Honey Moon (9 page)

"How is your family?" she inquired.

"Which one?"

Once again, she smiled. There had always been something wonderfully self-effacing about Dash. "Take your pick."

"Well, you might have read that my last wife, Barbara, and I split a couple of years ago. She's doing real well for herself, though. Married a Denver banker.

We still get together every once in a while. And Marietta started a chain of aerobics studios in San Diego. She always did have a good head for business."

"I seem to remember reading about that. She kept you in and out of the courtroom for years, didn't she?"

"I didn't mind the courtroom so much as the way she sicced the IRS on me six months ago. Those bastards don't have any sense of humor."

Seventeen years had passed since she had fallen in love with him, and she was no longer fooled by that easy cowboy charm. Dash Coogan was a complex man. She remembered him as a gentle, giving lover, generous to a fault with his money but unable to share anything of himself. Like the western heroes he played, he was a loner, a man who put up so many subtle barriers against intimacy that it was impossible to truly know him.

"My kids are doing real good," he went on. "Josh is in his junior year at the University of Oklahoma and Meredith's going to be a freshman at Oral Roberts."

"And Wanda?" After all these years there was still a slight sting to her voice.

She and Dash had spent several weeks in bed together before he'd gotten around to mentioning the fact that he had a wife and two children tucked away in Tulsa. She thought too much of herself to be involved with another woman's husband, and that had been the end of the affair. But Dash Coogan wasn't the easiest man to get over, and it had taken her months to put her life back in order, something for which she had never quite forgiven him.

"Wanda's doing fine. She never changes."

Liz wondered if Wife Number Four was looming on the horizon. She also wondered what he would do if the show wasn't a success. Everyone knew that Dash had only agreed to do the show because he'd struck a deal with the IRS to pay off his debt. If he'd had a choice, she had no doubt that he would have stayed on his ranch with his horses.

A younger version of herself might have asked some of these questions, but the more mature Liz had learned to appreciate a life without messy personal entanglements, and so she made a play of looking at her watch. "Oh, dear. I'm late for my appointment with my masseuse, and my cellulite simply
hates
it when that happens."

He chuckled. "You and the second Mrs. Coogan would get along fine. Both of you enjoy all that fitness stuff, and you're both a lot smarter than you like to pretend. Of course, Marietta's degree came from the school of hard knocks, and yours came from Harvard or one of those places, didn't it?"

"Vassar, darling." Laughing, she gave him a brief wave.

He grinned and disappeared into the costume shop.

Several hours later, as Liz carried a glass of iced herbal tea and a small endive salad out onto the deck of her beach house, she found that she was still thinking about Dash. Mitzi, her golden retriever, trailed after her and plunked down across her feet. As Liz took a sip of her tea, she considered how much there was about Dash to admire.

He had fought a fierce battle with alcoholism and come out the winner. But he didn't seem to have taken his recovery for granted, and over the years she had heard stories of the ways in which he had helped other alcoholics.

The hero's white hat would have fit him perfectly, she decided, if it weren't for his womanizing.

In many ways he was an improbable Lothario, and if rumor were to be believed, he hadn't changed that much over the years. There had never been anything lecherous about his behavior. Quite the opposite. She remembered that he had always been shy around women, never directly seeking them out or trying to draw their attention. As much as she might want to rewrite her personal history, she knew that she had been the aggressor, setting her sights on the young stunt rider the moment they had been introduced on the set of her first picture. She had been drawn as so many women would be over the years by his overwhelming masculinity, made even more irresistible by a quiet, old-fashioned courtesy and deep sense of reserve.

No, Dash's flaw hadn't been lechery; it had been spinelessness. He couldn't seem to say no to an attractive woman, not even when he was wearing a wedding ring.

The afternoon was hot and breezy, and the faint sound of music came from the house next door. Liz glanced over to see Lilly Isabella sitting beneath an umbrella on her deck with several friends.

Lilly looked over and waved, her silvery-blond hair glistening in the sunlight.

"Hi, Liz. Is the music too loud?"

"Not at all," Liz called back. "Enjoy yourselves."

Lilly was the twenty-year-old daughter of Guy Isabella, one of Liz's leading men in the seventies. He had bought the house several years ago, but his beautiful young daughter spent more time there than he did. Occasionally Liz invited the girl over, but she had grown selfish with her solitude and she didn't enjoy being around young people very much. All that desperate self-centeredness was too wearing.

As she sipped her tea, she reminded herself that she would be spending lots of time with young people for the next few months—the unknown actress Ross chose to play that silly part of Celeste, and Eric Dillon, of course. It pricked her vanity to be playing the mother of a twenty-three-year-old, even though Dillon's character was only supposed to be eighteen on the show. But more than that, she was worried about working with someone reputed to be difficult.

Her hairdresser had been on the set of
Destiny
for a while, and Liz had heard stories that Dillon had a reputation for being surly and demanding.

He was also wildly talented. Her intuition about these things seldom failed her, and she had no doubt that he would one day be a big star. Those cruel good looks combined with a burning intensity that couldn't be taught in any acting class were going to catapult Eric Dillon to the very pinnacle. The question remained, would he be able to handle his fame or would he burn out as so many others had before him?

* * *

Eric had slept poorly, and he didn't get up until one in the afternoon. His head was aching and he felt like shit. Throwing his bare legs over the side of the bed, he reached for his cigarettes. A cigarette, a glass of high-protein breakfast drink, and then he'd work out for a couple of hours.

His clothes were strewn on the floor from the night before, and he thought about how much he liked sex. When he was in bed with a chick, he didn't have to think about anything —not who he was with, not anything. Life was reduced to the simple task of getting off. Once he'd heard a guy say he'd fucked some chick's brains out. Eric didn't think like that. He thought about fucking his own brains out.

As he got up, he spotted some black smudges soiling the bottom sheet. Puzzled, he made a closer inspection. It looked like writing, like script letters:
CIRE
. His mouth curled as he remembered Cindy

and her autographed ass. Just like a rubber stamp.

He pulled on a jock and a pair of running shorts, then walked out into the living room. The house was a small Benedict Canyon ranch, a perfect bachelor's quarters with its few pieces of comfortable furniture and big-screen television.

He went into the kitchen and snatched a container of high-protein drink from the shelf. After dumping a couple of scoops into the blender, he added some milk and hit the button. But the night dreams were still too near, and the sound filled the small kitchen like the whine of a siren. It drilled into his brain, bringing back the chilling memory of the siren on the ambulance that had carried Jason's broken body away. He jabbed at the blender to turn it off, then stared at the foamy contents.

"Your stepmother feels— You have to understand, Eric, that with Jason
gone. . . You have to understand how difficult it is for Elaine to have you
around."

Two weeks after Jason's funeral, Eric had looked into his father's drawn, handsome face and known that Lawrence Dillon couldn't stand to have him around, either. Since his own mother had died when he was a baby, it wasn't too hard for him to figure out what was going to happen to him.

He had ended up at an exclusive private school near Princeton where he had broken every rule and been kicked out after six months. His father sent him to two more schools before he managed to graduate, and then only because he had discovered the school's drama department and learned that he could forget who he was when he slipped into another person's body. He'd even spent a couple of years in college, but he'd missed so many classes going into the city for casting calls that he'd eventually flunked out.

Two years ago one of the
Destiny
casting agents had spotted him in an Off-off Broadway play and signed him to portray a character who was scheduled to die after six weeks. But viewer response had been so strong that his character had become a regular. Recently, he had attracted the interest of the Coogan show producers.

His agent wanted him to be a star, but Eric wanted to be an actor. He loved acting. Slipping inside another person's skin took away the pain. And sometimes, for a few moments, a look, a couple of lines of dialogue, he was good, really good.

He drank the protein mix straight from the blender, then lit a cigarette while he wandered back out into the living room. As he passed the couch, he caught a glimpse of his face in the oval wall mirror. For a moment he stared at his reflection, wishing it were ordinary, wishing he were a regular guy with a funny nose and crooked teeth.

He turned away from the face he hated, but he couldn't turn away from what was inside himself. And he hated that even more.

5

As far as Honey was concerned, the Beverly Hills Hotel was a chunk of pink-stucco heaven right on earth. The moment she stepped into the small, flower-bedecked lobby, she decided that this was the

place all good people should go the second they died.

The Iranian lady at the front desk explained how everything in the hotel worked, and she wasn't the slightest bit condescending, although it had to be pretty obvious to her that neither Honey nor Chantal had ever stayed at any place nicer than a ten-unit motel.

Honey loved the wallpaper printed with fat banana fronds, the louvered doors, and the private patio that opened off their spacious, homey room. With the exception of a couple of snooty peckerhead waiters in the Polo Lounge, she decided that the folks who ran the place were just about the nicest people on earth, not stuck-up at all. The maids and bell boys said hi to her even though they must have suspected that Gordon Delaweese was sneaking into their room and sleeping on the couch.

Gordon looked up as she came out of the dressing room on Saturday afternoon.

It was their second day in the hotel, and she had just changed into a bright red tank suit that one of the maids had gotten for her so she could go swimming.

Gordon and Chantal were curled up on the couch watching
Wheel of Fortune
and trying to guess the puzzle.

"Hey, Honey, why don't we order up some more food from room service?" he said, speaking through a mouthful of potato chips. "Those hamburgers sure were good."

"We just ate lunch an hour ago." Honey couldn't keep the disgust out of her voice. "When did you say you were leaving, Gordon? I know there's a lot of true life out there you still need to observe if you want to be a painter."

"I can't think of a better place for Gordon to observe real life than here at the Beverly Hills Hotel," Chantal commented, taking a sip of her Diet Pepsi. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for him."

Honey debated starting an argument, but every time she pressed the idea of Gordon leaving, Chantal began to cry. "I'm finished in the dressing room, Chantal. You can go change into your bathing suit now."

"I guess I'm too tired to swim. I think I'll stay here and watch TV."

"You said you'd come swimming with me! Come on, Chantal. It'll be fun."

"I'm feeling a little headachy. You go on."

"And leave the two of you alone in this hotel room? Do you think I'm crazy?"

"Some like it hot!" Gordon cried out, pointing to the television screen.

Chantal gazed at him with admiration. "Gordon, you are so smart. He's guessed every puzzle, Honey. Every single one."

Honey looked at the two of them curled up on that couch in the middle of the afternoon just like a couple of pieces of white trash. This would probably be their last day at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and she had been looking forward to swimming in that great big pool ever since she got here.

Inspiration seized her. Walking over to the small chest by the bed, she began opening the drawers. When she found what she wanted, she snatched it up and carried it over to Chantal.

"You put your hand right square in the middle of this Holy Bible and swear you won't do anything with Gordon Delaweese that you're not supposed to."

Chantal immediately looked guilty, which told Honey everything she needed to know. "I want you to swear, Chantal Booker."

Chantal reluctantly swore. For good measure Honey made Gordon Delaweese swear, too, even though she wasn't sure exactly where his theology lay. As she left the room, she was relieved to see that both of them looked miserable.

The pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel was a wondrous place, bigger than most people's houses and inhabited by the most interesting group of human beings Honey had ever seen. As she stepped through the gate, she observed the women with thin, dark, oiled bodies and glimmering gold jewelry stretched out on the white lounges. Some of the men wore tiny bikinis and looked like Tarzan. One had straight white-blond hair that hung past his shoulders—either a WWF

wrestler or a Norwegian. Some of the poolside loungers looked like ordinary rich men—paunchy bellies, thin slicked-back hair, and funny little canvas slippers.