“What does he know about it?”
She gave me a stern look. “He’s the one who’s finding that extra fifty thousand dollars.”
“That makes him an expert?”
“Would you do me a favor, Nathan?” She gestured to her head, then her neck. “I have one of my sinus headaches. I could really use a neck rub.”
Soon the nearly empty cup of cocoa was on the nearby coffee table, which had been pushed aside, so that she could sit on the carpet, Indian-style, her back to me, between my legs, as I worked the muscles of her upper back and neck.
“If G. P. doesn’t put this together,” she said, “I’m all washed up.”
“Don’t be silly. You have money.”
“Not much. I can’t even afford to support my family anymore…. I couldn’t afford the upkeep on my mother’s house and we’ve taken her in with us…. Did I tell you we bought a house in Toluca Lake, just down the street from Paul’s old place? Muriel I had to cut off entirely and now…oh yes, right there…she’s out peddling interviews about me to the press.”
“That’s a shame.”
“We had to shut down the fashion line…we were barely breaking even. I’ve invested in several business ventures with Paul but it’s too early to see how that’s going to come out…oh yes, yes, there….”
“Is that what this New York trip’s about? Raising cash?”
She nodded her hanging head. “Whatever’s necessary.
I’ve mortgaged my future on this one…but what are futures for? Did you hear me on
“Can’t say I did. What’s Bing Crosby like?”
She threw me a smile over her shoulder as I worked my thumbs in it. “Funny. Nice. But can you imagine how scared I was? How much I hated that?”
“Yeah.” I thought back to the lectures she endured, those necessary evils to pay the freight; sitting backstage paralyzed with fright, puking her guts out, then going on with a smile and poise a princess might have coveted.
“And in New York,” she said, “I’ll be appearing in the Gimbel’s eleventh-floor restaurant to personally help sell an additional one thousand first-day covers.”
More stamps, yet.
“What happened to the batch from your first try?”
“G. P. had them imprinted with the words: ‘Held over in Honolulu following takeoff accident,’ or some such. These new ones will be marked in some special way…. Ouch!”
“Too hard?”
“Yes…just rub in circles for a while, then maybe you can go after that knot again…. I’m signing a new book contract. That’s the major reason for the trip.”
“What’s the book about?”
“The flight, silly. I’ll keep a diary along the way and when I get back spend a week or, two polishing it up, and, presto…”
“Another instant book.”
“We’re pulling out all the stops this time.”
“Sounds like you and G. P. are quite a team.”
She turned and looked up at me. “Are you jealous?”
“Of your husband? I don’t know why I would be. I mean, it’s not like you sleep in the same bed or anything.”
“Actually, we do…but it’s not like that between us, anymore. I think he has a sense that…well, he knows this partnership is winding down…. Uh, that’s enough, that was wonderful, thank you…. Listen…I have something for you….”
She scooted her butt around and, still seated before me, dug in her breast pocket. She withdrew something the size of a folded-up handkerchief, which she pressed into my hand.
I unfolded it and it became a small silk American flag. “What’s this for?”
She had an impish smile. “Just a lucky keepsake. I took it along on all my long-distance flights.”
“Don’t you think you should take it on this one, too?”
“No, no, I…I want you to have it now.”
I held it out to her. “Give it to me when you get back.”
She shook her head, no. “Better take it now.”
I frowned at her. “What? You have some kind of premonition…?”
Her eyes popped open. “No! No. It’s just…a feeling.”
“If you have that kind of feeling, Amy, for Christ’s sake, don’t go!”
