Lucky Stars (22 page)

“You don’t understand, Stacey. You really don’t.”

I was seething now and beyond crushed. I had given him a chance, given him the opportunity to unburden himself, but he wouldn’t. “Here’s what I understand,” I said. “You had some sort of association with Victor and you don’t want it to become public, because you’re worried that your ratings will drop and your show will be canceled and that nobody will suck up to you anymore.” I looked at him, looked at the man I adored, and wondered if I ever
saw
him. “You’re a cool customer, Jack. I should have realized that after you trashed me in
Pet Peeve.
Take the way you approach movies, for example, a medium you claim to revere. You stand back and analyze films, critique them, hold yourself above them. You’re the judge, the person who distances himself by making pronouncements about other people’s abilities. If you ask me, you’ve got an intimacy problem. Maybe it’s because of your parents, of how they treated you when you were growing up. Maybe your childhood turned you into someone who doesn’t really involve himself emotionally in anything or anyone.”

His eyes blazed. “That’s not accurate and you know it. I’ve been involved with you emotionally in a way I’ve never been with anyone else. I love you, Stacey.”

“When you love someone, you don’t betray their
trust, not about something that’s important to them. But then, as I’ve just pointed out, your entire persona is about analyzing and critiquing others, about being right. But here’s the irony, Jack: You were wrong to trash me—I wasn’t all that bad in
Pet Peeve
—and you were wrong to withhold information about Victor.”

I waited a few seconds, hoping he would break down and tell me what he was keeping deep inside, what he couldn’t or wouldn’t reveal. But he didn’t. So I grabbed my purse and moved toward the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked, his voice low, drained.

“Home,” I said. “I don’t feel comfortable here anymore.”

“Stacey?”

“What?”

“I wish I could tell you, but I can’t.”

“And I wish I could rewind the tape and play back the night we fell in love, but I can’t.”

My lower lip was quivering and my eyes were welling up, but I refused to let him see me cry. Instead, I put a pin in my pain, made myself hold it in for just another few seconds so I’d have the presence of mind to reach inside my purse for the key to his house, place it on the kitchen counter, and walk out.

Well, you’re two for two, Stacey, I thought, as I finally allowed the tears to flow freely. First, your mother. Now, Jack. A swell night all around.

t
wenty-eight

I
didn’t hear from Jack for two days, and they were the longest two days ever. I had expected him to call the first night after I’d left his house, expected him to say he was sorry for not being more forthcoming and then to enlighten me about the “complicated” story he couldn’t bring himself to tell me, but he hadn't. On the mother front,
I
had tried to reach Mom without success. She wasn’t speaking to me, she reiterated, before slamming down the phone when I called. “We’re officially estranged unless you come to your senses about Victor and me,” she barked. Yeah, like that was going to happen. To say that I felt alienated from the two most important people in my life was an understatement,
b
ut then came a break in the action. I had just returned home from a thrilling eight hours at Cornucopia!
when Jack appeared at my door. He looked drawn, tired, not his cocky, dapper self. My first instinct was to wrap my arms around him and comfort him, but I resisted the impulse.

“Hello,” he said softly. “May
I
come in?”

“If you’re here to explain,” I said.

“I’m here to explain,” he said, and so I let him inside the apartment. As we walked into the living room, he suggested we sit down together.

“I think I’ll stand, thanks.” I couldn’t bear to have him near me. I didn’t trust myself next to him on that sofa, the scene of our first night of passion. I needed a clear head for whatever was coming next.

“Suit yourself.” He sat down. “I really did come to talk.”

“I’m listening.”

He cleared his throat. “Let me begin by apologizing for not telling you what I knew about Victor way back when you first asked me about him. That must so
un
d pretty hollow to you now, but it’s sincere. I’m not proud of how I handled the situation.”

“The situation? Jack, you outright lied to me.”

“Yes, but there was a purpose to the lie.”

“The purpose being to protect your almighty career.”

He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair. “Stacey, I’m not the unchivalrous person you make me out to be. It’s true that I wanted to protect my career, but not for the reason you think.”

“Okay, then what’s the reason?”

“The reason is Tim and my ability to support him. If my career went to hell, so would my income. My brother’s expenses aren’t insignificant, as you’ve observed.”

“Right, and you know how much I admire you for
supporting him. But I’m not making the connection here. What docs supporting Tim have to do with withholding information about Victor from me? And why would an article you wrote years ago, about a guy nobody in this town really remembers or cares about, affect your career?”

“Are you sure you won’t sit down?”

“Positive.”

Instead of resuming his story, he handed me a piece of paper that he’d pulled out of his jacket pocket. “What’s this?” I said as I unfolded it.

“Read it. Then I’ll tell you the rest.”

I read what appeared to be a draft of an article, with Jack’s name on the byline. It contained some of the same details that were in the
Variety
piece—how Victor was rumored to have cheated his distributors, as well as his investors, when he was running Victory Theatres—but there was no exclusive interview with him, no declaration of his innocence, no fluff about what an honest, hardworking businessman he was, nothing about a “sacred covenant,” nothing about his donations to charities, nothing that let him off the hook or cast him in a positive light. Instead, it was more of an expose about him in which anonymous sources within his company were quoted, along with executives at the studios, saying what a scoundrel he was, how recklessly he ran Victory Theatres, how his word meant zero within the industry, and how no one wanted to do business with him anymore.

I looked up at Jack. “You wrote this?”

“Yes, but I never turned it in to my editor. The piece you found in my file is the one I turned in, the one that actually ran.”

“But why didn’t this one run?” I said, giving him back the draft. “What happened to make you scrap it?”

He swallowed hard. “I’ll start by taking you down memory lane,” he said. “When I got the job at
Variety,
I was young and ambitious and chomping at the bit to write about movies. A few months in, I realized that I was bored to death, because I wasn’t writing about movies, I was writing about the movie business. Still, I thought the job would lead somewhere, so I kept at it. And then one day my editor assigned me a story about a troubled company named Victory Theatres and its flamboyant president, Victor Chellus. I was bored, as I said, so I took it upon myself to do a little more digging than necessary for a trade piece. I spoke to people within Victory. I spoke to distributors who’d dealt with Victor. I fancied myself as a regular Woodward or Bernstein, even though the level of wrongdoing was hardly on a par with Watergate. Victor, I discovered through my interviews, was a sleazy businessman—no more, no less— but I was going to make a name for myself by exposing him. If
Variety
couldn’t use the material, I was going to try to sell it elsewhere.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I
got a telephone call—a call that changed everything.”

“It was from Victor. That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Did he threaten you?”

“Not at first. He invited me over to his house. ‘For a friendly chat,’ he said.”

“And you went?”

“Sure. I thought it was my big break, my shot at getting an interview with the key player in the story I was chasing. Imagine my surprise, my naivete, when this little eager-beaver cub reporter arrived at Victor’s and discovered I wouldn’t be getting an interview after all. Not a legitimate one any
way. After some pleasantries—I
think he actually offered me a cigar—he asked me if I was interested in taking a bribe.”

“A bribe? You? You’d never—”

“Yeah, I’d never.” He laughed ruefully. “Victor said he’d been hearing rumblings that I was asking a lot of questions about him around town. So he hired someone, a private detective, I guess, to check into my background. He said, ‘Jack, I understand that you’ve got a brother named Tim living in Newport Beach and that he’s disabled
f
r
o
m an accident. Swimming, wasn’t it?’ I was stunned, completely thrown. It never occurred to me that the weasel would dig up information about
me.
‘What’s your point?' I said to him. ‘People in wheelchairs cost money,’ he said. ‘Rumor has it that you’re the one who takes care of his bills. Must put a lot of pressure on you, son, especially since you don’t earn a helluva lot at your job. I’d like to help out if you’ll let me.
’ ”

“That dirty son of a bitch!” I said. “You told him to shove it, right?”

“I
think you should sit down.”

“
I’m not sitting down! Just finish the story.”

“
Okay. The answer to your question is: no, I took his money—in exchange for burying the article I was planning to write and substituting the puff piece you saw in my file.”

I literally gasped. After a second or so, I decided I’d better sit down, and parked myself on the sofa. “Go on,” I said, wide-eyed.

“I took the bribe, the payoff, whatever you want to call it, Stacey. I took it because I was killing myself
trying to make enough money to support Tim on my salary. I took it because I felt I had to.”

I shook my head. “This is a disgrace.”

“What is? That your boyfriend was capable of doing something so low?”

“No, that my mother’s boyfriend was capable of doing something so low.” My God. So he took the money to protect his brother, I thought. He took the money and then carried the guilt around for years. How awful it must have been to be put in such an untenable position. No wonder he’d denied knowing Victor. There was too much at stake for him not to deny it. It all made perfect sense to me now. “Oh, Jack. I wish you’d told me this months ago, but I understand why you couldn’t. I think it’s noble what you did for Tim. Noble and loving. I know you must feel ashamed and scared and worried that your career could come apart if people ever found out, but they won’t find out. Why should they?”

He shrugged. “Maybe they won’t, but now that I’ve gotten all this off my chest, the prospect of people finding out isn’t so frightening, oddly enough. I lied to you, to keep the story a secret, and now I’m actually glad I told you.”

I slid over to him, folded him in my arms, and smoothed his hair back
off his forehead. It was wonder
ful to touch him again, to reestablish physical contact with him. I had missed the feel of him during the two days we’d been apart.

“Does Tim know what you did?” I asked.

“He does. Why?”

“The day you brought me to his house, he mentioned that you had made
great sacrifices for him. Now I
understand what he meant.”

Jack nodded, squeezed my hand. “Remember how you accused me of being afraid of getting involved the other night?” he said. “You were right, as it turns out.”

“No. No. I had no idea what Victor put you through.”

“There was truth to what you said, Stacey, about how
I distance myself from people, run from intimacy, stand in judgment of others. Except for Tim, I never told anybody the story I just told you. I
have
been isolated,
have
set myself apart from people. Your words really hit home. But I don’t want to be the person you were describing. What I’m saying is that if you need me to help with the Victor situation or anything else, I’m here for you. As a matter of fact, I think you should go and see Helen right away. Tell her everything.”

“I can’t.”

“No, really. It’s okay. I’m not afraid of Victor anymore or what he could do to my career. Go ahead and tell her. I want to be
involved
.”

I hugged him. “It’s not that. My mother isn’t speaking to me, Jack. She won’t listen to a thing I have to say, especially if it’s negative about Victor. She won’t let me
out of the deep freeze until I accept him or stop hassling her about him or whatever. So I need proof that he’s a crook if I have any hope of getting her away from him— evidence that’s not hearsay or something you wrote. If I sent her your article, she’d just accuse me of roping you into the conspiracy.”

“Then we’ll find your proof. Together.”

I looked up at him. “We will?”

“Count on it. I told you: I’m here for you, no matter what. Okay?”

Well, it was more than okay, obviously, and I indicated that to Jack by stroking his cheek. “I think this is
the part where we kiss and make up,” I said.

“The part where the guy gets the girl and they live happily ever after?”

“That’s the one.”