Once Is Not Enough (61 page)

“It’s not that. It’s the fucking script.”

“Don’t do it, Tom.”

“Maybe you weren’t listening to me earlier when I explained . . .”

“I heard every word. I also remember you saying that you’re fifty-eight, that you want to write all the books you promised yourself to write. Then why bury yourself for another six months hacking away and butchering your own work? Start doing the things you really want to do.”

“There’s also a little thing like seventy-five thousand bucks involved.”

“Tom, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while we’ve been apart. Look. I’ve got ten million dollars. I’ll give your wife a million if she’ll divorce you. I’ll leave another million in trust for your child. That frees you from all guilts and responsibilities. We can be together, get married, have a child of our own, as many as you want . . . And you can still write.”

He looked at her curiously. “This is the first time you’ve made noises like a millionaire.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything and everyone is on an auction block. Right? Everyone has a price. One million, two million. It doesn’t matter what the poor bastard you’re buying wants. As long as you pay the price, he’s yours.”

“Tom, that’s not true! I want you to be my husband. I want us to be together all the time. I’ve got enough money so that you don’t have to shut yourself up with that typewriter and do what the producer or director tells you to do. I want you to be able to write the way you want to write. And above all, I want us to be together. To love one another and be happy.”

He shook his head sadly. “January, can’t you see? It’s not going to work. There isn’t room for what we once had anymore. You came along when I was floundering. I needed you. God, how I needed you. And you gave a middle-aged man his last pretense at being a stud. For that, I’ll always be grateful. We found something special together at the right time. You gave me warmth and a sense of pride while I was prostituting myself on the tour circuit. And in return I replaced Daddy for you. So we’re even. I’ll go back to my writing and you go back to the money Daddy got for you. Go back to a young girl’s life. It’s all out there, waiting for you.”

“No! Tom, you don’t really mean this. You’re just depressed. I don’t want any other kind of life. I just want to be with you and-”

“But my life is writing! Can’t you understand that? Writing comes first. It always will.”

“Fine. Okay. You can write. You can write all you want. I want you to write. I’ll buy us a house in the South of France, away from everyone. You’ll never have to write screen treatments. You’ll never have to write anything you don’t want to write. I’ll be very quiet. I’ll have servants to attend to everything you want. If you like writing in New York I’ll buy you the biggest apartment you ever saw. I’ll—”

“Cut it, January! You’re talking to Tom Colt. Not Mike Wayne.”

She was silent for a moment. When she spoke she stared at
the table and her voice was strained. “What did you mean by that?”

“Just what it sounded like. I’m not your father. I’m not going to be kept by a rich woman.”

She pushed the table away and stood up. She knew the espresso had spilled, but she never looked back as she walked out of the restaurant.

Twenty-nine

J
ANUARY SLEPT
off and on for three days. Sadie diligently arrived with trays and tried to coax her to eat. Sometimes she would wave her off or mumble incoherently that she wasn’t feeling well. When Sadie threatened to call Dr. Clifford, January made an attempt to eat something and explained she was just having a bad siege with the curse. This relieved Sadie, who in turn told David, “Miss January is just going through a bad time of the month.”

She had reached a point where the pills no longer sent her off into a soft empty sleep. By the fourth day she lay half awake, too drowsy to read, too oversedated to sleep. She was also aware that tomorrow night she would have to go to the Milfords’ for dinner with David. Because no one could have a “bad time of the month” longer than five days.

Whenever she reached for a pill, seeking the fuzzy unconsciousness it brought, she told herself that it was just for “now”—to help her get over the hurt Tom had inflicted. It wasn’t that she wanted to die. It was just that she couldn’t face the heavy depression that hit her the moment she realized where she was and what had happened. Mike and Tom were both gone . . . and now even “the dream” had deserted her.

She found herself reliving those last weeks with Tom. Where had she gone wrong? What had she done? She kept remembering the sincerity in his voice, the tenderness of his eyes when he had said, “I can never be without you again.” How could he say that in February and tell her they were through
in June? But she had to try to go on. She thought back to the days when she had fought so hard just to walk—and here she was lying in bed, trying to buy a little bit of death each day with sleeping pills. She told herself God would punish her. Then she buried her head in the pillow because it seemed to her that God had punished her enough in twenty-one years . . .

She had her health . . . and she had money. But right now, to her, they were just words. She heard the house phone ring and waited for Sadie to pick it up, but it kept on ringing. She picked up the extension just as Sadie came on. She heard Sadie state that she wasn’t taking any calls. Suddenly she recognized the voice and cut in. “It’s all right, Sadie. I’ll take it. Hugh! Where are you?”

“I’m lying on a sand dune with my private phone plugged in to a star.”

She managed a laugh. He sounded so alive . . . so good. “You nut . . . Where are you?”

“Down in your lobby. I was just passing by and I thought you might like to go out for a bite.”

“No . . . I’m in bed . . . but come on up.”

Hugh sat in a chair near the bed. His vitality made the room seem cramped and oppressive. “Do you want something?” she asked. “I can have Sadie get you a drink, or even a quick steak if you like. She always keeps the freezer loaded.”

“No. But why don’t you throw on something and we’ll find a hamburger joint.”

She shook her head and reached for a cigarette. “I’m not feeling great. Nothing serious. Just that time of the month.”

“Bullshit.”

“I mean it, Hugh.”

“You never took to your bed any time during the months you went with Tom unless it was to ball him.” He saw her flinch, but he went on. “I had a drink with him before he left for the Coast. He told me about the Toots Shor’s episode.” She studied the ash of her cigarette without answering. “It had to end, January,” he said quietly. “It never could have worked out. You’ve got to realize that Tom’s writing does come first. It always has. Personally I don’t think he’s capable of ever really loving any woman.”

“He loved me,” she said stubbornly. “He . . . he even made me split with my father.”

Hugh nodded. “He told me about that. Said it was the worst move he had ever made. He regretted it as soon as he thought it all out. Because he realized from that moment on he had a commitment to you. And Tom doesn’t want any commitments except to his work. He said you were the one who finally cut it. You walked out on him.”

“I had no choice.”

“Okay. But he feels in the clear. You gave him back his head when you walked out of that restaurant.”

“But Hugh . . . Tom does love me! I know he does. He told me he could never be without me.”

“I’m sure he said that. And he probably meant it at the time. I’ve said the same thing to women. And I’ve meant it too—at the time. Men always mean what they say
when
they’re saying it. If women could only realize that, and not hold them to it as a lifetime contract. Look, Tom’s a writer . . . and a boozer. You made him your whole life. He couldn’t take it.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I care about you. I figured you might take it hard.” He looked around the room. “But I didn’t expect to see you laid out like a corpse. Christ, with those flowers—all we need is soft organ music.”

“Tom will come back,” she said stubbornly.

“It’s over, January. Over. Finished!
Done!
Sure, Tom might come back if you went down on your knees and forced him back out of guilt. If you want him back that way . . . then go ahead. But if you do, then you’re not the girl I thought you were. Now snap out of it. You’ve got everything any girl could ever want.”

“I’ve got ten million dollars,” she said. “I live in this gorgeous place and I have a closet full of clothes.” The tears spilled down her face. “But I can’t go to bed with ten million dollars. I can’t put my arms around this apartment.”

“No. But you can start in proving that you really loved your father.”

“Prove I loved him?”

“That’s right.” He leaned close to her. “Look, this Dee Milford
Granger was a nice lady. But from what I hear, Mike Wayne always shacked up with the most beautiful girls around. He made Tom Colt look like an amateur. But suddenly he marries this rich lady and now you’ve inherited ten million bucks. Okay . . . you tell me. Do you think she left it to you because she loved those big brown eyes of yours?”

She shook her head. “No . . . I still don’t know why she left it to me.”

“Holy Jesus! You’re so busy lying around feeling sorry for yourself that you haven’t even bothered to think things out. Look, sweet lady. Your father
earned
that ten million for you. Maybe he worked at it for only a year, but I’ll guarantee you it was the hardest money he ever earned.” He stared at her as the tears ran down her face. “Now stop crying,” he snapped. “It won’t bring him back. Get out of that bed and go out and have some fun. If you don’t, it means Mike Wayne threw away the last year of his life for nothing. And he’s probably feeling worse than you, knowing you’re lying around crying for a man who doesn’t want you.”

She reached out and hugged him. “Hugh, it’s too late tonight . . . I took two sleeping pills before you came in. But how about tomorrow . . . will you take me to dinner?”

“No.”

She looked at him in surprise. “I only asked you out tonight to speak my mind,” he said. “I’ve said it all now.”

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends—”

“Friends . . . yes. I am your friend. But don’t try to turn me into another substitute for your father and Tom.”

She smiled and her voice was teasing. “Why? I think you’re a very attractive man.”

“I’m fit and in my prime. And I’ve met a very nice widow who is forty-one and attractive and who cooks dinner for me about three times a week, and sometimes I take her into New York to see a show, and I consider myself a lucky man.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I know you’re still in deep water and you’ll latch on to whatever log floats by . . . and that’s all wrong. If you ever tried to be anything more than a friend to me, I just might weaken, and that would kill your old man all over again. After
all, he didn’t go through all this to have you wind up with an overaged ex-astronaut.”

“I think he wanted me to wind up with David.”

“David?”

“The flowers.” She looked over at the roses.

“Do you care for him?”

“I don’t know . . . I never really gave myself a chance. In the beginning I thought I did. Then, well, then I met Tom and—”

“Give yourself another chance. Give yourself a lot of chances. Whether it’s David or Peter or Joe or whatever . . . go out . . . meet them all . . . the world is your oyster now. Your old man saw to that. Go out and take it so he can sleep in peace.”

She began to go out with David every night. His mother had insisted that neither Dee nor her father would want her to go into any extended period of mourning. So she forced herself to sit through the blasting music at Le Club . . . smiled through the noise at Maxwell’s Plum and the Unicorn . . . went to Gino’s on Sunday nights . . . met new people—girls who invited her to lunch, young men who were friends of David, who pressed too close when they held her on the dance floor. Through it all she smiled, made conversation, accepted luncheon invitations. . . . And all the while she knew she was waiting only for the evening to pass so she could take two red pills and go to sleep.

One day dissolved into another. Some of the beautiful young women she met called and invited her to lunch and she forced herself to accept. She sat at “21,” Orsini’s, La Grenouille . . . listened to gossip about new romances . . . the latest ‘In’ boutiques . . . the latest ‘In’ resort. She received invitations for weekends at Southampton, a cruise of the Greek islands (three couples were going to charter a boat; David said he was positive he could get the four weeks off if she wanted to go). And then, of course, there was always Marbella—Dee’s house was fully staffed, available to her at any time.

Yes, there was a bright world out there. A whole brilliant summer waiting.

It was the middle of June, and she knew she had to make
some plans. Everyone told her she couldn’t just sit in the hot city. No one who was civilized stayed in town. She listened and agreed and knew that David was waiting . . . patient and kind . . . holding his plans in abeyance . . . waiting for her to come to some decision . . . any decision—yet he never complained. He called her every day and saw her every night.

There were others who called every day. A Prince, a good-looking movie star, a young Italian whose family was very social, a broker who worked in a rival firm of David’s.

They called . . . they sent flowers. She wrote thank-you notes for the flowers but felt the same lethargy toward them all. She read that Tom had handed in his treatment for the screenplay and had gone to Big Sur for ten days. Had he taken his wife or was there someone else?

Even Linda was going away. She had rented a house in Quogue for the month of July. She and Benjamin would spend long weekends together; Benjamin would spend the entire month . . . writing.

Everyone was going somewhere. She had read that Karla had bought a house on a Greek island called Patmos. Yes, everyone had survived, the world was going on without Mike, without Dee and all her money. The same sun was shining. And all the people in the silver frames on Dee’s piano were still smiling, still functioning and feeling. . . .