Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (46 page)

The lights came on; everyone began to stretch and talk among themselves.

Yves started talking technicalities with the film editor and the dour-looking director of photography. Karim, sitting off by himself, wore an ugly expression. Webb Carnahan wasn't present, and neither was Anne. Sal Espinoza sauntered up, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, what do you think? Such fire, such passion!" His smile was as enigmatic as usual. "I wonder why those two did not want to watch how their scene turned out?"

He studied Harris with hooded eyes, noting the total lack of expression in the other man's face that was belied by the sudden gleam of something-was it triumph or malice-in the opaque gray eyes. "Anne's probably waiting for us downstairs-she's with Hal Brightman and Jean. As for Carnahan ..."

"Anna-Maria tells me he was not in a very good mood. She, by the way, also decided to join the good doctor's meditation classes, although I understand he does not want them referred to as such. What do they call it now? Encounter groups, rap sessions?"

Espinoza shrugged. "Shall we be joining them for dinner soon?"

Making up his mind, Harris said quietly, "I think we ought to talk for a few minutes first. I've had an idea of how we might settle a few of our little problems."

Determined not to take a Valium tonight after all the wine she'd drunk at dinner, Anne found herself unable to sleep. She'd locked her door. Both doors, in fact, so that Harris, if he tried the one that connected their rooms, would know she wanted to be left alone. Harris never pressured her. He was patient, always understanding. She was comfortable with him, he made her feel protected while he showed how he loved her without being obtrusive about it. Why couldn't she love him back and uncomplicate everything?

"I'm human, too, Anne," he had said during that morning-after discussion. He'd been honest with her-up to a point. Was he back upstairs watching everyone else on that video monitor? Never mind. Push back the inclination to get dressed and go upstairs to join them herself. Now she understood the sick fascination of the voyeur, watching other people in their most intimate moments, revealing themselves without realizing they were being observed.

Just as she had revealed her own sickness earlier today, with everyone watching.

Don't think about it! That's what Hal Brightman had told her before all those others came in. Jean Benedict, black hair flying. And later, surprisingly, Anna-Maria, smiling.

Her hair was damp-she had knotted it at the back of her head.

"I've been under the shower for hours. I'm glad there's no water shortage this far down the coast, or I would have felt guilty." Was there something to be read in the look she flashed at Anne?

But Anna-Maria had a way with everyone, just as if she sensed all their weaknesses.

She flattered Dr. Brightman; she smiled at Jean as she sat down next to her, letting their shoulders brush. "I hope I am not intruding, or interrupting anything? But this evening I, too, need to-how do you say it here? To unwind. I do not like the feeling of tension inside me."

They had all been tense, for different reasons. After a while, Jean, without any apology, produced a joint from the pocket of her sweatshirt, lit it and pulled on it deeply, then passed it around.

"Carmel Valley Gold-the best!" she said. And it had been strong. Anne could feel her head become light after just one drag.

After that they had sat around talking, the discussion getting franker as the effects of the grass became felt.

Jean had been married for a while, to a fellow political activist. She had a daughter, four years old now, whom she adored. "But she lives with my folks-hell, what kind of a life could I give her? I found out I have to do my own thing, or go bananas. And he didn't do anything for me. It was a symbolic kind of thing, us getting married-you dig?

We were trying a different trip, and after a while we found out for sure where we both were at. Now I'm really free, in my head."

"And you?" Like an orchestra conductor, Brightman had looked at Anna-Maria.

"Me? Oh, I suppose I will sound like something from a book you might pick up to read. I am Cuban, you know. I escaped to this country during the revolution. I was very young then, but I had seen much-too many bad, frightening things. I tried to put the memories out of my mind. They gave me a job, teaching Spanish, and it filled my time until I met someone. He worked for your government-you understand? We fell in love, and we got married. But I guess they didn't like that too much-his bosses. So"-she had been looking down, Anne remembered, her fingers playing with the edge of her silk skirt; Jean had produced another fat joint, and Anna-Maria had sucked in the smoke deeply before she continued speaking-"one day, when my husband was away, on a mission for them, they sent someone to see me. They told me that I could share in what he was doing, that I could help them, if I would. It meant going back to Cuba. But at the time, do you know, I was actually proud that they had asked me to do this thing? They warned me of the risks that might be involved, but I did not think of them. So, I went, and they caught me. I think I was meant to be caught." How matter-of-fact her voice had sounded! Even when she said in the same quiet voice,

"They tortured me-I found I could not stand pain and I told them everything I knew, which was not much. One of the Russian advisers they had then gave me this truth serum, and when they knew I had really spoken the truth, they set me free. By then, I was a different person. They had made me believe that my husband had known, and let me go-oh, I didn't know what to believe, but it was easier to believe what they told me, you understand? The Russian was kind-he loved me in his way and protected me until he had to go back home. And by then I had been accepted, and there were other protectors. One day I found myself set free to travel if I wished-and I met Espinoza. We get on well together without too many demands. And that is all .. ."

"The bastards! Jesus Christ, most men are bastards!" Jean Benedict had been vehement, Dr. Brightman quietly soothing. Anne had stayed silent, feeling removed and out of it. Because the other woman had experienced almost everything, and she had not-spending most of her life protected from reality.

There was nothing she could contribute-everything she had been through was nothing in comparison. Jean had been in jail for voicing her indignation at the Vietnam War. Anna-Maria had been duped and tortured. She hadn't been set free in the jungle of life to survive-or perish.

She had been relieved-and guilty because she felt relieved-when the call came to say that dinner was being served.

Webb had been there. Even now, Anne's mind shied away at the recollection. Her head had still been buzzing from the effects of the dope, but she'd noticed, resentfully, that he ignored the carefully lettered place cards and chose to sit next to her, where Harris should have been.

"Hi, Annie. How's it going?"

"Fine! Why do you ask?" Her attempt at lightness a miserable failure. His hair was still damp, too. How long had that shower lasted? She'd seen him ride off with Anna-Maria, pretending not to notice, and the thoughts were beginning to crowd themselves in her mind. It wasn't fair-he wasn't giving her a chance.

"Why? Because I want to know, I guess." His eyes were yellow-gold: stalking eyes, like those of a Bengal tiger she'd watched in a zoo-pretending to be asleep, but watching and wary, all coiled-spring muscles under smooth skin.

Her eyes dropped away from his as she made a production of buttering a roll. "I wish you'd stop playing games with me, Webb. Why not spend the effort somewhere else?"

He had surprised her by laughing. Taking the knife from her shamefully shaking fingers to finish the job she'd started efficiently.

"Why don't you stop playing?" His fingers, brushing hers, sent shock waves jolting through her body. His voice was soft, meant to disarm her. Soft, and curiously caressing. "You're a coward, Annie-love. Always running away. Is it only me you run from?"

She hated him at that moment. He was so sure of himself, words like tiger claws striking in beneath her guard to the softest, most secret parts of her. And it shamed her that he knew and had the power to play on her weakness. Damn him!

She forced herself to say coldly, "What do you want with me, Webb?" Anna-Maria was watching them. So was Claudia, from the other end of the table. And Dr.

Brightman, looking worried.

"I'm not sure, Annie. I can think of a lot of reasons, but I haven't come up with the right one yet. You don't stay around long enough for me to find out."

"That's not an answer!" She had been playing with the knife, and his fingers closed over hers, stilling their compulsive motion.

"I know it isn't. And don't go for me with that thing. Do you have an answer? I'd like to walk with you in the moonlight and talk to you, baby. Away from all the watching cameras. Will you come?"

She gave him a sharp, startled look, and saw his eyes narrow speculatively. There was no time for her to reply-and later, yes even now, she didn't know if she was glad or sorry! that Karim, arriving late, had chosen to plant himself in the seat to her right.

With his coming the moment-whatever had been there for a short time between her and Webb-had disintegrated.

"We have been watching the dailies. What an actress you are! You should have been there, Anne. Surely you're not embarrassed at seeing yourself on the screen? I am looking forward to our scenes together, especially since I have seen how well you throw yourself into the role you are playing."

Karim had smiled at her, but his black eyes were malicious. Anne had smiled back deliberately, her mind and her senses at war with each other. She didn't dare look at Webb, but she was all too much aware of him; of the fact that he had let his hand drop away from hers and had turned away to talk to Sarah, who had come down from the screening room with Karim.

His question and the question inside herself had gone unanswered-so much the better! With Karim, whose motives were all too obvious, it was easy to stay cool and uninvolved.

Uninvolved ... if only she could have stayed that way! She should have listened to Craig when he tried to warn her in London of what she might be getting into. And Webb was right in a way; she'd made a habit of running away, camouflaging it by pretending she was searching, seeking her own identity -but did she have one?

The distant thunder of the surf outside her windows drew Anne from bed. With a quick, almost vicious movement she tugged the heavy draperies apart and undid the catch on the French windows that led out onto the narrow window's walk. Cold, salt-spiced air iced her face and her body.

"Walk with me in the moonlight," Webb had asked her before Karim came. The three-quarter moon was broken quicksilver running between black rocks-riding on swells, contrasting with the darker shapes of kelp beds. The pewter ocean seemed to breathe with the rise and fall of waves that would break, lace-fringed, on the beach and against the cliffs the house stood on.

When she was a child she had crouched clutching at the wrought-iron railing of the balcony, watching the ocean and willing tall-masted ships to sail out of the horizon.

Sometimes, when it was foggy, she could almost see the wind-filled sails, the skull-and-crossbones flag breaking out at the last moment. Pirates. And because she was a princess and not at all afraid of them, they would accept her as one of their own-their chief would adopt her and she would have a ship of her own, like Anne Bonney

... A light blinked far away on the horizon, and the grown-up Anne thought, A fishing boot, out late. What if she had gone walking in the moonlight with him? What then?

ANNE'S VOICE CAME OVER CLEARLY on the tape-courtesy of Brightman, who was conscientious and obedient, but fortunately a fool.

"I hate him-I really do! And I despise him. I don't want him to touch me, but when he does ... I don't understand what happens to me then. Like today-with all those people watching. I forgot there was anyone watching, do you understand? I forgot .. , oh God! What does that make me? I used to think I wasn't normal, there was always something inside me that held back. I can't respond, I can't feel as a woman should-except with him. And I don't know why. He's a womanizer, I don't mean anything to him. He's a-what do you call the male equivalent of a nymphomaniac? A satyr-oh, good! That's Webb. He just likes fucking-any woman that's available. I know all this. I know what he is. But when he puts his hands on me, I'm lost. It's like I become another person. It happened the first time we met, and by then I'd accepted the fact that I was-frigid. I still am-with everyone else. People I really care for, who care for me. But not with Webb. He turns me into a hungry bitch ... Did I tell you I despise him? Well, I despise myself more!"

Brightman's voice was soothing. "He was the first man who gave you an orgasm?

That's normal, Anne. All your feelings are completely normal. Stop telling yourself anything different. You've been hemmed in and controlled all your life; you associate your first time of breaking out of your cage with your first time of sexual satisfaction.

Stop feeling ashamed of your feelings. Accept them-we're all sexual beings, and have been from childhood, whether we realize that or not."

"But it doesn't explain the way I react to-to the bastard!"

Harris turned the volume down. At that point, unfortunately, Jean Benedict had decided to intrude. Keeping his face expres-sionless,he turned to Espinoza.

Typically, the man stretched and yawned before he made his comment. "She sounds very vehement, does she not? And confused as well. Typical of most American women, don't you think? After centuries of repression they find everything handed to them on a silver platter, and they don't know how to react! They must equate sexual satisfaction with love. When the two don't go together, they don't know how to take it.

It makes her intriguing, somehow. I myself would like to find out if I could make her feel-without this thing called love coming in the way."

Harris merely shrugged irritably. "That would be up to you-and Anne, naturally. Right now I'm more concerned with Webb Carnahan, and what he's up to. Anna-Maria hasn't been able to find out much, has she?"