Valentine (16 page)

“You
are?!
” Jill cried.

The actress smiled complacently. “Of course. I mean, it’s not like he’s an accused murderer or anything. He was never even a suspect. And how many handsome artists are out there, anyway? All the good ones are either—”

“Don’t say it!” Jill warned, and everyone laughed.

“That’s good,” Nate said. “I’m glad you like him, Tara. I have a feeling you may be just what he needs.”

He reached for Jill’s hand when he said this. She took his hand in hers and squeezed, smiling. Forget that he’s sexy, she thought. Forget that he’s talented and passionate and funny. He’s just a very nice man. A man she should hang on to, she supposed; a man who would always be kind and considerate and supportive. A man who would protect her from bad things, like—

She shuddered, squeezing Nate’s hand harder. He looked over at her and winked. She winked back, forcing a smile. Then she let go of his strong hand, got up from the couch, and went over to the big picture window. She stared out through the dark glass at the snowflakes drifting down to the street before her, then beyond them to the myriad lighted windows of the enormous city, thinking:

Valentine.

She’d always been a pretty girl, and she knew it. It was this knowledge that most motivated and most informed her actions. This, and the feeling instilled in her long ago that she was very special. Now, at thirty-four, she was ready to show the world just how special she was.

It had taken several years and a few false starts, but now it was going to happen. Her new screenplay was the best she’d written so far, and she was certain that as soon as she got it into the right hands, every major actress in Hollywood would be clamoring for the lead role. That’s why today was so important. She had a good feeling about this. About
him
.

She hummed under her breath as she stepped into her best faded, form-fitting jeans and pink T-shirt. Then she picked up the brush before the mirror and went to work on her long blond hair. A picnic, she thought What a lovely idea. Neil had left the invitation
in the form of a card on the pillow beside her. He’d just called to confirm it a little while ago, waking her from a deep, satisfied sleep. A picnic in the hills above the city. Be ready at noon, he said—and bring the script.

He must have crept out early this morning, she mused, while I was sleeping. A business meeting at his production company.

Production company! She went over to the desk under her bedroom window, picked up the bound screenplay next to the computer, and opened it to the title page.

DANGEROUS CURVES

by

Sharon Williams

She closed the cover and hugged the book to her, smiling. Looking out the window at the bright sunlight pouring down on Los Angeles, she thought about her luck. This script in her arms wasn’t going to make the rounds of half the studios in Hollywood like the two she’d written before it. This one was going to be different.
He
would make it happen.

Sharon loved the movies. Some of her happiest memories were of herself as a child, and later a teenager,
staring at screens in darkened rooms. Daddy and Mother knew a few movie people, and she’d gone to her share of premieres and awards ceremonies and parties at producers’ houses. She’d always dreamed of a career in Hollywood; not as an actress—she had no talent for that, though she was certainly pretty enough—but as a writer. She was forever making up elaborate stories in her mind, and she always saw them as a series of scenes, with appropriate editing and camera angles. She wanted to create movies. Films.

But first, she’d had to learn about writing: she thanked her parents for that bit of wisdom, as for so much else. So she went to Hartley College, her mother’s alma mater, because it had one of the best English departments in America. Four years in Vermont, then three at Berkeley, where she took every filmmaking and screenwriting course available.

Then, for the next five years, she’d allowed herself to become distracted: Europe, the Caribbean, Hawaii. On a whim, she’d taken off for Amsterdam shortly after leaving Berkeley, with an idle rich boy she’d been seeing at the time. This had turned into a protracted grand tour of the world in which the scenery shifted as often as the jet-setting revelers around her. But Europe and the West Indies and all those other adventures were behind her now, as were the men she’d been with in those places.

And Shane, of course. She grimaced at the thought of her ex-husband: another two years wasted. By the time she’d met Shane, at a dinner party on one of her rare visits home, she’d decided it was time to slow down. Five years of roaming the world was enough for her. Besides, Daddy was beginning to complain about all the money she was going through.

There was a row of tall palms lining the street in front of her building. She gazed out of her third-story window at the closest one as it rustled slowly in the warm breeze, remembering.

Shane Lennox had been a mistake from the start. He was handsome and amusing—and the son of one of her father’s business partners. They dated for several months, and the dates were always fun. Even so, she should never have married him. With her restless streak and her as-yet-unformed but definitely developing professional agenda, she’d known it was a mistake, even as she’d walked down the aisle on Daddy’s arm. And her instincts had been right.

When she’d imagined being married, she’d always envisioned a big house somewhere fun like Malibu, or Pacific Palisades up the coast near her parents. Her husband would be rich, of course, as rich as she. Every day he’d go to his law firm or his corporate headquarters or his movie studio—yes, movie studio: she should have married someone in the business.
And she’d be home creating brilliant screenplays. They’d meet other movie people for dinner at Spago, and they’d have beach parties on the weekends.

But Shane was working his way up the ladder in Daddy’s real estate development firm, which meant a cramped little two-room dungeon in a complex here in town, near the office. It meant no more allowance from Daddy, and living on Shane’s meager salary. Cooking and cleaning: two things she’d had to learn on her feet, never having done either before. Going to the supermarket and the dry cleaners, and department stores for his socks and underwear. Boring dinners in unfashionable restaurants with his prospective clients. And then the news that she was pregnant.

That’s when Sharon threw in the towel and went home to her parents. She didn’t want a baby. She didn’t want to cook and clean. She didn’t want to be married to Shane Lennox. She sobbed in her mother’s arms, telling her that she’d made a terrible mistake.

And that was that. Daddy had fixed everything, as Daddy had always done. He arranged for the divorce, as well as the abortion. She’d been married to Shane for a grand total of fourteen months. She was thirty-one years old, and she was going to be a screenwriter.

So, three years ago she moved here, to a nice apartment complex in town. It was a mere eight blocks
from where she’d lived with Shane—where Shane now lived with his second wife—but it was hers alone. She didn’t have to share space with a man whose ideal wife was closer to a maid than a mate. Not that she felt any resentment toward Shane: he was actually a perfectly nice man; he just wasn’t for her. A few months after the divorce, she’d talked Daddy and Mother into financing this one-bedroom co-op, a Mustang, and a computer—an investment in her career. They were so happy to see her excited about actual work that they readily obliged.

She got back in touch with her old friends from high school. She spent weekends at the beach, and every night she went out. Dinner, dancing, whatever: she dated a lot of guys, but nothing serious—she’d already gone
that
route, thank you! And every weekday, from ten till five, she wrote. Story ideas and scenarios at first, and finally she had attempted full screenplays. Her own growing dedication to the work surprised and delighted her. She realized with a sense of pride that she wasn’t completely useless after all. She was indeed as talented as she’d always hoped to be.

Last year, she’d made her first movie deal: she’d sold a story idea to a small, independent production company, and they had assured her that she would do the screenplay if they ever actually made the film. With her first option check, she bought her mother a
Cartier watch. It was one of the few times in her life she’d ever felt completely altruistic, and it was the only time she’d ever seen her mother cry.

Now, staring out at the sunny, palm-lined street, Sharon smiled. She rarely looked back at things she’d already done. Besides, there wasn’t much about Shane Lennox that she chose to remember. But her memories of traveling were good ones, as were her infrequent recollections of high school and college. Hartley had been fun—what a queen bee she’d been there! She thought of her two pals there, Cass and Belinda, and the adventures and good times that had served to alleviate the boredom of long Vermont winters for a California girl. The handsome dean of students, who’d been so much fun, sexually speaking. Creeping into the men’s dormitory with her friends and short-sheeting all the beds. And that creepy freshman—Vincent, or Victor, or whatever the hell his name was—that she and the girls had lured to his doom.

She spared a moment’s thought for Cass and Belinda. They hadn’t been in touch in years, and she wondered vaguely where they were now, and what they were doing. Perhaps she should give them a call sometime soon. . . .

Oh, well, she thought with an amused shake of her head, onward and upward.

She returned her gaze to her reflection in the mirror
and smiled, still hugging her latest achievement to her chest. Now she had a script—a good script, a
great
script—and now she had Neil.

Neil. She dropped the script on the dresser and stretched luxuriously, remembering last night’s activities and anticipating today’s picnic. Lucky break, she thought.

If she hadn’t gone to Patchoulie the other night, it would never have happened. . . .

Sharon Williams was easy. Every day, she worked in her apartment, and twice in the last week she’d made the rounds of studios and production offices in Burbank and Hollywood, pitching her ideas and screenplays. And every night, she went out dancing, sometimes with men but just as often alone. And always in the same club, Patchoulie, the “in” spot of the moment on Hollywood Boulevard.

He’d been watching her ever since he’d arrived in Los Angeles, two weeks ago. He’d checked into a quiet, inexpensive motel not too far from her place and rented a Mercedes. He’d used an alias for both, and paid cash.

Watching her routine had helped him develop the plan. On
February 10
, he took a shower and put his new Givenchy suit on his new body. He inserted his new tinted contact lenses, patted Halston cologne on his new face, and carefully combed his new hair.
Then he got in his rented Mercedes and drove to Patchoulie. He sat at the end of the bar, ordered a drink, and waited.

She came in, all right—on the arm of a guy he’d already seen her with at the beach last weekend. A big, handsome, deeply tanned blond man in a “Hang Ten” shirt and jeans, a surfer. He’d overheard her call the man Derek. He watched them take a small table near the dance floor and order drinks. Several times in the next hour, they got up to dance. At one point they danced to a Neil Diamond song. He’d always liked Neil Diamond, and he took it as a good sign. He smiled to himself, thinking: Neil.

He monitored their actions closely. At regular intervals, Derek’s hands would begin to rove over Sharon’s body, and she’d slap them away. So, they were only casually seeing each other, he surmised. The fact that Derek repeated the groping every few minutes, despite her protests, told him that Derek was none too bright. He noted the surfer’s frequent trips to the men’s room, and his glittery eyes and swift, manic movements: Derek had obviously discovered Better Living Through Chemistry. He smiled to himself again and waited some more.

The third time Derek went to the men’s room, he gave him a few moments and then followed him. As he arrived there, Derek was by the sinks, snorting coke from a tiny spoon on a chain around his neck.
He feigned happy surprise at seeing the surfer and went into his act.

“Hey, man—Derek, isn’t it?”

The blond man stared, sniffing. “Uh, yeah . . .?”

He grinned. “You don’t remember me, do you? We met a while back, at that party. You know, the beach. You were with—what’s his name, your buddy, the other surfer. . . .”

Derek blinked, trying to remember. “Uh, Ron?”

“Yeah, Ron, that’s right. I’m Neil, remember? From the film production company?”

Derek grinned to cover the fact that he obviously didn’t remember. “Uh, yeah, sure, how ya doin’?”

“Oh, fine. You know, still working like a dog, looking for new scripts to develop into films. . . .”

“Uh, new scripts?” Real quick, was Derek.

“Yeah, you know, new screenplays to develop into movies.” Spell it out for him.

Derek’s bright eyes widened. “Is
that
what you do?”

“Yeah, sure, like I was telling you and Ron—”

“Oh,
wow!
” Derek cried, wiping powder from his nose and clapping him on the back. “I can’t
believe
this, man! Sure, I remember you—the party on the beach, with Ron! You’re lookin’ for screenplays! Yeah!” He held up the little vial in his hand. “Hey, you want a hit?”