 
Weston

by

Gregory Attaway

To understand her, you must first understand him...

The Great Ones
Part I
WESTON Copyright © 2017 by Gregory Attaway.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Photography:

Image under license from www.123rf.com

Image used under license from Shutterstock.com

For information or contact, go to gregoryattaway.com

First Kindle Edition: May 2012

Second Kindle Edition: October 2017

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 1
Years

Part I Benjamin

Part II Weston

Part III Camden

1978 CONTINUED

More from Gregory Attaway
REVIEWS!

Reviews are the lifeblood of writers. Like the book? Hate it? Either way, if you have time, a quick review wherever you placed your purchase would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Beta readers are common for writers. Everyone needs feedback to grow, and I have received it in bits and pieces from family and friends, all greatly appreciated. But I am also fortunate enough to have an Alpha Reader. Matt "Beezo" Beasley has spent countless hours reading, critiquing, and discussing this book with me. He has provided invaluable insights and has been a sparring partner when I needed someone to present counter arguments and hypotheses, and to show me where I was playing it too safe. He also helped out with all the various cover designs I went through, including the final one.

Thanks, Beezo. Next round's on me.

NOW AVAILABLE

The Glen Headwood Show

The Great Ones Prelude

It's not a sitcom. It's an experiment.

1964. Benny Camden and his friends leave the University of Southern California with their newly minted master's degrees and a project that was the talk of the campus. _The Glen Headwood Show_ is fresh. It's new. It defies genre and rifles praise from its critics. Is it a talk show? Variety? Sketch comedy? Drama? One thing it's not: on television.

Now he wants to sell it to a network, and that's when reality sets in. It's not that no one is interested. It's that Hollywood wants to commercialize his vision, and to see it come true he may have to give up the things that made the show great.

At what point does a dream turn into a disaster?

Before Weston, there was Benny Camden. _The Glen Headwood Show_ is the prelude to Gregory Attaway's _The Great Ones_ , and it is available for free, now and always, at gregoryattaway.com. See the boy before you see the man.

Get your copy right now!

Available For Free Forever
Part I

Benjamin
1965

FEBRUARY

"Open your eyes!"

The tinny, familiar voice puffed out of the tiny television speakers as smoke wafted from Private Frank Harper's cracked lips in the emptied chow hall. Dishes were stacked in the back against metal-plated walls, and the television was perched on the edge of a rear table, divested of its condiments and napkin holders. The tip of Harper's cigarette dripped hot ash. Dog tags dangled over his sweat-stained undershirt. He took a long drag, focused on the glowing black-and-white image. On the screen, Jackie Gleason made a spectacle of uncovering his face. The audience cheered and applauded, the comedian pacing around the stage while Glen Headwood, the host of the show, mimicked his movements.

Harper snickered. "Funny shit." The two other men lounging around the table looked up to the screen. Something flashed across Harper's eyes as he leaned into his chair. "I seen this before."

"It's a rerun." Beside him, Private Joseph Kenneth Belanger leaned in, watching the act. His wrinkled shirt hung loose and unbuttoned, exposing his slender shoulders and a thinning undershirt that hinted at the trim body underneath.

"I know it's a rerun, dumbass. Feels like I seen it somewhere else."

"Did he do this bit on _American Scene Magazine_?"

The third member of their late-night trio kicked his boots up, half-watching _The Glen Headwood Show_ and half-reading his weekly letter from his kid sister. Private Charles Camden, still in full uniform, neatly pressed, drew a hand over his nostrils, waving away the smoke as he put down the note and perused the playing cards in his other hand. "No, it's new."

Belanger turned away from the flickering footage, glancing at the discard pile as he drew a new card. "How do you know?"

Camden watched those familiar black-and-white faces. Headwood glowed with his badger-smile, his teeth exposed with savage glee, his cool eyes shrunken to make room for the oversized grin. Just like the last time Camden saw him, doing his ventriloquist act. "Trust me. It's new."

Harper's attention shifted from the show to his companion. "You really know Gleason?" He dropped the three of hearts as he sucked his cigarette.

"'Course he knows him," Belanger said. "His whole family's...didn't your granddad pick up Charlie Chaplin's sloppy seconds?"

Camden shifted the contents of his hand.

"Holy shit, I love Gleason." Harper watched the little man making faces at Glen Headwood. "I remember when we got our first set, I couldn't get enough of _The Honeymooners_. I thought Ralph Kramden was the funniest thing I ever seen."

"Gin." Camden spread his spades and clubs for the others, shifting his boots without looking up.

"I'd love to get my hands on some gin," Harper said.

A loud slamming, clanking noise came from the latrine, echoing through the place like a gunshot. Camden froze in his seat, body going rigid and tense, the others matching him. Headwood's voice was the only sound. All eyes were on the distant door, off to the side in the darkened hallway. "What the hell?" Harper finally whispered when nothing followed the crash. Camden hopped up, waving for them to be silent, and moved across the room. He stepped in and found the usual row of toilets. He checked the stalls – all empty. His lungs clutched as he peeked into the last one; someone had forgotten to flush. The smell of it always made him want to dry heave.

"Nothing." He resumed his spot in front of the television as they lingered, leaning in, waiting for his assurance. "Seat fell on one of the commodes is all."

"Shit. For a second I thought we were busted," Harper said.

"Yeah..." Belanger collected the cards and shuffled. "We probably ought to call it quits on our little insomniac society."

"I just can't sleep, plain and simple." Harper stabbed his butt in an ashtray like he wanted to make sure it was good and dead. "It's this Pleiku air. 'Nam just smells funny, you know? Can't go to sleep unless it smells like America."

"What exactly does America smell like?" Camden asked.

"Oh, you know, popcorn and pussy." Harper shook his head and scooped up the cards Belanger had dealt him. He bit at the corner of his lip as he rearranged his hand. Camden kept his own lips from smiling; Harper always chewed on that corner when he had bad cards. One thing Charles Camden had learned from his kid brother – how to read faces. "I fucking hate it here," Harper said, glancing back at the set. Gleason had left the stage.

"It could be worse," Belanger said.

Camden took a look at his hand and wanted to fold. He watched the show, remembering the last time he saw Headwood in person. Out at Benny's beach house. Fourth of July. Cold cherry Popsicles and warm ocean air as the sky lit up in reds, whites, and blues. Benny up on the balcony with Mary. Home.

"I should have listened to my old man," Harper said. "He tried everything shy of a court martial to keep me from joining up. He got me in at Harvard Law, full ride. Came in all beaming about it, like he'd done me some favor. I told him no. He got drunk and tried to beat the shit out of me. Tried."

"Yikes," was all Belanger said as he drew a card. Camden had seen that same kind of gleam in his own father's eye more often than he could recall. That flash that made all the kids want to hide under the bed or in the back of the closet. It was never directed at him, though. Never at him or Lara. Always at Benny.

"Old man breaks down and starts bawlin' like a baby, begging me not to go. All worried the same shit's gonna fall on me as fell on him. He had, uh...shellshock. All my life he preached at me about it, all I ever wanted to be was a soldier. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like him. But the worse it got, it wasn't about that anymore."

"Sorry." Camden looked back at the door to the latrine, shaking off the lingering pulse of queasiness from that unflushed toilet.

"Eh, don't sweat it. Just fuckin' fathers and sons."

"Fathers and sons," Belanger repeated.

"He was right, though. Camp Holloway...Pleiku..." Camden could imagine a tear hiding behind Harper's hard eyes. "I had no idea how right he was."

"I enlisted as soon as I graduated," Belanger said. "I couldn't wait to get out of there, see the world, serve my country. I had twelve brothers and sisters back home, so I was used to no privacy, used to everything always going on even when I needed to be alone sometimes. I guess I picked a good place to come. Sure is easy to be alone out here. Feels that way, anyway."

The set droned on, the only sound in the room other than the constant flicking of Harper's slim blue lighter. "You set the place on fire, they're going to know we're up," Camden said.

"You're right, Ken," Harper said. "So fucking quiet out here sometimes, I could go crazy."

"I think that'd be an extreme reaction," Belanger replied.

" _Psycho_." They both turned to Camden, and he could see them questioning his comment. "That's a line from the movie. More or less."

"Mr. Hollywood over here," Harper laughed, flicking his lighter one last time to start a new cigarette before stuffing it in his pocket. Laughter from the set brought them back to the show for a moment. "You really know Gleason, huh?"

"Who do you think the Kramdens were named after?"

"It just figures, with your family, you'd end up in Tinseltown. Not Pleiku." Harper dug a tooth into his chapped lip again, drawing a drop of blood.

"My dad was a soldier too," Camden said.

"Is that why you're here?" Belanger asked.

"Who knows? It's funny. I know he was at Normandy, but not much else. He never talked about it, and we never asked." The three of them watched as Jackie Gleason joined Glen Headwood again, this time with Benny Camden. Cheers of female adoration went up from the crowd. Benny gave them all that easy smile, that flicker of amusement in his eye that always made Charles jealous, even if he never said so. That messy muss of hair that he spent twenty minutes styling, the way he wore the suit and tie like a robe and pajamas, the perfect gentleman and the perfect flirt in a single pair of loafers.

"Your brother's the shit," Harper said.

"When I told him I wanted to enlist, Dad took me out for a steak dinner," Camden continued, ignoring the comment about Benny but silently agreeing. "Talked show business, didn't mention a thing about what I was about to do. Didn't tell me stories, didn't try to talk me out of it. I still don't know what unit he was in, where he was stationed. Then when the check came, he paid it and said, 'You be careful out there.' And that was that."

"Why didn't you end up in show business?" Belanger asked.

Camden smiled at his brother's image. When Benny was five, he'd interrupted a dinner party with an impression of Charlie Chaplin's tramp that he'd spent weeks practicing. The flawless awkward sway of the hips, the lopsided walking, the perfect tip of the bowler, and of course the legendary smile. Chaplin had never gotten so many laughs. "We all wanted to. But Dad thought we'd end up making fools of ourselves, never get a moment's peace. My sister and I, we listened. Benny just never quite got the hint."

"Your pop didn't want you making people laugh, but he's cool with you putting your ass in the line of fire?" Harper asked.

"I guess so."

_Boom_. The three of them froze, heads turned, ears primed as, in the distance, a dreadful thud rippled through the camp. The ground shook beneath their feet, cards scattering to the floor. Then silence. "What was that?" Belanger asked. Other than the cards and their reddened faces, nothing seemed out of order. "Earthquake?"

"Do they get earthquakes here?" Camden asked. His stomach hardened like quick-drying concrete. He'd lived through enough Southern California tremors to know one when he felt it. On the television, his brother had taken center stage for his weekly close of the show.

"Beats the shit out of me," Harper said as all three put their hands on the table, cards abandoned, feeling nothing but the reassuring coolness of the particle board. "Still, I wouldn't be surprised if–"

_Boom. Boom_. "That's no earthquake." Belanger shot to his feet as the ground vibrated from whatever remote source had shaken them. Faint, in the distance, they heard the crank of the air raid sirens stir, crescendoing by the second, waking up Camp Holloway like a rooster from Hell.

Camden stood also. He played the three sounds over in his head, back to back, all together. The room flashed white and cold in his senses as the others turned to face him. His mouth was dry. "Mortars!"

Frank's eyes flew wide. "Holy shi–"

A crack ripped across the ceiling faster than Camden could follow, spreading out like breaking ice on a frozen river. The plaster splintered into chunks and powder, raining down on them and smashing the room apart like cannon fire. Shielding his head and forgetting, for the moment, his friends, Camden could see directly into the latrine, the wall fragmenting and blowing apart under the weight of the collapsing ceiling. Busted pipes sprayed everything with water as the power cut out. Normally the room would be completely dark without electricity, but lights were streaming in from above, from where the roof had been seconds earlier. Voices hovered around outside – indecipherable shouts of concern and alert. The whole 52nd Aviation Battalion was up now.

"You guys OK?" Belanger coughed as a cloud of particles blew across them.

Camden's ears rang loud, and he put a hand to his head as he pulled himself back up. His nose filled with dust and decay and blood as he shielded his eyes. The television set laid crushed and gutted, screen splintered into shards, tubes sparking in the back. "Yeah, fine, I think."

"Frank?" Belanger knelt over their friend, and Camden winced as Harper coughed, blood spraying out with his saliva and painting a red line down his sweaty cheek. Camden could hear the liquid in his friend's breaths and tried not to picture his lungs filling up.

"Oh...fuck..." Harper wheezed, loud and squealing. He gasped like an asthmatic under attack.

"Charles! Help me!" Belanger put Harper's arm around his shoulder.

Camden fixed his eyes on the piece of drywall separating Harper's large intestine from his small. "You can't...move him like that." Belanger grimaced, looking from one to the other, clutching at Harper's chest. "You can't!"

"He's...right..." Harper said. _Boom_. "Oh...fuck!"

The hinges on the main door gave way, and it collapsed inward, narrowly missing Belanger as Captain Markos took a step inside, glancing at the remains of the ceiling, hesitating to move in further in his bare feet. None of them had ever seen the captain out of full uniform before. His soft eyes and round face were hard and square when Harper let out a wet and frightened cry. "What're you doing in here?" Markos asked.

"Captain, we need a medic!" Belanger said.

Captain Markos waved them forward. "The whole battalion's going to need a medic if we don't hurry!"

Camden grabbed Belanger's arm and pulled him up, both of them still watching Harper. He just lay there, fading into the rubble with a final wheezing gasp as they fled the building. The air was still and dense, but a sudden breeze blew across the camp, filling their nostrils with traces of citrus and sulfur. Even in full uniform, Camden's skin pricked against the early morning cold.

"What's going on, Captain?" Camden asked.

"Sappers! We have to man the perimeter!"

The sound of the mortars meeting their targets hummed in harmony with the high streaks that sang out as the projectiles plummeted down on the camp. The descending whistles filled Camden's ears and froze him to the ground. Above him, rockets lit up the sky like uncoordinated fireworks. Red glares. Bombs bursting in air. One of them arced, growing louder and hotter by the second. The others were watching it as well. He took off for the barracks, going for his weapon, no time to guess where it would land.

\- - -

Something was wrong.

Benny Camden hovered at the edge of the stage, just far enough back so the audience couldn't see him. The cast and crew of _The Glen Headwood Show_ took their places. The usual crowd filled the studio, and he recognized a few of the girls that always trailed him to the bars once the cameras shut off. He had forgotten their names. His attention couldn't move past the two empty seats in the front row, reserved for his mother and sister. They'd never missed an episode.

Benny sucked down a glass of lukewarm water, letting a line of drops trace his clean-shaven jaw. His mouth was still dry; he wished he could have something stronger, but he'd gone out there drunk once and his father had nearly pulled the entire show, permanently. Lloyd normally sat on the sidelines of each episode, second-guessing Benny's every move, but none of his family was there that night. Benny turned from his father's empty chair to his fellow producers, who kept sneaking occasional glances at him. He thought they were whispering among themselves.

Glen and his costars brought in laughs as they always did, but Benny couldn't focus. He couldn't stop thinking about those two vacant seats. When he took the stage for his weekly closing cameo, those girls near the front cheered for him like always. Henry Louden, the head of Camden Productions' television wing, stood just behind the curtain, waiting for him, his usual tie missing, shirt uncharacteristically unbuttoned at the collar. Benny heard the applause, but it all came in as a muffled blur.

He ducked away as Henry offered him a fresh glass of water. "Thanks," he said, flicking a bit of it on his face.

"Welcome."

"You get a hold of Dad?"

A tuft of chest hair showed through Henry's unbuttoned collar, much darker than the traces of gray shooting across his head like the first drops of rain in an afternoon shower. He broke Benny's gaze, hedging back a bit. "You were kind of rushed in the end, there."

"Henry."

The man's mouth fell open, but he only spoke in indecipherable grunts, the embryos of words.

"What happened?"

Henry's face locked up with the same gnawing cancer that filled Benny's stomach. "You better..."

One of the girls in the audience waved in the background, giving him a pretty pink smile – a cute brunette he'd met at some party or another, but Benny ignored her. "You're scaring me, man! Is it Mom?"

Henry's shoulders dropped as his voice came out soft. "It's not your mother..."

-

On January 23, 1907, Camden Drive appeared on a map of a new community called Beverly Hills. Nine days later, construction began on the first house on the street, a project that had taken over a year to complete. The three-story home that sat behind a garden, a gazebo, and a winding gravel driveway had been remodeled four times since, including the additions of a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a small stable in the back of the grounds. Soon hidden within iron gates and between other one-of-a-kind residences, this house was part of Hollywood history. United Artists was conceived at a New Year's cocktail party in the Edison ballroom. Walt Disney brought Pamela Travers to supper there while trying to convince her to sell the rights to _Mary Poppins_.

Benjamin Camden was born there.

The front doors of the mansion let out a creaking echo into the dim foyer as Benny slammed through them. The place was dark and lifeless, but he knew no one would be asleep. Not on a night like this. "Hello?" he shouted. No answer. He secured the locks and dragged himself across the white marble, not having thought beyond getting to the house. As he passed the staircase, he noticed a faint glow along the line of Charles's door, not fully closed. Lara probably waited for him up there.

He turned on the lights and continued inside. Everywhere he turned he saw Charles: a child scurrying by in his swim trunks, a teenager lounging in the parlor with his friends, their mother adjusting his army uniform as his bags lay at his feet. Benny paused for a moment at the family portrait hanging outside the theater room. How he'd hated sitting still for that painting. Now he wished he had a hundred more.

Then, in the distance, he heard the television. He took one last glance at those happy faces and approached his father's den.

Lloyd Camden sat trancelike before the flickering images on the screen. His weathered skin caught the light in a dead sort of way, absorbing it more than reflecting it. The man's dark glare glistened the way it always did whenever he shared the only two war stories he ever told. Benny hung in the doorway for a moment, watching the news of the escalating conflict in Vietnam. Lloyd didn't acknowledge him, so engrossed he was in the broadcast. He fixed on that report with wide eyes, as if Operation Flaming Dart had been launched in retaliation for the death of Charles Camden.

"Dad?"

Lloyd's fingers gripped the armrests. "Benjamin. I didn't hear you come in." He leaned back in the chair, eyes synchronized with the planes taking off in black and white. Years of honing the skill of reading faces had begun with an intense study of this man's, and Benny knew from Lloyd's dodgy avoidance that he was lying. Worse, he knew his father would know he knew.

"Dad! Where were you?"

"We're finally doing some good out there," Lloyd said. "Air strikes. About damn time."

This was the only room in the house Benny dreaded. He couldn't remember how many times his father had brought him in there to scold him, to warm his backside with the heel of a Sunday shoe. Even now, the potpourri of old cigars, some bitter and some sweet, made him cringe. "How could you do that to me?"

Lloyd plucked his gaze from the screen and directed its intensity toward Benny. "To you?" He coughed. "What did I do to you?"

"Let me go on out there tonight like everything was fine! You kept me from knowing..." Benny shut off the set.

Lloyd half-smiled, his lips flickering with baffling inconsistency. "Benjamin, Son, this isn't about you."

The emptiness and pain in his father's face had vanished, leaving Vietnam behind and shrinking the entire world down into that dim little den. Challenge. Even now, even with his oldest son dead, that was the best that Lloyd Camden could give him. "Dad..." The power that had sent him cowering as a child and had molded his brother into a soldier now bore down on him again. Benny's eyes went warm, and he fought to keep them from going wet. "Everyone else knew. Everyone else was here." He waited for a response, then gasped in a voice he knew could not stand up to the man, "How could you do that to me?"

He knew the typical response. _I didn't want it to affect the show_. Surely his father could give him something better than that.

Lloyd licked away the smile from his lips. "Why don't you take a look around and think about someone besides yourself for once? Your mother..." No grief. Just stone. "...just lost her firstborn son, and the country's going to Hell. What does this have to do with you?"

"I should have been here with you! Not at the studio!"

"You should have been there with him!"

Benny's tongue moved, but he couldn't think of a thing to say. He just stared at the man. Lloyd pushed out a weary breath and dropped his gaze. "With your brother gone now, you've got to step up, you know."

"I'm not stepping anywhere, Dad!"

"You're the oldest now. You've got to act that way."

"How am I supposed to act? Be the tough guy? Be the new Charles? Don't give me that bullshit."

"Don't talk to me that way," his father said.

"Enough!"

Lloyd shot to his feet so quickly that Benny had no moment to prepare for the man looming over him – maybe only by a few inches, but those few inches were all it took. "Don't you raise your voice to me!" They glared at each other, and although he hadn't been struck since he was a child, Benny could feel his father's fist against his face. Instead, Lloyd put a hand on his shoulder. "Your mother needs you now, Son. Go on up to her."

"Dad..."

"Let's both...let's both say goodnight, all right?"

Benny saw the wisdom in that. "Fine. Goodnight, Dad."

"Goodnight, Benjamin. Say a prayer for your brother."

"A little late for that, isn't it?"

Benny wandered through the expanse of the house and slumped into a chair in the dining hall. He didn't bother to flip the switch, leaving the two crystal chandeliers hanging dead. The last traces of a turkey dinner still floated in the air, but he wasn't hungry. It would have been no trouble at all to find a bottle of Scotch older than he was, lurking in the liquor closet in the wine cellar through the doors at the other end of the room, but that didn't move him either. He just stared into the dark windowless void for a good while before remembering that faint glow upstairs.

Benny cracked open the door to Charles's room. Lara and his mother sat on the floor, backs against the bed, cradling Charles's favorite childhood toy – a stuffed tiger the boy had named Johnny Destructo.

He knelt beside them, leaning in as they embraced him without words.

MARCH

After a long plane ride, Benny rode in the back of an open-topped taxi along the broken pavement of the road into Corsier-sur-Vevey. He'd already been to Switzerland in the last year, but in order to properly deal with the death of one Charles, he needed the comfort of another. His great-uncle's house appeared over the horizon, and he exhaled more of the California soot that clogged his lungs and his mind.

Two stories of beautiful white walls were capped off with an arching blue-gray roof and a matching cover that ran around the first floor, bathing the tall lower windows in afternoon shade. The house was surrounded by such a diversity of vegetation that Benny liked to believe there were no two trees the same – not a leaf nor a color nor a height. Monet's best couldn't have done it justice.

Charlie Chaplin, though not an actual blood relation, had marital ties to the family and had always regarded Benny's mother as a niece. He had been a frequent fixture at the mansion during Benny's childhood, always bringing him a present, some memorabilia from his latest film. Charles Camden had been named after the man, and Benny had loved that Chaplin didn't let that influence him in showering affection. Surely Benny Camden was Charlie Chaplin's biggest fan.

As the cab rolled to a stop, Benny saw him there on the porch, beneath a thin blanket, hair now lighter and grayer than ever. Charlie set down a book and rose from his seat, bracing himself against the armrest of his chair, and offered Benny one of the most famous smiles in the world.

"Back so soon?" Charlie asked, rising and tossing aside the blanket. Benny hugged him in silence, and Charlie patted his back. "I'm sorry."

The familiar sent of lavender and talcum triggered more than just memories. "Thanks for having me. I really needed some air."

"Air we have, lots of it."

"Right."

Charlie perused his face. "I think what you really need is some rest."

"If I can fall asleep, the trip will already be worth it."

After a restless nap, Benny joined Charlie, reclining on the curving veranda, cooled by an evening breeze and warmed with snifters of Cognac. It struck him how different Charlie looked after his years in Europe. The eyes hadn't changed, but the rivers of time had carved canyons in his skin. White shrubbery was all that remained of the dense black forest of his hair. In many ways he was no longer the man who shocked audiences with his bold politic in _The Great Dictator_. In many other ways, he would be that man forever.

"When I was ten, I spent a whole month watching your Mutual films over and over. I wanted to be a comedian more than anything in the world."

"Those were good times," Charlie breathed. "Good times indeed."

"I miss kidding around and pulling stunts. The old days."

"Me too."

"You could do anything you wanted, and nobody cared as long as nobody got hurt."

"I remember," Charlie said.

"Not anymore, though. Someone always has to tell you what to do in your own backyard."

"Seems that way."

Benny pictured himself with Charles and Lara, playing in the dry grass beyond the house. "I want to do something about it."

"I thought you were a pacifist."

"Not like that. I mean something like you'd do."

The Cognac traced the sides of the snifter as Charlie swirled it. "Do you know what I miss the most about America?"

"What?"

"The people's undying belief that they are free."

"Americans are free," Benny said.

"If that were true, I would still be there."

Silence on the veranda.

"Be careful," Charlie said.

"You weren't a citizen."

A smooth lip, once home to the most famous mustache in the world, pressed against the old man's teeth. "There are other things they can do."

Benny remembered well the day he learned they wouldn't let Chaplin back in the country. "They can't shut me up just because I say something they don't like. That's what art is all about."

"Yes. But remember, true art is always controversial, because true art is always ahead of its time. Art does not reflect what a society is. It reflects what a society is becoming. And sometimes, people don't want to accept what they're becoming."

"Then it's our job to wake them up!"

"Maybe it is. But you have to ask yourself...what are you willing to lose? I lost my home, where I lived for decades. I lost my power. Yes, I still make films, but I won't fool myself."

"It's not the Fifties anymore," Benny said.

Chaplin's smile tugged his brow down, filling his face with remorse. "So you're saying...you have no idea what you might lose."

\- - -

Benny shifted from one foot to the other, too wound up to sit. The audience was full – of course it would have to be full. The lights powered on as a hush fell in the room. Benny's mouth was dry, but he stood with his back to the water pitcher and the stack of plastic cups. His head throbbed with tiny pulses of pain, precise and punctual. No aspirin. No water. Nothing to distract him from what he had to do.

As the cameras rolled, Benny watched his mother and Lara, sitting in their usual front row seats. Virginia Camden's face was rimmed in shadow, but her smile was the smile of the woman who taught him the tango in the Green Room of the Camden mansion, who tickled his feet when he was a child squirming helplessly to get away from her fingers, more delighted than when watching any Chaplin film.

Glen told his opening jokes, most of which Benny had already shared with them. They laughed as if hearing it all for the first time. He tried to follow the show, but his thoughts kept drifting to the two of them, there in the sea of unaware faces. He kept a feeler out for his father as well. Lloyd mingled with some of his friends, further back and out of sight. Just where Benny wanted him.

Every ripple of laughter, every satiated grin, every sound and sight pricked him like pins. Every puff from the vent above him sucked breath from his lungs. Sweat clung to his face as he rubbed his arms against the chill. He heard echoes, not words. Saw blurs, not faces. The clock drew his constant attention, and his fingers itched to loosen his tie.

As Glen's final bit finished, applause rocked Benny back to the moment. Time to mount the stage for his weekly benediction. He could barely summon the courage to move, but he found Lara in the crowd, lovely Lara looking so much like Charles. He pulled himself together and stepped out in front of the waiting audience.

"We hope you enjoyed the show tonight," he said as a spotlight blinded him. He focused past it, glad he couldn't see all those faces as clearly. "We're so fortunate to be here, to breathe the fresh air and feel the sun on our skin. The sun's gone down for the day, but somewhere on the other side of the world, it's rising for our brothers out in the east, in Vietnam."

His eyes adjusted to the expectants out there, waiting for his jokes. He wished for a blindfold, for two fingers, neat – the brand didn't matter. The air was cool against the back of his neck as a line of sweat rolled down between his shoulders.

"Brothers...brothers have a special bond, don't you think? The kind that's deeper than anything." He had to have drawn his father's full attention by now. This was not in the script, and he guessed it would take Lloyd at least a few seconds to react.

"I had a brother. Private First Class Charles Camden of the 52nd Aviation Battalion, United States Army. He set out for the other side of the world, and now he's never coming back.

"We lost him at Camp Holloway, along with eight other brave Americans." Silence blanketed the audience as a tear traced his cheek. "And now we're going to lose so many more. Today..." He swallowed. "Today we sent thirty-five hundred more troops to South Vietnam. Thirty-five hundred more brothers. How many of them are never coming back?"

He watched Lara turn her head at the murmur behind her, the whispers and grumbles.

"I love America as much as any of them. And that's why I would do anything to bring them all home alive. I would do anything to keep any more from going out to lay down their lives in a foreign land." Benny lifted his hands so the audience could clearly see the box of matches in his left and the single match in his right. Pulse pounding, he brought them together, striking the head of the match along the side of the box, letting his lapel mic capture the hiss of life as the tiny pin of fire erupted. He held it there, thrusting his left hand into his pocket, letting go of the box and slowly pulling out the mock-up draft card he'd printed. "We can be the light of the world. But we can't set it on fire." He moved the match to the card in front of him like a magician performing a trick, and the edge turned black as the sides lit up with flame.

Lloyd signaled to cut the feed as people jumped to their feet, booing and shouting at him. The card dissolved into cinders as he dropped it to the stage. The light blinked off on the camera and Benny just stood there, fighting the overwhelming urge to run.

Virginia and Lara shrank in their seats as everyone bustled around them. Benny looked from his mother to his sister, hoping for a sign of understanding. He smashed the remnants of his statement under his foot like a used cigarette, but the smoke, weak and wispy, still floated in the air.

\- - -

Lloyd's erratic pacing ruined the rhythm of Frank Sinatra crooning "Day of Wine and Roses" from the little radio on the windowsill but couldn't be heard beneath the whirring of the oscillating fan. The blinds were open, the sun hitting Benny in the face the way the lights had when he stood out on the stage. Lloyd glared with unblinking eyes, and each step of his pacing was the ticking of a timer. Benny rubbed his temples, reliving the moment when the tiny flame lit up the audience. The three shots of Glenfiddich he'd belted before the meeting were taking their time to kick in.

"What the hell were you thinking, huh?" Lloyd finally said, sinking into his plush chair. "You know they're probably going to pull the show now, don't you?"

"It wasn't even a real draft card!"

"Louden's still at NBC. Trying to clean up your mess. I mean, what the hell were you thinking?"

"Come on, Dad. I think it's pretty obvious."

"Be obvious on your own time! When you're off the clock and off the air, and you're not putting other people's jobs at risk! Do you know what a stunt like this does? Do you? It never goes away. It's the kind of thing that stays with you for the rest of your life."

Benny pressed himself further down into the chair.

"They're not going to remember Benny Camden, that funny guy from that TV show. They're going to remember Benny Camden, that son of a bitch who shot off his mouth on live television. Nobody's going to trust you anymore."

Benny blinked, warmth blossoming out from some unknown source within him. Warmth and softness. His pulse still pounded, but with a softer mallet. It wasn't a hammer as much as a hand gently keeping rhythm on a knee. One, two, three – forty years old, single malted, and as smooth and cool as the rocks he used to pluck from the sand on Malibu beach when he was a kid. Pacific Ocean rocks, brushed to the shoreline from somewhere on the other side of the world. Scotland, perhaps. "I don't think it's as bad as you say."

"Well, I'll tell you this much. We're having a press conference, and you're going to march your ass out there and apologize. You should start by apologizing to Glen."

"What about the show?"

"I don't know. We may have to can it. If we don't...I don't know, Son. You may be off it."

"You'd do it without me?" Benny asked.

"I'm not sure what's happening. Right now we need damage control. Ratings–"

"Ratings are up," Benny cut him off, and Lloyd leaned hard into the desk, glaring at him. "I bet next week they'll be even higher."

"That's not the point." Lloyd stuck a finger in his face but didn't offer any words to go along with it.

Benny laughed, but he didn't know why. As the sound passed his lips, he pressed them shut again, remembering the night of the filming of the first episode, when his father smelled the whisky on his breath. "Dad, when you're famous, people are going to love you and hate you at the same time. That's just the way it is."

"Benny..." he sighed. "Why'd you do it?"

He pointed at a newspaper lying on the desk between them. "Vietnam's tearing itself apart! And we're getting right in the middle of it! Charles died for nothing!"

Lloyd's nostrils flared as he towered over Benny. "You shut your mouth!"

\- - -

Journalists swarmed the lobby of Camden Productions like ants after someone had given their anthill a good kick. Benny thought journalist was a strong word considering how trivial his guppy of a stunt was in the broad sea of newsworthiness. He locked eyes with Glen, standing off to the side between Lloyd and Henry. He'd been so fired up to make a statement that he hadn't stopped to consider who it might have hurt.

Benny stepped behind the bank of microphones set up for him in the corner which usually housed two sofas and a small potted fig tree. He looked out into the expectant eyes of the media, smelling the flames of protest and reform now smothering under a blanket of empty platitudes.

"I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the things that I said on _The Glen Headwood Show_ earlier this week. My actions were not approved by NBC or by anyone at Camden Productions. I sincerely apologize to any and all who were offended."

"Mr. Camden," one of the journalists replied, raising a cautious hand. "What were you trying to say?"

Benny glanced at Lloyd, who gave him a _Be Careful_ glare. "I just miss my brother, that's all."

JUNE

Benny sat in the cramped confines of Wayne Armstrong's booth at radio station KMOD. Wayne, a popular disc jockey, sported blue shades just wide enough to cover his eye sockets. A faded gray t-shirt with a picture of the Temptations too small to see properly hung loose on Wayne's wiry frame. He flicked ash in the general direction of the three overflowing ashtrays between them. Wayne sat in front of a set of vintage band posters – Beach Boys, Gladys Knight & the Pips, the Platters. "So tell me about the new picture," Wayne said, voice young and smooth despite all the Pall Mall butts he'd put to rest. "What's it called again?"

" _Johnny Destructo_ ," Benny said.

Wayne coughed out a chuckle, swiveling in his chair, arms behind his head. "Oh, right, right."

Benny leaned into the microphone as smoke wafted from his lips. "Johnny's this really evil, nasty megalomaniac. He's so over the top evil. Anyway, he's got this vendetta against humanity, and he starts scheming about how to, you know, destroy us."

"And how does he plan on doing that?"

"With candy. Candy and propaganda."

"So it's a spoof?"

"Oh, totally. I mean, his archnemesis is this cocky spy named Brock Cobb who kind of stumbles his way through everything."

Wayne grinned. "OK, so why's this guy got a, what did you call it? Vendetta against humanity?"

"Because he's the bad guy," Benny said.

"So that's it?"

"That's it. He's the bad guy."

Wayne paused, lips still in a half moon, and he let out a laugh full of air, as if he sensed Benny had made a joke but he didn't get it. "Can you elaborate?" Wayne asked.

"His dad really knows how to set him off." Benny found that tasty. "Next question."

"OK, now ever since you left _Glen Headwood_ , you've been here a few times. I mean, you've been doing the radio circuit and everything. How's that going?"

"I think it was a blessing getting canned, actually." Benny stabbed at the nearest ashtray, watching the embers scatter and fade. "Radio and television don't offer the same kind of artistic freedom as film."

"People seem interested in what you have to say."

"So they do." He hadn't read any of the sixty-eight pieces of mail he'd received in the past week, but the growing trend was more hate than fan. However: sixty-eight in a week. Almost ten a day.

"These draft card burnings are popping up all over. You really started something."

"I didn't start anything," Weston said. "People like Eugene Keyes, David McReynolds, they started it. I was just showing solidarity."

"Solidarity or not, you did it on live TV. Don't tell me that wasn't the catalyst."

"I was just trying to get people to think." That asinine apology still stuck at him, not because they'd made him do it but because he'd compromised. He was amazed anyone still took him seriously after the press conference.

"Are you trying to say anything with this new picture of yours?"

"You'll have to wait and see."

"So was the show holding you back, or what?" Wayne asked.

"I think comedy's great. But I'm not just here to tell a few jokes, you know?"

"What're you trying to do, then?"

"Make people question things."

"So this isn't just about shock," Wayne said.

The smoke was getting to Benny, but Wayne flicked his lighter again and held it up to a fresh Pall Mall. Benny realized he'd moved too far from the microphone and leaned in again. "Not at all. But shock sure seems to wake people up, doesn't it?"

"So, bottom line, then. Why are you against the war in Vietnam?"

Benny watched those embers fading cold. "Because we're not defending our borders. We're defending our ideology. Trying to tell other people what to think. And I'm not saying I agree with them. But nobody can give me the right to tell them what to think."

\- - -

After spending the night at the mansion, to see his mother and sister while attempting to avoid his father, Benny took breakfast in the dining room, spooning soggy cornflakes into his mouth in the dimness of a single chandelier, leaving the other one turned off and hoping not to draw attention to his presence there. The walls were wood, stained cherry red with a hint of brown peeking through. He'd always found the room depressing.

Benny shifted in his seat, downing a slurp of fresh orange juice as he scribbled a note in the margin of his copy of _Johnny Destructo_. They were working on the shooting script, and he wanted to take one more pass at it before handing it off to Bat Anderson, the director.

"So there you are."

He braced himself at the voice, but he couldn't decipher the tone. Lloyd approached with a stainless steel coffee carafe and an empty mug, newspaper folded beneath his arm. Even for breakfast, Lloyd Camden wore a three-piece and polished wing tips.

"Dad."

"I caught your interview yesterday."

That was no surprise. "And?"

Lloyd took a seat at the end of the table, close enough that they could see and hear each other but far enough away to leave both of them with plenty of personal space. "I wish you wouldn't try to promote this thing as a Cold War commentary." He poured a mug of steaming coffee and unfolded his newspaper neatly in front of himself.

"I only hinted."

"But it's going to be such a funny picture," Lloyd said. "Why can't you just let people enjoy it, and if they see more then they see more?"

"If you try to pander to the crowd like that, you water yourself down and nobody pays you any attention."

"Benjamin, when you draw attention to yourself, it's usually negative."

"You think your hero Kennedy never attracted negative attention, huh?" Benny remembered his father's restrained disdain for Glen Headwood's Kennedy impression, offering the same deadpan disapproval Benny had earned every time he'd tried to entertain visitors at the mansion when he was a child. "You think he wasn't criticized? You think everyone loved him? He did what he thought was right, not what everyone wanted him to do."

"And what happened to Kennedy?" Lloyd asked.

Benny grunted, shoving back his empty plate. "You're hopeless. It's like that whole damn fake NBC apology all over again. You know they don't really care about what I said. All they care about is keeping the hyenas at bay. Just like you."

"So you see yourself as some kind of patriot?"

_Watch yourself,_ he could hear Chaplin say. "Yes."

Lloyd's straight lips rippled with frustration. "Let me tell you something. Your brother was a patriot! And now, all this talk, all this publicity – you're dishonoring his sacrifice."

"I'm just trying to keep more boys from dying like him."

"And you really think you're going to make a difference?"

Lara passed by the entrance to the room, chattering with one of her girlfriends, and Benny locked eyes with his sister for a moment. She hadn't said much since Charles died, but she'd hung by his side every chance she had. Lara bore such a resemblance to Charles; sometimes it hurt to look at her. Benny turned back to Lloyd, searching for some kind of understanding in the man's face, but found none. "One does one's best."

AUGUST

Benny had met Julia Powell where he met most girls – at a party. The wrap party for _Viva Las Vegas_ , to be specific. She'd been floating around Hollywood for a year or two, paying her grocery bills with extra work in low-budget science fiction films and a line here and there in a few episodes of _The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet_ and _The Beverly Hillbillies_. She'd been hanging around Ann-Margret – they were old friends from the same little town in Illinois. She had thick blonde hair done up in a style at least a decade old, but she wore it well, and she'd left her friend's side to hover around Benny that night. She laughed at all of his jokes and enough of his non-jokes for him to get her message. Months later, Julia showed up to auditions for _Johnny Destructo_ , and Benny had very quietly helped her land a role.

And so it began.

The sun was gone, and a blanket of stars spread across Santa Monica beach, but the waves were too soft to be heard that night. Julia hung on Benny's arm up the walkway to his beach house, as she'd hung there all night. Never looking at him: looking at everyone else, glowing with excitement to be seen with him. She held on a little too tight as he turned the key in the slot and ushered her into his place for the first time.

"Holy cow!" She let go of him and took a few steps in as he locked the door behind them. He'd left all the lights on to give her the best possible first impression. He took great care in how he presented himself at home, and he always enjoyed bringing new people over and watching their reactions. "It's so nice!"

Julia rubbed her bare arms in the chilled air as Benny loosened his bow tie and slipped off his tuxedo jacket. She had forgotten him for the moment, admiring the collection of Degas ballerinas on his back wall, particularly the one that hung over his fireplace – the young dancer on the floor, legs outstretched as she tied her slippers.

"These are beautiful!" she said. "Did the same guy paint them all?"

Breathtaking impressionism, an incomplete but serviceable classification. Flawless depiction of motion and grace. But she had made the best observation she could, no doubt. "Yes, it's the same guy."

She touched one of the frames – a woman in a green skirt twirling at an angle, spinning across a stage in front of a line of dancers in orange costumes. "What's this one called?"

He stepped up behind her, admiring as he always did the freedom in the figure's open arms, spread wide like wings. "The Green Dancer."

"You're just so all business on set," she said, abandoning the paintings and turning her attention to his bookshelves, crammed with too many volumes to properly display. "You don't seem like the kind of guy who keeps his nose buried in a book." She ran a finger along one of the shelves, past Dreiser, Dumas. "Looks like you've read quite a few."

"Here and there."

"Keats?" she asked. "You read poetry?"

"Sometimes."

"I wouldn't expect someone like you to be so well read."

"Someone like me?"

She abandoned his shelves and slid her arms around his waist. "Well, you do have something of a reputation."

"Do tell."

"They all talk about you. Say you're the life of the party."

He pulled the loose bow tie from his neck and tossed it in the general direction of his coat, draped over the television. "I can't be both?"

She leaned in for a kiss, and he held her warmth against him for a moment. Her lips were better for kissing than for talking. When they parted, her face contorted as her eyes locked on the artwork on the wall behind him. "Ugh!" she groaned, taking a step toward it. "That's hideous!"

"You don't like?"

"Are you kidding?" He turned to view the painting with her. The skeleton leaned its head just to the left, rimmed in traces of green. A burning cigarette dangled from where its lips should have been. The figure was cropped at the shoulders, eye sockets empty and wide, smiling with only its two rows of dull brown teeth, as weathered as the bare bones. "It's the only tacky thing in here!"

"It's my favorite."

"Where'd you get that awful thing, anyway?"

He sat down on the plush red sofa, adjusting the cushions to leave ample room for her. He ran his hand along the velvety fabric, an invitation. "It's a Van Gogh."

"Really?" she asked, taking another look. "OK, maybe it's not that tacky." She joined him on the couch without checking out the rest of his décor. "I wouldn't expect someone who lives here to write such silly stuff," she said, her third variation on a theme.

"You know there's a message behind the jokes."

"Something about communism, right?"

Her pale shoulders enticed him. "Something like that."

"I don't know. It all goes over my head. As long as I can read my lines!"

"I like to write things that can be appreciated on different levels." He suspected Julia didn't have many surplus levels. Her face read like a pamphlet. "It's part of my theory on art."

"What's your theory?"

He hesitated for a moment, remembering her comment about the painting. "Well, I think art can transcend itself when it transcends its medium."

She giggled, leaning into him. "I have no idea what that means!"

"It means you can appreciate a work of art in isolation, on its own. But when you translate it, through the eyes of another artist, it has meaning it didn't have before."

"You mean like when they turn a book into a movie?"

He guessed that would be about the limit of her grasp. "That's one way to look at it. Take... _Gone with the Wind_ , for example. You have this book, and it's more than just a story. It's about the collapse and evolution of the Southern way of life. And you have a protagonist that's just about as antagonistic as you get. Poisonous. But you can't have a movie like that. So Scarlett gets cleaned up, and now you root for her, and you've actually got, quite frankly, a different story with the same characters."

"I never saw it."

Of course she hadn't. "OK...well, then, you take a painting like that, for example. What's a skull doing smoking a cigarette, right?"

"Right!"

"Well, then someone comes along and writes a poem or a song about it. A different artist interpreting what Van Gogh was trying to say. When you listen to the song and look at the painting at the same time, you find something new that wasn't in either one."

"Someone wrote a song about it?"

He sighed. "No, it's just an example."

"Oh."

The curve of her neck caught his erring eye, and he decided there were better ways to pass the time than discussing artistic theories.
1966

JANUARY

Benny needed a drink.

The heavenly voices of the Righteous Brothers were decently covered by the live band, bathing the _Johnny Destructo_ premiere party in the passionate chords of "Unchained Melody." The Ambassador again, the Cocoanut Grove. Benny hadn't been back since his grad school graduation party, and come to think of it, he hadn't seen most of the old gang in all that time either, save for those who had stayed on for the studio run of _The Glen Headwood Show_.

The cast and crew of the movie buzzed around him, reliving choice moments and quoting the reviews. Bat Anderson, the director, had come down with a sudden case of pneumonia, leaving Benny, the producer, more or less the master of ceremonies. Julia fluttered about the room in that Fifties hairdo of hers, surrounded by jealous women vying for a glimpse of the Tiffany ring on her finger and shooting him envious glances, and he was good enough at reading faces to see veiled invitations in some of them. Too late; that ring wasn't coming off. Julia hung from his arm off and on, somehow draining her lilac perfume of its sensuousness, still never looking at him. Still glad to be seen with him.

It was a bit reciprocal. He'd pondered hard before proposing, but despite the simpler way she saw the world, no girl or woman had ever treated him as well, looked up to him with such awe. She was sweet, sincere, and if he had to admit it, she had no trouble turning heads. And although in public she was poised as if they were on display, when they were alone he was the center of her attention. She doted on him and spoiled him as if it was her mission in life, and when they danced, she trembled in his arms. He loved that about her.

"Since when are you a wallflower?"

He leaned into his table, fresh glass of Glenlivet in hand, as Mary Tyler Moore sat down beside him, her mousy brown hair hanging at her shoulders and perfectly accenting those darling dark eyes that always gave him goose bumps, always heated the air in his lungs by a degree or two. "I was just waiting for you, Happy," he said.

"Heard you're already working on a sequel. And that you've got a part for me."

Benny's gaze shot to Julia, lifting her hand for one of her friends. "She runs her mouth sometimes, doesn't she?"

A waiter brought Mary's drink, and she cupped it as they turned to face the band. She placed her mouth on the rim of the glass, leaving behind a blood-red lipstick mark prettier than any shade Julia had ever worn. "She's acting the way I did when Grant proposed. Just like me."

"She was never like you." He looked at her for a moment, feeling like a goofy kid drawing up the courage to ask the homecoming queen for a dance. Mary gave him a glance and took a sip. "Yes, I'm writing a sequel," he said. "Seems like everyone got such a kick out of it."

"On one level or another," she said.

"Subtlety has a price, I guess."

Mary watched Julia as he watched Mary. "Congratulations, by the way. She's a lovely girl."

"Sure." Benny followed Mary's red lip on her drink, the curve of her jaw, the delicate way her hair brushed her neck.

"So tell me about the sequel."

" _Identrix_. She's a mistress of disguise. I'm directing this one. And yes, I'm writing a part for you."

"Brock Cobb, Pretty Kitty." Across the room, the actress who'd portrayed Pretty Kitty Lisle was by herself for a moment, swaying gently to the music as she held her hand close to her face, tracing the curve of her ring.

"They're all back. Kitty less than last time."

"If it's as good as _Johnny Destructo_ , count me in!" The band picked up with a spirited rendition of the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and Benny's gaze drifted down to Mary's fingers, there on the table, nails freshly painted. Grant Tinker's ring nice and snug. "Can I tell you something?" she asked.

Her voice soothed him like a drink never could. "Of course."

"Ever since your brother, I've been a little worried about you. With what you did on your show, and just, when I found out about you and Julia..." She moved her hand onto his, just for a moment. "I'm really glad for you."

"Well, as long as you're off the market."

Mary laughed. "Still on that, are you?"

A moment, a pause, but she said nothing more. "Well, she's not so bad," he said.

"Glad you think so!"

Julia made her way toward them, and he pushed from the table, standing straight and inching away from Mary. Julia didn't seem to notice, but Mary did. She rose to greet Julia as well.

"Congratulations, honey!" Mary said as she lifted Julia's newly ringed finger to get a better look. Benny drained the last of his glass.

"Thanks!"

"You're getting a great guy," Mary said.

Julia slipped her arm in his. "What are you doing sulking over here?" She pulled him out toward the middle of the room, toward the dance floor. "It's your party!"

Benny kissed her as Mary nodded to him. "Just taking a breather."

He put his arm around his fiancée, headed for a dance.

JUNE

Lara's first year of college faded behind her as her nineteenth birthday arrived, and Virginia had the Camden mansion decked out for the occasion. As the sun moved slowly toward the Pacific, the first guests arrived. Lara's friends filled the place – the sons and daughters of celebrities and moguls mixed with middle class college kids who'd never done more in Beverly Hills than pass through. One gawking girl said it best: "With a crib like this, I'm surprised you ever learned to walk."

The pool was surrounded, kids sitting on the edge and dangling their legs in the water. The Beach Boys blasted from the outdoor speakers. Lara knew her parents weren't keen on such music, but they said nothing that night. Tiki torches dotted the place, and hundreds of pounds of sand had been brought in to give their beach party just the touch it needed.

Lara moved among them, passing out seashell necklaces, reminiscing with sorority sisters and sharing a dance with a boy here and there. As the night wore on, one question circulated among the guests, mostly among the girls.

"Is your brother coming?"

"You know he's engaged, don't you?" she would say.

"Lalala, didn't hear you!"

She would occasionally catch her parents watching from a distance, never joining in, letting her have her fun. And as the clock struck twelve, even Lara wondered whether or not Benny would show.

And then there he was, surrounded in a flutter of laughs and giggles.

"You made it!" Lara said.

-

"Of course!" Benny kissed his sister's cheek and glanced at the sea of salivating girls, laughing like infants at his flashy grin. He would have liked to have had a drink first, but he stood tall, waving to them with an obliging nod.

"Benny, I love you!"

"Oh, Benny, will you dance with me?"

"Benny, you've got to try the crab cakes!"

"Say the Brock Cobb line! Please?" Everyone chimed in at the request.

Benny waited as a hush fell on the guests. He tightened his knees and leaned just a hair forward, extending his arms slowly as they watched in amused silence. The stance had nothing to do with delivering Brock Cobb's catchphrase, but they didn't seem to notice or care. He growled, just a little, to loosen his throat, glancing from face to face. Then he pulled from deep in his lungs and said, "Doctor Crime, I'm no scientist, but you're going to jail."

They all applauded as if it were his own catchphrase. Benny soaked it in, still sorry on some level that he'd managed to amuse these kids so much with his would-be war commentary. "Now listen up, everybody! I've got a surprise for you."

Mulled murmuring as all looked on.

"I know you've got this whole beach party thing going here, and I thought, what's a beach party without Frankie Avalon?"

Even the guys lit up when Frankie Avalon stepped out of the house and into the crowd. His hair was combed back perfectly, skin smooth and tan, Hawaiian shirt untucked from his white khaki shorts, loose on his shoulders with the top few buttons undone. The screams for Frankie doubled the screams for Benny, and as the girls swarmed him, Benny slowly backed out of the spotlight.

"Nice one," Lara said, putting her arm around him.

"Yeah, well, it was the only way I'd get any peace tonight."

"Where's Julia?"

He broke her gaze, looking off toward the kitchen. "She...couldn't come."

"Oh."

"Happy birthday, Sis."

She stood there for a moment, brimming, then let go and moved back through her friends with excitement, in the general direction of Frankie Avalon. Benny migrated into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of Glenmorangie.

He eased against the counter and let the Scotch satiate his taste buds for a moment, then closed his eyes and let out a relaxed sigh. All those young, eager girls out there, all waiting for him. It shouldn't matter. He shouldn't let it matter. Still, though, as wedding details floated across his mind and the liquor floated across his tongue, he thought of Julia and let the alcohol warm him while glancing through the open blinds at all those girls in their bikinis, hanging all over him a moment ago.

"Crowd get to you?"

He turned at the sound of the voice and found one of Lara's friends inching toward him. She had pale white skin, much of it bared. Her black eyes glinted, reflecting the light of one of the distant tiki torches as she rubbed her bare foot against the marble of the kitchen floor, lips twisting up as she bit into a cherry, dislodging it from its stem.

"Crowds don't get to me. Scotch does."

She smiled, and he noticed she had perfect teeth. "I'm Chelsea," she said, offering her hand. Her fingers were ice cold from the bottle of beer she held.

"Charmed," he said in his best Sean Connery slur. "Benny."

"I know who you are," she said with a hint of playfulness as she gave him a once over. "Benjamin Weston Camden."

He took another look out the window at the kids surrounding Frankie. "Nobody calls me Weston."

"I didn't think you were going to be here tonight."

She moved up beside him, and Julia flashed through his thoughts as he took another sip. "How do you know Lara?"

"From school." She traced the mouth of her bottle. "She's my lifeline. I'd probably be flunking if it wasn't for her."

"Tough classes?"

She giggled as if laughing at an inside joke. "Nah, not really. I just don't always go. Know what I mean?"

Chelsea took a sip of her beer, and as she did, she casually slid her foot toward him, shifting her posture, her silky thigh gracing the back of his hand. She lowered the beer and bit at her lip, focused on him, and he was filled with the urge to turn his wrist, let her know he knew her move was not an accident. He couldn't, though, couldn't let this girl occupy more of his thoughts than the present, the moment. Julia. He imagined Julia standing beside him, watching. Still, though, he didn't pull away. "So where do you go?"

"Out," she replied. "I only went to college because I like to party."

"I don't hear many people using 'party' as a verb."

She took another sip, and when she pulled the bottle down again, her toes were on his, wiggling, and she gave him a confident smile. Her free hand ran the line of Lara's party-favor seashell necklace, tracing the curve of her bikini top, the curves beneath it. "Well, I'm all kinds of crazy."

If she moved any closer she'd feel the stiffness in his pants. He blinked away the urge to reach behind her and untie the string of her bikini. The others were there. And Julia. Julia was sweet, loyal, maybe a little shallow and simple, but safe. And he did love her. But ever since he'd started seeing her, the girls had been hands off. They'd had a sense of propriety, even if their eyes suggested other things. It had been almost a year since someone new and exciting had popped into his field of vision and made him forget, or want to forget, the world outside the room. "Where're you from?"

"Michigan. Little town." She glanced around at the mansion. "You could fit our whole house in this kitchen."

He gestured with his head without breaking her gaze. "Would you like a tour?"

Her toes lifted as she ran the bottom of her foot across the top of his. "I thought you'd never ask." Her fingers played across his arm as he took her further inside. He glanced behind himself and found his parents watching the festivities.

Benny showed her around, but she didn't say much. The theater room, the Edison ballroom, pausing for a moment at a portrait of Charles hanging on the wall in the regency hallway. Her hand never left his arm, and when they reached the third floor, without hesitation she asked, "Which one is your room?"

"I don't live here anymore."

Chelsea's fingers found their way from his arm to the back of his neck. "Well, which one was your room?"

AUGUST

"Who's Richard Speck?" Julia made the face of a child forced to swallow a teaspoon of castor oil. She sat opposite Benny at the breakfast table in the corner of his kitchen, her plate of spinach quiche set beside a half-empty glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a neatly organized stack of pages for the _Identrix_ reshoots, all of her lines highlighted in bright pink.

Benny dropped a spoonful of sugar in his coffee as Julia continued to scowl, as if the name Richard Speck was enough to kill her appetite. He shrugged, lowering his head as he stirred. "You know, killed all those nurses out in Chicago last month."

She winced as she always did at stories like that. "Didn't he hold them hostage or something?"

"For most of the night, I think."

He masked amusement as her face contorted further. "That's horrible! People aren't going to want to see a movie like that."

"They lined up for _Psycho_ ," he said.

" _Psycho_ wasn't a true story."

He took a sip of his coffee as he studied his fiancée, hair disheveled and face fresh. He didn't fancy himself the shallow type, but there was something about Julia's face - makeup was her friend. It perturbed him a little that she was probably right about his idea.

They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence. He tended not to talk much during meals anymore. Whenever they ate together, he felt suffocated – not by her, but by the things about him she didn't know. Chelsea Blythe was in his mouth. Everything tasted like her. She'd spoiled his appetite.

That, he knew Julia had noticed. He'd told her he wanted to make their marriage respectable and wait until their wedding night to make love again, and whether or not she believed him, she'd agreed.

After breakfast, Benny drifted onto the balcony and slid a Camel between his lips. He took a drag and squinted in the morning sun. Santa Monica beach stretched out below him, and the air was as chilly as a Los Angeles summer could get. He blew out the smoke, watching it dissipate. Minutes later Julia left him for the day with a kiss and a quick, ponderous glance.

He didn't know why he couldn't forget that night with Chelsea Blythe. Girls had come and gone, but she had something on all the others, something that set her apart. No one else had ever made him feel guilty – transcendent and guilty at the same time. Every beat of her heart, every breath against his skin, every moment with her he could forget. But the girl herself wouldn't leave his thoughts.

If he hadn't been engaged, he knew she would have slipped from his memory, and if not her, at least her name.

As a teenager he'd dreamed of a green-eyed goddess who would descend into his world and change all the colors, redefining every element of life. He would devote himself to this girl, and they would change each other's lives, and the world. But the only one who ever turned his head was Mary Tyler Moore.

He couldn't recall most of the other names now, but he remembered Chelsea Blythe. As he tossed the smoldering butt down below and released a lungful of smoke, he wondered what it would take to make him forget without telling Julia.

Benny loosened the belt on his robe and plopped down on the sofa, scooping up _Valley of the Dolls_. As he read, his thoughts drifted back to those nurses in Chicago and to that Speck man that crept out of the night and killed them all. He shivered, wondering what must have been going through those nurses' minds.

\- - -

Benny exhaled, his breath laced with gray, and as he put out his cigarette, he watched the smoke disappear against the cumulus backdrop floating in from the distant Pacific coast. The eastern blue met the coastal creep in the middle of the sky, the sun slowly fading away behind a cumulonimbus canopy. He removed his superfluous sunglasses as he spotted his mother being shown to the table by the maître-de. They had a good view of the golf course, and they were secluded enough to ensure privacy. He pushed back his chair and rose with a soft grin as she thanked the host and joined him.

"Mom," he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

Her crow's feet drew kaleidoscope lines on her face as she eyed him, sniffing. "I thought you said you quit."

"It comes and goes."

Virginia glanced up at the uninviting blanket of darkness sweeping east. "Wouldn't it be better to go indoors?"

"Storms aren't coming for hours."

"Still, better to be on the safe side."

"I cheated on Julia." He couldn't dance around it or build up to it – he knew he'd lose his nerve. He saw the questions running through her mind, but the smile on her face fought back the sour reaction he had expected. The wind rose, her hair floating about her head for a moment as she put up a hand to hold it down.

"Well," she said. "Just like that, you tell me."

"Sorry, but if I didn't get it out now, I don't know if I ever would."

"Does she know?"

"No. I think if I told her, it'd be over." He saw her look of consideration and knew there were things that would hurt her more than seeing the end of this engagement. She'd never been crazy about Julia, but he also knew she loved him too much to let her feelings influence what she said.

"You're probably right. Speaking for myself, if your father ever cheated on me..."

Her words stung him hard. He looked back and saw her through the veil of that comparison, as if she were Julia – as if she were the one he had betrayed. "I'm sorry." The apology was for her, not for his fiancée.

"Benny...baby..."

"It didn't mean anything. At least she didn't mean anything. The other girl."

"Do you still love her?" Virginia asked.

Benny expected a swell of emotion and devotion as he prepared to answer the question, but it didn't come. "I love her more than I've ever loved anyone else."

"I don't think you answered my question."

He should have known she wouldn't let him dodge. "What do you want me to say?"

"Then you need to tell her."

"Are you sure?"

His mother reached across the table toward his hand but stopped. He'd always been able to talk to her about anything, and he'd availed himself of the opportunity whenever he found himself the subject of his father's scrutiny. Hers was the voice that soothed him, that gave him strength. Hers was the only opinion that really mattered. "If you don't think you should tell her, then I have to question whether you really love her."

-

With her right hand on the wheel, Virginia cranked up her window. The air was cool enough, but the wind was whipping around, moaning in the distance like a disconsolate child. In the silence of the closed car, she pressed the edge of her finger against her forehead as a soft pain surfaced across her left temple. The guilty turn of Benjamin's eyebrow lingered in her thoughts amidst flashes of Julia, him and Julia, him and that awful Maggie from graduate school, him dreaming after Mary whom he could never have. She sat in the left turn lane, waiting for a green light.

He was the brightest person she'd ever known: brighter than Charles or Lara, or Lloyd, or any of the endless entertainers that had passed through her door. She knew if it hadn't been for Lloyd's domineering restraint, Benjamin could have been the biggest entertainer of them all. He could have been the Great One, as Jackie Gleason had called him in one of the most powerful moments of blessing her son ever received. He still could be the Great One, still would be if she had anything to say about it.

Somewhere beneath his potential and untapped brilliance, though, there lurked a dormant self-destruction. He had already betrayed his future wife before he ever had a chance to take a vow, and that broke Virginia's heart. Then again, she'd never seen Julia as worthy of her son. Somewhere, there had to be a girl who would make a good match for Benjamin Camden.

Green.

She turned left onto a two-lane bridge amidst the thickening raindrops and switched on her lights. Hers was the only vehicle in the northbound lane. Southbound was full, and she noticed with distaste that the other drivers hadn't turned on their lights.

In the distance, caught in a flash of illumination, the car at the rear of the southbound traffic swerved into the northbound lane, as sudden and jarring as a slap in the face. And like a slap, it drew all of her attention to its presence. Black, but she was too far away to identify the make or model. It wobbled on its left side, as if the front tire was a little low. She forgot, for a moment, the dawning headache, all senses focused on this rogue vehicle now accelerating and weaving its way toward her. She expected the driver to correct himself, but the wild car kept coming, swerving more recklessly by the second. It steered into a little red convertible, black top up, crushing the door with its bumper before pulling away again, back fully into the wrong lane with Virginia's silver Mustang in its sights.

She gasped in shock as it veered again, having passed the convertible and now taking a swipe at a brown Lincoln Continental. She could almost make out the image of the woman driving the town car, leaning away but unable to distance herself from the – Virginia thought at this point that it was a Ford Fairlane from its boxy shape and lack of style.

Then back into the northbound lane. For the briefest of moments, she could see herself sitting at a table in a restaurant, recreating the event with a pepper shaker and a sugar caddy, bumping a ketchup bottle from one piece to the next.

Another same-direction hit, and there was no chance the Fairlane was leaving the northbound side in time. She couldn't get out of the way or even swerve – the bridge was too narrow for emergency maneuvering.

There was only one thing she could do. Virginia Camden whispered a prayer, then she slammed on her brakes and closed her eyes as the first peal of afternoon thunder bellowed in the distance.

-

Benny leaned against the balcony door, the rhythmic music of the rain soothing him, calming his nerves. He watched the downpour, the drops bouncing off the tight plastic of his chairs, puddling on the cloudy glass of the patio table. One of the three cigarettes he'd left out there went over the side, the others floating precariously close to the four-foot waterfall running down from the table onto the concrete.

Julia should be arriving any minute, drenched from the storm, irritable as the foul weather. Benny knew he had poorly masked his apprehension when he called. She'd be expecting something. He wished he had just said the words before she had a chance to build it up in her mind.

The telephone rang, startling him, intent as he was on the silent door, and for a moment he stared at it, hoping that maybe it was Julia saying she couldn't make it. Something had happened, some minor tragedy, saving him for another day.

It took three rings for him to build up his courage. "Benny Camden."

"Benny." It wasn't the voice he expected.

"Lara?"

"You need to get over here now!"

"Wha...why? What's wrong? Where are you?"

She sniffed. "Cedars-Sinai. Emergency room."

-

Before the elevator doors completely opened, Benny was rushing down the hall. He wanted to run but held his pace. He paid no attention to the people he passed, eyes searching the walls for room numbers. _321. 321._ It was the only thing going through his head other than the vague realization that his hair and his coat were dripping wet. His shoes clicked against the white tile as he hurried through the corridor.

He turned the corner and found Lloyd and Lara sitting with Uncle Doug and Aunt Katherine, huddled together in silence. He hadn't seen his aunt and uncle since Christmas. Uncle Doug looked up from the women and gave him a somber nod, eyebrows crooked and lips flat. Benny nodded back as he turned his attention to his father, who rose from his seat, eyes glimmering and darting here and there as if he couldn't bring himself to face Benny. Benny gave his father a hesitant hug as the man sank into him, each finger clinging to Benny's back on its own, ten pinpricks of grief.

"How is she?" Benny managed, his voice cracking as he pulled away.

"The other driver..." Lloyd just stared at him, like he was a television set broadcasting an air strike on the Viet Cong. His father didn't bother to wipe away the twin lines running down his ruddy cheeks, encompassing the bits of stubble that had appeared since his morning shave. "The, uh, the other driver had a seizure. He's..."

"Dad!"

Lloyd pulled away from him, breaking eye contact. "There just wasn't enough time."

Benny's vision clouded. He glanced around the waiting room as Lara hugged him. "When?"

"About twenty minutes ago," she said.

Lloyd's hands gripped his hips, and he shook his head as his gaze dropped to the ground. "She didn't have time to eat breakfast this morning."

"Why didn't someone call me sooner?"

"We tried, but we couldn't get through," Lara said. "The storm must have knocked out a line."

His sister kissed his face. For the briefest of moments, he felt the way he had when Charles died, as if the family grieved together without him. The memory passed as fast as it came. He sank into a seat beside his aunt and uncle, and for the first time in a long while, he shared an embrace with his family.

_Hands in your lap_. He heard his mother's voice, from who knew how many years earlier, scolding him at dinner for resting his elbows against the edge of the table. He'd dropped his arms promptly, looking to her for approval, and she'd smiled at him again.

-

Benny sat in his car, eyes blurred, hand on the ignition switch. A thousand memories flooded him that evening, flashing with the lightning, flaunting Virginia's death with twisted satisfaction. He made it to his door without any recollection of having left the hospital. His mouth was a little dry, and nothing could soothe that thirst like a glass of J&B. It was the only reason he could think of to bother going inside.

He fumbled with his keys and entered in a daze. After dropping his coat to the floor, he made his way to the kitchen, but stopped short. Julia lay dozing on the sofa. She'd probably been there for hours. The sight of her gave him the briefest sense of belonging, and he decided she might be better comfort than a drink.

Benny knelt beside her, watching her for a moment. Julia's eyes fluttered open. Her pupils expanded and contracted as her lips curled into an unpleasant frown.

"Hi," he whispered.

She pulled herself up to a sitting position. "Where the hell have you been?" she asked. He couldn't bring himself to say the words, and her shoulders stiffened with her brow. "You call me out of work, acting like you had something important to tell me, like it was an emergency or something. Getting me all worked up and scared. And then when I show up, you're not even here! What the hell? I waited all night!"

He registered that she was upset, but only as another element of the room – the cool air, the fragrance of the gardenias on the corner table, Julia's anger. "I'm sorry. It's my mom."

"What about her?"

He fell from his knees to a sitting position, his whole body quivering. "She's dead."

Julia threw a hand to her mouth as her hostility vanished. "Oh my God! Benny! Oh my God!" She slipped down to the floor, wrapping her arms around him. "I'm so sorry! What happened?"

"Car accident."

"Oh Benny..."

As soon as their lips touched, he recalled why he'd summoned her there. She'd never given him more heartfelt kisses than these, but each one stung. He didn't even care anymore that he'd betrayed her. They stung because he'd promised something to his mother, the last thing he ever said to her. And he knew what he had to do. Part of him thought he could justify waiting, at least a day or two; the other part of him couldn't delay any longer, couldn't bear remembering the look of masked disappointment in his mother's eyes. He feared that would always be the last thing he'd remember about her.

"I slept with someone else."

He expected nothing and everything. Her face contorted, moving through emotions he could not translate. He couldn't quite believe he'd said it, much less so succinctly.

"Benny..."

"I'm sorry, Jules. I should have told you before."

She'd probably yell on any other day. "How could you?"

"I wish I could remember."

"What's that mean? Who was she?"

"One of Lara's friends. I don't remember her name." Chelsea Blythe. Chelsea Blythe.

"You bastard." Her whimper struck him as if she'd yelled. She crumpled beside him, her head hanging as if it were about to drop to his shoulder.

"Jules, it's over."

"You're telling me it's over?"

"Let's stop kidding ourselves. It never would've worked in the end."

"How could you do this to me?"

Maybe it was mercy, or maybe because Virginia's death, so fresh, haunted them, but the ensuing fight flew by much faster than he'd dreaded. It must have been only a few minutes later that Julia slammed the door in his face. As the sound of her crying in the hallway rang in his ears, it all came back. He wanted to scream until he'd lost his voice, to rip out his hair. He needed to feel it.

His head throbbed, and he remembered why he'd even bothered to come home in the first place. Staggering to the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of J&B, then thought better of it and put the bottle to his lips. As the liquor burned him, a name rubbed itself into his senses: a name as forgettable as any other, yet one he would carry to the grave.

\- - -

The clouds had cleared again when they put Virginia in the dry ground. Only her relatives, only the Westons and the Camdens were there to hear the comforting words of the minister, but Benny didn't hear them. Lara clung to his father and he stood beside her, holding her hand, feeling her shift when a new round of tears came over her. Benny shared them in silence, pulling on the lapel of his black jacket. The coffin was brown, as he supposed most coffins were, and her initials had been carved into the top. He didn't know why his father had gone to that trouble. Lloyd stood tall as the crane squeaked for a moment under the weight of the coffin. His face was as dry as the ground.

The memorial service, in contrast to the burial, was packed. As he lingered in the hallways, taking a sip of water, whispering thanks to whispered condolences, he slipped away, taking a private walk through the funeral home. The walls were lined with gentle images of children playing in meadows, of families gathered at dinner tables. _Cherish your memories_ , one of them suggested. Another was a list of _Common Funeral Misconceptions_. Misconception #1: _Funerals have to be sad._ Benny didn't know what clowns and comedians had been buried there, but he'd never been to a happy funeral.

He lingered, not wanting to go back in just yet, not quite ready to see his father shaking hands and hobnobbing as he'd been when Benny snuck away. His mother's cousin slipped him a letter. A special delivery package had arrived from Switzerland with a pack of letters written to select members of the Weston family. He backed his way into a restroom and tore the seal.

_Dearest Benny,_ it began, in Charlie Chaplin's quick and concise script.

I cannot begin to offer you the strength that you need right now. I am too overcome with grief myself at the thought of your beloved mother. Virginia was a treasure from the day she was born, and I have so many happy memories of her as a child and a young woman, though I never spent enough time with her to satisfy myself. One of the happiest was when I had the great honor of walking her down the aisle to marry your father. What a lucky man he is to have had a wife as nurturing and supportive, and what a lucky man you are as well.

Benny sunk against the restroom wall until he'd hit the floor. He read the letter with shaking hands, and though Charlie's words were like scripture to him, they were too much to process. His mother was there in the room with him, there in the hallway, there outside in the warm sunshine. She was everywhere. He tucked the letter away in his pocket to read again later and dried his eyes on his sleeves. Back on his feet, he looked at himself in the mirror. No need trying to freshen up, to clear the red from his eyes, from the rims of his nostrils.

The foyer was clearing when he returned, and when he stepped into the funeral home chapel, almost every seat was full. Heavy steps to the front row were softer, easier, as he scanned the sea of somber faces come to say goodbye to Virginia Weston Camden. Most of them he knew, many he loved. Mary was on the edge of the fourth row beside Grant Tinker, and he didn't let himself look completely at them as he passed.

Lara had saved a seat for him, and as he settled into the creaking pew, the tranquil, recorded organ music fell away and the same minister took the pulpit, welcoming them all there to pay respects to a great woman, she'd be missed, think of all the good she gave in life, death is always confusing. He'd heard the spiel before from other ministers who didn't know the deceased. It was helpful, but in a sympathy greeting card kind of way. Nobody ever got well soon because of a _Get Well Soon_ card.

The minister retreated and Lloyd took to the pulpit. Lara reached across Benny's lap and he clasped his sister's hand. Coughing from somewhere in the back. Dust floating in the air illuminated by the colored light bleeding through the stained glass windows. No pictures, just patterns of yellow, orange, red, bright colors to contrast the darkness of the chapel's purpose.

"You know you've got to marry a woman when she knows you better than you know yourself," Lloyd began. "I don't mean your soul or your spirit, but when she remembers birthdays, anniversaries, appointments, all the little things that are a part of your life but not a part of hers. That's when you know that she considers your life to _be_ part of hers." It was an odd way to begin a eulogy, but Benny thought it had a certain sweetness to it until Lloyd added, "I fired my secretary the day I proposed." No one laughed, and Lloyd gave his audience a dodgy glance. Benny counted it as an opening misfire, but it was followed by a barrage of jokes, of fond memories twisted into humorous anecdotes. Lloyd's stories weren't about his wife – they were centered around her but they were about himself.

Benny squeezed Lara's hand harder over the course of the speech, and all he could think about was the letter in his pocket, the real grief and love that he and Chaplin, and Lara, and probably the rest of those gathered, felt for Virginia Camden. As the minutes passed, all he wanted was for his father to sit down.

\- - -

Chelsea Blythe answered her door a few nights later to find Benny, a Camel hanging limp from his lips, sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose, just high enough to cover his eyes. A bottle of cheap whiskey dangled from his fingers. He leaned against the doorjamb and flicked the stump of the cigarette to the sidewalk. "I don't know what it is about you," he breathed, "but I can't get you out of my head."

Chelsea nodded. She'd let her hair grow out, thick and full. Her shirt strap hung loose against her arm, and she angled her bare shoulder at him with a cocked eyebrow. "Where's your fiancée?"

"Gone," he said with a hoarse, smoky voice.

"Why don't you give that to me?" she asked, and he handed over the bottle.

She clicked the lock behind him, and he dropped his shades on a cluttered table. "Nice place," he said, his eyes bloodshot.

"How many have you had?" she asked. He laughed, but the hard line of his lips refused to bend. "Doesn't matter to me, either way," she said. She led him over to the sofa and helped him sit. His posture was stiff, unnatural. She sat behind him and slid her arms up inside his shirt, massaging his back. "I heard about your mom."

"I don't want to talk about it," he said.

"I didn't expect to hear from you."

Benny blinked his cracking eyes. He coughed and then leaned forward, covering his face with his hands. She pulled her arms free and moved her fingers through his trim hair, and he kissed her. It took her by surprise, but only for a moment. She knew why he'd come.

-

Benny lay beside Chelsea in the dim light of her bedside lamps. His shoulders pushed the pillow back against her cushioned headboard as he filled and emptied his lungs, warm and wet beads collecting across his face and neck. He stared at the Jimi Hendrix poster on the far wall. He'd taken Julia to see Hendrix play, to meet him. She'd always been so thrilled to bask in the glow of celebrity. She was like a kid sometimes, and there were moments when it had been adorable.

He wondered where she was that night.

"You OK?" Chelsea asked before tracing the curve of his jaw with her tongue.

He grunted, his pulse slowly simmering back to normal. "You ever feel like you've just got to go?"

Chelsea rolled over and opened a drawer in her nightstand. She fumbled around for a moment, pulling out a little black box. "I've got what you need," she breathed, and he turned as she removed the lid and pulled out a handmade cigarette.

He watched in silence as she struck a match. The room grew chilly as a waft of cool air hit his sweat. He took the joint and put it to his lips, drawing in the breath as if he'd done it dozens of times rather than just once. He held the smoke inside of him, twisting the rolled paper in his fingers, watching the tiny glowing embers.

Benny exhaled as Chelsea's warm hand pressed against his chest beneath the sheets.

SEPTEMBER

The afternoon sun slated through the half-drawn blinds as Lloyd took a seat at the little round table in the corner of his office, examining the deli spread waiting for him. The smell of fresh bread and corned beef filled his mouth with saliva as Henry pulled up a chair. Lloyd unwrapped his pickle and took a bite; firm but juicy. "I'm sorry your daughter couldn't make it."

"Me too," Henry said. "She's been swamped all semester."

"Lara too. Although don't ask me to explain anything she's studying." He grinned with pride as he dabbed a knife in the mustard and spread it thick on his bun. "That girl is so smart."

"Hillary's all but sworn off her social life at this point. Not that I mind, given the sort of boys she attracts."

They fell silent as Benny slipped through the doorway. Both men regarded him with nods of respect, but he paid almost no attention to either of them until he'd sat. Lloyd watched him unwrap his sandwich, skin pasty and hair stripped of its usual finesse.

"You're late. Again."

Benny smirked as he bit down on the edge of his Reuben. "Yeah, well, I got a little tied up."

The elder men exchanged a glance of distaste, and Lloyd chose to ignore the comment. Henry cleared his throat and the air. "Did you see the dailies from _Baby Lady_?"

Benny didn't look up as he knocked some of the overflowing sauerkraut from his sandwich. "Yeah. Gary told me Spencer Tracy's taken a turn for the worse. But Tracy told me they're just having creative difficulties with the French guy – what's his name?"

"Truffaut," Lloyd replied.

"So what about my Richard Speck idea?" Benny asked through a mouthful of rye.

"No way," Lloyd said. "Nobody's going to want to see anything like that. It's distasteful. If you want to pursue it, you're going to have to change a lot of the facts."

"How much?"

"Enough so that people won't know it's a true story."

"It's big, though, Dad! I think we should do it, and we should do it now while it's still hot!"

"We're not going to have this discussion again, Benjamin. It's worse than your mercenary idea."

"Which one is that?" Henry asked.

"It's about a guy who comes back from Vietnam, and he's so messed up by the war that he turns into a serial killer. And Dad..." Benny jabbed a finger at Lloyd. "Dad won't do it because he thinks it somehow insults Charles's memory."

"No," Lloyd said. "I won't do it because the last thing we need is to stir people up."

Benny glared at him. "You know what your problem is?" Lloyd watched him in silence. "You don't get what it is people want. All you care about is making everything all tasteful and cookie-cutter. It's not the Fifties anymore. Things have changed."

"You've changed," Lloyd retaliated, keeping his voice calm. "You keep showing up late, handing in shoddy work. You're even worse than you used to be!"

-

Benny flipped on the light in his office and locked the door, tossing the rest of his sandwich in the wastebasket beside his desk and knocking the can over. He cursed under his breath, setting it upright again and picking a few strands of sauerkraut from the carpet. The slime stuck to his fingers and he wiped it off on the leg of his gabardine pants, dropping into his leather chair and feeling a puff of air on his neck as he sank against its softness. His pulse was still going, his father's tone ringing in his ears more than the words themselves.

He sat in silence for a moment, stewing over them, wishing he hadn't shot off his mouth, wishing he could crawl back into his adolescent fear of the man and keep quiet when he wanted to scream. He blew out between flat lips and drew in a deep breath through his nostrils. Steady fingers pulled his drawer open and produced an empty glass and a bottle of Talisker.

Benny poured himself two fingers and emptied it in as many sips. The liquor stung him as it went down fast, burning and soothing at the same time. He poured another and let it sit on his desk for a minute, the whisky film on the inside of the glass sliding down into the rest of the drink. He returned the bottle to the drawer and fumbled for a moment until he came to the baggie hidden in the back. A gift from Chelsea. He untwisted the tie and took out one of the two joints, running it between his thumb and forefinger, over the imperfections in the paper, squeezing it, feeling it give.

The spark of his lighter reminded him of the softness of her sheets, and the sweat, and how he knew, as forgettable as she was, he would always remember her name.

\- - -

Some grad school friends had come to town and met Benny and Glen for an impromptu reunion. They played the hours away, moving from place to place until they ended up at one of Benny's favorite bars – Napoleon's. Jazz and smoke thickened the air as they flirted with the wait staff and reminisced. He'd partied there into the early morning on his twenty-first birthday and had still managed to edit some ten-minute student film or another in its entirety the next day. Made runner up at that year's Peabody Short Film Festival. Those were the days.

School was only a few years behind him, but the stories and smiles all reminded him of a different time. A different Benny. They'd all heard about his brother and mother, of course, and offered their share of condolences, followed by drinks.

His head throbbed with liquor by the time Chelsea made her way to the table, batting the odor of tobacco and gin out of her face. He wanted to curse when he saw her. The nostalgia and safety wavered. He drained his glass and stood to meet her before she could make it within earshot of the others.

"What're you doing here?" he slurred. He could smell his own breath.

She was a deflating balloon, gaze wide and evasive, shoulders drooping as she spoke. "I need to tell you something." Her eyes gleamed and her lips quivered, and a queasy uncertainty filled the pit of his gut.

"I'm listening."

"Benny...I'm pregnant."

For a moment, every distinct sound in the room interlaced with the others, creating an indistinguishable patchwork of incoherent gibberish and muted instruments. It fell into the background, a sonic vacuum. His vision blurred as well. Everyone around him, all the sights and sounds, were parts of his past and not his present. He could only see Chelsea, and when he blinked he imagined she was already showing.

_Pregnant?_ The word hung in his mind as a question, not a statement. He heard it over and over so many times that it lost its meaning and fell into incoherence alongside the omnisound. His knees buckled and the strength left his legs. Chelsea gasped, but he didn't fall.

"Are you OK?" The concern in her voice begged something more now, not just courtesy or care. She had a vested interest in the question.

The omnisound exploded back into its components again, and his head ached. Someone back at his table was choking on laughter, and for a moment he wondered what he'd missed. "Yeah, I..." More laughter from behind. "Are you kidding me?"

"No, it's for real."

"You're on the pill!"

She bit her lip, and the hope in her eyes twinged with a trace of fear. "I went off of it."

He grabbed her arm. "You what?" His fingers dug into her skin and she pulled back.

"I went off it," she whimpered. He shook his head, eyes pressed together, the headache gathering strength. "I was hoping..."

Even in that moment of dulled senses, some corner of his mind functioned with lightning clarity. He could read it in her face like a tabloid headline. "I can't believe you!"

She pulled her arm from him. "I thought you'd be happy about this!" Chelsea's forced smile faded, decaying as he glared at her. "Well, OK, I mean, I guess I knew you wouldn't be at first, but Benny, you're going to be a father!"

He gritted his teeth and leaned into her. "You gold-digging tramp!" A flick of his spit hit her face as he spoke.

"I'm going home now," she said, backing away. "When you're sober, we'll talk about it again. And you'll see this is a good thing!"

Benny staggered out to his car after paying the bill. He sat in the driver's seat, with enough sense not to start the engine. As his consciousness faded, he couldn't shake the image of his father's disapproving gaze. He wrapped his arms around himself and passed out with his forehead against the wheel.

-

Benny drove home in a drunken haze, then dropped his clothes to the floor and climbed into bed without turning on the lights. He pulled the blankets around him, resisting the urge to vomit as a multiplicity of sensations flooded his throbbing head.

He drifted to sleep again. His father lurked in the shadows, glaring at him with all the disapproval of the last twenty-four years. Charles and Lara were there as well, basking in the old man's good graces. It weighed down on him, robbing his lungs of breath. His insignificance painted the walls, the ceiling, the air. Lloyd's eyes watched him, wishing he was something else.

In the midst of it all, there she was: a beautiful, helpless, innocent little creature looking up at him as if he were the entire world. She should have been the sun in his sky, the music in his song, but he knew he would break her if he let her be those things. There'd be no more sun, no more music. The world would grow dark and quiet. The child was there but she wasn't, as if she lived in the dream world. She was beyond real, and he knew she would remain there long after he'd awoken.

She had green eyes.

The next morning, he discarded the newspaper he'd been reading as Chelsea arrived and sat beside him at the breakfast table, sucking down a bowl of Rice Krispies as if it was just another day. The infant Queen of Dreams faded from his thoughts as he leveled an icy glare at her.

"This is a good thing. I promise," she said.

"If I were anyone else, you never would have done this."

She sighed, and there had been a time when her sighs aroused him. "But it doesn't matter now, does it? It's for real, and I–"

"I want you to take care of it."

She discarded her spoon into the pool of milk with a hard clatter. "Are you crazy?"

"You're still in school. You'll have to drop out if you go through with it, and I..." He took a deep breath. "Don't expect me to support you."

Her gaze shifted from one of his eyes to the other in rapid succession. "You think I'm trying to get money out of you or something?"

He paused, letting the words hang in the air for a moment, his head still throbbing, and said, "How much?"

Chelsea swept her hand up under the bowl, sending milk and spoon flying across the table.

"Look, I'll take care of it," he said. "And I'll take care of you. But I'm telling you right now, if you go through with it, you're on your own."

"It's illegal! And dangerous."

"Dangerous if you don't have money."

Tears streamed down her cheeks as droplets of milk dripped to the hardwood. She turned away from him, sobbing softly as he stirred sugar into his coffee.

\- - -

Benny turned off of Camden Drive and pulled up to the broad black iron fence emblazoned with a calligraphic _C_ on either side of the entrance. He cruised through the open gate, top down and sun shining in a beautiful blue sky, making the turn into the shade of his grandmother's garden. After she'd died, the family had hired landscape artists to keep it up, but she'd worked it all herself when she was alive. His mother had designed what she called a fruit salad, mixing together flowers of different colors: little pinwheels of reddish orange, thick and white trumpet-shaped blossoms, and beautiful purple flowers with potato-chip petals that he remembered were called anemones. The trees – lush for Southern California – rose above him, and the swaying limbs reminded him of boyhood days, climbing from branch to branch with Charles and Lara, letting his imagination thrive and run amok.

He slowed toward the garage. Lara stood in the driveway, arms crossed, waiting for him in denim shorts and a black sport shirt, sleeves rolled to her elbows, a pair of plastic-framed sunglasses pushing up over the crown of her hair. He grinned at her and hopped out of the car. "Hey!" he greeted, but her posture stiffened as he approached. "What's wrong?"

Her arms dropped and she stepped toward him, her shoes crunching the gravel. "Are you kidding me?"

"You talked to her." It was the only reason he could think of for her to shoot him with that glare.

"How could you do that to her? Or anybody?"

Her voice sounded like their mother's, and he froze in the moment, afraid to lose his composure – dreading looking her in the eye. "What did she tell you?"

"She said you got her pregnant, and then instead of marrying her you made her...you know! And you paid her for it!"

"She went off her birth control on purpose. She didn't want me to know. She was trying to force me to–"

"Why were you with her in the first place?" she asked, jamming a finger at him. "You just broke up with Julia, and you won't even talk about that, and you're already slumming it with someone else! And Chelsea, of all people! I mean, she's my friend and all, but she's got a reputation."

"Gee, I wonder why!" he shouted. "I didn't know, OK? I just thought she was a cute kid. She was in the wrong place at the right time. And I don't know, she made me feel good. She made me forget about Julia and...everything."

Her voice cracked. "I just want to know what's going on with you!"

He looked back at his sister, full of concern and care, and his defenses rose. Part of him wanted to find a confidant in her. But the other part of him couldn't handle her seeing him in that light any more than he could have handled it with his mother.

"Nothing."

Lara shook her head. "The Benny Camden I know would never do these things."

"Well maybe the Benny Camden..." He took a deep breath, uncertain how to end the sentence.

OCTOBER

"Ladies and gentlemen," Johnny Carson suppressed a chuckle. His bright green tie contrasted with the deep blue of his form-fitting suit as he tapped the edge of his desk with his left hand. "Our next guest is making his first appearance here on _The Tonight Show_ , although goodness knows we tried to get him before. I, uh..."

Carson laughed as the audience joined him. Jackie Gleason sat in the adjacent chair, a red carnation in the button hole of his jacket lapel. Jackie shook his head with a helpless chuckle that rattled his gut and said, "I think you owe me an apology!"

"Anyway," Johnny continued, composing himself. "His new movie _Identrix_ comes out Friday night. He's quite a character himself. Benny Camden!"

The band picked up, playing Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" as Benny stepped onto the stage, quite certain his simple black-on-black suit and tie were drab and colorless next to the other two. The crowd offered him applause and cheers – and a few subdued boos. He flashed them a breezy smile before shaking Carson's hand.

"Welcome."

He suddenly had the urge to empty his bladder. Too much tea in the green room. "Hey, Johnny! Jackie."

"Hey, kid!" Jackie said, giving him a gentle hug.

"Now, uh, Benny," Johnny said with a smug grin. "If you've got any candid comments, what do you say we wait for the commercial?"

Benny laughed along with Jackie and everyone else, shaking his head. "Oh, man. Sometimes I wish I could take it all back."

"Well, if anybody can say anything about you, you speak your mind, and that's good."

Benny smoothed his tie without glancing at the crowd. He had a brief rush of anxiety from the last time he'd been on a television stage. "Thanks. I think you owe Jackie an apology."

Johnny winced. "I think you owe me one for parking in my spot!"

"Sorry. Won't happen again."

"Anyway, so what's new in your world?"

Benny crossed his legs. "Well, we've got the new movie coming out Friday."

"Right, and it's another one of those...what's his name, Brock Cobb?"

"Brock Cobb, right. It's a little sappier than the first one. This time instead of a mad scientist, we've got this girl who impersonates people. And she tries to kidnap the President and take over the country."

"Sounds plausible," Johnny commented.

"And of course we have Mary Tyler Moore. My personal favorite."

Johnny swung his finger between Jackie and Benny. "Now the two of you go way back, don't you?"

"Who, Mary or Jackie?"

"Take your pick."

For a moment he remembered sitting on Jackie's lap when he was – he had to have been four or five, and he couldn't recall which of them had made the other laugh harder. Jackie had cracked a zinger about baseball that Benny had repeated for years, and there on the _Tonight Show_ stage he couldn't think of a single word of the joke. "Well, I've known Jackie since I was a kid and he spilled coffee on our rug."

Johnny moved his steaming mug away from them as the audience chuckled. "Good to know."

"I used to come around a lot," Jackie said. "Always saw something in the kid."

"And he tagged around on your coattails, if I recall," Johnny said.

"Still does, apparently!" Jackie said. "Can't seem to get rid of him sometimes."

"Now he did a spot on _American Scene Magazine_ , right?" Johnny asked.

"He showed up on set one day and wouldn't leave until we put him on. At least he didn't park in my space."

"One does one's best," Benny said.

"So you grew up with this guy," Johnny said, pointing at Jackie. "Must have been like having Jack Benny in the house!"

"Do you get paid for jokes like that?" Benny asked.

"This is all I've got, kid! Work with me a little!"

"Well, yeah, he's one of my idols."

"But you were never bitten by the acting bug?"

Benny chuckled. "Well, you know, Johnny, I think it swallowed me whole." The audience chuckled back. "But I don't know, this is where I ended up, and it's not too bad."

Johnny glanced at Jackie. "Didn't you once tell Benny here that he'd be your successor?"

"I said he could be the Great One," Jackie replied. "When I'm rotting in the ground, of course."

"He's got some big shoes to fill, there, Jackie. No offense."

Jackie swatted a hand in Johnny's direction. "Eh, stop being such a wise guy."

"You were engaged to Julia Powell, right?" Johnny asked.

"Yes," Benny said, glancing into his lap. "Didn't work out though."

"That's a shame. She's such a cute kid."

"Yeah." He'd hoped that wouldn't have come up.

"So anybody new?"

Benny grinned. "Yeah, actually." He turned to the audience with a knowing gleam in his eye. "Anybody ever hear of Jasmine Temple?"

"I believe you're referring to the fashion model-slash-nudist colony enthusiast."

"We met a few weeks ago, and well, would you like to meet her?" Benny asked.

The audience cheered with consent, and Benny glanced at Johnny. "She's backstage."

"Well why don't we bring her out? Ladies and gentlemen, Jasmine Temple!"

Jasmine emerged from the curtains to shouts and whistles from most of the men. Her trademark silky brown hair never looked so perfect in a magazine. She paraded herself across the stage and kissed Johnny, then waved to the audience. She kissed Jackie, then Benny, landing between the two of them.

Johnny laughed for a moment as the audience died down. "Well, I, uh...it's too bad Bob Hope took that shrinking ray with him, 'cause I'd love to stick you in my pocket and take you home!"

Jasmine giggled and put her hand on Benny's knee. He grinned with pride at her, then looked back out at the audience as she charmed Johnny. Sitting there beside Jackie reminded him of his mother somehow, and the thrill of the moment faded. He never would have gone for a girl like Jasmine if she were still alive.

\- - -

Spotlights swept the night sky in swooping crisscrossed synchronization. Crowds swarmed the forecourt of the theater beneath the illuminated _Identrix_ posters displayed across the front of the building, everyone hoping to catch a glimpse of this star or that as cars arrived and Hollywood's finest made their entrances for the premiere of Benny Camden's directorial debut. Benny emerged from the family stretch limousine with Jasmine on his arm, cool and confident, playing her part. Flocked by his actors, including the standoffish Julia Powell, Benny led the group as they greeted their friends and fans. Julia gave a pleasant showing, but she kept her distance, never looking him in the eye. But then again, she had never looked him in the eye in moments like these. She wore a shimmering silver gown, cinched at the waist and hanging just above her ankles. Gone was her Fifties hairstyle. She was beautiful.

Max Dewey, the fiercely handsome actor who embodied the dumb-founded charisma of Brock Cobb, flashed his sharp chin and bright grin at her and at the stunning, innocent beauty who portrayed the eponymous _Identrix_ : Mary Tyler Moore.

Beside them and the others, Jasmine posed herself around Benny, giving away somber, sultry glares for the hovering cameras to devour. Her dress hung shorter than anyone else's, and she displayed herself without modesty. "Clothing," she had declared in the interview accompanying her _Playboy_ spread, "is my mask. I want people to know the real me."

Lloyd and Lara sat a good distance away from them as everyone settled in for the movie. Benny detached himself from the simple enjoyment of the event. He valued the premiere because of the chance to experience his work through the eyes of the audience. His attention moved beyond the film, to the reactions of the crowd, paying careful attention to each laugh, to how loud and how long they lasted. He'd developed his analytical viewing during his days at _The Glen Headwood Show_. These observations accounted for much of the comedic improvements in the sequel. And there was no doubt that _Identrix_ , at least in its opening show, entertained them that much more.

At some point, however, his attention drifted to Julia, sitting a few rows in front of him. A dawning sense of emptiness soured his stomach. He turned from her, running his hand over Jasmine's leg and smiling with affection at the new girl in his life.

He snuck a glance at his father for a moment, then settled back in his seat.

\- - -

Henry scooted his chair further inward toward Benny's script for _Mercenary Man_ , which lay on his cluttered desk between his telephone and a few scattered photographs. Among the framed faces smiled June, his ex-wife, gone from his life for fifteen years but still lingering in sterling silver. She was only twenty-two when the picture had been taken, dark hair hanging over her left shoulder, dressed in a flowered shirt and blue overalls. It had always been his favorite picture of her. He didn't know where she was anymore, but with those sheepish eyes, that soft grin, not a day went by when he didn't stop for a moment to look at her.

He nudged the picture to the side and spread his hand over the script. Despite Lloyd's misgivings about the project, Henry couldn't deny the story's compelling narrative or its severe criticism of the war, which he found difficult to debate. He could imagine even the most devoted general second-guessing things after reading this.

_Mercenary Man_ antithesized _Identrix_. Henry could hear Benny's passions and concerns on every page, and yet it still fell short of the boy's capabilities. The tale of the decorated soldier-turned-serial killer raised numerous questions about the morality of not just the Vietnam War but war itself. With all of the muckraking, the script offered no answers. In Henry's estimation, protest had no value without solutions.

Nevertheless, the screenplay was chilling.

A rapping startled him, and before he could respond, the door swung open and Benny sauntered in, clutching a newspaper and beaming with smug pride.

"See the _Times_?" he asked.

"No."

Benny opened up the rumpled article with a smirk. "'If in his last showing he stood somewhat reserved, Brock Cobb has pulled all the comedic stops for his second, and far superior, cinematic outing,'" he crowed, and Henry leaned back in his seat. "Like an awakening, Brock Cobb has embraced his full potential as America's last hope, only hinted at in _Johnny Destructo_ , and exposed the weaknesses of his enemies with near-perfect wit and comic timing."

Henry nodded. "Rockling said it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen."

Benny dropped the review over the _Mercenary Man_ script. "I gotta tell you," he sighed. "There's something to be said for just going for laughs. I mean, sure, we're not going to win any awards or anything, but I could see doing this again."

"I'm reading your new one."

Benny glanced at the half-visible script buried beneath the newspaper. "Not exactly a gut-buster, huh?"

"I don't know if you could get anyone to do it. I mean, it's hard to put down...but it's pretty incendiary. If this was World War I, they'd probably arrest you for treason."

"Pssh," Benny muttered, dismissing the idea with the back of his hand as he sat on the edge of Henry's desk. "Like that would stop me."

"I bet you'd be surprised."

"Oh, Henry," Benny said. "Sometimes you have to lighten up."

"Maybe. But maybe sometimes you need to tone down."

"Believe me, it's toned down already." They sat in silence for a moment. "Want to go out for a drink tonight? Celebrate?"

"Can't," Henry replied. "I'm taking my daughter out to see _Identrix_."

"Ah." Benny picked up a picture from the desk. "This her?"

"That's my Hillary," Henry said. "Would have brought her to the premiere, but she was down in San Diego, working on a class project."

"What's she studying?"

It was the first time Benny had shown any interest in his personal life. "She's trying to get into USC Cinema-TV."

"No kidding?"

"I guess she's following in the old man's footsteps."

Benny put back the frame. "Well good for her. And good for you."

He nodded. "Look, Benny."

"Yeah?"

Henry took a deep breath, glancing out the window. "I guess there's no easy way to say this."

Benny's good humor deflated. "What is it this time?"

"You know I always try to stay out of your way. I know you took your mother's death pretty hard." Benny swallowed, his gaze dropping into his lap as he hung on the edge of the desk. "It's just, if you tell me you're not using anything, I'll believe you."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'd believe that too."

Benny fidgeted, locking and unlocking his fingers. "I just...sometimes I need a little kick."

Henry's hand was on the _Mercenary Man_ script, and he wondered how clear Benny's mind had been when he'd written it.

"Come on, I'm not an addict or anything, you know?"

"If you say so."

Benny's eyes shifted with repentant pleading. "Look, please don't tell Dad. That'd be the last thing I need."

Henry regarded the young man before him, so full of passion and potential, surrounded in a cloud of smoke and uncertainty. "I won't say anything."

"Thanks. You're the best."

DECEMBER

"You're under the mistletoe!" Lara giggled, clapping. "Kiss, kiss, kiss!"

Douglas and Katherine Ferring exchanged a peck as they stepped into the warmth of the mansion foyer. Lara hugged her aunt and uncle while Lloyd took their coats. Katherine had the Camden brow, sharp, casting her eyes in shadows. All of Lloyd's siblings had it. She and her husband Douglas were the only relatives still involved in running the family's business empire, though all the siblings still had small stakes. Douglas Ferring had been on the board of Camden Enterprises since their engagement.

"Everyone else is in the Green Room," Lloyd said. "Go on and make yourself at home."

"Biggest tree yet!" Katherine said, marveling at the evergreen tower of tinsel in the center of the foyer. "Trying to show up Dad?"

"Always!" Lloyd replied as the Ferrings followed Lara into the recesses of the old family house. He passed their things to the butler and peeked into the parlor, where Benny and Jasmine cuddled, alone. Lloyd gave no voice to the shock of finding Jasmine on his son's lap, their lips locked and their hands digging underneath each other's clothes.

"Ahem," he grunted, and they separated with childish smirks. "Benny, you and your...you and Jasmine..." He didn't look them in the eye. "We're moving to the Green Room."

Benny cocked his fingers like a pistol and winked. "Gotcha, Dad."

-

Lloyd lingered for a moment as Jasmine climbed out of Benny's lap, then he disappeared into the hallway. Benny rose, taking her hand as they left the parlor behind them.

"Why is it called the Green Room?" she asked.

"Burton Green, he's the guy who founded Beverly Hills, back in the day. Grandpa did up the room in kind of a tribute. They were pals."

"That'd be neat to see."

He shrugged. "Mom kind of rethought it. Took it a bit more literally."

They found the gathered clan, Camdens and Westons, chatting and festive around the sleek marble fireplace, in front of the backdrop of what Virginia had accomplished with so many similar shades. "How beautiful!" Jasmine said.

Benny didn't reply. Everything about the room reminded him of his mother.

They found a place among aunts, uncles, and cousins. He looked up to find Lara's face etched with a sad but peaceful smile. Benny knew that, like him, she could feel Virginia's absence more than any holiday cheer.

A slender, silver-haired woman came in with a tray of finger foods, garnering several curious glances from everyone. "Who's that?" Jasmine asked.

"Gladys, the cook."

"Why's everybody looking at her funny?"

He smiled politely at Gladys as she passed. "When my dad and his brothers and sisters were growing up, they had a cook, maids, you know, the whole shebang. But ever since Mom and Dad took over the house, it's just been the family. Mom did it all."

Before the unwrapping of gifts, Lara stood up, holding their mother's Bible, and read aloud the Christmas story. Lloyd and Benny locked eyes at one point as she read. It had been Virginia's role, and somehow it was sacrilegious to hear anyone else reading those words. Benny wiped a tear from his eye as Lara sat.

Lloyd disrupted the moment of somber silence, clapping his hands together with a wide grin. "All right, let's open some presents!"

As wrapping paper flew, Benny sat in silence, watching his father rip open a box. The quick progression tightened a knot in his stomach. His father was able to put the family's pain out of his mind like the flip of a switch. Benny rubbed his hand over an unopened package.

"Hey," Jasmine whispered into his ear, leaning back. "You all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Benny." They looked up as Lara knelt, holding a slender box wrapped in golden paper. "This is from Mom."

He blinked at the shimmering cube. "What?"

"She did her Christmas shopping early this year."

He held it delicately, afraid to damage it. Jasmine stroked his back as Lara retook her seat. With shaking fingers, he lifted the tag.

For My Great One – Love, Mom.

He tore the paper and removed the lid. From within, he lifted two silk handkerchiefs and a silver cigarette lighter. All three were engraved or embossed with his initials. _BWC_.

Those three letters blurred as wet warmth spilled down his cheeks. He gasped, the sound escaping his throat before he had a chance to hold it back. The conversation in the room died out, all eyes on him.

"Virginia got a gift for Julia, too," Lloyd said with a snicker. "Guess it doesn't matter much now."

Everyone turned to Lloyd with silent stares. Benny glared, the disapproval itching like fleas. Lara's eyes darted from father to brother and back again. Lloyd sat there, almost waiting for a reply. Benny felt Jasmine's hand on his back, but every other sense blurred.

"What'd you say?"

"I'm just saying she went to all that trouble, and you didn't even–"

"Fuck you, Dad!" he shouted amidst a collective gasp. He rose, quivering, leaving Jasmine seated alone. "Don't you say another word about her! You barely even shed a tear!"

"At least I know how to respect her memory."

"Dad," Lara whimpered.

"You don't even know..." Benny began, his cheeks growing hot. "You didn't deserve her! She was worth a million of you!"

"I won't allow you to speak to me that way, Benjamin."

"I'll speak to you any way I damn well please! You never..." He curled his fingers into a fist and squeezed. "Why couldn't it have been you, Dad?"

"Benny!" Lara cried, the only other person able to speak. Lloyd just glared at him, the two of them breathing in rhythm.

Benny covered his face for a moment, not believing he'd actually said it, then took Jasmine by the hand and pulled her up beside him. "You wish I could have died instead of Charles? Well I wish you died instead of Mom!" He glanced at his gathered relatives, then at Lara, then took one last look at Lloyd. "You think I'm hurting the family? I don't need you or your fucking name!"

Then, without giving himself a moment for regret, he clasped Virginia's present in one hand, and Jasmine's hand in the other, and left without a last glimpse at the rest of them.

-

Benny's friends threw a Christmas party that evening at the Castle, a swanky fifteen-floor hotel in the heart of Beverly Hills, owned by the Camdens. Benny and Jasmine showed up to the event, ballroom dripping with holly and ivy, Dean Martin's crooning coming from the sound system while Dean himself lounged by the massive glass doors, martini in hand. Benny passed out greetings and pleasantries, offering clammy handshakes and ignoring the looks everyone gave him.

It didn't take him long to make it to the bar, where he ordered the most expensive Scotch they had, and not by name. He glanced out at the festivities, a few concerned eyes looking back. Jasmine kept her distance, and as Nat King Cole replaced Dean Martin from the speakers, Benny felt the soothing warmth of his drink, the glass steady in his grip.

He saw Mary Tyler Moore watching him from across the room, chatting with Richard Donner, and as Benny popped a piece of ice back in with the others, she excused herself and made her way over to the bar.

"Well well, if it isn't Happy Hotpoint!" Benny raised his glass to her.

"I'd say you look like hell, but why state the obvious?" she asked, ignoring his remark and signaling the bartender for a drink.

He rattled his fingers against the wood. "It's even a cold Christmas in Hell."

Mary surveyed him. "First one without your mom?"

He pressed his lips together with disgust and shook his head. "Nope. Last one with my dad."

Worry flashed in her eyes. "What happened?" The bartender dropped off her drink while Benny took a strong sip of his.

Sixteen years earlier, Christmas 1950, Benny had received a shiny red Schwinn New World. His parents told him only to ride it around the driveway and to stay away from the garden, but he had slipped through the front gates to cruise down Camden Drive at top speed, no coat despite the frosty air, just as any boy with a new bicycle would do. He'd hit a rock and the bike popped up, throwing him forward to the concrete. He'd shredded the skin from his knee and elbow, rolling quickly to a stop. His mother had brought him in and cleaned his wounds, blowing on the stinging knee, gently dabbing it with gauze and alcohol. He was eight, trying to hide the pain, but she'd touched his cheek and kissed his forehead.

His father grounded him for going onto the street. He never saw the bike again.

"I'm done with him! He doesn't want a son like me, he doesn't have to have one. I sure as hell don't need a father like him."

"I'm sure he didn't mean whatever it was he said," she replied. "He just, he just doesn't get you."

"He didn't deserve her," he said, turning to Mary and losing himself for a moment in the chestnut hair tracing the sides of her face. "My mother was a queen." He drained the glass and wiped the stray drops from his mouth with his sleeve.

"I know you love him. You told me so, remember? Remember that night?"

He looked into her brown eyes with his broken ones. "I remember every moment I've ever spent with you."

She glanced across the room at her husband. "You know you can't say things like that. It's not that you're not sweet, and I know you mean it. And you know I'd do anything for you, but you can't say those things."

He nodded, swallowing a painful gulp. "Sorry. Force of habit."

"Do you want me to talk to your dad?"

He shook his head. "No, 'cause he's not my dad. Not anymore."

"Benny."

"I don't owe that man anything, you know? I don't owe him a damn thing. All we share is blood. We don't even have to share a name!"

"You're drunk."

He slammed his glass down and stood, the clouds in his mind beginning to part. "I'm not even tipsy. I'm serious about this. This is for real!" He took a deep breath, and for the first time all day, he smelled the fresh pine in the air. "I'm not his son. Not anymore. I'm her son, and her son only."

Mary searched his face, and he knew he must have sounded crazy. "How can you say that?"

"Easy," he replied. "From now on, my name is Weston."

"Benny..."

"Mary, I'm Weston now."

He pulled her close and hugged her, as intimately as he dared, kissing her cheek before she could pull away. Then he stepped back from her, longing. If only.

He rejoined Jasmine and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

-

The Castle was deserted and the party was over, and they returned to his beach house in near silence. Jasmine slept soundly in the bedroom as he sat in the dark, tree lights twinkling in the corner. He fumbled into the back of the drawer in his wet bar. He set the small tin on the counter, prying off the blue lid and carefully plucking out the last of the acid he and Jasmine had picked up on a weekend trip to San Francisco. He slipped the blotter paper under his tongue and sunk into his comfy chair.

They were playing his favorite movie, _Modern Times_. Charlie Chaplin was half a world away, but in the late night hours, he could still see the man. As Charlie battled the machines, he watched the antics in tinny black and white, pressing his lips tightly on the edge of a joint and filling his mouth with its warmth.

All was calm. All was bright.

As Charlie and Paulette Goddard strolled off into silhouette, toward the horizon, and the film faded to black, he shut off the set and put on the radio. He lost himself in those little multicolored lights, poorly illuminating the red and green glass balls, the smaller blue ones, the shimmering drippings of silver tinsel. He inhaled deeply, his shoulders lifting, edges of his mouth curving up. He listened to the soothing voices of Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, remembering the joys of Christmases past and trying not to think about Christmases future.

Something had changed. He didn't know what, or how, and he only partly understood why. But on that silent night, when children were nestled all snug in their beds, he just wanted to float.

He laughed, and visions of sugarplums danced in his head.

The clock struck twelve. Christmas was over.

Weston closed his eyes.
Part II

Weston
1969

MARCH

Hillary Louden sat in the passenger seat as her father drove. She pushed a hand beneath her legs to straighten out the ruffles in the deep blue taffeta gown that she'd worn to every wedding she'd attended in the last five years. Henry sported the same tuxedo he put on for everything. Normally this sort of attire meant riding in a limousine, not a Ford. He'd put down the driver's-side window, and she held her other hand to her head to protect her hair as a breeze flushed through the car.

"Do you think twenty-one is too young to get married?"

Henry's eyebrow arched. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

"No, I'm talking about Lara."

"Maybe. At least she's got a good guy."

"He's all right, I guess," she replied.

"You disapprove?"

She shrugged, remembering when Lara had first introduced her new beau. She'd dragged him to a sorority sisters' night out to see _Thoroughly Modern Millie_. The girls cracked up through the whole movie, and he'd fallen asleep. "Andrew can be a little boring." But he did have some good stories, even if he told them with such disdain. The latest was when he and Lara had shown up to a dinner for four to find his brother-in-law-to-be waiting for them, not with his wife but with another woman – no, Andrew had specifically spat out the word _girl_. They sat in silence for a moment as a question gestated inside her. "So, I guess you-know-who's going to be there?"

Henry glanced at her, and she saw a flicker of reservation. "I'd be surprised if he wasn't." She didn't respond, just watched the scenery and greenery pass. "I'm sure he'll be on his best behavior."

"Hmm."

"I just hope they cut him a break, at least today."

A spire shot out against the afternoon blue as they pulled into a line of cars entering the church parking lot. Hillary checked her reflection in the side mirror. "Hmm."

-

Lloyd finished pinning his boutonniere to his lapel as he arrived at Lara's dressing room. His footsteps fell heavy on the thin carpet as he pulled down on the edges of his jacket and straightened himself before he knocked. He heard his daughter's muffled voice. "Come in."

Lara turned to face him as he cracked the door. Surrounded in floor-length mirrors, he saw about five of her. Her open-toed shoes peeked out from beneath the heavy chiffon of Virginia's wedding gown. The full sleeves of white lace were loose and light, a single white rose the center of the corsage on her left wrist. She grinned at him with nervous excitement, and to Lloyd it could have been her first day of school, her first violin recital, or her first lost tooth.

"I've never seen anything so beautiful in my whole life."

"Not even Mom?" she asked.

"You almost look like she did."

Lara twirled, arms stretched like wings. "You think?"

An image of Virginia on their wedding day sprang to mind – giggling with glee as she'd looked up at him through her veil. "I am so proud of you, Lara Camden. I guess in a few minutes, you'll be Lara Elvin."

She took a deep breath. "So they tell me."

Lloyd seldom cried, but seeing his daughter standing there in his wife's wedding gown, so adult and so lovely, he couldn't contain himself. "I'm so glad I get to be here to see this."

"Dad..."

"Sorry. Sorry. I just wish I wasn't the only one."

She looked into his eyes, pleading with her own. "You know he's coming."

"I know."

"Please, please be nice. At least today."

"I will. I promise."

She lingered for a moment before breaking into a gush of energy. "I can't believe I'm about to get married!"

He stepped back into the hallway moments later. _And the Camden name goes with you, Lara_ , he thought.

-

Andrew Elvin shifted from foot to foot in a room full of groomsmen. He blew upward to cool his perspiring forehead as he watched himself fumble with his tie in the mirror. He'd had to wear bow ties twice before – for his senior formal and the one ninth-grade orchestra recital he'd played in before abandoning the violin for basketball. Both had been pre-tieds.

The best man, Stuart York, stepped up behind him, admiring their reflections and patting Andrew on the shoulders. "Relax, man," he said. "I already checked with Dr. Schultz. They're not going to start until you fix that thing."

"If that's supposed to lighten me up, try harder."

Stuart finished the job himself. "What are you so uptight about? Isn't this supposed to be the happiest day of your life or some shit?" Andrew had popped the best man question two days after proposing to Lara. He'd known Stuart since sophomore year of college, when everyone in their advertising project group had abandoned them and Stuart had stepped in and done all the research himself. Andrew had always made sure to have Stuart on his team from then on.

"I think the happiest day was when she said yes. This is torture."

Stuart pulled the knot tight. "Well then, my friend, welcome to Hell." Andrew turned to inspect the bow, humorless. "Oh come on! This is a good day. You're acting like you're dressing for a funeral."

"It's not like that."

"Cold feet?"

Andrew had been too nervous to eat breakfast, and his stomach kept reminding him of it. "I just hope I don't say the wrong thing, or screw anything up."

"What could possibly go wrong?"

"Isn't that what the captain of the _Titanic_ said?" Andrew asked.

Stuart slapped him. "There he is! See? Nothing to worry about!"

"Nothing to worry about," Andrew repeated to his reflection.

-

Hillary and Henry sat together on the bride's side. She perused the program for the tenth time and glanced for the eleventh at the two empty seats to the left of her father. The rest of Lara's family sat in the first few rows, and those vacant spaces drew more of her attention than anything else. Each minute that passed, her pulse quickened again and again. All the major rumors echoed in her head: the drugs, the open marriage, getting kicked out of Haight-Ashbury for indecent exposure. Not to mention the things he'd said about his father in _Playboy_.

She heard the commotion from the back at first, then it trickled through the whole place. Every head turned in order, like dominoes falling in voyeuristic curiosity, and as she joined them, she already knew what she would see.

Weston stood at the rear sanctuary entrance, dressed in some sort of tie-dyed tuxedo, his long hair pulled back behind his ears. On his arm was his wife, Yvette Coco Guesde Weston, the infamous French model-turned-actress. Yvette's jet black hair was thick, with the perfect hint of curl, hanging just past her bare, tanned shoulders. Her blue eyes sparkled as if lit from within, and even after all the time of wondering whether Weston would be there, it was difficult not to stare at his wife. She'd appeared in every magazine from _Newsweek_ to _Penthouse_. Hillary watched them stride up the aisle, led by a nervous usher, every eye and whispering lip following their movements.

"I can't believe he actually showed his face!"

"She was with Don Peters the whole weekend. Alone."

"Did you see _Sinner's Eclipse?_ I couldn't believe they even showed that filth in theaters!"

"I heard he bought them a Mercedes for a wedding gift."

"It was acid, I think. He got off on some technicality. It figures."

"Did you see _The Tonight Show_ last week? He was hilarious!"

"No, that's not it – they call him the Great One. Yeah, like Gleason. No, I don't think it's sacrilegious!"

-

"Head's up, guys," Andrew said as his friends gathered for a glimpse. "He's here."

None of them had ever seen Weston in person before, and they gawked with all the fascination warranted by some exotic zoo exhibit, peeking through the cracked doorway of the groom's room to the right of the pulpit.

"What the hell is he wearing?" one of them asked.

"I don't know," Stuart said, "but somehow he pulls it off."

Andrew turned to them, realizing in the moment that he had picked five groomsmen who were taller than he was. "Remember, I'm counting on you guys to make sure he doesn't cause any more problems than he's already causing right now."

-

Henry stood as the usher stopped beside the adjacent empty seats. Hillary sat rigid, facing forward. Everyone she could see watched as Weston smiled, his wife ignoring the onlookers with grace.

"Henry Louden," he breathed, offering a hand. "My old friend."

Hillary knew her dad risked pariah status in taking that hand, but he did it anyway. "Weston," he said, cordial but uneven.

"You remember Yvette?" He was personable, as if a roomful of eyes and ears didn't follow his every move and word.

Hillary turned her head just enough to see her father offering the woman his hand, which she escalated into a tender hug. "Henry," she said with the most delicate voice Hillary had ever heard. She must have trained herself to speak with so much air.

The usher left Weston and Yvette beside Henry, beaming in modesty. Hillary's heart fluttered as her father turned, gesturing in her direction. "I don't think you've met my daughter." Time froze as Weston's eyes crossed hers, and in a way she couldn't quite describe, her world was undone.

"It's so nice to finally meet you," he said, offering her a hand, which she accepted despite the stares. "I'm Weston, and this is my wife Yvette."

She nodded, blushing. "I'm Hillary."

"Hillary," he repeated, letting go of her fingers. "It's a pleasure."

With that, her father and his guests took their seats, and she felt the fixed attentions of the rest of the room dissipating. Weston sported a red rose boutonniere that she hadn't noticed until he was beside them. It was lost in the bright swirls of color he wore. She couldn't imagine where he might have found that tuxedo, if he hadn't created it himself.

-

Standing in the wings, nervous and exhilarated, Lara received a message:

"Your brother's here."

For the first time in over two years, she was about to see her family together.

-

Stuart stood beside Andrew, looking out over the guests from the front of the chapel. Weston's attire was a rainbow shark fin in a sea of relative uniformity. Stuart could feel the groom's excitement in the flare of his nostrils, the quickening of his breath. The bridesmaids moved up the aisle, pretty enough, and then there was Lara, face glowing behind her veil, ready to declare to the world that she loved Andrew and would spend her life with him. All things considered, Andrew was a lucky guy.

Everyone stood as she walked to the front on the arm of Lloyd Camden, a man that scared the hell out of all the groomsmen. Stuart didn't envy his friend such a father-in-law. Lara arrived at the front of the church and took Andrew's arm as their guests resumed their seats. Stuart stood beside the groom, proud as he'd ever been, and resisted the urge to sneak another peek back at that colorful speck in the crowd.

-

Hillary risked it. She glanced past her father and saw tears in the eyes of the man one journalist had described as the "great American desensitizer." She'd seen his work, she knew as much as any stranger could about him, and yet the tears in his eyes spoke volumes of contradiction.

Yvette's hand was in his, wrist wrapped in a red rose corsage that matched his boutonniere.

-

Lara and Andrew walked down the aisle as man and wife to the bursting music of an organ benediction. Stuart took the arm of the maid of honor and followed in step with her, down the burgundy carpet and between the pews. As he passed that certain row, he turned in the direction of the Camden family outcast, and Weston looked back, smiling beside that unbelievably sexy wife of his.

-

The reception hall was filled with natural light from two wide windows on the north and south side, but Hillary would have hardly noticed with all the strings of bright bulbs draped across the ceiling in between the chandeliers, one over each of the white tablecloths spread throughout the place. Name cards at each seat surrounded centerpieces of red roses, white tulips, and a few other flowers Hillary didn't know. A different photograph of Andrew and Lara sat in front of each centerpiece, facing the dance floor.

Hillary moved from table to table, searching the cards for her assigned seat. She froze in her steps when she found her name on the card beside the wedding's most infamous guest. It made sense that he wouldn't be sitting with his family, but she wondered how he'd ended up next to her. Quietly, she slipped into her chair, eyeing the rest of the table's occupants and wishing her father would hurry up and join them.

Weston whispered back and forth with his wife. Meals were served, and her dad still hadn't come. She swiveled to see the rest of the room, wishing she were sitting anywhere else, and when she turned back she found Weston facing her.

"So, Hillary, I understand you're at USC."

She glanced at Yvette and swallowed a juicy bite of tomato. "Yes. Until May anyway."

"Graduating?"

She nodded. "Lara and I are the same year."

"What then?"

Hillary reached for her water glass and tapped it with the side of her hand by accident. It tipped over, coming down slow on the weight of the stem, but Weston caught it before anything had spilled. She wanted to kick herself for being such a klutz. "I'm hoping to get into, well, your program."

He grinned, so natural and normal compared to the image he held in the public eye. "I'm only a guest lecturer."

"I know," she said. They lingered, waiting for more. "I hear you're good."

"I hear you are too," he replied. "Your dad raves about you."

Those soft probing eyes chipped away at her discomfort. "Well, he's biased."

"Have you always been interested in film?" Yvette asked, leaning in on her elbows. Hillary really believed they were interested.

"I think when I started, I just wanted to find a husband." She didn't know why it felt so natural to talk to these people. "Typical, right?"

"I did the same thing, honey," Yvette said with her airy French accent. "Worked for me!"

Hillary had noticed. "Well, it feels silly to say. Especially since..." She looked from one of them to the other. "OK, I don't want to sound like a gushing fan or anything, but I started getting into film, and you kind of, you kind of inspired me to make a go of it."

"One does one's best."

"At first it was Hitchcock, but yeah, when I saw _Mercenary Man_ , I knew I wanted to do what you do."

"I think that's great," Yvette said. "Study hard?"

"Top of the class." Tied for it, anyway.

"Has your dad mentioned Westonwood?" he asked, and she shook her head. "I'm not surprised. Yvette and I started a company. We're trying to break away from the studio system, go out on our own, make things fresh."

"Can you really do that?" she asked.

"We're doing it now," Weston replied. "There's a guy actually, he's coming up out of USC. Do you know George Lucas?"

"Sure," she replied.

"Lucas and Francis Coppola, they're doing the same thing. We're looking for people. So if you want, we'd love to see some of your work."

"Yes!" She tried her best not to shout. "When?"

He didn't get a chance to answer the question.

"Benny?"

The voice knotted Hillary's stomach as she joined the others in turning to the newcomer. Chelsea Blythe stood there, not dressed for a wedding. She didn't give Hillary or Yvette a look as her accusing eyes bored into Weston. "Chelsea." His voice rang with an odd passivity. "What are you doing here?"

"I wasn't invited," she replied. "Because of you."

He shifted in his seat. "Sorry."

"Well, I came anyway. After you cut me out, I figure what better place to track you down than in front of your friends and family!" She shouted the last word, garnering interested looks from the surrounding tables.

"Come on, it's been three years."

Chelsea crossed her arms and tapped her foot, then gestured at Yvette with her head. "That your wife?"

"I am," Yvette said, inching closer to him, eyes fixed on the intruder.

"Does she know what you did to me?"

Hillary cringed, but Yvette looked quite comfortable. "She knows the gist of it," he said, betraying neither regret nor apathy.

"So she knows how you seduced me, got me pregnant, forced me to have an abortion?"

By now half of the room sat watching, murmuring together at this accusation. Hillary searched for the bride and groom, and she found them both looking on with the others, Lara clutching at Andrew's sleeve.

The best man appeared behind Chelsea and touched her arm. "All right, let's all calm down here."

"Get your hands off me! This isn't any of your business!"

The best man glanced at the table of people he had come to rescue. "It is today, honey. See, my best buddy just got married, and you're kind of killing the atmosphere."

She seethed. "I'm not leaving until I say what I came to say!"

"I think you already have," the best man said.

She stood there in silence, and when she turned to Lara, across the room, so did everyone else.

"Look, you're upset, I get it. But this isn't the place to deal with it. And anyway," he eyed Weston, "I think you've said enough." He gestured to the door. "Why don't we go outside, and you can say whatever you want. To me. I think our man here already knows what you think."

She didn't look at Weston again, or anyone else. As soon as the two of them disappeared out the door, the gathered crowd resumed its chatter.

"All right, all right!" a voice rang from the speakers. "Let's keep things moving! Can we get the bride and groom up here for the first dance?"

Lara and Andrew resumed center stage, but more than a few guests still seemed fixated on what had just happened. Weston turned back to the table in silence, glancing down at his plate.

Yvette kissed his cheek. "Don't let her get to you, baby," she said.

He tried to smile. "No, it's OK. She has a right to be upset."

"You never told me you seduced her." It was an observation, not a question or an accusation.

"I guess I don't remember it that way. She's probably right."

Hillary's pulse thudded as she mustered her courage. "No, she's not." She thought back to the tiki torches, the mounds of sand, Lara's giveaway seashell necklaces. "I was there that night, the night you brought Frankie Avalon over. I saw her come on to you. I saw her leading you away." It was awkward enough admitting she'd been watching him, and even more so mentioning it in front of his wife.

"There, you see?" Yvette replied with a carefree smile. "It wasn't your fault."

Weston glanced at Hillary again with a small shrug, then swiveled to watch Andrew and Lara. "I think I'm going to go dance with my sister."

The women watched him saunter through the crowd. "Is he all right?" Hillary asked.

Yvette grinned. "He'll be fine. Trust me, sweetie, that was pretty tame."

-

Lloyd saw his son approaching in that hideous dinner jacket, and as many times as he'd imagined seeing him again, he ignored his distaste of the clothes and concentrated on the man. Benjamin's hair had grown out, thick and wild and free, striking a passing resemblance to Virginia's as it hung at his shoulders, no longer pulled back behind his ears as it had been during the ceremony. The song ended and they stood together in awkward silence. Lara embraced her brother with a gasp. "I'm so glad you're both here!"

"Yeah," Weston said.

"Benjamin, it's good to see you." Lloyd knew his son didn't need any further embarrassment.

"Think I could get a dance with the bride?" Weston's gaze shifted around the room, landing everywhere but on Lloyd.

"Absolutely," Lloyd said, letting go of her.

Weston took Lara's hand as the next song began, and Lloyd stepped back as the band kicked off a soft, slow rendition of "Can't Help Falling in Love," the piano taking the lead. He watched his son and daughter move slowly across the shiny black tile of the dance floor, more shifting across the floor than dancing, and he wished he could hear what they were saying. Lara beamed at him, and if the bride didn't care about his gaudy taste in clothes, then nobody should. Andrew was on the far side, the best man whispering in his ear, and he glared at Weston with all the subtlety of a spotlight. Lloyd recognized that glare and wondered how many times he'd given his son the same disdain. But Benjamin was there now, with Lara in his arms, and something inside Lloyd ached.

-

Everyone cheered as Andrew and Lara Elvin climbed into their new Mercedes and sped away to their honeymoon. Yvette tugged on Weston's sleeve, eager to leave and save him any more embarrassment. "One minute," he said, scanning the crowd. "There's something I need to do." She followed him across the room to where the groomsmen were collecting their things. Someone nudged the best man, and he rose from his seat as they approached.

"Hey," Weston breathed. "I just wanted to thank you. For saving my ass earlier."

"Nothing personal, but I think you know our boy Andrew isn't your biggest fan."

"Yeah, I got the general idea."

The best man grinned. "I like a little entertainment as much as the next guy, but if I were you, I wouldn't let this kind of thing happen again. Get my drift?"

"I get it. I just wanted you to know I appreciated it."

"Don't worry about it. I don't believe half of what she says. The other half, I got a funny feeling about."

"I didn't get your name."

The best man shook his hand. "Stuart York."

"I'm Weston."

"That you are," he replied. "And you don't disappoint."

MAY

Yvette went over the previous day's mail, sitting in one of their new patio chairs and sipping black coffee as the sun moved another inch into the morning sky. A vase of fresh Stargazer lilies brightened the round glass table, and she pushed aside the electric bill and the latest issue of _Variety_ , picking up the mail from the office. She sunk her teeth into a slice of blood orange, flipping through the letters until she came to the last, a light blue envelope with the marks of heavy handling. Addressed to _Weston,_ no return address. A woman's handwriting, from the looks of it. She slid her letter opener in and tore through the seal.

Breakfast finished, she crept into the study, where Weston sat at his pristine desk, poised over Momaday's _House Made of Dawn_. She leaned in and nipped the back of his ear with her tongue.

"You've got another stalker, darling," she said, dropping the light blue envelope in his lap.

"Who's this one?" he asked without touching it.

"Some young twenty-something."

"Pictures?"

"Three. No clothes. She's your type, too."

He wrapped his arm around her and slipped his hand beneath her blouse as the letter dropped to the floor. "Do tell."

"I've got something for you."

He grinned. "I have to leave in twenty minutes."

"Not like that. A present."

He marked his page and tossed his book onto the desk with a simple stretch as he leaned back to share a kiss with her. "Well, all right."

She led him out onto the covered deck of their Malibu house. The faint smell of the lilies hit her nostrils. A large package, thin and flat and almost as wide as her arm span, leaned against a chair, sealed inside thick, heavy brown paper. "What's this?" he asked.

"I saw you eyeing it at the gallery. And I think it would look gorgeous over the buffet."

He sat and pulled apart the wrapping to reveal a large print of a painting with a woman lying face-up on her bed, her black-stockinged legs dangling over the side. "It's a Toulouse-Lautrec."

"It's called _Alone_ ," she said, snuggling her chin onto his shoulder. "And it's a reminder that you never will be again."

"I like your taste." Her nerves came alive as he slipped his tongue back into her mouth for a moment.

She purred. "Sure you have to go?"

He glanced at his watch and relinquished his gift. "Yeah, I need to be getting ready. Have you looked at the tape yet?"

"No."

"Check it out if you have time. It's pretty hip stuff."

"I will, I promise," she replied. "I've got a meeting with Janet later. Free for a late lunch?"

"Just come on out when you're finished."

Yvette brought the art back inside the house. As she passed his desk, and the discarded letter on the floor, a photograph hung in the torn opening. A girl lay on a blanket, draped in a shiny black sheet, her naked breasts perky and delicious.

She put the envelope on top of _House Made of Dawn_ and went to hang the painting.

\- - -

Hillary walked across the stage and shook the chancellor's hand as the crowd applauded her. She'd thought it would just be a formality, a routine, but as she stepped down again, an uncertain panic gripped her. The ritual lasted only seconds, and she took her seat again, overwhelmed with a horrifying thought: _Now what am I supposed to do?_

"I'm free!" she exclaimed as she removed her mortarboard and hugged her father.

"Your mother would have been so proud of you," one of her uncles told her. Not that Hillary would know – her mother had run out on them when she was a child, and it hadn't occurred to her until then to even think about her absence.

"Hill!" a girlfriend called. "We need you for the pictures!"

"In a sec!"

"I'm sure you have lots of plans," Henry said. "But I hope you have time for dinner later."

"Of course. You've been talking about it for weeks. I got the hint," she said.

"There she is!"

Henry looked past her, his eyes lacing with confusion. Hillary turned with surprise as Weston and Yvette joined the group. Yvette hugged her like an old friend. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks," she stammered, eyeing Weston with caution and excitement. She first thought perhaps he had come to see Lara graduate, but that had been in an earlier ceremony. "What are you doing here, though? Shouldn't you be out celebrating with your family?" As soon as the words passed her lips, she realized. "Er, I mean..."

"Weston. Good to see you." Henry shook his hand.

"Good to see you too." He turned his eyes to Hillary. "And to answer your question, we came for you! To see you graduate."

"Thanks!" She didn't care one bit whether that made any sense to her.

"We saw your tape," Yvette said.

"You actually watched it?"

Weston was looking past them, down the hallway toward the stage she'd just crossed. "I remember when I graduated here. Both times. It was so exciting and terrifying. Knowing I had something to offer the world but wondering if anybody'd give a damn about it."

"Right." He had just described the last twenty-two years of her life.

Weston glanced at her family. "Listen, I don't want to hold up your festivities. Just one little thing and we'll be out of your hair."

"You don't have to go," she said, not looking at the others, knowing they would disapprove.

"We don't mean to intrude. But after you've got the celebrating out of you, we'd very much like to see you again. Maybe for a drink or coffee, or something."

She knew her father would have reservations despite his strained friendship with the man, but she looked up into Weston's beckoning smile and nodded. "I'd love it."

\- - -

Hillary punched her time card to finish her afternoon hosting shift at Broussard's and made a stop in the restroom, brushing a few stray crumbs from her black dress. She slid her hands down her body, straightening everything out as she studied her reflection in the mirror. She ran a fresh coat of red against her lips, kissing the air. Purse in hand, she stepped from the bright restroom lights into the dim mellow of the back area of the restaurant, the secluded seating that they only used on crowded weekend nights, or at the occasional request of VIPs. One such VIP sat alone at a table, a half-empty Caesar salad pushed to the side, watching her approach.

"Finally off?" Weston asked.

"Yep yep." She felt the blush on her cheek as she said it. Of all the sophisticated ways of answering a question from such a man, she'd gone with the stupid phrase that had shown up in her vocabulary back in the sixth grade and had never quite gone away.

He rose, holding his tie against his shirt, and she slipped into the chair opposite him.

"Order something. It's on me," he said as they both settled into their seats.

"Oh no!" she replied. "That's all right."

"At least a drink."

"Well, OK. Thank you very much."

She ordered a glass of house red, but Weston changed it to a bottle of Bordeaux. No one had ever specified a year when ordering for her before. Hillary felt her blush ripen almost to the color of the wine. Her taste buds tingled as she sipped; she'd never had a better glass.

"Yvette and I both watched your tape. Several times, in fact."

"And?"

"Believe me, I know what kind of work comes out of USC. I won't lie to you and say that I thought it was the scariest thing I'd ever seen. But you treated it with such care. You have a real eye for composition. You never used the angles I would have used, but they worked anyway. They gave it a surreal quality."

"Originally it was all going to be a dream," she said. "I was trying to make it feel that way."

"And I studied that thing to try and figure out how you made the shapeshifting scene so realistic."

She took a sip of Bordeaux, hoping he couldn't see her pride. "And?"

He leaned back in his seat. "I'm stumped."

"Stop motion."

"Seriously?"

"Took two weeks to get those fifteen seconds." And a bottle of caffeine pills.

"You've got the spark."

"Thanks."

"How would you like a job?" His face was unassuming, honest. Several things rushed through her mind in an instant. She thought of the rumors and scandal surrounding him, and how she might get drawn into it if she stood by his side. She thought of how her friends would envy her. But most of all, she thought of how much she admired and respected him, as an artist if not as a man. Rumors aside, he was no monster, at least not on the few occasions they'd spent together.

"Seriously?"

"Come work with us at Westonwood," he said. "We're doing interesting things there, great things in a way. And it's always been a dream of mine to help other talented people succeed."

"I, uh..." Her concern about his reputation fought for a voice. "I'm planning to go to film school."

"That's great! Fantastic!"

"I don't know if I'd be able to do both."

"You can. And I think you will. If you want to learn to cook, do you go to a classroom or do you go to a kitchen?"

-

Hillary jumped up from the bricks of the fireplace that had never been used in all the years since her father bought the house. She'd kept silent that afternoon, letting her secret percolate inside her until she saw him. He had to be the first she told. Henry dropped his keys in the bowl by the front door. "What are you doing here?"

She gushed with excitement as she approached him, feeling the soft carpet through her socks. "I have news. Like crazy insane news."

The crow's feet around Henry's eyes expanded and contracted as he slipped his coat from his shoulders. He knew where she'd been that day – he had to have a good idea of what she was about to say, and she couldn't tell from those adjusting eyes exactly how he would react.

"He wants me for the third Brock Cobb movie!" When she realized she had clasped her hands together at her chest, she felt like a girl announcing she'd won a spelling bee or had been asked out to the movies by a boy.

"Well..." Henry laughed. "I'd say congratulations are in order."

He gave her a hug, and when they let go he took a step back again, clutching his jacket like he didn't know whether to put it away or put it back on. She took it from him. "I know he's not a saint, but he's the most talented person I ever met." Henry broke from her gaze, one hand on his waist and the other scratching at his chin. "I know you had your heart set on me coming on at Camden. But this is what I really want."

"Weston and Yvette...they're not like other people. They live in their own world. With their own rules."

"Are you talking about the open marriage?" Hillary asked.

"Among other things. You know Larry Forrester left his wife for that girl."

"That's a rumor! All they have on him is rumors!"

"And that's all you have too! For all you know, those rumors are true."

"I, I know. But Dad, he's a genius!"

"It's true, Weston's not a white knight. But he's not the devil either. I just worry he's lost his vision." His gaze drifted to the wall behind her. She glanced that direction, at the old black-and-white poster for _The Glen Headwood Show_. "You should have seen him when he was younger. He's more successful now, sure, but he's lost something. And if you go that way, if you choose Westonwood, it's not going to be easy."

"I know." She remembered the gasps and whispers as Weston had arrived at the wedding.

\- - -

Weston sat behind his desk, with what appeared to be storyboards spread everywhere, as Hillary watched from the doorway. It had taken all of her courage to drive there, to get out of the car, to walk up to the building, to talk to the receptionist. She wasn't sure if she had enough left to actually make her presence known. Weston looked up and her shoulders froze, an unwelcome burst of anxious pain shooting between them. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked.

Hillary entered his office, glancing at the walls decorated with memorabilia from his work and from his favorite stars. A color photo of him standing in the living room set from _The Dick Van Dyke Show_ between Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore hung beside the unmistakable bowler and cane of Charlie Chaplin. She wondered if they were real or just duplicates. "Hello, Mr. Weston."

"It's just Weston."

"Right."

"It's good to see you again," he said, rising and taking her hand. She found it awkward: not exactly like a handshake, but not exactly like he was going to kiss it either. "Make yourself comfortable."

They sat down opposite each other in leather chairs separated by a small table bearing a book, _The Birth of Los Angeles_. Her eyes fixed on the cover for a moment, featuring a black-and-white image of an old water tower emblazoned with the city's name. "Your family in there?" she asked.

"Of course. If it weren't for the Camdens, you wouldn't be able to pick Los Angeles out on a map."

"I love your office."

He took a passing glance at the decorations. "Do you? It's a little pedestrian for my taste."

"You a big Chaplin fan?"

"One of the biggest, I'd say. You like him?"

"Yep yep!" she beamed. "That speech at the end of _The Great Dictator_ scared me when I was a kid."

"It is a little animated, isn't it?"

"Definitely."

"So, thought about the offer?" he asked.

It was chilly in the room, and somehow that put her at ease. "I have."

"And?"

She wanted to hunker down in her seat from the way he looked at her, as if he already knew her answer. "I can't think of a good reason to say no."

"Your father?"

"Actually, Dad kind of cinched it for me. If I had any doubts, he convinced me. He's only worried that working for you..."

"Could give you a reputation?" he asked, and she nodded. "Ah, Hillary. I hear that all the time. I do! But I learned something that helps me rise above it. Want to know what that is?"

"What?"

"People don't care about ordinary. They only care about rare. Good or bad, they remember you. Neutral, they forget."

"So, are you saying you encourage people to hate you?"

"If I did my work to satisfy people's expectations, I'd be forgotten," Weston said. "Believe it or not, I've found that the less I care, the more successful I am. I do my work for me and me alone." Hillary had no response. Almost every artistic decision she'd ever made had come with the consideration of how other people would perceive it. As far as she knew, the same was true for everyone else in her program at USC. "But bottom line?"

She glanced at the book on the table again and thought about how much this man's blood had impacted the world of entertainment. "I want to work for you, sir."

"Well then," he replied. "Let me be the first to welcome you to Westonwood. How would you like a tour?"

JUNE

Dipping midway into the orange waters of the Pacific, the sun cascaded through a thin cloud layer, kaliedescoping over the Malibu sky. Hillary and her friend Regina pulled off the Pacific Coast Highway, windows down, hair fluttering in the wind. The radio was loud, and the air was cool, but Hillary didn't take the time to enjoy the moment. The night they had in store was too big to think of much anything else.

"I can't believe I'm going to this party!" Regina shrieked as she checked her makeup for the fourth time. "If I meet my future husband tonight, I'm making you my maid of honor!"

"You've got to calm down," Hillary said. "You're going to scare everybody away."

"Oh come on, they're used to it. They probably fight off crazy fans all the time."

"Yeah," Hillary said. "And I bet they never date them either."

"Good point." Regina took a deep breath. "We have to be mellow. Got to blend in!"

"You'll never blend in if you're that shade of red."

Regina checked her reflection again. "I don't know how you can be so cool about all of this."

"I don't know. I was pretty sparked when I first met him, but I think I'm getting the hang of it now."

"Of course you are, Miss Assistant Director."

"Relax, please," Hillary said. "I know how it's going to be, but I really need to make a good impression."

"Got you. I'm on it," Regina said. "What's this guy do, anyway? In your movie?"

"He has this serum that makes people go bald," Hillary said as she searched the street signs. She'd never been able to explain it without sounding corny. "Trying to create a hairless utopia."

"And Brock Cobb stops him."

"Yeah, but first the good doctor gets him declared legally insane. With the help of a robot psychiatrist."

"You've got to be joking," Regina said.

"Shut up! I'm pretty sparked about this."

"I know, sorry!" Regina patted her shoulder. "Just sounds so stupid. No offense. A robot psychiatrist?"

"Sigmund Droid," Hillary said.

"Ugh."

"At least it's not as morbid as _Speck_ ," Hillary replied as she spotted the lines of cars. Her heart thudded with excitement at the distant movement and noises. After spending so many years swimming in the waters of restaurant hostessing, she still couldn't believe this was her new pool.

"You are officially the coolest person I know," Regina said, craning her neck to get a glimpse of whomever might be lounging outside the Weston house.

"I'd say the same," Hillary said as she turned off the engine, "but the coolest person I know is in there."

Like most things Weston touched, his home was infused with classy abundance. The front yard was speckled with colorful fauna she had no hope of identifying. Regina gurgled beside her, paying no mind to the beauty of the yard or the house. Peter and Jane Fonda were lounging out front, drinks in hand, chatting with a small group of people.

"Oh my God!" Regina whispered, pinching Hillary's elbow and standing close for support. "Oh my God oh my God!"

"Cut it out!" Hillary warned. "You better not flake out on me in there!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! But that's Peter Fonda!" Her voice shook.

"I can see that. But gawk about it later, all right?"

"OK, OK!" Regina said, pulling herself together. The siblings glanced at them for a moment as they passed, and Hillary nodded to Jane with a smile. Jane smiled back, and they continued in. Hillary had no idea how she could be so cavalier, but her composure didn't crack as they came through into a huge living room, stretching all the way to the back of the house. Its breadth and depth rivaled the lobby of a medium-size hotel. They could see through the back glass doors in the distance, to the deck, complete with a pool and a hot tub.

Above the noise of the crowded room and hallways, a sound system rivaling that of any theater blasted Donovan's trippy twang on "Hurdy Gurdy Man," the spirited tambura strings singing almost as loudly as Donovan. The room was fairly full of furniture, although Hillary sensed this rather than saw it due to the swelling number of guests. Little knick knacks here and there, paintings on all the walls that she would like to look at – some other time when the people weren't prettier than the artwork.

As they basked in celebrity, they almost bumped into Yvette, standing near the front, talking to one of the guests.

"Hillary!" she declared, embracing her. "You made it!"

"Yep yep!"

"Who's your friend?"

"This is Regina."

"Regina," Yvette repeated. "Nice to meet you." She turned to her own friend. "Warren, I'd like you to meet Hillary Louden. Hillary's come on with us at Westonwood."

"Charmed," Warren Beatty said, taking her hand and giving Hillary what her sorority sisters called a grinnuendo – a smile that could get a guy into a girl's pants.

"Pleased to meet you." They made it past, and Hillary had to pull down Regina's hand and remind her not to point.

"Look! There's Terry Melcher and Candice Bergen! Oh, she's so gorgeous!" Moments later, "Oh my God! It's Dennis Hopper!"

The thrill wore off on Hillary as Regina left to mingle. She found herself on Yvette's arm, introduced to Leslie Caron and Sharon Tate, two of the stars of the upcoming _Speck_.

"It's honestly twisted," Leslie said. "But on the other hand, so is Weston." Both of them giggled at the comment.

With her slender cheeks, thick and shiny hair, and innocent-yet-suggestive eyes, Sharon Tate was one of the loveliest women Hillary had ever seen. She had tried to model her look after the starlet for a few weeks, even almost dying her hair before abandoning the project as futile. In person Sharon was even prettier, one hand always resting on or hovering near her pregnant belly, the other holding the only glass of water at the party. Hillary found the moment ideal to voice a thought that had been brewing in her head. "I don't know why everyone always says things like that about him."

Sharon's eye twinkled. "How well do you know him?"

"I've been working with him for a month," Hillary replied. "I've never seen him be anything but a gentleman."

"A gentleman?" Sharon repeated. "I suppose so. But that's not the word I'd use. Maybe...professional miscreant?" Leslie laughed in agreement, and Sharon glanced in the direction of the other side of the house. "You've seen him at work. Go find him now; you'll see."

They left her, and she was more interested in searching out her boss than in meeting more celebrities. Her curiosity grew as she moved through the crowd, finding him nowhere. She checked outside and spotted Regina in a group of people gathered around Jim Morrison, but no Weston.

"You seem lost."

Mia Farrow. In the two or three Farrow films Hillary had seen, her hair was always cropped short, beautiful if not a bit boyish. She'd grown it out longer, with a trace of blonde in the red. Hillary swallowed her nervous uncertainty. "Actually, I'm looking for my boss. The man of the house?"

Mia took her arm and spun her around, pointing to a distant hallway she hadn't yet noticed. "He's down there, I'm pretty sure."

"Why isn't he out here?"

"He's entertaining private guests, I think."

"Oh."

Mia left her there, fixed on that secluded hallway. She was more nervous now than when she'd first arrived. Part of her wanted to see behind the rumors, but another part of her wanted to maintain her image of the virtuous but misunderstood artist.

She paused at the entrance to this private sanctum, admiring a painting that hung there. A man in a dark suit stood beside a cluttered table in a disorderly room. Hovering behind him, her hands on his head, floated an auburn-haired beauty clad in an ethereal green dress that faded into nothing near where her feet should have been. She'd seen it before somewhere, though she couldn't remember where. It was odd that a piece in a private collection would bear a nameplate. _Albert Maignan_ , it read. _The Green Muse_.

As she admired the other French art adorning the walls, Hillary remembered him referring to his office decorations as pedestrian. She wondered what had drawn him to the Muse.

A small flight of stairs led into a sunken room, almost a basement. Sitars and airy singing struck her ears, as well as quiet chatter. One of the voices was Weston's, although it had a breathy quality she had never heard in him. She stepped down into the doorless entryway, lit with dim, relaxing lamps. The décor here was yet another first in her impression of her boss. Two words sprang to mind: _trippy_ and _hippie_. Neon, non-complimentary colors bit at her eyes in a disorienting attack. The furniture was gaudy but chic. Any one piece of this room would be hideous, but somehow it all came together in unsettling elegance.

Eight people lounged around on a series of plush couches, surrounding two black, cluttered coffee tables, reminding her of the table in the painting. She only recognized two of those gathered: Donovan – whom she registered as the voice in the bizarre music coming from the record player as well as in the tune playing in the main area of the house – and their host.

Weston's face lit up as she came into view. "Hey..." he said flatly, and she wasn't sure if he recognized her. "Come on in!" He blinked as if trying to determine whether or not she was really there.

"Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal..." The music played.

Several of the others had that same dreamy stare, all of them young girls around her age. "Come on." Donovan beckoned to her, giving her a clean-cut, boyish smile below his short, bushy hair. If Weston always looked freshly shaved, Donovan looked like he'd never even had the need for a razor. "Have a seat." Some of the girls made room for her. She eyed Weston as he leaned back with glassy eyes. "How's the party upstairs?"

"Oh fine," she replied, watching her boss in his daze. "Looks like the real party's down here."

One of the girls giggled. "Don't worry about him, love," Donovan assured her. "He's just got a little Sunshine on a cloudy day. If you know what I mean."

She glanced at the little, round, orange LSD tablets strewn about amidst the mess on the table, easily mistaken for some kind of candy if not for the vacancy in her boss's expression. "I think so."

"When it's cold outside," one of the girls sang off-key, and Hillary took her seat as the group joined in the song, drowning out Donovan's record. She'd never heard the Temptations sound like acid rock.

"Hillary," Weston spoke up as if he'd just remembered her name. "You know these guys?"

"No."

As Weston introduced her to everyone, she wondered if Lara had ever seen him this way. She turned down one of the acid tablets he offered. "Play it again!" he demanded when the song ended, and Donovan reset the player.

"Never heard that before," Hillary said.

"Haven't released it here in the States yet," Donovan replied.

"It's catchy."

"What's my name now?" Weston misquoted. One of the girls crawled into his lap, and Hillary sat still as they locked lips and ran their hands over each other's bodies. The others just leaned back, breathing deeply as if the air were full of some intoxicating perfume. Weston kissed and petted this girl like an uninhibited dog, and Hillary was terrified that Yvette might come in any second.

Then the girl climbed out of his lap, her hand still buried under his shirt, and he locked eyes with Hillary, giving her a relaxed, natural grin.

\- - -

Hillary arrived at Westonwood the following Monday and sat with her fingers on the keys. Gary Puckett sang to her as she waited, engine still running. She looked out at the building, so exciting and full of possibility only a month earlier. Her hand moved from the ignition to the gearshift, and she held it there again, inching toward reverse.

"Damn it," she whispered, shutting it off and unbuckling her seatbelt. She gave the receptionist the barest of pleasant nods, holding her breath as she rounded the corner toward Weston's office. When the door was in sight, she slowed at the sound of raised voices coming from within.

"I'll tell you again, baby. I'm sorry! You know I'd never let it happen on purpose!"

Yvette stepped out, eyeliner and lipstick smudged and watery. "Oh, hello!" She wiped the running black lines from her cheek. "Sorry."

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, yes. Yes. Everything's fine." Yvette forced a smile and passed her, continuing on down the hall. Hillary swallowed her reservations and stepped up to the door as she watched Yvette reach the edge of the hallway, placing a shaking hand against the wall and leaning into it before disappearing around the corner. She turned back to the open doorway and the dark office within, her stomach hardening like cement in the sun, and entered with slow steps. Weston was staring down at his desk with vacant eyes. She hesitated, wondering if she should come back later, but he lifted his head and saw her.

"I, I uh," she said. "I'll come back."

"No. Please, please stay."

"Are you sure?"

His empty expression tightened her intestines into bones. "I'll be fine."

"You want to talk about it?" she asked.

"It's personal."

She sank into a chair in front of him. "I understand."

Then, as if he hadn't said that, he continued. "I walked in on Yvette with another guy last night."

"Oh." That was about all the reply she could muster.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

A certain image had burned itself into her memory. "I, uh, I did see you with that girl on Friday night. In your little...trip room."

He nodded. "I know. I know. Don't tell her I told you this, but her whole French revolution thing, it's a little over my head."

She continued, implying opinions she never would have revealed before that weekend. "What about Chelsea? You were with her when you were engaged to Julia Powell, weren't you?"

"Yes." He dragged out that _S_ like his life was deflating from his lips.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's OK."

She didn't reply for a moment, and a faint guilt filled her gut. "So that whole thing, when you were high..."

"You think I like making out with some girl I'll never even see again?"

It would be over in less than a minute if she resigned. She'd seen behind the curtain and knew the wizard was just a man, but a man with the power to be more. She scooted her chair forward and touched his hand. "If it's killing you, you've got to let it go."

"What, Yvette?"

"No," she replied. "I mean, if you love her, and you think you're strong enough, forget about the open marriage."

"I don't know if I could convince her."

"Don't worry about her, then. Worry about you. If you love her, and to you that means being with other girls is wrong, don't do it. I know it doesn't seem fair. But I also know you're not the guy I saw in that room. You're better than that." She thought of the painting she'd stopped to admire on her way down to see him that night. "Maybe you just haven't found your muse."

"Think so?"

She swallowed, releasing his hand, and saw the twinkle of greatness in him that had inspired her to ignore the pitfalls and come to work there. "Let it go."

\- - -

Stuart York shut the passenger door of Andrew's car, not bothering to lock it or put up the window. Andrew squinted at him from beneath the high afternoon sun, shielding his eyes as they made their way up the walk to the front door of the Weston house. Stuart had heard stories about this place, but from the front it was cozy and unassuming. All the blinds were open, even if it was too bright outside and dark inside to see anything.

"I know it's no picnic, but lighten up, man!" Stuart said. "He's not going away."

Andrew lingered for a moment on a sculpture of a nude woman, hair long and flowing, arm stretched in the direction of the doorbell, finger pointing. "I know."

"Besides, he's not so bad."

Andrew flashed him an _Are you kidding me?_ glare as he rang, pressing his lips together in irritation as the bell played "Mellow Yellow." Shortly after proposing to Lara, Andrew told Stuart the story of when he'd first met Weston. The two of them had come to this same house for dinner one night, only to find the man and woman of the house about two hours into an acid trip. Yvette had made a pass at him, clearly unaware that he was dating her sister-in-law or that Weston was sitting at the dinner table, watching them as he munched on crackers and cheese. Yvette had apologized afterward, and the event hadn't been mentioned between them since, although Andrew had broadcast it to the entire wedding party at the rehearsal dinner.

"At least it's catchy," Stuart said, trying to mask his amusement.

They heard movement after a few moments, and Stuart watched Andrew brace himself, his posture going straight. Weston beamed at them with glazed eyes and a look of serenity as the thick oak door swung open. "Hey!" he shouted. "My brother-in-law!" He leaned in to give Andrew a hug, neither resisted nor reciprocated, and Stuart stifled a laugh. Marijuana smoke hung in the air and on his clothes.

"Hi," Andrew replied, patting him on the back as he pulled away.

Weston turned his attention to Stuart. "You're the English guy!"

"Ah, not English. My parents must've wished I was, though!" He shook Weston's hand. "Stuart York."

"Come on in!" he offered, stepping aside.

"Must be a bake sale I didn't know about," Stuart said.

They followed him into a Spartan room with two sofas facing a television broadcasting images from the ongoing conflict in Vietnam. Only one wall was decorated, with several nude oil paintings. The most prominent one was of Yvette. Stuart tried not to stare as Weston's eyes froze on the news report for a moment, then he looked back up to his visitors. "What's up, guys?"

"We came by to talk about Lara's surprise party," Andrew said, remaining standing as Stuart plopped himself down on a couch.

"Yeah," Stuart said. "And I thought I heard something about a bake sale."

Weston spewed laughter. "Man...so much baking to do."

"I guess you do the cooking here," Andrew said. "Maybe I should talk to your wife."

Stuart flashed Andrew a glare of annoyance. "You remember your sister's birthday's coming up, right?"

"Of course! Of course!" he giggled. "I'm not an idiot!"

"That's debatable," Andrew said under his breath, but loud enough that they both heard it. Weston grasped his shoulder.

"That's what I like about you, Drew. Always making jokes!"

"It's Andrew."

"That's what I said."

Yvette stepped into the room. "I thought I heard the buzzer," she said. "Andrew." Even at home, she was dressed like a piece of candy. Stuart kept himself from staring.

"Yvette," Andrew said.

"To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"We came by to talk about Lara's party, but looks like we picked a bad time."

Yvette glanced at her husband, watching the television, then she took Andrew's arm. "Why don't we talk about it in the kitchen? Making some lemonade."

"Fine," he agreed, glancing at Stuart. "Coming?"

Stuart stretched. "I'm good."

"Suit yourself," he said, following Yvette to the kitchen.

Stuart noticed the program that had caught his host's attention. "War is hell, huh?"

Weston nodded. "So they say." He sat down on the other sofa.

They watched in silence for a moment, Stuart's attention divided between the television and the man. "I remember when it all started, you were like the voice of pacifism."

"Was I?" His eyes traced the movements of an airplane on the screen.

"Haven't heard you talk about it in a while."

"Yeah, well, guess everyone else is talking about it now. I don't have to!" He laughed, a faint echo of the mirth he'd offered in his initial greeting.

"So are you really a pacifist?"

"Yes."

"You don't think any war is worth fighting?"

Weston considered it for a moment, and spoke with clarity despite the smell permeating the place. "I think human life is the most valuable thing we have, and nothing is worth killing for."

"I can respect that," Stuart said. "But do you think there's anything worth _dying_ for?" Weston watched the war as if he'd missed the question. "Heard you lost a brother."

Weston nodded, the smile gone. "Charlie."

"Charlie killed your brother?"

"Well, yeah. But his name was Charlie too."

"I got you. I lost someone too."

"Brother?" Weston asked.

"College roommate. Swell guy."

"What happened?"

"Well, he graduated, enlisted in the army. They shipped him out to Vietnam. Six days later..."

Muffled gunfire erupted from the television. "Sorry," Weston said.

"Ah, it's OK. He's not the only one."

"Yeah...man, this is killing my high!"

Stuart patted the man's knee. "I think you were a little too out there to begin with."

Weston's laugh returned. "You're all right, Yorky."

"Yorky. That's a new one." Stuart noticed a half-smoked blunt sitting on the edge of the table in front of them, and the sight of it heightened the burnt scent in the air.

"So what do you do?"

Stuart cleared his throat, coughing away the smoke. "I'm in marketing."

"What do you market?"

"I work for Disney. I'm kind of, well, I'm not in charge, but I pretty much don't answer to anybody. They think I'm some kind of prodigy."

"So are you?" Weston asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe. I pretty much ran the _Love Bug_ campaign, and _Blackbeard's Ghost_."

"Why does Andrew hate me so much?"

Stuart regarded him, eyes fixed on the black-and-white helicopters landing on a beach somewhere. "Oh, I don't know if he really hates you."

"Sure seems to."

Stuart smiled. "Well, that's his problem, isn't it?"

"Mine too."

"Well, you might try not getting high when he's coming over."

"Gotta do something to take the edge off."

Stuart glanced in the direction of the kitchen, wondering if Yvette was getting any better treatment. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure he'll come around. Sooner or later."

"I hope so."

"You're not such a bad guy, for a lunatic."

"Lunatic?" he laughed again. "You think I'm crazy?"

"Maybe." Stuart snuck a peek at Yvette's nude painting, then settled into his seat as the war raged on.

AUGUST

With principal photography commencing on _Doctor Bald_ , Hillary's days and nights were consumed with the final encounter between Brock Cobb and his archenemy, Doctor Crime. On August first, she dressed up for the premiere of Westonwood's golden child. All the stars of _Speck_ were there, including Mary Tyler Moore, Max Dewey, Leslie Caron, and Sharon Tate. The lights and sounds dazzled her.

Weston smiled for the cameras with the cast and with Yvette, even thrilling Hillary by insisting on posing with her in front of the theater, but she could see his thoughts fluttering elsewhere. In the most awkward moment of her night, she was seated between husband and wife. Neither noticed. Yvette was too involved in discussing Sharon's imminent pregnancy, and Weston looked lost in his own mind. Hillary might as well have not even been there.

\- - -

Weston ignored the reviews of _Speck_ for a week before taking a Saturday morning off to relax at home. Yvette hummed around the house, and whenever she walked by, he looked up from _Slaughterhouse Five_ and regarded his wife with quiet, somber affection. Every time he saw her, he pictured her with one of her lovers and reassured himself that he didn't need anyone but her.

The phone rang once as he reached for the reviews. Yvette must have answered the call. He fanned the newspaper and wasn't surprised by what the critics had to say.

... _morbidly voyeuristic, we the audience are meant to second-guess and anticipate Mr. Speck's every move...Dewey's portrayal gave me nightmares...Weston goes too far...the real event was tragic enough from a distance without drawing us into the mind of a killer like this...tasteless in every way, but I've got to see it again._

Yvette appeared in the doorway, face pale and eyes red. She pressed a quivering hand to her lips as if she wanted to scream but couldn't find the voice.

"What is it?" he asked.

"That was, uh..." Her other hand moved to her stomach. "That was Leslie."

"What's wrong?"

Yvette looked away as tears broke across her face. "Sharon's dead."

He unclenched his grip, scattering the pages of reviews to the blue carpet. "What?"

She nodded. "She's dead."

He stood up, a rush of emotion spilling out of her and into him, and he held her as she let go. "What happened?"

"They don't know yet," she whispered back. "That hairdresser friend of hers, he's dead too. Sebring. And three more. They were, I don't know, they were all murdered."

Images ran through his head from the _Speck_ shoot, Sharon there on the dormitory set, blood makeup painstakingly painted onto her body, layered in her hair. "Murdered?"

"Yes," she cried. "I mean, cut up and...like the movie."

"Oh my God."

"And Sharon," she choked, her hands pressed against her flat stomach, fingers moving as if caressing something within. "Sharon's baby too."

\- - -

Weston and Yvette attended Sharon Tate's funeral, where she offered condolences to the family and he remained quiet. Whispered theories noted the eerie similarities between the killings and those depicted in _Speck_. Ticket sales skyrocketed after her death, but Weston didn't care. He wished he'd never made the thing.

After the funeral, they returned home. For a while they found solace together, but then Weston shut himself off from her, collecting a bottle of Scotch and a glass and zoning out in front of a television screen depicting the latest turbulence half a world away. Oddly enough, the latest battle to grace the screen involved fierce machine gun fire from a forest of thick bamboo in retaliation for a short artillery bombardment called during a land clearing mission known as Operation Camden.

Sometimes it seemed like the war was the only thing on television anymore.

Watching the violence in Vietnam didn't help to erase the memory of the violence on Cielo Drive. Scotch didn't either. He kept remembering Sharon the last time he'd seen her, so full of life in more ways than one. Yvette was devastated, not only by the loss of her friend but because of the pregnancy. Sharon wanted that baby, and now they both were gone.

As the liquor warmed and soothed him, he thought back to the child that might have been, three years past. So far away, like a dream. A nightmare, maybe. A girl, a beautiful, innocent baby girl with the greenest eyes he'd ever seen.

Now neither child would ever draw breath.

On the other side of America, people gathered from across the country to witness an historic moment in music and art. It would be an event celebrating freedom of all kinds and rebellion against the status quo. It would feature legendary performances by the greatest musical talents of the day. It was the kind of thing Weston never missed.

They remained in Los Angeles as many of their friends travelled to New York. Sharon's death shocked a lot of people, and some found a chance to escape the pain at Woodstock. Weston and Yvette, however, carried on as if nothing had happened. Instead they went to work on _Doctor Bald_.

\- - -

The engine was cold. The seatbelt still held Yvette in place, hands on the wheel. Deep breaths. Glances at the house, at the yard. The newly planted miniature palm trees still looked odd, foreign. A half-empty pack of Marlboros lay beside her purse in the passenger seat. She wanted one badly. That would have to change.

He was inside. She fixed her eyes on the door, the air conditioning having long abandoned her. She could roll down a window, let in the fresh afternoon breeze. She could turn the key and take her time. But delay would only make it harder. She grabbed her purse, leaving the cigarettes, and stepped out onto the driveway, pulling down her sunglasses and bracing herself.

She found Weston in the kitchen, blue in the light peeking in from the blinds. Silence. The lingering smell of coffee. His back was to her and she heard the tinkering of ice.

"Wes."

"Yeah?" he asked over the gurgling of his Scotch decanter.

"I've got something to tell you," Yvette said.

"What?"

She searched his face for some sign of his mood, but he was blank, indecipherable. "I want you to know that, no matter what you think, this is good news, all right?"

"What is it?"

"Wes...I'm pregnant."

He stared at her. She hoped for a reaction or emotion, but he just looked back as if she were an unusual piece of art.

"Well? Say something!"

He calmly dropped the stopper back into the decanter. "Who's the father?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"It's a simple question."

She narrowed her eyes in bewildered pity, not just for him, but for herself as well. "You are! Of course you are!"

"How do you know?"

He was so calm, it only made her more uncertain. She would rather him spit disdain than swallow apathy. "When you told me on your side the marriage was closed... Ever since then, I've been closed too."

"We were only together that one night," he said, lifting his glass to his mouth.

"And that was the night. It's yours, Wes. It's ours!" Silence. "What do you think about that?"

His shoulders bristled as his chin rose. "You know what I think."

A sliver of pain shot through her throat as she remembered the night he'd walked in on her with Larry Forrester. "Well, I think the same thing," Yvette said. "Or at least I did."

"And now you don't?"

Her hand went to her stomach as it had when she'd thought about Sharon's lost child. "It's different when it's real. Everything's different."

"We'd make horrible parents." He stared at his glass, leaning against the counter.

"Would it really be so bad?"

"Assuming it's mine," he said, his words sharp, "I think you should take care of it. If it's somebody else's, it's not my call."

A warm tear cooled on her cheek. "I'm your wife."

"I know." She could have told him the sky was blue and elicited as much emotion.

"Don't you love me?"

"Of course."

"Then what is it?"

His face filled with that Camden distance she knew he hated. "I don't trust you anymore."

"I've never been anything but honest with you."

He shrugged. "That's the trick, isn't it? We're honest, but we're not faithful."

"I know the open marriage never did anything for you, Wes. I know that now. But we went into it together. I never hid anything from you."

"I know you didn't. And maybe I don't have the right to feel this way. But I have plenty of reason."

Yvette squeezed his arm, looking around the room for a moment, trying to think of something to say that would force him to show some emotion. "You've got to know that you're the only one now! I love you so much! And now we're going to be a family!"

"If you say so."

Yvette wanted to hit him, more out of desperation than anger. So cold, so unyielding. It was like talking to his father. Even more she wanted to embrace him, kiss him with lips and tears. Instead she turned to leave, glancing at him as he took a slow sip.

\- - -

Hillary had the radio cranked down to the barest volume as her headlights illuminated the empty road before her. The sun behind her had only peeked its head into the sky, and the road was still dark. Soft voices indicated that there was an accident on the 101 eastbound in Sherman Oaks and that the partly cloudy skies expected would put the high temperature at a cool sixty-nine degrees. She yawned, barely registering the information. She went over and over the day's schedule, dreading sitting in on the _Doctor Bald_ dailies because everyone else always seemed to have more insight and better comments than she did.

She turned into the Westonwood parking lot, shaking off the daze as she pulled to a stop in the nearest empty spot, her schedule vanishing from her thoughts at the sight of Yvette emerging from the front doors, shoulders slumped, carrying a file box containing the two small ferns she kept on her windowsill. Hillary grabbed her briefcase and purse and stepped out onto the concrete.

"Yvette?" As her friend turned, Hillary noticed the back seat piled full of things that had adorned the walls and bookshelves of Yvette's office. She wore no makeup, her eyes red and hair disheveled. She was gorgeous, even then. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing...nothing."

Hillary glanced at her pile of belongings. "What's going on?"

Yvette followed her gaze, into the back of the car, to the stack of paintings resting on the floor behind the passenger seat. "I'm, ah, just taking some things."

"What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Yvette."

Yvette tried to smile through the tears. "Don't let me spoil your day." She turned and opened the driver's side door, but instead of getting in, she sank to a crouching position on the concrete. Hillary watched her go down, then joined her. Yvette gave her a hug. "Goodbye, Hillary."

"Goodbye?"

"I'm leaving him."

Yvette heaved forward in her arms, and her heart sank. "What?"

"He doesn't love me." Her voice had lost its airiness; she sounded like just another broken soul, not a woman who was the envy of half of the swinging single girls in the country.

"That's crazy!" Hillary said.

"Well, he doesn't trust me; that's the same thing, isn't it?"

Hillary tried to think of something to say, but she didn't understand their bizarre marriage enough to formulate a reply.

"I was pregnant."

She looked into Yvette's broken eyes. "Was?"

"I was going to be a mother."

"What happened?"

"I didn't want the baby without him."

Chelsea Blythe flashed through Hillary's mind. "Yvette."

"It's for the best."

"But it's not that simple, is it?"

Yvette sniffed, scuffing her shoes against the pavement. "It is now." She collected herself, taking a good look at the Westonwood buildings, at the company she'd helped to brand. "I'll be OK. I'm going back to San Francisco. I'll be OK there."

"I'm going to miss you!" Hillary choked, hugging her again.

Yvette grabbed her sleeve and pulled her close with a desperate gasp. "Be careful. He's, he's a charmer. But don't let him in, you know? He's beautiful, but dangerous."

"Yvette."

One last hug, and Yvette pulled herself back onto her feet. "Take care of him for me."
1970

MAY

Hillary glowed in her strapless black gown as she stood with her friends at the _Doctor Bald_ premiere. The air was salty and cool as the sun disappeared from the sky over Grauman's Chinese Theater, replaced by rotating spotlights and the flash of bulbs. Those cameras may have been snapping pictures of Telly Savalas and Richard Pryor, two new additions to the Brock Cobb mythos, but she felt like the center of attention. Her first movie – here it was. Lara and Andrew stuck close beside her, with Stuart York, as Telly charmed the crowd.

"Mr. Savalas!" a reporter shouted. "What can you tell us about your new character?"

"He's like Blofeld on acid!" Telly laughed, the lights glinting off of his head. "Seriously, Doctor Bald is pretty ridiculous. He's like an evil genius who learned everything he knows from _Sesame Street_."

Hillary and her friends stood just outside the doors so that they could get a close-up look at each new arrival, but she didn't care so much about that. Not so long ago she would have, but now, even though she was on the sidelines, she felt like she was one of them. In a way, at least.

"So where's your brother?" Stuart asked.

"I'm sure he'll be along soon," Lara said.

Gregory Peck arrived, reprising his role as the villainous Doctor Crime, followed by Max Dewey, the returning Brock Cobb. Dewey had the flawless face, perfect teeth, and wide shoulders of a leading man, and after his turn as Richard Speck in Weston's previous film, he'd started receiving lead offers. It was one of the reasons this would be the final Brock Cobb movie.

"Thar she blows," Andrew said, and Hillary noticed a quick gleam of excitement in his eye as a familiar limousine's tires crunched to the curb. The four of them were the only ones not screaming with ecstasy when Weston stepped onto the red carpet, arm draped around his latest piece of candy.

"He's dating Twiggy now?" Stuart asked. Twiggy turned for the crowd, more posing than anything else, with her short round hairdo and her pale blue eyes overshadowed by thick, black eyelashes, each one clear and distinct from the next.

"You know how he is with his models," Andrew said.

"Twiggy!" a reporter called. "Is it true you're going to be gracing the big screen for us soon?"

"Maybe," she replied. "You'll just have to wait and see."

"Weston! What about the rumors that you and Francis Coppola are working on a secret project together?"

"That was a conversation that got carried away, and let's just say that he's got way too much going for him right now to get tangled up with the likes of me."

"What about a Brock Cobb Four?" another asked, jabbing a microphone in their direction.

"Too many other ideas. Calling it quits on this one after tonight."

They continued on, Twiggy posing along the way. Hillary's heart thudded as the man of the hour approached. "Lesley," he said, his hand on Twiggy's arm. "This is my sister, Lara, and her husband Andrew. This is Yorky. You can call him Stuart."

"Stuart, yes, please. Not Yorky."

Twiggy laughed. "Nice to meet you all." She nodded to Hillary. "Hillary."

"Lesley." Hillary's skin crawled with energy as she stood now with Weston and Twiggy instead of the others.

Andrew cleared his throat and offered a hand to shake. "Well, hey, listen, I wanted to thank you for inviting us."

Weston shook it, and Hillary saw a momentary flash of hope run across his face. "Of course! We're family!"

"Right."

"Good to see you again, Yorky."

Stuart tapped him on the arm. "You're welcome!"

Weston laughed, and they all made their way to their seats. Stuart moved for an empty chair when Weston stopped him. "Sorry. If you don't mind, Hillary sits with me." She was halfway into a seat on Lara's other side when both she and Stuart froze, glancing at the vacant spot beside Weston, keenly aware that she had just been favored over his sister.

"Sure, no sweat." He moved out of the way, and Hillary took the seat to which she had laid no claim. The others watched her with straight lips, and she offered them a shrug.

"Doctor Bald..." Shirley Bassey sang over the opening credits in a sequence that both spoofed James Bond and caught up the audience on the adventures of Brock Cobb. "His heart is filled with hate and despair. Doctor Bald...he cannot acquire both power and hair. He tried wearing a weave, but faking hair was too hard to conceive."

Her pulse raced as the ridiculous music continued and her name appeared on the screen. She glanced beside her to see Weston's face. He had his back to her, hunched over, Twiggy's hands dancing across his jacket. He made such a big deal about gauging audiences at premieres, but it looked like he'd rather gauge Twiggy's tongue.

-

The booze and hors d'oeuvres were flowing at the _Doctor Bald_ after party at Cochrane's, the restaurant on the second story of the Camden family hotel, the Castle. They'd closed down the west half of the floor so the party wouldn't disturb the hotel's guests, and Weston had offered the vacant rooms, on the house, to anyone who'd rather not drive home.

Hillary plucked a canapé from a passing tray as she lounged at the bar with Telly Savalas and Desmond Cropp, the script supervisor. The three of them had shared some laughs during the production and hadn't seen each other since. It was her first time at the Castle, and as tempting as a free hotel room might have been, Desmond had been eyeing her all evening, and she decided she'd be driving home. Desmond was funny, and attractive, and married.

Their conversation was interrupted when gasps of surprise erupted across the room, and everyone's attention swarmed toward the bar.

"What's going on?" Hillary asked, craning her neck to see over the crowd.

Telly shrugged and took a sip of his drink, and a bolt of dread sizzled up her back at the sound of the shrill voice rising above the murmurs of interest. "Don't ever touch me again, you jerk!" More gasps, and Twiggy pushed through the crowd and to the escalator as Hillary put down her Bordeaux.

"If you'll excuse me, I think my break's over." She left Telly and Desmond behind and found her boss at the bar, swaying in his seat as the bartender cleaned shards of broken glass from the wood.

"Heyyou!" Weston said, words running together, his tie hanging loose.

"What happened?" she asked.

Weston shrugged. "I think I need to lie down." He stuck his hand in his pocket, pulling out his key ring.

Hillary pried it away from him, which wasn't difficult. "Why don't you let me hold onto this for you?"

"Are you..." He braced himself on the stool. "Are you taking me home?"

She'd spent too much time and money on film school to be chauffeuring drunken directors. "Why don't you stay here? Sleep it off in one of the empty rooms?"

Weston's knees buckled, and she caught him. "I need to go home," he slurred.

"Right..."

The slamming of car doors. Hillary glanced in her rearview mirror. Weston leaned against the window, holding the armrest to keep himself upright. "You OK back there?" she asked.

"I'm do...I'm great, so great." A few seconds later, his eyes rolled back and he lurched forward, retching all over the seat. She gripped the steering wheel tighter and pushed down harder on the gas.

After getting him inside his place, and listening to his profuse apologies, she cleaned out the car. As she dabbed at the half-digested remnants of what looked like a chicken Caesar salad, she did her best to hold her breath, but the rank odor still hung in her nostrils. She tried to think of something to clear her mind, surprised to find that Telly Savalas sans the tuxedo did the trick.

As she dropped the dirty towels on the counter in his kitchen, Weston looked up from the table with a pale, clammy face. "Is it OK?"

"It'll be fine." She breathed deeply, trying to rid herself of the pungent smell. "Are you going to be all right?"

"Sure."

"See you, then," she said.

"You're leaving?" He had the tone of a little boy afraid of the dark as his mother tried to put him to bed.

"It's late."

He winced from some internal discomfort. "Couldn't you stay, just for a bit?"

The frightened child in his voice, in his face, won out over her irritation, her better judgment. "Maybe for a minute." She discarded her keys on the table and turned away.

"Where're you going?"

"If I'm staying, I'm going to clean you up a little." She took the hand towel from the bathroom and wet half of it, then returned to find him touching his face, covered in sweat and drying vomit. He flushed red as she wiped his mouth.

"You don't have to do that."

"Hold still." She pressed in hard, more out of irritation than thoroughness. Somehow his jaw showed no stubble, even this late at night.

"You're a good friend," he said as she scraped the cloth against his cheek. It was so frank and sudden, horribly slurred. He looked up at her with the vulnerable eyes of a wounded animal. He sat still as she dabbed at his sweaty skin. She wiped his forehead, her movements slowing. "I know you thought about quitting."

She froze and locked eyes with him, but all she found there was somber acceptance. "How... How'd you know that?"

"I don't listen to critics, you know? I read faces."

"I'll admit sometimes you're a bit much to handle. Sometimes, honestly sometimes you disgust me." Without thinking about it, she reached out and touched his hand. "But I believe in you."

"You..." His face riddled with queasiness, and he stopped himself, as if to speak another word would make him vomit again. A deep breath as he fumbled in his pocket and produced a silver cigarette lighter, setting it on the table and running his fingers along its curved edges. His initials were engraved there, _BWC_. Those initials belonged to a version of him she'd never had the chance to meet. "You should have known better."

She sank into the chair beside him. No more cleaning, no more talking. He leaned into the table, the little boy behind the man who caught the attention of the world. Hillary shifted herself toward him and barely had to make a move before his arms were around her, and hers around his, and Weston buried his face in her shoulder, breathing deeply.

JUNE

There wasn't an empty seat in the house as Johnny Carson, in his candy-cane tie, swiveled his chair toward Bill Cosby. Behind them, the lit-up backdrop resembled the Manhattan skyline. Johnny laughed so hard that it came out as a squeak. "So you're telling me that this Fat Albert character is a real guy? There's a real Fat Albert?"

Cosby shrugged, sporting the wide afro he'd adopted after finishing his stint on _I Spy_. "Well, I mean, come on. Is there a real Carnac?"

"I tell you what, why don't we bring on our next guest and liven things up a bit? Next up we have our old friend, and some of you might think of him as an enemy." Laughter. "Either way, let's bring out the man who always parks in my space...Weston!"

The band took the cue as Weston stepped onstage, waving at the crowd. The guests applauded and cheered back, and a group of girls on the front row screamed his name as he made his way over to the desk. He shook hands with Carson and Cosby as the shouts continued.

"Good to see you again, Weston," Johnny said. "It's still Weston, isn't it? No new names for us to learn?"

"No, it's still Weston."

"Ah, OK. Don't have to change the cue cards, then."

Weston glanced to his right at Bill Cosby. "I've always wanted to meet you, Bill. I think you're one of the funniest guys in the business."

"Well, thank you. I think you're...well, I never know what to think about you. Every six months or so, you change your story."

The audience chuckled, and Weston beamed, adding, "No, but I have to say, I'm pretty sure _To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With_ is the funniest thing I ever heard."

"Well thank you. D'you ever sleep with your brother?" Bill asked.

"Can't say that I did. But I know how it is."

"Echem," Johnny cleared his throat. "Bill, you want to talk to him, bring him on your show."

"Sorry, sorry," Weston said. "Johnny, d'you ever sleep with your brother?"

Johnny leaned into his desk and curled up one side of his lips like a mischievous child. "Dick? No, we're just good friends."

"Fair enough."

"So, are you enjoying your stay in New York?"

Weston looked out to the upper corners of the room as if he could gauge the city from where he sat. "Great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here."

"Why not?"

"It's all...I don't know...pushed together. LA's so spread out; we've got breathing room."

"Yeah, but you don't want to breathe too much of it."

"You should move the show out west. We could be neighbors."

"With neighbors like you, who needs friends?" Laughter. "So I hear you're putting Brock Cobb on ice."

He'd had his fair share of the topic and was prepared to spin away from it as soon as possible. "Yeah, yeah. I never meant to keep it going. But we've got new projects working. Five of them."

"And is it true you bought an art museum?"

"The Angelis, yes. Great little place. We've got some renovating to do, but it's going to be very eclectic. Very plush."

"How'd you get into that?" Johnny asked.

"I've been collecting most of my life. I guess I was running out of space."

"Museums or art?"

"Beg your pardon?"

Johnny leaned into the desk with a boyish smirk. "Which do you collect?"

Weston laughed. "Art."

"So you been following this, uh, the Manson story?"

He deflated, but not enough for the cameras to see. Another subject he'd expected, only because it came up every time there was a microphone on him. "Yeah, here and there."

"We got the trial coming up next week. Any thoughts?"

"I try not to think too much about it, actually. That kind of thing...well, you know, at least I'm glad _Speck_ had nothing to do with it. The deaths were different, but the gore, the evil that took their lives was the same...the same as the nurses Speck killed. The terror the victims had to be facing. I can't even begin to imagine."

"I don't think anybody ever really believed there was a connection," Johnny said.

"I hope not."

"So what's next for you now that Brock Cobb's got his pink slip?"

"We've got a show. Television show. It's not going to be ready in time for this season. Maybe next."

"Can you tell us about it?"

"It's kind of a secret right now. But there is a new show coming out that I'm pretty excited about," Weston said.

"Which one?"

"Its star is...kind of near and dear to me." He turned to the audience with a twinkle of mischief. "And you, I think. You, you want to meet her?"

Everyone clapped and Johnny pursed his lips. "Every time."

"You know who we've got backstage?"

"I can only imagine."

Weston turned to the curtains and shouted, "Why don't you come on out for the nice people?"

The crowd roared as Mary Tyler Moore stepped into the light, and she repaid the applause with her shining smile. Weston nodded his approval as she made her way over.

Johnny shook his head with mock frustration. "Maybe we should just let you run things when you're in town."

"Sorry," Weston said. "I just like to share."

\- - -

Weston tapped his fork against the plate of his chicken and cranberry salad as he bookmarked _In Watermelon Sugar_ in exchange for the day's _Times._ The front page story announced the commencement of proceedings against the group known as the Manson Family, charged with multiple murders on multiple occasions, the most infamous of which had taken place the previous year at the home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. Weston skimmed the article, his thoughts harkening back to his initial reaction to the events, the last moments with Yvette and the second time he'd dodged fatherhood. As the brisk but warm breeze swept through the shadow cast over the sidewalks by the two-story shopping center, the site of his favorite Ventura Boulevard street-side café, his nerves tightened with remorse.

He glanced beyond the passing traffic for the fourth time, at the girl poorly hiding herself behind a wood-paneled Ford station wagon. She peeked out, slouching away whenever he'd look up, but always watching. The third time he'd caught her dogging him he'd called out to her and she'd fled. The fourth time he'd gone after her, but she'd disappeared into a parking lot. The fifth time there had been a cop nearby, and the cop had chased her with the same lack of luck. She'd never come closer than this, never approached him, never spoken. He'd had a stalker like her before, and after time she'd lost interest. One day she'd just stopped showing up.

He'd never gotten a close up look at the new one, but she was pretty – hair like black coffee, short. Trim figure, always showing a little leg, a little skin. She'd never been near enough for him to know the color of her eyes.

"Crazy thing, huh?" Stuart York appeared from behind him, examining the paper.

"Crazy doesn't quite cut it."

Stuart claimed a chair, taking the paper from him and perusing the article. "You live your life and do what you do, and you never know when one day someone's going to come along and splatter you everywhere. Maybe it's just what we should expect, in the end."

"I can't help but think," Weston said as he pushed away his novel and his empty coffee mug, making room for Stuart at the table. "What would it be like to wake up in the middle of the night and find someone there? Caught off guard and never live to tell about it?"

Stuart laid the article back down in front of Weston. "I guess you and me, you know, single and alone, at least we've only got ourselves. Can you imagine having a kid, or a wife? Coming home to find something like that waiting for you?"

Weston glanced again at the black-and-white newsprint image of Manson's followers, the girls with the shaved heads, walking to court in jubilation. "I've done my share of the serial killer stories. Time to move on to newer fare."

Stuart rubbed his hands as he looked at the menu. "What've you got in the works, huh? Sci-fi? Aliens or something like that?"

The waitress approached, sneaking a bashful smile at Weston as she had every time she'd been to the table, then turned to Stuart. "Would you like something?"

"Just coffee," Stuart said.

The waitress – her nametag said _Wendy_ – nodded and left, and Weston replied to Stuart's inquiry. "Well, I don't make it my business sharing ideas with the competition."

"I'm hardly competition."

The girl across the street caught Weston's attention again. She was growing less shy about letting him see her. "I wanted to talk to you about that."

"Oh?

"Kenny Myan just got arrested, for possession."

"Yikes. What'd he have?"

Weston had left Myan's house minutes before the cops arrived, tripping, lying in the back of a taxi. "Just a little Lucy."

"You've managed to skate by without any kind of trouble," Stuart said.

"Nothing that sticks, anyway. I've been close a few times." He thought he might have seen the red and blue lights in the distance as the taxi had turned the corner off of Myan's street. It may have just been the trip. "Anyway, the point is, I need a new marketing guru. And I have a short list."

Stuart leaned in. "You offering me a job?"

"I like what you do. Think you might be just the man I need."

"And why would I leave my gig at Disney – a pretty cushy one – for, no offense, a small, risky little place like Westonwood?"

"I don't know what they're paying you, but I'll pay you more. You'd be our top man. Disney may be a powerhouse, but you're just another face there. Work for me and it's your show."

Stuart stared at him as if he couldn't tell how serious the offer was, but from the way he tried to mask his excitement, Weston guessed he didn't play a lot of poker. "I don't know. I mean, that sounds good and all, but it's a lot to consider."

"Consider it, then. I want you on board, Yorky. You're good at what you do, and you're a good friend."

"So we're friends now?" Stuart asked.

"Why the hell not?"

He shrugged. "Well, then...friend...I'll think about it."

"Great! Now I've got another problem to deal with." He nodded at the girl behind the Ford, still watching him.

Stuart followed his subtle gesture. "Her?"

"Don't look!" Weston said, grabbing his hand. "Yes, her. She's been following me for maybe two weeks."

"Look at you! You've got yourself a stalker!"

"The first time it was kind of cool. Even the second. But now it's just a nuisance."

"Shit!" Stuart snuck another glance at the girl. "She's kind of hot! How many stalkers have you had?"

"This year or total?"

AUGUST

Weston tossed the Styrofoam container with the remains of his steak and potato dinner on the kitchen counter, trading it for the bottle of Scotch he kept between the toaster and the blender. He snaked a hand into the freezer and dropped a single sphere of ice in the bottom of his glass, then filled it to drown half of the ball. He could smell the potato, smothered in sour cream and cheese, but he brought his drink to his nose and breathed in the sweet fragrance of the whisky to drown it out.

A sip, held in his mouth to absorb the smoky flavor, and then the remainder of the drink, leaving the sphere of ice unmelted. As he let the liquor warm him, he noticed one of his homemade joints smoldering in the counter ashtray. Matted with lipstick. A shiver danced up his spine, and he looked off into the emptiness of the house.

Weston creaked open his bedroom door and flipped on the light. There, buried in his sheets, the girl that had been following him for over a month smiled and giggled. "I thought you'd never get here," she said.

The girl was in her early twenties. Her thick black hair hung over the rim of the bedclothes, her own clothes draped across his dresser. Faded blue, almost gray – that was the color of her eyes. He'd thought they'd be darker. If he'd met her at a party, he probably would have created this scenario himself. "How did you get in?"

"You always leave your back door unlocked." She pulled the sheet down, exposing her perky breasts. "What are you waiting for?" She ran a finger along her nipple.

"If you don't leave right now, I'm calling the police."

She laughed. "If you call the cops, they're just going to find the little surprise I left for them."

"What surprise?"

The girl curled up underneath the sheet, running her hand down the curve of her leg. "Just a little Sunshine. Your favorite. Play your cards right and we can do it together."

One foot turned in the direction of the telephone, but the other remained, fixed on the beautiful psycho, wondering how long it would take him to find what she had hidden.

He shut the door and unbuttoned his top button. "What did you say your name was?"

She threw back the covers, showing him everything. "I didn't."

SEPTEMBER

The bartender placed a fresh drink beside Weston's half-empty one. Folks in the booths behind him were enjoying corned beef sandwiches with hot mustard and fresh potato chips, downing them with sodas before they headed back to work for the afternoon hitch. The bar, however, only had one patron. All the one-hour parking spots were taken. Weston's car was parked far enough back that he could stay as long as he liked.

He nodded his thanks to the young man with the white apron tied loosely over a black t-shirt and jeans. From the television behind the bar, a photograph caught his eye, filling up the screen. Jimi Hendrix in black and white, staring into the camera, his thick dark hair windblown and scattered like the remnants of a pulled-apart cotton ball. Below his shoulders was a caption: _November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970._ "Can you turn that up?" he asked. The picture cut to a video coming in from London. He drained the last of his liquor, ice covering his lips.

"Hey! It's you!" the bartender said as he turned from the set.

"It's me," a familiar voice replied over the scratching of the adjacent stool against the scuffed brown tile. "May I have a coffee?"

Weston abandoned the news report of the death in Notting Hill as Mary scooted up to the bar. "So what gives, huh? You miss the party?"

"Sorry. I meant to come. I just..."

She glanced at the television. "Jimi?" The rhythmic pulses of guitar bled over the confident, spiritual lyrics of "Purple Haze" as the camera captured a gathering of somber faces, posters waved over them with Hendrix's pictures, heads lowered at half-mast. Weston kicked at the footrest of his barstool. "Sorry," Mary said. "I didn't really know him."

"He was a good guy."

The bartender set her mug and saucer down with great care, as if it took skill. Mary wrapped her finger into the ring of the mug and lifted it in Weston's direction. "To Jimi."

"To _The Mary Tyler Moore Show_. Sorry I disappeared."

She nudged his shoulder with hers. "You going to the funeral?"

"Maybe."

"You've never handled it so well."

"How did Shakespeare put it? 'Nothing can we call our own but death.'"

"When I found out I had diabetes, it was scary," Mary said. "I mean, I wasn't afraid of dying, but when you face something like that, it's easy to fear the worst."

"I'd go to the worst first." He pushed away his empty glass and picked up his full one.

"Go easy, OK?"

"I'm fine." He snuck a glance at her, the kind he wouldn't risk around her husband. "Loved the show, by the way."

"So, feedback."

It struck him as odd to hear her say that. He asked for her feedback after everything he did, but she'd never before asked for his. "I love your cast. I like the two dynamics, work and home."

"I like that too," Mary said.

"Plenty of activity in the newsroom, but the apartment... As small as it is, it feels a little empty."

"Empty how?"

Weston noticed the bartender, hovering at the far end of the bar, cleaning the same spot with his towel in repeated circular movements. The kid was trying not to stare at Mary, and Weston spotted a picture of her on the wall behind him, a blown-up close-up probably taken in her first year of _Dick Van Dyke_. "Maybe it's just the studio apartment. I've never seen one in real life. When the whole thing is one room, it makes me want to see more going on. If that makes any sense."

"I like the balance," Mary said. "Her home is supposed to be a slower beat. So we can take our time."

"I think maybe there's something off about the theme song, too."

"What?"

He ran through it, humming the tune. "It seems too, I don't know. Impersonal? It should be more about you. Sounds like it could be talking about anybody."

"What should it say? I mean, it already kind of sets the mood for the show."

He thought for a second, then resigned defeat. "I don't know. It's just...you say so much with just a smile. You could probably turn the whole world on with it."

She grinned back at him. "Yeah?"

"See, there it is."

1972

APRIL

The noise of the crowded café bled into the background, the minty aroma of Weston's tea overpowering his other senses. He slid his money under his bill as Hillary finished the last bite of her salad. He didn't have much of an appetite that afternoon. He'd contented himself with a quick skim of the _Los Angeles Times_ in lieu of food. _Kissinger warns Dobrynin of drastic measures_ , the above-the-fold headline declared. North Vietnamese forces had surrounded An Loc in the Bin Long province. The city hadn't been taken, but the blockade now meant that reinforcements would have to be delivered by air.

Weston couldn't process all of the details. He flipped to the third section and looked over the black-and-white newsprint photo of Charlie Chaplin, taken decades earlier. _Chaplin to receive honorary Oscar tonight_ , the headline read, and this was the story that had consumed him for the past two weeks. At long last, Charlie was coming back to Hollywood, even if just for a moment.

"I hope I get a chance to talk to him."

"How long has it been now?" Hillary asked.

"I want to say seven years." He could still taste the vanilla undertones of the Cognac Chaplin had served him in the brisk evening air, the wind pulling golden leaves down from the trees one at a time.

"No, I mean since they kicked him out," Hillary said.

He pictured Chaplin's Tramp on board a ship bound for America, trying to eat a meal as the waves rocked the boat back and forth, plates sliding across the table from one person to the next. Weston hadn't even been born when films like that were made. "Twenty." He breathed in the active restaurant air, budding over with the plumes of roasted chicken and rosemary potatoes. "I don't know; the whole world feels ripe with possibility today!"

"Planning to pull another stunt?"

"No, I don't know. I was actually, I was thinking about..."

She wiped her mouth. "What?"

"Asking Annette to marry me." Beneath the table, his napkin was draped over his pocket, bulging with the ring he'd bought three days ago. At least, he assumed he'd bought it. He found the box and the receipt on his dresser, but he'd taken a killer hit of acid and had no memory of a visit to any jewelry store. "Just thinking, anyway."

"Well," Hillary hung on it for a moment. "You don't say." Every time he brought his latest flame into the conversation, Hillary's side of the discourse always devolved into _I see_ or _You don't say_ or silence.

"What is it about her?"

Her face flickered as if fighting orders to stay straight. "Do you really want to know?"

"Of course!"

"Well, then, since you ask. I guess it's the whole new age, goddessy vegetarian thing she's got going on. I can't enjoy anything around her. She always finds a way to make me feel guilty."

"She's just very conscious of things, you know?"

"Mmm hmm." She pointed to the remains of his vegetarian plate. "I notice I haven't seen you eating meat lately."

"Meat is murder," he replied without hesitation, then chuckled. "OK, so maybe she's got me thinking about things too."

"I see," she said. He would have banked on another _You don't say_.

"She's not so bad. I think I love her." Julia Powell flashed through his mind, showing off her ring at the _Johnny Destructo_ wrap party and making him realize how thirsty he was.

"You better be sure if you're going to propose!"

-

The Forty-Fourth Academy Awards drew a fantastic crowd. Weston and Annette Kieling made their entrance with Hillary close behind. Annette had taken to settings like this with ease from the moment he'd first started dating her. The public didn't agree with most things she had to say, and Weston had convinced her to just smile, stunning them in her backless black gown.

Dr. Lucian "Lucky" Kieling had devoted his research career to developing new, safer, more manageable treatments for diabetes, and he'd been the keynote speaker at a benefit Weston had attended with Mary and Grant Tinker. Dr. Kieling's daughter had been sitting at the table to Weston's right, and as the audience listened to Lucky's speech, he watched her, hoping she would notice. Her silky black hair was braided into a thick rope of a ponytail hanging over her left shoulder, skin so pale in contrast. When she caught him giving her his best boyish smile, she tuned out her father as well. They went for a drink afterward, and she was the first woman he met who favored Scotch over all other liquors as much as he did. Annette was a contracts attorney for the Motion Picture Association of America who played amateur violin, and after she played him the Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in soft, slow notes, they'd been holding hands ever since.

Weston and Annette settled into the auditorium, and she turned this way and that as Jon Voight sat behind them, Barbra Streisand in the next aisle, Sean Connery beside her. But Weston's mind was on Charlie Chaplin, back where he belonged, if only for a moment. He searched the crowd as he took a seat with his friends, but he saw no sign of the old man.

He blurred out most of the show, and then Daniel Taradash, president of the Academy, stood onstage with the same oversized bow tie that so many men wore that night. Weston leaned forward as Taradash began his introduction of the honorary award, showering Chaplin with the highest levels of praise.

And then there he was. The audience snapped to its feet, giving Charlie the greatest ovation Weston could recall. It had to have been over ten minutes long. Chaplin waved back, overwhelmed by the reception. His years abroad had aged him. He looked tired, so much more weathered than before. The old man blew a kiss.

The applause subsided and Charlie leaned into the microphone, caught in a momentary reverberation. "Oh, thank you so much! An emotional moment for me...and words seem so...futile...so feeble. I can only say that...thank you for the honor of...of inviting me here, and...oh, you're wonderful, sweet people. Thank you!"

Then Jack Lemmon brought out Chaplin's trademark bowler and cane.

-

"Dear boy," Chaplin sighed. "How long it's been." His head shook a bit, and he never seemed to sit completely still in the burgundy leather chair in his hotel suite. His bow tie hung loose around his neck, top shirt buttons unbuttoned, as Weston pulled up another chair. Chaplin struggled to lift his black-socked feet up onto an ottoman.

Weston wanted to burst, and yet he sat calm and relaxed beside his idol. The odd mismatched reds of the furniture and walls made the old man stand out in a way that black and white could never capture. "You look terrific."

Chaplin's white hair was weak and messy, though still as thick as ever. "I look like an old man."

"How are things in Switzerland?"

"Winding down. Peaceful. Very peaceful."

Something in Chaplin's voice concerned him, giving him a sense that this conversation carried more weight than any before. "It's so great to have you back where you belong."

"I haven't belonged here in a long time." He spoke with neither regret nor affection, merely as an observation. Weston had no idea how he could be so cool after so much time away.

"Maybe not."

"I've followed your exploits." His big eyes glistened. "I'm sorry again about your mother."

"Yeah..." Weston remembered the sweet letter Charlie had written him. "I guess a lot's happened since I saw you last."

"Weston." It was strange, almost ridiculous to hear Chaplin call him that. It made him feel like a silly child expecting the adults to understand and take seriously his secret play world. "You're not the same boy who came to me after his brother died."

"I guess I didn't know who I was back then."

"You knew. I think you've just forgotten."

"Maybe I have, or maybe I've changed."

Chaplin nodded. "Had your eyes opened?"

"Opened, closed. Whatever way, I see things differently now."

"The world has lost its innocence," Chaplin said, eyes wide and grave, and Weston realized that in all the moments he'd missed his old friend, all the times he felt cheated because they banned him from returning to the United States, not once had he considered how it must have been for Charlie. He wanted to shrink in his seat.

"The world was never innocent. But I was."

"And now?" Chaplin asked.

Weston sighed. "I'm just trying to stay one step ahead of where I'm supposed to be."

"Maybe you shouldn't try to get ahead if you don't know where you're going."

He regarded the man with the respect and affection he'd always wished he could have given his own father. "Sometimes that's the only way to make it play."

"You once told me you wanted to make people think. You wanted to shock the world. Well, you've shocked them. But have you made them think?"

The ticking of the nightstand clock gave his thoughts rhythm like a mental metronome. With everything that Chaplin must have been going through, returning home after twenty years, the old man had made sure he had time to see old Benny Camden. Old Benny Camden the hopeless romantic who woke up one morning and realized that he didn't need to hold out for a soul mate when any girl he passed on the street would be his bed mate if he asked.

"Is that what's troubling you?"

"It's more than that."

"Annette is a lovely girl." He offered a hopeful smile, but Weston could see he was already fading, so worn out by the experience of the night.

"Thanks. I think so too. But I always had this idea that I'd meet someone who would be my muse. And I think every girl I meet, I try to make her into that."

"Benny, Weston, if you need a muse, then I believe you will find one. Whether it's a girl or something else, I can't say. But don't look for it. You'll find muses everywhere that lead nowhere. If you plant in the winter, you lose everything." For a moment, Weston could see Chaplin as the man he had once been, wearing that old bowler like a crown, holding that old cane like a scepter. The King of Hollywood. "If you wait until spring, nature plants for you. And everything will be new. Fresh. Green."
1973

JUNE

Stuart entered the lobby of Westonwood with the _Los Angeles Times_ tucked under his arm, gliding along with Perry Como coming faintly from the speakers hidden behind two clusters of cactuses. He winked at the cute receptionist. "Morning, Maxine. You're looking sharp today."

Maxine giggled, showing off her braces. "Thanks, Mr. York!"

He danced on down the hall, humming along to the Como as Hillary stood in her office doorway with her arms crossed. "What's with you?" she asked. "You win the lottery or something?"

"Hillary!" he sang, swaying toward her. "Isn't it a beautiful day?"

She laughed as he sashayed. "What're you on?"

"Golden tones! The sun is shining, the breeze is cool..." He took her hand and she let him spin her once. "...and I got a date with that artist I was telling you about. The hot one."

"Oh right, the hot one." She play-punched his chin. "Well, good for you, champ!"

"I have to tell the boss!"

She glanced at the closed door to Weston's office. "Oh, I wouldn't go in there, if I were you."

"Why, what's wrong? He got a girl in there?"

"Come on, Stu."

"Hey, Annette's a girl! Kind of."

"If you say so," she said, giving him the thumbs-down gesture they shared behind Weston's back every time he mentioned his wife. "He just had a talk with his dad."

"Thanks for the head's up," he said, and as she retreated back into her office, he skip-knocked on Weston's door and slid inside.

Weston stood at the window, staring out into the blue void. Stuart waited a moment, hesitating. "Yo, boss?" Weston didn't acknowledge him, and he crept up to share the view. "You OK?"

Weston turned away from the afternoon light. "Acid flashback. Trippy one."

"I thought you were talking to your dad."

"Trippy," Weston said.

Stuart sat on the edge of the desk and rapped on the wood. "You want something trippy, you've got to check out the Fresh Faces exhibit."

"So I hear."

"I don't know why it took me so long to get into art," Stuart said. "Ever since you got me promoting the museum, I can't get enough."

"So it's good?"

"Totally!" Stuart said. "Top talent from colleges in ten states."

"Right, right. They have that _Napoleon on Mars_?"

"Talk about trippy!" he said. "That's a Sheila Green. The highlight."

"She's the one from Nashville?"

"Memphis. And bonus, she's touring with the exhibit! So she'll be here...is here, already."

"I heard she's kind of a pill."

"She's not so bad," Stuart said. "Mother's this Shakespeare scholar up at the University of Memphis. Must have rubbed off on her. She quotes the Bard like other people quote the Beatles."

The aftermath of whatever Weston's father had said to him began to bleed away from his face, replaced with the slanted grin of a teenage gossip. "Methinks Sir Stuart blushes for the maid."

"I got a date with her!"

"I'd say good for you, but from what I hear, she's as blunt as a sledgehammer, so maybe good for her!"

"You'll meet her, of course," Stuart said. "A little get-together at the museum, maybe dinner first." He snapped his fingers. "Double date? You, me, Annette, and Sheila?"

JULY

The glass door whooshed shut behind Weston as he entered the Angelis Museum, cool air biting at him in contrast with the unusual morning heat. The lobby was empty save for the bright sunlight beating down through the thick, double-plated glass of the lobby's skylight ceiling. Not a cloud in the sky. It reminded him of the Fourth of July back in 1964, the last time he'd seen his brother. When the sun had set that day, though, things had cooled off in time for fireworks over the rippling waters of the Pacific. Not this year. The forecast called for nothing but heat.

It was going to be an Independence Day for the books.

"Morning, Cliff," he said, nodding to the manager as his voice echoed across the empty two-story lobby. "Fresh Faces all set up?"

"Yes, Mr. Weston," Cliff replied. "Got a big crowd coming in. Looking like a busy day."

"Thanks. Happy Fourth."

He cruised the halls, headed for the second floor. A few patrons had already arrived. Soft Mozart played over the sound system. When he entered the Malibu Lounge, he found himself alone in a room full of works he'd never seen. He always got the first glimpse when something new came to town.

Fresh Faces featured fifteen new artists. He observed every piece, trying to grasp each sculpture and painting's style and perspective. As he moved through the room, he kept an eye out for the works of Stuart's new girl. When he came across her name on a plaque, he cleared his mental pallet.

This was what he had come to see. Later that night they would be touring, the four of them, and he wanted to have an idea of what to expect so that he might not embarrass himself in front of the painter.

Three works represented Sheila Green in the exhibit. First, _Napoleon on Mars_ , her most famous painting. The French ruler hovered amidst swirling red dust, barefoot. His face broke apart into separate eyes, nose, mouth, ears, brows, and lashes, yet they managed to keep themselves intact at the same time. Tinted red from the surrounding light, Napoleon's face also withered in a sickly yellow. A pole thrust into the dirt bore the French flag, drained of color and burning along the edges.

The second contrasted the illusionary, imaginative style of the first. A collage of images blended together from the significant events in the life of Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. In the center, people gathered around King's fallen body. A headline, painted into the scenes, declared, "The King is dead." The plaque gave the work's title: _King of Dreams_. To the right of the somber yet hopeful images, a bullet hung suspended. A face hid itself in the smear of light on that bullet: a young girl's, features difficult to distinguish.

He moved to the last piece: _January 28_. The figures of Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho stood over a desk, signing the Paris Peace Accords. On either side of them, soldiers fought amidst fire and explosion. Burning trees scattered the landscape. Shaded against the background of the whole canvas, Vietnam stood half-divided on a map. As the images descended to the bottom of the painting, the soldiers were replaced by mangled corpses, and finally a field, burned and charred with smoldering fumes hovering over it. As he looked at that empty shell of a world there, he could almost hear the chilling silence. A shiver went up his spine, and not from the air conditioning.

"Crap."

He jumped, startled, and found a young woman standing beside him, arms crossed, shaking her head with unyielding disdain as she glared at the painting.

"I'm sorry?" he asked.

"Crap, crap, crap," she replied with a heavy sigh. "Utter crap."

"You don't like it?"

"This thing should go in the garbage. I can't believe they even put it up!"

Maybe it was because he'd spent so much time observing everything else in the room, but he noticed every detail of her in moments. Her hair was reddish brown, thick and shoulder-length with an autumn hue. Her clear blue eyes were knowing and intelligent, despite her mocking of the art.

"Why don't you like it?"

"Could it be less subtle? It's like he's trying to force a message down your throat."

"She," he replied. "And I think what it lacks in subtlety it makes up for with a kind of ominous dignity. It's saying war is reality, and now that it's over, now that they've signed the cease-fire, all that's left is silence."

She examined it again as he gave her a better look. "All I see is two guys in suits, with pens, and the whole world lives and dies by what they do with those pens."

He'd expected some simple reply, and he couldn't think of a worthy response to the one she'd given him. "Well, I think maybe...both are true?"

The young woman's disinterested eyes lit up. "Hey, wait a minute! I know you!"

He stiffened. "You do?"

"Yeah, you're Weston!" He said nothing in return as she nodded to herself, confirming what she'd just said. Then she added, "Deny thy father and refuse thy name?"

He flushed with embarrassment as he placed the quote. "Let me guess. Sheila Green."

"What gave it away?" She rocked a bit on her heels, smirking with satisfaction. "I'd have to say your name has preceded you, too."

"So what was that? Trying to make me look stupid?"

"I just wanted to get your honest opinion before you knew who I was."

He pressed his eyes shut and let out an exhaling laugh. "And here I was defending you like an idiot."

"Well, it was a gallant attempt. My honor is preserved."

When she glanced back at the painting, he followed the line of her red blouse down to her white skirt, knee-length, and back again. "Do you do this to everybody?"

"Only when I think I've got a live one."

"Seriously, though. I love your work. All of it."

They stood side by side before the three pieces, and even in the presence of such expressiveness, he found himself preferring to look at the artist more than the art. "Thanks. I just finished this one five months ago. Didn't think it'd make it into the exhibit."

"Where, uh, where all have you been so far?"

"We started in New York. Then D.C., Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego."

Weston pointed to the distorted face on the bullet in _King of Dreams_. "Who's the girl?"

She admired it as if she'd never seen it before. "Actually, that's me."

"Why'd you put yourself in the picture?"

Her shoulders lifted like the beginning of a shrug, round and slender, the perfect width. "Because I was there. When King was shot."

"Really? Why?"

"Well, I wasn't in the room. But I was there at the hotel. My daddy, they were friends."

Weston recalled that she was from Memphis, where King had died. "Who's your father?"

"Ever heard of Saul Green?"

"You're Reverend Green's daughter?"

She grinned. "I'm his baby."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Miss Green."

"Sheila," she replied. "So what gives, huh? I heard you read faces."

He took it as an excuse to turn and really see her without hiding it, and she shook her hair clear of her shoulders as if to give him a better view. "Some faces are better to look at than to read."

"Ha!" she laughed with a playful turn of her head. "You're full of something, all right."

\- - -

"Excuse me!" Annette Weston called, voice nasal and disturbed and generally disrupting the quiet ambience and muted colors of Damon's Steak House. She waved to get the waiter's attention while the others at the table sat in silence.

"Yes, ma'am?" the waiter asked quietly, leaning over her in a penitent pose, as if hoping she would mirror his demeanor and volume.

"This soup has small chunks of pig in it."

The waiter stared at the bowl of split pea and ham soup, which had only been advertised as split pea on the menu. Stuart and Sheila exchanged a glance of confused amusement.

"I'm, er, I'm sorry, ma'am. Would you like me to have them removed?"

She grunted with disgust. "No, just take it away. It's nearly spoiled my appetite already."

"Yes, of course. I'm very sorry about that!" He reclaimed the bowl, glancing at the other three apologetic faces at the table.

"Oh, and you might want to have the menu changed to say that the soup has small chunks of pig in it. Some people might not want to eat small chunks of pig." She turned back to the table as Weston covered his face, his head lowered. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing, nothing," he replied. "Just had something in my eye."

"So where were we?" Annette asked, ignoring the scene she had just caused. "Oh, yes, Sheila. You were telling us about your family."

"I...ah..." Sheila glanced at Stuart for help. She couldn't imagine why a militant vegetarian would agree to dinner at a steakhouse, unless perhaps she had anticipated being able to make a scene, but she scolded herself for thinking such things. "Well, you know, there's my daddy – I already told you about him. And my momma – she's a professor up at the University of Memphis."

"A Shakespeare scholar," Stuart said.

"Oh!" Annette said with interest. "Did it wear off on you?"

"A bit," she said, exchanging a look of amusement with Weston.

"What's your favorite play?"

"Oh, gosh, I don't know. I'm partial to both _Richards_."

"I'm not familiar," Annette replied. "I only really know his comedies."

"I don't care for those so much. For comedy I like Lord Byron." High school, senior year, Sheila had gone out for _Much Ado About Nothing_ without any acting experience. She was cast in the chorus and had tripped over her costume, knocking over the actress playing Beatrice, who fell and gashed her knee, forcing them to replace her with the understudy mid-performance. Shakespeare had always been about tragedy for her after that.

"'Tis strange the Hebrew noun that means 'I am,''" Weston quoted, "'The British often use to govern 'damn.''"

" _Don Juan_ ," Sheila said. "I'm impressed. I wouldn't expect someone like you to read Byron."

"Yorky minored in British lit. I'm sure he knows more than I do."

"But I've forgotten more than I ever remembered," Stuart said. "I do miss it. Guess I just don't have the time to read like I used to."

Sheila crossed her arms as she turned to Weston, and she caught him turning away, pretending he hadn't been looking at her. "Well you should give him more time off, then!"

"I'm into art more than literature these days, anyway," Stuart replied, taking the opportunity to slip her hand into his. She didn't refuse. "I'm actually planning a trip to Europe."

"Where in Europe?" Sheila asked.

"Well, I wanted to see some of the museums. The Louvre, for starters. Ever been?"

"Once or twice." She'd been every summer since high school, save for the current year due to the tour. "I can give you the names of some good places to check out. When are you going?"

"Don't know yet," he said. "I think this is the first my boss is hearing about it."

"Go any time you want, Yorky. Just let me know. I'm jealous I can't go with you."

"We went to Europe on our honeymoon!" Annette pointed out.

"But we didn't do any sightseeing." He took her hand, and she giggled softly. Sheila glanced at her date as Weston shared a nonverbal conversation with his wife.

"Well, you should definitely go back when you have the time," Sheila said.

The waiter returned with their meals. "Sorry again about the soup," he said, placing Annette's eggplant dish before her. Weston received an identical plate. "And here is your prime rib, sir," he said to Stuart, then turned to Sheila. "...and...your veal."

-

When the group arrived at the Angelis, the lights in the foyer had been dimmed for the evening, but in the far hallways leading to the exhibits, the place was bright and bustling with patrons. They were always full on summer holidays, as Stuart had boasted four times during the meal. Weston and Annette excused themselves for a minute, leaving Sheila alone with her date.

"Oh my gosh!" Sheila clawed at Stuart's arm as soon as they were alone. "I'm so embarrassed! I had no idea she was so..."

"She likes to call us carnivores."

"Do you think she hates me now?"

"Hey, I ate a cow!"

"I ate a baby cow!" she shrieked, lowering her head as it escaped her.

"I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure there'll be plenty of vegetarians in Hell too."

She pinched him. "Guess I'll see you there!" She glanced past him to Weston and Annette, narrowing in on the man with whom they were speaking. "That's Georg Schneider."

"Who's that?"

"He's a collector. Egyptian paintings mostly. He's got a collection at the Met right now."

" _The_ Met?" Stuart asked.

"How many Mets do you know?" she asked.

"I don't know. Cleon Jones, Willy Mays. John Milner."

"Right." She caught Weston sneaking another glance at her as he and Annette returned to them.

"Quite a crowd tonight," Annette said.

"Fresh Faces has been pretty popular so far," Sheila said. "We made it onto the news in Dallas."

"Yeah, but that's Dallas," Weston replied. "When has anything even remotely artistic ever come out of Dallas?"

As they toured the museum, Sheila snuck her own secret glances at Weston. On the surface he was charming, smooth, but based on some of the things he said, and the way he carried himself, she believed most of what she'd heard about him. He had a rare magnetism, and even though she knew he lived such a foreign life, one she'd never care to see beyond public display, she listened to everything he had to say.

The Malibu Lounge was packed, patrons quite taken with the exhibit, and she noticed the special attention being paid to her work. Stuart held her hand, and from the way he beamed, she wondered if his pride even surpassed her own.

-

As they moved into the final wing of the museum, Weston leaned against Annette's back, putting his arms around her. He kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear, but he couldn't stop thinking about the girl holding Stuart's hand. He longed for an opportunity to talk to Sheila again, about anything. He shook off the notion that he wanted more than a simple dialogue with a fellow artist.

"This is why I got into art in the first place," Sheila told them as they came upon the Van Gogh collection.

"Crazy earless nut," Stuart said.

"You could call him crazy," Sheila said, her eyes lost in the brilliant contrasts of color in his unflinching self portrait. "I call him brilliant. He's my favorite."

"He committed suicide!"

"That doesn't make him crazy," she said. Freshman year of college, Weston had first heard the story of Van Gogh's death, living for a full thirty hours after having shot himself. He'd often thought about it, wondering what had driven him to pull the trigger only once, and not a second time, when the first bullet failed to kill him. "Either everyone's crazy or no one is."

"So what's your favorite Van Gogh?" Weston asked.

"It's called _Skull with Cigarette_ , and it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like."

"I have a print of it at the house," Weston replied. "It's my favorite too."

He'd been sneaking glances at Sheila all night, but in that moment, as he stood behind his wife with his arms around her shoulders, he caught Sheila looking back at him as well.

\- - -

Weston sat at his usual street café on Ventura Boulevard, sipping coffee and reading from a weathered copy of _Don Juan_. He'd picked it up after the night at the museum, and two weeks later he was into the sixth canto. It had given him a laugh in college, but he understood it better this time. He checked his watch out of the corner of his eye and reached for his bookmark when a shadow fell across the table. Sheila grinned down at him.

"'A fisher therefore was he, though of men,'" she said. "'Like Peter the Apostle, and he fished/For wandering merchant vessels now and then/And sometimes caught as many as he wished.'"

As she quoted, he suppressed the grin that threatened to consume his face. Byron always had a quick-witted pen, but his puns were irrelevant when they came out of her mouth. She could have made an obituary just as interesting. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Meeting Stu. I'm leaving this afternoon, and he wanted to say goodbye."

Those crystal blue eyes outshone the sky. "Easy come, easy go?"

"Yeah, off to Seattle next. I'm getting pretty homesick, though."

"You don't like it here?"

She flashed him her teeth with a nervous giggle. "Actually, I sort of love it."

"Won't you sit?"

She slid her purse from her shoulder and took an empty chair. "Thank you."

"So you like him? Yorky?"

Sheila breathed in, eyes locked on him, and the air filled with an awkward silence for a moment. She blinked past it, to his disappointment. "Mmm, yeah, he's nice."

"Nice?"

"Well, I mean, he knew this wasn't going to be anything serious. Gosh, I haven't had time for a serious boyfriend since freshman year, probably."

"Too caught up in your work?"

"Well, you know how it is, don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess so. My first wife, Yvette, we saw a lot of each other. She helped me start Westonwood. But Annette...I see a lot less of her."

"It can be lonely, can't it? Getting so wrapped up in what you do. It's like whether or not you realize it, you're married to your work."

"You make passion sound like a bad thing," he said.

"I didn't mean it that way. It's just, to people on the outside you can seem obsessed."

He leaned toward her, inhaling the faintest whiff of her honeysuckle perfume. "How many great works of art were created by people who weren't obsessed?"

She studied him for a moment, the way he expected she would when considering turning something into her next project. He dropped his hands into his lap with the vague sensation that she would no doubt see something that disappointed her. And the man who never cared about reputation – the man who said and did what he wanted and gave it no thought – wished he could take some of those things back. "You know, I've seen a lot of your work," Sheila said, and he could imagine her sticking her thumb out at him, one eye closed, face dabbed in paint, grasping a dirty brush. "I'm not sure, I might have even seen it all. You have a real eye for beauty. But sometimes it gets lost in other things."

"You know, when I first started, my dream was to give people a chance to make a name for themselves. Help new talent find a footing, you know?"

"Sure," she said.

"I have another idea – a big one, if I can ever scratch the surface."

"Do tell."

He'd dipped his toe in this pool before, always finding it too cold. "I like to think of it as symbiotic art."

She stared for a moment, eyes rippling with curiosity. "You mean, you mean art that doesn't exist for itself, but as part of a collective experience?"

"That's...exactly it!"

"Funny. I had the same idea."

"Did you ever do anything with it?" Weston asked.

She traced her finger against the table, painting something only she could see. "Not yet."

"Now I'm wishing you didn't have to go!" He'd been wishing it for weeks.

She paused, as if she held words on the tip of her tongue and wasn't sure whether to let them loose. "Well, if you ever get around to it, your symbiotic art, I mean...look me up."

"I will."

Her beautiful blues peeked over his shoulder. "Stu's here."

He didn't bother to turn. It wouldn't have done to waste his final moment alone with her. "Sheila Green, I hope we meet again."

"I hope so too."
1974

FEBRUARY

"It's a boy!"

Andrew Elvin stood in the doorway of the labor and delivery waiting room of Monterey Park Hospital, the sleeves of his blue sport shirt pushed back to his elbows. Lloyd remained seated as Andrew's parents and brother leapt to their feet from the chairs they had occupied for the past three hours. Lloyd glanced at Stuart, sitting on the other side of the room beside the seat his fiancée, Brina, had also abandoned to join the Elvins in congratulating Andrew on his firstborn. Stuart grinned back at him like a goofy schoolboy, and the two of them rose together.

The Elvins flooded Andrew with questions about the baby, and Lloyd sifted through the information, all of it interesting – seven pounds three ounces, a tuft of black hair, lungs contracting with the baby's first breaths – but none of it was what he wanted to know.

"Dad," Andrew greeted Lloyd with a hesitant hug, and Lloyd knew that Andrew's perpetual hesitancy was his own fault. He'd never shown his son-in-law the affection he had for him. It wasn't the time for that, though.

"Congratulations," he said, patting Andrew on the back, because it was custom to say that first before following with what he really wanted to know. "How is she?"

"Beat. She came through just fine, I think. But...she's out for now."

Lloyd remembered the birth of his own firstborn, how weak and delicate Virginia had been lying in the bed, how with her hair dried and stuck to her, snoring away with her brow locked in unconscious distress, she had still looked beautiful to him. He'd known better than to let anyone else see her, though.

"Congrats, Papa!" Stuart said, stepping up with Brina at his side. Like Andrew, she was one of the short ones of the group, eyes narrow like she was always squinting, cheeks flush and rosy with the slightest hint of dimples. "You must feel like a million bucks!"

"Probably more!"

Brina pinched Stuart. "Maybe before you know it, he'll be congratulating you!"

Stuart pressed his lips together in restrained amusement. "Bri likes kids."

As the happy chatter continued, Lloyd stood at the rear of the group. It was a good day, yes. His first grandchild. But in that moment of revelry, he couldn't help but think that there had been two other grandchildren that he would never get to see.

And then behind Andrew, through the doorway, Weston stepped inside, out of breath. All eyes in the room focused on him as the frivolity fell to a murmur.

He gave a weak smile to the group, never looking all the way to Lloyd, and they parted as he moved in. "Congratulations to the proud papa!" Weston said, and Andrew regarded him with something less than revulsion. Something almost cordial. Lloyd had never seen that before.

"Thanks, Wes. I'm glad you came." Andrew sounded almost convincing.

"I'm guessing from the looks of things, our new arrival is already here."

Lloyd didn't know whether to leave his son alone with them and give him space or to take a chance. He fought back the nagging warning and approached him. It was a family day, after all.

"Hi."

"Hello...Weston."

It was the first time he'd ever called him that. Lloyd offered his hand, and although Weston made no rush, he shook it. "It's good to see you."

-

Weston let go of his father's hand. Simultaneous to the warmth of the moment, all the cruel words he'd ever heard from Lloyd sprang to mind in a convoluted shout. He wanted to believe things had changed, but he didn't know the man so well anymore. Lloyd's hair only showed traces of graying, and he knew Lloyd would have considered it vain to dye it. He'd expected him to look older. Weston didn't congratulate him on being a grandfather; that would have been in poor taste.

"Where's your wife?"

Weston looked away, to Andrew, to Stuart, to anybody. "She's not feeling well. In bed."

"Ah. I see," Lloyd said. Weston was pleased that he didn't question it further, and he put the rest of them in between him and his father for the rest of his stay.

They all gathered around the nursery, and a nurse gently lifted baby Gabriel Elvin from beneath his nest of blankets and cradled him in her arms, angling him for all to see. Everyone whispered about how beautiful and handsome he looked, commenting on his thick hair. Weston saw all those smiles, and whenever someone would glance at him, he would put one on as well.

-

Weston cruised the Angelis, stopping in the Malibu Lounge, which was now the permanent home of some recently acquired Japanese sculptures and wood cuttings. Temple shodo recreations greeted him upon entry. They were beautiful, intricate works of calligraphy in careful black brushstrokes, but he had no idea what the symbols meant. A brightly lit case of ritual folding fans followed, many with the same calligraphy. He had to get close to really see the intricacies of the floral designs. His favorite was the collection of ukiyo paintings and woodblock prints, specifically the stylized sumo wrestlers and Japanese warriors.

Alone in the room, he felt a lingering presence, as if at any moment a Japanese woman would appear, criticizing the work and waiting for him to defend it.

He returned home after dark. Annette slept curled in a chair, her silk robe bunched up like she was tucked under the covers, and the bedroom smelled of vanilla incense. He blew out a candle before kneeling and kissing her forehead.

"Hey!" she stirred. "D'you just get in?"

"Yeah, long day."

"Mmm," she groaned, stretching. "How's your sister?"

"Fine. Wiped out, but fine. I guess I'm an uncle now."

"Guess that makes me an aunt." He said nothing. If she didn't care to see the child, he didn't think she deserved that title. "I must have dozed off while I was meditating." She laughed to herself.

"Come on," he said, lifting her up into his arms and carrying her over to the bed. "I'm beat."

"Thanks, Wes." She kissed him as he tucked her in. He went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, looking at himself for a minute in the mirror. When he came back into the bedroom, Annette had fallen asleep again. He put out the light and joined her under the covers.

Little Gabriel Elvin's infant face fixed itself in his mind, along with Lara's disheveled joy. Despite her unkempt appearance, his sister had never looked so beautiful – the rosy glow of a new mother. It was all so natural, so expected. So healthy.

Annette groaned in her sleep, and the aroma of incense cooled itself in the room.

Weston was alone.

APRIL

Weston arrived home from a meeting for Hillary's directorial debut, _Synthesis._ With another month of principal photography left, they were projected to run over budget by close to a quarter million, and although Hillary had fought for the extra money, ultimately he and the rest of the board had turned her down. Projections just weren't optimistic enough to warrant the increase, so they had to find places to cut, and they'd started with the opening credit sequence. They'd just show the title and launch in. She'd retreated to her office near tears.

He slid the jacket from his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor as he opened the liquor cabinet and removed a glass and a bottle. He poured just a finger of Scotch, but he took the bottle and the day's mail with him.

"Babe!" Annette called from the bedroom. "Come look at this! It's freaky!"

He downed the finger and poured himself another before going to her. She was perched on the edge of the bed, watching the evening news. He kissed her cheek as she pulled him down beside her. "What is it?"

"There's some creepy – oh, here it is!"

"You know, whoever this guy is, he's not doing himself any favors," Robert Redford said, hair whipping in the wind as a microphone hovered near his lips. "Nuts like this always get caught."

"Mr. Redford is only one of dozens of celebrities the Dentist has paid a call on," the anchor said as footage switched back to the news studio. He turned to his co-anchor. "I guess this brings a whole new meaning to the idea of being afraid to go to the dentist."

"Who the hell is the Dentist?" Weston asked.

Legs crossed, she swiveled to face him. "Some crazy person is sending out teeth! In the mail! Jack got one, Jane too! It's some kind of crazy celebrity stalker!"

Weston had felt an abnormality in the envelopes he'd brought in, something small and hard, like a pebble. He flipped to the last letter and noticed a tiny bulge in the bottom left corner. "Hello." No return address. He slit the seal and tilted it. A pristine white bicuspid landed in his palm.

Annette's face went pale. "Oh my God!" She threw a hand to her mouth, leaning over to get a good look at it. "Oh my God, Wes!"

He slipped out the note that accompanied it. "'A tooth for a tooth?' It's a question. Does he want one of my teeth?"

"Everyone else got the same letter," she said. "Oh my God! Throw that thing out!"

"It's no big deal," Weston said, dropping the tooth back in the envelope. "Creeps do this kind of thing all the time."

"I don't care! Throw it out! And make sure you locked the door!"

MAY

"And that's a wrap, everybody," Hillary's voice rang from her megaphone across the bank office set, location of the final shots for _Synthesis_. Applause rippled across the studio, from the gaffer to the grips. "Yeah, that's a wrap! I, uh, I believe we've got it in the can!" She put the back of her hand to her head and exhaled, watching everyone disassemble as a thousand details raced through her mind.

Jessica Wilkes, _Playboy_ bunny-turned-actress, fanned herself for a moment and stepped out from beneath the cooling lights and between the velvet ropes creating traffic lines across the faux bank foyer. She had one of those annoying tans that was just the perfect shade and covered every inch of her as if it were her natural skin color, not to mention her perfect bone structure and blonde hair that hung draped across her bare shoulder, shining like a silk sheet. "You look like shit," Jessica breathed, batting her pale blue eyes at Hillary.

"I feel like it." She slid the day's call sheet to the back of her clipboard and kicked at the ground to wake up her left foot, which had fallen asleep. "Good job, Jessica. I think you really hit your stride in the end." It was a lie; Jessica acted like a prima donna without any real credentials to warrant it. Her star appeal didn't come from her acting ability.

"Thanks for the chance to show the world I'm not just a pretty face."

Hillary nodded and turned back to her notes as Jessica strutted away.

-

Weston passed craft services, where much of the crew of _Synthesis_ was having coffee and sandwiches. Hands in his pockets, head down, he whistled a little Stealers Wheel, and as far as he could tell nobody paid him any attention. He put his hand to the door, glancing back, then pushed into the bright afternoon sunlight, crossing the path to the trailers, checking over his shoulder.

Jessica Wilkes sat on the edge of a plastic chair, dressed in an uncinched black silk robe as he stepped into her trailer, nostrils attacked by remnants of her perfume. The woman wore enough to suggest that if everyone in the room couldn't smell it, she didn't think she'd put it on properly. Jessica laid her hairbrush on the vanity, watching him approach in her mirror.

"In a hurry?" he asked, kissing her cheek and running his hands up her shoulders.

"I've got all the time in the world." She turned from their reflections, putting her arms around his waist and pulling him close. "For you, I've got all the time in the world."

Weston pressed his mouth against hers, slipped his tongue past her lips, and in moments his shirt, and her robe, lay crumpled against the door.

\- - -

Weston pulled into the driveway and froze with his hand on the gearshift. He stared at the light burning in the window, then glanced at his watch. Maybe Annette had forgotten to turn it off. Maybe she was still up, waiting for him. He shifted into park and touched his nose with his fingertips, coughing air against his palm and breathing in the diluted scent of Scotch, poorly masked by four good swigs of Listerine. She wouldn't notice. Most likely.

He composed himself, checking his reflection for anything out of the ordinary. Hair just slightly messed, par for a long day. Tie loosened, top button undone. He sniffed his shirt for any sign of Jessica's perfume, even though he always took it off when he was with her. Everything looked believable. He made the quick walk to the door, in case she was watching. No hesitation. Annette turned and stopped in her tracks as he entered, framed in lamplight and shadow in the living room, walls covered with old art he'd collected with Yvette, never bothering to mention to his current wife where he'd acquired it. He could tell from her abrupt halt that she had been pacing. As his stomach tightened, he read her face. No suspicion. No question. Whatever reason she had for pacing, it wasn't about him. "Hey," he said, hoping his voice betrayed nothing. "You still up?"

"Wide awake," she said.

She frowned as he put his hands on her, and he caught a whiff of the vanilla incense she was always burning. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"No, I can tell. What is it?"

"Sit down." He turned on another light, and they sat on a sofa facing his favorite Van Gogh. "Hillary finish filming?"

"Yeah, sorry it took so long getting home."

"That's OK, sweetheart. You take all the time you need."

His stomach loosened, but if she wasn't suspicious, he couldn't think of a reason why she wasn't already asleep. "You've got me worried over here. You want to tell me what's wrong?"

"Look at me, I'm freaked out like a kid afraid of a monster!" she said. "This isn't as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be in my head, I'm sure."

There was something familiar about the faint queasiness those words brought to him. "What?"

"Wes, I got pregnant."

He looked away from her, searching the room for something out of place, something disjointed, some clue that this was a dream from which he could awaken. He found none. "Oh."

She took his hand. "Don't worry. I know how you feel about children."

He squirmed without moving. "I like kids. I do! It's just..."

"I know."

"So..." He wanted to hold her, to kiss her. But all he could think about was how tightly she was grasping his hand, how difficult it would be to pull free. "So I guess we should–"

"I took care of it."

His mouth hung open, mid-sentence, and when she said it he laughed. "What?"

"I took care of it. Discretely."

"Are you serious?" he asked.

"I thought it's what you would have wanted."

"But, but you're the most...I've never met anyone who cares as much about life as you."

"It's not like it was really a baby," she reasoned. "It was only a couple of months old."

"A couple of months," he repeated. "Is this what you wanted?"

She shrugged. "I want you."

He embraced her, and though he could hear soft tears in her breath, he knew they were tears of validation, of resolution and peace. He held this woman who had compromised her fierce principles out of love and devotion to him, and he couldn't shake the sudden flashback to the acid trip he'd taken with Jessica and the salt of her skin against his tongue.

JULY

Jessica lay face down on her bed, naked, as Weston rubbed her back. A smoldering joint dangled from her lips. She purred as he worked his fingers across her tan, his kisses caressing her warm skin. "Weston." Her voice pierced him like a spear in moments like this. When he had her there, so beautiful and perfect, he would say or do anything to please her.

"Yes?"

She rolled over as he stopped his massage. "Do you remember what we talked about last week?"

"What?"

"About you leaving Annette? So we can be together?"

He swallowed as he looked down on her bleached hair, draped over the sculpted curvature of her breasts. "I remember."

"Well?"

"It's not that easy, Jess. She's been so good to me. It wouldn't be fair to her."

Her hand ran up and down his leg. "What about what's fair to me? I'm tired of sneaking around, keeping our relationship a secret. I love you so much."

He doubted she loved him. Nothing between them had ever come close to that. She passed him the joint, and he took a drag as she put her jeweled hand on the back of his head. He pressed his lips against hers, and her tongue went wild, as if trying to catch the smoke as it floated into the air between them.

The kiss was disturbed by a sudden knocking at the door in the front room. She exhaled with frustration. "Who the hell is that at this time of night?"

"I'll check it," he said, throwing on a robe.

She curled up on top of the bed, her ass in the air. "Hurry back, lover."

He rushed, anxious to rid himself of the unwanted guest and get back to the goddess in the next room. But when he reached the door, the voice on the other side blew it all out of his mind.

"Police."

He cracked it open to find three officers waiting. "Is Miss Wilkes here?" one of them asked.

A sinking irritation gripped his stomach. "In the bedroom. Can I help you?"

A piece of paper in his face. "We have a warrant to search the premises."

"Why?" He already knew the answer - the two baggies of bud in Jessica's freezer. The acid in the nightstand drawer.

"Suspicion of illegal substances."

He wondered what would happen if he shut the door on them and made a run for it, but he opened it wider and waved his hand into the expanse of the room. "Come in." Then he shouted, "Jessie, you might want to come out here."

She emerged from the bedroom in a silk nightgown. "What the hell is this?" She grabbed his hand as the police searched the apartment, the first time she'd ever reached for him in fear. He looked back at her, trying not to let his own dread show, and he knew this was going to be one of those moments he would never forget.

-

Weston found little patience for rest, occupying himself with continual pacing in his cell. He'd seen Annette bite her nails on rare stressful occasions and had almost taken up the habit himself. Jessica faded from his thoughts. Jail had broken her spell. The unflushed-toilet stink of the place was far more real than her overkill of Chanel perfume had ever been.

He was thankful that this had never happened at his own home, back in the day. Whatever trouble he faced, Jessica was in more. They found it in his urine, but they found a lot more of it in her apartment. He could see now that she was poison, which was what she'd been feeding him since the day they'd met.

Annette would come, today, tomorrow. Annette would come, and everything would change.

"Weston." An officer unlocked his cell.

"Yes?"

"You have a visitor."

He prayed for it to be Hillary, or Stuart, but it wasn't. Annette waited there, eyes red, and he wanted to go back to his cell. Surely jail and whatever fine they would charge him should be punishment enough.

"Hello," she said. He'd imagined her much less composed.

"I'm so sorry."

"Really?" There was no regret in her voice. "Is that why you cheated on me, for however long you did? Is that why you never came to me after the first time and confessed?"

His heart beat harder and faster than it ever had. "I have no excuse. All I can say is I'm sorry."

"I don't believe you." Despite those red eyes, her response was strong and cold. "I don't believe a word you say."

"I never meant for you to find out this way."

An eerie smile crept onto her face. "You think I found out about this in the paper?"

"It's in the paper?"

"Of course it is!" She slid a copy of the _Times_ across the table, and he stared down at the headline and the copy. He imagined Lara seeing it, and worse, Andrew. The entire world. Oddly enough, he imagined Sheila Green reading about his infidelity. "I'm the one who leaked it! Who do you think tipped off the police?"

She was so calm, so pleased with herself. He had to give her credit; he never knew she could be this assertive. He'd always assumed that if she found out about Jessica she'd curl up into a ball or go limp, totally vulnerable and inconsolable. "That was you?"

"You really think I'm stupid, don't you? You think I can't tell when you're lying to me? I'll admit I bought it at first, but your stories never added up. You're not a good liar, honey. You're a liar, no question. Just not a good one."

"I love you," he said.

She chuckled. He'd imagined tears, sobs, screams, but never this icy amusement. "No you don't. The only person you love is yourself. And as for that whore, I hope you make each other very happy."

"I'm done with her, Annette. It's you I want!"

"I can't believe I gave up a baby for you!"

An image crossed through his mind from when they'd first met – at that benefit for diabetes research he'd attended with Mary. The bashful smiles she'd given him when she noticed he was watching her instead of following her father's speech. She was the most beautiful girl there, save for Mary. "Please! I love you!"

A single tear appeared in her eye. "Well, that's your problem."

SEPTEMBER

Hillary stood as far away from the main desk of the jail entryway as she could. The lobby, or whatever they called it in a place like this, felt simultaneously sterile and germ-ridden, as if the doors to booking could wipe away one's influence on the outside world without wiping anything away from the person. It had been a month, twenty-eight days Weston had served plus the two before he'd made bail. Jessica Wilkes was still back in there somewhere, and as Hillary watched, her boss emerged in one of his suits, hanging looser on him, shirt wrinkled. He was clean shaven but his hair was everywhere, like he'd been driving with the top down during a windstorm. Even with all that time sober, he had the slight stutter of footing of a drunkard, that uncertain shift of the shoulders.

She hadn't seen him since he'd gone in to serve his time, and the sight of him there, in the unflattering yellow lighting, reinforced that choice.

"Hey," she said, the air as chilly as her voice.

"Thanks for the ride."

He pulled her in for a hug, and she wrapped limp arms around him. "That was a pretty stupid thing to do!" she whispered. Once spoken, her arms tightened.

"I know."

"Stupid, stupid, Weston. How could you be so stupid?"

"I don't know."

She wiped his messy hair from his forehead. "I swear, one of these days..."

"I'm sorry."

"Go on and get in the car."

They drove in silence for a while, the same silence that had hung between them since the arrest. Whenever she'd glance at him, he was slouched in his seat, gazing out at the gray sky.

"How're things at work?" he asked as they passed the Westonwood campus, parking lot full.

"I held everything together while you were gone."

"I figured. Thanks."

She updated him on the status of things, and he offered little in reply. She wasn't sure how closely he was listening, always following the road, the passing people on the sidewalks, his head hanging to the right as if he'd fallen asleep.

The car idled for a minute outside his house. She knew he was waiting for her to say something, but she gripped the gearshift, fighting the sympathy that pushed against her concern and frustration.

"Well, thanks again."

"Welcome," she said.

He dragged himself up the driveway as if he had no reason to return to this place anymore. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his key. As he slipped it in the lock, she shook her head, letting out a long sigh, and shut off the engine. He turned as she emerged, still riddled with irritation, and threw herself around him.

"Damn you," she whispered.

They entered the house, the stench of stale air hitting her. No light, everything picked over, odd furniture missing. It felt and smelled dead inside.

"So she's really gone," he said, standing where a sofa used to rest, against the sky blue wall.

"I thought I'd be happy to see her go, but she deserved better."

"I know."

"She told me everything," Hillary said. "Jessica I would expect this from, Wes, but not you! You go and kill everything you have going for you!"

He did not reply, examining the wreckage of his life, the remains of his home. Most of his things were still there. All of the artwork remained hanging on the walls. He looked to his Van Gogh, his _Skull with Cigarette_.

"That's me," he said.

"What?"

"That's me in the picture."

"Come on," she said, pulling on his arm. "You need something to eat."

She led him into the kitchen, the source of the putrid odor. The refrigerator hung open and unplugged, and she stopped at the sight of it.

"Hillary?" he ventured, his voice calm and stable.

"I can hardly breathe!"

"I think I'd like some meat."

She turned to him for a moment, still somber, and then they both burst into laughter. "Let's get you a steak," she said.

OCTOBER

Hillary sat by herself on the groom's side of the little chapel at Stuart and Brina's wedding. Sure, she could have sat a few rows closer to the front with the others from Westonwood, and she probably would have if her date hadn't cancelled on her three days earlier, leaving her very aware that she was alone and feeling oddly out of place.

The venue reminded her of a mountain cottage or a ski lodge with its huge gray stone walls and arching ceiling beams. The stained glass disrupted the cozy atmosphere, not to mention the pews and the simple altar. A single cross hung behind the low stage. The sun hit the windows on the left side, illuminating the deep blues and traces of green in a pastoral sky over a lush green meadow in which a shepherd sat, surrounded by feeding sheep.

At the front, a small side door opened and Stuart emerged, back straight and strides steady. Andrew followed as the best man, and Weston was third in line. She wished he could have been in the empty seat beside her. As they took their places, an usher stepped up to Hillary's row. She scooted away to make room for whatever last-minute guest had just arrived. A woman slid in beside her in a cool, conservative blue dress with matching gloves. "Excuse me," the newcomer said, situating herself on the thin cushion of the pew. "Almost didn't make it."

"It's OK," Hillary replied, her voice dropping to a near whisper. "Trouble finding the place?"

"Actually, yes. I'm sort of new in town."

"Old friend?"

"Sort of."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're sort of a friend and got invited to the wedding?"

The girl brushed her fingers across her perky hair. "Somebody cancelled at the last minute. They asked me to come since I'm not from around here. Maybe make a friend."

"My name is Hillary," she said.

"I know who you are. Hillary Louden."

"And who are you?"

"Sorry, where are my manners?" She offered a gloved hand, which Hillary shook. "I'm Sheila."

-

The music of mirth filled the banquet hall as the Hambers/York reception hit its stride. Stuart and Brina, both social butterflies, spread their laughter and excitement from table to table as people mingled. Weston sat with Andrew and Lara and some of the other groomsmen. As he sipped a glass of wine, Hillary came up behind him. "How's everyone at the loser table?" she asked.

"Just missing my baby," Lara beamed and then sank her teeth into a bacon-wrapped scallop.

Hillary nodded. "I remember when he was born, Brina was already talking about having kids. Bet she'll be pregnant by New Years!"

"Hill!" Lara swatted her. "You're not supposed to talk about sex at a wedding!"

"Get real." Hillary rubbed Weston's shoulders. "How you holding up there, champ?"

"What's with you?"

"I love weddings!" She'd been so serious all day – he wondered what had gotten into her.

Andrew grinned at his brother-in-law. "Yeah, and no ex-girlfriends crashing this one, right?"

Jokes from Andrew were rare, and he savored it with another sip of Chardonnay. "One does one's best."

Hillary whispered in his ear. "Speaking of exes, Stuart's is here. Friend of yours."

"Who?"

She pointed, and from across the room, he saw Sheila Green sitting alone, eating a chocolate-covered strawberry. He remembered every inch of that face. "What's she doing here?"

Hillary patted his shoulder. "Why don't you ask?"

-

Sheila had mingled a bit, but now that the dancing had begun, she sat at her table in solitude, watching Stuart and his new bride, whom she had only had a brief chance to meet. She was a bit self-conscious about being there alone, but she'd never turned down a wedding invitation, even a last-minute one. Of course Stuart wouldn't have had time to say more than hello to her, and of course she wouldn't know anyone else. There was one guest that she knew, but after all she had heard since she'd seen him last, the thought of approaching him seemed silly and preposterous. As if a man like that would remember her.

And yet when she made her fifth quick glance in the direction of the groomsmen's table, he was halfway toward her, each step quickening her pulse. She wished she could slip the mirror from her purse without him seeing. Just in case. When she'd known him, he was a married man with a happy wife on his arm. Her lungs tightened, and she couldn't look away. She'd resolved to steer clear, and yet here he was, and she knew in that moment she hadn't come to the wedding to see Stuart.

"Hello, stranger," she said. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"Well, I must say, I'm a little surprised," Weston replied as he claimed an empty chair. "You've been here this whole time and didn't even come by to say hello?"

"I didn't think you'd remember me."

"Uh...what, what are you doing here?"

She hadn't spent much time with him, but the stutter struck her as unusual, especially considering his polished image in the media. Her lip twitched, and she hoped he wouldn't notice. "Actually, I just moved to town."

"You're kidding," he said.

"Got a nice little place up in Sherman Oaks. On Sepulveda."

"So you're here to stay?"

She shrugged. "Never say never."

Weston smiled at her for a moment, then he chuckled like a little boy. "Would you like to dance?"

She already knew her answer to that question. "I would."

He led her out, holding her hand and putting his other on her waist. They moved in harmony, slowly, and even though she had followed his exploits along with the rest of the world, she couldn't shake the sense that this wasn't the same man who had betrayed his wife. This wasn't the same man who was arrested in a love nest with Jessica Wilkes. This couldn't be the same man.

"So, is it weird to be at your ex-boyfriend's wedding?"

"He was hardly my boyfriend. You know, it was just a casual thing for a few weeks."

"He liked you a lot. Didn't you like him back?"

"He's nice enough." She remembered hanging on Stuart's arm, noticing every time Weston looked at her more than she'd paid attention to anything her date had to say. "I think I only went out with him because of his name."

"Wow. Your mom really brainwashed you."

"What?" She leaned into him and saw the look of pleasure run across his face as she did. "Isn't it every girl's dream to marry royalty?"

"He ever tell you his middle name?

"Don't think so."

Weston's mouth went wide, and she found it charming. "Tudor."

"Oh...wow..."

"So what brings you out west?"

"I needed a change of scenery. Trying to get out on my own and really make a name for myself."

"And so you came here?"

"Well, it's a good place to start. When I was on the tour, I think maybe I fell in love with LA a little bit."

He cleared his throat. "I'd love to see some more of your work sometime."

She looked up at the powerful, charismatic, intimidating man, shaking with nervousness in her arms. "Well, never say never."

NOVEMBER

Sheila had only been in her apartment a little over a month, and she'd never had a guest before. The place would appear disorganized and unkempt to an outsider – to her it was the perfect balance of design and implementation. Very rarely did she feel the need to clean up her studio, as most people thought a messy workspace meant a productive artist. But she suspected Weston wouldn't make the distinction. From all she knew, he was as devoted to his work as she was, but his tie was always the perfect length, his face always appearing to have been freshly shaved within the hour.

She stacked her oils and her brushes, and left her plates strategically arranged with just the perfect traces of paint smears, beside the three easels she'd spent several minutes arranging to give the place just the right energy. Before she knew it, she'd turned her studio into a production design project, as if the space was more important than its use. She carefully laid out the paintings she hoped he'd notice.

Sheila told herself this was a business call, not a social one. He was here to see her work, not to see her. And yet she spent a fair amount of time in front of the mirror, applying her makeup as carefully as if she were a painting herself.

A knock, and she hurried out of the bathroom. She took a calming breath and opened the door.

"Good morning!" she greeted, beckoning him to come inside. "Nice to see you."

"I like the complex," he said, glancing around at the grounds. "Very classy."

"Come on in."

He stepped past her, and her heart fluttered as his back turned and she caught a whiff of his cologne. Everyone in her family wore Old Spice, and Weston's Aramis was as new and exciting to her as Los Angeles. "Nice place," he said.

"Oh, yeah, well. It's the ten-cent tour. Living room, Spartan really. Sorry it's such a mess."

"It's as messy as I'd expect from a painter," he replied. "And I'd call it productive, not messy."

"So, how are things down at Westonwood?" she asked as he inspected her set-decorated workspace.

"Fine, I guess. I'm between projects at the moment."

Now that he was actually there, the conversation she'd imagined between them evaded her. She was second-guessing her placement of things. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Maybe some tea?"

"My favorite!" He followed her into the kitchen, clean and sparkling in contrast to her studio. Her arms still hurt from the hour she'd spent scrubbing those counters and that floor. "So why aren't you working on anything right now?"

"It's been a rough year."

"I've heard. You've been pretty busy, haven't you?"

As she used tongs to drop some ice in two glasses, he stepped up to the little window in her kitchen and looked out into the parking area. "So the tabloids say."

She poured tea over the ice and put the pitcher back in the refrigerator, wondering how a cultured man like the one beside her could be the man of abandon whose exploits fueled scandal and sold newspapers. "Well, how many people read that garbage, anyway?"

He took one of the glasses. "Enough."

She raised her tea for a toast. "To new beginnings?"

He touched her glass with his own. "To symbiotic art."

"I'll drink to that."

She led him out to the row of completed paintings she'd set on display. "I've been working on portraits lately," she said. "I guess they're a work in progress."

There were five large canvasses, each with a different somber face. "This one's you?"

"Eight years old."

"You were beautiful." He dropped low on _were._

Weston lingered on it for a moment as she looked away so he wouldn't see her blushing. "This one here is my sister-in-law, Samantha. And this is my mother." He looked at both of them for a moment in silence. Samantha was short-haired and diminutive, but full of life, with a smile like the Cheshire Cat. It was how Sheila had always pictured her, from the moment her brother Matt first brought her home to meet the family. Sheila had painted her mother without a smile, but her face was accepting and dignified. She held her head high like royalty. Sheila had always looked up to her mother that way, like someone who should be respected as much as loved. "What do you think?"

"I think you've got a good eye for faces. Your perspective is just a tad askew, but it makes them look, I don't know, beyond real. Ideals, maybe?"

"Thank you," she said.

"Who are the other two?"

"Oh, just models."

"You don't paint men?"

"Not yet. Haven't found one who'll sit for me."

"I bet there're a hundred guys who'd kill for a chance to have you paint them."

She'd hung notices at UCLA and USC, with only a few responses, all women. "Then I must be looking in all the wrong places."

"I'll do it."

She looked up from her work and found him regarding her with sincere, straight lips, like her mother in the painting. "Really?"

"I'd love to."

She giggled and realized that even though she'd never have considered it, this was the man she'd most want to paint. "That'd be great – wow! My first guy, and my first celebrity to boot!"

"When?"

She was sure he had filled countless other girls with this same intimidation. "Well, when's good for you?"

"Got any plans for today?"

She'd kept her schedule clear for him, just in case. "No."

"Neither do I."

She glanced at her cluttered desk. "I might need to get a few supplies first."

Weston gulped down the last of his tea. "May I drive?"

"Why not?" She fought back a giddiness she hadn't felt since Jimmy Breslin asked her to the prom senior year.

"I'd be very interested in talking to you about collaborating."

"You mean the symbiotic art?" she asked.

"Yes."

She nodded, scooping her purse from where it hung on her coat closet doorknob. "Let's go, then, shall we?"

1975

JANUARY

Hillary looked up with tired eyes as Stuart came through the door into Weston's office. The lights were still off in the hallways. The reception desk was empty. The rest of Los Angeles was sleeping in and sleeping off its New Year's Eve. For the first time, she'd had to use her key to get into the building. "Morning," Stuart yawned, glancing around. "Where's Wes?"

"Running late, I guess."

"Too early to be running late," he said. "You get the memo?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen him so excited."

"Are we the only ones here?"

"No, Bill and Mackey are over at _Lady Macdeath_ , editing."

Stuart rubbed his eyes and fiddled with the switch on the wall until the lights had dimmed a bit. "You guys ever figure out how to end the season if they don't renew?"

The air conditioner was on for some reason, and as chilly as she was, she was too tired to try to fix it. "No. We either condense the story, which'll ruin it, or... I don't know."

Weston entered, brimming with energy and holding a small cardboard crate with four cups of coffee. "Happy New Year!" he grinned, setting the drinks on the table in front of them and slipping out of his coat. "Sorry, I promise it'll be a short meeting."

"What's this all about? _Color Twenty_? What's that?" Stuart asked.

Hillary noticed the fourth coffee. "Somebody joining us?"

The door opened a third time and Sheila slipped through. Hillary and Stuart exchanged an intrigued glance. "Hello," she said.

"Well well well," Stuart said.

"Look who's here," Hillary added.

She gave a gracious nod. "Hillary."

"Sheila," Hillary replied, noticing her energy matched Weston's. "So what's the deal?"

Weston helped Sheila take off her coat. "Figure a little warmth would do us all some good on a morning like this. Help yourself!"

"Cheers," Stuart said, taking a sip of coffee. "So, I'm assuming this is about the memo."

" _Color Twenty_."

"Right. I don't understand, though." Stuart picked up Hillary's copy. " _Color Twenty_ media: one movie, twenty paintings (ten old, ten new), twenty songs (one about each painting also tying into the central theme), three novels."

"What's the deal?" Hillary asked.

"Do you remember, back in the old days, when I used to talk about symbiotic art?"

She looked at the memo again as so many drunken conversations ran through her thoughts. "Rings a bell."

"Turns out Sheila had the same idea, and we got to talking, and we came up with this." He reached behind him to his desk and picked up two documents, handing one each to Hillary and Stuart. "It's a treatment."

"Gist it for us," Stuart said.

Sheila buried her hands under her legs, no doubt to warm them. "Well, you know how they say there're no new ideas? Everything's already been thought up?"

"Sure," Hilary said. It was too early in the morning for _yep yep_.

"Well, the premise is that, about art," Sheila said. "If you look through history and across the world, of course, you know, things can be really different, but I think the themes – the themes of humanity, like love, and hate, and death and birth – the themes never change. You know Shakespeare borrowed most of his plots; everybody thinks he was a genius, and he was, but his plots weren't new."

"OK," Stuart said.

"Well, what if something happened, something way in the past, that was so significant that every story we have today – every plot, every premise – started there?"

"What, you mean like creation? Or the Big Bang?" Hillary asked.

"No," Weston said. "Nothing religious or scientific. This isn't about that. We're not making any postulations here. It's pure fantasy."

"So that's the movie? Something in the past that predates every work of art?" Stuart asked.

"It's more than just a movie," Sheila said. "We're making it come true."

"With these paintings and music and books?"

"Well, yes. People are going to see this movie that suggests all art is connected. Then, they go out into the world and turn on the radio, and they hear, I don't know, they hear Carly Simon singing a song." Sheila stabbed at the air, drawing an invisible diagram of the chain of events. "And it dawns on them that it feels just like the movie. Then they see a painting and think about the idea of this profound connection, and then they realize that the painting was _in_ the movie, and that also that song they heard on the radio seems like it's talking about the painting. Or was it the painting was inspired by the song? Or is it really true that all art is connected?"

Hillary caught the look on Weston's face as Sheila described the idea. The only other time she'd ever seen that gleam in his eye was the day Charlie Chaplin came back to town. "This is something."

Weston turned to Stuart. "And that's where you come in, Yorky. For this to work, we have to really get it out there for the world to see. We've got to get the biggest names for the songs, and play them on every radio station. We've got to come up with every gimmick possible to get people into the theaters, and to get our books in their hands and get our paintings in their faces. It's got to be an explosion."

"How much coffee have you already had?" Stuart asked.

"And you're going to do all the paintings?" Hillary asked Sheila.

"We're going to try to get as much as we can to match our theme. But, yeah, I'll be doing all the new works."

Weston clapped his hands. "So what do you think?"

Stuart dropped the memo on the table beside the steaming cups. "And here I was hoping for an easy year!"

-

Cochrane's, the restaurant on the second floor of the Castle, was hopping with activity that afternoon, but Weston had no trouble securing a table by the glass rail, looking down into the lobby right in front of the grand piano Walt Disney had given the hotel when it opened.

"Is this place always so busy on a Wednesday afternoon?" Sheila asked as the waiter left them with two glasses of champagne poured from the bottle they'd ordered.

"It's...New Years."

"Right." She hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. "How'd we get a table so fast?"

"It's easy when you own the place."

She took a quick look around the restaurant, up the column of open space that ran all the way to the top floor. "You own...this?"

"My family does." Weston raised his glass. "To _Color Twenty._ "

She reached hers out to clink against his, and he ignored the looks of interest and leaned-in whispers from some of the other tables. "You always get so much attention," she observed.

"Not like I used to."

"Why's that? You're as popular as you've ever been."

Tables away, a bleached blonde ran her hungry eyes across him. "Yeah, well, I guess there's a difference between fame and infamy."

"Shakespeare called a good reputation 'the purest treasure mortal times afford,'" she said.

" _Richard II_ ," he replied. "He didn't exactly have a clean reputation."

"Who, Shakespeare or Richard?"

"Both. I don't know. I guess I just don't care about that kind of thing."

"Isn't that what started the rift between you and your dad?"

She beamed at him with caring curiosity, pressing on the boundaries of his comfort. "There's a lot more to it than that."

"My daddy says you're like the Prodigal Son," she said.

"You talk to your dad about me?"

"I talk to my daddy about everything."

They locked eyes, and he wondered how different her life must have been from his. "Except in the story, the father never did anything to push the Prodigal Son away. Are you as religious as your father?"

"Maybe not as much as in practice as I should be. But in my soul. I'm a believer." Piano music floated up from down below, and they turned to find a young woman, maybe in her early twenties, had taken a seat at the white grand, running her fingers over the keys and pumping the pedal, arms and shoulders working the soulful sadness of Mancini's theme from _Romeo and Juliet_. Sheila shifted her back to the view. "So maybe we should work out a plan of action for the project."

"We've got you for the paintings, and we've got Westonwood for the film. We need to look for musicians and writers."

Her eyes lit up. "We've got to get Carly Simon! She's my absolute favorite."

"Yeah?"

"You didn't notice how I'm always playing her?"

"When you mentioned her name at the meeting, I started putting it together," he said.

"My absolute favorite song in the entire _world_ is 'That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be!' I just melt all over the floor when that thing comes on."

"If you want her, we'll get her."

She laughed, so softly it was almost a gasp, and sucked down a good sip of her champagne. She kept sneaking quick glances at him with those beautiful blue eyes, as if she wanted to look at him but didn't want him to notice. They'd been playing that game since they met.

"You OK?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's just... Thank you for thinking of me."

"You were my muse! I'm the one who should be thanking you." Weston wanted to say more. He'd never spent an unwanted night alone, but for the first time someone had come along who made him consider whether or not he deserved her. It was an uncomfortable thought. "Who knows? Maybe we can make the world go crazy for you! Get a Sheila Green in every house in America!"

"You're mad as a hatter!"

"I'm the Great One!"

Her cheeks flushed, and he noticed how close her hand was to his. "Yeah, well, madness in great ones must not unwatched go."

\- - -

Sheila sat with Weston in the audience for a taping of _The Mary Tyler Moore Show_ , her attention alternating between the actors and the man beside her. She'd spent most of her free time with him for several months, and she'd tried to understand the complexities of the simple soul that always lingered in her thoughts. His face told her things his words never did.

Weston laughed with delight at Ted Knight's botched news report, and Sheila put it out of her mind and enjoyed the show, and his presence.

The actors took their bows as the two of them joined in the applause, and then Weston whisked her backstage. When Mary opened the door to her dressing room, the star gave her an unexpected hug. "It's so good to meet you, Sheila. He won't shut up about you."

"He just can't shut up in general, I think," Sheila said.

"I caught your exhibit when it was in town."

"You did?"

"I'm not the art hound he is, but I really liked it. The one about the war gave me chills."

"Well, I love you too! I think my favorite is _Thoroughly Modern Millie_."

"Oh really?"

"Your love scenes with John Gavin were so silly! I was a kid when I saw it, but it was just the funniest thing. You're just the best!"

Mary nudged Weston. "You need to bring this one around more often!"

Sheila noticed her subtle implication as Weston responded. "We have something we wanted to talk to you about."

"OK."

Sheila took a step behind him, marveling at how normal this all seemed to him, lounging in the dressing room of one of the biggest stars on television. "It's the little project we've been working on. The one I told you about yesterday. _Color Twenty_."

FEBRUARY

Stuart eased himself into a chair beside Sheila opposite Weston's desk. He said nothing of it, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen either of them apart from the other. He also couldn't recall the last time there had been so much life in Weston's face.

He tapped the worn _Color Twenty_ script he'd brought with him, flexing it against the brads that held it together. "OK, first reaction. You didn't give me enough trailer moments."

Stuart caught the instant realization in Weston as he looked down at his own copy of the script, spread out across his desk. "I was afraid of that," Weston said.

"What's a trailer moment?" Sheila asked.

"Script's one of a kind, don't get me wrong," Stuart said. "If you can pull it off – if – it'll be amazing. But we've got to have...at least five, I'd say...trailer moments."

"But what does that mean?" Sheila asked.

Weston waved away the question. "He means pieces he can pull out to put in a preview." He turned another page, then shut the document and pushed it away.

"Sorry. It's great in the moment, but most bits pulled out of context are too abstract. And I mean, I really looked. Gillis agrees."

"No, you're right," Weston said. "Back to the drawing board."

MARCH

More than a dozen singers were booked to fly out to Los Angeles on the Westonwood company dime. The musical aspect of the _Color Twenty_ project was by far the most loosely designed. The intention was to let the artists themselves interpret the story and compose pieces that they thought would best contribute to the specific sections assigned to them and relate to the paintings. The fifth musician they'd booked was the one Weston most hoped would sign on.

Carly Simon had read over the treatment before the meeting, and Weston was as succinct and direct as he could be when explaining exactly what he wanted her to do.

"So that's it?"

"That's it," Weston replied. "What do you think?"

Carly laughed, lounging beside him in his once immaculate and now cluttered office. "You're crazy! Don't get me wrong, it's pretty amazing, but it's pretty crazy!"

Her voice rang softly from the hi-fi. He figured it didn't hurt to play these people's records in the background when they came in for the interviews. "Look at it this way: if the movie flops, if the art stinks, if nobody reads the books, your song is still yours."

"But it's all part of your collective. Is that what you called it?"

"That's it."

Carly laughed again. "Sounds so scientific!"

"Hey, I'm no scientist!" he said.

"No, you're not!"

"Look, I'll be honest. You were the first name on the list."

"Really?"

"Sheila? The artist? She loves you. I mean, I think you're great too. But Sheila..."

Carly smirked, her thick curls rippling. "You got a little thing for this girl?"

He batted away the insinuation. "Please! I don't have 'little things.'"

"You had a 'little thing' with Jessica Wilkes." Weston fell silent as that pinprick punctured his enthusiasm. A faint memory of Jessica's perfume wafted across his nostrils. "Sorry," Carly said.

"That's OK. It's nothing like that."

"Who else do you have roped into this thing so far?"

"Ah, Fleetwood Mac, Boz Scaggs. I've got Bruce Johnston working on a song for the opening. It's going to be about how, I don't know, all the music comes from one place?"

"It feels like a caper," she said. "You really think you can pull it off?"

"One does one's best."

"Well, tell you what. Let me chew on it. Tinker. And we'll see what happens."

He shook her hand. "Thanks for that. By the way, you wouldn't be interested in screen testing, would you?"

"One thing at a time!" she said.

Knocking. "Come in," he called.

The door opened and Sheila stepped inside, holding a canvas, arms outstretched, obscuring her field of vision. "OK, now, bear in mind I'm not sold on–" She froze when she lowered the painting and saw Weston's guest. "Ah...ah ha..."

Her sudden speechlessness was adorable. He wished he could have caught the moment on film. "Carly, I'd like you to meet Sheila Green."

"Nice to meet you. I hear you've got your work cut out for you on this thing."

Sheila nodded. "Uh huh."

Carly hefted her purse onto her shoulder as she rose. "Well, I have to run, but it was nice to meet you, Sheila."

She blushed. "Miss Simon, I have to say, you are my absolute favorite in the world!"

"Thank you! You're sweet." Carly glanced at Weston. "Well, we'll be in touch."

"Bye, Carly."

Carly gave Sheila one last smile and ducked out the door. She turned around as Weston came up beside her. "This _Black Hole Memoir_?" he asked, taking the painting.

"Why didn't you tell me she was here?"

"Sorry. I called – you didn't answer. The look on your face was priceless, though. She'll be back – we'll have dinner." He examined her work. "Nostalgically creepy?"

She shot a glance at the closed door, then back to the painting. "Think Norman Rockwall meets David Lynch."

\- - -

Johnny Carson sat with the elbows of his checkered sport coat on the edge of his desk as a camera swung back around toward him at the end of a commercial break. The image of the Manhattan skyline behind him had long been traded for a look down into Hollywood from the hills. "Our next guest, you know her as the winner of the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, last two years in a row. Ladies and gentleman, the classiest woman in show business...Mary Tyler Moore!"

Applause erupted from the television set in Hillary's living room as Mary stepped onstage in flickering black and white and moved in to hug Johnny while the band played the theme from her show. Sheila adjusted herself on Hillary's sofa and Weston draped his arm behind her, not close enough to touch. She noticed it lying there, though.

"When are you going to get a color set?" Weston asked.

"When _I_ win an Emmy," Hillary replied.

On screen, Mary tucked her skirt under herself as she took a seat beside Johnny's desk. "It's good to see you, Johnny."

"Mary, you look wonderful, you always do. What's your secret?"

"I'm very blessed, you know? I've got, I don't know, the best people in my life. Grant's the best husband a woman could have."

"Well, sure, he's married to you. You can turn him on with just a smile, right?"

The audience laughed as Mary swung her leg out and turned them on. "So they tell me."

Johnny chuckled. "Let's try it out. Smile at me."

She complied, and Johnny shook his head. "I don't know, it's hard to tell. Here, smile at Paul."

She turned and smiled at Paul Simon, sitting in the seat beside her. "What do you think, Paul?" Johnny asked.

"I think we have a winner!"

Sheila laughed, and when she glanced at Weston she found him watching her more than the show. She tightened in her seat, inching toward him without a word.

"So Mary, you just finished, what, the last episode of the season?"

"Yes, well, it just aired. Last week."

"Five years. That's a good length for a TV show."

"Well, you've been on longer than that, Johnny."

"Yeah, sure, but I claimed squatter's rights."

Sheila shook her head. "That man is too much."

"Anyway," Johnny continued. "So, you're going into a sixth year?"

"Yes, we're still going strong."

"Any plans to finally tie the knot?"

"I really don't see that happening," Mary said. "That's not what the show is about, you know?"

"Right, right. You know, we haven't seen you in any movies lately."

"Our company, MTM, we've done a few films." She lit up. "Oh, I'm doing one this summer!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! I'm playing, well, it's kind of hard to describe it. It's kind of a new age artsy kind of thing. Weston's pet project right now. We're doing it with Westonwood."

"Weston, huh?" Johnny asked. "So it's some kind of artsy porno spy spoof about Vietnam?"

The girls laughed at him as the audience laughed at Johnny, and Weston just shook his head.

"It's going be good," Mary asserted. "It's called _Color Twenty,_ and it's very unique."

"You know, every time we have that clown on the show, he always brings somebody up on stage, like he owns the joint."

"Yes, I've noticed."

"And I'm thinking...didn't he bring you up once?"

"Uh, yes! Years back."

"How'd you ever get mixed up with that guy in the first place?" Johnny asked.

Mary shifted her lips in feigned contemplation. "Well, I don't know. Why don't you ask him yourself?"

The cameras cut over as Weston emerged onto the stage to the laughter and applause of the audience. Sheila and Hillary both turned to him in surprise.

"What the hell are you doing there?" Hillary asked.

He shrugged. "Crashing, what does it look like?"

On the screen, Weston shook hands with Johnny as the audience died down. Johnny turned to Mary. "What is this? Some kind of talk show suicide pact?"

"What can I say?" she asked. "It always looked like fun when he did it!"

"How'd you even get past security?"

"Oh come on, you knew I was here all along."

Johnny broke into a beaming grin. "So you're the bum who parked in my space."

"I just wanted to say that I felt bad about not getting you a birthday card last time I was on, so..." He pulled a blue envelope from his coat pocket. "I know it's a little early, but happy fiftieth!"

Johnny hugged him as the audience applauded. "Thanks. That's very thoughtful. I hope there's a check in here for all the time you've wasted on my show!"

As they talked onscreen, Sheila's attention shifted to the man beside her. There was something about him she couldn't describe, something that could make her tremble if he knew how to use it. He seemed no worldly playboy. She couldn't imagine him tripping on acid, or sneaking off with a pin-up girl while his wife waited for him at home, or turning his back on his father.

She fancied Weston, but she wondered if she wouldn't fancy Benjamin more.

APRIL

Weston turned up at Sheila's place one night, and she welcomed him with a warning that she was busy at work and didn't have time to talk. He said he had no intention of intruding – he just needed some company.

He sat in the dark on her sofa, bathed in the television's glow, as she poised over a canvas in the other room, lit by a high-powered lamp. At first they chatted, having to shout back and forth, but the conversation dwindled as she carefully twirled her brush in her hand. A skinny woman of average height and pale skin – bearing a passing resemblance to Mary Tyler Moore, stood on a rocky precipice, sporadic blades of grass growing here and there at her feet. She looked down on a white emptiness that Sheila had yet to fill. When completed, it would be a vast prairie full of cattle, but when looked at just right, the precipice would appear as a skyscraper with the woman standing over a bustling city.

A bead of sweat traced Sheila's cheek, and she wiped it on her sleeve without making any further movement. Her wrist grew sore, her back as well, after a full day perched there, shut off from the world. If Weston hadn't arrived, she wouldn't have noticed the sun had set. Wracked with fatigue, she decided to put down her brush.

The soft sound of the television fell front and center on her senses. She came around the corner and found him slouching to the side, head tipped over against the armrest. Arms crossed, eyes shut. Breathing deeply. She watched him there in the flickering pale blue light. He looked helpless, and she wondered if she should disturb him.

She leaned over to nudge him and stopped herself again. Her pulse pounded as she hovered there above him, a single tear hanging from the corner of his eye. Pain gripped his face: a lonely despair he exuded even in sleep.

"Hey," she whispered, pressing his shoulder with hers. "Hey there, sleepyhead."

He stirred, but his eyes stayed shut. She touched his face, her fingers brushing against his earlobe. "Hey," she said again, and this time they fluttered open, adjusting to the dimness. Several seconds passed before he looked back at her, inches away. They hovered there, eye from eye, face from face, neither sure of what to say or do, neither of them strong enough to move forward or pull away. The faint whiff of his musky aftershave drew her like a magnet.

And then it happened, so simply and naturally that she couldn't even remember him lifting his head. His warm, soft lips grazed hers, gracefully and briefly, as if he'd decided to kiss her and then chickened out at the last second. She stared at him in confusion as he pulled away.

He blinked with wide, uncertain eyes. She let go of his face, pulling back and trying to smile, unsure if he'd believe it. "You fell asleep," she said.

"Sorry." He sat upright again as she stood.

Something inside her wanted to scream, but it looked like neither had the courage to say anything. "I'm beat. I'm going to bed." She glanced at the television, then back at him. "You can stay if you like."

"No, no. I'll go." He stood up beside her. "Thanks."

"Anytime!"

He went to the door and stepped out, nodding to her as he left. She clicked the lock behind him, pressed her back against the wall, stared at the ceiling, and let out a soft whimper.

MAY

Sheila took to her feet, abandoning her seat in the waiting area of gate 51 at LAX as the doors opened to receive the passengers from the American Airlines flight from Memphis. A distant voice echoed from the speakers, announcing the boarding of a plane to Dallas as the first passengers disembarked. She lingered patiently to the side, searching the faces, each one building her anticipation. None of her family had been to visit her since she moved.

She spotted her sister-in-law Samantha first, cradling her infant son, Forest. With all the activity surrounding _Color Twenty_ , she'd missed her nephew's birth. And then her brother Matt appeared behind them, overburdened with baggage. Sheila swallowed a gulp of excitement.

"Mattie!" she said. "Over here!"

Matt Green dropped all their bags to the ground to hug her as Samantha turned, snuggling the baby up against her. "Sheila For-Reala!" Matt exclaimed, lifting her off her feet for a moment. He felt so good, and he was wearing Old Spice. Just like their dad.

She pulled away, soaking in the sight of him, a bit of stubble growing on the edge of his chin and his hair neatly trimmed. She hadn't seen it that short since he was in high school. "I love the new do!"

He touched his temple, glancing up. "Yeah, I was getting tired of the long hair. I don't know why everyone thinks it's so great."

"And you!" She gave Samantha a delicate hug.

"Pick up those bags," Samantha said to Matt as she kissed Sheila's cheek. "Girl, you look so amazing! No way you looked like this in Collierville."

"One does one's best," Sheila said, very aware of where she'd picked up the verbiage. She leaned in to get a good view of the sleeping infant and threw her hands to her mouth. "Oh, I don't believe it. He's so sweet." She touched Forest's curled fingers and gushed. "I think I'm in love!" Forest didn't stir as Sheila looked up again and hugged her sister-in-law, careful not to crush the baby.

"He slept through most of the flight, believe it or not," Samantha said.

Sheila laughed. "Just like Dad."

"Yeah, except Dad snores," Matt said.

"Well come on, let's get your luggage and get this show on the road!"

A quick trip to baggage claim later, Sheila pulled her car out of the parking garage and into the exit traffic. Carly Simon was on the radio, her little nephew was in the backseat, and she would have sworn it was the most pleasant weather since she'd moved to the West Coast.

"I cannot get over how precious he is." Sheila sighed as she glanced in her rearview mirror. "I'm so jealous."

"He's precious now," Samantha said. "Wait until you're asleep and he decides the sun is overdue."

"Well I don't care. I want one."

Matt sat in the back seat beside his wife, holding the child. "Sheila's wanted a baby ever since they taught us the birds and the bees."

She blushed. "You make me sound like a sex addict or something."

"If anybody's not a sex addict, it's you," Matt said.

Samantha nudged him. "So, you said you have some friends coming over tonight, to meet us? Anyone special?"

"Just Stuart and his wife."

"And what about you-know-who?"

Sheila looked back in the mirror with an uneasy smirk. "He's out in Death Valley right now, shooting our movie."

"Are we not going to meet him?" Samantha asked.

"He's been all over the place. I haven't seen him in almost a month." As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn't. Her voice betrayed too much.

-

Sheila came around the corner into her living room to find Matt chatting with Brina and Stuart. She held little Forest in her arms, freshly changed, and glowed as if she were the one who had given birth to him. Samantha followed closely behind.

"I can't get over how much you two look alike," Brina said.

"We're twins," Matt said. "Although some people say she got all the looks." He took a step toward her as she cradled his son.

"I want to keep him!" Sheila said.

Brina came over to get a better view of the baby. The three women stood mesmerized by the tiny sleeping infant, and Stuart said to Matt, "So, Sheila tells us you're into math."

"Computer programming," Matt said. "Kind of a new frontier, but it's opening up. Wave of the future."

"You must have gotten the brains if she got the looks."

Matt cocked his finger like a gun, narrowing his eyes. "You're...marketing?"

"Yep. Weston's right hand."

"So what's going on with him and Sheila?" Matt asked, and Sheila managed to drive a fist into his arm without disturbing the baby.

"Shut up!"

Stuart leaned into her brother like he was telling a secret, but spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. "The way they act, you'd think they're a ticking time bomb."

Sheila felt the weight and warmth of the baby in her arms, ignoring the heaviness in her chest. "Trust me, nothing happening there."

Brina glanced back at Stuart. "Well something's happening here," she said, rubbing her hand across her stomach.

"What?" She knew the sign language well enough to guess the answer.

"I'm pregnant!"

"Oh my God," Sheila said, popping her hand down beside Brina's. "So not fair."

"Your time'll come," Matt said. "Maybe if you play your cards right, one day you could have Weston Junior."

The others laughed as Sheila pictured Weston lying on her sofa, asleep, pain riddling his face. "That's not funny."

"It's a little funny."

She glanced at Stuart, who dropped his gaze, then back at her brother. "No, I mean that's not the kind of thing you should joke about. Not about him."

"Right, sorry."

"It's OK." She smirked at her brother. "At least I'm not naming my kid Forest Green!"

They all went out to dinner, and as they conversed, Matt's comment – but more so her response – festered in her head like an untreated wound. She put it off, cradling little Forest, but that only made her dwell on it more. She thought of what it would be like to hold her own child, her own little boy or girl, and she handed the baby back with regretful arms.

They returned to Sheila's place in time for the season finale of _Lady Macdeath_. Samantha kept going on and on about how she was addicted to the show, and how devastated she was that it had been cancelled. Sheila saw Stuart sneaking smug glances at his pregnant wife.

And when the screen cut to black with the words "To be continued..." everyone turned to each other in confusion. And then they heard Hillary's voice: "Next season on _Lady Macdeath_..." And there they were, scenes from a new, unaired episode, possibly more than one.

"What?" Samantha said. "I don't get it!"

"Pretty cool, huh?" Stuart asked.

"That's...what just happened?"

"It was all a ruse," Stuart said in a hushed voice, leaning in as if keeping a secret from prying ears. "The show's not over; it's coming back next season!"

Samantha twitched with irritation. "Then why'd everybody make such a big deal about it being cancelled?"

"It's a stunt. All the actors are going out on talk shows this week to tell everyone that it's really over, and the whole 'to be continued' thing is a joke, but then we're going to run commercials all summer for the season premiere. We're going to confuse everyone and get them all to tune in just to see what the hell is going on."

Samantha glanced at Matt, who raised his hands. "Don't look at me."

"Whose idea was this, anyway?" Samantha asked.

Stuart looked to Brina and Sheila for support. "Mine."

\- - -

Death Valley lived up to its name – at least compared to Southern California. The thermometer danced back and forth along the hundred degree line every day, which was actually cooler than they'd expected. They were blowing through money on portable air conditioning, but the warm winds were much preferable to no current at all. It was a twelve-day shoot, and then they would pack up and move to Alaska, just when they were getting used to the heat.

Weston uncrossed his legs and rose from his chair. "Cut!"

Lights shut off as Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Duvall took a step back from each other. The fierceness of Robert's delivery of his lines still hung in Weston's ears, as it no doubt did in everyone's. Mary's shoulders sagged as he joined her. "How'd you feel about that one?" he asked.

Mary glanced at Robert. "Better."

"Bob?"

"I think I'm pretty satisfied," Robert said.

Weston put his hand on Mary's shoulder. "Come over here for a second." She followed him off, away from the crew and in the direction of the setting sun. The rocks cracked under their feet amidst the sparse grass until they were alone. Her eyes finally locked on him as he turned off her microphone. "How do you really feel?"

"I just feel like we over-rehearsed or something. It's coming out too dry."

"Do you need another take?"

Mary's face lit up for a moment. "I think Bob's pretty much done with it."

"I didn't ask that. Do you need another take?"

"You read my face?"

Weston smiled. "All right, then." He flipped her microphone on again and turned back to the crew. "All right, everyone. We're going to do it one more time."

JULY

Weston pulled open one of the glass doors at the entrance of the Angelis, holding it for Stuart as traffic lined the street behind them. "Sorry I missed'em," he said. "It sounds like a lot of fun."

"It was." Stuart returned the favor on the second set of doors, and Weston led the way into the lobby, brimming with patrons who had come for the Colonial Art Festival. "She's not the only one with character. I get the feeling her whole family's a little nuts."

"Yes," Weston said as his father ventured out from the crowd.

"Hello, Son."

"Hello," he replied, mouth dry, itching for a drink. The old man had aged a bit, his eyes softer than Weston recalled. Hair still strong and dark. "You remember Stuart?"

"Of course, the best man. How's the wife?"

"Oh, pregnant."

"Congratulations." He nodded, and they watched each other in silence for a moment. "So, I hear you've got quite a film coming up."

"Yeah, it's...big." His father's cordiality rubbed his skin just enough to chafe.

"Your sister told me all about it. The big art explosion. Growing up a bit from... _Doctor Bald._ "

Weston gestured toward the innards of the museum, ignoring the smugness in his father's tone, ready to get this little visit behind him. "We're putting up the exhibit in a few months, but most of the paintings are already done, and...we're getting a sneak peak."

"I'm looking forward to meeting your friend."

"Yeah." He'd always done his best to keep his wives and girlfriends from too much interaction with the man.

Sheila emerged from the back, moving in a straight line toward him. His first glimpse of her in months was like the first punch of hot water through a showerhead, clean and refreshing. She wore a dress as blue as the deep Pacific in the early afternoon, and it brought out her eyes in soft strokes. She broke into a smile when she neared, as he'd dreamed she would in the late insomnia of Alaska's short, frigid nights.

"Are you Sheila?" Lloyd asked.

"I am! And you must be Mr. Camden."

"Lloyd," he said. "They didn't tell me you were so gorgeous!"

She blushed, and her cheeks dimpled. "Wes, I think your dad is coming on to me!"

He couldn't think of anything to counter the comment. He'd been trying to get up the courage to say something like that for months, and his father just blurted it out. "Yeah. She's something else."

Lloyd took her hand and kissed it. "My, what chivalry!" she laughed. "Was ever woman in this humor wooed?"

"How's that?"

"It's _Richard III_ ," Weston said.

"She quotes Shakespeare and looks like that?" Lloyd asked. "How'd a girl this classy ever get tangled up with the likes of you?"

Weston let it set, feeling his breaths come out hot. "Let's go see the paintings," he said.

\- - -

Sheila pulled into the Westonwood lot. She parked next to Weston's car and sighed at the sight of it. Part of her didn't want to get out, and she didn't want to think about why. Still, she checked herself in the rear-view. Everything was right where it should be, but when she smiled at her reflection, she wasn't very convincing.

"Hi, Miss Green!" Maxine at reception greeted, adjusting her oversized glasses.

"Morning, Maxine. New frames?"

"Yeah, they pinch my nose."

Sheila leaned over the counter, giving her a good look. "But they've got character."

Maxine giggled. "That's what the optometrist said. It sounded like a line. What's going on today?"

Sheila glanced behind Maxine at the curving hallway toward the editing suite. "It's song day."

"Oh my God! I wish I could take a seat in there. You got Paul McCartney?"

"Yeah. I'm looking forward to the Carly Simon, myself."

Stuart escorted her to the listening room amidst the hubbub of the office. "I think you'll like what we've got so far," he said. "We're building a nice synergy."

"Good," she replied, gaze darting here and there, mostly at the gray carpet.

"Something wrong?"

"No. I'm just... Nothing."

He opened the doors for her and she found Weston and Hillary sitting in two of four chairs gathered around a table which held a coffee pot and four empty mugs. After all the time she'd been waiting for him to come back, she'd never imagined entering a room with him and not having anything to say.

"Hey!" Weston said, jumping up. "I feel like we didn't get a chance to say hello the other day."

"Yeah," she said. "I guess not."

"Have a seat," he beckoned, resonating an energy and enthusiasm strong even for him.

She complied, as did Stuart. "I can hear a little feedback."

"Don't worry about it," Hillary said as she operated a recorder sitting on a small tray beside her chair. "These aren't final by any means."

"So what's up first?" Weston asked.

"First we've got the title song. We've got three different versions, like you wanted. We've got David Cassidy, then Barry Manilow, then Captain and Tennille. It's called 'I Write the Songs.'"

They listened to all three tracks. Sheila kept her eyes on the table the whole time, sensing someone's gaze repeatedly falling on her.

"It's catchy," Stuart said. "I don't know which one's best."

Sheila looked to each of them as they thought it over, landing on Weston. Her pulse raced, and she wanted to get this over with as swiftly as possible. "I say let's go with all of them," Weston said.

"What?" Stuart asked.

"Let'em all put it out. All three versions. And we'll use Manilow's for the title."

"Are you sure about that?" Stuart asked.

"Let the synergy start here, with the title song," Weston said.

Hillary's lips spread wide. "We're really doing this right, aren't we?"

"What's next?" Sheila asked, her only reaction.

Hillary flipped to the next page in her notebook. "OK, we have 'Road to Carthage' from Neil Sedaka."

They went through every one: Carly Simon, Boz Scaggs, Michael Murphey, Fleetwood Mac, and a very coveted Paul McCartney. By the end the coffee pot was empty, their mugs cold, and they had notes on all the songs in their potential repertoire.

Stuart glanced at his watch. "I gotta split. I have a pregnant wife at home who gets pissed when I'm late!" He hopped up. "Do you need me for anything else?"

"No, you can scat, Yorky."

Sheila watched him go as Hillary fiddled with the recorder. "You've been awfully quiet," Hillary said. "Something on your mind?"

She kept her back to Weston. "Just thinking about the music."

Hillary went for the dishes, but he stopped her. "I'll clean up. You take care of the notes."

"Sure. I'll come by your office when they're done."

Sheila watched him gathering the mugs and the cream, keenly aware that they were alone. "Need a hand?" she asked.

"I think I can get everything, except, can you grab the pot?"

"No problem." She followed him to the kitchen. Only a few days earlier, she would have been aching for him to take her hand. "Have a good time on location?"

"I never thought I'd say it, but Alaska's pretty nice. Be a nice place to live."

"Huh," was all she said.

They distributed everything on the counter, and she managed to avoid eye contact. "From what I hear, I missed a pretty interesting visit from your family."

"They were sorry they missed you."

"Yeah, well they weren't the only ones I missed."

Her eyebrow furled. "What'dya mean?"

"I missed you."

"Oh!" There it was, after all this time. She turned to him slowly, not sure how she would reply. "I...missed you too."

"Would you like to have dinner with me?"

Sheila turned on the faucet and filled the empty coffee carafe, wishing someone would return to the room, interrupt them and give her a chance to slip away. "Sure. Be a good idea to talk more about the music after we clear our heads."

"No." He reached for her hand, and she wasn't fast enough to pull away. "I don't want to talk about business. I just want to have dinner with you. Together."

"Oh." The hope in his eyes weakened her. "I'd like that. I really would. But I have to say no."

"You have other plans?"

She pulled away from him with regret. "No, it's not that. It's just, I like you. You know I do. But I saw you the other day, with your dad. The way you looked at him, the way you talked to him."

"There's a lot between us."

"I know. And I don't fault you for it, believe me. And as a friend, I have sympathy for you. I want to support you and help you, but only as a friend."

An awkward, fake grin crept across his face. "I'm sorry. I guess I misjudged."

"No, you didn't. It's just..." She trailed off and bit her lip. She'd let men down before, but never like this. "I love my daddy. I love my whole family. And I can't go with someone who doesn't feel the same way."

"I can't stop thinking about you. You get to me in a way no one's ever gotten me before."

Her shoulders were brick, and her stomach twisted with sharp pain. "Wes, I care about you." It would be so easy to close her eyes and let everything go. "But I can't see you like that."

-

Sheila bit her finger before slipping into Hillary's office and shutting herself inside. Hillary looked up from her notes as Sheila leaned against the door, glancing around the room, trying to get her bearings.

"Something wrong?"

She replayed the encounter from minutes before, and she wasn't sure if she could have done it the same way a second time. "He just asked me out."

Hillary tossed her pen on the desk. "Took him long enough. Geez, that guy used to–"

"I said no." Sheila wasn't sure which frustrated her more: denying Weston what he wanted or denying herself.

"What?" she asked. "I don't understand. You two seem so smitten."

Sheila couldn't remember the last time she'd gone an hour without thinking of him. "It was so hard."

"But why?"

"Because..." Her voice cracked with escaping pain. "I know he'll break my heart."

AUGUST

Carlos Lowell, _Color Twenty's_ editor, ran back a stretch of footage as Weston stood behind him, watching the monitor with heavy eyes. "See?" Carlos said. "We needed coverage here."

It was true. The pan-in shot on Mary came out of nowhere. There was no context to the beginning of the scene. "I don't shoot coverage," Weston said, but he was sure he'd canned an establishing shot of her emerging from the crowd. "Isn't there a crane cam shot?"

"Haven't seen that one, boss." Carlos shrugged, pointing at the top-right corner of the frame. "We needed coverage. Duvall's over here and she just pops in."

"No, we can work with it. We'll just have to reorder..." He leaned over Carlos and ran the film back. "Switch the shots. Try that. We can fix it with an O.C. line or two when Mary and Bob come in for ADR."

"Whatever you say, boss."

Weston patted him on the arm, fatigue eating at the edges of his thoughts. "I say...coffee break."

OCTOBER

Stuart came by Weston's place one evening when Brina was out with the girls, and he found his friend watching _The Mary Tyler Moore Show_ , alone, drunk on Scotch and dressed in one-and-a-half pieces of a three-piece suit – vest hanging from one arm. Weston barely acknowledged him as Stuart took a seat. Dust and despair covered the usually immaculate house.

"I didn't think you'd be home."

"Took the night off."

"What'd you do, fire your maid?"

"She's on vacation," Weston replied, eyes glued to the screen.

"Shit, man, you're depressing me!" he said, pouring himself a glass from the decanter on the otherwise bare coffee table. "I mean, no offense, but you, boozing, watching _her_ on TV...it's creepy."

"I had lunch with her today."

"Mary?"

"No."

Nobody at Westonwood talked about it, even behind their backs, but the mood had changed. Conversation fell quiet when either one of them entered a room. "At least you're still friends."

"Whatever."

"So one girl rejected you. That's one out of what, the rest of womankind? You know what they say about rejection."

"Why's she have to be married?" Weston asked.

Stuart followed his eye line to Mary, sitting at her desk as Ted Knight leered over her to a burst of laughter from the audience. "Oh, man. Turn this shit off, or I'm out of here."

Weston stood up lackadaisically and complied. "Man, this place is a dump."

"Tell you what," Stuart said. "Let's go out. Find you some action, what do you say?"

"I say Brina'd be pissed."

"Hey, I'm just a wingman. Come on, how many girls would kill to have a drink with you right now?"

"I think I'm done."

"OK, then...damn it, you're no fun!" Stuart said. "Look, I don't know, maybe you should ask her out again."

"Why?"

"Maybe she'll change her mind. Girls are like that. And anyway, I don't know what the hell's wrong with you two, but when have you ever taken no for an answer?"

"She wants kids." He stuttered into a hiccup.

This was hardly news, but when it came out of Weston, not Sheila, the words were as pregnant as any of his ex-wives. "Shit," Stuart said.

\- - -

Sheila had been a bum all day, sleeping in late from a rare hangover, brushing her teeth but skipping her shower, not touching a paintbrush or a pencil, not cracking open a can of oils or even looking at any of her work. It was the sofa for her, alternating between soap operas, which she never watched and therefore had trouble following. It didn't matter. She just needed a day away from the canvas.

The knock on her door took her by surprise, and she sprang to attention, trying to decide whether or not to answer it. She hopped up and turned down the volume, even though she was certain the television set couldn't be heard from outside. A second knock. She glanced down at her coveralls and old paint-stained tank top, debating whether or not she wanted to be seen dressed that way. A pass of a hand through her hair, and she went for the door on the third knock.

Weston stood on her porch, hands behind his back, and she broke into a smile at the sight of him despite wishing she'd put something else on first. Not until she actually had him standing there did she realize how much she'd missed him, losing all impetus to finish _General Hospital_. "I was just thinking about you," she said, pulling him inside. "I have something for you."

"Yeah?"

"Close your eyes."

He obliged, and she slipped into her bedroom. As soon as he was out of sight she released the breath she'd been holding. She took a moment to collect herself, wishing she could sift through the excitement and apprehension wrestling within her. She retrieved the painting she'd come for and emerged to find him still holding his eyes shut. "OK, open sesame."

He blinked the light back and she watched his reaction with pleasure. In the frame, a discouraged and frustrated man leaned over a table with a glass of green liquid before him. Papers were pushed to the edge, abandoned work. On the table, looking down at him in his misery, sat an ethereal woman, not quite tangible, perfectly transparent, her skin and hair in vibrant shades of green.

"Victor Oliva," he said. " _The Absinthe Drinker_."

"I know how much you like your Maignan."

"I love it. Thank you!"

"I thought you would," she said, pleased, and set it by the door. When she rose again, she found him close. His eyes watched her, eyebrows arched opposite his warm smile, and her breath caught in her lungs. He drew closer, so slow and deliberate that she couldn't do anything but wait. Her head rang with warnings, but there he was, coming, and those cries of concern sifted into the wind.

"Wes."

He put his hand on her cheek, fingers brushing the strands of hair that hung down near her ear, and with that one touch he could have banished all her willpower. He could have erased her memory, made her forget all the things that made her hold him at a distance.

"Wes, you know..."

He leaned in, and she backed into the door, sliding away as that breath finally released itself. "Sheila."

"Do we have to do this again? Why can't we..."

"I love you."

She locked onto him, but like a child watching the closet for movement, knowing a monster lurked in there somewhere despite the peaceful silence of the room. He spoke those words like a child as well, full of innocent sincerity and without the emotional defenses that came with age and experience.

"Say something."

She swallowed, and her throat stung. "What am I supposed to say?"

"What do you..."

"You know, Wes. If I could..." There they were, all the cries of concern. She had to give him one, give him something hard that he couldn't talk his way through. "I'm a virgin."

"Oh."

She summoned her strength. "I don't judge you for the life you live. But I'm saving myself for my husband. And I think it's only fair to expect..."

"Oh."

-

Weston's vision blurred as he drove, the sun setting on the horizon and leaving the world a mesh of darkness speckled with random, pointless light. He knew he should go home and clear his head. He knew the sensible thing to do.

He arrived at the bar, and an hour later he'd found his smile again.

The place was packed, the music live and loud. College girls flocked to his side, bright and beautiful and drunk. They passed their eyes and fingers across him. Each seductive glance, each provocative word, each hand that he touched reminded him that he was the Great One. He was not inadequate or unworthy. A hundred eyes told him just how worthy he was.

When he kissed one of those girls, the alcohol and cheap perfume intoxicating him, he thought of how silly it was to save himself for someone who wouldn't touch him. And when he took the girl home in a cab, her hands exploring his body, he knew that he was desirable. He knew that he was a man.

And when she climbed into his bed, he let go of the pain and embraced the pleasure.

NOVEMBER

_Color Twenty_ was slotted for release the day after Christmas. Preliminary gossip listed the project as an Oscar contender. The museum exhibit packed in curious patrons and the music played on the radio.

Weston didn't care.

He lay sprawled in his bathrobe, his home collecting garbage as quickly as dust. He nursed a coffee and a hangover, wishing the sun would forget where he lived. His thoughts drifted as he stared at _The Absinthe Drinker_ , hung over his table as a constant reminder that the Green Muse was just a mirage.

The doorbell chimed, not once but constantly, and he growled as he cinched his robe, cursing under his breath. He flung the door open, which was a mistake. The light hit his face and his throbbing head ached. A girl stood there, one he didn't know. She was a head shorter than he, slender, with a good ass and a face that, upon inspection, hinted at recent acne. She had a vague familiarity, but he couldn't place her.

"Yes?" he asked, shielding his eyes.

She frowned at him. "It's me!"

"Sorry? Do I know you?"

Her brow furrowed in a blend of confusion and panic. "It's me! Rhonda! You don't remember me?"

He held up his hand to shade his eyes. "Where do I know you from?"

The girl gasped and threw her hands to her mouth. "Please tell me you're kidding!"

"Calm down," he said. "Why's it so important?"

"Because I'm pregnant!" she said.

"And?"

"And?" she repeated. "You're the father!"

"What are you talking–" Sheila's. Painting. No. No. Driving. Drinking. Girls. Touches. Kissing. Cab. Flesh. Hair. Bed.

"You remember?"

"Yes."

"You've got to help me! If my parents find out about this, they're going to kill me!"

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen," she said. She hung her head, breaking his gaze. "Almost."

His eyes snapped shut. He wanted to extinguish the sun and hide in the safety of the dark. He wanted to chastise her for hanging out in a bar when she was so young.

"I need to get it taken care of," she said.

Two thoughts raced through his head. If she took the easy way out, that would be the fourth time. The fourth girl. He couldn't be responsible for that, couldn't face that man in the mirror. But he also imagined Sheila's reaction to finding out what he'd done.

The scared, pregnant teenager stood on his porch, shaking. "Can you help me?"

He stared at her and saw Sheila. He saw Annette, Yvette, Chelsea. His mother. He stared at her and saw lingering, almost invisible green eyes.

Weston opened the door wider. "Come on in."

\- - -

Slivers of images plagued his sleep. He'd dreamed about her before, the tiny helpless infant completely dependent on him. She rested in his arms and cooed, and slept, and filled him with despairing joy. She blinked at him and gave his life a dreadful purpose. He'd escaped her four times in life, but in dreams she was omnipotent. He had no choice but to face her in the world she ruled.

He couldn't escape his guilt and remorse, awake or asleep. It was there everywhere he went, in every young mother and child. In Sheila. He clawed at himself, trying to tear it out, whatever it was that was killing him. He'd only ever known one sure way to escape. And so, after a year clean except for glimpses, brief flashbacks, he brought a little LSD into his home and shut the door.

He ran a purple gel tab across his left palm with his right finger, soft like a gummy candy, then slammed his hand to his mouth and licked it in with his tongue. Tasteless. Swallowed. Another, then another, inhaling the drug like air. He sat down at his desk with pencil and paper and sketched the face of the girl of his dreams, the infant who called him father. She came to life from curves and scratches. He stared at her. The air blew cool, and as he blinked he could see lines twisting and floating, suspended and directionless. He rubbed his eyes, but the lines remained. He wrote a name: Helen.

He drew another with smaller, squinting eyes. Her ears were slanted and out of proportion. He could hear her mumbling in his head. He wrote her name: Daphne.

The incoherent drivel grew louder when he couldn't remember how many pills he'd taken. All he'd left on the table was an empty bag. The room expanded and contracted as he searched for the rest of the gel tabs, trying to keep his balance. He couldn't remember how much he'd bought, and his lungs tightened as he wondered whether he'd given any to the baby.

It was three o'clock in the morning and he was naked. He had no idea how long he'd been home or what had happened to his clothes. The carpet moved under his feet, and he stumbled, falling across his coffee table and cutting a thin slice in his leg. A sheet of blood covered his shin as he clutched at it.

He could hear the baby crying. Little Sadie – no, Sophie. He was sure it was a girl. He wondered again if the baby had taken some of the acid. The sobbing cry eluded him as he searched her out. He flipped books off shelves and sent paintings careening to the floor.

Now the baby talked, and the distant murmur sounded like his mother. She laughed, but he only heard her out of one ear. He flicked the other one and winced from the pain in his leg.

"I thought she was asleep!" he said, but now both ears were useless. He shouted again, and again, and couldn't hear his own voice. Then he realized he could hear it after all, only it wasn't his voice. It was the baby's.

Little...Juyam.

He lay on the floor, face down, and as he turned over he discovered two wolves sniffing at him. One was a wolf, at least. The other was more like a giant rat. Scratch that. They were both rats. He kicked at them and gasped in fear, and they ran away, disappearing.

"I'm not afraid of you!" he shouted. He curled up on the ground and whispered, "I'm not afraid!"

Somewhere nearby, the baby's crying lingered.

-

Weston awoke on the floor of the bathroom, soaked in water from the running sink and shower. His shin stung with hot pain. He touched his forehead and found a large bruise, but no blood. The taste of raw eggs clutched at his tongue, and as he threw his hand to his mouth, vomit spewed through his fingers, sticking to his wet clothes.

He couldn't go to work. Fortunately it was Thanksgiving week, so he would hardly be missed. Nothing besides exhibitor screenings, and Stuart ran those.

Weston lay awake in bed that night, stricken with hallucinations and guilt. He couldn't sleep the next night, or the next. He hadn't rested in days. Flashbacks plagued him: the pregnant girl, Sheila, the child. He feared he might never fall asleep. If he ever could again, he told himself, he would swear off acid forever.

The solution was more drugs. Maybe it was the crushing guilt, maybe the insomnia. Maybe something else. He shoved a handful of sleeping pills into his mouth and looked at himself in the mirror, eyes sunken and low, skin flushed, hair covered in nervous sweat. He groaned through the capsules. Then, with a moment's hesitation, he brought a bottle of Scotch to his lips and washed them down.

\- - -

It was Thanksgiving morning and Hillary should have been at her uncle's house, eating pancakes and watching the Macy's parade with her family. Instead she wrapped a light jacket around her shoulders as she hurried up the walk to Weston's front door. No one at the office had seen him in a week, and he hadn't answered his calls either. Hillary had seen enough of his dark moments to know that waiting until after the holiday to check on him might not be soon enough.

She pressed the buzzer and heard the muffled bell. She stomped at the ground to put out an itch on the bottom of her foot, but also to release the anxiety that had built up over the course of the car ride over. She pressed it again, already knowing better than to expect him to show up in his bathrobe, yawning, hair out of whack, only now realizing it was Thanksgiving morning and he should be out amongst the living.

Hillary trekked off to the side of the house and peeked through a set of half-open blinds. All the lights were on in that room, and from the glow in the hallway, possibly in the entire house. The anxiety she'd tried to stamp out twisted in her stomach. Weston never left his lights on.

Somewhere in her purse was a key, and she fished it out and opened the door. A stench hung in the air, nothing particular beyond a general staleness. The place hadn't smelled since he'd returned home from jail after Annette left him. "Hello?" she shouted. "Wes?"

She didn't wait for a response. The house looked as if it had been burglarized, and the possibilities taunted her. Trash was strewn across the floor, paper torn and fruit remnants pressed into the carpet as if he'd emptied the bin and then danced around in the garbage. Broken glass on the kitchen counter, faucet running. The television was on, but the screen was a scramble of snow – the antenna lay smashed beside it. Scribbled pictures of what looked like the faces of little girls drawn by someone wearing a blindfold lay on the sofa, with scribbled gibberish written at the bottoms, although one said _Helen._

"Weston? Are you here?" She resisted the urge to scream it as she passed from room to room, freezing in the bedroom doorway. He lay sprawled out on the floor, an empty Scotch bottle in his hand, clothes stuck to his body by water, vomit, and drying blood.

Liquor saturated the carpet and his mouth hung open, spittle on his lips. "Wes? Wes?" she screamed, shaking him. She felt for pulses and breathing. "Oh my God!" she screamed, stumbling for the phone.

-

Weston's eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the bright sunlight shining down on him through the blinds in whatever room he was in. He was on his back – he never slept on his back. He tried to lift his head, to turn his neck, and found it a much more challenging proposition than it should have been. Parts of his skin were numb, but he could still sense the needles that someone had slipped into his arm, could see the tubes running out. His fingers brushed against a metal railing, and as his back adjusted to the cheap mattress, he knew where he was. He moistened his dry mouth and found it caked with the remnants of what, from the earthy, chalky taste, had to be charcoal. He ran his tongue along his top teeth and could feel the murky film. There were other people in the room – a doctor? He shifted as best he could until he was able to make out Lara and Stuart standing beside him, talking in hushed voices. Hillary sat in a chair in the corner, staring out the window.

"Hey," he managed, but he didn't recognize his own voice. He sounded twenty years older.

Lara bent down over him, cradling him. "Benny!" she cried, clutching at him as if she were afraid to let him go. "What'd you do?"

"Do?" He could barely hear himself.

Her cheeks flared as if she wanted to slap him. "What were you thinking?" she cried.

"Do what?"

"Try to kill yourself!" She whispered it as if speaking it made it more real.

He thought back through the haze. "I did?"

"Well, the doctors won't tell us anything. But, I mean, didn't you?"

"I don't think so."

Then he remembered the insomnia, the flashbacks, the Scotch, and the distant cry of a baby. He winced, clutching at his head as Hillary squeezed Stuart's hand for support. "Oh," he said. "Oh."

Lara's lip quivered. "How could you be so stupid?"

Weston looked past her to Stuart. "Yorky?"

"Wes," he said, lips straight, face hard. "Glad to hear your voice. Can't imagine what you have to say right now, though."

Lara cupped his hand, and his gaze fell on the last of his guests. "Hill?"

Hillary turned to him with dead eyes, her head shaking.

"Dad was here," Lara said.

"He was?" That was unusual, he knew, but he couldn't remember why.

"Andrew brought him by, but they had to leave. Gabe wouldn't stop crying."

"Sorry."

"How do you feel?" Lara asked.

"I feel good," he said, eyes fluttering.

Stuart took Lara's elbow and helped her up. "Well, good to know you're still ticking. I'm sure you need some time to yourself."

"Yorky?"

"Yes?"

"Are you, what's wrong?"

Stuart put his arm around Lara and motioned for Hillary. "Why would anything be wrong?"

Weston frowned. "Something is."

"We'll give you some time to work it out," Stuart replied, and Hillary rose, looking anywhere but back at him in the bed.

"Is there anything we can bring you?" Lara asked.

He looked from face to disturbed face at the people who loved him. One was missing.

"No, nothing."

-

Sheila turned a corner, wind-blown hair dangling over her eyes and stomach tightening with every step. Two nurses sat behind a desk running the length of the wall, one of them looking up as she passed. Sheila didn't turn her head, didn't acknowledge her. It was chilly in that hospital corridor, and one of the overhead lights flickered as if the bulb was about to go. She rubbed at her arms as she traced the ascension of the room numbers. In the distance, another hallway, leading to rooms 216 to 241, according to a sign on the back wall. It seemed like every hospital she'd ever visited had been built like a maze.

All she could think about was Wes, her Wes that she'd abandoned at her door that day and hadn't seen since. A dozen restless nights, staring at that silent phone, praying for him to call. Her Wes that, by the grace of God, was in a bed somewhere on this floor instead of in a drawer in the basement.

There was a waiting room off in the distance, and when she spotted Hillary and Stuart, she broke into a jog.

"How is he?" Sheila asked, and she knew her voice betrayed so many things she'd tried to keep silent, but she didn't care.

"Awake," Stuart said. "Sheila, this is his sister, Lara. Lara, this is Sheila Green."

"Hi," Lara said. "Nice to finally meet you."

"Yeah." Sheila's lip quivered, and she could barely speak. "Where is he?"

Weston stretched his neck when the door opened. He looked at her, so calm and peaceful. "Hello," he said.

She came to his bedside, unable to hide her tears. She just stood over him, looking down and crying, and squeezed his hand as hard as she could. He lay there unmoving, a captive audience to her weeping. She lifted his hand to her face and pressed it against herself, her wet warmth bathing his fingers.

"I thought you were gone," she said.

"I'm still here."

"I came this morning, when they brought you in. Do you remember?"

"I don't remember anything."

"They made you drink charcoal. Your teeth were so black, and you just smiled up at me like a little baby. You didn't even..." She cried for a moment. "You didn't even know I was there!"

"Huh."

"You missed Thanksgiving."

"That's today?"

"Yes." She let go of his hand. "If you want, maybe I can come by later with some turkey."

"I'd like that," he said, so tranquil and peaceful that he sounded artificial.

"If you ever need to talk about anything..."

"What if I need to talk about you?"

She stared at him, horrified at the possibility that he might have done this because of her. She wouldn't put it past him. "You can talk to me about anything."

"OK."

She nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Is there...anything you need?"

"Maybe a Coke?"

He still had black muck on his teeth. He could probably use more than a soda. "Sure thing." She rose and made her way to the door.

"Sheila?"

She gripped the knob, anxious to turn it. "Yes?"

"Thanks for coming."

The others had left, and Sheila sank into a chair, crying, angling herself away from the rest of the waiting room. People passed by, but nobody paid her any attention. She imagined him swallowing all those pills, and even though they hadn't been told what had happened, she knew enough to know what he had done. All the reasons she had for rejecting him were there, and yet something about Weston drew her, something that she could neither resist nor ignore. He made her want to paint the world.

She pressed her eyes shut.

Weston snapped to attention when, seconds later, she stepped back into the room empty handed. "No Coke?" he asked.

She came up to the bed, looking down on him without words. His strained breathing filled her ears and broke her heart. She leaned down over him and pressed her lips against his, leaving no room for doubt this time. Sheila kissed him, breathing in and out, the taste of charcoal be damned. She kissed him, and she kissed him.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"I changed my mind," she said, her heart pounding. "I'd love to go to dinner with you."

DECEMBER

_Color Twenty_ arrived in theaters the day after Christmas. Weston and Sheila Green were all Hollywood could talk about. Cameras flashed and typewriters cranked as they showed their faces around town. No one had recognized her a month earlier, and now she was on the cover of _People_ , _Time_ , and countless other publications, along with her new boyfriend.

They stepped out to meet their public at the premiere. She never let go of his arm, a spectator to a world in which she did not belong. Hillary stayed close by with Stuart and Brina. Even though the success belonged to all of them, the night belonged to the two lovers who had managed to uncross the stars.

Their songs played in the lobby of the theater and beyond. Prints of her paintings hung on display. The audience reacted just as she'd dreamed they would. Twenty colors lit up the screen, and she knew her life would never be the same. When Carly Simon's song played, she leaned in and whispered, "That's my girl!"

He kissed her hand and whispered back, "Here's mine."

As the sensation of his lips lingered, she shivered in her seat. This movie, this thing she had conceived herself and spent so many months creating, wasn't the most important part of her year anymore.

-

Weston couldn't find a moment to breathe at the party that followed the film. He let go of Sheila, but he never let her out of his sight. She sat with Mary and her husband, Grant Tinker, and he fluttered around the room, giving everyone a moment. They all wanted to buy him a drink, but he didn't want to tarnish the night. He wanted to remember everything. All they could talk about was the movie, and even though it had consumed him for a year, he didn't care about it as much as he should have.

Sheila glanced at him and smiled with those lovely clear blue eyes, and that was all that mattered.

"Hey."

He turned and found Hillary had snuck up beside him. "So you're finally talking to me again?" he asked.

She never completely looked him in the eye. "I just wanted to say Merry Christmas. And congratulations."

"Congratulations to you too!" he said, giving her a half-accepted hug.

"No, I mean the two of you."

"Oh." He heard Sheila and Mary laughing somewhere behind him. "Thanks."

"I don't want to talk about that day. And I don't want to know how you got there. But ever since then, I feel like I got my friend back."

Weston breathed in hard. "I never said thank you. For saving my life."

Her eyes fluttered up to his, dry and wet at the same time. As she pressed her head against his chest and let out a painful sigh, he winced. The room had filled with jagged lines, rainbow squiggles dancing in the air. He heard whispering gibberish, and he knew there was no point in searching for the source.

He blinked through the hallucination, but the mumbling voice lingered.
1976

FEBRUARY

Weston peeked through the cracked blinds of his third-story office, mostly watching the stagnant parking lot and the cars merging into one lane going west on Wilshire as the police and ambulance dealt with the remains of the pickup and sedan that had smashed into each other about an hour earlier. Behind him on his desk sat the fine print of a charity art auction sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Angelis, his work for the morning. He lifted his three-quarters-full flask of Scotch to his lips and let the liquor burn his mouth as, below him, the world limped on in single file.

He pulled himself back to his paperwork with a deeper swig. Included in the auction were most of the pieces he'd retained in his divorce from Yvette so many years ago. Most, not all. He couldn't bear to part with _The Green Muse._ It hung in his office, where he could see it from his chair.

He set to his typewriter, laying out the inventory that he was personally donating. Hillary's knocking blended perfectly with the clicking keys.

"Wes?" He looked up to find her lingering in the half-open doorway. "Got a minute?"

It was good to see her there, in his office and talking to him again, with only a hint remaining of the awkward silence that had hung over them for a month. "I believe I do."

She clutched papers as she tucked her red wool skirt under herself and sat. Her face, still somber, flickered with something else, as if that straight jaw and those tender eyes masked a giddy child.

"The nominations?"

"Yep yep."

He resumed his seat, the Green Muse looking down on them. "I told you not to get excited."

"You said the same thing about the Globes," she said, her head framed by the two golden spheres sitting on a shelf on the wall behind her.

"You know the Academy'll never recognize me. Not after my stunt in '68," he said. She waved the paper and her eye caught a beam of light from his desk lamp, sparkling like one of those new awards. "So it's good?"

"Well, that all depends. If you were hoping for five nominations, you're in for a letdown. But if your expectations were more conservative, let's say four..."

"Spill it!"

"OK, well, first nod is for best song. 'From Damsel to Dame,' Carly Simon." She slid a hundred-dollar bill from among the pages she held and laid it on his desk. "Guess you won that bet."

He slid it back to her. "Here, have a raise. Read the rest."

"OK, our second nod, ladies and gentlemen...film editing, Carlos Lowell."

"Catty Carlos," he said. "Guess he's getting a raise too."

"Speaking of raises..." Hillary said. "Sure you don't want to grab a change of underwear?"

"Get on with it."

"Better start writing your speech, just in case. You're up for best director."

"Holy shit," he breathed. Suddenly his Golden Globes seemed like golden geese.

"Wes? You there?"

He covered his mouth for a moment, head swimming. In all the time they'd spent conceiving the movie, whenever someone mentioned the Oscars, he'd dismissed the suggestion as quickly as it arose. "Walter Mirisch must have finally forgiven me for that toast I gave at his wedding!"

"Statute must have expired," she said.

"What's the last one?"

"Oh yeah, well I guess we're going to need to work on that speech together." She slammed the pages to his desk enough to startle him. "Best picture of the year. We got _Barry Lyndon, Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon_ , and... _Color Twenty_."

\- - -

Weston stirred from the barest traces of a dream as the phone rang beside the bed. At first he confused it for his alarm, but it was far too dark to be 6:15. He awoke in an instant as he realized the source of the sound. There was only one person who called him in the middle of the night, and it was the only person he'd talk to at any hour of the day.

"Hello?" he asked in the darkness, lifting the pair of boxer shorts he used to cover the electric red light of his alarm clock. 3:47 AM.

He expected Sheila's voice, but there was nothing. No reply.

"Hello?" He kicked a foot out from underneath his covers and found the air cool and comfortable. He threw off the blanket.

Breathing on the other end. Slow and steady. Heavy.

"Who is this?"

More breathing. Slower. Heavier. The fourth such disturbance, but the first this early in the morning.

"I'm tracing these calls!" He doubted it was believable, but it was worth a try.

"I love you." A woman, or a man doing a good impersonation of one.

"What?" He rubbed his eyes.

"I need to be with you."

"Stop calling," he said.

A moment's silence. "It's my birthday," she breathed. "I want to eat you like a cake."

He hung up, muttering under his breath, and got up to find the number for the police.

\- - -

Lara and Sheila perused the dresses in a tiny Rodeo Drive boutique with high ceilings and higher prices. Sheila could imagine her mother's horror at her even considering buying something at such a place. Lara, on the other hand, seemed at home there, and most anything Sheila had ever seen on her could easily have come from a shop like this. Sheila would be content just to walk out with a catalogue. Some of these pieces would look good in water color.

Weston had bought her a dress for the Oscars that made the offerings in the shop look like department store fare.

"That's sharp on you!" Sheila said, holding a slender black dress up to Lara's neck. "Really brings out your eyes. You know what it needs, though?"

"What?"

Sheila skipped off, returning moments later with a conservative green scarf and hanging it over Lara's neck. "What'dya think?"

"OK, from now on I'm never shopping without you."

"You bet!" Sheila said. "I'll take good care of you!" As she browsed, she noticed another woman eyeing her, graying hair wrapped in a flowered bandanna, gray eyes matching the hair. The lady was pretending not to look, but she kept sneaking glances like a child who thought she'd spotted Santa Claus in street clothes.

"Can I help you?" Sheila said.

Short and petite, the woman looked up at her with aging anticipation. "Aren't you Sheila Green?"

She jerked her head back, giving the lady her full attention. "That's me."

The woman's weathered face broke into a smile. "I thought so! I must've seen you somewhere. I have to tell you, I love your work!"

"Really?" Sheila asked.

"I saw your exhibit twice, and bought the book. And I _loved_ the movie!"

"Thanks! You're so sweet!"

"You know," the woman continued, "When I was a little girl, I wanted to be an artist. I guess somewhere along the way, I lost that. But you brought back my interest in all of it. I'm taking a course at the community college now. Anyway, I'm sure you don't care about that. I just wanted you to know."

"Ah!" she gasped, her hand going to her throat. "How sweet are you?"

"I don't suppose...could I have your autograph?"

"Oh, you just give me a pen!" The woman produced one along with a scrap of paper. "What's your name?"

"Lenore."

She drew a little paint brush beside the signature and handed it back with pride. _To sweet Lenore_ , it read. _Your life is a canvas; paint it well. Love, Sheila Green_.

"Oh, thank you!" she said. "Thank you so much!"

"Anytime!" They watched her leave, cradling the paper, and Sheila sighed. "That was crazy."

Lara tossed the scarf so that it hung around both of their necks. "Better get used to it."

\- - -

Sheila curled up beside Weston on her sofa. The lights dim, the heater humming, they amused themselves with the antics of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players on NBC's _Saturday Night_. He'd been married twice, and he couldn't recall ever being able to just sit and watch television with a girl. It was always go here or do this. As busy as he and Sheila both were, they managed to find time to do nothing together.

"Maybe I'm the only one," Sheila said as Desi Arnaz crooned from onstage, "but I never thought he had that great of a voice."

Weston wrinkled his face to say _Please._ "He's a one-hit wonder. Babalu-ya to ya."

"I always thought Fred Mertz was kind of cute."

"Seriously?"

She shoved into him with her shoulder, and he could smell the rum on her breath. No doubt she could smell the Scotch on his. "Cuter than you, anyway!" she said.

"I hate to break it to you, but I think your boyfriend's dead."

"You're terrible!" She bit her lip as he leaned in to kiss her, but the phone interrupted them. "Who's calling this late?" she groaned, hopping up to answer. "Hello?"

Weston watched the affection in her face drain. "Mattie?" She turned down the volume. "What's wrong?" He wished he could hear the other side of the conversation. "Is she all right?" Nervous shivering. "Are you...is it...?" Her eyes welled, shimmering in the light from the television. She gripped the receiver with both hands. "Is it, I mean, how far along?" She glanced at Weston, who stood to turn off the set. "I'm coming out," she said. "I don't care. I'm coming." Her voice cracked, and she wiped her cheek. "Mattie?" she asked. "Kiss her for me? And Forest?" She nodded to no one. "I love you too."

Sheila replaced the receiver with a quivering hand and stood there in the soft silence.

"Your mother?"

She nodded. "She's got some kind of...bone cancer. I was just talking to her yesterday. She seemed fine."

He hugged her, and when she wrapped her arms around him, he knew what he had to do. "I'll get you there in the morning."

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. "Thank you."

MARCH

Sheila returned from Memphis quoting Shakespeare as never before. Pictures of Lorraine Green sprung up throughout her apartment. She slept with a blanket her mother had made for her when she was a child. A damp pillow often cushioned her at night, and when she was with Weston, sometimes she needed a minute alone.

"Momma used to call me her sparkle," she said one day. "She said I put the sparkle in my daddy's eyes."

They lay on the floor of her living room, photo albums and family records spread out across the clean carpet. Old yearbooks, which she reluctantly showed him, suffering through his laughter at her Laura Petrie hairdo and her tacky horn-rimmed glasses. Her shoulder touched his, and she leaned into him as she flipped a page of one of the photo albums, settling on an old black-and-white photo of her sitting in front of the pulpit at her father's church.

"My mom used to rock me to sleep," Weston said. "Even when I was getting too old. My father used to tell her not to. Said it'd make me soft. I sure did love her a lot."

"I want you to meet her," Sheila said.

"Of course I will. I wish you could have met my mother too."

Her finger traced his arm. "You still have a dad. If... I'd like to get to know him better."

"Let's not get into that."

"But he's your daddy." She found a picture of herself sitting beside young Matt on her father's knees, smiling up at him as if he were her whole world. She remembered her daddy telling her it was the first color photo of her ever taken. "You're still that hurt little boy who wants to sit in his momma's lap without his daddy calling him soft."

"It's complicated."

"It always is," she replied, touching his hand. "It's hard to be a son, and it's hard to be a daddy. I think you'd be a great dad if you'd try to be a good son." He kept his head down, looking at the pictures. "Wes, you know I wanna be a momma." Her Memphis accent came out strong, as she often noticed when she spoke about her family.

"I know you do."

"That's something you need to think about," she said.

"I know." He rolled onto his side, thrusting his hand into his left pocket, and produced a silver cigarette lighter, cradling it in his palm. "My mother had this made before she died. She never got a chance to give it to me." Sheila took it from him, heavy for its size but still light. The silver was freshly polished, no fingerprints. Three cursive letters were etched into the metal – _BWC._

"It's beautiful," she said, feeling the ridges of the spark wheel.

"I think you'd be as good of a mother as she was." He kissed her and she kissed him back, tender and sobering. He pulled a hair out of her eyes. "You know what, though?"

"Huh?" she asked.

"If I ever did, you know, have a kid, I hope he wouldn't pick up a Tennessee accent."

"Shut up!" she said, giving him back his lighter.

"You know, we've got a big day tomorrow, and a big night."

She took a deep breath, and something a hundred times worse than stage fright rushed over her at the thought. A dress more expensive than her move to Los Angeles was hanging in her closet, waiting for her to let it outshine her in front of the world. "I can't believe it's tomorrow! I'm going to look so killer, you'll melt!"

"In that case, it won't even matter who wins."

"We're going to win. Which reminds me..." She hopped up and left him there with the scattered Green family photos, returning a moment later with the portrait of him she had once painted. "I want you to have this."

"Thank you."

She turned the painting over to him with a kiss. "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

"That's number eighteen, right?"

"It is," she said. "And do you remember what those sonnets are about?"

\- - -

Sheila had seen the Academy Awards on her parents' old twenty-inch black-and-white television set every year when she lived in Memphis. She and her mother had always watched together while the men of the house found better things to do, and that was fine with her. They always made out their predictions for the results, and even when _Romeo and Juliet_ lost for best picture and best director, they guessed right on it winning best cinematography and best costume design. They always bet on Shakespeare.

She knew her mother was watching that night, and likely her father, Matt, and Samantha as well. The place was more alive than anything she'd ever seen before. She ran her gloved hand down the curves of her chiffon, hoping she looked good enough to stand with all of those famous faces. One glance into Weston's eyes and she knew she did.

"Whoa," Hillary breathed as Michael Douglas stood an arm's throw away. Elliott Gould peeked through the tinted windows, though Sheila doubted he could actually see inside. "Anyone nervous?"

"No," Weston said, taking Sheila's shaking hand with a calm grip. "I was born for this."

The doors opened and he emerged into the spotlight, to the excited noises of the crowd. He took Hillary on one arm and Sheila on the other. To the world he was Weston, the bad boy rebel who showed up to the Oscars with two dates. But it wasn't like that anymore.

Sheila didn't share her boyfriend's composure. She tried to capture all that energy in her mind and soul, wondering what kind of painting she would craft if she stood to the side with an easel and brush. Microphones hovered in painted faces, thrust there by anxious and eager young reporters dressed in their finest but standing out against the tailored dinner jackets and the rainbow of designer dresses like the one she wore snug against her skin. George Burns's round glasses catching the light of a camera flash, the photographer catching the cool, narrow eyes and rugged smile of Robert DeNiro posing beside a straight-lipped, bushy-haired Al Pacino.

Weston just strolled in like he owned the place.

There were posters up, advertising some of the contenders of the evening. Sheila thrilled when she saw the _Color Twenty_ display, even though she'd seen it in a dozen theaters since the movie debuted. On the central poster, a three-dimensional eye, sculpted from ice, sat situated in front of the burning sun, the heat melting the eye away to all sides and corners, where the runoff collected into clouds.

-

Hollywood's elite gathered within the halls of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Weston had been to the Oscars every year since 1966, and they were more or less the same. The faces aged as new ones took their places. The jokes were interchangeable, and truthfully so were most of the speeches. As the ceremony began, as winners claimed their awards, Weston snuck glances at Sheila's thrilled face, and she flashed him a knee-buckling smile. Mary winked at him from a few rows up, and he winked back.

He sat calmly as the award for Best Director came around. Sheila and Hillary both squeezed his hands for support as Diane Keaton and William Wyler announced the nominees over steady rounds of applause: "Milos Forman... _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_. Robert Altman... _Nashville_. Weston... _Color Twenty_. Stanley Kubrick... _Barry Lyndon_. And Sidney Lumet... _Dog Day Afternoon_." The moment of silence hung for an hour as Sheila threatened to separate his hand from his wrist. "And the Oscar goes to...Weston!"

He kissed each of them on the cheek, then rose to the roars of applause from his Hollywood brethren. As he walked up the aisle to the front, the orchestra played "I Write the Songs," and he remembered the thrill of seeing Chaplin accept his award. He approached and took the statuette in his hand with a cool smile. "Thank you," he said as the ovation died. "Charlie Chaplin once told me that art doesn't reflect what a society is. It reflects what a society is becoming. I think I understand him now. With _Color Twenty_ , we tried to transcend art and culture. Maybe we succeeded, maybe we failed. I leave that up to you." He paused for a moment, looking out at all those expectant faces, singling out Sheila. "All I know is, all I've ever wanted to be was a Teller of Tales, to give the world something to dream about, and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for that opportunity."

Neither of the girls said a word when he resumed his seat, but they both returned the kiss he'd given them. It was the greatest moment of his life so far.

An equally great moment, however, came when they grabbed his sleeve and hoisted him to his feet to help them accept the award for Best Picture of the Year.

-

The Bistro, Beverly Hills. Just a few miles west from Westonwood on Wilshire, Hollywood's elite gathered for the Oscar after party at one of the trendiest restaurants in town. Weston had lobbied to have the event at the Castle, but just like every year, he was turned down.

He left Hillary to herself as he whisked Sheila around the room, saturating her in celebrity in a way she had yet to experience. He did it all because it was expected – sharing a drink with Jack Nicholson, pulling Stockard Channing aside to tell Sheila about the time he'd continually rewritten her dialogue on the fly, making it more and more bizarre until she realized it was a prank. Too many stories, and none of them mattered. He knew he wouldn't remember any of it. The night, the party, the exhilaration of being up on that stage twice. The champagne had never tasted so sweet, but every perfect moment would be forgotten because there was only one thing that mattered.

As soon as they had a chance to breathe, Weston offered Sheila his hand. "Would you like to dance?"

"Silly boy." She took it gracefully. "You were certainly on tonight."

"One does one's best." He clasped her fingers, intertwined, and his other hand rested on her waist. "It was just a couple of trophies."

"Two pretty big ones!"

"There's only one thing I ever won that I gave a damn about."

She didn't swoon, nor did he expect it. Her fingers on his arm softened. "You never had to win."

In the moment he forgot the evening that brought them there, the movie they'd made, and every other moment they'd shared together. Only this one mattered. Only the dance. He leaned forward, she tilted her chin up, and they shared a tender kiss. As they pulled apart again, he gazed into her baby blues and smiled.

When the night came to its end, he put pen to paper and wrote a sonnet.

My eyes can see the things that aren't there

My ears can hear the sounds of mystery

My curse is pressing more than I can bear

And beckons all the world to follow me

I sketch a curve and curve grows into sphere

I shade a color, color bleeds to scene

I speak a word and everything is clear

I move and all the world is painted green

A fairy floats beyond my grasp and leads

My willing mind to follow her, my muse

My chance to find escape from earthly needs

My one true love I know I cannot lose

Come with me and the world will know our name

Come with me and we'll never be the same

MAY

Weston paced back and forth in the hallway of NBC in front of a picture of Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner, chewing on his finger and oblivious to anything and everything going on around him. Crisp thoughts grounded themselves in his focused mind. Like _Color Twenty_ before, all his machinations and creativity poured into his new plan.

People passed and he paid them no attention. He kept glancing up at Chevy Chase and remembering that General Franco was still dead.

Johnny Carson came around the corner in the distance, hair hanging loose, uncombed, biting into a chocolate doughnut and twirling his keys. He stuffed the keys in his pocket when he noticed Weston there. "You're early, buddy," Johnny said, shaking his hand.

"Sorry. I had nothing else to do and a lot on my mind."

"Well, step into my office, then." Weston followed Johnny inside. "Something to drink?"

"No, thanks. I'm fine."

"Congratulations, by the way. How come we haven't gotten you on the show since the Oscars?"

He half-sat, too wound up to fall into the chair. "Sorry."

"What's the matter? Someone drop a whoopee cushion down there?"

"I got a favor to ask."

"I'm listening," Johnny said through a bite of the doughnut.

He took a deep breath. "I want to propose to my girlfriend."

"Congratulations. Again."

"Thanks. Thing is, I'm going to need your help."

Johnny casually slid into his desk chair, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Do tell."

"Carly Simon's got a new album coming out next month. I want you to get her on the show."

"You know she's not big on singing in public," Johnny said.

"I know, I know. That's fine. She recorded for _Saturday Night_. She'll record for you."

"How do you know she'll do it?"

He flushed, the excitement bristling across his cheeks. And neck. And the rest of his body. "I already asked her."

"And what's this have to do with proposing?"

He'd imagined it over and over ever since the idea came to him, and now, sitting in Johnny's office, it was suddenly real. "You bring me on as the other guest."

He explained the plan in detail, and Johnny's mischievous grin grew longer and brighter with every bit. He took another deep, jittery breath. "So what do you think?"

Johnny shook his head. "You're a ballsy son of a bitch, you know that?"

"You'll do it?"

"What the hell? I'm in. As long as you do me a favor too."

"Name it!"

Johnny chuckled. "Stop parking in my space."

JUNE

Johnny beat on his desk like a conga as the cameras moved into position. "Let's see, who do we have tonight?" He glanced to the left with a brief squint as if trying to remember. "We've got, ah, our first guest is an old friend who just won, won the Oscar, back in March. Two of them. I'm told this time he's on his own for once, so let's bring him out...Weston!"

The band played "I Write the Songs" as the spotlight hit him from the side of the stage. Weston gave the roaring audience a friendly wave and shook hands with Carson, but he wasn't quite there in the moment. He was fifteen minutes ahead of everyone else, and he knew before he said a word that he'd have to live with it. He wasn't going to come back to the present, not until it was over. The crowd kept cheering, and he blew them a kiss as he took his seat.

"Good to see you again."

"Good to be back. I miss this place when I'm gone too long."

"We'd be happy to rent you a room in the back. Something in an efficiency?"

"Perhaps!" Weston replied.

"Well, let me just say that you are a talented, talented man, and it's an honor to have you here tonight. Bet you never thought you'd hear me say that!"

"I didn't park in your space this time, so I feel like you kind of owe me."

"But I mean it. We saw the movie, everyone saw it. And it just blew us away!" More applause as Weston pursed his lips. "And you won the awards, the Best Picture and Director and everything."

"Yeah, yeah."

"So, I mean, how are you going to top this thing?"

"You know, you bleed so much time and energy into something like this, sleepless nights, skimpy meals, you're life starts to flash before your eyes. And then people say, 'Give us more! Give us another.' It's no wonder so many artists are driven to drink."

Johnny flashed the room with wide eyes. "I...respectfully withdraw the question." Laughter. "Let me rephrase. What are you gonna do now?" Johnny asked.

"I'm going to Disneyland." Cheers. "No, I'm taking it easy right now, just for a minute or two."

"But you're gonna be, what did you call yourself? The Teller of Tales?"

"One does one's best."

"So you're doing, what, a little fishing, a little backgammon?"

Weston laughed. "I'm not retired!"

"Well, OK, Mister Wiseacre, you tell me."

"I'm getting a little R and R with my girlfriend." Just mentioning her quickened his already racing pulse.

"Sheila Green. The artist behind the man behind the movie?"

"More like my creative partner."

"So you two cooked this thing up together?" Johnny asked.

"All the way."

"She's a cutie, too. So what's she have to say about all the hoopla and everything?"

"It's a lot, you know. She's just starting to get recognized, so there's that. Actually..." He leaned forward, unable to hold back his boyish grin.

Johnny glanced at the audience, deadpan. "Let. Me. Guess."

"Would you like to meet her?"

The people cheered as Weston rose. Johnny spanked the desk. "Well, that's it for me, folks. I'm off to bed!" he said, hopping to his feet. Sheila stepped out into the lights, smiling at the crowd and holding her face tight as Weston made room for her.

"Can we get another chair out here, please?" Johnny asked, laughing with mischievous delight as he resumed his seat.

"That's OK," Weston said. "She'll sit in my lap."

"I will not!" Sheila declared, and Johnny leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek. "What's that for?" she asked.

"For standing up to him. I never could!" Johnny cleared his throat as they settled in. "So you put up with this guy?"

"He has his moments."

"Well yeah, I imagine it would take some getting used to."

"No, he's sweet."

"But didn't Alan Alda once call him the slimiest man alive?" Johnny asked.

"That was in _Candlefrost_ ," Weston said.

"Seems like he said it here on the show. Anyway, Sheila, I understand you're Reverend Green's little girl."

"Yes!"

"What's he think about all this stardom you've got these days?"

"He's the one who pushed me out the door. If it wasn't for him, I'd probably still be in Memphis."

"It just seems a little flashy for a guy like him."

"It is," she said. "Daddy doesn't like the flash anymore."

"But you like it here?"

She smiled at Weston, slowing things down for a moment as his adrenaline clicked up a notch. "Some people make it easy to stay."

"Hey, I gotta sell something. When we come back, more with Weston and Sheila, plus Carly Simon! Don't miss it!"

They cut, and Sheila let out a big sigh. "How'm I doing?"

Weston squeezed her hand. "Fine! You're doing great!"

Sheila spoke for a minute with Johnny. Weston heard her laugh, but the words were a blur. His thoughts ballooned with anxiety, and he closed his eyes.

"And we're back!" Johnny said. "I was just asking Sheila here how she and Weston met."

She grasped Weston's hand with a light giggle that told him she was loosening up. "They were doing my exhibit at his gallery, and he was there checking it out. He didn't even know who I was, and so I started making fun of my stuff, and he started defending it."

"You're a wily minx, aren't you?" Johnny asked.

"As Shakespeare said, 'When we our betters see bearing our woes, we scarcely think our miseries our foes.'"

"Or...yeah. What she said," Johnny replied. "She do that a lot?"

"Consistently," Weston said.

"You like it!"

"So Sheila," Johnny said, "I understand you're a big Carly Simon fan."

"Oh my gosh, yes! She's my favorite of all time!" Her voice rose, approaching a shriek. "When I met her, I was all 'duh, uh, doo.' Total idiot. She probably thinks I'm a freak."

"Well let's find out. She's here promoting her new album; let's give a hand for Carly Simon!"

The band played "You're So Vain" as Carly stepped out, her hair floating at her shoulders. She gave a kiss to each of them as the crowd welcomed her. "Yeah!" she said as the clapping subsided, plopping into the seat next to Weston.

"So do you think Sheila is a total idiot?" Johnny asked.

"Sheila, honey, you kill me!"

"I was just spazzing out that day, I guess."

Weston sat between the women as they bantered with the host, and no one seemed to notice his silence. He couldn't bear to look at anyone, not even the audience. It was too late for cold feet or second thoughts, and each glimpse of Sheila gave him a momentary panic. He snapped back into the moment when Johnny asked, "Now, your new album is out?"

"Yeah! It's called _Another Passenger_. Number seven."

"I understand you're going to be performing...by proxy?"

"By recording."

"And why is that?"

Carly leaned into the camera covering her, looking into the lens. "I like the way Madeline Kahn put it: I like to watch myself perform."

"Well, all right, I think, do we have the song queued up?"

Carly and her band appeared on a screen to the side of the stage. Johnny, Sheila, and Carly shifted to watch, but Weston looked out at the unsuspecting audience. He let out a slow, calm exhale.

-

"Beautiful," Johnny said as the song ended, and a ripple of applause ran through the guests.

"That was 'It Keeps You Runnin''" Carly replied, kicking her leg out. "Written by the talented Michael McDonald." She turned to Sheila. "What did you think?"

"I love it!" The second time she'd met Carly, she'd been a bit more articulate than the first, but still fumbling for words in her head like a schoolgirl with a crush. Somehow, on camera in front of an audience of strangers, she finally felt the composure to properly talk to her idol. "Isn't that a Doobie Brothers song?" Carly chuckled, followed by the audience, and she felt as if she'd said something embarrassing.

"Yeah, honey, they do the background vocals on the record."

"I think it's time for another commercial," Johnny said, glancing at his wrist, which Sheila found odd because he wasn't wearing a watch. "But, oh, what the hey, I think we've got a second for an encore. What do you say?"

Sheila grinned in curiosity as the audience turned its attention to the screen again. She'd watched a lot of Carson and couldn't remember seeing a musical guest do two songs in a row. Carly appeared a second time, alone at a baby grand. Her face took up most of the screen and she said, "Sheila Green, this one's for you."

Sheila put her hands to her mouth, freezing in her seat. Something was about to happen, and it was going too fast for her to piece it together. Carly kept her eyes on the screen as her recorded self began to sing "That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be."

Sheila listened as her favorite song echoed out, hanging on those six words: _Sheila Green, this one's for you._ A chill ran across her shoulders. She turned to Weston and found him looking back, eyes wide, breaths deep, and he nodded. She gasped again as the chorus began. Sitting there, on that stage, with Carly Simon herself, with Weston.

That's the way I always heard it should be – you want to marry me...

"Oh my God!" she whispered, trembling, as he continued to nod. She glanced out at the crowd, watching the song, oblivious. "Is this for real?" she asked, but he said nothing. At some point she realized Johnny and Carly were watching her too.

And then the song ended, the cameras cut back to the stage, and the whole world dragged into slow motion as Weston went down on one knee in front of her. Murmurs filled the audience as everyone else in the room realized what was happening.

Sheila felt no fear or anxiety, or even joy. She was too overwhelmed to think. Weston pulled a box from his pocket and opened it, revealing a sparkling diamond ring the likes of which she would never have hoped to put on her finger.

"Sheila Green," he said, voice wavering, eyes full of love. "Will you marry me?"

She threw her hands to her face again and glanced at the thrilled Carly. Just as quickly she looked back to Weston, kneeling there in front of her. The pressure petrified her as she felt the fascination of every eye in the place, and she ignored them all. She took enough of a second to let this be about just them, even if there were two cameras trained on her. "Yes!" she cried. "Yes!" She fell beside him and embraced him.

He whispered in her ear, "It's time we raised a family...moved in together...I'm ready."

"OK," she whispered back.

As the crowd roared with excitement, they held each other close.

Cheers still rang in her ears and lights still flickered in her eyes as Sheila collected herself after the show, alone in Carson's office. She was too overwhelmed to bother looking around at the famous faces in the pictures on the wall. Weston's kiss still hung on her lips, and she dialed her parents' number with a shaking hand. Each ring made everything more real as she held the diamond close, turning it to reflect the light.

"Hello?" So far away, so distant.

She sat on the edge of Carson's broad desk, gripping the telephone with both hands. "Momma?"

"Sheila? Are you all right?"

She lifted her gaze to the ceiling. "Momma, Weston asked me to marry him."

Her mother's voice grew muffled. "Saul! Get on the line!"

The clatter of a receiver. "What's up?" Saul Green asked.

"Daddy!"

"Sheila."

"Daddy, Weston asked me to marry him!"

She could hear her mother crying as her father spoke. "I don't know what to say, I...what did _you_ say?"

She shrugged to nobody, still not convinced it wasn't a dream. "I said yes!"

She wished more than anything that she could be there with them right then. "Well, honey, congratulations!" her father said. "We're both so happy for you!"

"I know you're not crazy about us being together."

"It's not about us anymore. We support you no matter what, and we're both very excited."

"Me too!" she cried. "Daddy, I thought about him proposing, but I never thought I'd say yes."

"But baby, are you sure?" Her mother's voice was strong and supportive. Sheila had known this question was coming. "You know who he is. Are you sure?"

She felt like she had been flying, was still flying, and nothing was going to bring her back to the ground. "Momma, for not so vile that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give."

"Look at you!" her mother laughed. "Using Shakespeare against me!"

"Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set."

Saul spoke. "I think it's time I met this man of yours."

"You will! I promise! Very soon!" She sighed, wanting to tell them everything but dying to wrap herself in Weston's arms. "Momma, it was the most amazing moment of my life."

"Oh!" Lorraine gasped. "I wish I could have seen it!"

"Just watch _The Tonight Show_."

JULY

The plane touched down in Memphis in the middle of the pouring rain. They'd had to circle the runway what seemed like five or six times before they had enough visibility to land, and when he felt the slight shudder of the wheels making contact with the concrete, Weston unclenched his fist and let out a slow sigh. He'd been on many flights in his life, but the landings always made him nervous. Flying was easy; coming down was hard.

He pressed his forehead against the cabin window, vision obscured by the blankets of water. The airport loomed in the distance, his fingers feeling for the metal buckle, ready to put space between himself and the seatbelt. Sheila leaned in behind him and placed a calming kiss on the back of his neck. "Nervous?" she asked.

"Remind me again why I proposed to a minister's daughter."

"Daddy's the coolest guy I know, besides you. And Mom – when in doubt, quote Shakespeare."

"I hate the Moor?" he suggested.

"Yeah, don't be racist."

She spotted her family in the bustling terminal and took off with his sleeve in her hand. "Too late to chicken out?" he asked. He couldn't decipher much of the chatter as she embraced them all.

"Daddy, Momma, this is my Weston."

"Sir," Weston said, offering a hand.

Saul shook it. "Sir is so formal. Call me Reverend."

"Saul!" Lorraine said. "Weston, I'm Sheila's mom, Lorraine." She hugged him. "I feel like I know you already."

"Same here," he replied. "Good to meet you both."

Sheila stepped aside, gesturing to the younger couple with the child. "And this is my brother Matt and his wife Samantha, and their son Forest." She pecked the boy's cheek. "Sorry, have to give my other little man his due."

"I'm Matt Green," Matt said, shaking Weston's hand and then stepping aside for his wife to take her turn.

"Weston...Weston." He laughed, and the family responded with awkward humor. "Samantha," he said.

"Why did you cancel _Lady Macdeath_?" she asked.

Matt leaned in to her ear. "I told you not to bring that up right away."

"No, it's OK," Weston said. "ABC cancelled, not us. But we were running out of steam." He knelt and tousled Forest's hair. "So this is my competition, huh?"

"It's no contest," Sheila said. "If he was old enough to drive, I'd dump you in a heartbeat."

"Well, come on!" Lorraine said. "Let's get your stuff and get back to the house. You're probably starving."

"Famished," Sheila said.

"Do you like catfish, Weston?" Saul asked.

"Uh, yeah! Who doesn't?"

-

"Heavenly Father," the reverend prayed as they all bowed their heads. "We thank you for your blessings, for food and shelter. We thank you for bringing our little girl home. And most of all, we thank you for growing our family again." Weston opened his eyes and watched the man, holding the hands of his wife and son, the steaming plate of blackened catfish filling the air with rich, salty goodness. "We pray your blessings on Weston, a good man who will make a good husband for our daughter. We pray your blessings on them both as they begin this new chapter of their lives together. Amen."

"Amen," they all repeated. Chatter followed the clanking of dishes as everyone filled their plates, but Weston sat in silence. He had expected unsettled resentment, mentioning of his previous marriages, or questions of his quality. Instead Saul prayed blessings on him. He looked around at the table, at the warmth of the room, and thought to himself that this was the family he'd always wanted.

Sheila's concerns about his relationship with his own father made more sense now. The Green house was a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. The days and nights he spent at their table drove home to him how much he missed being part of a family. Despite the influence and the power of the Camdens, life smelled and tasted better with the Greens.

A magazine article hung mounted on the wall with a still from _The Tonight Show_ and a headline that read _The Great One's Great Proposal_.

The worry over Lorraine's growing cancer got to him as if he were one of them. When it came time to leave, he was almost as reluctant as Sheila.

\- - -

The brandy was warm, but the Tennessee night air was warmer. Crickets sang their cryptic songs from hidden stages as the steady burn of the porch light shown off the old wooden bench that doubled as an outdoor ottoman. Weston nestled in a wicker chair beside Saul. Sheila and her mother were preparing for bed within the house.

"When I was a kid I got lost in those woods," Saul said, his voice lower than the insect symphony. Weston said nothing, running his finger across the smooth lip of his snifter. Saul lifted his to his lips for a moment. "It was darker than this. I hit a baseball out there, and I thought I'd be able to find it. My dad told me to wait until the morning, but after everyone was asleep, I snuck out there with my flashlight. Thought I was a ranger or something, like in Tolkien. You ever read Tolkien?"

"Sure," Weston said, which was partly true. He'd read the first dozen or so pages four times before throwing the book away in disgust. Granted, he was only six at the time.

"When I got out there, I was hit with a paralyzing fear. Didn't think anything of it until I was in the thick, but there I was, alone, and I panicked. I thought I'd get attacked by a snake, or a raccoon, or worse. Forgot all about the baseball. Lost my sense of direction. I must have been out there for hours. When I finally came crawling out, covered in scrapes, my pop was waiting for me. He knew I'd snuck out, but he didn't go after me. Figured a night in the woods would teach me not to disobey him." Saul took a slow sip. "Never did find that baseball."

Weston wasn't sure how to respond. He could tell his own stories, but they'd probably come across as self-pitying, trying to paint himself in a sympathetic light. And sitting beside this man who had welcomed him so sincerely, he could offer back nothing but equal sincerity. "Thanks for everything, Reverend Green."

Saul stood and leaned against the railing of the porch, looking out at the stars. "You don't really have to call me that."

"So what do I call you?"

"Saul's fine. And maybe when you feel like it, Dad. I know that must be hard for you."

Nervous anxiety taunted him, as if the welcoming act would disappear at any moment and he would get the treatment he really deserved. "Look, sir, Saul, I'm sure–"

"I didn't get along with my pop either."

"Really?"

"He whored around on my mother, and she wasn't strong enough to do anything about it. I hated him for that."

Weston fell silent as images of Annette flashed across his mind. _I hated him for that_. "I'm sorry."

"It took me a long time to forgive him."

"I never would have known. I mean you're all so Christian."

"Well, the Lord punishes the children for the sins of the fathers. I'm sure you understand that. And I knew that if I ever had kids, I couldn't punish them for _my_ dad's sins."

"Right."

"Generational curses can be broken," Saul said, watching his brandy swirl. "The vicious cycle stops when you surrender. It takes patience, and a lot of faith. Perseverance. Submission, repentance. You can be a good father. I know because I know my daughter. You probably think I'll judge you, but I don't."

"I thought you'd at least be concerned."

"I'm terrified. And that's why I want you to promise me something."

"What?"

Saul put his hand on Weston's shoulder. "I want you to promise me that if Sheila conceives, you let the baby live. I don't care how scared you are, or how sick you feel. You let the baby live. I'll help you if you need it. If you can't go to your own dad, you can come to me. Promise me."

Brandy was fine, but the thought of living up to such words made him crave a Scotch. He looked into the reverend's unblinking eyes. "I promise."

\- - -

Weston led Sheila up the walk from the garage of the mansion, where they'd parked beside Lara's gray Mercedes, to the front of the house. Everyone always took the back route when they parked out there, but he wanted her to get the proper experience.

She craned her neck up the slope of the three stories. "Is this a Cape Cod?"

"It's a Colonial variation," he said, grasping her hand in his. "Missing the window over the door, and there's ten windows on the second floor instead of five. Not to mention the third floor. The floor plan's unique, though. It's been updated so many times, it's more of a...Pacific Colonial."

"Is that a thing?"

"You're looking at it. My parents had the Craftsman roof put in when I was a kid. Mom grew up in a Craftsman, loved the triangular brackets, the charcoal gray. Gives the place a kind of hodge podge of eastern and western styles. American Hodge Podge, we should call it."

They stepped up onto the porch, past the row of bushes that had once been cut in spheres and ellipsoids when he was a child but were now just cubes with rounded corners. Weston pressed his thumb to the bell. "How do I look?" Sheila asked, turning to him for approval.

He lifted her hair so that it wasn't trapped behind her ears. "Honestly? You look like your mother," he said. The massive double doors of the Camden mansion swung open, and little Gabriel Elvin peeked out from between Lara's legs.

"Hey!" Lara greeted, hugging her brother. "Hey to both of you!"

"Hey back." Sheila knelt eye-to-eye with Gabriel. "And how is Gabe doing today?"

Gabe glanced up at his mother, then back at Sheila, and smiled, offering her a half-eaten cookie. "Wanna gookie?"

"Oh, you are so sweet!" she said, giving him a kiss, then snapped off a corner and popped it in her mouth. "Mmmm!" Gabe laughed at her.

"Sure you know what you're getting into?" Lara asked.

Weston hefted Sheila back to her feet. "One thing at a time."

Lara opened the doors wide for them. "Come on back. Dad's in the Green Room." Sheila locked onto him as his stomach twisted, his jaw tightened.

"The Green Room? You already have a room for me?"

"It's literally a green room," Lara said. "Our mom designed it."

With Sheila at his side, Weston followed his sister into the recesses of the house he hadn't visited since the day he changed his name. He wanted to slow, to get a grasp of it all, let his memories run free, but every step took him closer to the Green Room, and all he could think about was the sting of his father's belt on his shorts, the tilt of his father's voice when he was angry that made it sound an octave lower to a frightened child. Sitting at the dinner table on the night before he graduated college, brimming with excitement, his father cutting him off with _Swallow before you talk, for God's sake._

"Hey," Lara said softly, shaking back to the moment as they paused outside the Green Room. "Gabe ran off. I'll be back in a second. You all right?"

Sheila's hand stroked his arm as he looked back at his sister, mouth dry. Itching. "Yeah. Yes."

He stepped into the room, Sheila behind him. It hadn't changed since that Christmas morning. Everything was in the same place except for the absent holiday decorations. The two dark green sofas, the chartreuse carpet, the wallpaper that shifted from shade to shade, lighter and darker. Only one thing was different. His father was poised over the desk in the back, and his hair had finally gone gray. Still thick as ever. Weston swallowed.

"Now this is some monochrome magic, I have to say!" Sheila declared, startling Lloyd, and he swiveled, locking eyes with them. Weston had hoped for a smile, prepared for a scowl, and Lloyd gave him neither. The last time he'd seen his father was at the Angelis, and he'd been friendly, but everything he'd said felt laced with a condescending subtext. _How'd a girl this classy ever get tangled up with the likes of you?_

Lloyd slipped his glasses from his face and tossed them on the desk. "Well. Never thought I'd see you here again."

Weston stood silent as Sheila left his side and passed the sofas, the white brick fireplace, and gave the man a heavy hug. "How's my future papa?"

"Better, now that you're here!" he said. "Welcome to my humble home."

"Humble home, huh? I think this is bigger than my daddy's church!"

Weston watched Sheila, so warm with his father. Lloyd looked up from her beaming smile. "Son."

"Hello." They watched each other for a moment in silence. He had a standing offer from Saul Green to call him Dad, a name he hadn't called Lloyd to his face since the last time they'd both been in this room. Sheila had convinced him to come, promised Lara would be there. He knew when he proposed that he would be coming back eventually. No way Sheila would have let him not invite the man to the wedding.

"How was Memphis?" Lloyd asked, stepping forward. Not _I missed you_ or _It's been so long – you look good_. Not a hug or a handshake.

Weston decided he would match Lloyd's avoidance. He sat down across from them as Lara came in with Gabe and a fresh cookie. "It was, I don't know if quaint is the right word. The Greens are great – salt of the earth types. Sheila's got the best dad in the world." He searched Lloyd's face for a reaction to the jab, but he must not have noticed it.

"I look forward to meeting them," Lloyd replied, glancing back at Sheila with affection. "If they raised a girl like you, they must be pretty special."

Lloyd had only met Sheila once, at the Angelis. A half hour with her and he was as sweet as honey. They needed to do this quickly and get out of there, but Sheila hung off of Lloyd's arm, beaming, and Lara sat beside him, hands pressed between her legs. The air was thick. "So, what have you been up to?" Weston asked.

"Nothing quite as extraordinary as what you two pulled off. I have to say I'm proud of you."

"Thanks." He never knew how to respond when his father said things like that. All of his years growing up, he only remembered Lloyd expressing pride four times: when Charles made salutatorian in high school, when Lara didn't shed a tear after falling off of her horse and breaking her ankle, when Charles finished basic training, and to Andrew when Gabriel was born.

"But to answer your question, we just acquired majority share of KCSL, the classical station? So, been busy with that. And, got a new project in the works." He tapped the now-closed script sitting beside him. "It's about a serial killer who terrorizes Hollywood, picking off celebrities."

"Why a serial killer?" Sheila asked.

"Taking a page out of my son's old book." Lloyd eyed Weston with a hint of a smile. "So, you really went all out with that proposal, didn't you?"

"Right," Lara said. "You finally did something to top the draft card."

Weston didn't know what bothered him more – being here, his father talking freely as if nothing had happened between them – or the faint, distant urge to stay. He rose to his feet again, rubbing his palms on his pants. "I, uh..." he trailed off for a moment, looking to Sheila for support. "We want to invite you to the wedding."

Lloyd's almost-smile didn't grow or shrink, but it flickered. "You don't say."

Weston swallowed. "I want you there this time."

"And is this her talking, or you?"

He looked from his father to his fiancée, and Sheila nodded to him slowly. It felt as if she were pushing him, but they'd talked it out on the way back from Memphis, and he had been the one to make the decision. He hadn't made it for the man who raised him, though, but for the woman he loved. "It's both of us."

OCTOBER

Jackie Gleason lounged against the counter in Weston's kitchen, dressed in a green pique and checkered pants, his usual mustache traded for a clean lip for an aftershave commercial that had brought him up from Florida for a week. The perfect opportunity to drop in and celebrate a certain engagement.

"I'm proud of you, kid," Jackie said as he swatted Weston on the back. "Two strikes, but you're still swinging. Bet you'll hit a home run this time."

"Hope so." Weston poured a Scotch for himself from his trusty decanter, and one for his old friend.

"A third marriage can be just as satisfying as a first."

"You love Marilyn, don't you?"

They clinked glasses. "To Marilyn and Sheila," Jackie toasted. "The best third wives a couple of clowns could have."

They each took a sip, and Weston savored his for a moment. "Do you ever feel like you sold Marilyn short? By making her number three?"

"I think with the first two I was just getting warmed up. Speaking of which, this is good Scotch."

"Thanks. It was a present from Sheila's dad."

"But I'm also kind of winding down. Glad I've got a good girl to do it with, you know?"

"Ah, you'll never wind down! You're the Great One!"

Jackie nudged Weston's chin with his fist. "Winding down is moving on, kid. We both know who the Great One is now."

"You know what the world is missing?"

"Concrete evidence of UFOs?" Jackie asked.

"Besides that," Weston chuckled. "No, when I was a kid I came on your show, and then when I was an older kid you came on mine. But we've never really worked together."

"I smell a rat!"

"No, seriously! We should do a little something together. A movie maybe?"

"Well, I don't know. You tell me," Jackie said.

\- - -

Sheila found her fiancé in the kitchen, Frank Sinatra on the radio and the stocky aroma of simmering pork in the air. He had two baking sheets lined with raw eggroll shells on the counter, and as the pork simmered in a skillet on the stove, he stood over a wooden cutting board, slicing celery. Sheila came up behind and tickled him.

"Don't do that when I'm holding a knife!" he said. "Want to see my blood all over the kitchen?"

She pulled a bottle from his wine rack. "I'd rather not."

"How was your day?"

Sheila stretched with satisfaction. "Amazing! Had Gabe while his folks were down San Diego way. We went to the beach." She still had a bit of sand in her shoes.

"Can't believe they're moving."

"Yeah, and you know how fast kids grow. I'm already missing my Forest, now I'm going to be missing my Gabe, too."

"Well, maybe someday, you'll have one of your own."

She knew it would never be that simple, but hearing him say it meant something. "A little boy?"

He grinned. "Nah, we'll have a girl, for sure."

"Why d'you think that?"

He set down the knife and put his arms around her. "I know everything about her," he said as they swayed to Sinatra's soft, mellow crooning. "We'll name her Virginia, after my mother, but we'll call her Ginny. She'll look just like you, only she'll have green eyes instead of blue."

"Why green eyes?"

"I don't know, but they'll be green. We'll even make Green her middle name."

"Yeah?"

"It was a tradition in the Weston family, making the maiden name a middle name."

"Bet your mom didn't know you'd call yourself Weston whether she named you that or not!" He let go and went back to his cutting board, and she twisted a corkscrew into the mouth of the bottle. "I guess before you know it, I'll be Sheila Camden."

Weston slowed. He turned to her with cold eyes. "No. You'll either be Sheila Green or Sheila Weston."

"But aren't you trying to work things out with your dad? Wouldn't that hurt him more?"

He responded with a decisive slice of his knife, sending a piece of celery flying to the floor.
1977

APRIL

Sheila stood before the full-length mirror in her bridal dressing room. She didn't usually spend too much time looking at herself, but she couldn't get enough of those long white sleeves of lace, the tips of her shoes peeking out from beneath her dress, her hair highlighted with braids and the ivory butterfly comb in the back that had belonged to her grandmother, matching the butterfly pattern of her diamond earrings. All she needed was her veil.

A soft knock on the door. "Come in," she said, turning under the weight of the gown as Lorraine Green entered the room, covering her mouth with her hands at the first glimpse of Sheila in her white satin.

"You look so beautiful!" Lorraine said, kissing her cheek. "I think I'm going to cry!"

She embraced her mother, this happy day shining in the shadow of her illness. "I'm so glad you get to be here. It's my only wish come true, that you get to be with me today."

"Angel."

"How're you feeling?"

Lorraine's fatigued face betrayed more than her tongue. "I'm feeling grateful to be alive."

Sheila savored the moment, there with her mother still breathing, there about to face the most important day of her life. "Mom, I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"Remember what I told you, about what he said? About my name?"

"Yes," Lorraine said.

Her pulse raced as she considered what she'd done, even more terrifying than what she was about to do. "I went down to the courthouse last month. He doesn't know. I already changed it."

"To Weston?" Lorraine asked.

"Go fish." Her stomach tightened beyond wedding day jitters as her mother nodded slowly. "I had to."

Lorraine squeezed her hand in support. Sheila Camden took a moment to breathe, admiring her reflection one more time.

-

Despite the pomp and fanfare, a quiet peace filled the church, unlike Weston's other weddings. People known the world over sat in those pews, people whose every move was followed by fans in homes, theaters, and concert halls. He saw Mary Tyler Moore here, Jackie Gleason there, Jane Fonda, Johnny Carson, Dennis Hopper, Carly Simon. A sea of faces that didn't matter.

He'd never remember the color of the flowers or the bridesmaid dresses. He'd never remember the soothing trumpet duet that welcomed his guests. He'd never remember the countless details that made the day flawless and perfect.

There was only one flawless, perfect thing in his world.

Sheila appeared, and he imagined she'd always been waiting for him there in the back of the chapel. She'd always been looking at him from a distance, dressed in white. Reverend Green moved up the aisle beside her, and for Weston, it was at that moment his first and only wedding.

He made out none of her features until she was near, but he could sense her presence, like the muse that had filled his youthful dreams. Or at least, about as close as he could ever hope to get.

-

Sheila walked with confidence and grace, eyes fixed on the man she loved. Ever since that day alone in the art gallery, somehow their path led to this moment.

"Greetings to you all, family and friends," the minister said. "We have come together today to witness and celebrate the joining together in marriage of Benjamin Weston Camden and Sheila Mae Green." Sheila blushed under her veil at the mentioning of the names they had both abandoned. She stood beside her groom, breathless beneath the lace.

The minister spoke words of affirmation, but she didn't hear them. She could not escape the tremendous power of the moment, the weight of every memory with him, and every hope for a new tomorrow, a different tomorrow.

Stuart handed Weston the ring, and he placed it on her finger, repeating after the minister.

"I, Weston, take you, Sheila Green, as my lawfully wedded wife: to have and to cherish, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, until death parts us."

She took his band and slid it on his hand with a somber touch.

"I, Sheila Green, take you, Weston, as my lawfully wedded husband: to have and to cherish, for better or worse, in sickness and in health...forsaking all others...until death parts us."

His finger had held two other rings but would now never bear anything else but hers. They clasped their hands together.

"By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife. Go out into the world and bless it, but bless each other first. You may kiss the bride."

Weston let go of her hand and pulled back her veil.

-

In the reception hall, the newlyweds stood beside Sheila's latest painting: a portrait of the two of them, each ten years old, holding hands and looking precociously out at the world. Carl Daniels, groomsman and old college friend, approached them with his wife and child. "Sheila, I don't think you've met Carl's wife, Kim."

"Pleased to meet you!" she said. "And who do we have here?"

Kim hoisted the girl, who reached out a squirming hand to touch Sheila's dress. Her fingers glistened with saliva as Sheila took a step back. The child's auburn hair floated in the air around her head, with the appearance of having been brushed at some point in the day. "This is Kambree. She's eighteen months."

Sheila leaned in near the girl's delighted grin. "She's so pretty!"

"Dess?" Kambree asked.

"She means dress."

"Aaah?" Kambree jerked her head toward her mother as Sheila disregarded the slobber and played with the child's twitching fingers.

"I love her! If you ever need a babysitter, you've got my number!"

Kim laughed. "You know, I might have to take you up on that!"

They danced as the world watched. Other couples joined them on the floor, and as they let go and took different partners, all they wanted was to find each other again.

"You're looking good," Hillary said as she shared a dance with her boss.

"Hill, I'm flying today."

"I hope you never come down."

Before they knew it, their day had passed, and husband and wife waved goodbye to their loved ones, speeding away in a limousine to the honeymoon suite at the Castle before their cruise in the Mediterranean.

That night, for the first time, Weston slept with Sheila.

MAY

Sheila's eyes fluttered open when the sun hit her face. She sighed with fatigue and content as her toe touched her husband's leg. Weston barely snored. She watched him breathing and thought of waking him, wishing they were still on the deck of a ship in the choppy waters off of Sicily.

She slipped out of bed and into the bathroom, and despite her restful sleep, she quivered with exhaustion. The faucet hissed, filling a glass with water, which she downed while examining her reflection, face a little red, probably sunburned from their long day of moving her things into his house. She took a deep breath, letting her stomach settle. They'd hired movers, but it had still drained her.

She sat down on the toilet and felt like she had yet to fully awaken. Her chest was sore – she must have strained it in the moving. She touched her breasts beneath her nightgown and found them a bit tender. Strange.

The water must have stirred her appetite. She didn't have much of one most mornings. Another result of the previous day's strain. Maybe she'd make breakfast for both of them after a hot shower.

But as she dropped her nightgown to the ground, her stomach twisted inside her. That wasn't hunger grumbling down below. She fell to her knees over the bowl, bracing herself. Her skin was hot and cold at the same time, a thin layer of sweat on the sunburn. She retched, heaving forward and gasping for air as she did. She flushed the toilet again, and her hand froze on the lever. She wondered how she was only now noticing this. With all the post-honeymoon activity, and the moving, she had somehow overlooked it.

The shower did not wash away the uncertainty. They hadn't been trying to conceive, but she knew that hadn't stopped him before. He'd gotten _lucky_ more than once.

She feared what he would do if it were true, despite all of his assuring words. His reactions to things this significant could never be predicted. And maybe it was all in her head. She'd go to the doctor before she said anything.

Weston stumbled down the stairs, shirtless, and wrapped his arms around her as she scraped chopped peppers over the eggs she had frying in a pan.

"Morning beautiful," he said, kissing her cheek.

"Morning back."

He turned her around so he could see her, but she didn't meet his gaze, afraid of his ability to read faces. "There's something different about you," he said.

\- - -

Someone shut off the lights as the conference room cleared, but Weston remained, the open blinds leaving it plenty bright. He lingered at the deserted table, scribbling and thinking. The chatter faded to nothing as his mind wandered and his gaze lifted from the treatment for _Aborigine_ to the gray overtaking the blue in the afternoon sky. No single cloud – the entire sky. Just like the last time he saw his mother.

"Hello."

He looked up as Sheila crept through the doorway, lingering as she had years ago when she was new to the building, acting out of place, a Southern minister's daughter in way over her head.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" He discarded his notes and rose. "Something wrong?"

"No – at least, I don't think so."

"What is it?"

She took a deep breath, her blue eyes fixed on him. "I'm pregnant."

He'd heard that four times before. Her words ignited a lingering fear, an intense desire to get up and flee. He didn't deny the power of that old voice. But a younger one cried out over it: _her_ voice – not Sheila's.

"Say something!"

Weston swallowed the dread, knowing she'd seen it flash, and pulled her close to him. "I'm so glad!"

"Really?"

His throat went dry. "Yes, really! You're going to be a mother."

Her voice was soft and hopeful. "And you're going to be a daddy."

After she'd gone home, alone in his office, Weston collapsed into his chair, dropping a shot glass onto the desk and ripping the cap off a bottle of Johnnie Black. He poured to the rim and looked at it there, filling his nostrils with its sweetness.

He took a sip.

"Aaaah?"

He coughed on the liquor, glancing at the empty chairs on the other side of the desk, the empty sofa against the wall, the locked door. The phantom whimper of an infant faded as quickly as it had come. The air felt lighter, not cooler. He leaned into the desk, abandoning the empty shot glass, which rolled off and landed on the carpet by his feet. The air was thick and empty, hot and cold, laced with traces of color.

"Jackie's special guest tonight...Benny...Camden!"

He closed his eyes and gripped the armrests. He couldn't picture the announcer's face, only that deep, familiar timbre. His chair threatened to tip over and spill him out on the floor or send him plummeting to the Earth below.

"Benny, I'm pregnant." Chelsea Blythe echoed. "I'm pregnant." Yvette.

"You know exactly where it goes!" Lloyd yelled, convoluted and distorted, and he was in the garage, eight years old, searching the tool wall for his father's socket wrench and crying, though he didn't remember why. "Quit being such a goddamn baby!"

He pressed his eyelids tighter.

"Who can turn the world on with her smile?"

Weston let go of the armrests, gripping the desk, breathing in, breathing out, and the episode faded, the voice of Reverend Green leaving him with one more whisper of the past.

"You let the baby live."

JUNE

Sheila's work took a maternal turn. She painted portraits of Lara Elvin holding Gabe, Brina York and her son Luke, and Kim Daniels with beautiful little Kambree. Weston's work streaked with their personal lives as well. He and Jackie Gleason fleshed out the script for their joint project: _Mint Condition_ , the story of a man dying from leukemia who gives away his collection of vintage, mint condition cars, the final one presented to his young granddaughter, the child of a son with whom he no longer speaks.

Weston crept in on her as she worked on a portrait composited from photographs of Samantha Green and Forest. He brought her a cup of steaming decaffeinated tea, and she inhaled with fatigue. "I do miss green tea," she said.

He sat beside her cluttered work station, careful not to nudge her oils. "Paint a picture of it," he replied.

"That's all I do anymore!" she said. "I need a break."

"I got you something to do."

"A present?"

He handed her a crisp new paperback, _2001 Baby Names_. "Sort of."

Sheila collected it, running her thumb across the edges of the pages. "We don't need a book for this, don't you think? We should name him for someone we know."

"Him? You want to call the baby Saul, don't you?"

"No!" she laughed. "I was thinking...what about Charlie? After Chaplin, and your brother."

She suspected he would have considered it criminal that his parents had beaten him to naming a child after Chaplin. "Not bad at all. Definitely on the list. And if it's a girl, Carla?"

"Ugh. Carla was a pig-tailed little bully who set one of my paintings on fire in the eighth grade. Pass." She flipped the book to the Cs, running her finger down the page to Carla, looking for another feminine version of Charles. She thought of Carly, but unlike her husband, she wasn't particularly keen on naming a child after her favorite. "What about Cara?"

"Cara has potential. Definitely. May I?" he asked, and she handed the book over to him. He flipped to the boys' section as she leaned her head on his shoulder, watching him scan. "How about Easton?" he suggested.

"Why Easton?"

"Easton Weston!" he said.

Sheila laughed. "You're such an idiot."

"I think it's tough. Nobody messes with Easton Weston!"

He combed through the book as she grunted her participation in the conversation, unable to think past the pairing of baby names with _Weston_. Each possibility tore at her. She pulled away from him, enough so she could see his face.

"Tell me you love me."

He shut the book and gave her his attention. "You're swell." He placed his hand on her neck, bringing her in, and gave her a kiss that filled her with guilt. "And I love you."

Without giving herself a moment to think twice, she whispered, "Would you love me if my name was Sheila Camden?"

His eyes fell into shadow beneath those dark Camden brows as he recoiled slowly, staring back at her in silence. She waited for him to yell, or respond at all, but he didn't.

"I know what you told me," she said. "But I decided if I was going to marry you, I was marrying the whole package: the whole, dysfunctional thing. I was joining your family, and your family's name is Camden. And so is mine."

"Sheila..." He left her there with the baby book.

-

Sheila had the good sense to leave him be, and Weston had curled up in bed, wanting a Scotch but settling for a nap. When he awoke, the light through the windows was dimmer, bluer. The clock read 7:04 and his stomach was empty. He rose to sit, the bottoms of his feet scraping the surface of the carpet. He glanced at the closed door, wondering what things looked like on the other side after the way he'd left her.

Weston threw on a white undershirt and cracked the door. Carly Simon music was playing in the living room. He crept to the corner and peeked – empty. Sheila sat just outside the glass door; she'd moved her easel into the breezy evening air. She dipped her brush in paint and brought it to the canvas, little Forest Green coming alive in gentle strokes. The baby name book lay askew at her feet. He swallowed and went to open the back door.

"Hey," he said, and she turned to look up at him with salty eyes. "Sorry about earlier."

"I'm just glad you didn't yell at me."

He put his arm around his wife, feeling her frailty. She hadn't betrayed him, no matter how it felt. He would have to come to think of her as Sheila Camden. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," she said.

"I get it. I do. It was a brave thing to do."

"Wes..." Those red eyes smiled up at him. "I love you so much."

JULY

Near the end of her first trimester, Sheila got the call she'd been dreading for over a year. She had to move quickly if she wanted to see her mother again. Lorraine had checked back into the hospital, and no one expected her to leave.

Weston made the arrangements. Too emotional to drive, and too afraid to fly during pregnancy, she took a train, sleeping most of the way. Matt picked her up, and the two of them rode to the hospital together in near silence. His Old Spice filled her lungs and made her feel young again, far too young to have a dying parent.

A group of people from the church hovered around their beloved pastor's wife. Saul was there too, with Samantha and Forest. Samantha stood a distance back, holding her son up so that he could see his grandmother. Lorraine slept, as she did most of the time those days. Sheila overheard someone say that the doctors doubted she would wake up.

She hugged her old friends from the church, receiving words of comfort, and finally made it into the room. She held her father, who kissed her forehead and whispered, "Thanks for coming."

"How is she?"

Saul wiped fatigue from his eyes. He looked as if he'd aged years over the months since the wedding. "I think we may have seen the last of her."

Sheila knelt beside her mother's bed, watching the woman sleep. She took her limp hand and stroked it, giving it a soft kiss. Samantha excused herself, sobbing. Saul stood behind Sheila, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and Lorraine breathed in and out, peaceful. "The last thing she said was, 'I just want to sleep.'"

-

Weston flew out that night to be with the Greens. Saul delivered his wife's eulogy three days later from the pulpit of his church, only breaking down once. The sanctuary was decorated with sunflowers, Lorraine's favorite. Beside her closed casket was a photograph of the two of them, leaning back from the front seat of Saul's car, seconds before they'd driven away on their honeymoon. As Weston sat beside his own wife, both of them grieving, he couldn't help but admire Saul's strength and courage. He'd lost the person most precious to him, and yet he carried on. He was a shoulder to cry on when he had no shoulder of his own.

The caravan made its way to the cemetery, to the rectangle of space dug from the ground, fresh dirt waiting in a pile. The tombstone was unveiled: _Lorraine Peyton Sanders Green, Born August 9, 1923, Died July 27, 1977_. She'd barely missed her fifty-fourth birthday. As he held his weeping wife, he remembered vividly his own mother's funeral. The worst day of his life.

DECEMBER

With less than two months until the baby was due, a high mood filled the holiday air. Staying in Los Angeles, away from her father and brother, made it easier for Sheila to face her first Christmas without her mother. They spent the whole day at the mansion with the extended Camden family. Everyone delighted to learn of her name change, and even Weston found it hard to be frustrated in the midst of the joy.

The baby kicked and squirmed, and Weston watched with affection as his aunts, uncles, cousins, and nephew all took turns feeling Sheila's stomach, doting on her and catering to her every wish. She barely had to get up the whole day.

He and Lloyd kept their distance, didn't say much to each other. Every so often, Weston would catch the man watching him, and though he would look away quickly, he felt his father's eyes still following him. Lara watched him too, watched both of them, and though she said nothing, he knew her Christmas wish was for them to go off alone somewhere in the back of house, clink a couple of glasses together and talk – about literally anything.

Late afternoon, Lloyd disappeared for a while, claiming he needed a nap. As the family started to leave, Weston checked on Sheila, helped her into a chair, took off her shoes. She was thirsty, so he went to the kitchen to get her a glass of milk. When he stepped onto the marble tile, he found himself alone in the room with his father. Lloyd had his hand on the telephone, staring at it, and when he looked up Weston saw a shade of sorrow in his father's face.

"What is it?" No lead in, no awkward silence.

Lloyd let go of the receiver and ran a hand across his face. Weston caught a quiet gasp in his voice when he answered. "Uh, that was Sydney Chaplin. Charlie passed this morning."

Weston stepped back into the hallway, covering his mouth as well. He glanced in the direction of the parlor, where Uncle Charlie had once taught him how to do his signature table-top ballet. "What happened?"

"Nothing. Natural causes. He died in his sleep. Peacefully."

Sheila sat by his side through his repeated calls about the funeral. Chaplin's widow, Oona, insisted on a private affair, with close family only. She meant no offense, but he was not invited. Weston hung up the phone, weeping as if his own father had died. He buried his head in Sheila's shoulder, and she cradled him.
1978

JANUARY

On New Year's Day, Sheila bundled herself into her beige Chrysler 189, enormous and exhausted, and headed to Beverly Hills. Going across town was an ordeal by then, especially when she was the one driving. The baby must have known – the kicking started up just as she made it to the highway. By the time she arrived at the mansion, she was ready for a nap.

"Do you know," Lloyd asked as he helped her prop her feet up on a leather ottoman in the parlor, "My son married three girls, and you're the only one who ever came to see me."

"He probably poisoned them on you," she said, shivering from the winter chill lingering on her skin, in her clothes. "He tends to do that."

"I'm sure I deserved it. I couldn't see it for years, but I wasn't a good father to him. I wanted him to be a certain way, and I never accepted anything else."

Sheila was careful. He didn't need to know all the things his son had said about him in the past week. "For whatever reason, he imagines Charlie Chaplin as a greater father figure than his own dad."

Lloyd sighed. "Nothing haunts me more than knowing that."

"He's starting to scare me. He sits off on his own all day, drinking and watching Chaplin movies. He sulks. I mean, he still takes care of me, but he's more like he used to be."

"I see."

The tea warmed her throat, but her skin still prickled from the lingering cold. "Dad, what do I do?"

"If I knew the answer to that question, I might never have lost my son. Let me get you a blanket," he said.

"Thank you."

Lloyd was halfway to the door when he slowed. He turned, fidgeting, his wingtips moving back and forth like compass hands that couldn't find north. His shoulders hunched forward and up in a sudden retching motion, as if his breakfast had turned against him. "Dad?" Sheila could barely move, but she tried to sit forward.

Lloyd's feet finally found themselves, and as he pivoted back toward her, the muscles in his face spasmed like beats of a broken metronome. "I..." He pressed his eyes shut and shook his head, lips puckering as if he'd just had a hard swallow of bad milk. When he opened them again, his left eyelid hung drooping from its socket like a fleshy hammock.

"Dad?" she asked, struggling to adjust herself in the chair. "Are you all right?"

Lloyd dropped to the floor. His arms and legs moved as if trying to find a comfortable position for sleeping. His eyes squinted like he couldn't quite see anything.

Sheila's chest tightened as the air escaped her lungs. "Dad?" she screamed, lifting with all her strength to get out of the chair. The baby kicked again. Her senses flared and she didn't feel the weight of the child, at least not for a moment. Tears spilled down her cheeks, not just from whatever was happening to Lloyd but from the strain of sinking to her knees without hurting her back, without twisting anything.

"Don't do this to me..."

As soon as she hit the floor, and got a good up-close look at him, she wished she'd called an ambulance first.

Drool ran down from the edge of his mouth, lips moving as if to speak. He blinked in rapid succession, and when she felt his pulse, his heartbeat and eyelids were almost synchronized. She grasped his hand, and he wiggled his fingers as if trying to wrap them around her own.

"I'm sorry," he finally breathed, turning his head enough to see her, and she touched his cheek with frail uncertainty. "Tell him for me."

-

Weston hurried into the lobby of Cedars-Sinai, head down, making for the elevators. The place hadn't changed, as far as he could tell, in the twelve years since he'd last been there – the day his mother died. No one paid him any attention, but he still didn't look up until he reached the elevator bank and caught one as it almost closed. He slid in beside a short nurse standing in the corner.

"What floor?" she asked.

"Three," he said, angling himself away from her. It was probably his imagination, but this elevator was playing the same canned music as that dreadful rainy day back in 1966.

The nurse adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses, leaning in to get a closer look at him, and there wasn't much he could do about it. "Are you Weston?" she asked.

"No, sorry." He knew she knew better, but she must have picked up the hint because she said nothing more. The doors opened on the third floor and he left her without looking back. He moved down the hallway, searching the numbers. This was a nightmare he'd had – he was sure of it. He'd relived his mother's last day in his dreams, even if he couldn't remember any of them. It was stuck in his soul. He passed a waiting area and stopped, peeking back inside. Sheila was struggling to get comfortable in one of the wooden chairs as a second nurse helped her.

"Oh thank God!" she gasped, throwing her arms around his neck as he leaned in.

"I'm here," he said. "What's the status?"

"I was just checking up on your wife," the nurse said. "She had a little anxiety, but nothing too serious. Nothing to complicate the pregnancy."

"And what about my father?"

The nurse gestured to an adjacent seat. "Perhaps you'd prefer to sit?"

"I'd rather stand, thank you. How is he?"

Sheila looked up at him with despair as the nurse continued to point. "Please."

He sank against the rough cloth of the chair and gripped the thin steel armrest. "All right."

"I'll be right back."

Sheila laid her head against his shoulder and said nothing. He couldn't keep his head still, sharpening his gaze across the two teenagers on the other side of the room playing cards on the empty chair between them, an old _Lady Macdeath_ episode on the television, no volume. The nurse returned a few moments later with another woman. "Mr. Camden?" she asked.

His stomach knotted even tighter. "Uh, yes."

"I'm Dr. Winters. I need to talk to you about your father."

"I'm listening," he said as Sheila's fingers slid beneath his own.

"He suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he had a brain aneurysm, and it burst, which caused a stroke."

In all the years since that dark Christmas day, Weston had heard nothing about his father's health. Perhaps if he'd stayed a little closer, this might not have happened. "Did anyone, I mean, does he..."

"He had regular checkups, but we hadn't detected the aneurysm before. The effects hit him all within a matter of minutes. I'm afraid they were extremely severe."

His throat tightened and seized as he pictured his father there, spread out, Sheila helpless on the floor beside him. He could see his father's wide, blinking eyes as she cradled his head. "Are you..."

"Mr. Camden, I'm sorry."

Weston turned to his wife, and a dam burst in her throat as she wept. He pulled her close, feeling her tears, and at some point the doctor and the nurse left them alone.

"I guess I need to call Lara."

Sheila pressed her damp face against his. "I already did."

Pinpoints of memory filled the sky of his mind like sad stars, like an electric firework spectacle commemorating the life of Lloyd Camden. Weston's throat was dry, itchy for a drink. He couldn't process the pyrotechnics.

\- - -

A crowd of friends and family gathered to pay their last respects to Lloyd Harold Camden at the plot beside his long-lost wife. Weston stood in solemn company between people he had shunned and those he had embraced. His sister and brother-in-law stood with him and shared his grief, even if they couldn't understand his own unique relationship with the man now deceased. Sheila stood with him as well, with their unborn child stirring, silent but one of them nevertheless.

He couldn't look away from the identical slabs that bore the names of his parents. He had turned his back on one and lived in memory of the other. Virginia Weston changed her name once, changed it to Camden to celebrate her love for the man who stood by her until the end. Weston abandoned that name, but the women he loved more than anything in the world had loved his father as well. Sheila had changed her name in a desperate hope for a reconciliation that would now never take place.

From his pocket he pulled the silver cigarette lighter he'd carried with him everywhere for over a decade, lifting it slowly so as not to attract attention to the movement, and ran his thumb over the subtle engraving, the three letters that were always with him, no matter how hard he'd tried to push them away. _BWC._

When only those closest to him remained gathered around the graves, he looked up at the living remnants of his father's legacy. All eyes turned to him, as if they knew he was about to speak. He put a hand on Sheila's shoulder and one on her stomach. "You're a Camden," he said to her. "And so am I."

Sheila kissed him. The baby kicked.

Ben closed his eyes.
Part III

Camden
1978 CONTINUED

FEBRUARY

"Mr. Camden?"

Ben opened his eyes with a gasp. Whatever bad dream had just stopped in medias res lingered as he turned in the uncomfortable hospital waiting room chair. A nurse knelt beside him, tapping his arm. The lights were dim and his back ached, and he had the vague half-awake sense that he had left one nightmare and entered another. "Wha?"

"Mr. Camden? If you'd like to come with me, I have someone I'd like you to meet."

The grin on the nurse's face didn't do much to quell the science project volcano in his stomach. He gripped the armrests and blinked a few times. "Oh."

"Whenever you're ready," the nurse said, short and skinny enough to be anorexic. He peeled himself from his seat and rose beside her. "You must be so excited!"

It occurred to him to ask whether it was a boy or a girl. He said nothing.

They crept into the room where Sheila lay fluttering on the edge of consciousness. Another nurse stood beside her, cradling something. A scream erupted, primal and direct, and he cringed. The second nurse turned, and Ben got his first glimpse of the child. "Mr. Camden, I'd like to introduce you to your daughter."

"My daughter." His mouth was dry.

"A healthy baby girl," the nurse said. "Would you like to hold her?"

She shifted the little being into his arms, wrapped in a white blanket. The momentary shriek still rang in his ears, but he only heard her breathing, her soft, gentle purr. She was so tiny and helpless as she struggled and turned, clawing at the air as if fending off some phantom only she could see. And then the baby girl squinted at him through her narrow slits.

She had green eyes.

_Hello there_ , he could hear her say _. I've been waiting for you_.

-

Sheila eased into consciousness like the creep of air conditioning on a hot summer afternoon, coming to in stages, in shifts. The sounds came first, the soft pedaling of rubber soles on hospital tile, the elevated breathing of whomever was in the room with her. The sheets crept up underneath her back – she'd pull them tight before settling in again. She cracked her eyes open to the afternoon light and found Ben standing next to her, cradling their child, but she couldn't see the baby through the blankets.

She was light, emptied. The weight of pregnancy suddenly gone, her back felt loose, out of place, and the sag of her belly skin lay flat atop her, dragging from one side to the other as she shifted herself up, focused on what Ben held. He noticed her stirring. "Hey."

"Hey back," she said, fingers flexing as she pulled them from beneath the sheet. "Is that? Can I?"

He scooted forward and gently handed the bundle to her. "This is our daughter."

She grinned as she held the girl against herself, weak breaths puffing against Sheila's cheek. "Daughter." They inhaled in synchronization, and she wished the baby would wake up long enough so that she could see her whole face.

"They're green," he said.

"What?"

"Her eyes. They're green."

Sheila touched the slumbering cheek and glanced up to find him watching the child, face lined with awe and fear. Ben leaned in, the three of them close and connected. "Cara Camden," she said.

\- - -

Sheila barely slept anymore, caring for the baby at all hours of the day and night. Lara left Gabriel with his father in San Diego and came to help. The two of them bonded even more in those first days of motherhood, and Sheila was grateful for the help because Ben's schedule at Westonwood filled up suddenly after they came home from the hospital. He was there for breakfast and then would disappear, often until late at night. On Lara's last day in town, Henry Louden came by to pay them a visit.

"Looky here!" Sheila said, cradling the baby. "This is your Uncle Henry!"

Cara paid him no attention as he stroked her face with the back of his fingers. "A true Camden," he said. "Except for the eyes. She doesn't have the Camden brow. Looks more like her mother."

"Thank God!" Lara laughed.

Ben shook Henry's hand. "Good to see you again. But why do I get the feeling you didn't just come by to see the baby?" Henry's cheeks were paler, more weathered than he remembered.

"Well, it's more of a business call."

"Business?"

"The family business."

Years ago, Lloyd had acquired controlling share in the company when his siblings had moved on to other things. His will split everything, giving Ben and Lara each thirty percent control of Camden Enterprises and all of its properties and subsidiaries. Lara looked to her brother, who knew what she was thinking. She'd graciously told their father for years that she had no interest in being a part of running things. Ben spoke for the both of them. "We were thinking of selling."

Henry pursed his lips as he caressed the baby's hand. "I'd respectfully like to ask you to reconsider. Camden's been in your family's hands since before Biograph first set foot in town. If you're really re-embracing your roots, you should know your father would never have let anyone else take control."

"I don't care about the money," Lara said. "I just don't want to be involved in running a company."

Ben stroked the few strands of hair on his daughter's head, which had yet to settle on a definite color. He wondered if he would ever be able to hold her without the fear of accidentally dropping her. "And I can't run two," he said.

"What if you sold Westonwood to Camden? You could maintain control of both."

He imagined walking through those old halls again, smelling vaguely of peppermints, endless to a child and confining to a young man. Cara shifted in his arms. "You think Camden would really buy Westonwood?"

Henry clapped him on the shoulder. "You tell me!"

Ben turned to his sister. "If we did that, I could still buy your half of the house."

"But what about CE?" Lara asked.

"Let me worry about that." Ben handed Cara over to Sheila, hating the feeling of freedom and relief in his empty arms.

MARCH

Ben pulled into the parking lot at Camden Productions, which also served as the headquarters of Camden Enterprises, with Hillary in the car beside him. He looked up at the three stories, remembering a childhood of playing in those rooms, chewing dried up sticks of Topps bubble gum and slipping baseball cards in and out of his binder for that one summer he'd been obsessed with the Yankees. As fresh as the cardboard texture of the gum or the constant peppermint scent from the candles the company would stockpile at Christmas and use all year long, just as vivid was the constant scolding of his father, always telling him to leave people alone because they were working, or making Ben wait for hours in his office while he conducted business elsewhere in the building or sometimes offsite.

"This is a step up," Hillary said as they approached the doors. "I bet they have vending machines."

"Three."

They swept into the bright and cheerful lobby, and as they approached reception, he recalled giving a press conference to apologize for burning a fake draft card on live television – over by where the floor-to-ceiling artificial waterfall now stood, a potted palm on either side of it.

"Good morning, Mr. Weston," Margie, the receptionist, greeted from her seat.

Ben removed his sunglasses and gave her a warm smile. "Good morning. It's actually Mr. Camden."

Margie tapped her open hand to her lips. "I am so sorry, Mr. Camden. Uh, um, everyone's up in Meeting Room 2, waiting for you."

Hillary followed him into the elevator. "Meeting Room 2," she said.

He pressed the button for the second floor. "That's where we pitched _Glen Headwood_. I threw up after."

"Well...let's hope lightning doesn't strike twice."

"One does one's best." The doors opened and he exited without dabbing at the light layer of sweat forming on his forehead. "Gentlemen," he said as he entered the board room, and everyone rose. "Good to see all of you again."

"Ben," Henry said, shaking his hand. "It's going to be a good day, I think."

Ben took Hillary's arm. "I'm sure most of you already know Hillary Louden."

The board expressed its greetings as Ben sat at the head of the table, with Henry and Hillary on either side of him. "As you know, with the exception of my aunt, Katherine Ferring, the family stands in agreement that I succeed my father as president. We won't be going public."

Some of the board murmured, but Henry called them to attention. "You all know Lloyd would have wanted it this way."

"But Lloyd's dead," one of the board members, Tom Ware, said. "With all due respect, what he wanted is no longer relevant."

"Nevertheless," Henry added, "Tom, you know where we all stand on this. No one in the Camden family wants to go public."

"I'm aware," Tom replied. "And I'm willing to go along with the board. I suppose my main concern is the acquisition of Westonwood."

Ben nodded as a secretary passed out document copies to the board members. "Look, I know a lot of you remember me from my youth." His voice echoed on that sentence. At least, it seemed to echo. He looked out at those faces, all watching him, and as his words faded, the roar of a car engine blasting down a distant highway filled the room. None of them gave any indication that they'd heard it. "You remember me as a hot-headed, brash kid who set out to set the world on fire without considering the consequences. I'm not that kid anymore, and..." He blinked hard. Colors danced across those thoughtful faces, static jags of purple and brown. The car engine revved again, and he leaned over to brace himself against the desk. Some of those eyes flickered with awareness or concern – he didn't know which. Ben laughed, hoping to keep them from seeing what he saw. He blinked again. "I'm not that kid anymore, and Westonwood isn't that company. A large part of that success goes to Hillary. I hope you'll all accept my proposal that she join us here as president of Camden Productions."

The board members murmured to themselves, but he couldn't tell if they were more interested in his words or his demeanor. He could imagine that they all knew exactly what he was seeing. "You're replacing father with daughter?" another of them asked.

Someone was laughing, high-pitched and faint. He scanned the room but couldn't tell who it was. He lowered his head, hiding from them as best he could, and blinked until the laughter was gone. Ben nodded in Henry's direction. "It is my further intention to promote Henry Louden to the position of executive secretary of Camden Enterprises."

"Are you all right?" someone finally asked.

"Just...excuse me for a minute. Read over the..." He gestured at them. "The, uh...read the sheets. Talk it over. I'll be outside."

He stepped into the hallway, pressing his back against the door and wiping away the sweat that had been building on his brow since he'd exited the elevator. The board members conferred, their muffled voices hitting his ears. He needed a drink; the water fountain would have to suffice.

Ben couldn't go back in there after faltering like a fool in front of them. Hillary could handle it; he just hoped his sudden disappearance wouldn't weigh too heavily against them. He went to his father's old office – his new office. Fingers traced the dark lines in the glossy cherry wood of the desktop. As a boy he'd always looked up to the man sitting in that chair. He turned around to look out at the view of the grounds, lost in the distant past. The two soundstages in the back lot didn't look as big as they had when he was a child. Someone sped between them on a golf cart, but it was too far away for Ben to tell if it was someone he'd recognize.

Henry and Hillary came in, and he swiveled back, unaware of how long he'd been spaced out at the window. "Well?" he asked.

"Believe it or not," Henry said, "everyone's on board, no pun intended. Even Tom, for the most part."

"Well then," he said. "I guess we're staying."

\- - -

Ben slid his key into the lock on the double front doors of the Camden mansion, feeling it give, hearing the click, and placed his hands on those two familiar black iron handles. He pushed in and they swung on their hinges without a sound. Lloyd had always kept all the hinges in the house greased, but the silence of their swinging bled into the silence of the house as the click of his shoes on the marble started to echo but faded in the distance. He took it all in with a slow turn of his neck – the hallway to the left that led all the way down to the kitchen, past his father's den, the sitting room. The dining room to the immediate left, where he'd taken countless meals with his mother and father, with Lara, with Charles, and the long line of faces that had passed through the place. Up the red carpet and the banisters to the second floor, to his old childhood bedroom, to Lara's and Charles's, to his mother's office on one side and his father's on the other. The hallway to the right that led to the theater room, the Green Room.

Each of those rooms held memories for him, and in them were the three ghosts of Lloyd, of Virginia, of Charles. And yet some of the best times of his life had happened in this home. His favorite game as a child had been hide and seek, and he and his siblings couldn't have asked for a better playground. It had best been played at night, with the lights off, except for the time when Ben had slipped and fallen into a display stand, knocking over a rare turn-of-the-century Edward Raymond Turner three-color projector that the family had owned for decades, shattering it on the floor in splinters of broken wood and bent metal, the crank lying separate from the rest of the box. His father's belt had drawn blood on his backside as his mother had pleaded for him to stop. He was glad Charles and Lara were never there to see him cry. His fingers graced the silver lighter in his pocket, and he sighed at the memory of Virginia Camden.

He retreated to the car as Sheila directed their moving truck past his grandmother's garden and along the gravel driveway. They made their way back up together, her holding Cara's diaper bag, him holding Cara against his shoulder. They stepped back into the place and Sheila slipped the bag to the floor. "What are we going to do with this much space?"

Cara cooed against him as he took another look. "Change it."

MAY

The Camden mansion felt like home to Sheila. Cara's giggles and cries filled the halls as the dust came down, and she spent much of her time updating and redecorating the building that had housed so many of her husband's relatives throughout the decades. Crimson drapes with gold trim replaced the old purple curtains that had hung in every window on the first floor. She updated the furnishings in the ballroom and the parlor, as well as most of the bedrooms. Each had belonged to someone in the past, even if some hadn't been regularly occupied in decades. She made each of them over in a different theme. One she called the Memphis bedroom, designed in the fashion of her hometown and full of scenic photographs of the Mississippi, Graceland, and the city skyline.

The Green Room was even more personal for her. She added pictures and heirlooms from her own family, careful not to let it grow gaudy or tacky, and the final product had subtle elegance. The Green family Bible, which she'd claimed after her grandfather's passing, rested on the slant of a clear plastic stand, held together with multiple treatments of glue. Inside were the records of the family – births, deaths, marriages – dating back over two hundred years. She'd carefully added to it, taking on the roll of historian. A few faded photographs – her father as a young boy with his arms around his old Cocker Spaniel, Sport. A line of twelve people standing in front of a newly raised barn, the only one of whom she recognized was her grandmother, eyes in shadow, waving to the photographer, maybe three feet high whenever the shot had been taken. Newspaper clippings of her father from when he used to tarry in the spotlight: marching on Washington, giving a commencement speech at Vanderbilt, another at Rhodes College. Many more keepsakes.

She cleaned up the tennis court, near the swimming pool and the musty little stable. She hadn't played since college, and she coaxed Ben out there whenever she could, as well as inviting over friends for a match or two. She relished the exercise after those final months of pregnancy.

But above all else, she loved taking care of her baby girl.

Sheila often babysat Kambree Daniels. The company was welcome, especially on nights when Ben had to work late. Kambree would follow her around like a puppy, curious about every little thing. She thought the mansion was heaven because of its size and splendor, and always asked, "Where God?"

"Whacha doo?" She leaned in as Sheila held Cara's sucking lips up to her breast. "She eat?"

"She's eating, yes."

"Why she eat you?"

Sheila laughed. "She's not eating me, honey. She's just eating."

Kambree touched her own chest, frowning with confusion. Then she leaned in close to see Cara sucking, and Sheila blushed. "She sleep!" She touched Cara's arm, but the baby's eyes did not open. Kambree grinned. "She sleep!"

Sheila laid Cara down for a nap and set up Kambree with _Lady and the Tramp_. They snuggled into one of the couches in Lloyd's den, and whenever Kambree would giggle or laugh, or ask her precocious questions, Sheila looked forward to the day when Cara would start marveling at the world.

She let the movie run as Kambree fell asleep. The baby whimpered when she loomed over the crib, green eyes wide open and leg kicking against the sheet. "Angel," she said, "Momma loves you so much!"

Cara's face wrinkled and she burst into a loud cry. "Oh, you break my heart!" Sheila sighed as she hefted her daughter against herself, rocking gently. A diaper change later, Cara looked up and her mother held her little hand between two fingers.

-

Ben came home late from the final preproduction meeting for his latest film, _Aborigine,_ and found Sheila and Kambree curled up beside each other, out cold on the floor of Cara's nursery. His grandmother's pearls hung loose around Kambree's neck, and an old tiara of Lara's lay on the carpet beside Sheila's head. The room was lit in rotating soft blues from the baby lamps in the corners, and he crept past the sleeping pair. Cara lay in her crib, on her back, the third member of the slumbering trio. She smacked her tongue between her lips as her little leg spasmed. Ben put his thumb against her hand, and her soft fingers wrapped around it.

"Hey!" Sheila's groggy voice came from behind him. He pulled free from Cara's grip and pushed his knees into the carpet. Sheila reached her hand to his neck, and he let her pull him in for a kiss. "Did I fall asleep?"

"Sorry to wake you."

"It's OK. Have to take my chances when I get to see you!"

He slid beside her, holding her head against his shoulder. "Sorry."

"It's OK," she yawned. "I know you're a big important businessman now."

"Yeah."

"When are you leaving?" Sheila leaned over to check on Kambree.

"Sydney-bound Monday night."

"It's a big ol' house for just the two of us," Sheila said.

"I got you a roommate."

"Oh?"

He kept his voice soft. "Hillary's going to come and stay. Just while I'm gone. Help you with the baby, keep you company and what not."

"That sounds nice."

As Sheila woke Kambree to get ready to leave, Ben turned back to Cara, spittle dripping down the side of her cheek. She waved her hands around as she was apt to do, as if fending for her life from an invisible predator.

He listened to her breathe, slow and soothing, and yet ringing like dissonant noise in his ear.

JUNE

Harry Polk, the assistant director of _Aborigine_ , dangled on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and Ben didn't blame him. Unpredictable summer weather shifted across the Australian Outback, and they had to be ready at a moment's notice, whenever they had a few hours without rain. Precipitation would sweep in and pelt them from nowhere, and the crew would struggle to cover the equipment. They'd brought three cameras and were down to two, and Ned Beatty had caught the flu.

Back in Hollywood, actors had a guaranteed twelve-hour turnaround between the days' shooting. But the Screen Actors Guild had no jurisdiction overseas, and he didn't listen to the complaints from the cast when he only gave them six or seven hours to rest before returning to work. It was either that or run out of money and shelve the whole thing.

In those few hours when he wasn't working, he kept to himself, unable to stop thinking about his father, and how despite abandoning the man he now ran Lloyd's company and lived in his house. He thought back to that day when he cursed at him and stormed out of the place, unable to recall exactly what had been said.

Ben could almost believe that Lloyd's ghost had followed him to Australia. He kept going over and over in his head the few times they'd seen each other since that Christmas morning in 1966. He could imagine that his father had tried to make peace with him, and he had never listened. And as that thought permeated him there, in the relentless downpour and humidity, the Scotch warmed him.

\- - -

About twenty minutes into _The Tonight Show_ , Sheila was starting to nod off on one of the three big old comfy couches in Lloyd's den. Cara was beside the sofa in her bassinet, frilled with lavender lace, somewhere between her nine o'clock and midnight meals. Laughter rung from the hallway and Sheila bolted awake, swinging her feet from beneath her to the floor. On the screen, Johnny was chatting with Burt Reynolds, both of them with eerily similar cropped hairdos.

Hillary came in, arm wrapped around her boyfriend, Malcolm Chilton, a pencil-thin charmer who had made the rounds with several of the women at Camden Enterprises, nothing serious until he'd started dating the new head of Camden Productions. And since he was an accountant in the real estate division, who didn't report to her, no one had seen it as a conflict of interest when he became her new arm ornament.

"Hey, kids," Sheila said, suppressing a yawn. "How was the movie?"

"As campy as hell, but we loved it!" Hillary replied, slurring a bit. "Grease is the word, they say!"

"So it was silly?"

Malcolm shook his head. "What do you expect from a movie with Frankie Avalon as the teen angel?"

"You know, I met Frankie Avalon," Hillary said, holding her head and wincing. She shot her arm out, jabbing a finger at the back wall with the massive panoramic black-and-white photo of the cast and crew of _Sergeant Street,_ the first feature film made by Camden Productions. "Right out by that pool!"

"Are you all right?" Sheila asked.

Hillary winced and pressed a hand against her stomach. "Something's bugging me, that's for sure."

"We think she got food poisoning or something," Malcolm said.

"We better get you to bed."

Malcolm braced Hillary with his arm. "I'll see her up."

"Oh, OK."

"Sorry," Hillary said. "I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too." She laughed again.

Sheila went back to watching _The Tonight Show_ as Cara shifted against her sheet. She took a sip of her green tea and shook her head at the man on the screen. Johnny Carson had never been the same for her since the engagement. It had been one of the most memorable moments of her life, but she didn't like the pressure of being put on the spot like that in front of the entire country. She'd vowed never to set foot on that stage again.

After a few minutes, Malcolm stepped into the doorway. "How is she?" Sheila asked.

"Out for the night."

"Too much to drink?"

"Not a drop." Malcolm chuckled at the television. "Carson. I love this guy."

"He's a character."

"Mind if I watch for a minute?"

She shrugged. "Please."

He took the other half of the sofa. "Always does the funniest shit. I love it when he throws me for a loop."

"Trust me, I know."

Malcolm snapped and pointed at her. "Holy shit, that's right! You were on the show! That was like the most famous episode ever!"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Got proposed to, right out there!"

"I got put on the spot is what happened."

Malcolm glanced in the general direction of the empty house. "Where's Ben?"

The question gave her pause. Of course he knew the answer. "Australia. On a shoot."

"Guy'd have to be a fool to go so far, leave a pretty little wife like you home all alone."

She heard herself swallow. "Well, I'm not alone. I have Hillary."

"You must get awful lonely, him so far away, nobody to talk to."

"I talk to Hillary."

"Yeah, but she's not a man."

She inched toward the lacey bassinet. "I should be getting Cara up to bed. Thanks again for looking after her."

"I don't have to go anywhere. The night's still young."

"I'm a little exhausted. You understand."

He reached out and took her hand, too quickly for her to pull away. "Pretty little thing like you shouldn't be alone."

His grip was solid, and her stomach tightened as she tried to pull free. "Please let go."

"Now don't be nervous, sugar! I don't bite!"

"Malcolm, let go of my hand," she said, but he pulled her closer to him. "Let go!"

"Shh, shh," he said, grabbing her other arm. "Calm down, honey."

"Get off of me!" she said, slapping his face and plunging her knee into his groin. Cara stuttered into a cry. "Now look what you did! You woke up the baby!"

"Shit, woman! What's wrong with you?"

She pointed at the door with deep, quick breaths. "Get out of my house."

Malcolm rose, bent over from her strike. "Look, don't get all worked up about it. Just a misunderstanding, that's all. No need to tell Hillary. You know what I mean."

"Get out!"

He raised his hands. "OK, OK, I'm leaving. I know when I'm not wanted. Just trying to help, that's all."

Malcolm left the room, and Sheila turned to the crying baby for a moment, then followed him out to make sure he was gone. She dead bolted the door behind him and ran back to the bassinet, picking up Cara. "Shh, shh." She rocked her, trembling. "It's all right, angel. Momma's here."

\- - -

Hillary had disappeared by the time Sheila woke the next morning. As she tended to the baby, she rehearsed and revised what she was going to tell her about the encounter with Malcolm. She couldn't imagine how she would react if she'd found out something like that about Ben.

Sheila wiped the last traces of Cara's lunch from the corner of her mouth as she disposed of her dirty diaper. Cara lay still on the changing table, arms hovering in front of her, pointed at the ceiling as she stared off in the same direction. Someone had told her she'd get used to the smell, and Sheila wondered when that was supposed to kick in.

Cara made a noise, light and airy, some sort of observational communication, but to Sheila it was a laugh – a laugh at her mother having to wipe her nasty butt. "You little rascal. When you're older, I'll make you scrub the toilets. And your daddy doesn't aim." It was an empty threat – they had maids come once a week. But maybe she'd have Cara do it anyway, if she was ever feeling particularly petty. She didn't know if she'd ever get used to using maids after so many years living in a one-bedroom apartment, but there was too much house for one person to clean, no matter what Ben claimed about his mother.

Hillary bubbled into Cara's nursery, singing to herself. "Beauty School Dropout" from _Grease._ Sheila finished fastening a fresh diaper on Cara and gazed into her baby's interested eyes. "Mum's the word," she whispered, pressing a finger to her lips, and Cara giggled. Probably just another noise, but that's what Sheila would call it. "Home so soon?" she asked, hefting the baby up into her tired arms.

Hillary leaned in and took a good whiff of Cara – she'd conveniently missed the most pungent of her aromas – and kissed her soft forehead. "Oh, I took the day off." She gestured for the baby. "Hold her?" Sheila relinquished her child, and Hillary cradled her with delight. "She smells so good!"

"She smells good about fifty times a day."

Hillary breathed in the scent. "I could never get tired of that."

"Never say never." Sheila noticed her cheeks were flushed. "Why were you up so early if you took the day off?" She sprayed the changing table with Lysol as her courage fled her.

"Can you keep a secret?" Hillary asked, smelling Cara's head again.

"Just one?"

Hillary's eyes widened as the baby breathed against her face. "I'm pregnant."

Sheila's back and shoulders tightened at the image of Hillary and Cara. "Come again?"

"Funny you should put it like that," Hillary said. "It's twins."

"Well," Sheila said, remembering the struggle of pulling away from Malcolm, him calling her _sugar._

"He doesn't know yet. I want to wait for the perfect moment." The baby laid her head against Hillary's shoulder.

JULY

The flight from Sydney was about as miserable for Ben as the shoot itself. Rain, dark turbulence, and a disconsolate infant two rows in front of him. When the aircraft finally landed at LAX, he had resolved never to bring Cara on a plane and inflict that kind of torture on such a captive audience. She was staying put in Los Angeles until she was in school, or else she was going to travel by car. Or her mother could take her. The hangover didn't help either.

Ben stepped into the terminal, the brat now fast asleep in his mother's arms. It figured. He searched through the distant passersby until he found a different mother, cradling an equally quiet child, her hand peeking out from beneath Cara's blankets and waving slowly. He blinked himself into the moment and dropped his bag.

"Hey!" Sheila said as he gently embraced her.

"Hello."

"How was your flight?"

He glanced at the child. "Over and done with."

Cara gurgled as Sheila held her out to him. "She missed you."

Ben looked down at the stirring infant, the tight pit that had grown in his stomach during the flight lancing him. He leaned in and kissed the baby.

"How was the shoot?" Sheila asked, taking his bag and handing him Cara. The familiar weight felt heavier than before.

"Over and done with." He was so exhausted that he'd given everyone in the crew a bonus to take everything back to Camden and let him just go home.

The airport disappeared from the rearview mirror as Ben's eyes fixed on the road. "How's Cara?"

Sheila sat in the back, cradling the baby. "She had a teensy temperature yesterday. I freaked out."

"What was wrong?"

"Nothing, really. Just my nerves. Hillary talked me down."

He said nothing of his own nerves, thinking mostly of a hot shower and a night's rest in his own bed. "So what's been going on since I left?"

"She's pregnant." She blurted it out as if the words had been burning a hole in her tongue.

"Really?" Ben realized Sheila wasn't the only one he'd missed.

"Mmm hmm. It's kind of a secret. You're the first one I've told."

"How far along is she?"

"Ten weeks. Hasn't even told Malcolm yet."

His mind stretched out, reaching across the horizon, pulled back by a ghost he'd hoped he had escaped in Australia. He shook it off.

"I need to tell you something," Sheila said.

-

Ben and Sheila ate their dinner in Lloyd's old den so that they could watch _Johnny Destructo_ , newly released on VHS. After a half-hour of setting up and getting Cara settled, Ben was on his second forkful of cashew chicken when the buzzer sounded in the box by the door.

"I'm never going to get used to that thing," he said, moving his napkin from his lap to his shoulder as Sheila fiddled with the remote control gadget to pause the VCR. The electronic entry system had been installed long after he'd moved out of the place during college. He clicked the intercom button. "Yes?"

"It's Hillary," came the voice through the static of the speaker. He pressed the button to open the main gate.

"Come on in." He turned to where Sheila had already forgotten about the movie, leaning over Cara's seat and holding her bottle steady. "Wonder what she wants." The screen was paused with _Executive Producer – Lloyd Camden_ frozen there. He knelt over the marble table and took another bite, then sauntered down the hallway and took a shortcut through the Edison ballroom to get to the foyer. He pulled open one of the double doors as Hillary took the steps up from where she'd parked.

"Hope I didn't disturb you," she said as he made room for her in the doorway.

"Just sitting down to dinner. Want some chow mein?"

She dodged his gaze, fumbling with her keys. "No thanks, I already ate."

"What's going on? You forget something?"

"I kinda...want to talk to both of you."

Ben led her back to the den. She kept fiddling with the keys like she didn't know what to do with them. Maybe she'd gotten used to letting herself in while she'd been staying there.

"Hey!" Sheila greeted, retaking her seat on the sofa and setting Cara's empty bottle down on the floor at her feet. "What're you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you guys." They said nothing as she stole his seat beside Sheila. "I stopped by Stuart's, but they weren't home." Hillary nodded in Ben's direction. "Did you tell him?"

"She told me," Ben said. "Congrats."

"I told Malcolm."

"What did he say?" Ben asked.

It wasn't until that moment that he realized Hillary hadn't looked directly at him since she arrived. "You should have seen his face."

The three of them sat in silence, the only sounds from the grandfather clock in the corner and Cara's gentle stirrings in the nearby bassinet. The distant taunting, teasing voice whispered in his ear, the indefinable ghost penetrating him as Hillary whimpered. "What did he say?" Ben asked.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. "I really thought he might have been the one."

Husband and wife moved closer to her, and she laid her head on Sheila's shoulder. "You're breaking my heart," Sheila said.

Ben glanced at Cara, peeking up at him from her cradle, then back to Hillary. "I don't know what to do!" she cried. "I don't know what to do without him."

The pain in Hillary's face burned itself into Ben's mind. That twitchiness he'd had for weeks swept across him as the ghost whispered, and something – something inside him he didn't quite understand – awoke.

-

Ben blinked through the smoke, coughing it out of his lungs as he moved through the maze of tables. It had been years since he'd quit smoking, and he'd lost his tolerance to it. Kool & The Gang was cranked up loud enough that he was surprised the speakers hadn't burned out. A strafing of interested faces followed him along, and he ignored them as he always did. He should have probably stopped at the bar first, downed a finger or two, caught his breath. But he'd spotted his prey.

Malcolm sat at the edge of a round corner booth, a bottle of Miller High Life in one hand and the other disappearing beneath the table into the lap of the girl cozied up beside him who, if Ben had to guess, was probably too young to vote. He approached in a straight line from the side – neither of them made any move to suggest he'd been seen. Back tight, stomach grumbling, he curled his ten fingers into two iron fists, and Malcolm's jaw was a magnet.

He'd never hit a man before, but he'd sat in on a few stage combat classes over the years, and he convinced himself he knew what he was doing. The girl looked up at him as he loomed, her face flooding with fear as Ben lifted his hands to his chest like a boxer blocking, then threw one fist in a straight punch below and to the left of Malcolm's right ear, angled forward, and Malcolm lost his grip on the bottle as his head went down, hitting the edge of the table. The bottle shattered at Ben's feet.

"What the hell, man?" Malcolm gasped, pulling himself back into a sitting position as the girl scooted away. His forehead was split in a diagonal gash, traces of blood along the table rim.

"Motherfucker!" Ben shouted, hitting him again, this time bringing him down into the seat the girl had just vacated. Ben took a step back, shaking, pain in his lungs and running up his arm from his knuckles.

Malcolm recovered himself again, further back in the booth. "I didn't do anything to her."

Ben pressed his knee into the vinyl of the booth cushion, opening his fist to clasp at Malcolm's collar. "You little shit!"

Malcolm dabbed at his forehead, glancing around the place. Ben felt every eye on him now, not just the ones who'd recognized him when he first arrived. "You hit me again, you're in for a world of trouble," Malcolm said calmly.

"I want to tear your face off! Guys like you drive me crazy!"

"Guys like me," Malcolm repeated, his eye red and swelling as he blinked, blood spilling into it from the cut on his forehead. "You're just like me. You're ten times worse!"

Ben lifted his arm to strike again when a bartender and a security guard grabbed him from behind. He didn't resist, didn't protest. As the crowd watched in shock, and the girl cowered in tears, Ben looked back at Malcolm with calm eyes. "And don't ever touch my wife again!"

-

You're just like me.

Ben sat in his cell and couldn't get the words out of his head. The sentence festered like a tumor, digging and rotting. He could put on a fresh coat of paint, marry a preacher's daughter and have the baby he never wanted, but that proved nothing.

"Camden, let's go. You've got a visitor."

He followed the guard out and found Hillary sitting, waiting for him. She looked up with sorrow and gratitude as Sheila stood in the distance, holding little Cara.

"Hey," Hillary said as he sat.

"Hey."

"I'm so sorry you got dragged into this."

"He had it coming."

"Maybe, but now you've got serious problems because of me."

"He's not interested in watching me sit in jail," Ben said. "He just wants money."

"I just can't believe this is happening."

He wanted to hug her but knew he couldn't. "Everybody trusted him. Not just you."

"He quit. I don't know if you knew."

"Smart move."

Her hands dropped to her belly. "I've never had anyone stick up for me like that."

"Why doesn't she come over?" he asked, glancing back to where Sheila cradled Cara, standing against the wall.

"She wanted to speak to you alone."

He sighed. "Right."

"I'll get her. But Ben, you're the best."

She left him there and went to Sheila, who watched him in silence as Hillary she spoke. Then Sheila passed the baby over to her and came forward, never breaking eye contact until she'd sat.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

"I've never seen this side of you before."

"Me neither."

The baby's cry echoed from behind her as Cara stirred in Hillary's arms. "I know you had good intentions, but you're a father now. You have to put Cara over everything."

"I know...I'm sorry."

"I've seen you drunk, I've seen you depressed. I've seen you suicidal." The previously unspoken word struck him like the back of a hand to the face. "But I've never seen you violent. This wasn't just losing your temper. You wanted it." He glanced across the way at his daughter, struggling and shifting against Hillary's chest.

_You're just like me_. "I wasn't thinking."

"I know. And I know you were upset. I was too. But you scared me a little. It's not what you did – I know you're not a violent person. It's that you didn't think. And how do I know, somewhere down the line, that the time won't come when it won't be Malcolm, or yourself that you'll hurt, but Cara?"

Weston looked past Sheila again, to the little girl squirming in Hillary's arms.

DECEMBER

The gates swung open as Sheila turned off of Camden Drive and up the gravel path toward the house, windows down, drinking in the mild cool of the late autumn night. She could barely hear Elton John on the radio, volume just a few notches over zero. She hung her arm out of the car, feeling the breeze against her hand, fingers tilted up. Hillary's constant pregnancy stories – not to mention Samantha back in Memphis, carrying her second child – stirred in her thoughts of having another, but she doubted that would happen, and as an idea it took her, at least for the evening, but she'd never considered it before and didn't expect the thought to linger for long. The air wanted to lift her arm, wanted her to fly. Maybe it was the movie she'd seen with Hillary and Brina that evening – _Superman_ – but she wanted to let the wind take her. She wondered what it would feel like to fly.

A stray memory of _The Tonight Show_ stage broke through, and she knew.

She entered the mansion from the back, passing by the kitchen with a view of the pool outside and the tennis court beyond. Ben had left lights on here and there for her, and she shut them off as she made her way through, unbuttoning her jacket and adjusting to the relative warmth of the indoors. Garland and tinsel decorated the walls, and in the Green Room the tree was still lit. She left it that way – it depressed her to turn off the lights on a Christmas tree.

Sheila took the back stairway, and she heard Cara crying in the distance. It grew louder when she reached the second floor, and she realized the baby was much more startled than normal, voice higher and louder, more of a shriek. She kicked off her heels and jogged up the final flight.

She swung open the door to the nursery. Cara had managed to unlock the railing on her crib, and she squirmed on the floor, squealing helplessly. Sheila dropped to her knees and cradled her daughter. "Oh, baby, baby!" As Cara cried, she cried too. "It's OK, now. Momma's here, yes." She inspected her fingers, her toes, her arms, her legs, her head, finding no sign of injury. She rocked Cara, kissing her and whispering to her.

Sheila calmed her and put her back in the crib. Nothing was wrong with the rail – Ben must not have locked it into place properly. They'd go to the emergency room, but there was someone else she needed to find first. She swept out of the nursery, unwilling to shout for her husband and disturb the baby further. Cara had screamed for help and he hadn't responded. She checked everywhere she thought he might be, finally finding him in his old childhood bedroom.

He lay passed out on the floor, an empty bottle of Scotch overturned in his hand. She remembered the story of how Hillary had found him that dark Thanksgiving morning. As she rolled him over, she smelled the whisky seeped in the carpet. At least he hadn't emptied the bottle himself.

"Ben?" She touched his forehead and chest. Everything felt normal, so she shook him. "Ben?" He stirred, eyes cracking open against their will.

Sudden fury swelled in her, and she rose over him like a lioness defending her cub from a predator. She swung her leg, burying the tip of her pump into his gut with as much force as she could manage. He went full fetal, waking in an instant. He clutched not at his stomach, but at his head. "Oh my God," he moaned.

"What do you think you're doing?"

He winced. "Don't shout. Headache."

Sheila grabbed him by the shirt and hefted him to his feet. "I don't give a damn if you go deaf! You left her alone!"

It took him a second to find his footing. "She's fine. She's sleeping. Which is what I was doing."

She slapped him hard, smarting from the pain as she drew back her hand. "Cara got out of her crib. You left the rail loose and she fell! She fell! And she was crying and crying. I can't believe you!"

His glassy eyes filled with concern. "She fell?" He tried to pull himself away from her and move to the door. "Is she all right?"

"She's fine now," Sheila said. "Don't you worry yourself about her."

"Babe, you don' unnerstan," he slurred.

Sheila swiped the empty bottle of Scotch from his hand. "I understand. I can smell it even better than I understand."

He touched his forehead and snapped his eyes shut with a flinch. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"I can't even look at you right now!"

She turned her back on him and slammed the door. One hand grasped the railing, the other gripping the empty bottle. Her heart pounded in her chest as she considered he was lucky she'd only kicked him once. She hurled the bottle through the open air, watching it plummet two stories then shatter into splinters as it hit the marble.

-

The next morning Ben stumbled downstairs, nursing a headache and shielding his eyes from the sunlight. Sheila read the newspaper at the table in the breakfast room adjacent to the kitchen. Cara sat in her high chair beside Sheila, playing with her food. When his daughter saw him come in, her eyes lit up and she reached for him with sticky fingers. He knelt beside her and kissed her little hand, her arm, her cheek. "I'm so sorry, Cara," he whispered, softly enough that Sheila couldn't hear. "My sweet angel." She giggled at him and touched his face, leaving a trace of mashed carrots on the edge of his lips.

Sheila sat, attention fixed on the paper, ignoring him. She had made coffee and toast, so he sank into a chair and poured himself a mug.

"I don't know what to say to apologize for last night."

She put the paper down. "She landed on the side of her head. She's got a bruise, but that was all. The doctor said she didn't fall all that far." She wiped a tear from her eye, and he couldn't tell if it was a tear of fear or rage. "But who knows what might have happened inside her little head?"

"I just had a bad night. Thinking about Dad."

Her lips curled, and her voice cracked. "I refuse to feel sorry for you. Do you understand that? Whatever you thought or said or did, you are a father. You have a precious little daughter who needs you, and you have no choice. You have to be there for her. Always. Do you understand?"

"I do."

Her eyes welled up. "I swear, sometimes I wish..."

"What?"

"Nothing, forget it. Eat your toast."

Cara giggled, and Ben scooted closer to her high chair. She picked up a piece of cereal, puckering her lips as if preparing her palate, then pushed it in with her tiny fingers. He put his hand on her cheek, her ear, and gently turned her so he could see the top of her head. There was indeed a patch of dark cloudy gray about the size of a quarter beneath her muss of strawberry blonde.
1979

MARCH

Ben brushed past a doctor as he and Sheila swept into the maternity waiting room at UCLA Medical Center with Cara in tow. Henry Louden paced in the rear beside the television running some soap opera or another with no volume. His white Nikes squeaked against the brown tile. "Ben!" he said as the men shared a hug. Sheila hung behind them, holding Cara's back against her so the little girl could see.

"How is she?" he asked, sensing Henry's edginess through his coat and tie.

"She's at eight hours now. They just wheeled her into delivery."

"Why aren't you with her?" Sheila asked.

"I had to go grab a bite." He inhaled, hands shaking. "I'm just waiting for them to give me the cue."

A pretty blonde nurse stepped through the doorway, locking onto Ben, face twitching with recognition. "Grandpa Louden, we're ready for you."

"Good luck, Grandpa." Ben winked.

Henry followed the nurse back into the hallway, leaving the Camdens alone. They sank onto the sofa as Cara stretched with a gentle groan toward the television, now running a Jell-O commercial. Someone paged a doctor on the PA system. She tried to position herself on the seat between them, slapping the cushion with an excited laugh. Ben reached out to take Sheila's hand, and she didn't refuse him.

Neither said a word.

-

After the longest ten hours of her life, Hillary lay panting in the bed, exhausted, every sense spent, yet still sharp and alert. Umbilical cords were cut, and two nurses came over, each carrying a baby.

Hillary was empty, like a balloon with all the air deflated from it. Her back, pressed against the mattress, felt cheap and flimsy, as if she had no support to hold her spine in place. She was drained of more than energy, but she wouldn't let herself fall asleep. All she could think about was what those nurses held.

"Oh my God," she managed, still recovering her breath. "There's really..." Panting. "Two!"

"Miss Louden," one of the nurses said. "This is your firstborn, by fifteen minutes. A healthy baby girl."

Hillary laughed sadly, wanting to pass out, and touched her daughter's head. "A girl...then her name is Holly."

"Holly Louden," the nurse said. "Would you like to hold her?"

Hillary nodded, reaching, and took the baby with thin strands of blonde stuck to her head. "Oh man, so amazing."

The second nurse stepped up. "I hope you like girls, because this little bundle here is your second daughter."

"Two girls!" She offered her free arm as the nurse handed her the second child. They both cried, and their mother joined them. "Holly...and Hayley...I'm your mommy!"

-

Friends and family gathered around to welcome the Louden girls into the world. Henry had never been so animated. Ben hung behind the rest, holding Cara, who shifted as she strained to see everything. "Shh, it's OK, angel. It's OK." Everyone passed around the new arrivals, promising to help Hillary in any way they could. Ben kissed each of the girls on the forehead, but he didn't relinquish Cara. He didn't want to hold these babies.

The welcoming of new life, the promise of future generations, these were all good things. He told himself they were good.

"Aaah?" Cara touched his face with a laugh.

APRIL

After the December incident, Sheila emptied the mansion of alcohol and made Ben promise not to drink anymore. She grew to know it had been a lie, or at least, it had become one. She could smell it on him when he got home most nights. He would make an excuse to stay up past her, and she would cry herself to sleep.

She'd busied herself with a painting that it had taken her a week just to decide she wanted to do after the horrific cult suicide at Jonestown in Guyana several months earlier. When it was finished, it would depict a covered pavilion with a bank of buildings running into the distance, the setting surrounded by jungle. She'd painted the entire jungle landscape first and was only now beginning to paint the rest of the scene. The pavilion would be covered in dead bodies, a mass grave in the sweltering South American sun. Sitting in a modest deck chair in the foreground, looking out over the chilling silence, Jim Jones would offer the viewer the back of his head, a loose and sweaty shirt sticking to his body. His arms would dangle at his sides. In one hand he would clasp a pair of black sunglasses, hanging loose. The other hand would grip a pistol. _918_ , she would call it, the number of Jones's followers who died in the dark suicide ritual that had captured the sorrow and grief of the planet.

She made frequent calls – to Lara, to Hillary, to Brina, but mostly to Samantha in Memphis. Samantha would stay on the phone with her, sometimes deep into the night, and she contemplated taking a trip back home. Somewhere far away.

"What drives me to the point of desperation is that every time we've ever talked about his drinking, he's never tried to defend himself, never tried to talk his way into a better position. I don't even try to accuse him – I start by just expressing concern, and he's just so agreeable. I ask him nicely how he would react to not keeping booze in the house, he says, 'Sure, fine. Good idea.' Then he comes home in the back of a cab, struggling to get up the walk to the door. Then I'm a little sterner, little harsher, and he's just, 'Yes, you're right. I'm sorry. I'll try harder. I love you.' And then I get a call from Stuart, 'He's passed out. Should I bring him home?' I say no but Stuart brings him home anyway because he doesn't want me to have to go to the trouble of strapping in Cara and then dealing with him. His shirt is wet, he's all sweaty, and he can't get up the stairs before ralphing all over the place."

She pressed the phone against her ear, waiting for a reply. Samantha cleared her throat on the other end. "Have you considered therapy?"

"I'm all for that. It doesn't even have to be just him. I'm all for couples therapy, anything. But that's the one area I can't get him to agree on. He puts it off, writes it off, he's evasive. He told me he doesn't trust shrinks. I think he just doesn't want to face what's really bothering him."

"I wish there was something I could do besides just talk to you on the phone," Samantha said. "If you ever need me to come out there..."

"You're not going anywhere until you have that baby. And then _I'm_ coming to see _you._ " She remembered the panic that had gripped her as she'd sat patiently waiting for Cara to be examined, that bruise on the head taunting her with all of the worst possibilities. "Sometimes, I just think, if only–" She stopped midsentence, whirling in the direction of the back door that led out toward the gravel driveway and the detached garage. She'd only seen two traffic accidents in her life, but both times she'd been close enough to know the deep grunt of a collision. "Oh my God." She knew it was her imagination, but she felt the house shudder.

"What's wrong?"

Panic tightened in her throat. "I don't know. I have to call you back." She slammed down the phone and raced toward the source of the sound, leaving Cara behind. If she hadn't been on the ground floor she might not have heard it. Through the hallway, down the cold marble in her bare feet, not bothering to flip a switch. She knew the way.

She could hear the Jimi Hendrix blasting away as she ran out into the night air around the back of the house, to the garage, and threw her hands to her mouth, gasping with fear.

Ben's Mercedes, still running, sat crumpled against the side of the garage. Smoke blew out into the night breeze from the point of impact, the front of the car flat and sharp. One of the headlights blinked on and off along with the taillights. The Hendrix song played from the stereo at what had to have been the maximum volume the car could muster, and as much as it hurt her ears, she couldn't imagine how painful it would have been to be actually sitting listening to it in an enclosed car. The bass thumped against her eardrums as she drew nearer, loud enough that she ran around to the driver's side, stepping over the shattered side mirror, glass fragments from the windshield crushing under her shoe – she was glad she hadn't run out there barefoot. Smoke continued to billow from the V shape in the front of the car where it had hit the left corner of the garage at a sharp forty-five degrees or so. She ripped the door open and dropped to her knees on the metal rim next to the driver's seat. Ben was buckled securely, unconscious. His head hung forward, and a wide gash was cut across his cheek. His bloody hands still hung on the wheel.

"Ben!" She nudged his shoulder. "Ben?"

\- - -

Ben struggled to awaken. The sensations of consciousness washed over him while the world of dreams struggled to hold him back. As he opened his eyes, he couldn't make sense of any of the stimuli that greeted him, and he wondered if he had simply slipped out of one dream and into another. He couldn't move his body, at least not more than to acknowledge that he had one. The mattress was thin, the sheets rough and bunched beneath him. Something metal pressed against his wrist. The skin of his cheek was tender, and as his eyes adjusted to the bright and sterile light, he lifted his hand to touch that tender spot. His fingers dabbed at symmetrical lines of something tougher than flesh. Stitches. He strained with his shoulders to put his weight onto his elbows and lift himself enough to determine where he was.

That was when he realized that both of his legs were in casts.

The soft whirring of a machine was the only sound. There were monitors beside him, but he couldn't read them. Beyond that a light purple curtain, half-closed. Sheila sat in a chair on his other side, weeping softly as Cara bounced on her lap. "Aah Daa?"

"Sheila." Her head snapped up as Cara's hand touched her chin. "What happened?"

"What do you think happened?"

His legs were stiff and shattered, but he had trouble feeling them against the plaster. "I'm sorry."

She bared her teeth as Cara thrashed about with curious energy. "I don't think you can say you're sorry anymore."

He reached out for her, and she took his hand. "I'm messed up. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"You need to see a therapist."

"You know how I feel about therapists."

"I don't give a damn!" she snapped, and Cara's curious eyes flickered, her lips quivering as if she might cry. Sheila took a breath and stroked Cara's head, but her other hand pressed his hard as she tightened her grip. "You've got to do something! I'm praying for you, honey. Every day I'm praying for you."

"I know. And I appreciate it."

His face twitched as her eyes flooded, darting from him to Cara, to the darkness of the restroom, to the shut door, the anchorwoman behind her desk on the television screen, shifting constantly. "You know, I've been thinking a lot lately," she said. "I remember the old days, when everything was so electric and alive. You are such an amazing man, Ben. And I will always love you."

"Sheila..."

"No, let me finish. I love you so much. But this isn't working. I try and I try to reach you, to relate to you." Cara squirmed, and she let go of his hand to get a better hold of her. "I don't believe in divorce. I told you that in the beginning. But I cannot allow you to be around Cara when you're like this."

His gaze broke from his wife and trained on his daughter. "Sheila..."

"Can you honestly say she's safe around you?"

Cara reached out toward the distant television, gurgling with interest at the forecast on the evening news. His voice was still scratchy and heavy from however long he'd been asleep. "Don't do this," he whimpered in the same soft, pleading voice he'd used to offer his father when he'd done something to displease the man and Lloyd was slowly pulling his belt from his waist with a steady sweep of his arm.

"Cara and I are leaving the mansion. No, let me finish. I'm not divorcing you. I don't know if I believe in us, but I believe in you. I know you're better than this. But as long as you're...this...we can't be a part of it."

"Please, no!"

"I'm sorry," she said. "This is what's best for all of us. Don't you see that?" He watched his daughter's delighted smile as she stretched to escape from her mother's arms and crawl to him. "I'll always be there for you. We both will. But as long as you're like this, we can't be _here_ for you."

"I know."

"I'm not sure where we'll go, but I promise we won't be far."

Ben tried to move to a better sitting position, but his broken legs had turned into anchors. "No, no. I'm the one who messed up. I should be the one to leave."

"It's your family's house."

"You stay because...because I'm going to be back."

"I hope so," was all she said.

"Can I still see you?"

"Of course! And you'll still see Cara. But we just can't live together, for now."

His arms itched for his girl almost as fiercely as his throat itched for a drink. "Could I have some time alone with her?"

"Of course." She handed Cara over to him, and as they both had their hands on her, Sheila leaned in and kissed him, leaving his face wet with her tears. Cara nestled against her father, and Sheila left the room.

Ben shifted Cara so she was looking at him. Her face lit up again and her mouth exploded into a bright smile. "Daa?" she asked.

"Dad."

"Daa?"

He kissed her forehead. "My sweet angel."

"Aaadaa."

She continued her gentle babbling, and he tickled her. She giggled and put her hand on his face, blinking her green eyes at him. As he held the only person who thought he was perfect, one thing was clear. He couldn't change for his mother. He couldn't change for his father. He couldn't change for his sister or his friends. For Yvette, or Annette, or even Sheila.

But he could change for Cara Camden.

He kissed her again and whispered, "I will always be perfect to you. I promise. No matter what it takes. Everything I have, everything I can do, it's all for you, Cara. It's all for you."

"Aaadaa?"

"You're going to be proud of your father."

She touched his face again, wonder and excitement in her eyes. "Daadaa?"

His lungs seized with delight and regret as her tiny fingers pressed into his hand is if she was trying to hold it. "Daadaa," he said.

After they left, he asked for a pen and paper. He put the date at the top of the page. _April 11, 1979_.

And then, with Cara's eyes fixed in his memory, he began.

In a world as cold as ours, I am lost among the stars

And I float in outer space, wishing I could find my place

I descend unto the Earth and experience the birth

Of a light that softly gleams and illuminates my dreams

From this light I shield my eyes, as it spreads across the skies

And these skies once blue I've seen are becoming skies of green

In a fairy tale I heard, in a story most absurd

Was a girl who spoke of love, like an angel from above

But this girl I could not find, though she plagued upon my mind

Like a riddle she'd confuse, a mirage and not a muse

And the muse I did not save drags me down into my grave

But what I have not foreseen is my destiny of green.

-

Sheila brought Cara back home and set her on the marble countertop in the kitchen, wiping a line of drool from the child's smacking lips. Tilda, one of the maids, had been there that afternoon and fortunately cleaned up the mess Cara had made at breakfast. Sheila didn't have the energy for that. Tilda had left a vase of white tulips cut from the garden, and Cara stretched her arm for them. Sheila pushed them just out of her reach.

"Daadaa," Cara said for the fifth time.

Sheila broke the peel of a banana and ran a butter knife through it. She placed a tiny piece in Cara's outstretched hand, and Cara pushed it into her mouth with a pucker of satisfaction. Sheila kissed her head while she mashed it with her budding teeth. She turned on the stove and filled her teapot, wishing just this once that she hadn't cleared the house of alcohol.

She set the pot down to let the water warm and hefted her daughter, giving her one more piece of banana. She could smell the diaper. "Come on, angel."

They made their way down the hallway to the back stairs, and there among the Camden family portraits was the painting she'd done of Ben that day in her old studio apartment, so excited to have him in her home that she didn't care how the work would turn out.

Cara reached for the likeness of her father.

\- - -

Hillary stuffed pillows into fresh cases and tossed them onto the thin mattress of her sofa bed. Ben eased himself onto the clean sheets as the twins cried from her bedroom. He had never been claustrophobic, but not being able to bend his knees, having his legs trapped in plaster, he thought of the Christmas when he'd fallen off his bike and cut himself up. He would have gladly traded this injury for that one.

"I'm finally going to learn to sleep on my back."

"At least I can keep an eye on you now," she said as one of the babies fell silent, leaving the other to perform a solo. "And at least now you won't be doing any drinking and driving for a while!"

"I won't be doing either one."

Hillary hefted a comforter across him without looking him in the eye. "Yeah, well, we'll see."

"I won't."

"Well, you can help me take care of the girls in the meantime." Although with a nurse coming by several times a day to help him with such rudimentary tasks as going to the bathroom and bathing himself, his helpfulness would be limited, at least until he got used to shifting around enough to become somewhat mobile.

He lay on the thin mattress, blue pajama top loose and cool on him, hands behind his head, and took in a deep breath of air that smelled vaguely of baby powder. His throat was dry – the kind of thirst only Scotch could quench.

JUNE

Sheila sat with her father and nephew at Baptist Memorial in Memphis. Forest kept Cara company and stopped her from toddling away as she sought to explore the waiting room. They watched the children with fondness as Saul comforted his lonely girl.

She pawed through the periodicals scattered across the table in front of them as her father nodded off beside her. A pregnancy magazine, one for new mothers. She wondered why hospitals would put those in a waiting room. They'd had them when Hayley and Holly Louden were born as well. She uncovered the latest issue of _Time_. It wasn't so long ago that she'd been on the cover, newly engaged. What a whirlwind it all had been.

The seat to her right was empty.

Matt emerged, beaming with excitement, and hoisted Forest onto his shoulders. "Would you like to meet your new sister?"

"Sister!" Forest said.

"Everybody else?"

"How is she?" Sheila kissed him and scooped up Cara as well. Matt gave them all the vitals on both mother and child as they followed him in to where Samantha lay cradling her newborn.

"It's really a girl?" Sheila asked as they gathered around.

"She is." Samantha exhaled, dropping her head against her pillow as though holding the baby was about the limit of her strength.

"What's her name?" Saul asked.

Matt touched the baby's soft hand. "Peyton Lorraine Green."

"I can't think of a better one," Saul said.

Matt let Forest down. "Do you want to say hello?"

Forest's eyes widened as he touched the baby for the first time. "Hello, Peyton. I'm your brother Forest." She whined when he touched her, and Forest pulled back his arm. "She doesn't like me!"

"She's just cranky from being born. You were just as cranky!" Matt said.

"Really?"

"If I were you, I'd get used to it. She's going to cry an awful lot."

Forest's lip quivered. "I'll make her happy."

Sheila lowered Cara near the baby. "Look, Cara! This is your new cousin, Peyton! Can you say Peyton?"

Cara giggled. "Pain!"

"Yes! Peyton! Yes!" Sheila slowed as she saw the two girls side by side. "Did you guys notice..."

"What?" Matt asked.

Saul leaned in, giving the baby a good look. "No, I see it. Amazing."

"What?" Samantha asked, turning Peyton so she could see. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Sheila said. "It's just, she looks almost exactly like Cara."

\- - -

Ben reached up from his perpetual confinement as Kim Daniels leaned in to give him a hug. She had brought Kambree into Camden Productions for a screen test for Ben's next directorial project – _Mint Condition._ She was gentle, but it wasn't that long ago that such a stretch would have put a strain on him that would leave most of his body hurting for hours.

"How're you doing, anyway?" she asked.

Ben hefted himself and adjusted his position in the wheelchair as Kim knelt beside him. Kambree scampered in the distance, watching the lighting technician work. "I feel like Jimmy Stewart in _Rear Window_. Except with me, I'm more likely to have people peeping in than I am to be the one doing the peeping."

"Peeping!" Kambree declared, coming back to her mother and inspecting the wheels of the chair with fascination. Her hair was done up in pigtails and red bows, and her mother had worked her with a little foundation and blue eye shadow and just a hint of pink lipstick.

"Can you walk at all?"

"A little bit each day, with crutches. Eventually I'll be crutching it full time."

Kim nodded, looking him over, just for a moment, the way people used to look at him when he first started going by the name Weston. "I heard about you and Sheila."

"Don't believe everything you hear. We're just working out some things." He wheeled himself toward the camera as the lighting technician backed away. "I think we're about ready."

"Kambree, come here!"

Kambree snapped to attention at the sound of her name. Ben noticed how easily she took direction, at least from her mother.

"OK, Mr. Camden, we're ready to roll."

"Thanks, Tom." He turned to the little girl. "Kambree? Come over here and sit with me." He gestured to a chair positioned in front of the camera, a boom mic hanging overhead.

"OK!" Kambree hopped in the seat beside his wheelchair. She looked up at the microphone with curious eyes.

"Now, we're just going to talk for a minute, all right?"

"K!"

He turned and nodded. Tom came around with a clapboard. " _Mint Condition_ – Kambree Daniels screen test." He clapped the board and stepped back.

Ben turned his attention to Kambree, who faced the camera and sat, hands in her lap, ready to talk.

"So how's your day going so far?"

"I watched _Sesame Street_. Ernie had a rubbah ducky in the bath and sing a song."

"What kind of a song?"

"It was about taking a bath."

"Do you like to sing?"

She nodded with exaggerated neck strokes. "I can sing Mighty Mouse!"

"Can you sing it for me?"

She raised her hands into the air. "Here I come to save a day!"

Ben heard stifled laughter from behind the cameras as Kambree told him how much she hated "bussel spouts."

"Do you have to eat them all the time?"

She shrugged. "Mommy says they're good for me."

Ben chuckled. "Listen, Kambree, I wonder, if I said something to you, would you say it back to me?"

"OK!"

"Car battery."

Her face flickered with focus. "Car battawy."

"Very good! Now say jumping jack flash!"

She sounded it out. "Jumping jack flash!"

"Very good! Now say I'm all alone in the world."

She took a deep breath, brow furrowing sharply. "I'm all aloned in da world."

"Very good! You're a smart girl."

"I wanna see Cara!"

"Well Cara's not here right now. Maybe some other time."

"Okie doke!"

Ben turned to the camera. "Why don't we cut it there?"

The lights shut off, and Kambree hopped down from her seat. "I do good?"

"You did very well! I'm impressed with you."

"She really did?" Kim asked, picking up the girl.

"Yeah, I'd say so. She's a pleasure."

"Mommy, can I have pudding now?" Kambree asked.

\- - -

Ben learned to walk in the rooms and hallways of the Camden house. His mother used to tell the story of leaving him surrounded by toys on the floor of his second-story nursery to go up to the master bedroom on the third floor and take a bath. As she'd relaxed in the warm water, she'd heard a giggle and turned to find that Ben had managed to climb up the flight of stairs and find his way into her bathroom.

He had no memory of that, but the story ran through his thoughts as his wheelchair sat in the foyer and Cara toddled toward him, smacking her bare feet on the cold marble, arms outstretched. "Dada!"

"You big girl!" He lifted her up, and she giggled as he swept her through the air. Sheila came around the corner, a paint-smudged towel slung over her shoulder. He rested Cara in his lap as she patted him on the cheek.

"Hello!"

"Hello back," Sheila said.

"I've missed you."

She knelt, giving him a good look. "Oh, yeah." She kissed him with an electric passion that spoke volumes of how much she shared that sentiment. She blushed and took the handles of his wheelchair. "So...how are you...doing?"

Ben held her hand gently in his. "I've been sober since April 11. Since this." He tapped his left cast with his other hand. "But I can tell you right now, if you put a glass of whisky in front of me, I'd push back the glass and go for the bottle."

Sheila placed her lips on his again, and he felt the sad relief in her breath as she cradled his jaw in her free hand. "I'm so proud of you."

They had a delicious meal, and Sheila related to him all of Cara's latest activities. Cara sat with them in a high chair, her tray a canvas and mashed potatoes her paint. "She misses her daddy, though," Sheila said. "I think she'd like to see more of him."

He reached toward her, and she placed her hand in his. "I'm starting therapy."

"Really?"

"Maybe it'll help." He wondered if any of his hidden booze remained in the place, then shook it off.

"I know it's early...but do you have any idea when you think you might be ready to come home?"

"Not until I can trust myself," he said. "I don't know when that will be, but I hope the..." His mouth was dry, despite the three glasses of water he'd had while they ate. "...the, uh, therapy will help me get a better grasp of...everything."

She beamed at him with a pride he hadn't seen in longer than he could remember. "Would you like to see what I've been working on?"

"Of course!"

Ben lifted Cara in his arms, and Sheila wheeled him into her studio. She slowed to let him get a good look at the finished product of _918_ , which was going to be shipped shortly to the National Gallery of Art in D.C., before positioning him in front of two easels covered with white sheets. "I don't know why, but I'm a little nervous!"

"I'm ready when you are," he said as Cara squirmed in his lap.

"Here's the first one." She pulled back the sheet. "I call it _Skies of Green_ , after that piece you wrote in the hospital." Cara stood, age-progressed by a few years, in a green meadow, wearing an emerald dress, smiling out at the world. And in the background, above and behind her, the blue skies rippled with color and faded to a lighter green.

"I love it," he said. "I think this belongs in the Green Room."

She pulled back the second sheet, revealing a painting of two Caras: a baby held in the lap of a girl just slightly older than her current age.

"Why is she holding herself?"

Sheila kissed the back of her daughter's head. "That's her cousin she's holding."

"Peyton?" Ben asked. "It looks like Cara."

"I told you. They could be twins. It runs in the family."

"Wow," he said, admiring those two sets of wide oil eyes, one green and one brown. "You weren't kidding!"

\- - -

Ben slowly sank into the purple cushions of his new therapist's couch, glancing around at the various knickknacks adorning the walls. A photograph of migrant workers hammering spikes into railroad tracks in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains here, a coal shovel there. "You into trains, Dr. Mentzer?"

Dr. Stephen Mentzer peered up from behind his wire bifocals at the stationary model railroad that ran around the office, near the ceiling, as he flipped to a blank page of paper. "You could say that."

"My family made their fortune in the railroads," Ben said. "Before Hollywood." He picked up a wooden train whistle from the table. "May I?"

"Sure."

Ben blew and grinned at the familiar low flute-like sound. "I always loved these things when I was a kid."

Dr. Mentzer smiled. "Camden...when I think of railroads I think of the Camden and Amboy line."

"Sure. We started out in Jersey just like everybody else," Ben said. "Pooled our money, funded everything."

"What brought you to California?"

"Eh, the war. Civil War. Some of us stayed behind in Jersey, in Camden, but some of us came here. The war shook everything up back in those days. We had friends at the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, helped them find a terminus, pushed them to the area, then we brought Southern Pacific down after it was all over."

"I've never met anyone else who knows railroad history," Dr. Mentzer said.

"My grandpa drummed it all into our heads when we were kids," Ben replied. "He used to say, 'If it weren't for the Camdens, you wouldn't be able to pick Los Angeles out on a map.'" Ben chuckled. "I say it sometimes myself."

"And why is that?"

Ben replaced the whistle and turned again to the train memorabilia lining the walls. One familiar machine was displayed in a blow-up of what looked to be an old magazine article, with its signature sleek outstretched nose, chiseling away at the world before it. "The John Bull?"

Dr. Mentzer reclined, sinking into his chair. "Yes."

"It was the railroads first. But we brought cinema too. After the Frisco Quake. Biograph and Mutoscope – do you know film history?"

"Not so much."

"Well, the Jersey guys, from Edison and what not, they started coming out here, filming the aftermath. They were all close with the family up north, and Granddad convinced them to come down for a visit. Made a film about a trolley car robbery. First one ever made in Los Angeles."

"I never knew the railroads and the film industry were connected."

"They're not, not really. My family started pulling their money out of the railroads and putting it into radio. Radio and film. Sound recordings too – we had a chunk of the old Victory Talking Machine Company. Hollywood was born, as they say. Everyone started coming out here for a piece of the action."

"And this was all before you?"

"Yeah, I mean, I guess it doesn't have a lot to do with me. But it's good to know your roots, right, Doc?"

"It never hurts."

"By the time I came along, movies were old news. I mean, still news, don't get me wrong. But the family'd been here for, what, eighty years? Living up on Camden Drive since they built the house in 1908."

"That's an old house."

"But a great one."

"So we come to you. Let's talk about your childhood."

"My childhood, my childhood," Ben repeated with a sigh. "Doc, I don't know if I ever really had one."

JULY

Dr. Mentzer's office was missing something. Ben was pretty familiar with his therapist's collection after five sessions. It wouldn't be much trouble to dig up something to add to the décor. Something private, something unique.

The doctor's tie bothered him. Too many shades swirling together. He couldn't pick out the primary color. There had been an acid trip like that. He couldn't remember when exactly, other than that Yvette had been there – Yvette and a man he had later found out was one of her lovers. "I really just can't see it coming. Sometimes it's nothing. Sometimes it's big. And every time, I feel like I'm going crazy. Like I'm crazy and nobody knows, because I'm the only one that can see it. Or hear it."

Dr. Mentzer narrowed his eyes. "When was the last time you dropped acid?"

"Four years ago."

"The Thanksgiving incident?"

"Yes. I'm still not sure how much I took, but it was more than I'd ever taken before. I couldn't sleep for days."

"And what do you tell yourself when you're having a flashback?" Dr. Mentzer asked.

Weston felt like a little boy, going in to tell his parents he'd had a bad dream. "That I'm crazy."

"What do you tell yourself to get through it?"

"That it's only a dream," Ben said.

"So, when you're having an episode, you focus on the knowledge that it is only in your mind, and that it will pass?"

"I never get that cognizant. I never think about it passing. Just trying to tell myself it's not real. I'm not crazy."

"Can you describe for me the most intense flashback you've ever experienced?" Dr. Mentzer asked.

"It wasn't like the others. I was lying on the ground. Everything was white. It was like there was a white floor that went on forever, with no walls, and maybe there was a ceiling up there somewhere, really high, because it was white above me too." He remembered how clean it had felt, how sterile. Like one of Sheila's blank canvases. "And I was lying there, all helpless, and the Devil was coming down for me. Swooping down, just dropping out of nowhere, to kill me. And then, just as he got close, God stepped in between us. He was there standing over me, and the Devil couldn't touch me."

"What did God look like?"

"He wasn't facing me," Weston said. "All I could see was his back."

AUGUST

Dr. Mentzer hadn't worn a tie in weeks. Ben wondered if the offhand remark he'd made about the rainbow swirl was the reason. If so, it was the only real reaction he'd seen from the man. It was possible that Dr. Mentzer was the first person he'd met whom he could not read. He would say something shocking and the doctor would simply absorb it like a sponge. Maybe that was the point of therapy – to sponge it all away.

Ben hadn't had a drink in four months.

"That was the year Jackie brought me out and had me do a spot on _American Scene Magazine_."

Dr. Mentzer nodded. "You've mentioned that frequently."

Ben drifted from the therapist's office and hovered over that stage, watching the young man and the pro ham it up together. "Did you ever see the show?"

Dr. Mentzer remained focused on him through the recollection. "Seems like I saw it once or twice."

Ben blinked himself back onto the sofa as the doctor jotted in his notebook. "Jackie always encouraged me so much. I'll never forget the day he called me the Great One. Of course I knew it wasn't true, but coming from him, I almost believed it. I almost did. I so wanted to be like him. Him and Uncle Charlie. I wanted to be like Charlie Chaplin more than anything in the world, any way I could."

"Give me an example."

Ben thought back to his old friend long gone, to the funeral he hadn't been permitted to attend. "We both had a lot of wives," he said. "Come to think of it, we both had a lot of women. I wonder if I got that from him."

"What if you did?"

"I don't know. I never thought about it. I never thought about how it looked, to Mom, or Lara. It was just Mildred and Paulette, and Lita Grey."

"Lita Grey was quite a bit younger, wasn't she?"

"She was." Ben fell silent for a moment. "You know, Doc, all those women of mine..." He took a deep breath. "I never thought one day I'd have a daughter, and have to explain it all to her. I never would've touched them if I knew."

SEPTEMBER

"Look at you!" Ben laughed as Kambree Daniels gleamed up at him with her cute little red dress and her hair done in a matching bow. "You're so pretty!"

Kambree giggled, the sparse scatter of freckles lighting up her face as she raised her arms and approached like a model on a runway. "You're pretty too!" she declared. She marched down the executive hallway of Camden Productions like she was in charge. Her mother followed behind her, trying to keep up.

"No more cane?" Kim asked.

He looked down at his shoes. "I still use it sometimes. The physical therapists don't know. I walked the same ten feet back and forth until I should have had blisters on my feet." He tried to bend his knee and gasped at the sharp stab of pain. "Pills got me where I need to be for now."

Kim clutched her hand to her chest. "I'm so sorry."

"It's getting better, though. One step at a time. Literally." Kambree was busy posing all over the hallway. "Come on."

Kim followed just behind him as they turned the corner toward his office. "I was up half the night trying to decide what she should wear."

"Don't worry yourself. This is just a formality at this point."

Kim knelt beside Kambree, inspecting her one last time, adjusting her bow. "Now honey, you remember what I told you, OK?"

"OK!"

Ben opened the door to his office, blinds up, the room full of light. Jackie Gleason rose from the leather sofa opposite the windows, ignoring Ben and Kim and straightening his coat as the little girl of the hour sauntered toward him. Ben put his hand on her back to guide her over. "Jackie, I'd like you to meet Kim Daniels."

Jackie regarded her with a warm smile and a single-pump handshake. "It's a pleasure," he said. "You've got a lovely girl, there, Kim."

"Thank you!" Kim said. "Thanks so much!"

Jackie leaned just a few inches down toward Kambree, chuckling at her fierce grin. "Well who do we have here?" he asked. "What's your name, darling?"

"I'm Kambree!" she said. "How sweet it is!"

Jackie shot a glance at Ben. "Someone put her up to that?"

"Not me!" Ben stifled a laugh as Kim took a step back, covering her mouth.

"Let me join you there, you little charmer!" Jackie returned to his seat as Kambree hopped up into the empty chair to his left. She crossed her white-stockinged legs like a lady.

"Kambree, do you know who I am?"

"You're Jackie Gleason! My daddy loves you."

"You don't say."

"We watch you all the time on the TV," she said, raising her arms in a gesture of length. "Every day!"

"That's good, that's very good!" Jackie chuckled. "Kambree, do you like movies?"

"I like _Lady and the Tramp_ , and _Cinderella_. And Mickey and Donald and Goofy!"

"Do you like Bugs Bunny?"

"I liked it when the bunny goes...whatsupdoc!"

"Ha!" Jackie laughed. "Kid, you're all right. Would you like to be in a movie?"

She put her hands in her lap and smiled. "I would like it very much."

Jackie glanced up at Ben. "This kid's got perfect manners!"

"Certainly seems to."

"I understand you know how to read."

"Oh yes, I read really good. I can read a lot of things!"

He handed her a piece of paper. "Can you read this for me? If you have any trouble with any of the words, let me know and I'll help you, OK?"

She took the page and fixed her eyes on it. "Here goes."

Ben stood beside Kim, watching from the sidelines. "So what do you think?" she asked, biting her nails.

"I think he's in love with her." He watched sweet little Kambree, reading her lines for a living legend, completely comfortable in his presence, and imagined his own daughter sitting there.

\- - -

Ben's hand was in his pocket as he sat in Dr. Mentzer's office, in a chair facing the doctor instead of in his usual spot on the sofa. He fiddled with the old lighter he carried with him everywhere, lifting the top and shutting it again. "That day... Do we really have to talk about this?"

Dr. Mentzer's posture mirrored his, and Ben wondered if it was intentional. "We can talk about anything you want."

"Nobody's asked me about it in years."

"We can talk about anything you want." Dr. Mentzer was unnervingly calm.

He remembered Mary approaching him at the bar, looking as cute as when she'd gotten her start in those old commercials for Hotpoint appliances. Happy, he used to call her. "It was everything. All of it. Maybe I overreacted. I probably did. But something just snapped. Everything was so complicated, and just like that, it was simple again. I was Weston."

"You never questioned it?"

"Mary did. Everyone else just shut up and took it, but not her. She tried to reason with me. For that whole first year, she still called me Benny. Lara never stopped. They were the only ones who tried to save what was left."

"When did you meet Mary?"

"On the set of _X-15_ ," Ben said.

"I don't know that one."

"Not one of her more memorable roles. It was Donner – he was trying to get into features. I came up to see him, and there she was. Of course she was married. Getting divorced, but still. She was only six years older, but she saw me as a child. I don't blame her. I pretty much was."

"And she tried to keep you from changing your name?"

"Not exactly. She knew something was wrong, though, and she knew enough to try to get me to see it too. I didn't, of course."

"Was it really that easy?"

"Like I said, something snapped. Weston took over. A man doesn't just change his name on a whim. I know there were other things going on, not just the stuff with my dad."

"But he pushed you over the edge?"

"No. He just opened the door. I'm the one that jumped off the plane."

"So is Weston dead?" Dr. Mentzer asked.

"I'll always have a little Weston inside me. Right between the Benjamin and the Camden."

OCTOBER

After so many months of weekly visits, Ben felt as if he had developed a nice groove in Dr. Mentzer's sofa cushions. The doctor had prominently displayed Ben's gift to him: an old black-and-white photograph of a weather-won boxcar bearing the Camden and Amboy markings. The man in the topcoat standing beside it was his great-grandfather, Thomas Camden, but Ben hadn't bothered to mention that to the doctor. The picture now hung behind his desk.

Ben thought of how the family's railroad business had always seemed merely a conduit to get them from New Jersey to California. "When I look back, it feels like things were always building up to a certain point, and when I got there, I found out I was only on the bottom rung of a new ladder. Each ladder was just a rung in itself. I was trapped."

"But you're not trapped anymore?"

"Not after I realized I was responsible. For everything. I blamed Dad – I blamed the world. But it wasn't his fault. Not really."

"Did you write the letter to your father?" Dr. Mentzer asked.

"Yes."

"Did you bring it?"

Ben shook his head. "I can't read it to anyone."

"Why can't you read it?"

"It's for him. Not for anyone else. I wrote it, and that was enough, I think."

"How do you feel about what you said?"

"I think, if he were here, I think we would be able to make peace. I do."

"Did you tell him about your regrets?"

"I told him my biggest regret is that Cara will never get to meet the man who made her own father who he is. And I meant it."

DECEMBER

Ben rolled Dr. Mentzer's wooden train whistle back and forth in his palms. He remembered the one his Uncle Edison used to have on a shelf in his living room. Ben had always gone straight for it every time the family went down to Laguna Beach for a visit. Particularly the Thanksgiving trip when, prompted to say for what he was most thankful, Lloyd had, without stopping to think, declared he was most proud of Charles. Lara hadn't seemed to notice.

"Everyone has trauma." Ben itched for a drink, but he hadn't had a taste since April. "For me, I lost my parents, my brother. I never got to say goodbye to any of them. I lost wives...lost lives. And I've taken lives too. Three of them." He swallowed loudly. Even the good doctor didn't know about the fourth. "I remember when Sharon died. I almost felt like it was my fault. Scratch that: I did think it was my fault. Somehow. I took the blame for it in my mind, and for the child. I can't imagine what must have been going through her head that night."

Ben fell silent, and Dr. Mentzer cleared his throat. "Take your time."

"I think about it all the time. The randomness of it all. They died for nothing. Just like those nurses Richard Speck killed. Or the Zodiac. I almost can't even think of it as murder. Murder is when you want to kill someone and you do it. What they did, it's a sickness."

"And how does this relate to you?" Dr. Mentzer asked.

"Sorry. Train of thought. No pun intended."

"Take your time."

He wrestled the memories of the inhuman Manson slayings back into the recesses of his mind. "I was just saying, you know, I wanted to be a comic actor, more than anything in the world. I wanted to be Jackie or Charlie. But my dad beat it out of me. I'm still not sure what it was about him. I can only guess that he had his own private trauma, and he was trying to spare me. I want to believe that. I want to believe he thought he was doing me good." He could feel his father's disapproving gaze, even then, drilling him into his seat, pushing him down until he couldn't be seen or heard. "I just hope I never do that to Cara."

\- - -

Ben admired the lavish Christmas trim that filled the foyer as he stepped through the big double doors of the mansion, wishing he could have helped decorate. Nobody was there to greet him, but it didn't matter. Standing in that house, with so many memories, decorated with ornaments old and new, he couldn't help but smile. The fanciest tree in town stood where it always stood, and he felt like a child in its presence.

"Ben?" Sheila's voice echoed as she came around the corner. "You're here!"

"I'm here."

"Merry Christmas!" She pointed to the mistletoe that hung overhead.

"If you insist." He pulled her in for a kiss.

"You're just going to die when you see Cara!" Sheila laughed.

She led him to the Green Room, where a second tree stood with its more familial decorations. Dolled up in a Mrs. Claus costume, Cara paraded around with a bag of candy canes, laying them out on top of the presents instead of on the tree. He'd seen her about once a week since he'd moved out, sometimes more, but it had never been enough. Watching his little girl grow in summary more than in scene was as frustrating and humiliating as any broken leg, any visit to a therapist. He'd missed her first steps, although he'd seen the pictures. He hadn't been there for her first haircut, but there were pictures, and her hair had firmly established itself as a tuft of strawberry blonde, and she would always giggle when he'd smell her head like a flower. He'd missed out on tantrums, pouting, sulking, crying, but there were no pictures of those things. He wished there were.

"Daddy!" she shouted, grabbing onto his leg. "Mewwy Chismas!"

He fell to his knees and kissed his precious daughter. "Merry Christmas, Cara! You look so beautiful!"

"Canny cane?" she asked, offering him one of her treats.

"Yes, please!" He took it from her, broke off a small piece, and popped it in his mouth. "Mmm! Good!" She laughed and clapped her hands. He broke off another tiny piece, and she plucked it out of his fingers with her lips. "I love you."

"Lahyu!" she laughed.

He rose, Sheila watching him with wistful eyes. "So," she said.

"Everything looks so great! Like when I was a kid. You really put all this up by yourself?"

"Betty and some of the girls from the museum helped. And Cara."

"Helped!" Cara said.

"Well then, I think each of my girls deserves an early Christmas present."

"Pwesent!"

Sheila wrinkled her nose. "What would that be?" Ben stretched out his arm and opened his hand. A brass key rested on his palm, and she took it. "What's this?"

"Key to Hillary's house. I won't be needing it anymore."

Sheila's stiff arms softened as her brow furrowed, her gaze darting back and forth across his face. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I'm staying. I'm home." He looked down at Cara. "Daddy's never leaving you again, angel!"

"Pwesent?"

Ben crouched again and Sheila joined him, and the three of them shared a hug as Frank Sinatra crooned "I'll Be Home For Christmas" in the background. "Is this for real?" she asked.

"I'm back."

"No more nightmares?"

"I'm here to make up to you, both of you, every moment we lost. I stepped down as president of Camden Enterprises."

"Really?"

"I can't run the business and be a good father at the same time."

"I felt like I lost you when you took that job!"

"You and Cara are all that matter to me in the world."

"Pwesent?" Cara asked, tugging on his pant leg.

"Of course!" Sheila grasped his hand tightly as he handed a small box to his daughter. "Merry Christmas, sweetheart."

Cara pried open the box and found a golden heart-shaped locket on a chain. She held it up, dangling it from her fingers. "It's pwetty!"

"It's real gold," he said, opening the clasp. "See inside? There's a picture of me and a picture of your mommy." He took the necklace from her and she giggled as he put it around her neck. "See now? Whenever you wear this, you have your mommy's heart, and you have mine."

Sheila grasped his hand, looking at him like a little girl with a crush. "Dinner's almost ready."

"Great. I guess I'll go unpack." Another kiss. "And then I'll join you."

He produced his first round of bags and dragged them upstairs to his study. He shut the door behind him, taking in the smells of the place again. Home.

And there, in the back of the bottom drawer in the file cabinet, was the bottle of Scotch he'd wondered whether or not Sheila had found and removed. It was good and heavy and full. He lingered there, feeling the weight of it, knowing what he ought to do.

Ben put back the bottle and shut the drawer, running his hand over the metal of the cabinet. That old dryness clawed at his throat.
1981

FEBRUARY

Lights flashed and cameras snapped as Ben Camden opened the door of his limousine, dropping his feet down to the red carpet. Sheila grasped his hand and emerged beside him as the media swarmed them in the cool evening air of late winter in Southern California. Sheila wore a sleeveless black Christian Dior with wide shoulder straps and a loose hem that rippled in the breeze like a cape.

"Sheila! Sheila!" a reporter called, jamming his microphone in her direction. "Is it true you're going on a world tour with your new exhibit? Is the family going with you?"

Ben stepped between the microphone and his wife. "Please, no questions tonight. We're just here to enjoy ourselves."

From the dark recesses of the limousine's passenger compartment, Cara's legs appeared first, edging off the seat in white stockings and black patent leather pumps. She emerged wearing a custom-made dress that matched her mother's, save for the stockings. Her hair was pulled back by the Minnie Mouse barrettes she'd received for her third birthday. She hung close to Ben as she squinted into the crowd.

"This is Cara Camden," a distant voice said as she blinked through the lights. "Daughter of the infamous duo and heir apparent of the Camden dynasty." Cara shook her strawberry blonde curls, looking from camera to camera as she held on tightly to her parents' hands.

"Can we get a better shot?"

"Cara! Look over here!"

Ben glared down the nearest camera, and the lights kept flashing as they entered the theater. Cara squeezed his hand as she lingered, turning to observe the people anxious to get a glimpse of her.

"Cara!" Kambree broke from her parents and skipped over to the new arrivals, white Nikes peeking out from underneath the lace of her pink dress. A few more freckles had scattered themselves across her adorable dimples.

"Kambwee!" Cara laughed as Kambree threw wide arms around her.

"Thanks for coming to my movie!" the newly minted five-year-old starlet declared.

Sheila knelt beside her. "Don't you look lovely."

Kambree giggled as Carl and Kim Daniels approached. "Good to see you, Carl," Ben said, shaking his hand.

"I don't know how you can be so calm," Kim said. "I'm so nervous I could faint."

"She did faint, when she was getting dressed. She's been flipping out all week," Carl said.

"Can you blame me? What if nobody likes her?"

Ben put a hand on Kambree's head, careful not to mess her hair. "That's impossible."

"So this is the chip off the old block?" Jackie Gleason asked as Ben brought Cara up to him. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Cawa," she said.

Gleason's bow tie was a decade bigger than Ben's, but his tuxedo was as pressed and new as if it had just come off the rack. "Cara...and how old are you?"

"I'm thwee."

"She has a little trouble with her R's," Sheila said. "She learned them from _There's a Wocket in my Pocket_."

Jackie smiled down at her, face weathered but strong, his gray mustache trimmed with remnants of black. "What's it like to be three?"

She sighed. "Oh, it's tiwing."

"Why is it tiring?"

She raised her arms in a big gesture. "Because. You always has to be weading. All de time!"

"You can read?"

"I wead de Bewenstain Beahs. And de cat and da hat."

"She's quite a charmer," Jackie said.

Ben glanced at Sheila with amusement, and Sheila clasped Cara's hand. "Don't get any funny ideas."

-

On the screen, Jackie Gleason and Kambree Daniels strolled away from the camera in silhouette, slowly shrinking down the road to the middle of the shot, mirroring the closing image of _Modern Times._ "I gotta tell you, kid," Jackie said. "One thing I never thought about when I gave you that car."

"What?" Kambree asked, her voice precocious and pure.

"Who's gonna teach you to drive?"

MINT CONDITION appeared across the center as the film faded to black, and the credits rolled from the bottom. Ben sat quietly in his seat as the lights crept up with the chatter. For him, this was the most important moment of the night.

"So what did you think?" he asked as the rows around them emptied.

"Kambree is such a darling," Sheila said. "And I have to say, I'm used to Benny Camden the satirist and Weston the...shock-taler. But I've never seen Benjamin Camden the sentimentalist."

"So you liked it?"

"I didn't know you could make a family film," Sheila said.

"I never had a family before." He leaned over to kiss Cara's head as she sat poised and well behaved between them, looking from her father to her mother and back.

"She actually sat still through the whole thing."

"Yeah," Ben said, pulling the hair out of Cara's face. "And other than talking to Kambree onscreen, she was a perfect little lady."

"Kambwee's in a movie," Cara said, eyes wide.

"She sure was," Sheila said.

"And maybe you will be someday too," Ben added, eliciting a wary glare from Sheila.

"Really?" Cara asked, bouncing. "I wanna."

"What?" Ben asked, hefting Cara up into his arms. "It's in her blood."

APRIL

Johnny Carson's fingers graced the knot in his tie as the camera craned in on him and the band fell silent. He rested the elbows of his gray sport coat on his desk, nudging against the mug of lukewarm coffee that was by then a set decoration more than anything else. "And we're back! I was just thinking, you know, I wonder how hard it would be to get into that wedding. I mean, they've got to have security out the Channel, but how great would it be to catch Diana's garter?"

"You just want her garter?" Ed McMahon asked, adjusting his glasses as he crossed his legs in the chair beside Johnny's desk.

"I could add it to my celebrity garter collection."

"You're a hell of a guy," Ed said. "So classy."

"Well, our...I caught a garter or two thanks to our first guest. Anyway, here he is, the Great One...junior? Is that what I'm calling him? Benjamin Weston Camden!"

Ben waved to the welcoming audience as the cameras found him, and he had a glimmer of the anxiety he'd had the night he proposed. _Posttraumatic stress_ , he figured, hugging Johnny as Ed left the stage.

"Good to see you. And thanks for using guest parking for once."

"I was in a charitable mood."

"You've been in a charitable mood for a year or so, haven't you?" Johnny asked.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, now you were, what, president of your family's company?"

"President of the whole thing," Ben said.

"And you stepped down? Just like that?"

"Stepped down. Still working with Camden, just not running it."

"So why the change? Isn't it weird working for another boss?"

"Well, it's not like they say no to me a lot."

"Sure, but, why the change?"

"Well, you know, we had a daughter." Applause from the audience.

"Right, right. How's Sheila doing, by the way? Is she here?"

Ben laughed. "You'll never see her here again. She's scared of what I might do for an encore."

"Ask her for a divorce, maybe?" Johnny said.

"Maybe I'll bring her back if she ever asks for one." He rapped on Johnny's desk with his knuckles. "I'd try anything."

Laughter trickled through the studio, prompting Johnny to chuckle along with them. "So your daughter."

"Cara. She's three now. And I guess I figured, I can't run a company, and make movies, and be a good father."

"So you gave up the company?"

"I chose to be a father."

The audience clapped its approval.

"That's a noble gesture, I'm sure anyone would say," Johnny replied. "But I don't think most people see you as the father type."

"Believe me, I didn't either. And I did everything I could to avoid it."

"Like deporting people?"

"Something like that..."

"Well that's just terrific. And of course, _Mint Condition_ , great, great film. No more porno spy flicks?"

"No _Brock Cobb Does Dallas,_ no."

"So what are you going to do now?"

"I'll do what I've always done. Be the Teller of Tales."

"Well, I've got tremendous respect for you these days." Johnny picked up a copy of the latest issue of _People_. "And we've got some nice pictures of the family here. We got momma and poppa, and here's little Cara. Can we see that?"

The pictures went up on the monitor, and Ben leaned back to get a good look at them. "Well, those are candid shots. The real thing is something else."

Johnny glanced offstage. "Well, I think I've got it narrowed down who you brought this time."

The audience and Ben chuckled together. "You see right through me, don't you?"

"Like a plate glass window."

"Would you like to meet Cara?"

The crowd whistled and cheered. Johnny stifled his mischievous grin, and Ben trotted over to the side of the stage. Cara walked out, squinting at the crowd. She took her father's hand and grinned bashfully as he led her past the desk and set her on his lap.

"So this is the girl herself."

"This is Cara." He turned out to the audience. "Can you say hi to everybody?"

Cara giggled. "Hi evybody."

Ben shifted back toward Johnny. "This is Mr. Carson. Do you remember what I told you to tell him?"

Her green eyes went wide. "Heah's Johnny!"

"You hear that, Ed?" Johnny asked. "Looks like you've got some competition."

From the side of the stage, Ed McMahon adjusted his wide glasses. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into, young lady."

"So Cara, is this your first time on TV?" Johnny asked.

"Mmm, I think so."

"Do you like my show?"

"It comes on a little past her bedtime," Ben said.

"You should tape it for her. Never too early to get her hooked, you know?"

"We don't show her that much television. We prefer to, well, she's an excellent reader. She's sharp when it comes to that."

"And she prefers reading to television?" Johnny asked. "Is she even American?"

"She likes TV, don't get me wrong. It's just, we want her to be cultured, you know?"

Johnny recoiled. "Are you saying I'm not culture? We run some of the most cultured commercials this country's ever seen!"

"Fair enough."

"So, Cara, I understand you got to meet Dr. Seuss."

Her face lit up. "I metted him. He made a whyme foah me."

"Really? How did it go?"

"Uh..." She covered her face, her teeth visible beneath the fingers. "I foget."

"That's like meeting Santa Claus and losing your present," Johnny said.

"No, well, he wrote it down," Ben said. "That's not the kind of thing we'd lose. Cara loves Dr. Seuss."

"Well she's a charming little girl. You can definitely bring her back. What do you think, Cara? Want to come back on the show sometime? Maybe without Daddy, so we can talk, just you and me?"

She sighed. "Okie."

"Well we've got to run some culture, so we'll be back in a flash. Don't go anywhere!"

JULY

Ben's eyes snapped open at the sound of the doorbell. The room was cold and quiet, the bell fading as quickly as it came. Some dream still rummaged through his thoughts, and as he tried to process whether or not the sound had come from the dream, the specifics of the encounter – something having to do with his mother – escaped him, leaving him trying to wrestle back to reality. He rummaged around in the dark, trying to figure out where he was, and when he realized he'd been sleeping, he fumbled for the clock.

"Wha?" Sheila mumbled.

4:30. The bell rang again. His thoughts went clear and cognizant in a flash. Someone was at the door. In the middle of the night. Someone who had managed to get through the front gate.

"What is it?" Sheila slurred, rolling over.

"Nothing. Be right back."

He threw on a robe and hurried down the stairs, anxious to keep whomever it was from waking Cara or Sheila. He couldn't imagine who it might be, or what would be so urgent to invite an impromptu visit at this hour, rather than a phone call. More importantly, he wondered how this person had gotten past the gate.

Ben hit the first floor and jogged to the door. He peeked through the hole, but it was too dark to see anything. He flipped on the outside light: still nothing. He twisted the locks and cracked it open. No one. Question marks floated through his mind as he stepped out there, hugging the robe around him, and found himself alone. His heart thudded in his chest as he searched the grounds, wishing he had worn something more substantial but also abandoning the idea that this was a friendly call.

"Who's there?" he finally shouted, after wandering for minutes through the garden, past the gazebo, around the tennis court and the pool. No answer. He returned to the door, gasping as he realized he'd left it open. He shut himself back inside, locking it, and flipped on all the lights. There was no sign of anything at all. And yet – "Who's there?" he called, his voice cascading through the massive expanse of the house. He had a quick flash of himself sitting in Dr. Mentzer's office for their next session, rambling on about some phantom visitor and sounding like it was another acid flashback.

Ben believed whoever had rung was long gone, but he still checked every room, pulse racing. A vague memory surfaced, of something similar happening when he was a child. Lloyd had gone around the place with a gun in hand, dogged by Charles, certain that someone had broken in while they slept, but no such burglar was found. Ben crept back to the front door, peering through the hole again. Nothing. With a hand that had been shaking minutes earlier, he shut off the light.

"What was it?" Sheila asked, flipping on her bedside lamp.

"Someone rang the bell."

"Who?"

He looked at her there, hair disheveled, half-awake, defenseless. "I don't know."

SEPTEMBER

Ben motioned for Stuart to enter the office as he finished a phone call. He wandered into the familiar setting and past his boss, to the corner window and its open blinds looking down on Santa Monica Boulevard, all the convertibles driving down Route 2 with the tops down, the afternoon air good and fresh and blowing in from an unseasonably warm morning across the Pacific coast. Such a beautiful day, trees swaying, traffic light.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a picture of Sheila and Cara on the desk. He sighed.

"Sorry about that," Ben said, hanging up.

Stuart sunk into the soft cushions of the sofa beneath the high windowsill. "S'OK."

There was a time when Ben would have poured him a drink. Instead he cracked open his old college mini-fridge and handed him a bottle of Perrier. "Want to talk about it?"

"There's not much to talk about. Nothing you don't already know."

"When did she...?"

The air conditioning breezed across Stuart's forehead as he ran his hand over the cold surface of the unopened beverage. "Yesterday."

"What about Luke?"

"He's staying with me. For now. We'll see what happens."

"I see." Ben leaned in, and Stuart wished he would stop staring. "What can I do?"

He flexed the fingers of his left hand. The imprint was still visible, the skin just a little smoother. "Don't mention it too much. Especially around Luke. He doesn't really get what's going on."

"Consider it dropped. But if you ever need to talk, I've been there. Twice."

"Thanks."

"I do actually have some other news for you. Some good news. Cheer you up, maybe."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" Stuart asked.

"As you probably know, my uncle Doug is retiring," Ben said. "Finally, in my opinion. I put your name in the hat to succeed him as CFO."

"You did?" For a moment he remembered that day at the street café when Weston had first sprung the job offer on him. It had been a bit ridiculous to consider risking his Disney career, and yet he suspected if he were still at Disney, he'd be somewhere near the top of the marketing department, not looking at CFO.

"We just had the vote. I called you in here to offer you the position."

"I don't know what to say."

"It was unanimous," Ben added.

His throat clenched as he gripped the armrests. "I...thank you!"

"Welcome."

"Can I think about it? I've got a lot to think about."

"Of course," Ben said. "Take some time. I'll have the offer drawn up for you to look over."

Stuart nodded. "Do that."

"Well, hey, why don't you take the rest of the day off, clear your head? Go take a walk on the beach or something."

"Yeah, maybe I will." He stood up and wandered back to the door. Grasping the handle, he glanced back at Ben, sitting there watching him with a smile on his face. He cleared his throat to speak, but instead shut the door behind himself.

NOVEMBER

Cara stood center in the front of the mansion's theater room, below the dark movie screen, her paper pilgrim's hat angled forward on her head, just barely hanging on. She had insisted on giving her performance there, as close to being a movie star as she could get. Ben and Sheila were her audience, sitting in the front row as she pranced, waving her arms as if to reinforce the importance of what she was saying.

"It was, the peoples came in boats to America. And they was, there was already some peoples here. They was the Indians and they was living in tribes, but they didn't have horses like they do on TV."

"And who were the people in the boats?" Sheila asked, eyes wide.

"The Pilgrims, and they camed on the Mayflower. And the Indians and the Pilgrims was, they was friends!"

"I did not know that!" Ben did his best Carson impression. "That's news to me!"

Cara took a deep breath. "Well, the Indians and the Pilgrims, they builded a big table and putted all the big foods on it, for eating. And they had a party and thanked God for all the food."

"And that was Thanksgiving?" Sheila asked.

"That's how they did it."

"That was a lovely story," Ben said. "That's just how I remember it."

"And then Charlie Brown hadded a Thanksgiving too!"

DECEMBER

The Elvins returned to Beverly Hills for the holidays. On Christmas morning, Lara and Ben shared a moment of silence to remember their parents and their brother. Most of the extended family that lived in the area came that afternoon, and Cara charmed them all with her rendition of "The Night Before Christmas," which she had memorized. Ben stood in the background, watching her, thinking.

Cara's favorite gift that year was a stuffed monkey that appeared to be wearing rouge. She named it Pam the Counselor, after the lawyer in her new favorite show, _The Greatest American Hero_.

"When I grow up," she said, "I'm gonna be Pam the Counselor, and I'm gonna marry the Greatest American Hero, and I'm gonna save the world!"

Sheila grabbed her and tickled her belly. "I thought you said you were going to marry your daddy!"

Cara giggled, her baby teeth round and tiny as her tongue slid between them. "I'll marry him last. After Kermit."

She drifted to sleep that night in her father's arms, clutching Pam the Counselor. Ben and Sheila camped together in front of the massive fireplace in the parlor as Cara snoozed.

"So apparently she's going to follow in her father's footsteps," Sheila said. "She's already got a list of future ex-husbands."

"She's just got it all figured out."

"I'm particularly looking forward to her Muppet wedding. I always had the hots for that Scooter."

"Which one is Scooter?"

Sheila laughed and leaned into him. "The nerd!"

"Right. And she'll probably have that chicken choir singing at the reception."

"One of these days, she's going to start bringing home real boys."

"Kill me before that happens!" Ben said.

"And you'll have to ward off all the bad ones. You'll have to buy a gun."

Ben put his arm around Cara as they watched the flickering sparks popping above the flames. "Want to hear something crazy?"

"Depends on your definition of crazy."

"I think we should start her in kindergarten next year."

"Ben..."

He ran his hands along Cara's hair as she leaned against him, breathing steadily. "Don't you think she's ready?"

"Let's not. I mean, do we have to rush it?"

"You're the one talking about her wedding!" He chuckled. "I'm serious, though."

"I know she's smart. But if we do that, she's always going to be the youngest kid in the class."

"I started young too, and I'm glad I did. I never felt it. And the kids never treated me like I was younger. By the time any of that mattered, we'd already known each other for years."

"Hmm."

Ben looked down at his sleeping daughter. "I want her to have every opportunity. Every door open. I was thinking of taking her on a long trip next year. Let her see the world, and then put her in school."

"And then you want her to act."

"She wants it."

"I know she does," Sheila said.

He stroked the sleeping child's forehead. "When I was her age, I wanted to be Charlie Chaplin more than anything in the world. I would sing and dance and entertain all my parents' friends. My dad thought children should be seen, not heard, as they say."

"I think it may be good for her," Sheila said. "I'm just worried you're doing this more to satisfy some unfulfilled dream than for her own good."

"Then she can be a star, and marry a Muppet."

"Every girl's fantasy," Sheila said.
1983

FEBRUARY

Cara turned five years old in style. Her kindergarten class filled the back rooms of the mansion, with Hayley and Holly Louden, Luke York, and her seven-year-old best friend, Kambree. A magician started out the festivities, making quarters disappear and guessing numbers, and then the kids enjoyed an afternoon of games and sweets. Ben didn't know if Pin the Tail on the Donkey was too outdated, but it had always amused him when he was her age. Kambree drew attention from the children who'd seen _Mint Condition_ and her second film, _Cast of Characters_. One kid wet his pants with excitement and a girl managed to get out the back and jump into the pool in her full clothes. Ben and Sheila supervised with Hillary's help and tried to keep their possessions intact.

Cara and Kambree skipped into the kitchen. "Daddy?" Cara asked. Her strawberry blonde pigtails pulled hard on the part running down the middle of her head, flipping back and forth as her sneakers swiveled all over the place. She was just over three feet tall, peering up at him with stretching arms, like he was a cliff she wanted to climb. "Can I have my present now?"

"Not until all your friends are gone, I told you."

"Everybody's gone but Kambree. Can't I have it now?"

Kambree flashed him a gapped smile, having just lost a tooth, and Ben shrugged. "Go get your mother."

Cara scampered off as Hillary hefted her purse onto her shoulder. "I've got to get those girls home before they pass out from exhaustion."

"You all have a good night. Thanks for coming."

"Of course," she replied, heading off to find Holly and Hayley.

"Kambree, did you have a good time?"

"You betcha!" Kambree stuck a foot out, hands on her hips. She was always posing for him, as if hoping to catch his eye for his next film.

"Even with the younger kids?"

"They're not so bad. So what did you get her?"

He shrugged. "Guess we'll have to wait and see."

Cara came around the corner, tugging on Sheila's skirt. "Here she is! Here she is!"

"I think we're ready to go," Sheila said.

Ben produced a bandanna. "All right. But first you have to put this on."

"All right."

She stood still as Ben wrapped the cloth snuggly across her eyes. "Can you see?"

"Uh uh."

"No peeking now!"

"I won't peek."

"Well all right, then. And Kambree, you don't say a word."

"Promise."

"Then let's go find your present."

Kambree followed as they took her down the hall and out into the chilly afternoon air. Cara's breathing grew louder as they passed the pool and the tennis court. The gate on the old stable hung open, and as they entered the shaded sanctuary, Cara's nostrils flared. "What is that?"

"All right, you can take it off."

She pulled the blindfold and squealed at the sight of the pony that stood a distance away, sniffing in their direction as Cara had sniffed in his. "For real?" she asked, running over to him.

"Happy birthday!"

She laughed with warm delight as she ran her hand along the pony's brown coat, and Kambree rushed up beside her. "He's so pretty."

"Thank you!" Cara said without looking away. As short as the animal was, Cara still had to stand on her toes to come near its height. "I love him! It's a him, right?"

"It's a him," Sheila said.

"He's so pretty," Kambree said again.

Ben stepped up beside the girls as they stroked the pony. "I have another surprise for you."

"What?" she asked, too enamored with the first present to give any other recognition that he'd spoken.

"How'd you like to be in a movie?"

"Like Kambree?" she asked.

"Like Kambree. Would you like that?"

"OK," she replied, turning back to the pony, burying her fingers in his neatly brushed mane. "Can I ride him?" she asked.

Ben laughed at her distracted interest. "Well, yes, but not today. We've hired a coach to come out and teach you. It can't hurt an actress to know how to ride," Ben said.

"I'm gonna name him Romeo. And I'll be Juliet, and we'll live happily ever after."

He assisted as she struggled to climb up Romeo's leg. "That's not how the story ends."

MARCH

Clothing bags hung off the edge of the bed beside Sheila's suitcase as a Nat King Cole record spun on the bedroom hi-fi. Ben surveyed her packing job with the same mix of jealousy and loneliness he always had when she went out of town to give a workshop or attend a lecture or the unveiling of someone's new exhibit.

Her latest piece had taken up a temporary residence in the room, propped up and leaning against the wide window facing north and looking out over the other homes on Camden Drive, where Ben had once camped out as a kid after watching _Rear Window_. The painting was titled _The Wall_. She'd flown out to Washington, D.C. in November for the unveiling of the Vietnam War Memorial and spent a week taking pictures, talking to tourists, and taking slow walks past the names, studying faces and voices before taking it all back with her to her studio in what had once been Charles's bedroom, spreading the pictures all across the four walls, constant reminders as she laid out the scene. Ben had joined her out east for the last two days. He'd found his brother's name etched into the black granite.

"It's only two weeks." Sheila leaned in toward the mirror, stroking her eyelashes with a brush. Her slip fell off her shoulder and she leaned into it. "I'll be back before you know it."

Ben came up from behind and put his arms around her. "I'll go with you, how about that? You can never see Paris too many times."

She shook her head without missing a brush stroke. "It would be fun."

"You'll be rubbing shoulders with all your artist friends, drinking champagne and having too many interesting conversations. And I'll be stuck here taking care of Cara, all miserable and lonesome."

"Somehow I doubt that."

He kissed her neck. "I'm going through withdrawal already. Like an addict."

"I'll miss you too. And it would be nice for Cara to see some art beyond the Angelis."

"She knows more than they teach in kindergarten. She can tell the difference between a Jackson Pollack and a Monet while her little school chums are watching _The Letter People_ and playing with construction paper."

"They're only six."

"Cara's five."

She puckered as she unscrewed a fresh tube of lipstick. "Just promise me you won't have her splitting the atom by the time I get back."

"We'll be too busy learning her lines. Got all her stuffed animals playing parts from the movie. I'm filling in for Mary."

"I can't believe after all these years you've still got her playing all your parts."

"When you find a girl with class, you never look back."

Sheila packed herself into a taxi and left for LAX, and Ben watched until the gate closed. He strolled out past the stable and found Cara riding Romeo with her instructor close by. She kept the pony at a slow trot, moving toward him. "Whoa!" she called, closing her fingers and pulling up on the reins, and she shifted her weight further into the saddle. Ben had never been much for riding, but he remembered how to slow down. "Daddy! Did you see me? He stops every time!"

"You're a natural," he shouted back. "You'll be in the Kentucky Derby in no time." He watched her for a while, filling his lungs with the cool afternoon air, then went back inside. The echo of the closing door ricocheted through the place, reminding him he was alone. It had been four years, but that thought still brought back the old coarse dryness in his mouth.

He licked his lips and banished it from his mind.

MAY

Cara had spent an hour in the chair with all kinds of brushes she'd never seen before, and she thought she could feel the makeup on her cheeks and over her eyes as she walked the Migglesly living room set, inspecting each piece of furniture, every picture on the wall. It was so real. On the mantle sat a photograph of her with the other actors that would be portraying the Migglesly family. She ran her hand along the dark blue curtains on the window, and on the other side there was nothing. A painting of a sky, of a meadow. Artificial day. But so real.

"Cara, you remember Mary? From the table read?" Ben asked as he escorted Mary Tyler Moore past the crew.

"You're married to Dick Van Dyke," Cara said, looking up at her.

"Well, aren't you smart!" Mary said. "But honey, that's on television, not real life."

"Sometimes she gets things like that confused."

"So Cara, are you ready to start filming?" Mary asked.

"You betcha!" she said, striking a pose in imitation of Kambree.

Ben gestured to the set sofa. "Let's try the scene."

Cara giggled. "OK, Daddy."

Mary took a seat on the sofa and Cara hopped up beside her, smoothing out her dress. Ben stepped back to the other side of the set. "OK, we're doing Nathan Was Adopted. Do you remember that one, baby?"

"Yeah."

"You know all your lines?" Mary asked.

"Daddy makes me study," she said. "But he helps."

"Let's give it a try," Mary said.

"All right. Nathan Was Adopted, looking down. And...whenever you're ready."

Mary turned herself toward Cara, looking past her, toward the mantle. Cara waited until Mary had found her place, then she leaned in, focused on the floor. "It's a good thing, you know?" Mary said. "You saw how happy he was, right?" Cara's eyes widened, her lips straight. "It's a gift for him, maybe the best gift he'll ever get. And he gave us a gift too, didn't he?" Cara ignored Mary looking down at her, choosing instead to stare into the darkness of the fireplace, concentrating on how she and her daddy had practiced. "Remember the first day? Remember how he cried, and you sat with him? I was so proud of you." Cara took long breaths, feeling her eyebrow twitch. She focused on the fireplace. "This isn't just good for him. It's good for us. Maybe it's hard to see right now. I know." Cara's shoulders wanted to drop, and she allowed it as she opened her lips to breathe through her mouth, raising her head enough for her to see her father across the set. It was coming – the flood – the crying. And once she'd brought it out, all she had to do was fight it down again. "The Gunthers are such nice people," Mary said. "And they wanted a son so bad."

Cara gulped, and with a weak, whispy moan, she said, "But he's my brother."

Mary's hand slipped to Cara's knee, and Cara turned to find tears in her eyes. "Oh my God," Mary said, looking up to her daddy. "How'd she do that?"

JULY

"Cut!"

Lights slammed off as Mary and Cara blinked their way back to normal. Ben stepped between the prop coffins of the mortuary set and knelt beside Cara, looking so cute in her makeup. "OK, baby, that was good. But you were looking at me again. You can't look at me. You have to pretend I'm not there, right?"

"Right, Daddy."

When she wasn't sneaking glances at him, she'd kept herself in the moment, in the scene. He had intentionally been cryptic in explaining the funeral home to her, and the silent confusion was clear on camera. "Is that easy or hard?"

A frown of frustration puffed up in her brow. "Hard."

"Right. OK. OK." He kissed the top of her head and turned to Mary. "Can we talk for a second?"

"Sure. What's up?"

He glanced back at Cara, smiling up at him, and rubbed his mouth. "She's having trouble. She's got the lines down, and the mood, but she's focused too much on me."

"I think she knows what she's doing," Mary peeked over his shoulder at her. "The problem is she can't wrap her mind around the idea that it's just pretend. She started calling me Wanda. And she talks as if Angela is really in the coffin."

"Well, then, Wanda. Here's what I'm thinking. I want you to direct her. I won't talk to her on set until she gets the idea that I'm not really there."

Mary smiled, looking back at the beaming girl. "Let's try it and see."

AUGUST

The camera rolled as the crew stood around the background of the stage. Cara turned away as she caught it dollying in out of the corner of her eye. She concentrated on what Mary had told her – face the window but let the camera see her profile. She stood in the back of the living room set of the Migglesly house beside Mary and Arthur. It was Mary's line, then hers, then Arthur's, and then Cara had the final say in the scene. Water dripped down the other side of the window pane in lines, in patterns, like real rain. A moment, a blink of artificial lightning, and she was there in the living room, not on a set. Mary was her mother, Arthur was her grandfather, and she wasn't Cara, never Cara. She was Maggie. Maggie who lost the girl she called sister to the infection, the disease she did not understand and would always fear. Maggie the only child who had a dozen siblings come and go, each one leaving her for another family. Maggie who was born in a storm and called herself the child of the thunder.

"I've never had a taste for rainy days," Mary sighed. "They tell you to save for one, but when it finally comes, there's nothing left to buy."

"Momma," she said, and the word sounded so natural. She could believe it – in the moment she could be Wanda's daughter. "Maybe Mr. Spinner was right. Maybe Angela's still coming back."

Arthur knelt beside her. "Maggie, if only it were so. It would be a nice dream."

She hugged him, holding for a moment as Wanda – no, Mary – had instructed her. And then, pushing out everything but the rain – the rain that was real, not setting – she said her final line. "If it's a dream, I don't ever want to wake up."

"And...cut!"

The lights shut off and she blinked away the change as she let go of Arthur. The crew's noise level rose and Arthur stood. "How was that?" he asked as Ben stepped onto the set.

"Perfect timing this time. We got just what we need." He turned to address the crew as well. "All right, listen up everyone! This is a wrap. I just want to say that you've all done an amazing job. I can't thank you enough for all the sweat and hours you've given us."

As she listened to her father's speech and to the crew's murmurs of content and excitement, she reached out for Mary's hand. "Are we really done?"

"We're finished, all right," Mary replied. "Hard to believe, isn't it?"

Maggie was gone, and Cara shook herself free again.

\- - -

Sparse lights filled the back of the Camden house with dim ambiance, reflecting off the rippling surface of the pool. Cara kicked at the water, her wet hair matted against her back as Ben and Sheila pulled themselves up beside her.

"No more?" Sheila asked as she draped a towel around Cara's shoulders.

"I'm tired."

"I'll bet you are."

Ben lifted three glasses of orange juice from a tray resting beside them. "Well, I've sure had a great evening with my two favorite girls."

"Me too," Cara said, sniffing the juice.

"To Cara Camden," Sheila said, raising her glass in a toast. "The prettiest leading lady in Hollywood."

"And the most ticklish," Ben added as he clinked his glass against hers. Cara laughed and joined them in the toast.

"Silly Daddy!"

"I most definitely agree," Sheila said. "Silly boy."

He stretched as he set his glass back on the tray. "I tell you what I'm looking forward to the most: sleep. I forgot what that feels like."

"Cara needs to start resting up now," Sheila said. "School starts soon."

Cara stuck her tongue out in a gross-out face and sent ripples across the water from her wiggling toes. "I don't wanna go back to school. I wanna make another movie."

Ben stroked her hair. "You'll love first grade. You'll get to see all your friends again, every day, plus make new ones."

"The kids at school can't read so good. Well," she corrected herself. "They think I'm weird."

"But they love you."

She sighed, leaning against Ben's wet skin.

SEPTEMBER

The wind whistled on the first morning of school as Cara's mother pulled up to the curb of Madison Chase Academy, and Cara sat beside her, so small and tiny compared to some of the other students lingering nearby. She'd seen Kambree's school, Luke's, Hayley and Holly's, and hers seemed bigger than the three of them combined, but hers had all twelve grades, thirteen including the kindergarten class. She looked up at her mother with a gloomy tug of her shoulders, holding her in place more tightly than the seatbelt.

"Do I hafta?"

"Be a big girl and get out of the car," Sheila said. "Give me a smooch." Cara kissed her mother's cheek and unbuckled her seatbelt. "Have a good day, angel. I love you."

"I love you too, Mommy." She stepped out onto the curb and squinted as the sun hit her. She wore the same uniform as all the other first graders – the white shirt, the tie, the black skirt. She hadn't had to wear it in kindergarten, and she didn't like having to look the same as everyone else. She forgot how tight the tie felt as she saw one of her friends heading into the building.

"Hi Joy!" Cara said.

"Hi Cara! How was your summer?"

She spotted more of her friends in the distance. "It was OK, I guess."

"We went to San Diego and got to go to the zoo," Joy said. "I got pictures of all the animals!"

"Neat."

"And we went to the beach every weekend!" Joy added. "What did you do?"

It was on the tip of her tongue. _I'm going to be a movie star._ But it was too new, too special. And as much fun as the summer had been for her, as much as she still thought about Maggie and her longing for a sibling that would only ever be teased, never fulfilled, there was one thing about making her movie that mattered more than all the rest of it. "I just hung around with my daddy."

\- - -

Ben cruised Alameda Avenue with the top down on a golden summer morning, not a speck of white in the overhead blue. He was heading over to NBC for a quick meeting about directing an episode of _St. Elsewhere,_ and then lunch with Grant Tinker. Mary wouldn't be joining them – she and Grant had divorced two years earlier, the same year Grant was made CEO of NBC. Ben had always worn cologne when he'd seen Grant. Not anymore.

He pulled to a stop as the light at the intersection with Hollywood Way changed from yellow to red. The engine purred, enough music for him, and he stared through the passing traffic. He hummed the theme from _St. Elsewhere_ as a woman crossed the street on the other side, glancing at him as she passed. He clutched the gearshift as he watched her, and with her blonde hair fluttering in the breeze as it did, he could have, for a moment, believed it was Sharon Tate.

"Sharon's dead."

Ben jumped against his seatbelt, pulse revving. He turned and found Yvette sitting beside him, sexy tanned legs covered by one of her short silk skirts. At least, it was probably Yvette. Whoever it was, he could see through her. He tried to blink her away, but she lingered, looking at him with those cool baby blues of hers. No, they weren't blue – they were empty.

"Sharon's dead."

He shut his eyes, taking deep breaths, an old Donovan song whispering somewhere in the back of his thoughts. He could still see her. A bead of sweat dripped down from his forehead, and his stomach prepared to relieve him of his lunch.

The mirage jumped at him, no longer discernible as anything but a wraith. "Sharon's dead!" Ben gasped, and without enough time to think, his foot went from the brake to the gas.

The wraith faded to nothing as he turned back to the road in time to catch the blurred image of the burgundy Honda Civic barreling toward him.

-

Sheila pulled her parking brake and jumped out of the car, eyes fixed on what was left of Ben's convertible. The red remains were scattered across the intersection, reflecting the lights of the police cars and the fire engine. She choked on her breath as she made her way over, trying to run in her heels. All she could think about was the last time Ben had wrecked his car.

He sat in the back of the police cruiser, doubled over, feet on the ground. Hair a mop. She scanned the scene for the other driver and found a woman with a small cut on her forehead, talking to an officer over by the fire engine. Sheila stopped at the sight of Ben, her concern and fear moving past his safety.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" a policeman asked.

"I'm his wife." She looked at him there, telling herself he couldn't have really done it. Not after all this time.

"He's a lucky man," the officer said. "If he'd been hit just a few inches closer..."

"What about the other driver?" she asked.

"Civic's a goner. But she's walkin' and talkin'."

"Was he..."

"Ma'am?" the officer asked.

She hated herself for even thinking it. "Had my husband been drinking?"

"No, ma'am."

Ben looked up as she approached. His shirt was untucked, and he had a burn on his neck, straight down in a line. From the seatbelt. She knelt and held his hand. "Are you all right?"

"It was just like Mom."

The officer was right; he hadn't been drinking. She brushed away that old distrust and suspicion, kissing his cheek. "Baby," she breathed, rocking him like a scared child. "What happened?"

He shook his head, staring at the crushed back half of his car as if he were trapped in that moment, in the crash. The back bumper lay twisted on the concrete.

NOVEMBER

Cara came in early from recess to use the restroom, and when she finished, she found the hallway empty. Some of the older kids had made posters about something called hyperboles, which Cara remembered had something to do with bragging or telling tall tales or something like that, and the walls were lined with crude drawings with captions such as _I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse._ Gross. Still it seemed more interesting than her own reading classes, where they were learning how to spell _apple_ and _orange_ and a bunch of other fruits. Vegetables would be the next week. While her classmates would be learning how to spell _cucumber_ , Cara was growing them on vines up the lattice her daddy had built for her in her grandmother's garden.

She took a long, cool sip from the fountain, and as she came up, she noticed one of her classmates sitting alone on a bench by the doors to the playground, fiddling with his shoe and whimpering. She wiped the water from her mouth and approached.

"What's wrong?"

Bradley Long, a skinny little boy with oversized, baggy clothes, looked up at her with embarrassment. "My shoe came untied."

"So?"

He glanced toward the doors that led out to the playground. "I don't know how to tie it back."

"Oh." She sat beside him. "Put your foot up," she instructed, and he obliged. "You gotta twist them like this, see? And then one goes under and up again." She pulled it tight, and he flinched as if it hurt. "Then you make a loop, like this, and wrap the other one around. Stick your finger in there."

"My mom always ties them for me," he said, his face lightening.

She pulled the bow tight. "There ya go," she smiled. "See? Think you can do it?"

"I don't know," Bradley said, blushing as he dropped his leg back down.

"It's easy, you just have to learn."

"Don't tell anybody, please."

She patted him on the back. "Of course not." She hopped up and joined the other kids as they returned to class in single file, leaving him with a bashful smile.

-

Bradley searched the halls for Cara after school, his heart racing. He'd thought of nothing since recess but asking her to be his girlfriend. He stepped into the afternoon light and saw her, surrounded by some of their classmates over by the flag pole, laughing with them. She looked so pretty. He summoned his courage and stepped up, just as Joy turned to him and giggled.

"Little Bradley Long!" she sang. "Can't tie his shoes!" All the other kids laughed. His eyes wandered across the mocking faces until he came to Cara's. She wouldn't look at him for a moment, and when she did, hers were the only wide eyes and sad lips in the group, the only ones not laughing, and in the moment he couldn't decide which hurt worse – the teasing of his classmates or that Cara had broken her promise.

"Shut up!" he said, resisting the urge to cry.

-

Sheila inched her car forward in line as she spotted Cara heading over from the front of the school, moving out of the bustle of students. She carried her backpack by the loop, hanging at her side like a briefcase instead of on her shoulders as she normally did, and she walked with unusual haste. Sheila turned off the radio and held her foot firm on the break as Cara opened the passenger door and slid in, dropping her bag to her feet and clicking her seatbelt in place without so much as a glance in Sheila's direction.

She waited for Cara to speak. They moved ahead another space as a boy wandered down the sidewalk toward them, one Sheila remembered from Cara's class. Cara turned away from him, moving her back toward the door, and it was then that Sheila noticed her shaken expression. "What's wrong, angel?"

"Nothing."

"Somebody give you a hard time?" Cara shook her head. "What is it, then?"

Cara put her wrist to her cheek, rubbing it with the edge of her sleeve. "I don't know."

Sheila glanced at the boy, continuing on down the walk, carrying a red lunchbox. "Did something happen at school?"

"No."

"Then what's wrong?"

Cara finally looked up at her, and Sheila searched her daughter's face for an answer. "I don't know," was all she said.

\- - -

Cara stepped out of the lunch line the next day, searching for Bradley. He'd stuck to the back of the room during class, as trickling laughter still ran his way. She'd noticed with unsettling guilt that he'd worn loafers. She kept seeing his face when the others teased him, and she didn't know why she'd told them his secret. It hadn't been to hurt him – it hadn't been about him at all. It was about the others, the girls she wanted to like her. Their teasing rang in her ears as she spotted Bradley at a table by himself, by the kindergarteners.

She passed the rest of her classmates and dropped her tray to the table, startling him out of the comic book he was reading. "Anyone sitting here?" she asked. Bradley shook his head, but he didn't look glad to see her. "Great!" She slid in across from him as he fiddled with the wrapper on his sandwich. "What kind you got?"

"Bologna," he said. "I hate it."

Cara had never tried bologna, and from what she knew it sounded disgusting. She watched his fingers play with the plastic, then glanced down to her piece of pepperoni pizza and carton of chocolate milk. "Really? I've never had it."

"For real?"

"Nope. Do you think maybe you'd trade me your sandwich for my pizza?" He pulled his lunch closer to him for a moment, as if he didn't trust her. "If you want to."

"OK," he said, and she pushed her tray in front of him in exchange for two mushy pieces of white bread with some kind of meat in between them. She couldn't tell if it was made out of chicken or pork, or maybe both, maybe something else. He watched her as she sunk her teeth into it, her mouth filling with mustard.

"It's good."

He grinned. "No it's not!"

They laughed together, and the smile on his face was worth having to swallow that nasty thing.

DECEMBER

Cara pulled open the passenger door of Ben's new aqua blue Mercedes 280SL two-door roadster and threw her backpack behind her seat. "Hey, careful," Ben said as she slid in, waving to one of her friends out in front of Madison Chase. "You've got to take better care of your books."

"They're workbooks, Daddy," she said, clicking her seatbelt. "We tear'em to shreds."

He leaned in and she pecked his cheek. "How was school?" he asked as he angled out of the line and out toward the street.

"Over. Time for Christmas!"

"Well, OK, then. Where to now?"

"Cookies?"

He shifted into gear. "Cookies."

Their usual routine, whenever he was able to pick her up on a Friday, was to head to the Sherman Oaks Galleria for cookies and to walk the mall, first floor and then the second, window shopping and catching up on the week, which meant Cara chattering and Ben holding her little hand, listening to it all. She never asked him any questions about himself, and that was fine with him.

Cara bit into her coaster-size sugar cookie, decorated with red and green sprinkles, and they went to visit Santa, only to find that he was on a break. They continued on, Christmas music playing from distant speakers, stores filled with shoppers where normally they had the place mostly to themselves.

"And then we played Memory, and I won of course, and Stephanie got in trouble for talking during reading time. Freckles Stephanie, not Cabbage Patch Backpack Stephanie. And this one kid in the third grade made Jack eat gravel, and they made him sit out on the ties for recess. Nobody likes that kid. And school just keeps getting harder and harder, and one day we're gonna be learning stuff I don't already know!"

"You're just growing up so fast," he said.

She raised her hands as if overwhelmed by her thoughts. "I know!"

They stepped off the escalator and Ben followed Cara to the glass rail. She loved to stand over everyone and follow them as they walked by. Ben looked on with her for a moment, then turned to watch his little girl with her wide eyes and little nose, chewing on a bite of her Christmas cookie.
1984

MARCH

Ben stepped out of the limousine and into the throng of young women screaming at him, their faces flickering in dancing light from the camera flashes. He'd lost track of how many times he'd experienced this, but every time he found something to make it new, and this was no different. This night wasn't his umpteenth film – it was Cara's first. Sheila and Cara emerged behind him, and the three of them made their way up the red carpet behind Mary Tyler Moore and her new man, Robert Levine. Cara peeked out from between her parents as the cameras turned on her, and she clung to her father's hand.

"The star of tonight's picture," the emcee said as the crowds got a glimpse of her in her little green evening gown. " _Maggie Migglesly_ herself – let's hear it for our little beauty, Cara Camden!"

Hillary and Stuart stood further inside with Carl and Kim Daniels. Cara scampered away and joined Kambree. They chattered together the way they did at their sleepovers, ignoring the attention. "See?" Ben said. "She takes it all in stride."

"I hope you're right." Sheila watched her gabbing with her friend. "She is pretty cool about it all."

"You got used to it. So can she."

"Daddy, can I sit with Kambree?" Cara asked, slender in her black sequined gown, toes just visible peeking out from beneath. Her shoulders had widened a bit, but not enough to make her head look small, especially with her hair pulled back up in a top bun, traces dripping down in long curly strings.

"Yes, but don't get any chocolate or butter on your dress," he said. "In fact, don't eat anything."

Ben got up to speak as the audience settled in their seats. "Thanks for coming. I know some people thought I'd been abducted by the Moral Majority when I made _Mint Condition_. They said, no way is this the same guy that did _Discrete Consent_. But it's me, and I've got another for you. _Maggie Migglesly_ isn't an artistic revolution. It's not a political satire or a raunchy envelope-pusher. It's a love letter to the American family, the face of which is changing every day. But here, tonight, it is what it is. And I'm so happy that _my_ family could be a part of this. My daughter, Cara, is pleased that you're here to share this moment with her. On behalf of Cara, and everyone else involved, thank you and enjoy the show."

The movie began, and there she glowed, on the screen: Cara Camden, movie star. There were short moments when he could tell she was lingering for his guidance, but having Mary direct her had paid off. She hit her comic lines perfectly even though he'd had to explain some of the jokes, and in her serious moments, when the family would say goodbye to each subsequent foster child, she showed the connection she'd made with them all with hardly a word. Mary's tears were spontaneous, pure response, and they made Cara's performance even stronger.

Cara sat beside Kambree in the next row up, mesmerized by her image on the screen. She'd never sat so still.

\- - -

The Monday after _Maggie Migglesly_ hit theaters, a throng of her fellow students swarmed Cara as her mother drove away from Madison Chase.

"Cara! Cara!" they called, and even though she knew them all, they were like the people that had shouted her name at the theater. She had tried not to pay too much attention to the strangers, but in her own school, in those familiar hallways, they made her feel like a specimen, like one of the hamsters they had in the cage next to the science wall.

"I saw your movie!"

"You made me cry!"

"Want to come to my house after school?"

"Can I be in your movie next time?"

Her mother had prepared her for this, but she didn't know how alienating it would be. "Thanks!" She didn't know what else to say. As she entered the building, everyone she knew – everyone – hung on each movement and word, laughing whenever she did. She glanced at Bradley in the back of the room, the only one who hadn't flooded her, smiling back at her, and she knew this burst of attention wouldn't keep her from sitting next to him at lunch, as she had since the shoe-tying incident.

As every eye in the room trained on her, she wished she could sit back there with him now, or by herself. The class started and eventually the attention faded. Cara did her best to follow along.

\- - -

One night, Cara curled up under her covers as Ben dusted off a book he hadn't read since his own childhood: _The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe_. He read to her about Lucy Pevensie, finding a winter forest inside a wardrobe and having tea with a faun, and she slowly fell asleep, fighting to keep her eyes open.

The next morning, Sheila went to awaken her and found her bed empty, covers thrown back. "Cara?" she called. No answer. Down to her usual haunts – the Green Room, the den, the kitchen. Nothing. The stable – no. She couldn't imagine that Cara had somehow left the grounds, but with each new nook, each room searched, she grew more frantic and her shouts grew louder.

Her fingers danced across the buttons on the telephone. "Ben, Cara's not here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she's not in her room, checked every floor, outside, the garage, the gazebo. I...the gate's closed. I don't know where she is!"

"OK, I'm on my way. Keep checking, and I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thanks." She felt her heavy swallow, knowing she had to have missed something. She hung up and took a breath, then went back to retrace her steps. Cara's bed was still empty. She flipped the light on in her bathroom – nothing – checking behind the shower curtain before returning to the bedroom. The closet door wasn't shut all the way. Sheila creaked it open and found Cara curled up against the back wall, arms around one of her pillows.

"Thank God," she whispered, taking a moment to calm herself. She knelt beside her and gently stroked her arm until Cara stirred. "You scared me, honey! I couldn't find you! I looked everywhere."

Cara mumbled something she couldn't understand, blinking at her as if trying to figure out where she was.

"Why were you sleeping in the closet?"

Cara turned to the wall, rubbing it with the back of her hand. "It didn't work."

"What didn't work?" Sheila asked.

"I was trying to get to Narnia."

MAY

Cara leapt into the passenger seat of her mother's car, careful not to let her foot touch the crack in the concrete. That wouldn't do, not after what she'd overheard on the playground about stepping on a crack and breaking her mother's back. It sounded like bull, but it didn't hurt not to take any risky chances. She kissed her mother and settled into the seat with a peaceful sigh, tugging at the knot around her neck and loosening her tie.

"How was school, baby?" her mother asked, helping her to free herself from the tie.

"We get to have a field day the last week of school!"

"Really? What do you get to do?"

Cara drew a breath as she tried to remember as many of the events as she could. "We get a tug of war, sack race, some kind of...golf ball bowling. Oh, we get to throw water balloons!"

"They're not going to make you wear your uniform, are they?"

"I don't know." What she'd be wearing wasn't something Cara had considered. She just wanted to throw the water balloons. "Mom, I'm gonna miss my friends when summer comes."

Her mother pulled out onto the street, and Cara took a passing glance over her shoulder at Madison Chase. "I remember a little girl who pouted when we told her she'd have to go to the first grade," her mother said. Cara picked up the roll of Lifesavers jostling around in one of the cup holders and peeled a off a sticky piece, popping the tart cherry candy onto her tongue. "Baby?" her mother asked.

"Yeah?"

"How are the kids at school? They still swarming you?"

Cara gave the candy a good hard suck, filling her mouth with the sweet flavor. "Not really, not anymore. It's...more like it used to be." She remembered the discomfort of the spotlight. It was one thing when she'd been by her daddy's side, surrounded by strangers, but when her friends had treated her like that, she'd felt lonely despite all the attention. Like they weren't really her friends anymore, but her fans. But that hadn't lasted long, as her mother had told her it wouldn't. And she would miss them when school ended, but there was another movie to be made. Her daddy had asked her, after the way her friends had treated her differently, whether or not she really wanted to do another film. She'd said yes, not thinking about her friends, trusting her mother. Making _Maggie Migglesly_ had been more work than any class but more fun than any field day. Spending all day with her daddy, with the other actors and the crew who'd never made a big deal out of her the way everyone else had.

And her new movie had the absolute best thing of all: Kambree was going to be in it too.

JULY

As the crew of _Fat Chance_ was on the back lot preparing for the day's shoot, Ben sat down with his three child stars. He'd bought them all Cokes, and while Cara and Corey Feldman had taken a few sips, Kambree had already emptied hers. All three kept their hands from their faces, afraid to disturb their makeup.

"Anybody nervous about our first scene today?"

Kambree bit her lip. She hadn't stopped giggling with glee at her costar all morning. "Maybe a little." She'd been orbiting Corey like a moon since he'd shown up on the call sheet the day before, despite the fact that Kambree was not quite yet nine years old, and Corey had just turned thirteen. Ben was just glad that Cara, at six, had yet to adopt her friend's boy-crazy ways.

Corey sat with his hands between his legs, trying to ignore Kambree. "Barely." His short hair tufted out in the middle like little feathers.

Cara shook her head. "Not a bit!"

"Good, good. Nervous is fine. It's natural. Cara and Kambree know how I work. I'm flexible – don't want you to feel any more pressure than you already do. Now our first scene today is the hose scene, so everyone's gonna get wet. It'll be hot, though, so I'm sure nobody'll mind."

"Mr. Camden?" Corey asked. "What's a stud?"

Ben chuckled to himself at Corey's inquisitive gaze. "It's...why do you ask?"

He pointed at Kambree. "She keeps calling me a stud."

"Kambree, stop calling Corey a stud," he said, and she giggled again, her reddish brown hair bunched up in pigtails, her freckles hidden under pancake makeup. He looked from her to Cara, the shortest of the three, shorter than Kambree by seven inches or so, and Kambree was about that much shorter than Corey. "Come here, honey," he said, and Cara took steps toward him without bending her knees, something she'd been trying out for a few weeks but had promised not to do while she was in character. "You've got an eyelash." She stuck her chin out to him, round as a stone in a riverbed, and as he pulled the stray hair from her face, he tickled her neck with his other hand.

Cara fell into him, giggling. "Daddy, stop it!"

He let her go and turned to address all three of them. "We're all gonna have a good time. It won't even seem like work! We'll rehearse it without any spraying a couple of times, but I don't want you to get too set in the scene. Make it spontaneous. Remember your lines, but remember to have fun. That's the most important thing. Got it?"

"Got it!" they replied in unison.

\- - -

Michael Jackson's sonic falsetto blasted from the speakers in the trailer that Kambree and Cara shared. Kambree was always playing some music or another at the maximum volume her jambox would allow. Her latest obsession was _Thriller_ , and Cara had noticed the caution Mrs. Daniels showed when Kambree would refer to herself as Pretty Young Thing.

Kambree danced around singing "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" as Cara finished changing back into her jeans and red blouse. "Ma ma se ma ma sa ma ma coo sa!" She kicked off her shoes. "Whoo hoo!"

"You gotta get changed!" Cara laughed.

Kambree grabbed Cara's arm and hoisted her to her feet. "Come on, scaredy cat! Dance with me! You'll love it!"

Cara tried to mimic her but couldn't get her hips to swing to the beat – it was so fast. Kambree lifted her hands in the air, eyes closed, as she hit the rhythm like she'd choreographed the song herself. "You're too good!" Cara said.

"No, it's easy! Come on, like this!"

Cara followed her, and they danced together as Michael Jackson and his background singers wailed out the ending. She could barely hear the knock at the door.

"Come in!" Kambree said through heavy breaths.

Ben opened it and watched the girls laughing and prancing. "Look at me, Daddy!"

Ben clapped along to the music. "You two have got it going on!"

The track faded away and Cara stumbled to a stop as Kambree landed, taking a deep breath. "I love that song."

"Cara, you about ready?" he asked.

"Yeah, guess so!" She picked up her duffel bag and hefted it onto her shoulder, struggling not to let it pull her to one side. "See you tomorrow!"

"Bye, beautiful!" Kambree called.

Ben took Cara out into the hall. "I don't know about you," he sighed, "But I'm pooped!"

"Me too!" she sighed, mimicking him. "I'm pooped!"

"I'm having fun working with you kids!"

"Me too!" Cara fell into step with him as she'd been unable to do with her friend.

"Do you think for yourself, or do you just agree with everything your old man says?"

They buckled up and headed home to Camden Drive. "Kambree wants Corey to be her boyfriend," Cara said.

"Yeah, I kind of figured that out. Isn't she a little young for that?"

"She's eight and three quarters!"

"Oh, sorry. Guess I didn't realize. You don't have a boyfriend, do you?"

"Well, there was a boy in my class last year. His name's Jack." Jack who only let one goal past him all year in soccer. Jack who taught her to blow bubbles in her milk. Jack who'd gotten in trouble for repeating a curse word he'd heard from some older kids in the restroom, a word he didn't know, nor what it meant. As he'd sat alone on the railroad ties at recess that day, she'd wanted to go sit with him.

"He's your boyfriend?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. He's nice."

"He's not the one who makes kids eat gravel, is he?"

"No! He's the one that had to eat the gravel. Everyone was teasing him about it."

"So why do you like Jack?"

"I don't know," Cara said. "I just do."

"Well, just don't go steady with him until you bring him home to meet your dad."

She gasped. "Daddy, stop it!"

SEPTEMBER

Cara could have been drinking coffee, she bubbled so with energy on the first day of second grade. As they pulled into the Madison Chase drive, she'd all but forgotten her mother, pressing herself against the window harder at the sight of each of her friends they drove past. She kissed her mom on the cheek and scampered off to find them.

"Did you really do another movie this summer?" one of them asked.

"Yep yep," she replied, mimicking Hillary. "With Kambree, and Corey Feldman."

"Oh, he's so cute! You're so lucky!"

"I want to marry him when I grow up!" Joy said, and she had that Kambree cluelessness plastered on her face.

Cara shook her head. "He's too old," she said, but nobody else minded.

"Hey, here comes Bradley!" one of them said, and the group burst into a collective giggle.

Cara tensed at their ridicule of the boy. "Hey, be nice!"

"Oh, I forgot he's your boyfriend!" Joy laughed.

"He is not! That's..." She searched for a word. "That's ralphy!" He reminded her a little of Ralphie from _A Christmas Story_ , after all, and the thought of Bradley being her boyfriend did make her want to ralph.

"Ralphy!" they laughed, and she knew she'd just caused him more problems. Bradley moved past them without noticing, and Cara hoped he could get through the day without hearing his new nickname. She left her friends behind when, in the distance, she saw Jack Christopher, sitting by himself on a bench, reading a book. She slipped away from the group and made her way over to him.

"What'cha reading?" she asked.

He looked up from his paperback. " _The Boxcar Children,_ " he said with a quick breath. "How, uh, how was your summer?"

She shrugged. "It was neat! What about you?"

"You remember my sister Rebecca?"

"Yeah."

Jack kicked at the dirt, sending a miniature dust storm across the grass. "She died."

Cara dropped to the bench beside him, thinking he looked so composed. Jack's sister had been sick for two years, and he always got soft and quiet when he talked about her. "No," she said.

"Yeah, she did. August 15."

The school seemed suddenly silent as the wind hit her face. Jack's shoulders sank, and she wanted to touch his hand, but she kept to herself. She'd never touched a boy's hand before. "I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry. Are you all right?"

"It's like every day I wake up...and she's gone, all over again." Rebecca looked like Jack, except her cheeks were ruddier and in the end she didn't have any hair. Cara didn't know what cancer meant when she'd first found out about it. Her mother had told her it was what killed her Grandma Lorraine. "Don't tell anybody, OK?" Jack asked. "I don't want the other kids to know."

"Why not?"

"Because, I just don't."

"All right," she said, and he stared down at his shoes. "Do you think about her a lot?"

He nodded. "Sometimes, when I'm falling asleep, I think I hear her talking to me. I dream about her all the time. Only, it's not nice dreams like you'd think. They're scary. Like she's a ghost."

\- - -

Sheila awoke to distant screams. At first she thought they were disoriented remnants of some dream she had already forgotten. But they continued, muffled not by her subconscious but by walls. Half-awake, she thought perhaps the baby was crying, though she couldn't remember the baby ever being so far away that she would sound so faint.

Louder, sharper, primal. There was no baby. Sheila threw off the covers before she had decided she needed to get up. "Ben." She nudged him, and he stirred. "Ben, it's Cara!"

One floor down, they found her writhing under her comforter, screaming.

Ben flicked on the lights as Sheila fell to her daughter's side. "Hey!" She shook her. "Wake up!"

Cara rose from the bed, flinging her arms around her mother's neck. She gasped for a breath as if her lungs had seized up on her during the nightmare.

"It's all right."

Cara quivered in Sheila's embrace. "She was trying to get me," she said. "She wanted me to come with her!"

Sheila cradled her, rubbing her back. "It's OK now. It was only a dream." Cara clung hard to her, and Sheila could feel sweat beneath her little nightgown. "Let's sleep without the blanket. Just the sheet. I bet that would be more comfortable. Don't you think?"

Cara's eyes searched up for her father as he leaned in over Sheila's shoulder. "Cara, who was trying to get you?" he asked.

"Rebecca!"

OCTOBER

Holly and Hayley joined Cara in the parlor watching _Kids, Incorporated_ , the Louden girls' favorite show. As Holly gabbed about how much she wanted to be a singer when she grew up, Hillary dropped off a plate of snickerdoodles and met Sheila on the tennis court. After a spirited match, which Sheila won as usual, they retired poolside.

"Holly was singing 'Material Girl' this morning," Hillary said. "She wants to be Madonna so bad, it makes me want to gag. Why do kids always cling to the worst stuff?"

"She just wants to be grown up."

"Yeah, but Hayley takes after her sister. They both want to go as Madonna for Halloween. Why can't they realize they're only five?"

Sheila stretched her bare legs in the sun. "Ben has Cara hobnobbing with adults almost as much as kids her own age. I feel the same way, trust me."

"Wish we could slow it all down."

"Seems like only yesterday I was begging my dad for an easel." She leaned forward and looked into the deep blue water, rippling in the gentle breeze. "Sometimes I worry about her."

"Of course you do."

"More than I probably should. As smart as she is, there are some things she doesn't get."

"Fantasy and reality?" Hillary said.

"Something like that. It's like, she read this book, _The Indian and the Cupboard_. Know it?"

"Sure."

"After she read it, she put all these Muppet figurines in a box and locked it up, and really thought they'd come to life."

"Really."

"She cried when she realized it was only a story. And then she saw _Superman_ , you know, the first one. And she told everyone at school it was real. And they told her there was no such planet as Krypton, and she said, 'Of course not! It blew up!'"

"Wow."

"She's too smart to let them realize. She just makes a joke out of these things. But I know it hurts her."

"She just has a vivid imagination."

"Sometimes I think about that night, when she fell out of her crib." The bruise on her head, her screams as she lay on the floor beside the fallen rail. "I know the doctor said she wasn't injured. And none of her tests or checkups have shown any different."

"And you think she was?" Hillary asked.

"I don't know."

DECEMBER

Every year, the Camdens threw a big Christmas extravaganza. Four trees, including the legendary biggest tree in Beverly Hills, were poised throughout the house. The Chipmunks played in the entryway, singing about a hula hoop. In the Edison ballroom it was some nonsense about a hippopotamus, and Rosemary Clooney counted her blessings over the hi-fi in the dining room.

From the moment the Greens' plane landed, Cara and Peyton never left each other's side. Kambree, along with several other girls, hung around Corey Feldman as their parents mingled with the scattering of celebrities in attendance. The cousins followed around the actor hired to play Santa Claus, bobbing in and out of rooms, relentlessly barraging him with questions about reindeer and present-delivery time vortexes to try and catch him off guard with the wrong answer. He was good. He was very good.

"Some kids at school thought I was _Maggie Migglesly_ ," Peyton said. "I get it all the time these days."

Cara glanced over at the throng surrounding Corey. "I wonder if you went over and pretended to be me, if anyone would know."

"You think?"

Cara slipped off her yellow sweater. "Here! Put this on and try it!"

Peyton's face lit up, and she slid into the wool. "Come on..."

"Go try!" Cara nudged her. She hung from the entrance to the dining room, fairly certain that none of them would notice her. Peyton wandered over to the other kids, pulling her loose hair back to match Cara's. She stood on the edge of the group, appearing to be waiting to be noticed.

"Where've you been?" Cara heard Corey ask in the distance. "Would you tell your friend to stop bothering me? She won't take a hint!"

Peyton looked to Kambree, who was leaning in on Corey as he tried to push her off. "You're standing under the mistletoe," Peyton said.

Corey winced. "Ah, jeez, not you too."

Kambree giggled as the other girls let Peyton through, hoisting herself up on her tiptoes, and Cara broke into a wide grin as her cousin planted a big, sloppy kiss on him.

"Gross, Cara, you slobbered all over me," Corey said.

Kambree was looking at her, narrowing her eyes, and Peyton lingered for a moment before bursting into laughter. Cara moved completely into the dining room as Peyton rounded the corner, cheeks flushed. "I kissed him!"

"You should have seen the look on his face."

"What're you girls up to?" They turned and found Cara's dad munching on a cracker with some kind of smelly black jelly on it.

Peyton giggled. "Nothing!"

"Just playing around," Cara said, wrinkling her nose at her father's snack.

"Why is Peyton wearing your sweater?"

Peyton grabbed onto Cara's sleeve, still laughing. "Um...I gave it to her. For Christmas," Cara said.

He swallowed the last of his cracker, studying them, and Cara could feel her cheeks bursting with blush. "Looks better on her," he said with a wink, and let them be.

Peyton spewed air as if she'd been holding her breath. "I can't believe I kissed a boy!"

"He's ralphy," Cara replied.

Peyton frowned. "What's that mean?"

"Gross."
1985

FEBRUARY

Cara's legs gripped Romeo's chestnut body, and she tugged on his reins. Her heart thudded with excitement as he raced through the yard, hooves pounding in rhythm against the hard dirt, the icy morning air rushing past her cheeks and filling her lungs. Her breath turned to steam and faded as quickly as it appeared. Los Angeles was rarely cold enough for her to see that.

She tightened the reins and steadied herself with a hand on the pony's neck as he turned at a sharp angle. They were nearing the pool, and her parents had told her to keep him away from the water. Cara figured Romeo was smart enough not to drink it, but she guided him past, and as she slowed him to a gentle clip clop on their return to the stable, her father stood by the big, creaking wooden door, arms crossed, watching her approach. His scolding face came into sharper view.

"Daddy! I can race him! We go so fast, and I never fall off!"

Ben took the reins from her and stroked Romeo's mane. "What are you doing without a coat out here, young lady? It's freezing!"

"It's not that cold."

"And your mother told you not to ride alone."

She stroked Romeo's mane, lowering her head. "I'm sorry. You were really busy, and I was really careful!"

"Rules are rules, Cara."

She slipped from her saddle and landed in the grass. "I'm sorry."

"Now Mrs. Creek is here for your piano lesson."

She cringed at the idea of sitting on that uncomfortable bench, having to hold her back just right or else Mrs. Creek would shut the fallboard and lecture her about posture. "Piano is ralphy!"

"Where'd you hear a word like that?"

"I made it up."

"You can stop your lessons after we finish filming this summer, but I think you may grow to like it."

She shook her hair, ears burning in the cold. "Betcha I don't!"

"Well, go on in to Mrs. Creek, and later we'll talk about you disobeying your mother."

Cara nodded. "All right, Daddy." She gave him a penitent hug and ran off to the house.

"Ralphy," she heard him repeat with a chuckle as he led the pony back into the stable.

MARCH

Cara stood just behind the thick red curtain that swayed slowly like an empty swing on a still afternoon. She could see the crowd out in those seats, but she couldn't really make out any of the faces. They were all watching the main stage, which she faced, while _The_ _Tonight Show_ band played jazz from behind the other side of the curtain, the kind of music her daddy sometimes listened to at home when he was cooking or perched over his desk writing his latest project.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our first guest tonight," she heard Johnny Carson say, just barely able to make out the edge of his desk on that big stage, "is no stranger to the show. In fact, if it wasn't for us she might not even exist! Her latest film, _Fat Chance,_ debuts this weekend. Let's welcome Cara Camden!"

She took her cue and strode out when he said her name. She could hear her father in her head, telling her to ignore the cameras and pretend there was just one person in the audience, and wave out to the last row like Kambree or Hayley or Holly were sitting back there. She mouthed _Hi!_ as she gave a wave to her imaginary friend in the back. Johnny had risen to his feet, and she shook his hand, very proper, the way she'd been told.

Cara hopped into the chair beside Johnny's desk, picking at her light blue dress and making sure the hem hung evenly over her white stockings.

"Well, you look lovely tonight!" Johnny said.

"Thanks! My mommy picked it out."

Johnny twisted his head around without moving his shoulders, glancing toward the backstage wings. "Is she here?"

Cara took a deep breath. "No, she's at home."

"Why isn't she here?"

"Because of what Daddy did!"

The audience laughed, and Johnny joined them. "Guess we've seen the last of her. At least we still have you. What grade are you in this year?"

"Second."

"Shouldn't you be in school right now?"

Funny looks from her classmates. Miss Emory allowing her to make up the spelling test. "They let me go early."

"Do they let you go early when you're filming?"

She sighed. "No, we do that when I'm not in school."

"You mean like summer vacation?"

"Yeah, summer." Cara blinked in the lights, remembering again not to look at anyone in particular in the crowd. Remembering to smile.

"Do you ever get a vacation?"

"Maybe a little."

Johnny grinned as if she'd said something funny. "You're a hard-working girl. But I bet you're pretty popular."

"I guess."

"But I bet you've got a bunch of boyfriends, huh? All the boys like you?"

"I've only got one boyfriend."

"And what's the lucky fella's name?"

"Superman." The audience laughed, and she resisted a confused frown, wondering why that was funny.

"The real Superman?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah!" she declared, relieved that someone had finally said it. "The real one! Everyone says he's not real, but he is."

"Is his name Clark Kent?"

"I don't know, but he flies around and takes me flying, and he can do anything!"

"Can he host a talk show? I don't need any competition."

"You're silly!"

"So do you like acting, or do you just do it because your parents make you?"

She giggled. "I like it! I like to pretend."

"What else do you like to do?"

"I like to..." She counted them off on her fingers. "Ride my pony, paint pictures with Mommy, read stories, play at the beach, go ice skating, play tennis. I don't like piano lessons, though."

"Why do you have to take them if you don't like them?"

"Because I'm gonna be in _another_ movie, with Kambree. And we have to play the piano a lot."

"What kind of movie is it?"

"It's called _The Piano Girls_ , and we're in a contest or something to play the piano, and we hate each other."

"Is this your dad's movie too?"

"Yeah, it's got a bunch of musical stuff in it, I don't know. It's kind of hard for me to understand."

"Does your dad let you watch his older movies?"

"Some of'em. Not all."

"Sensible, sensible. You wouldn't like them much anyway. But he is talented, though. Him and your mom both. And, well, the new movie's doing very well. You and Kambree Daniels are great together."

"She's my best friend!"

"Well, we've got to take a break now, but we'll be back with more from the delightful Cara Camden, and Tom Selleck right after this!"

MAY

The students of Madison Chase had an hour for recess on the last day of school, but Cara didn't join with the others. The air was humid and still across the playground as she dangled in a swing beside Jack Christopher. The chains creaked beneath their weight, their shoes hovering over the fresh dirt.

"Why aren't you playing with your friends?" Jack asked.

"Swings are better," she said.

"We're going to Montreal for the whole summer."

"The whole summer?" Cara hoped he would see her disappointment as she gave him a sad scowl.

"We're going to see my grandma. She's sick."

"Oh. Sorry." Cara had never met either of her grandmothers, and she wondered which was worse.

"I wish I could stay here and be in your movie!"

"Me too." They dangled there in those swings while the other children laughed in the distance.

\- - -

That night Cara drifted into slumber and found herself playing with her friends at school. Running. Jumping. Skipping rope. Slamming volleyballs. Smiling faces. Cool sunlight. Childhood.

At some point in the dream, she noticed Jack wandering away from them all, heading back into the school. She left the others behind and chased after him, but every time she rounded a corner she found him further and further away.

She called for him, but he didn't respond. She ran faster and faster, but he only grew more distant. When she rounded another corner, she found it was not Jack to whom she was running, but her father.

"Daddy!" she called, but he too didn't stop. She came out into the big, empty cafeteria, and her father was nowhere to be found. "Daddy!" she called, more of a cry than a shout. A crushing sense of fear overtook her, and as she continued to scream for him, her voice shrunk and her throat seized, until it was a whisper.

"Daddy..."

She awoke. Home. Her own bed. The whirring fan. Nightlight. She shut her eyes and fought the fear that still clung to her.

The master bedroom door cracked open as Cara crept inside and nudged her daddy.

"Cara?" he mumbled.

"I had a bad dream. Can I sleep in your bed?"

A moment's delay. "All right."

Cara climbed over him and sank under the covers as her mother stirred. She lay between her parents in safety, curled up against her daddy, soaking in the warmth of his body.

She never had nightmares when she was with him.

JUNE

Hillary arrived on set before the sun's fingers traced the horizon. Her third cup of coffee was nearly empty but still hot. The crew was setting up for the day's shooting of _The Piano Girls_ – a scene in which Cara and Kambree would both be playing the first of Mouret's _Suites de symphonies_ in unison to the beat of a single metronome until one of them made a mistake. The girls had both learned the piece, and the scene had been written without a specified winner so that they could play it out in real time until one of them actually goofed.

A tuner tinkered with one of the pianos as Hillary sat down. "Mornin', Hill." Ben yawned as he downed the last drops of a Coke.

"Is it? I think the sun forgot," she said.

"Nevertheless."

" _Time's_ out," she said, sliding her copy of the magazine to him. "Looks pretty good."

The set lights were off, and Ben picked it up and flexed it to see it better. _America's Father Figures_ , the cover headline read, with a photograph of Bill Cosby and himself smiling over the banner _Cosby_ _and_ _Camden_.

"Kids' stuff," he chuckled, flipping it open and skimming the article.

"Speaking of which, Cara's set at nine o'clock?"

Ben nodded. "Nine on the nose. Kambree too." The tuner left, and Ben slid onto the piano bench, cracking his knuckles. "This one sure brings me back," he said as he plunked at the keys in a cranky rendition of the "Maple Leaf Rag." "I haven't played this since I quit lessons when I was fifteen."

"Why'd you quit?"

He played around some more. "Didn't see much use for it. Same as Cara. I told her she could quit after production, but I wish she would keep at it."

"So make her!"

"You sound like Sheila. She says I'm coddling her, telling her she can quit. She thinks we should keep her on the piano, or at least some musical instrument, as long as we can."

"Holly's pushing for a vocal coach," Hillary said. "She's obsessed with the school choir, wants to be a soloist. What kind of an elementary school choir has soloists?"

"A...good one?"

"She runs around singing that damn _Kids Incorporated_ theme like it's the national anthem."

"So get her the coach," Ben said.

"She's got a good voice, you know? It's just...I can't stand her taste in music. It's like, if Cara decided she wanted to play the kazoo...all day long...would you get her one?"

"So get her the coach on the condition that she stops singing 'Like a Virgin.'"

"You're a real riot," Hillary said.

DECEMBER

Ben sat at his desk in his home office. Behind him, laced with Christmas decorations, hung several framed magazine covers. One bore a picture of him and Sheila, about ten years earlier, holding out Sheila's jeweled hand, and the headline read _Instant Legends_. Beside that was _People_ , with little Cara sitting in his lap, both of them gazing into the camera with the headline _Daddy's Girl_ , next to the _Time_ cover he'd done with Bill Cosby.

"Daddy?"

He blinked at the sound of Cara's voice, realizing he'd spaced out somewhere, but he already couldn't remember where he'd wandered. His mouth was dry – dry and familiar. He swiveled in his chair as she lingered in the doorway. "What is it?"

"I decided what I want for Christmas."

"And what would that be?"

"I want Jack to come and live with us." She said it with such sensibility, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world.

"Is that so?"

Cara climbed into his lap. She had a tendency to do that when she knew she was asking for something big. "I know he'd love it here."

He swallowed, not sure why he thought that would help. Dry and familiar. "And what makes you think I can adopt Jack?"

She put her arms around him. "'Cause you can do anything!"

"I see. And what about his parents?"

Her hopeful gaze flickered. "Well, they can live here too."

"I think you need to think about something else."

"Daddy, what about the kids who don't have money? Don't they get Christmas presents too?"

"Some of them do," he said.

"Where do they get them?"

"From nice people who care about them. Your mommy and I help give presents to some of those kids and give some families some nice food to eat for Christmas."

"Can I do it too?" she asked.

Ben caressed her head. "If you want, we can take some of your money, just a little, and you can go and buy some presents."

"All right!"

"What makes you want to do this?"

"I was just thinkin' about the kids that don't go to my school; all the kids at my school are rich. But some of the kids we work with aren't."

"That's very true," Ben said.

Cara leaned in, her hair against his nose, and he could smell her flowery shampoo. "Mrs. Mathis told us that Christmas is a time for giving. So I think I should do it."

"Well all right, then. It's settled. And I've got a feeling that whatever you ask for, other than your own personal Jack, you'll probably be getting. Santa Claus loves this kind of stuff."
1986

MARCH

Ben and Sheila had a usual table at Cochrane's restaurant at The Castle – the one where they'd first sat on New Year's Day eleven years earlier, looking out over the Santa Monica Lounge and the full-size white Steinway grand piano that Walt Disney had gifted to the Camdens. It was too small to see from their second-story view, but there was a tiny Mickey Mouse logo branded into the lid.

Sheila's chandelier earrings nearly graced her bare shoulders as she cut into the slice of pineapple cheesecake they'd chosen for dessert. Ben watched one of them swaying, waiting for it to hit. He bit into a chunk of the pineapple, soft and sweet, filling his mouth with juice.

"I have a funny feeling about this class," Sheila said. "Like maybe I shouldn't go."

"You love your classes," he said. He hated when she'd go off to Chicago or Boston or across the Atlantic for her guest lectures and museum tours, but he'd never say it. After all, without those tours he never would have met her.

"I hate being gone for so long."

"It's only a month," he said, admitting, "I leave for longer than that."

She squeezed his hand. "I know, and I hate it."

He hadn't wanted to hear that, even though he'd always known it. "Maybe you could just do your classes here in town."

"Maybe."

"Don't you get more out-of-towners than locals anyway?"

"Yeah."

A nearby couple raised their wine glasses in a toast. She smiled at him, sipping his iced tea. "I love you."

"I know," Ben said.

"Remember our first time here? I don't know if I ever thought it through enough to imagine we'd be able to make this work."

He put his other hand out and clasped hers in both of his, gazing into the candlelit face of his wife. The years had changed her, matured her, but they hadn't stolen a drop of her beauty. "Neither did I," he replied. "I never used to think ahead."

"I was so blinded by you in the beginning. I just couldn't say no."

"I'm still blinded by you," Ben said. "I hope I never see again."

She was the one he'd charmed, warmed, frightened, and caressed. He'd broken her heart and kissed her lips. He'd chosen her above all others to be the mother of his child, in a way most men never had to choose.

"Silly boy," she said.

SEPTEMBER

"Here it is! Here it is!" Forest shouted as the Greens gathered in their living room. John Tesh smiled to America from the set of _Entertainment Tonight_. Peyton took the floor, her hair hanging down in braided pigtails. She ran her tongue over her braces, as she had every twenty minutes or so since her unfortunate trip to the orthodontist two weeks earlier. The dentist had said she'd eventually feel like they weren't even there, but she couldn't imagine that.

"With the theatrical release of _The Piano Girls_ ," John Tesh said from beneath the mess of boyish blonde hanging in his face, "audiences across the country have had their latest glimpse of two rising stars: America's sweetheart Kambree Daniels, and the daughter of a dynasty – Cara Camden."

Peyton lay flat, kicking her feet up as the show cut to a snippet from _The Piano Girls_. Kambree ran her hands across the ivory keys with focus and precision as Cara stood nearby, whispering to another girl and shooting Kambree fiery glances.

"Though Kambree has done work with several A and B-list directors, Cara has thus far worked exclusively under the watchful eye of her father, Academy-Award winning director Benjamin Weston Camden."

Ben appeared on screen, sitting in front of a poster for the new movie. "Cara's my favorite actress," he said. "Sure, I'm biased, but I see something in her that's going to make the world stand still and listen one day. I want her to have every opportunity to reach people in a way I never could."

The footage cut to Cara and Kambree, laughing together off of the set. "Cara's first non-Weston-directed feature, _Without Wings_ , is due this winter. Meanwhile Kambree is busy stealing the hearts of boys everywhere."

Kambree waved to a crowd of children in a quick shot. A young boy with bright brown eyes looked up at the camera and said, "I want Kambree to be my girlfriend. I already told everybody she is."

Forest laughed. "What a dork!"

"He's totally ralphy," Peyton agreed.

Samantha turned to Matt with a whimsical grin. "Ralphy. Our daughter is saying ralphy now. Peyton, can't you use a different word?"

"All the kids at school are saying it."

"If all the kids at school jumped off a bridge..."

"How tall of a bridge?" Peyton asked.

DECEMBER

As the plane touched down in Memphis, the first flakes of a winter storm followed its descent from the sky. Cara's face lit up as the fasten seatbelt sign went dark. She looked out the small round window, at the airport, soon to be blanketed in snow.

"A white Christmas," Ben said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Just what you were dreaming of."

They snuggled up in the warmth of a fire at Reverend Green's home as the temperature continued to drop. The rest of the family, extended and not so extended, came for Christmas day, and as Cara played with Forest and Peyton and their second cousins, a hominess pervaded the place.

"I think you're smart to let others work with Cara," Saul said after everyone else had left and Sheila and Cara had gone to sleep. They sat in front of a crackling fire as carols played in the background. Bing Crosby's "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman" faded into Amy Grant singing "Tennessee Christmas," and somehow that was the finishing touch to the coziness of the moment. That and the creamiest egg nog Ben had ever tasted.

"She loves it even more than I did when I was her age."

"And how is she doing socially?"

"I think all the attention was a little off-putting." She'd been to three birthday parties that year, and the year _Maggie Migglesly_ had come out, she'd been invited to fifteen and turned them all down. "But I think the kids have gotten used to it. She's opened up to them again."

"And the fantasies?"

"She's got a great imagination, I won't lie. She still talks like she's really part of the stories she reads, or as if they've happened, but I'd like to think she knows the difference by now."

Ben took a sip of the egg nog, thick and creamy and rich with just the perfect dusting of nutmeg and cinnamon. Saul took one too, and they watched the dance of the flames, listening not only to the music but to the snaps and pops of the wood as tiny embers throbbed and pulsed along the surface. "That's good and bad at the same time, I think," Saul said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning children need to understand the difference between real and pretend to function in society. But that understanding leads to a gradual loss of creativity. Children dream of being astronauts and firemen and soldiers. No little boy ever dreams of being an accountant. And the world needs accountants. But how much creative talent is abandoned for reality, I wonder."

"I guess I was lucky," Ben said.

"So was Sheila. And Lorraine tried to give Matt the same wide horizons she had."

"But he chose something he likes. Isn't that all that matters?"

"I'll be honest with you. He chose programming for financial reasons. He finds the work tedious. Sure there's some creativity involved. But not a day goes by that he doesn't wish he'd been more like his sister."

"Really." Ben thought of his brother-in-law spending away hours in a job that didn't fulfill him. Ben had been fortunate to be able to follow his dreams. He was sure he put in more hours and more headaches than Matt did, but Matt had always been such a good father, a good husband. He'd never had to struggle to find the balance. "I guess that's true for most people."

"That's my point. To Cara, the world is full of infinite possibility. But most children eventually see the limits, and when they do, they lower their sights."

The flames licked at the air, struggling to grow higher, taller, like a rocket pushing against gravity toward the infinite beckoning of the night sky. "I never want her to see the limits."

"Then push them back as long as you can," Saul said over Amy Grant's soft alto. "Push the limits and push her. Make her strong and she won't accept them. Then, like you, she'll be a great one."
1987

MARCH

Stuart and Ben made their way to the empty last row of the movie theater, claiming seats in the dead center. Ben had gotten so used to sitting in the far back – in his experience it was the best place to judge the reaction of the audience – that he did so for all movies, not just his own. _Lethal Weapon_ was no different.

An ad for the local Chrysler dealership faded from the screen, replaced by a movie trivia card. "Hmm," Stuart said, crossing his legs. "What film won the Oscar for best picture in 1976? That was _Barry Lyndon_ , right?"

"Yeah, I believe it was," Ben said.

"We gave it a run for its money, though, I must say," Stuart smirked as the card switched to one picturing Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Duvall, reading _Color Twenty_. "So did I tell you I'm seeing someone?"

"No, who is she?"

"Her name's Barbara. She's an operations manager over at the Castle."

"Barbara Kayin?" Weston asked. The trivia card disappeared, replaced by an image of a champagne bottle spraying its contents up, Michael J. Fox reclining comfortably on a bed of the bubbly. _The Secret of My Success,_ the poster said. _April 10_. Cara had been obsessed with Michael J. Fox ever since she'd declared _Back to the Future_ to be the greatest motion picture ever made.

"You know her?" Stuart asked.

"I met her in HR. At her orientation. Great eye for staffing. And she's a cellist."

Stuart nodded with a hint of pride. "I wasn't thinking anything would come of it, but when she met Luke, she seemed like she fell in love."

"Really."

"Yeah. She just loves him. And funny, that got me to telling her about Brina. Ended up going out for coffee and stayed up the whole night. I can't think of the last time I had such a great conversation with a girl."

"It's good to see you finding somebody again."

The theater grew dark as the previews began. _The Secret of My Success_ – he'd leave it up to Sheila whether Cara was old enough to see it. Soon blue light bathed their faces as "Jingle Bell Rock" played through the speakers and a camera swept across the cityscape of Los Angeles at night. Then a drugged-up, half-naked girl flung herself out the window.

Roughly two hours later, as the credits rolled over "I'll Be Home for Christmas," Stuart let out a sigh of contentment. "OK, I'll bite. Gibson makes living in a dilapidated trailer look about as badass as it could be."

"Beachfront property," Ben said, the trailer sequences lingering in his thoughts as well, but not because they were badass.

"I hate to cut you loose so fast, but I'm supposed to stop by Barbara's after the movie, and..."

"Go," Ben said.

The sun had abandoned Beverly Hills for the night as Ben sped down Sunset Boulevard. He drove with no air conditioning, no music, no sound but the slur of passing cars. A scene from the movie played over in his head, slowed down to some eight frames per second. Mel Gibson on the filthy floor of the trailer by the beach, alternating his attention between the picture of his dead wife and the nervous finger he held on the trigger of his pistol. Ben had never lost a wife that way, but there was a smear of days over ten years passed when he'd known what Mel's character had been thinking in that moment. Ben's bullets hadn't been made of metal, but chemicals, and he'd had the courage – or perhaps cowardice – to fire until his chamber was empty.

It had only been a movie, and of course Gibson wouldn't have pulled the trigger, but he'd made Ben believe he might. As he slowed into the turn onto Camden Drive, he thought of that gun, how quickly it could change things, and wondered how he would react if he came home to find Sheila dead, or worse, Cara.

It would never happen, just like in the movie, but if it ever did, it might drive him to trade chemical bullets for metal ones.

JUNE

It was a sunny afternoon when Ben received the news that Jackie Gleason had passed. His skin grew hot as he let it sink in. He sat in his office, staring at a picture of Jackie and himself from almost twenty-five years earlier, eyes wide but dry as he thought about his friend – another fading father figure lost forever. Clowning around together on _American Scene Magazine_ , watching him in _The Honeymooners_ as a child, nestled beside his mother. He'd been to the last two of Jackie's weddings – the first was before he'd been born – and Jackie had been to all three of his.

He was always such a heavy smoker, colon and lungs rotting with cancer. Ben knew this was the inevitable end to a life of excess, but a great life nevertheless. And Jackie had indeed been a great one. He gripped the handle of the file cabinet, desperate for a taste of what he used to hide in the back of the drawer. He took deep breaths, facing each second of the craving, not acknowledging its power over him but only over each tick of the clock. He was a rock on the beach, the waves washing over him, constant, deep, but he would not let them pull him into the water.

"Daddy?"

He blinked back to the moment as Cara crept in, hand lingering on the doorframe. He remembered the first time she'd ever come up to see him while he was working. She'd worn a little red Annie dress with the white trim, hair cut short and curly but nowhere near red enough to look like her orphaned heroine of the moment. There she stood now, the memory now a shadow of the girl she was back then. Her hair was thick and full, neatly brushed. If he was standing she'd come up to his chest, not like the sweet kid who used to gazed up at him like he was a mountain that needed to be climbed. "I thought you were with Luke."

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Do you remember Mr. Gleason?"

"Sure, your friend."

He beckoned her closer, and she pressed herself against his legs, leaning into him. "That's right."

"What about him?"

"He's...he's dead, honey."

He watched Cara's face flicker, as if she registered the information but didn't quite know how to feel about it. "I'm sorry, Daddy."

He laid his arm across her shoulder as the waves retreated back from the shore, sweeping sand away but leaving him safe. "It's all right. He was sick for a long time. At least now, he's not anymore."

"But you'll never forget him, will you?"

"No, I'll never forget him. When people die, they still live on inside of you. Whenever you think about them, whenever you remember what they would say, you can bring them back." His own father had told him this at his grandmother's funeral. Lloyd had sat him down and played checkers with him. Neither of them liked the game, but he'd known in that moment that his father loved him. The memory surfaced out of nowhere – he'd forgotten it, but he could hear the scratch of the checkers on the board as his father said _King me. "_ You can make them live again."

"Then don't forget him, Daddy."

"I won't. I promise."

-

"I'll have Johnnie Black. Neat. Three drops of water."

Ben leaned forward in his barstool, shoulders slumped, head down. He'd picked the bar randomly – first one he passed on his way home from work. Antonio's Mexican Bar and Grill. A flashing sign told him they sold Heineken. Nothing said Mexican like a bottle of Dutch beer. The place wasn't packed, but there were enough people that he just kept his eyes forward.

A napkin, then a glass. He crossed his arms, looking at the thing, mouth as dry as it had ever been. He hadn't touched a drop in forever, and really, that proved he didn't have a problem. If he could go that long without a taste, one drink couldn't hurt him. He'd only brought enough to pay for the one, knowing that once he and Johnnie got to catching up, sometimes they could talk the whole night away. At least it would get his mind off Jackie.

Ben picked up the glass and breathed in the old familiar aroma, sweeter than any perfume. He held it there, swirling the liquor, trying to convince himself that this wasn't going to hurt anyone. The last thing he would have wanted to remember at that moment swam up out of the muck of his memory. Lying there in a hospital bed, legs useless, little Cara crawling all around him. Knowing how close he'd come to losing her and everything else. Promising to never drink again.

Cara's laugh echoed in his mind, her sweet little face. Cara on her pony, racing by, giggling with delight. Cara snuggled up against him as he read to her, breathing in and out, eyes wide with interest as she followed along, trying to process everything. Cara swinging through the air as he held her, begging him to let her fly. Cara putting candy canes on the presents, used to a life with a loser father who was too dangerous to even live in the same house with her.

He set down the glass, laid his money beside it, and left without taking a sip.

-

Ben found Sheila already asleep when he returned home from the bar. He pulled up the blankets around her and went to find Cara, thinking about how close he'd come. He'd tried to fool himself that he wouldn't have come back with his gold card if he'd taken that sip. And he would have been either too scared or too wrecked to go home.

He peeked inside his father's old den. Cara sat perched on the middle sofa, knees curled up, watching television.

"Hi, Daddy!" she said, turning her attention from the set.

"Hey, baby. What're you watching?"

" _Punky Brewster_ ," she said.

"Can I watch too?"

"Sure!" She hopped up, and he took over her spot. Cara climbed into his lap and laid her head against his chest, breathing in and out as she watched Kambree's friend Soleil Moon Frye on the screen. He knew nothing about the show other than the image of the little girl in the pigtails with patches on her pants, and that was fine. He wrapped his arm around Cara and kissed her hair. Johnnie Walker had nothing on her.

-

Ben lay awake beside his slumbering wife, remembering the brief whiff of Scotch he'd savored, grateful it had only passed through his nostrils. He couldn't believe he hadn't taken a sip. If ever there had been a moment when he needed it, Jackie's death was a contender.

He licked his lips and fought it away, remembering Jackie's moments with Cara, wishing they could have done a movie together. It would have been so rewarding to unite his mentor with his successor.

He drifted to sleep, Cara and Jackie dancing on the edge of the dream world. Cara on _The Glen Headwood Show,_ on _American Scene,_ on _The Honeymooners._ Then she left Jackie behind, walking alone down something like the Yellow Brick Road, arms outstretched as if she were on a tightrope. She glanced over her shoulder, but he didn't think she was looking at him. A twister, a tornado that was a portal from one world to another. A storm that – he awoke in an instant, and he could still trace the entirety of his slumberthought. Ideas often struck him in his dreams, leaving his waking mind racing. The traces collected and converged, and he sat up in bed.

The thought had entertained him before, when he'd popped a pill and left the real world behind him. It wasn't a dream – he'd been wide awake. But a storm had come, a storm of shimmers and sparkles, and he'd caught glimpses of the world on the other side. It had been a private place, like the golden trail Cara had been walking, and he'd never thought of it as anything else. But Jackie was gone, they were all gone, leaving Ben to tell the rest of his tale on his own. Those days of wasting away, of tripping – he'd been whisked to childhood and that feeling of boundless infinity the world offered. He sat on the edge of the bed, scooping up the pen and pad of paper he kept in the nightstand.

It played out in his mind: the greatest children's fantasy, the most exhilarating youthful adventure ever captured on film. A movie that would ignite the imaginations of the new generation, defy the limits. A movie that would cement in young minds the idea that anything was possible, that the world was infinite. An inspiration and invitation for Cara's generation to become great ones – all of them. His crowning achievement.

It came out of the mist of midnight.

-

Cara's dreams did not ignite or inspire. She clung to her bed in penetrating fear as the ghost of Jackie Gleason tormented her from the beyond. No matter how fast she ran, he was never far behind.

She awoke with a scream on her lips that escaped as a gasp. She searched the darkness, convinced she would find Gleason in there with her. But she was alone.

AUGUST

Thoughts and coffee swam through Ben's mind as he fidgeted at Hillary's desk, flipping through her marked-up draft of his new pet project, _Adventure Lane_. His pen flew across the page, his own notes adding to hers as the air conditioning buzzed on for the morning.

He looked up as Hillary opened the door. He was in the same chair, with the same crook of his back and bend of his head that he'd had when she'd left him the day before. "Do you ever sleep anymore?" she asked, slipping her purse to the desk and startling him.

"Here and there."

She opened the blinds, letting in the outside world, and leaned in to inspect his progress. "Good grief! You're almost through it already?"

"Second pass."

"Don't you still have a family?"

"Sheila made a pass too."

"May I have the desk?"

Ben scooped up the script and relinquished the chair. "I'm thinking big again, Hill! As big as we can go!"

"Maybe a little too big," she said, scooting the chair into the desk. "I'm not sure we can do this without looking cheesy."

"We absolutely can," he said.

"Where do you come up with ideas like transcending reality?"

"It's not transcending – it's puncturing. But not completely, hence the consequences."

"No offense, but it seems like something you would have come up with–"

"When I was on acid?" She nodded. "I did, actually. I just never thought I could use it. I don't know if anyone's going to pick up on it, but it's supposed to be an analogy for drug addiction."

"Nancy Reagan'll love you."

"But it's really about the adventure, not the message. Just like _Johnny Destructo._ "

"I like it either way. Give the kids something more wholesome than _Dirty Dancing_ to obsess about."

He yawned, filling his nostrils with the stale aroma of strong coffee. At least it wasn't whisky. "This is going to blow everyone away," he said. "And it's going to make Cara a star."
1988

FEBRUARY

The fresh grass covering the grounds of the Camden home bent and turned beneath the shoes of Madison Chase's fifth graders and the other children Cara had invited to her tenth birthday party. They played volleyball on the tennis court and tag on the lawn, stomachs full of chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, and fresh lemonade.

As the afternoon passed, and the party started to die, each successive parent that came to pick up one of her friends hastened the urgent thought that had filled Cara's head for the past week. She would be working on a new movie soon, _Adventure Lane_ , and there was a scene in which she would have to kiss a boy. She didn't want her first kiss to be with some actor. And each guest that left meant that sooner, rather than later, Jack Christopher would have to go home as well.

She convinced him to come with her to see Romeo, and Jack followed her out to the stable. As the remains of the party moved inside, she led him around to the back, where no one could see them.

"This side is locked," Jack said, pointing to the padlock on the rear door.

"I know," she said, thinking that if she just told him why she'd really brought him there, it would make things so much easier. But it wouldn't be the way she wanted. "Close your eyes." She could burst from the excitement and uncertainty, but she breathed it away, like she would if she were acting.

"Why?" he asked.

Acting. That was the key. She could get it right if she treated it like a role. "Just do it."

Jack pressed his eyelids shut, and she didn't know which was stronger – the sound of her breathing or the thudding of her heart in her chest. She took a step toward him, her bare toes gracing the rubber rims of his Keds. An itch ran up her ankle, but she ignored it. Jack shifted his weight from one foot to another. She couldn't leave him waiting if she wanted him to keep his eyes closed. With one quick glance to make sure no one was watching, she leaned in, pressing her palm against the fresh red paint of the stable wall and her lips against Jack's. She'd seen her parents do it, and other people, but she wasn't sure how long a kiss should last, so she waited until Jack opened his eyes, then she pulled away.

Cara dropped her arm, and Jack's cheeks turned almost as red as the stable. "What was that for?" he asked.

She realized how close she was still standing, and took a step back. One set of lips against another – if she'd kissed his cheek, or his nose, or his forehead, it would have been so very different, but she couldn't grasp the reason. She could still feel his chapped skin. The itch on her leg was gone. "It was my birthday wish."

"To kiss me?"

"To have my first kiss."

Confident cool bled away some of his blush. "Why me?"

She searched for an answer that would make sense to him, and to herself. "Because I like you. And I know you won't tell anyone if I ask you not to."

-

That night, Cara and Ben cuddled to watch her favorite movie, _Back to the Future_. Her moment behind the stable consumed her thoughts and lingered on the tip of her tongue, but it was the first real thing she'd ever done that she wanted to keep to herself. For that minute, she thought she knew what it felt like to be a grown up.

Her father noticed her restlessness. "Are you OK?"

She sighed with contentment and laid her head against him. "Yes."

He kissed her hair and they continued to watch. Marty McFly's hand faded out of existence, and it always bothered her that his parents were in the same room with him and never even knew they were about to lose their son. She gasped as he fell over.

Ben chuckled. "You've seen it before, honey."

"I know. It always freaks me out!"

"Why?"

"Because he can't tell anybody!"

MAY

Massive fans blew leaves and bits of water across the splintering boards and opaque windows of the front of the abandoned house set, lights painting Lukas Haas and Cara with the radiating blues and reds and greens of an angry rainbow. Their hair whipped as they stood looking up, and Cara clung to Lukas, face pale, teeth bared.

"I don't think they liked your riddle," Cara shouted, her voice wavering. Behind the camera, Ben focused on the monitor, pressing his headphones against his ear. She was inflecting perfectly, but he could barely hear her over the relentless buzzing of the fans.

"Amanda, you have to go!" Lukas replied. "You have to get back to Wistly and shut the gate. It's our only chance now!"

"I can't go by myself!" she said.

"One of us has to stay."

"Peter!"

He put his hand on her cheek and leaned in to kiss her. Ben ignored his fatherly urgings – at least it was Lukas Haas, not Corey Feldman. "Shit!" someone shouted from behind him, followed by shrieks, and the kids turned seconds before he did as one of the fans tipped forward and came crashing down.

The crew scattered as the protective grate slipped away and the blades struck at the floor, chewing nicks into the concrete. Someone else called, "Shut it off!" Wally Post, the special effects supervisor, dove for the cord and unplugged the rogue fan. Everything fell still for a moment as the other fans were turned off, along with the lighting.

Ben was on his feet. "Is everyone OK?" he asked, searching the stunned faces. Nobody seemed to have been hurt, but everyone was silent. "What happened?"

"We checked them," Wally said. "Must have been a bad clamp."

The kids were waiting quietly, soaked and dripping. Ben wanted to curse, but not in front of Cara. "Get it set up again." He put his megaphone to his lips. "Lunch, everybody. Be back in an hour." He stepped out onto the wet leaves that covered the set.

"We have to stay like this for an hour?" Cara asked, raising her dirt-spattered arms.

"Take ninety minutes. Get cleaned up a little." Lukas remained silent, and the kid's face was agreeable and cooperative behind the murky water glistening in his hair. "I left something special for you two over at craft services."

As the kids dragged themselves away and Ben turned back to the fan that had decided to ruin his day, Stuart stepped up beside him. "What the hell happened?"

"Well, the good news is nobody was hurt," he said. "Fan could have killed somebody."

"Lunch?" Stuart asked.

"I'm not going anywhere," Ben said.

"OK, well, take a second. I've got big news."

"I could use some."

Stuart waited until he had Ben's complete attention. "Barbara and I are engaged!"

"Congratulations! That's fantastic!"

"I took her out to Griffith Park." Stuart beamed the way he had all those years ago when he'd fanfared over his date with the new artist in town. "We were stargazing. I had the ring in my pocket, just waiting for the right time. And it just...came. I proposed to her there in the starlight."

"You're the man, Yorky."

"I can tell you right now," Stuart said, "this time I want you for best man."

JULY

The clock read 3:15 AM, but the sun was up. At least, it felt like the sun.

Sheila snuggled beside Ben, arm draped across his chest as he lay awake, staring at the ceiling, past the ceiling, at the bright warm orb that wouldn't let him sleep. He'd never seen the thing so close before, so large and personal, like his own private star. It should have consumed him in a breath.

The light shrunk and expanded, and from somewhere just out of sight, someone muttered something. The words were indefinite, muddled, the voice sexless, genderless. It echoed at first, then it was right in his ear. He could feel the breath of the speaker as the gibberish subsided.

He closed his eyes, telling himself it was a dream.

Ben slipped out from under Sheila's arm, staggering to the door, bracing himself as the sun followed him. He crept down that shaking hallway, the floor bending and curving beneath his feet. He reached his study and closed the door, sinking into his chair. His throat was cracked and brittle, begging for just a sip, just one glass, just a bottle.

The car wrapped around the corner of the garage, engine cloaking the driveway in smoke. His legs shattered like twigs. Inhaling air and exhaling blood. He focused on the moment, the final drunken memories from the night he'd had his last taste. But it wasn't enough. He was still thirsty.

"Help me, God," he whispered, and his gaze fell to the picture of Cara on his desk, in pink shorts and a white t-shirt with lace around the sleeves, sitting in the driver's seat of one of the silver DeLoreans from her favorite movie, smiling with a front tooth missing, the happiest girl he'd ever seen. He picked up the frame and gripped it in both hands, and he didn't let go until the craving had passed.

SEPTEMBER

The shouts of excited children carried on the wind as Ben thrust his hands in his pockets, walking the sidewalk from visitor parking to the main entrance of Madison Chase Academy. To his right, back a ways behind the buildings, the playground was overrun with what had to be first or second graders on the jungle gym, the swing sets, running along the railroad ties that bordered the graveled area.

He pressed his thumb to the intercom, and after a moment it crackled to life. "May I help you?" the canned voice asked.

"Ben Camden here to see Dr. Ryan."

No response, but the speaker buzzed and the door clicked, and he went inside. A boy and a girl walked by in the white collared shirts and black ties of the school uniform, a few years older than Cara. The boy glanced his way as they passed, then the girl, and they slowed, watching him. He was fairly certain he'd been recognized. They disappeared around the corner, next to the orange sign that read _OFFICE_ in square white letters.

"Mr. Camden!" the receptionist greeted, standing from behind the counter. "So nice to see you!" She eyed him like the girls at the bars used to when he was in grad school and would end up at one or another of their apartments or dorm rooms after last call.

"Thanks."

"Dr. Ryan's office is down the hall to the right."

"Thanks," he said again, and as he left her he caught her reflection in the glass of the framed pictures of the past years' graduating classes. She was still watching him.

"Come in," Dr. Ryan's voice called after he knocked.

Ben stepped into the little room, much smaller than he remembered. Modest desk, bare walls save for the school crest and the principal's various degrees. At least they didn't blow through tuition on luxury. "Dr. Ryan, I'm Ben Camden."

Dr. Ryan's eyes lit up. "Ah yes, of course!" He stood behind the desk and shook Ben's hand. "It's been years."

"Yeah, my wife usually handles teacher meetings."

"Please, have a seat." Both of them took chairs, and Dr. Ryan smiled. "I suppose you're wondering why I asked you here."

"From the message, it doesn't sound like Cara's in trouble."

"Actually, it's about you."

"Me?" Ben asked.

"I have a big favor to ask, and please tell me if it's an imposition."

"Shoot."

"Well, every year," Dr. Ryan said, "the sixth grade puts on a play. It's their farewell to grade school life, in a way."

Ben leaned back with understanding. He could read the want ad on Dr. Ryan's face. "And you'd like me to write it."

Dr. Ryan looked back at him in silence for a moment, as if he'd crossed some line. "Cara said you might be willing. We usually use the same three plays, but we wanted to try something new. Something original."

"I'll be honest with you, I'm busy right now. And I've been toying with the idea of taking a break from writing for a while."

"I understand."

The image of Cara on a stage with her classmates gave him pause. It would be rewarding to see, and he knew how much more meaningful it would be to her if he wrote it. "Although I've often considered writing a play. What are we talking about here?"

"Nothing too fancy. Something the children can produce and act in themselves, with teacher supervision, of course."

He pictured Cara up on a stage, but just as quickly he imagined other children on other stages. "OK, I'll do it, on two conditions."

"Name them."

"If I write this, I want it to be something anyone can do. It won't belong to the school. It'll be public domain, for other kids in other schools."

"Fair enough. And second?"

Ben grinned. "Cara stars?"

\- - -

_Brandon the Great_ , he wrote.

The town of Green Crossing is known for its fantastic and rich mythology. Stories of its history have drawn many a curious visitor in to see the truth amidst the fantasy. Mayor Manning holds an annual festival of tales, when the town is decorated with the colorful Toy Soldiers of Green Crossing's legends.

The mayor's daughter, Gretchen, is the star of the festival, the Green Queen. She is the wisest in town, beloved by everyone. One day, grave news reaches Green Crossing. A cannibal giant from another realm has heard the legends and is coming to inspect the town for himself. They realize that when the giant finds out the legends aren't true, he will eat them all.

Mayor Manning calms the town and leaves to confront the giant and try to save his people. He is never seen again.

The play opens with the townspeople in an uproar. Their doom approaches, and they fear the mayor is dead. But Gretchen declares that her father is alive: he has come to her in a dream and promised that the Toy Soldiers will come to life and protect the town. They believe her because of her wisdom, and they do everything they can to awaken the Toy Soldiers. Nothing works.

A tavern keeper, Brandon, comes forward and offers to help, but they dismiss him because he is a simple poet. He tells them that as long as they can give the giant new stories, the town will be spared while they can think of a way to bring the Toy Soldiers to life. Brandon will create the stories.

Gretchen goes with Brandon to meet the threat. The giant is entertained by Brandon's tales and goes to sleep without eating. They go back to the town and consult with the elders, who look to Gretchen as their new leader. Gretchen, in turn, looks to Brandon as her only hope. Brandon says that the pen is mightier than the sword, and that maybe the Toy Soldiers her father mentioned are not the statues with swords, but instead the words of the stories.

Gretchen and Brandon return each day to tell stories, and each day the giant sleeps longer and longer, contented by the tales. And while he sleeps, the townspeople help Gretchen and Brandon push him closer and closer to the river.

Finally, one day, the giant awakens on the banks of the river and demands a new story. Brandon tells the giant the greatest tale he's ever heard, and when he falls asleep again, Gretchen and Brandon push him into the water. He sinks to the bottom, never to be seen again.

When they return to the town, the Toy Soldiers have come alive, and they swear their allegiance to Brandon. Brandon then swears his allegiance to Gretchen, and together they bring the town of Green Crossing into an era of everlasting peace.

On his way up to bed, he opened the door to Cara's room. It was bathed in traces of soft pink from a nightlight she kept in her bathroom. Her blanket had fallen to the floor as she slept with her arms around her pillow, stomach peeking out from beneath her pajama top. He retrieved her blanket and draped it across her as she shifted her leg against the mattress.

"My little Green Queen," he whispered.
1989

MAY

"I'd like to thank everyone for coming to our annual sixth-grade play," Dr. Ryan said to the gathered crowd of Madison Chase parents and students as he stood alone on the stage at the front of the school's theater. He'd combed his thinning hair about as far as it could go without looking ridiculous. "This year we have something brand new for you, generously written for us by our friend, Benjamin Weston Camden."

Murmurs of interest circulated in the audience as a few eyes snuck glances at Ben and Sheila. Ben offered a wave in casual acknowledgement.

"Our play is _Brandon the Great_ ," Dr. Ryan continued. "And our story begins in Green Crossing, where unusual events are about to take place." He raised his hands toward the sweeping red curtains behind him and backed away as the lights dimmed.

Sheila grasped Ben's hand. The backdrop disappeared into the wings, revealing a tiny makeshift village stretching out to each side of the stage. Children appeared from all directions, dressed as members of a colonial township. Signs read _Blacksmith_ and _Tailor_ and _Post Office_. There were houses painted on the backdrop and a road that appeared to be made of red brick.

One of the student actors stepped out of the blacksmith shop, wearing a rather convincing fake beard. "Many nights," his shrill voice echoed, "we have waited for the mayor to return. But alas, there is yet no leader in Green Crossing."

"You know, Sir Blacksmith," another boy declared with a steadier tone. "They say that when the mayor went west, he was killed by the giant!"

The other children reacted with horror and dread, murmuring to each other as Cara stepped out where everyone could see her. Her eyes were clear and strong. "My father is not dead!" she said as all attention turned to her, projecting her voice with precision in a way she'd never had to do in front of a camera. "He came to me in a dream!"

And they were off.

-

Cara and Jack – as Gretchen and Brandon – led the town in its defeat of the giant, which could never quite be seen, only heard. Ben's tinny voice boomed from the speakers, and the giant was as real as any other character. He'd made the recording available to anyone and everyone that might want to produce the play in the future, guaranteeing his participation in every performance of _Brandon the Great_.

And then Gretchen and Brandon returned, and the Toy Soldiers of Green Crossing came to life, and all was well.

The upper classmen, faculty, and parents roared with applause as the cast came out for their curtain calls. They whistled and cheered for Jack, but when Cara strode out on stage, cool and confident, they exploded. She bowed and extended her arm out to the rest of the cast. Then, as a seeming afterthought, she blew a kiss to the crowd.

JUNE

The sun had yet to set over Los Angeles as Cara walked down the red carpet between her parents. Once she would have clung to their hands, hiding behind her father's leg as the cameras tried to sneak pictures of her. This night she stood tall and poised in her new green Versace gown with shoulder straps so thin they would barely show up on camera. She'd picked Versace because she wanted to show a little leg, but her mother had convinced her to settle for a light satin number with a bit of a train to it.

_Adventure Lane_ posters were everywhere. It was the first movie she'd done that had been merchandized beyond the normal fare of t-shirts and ball caps, and her face had sprung up on everything from Frisbees to plastic Slurpee cups. The fans that had lined up to see the movie had bought into the hype. _Adventure Lane_ shirts dotted the crowd along with shirts for some of her father's other movies – _Identrix_ , _Color Twenty_ , _Sinner's Eclipse_. Her parents didn't know she and Kambree had seen _Sinner's Eclipse_ , and hopefully they never would.

"Weston!" they chanted, even though he hadn't gone by that name in over a decade. They'd even brought signs. _We Love Weston!_ one said, and another had _I'm no scientist_... in big purple letters.

He waved back and yelled, "I love you, too!" as her mother chuckled at the spectacle.

"You guys are on fire tonight!" Kambree laughed with wide eyes as she joined Cara inside the theater. A poster had Lukas Haas glaring out into the distance from the waist up on one side of the lobby while her own image stared straight out on the other side, so that she appeared to be watching the crowd. "I've never seen them throw such a fit!"

"You should have been there when Ben proposed," Sheila said. "I don't think he'll ever top that, between you and me."

Kambree pulled back her arm and lifted her wrist for Cara to see. "Check it out! Your face is on my watch!"

"I know. They've got our faces on everything now. Doritos, lunchboxes. They even have little Amanda Lane action figures. It's kind of sick."

"I think it's flippin' cool!" Kambree said. "I'd love to put my face on crap. Everybody walking around with a little Kambree here and there! Ha!"

"Still weird."

"Just think of kids all over the country eating lunch out of your face!"

-

They took their seats and gabbed some more, and Ben did his best not to eavesdrop. Sheila emerged from the restroom and scooted in beside him with a peck on the cheek. "I understand fun has a new address."

"1138 Adventure Lane," he replied. "The place where dreams begin."

"Silly boy."

The lights went down. Martika's voice rang throughout the theater, singing "Toy Soldiers." _Adventure Lane_ was revealed to the world. He knew no one would get the subtext. They wouldn't know they were watching a film about breaking the power of addiction, even with the poignant words of the opening song. When he made _Johnny Destructo_ , so many years earlier, he'd sat uncomfortably in his seat as the theater erupted in laughter time and again, his message lost in the medium. It didn't bother him anymore.

OCTOBER

The previous evening's tennis game had left Ben with a sore ankle on which he'd been limping all day. By the time he arrived home from work, he was ready to dig up one of his old crutches. He emptied the mailbox before entering the gates. The ten jack-o'-lanterns Cara and her friends had carved lined the gravel road to the garage.

He crashed in the Green Room, in the comfort of the Jackie Gleason chair. As he thumbed through the bills, he passed a letter addressed to Cara from the unmistakable sloppy pen of Peyton. Sheila hung her head through the doorway, pulling off a smock covered in dried paint. "You're late," she said, tossing the smock over her shoulder as she strolled in, one white sock in front of the other on the hardwood. "How's the foot?"

"I need to soak it or something. Do you know where the crutches are?"

"Back of Cara's closet, I think." Cara had had to use crutches in a few scenes in _Adventure Lane_ , and she'd borrowed them to practice, which meant he would have to fiddle with them to get them back to the proper height. "Why didn't you just come home early?"

"Sat in with Stuart on the distributor screening for _Love Language Lost,"_ he said. "Filling in for Hillary. Holly had an audition in San Diego."

"How'd she do?" Sheila asked, leaning over to give him a kiss.

"Don't know yet," Ben said after she let go of him, wiping her lipstick from his face with her thumb. "Big talent search kind of thing. They're putting together something like a female New Kids on the Block, with kids. Called Flirt."

Sheila made a sucking lemon face. "New Kids...so ralphy."

Ben chuckled at her use of the word. "I'm not disagreeing with you. But for Holly's sake, I hope this works out." He continued sifting through the letters. "I talked to Mary this morning."

"Oh?"

"She got a piece of fan mail from some little girl in Texas. Some little girl wrote to her saying Cara is her favorite actress, asking what it was like to star with her."

Sheila laughed. "You're kidding!"

"And get this – the girl sent her a picture of Cara, asking Mary to sign it. And she wrote the girl back. Answered all her questions. Sent her an autographed picture and sent Cara's back with it." Ben came to the last envelope in the stack. The address was written in red crayon, handwriting about as rough as Peyton's. "Weird." He ripped it open and produced a single sheet of typing paper. He unfolded it and found one sentence written in the middle of the page, also in red crayon.

I'M YOUR BIGGEST FAN.

"What does that mean?" Sheila asked.

"Another stalker. Seriously, where do these people come from?"

NOVEMBER

Sheila had just left to teach a class when Ben arrived home from work. He called for Cara and thought he heard her distant reply as he thumbed through the day's mail. He stopped on another letter written in red crayon, also lacking a return address.

_YOU ARE MY WORLD_ , the single sheet told him in big, uneven letters. Signed, _-YOUR BIGGEST FAN_.

Ben climbed the stairs to the second story and heard Frank Sinatra crooning from Cara's room. Most kids would be listening to Paula Abdul or Fine Young Cannibals, and to be fair, she listened to both. But he loved hearing Sinatra just the same.

"Hey there, beautiful!"

Cara looked up from her desk, from her copy of _The Diary of a Young Girl_. "Daddy! Did you know Anne Frank's father was the only one who survived from the Secret Annex?"

He hugged her. "Did you know it wasn't really a diary? It was an autograph book."

Cara flexed the paperback, the thickness creaking under her grip. She'd held her share of autograph books. "How'd she write so much in one of those little things?"

"There was more than one version," Ben said. "She was trying to turn it into a novel when...when she was caught."

"Miss Chen said some schools don't let their kids read it. It's...banned. And not 'cause of the Nazi stuff or anything." Cara dropped her arms into her lap slowly, as if covering herself. "It's 'cause she talks about...her privates."

Ben wanted to chuckle at her discomfort in discussing such a subject with him, but she looked so serious. "Well...sometimes just because something is real doesn't mean people need to see it. Sometimes it's better to just...suggest things instead of showing them. Let the imagination do its thing."

Cara bit at her lip, eyes flickering as she digested what he'd said. He sat on the edge of her bed, waiting for her response.

"That's not fair to her. If she didn't want people to read it, she wouldn't have written it." Ben didn't have time to reply before she added, "You've gotta see everything or you might as well not see it at all."

\- - -

Cara sat between her parents in a darkened theater, watching _The Little Mermaid_. The prince reminded her of Jack as she let herself go in the adventures of the girl from the mysterious and beautiful undersea kingdom, longing for the land. As Ariel sang of being "Part of Your World," Cara thought she'd much rather leave behind the ordinary life of the prince for the unexplored and unpredictable realm beneath the ocean.

-

"So what'd you think?" Ben asked as they drove home.

"What do the mermaids eat?" she asked. "They can't eat the fish 'cause they're their friends."

"Um..." he glanced at Sheila for help. "Seaweed? Kelp?"

"What's kelp?" Cara asked.

"I think it's...just seaweed."

Cara leaned back in her seat, and in the rearview mirror he caught her pressing her forehead against the window, looking out into the night. "Something wrong?"

"Ariel just didn't think about anybody but herself. And her father almost died, and it was her fault."

"OK," Sheila said. "So I guess we should have seen _Back to the Future II_ again."

Amidst the day's mail that awaited them at home, Ben found a blank envelope. He could hear himself swallow as he held it, thinking that even with no markings it looked familiar.

"What's wrong?" Sheila asked.

"No address this time. No stamp. And look..." He held it so they both could read.

_SOMEDAY I'LL BE PART OF YOUR WORLD_. Signed, _–YOUR BIGGEST FAN_.

Sheila sank onto the bed, grasping the page, shoulders moving up and down as her breathing quickened. "What do we do?"

"I've had my share of stalkers and crank letters over the years," he said. "I'm sure it's nothing."

"This was hand-delivered." She rubbed her arm, glancing in the direction of the front of the house. "What if this person is out there now? What if she's following you?"

"Then...I guess we talk to the police."

\- - -

The calls started the Monday after Thanksgiving. Sheila had answered all three of them – no response on the other end but breathing. Constant breathing. Steady, like a slow pulse.

She curled up under a blanket, protected as a child would be from a monster. Ben sat across from her, receiver in one hand, speaking to someone at the police station in a hushed voice. She honed in on his side of the conversation, comforted by his subdued tone and calm brow. There were a lot of yeses and no's, and repeating of all the things she already knew, things he'd already told them the first time he called. She'd grown afraid to answer the phone.

When she was in the seventh grade, an older boy started following her one day. His name was Lou and he was a freshman, and the way he grinned at her, lurking, never talking, always there, had made her feel self-conscious, as if she were somehow encouraging him to think dirty thoughts, or worse, do dirty things. After a week of it, she'd walked home from school with her daddy driving slowly along, maybe half a block behind her. Lou had shown himself, and her daddy had pulled his car up beside him with the window rolled down. She never knew what he'd said to the boy, but Lou had avoided her from then on.

Ben was strong, and he made her feel safe, but in moments like this the little girl in her missed her daddy.

"What did they say?" she asked as he replaced the receiver.

"First of all, they didn't get any fingerprints off the letters. Just ours. They made copies of the handwriting."

"What else did they say?"

"That we should keep the alarm on at all times, for now. Get a community security guard."

Her eyes fell on the unlocked bedroom doorknob. "For the whole street?"

"I'll pay for it myself."

"Do you think that's enough?"

"We can keep an eye on the mailbox."

She thought of strange hands sifting through their letters, strange eyes invading their privacy. Binoculars. "And on Cara."

DECEMBER

The Chipmunks were singing about their two front teeth on Christmas Eve, piped in over the mansion's new interlocking speaker system. The deck for it was in the theater room, where most of the family's Christmas albums were currently being stored.

Ben found Sheila making the bed and crept up behind her. She jumped when he slid his arms around her. "Don't do that!" she said. "Especially not now!" She smelled like the gardenias in the vases on the nightstands. He closed his eyes, breathing her in, holding her tightly. When he let her go, she dropped the pillow she'd been holding. He tried to keep a straight face, a strong face, but she studied him. "What is it?"

He didn't want to say anything. She shouldn't have to know, but he couldn't hide it from her. And after seeing her break so often, he couldn't find the words. She sank down to the bed, hands covering her mouth. "No," she said.

He slipped the letter from his back pocket and spread it open, dropping it on the bed. Red crayon decorated the paper.

"I can't even look at it," Sheila said. "What does it say?"

"'Ignore my love and I will lose control.' Signed, 'Your biggest fan.'"

He looked from her flickering eyes to the dancing flames in the bedroom fireplace, a dozen dangerous scenarios playing in his mind. "Maybe we should go away for a while. Leave the house good and dark. Maybe whoever it is will lose interest. We could hire a private detective to live here and keep a look out."

"Where would we go?"

He searched for an answer. Every word that popped into his head appeared in jagged red. "Memphis," he replied. "Day after Christmas. We'll go to Memphis."

\- - -

Cara and Peyton sat shoulder to shoulder against Peyton's bed, a black cable connecting their new Game Boys together as they played their fourth round of two-player Tetris. Peyton shifted back and forth with the game as Cara's mind drifted past her monochrome screen.

"Why can't I get any lines?" Peyton said. "Agh!"

Cara said nothing as she slid a line in place and four rows disappeared from her display.

"Punk!"

"Sorry."

"Ugh!" Peyton dropped her Christmas present in her lap. "How do you keep beating me every time?"

Cara shut off her unit and pressed her head against the back of the bed. All the Tetris and Super Mario Land couldn't distract her from the uncomfortable silence her parents fell into whenever she'd come near. "Got that _Adventure Lane_ poster, huh?" Above Peyton's bed, Cara's brave image stood beside Lukas's, defying the Orange Troll's plans to leave his world and invade theirs.

"I have the lunchboxes and action figures too! Wanna see?"

"S'all right." Cara's eyes lingered on her own bold face, staring out at the unseen threats surrounding Amanda Lane. "I've seen them."

"Something wrong?"

She looked from _Adventure Lane_ to _Somewhere in Time_ , hanging beside it. "I'm fine."

"You sure?" Peyton asked. "If I flew out to Hollywood to surprise you, I think I'd be freaking out with excitement."

She looked through the movie posters, through the walls, worried about what her parents were telling her aunt and uncle on the other side of the house. She feared she knew. "Stuff going on at home."

"You getting in trouble or something?"

Cara shifted to look at her, and Peyton's face was the face she wanted – identical in every way except for the brown eyes and the growing uncertainty that this spontaneous trip to Tennessee was giving her. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Sure," Peyton said.

Cara hesitated. If her parents were really keeping something from her, there had to be a reason. "I don't think we're really here for vacation."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. I think they're hiding something from me."

"Like what?" Peyton asked.

"Like I think my daddy has a stalker."

"Again?"

"Someone calls us and doesn't say anything. Just listens. And there were some letters. I found them in his dresser. They're all in red crayon, and they all say something like 'I'm your biggest fan.' I can't ask because I'm not supposed to know." Cara's lip trembled and she wished, for a moment, for Peyton's normal room, Peyton's normal life.
1990

JANUARY

The private investigators staying in the mansion reported two weeks of silent phones and mundane mail. No sight or sound from any fan whatsoever, biggest or smallest. Sheila took some convincing, but they finally boarded a plane and bid farewell to the Greens.

The drive back to the house was like a ride to a funeral. Nobody said anything, and as Cara sat between her parents, sneaking peeks at their faces, a knot twisted in her stomach. She clasped Ben's hand, and when he clasped it back and flashed her an uneasy smile, the knot tightened.

Ben held the door open for them, and as they stepped back into the echoing halls of their home, the realization that the danger had passed fell on them with the stale air. They left their luggage by the back stairs and congregated in the kitchen around three bowls of rocky road. Trickles of laughter and affection surfaced in the conversation, an easiness that had disappeared around the time they'd decided to leave for Memphis. Cara sucked on her cold spoon. The funeral was apparently over.

She ate her ice cream as the knot in her stomach slowly faded. Not a mention of the business that drove them out of the house – just her mother and father, and Romeo in the stable outside.

The way it always had been. The way it always should be.

\- - -

Cara had finished her homework after her first day back at school and was well into her second read of _The Diary of a Young Girl_. Perhaps because she had just started keeping her own journal, perhaps because she was about the same age as Anne Frank had been when she wrote it, but something about the book spoke to Cara, especially the opening, as the political climate in Amsterdam slowly took center stage against the breaking down of the cocoon of adolescence, painting the world as a place where Anne was a player, not a mere observer as she had been before the book began.

Her copy had pictures in the middle, and every time she read, she flipped through those black-and-white images, thinking about how those people had no idea what was going to happen to them, let alone that a kid in Beverly Hills would be reading about them one day.

Cara had left her door open so she could hear when her daddy came home, and at the sound of his voice, distant, from the third floor, she slipped in her bookmark and rolled off her bed, stockinged feet landing beside her discarded black pumps. She ran up the stairs to the open double doors of her parents' bedroom, where her mother's suitcase was spread on the bed, half-full of clothes. One of her bras hung over the side.

"Hi, Daddy!" she said as he peeked out of the master bathroom. His work clothes were hung over his reading chair, and he was buttoning the Hawaiian shirt she'd given him for Christmas.

"How was your first day back?" he asked, pulling on the collar.

"They're having a Valentine's dance, and the seventh graders get to go!" she said. "Three boys already asked me!"

Her parents exchanged a glance, and Cara couldn't tell what it meant. Somewhere between pride and regret, she thought. All that mattered was that it wasn't forbidding.

"Well," her mother replied. "Who are you going with?"

"I want to go with Jack, but he didn't ask me."

"So..." her father said.

"So I told them all no."

Sheila folded her suitcase closed. "I bet he'll ask you, sweetie. In the meantime, though, I've got to get myself to the airport. Again."

"Want to come?" her father asked her. "We can have dinner after."

Cara perked up at the idea of eating out with just her daddy. "OK!"

They drove to LAX, checked her mother's bags, and waited by the terminal, making small talk and listening as Cara chattered about the dealings of her day. Sitting in one of the seats at the gate, a little boy holding a comic book was watching her. Cara lowered her head and let her hair hang in her face, as her father had taught her, and eventually the kid went back to reading. Soon enough, they were calling for the flight to board.

His hand lingered on her mother's shoulder. "Do you really have to go?"

"I'll be back bright and early on Cara's birthday, and we're really going to live it up this year, aren't we?"

"Mommy, I'm getting too old for all these parties."

"Well at least one more, OK?"

Her daddy pulled her mommy close as Cara took a step back and watched their faces grow somber. "I don't want you to go," he said. "Just stay."

"I'll be back before you know it."

"And must we be divided? Must we part?" he asked, and Cara knew he was quoting Shakespeare, as they always did, but she had no idea which play, which line.

Her mother kissed him and touched his lips with her finger. "Ah, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart."

She hugged them both, and Cara held his hand as they watched her disappear up the walkway to her plane. The moment passed, and he turned to her with wide eyes. "Now it's just you and me. We're going to have so much fun while she's gone!"

She giggled. "Silly Daddy."

He lived up to his word. Whenever Cara wasn't coasting through her homework, they coasted the streets. He took her to all her favorite restaurants. He took her to Disneyland with Luke York and the Louden girls, then Universal Studios with Kambree. Michael J. Fox was there, doing something or another for _Back to the Future III,_ and she just about died when they got to meet him. They conducted their own private film festival in the mansion's theater room.

By the time her mother's trip was near its end, they'd all but run out of things to do.

FEBRUARY

The day before Cara's twelfth birthday was like any other day at Madison Chase. Her science class watched a video about AIDS, and her teacher kept pausing it because of the obnoxious boys snickering in the back of the room. Her history class learned about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, but Los Angeles had enough earthquakes that she didn't see why they didn't learn about the local ones. And in lunch, posters went up for the Valentine's dance the school would be hosting in a few weeks. Six boys had asked her since it was first announced, and by fifth period, she'd been asked by two more.

After her last class, she merged into the bustling hallways, glancing here and there through the familiar faces, searching for one in particular.

"Hey Cara!" Jack called to her as he pressed himself through the throng.

She told herself to stay cool, and when that didn't work, she pretended she was acting. "Where were you today?" She was casual and calm, despite the thrill she felt when his hand swung out, grazing hers.

"Dentist appointment." An older boy brushed by him and looked Cara up and down with a raised eyebrow. She ignored him. "So are you excited about Saturday?" Jack asked.

"My parents overdo these things."

"I don't know. I think it's cool."

"Yeah, but–" She sighed. Nobody else at school had parties anymore, but she seemed to be the only one who thought she'd outgrown them. "It's cool."

"So, who are you going to the dance with?"

Her senses flared, but she shook her head slowly, tracing the floor with her toe. "No one yet."

"Oh," he said. She noticed his hand twitching. "I had a funny thought. What if you went with me?"

She kept her eyes constant and tried not to let the smile burst across her face. "I might like that."

"Really?" His brown hair fluttered for a moment as he leaned in and out again, as if he had expected her to turn him down.

She pretended to consider it for a moment. "Sure!" He appeared to grow an inch taller as she shut her locker and tugged on his sleeve. "Gotta go!"

"All right! And happy birthday!"

She stepped out into the afternoon sun, wanting to curl up in her bed and relive the last minute until she'd convinced herself it had really happened. She spotted the silver Lexus parked against the sidewalk, forgetting Jack for a moment. Mr. York was supposed to pick her up, but she opened the door and peered in, and her daddy grinned back from within the tinted interior. "Hey there!"

"I thought you had to work today!"

He kissed her cheek as she slipped in and buckled up, placing her bag gently on the floor between her feet. "So I took the afternoon off. It's your birthday tomorrow, and I need a little more father-daughter time before the old ball and chain comes rolling back."

"Where are we going?"

He put down his window, then hers, opening her sunglasses case so she could wear her shades. "For a drive. It's such a nice day out. Maybe we'll end up at the beach, go for a walk. Who knows?"

-

Ben pushed away his plate, a few bites of swordfish and asparagus still swimming in the butter sauce that had spoiled his appetite for dessert. He'd been to Broussard's so many times, and he kept coming back because he loved the quiet elegance of the place. Even when they were packed, he could hear the music they played – Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie – great tunes that reminded him of times when the simplest of lyrics had more power than the poetry he'd studied in school. Something about the acoustics drowned the restaurant noise. And the lights were always dimmed. It was easy to forget his wasn't the only table in the place.

"Can I have it?" Cara asked. He nodded, and she pulled the rest of his meal in front of her, stabbing at the tender fish with her clean salad fork. Butter dripped, and she leaned in so that it fell on the plate, not on her school-uniform skirt.

He saw the hostess in the distance, remembering when Hillary used to work there, practically a child, wearing that same black dress when she'd shown him to his table. The waiter appeared, collecting Cara's empty plate.

"I hope you saved room for dessert," he said. "We have crème brûlée with a cinnamon custard and Trinity–"

"Couldn't eat another bite," Weston said, cutting him off. Hillary had told him that most waiters she'd known would prefer to be interrupted rather than deliver a speech to someone who had no intention of buying what they were trying to sell. "Everything was perfect. Just the bill."

The waiter placed an empty check holder on the table. "Compliments of the house. The manager wishes you a happy birthday, Miss Camden."

"Thank you," she mumbled, her mouth full of swordfish.

"That's very kind of you," Ben said, sliding his credit card onto the empty holder.

"Thank you, sir."

Ben watched him leave, then turned back to his hungry girl as Cara put down her fork with a groan. "I got sauce on my skirt."

"Your first birthday present. I was hoping I'd get to give you your first."

"Daddy, come on. You gave me...the best week ever! Definitely my first gift."

"Yeah, well, your mom'd kill me if she knew how much we've been eating out."

Cara's face caught the candlelight. "It'll be our secret," she said, and he marveled at how lovely she looked, almost twelve years old, with those stunning eyes. All the Camden's had heavy brows, casting shadows, but not her. She had Green eyes. "You know what I would like for my birthday?" she asked.

"What's that?"

She placed her hands in her lap. "I want to tell you a real secret. My biggest one."

She was so serious. He wondered what kind of deep secret a girl her age could have. "All right."

"And you can't tell anyone."

"Sure."

She watched him, as if trying to determine whether or not she could really trust him. "And you have to tell me yours."

"My biggest secret?" he asked, and she nodded. "All right."

"Well, OK." She chewed her lip for a moment, and he gave her the time she would need. "Remember when I kissed Lukas? In the movie?"

"Yes."

"That wasn't my first kiss."

"No kidding. Who'd you kiss first?"

"Jack," she said. "At my tenth birthday party."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

Her face lit up with more than the candle flicker as she brushed at her soiled clothing. "He asked me to the dance!"

"That's great."

"So can I go?"

She stared back with a hopeful smile, and he pictured her dressed up, maybe not red-carpet level, but brimming with excitement on the arm of Jack, his hair all slicked back, wearing a suit that didn't quite fit. "Of course. That's your biggest secret?"

She withdrew against her chair, and he sensed he'd put her on the defensive. "Yes."

"OK. Well, that's something."

The waiter returned the credit card with a silent nod, and Ben jotted out his tip on the receipt. "Now you tell me yours," she said.

His biggest secret. It didn't take him long to think of what it was. She sat watching him, waiting, and he could read in her face how important this was to her. He weighed it carefully, fearing that it might not be right to tell a child her age. But she looked so grown up, sitting there in the candlelight. She'd trusted him, no matter how insignificant her secret might have been.

"All right. And you can't tell anyone either."

"I won't," she said.

He thought back to the time, so many years ago, when he couldn't fall asleep because he'd taken too many of those cursed acid gel tabs. Waking up in the hospital, teeth black and sticky with charcoal. Everyone worried he'd tried to kill himself. The incoherent drawings he'd made that night were still hidden somewhere in his desk. "You know how, before you were born, I...there were three other...children..."

"Yes." She was calm and quiet, and her affectionate gaze didn't falter.

"Well, there weren't three. There were four."

"Four?" Her voice tilted low, and she looked at him the way his mother had looked at him when he told her he'd cheated on Julia, the last time he ever saw her sweet face. Cara's gaze fell to her plate as she sat in silence for a moment. "So...I was number five?"

"You were number one." He took her soft little hand in his. "And you always will be."

-

After Cara breezed through her homework, they curled up together in the theater room to watch her father's favorite film, _Modern Times_. She enjoyed his stories about Charlie Chaplin and the good old days almost as much as the movie, which he'd shown her before. He told her tales of his childhood, in the same house, tales she'd already heard but always loved to hear. Ones she would never forget.

Her favorite scene was when Charlie and Paulette had the run of the department store at night, alone. They strapped on skates and rolled across the floors, and when Charlie almost fell off the ledge without a rail, he declared, on a title card, _Look! I can do it blindfolded!_ And with that he wrapped a bandanna over his eyes and proceeded to roller skate back and forth, running along the edge and never falling down to the lower floor. Every time he came close she braced herself, even though she knew he'd never go down.

Cara didn't know what to think of her father's secret, of the fourth sibling she might have had, but she'd never really known what to think of the first three either. If they were there in the house, she might not ever have come along. It was something she wasn't sure if she'd ever bring up to him again.

And then Charlie and Paulette walked off into the sunset as the orchestral recording of "Smile" soared to its conclusion and the screen faded to black. It was only then that she realized how tired she was. It must have been because of how much she'd eaten.

They retreated back to the den, and Cara could feel her eyelids growing heavier. "Look! It's almost midnight!" her daddy said, and Cara turned to the old grandfather clock. "You're almost twelve!"

She actually felt older, watching that hand near the top of its arc.

"What do you say to a birthday dance?"

"All right!"

Ben went to the stereo and put in Nat King Cole's rendition of "Smile" on the record player, the needle scratching along as the strings picked up in the recording. He offered his hand. "May I have this dance?"

"You may." She moved in close, and Ben and Cara Camden slow danced to their song.

His tender energy soothed her, and she sighed with content. Everything in her life was clear, definite. Maybe the world of dreams that had frightened and beckoned to her had finally lost its power, and here in this room, Ben was the reality that kept her grounded and alive. He was her rock. Her champion. Her hero.

He was her world.

And then the chimes announced the passing of a day and the dawning of another. Her father knelt beside her, face to face.

"Happy birthday, Cara Camden."

She touched his cheek with her fingertips. "Thanks, Daddy."

"I'll love you forever," he said, and all she wanted was to keep dancing, to sway and turn and stay in his arms.

"Promise?" she asked.

Her father let her go and gave her a slow kiss on her forehead. "One does one's best."
February 2, 1990
Deep into the night, the Camden mansion stood still and silent.

Ben slept on the left side of the bed in the master suite, which opened into the top floor along the oak banisters of the staircase and looked down into the white marble of the main foyer two stories below. The right side was empty, awaiting the return of his wife, at dawn, from her trip to Chicago. Cara slept as well, a floor beneath him. Her slumber was clean and dreamless, fingers curling and uncurling beneath her pillow.

On the first floor, the old pine grandfather clock, a gift to the family from Jack Warner, announced the passing of another hour from the recesses of the den. Outside, a few leaves floated on the surface of the swimming pool in which Joseph Yule Jr. first met Francis Gumm, before they were ever Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Cara's pony, Romeo, nibbled at his leg, trying to get comfortable amidst the sticks of brittle hay in the creaking stable where pickup shots had been filmed for _National Velvet_.

On the other side of the house, a soft wind blew old grass clippings out like earthly constellations across the white wood floor of the gazebo by the garden, the same gazebo featured in the finale of _Identrix_ , Ben Camden's directorial debut.

Along the empty sidewalk of Camden Drive, hands went to work with skill and care. In a matter of minutes, the gate to the estate, which had stood longer than most of the houses in Beverly Hills, swung open and limp in the night breeze. A pair of shoes padded across the pebbles of the driveway where Ben's father had taken his first steps shortly before his first birthday – March 13, 1916. A silhouette moved toward the hibernating house that had sheltered generations of the Camden family.

Two gloves worked the metal. The lock jostled, twitched, and clicked, and the seventy-year-old front double doors swung open into the grand foyer, rendered as useless as the gate. The alarm system's warning beeps were muted by the poor acoustics, and a few quick keystrokes silenced it. Two eyes probed the darkness of the mansion. Two feet disappeared into its black hallways.

Minutes later, the lights came on in the kitchen.

-

"Get up."

Ben blinked away the slumber. "Cara?" he asked, voice stiff.

"Get up."

In an instant he was awake, leaping to his feet as the light clicked on. A man, face hidden behind a red ski-mask, stood at the foot of the bed, brandishing a pistol. Black shirt, no jacket. Tall. Thin. Steady. Ben just stared for a moment, the reality of the situation keeping him from doing anything rash.

"Hands up."

His thoughts flew to Cara as he obeyed. Whatever happened, he couldn't say or do anything to reveal he was not alone in the house. "What do you want?" he asked. Fear emptied him of strength, but he took a breath, moved slowly.

The man threw a pair of handcuffs on the bed. "Behind your back." His voice was gravel.

"Who are you?" Ben asked, following the instructions. His hands hung at the bottom of his spine, locked. _Cara, wake up_ , he thought. _Wake up and run._

"Go downstairs," the man instructed. "To the kitchen."

Ben didn't even look in the direction of Cara's room when they hit the second story. He moved calmly, steadily.

The lights were on as they entered the kitchen, its marble floor spotless, the matching countertops neat and orderly. Several lengths of rope had been dropped in a pile, and one piece was laid out in a line. "Sit down," the man ordered. Ben obliged, legs outstretched and eyes on the barrel of the gun. The man looped the rope, binding his ankles. He put down the weapon and used both hands to finish tying. As soon as the gun was clear, Ben lunged with both feet, trying to kick it away and strike a blow to the man's face. The intruder reacted, crushing Ben's nose with his heel.

Ben fell to the floor, shuddering from the blow, nostrils filling with blood. He made no further attempt to fight back as the intruder recovered himself and returned to finishing off Ben's legs.

The man took another, longer piece of rope, looping it through the floor-length handles of the stainless steel refrigerator's double doors and through Ben's useless arms. He was strapped hard, back uncomfortable and cold through his pajama top against the curves of metal. He could move his knees, but nothing else. Ben fought to remain calm, reasoning that after going to all this trouble, maybe the intruder didn't intend to kill him.

Fear tightened in his lungs when the man laid a third piece of rope on the floor, then retrieved the gun and retreated into the dark hallways.

Ben pulled at his bonds, but they wouldn't give. He took quick gasps through his mouth. He couldn't see much from his vantage point, searching for something, anything that could help him. A scream would be useless – Cara wouldn't hear him from the kitchen. And there was still a chance that she'd be overlooked.

_Dear God_ , he prayed. _Do whatever you want with me. Take my life if you have to. But please don't take my girl_.

-

"Get up."

Cara awoke to the strange voice and saw the human shape in the shadows. She sensed the room had been invaded. She'd dreamed something like this many times, each phantom with a different shape, a different face. Her skin flushed with cold and her lungs seized as the silhouette turned on the lights, and the red of the ski-mask burned her retinas.

"Who are you?" she asked, and it was the voice she had in nightmares. Hoarse, deep, masculine. The whole room took on the same crimson shade as his mask.

"Get up."

He leveled the gun, and every sense in her body came alive and alert. Her mind collected each piece of information about the moment: the cool temperature of the air, the thin black lines tracing the curve of his mask, the loose laces of his sneakers, the rocky pitch of his voice. "Don't hurt me!" she said, covering her face, hoping she could erase him.

"Get up."

She stood, her nightgown with the angel on it covering her from neck to ankle. He threw a pair of handcuffs on the bed. "Behind your back." She cried with bewilderment, hoping any moment she would awaken, as she had from countless other bad dreams. But the steel bit into her wrists, cold and real.

"Downstairs. To the kitchen." His fierce brown eyes watched her every movement. She would never forget those eyes. Not ever.

-

Ben heard Cara's gentle sobs drawing near. Every muscle tensed, but all his struggle couldn't budge him an inch. She entered the kitchen, hands cuffed, and the man came in right after her.

"Daddy?" she cried.

"It's going to be all right," he said, not believing it for a moment. "I promise."

Minutes later Cara was bound to the bar of the oven with stiff, unforgiving rope, facing Ben across the room. The intruder had their constant attention as he turned one of the burners on the stove to its highest setting and lifted the tea kettle. He took it to the sink and turned the knob. Water poured from the faucet as he tilted the pot beneath the stream.

"What are you going to do?" Ben asked, feigning calm for Cara's sake.

The man set the kettle on the heating burner without a word. He turned from father to daughter, slowly, then left them with the clatter of his shoes on the marble as he disappeared into the house.

"Are you all right?" Ben asked. Cara nodded through her soft whimpers, each one filling him with more helplessness. "What do you want with us?" he shouted. "Whatever it is, you can have it!" Nothing. They sat in silence until the pot whistled, boring into their ears. Invasive. The sound became synonymous with the intruder's presence.

It stung their senses for over a minute, a sonic torture session. The intruder returned with slow, calm steps, as if he belonged there. In one gloved hand he clutched a can of Lysol – purple and white. He opened his other hand, revealing a box of matches so they could both see it, as if this was some kind of performance. Those two things, together, clicked in Ben's mind. He froze against the refrigerator door, and as fast as his heart was pounding, he couldn't feel it. Not when he began to realize what was coming.

The man knelt beside Ben, clutching the Lysol. Ben shot a glance at Cara, hanging from her shoulders and gasping against the rope. "Cara, shut your eyes," he said, but she wasn't listening. The intruder held the top of the can inches over Ben's legs and pressed down on the nozzle. The liquid sprayed out, first teasing his pajama bottoms with moisture like weak morning dew, but he moved the can back and forth, from Ben's waist to his ankles, each pass saturating the cloth until it clung to his legs, puddling and cold. The sterile fragrance of fresh linen filled his bloody nostrils. "Cara, shut your eyes!" he said again, but she didn't blink.

The can spat air, and the intruder dropped it. It clattered to the marble with a hollow timbre. "Please don't," Ben whispered as the teapot's song bored into his senses with the scent of the Lysol. The intruder pulled three matches from the little box, one at a time, again presenting them as if this was a show. He struck them together against the back of the box, each match head erupting in miniature flames with a sinister hiss. The three pulses of light caught him like the hypnotic horn of a snake charmer, three trails of smoke growing stronger as the black scorching spread across the wood.

"Cara, shut your eyes!" he shouted.

With deliberate movement, the intruder dropped the matches onto Ben's legs. Ben expected the flames to shoot off in different directions, but faster than he could see, the three became one, enveloping his thighs in searing heat and blinding light, rushing down his shins to his ankles until he could feel nothing above the waist, and below that his pain sensors were going into overdrive, shutting down like overloaded circuit breakers.

"Daddy!" Cara gasped, the word catching in her throat, and he barely heard it over the roar of the fire and his own agonizing scream, echoing across the marble, against the walls.

The black smoke that choked out the flames, and his breathing, didn't cut off his vision, and through the torment, the whine of the teapot ceased. The intruder pulled the plug from the spout, and again imbuing his actions with theatrical flair, he tilted it down until the boiling water poured out, snuffing the flames in lines, in patterns, steam mixing with the smoke, wet and dry at the same time. He tilted it further, moving back and forth as he had with the Lysol, until the pot was empty and the flames were gone.

Had he been naked, the scalding water would have run off to the ground. Instead it replaced the flames, clinging to him and searing away the remnants of his skin. He kicked, ropes ripping into his arms as he struggled. He was melting.

As his screams faded to gasps of helpless anguish, Ben watched Cara's eyes follow the intruder. The masked man observed them for a moment in silence, as if taking pleasure in his work, then with a slow, peaceful stroll, he left the kitchen again.

"Daddy..." Cara whimpered.

-

HE made sporadic appearances over the next several hours, each time returning with some new plaything to use against them. Cara had coughed all the smoke out of her lungs by the time HE knelt over her daddy again, brandishing a pair of pliers that caught the light just right and flashed her so she couldn't see. She blinked it away as HE lifted her daddy's weak hand and placed the mouth of the pliers against his thumb. HE turned to her again, as if she were HIS audience, then squeezed, harder and harder until she heard the splintering of the bone like a lobster claw in a seafood cracker. HE snapped the other nine fingers as well, each time eliciting less of a response from her daddy. He blinked with half-open eyes, and she knew any minute he would pass out from the pain.

The ropes had sawed into her skin by the time HE came in with the heavy duty flashlight, clicking it on and off, holding her daddy's eyes open inches from the burning bulb. Her throat was numb from crying and screaming when HE slipped the plastic bag over her daddy's head, and she watched him struggle to breathe, the bag sucking up into his mouth like a vacuum. HE would pull it away and her daddy would gasp for air, then HE would slide it back down again, holding it in place.

Every moment burned itself into her brain, as hot as the fire and water that had seared her father's skin. Every new torture brought screams and whimpers as she begged this man not to hurt him. HIS response was always to turn and leave. HE could be in any room, and HE could return at any moment.

The bar on the oven door dug into the back of her head as she pressed herself against it, watching her daddy writhe. The cold marble of the kitchen floor ate through the thin fabric of her nightgown, and she thought she could still see steam hovering in the air around his knees. "Daddy?" She could still hear the teapot whistling, the Lysol can and matches hissing.

"I love you." His voice cracked, and she couldn't bear to look at him any more than she could bear to look away. "Do you know that?"

"Daddy!"

"You are so beautiful," he said. She blinked the tears from her eyes, amazed she hadn't run dry.

Their voices fell silent at HIS return. HE slid a kitchen knife from the caddy on the counter and stood over her daddy, as HE had so many times already. And then HE turned to Cara. The ticking of the clock stopped. Her father's gasping halted. Slow, intentional footsteps pounded her eardrums like gongs as the animal approached her.

"Don't do it," her daddy begged from where he hung, legs withered and useless. "I'll give you anything you want. Just don't hurt my daughter. Please don't hurt her!"

The man knelt as Cara's nostrils flared. She picked up HIS scent, the faint sent of sawdust in the air. Her eyes focused, taking in every still frame. HE put the knife to her throat.

"Don't do it!" her daddy screamed.

The blunt of the blade pressed against her skin, as cold as the handcuffs, sliding from her jaw to her shoulder. Her nightgown tugged and pulled on her as the sharp edge tore into it. The jagged ripping of the cloth filled her ears as he cut it all the way down. The garment fell to the floor beneath her, useless, as she lay before the invader, naked and helpless. She pressed herself against the oven as if she could escape if she pushed hard enough. She breathed in loud and stilted gulps of Lysol and burned flesh.

The man removed his gloves. She could sense something from HIM that repulsed her. The intruder hungered for her somehow. HE reached out and put HIS coarse white hands on her naked, twelve-year-old body, and she jolted against the floor. The sensation of HIS fingers made her recoil. HE took his time, exploring her like an infant with a new toy. HE slid his hands against her and caressed her flesh, tracing the budding curves of her breasts. The pink tip of HIS tongue protruded from the mask, gracing her nipple, and HE shuddered with delight, letting out a low grunt of satisfaction. HE inhaled, HIS nose nuzzling her chest. Smelling her. HIS fingers moved again, down her skin, along the rim of her belly button, moving down, further down, more terrifying than anything that had happened to her daddy.

"I'll fucking kill you!" her father shouted. "Get your fucking hands off her!"

The ropes burned deeper as they rode up into her armpits. The intruder's fingers danced past her waist, igniting too many impulses for her to process. Inhuman, animal fires. HIS hands disappeared between her legs, and she cringed at the sensation. Her stomach lurched, and her dinner rushed up her throat. Partially digested swordfish and salmon Caesar salad filled her mouth as she pulled forward against the rope, spraying it across her naked body and into HIS face. HE snapped back, abandoning HIS exploration to wipe the traces of fish from HIS mask. The only thing more frightening than HIS fingers was wondering how HE would react.

As the warm pastiness dripped down her skin, HE pulled away, replaced his gloves and, brandishing the knife, rose again. Tears ran down the sides of her face, and she didn't know if they were tears of relief or because of the lingering memory of HIS tongue, HIS warm breath, HIS fingers. She'd saved herself, that's all she knew. HE moved away from her, stepping back to the prime focus of HIS work. She cried and struggled to cover herself, curling her legs up as best as she could.

The invader knelt again and, as HE had done to Cara, cut the shirt from her father's body. The knife swayed back and forth in front of her daddy's eyes. The blade touched his chest and dug into the skin, and the ropes dug in further on her as she squirmed. He screamed with pain again, shaking as the tip cut him. She couldn't see from where she hung, but she imagined the intruder making little doodles, like a child with no artistic talent trying to fill a page. Blood dripped from the wounds, collecting in the remnants of his shirt. That she could see in vivid color.

"Leave my daddy alone!" Cara screamed.

As her voice rung in the distance, the man rose and disappeared again further into the house.

-

Ben watched the first traces of orange beckon through the bay windows that faced out to the pool. How many mornings had he watched the sunrise there as a boy? A million memories of that kitchen flooded his mind as light flooded the sky. Chelsea Blythe at his sister Laura's birthday party. His father lounging with Jack Kennedy by the sink while his mother peeled the skin off a bucketful of potatoes. His mother teaching him how to dance when he was six. Jackie Gleason playing with that coffee pot before he spilled it all over the rug in the Green Room. Coming in that morning after Cara fell out of her crib, Sheila cold and distant. His baby girl laughing.

"Cara," he breathed.

She looked up, half awake. "Daddy?"

"It's dawn. That means your mother's on her way home. Right now."

She blinked back to alertness. "She is?"

"Yes." The lingering pain crippled him as he struggled to breathe.

"Are we going to be OK?"

_Sheila_. "I hope so." Cara would be, at any rate. He had no idea if he'd ever walk again.

The intruder emerged, and Ben thought he heard the man humming. He stood in the doorway, framed by the morning sun pouring in from the skylight in the hallway. He brought nothing new this time, but the gun he'd had when he first arrived was in his hand again. The gloved index finger caressed the trigger.

The intruder knelt over the mess that had been the bottom half of Ben's body, and with steady swagger, he pressed the cold barrel of the pistol against Ben's forehead, not hard, just enough to flood his senses with yet another singular reality.

"Cara!" Ben said, knowing she wouldn't shut her eyes, no matter how much he begged her. "Cara, I love you."

"Daddy!" she gasped, her naked body squirming with panic.

He ignored the weapon, smiling at the only person in the world who mattered in that moment, maybe the only one who'd ever really mattered. "I promise, everything's going to–"

-

Cara jolted at the sound of the gunshot. She pressed her eyes shut, but it was too late. She already knew. Her father's body spasmed and his head cracked against the steel refrigerator as the gun lit up and the bullet cut through his forehead in a spray of red and gray. His head lulled forward, limp, but HE pressed it back against the refrigerator, holding it in place with the gun. HE squeezed the trigger again, and again, and again, until she couldn't see the tip of the weapon, buried in what was left of her daddy's face.

As the blast of the last bullet faded, she heard nothing but the soft, squishy sound of her father's blood emptying itself from the crater that had once been his left eye, rushing down and painting everything crimson. It sounded like the babbling of a brook.

Lightheaded from the bitter taste of the smoke she'd inhaled, the ringing in her ears from the bullets, still feeling HIS hands on her, she tried to scream, but all she heard was a primal cry. What had once been Benjamin Weston Camden now hung limp from half-burned rope. Four bullets were lodged in the refrigerator behind him, slowly dripping blood down the polished steel.

She bellowed, making noises she'd never heard from a human. She wouldn't stop, couldn't stop.

The intruder stood over her. She fell silent, horror gripping her jaw, and just stared at HIM. And then HE lifted HIS arm, grasping the top of the mask, and slowly pulled it away until she could see HIS face.

Every other sight, every other sound and smell abandoned her, leaving her senseless and honed. There was nothing, nothing but clear, alien brown eyes. Nothing but rusty red hair, much duller than the mask. Nothing but the twitching nostrils of a slender nose. From where she sat, HE was the tallest person she'd ever seen. HE might as well have been a giant.

The Giant was her world.

And then HE spoke. "It wasn't supposed to be this way."

"What?" she shrieked.

The Giant looked over her naked body, covered in dried vomit, and she caught a brief glimpse of his tongue, as if he was remembering what she tasted like. "It wasn't supposed to be this way," HE said again. "I'm your biggest fan."

-

The taxi's tires crunched up the gravel driveway. The gate was hanging open when Sheila arrived, and something was off about that. "Up at the front," she told the driver, pointing. In the distance she saw the double doors hanging open like the gate. She paid for the ride, grabbed her suitcases, and hurried up the steps.

"Hello?"

Sheila came through the doors, open and limp, and dropped her bags to the ground. Something smelled funny, like an overcooked steak left on the grill until it was nothing but ash. "Hello?" she called again.

"Mommy!" Cara's scream echoed down the hallway, as loud as if she'd been in the same room.

Sheila raced toward the source of the scream like a sprinter. And when she burst into the kitchen, the sight struck her harder than she'd ever been hit before. Her daughter, bound to the oven, naked, shivering, and covered in vomit. And her husband, melted across the floor and splattered all over the refrigerator. She barely recognized him.

"Mommy!"

She backed against the wall as the wind abandoned her lungs. The door to the patio and pool hung open on the other side of the room. She screamed as Cara hung against the oven. She looked from her daughter to what was left of her husband. There was no time to process. She didn't know if he was alive, and she didn't know which of them to go to first.

"Mommy!" Cara shrieked. "He got out the back!"

She couldn't think beyond what she saw. Someone had done this; someone had gotten out the back. It went through her mind without a thought. Sheila dropped to her daughter's side, pulling off her jacket and wrapping it around Cara's bare chest and waist. "Cara?" was all she managed to say. Her head throbbed as all her blood rushed upward, and a spell of dizziness washed over her. She felt the lurch of nausea and fought it back.

Cara pressed against her, needing her, and Sheila held her there. She kissed the girl's sweaty hair again and again and struggled to loosen the rope, a pair of handcuffs around her girl's wrists, thumping against the oven. As she drew Cara close, shivering with horror, her eyes couldn't escape what was left of Ben.

\- - -

The mansion bustled with activity as police combed each floor. A paramedic flashed a light in Cara's eyes as Sheila held her steady, otherwise she would rock back and forth, arms wrapped around her knees. An oxygen mask was strapped to her face to flush out the smoke. She didn't respond to the penlight; her eyes were vacant as she shivered, clutching at her shirt as if it might fall off.

"Cara?" Sheila said, but her girl wouldn't look at her. "Do you think you can answer a few questions for the policeman?" She just rocked back and forth, breath steaming up the clear plastic of the oxygen mask, staring into the distance. "Cara?" Sheila moved into her field of vision, and those wide, unblinking green eyes glared through her as if she wasn't there.

"It's all right, ma'am. We can come back later." The flashing reds and blues of three police cruisers and an ambulance reflected off the marble floors as the double doors hung open.

Cara moved forward and backward, and Sheila sank to the floor. "I'm sorry," she said to the officer standing over them. She couldn't bear the thought of being alone, not in this house, but she needed them to leave. She couldn't sort through any of it until she could concentrate on her girl.

"If you can get her to give you a statement, you can write it down for her. Would that be all right?"

She nodded. "Yes, thank you."

"Sheila?"

She lifted her swollen eyes at the sound of Hillary's voice from the hallway, and her old friend dropped her purse at the door, joining mother and daughter there amidst the bustle of police activity.

"Hill..."

"Are you all right?"

Hillary and Sheila spoke in whispers, sinking under the weight of grief, unable yet to face what had happened to Ben, but Cara's despondency disturbed them just as much. Cara didn't appear to acknowledge Hillary's presence.

"Did she see any of it?"

"She said she was blindfolded. He must have taken it off her in the end. I don't think she was..." Sheila choked on the word. "...raped. I don't think she was. But something happened to her that..." She didn't know how to finish the sentence.

Sheila knew Cara was listening, tilting slightly at the crucial points of the conversation, but she never turned her head, never said a word.

By evening, family and friends filled the house and hung outside the gates, comforting Sheila and Cara and paying their respects to the Great One they had lost. The Yorks, the Danielses, the Elvins. The Greens were in the air, headed for LAX. The Loudens. All the Camdens and Westons from the area. And when Mary Tyler Moore stepped through the door, Sheila lost it.

"I can't believe he's gone!" she wept, face buried in Mary's shoulder. "My Ben is gone! And my baby girl..."

"I know. I know."

-

Mary sat beside the despondent Cara. "How're you doing, sweetheart?" she asked.

I'm your biggest fan.

It was her fault; every moment of it. The pliers, the flashlight. The Lysol, the matches. The bullets. It was her fault. She couldn't answer any of the questions, not then, not ever. And as quickly as it all happened she had invented the lie that would keep the world from knowing her daddy was dead because of her.

The last movie she and her father had watched together. Charlie Chaplin on roller skates. _Look! I can do it blindfolded!_

A blindfold. Always a blindfold. She'd seen none of it. Only heard it. She had nothing to tell them, no clues to offer. She'd been blindfolded. They had no reason not to believe her.

Cara turned to Mary with dry eyes and hugged her as tightly as she could.

-

Mourners from all around gathered beyond the gates, holding candles and singing songs, peering inside at the home of one of Hollywood's brightest stars, now extinguished. Journalists jockeyed for position among the crowd. A reporter for the local NBC station stood before her camera.

"Tonight's top story: fans of Hollywood legend Benjamin Weston Camden have gathered to pay their respects to the Great One, who was found dead in his Beverly Hills home this morning." She turned the microphone away from the wind. "Shot to death, the controversial celebrity bad boy-turned-father figure, known to his fans as Weston, was discovered by his wife, world-renowned artist Sheila Camden, moments after her return home from a lecture series at the University of Chicago. Reports are conflicting at this time, but it is believed that Weston and his daughter, Cara, were held hostage in the kitchen of their home on Camden Drive, which you see behind me. Young Cara and her father were both tortured, but she did not share Weston's tragic fate."

-

Within, Cara sat with Kambree in what had once been the safety of her bedroom as her mother stood in the hallway with Mary, watching them. "What do you think happens when people die?" Kambree asked.

"My daddy's not dead."

Cara watched Kambree search her face for some understanding. "If you say so, I believe you."

"He's not!" Cara insisted.

"I'm so scared for her," she heard her mother say, out in the hall. "I've never been so scared!"

"At least she didn't see any of it," Mary said.

Cara watched her mother wipe away a tear. "All she said was, 'It's my fault.' How could she think it's her fault?"

Mary locked eyes with the empty girl who saw and heard every word, all senses wide and alert. "Everything's changed now, Sheila. Ben's gone, and we'll never forget him. But Cara's still here, and everything's changed."

Cara leaned against Kambree's shoulder, and the two girls held each other in silence.

Daddy's coming back. I know he is. Daddy's coming back.

Cara closed her eyes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads. Even a line or two would be incredibly helpful. Let other readers know what you think!

Gregory Attaway hails from Fort Worth, Texas. He has lived in and around Dallas-Fort Worth for most of his life, having also lived briefly on both coasts. A graduate of the University of North Texas, Gregory lives with his wife Sandra, his dogs, Cara and Lois, and his imaginary friends.

A writer since the second grade, Gregory's completed projects include The Glen Headwood Show – exclusively available for free to subscribers to his e-mail list. Sign up here!

He has written three other books in _The Great Ones_ series – Weston _,_ Joe _,_ and Freshmankind _._ The fourth book, Dreams, will be released on December 26, 2018 and is available for pre-order. It started as a series of six screenplays written in the early 2000s, and there are more books coming in the next few years.

Other stories are in the works as well. For information on upcoming releases and other updates, make sure to sign up for his e-mail list (and grab your free book).

Feel free to follow him on Twitter, get in touch with him on Facebook, or send him an e-mail. He looks forward to hearing from you, and will answer all e-mails personally.

Visit his website at gregoryattaway.com.

