Trading Up (69 page)

Oh, the darling, the absolute darling, he thought wildly. She was a wonder and a mystery—and yet so patently obvious. The “screenplay” was only thirty-three pages long and barely resembled the standard form—it was more a hodgepodge of notes for scenes with the occasional line or two of dialogue thrown in for good measure. But feeling as if he finally understood his wife, and remembering her high standards for “art,” he wasn’t surprised that she’d refused to show it to anyone: Nearly everything in her attempt was a pathetic cliché.

He turned back to the first page. The main character didn’t even have a name—

she was referred to only as The Girl. In the beginning of the story, The Girl was four years old and was in a ballet recital, playing a birthday candle on a cake, spinning around and around. Afterward, her father (whom The Girl loved more than anyone in the world) came up to her and hugged her, and then The Mother (she had no name either) grabbed The Girl’s arm and pulled her away and yelled at her for getting her tutu dirty. Then it skipped ahead to when The Girl was ten. She was in the bathroom, trying on The Mother’s lipstick, when The Mother burst in. She

“snatched” the lipstick out of The Girl’s hand.

the mother
(snarling)

I just want you to know one thing! If your father and I get divorced, it’s all your fault!

the girl

No, Mama, please.

the mother

I’m going to lock you in your room. Until you learn to behave. Look at yourself. You look like a slut!

the girl

I’ll run away, Mama.

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the mother

I wish you would. Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused in this family?

Selden smiled indulgently and skipped ahead.

Now this part, he thought, was slightly more interesting. The Girl was on an Arab’s yacht—she’d been tricked into becoming some kind of sex slave by another girl, who she referred to as The So-called Girlfriend. Night after night, The Girl huddled in her cabin in terror, hearing the screams of The Russian Girl shouting

“Nyet! Nyet!” as she was gang-raped by The Arab’s henchmen. “It was then,” he read, “that The Girl decided she had to survive. She
would
survive. She would figure out a way.”

This was followed by a scene in which The Girl was sitting at a table, playing poker with the three Arab henchmen:

arab number one

I raise you a hundred.

the girl

I’ll double you. Two hundred to show.

arab number one

How did that happen!

the girl

I win. Again.

Now where on earth had she come up with that? Selden wondered. Again, it was the kind of clichéd story that people liked to think was true—but nobody really believed. Although the part about The Girl playing poker to survive was a nice, original touch—a sort of new twist on Bluebeard—and it showed some real imagination . . .

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But what difference did it make
what
she had written? he asked himself, gathering up the pages in glee. The only thing that mattered was that she’d tried—that she’d had the right intentions all along. And that she’d been telling the truth. She kept telling him that she’d written a screenplay, and he hadn’t believed her . . .

He suddenly felt a crushing guilt.

But . . . he would make it up to her, he thought quickly. He would give her anything she wanted. Now that he had the pages in his hand everything was clear.

She’d been right all along: She
had
been framed. Why had he doubted her? And rolling the pages into a tube, he slipped them into the breast pocket of his coat for safekeeping.

He hurried out of the apartment, the keys rattling in his hand. Thank God neither one of them would ever have to come back here, he thought. He would tell her to give up the apartment . . . Why, he would tell everybody everything. He would call Jerry Grabaw and let him know that
he had the screenplay
. . .

And then he would tell Victor Matrick. Turning the key in the lock, he thought about how good that would feel. He was suddenly reminded of Victor’s terrible words—that Splatch Verner couldn’t handle a girl like Janey Wilcox—and for once, Victor would have to admit that he was wrong. He would see that the opposite was true: Splatch Verner needed wives like Janey Wilcox, wives who were beautiful, smart, and talented. Under his tutelage, Janey would finish the screenplay—and hadn’t he helped dozens of writers through the process before? And how much better it would make him look, when people understood that his wife was much more than a pretty face. Even his mother would be impressed . . .

But as he shoved the keys into his pocket, he paused. What if people still didn’t believe him? What if they said that she had written the pages
after
—after the scandal broke in order to try to appear innocent?

It wasn’t important, he thought firmly. And as he rushed down the stairs, he realized all that mattered was that
he
knew the truth, and knowing the truth, he didn’t give a damn what other people thought.

Janey Wilcox stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She was both excited and nervous, and it always soothed her to see that she was still lovely, that her beauty was in full bloom and showed no signs of fading, despite the hardships of the past month.

But those hardships, she reassured herself, were finished—or would be, very soon. In twenty minutes, a car was arriving to take her to JFK, and then she would get on a plane, and a new life would begin . . .

Tearing herself away from the mirror, she reminded herself that she still had one or two little things to take care of before she left, and she hurried into the bedroom.

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Four Louis Vuitton suitcases lay open and neatly packed on the bed, awaiting her final inspection. All that remained was the blue velvet box in which she stored the black pearl necklace she’d purchased in that brief time when she and Selden were in love—to which she’d now added her second most treasured possession: an invitation to the
Vanity Fair
Oscar party.

She went to the bureau and snapped open the lid on the blue velvet box. There it was, right on the very top—the most coveted invitation in the world. She took it out and lovingly ran her finger over the raised gold lettering that read
“Vanity Fair”
in the same famous typeface that appeared on the cover of the magazine every month, and then opened it up. On the top left-hand corner, her name,
“Janey
Wilcox,”
was written in gold calligraphy, followed by a summons to join
Vanity Fair
for a seated dinner after the Academy Awards Ceremony at 9 p.m. sharp. Several hundred people were invited to the party afterward, but the invitation to the dinner was notoriously exclusive—strictly A-list movie stars, directors, and studio heads, with no press allowed until later, so the stars could fearlessly let down their hair.

Of course, she’d immediately seen that she must keep the invitation a secret and not tell anyone—especially not Selden or Jerry Grabaw or even Wendy Piccolo.

And so she’d quietly made a few arrangements—and luckily, she’d remembered that she had the perfect dress to wear for the occasion: a long seventies-style halter-top gown by Roberto Cavalli that she’d bought in Milan on her honeymoon. She’d been saving the dress for some big spring party, but there wasn’t anything bigger than the Oscars, and she would part her hair in the middle and wear it straight down her back. And naturally, she would wear the pearls as well . . .

Setting the invitation aside, she lifted the pearls out of the box. Why shouldn’t she wear them now? she thought giddily. As a sort of celebration gesture . . . for good luck? As she lifted the pearls to her neck, her elbow brushed against the invitation and it fell to the floor.

She was about to bend over to pick it up when she heard the key turn in the lock. She froze.
What was Selden doing home
? she thought, in a sudden panic. Her plane left for Los Angeles at three, and she hadn’t expected him before the usual hour of five or six, by which time she’d be airborne and probably over Chicago. But there was literally no time to think about it, because in the next second, he was bounding into the bedroom, grabbing her in his arms and kissing her face, and exclaiming, “My love,
my love,
” over and over again, like some two-bit actor in a cheesy film.

What the hell was she going to do
now
? she thought in horror.

“Selden. Selden darling,” she said, struggling to match her tone to his while pushing him away. “What is it? What are you doing home?” In a moment, she 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 371

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thought, her heart thumping out of her chest in fear, he would see the suitcases, and then he would probably try to stop her . . .

“Don’t you see?” he said, taking her by both shoulders and staring her in the face. His expression was ecstatic. “Everything is going to be okay now. It’s all going to work out for us . . .”

“It is?” Janey asked nervously.

“I found the screenplay!” he shouted.

Her eyes opened wide in shock. She took a step back from him. “You did?”

“In your apartment,” he said, fumbling with his coat. He withdrew a curl of pink pages and unfurled them on the bed. “It’s barely a screenplay, but it proves that you tried—that you never for a minute thought you were taking that money for sex.

Look, baby,” he said, pointing to the top page. “You even made a title page . . . you called it
Trading Up?
; of course, you can’t have a question mark in a title and you’d have to change it, but then you wrote all these little scenes, and sort of outlined what was going to happen between them . . .”

Janey felt faint. After she had written those pages two summers ago, she had closed her computer, unable to go on. It wasn’t just that she’d felt the screenplay wasn’t very good (which was embarrassing), but that she’d inevitably revealed the truth about her past . . .

“Selden,” she gasped.

And then he looked up and noticed the suitcases on the bed.

“What are you doing?” he cried in consternation.

She suddenly found she could barely speak. “I’m . . . ,” she faltered.

“But my darling, no!” he said, grasping her hands in comprehension. “You don’t
have
to leave. Now that we have the screenplay, everything is going to be all right.” He dropped her hands and began pacing the room. “I’ve been in this business for over twenty years, and I know when I spot talent. Oh, sure, it’s full of clichés, but first drafts always are, and the stuff about the girl on the yacht is very inventive . . .”

“Selden, I
can’t
. . . ,” she cried.

“But you can, my darling,” he said, holding out his hands. “Don’t you understand? I’ll help you. You’ll write the first draft, and then we’ll get someone to rewrite it. Naturally, Parador still has the rights, but now that George is in charge, it’s easy. I’ll get him to sign the rights over to MovieTime—and he owes me at least that much, the bastard . . .”

Janey took a step back in confusion, and Selden, seeing her expression, searched her face for an answer. “Ah, I understand,” he said knowingly. “You’re still angry at me because I didn’t believe you. But it wasn’t like that at all, my darling,” he said plaintively. “I wanted to believe you about the screenplay, but I was so afraid that it 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 372

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wasn’t true. I can understand how you must have felt, though . . . How you must have hated me. Just don’t tell me that you’ve stopped loving me. Not now, now that we have a second chance . . .”

This couldn’t be happening to her, Janey thought wildly. Not when she finally had a chance to
escape
. . .

“Baby, don’t you see?” he asked. “We’d even give you a producer credit . . .” She steadied herself against the dresser. If only he would go away . . . She couldn’t
think
with him hovering over her. He was finally offering her everything she’d always wanted, but she was afraid . . . If she did finish the screenplay, what would happen if he figured out that it was all true? Would he subject her to the same hateful indignities she’d suffered in the last month? And in a subconscious cry of defense, she said, “No . . .”

He stiffened. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said, grasping at the pearls in despair. If only she could tell him the truth, if only she could trust him . . . And then, the next words he spoke made everything horribly clear.

“I’m afraid there isn’t a choice,” he said coldly. “Two weeks ago, Victor Matrick told me I had to choose between you and my job . . . Naturally, I defended you—I told him that you
had
written a screenplay—but unless we go forward with this, the choice still stands. And I know you wouldn’t want me to give up my job. Not when I’ve been working for over twenty years to get where I am today . . .” Janey sucked in her breath. She felt the blood drain from her body; she thought she might vomit. And then her only thought was that she had to get away—she had to flee from this despicable creature who called himself her husband. She must force herself to move and to speak, she had to remain calm. She didn’t know who this Selden Rose was (and, truthfully, had she ever really known?) and she wasn’t sure of how far he might go.

In an unsteady voice, she said, “There’s no need for you to make a choice. It’s just that I have other plans . . .” She took a few steps to the bureau and rested her arm on top. She suddenly remembered that the invitation to the
Vanity Fair
party was at her feet—if only she could pick it up and put it in the velvet case without his noticing.

“Other plans,” he said, pulling his head back in surprise like a turtle that senses danger. “What other plans?”

Janey brushed her hair back from her forehead. If she could keep him quiet, maybe even promise to return . . . “I just got the good news,” she said evenly, unclasping the string of pearls from her neck and placing them in the box as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “My sister, Patty, is finally pregnant. She and Digger have taken a house in Malibu, and she wants me to join them right away.” It was 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 373