Sidney Sheldon - A Stranger in the Mirror

“Josie…”

She turned toward him, then into him, her body hurting with wanting, hungry for him. They embraced in the water and she could feel the male hardness of him pressed against her, and he said, “We can’t, Josie.” His voice was choked with his desire for her. She reached down for him and said, “Yes. Oh, yes, David.”

They were back on the shore and he was on top of her and inside her and one with her and they were both a part of the stars and the earth and the velvet night.

They lay together a long time, holding each other. It was not until much later, when David had dropped her off at home, that Josephine remembered that he had not proposed to her. But it no longer mattered. What they had shared together was more binding than any marriage ceremony. He would propose tomorrow.

Josephine slept until noon the next day. She woke up with a smile on her face. The smile was still there when her mother came into the bedroom carrying a lovely old wedding dress. “Go down to Brubaker’s and get me twelve yards of tulle right away. Mrs. Topping just brought me her wedding dress. I have to make it over for Cissy by Saturday. She and David Kenyon are getting married.”

David Kenyon had gone to see his mother as soon as he drove Josephine home. She was in bed, a tiny, frail woman who had once been very beautiful.

His mother opened her eyes when David walked into her dimly lit bedroom. She smiled when she saw who it was. “Hello, son. You’re up late.”

“I was out with Josephine, Mother.”

She said nothing, just watching him with her intelligent gray eyes.

“I’m going to marry her,” David said.

She shook her head slowly. “I can’t let you make a mistake like that, David.”

“You don’t really know Josephine. She’s—”

“I’m sure she’s a lovely girl. But she’s not suitable to be a Kenyon wife. Cissy Topping would make you happy. And if you married her, it would make me happy.”

He took her frail hand in his and said, “I love you very much, Mother, but I’m capable of making my own decisions.”

“Are you really?” she asked softly. “Do you always do the right thing?”

He stared at her and she said, “Can you always be trusted to act properly, David? Not to lose your head? Not to do terrible—”

He snatched his hand away.

“Do you always know what you’re doing, son?” Her voice was even softer now.

“Mother, for God’s sake!”

“You’ve done enough to this family already, David. Don’t burden me any further. I don’t think I could bear it.”

His face was white. “You know I didn’t—I couldn’t help—”

“You’re too old to send away again. You’re a man now. I want you to act like one.”

His voice was anguished. “I—I love her—”

She was seized with a spasm, and David summoned the doctor. Later, he and the doctor had a talk.

“I’m afraid your mother hasn’t much longer, David.”

And so the decision was made for him.

He went to see Cissy Topping.

“I’m in love with someone else,” David said. “My mother always thought that you and I—”

“So did I, darling.”

“I know it’s a terrible thing to ask, but—would you be willing to marry me until—until my mother dies, and then give me a divorce?”

Cissy looked at him and said softly, “If that’s what you want, David.”

He felt as though an unbearable weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Thank you, Cissy, I can’t tell you how much—”

She smiled and said, “What are old friends for?”

The moment David left, Cissy Topping telephoned David’s mother. All she said was, “It’s all arranged.”

The one thing David Kenyon had not anticipated was that Josephine would hear about the forthcoming marriage before he could explain everything to her. When David arrived at Josephine’s home, he was met at the door by Mrs. Czinski.

“I’d like to see Josephine,” he said.

She glared at him with eyes filled with malicious triumph. “The Lord Jesus shall overcome and smite down His enemies, and the wicked shall be damned forever.”

David said patiently, “I want to talk to Josephine.”

“She’s gone,” Mrs. Czinski said. “She’s gone away!”

18

The dusty Greyhound Odessa-El Paso-San Bernardino-Los Angeles bus pulled into the Hollywood depot on Vine Street at seven A.M., and somewhere during the fifteen-hundred-mile, two-day journey, Josephine Czinski had become Jill Castle. Outwardly, she looked like the same person. It was inside that she had changed. Something in her was gone. The laughter had died.

The moment she had heard the news, Josephine knew that she must escape. She began to mindlessly throw her clothes into a suitcase. She had no idea where she was going or what she would do when she got there. She only knew that she had to get away from this place at once.

It was when she was walking out of her bedroom and saw the photographs of the movie stars on her wall that she suddenly knew where she was going. Two hours later, she was on the bus for Hollywood. Odessa and everyone in it receded in her mind, fading faster and faster as the bus swept her toward her new destiny. She tried to make herself forget her raging headache. Perhaps she should have seen a doctor about the terrible pains in her head. But now she no longer cared. That was part of her past, and she was sure they would go away. From now on life was going to be wonderful. Josephine Czinski was dead.

Long live Jill Castle.

BOOK TWO

19

Toby Temple became a superstar because of the unlikely juxtaposition of a paternity suit, a ruptured appendix and the President of the United States.

The Washington Press Club was giving its annual dinner, and the guest of honor was the President. It was a prestigious affair attended by the Vice-President, senators, Cabinet members, Chief Justices and anyone else who could buy, borrow or steal a ticket. Because the event was always given international press coverage, the job of master of ceremonies had become a highly prized plum. This year, one of America’s top comedians had been chosen to emcee the show. One week after he had accepted, he was named defendant in a paternity suit involving a fifteen-year-old girl. On the advice of his attorney, the comedian immediately left the country for an indefinite vacation. The dinner committee turned to their number two choice, a popular motion-picture and television star. He arrived in Washington the night before the dinner. The following afternoon, on the day of the banquet, his agent telephoned to announce that the actor was in the hospital, undergoing emergency surgery for a burst appendix.

There were only six hours left before the dinner. The committee frantically went through a list of possible replacements. The important names were busy doing a movie or a television show, or were too far away to get to Washington in time. One by one, the candidates were eliminated and finally, near the bottom of the list, the name of Toby Temple appeared. A committee member shook his head. “Temple’s a nightclub comic. He’s too wild. We wouldn’t dare turn him loose on the President.”

“He’d be all right if we could get him to tone down his material.”

The chairman of the committee looked around and said, “I’ll tell you what’s great about him, fellows. He’s in New York City and he can be here in an hour. The goddamned dinner is tonight!”

That was how the committee selected Toby Temple.

As Toby looked around the crowded banquet hall, he thought to himself that if a bomb were dropped here tonight, the federal government of the United States would be leaderless.

The President was seated in the center of the speakers’ table on the dais. Half a dozen Secret Service men stood behind him. In the last-minute rush of putting everything together, no one had remembered to introduce Toby to the President, but Toby did not mind. The President will remember me , Toby thought. He recalled his meeting with Downey, the chairman of the dinner committee. Downey had said, “We love your humor, Toby. You’re very funny when you attack people. However—” He had paused to clear his throat. “This is—er—a sensitive group here tonight. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that they can’t take a little joke on themselves, but everything said in this room tonight is going to be reported by the news media all over the world. Naturally, none of us wants anything said that would hold the President of the United States or members of Congress up to ridicule. In other words, we want you to be funny, but we don’t want you to get anyone mad.”