Anne Siddons - Fault Lines

“Tell me,” I said aloud, or rather the old Merritt said, popping up like an indestructible jack-in-the-box. Get out of here I told her furiously in my mind; stay out of my head until I’m back where you live. This is not your place. I don’t want you. I want the one who came after you.…

“Tell me,” I said again to my sister. That was when I knew that the woman T.C. and I had created was not going to survive the trip home. It was the worst moment of all. I have felt no pain since that has even come close to that moment.

She took her coffee cup and went over to the sofa and sprawled out on it, putting her booted feet up. I followed her stiffly and sat in the facing wing chair. On the way I lit the half-charred logs and pulled an afghan around me. The cold felt as though it was sucking the life out of me.

She did not speak, and I said, “Did you see Caleb?”

“Oh, yeah. I found him right off, at his place. It was close to dawn, but he had company. They went out the back way; I never saw them. I don’t know if it was a man or a woman, but I can’t imagine any man friend of Pring’s sneaking out his back door when I happen by. None of them thinks I’m important enough for that. And as it turns out, I’m not. I never was. I don’t know now why I couldn’t see that.”

“I’m sorry, Pie,” I said, and I was. Sorry, sad, but at a remove, as if through a pane of glass. I didn’t know what else to say to her. I could not make this right.

“So things didn’t go well about Arc ?”

She stretched mightily.

“There’s not going to be any Arc ,” she said. “I killed Arc . I’m glad I did. It was a monstrous thing, an abomination. It would have been even if I’d played the grown-up Joan, I can see that now. The whole concept is…obscene. He didn’t change his mind about my doing the Dauphine; I thought at first he would, but in the end he wouldn’t. It was no mistake, of course. That’s what he wanted me for all along. That and for Glynn. When I realized he wasn’t going to budge about that I called Margolies and told him there was no chance and you were taking her home. He pulled the plug on the picture that day. Pring was furious and oh, so wounded; he said he hadn’t thought I had it in me to hurt him like that. Can you believe it ? After the Arc business, after the baby—”

She stopped and dropped her face into her hands. She did not weep, just sat there, hidden behind her long, thin fingers.

“Oh, love,” I said, sadness pouring into the crater in my heart I had thought empty forever. “He didn’t want the baby?”

“Oh, God, no. Of course not. Caleb Pringle with a baby? A wife and a baby? Met, I was such a fool; I thought he would want it; he always had such a special thing with children. But the only children Pring can relate to are the ones on the other side of the camera. The only way he can see them is through a lens. It was that way with the kid in Right Time ; it would have been that way with Glynn in Arc . Beyond that she wouldn’t have existed to him. It would have destroyed her. I was too selfish to see that before.”

“What did he say about the baby when you told him?”

“Well, let’s see. He said was I absolutely sure it belonged to him, and that at this stage in his life a baby was not a priority, and then he said he’d take care of things financially for me, and he wrote me out a check for fifty thousand dollars and gave me the number of a man in Santa Monica he said would take care of…things. I don’t know if he’s a doctor or not, but he must be good, or Pring wouldn’t have anything to do with him. I gather the problem has come up before and has been settled satisfactorily.”

“Laura, you didn’t—”

“Not yet. I was going to, but then Stuart tracked me down, and came flying over and spent two straight days trying to change my mind, and what with one thing and another…oh, Met. Stu’s dead. He died this morning at three; I’ve been driving ever since. I came straight here from the hospital.”

“Dead…” It was a whisper. Shock and swiftly following grief took my breath.

“He was sick when he got to me. I was still at Pring’s; the morning after our little chat he took off for the Bahamas, whether with his mysterious visitor or not I don’t know. He knows a guy with some loose money down there. He still thinks he can get Arc going, but he can’t. Stuart was coughing horribly when he came, and he had a high fever; you could tell without even touching him. He wouldn’t let me take him to a doctor, but after nearly two days of begging me to have the baby and let him help me take care of it, he just…collapsed. I called 911, but it was too late by then. He had pneumonia, that kind you get with AIDS; he was dead that night. Last night. This morning, whenever. The doctor said that all told, it was a fairly gentle way to go.”

She began to cry. I moved over and sat next to her and put my arms around her shoulder. I simply sat there, holding her while she sobbed.

What a good man you were, and how much you loved her, I said to Stuart Feinstein in my head. She’s never going to have anybody like you again.

Thank you, dollbaby, he said. But she still has you.

No, she doesn’t, I said back. There’s no me left. Ain’t nobody home here.

“Do you know what he’s done?” Laura said presently, around the sobs. “He’s left me his condo and all his money. He had more than I thought. He’s been saving it ever since he got sick and knew he wouldn’t get well. He made his will then. He only told me the day he died. He never did think Pring was going to look after me. He said that no matter what happened to him, I’d still have a place to live and a little money to raise the baby with. He said he’d talked to another agent about handling me, and that I should call him.”

“What a darling,” I said, wishing for the ease of tears for Stuart Feinstein but knowing it was not going to be granted. “Will you do it?”

She raised her head and smiled at me. It was a terrible smile.

“Who in their right mind is going to take on a pregnant thirty-eight-year-old Caleb Pringle reject, whose hot new vehicle just fell through? I did that to myself, Met. Remember that asshole Billy Poythress, the one who did the interview with me that day at the Sunset Marquis? Well, I got greedy and desperate and shot my mouth off about what a great love Pring and I had going, and about the sensational part I’d had in Right Time , and the even hotter one that was coming up with Pring and Margolies.…I didn’t tell him about Arc exactly, but Billy’s never had any trouble extrapolating. You wouldn’t believe what he made of that interview. It was unspeakable. It ran the very day I saw Pring; the timing couldn’t have been any worse. By now, of course, everybody knows that Margolies has killed Right Time and Arc , and if they don’t know Pring has dumped me and taken off they’ll know this time next week. There’s not an agent in Hollywood who’d touch me. Stu must have known, but he gave it his best shot. It was me he was worrying about when he died, Met. The last thing he said was ‘Take care of yourself, dollbaby!’”

“So what are you going to do?” I said. “I know you’re hurt and shocked, but we’ve got to make a plan for you; I’ve got to know you’re not going to…do something to the baby or yourself. Come home with us, Pie. What’s holding you here? Leave the car in long-term parking, or with T.C., and just get on the plane with us and come home. We’ll look after you; we’ll find you a good doctor, Pom knows them all; we can help you get settled someplace nice with the baby, and find good day care…you can do all the theater you’d ever want to do in Atlanta; you’d own the city. You can do commercials there, you can do movies; they’re always making movies in the South now…you could make a very good life for both of you. You might even enjoy it. It’s a good place to live, a great place to raise a child.…”