Once Upon a Day (28 page)

His voice grew soft. “Would you like me to rub it for you?”

“Maybe later,” she said, and smiled. He rubbed her head nearly every night, and it helped so much. More than the pain pills Lucy was trying not to take any more of. They made her feel dull and lifeless.

During dinner, they sat together and listened to Peter talk about the rising cost of housing in so many areas of L.A. that was contributing
to a sharp increase in homelessness. Lucy wondered what Charles was thinking, since most of his money had been made from this real estate market. Most of their money, she thought, because she was benefiting from the money too. Even this delicious veal and asparagus was a benefit of the money. But she would rather have to cook, herself, which she liked doing, even though she wasn’t good at it like Krista, and know she hadn’t caused someone else to lose their home.

“I was homeless myself,” she said, apropos of nothing. Probably because she’d had another glass of wine. Actually, two more glasses of wine. Her headache was her excuse.

“It’s true, you were,” Janice said. “Peter knows the story of how we met.”

“I mean before,” Lucy said. “I was homeless when I was ten years old, until my uncle and aunt took me in. And then I was homeless again in Nashville for a while.”

Janice nodded. “You know, I think that’s another reason you should do that movie about the Vietnam nurse. A lot of the boys who died in Vietnam were poor, and you could really bring something to the part.”

“Interesting,” Lucy said, and took another drink.

“Thank you, Tom,” Charles said. The servant had just handed him a basket of Italian bread. Charles took a piece and passed it to Lucy, while he explained to Janice why her position, though interesting, was untrue. “Good actors like Lucy don’t need to have a common background with the character. In fact, many of the finest actors will tell you a part that is too familiar hinders their creativity.”

Lucy was expecting Janice to argue with him, as in the old days. Instead her friend was blushing with embarrassment. “Oh,” Janice said. “I guess I showed what I know.”

“But some actors don’t feel that way,” Lucy said quickly. She turned to Charles. “Remember when Anthony told us that his father emigrating from Germany helped him understand Max?”

Max von Durren was Anthony Mills’s character in
Helena:
the
patriotic German merchant who falls in love with Helena, and ultimately makes a decision to leave Germany to help her save her Jewish pupils.

“Anthony isn’t in the same league as you, my sweet. He is a journeyman; you are an artist.”

Lucy smiled at her husband, even though she was very surprised by how harsh he sounded about Anthony. Anthony was a good actor, who had nothing but respect for Charles. He was also a friend of theirs, or he had been, before.

“By the way,” Peter said to Lucy, “Janice and I both loved
The Passion of Helena Lott.
We thought you were terrific.”

“Thanks,” Lucy said. Peter seemed nice, and she was happy for Janice. He was such a normal-looking guy, the kind you see everywhere in California: average height, average build, permanent tan, longish blond hair, well-trimmed sideburns and beard, colorful print shirt, blue jeans, sandals. He looked a lot younger than her own husband, and he was: thirty-one to Charles’s forty-two.

“Since Lucy is an artist,” Janice said, “shouldn’t she be making more movies?”

Lucy thought, wow, she is never going to give this up. The thought pleased her more than she would have expected.

“Yes, and she will make more movies,” Charles said. “When she’s ready.”

“Well, she seems ready now,” Janice said. “Aren’t you ready, Lu? Come on, say yes. Do it for my mom, who loves bragging that her daughter is friends with a real movie star.”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said, but she laughed.

“That’s Jimmy,” Charles said, nodding at the monitor. He was crying out in his sleep, another nightmare. Susannah had just left for a party with friends.

“I’ll go,” Lucy said, but Charles was already standing. He put his napkin down and walked out of the room without saying a word.

Janice waited a moment before she whispered, “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Lucy said, gulping down the rest of her wine. “Don’t worry about it.”

By the time Charles returned, the three of them were eating dessert, a rich chocolate cake layered with strawberries, and laughing about one of Janice’s more bizarre client stories. When Tom asked Charles if he wanted any cake, Charles said no.

He was so quiet for the rest of the evening that Lucy could tell he was upset. So could Janice, but she wasn’t worried about him, like Lucy was. Before she and Peter left, she took Lucy aside and told her that she had to confront Charles about his “withdrawing and controlling behavior.”

“I thought you liked him now,” Lucy said.

“I do, but come on, Lu, you have to work. You have to see people, you have to go out. You and the kids are like prisoners, and I know, he’s scared something will happen to you, but that doesn’t mean you should accept not having a life.”

They were standing over by the piano, whispering. Peter and Charles were already outside. Janice had said she had to run to the bathroom, and dragged Lucy back in with her.

“I have a life, Janice.”

“Do you? Or do you have to go along with him or he stops talking? How often does he pull this withdrawal thing? It’s one of the ways some guys control women, withdraw—”

“It’s not like that,” Lucy said.

“Please just think about it, okay? Maybe you guys need counseling. You’ve been through a lot, but I’m telling you, he isn’t getting over this like he should.”

Lucy stood up straighter. Janice had never understood Charles, and this didn’t seem all that different from the things she used to say. Especially since Lucy knew Charles didn’t withdraw to control her, but because he couldn’t handle his feelings any other way and remain what he called “civilized.” It was very important to him to remain civilized. This was one of the things she’d loved about him from the beginning, that he never yelled or even raised his voice—unlike her uncle.

After Peter and Janice left, Lucy asked Charles if he was all right. He told her yes, but she still knew something was wrong. When they got in bed about a half hour later, she turned toward him to let him know she wouldn’t mind having sex. They were back to making love on a regular basis, though they still did it much less frequently than before, and always quickly, in the dark so he wouldn’t see her, with as little touching as possible so he wouldn’t feel her scars. She told him she couldn’t handle it any other way, and he seemed to understand, though she knew he longed for the way they used to be. The strange part was Lucy knew that she was probably being silly, but she couldn’t help it. The plastic surgeon had told her that she was healing incredibly well: most of the scars had already become thin white lines, and the few that hadn’t were obviously headed in that direction. But Charles had loved her skin so much before, when it was perfect, and she couldn’t stand the idea that she wouldn’t be as attractive to him now, especially when there was nothing she could do about it.

After they had sex, when they were lying next to each other, he told her he was sorry he’d been so quiet earlier. He had been a little upset—with Janice. “I found it very tiring that she kept returning to the same subject. I know she means well, but she has no idea what you’ve been through or she wouldn’t harp on you doing another picture.”

“I would like to work again though,” Lucy said slowly. “I realized tonight that I would love to do Ben’s movie, if there was any way.”

“I understand.” He was holding her hand, and he brought it to his lips and kissed it. “But you know how hard production is, and you’re just not up to it yet.”

“I’m a lot better though. I think I—”

“You still have headaches every day. You have trouble sleeping. Your right leg goes numb if you have to sit still for long periods. Your wrist—”

“I think I could do it, Charles. I really do.”

He paused for a moment. “They’re shooting in Asia for at least a month. Ben told me. You don’t want to be away from home that long, do you?”

“No,” she said. Of course she couldn’t leave the children, and she couldn’t take them out of the country with all the problems they were having. It was out of the question.

But the next morning, Lucy found herself wondering if Ben would be willing to work around this. She wasn’t sure it was even possible, but she knew how desperate Ben was to have her. While her husband was in his office, she impulsively picked up the phone and called Ben. And she was glad she did because he agreed immediately to film all her scenes in California. They could shoot the battlefield scenes on location, but have the art department create a field hospital set here for Lucy to work in. Maybe even in Malibu. He said
MASH
had been filmed at Malibu Creek State Park, so why not?

She hung up the phone and went up to Charles’s office. His desk was covered with paper, but on top she saw the folder marked “Sept. 21,” where he kept a record of all his dealings with the detectives who claimed to be still looking for the two men. He told her he was making notes for a meeting he had tomorrow at the police station.

She sat down on the leather couch across from him. She thought she would wait, but then she couldn’t. She had to share her good news. He listened to her whole excited monologue before he said it wasn’t going to happen.

“You’re not up to doing a film yet, as I said last night. I don’t intend to let you find that out by hurting yourself.”

Before she could say anything, he picked up the phone. And right in front of her, he told Ben that Lucy wasn’t capable of making a decision like this after what had happened to her. She was already staring at him like he’d lost his mind when he said something that shocked her even more. “If you still insist on casting my wife,” Charles said, “now that I’ve told you the situation, I will ask Walter to pull out of the project.”

If Walter pulled out of the project, the studio would pull out, and Charles knew it. Ben was a new director, with no track record other than working as Charles’s assistant. But Ben was a friend, and this was his dream. He’d been trying to get this film made for more than four years.

No surprise, Ben concluded that he couldn’t use Lucy in the movie, after all.

When Charles hung up, he said, “It may not seem fair, but please try to understand. It’s no different from us telling Dorothea that she can’t play with the kitchen knives.”

“Dorothea?” Lucy was sputtering. “Dorothea is our child.”

“And you are my Lucy. No matter what it takes, I will never let anything happen to you again.” He stood up. “Shouldn’t we be getting ready for mass? It’s already eleven.”

“I’m not going,” she said. “I have to call Pam.”

Pam was Lucy’s agent. She’d never really gotten her any work because Charles had done that. But Pam could get her work, of course she could. She was a VP at a very prestigious agency.

“You don’t want to fight me on this,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I promise you, you won’t win.”

Every time she’d heard him say this before, it turned out to be true. No one ever won against Charles, whether he was up against the president of the studio or the head of a tabloid he was threatening to sue if they wrote a single word about Lucy’s attack. It was part of the reason he’d been so successful in a business known for power plays: once he thought he was right, he would never give in.

“I don’t want to fight you,” she whispered, trying not to cry. “I just want to be an actress again. Can’t you understand?”

“I do understand,” he said, and his voice was so sincere, she actually thought he did. “For you, it’s about working. But for me, it’s about my life, my heart, my soul. It’s about what I vowed the day I found you half dead, what I promised God I would do if only he let you survive. You are everything to me. You are the only woman I’ve ever loved, the only woman I ever will love for the rest of my life.”

She’d heard this before too: the vow and the promise (which were the same: to protect her) and even the last two romantic lines. He said it when he was explaining why he wanted to accompany her shopping and to the park and to all her doctor visits, why he didn’t want her to go anywhere alone or with just the children. He said it when the topic of work first came up in May. He said it when she asked if they would ever go back to a normal life with friends and dinners out and something to live for other than just staying safe.

She never doubted that he believed it, and she didn’t doubt it this time either. This was the problem: she knew it was all true, and she even knew how it all added up together. He’d never lost a fight and this was the most important fight of his life. What conclusion was possible, other than that he would win now too?

B
UT
L
UCY COULDN’T
give up. It wasn’t just that she wanted to act again, she
had
to act again, though she couldn’t explain why, even to herself. It certainly wasn’t about being happy. She’d been much happier before her agent started trying to get her a part—and before she’d found out how completely unimportant she was in this business.

A lot of studio execs seemed very interested in casting Lucy, until they found out that Charles would have nothing to do with the project. Apparently, both her Oscar nomination for
Brave Horseman
and her critical success in
Helena
had been attributed throughout much of the industry to him. In
Brave Horseman,
so the rumor went, he’d not only written a part for Lucy that most actresses would kill for, but he’d used all his talents as a director to make her look good. In
Helena,
though he didn’t direct, he’d done extensive script revisions to enhance his wife’s role and even strong-armed his friend Derrick Mabe into letting him have input into everything from
Lucy’s wardrobe to the angles of her close-ups. Pam told Lucy this was obviously horseshit, but she admitted she’d heard some of it before. Why hadn’t Lucy herself ever heard it? Of course Charles must have known, but Lucy didn’t blame him for keeping it from her. This was back when he was helping her believe in herself, the opposite of what he was doing to her now.