Once More With Feeling (29 page)

"The show's better for it," he said. "She
was a weight around our necks. We don't need a sob sister to make
our point."

"What do we need then?"

"The combination you're bringing to the
anchor slot. Intelligence, irony, sizzle, and just the faintest
touch of emotion. It's a winner."

She hardly knew what to say. She'd been
struggling to find her way, moving in what she thought was the
right direction, and now Casey was affirming her attempts.
"Thanks." She sipped her drink, watching him over her glass.

"You're more polite, too."

"That's right. Kendra told me that today.
She says it's throwing everyone for a loop."

"Let them scurry a little. It never
hurts."

"So where do I go from here?"

"Out on location."

"Oh. . . ." She'd wondered when that
suggestion was going to come up. "Do you think I'm ready?"

"No question. And there's an
opportunity."

"Where?"

"Cleveland."

She'd been hoping for somewhere more exotic.
"That's one place I've never . . ." She stopped. She'd nearly said
"been." But, of course, she'd been there. She'd grown up there. And
according to everything she knew about herself, she had a large
family that lived there still, including a mother whose dexterity
with a rosary was undoubtedly legendary.

". . .wanted to go back to," she finished
lamely.

"Maybe it's time to mend some fences."

"Think that's a good idea?"

"That's up to you."

"What's the story?"

"The Tracy Hart trial."

Tracy Hart was a Hollywood almost-made-it,
an aging actress with a face that was instantly recognizable and a
name that made most people scratch their heads. Her career had
fallen short of stellar. She'd worked on good films, but she'd
never gotten the starring roles. She was nominated for Oscars but
never won them. Three years ago Tracy had married a Shaker Heights
businessman and settled down to the good Midwestern life. One year
ago she had shot him in the head. Her trial was set to begin in two
weeks. Rumors were circulating that in her marriage, as in her
career, she had been eclipsed by another leading lady.

Now that she thought about it Gypsy felt a
real affinity for Tracy Hart. She hoped the poor woman was
acquitted.

She finished her drink and set down her
glass. "You think that's important enough to go on the road for?"
she asked.

"It's not Scott and Laci Peterson, but it'll
play big in the Heartland."

She couldn't think of a better way to try
her wings. She was a hometown girl. The Cleveland press would be
thrilled to have her there, and the publicity would be excellent.
Her ability to fudge her memories would be severely tested, but she
was probably up to the challenge.

Mending fences. Since the moment she had
realized that she had indeed assumed another woman's life, she had
been suffering guilt. She possessed everything Gypsy Dugan had
worked so hard for. She had longed to make amends somehow. She had
not been able to shake the feeling that she owed Gypsy something
for what she had taken from her.

Gypsy had been estranged from her family. As
a memorial, could a reconciliation be engineered?

"I'll do it." She hoped she wasn't making a
mistake.

Casey put down his glass. "You're a
trouper."

"Am I?"

"Among other things." He reached for her,
and she let him pull her closer. He wrapped his long arms around
her waist, but he didn't kiss her. He just stood there, looking
into her eyes. "I got carried away tonight, didn't I?"

"We both did."

"I guess you're not ready to play harem
again?"

She answered truthfully. "You have no idea
how confused I am about everything."

"What's there to be confused about, Gyps?
You wanted me in your dressing room. The signs were unmistakable.
We've always had fun together. The sex was outstanding. I've never
pushed you for anything else. I'm not pushing now."

"There's no way you could understand."

"Is there somebody else?"

There was. Another woman's husband. A man
who probably loved his protégé. A man who ironically thought that
Gypsy Dugan was a hopeless slut.

"I can't explain any of this. You're just
going to have to give me some time."

"The spirit's willing." His grin was
lopsided and forced.

"I'm sorry."

He released her. "Don't be. It's not like
you."

"You're going to have to get used to a whole
new me."

"I'd like nothing better. The whole new you.
Every bit of it."

"I don't think I'm as much fun as I used to
be."

"Maybe you just need time."

Or a values transplant. She didn't know. She
wished with all her heart that in this, she could be a little more
Gypsy and a little less Elisabeth. She needed Casey as much as he
purported to need her. "I'll talk to Des about Cleveland
tomorrow."

"Yeah. Do that."

She kissed him, then she stepped away.

At the door he turned. "It's the strangest
thing. I like you better this way. But at the same time I miss who
you were, and not just the sex. Can you beat that for
confusing?"

"Probably."

He smiled the same tense smile before he
closed the door behind him.

The Dugan house was on a side street, one of
a dozen two- story homes that looked almost exactly like it. This
section of the west side had sprung up to provide housing for
Eastern European immigrants who had come to the city at the
beginning of the century to provide labor for the steel mills.
Cleveland had changed over the decades, but the view in this
neighborhood was still the same. Smokestacks rose high and belched
pollutants into the tired, gray air. The lakefront with its
colorful sails and sandy beaches, the picturesque Tudor and
Colonial houses of Shaker and Cleveland Heights, the endless green
of the city's Emerald Necklace park system seemed a continent
removed instead of a matter of miles.

"This is it?" Gypsy stared up at the house.
The damp gray air had a familiar chemical smell, and it felt
familiar against her bare forearms. But she didn't recognize
anything she saw.

"This is it." Casey stood beside her, thumbs
hooked over his leather belt. "No place like home. Remember?"

"I still think I should have called."

"Trust me. From the little you've told me
about your family, it was best not to warn them you were
coming."

"You don't think they know? You don't think
they watch the show?"

"No."

The house was covered with gray asphalt
shingles. There were no shutters adorning the small windows, and
the stoop was a square of concrete with no overhang to shelter the
visitors who dared to knock on the battered metal storm door.

"The petunias are a nice touch," she said.
There was a narrow bed in front of the stoop planted with pink
petunias that were gasping their last as Gypsy watched.

"Soil's probably poison."

"I understand why I left."

"I wonder why they never moved? The city's
filled with interesting neighborhoods that have better views and
cleaner air, and some of them aren't far away. Real estate's a
bargain here compared to New York."

"Maybe my father likes to walk to work."
With the help of Kendra Gypsy had learned everything she could
about the Dugans before the trip to Cleveland. Her father, John,
was a foreman at the nearest steel-processing plant several blocks
away. Her mother, Rose, stayed at home to finish raising the
children who hadn't yet left the nest. There was a brother, Peter,
who was nineteen and a sister, Joan, who was sixteen. There were
three more brothers, none of whom lived in the area, and a sister,
Theresa, who was married to a man who worked with their father.
Theresa, the mother of two little boys, lived just several miles
away.

"Maybe he just couldn't find anybody to buy
this house," Casey said.

"They could rent it out. I wonder if I ever
offered to help them buy another?"

"I doubt it. And I wouldn't rush right in
and offer. Feel your way."

"If they give me a chance." She faced him.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"

"Completely."

"But you'll be within hailing distance?"

He patted his pants pocket where his cell
phone resided. "Just call me."

She kissed his cheek. "Thanks, Casey."

"Don't thank me, thank Tracy Hart. If she
hadn't shot old Rodney, we wouldn't even be in town."

She started up the walk and he started for
his car. He opened the door and slid behind the wheel, but he
didn't leave. Gypsy suspected he was waiting to see if her parents
let her in. As far as she knew, all bets were covered.

She rapped on the door because the buzzer
didn't look trustworthy. For a moment she thought she'd struck out.
Then, from somewhere toward the back of the house she heard a baby
crying. The crying got louder and louder and culminated in the door
being thrown wide so that the baby, a healthy looking child with a
full mop of dark hair, was screaming in her face.

"Well, your timing's as great as it always
was. I'm trying to change a poopy diaper. Do you mind?"

"Actually, I think I'd mind if you didn't."
Gypsy waved her hand in front of her face to disperse the smell,
but she didn't take her eyes off the young woman who'd spoken. She
was in her early twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair and
Gypsy's own pert nose. Gypsy made an educated guess. "You're
looking good, Theresa."

"I got married and had two kids, in case you
never heard."

"But you're still as pretty as you were when
we were kids."

Theresa narrowed her eyes. "Yeah?
Considering that you called me Dump Truck for most of my life, I
guess that's not much of a compliment."

"Dump Truck? I don't remember that."

"No? You got the good nickname. Dump Truck
Dugan would never have made it on television."

Gypsy tried not to laugh. Theresa looked
absolutely serious, but when she saw Gypsy fighting a smile, she
smiled a little herself. "It's good to see you, Maggie. I
guess."

Gypsy remembered her research and the little
she could recall of Mrs. Dugan's hospital monologue. "Is this
Timmy?"

"Jason. Timmy's two."

"Stair steps."

"A real short flight. I got fixed. No more
for me."

"What'd . . . Mama say?"

"I didn't tell her, and you'd better not,
either. Darn, I wish I hadn't said anything. You're going to blab
it, aren't you?"

"Of course not." Gypsy put one foot on the
threshold. "Why would I? It's your body and your decision."

"You're not above using either to get your
way."

"Look, Theresa, have you changed at all
since we saw each other the last time?" Whenever that was.

Theresa tossed her hair over her shoulder so
that Jason would stop trying to yank it. "Of course I have. I'm
married. I've got kids, a mortgage and a part-time job. What do you
think? That the world stayed the same while you were sleeping your
way around New York?"

Gypsy ignored the last part. "Well, if
you've changed, don't you think I might have changed, too?"

"Not real likely."

"I have."

Theresa stepped back, as if that was as much
of an affirmation as she could manage. "Mama's upstairs cleaning.
You might as well go on up while I finish changing the baby. I
don't want to be there when she sees you."

Gypsy stepped inside and closed the door
behind her before Theresa could change her mind about letting her
in. "Do you think she's going to be upset?"

"Yeah. You're not her greatest success
story."

"Who is?"

"Well, she's hoping Joanie will be a
nun."

"Boy, if that's what she wanted for me, I
was a real disappointment."

Theresa smiled again. Wider this time. "So
was I, seeing that I had to get married."

Gypsy touched Jason's plump downy cheek.
"Change this baby, and I'll bounce him on my knee."

"It's a deal. I'll do whatever I can to get
someone else to hold him."

Theresa disappeared through the kitchen and
Gypsy was left standing in the stairwell. The entrance hall opened
into a small living room on the right. Glimpsed through the
doorway, it was neat and utilitarian, with sculpted avocado green
carpeting that hadn't been available in stores for decades and a
pale glass-topped coffee table. The sofas were covered with orange
flowered spreads, and the Naugahyde slingback chairs looked as
uncomfortable as the ones in her apartment.

Give Rose Dugan a sizable income, a
healthier libido and several years in the Big Apple, and she would
probably decorate in leopard skin, too.

Gypsy started up the stairs. At the top she
paused in the narrow hallway and listened for serious scrubbing.
She knew from the little she'd seen that her mother was a fanatic
housekeeper. There wasn't a fingerprint or a smudge anywhere. Even
the living room carpet looked brand-new, as if the room had been
roped off as a museum exhibit of the sixties. Where had the Dugan
children played? In the backyard inhaling factory fumes?

"Mama?" She listened for a response, then
tried again. "Mama? It's . . . Maggie."

For a moment Gypsy thought Rose wasn't going
to respond. Then a weary voice sounded from the room at the end of
the hall. "What are you doing here?"

"Right now I'm looking for you."

The door opened. Rose was sitting on the
edge of a tub in a closet-sized bathroom surfaced in tiny white
octagonal tiles. "What do you want?"

Rose was wearing a dress much like the one
she'd worn to the hospital. This version was navy-issue green with
only a crisp white collar for interest. Her hands were folded, as
if she'd been sitting on the edge of the tub for hours
contemplating the mysteries of the universe.