Power Play (27 page)

Monty didn't look at her as he folded his handkerchief back up into a small square. “She called me an old man,” he said softly.

You are old,
Monica thought. But she felt badly for him and for how wounded he seemed. Some people dealt with aging better than others. Monty had only last year stopped dying his hair when one of his old students told him he looked like Bela Lugosi. He hadn't had any plastic surgery, though occasionally, when he looked sallow, Monica had known him to pinch some color into his cheeks or use a dab of her lipstick instead.

“I'm sure she didn't mean it as an insult,” Monica pointed out kindly.

“No one ever does.” Monty looked up at her. “Growing old isn't for sissies, Monica, I can tell you that. And it's certainly not for actors. I should have lived fast, died young, and left a pretty corpse. Jimmy Dean and Monty Clift had the right idea.”

“You're aging with dignity, Monty. That's more than some people can say.”

“Fuck dignity, my dear.”

“I thought dignity was very important to you,” said Monica, surprised. “I thought it was one of the reasons you refused to do TV. Especially daytime TV.”

“Yes, well.” Clearly Monty wasn't in the mood to listen. “Where have you been? I phoned you a few times over the weekend, and there was no answer.”

“On a weekend cruise. With my cast mates and our new executive producer, who's a nightmare.”

“How so?”

“He made us do these trust exercises, talk about ourselves . . .” Monica shuddered. “And he came on to me. He insinuated that if I slept with him, he'd beef up my part. As if I need his help!”

“God, what a cliché,” Monty sniffed. He leveled Monica with a stern gaze. “I hope you said no.”

Monica's mouth fell open. “Of course I did!”

“Because integrity's very important in this business, Monica. Very, very important. You must never submit to blackmail. Or threats.”

“The way you did?” Monica shot back. She couldn't help it. She hadn't been unable to stop thinking about it ever since Gloria told her.

Monty's fingers curled tightly around the folded handkerchief in his hand. “I beg your pardon?”

“Gloria told me about what happened when you were directing
Othello
,” Monica said quietly.

Monty raised an eyebrow. “Oh yes? And what exactly did the old boot tell you?”

“How you succumbed to pressure from the producer and fired her from the part.”

“Yes.” Monty licked his lips nervously and looked away. His voice was barely audible as he said, “It was quite unfortunate, and possibly one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.”

Monica rocked back slightly, shocked by his admission. She wasn't sure she'd ever heard her mentor admit to making a mistake about anything. His talent matched his ego; that had always been the case.

Monty seemed lost in thought, so lost Monica hesitated to break his spell. Eventually, Monty broke it himself, smoothing his handkerchief and shoving it back into the front pocket of his smoking jacket. “Well,” he said with tense finality.

Monica searched his eyes. “Did you ever tell her you thought it was one of the biggest mistakes you ever made?”

Monty hesitated. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I was ashamed.”

“So you just let the friendship
die
?”

“She wouldn't have forgiven me anyway,” Monty insisted. “Gloria is one of the most unyielding, unforgiving creatures to ever draw breath.”

“Have you missed her?”

Monty's eyes turned cold. “I think we've discussed this subject long enough, don't you?”

No,
thought Monica. She was bursting with questions she knew she could never ask. Had they been more than friends—lovers, maybe, or on their way to being in love when the
Othello
debacle tore them apart? Had he ever picked up the phone to call her only to get cold feet at the last minute? Each must have thought of the other over the years. In fact, she knew they did. Many was the time Gloria asked about him (calling him His Royal Ass or something worse) and vice versa. Monica resolved that next time she spoke to Gloria, she'd try to get more info out of her.

Monica forced herself to stay another hour, chatting with Monty, paying some of his bills. She was eager to go, which made her feel guilty, but she had things to do. It was only on the cab ride home that she realized why she so desperately wanted to depart: his loneliness reminded her of her own.

TWENTY

“I feel like I'm in some bizarre parallel universe.”

Eric shook his head in disbelief. Sitting in a dark-paneled, trendy café in the Village with Jason, he'd just finished explaining how Monica had rejected him, despite his declaration of undying love. Two years ago, Jason had been the lovelorn sap seeking advice from Eric, the self-proclaimed expert on women.

“Did you tell her you know you'd been a fucking jerk?” Jason asked, blowing into his mug of hot chocolate.

“Of course I told her. She seemed unfazed.”

“She's playing it cool,” Jason said knowingly.

Eric just grunted.

“How did you leave things?”

“I told her that I've won a Stanley Cup, and that if I can do that, I can win her back, too.”

Jason looked impressed. “Good one.”

Eric puffed up. “Thank you. I thought that was pretty clever.”

Jason leaned across the table toward him. “As you once told me, you gotta go for the big gesture. ‘Chicks love the big gesture.' Do you remember saying that to me?”

Eric groaned. “Yes, unfortunately.” He took a sip of his espresso. “Well, how much bigger a gesture can I make than saying I love her, admitting I'm a jerk, and begging her for a second chance?” he lamented.

“You have to woo her.”

Eric squinted in alarm. He pictured himself standing beneath Monica's window, strumming a mandolin. Of course, that would be useless, since she lived on the twenty-seventh floor.

“Give me an example of wooing,” he said to his brother. He knew he sounded pathetic, but he didn't care.

“Well, you could send her a big box of candy.”

Eric snorted. “Yeah, right. She's an actress, Jace. She'd either throw it out or throw it up. She lives on coffee, cigarettes, and breath mints.”

“I've seen her eat,” Jason countered.

“Monica's not the candy type, believe me.”

Jason drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Flowers. Send her flowers every day for a week.”

“Not bad,” Eric said listlessly. “It's a possibility.”

“Jesus Christ, Eric, you're not an idiot—well, not most of the time, anyway. You can figure out something that will really wow her.”

“Maybe you're right,” Eric said, grateful for his brother's cheerleading as he stole a sip from Jason's hot chocolate.

Jason looked annoyed. “I hate when you do that. I've always hated when you do that.”

Eric chuckled evilly. “I know.”

Jason settled back into an expression of semiaffection. “I hope you get her back; I really do.”

Eric frowned glumly into his espresso. “Me, too.”

 

“You may be carrying Grayson's child, you little slut, but
I
have his heart.” Monica sighed as she walked down the hall to her apartment after a long day's work. She'd already started learning her lines for the next day so she could make it an early night, but saying them aloud to herself, she wasn't sure she liked the cadence.

“You may be carrying Grayson's child, you little slut, but I have his
heart
.”

No, the other sounded better, she thought to herself as she turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Somthing crinkled beneath her feet, and she looked down: there was a large pink envelope with her name on it. Puzzled, she bent to pick it up, at the same time becoming alarmed. What if Rennie, her stalker, had somehow managed to gain access to her building? Spooked, she hung up her coat, then pulled out the mace she kept in her bag and slowly crept from room to room, making sure she was alone. She was, thank God. Relieved, she made herself a cup of tea, curling up on the couch with the mystery envelope.

Inside was a pink piece of paper upon which was written a poem entitled, “Come Back to Me.” By Eric. She knew it was Eric because she recognized the small, crabbed handwriting. “Oh, God,” she thought, steeling herself. Then she began to read.

Monica put the poem down beside her and covered her mouth with her hands, speechless. This was, quite possibly, the worst poem she had ever read in her life. She glanced back down at the poem and began laughing, then abruptly halted. It was mean to laugh. It was. It had probably taken him hours to write it. She could imagine him agonizing over it at his kitchen table, crossing out lines, tearing at his blond hair. It had probably taken a lot out of him emotionally as well to make himself that vulnerable to her.

She picked the up poem again, thinking she should throw it out. That seemed kind of cruel, though it wasn't like Eric would ever know. She read it through a few more times, then decided to save it—
not
because she cared, but because no one had ever written a love letter to her before. Valentine cards exchanged in first grade didn't count.

She carefully folded the poem back into its envelope. She had to admit, she was touched by his effort, despite its ineptness.

But not enough to take him back.

TWENTY-ONE

 

“Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
Stop
.”

All movement on the set halted as Christian made a beeline for Monica with a rolled-up copy of that day's script in his hand, his mouth pursed in displeasure.

“You,” he said to Monica as if she were a peon. “You're completely phoning it in today.”

“I most certainly am not,” Monica scoffed.

“I'm the executive producer, and I say you are.”

Monica flinched inwardly, mortified by an upbraiding by this moron. She never phoned it in, even when she was running a 101 fever with the flu or about to faint from bad period cramps.
Never.
How dare he—?

She tensed as Christian turned to Chessy with a big smile on his face. “You, on the other hand, are doing great, Chessy. Just great.” He winked at Chessy, and she winked back at him, adding what she must have thought was an undetectable lascivious lick of her upper lip. Monica felt her guts turn and prepared for another take.

 

“You turned the midget down for sex, didn't you?”

Monica leaned against the console in the control booth, counting out how many aspirin Jimmy was about to down with his coffee. Six, by the look of it. She wondered how much of his stomach was left.

She'd deliberately sought him out because she needed his opinion on whether he thought she'd “phoned it in.” She knew she could count on him to tell her the truth.

Monica stared at him. “How did you know that?”

“Uh, maybe because the guy has a rep for banging leading ladies?”

What? Monica had never heard this before! How was such a thing possible? Everyone knew everyone in this biz.

“I didn't know that,” said Monica.

“Well, it's true. You turned him down, and now he's gonna make you pay, the petty bastard.”

“He can try,” said Monica. “But I'm not going to lie down and just take it.”

“Maybe you should have,” Jimmy wisecracked. He held up a hand. “Sorry. That was crude of me.” He offered her half of his pastrami sandwich.

Monica shook her head no.

“Obviously he's banging Chesteroo.”

Monica's eyes lit up. “You caught that, too?”

“Everyone did.”

Monica began picking at the cuticle of her left thumb. “You think he's going to beef up her role?”

“It's possible,” said Jimmy. “Depends how much control he can exert over the new writing staff.”

“Know anything about them?”

Jimmy sighed. “I know the two new head writers are new to daytime.”

“What?” Monica squawked. Usually, daytime writers were playing a constant game of musical chairs. A writer would get fired from one show and would immediately pop up on another, while a writer at yet another show would replace that very same writer from their previous job. Writers rarely left the genre, choosing instead to drop dead at their keyboards at a ripe old age. The money was simply too good to pass up.