Mr. Love: A Romantic Comedy (16 page)

43

Jane is left sitting in patchy shade on the porch of the absurd mobile home—a bit of suburbia transplanted to a Vermont apple orchard—on this unseasonably hot day, while minions carry lobster, champagne (Krug she can’t help but notice) massage oils and—why she never finds out—a giant fluffy pink bear into the house where Raynebeau Jones and Yul Egorov hold court like pharaohs of old.

That the setting is surreal fits perfectly with Jane’s mood.

She feels that in the last week she has stepped outside her life and is living that of another: a life in which every sensation is heightened.

Where the stakes are higher and so are the risks.

But, she has to admit as she sips on a can of Coke cadged from a harried flunky, so are the pleasures.

She has a corner office and the promise of a partnership.

She has a voice mailbox full of messages from predatory agencies trying to poach her now that she’s hot, hot,
hot
.

And, thrillingly, she has a love bite.

A wine colored oval the size of a quarter just where her neck meets her clavicle, low enough, fortunately, to be almost hidden by the collar of her shirt.

But the knowledge that it’s there fills her with a girlish excitement.

The hours of torrid sex with Gordon Rushworth had been a revelation.

Jane had never dreamed that she was capable of receiving such pleasure.

And that it should come at the hands and mouth and . . . (propriety demands that she draw a veil here) of stodgy Gordy, was one of the great and happy surprises of this new life of hers.

Gordon.

Jane finds herself wondering where he is.

She left him standing on a
street corner in East Devon, looking a little disheveled and lost, with a goofy smile on his face, while she hurried over here to begin her day with the Hollywood hellions.

When Jane’s phone rings she reaches for it, smiling, expecting it to be Gordon.

But it’s not.

It’s Jonas Blunt.

She composes herself and says, “Jonas?”

“Janey,” he says. “How are things up there in wherever?”

“Everything’s going according to plan, Jonas. Thank you.”

“Good, good. Just to let you know that
Ivy
is generating more heat than a supernova. The publishers are already talking of it in hushed terms as one of those books that change the face of publishing. In other words, their jobs are safe for the next couple of years.”

“Exciting.”

“Very. Have you pressed Lizzie about the sequel?”

“She’s still a little overwhelmed by everything that’s happening.”

“Understandably, but we need the next book out within six months. I don’t care if you have to move up there to Eastwick—”

“
East Devon”

“—and write the damned thing with her.”

“I’m on it, Jonas.”

“Good. Well, I’m off to
L.A. again, to firm up the production deal. Stay in touch.”

“Of course.”

Jane ends the call and is contemplating whether to call Gordon when the door of the house opens and Raynebeau Jones totters out on a pair of heels as high as stilts.

The absurdly diminutive Yul Egorov, dressed in an honest-to-goodness orange prison jumpsuit and cowboy boots follows in her wake.

“What you waiting for, Bookgirl?” he says to Jane in his grating voice. “Let’s go shake up this hick town.”

The giraffe-like star tilts her huge sunglasses from her rhynoplastied nose and stares down at Jane.

“Talking of hick, is that like a
hickey
on your neck?”

Jane hastily pulls up her collar.

“Just a bruise,” she says, feeling herself coloring.

“Wow,
soooooo
trailer trash.”

She turns to one of the minions who circle her like moths.

“Let Honey Boo Boo ride in another car, okay? I’m feeling like really
spiritual
today and I don’t want her messing with my aura.”

And with that the power couple slide into an SUV the size of an armored car, leaving Jane to rattle after them in a
tiny rental driven by a kid with acne and a nerve jangling post-nasal drip.

Showbiz.

44

Gordon spends the day hiding.

Hiding from the madness in the town, a madness that he has instigated with his absurd little book.

Hiding from his sister—afraid that she’ll somehow divine that he and Jane slept together and feel betrayed.

But mostly hiding from himself and his feelings.

Not since Suzie Baldwin died more than twenty years ago has he felt things so keenly.

He can’t get Jane Cooper out of his mind and he finds himself wandering the
Fall fields as lovesick as a teenager.

Most unbecoming in a man in early middle
-age.

He sits down on a rock, shrugging off his jacket
, looking down at the little town beneath him.

The church.

The fire station.

His sister’s house.

Even from up here he can hear the tinny bray of one of the tour guides.

What have you wrought, Gordon?

Written chick-lit.

Perpetuated a lie.

And fallen in love.

He leaps to his feet, eager to escape that realization.

For it’s true.

He
is
in love.

In love with Jane Cooper
.

And a
s he hurries down the hill, suddenly desperate to see her again, he’s sure he hears Suzie’s voice saying, “You go, Gordy. You
go
!”

45

Bitsy is no longer nervous.

In fact, she feels very little now.

A numbness has settled over her that leaves her detached and anesthetized.

When she hears the rumble of a caravan of vehicles coming to a halt outside her house she walks calmly to the front door and opens it.

Jane Cooper is on her porch.

“Bitsy, hi. How are you holding up?”

“Oh
, just fine, Jane.”

She looks over the agent’s shoulder at the
outlandish couple stepping down from a huge black car.

“That must be them?”

“Yes,” Jane says. “We’ve just spent a weird couple of hours wandering through East Devon. Raynebeau seems to think that the town is a set built especially for her no matter how Yul tries to convince her otherwise.”

“Well, let everybody come in. I guess we’ll be shooting in the living room?”

Bitsy watches as a man with a video camera walks backward, videoing Raynebeau Jones as she totters down the little pathway, as ungainly as a foal on her preposterous heels.

Bitsy is blindsided by a flashback of another too-tall, too-beautiful woman, rising naked from a pond.

Then she pushes this away and lets the numbness cover her again like a blanket.

46

When Gordon gets to Bitsy’s house and sees the clot of vehicles and bevy of harried flunkies he’s tempted to carry on walking down the road and get a drink at the dingy little bar near the highway that’s frequented by local blue-collar workers, the only place in
East Devon safe from the
Ivy
pilgrims.

But before he can escape he s
pies Jane on the porch looking straight at him, and—feeling like a hapless teenager—he goes over to her.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi, Gordon.”

“How are you?”

“I’m good,” she says. Then she laughs. “This is awkward, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I feel like I’m about to invite you to the prom.”

“Well, the answer would have been yes.”

“Really?” he says.

“Cross my heart.”

He steps in close.

“Any chance of you staying over for the night?”

“I’d love to. Flying back to
New York in a chopper with those two”—she jerks her head in the direction of a freakish duo standing in Bitsy’s living room—“is something I would do anything to avoid.”

“Anything?” he asks.

“Anything,” she says.

For a crazy moment he’s about to kiss her, right there on his sister’s porch, in full view of the film crew, when a voice booms out from inside.

The very powerful voice of Yul Egorov, at odds with his tiny body.

“Okay, we’re gonna shoot now, so non-essentials get your butts outta here.”

As minions file out Jane takes Gordon’s hand and leads him inside.

“Is this your way of telling me I’m essential?” he asks.

“Mnnnn, keep up those tricks of last night and you’ll rapidly become that.”

Gordon, floating along on a silly little cloud, follows Jane into his sister’s living room.

Bitsy, looking remarkably composed, sits on a chair staring into space.

When Gordon waves at her, she merely nods.

Raynebeau Jones and Yul Egorov take the couch facing Bitsy and two cameras record the action.

“Okay, roll cameras,” Egorov says, looking into the lens of the camera that is trained on him and the star. “Okay, we just gonna rap a little with the author of
Ivy
, the book that we’re gonna be adapting into a mega blockbuster, starring my lady here, Raynebeau Jones.”

Bitsy
holds up a hand.

“There’s just something I’d like to say before we go any further.”

Egorov is not a man used to being interrupted.

“Yeah, what?”

“I never wrote
Ivy
.”

Gordon tells himself that Bitsy is just falling back on the same shtick she used in
New York.

The “my alter-ego just took over
” business.

“That right?” Egorov says.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“Then who the hell wrote the piece of crap?”

Bitsy points at Gordon, who tries vainly to disappear behind a light stand.

“He did. My brother Gordon Rushworth wrote it.”

Gordon stares across at Jane whose face is as horrified as he imagines his must be, then he can’t see her because a blinding light is panned onto him and he can just make out both cameras swiveling his way, pointing at him like the guns of a firing squad.

Gordon clears his throat, shakes his head and then he
bumps crew and gear from his path as he sprints out the front door and down the street, ignoring the yells that follow him.

He jumps a fence and hurtles across a field and doesn’t stop running until he’s left the town far behind.

47

Jane lies in her bed listening to the rumble of early morning traffic. She hasn’t slept, has
lain in a state of terror since she got back by train late last night.

Things had moved very quickly after Bitsy unleashed her bombshell and Gordon
had bolted like a frightened kid.

Yul Egorov screamed, “Bookgirl!” and Jane was grilled by the poisonous shrimp
—what she imagined being been interrogated by the KGB must have been like.

Jane, stuttering and stumbling, swore that she had known nothing of all this.

“We can fix it,” she said. “I’m sure this can all work out.”

“I’m gonna break you, Bookgirl. You and your pantywaist boss. You know what my time is worth? And Raynebeau’s? We’re talking millions here. Millions. I want dollars and I want justice! And I want
blood
!”

The little man grabbed the hand of his towering concubine and they left, trailing nervously whispering minions in their wake, leaving Jane alone with Bitsy Rushworth.

“Bitsy,” Jane said, “what have you done?”

“I’m sorry, Jane,” Bitsy said. “I couldn’t keep up the pretence any longer.”

“Wow,” Jane said. “This is a total disaster.”

“At least the truth is out.”

“The truth! God, who cares about the damned truth? My career is down the toilet!”

Jane realized she was alone in the room.

Then Bitsy clattered back, wheeling a suitcase.

“I’m afraid I
must leave now, Jane. I have to get to Raleigh to fly to Detroit where I’m catching a flight to Costa Rica.”

“
Costa Rica?”

“Yes, I’m going on a one month silent retreat in the jungle.”

“Hell, what a pity you didn’t go silent just a few hours earlier.”

Bitsy shrugged.

“I’m sorry Jane, but there it is.”

Bitsy left and Jane sank down onto the couch listening to her own rapid heartbeat and Yul and Raynebeau’s helicopter roaring overhead on its way to
Manhattan.

Without her.

By the time Jane got to the Brattleboro train station Yul Egorov and Raynebeau Jones had sent a video feed of Bitsy’s statement to all the entertainment channels and blogs across the country and the response was immediate and deafening.

As she was about to board the train her phone rang.

Jonas Blunt.

She didn’t have the courage to answer it.

A few seconds later a light blinked telling her she had a text message.

With shaking hands she opened it:
My office tomorrow. 8:00 A.M.

The train journey took forever and a question looped itself through her mind
:
why did you fall in with Gordon’s plans?

You knew.

You knew all along.

And as
hard as she tried to persuade herself that Gordon hadn’t actually
said
in as many words that he’d written
Ivy
, Jane knew she’d let greed and ambition cause her to be party to an unforgivable lie.

On the train s
he’d tried to call Gordon.

Why she wasn’t sure.

Was she calling him as an irate agent or as a lover?

Unsurprisingly he didn’t answer his phone and by the time she arrived in
Manhattan all she wanted was to sleep and lose herself in a few hours of unconsciousness.

Which she’d been unable to do.

Jane gets up and showers and dresses in funereal black, which seems fitting.

She gets a cab to
Midtown.

As she enters the lobby of the building she has worked in for
five years, she knows very well this will be the last time she’ll comes here, ever.

She expects no mercy from Jonas Blunt.

What she doesn’t expect though, as she walks through the deserted reception area, knocks on his office door and pushes it open, is to see Tom Bennett sitting in a chair facing Jonas, sipping from a Starbucks foam cup, looking all crisp and Brooks Brothers.

Tom sets his cup down and gives her his famous boyish grin.

“Jane,” he says. “Nice to see you, circumstances notwithstanding.”

“What the hell’s he doing here?” she asks her boss.

“He’s my legal counsel,” Jonas says, his voice arctic.

“But the cops were after him on a drugs charge?”

Tommy’s grin broadens.

“All just a misunderstanding, Janey. The commissioner wrote me a personal letter of apology and a couple of detectives are back pounding the beat.”

Jonas points to a vacant chair.

“Sit, Jane. We’re here to discuss
Ivy
, not Tom.”

She sits.

“How much did you know?” Jonas asks.

“I had some initial suspicions but Gordon Rushworth denied them and was adamant that his sister wrote the book.”

“And you never thought to share those suspicions with me?”

“They seemed groundless.”

He tugs at his lower lip.

“I see. You’re aware, of course, of the fallout resulting from Bitsy Rushworth’s revelations?”

“I imagine the publishers are unhappy.”

“You could say that,” Jonas says quietly.

Then he rises and bellows: “They’re also busy suing my ass!”

She has never heard him use profanity and never seen him anything other than unflappable.

“I’m sorry, Jonas.”

He settles down in his chair and works hard to calm his breathing.

“Oh, you will be. You will be.”

“I take full responsibility.”

“Words, Jane. Words. You’re a minion. A flunky. A nobody. This is where the buck makes it final stop.”

He
hammers a fist down on his desk top.

“I have already sunk a vast amount of money into the movie development and it
’s doubtful whether I will see any of it again. Coupled with legal fees, you could say that I’m ruined.”

He holds up a hand.

“Please, please don’t speak. You’ve ruined me and now I’ll ruin you. Tom will dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

Jonas
stands and walks to the door.

“I never want to see you again, is that clear?’

“Yes.”

“Should we, as unlikely as that is, run into one another in the street, or—
God forbid—socially we will behave as strangers. Understood?’

“Yes.”

And with that he’s gone, his designer aftershave not quite disguising the sourness of his sweat.

Tommy shrugs.

“Well, what can I say, Janey? You’ve well and truly screwed the little poochie.”

“Stop gloating and lay it out for me, Tom.”

He taps a sheaf of documents that lie on the desk.

“Your employment with the Blunt Agency is terminated immediately. You are to clear your desk and leave the premises.”

She expected nothing less.

“Okay.”

“And you’re aware, of course, that your contract has a bullet-proof non-compete clause? For five years you are legally forbidden to seek employment in the publishing industry, no matter what the capacity.” 

She stares at him.

“You’re not serious?”

“Oh
, but I am, Janey.” He taps the paperwork. “It’s right here in the small-print. Small print you perhaps neglected to read in your unseemly haste to start scaling the ladder of success?”

He smirks.

“Anyway, I think it’s a mere formality. After what you’ve done Jonas is going to make pee-pee in the well. No publisher will touch you.”

She stands.

“Is that all?”

“Not quite. There’s something else you should know.”

“What?”

“You’re the most dreary, libido-numbing
drudge I’ve ever had the misfortune to have sex with.”

She gapes at him.

“Really? You’re telling me this
now
?”

“Well, I’ll probably never see you again.”

“Then why did you want to marry me, Tom?”

“You ticked the right boxes. You looked innocuously pretty on my arm when I went to dinner with the partners. You were unthreatening and would have give
n me cute babies, which would have been a career-booster. I was prepared to snooze my way through a marriage with my little Stepford Wifey and find my sports elsewhere.”

Before she can stop herself Jane grabs Tom’s attaché case from the floor and swings it at his head.

It connects with a satisfying smack and she sees blood sprouting from his nose.

She turns on her heel
and leaves the office, heading for the elevators.

There’s nothing she wants to take with her anyway.

When the elevator reaches the lobby and the doors slide open, Jane is confronted by her assistant—make that
ex
-assistant—Belinda.

“You bitch,” Belinda says.

“I beg your pardon?” Jane says.

“Jonas just called and told me to come in and get my things. Because of you I’ve lost my job.”

“I’m sorry, Belinda,” Jane says, but the woman bumps past her to get into the elevator.

The last Jane sees of her, as the doors close, is a painted middle finger raised in a salute.

“Hell,” Jane says to herself, “can this day get any worse?”

Then her phone rings and, seeing
HOME
on the screen, she answers.

And when her mother sobs and says, “Oh, Janey,” her day gets way, way worse.