Randall #01 - The Best Revenge (20 page)

Back in her cubicle, she composed herself and decided to look on the bright side. At least Jonathan let her know how he felt before she bared her soul about Jon-Don Parker. What was it Plantagenet said about him the first time she met Jonathan? “Look but don’t touch, Camel, darling.” Why hadn’t she listened?

She turned her attention to the column again, trying to ignore another commotion in the news department. The noise was distracting, but she didn’t look up. If it was about a development in the “camel” story, she was sure to hear soon enough. She had only a few more sentences to type before she could go home.

“Dear God, darling, I had no idea they made you work so hard,” said a voice above her.

She looked up and saw, behind a huge bouquet of red roses, resplendent in up-to-the-minute Armani, a radiant, smiling Plantagenet Smith.

“Plantagenet! Oh, my God, Plant!” She hugged the roses, and then Plantagenet—feeling happy and sad and confused all at the same time. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to ask you to dinner,” he said, taking one of her hands and kissing it. “And then, it you haven’t any other plans for the weekend, I wondered if—” He stopped and gave her a sheepish look.

“Yes, you wondered if…” she repeated helpfully.

“I wondered if—you’d like to go somewhere and get married?”

Chapter 20—Dinner for Four

Camilla stood next to Plantagenet, clutching roses, in the cramped entryway of a small, trendy restaurant in Hillcrest. They’d been waiting for at least fifteen minutes, and people were crowding in behind them. She probably should have left the roses in the car, but they seemed a necessary part of the celebration.

They’d come in separate cars because she didn’t want to leave the Edsel in the high-crime Gaslamp Quarter, so they hadn’t had time to talk about much.

Like where Angela Harper was.

Or what Plant meant about getting married.

A waiter beckoned them from a dimly lit table.

“You’ll find the dinner worth the wait, darling,” Plantagenet said. “They have an avocado mousse to die for.”

“May I put those in water for you, Mademoiselle?” The waiter directed a smile more at Plantagenet than Camilla.

“Yes. There are so many of them.” She handed him the huge bouquet.

“Twenty, to be exact,” Plantagenet said. “That’s how many you were supposed to get on your birthday, but the number seemed to have been reduced to twelve somewhere between New York and San Diego. I’ve been in New York. Did I tell you that?”

“My birthday! The roses? They were from you? The card wasn’t signed, and my name was spelled wrong, so what I thought was…”

“What I think is I’d better change florists, darling,” Plantagenet said, kissing her cheek quickly as he helped her remove her coat. “But that does explain it.”

“Explain what?”

Plant picked up the wine list.

“Violet seemed to think your birthday roses were from somebody named Jamey.”

Camilla felt like Alice after she fell down the rabbit hole.

 “Are you talking about my neighbor Violet? When did you meet Violet?”

“Last night. I stopped by, hoping to surprise you after work, but you must have been putting in some serious overtime. I waited a few hours, but after the rain let up, I went over to the theater where they’re reviving a couple of my one acts.”

“Oh, yes, last night,” she raised her menu to hide her warming cheeks. “Yes. I was busy with—my boss. I’m sorry you had to wait for nothing.”

“Don’t apologize, darling. I watched
Now, Voyager
dubbed in Spanish on your TV and was well fed by Mrs. Rushforth. Quite a character, isn’t she?”

She nodded. “It works? The TV?”

“As long as you only watch the Tijuana channel. The knob seems frozen there. You’ve never turned it on?”

She shook her head. She didn’t know how to explain Jimmy the garbage man.

“Violet did say something about this Jamey person who had just delivered a television. At first I assumed he was a repairman, but I take it he’s one of your suitors?”

“He’s Wave’s boyfriend, not mine: Waverly Nelson—my friend from Rosewood.”

She tried to sound casual. She felt so strange sitting in a restaurant with Plant as if nothing had changed since she was a college student.

“Oh, good, I am relieved. I’d rather not have to contend with a rival who gives you television sets, even if they are painted Day-Glo orange.”

“Rival?” She tried to laugh. “Rival for what?”

“For your hand, my dear.” He picked up her left hand and brought it to his lips.

Just then the roses, arranged in an immense glass vase, descended upon the table between them. Plantagenet told the waiter they would have a chardonnay, some avocado mousse to start and the warm duck salad.

Camilla moved the roses to one side so she could see Plantagenet’s face. It was a wonderful face. She was honestly happy to see him again. Even if he wasn’t making sense. She held out her hands to him across the table.

“You can have both my hands,” she said. “If you’ll tell me what this is all about.”

“What this is about—” He kissed one hand and then the other. “Is that I love you. As I think I have mentioned before. But since the last time turned out rather badly, I thought I’d better take a more traditional approach. I want to marry you, Camilla. Soon. And—the wine’s here.”

She watched the ritual uncorking and wine tasting while her head whirled.

“If you mean what you just said…” She took a sip. “Why haven’t you written? Or called? Why are you having an affair with Angela, for God’s sake? Why have you been such a—bastard?”

She looked away after the last word.

“You have been, you know.”

“Such a lot of questions, darling.” Plant smiled and reached for her hand again, kissing her fingertips. “But I will try to answer them. Let’s see. Why am I a bastard? Born that way, I’m afraid. Wrong side of the blanket and all that. The Smiths of Perth Amboy aren’t my real parents. Those dreary, admirable people gave me the name of John Smith. Can you blame me for changing it? I chose ‘Plantagenet’ after playing Henry II in a college production of
Becket
—but I suppose that’s neither here nor there, is it?”

She nodded, trying to be patient.

He went on. “I know nothing of my real parents except that my mother died bringing me into the world, and I’ve been destroying people’s lives ever since.”

The mousse arrived.

“I wish you’d stop being funny and answer my questions,” she said.

“It’s all quite serious. I’m afraid I’ve hurt rather a lot of people.”

“You mean Angela Harper?”

He looked pensive for a moment before breaking into a smile. “No,” he said. “Not Angela. I’ve been using her, of course, but she’s using me, too. It’s the one relationship I don’t feel guilty about.”

 “Do you feel guilty about me?”

“Yes, I feel guilty about coming on to a sweet, naïve girl who regarded me as a trusted friend and leaving her alone in a storm in a dangerous neighborhood in New Jersey. Yes. I have a bit of guilt about that.” His face was full of anguish.

“It was my fault, partly,” she said, wanting to help. “I was weirded out because I was afraid…”

She wondered how to begin the story of Lester Stokes.

“Afraid. Yes. You were afraid of me, Camilla. And you had every right to be. That night, riding a Greyhound back to the City, I took a long, hard look at myself, and I didn’t like what I saw. I decided not to go groveling back to Edmund—not to go on using him. I flew to California instead. Got myself a paying job. The stuff they pay me to write is drivel, but it’s more than I’ve written in years. And I’m supporting myself. Not living off an old queen, or—or trying to seduce a rich debutante so she’ll marry me.”

Camilla’s mouth went dry.

“But you can’t mean—” Her words came out in a sputter. “When you got weird and kissed me—that was about money? That’s all you cared about?”

“Oh, no, darling. It wasn’t all I cared about. But it was so damned convenient: you and all that Randall money. But then it went wrong. I saw that terror in your eyes. I never want you to be afraid of me again, Camilla. Never.”

He took her hand again. She studied his long, perfectly manicured fingers and thought of Jonathan’s thick, ink-stained ones and wondered if it was wise for a woman to give her hand—or any other part of herself—to any man.

The waiter arrived with their dinners.

“Camilla, I’m so sorry,” Plant said. “This is coming out wrong. What I wanted to tell you is that I’m trying to change. Have changed. Going back to New York helped me sort things out. I’ve finished the book for
Alexander!
Darling, Edmund and I—”

“You’re back with Edmund!” Something was finally getting back to normal. 

“Not as lovers—as collaborators. He’s found an air-brained little tenor who makes him blissfully happy, so we have no problems there. And he is a magnificent composer. The score for
Alexander!
is some of his best work, ever.”

“Fantastic. I know how long you’ve been dreaming about your Alexander script.” Maybe he really had turned over a new leaf.

“It’s going to be a fantastic show. We’re trying out in L.A., then taking it to New York. I’ve lined up some big L.A. money.”

L. A. money. “So that’s what you meant about using Angela?”

“No. I’m the one who got the investors—not Angela. All Angela’s done is back this production of my old stuff at a fly-by-night theater in San Diego. Not that I’m ungrateful, but I need to take care of myself. And if the show’s a success—which I know it will be—I could take care of you, too. While I was on the East Coast, I heard about your family’s bankruptcy, darling, and I’m so sorry, but—it made me feel I could come here and ask you—will you, by the way? Marry me?”

Camilla studied the whorls in a piece of radicchio, trying to make sense of her conflicting feelings.

“I don’t know. I don’t seem to know anything anymore. Like why you never got in touch with me.”

“I thought it was for the best for me to leave you alone. I didn’t know about your money problems, and I honestly thought you were better off without me. That’s when I sent the Groundhog’s Day card.”

She sipped wine, not wanting to meet his eyes.

He took her hand again. “But I had to rethink everything, darling, when you suddenly appeared at Angela’s. I’d just had a big failure with that Samoa thing. I didn’t know what to do. I was ecstatic to see you, but my life was falling apart, so I didn’t know what to say...”

She took her hand back and went back to her salad. The duck was gorgeous, but she found it hard to swallow.

Plant picked up his fork, but kept talking. “I actually did try to call you a couple of days later, when Angela was out, but some Neanderthal answered the phone and wouldn’t let me speak to you. After that, your phone was disconnected. Later, I called the
Sentinel
to get your new address—that’s how I knew where to send the roses—but I was on my way to New York by then. It wasn’t until I got there that I heard about your bankruptcy. Why didn’t you tell me, darling? I thought this newspaper job was just a ploy to get out from under your mother’s thumb.”

“I was taught it’s not polite to beg.”

She knew he was probably being honest, but how could she trust a man who said he’d always been a liar?

“You once told me you loved me because I was the only person you could be yourself with,” he said.

“That was when I thought I knew you. And besides—” She hesitated before she let the words come out. “You were gay then, Plantagenet.” She had no idea if she should bring it up, or tell him what Edmund had said about gay cancer. It was all so confusing.

His eyes looked away from hers for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.

“No matter who, or what, I seem to be, please believe that I will always be your friend. I wish you’d told me about the bankruptcy.”

“Why?” she refilled her wine glass.

“Because it makes all the difference. That’s why I came down here as soon as I could. I don’t have to be afraid I’m using you any more. Don’t you see?”

She didn’t. However, just beyond the wall of roses at her elbow, she did see something else. Something quite else. She let out a squeak.

“What is it, darling?”

All she could do was point. At a table across the room, a handsome couple was being seated. The woman had an hourglass figure and spectacular long hair. Her tall, dark companion leaned on her shoulder as he propped a pair of crutches against the wall.

Plantagenet gave a hearty laugh.

“What did I tell you, darling? Angela doesn’t need me at all. But your boss seems to need her. He seems to need her in a big way.”

Camilla peered past the roses again, just in time to see Jonathan Kahn and Angela Harper locked in a passionate embrace.