One Night With You (22 page)

"Well, if you'd stop helping so I can see what I'm doing." She slapped at his hands, trying to push her hair out of the way at the same time. "Stop it, Jake," she said breathlessly, trying to stifle her giggles. "Stop it now."

"Jake?" Dorothea's voice was closer. "Desi? Are you there?"

They could hear the click of Audrey's heels on the stone floor. "They were right behind us," she said.

"Are you buttoned up yet?" Jake whispered, and his tongue snaked out, tickling her ear.

She pushed at his chest. "Yes, I think so." She giggled. "No thanks to you. Is it buttoned straight?"

"You look beautiful," he assured her, taking hold of her hand to draw her out of their hiding place. "Desi had, ah, something in her eye," he explained to the group, clearly not expecting anyone to believe him, and clearly not caring whether they did or not—because there was obviously nothing wrong with Desi's eyes.

They were wide and happy and sparkling, and they gazed up at Jake with adoration. She looked, in fact, like a woman who has just been very thoroughly and enjoyably kissed and one who, furthermore, had very thoroughly kissed back. Jake's smooth, sable hair was ruffled, and his dark eyes had that triumphant and rather smug look common to men who have just had a very satisfactory amorous encounter.

"Come along, children," Dorothea said then, "on to the wine tasting." She linked her arm through Desi's, pulling her a little ahead of the group. "You ought to learn how to dress yourself," she whispered.

Desi glanced guiltily down at her shirtfront, blushing prettily as she rearranged the mismatched buttons.

"Much better," Dorothea said. "Are we allowed to congratulate Jake yet?"

"Congratulate?"

"On being a father, my dear girl."

"Oh, no, Dorothea. Not yet. I haven't told him yet."

Dorothea looked at her almost disapprovingly. "I'd suggest you tell him soon. It wouldn't do to have him find out from someone else, would it? Especially not now."

"No," Desi agreed. "It wouldn't."

Desi sighed. Dorothea was right. It wouldn't do, not at all, to have Jake hear it from someone else. She had to be the one to tell him. If only she could find the right words and the right time. She had tried, later that night, when Jake had tiptoed across the hall to her room after everyone had turned in for the night.

"I told you I'd come after you when it was dark," he said teasingly to her, slipping out of his robe and under the covers, pulling her warm willing body into his arms. He was naked, but then, so was she. She had known he would come to her and she was ready for him. "No one will hear your screams for mercy," he whispered against her breast.

"I won't make any," she whispered back.

But she did. Little cries and moans that were wrenched from deep inside her. No one heard them but Jake, and he gloried in the soft, womanly sounds she made.

In the morning, as the pink cloudy dawn slowly changed to yellow sunshine, he made love to her again, slow, languorous love that reminded her of another joyous daylight encounter. When he finally left her, tiptoeing back across the hall, pretending that no one would know where he had spent the night, she still hadn't told him about Stephanie.

*

The wine cellars weren't dark today, not as they had been yesterday. It was crowded now and people seemed to be everywhere; setting up lights and cameras, making sure that props were exactly where they were supposed to be. A far cry from the quiet, secret hiding place it had been yesterday during Dorothea's tour.

Today was different for another reason, as well, Desi promised herself as she applied the finishing touches to Audrey's makeup. Today, when they had finished shooting, she would tell him. No matter how hard it was, she would tell him. She had to.

"Hey, watch out! You nearly jabbed that thing in my eye."

"Sorry, Audrey," she said automatically.

"Hurry it up, would you? I want a cigarette before this scene starts."

Desi put down the lip brush she had just picked up. "You'd better have it now, then. I'll do the lipstick afterward."

"Fine." Audrey lit a cigarette and got up to pace around the cramped set, waiting for the technicians to finish setting up the scene. She stepped over thick cables as she picked her way around the small corner of the cellar.

She's really nervous
, realized Desi with a small start of surprise. Funny, she hadn't thought that a single nude scene would unnerve Audrey like this. Or partial nude scene, rather.

This particular bit being shot today was a crucial scene in the movie. The one where Richard has finally had enough of Dorothea's teasing, gadabout ways and he drags her away from the party upstairs, down to the deserted wine cellar.

"Where he had his way with me," Dorothea had said, chuckling reminiscently.

The nude scene would come when Audrey-Dorothea tried to twist away from her lover and he reaches out to grab her, tearing her fragile red chiffon dress down the front, leaving the actress bare from the waist up.

"Except for the pearls," Dorothea had reminded them during rehearsals. "If I close my eyes I can still feel the pearls pressing into my back," she said outrageously.

Audrey was wearing those pearls now. Looped twice around her neck, they fell nearly to the hem of the skimpy little flapper dress. She had a matching red chiffon scarf tied around her forehead with the ends trailing down to one shoulder.

"I was considered very wicked in those days," Dorothea informed them gleefully. "Fast, they called it then."

"Yeah, and you're still fast," Jake teased her and she glowed.

"Okay, clear the set," Jake hollered, and everyone who wasn't absolutely necessary for the filming of this scene began filing on up the stairs. He went across to Audrey, patting her shoulder reassuringly. "Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." Audrey crushed out her cigarette and Desi was there immediately, before either of them could call her, to apply the finishing touches to the stars' makeup. She painted on the exaggerated Clara Bow lips with flaming red gloss and then pressed a powder puff briefly against Audrey's forehead, nose and chin to tone down the nervous shine.

"Jake?" she said.

"Oh, all right," he said impatiently, his mind on the upcoming scene. "Just a dab." He bent down a little to allow her to pat his face lightly. It was all he needed.

He looked absolutely magnificent, she thought, in his snowy dress shirt and the distinguished black tuxedo with the real pearl studs down the front. His lush dark hair was slicked back in the twenties fashion giving him a dashing, rather gangsterish look that complemented Audrey's audacious flapper to perfection.

They made a spectacular couple, Desi admitted unwillingly.

"Quiet on the set," bellowed the assistant director, "and... Action!"

Suddenly it was Richard and Dorothea standing there, not merely two actors. He dragged her, protesting vehemently, into a dark corner of the cellar.

Our corner
, Desi thought as the action continued.

The couple argued. He demanded. She refused and began to turn away. He reached out for her and the fragile dress came apart in his hands. She stood there before him; scornful, proud, refusing to cower or hide herself from his eyes. She said something, taunting him, and with a hungry moan, he reached for her again.

Desi turned away. That moan of desire, that look on his face, turned him back into Jake for her. Not Richard. It was Jake she saw now, reaching hungrily for Audrey, taking her down to the floor. Jealousy tore at her insides, blind, unreasoning jealousy.

How dumb, she scolded herself. Dumb, dumb, dumb! Jake's professional life, his screen persona, had nothing to do with his private life. He was just doing his job by kissing Audrey like that. Just doing his job. She knew that and yet... and yet she kept her face turned away, unable to watch him making make-believe love to the half-naked woman in his arms.

"Cut!" the assistant director yelled.

Jake levered himself up immediately, hauling Audrey to her feet to wrap her in the terry-cloth robe that someone handed to him. There was no lingering kiss this time, no long second look at his co-star. He was the total professional, but Desi didn't see that. She had already started for the stairs.

"Great job," she heard him say. "Audrey, honey, you were wonderful."

"You made it easy, darling." Audrey's voice was husky and still shaking a little from the emotions she had called forth to do the scene. It gave her casual words more intimacy than she had perhaps intended. "You always make it easy."

Jake and the crew laughed at that, treating it as a joke, but Desi couldn't. In her mind's eye she could still see the other woman locked in Jake's arms. She told herself to quit acting like an idiot and just shake it off.

"Break for lunch," Jake said then, and everyone began trooping up the stairs behind Desi, heading for the sun porch and the cold buffet that Gerta had set up.

"Desi." Eldin drew her aside before she reached the buffet table. "You've got a call. It's Teddie. He's worried about Stephanie. Been holding for the last ten minutes."

"Stephanie? Is she all right? Where's the phone?

Eldin headed her toward the library. "It's more private in here."

"Teddie," Desi said worriedly into the phone. "What is it? What's the matter with Stephanie?" She listened intently for a few minutes, the phone pressed tightly to her ear. The sound of Stephanie's crying was clearly audible to Desi. "Have you called her pediatrician? Dr. Marshall. His number is on the emergency list by the phone." Another short silence. "No, no, it's not your fault, Teddie. It's mine. Stay calm. I'm on my way."

She hung up. "Stephanie's cold has gotten worse," she told Eldin, looking up at him with guilt-stricken eyes. "At least, he thinks it's a cold. He says she's been screaming all morning. She sounded so sick. Teddie says her temperature is one hundred and two. Oh, Eldin, I never should have left her. My baby is sick and I'm here in Sonoma making...making movies." Making love, she had almost said. Behaving irresponsibly, with never a thought for her child. Guilt washed over her in waves. "I've got to get home."

"Now, Desi, luv, you couldn't have stopped her from getting sick, you know. It would have happened whether you were with her or not."

"But I'm her
mother
," Desi insisted. "I should have been there. I
knew
she was coming down with something. Sniffles, I told Dorothea, nothing to worry about. My poor baby. She's so little." She hurried out of the room. "I've got to pack, Eldin. Excuse me."

Eldin didn't try to stop her as she raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She pulled her suitcases out from under the bed and began haphazardly tossing her clothes into them. She dashed back and forth between the bed and dresser and bathroom, throwing her things any old way into the open suitcases, berating herself as she did so.

Stupid! To leave Stephanie when she was so sick, she told herself, completely forgetting that even her own mother had said it was only a sniffle.
But, no, you had to be a career woman. Run off to do your job... run off to a man
. That was the worst of it, she thought frantically. She had left her sick baby to chase after a man. A man she didn't even know for sure wanted her. Not on any permanent basis, anyway.

She had been so happy yesterday and last night, she remembered guiltily. So happy, with never a single thought for Stephanie. Except to wonder how she was going to explain her daughter's presence. Explain her! As if she were something to be ashamed of.

Nothing she could think of to call herself was rotten enough.

"Eldin told me that Stephanie was sick." Dorothea hurried into the room, a worried frown on her face. "Is she all right?"

Desi snapped her cases shut. "I don't know," she said, her blue eyes shimmering with frightened tears. It was the first time that Stephanie had ever shown any signs of illness and she was scared. "Teddie said she has a high fever. I could hear her crying over the phone. He said he can't make her stop. Oh, Dorothea," she wailed, "I didn't know she was so sick."

"Of course you didn't, dear girl." Dorothea embraced her fiercely for a moment. "You're too good a mother to have left her if you had known."

"If anything happens to her, I'll... I don't know what I'll do."

"Nonsense." Dorothea squeezed her once more, hard, and let her go. "Nothing is going to happen to her. It's probably just one of those childhood things that all babies get. You wait and see," she reassured the frightened young mother. "She'll be just fine. Why, by the time you get home you probably won't even know that she's been sick."

"Thanks, Dorothea." Desi gave her a wan smile. "You always manage to make me feel better." She dragged her suitcases off the bed, heading for the open bedroom door.

"What do you want me to tell Jake?"

"Tell him—" Desi paused in the doorway, adjusting the strap of her satchel over her shoulder "—tell him the truth."

"The truth? Are you sure?"

"No, I guess the news that he's a father should come from me, shouldn't it?" She thought a minute. "Tell him that there's been a sudden illness in my family and I've got to go home. That way you won't even be lying." She headed toward the stairs, Dorothea trailing along in her wake. "Tell him I'll call."

*

The drive seemed interminable to Desi, especially when all the way home she was tortured by visions of Stephanie taking a deathly turn for the worse. Stephanie in the hospital, her tiny fragile body in one of those backless hospital gowns. Breathing tubes. Needles. Doctors shaking their heads sadly.

Stop it
, she told herself sternly.
Stephanie's going to be fine. Dorothea's right. Everything will be okay when you get home. She'll be sleeping peacefully. Teddie will feel foolish for having called you. You'll feel foolish for having panicked
.

But it wasn't all right. At least it didn't seem to be. She could hear Stephanie's fretful crying as she ran up the stairs to her apartment.

"Thank goodness you're home." Teddie surrendered the screaming baby thankfully as Desi reached out for her. She cradled Stephanie lovingly, peering down into the little screwed-up face, red from her crying. "How's her temperature?"