The Next to Die

elevator and simply ignore her—as she had her two phone messages since their awful meeting yesterday. But Sean sprang up from the sofa. “Dayle? Do you have a minute?”

She stopped and gave her a frosty stare usually reserved for obnoxious reporters. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry if I offended you yesterday, Dayle.” Groveling wasn’t her forte. The apology had a brisk and businesslike tone.

Still, Dayle’s stony expression softened a bit. Sean Olson cleaned up nicely. She wore a pale green suit, and in her beige heels, she stood close to six feet tall. Her shiny, chestnut brown hair was casually swept back.

Dayle patted Hank’s shoulder. “I’m okay, Hank. Go home, get some rest.”

He nodded. “G’night, Ms. Sutton.”

Sean watched him lumber toward the door, then she turned to Dayle. “About yesterday,” she said. “You’re right. I was rude to you. I apologize.”

Dayle managed a smile. “Okay. Apology accepted.”

“Contrary to how I came across, I really do want to see this story realized into a film. But it should be an honest film.”

“And I’m too much of a Hollywood hypocrite for you, is that it?”

“That’s not it at all.” Sean sighed and shook her head. “The only problem I have with you, Dayle, is that you’re a beautiful movie star, and I’m no glamour queen. I can just see you trying to deglamorize yourself for this film. I’d be really insulted.” She rolled her eyes.

Dayle laughed. “Are you kidding? If anything, I’ll have to look younger for the role.”

“Well, thanks, but I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”

“What are you fishing for, Ms. Olson?”

“Please, call me Sean,” she said. “You have the clout to demand script changes, don’t you?”

“I suppose so,” Dayle said. “Within reason.”

“Well, I managed to snare a copy of the new screenplay. There have been several versions over the years. Each time, they shrink further away from the truth. This new script really takes the cake. If you knew the extent of creative license here, you’d die laughing. For example…” Sean trailed off and gave Dayle a wary look. “Is this okay? Am I offending you?”

“No, it’s all right, I’m interested,” Dayle said. “In fact, would you like to come up, maybe have a glass of wine?”

Sean’s face lit up. “Oh, thanks, that would be great.”

They lapsed into small talk on the elevator. Dayle gave her a brief tour of the apartment, and Sean praised her decorating choices—especially the Oscar pedestal created from dilapidated footwear. Dayle poured them each a glass of wine, and started toward the living room.

“Could we sit in here?” Sean asked, pointing to the area off the kitchen. “Seems more like home to me. Do you mind?”

“I don’t mind at all,” Dayle said. She turned on the gas fireplace, and they settled on the sofa. Fred took an immediate liking to Sean, and curled up in her lap. Dayle kicked off her high heels, and watched Sean follow suit. “You were about to tell me how the latest screenplay isn’t very accurate.”

Stroking Fred’s back, Sean sipped her wine and nodded. “Well, for starters, the lesbian sex scenes and the glamorization of my character. During the trial, they have me—this super-beautiful, super-lesbian—taking an occasional break from the law books to have super sex with my gorgeous girlfriend in this huge tastefully decorated loft. In reality, Dayle, I was averaging three hours of sleep a night and living in a dump of a house with very little furniture or knickknacks, because my darling toddler boy was destroying everything he could get his sweet, sticky hands on. And I hardly spent any time with him, which had me in tears constantly. Plus I was in a very chubby, nauseous stage of pregnancy with Phoebe and starting to stretch out my good court clothes. In short, Dayle, I was a mess.”

Dayle let out a stunned laugh. “Well, um, I see. Well, yes, that’s a big difference. So—both your children are your own. They weren’t adopted?”

“No, I gave birth to them,” Sean replied. “What did you think?”

Dayle shrugged. “Well, I figured…I mean, who’s their father?”

“Why, my husband, of course.” Sean Olson’s mouth dropped open. She tossed back her head and laughed. Fred was startled for a moment, until she hugged him. “Oh, my God, I thought you knew!” she cried. “It’s one reason this screenplay is such a crock. Dayle, I’m married. I’m not a lesbian. That was the notion of screenwriter number two or three. He figured only a lesbian would so valiantly defend a gay man, and suddenly—poof!—my character’s this gorgeous lesbian. They figured a pregnant, married lady was too boring.”

Dayle shook her head. “Oh, no.”

Sean nodded. “Oh, yes. That’s why I asked you yesterday if you intended to play me as a lesbian—with all those soft-focus, curtains-blowing-in-the-breeze sex scenes.” She settled Fred back into her lap, then sipped her wine. “That’s all from the imagination of some horny screenwriter. The death threats I received during the trial, the letters and phone calls, it’s true, they called me ‘lesbo,’ ‘dyke,’ and ‘fag-loving bitch,’ but they also promised to kill me—and my family. That wasn’t in the script. They said they’d burn down the house with my children in it, these ‘good Christians’ with their ‘family values’ told me that. But it’s not in the script….”

Dayle sat in a dazed silence as Sean explained the truth behind the cheaply glamorized screenplay. Gary Worsht, the gay doctor Avery Cooper would portray, was actually a waiter. He had picked up a fraternity pledge in a gay bar. They started necking in an alley by the tavern, when the kid went berserk and attacked him. Then the boy’s frat brothers came out of hiding to help “beat up the fag.” In self-defense, Gary killed the reluctant pledge with a broken beer bottle. The dead boy’s youthful handsomeness played against the defendant’s promiscuity, blurring the lines of guilt and innocence. It was a tough case to win, because the frat boys—all A-students from good homes— were the real culprits. They were fine, upstanding boys who happened to like getting drunk and beating up queers for fun. Ironically, the same group of lads also enjoyed forcing their pledges to march down to weekend breakfasts naked—in a line with each boy holding the penis of the pledge behind him.

“There isn’t a scene like that in the script,” Dayle remarked over her glass of wine. And yet, she was supposed to kiss this totally fictitious other woman’s breasts. She thought about what Maggie McGuire had said: Haven’t you figured out by now that heterosexual males call all the shots?

“The screenplay has no guts,” Sean said. “They made it so black and white—with Gary Worsht coming across as a saint, and the frat boys as these lowlife thugs—including the poor victim, who was just a scared, sweet-faced pledge forced into playing gay bait. This was a complex case, Dayle, and they whitewashed it. Can you see why I’m such a pain in the ass on the subject?”

Dayle nodded thoughtfully. “There’ll be some changes made; otherwise I won’t do this movie.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be glad to have a husband in this movie instead of a lesbian supermodel or whatever she was.”

Sean laughed. “Well, my husband will sure be delighted. He’s a real movie nut. In fact, could I get an autograph for him before I leave tonight?”

“I have some glossies in my desk. No problem. What does he do?”

“Dan? Oh, he…” She hesitated. “At the time of the trial he was a chef.”

Dayle gave her a slightly puzzled look. “What does he do now?”

“He—um, well, he stays at home and looks after the kids.” Sean shifted a little on the sofa, and she let out a slightly uneasy laugh. “So—enough about me. Let’s talk about you playing me.” She sipped her wine, then smiled. “Seriously, why did you want to take on this part—this fake-lesbian lawyer?”

Shrugging, Dayle stared at the fireplace. “I must admit, I had a tough time warming up to the role. But now, I can certainly relate to what you said about death threats, and the lesbian accusations. It’s happened to me recently. Everyone thinks I’m paranoid, but I’m sure somebody—some group—has been following me.” Dayle sighed and shook her head. “I wasn’t willing to put my career on the line for this role as written. But if I could play you, Sean, in a truthful account of what really happened, it would be worth the risk.”

They talked for over an hour. Dayle kept remembering the intimate chat with Leigh Simone that night at the Imperial Hotel, how they’d instantly bonded. It was like that tonight—with Sean Olson. The similarities were almost unsettling. Dayle told her so. She also told her about how Leigh Simone might have been murdered by the same