“Yeah, I know who you are.”
“Good morning. I take it you’ve seen this morning’s trash.”
“Yeah. They took one tiny shred of truth, that Jen and I had a relationship and that she broke up with me because she thought, ironically enough, that I was in love with Jay all those years ago, and blew it up into me being the cold-hearted bitch-slut of the century.
Yippee.”
“Don’t sweat it, babe, you know how ridiculous the whole thing is.”
“Yeah, I do, but does Jay? She has a tendency to let her imagination get carried away with her, Peter. She’s had a lot of really bad stuff happen to her and she doesn’t think she’s worthy of being loved. She simply doesn’t trust that that kind of love exists for her, and I can’t be there to reassure her.” She paused, sighing heavily. “I think I need to talk to her now, buddy; I’m sure she’ll see this and her brain will start working overtime.”
Kate looked at her watch; it was nearly 9:10 a.m. in New York. “I bet she’ll go to the apartment before she heads to the office. Can you call her there now and conference me with her?”
“Yep. I’ll put you on hold, dial her, then bring you back in and take myself out, okay? It will just be you two, I promise.”
“Thanks Peter. You’re a prince.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
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ay, are you there?”
“J“Yes.”
“Kate, how ’bout you?”
“Right here, Technowiz.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll leave you two to it then. See ya.”
There was silence on the line for half a beat as Kate just enjoyed the sound of her lover breathing at the other end.
“Hi, sweetheart, how are you?”
“Great,” Jay answered sarcastically. “You? Are you having fun on your vacation?”
Kate was taken aback by the biting tone. “Is that what you think, that I’m just off having a good time?” she asked softly. “I miss you so much it’s tearing me up inside. There isn’t a second that goes by that I don’t think about you and wish I could be with you.”
“I bet that’s what you say to all the girls, isn’t it?” Jay shot back.
“Don’t believe everything you read, love. I take it you’ve seen the
Globe
this morning.”
“Oh yeah, I saw it. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you haven’t told me where you are or that you haven’t wanted to talk to me, even though you knew full well where I was. You’ve probably already moved on to the next sucker, haven’t you? How stupid could I be to think someone as perfect as you really could be interested in me as anything other than the flavor of the month? Jesus, Jamison, just take out an ad that says, ‘My name is Jay and I’m naïve, please step on me and then kick me when I’m down.’”
Kate was reeling. She had expected her lover to be confused, perhaps even upset about the article, but this—everything she’d done, she’d done because she loved Jay heart and soul. And all Jay could think was that once again someone she loved had betrayed her trust and given her what she thought she deserved. Kate’s heart shattered in pieces right there in the hotel room.
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“I’m sorry you feel that way, Jay,” she said stiffly.
“
That’s
what you have to say?”
“Yes.”
Go ahead, Katherine, let her get good and mad. She’s been
conditioned to expect the worst for twenty-five years; that’s not going to
change in the month that you’ve had together. From where she’s sitting,
it looks to her like you’ve just been using her. Let her think that; maybe it
will help her get over you faster. This is best for her; anger always
supercedes pain. She’ll be fine. Let her go.
This Kate thought even as she was dying inside.
“Fine then. I hope you and...whoever your next conquest is...are having a wonderful time. Don’t bother sending me a postcard. Goodbye, Kate.”
“Goodbye, my love,” Kate said to the dial tone on the other end. “I will be yours ’til the end of time and beyond. I hope someday you’ll know that.” She dissolved into tears—huge, wracking sobs that burst forth from her tortured soul as she lay face down in the pillow.
After slamming down the receiver, Jay picked it up to dial once again with shaking hands. “Peter?”
“Hi, half-pint, how did it go? It must have been great to be able to talk to her, huh?”
“Oh yeah, a real pleasure,” Jay ground out.
Peter was immediately alert and concerned. “What happened, Jay?”
“Never mind, I just think it would be better if you went over and took Fred, okay? I’ll come by later or tomorrow sometime to get my things, give you the key, and have you undo whatever it was you did that allowed me to set and deactivate the security system.”
“Whoa, whoa. What are you talking about?”
Jay proceeded to relate in detail everything she had said to Kate and her lover’s responses.
When she was done he screamed into the phone, “
You said what? You
did what?
Oh my God, oh my God. Shit, I’ve got to find her before she really does disappear.”
The decibel level of Peter’s voice shocked Jay. She had never heard him lose his cool before. Testily, she said, “It figures. I’m the one who gets screwed, and you’re worried about her. Guess she’s got you wrapped around her little finger too, huh?”
“You listen to me, Jamison Parker,” he said in a low, barely controlled growl. “I know that you’ve been hurting over all this. Kate told me that she was worried how you would react to the article. She didn’t tell me why, just that you had had a lot of bad stuff happen to you and that she was concerned that your imagination would run away with 262
The Price of Fame
you.” He paused a second. “Boy, I guess she got that right, now didn’t she?
“Now let me tell you a thing or two about our friend Ms. Kyle: in all the years I have known that woman I have never, ever known her to be anything but painfully honest. I personally have watched her shun gorgeous women who literally have thrown themselves at her feet because she didn’t want to hurt or mislead them. She has avoided relationships, yes, even casual sex, for years because, as she always put it, ‘The right one is out there for me, and until she comes along, I’ll just wait on the sidelines, thank you very much.’ Hell, I didn’t think people like that still existed! So many people misunderstood and labeled her cold and aloof. The ice princess. She never showed how much that hurt her; she just let them think what they would and went about her life with style and class. Katherine Kyle has more integrity than anyone I’ve ever known, and that’s going a ways.
“When she fell so hard for you, I was flabbergasted and overjoyed. I never thought I’d see the day that my best friend would find true love and happiness. But she found it with you. When she told me she had proposed to you, well, you could have knocked me over with a feather.
And when all this bullshit happened, I was sick for her that she felt so strongly that she would do anything in the world to protect you. Yes, she went away to protect you, Jay, because she thought your future and your career were worth more than her happiness and her future, despite my arguments and Barbara’s arguments to the contrary. She was adamant that she would never do anything to jeopardize you, no matter what it cost her. Being away from you was killing her, and, frankly, I don’t know what she’ll do now.”
Jay felt any remaining color drain from her face.
On a roll, Peter was too upset to hold anything back. “Today, this morning, when she didn’t refute anything you said, that was her way of letting you get on with your life because she knew that if you were truly angry at her, that would override the hurt you were feeling and you could move on and stay anonymous and have the life and career she thought you deserved. Bully for her, she’s a better person than I. I don’t think I could have done what she did.”
By this time Jay was beside herself. The tears rolled down her cheeks unimpeded and she felt so sick to her stomach she thought she might have to make a run to the bathroom. “God, I’m such an idiot. What have I done? Now she thinks I don’t believe in her and she has nothing to come back to. She’s hurting and alone and I just threw grease on the fire.
Peter, I’m so, so sorry. Oh God, this is all my fault.”
“It’s not me you need to apologize to, Jay,” he said quietly. After a few seconds he asked, “Do you love her?”
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“More than life itself.”
“You’d better mean that, young lady.”
“You have no idea,” she answered.
“Okay.”
“Can you get her on the phone for me again? If she’ll take my call, I mean?”
Peter sighed heavily. “I don’t know where she is, Jay. I don’t know where she called me from.”
“You don’t?”
“No, she never gave me the names of the places she was staying, only a rough idea of where in the world she was. She wanted to be so careful; she didn’t want there to be any way anyone could trace her. Heck, she’s been paying for everything with cash and even took a detour to Chicago with the help of an old theatre friend of hers to fool those tabloid jerks into thinking she was going to be staying with a matronly aunt for a few months. All to keep them away from you. She made me promise I would keep an eye out and wouldn’t let the media anywhere near you. I’ve never seen her this crazed about anything. She gave up everything that she was, everything that she had, for you.
“And Jay, despite the things you said to her this morning, she’ll continue to protect you and keep you safe. Kate loves you with all her being. Knowing her, no matter what you did, or do, to her, that will always be the case. She never does things in half measures.”
“I have to make this right. Somehow, I have to make this right.” Jay’s head was about to explode. After a minute she said, “I know what I have to do.” It was as if she were talking to herself and she’d forgotten that Peter was even there. “Peter? I’m going to the office now. I need to talk to Trish.”
“Wait a minute, Jay. Wait. Don’t do anything rash, now. Kate has gone to a lot of trouble to keep you out of harm’s way. If you fly in the face of that, she’ll murder me.”
Jay smiled for the first time in what seemed like years. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll protect you,” she teased. “Listen, I have to turn in my story and see what, if anything, my next assignment is. By the time I’m done with that, can you try to pinpoint where you think she might be so that I can go find her?”
“I don’t know, Jay...”
“Peter, please. I know you probably don’t like me very much right now. Heck, I don’t much like myself. But I do love Kate with all my heart and soul, and I’m not giving us up without a fight. I just made the biggest mistake of my life, but I’m going to do everything in my power to fix it. Will you help me? For Kate’s sake?”
“God, you are incorrigible, you know that?”
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“So I’ve been told.”
“Okay, call me back when you’ve done what you need to do.”
As he hung up the phone, Peter nodded to himself. That was more like what he had expected from Jay in the first place. He felt better already. Maybe this could work out in the end. In spite of the fact that she had just trampled all over his best friend and likely broken her heart in a million pieces, he did know that Kate and Jay loved each other more than any couple he’d ever seen, and any fool could see that they belonged together. Beyond that, he liked the little imp. She’d been under a lot of strain and was exhausted and depressed; clearly she just hadn’t been thinking straight before she jumped in with both feet. He shook his head.
You’re turning into an old sentimental mushball, Enright. Disgusting.
Jay showed up in the office just before 10:00 a.m. and found Trish buried behind stacks of paper.
“Hiya, kiddo,” the editor said without looking up. “Got a story for me?”
“Here it is,” the writer said so quietly Trish almost didn’t hear her.
That made her look up.
“Geez, you look terrible, kid. What the hell happened to you? Come on, come with me.” Without waiting for an answer she led Jay out of the office and down to the coffee shop downstairs. “What’s up, Jay? This isn’t like you. What’s the matter?”
Jay couldn’t look her in the eye. “I need to tell you something, Trish, and I’ll understand, whatever you decide to do about it.”
“Sounds ominous. What is it?”
“You remember you showed me those pictures last week in the
Enquirer
of Katherine Kyle?”
“Yeah,” the editor drew the word out. “The ones that made her lose her job.”
“Yeah.”
“So?”
Jay looked up and pinned her friend and editor with a piercing stare, her chin held high. “I’m the other woman in those pictures.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that the woman Kate was kissing was me. We’d gone away to St. John to get away from everything. That picture was taken the day she proposed to me.” She smiled wistfully.
“Holy Mother...you mean you’re getting married...to her? Wow, Jay.
Wow.”
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The writer plowed on, “And now she’s disappeared in order to protect my career and my future and to keep the tabloid vultures away from me.
When she realized that no one could see my face and even you didn’t know who the blonde was, she devised a plan to keep anyone from figuring it out.”
The editor whistled. “Now
that’s
love.”
“Yeah, the only problem is that I saw the item in the
Globe
this morning and I let some ugly stuff from my past get in the way. It was the first time I’d talked to her since she went away, and I said some very nasty things and now she thinks I don’t believe in her and there’s nothing to come home to, and I have no way to get in touch with her. I don’t even know where she is. No one does, exactly.” Jay raked her fingers through her hair.
“Huh.”
“I’m sorry, Trish, I never meant to mislead you. We weren’t involved when you assigned me the story and we didn’t get involved until after I’d finished all the research and all the interviews—”
“Jay, stop it, hon. Listen to me. You’re the best damn reporter I got.