Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

“Did you do nude scenes in your movies?” he asked her while they were getting out of the shower. She seemed so at ease with her body and with him. She laughed at his question. It seemed so long ago.

“I had a body double for that. I never did my own nude scenes. Scott did, which is probably how he wound up with Silvana. She did her own nudity too. I didn’t want to embarrass my kids if they saw the films later when they were older, so I always had a body double in my contracts. Maybe I should have one now for you,” she teased, but her body was still beautiful, and a lifetime of exercise and careful eating had paid off. Charles had stayed trim and athletic after his military career too.

“You don’t need a body double, you’re gorgeous, Meredith.”

She put up a gentle hand and kissed him. “If you start again, we won’t make it to dinner,” she warned him. He laughed and made a quick decision, they went back to bed and canceled dinner. It was a beautiful, romantic night, and they drove back to the city under a harvest moon, which hung in the sky like a movie set. He was beginning to forget who she was, and she was slowly becoming his, a woman he loved, not a movie star, or a legend.

They got back to the city at one-thirty in the morning. There had been no traffic, and he followed her into the house. She let him in with her key, and she knew that the night security man was watching them on one of the screens.

“Do you want to sleep here tonight?” she asked him, and he nodded. She took him up to her bedroom, and they piled into her enormous canopied bed, and they snuggled like two children and fell asleep within minutes.

They woke up early, and she took him down to the kitchen to make him breakfast. Jack and Debbie were off on Sundays, so she knew they’d be alone. She handed him The New York Times that the night man had left on the kitchen table. He read it while she made him fried eggs and bacon, and poured him a mug of steaming coffee, and then she sat across from him with a mug of her own.

“This is perfect, isn’t it?” she said as he glanced over at her and thanked her for breakfast.

“Yes, it is.” He looked as peaceful as she did.

They went for a walk on the beach after breakfast, bundled up in the wind, and came back at noon for something to eat, and wound up in bed again.

He hated to leave her that night, but he had an early meeting the next morning, and he didn’t want to deal with Jack and Debbie snarling at him the next day.

“Are you keeping an eye on them?” he asked her when the subject came up, and she smiled.

“I don’t need to. They’re as honest as I am.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said, but it was obvious he didn’t believe her, and she didn’t argue the point with him. The two days she had spent with him had been perfect, and she didn’t want anything to spoil it. Nothing could have. They felt made for each other, and he was right, the eight years between them didn’t matter at all.

—

“Son of a bitch!” Debbie exploded when she walked into their living room, where Jack was watching Sunday Night Football on TV. He looked up in surprise at the vehemence of her comment. “I talked to Harvey the night guy, and the colonel spent the night here last night. They came in at one-thirty in the morning, and he just left. Shit, we’ll never get rid of him now.”

“I can’t believe it.” Jack looked shocked. “She hasn’t gotten laid since Scott left her.”

“Yeah, now she’s friends with half the neighborhood, and gives block parties, and she has a boyfriend. What are we supposed to do with that?”

He thought about it for a minute and shrugged. “What we’ve always done I guess. A little here, a little there, some kickbacks. We’re there for her whenever she needs us, and one day she gratefully leaves us a nice fat pot of gold in her will.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” Debbie said, pouring the last of a bottle of Chateau Margaux into a glass in front of her. They’d been drinking all day. “If he sticks around, he’ll be watching us. He has some kind of a security business and she won’t be lonely the way she was before. And she’s not that old. It could be a long wait.”

“He may not stick around for long. She’s older than he is, and her life is pretty dull.”

“She’s Meredith White,” Debbie reminded her husband. “What guy wouldn’t want to show off with that? And what if she marries him?”

“At her age, she won’t. What does she need to get married for? Sooner or later he’ll find someone his own age to play with. The star factor doesn’t last forever.” He dismissed it out of hand.

“I don’t like the guy. I’ve got a bad feeling about him,” Debbie said somberly.

“I don’t like him either, but he’s too busy to pay attention to us. We just stay below the radar for a while,” Jack said. But Debbie didn’t like the way things were going. It had all been so much easier when Meredith had no friends, no man, no kids, no family. But Debbie knew she was loyal, and wouldn’t forget the time she had spent with them. They had enormous influence on her, and she frequently asked Debbie’s advice. But it still made Debbie uneasy that Meredith was broadening her life. She could slip right through their fingers now and everything they’d built by careful, deliberate, constant, steady theft could come to an end. What a terrible thought, Debbie said to herself.

—

Ava was having dinner with Peter and Arthur that night. They had ordered food in from a nearby Vietnamese restaurant and were eating in the kitchen. Arthur was adept with chopsticks. He had just made a suggestion that stunned Peter and Ava.

Peter told him that Ava had broken up with Joel, and was looking for an apartment. Arthur approved of what she’d done. She couldn’t ride two horses forever. She had done the right thing in a relatively short time and won his respect.

“Do you want her to live here with you?” he asked Peter when they were alone. “I’d be willing to try it, if she lives by the same rules you do. It makes more sense than her getting an apartment she can’t afford, and then spending nights with you anyway.” Arthur was willing to go to great lengths not to lose Peter, and he liked the girl from his few discussions with her while they were all at Meredith’s. He knew Peter was crazy about her. They were the right age, Peter thought they were well suited, and she seemed like a bright girl. Now that she’d gotten rid of her narcissistic boyfriend, Arthur was willing to lend a hand.

Ava and Peter were both ecstatic with his offer that sounded like a dream to them. “You can move in here if you want,” he’d said to Ava, as Peter grinned and hugged Arthur. She already knew that there were rules. They couldn’t intrude on his space, practice or creative time, or make noise when he was playing the piano. Peter stayed upstairs most of the time, and his room was small. And he would have to be available for Arthur when he needed him. It sounded more than reasonable to them.

Arthur made the second part of his offer after dinner and surprised them both. In fact, they were stunned. They had just finished the meal when Arthur looked in Ava’s direction and addressed her.

“I’ve been thinking, Ava. I need someone to arrange my travel, and I get a lot of correspondence that isn’t in Braille. I need someone to handle it, answer the phones, so I have time to practice. I’ve been thinking of hiring an assistant. I was going to offer it to Peter, but he needs time to finish his novel, and he has a day job. You need a job now. Would you be interested in a job as my assistant?” He told her what he could pay her, and it was slightly more than she’d been making when Joel asked her to quit her job at the time. She was speechless and nodded. He had solved all her problems. It was like a reward for doing the right thing with Joel.