Flavor of the Month (96 page)

Sam felt a stirring in his chest and in his groin. He knew that he had never felt this before. There had been women—lots of women—that he had felt desire for, and he had felt a tenderness this strong for Mary Jane, back in New York. But now, for Jahne Moore he felt a welling up of tenderness that almost brought tears to his eyes, along with a desire so intense that even now he felt a tug at his crotch. Unlike April, Jahne was beautiful
and
vulnerable. Unlike Mary Jane, Jahne was vulnerable
and
beautiful. How had it happened that he was finally granted this woman?

And now, after the death of Mai, Jahne needed him.

He slipped out of his jeans and into the bed beside her. He would hold her until she woke up. What could be more comforting after a shock than that? He would hold her and comfort her for as long as she needed it. To hell with the shooting schedule.

Her body was voluptuously warm against his. He put his chest to her back and fitted his body to hers so that they curved against one another like two spoons in a drawer. She fit him perfectly, and he felt a wave of such tenderness, mixed with such passion, that he couldn’t resist putting an arm around her and cupping her left breast in his hand. The heaviness of her flesh and her unconsciousness made the moment intensely erotic and private. He felt almost as if he could possess her more now than he ever had. He also felt his erection bump up against the soft curve of Jahne’s buttocks.

Perhaps she felt it, too, for she stirred a little and murmured in her sleep. Oh, how he longed to enter her now, to lie beside her, inside her, until she woke. But was that for her or for him? Wasn’t it selfish, even masturbatory, to consider it at a time like this? He wasn’t the kind of man who had ever enjoyed taking advantage of a drunken date. He didn’t like them passive. But, somehow, his feelings for Jahne were so strong, and at the same time so insecure, that the more often he had her the less he actually felt he possessed her. The public, the media, the Industry owned her. Would she leave him, in the end, the way the other beauties had left him? Was she gone when the picture wrapped?

He pulled her closer against him. This time, in this relationship, he felt her warmth, he felt her sincerity. Was it because he had gotten her while she was young and inexperienced? But what would time and fame do? She was hot, and this film would probably make her hotter. She could negotiate any deal she wanted. She could also take any man she wanted. Would she keep wanting him, or was this merely an adventure? And was she old enough to know?

He ran his hand along the sensuous curve of her side, letting it rest on her hip. His hand was trembling, so filled with desire that it seemed to have taken on a life of its own. It ran over the smooth skin of her behind, and then slipped between her legs. He buried his fingers in her pubic hair and cupped her sex in his hand. Holding her there, his palm at the mouth of her femaleness, both soothed and further aroused him.

Then he felt her wake. “Oh, Sam!” she breathed, her voice thick with sorrow, sleep, and drugs. He nuzzled into her neck and kissed her there. He felt her move her head. Was it toward his caress or away?

“Oh, Sam! Mai. She’s dead, Sam. I’m all alone again.”

His own voice seemed husky with his restrained lust. “You’re not alone. I’m with you now. I’m with you, and I’ll never leave you.” He rose on his elbows and covered her mouth with his own. She tasted of tears, and the metallic tang of the sedative. He couldn’t bear to take his mouth off hers, or to wait a minute more. He’d never felt this for a woman, any woman, ever. He could hardly stand it. He spread her legs and entered her swiftly, then held still, his body shielding hers.

“I’ll never leave you,” he promised.

“I can’t believe she just disappeared!” Sharleen said to Dobe. “I mean, I just can’t.” Sharleen was seated at the redwood picnic table in her backyard. Flora Lee’s letter was before her. She looked up. Dobe was preparing to barbecue ribs. Sharleen watched as he turned a slab of ribs over in the marinade with the long-handled fork. Then he sat down at the table opposite Sharleen.

“It’s for the best, Sharleen,” he told her, his voice serious and low. “We had a long talk. She was ashamed of what she was, and of being a burden on you. She thought this was best.”

Sharleen shook her head, indicating that Dobe shouldn’t speak in front of her brother. “I don’t know what he’ll think,” she said softly to Dobe. Dean was sitting on the grass, tossing balls to the dogs, who chased them across the lawn. Oprah sat upright at Dean’s side, unmoving.

Sharleen smiled at the picture Dean and the little herd of dogs made, then looked at Dobe. “We’re goin’ to miss her, Dobe,” she said.

“I ain’t,” Dean said, not looking at anyone. “Not Flora Lee.
She
wasn’t my momma. I’d know Momma in a Texas minute, and that weren’t her.”

“What makes you say that, Dean?” Dobe asked.

“ ’Cause of the way she smelled. Like my daddy used to. But Momma, she used to smell different than him. All sweet, like clean laundry.”

Sharleen knew that in a way Dean was right. Their momma
had
always smelled good. She remembered it, too. Momma was always washing herself, her clothes, her hair. Sharleen remembered how she used to brush her momma’s hair, after it was washed, for what seemed like hours, and her momma would nod off to sleep while Sharleen brushed.

“No,” Dean said, “I’m glad Flora Lee’s gone. Now I can go back to rememberin’ my momma. That was better than having Flora Lee here.” He stood up, and all four dogs jumped to follow him. “I’m goin’ to do their tricks one more time with them, make sure they got it right, then I’m goin’ to come back and show you all. All four of them. How much longer for the ribs, Dobe?” Dean grinned. “I could eat a calf and a half.”

“You got time enough to play with the dogs. But the hot dogs is done. Help yourself. They’ll hold you for a while.”

They watched Dean walk away, the dogs bounding around him, each trying to get the hot-dog bits that Dean began tossing at them.

“I’m surprised he said that, Dobe. I guess most folks would say Dean is simple, but it seems to me he gets most things right. Still, I feel scared about Flora Lee. Should we do somethin’?”

“Sharleen, I’m here to tell you some home truths, unless you don’t care to hear ’em.”

Sharleen looked at him silently, then visibly took a breath, but said nothing.

“Sharleen,” Dobe continued, “your momma, who
ain’t
your momma anyhow, is—excuse my language now—nothin’ but a whore, and maybe a little bit worse.”

Sharleen winced, but she continued sitting, silent and still, except for a tear that flooded over her lower left eyelid and began a slow course down her cheek. “I don’t say this to hurt you, girl. I say it to clean out an infected wound. I know it pains you, but you gotta know.”

“Didn’t you think I did?” Sharleen asked quietly.

Shamed, Dobe looked away. He had underestimated her. “I had to be sure you knew. ’Cause she’s gone away and she won’t be back. She’s taken care of—least as well as she can be, till someone puts an end to her, or she puts an end to herself. And there ain’t nothin’ you can do to change that, Sharleen. Not one damn thing.”

“I know that, too,” Sharleen said. “I watched my daddy dyin’ for years. But Momma—Flora Lee—well, maybe she wasn’t my blood kin. But she was good to me. And she is my family.”

“Family ain’t what you inherit, girl, it’s what you make with those you love who love you back.”

Sharleen thought about that for a while as the ribs sizzled on the grill. “I wanted to be a good daughter,” she said. “Maybe, if I’d done better, she could have…”

“Ain’t no one can be a good daughter to a bad mother,” Dobe interrupted. There was silence between them for a long while.

“I’ll tell you what’s funny,” Sharleen said. “Seems like I lost my real mother early, but I was given Flora Lee. She
was
a good stepmomma, Dobe. Honest she was. She treated me good as her own child. Never made no difference between me and Dean. I never blamed her for leavin’. My daddy would have killed her. But I did sorely miss her, all them years. Then we found her. And here’s the funny thing: I missed my momma most, right here in L.A., after she came to us. It was like I’d lost not only her but her good memory, too.”

“I know how that can be, Sharleen,” Dobe said. “I was married once.” He stepped away from the grill, wincing at the smoke. “Sharleen,” he said, “I want to give you this.” He handed her a key.

“What is it to?”

“A safety-deposit box at California Central Bank. It has important papers there. Papers from your momma. I want you to have the key for safe keeping. Go look at ’em someday.”

The phone rang inside. “I’ll get it,” Dean said, and jumped up. He returned with a portable phone, and handed it to Sharleen. “It’s Mr. Ortis,” he said. Dean made it his job to answer the phone, to make sure Sharleen didn’t get any of them dirty calls.

“Hey, Mr. Ortis. What’re you doin’ workin’ on Sunday afternoon?” But Sharleen knew that Mr. Ortis always worked, and always called her with more work for her to do. Sharleen listened to his excited voice.

“I’m not doing it no more,” she insisted. “No more albums. It ain’t right. It ain’t me singing, no matter what you say. No. No. I mean it.” She hung up the phone.

Dobe raised his eyebrows as she’d raised her voice. “Another problem, Sharleen? Sounds as if you do got a lot of troubles.” His eyes wrinkled in a smile. “It’s ’cause you’re such an important person.”

“It’s a good thing you know me, Dobe. ’Cause sometimes I begin to wonder about that. But then I look at you or Dean, and I know. I’m just regular folk.”

“Well, it seems you’re folk that can sing.”

“Dobe, I ain’t kiddin’. I
can’t
sing.”

“Well, you could have fooled me. I heard that record. They’re playin’ it on the radio night and day, and, Sharleen, you
can
sing, girl.”

“That’s just it, Dobe. That don’t even sound like me. Sy says they can fix your voice with all that technology they got. I mean, you sing any old way, but they can do lots of things with all that stuff, make you sound different. But I think they just called in another girl. One who can sing but ain’t famous like me. Somehow, it don’t seem fair, do it?”

Dobe chuckled, then looked at her troubled face and shook his head while he took the ribs off the grill. “Ever hear of con games, Sharleen? Almost anyone can play ’em.”

“Miss Irons?”

If she heard her name one more time today, she would cut someone’s throat. She answered the steward without looking up from her notes. “What?”

“The captain asked me to tell you we’ll be landing in Oakland in fifteen minutes. Is there anything I can get for you?”

“No,” she snapped. “Just make sure my car is waiting.”

“I’ve already called ahead. It’ll be on the apron as you deplane.”

April waved the steward away, made a few last entries on the page, and closed the leather-bound book. She looked around the cabin of the Cessna Citation to the only other person on board and beckoned to her. The woman came immediately and stood beside April. “Yes?” she said, simply. No “Miss Irons,” April noticed. At least this one was learning. “Did you get him?”

“No. I left three messages that you wanted to speak to him, but he hasn’t returned your calls. His secretary said Mr. Shields was working on a scene with Miss Moore and wasn’t to be disturbed.”

“Does he know I’m coming?”

“Yes, since yesterday.”

April shook her head, then handed her secretary the notebook and snapped, “Type this. I want it by the time we get to the set.” She watched the woman move forward, sit down at the word processor, and begin to type. A hundred words per minute, but what the fuck was her name? she thought. April had been through three or four of these bitches in six months and couldn’t remember one from another. A thousand bucks a week to type and place phone calls, and they couldn’t take the heat. Not one of them. Well, the next one’s going to be a man, she told herself. Like the old queen Samuel Mayer had. In his fifties, on top of everything, and loyal to a fault. Except they don’t make executive assistants like that anymore.

April looked down onto the Pacific coastline, and saw the waves pounding the nearly empty beaches. Somewhere down there, on one of those beaches, was the cast and crew of
Birth of a Star
. Fucked up and out of control. All of them bending under the pressure.

Michael had been whining to her on the phone all week. “I’m not going to take a dive on this one, April. I can’t even get to see the dailies. No one can, for the last three weeks. Sam has that flunky kid leaving the set every night with them and a fucking security guard. They’ve started to call the kid ‘Tsar of All the Rushes,’ security’s so tight.”

She knew that. Sam had stopped sending them to her, too. And she was the fucking producer! “What’s your read on this, Michael?” she had asked.

“What’s
my
read? Jesus Christ, April, you have a director just out of the gate who’s taking a week to set up a two-character beach scene—the fucking beach is
already there
, and he’s three weeks behind schedule.
And
over budget. Performances suck, morale is worse. And
no one
gets to see the dailies. Plus, he’s holed up all the time with the dumb bitch. What’s that tell you? If this film goes down the tubes, I’m fucked!”

Everything had gone wrong. Michael fucking Jahne. Sam fucking me. Sam fucking Jahne. Michael giving it to Sam for fucking Jahne. Christ, they were all skittish. Michael was the bankable star; the movie rode on his back. Also, he had to be asking himself, Is this my last romantic lead, or only my second to last, or third to last?

And Jahne Moore, nervous as a cat. Well, of course. Her
first
film. Would the transition from the little box to the silver screen work? April had seen personal lives fuck up her deals before, from the Julia Roberts-Kiefer Sutherland breakup to getting caught with a Madonna-Sean Penn deal on the table. But she’d never had a film where the female costar had fucked the male lead
and
the director. And certainly not when she, April, had
also
been fucking the director.