Lovescenes

‘You can’t deny that he’s got talent,’ Claire said. ‘He went through Dartmouth on scholarship.’

‘That’s what his publicist says.’

‘Shannon, I won’t argue with you. Just listen to his music, okay?’

‘Are you my agent or his? Don’t sell him to me, Claire. You should have seen his entrance today. He acted as if he were the king come to visit his subjects. Everybody was supposed to bow and scrape.’

‘Really?’ the other woman asked coyly. ‘The story I got from Crawford was that the guy came in alone, without any fanfare at all.’

‘Well, maybe,’ Shannon admitted grudgingly. ‘But everybody bowed and scraped. You’d have thought he was... I don’t know, royalty or something.’

‘He is,’ the agent laughed. ‘American royalty. His concerts sell out as soon as they’re announced...’

‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s an arrogant, overbearing...’

‘They said you could hear the sizzle when he kissed you.’

‘What he did,’ Shannon said quietly, ‘was embarrass the hell out of me. The sizzle everybody heard was me, burning with anger. I wanted to slap his face. I don’t know why I didn’t, now that I think about it. Maybe it was just that he caught me by surprise.’

The agent placed her knife and fork neatly across her empty plate. -

‘“He pulled her into his arms as if he were going to devour her”,’ she said calmly. ‘That’s a quote from one of the make-up people.’

‘A misquote, you mean. He didn’t pull me into his arms. Besides, it doesn’t matter. It’s over.’

‘ “Padgett collapsed against him as if her legs had turned to jelly at his touch”.’ Claire sat back while the waitress cleared away their dishes and served her apple pie. Then she leaned across the table, eyes narrowed. ‘That’s a quote from the script girl.’

‘The child reads too many romances,' Shannon said coldly. 'I did not collapse against him. I barely touched him.’

‘ “The second they looked at each other, you could see the sparks fly. And when Morgan kissed her, everybody in that studio caught his breath. It was a toss- up as to whether Shannon would kill him or drag him into the sack”.’

‘Not true!’ Shannon said with horror in her voice. . ‘What damned fool said that?’

‘Jerry Crawford,’ Claire said sweetly. ‘Your director. Boy, this pie is delicious. Want a bite?’

Shannon shook her head. A prickle of suspicion was beginning to dance up her spine. There was something wrong with this entire conversation.

In fact, there was something wrong with finding herself in a restaurant in East Meadow, Long Island on a Thursday night in late October.

Claire prided herself on never leaving the borough of Manhattan, except when business de­manded. It had even been an effort to convince her to pay a visit to the Cape Cod repertory theatre when Shannon had appeared there.

‘Claire,’ she said softly, ‘why are we here tonight?’

‘I told you, I have to check out somebody.’

‘Why am I going, then?’

‘You’re keeping me company, Shannon. You’re going as a favor to me.’

‘And you’re going as a favor to Crawford,’ Shannon said quietly. 'You still haven’t explained that.’

The agent pushed aside her empty plate. ‘OK, why not? I mean, I didn’t want to say any­thing to you until It was certain, but... It’s almost in the bag, I guess, and... ’

The prickle of suspicion was doing a tap dance. Everybody seemed terribly interested in what had happened between her and Cade Morgan. And suddenly Jerry Crawford wanted something from Claire—that was interesting all by itself, especially since Shannon had never seen him say more than hello or goodbye to her agent.

Until today, she thought sud­denly, until today, when Crawford had spirited Claire into a dark corner of the sound stage and talked to her in low tones for almost ten minutes; until today, when Cade Morgan had shown up and spoken knowledgeably about All Our Tomorrows...

She took a deep breath. ‘Who’s performing at the Coliseum, Claire?’ she asked in a soft voice. ‘Who are we going to see?’