“There’s no reason for you to get all prickly about it. She’s doing her job.”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“That’s unlike you. You’re usually hell-bent on talking everything to death.”
“Why are you acting so put-upon? It’s a goddamn dinner dance in L.A. It’s not the White House.”
“I told you twice.”
“No. You did not. You’re bringing it up now because you’re hoping to deflect the issue.”
“What issue?” he said.
“I don’t see why I should have to justify myself to her.”
“You didn’t offer an explanation. You told her to cut you a check. Is it too much to ask what you have in mind? Believe it or not, an eight-thousand-dollar check isn’t trivial.”
“I don’t want to talk about it now.”
“And why is that?”
“Six months ago, I wanted to buy shares of IBM. You pooh-poohed the idea and the stock jumped sixteen points in two days. If I’d had access to even a modest sum of money, I could have cleaned up.”
“And two days later, it tanked. You’d have lost it all.”
“I’d have sold before the price dropped and then bought it again at the new low. I’m not stupid about these things, whatever you might think.”
“What’s this really about? Clearly, you’ve got your nose out of joint.”
“I wanted the eight thousand dollars to buy shares of GE. Now it’s too late. By the time the market closed on Friday, the stock had jumped from 82 to 106.”
“Eight grand? What good would that have done?”
“That’s irrelevant. I shouldn’t have to beg.”
“There’s no point in throwing a tantrum about good business practice. You want money, I’ll set up an account for you.”
“You’ll open an
Channing’s sigh was accompanied by a rolling of his eyes. High theater for him. He lowered his head, shaking it with resignation. The window slid up. He put the car in reverse and backed across the courtyard until he had the necessary clearance to pull out, which he did with a testy chirp of his tires.
The next thing she knew he was gone.
She returned to the house and closed the door behind her. It wasn’t the first time they’d clashed and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. The emotional uproar would fade and cooler heads would prevail, but she wasn’t going to drop the matter. For the most part, they were capable of settling their differences, but she’d learned to avoid negotiations when one or the other of them was in high dudgeon.
She went into the kitchen and cleared the counter of stray martini glasses, which she placed in the machine. She loved having the house to herself again. Monday morning, Mrs. Stumbo would do a thorough cleaning, changing sheets, doing four loads of laundry, and generally restoring order. For now, Nora was free to enjoy the quiet. Briefly, she checked the guest room with its spacious adjoining bath, making sure the Lows hadn’t overlooked personal items. Nora didn’t like other people’s stray shampoo bottles accumulating in the shower, and there was always the chance someone had forgotten the odd piece of jewelry or a garment hanging in the closet. Meredith had left a copy of
Nora scooped it up, intending to toss it into the trash. Instead she took it with her to the kitchen, where she made herself a cup of tea. She carried both teacup and magazine to the sunroom and sank into an upholstered chair. She put her feet up on the ottoman, grateful for the rare moment of relaxation. She leafed through glossy pages, checking the advertisements for shops on Rodeo Drive, expensive salons, art galleries, and boutique clothing stores. There was a six-page spread on the mansion of the month, some overblown though tastefully done palace built by one of the hot new movie producers. She also read the feature-length profile on an actress she’d met and disliked, taking a wicked satisfaction in the journalist’s acid observations. What was meant to be a puff piece was devastatingly snide and unkind.
When she reached the society section, she checked to see who’d been in attendance at various charity events. Channing was right about her begging off the last six occasions. She knew many of the couples who’d been photographed, usually paired with friends, or linked with board members or celebrities, drinks in hand. The women were all decked out in full-length gowns and fabulous jewelry, posed side by side with their self-important husbands. The men did look elegant in their tuxedos, though the pictures, two inches by two, were monotonously similar. The photographs represented the Who’s Who of Hollywood society with some couples in attendance at every event.
She was secretly congratulating herself for ducking out on so many tedious evenings when she spotted a photograph of Channing with Abner and Meredith at the Denim and Diamonds Ball, which she’d also missed. The Lows beamed as though blissfully happy. Now that was a laugh. She looked at the voluptuous redhead on Channing’s arm. She didn’t recognize the woman, but the dress she wore looked like a knockoff of the strapless white Gucci Nora kept at the house in Malibu. It couldn’t be an original because she’d been assured hers was one of a kind. Briefly she considered how awful it would have been if she’d showed up at the same party in a similar gown.
She looked back at the redhead, alerted by the doting smile the woman was lavishing on Channing. It was the only photograph on the entire page where a woman was gazing at her companion instead of smiling directly at the camera. She read the caption and felt a silvery chill, like a veil of mercury, envelop her from head to toe. Thelma Landice. She had her hand tucked in the crook of Channing’s arm. His right hand covered hers. Thelma was still overweight, but she’d managed to compress and confine every excess pound into a bloated approximation of the hourglass figure Marilyn Monroe had made famous thirty years before. Gone were Thelma’s yellowing teeth and the drab, ill-cut hair. Now her gaudy dyed red tresses were smoothed into a french roll. She wore diamond earrings, and the smile she flashed showed several thousand dollars’ worth of snow white caps.
Nora felt the heat rise in her face as comprehension flooded her frame. She’d misunderstood. She’d misread the signs. Meredith hadn’t sent her those beseeching looks in hopes of confiding her own marital misery. She’d pitied Nora for what she and half of Hollywood knew was going on between Channing and Thelma Landice, the
6
Dante had taken up swimming for the second time in his life when he bought the estate in Montebello eighteen years before. He was actually Lorenzo Dante Junior, commonly referred to as Dante to distinguish him from his father, Lorenzo Dante Senior. For security reasons, he avoided exercising in the open, which meant jogging, golf, and tennis were out. He’d set up a home gym, where he lifted weights three times a week. For cardio, he swam laps.
The thirty-two-acre property was surrounded by a stone wall, with entrance effected through electric gates, one set at the front and a second set at the rear, each with its own small stone guardhouse complete with a uniformed armed guard. There were six men altogether, working eight-hour shifts. A seventh oversaw the security cameras, which were monitored in situ by day and remotely by night. There were five buildings on the compound. The two-story main house had a detached five-car garage, with two apartments above. Tomasso, Dante’s chauffeur, lived in one, and the other was occupied by his personal chef, Sophie.
There were also a two-bedroom guesthouse and a pool house, which included Dante’s home gym and a twelve-seat theater. Dante’s home office was in a sprawling bungalow, referred to as “the Cottage,” which had its own living room, bedroom, one and a half baths, and a modest kitchen. He also had a suite of offices in downtown Santa Teresa, where he spent the better part of his workday. The Cottage and the pool house appeared to be separate from the main house but were actually connected by tunnels that branched off in two directions under the tennis court.
Dante had added the indoor lap pool across the back of the main house: two lanes wide and twenty-five yards
