Once Upon a Day (33 page)

Jimmy hugged his mom and said it was a bet before he ran off to play. When Lucy turned around, she saw Charles right behind her, but she walked away without speaking. There was so much to say that she couldn’t imagine where to start. Maybe when her filming was done. Maybe when he’d started working with his editors on
Master of Dreams
and he was happy like he’d been before.

On Labor Day night, before she went to bed, she got down on her knees to pray that God wouldn’t punish her by taking her baby. She’d been having cramps on and off all weekend, but she kept telling herself that they were from eating too much or exhaustion or both. Cramping wasn’t necessarily a sign of anything, especially with only light spotting.

But the next afternoon, the bleeding became heavier. Dr. McAffey was out of the office, but her nurse told Lucy she could go to the ER if she thought she was having a miscarriage. After the nurse admitted that there was really nothing the doctors could do to stop a miscarriage, Lucy went straight home and got in bed.

Charles had already left for some kind of big dinner with Walter. She told Susannah to please take care of the children tonight. The cramps were getting worse and so was the bleeding, but she kept telling herself if she lay very still it might stop.

Around nine-thirty though, she went into the bathroom because she knew it was happening. She sat on the toilet, sweating with agonizing cramps, while she bled and bled, ten times more than the heaviest period of her life. When it was over and she could finally stand up again, she hobbled to the phone.

She called Dr. McAffey’s service, but she said the doctor didn’t have to call her back. There was nothing to discuss. Then she opened her purse and took out a pain pill. Her head was throbbing and she felt like screaming. She pushed the intercom to the kitchen, but no one answered, so she stumbled out of her room.

She washed the pill down with a glass of wine, figuring it didn’t make any difference now. By the time Charles got home, she’d had another pill and three more glasses of wine. She was sitting at the piano, trying to pick out “Lover Man.” Charles knew how to play because he’d taken lessons back when he lived in Beverly Hills, when he was single. He used to tell her that she should take lessons, but she was always too busy with the babies.

When he came into the room, he looked so handsome in his Armani suit. He had on her favorite black glasses too. She couldn’t help it, she smiled at him and gave a little wave.

He walked toward her. “Have you been drinking?”

“A little.” She stood up and stumbled against the piano bench. “Okay, more than a little.”

“You’re drinking?” His voice was pure condemnation. “You’re pregnant and you’re drinking?”

“No,” she said, looking down at her hands. “The baby’s gone.” Her eyes filled with tears. “My poor baby.” She touched her belly. “I didn’t mean to do it; I really didn’t.”

“Oh, Lucy,” Charles said gently, pulling her against him. “It’s not your fault. Dr. McAffey told us this might happen. I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, it is,” Lucy sobbed into his suit jacket. “I killed it.”

She felt him stiffen. “What?”

“My poor little baby, he never had a chance.”

He took her by the shoulders and pushed her a few feet back, then he held her there, trapped in his gaze. “If you really did this—”

“I told you I didn’t mean to,” she stammered.

“If you really did this . . .” he repeated. His voice was so angry, it sounded like he hated her. “If you really killed my child, knowing how I feel about abortion . . . I don’t know how I’ll ever forgive you.”

All she had to do was say it wasn’t an abortion, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words. Part of it was her guilt for the miscarriage, but the main thing was how stunned she was that he thought she was capable of this. After everything she’d told him about how happy she was about this pregnancy, how badly she wanted this baby. It felt like he’d just stabbed her in the heart.

She twisted until she was free of his grasp, and then she laughed in his face. She laughed and laughed and laughed. If it had been a movie, he would have slapped her. But it wasn’t a movie, and he walked away.

She swallowed another glass of wine and then she stumbled to her bed and passed out. She heard the phone ring, but she couldn’t move to answer it. She found out the next morning that Dr. McAffey had called, after all, and Charles had talked to her.

His apology was sincere, but too late. “We don’t even know each other anymore,” she said, and she meant it. She felt like her marriage was over, and so was her life. She would always be in pain; she would never have more children, and her own children were growing up. Now that Jimmy was in first grade, four-year-old Dorothea
was trying to keep up with her big brother. She wouldn’t let Lucy call her baby anymore; she wouldn’t even let Lucy tuck her in. Both the children spent far more time with Susannah than with their own mother. Both of them seemed to prefer playing with Charles.

Dr. McAffey told Lucy it was normal to feel depressed after a miscarriage, and not just from grief, from the sudden change in hormones. But Lucy didn’t think she was depressed; she thought she’d finally realized the truth about her life. She couldn’t imagine how she could ever again find any hope.

Seeing Charles made it a hundred times worse, and so she tried to avoid him. It wasn’t hard. The movie was way behind schedule, mainly because Brett and his assistant weren’t as organized as the other directors she’d worked with. Since she was getting out too late to see the children anyway, she started eating dinner with Brett or one of the cast members; sometimes she let them talk her into going along to a party afterward. Everybody at the parties drank and smoked pot and snorted coke; Lucy’s own pills seemed harmless in comparison, even though she was taking more now that she could get them without the hassle of going to the doctor. Brett had a friend, Ivan, who gave her as many as she wanted, and Ivan’s pills were stronger too, which was good since she could work straight through the schedule, no resting between scenes in her trailer like before. After work, she tried to cut back on the pills, but she always had a few drinks because it made it easier to get past her natural shyness and relax at the parties.

Before long she was walking in the door plastered about half the time. Charles told her over and over that she had to quit this, but she said it was none of his business. And she said a lot of other things too:

“I have to get drunk because I’m a murderer. I murder babies.”

“I thought I was not corrupt. Ha-ha.”

“I am Joan the brave, fighting to forget my life.”

“I remember every damn thing about that day. I remember
exactly what those guys did to me because I wouldn’t just screw them and get it over with.”

When he told her she was destroying him, she shrugged it off.

“Nobody can destroy the great Charles Keenan.”

“A captain should go down with his ship. You’re the captain, mister. Come on down.”

“I’m already destroyed. So what?”

When he told her she would hurt the children, she got angry.

“I love my children. Don’t you ever forget it.”

“You hired Susannah because you wanted me to go crazy without my children to take care of. You thought I was too crazy to take care of my own babies.”

“I know you blame me for Dorothea’s breathing problems. Well, you can just go screw yourself. I did everything I could to keep her from being scared. You weren’t there. You have no idea.”

“You hired Susannah because you wanted to have sex with her, didn’t you? You did it with her while I was in the hospital. You’re probably doing it now while I’m at work!”

Lucy would often break down in tears right after saying one of these things. She would cry and apologize, and sometimes she tried to kiss him or sit on his lap. A couple of times, she even convinced him to go to bed with her, but only downstairs in her room, so he couldn’t lock her away like a madwoman.

In the mornings, when she woke up with her usual headache, made worse from the hangover, she would swallow two or three pills. What difference did it make, especially as she was still able to act as well as ever? She never forgot her lines and Brett was even more complimentary than before. Of course they were better friends now that they were partying all the time. He’d made it clear he wanted to sleep with her, but she wouldn’t do it. “I’m married,” she told him, but she laughed when he said, “You’re married to an ass.”

“Maybe so,” she said. “But he’s my ass and I love him.”

Two days later, a tabloid screamed:

“Brett Marcus and Lucy Dobbins? Not so, says the actress, despite rumors of the two being seen together all over L.A. Of her husband of seven years, director Charles Keenan, she says: ‘He’s my ass and I love him.’”

Everybody on set thought it was hilarious, but Lucy felt like she wanted to jump off a cliff. That night, she went straight home to face her husband, though she was hoping against hope that he hadn’t heard about it.

When she got home it was about nine, and she found him upstairs with Dorothea. She could hear the little girl gasping for air before she even came into the bedroom.

“Mommy,” she breathed, when she heard Lucy’s hello.

“Oh honey,” Lucy said, rushing to her daughter. Dorothea was sitting on her bed with her head between her knees. Charles was next to Dorothea, rubbing her back.

“How long has it been going on?” Lucy asked him.

“She woke up this way.” His voice was so cold. He obviously knew about the tabloid. “About ten minutes. Nothing has helped so far.”

“I’m scared,” Dorothea gasped.

“It’s okay,” Lucy said, kneeling. She stroked her baby’s hair. “I’m going to sing to you. If you want to sing along, you can.”

“She can barely speak,” Charles snapped.

“Let’s do ‘Jack and Diane,’” Lucy said. “You like that song, right?”

Dorothea nodded, and Lucy started to sing. For the first verse, it didn’t seem to be working. Lucy could feel Charles’s disapproval. She wondered if he thought she was drunk.

But then on the chorus, Dorothea joined her, weak at first, but getting stronger with each line. By the time they got to the second verse, they were singing together just like they always did. Dorothea had such a pretty voice, but it sounded funny too, hearing a four-year-old sing a song about holding on to being sixteen. Lucy started laughing, and even Charles laughed with relief.

“I did it!” Dorothea said, clapping her hands.

“You sure did, baby.” Lucy hugged her. “Good for you.”

They talked for a few minutes and then Charles told her she needed to go back to sleep now.

“I want to sleep with you,” she said, pointing at Lucy. And at Charles. Back and forth.

Charles said it wasn’t a good idea, but Lucy looked closely at her daughter. Dorothea had never asked to sleep with them since Lucy came home from the hospital. Was it possible the little girl knew what was going on now? Lucy made sure she was always up before the children were. She didn’t want them to wonder what it meant that she was sleeping downstairs.

“If it’s really important to her,” Lucy said, “it’s okay with me.”

He exhaled. “Fine.”

Dorothea was up and running down the hall to their bed before either of them had made it out of her room.

“How unusual to see you at this hour,” he said. “And sober.” His tone was so angry Lucy flinched.

“I’m going to tuck her in,” she said.

She not only tucked in Dorothea, she sang her two more songs, got her a glass of water and listened while her daughter talked and talked and talked. It was probably a half hour before Lucy was finished, and even then, she walked slowly down the stairs, dreading this confrontation.

He was sitting at the dining room table with nothing to drink or eat or read. Just sitting there, at the head of the table. Waiting. Lucy sat down. He folded his hands, but he didn’t look at her.

“You have seen your children exactly once in the last twelve days.”

“I’m finishing the film; you know how that—”

“You were with them on Sunday night for what, an hour?”

“Come on, this isn’t about the children, it’s about that stupid tabloid. I hope you know that it was totally out of context. I didn’t call you an—”

He slammed his fist on the table so hard that Lucy jumped back like he was going to hit her. “This
is
about the children. Don’t even
try to delude yourself that it isn’t.” He looked into Lucy’s eyes. “Dorothea dreamed you were dead. That’s why she had the attack tonight. She woke up crying because her mother was dead.”

Lucy felt horrible, but she swallowed hard and forced herself not to cry.

“Jimmy lost his dog on Monday. When I picked him up from school, he was hysterical. I still can’t get him to talk about what happened. The teacher said the children were playing at recess and when recess was over, Tigger was gone.”

Lucy covered her face with her hands. She was the one who’d told Jimmy he could take the dog for show-and-tell. Charles had said it was a bad idea, but Lucy had laughed and said to her son, “Ignore him. Your daddy worries too much.”

“Did you look for Tigger?” she finally said, lifting her face.

“What do you think?” He frowned deeply. “After I took Jimmy home, I went back to the school and tried to find someone who could tell me what happened, then I spent three hours driving around the area. Susannah said he cried on and off the entire time I was gone.”

“Poor Jimmy.”

“Yes, that seems a fair assessment. Poor Jimmy. Not only has he lost his dog this week, but tomorrow, it’s likely he will come to school and discover that his mother has called his father an ass in a newspaper.”

She felt her face get warm. “Those kids don’t read tabloids.”

“Oh, don’t be so naïve. That piece of trash is in the checkout line of every supermarket. Some of those kids have parents who read tabloids, and some of those parents will discuss this at dinner. Particularly those parents who don’t like us for a variety of petty reasons, like we have more money, you’re beautiful, we’re relatively famous and we keep to ourselves. Or I should say, we used to keep to ourselves. You’ve changed all that, haven’t you, Lucy?”