Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“To you?”

“I never know what to believe. I think maybe my whole career was bought and paid for. You made me look like a fool in front of the whole cast and crew. How did you suddenly become a producer of the film? You’re on a first-name basis with my director. You seem to orchestrate everything you come near. You’re everywhere and nowhere.”

“I was on a first-name basis with famous actresses when I was ten years old. Sometime I’ll tell you the names of some my father slept with.”

“Did you buy me this role or not?”

“Let me tell you a story about Jack Warner. He once said, ‘I’ve got the best scriptwriter in Hollywood, and I’ve got him for peanuts.’ He was talking about William Faulkner. You know who else he said that about? You. In light of what you’re going to make for him, he considers your salary peanuts.”

“I don’t believe you, number one. Number two, what if I said I want out of our situation?”

“You’d hurt me beyond repair. But if that’s your choice, I’d honor it. Is that your choice, Linda Gail?”

She felt a great dryness come into her mouth. “It should be.”

“How should I read that?” he said. “What does a statement like that mean? People are what they do. Not what they say or what they think. You’re with me of your own volition. You’ve made a choice. We both have.”

The sun went behind the clouds. She could see the wind scouring dust out of the fields, peaches thudding to the ground in an orchard, the parked biplanes straining against their anchor ropes. “I grew up in a fundamentalist church,” she said. “So did Hershel. You don’t know what that does to you. Maybe I don’t have your strength. Maybe I’m one of those weak girls who always have to like themselves.”

“Let’s have lunch,” he said.

“You want to have lunch?”

“Yes. Don’t take all these things on yourself at one time. Whatever decision you make will be fine. If you walk away from me today, you’ll always remain my girl. A man meets a woman like you once in a lifetime. Every day with her is a gift. Then one day the gift ends. I can’t stand the thought of losing you, Linda Gail. But I can’t control your emotions. Just tell me what you want to do.”

She thought she would cry.

That wasn’t what she did. Ten minutes later, she was in bed with him, his head buried between her breasts, a wave building inside her with such intensity that the moans she made seemed to come from someone else.

THAT EVENING JERRY Fallon came to her trailer, a new Airstream that had been brought from Guadalajara for her sole use. He was dressed in tennis shorts and a blue polo and a white cap and was carrying two bottles of Champale. “Where’s the lover boy?” he asked.

“Roy?”

“I hope you only have two of them. Lovers, I mean.”

“He had to go to Mexico City. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Nice of him to tell me. Want one of these?”

“No, thank you,” she replied.

“I admire your abstinence. You’re going to do great, love. You know that, don’t you?”

“Why did you call Roy a sod today?”

“That’s from our flying days. I used to call him a sod because he was anything but.”

“He chased women?”

“Not too far. It was wartime. We’d get what we called ‘seventy-two’ in Pearl. The navy nurses were everywhere. Roy cut a wide swath.”

“What do you want, Jerry?”

“Can I sit down?”

“Do whatever you want.”

He was wearing shades and had the darkest tan she had ever seen; his arms and chest were covered with swatches of black hair, his fingers tapered, like a piano player’s. He cracked the cap off a Champale bottle with an opener on his knife. He caught the foam on the web of his thumb and put it in his mouth. “You want to be shark meat?”