Danielle Steel - Honor Thyself

“He has no business visiting you, Mom. He broke your heart. That's why we left France.”

“What did he do?” Carole asked, but Anthony's memories were those of a child.

“He was mean to you and made you cry.” It sounded so simple, she smiled.

“He can't hurt me now,” she reassured her son.

“I'll kill him if he does.” He no longer remembered the details himself, but the residual feelings were still strong. “Tell him to get lost.”

“I promise, if he's mean to me, I'll have him thrown out.” But she wanted to know more.

Two days after Jason and Anthony left, Mike Appelsohn said he was coming to Paris to see her. He had been calling every day and talking to Stevie. She told him Carole was strong enough to see him, although she was coming back to L.A. in a few weeks and he could see her there. He said he didn't want to wait, and took a plane from L.A. He was in Paris the next day, after weeks of being worried sick about her. She was like a daughter to him and had been since they met, when she was eighteen.

Mike Appelsohn was a handsome, portly man with lively eyes and a booming laugh. He had a great sense of humor, and had been producing movies for fifty years. He had found Carole in New Orleans thirty-two years before, and convinced her to come to Hollywood for a screen test. The rest was Hollywood history. The screen test had been perfect, and she shot to stardom like a rocket, thanks to him. He got her into her first movies and watched over her like a mother hen. He had been there when she met Jason, and introduced them, although he hadn't realized the impact it would have. And he was the godfather of her first child. Her children loved him and thought of him as a grandfather. And he had acted as her agent since he launched her career. She had discussed every movie she'd ever made with him, before signing the contracts, and had never done a single project without his approval and wise advice. When he heard about the accident, and the condition she'd been in, he was devastated. He wanted to see her now with his own eyes. Stevie warned him that Carole had no memory yet. She wasn't going to recognize him, or remember their history together, but once she knew how important she'd been to him, and he to her, Stevie was sure she'd be happy to see him.

“She still remembers nothing?” he asked, sounding upset on the phone. “Will her memory come back?” He had been worried sick about her since Stevie's call when she got to Paris. She had wanted to warn him before he read of Carole's accident in the press. He had cried when Stevie called.

“We hope so. Nothing's jogged it yet, but we're all trying,” and so was Carole. She tried for hours sometimes to remember the things people had told her about since she'd come out of the coma. She couldn't access any of it yet. Jason had had his secretary send photographs, and a baby album from his house. The photographs were beautiful, but Carole stared at them without even a spark of recognition for the memories they should have evoked and didn't. But the doctors were still hopeful, and the doctor in charge of her case, a neurologist, still said it could take a long time, and there were areas of her memory that might never return. Both the blow to her head, the trauma, and the coma afterward had taken a toll. How great a toll, and how long-lasting or permanent the damage, still remained to be seen. It was frustrating for Carole most of all.

But in spite of Stevie's warnings, Mike Appelsohn wasn't prepared for her complete lack of recognition when he walked into her room. He had expected something to be there at least, a memory of his face, of some part of their involvement with each other over the years. There was nothing, and she looked blank when he walked in. Fortunately, Stevie was in the room too. She saw the look of devastation on his face as Carole stared at him. Stevie told her who he was, and had warned her that he was coming. Despite every effort not to, Mike burst into tears as he gave her a hug. He was a big, warm bear of a man.

“Thank God” was all he could say at first, and then finally calmed down as he loosened his hug and released Carole from his arms.

“You're Mike?” Carole asked softly, as though they were meeting for the first time. “Stevie told me so much about you. You've been wonderful to me.” She sounded grateful, although she knew it secondhand.

“I love you, kid. I always have. You were the sweetest girl I've ever met.” He had to fight back tears as he looked at her, and she smiled at him. “You were an absolute knockout at eighteen,” he said proudly. “You still are.”

“Stevie says you discovered me. It makes me sound like a country, or a flower, or a rare bird.”

“You are a rare bird, and a flower,” he said, dropping into the room's only comfortable chair, while Stevie stood nearby. Carole had asked her assistant to stay with her. Even now, with no previous memory of what Stevie did for her, Carole had come to rely on her. She felt safe and protected by the tall, dark-haired young woman.

“I love you, Carole,” he said, even though she didn't remember him. “You're an incredible talent. We've made some great movies together over the years. And we will again, after you get all this behind you.” He was still deeply respected and active in the business, and had been for half a century, as long as Carole had been alive. “I can't wait to get you back in L.A. I've lined up the best doctors for you at Cedars-Sinai.” Her doctors in Paris were going to recommend doctors for her at home, but Mike liked to feel useful and be in control. “So where do we start?” he asked expectantly of Carole. He wanted to do whatever he could to help her. He knew much about her early life in Hollywood, and before. More than anyone else. Stevie had explained that to her before he arrived.

“How did I meet you?” Carole wanted to hear the story.

“You sold me a tube of toothpaste at a corner drugstore, in New Orleans, and you were the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen,” he said kindly. He had made no mention of the scar on her cheek. She had seen it by then, now that she was walking. She had been to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. It shocked her at first, and then she decided it didn't matter. She was alive, and it was a small price to pay for her survival. It was her memory she wanted back, not her flawless beauty.

“I invited you to come to L.A. for a screen test, and you told me later, you thought I was a pimp. Nice, huh?” He was a big jolly man, and at the memory of it, he roared with laughter. He had told the story a million times. “First time anyone ever thought I was a pimp.” Carole laughed with him. She had also recovered all of her vocabulary by then, and understood the word. “You'd come to New Orleans from Mississippi,” he went on. “From your dad's farm. He had just died a few months before, and you sold it. You were living off the money, and you wouldn't even let me pay for your ticket. You said you didn't want to be ‘beholden’ to me. You had a hell of a drawl then. I loved it. But it didn't work for movies.” Carole nodded. Jason had told her the same thing. She had still had a touch of it when he married her, her Mississippi drawl, but it was long gone now, and had been for years. “You came to L.A., and your screen test was terrific.”

“What happened to me before that?” He had known her longer than anyone, and she thought he might know something about her childhood. Jason had been sketchy about that, and didn't know all the details.

“I'm not sure,” he said honestly. “You talked a lot about your dad, when you were a kid. It sounds like he was good to you, and you loved growing up on the farm. You lived in some tiny town outside Biloxi.” When he said the word, something clicked for her. She had no idea why, but a word came to mind and she said it.