Dreams Are Not Enough (16 page)

“Hey hey.” Maxim gave her his mordant grin.

“Finally. The inimitable Alyssia del Mar, star of half the world’s wet dreams.”

“Piker. Why not all of them?” She raised her eyebrow with actressy drollness.

“Saint-Simon doesn’t get major distribution, that’s why,” Maxim retorted, opening his campaign immediately.

“Diner, this is my wife, Alyssia,” Barry said.

“Hon, this is Diner Roberts.”

Diner Roberts, standing as he was between the two tall cousins, appeared yet shorter than his actual five eight. With his slender build, his shock of Indian-black hair, his vulnerably angular face, he bore a slight resemblance to Montgomery Clift. There was a sympathetic quality about Diner, and Alyssia liked him immediately.

“Alyssia, I can’t tell you how much it means, meeting you,” he said.

“When Maxim said he was coming here, I tagged along. I hope you don’t mind.”

From the way he managed his voice and his non regional American diction, she knew that he had trained as an actor—and was using this training to hide a nervousness similar to her own.

“I’m glad you did,” she said.

“Buried down here, we hardly ever have company.” She tilted her head.

“Diner, don’t I know your work?”

“That depends on how many forgettable, low-budget films you see. Oh, and I worked on this year’s Brando turkey.”

The flames leaped as Juanita opened the arched door a crack to nod at Alyssia.

“Dinner is served,” Alyssia announced.

The dining room had not yet been renovated, so they retired to the pine table in a snug corner of the cavernous kitchen. The albondigas soup, the meltingly rich tamales and spicy enchiladas, the retried beans, were devoured with numerous compliments directed toward Juanita, who hovered near the ancient black behemoth of a coal stove.

The cousins dominated the conversation, lapsing back into their old relationship, Barry deferential yet touchy, Maxim barbed.

After the richly caramelized flan and the coffee, the host pushed swaying to his feet.

“A banquet to which Maxim’s Hennessey’s will mark a fitting end.”

Back in the salon, he opened the gift brandy while Maxim, with Diner’s assistance, maneuvered another thick elm log onto the fire.

Alyssia settled into the worn, puce-colored upholstery of the Recamier couch.

“Alyssia,” Maxim said, “do I have a deal for you.”

“Deal?” she asked, bewildered.

“It’s like this. My grandmother Harvard, so ripe in her years that she was known as Grandma Veggie, died two years ago. Her will, finally passed through probate, leaves her two grandchildren a sum of three hundred and sixty thousand bucks. We’ve decided to blow it on making a movie, Hap and I.”

The harsh wind coming from the Atlantic drummed rain at the bay window.

“Hap?” she asked.

“Maxim’s brother,” Barry reminded.

“How could you forget him?” Maxim said.

“He’s too large to forget.” He sat back in the wing chair. The jumping orange flames lit his lean face.

“Just one minor problem. We don’t have a leading lady.”

“I’m under contract to Saint-Simon.”

“I had Magnum’s legal department check,” Maxim said.

“Your contract’s only got a few months to run.”

“A Magnum movie?” she said, aware she sounded inane.

“You are being dense. Hap’s and my movie. A Harvard Productions film.

The distributor’ll probably be Magnum—it so happens I’m acquainted with somebody there. “

Diner gave an actor’s chuckle.

“We anticipate a major, major release,” Maxim went on.

“You should relate to that. Also, the female star will do more than bare her boobs—not that I’m knocking yours, understand. It’s just you’re ready to move on to more meaningful roles.”

She cleared her throat.

“Does Hap know you’re asking me?”

“He’s scouting locations.”

“He doesn’t know then.”

“I’m the producer. The producer’s task, as you know, is to hire the talent and enable it to function.”

“Maxim, Saint-Simon’s planning a better role for me.” As far as she knew, a total lie.

Maxim sipped his brandy.

“Is that a no I’m hearing?”

“Yes, a no.”

“A definite no, or a maybe no?”

“A definite no.”

Maxim tilted his head, holding out his free hand, a gesture that meant, Lady, fine by me if you want to give up the chance of a lifetime.

Wind howled, redoubling the force of the rain.

“Listen to that,” Diner said.

“It’s like a genuine Magnum storm,” Maxim said, mega phoning his hands as if on the set, calling, “Okay you guys, get your rain machines ready!” He lowered his pitch to normal.

“I’m not avid about that drive back to Tours.”

“You’re spending the night here,” Barry said, nodding tipsily.

“You’re staying here.”

Alyssia wanted nothing more than to be rid of Maxim’s acid smile.

“Yes,” she said.

“I insist—I hope you and Diner don’t mind sharing a bed.”

“Dill?” Maxim asked.

“All I can say,” Diner retorted, “is it beats getting killed on that bastard of a road.”

“Did you know about Maxim’s plans?” Alyssia asked as she stepped into the heavy flannel nightgown.

“The movie, I mean?”

Barry was already in the high-legged lit matrimonial.

“Before you came down he waxed eloquent about the production—I’d forgotten the flights his wit can take.”

“Wit?”

“Oh, he kept up a running commentary about being forced to star Hap’s girl.”

Hap’s girl? In the years since Beth had reported that Hap’s engagement to Sara Cowles was broken, there had been no mention of any serious entanglement—but certainly Hap must have been involved. Alyssia turned away.

“Then she’s an actress?”

Barry yawned.

“That’s the point. She’s not. Her name is Whitney Charles. Of the Charles-Boston bank. She’s tried her hand at commercials. She’s made three of them, all for companies controlled by Charles Boston

“Think they’ll go with her, then?”

“How can they? You know how abysmally uncertain the movie business has become. Magnum stockholders would rise up en masse if Uncle Desmond were to commit the gross nepotism of distributing a film his sons made with a star whose sole expertise is vanity commercials. That’s why he wants you. You might not be Bardot, but people have heard your name.”

“Think I was wrong, turning him down?”

“Hon, don’t we have a mutual nonintervention pact? You manage your career, I manage mine.”

She turned out the light and climbed into the big, soft bed, pulling the goose down quilt high to her ears. Barry rested a hand on her shoulder. A comradely gesture, not a suggestive invitation. They hadn’t had sex in four months. Prior to that the interim had been more like five. This infrequency was never mentioned, it being a source of private shame to both of them. Though she had been approached by Saint-Simon, who buzzed like a stout, whiskered bee amid the distaff side of his ensemble, and by Claude Tissot and some ten others, she put them off with deftly humorous tact that roused no animosity. Among her friends, who were also her co-workers, she was considered to be that American perversity, a faithful wife. She accepted that her archaic fidelity was more closely tied to Hap than to Barry.

Barry exuded a vinous yawn and rolled away from her.

My poor sweetie, she thought, rubbing his leg affectionately with her big toe. His rich relations still intimidate him—that’s why he got loaded.

She invented excuses for Barry’s drinking. Despite their lackluster sex life and the empty spaces he left in their marriage, her loyalty to him had deepened, and because of this she never considered herself as one of the main reasons he hit the bottle. Despising himself for his failures, he bitterly resented her for her successes.

Within two minutes his loud, jagged snores competed with the assaulting storm. She lay on her back with her eyes wide open.

To star in a film, to play something more than a sex kitten, would be a challenge—and tremendous for her career.

But of course taking the part was unequivocally impossible.

She couldn’t face Hap.

She knew that to him her hasty departure without a word of explanation must inevitably have appeared cruelly meretricious and self serving.

Kept in the dark about her motives, he could only conclude that she had chosen a chance to work with Saint-Simon over a life with him.

Suddenly she saw herself opening the door of a drab, beige motel room, saw Hap waiting for her, his gray eyes warm and intent. With a whimpering moan, she rolled onto her stomach, pressing against the mattress, tightening her vaginal muscles as she rubbed back and forth, a humiliating, un satisfyingly inconclusive compromise for love.

She was sickeningly jealous of Whitney Charles of the Charles Boston Bank.

Sunday morning the wind had lulled, but a light rain still fell. While Alyssia dressed by the little electric heater, hastily skivvying into lined woolen bell-bottoms and two layers of sweaters, Barry crouched in the bed with the feather comforter pulled up around him.

She asked sympathetically, “Want me to bring you up a raw egg with Worcestershire sauce?” His favorite hangover cure.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to put in an appearance.”

He lurched from the bed, drawing his plaid robe around himself.

“Once more into the fray,” he said.

She planted an encouraging kiss on his prickly cheek—his breath smelled sour—and they linked arms as they went down the staircase.

Reaching the bottom step, they saw that the library door stood ajar.

Maxim was bent over the desk, reading.

Barry paled. With a wordless growl he careened across the dilapidated stone floor of the hallway. He yanked Maxim from his desk.

“You don’t go prying into my things,” he panted.

“What the fuck” -Maxim started.

Barry shoved at his cousin, who fell backward onto the nineteenth century arched wooden trunk where various drafts of manuscripts were stored. Maxim, recovering his balance, charged back at Barry, aiming a series of rabbit punches at the stained plaid of his robe. Barry, crying out, slapped at Maxim’s hands. A humorously amateurish scuffle.

The noise brought Diner from the kitchen.

“Jesus,” he said.

“What the hell’s up?”

“Barry never lets anyone see his writing,” Alyssia explained.

“Not even me.”

Alyssia and Diner stood, their breath showing in the cold air, their hands dangling, duelists’ seconds aware that they should stop the clumsy battle but not knowing how.

Maxim caught Barry a hard blow to the chest, Barry staggered, then rushed forward, flailing at Maxim’s tensed face.

Blood spurted from Maxim’s nose. Barry dropped his hands.

“God, Maxim, I didn’t mean that.”

Maxim struck his final assault at his now undefended opponent, raising his knee upward. Clutching at himself, grunting, Barry bent double.

Alyssia rushed to her husband’s side, leading him to the desk chair.

Diner offered Maxim his handkerchief.

“Thanks,” Maxim panted, stanching the blood.

“What the fuck was that all about, Barry old chop?”

“Ever think of asking before you look?” Barry’s question ended in an embarrassed quaver.

“In my ignorance I assumed writing is meant to be read,” Maxim said.

“Not until the final draft.”

“It’s pretty good.”

Barry straightened.

Maxim added slowly, “In fact, pretty damn good.”

“Well, if nothing else, the battle’s cured my hangover,” Barry said cheerfully.

“Had coffee?”

“I’ll have another cup,” Maxim said.

“Barrymore, I never meant to castrate you.”

He meant it, Alyssia thought, following the men into the warmth of the kitchen.

That morning Barry and Maxim stayed very close, the two exchanging family nostalgia as if to reassure each other that fisticuffs were nothing compared to their tribal past. On Barry’s invitation, Maxim—with Diner—agreed to spend another night.

Diner volunteered to go into Tours with Alyssia to buy food. Though rain turned the rolling countryside desolate, and the narrow road was slick and difficult, the shopping trip seemed exceptionally short.

Diner was excellent company. He had a ruefully gentle way about him, a likable pliability that she associated with certain homosexuals. But that, she decided, was highly unlikely. If Diner were, would Maxim, a highly publicized lady’s man, be touring Europe with him?

Alyssia, with Juanita next to her in the car, returned to Paris early the following morning for a rehearsal of Le Feu. The session, one long, uninterrupted Gallic argument, lasted until after six that night.

As Alyssia let herself wearily into the flat, a masculine voice said, “Hi.”

Maxim lounged in the easy chair, elegantly mod in his Harris tweed jacket and faded jeans.

“What are you doing here?” she asked sharply.

“I read my horoscope. It says this evening is for repaying hospitality. We’re having dinner, you and I.”

“Maxim, I’m too tired to move. Besides, Juanita’s already fixing something for me.” She glanced around for corroboration. But the open doors revealed the emptiness of the bedroom with its pair of narrow, monastic twins as well as the tiny slits of kitchen and bathroom.

“When I explained we were going out, she decided to take in Sound of Music” Alyssia’s temples throbbed painfully.

“What makes you so sure you can control everyone?”

His narrow, handsome face drained of its usual tension and the newspaper on his lap rustled onto the rug.

“Alyssia, you have no idea how humorous that remark is.”

Pressing two fingers to her aching head, she told herself that in the six workaholic, often homesick years that she’d spent building her career in France, Maxim’s invitation was the first overture made by any Cordiner other than Barry.

“All right,” she assented.

“Give me a few minutes to change.”

“No sweat. Our reservation at Laperouse isn’t until eight thirty.” As she moved to the bedroom, he reached out, patting her derriere.