Summer Storm (6 page)

“I’ve wanted to ask you something about your last picture, Chris,” said Carolyn Nash, the pretty Ophelia. “Did you
really
do your own stunt work?” She had large, pansy-brown eyes and they were directed worshipfully up at his dark face.

“Yes.”
He smiled a little ruefully. “I must say I kept on suggesting they get a professional stunt guy in, but the director never saw it that way. Unfortunately.”

“Why not?” asked Mary suddenly. There had been some very dangerous scenes in his last film, she recalled.

“Saving money, I expect,” he replied and ate another forkful of meat.

Mel Horner snorted. “Don’t you believe it. They didn’t get a stunt man because no one else looks like Chris. More important—no one moves like he does. But he was quite safe, Dr. O’Connor, I assure you.”

Mary was intensely annoyed. “I’m quite sure that Kit can take care of himself,” she said sweetly.

At her use of that name the two girls’ heads swung around and they stared at her, big-eyed and speculative. “Kit?” said Carolyn on a note of inquiry.

Mary stared at him in exasperation. “It’s a nickname for Christopher,” he said blandly and smiled kindly into Carolyn’s small face.

She looked like a kitten that has just been stroked. “Why do you say Chris was safe doing those stunts?” she asked Mel innocently.

“He’s much too valuable a property for a production company to allow anything to happen to him,” Mel said bluntly. “There aren’t many stars around these days whose very name guarantees a stampede at the box office.”

Kit shot a look at his agent and Mary said even more sweetly than before, “I suppose that’s true.”

Black eyes stared at her face for a minute and then he asked, with precisely the same intonation she had used, “And did you graduate summa cum laude
again?”

She looked thoughtfully back and then, suddenly, smiled. “I’m sorry.”

He made a brief gesture with his hand. “Okay.” And he went back to eating his dinner.

“I don’t know how you stay so thin and eat so much,” complained Mel, looking with envy at his client. Mel had a very pronounced potbelly.

“He basically only eats one meal a day,” Mary replied absently. She realized what she had said and flushed. “At least he did.”

“I still do.” There was definite amusement in Kit’s deep beautiful voice.

“I have a friend in one of your courses. Dr. O’Connor,” Frank Moore said to her and she turned to him in relief.

“Oh? Who is that?”

“Jim Henley.”

“Oh, yes.” Mary smiled. “I know Mr. Henley. He’s in my senior seminar.”

“I have to confess I wrote and asked him what you were like when we knew you would be giving the lectures this summer.”

“Oh?” She sipped her water.

“And what did this Jim Henley say?” asked Kit mischievously.

“He sent me back a telegram.” Frank grinned. “It had only two words on it: Drool Drool.”

Kit laughed and so did Mel Horner and George Clark. Mary, who had developed a technique for dealing with drooling male students, said coolly, “Did he? How disappointing. I thought Mr. Henley had the makings of a scholar.”

Frank Moore flushed and George Clark and Mel Horner sobered immediately. Only Kit still had a wicked glint in his eyes.

“That’s the girl,” he said encouragingly. “I bet that cool expression really keeps them at a distance.”

She bit her lip. The trouble with Kit, she thought, was he always could make her laugh. She wrinkled her nose at him. “It does.”

His eyes laughed back at her but after a minute he turned to Mel Horner. “By the way, Mel, I want you to arrange a press conference. Tomorrow afternoon will be as good a time as any I suppose.”

Mel Horner’s mouth dropped open. “A press conference?” he almost squeaked. “You never hold press conferences. I’ve been begging you for years...”

“Well, I will hold one tomorrow,” said Kit with ominous calm. “What’s more, I think the rest of the cast should be there. And George as well.”

“Are you serious, Chris?”

“I am perfectly serious. It’s the only way to put all these unfortunate rumors to rest. I do not,” he said with devastating simplicity, “want the press to disturb my wife.”

Tuesday morning Mary delivered her first lecture. . There were thirty-five students in the festival program, some of them members of the cast and the rest involved in other aspects of the production. She knew that the young eyes watching her so assessingly were more interested in her relationship to their leading man than they were in her academic record. Well, she thought grimly, they were damn well going to be in for a shock.

The first thing she did was to hand out a reading list. Eyes popped open and a male voice asked incredulously, “Do you really expect us to read all these books?”

. The speaker was the tall, broad-shouldered, blond boy who was playing Fortinbras. Physically a good foil for Kit, she thought, before she answered, “Certainly I do. You are all receiving six graduate credits for this summer school. I rather imagined you would expect to work for them.”

“Well, we
are
working,” replied the boy. He gave her a lazy, charming grin. “I don’t at all object to sitting in class with you,
Dr. O’Connor. In fact, it’s a pleasure. But between rehearsals and daily lectures, I really don’t see how we can possibly get all this reading done.”

Mary looked severely into the handsome, boyish face. “That, Mr. Lindquist, sounds to me both unscholarly and insincere. Are you
quite
sure you wish to remain enrolled in this summer school?”

There was absolute silence in the classroom. Then Eric Lindquist said quietly, “Yes, I’m sure. I apologize, Dr. O’Connor.”

“Your apology is accepted.” She glanced around the class. “Are there any further questions? No? Good. My topic for today is the place of drama in Renaissance England.” The students obediently picked up their pens.

* * * *

The press conference was held that afternoon in the recreation room of the dining hall. Mel Horner, taking full advantage of his client’s unusual mood, had made a few telephone calls, and as a result there were representatives from the New York press and the wire services as well as the usual fan and scandal sheets. George Clark served as a general host, and while they were waiting for Kit to arrive, he and the other cast members circulated among the press, answering questions about the production and even more questions about Mr. and Mrs. Douglas.

“I don’t know much about her at all,” Frank Moore said cheerfully to an inquisitive reporter. “She’s supposed to be a terrific Renaissance scholar. I haven’t read her book yet, but it made quite a stir in the academic world. If today’s lecture is anything to go on, the reputation is deserved. She knows her stuff. What’s more—she makes it interesting.”

George Clark, the only one besides Kit and Mel Horner who knew the real circumstances behind Kit’s presence at his festival, lied gamely. “No, it was a complete accident. Neither of them realized the other was coming to Yarborough.”

“How do they act toward each other, Mr. Clark?” shot an eager woman reporter.

“As two civilized people,” snapped George in return. He was beginning to realize why Kit did not give press conferences. He noticed a small movement at the door and then Kit came quietly in. He was dressed casually in a navy golf shirt and tan pants and he stood in the doorway, making no sound and slowly looking around the room. Gradually, without his seeming to do anything at all to attract it, the attention of the room swung his way and the place erupted into chaos. George Clark suddenly found himself a little shaken at the thought of directing Christopher Douglas. Magnetism like that was something that came along perhaps once in a generation.

Mel Horner stepped to the mike that had been set up and spoke into it. “Now, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Douglas will be happy to answer your questions, but they really must come one at a time.” He looked nervously at Kit and thought, I hope the hell he keeps his temper.

He did. He put on what Mel afterward told him was perhaps the finest performance of his career. He disdained the microphone and pitched his celebrated voice to an easily audible level. “I thought perhaps that first I would explain a little about my marital situation since it seems to have provoked such universal interest.” He didn’t sound at all sarcastic and he smiled charmingly before he went on to give a very edited account of his marriage: “We were both students and too young. It simply didn’t work out.” The coincidence of himself and Dr. O’Connor—he scrupulously called her Dr. O’Connor the whole time—both working at the Yarborough Festival this summer was just that, a coincidence. He had not realized until after he took the role that she would be lecturing here. “So you see,” he concluded disarmingly, “it has all been a tempest in a teapot.”

“But why didn’t you ever get a divorce, Chris?” asked the man from
Personality.

“Neither of us ever got around to it, that’s all. If I had wanted to marry again, I would have. I’m sure we’ll do something permanent eventually. We’ve just both been rather busy these last years.”

“Why did you keep your marriage such a secret?” It was the eager young lady from one of the wire services.

He shrugged. “It was over with before I became established. The subject never came up. And I certainly didn’t want Dr. O’Connor bothered by a lot of unnecessary questions.” He gestured beautifully around the room. “As has happened.”

“Is that why you’re holding this press conference? To protect—ah, Dr. O’Connor?” It was a man from a New Hampshire paper.

Kit looked at him thoughtfully. “Partly. I feel guilty about having caused her all this trouble. But I was hoping, too, that there might be some interest in my tackling such a formidable role. After all, I haven’t done any theater in five years and my movie roles have hardly been of this caliber.”

“How do you feel about Hamlet?” asked the man from the Associated Press and from then on the conference moved into theatrical areas. Kit wandered around the room, chatting pleasantly, patiently answering questions, utterly relaxed, utterly charming.

“I don’t believe what I’m seeing,” muttered Mel Horner to George Clark.
“Chris
of all people. He hates things like this.”

“John Andrews was right, of course,” replied George soberly. “He’s doing it to protect Mary.”

Mel looked at him accusingly. “You haven’t told anyone that Chris asked to come here?”

“Of course not!”

“Good. The fat would really be in the fire if the press found that out.”

“Or if Mary did.”

“True.” Mel Horner sighed. “What a shame to waste a woman like that in the classroom. That skin! Those eyes! She could make a fortune in the movies.”

George grinned. “Somehow, gorgeous as she undoubtedly is, I cannot see Mary in the movies.”

Mel Horner thought for a minute. “I suppose you’re right,” he replied gloomily. “The problem is I can’t see her as Chris’s wife either, and I’m afraid that that is what he wants.”

They both looked at the slim, dark man who was sitting casually now on the arm of a chair talking to a New York theater critic. “He seems a very decent sort,” said George Clark, “but it’s a hell of a life, isn’t it?”

* * * *

Mary stayed as far as possible from the press conference. Her brief experience with the media after the bombshell of her marriage had dropped had been enough to permanently scar her sensibilities. What a life Kit must lead, she thought, with a flicker of genuine horror. Still, he had known what it would be like and he had gone after it with a single-minded intensity, ruthlessly sacrificing everything else to this one driving ambition. Having been one of the things sacrificed, she hoped that at least to him the result was worth the price.

She spent the early part of the afternoon in the library and then, when she thought the press must be gone, she changed her clothes and went down to the lake. The college had almost half a mile of lakefront property, with a dock, an area of lawn chairs, and a volleyball court. Mary sat down in one of the chairs and stared out at the sparkling water.

“The press conference went very well,” said a rumbling voice in her ear, and she turned to see Alfred Block, the actor who was playing Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. Block was a well-known actor from the Broadway stage who had never managed to break into movies. He was in his middle forties, with dark brown hair that was beginning to thin. His eyes were gray with the hint of a slant that was oddly surprising in his otherwise Anglo-Saxon face.

“It’s over then,” she replied with a restrained smile. “I thought it would be safe for me to emerge from my hiding place.”

“Where do you hide, Mary, when you want to escape?”

“The library, where else?” she replied lightly, not liking the way he was looking at her. There were two young students stretched out on the dock, both wearing bathing suits and showing a lot more flesh than she was in her khaki shorts and plaid shirt. Why didn’t he go leer at them, she thought with exasperation. Alfred Block had cornered her over coffee in the recreation room last night and she had heard more about him and his career than she ever cared to know. She was afraid the man was going to make a dreadful pest of himself and was wondering how best to handle him when Kit arrived.

“Thank God that’s over,” he announced, as he flopped down on the grass at her feet and closed his eyes.

“Don’t let us disturb your rest,” said Mary testily.

“I won’t,” he mumbled, his eyes still closed. She stared at him for a minute as he lay there on the grass with his feet crossed, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes closed against the sun. She was suddenly intensely aware of him, of the rise and fall of his chest with his even breathing, of the beat of the pulse at the base of his tanned throat, of the latent power in the length of his lean body. . . . She took a deep breath and reached out to kick him in the ribs with her sneaker-shod foot.

“Hey!” he yelled indignantly, and sat up.

“I want to hear what happened at the press conference,” she said sweetly.