Once More With Feeling (31 page)

"What are you looking for, Gyps?"

She was looking for oblivion. Her body was
yearning for it; her mind was succumbing to it. She was having
trouble thinking of anything else. The only sound she could make
was no answer at all.

It seemed to be enough for him. "You want me
to tell you that I love you? That I see things in you no one else
ever did? That right from the beginning I saw the hurt little girl
who could never be good enough, no matter how hard she tried? So
she set out to prove she really wasn't any good at all?"

It took her a moment to realize what he'd
said. The sensual haze began to change to something less defined.
"Casey . . ." Tears unaccountably filled her eyes.

"I'm not going to tell you any of that.
Because I don't know who in the hell you are anymore. You feel the
same. You taste the same. But you don't seem to be fighting the
same battles. Or using the same weapons."

He shifted and pressed his hands against her
shoulders. Then she could feel the warmth of his breath against the
back of her neck and finally, his lips in the same place.

She shivered. Her body had never been more
alive. He moved to her side and stretched out beside her, bringing
her with him so that she was lying with her bare back against his
chest. His arms circled her, and her bra slid down over her
arms.

He cupped her breasts and his lips traveled
along her nape to her shoulder. "There was a time when you wore me
out with demands, like you wanted to keep me as far away as
possible, even when we were as close as two people could get. But
when we were right in the middle of making love I'd look in your
eyes and you'd really be looking at me. Like you couldn't help
yourself, even though you were fighting against it."

She wanted to turn to him. She knew that's
all it would take. She could turn, press her breasts against his
chest, and, in deliciously sweet moments, he would be inside her.
There would be no turning back. She would be taking over Gypsy's
life in every conceivable way.

Except that it wasn't this Gypsy that Casey
wanted. She hadn't understood that until now. He was not in love
with soft, smooth skin, with chorus girl legs and a come-hither
smile. He was in love with a woman who no longer existed. He loved
a woman he would never see again.

She might have been able to conquer her own
doubts. She might have been able to tell herself that Owen loved
someone else and his comatose wife was as good as dead to him. She
might even have been able to tell herself that she could start a
new relationship with Casey and forget the past.

But she couldn't tell herself any of those
things now. Because neither she nor Casey could forget what had
passed before. And when they were finished here tonight, it would
still haunt them.

"I'm not that woman anymore," she said. She
took his hands in hers and held them still until they curled into
fists. "I want to be, Casey. For your sake and mine. But I can't
be."

He was silent. She had expected an argument
or sweet persuasion. He was silent, instead.

"You understand, don't you." It wasn't even
a question. She knew that Casey didn't understand the same things
that she did. Not exactly. But he understood the truth on some
level where words no longer mattered.

He understood.

Little by little he withdrew. She missed the
heat of his hands immediately, then the erotic brush of his body
against hers, his erection grazing her back, his legs capturing
hers.

"I'm going now," he said when he was no
longer touching her.

"Did she ever know how lucky she was?"

He didn't ask what she meant. He didn't even
seem to find the question or the pronoun strange. "I don't
know."

"She was very, very lucky. If she didn't
know it, she's not worth mourning."

"Go to sleep, Gypsy."

She was crying before the door closed, but
he didn't come back to comfort her. He needed comfort himself. And
she knew that neither of them could ever provide it for the other
again.

"There's a woman on the phone says she has
to talk to you." Perry slumped comfortably in an armchair in
Gypsy's dressing room and held the telephone receiver to her chest.
"Says it has to be now."

"It always has to be now." Gypsy looked up
from a script she had been reading. "It's not Sal, is it?" Sal,
Gypsy's agent, was a chain-smoking dynamo who called at least once
a day to warn her that she was the talent, and she'd better stop
reinventing her job without a new contract in hand. Lately he had
begun to disguise his voice as a woman's so that she would be
fooled into taking his calls.

"Nah. Very upper crust, dahling."

"Does she have a name?"

"Won't give it. Says she's a friend of
Elisabeth's, if that helps."

"Look, will you go out and see if they're
going to need me for that voice-over after all?"

"Sure. How long should I stay away?"

"Depends on how long the phone call
lasts."

Perry grinned. "Gotcha."

Gypsy waited until Perry was gone. Then she
crossed the room and punched the blinking light. "This is Gypsy
Dugan."

There was a pause. For a moment she wondered
if the caller had hung up. Then a familiar voice spoke. "Are you
really Elisabeth?"

"Marguerite." Gypsy sank to the chair. "I
hoped it was you."

"I've been watching the show."

"Have you?"

"Sometimes . . . I catch a glimpse of
someone I used to know."

Gypsy closed her eyes. "Do you?"

"I don't want to believe anything you told
me."

"Neither do I."

"I think, perhaps, we should have
lunch."

"When and where?"

Gypsy was still staring at the phone long
after the call had ended. Perry came back into the room. "They
needed two sentences. I did them for you."

Gypsy knew Perry could do a perfect Gypsy
Dugan. "Great. Thanks."

"Gypsy?" Des followed in Perry's footsteps.
"Got a minute?"

"Sure."

"Perry?" Des jerked his head toward the open
door.

"I'm getting real practice on my entrances
and exits today." Perry rolled her eyes and closed the door behind
her.

"She's something," Des said.

Gypsy was still thinking about Marguerite's
call. "You're telling me."

"No, I mean she really is. I heard her do
your voice over. She's incredible. So I asked her to read a few
lines of copy. Then I asked her to read it a couple of different
ways. She can do anything. And with those cheekbones and that
smile, she'd photograph like a dream."

"All that and CPR, too." Gypsy dimpled.
Desmond had her attention now. "What are you getting at?"

"I want to move her up to reporting. We need
somebody to take Nan's place."

"That's a super idea. I hoped she'd move up,
but even I wasn't going to push this fast."

"You wanted me to promote her?"

"Sure. Why not? She's just what the show
needs. And she's not just a good actress. She's perceptive and
funny, and she works hard."

"Wait a minute. She could be your
competition one of these days."

"So? There's room for both of us. It's a big
business."

Des flopped down on the nearest chair and
stretched out his stubby legs. "Everything they're saying about you
is true. I thought maybe you were just putting us on, trying to
throw us off balance. But it's more than that, isn't it? That bump
on the head changed you but good."

Gypsy turned her hands palms up in
surrender. "I could try to be horrible. I could work at it."

"That's the thing. It doesn't come naturally
anymore."

"Was that a prerequisite for the job?"

"It's not just the attitude adjustment.
You're doing some good work on this piece at the high school.
You're sinking your teeth into other stuff, too."

"I hope you see that as a positive thing."
She couldn't tell from his voice if he did or not. It was possible
she was pushing for change too hard and too fast.

"Sure I do. It's just hard to figure. That's
all."

"Well, what you see is what you get."

He stood and started for the door. "Just
don't forget what you were hired for. All the other stuff's fine.
Great. But we got you to sell stories, not to create 'em."

"In other words back off a little?"

"Just don't delve so far below the surface
that you forget to come back up for air."

Marguerite hadn't wanted to meet in any of
the fashionable restaurants where they had lunched in years past.
Gypsy was just as glad since she would have had to pretend that the
friends who came up to the table to visit with Marguerite--and
examine Gypsy under their lashes--were strangers to her.

They met at a Thai restaurant on the lower
east side where the air was scented with lemongrass and coconut. A
high soprano wailed convulsive lyrics over a faulty sound system
and the tables were covered in gold vinyl.

"Not your style," Gypsy said, when
Marguerite arrived. She had worked on her opening line while she'd
waited, abandoning sentiment and gratitude and settling for casual
intimacy. She was determined that this lunch would go well, that
she would not lose this fragile link to her former life.

Marguerite, in a man's tweed smoking jacket
that was fraying at the wrists, took a seat across the table.
"Seamus dragged me here last month. It's the best Thai food in the
city."

"Seamus knows the best places. I always
thought he should be a food critic."

"The man eats, the man does not write."

They kept up the patter while they examined
the menu. Gypsy knew better than to push Marguerite for
information. When she was ready, and only then, would she talk.

The server, a young man with tattooed
forearms and a patch over one eye, took their order and their
menus, and they were left to contemplate each other.

"I've thought a lot about our last
conversation," Marguerite said at last.

"I'm sure you have."

"You were there for me when I needed you in
Paris. The least I can do is be here for you now."

Gypsy didn't know how tense she'd been until
she felt herself relax. "I don't know what to say."

"Nothing gushy I hope. This certainly isn't
a Kodak moment." Marguerite looked away.

"Do you remember the time I burst into tears
at the yacht club ball? I don't even remember why, but I
embarrassed you so much you wouldn't speak to me for weeks."

"You were crying because your date sneaked
outside with that awful redhead from Palm Beach. What was her
name?"

"Cherry Stone."

"She should have been a stripper," they said
in unison. They followed with shy laughter.

"This will take some getting used to,"
Marguerite said. "I find it disconcerting to be best friends with
someone so young and luscious."

"I find it disconcerting to
be
someone young and luscious." Gypsy leaned forward. "Marg, tell me
what's going on in your life. I want to hear it all. I've missed
this so much."

By the time they were sipping their final
cups of jasmine tea, Marguerite had detailed the lives and loves of
everyone in the mutual social circle of the Whitfields and
O'Keefe's. Everyone except Owen.

Gypsy sat back, satiated by gossip and pad
see eow. She toyed with her cup. "I've made contact with
Grant."

"Have you?"

"I'm producing a segment on Norman Carroll
High." She explained the story and her angle. "It was a way to be
close to him."

"I'm sure Owen doesn't know, or he would
have mentioned it to me."

The name stopped Gypsy like a kick to the
abdomen. She took a moment to recover and knew that Marguerite had
noticed. "I suppose Grant felt it would be better not to mention
it. Owen's feelings about Gypsy Dugan are crystal clear."

"Owen still goes to the nursing home every
day."

"With or without his protégé?"

"Without, most of the time." Marguerite sat
back, too. "Anna goes by herself quite frequently."

Gypsy tried to imagine that scenario. "I
hope they check the life support after she visits."

"I don't think she wishes you . . .
Elisabeth any harm."

"Really? You're sure she doesn't sit there
sticking pins in little blond matron dolls?"

"Oh, you've gotten so deliciously nasty."
Marguerite smiled.

"What could be better for Anna than my. . .
Elisabeth's demise?"

"Her recovery, I think."

"What do you mean?"

"I think Anna's praying for a complete
recovery."

"Why? She prefers her competition alive and
well?"

"There is no competition." Marguerite
fidgeted with a spoon. Picking it up. Putting it down. It was
completely unlike her.

"Get to the point, please. I know you're
working up to something."

"I'm sure you were right about Anna's
feelings for Owen. I think she has or had what we called a crush
when we were girls. She worships at Owen's feet. Don't you suppose
that in that state, she wished, quite frequently perhaps, that
Elisabeth would be hit by a car or at least jump off a bridge?
Anna's only human, after all. And can you imagine the guilt she
might feel when her fantasy suddenly comes true?"

"Isn't that rather farfetched? Maybe the
guilt's a little more basic than that. Maybe she feels guilty
because she's been screwing Elisabeth's husband."

"Maybe. But even if that was true, I doubt
that it's true now. Owen does not look like a man who is having any
fun."

Gypsy wanted to shout "good." What emerged
was only slightly more polite. "I'm having trouble drumming up
sympathy."

"Perhaps, under the circumstances, it's
easier to be angry at Owen. What good could come of feeling
anything else?"