Sapphire and Shadow (A Woman's Life) Read online

  Everybody was always trying to get a piece of him, dig a segment out of him. Paul, Johanna, the production company. Those shitheads in Hollywood. Why couldn’t they all just leave him the hell alone? Why couldn’t they have a little faith in him? He could work another miracle. He had done it before, taking a nothing film and making it into the blockbuster of the year, to be cheered by the public and critics alike.

  He could do it again. He would do it again. He just needed another hit to make it all clear to him, that was all.

  Paul lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly. He had given up smoking twice this year. Working with Harry always made him start again. He watched the man he had once admired lean over the coffee table, hovering over the crooked white lines.

  “That garbage is destroying your brain.”

  Harry snorted. “A hell of a lot you know. This is the only thing that keeps my brain going.”

  Paul debated throwing in the proverbial towel, packing up and going home to Denise, to his kids and to his sanity. It was getting to the point where he didn’t know why he was staying on, why Johanna was staying on. The man on the sofa bore little resemblance to the man they had both once known, both once loved.

  “If you believe that, you’re in worse shape than I thought.”

  Harry was sick of people talking at him, telling him what to do, what not to do. Who the hell did they think they were, anyway? “Don’t knock it until you try it.”

  “I don’t have to try pointing a gun to my head to know it’s suicide to pull the trigger.”

  “Nice line. Save it for your next script.”

  Paul crushed his cigarette out in the ashtray on the table with an irritated movement. “I’d like to save you for my next script.”

  Harold looked up slowly at him and malevolence spread across his face. All the support that Paul had given him through this difficult project was totally forgotten. This latest slight encompassed his whole being. He didn’t remember that Paul had come to his rescue and taken a cut just to help out. He remembered only that Paul had written the last film he had produced. And it had sunk like a lead balloon.

  “Write a good one and we’ll see.”

  It was everyone else’s fault he was going through this. He blamed everyone else for the awful spate of bad luck he was having with his films. It was just bad luck, that’s all. Nothing more. He hadn’t changed. He was still as capable as ever.

  God knew, he tried, but everyone kept failing him. Paul, Johanna, Sam, everyone. And they all expected so much, so damn much out of him. A pound of flesh wasn’t enough anymore. His soul wasn’t enough. He had nothing left to give and still they cried: more, more, make it better.

  Well, he would, he’d show them. He’d show them all. Harold B. Whitney wasn’t meant to be a has-been, a failure. He was a genius.

  The white powder went into the straw and exploded inside his nose. For a moment, just for a moment, he was at peace and yet vitally alive. Bits and pieces of projects flashed through his brain. All star-studded, all wonderful. He was wonderful. It was going to work. It was going to be all right.

  It was going to be more than all right.

  Somewhere in the distance, he heard a bell ringing, but couldn’t place it, couldn’t place himself. All he wanted was for the rush to go on, to take him spiraling to lands that lesser people only dreamed of. To places that were getting harder and harder to reach.

  “It’s Johanna.”

  Harold blinked. Reality was calling him. With extreme difficulty, he tried to focus his mind. “Where?” He looked around the suite. It swam before him, but he didn’t see her.

  “On the phone.” Paul held it up.

  “She wants to talk to me?” His tongue felt thick and he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to feel. There were things to do, projects to conquer. And he was equal to all of it!

  Damn, Johanna was always interfering with his life, his space. Johanna had left in tears this morning. She was always leaving in tears these days. Woman was all water, no substance.

  “No,” Paul covered the receiver, instinctively feeling that Johanna wasn’t going to want to hear this, “she wants her charge card.”

  “Why, is London for sale?”

  Harold laughed hysterically at his own joke, his voice cracking. The sound of his laughter filled his head and reverberated back. The room sounded as if it were full of laughter.

  Laughter at him.

  No, damn it, they wouldn’t laugh at him. He’d pull this off. He had to pull this off. And then they’d all come crawling back to him. As they should.

  Paul shook his head. “She’s at a boutique on Regent Street and she forgot her wallet.”

  “So? What does she want from me? I’m not her errand boy.”

  You’re not her husband lately, either, Paul was tempted to say, but let it pass. He had been with Harold’s production company for eleven years now, coming in when Harold had been riding the high, heady crest of success and adulation. He had seen the man once thought of as a boy genius descend into his own private hell, dragging his family with him. The fawning cheers had turned to ill-concealed smirks and Harold had sought inspiration and solace in drugs, in starlets eager for attention, giving him the attention he sought so desperately. He sought support in everything except the right things.

  Paul gave up. He turned from the pathetic sight on the sofa and spoke quietly into the receiver. “I don’t think he can talk right now, Johanna.”

  She kept her smile in place. She knew that the boutique owner was straining to hear. People loved gossip the world over. She shielded the phone with her hand and turned her back.

  “Is he stoned, Paul?” The question was whispered.

  Paul felt for her. “He’s his usual self.” Though silence met his statement, he heard the pain, the defeat. “Look, exactly where are you? I can bring the card over to you.”

  “You don’t have to—“

  “Look, I want to get out of this hotel room.”

  He looked over to where Harold sat, nodding and humming to himself. His legs were moving up and down, as if some unseen puppeteer was pulling strings.

  Poor damn fool, he thought. Harold was humming the theme from his first picture, the one that had been such a rousing success. The one he could never match.

  “I don’t know of anywhere where I can find a beautiful woman to talk to me for a few minutes. Have a little pity, fair lady.”

  Johanna laughed. Paul could always make her laugh and she was grateful to him. “I left my wallet in my room on the bureau. The shop’s on Regent Street, near Piccadilly Circus.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Paul promised.

  “And Paul?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He rang off and went to get her wallet.

  Harold raised his bleary eyes in Paul’s direction when Paul walked out of the second bedroom. “So, she’s made you into her errand boy instead, huh?”

  Paul didn’t miss the trace of jealousy in Harold’s voice. He made light of the situation. “Can’t leave her stranded.”

  “Why not? You’re leaving me stranded. Everyone leaves me stranded.”

  He had heard this refrain before. There was no point in commenting. Harold was beyond hearing anyway. Paul pocketed Johanna’s wallet and crossed to the door.

  “You don’t want her to be embarrassed in public, Harry. Think of what it would look like in the press, the wife of Harold Whitney without funds.”

  Harold sank back in the sofa. “She’s always buying things.”

  Paul was tempted to keep walking, but he had never run off from confrontations. “Women who feel neglected buy things, Harry.”

  Harold smirked at the watery figure in front of him. “Been reading Cosmopolitan again?”

  “Just being a student of human nature, Harry,” Paul said easily. “It comes in handy in my line of work.”

  “Yeah? Well, save it for your scripts and leave Johanna to me.”
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br />   “I’d like nothing better, just let me know when you’re back in town.”

  He hadn’t the strength to raise himself up from the sofa, even though energy seemed to be boiling in his chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Figure it out.” Paul slammed the door behind him. Waste, he hated to see waste. And Harry was quickly disintegrating right before his eyes.

  “Ass,” Harold shot out vehemently, then closed his eyes as another wild rush came. He was pathetically grateful and his hand gripped the arm of the sofa as he hung on for the ride.

  It was over before Paul reached the elevator.

  “Harry in?” The owlish man who stepped off the elevator nodded toward the suite behind Paul. He was Harold’s production assistant. One of many who had come and gone. Garrison Hatheway was determined to stay, one way or another.

  Paul got into the elevator and hit the open button as he answered. “Yeah, he’s in. See that he doesn’t hurt himself, Gar.”

  Garrison jammed his fists into the pockets of his baggy corduroy trousers. “Oh shit, is he—?”

  “Isn’t he always?”

  “Hell, I don’t know why I hang around.”

  “Same question plagues us all, Gar, same question plagues us all.” Paul lifted his hand from the button and pressed for the first floor. “Guess we’re all hoping for a renaissance.” The elevator doors closed on him. “Most of all, Johanna, I’d bet.”

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” Paul asked an hour later as he stood by the suite door again.

  Johanna shook her head. She liked Paul’s company, but she couldn’t use him as a shield. Harold was her husband, her problem. She couldn’t solve it by hiding behind other people.

  “No, there’s no need.” She stood up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for riding to my rescue.”

  Paul leaned into the kiss. Damn Harry, didn’t he know what he had, what he could lose? “What’s a shining knight for?” Paul laughed.

  She saw the pity in his eyes and turned away.

  The hostility hit her like a hot, hard hand as soon as she walked into the suite.

  “Where are all the packages?”

  She simply walked straight to her room. “There are no packages, just one dress.”

  Harold rose on unsteady legs. He took two steps toward her, holding onto the back of the sofa for support. “Just one dress,” he mimicked her voice. “How many thousands did it cost?”

  She turned on him, her hurt spilling out. “Less than the money you spent on Alexandra King in the Bahamas last month.”

  She had read about it in the tabloids. It seemed that lately it was the only way to keep abreast of what he was doing, by reading about it in the papers along with the rest of the world.

  Harold kept on gripping the back of the sofa to steady himself. He couldn’t pass up a challenge. “She wasn’t a bitch.”

  Why, why are you arguing with me? Why won’t you become the man I married again? “Is that what I am?”

  He saw the hurt in her face and felt oddly triumphant. He could still evoke emotion as he chose. That was all part of being a director. And he was the best. “That’s what you’ve become.”

  “If I am, you made me that way.”

  “I can’t take all the credit.”

  “No, maybe not, but you certainly had a featured role.” She hated this, hated arguing. The only time they spoke to each other lately was in raised voices. She took a deep breath and tried to clear her head.

  “Why aren’t you working?”

  “I am working.” He tapped his temple. “Right here, the greatest work goes on right here.”

  “How? There aren’t any brain cells left. You’ve burnt them all away.” She took hold of his arm. “Harry, please, can’t you stop doing that?”

  “Doing what?”

  She shut her eyes. “Never mind. I’m going to my room.”

  Harold watched her go and wondered what had happened to the cocaine he had put out for himself. Paul. Paul must have taken it. Dirty rotten bastard, helped himself to everything around here, helped himself to Johanna too, more than likely.

  Johanna heard Harold’s voice go up as he hurled a stream of curses through the locked door. She squeezed her eyes tight. How much more she could put up with before she broke down completely?

  Chapter Three

  Johanna didn’t know how long she sat on her bed, wadding a section of the bedspread beneath her hand, trying to pull herself together. She needed something to take her mind off Harry, off her life. Forcing herself up off the bed she found a tape that Denise, Paul’s wife had given her. She had put it away in her bureau and forgotten about it. It was a tape of the sound of rain falling. Denise found it invaluable when she was feeling tense. She said it always worked for her.

  But it didn’t work for Johanna. She was too keyed up for it to penetrate to her inner soul. With a defeated sigh, Johanna shut off the tape. It was no use. She felt as if she was coming apart. This couldn’t be happening to her. This couldn’t be her life. And yet it was.

  Finally, to block out the sound of Harry’s voice in the other room, the sound of the words of past arguments that echoed in her head, she decided to take a shower.

  She stripped and left her clothes lying in a heap on the bedroom floor. Walking into the bathroom, she reached into the shower stall and adjusted the temperature until it was just hot enough for her to bear. She stepped in and let the water hit her full force. Johanna closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind, hoping that the steady, pulsating beat of the water coming from the shower head would somehow wipe out the residue of the last scene with Harry.

  She stood there a long time, just letting the water wash over her, waiting to be cleansed. There was nowhere for her to go today and nothing to do, nothing that she felt like doing. Once she had grabbed every nuance that life had to offer with both hands, savoring everything. Now there was only a deepening malaise that reached out, attempting to take away her soul.

  Johanna knew she should be doing something, anything, to shake the grip of this awful depression that threatened to engulf her permanently. Perhaps irreversibly.

  A shudder passed over her body. Imagine how awful it would be to feel this way all the time. Even her first love, art, the thing that had been the sole most powerful driving force in her life before she had married Harold, no longer held an allure for her. At one time she had dreamed of holding her own shows, of sharing herself with the world through her paintings. Now she couldn’t even work up the enthusiasm to visit the nearby Tate Gallery. It was as if everything she held dear had died or was in the stages of dying around her. Within her.

  She felt so alien, so unlike herself. She hardly recognized the person she had become. With a pang she remembered how she had always greeted each day with such enthusiasm, such zest. How she had felt so wonderful just being alive, anticipating the incredible things that were waiting for her around the next corner. But that had been when she was nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, a hundred years ago and in another life.

  Life held nothing for her now.

  With a jerk of her hand, she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, heedlessly dripping on the pearl gray mat on the tiled floor. Naked, she leaned over the sink and wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror. The reflection that stared back at her looked almost gaunt.

  No, damn it, she wasn’t down yet. She was going to find a solution to this mess that her life had become. Somehow, somewhere, there had to be a way to get them back to where they once had been. Life was worth living. She wouldn’t let go of that. She couldn’t let go of that. If she did, Johanna knew she would die.

  She took the huge bath towel from the rack on the wall and slowly began to blot her body. She looked at herself critically. She was still young, still blessed with a good figure. She was still the same person she had been inside. She could make it work.

  Besides, there was Jocelyn.

  At the thought of her twelve-year-old dau
ghter, the tiny lines etched by sadness about her mouth began to soften. Jocelyn was her pride and joy, the embodiment of everything good in her life. She was everything that a mother could want, bright, sunny, pretty, with the promise of startling beauty just a few years away. Whatever happened between her and Harry, right or wrong, at least they had created this one sweet life. Perhaps that would have to be enough.

  She looked at herself again and raised her chin. C’mon, ]oey, no one said life was going to be fair. Or easy. You’re only down and out when you give up. Don’t give up.

  “Terrific.” Johanna drew away. “Now I’m giving myself pep talks in the mirror.”

  She laughed, but the laugh rang hollow. She had never felt this empty, this hollow before. All her rationalizations, all her logic were failing her now. She knew she was hanging on by her fingertips and they were beginning to grow numb. But hang on she was bound to do until she found a way to make it right again.

  What else could she do? She couldn’t give up totally.

  That wasn’t her. Her father, a gentle-voiced man with infinite patience, had taught her never, ever to give up. And so she was bound to try again.

  With a sigh, Johanna wrapped the towel around her body. Taking a second towel, she fashioned a terry cloth turban for her hair. She was going to go to Harry and ask for a truce, to tell him that they had to start over again. It wouldn’t be the first time she had said those words, but maybe this time they would stick. Maybe he was reaching bottom, just like she was, feeling just as desperate. Maybe he wanted a change and didn’t know how to go about it. And maybe, she prayed, together they could regain what they had once had.

  She squared her shoulders and opened the bathroom door.

  She heard movement in the next room. “Harry?” she called out. “Harry, I want to talk to you.”

  But when she walked out into the area that served as a sitting room for the suite, Harold wasn’t there. Instead, she saw Megan, the young woman she had hired to help take care of Jocelyn while they were in London. Ariel Natwik had resigned her position as nanny, citing the fact that she was getting on in years. But Johanna knew better. She knew that the old woman left them because she disapproved of Harold and the lifestyle that he lived.