Flavor of the Month (110 page)

“No way,” she groaned, walked back to her bedroom, and threw herself back into bed. She shook two more Xanax into her palm and swallowed them dry.

It was more than an hour later when the phone rang. She picked it up, almost as if it were a snake that might bite. “Hello,” she murmured, hesitant.

“Jahne? Thank God. It’s Brewster.”

“Brewster? Oh, God, Brewster. It’s so good to hear from you.” Warmth flooded her. It was a physical feeling. “Brewster. Hello,” she repeated.

“Are you all right, Jahne?” he asked. The phone clicked and spit with static. He must be calling from far away. South America, she thought. Wasn’t he making a clinic trip there? It was so good of him to call. “Are you all right?” he repeated.

“I’m just so embarrassed, Brewster. It sounds stupid, but it feels terminal.”

“Which terminal?” he asked. “Jahne, I can hardly hear you. What terminal did you say?”

“
Life
is terminal. Oh, Brewster, I feel so bad! Nothing has worked out the way I planned. I got a second chance and I wasted it. I simply couldn’t swing it.” Her voice wavered. Even to her it seemed weak and far away.

“This connection is awful,” Brewster cried. “It keeps cutting out on us. What did you say about swinging?”

“Brewster, aren’t you ashamed of me? That horrible movie, and now this tabloid blitz. Are they driving you crazy at the office? Did I ruin your life?”

“More to the point, did I ruin yours? Are you okay, Jahne? You sound so far away.”

“Do you still like me, Brewster?” she asked.

“Of course I do. Jahne, I…” His voice faded out.

“Brewster? Brewster, are you there?” There was another wave of static, then the line was dead. Stupidly, she shook the phone in frustration. “Brewster? Brewster?” she cried. But he was gone. She began to sob, but in the weak, disheartened way of a hopeless child. Oh, God, Brewster was gone. She couldn’t talk to him. She sobbed on, her nose dripping, and picked up the quilt to wipe her face. Then the security buzzer sounded.

She lifted the intercom. “Brewster Moore. Are you expecting him?” the voice asked. She shook her head to clear it. How had Brewster called on her security phone? “Yes,” she mumbled, and hung on. Or should she hang up? Were they patching him through?

The doorbell rang. She reached for her robe and barely managed to struggle into it without dropping the phone. But Brewster didn’t come onto the line. The doorbell rang again. “One minute,” she yelled, but she knew that whoever it was couldn’t hear. Could she put the phone down? Should she hang up? Would she lose Brewster’s call?

She left the phone on the bed and tried to run to the door. But the pills affected her balance. She ran into the side of the night table and nearly fell. “I’m coming,” she yelled, righted herself, and managed to get across the living room, down the gallery, and to the enormous front door. She threw it open.

Brewster Moore stood on the doorstep, a suitcase in his left hand, his raincoat bunched over his right arm. Brewster. Brewster was right there.

“Aren’t you in Honduras?” she asked.

He stepped into the foyer. “Aren’t you in trouble?” he asked, and then he dropped his things and they hugged one another.

Later that day, after she had bathed, after Brewster had fed her lunch, after he had helped her wash her hair and she’d picked out a dress and managed to pull herself together—after all that, they sat side by side in the limo. “There is no way,” Jahne said to Dr. Moore, “that I could face any of this tonight without you. Thank you for coming all this way, just to take me to the awards and the party. If you couldn’t make it, I wouldn’t be going.”

“You’ll excuse me, Jahne, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. You don’t know this, but there are a lot of people—men as well as women—who are going to be very nervous when they see me tonight. You won’t believe who’s been calling me in New York, since my name came out connected with you. Now that you’ve been ‘outed,’ everyone’s afraid.”

Jahne looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Do you really think you’re my
only
celebrity client? You weren’t a celebrity then, of course. But, Jahne, I’ve spent years doing corrections of other surgeons’ mistakes for some very rich, very famous people. It wouldn’t have been ethical of me to have gone into it with you when we first developed our professional relationship. Or even now. But everyone will be afraid that I’m out here to do a book deal, or TV, or to somehow go public.” He took a sip of the white wine he had poured. “And, considering what these bastards have done to you, and said about me, well, it’s a very tempting idea. Do you know I’ve been approached—just in the last forty-eight hours—by Laura Richie,
and
every publisher in the English-speaking world, just to tell all? They’re offering obscene amounts of money. Tempting, real tempting. The money would pay for the work on a lot of kids like Raoul. They’ll be coming to you, too—don’t be surprised.”

“Ha! I’ll never talk to another bloodsucking journalist as long as I live. I wish I could just run away. Start over somewhere.” She laughed at herself. “Does that sound familiar?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t sound so stupid. Maybe you should do just that. Go back to New York.” He reached out and took her hand with his own. His hand was small, but warm and surprisingly comforting. She gripped it tightly.

“What for? To act? That’s a laugh! Now the gape factor is high enough for me to star in some Broadway revival—people would come to stare and see if they could spot the scars. Might as well join a carnival sideshow. No, New York theater is over—for good, I’m afraid. But I’ll worry about my career dilemma later, when I have more time. Now I’d rather appreciate the moment—having you here.” Jahne managed a smile. “But right now I have to face all those beautiful barracudas.”

Dr. Moore laughed. “Some of whom once were
ugly
barracudas, before they came to me,” he pointed out. “So what? And don’t you think you’re showing a lot of class and a certain
je ne sais quoi
by showing up with your surgeon? Sort of sticking it in their eye.”

Jahne laughed at that. “But no one knows
that
about
them
, and now everyone knows everything about
me
. My age, my previous and present weight—they’ve seen my ‘before’ pictures, interviewed girls I went to high school with, dragged out the affairs I had with Pete and Michael McLain. I’m humiliated.”

“Well, I’m no psychiatrist, but by now I think I know something about people. When they see who you’re with tonight, they’re going to treat you like Princess Diana.
Before her scandals
. Make no mistake, I know details of people’s lives that make your puny little problems look like a pimple against their cancerous growths. And if it gets too bad for you, if you get the last-minute heeby-jeebies and don’t want to get out of the limousine, I’m fully prepared to show you some of the pictures I brought along with me from New York. From my files. I know, it’s unprofessional, but I hate hypocrites. Jahne, as I tell all my patients, it’s only going to hurt a bit, then it’s over.”

Lila stretched her arms above her head, her legs flexed down the length of the satin sheets, then reached to her face and removed the eyeshades. She winced as she opened her eyes to the harsh afternoon light. That was the bitch of a Malibu house—the harsh west light. Too much sun, even with the curtains drawn. Lila rang for the maid, had her bring fresh-squeezed orange juice, and slowly—very slowly—open the curtains. She didn’t need any other help. As always, Lila would tend to her own toilette.

She lay motionless, sipping the iced juice intermittently, trying to figure out how she really felt about the night that lay ahead. The Emmy was
this close
. She could feel its heft in her hand, the coldness of the metal against her warm palm. Right now, squiggling her toes between the sheets, she felt delighted, as if she were Cinderella that first morning she’d awakened in the palace. After all, Marty
was
a prince in Hollywood, and she a princess. Their wedding and new movie together would mark the start of their reign.

Lila shifted a little in bed. Of course there would be a lot of risks, but they were worth it. She’d already told Marty that she insisted on her own room, her own bed, and privacy. Yet, if her antics could keep him satisfied, he had nothing to complain about.

And if she didn’t marry Marty, what was there for her?

A chill wind blew in off the Pacific, turning her skin to gooseflesh. She felt the good mood begin to bleed away, as it did whenever she thought of marriage, but she refused to let it. She
would
be happy.

Lila knew there was a lot to do, but for the next few minutes she wasn’t going to do anything but gloat about the waiting prize she would receive tonight, and what she would say in her acceptance speech. Maybe she would mention her costars, just for spite. She laughed.

Then the phone trilled by her bedside. She cursed the interruption, but answered anyway. “Yes,” she simply said, her usual telephone greeting.

“Lila, darling, I’m
so
glad I caught you in
.”
It was me. “Laura Richie here. I hope I didn’t disturb you, but I wanted to be the
very first
to congratulate you on the Emmy. No one deserves it more.”

“Thank you, Laura. I’ll always remember you for this. Congratulating me for something I haven’t won yet. Now
, that
shows real confidence.”

I laughed. “Nonsense, darling, what are friends for? Anyhow, it’s in the bag. Why
, anyone
with half a brain
knows
you are a shoo-in
. Everyone,
my dear, is saying so. And I do mean everyone.” I was trying to get enough stuff to write tomorrow’s column in advance. Tricky, because sometimes you have to tell a secret or get caught in a lie, but necessary when you have to be in three places at once
.

“Laura, you’ll have to excuse me, I must run. They’re screaming for me downstairs. Photographers, Network publicity people. The house is simply teeming. Of course, I won’t tell them a thing. I’ll save every detail just for you. After all, you’re my oldest and dearest friend in Hollywood.”

Lila slung the manure just the way her mother did. “I’m not so old, dearie, but thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said. “Do you know who’s presenting the award?”

“No. Do you?”

I ignored her. ‘Are you going with Marty?”

“Of course.”

“And have you two set a date?”

“Not yet, but you’ll be the first to know.”

It was the last time I ever spoke to Lila Kyle
.

Michael McLain lay on the lounge at his pool, applying yet another layer of sun block. How to achieve that perfect color of brown masculine health without destroying his skin’s elasticity forever? Such a riddle. He hated to have to resort to bronzer, so he paid particular attention to the sun on his face today, changing his face’s position every fifteen minutes to make sure the tan came out perfectly even.

Ara’s party tonight would be both pleasure and torture—sort of like fucking a woman who had an exquisite body but an ordinary face. Which, in fact, was what he would be doing in a little while. His date tonight was, after all, Adrienne.

Birth of a Star
had given him the boost that he had been needing for a while. It would prolong his life. He’d done it again! Still, he wasn’t stupid or naïve. While it was by no means his swan song, he realized that this was the top of the crop of the older man parts he would be offered. He could see Stewart Granger-type made-for-TV-movie roles looming in his future, and he was not about to end his exceptional acting career playing old but-still-attractive John Forsythe roles. Not Michael McLain.

No, it was time to move his public image to a whole new level. He liked being on the A list and wanted to stay there forever, the way Greg Peck and Jimmy Stewart had. So it was time, at last, for the inevitable. What was the one thing newsworthy Michael McLain had never done with a woman?

Marry one.

After all, it was the nineties. A time of family values. Hadn’t Adrienne told him she’d missed a period? No D&C this time. He’d marry her. Have the baby. Be a dad. What a way to spend his sixth decade.

He shifted his face in the sun and stopped the smile from making dangerously aging wrinkles. Yes. Right after the Emmys, he’d leak the info that Adrienne was the body in
Birth
. After she had a smidgen of facial work. Then announce that he was going to marry her. Wouldn’t
that
make headlines?

Theresa O’Donnell walked out of the shower and wrapped a bath sheet around her sagging body. She couldn’t be bothered putting on a robe. She was tired, and her evening’s work had not even begun. She walked into the dressing room and picked up the Lycra bodysuit that Estrella had laid out for her. It was specially made for her in Paris and worked like a whole-body girdle. She powdered herself down and began the arduous task of wiggling into it, a sausage struggling into its casing.

At last she finished and, exhausted, sat down at her mirrored vanity table. She very nearly groaned as she looked at the wreck that stared back at her. Vanity table, indeed! It was a holy crucifixion to look at the ruin that had been her face. The Loveliest Girl in the World! Well, once she had been.

Where once she had a chin she now had several. And the hollows under her eyes had long ago turned to bags. Well, she’d turned into a bag. Her hair, never her strongest suit, was thinner than ever. Forty years of coloring and perms had had their way. She snatched up a wig cap and stuffed the straggling gray ends into it, fastening the skintight nylon to her head by viciously stabbing in hairpins.

She began to coat her sallow skin with the Estée Lauder base she used. She daubed the natural sea sponge across the wrinkles on her forehead, the puffiness that had become her nose.

“Ah. Transformation time,” Kevin said as he walked in with two glasses of gin. He looked over her shoulder into the mirror. There were no longer any secrets from Kevin. Now he was bitter because she was going to the Emmys and Ara’s party with Robbie and not him. Because she’d be on TV presenting the Best Actress award while he was left home watching. She took the glass from his hand, drank it down, and picked up the makeup sponge again.