Her Leading Man (29 page)

“
You’re a complete, mess, Christina Mayhew.
What
have you been doing with yourself? If you’ve given
yourself to that
slimy actor fellow, I may just have
to thrash you.”

The notion of her tiny grandmother thrashing the
tallish
Pablo Orozco
would have been amusing if
Christina didn’t feel so guilty.
Although why she
should feel guilty, she had no idea. Lifting her
chin,
she reminded herself
that men had sexual affairs all
the time. Even married men
conducted affairs on
the
side, the
rats.

Determined to brazen her way through this encounter,
she said in a voice
that might have been a little
louder than it needed to be, “I would never
touch
that
actor
fellow
, as you like to call him, in a
million
years.”

Her grandmother’s eyes shone like black glass
beads. Christina
felt like a coward when she turned
to close the door and say, “Martin Tafft
and I have
decided t
o—
” To what? She really ought to have
prepared
a
speech for this; she should have known she’d
need one. “We’ve decided
to
. . .
to see each other.”

“
See each other? You see each other all the
time.
You didn’t need to decide to do that. Are you having
an affair with
him?”

As much as Christina admired her relatives, both
male and female, and
as much as she appreciated
their open-minded attitudes toward women’s
suffrage
and
other feminist issues, she sometimes wished they were a trifle less
plainspoken. However, she wasn’t
ashamed of her dealings with Martin, and
she
shouldn’t
be shy about explaining them. Turning
again and looking at her grandmother with
as bead
y
a stare as she could come up with, she
said simpl
y, “
Yes.”

After no more than a second or two, her grandmother
nodded and seemed to
relax. “I thought
so.
Wel
l,
then,
that
’s
good, as long as you don’t succumb
to that
Orozco
person’s vile advances. But I
ha
ve
to talk to you, Christina.”

Good heavens, was that
it
? Was that all Gran was
going to say to the news that
Christina was carrying
on an illicit love affair? Was Gran so little
moved
by her
only granddaughter’s loss of maidenhood as
that?

“
I
received a telegram from Miss Paul today.”

Gran waved a sheet of yellow paper at Christina, who
blinked.

By heaven, she
was going to leave it at that!

Christina took back all the equivocal thoughts about
her family that had
just raced through her brain. She
loved them all dearly and only hoped she’d
prove
herself
to be worthy of them. “Oh? What does Miss
Paul have to say?”

Alice Paul, a militant feminist, organizer, and
champion of the
Susan B. Anthony Amendment, was
in more or less constant touch with Gran.
Gran, an
ardent feminist herself, was a staunch supporter of
Paul, who had broken
with the Women’s
Suffrage Organization,
considering them too conservative for her
tastes. Anyone who
advocated aggressive action for
any good cause was aces-up in Gran’s book.
Christina
watched her fondly.

“
There’s
going to be a march this weekend.”

Gran’s eyes glittered like polished onyx. She loved
a good, pugnacious,
picket-sign-waving, pro
-
suffrage
march above all things.

“
Oh? Where?” She cast a glance at her
grandmother’s
cane. No matter how much she liked a good
fight, Gran’s
physical complaints precluded some of
the more vigorous forms of protest that
she used to
enjoy.

“
Los Angeles. And I want to go.” She assumed
a
belligerent stance and glared at Christina as if
she’d
voiced
a protest. “I can still walk, even if I do use
a
cane.”

Christina knew better than to argue. She also knew
G
ran was right. She’d
probably insist upon participating
in marches in a
wheelchair in another ten
y
ears.
“I see. Of course. Let me ask Martin. I should
think there would be no
objection. As far as I know,
they’re still trying to figure out how to shoot
around
Pablo,
and will probably use the weekend to schedule
the revised plans.”

“
They ought to shoot
him
,” Gran said.

Christina agreed, although she didn’t say so. She
imagined she
shouldn’t ask, but
she cared about her
grandmother enough to brave her possible wrath.
She
ventured,
“Are you sure you’re up to a march,
Gran?”

She watched her grandmother straighten, lift her
chin, and assume a
soldier’s stature—a very short soldier,
to be sure, but still a soldier. “I’m
always up
to
a march, Christina. Never forget the words our
leader, the sainted Susan B.
Anthony, taught us. ‘Resistance
to tyranny’—
”

Christina joined her in reciting the last part of
the
quotation. “
‘
is obedience to God.’ Yes, I
know,
Gran.”

Mrs. Mayhew sniffed. “Truer words were never
spoken, child. It’s
only
unfortunate
that neither Miss
Anthony nor Mrs. Stanton lived
long enough to see
their cause and right and justice prevail.”

Gran might not live that long, either, although
Christina opted not
to mention it. Christina herself
was a steadfast suffragist, and she’d
gladly join in a
march for so worthy a purpose. She’d been marching
and picketing and
had been involved in all sorts of
other suffrage-related work since before
she even
knew
women were oppressed.

That state of ignorance hadn’t lasted long. By the
time she was five
years old, she knew that men
ruled—unfairly—the world and everything in
it.
Christina
would gladly support any movement that
would allow all citizens the rights
to which white
males were entitled from birth.

She ate dinner with Martin that night. Martin had
managed to secure a
secluded table in the resort’s
screened-in dining patio. Christina assumed he’d
had
to pay a
hefty tip to the serving staff in order to
accomplish the feat, because the
patio wasn’t generally
in use at night.

He listened, nodding, to her weekend plans. She
wasn’t altogether
pleased with the expression on his
face or the tepid nature of
hi
s
approval thereof. Still,
he didn’t object to her proposed
participation in a
march for women’s suffrage, and she knew
she
shouldn’t
repine.

It was a rare man who understood the nature of
the fight her
grandmother and thousands of likeminded
women had been engaged in for more
than
sixty
years. Perhaps Christina could educate him if
they stayed together long
enough.

She didn’t like the sound of that thought and
shelved it at
once.

“
I shouldn’t think it would be a problem,” he
said
after chewing and swallowing a bite of delicious
roast
lamb.
He sounded neither enthusiastic nor disapproving,
and Christina fought
off a frown with some difficulty.
“The makeup people are going to have
at
me over
the weekend, and I’ll be getting my hair
dyed and so forth. We won’t be able
to get any real
work done, as far as the filming goes.
”

His grimace of distaste amused Christina and
effectively
wiped away her doubts about his attitude
toward women’s
suffrage. “I’m sure you’ll look wonderful
as an Egyptian, Martin.”

He reached for her hand and gazed into her eyes
as
if—well, as if he
loved her. Or, she amended, not
wanting to set herself up for too great a
fall, as if
he cared about her.

“
Thanks, Christina. I hope you won’t dislike
me
with black hair. They’re going to cut my hair like
Pablo’s.”

She laughed. “As long as you don’t start acting
like Pablo, I won’t
mind at all.” She almost added
that she’d adore him no matter what he looked
like, but caught herself before making such a perilous
declaration.

“
Good.” He
squeezed her hand. “If you want
t
o
get a head start on your trip, you can leave
tomorrow.
Phin’s coming out, and we’re going to redo the
shooting
schedule. We’re already behind.”

He shook his head and sighed, and Christina’s heart
tugged painfully.
“It will be all right, Martin
.
I’
m
sure you’ll do every bit as good a job as
Pablo ever
could.”

“
I hope
so. I wished we looked more alike.”

“
If they save the close-up shots for him, I
think
you’ll look just fine.”

They made love again that night, before Christina
went back to the
room she shared with her grandmother.
Although she wouldn’t have believed it
possible
before it happened, this time was even better
than the first. To
herself, she acknowledged the depth
of her love for Martin, even though she
kept the truth
locked inside.

He asked her to marry him again. Again she refused.
This time, they
didn’t quarrel about her plans
,
and she appreciated
hi
s
forbearance. And her own.
It had occurred to her at the dinner
table that she
was sometimes a little quick to pick fights. It was
probably a habit
she’d picked up
from her relations
,
but it was rather
pleasant to exist in placidity from
time to time.

As Martin walked her to her door, she felt almost
as though she were
floating, her heart was so light
She was glad her grandmother was already
asleep.
Although
Gran, if anyone, understood and honored
a woman’s right to govern her
own body, Christina
didn’t relish the thought of Gran’s knowing looks
and
barbed
comments.

After a good night’s sleep, she was sure, she’d be
better able to fend
for herself in a conversational
battle
with
her
wicked-tongued grandmother.

El
even

“
Good God.” Martin stared at the telegram in
his
hand in disbelief. And dismay. Perhaps horror. The
weekend had been bad
before the telegram arrived,
but this was the capper.

“
What’s the matter?” Phineas Lovejoy looked
up
from his eggs, toast, and sausages. He’d arrived in
Indio on Friday,
shortly after Christina and her
grandmother
had departed for Los Angeles.

He and Martin had spent the rest of Friday and
all day Saturday
going over shooting schedules and
replanning scenes so that the change in
actors
wouldn’t be evident to the viewing audience. It was
now Sunday morning,
and Phineas aimed to leave
Indio for his home in Pasadena as soon as the
two
men
finished breakfast.