Fade to Black (7 page)

Rae, on the other hand, for all her beauty and intellect, isn’t nearly as sure of herself.

And why would she be?

She hasn’t had anywhere near Mallory’s success. There have been a few minor movie roles in recent years, and a lead in a quickly-canceled television sitcom last season before
Morning, Noon, and Night
came along.

Flynn wonders, as he has many times over the years, whether he could have made a difference in Rae Hamilton’s career had he signed her on as a client. She had approached him almost a decade ago, and he had met with her on Mallory’s recommendation.

Years in the business had taught him to recognize instantly whether an actress had potential. He had seen that star quality in Mallory the moment she had walked into his office.

He hadn’t seen it in Rae.

He had turned her down for representation, softening the blow by telling her his client list was simply too crowded at the time.

He never knew whether she’d believed him.

But they remained casual acquaintances, both before and after Mallory’s death.

And she is still with Buddy Charles, the agent to whom he had referred her. Charles is a decent agent who has made a name for himself over the past few years managing the careers of middle-of-the-road performers.

“she’s going to be my breakout star,” Charles had crowed to Flynn years back when he’d called to thank him for sending her his way.

“I hope so,” Flynn had said sincerely, though he was fairly certain that Rae Hamilton wasn’t destined for cinematic greatness.

She, like Mallory Eden, is beautiful, and smart, and funny.

But her pale beauty is considerably less accessible than Mallory’s fresh-faced loveliness had been; it’s almost too deliberate, as though she has spent the last hour and a half applying makeup and styling her hair.

And her Ivy League background is a little too apparent; get her talking about a classic novel and she’ll go off on a tangent about themes and metaphors and leave everyone in the dust.

Meanwhile, her quick wit is a little too direct; some comments too barbed for comfort.

Sharp
.

Yes, that certainly does describe the actress sitting before him.

There will never be another Mallory Eden.

Flynn Soderland clears his throat and lifts his glass.

Rae Hamilton follows his cue.

“To Mallory,” he says quietly. “Wherever she is.”

“M
anny?”

The child, who had been running across the small gravel-paved playground toward the swingset, turns at the sound of his name.

“Elizabeth,” he says happily, doing an about-face and making a beeline in her direction.

She is reminded of the first time she ever laid eyes on him, a few years ago. She had been strolling through the small park in the winter dusk, huddled into a down parka, her head bent against the wind that whipped off the bay. She had assumed she had the place to herself until she followed the path around a bend, through a grove of evergreens, and came upon the child. There was something so desolate about the way he sat in the swing, barely moving, his feet scuffing the worn, muddy spot in the gravel beneath him.

He had looked up, spotted her with those enormous brown eyes, and offered a halfhearted smile that melted her heart.

From that moment on, Manny Souza has been her sole friend in Windmere Cove. Just as she is his.

And she had fallen in love with the child long before she realized that his background was nearly identical to her own. That merely sealed the bond.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, obviously thrilled to see her.

He hugs her, knocking her large sunglasses askew.

She hurriedly rights them, then says brightly, “Visiting you. How have you been?”

“Good.”

She nods but looks him over, taking in the frayed cutoff jeans, the ripped, stained white T-shirt, the dark circles under his big ebony eyes. He hasn’t been sleeping. That’s nothing new. But there are no new bruises; none that she can see. The mark on his right cheek where his grandfather bashed him with a fist has almost faded.

“How are your grandparents?” she asks him.

He shrugs, knowing what she means; that she’s not merely inquiring after their health, though ever since his grandfather’s heart attack, that has been a family issue. But Elizabeth wants to know how they, as his legal guardians, have been treating him this week.

“They’re okay....”

“Manny, is everything all right at home?” Elizabeth persists, reaching out to ruffle his thick straight black hair.

“Yeah …”

She knows him too well to believe that’s all there is to it.

“What happened?” she asks him.

“Nothin’.”

She waits.

“My mom stopped by yesterday,” he says at last, kicking at the gravel with a worn sneaker. “She wanted money. My grandfather threw her out.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Nah. I was busy watching TV.”

Sure you were, Manny
.

She pictures him, huddled in front of the television set, trying to shut out the screaming voices of his mother, the crack addict, and her poverty-stricken parents, who have been saddled with the care and feeding of an asthmatic grandchild who might as well be an orphan.

Elizabeth has never met Manny’s family, though there have been times when she has almost felt compelled to confront them.

But she has always held back, primarily for his sake, yet partly for her own.

After all, his grandparents are all Manny has, and they do love him—even Manny has admitted as much. His grandmother, who is nearly crippled from arthritis, still manages to make him his favorite devil’s food cupcakes with fudge frosting every chance she gets, and his grandfather, whose heart is growing weaker every day, painstakingly built him a polished wooden sled from secondhand scrap lumber last winter, carving the boy’s initials into the underside, along with the phrase “made with love by Gramps.”

But the Souzas believe in old-fashioned discipline, which in Elizabeth’s opinion sometimes seems to qualify as borderline child abuse. She knows from experience.

Her own mother had beat her, yes. Not to discipline her, but out of teenage rage against the child she perceived as having tied her down, ruined her life.

But Vera, her grandmother, had been quick to spank her behind or smack her across the face. When Elizabeth talked back, Vera had often snatched up the nearest object—a lamp, a toaster, the vast leatherbound family Bible—and sent it sailing toward her impudent granddaughter. The physical discipline wasn’t the same as what Becky had done to her. But to a child, the line between discipline and abuse might as well not exist.

Oh, yes, Elizabeth can relate to Manny.

Still, she’s aware that the alternative to his grandparents’ custody—a foster home—might be no better for him.

She knows this, too, from experience. There was a time, when she was around Manny’s age, when her grandmother was hospitalized for over a month after a sudden, serious heart attack—a prelude to the massive one that came later, ending her life.

There was no one to look after Elizabeth in Vera’s absence, and she had been temporarily placed with a foster family. It wasn’t an experience she had ever wanted to repeat, or would wish on anyone else. The foster parents made no bones about the fact that they were in it for the subsidy money, and the place was overcrowded with problem kids who lied and stole, including a teenage boy whose leering glances gave her the creeps.

No, she doesn’t believe Manny would be better off in a foster home.

Nor does she want to file a report against his grandparents and risk attracting the attention of the authorities. She won’t do that unless she absolutely has to—if she feels the child is truly at risk.

So when Manny turns up with a fresh slap mark on his cheek or a halting walk due to an aching behind, she simply nurses him tenderly and listens as he pours out his heart.

More than once, he has asked, “Can’t I come live with you, Elizabeth? Can’t you be my mom?”

What can she say to that but a gentle, wistful
no?
She certainly can’t admit to the child that she has often fantasized about taking him in, about raising him with the maternal love and affection he so sorely needs … things she, too, had once sorely needed.

But that’s impossible—more so now than ever before.

Now that she is no longer sure of her obscurity.

“Did you call me last night, Manny?” she asks abruptly, switching gears.

“Did I call you? Unh-unh. How come?”

A chill steals over her, despite the hot August sun beating down from the cloudless sky.

“I just … I heard the phone ringing and I couldn’t get to it in time,” she says, trying not to give away her inner alarm.

Because if it hadn’t been Manny, then it must have been …

“Well, it wasn’t me,” Manny says. “I was real busy last night. I had a special day camp meeting to go to.”

“On a Saturday night?” she asks absently, her mind careening over a thousand and one terrifying scenarios.

She can’t stay here and let him come after her like a hunter closing in on a pathetic animal snared helplessly in a trap. She has no choice but to get away....

“It was about the Labor Day play,” Manny is saying.

“Hmmm?”

“The meeting last night,” he reminds her, and adds proudly, “I got the lead role.”

That captures her attention. She knows how desperately Manny, a child who has never had any kind of attention or encouragement at home, longs to be in the spotlight.

She has been coaching him with his lines for the audition, and has noticed that he seems to have a flair for acting.

“You got the lead?” she squeals, and gives the little boy a hug, lifting him off his feet. “Oh, Manny, that’s fantastic.”

“No, it isn’t,” he says dejectedly when she sets him down. “I can’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“I would need two different costumes—a frog one and a prince one. Grammy says there’s no money to buy them, and she doesn’t know how to sew.”

“Well, I do,” Elizabeth says spontaneously.

“You do?”

“Sure.”

Of course she sews.

Sort of.

Hadn’t she taken home economics classes back at Custer Creek High? Hadn’t she been graded a respectable C-plus on her junior project? It was a ruffled prairie blouse that had been a real pain because of all the gathers, but she had not only completed it, she had actually proudly worn it—until two of the buttons simultaneously popped off one day as she was lifting her arm to wave to the mailman.

“Then, Elizabeth, would you make me my—oh—” Manny interrupts his own excited question.

“What’s wrong?”

“Grammy doesn’t have any money to buy the stuff for the costume even if someone else makes it. She doesn’t have any money at all.”

“I’ll buy the fabric, Manny. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it for you.”

Even as she says it, she knows it’s a mistake. She’s boxing herself into staying here, when only minutes ago she was planning her escape.

But his young face is already lit up. “You’ll do that for me?”

She hesitates only briefly before saying, “Sure I will. I’ll have to stitch it by hand because I don’t have a sewing machine, so it’ll take some time, but it’s no problem.”

“You sure? Because the show’s in two weeks, and—”

“Manny, I’ll have the costumes ready for you by then. I promise.”

Vera taught her, so many years ago, never to break a promise.
“If you don’t intend to do something, Cindy, then don’t ever give your word to someone that you will.”

And so she had learned, very young, never to make promises. Because you never knew what life was going to toss your way.

Like with Brawley. “Don’t ever leave me, Cindy,” he used to say, usually late at night, in the dark, as they lay in the sagging full-sized bed in the apartment they shared. “Promise you won’t ever leave.”

She never promised him that. Never promised him anything. She knew better.

So what’s happened to you now?
a disdainful inner voice demands.
What makes you think you should start making promises now, to a little boy who’s depending on you because he has no one else?

Cindy O’Neal didn’t make promises.

Nor did Mallory Eden.

But apparently, Elizabeth Baxter does.

Whether she keeps them remains to be seen.

“W
hat’s the matter, Jason-boy?” Pamela Minelli reaches into the bouncy seat that sits in the middle of the kitchen table and picks up her whimpering son, hugging his little body close. Then she makes a face.

“Oh, Christ, did you go again? I just changed you,” she says with a groan. “Why couldn’t you wait until later, when Daddy gets home? Maybe I could have talked him into doing diaper duty for a change.”