Tender Deception (12 page)

“Thanks,” Vickie murmured. She opened her own script to the right page, quickly tore through her bag for a pencil, and hurried for the stage, giving Terry a grateful nod. Terry had been right. Monte was indeed in a deplorable mood, lashing out at the slightest mistake. Vickie bit her lips and swallowed the words she wanted to shout back at him, noticing resentfully that Brant seemed to be the only one spared his temper.

But then, she doubted if anyone, even the most influential Hollywood or New York director, would shout at Brant Wicker. He just wasn’t the type person one dared to shout at—unless one happened to be a prizefighting gorilla.

Still, Monte was usually pleasant and professional. For him to be acting this way, something had to be wrong. Vickie thought idly that she would question him later; she wasn’t about to make a scene in front of the others. Besides, Brant made another entrance as Othello, and Monte started to mellow. By the time Brant and Vickie exited together, neither Monte’s burst of irascibility nor the intensity of temper in which Brant had left Vickie’s house seemed to have ever existed.

She pulled out of Brant’s hold the second their footsteps took them into the wings, but he made no attempt to stop her. Instead, she could hear his chuckle following her as she slithered offstage away from him. He stayed behind, and she wished fervently that she could walk back and rail at him, informing him that her hasty retreat had not been because of him, and her supposed fear of him, but because she wanted to talk to Monte. That, of course, wouldn’t be entirely true. She did want to quiz Monte in private and tell him his behavior had been atrocious. But more than that, she did want to get away from Brant.

“What was that all about?” Vickie demanded of Monte as soon as the scene ended and a five-minute break was called.

Monte tossed his pencil on the table and leaned back in his chair. “Nothing,” he told her disgustedly. “Absolutely nothing, do you believe that?” He stood and stretched. “No reason, no excuse, except that I’m tired.” Looking at her with a puzzled smile, he continued. “I’m sorry, Vickie. Excuse me, now I have to go say I’m sorry to everyone else!”

Bobby sank into the chair Monte had occupied a second after he had left. Vickie glanced at him questioningly, since it was obvious he had sought her out.

“So, love,” he asked, “have a nice night?”

Vickie’s brows angled into arches. “I don’t know,” she replied dryly. “You seem to be in on something I’m not.
Did
I have a nice night?”

“Sweet and innocent to the end!” Bobby proclaimed, chuckling. “I am inquiring with all concern for your welfare. You and our gallant leading man, it appears, have become the ‘in’ thing. How brokenhearted I was! I drove by your house this morning to make sure you had a ride in, since Monte told me you were having car trouble. And what do I find? My virgin princess, my pedestal queen, involved in a normal, mortal relationship. Spending the night with Brant Wicker!”

“Oh, Lord!” Vickie snapped. “I did not spend the night with Brant!”

“Oh? He just happened to stop by at seven
A.M.
?”

“Of course not!”

“Then he did spend the night at your place?”

Vickie sighed. The question, from Bobby, was motivated by genuine concern. She and Bobby had long ago formed a strong bond of friendship, and they usually discussed just about anything—mostly Bobby’s love problems. The tables were merely turned now.

“Yes. No. I mean, yes, Brant did sleep at my house. But, no, we’re not sleeping together. He watched Mark last night, and when I came in, he was sleeping. So I left him alone.” Her simple explanation—an easy one to Bobby—would possibly involve other repercussions. “Don’t say anything to anyone else please, huh, Bob, I’m not up to the teasing.”

Bobby sighed flatly and patted her hand. “Sorry, kid, you’re already in for the teasing. I didn’t say anything. I consider any of my information about your life classified information. But Connie happened to drive by to check on you, too, and you might as well have printed the story on the front page of the newspaper. I’m sure she’s told half the cast, if not half the city already.”

“Damn!” Vickie moaned, bitterly remembering her thought that allowing Brant to sleep on her sofa could cause no harm. “Damn!”

Bobby was right. If not actually giving her a ribald comment, every member of the cast at least sent knowing, furtive glances her way. Brant, she noticed, was oblivious to it all. Of course, he would be, she thought angrily. No one would think of throwing taunts in his direction.

She cornered Brant in the wing while they blocked the third scene for the day. “I’d appreciate it,” she told him sternly, “if you would help me dispel the rumors floating around.”

“What rumors?” he asked, puzzled.

An annoying blush rose to her cheeks. “Your car was seen by a certain party with a news-spread larger than that of the National Enquirer.”

“Ahhh,” he murmured. “So you’re being ribbed about sleeping with me.”

“Precisely!” Vickie grated.

“Pity it’s only a rumor at the moment,” Brant mused.

“Brant!”

“Don’t fret,” he advised. “It won’t be long.”

“You really are a cocky bastard!” Vickie hissed, ready to explode.

“No, Vickie, I’m sorry. But don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit? What the hell should you care what anyone is saying? Lord, Vickie, you’re of legal age. What you do or don’t do is your own business. If you don’t like a certain rumor, ignore it!”

With her irritation put into a new context, Vickie realized that she was falling right into the hands of those who wished to torment her. Deflated, Vickie glanced around the dim wing to see that her tone had brought curious eyes to them. Riveting her attention back to Brant, she saw the depths of amusement her discomfiture was causing him in the wicked blue gleam of his eyes. Lowering her whisper to a barely discernible sound, she muttered, “This isn’t funny.”

“Sorry.” He cupped a hand to his ear and leaned toward her. “I missed what you said.”

“Damn you!”

“What’s that? I’m a lamb?”

“Cute.”

“Sorry,” he repeated, “but don’t expect me to get upset. I do find it all amusing, and so would you if you allowed yourself a sense of humor.”

“Listen, Mr. Hotshot Movie Star,” Vickie denounced him, “rumors are funny in Hollywood. Maybe in New York, maybe even in Tampa or Jacksonville. This is Sarasota. I have a son—”

“Oh, hell, Vickie. This is twentieth-century Sarasota. Besides, your son is going to have a new father before he knows what a rumor is. I said I intend to have you, and I meant all the way. I’m going to marry you too.”

She didn’t have a chance to say or do anything except gasp. In a single string of dialogue, he went on to excuse himself and move to the edge of the stage where she watched his metamorphosis into Othello.

He was insane. No, he was joking.

But he was, indeed, a superb actor. As Vickie joined him onstage at her cue, he quickly had her immersed in the magic illusion of acting with the special fervor he seemed to draw from them all. It was easy to be Desdemona, easy to give him the unshakable love the role demanded, easy to fear him. Brant, minus costume, makeup, and set, could hypnotize all his fellow players.

Vickie felt almost bereft when she walked offstage. Forcing her drained body down the side apron steps, she unobtrusively took a seat near Monte. Quietly, so as not to disturb the director’s concentration, she poured herself a cup of coffee from the gold restaurant carafe upon the table. Sipping the hot brew, she felt its warmth revitalize her. Brant was sapping her of strength, onstage and off. Usually so self-assured, she was at a complete loss on how to handle him. For now, she was going to have to ignore him.

When he finally came offstage, she sipped her coffee and studied her script without looking up. He wasn’t bothered in the least. His attention went convivially to a few of the others—Terry, among them—who were all too happy to include him in their discourse. Covertly, and with a stab of jealousy she despised, Vickie saw that Terry was still anxious to make her play for Brant, rumors or no. The tall brunette was unabashedly draped over him as she whispered a question intently, and damn Brant if he didn’t turn to give her a dazzling smile.

“Hold it just a minute,” Monte told them all, leaping to the stage. “I think I’ve got one of those impossible to refuse offers—in the form of an apology! I know I was horrible today. I’m tired. So you must be tired too. Soooooo—we’re dark Sunday and Monday. I’m giving you Tuesday daytime off. No rehearsal. Just report for showtime. For those of you who wish to make it, I’m also extending an open invitation. I’ve rented a place up in the panhandle for the weekend. The beach, sun, and sailboats. If you can’t make it, relax somehow! That’s it. See you all tonight.”

“Dynamite!” Bobby murmured beside Vickie, giving her a pleased grin. “Two fun-filled days on old Monte! You gonna go, Vick?”

“I’m not sure,” she hedged. “I have Mark to think about—”

“Now, that’s pure bunk,” Monte proclaimed, interrupting them, wryly astounding Vickie with his ability to hear what he wanted to hear. “I happen to know for a fact that you can easily leave Mark. You told me yourself just last week that your parents and your brother have been hounding you about having Mark spend some time with them. And you, Victoria, have been almost as grouchy as I. If anyone needs a vacation, it’s you.”

She needed a vacation all right, but away from the theater and its newest star. And she was sure beyond a doubt that Brant would be going.

“Maybe,” she hedged again, determined to make no commitments. “It’s just that I see so little of Mark myself.”

“We’re talking about two days, not two weeks,” Monte reminded her.

Vickie gave both Monte and Bobby a cheerful smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Maybe,” she repeated cheerily. “Probably, even!” Let them both think she was going. The less time they had to chisel at her defenses, the better.

Glancing over Monte’s graying head, she saw that Brant was leisurely approaching their party. Her smile became deceptively dazzling as she hopped quickly to her feet. “I’ve got to run. See you all later.”

Spinning around, she made a graceful if hasty exit from the theater. Knowing Brant, he would find a way to trick her into agreement to the weekend. Or would he? Would he really care whether she went or not? He hadn’t appeared too unhappy to have Terry draped over him and Terry had made it bluntly clear that she enjoyed draping herself.

Later that afternoon, sitting on the divan, she found it hard to concentrate on her lines, easy as they should have been to learn. Her mind kept wandering back to Brant’s words. I plan to marry you. How absurd. He probably hadn’t really given her a thought in the years preceding his reappearance. His words were merely Hollywood and New York, she thought scornfully. In those sophisticated cities, talk was cheap, at least in the theatrical community. Light affairs were easy. They were easy anywhere, she told herself dryly, except that it was true. You could read about many a famous actor’s marriage one week, and his divorce the next, which didn’t matter. All she could ever have with Brant would be an affair. She couldn’t marry him even if he were serious. Marriage meant licenses, and if they applied for a license, Brant would discover that she was not a widow.

“No!” she voiced aloud to herself. “Damn you, Brant Wicker. Not again!”

“Brant!” Mark, who had been quietly playing with a set of Bristle Blocks, looked up at the name and repeated it with a smile. “Brant coming?”

“No, no, darling,” Vickie said quickly. “Mommy was just thinking aloud.”

Just thinking aloud. Ridiculous. There was no future in dreaming. Better to subdue immediately the dreams that could never be. Not with the obstacles that faced them—the main one of which Brant would never dream.

She never intended to ask anyone to watch Mark for Monte’s two-day holiday because she didn’t intend to go. As it happened, though, Edward called her a few minutes before she was due to leave for the evening’s performance. Inadvertently she mentioned Monte’s plans, explaining that she had a few days off if Edward thought they might be able to get together.

“No!” Edward told her emphatically over the wire. “We are not going to get together. You’re going to go with your group and have a good time. I’ll take Mark. Listen, young lady,” he added firmly before she could protest, “you are one of the best mothers I know. But you have to have a life of your own too. A one-dimensional parent is not good! Besides, Mark needs a little male companionship, and who better than his doting uncle?”

Vickie had to chuckle at her brother’s tone, and agree. Edward had shown a poignant devotion to Mark since his birth. He had stood beside her from the beginning, a shoulder to lean on when the going had been rough. Karen, Edward’s new wife, was also crazy about her little dark-headed nephew.

As Edward went on to give her a host of reasons why she should go and Mark should stay with him, Vickie felt her resolve melting.

She was going to be with Brant for the summer; to deny herself the little vacation to avoid him was ludicrous.

“Okay, okay!” she finally agreed laughingly. “Thanks, Ed. I could use the days at Monte’s expense! When do you want to pick up Mark?”

Her brother told her he would pick up Mark on Saturday morning, and after a few more minutes of idle chatter about their parents and their jobs, they hung up.

Vickie had barely seated herself on her stool in the dressing room that night before a sharp knock sounded on the door. The women looked at one another. “Probably Monte,” Terry said dryly, rising to answer the door. “Hope he’s still in his good mood.”

It wasn’t Monte. Brant’s towering form stood in the doorway, rigid with ill-concealed anger. “Welcome, big boy—” Terry began, but he cut her off shortly with a curt nod.

“Vickie, I’d like to talk to you before you go on,” he said tonelessly, only his stance and searing eyes betraying his emotions. Spinning on his heel and stiffly striding away, he was gone before she could open her mouth to protest or assent, taking her agreement imperiously for granted.