Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

Chapter 8

Two days after their dinner, Charles called Meredith and invited her to spend the day with him in the Napa Valley on Saturday. He had a small rented house there, set amid extensive vineyards on someone’s property, with a river running through it.

“I go there when I can get away, to clear my head.”

“It sounds nice.”

“It looks like Italy, or France. And there are good restaurants up there.” She agreed to go, and he told her he’d pick her up at nine in the morning, they’d make a day of it, and come home late that night, after dinner at Bouchon, one of the restaurants he thought she’d like.

When he picked her up, she was wearing a white cashmere turtleneck and a warm parka. He had warned her it might be chilly. They chatted easily on the hour-and-a-half drive. They picked up sandwiches when they got to Yountville, and then went to his house. There were vineyards all around them, as far as the eye could see. They walked down to the river and went on a bike ride through the vineyards, and then had a picnic on a table outside his house, looking out over the valley. There was an outdoor fireplace and he built a fire in it to keep them warm while they talked.

“I love this,” she said, looking more relaxed than he’d seen her. “Every time I go out with you, you remind me of what I’ve been missing. This is heaven. Scott and I came up here a few times when we first moved to San Francisco, but one of us was always on location. Our lives were complicated then, and people followed us around wherever we went. That’s why we bought the big house in the city. We figured we’d have privacy, and we did. Kendall hated it when people stopped us for autographs when we went out, or wanted pictures of us with them, or the paparazzi caught us in some private moments. I guess it was a hard way to grow up. She hated everything about our careers. It must kill her that her daughter is pursuing that life now. I was happy Kendall didn’t want it. It’s hard to lead a normal life with all that going on. And I guess the parents of her friends at school talked about us.

“She was older and already married herself in New York when Scott left me, but it was a nightmare. The press was after us constantly. He went to the Cannes Film Festival with Silvana, for the film they were in, and everything exploded after that. Kendall’s take on it was that if I’d been home more, and not working all the time, it wouldn’t have happened, but I think Scott would have done something like it anyway. He was bored and she was young, and I was gone a lot, and he had a hard time with my success. His affair with Silvana might have blown over, but he would have done it again with someone else. I filed for divorce right after Justin died, since I blamed him for that. Kendall thought I nearly destroyed her father with the divorce and never forgave me for it. But it must have worked out for them. He and Silvana are still together fifteen years later. Her career tanked after one movie, but I think being married to Scott Price was enough for her. I retired then, because of my son, but I was tired of the Hollywood hype anyway. The box office pressure. You never really know what the truth is. With or without Silvana, our marriage probably would have run out of gas at some point. It took me years to figure that out. Justin’s death just made it all more dramatic and tragic, and finished us off. It nearly killed both of us. Scott stayed drunk and on drugs afterward for two years, and I vanished. You can’t come back from something like that as a couple. Too much had happened. He got his career back on track though, after he went to rehab. He’s done some very good films in the last few years. He’s a talented director. He’s a Hollywood legend now,” she said to Charles, and there was no bitterness in her voice. It was the story of her life, and she accepted where it had led her. She had learned to live with the losses. Scott was ancient history for her now.

“It can’t be easy to have a decent marriage and bring up kids in Hollywood, with that kind of fame,” Charles said sympathetically. He wanted to understand what had happened to her, why she had run away and hidden for so long. Their lives had been so different.

“That’s why we moved to San Francisco. But all that crap follows you wherever you go. Fame is a hard game to play. You pay a high price for it, and even though we tried to protect them, so do your kids. Kendall married a very conservative young banker from a stuffy family with old money and she got as far away from it as she could. I don’t blame her. And now her daughter wants everything we had. Hollywood families are like circus families. They love to dance on the high wire without a net. It’s in their blood.” Charles smiled at the comparison.

“People envy it, they have no idea what it’s about, or the toll it takes,” he said wisely.

“They envy it until you become too famous, and then they hate you for it. They only love you for a while.”

They walked back into his little house then, and he lit a fire inside. She loved the smell of the wood burning as she snuggled up to him. The house itself was small and cozy, with a living room with a big fireplace, three bedrooms, and an inviting country kitchen. Charles said it was perfect for an occasional country weekend, or if his kids came to visit, which they didn’t do often. He went to visit them instead.

At the end of the day, the October sun went down and the evening was cold. She had brought a skirt to wear to dinner at Bouchon, but Charles told her she didn’t have to change. She lay on the couch next to him, totally relaxed, as he leaned over and kissed her, and then sat up, admiring her.

“How can you still be so beautiful?” Charles said, as he cupped one breast with his hand and she didn’t pull away.

“Daphne says I’m a good witch.” She smiled at him.

“Then you’ve bewitched me. That I’m willing to believe.” It was dark in the living room as he slowly unbuttoned her blouse, unhooked her bra and bent to kiss her breast. Making love was barely a memory for her now, but she wanted him, and reached out for him, and then he took her hand, and they walked into his bedroom, and he peeled her clothes away, as she held her arms out to him, and they lay on the bed together, and made love as though everything was new and the past faded away. She held him in her arms afterward, at peace.

He tried not to think of who she was, and only that she was a woman he cared about, but the moment he looked at her, she took his breath away again. He had just made love to Meredith White, it felt like a dream to both of them.

“I want to forget who you are,” Charles said to her in a hoarse voice after they made love.

“What does that mean?” She looked happy and sated, and felt as though she was in the right place with the right man. She had no idea how they had found each other, but she was glad they had.

“It means I want to forget that I’m making love to the most famous movie star of all time. It intimidates me.”

“You know better. You know who I am now. That’s all that matters and all there is.” She felt as though they were on equal footing, and she liked that too. Neither of them was bigger or better or more powerful or important than the other. They were just a man and a woman who were falling in love with each other.

“I keep thinking that I would never have met you if the earthquake hadn’t happened. You’d still be a recluse, and I’d be puttering around at loose ends.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call your life ‘puttering.’ ” She smiled. His security business was a solid success with important clients, and he kept busy doing other things, like the OES. “I’m happy I’m not a recluse anymore,” she whispered to him, and they made love again before they got up and showered together and dressed. She was still surprised by how comfortable they were with each other, as though they had been together for a long time.