Lovers and Liars (5 page)

One-shot has-been. Another thing about Sanderson, the man was eloquent. “A bad reputation isn’t half as bad as being laughed out of the industry if I can’t make this dialogue
sound good. Besides, I wasn’t exactly an angel on the set of
L.A.P.D
. My reputation, I fear, precedes me.” He flashed her a grin. But then his face set into heavy lines of worry.

Melody clasped his shoulder, rubbing it. “You’re great. You’re going to knock ’em dead. I know it.”

“God,” Jack said, looking at the script, “so much is riding on this. I’ve got to make this good, Mel.”

“You are good, Jack,” she said firmly. “And I have some good news—I just got a call from Sanderson.”

Jack looked at her. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“North-Star just picked up what they think is a very hot screenplay for you, and they want to start production on it in December.”

Jack let out his breath in a long exhalation. He couldn’t believe it. “Already? What kind of film?”

“Similar to this. Chuck Norris with a touch of Rambo. It’s action-packed, with character development. The money boys are drooling with anticipation. I heard from the grapevine they’re going to increase PR for the release.”

“Thank you, Sanderson,” Jack said, feeling excitement grow. This shoot was almost finished. Next he had a morning talk show in New York, PR for
Berenger
, the film he was now shooting, and then a Bob Hope special in Hawaii. He was on the verge of major success, something more than being a television star for teenyboppers. He knew it. He could feel it. Not only did he think so but both Melody and Sanderson agreed. The momentum was now. He was rolling. And he wanted it so badly he was exploding with need.

“They’re Fed Ex-ing it,” Melody said. “Its title is
Outrage
. And you have an interview tonight with that reporter from
US
.”

“Oh, shit,” Jack said. “Call Diane and tell her not to come by until ten.”

Melody shook her head. “You should be in bed by ten.”

Jack grinned. “I intend to be.”

Melody didn’t smile. “Majoriis’s secretary called twice today. You haven’t RSVP’d the North-Star party for Friday night.”

“Ah, shit.”

“Jack, you have to go.”

“I know, I know. Okay, RSVP me.” Just how he wanted to spend his Friday night, ass-kissing and promoting himself. But he had no choice. Not when there was his future to think of. “RSVP us,” he said.

“Okay.” But Melody grimaced, making no move to leave.

“What is it?”

“Well”—she took a breath—“Jack, I have some, uh, bad news too. Well, maybe not exactly bad …”

“Spit it out.”

“There’s a woman. She’s been calling your office all day. Trying to reach you.”

Jack grinned and shrugged. “So what? The sun rises every day too.”

“Jack, she says she’s your mother.”

Jack felt his insides freeze up. “Really?” he said, coolly, so very coolly. “That’s impossible, Mel. My mother is dead.”

5

O
nce she had cared.

Her first memory of her father went back to when she was six. A big, loud man, always coming and going with the air of a king. Sometimes, if she’d get up very early and peek out of her door, she would catch a glimpse of him as he strode down the hallway, clad in a black suit, on his way to work. A giant of a man passing her door with aggressive, determined strides, while she watched, wanting to make herself known, but afraid to make the first move.

Afraid of rejection. Just as she was at school.

She didn’t know why it had been that way, but from the time she was very young, even in kindergarten, the other girls had always shunned her. Belinda had no use for them anyway, and she clung very hard to her scorn, for she’d been a tomboy and she would never have been caught dead playing with dolls. The boys had liked her, and she ran with them until she was ten. They would play football in the park—tackle, not touch—and Belinda was the best quarterback. They would play Softball, and Belinda was the best pitcher too. The boys didn’t mind. To them she wasn’t a girl but just one of the guys.

When she was ten she tried out for Little League along with her friends. They all made it; she didn’t. And she was the best player of all. She was furious. It was the coach who told her the rules. No girls.

Belinda had been shocked.

She had gone home and cried.

The housekeeper, a big black woman named Dorothea, had tried to comfort her. Belinda had been embarrassed to have been caught crying, and she had pushed her away. Nancy and Abe were out of town somewhere.

As soon as they came back Belinda went to her father. She had been afraid because she rarely saw him and he was bigger than life, so how was she going to ask him for help? Sometimes, when they were in the same room, he didn’t even notice her. At other times he did and sent her out. Belinda minded a lot, but she always obeyed. Anything to make him love her. Because she knew he didn’t.

But she had loved him.

The way a person loves God. From a distance, with devout admiration. Belinda knew he could fix it with the coach and get her on the team.

The first time she approached him had been on a weekend when he was dressing to go out with Nancy for dinner. Belinda hung in the doorway, suddenly unable to speak, wishing he would notice her. Finally he did. “Hey, kid,” he said. “What are you doing?”

She gulped. “Dad, I was wondering—”

“Nancy, let’s go. We’re late, for crissake.”

End of conversation.

She finally caught him late at night in his study. He was immersed in work. Abe noticed her when she coughed. “Belinda, what are you doing up?” There was a note of irritation in his voice.

“Dad, I have to ask you something,” she had said bravely.

“You should be in bed. Does your mother know you’re up?”

“No, I … Dad, please.” Tears had filled her eyes. It was so hard to get him to listen to her. And this was so important.

“All right, what is it?”

She explained about the team, about how she was the best player, about how all her friends had made it, but the coach wouldn’t even let her try out, because she was a girl. She had stumbled over the words in her anxiety. But she knew now that everything would be all right. Her father, like God, could do anything.
Anything
.

“And that’s the problem?” Abe said, lifting a shaggy brow.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He had laughed. “The coach is right. Baseball is for boys. Which you are not, unfortunately. It’s time you stopped acting like a boy and started behaving like a girl.” He began to write on a pad.

Belinda couldn’t believe what she had heard. “You won’t help?”

“Didn’t you hear me? No, I won’t help. Now, go to bed!”

She had run back to her room, trying as hard as she could not to cry, thinking, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. But once in bed, the tears came.

Football wasn’t organized, so in the fall and winter she could still play with the boys after school and on weekends. By now—for she was almost eleven—the girls thought she was a freak and made fun of her behind her back, yet openly enough that she always knew.

She had stopped playing football the day Jay Goldstein
tackled her and grabbed her budding breasts. That day she went home and cried hard, hating what was happening to her, hating Jay, hating all the boys, wishing she were a boy, hating God for making her a girl. She knew, without a doubt, if her father hadn’t loved her before her body had begun to change into a woman’s he wouldn’t love her at all now.

That was the year she had gotten Lady for her birthday. It was her dream come true, and when she saw the beautiful bay mare at the stable and Nancy told her she was hers, Belinda forgave her father and loved him with all her heart. She hugged her mother, a rare display of affection. Her father was out of town, but the day he got back she waited up for him, past her bedtime, to tell him how thankful and happy she was.

He had gazed at her blankly. “You what? You got a horse for your birthday?”

She stared. Her face fell. No, this wasn’t happening, it was a bad dream …

“Your mother got you a horse for your birthday,” he said, clearly surprised. Then he smiled. “Well, maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”

She didn’t cry, not in front of him, not until she was in her room, her haven. Then she sobbed until she couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t known. He didn’t care. He didn’t care at all.

From then on she had stayed away from him as much as he did from her. That took no effort at all on her part because she rarely saw him. Worse, he didn’t even notice she was avoiding him. Then when she was thirteen he took her summer away from her. She had no friends in the city. The girls openly hated her. The boys wanted only to stick their hands up her skirt. Summer was everything. She had Lady, and her best friend, Dana, who was also a tomboy and her first girlfriend. And she had the ocean and her books. She lived for summertime in the Hamptons. And now
he
wanted her to go to camp instead for two months. No way. Never.

She went.

But not without fighting him with every ounce of
strength she possessed. “I’m not going,” she had shouted, crying.

“You’re going!” Abe roared. “Just who do you think you are, Miss Princess? Spoiled. Your mother’s spoiled you rotten. You’re going.”

“Mom!” Belinda pleaded desperately.

“Abe!” Nancy, pale, did try.

“Shut up!”

“I hate you,” Belinda sobbed hysterically. “I hate you. I’ll run away. I’ll—”

“You hate me?” Abe had asked, suddenly quiet.

“Yes!” Belinda shouted defiantly. “I’ve always hated you!”

The slap right across the face took her by surprise, the sound cracking like a whip in the sudden lull of silence. Before Belinda could even comprehened that he had hit her, before she could recover, before the throbbing began, Abe had said, “You hate me? I gave you that damn horse. I give you those damn books you read. Those jeans and that shirt—who do you think puts the clothes on your back? This house—you think other kids get a room like this all to themselves? And the toys—those horse models you’ve got to play with? Huh? You hate me?”

“I hate you,” she said, clenching her jaw, turning red.

His mouth worked. He balled up his fists. “You’re going! If I gotta tie you and throw you on that bus myself, you’re going! Do I make myself clear?”

Belinda said, “Very,” her voice barely audible. Then she turned and ran. She heard Abe saying to Nancy, “Don’t you dare go after her.” And Nancy hadn’t.

Camp was a nightmare. As usual, all the girls shunned her. A friendly counselor tried to tell her it was because she was so beautiful, and they were jealous. Belinda had never heard such a crazy thing, but she took a long look in the mirror, searching to see if what the counselor had said was true. She was also the most popular girl at the first coed dance, held at the end of the second week, and that further increased her wonder. An older boy took her into the bushes, somehow evading the counselors (who were college
kids too busy making it with one another to really care) and kissed her, her first kiss, his hands beneath her shirt and on her breasts. She was utterly confused. She didn’t want boys to look at her that way. But it was pleasant—more than pleasant.

She didn’t go to the second dance at the end of the month. That was the night she ran away from camp, hitching a ride to town and catching a bus back to New York. She had despised camp, and there was no point in staying. She wasn’t going to let her father make a decision for her that was so important to her and meant nothing to him.

She would never forget the next day. Hearing those strange noises from her mother’s bedroom as she approached to defensively tell her she was home—to stay. The door had been shut, not locked. Belinda knocked, but there was no answer. She walked in.

Her mother had been on her back on the bed, cross-ways. Her shirt was open, breasts exposed. Her skirt was shoved up around her waist. A man was on top of her, pushing his hips at her rhythmically, braced on his forearms above her. Her mother was making strange noises, and there was a steady slapping sound of flesh hitting flesh. Belinda must have gasped.