“I don’t know. Right now, I’m too furious to be thinking
straight. Did he tell you what he did?”
He broke off a piece of cookie and dipped it into his tea.
Grimly, he said, “Surprise me.”
She got up from the couch, walked to the fireplace, studied the
Behrens original that hung above the mantel. Closed her eyes and swallowed.
“He had a vasectomy,” she said. “Six weeks ago.”
Rob’s mouth fell open. “You’re shitting me.”
She crossed her arms and began pacing. “The worst thing,” she
said, “is that a part of me understands why he did it. But, good grief, Rob,
I’m only twenty-nine years old! He has no right to make a decision like that
behind my back, without even discussing it with me! And you know what he
says? ‘I did it because I love you.’
Because I love you!
I think he’s
lost his mind.”
Rob scowled. “I ought to put my foot up his ass.”
“What good would it do? The deed’s already done. It’s a little
late to take it back.”
At Rob’s elbow, the telephone rang, and they both froze. He raised
his eyebrows, and she bit her lip and shrugged. Rob picked up the phone. Eyes
still on hers, he shot her a wink.
“That’s okay,” he said into the phone. “I wasn’t sleeping. Yeah,
she’s here.” He paused. “I don’t think so,” he said, “but I’ll ask.” He
covered the receiver with his hand. “Do you want to talk to him?”
“I’ve already said everything I have to say.”
“Dan? She says she doesn’t want to.” He paused, continued
nodding his head. “I know, I know. Well, Jesus, Danny, if you really want the
truth, I’d say this time you blew it good. Listen, you don’t have to worry
about Casey, she’s right here with me. Try to get some sleep. I’ll call you
tomorrow, okay?”
He hung up the phone, slowly massaged his temple, and exhaled.
“Your husband,” he said, “is on one hell of a tear.”
She sat back down beside him and propped her feet on the coffee
table. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “It’s not fair to put you in
the middle of this.”
“Wrong,” he said. “How many times have you picked me up and
dusted me off?”
She leaned her head back against the couch. “Too many,” she said.
“Well, kiddo,” he said, and patted her shoulder, “this is
payback.”
The lamp light softened the sharp angle of his jaw. “You’re a
good man,” she said. “Why didn’t I fall in love with you instead of Danny?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “It’s never too late,” he said.
“It’s far too late,” she said. “I love you far too much to fall
in love with you.”
“So what are you going to do? You’re welcome to stay here, you
know.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m moving east. Back to Boston.”
He didn’t say a word, but the stubborn set of his jaw gave away
his feelings on the subject. “I need to be by myself for a while,” she
explained. “Away from Danny. After everything that’s happened, I need some
time alone to heal.”
He threaded fingers with hers. “I’ll miss you every damn day of
my life.”
“You’ll visit, won’t you?”
“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away. Do you have a place to stay
when you get there?”
“I’ll find something. There are plenty of hotels in Boston.”
“Mom will have a kitten if you stay in a hotel. You’ll stay with
my folks until you get settled.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“Be serious. I’ll call Mom first thing in the morning.”
“You’re an angel.” She squeezed his hand. “Now be a good boy
and find me a pillow, and then get your carcass back to bed before your lady
friend stops speaking to you.”
***
When his wife left him, Danny Fiore went on a three-day bender.
He locked the doors and closed the shades, cracked open a bottle
of Jack, and threw himself a whopper of a pity party. While he drank and
brooded, brooded and drank, he waited like some pathetic teenager for her
call. The phone rang occasionally, but it was never Casey, and he let the
answering machine take care of everybody else. He had nothing to say to any of
them. Sooner or later, when Casey realized what a monumental mistake she had
made, she would call, begging him to take her back, and it would be a hell of a
thing if she couldn’t get through because somebody else had the line tied up.
Except that for some inexplicable reason, she didn’t call.
Every couple of hours, Danny picked up the phone and listened to
make sure there was a dial tone, that it was still working properly.
Reassured, he would hang it back up and take another swig of Jack and wait some
more. Sometimes, when the waiting got too difficult, he would press the outgoing
message button on the answering machine, just to hear the sound of her voice.
And sometimes, deep into Tennessee whiskey and depression, he wouldn’t bother
to hold back the tears that were always waiting just a blink away. On the
evening of the third day, after one more call that wasn’t from her, he picked
up the telephone, ripped the cord from the wall, and heaved it across the
room. It hit the bedroom mirror, and the sound of shattering glass was
immensely satisfying.
On the morning of the fourth day he emerged from his stupor,
bleary-eyed and hung over, shaky, unshaven, and rank, to the growing suspicion
that maybe this time, she wasn’t coming back. He put an inch-long gash in his
finger picking up the broken glass, and then the only Band-Aids in the house
had Oscar the Grouch on them, remnants of a happier time in his life. Cursing,
he wrapped two of them around his injured finger and carried the broken glass
out to the trash bin. When he returned, he stripped off his clothes in the
bedroom, leaving them where they landed. Avoiding the bathroom mirror, he took
a long, hot shower.
The shower took away most of the
eau de Jack
, but it did
nothing for the pounding in his head. Still naked, he went to the kitchen and
mixed himself a concoction consisting of tomato juice, crushed aspirin, and
hair of the dog. He gagged it down, then returned to the bathroom to brush his
teeth.
He handled his toothbrush gingerly, because even the smallest
movement sent daggers through his head. Frowning into the massive mirror over
the vanity, he took a good, long look at Danny Fiore, Superstar. King of all
he surveyed. A teenybopper’s wet dream. If his adoring fans could see him
like this, eyes swollen and bloodshot, face buried in whisker stubble, they
might think twice before shelling out big bucks so they could scream and swoon
at his concerts. He looked every day of his thirty-five years, and then some.
“Christ,” he told his reflection in disgust, “you’re pathetic.”
Eventually, inevitably, there was business to take care of. He
went back to the bedroom and picked up the clothes he’d left on the floor and
played back the messages on the answering machine. Rob had called to make sure
he hadn’t hung himself from a rafter; Drew Lawrence had called to talk about
the new album; his manager had called to remind him that the photographer was
coming on Friday to shoot the new album cover, and he needed to be there first
thing in the morning. And his publicist had called twice: somehow, the
tabloids had already gotten wind that Casey had left, and they were circling,
sniffing for blood.
He called his manager first, assured him that he’d be there on
Friday, and then he called his publicist. Jackie Steinberg was as
straightforward as anyone he’d ever met. “You know how these people are,” she
said in her distinctive whiskey-throated voice. “If you don’t give them
something, they’ll manufacture it. It’s better for you, in the long run, if
you give them what they want now.”
So he reluctantly agreed to a press conference, and then he called
Rob. “I want to know where my wife is,” he said.
After a brief hesitation, Rob said, “I can’t tell you. I gave my
word.”
He rubbed the side of his face. Cleared his throat. “Look,” he
said, “I have a press conference scheduled for two o’clock, and I have no idea
what to say to them.”
“You want me to call her and ask?”
He closed his eyes. “Yes. Please.”
He paced while he waited for Rob’s call. Picked up the phone on
the first ring. “She says it’s up to you,” Rob said. “You’re the one in the
public eye. Say whatever you think is best, and she’ll go along with it.”
A few minutes past two, he strolled into Jackie Steinberg’s
reception area, wearing his suede jacket and a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
Jackie’s receptionist glanced up and gave him a smile that must have cost her
parents a small fortune. “Conference room B, end of the hall,” she said, and
he nodded without speaking.
They were waiting for him inside, a dozen reporters, impatiently
if the buzz meant anything. Danny stepped up to the podium and adjusted his
glasses and rested his hands, palms down, on the textured oak. The buzz
instantly ceased, the room growing so still he could hear Jackie’s secretary in
the next office, clicking away on the computer keyboard. “Mrs. Fiore and I,”
he said, “have separated. Obviously you’ve already heard, or you wouldn’t be
here. So let’s get this over with so we can all go home.”
Andy Constantine, from
People
magazine, raised his pen high
in the air. “Mr. Fiore,” he said, “who initiated the separation?”
“It was a mutual decision,” he said.
Kimberly Downes asked, “Are you filing for divorce, Mr. Fiore?”
He rocked back on his heels. “There are no plans at this time,”
he said, “for a divorce.”
A red-haired woman he didn’t know shouted from the back of the
room, “Danny, is either one of you involved with someone else?”
Jesus H. Christ.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette. Lit it.
Drew deeply and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “No,” he said.
“Mr. Fiore? Can you tell us why you and Mrs. Fiore are
separating?”
Danny took another draw on the cigarette. His hands were
shaking. He cleared his throat. “You’ve all heard about our daughter’s
death. The adjustment has been difficult for both of us. We decided that for
a time, it would be in our best interests to maintain separate residences.
Period.”
He looked out over the sea of faces. Vultures, all of them. “One
more thing,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my wife alone. She’s
had a rough year, and she doesn’t deserve to be plagued.”
***
This was the first
time Rob had been to the Malibu house since shortly after Katie died, and there
was a sadness hovering on the air, an emptiness that made his skin crawl. He
wasn’t sure how Danny could stay here, now that his wife had left him and his
little girl was buried on a rocky hillside in Maine. But then, he’d never
really understood what made Danny Fiore tick. He’d come tonight because Danny
had called, looking for a shoulder, and he couldn’t refuse. In spite of
everything, in spite of the fact that he wanted to strangle the guy for what
he’d done to Casey, underneath it all, they were still brothers. Bound not by
blood, but by two decades of history and an inexplicable loyalty that sometimes
really pissed him off.
“Marrying Casey,” Danny
said, staring into his drink for inspiration, “was the smartest thing I ever
did. If wasn’t for her, I’d still be playing the bar scene for thirty bucks a
night.”
Rob leaned back against the couch cushion and crossed his legs at
the ankles. Studying the toes of his Reeboks, he sipped his bourbon and
water. “If it wasn’t for her, Dan, you’d be washed up.”
“When I met her,” Danny said, “I was an arrogant, wise-ass kid
from the streets who thought he had the world by the tail. But she saw
something in me. I still don’t know what the hell it was.”
His mouth thinned. “You mean besides your pretty face?”
Danny shook his head vehemently. “It wasn’t that. She looked
past that. She looked at that nobody wop kid and she saw something. She made
me feel good about myself.”
He got up and went to the bar and mixed himself another drink.
Casually, he said, “And you’re going to let her just walk away?”
“She’s better off without me. What the hell did I ever give her?”
He turned and leaned his lanky frame against the bar and studied
the tinkling ice cubes in his glass. “Somebody to believe in?” he said.
“Hah! I’ve been nothing but an albatross around her neck since
day one. She deserves better than that.”
“And you can be sure she’ll get it.” He uncovered the crystal
candy dish on the bar and took a fistful of peanuts, popped a few into his
mouth. “Women like Casey are damn rare. Some guy will grab her up so fast
your head will spin.” He took another fistful of peanuts. “Who knows? It
might even be me.”
Danny scowled. “Screw you, MacKenzie.”
“I’m just giving it to you straight, Danny. You let her get away,
you’re a bigger goddamn fool than I thought you were.”