Venus, How Could You?
Candy Halliday
Scanned and proofed by bils
Version 1.0
1
"I
have wonderful news! I'm
going to be in a coma for the next two weeks." Mary Beth Morgan grinned
when her sister let out a squeal of delight on the other end of the phone.
"And
just how did you manage to get yourself written out of the script of The
Wild and the Free?"" There was a slight
hesitation before her sister added, "Or do I really want to know?"
"Don't
worry, Maddie. I didn't end up on the director's couch, if that's what you're
implying. All it took was a little crying, a little pleading and a whole lot of
groveling at the feet of the head writer for the show, who happens to be a very
understanding woman, thank you very much. And besides, if I'm going to take
any time off, I need to do it now at the end of the summer, before fall sweeps
week."
"I'm
so glad you're coming home, Mary Beth. I couldn't bear the thought of you not
attending our ten year high school reunion. You're all everybody's talking
about here at home."
"Like
that's something new," Mary Beth grumbled, thinking back to the most
embarrassing day of her life.
"I
meant your new soap opera, silly. Not..."
"Not
the day Zack Callahan left me standing at the altar?" Mary Beth heard her
sister breathe out a long sigh on the other end of the line. "I'm only
kidding, Maddie. You're right. I should come
home for our reunion. It's time I stopped worrying about the jilted bride
stigma that's been attached to my name since Zack walked out on me."
"Not
to mention rubbing a few noses in your success as an actress, big
sister," Maddie threw in. "And if you don't, I will."
Mary
Beth laughed at her twin who was younger only by two minutes. "Okay,
Maddie, let's not get militant. You're a mommy now, remember? And how is my
adorable little B.J., by the way?"
Mary Beth automatically glanced at the most recent picture of her darling nephew
that was framed and sitting on the bar in her kitchen. Listening while Maddie
launched into a typical mother's account of the amazing things her one-year-old
son could do, she walked through the sliding glass doors onto the deck of her
Malibu beach house and stood staring out over the Pacific.
How
ironic, Mary Beth kept thinking, that her life and Maddie's had ultimately
traded places. Her identical twin, an esteemed professor of entomology who had
once been totally obsessed with her career, was now a loving wife and mother. While Mary Beth, who had never thought past being a wife and a
mother until Zack walked out on her, was now focused on nothing but her career.
"And
that handsome brother-in-law of mine?"
Mary Beth broke in when Maddie pause for breath.
"Is Captain Hawkins still making it home
on a regular basis?"
"Are you kidding? Since
Brad's been assigned to the Pentagon, he's home practically every weekend. In
fact, he's underfoot so much I'm sometimes tempted to volunteer him for some
top secret assignment just to get him out of my hair."
"Liar," Mary Beth
accused and they both laughed.
"So?" Maddie
wanted to know. "When can we expect you?"
"Well, I've already
taken my dog to the kennel. I've arranged for my neighbors next door to pick up
my mail and water my plants. Will tomorrow be too soon?"
Maddie squealed again.
"Just tell me when to pick you up at the airport, you gorgeous soap opera
star, you."
Mary Beth recited her flight
number and waited until Maddie found a pencil and wrote it down. "I really
am looking forward to coming home for a few weeks, Maddie."
"I'm glad you're coming
home, too."
Mary Beth didn't miss the
concern in Maddie's voice. "But?"
"It's just that...well, this is our
ten year class reunion, Mary Beth. You don't think..."
"That Zack will have the nerve to show
up?" Mary Beth finished for her sister. "Not on your life. I asked
Mom to make sure his aunt knew I was coming home for the reunion. You know he
won't come home if he knows I'm in town. Just like I never
come home when he's there."
"But
Zack was our class president, Mary
Beth. What if he does show up?''
"Then
my character on The Wild and the Free won't
be the only one in a coma!" Mary Beth vowed.
Maddie
was still laughing when Mary Beth hung up the phone. Still smiling herself,
Mary Beth placed the phone on a table by her lounge chair and stretched out in
the chair in her skimpy bikini. Closing her eyes, she turned her face up to
the bright California sun, wondering why she felt more guilty than usual about
not finally coming clean with Maddie after six long years. About not finally
admitting she really blamed herself for any humiliation she suffered over the
day Zack Callahan broke and ran.
The
truth was, Zack had begged her right up until the night
before the wedding to postpone it. He'd even told her loud and clear he wasn't
going to show up at the church. She had just been too sure of herself to take
Zack seriously. Mainly because since the first day she'd marched across the
playground when they were ten years old and told him he was going to be her
boyfriend, Zack had never said no to her.
Never!
And
from that moment on, they had started planning their life together.
Well,
maybe most of those plans had been her own. Mary Beth could admit that now. But
Zack had never let on he had a problem with the way she'd carefully planned out
every aspect of their lives. They would be married, after college, of course.
Then they would live in the adorable little condo on the outskirts of Morgan
City that her Grandma Morgan had left her free and clear. She, with a degree in
theater arts, would take a job teaching drama at the local college until they
were ready to start their family. Zack, with his degree in business
administration, would be groomed to take over her father's automobile
dealership. They would have three children. Zack, Jr. would come first,
followed by his two sisters, Annie and Betsy. And then she and Zack would raise
their children in the small home town where they both had grown up themselves.
Yes, those had been the
plans of the starry-eyed twenty-two-year-old Zack Callahan had left standing at
the altar.
What she hadn't planned for
was being "discovered," so to speak, by a talent agent only two
weeks before the wedding when she was in Atlanta doing some last minute
shopping. She'd been extremely flattered, of course. What woman in her right
mind wouldn't have been flattered if a big-shot Hollywood talent agent stopped
her on the street and offered her a contract to star in a Super Bowl commercialone
of the highest priced and most viewed advertising on television?
She'd been so shocked and flattered
she'd agreed to exchange names and numbers. The decision was one Mary Beth had
regretted a million times since. Being flattered was one thing, but cutting her
honeymoon short and leaving her new husband behind while she ran off to
Hollywood to shoot a commercial hadn't even been an option as far as she'd
been concerned. She'd been planning out her life with Zack since they were ten
years old. Those plans were written in stone. Or so she thought.
Unfortunately, when she
returned home to Morgan City later that evening, she found her mother
hysterical because some strange man had been calling for her every hour on the
hour.
If
only she hadn't tried to act so glib when she'd returned the call. And if only
Zack hadn't wandered into the room and overheard her say she would head to
Hollywood in a heartbeat if she wasn't getting married.
She
still remembered how shocked Zack had looked when she turned around and found
him standing behind her. She had tried to laugh it off, tried to explain she
was only being polite, tried to convince Zack she didn't want the guy to think
she was so stupid she didn't realize what an incredible opportunity he was
offering her. But the harder she'd tried to explain, the deeper she kept
digging herself into a hole.
"If
you really think this is such an incredible opportunity, Mary Beth," he'd
said, "and if you really would go to Hollywood if we weren't getting married,
then maybe we should postpone the wedding."
And
he wasn't being smart or trying to make her feel guilty over anything she'd
said. He was just being himself. Practical Zack, as he was
fondly called by everyone who knew him, the guy who always had the ability to
analyze the situation thoroughly and eventually come up with a plausible solution.
Except she hadn't seen a
dang thing practical about postponing their wedding. In
addition to the fact that she loved Zack completely, their wedding was only two
weeks away, for God's sake! The invitations had gone out. She had the dress.
He had the tux. All the preparations had been made and paid
for. But when she'd brought up each of those reasons why they shouldn't
postpone their wedding, especially the fact that she loved him and
wanted to be his wife more than anything else in the world, he'd looked at her
and said, "I want you to be my wife more than anything else in the world,
too. I just think our timing's off."
He'd gone on to remind her
that he really did believe computers were the wave of the future and that he
knew he could be successful in the computer field if given half a chance. But
his fascination with computers had been old news to Mary Beth, and a subject
she always refused to discuss. She and Zack both knew there wasn't any such
career opportunity in small-town Morgan City. And that's where they always
reached a stalemate. Back then, moving to a big city hadn't been an option for
Mary Beth, either. And so the arguing continued right up until the night before
the wedding when Zack's last words were: "Postpone the wedding, Mary Beth.
I'm not going to be there."
That was six years ago.
And Zack had become
successful. Extremely successful. On the front page
of Forbes Magazine successful,
for having the vision to see what the Internet could mean to the world, and for going in with two other bright computer
wizards to buy up huge chunks of the web.
And
the more successful he'd become, the more determined Mary Beth had been to
prove herself. To prove to Zack that she would succeed
in the career he was so determined for her to have. To prove to her family and
her home town that the zany Morgan
twin, as she'd often been called, was just as capable of having a successful
career as her brainy professor sister.
And
to prove to herself...what?
Well,
she really wasn't sure what she was still trying to prove to herself, but she
had come to believe that going off to Atlanta on a final shopping spree two
weeks before her wedding hadn't been just a whim. She also believed it hadn't
been an accident that her agent's taxi just happened to stop at a traffic light
at the exact same time she came strolling across the street. No, fate had
stepped in, she was sure of it. And thanks to Mother Venus, ruler of Libra, her
astrological sign, she now had a life filled with glitz, a life filled with
glamour, and a life filled with a certain amount of fame.
A
storybook life by most women's standards.
In
fact, she should probably thank Zack
if she ever saw him again. After she punched him in the nose, broke both of his
arms and legs and left him for dead, of course. He might have been responsible
for saving her from a sink full of dirty dishes, a house full of screaming kids
and a mundane existence, but that didn't mean she was ready to forgive and
forget the hurt and embarrassment he had caused her.
Not that she was going to
see Zack again.
At least, not anytime in the
near future.
Zack showing up for the
reunion, now that he knew she was coming home, was as unlikely as George W.
asking Laura if he could hire Monica Lewinsky as his personal White House
intern.
But just to be on the safe
side, Mary Beth sat up and reached for her morning paper and flipped to the
daily horoscope section. Libra: Don't let uncertainty
about an unresolved situation shake your confidence. Surround yourself with
friends and loved ones and bask in the glow of being admired for your talent.
Someone dear to you is looking forward to your visit.
Reassured by such comforting
words, Mary Beth tossed the paper aside and stretched out on the lounge chair
with a smile on her face. She was finally going home to Morgan City a success and to
make sure everyone knew how wonderful her life had turned out without Zack
Callahan in it.
Zachary
Thaddeus Callahan was known around Morgan City, Georgia, only
as the dirty rat who left his pretty high school sweetheart sobbing at the
altar. The fact that he'd recently been named one of Chicago's most successful
businessmen didn't mean a thing.
Sitting in a bar on the outskirts of town, in
a booth in the back where he couldn't easily be seen, Zack was grateful no one
in the bar seemed to recognize him. He nodded a polite thank-you to the
bleached-blond waitress wearing false eyelashes and blue eye shadow as she
plopped a beer down in front of him. She was dressed in a short denim shirt
with a red bandanna tied around her throat. Zack couldn't help but notice her
white cowgirl boots had seen better days.
"You
must be new in town, handsome," she said, trying to smile and pop her gum
at the same time. "We don't get many guys in here wearing suits and
ties."
"Yeah,
I'm new," Zack lied, still watching the front door and praying his new
admirer would go away before she managed to draw any attention to him.
"I've
only been in Morgan City a few weeks myself," she told Zack with another
pop of her gum. "What's your name, honey?"
Zack stalled for an answer,
but forgot about keeping a low profile when he saw his younger cousin, Greg,
step through the door. Standing up, Zack waved wildly in Greg's direction,
prompting the waitress to send him a sour look before she stomped off mumbling
something foul about his sexual orientation.
"Okay,
Mr. Espionage," Greg said with a frown as he slid into the seat on the
opposite side of the booth. "I took the back roads, changed cars three
times and sat outside for thirty minutes to make sure no one followed me.
Happy?"
Zack
cast his eyes toward the ceiling. "Very funny."
"No, I'll tell you
what's funny," Greg said as he grabbed a peanut from the bowl on the
table. He smashed the shell with his fist for effect. "What's absolutely
hysterical is this game of hide-and-seek you and Mary Beth have been playing
for the last six years. You won't come home if she's in town. She won't come home
if you're in town. You'd think you were back in grammar school. You both need
to grow up and bury the hatchet."
Zack waited until Greg
picked through the shell and popped the peanut in his mouth before he said,
"I agree. And I can't think of a more perfect time to clear the air
between us than our high school reunion."
Greg choked on the peanut.
He grabbed Zack's beer bottle and took a long swig. When the peanut finally
went down, his words came out in a croak. "What are you? A masochist? You really want Mary Beth to scratch your eyes
out in front of your entire high school senior class?"
Zack leaned back against his
seat in the booth. "I'm willing to suffer that kind of embarrassment. I
know it doesn't compare to being left at the altar, but"
Greg cut him off. "Why now, Zack? Why have you decided to make peace with
Mary Beth after all these years?"
Zack reached up and loosened
his tie. He was only a year older than Greg, and he and Greg had been raised as
brothers after Zack's folks died in a
house fire
and his aunt and uncle took him in. People even said they looked like brothers.
They both had the same sandy hair, same athletic bodies that neither of them
had let turn to flab after their high school football days. They were also as
close as brothers. Knowing Greg would see right through a lie, Zack said,
"Why now? Because I'm successful now. I own my
own business. I've made more money than I ever dreamed possible. And..."
"And
you didn't want to face Mary Beth again until you could prove you didn't need
her father to give you a handout?"
Zack
had been right. Greg knew him well. "Yeah. That
pretty much sums it up, I guess."
"Then
you must not think much of a moocher like me."
Zack
frowned at his cousin's description of himself. In a few more years, his
uncle's hardware store would be handed over to Greg lock, stock and barrel. Which was exactly how it should be. But a family business
being passed down from father to son was one thing. A son-in-law accepting
charity from his wife's family was another.
Mary
Beth's determination that he was going to take over her father's business had
always bothered Zack. Just as it had bothered him that she intended for them to
move into the condo her grandmother had left her. She'd had everything planned
out right down to what furniture, linens and kitchen utensils they'd be
accepting from her parents. And what could he have contributed to their
marriage? Not much. And certainly not enough that he wouldn't
have felt less of a man because he couldn't provide for his wife and his family
on his own.
The sad fact was, he'd loved Mary Beth enough that he would
have sacrificed his own self-respect in order to make her happy.
That is, until the talent
agent saw Mary Beth walking across the street in downtown Atlanta and offered
her a contract on the spot. Once Mary Beth had the opportunity to expand her
own horizons, Zack knew he wanted the chance to do the same thing. He'd used
some of the insurance money he'd received from his parents' death to reimburse
the Morgans for the wedding expenses, and he'd used
the remainder of the money as capital for the business he'd started.
"I don't think you're a
moocher, Greg, and you know it," Zack said a little too sharply.
"You've worked your butt off in that hardware store since we were kids.
The store is your heritage. You deserve it. But George Morgan handing me a
business because I married his daughter is a different story."
Greg sent him an apologetic
look, then motioned for the waitress. Cowgirl Annie
walked over and took Greg's order. She looked them both up and down and rolled
her eyes before she wandered back to the bar.
"What's up with
her?"
Zack ignored the question.
"Tell me. Mary Beth is coming
home for the reunion, right?''
Greg laughed. "You know
she is. I'm sure you've already gotten that information from the church choir
pipeline, or I wouldn't be meeting you in this dump right now."
Zack
didn't deny it. His aunt Lou and Mary Beth's mother had been close friends for
years and had sat next to each other in the church choir every Sunday for as
long as he could remember. He hated to admit it, but he had relied on his aunt
Lou all these years to keep him up-to-date on what was going on with Mary
Beth. In her personal life, that is. Hell, all he had to do was turn on the
television or pick up a newspaper or one of the tabloids to know what was going
on in her professional life.
He'd
almost had a damn coronary when her Evershine commercial
hit the air. Then, her sister's alien abduction saga had dominated the front
page for months. And he'd never admit it to anyone, but he always taped every
episode of her new daytime soap opera, then spent most of his evenings with
takeout from whatever fast food place he had chosen, sulking as he painfully
watched her wrapped up in the arms of a different handsome costar every week. And wondering
if those steamy love scenes were ever continued in private after the cameras
stopped rolling.
At
least he knew she'd never been seriously involved with anyone else, thanks to
Aunt Lou, who never missed the opportunity to tell him, ''True love waits,
Zack. You and Mary Beth will find your way back to each other when the time is
right.''
Did true
love wait?
Was now the
right time?
Zack
believed it was. They'd both experienced life outside Morgan City and they'd
both been successful. And that's why he'd come home for the reunion. He'd come
home to find out if they could possibly
find their way back to each other.
"You're right," he
admitted to his cousin. "I already knew Mary Beth was coming home. And I
asked you to meet me here because I didn't want anyone else to know I was in
town. Especially not Aunt Lou. Not yet. I need the
element of surprise in my favor. And I'm going to need your help."
"Like
hell I'm going to help you," Greg vowed and jumped back in his seat when
the waitress slammed a bottle of beer down in front of him, sloshing foam all
over the table. When she stomped back in the direction of the bar, Greg looked
at Zack and said, "Seriously. What's up with that crazy chick?"
Zack only smiled. "Forget
about the waitress. But you are going
to help me, Greg. Just like I helped you when you called me in the middle of
the night demanding I tell Lucy I'd come home unexpectedly and that you'd been
with me all weekend. I never asked where you really were. When you put your
girlfriend on the phone, all I did was cover your butt and lie through my
teeth."
Greg
grabbed his beer bottle and swallowed most of the brew in one long gulp.
"Yeah, and if you run into Lucy while you're home, you stick to that
story. She still gives me hell at least once a month because she couldn't find
me that weekend."
Satisfied
he had Greg right where he wanted him, Zack leaned
back in the booth and motioned for their surly waitress again. "It might
take a few more beers," Zack told his cousin with a grin, "but before
we leave this bar, you're going to help me figure out a strategy that will
keep Mary Beth from scratching my eyes out before I can get within ten
feet of her."
Greg
leaned back in the booth himself and sent Zack a suspicious
look. "Why does my gut instinct tell me there's more to this story than
just clearing the air with Mary Beth, Zack?"
Zack refused to answer.
"Because
you're nuts if you think she'll ever take you back."
Zack
shrugged and took another slow sip from his bottle. "Let's just take one
step at a time, okay?"
"That's what I
thought," Greg complained as he grabbed up another handful of peanuts.
"I know you too damn well."
2
Libra:
Take comfort in familiar surroundings and enjoy the simple
pleasures in life. Busy Librans often forget to take time out for themselves.
Take a long walk and enjoy the beauty of the day. Relaxation invites harmony.
Harmony invites peace within.
Satisfied
that everything was clear on her horizon, Mary Beth put aside the morning paper,
polished off her bagel and drained the last drop of her mother's freshly
squeezed orange juice from her glass. After clearing the table, she took her
dishes to the sink and smiled at the woman who she saw as an older version of
her and Maddie. Though a little color was now needed to hide the gray in her
hair, her mother's figure was still trim, and only a few noticeable wrinkles
marred her pretty face. She looked smart and fresh as usual, in her pink blouse
and matching slacks that had creases sharp enough to cut a finger. Mary Beth
knew unless she was careful, her own clothes would fall prey to her mother's
iron before her two-week stay was over. She cringed, thinking what that iron
could do to the delicate bead-work on the red silk top she was wearing. Having
creases down the front of her new white DKNY jeans gave her another shiver.
I'll
have to keep my room locked, Mary Beth thought at the
same time her mother turned to her and said, "And what do you have on your
agenda for the day?"
Mary
Beth slid her dishes into the soapy water, knowing it was useless to point out
that the electric dishwasher to her mother's left was there for a reason. She
watched her mother make a few efficient swipes over the plate, rinse it and
then place it in the drain rack. Mary Beth picked up the dish towel from the
counter, dried off the plate and put it in the cabinet beside the sink. She
checked the clock on the kitchen wall before she said, "Maddie's invited
me to lunch, but since it's only ten o'clock, I think I'll walk downtown. I
haven't had a morning to myself since we started filming the show."
Helen
Morgan lowered her dishcloth into the sink again and expertly washed Mary
Beth's glass. "And that's what worries me. You work too hard. All those hours on the set. Never having
time for yourself or your family."
Mary
Beth had to bite her tongue, but she reached over and gave her mother a long
hug. "I'm home now, Mom. Doesn't that count?"
A
mild harrumph escaped Helen's lips before she said, "Well, there isn't a
mother alive who doesn't want her children close by."
"And
Maddie and your grandson are right down the street," Mary Beth teased.
Helen
removed the stopper from the sink and turned to face her. "Maddie and B.J.
aren't a replacement for you, any more than you could be a replacement for
them. I miss you, that's all. And I never dreamed
you'd be living anywhere but right here in Morgan City."
Mary Beth leaned forward and
kissed her mother's smooth cheek. "Neither did I,
Mom. But that's how my life has turned out, so stop trying to make me feel
guilty about it."
Helen shooed Mary Beth out
of her path. "Oh, go on to town. I can see I'm not getting anywhere with
this conversation."
Mary Beth laughed and headed
toward the back door at the rear of the kitchen. She opened the door and paused
standing halfway in and halfway out of the doorway. "You haven't heard any
news I should know about from Lou Callahan, have you?"
Helen turned back around
with her hands on her hips. "No, I haven't heard from Lou, but we both
agree you and Zack are being plain silly. You both grew up in this town. It was
big enough for both of you then, and it's big enough for both of you now."
Mary Beth rolled her eyes.
"But you did remember to tell Lou I was coming home for the reunion,
right?"
"Yes, I told her,"
Helen said with an exasperated sigh, and Mary Beth scooted out the door before
her mother could launch into another lecture.
Maybe it was silly,
Mary Beth decided as she strolled down Mulberry, this unwritten law she and
Zack had about never coming home at the same time. After all, it had been six
years. Of course, it could have been six hundred years and she still wouldn't
be ready to see him again.
Not yet.
She was over Zack. It had
taken a long time, but she was definitely over him. She just had one more goal
she wanted to reach before she saw Zack Callahan face-to-face again. Call it a
pipedream, but she wanted an Emmy nomination. She didn't have to win the Emmy, she wasn't stupid enough to set a goal for herself
that was totally out of her reach. But she was going to do everything in her
power to get that nomination. Then, she could face Zack with the satisfaction
of knowing she was at the top of her field. That she was a successful
Emmy-nominated actress. That she had achieved something she was sure he, nor
anyone else for that matter, ever dreamed she could achieve.
Thinking back to the day of
their wedding, she remembered how devastated and how angry she had been at Zack
for pushing her to do something she really had no interest in doing. Oh, she'd
heard the version he had told his aunt, the one his aunt had quickly passed on
to her mother. About how Zack wanted both of them to experience life so they'd
never have any regrets when they did settle down and get married.
Not that Zack hadn't tried
to talk to her himself after he didn't show up at the church. He'd rung the
blasted phone off the hook and he'd practically beaten her parents' door down
until her father finally had no choice but to threaten to have him arrested if he
didn't back off. And then, after she'd gone to Hollywood to shoot the Evershine commercial,
he had sent flowers to her hotel room every day for a solid month, begging her
to at least talk to him.
He'd
finally given up after she mailed him a note. You
made your choice, now live with it. I'm certainly going to! That's
when Zack had moved to Chicago, and that's when their unwritten rule about not
showing up in Morgan City at the same time silently fell into place.
Mary Beth smiled,
remembering the satisfaction she'd felt when his aunt told her mother Zack
really had flipped out over the commercial. She hated to admit it, but she
still got the same type of satisfaction every time she stepped in front of the
camera on her soap opera set, thinking that Zack might be tuned in and
hopefully eating his heart out. Yes, that is what usually helped her get
through the day, since her mother had been right about those long days on the
set.
She'd
never admit it to anyone, but Hollywood wasn't nearly as wonderful as she
wanted everyone to believe. At least, not for her. In
fact, she was quickly becoming disillusioned with the whole Hollywood scene.
Most of the other actors were wrapped up in their own egos, and the actors who
didn't have egos were willing to do whatever it took in order to develop one.
She often felt like an outcast instead of a cast member, never fitting in with
either group. But she would prevail. She had to. And Mary Beth suddenly
realized exactly what she was trying to prove to herself. She was trying to
prove she wasn't the scatterbrain, the crazy Morgan twin, after all.
She
knew it was childish to let an idle comment Maddie had made at her own wedding
stick in her side like a troublesome thorn, but it had. Someone had brought up
the alien abduction story and Maddie had said, "While Mary Beth was
dreaming of an Emmy nomination, I was just trying to figure out how I was going
to save my career."
Everyone
had laughed.
Mary Beth had been angry
enough to ask, "Is everyone laughing because you can't imagine zany me
getting an Emmy nomination? Or because you can't picture brainy Maddie without
her career?" No one had been brave enough to answer her question, but
from that moment on, Mary Beth had a goal to reach.
And
after she did get the nomination?
Well,
then...
"Mary
Beth Morgan! Come here and give me a neck hug."
Mary
Beth waved to her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Pope, who pulled herself up from
her flowerbed and began tottering in Mary Beth's direction. Well into her
eighties, the old widow was still spry enough to keep her yard immaculate and
win the garden club's prize every year for her pansies. "You look wonderful,
Mrs. Pope," Mary Beth said truthfully.
The
old woman wiped her hands on her apron, then drew Mary
Beth in for a long, hard squeeze. "I heard you were coming home," she
said, stepping back to take a long look. "And we're all so proud of you.
I watch your soap opera myself every day."
Mary Beth couldn't help it,
she blushed. Her new soap opera had been called The
Wild and the Free for a reason.
"And I just love Fancy
Kildare," Mrs. Pope gushed, fanning her face a bit with the gardening
glove she'd just removed from her wrinkled hand. "What I wouldn't give if
I could turn back the clock. I'd wear the same outrageous clothes Fancy wears
and" she paused and motioned for Mary Beth to lean in closer before she
whispered ''and I'd seduce all those handsome men, too. Just
like you do."
The heat grew even hotter on
Mary Beth's cheeks. She wasn't ashamed of the show, and she wasn't ashamed of
her character Fancy Kildare, but she was talking to her third-grade teacher,
for God's sake!
"You
realize Fancy is just a character I play," Mary Beth said for
clarification. "And those bedroom scenes. You
know those aren't real, right?"
"Oh,
yes, I know. And what a pity for you, my dear," Mrs. Pope said with a
cackle. "What a pity for you."
Mary Beth couldn't help but
laugh when the old woman shuffled back in the direction of her flowerbed still
chuckling to herself.
She'd taken only a few more
steps when Mrs. Davis, a tiny little lady who barely reached Mary Beth's
shoulder hurried across her lawn, waving the latest copy of Soap
Opera Digest over her head that had Mary Beth's picture on the
front. "I heard you were coming home and I saved my digest so you could
autograph it personally."
"You're
flattering me, Mrs. Davis," Mary Beth told the woman and looked up to find
that Mrs. Truitt from across the street didn't intend to be outdone. Known for
being the biggest gossip in town, Mrs. Truitt tipped the scales somewhere
around three hundred and completely dwarfed Mrs. Davis. She practically pushed
the smaller woman out of the way and thrust a copy of the digest in Mary Beth's
direction. "I want your autograph, too, Mary Beth. And write something
that's Hollywood chic on mine," she said, making her huge stomach jiggle
like Jell-O when she laughed. "I want to show it off at bingo next
week."
Mary
Beth chatted with both women until Mrs. Davis's questions got a little too
personal. She made it all the way to Main Street before the postman flagged her
down. "Hey, Mr. Gordon," Mary Beth said when he came rushing across
the street in her direction.
"I
heard you were coming home," he said, taking off his cap long enough to
mop his face with a handkerchief he pulled from his back pocket. "And
I've got a big favor to ask."
"Ask
away," Mary Beth beamed.
"My
wife watches your soap opera all the time. Do you think you could send her some
autographed pictures from the cast members on your show?"
"Sure,"
Mary Beth told him. "No problem."
"You're
a lifesaver," he said, shifting the weight of his mailbag to the opposite
shoulder before he ducked into the barber shop, the next stop on his route.
If everybody else in town
knew I was coming home, then I know Zack got the
message, Mary Beth thought with confidence, then headed
directly across the street to a place where she could definitely find the
comfort in familiar surroundings that her horoscope suggested.
Like every other business in
town, the Dairy Hut opened promptly at nine and closed promptly at five. Mr.
Gruber's smile greeted his first customer of the day the second Mary Beth
walked through the door. She walked up to the counter and climbed onto the same
stool she had sat on hundreds of times as a kid. The red leather seat was worn
and faded now, but the chrome base of the stool was polished to a gleam like
the chrome tables and chairs scattered around the rest of the small room.
Even Mr. Gruber hadn't
changed a bit. He was still as round as he was tall, still wore a white uniform
and a red bow tie, and still kept a crisp white paper hat perched on his bald
head. And though she knew he greeted all of his customers the same way, his
warm smile had always made Mary Beth feel special, as if he saved that kind of
smile just for her.
"How's it going, Miss
Movie Star?" he asked, but his tone wasn't mocking, there was pride in the
way he said it.
"Who me?"
Mary Beth asked, pretending to look back over her shoulder. "I'm just Mary
Beth Morgan. Hometown girl. You must have me confused
with someone else."
His laugh was as jolly as
Santa's. "Yes, I believe you are still a hometown girl at heart." He
reached out and patted her hand. "Always be proud of it."
Without
even asking, he went to the dairy case and came back a few minutes later with a
sugar cone heaped with ice cream and sprinkles. "One
scoop of pistachio, one scoop of French vanilla, and double sprinkles."
"My
absolute favorite," Mary Beth said, gladly taking the cone when he handed
it over. "I'm flattered you remember."
"How
could I forget?" he said, waving off her remark. "You and Zack
Callahan were the only kids in town who ever came bursting through the door
this early in the morning begging for ice cream."
Mary
Beth flinched at the sound of Zack's name.
Her
heart stopped when Mr. Gruber looked past her and said, "Well, speak of
the devil. Look who just walked in."
Mary
Beth whirled around on her stool so fast, both scoops of her absolute favorite
tumbled from the sugar cone that was now crumbling to pieces in her clenched
right hand. When she jumped down from the stool, the pistachio slid down the
front of her new white DKNY jeans and the French vanilla did a back flip right
down the scoop neck of her red silk top and momentarily landed in her bra
before falling out the other end. It didn't make any difference that Zack
looked as shocked to see her as she felt. Nor was a chunk of ice cream still
melting between her breasts cold enough to keep her temper from rising. Just
the sight of Zack's face made Mary Beth madder than hell.
How dare
he show up when he knew perfectly well she was
coming home for the reunion! She was also furious that Zack had managed to
catch her completely off guard. She'd had no warning, and she'd had no time to
think about what she should say or what she should do when they saw each other
again for the first time.
If Zack Callahan knew what
was good for him, he'd walk right back out the door without so much as saying a
single word to her.
Purposely turning her back
on him, Mary Beth willed him to leave and gave him the opportunity to do so.
She dumped what was left of the sugar cone on the counter and grabbed a handful
of napkins to dab at the front of her jeans. She was relieved Mr. Gruber
suddenly found something to do at the back of the store, and she was amazed
that she'd been able to take in every inch of Zack in that nanosecond they'd
spent staring at each other.
And
dammit, but he did look good.
He
was still gorgeous, of course. Still had the same sun-streaked hair that fell
across his forehead in that little-boy style that instantly made her want to
reach out to push it out of his eyes. But the youthful face and soft cheeks
she remembered had matured into the face of a man with chiseled features and a
strong angular jaw. He was even dressed like a manin an expensive
camel-colored suit Mary Beth recognized as Armani the second she twirled around
on her stool.
And here she stood
with a bright green crotch and a bra full of French vanilla!
Venus, how could you? Mary
Beth's mind screamed. Her daily horoscope certainly hadn't warned her about
this type of catastrophe.
When
a familiar voice from behind her said, "It looks like I owe you an
ice-cream cone," Mary Beth decided the ruler of her astrological sign must
have taken a short vacation too.
Zack'S first
impulse was to walk out the door and march back across the
street to the hardware store and punch his cousin in the nose. He should have
known Mr. Gruber hadn't called and asked someone to come over and see what part
he needed to fix the drain in his sink. And he shouldn't have let Greg goad him
into coming out of his hiding place by saying he was a fool if he thought
anyone in town cared enough to run tell Mary Beth he was home. Greg had
obviously seen Mary Beth enter the Dairy Hut from the hardware store's front
window. And that's when the dirty coward had seen his chance to get out of
participating in the scheme Zack had been plotting from the moment he arrived
in town.
He's a dead man, Zack
thought at the same time Mary Beth yelled, "You owe me more than an ice-cream
cone, Zack Callahan!"
Poor Mr. Gruber darted to
the back door, making Zack wonder if he was too polite to eavesdrop on their
conversation, or if he had headed out the back door for the sheriff because he
didn't want one of his customers murdered in cold blood in the middle of his
ice-cream shop.
Because
a murderous intent is exactly what he saw reflected in Mary Beth's ice-blue
eyes. She slammed a handful of napkins down on the counter and Zack could see
she was literally trembling with anger.
"What you owe me is the
common courtesy of walking back out that door and going back to Chicago,"
she fumed. "You knew I was coming home for the reunion."
All Zack could do was stand
there and stare.
He already knew the girl he
remembered, the innocent girl-next-door type with the ponytail, had matured
into a woman with curves so voluptuous grown men would be willing to throw
themselves at her feet to worship her. Hell, he'd watched those soap opera tapes
so many times, every inch of her was permanently
etched into his memory. But actually seeing her face-to-face literally knocked
the breath from his lungs. He was also sorry all the careful planning he'd
given to the first time they saw each other again would never come into
fruition now.
"You're
right," Zack finally admitted. "I did know you were coming home for
the reunion."
"Then
what in the hell are you doing
here?"
Zack
could have sworn he'd seen steam coming from her nostrils as she spit out those
words, but he took a chance and said, "I'm here, Mary Beth, because it's
time to make peace between us."
"Time to make peace
between us!" She marched right up to him
and stood so close Zack could see a white puddle of ice cream trapped between
the miraculous mounds of her more than ample cleavage. She stuck her face
close to his, making him jerk his head back. "The only way you'll ever
have peace with me, Zack, is when you're six feet under. Got it?"
She
pushed him out of her way then, but when she got to the door, Zack said,
"Please, Mary Beth. At least hear me out."
She
spun back around to face him. The expression in her eyes was cold and deadly,
but it couldn't mask the hurt he saw hiding behind the anger. Her lips twisted
into a cynical smirk that was so unlike the warm, caring, wonderful girl he
remembered. My God, Zack thought. What
have I done to her?
"There's
no reason to hear you out, Zack," she said with a toss of her head.
"Because I'm not interested in anything you have to say."
She
said those words with conviction, but she was doing a lousy job keeping her
lower lip from quivering. What Zack wanted to do was take her in his arms and
hold her and beg her to forgive him, because the thought that he had hurt her
was like a dagger straight to his heart. As strange as it might seem, it had
never occurred to him how much he had hurt her. Mainly because she had split
for Hollywood only three days after he wouldn't go through with their wedding.
And then he'd received the note after she did get a taste of the limelight. The
note had only confirmed his belief that what she'd told the talent agent had
been true: that she'd head to Hollywood in a heartbeat if it weren't for him.
But
now Zack realized that he had hurt her, deeply. And the knowledge that he'd
hurt the woman he still loved more than life itself, broke Zack's heart and
filled his soul with sorrow.
He didn't try to hold back
the tears welling up in his eyes when he said, "I would do anything, Mary
Beth. Anything. If I thought it could make up for
hurting you."
He saw a flicker of
compassion in the look she gave him, but it disappeared when she tossed her
silky blond hair over her shoulder and placed her hands on her hips.
"Don't flatter yourself, Zack. You didn't hurt me, you embarrassed
me. And that's something you can never make up for as far as I'm
concerned."
"Then I'll rephrase
what I said. I would do anything if I could make up for the embarrassment
I caused you."
Her laugh was bitter. "Oh, really? You would do anything?" The cynical
smirk that looked out of place on her beautiful face returned. "Then why
don't you stand on Main Street handing out one-hundred-dollar bills all day,
Zack? Maybe even hang a sign around your neck that says 'I'm the idiot who
walked out on Mary Beth Morgan and now I'm paying for it.'"
Zack didn't falter.
"I'm serious, Mary Beth." But he was having a hard time staying
serious every time he glanced at the bright green circle standing out like a
bull's-eye right in the middle of her tight-fitting jeans.
"Oh? You don't like
that idea?" She tossed her head again. "Then why don't you trying
hanging upside down from the Deep River Bridge, whistling here comes the bride
until your face turns blue?''
She
was toying with him and enjoying every minute of it. And if for no other
reason than to keep her there as long as possible, Zack decided to play along.
"I'm afraid of heights, Mary Beth, and you know it."
Her
smirk vanished. "Then what would your brilliant
plan be, Zack? Pitch a tent in my front yard until I called a truce?"
Zack
couldn't hide his own smirk. "Would pitching a tent in your front yard make
you call a truce?"
Her
eyes narrowed to tiny slits and her finger came up under his nose as she shook
it. "Forget the truce, Zack. It isn't going to happen. Not now. Not
ever."
And
before Zack could stop her, Mary Beth stormed out of the Dairy Hut.
"If
that's a new fashion statement, Mary Beth, I
don't like it."
Mary
Beth kicked her sandals off onto Maddie's clean kitchen floor, unzipped her
jeans and stepped out of them, then tossed them into Maddie's kitchen sink.
"It's not a fashion statement. It's ice cream. And I'm not in a
humorous mood."
"Then
I guess asking if you've been in a wrestling match with Ben & Jerry's
isn't a good idea."
Mary Beth sent her sister a
warning look, then pulled her top over her head and tossed it in the sink with
her jeans. When she unfastened her favorite Victoria's Secret bra and tossed it
in the sink with the rest of her clothes, her nephew let out a squeal of
delight from his high chair and held both chubby arms straight out in front of
him, begging Mary Beth to take him.
"Sorry," Maddie
said glancing over at her son. "He's a boob man, just like his
father."
Having forgotten about the
baby, Mary Beth instantly crossed her arms to cover her bare breasts and sent
an anxious look at her nephew. "Will you stop with your stand-up routine,
Maddie, and at least find me something to put on before I scar your son for
life!"
Maddie put her finger to her
chin. "Umm, maybe you're right. B.J. having memories of his aunt standing
in the kitchen wearing nothing but a thong might not be such a good idea."
When Mary Beth sent her
another mean look, Maddie hurried from the room and was back in a flash with a
terry-cloth robe that Mary Beth quickly slipped into. "Now," Maddie
said when Mary Beth flopped down in a chair at her kitchen table, "Why are
you in such a black mood? Other than spilling pistachio on your new Donna Karan
jeans, I mean."
Mary Beth opened her mouth
to speak, but burst into tears instead. How could she have been so stupid, she
kept asking herself. How could she have ever believed
anything, even a damn Emmy nomination, would make it okay to see Zack again?
The second she saw him, all the old feelings she thought she had put to rest
came zooming out of their hiding places and hit her like a two-ton truck. And
the only thing that kept her from falling into his arms when he apologized so
sincerely for hurting her, was the fact that she was
kick-ass mad.
She
was still kick-ass mad, which only made her sob louder.
Startled,
little B.J. let out a wail that sent Maddie scurrying to the high chair. When
she walked back to the table, she had her crying child propped on one hip. She
jiggled B.J. up and down in one arm to quiet him, and patted her sister's back
with the other hand as Mary Beth sobbed into her hands.
"I ran into Zack,"
Mary Beth said quietly when she managed to stop crying long enough to wipe her
eyes on the sleeve of Maddie's robe. She reached over and tickled B.J.'s bare
foot as an apology for scaring him. His crying turned into a choked-off giggle.
"You
saw Zack?" Maddie gasped. "Where?"
"At
the Dairy Hut of all places," Mary Beth said with a sigh.
"And
you got into an ice-cream fight?"
"In
a way, I guess we did." Mary Beth stood up from the chair and walked over
to the sink. She tore off a paper towel, wet it and slowly wiped her face, then
down her neck and across her chest to remove what was left of the sticky French
vanilla. She turned around to face Maddie and leaned back against the sink.
"I was so shocked when he walked through the door I dropped my ice cream,
and then he had the nerve to say, 'It looks like I owe you an ice-cream cone.'
Can you believe that? We haven't seen each other in six years and he has the
nerve to say 'It looks like I owe you an ice-cream cone!'"
Maddie
shook her head sympathetically. "I need to mail Zack a copy of Brad's
phrase book." When Mary Beth sent her a puzzled look, Maddie smiled and
said, "Brad's always teased me that there should be a phrase book for
things men shouldn't say. So, I made one for him. Believe it or not, he looks
at it quite often."
"Then be sure and add
'It looks like I owe you an ice-cream cone' to that phrase book, and underline
in red 'not to be said to the woman you left standing at the altar when you
haven't seen her for six damn years!'"
They both burst out
laughing, prompting a gleeful squeal from little B.J.
Maddie put her son back in
his high chair, then took a box from the cabinet and sprinkled some Cheerios on
the tray. She waited until B.J. popped one into his mouth. Once her child was
occupied, she turned back to Mary Beth. "So? What happened then?"
"We pretty much got
into a shouting match after that, or I guess I was the one doing all the
shouting. Especially after he told me the reason he came home was because he
felt it was time to make peace between us."
Maddie sent her a guilty
look.
"And don't you dare
agree with him, Maddie," Mary Beth warned.
"Even though we both know
Zack told you upfront that he wasn't going to be at the church?"
Mary Beth gasped. "You
knew that? And you let me feel guilty about it all this time because I didn't
tell you?"
Maddie
walked over and put her arm around her twin's shoulder. "We all knew. Me, Mom and Pop. You were just so upset,
we didn't want to push you closer to the edge than you already were by making a
big deal out of it."
"Would
you believe me if I told you I really did think Zack would show up at the
church?"
Maddie
squeezed Mary Beth's shoulder. "I know you did. So did I."
When Mary Beth let out a long sigh, Maddie said, "So? Where did you leave
things with Zack?"
Mary
Beth pushed away from the sink and started pacing around the kitchen. She
didn't dare admit to Maddie that seeing Zack again had her so confused she
didn't know what she was feeling at the moment. She still had her pride.
"I
just hope you won't let your pride get in the way of finally settling things
with Zack," Maddie said, reading Mary Beth's mind and making her groan.
"You know you and Zack still love each other, even if neither of you are
ready to admit it. You don't try to avoid someone for six years if you don't
still care about them."
Mary
Beth sent Maddie a what-do-you-know look. Sure, she might be willing to agree
to a truce, eventually, after she made Zack suffer a little. But agreeing to
nod politely if they passed each other on the street was one thing. Taking him
back was totally out of the question. That nagging doubt would always be there
in the back of her mind. She would always be afraid Zack would decide at some
point he needed more than what they had together. Just like
he did when he left her at the altar. She hadn't been enough, he'd
wanted more. She couldn't go through that again.
She wouldn't
go through that again.
"I left things with
Zack exactly where they were," Mary Beth finally told her sister. "Over."
Maddie hesitated for a
second and sent her a worried look. "Please tell me you aren't thinking
about skipping the reunion and going back to L.A."
She had thought
about it, but only briefly. "No way," Mary Beth said with conviction.
"I'm sure everyone already knows we're both in town. The last thing I'm
going to do is give Zack, or the rest of Morgan City, the satisfaction of
running away like a frightened puppy with my tail between my legs."
3
Mary Beth picked up the
Friday morning paper and read the first line of her daily horoscope: Avoid
confrontations that could lead to embarrassing situations.
"You're
a little late, sweetie," Mary Beth grumbled.
"What
did you say, dear?" her mother said from across the table as she passed
the plate of homemade biscuits to her husband.
"I
was just thinking out loud, Mom," Mary Beth said, and continued reading: The
scales bearer, Libra, strives for balance. Someone demanding justice could tip
the scales and not in your favor. Keep a low profile and the danger will pass.
Mary
Beth read over the words again, then flipped back to the front page and frowned
when she saw the editor's daily column: Class Of '91: Will King Of Internet And
Soap Opera Queen Show Up For Reunion?
"That
little slimeball," Mary Beth grumbled. The
article went on to say what everyone in town already knew about her and Zack's
ill-fated relationship.
"If
you're talking about Arnold Purdy's article this morning, I'm angry with Arnold
myself," her mother spoke up and dabbed at the corner of her mouth with
her napkin. "But Arnold really isn't a slimeball.
He's actually a good Christian boy."
"And
what am I, Mom? A born again pagan?"
"Don't be
ridiculous." Helen Morgan threw her napkin down on the table. "I just
meant Arnold has recently been appointed as a deacon in our church. And the men
chosen as the leaders of the church have to have exemplary moral
character."
"Well, I don't call
dragging up other people's dirty laundry exemplary moral character, Mom. And we
both know the reason most of the men in our church are chosen as deacons is
directly related to how much money they dump in the collection plate every
Sunday."
"Now,
that's the truth if anyone ever told it," George Morgan spoke up.
Helen sent her husband and
her daughter an annoyed look. "Well, maybe if you kids hadn't always
teased Arnold so much when you were in school, he wouldn't be tempted to use
his newspaper to even the score now."
Mary Beth didn't deny her
mother's accusation. Arnold had always been everyone's target. Mainly because
he was so incredibly intolerable he just begged to be teased. "Oh, come
on, Mom. Maybe we did tease Arnold in school. But Arnold Purdy's so damn
annoying even a boomerang wouldn't come back to him."
"Save
the cursing for L.A., please."
Mary
Beth rolled her eyes and looked across the table for her father's support again.
George Morgan was hunched over his bacon and eggs, looking like the big bear
Mary Beth had always likened her father to. He was a little heavier around the
middle than she'd like for his health, and his dark hair was slowly getting
thin on top, but he was the sweetest, most loveable man she'd ever known. And
he almost always took her side. "Don't you agree that Arnold Purdy is a
pain, Pop?"
Mayor
Morgan looked up from his plate long enough to say, "That man is a human
boil on the butt of society if there ever was one."
"And
I'm stupid enough to wonder where Mary Beth gets her foul language," said
Helen with a sigh.
Mary
Beth laughed. "Maybe you're right, Mom. Maybe Arnold is using his paper to
finally get back at the classmates who teased him. But I swear, he asked for
most of it. Like that stupid question box he always insisted on keeping in the
cafeteria. 'Ask Arnold' is what he called it."
"Ask
Arnold what?" Mayor Morgan wanted to know.
"He
wanted us to ask him anything. And he was arrogant enough to brag he couldn't
be stumped for an answer."
"Sounds
like he was very studious to me," Helen argued.
"And
did you ever put a question in that box?" her father asked.
Mary
Beth couldn't keep from laughing. "Dozens of questions,
actually."
"Like
what?" her father asked.
Mary
Beth grinned. "Like, if we can measure the speed of light, what is the
speed of dark? Where do we keep the whales that we save? But the one I remember
that really flipped Arnold
out was, what's so great about taxation with
representation? He practically wrote a thesis on that subject, shaming
all of us for not being civic minded enough to support our own
government."
Her mother looked puzzled,
as if she were actually pondering the answers to those questions, but her
father was laughing so hard he was pounding the kitchen table.
"Well, I'm certainly
glad everyone's in a good mood this morning," Maddie said when she came
breezing into the kitchen with little B.J. on her hip. "Because..."
"If
you're talking about the paper, Maddie, don't worry. We've already seen
it." Mary Beth reached out for her grinning nephew.
Maddie handed her son over
to his aunt, but her look turned serious. "It's not the paper I'm talking
about, Mary Beth. It's Zack. I just heard on WKZM that he's causing quite a
commotion over on Main Street. The radio said he was handing out
one-hundred-dollar bills to everyone who drove by. And you're not going to
believe this, but apparently he has a sign around his neck that says..."
"Oh, God. I
already know what the sign says," Mary Beth gasped. She was suddenly so
weak she handed B.J. to his grandmother before she dropped him.
She forgot all about
avoiding conflicts that could lead to embarrassing situations, and about
keeping a low profile until the danger passed. Instead she was already running
for the door when she heard Maddie say from behind her, "I swear, Mom, I
think Zack's gone crazy."
Mary
Beth hadn't even thought to ask for the keys to her father's car.
You could cover the entire town of Morgan City in a thirty-minute walk. And
even if she had taken her father's car she wouldn't have gotten very far. By
the time she reached the end of Mulberry Street, there was already a long line
of traffic inching its way slowly toward Main.
She ignored the open stares
people were sending her through their car windows, and she pretended not to
hear the questions being thrown at her as she hurried down the sidewalk.
"Hey, Mary Beth? Is
Zack handing out money on Main Street just another one of your publicity
stunts?" someone had the nerve to call out from the other side of the
street.
"The paper says people
are taking bets on whether you and Zack will both show up at the reunion.
What's Zack doing, paying people to bet on him?" someone else yelled.
"Get a life and stop
worrying about two people who already have one," Mary Beth yelled back to
no one in particular.
And then she kept on
walking.
When a motorcycle roared up
beside her, Mary Beth sent a dirty look at the rider until she saw who it was.
"I
guess you've already heard what my demented cousin is doing at the
moment," Greg Callahan said as he coasted along beside her.
"Making a fool of himself, you mean?"
"That,
and handing out one-hundred-dollar bills like it was Monopoly money."
"Can't you stop him,
Greg? Can't you do something?" Mary Beth pleaded.
"I was going to ask you
the same thing." Greg motioned to the space on the seat behind him.
"Hop on, Mary Beth. Maybe between the two of us we can talk some sense into
the crazy lunatic before he goes bankrupt."
Mary Beth swung a long
jean-clad leg over the back of Greg's motorcycle and held on for dear life as
he roared away from the curb. Greg weaved in and out of traffic so fast it made
her head spin. She almost lost her balance when he jumped the curb several
minutes later and landed on the sidewalk where Zack was standing at the corner
of Main and Palmetto.
Zack, however, never even
acknowledged their arrival.
Instead, he kept talking
rather amicably with Toby Martin who ran the local gas station. He handed Toby
a crisp new hundred-dollar bill before he said goodbye and Tony drove away.
"Next,"
Zack called out and motioned the next car forward.
When a Volkswagen rattled to
a stop, Mary Beth hopped off the back of Greg's motorcycle and marched up to
stand beside Zack. "You're making a real ass of yourself, Zack," she
said, glaring at the driver of the car who immediately sent her a satisfied
smile. "Keep moving, Arnold," Mary Beth warned.
"Gladly,"
Arnold said,
flashing her a gap-tooth smile as he held his palm out
for Zack to grease.
Zack placed a bill in
Arnold's hand but Mary Beth reached out and snatched it right back. "Don't
you dare give that little weasel a dime."
Zack turned and looked at
her for the first time. "I'm sorry, Mary Beth. But I don't remember there
being any restrictions about who I gave the money to when you came up with this
idea."
"Mary Beth told you to
do this?" Arnold quizzed, quickly reaching for a notepad on the seat
beside him. He took a pen from the pocket protector he'd probably been using
since high school and poised it over the pad. "So you think handing out
money on Main Street is payment enough for leaving you at the altar, Mary
Beth?"
Mary Beth ignored the
question, grabbed the bill back from Zack's hand and tossed it through Nerdy
Purdy's open car window. "Get out of here, Arnold. Get out of here before
I personally pull you out of that car myself and..."
"I
would take some anger management courses if I were you, Mary Beth," Arnold
said in his usual superior tone before his old Volkswagen coughed and sputtered
and finally rattled away.
Before the next car could
advance, Mary Beth grabbed Zack's arm and swung him back around to face her.
"And just how long do you plan to keep this up?"
"Have you changed your
mind about calling a truce?"
"Does Arnold Purdy have straight
teeth?"
"Nope."
"That's my answer."
Zack shrugged. "Then I
guess I'll keep standing here until the cars stop coming, or the money runs
out. Whichever comes first."
"That sign around your
neck really is true, Zack. You really are an idiot," Greg said as he
walked up beside them.
Zack took a brief look down
at the sign around his neck and said, "Yep, that's what the sign says. I'm
the idiot who ran out on Mary Beth Morgan. And now I'm paying for it."
Zack turned his attention
back to the next car in line. A bright red head appeared when the tinted window
came down. "Hey, Zack," said Sally Hughes, one of their old
classmates who had always had a crush on Zack. She looked briefly at Mary Beth
and managed a curt nod.
Zack automatically peeled a
bill from the huge stack of money he held in his hand, but Sally said, "I
don't want your money, Zack. I heard you were home and I stopped to see if you'd
like to come to dinner at my place tomorrow night."
Mary Beth fought back a pang
of jealousy, but answered the question before Zack could say a word. "Zack
would love to have dinner with you, Sally. What time?"
Zack
quickly shook his head. "Sorry, Sally. I'm going to be tied up for the
next few days." He sent a challenging look back at Mary Beth as if to
imply she would be involved in
whatever was going to have him tied up.
Not
in this lifetime! Mary Beth vowed silently.
The thick makeup couldn't
hide the disappointment on Sally's pinched face. "How
about dinner next week, then?"
Zack
leaned forward and took Sally's hand, then closed her fingers around the bill
she had refused the first time. "I'll see what I can do," he said,
and sent her one of those heart-stopping smiles Mary Beth thought she'd
forgotten.
The
smile worked like a charm. "Great!" Sally said in a bubbly voice.
"See you next week, sweetie."
"Liar,"
Mary Beth said when Sally drove away. "You're never going to have dinner
with Sally Hughes and you know it."
"But
at least I'm a sweetie," Zack said with a grin.
Mary
Beth felt like slapping him. She frowned when she saw the local town wino
stumbling across the street in their direction.
"Here
you go," Zack said, handing over a bill to the toothless old guy who held
the money up to the sunlight, kissed it like a long-lost lover, and then headed
off down the street.
"Shame
on you," Mary Beth said. "You know he's heading straight to the
liquor store."
"Nah,
old Charlie's sobered up," Zack told her.
"I had a long talk with him yesterday. I
think he's finally seen the light."
Mary Beth was skeptical
until she saw the old man bypass the liquor store completely and head into the
local diner. St. Zack, she thought. Too sweet to
hurt a woman's feelings that he doesn't want to date. Taking time out to
counsel old winos and show them the light. What would it be next? Risking his
own safety to rescue a helpless kitten stranded in a tree?
Give me a freaking break.
She glared at him.
"Tell me the truth, Zack. What are you really trying to prove?"
His expression was as
wounded as it had been the day before at the Dairy Hut. "I'm trying to
prove there's nothing I wouldn't do for your forgiveness, Mary Beth. And that's
the honest to God truth."
Great.
Of all the questions in the
world, she had to ask that one. And of all the answers in the world, his
couldn't have been more perfect.
Except for the fact that he
was wasting his time.
And so Mary Beth said
exactly what she'd been thinking to herself. "Sorry, Zack. You're wasting your time."
And then she turned around
and left him standing on the corner of Main and Palmetto, still handing out
crisp one-hundred-dollar bills to the long line of cars waiting patiently for
the best deal to hit Morgan City in a long, long time.
"Fifteen
thousand dollars," Greg kept saying. "I still can't
believe you gave away fifteen thousand dollars in one short morning."
Zack
ignored his cousin and reached for the bowl of mashed potatoes his aunt Lou had
just placed on the table before him.
"And
some of those cars came by twice. Not to mention that church activity
bus," Greg continued with a snort. "It wasn't enough to give fifteen
screaming little league ball players one hundred dollars apiece, Zack felt the
need to give their coach another five hundred to help with new uniforms."
"Money
well spent," Aunt Lou said, looking fondly at her nephew. "Zack
always was a good boy."
Greg
frowned at his mother. "Well, in case you haven't noticed, Mom, Zack isn't
a boy anymore. He's a man. A man with a screw loose, if you ask me."
"Well,
look on the bright side," Uncle Jim spoke up. "Zack spread a lot of
money around Morgan City this morning. And we'll most likely get some of it
back down at the hardware store over the next few days."
Greg
wasn't appeased. "I wish the two of you wouldn't encourage him," he
grumbled. "Don't either of you realize what your nutty nephew is really
up to?"
When
both of his parents sent him a questioning look, Greg jerked his thumb in
Zack's direction. "Your crazy nephew has come back home because he thinks
he can talk Mary Beth into taking him back."
"Is that true,
Zack?" Lou Callahan asked, her face lighting up
with hope. Greg groaned.
Zack gave his aunt a warm
smile. "Someone once told me true love waits." He and his aunt
exchanged knowing looks.
"True love waits until
you leave her standing at the altar," Greg scoffed. "Then she waits
until she can have you castrated and serve your..."
"Greg
Callahan!" Aunt Lou scolded. "We're trying to have lunch here."
Greg frowned and grabbed the
bowl that Zack was handing over. After scooping up a spoonful of fluffy mashed
potatoes, he bent his head over his plate with a scowl on his face.
Zack ignored him and speared
one of his aunt's famous melt-in-your-mouth fried chicken breasts with his fork
and tried to concentrate on his lunch. But he couldn't help but worry that
Greg's prediction might be right. He could tell Mary Beth was a little
flattered that he was actually willing to carry out the hypothetical scenario
she'd thrown at him, but she had still walked away without changing her mind
about them calling a truce.
Looking
across the table at his cousin, Zack asked, ' 'Did Mary Beth say anything when
you went after her and took her back to her parents' house?"
Greg
put his fork down. "As a matter of fact, she did. She told me not to worry
about you when I said I was afraid you really were cracking up."
"Not
to worry about me?"
"Mary Beth reminded me
how practical you've always been. She said you were practical enough to realize
the two of you were too young to get married six years ago. And she assured me
you were practical enough to realize you didn't have a chance in hell of
getting her back now."
Zack
grinned and reached for another helping of mashed potatoes. Practical? So, Mary Beth was counting
on him being old practical Zack, was she?
Sending
Greg a twisted smile that immediately made his cousin frown, Zack said,
"Tell me, Greg. What are you doing first thing tomorrow morning?"
"You have to admit what Zack
did was terribly romantic, Mary Beth."
"I don't call giving
Arnold Purdy more fodder for his bull crap column, romantic." Mary Beth
glared at the Saturday morning headlines.
Wild, Free and Merciless?
That's
what Morgan City is saying about soap-opera star, Mary Beth Morgan. At Miss Morgan's
suggestion, her ex-fiancé, Zack Callahan, was more than willing to humiliate himself Friday morning by handing out hundred-dollar bills
in an effort to end the six-year feud that's been going on between them....
"You
said yourself you were the one who gave Zack the idea," Maddie threw in.
"What
I said was only a joke, Maddie, and Zack knows it."
"But the fact that Zack
actually did what you told him was terribly romantic, just the same."
Mary Beth let out a sigh.
"You call it terribly romantic. I call it terribly too late."
"Are you sure, Mary
Beth?"
Mary Beth eased herself up
from Maddie's front porch swing, careful not to wake a sleeping B.J. who was
being cradled in his mother's arms.
After pacing the porch for a
few minutes, Mary Beth finally said, "I'm sure."
When Maddie only smiled and
kept swinging, Mary Beth put her hands on her hips. "What? Are you saying
you think I should forgive Zack? Pretend we can
go back to being just friends?"
"It doesn't matter what
I think, Mary Beth. Whether you forgive Zack or not is a decision only you can
make."
"I can't believe
this," said Mary Beth. "My own sister thinks I should forgive the man
who left me standing at the altar."
"I didn't say
that."
"Then what are you
saying, Maddie?"
Maddie hesitated. "I'm
just trying to point out that I think it's rather odd that not once in six
years have you brought any of those fabulous men you're always dating home to
meet your family."
Mary Beth laughed. "And
why do you think that is, Maddie? Maybe because the men I date happen to be
over three thousand miles away in California? Which just doesn't make it
possible to drop by for coffee with my parents and my sister after we take in
dinner and a movie?"
Ignoring her twin's sarcasm,
Maddie said, "No. I think the reason we've never met any of those
to-die-for dates of yours is because after dinner and a movie you never bother
seeing them again."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning
maybe you haven't found anyone else you care about the way you care about
Zack."
"Cared
about Zack," Mary Beth corrected. "And okay. I admit it. That
special someone just hasn't come along yet."
"Hasn't
come along? Or hasn't come back? Until now?" Maddie challenged.
"Stop
trying to confuse me, Maddie," Mary Beth grumbled. "It's bad enough
Venus has suddenly decided to play games with my life. Don't you start making
me doubt myself, too."
"Puh-lease," Maddie said.
"Don't start with that Venus, ruler of your destiny nonsense again. It's
just too ridiculous for me to even contemplate."
"Ridiculous?"
Mary Beth echoed. "You? The woman who thinks
nothing of spending two years trying to determine if gnats really have facial
expressions, has the nerve to call me ridiculous because I read my horoscope
on a daily basis?"
Maddie
laughed. "The study I was doing on the fungus gnat had nothing to do with
facial features, silly."
"Seriously,
Maddie. How could she do this to me?"
Maddie
rolled her eyes. "I can't believe I'm even asking this, but how could
Venus do what to you, Mary Beth?"
"Hand me my stardom in
one hand, and then turn around and push Zack back into my life with the other.
It's just not fair."
Sending her sister a
sympathetic look, Maddie said, "Sorry, hon. But sometimes life isn't fair."
"Life,"
Mary Beth said disgustedly. "The ultimate sexually
transmitted disease."
"And one we all have to
face sooner or later," Maddie added.
"What's this about
sexually transmitted diseases?"
Mary Beth turned around to
see her brother-in-law approaching wearing nothing but a pair of cutoffs. He
toweled off his impressive torso to remove the perspiration he'd worked up
mowing the lawn, then bent down and kissed his wife before he placed a loving
kiss on the forehead of his sleeping son.
I
might throw up, Mary Beth thought.
What
she didn't need at the moment was to
witness the perfect setting for a Norman Rockwell painting. Especially a
painting with two of the most unlikely candidates she could imagine in the
picture. A top gun flyboy? With his
microscope-obsessive wife looking down at their angelic child like Lady
Madonna?
It was enough to make Mary
Beth say, "Well, I'd better get going."
"Can't you stay a
little longer?" Maddie called out as Mary Beth started down the porch
steps, but her sister's protest sounded rather feeble to Mary Beth.
"No, I'd better get
back to Mom and Pop's. Besides, you guys need some family time alone together."
And
it was true. Weekends were all the time Brad and Maddie had together. As usual,
Brad would be leaving on Sunday for his flight back to the Pentagon.
"And
church tomorrow?" Maddie reminded her twin.
Mary
Beth grinned. "Don't worry. I wouldn't miss church tomorrow for anything.
Especially since I intend to make it a point to sit next to our old friend,
Arnold Purdy, and make goo-goo eyes at our newest deacon through the entire
service. Then we'll see how he likes
being gossiped about for the rest of the week."
"Mary
Beth! You wouldn't."
Mary
Beth's only answer was to toss a final wave over her head. Then she jammed her
thumbs into the front pockets of her jeans and started walking back to her
parents' house.
But
as she walked, she kept thinking back over the conversation she just had with
her twin. It was just like Maddie to be right on target about her never dating
the same man twice. Yet, her one-date-only policy was actually a defense
mechanism Mary Beth had implemented without even realizing it. Probably because there were never any complications on a first
date. First dates were...well, they were usually fun. She could have a
great time, give the guy a polite good-night kiss at her door and then bid him
a fond farewell. And if he did call again she simply kept putting him off until
he got tired of calling, always using her hectic schedule as a plausible
excuse.
It
works for me, Mary Beth told herself with confidence as
she neared Mulberry Street. Besides, what had being in love with the same guy
since she was ten years old done for her? As far as Mary Beth was concerned,
being in love was highly overrated. She'd already been there, done that, even
got the T-shirt, so to speak. A T-shirt that would have read: Girl Meets Boy.
Girl Plans For A Life Together. Boy runs like hell.
Well, now it was her turn to
run.
4
"I think you should read the
interview Arnold did with Zack, Mary Beth. It's really touching."
When Mary Beth shook her
head in protest, her mother forced the paper into her hands. Mary Beth let out
a disgusted sigh but read the headlines: "Fifteen Thousand Dollars: A Small
Price To Pay For Forgiveness As Far As Morgan City's Prodigal Son, Zack
Callahan, Is Concerned...."
"I
don't care if Zack handed out fifteen million dollars,
Mom." She threw the paper down on her bed. "He's wasting his
time."
"But
I know he still loves you, Mary Beth. And I know you still love him."
"You
know nothing of the kind," Mary Beth was quick to answer.
"Well,
the least you could do is talk to him. His aunt Lou called me this morning,
really excited. She said she was certain Zack had come home to win you
back."
"Win
me back?" Mary Beth shouted. "He doesn't want me back, Mom, he's just trying to soothe his own guilty
conscience."
Helen
shook her head. "Oh, no, dear. You need to read
that interview. Zack doesn't come right out and say he wants you back, but Lou
says..."
"Hush,
Mom!" Mary Beth warned. "I don't want to hear another word." She
was standing in the middle of her bedroom wearing nothing but her underwear,
but she held her mother's gaze. "But I do promise you one thing. Arnold
Purdy just sealed his fate with that interview."
And
Mary Beth meant every word. Her threat about seeking Arnold out at church had
been an idle one. Until now.
"Now, Mary Beth, what
does that mean?"
Mary
Beth turned her back on her mother and walked to her closet. "It means the
very nerve of that little creep calling me merciless and making Zack look like
the injured party just pushed me over the edge."
"It's
always better to turn the other cheek, dear" was Helen Morgan's Sunday
morning advice as she started out of her daughter's bedroom.
Still
flipping through her closet, Mary Beth mumbled under her breath, "The
only cheek I'm interested in is the one I plan to leave bruised when I kick
Arnold Purdy's bony little ass."
"No
cursing while you're getting ready for church, please'' came the warning from
the hallway, reminding Mary Beth that age evidently hadn't affected her
mother's hearing in the least.
When
her eyes finally landed on the perfect outfit, the smile that spread across
Mary Beth's face was almost as wicked as the plan she had in store for Arnold.
She pulled the dry cleaning bag from her closet, then walked back to the bed
and laid it down to pick up the newspaper. It only took a few seconds to read
Zack's candid confession about how sorry he was for causing her any
embarrassment. At the end of the article, he even alluded to the hope that Mary
Beth would eventually forgive him, but there was certainly nothing mentioned
about Zack wanting her back.
No,
that was obviously his aunt's wishful thinking.
Which
was just as well, Mary Beth reminded herself. Not
only could she never trust Zack again, but people were finally beginning to see
her in a different light. She was a star now, not Maddie's flighty twin, and
not the girl Zack left at the altar. And she certainly never wanted to be known
as the idiot who took Zack Callahan back the second he crooked his finger in
her direction.
Not
that he wanted her back, she kept reassuring herself. No, she couldn't deal
with that thought. Not now. Not when she still had a personal goal to reach.
Quickly flipping to her
horoscope, Mary Beth read: Taking control of the
situation is sometimes your best defense. Go straight to the heart of the
problem and squelch further attempts to discredit you. Taking up for yourself is imperative. Make your move and make it now.
Humming a happy tune, Mary
Beth picked up the dry cleaning bag and hurried into her adjoining bathroom,
fully convinced that Venus had just given her the green light on Project Nerdy
Purdy.
Wearing a hot-pink suit with a skirt short enough to
stretch the boundaries of being suitable enough for church, Mary Beth walked
into the sanctuary behind her parents. She had done her hair up in a sleek
French twist and applied a tad more makeup than usual.
Canvassing the happy
congregation, Mary Beth kept looking for the one person she had come there to
see. When she finally located Deacon Purdy standing at the front of the church,
the jerk had the nerve to send her a victorious little smile.
Mary Beth immediately blew
him a kiss.
She almost laughed out loud
when Arnold's cheeks turned as pink as the suit she was wearing. In fact, he
became so flustered he dropped the church bulletins he'd been handing out and
started scrambling around on his hands and knees in a hurried effort to pick
them back up.
Charge, was
the mental battle cry that echoed through her head when Mary Beth walked
politely past her own family's pew and headed straight for the front row where
only Nerdy Purdy and the other I-can-buy-my-way-into-Heaven deacons of the
church were allowed to sit.
"Excuse me,
gentlemen," Mary Beth said, flashing the other four men a brilliant
smile. "Could you please slide down? Arnold asked me to sit with him in
church this morning."
"I did not!" came
an indignant cry, but Mary Beth bent down, took Arnold's beet-red face in both
hands and delivered a loud smacking kiss straight to the center of his
forehead. "Of course you invited me to sit with you, Arnie. Remember? When I was leaving your house late last night?''
Several
women on the row behind them gasped.
The other deacons looked at
Arnold disapprovingly, but they did slide down, giving Mary Beth more than
enough room to take a seat on the sacred front-row pew that was reserved
strictly for the men in the congregation with exemplary moral character.
Mary Beth wasted no time
cuddling up so close to Arnold he began hyperventilating. And when he finally
caught his breath, she forced her fingers through his for a little friendly
handholding during Sunday morning service.
"Have
you gone mad?" Arnold growled, looking nervously around the church.
"Not
at all," said Mary Beth, knowing every eye was cast in their direction.
She snuggled even closer. "You've just been so fascinated with me and my
sister over the past two years, I thought you might
like to get better acquainted with the Morgan twin who is still single."
"Well,
you thought wrong," Arnold said through clenched teeth, and he was still
trying to pull his hand out of her grip when Reverend Spindal walked to the
pulpit and opened his Bible.
The
frown the reverend sent the unlikely couple sitting on the front row delayed
the Sunday morning sermon for a moment, but it really didn't matter. Because
the back doors of the church suddenly swung open and old Charlie, the town
ex-wino, stumbled into the sanctuary with a terrified look on his unshaven
face.
"Hurry, Reverend
Spindal," the old guy yelled to the startled congregation. "Zack
Callahan's trying to kill himself. He's hanging upside down from the Deep
River Bridge!"
Mary Beth jumped up so fast
she pulled Arnold with her. She pulled her hand free so violently that Arnold
landed on the floor with a thud. By the time she reached the back of the
church, she stopped only long enough to remove her six-inch heels. Then Mary
Beth started running, staying well ahead of the other church members who were
all filing out of the church faster than a swarm of bewildered hornets fleeing
from a knocked-down hive.
"How are we doing for time?"
Zack asked his cousin.
Greg shook his head and
reluctantly looked down at his watch. "If you're really going through with
your version of stupid human tricks part two, I'd say you have two more minutes
before you have to fling your crazy ass over the side of this bridge."
"Damn straight I'm
going through with this," Zack said with more confidence than he felt; he
still hadn't found the courage to look over the side of the railing.
The Deep River Bridge had
once been the main thoroughfare through town, but now only served as a foot
path to the paved bike and walking trail that eventually ended up at the
courthouse green. Built back when Deep River had been given that name for a
reason, the structure reached seventy-five feet across the middle, which was
plenty high enough to send chills up and down his acrophobia-impaired spine.
Now Deep River was nothing more than a trickle in the sandy river bottom below,
another concern since there wasn't much water to buffer a fall.
The
things you do for love, Zack thought. He adjusted
the straps of the sturdy harness he and Greg had crafted at the hardware store
Saturday morning. Then he gave the bungee cord a couple of hard tugs to make
sure it was secure. "You're sure this thing will hold my weight?"
Greg
laughed. "I'm sure. But maybe if I dropped you on your head, it would
finally knock some sense into that thick skull of yours."
"Ha,
ha," said Zack and finally took a step forward to look over the railing.
He felt like Jimmy Stewart's character in Vertigo.
If
Greg noticed he'd broken out in a cold sweat, he didn't mention it. Instead,
Greg checked his watch and said, "It's show time,
Evel Knievel. Now get your
butt over that rail."
Slinging
one leg over the railing with a grimace, then the other, Zack held on to the
railing with one hand and gave his cousin a feeble thumbs-up sign with the
other. And though Greg had to practically pry his fingers from the railing, no
one in the history of modern man had ever done a better imitation of the Tarzan
yell than Zack did when he finally let himself free-fall backward off the Deep
River Bridge.
Still
trying to recover from being upside down with the world spinning around him,
Zack's only salvation was the thought that he would soon hear the sound of
thundering footsteps overhead, telling him that good old Charlie hadn't let him
down.
And if he didn't fall and
kill himself first, he knew Mary Beth would be among the group of spectators
old Charlie had rounded up to witness yet another example of the self-induced
lunacy he was willing to put himself through for the woman he loved.
By
the time Mary Beth covered the short distance
from the church to the Deep River Bridge, her sleek French twist was falling
apart in every direction and her feet felt like she'd run through a field full
of blooming Brillo pads. She stopped long enough to
push the hair out of her eyes and brush away the gravel stuck to the bottom of
her feet. When she put her shoes back on, she marched straight toward Greg, who
immediately started backing up when he saw her coming.
"I can't believe you'd
let Zack pull such a stupid stunt," she yelled, sending him a threatening
glare. "You know he's always been terrified of heights."
"Hey, it was your
idea," Greg replied calmly.
They both glared at each
other for a second longer, then leaned over the
railing at the place where a bright blue bungee cord disappeared over the rail.
"This isn't funny,
Zack," Mary Beth called down to him. "Now get yourself back up
here."
Zack's only reply was to
whistle a few bars of "Here Comes The
Bride."
Glaring back at Greg, Mary
Beth said, "Get him back up here, Greg. I mean it. Do it now."
They both looked over the
railing again. Zack was swinging slightly back and forth every time the wind
blew. "I don't know how to pull him back up," Greg admitted.
Mary Beth sent him a look
threatening enough to make Greg realize he might
be the next one to go over the railing. "What do you mean you don't know
how to pull him back up?"
Greg sent her a sheepish
look. "If I pull on that bungee cord, all it's going to do is turn Zack
into a human yo-yo."
"You mean to tell me
you let him go off the side of the bridge without figuring out how to get him
back up?" Mary Beth's tone was deadly.
"Serves him
right," said Greg. "Let him hang upside down for a few hours. Maybe
it will get the blood circulating back to his brain again."
Mary Beth was only one
second away from placing her hands around Greg's throat when Zack's Aunt Lou
came rushing up beside her. "Do something, Mary Beth. Do something before
my nephew falls from this bridge and kills himself."
What do you want me to do?
Climb over the railing and pull the human yo-yo back up with my teeth? Mary
Beth felt like shouting, but instead she put her arm around Zack's sobbing aunt
and patted her shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll get him back up somehow, Aunt
Lou. But I can't promise you I won't kill him myself when we do get him back on
solid ground."
"Zack, honey? Can
you hear me," Aunt Lou called out with a sniff as she looked over the
railing with Mary Beth. "We're going to get you up from there. Just hang
on."
"Do you realize your
crazy cousin doesn't have a clue how we're going to pull you back up,
Zack?" Mary Beth called down to her ex-lover.
The second those words left
Mary Beth' s mouth, Aunt Lou abandoned her post and
stomped toward her son shaking her finger in Greg's direction.
Mary
Beth wasn't left standing on the bridge by herself very long. A white-faced Maddie,
followed by her parents and Brad who was holding little B.J., walked up beside
her. Maddie's eyes were wide with concern. "Please tell me this isn't
another one of those theoretical examples you gave poor Zack, Mary Beth."
Poor Zack? In
spite of the large crowd that was now leaning over every inch of the bridge
railing, Mary Beth was prepared to give her sister a good tongue-lashing for
taking Zack's side again, but the sound of screaming sirens jerked her head
around. A patrol car, Morgan City's one-truck fire department and the only
ambulance in town roared into the parking lot just below the bridge.
"Are you happy now,
Zack?" Mary Beth called down to him. "Everyone's here but the
freaking national guard."
Zack stopped whistling. He
craned his neck up to look at her. "Have you changed your mind about
calling a truce?"
Mary Beth glared down at
him. "What do you think?"
Zack started his incessant
whistling again, tempting Mary Beth to give his bungee cord a good shake that
would hopefully make his teeth rattle. The only thing that stopped her was the
fact that Morgan City's sheriff was now making his way steadily in her
direction.
"Back
up, folks. Back up," Sheriff Wilson kept saying as
he made his way through the crowd and finally came to a stop beside Mary Beth.
They both looked over the railing at Zack. Sheriff Wilson called down, "I
hate to do this, Callahan, but I'm placing you under arrest."
"Under
arrest?" Mary Beth snapped,
narrowing her eyes. "For what?"
Sheriff
Wilson sent her a disapproving look and said, "Bungee jumping off this
bridge just happens to be against the law in Morgan City, missy. Do you have a
problem with that?"
Mary
Beth bristled at the "missy" part. "Well, excuse
me, but he's not exactly jumping at
the moment, now is he? In fact, you can't even prove that he ever did jump
off this bridge."
The
sheriff sent her another stern look. "Is that what they teach you out in
California Mary Beth Morgan? To back talk your public
officials?"
Mary Beth heard her mother
gasp from behind her. She ignored it. "If those
officials are threatening to arrest an innocent man? Yes."
"Quit
while you're still ahead, Mary Beth," Zack called out from below the
bridge.
Mary
Beth ignored Zack as well. "And if I were you, I'd put my efforts into
pulling him back up, instead of wasting time while you threaten to arrest
him."
Sheriff Wilson's face turned
bloodred. Maddie quickly
stepped in front of Mary Beth and said, "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse
my sister, Sheriff. Mary Beth is just feeling guilty right now because this
whole thing was her idea."
"Maddie!"
"This was her idea, was
it?" Sheriff Wilson said, sending Mary Beth a rather sadistic grin.
"Then I guess I'll have two prisoners
in my jail cell before this day is over."
Mary Beth paled.
"You're arresting me? On what charges?"
"Disturbing the
peace," the sheriff said, and then he turned to the group of volunteer
firemen standing on the bridge and said, "Pull him up from there, boys.
Pull him up so I can arrest him and his
mouthy television star girlfriend."
"Pop?" Mary Beth
called out, turning to her father. "You're the mayor. Do something."
But
when Mayor Morgan stepped forward, his wife pushed her way in front of him.
"I don't know about Zack's family, but I'm all for locking these two up,
Sheriff," Helen Morgan said glancing over at Zack's Aunt Lou. "Maybe
if you put them in a cell together they'll have to work out their problems and
stop all this nonsense that's driving everyone else crazy."
"Mother!"
Mary Beth exclaimed.
Aunt
Lou walked over to Zack when the firemen pulled him back over the railing and
whacked him on the arm with her Bible. "How dare you scare me like
that," she said before she turned to Mary Beth's mother and said,
"I'm with you, Helen. Lock them up, Sheriff. And keep them locked up until
they either kill each other or settle their differences."
Mary
Beth stood at the front of the jail cell, holding onto the iron
bars, her back purposely turned to Zack.
"You
know I never meant for you to end up in jail, Mary Beth," Zack said for
the fiftieth time.
"Don't say another
word, Zack, or I'll be in here for life for first-degree murder."
Zack pulled himself up from
the small cot in the cell and walked over to stand beside her. "Could we
please just talk, Mary Beth. Please?"
Okay, Mary
Beth thought. Maybe her mother and Aunt Lou were right. Maybe it was time
to settle their differences. Especially before Zack pulled
any more crazy stunts. Thank God she'd only given him two bogus
scenarios. She shuddered to think what he might have done had she mentioned
something as dangerous as tying himself to the railroad tracks and waiting for
the five o'clock train they used to chase when they were kids.
Mary Beth turned to face
him. "Okay. You want to talk? Then talk."
His
eyes searched her face for a moment. She didn't look away. How could she? His
eyes had always been one of the features she liked best about him. They were
dark green like moss in the forest, with little flecks
of gold around the iris that she used to tease him were sunbeams. They were
also kind eyes, eyes that told her with one look that he really was sorry for
hurting her.
"Damn," he said,
pulling his hand through his sun-streaked hair to push it back and out of his eyes.
"Now that you've finally agreed to listen to me, I don't know where to
start."
Mary Beth'
s anger rose up again, but she pushed it down. Leaning back against the
door of the cell, she folded her arms and said, "Why don't you start with
the real reason you didn't show up at the church, Zack? And don't give me that
crap about not standing in my way so I could go to Hollywood. I want the
truth."
He stood up a little straighter, reminding her how broad his shoulders were
beneath the polo shirt that hugged his body like a second skin. The way he
looked in his Levi's 501's was enough to distract her, too, but she refused to
let her eyes wander any lower than his face.
"I could make up a
lie," he finally said, "but the main reason I didn't show up at the
church was because I wanted you to
have the opportunity to do that commercial."
"And the other
part?"
He sighed. "I wanted
the same chance," he admitted. "I wanted to see if I had what it
took to be something other than the guy who slid into a cushy management job
compliments of his new father-in-law."
Mary Beth looked away.
"I don't know why taking over the dealership always bothered you, Zack.
You know my father loved you like his own son."
His voice was low and soft.
"I know he did. And I felt the same about him. But a man needs to feel
like a man before he can be a good husband, Mary Beth. And I wouldn't have felt
much like a man."
"Okay. I get the
picture," Mary Beth snapped, cutting him off. She wasn't going to give him
the opportunity to shift the blame to her. Make her feel it was her fault.
"Why didn't you just tell me you didn't want to take over the
dealership?"
Zack sent her a stupefied
look. "But I did tell you, Mary Beth. You just didn't want to hear what I had
to say."
"Oh, really?" she
said, pushing off from the cell door. "What are you saying, Zack, that it
was all my fault? That I was a cold, horrible, callous
bitch? Because I don't remember it that way. All I
remember is how devastated I was to think you could turn your back on me so
easily when I thought we meant so much to each other."
She saw a spark of anger
flicker in his dark green eyes. "Aren't you being just a bit dramatic,
Mary Beth? I wouldn't call turning our wedding reception into an I'm-off-to-Hollywood-to-be-an-actress party being that
devastated."
"And what did you want
me to do when you didn't show up for our wedding, Zack? Slit my wrists with our
wedding cake knife? Run screaming from the church and throw myself into the
oncoming traffic?"
"See,
there you go with the dramatics again," Zack said. But his look turned
serious when he added, ' 'What I wanted you to do, Mary Beth, was take my calls
and read all those letters I sent you without sending them back unopened. But
when you sent me that note, I knew."
"Knew
what?"
"That you were afraid
if you did talk to me you'd end up staying right here in Morgan City without
ever seeing what the world had to offer you."
Mary Beth flinched. She had enjoyed
her freedom once he gave it to her. At least during those
first few months. But rather than admit it, she said, "Well, at
least I didn't go on our honeymoon without you."
"I didn't go on our
honeymoon, Mary Beth. I traded in those tickets to Hawaii and went to Chicago
instead."
"And it never crossed
your mind that you could have flown out to Hollywood to be with me?"
"Why would I do
that?" Zack demanded. "You threatened to have me arrested right here
in Morgan City if I kept trying to contact you."
After a long silence, Zack
said, "Now you tell me the truth, Mary Beth. If I had come to Hollywood.
Would you have agreed to see me?"
Mary Beth hesitated.
"Probably not," she admitted finally. "I was too angry with you
then."
Leaning
back against the bars again, Mary Beth looked him straight in the eye. "But why now, Zack? Why after six years have you
suddenly decided we need to call a truce?"
His
smile was genuine. "Because our quest is over, Mary
Beth. We both made it. We got out of Morgan City and we've both been
very successful. But now we're old enough to step back and take a long look
around us and decide what's really important in life."
"And
your definition would be?"
"The
same thing it's always been. A home. A family..."
His voice trailed off and he stood there, looking at her.
"And
I hope you have that one day, Zack," Mary Beth said, willing herself not
to cry. "I hope I will, too. But just in case you think a truce means anything
other than a truce, I'm telling you right now it's too late for you and
me."
"You'll
never make me believe that, Mary Beth."
Dear
God! Her mother been right about Zack wanting her back.
Was he really crazy enough to think she'd take him back? Am I
crazy enough to even consider taking him back? Mary
Beth's chin jutted forward. "Well, you'd better believe it, Zack, because
that's just the way it is!"
Oh,
God. Not a zinger! Zack knew she could never
hold out when he kissed her like this. He'd perfected the zinger by the time
they were sixteen. She'd been defenseless against it then, and heaven help her,
she was defenseless against it now. It was a roller coaster type of kiss that
had her heart zipping, her mind tripping, and it would have had her hands
gripping the back of his head had he not finally taken pity on her and let her
go.
His
eyes searched her face for a moment. "Tell me you don't still feel what I
feel."
Mary
Beth looked away. "A part of me will always care about you, Zack,
but..."
"Then that's the part
I'll never give up on," Zack said, pulling her to him again for another
for a long, deep kiss.
If Zack hadn't been the
absolute best kisser on the planet, Mary Beth might have found the strength to
push him away. But he was the
best kisser on the planet as far as she was concerned. And without the ability
to reason at the moment, Mary Beth simply gave in and kissed Zack back.
And then she kissed him
again.
And again.
"Don't tell me there
isn't any magic left between us," Zack whispered.
Mary Beth didn't try.
Because being kissed by Zack Callahan had always seemed like magic to her. And
so she simply enjoyed the magic until the door at the other end of the hall
suddenly clanged open and broke them apart.
They weren't quick enough.
Sheriff Wilson walked up to the cell with his shiny brass key ring in his hand
and a knowing smile on his face. "Well, well. Looks like my jailbirds have
turned into lovebirds again."
Mary Beth reached up trying
to smooth her defunct French twist back into place and sent the sheriff a
look that should have inflicted pain.
He only smiled. "And
lucky for you, Miss Hollywood, that your sister isn't as angry as your mother
is. She's waiting for you outside. You're free to go."
"But what about
me?" Zack protested. After their heavy petting
session, Mary Beth was too confused to look back when she darted from the cell.
"The jury's still out
on you, Callahan," Sheriff Wilson said slamming the door in Zack's face
with a clang.
"You
can't just leave me here, Mary Beth," Zack yelled from behind her.
"Sure
I can," Mary Beth called back over her shoulder. "Just
like you left me six years ago."
"Do yourself
a favor, Callahan," Mary Beth heard Sheriff Wilson say. "Forget about
Miss Wild and Free and get yourself a sweet hometown girl."
"Mary Beth is a
sweet hometown girl," Zack insisted, his voice rising loud enough for her
to hear. "She just has a temporary case of amnesia at the moment."
Mary
Beth shoved open the door at the end of the hallway, but caught the sheriff's
reply before it shut behind her. "Amnesia," the sheriff said with a
laugh. "I could have sworn my wife told me your girlfriend was supposed to
be in a coma."
Zack
flipped the crystal on his watch several times
with his finger, convinced his watch wasn't working
since the minutes were passing as slow as stalagmites forming in an underground
cave. It had been hours since Mary Beth had made her way to freedom, yet here
he sat, thinking up several ways to torture his cousin when Greg finally showed
up to spring him from the slammer.
And
it didn't even matter that he had the money in his pocket to pay his imaginary
bail. Zack knew Sheriff Wilson would keep him right where he sat until a member
of his family went through the formality of actually showing up at the jail.
Still shaken up over the way
Mary Beth had kissed him back, Zack was afraid to even hope she might be
willing to leave the past in the past where it belonged and give them both a
chance to start over. Sure, he'd hurt her, but did she really think she hadn't
hurt him just as deeply?
Stretching out on the cot
with his arms behind his head, Zack stared at the ceiling, remembering what a
basket case he'd been during those months when Mary Beth refused to see him.
He'd poured his heart out in long, soulful letters. Letters she'd returned
unopened, letters that would have told her if she'd read them how much he loved
her and that postponing their wedding didn't mean he didn't want marry her.
The letters would have told her he only wanted a chance to find a career that
would allow him to take care of her the way a husband should take care of his
wife.
He wondered, as he had a
million other times, how their lives would have turned out if they had gotten
married. Would they still be together now? Would he have had the fortitude to
sit behind a desk at her father's car lot, with George Morgan looking over his
shoulder every second? George might have loved him like a son, but it still
would have been George's business Zack would have been trying to run. Could he
let go of his own business? Let someone else run it without carefully
critiquing every move they made? Not a chance.
No, he'd done the right
thing by not going through with the wedding, he was sure of it. What he didn't
know, was whether or not he could ever convince Mary Beth that now he could
give her that life she'd started planning for them when they were ten years
old.
Zack
lost his train of thought when the door at the end of the hall opened and Greg
strolled up to his cell.
Twirling
the sheriffłs brass key ring around on his finger as if he hadn't left Zack
sitting behind bars most of the day, Greg had the nerve to ask, "Are you
ready to get out of here?"
"No, Greg," Zack
said through clenched teeth. "I've ordered a pizza and invited some
friends over to watch the Braves beat the Cubs tonight."
"Suit yourself," Greg said with a shrug, and started back
down the hall.
Zack
yelled, "Unless you want to end up in traction, you'd better let me out
of here, Greg."
Greg walked back to the cell
where Zack was now holding on to the bars so tightly he thought he felt them
give under the strain. "Mom said you had to promise you wouldn't pull any
more dumb stunts before I set you free."
"No
more dumb stunts," Zack agreed, mentally willing Greg to step closer so he
could get his hands on that key ring.
"And
in case you're thinking about heading over to the Morgan house, Mom said you've
embarrassed yourself and our
family enough for one day."
"I had no intention of
going over to the Morgan house," Zack growled.
"And Mom said one of
your partners called earlier today and said he needed you back in Chicago,
pronto. Something about a big new account you've been working on for
months."
It was all Zack could do to
keep from shaking the bars like a crazed gorilla, but he let go of the bars and
pointed to the lock instead. "Then get me out of here, Greg. Now."
"Say please," Greg
taunted with a grin.
"Please," Zack
forced himself to say.
Greg obviously saw the
menacing look in Zack's eye because instead of opening the cell door himself,
Greg shoved the key ring through the bars and sprinted for the door like the
coward he needed to be.
5
Stretched out on the bed in
Maddie's upstairs guest room, Mary Beth smiled when she saw that Arnold Purdy's
front page column had been devoted to the threat of a new landfill at the lower
end of the county. In fact, all of his daily columns over the past few days had
been totally civic-minded. Going straight to the heart of the matter, as her
horoscope instructed, had been good advice.
Remembering
her daily horoscope, Mary Beth turned to the proper section and read: Reward
yourself with a night on the town. All work and no
play makes for a dull Libran. Give yourself a chance to sparkle outside the
work place.
Tossing
the paper aside, Mary Beth turned over on her back, trying to convince herself
she was relieved Zack had gone back to Chicago. At least, that meant she
wouldn't have to deal with him at the reunion tonight.
His
leaving had also meant she hadn't had to face him again after her disastrous
lapse in judgment, kissing him like there was no tomorrow in the jail cell last
Sunday. She had been stupid to allow that to happen. Stupid for her, because
she couldn't allow herself to fall back under Zack's spell, and stupid for
him because she didn't want to encourage his insane notion that they could ever
get back together again. But it did bother her. Just a tiny bit. That Zack had
given up so easily.
"I still can't believe
Zack gave up so easily," Maddie said when she wandered into the bedroom.
Mary Beth rolled over on her
side and propped her head in her hand, always amazed when her twin read her
mind. "Well, I can. I told you. We talked it out and I made sure he
understood I had no intention of picking things up where we left off."
"But you said he kissed
you. You even said you kissed him back," Maddie argued.
"And I didn't feel a
thing," Mary Beth lied.
"Still...".
"Will you please leave
it alone, Maddie?" Mary Beth sat up in the middle of the bed. "I came
over here to get ready for the reunion tonight because I couldn't stand Mom
grilling me exactly the way you're doing now."
Maddie placed her hands on
her hips. "Well, I'm sorry, Mary Beth, but you can't blame me for wanting
you back home where you belong. I want our children to grow up together. I
want..."
"Zack
lives in Chicago, Maddie," Mary Beth cried out. "Even if I did get
back with Zack we wouldn't be living here in Morgan City."
Maddie pooched
out her lower lip. "Well, you'd still be closer than you are living out in
L.A. I just hope you don't look back someday and regret not giving Zack a
second chance, Mary Beth. Because I know you're not happy with this glamorous
life you keep trying to shove down my throat. And nothing you can say will
ever convince me that you are." Determined to have the
last word, Maddie turned on her heel and marched back out of the bedroom.
"Ahhhhhh,'' Mary
Beth groaned as she flopped backward on the bed and pulled a pillow over her
face. It was bad enough her own mind had been wandering into dangerous
territory, allowing herself to contemplate if she
still loved Zack enough to take him back. But having her mother and her sister
constantly chipping away at her self-confidence was growing old, fast.
As
for being happy, how did one really measure happy? She was happy she'd finally
landed a role in the hottest new soap opera on daytime television. She was
happy she'd received nothing but rave reviews, even being toasted as an
up-and-coming star. But would she be happy if she gave up her new career and
went running back to Zack before she got her Emmy nomination?
Absolutely not!
And with
that thought in mind, Mary Beth pulled herself up from the bed, determined to
make herself sparkle for
the big night that had brought her back home to Morgan City in the first place.
Her mind drifted back to
Zack.
To hell with Zack, Mary
Beth decided firmly. She would worry about Zack Callahan tomorrow.
Maddie
hung up the downstairs phone and looked at her sister. "I
know I told you to rub everyone's nose in your success, Mary Beth, but don't
you think arranging for a limousine to take you to the reunion is carrying
things a bit too far?"
"Limousine? I
didn't arrange for any limousine."
"No, but your agent
did. I just got the call. The limo should be here to pick you up in a few
minutes."
Mary Beth brightened at the
thought. "I know you don't care for JoJo, Maddie, but see what a master
planner he is?"
Maddie rolled her eyes.
"Oh, I know exactly what a master planner Bozo is, Mary Beth."
"JoJo," Mary Beth
corrected, sending her sister a warning look.
Maddie ignored the
reprimand. ' T still have nightmares over what the two of you put me through
when you were scrambling around to make the most of the alien abduction story
of the century. I just can't believe anyone would place their future in the
hands of a grown man who has the audacity to call himself JoJo."
Mary Beth kept her mouth
shut. There was no way she was going to reopen that
can of worms. If Maddie got started on the alien abduction fiasco she'd
personally been responsible for starting, they had the potential to end up in a
huge fight that would spoil the reunion for both of them.
"But I guess if your
limousine is already on its way, you'll have to go on without us," Maddie
said and Mary Beth frowned.
"Don't do this to me,
Maddie. We were supposed to face that snarling crowd together, remember?"
"Well,
I'm sorry, Mary Beth, but Brad's still getting dressed, and then we'll have to
take the baby over to Mom and Pop's, and..."
"And
what am I supposed to do?" Mary Beth wailed. "Hide out in a stall in
the girls' rest room until you rescue me so we can make our grand entrance
together?"
Just
the thought of walking into her old high school gym without at least one ally
at her side was enough to make her stomach roll over. Especially since Zack's
lunacy had swayed public opinion in his favor; a fact that still made her blood
boil.
"You could always go
for an inconspicuous drive around town first," Maddie suggested with a mischievous
grin.
"Inconspicuous?
In a limousine?" Mary Beth laughed.
Maddie
nodded. "Exactly. Strut
your stuff, sister dear. Isn't that what you came home to do?"
Maddie
was right. And her horoscope did say
to sparkle. "Why, Maddie Morgan-Hawkins," Mary Beth teased. "I'm
beginning to think you have a naughty side I never knew about."
"If
I have a naughty side, I learned it from you," said Maddie. "Now, let
me take a look at you."
Mary Beth twirled around for
her twin's inspection.
"Yes,
red definitely is one of our better colors," Maddie said with her finger
to her chin. She looked down at her own dress. "Of course, this modest
little red dress I'm wearing looks rather shabby compared to what you have
on."
Mary
Beth purposely struck a pose, allowing the side split in her strapless designer
gown to show practically all of one tanned, slender leg. "Well, you know
what my motto has always been."
"If you've got it, make
sure everyone else sees it?" Maddie teased.
Mary Beth opened her mouth
for a comeback, but the sound of a vehicle pulling into Maddie's driveway sent
them both hurrying to the living-room window.
"Well, I have to admit
Bozo spares no expense when it comes to showing you off," said Maddie.
Mary Beth jabbed her twin
with her elbow. "It's my money he's spending, silly."
They both looked back
through the window at the impressive white stretch limo as the uniformed driver
emerged from behind the wheel. Once the passenger side door was open, the
driver snapped to attention like one of those patient guards at Buckingham
Palace waiting for the arrival of the Queen.
"Your coach awaits you,
Cinderella," Maddie said, then gave Mary Beth a big hug before she pushed
her sister toward the door. "Brad and I will meet you at the gym at six
o'clock sharp."
"Six
o'clock sharp," Mary Beth repeated, then blew a kiss over her exposed
shoulder before she hurried out the door and down the steps.
"Good
evening," the driver said in a deep voice, then took Mary Beth's hand in
order to assist her into the back seat of the limo. "You look stunning,
Miss Morgan."
Mary Beth thanked him
politely, but he had his cap pulled down so low over his eyes, she wondered how
he could possibly see whether she really looked stunning or not. In fact, the
thought crossed her mind that it would be a miracle if he could even see enough
to drive. It was on the tip of her tongue to mention her concern, but the
driver quickly closed the door and sealed her inside before she had time to
tell him she didn't want to go directly to the gym.
Settling herself back
against the plush leather seat, Mary Beth waited until the limo backed out of
her sister's driveway before she pushed the intercom button. "Driver?
Are you there?"
No answer.
Turning around in her seat,
Mary Beth tapped on the glass window that separated them. "Hellooooo?" she sang out, but he ignored
her completely.
When she suddenly realized
the limo was going in the opposite direction from the high school gym anyway,
Mary Beth reached for the intercom button again. And that's when she noticed a
florist box sitting on the long bench seat to her right.
Leaning forward, Mary Beth
lifted the lid slightly and peeked into the box. It was filled to capacity with
daisies, her favorite flowers. What on earth? Mary
Beth grabbed the enclosure card. Roses are red, violets are
blue. I hope you like daisies, it's the best I could do. Tears
sprang to Mary Beth's eyes as she remembered why daisies had always
been her favorite flowers. "Damn him!" Zack had written those exact
words when they were only twelve years old. Mary Beth reached out and literally
pounded the intercom button with her fist. She then did the same to the window
behind her head. However, instead of following her orders to stop the limo immediately,
the only answer she received from the driver was to turn up the megawatt
state-of-the-art stereo system. In an instant, an old song Zack used to sing to
her floated through the speakers in a deafening roar.
Fly me to the moon? I'm
going to knock him to the moon!
"I said stop this car
immediately," Mary Beth yelled, knocking on the window again.
The limo only picked up
speed.
"I don't know how Zack
talked you into this, mister, but I hope you know kidnapping is a serious
offense," Mary Beth called out, absolutely fuming now.
She had convinced herself
Zack had given up. She'd even been relieved she wouldn't have to deal with him
at the reunion tonight. Especially since everyone would probably treat her like
the Wicked Witch of the West the second she stepped into the gym. But Zack
hadn't given up at all. He'd come back from Chicago to personally torment her!
When the limo and the music
suddenly came to a stop, Mary Beth found herself sitting in the driveway of
the old antebellum mansion on Magnolia Street that had been her dream house for
as long as she could remember. Zack was definitely using every trick in the
book, trying to play her memories. The daisies, the poem, even the old song he
knew held sentimental value for both of them. But now he had pulled the
dirtiest trick of all. If anyone knew how much she had always dreamed about
living in this mansion one day, it was Zack.
Double
damn him! Mary Beth thought and looked out the window at the
grand old lady, called Oak-mont because of the
towering oak trees that surrounded it. Even in its crumbling state of
disrepair, the old mansion was as impressive as Scarlett O'Hara's Tara, with
its huge columns and long veranda running across the front of the house.
Her
eyes stopped when she saw him. Walking down the steps in a black tux with a
swagger every bit as cocky as Rhett Butler, was the one man Mary Beth could no
longer put off worrying about until tomorrow.
Zack walked up to
the limo and tried to open the door. It really didn't
surprise him that it was locked. He tapped on the tinted window. "Open the
door, Mary Beth. Please."
"Go. To.
Hell!"
Zack shoved his hands into
his pockets and walked up to the driver's side window. When the window slid
down, Zack said, "Mary Beth won't open the door."
"Imagine
that," his cousin scoffed. "What did you expect?"
"I
expect you to use the main control and unlock the damn door!" Zack yelled.
Greg did as he instructed,
but before Zack could sprint the thirty-five feet back to the passenger door,
Mary Beth had the door locked again. "Roll her window down, Greg,"
Zack called back to his cousin.
The window slid down long
enough for Mary Beth to give him a scathing look before she calmly reached over
and pushed the button with the tip of her polished red finger. She sent him a
satisfied smile as the tinted window zipped upward and slid back into place.
"We can play this game
all night, Mary Beth," Zack said loud enough for her to hear him.
"But then we'll both miss the reunion. I thought you would like the idea
of us showing up at the gym together and finally putting an end to all the
gossip about us."
It took a second, but the
tinted window slid back down. Zack managed to keep the smile from his lips.
He'd been counting on the fact Mary Beth was just as irritated as he'd been
about both of them being the topic of conversation over the past six years.
"Keep talking,"
she said, but she still had that I'
m-one-step-away-from-scratching-your-eyes-out look on her face.
Zack shrugged. "What
more can I say? If we show up together, think how disappointed everyone will
be. They won't have anything else to gossip about."
She thought about his
statement, but she didn't look convinced. "You mean let them think we're
back together?"
Zack shook his head. "Of course, not." I
can only hope for that miracle. "Once we get there,
we'll make sure everyone knows we've decided to be friends again. End of
story."
Her eyebrow raised. "End of story, Zack? You won't read us going to
the reunion together into being something more than it is?"
He should have been ashamed
of himself for looking her straight in the eye and telling her a bald-faced
lie. But if he told her the truth, that getting her to go to the reunion with
him was just the first step of the plan he'd been working on for the past two
weeks, he knew he was finished. And so Zack mentally crossed his fingers.
"End of story, Mary Beth. I promise."
She reached over and
unlocked the door at the same time Greg stuck his head out the car window and
yelled, "Can't you two stop fighting long enough to go to the reunion like
two civilized adults?"
"Shut up and
drive," Zack yelled back, then slid into the seat beside the woman he
loved, praying she wouldn't kill him later when he revealed the second part of
his plan to win her back.
Mary
Beth stood at the refreshment table in the crowded gym, looking
like a regal queen holding court. Calmly sipping her punch from a plastic cup
that had Class of '91 stamped across the front, she nodded appreciatively to
everyone who stopped by to congratulate her on the success of her popular new
soap opera.
To say she was thrilled over
the way the dreaded reunion was turning out, was putting it mildly.
In fact, Mary Beth was still
laughing to herself over how shocked everyone had been when she and Zack had
ridden up in the limousine together. She had finally left a few mouths hanging
open over something that wouldn't come back to haunt her. And those mouths had
certainly dropped open, all right. Even her twin's eyes had bugged out like one
of Maddie's precious specimens.
Sending a friendly wave to
someone she wasn't sure she even knew, Mary Beth was
certain that Zack had been right. After tonight, all of the gossip about the
ill-fated Morgan-Callahan romance would finally be put to rest. Not that the
gossip about her would stop completely. In small town Morgan City? Population almost too embarrassing to list in the Rand-McNally road
atlas?
No, there would still be
gossip about her.
But in place of her defunct
wedding, Mary Beth imagined the gossip would turn more favorable when it came
to her. Like the spectacular designer gown she was wearing at the reunion,
maybe. Or the fact that her celebrity status hadn't seemed to
change her at all. And most importantly, how she could
be friends with Zack again without it causing so much as a wrinkle in her
carefully arched brow.
Yes, that was the image she
would be leaving with her fellow classmates tonight. A
mature, confident star in the making. A woman who was exceedingly
happy with the glamorous life she had made for herself in California. And a
woman who was so sure of herself, she'd even had the guts to show up on the arm
of the man who had left her standing at the altar six years earlier.
But in spite of herself,
Mary Beth couldn't keep from sending a brief glance now and then across the
crowded gym in Zack's direction. So what if she did still have mixed feelings
about Zack? After all, she reasoned, he had been her first love. Her first lover. The man she had once imagined as her
husband and the father of her children.
She was pretending to be
totally engrossed in the heated debate two of her classmates were having about
which heartthrobs on The Wild and the Free were
hot and which ones were not, but she kept watching Zack out of the corner of
her eye. He was the center of attention among the group of guys who were
listening intently to something Zack was saying. Even her own brother-in-law
seemed to be hanging on his every word, though it really didn't surprise her
that he and Brad Hawkins would get along. They were both what people referred
to as a "man's man," both self-assured and confident. The type of
man, as Zack had explained to her in the jail cell, who
would never have been happy taking over her father's automobile dealership.
Well, he certainly seems
happy now, Mary Beth thought with a jealous tug at her heart.
She quickly looked away when one of the least favorite members of her high
school senior class walked up and stopped in front of her.
"Tell us the truth,
Mary Beth," said Bitsy Williams, looking back over her shoulder to make
sure her classmates were following. "Have you really decided to take Zack
back?"
Mary Beth sent the human
equivalent of a Barbie doll a cool look and laughed just loud enough to make
Zack glance in her direction. "Just because I'm an actress, doesn't mean I
live in a fantasy world, Bitsy. High school sweethearts
getting back together at their ten-year reunion is a scenario more
suited for my soap opera."
When several of the women
laughed, Bitsy's smile turned lethal. "See, girls?" she said, looking
back over her shoulder again. "I told you Mary Beth wouldn't risk Zack
Callahan leaving her at the altar again."
Keep cool, Mary
Beth told herself, though she was seething inside. Someone had finally said out
loud what had been on everyone's mind for the past six years. She could act
mortified like Bitsy hoped she would, or she could rise above the insult and
beat the witch at her own game.
"Some of
us have moved on with our lives after high school, Bitsy. Maybe you should try
it."
"Oh, I intend to move
on," Bitsy said right back. "I intend to move right on in where you
left off. Maybe Zack will actually show up for a walk down the aisle with
me."
It was all Mary Beth could
do to keep from slapping the silly smirk off Bitsy's face. Instead she lifted
her plastic punch glass in tribute. "Believe me, I'll be the first one to
toast any woman who makes it down the
aisle with Zack Callahan."
Everyone laughed, except for
Bitsy.
Sally Hughes, the redhead
who had asked Zack to dinner, spoke up. "Well, don't think you won't have
some competition from me, Bitsy. Especially since Zack told me a few minutes
ago he's back home to stay."
Zack's back home to stay? Dear
God. Wait until her mother and Maddie heard that bit of news! She'd have to
break all contact with her family for the rest of her life.
"I already knew
that," Bitsy said, sending Sally a superior look. "Zack said with
technology what it is today, he could keep his business in Chicago and make
home base anywhere he wants."
Well,
fine! Let him come back home. He could even choose Bitsy or Sally to be Mrs.
Zack Callahan. She didn't care. Like hell I don't! Well,
even if she did care, she would survive.
"Isn't
he still the best-looking thing you've ever seen?" Bitsy said dreamily,
causing everyone, including Mary Beth, to look in Zack's direction. "Of
course, all that gorgeous money is what really turns me on," she added on
a giggle. "I can't wait to get my hands on that."
Nancy
Goins, who was now thicker around the middle thanks
to four kids, threw her head back and laughed. "Zack Callahan wouldn't
give you the time of day, Bitsy Williams. He wouldn't have anything to do with
you when we were in high school, and believe me, you looked a lot better then
than you look now."
You tell her, Nancy! The gold digging little witch.
Bitsy's
eyes narrowed, totally spoiling the effect of her color-enhanced contacts.
"At least I still have a waistline," she said tossing her long
platinum pigtail for effect. "Which is something you haven't seen in the last ten years."
"Yeah,
but I can always lose the weight," Nancy said with a laugh. "Only
plastic surgery can help that wrinkled-up face of yours."
Bitsy
hands were now clenched at her sides and her painted mouth was turned up in a
feral snarl. "This wrinkled face still looks good enough to turn a few
heads in this town, Nancy, and I think you and everyone else know exactly who I
mean."
The conversation was turning
ugly, fast. And here she was, trapped between them. Mary Beth quickly scanned
the crowd for Maddie. When she finally found her twin talking to their high
school principal, she decided to politely excuse herself and make a run for it.
Mary
Beth stepped forward, but Nancy reached across her and gave Bitsy a little
shove. "Ladies, please," Mary Beth began. "There's no
reason...."
"Put
a sock in it, Mary Beth," Nancy said and reached across her to push Bitsy
a little harder. "And don't piss me off by calling this two-bit floozy a
lady. She's been hanging around my husband's garage so much lately she could
have bought a new car with all the money she's spent having her mysterious knocks
and clangs fixed."
Mary Beth backed up against
the table as far as possible, and when she did, Bitsy reached across her and
pushed Nancy back. "I haven't heard David complaining about me hanging
around his garage,"
snarled. "Maybe
my knocks and clangs are a lot more interesting than yours."
Still
trapped between them, Mary Beth had nowhere to run and no time to brace
herself for what was coming. Nancy made a lunge for Bitsy and pushed Mary Beth
backward onto the long refreshment table behind them. The table collapsed with
a bang under the weight of three kicking, screaming women who instantly became
tangled in a human knot when the argument turned into a full-blown catfight.
Lying
there, flat on her back, Mary Beth decided the only thing worse than getting
drenched in sticky punch was having two crazed women on top of her in a
hair-pulling frenzy.
"Get
off me!" Mary Beth yelled when Nancy held up a platinum trophy to the
shocked crowd that was hurrying to the rescue.
"That's
my hairpiece, you cow!" Bitsy screamed in horror, but a victorious Nancy
waved the hairpiece triumphantly over her head several times before she sent
the platinum missile sailing across the gym.
Bitsy
scrambled after her fake Barbie-style pigtail on her hands and knees, and Mary
Beth made her move. She pushed Nancy
off her stomach, who was now laughing so hard tears
were rolling down her freshly scratched cheeks. Mary Beth then scooted backward
with ease thanks to the puddle of slick chip dip she had landed in.
The
first thing she did when she pulled herself into a sitting position was jerk
the designer dress that had hiked up to her waist back down over her knees. She
was still trying to disengage a huge piece of broccoli from her tangled hair
when the band came to life at the front of the gym and the lead singer broke
out with: Let's Give Them Something to Talk About.
If ever there had been a
more appropriate song than the Top Ten hit that had been popular during her
high school senior year, Mary Beth couldn't imagine what it would be.
"Oh, my God!
You're bleeding," gasped a worried Maddie who suddenly appeared above
her.
Mary
Beth looked down at her cleavage and used the tip of her finger to taste the
red substance. "Salsa," she told her sister, then reached up to wipe
a slimy green smear from her forehead. "And don't worry, Maddie. This
isn't brain matter, I think it's guacamole."
When she noticed the
accusing scowl on her brother-in-law's face, Mary Beth added, "And no,
Brad. I didn't start the fight."
Not
that Brad was likely to believe her. His smug smile even told her that he
didn't. But could she really blame him for being a bit skeptical about her
denial? Her dear brother-in-law had been involved in a fight she had instigated
on the very first day she met him.
But
he could at least offer to help her up.
And
it was on the tip of Mary Beth's tongue to tell him so, when a strong pair of
hands from behind her slid beneath her armpits and helped her to her feet.
Mary Beth turned around and
found Zack grinning from ear to ear as he looked her up and down. "First ice cream. Now this?" he teased. "Is
there some new Hollywood craze we should know about?"
"Don't start with me,
Zack," Mary Beth said at the same time Bitsy stomped past her and screamed
in her direction, "This is all your fault, Mary
Beth Morgan."
Zack
looked at Maddie. Maddie looked at Brad. And Mary Beth frowned. "I'm
telling you, I didn't start that fight!"
"Well, you're going to
start a riot if you're not careful," Zack spoke up and Mary Beth followed
his gaze to the slit in her dress that now extended almost to her armpit.
"Here," Zack said, taking off his tux jacket. "Cover yourself up
before Arnold Purdy has a heart attack."
For
the first time, Mary Beth noticed the zoom lens pointed in her direction. She
tried to hold the ripped fabric together with one hand while she waved away
Zack's offer with the other. "I'm covered in slime, Zack. There's no way
I'm going to ruin your jacket."
Zack
ignored her. He had just draped the jacket of his tux around her sticky
shoulders when Nancy's husband marched across the gym floor. The pained look on
his face suggested he was having more than just a Maalox moment.
"Thanks
a lot, Mary Beth," he sneered when he stopped in front of her.
"Nancy's threatening to divorce me now. I hope you can sleep at night
knowing four little kids will grow up without their father thanks to
you."
When Nancy's husband turned
on his heel and marched out of the gym. Mary Beth wailed, "How many times
do I have to say it? I didn't start the fight!" And when Nerdy Purdy moved
in a little closer with his Nikon, Mary Beth threw her hands up in the air.
"I'm out of here."
Heading for the same door
the man with the fatherless children marched through, it was Zack who fell in
beside her as she started down the hallway to the front exit doors of the gym.
"Go away, Zack."
Zack shook his head. "Sorry, Mary Beth. I was taught a lady's escort always
made sure she arrived safely home."
Now he's concerned about
proper etiquette, Mary Beth fumed, wondering how Zack missed
the chapter about never leaving a bride at the altar. "Aren't you
supposed to give a speech or something?"
Zack laughed. "Are you
kidding? That bunch isn't going to listen to a speech now. They'll be too busy
laughing themselves silly over Bitsy's hairpiece flying through the air."
Mary Beth paused long enough
for Zack to open the exit door, then stepped out into the peaceful summer night
air and took a cleansing breath to calm herself.
"What really did happen
back there?" Zack asked when they started down the steps.
"Bitsy has evidently
been paying too much attention to Nancy's husband. I just happened to be
standing between them when they decided to kill each other."
"Hey,
don't look so glum," Zack said, sending her a grin. "Nancy and Bitsy
are going to be the main topic of conversation in Morgan City now. I think
we're finally off the hook."
You jumped off the hook six
years ago.
Sheesh!
She
was doing it again.
Why
couldn't she stop this senseless whining that was going on inside her head
every time Zack opened his mouth? Should she finally go ahead and punch Zack in
the nose the way she'd been wanting to do for the past
six years and get it over with?
Mary
Beth headed straight for the limo, reminding herself she really shouldn't take
her frustration out on Zack. Not this time. He had done his best to put an end to
the gossip about her. It wasn't his fault she had literally mooned her high
school senior class. What could be more humiliating than that?
Being left at the altar, maybe?
When
they reached the limo, Greg, who was sitting on the hood of the limo looking
as bored as he probably was, took one look at her and said, "What happened
to you? You look like a human tossed salad."
Mary
Beth didn't even bother sending Greg an exasperated look. "Just take me to
my parents' house, Greg," she told him. "I'm sure you're just as
eager as I am for this night to be over."
It
was Zack who stepped forward and opened the back passenger door of the limo.
And when he did, Mary Beth practically dove into the back seat. She thought she
caught Zack giving his partner in crime a meaningful nod before he climbed into
the seat beside her and closed the limo's passenger door. But she was just too
fed up to care.
Zack
groaned inwardly as Greg pulled away from the
curb, thinking how carefully he'd planned for this night. He'd planned to give
Mary Beth her space when they first arrived at the gym, then eventually coerce
her onto the dance floor and hold her in his arms while they danced to the same
music they'd danced to when they had been so much in love.
He'd even carefully chosen
all the memories he wanted to bring up to remind her of the special times
they'd shared together. Like the time they'd sneaked up to her parents' cabin
for the weekend and spent most of their time in that big feather bed. They had
been so close then, so sure nothing could ever make them stop loving each
other.
But now after that ruckus in
the gym? He stole a sideways glance in her direction,
saddened to see that the human tossed salad had anything but the
melancholy look he'd hoped to put on her beautiful face.
But she was beautiful, even
covered in slime.
Deciding he needed to make
the most of what little time he had left, Zack leaned in her direction and
said, "I'm so terribly sorry this night was ruined for you, my poor
darling. I had so wanted it to be such a special night. A night you would
remember with fondness for the rest of your days. A night you would possibly
look back on as one of the most memorable nights of your life. A night..."
She
cut her keen blue eyes in his direction. "Why are you talking like
that?"
"Like
what? I'm not talking like anything." Zack leaned forward and opened the
wet bar. Picking up the bar towel, he unscrewed the top of a container of
bottled water and thoroughly wet the towel.
"Yes,
you are. You're talking in your phony Cary Grant voice." She took the
towel without question when he handed it over. After wiping the slime from her
forehead, she removed his jacket from around her shoulders and did a pretty
good job of toweling herself off. Zack forced his eyes from her cleavage and
back to her face when she said, "Not only did you just refer to me as 'you
poor darling,' but you're using those proper British phrases.
'Remember with fondness for the rest of my days?' 'Possibly
one of the most memorable nights of my life?' I know classic Cary Grant
when I hear it, Zack, and you were talking
in your phony Cary Grant voice!"
"Was
I, darling?"
"See,
you're doing it again! Now what's going on? The only time you ever talk to me
in your phony Cary Grant voice is when you know I'm going to be upset about
something you've done."
"You
must be mistaken, my dear."
She
reached out and actually pinched him on the arm. "I mean it, Zack. What
have you done?"
Zack
stalled for a moment, but he was saved from giving her a direct answer when the
limo came to a slow stop only a few blocks away from the gym. Reaching out, he
took her hand and brought it to his lips for a soft kiss, Cary Grant style. But
he did drop the phony accent. "I haven't done anything wrong, Mary Beth. I
have something I want to show you before I take you home."
It
wasn't until Zack opened the door and got out of the limo that
Mary Beth realized where they were. "We've already had this walk down
memory lane once today, Zack. And once is enough for me."
He extended his hand in her
direction. "Humor me. Please. This won't take but a minute."
Common sense told her she
should insist that he take her home, but in a way Oakmont had always been her
home. In her dreams, at least. She couldn't explain
why she'd always been so drawn to the old mansion, but she had. Even now, she
could close her eyes and picture every one of its twenty-four rooms. There was
a grand foyer with its sweeping staircase that always took her breath away. The
parlor sat to the right and the library to the left. There was a dining room,
a music room, even a ballroom that had double French doors leading out to the
garden, and a kitchen at the back of the house that was so huge her Malibu
beach house could fit inside that room alone. On the second floor were six
bedrooms, all with fireplaces and each with a separate sitting room. Four of
those bedrooms had private baths.
"Mary Beth?"
She didn't resist when Zack
took her hand and helped her from the limo. She didn't even resist when he held
onto her hand and began leading her along the old cobblestone path that led to
the garden out back. She stopped dead still, however, when she rounded the side
of the house and saw the gazebo they had played in as children twinkling in the
distance.
It
was still overgrown with the ancient rosebushes that had entwined themselves
through the gingerbread lattice, but hundreds of tiny white lights covered
every inch of it, turning it into a setting taken straight from a fairy tale.
Before
Mary Beth could say a word, Zack gently pushed her forward. And when they
reached the gazebo, Zack guided her up the steps and made her take a seat at a
small table for two covered in a white tablecloth. In the center of the table
sat an ice bucket holding a chilled bottle of champagne. Next to the ice bucket
was a vase containing a single red rose. Mary Beth
fought back the tears when Zack took the rose from the vase and handed it to
her.
"I
can do much better than daisies now, Mary Beth," he began, but Mary Beth
cut him off.
"Zack,
don't." She started to stand up but Zack said,
"This
is what I wanted to show you." He picked up an envelope from the table,
opened it and handed her a piece of paper.
Mary
Beth's mouth dropped open when she realized she was holding the deed to
Oakmont. How dare he buy Oakmont! He
knew how much this place had always meant to her. Maybe she didn't have the
money to buy it herself. Maybe she never would. But Oakmont was meant to be hers!
"I'm
going to restore Oakmont completely," he said as he popped the top on the
champagne bottle. "I've already met with an architect and a contractor.
It'll be a long process, but they've assured me they can make the first floor
livable while the renovations are being done."
He's going to live here?
Mary Beth placed the deed
back on the table, still in a daze. Zack filled two champagne
glassed and handed one to her. She accepted it woodenly, seething
because she couldn't bear the thought of Bitsy or Sally or any other woman
living at Oakmont but her.
"To childhood
dreams," he said, clinking his glass against the
one she held stiffly in her hand.
"Oakmont was my childhood
dream, Zack," Mary Beth couldn't stop herself from saying.
He sent her a bewildered
look. "And that's why I bought Oakmont, Mary Beth. For
you. For us."
Us? The
word kept bouncing around inside Mary Beth's head until it finally landed in
the common sense section. She jumped up from the table. "There isn't any us, Zack!
Us ceased
to exist the day you left me standing at the altar."
She pushed past him, hurried
down the steps of the gazebo and began stomping across the yard with such force
the six-inch heels of her bright red pumps immediately sank in the dew-covered
earth. She stepped out of her shoes, and was still trying to dislodge her
buried heels from the ground when Zack caught up and stood towering above her
with his hands at his waist.
"Do you mind telling me
what I said that was so wrong?"
Mary Beth finally pulled one
of her heels free with a pop, and when she pulled the other shoe free, she
stood up and faced him. "Read my lips, Zack. There is
no us."
"Maybe there isn't an us at
the moment, Mary Beth," he argued. "But there could be an us again if you'd give me a second chance."
She pointed at him with one
of her shoes, brandishing it like a sword. "I've been trying to tell you
for days, Zack, you're wasting your time. I'm sorry if you didn't find what you
were looking for over the past six years, but I did. And unlike you, I'm not
ready to give up the life I have now and move back home to Morgan City."
She
started walking again, but Zack jogged past her and stopped in front of her,
blocking her path. "I know you still have feelings for me, Mary Beth. You
couldn't have kissed me the way you did at the jail if you didn't still
care."
"I had a weak moment.
Sue me!" was Mary Beth's only reply as she pushed Zack aside and continued
making her way back to the limo. A limo she found missing when she finally
reached the driveway.
She
whirled back around. "You arrogant ass! You
really thought this was going to work, didn't you?"
Zack
stopped dead in his tracks.
"You
thought all you had to do was string a few lights around the gazebo and wave
the deed to Oakmont under my nose and I'd fall at your feet!"
He
frowned. "There you go with your dramatics again."
"Dramatics?
I'll show you dramatics!" Mary Beth drew her arm back and a bright red
shoe came sailing through the air.
Zack ducked.
The second shoe was more
accurate.
Marching down the driveway
in her bare feet, trying to keep her torn dress and broken heart together,
Mary Beth left Zack with the bloody nose she'd been wanting
to give him for the past six years.
6
Mary
Beth managed to get one eye open long enough to
realize the irritating noise that had awakened her was a bark. She vaguely
remembered letting her dog out, but she had been so exhausted she had stumbled
back to bed.
She
had left Morgan City shortly after she left Zack at Oakmont on Friday night,
and had barely made it to Atlanta in time to catch the red-eye back to L.A.
Still, it had been late Saturday afternoon before she made it home to Malibu.
She'd stopped at the kennel, dropped off her dry cleaning and made a quick
grocery store trip, planning to spend the entire day in bed on Sunday so she
would be rested enough to make it back on the set bright and early Monday
morning.
Now,
it seemed her golden retriever had other ideas about how she was going to spend
her Sunday.
Pulling herself up, Mary
Beth grabbed a robe from the end of her bed and glanced at the mirror on the
back of her bedroom door. At least she wouldn't have to spend much time in
makeup tomorrow. She really did look
like she'd been in a coma after spending two weeks at home with Zack tormenting
her every time she turned around.
Thankfully the Zack
nightmare was over now. And the more distance she kept between them, the
better. Maybe she did still love him. Maybe she always would. But love had
nothing to do with the situation. They had chosen separate paths. They had gone
their separate ways. They wanted different things out of life now.
End
of story.
She headed for the sliding
glass door off the kitchen, yawning as she went, and when she pulled the door
open wide enough to poke her head outside the first thing she saw was Zack,
standing in her yard despite the big golden retriever that was barking out a
warning that he really wasn't welcome.
Her
brain sent a curse word to her lips, but her heart turned a triple backflip and shouted for joy.
Wearing
cutoffs, a Hawaiian-style shirt and a pair of thong sandals, he looked like the
quintessential beach boy with his sun-streaked hair blowing back from his face
in the soft ocean breeze. At that moment, the handle Mary Beth thought
she had on life instantly cracked and broke.
Damn him!
She never thought he would
follow her back to California. She didn't need him showing up everywhere she
looked and keeping her so confused she didn't know which end was up. Flowers,
poems, limos, mansions! And now a mad dash across the country
to follow her home?
When
was he going to give up?
"I'm
not giving up as easily as I did last time, Mary Beth," he said, answering
that question before she could ask it. He sent another nervous look at her dog.
It
would have served him right if she stood by and allowed him to be mauled by
those bared canine teeth that were keeping him at bay. But she didn't. Instead,
she let out a deep sigh and called the dog's name.
"Diogee?" Zack
repeated with a grin when the retriever stopped barking and obediently sat
down. "How did you come up with a name like that?"
Mary Beth rolled her eyes. "D-O-G? It isn't that hard to figure out, Zack."
"Come
here, boy," Zack said, crouching down and holding his hand out.
Mary
Beth frowned when the attack dog she'd purchased for protection rolled over on
his back, eager for Zack to give him a belly rub.
Et tu, Diogee? Mary
Beth thought and stepped out on the deck. She was too irritated to care that
she looked so ghastly Zack would probably run from her yard screaming in
horror. She sent a disappointed look at her traitorous pet before she said,
"What are you doing here, Zack? I certainly didn't invite you."
Zack
stood up and smiled at her, irritating Mary Beth even more. If Zack could
ignore the way she looked now, it had to be love.
"In
a way, you did invite me." Mary Beth was on the verge of calling him a
liar when Zack held up the canvas bag he was holding. "How could I pitch a
tent in your front yard if I didn't come to Malibu?"
The tent! She'd forgotten
joking that Zack could pitch a tent in her yard and she still wouldn't change
her mind. When he dumped the bag on the ground, Mary Beth
said, "I want you off my property, Zack. Now."
He stared her down.
"And I want you on the
property I bought for us back home, Mary Beth. So, I guess that makes us
even."
"We have stalking laws
here in California, Zack. Did you think about that?"
Zack rubbed his hand over
his chin. "Yeah, I took that into consideration. But I'm really not a
stalker, Mary Beth. I'm more of a..." He paused for a second. "I
guess I'm really a sulker. Because
I plan to sit right here and sulk. At least until you admit you do still have
feelings for me."
"Then you'll be sitting
in your tent until hell freezes over," Mary Beth vowed.
"Isn't that what the
Eagles said about getting back together again?" Zack asked with a smirk.
Exasperated, Mary Beth
stamped her bare foot. "Well, you're crazy if you think you're going to
get any help from me while you're living in a tent like some contestant on Survivor.
You'll have no kitchen privileges," she said, holding up finger
number one.
"Fast food's always
been my favorite," Zack said with a smile.
"There'll be no
bathroom privileges," Mary Beth said, feeling rather triumphant as she
held up finger number two.
"I've already found a
campground right down the road. For twenty-five bucks a week they're more than
happy to let me have all the bathroom, shower and laundry privileges I
need."
Holding up finger number
three, she said, "And if you think being here means the two of us will be
hanging out together, reminiscing about old times, you're wrong. I have no
intention of spending any time with you whatsoever."
"But a friendly wave
from your deck now and then wouldn't be too much to ask, would it?"
Finger number four turned
back into finger number two, in a gesture her mother
would have scolded her for making. "Then knock yourself out, Zack. I'm
simply too exhausted to argue with you any further. Sit out here in your tent!
See if I care."
"Is it okay if your dog
hangs out with me?" Zack called out when Mary Beth stormed back into the
house.
"She's
actually taking this better than I thought," Zack told
his new buddy as Diogee trotted along beside him when he went back to his
rental car to get the rest of his gear.
Had
he thought for one minute that Mary Beth really did see him as a stalker,
however, Zack would have packed up his tent and slipped quietly away into the
night. Or into the day, as the case was at the moment.
But he knew better.
He hadn't missed the look on
Mary Beth's face when she first saw him standing in her yard. That delighted
"it's you" look of recognition that briefly passed between them. Zack
would take a fleeting look like that one any day of the week. Fleeting meant
hope. And hope was all he had to go on at the moment.
"We've just got to show
her I'm not going to give up without a fight," Zack told Diogee as he
dumped the rest of his things on the ground next to the tent. "I let her
shut me out six years ago, and I've always regretted it." He looked down
at the dog. Diogee wagged his tail happily. "This time, I'm not letting
her off that easy. She's going to have to look me in the eye and tell me she
doesn't want me in her life."
And that's why he'd followed
her home.
He
wasn't going to let her skirt around the issue like she did last time by
refusing to see or talk to him. He wasn't accepting any curt little note,
either. If he left without her, it would be because she looked him in the eye
and said the words, "I don't love you."
It
would kill him, granted.
But hearing those words come
from her own sweet lips is what it would take to get
rid of him this time.
However, after taking
another long look at his surroundings, Zack wondered if he really did have the
fortitude it would take to live outdoors in a tent. It certainly wouldn't be a
pleasant experience, nor did he have any idea how long he would have to stay
until she stopped avoiding the issue and sat down and talked to him. A day? A week? Longer?
"Well,
I guess you couldn't ask for a prettier place to pitch a tent," Zack said,
staring out at the ocean and the sandy beach below. "Let's go check out
the beach."
Diogee
barked and followed after Zack when he started down the worn path that led to
the ocean. Zack half expected Mary Beth to storm out on the porch and call for
her dog. He knew her well enough to know she was watching from her window.
Surprisingly they made it
all the way to the beach. Zack picked up a piece of driftwood and tossed it
into the ocean. Eager to please his new friend, Diogee sprang forward. The
retriever returned with the stick a few seconds later and dropped it at his
feet. Zack laughed when Diogee barked and shook salt water and sand all over
him.
"Good
boy," Zack said, ruffling the fur on the big dog's ears.
But
as the dog loped off again, snapping at the water that was rushing into shore,
Zack couldn't help but wonder if the success his new sidekick was having
catching the white foamy waves had any correlation to the success he was going
to have at winning back Mary Beth's heart.
Mary
Beth stood at the kitchen window, watching while Zack played
with Diogee on the beach below. She laughed in spite of herself when Zack
stumbled and fell and Diogee pounced on him faster than a New York minute.
"I guess Zack will be
making that trip down to the campground for a shower sooner than he expected,"
Mary Beth said aloud. She laughed again when Diogee reared up on his hind legs
and knocked Zack back down.
When Zack stood up, took his
shirt off and tied it around his waist, however, Mary Beth stopped laughing. Heaven
help me. He'd always had a perfect athlete's body, but the
chest she was staring at now was broader and more defined, and his washboard
stomach was glistening in the sunlight as the droplets of water clung to his
tanned skin.
Chewing on her bottom lip,
Mary Beth's hand found its way to her throat, touching the place where Zack
used to drive her crazy when he did that amazing little thing with his tongue.
Not that her neck was the only place Zack knew how to stimulate to madness.
There weren't any places on her body that
didn't make her purr like a kitten when Zack touched them.
"And he knows it,
too," Mary Beth grumbled aloud, becoming more flustered than ever thinking
of him sleeping in a tent right outside her front door.
Zack's
latest attack on her sanity was the last thing she needed, especially when she
was due back on the set bright and early in the morning. She really didn't know
how much more she could take. It had been so easy to keep him pushed to the
back of her mind, when she never had to see him. Out of sight, out of mind, had
held more truth than she realized.
But
now he was here.
In
her face.
And forcing her to deal with
feelings she didn't want to deal with.
I have to get him out of here, Mary
Beth decided.
Maybe
if she talked to him, told him how determined she was to win an Emmy
nomination, he might understand that even if she did still love him, she would
always feel like a failure if she didn't achieve her goal.
Yeah,
right. She could just imagine him getting a big laugh out
of that conversation. She'd only been playing the role of Fancy Kildare for a
little over a year. There were actors and actresses who had been in the
business for ages without being nominated for an Emmy, much less winning one.
He was sure to bring that up. Did the name Susan Lucci
ring a bell?
Well, pipedream or not, an
Emmy nomination was her dream. And not even Zack
was going to stand in the way of making that dream a reality.
Mary Beth jumped back from
the window when Zack started back toward the house, knocking the mail stacked
up on the kitchen bar onto the floor in the process. She stooped down to clean
the clutter up and noticed that her new Cosmo had
opened to the horoscope section, one of the main reasons she subscribed to the
magazine. Sitting down on the floor in a cross-legged position, Mary Beth read:
Ruled by lovely Venus, romance is definitely in the air for Libra on
August 25. Give your heart free rein and pleasure will be your reward. Denying
yourself will lead to regret. Regrets make poor bedfellows.
Mary
Beth threw the magazine across the room. Venus was up to her old tricks again.
It was Sunday, August 25.
Instead
of spending Sunday in bed as she'd planned,
Mary Beth took her frustration out on her house. She cleaned the place from top
to bottom, amazed at the energy a woman can find when
she's angry with a man.
She even had a pan of
homemade lasagna simmering away in her oven. Zack's favorite. To torture him,
she'd opened the side window in her living room/kitchen combination. He'd
chosen a flat space directly below the window to pitch his stupid tent. She
hoped the enticing smell wafting from her kitchen would make him choke on the
fast food he claimed was his favorite.
By eight-thirty that
evening, she'd taken a long shower, washed her hair and dressed in a slinky
pair of purple lounging pajamas. She was going to eat her lasagna, curl up on
the sofa, watch Sex and the City, and
then go to bed. She wasn't going to worry about her horoscope, or the fact that
today was August 25. And instead of romance, the only thing she intended to be in
the air was the delicious aroma of her lasagna.
She had just served herself
up a piping hot square of Zack's favorite, grabbed the remote and switched on
the TV when the power went out.
Crap! Mary
Beth thought as stood there in the dark. The power outages in California were
beginning to be a real nuisance. And there was never any way to gauge how long
the power would be off. She felt along the kitchen cabinet and found the drawer
with the matches and candles that had been a necessity most of the summer. She
pulled the first of the glass holders out of the drawer, lit the votive candle
it contained and sat it on the bar. She placed several other candles
strategically around the room, frowning because she knew if Zack realized her
power was off he had to be laughing to himself.
Now they would both be
spending the evening sitting in the dark!
With the last candle in
hand, Mary Beth walked to the side window, pushed back the curtain and peeked
out the window, trying to determine exactly where Zack was at the moment. A
sudden gust of wind from the ocean billowed the
curtain upward, and when the sheer fabric floated back downward it landed right
on the flame from her candle.
Mary Beth screamed and
dropped the candle when the fabric whooshed into a ball of fire.
She was running to the sink
for a pan of water when Zack burst into the house from the deck, grabbed a
throw blanket from the back of her sofa and beat the flames out with the force
of a man possessed. Diogee was right behind him, barking with every blow Zack
made to the curtain.
When the flames were out,
they stood there looking at each other, both trembling. Each of them knew
exactly what had scared Zack so badly. Zack had survived the fire that swept
through his childhood home in the middle of the night only because his father
had found him and taken him outside to safety. His father hadn't been that
fortunate when he went back inside for Zack's mother.
"Dammit, Mary Beth, you
shouldn't be so careless." Still visibly shaken, he walked over to the
sofa and sat down with his elbows propped on his knees and his head buried in
his hands. Diogee sat down at Zack's side and nudged his big nose under Zack's
arm.
Ashamed of herself for scaring him so badly, all Mary Beth could think
to say was, "Do you want some lasagna?"
He let out a deep sigh and
ran a trembling hand through his hair. Without looking at her, he said, "I
thought you said we weren't going to be hanging out together."
Ignoring his comment, it
took a few minutes to place everything they needed on a tray. She walked back
to the coffee table in front of the sofa where Zack was still sitting, placed
the tray on the table and handed him a glass of wine.
"I
think we both could use this right now," she said, picking up her own
glass. They both took a long sip.
When she found the courage
to look at him again, Mary Beth couldn't stop herself from thinking that the
man sitting on her sofa had always been such a big part of her life. She knew
his deepest fears and secrets, just as he knew hers. Except
one. And deciding if she finally told Zack why she wasn't ready to
leave Hollywood that he might go back home, Mary Beth said, "Go home,
Zack. I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm even glad we've ended our silly feud. You
were always..." She paused. "You were always my best friend. I've
missed that."
He
looked at her for a moment, then patted the place
beside him. When Mary Beth sat down, he said, "I'm still your best friend,
Mary Beth. And as much as it would kill me, if you tell me you don't still love
me, I will leave and go back home."
Why did he have to make it
so hard! She tried to say the words. She couldn't.
"Love doesn't have anything to do with it, Zack. Like you told me six
years ago, our timing's just off right now."
He sent her a guarded look.
"And I'm not just
saying that to pay you back in some twisted way."
He reached down and rubbed
Diogee's head when the dog placed its head on his knee. "Then tell me why
you think our timing's off, Mary Beth, because I think our timing's perfect.
We're older. We've both been successful. I know you've never been seriously
involved with anyone else, and you know the same thing about me. Our families
have made sure of that." He paused. "And I love you. I've never
stopped loving you. And you'll never convince me you don't feel the same way
about me."
Mary Beth took a deep
breath. "I wish love was enough, Zack, but it isn't. Not right now. I
haven't finished what I came to Hollywood to do."
He reached out and took her
hand. "Why are you being so evasive? You know you can tell me anything."
"I
want an Emmy nomination," Mary Beth blurted out.
He
looked at her for a minute, then let out a low
whistle.
"And
don't you dare make fun of me, Zack. This is something I really want. And I'm
not giving up until I get it."
He
stood up from the sofa and began pacing back and forth. "But an Emmy
nomination could take years, Mary Beth."
"You think I don't know
that?"
He
stared at her.
Mary Beth stood up as well.
"You had to prove something to yourself six years ago, and I have to prove
something to myself now. Like I said. Our timing is
off. Again. I'm sorry, but it is."
He shook his head. "I
don't know what to say. Your mother told Aunt Lou you never really wanted an
acting career. That you..."
"That I was just trying
to spite you?"
He sent her a sheepish look.
"Well...yeah."
Mary
Beth sat back down on the sofa. She was the one who patted the place beside her
this time. When Zack sat back down she said, "Maybe at first I did throw
myself into acting trying to spite you. But if Maddie had said, 'I'm going to
get an Emmy nomination,' everyone would have automatically nodded their heads
and said, 'Yes, I'm sure you will.' But no one has ever taken me seriously,
Zack. Not even you."
He started to argue, but
Mary Beth cut him off. "That's why I want you to get on with your life,
and let me get on with mine. I can't make you any promises right now. And I'd
never expect you to wait on me while I'm out here in Hollywood trying to reach
a goal I'm not even sure I can reach."
His face was solemn.
"You're wrong about me not taking you seriously, Mary Beth. I can tell
you're serious about this nomination. I don't have to like it, but I do know
you're serious."
"Then go home, Zack.
Please."
When he nodded, Mary Beth
leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Thanks. For still
being practical enough to realize things just can't work out for us right
now."
"Yeah, that's me. Good
old practical Zack."
Mary Beth reached out and
picked up a plate and handed it to him. He accepted it, then looked at her and
said, "Can I ask at least one favor?"
Mary Beth nodded.
"Don't
cut me out of your life completely, Mary Beth. I'm willing to settle for
friendship if that's all you're willing to give me. Just don't cut me out of
your life again."
Friendship? Now
he was willing to settle for friendship? What happened to "I'm
not giving up so easily this time," Mary Beth wondered, suppressing a
frown. She did frown when she realized how ridiculous she was being. The whole
point of her telling Zack about the Emmy nomination was to get him to leave.
Or
was it?
Was
she maybe secretly hoping he would stay in California with her? Don't
even go there.
"If
you'll go home, Zack, I promise we'll stay in touch."
He
dropped his head in defeat. "Then I'll leave first thing in the
morning."
They
remained silent while they both picked at the food on their plates, but she
felt like such a hypocrite. Not about the Emmy nomination. She hadn't lied about
that. She felt guilty about nodding politely and pretending they could be
friends when all she wanted to do was throw him on the floor and demand he do
that amazing little thing he did with his tongue over every inch of her body.
They'd always been hot for
each other. In fact, the sex had been so volatile she'd often been surprised
they didn't both burst into flames.
Stop it! she told herself. He was certainly keeping his
emotions under control. Other than the time he'd kissed her at the jail, he
hadn't even tried to touch her. Possibly because he knew her well enough to
know coming on to her when they were still at odds would only make her angry.
But we're not at odds with each other now.
Stop it! she
told herself again. She'd be insane to invite him into her bed now. Now that
he'd finally agreed to go home, No! She wasn't going to think about August 25
being a red-letter romance day. Nor was she going to think about how much she
wanted him at that very moment.
But she did turn to him and
say, "You don't have to sleep in your stupid tent tonight, Zack. When
we're finished eating I'll get you what you need to make a bed here on the
sofa."
When
Mary Beth'S bedroom door closed later that
night, Zack felt like the door on his entire life had just been slammed in his
face. Worse yet, he knew there really wasn't anything he could do about the
situation short of holding the Emmy nominating committee hostage until they
agreed to give Mary Beth her damn nomination.
And even if she did get the
nomination, Zack had a sinking feeling a nomination wouldn't
be enough. Next it would be the golden statue she wanted.
Yet, who was to blame for
setting her acting career in motion?
He was. And now he would have to suffer the consequences.
Throwing
the pillow down on the sofa, Zack tripped down
to his boxers, then walked around the room
blowing out the candles. She'd sure shaken him
up when he heard her scream. And then when hełd
seen the flames, the thought of losing Mary Beth
the way he'd lost his parents chilled him to the bone.
Returning to the sofa, he stretched out with a frown
on his face, covered himself with the blanket and stared
into the blackness of the room.
His heart groaned in agony.
Here
he was, sleeping on the sofa, while the woman he loved with all his heart was
only one room away.
A
day didn't pass that some memory of holding Mary Beth in his arms and making
love to her didn't leave another huge crack in his heart. It had been all he
could do to keep from forcing himself on her from that first morning they'd run
into each other at the Dairy Hut. But common sense had told him that placing
any emphasis on how much he missed the intimacy they'd shared or how much he
still wanted her physically would be a death sentence in winning her back.
Besides, as fantastic as the sex had always been between them, the fact that
they had fallen in love long before sex was even a part of their lives had
always kept sex from being the main focus of their relationship.
"She
turned me down, fella. For a damn statue," Zack
told the dog who was stretched out in the floor by the sofa.
Diogee whined, offering his sympathy, then
jumped up on the sofa with Zack and curled himself into a ball at Zack's feet.
But at least I didn't make a
fool of myself, Zack thought. No, he'd played his cards close
to the vest, and he hadn't done anything stupid like falling to his knees,
sobbing his eyes out, and begging her to reconsider. As much as he loved her,
he still had too much pride for that. And he certainly didn't want to alienate her
now that they were finally back on speaking terms. He
had told her he would settle for friendship. And as much as it killed him, he
would stick by his word. He tried to look on the bright side. Maybe she'd even
let him fly out to see her now and then. And the holidays weren't that far
away. She'd surely be home for the holidays now that they'd settled their
differences. And now that he'd be living at Oakmont...
Damn! Buying
Oakmont would certainly go down as the stupidest investment in his financial
portfolio. The old mansion was a virtual money pit, which is why it had
remained vacant over the last twenty years. Of course, that hadn't mattered
when he thought he was buying Oakmont for Mary Beth. Now, he guessed he would
have to restore the old mansion enough to entice some other fool to buy it,
then cut his losses and learn from the experience.
"Zack?"
He was so startled buy the
sound of Mary Beth's voice, Zack rolled off the sofa and landed on the floor.
"What's wrong?" he called out and groaned when Diogee landed on his
stomach. A tail hit him in the face as the dog trotted across the room in
search of his mistress.
"Nothing's wrong. I was
just wondering if you were comfortable."
"Yeah, I'm fine," Zack
said, trying to get the blanket untangled from around his legs. He mumbled a
curse when he heard her bedroom door close again.
Comfortable? Was
she nuts? She'd just torn his heart out and stomped on it a few times, and she
had the nerve to ask if he was comfortable? He finally managed to jerk the
blanket free and heard the door open again.
"Zack?"
"Yes,
Mary Beth," he sang out, trying not to sound as irritated with her as he
really was.
"Do you think you would
be more comfortable in here with me?"
She
really was a sadist! "Dammit, Mary Beth,
that's not funny."
Her
voice was low, seductive and classic Dietrich. "Who said I was joking, dahlink?"
It
took only a second for Zack to respond. "Is that you, Marlene?'' he called
out, suddenly happier than he'd been in six long years.
Mary
Beth let out a delighted squeal when Zack stumbled through the dark and finally
came barreling through her bedroom door.
7
Yes,
she was insane. She'd admit it. And she
didn't even care, Mary Beth decided as she drove along the beautiful Pacific
Coast Highway on her way to the studio the next morning. Besides, how much more
could one woman take? Only a woman with a heart of stone wouldn't have been
affected by everything Zack had gone through trying to win her back.
There was also the fire, and
the fact we were alone and four thousand miles away from Morgan City and
everyone's prying eyes.
Yes, that, too.
And the
blow-the-top-of-your-head-off, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs,
think-you've-died-and-gone-to-Heaven sex!
"Mercy," Mary Beth
said aloud, feeling her heart race at the mere thought of how good they still
were in bed together. The sexual attraction sure hadn't diminished one iota
between them.
However, the fabulous sex
was only a part of the reason she knew she'd never love anyone else but Zack.
They'd shared so much of their lives together, created so many memories that
would always be a part of her heart and her soul. Like the hours they'd spent
cuddled up together watching the old classic movies they both loved, which
resulted in silly role playing they'd fallen into with him pretending to be
Cary Grant when he thought he was in trouble, and her perfecting Marlene
Dietrich's accent when Zack had once told her Dietrich's voice definitely
turned him on.
And
there were a million other reasons she would always love Zack. Like last night.
Him willing to settle for friendship if that's all she
was willing to give him.
Of
course, after last night they'd zoomed past friendship and soared right back
into being lovers again.
But
she wasn't going to worry about it.
Especially after Zack
assured her they could work it out. She would stay in L.A. just as she'd
planned, and he'd bounce back and forth from Chicago and Morgan City to L.A. to
see her as often as possible. People had long-distance relationships all the
time. Look at Brad and Maddie. They were even married and being together only
on weekends had certainly worked for them.
Pulling
into her reserved parking space at the studio, Mary Beth tried to remove the
silly grin from her face that came from a long night of lovemaking and planning
for a brand-new future with Zack. She couldn't. She was still grinning like the
Cheshire cat when she hurried off to makeup.
She
waved to several of her cast members as they welcomed her back. And when she
arrived at makeup, Jon, the makeup artist, was already reaching for the magic
it would take to cover her deep tan and turn her back into a believable coma
victim.
"So?"
said Julia Davis, the head writer who had made it possible for her trip home to
Morgan City. "How was the big class reunion?"
Mary
Beth laughed. "You wouldn't believe it if I told you."
Julia nodded in sympathy.
"Boring, huh?"
Mary
Beth really laughed then.
Thirty minutes later, she
had everyone who had wandered over to hear her wacky story laughing at the
mayhem that had hit Morgan City almost from the moment she arrived.
"Well, don't leave us
hanging," one of the cast members grumbled after Mary Beth finished the
part where she'd bloodied Zack's nose with her shoe. "Have you heard from
Zack since you got back?"
"Oh, I've heard from
him," Mary Beth told her fascinated friends. "Guess
who showed up yesterday to pitch a tent in my front yard until I changed my
mind?"
Mary Beth started laughing
again, but stopped when she realized everyone else was staring at her.
"What?"
"Wow," said Judy,
her pretty understudy. "I'll never be lucky enough to have a man love me
like your Zack loves you."
"What are you going to
do, Mary Beth? Are you going to give in and marry this guy?" Ann, the
woman who played Fancy's best friend, wanted to know.
Mary Beth started to answer,
but Julia spoke up.
"You have a career to think about, Mary
Beth. I hope you haven't forgotten that."
Dorothy, a woman in her
fifties who had been married to nothing but her career for the last thirty
years, shook her head in disagreement. "Trust me, Mary Beth. Careers are a
dime a dozen. But a man like Zack only comes along once in a lifetime."
Julia frowned at Dorothy and
patted Mary Beth on the shoulder for support. "I disagree, Mary Beth. Men are
a dime a dozen. A career like yours only comes along once in a lifetime. And I
think you're smart enough to realize that."
Deciding it would be wise
not to mention she and Zack had decided to try a long-distance romance, Mary
Beth kept silent.
"But
I do have to admit," Julia added. "Everything you told us about what
Zack was willing to go through in the name of love is almost better than a
script I could write for the show."
Everyone
laughed, including Mary Beth until Julia's mouth suddenly dropped open and her
eyes grew so wide they were almost as big as the lenses in her designer-framed
glasses. "Wait a minute," she said, shaking her finger at Mary Beth.
"Your crazy reunion with Zack is perfect. For Fancy Kildare, I
mean."
Mary
Beth jerked away from Jon's busy hands, making him curse when she smeared the
fake dark circles he was placing under her eyes. "What are you talking
about?"
"Don't
you see, Mary Beth," Julia said, her face animated with excitement.
"The viewers will love it. We've been counting on Fancy's recovery being
our big hook for sweeps week, but what I'm planning is even better."
"Oh,
no you don't...." Mary Beth began, but Julia already had that faraway
look in her eyes.
"I'm
sorry, Mary Beth, but Fancy will have to stay in the coma another week."
"Another week?"
Mary Beth echoed.
Julia
nodded, confirming her spur-of-the-moment decision. "I'll need at least
another week to make the arrangements."
"What arrangements?"
Mary Beth was almost afraid to ask.
Pacing
back and forth now, Julia stopped long enough to say, "Yes, it's all coming together in my head now. When Fancy does come out of
the coma, she'll find the ex-fiancé who once left her at the altar at her
bedside begging for a second chance."
Mary Beth gasped.
"We
can even have him go through everything your Zack has gone through, trying to
prove he still loves Fancy."
"Absolutely
not!" Mary Beth fumed. "This is my life
you're talking about, Julia. I'll never agree to having
my personal life exploited in front of millions of viewers on daytime
TV."
Julia
didn't seem to hear her. She rubbed her greedy hands together. "Yes, this
is exactly what we need to push us over the top during sweeps week. And I have
the perfect actor in mind to make a limited appearance as Fancy's ex-lover. Dirk Devlon."
"Dirk Devlon?"
Mary Beth repeated along with everyone else in the room. Dirk Devlon was a TV
legend who had catapulted from the soaps to the silver screen so fast, he still
had network heads reeling.
"I'm
the one who gave Dirk his first big break in the business," Julia said,
smiling like the cat who just swallowed the canary.
"Dirk owes me a huge favor and he knows it. I've just been waiting for the
right time to call in my marker. And this is definitely the right time."
Mary
Beth jerked the cape from around her neck and pushed Jon aside to stand up.
"You obviously didn't hear me, Julia. I'm not going to sit by and let you
exploit my personal life in the name of sweeps week."
"Sure
you will," Julia called back over her shoulder as she hurried out of the
room in a rush. "We're talking Emmy nomination, Mary Beth. Count on
it."
Mary
Beth didn't leave the studio that evening until after eight o'clock.
The thought that Zack would be waiting for her when she got home no longer
cheered her up as it had when she'd left him asleep in her bed that morning.
Since Julia's brainstorm,
the cast had spent the entire day talking about nothing else but Fancy's new
script and the fact that the fabulous Dirk Devlon would be playing the part of
her ex-fiancé. Mary Beth hadn't even had time to worry about being the icon's
costar.
She
had to force herself to focus on the snarled L.A. traffic. But her mind had been
preoccupied, trying to decide how she was going to explain to Zack that their
personal relationship was now going to be broadcast into the homes of millions
of viewers on daytime television.
Zack was bound to be angry
with her, as would both of their families and probably everyone else in Morgan
City. And she didn't even want to think about how fast Arnold Purdy would
pounce on her new story line. Instead of merciless, he would use mercenary
as an adjective to describe her now, gleefully pointing out that
hometown girl turned TV star was crass enough to sell her own soul for a lousy
ratings score.
We're talking Emmy
nomination, Mary Beth. Count on it.
She wished she could force
Julia's words out of her mind, but she couldn't. Yet, if she couldn't figure
out a way to deter Julia from putting her private life on television, she would
be handing over a part of her soul. A part of her soul that also included Zack,
just when they'd finally found each other again.
He'd be furious, she decided
as she turned onto her street. There was no doubt about that. But maybe
together they could figure out a way to stop Julia from putting their private
lives on display.
After all, Zack was
practical.
Zack could always solve even
the toughest problems.
Zack was surrounded by reporters.
Reporters!
Mary
Beth stepped on the gas pedal of her sporty red two-seater BMW and zoomed into
her driveway, causing several people to scatter out of the way. TV, radio and
newspaper reporters were everywhere. Zack was standing in the driveway with his
hands at his waist, glaring at all of them as the lights from the TV van lit up
her yard. Most of the reporters were scribbling furiously in their notebooks,
but a TV reporter from a local station had a microphone pushed in Zack's face.
Running back and forth in front of the TV van was Diogee, barking his head off
and trying to protect his new buddy.
Vaulting
from her car, Mary Beth yelled, "What's going on here?"
Everyone
started running when the TV camera pointed in her direction.
"Was
it your idea to have your character, Fancy Kildare, go through everything
you've been going through in your own relationship with Zack Callahan, Miss
Morgan?" one of the reporters was rude enough to ask.
"Is
it true Dirk Devlon has agreed to play the role of your ex-fiancé?'' someone
else shouted.
"No
comment," Mary Beth said firmly. Julia must have leaked the new plot line,
Mary Beth decided frantically. She called out an order to Diogee, who stopped
his running and barking long enough for Mary Beth to grab him by the collar.
Leading
him beside her, she pushed past the reporters and said a silent prayer that
Zack would forgive her as she started walking toward him. "Go inside,
Zack," she said, never quite looking him in the eye. "They'll never
leave as long as we stay out here."
He turned on his heel and
stomped around the side of the house ahead of her. Mary Beth rounded the house
herself, still holding to Diogee's collar. The reporters automatically picked
up the chase.
But her heart sank when she
saw the spectacular sunset from her oceanfront deck and the romantic scene Zack
had arranged. He had placed her candles outside this
time. They twinkled like fireflies all along the deck railing. Her patio table
was set for two. Champagne was chilling in her ice bucket. Steaks, she assumed,
would have soon been sizzling on the grill.
All of his careful
preparations wasted now, thanks to the ambitious head writer she'd been stupid
enough to think was her friend.
I'm going to kill Julia, Mary
Beth thought angrily as she made her way up the stairs and onto the deck.
"Zoom
in on the tent," she heard the reporter call out to his cameraman as she
pushed Diogee through the sliding glass door and into the house.
Mary Beth took a deep breath
before she walked inside. After she slid the door into place and locked it, she
turned to face Zack. The only time she'd ever seen him look so angry was the
night before their wedding when he'd handed her a check for her parents'
expenses and begged her for the last time to postpone their wedding.
"Is this what last
night was all about, Mary Beth?" he said flatly. "You thought if you
made love to me I wouldn't be so angry about you turning our life into a script
for Fancy Kildare?"
Mary
Beth flinched. "How can you even ask me that question?"
"How
can I not?" he shouted. "Who else could give those vultures that kind
of information about us? I certainly
didn't call them and ask them to come running with their cameras."
Mary
Beth reached out and placed her hand on his arm. He turned to stone under her
touch. She stepped back. "I'm sorry, Zack. I did tell some of my cast
members what went on between us when I went home for the reunion. And I told
them you followed me back home. But I never dreamed the head writer for the
show would turn our lives into a television script. And that's the honest
truth."
The
hard look on his face softened, but only slightly. His eyes locked with hers.
"Okay. I believe you. It wasn't your idea, but what do you intend to do about
it?"
Mary
Beth looked away. If Julia had already leaked the information to the press, and if the reporters were alluding to the fact that
Dirk Devlon had already accepted Julia's offer to play opposite her, her fate
was already sealed. What could she do?
"I
asked you a question," he said, his voice anything but friendly.
Mary
Beth threw her hands up in the air. '"What can I
do, Zack? I don't write the scripts. I just play the role."
The
muscles in his jaw twitched. "You can refuse this
role, Mary Beth. And you know it."
Was
he crazy? "Are you crazy? I'm under contract, Zack. If
I walked out now, they'd sue me so fast it would make my head spin." I'd
also never work in this town again. She decided it wise not to
bring up that point. After all, Zack would like nothing better than to have
her run back to Morgan City, Oakmont and him. Don't
disappoint me again, Zack. Don't walk out on me again.
"Let the bastards sue
you," he growled. "I'll pay the cost whatever it is."
"It isn't your place to
pay anything, Zack."
"Why
not? It's my life,
too, Mary Beth. And I'm not interested in tuning in and being made fun of on
daytime TV."
Mary Beth's chin came up.
"Then you sue the studio, Zack. Do
what you feel you have to do. But I signed
a contract with the studio, and I don't intend to break it."
His face turned from a bloodred to a sickly pallor. Mary Beth felt as sick as he
looked when he said, "You think playing a role opposite Dirk Devlon will
get you that Emmy nomination, don't you? Admit it."
Mary Beth opened her mouth
to deny it, but she hesitated a second too long.
"I can't believe
this," he boomed. "You're really willing to let those cutthroats
carve our lives into neat slices and serve it up to the public for a damn Emmy
nomination!"
"That isn't true,"
Mary Beth cried. And it wasn't. She'd love to have the nomination, she'd admit
that, but she'd told him the truth. She wasn't going to break her contract.
"I told you. I'm under contract to the studio, Zack. I'm sure you take any
contract you sign in your business seriously. Would you be
willing to commit professional suicide by breaking a business contract?"
The
look he sent her said he'd lost the ability to be practical Zack at the moment.
"Fine. You do what you have
to do, Mary Beth, but you'll be doing it without an audience from me. I was
willing to make a fool out of myself back home because those are the same
people I embarrassed you in front of. But if you think I'm going to keep
grinning like an idiot while your studio makes a laughingstock out of me in
front of the entire country, you don't know me very well."
Mary
Beth's temper flared when he stormed off to the bedroom and came back a few
minutes later with his overnight bag in his hand. "I'm beginning to think
I never knew you at all, Zack." She tried to keep her voice from
quivering. "You walked out on me six years ago, and now you're doing it
again. Who's really the bigger idiot here? You or me?"
"I'm
not walking out on you, Mary Beth. I'm asking you to come home with me."
He paused for a second. "No, I'm begging you
to come home with me." He sent her a pleading look that broke her heart.
"Don't throw our future away for a bunch of people who care so little
about you they'd exploit your personal life for a lousy television
rating."
"Zack,
please..." She couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Then
I guess you've made your choice."
He
turned back to face her after he opened her sliding glass door. "When you
get your Emmy nomination, Mary Beth, don't come home looking for me."
Mary Beth burst into tears
when he disappeared through the door. She could hear him yelling "no
comment" to the reporters who were still milling around in her yard. And
she was still crying thirty minutes later, facedown on her bed, when Diogee
reached up with his paw and scratched her arm. Mary Beth sat up long enough to
take the newspaper he had in his mouth, a routine they followed on a daily
basis. She wiped at her eyes with her fingertips and performed another daily
habit when she turned to see what she'd missed when she'd been too wrapped up
in Zack to read her horoscope that morning.
Libra: You are destined to
enjoy more than your fifteen minutes of fame.
Without even bothering to
finish the rest of her daily horoscope, Mary Beth fell facedown on her bed
again and cried like a baby.
It
was after ten o'clock that night when Zack stormed
into the airport terminal and asked for the first available flight to Chicago.
He bought the ticket for the red-eye flight without so
much as a blink. He checked what little baggage he had, grabbed his ticket and
decided to kill time in the closest airport bar. Due to the late hour, he was
relieved to see only two other people at a table in the back of the tiny space.
"Scotch.
Neat," he told the bartender when he seated himself at the bar. When the
bartender returned with his drink, he nursed his poison while he tried to pull
himself back together.
There
hadn't been any point in staying in Malibu with Mary Beth to slug it out. Nor
would it have done him any good to argue with her any longer. She was the most
stubborn person he'd ever known, and though he would always love her, this was
one time he had to agree with her.
Sometimes
love just wasn't enough.
He
also knew his first order of business had to be to head to his Chicago office and
prepare to do any damage control if his partners or any of their investors
suddenly got nervous about the publicity that was sure to hit the tabloids. And
he wouldn't blame them if they did get a little nervous. Wouldn't he be
nervous if he learned the CEO of the company he'd invested in was stupid enough
to hand out large sums of money on the street corner? Not to mention getting
arrested for hanging upside down from a bridge, and then running off to
California to pitch a pup tent in his ex-fiancéeÅ‚s front yard. Did any of that sound like the actions of a sane man. Not hardly.
What in the hell have I been
thinking?
Of course, he knew exactly
why he had gone to such lengths to prove he was anything but practical Zack
when it came to love. Mary Beth was the reason. The Mary
Beth who had made love to him last night, who had kissed him with such
sweetness and sincerity and told him that she still loved him.
Not
the Mary Beth he'd left a few hours ago. The Mary Beth who was so caught up in
her acting career she was willing to sacrifice their future for a damn statue.
"What the hell?"
the bartender said when a group of people ran past the bar and down the
terminal corridor. Zack slid off the stool and followed the bartender when he
walked to the open entrance of the bar to see what all the commotion was about.
"I thought it was a
bomb scare or something," the bartender said shaking his head. "It's
only another movie star."
Zack frowned. Dirk Devlon
was standing in the middle of the terminal, surrounded by the small army he
paid to protect him. He smiled his Hollywood smile for a camera that had Entertainment
Tonight written in big letters on the side.
Even before this fiasco with
Mary Beth, Zack had never liked the guy. He'd never understood why women were
so crazy about him, either, but it was obvious they were from the nervous way
the pretty female reporter giggled when she pushed her microphone in his
direction. The rave reviews the critics always gave him also hadn't been enough
to sway Zack's opinion. As far as Zack was concerned, the man couldn't act his
way out of a wet paper bag.
"I'll be the first to
confirm it," Dirk said with a smile as he reached up to push a dark curl
back off his forehead. "The rumor about me doing a guest appearance on The
Wild and the Free is most definitely true."
"Is it also true you'll be getting five
hundred thousand for each episode?" the pretty woman gushed.
He adjusted the ascot around
his neck and removed his designer sunglasses before he glanced back over his
shoulder at a man too well dressed to be a bodyguard. "Let's ask my agent.
Ron? Care to answer this lovely young woman's question?" When Ron sent him
a terrified look, Dirk feigned surprise. "My word, man," he said, his
hand dramatically clutched to his chest. "If that's all I'm getting per
episode, I say we should bloody well renegotiate."
Everyone
laughed.
"But
why television, Mr. Devlon?" the pretty reporter probed. "When you
already have such a hectic movie schedule, I mean?"
He
put his designer sunglasses back on before he said, "Television was good
to me once, lovey. And you can quote me on thisOne
should never become too famous that one forgets where one got his first
start."
The
arrogant bastard, Zack thought. In addition to all the fall-out
he could have from Mary Beth's latest affair with the media, he'd also be
tormented by the fact that the famous Dirk Devlon would be looking into those
big blue eyes of hers on a daily basis. And she always had been a sucker for a
British accent. Devlon was no Cary Grant, but the fact that Mary Beth would be
his love interest on the show bothered Zack, deeply. That is, until he remembered
Devlon would be playing his role
in the twisted melodrama that was his own life.
And the idea that the great
Dirk Devlon would have to play the role of the character who had humiliated
himself in the name of love, made Zack laugh.
"What's so funny?"
the bartender asked with a grin.
"He's going to look
like a real jackass on that soap opera," said Zack.
They both watched Devlon
disappear down the corridor with everyone hurrying after him before the
bartender looked back at Zack and said, "Are you kidding? That dude is a
jackass, man."
Zack laughed even harder.
8
Pulling into a parking spot
at the studio's executive offices, Mary Beth looked over at the shiny Mercedes
where her agent was sitting behind the wheel with a worried look on his face.
She'd finally pulled herself together after Zack left, and the first thing
she'd done was put in an emergency call to her agent. Not that JoJo had been in
sympathy with her, the jerk. In fact, she'd almost had to threaten to fire him
to get him to agree to arrange for a private meeting with the executive
producer.
"I
still don't see why you're making such a big deal out of this," JoJo
argued as they headed for the studio's impressive front doors. "Like I
told you when you insisted on wearing that body suit for the Evershine commercial,
if you're going to make it in the entertainment business, Mary Beth, you need
to go with the flow. Everyone thought you were nude, anyway, so what did it
matter?"
Mary
Beth glared in his direction, wondering why she'd never paid attention to the
gaudy gold chains around his neck and the flashy rings on his fingers before.
"But I knew I wasn't nude, and
I'm not going to apologize for sticking to my principles. Just like now. I'm
making a big deal out of this because it's an invasion of my privacy,
JoJo." And the minute she called him by his ridiculous nickname, Mary
Beth realized Maddie was right. She never should have allowed herself to get
involved with a grown man who was perfectly comfortable being known to the
world as JoJo.
"When you're a public
figure, you have no privacy," he grunted. "And if you're not careful
you'll have no career, either."
Shut up, Bozo, Mary
Beth thought, deciding from here on out she would use
Maddie's nickname for him, at least mentally anyway. She waited at the door
until he opened it and they both walked through. "Don't you think you're
jumping the gun just a little? The producer might agree with me and stop Julia
from using my private life as a script for sweeps week."
"If you believe
that," JoJo said with snort, "then I have a great deal on some Enron
stock I'd love to sell you."
When the executive
producer's secretary gave them the nod, Mary Beth paused in front of the office
door, took a deep breath and opened it. JoJo followed so close behind her he
actually bumped into her when she came to an abrupt halt. The private meeting
she thought they were having wasn't going to be
private after all. Already seated in one of the chairs facing the executive
producer's desk was Julia, with an extremely smug look on her face.
"I
thought all parties involved in this dispute should be included in the
meeting," Walter Evans informed them with a superior smile. He was
distinguished-looking, as you would expect him to be, with the perpetual rich
man's tan and dark hair only slightly tinted with gray.
He motioned for them to take
a seat.
Before Mary Beth could kick
her agent into action or say a word herself, Walter pulled a contract out of
his top desk drawer and slid it across the polished mahogany table in her
direction. "I think we can save everyone a lot of time if you'll look over
the two-year contract you signed with the studio again, Miss Morgan. You're
under contract for two more months. Or have you forgotten that?"
Mary Beth glanced at the
contract, but refused to pick it up. "No, I haven't forgotten anything,
Mr. Evans. I know exactly when my contract is up. And I also know there isn't
anything in that contract that says I gave you the right to exploit my personal
life to gain top ratings for the studio."
JoJo sent her a warning
look, and Walter sat back in his big leather chair and smiled. "No one is
trying to put you on the defensive, Miss Morgan. But to put it bluntly, the
show will go on. With you or without you. And if you
choose to break your contract by refusing to accept the new script...
well...I'm sure your very eager understudy would kill for a chance to play
Fancy opposite Dirk Devlon."
"Mary
Beth has no intention of breaking her contract," JoJo spoke up for the
first time. He laughed nervously. "Everyone knows she'd never work in this
town again if she did a stupid thing like that."
You snake! He'd
sold her out. He was supposed to be on her side.
Not hand her over to the studio with his blessing. They didn't pay him fifteen
percent. She did!
Julia nodded politely to the
producer when she stood up. "Thank you, sir. It appears this meeting is
over." But she stopped beside Mary Beth's chair and looked down at her
before she left the room. "Let me give you some free advice, Mary Beth.
You might fool some people with that I'm-just-the-girl-next-door-and-I-have-my-principles
act, but you've never fooled me. You're just as selfish and ruthless as the
character you play. The minute I saw you sacrificing your own twin sister on
national TV so you could get yourself in the spotlight, I said, 'That's the
girl I want to play Fancy Kildare.' And if you're really as smart as your agent
claims you are, you'll go right on playing Fancy Kildare. And you'll do so
wearing a great big smile of gratitude on that pretty face of yours."
Mary Beth was livid. Her
chin lifted in defiance. "Oh, I am smart, Julia. I'm smart enough to know
free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. But I am glad
you realize that I do have a ruthless streak. It won't come as a surprise to
you later."
"Is
that a threat, Mary Beth?"
"Take it however you
want, Julia."
Julia
stuck her nose in the air and stomped out of the room.
Talk about a wake-up call.
Long after the meeting was
over, and after her agent had slithered back under the rock he crawled out
from, Mary Beth remained sitting in the studio break room waiting out her time
until her brief coma-victim appearance was scheduled for the day. Nursing a cup
of cold coffee, she was coming to terms with some extremely difficult truths
about herself.
And
she didn't like any of them.
How
did Maddie ever forgive me? Mary Beth kept wondering,
realizing for the first time the full magnitude of what she'd put her twin
through while Maddie's life had captured front page headlines and had been on
every newscast across the nation.
Funny
how she'd convinced herself then she was only being
resourceful when it was Maddie's life that was being exploited. And how she'd
never seen herself as selfish or ruthless, only determined to make it to the
big time. Now, with Dirk Devlon scheduled as her costar, she might even have a
chance to really make it to the big time.
But at what price?
"Welcome
to the real world," a voice said. Dorothy, the veteran actress who had
told Mary Beth careers were a dime a dozen, took a seat beside her.
"You
can say that again," Mary Beth mumbled, still looking into her coffee cup.
"Well,
if it makes you feel any better, all actors have to pay a price for their
success at some point in their careers."
When
Mary Beth didn't comment, Dorothy said, "Some pay when their marriages end
in divorce. Some pay when they look around and their children have grown up
while they've spent the majority of their time at the studio. Others, like you,
even have to let go of their principles now and then and look the other
way."
Mary Beth flinched at that
remark. "And what about you? What price have you
paid?"
Dorothy shrugged. "I
guess it all depends on how you look at it. I've made good money over the
years. My home is paid for. I have a nice nest egg in the bank for retirement.
But I've buried most of my family now, without ever spending any real time with
them. And if I live long enough to go to a nursing home, I won't have any
children or grandchildren stopping by to spend time with me during the years I
have left."
"But you've had a
wonderful career," Mary Beth reminded her weakly.
"Yes, I've had my
career. And that's exactly what I always told myself I wanted. A long, prosperous career."
Mary Beth looked at Dorothy
for the first time since she had sat down beside her. "You say that as if
you don't think your career has been worth the price you've had to pay."
Dorothy laughed as she got
up to leave. "What difference does it make? There's nothing I can do about
it now."
Could that be me in thirty
years? Mary Beth wondered after Dorothy left the break
room. A woman with nothing to look forward to but waiting
out her time in a nursing home with no one left to come
visit?
Mary Beth shuddered at the
thought.
The only thing that kept her
from walking out of the studio and never looking back was the fact that she
only had two months left on her contract. That, and the fact the executive
producer had already made it clear her walking out and breaking her contract
wouldn't change the script at all. They'd simply turn to her understudy. And
she'd worked too hard perfecting the role of Fancy Kildare to hand it over to
someone else. Especially when an actor as famous as Dirk
Devlon had been called in for a guest appearance.
She
consoled herself with the fact that at least she had tried to stop Julia. She'd
make sure her mother passed on that piece of information to Zack's aunt Lou. If
anyone at home will ever speak to me again, Mary
Beth reminded herself.
She'd have to give her
mother and Maddie time to calm down before she could talk to them rationally.
She'd kept her cell phone turned off all day, already dreading what her family
would have to say about the latest chapter in her life. And thinking about her
uncertain future, Mary Beth picked up the paper from the break room table and
turned to the horoscope section, bracing herself. Be
prepared for a big change in your life. Mary Beth laughed bitterly.
Stop worrying about things you can't change and look to the future. "What
future?" Mary Beth mumbled. She had taken Zack back, only to lose him
again. And now that she'd challenged Julia, it was highly doubtful her contract
would be renewed for another two years even if she decided she did want to stay
with the show. Understanding will come, but slowly. "Thanks
for nothing," Mary Beth said with a frown.
She threw the paper back
down on the table when one of her cast members called out that it was time for
her appearance on the set.
Mary
Beth glanced at the caller ID and waited until
the phone stopped ringing. When the flashing red light appeared on her phone
set, she picked up the receiver and listened to the message from her sister.
"What were you thinking, Mary Beth? How can you be so vindictive? How
could you sell your own life story...."
Mary Beth deleted the message.
Just as she had deleted a similar message from her mother
earlier. The last thing Mary Beth needed at the moment was someone else
making her feel worse than she already did.
Even my dog hates me, Mary
Beth thought, looking over at Diogee who had taken up a watchful post by her
sliding glass door shortly after Zack had roared out of her life forever.
What was that old saying?
You always hurt the one you
love.
Love. Such a mysterious, confusing and completely exasperating word.
And a word she didn't have time to even contemplate at the moment.
No, what she needed to focus
on at the moment was how she was going to pull herself together long enough to
grit her teeth and fulfill her contract. The news on the set was that Dirk
Devlon was already kicking butt and taking names. He'd refused to wait another
week while Julia was dragging out the coma saga, insisting he needed to appear
on the show as soon as possible, or not at all. And according to the rumors, he
wasn't at all happy about having an up-and-coming actress instead of an
established one as his costar.
What
that would mean for her personally, Mary Beth wasn't sure. They could very well
bring in some big movie star to play the role of Fancy. But it wasn't likely.
Dirk was only slated for a brief appearance as would be any leading lady of his
choosing.
What
irritated Mary Beth most was the fact that Dirk had started out in the ranks
the same way she was doing now.
Actors
and their egos, she thought with a sigh. She was even
beginning to worry that her own ego was getting a little too big for comfort. Was an
Emmy nomination really worth the price she was willing to pay? She was
beginning to have her doubts. Especially when she remembered
Zack's final words. "When you get your Emmy nomination, don't come
home looking for me."
"Venus?
I could use a little help in the destiny department right now," Mary Beth
mumbled aloud.
Diogee
seconded her request with the thump of his tail.
When
Dirk Devlon finally showed up on the set of The
Wild and the Free, it was the equivalent of
Michael Jordan showing up at a high school basketball game. The only
difference was that Michael Jordan would have flashed the crowd his fantastic
smile. Dirk kept his plastic-surgerized nose in the
air and never looked once at any of his fellow cast members as he swept through
the set to a private dressing room Julia had personally arranged for him.
"Now that's a unique
individual," one of the cast members standing beside Mary Beth said.
"He's unique, all
right," Mary Beth snorted. "Just like everybody else."
How she was ever going to
make herself work with this man, Mary Beth didn't have a clue. Especially
since the latest news on the set was that Dirk had been furious when he read
the script and realized that a nobody like Mary Beth
was actually going to turn him down in front of millions of his faithful fans.
Poor Dirk, Mary
Beth thought. It appeared even a big name like Dirk Devlon ended up paying the
price for success sooner or later, just like Dorothy told her every actor did.
She glanced at JoJo, who had
begged her to let him on the set for her first scene with Devlon, possibly at
the suggestion of Julia and the studio heads hoping he could keep Mary Beth in
line. When he gave her a thumbs-up sign, Mary Beth frowned at him and looked
away. If he told her one more time that after playing opposite Dirk Devlon the
sky would be the limit, he was
going straight to the moon when she personally punched him out! Especially if
the creep kept annoying her with his lousy imitation of a cash register, doing
his stupid "ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching" over the money he could see
in their futures.
Ka-ching
this, you moron. She
kept her middle finger hidden behind her back, and turned around to find
another greedy parasite standing right behind her.
"I
need to make a few things clear before you and Dirk go before the cameras
today," Julia said haughtily.
"Like
what? That emotionally constipated people like you and Dirk Devlon don't give a
crap?" Mary Beth said with a smile. "Save your breath, Julia. I can
see that for myself."
Julia's
eyes narrowed. "I'd watch my step if I were you, Mary Beth."
"A
contract goes both ways, Julia. Go ahead and fire me. I have my lawyer's number
on speed dial."
"I'm
not stupid," she hissed. "But Dirk is already upset about the
script. It's my job to see that everything runs as smoothly and as painlessly
as possible. Understand?"
Mary
Beth sent Julia her sweetest smile. "Painless, you say? Fine. I'll treat Dirk with the sensitivity of an angry
dentist."
Literally
trembling with anger, Julia looked Mary Beth up and down and said,
"Listen, sweetie. You
really don't want to screw with me."
Mary
Beth didn't back down. "You're right, sweetie.
I'd have better taste."
Julia
stomped off.
JoJo
glared in her direction.
Mary
Beth smiled with satisfaction.
Like everyone else
on the set who had been waiting
the past two hours for Mr. Ego to emerge from his dressing room, Mary Beth's
patience was growing thinner by the minute.
"According to the
rumors, he always does this," Mary Beth heard someone whisper. "In
fact, it's been said if Dirk Devlon hasn't kept the cast waiting for at least
two hours, he doesn't consider it a good day."
"If he'd been a
Pilgrim, then I guess he would have sailed over on the Decemberflower,"
Mary Beth grumbled and everyone laughed at the same time the great man himself
took pity on the cast and finally walked onto the set.
You can do this, Mary
Beth told herself when the director called for everyone to take their places on
the set.
With her head held high,
Mary Beth walked to the hospital bed sitting in the middle of the set wearing
her sickly green hospital gown. After climbing onto the bed and adjusting the
covers, she fell back against the propped up pillows and closed her eyes with
the fake dark circles, wishing she really could lapse into a coma for her part
of the scene.
She
cringed slightly when she felt her obnoxious costar take her hand. And she
almost burst out laughing when the man who didn't like to admit he was actually
from Ohio delivered his lines in the phony British accent he'd recently
adopted. "Fawn-cy? Dearest?
It's me, Monty. Can you hear me?"
Mary Beth tried not to gag
at the name he had personally chosen for the character he was playing. A free
spirit like Fancy Kildare getting involved with stuffed shirt named Montague
was as likely as Mary Beth asking Dirk if she could hang out in his dressing
room in hopes she might catch some of his precious fingernail clippings for her
scrapbook.
But
she did finally manage to let her eyes flutter open, and when she turned her
head to look at him, he let go of her hand and said with a groan, "This is
the woman I'm supposed to be madly in love with? That's preposterous!"
"Now,
Dirk," Julia cooed running onto the set to soothe the savage beast she was
responsible for creating. "Fancy's been in a coma. Remember? It would be preposterous
if we had her looking like a model who had just stepped off a Paris
runway."
Refusing
to even look at her again, he had the nerve to say, "Then change the script,
Julia. If you expect me to play the role up to Dirk Devlon standards, then I
insist you give me a better script and a
costar who looks better than this one does now."
"I
agree," Mary Beth said right back, jerking Dirk's dark head in her
direction. "If the man can't act, he can't act. I say let's make it easy
for him and forget this script entirely."
Julia's
face turned so white she looked
like the coma victim, while Dirk's face turned as red as the vase of fake roses
sitting on the nightstand next to her hospital bed.
Mary
Beth knew she'd won round one when Dirk stormed off
the set in a rage befitting a two-year-old and
Julia hurried after him. She simply leaned back against the pillows with her
hands propped behind her head.
That was for making me lose
Zack, she thought with a satisfied smile. She already
knew ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching was running through a few executive minds at
the moment, over the horrendous amount of money their big sweeps week movie
star was thoughtlessly wasting at the studio's expense.
"Maddie,
its me. Don't hang up."
When her sister didn't
answer, Mary Beth said, "I'm sorry I haven't called you back."
"So am I, Mary
Beth," Maddie snapped. "But if you think waiting two days to call me
back means I'm not going to give you the same lecture, you're crazy."
"I owe you a huge
apology, Maddie," Mary Beth broke in. "I was selfish and
inconsiderate for using you like I did with that alien abduction story. I want
you to know how grateful I am that you forgave me. Until now, I never realized
how painful that had to have been for you."
"Zack's the one you owe
an apology to now," Maddie said, refusing to let Mary Beth change the
subject.
"Zack no longer has
anything to worry about," Mary Beth said with a sigh. "Thanks to Dirk
Devlon, even though he is an egotistical ass, the script has been changed. He
insists no man in his right mind would ever do the things Zack did, even in the
name of love."
"And
I'm sure Zack would agree with him about now," Maddie confirmed.
Mary
Beth found the nerve to ask. "Did Zack make it back home safely?"
"Like you care."
"Be
mad at me if you want, Maddie, but stop acting like I'm some ogre. Of course I
care if Zack made it home okay."
"He's
in Chicago. Trying to run interference for all the bad publicity you've caused
him. But he is safe."
"Will
you make sure to pass it along that the script has been changed?"
"Absolutely
not!" Maddie snapped. "If you want Zack to
have that information, you can call him yourself. And I wouldn't wait around to
do it, either. There are plenty of single women right
here in Morgan City
just dying for him to come home so they can soothe his bruised ego. Bitsy Williams for one. She's already telling everyone in
town that she intends on becoming Mrs. Zack Callahan."
Bitsy?
Turning Oakmont into a Barbie playhouse? I'll pull her false pigtail off again
and shove it down her throat first!
"Well,
you certainly got quiet all of a sudden," Maddie said, and Mary Beth
frowned at the satisfied tone in her twin's voice.
"No,
I didn't," Mary Beth lied.
Maddie
laughed. "Sure you did. I can practically feel your rage vibrating through
the phone."
"Cut it out,
Maddie."
Maddie
let out a sigh. "Come home, Mary Beth. Come home now. Before
it really is too late for you and Zack."
Mary Beth closed her eyes.
"I have a contract to fulfill, Maddie. That's something everyone seems to
have conveniently forgotten."
"And when your contract
is up? Will you come home then?"
Mary Beth refused to answer.
"If you're irritated
with me because there's nothing I'd like better than to see you come home and
marry Zack, then I'm sorry. But can you really blame me, Mary Beth? Would I
really be much of a sister if I didn't want to see you spend the rest of your
life with a guy who loves you as much as Zack does? A man who
will be a devoted husband to you and a wonderful father to your children?"
Mary Beth still didn't have
an answer.
"Fine. If
I'm only going to get the silent treatment, we might as well hang up."
Before Mary Beth could
answer, Maddie slammed down the phone.
"My sister just hung up
on me," Mary Beth told the dog whose new post was still lying in front of
her sliding glass door.
Even Diogee refused to look
in her direction.
"Thanks for the
support, traitor," Mary Beth scolded.
But who was she kidding. She
didn't have any support. She didn't have any support at the studio, and she
certainly didn't have any support when it came to her family taking sides with
her against Zack.
And
she didn't even want to think about the stupid script Dirk Devlon had come up
with, twisting the script around so it would be Mary Beth who was doing the
groveling. That was a challenge she wasn't looking forward to undertaking.
Especially since Zack was certain to get a big kick
out of seeing her do the groveling for a change. Maybe Bitsy Williams would
invite him over so they could both laugh their fool heads off while they
watched her soap together.
Bitsy
Williams.
Zack
certainly wouldn't have to pitch any tents in that bimbo's front yard. She'd
bend over backwards in order to fulfill Zack's slightest whim.
Bitsy Callahan.
Mary
Beth almost choked on those words, and she hadn't even said them out loud. Her
mind sped forward, ten years down the road. Her, coming home
for their twenty-year class reunion. Still alone and unmarried. But surely she'd have been
nominated and even won an
Emmy by then. She'd even take her statue to the family picnic on the courthouse
green and display it just as proudly as Zack and Bitsy would display their
children. But what did she care?
I
care enough that the thought of Bitsy Williams having Zack's children makes me
physically sick to my stomach, Mary Beth admitted.
Could she really stand by
and let Zack marry someone else? Mary Beth looked at the phone in her hand for
a moment. She didn't even have to walk back to the bar to get the numbers Zack
had written down for her when they got up in the middle of the night, famished
from their heated lovemaking. Being blessed with photographic memories is what
had helped Maddie sail through college, and what made memorizing a script a
breeze for her.
And
she wasn't going to worry about the time difference, either, even though it was
after midnight in Chicago. If she didn't call Zack while she had the courage,
Mary Beth knew she never would.
His voice sounded sleepy
when he answered.
"Zack,
it's me."
She heard him breath out a long sigh. "I
just wanted to apologize for all the trouble I've caused you with media."
Still, silence.
"And I wanted you to
know the script has been changed. Your life isn't going to be..."
"I
don't care about the damn script, Mary Beth." His voice was cool, distant.
"I cared about us. I cared about our future. I cared about having a
family...."
Mary Beth's heart lurched to
hear him talk about his feelings in the past tense. She broke in before she
could stop herself. "Then what was all that talk about settling for
friendship, Zack? What was that?"
"I
had a weak moment. Sue me!" he had the nerve to say and slammed down the
phone.
"Now, Zack hung up on
me!" Mary Beth told Diogee. "He even stole one of my favorite
lines."
She
threw the phone down on the sofa, then stomped out onto the deck and stood
staring out over the Pacific with her fists clenched at her sides. In
California she had a rented beach house she
paid a fortune for every month just to say she lived in Malibu. She had a
flashy sports car. She had a certain amount of fame and the potential to win
that Emmy nomination if she could keep from punching Dirk Devlon in the nose
and ruining his nose job.
While back home in Morgan
City she would have...
No!
She wasn't going to think
about home. Or Zack.
What
she was going to do was clear her mind of all confusion and concentrate on the
most pressing matter at hand: taking back control from Julia and Dirk and
showing everyone she wasn't beaten yet.
She smiled to herself.
Fancy Kildare still had a
few tricks up her sleeve.
9
"Does
everyone have a copy of the new
script?" asked Julia, smiling at Dirk who was sitting beside her looking
aloof and completely in control. "Then let me give you a thumbnail sketch
of how things have changed."
Mary Beth stifled a groan
when Julia pointed to her. "After Fancy comes out of the coma, we'll keep
flashing back to the past, showing how she left Monty the night before their
wedding, seeking fame and fortune in Hollywood."
Mary Beth laughed. "And
you really think the viewers are going to buy that Fancy Kildare is a renegade
member of the royal family of England?''
Julia
frowned. "Fancy ran away, Mary Beth. She left behind her royal roots and
the man who loved her, and she's been guarding her true identity from the
moment she hit Hollywood."
Mary Beth rolled her eyes.
"And that's what makes
her outlandish role as Fancy Kildare so believable," Julia added. "In
her new life, she's chosen to be the farthest thing possible from the person
her royal status demanded her to be."
Dirk nodded in agreement.
"It makes perfect sense to me."
Mary
Beth glared in Dirk's direction.
"Let's
see if I can explain it to Miss Morgan," the creep had the nerve to say
when he noticed Mary Beth's scowl. "After Fancy has her close brush with
death, she realizes it's time to give up her phony life in Hollywood. All she
can think about is the man she truly loves and assuming her rightful place back
in London's royal high society." He paused for a few seconds, looking
around appreciatively at a few eager-to-please cast members who were all
nodding in approval. "So Fancy goes back home. To her beloved England.
And to her loving parents, the Duke and Duchess of Devlonshire."
Dirk
howled at the cleverness of including his own name in
Fancy's newly created royal parents. Several cast members laughed along with
him, but Mary Beth wasn't one of them.
"You
see," he added slowly, looking straight at her as if he were trying to
explain something to the royal village idiot, "Fancy's goal now is to do
whatever it takes to win back the heart of the man she once betrayed. A futile
effort," he added with another obnoxious laugh, "because..."
"When
did The Wild and the Free become
The Dull and the Snoring?" Mary Beth interrupted.
"Do
you have no depth, Miss Morgan?" Dirk asked with total disdain.
"Excuse
me, Mr. Devlon," Mary Beth's perky understudy, Judy, spoke up. "I
think I see where you're going with this."
Mary
Beth focused on the imaginary brown spot that was quickly forming on the tip of
Judy's pretty turned-up nose.
"People never really
let go of their roots. Not completely," Judy said, looking around at the
group sitting in a circle. "They may think they have, but deep inside,
each of us is still that same person we've always been. Fancy might have more
fun playing the femme fatale in Hollywood, but after her near brush with death,
she comes to her senses and realizes what she really wants is the very thing
she ran away from. She wants a life with the man she loves, and she wants to be
back home safely in the bosom of her royal
family."
"Good job, by jove!" Dirk beamed. "Excellent
analogy."
In more ways than you
realize, Mary Beth thought sadly.
She was still reeling from
the sobering parody of her own life, when Julia said, "One more
thing." She looked directly at Mary Beth. "Since someone"
and she smiled facetiously when she said someone ''leaked to the press that
this new script was going to mimic your own life, Mary Beth, I've come up with
a perfect solution to keep the public from being disappointed now that we've
changed the script."
Mary Beth held her breath.
"The
public already knows you have an identical twin sister. When Fancy goes back
home to London as Edwena, she'll
find the reason Monty no longer has any interest in her, is that he's fallen in
love with her identical twin, Rowena. The
good twin," Julia added, getting in another barb. "The
sister who is loving, kind, loyal and who will make Monty the perfect wife.
Everything Fancy never was and never could be."
Like me, you're insinuating.
"And
though Dirk and I both have extreme doubts about the scope of your acting
abilities," Julia said with great satisfaction, "since we're playing
up the identical twin hook, I have no choice but to let you play both
roles."
Mary
Beth felt the heat creep up her neck at Julia's insult.
"But
you will have to overcome your irritating Southern twang in the role of Fancy's
twin, Miss Morgan," Dirk said, pretending to shudder. "A believable
British accent will be absolutely mandatory for the role of Rowena."
A
believable British accent, Mary Beth seethed. A man who
sounded like a cross between Hugh Grant and Fred Flintstone was concerned about
her believable British accent?
Well,
she thought smugly, she had a little surprise for both of them. Dorothy, bless
her heart, just happened to sneak a copy of the new script out of Julia's
office so Mary Beth wouldn't be caught with her panties down, so to speak. And
thanks to her sainted friend, Mary Beth already knew the new script inside and
out.
Standing
up from her chair, Mary Beth tossed her long pale locks over one shoulder and
walked toward Dirk with the sensuous sway that had made
Fancy so popular. Using the words she had
memorized straight from the script, Mary Beth looked him up and down and said
in Fancy's low, sexy and definitely Southern drawl,
"Your lips say you're in love with my sister now, Monty, but that hungry
look I see in your eyes calls you a liar."
Dirk, who had sat up
straighter in his chair when she made the advance in his direction, sent Julia
an annoyed look. And when he did, Mary Beth changed her posturing and adopted a
look so pure and innocent, he blinked in surprise. In perfect, clipped English
diction that would have made the Duchess of York proud, it was Rowena who fell
to her knees and took Dirk's hand. "Monty, I beg you. There's no hope for
you if you listen to such foolishness from my sister. Edwena betrayed you once
before. She'll do it yet again."
The cast rose to their feet
and actually applauded. Even Julia.
But not Dirk. The great one
remained seated.
He also kept a tight-lipped
grimace on his face for the remainder of the afternoon while the cast worked
patiently through Fancy's new script.
Dressed
in a clinging black sequined evening gown, Mary Beth gazed around the crowded room that was
filled to capacity with the who's who of Hollywood
daytime television. Her eyes fell on Walter Evans, the executive producer of The
Wild and the Free and she gave the man a polite nod. He smiled
at her, then lifted his champagne glass in a toast.
She found it rather ironic the same man had been ready to kick her to the curb
only a few weeks earlier.
Of
course, that wasn't going to happen now. Not when the ratings for sweeps week
had far exceeded any of the numbers the producers had even hoped for; thus the
reason for tonight's party. Dirk Devlon had even postponed his return to New
York to celebrate the big victory.
A
group of smiling cast members were gathered around him now, while he regaled
them with another one of what Mary Beth suspected was a self-serving story. If
there was one thing she had learned about Dirk over the past few weeks, it was the
fact that he never said or did anything that didn't call attention to himself.
Mary
Beth stiffened when Julia actually had the nerve to walk up to her, give her a hug and air-kiss both cheeks. When she stepped back,
she said, "I know we've had our differences, Mary Beth, but I'm willing to
put those behind us if you are. I can't tell you how impressed I've been with
your talent over the past few weeks."
Mary
Beth managed a curt thank-you, and Julia smiled. "And I wanted you to know
I have some wonderful ideas about what Fancy might get into after she returns
to Hollywood. She'll still be devastated, of course, because Monty wouldn't
take her back, but I think I can help take her mind off Monty. I hear the new
heartthrob over at NBC isn't happy. I'm going to call him next week and see if
we can't entice him to come play with Fancy for a
while."
Julia
laughed and Mary Beth took a sip from her glass, trying to appear interested.
Rather than thinking about a hot new co-star, the only thing on her mind was
sticking it out at the party long enough to make an appearance. Over the last
few weeks, she'd found it more and more difficult to play the silly Hollywood
game. And she'd had enough of the phony people in the room to last her a
lifetime.
"And don't mention a
word," Julia whispered as she leaned in closer, "but Dirk's already
agreed to return for the next sweeps week when Fancy is invited to Monty and
Rowena's wedding. You'll play the double role again, of course. It's been such
a success we need to milk it for all it's worth."
After dropping that bit of
news, Julia hurried off to mingle, but JoJo slid right into the vacant space
beside Mary Beth. His slicked-back hair held so much gel Mary Beth was
surprised it didn't slide right off his head. He gave her a wink and said,
"I've been working the room and doing a little schmoozing and the word is
you're a definite shoo-in for an Emmy nomination. Didn't I tell you sticking
with that role would be in your best interest?''
An Emmy nomination. But
did she dare hope to believe it? Everyone else seemed to think it was a
possibility. And even she had to admit she'd done an outstanding job playing
the double roles of Edwena and Rowena. But
an Emmy nomination?
JoJo jarred her from her
thoughts when he put his hand on her elbow. "I just want you to know I've
already made it clear to the big boys that keeping you is
going to be expensive. If they want you to sign another contract, it won't be
for the chicken feed they gave you the first time."
Though
what he said should have pleased her, his statement made her mad enough to
spit. "Why are you threatening the big boys now, JoJo?" She was
through being nice. "What happened to your go-with-the-flow philosophy?
Why couldn't you have played the hard, tough agent when I needed you to stand
up for me?"
He
paled, obviously realizing she was only a second away from cutting him loose.
"Now, Mary Beth, I was doing what I thought was best for you. And even you
can't say I didn't do the right thing. We've got clout now, Mary Beth. C-l-o-u-t clout."
She
hated the annoying way he spelled out words.
"You're
the hottest thing on daytime TV," he added. "And everyone in this
town knows it."
Mary
Beth was amused to see him so shaken. He motioned to one of the circulating
waiters, their trays filled with champagne glasses. JoJo grabbed a glass and
polished it off in one easy gulp. "I've brought you this far," he was
quick to remind her. "And you're going to realize how much you really need
me when I bring you that contract to sign in a few weeks."
JoJo
scurried off, probably afraid she was going to fire him on the spot, but Mary
Beth barely noticed. Dirk Devlon had her in his sights now, and the great one himself was strolling leisurely across the room in her
direction. Every eye in the room was following each step he took.
"You
look ravishing tonight, Mary Beth," he said, pausing to look her up and
down. "Simply ravishing. And one day," he
said, raising his voice loud enough for everyone to hear, "I predict that
you will look back on this night as one of the most memorable nights of your
life. Because everyone in this room" and he dramatically used his champagne
glass in a sweeping gesture around the room ''already knows you have an
incredibly bright future ahead of you. And that includes me."
He made a formal bow then,
and reached out and brought her hand to his lips for a kiss.
Everyone clapped in
approval.
Mary Beth managed to mumble
a thank-you, but the tears running down her cheeks had nothing to do with
Dirk's unexpected praise. It was the memory of someone else's phony British
accent and kiss on the hand that actually made her cry.
10
Zack
motioned for Greg to keep backing up. The truck eased backward,
closer to the spot Zack had chosen to unload the lumber. "Stop," Zack
called out, then walked to the back of the truck and let down the tailgate.
Greg left the truck and came around back to help as Zack paused to look down at
the ringing cell phone clipped to his belt.
When
he didn't take the call, Greg chuckled and said, "I bet I can guess who
that was."
"Shut
up. It isn't funny," Zack grumbled.
"Sure it is," Greg
said and laughed. "Mom even heard down at the beauty parlor that Bitsy is
already looking through catalogs trying to choose a wedding dress."
"Like
that's going to happen," Zack said with a snort. "Can you imagine a
life with a woman who can talk nonstop for five straight minutes without taking
a single breath? And I should know. I timed Bitsy yesterday when she stopped by
to drop off another one of her damn casseroles."
"At
least you're eating well," Greg threw in and reached out to pat Zack's
stomach.
Zack
threw the red warning flag he'd just taken off one of the boards and hit Greg
in the face.
The slap in the face didn't
stop Greg's teasing. "Yeah, give Bitsy another week or two and you'll
probably be willing to marry her just to get her to shut up."
"Believe me, I've been
tempted to use my caulking gun and glue that fake pigtail right across her
mouth."
"You've done crazier
things," Greg reminded him, then pulled himself up into the back of the
truck to get a stubborn board that wouldn't budge.
"And Mary Beth's latest
success on her soap opera certainly hasn't helped matters," Zack complained.
"Her success hasn't
helped your foul mood, either," Greg mumbled.
"Now Bitsy's more
convinced than ever that Mary Beth isn't coming back. I guess she thinks that
makes me fair game."
"And what about you?
Have you finally accepted the fact that Mary Beth isn't coming back?"
Zack grabbed the two-by-four
Greg handed him and slammed it to the ground. "Yeah.
I accepted the fact Mary Beth wasn't coming back the day I left Malibu."
"Good," Greg said
as he hopped off the back of the truck. "Because I ran into Maddie at the
post office a little while ago and she told me Mary Beth had received so much
acclaim playing that double role on her soap opera, she was a guaranteed
shoo-in for an Emmy nomination."
"Well, bully for
Edwena, Rowena and Mary Beth," Zack
barked.
He'd never admit it to Greg,
but even though her most recent success had permanently sealed his own fate,
Zack was definitely proud of her. Greg wasn't the only one who had talked to
Maddie. Maddie had stopped by last week with little B.J. and told Zack how
horrible Dirk Devlon had treated Mary Beth on the set. She'd also said the
studio was so thrilled with the sweeps week rating they were offering Mary Beth
more money and a five-year contract. Maddie had begged Zack to go back to
Malibu and bring Maddie home, even if he had to bring her home kicking and
screaming.
Like that was an option.
With
a possible Emmy nomination, more money and a
five-year contract, Mary Beth never would be willing to leave Hollywood. He'd
predicted that two months ago.
Of
course, he had no one to blame but himself. He was the one who had pushed Mary
Beth in front of the cameras in the first place. And he had been the one so
determined they both needed to experience life outside Morgan City before they
got married, settled down and raised their family.
Practical Zack.
He
was practical, all right, he thought. Practically the
stupidest man on the face of the earth.
Once they had unloaded all
the two-by-fours, Greg drove away to pick up another load of lumber. Zack
turned up the collar of his jacket against the cold. The fact that it was only
a week until Thanksgiving didn't seem possible. Of course, since he'd left
Malibu, most of Zack's days had been nothing but a blur.
After Mary Beth had called him
with the news about the script, he didn't have to worry about his partners or
his investors jumping ship. That's when he'd come back home to Oakmont to
oversee the renovations. The contractor had a full-time crew working on the
major repairs, but Zack often worked late into the night himself.
It helped him keep his mind
off Mary Beth.
Some
of the time.
The lower level of the old
mansion was livable now, by his standards anyway, and though most of the big
renovations wouldn't start up again until the spring, he planned to work
through the winter, doing what he could inside so he might entice a buyer.
Then he would sell Oakmont. He would hand it over to someone who would
hopefully have children to play in the old gazebo like the children he dreamed
he and Mary Beth would have one day.
Dammit, I need to stop torturing myself.
He
and Mary Beth weren't getting back together and they weren't having children.
Mary Beth wasn't even coming
home for Thanksgiving. It was contract negotiating time, she had told Maddie,
and Maddie had been fit to be tied because she said Mary Beth was literally
bubbling with excitement when she called to tell her about her new contract.
The holidays. Zack
sighed. Since he and Mary Beth had broken up, it had always been the toughest time
of the year for him. Now, it looked as if he would be making it through another
holiday season without her. But in spite of the empty feeling he had inside,
remembering how Mary Beth had always saved the wishbone from the Thanksgiving
turkey until New Year's Eve made Zack smile.
She'd been so adamant about
saving that wishbone when they were kids. At the stroke of midnight, they had
always rung in the new year together by breaking the
wishbone and always wishing for the same thing. "That way, it won't matter
who gets the short end," Mary Beth had told him with a pixielike
grin that first year he'd come to live with his aunt and uncle. "Don't you
see, Zack? If we both wish for the same thing, our wishes will always come
true."
Well,
he certainly wasn't going to ask Aunt Lou to save the damn wishbone for him
this year. And he wouldn't be making any pointless wishes, either. Until his
cell phone rang again, that is. Then Zack decided he might be asking Aunt Lou
to save that wishbone so he could wish Bitsy Williams would find someone else
to torture and leave him the hell alone.
Mary
Beth walked through the doors of Granita, the latest Wolfgang Puck in-spot for celebrities
on West Malibu Road. Not
only did she look like a million bucks in her jeans, thigh-high boots and red
cashmere sweater, but she felt even better. It always overwhelmed her that
anyone would recognize her off the set, but several big names she had
no trouble recognizing nodded cordially as she made her way through the crowded
restaurant.
She headed for a table where
her agent was already seated, deciding JoJo looked as out of place as she
felt. He had added a few more gold chains around his neck, but thankfully he
only had ten fingers. Several diamonds flashed as he waved in her direction.
When she stopped at the
table, JoJo jumped up and pulled out her chair. "Did you see those heads
turn?" he asked with a grin. "You're hot, pretty lady. H-o-t hot."
Mary Beth fought back the
urge to wrap a few of the chains tighter around JoJo's neck and waited until
he sat back down. Like magic, he produced what she already knew was her new
contract from his expensive leather briefcase.
"I'm glad you're
already sitting down," JoJo said proudly, "because when you see the
dollar amount I held out for, you're not going to believe it."
Mary Beth accepted the
contract, but before she even turned to the second page, JoJo already had his
pen out, eager for her to sign. He was practically breathing down her neck, but
Mary Beth ignored him completely and stared at the dollar amount for a long,
long time. She finally smiled and reached for the pen which JoJo was more than
happy to hand right over.
"Didn't I tell you I
would take you straight to the top?" He dropped back down in his chair
with a relieved sigh.
"Yes, that's exactly
what you told me," Mary Beth agreed, sliding the contract back across the
table.
And
then she stood up.
"Hey,
where are you going? I thought we were having lunch."
I've
bought your lunch for the last time, Bozo, Mary
Beth thought. "I'm going home."
"You
didn't tell me you were taking any time off for Thanksgiving."
Mary
Beth didn't answer, nor did she wait for JoJo to blow a gasket when the
signature he found on the dotted line read: Hopefully, Mrs. Zack Callahan.
She
was already back outside when JoJo finally caught up
with her. "Are you crazy?" he yelled, trying to keep in step.
"Certifiable,"
Mary Beth told him as she continued walking across the parking lot.
"I
don't believe this," he gasped. "Nobody would turn down an offer like
the one I just got for you. Nobody!"
"The
Duke of Windsor gave up the bloody throne in the name of love," Mary Beth
said in her perfected Rowena accent. But in her own voice she added, "I
hardly think giving up a role on a daytime soap opera is that unbelievable."
She
stopped in front of her new Ford Explorer, and JoJo frowned. "Where's your
BMW? Riding around in that thing isn't going to be good for your image."
Mary
Beth patted the golden head that popped through the window she'd left half
open. "The BMW is history. I can't very well move cross country in
two-seater sports car."
"You're really serious
about this," JoJo croaked, sweat popping out on
his brow.
"Have a great life,
JoJo," Mary Beth told him as she unlocked the door to her new SUV and slid
behind the wheel.
"But what about your
Emmy nomination?'' JoJo pleaded, holding on to
the side of the Explorer as Mary Beth slowly backed up.
"Oh, I'll show up at
the awards ceremony if I'm nominated for an Emmy," Mary Beth said with a
laugh. "I might be pregnant, but I'll definitely show up."
"Pregnant?" JoJo
yelled, his face turning redder by the minute. "Is that what this is all
about? You're giving up the career of a lifetime to go home and make babies
with that idiot who's been following you around?"
"If he'll still have
me," Mary Beth confirmed as she shifted the Explorer into Drive.
JoJo
stepped back from the Explorer with his face twisted in an ugly snarl.
"You ungrateful little bitch," he yelled. "I should have left
you on that street corner in Atlanta where I found you. I thought you had
potential, Mary Beth, but I was wrong. You're nothing but a small-town Georgia
hick!"
"And
proud of it," Mary Beth yelled back and roared out of the parking lot.
When she looked in her rearview mirror her irate ex-agent was still shaking a
diamond-clad fist in her direction.
Mary Beth laughed. No more
greedy agents. No more pushy head writers. No more egotistical co-stars. And no more acting out life in front of a television camera
instead of living it. She was a hometown girl after all, who had been
trying to convince everyone, including herself, that she was someone else.
And as for her Emmy
nomination?
Well, she had the promise
of a nomination.
That was good enough for
her.
People
would call her crazy for walking away when her acting career was at its peak,
that's for sure. And she'd probably never win any awards teaching college level
drama classes. But by the time her twenty-year high school reunion rolled
around, she would hopefully have more than a statue to take to the family
picnic. She and Zack would hopefully have children of their own romping across
the courthouse green.
Reaching
out, Mary Beth smiled and rubbed Diogee gently behind the ears. "Let's go
home, fella. Let's go home and see if Zack will still
have us."
The
big dog barked and gave Mary Beth's face a happy, sloppy lick.
Diogee
settled back down in the passenger seat while Mary Beth reread the clipping
she'd cut out of the morning paper and taped to the dash of the Explorer. As
far as she was concerned, Venus had sent her a personal message. Libra:
Look past the glitter to find true wealth. Follow the truth you feel in your
heart. True love transcends all boundaries and has no end. Embrace it and you
can hold eternity in the palm of your hand.
A loud banging on the front door
awakened Zack early on Thanksgiving morning. He sat up in bed and felt his
stomach roll over at the thought of piping hot turkey and dressing casserole.
"I'm going to kill that
woman," Zack grumbled when he pulled himself out of bed.
He didn't bother looking for
a shirt. He grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor beside his bed, stepped into
them and headed through the house, still half asleep. When he stubbed his big
toe on the five-gallon can of paint sitting in the foyer, however, Zack snapped
wide-awake.
Cursing under his breath,
Zack limped to his front door, fully prepared to tell Bitsy once and for all to
politely buzz off. What he wasn't prepared for, was the big golden dog that
almost knocked him down when he opened the door.
"I came to return your
tent," Mary Beth told him when he finally managed to force Diogee into a
sitting position.
Zack glanced at the canvas
bag slung over her shoulder, and though he didn't invite her inside, Mary Beth
strolled past him and set the bag down on the floor.
After taking a long look
around, she smiled at him and said, "You've done wonders with this place,
Zack. I always knew it could be beautiful again."
Zack closed the door, trying
to imagine what Mary Beth standing in his foyer might mean. He mentally punched
hope in the nose when it sprang forward to tease him.
Maddie had said Mary Beth
wasn't coming home for Thanksgiving. So what was she doing in Morgan City now?
She'd probably come home to smooth things over with her family.
But if
she thinks she'll get anywhere trying to smooth things over with me, she's...
"I think you still have
a pair of my shoes," she said, cutting off his mental raging.
Shoes? Tents? What did she think he was doing on Thanksgiving morning?
Having a damn yard sale?
"Yeah,
your shoes are around here somewhere," Zack said, but he frowned when he
remembered his bloody nose.
"You
certainly don't seem to have the holiday spirit, Mr. Callahan," she had
the nerve to say as she followed along behind him as he went from room to room.
Holiday
spirit? Was she kidding? And who did
she think she was waltzing through his door and reprimanding him for not having
any holiday spirit!
When he finally saw her
shoes sitting on a bookcase shelf in the library, Zack snatched them up and
handed them over. "Anything else?"
She
looked around the room. "Maddie said you were planning to work inside all
winter and try to get this place ready to sell."
"That's
right," Zack said, and because he knew it would irritate her, he added,
"The sooner I sell this place, the better."
He
didn't get any satisfaction when she tossed her hair back over her shoulder and
smiled. "Need any help?"
He
frowned. "Who did you have in mind?"
She shrugged. "Me. I'm
unemployed."
Zack threw his head back and
laughed. "Yeah, right," he said, frowning when he looked at her
again. "Last I heard you were a guaranteed shoo-in for your Emmy
nomination, and you were ready to sign a five-year contract with the
studio."
She took a step in his
direction. "That's why I'm here."
"To rub my nose in your
success?" Zack thundered.
She pushed him backward and
pinned him flat against the bookcase. He blinked when she said, "No. You
told me when I got an Emmy nomination not to come back home looking for you. So
I wanted to come home now. Before
I even know if I have the nomination."
She leaned forward and
kissed him softly on the lips. "Besides, the only Emmy I'm concerned about
is the type of Emmy you can
give me."
Zack gulped when she ran her
hands up his bare chest.
'"And what kind of Emmy would that be?''
"The kind that could
come right along behind Zack Jr., Annie and Betsy. Emmy Callahan. I
think Oakmont is big enough for four children instead of three, don't
you?"
Zack was dead serious when
he said, "My heart can't stand any more games, Mary Beth. If you're not
home to stay..."
"Oh, I'm home to stay, Zack. What about
you?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Any pressing phobias
about walking down the aisle this time?"
"Nope."
"Can I get that in
writing?"
"You can," Zack
assured her.
Mary
Beth held up her shoe as a threat. "Are you willing to sign that document
in blood?"
"Why
you little..."
Mary
Beth threw her shoes down when Zack lunged in her
direction. They darted off through the house, much the same as they had done
when they were children, Diogee barking at their heels.
But when she ended up in the
back room Zack was using for his bedroom, she was trapped with nowhere left to
run. She turned around, hoping to escape, but Zack slid sideways through the
door with a playful gleam in his eye. He maneuvered Diogee gently back out into
the hallway, pushed the door shut and turned to face her.
"Come hither, Rowena,
you saucy English tart," he said in his phony Cary Grant voice.
Mary Beth laughed when he
started walking in her direction. Her heart was beating faster with every step
he took. "How dare you throw Marlene over for a stuck-up prude like Rowena!"
Zack pushed her backward
onto his bed. "Marlene is much too worldly for me, darling. I'd much
prefer a woman who wants to make a home, have tea and have a family with
me."
"But Marlene is soooo much
sexier," Mary Beth argued in her slow, sexy accent. She held her breath
when Zack unzipped her parka and slid his hands beneath her sweater.
"But movie stars can be
such a troublesome breed, darling. Don't you think?" Zack kissed her
again.
"What about hometown
girls?" Mary Beth teased, dropping the accent. She forgot the question
when his fingers found the way to the zipper in her jeans.
"Oh, yeah." He
growled low in his throat. "Hometown girls definitely turn me on."
Mary Beth moaned when Zack
did that amazing little thing he always did with his tongue up the full length
of her neck.
When he pulled his head
back, he turned her face to look at him. "Welcome home, Mary Beth. I'll
never give you any reason to regret coming back home to me."
She could see the depth of
the love he felt for her reflected in his eyes, but Mary Beth couldn't resist
pushing him away. "I'll believe that when
I see you standing at the altar, Zack Callahan!"
"Don't say you don't
believe me, Mary Beth," Zack threatened.
Mary Beth squealed when Zack
began tickling her all over. "I believe you. I believe you!" she kept
yelling, but Zack wouldn't let up.
Her peals of laughter grew
louder and louder.
So loud, Diogee finally
knocked the door open and bounded into the bedroom fully prepared to join in
the fun.
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