Starstruck (14 page)

S
ooner or later she would crack, Joe told himself. She couldn’t keep on being Miss Stainless Steel forever. But for two weeks she hadn’t been doing too bad a job of it, he admitted, ripping another sheet out of his typewriter and crumpling it up.

The floor was littered with paper—his screenplay—but his mind was littered with thoughts of Liv—Liv saying, “No thank you,” when he invited her to dinner; Liv saying, “I’m busy,” when he suggested going for a swim; Liv saying, “I can’t, but I’m sure the kids would love to,” when he offered to drive them to Milwaukee to the zoo or a ba
l
l game. Nothing he came up with made the slightest dent in her refusal to have anything more to do with him. And nothing he could do succeeded in banishing her from his mind.

How he’d tried! After he figured out that she was going to do her iceberg imitation every time he came near, he thought that if she could do it, he could too. That was when he discovered how limited an actor he actually was. He couldn’t stop himself watching her every move
,
couldn’t pretend indifference to her curtness, couldn’t feign coldness if she ignored him whenever he came around. It wasn’t his nature. Instead he tried harder, agonized more, and ached to the very core of his being.

His salvation—if he had one—was the kids. Their cheerfulness made her coldness bearable. They arrived enthusiastically almost every morning, stayed all day, mucking about in the kitchen and yard as though it were their own home, hurrying to tell him their latest accomplishments
or
bemoan their setbacks. They invited him to all their games and swim meets, some of which Liv attended, too, when her work permitted, and to impromptu picnic suppers, swearing that “Mom said it was okay.” Oddly enough they gave him a comfort and an anonymity that he hadn’t had in years.

A man surrounded by five bouncing, babbling children—even though he might be a dead ringer for famous actor Joe Harrington—scarcely got a second glance. Everybody knew that the lady on Joe Harrington’s arm would never be a five-year-old with straw-colored pigtails!

He could hear Jennifer giggling now, her shrill laughter ringing out above the boys’ as they hammered and sawed, and he got up out of his chair in the den and went to the window to watch them. Usually Jennifer didn’t come—she stayed most days with her regular babysitter, Margie, and, nominally, he supposed the younger boys did, too. But though Margie might be their official baby-sitter, Ben, Stephen and Theo spent nearly all their time with him. And before he had left for scout camp the day before, Noel, too, had become a fixture here.

Liv, as far as Joe could tell, tolerated the situation. She seemed to realize that if she forbade them to come it would be worse—rather like forbidding one’s children to see undesirable friends, he thought ruefully, wondering how his straight-laced parents would feel about that. They had done it to him often enough. Probably, he decided, they would agree with Liv. In any case, Liv hadn’t
actually objected, though she did spend an inordinate amount of time when he was around her cautioning them not to bother him and to remember their manners, in such a way that he felt her disapproval even if they didn’t.

“Hey, Ma! Hi, Ma. C’mere!” He heard Theo shout, and Joe craned his neck to see Liv coming around the side of the house, looking very proper in a navy knit shirtdress, her hair piled in a severe knot on her head, and her gray eyes hidden behind owlish sunglasses.

Liv? Here? That was a first. His stomach roiled and he rubbed suddenly-damp palms on the sides of his faded denim cut-offs. Taking a deep breath he went to the door and opened it. She was standing on the porch, seemingly undecided whether to knock or to cross the yard to where the kids were in the tree, waving at her.

“Well, look who’s here,” he said with a false heartiness that he knew didn’t mask his nervousness at all. Why had she come? Had she finally decided to give him a chance? His mouth felt dry and he licked his lips hurriedly.

She seemed to be looking at him from behind the dark lenses, but then almost as quickly, her head turned back so that she was looking toward the children in the tree, and she said expressionlessly, “I’ve come for an interview.”

“What?”

She shrugged. “You didn't expect it to be a secret that you were in town, did you? Frances saw you in the grocery store.” She grimaced behind the glasses as though plagued by a distasteful memory. “Even got your autograph, I hear. So Marv wants a follow-up story on the one I did earlier.”

Joe dragged a chaise longue over into the sun and motioned her into it, fetching himself a chair. “And you decided to do it?” he asked, unable to disguise the hopefulness in his voice. He was ready to take advantage of any opportunity at this point.

“I didn’t have much choice,” Liv told him flatly. “If I hadn’t come, he’d have sent Frances. And I didn’t know
what
you’d tell her.”

He wished she’d take the glasses off so that he could see her face. How else was he supposed to know what she was thinking in that suspicious little mind of hers. “I don’t kiss and tell, if that’s what you’re implying,” he said coolly.

“No, you just kiss a lot.”

Well, she hadn’t softened her stance toward him, that was certain. He leaned forward in the chair, his forearms testing on his knees, hands loosely clasped. “I haven’t kissed anyone since you, Liv.”

“I want an interview, not a confession story,” Liv said coldly, and sat up on the very edge of the chaise longue, perching precariously like a very stiff crane about to take flight.

Joe sighed. He wanted to reach out and stroke her, take her hair down and run his hands through it, soothe the stiffness out of her, ease the tension he saw in her shoulders. And all he could do was talk. One move would be disaster. One touch and she would flee. “All right,” he said heavily. “Shoot.”

Liv looked at him uneasily, as though she hadn’t expected him to cooperate willingly, if at all. “Very well,” she said
fi
nally, and reached into her purse for a note pad and a small cassette recorder. “Do you object?” she asked, indicating the recorder.

“No. I only object to one thing.”

“What?” she asked warily, as if she would rather not know.

“The glasses. I don’t like talking to people I can’t see.” He needed access to her face. If he couldn’t touch her, at least he had to have that. He lifted one brow in silent entreaty. “Please?”

Slowly Liv’s hand went to her temple and she lifted the glasses off, like a knight removing his armor, and just as reluctantly. Her eyes mirrored just the turbulent
storm he had expected, and his mouth lifted slightly at one co
rn
er. She wasn’t as indifferent to him as she pretended. Good.

He dipped his dark head, concentrating on the toes of his bare feet, leaving the next move up to her. That she was here was enough. He wasn’t about to say anything to spook her now. Let her take the lead.

“I—I suppose that Marv wants to know why you’re back in Madison,” she began awkwardly. He could hear her shift uncomfortably in the chaise longue, but he didn’t look up. The sun baked his back, drying up his nervous perspiration.

“I’m working on a screenplay,” he said slowly. “In Hollywood everyone is on my back about Steve Scott. Scripts pop out of the woodwork, directors and producers rail at all hours. There isn’t a moment’s peace.” He spread his hands helplessly.

“Poor you,” Liv mocked unsympathetically and wrote something on her pad. The cassette whirred on.

“Your understanding is overwhelming,” Joe muttered. Damn her, couldn’t she give an inch?

“I’m not being paid to understand you,” Liv replied, “only to interview you.”

Joe sighed and shifted uncomfortably in the creaky deck chair. “I used to think you understood me,” he said quietly.

Something flickered in Liv’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

“When we talked on the phone all those times, when we cooked dinner, when we—”

“Never mind about that,” Liv said abruptly, cutting him off. “How long will you be here?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“What?”

“Unless you listen to me about what I want to talk about, I won’t give you the interview.”

Liv glared at him, her fingers clenching, snapping her pencil. “Damn!” she muttered.

“Come on, Liv,” he pleaded. “All I want to do is talk.”

“That’s not all you want to do!” Liv snapped, her jaw tense, the sensitive cords of her neck standing out.

“It’s all I want to do now!” Joe retorted. “What do you think I’m going to do? Ravish you right here on the lawn in front of four of your children?”

“You nearly did in front of one of them!” Liv said angrily, her hand going up to brush her already severe hairstyle into even greater order.

“Well, you sure weren’t fighting me off!”

“The more fool I! I should have had my head examined, going o
ut with you, eating with you…
” Her voice rose and then trailed off as if she couldn’t bring herself to finish what she was going to say.

“Making love with me,” Joe finished for her, and Liv exploded.

“No! You don’t know what love is!”

“And you’re the world’s greatest expert, I suppose?” he said scornfully, and immediately wished he hadn’t. She looked stricken, as though he had hit her in the most vulnerable spot there was.

“Hardly,” she said bitterly in a voice that made him ache. A speedboat roared by towing a water-skier, and Joe watched the wake of the boat, unable to look at Liv and see the hurt he knew was in her face.

Finally he rubbed an anxious hand across the back of his neck, lifting the sweat-dampened locks of hair that clung there. “I’m sorry, Liv,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, no.” Her voice was shaky; her hands twisted the broken pencil in her lap. “You’re right. And I can’t blame you for what happened that night. As much as I might like to. I was as willing as you were. But it was a mistake.”

Joe shook his head violently. “No. It wasn’t.”

Liv jumped to her feet and crossed the porch, her back to him. He got up and followed her, stopping a few
feet behind her, held back by an invisible shield that wouldn’t let him get any closer. “Yes, it was. I don’t want that sort of relationship. I want love, commitment, marriage, all those things I thought I had with Tom—” Her voice broke and her head bent. Then she shook it angrily and spun around to face him. ‘"I won’t be one of your women, Joe. I let my passions take over that one night. I won’t do it again!”

The stormy, to
rn
ado-cloud-gray of her eyes held his green ones in silent battle, and he swallowed hard, his mouth dry. She reminded him of a doe, frightened and defenseless, facing a hunter with a loaded gun. If only she knew he was just as scared of her as she was of him, he thought. But then he realized that it wasn’t just him that she was seeing. “Tom really hurt you, didn’t he?” he ventured.

Liv frowned, a tiny line appearing between her brows, accentuating her vulnerability. He wanted to take her in his arms, comfort her, but he knew if he even heaved a sigh or took a step she might vanish. So he held completely still, not even breathing. Her gaze slid past him to concentrate on the grove of trees near the lakeshore. “Yes,” she said woodenly. “I guess you could say that. I was devastated at the time.”

“Wha
…
” Joe began, and then knew he couldn’t ask. If she were willing to tell him, that would be fine. But he couldn’t force her confidence in him.

But Liv, obviously guessing what he wanted to know, shrugged and gave him an ironic look. “What happened? Nothing extraordinary, I assure you. He was the classic roving husband. I was the classic unsuspecting wife, convinced that it could never happen to us. I actually thought he was working late, going to out-of-town seminars, studying latest techniques. He was—only the subject wasn’t dentistry!”

“When, I mean, how
…
” Joe stumbled, embarrassed by her frankness and afraid of making her dredge
up a past that was painful, but still unable to contain his questions.

Liv crossed the porch to lean against a planter filled with geraniums. “It took me a while to wake up, actually,” she said. “It had been going on for a couple of years before I wised up. I guess maybe Tom thought I never would, so he stopped being quite so discreet. People we both knew saw him and mentioned it to me. They didn’t know he was lying to me about where he was and who he was with. It wasn’t intended maliciously, but it was enlightening just the same. Anyway, once I had accepted the fact that it was a possibility, a lot of other things fell into place. I confronted him finally when he came home from a ‘weekend seminar’ and I discovered, to my surprise, that it was all my fault.” She snorted derisively, but her hands trembled and she clasped them behind her back.

“Your fault?” Joe echoed, his forehead furrowing.

“Oh yes, definitely. You see, I was always too busy with the raising of the kids to go places with him. This one was sick or that one had a game or we couldn’t get a sitter. So, if he couldn’t go with me he found someone to go with. First Janice, then Patty, then Di and several others. Now it’s Trudy. Anyway, all of them were women who were, according to Tom, better able to help him fulfill himself than I was.”