Indiscretions (13 page)

“You know, it’s odd,” said Paris, “that although we’ve never spent much time here, this is the house I always think of as home. Only of course without Jenny it will never be the same—‘home’ to us always meant wherever Jenny was.”

Stan cleared his throat—a thing he never did in the courtroom. Better get it over with.

“Before I begin,” he said silkily, “I want you to know that both Bill and I have agreed that you can call upon us for any advice you need—at any time. You understand?”

They nodded silently, their eyes fixed on him, waiting.

“Your mother, in the last few years, took her business and her career affairs out of our hands. The movie offers weren’t coming as often, and the parts were shrinking. Not as many movies were being made, and those that were called for a new generation of actress—not only younger, but of a different type. It wasn’t that your mother wasn’t a good actress, but the lead roles required
someone more contemporary and Jenny wasn’t suitable. There were parts she could have had on television—she could have made that transition easily, according to Bill—and these blockbuster miniseries had plenty of openings, but never the lead. I’m afraid she blamed Bill for that, and when I took his side and tried to convince her to look at her career in a different light, remembering that she was no longer thirty-nine and that the business had changed, she accused us both of being traitors and told us to get out of her life.”

Stan paused and mopped his brow with an immaculate white linen handkerchief. “She was backed up in this decision by the man she was then living with—”

“John Fields,” responded Venetia automatically. She had met him once on a visit home and even to her naive eyes he had seemed so transparently maneuvering that she had questioned her mother about him. Jenny had dismissed her questions impatiently, telling her that she was becoming too British in her outlook and it was often easy to misinterpret American enthusiasm for aggression, and that she should know better.

“Right. John Fields. Jenny allowed him to take charge of her affairs, and then, when they split up after a couple of years, it was Rory Grant. He was twenty-four and a struggling young nobody actor and she fell for him, head over heels as they say. She nurtured Rory, she groomed him, she took him to Rodeo Drive and let them dress him until he achieved that carefully casual ‘style.’ They experimented with his hair until they found the shaggy blond look that those in the know decided was exactly right. She paid for his acting lessons and the dance and workout sessions, she rehearsed him for auditions, and as Jenny could still get
anyone
in this town on the phone, she called them all—heads of studios, producers, directors, and told them of this new, young superstar in the making. Rory Grant got to meet everybody.”

Bill lit another cigarette. “She was living out her thwarted ambitions in him,” he added, “and the bastard knew it. Not that he was unkind to her,” he added hastily, seeing their downcast faces, “nor did he ever make her look foolish. He was a nice enough guy—he had what she needed and she offered him what he needed. They seemed quite happy together. For a while.”

“Unfortunately,” said Stan, “he wanted to help her in return. He tried to straighten out the mess that John Fields had left her affairs in, and instead of turning to us—or at least getting other professional help as we begged her—she allowed him to do it. Bill and I were on speaking terms with Jenny again, but it wasn’t like before, and when we tried to offer advice she thought we were criticizing Grant.”

“A year ago”—Bill picked up the story—“Rory was offered the lead in a pilot film for a new TV series, and almost at once things started to go wrong between them. He was working—she wasn’t. He left the house at five-thirty every morning and got home at eight o’clock at night. All he wanted to do was have a bite to eat, go over his lines for the next day, and be asleep by nine. Jenny was lonely—it wasn’t his fault. She knew only too well what that sort of schedule was like, and by God, it was what she had worked with him to achieve. But having gotten it, it began to turn sour on her. There were rows. He tried to appease her.” Bill lit another cigarette from the butt of the first. “Listen, girls, Rory was basically a nice kid. Sure he took what she offered, why not? But he wasn’t like Fields—he wasn’t an exploiter.” Bill shrugged. “The rows became a nightly occurrence, the strain began to tell on his work, and when the TV series was picked up by the network Rory knew he had to do something about it—after all, he had his career to consider now. They split up six months ago.”

Paris chose her words carefully. “Are you telling me
that there might have been a good reason for Jenny to take her life? Is that it? Was she so upset that he’d left her?”

“Don’t you believe it! Jenny was a fighter—I never knew any man to get the better of her. Jenny didn’t kill herself for Rory Grant!”

“Is that an opinion,” asked Paris bitterly, “or do you have proof?”

“No one has any proof,” replied Stan. “Jenny was still a lovely woman. There could have been other men, even marriage if she’d wanted it.”

“She never did.” India leaned her head against the cushions wearily. “She told me that the only man she would ever have married was my father. I think she still loved him.”

“Look, girls.” Stan checked his gold Rolex impatiently; time was getting on and he had a golf game at the club at eleven-thirty. “There’s no point in going over the whole thing again. Personally, I believe it was an accident and I don’t suppose going for a drive at four in the morning was that unusual for someone like Jenny—she turned night into day when she wanted to.”

He glanced apprehensively at Venetia, who was staring silently out of the window at the sun shining on the ocean. She wasn’t planning anything crazy, was she? “You know how unpredictable Jenny was.…” He cleared his throat again nervously, taking a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. “We’ve got to talk business now, though to be honest there’s not much to talk about. I’m sorry to tell you that in the past few years your mother and her new ‘business advisers’ managed to dissipate a considerable fortune. We believe Fields steered a great deal of it into his own pockets, although we have no concrete evidence of that—by which I mean none that would stand up in court. However, the bulk was lost in bad investments and property deals. How anyone could
lose money on property deals in this town amazes me, but Jenny seems to have accomplished it. She paid top dollar for land she was led to believe would increase enormously in value once new highways and developments went in. Somebody misinformed her. Wherever she bought was the wrong direction for the new developments: Silicon Valley, for instance—she owns land fifty miles too far away.

“She picked up expensive ‘bargains’ in prime lakeside residential property at Mammoth Lake. She must have been the only one who hadn’t heard that they’d been having a series of quakes there and that her land was on a major fault line—you can’t give away property there. It’s the same story, time after time. She speculated on the commodities market, and even experienced men can lose their shirts in a couple of months doing that. Your mother gambled on making big profits and she lost.”

Stan lifted his head from the papers. “What can I tell you, girls?” He shrugged. “It’s all here for you to look at.”

Three pairs of stunned eyes met his and he dropped his gaze hastily back to the documents in his hands.

“It’s not true! It
can’t
be true!” wailed Paris. She couldn’t bear it, she just couldn’t bear it … she didn’t want to hear what she knew he was going to say next.

It was Venetia who said it. “But she worked so hard
all her life
, she
can’t
have lost all that money!”

Stan looked at Bill Kaufmann, who avoided his gaze and stared silently out of the window. It was fucking amazing, thought Stan, how fascinating that ocean was today.

“Stan, my mother was a very rich woman,” said India, trying hard to be calm and matter-of-fact. “Surely part of her fortune was tied up in secure investments and legitimate property? This house, for instance, must be worth a lot of money now.”

“Your mother bought this house twenty years ago for seventy thousand dollars. With the spiraling property values in Los Angeles over the past few years, it’s now worth four million.”

Paris felt relief sweep through her; of course, there was still the house left—and the one on North Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. “Thank God,” she said. “I thought you were going to tell us it was all gone.”

Stan cleared his throat again. “The house was mortgaged by Jenny three years ago, and a second mortgage was taken out last year. I’m sorry, Paris, but in effect this house belongs to the First National and City Bank. It’s the same story with the Beverly Hills house.”

Tears trembled on Paris’s lashes as her future receded even farther down a dark tunnel.

“Perhaps it would be better if you told us exactly what there is left,” said India. “Then at least we’ll know where we stand.”

Stan put down the papers and folded his arms, giving them the benefit of his best courtroom pose of sympathy. “Very well, girls. This is it. The houses and their contents will have to be sold to repay the banks and certain other debts. The rest of Jenny’s investments are worthless. What comes to you intact is an insurance policy that she took out when she was seventeen. It must have seemed like a lot of money to Jenny then.… The amount is ten thousand dollars.”

“Ten thousand!”

India ignored the horrified gasp from Paris. Getting up from the sofa she began to pace the floor—it seemed easier to take things standing up; it was obvious someone had better face up to this squarely, and as Venetia seemed to be stunned into silence and Paris was on the verge of becoming hysterical, it had better be her.

“I see. And what about the cars—the Rolls and”—she
remembered too late that the Mercedes had been wrecked—“and the jewelry? Jenny had so many beautiful pieces.”

“I’m afraid whatever’s left will have to go; she’d borrowed so much, y’know, this past year. And now that she’s dead the creditors are nervous—and impatient.”

“If only we’d
known
,” said Venetia, suddenly emerging from her trancelike state, “we could have helped her. Why didn’t someone tell us?
You
, Bill, you knew!”

“I didn’t, kitten! I swear I didn’t. I knew she and her boyfriend were speculating on the property market, but who wasn’t? I promise you, girls, I had no idea of the extent of it.”

“She told no one.” Stan Reubin paced the floor as if he were prowling a courtroom looking for loopholes in the defense. “It’s in the past, girls, you’ve got to face it. Jenny left you exactly ten thousand dollars.” He paused and faced them, hands behind his back, brows lowered in a benevolent scowl. “However, there’s no reason for you to worry about the debts. Money’s tight this year, what with the pressure on tax shelters and expenses being so high, but Bill and I have agreed to waive any money owed to us by Jenny’s estate. And naturally there will be no charge for my services.”

He paced the length of the room and then swiveled on his heel and faced them, smiling. “It’s not easy getting your hands on
cash
these days, but if you ever needed a few hundred, we’d see what we could do.”

Paris felt certain that no one on earth would ever know what an effort it cost her to keep her voice even when she wanted to kill Stan Reubin.

“Stan, Bill, we appreciate your offer—as old
friends
of our mother. But you see, Jenny gave us everything she felt we would ever need. She decided long ago we must make it on our own, just the way she did. It’s what she wanted and we three will abide by her wishes.”

She glared coldly at the two men who had called themselves
her mother’s friends and who, she knew, had made vast sums from Jenny’s talent and hard work. “The ten thousand will be more than enough for us.”

Paris didn’t know whether she sat down or whether her legs gave out from under her. All she knew was that this time she hadn’t let Jenny down. She had saved her pride—and her mother’s.

“It was what Jenny wanted,” agreed India. “It’s no different from the way it’s been since we left school. We’ve all managed, one way or another, to earn our own living.”

“Absolutely,” confirmed Venetia. She was only two years out of school and her smile may have been shaky, but her resolve wasn’t.

Stan pushed the documents back into his case and prepared to leave. Shit, you had to admire those girls. They were tough little cookies. They’d sat here in this room expecting to hear that they were millionairesses and they’d taken the blow on the chin. There was true Jenny Haven steel there, all right. Maybe she’d brought them up right after all. Anyway,
he
was off the hook.

“I wonder,” said Paris hesitantly, “—do you think it would be possible for each of us to choose something, just
one
thing of Jenny’s, to keep? Surely the courts couldn’t object to that? I mean, I know it all has to be sold, but if we could just
buy
a memento, something to remind us of her. We would pay for them from our ten thousand.”

There
was the loophole! Stan grasped at it with relief. There was the way to come out of this as the good guy. He’d been a bit afraid of nasty rumors when the story hit the papers—everyone knew he and Bill had been involved with Jenny for years. He’d be able to “lose” a few bits and pieces of personal items in the inventory of her assets, and after all, it was only right that the girls should want something of their mother’s. His wife would be the first to support that point of view—
and
she’d make sure
to tell everyone on the Beverly Hills gossip circuit how kind Stan had been to them personally.

“Choose what you want,” he said magnanimously. “There’ll be no need to pay. I’ll see it’s squared with the estate.”

“But if there are creditors …?”

“Please”—Stan was wearing his most winning courtroom smile—“choose what you want. Let me work out the details.”

Venetia walked to the portrait of Jenny that hung to the right of the fireplace. It was Jenny at twenty-eight, slender and supple in a gauzy blue evening dress, diamonds sparkling in her blond hair and the familiar wide blue gaze that was so nearly Venetia’s own. All her life Venetia had loved that painting. The artist had seen Jenny as she saw herself, the real woman behind the glossy façade. There was a fleeting undercurrent of self-mockery in the smile, as if even then she was aware of playing the role of the movie star having her portrait painted, and there was a touch of vulnerability that Jenny rarely let anyone see. It was a tender portrait, and for Venetia, it captured her mother exactly.