Kristin James - Once In A Blue Moon

“Hi,” she said, plopping down on the couch at Isabelle’s feet. “Whatcha doing?”

Isabelle smiled. Ten or fifteen minutes was usually Jenny’s limit for leaving one alone. “Nothing. Just being lazy.”

She sat up and cuddled Jenny to her side. “Well, what do you say we watch a little TV together? Would you like that?”

“Sure.”

Isabelle picked up the remote control and flicked the television on. Jenny was immediately absorbed, staring at the screen, lips slightly parted. Isabelle bent and kissed the top of her head.

She would get past this Michael Traynor thing with all the ease and grace she could muster, Isabelle promised herself. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to be allowed to interfere with the tranquil life she and Jenny had created for themselves.

* * *

Michael Traynor walked over to the window of his hotel room and looked out. The swimming pool lay below amidst short palm trees, emerald-green grass and light-edged walkways. It was a landscaping work of art, but Michael didn’t even notice the view. Instead, he stared rather blankly off into the distance; his mind was on Isabelle.

He had known she was on “Tomorrows.” Truthfully—though he would not have told her that—it was one of the things that had intrigued him when his agent told him Danny Archer wanted him for the show. He had been restless, tired of “Eden Crossing,” the show on which he had been for almost four years, tired even of New York City and the opportunity of doing live theater. The money Archer offered had been a good deal better, and L.A. offered more opportunity for other acting jobs, as well as a change of scenery. Besides, the thought of Isabelle teased at his mind. What was she like now? How would he feel when he saw her?

The memories of their long-ago love had stirred within him. He could not remember ever feeling such passion before or since. It had torn out his heart to leave her. The fact that he was sure he was doing the right thing, the noble thing, hadn’t made the pain any less. There had been many times when he had given in and phoned her, ready to beg her to come to New York and be with him, but, fortunately, he supposed, she had refused to even speak with him.

Michael sighed. Apparently Isabelle still despised him just as much. He thought about the moment when he had first seen Isabelle today, standing there on the soundstage with the others. He had known that he would see her, but the actuality of her stunned him. She was beautiful. Over the years he had come to believe that he had exaggerated her beauty, but now he knew that he had not. If anything, she was even more lovely than he had remembered. Time and experience, he realized as he came closer to her, had given her perfect features a character that they had lacked when she was eighteen. His palms had started to sweat and his heart had begun to pound when Danny Archer guided him across the floor to meet her.

He turned away from the window and flopped down on his bed, linking his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes, remembering the first time he had ever seen Isabelle. Then she had been standing on the stage in Virginia, helping set up a flat of painted scenery for the background. Her black hair had tumbled down her back, and her jean shorts and cropped T-shirt had done little to hide her curvaceous figure. He had known as soon as he saw her that she was trouble: far too gorgeous and far too young. He had been right. She had been only eighteen, and she had the kind of beauty that haunted men. Within a month he was desperately in love with her.

A faint smile touched Michael’s lips as he thought about lying stretched out on his bed in his room with her that summer, naked arms and legs entwined, their perspiration mingling as they kissed and caressed and moaned. He could still remember the thrum of the ancient air-conditioning unit that barely cooled the air as their bodies moved together. He could remember the taste of her skin, warm and damp, smelling sweetly of perfume, the delicious weight of her breasts in his hands, the utter glory of being buried deep within her.

Michael groaned softly and rolled onto his side. Just recalling the moments of making love with her had been enough to arouse him. He wondered if it would still be as heavenly to go to bed with her.

Not that he was likely to get a chance, he reminded himself wryly. Isabelle obviously wished to have nothing to do with him. This morning when Danny introduced him, Isabelle had looked straight through him, her face as cold and remote as an iceberg, and greeted him as if he had been someone she had once barely known. Afterward, in the parking lot, she had told him so straight out, just in case he hadn’t gotten the message. Their love affair had been a long time ago, and she hadn’t even thought of him in years.

Michael grimaced. He didn’t know what he had expected. A woman doesn’t greet you with cries of pleasure when you’ve left them in the past, even if it was with the best of motives. And after ten years, well, it wasn’t very likely that she’d have any feeling about him one way or another. He wasn’t even sure how he had hoped she might react. He wouldn’t have wanted her to have missed and mourned him all these years; after all, one of the main reasons he’d left had been because he knew she was too young to really be sure she was in love. He’d wanted her to be able to grow up, to go to college, to meet a man and fall in love for real, forever, not be stuck with an eighteen-year-old’s infatuation. No, he hadn’t hoped that Isabelle would be sad or holding a grudge.

But he had hoped that she would not dismiss him so coolly or quickly. He had thought that perhaps she would feel the same tingles of excitement he had at seeing her again. There had lurked in him some faint, strange, unreasonable idea that when they saw each other again, sparks would be struck again. That fate might have brought them together to give them another chance.

Michael shrugged and stood up. He was, after all, too old to believe in fate or second chances. He had a job, and it started tomorrow. He better get ready for that. As for Isabelle Gray...well, she wanted to keep him at arm’s length, and that was exactly what he would do. They might work together, but that was all. He’d take care to avoid her the rest of the time.

Still, he couldn’t help but remember her kiss....

Isabelle took the script Tish handed her and quickly perused it to get a sense of her scenes the following week. All around her in the lounge, other actors and actresses were doing the same thing. She sneaked a glance at Ben Ivor. He was running his forefinger down the pages, counting under his breath. She cut her eyes toward Felice McIntyre, sitting beside her. Felice, who played the sweet, perennially martyred Townsend sister, Christine, on the show, put her hand up to stifle a giggle. Ben Ivor’s obsession with the number of lines he was given per week was a running joke between them. He played one of the minor regular characters on the show, the resident bartender who also got up now and then to sing on the nightclub’s small stage.

“Fourteen lines!” Ivor exclaimed in disgust. “I can’t believe it. I thought last week was bad enough, but fourteen!” He jumped up, slamming the script shut and started out the door. “I’m going to talk to Karen.”

He stalked out of the lounge to find the head writer of the show. Felice pulled a cigarette out of the pack on the table before her and lit it languidly. “If Karen’s smart, she’ll have left the building already.”

Isabelle chuckled. “I heard that last week she was forced to resort to hiding in the women’s rest room to escape him.”

“I heard. Poor Ben. Since they wrote Selman out, he hasn’t had anyone to compare lines with. He has nothing else to do except harass Karen.”