Premiere: A Love Story (9 page)

Sam’s heart hurt, sitting in the theater and going back to that day. She could still feel his lips touch hers for the first time. Still feel the instant they . . . the look in his eyes as he slipped over the edge with her.
Isn
’
t that insane?
she thought.
Four years later and countless talks with myself and I
’
m right back there in his arms. . . .

“It’s not the whole thing,” Peter whispered as he took the seat next to her.

Startled out of her memory, Sam’s eyes flew open.

“What?”

It barely came out of her mouth. She recoiled from him as if anticipating the pain all over again.

“Easy. It’s not what you think. It’s not the whole scene.”

“Not, not what I think . . . what was I thinking? What is this? I didn’t see this in Act II.”

“It’s toward the middle of Act III. We’re working it out of sequence because of the sound. They need extra runs.”

Sam tried to collect herself, but her heart would not stop.

“Sam. Listen, you weren’t supposed to be here today and I thought we could work on . . .”

“I wasn’t supposed to be here today? What the hell, you’re sneaking rehearsals now? Peter, it’s clearly your play. If you want to include things from our, from your past, that’s your business. I’m just a little . . .”

“Sam, you know what this scene is, and I can’t tell the story without it. It was huge and important to . . .”

“Was it?”

Peter saw the anger take over her face.

“Huge and important?”

“Of course it was. I never said that it wasn’t.”

“No, you said it was a mistake, that you, what was it again? Oh yes, that ‘you should have left well enough alone.’ Do you remember? Is that in your play?”

Peter remembered, he’d replayed his choice of words over and over for the past four years. He was young and stupid, and he’d long run out of excuses. He tried to touch her hand, even though he knew she would pull away. She did.

“You left. You were my best friend, you made love to me, we were . . .”

Sam felt lost all over again.

“And then you were gone. How? Why does someone do that? If it was so important?”

“Sam, I was young, we were young and I wanted more. It was a special day.”

“Special?”

She was embarrassed and could feel her face flush. Peter was looking at her with . . .
was that pity?

“Oh God, please don’t, special? Wow! Peter, do whatever you want with your play,” Sam said, getting out of the seat.

“Show the whole thing.”

She shook her head.

“Tell everyone how Peter Everoad screwed Samantha Cathner in the rain on his way to his successful life in the big city. How he looked into her eyes, shaking, and told her he’d wanted to touch her like that for as long as he could remember.”

Peter stood and instinctively reached for her. She pulled away.

“Do whatever you need to do, but please don’t sit here and tell me it was ‘special’ because I don’t want to hear it. I obviously meant nothing to you. I was disposable. Or maybe somewhere in your screwed-up mind, you decided it was all too much for you. You, Peter, because after all it’s always about you, right? You must’ve needed some steam for your pitiful little self-satisfying story. And damn it.”

She was losing control.

“This is a good one, Peter. Be sure to include all the details, so you look like a real man. Just make sure you leave out the part where you told me you loved me. That makes it look like you . . .”

She stopped, backed away from him and begged her heart for sanity. The pain was unbearable. The original, awful pain. Peter looked away because he couldn’t physically take it one more minute.

He wanted to tell her that he did love her, still needed her. Wanted to hold her and say that he’d been a scared, insecure idiot who thought he needed to make something of himself to even be worthy. He wanted to give her those words to help ease her pain, but he stood there and let her wallow in the ache of her heartbreak.

“Please, Peter. Please, leave me alone.”

Sam pushed through the heavy wooden doors and into the lobby of the theater. The oleanders would have to wait. She was not working today. For the past two years nothing had been more important to her than this theater, her job. One stupid scene in his play, this stupid scene, had reduced her to a puddle. Sam was angry. Angry with him for coming back and furious with herself for letting him see how desperately she had loved him.

It had almost killed him putting it down on paper. It was completely insane that he left it in the play, but it was perfect. Some of his best writing. The scene was all from Phillip’s perspective, Sally was depicted as only a light, she wasn’t even on the stage in the scene. Peter didn’t want to share Sam’s stunning kisses or the curves of her body under his hands with anyone else. While it was a love scene, it was abstract and mostly an inner monologue about Philip’s feelings, physical and emotional.

Peter stood up, watching her walk away again. He felt like one of those stupid cats that proudly drops a dead bird at its master’s feet and is shocked when the human doesn’t see the brilliance in the deed. How had he managed to hide it from her all those years ago, how was it not all over his face? That day changed his life, brought him back to life. She became everything wrapped in his arms. His air, his touch, it all changed.

Sure, making love to a beautiful woman in the pouring rain was great, there isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t cherish that memory, but with the first touch it was instantly more, and it had scared him shitless. He had always loved her mind and wanted her body. Her rain-soaked skin was so soft it almost hadn’t seemed real. He could recall it like he was right back there, but he wasn’t prepared for her to completely crawl inside of him. Her warmth took over and he knew he would need her, the fire she gave him, for the rest of his life.

He couldn’t need, not then, he could barely allow need now after years of therapy, but back then his twenty-three-year-old, screwed-up self definitely didn’t allow need of any kind. He was so focused on making something of himself during those years. He knew the pull of what he felt for her would keep him in Pasadena. Hell, he could spend a whole day just sitting in a coffee shop talking to her in those days. He couldn’t stay. Even though he loved her to desperation, he needed to find himself outside of his family, or one day she would wake up and realize he was nothing more than a shadow of a man she thought she knew. So, he memorized her, her magic, and with a little push he left her behind.

He did say cruel things; he had to. She knew him too well and would have never let him go. He had hurt her and now she thought he was simply back to pick the wound. Peter turned back toward the theater and accepted that. Messed up childhood or not, he had been a real bastard.

Chapter Ten

P
eter’s sister, Cynthia, was getting married in less than two months on Catalina. April Everoad had agreed to let Bindi Malendar host a wedding shower overflowing with champagne and desserts. Sam was invited and was relieved it would be at Grady’s family home and not Peter’s. Mostly because champagne and Peter’s mother did not mix well, and also because Sam had always found it so difficult to be in Peter’s home after his father died.

She really had not wanted to attend the shower at all, but her mother would be there, and it would be rude to not make an appearance. Sam, always appropriate, found herself making small talk in the large formal living room with a few women she knew from school as well as a larger group of debutantes and new brides in the community. There was a small buffet of real food, but the highlight was a huge table with thirty-five different desserts. Cynthia Everoad was a self-proclaimed sugar junkie so the shower was themed “Bubbles and Confection.”

Belinda Malendar, or Bindi to everyone who knew her, was a tall and beautifully put together woman. She was one of those women one doesn’t want to run into on a bad hair day. A collection of thoroughbred features, she was perfect: perfectly beautiful all of the time. Sam was sure being a senator’s wife did that to a woman. Bindi had been married to Senator Patrick Malendar since they graduated from college. Despite his wandering eye and a penchant for hard liquor, Senator Malendar was a sweet man. He and his wife, while a little artificial for Sam’s taste, always seemed to complement one another.

Bindi had been friends with April Everoad, Peter’s mom, and Susan Cathner, Sam’s mom, since they were Bindi Parker, April Whitmore, and Susan Braxton back in boarding school. All three women were dear friends and anyone who thought otherwise did not witness the round-the-clock care given to Mrs. Everoad when her husband died. Bindi basically took over her friend’s life for the first month after the suicide, and Susan was the one who threw open the curtains when April had spent one too many nights drinking. Both women tried to help her in the beginning, but now they simply accepted it, and ran interference for April’s “problem.”

Senator Malendar, who was out for the evening, was gearing up to run for re-election again at the end of the year. Grady had already starting complaining that he hated election years. The guests were all sure to give Bindi and the Senator their best wishes, but Sam did notice the Malendars were a little on edge. Perhaps because keeping up appearances could be tough when your son was Grady Malendar. Grady liked to party, and he was very good at it.

Sam excused herself from the giggling festivities in search of some air. While standing on the balcony, she heard a car pull up the circular drive. Black Lincoln Town Car, one of the fleet maintained by the Malendars. The car stopped, and the driver walked around to open the door. Grady stepped out steadily, but then put his arm around the driver, who grinned politely and then bent to help the other passenger. Sam hoped Grady had the good sense not to bring a woman around during the shower.

Peter emerged from the car, a little less gracefully. Grady moved his affection from the driver to Peter. While Sam was relieved Grady had not brought one of his many lady friends home to his parents’ house, her pulse quickened at the sight of Peter. It had been a few days since she had seen him at rehearsals—the day he decided to parade their private life in front of everyone—but she was still clouded by a mess of feelings she couldn’t shake.

Grady and Peter held each other up, waved to the driver, and turned toward the door, the front door. They couldn’t see her standing on the balcony, so Sam watched as they both wobbled together. Grady held his liquor well, but Sam wasn’t sure about Peter. It occurred to her that she no longer knew how Peter held his liquor. Either way, intoxicated or not, Grady and Peter heading into Cynthia’s wedding shower was not good. She had to give it to them for sheer courage, thinking they were going to walk through the front door in their current state.

Leaning over the balcony railing now, Sam watched as they both laughed, turned from the front door, and began walking around the house right under her.
Side door, good choice guys,
she thought, watching as they walked below her joking like they were in high school.

“Did you already finish that, that Slurpee? Such a stupid word . . . Slurpee,” Peter said trying, and failing miserably, to whisper.

He was in tan pants and a navy jacket barely hanging on to his broad shoulders. Grady was in a full suit with his tie shoved into the pocket of his jacket. They were both quite disheveled, curling over laughing as they stumbled around the corner. In spite of herself, Sam relished seeing both of them relaxed and silly. Peter’s mother had fallen into a serious drinking problem after his father died, so that even when they were in college Peter rarely drank. Which was fine, but it was refreshing to see Peter let loose. Grady must have dragged him to the club with his famous line: “Let’s go blow off some steam.”

Sam moved back into the study, still not ready to rejoin the shower. They’d been starting to play “How Well Does the Bride Know Her Groom?” when Sam had stepped away. She honestly couldn’t take it; backing away, she’d gone up the stairs and into the study unnoticed. Sam figured that game and the two or three that would follow should allow her a few moments of peace, unless Grady and Peter actually decided to crash the shower. If they were smart they would just stay in the kitchen or get back in the car and go to Grady’s house. Why were they here? Bindi didn’t give Grady much slack when they were growing up, so she certainly wouldn’t take kindly to his behavior now.

Sam sat in one of the high-backed, dark green chairs facing a massive, heavy, wood and glass cabinet of bookshelves. This library was part of the original house built back in 1929. Sam had always liked this room. The three of them prepared for their SATs in this study. Sam’s memories reached back even further as she picked up the book on the table in front of her,
The History of the Ottoman Empire.
No doubt a little light reading for Grady. Sam remembered coming to Grady’s house after grade school and playing store in this very room. Everywhere Sam went there were pieces of her past. The rich chocolate cake and crème brûlée she had eaten earlier were now both ganging up on her and turning into a headache. Sam closed her eyes.