Danielle Steel - The Ranch

She took the dark green bedspreads off the beds, and put them in the closet to send to the cleaners, and she made a mental note to change the drapes. She had never noticed how badly they had faded. It was sad looking at his old room, it seemed so empty and so bereft, with boxes stacked everywhere all around her. It was as though he was moving somewhere. But he was already long gone. She was a year late putting away his things. She was a year late saying good-bye to him, but in the important ways she had. He would never be forgotten, and things would never be the same again. It seemed only a matter of time before she would be packing the rest of the apartment.

She looked around for a last time, and gently closed his door again. The next day, she was going to have the Goodwill pick up the things to give away, and the service manager take the rest of the boxes down to the basement. And as she walked slowly back to her room, she thought of everything that had happened in the past year, how far they had come, and how alone they all were. Alyssa was in Europe with her friends, Todd was gone, and Bill was in London for the summer. And now she was here, putting away memories, and letting go of her older child, her first baby. She looked long and hard at a photograph of him as she stood in her bedroom. His eyes were so big and bright and clear, and he had been laughing when she took the picture. She could still hear the sound of his laughter. “Oh, come on, Mom… hurry up…” He was in a wet bathing suit in Cape Cod, and he'd been freezing. He was pretending to strangle his sister, it was all in good fun, and he had run halfway down the beach afterward with the top of her bikini, with Alyssa running after him, clutching a towel and screaming. It seemed a thousand years ago, when there was still more to her life than just memories, and an empty apartment.

Mary Stuart didn't get to bed till several hours later, and when she did, she lay dreaming of all of them, Alyssa was saying something and shaking her head, and Todd was thanking her for packing his things for him. And when she looked up, she could see Bill in the distance, walking away from her, and as she called after him, he never turned around and looked at her, he just kept walking.

Chapter 6

When Tanya got back to Los Angeles, she hadn't been sure what she would find. Tony had said he was moving out, but there was always the off chance that he hadn't. But as soon as she got home, she checked his closets and saw that they were empty. Jean was at the house, waiting for her, anxious to give her the latest report, and show her the latest horror from the tabloids. She was in the front pages again, and as usual the stories about the bodyguard who was suing her were appalling. Someone had told them that Tony had rented his own apartment, but it was only temporary, they explained, and there were more photographs of him with the starlet he had gone out with. This time he had been having dinner with her.

“It's all right… it's all right…” Tanya said to Jean, looking tired. “I know. I've seen it.” She had picked up a copy at the airport. “I think I'll go to Santa Barbara for a couple of days.” She needed to get away from there, from the photographers and the prying eyes and the empty closets. She didn't even have time to mourn for him, all she could think about was how to protect herself from the media.

“You can't go,” Jean said matter-of-factly, handing her four sheets of schedules. “You're doing a benefit tomorrow night, and you have rehearsal for two days after that. And you have to meet with Bennett about the lawsuit over the weekend.”

“Tell him I can't,” Tanya said unhappily. “I need a couple of days off.” She would never have welched on a benefit or skipped rehearsals. But she was not about to spend her weekend with Bennett Pearson, preparing for depositions.

“I think that's pretty firm. They're already scheduling you for depositions in the Leo Turner case, and Bennett said he got a call from Tony's lawyer this morning.”

“That was fast,” Tanya said, dropping into a large, comfortable, pink satin chair in her bedroom. “He sure didn't waste much time.” It was as though three years had vanished into thin air overnight, and now they had to get down to business. Sometimes she wondered if that was all everything was. It was all about money, greed, and business. The agents, the lawyers, the people selling stories about her, those who wanted to be paid off so they wouldn't sue, the endless number of people who thought she owed them for her success, because she'd been fortunate and they'd been less so.

“I need a day to myself,” she said to her secretary quietly, and no one in her world had any idea how much she meant it. She just couldn't do it anymore, couldn't go on, couldn't keep plugging and smiling and singing and working, for all of them. Sometimes she felt as though she worked only to pay them. There was no life left anymore. It was just work and payments.

“He thinks he can buy Leo off for five hundred grand,” Jean said, pressing on, and she still had an armful of appointments and clippings, but Tanya was looking grim, and the secretary hadn't noticed.

“Fuck Leo. And you can tell Bennett I said so.”

Jean nodded and went on, while Tanya wished she would drop through the floor, but Jean was not only thorough, she was relentless. “We got a call from the L.A. Times today. They want to know the details of the divorce, if Tony wants alimony or a settlement or both, and if you're going to give it to him.”

“Was that from his lawyer or the paper?” Tanya looked confused and upset. There was certainly no such thing as privacy in her life, or decency, or anything even remotely human.

“It was the paper, and Tony called. He wants to talk to you about the children.”

“What about them?” She lay her head back against the chair and closed her eyes, as Jean sat down across from her and went on. She never missed a beat. And she still had to tell Tanya about all her new appointments. An attorney, an accountant, a decorator who thought she should redo the house, an architect who was going to help her alter the kitchen at the beach house. Everyone had to be paid and met with and listened to, and if they somehow decided she had fallen short of their expectations of her, they would sue her. It was just the way things were, and Tanya knew it. And it didn't matter that Tanya's lawyer made them all sign confidentiality agreements, assuring her that they would not sell information to the tabloids. “Why does Tony want to talk to me about the kids?” she asked Jean again, who went back in her notes and checked. She worked a ten-or twelve-hour day sometimes. It was not an easy job, but she was well paid, and most of the time Tanya was nice to work for. And Jean liked the glory of it, going to concerts with her, being seen with her, wearing her old clothes, and living an odd kind of half-life in her shadow. She had wanted to sing too, but she didn't have the voice, the luck, or the talent. Tanya did, and she was happy just to stand beside it.

“I'm not sure,” Jean answered her about the kids. “He didn't say. But he asked you to call him.”

She had another half hour of business to listen to, and Jean pointed out that the housekeeper had left dinner for her in the kitchen. Tanya poured herself a glass of wine instead, went over some notes, took a file of contracts from Jean. They had been dropped off by her lawyers and were all from the promoters of the concert tour. And when Jean finally left at nine o'clock, Tanya picked up the phone and called Tony.

“Hi,” she said, sounding utterly exhausted. It had been a long day from her start in New York early that morning, and there was so much waiting for her here. Sometimes she wondered if she'd survive it. “Jean said you wanted me to call.”