HEARTBEAT by DANIELLE STEEL
To Zara, sweet heartbeat of my life, may your life be ever full of love and joy. .
and to your daddy, who has filled my life to the brim with love and joy and heartbeats with all my heart and love, d.s.
HEARTBEAT thumping, pitter pat, wondering where it's at, heartfelt, heart sweet, sweet dreams, heartbeat, precious music in my ears, hand to hold to still my fears, loving footsteps in the night, treasured hopes, forever bright, brightest love, gift from on high, gentlest sweetest lullaby. A miracle of tiny feet, born of one single, precious beat, singing sweetest little song, my heart to yours will e'er belong, this final bond, this tie so sure, from our love so strong and pure, now whisper softly while babe sleeps, our love will always ever keep and as the magic stardust soars, my heart is ever, always, yours. CHAPTER 1. THE SOUND OF AN ANCIENT TYPEWRITER sang out staccato in the silence of the room, as a cloud of blue smoke hung over the corner where Bill Thigpen was working. Glasses shoved up high on his head, coffee in styrofoam cups hovering dangerously near the edge of the desk, ashtrays brimming, his face intense, blue eyes squinting at what he was writing.
Faster, faster, a glance over his shoulder at the clock ticking relentlessly behind him. He typed as though demons were lurking somewhere near him. His graying brown hair looked as though he had slept and woken several times and never remembered to comb it. The face was clean-shaven and kind, the lines strong, and yet something about him very gentle. He was not a man clearly defined by handsome, yet he seemed strong, appealing, worth more than a second glance, a man one would have liked to spend time with. But not now, not as he groaned, glanced at the clock again, and let his fingers fly at the typewriter still harder. Then finally, silence, a quick fix with a pen as he leapt to his feet, and grabbed handfuls of what he had been working on for the past seven hours, since five o'clock in the morning.
Nearly one now . . . nearly air time . . . as he flew across the room, yanked open the door, and exploded past his secretary's desk like an Olympic runner, heading down the hall as quickly as he could, darting around people, avoiding collisions, ignoring surprised stares and friendly greetings, as he pounded on doors that opened only inches as he shoved a hand inside clutching a sheaf of the freshly written changes. It was a familiar procedure.
It happened once, twice, sometimes three or four times a month when Bill decided he didn't like the way the show was going. As the originator of the most successful daytime soap on TV, whenever he was worried about the show, he stopped, wrote a segment or two, turned everything upside down, and then he was happy. His agent called him the most neurotic mother on TV, but he also knew he was the best. Bill Thigpen had an unfailing instinct for what made his show work, and he had never been wrong. Not so far.
A Life Worth Living was still the hottest daytime soap on American TV and it was William Thigpen's baby. He had started it as a way to survive when he'd been starving in New York years before as a young playwright. He had started playing with the concept and then the first script during a time when he was between plays in New York. He had started out writing plays on off-off Broadway, and in those days he had been a purist. The theater above all. But he had also been married,
living in SoHo in New York, and starving His wife, Leslie, had been a dancer in Broadway shows, and at the time she was out of work too, because she was pregnant with their first baby. At first he had kidded around about how "ironic" it would be if he finally made it with a soap, if that turned out to be the big break of his career.
But as he wrestled with the script, and a bible for a long-term show, it stopped being a joke, and became an obsession. He had to make it for Leslie . . . for their baby. And the truth was, he liked it. He loved it. And so did the network. They went crazy over it. And the baby, Adam, and the show had been born at almost the same time, one a strapping nine-pound baby boy with his father's big blue eyes and a mist of golden curls, the other a tryout on the summer schedule that
brought the ratings through the roof and an instant outcry when the show disappeared again in September. Within two months, A Life Worth Living was back and Bill Thigpen was on his way as the creator of the most successful daytime television soap ever. The important choices came later.
He started out by writing some of the early Lacy which drove the actors and director crazy. And by then his career on off-off Broadway was all but forgotten. Television became his lifeblood in a matter of moments.
Eventually, he was offered a lot of money to sell his concept and just sit back and go home to collect residuals, and go back to writing plays for off-off Broadway. But by then, almost as much as his six-month-old son, Life, as he called it, was his baby. He couldn't bring himself to leave the show, much less sell it. He had to stay with it. It was real to him, it was alive, and he cared about what he was saying. He talked about the agonies of life, the disappointments, the angers, the
sorrows, the triumphs, the challenges, the excitement, the love, the simple beauty. The show had all his zest for life, his own sorrow over grief, his own delight for living. It gave people hope after despair, sunshine after storms, and the basic core of the story line and the principal characters were decent. There were villains, of course, too, and people ate them up. But there was a basic integrity about the show that made its fans unshakable in their devotion. It was in effect a
reflection of the essence of its creator. Alive, excited about life, decent, trusting, kind, naive, intelligent, creative. And he loved the show, almost like a child he was bound and determined to nurture, almost as much as he loved Adam and Leslie.
And in those early days of the show he was constantly torn, endlessly pulled, always wanting to be with his family and yet keep an eye on the show, to make sure it was on the right track and they hadn't brought in the wrong writer or director. He viewed everyone with suspicion, and he maintained complete control. They understood nothing about his show-- his baby. And he'd pace the set like a nervous mother hen, going crazy inside over what might happen. He continued to write
random episodes, to haunt the show much of the time, and kibitz from the sidelines. And at the end of the first year, there was no point pretending that Bill Thigpen was ever going back to Broadway. He was stuck, trapped, madly in love with television and the show of his own making. He even stopped making excuses to his off-off-Broadway friends, and admitted openly that he loved what he was doing: There was no way he was going anywhere, he explained to Leslie late one night, after he'd written for hours, developing new plots, new characters, new philosophies for the coming season.
He couldn't abandon his characters, his actors, and the intricacies of the plot and its avalanche of tragedies, traumas, and problems. He loved it. The show was shot live five times a week, and even when he had no real reason to be on the set, he ate, drank, loved, breathed, and slept it. There were daily writers who kept the show going day by day, but Bill was always watching over their shoulders. And he knew what he was doing. Everyone in the business agreed. He was good. He was better than good. He was terrific. He had an instinctive sense for what worked, what didn't, what people cared about, the characters they would love, the ones they would enjoy hating.
And by the time his second son, Tommy, was born two years later, A Life Worth Living had won two critics' awards and an Emmy. It was after the show's first Emmy that the network suggested they move the show to California. It made more sense creatively, production arrangements would be easier out there, and they felt that the show "belonged" in California. To Bill, it was good news, but to Leslie, his wife, it wasn't. She was going back to work, not just as a kid in the chorus on
Broadway. After watching Bill obsess about his show for the past two and a half years, she had had it. While he had been writing night and day about incest, teenage pregnancy, and suburban extramarital affairs, she had gone back to classes in her original discipline, and now she wanted to teach ballet at Juilliard.
"You're what?" He stared at her in amazement one Sunday morning over breakfast.
Everything had been going so well for them, he was making money hand over fist, the kids were terrific, and as far as he knew, everything was just rolling along perfectly. Until that morning.
"I can't, Bill. I'm not going." She looked up at him quietly, her big brown eyes as gentle and childlike as when he'd met her with her dance bag in her hand outside a theater when she was twenty. She was from upstate New York, and she had always been decent and kind and unpretentious, a gentle soul with expressive eyes and a shy but genuine sense of humor. They used to laugh a lot in the early days, and talk late into the night in the dismal, freezing-cold apartments they
rented, until the beautiful and very expensive loft he had just bought for them in SoHo. He had even put an exercise bar in for her, so she could do her ballet warm-ups and exercises without going to a studio.
And now suddenly she was telling him it was all over.
"But why? What are you saying, Les? You don't want to leave New York?" He looked mystified as her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head, turning away from him for an instant, and then she looked back into his eyes and what he saw there made his heart ache. It was anger, disappointment, defeat, and suddenly for the first time he saw what he should have seen months before, and he wondered in terror if she still loved him.
"What is it? What happened?" How could he have missed it? he asked himself. How could he have been so stupid?
"I don't know . . . you've changed - .
And then she shook her head again, the long dark hair sailing around her like the dark wings of a fallen angel. "No - - . that's not fair... we both have. . ." She took a deep breath and tried to explain it to him. She owed him that much after five years of marriage and two children. "Changed places, I think. I used to want to be a big star on Broadway, the dancer who made good and became a star, and all you wanted to do was write plays with 'integrity, and 'guts, and
'meaning. And all of a sudden you started writing. - - -" She hesitated with a small sad smile. "You started writing more commercial stuff, and it became an obsession. All you've thought about for the last three years is the show - - - will Sheila marry Jake? did Larry really try to kill his mother? is Henry gay - - - is Martha? - - will Martha leave her husband for another woman? - - - whose baby is Hilary in truth?- - - will Mary run away from home? - and when she does will she go
back to drugs? Is Helen illegitimate? Will she marry John?" Leslie stood up and started to pace as she reeled off the familiar names.
"The truth is, they're driving me crazy. I don't want to hear about them anymore. I don't want to live with them anymore. I want to go back to something simple and healthy and normal, the discipline of dancing, the excitement of teaching. I want a normal, quiet life, without all that make-believe bullshit." She looked at him unhappily, and he wanted to cry. He had been a fool. While he had been playing with his imaginary friends, he was losing the people he really loved,
and he hadn't even known it. And yet, he couldn't promise her he'd give it up, sell his control of the show and go back to the plays he'd had to beg to get put on. How could he do that now?
And he loved the show. It made him feel good and happy and accomplished and strong - and now Leslie was leaving. It was ironic.
The show was a huge success, and so was he, and she was longing for their days of starvation.
"I'm sorry." He tried to force himself to stay calm and reason with her. "I know I've been wrapped up in the show for the last three years, but I felt I needed to control it. If I let it get completely out of my hands, if I let someone else do it, they could have cheapened it, they could have turned it into one of those ridiculous, trite, maudlin soaps that make your skin crawl. I couldn't let them do that. And the show does have integrity. Whether you admit it or not, Les, that's what people have responded to.
But that doesn't mean I have to sit on top of it forever. I think in California things will be very different - - - more professional - more in control. I should be able to get away from it more often." He only wrote occasional segments now. But he still controlled it.
Leslie only shook her head with a look of disbelief. She knew him better. It had been the same when he was writing his early plays.
He worked for two months straight without taking a break, barely eating or sleeping or thinking of anything else, but that had been only for two months and in those days she still thought it was charming. It no longer was - She was sick to death of it, sick of the intensity and the obsessiveness, and his mania for perfection. She knew that he loved her and the boys, but not the way she wanted him to. She wanted a husband who went to work at nine o'clock, and came home at six, ready to talk to her, to play with the kids, to help her cook dinner and take her to a movie. Not someone who worked straight through the night and then rushed out of the house exhausted and wild eyed at ten a.m. with an armload of memos and edicts and script changes to deliver by rehearsal at ten-thirty.
It was too much, too exhausting, too draining, and after three years she'd had it. She was burnt-out, and if she ever heard the words A Life Worth Living again, or the names of the characters he was constantly adding and subtracting, she knew she would have hysterics.
"Leslie, give it a chance, baby, please give me a chance. It'll be great in L.A. Just think of it, no more snow, no more cold weather. It'll be great for the boys. We can take them to the beach - - - we could have a pool right in our backyard - - - we can go to Disneyland."
But she was still shaking her head. She knew him better.
"No, I can take them to Disneyland and the beach. You'll be working all the time, you'll either be up all night writing someone out of the show, or running in for rehearsal or to watch them air, or frantically rewriting something else. When was the last time you took the boys to the Bronx Zoo, or anywhere for that matter?"
"All right - - - all right - - - so I work too hard - - - so I'm a terrible father or a bastard or a rotten husband or all of the above, but for christ sake, Les, for years we were starving to death. And now look, you can have anything you want, and so can they. We can send them to decent schools one day, we can give them everything we wanted to, we can send them to college. Is that so terrible? So okay, we've had a few hard years and now it's going to get better. And now you're going to walk out before it does? What timing." He stared at her, tears brimming in his own eyes as he held out a hand to her.
"Baby, I love you - - - please don't do this."
But she didn't move toward him, and she lowered her eyes so she couldn't see the pain in his. She knew he loved her, and she knew better than anyone how much he loved the boys. But it didn't matter. She knew that, for her own sake, she
had to do what she was doing.
"Do you want to stay here? I'll tell them we won't move the show. If that's what this is all about, to hell with California we'll stay here." But a note of panic had crept into his voice as he watched her, sensing that California was not the issue.
"It won't make any difference." Her voice was low and soft, and she was very sorry.
"It's too late for us. I can't explain it. I just know I have to do something diflerent."
"Like what? Move to India? Change religions? Become a nun? How different is teaching at Juilliard? What are you saying to me, dammit? That you want out? What the hell does that have to do with Juilliard or California?"
He was hurting and confused and suddenly, finally, he was angry. Why was she doing this to him? What had he done to deserve it? He had worked hard, done well, his parents would have been proud of him if they'd been alive, but both had died when he was in his early twenties, of cancer, within a year of each other, and he had no siblings. All he had was her and the boys, and now she was telling him that they were leaving, and he was going to be alone again. All alone, without the three people he loved, because he had done something wrong, he had worked too hard and been too successful. And the unfairness of what she was doing to him made him suddenly burn with fury.
"You just don't understand," she insisted limply.
"No, I don't. You're telling me you won't come to California. So I'm telling you that if it makes a difference, we'll stay here, and to hell with what the network says. They'll have to live with it. So what now? Where do we go from here? We go back to the way things were, or what? What's happening, Les?" He was torn between anger and despair and he wasn't sure what to say to her to change it.
But what he hadn't understood yet was that she had made up her mind, and there was no way now to dissuade her.
"I don't know how to say this to you- - -" Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him, and for an instant he had the insane feeling that he had walked into one of his own shows and couldn't get out now - - - would Leslie leave Bill? can Bill really change?-- does Leslie really understand how much Bill loves her? - - - He wanted to laugh suddenly, or cry, but he did neither.
"It's over. I guess that's the only way to say it. California doesn't have anything to do with it. I just haven't wanted to admit it to myself until now, and now I have. I can't do this anymore. I want my own life, with the boys. I want to do my own thing, Bill - - - without living with the show day and night "- And without him. But she couldn't bring herself to say it. The look of pain in his eyes was so overwhelming, she thought she might faint just looking at him. "I'm sorry." He looked as though lightning had just struck him. He was deathly white, and his eyes were big and blue and filled with anguish.
"You're taking the boys?" What had he ever done to deserve that? They both knew that, no matter how busy he had been for the past three years, he adored them.
"You can't take care of them by yourself in California." It was a simple statement as he stared at her in horror.
"No, but you could come with me to help."
It was a weak joke, but neither of them felt like joking.
"Bill, don't - "
"Will you let them come out to see me?"
She nodded, and he prayed that she meant it.
For a moment, he thought of abandoning the show, staying in New York, and begging her not to leave him. But he also sensed that no matter what he did now, it was too late for her. In heart and soul and mind, she had already left him. And what he reproached himself for now was not having noticed sooner.
Maybe if he had, he could have changed things - But now, he knew her well enough to know he couldn't. It was all over, without a whimper or a wail. He had lost the war long since and never known it. His life was over.
The next two months were an agony that still made him cry when he thought of it.
Telling the boys. Helping them move to an apartment on the West Side before he left. His first night alone in the loft without them.
Again and again, he thought of giving up the show, and begging her to take him back, but it was clear that the door was closed now, never to be reopened. And he discovered, before he left, that there was another teacher at Juilliard whom she was "very fond of." She hadn't carried on an affair, and Bill knew her well enough to believe that she had been faithful to him, but she was falling in love with the guy and that was part of her reason for leaving. She wanted to be free to pursue her relationship with him without guilt, or Bill Thigpen. She and her teacher friend had everything in common, she insisted, and she and Bill no longer did, except their children.
Adam had been heartbroken to see him go, but at two and a half he had readjusted pretty quickly. And Tommy was only eight months old and seemed not to know the difference.
Only Bill really felt it as tears filled his eyes and ran slowly down his cheeks as the plane soared slowly over New York and headed for California.
And once there, Bill threw himself into the show with a vengeance. He worked day and night, and sometimes even slept on the couch in his office, as the ratings continued to soar, and the show won innumerable Daytime Emmys. And in the seven years he'd been in California, Bill Thigpen had become only slightly less manic. A Life Worth Living had become his pride and joy, his daily companion, his best friend, his baby. He had no reason to fight it anymore. He let his work become his daily passion.
The boys came out to visit him on alternate holidays and for a month in the summer, and he loved them more than ever. But being three thousand miles away from them when he really wanted to see them every day remained extremely painful. And there had been a parade of women in his life, but the only constant companion he had was the show, and the
actors in it. And he lived for his vacations with Adam and Tommy.
Leslie had long since married the Juilliard teacher and had two more kids, and she had finally given up teaching. With four kids at home under the age of ten, she had her hands full, but she seemed to love it. She and Bill talked on the phone now and then, particularly when the boys were coming out, or if one of them was sick, or if there was a problem, but they didn't have much to say to each other anymore, except about Adam and Tommy. It was hard even to remember what it had been like when they were married. The pain of losing her was gone, and the memories of the good times were dim. Except for the boys, it was all gone now. And they were the real loves in his life. In the summer, when they spent the month with him, his passion for them was even greater than anything he'd felt for the show, his attention to them more intense. He took a month's vacation every year and they usually went somewhere for part of it, and spent the rest of the time in L.A going to Disneyland, seeing friends, just hanging out while he cooked for them and took care of them, and ached all over again when they went back to New York and left him.
Adam, the older one, was almost ten now, responsible, funny, serious, and a lot like his mother. Tommy was the baby, disorganized, still a baby some of the time, even at seven, and whimsical, vague, and sometimes very, very funny. Leslie frequently told Bill that Tommy was the image of him in every way, but somehow he couldn't see it. He adored them both, and on long, lonely nights alone in L.A his heart still ached wishing that they all lived together. It was the one thing in his life that he regretted, the one thing he couldn't change, the one thing that really depressed him at times although he tried not to let it. But the idea that he had two kids he loved and hardly ever saw seemed a high price to pay for a mistaken marriage. Why did she get to keep them and not he? Why did she get the reward for the lost years, and he get the punishment? What was fair about that? Nothing. And it only made him sure of one thing. He was never going to let it happen again. He was never going to fall madly in love, get married, have kids, and lose them. Period. No way. And over the years, he had found the perfect solution to the problem.
Actresses. Hordes of them. When he had time, which wasn't often.
When he had first come to California, aching from the pain of leaving Leslie and the kids, he had fallen gratefully into the arms of a serious lady director, and had had an affair that lasted six months and almost led to disaster. She had moved in with him and taken over his life, inviting friends to stay, furnishing his apartment for him, running his life, until he felt as if he had been strangled. She had previously gone to UCLA, done graduate work at Yale, talked constantly
about a Ph.D and was into "serious film," and she kept insisting that A Life was beneath him.
She talked about it like a disease from which he might soon be healed, if he would only let her help him. She also hated kids, and kept putting away the photographs of his children.
Remarkably, it took him a full six months to catch his breath and let her have it. It took six months because she was great in bed, treated him like a six-year-old at a time when he desperately needed nurturing and liked it, and she seemed to know everything about the television industry in L.A. But when she told him he ought to stop talking about his kids, and forget about them, he rented a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel for a month, gave her the key, told her to have a great
time, and not to bother to call him when she found an apartment. He moved her things to the bungalow the same afternoon, and didn't run into her for the next four years until they saw each other at an awards ceremony, where she pretended not to know him.
And what had come after that had been intentionally lighthearted and easy. Actresses, starlets, walk-ons, models, girls who wanted a good time when he was free, and enjoyed going to an occasional party with him when he wasn't in a period of high stress due to some change on the show, and they wanted nothing more from him. They fitted him in among the other men in their lives, and seemed not to care when he didn't call them. Some of them cooked dinner for him occasionally, or he for them since he loved to cook, and the ones who were good with kids were sometimes called on to go to Disneyland with him when the boys were in town, but more often than not he enjoyed keeping the boys to himself
during their visits to California.
More recently, Bill had gotten involved with one of the actresses on the show. Sylvia was a pretty girl from New York, and she had an important part on the show. And it was the first time in a long time that he had allowed himself the indulgence of getting involved with someone who actually worked for him. But she was a sensational-looking girl, and she had been hard to resist. She had come to the show via years as a child actress and model, the cover of Vogue, a year in Paris
working for Lacroix, and six months in L.A. doing bit parts in an assortment of unsuccessful movies. She was a fairly decent actress, surprisingly enough, and a sweet girl, which came through on the air, and Bill was surprised himself by how much he liked her.
Liked. Not loved. Love was something he reserved for Adam and Tommy, who were, respectively, nine and a half and seven. Sylvia was twenty-three, and sometimes he thought she behaved like a child herself. Along with her sweetness there was a kind of simplicity and naivete that both touched him and amused him. Despite her worldly experiences, acting and modeling for the past nine years, she seemed to have remained relatively unsophisticated through all of it, which was
at times both refreshing and annoying. She was singularly unaware of the inevitable politics that went on behind the scenes on the show, and some of her performances were superb, but she was also easy prey for the more jaded women with whom she acted. And Bill found himself constantly warning her to be more alert to the games they played and the trouble they surreptitiously tried to cause her.
But childlike, she floated through all of it, and seemed to keep herself amused when Bill was too busy to entertain her, as he had been for weeks, working on the addition of two new characters, and the surprise removal of yet another. He was always careful to keep the show fresh, and keep the audiences fascinated with the never-ending plot turns.
At thirty-nine, he had become the king of daytime soaps, as his row of Emmys lined up on a shelf on his office wall clearly attested.
But he was, as always, totally unaware of them, as he returned to his office and began to pace, wondering how the actors in today's show would react to the unexpected last-minute changes. Two of the women usually handled it well, but one of his male actors frequently blew his lines when surprised at the last minute, and if the alterations made him too nervous. He had been on the show for two years, and Bill had thought more than once about replacing him, and yet he liked the human quality he brought to the show, the power of his performances when heed in what he was saying.
It was a show which seemed to mean a lot to untold millions across the United States, and the volume of mail Bill and the actors and the producers got was nothing short of amazing. The cast and crew had become a kind of family over the years, and the show meant a great deal to all of them. It had become a home and a way of life for a lot of very talented people.
That afternoon, his own ladylove, Sylvia, was going to be playing her part as Vaughn Williams, the beautiful younger sister of the show's principal heroine, Helen. "Vaughn" had been lured into an affair with her brother-in-law, and introduced to drugs by him as well, unbeknownst to anyone in her family, particularly her own sister. Trapped in a web from which she seemed unable to free herself, Vaughn's brother-in-law, John, was luring her deeper and deeper into his clutches and leading her toward her own destruction. In an unexpected turn of events on that day's show, Vaughn was going to be witness to a murder committed by John, and the police would begin seeking Vaughn for the murder of the drug dealer who had been supplying her drugs since John introduced her to him. It had been a difficult series of events to orchestrate and Bill had been closely supervising the writers, with an eye to stepping in himself if he had to. But it was exactly the kind of plot turn that had kept the show going for close to ten years, and Bill was clearly pleased with the morning's work sketching out the next developments as he sat down in a chair in his office, lit a cigarette, and took a sip from the steaming mug of coffee his secretary had just put there. He was wondering what Sylvia would think of the script changes he had just handed her through her dressing room door. He hadn't seen her since the night before, when he left her place at three a. m. and came to the office to start working on the idea that had been gnawing at him all evening. She had been asleep when he left, and he had gone home to shower and change before going to his office at four-thirty. And by twelve-thirty, the atmosphere in his office was still electrically charged as he got to his feet, stubbed the cigarette out, and hurried to the studio, where he watched the director carefully going over the last-minute changes.
The director was a man Bill had known for years, a Hollywood veteran who had come to the show after directing reams of successful television movies. He had been an unusually serious choice for a soap opera on daytime TV, but Bill had obviously known what he was doing. Allan McLoughlin kept everyone on their toes, and he was speaking seriously to Sylvia and the actor who played John, as Bill walked into the studio and stood discreetly in a remote corner of the room where he could observe but not disturb them.
"Coffee, Bill?" A pretty young script girl inquired. She had had an eye on him for a year. She liked him. He was what some people would have described as a "teddy bear," tall, powerful, warm, smart, nice-looking but not gorgeous, with easy laughter and a gentle style that somehow softened the intensity with which he worked. But Bill only smiled and shook his head. She was a nice kid, but he had never thought of her as anything but the script girl. He was too busy working while he was there to concentrate on anything but what was happening in front of the cameras, or in his head, as he plotted the show's future turns and detours.
"No, thanks, I'm fine." He smiled at the girl and turned his attention back to the director. He noticed that Sylvia was studying her lines, and the actors who played Helen and John were conferring quietly in a corner.
There were two men dressed as policemen, and the "victim," the drug dealer "John" was going to kill on today's show, was already wearing a blood-drenched shirt that looked disturbingly realistic. He was laughing and exchanging jokes with one of the grips. It was his last day on the show, and he had no lines to learn. He was going to be dead when the camera first saw him.
"Two minutes," a voice said, loud enough for everyone to hear, and Bill felt a faint flutter in the pit of his stomach. He always did.
He had felt that twinge since his very early days as an actor when he was in college. And in New York, he had actually felt sick for an hour every night before the curtain went up on one of his plays. And now, ten years after A Life had been born, he still felt a twinge every time they were about to go on the air.
What if it bombed? - - - if the ratings fell?--- if no one watched? - - - if all the actors walked off? - - - if everyone fluffed their lines? - - - if - - - the possibilities and potential for horror were endless.
"One minute!" The noose at the top of his stomach tightened further.
Bill's eyes scanned the room. Sylvia with her eyes closed, memorizing the lines one last time, and maintaining her composure. Helen and John at their marks on the set, ready for the colossal argument that was to open the day's show. The drug dealer eating a huge pastrami sandwich in his blood-drenched shirt off screen, and no one uttering a sound as
the assistant director held up a hand, fingers extended, indicating five seconds before they went on the air four - - - three - - - two one finger a leap in the pit of Bill's stomach, and the hand is down, and Helen and John are fighting furiously on the set, the language abusive but just inside what the censors will allow them, the situation tense to the point of explosion. The words are familiar to Bill, and yet here and there, as they always do, they wing it. Helen more so than John, but for her it works, and Bill doesn't mind it as long as she doesn't go too far afield, or throw off the other actors. It's working so far - - - the door slams after four minutes of intense drama, and they break away for a commercial. Helen comes off the set looking deathly pale. The work they do is brief and intense, the dialogue and the situations so real that somehow they all believe them.
Bill catches her eye and smiles. She did a good job. She always does.
She is a very fine actress. She disappears. The hand goes up again.
Total silence. Not a sound, not a coin clanking in a pocket, or a key on a key ring, or a footstep.
John has gone to the remote country home of the drug dealer, who has anonymously called Helen and told her of her husband's affair with her sister. Shots ring out, and all we see is the prone body of the man in the bloodsoaked shirt, lying on the floor, clearly dead.
Extreme close-up of John's face, a murderous look in his eye, as Vaughn stands beside him.
Fade out. Fade in. Extreme close up of Vaughn, looking incredibly beautiful in a small but luxurious apartment. John has set her up as a good girl gone bad, and we see her saying good-bye to a man. We sense without being told that she is a call girl. Vaughn's eyes meet the camera, troubled, beautiful, and somewhat glazed. Bill watches intently as the plot unfolds and he begins to relax as they fade out for another commercial. It is like a new play every day, a fresh drama, a whole new world, and the magic of it never ceases to intrigue him. Sometimes he wonders why it works, why the show is so immensely successful, but he wonders if it's because he himself is still so wrapped up in it. He wonders, but only rarely, what might have happened if he had sold his concept, or left the show years before - if he had stayed in New York - - - gone on to something else - - stayed married to Leslie, and stayed with the boys - - - would they have had more kids? Would he be writing Broadway plays by now? Would he ever have made it? Would they have gotten divorced by now anyway?
It was odd to look back and try to second-guess it.
Bill left the studio then, assured that the segment was going well and he didn't need to stay till the end. The director had it in control, and Bill walked slowly back to his office, feeling spent, relieved, and sure of the direction of the next several segments. One of the things that he loved about the show was that he could never get lazy or complacent, he couldn't just coast, or use a formula, or follow the same old plot lines. He had to keep it fresh, moment by moment, hour by hour, or the show would simply die. And he liked the excitement of the daily challenge. The challenge met, he went back to his office, and sprawled his frame across the couch, staring out the window.
"How'd it go?" Betsey asked. She had been his secretary for nearly two years, which in television was half a lifetime. She was a standup comedian at night, and she thought Bill walked on water when no one was looking.
"It went okay." He looked relaxed and pleased. The knot in his stomach had turned into a peaceful hum of satisfaction. "Did we hear anything today from the network?" He had sent over some new concepts for some interesting directions for the show, and he was waiting to hear, although he knew they pretty much let him do anything he wanted.
"Not yet. But I think Leland Harris is out of town, and so is Nathan Steinberg." The gods who ran his life, omniscient, omnipotent, all-thinking, all-seeing, all-knowing. He and Nathan went fishing together from time to time, and although the guy was said to be a son of a bitch, Bill actually liked him and insisted that he had always been very pleasant to him. "Are you leaving early tonight?" Betsey looked at him hopefully. Once in a while when he'd come in at the crack of dawn, he left before five o'clock, but it was rare, and he shook his head as he walked across the room to his desk where his ancient typewriter sat on a small table just behind it. It was a Royal, and it was one of the few souvenirs he still had left from his
father.
"I think I'll hang around. The stuff we put in today worked, which means they've got a lot of changes to make for the next few segments.
They have to write out Barnes completely. We just killed him. And Vaughn is going to wind up in jail, not to mention the fact that Helen is getting wise to John. And wait till she finds out that her little sister has been turning tricks to support her drug habit thanks to her own darling husband." He beamed happily as he stretched his legs under the desk and leaned back with his hands behind his head in a pose of total delight and relaxation.
"You have a sick mind." Betsey made a face, and closed the door to his office, and then popped her head back in. "Do you want me to order anything from the commissary for tonight?"
"Christ - - - now I know you're trying to kill me. Just get me a couple of sandwiches and a Thermos of coffee and leave it on your desk. I'll grab it if I get hungry." But more often than not, it was midnight before he even saw the time, and by then he was no longer hungry. It was a wonder he didn't starve to death, Betsey often said, when she saw evidence that he had worked through the night, leaving overflowing ashtrays, fourteen mugs of cold coffee and half a dozen Snickers wrappers behind him.
"You should go home and get some sleep."
"Thanks, Mom." He grinned as she closed the door again. She was a terrific person and he liked her.
He was still smiling to himself, thinking of Betsey, when the door opened again, and he looked up. As always when he saw her, he felt a sharp intake of breath at how she looked. It was Sylvia, still wearing her costume and makeup from the show, and she looked stunning.
She was tall and thin and shapely, with full high silicone breasts that just begged for men to reach out and touch them, and legs that seemed to start at her armpits. She was almost as tall as Bill, and she had cascades of thick black hair that hung to her waist, creamy white skin, and green eyes that were strikingly catlike. She was a girl who would have stopped traffic anywhere, even in L.A where actresses and models and beautiful girls were commonplace. But Sylvia Stewart wasn't
commonplace anywhere, and Bill was the first to say that she did wonderful, healthy things to their ratings.
"Good job, babe. You were great today. But you always are." He stood up as she smiled, and he came around his desk to give her a half-serious kiss as she sat in a chair and crossed her legs, and looking down at her, he felt his heart beat a little
faster. "God, you destroy me when you come in here looking like that."
She was wearing the sexy little black dress that she had worn in the last scene on the show, and it was clearly a knockout. Their costume department had gotten it on loan from Fred Heyman. "The least you could do is put a sweatshirt and some jeans on." But the jeans weren't much better. She wore them skintight and all he could think of when he saw her in jeans was taking her clothes off.
"Costume said I could have the dress." She managed somehow to look both innocent and sultry.
"That's nice." He smiled at her again and settled back behind his desk. "It looks good on you. Maybe we can go out to dinner next week and you can wear it."
"Next week?" She looked like a child who had just been told her favorite doll was in the shop for repairs until next Tuesday. "Why can't we go out tonight?" She was pouting at him, and he looked faintly amused by her. They were the scenes that Sylvia was singularly good at. They were the downside of her being able good looks and irresistibly sexy "You may have noticed on today's show that several new developments occurred, and your character just wound up in jail. There are a ton of new scenes for the writers to write and I want to be around to write some of it myself, or at least check on how they're doing." Anyone who knew him knew he was going to be working eighteen- to twenty-hour days for the
next few weeks, kibitzing and coaxing and rewriting it himself, but the material he would get out of it would be worth it.
"Can't we go away this weekend?" The incredible legs uncrossed and recrossed, causing a disturbance in Bill's jeans, but she still appeared not to have understood him.
"No, we can't. If I'm lucky and everything goes okay, maybe by Sunday we can play a little tennis."
The pout deepened. Sylvia did not look pleased. "I wanted to go to Vegas. A whole bunch of the kids from My House are going to Vegas for the weekend." My House was their stiffest competition.
"I can't help it, Sylvia. I've got to work."
And then, knowing that it would be easier if she went without him than if she stayed and complained, he suggested that she go to Vegas with the others. "Why don't you go with them? You're not on the show tomorrow, and it might be fun. And I'm going to be stuck here anyway all weekend." He waved at the four walls of his office, and even though it was only Thursday then, he knew he had at least three or four more days of intense work overseeing the writers, but Sylvia looked
cheered by the suggestion that she go without him.
"Will you come to Vegas when you finish?"
She looked like a child again, and sometimes her ingenuousness touched him. In truth, her body appealed to him more and it had been an easy relationship for him for the past several months, although not one he was overly proud of. She was a decent person and he liked her, but she was less than challenging for him, and he knew he didn't always meet
her needs either. She wanted someone who is free to run around and play with her, go to openings and parties and ten o'clock dinners at Spago, and more often than not he tied up with the show, or writing new or too tired to go anywhere, and Holparties had never been his forte.
"I don't think I'll be finished in time to go anyywhere. I'll see you Sunday night when get home." The timing was going to be for him and it would keep her off his although he felt mean thinking of it that way.
But it was easier knowing that she happy somewhere else rather than calling at the office every two hours to ask him when he'd be finished working.
"Okay." She stood up, looking pleased.
"You don't mind?" She felt a little guilty leaving him, but he only smiled and escorted her to the door of his office.
"No, I don't mind. Just don't let the 'kids' from My House try to sell you a new contract." She laughed, and this time he kissed her hard on the mouth. "I'm going to miss you."
"Me too." But there was something wistful in her eyes as she looked at him and for the flash of an instant he wondered if something was wrong.
It was something he had seen in other eyes before - - - starting with Leslie's.
It was something that women said at times, without actually saying the words. It had to do with feeling alone and being lonely. And he knew it well, but there was nothing he was going to change now. He never had before, and at thirty-nine, he figured it was too late to do much changing.
Sylvia left his office, and Bill went back to work. He had a mountain of notes he wanted to make about the new scripts, and all the upcoming changes, and by the time he looked up from his typewriter again, it was dark outside, and he was startled to realize it was ten o'clock when he looked at his watch, and he suddenly realized he was desperately thirsty.
He got up from his desk, turned on some more lights, and helped himself to a soda water from the office. He knew Betsey would have left a bunch of sandwiches for him on her desk, but he wasn't even hungry.
The work seemed to feed his spirit when it was going well, and he was pleased as he glanced over what he'd done, and leaned back in his chair, sipping the soda. There was just one more scene he wanted to change before tie it up for the night, and for the next two hours he banged away on the old Royal, to forgetting everything except what he was
writing. And this time when he stopped, it was midnight. He had been at it for almost twenty hours and he was hardly even tired, he felt exhilarated by the changes he'd made and the way the work had been flowing. He took the sheaf of pages he'd been working on since that afternoon, locked them in a desk drawer, helped himself to another soda water on his way out, and left his cigarettes on the desk. He seldom smoked except when he was working.
He walked past his secretary's desk, with the sandwiches still sitting in a cardboard box, and walked out into the fluorescent-lit hall, past half a dozen studios that were closed down now. There was a late-night talk show in one, and a bunch of odd-looking kids in punk clothes had just arrived to make an appearance. He smiled at them, but they didn't
smile back. They were all much too nervous, and he walked past the studio where they did the eleven o'clock news, but that was dark now, too, having already been readied for the morning broadcast.
The guard at the front desk handed Bill the sign-out sheet and he scrawled his name and made a comment about the most recent baseball game. He and the old guard shared a passion for the Dodgers. And then he walked out into the fresh air, and took a deep breath of the warm spring night. The smog didn't seem so bad at that hour, and it felt good just to be alive. He loved what he did, and it made it seem somehow worthwhile to work those ridiculous hours, making up stories
about imaginary people. Somehow when he was doing it, it all made sense to him, and when he was finished, he was always glad he had done it. Now and then it was an agony, when a scene didn't go right or a character slipped out of control and became someone he had never intended, but most of the time doing it was something he loved, and there were times when he missed doing it full-time, and he envied the writers.
He sighed happily as he started his car. It was a '49 Chevrolet woody station wagon, he had bought it from a surfer seven years before for five hundred dollars and he loved it. It was maroon and it was in less than perfect condition, but it had soul, and lots of room, and the boys loved riding around in it when they came to visit.
As he drove home on the Santa Monica Freeway toward Fairfax Avenue, he realized suddenly that he was hungry. He was more than hungry. He was starving. And he knew that there was nothing in his apartment. He hadn't eaten there in days. He had been too busy working and before that he'd eaten out, and he had spent the weekend before at Sylvia's
place in Malibu. She rented it from an aging movie star who had been in a retirement home for years but still kept the house in Malibu she had once lived in.
Bill stopped at Safeway on his way home, and it was after midnight as he pulled his woody into the parking lot and slid into a space right in front of the main entrance. He parked it next to a battered old red MG with the top down, walked into the brightly lit allnight store and helped himself to a cart as he tried to decide what he wanted to eat.
There were chickens barbecuing in a nearby aisle, and he noticed that they smelled terrific. He helped himself to one of them, a six-pack of beer, some potato salad from the deli area, some salami, some pickles, and then he headed to the produce section for lettuce and tomatoes and vegetables to make himself a salad. The more he thought about it, the
hungrier he got, and he could hardly wait to get home and have dinner.
He could no longer remember if he'd eaten lunch, or if he had, what it had been. It seemed like years suddenly since he had eaten. He remembered then that he needed paper towels, too, and toilet paper for both bathrooms, he knew he needed shaving cream, and he had a feeling that he was running out of toothpaste. It seemed like he never had time to shop for himself, and as he roamed through the store feeling wide-awake, it seemed like the middle of the afternoon as he helped himself to cleaning products, olive oil, coffee beans, pancake mix, sausages, syrup-for the next time he had breakfast at home on a weekend-and then bran muffins, some new cereals, a pineapple and some fresh papaya. He felt like a kid going wild as he kept putting things in his basket. For once, he wasn't in a hurry, he didn't have to get to work, there was no one waiting for him anywhere, and he could explore the store at his leisure. He was just trying to decide if he
wanted some French bread and Brie with his dinner, as he rounded a corner, looking for the bread, and collided with a girl who seemed to rise up out of the floor with an armful of paper towels. She seemed to come up out of nowhere, and before he could do anything about it, he had almost run her down with his cart, and she jumped back, startled, dropping everything around her as he watched her. There was something striking about her, and beautiful, in a clean, wholesome way, and he couldn't help staring at her as she turned away, and gathered up her paper towels.
"I'm sorry - - - I - - - here, let me help - - -" He abandoned his cart, and stopped to give her a hand, but she was quick to stand up, and smile, blushing faintly.
"No problem." Her smile was powerful, strong, her eyes were huge and blue, and she looked like someone who had a lot to say, and he felt like a kid as he stared at her, and she drove her cart away, smiling at him again over her shoulder. It felt almost like a movie scene, or something he might have written for a show. Boy Meets Girl. He wanted to run after her - - - hey, wait - - - stop! But she was gone, with her shining dark hair that just brushed her shoulders as it swung
freely, her wide ivory smile, and blue eyes that seemed enormous.
There was something so straightforward about the look she gave him, yet something quizzical about her smile, as though she had been going to ask him a question, and something friendly as though she had been going to laugh at herself. She was all he could think about as he tried to finish his shopping. Mayonnaise - - - anchovies shaving cream eggs?
Did he need eggs?
Sour cream? He couldn't concentrate anymore. It was ridiculous. She was pretty but she wasn't that great-looking after all. She had the kind of preppy good looks of a girl fresh out of an eastern college.
She'd been wearing jeans, a red turtleneck, and sneakers, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw her unloading her cart at the checkout a few minute later. He stopped pushing his own cart for a moment, and looked at her. She wasn't fantastic after all, he told himself. Nice looking, yes - - - very nice-looking, in fact, but for his taste, his current California taste. In any case, she was by far too normal. She looked like someone you could talk to late at night, someone who could tell a joke, someone who could make dessert from scratch, or tell a good story. What did he need with a girl like that when he had girls like Sylvia to keep his bed warm? But as he watched her put her empty cart away, he couldn't have explained why, but he felt a kind of empty longing for her. She was someone he would have liked to know, and he
wondered what her name was, as he rolled slowly toward her. Hi - - I'm Bill Thigpen - - - he rehearsed in his head as he pulled his cart into the checkout lane where she was paying. She seemed not to notice him this time. She was writing a check, and he glanced over but he couldn't read her name. All he could see was her left hand holding the checkbook. The left hand with the gold ring. Her wedding band.
Whoever she was, it didn't matter anymore. She was married. He felt his heart plummet, like a disappointed child, and he almost laughed at himself as she glanced over at him and smiled again, recognizing him from when he'd collided with her a few minutes before with the paper towels. Hi - - - I'm Bill Thigpen and you're married - - - what a damn shame, if you get a divorce, give me a call.
- Married women was one kind he didn't mess around with. He wanted to ask her why she was doing her shopping so late at night, but there was no point. It no longer mattered.
"Good night," she said, in a soft husky voice, as she picked up her two grocery bags, and he unpacked his cart.
" Night," he answered as he watched her go, and a few minutes later, he heard a car roar out, and when he went back to his own car in the parking lot, the little MG next to his car was gone, and he wondered if that was what she had been driving. He grinned to himself then. He was obviously working too hard if he was starting to fall in love with total strangers. "Okay, Thigpen," he muttered as he started his car with a roar of exhaust fumes, "take it easy, boy." He chuckled as he drove out of the parking lot, and as he drove home, he wondered what Sylvia was up to in Las Vegas.
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