Uncharted (18 page)

Despite the raucous sounds from the bar, the atmosphere around their table warmed with affection. Lisa laughed, and Susan grinned at Karyn through tear-filled eyes. John beamed at her with a paternal expression, and Mark’s smirk deepened. Only Kevin didn’t meet her gaze.

“Life was a lot simpler back when we met,” Mark said. “No complications.”

“Right,” Karyn answered, not willing to debate anything with Mark, “I’m glad we’re all together. We’ve caught up, but I’m looking forward to
really
reconnecting. We shared all our secrets back in college, so why shouldn’t we open ourselves up again?”

“I can think of a few reasons.” Kevin grinned at Mark. “Maybe we’ll leave all that intimate stuff to you girls.”

Karyn was tempted to roll her eyes, but in the interest of peace, she ignored Kevin’s comment. “Be as open as you want, but before we take another sip of that horrid stuff, I have an announcement to make.”

Mark groaned. “
Another
speech?”

“I’ll be brief.” She took a deep breath. “With mixed feelings, I have broken my contract with
A Thousand Tomorrows
. In the episode we taped Friday, Lorinda Loving perished tragically when a mailbag dropped out of the sky and fell on her as she was having a picnic lunch with her antisocial dog’s psychotherapist.”

Lisa tipped back her head and howled while Susan gaped in amused wonder. Kevin rubbed a finger hard over his lips in an obvious attempt to stifle a laugh.

Only Mark wasn’t amused. “What’s so funny? Does this mean you’re unemployed? Do I have to offer you a job?”

“It means,” Karyn said, looking from Mark to Kevin, “that when I get back to New York, I report for rehearsals at the Silvercup Studios in Long Island City. I’m going to play Beatrice in the new ABC sitcom
My Brother Beau
. I’m moving from daytime to prime time.”

Lisa squealed, and Susan’s eyes appeared to be in danger of dropping out of her face. Mark released a brief grunt, and Kevin’s brows nearly met his hairline.

He leaned closer. “I thought—Sarah said you were hoping to play
both
roles.”

“I was. But
Tomorrows
wouldn’t let me have this week off, so I had to quit.”

He blinked—could he tell she’d twisted the truth?—then pulled her to his side in a one-armed embrace. “Congratulations, then. I know what this means to you.”

She didn’t dare look up. He’d see the tears in her eyes, and he might read something into them when she was merely grateful for his support despite the long years she’d been waiting for it.

Mark signaled to a waiter. “I think good news calls for more sake.”

“Not that awful stuff!” Susan protested. They all laughed when she grabbed his arm and hung on like a terrier.

Karyn chuckled along with the others, but her laughter died in her throat when she glanced at Lisa. Lisa wasn’t laughing; she was staring at Kevin as if she could eat him with a spoon.

Karyn propped her head on her hand, surprised by the emotions the sight stirred. Could her old friend be interested in her ex-husband? The idea left a sour taste in her mouth, a sensation like the bitter tang of jealousy.

A smile tugged at her lips. She hadn’t been jealous over a man since college. Being with these people had thrust her back into emotional adolescence, when her greatest worries revolved around clothes, shoes, and which perfume would best hold Kevin’s attention.

If only her present life were as uncomplicated.

She looked down at her glass. Surely she was reading something into the situation. She was too tightly wound and still smarting from her abrupt departure from
A Thousand Tomorrows
. She’d been stung by disloyalty in the past few days, so she was seeing it everywhere she looked.

Lisa wouldn’t—couldn’t—be interested in Kevin. She knew Kevin and Karyn remained close for Sarah’s benefit.

If you couldn’t trust an old friend, you couldn’t trust anyone.

23

Agana, Guam

“I’m going to be as freckled as a guinea hen by the time I get home.” Susan squinted as she stepped from the shade of a covered driveway into the brightness of a narrow street. The morning was quiet, intensely humid, and still. The only movement was the soft rise and fall of the breakers on the aqua sea to her right.

Karyn grinned from beneath the shelter of a wide-brimmed straw hat. “Didn’t you bring any sunblock?”

“Two big bottles. And I refuse to be embarrassed if the guys tease me about my heavy suitcase. I also brought moisturizer and several packets of Starbucks coffee—”

“Come on, admit it.” Karyn lifted her hand to snag the attention of a neon yellow cab parked down the street. “You’re still a pampered Southern belle.”

Susan stiffened, about to argue, then realized arguing was pointless. She hadn’t thought of herself as a belle in years, but Karyn and Lisa used to tease her mercilessly about her Southern roots and her attention to feminine details. “So what if I am?” she asked. “I’m happy.”

Karyn arched a brow. “Are you?”

“Of course.” To prove a point, she lifted her hand and waved to the parked taxi; an instant later it pulled away from the curb and headed toward them.

Susan shoved her suitcase toward the curb, glad she and Karyn were among the first to come downstairs. The Hilton Guam was a lovely beach hotel, but for dinner they’d had only two choices—Japanese cuisine or something called “Euro-Asian Fusion Food.”

She’d been confused when they arrived late last night, tired and hungry and off balance. A menu of strange foods had done nothing to settle her nerves, but she ate everything on her plate and followed Karyn back to their room after turning down Mark’s suggestion of a walk on the beach.

Now that she’d had a few hours of sleep, maybe her emotions would settle down.

The cab pulled to the curb, and a smiling driver leaned toward them through the open passenger window. “Taxi?”

“To the airport, please,” she said. “And would you pop the trunk?”

Leaving her heavy suitcase on the sidewalk, she tossed her overnight case into the cab’s trunk, then walked to the passenger door, waiting for the driver to come around. Karyn heaved her luggage into the trunk, then stepped back and gave Susan a glare hot enough to sear her eyebrows.

Susan lifted her hands, bewildered. “What?”

Karyn pointed to Susan’s luggage. “You gonna leave that on the sidewalk?”

“Why, the driver will get—” She looked for the man, then stared when she saw him waiting behind the wheel.

Apparently women fended for themselves in this place.

“Good heavens.” She yanked on her suitcase and dragged it to the back of the cab. She’d never had to lift this bag by herself, but there wasn’t a doorman or bellman or
courteous
driver in sight, so . . .

Karyn helped her, lifting one corner as they maneuvered the case into the back.

Karyn panted as she closed the trunk. “What in the world did you pack?”

“Everything we could possibly need.” Determined not to lose her temper, Susan smiled as she opened the car door. “You’ll be thanking me when we get to wherever it is we’re going. You wait and see.”

The short driver, Japanese or Guamian or something, grinned over his shoulder. “What airline, pretty ladies?”

“Continental,” Karyn answered, sliding in beside Susan.

Susan dropped her purse to the floor and marveled at the cab’s open windows. Didn’t people run the air conditioner down here? It wasn’t even 7:00 a.m., and already she was glistening like old cheese.

“You know,” she told Karyn, “I’m beginning to understand why John called this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I do believe I could die happy without ever going overseas again.”

She felt the gentle pressure of Karyn’s gaze as the taxi pulled into traffic. “Why,” Karyn asked, mopping sweat from her temples, “did you agree to come?”

Susan hesitated a moment, then decided to give her friend the unvarnished truth. “I came for David,” she said simply. “I came because I loved him.”

With her purse on one shoulder and a bag on the other, Karyn trudged through the airport like a woman who’d just given birth to twelve-pound triplets. Every muscle ached, and her brain felt cloudy, but John said she was only suffering from jet lag.

“Your body’s circadian rhythms have been disturbed,” he told her as they filed into the Jetway. “Take it easy for the next couple of days, try to eat regular meals, and get plenty of sleep. You’ll feel like yourself again once you adjust to island time.”

Okay, but how was she supposed to display her brilliant comedic and dramatic talents on the set of
My Brother Beau
if next week she’d be
undoing
her adjustments?

She lowered herself into a seat aboard a Continental Micronesia jet, set her hat in her lap, then looked up to see who would take the space next to her. She wouldn’t mind a break from Susan’s whining about the heat, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to sit with Lisa. Lisa still seemed entirely too interested in Kevin, but there was no way he’d return her interest . . . or would he?

She smiled in relief when Mark dropped into the empty seat. “Good to see you.” She patted his burly arm. “We haven’t had a chance to talk, have we?”

His wide face froze into an expression of mock horror. “You want to
talk
? Men hate to talk. I thought we’d play poker.”

“Shut up.” She turned toward the window to watch the activity on the tarmac. “Go ahead and sleep if you want. I won’t make you say anything.”

“I was kidding, K.”

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Mark’s wounded puppy face. “Aw, don’t pout. Let’s just relax, all right? You tell me about the car business; I’ll give you all the gossip about your favorite soap stars.”

He smiled as he buckled his seat belt. “We watch your show, y’know.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, we keep a TV playing in the customers’ lounge. There’ve been times when I saw you on the screen and told people I knew you.”

“In that case, you may owe me a percentage of several sales commissions.”

“Nah, they didn’t believe me.” He settled into his seat, making the plastic creak as he leaned his weight against the back. “You’re a good actress, Karyn. Frankly, I thought you’d be in Hollywood by now.”

She leaned back and laughed. “Haven’t you heard? Hollywood megastars aren’t real actors. You have to go to New York to find dramatists who wouldn’t be scared spitless if you put them in front of a live audience without cue cards.”

He shrugged. “All I know is you’ve always been the best actress I’ve ever seen. So, seriously, why didn’t you go to California after graduation?”

She exhaled softly, then pointed toward the front of the plane. “Somewhere up there is a bit of brown hair poking over a seat, and that’s why I didn’t go. Kevin had a job offer in Atlanta, and back then I was more in love with him than with the theater.”

“So why didn’t you go later? I mean, I know how good you were in that college play—”

“
Streetcar
?”

“That’s the one. Remember when we all went to see
The Terminator
? I thought you were every bit as good as that Linda Hamilton babe. You could have made it in Hollywood, K. I wish you’d given it a shot.”

Was he not
listening
? Karyn folded her hands and tried to keep her irritation from her voice. “Water under the bridge, Mark. I know I talked about going to Hollywood when we were in school, but after the divorce, I had Sarah to think of, and . . . well, I was thirty-three. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but film parts for women over thirty are few and far between.”

“So you decided it was better to be a big fish in a small pond than a tadpole in a sea of—”

“Starlets? Yeah. I wanted to be a serious actress, and I knew I didn’t have time to waste.” She struggled to keep her voice light. “I don’t regret anything. Sarah’s a great kid, and she loves living in New York. If she needed to, she could get on a plane and be in Atlanta within a couple of hours. Even though Kevin and I couldn’t seem to make our marriage work, he
is
a great dad, and Sarah adores him. I wouldn’t want to mess that up.”