Darkling I Listen (23 page)

Brandon
threw the used cotton swab toward the sink. He drenched another in peroxide and dabbed it lightly against the swelling near Alyson's lip.

Mildred smoked and watched the proceedings. Her lip curled as Alyson flinched at the sting of antiseptic. "Are you going to enlighten me as to what happened to this woman?" Mildred sucked harder on her Virginia Slim. The air in the room suddenly felt charged, like those seconds before a storm erupts.

"A crazy woman under the delusion that our brief moment of passion meant more than it really did," he said pointedly as he looked at Mildred over his shoulder. "Why are you here, Mildred?"

"I spoke with Scorsese today." She paused, allowed the weight of the director's name to fill the room. "He might have a part for you in his upcoming work. It's a Clancy film. The kind of story that will drown the audience in testosterone. Harrison Ford has committed. He suggested to Scorsese that you might be good in the role of the turncoat CIA agent who's married to Ford's character's sister. I could get you five million."

"I'm worth twenty. And I don't take second billing to
Harrison
."

He stood, collected the first aid items, and returned them to the cupboard. Mildred stared at him through the curling thread of smoke from her cigarette. "You're not worth twenty anymore. You're not worth five. In fact, at this stage of your career, you should be offering Scorsese that much to allow you on the set."

Carlyle opened the fridge and withdrew two cans of Pepsi, one of which he handed to Alyson. His cheeks looked red, and when he ripped back the aluminum ring on the can, Alyson got the impression he was fantasizing it was Mildred's throat. She wouldn't have blamed him. That old protective surge flooded her. She was forced to sink back in her chair before she pulled a Mitsy and shoved the Pepsi can up Mildred's carefully constructed nostrils.

"Seven," Mildred went on. "At the most. And possibly a percentage. Baldwin, Pitt, and Damon have expressed extreme interest, but Scorsese feels your reputation would give you the harder edge. You'd have to read for the part, of course." Twin streams of smoke slid from her nostrils, making her look like a bejeweled incense burner. "After all," she added, "they'll want assurance that you can still act, not to mention that you're sober enough to remember your lines. Did I mention that they'll be shooting the first half of the movie in
Singapore
? Then
Paris
and finally back to D.C."

He set his Pepsi can on the table and reached for a
mini
ature Krackle, unwrapped it, and fed it to Alyson, his eyes narrowing slightly as he laid the chocolate on her tongue. "No," he replied simply as he allowed his thumb to stroke her swollen lip.

"What do you
mean,
no?" Mildred demanded. The ash on her cigarette was becoming long and bent and white.

"I stopped auditioning for parts when I was fifteen. So, no, I won't read for the part. No, I won't accept seven million, and I won't bill below
Harrison
. No, I won't fly off to
Singapore
,
Paris
, and D.C. Even if I thought I was ready to allow some director to dictate to me when I can breathe, belch, or pick my nose, I wouldn't at this point. My family is ill, in case you haven't noticed."

Mildred crushed the cigarette out in the sink. Alyson got the impression that if she weren't sitting there as witness to any scandalous unprofessionalism, Mildred would have blown her cranial gasket and told Carlyle exactly what he could do with his contrary bullheadedness. Then it occurred to Alyson that perhaps her earlier assessment of Mildred was wrong. Perhaps despite the
Rodeo Drive
lode on her ears and the extravagantly expensive threads she was wearing, Mildred desperately needed to make this deal rock and roll all the way to the bank.

Crossing her thin arms over her bosom, Mildred put on a mask of indifference and said, "I think our business should be discussed in private. After all"—she redirected her marble eyes to Alyson's, and one black eyebrow arched—"there's no telling who this woman really is. She's a writer, and writers are trouble. Their insecurities are surpassed only by their conceited belief that the world actually gives a damn about what they have to say." She turned back to Carlyle. "At least drive me back to the motel."

"Fine." He slammed the empty Pepsi can down on the table.

"I can smell trouble a mile away, and I'm telling you, Brandon,
that woman is trouble. I don't care what sort of stories she's fed you. She's lying. She's up to something, and if you aren't careful—"

"Get out of the car, Mildred. In fact, get out of Ticky Creek. When I'm ready to work again, I'll call you."

As the motel's neon lights reflected in red and yellow streaks off the Jaguar's hood ornament, Mildred shook her head and laughed in exasperation. "You think I'm being a jealous cat, don't you? Well, maybe I am
…
a little. You have an opportunity to bounce back from the fiasco you've made of your life; let some mystery hussy wag her ass at you, and you fall right back into the same old sexual cess pit. Are you screwing her, darling?"

"Get out, Mildred."

He reached across her lap and shoved the car door open. She caught his hand and gripped it, hard. "I took you on when no one else in the business would return your phone calls. I held your head when you were puking up Chivas and couldn't remember your name, much less your script. Didn't I tell you that that dreadful little gold digger DeAnna
What's
-Her-Name was using you to get herself publicity? And didn't I warn you that if you didn't stop running with that particular party crowd you were going to find yourself in deep trouble? There's nothing I wouldn't do to protect you, darling, but you continue not only to ignore me, but to defy me."

"You're my agent, Mildred, not my keeper. And whatever happened between us one dark and stormy night was nothing more than a bad combination of alcoholism and a death wish—both of which I've kicked. Let it go. What I do and who I do it with outside of a movie contract is no business of yours."

"I won't allow another bitch to get in the way of your career again. What hurts you, hurts me, baby." She swung her legs out of the car, stood, and slammed the door. Leaning partially through the open window, she said, "You owe me, Carlyle. Big time. I've kissed a lot of ass for you over the last few years. While you were walking the line in prison, I was moving heaven and earth to get people to forget you'd been a belligerent bully who couldn't spit out his lines without first taking a drink. They all think you're going to cave again, that something or someone is going to send you back to that bottle, and then you'll be right back where you were before Marcella led you down a perverted path. Who else will be willing to hold your hand and convince you again that you're actually worth something? That you're more than Cara Queen Bitch Carlyle's spoiled brat whose claim to fame isn't how well he can act, but how good he looks with his clothes off."

Carlyle looked through the darkness at her, his eyes dimly illuminated by a streak of yellow—green light from the Café Open Twenty Four Hours a Day sign. He didn't look pissed, but resigned and tired. He was thinking that she was right. She knew that look well enough. When he didn't have the ammo to fight, he simply stared with those eyes that, turned women into puddles—herself included, and that was saying something. Mildred Feldman prided herself on having ice water for blood and a sump pump for a heart.

"Good night, Mildred," he said calmly,
then
hit the Up button on the electric window.

She stepped back as he drove away. The taillights flashed briefly before he pulled out on the highway and streaked off into the night. Her face burned as she thought of the woman waiting for him back at his uncle's house. She'd watched women come and go in Carlyle's life—all beautiful, rich, talented, and driven by ambition—but he'd never looked at them the way he looked at this one. She'd recognized it the moment he'd slid the candy into her mouth: how his eyes had appeared to absorb the woman's body and soul, how his fingers had touched her so gently. Deep in her gut, Mildred had always known what sort of woman it would take to capture the emotionally elusive Carlyle, even if he hadn't. The girl next door, that's what he wanted. A scrubbed-face tomboy who'd be more than happy to shovel horse shit and raise half a dozen brats with snotty noses. For that sort of woman he'd turn his back on his career and walk off into the sunset.

Still, while on the surface this particular chick might appear to be "the one," there was something rotten about her. She had the look of someone who expected to see her face crop up on
America
's Most Wanted. The autobiography
just didn't ring true. Mildred was a master of intuition, and right now it was glowing hot enough to blow out a Geiger counter.

Digging in her purse for her crumpled pack of Virginia Slims, Mildred entered the motel office, where a gnome of a woman in black spandex pants sat at a desk with a phone to her ear. Mildred would check for messages, then pop into the greasy spoon café for a diet whatever, something to wash down a few sleeping tabs—she wouldn't be able to sleep tonight without them, not with the image of Carlyle's name on a Scorsese film fading to black and her one big chance to shoulder her way into the big time going with it.

The night clerk scrawled on a pink While You Were Out pad and nodded as she glanced up at Mildred. "Yes, sir, I got it. I'll see Miss James gets the message soon as she gets back to her room." The woman listened with a bored expression as the caller rattled on. She held up the pad and squinted at it. "Yes, sir, I'll be happy to read it back. A.J., call Alan as soon as possible. I spoke with Peterson again, and he's willing to help us dig further into this Anticipating matter." She nodded. "You have a good night, sir."

The gnome hung up the phone and
smirked
a little as she turned her fleshy face toward Mildred. "That guy's as queer as a three-dollar bill. You can just
tell,
y'know? But what do you expect when he's livin' in
San Francisco
with the
Golden Gate
to Fairyland, as my husband says." She covered her mouth with a chubby hand and giggled.

Mildred hardly heard her. Her eyes were still focused on the pink message pad on the desk.

"You ain't had
no
calls," the gnome informed her.

Turning on her heels, Mildred left the office, stood on the sidewalk beneath the flickering neon, and lit her Virginia Slim. The message from Alan kept replaying in her mind.
A.J., call Alan
…
A.J., call
…
A.J.
Where the hell had she heard that before?
A.J. Alyson James. A.J.

Forgetting about her diet whatever, Mildred went to her room. As the door shut behind her, her gaze swept the interior as if she expected the A.J. secret to materialize on the dingy walls. Then her gaze snagged on the
Enquirer
and
Gazette
she had earlier deposited in the trash can.

She dug them out and spread them over the bed, finding what she was looking for in the
Gazette.

DOG SAVES BABY

THEN IS SHOT BY CRUEL NEIGHBOR!

By A.J. Farrington

Mildred straightened. With her hands on her hips, she smiled and said, "Bingo."

«
^
»

A
lyson stood beneath the showerhead, eyes closed,
the
steaming water pouring over her sore and throbbing body. Still, she shivered. It was as if the cold, murky creek water had soaked through her pores and turned her blood into mud. She couldn't shake the feeling.

Ruth had been right. There were bruises and abrasions across her back and between her shoulder blades. She had a vague memory of Mitsy driving her knee into her leg, followed by a right slug to her eye that had made the red and green jalapeno Christmas lights look as vast as the Milky Way.

This'll teach you to spread-eagle under another woman's husband!

She saw herself in the Jaguar, staring over at Carlyle and asking, "Do you think Mitsy's Anticipating?"

That would tie things up very nicely, wouldn't it? She could go on with her plot to bamboozle Mr. Hollywood, as Ruth called Carlyle, without a worry that some loony tune with a personality disorder was going to attempt to claw her eyes out
…
or worse, send her through a guardrail to die in a mishmash of crumpled metal.

Mitsy was obviously delusional. Anyone who walked around believing she was Marilyn Monroe one minute and Mrs. Brandon Carlyle the next was a few bricks
shy
of a load. But Mitsy didn't feel sinister. She was a nut, but she didn't feel
…
evil. Pathetic, perhaps, but not evil.

Anticipating, on the other hand, felt very evil. The difference between the two was as great as walking through a cemetery during daylight and dark.

Alyson turned off the water and stood with her head down and eyes closed. She wanted to believe that Mitsy Dillman was
Anticipating
…
but she didn't.

*

The shirt Carlyle had given her to wear to bed smelled like
him. The scent curled along her bruised nerve endings, which were sensitive enough to react with painful little pricks of sensation, like static electricity.

The soft flannel caressed her body the way his hands had done on the dance floor. The shirttails hit her mid-thigh, just enough to hide the fact that she wore no underwear. Hers was wet still with creek water. If she'd thought of it, she'd have given him her room key and asked him to bring her a change of clothes, but she'd still been a bit shell-shocked after being pummeled and nearly drowned by Mitsy Dillman.

She wondered if he'd come back from delivering Mildred to the motel. She'd noted the time when he left
…
nearly an hour ago. Fifteen minutes to the hotel, fifteen minutes back home
…
unless Mildred talked him into staying.

No chance.

Brandon
had put her in Henry and Bernie's old room, the bedroom they'd shared for thirty-eight of their married years. It was a time capsule of their lives. The walls were covered with photographs, mostly black and white: a beautiful, beaming Bernice in a poodle skirt and sweater, short pearls around her throat; a tall, thin Henry at her side. Moving along the wall, she watched them age through birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmases. In the final photograph, they sat together on the porch swing, holding hands, Bernie's head resting on Henry's shoulder. It must have been taken shortly before Bernie's stroke. There was something in her eyes that looked sad, as if she knew the end was near.

Alyson forced herself to look away.

There were mementos of Brandon as well: finger paintings and connect-the-dots framed and hung in a cluster above the bed's headboard—obviously a place of honor; bouquets of Kleenex flowers that looked like pink and white carnations; a jewelry box made from a cigar box, covered in macaroni shells, birdseed, and glass beads, spray painted gold and trimmed with multicolored glitter. Smiling to herself, Alyson carefully lifted the lid. On the inside of the lid, scrawled in a child's writing, was
BRANDON
LOVES BERNIE FOREVER.

The bottom had been covered in purple velvet. On the plush bed were numerous pieces of jewelry: a heart-shaped brooch of diamonds and sapphires, a bracelet of rubies, a necklace with an emerald pendant the size of a quarter. All gifts from
Brandon
.

There was a ring, a thin gold band, caught within a coil of the ruby bracelet. She picked it up and cradled it in the palm of her open hand. The lamplight glinted on it. Bernie's wedding band, perhaps too large now for her wasted finger. She imagined Henry's heartbreak at having to remove it, as if he were severing one of the last, most important threads of their life together. He might have even imagined that the removal would release her spirit, which most surely must be imprisoned by her broken body. That would have been the hardest part, she thought, letting her go.

Yet, Bernie remained. Something was holding her here. Something far more powerful than her freedom from pain and physical bondage.

Put it on.

No. She couldn't.

Go on. Try it on for size. Might look good on your finger. You never know—

Her fingers closed around the band as she frowned.
Don't even go there,
she thought.

Why not? Why continue to deny that since she zoomed that telephoto lens up close and personal on Mr. Hollywood's twenty-million-dollar bod, she'd toyed with the possibility that they might stand a chance at happily ever after. The morning she walked into this house, and into this family, she felt as if she'd come home at long last. She knew it the minute Henry showed up at the Pine Lodge and the two of them shared coconut and chocolate pie—he knew it, too, or he wouldn't have been there. She knew it by how the
River Road
patrons regarded her—resignation and envy on their star-struck faces. They all knew. Not by looking at her, but by looking at him. What had Ruth said?
First time I've seen Mr. Hollywood smile since he came back to Ticky Creek.

She slid the ring onto her finger. It fit. Perfectly.

Alyson lay down across the bed. Tired. Sore. Beaten. The bed was comfortable, much more comfortable than the Pine Lodge bed. This one felt a little old and soft, and creaked a bit with her weight. She imagined that for thirty-eight years Henry and Bernie had held one another in this bed, experienced passion and heartbreak.

You know Anticipating is the least of your roadblocks to happily ever after. If he learns you've been lying to him about your reasons for coming to Ticky Creek (and God forbid he discovers you're THE A.J. Farrington who broke the nasty news of his alcoholism), any hope you have of happily ever after is going to incinerate in a mushroom cloud.

Closing her eyes and pressing her hand with the ringed finger to her heart, she said aloud, "I don't want to talk about it." She was even beginning to sound like Carlyle. They could both give lessons on denial.

But you're going to have to talk about it. All of it. Confession time. If you're going to lie here on his family's bed and fantasize that you're going to "drop him three or four babies" and fill up these walls with another generation of Carlyles, then you must prostrate yourself before him and beg him to forgive your underhandedness.

"He'll never forgive me, and I won't blame him. I'm having a hard time forgiving myself."

You're not a worm, A.J., but what you're doing isn't very nice.

What if—

You turned the lie into a truth?

What if—

The autobiography became a reality?

Forgetting the hot poker of pain jabbing at her back, she sat up. Her heart gave a quick kick at her ribs as the illumination of possibility made the room shimmer. She expected a chorus of angels to crescendo above her head,
"Hallelujah, she has seen the light!"

*

She stood at the top of the stairs and gazed down into the
ocher haze of the kitchen night-light. Carlyle had silenced Jay Leno's banter with Rosie O'Donnell before he left to take Mildred to the motel. She'd watched
Brandon
carefully remove the glasses from Henry's nose and place them on a table near the bed, close enough so when Henry awoke in the morning, he could easily find them. He'd tucked a blanket under his uncle's double chin,
then
walked around the bed to press a kiss on Bernie's cheek.

To her left now, a square of light spilled into the hallway through an open door. She moved to the threshold and peered into the room.
Brandon
sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees. His head was tipped down and his damp hair spilled over his brow. He'd showered. She could smell tangy soap and a touch of the same cologne that had made her senses go muzzy. His jeans were clean, as was his shirt. He was barefoot.

He looked like a kid, set against a backdrop of a boy's playhouse. The walls were lined with black-and-white photos of baseball players, all autographed. There were
baseball
bats propped in the corners and autographed baseballs lining shelves on the walls. Several glass display cases held baseball cards and game programs.

This had been John's room, she realized.

Brandon
looked up.

He showed no surprise at finding her standing in the doorway, wearing nothing more than his flannel shirt. She supposed he was accustomed to half-naked women prowling his space,
while
she, on the other hand, was not accustomed to prowling even fully clothed. Yet, here she stood, shivering a little. From cold, perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps from the realization that something emotionally intense was happening here. Or perhaps it was simply those bruised eyes, so full of turmoil, looking at her with a hunger that made her knees weak.

"I was about to check on you," he said in a rough voice,
then
cleared his throat. "I thought you'd be asleep by now."

She shook her head. "No."

His gaze took a slow journey down her body.

Alyson stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She leaned against it and tried to will the strength back into her legs. When he looked in her eyes again, his expression had turned dark. His eyes were black. His body radiated a sort of heat that made his face and chest and hands appear to glow in the white lamplight.

He straightened as she crossed the room, unbuttoning the shirt that slid open, exposing a pale valley of skin between her breasts, and down
…

"Jesus," he whispered, sounding a little drugged.

His long legs were spread; she moved between them and took his face between her hands, tipping his head back so she could look down into his eyes. "Still want to make love to me?" she asked, smiling a little, deliriously nervous and disbelieving that she had come to him like this. She had never been so forward, even with her husband.

His eyes drifted closed, and he nestled his cheek against her palm. "Why are you trembling?" he asked softly.

Until that moment she hadn't realized that she was trembling.

"Are you afraid of me?"

The odd question stunned her,
then
she realized what he meant. The Marcella thing. The D.A.'s idiotic statement declaring Carlyle capable of rape and murder. "I'm only human," she tried to tease. "You're Brandon Carlyle, God's gift to women, according to
People
magazine."

Shifting his cheek away, he bowed his head. "Wrong answer, cupcake. This is where you're supposed to convince me that you want me for me. That you would desire me just as much if I were Klem Kadiddlehopper with a harelip."

"But you're not," she replied seriously, and stroked his hair. "You are who you are, and what you are. Maybe I'd eventually come to desire you if you were Kadiddlehopper with a harelip, but it would take a while longer."

She felt a shudder pass through him, then he reached for her, slid his hands up the outside of her thighs and the shirt she wore. His warm fingers spread around her buttocks, and he pulled her close, pressed his face against the hollow just above her navel. The moist heat of his breath on her skin sent rays of bright pain streaking through her. Pressure mounted between her legs, and she suddenly felt liquid and heavy, as if every drop of moisture in her body had pooled between her thighs.

He moved his face and tongued her navel. Just a dip. A taste. Fingers drifted along the crevice of her buttocks, sliding low until touching—
A groan turned over in his throat and he withdrew his hands, curled them into fists and buried them into the soft mattress at his sides. He breathed hard. Sweat made his hair moist and her fingers damp as she continued to stroke him, to trail her fingers along his nape to linger on the skin of his neck.

Resting his forehead against her belly, he squeezed his eyes shut. "God, I need a drink," he murmured, more to himself than to her.

"Why?" She massaged his tense muscles through his shirt,
then
nudged the cloth down over his shoulders, baring his skin and the line of muscle that flexed beneath her fingertips.

"I'm scared shitless." He tried to steady his voice, failing miserably.

She bent slightly and kissed the top of his head.

"It's been a long time, Aly. Four years of nothing but memories. Hollow memories. Blurred faces and lost names. Nightmares, some of them. Christ, I think I'm falling in love with you."