Flavor of the Month Read Online Free Page B

few cuties, but it was pleasant, even powerful, to go back to Mary Jane. It let him off the hook with them. And he had promised her nothing. Absolutely nothing. He’d always been clear about that. Still, she grew on him. It became natural to stay at her house: it was comfortable there, with a soup always cooking on the back burner, and his laundry sorted and folded and even ironed. He’d had a chance to regroup, to lick his wounds. It was like going back to the womb. Her big body was motherly. And she believed in him the way his own thin, beautiful, wasted bitch of a mother never had. Mary Jane’s belief and talent sustained him. They worked together all day, intense in the Jack and Jill rehearsals, and then they comforted one another at night. She might be the first and only woman that he’d ever really loved. He’d even been tempted to ask her to marry him. Not that he was the marrying kind.
    She’d brought him luck. When the play hit, it was her performance that got raves, that drew in the crowds. They moved it to a larger theater, but were still Standing Room Only. He knew she was a cinch for the Obie. She believed he’d get one, or maybe two. They had: Best Actress, Best Play, Best Director.
    So, instead of slitting his throat before he was forty, as he’d planned, he was flying out to the coast and making a movie. He’d held out for getting to direct it. His agent was sick about it: she didn’t like to work for her money, but in this case she’d had to. No sale of Jack and Jill unless he, Sam Shields, got to direct. And, finally, Hollywood had gone for it.
    But he wasn’t going to get to enjoy the triumph. No. Because Hollywood was definitely not going to risk sixteen million dollars on a plain, fat, unknown actress for the lead, even if the role called for one, even if it was, as they said, “a small film.” It was a part of the deal from the get-go. Crystal Plenum was interested. If she signed, it was a guaranteed money-maker. So he got to be the bad guy, to break the news to Mary Jane. Try being happy looking at spaniel eyes that followed you everywhere, spaniel eyes that said, “It’s all right to kick me. I’m used to it.”
    He knew that she must resent the shit out of him, but she’d never say so. It was the one dishonesty she’d ever tried. She had simply accepted. And her voice on the taped message seemed fine, normal. But it didn’t play. Jesus, how it didn’t play. Thank God he’d never proposed.
    So, here he was, sorting his own laundry in his own dusty apartment. Because he couldn’t face those spaniel eyes. She hadn’t landed anything else since Jack and Jill closed. Christ! That, at least, wasn’t his fault. He was coming to believe that she wanted to be a victim. And that she was punishing him by not allowing him to enjoy his success.
    The message machine beeped again. “Hi, Sam. It’s Bethanie. I wondered if we could get together again.” The breathy voice paused; then she giggled. “I mean I’d like to. I’ll be home all day before rehearsal tonight. Bye.”
    Shit. The troupe had rehearsal scheduled. He had almost forgotten. Jesus, after the sun and studios of Los Angeles, he wasn’t sure he could handle St. Malachy’s basement tonight. And, to be honest, the revue he was throwing together, though a crowd pleaser, was really just a bone. The machine beeped again.
    “This is Sy Ortis of Early Artists calling Mr. Shields. Please call our Los Angeles office at 553-0111.” Sam raised his brows. Sy Ortis himself had called? Wait until my agent hears this: that I’m being called by the biggest power broker in L.A.! Sam thought of the old Industry joke: A writer comes home to find the police and the fire department at his house. A detective greets him with the news that his agent has gone berserk, come to his house, raped his wife, killed his kids, and burned the place down. The writer looks stunned. “My agent came to my house?” he asks.
    Well, Sy Ortis hadn’t quite