Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What is it?” he asked.

She shook her head and smiled. “You know me. I’m just funny sometimes.”

He undressed and got under the sheet; he molded himself against the curve of her buttocks, his hands slipping around her hips. “Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked.

“No, I just have moods. It’s a silly way to be.”

“If you have a problem, I’d like to help.”

“Eventually, we all die and then nothing makes any difference. So why talk about it?”

“We’re not going to die now, though. Why not enjoy the party in the meantime?”

“You’re right,” she said.

She went through it with her eyes closed, her senses dead, her face slanted away from the hardness in his jaw. Minutes later, she felt him rise from her and his weight lift off the bed. She kept her eyes closed and turned toward the wall and pulled the sheet up to her shoulder. She heard the blender flare to life, the grinding noise as invasive as a dentist’s drill. He sat down next to her. “I made you an orange frappé,” he said.

“Put it on the nightstand, would you?”

“You weren’t quite with it tonight.”

“Thanks. A girl loves hearing she’s a bad lay.”

“I wondered if it was because of something I said or did.”

She felt for his hand and squeezed it but did not look at him. “You’re fine.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

“It’s a funny feeling I have. Like things are coming apart. Like birds are all flying from a tree. The way they do at sunset.”

She heard him set down the glass he was holding. His hand was ice-cold when he touched her shoulder.

“Do you want me to call the hotel physician?” he asked.

“I’m not sick. I just feel strange. We start production in Mexico in five days.”

“I thought you were making a movie about the French Resistance.”

“There’re flashbacks in it. About the Spanish Civil War. The male lead is based on André Malraux.”

“I just don’t follow you, Linda Gail. I don’t know what we’re talking about.”

“I’ll be playing in scenes about the Spanish Civil War. I’m the lover of an aviator fighting for the Republic.”

He turned her on her back so she was forced to look into his face. He was wearing a blue robe; his hair was combed and shone like bronze in the subdued light of the apartment. His expression was full of pity. “I’ve heard that everyone at Warner Brothers is delighted to have you on board.”

“I told some newspapermen on the train that I didn’t know Weldon Holland’s wife. No, that wasn’t how I put it. I told them I didn’t associate with her. I said if I knew she was a Communist, I’d report her.”

“She isn’t a Communist, so what does it matter?”

“I lied. I think they wanted me to. Then they could treat me like I was dirt.”

“Give me their names.”