The Caryatids (20 page)

Safely out of the public eye—if one didn't count the flying spycams of the amateur fans, those pests, those nuisances— Radmila fled to her portable trailer.

There she powered down her spangled demolition costume, disembarked from it, dumped the wig, and sat before the darkened makeup mirror, half naked, panting for breath and chugging ice water. She sponged off her makeup, wrapped herself in anonymous black security gear, and ventured over to Glyn's trailer.

Glyn was still running the event's dying spasms of street choreography, flicking her puck across an urban weave of placemarks and camera angles. "You were really on today," Glyn told her.

"Yeah, the good people of La-La Land, they sure love those big-budget effects." Glyn casually peeled up a screen, deployed some police muscle, and smoothed it back again. "No, Mila. Those street crowds love you. I checked their skin responses, their pulse rates, everything. They always love to watch some big weird machine kick some ass, but without you in their picture to give them something to care about, nothing much matters to them."

"Oh, that was just my slutty costume talking. Hot and sexy never really suits me." Glyn sighed. "I am waiting so hard for the day when you stop doing that."

"Stop what?"

"When you stop
putting yourself down
! You were terrific out there! You were close to perfect! Why can't you be happy about that for one minute? Stop selling yourself short all the time! I swear to God that drives me crazy."

"I'm not perfect. Toddy would have been superperfect."

"That is not the issue. Theodora is history. And anyway, Toddy was
never as good as you think she
was
. Yes, she was a big popular star—so what? She was like any pop idol—she was a scared, hungry woman who needed the public to love her, And the public did love Toddy, because Toddy loved her public. She was the love-slave of those unwashed morons. She loved them more than she loved you, me, or herself."

"I should aspire to that level of artistry."

"Have you completely lost your mind? That is not 'artistry'! And you could give a damn about the public, Mila. You wouldn't care if the public all got killed! And they still connect with you. That's the amazing part."

Glyn scratched at her control screen. "You will never be a great actress, but you've got some true rapport, you're a true pop star. You're like the Gothic Bride of Shiva. The people here love it whenever you strut out and shake your ass and smash up our city. They know you're very dark inside. Because you are. You're very dark. And so are they."

"
You're
dark inside."

"Yes, I am dark inside. So sue me."

"All right, so what's eating you today, Glyn? Why are you being like this? I guess it wasn't my performance." Radmila laughed. "You know why I aced all that? Because she wasn't watching me. Just for once. She's really gone! I never felt so free!"

Glyn sent a half-riotous crowd of fans stumbling down the street in a cavalcade of glowing dots. "I finally figured out what to do with myself."

"You got any gin in here?"

"I will never marry," Glyn told her somberly. "I will never have a child. Because I am a monster. I cannot bear to have Toddy's children with Toddy's spare body."

"You got any performance drinks? Maybe a little taurine, some vita-min B?"

"No. No, and hell no. And also, hell no, shut up and listen to me." Radmila sat down to listen. She put her cheek in her hand.

"Given that fact," said Glyn, "that I will never marry and I will never leave the Family . . . and given the fact that you married into the Family and you can't leave it, either . . . well, we have to do something big. She built this huge tradition, and now she's gone. We are her heirs. That means it's all up to us."

"I'm listening to you," Radmila said.

"It's too bad that you can't stand your husband anymore. That's a big drawback."

"I can stand John," Radmila protested. "John is the smartest guy in the Family. He's smarter than you."

"Yes, John is smart," Glyn said, "but John's always in the Adriatic, or he's in orbit, or he's doing a charity tour of refugee camps, or he's work-ing late hours at the bank, or he's in bed with one of your sisters. John is never going to be there for us. Anyway, John is not a star. John can't do the things you can do."

"John's a knight in shining armor. John is gallant to the ladies."

"John is a poor little rich boy who wants to rule the world. He's a mess inside."

"That is not true," Radmila said stoutly. "There were two years — well, twenty months — when I was delirious about him. I don't care if I live for two hundred years, I'll never love like that again. If I'd been burned into ashes and thrown out the airlock and scattered into orbit, it would have been worth it to me. I was so completely happy. It was worth my whole life, every heartbeat, just to learn that love was possible."

Glyn silently rolled her eyes.

"Of course," said Radmila, "then John did figure out some things about me."

"Men do that," said Glyn.

Radmila was suddenly blanking with raw fatigue. She had just spent two hours rehearsing and dancing. Her bones were numb.

"You got a new boyfriend?" Radmila said clumsily. "You never act this strange without a new boyfriend."

"My mother just died," Glyn said patiently. "That's what's new for me. Toddy's worse than dead, and she's not even my mother . . . I'm not Toddy, I was never Toddy. I do have one quality, though, where Toddy and I are just the same. I have ambition."

"Uh-oh."

"So, we take over," said Glyn. "You and me. That's what I want, that's my big plan. That's what I'm telling you. You play the major Family star, and I am your tech support. It's very traditional. I make you our dynasty'sQ ueen of Los Angeles. All the older people: they're our investors and backers. They still matter, because they have the capital—but you and me, we're the executive directors. We are the directorial team: because you're the only one who understands me, and I'm the only one who un-derstands you. That's right, isn't it?"

"Of course that's right, Glyn." Radmila loved everyone in her Family, but Glyn was the one she loved best. Except for Mary.

"We both know how to work," said Glyn. "Because she trained us. So, from now on, we do
all
the work."

"That makes you happy, Glyn? I want you to be happy."

"Shut up! This isn't a theme song, so stop talking like some blitzed-out drama queen! This is not about our being happy, that's not the way to frame this. We are the
players.
We take power because we
belong
in power. You're the graphic front end, and I am the back operation. The Family-Firm is our bank. Are you cool with all of that? I get tired of re-peating myself."

"Can we really get away with doing that?"

"Yeah, we can," said Glyn. "I will tell you how. They will give it to us if we ask for it in the right way. Every night, we go in for the Family din-ner. We put all the toys and machines aside, there's no calls, no prompts, no nothing. It's just us. People. We all sit there together and we eat. And at the head of the table—there was Toddy. But there's nobody sitting there now. There's a ghost there."

"Yes. That's very true."

"Well, either somebody sits in that chair at the head of the table . . . and the others let her sit there—or else we stop meeting for dinner. In which case, the Family
dies.
Because, although we're a huge corpora-tion, we're also a human family. We need a warm body with a heartbeat to cluster around. Or else we all scatter. You understand what that means, right? If we scatter?"

"Of course I understand that!" Radmila said. "I'm Family! It's break-ing my heart."

"Who belongs at the head of the table?"

"John's dad should sit there. The Governor. But somebody shot him."

"
You
belong there."

Radmila bit her lip.

"You know that you belong there, Mila. You. So, don't waste any more time. The mourning period is over. We're sick of mourning any-way. You end the mourning for us. You just tweak your soundtrack, you dress to kill in total star-style, you prance to the head of the Family table and you just sit down. You don't ask anybody's permission. You just be-long there, and you pass us the mashed potatoes. You can do that. You have to do that. Because I can't do it. Nobody else is willing or able." Radmila pulled at a sweaty lock of hair. "I'm the head of the Family?"

"No. You're the
heart
of the Family. I'm the head. The head doesn't matter all that much — because I've been doing all the thinking lately anyway, and nobody ever notices." Glyn was her best friend. Radmila had to let her down easily. "If that would work, I'd do it. But Toddy's kids won't let me do it. They're older than us, and they've got priority."

"That's the key," said Glyn. "Because you're
not
an older woman. You're a young woman, so you can give the Family children. The next generation. Futurity. That's what you announce to them tonight."

"I gave them a child already."

"No," said Glyn soberly, "you say you plan a major Family expansion. The patter of dynastic little feet. You want to have
lots
of children. Seven children. You promise them that. And you mean that when you say it."

"Seven
children? Who, me?"

"Toddy had seven children.If you count me. A matriarch needs motherhood. That's why they will let you do this. It's because you're the mom, that's why. That's a pretty weird kind of power, but it's the kind that brooks no dissent."

"You've really thought a lot about this."

"I'm rich, but I'm not stupid."

"I'm way too busy to expand the Family by having seven kids. I have my star obligations. We have other women in the Family. Let them have more kids."

"They're all too busy, too. No woman ever has the spare time to get pregnant. Especially a rich woman. No rich and famous woman wants to lie on a couch burping ice cream while her belly button turns inside out. Bearing kids is demeaning, hard work: it's work for the poor. But do you want to run the Family?

Those are your dues. You give them chil-dren and a dynastic future, and they will bow the knee to you. I promise you they will. They have to."

Radmila understood why this mad scheme had sprung into her best friend's head. Neither of them had ever been in a conventional family: with a father, with a mother . . . They were two women who had both come into the world by other means entirely. This coup would finally put them at the center of things.

"You're proposing that I bear
six more
of John Montalban's children? John would like some say about that."

"John will do whatever you tell John to do. I know that John has been with Vera, and John is with Sonja, too. That's very bad. He's a head case about you and the others. But you're the one who married him."

"You know that what John did to me is unforgivable. The fact that those women exist is appalling to me. I hate them. I hate him for loving them."

''Yes, Radmila, I know all that. That fact is burningly, blazingly obvi-ous to me. I know that better than anybody. I'm exactly like you: so I know all about that. You're the only one in the world who can't stand it."

Radrnila's heart was pounding in her ears.

"Listen," said Glyn, her face rigid. "I cried a lot these last few days. I cried a whole lot about my own big drama-trauma, and I have made up my mind. I grew up. My mother's dead and I grew up. I have new grief, so I got over my old grief. I want you to do the same for me. Just grow up. Get over your past. Get over being Radmila Mihajlovic. Get over her, she's as dead as Toddy Montgomery. From now on, you have to be dif-ferent. Because you're not the little lost clone girl with no real mommy and daddy. You are the star. And you will become a megastar. I promise."

"Why are you saying all that to me? You know that will make me crazy."

"I can say it because you're
not
crazy, Mila. If you were crazy, I might forgive you for the crazy way you behave. I know that you're sane: but sometimes, you are just
too damn stubborn to live.
I know all about you, the three sisters, your brother Djordje . . . " Glyn stopped. She smiled in sweet reminiscence at the thought of handsome Djordje. That was never a pleasant thing to see,

"I know about the three
dead
girls, and the horrible ways that they died. I know about your
mother.
My so-called mother was a piece of work . . . but
your
so-called mother doesn't even walk this Earth!" Glyn looked her straight in the eye and drew a determined breath. "So: I know all that, I still love you, Mila. I do love you. You know that I do. So: Just stop shaking all over like a banana leaf. You don't pull that stupid crap on me anymore. Not on me. I'm tired of seeing you do that, that is all done, it should be long over. You and me: We may have no blood relation, but we are closer than any two sisters. So listen to me: I learned all this from
you,
Radmila. I learned it from what you said to the Family. Sometimes, a huge crimejust
doesn't matter.
You were com-pletely right about that."

"No, my crime always matters."

"Get over yourself. Become a different woman. This is not some lit-tle secret island in the Balkans twenty-seven years ago where they hap-pened to clone some people. This is
Los Angeles,
stupid! This is the big time, in a big town! In the years to come, we'll move Toddy's invest-ments into
you.
There are no
technical limits
there. When you swan around this city, all brilliancy, speed, lightness, and glamour, you will be so huge, so gorgeous, so totally vested in stardom they won't even
have words
for you. The past will be
done.
Finished. Sealed inside a plas-tic bubble dribbling on itself." Radmila was sweating. "But I never asked for that. I don't want it. I can't believe you're telling me to have seven children!"

"Radrnila, we've never been part of the human race. This is how we buy into all of that."

"I did
buy into it. There's Mary."

"Your children will all be fine children. Seven is not too many. You are making up for the rest of us decadent aristocrats. You will be proud of your children. I know Mary. I love Mary. Mary is my favorite niece. I know her better than you do. Mary is not one of you-and-yours. Mary Montalban is definitely one of us-and-ours."