“No, we crashed,” January said happily.
“But you can make it up,” Linda added. “All we want is an in-depth interview with Mr. Colt. We’d give you the cover for that.”
“No way,” Rita Lewis said. “Mr. Colt is lined up with interviews all next week. All the major magazines, plus the A.P., U.P.I.—”
“But our story would be different,” Linda pleaded.
“Yes,” January added. “We’d sit in on some of his other interviews, like the talk shows; we’d cover the Green Room backstage; we’d even go to some of the other cities.”
“Forget it,” Rita said. “I don’t want him to be in Gloss.” She looked at Linda and added, “And don’t start harassing him with phone calls.”
Tom Colt, who had been watching the cross-talk like a tennis match, cut in. “Wait a minute! What are you, some kind of a Nazi general? Telling people it’s off limits to phone me?”
“Of course not, Mr. Colt. I didn’t mean it that way. But I know how persistent Linda can be. And I’m sure she’s trained January well. It’s just that our schedule is set . . . and Gloss is out. I don’t care what you do in your personal life with either of them . . . but you can’t give them any interview. I’ve made commitments that might be endangered if you did their story.”
His eyes grew cruel as he looked at the publicist. “Look, baby. Let’s get things set from the very beginning. You can make appointments for me . . . and like a nice little trained dog, I’ll go through all the paces. I made a deal. And I always keep my word. But don’t ever tell me what I can’t do.” He put his arm around January protectively. “I’ve known this little girl since she was a baby. Her father’s my buddy chum pal. He made a hell of a picture out of one of my books. And you’re going to stand there and tell me I can’t do an interview for her magazine!”
Rita Lewis looked at Linda pleadingly. “Well . . . make it a small one, Linda . . . please. Otherwise I’ll lose McCall’s and Esquire. No in-depth thing, no following him around—”
“They can follow me into the can if they want,” he stormed. “But right now, we’re going out to booze a little.” Then he took each girl by the arm and propelled them through the room.
January opened her eyes slowly. She was asleep in the club chair. Why hadn’t she opened the bed? Why was she sleeping with her clothes on? She stood up, but the floor began to slant crazily. She fell back on the chair. It was seven o’clock in the morning! She had only been asleep two hours.
She stood up and struggled to get out of her clothes. Several times she had to grab the chair for support. She managed to pull out the bed, then rushed to the bathroom and threw up. She came back and fell across the bed. The events of the entire evening floated back to her. The abrupt change of heart Tom Colt had about her father . . . the three of them leaving the St. Regis while the bewildered Rita Lewis stood by, glaring helplessly. His amazement at their having their own limousine. He liked that . . . said it was the first time he had ever heard of gate-crashers coming in a limo. Then there had been his entrance in Toots Shor’s . . . Toots back-slapping him . . . sitting with them at the front table. Only no one mentioned food. It was Jack Daniels all the way. When he had stated that no one could really be his friend unless he drank Jack Daniels, she and Linda had hesitated for a split second, and then instantly announced they adored bourbon.
She had found the first drink heavy going, but the second went down much easier. And the third brought a strange lightness to her head along with a marvelous sense of good will. And when Tom Colt leaned over and kissed each of them on the cheek and called them his Chocolate and Vanilla girls (January still had her Palm Beach tan and Linda had streaked her hair blonde this month), January felt they were a hilarious threesome. People drifted over to the table. There was much back-slapping—“Sit down, you crum bum” (this was Toots); sports writers who knew her father joined them; Tom kept refilling everyone’s glass. At midnight, Tom insisted on stopping off at “21” for a nightcap. They closed “21” and went to P.J. Clarke’s. At four in the morning they had all stumbled out of P.J.’s—she could remember that. She remembered weaving into the lobby with Linda, both of them giggling . . . But everything that was said or done from P.J.’s on was a haze.
She stumbled into the bathroom and took some aspirin. Then she made it back to the bed. When she closed her eyes the room begin to spin. She opened her eyes and tried to fix her attention on a stationary object. Mr. Bailey’s Tiffany lamp. She must have finally fallen asleep, because suddenly she was in the middle of a dream. She was aware that she was dreaming. She was enough awake to know it was a dream, but enough asleep to allow the dream to propel itself. A man was bending over her. He was about to take her. Any moment he would enter her, yet she experienced no panic. She wanted him, even though his face was a blur . . . She looked closer . . . it was Mike. But then as his lips touched hers she realized it was Tom Colt. Only his eyes weren’t black like Tom’s . . . they were blue. But not blue like Mike’s . . . they were aquamarine! She reached out for him . . . and then she woke up. She lay back against the pillows trying to determine whose face it was—Mike’s or Tom’s—but all she could remember was the color of those amazing eyes.
She forced herself back to sleep, searching for those eyes. But it was a soft dreamless sleep, dissolved suddenly by the telephone. It was Linda. “January, are you up?”
There was a throbbing in the back of her head but her stomach had settled some. “What time is it?” she asked slowly, afraid of any sudden movement.
“Eleven o’clock and I have a godawful hangover.”
“Is that what it is?” January asked. “I thought I was dying.”
“Take some milk.”
“Oh my God . . .” January suddenly felt a wave of nausea.
“Look, eat a piece of bread and take some milk. Right now! It will absorb any liquor left. Do that and call me back. We have to make our plans.”
“What plans?”
“To go on with Thomas Colt.”
“Oh, God . . . must we?”
“Last night you told me you adored him.”
“That was probably after I met his friend, Jack Daniels.”
“We’re not going to do that tonight,” Linda said.
“Do what?”
“Drink when we go with him. We take a firm stand. We’ll sip Scotch. He can drink all he wants to. But if we want to write this story we have to stay sober. We don’t tell him that. We just don’t try to match him drink for drink.”
“Is that what we did?”
“We damn well tried.”
“Linda . . . I’m going to be sick.”
“Eat the bread. I’ll throw on some slacks and come to your apartment and we can plan our strategy.”
She managed to get down half a glass of milk, and she watched Linda make the coffee. Linda finally settled in the club chair and smiled happily. “Now sit up . . . come to life . . . you’ve got to make the call to Tom Colt.”
“Why me?”
“Because even though I intend to sleep with this man tonight, I have a distinct feeling that this morning he will not remember my name. But your name will strike a bell. It has to after that big love he suddenly developed for Daddy.”
“I still feel he’s not exactly wild about Mike. He was just furious at Rita Lewis for giving him orders.”
Linda lit a cigarette and sipped her coffee. “January, this instant stuff is awful. You’ve got to learn to make real coffee.”
January shrugged. “It suits me.”
Linda shook her head. “But it won’t suit your man.”
“What man?”
“Any man who stays over. That’s the one thing they usually demand the next morning—decent coffee.”
“You mean you have to make coffee for them too?”
“Sometimes even eggs. And if you have a health freak like Keith used to be, it’s Granola or one of those nutsy raisiny cereals and Vitamin E and . . . oh, Lord, thank God that’s all out of
my life.”
“Don’t you ever think of Keith or miss him?”
Linda shook her head. “When Caterpillar opened I almost sent him a wire. But I figured the hell with it. It’s over. I’m glad for Keith the show’s a hit, because he sure has to pay big dues sleeping with Christina. Besides, it takes a man like Tom Colt to make you realize that Keith is just a boy.”
“But Linda . . . he’s married, he has a six-month-old baby.”
“But his wife and baby are on the Coast . . . and I’m here. Besides I’m not looking to take him away from his wife or child.”
“Then why are you after him?”
“Because he turns me on . . . he’s beautiful . . . I want to go to bed with him. And so do you. At least you acted that way last night”
“I did?”
“January, your sign should be Gemini instead of Capricorn—you really are twins. I mean, when you drink, you really become another person. Last night he was kissing us both at P.J.’s . . . like taking turns . . . real deep kisses . . . calling me Vanilla . . . and you Chocolate.”
“He was kissing us at P.J.’s?”
“That he was.”
“Really kissing?”
“Well, he had his tongue down my throat. I don’t know about you.”
“Oh, my God.”
“And what about going home?” Linda asked.
“What about going home?” January sat up straight.
“He reached over, slipped his hand under your top, and said. ‘Tiny buds. But I like them.’”
January buried her head in the pillow. “Linda . . . I don’t believe it.”
“Sure . . . then he kissed my boobs and said they were really wild.”
“What was the driver doing?”
“Watching the rear view mirror like mad, I suppose. But they’re used to everything, including actual rape, I’m told.”
“Linda—” January’s voice was weak. “It’s all gradually coming back to me. I remember thinking as he slipped his hand under my blouse that it was the most natural thing in the world. Oh, good Lord . . . how could I?”
“Because you’re finally turning into a nice normal girl.”
“Is that what being normal is . . . to have a man you’ve just met touch you, in front of another girl?”
“Oh, come on. I’ve never played the three-way scene in my life. When I’m in bed with a man I’ve always felt anything goes as long as there’s just the two of us in that bed. And last night was all in fun. It was nothing to get uptight about.”
January got out of bed and wobbled across the room to get a cigarette. She lit it slowly, inhaled deeply, then she turned to Linda. “Okay, I know I’ve been away from it all, and I know things have changed. Like, you don’t have to be married to love someone . . . or to go to bed with someone. I know that’s the way everyone thinks. But there’s no rule that says I have to think that way. I thought of myself as some kind of freak because I was a virgin. I literally talked myself into thinking I was stuck on David. And it was awful—” She shuddered as she ground out the freshly lit cigarette. “Linda, I want to fall in love. Oh God, how I want to fall in love. And I’ll even go along that marriage isn’t necessary right off. But when I’m in love, and the man I love . . . touches me . . . I want it to be something wonderful between us . . . and not just ‘all in fun.’”
“January, when people get high—whether it’s on bourbon, wine, or pot—the things they do . . . or feel . . . are usually true. Drinking just releases the inhibitions. If you let Tom Colt touch you and if as you say you thought it was so natural at the time, then it means deep down, you wanted him to touch you.”
January lit another cigarette. “That’s not true. I admire his work . . . I admire his strength . . . but Holy God, what must he think of us? Two gate-crashers, coming after a man in our own limousine . . . allowing him to—” She stopped as she stubbed out her cigarette. “Oh, Linda, what can he think of us?”
“January, stop torturing yourself about what he thinks of us. Do you realize how many bourbons he had and how many breasts he’s fondled? He probably doesn’t even remember those little gems of yours. Now, for God’s sake, it’s almost noon. Call him.”
“No.”
“Please . . . for my sake. Let him take us both out and in the middle of the evening you can say you’re not feeling well . . . and leave. But please make the call. I really want him. I mean, there’s no one around quite like him, is there? He looks so mean at times. Yet when he smiles or looks you in the eye, you could die.”
“You mean you want to go to bed with Tom Colt, knowing there’s no future in it? Knowing that he has a good marriage—”
“What are you trying to do to my head? Lay a guilt trip on me? If I dig Tom Colt and he digs me, what’s wrong with us having a few marvelous evenings together? Who is it going to hurt? There are no next-door neighbors who are going to laugh at the poor unsuspecting wife as she hangs out the wash. His wife is young and gorgeous and is roughing it at Malibu with a nurse for the baby and probably some big Hollywood celebrities as neighbors. What am I taking from her! She isn’t here, is she? Now . . . will you call him?”
“No. And even if he didn’t have a wife, I wouldn’t call him.”
“Why?”
January walked over to the window and rolled up the blinds. “Looks like snow again. Thank goodness last night’s stuff didn’t stick.”
“Why wouldn’t you call him even if he didn’t have a wife?” Linda demanded.
“Because . . . well . . . you don’t just go calling men. They should call you.”
“Oh, my God . . . I don’t believe it. You sound like something out of a Priscilla Lane movie. Like Saturday night dates, and little gardenia corsages. Today women don’t have to sit around and wait for a man to call. Besides, Tom Colt isn’t just a man—he’s a superstar—and we’re doing a story on him.” Linda picked up the phone and dialed the Plaza. “I know eventually we’ll have to put that beast Sara Kurtz with him a few times, so she can catch his style . . . Hello . . . Oh, Mr. Tom Colt, please . . .”
“Why Sara Kurtz?” January asked.
“Because this is just about the most important story Gloss has ever done. And she is the best writer I’ve got . . . Hello . . . what? . . . Oh . . . Miss January Wayne calling! Yes . . . January . . . like the month.”
“Linda!”
“Hello, Mr. Colt . . . No, this isn’t January. It’s Linda Riggs . . . But January’s sitting right here beside me . . . Yes, we’re fine . . . Well, a little . . . Oh well, we both want to see you. . . . Who? Hugh Robertson. Honestly? . . . Oh, great. We’d adore it . . . Fine. Your place at seven . . . the tenth floor . . .” She scribbed down the suite number on a pad. “We’ll be there.” Linda hung up with a beautiful smile. “Hugh Robertson is coming up to his suite for drinks this afternoon. And we’re all to have dinner together. And Tom is sending his limousine for us.”
“Why did you call him Mr. Colt on the phone?” January asked.
“Isn’t that wild? But I suddenly got scared. He sounded so cold at first. But after two drinks tonight, it’ll be Tommy. And imagine having Hugh Robertson along as an added starter. I wonder what it would be like to make love to an astronaut.”
“Looks like you’re going to have your chance,” January said. “At least he’s divorced.”
“You take Hugh . . . I want Tom.”
“Why are you dismissing Hugh?” January asked. “He’s a superstar in his own right. I mean he has made the cover of Time and Newsweek.”
“Look, January, I am not a superstar groupie . . . in fact I’ve never balled a star, let alone a superstar. Keith got into Caterpillar after we broke up, and he’s still no star. He never even got mentioned in the notices. So when I say I want Tom Colt, it’s because he has something special . . . I mean, he’d turn me on even if he were an out-of-work accountant. He’s so strong . . . so completely his own . . . Yet at times, there’s something gentle and melancholy about him. Haven’t
you noticed it?”
“No. Unfortunately I got involved with Jack Daniels, and after that I couldn’t see anyone’s eyes. But I’ll look tonight.”
“No, tonight you look into Hugh Robertson’s eyes. I’m with Tom. Just think . . . tomorrow at this time, I’ll probably be having breakfast in bed with him at the Plaza.”
Fifteen
THEY ARRIVED at the Plaza at five after seven, looking like two eager schoolgirls on an outing. When they walked into the lobby, January suddenly stood motionless. The place held so many memories. Linda pulled her toward the elevator. “Come on. Well be late.”
“Linda, I haven’t been here since—”
“January, this is not back-to-daddy time. This is now! Tom Colt . . . Hugh Robertson . . . Remember?” She dragged January into the elevator.
Hugh Robertson opened the door. January recognized him from his pictures. He introduced himself and invited them in. “Tom is on the phone in the bedroom talking to his agent in Munich about foreign sales. I’m supposed to make the drinks. I can’t ask what will you have because all we seem to have is Jack Daniels.”
Linda took a drink but January “passed.” She walked over to the window. It was unbelievable . . . Tom Colt in this suite. The suite Mike had kept on a year-round basis. Even the same table near the windows. She touched it lightly, almost expecting some kind of a vision to materialize. How many times she had sat there, watching him wheeling and dealing. Sometimes all the phones would ring at once. She turned away. It was spooky, because now all the phones were ringing at once and Tom Colt walked into the room and said, “To hell with them . . . let them ring . . . it’s Saturday and I don’t have to work.” Then he walked over to her and took her hands. “Hello, Princess Feel okay after last night?”
“Yes.” She suddenly felt self-conscious and off balance as she watched him cross the room to greet Linda.
They went to “21.” Tom remained reasonably sober. When he noticed January wasn’t drinking the bourbon he had ordered for her, he sent for a wine list. “White wine, I bet. Is that it?”