“So let me take your mind off it.”

“To tell the truth, I don’t much want my mind taken off it,” he said honestly. “I don’t know how to explain that to you.”

“I think that’s just an excuse, Jordan. Are you interested or aren’t you?”

Jordan hated this kind of scene. He didn’t want to say anything to hurt her feelings. In fact, it wasn’t anything she had or hadn’t done. He couldn’t explain it to her. He did not want to sit up all night with her, or hold her till dawn. He didn’t see some depth in her eyes that made him want to live there. Maybe you only felt that way once in your life. Maybe you had to be young and innocent to feel it. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. How cruel was she going to force him to be? he wondered. His stomach began to churn.