The Proud and the Prejudiced (20 page)

“After Rich found out about what you had done to
his role, he wanted to walk out. He told me to come with him, and I wasn’t
going to be taping anyway, so I went. That night we were going to a club, and
he said he had some coke if I wanted to do a line before we went out. I don’t
know what it was, but it wasn’t coke. Once I started, I didn’t stop. After
that, the only thing I remember is waking up at Peter’s house.”

“So you were at Peter’s house the whole time?”

“No, only a couple of days. He told me about
Winnie and how much he had done to protect her career, but he said it wasn’t
worth letting Rich get away scot free to do it again. He told me he was the
reason Jack had stopped taking my calls. He was very kind but crazy worried. He
was so afraid someone would see us together, and he was especially concerned
that you would get the wrong idea. He said he didn’t think you would ever
forgive him, but I told him you are the most forgiving person I know.”

“Forgive him?” Alice had trouble absorbing all
Giselle had told her. Nothing made any sense. Each time her head had come to
accept it had only been a one-night stand, something would happen to wrench at
her heart. Giselle and Jack spoke as though Peter really cared about her, but
he had gone almost a month without a word.

Alice’s phone started buzzing in her pocket.

Giselle squeezed Alice’s hand. “I have to get to
wardrobe. We’ll talk more later,” she said before walking away.

Alice pulled out her phone. Peacock. “What’s up?”

“Alice, could you come to Mrs. Jellyby’s office?”

“Uhhh…sure.”

Alice wracked her brain trying to remember the
last time she had been called to Mrs. Jellyby’s office. In fact, she tried to
avoid the production offices as much as possible.
This cannot be good.

Even before she walked into the outer office, she
could hear a man’s voice yelling behind Mrs. Jellyby’s door.
What now?

“They said you could go right in,” Mrs. Jellyby’s
secretary told her.

“I’m not sure if I want to.” She bit the bullet,
tapped on the door, and walked in.

Mrs. Jellyby sat behind her desk with Mr. Peacock
standing beside her and a middle-aged, heavyset angry man staring daggers at
them both.

“You wanted to see me?” Alice asked.

“Are you the head writer?” asked the angry man. “I
wanted to see you.”

“This is Mr. Burke,” Peacock said, “one of Peter
Walsingham’s attorneys.”

“What’s going on?”

“He seems to think we’ve brainwashed Peter.”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on!” the angry lawyer
said. “You are all attempting to destroy my client’s career! I don’t know what
you’ve done to him, but you have got to cut him off of this albatross.”

Alice resisted the temptation to inform Mr. Burke
that an albatross would actually
be
cut off. “I don’t understand. What’s
going on?”

Mr. Peacock managed to cut in before Mr. Burke
could speak. “The network has worked out an out-of-court settlement with
Peter.”

Her heart flipped in her chest. “Oh.” Her voice
sounded small and distant even to herself.

“In layman’s terms, he would be buying out the
rest of his contract. In exchange for monetary compensation, the network would
not force him to return.”

Now somehow her heart had crawled up and lodged in
her throat. “So he is going to pay, I’d presume, a considerable amount of money
not
to come back.” Her legs began to shake with the strain on her
weakening knees.
That’s it. It’s over. It was a one-night stand
. “I
think I better sit down.” She took a chair in front of the desk, but now Mr.
Burke hovered over her. “So why am I here?”

“Because he won’t accept it!” She flinched as Mr.
Burke’s voice rang in her ear. “Mr. Walsingham says he will not accept it
unless the producer, the director, and the head writer sign off on it.”

“Wait. What?”

“Do you understand how completely preposterous
that is?”

“Did he say why?”

“He said his dispute is with the network, not us,”
said Mrs. Jellyby, “and he did not want to risk anyone’s job unless we did not
want him back.”

“What did you decide?” Alice asked Mrs. Jellyby
and Peacock.

Mr. Burke answered. “They have both signed. We now
await your signature.” He handed her the papers and stuck a pen out toward her.

“You both signed? You don’t want him back?”

“We wanted the ultimate decision to be up to you,”
Mr. Peacock said. “Whatever you choose, we will stand beside you, but it’s up
to you to say if you want him back.”

Alice glanced from paper to face to pen to face
and back to paper again.

“What are you waiting for?” Mr. Burke stuck the
pen an inch from her nose. “Sign it.”

She perused the papers without reading then handed
them back to Mr. Burke. “No, I don’t believe I will.”

“What do you mean you won’t sign it?”

“I am not going to sign something stating that he
is not wanted here, and bullying me will not change my mind!”

“Are you determined to ruin his career? Do you
know he will not even look at scripts until this matter is settled?”

“I don’t see how this prevents him from reading
scripts. And I don’t see how working on a soap for a few more weeks will be
detrimental to his career. He is in the best position to define his career.
Having our acceptance was his stipulation – not ours. If he wants to leave the
show without my consent, he is free to do so.”

He took a step back and flapped the papers at her
as his eyes bulged out of his head. “Oh-HO! I know you. You’re the one from
The
Intruder
. Did you arrange those pictures to be taken of his alleged
proposal to blackmail him into staying on the show?”

“If I did do something like that, I would
certainly be the last to admit it.” She stood up and walked to the door.

“And that is your final word on the matter?”

As she started to turn the knob, she stopped and
looked back to offer one parting remark. “No. You tell Peter there is still a
role for him in
All My Tomorrows.
”

*****

“So who do we kill next?” Alice asked her staff of
writers.

The first victim in their murder mystery had been
simple, since Rich’s defection had broken his contract. Poor Brother Raife –
brutally murdered before he had even taken his final vows. After all the
build-up and excitement of introducing Raife and implying the possibility that
he would be Giselle’s next love interest, this new twist had stunned the
viewers. That along with converting Peter Walsingham’s character from her lover
to her brother had the critics calling
All My Tomorrows
“unpredictable”
– “What will they do next?” – which unintentionally gave the soap a bit of a
boost in ratings.

Now the writers had to determine how unpredictable
they wanted to be in killing off the cast.

“Does anyone want to leave the show?”

“I don’t think so,” Alice said. “Not since
Eileen.”
And Peter.

“Hey, do you think Eileen would come back for a
guest stint just so we could kill her off?”

“I don’t think so. And plus, I don’t want to take
away her option of ever coming back. We’re just going to have to kill off a few
extras. I mean, the killer can’t just focus on the five core families on the
show.”

“And who’s the killer? Won’t he be off the show
too?”

“I think a prison set would be easy, or add a
psych wing to the hospital. And why does it have to be a ‘he’?”

“Yeah, maybe it’s Sienna!”

As they all laughed, Giselle herself walked in.
“Alice? Jack’s here.”

“Oh. OK.” Jack had frequently been to the set over
the last week, so Alice didn’t know why Giselle made a point of telling her
then.

“Peter’s with him.”
Oh...That’s why.
“He
says he’s coming back to
All My Tomorrows.
”

The other writers did not react with surprise or
excitement or joy to the news. Instead, all eyes rounded on Alice, and they
battered her with questions on how to adapt the storyline. Alice sat there
mute, frozen, flushed, deaf to all the words floating around her. She pushed
herself up away from the table and followed Giselle out of the room.

Pull it together, Alice. Don’t let him see
you’re affected. If he hasn’t called in a month, clearly his infatuation is
over.
But when she and Giselle reached them and Peter turned around, the
change in his expression upon seeing her nearly melted away all of her
defenses. Nearly.

“Hi, Jack.” She spoke in her most professional
tone with her posture rigid. “Peter.”

“Miss McGillicutty.”

“It’s been a while – a month, I believe. I had
come to think we would never hear from you again.”

“I know. I thought I might not be welcome.”

“Hmm. Peculiar. And how long will you be gracing
us with your presence?”

“I think that will depend on where I fit in your
story.” He glanced at Jack and Giselle then said, “Perhaps we could discuss my
role in your office.”

The way his stare shot through her compelled her
to hold her breath, so she couldn’t speak and only nodded and led the way at a
quick pace. Once there, she stepped around and sat down, keeping at least a
desk-width’s distance between them. He closed the door and locked it then took
a seat.

“Why did you lock it?”

“I didn’t want anyone barging in like they often
do.”

“It’s my door.”

“Do you want me to unlock it?”

She didn’t answer, and they said nothing for
several moments.

“So,” she said, her voice not as steady as she had
expected. “How is Britney?”

“She’s well, thank you. She’s asked about you
several times.”

“Me?”

“Yes, she asks if I’ve seen my
Alice in
Wonderland
.”

“Hers?”

“What?”

“
Her
Alice? Does she say ‘my’ or does she
say ‘your’?”

He leaned forward in his chair. “She didn’t say
either. I said ‘my,’ but I suppose that’s up to you.”

As she brought her hand up to her face, its
shakiness changed her mind, and she hid both hands on her lap. “What are you
trying to do? Is this some sort of game to you?”

“I’ve never played games with you, Alice. Never
once.”

“What do you call disappearing for a month after
the night…the night we had together?”

“I thought you must hate me. I thought even if
that night had meant anything to you, I must have destroyed it.”

“You might not play games, but you sure as hell
talk in riddles. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Giselle.”

Waiting
. “You gotta give me a little more
than that to work with, Peter. This is not a script I’m writing.”

He stood up and turned, facing the wall, hands on
hips. “I thought, that night, perhaps your feelings toward me had changed, that
you could… But then the next morning I woke up in bed alone, and it was as
though the night before hadn’t even happened. When you found out about Giselle,
you were so angry, running around, screaming like a madwoman!”

“I would have said banshee, but go on.”

“I knew I had ruined it – with my arrogance and
superiority.”

Frustration had now calmed her nerves, and she
dropped her face in her hands. “
Ugh!
Peter! How had you ruined what?”

“Us. What we had that night. What we
could
have. Giselle was in serious trouble because of me.”

“You?”

“Yes. It was all my fault.”

“Oh? And how is the great and powerful Walsingham
responsible for an actress in L.A. going off on a drug binge?”

He turned to her then, his face so stricken she
wished he would turn back. “I caused all of it. I didn’t stop Rich when I had
the chance because I was more concerned about the reputations of the other
actors. When Rich got here, I didn’t expose him to save Winnie some
embarrassment. If I hadn’t made you promise not to say anything, you could have
told Giselle the truth. I am the one who told Jack to leave Giselle, or she
wouldn’t have run into Rich’s waiting arms in the first place!”

“Oh.” He did have a point. “Well, if you put it
like that, I guess it is your fault.”

“You were so angry and upset, I knew you must
blame me and hate me.”

“Damnit, Peter, are you so egotistical you think
if someone is angry they must be angry with you?”

“Weren’t you? The only other time I ever saw you
that angry was with me!”

“I was just angry, and frantic, and worried, and
upset! It had nothing to do with you! I was mainly angry with myself for
leaving and not doing more to stop Rich or warn Giselle. I am as much to blame
as you are. But you and I ultimately cannot control the behavior of others. Jack
didn’t have to listen to you; he should have had more faith in Giselle! Giselle
knew she shouldn’t be using drugs, and she chose not to listen to me. And Rich!
Well, no one is responsible for the way he is except maybe his parents.”

“You aren’t mad at me?

“Mad? I’m grateful! You went out on your own and
found Giselle and got her away from that creep. You probably saved her life.”

He averted his eyes and shook his head. “No, I
don’t want your gratitude. I wish Giselle hadn’t told you.”

“You can’t blame Giselle. She inadvertently said
something about ‘he’ but without an antecedent, so you know I couldn’t let it
rest until I knew who ‘he’—”

With a suppressed chuckle throbbing in his chest,
Peter smiled and held up his hand to halt her. “All right, I get it. I know how
you despise ambiguous pronouns.”

“You do?”

“So you really weren’t angry with me that
morning?”

“Why did you walk out on me like that?”

“I thought you would want me to leave, like the
night in New Orleans when you said you hated me.”

“Oh, don’t remind me of what I said that night; it
makes me ashamed. I didn’t want you to leave. I wanted you to stay. I had
something to tell you.”