Any Given Moment (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 3) Page 6

  He had gone to L.A. anyway, of course. And, as the Hillingses had foreseen, he had been thrown every temptation in the book. And, as he had hoped, he had sampled every one—many, many times. He was never able to write a second novel, so he concen­trated on screenplays for four years. Eventually, he lost the ability to write anything very good. And so he became a producer. David became one of "them." If nothing else, it was a lot easier to make big money doing this than by being a writer.

  As he reread Millicent Parks's letter, he realized it had been twenty years almost to the day since his first novel had been published. His only novel. The only thing in this world that genuinely belonged to him.

  "Wow, Davey," Susie said, reading the letter he handed to her. "Mr. Rothstein was forced out of ICA by Creighton Berns? I thought he retired."

  "That's what the announcement said," David sighed, sitting down. He liked Ben Rothstein a lot and had always appreciated his advice over the years. He did not feel the same way about Creighton Berns. The only time David had produced a film for him at Metrop­olis Pictures, it had been a horrendous experience. Berns not only played hard, he played greedy. But he was that kind of a kid. Yeah, kid. At thirty-five, he was still a kid. He made David feel ancient.

  And now Creighton Berns was chairman of ICA. David's agency; the agency that was packaging his next film. Millicent Parks's letter wanted to know if David would come to New York for a meeting to help the Hillingses.

  Why didn't she just ask him outright to commit professional suicide and confirm for the Hillingses that twenty years ago they had been right and he had been wrong?

  "But you can't go to this meeting!" Susie gasped, reading ahead. She looked up, panicked. "Don't they know what would happen to you and the movie if you did?"

  "Don't worry about it," David said, taking the letter from her. "I'm not going and they know it." She blinked. "Then why did they ask you, Davey?"

  8

  "You wanted to see me, sir?" Joseph Colum asked, standing inside the office in a pale gray Armani suit.

  The top-floor offices of ICA were finished. The impressionist paintings had been replaced with abstract, the antiques with stainless-steel-and-leather designer furniture. The chairman was sitting behind his huge new desk, which had nothing on it but a phone console, a gold Mont Blanc pen, and a yellow legal pad.

  "Close the door," Creighton directed.

  His assistant pushed the heavy teak door shut with a soft click and walked over to Berns. He did not sit. He was not invited to.

  "Joseph, I need to keep tabs on the Hillingses—who they see, who they're talking to. I need daily reports," Creighton said, look­ing up at him.

  "Through me?"

  "No, directly to me."

  "I understand."

  "That's it then," Creighton said. "Let me know how you plan to set this up." His assistant nodded and left the office.

  Creighton sat there for a moment, thinking, and then leaned forward to pick up the phone and punch in a number. "It's Creigh­ton Berns, is she there?" A pause. "Hello yourself. Have you found anything?" Pause, listen. "Keep looking." Pause. "Okay, babe, let me know—soonest." He hung up the phone and then shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. He sniffed once sharply, cleared his throat, and pressed the intercom button.

  "Okay, Mary, I'm all yours," he said to his secretary, signaling that he was now ready to begin dealing with the ten million details that made up his new job.

  9

  Not for the first time did Elizabeth fly into JFK with mixed feelings. It would be good to be home, but even after all this time it was always a little confusing to remember that "home" was two separate households, her father in Greenwich, Connecticut, her mother in Rowayton, each with different spouses and different com­binations of children.

  Her parents' marriage had been one of those in the 1950s meant to be picture perfect. Elizabeth's mother had graduated from Wellesley and her father had graduated from Wesleyan. Her father started a banking career and married his college sweetheart. Donnelly was born and then Elizabeth, and before too many years went by, Sarah, whose birth coincided with the Robinsons' big new house in North Stamford.

  The family had the makings of a wonderful life: they were all healthy, they had money in the bank, a summer cottage on the Cape, and a devoted golden retriever named Trapper McGee. Just after Elizabeth turned twelve, her father and mother announced they were getting divorced. It had nothing to do with the children, they said; the marriage was simply not working—and had never really worked.

  In other words, their father was in love with another woman.

  He moved to New York immediately, and a year later married a young loan specialist who had once worked for him at the bank. Trapper McGee got hit by a car and died. About a year after that, Elizabeth's mother announced she was marrying the neighbor down the street, Stephen Castlehart, a man with three young children whose wife had left him to pursue a music career in Vienna. The Castleharts agreed a fresh start was in order and a new house was bought in Rowayton. Elizabeth, feeling nothing if not baffled by her parents' behavior, went off to boarding school.

  As it turned out, Elizabeth's parents married well the second time around. At least, they had each married people who brought out their better sides. Elizabeth's father had undergone the most startling changes, but her mother had blossomed, too. Most signif­icantly, she laughed a great deal because she was very often quite happy in her new life.

  As a matter of fact, there had been only two times Elizabeth could remember her mother crying in this second marriage: one, when her own mother had passed away, and two, when Elizabeth had fallen, sobbing, into her mother's arms because her fiancé had run out on her and their wedding was off. "What made me think I was capable of being loved?" Elizabeth had sobbed.

  "Mrs. Hillings had a heart attack," Elizabeth told her stepfather, "but she's going to be all right. It was brought on, though, by some smarmy corporate machinations by a West Coast firm and we—some of the clients—are meeting to see if there's anything we can do to help straighten things out."

  "She's been very good to you," Stephen said, as if to remind himself how or why an outsider could be responsible for his stepdaughter’s return to the States when almost everything else had failed.

  "She sure has," Elizabeth sighed, looking out the window of the navy blue Lincoln Stephen had driven to JFK. They were getting comfortable with each other again on the drive to Rowayton. Stephen was a very nice man but Elizabeth had spent maybe five minutes alone with him in twenty years.

  "We were surprised when you called. Your mother and I thought you were too busy to get away, what with the TV series and your new book."

  "I'm going to try to do some work while I'm here," she ex­plained. He smiled. "I didn't think you would leave your countess in England."

  When she had been writing her thesis and then the biography from it, the family had teased Elizabeth that she couldn't go any­where without "the duchess." And it was true, she couldn't. To move at the time would have involved the transportation of unbe­lievable amounts of printed material.

  "I'm only bringing part of the countess over," she said, smiling. "Just enough to feel as though she's here." A 210-pound, fireproof, waterproof, pickproof steamer trunk was on its way to the Hillingses' apartment in New York by airfreight from Oxford. It cost a fortune and contained only a fraction of Elizabeth's research materials, but she wanted to be able to work on the book when she had time.

  "So you're going to stay a while," Stephen said hopefully.

  "We'll see how things go," she said.

  "Then you can spend a week or two with us at the Cape this summer. Don and Sarah and their families will be there."

  "That would be great," Elizabeth said diplomatically. Over half the conversations she had with her family involved pinning her down about when she would next see them.

  "So the book is going well?" he asked, turning off the highway and onto a tree-lined secondary road.

&
nbsp; "I think so," Elizabeth said.

  After a few moments, he asked, "How are you, Elizabeth? Your mother worries about you."

  "I'm fine, Stephen," she said quietly. "I really am."

  "Are you seeing anyone?" he asked her.

  "A veritable battalion of men."

  "No, I'm serious," he said, glancing over.

  "So am I. Any eligible man who I think won't give Mother a stroke, I'll date at least once." "Maybe you shouldn't try so hard, Elizabeth. Just let it happen, you know?" He glanced over.

  "I know," she said, looking straight ahead. She felt so disori­ented when she came home. Maybe because it wasn't really home. Or maybe because she had felt so disoriented growing up here. Growing up, period. But then, she still wasn't sure she had done that, either.

  She felt exhausted already.

  "Good heavens," Elizabeth's mother said, "Millicent Parks! Is she still alive? A Dark Garden was published a hundred years ago!"

  "Not quite, Beverly." Stephen laughed.

  They were sitting in the den of the house in Rowayton. Pictures of all the children and grandchildren were scattered about. Through the windows and sliding glass doors, the jade green lawn sloped down to Long Island Sound. Elizabeth was trying to explain what she was going to be doing in New York, why she had come back from England, but the Castleharts were obviously still puzzled as to why Elizabeth would show up for the Hillingses, after years of bypassing all other requests for her to visit them.

  "But darling, they're old, they should be retired," her mother said. "It sounds to me like the last thing Mrs. Hillings needs is more work. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise."

  Her mother, Elizabeth knew, was jealous of Dorothy Hillings. Before the agent had appeared in her daughter's life, in her moth­er's mind Elizabeth had been an aspiring college professor; one who would teach, get married, have children, and live a nice conventional life. After Mrs. Hillings it was notoriety, best-seller lists, talk shows, movie stars, money, and, of course, that no-good man who had nearly destroyed her daughter's life. And who had introduced them? The Hillingses! And then Hollywood! Good God, Elizabeth abandoning Columbia and turning down a teaching position at Yale to live in Hollywood and teach at UCLA! Who could not have seen the disaster that was to come?

  "At the very least, Mother, the Hillingses should have the right to oversee the transfer of their clients' representation."

  "But won't your involvement hurt you with your new agent? With ICA?" Stephen asked.

  "It shouldn't." She tried to sound more certain than she actually felt.

  "I think you may be a bit naive," he told her.

  Her mother sighed. "Elizabeth has always been naive."

  "In any event," Elizabeth continued, "I met Millicent Parks a few years ago—"

  "That must have been before you moved to England," her mother said. Elizabeth added the unspoken words she knew her mother was thinking, which were, "unless something has happened to you we don't know about, because you have utterly ceased to function socially since you came home broken-hearted from Cali­fornia."

  "Uh, yes," Elizabeth said, "it was before. At any rate, she's organized a meeting in New York—"

  "How old is Millicent Parks now?" Stephen asked. Now that he was retired and getting on in years, he was obsessed with how old people were and their state of health.

  Elizabeth realized that her mother and stepfather's interest in the Hillingses' problems was severely flagging now. "In her early seventies, I think." She smiled and added, "But she doesn't look anything like you do. But then, few people look as well as you two always do, no matter what age they are."

  Her mother beamed. Even after everything that had happened, Elizabeth was still her good girl.

  10

  It took Creighton Berns at least five minutes to get across the room at Le Dome. He was the new powerhouse in town, and everyone was eager to have a word with him—or, better yet, a project. David, in fact, had been shocked to be asked to lunch; he was not considered a big player, not at all. And so the fact that Creighton felt free to arrive twenty minutes late and then take his time, shaking hands, patting backs, accepting the glory that was now his as chairman of ICA, did not surprise him.

  "You've got the green light on your project," Creighton told him in a loud voice as he finally approached the table. "I thought you'd like to know right off."

  Clearly it was a statement meant to be heard. And it was.

  David stood up and held out his hand. "Creighton, how are you?" They shook hands and when they were seated, David said, "That's great news, thank you."

  "It's a terrific package for the firm. Serial killers are very big. We should be thanking you."

  They ordered mineral waters and grilled chicken salads and started going over the package, the roster of ICA clients who could potentially be involved with the movie.

  "Did you know Dorothy Hillings had a heart attack a couple of weeks ago?" Creighton said out of the blue. "Yes, I heard." David took a sip of his sparkling water. "I sent her some flowers." "I did, too," Creighton said, taking a bite of salad and chewing slowly. "So what do you think about the merger?" Merger? David thought. Was he kidding? Is that what he still called it? Terrorist takeover of Hillings & Hillings was more like it.

  "It doesn't really affect me," David said. "The Hillingses rep­resented the novel that I wrote years ago, but ICA's been my agent ever since."

  "Right," Creighton said. They ate in silence for a while. "I've heard something about a meeting in New York next week. Do you know anything about it?"

  "I might have heard something," David said, hoping his tone was as casual as he was trying to make it sound.

  "You going?"

  David looked at him sharply, surprised that he'd ask. "No."

  Creighton's eyebrows went up. "Not even if it could be helpful to me?"

  The little fuck wanted him to be his spy. And David knew better than to think the green light would stay green on his movie if he didn’t do as Creighton wanted. David swallowed the food he was chewing and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "I really don't want to do it," he said.

  "But you will if I ask you to," Creighton told him.

  After a moment, David nodded.

  "Good," Creighton said, picking up his fork. "Because I'm ask­ing you to."

  11

  "No, baby, why would you want to?" Ted asked her, tipping back in the kitchen chair in the precise manner she had begged him not to for the last eighteen years.

  Patty Kleczak was cleaning up after dinner and, for the tenth time, they were discussing the letter Millicent Parks had sent about the meeting in New York.

  "I want to see what they have to say," she replied, wiping the countertop with a sponge. "Mrs. Hillings worked on my book for eleven years, honey! I can't just let these people in California take it away from her after all that. I need to at least find out what's going on."

  "But she sold the agency to them, didn't she?" Ted asked, reach­ing for the jar of Oreos.

  "Yes and no. I mean, in the letter the Hillingses sent me before the merger, they said they'd continue to be my agents. But now, suddenly, ICA just tells me the Hillingses are no longer with the agency and I'm supposed to send them the manuscript and forget all about Mrs. Hillings. I mean, honey, if it was all fair and square, why do they have to ask me for a copy of the manuscript? Why don't they already have it from Hillings & Hillings?"

  "Maybe they want to make sure they have the most recent copy," her husband suggested. "It's not as if there haven't been a hundred versions."

  "But the letter from Millicent Parks; I can't just ignore that. What if there has been some sort of foul play? At least I should find out."

  Ted looked uncomfortable. He always did when he suspected that his view of a situation might not be completely allied with the rules of good sportsmanship.

  "Honey, look," he finally said, "you're completely new to this. You've been working for eleven years on that book, and there's no reason
to risk your success now. Mrs. Hillings told you that she thought she could get in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty thousand for it. But now an agent at ICA represents you, who says she thinks she can get you the same money. Since the Hillingses sold ICA the right to sell the book, let ICA go ahead and sell it. Let's get your money, then you can go and find out what's go­ing on."

  It made Patty smile the way Ted bandied about that sum of money now. Three months ago he had been incredulous, and then frightened by it.

  "What do you mean, a hundred fifty thousand?" he had said, his face turning blotchy.

  "Well, it's not going to be paid out all at once," Patty had explained, trying not to explode with pride. Eleven years of writing, eleven years of her family resenting those few hours every other day when she refused to answer their pleas (which always began the second they suspected she was on her way upstairs to write), eleven years of writing on blind faith, eleven years of revisions—labori­ously following Mrs. Hillings's advice—and then that fateful day when Dorothy Billings telephoned and said, "My dear? I've called to congratulate you. The book is finished and is ready to be sold. It will be published to great acclaim, too, I believe. And, if I'm not mistaken, tremendous sales will follow. You're an extremely tal­ented writer and storyteller and I am very proud to be representing you."

  Only that very morning Patty had been wondering what it would be like to have enough money to buy all new underwear. Under­wear she liked, not the kind that lasted ten million washes, which of course was the kind she was always forced to buy. She was so tired of being sensible.

  After the call, Patty had persuaded Ted to go into New York City with her so that they could have lunch with Mrs. Hillings, and Ted could learn a bit about how the book publishing business worked. While the trip did nothing to assuage Ted's fears about New York, his fear about the sum of money vanished, because it had been put into a perspective that couldn't fail to reassure him.