Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (30 page)

     "Not for my generation, Doctor. This is entirely alien to me. And highly embarrassing."

     At that moment, the door opened and a sullen Zoey came in carrying folded sheets. "I'm here to change your bed, Mr. Smith," she said, not looking at Judith.

     The nurse worked in silence, filling the room with palpable hostility. Smith gave Judith a questioning look and said, "What a remarkable place for a hospital. Until a minute ago, I'd forgotten I was in a clinic, recovering from surgery. Look at this room, and that setting out there." He waved toward the window. "If only all hospitals could be like this."

     He looked at Zoey, who snapped the sheets and attacked the corners with a ferocity that made him give Judith another quizzical look.

     "Are you familiar with the legend of this place, Doctor?" he said, trying to dispel the tension in the air. "Despite my age, I wasn't here the night Dexter Bryant Ramsey was murdered. I was only ten years old at the time. But a lot of famous celebrities were there—Gary Cooper, Fairbanks, even Hearst was supposedly among the guests. There had been a big party that night, with a guest list that read like Hollywood royalty. But, curiously, by the time the police got up here the next day, everyone had cleared out and had established solid alibis elsewhere for the night Ramsey was killed. Those were the golden days of Hollywood."

     He paused, looked reflectively at Judith, then said more quietly, "Marion Star was my first love, you know. I was fourteen years old and her movies had only just made it to Tasmania.
Queen of the Nile
, it was. One look at those darkly smudged woebegone eyes and I was lost. I have never since quite met a woman who could measure up to her."

     His gaze followed Zoey as she moved about the room with an efficiency that verged upon caricature. She emptied wastebaskets, refilled the water carafe, and then disappeared into the bathroom with an armload of fresh white towels.

     "Are you a movie fan, Judith?"

     "I was when I was younger," she said, catching herself before she added, "And I was madly in love with you." She was noticing how the morning sunlight streamed through the window and caught the silver highlights in his hair. "We don't have a movie theater in Green Pines."

     "Films today frighten me," he said. "There are no rules, no limits. There was a time when the industry was very closely policed. Ever hear of the Hays Office? Willie Hays told us what we could and could not do in movies. Remember how in the forties and fifties people slept in twin beds, even married couples? The rule was the beds had to be at least eighteen inches apart. If two people were shown on one bed, one of them had to be fully dressed—not just in pajamas, but in evening clothes or something. And the man always had to have one foot on the floor. It's amazing now, to think of it."

     He paused and settled his dark blue eyes on her in a way that made Judith think he was trying to come up with a way to word something—something personal. It made her heart skip a beat. And then he said, "The Hays Office was responsible for society's morals. Did you know that the ending of Tennessee Williams's play
Streetcar
was changed? In the stage play, Stella goes back to Stanley, even though she knew he raped her sister," Smith said as Judith watched a red-tailed hawk perch on a pine bough outside his window. "But in the movie, Stella leaves him. Better for public morals, Hays said. Of course they couldn't say the word
rape
then. In the newspapers it was called criminal assault. In the fifties, a woman could be kicked and beaten and thrown down the stairs and the newspapers would say she had
not
been
criminally assaulted. Did you know, Judith, that Marion Star was partly responsible for the creation of the Hays Office? The Legion of Decency, in fact, was established as a reaction to her films."

     "Were they so bad?"

     "They were wonderful. But the world was in a depression, and there were those who resented Marion's rather generous life-style. So they said she was immoral. Today her movies are classics—refreshing and fun, reminding us of a more genteel age in films. Now they're making—" he shuddered "—
Rambo.
"

     Zoey came out of the bathroom, dumped the used towels and linens into a hamper, and left without a word. Smith said to Judith, "I sense, ah, discord between you and your nurse. Is there a problem?"

     "I don't know. How are you feeling now? Is the medication taking effect?"

     "As a matter of fact it is. Can you assist me back to bed, please?"

     As Judith helped him walk, once again putting her arm around his trim waist, he said, "You told me you had been married for fourteen years. Are you still married?"

     "We were divorced last year."

     "I'm sorry to hear that. Are there any children?"

     "I'd rather not talk about it."

     He paused before getting into the bed and looked at her. "What is it?" he said. "What's wrong?"

     "Nothing is wrong."

     "Oh, you're a tough lady I suppose?" he said. "Hard on the outside to hide something vulnerable on the inside?"

     As she helped him get settled and drew his cover up, she said, "Why does a woman have to be hard only on the outside? Can't I be tough all the way through? Bite into me and you'll find shoe leather all the way to my spine."

     He shook his head. "You have a soft center. I can hear it between your words. It's sitting in the pupils of your eyes. Do you want to tell me about it?"

     Judith sat on the edge of the bed. "I never know what to say when people ask me if I have children. You'd think by now that I'd have rehearsed an answer, but I haven't. I did have a child—a little girl. She died
two years ago. But whenever I'm asked if I have children, I don't know how to respond. Do I say no, as though she never existed? Or do I say yes, except that she's dead, and then suffer through the questions and explanations?"

     "I'm not asking you to explain."

     "No, but you want to know, and I'm not going to tell you. Kimmie's dead and that's all there is to it."

     "Is that why you're burying yourself up here, among snow and pine trees and movie stars?"

     "Now you know my secret."

     "You know something? I just realized—what I told you about my problem, about why I really had the operation here—I never even told Dr. Newton the real reason. I told him that I wanted to recuperate in peace and quiet, away from telephones and interruptions. I didn't tell him that I'm embarrassed by this and would hate for my secret to he found out. But I told you the real reason, Judith, and you're the only person in the world who knows it. Now isn't that something?"

     "Nevertheless, I can't tell you about Kimmie," she said softly.

     "And I'm not asking you to."

     She met his eyes and was surprised to see a challenging look in them, one that didn't match the giving texture of his voice. He suddenly had an opponent's eyes, and they looked straight at her as if to say, Your move.

     She turned away from that look, from the challenge in those eyes. She refused to accept the dare—the dare to be a woman. Since Kimmie's death and her subsequent divorce from Mort— a spiteful, blame-laying divorce—Judith had felt her heart slowly go hard, as if it were petrifying with time. She told herself that her capacity for loving had died with Kimmie and that Mort had killed all sexual desire within her. In the two years since, Judith had looked at every man she met, even the suave Simon Jung, with stunning indifference.

     Until now.

     "Do you have children?" she asked.

     "I never got around to getting married and starting a family. But there is time yet."

     "You know, Mr. Smith," she said, "it really isn't fair. Men can produce children nearly all their lives, they can put off having a family until they feel like it. But women are restricted to certain years."

     "That makes up for the fact that only women can have babies," he said. "Was it Erica Jong who said something about men resenting women because they can go about their daily lives, working and playing, while creating new little humans inside their bodies?"

     She gave him a surprised look. "Are you
a feminist
, Mr. Smith? Don't let anyone know it; it will spoil your reputation as a great lover."

     "On the contrary. For a man to be a true lover, he must truly understand women, as the legendary lovers did—Casanova, Errol Flynn. I knew Flynn; he wasn't a cad. He was kind and generous and caring to women. He genuinely loved them."

     "And you?" Judith realized with a start that she was flirting with him, but she couldn't seem to help herself. "It makes you sound feckless and faithless, Mr. Smith."

     "No, not feckless or faithless. When I love a woman it is with devotion and passion. And when she is with me, she can be sure that she is the only person on my mind."

     A picture suddenly formed in his mind: his hands untangling the thick mahogany braid that fell down her back, unbraiding it and bringing the lush hair forward, over her bare shoulders and bare breasts. It surprised him. When was the last time he had experienced this kind of desire for a woman?

     And now that prim, doctorly braid maddened him, the way it rested so neatly against the chaste whiteness of her lab coat. He had noticed earlier that the braid was bound at the tip with a plain, no-nonsense rubber band, and it brushed the small of her back, pointing down to a tight, athletic derriere. In his mind, he saw himself touching her there, too.

     "I've heard that it's common for patients to fall in love with their doctors," he said. "But does the reverse ever happen? Do doctors ever fall in love with their patients?"

     Their eyes met again, and Judith suddenly found herself wondering what it would be like to be kissed by this man.

     "Only the ones who fall for smooth talkers," she said, rising abruptly from the bed before he could see the sudden throb of pulse in her neck.

     "Will you have dinner with me, Judith?"

     "I never dine with patients, Mr. Smith. Besides, you'll be home before you know it. Dr. Newton is going to discharge you in a few days."

     "I know. The day after the ball. Are you going to the Christmas ball, Judith? Perhaps you would do me the honor of going with me?"

     "We'll see how you feel by then," she said.
How we both feel...

     "And dinner? Anything the dining room serves can be sent up. The Cornish game hen is excellent here, and so is the rack of lamb."

     She suddenly saw it: a table for two set up by the fire, candles glowing, wine glittering in crystal. But she knew it wouldn't be about food or friendship, not for her at least. For Judith it would be the trap that would make her fall in love against her will. And that was something she was determined not to do again.

W
HEN
D
ANNY
M
C
K
AY SLIPPED INTO THE VICUNA SPORTS
jacket and turned to look at himself in the mirror, he received a shock. But it was only a split-second shock, and the salesman hadn't seen it. It happened every time Danny caught his reflection in a mirror or in one of the store windows along Rodeo Drive. He would look at himself and see the face of a stranger, with a closely cropped beard, black hair, horn-rimmed glasses.

     It was a deception he had to remind himself of constantly—that he was no longer the Reverend Danny Mackay, worshiped by millions, one heartbeat away from the White House. Danny had almost given himself away that morning when he had unloaded Quinn's cheap Toyota and bought himself a brand-new Jaguar. It wasn't the cash sale that had nearly blown his cover—Beverly Hills car salesmen were used to extravagant cash transactions—it was when it came time to fill out the papers. But Danny had smoothed his brief fumble with a smile and had driven out of the showroom laughing.

     From there he had made a stop at Vuitton to purchase a set of luggage; then a brief visit to pick up the fifteen-thousand-dollar Rolex watch he had promised himself; and now he was at Bragg on Rodeo, buying a whole new wardrobe, from silk briefs to cashmere overcoat. Using cash all the way.

     As he removed the jacket—which had a price tag of forty thousand dollars—and handed it to the salesman, saying, "I'll take it," he looked at the stranger in the mirror and thought, I'm reborn again, a ghost who can get away with anything.

     Slowly slipping into the leather jacket he had bought earlier, Danny moved his gaze to the young saleswoman who was pretending to straighten items on the scarf and glove counter behind him. She had been watching him for the past half hour. Danny knew he looked good, and he knew that she was thinking the same thing. He gave her one of his sexy, lazy smiles, and she blushed. But she didn't look away.

     As he took in her large breasts, thinking that she was no innocent the way she had arranged that gold Christmas corsage on her sweater, he thought it too bad that he didn't have time to get to know her better, but he had a first-class ticket for an evening flight to Australia and he had to be heading over to the airport. Besides, he didn't want to waste his new power screwing a salesgirl. Danny had always known that his pleasure in sex was somehow connected with his passion for violence; the two seemed to him to go together. His wife—now his "widow"—could attest to that. Taking that salesgirl to bed right now might diminish his drive to punish Beverly Highland. Worse, taking that girl to bed might prompt him to kill her afterward, weakening his power all the more. And he was saving that power for when he found Beverly, or rather Philippa, as she was now calling herself.