Whispers Read Online Free Page A

to hear the news and spread it. Grinning like Cary Grant, he leaned toward Hilary and said, "We've got the deal with Warner Brothers."
    She stared, blinked, opened her mouth to speak, didn't know what to say. Finally: "We don't."
    "We do."
    "We can't."
    "We can."
    "Nothing's that easy."
    "I tell you, we've got it."
    "They won't let me direct."
    "Oh, yes."
    "They won't give me final cut."
    "Yes, they will."
    "My God."
    She was stunned. Felt numb.
    Eugene offered his congratulations and slipped away.
    Wally laughed, shook his head. "You know, you could have played that a lot better for Eugene's benefit. Pretty soon, people are going to see us celebrating, and they'll ask Eugene what it's about, and he'll tell them. Let the world think you always knew you'd get exactly what you wanted. Never show doubt or fear when you're swimming with sharks."
    "You're not kidding about this? We've actually got what we wanted?"
    Raising his glass, Wally said, "A toast. To my sweetest client, with the hope she'll eventually learn there are some clouds with silver linings and that a lot of apples don't have worms in them."
    They clinked glasses.
    She said, "The studio must have added a lot of tough conditions to the deal. A bottom of the barrel budget. Salary at scale. No participation in the gross rentals. Stuff like that."
    "Stop looking for rusty nails in your soup," he said exasperatedly.
    "I'm not eating soup."
    "Don't get cute."
    "I'm drinking champagne."
    "You know what I mean."
    She stared at the bubbles bursting in her glass of Dom Perignon.
    She felt as if hundreds of bubbles were rising within her, too, chains of tiny, bright bubbles of joy: but a part of her acted like a cork to contain the effervescent emotion, to keep it securely under pressure, bottled up, safely contained. She was afraid of being too happy. She didn't want to tempt fate.
    "I just don't get it," Wally said. "You look as if the deal fell through. You did hear me all right, didn't you?"
    She smiled. "I'm sorry. It's just that ... when I was a little girl, I learned to expect the worst every day. That way, I was never disappointed. It's the best outlook you can have when you live with a couple of bitter, violent alcoholics."
    His eyes were kind.
    "Your parents are gone," he said, quietly, tenderly. "Dead. Both of them. They can't touch you, Hilary. They can't hurt you ever again."
    "I've spent most of the past twelve years trying to convince myself of that."
    "Ever consider analysis?"
    "I went through two years of it."
    "Didn't help?"
    "Not much."
    "Maybe a different doctor--"
    "Wouldn't matter," Hilary said. "There's a flaw in Freudian theory. Psychiatrists believe that as soon as you fully remember and understand the childhood traumas that made you into a neurotic adult, you can change. They think finding the key is the hard part, and that once you have it you can open the door in a minute. But it's not that easy."
    "You have to want to change," he said.
    "It's not that easy, either."
    He turned his champagne glass around and around in his small well-manicured hands. "Well, if you need someone to talk to now and then, I'm always available."
    "I've already burdened you with too much of it over the years."
    "Nonsense. You've told me very little. Just the bare bones."
    "Boring stuff," she said.
    "Far from it, I assure you. The story of a family coming apart at the seams, alcoholism, madness, murder, and suicide, an innocent child caught in the middle.... As a screenwriter, you should know that's the kind of material that never bores."
    She smiled thinly. "I just feel I've got to work it out on my own."
    "Usually it helps to talk about--"
    "Except that I've already talked about it to an analyst, and I've talked about it to you, and that's only done me a little bit of good."
    "But talking has helped."
    "I've got as much out of it as I can. What I've got to do now is talk to myself about it. I've got to confront the past alone, without relying on your support or a