Aspen Gold (44 page)

"At least now I understand why Chip was giving John such a problem over the script's changes," she muttered, continuing the steady stream of conversation she'd carried on with herself ever since she'd driven away from John's house. "God.

How could Chip butcher his own story like that?

Whatever made him do it?"

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and tried to give it a hard shake, wishing it was Chip she had by the shoulders so she could shake some sense into him. Then it hit her.

"Chip's a director first and a writer second. If he was given an ultimatum--

change the story or forget about directing the film

--he would have changed it." Kit sighed with a mixture of tiredness, frustration, and defeat.

"He would have kicked and screamed and dragged his feet all the way, but he would sacrifice it before he would give up the chance to direct a major film. Oh, Chip," she murmured sadly and swung the Jeep onto the highway.

Snowplows had already scraped away all but a dusting of freshly fallen flakes from the highway that cut through Aspen. Kit drove along it, falling silent. The traffic light ahead turned red. She slowed the Jeep to a stop and waited, her attention finally straying to her surroundings.

The Hotel Jerome rose tall and proud through the veil of snow, lavishly restored and refurbished to once again reign over the corner of Mill and Main as it had one hundred years earlier. Yet, so different from the Jerome she remembered as a girl, its blue eyebrows no longer raised at the goings-on around it.

On impulse, not even certain of her reason, Kit turned right onto Mill and drove until her way was blocked by the start of the pedestrian mall. She shifted into park and let the engine idle, her hands sliding together at the top of the steering wheel. Leaning forward, she rested her chin against them and gazed at the scene before her.

Snow blanketed the bricked thoroughfare and frosted the trees scattered along it. The white of their branches glistened. More flakes drifted down, creating a setting that was iced and glamorous, a winter wonderland that didn't seem quite real.

As her gaze wandered to the lighted shop windows that faced the mall, she tried to remember what the area had been like when she was growing up and the streets had still been dirt. But, too much had changed, too many new buildings replaced old ones--

new buildings designed to look old and ageless like the Jerome and the Wheeler Opera House.

Aspen had changed, yet it still looked like the ideal place to live. Except it wasn't ideal. Bannon had shown her that. He'd shown her it was only ideal if you could afford to live here.

She remembered, too, his efforts to change that.

Bucking the tide, fighting the system, refusing to regard it as inevitable, refusing to give in, to give up. When he believed in something, there was no compromise in him. He stood by it to the last.

Not like John.

Bannon was like the boy with his thumb in the hole in the dike, trying to hold back the flood until help arrived.

Only this wasn't Hollywood, even though it looked like a Hollywood set. No cavalry would come charging in to save the day. It was the real world.

John would have been quick to remind her of that.

A bright light flashed its glare into her eyes.

Blinking against its harshness, Kit glanced out the driver's-side window. A patrol car was alongside her Jeep. The officer on the passenger side signaled for her to roll down her window. Hastily, she complied.

"Are you waiting for someone, miss?" He played the light over her face.

"No. No, I'm not." She held up a hand to partially shield her eyes from its brightness. "I was just looking at the mall--and the snow."

"You're blocking the street. You'll have to move along."

"Of course." She nodded and shifted gears, driving off under their watchful eyes and making the swing back onto the highway and home.

A dusting of snow collected on the crown and rolled brim of Bannon's Stetson. He walked along the lighted street at a slow and easy gait, his lined parka unbuttoned to the still night air that felt pleasantly cool rather than cold. Beside him, Pete Ranovitch took a quick drag of his cigarette, one of a string he'd chain-smoked over the course of the evening. His bare head was bowed, the collar of his coat turned up to ward off the falling snow. His left arm was in a sling, a plaster cast covering it from the thumb to above the bend of his elbow.

"Need a lift, Pete?" Only lengthy negotiations, Pete's personal check for three hundred dollars, and a promise from Bannon to make the check good himself if it bounced had persuaded the owner of the bar not to press charges.

"No. My Bronco's parked a couple of blocks from here," he said, then expelled a fragment of a humorless laugh. "Assuming it hasn't been stolen or towed off. That'd be just my luck, wouldn't it?" He puffed on the cigarette again, then lowered it with a cupping hand. "I meant it, Bannon. I'm through trying. I'm leaving. When I get back to that apartment, I'm throwing my things in the back end of the Bronco and pulling out tonight.

It's no use kidding myself anymore that I'm ever gonna have a restaurant of my own. I'm not.

Not in this lifetime. That dream's over for me.

I'm tired, Bannon. I'm just

flat-assed tired."

Part of him wanted to argue with Pete to hold on a little longer. But he respected his decision, recognizing that Pete was the one who had to live with it. "Where will you go?"

"I got a friend working in a restaurant down in Telluride. I'll probably go visit him for a couple of days, then ... find myself a job somewhere once I get this cast off."

Bannon's pickup was parked at the curb, its black color hidden by a coating of snow.

He stopped and held out a hand to Pete. "Good luck, Pete. If you decide to come back this way, I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

"You're the one damned thing about this town I'm going to miss. I owe you a helluva lot, Bannon." His fingers closed around Bannon's hand with a fierce grip.

"Send the recipe for your barbecue sauce."

"I'll do it," he promised and jaywalked to the other side of the street.

Bannon watched him for a minute, then climbed into the pickup's cab and fished the keys out of his jacket pocket. He started the engine up, let it idle a minute, then pulled away from the curb, windshield wipers flapping at the snow blowing off the truck's hood.

With the lights of the town behind him, he thought about Pete and some of the others he'd known. He'd watched the dreams of so many die a little bit at a time, bled away by successive failures, bad luck, or the fading of spirit. For a time they'd repeat the old words of faith, of hope, until finally one day the words would be empty.

Maybe Aspen was harder on dreams than some places. But he couldn't blame it for the death of Pete's dream. It was life.

A pair of red lights rapidly flashed on and off a half mile ahead of him. Bannon slowed the pickup when he saw the vehicle with its hazard lights on. It looked like a Jeep pulled off on the shoulder. The road ahead looked clear, which left an accident or engine trouble. He'd already started to pull over when he saw Kit standing on the side of the road, waving her arms. He braked to a stop next to the Jeep.

"What happened?" he asked when Kit pulled the passenger door open.

"I ran out of gas." She threw her shoulder purse onto the seat and piled in after it.

"You--"

"Shut up, Bannon." She raised her hands, palms out, fingers spread, as if to ward off whatever was coming. "Please--just shut up and take me home."

Her emotion-charged voice sounded close to temper or tears and he was not in the mood to deal with either one--not from her, not tonight. He held his silence. Kit turned her face to the side window, propping an elbow on its ledge and her chin on her hand.

They rode the few miles to her house in silence. When he parked in front of it, she immediately climbed out of the truck, dragging her purse after her. "Thanks," she said as she closed the door.

He watched her dash through the snow and onto the porch. He waited until a light went on inside, then drove off, back down the lane.

Kit leaned against the front door, and let out a long sigh, then pushed away from it in a burst of restlessness and impatience. She threw her purse onto a chair and dragged off her coat, giving it a toss as well.

The phone rang. She whirled around and stopped, staring at it as it jangled again. It was John, calling to apologize--or argue with her some more.

"I don't want to talk to you." She crossed her arms tightly, her fingers kneading at her arms through the sleeves of her bulky, oversized sweater, all the agitation, confusion, anger, and uncertainty coming back stronger than before.

It rang a third time. What if it wasn't John? What if it was the hospital calling about her mother? Or Maggie Peters, her neighbor?

In two strides, she reached the phone and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Kit. Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to reach you for three hours." Maury's cranky voice came over the line. "I ask you to keep in touch, but do you? No."

"I went to John's for dinner." She sank onto the chair, clutching the phone with both hands.

"I'm glad you called, Maury. I just saw the changes that have been made to the script." The instant the words were out, she tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling. "Changes. My God, what am I saying? They didn't

change it. They ruined it."

"I'm sure it's not that bad--"

"Maury." She stood up. "They cut the heart out of my character."

"They cut your part?"

"No. They cut the things that gave her depth and dimension. Now she's just an ordinary cruel, conniving witch. A stereotype of a dozen others.

I tried arguing with John, but ... Olympic insisted on the changes and he won't go against them."

"If that's what Olympic wants ..."

Maury let the shrug in his voice finish the sentence. "I wouldn't worry about it, Kit.

You'll make the role memorable. Everybody will sit up and take notice of you. You'll see.

For that matter they already are. I--"

"I don't care if anybody notices me." She walked to the end of the cord and started back again, pacing like an animal on a chain.

"That's a strange thing to say--"

"Why?" Kit demanded. "Why is it so strange that I don't care whether I make this movie? I don't like the things that are happening to me. I don't like the things that will happen if I make it--"

"Kit," he cut her off. "Kit, you're upset. Now you're not thinking. You're not being realistic."

"My God, you sound just like John." She pushed a hand through her blond hair and threw her head back in disgust. "And for your information, I have been doing a lot of thinking."

"Then you are not thinking clearly about this."

Maury began to speak slowly and very precisely, making an obvious effort not to sound impatient or irritated. "You can't quit this film simply because you are unhappy with some changes that have been made in the script."

"Why can't I? If that's what I want to do, why can't I do it?" she argued, suddenly fighting tears.

"For one thing, you signed a contract--"

"Then I'll break it. They can murder the script but they can't hold a gun to my head and make me do the film. That's illegal."

"Do you still have the money they paid you when you signed the contract? They'd demand it back, Kit."

She'd forgotten about that. "No, I don't have it. You know I used it to pay some of my mother's bills. But I'll find a way to pay it back. I don't know how, but ..." She pressed her fingers to her forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache.

"I can't believe you're saying this. I can't believe you would quit three weeks before this film is scheduled to start shooting. You've got a key role, Kit. Don't you realize how many people are depending on you to do your job and do it well?

Sure, they can find another actress to replace you, but how far will that set the filming back? What about wardrobe, all the fittings you've had? What about the crew--the cinematographer, the grips, the gaffers, the assistant director? They've probably passed up other projects to work on this movie. Don't you realize the kind of problems you'd create? Is that fair, Kit?"

He hammered at her. "My God, you talk like you've never played in a rotten film before. When did you suddenly get too good to do a bad script?"

"It isn't that, Maury," she said in frustration.

"Then what the hell is it?"

"I'm just confused." She sat back down, sighing over this feeling she was caught in a trap.

"You'd better get un-confused. You're on your way up, Kit. You've got a big career ahead of you. For God's sake, don't blow it," he declared forcefully, then added, for good measure, "Do you hear?"

"I hear, Maury." Some of the nameless anger got into her voice.

"Good. Now, you take that script and make the best that you can out of it. That's what you're getting paid for. This is just the beginning, Kit. There will be other roles, better roles. You keep that in mind."

"I will." She told him good-bye and hung up, then sat there for several long seconds, holding the phone in her lap.

Maury made her sound like a spoiled child. Or a temperamental actress. But it wasn't that.

Damn it, it wasn't that.

Giving in to the sudden wave of angry frustration, Kit roughly shoved the phone back onto the table and ignored the protesting jingle it made. She stalked out to the kitchen and slammed through the cupboards until she found the aspirin bottle, then slammed through them again for a water glass. She turned the cold-water tap on full force to fill it.

After she washed the aspirin down, she stood in front of the sink and gripped the sides of it.

"Calm down," she told herself angrily, but that was impossible. She had to use up all this anger, all this excess energy.

Cocoa. She'd make cocoa. From scratch, the way Mrs. Hatch used to.

With immense pleasure, Kit rattled through the pots, pans, and skillets before banging a saucepan down on a burner, then slammed through the cupboards again, gathering all the ingredients listed on the Hershey's Cocoa can. She stalked to the refrigerator and yanked the door open, jerked the container of milk from the shelf, rammed the door shut, then turned.