In Your Dreams Bobby Anderson (11 page)

“I’ve almost got it.” Susan grunted.
Bobby realized that she was digging a ditch around the knife to loosen the sand.

“
Mr. Anderson?”

“NO!
NO! NO! NO!” He did not want this.
Why?
Why
had he woken up? He opened his eyes to the blurred vision of his housekeeper.

“I’m so sorry!”
Rosa cried. She hadn’t meant to disturb him, but he’d been sitting with a blank expression on his face, eyes closed, for thirty minutes already. She was worried about him and had gently shaken his shoulder.

“What did you do?
” Bobby shouted at her. “Why did you wake me?”

Rosa
burst into tears and ran from the room. Bobby could not afford to lose Rosa. She was his one and only link to food, clean sheets, and some sort of sanity; but damn it, she’d woken him!

Bobby groped to pull hi
mself off the sofa, the phone still in his hand from his ended conversation with Patrick. He threw it carelessly down so that it bounced off a cushion and landed with a worrisome clank on the hard marble floor.

He felt dizzy. “
Rosa!” he called. “Rosa!”
Hurry, before she packs and leaves you for good, you idiot
. He’d never made her cry before.

He ran down the flight of stairs to her room and
caught up to her as she tried to close her bedroom door. “I’m sorry Rosa. I shouldn’t shout. You didn’t know.”

“Know what
, Mr. Bobby? You look dead!”

“I did? I’m sorry, really so
rry. But I was… I was sort of… meditating. I was meditating, and it’s really hard to do, and, and you interrupted. But it’s okay.” Rosa looked as if she was about to start crying again. “It’s really okay. I’m not mad.”

“No?”

“No. I promise. I’m not mad.”

Rosa
sniffed, and put a more dignified look on her face.

“Just don’t do it again. But I’m not mad.
” Bobby made an about turn and headed back to the living room. It was mid morning and he wondered if now would be a good time to contact Emily and start planning his trip for real. No more talk. It was time for action.

He would have to take
Rosa with him, of course. He would need a bedroom for her. And should Lester go as well? He supposed so. Lester could be useful. Bobby didn’t want to seem as if he couldn’t afford a butler, and what would Lester do back in L.A. all by himself anyway? What about Tillie? She might want to visit once she was back from Paris. He would need a guest room for her, he supposed.

Suddenly
, it seemed far more complicated than he’d envisioned. Maybe he shouldn’t bring anyone else, just jump on a train with a backpack and a credit card and see where life took him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just jump on a train. He’d be bogged down for autographs and get unintentionally harassed. He would have to hire a private jet or go Business on a domestic flight. He knew he’d opt for the jet. No one he knew went on commercial flights if they could help it, and he certainly could help it.

Bobby took one last look at his dream of travelling solo, sitting
inconspicuously by a window, credit card tucked into the back pocket of his battered jeans, lost in thought as the train sped by town after town, racing him to his destination.

But t
hat was a different Bobby. The Bobby in the dream could take a train. He could sit next to Susan, laughing about something someone they both knew had said. They could hold hands, he squeezing her fingers every so often to gently remind her that he was thinking of her. She squeezing back.

The phone rang
and Bobby fished it off the floor. “Yes?” He knew it could only be a small number of people who called this number.

“
You got the part.” It was Patrick, not sounding too enthusiastic. Actually he sounded just like a boy who’d been forced to give up his favorite toy.

“That’s great.
” Bobby tried to appear more upbeat about the whole thing than he felt. He really did want to go to New York City and find Susan, but he wasn’t so sure about the theatre part of his plan. He wanted to at least believe that Patrick would be there for him, but it all sounded so final. “Thanks Patrick.”

“Just remember who loves
you,” Patrick said like a recording, and hung up.

As Bobby
placed the phone in its receiver, it rang again. “Patrick?”

“Your mother. How are you son?”

“Mom! Hey, so glad you called. How’s France?”

“It’s wonderful, you know that. But what’s this b
usiness I’m hearing about you?”

“Me? What have you heard about me?”

“Only what Patrick’s told me, and don’t go putting him down now. He had every right to call me.”

Bobby was dumb
founded for a second. Patrick had called his mother? Was that even legal?”

Tillie used the silence to jump in with her
next point. “When were you going to tell me about moving?”

“When you came back
, of course.” Bobby found his voice at last, but he didn’t know how much good it would do him. Of course he should have told his mother before he told the world.

“Hu
mph!” his mother grunted. “You’re looking for this girl.”

Bobby gulped.
“She’s real,” was all he could say.

“Look, Bobby, if you want to find her, that’s fine, but Patrick is worried about you. Do you really want to go into theatre? You know you’re better at movies. You don’t have to rehearse so much, and it could make you look bad, as if you’re desperate.”

“That’s crazy!” Bobby
seethed with anger. How dare anyone make accusations about him like that? How dare his mother critique his work? Hadn’t he bought her a villa? Wasn’t he entitled to do what he wanted to now? Why couldn’t people just leave him alone and trust him to learn a few extra lines?

“I can do theatre just fine, and everyone knows I’m not desper
ate. I’m the one turning down movie offers. I could have a hundred jobs now if I wanted to. And it’s only for three months, or so, anyway.”

There was silence on the
other end, and Bobby felt bad as well as tired. He just wanted to suck on a Rum and Coke and wait for Mr. Judge’s call. He hoped it would be good news. But if Judge had good news, he would call him before seven, so if he waited until seven, there would be no good news, and in effect, he would be waiting for nothing. But he still felt like sucking on a Rum and Coke.

“All right,” his mother
sighed reluctantly. “I’m not going to sensor you. We can talk some more when I get back in just a couple more weeks. Do you want me to go to New York with you?”

Bobby thought about it. Did he want his mother? It would be nice for her to explore the city, and they could
eat out together, and if he ever did find Susan he could introduce them both. Yes, he did want his mother, but the last time he checked he was successful at twenty-four, and he hadn’t got there by dining with his mom. Tillie would have to wait until he was more settled. “It’s all right, I’m going to go check it out and get an apartment first and you can visit when I’m settled. Do you mind?”

Tillie sighed. She would have loved an e
xcuse to stay away from the villa, but she wouldn’t impose on her son. Life as a single, overworked, underpaid mother had taught her how to bare something as simple as a lonely house. She could wait. She just hoped there would be some grandchildren at the end of this tunnel.

***

It took Bobby less than a week to pack up his household. Rosa was fine about moving. She had a cousin living in East Harlem whom she hadn’t seen in seven years, and she was very much looking forward to their reunion. But of course, Rosa would not be living in East Harlem. She would be with Bobby, and Bobby had decided on The Dakota; which, although not so far from East Harlem by countable distance, was located in the Upper West Side, and was thus a far way away indeed.

Actually, The Dakota probably existed in a parallel universe to every
thing else, and the only reason Bobby had managed to cross over at all was because a friend of a friend of Emily’s who “loved Bobby Anderson to distraction” was more than willing to grant Bobby a favor.

The price tag that went with
the apartment was not a favor, by the way. But Bobby didn’t mind. The louder he shouted, the better chance there was of Susan hearing him, or so he’d reasoned.

It
hadn’t been the broker’s spiel of fourteen-foot ceilings, exquisite balustrades, and proximity to Central Park that persuaded him to dig deep into his pockets for The Dakota. It was the fact that John Lennon had lived and died there. Why, he might even run into Yoko Ono on her way back from shopping. They’d pass each other in the hall. “Aren’t you Bobby Anderson from Devil Take You?” she would ask, while fishing into her handbag for her apartment key. She might then invite him in for a cup of tea and to show him her John Lennon photo album. It would feel like being back home in L.A. where speaking to the rich and famous was a granted part of his life.

Bobby
had to remind himself several times as he got ready to leave California, that the purpose of his trip was love, not fashionable living.

But, once again
, Susan was not thinking of him—despite the fact that his story of moving was all anyone could talk about. Had his actions hadn’t been just a little bit hasty? He wasn’t known for jumping the gun.
Had
he jumped the gun? If he thought about it too much his palms got pasty and he forgot how to breathe. He would have to keep going and figure it out later. Many actors took theatre breaks only to return to the big screen, stronger and more popular than ever for it.
Who were they again?

Lester was a problem when it came to moving. To put it bluntly, he would not go. Bobby wasn’t quite sure that he needed Lester, but he wanted to close up his Beverly hills house until his return, and he couldn’t just pay Lester to hang around.

But that was exactly what he ended up d
oing, because Lester had a girlfriend working on a movie set as and she would not leave California. Lester was hopelessly in love. What could Bobby do? Wasn’t he also hopelessly in love? So he closed up the house, except for the guest villa, and let Lester stay there.

He told himself that
his butler could watch over the property in case of squatters. Also, he could keep an eye on Andy, making sure the garden stayed green in his absence, instead of some rushed clipping and over watering a week prior to his return. He could also ensure that the pool was maintained. Whether Lester and his girlfriend made use of the pool was assumed, but nothing was said. If they wanted to use his one and only gem, so be it. He would just shift the thought to the back of his brain until he got back.

But when would he get back?
So far Judge had come up with zero. He had gone to every hospital and looked for a Susan as a patient in every ward, in any condition, but he hadn’t come any closer to finding her than the day he started. Not one single clue. Of course there were plenty of Susans in need of medical assistance, but none matching Bobby’s description. Bobby’s only chance was to keep meeting Susan on the island, retrieve as much information from her as he could, and rescue her himself.

When
Rosa first heard that they were moving without Lester, she had shrugged her shoulders and tried not to care. She didn’t need Lester to help her find her feet as he had done when she first came to work for Bobby. Anyway, she had heard that New York City was nice, and she was used to nice by now. But even after a series of Hollywood employers, Rosa did not, in fact, know nice. She only thought she did.

When Bobby and his m
akeshift family of Rosa and Tony—for Bobby realized that he needed at least one friend, pulled up to The Dakota, Rosa was not prepared. Was it true that this was the best address in Manhattan?

As
Bobby’s realtor swung open the double doors that led to the most luxuriously furnished home Rosa had ever laid eyes on, all she could think was: Now
this
is nice!

Rosa
’s room was modest in that it overlooked the courtyard instead of Central Park the way Bobby’s did, but the entire room: furniture, fixtures, and linens, which seemed to have been imported straight out of an old French movie, was anything but modest. This room, Rosa concluded, was made for some beautiful mistress of the royal kind, instead of a second rate live-in maid from Mexico.

Rosa
did not know the difference between lavender and eggplant, or how blush pink and baby pink could be considered two completely different colors, and she certainly couldn’t tell you how an East Bridge bed differed from one with tufted linen, but she could tell that whoever furnished her little room knew what they were talking about.

The
bedroom’s cream-colored peek-a-boo bed was deeply tufted and wonderfully inviting. The raspberry bed linen matched perfectly with the blush pink walls. A paisley bench nestled at the edge of the queen-sized bed begged her to lay her luggage down and take a load off. A cream cashmere throw, left enticingly draped over a gold Louis XVI armchair, made her feel instantly at home. There was even a small glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling for goodness sakes. To top it off, a rug made from hand-knotted Tibetan leaves (hand-knotted Tibetan leaves!) beckoned to her feet from below.

It was all too much.
Rosa almost dared not investigate the adjoining bathroom that was to be hers for fear of waking up back in Mexico in a stinky stuffy bedroom she shared once with her two older (and quite frankly, scary) brothers, and her sulky younger sister. Was this all a dream? If it was, she wanted to stay dreaming.

“
Rosa!” It was Bobby. No, this was not a dream. She was really here. She poked her head around the door to the bathroom and let her eyes briefly rest on the ivory Ambelia sink chest, handcrafted from mahogany and heavily distressed. To Rosa it looked like an overly fancy curvy chest of drawers with an old fashioned sink on top. Like the new expert that she was, she decided that she liked it.

The shower was a simple s
tep-in glass enclosure, the kind she had back in L.A., but again, there was a chandelier—in the bathroom!

Rosa
clicked her tongue and sighed. She needed to hit the lottery one day, the big one, because she could get used to this.

Tony had come because Bobby couldn’t bring his mother. It was that simple. A man, especially a serious one, cannot travel with a maid alone. He needs support. So Bobby had Tony, and Tony had time, since Tony wanted to be an actor and was terrible at it. But Tony was costing him, with the extra room. Renting a three bedroom apartment at The Dakota was like asking for a 1978 bottle of Montrachet from Domaine de la Roanee-Conti: expensive and hard to come by.

But the
broker’s friend of a friend’s love for Bobby knew no end. However, the cost of this friendly connection would include a date with Emily, the broker, that night. This request hadn’t really come as a surprise to Bobby.
Not
wanting a date with him would have been even stranger.

Bobby got ready in his usual manner:
a pair of black corduroys (because the restaurant in question prohibited entry with jeans); a black button up shirt, rolled slightly at the elbows; slightly bared chest; slightly jelled hair; slight dash of aftershave; and slightly drunk, because in all honestly, the broker was no hottie.

Bobby
hoped the small talk wouldn’t be only about property. If worse came to worst, he could tell her about his place in Beverly hills. Surely she would like that. Or he could elaborate on his mother’s villa. The thought of Emily wanting to give either one an appraisal, however, worried him slightly. Knowing him, he would find it hard to say no, even though Emily was no hottie. He might he have not found that such a problem a few weeks ago, but there was Susan now. And what about Susan? She was forgetting about him again when he needed her most. Rehearsals were about to start at the Boardhurst Theatre and he felt vulnerable. He might even spill his guts tonight to a woman he had only spoken to twice on the phone and had met once—today!

At
least Tony and Rosa seemed happy. Rosa hummed as she unpacked the grocery shopping that had so magically arrived by home delivery fifteen minutes earlier—Rosa loved the simplicity of the home-delivery system of the Upper West Side. Tony liked it too. He had a bag of newly purchased nachos open in his lap, feet up, nacho dip in one hand and the remote for the Bang & Olufsen 100 Hz plasma screen T.V. in the other.

Bobby wished he could join him. Thank
goodness he’d brought Tony. He would join him tomorrow and just chill. Tonight was business; after that he was free.