Unfinished Symphony (Logan 3)

"I'll do my lines and you'll read the others. I'd like to have you hear me recite. You've got a fresh ear and would probably hear my mistakes."

"I don't know anything about acting, Spike."

"That makes you an expert around here," he said and laughed. "Come on. You don't want to just hang out with

Dorothy, do you?"

"Not really," I said. It was probably unkind to say that about someone who had been so generous and hospitable to me, but I really wasn't in the mood to hear about expensive clothing or beauty tips. How I wished I could drop in on Holly and Billy. If only they weren't so far away. I longed to run up the stairway to Cary's private workroom and throw myself into his arms, too.

But I was here, among strangers, with my own mother being the biggest stranger of all.

"Will you? Please," he said.

"Okay," I replied.

"Great," Spike said. "I appreciate it."

When we arrived at the Livingston residence, Spike pulled the limousine around to the garage instead of to the front of the house. He opened my door and directed me to a side door that took us upstairs to his apartment.

"Don't mind any of the mess in here," he said, throwing some clothing into a pile behind the sofa. "Between driving for Mrs. Livingston and preparing for auditions, I don't get much time to be a

housekeeper. Is it stuffy in here?" he asked, throwing open a window.

"It's all right," I said. There was a pile of scripts on the sofa. He hurriedly cleared them away to make a space for me. "How about something to drink? Beer, juice, water?"

"I'll just have some water, thank you," I said.

"Sure." He rushed into the kitchen. I gazed around the bland apartment. There was nothing on the walls and except for the scripts piled here and there and the clothing and dishes scattered about, there was no personality to the place. It reminded me of the thrifty motels Mommy, Archie Marlin and I stayed at during our trip up to Provincetown. Now that seemed ages and ages ago. It was hard to believe the woman I had just confronted was the same woman, but she was. I was positive about that and right now, it started to make me angry.

"Wow, what a look on your face!" Spike said returning with a glass of ice water. He handed it to me and I drank.

"She had no right to treat me like that. I don't care who was with her," I said.

He nodded.

"You'll tell her, I'm sure," he said. "I'll tell you something," he said, stepping back and scrutinizing me from head to toe as he nodded, "when you get angry and your face gets all flushed and your eyes look like they have candles burning behind them, it's rather exciting."

He put his hands together, thumb to thumb like a film director and gazed at me through the opening, moving about as would a camera director searching for the best perspective. I shook my head and laughed.

"You're always in a movie," I said.

"That's life, a movie. I'm trying to get good reviews, that's all," he said, laughing at his own joke. He poured himself a glass of beer and then handed me a script with the pages marked.

"Desperate Lives?" I said, looking at the title page. "This is Dorothy's favorite show."

"I know. I haven't told her I'm going for a part in it yet. She would make me too nervous. Okay, here's the setup. I'm Trent Windfield, who has discovered he's more in love with his girlfriend's sister than with his girlfriend. Her name's Arizona."

"Arizona? That's a state," I said, finding the name on the page.

"That's what her parents named her because they have this multimillion-dollar ranch there. In this scene, Trent decides to tell Arizona how he really feels about her. The problem is he's a graduate student and she's only a high school junior. Her father, a man with a fiery temper, would have him shot."

"How does Arizona feel about Trent?" I asked, gazing at the lines.

"She's always had a crush on Trent, but she never dreamed it would turn into anything. She's overwhelmed, but excited, titillated. It's a dream come true. Ready?" he asked, standing before me.

"Okay, I guess."

"Top of the page," he said. I watched him lower his head and then raise it slowly, his face changi