going to show film of her funeral. It was a half-hour show, beginning with a close-up of her star, embedded in concrete in Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. One point of the star was broken, and I scribbled down this lone detail, which might possibly have eluded Mason. The film segued to cuts from her old films, stills of her various husbands. They didn’t mention the painting that had occupied her last years. I looked sadly at the spot on the wall where the nude had lately hung. By God, I’d get that back from Mason, if I had to hire a detective to find out where he lived, and break in myself.
The last five minutes were about the death and funeral. Lorraine Taylor, the longtime companion who couldn’t find time to return my call, was available for the cameras. She reenacted the death scene with enough relish to suggest she was a frustrated actress herself. Then the scene switched to the chapel, showing the casket borne by sedate pallbearers, a few young men included for their strong shoulders. The camera panned to the crowds waiting outside, a more than respectable showing, when you took into account that most of Rosalie’s colleagues were already in their graves.
A few famous actors and actresses were among the mourning party that followed the coffin to the hearse, which would proceed to Forest Lawn Memorial Park for the burial. Lorraine Taylor was there, accompanied by a young woman holding her arm. That’d be Drew Taylor, Rosalie’s daughter. She didn’t look much like Rosalie, but she might take after her father. The camera shifted back to the chapel door as a starlet made her exit. My interest quickened. The man behind the starlet looked very much like Brad O’Malley. I held my breath, hoping the camera would move to him, but it went off to show a young girl sprinkling rose petals on the coffin.
The announcer said something about “a fitting end to a spectacular career that spanned three decades,” and it was over. Of course it was Brad. He’d been in my cottage the morning of the funeral, but very early in the morning, and California was three hours behind New York. He could have made it to an afternoon funeral. Hume Mason’s fat advance made it easy for him to hop a plane and garner details for his book.
But did going to California leave him time to plan the robbery of my research? He was out the night before, too, maybe not on a date after all. I pushed the thought away, to jot down, while it was fresh in my mind, a few notes on the funeral: the chapel name, burial site, my impressions of the crowd. I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say they appeared mainly curious. They’d be pensive, forlorn, nostalgic when they got into print. Truth was fine, but there was a time for poetic license too, and giving a book a nice, weepy conclusion.
To be doing something useful, I started composing the closing chapter, with pen and paper. It was hard, since I was used to a typewriter. I looked up when a car scrunched the gravel on the road beyond the cottage. It pulled in next door, at Brad’s place. I got up, curious to see who it was, not really thinking it was he. The white Mercedes glinted in the sun as Brad unfolded himself from the door, looking frazzled and hot and angry, with a lock of hair hanging over his forehead. He carried his jacket in one hand, and unlocked the trunk to pull out his bag. Before he went to his own cottage, he gave one long scowl at mine, but I was well hidden behind the curtain.
Some treacherous corner of my heart urged me to run out that door and go to him. It was an irrational, physical, instinctive thing. The anger still burned below, but it was quiescent now, diluted by the joyous lifting of my heart. I wondered with disbelief if I had gotten over Garth already. There was some vicious, insidious charm lurking in Brad’s wrinkles. It lit sparks in his eyes, and entranced me, even when I was hating his arrogance and showing off.
Just my luck to fall in love with a man I hated. I stood
The last five minutes were about the death and funeral. Lorraine Taylor, the longtime companion who couldn’t find time to return my call, was available for the cameras. She reenacted the death scene with enough relish to suggest she was a frustrated actress herself. Then the scene switched to the chapel, showing the casket borne by sedate pallbearers, a few young men included for their strong shoulders. The camera panned to the crowds waiting outside, a more than respectable showing, when you took into account that most of Rosalie’s colleagues were already in their graves.
A few famous actors and actresses were among the mourning party that followed the coffin to the hearse, which would proceed to Forest Lawn Memorial Park for the burial. Lorraine Taylor was there, accompanied by a young woman holding her arm. That’d be Drew Taylor, Rosalie’s daughter. She didn’t look much like Rosalie, but she might take after her father. The camera shifted back to the chapel door as a starlet made her exit. My interest quickened. The man behind the starlet looked very much like Brad O’Malley. I held my breath, hoping the camera would move to him, but it went off to show a young girl sprinkling rose petals on the coffin.
The announcer said something about “a fitting end to a spectacular career that spanned three decades,” and it was over. Of course it was Brad. He’d been in my cottage the morning of the funeral, but very early in the morning, and California was three hours behind New York. He could have made it to an afternoon funeral. Hume Mason’s fat advance made it easy for him to hop a plane and garner details for his book.
But did going to California leave him time to plan the robbery of my research? He was out the night before, too, maybe not on a date after all. I pushed the thought away, to jot down, while it was fresh in my mind, a few notes on the funeral: the chapel name, burial site, my impressions of the crowd. I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say they appeared mainly curious. They’d be pensive, forlorn, nostalgic when they got into print. Truth was fine, but there was a time for poetic license too, and giving a book a nice, weepy conclusion.
To be doing something useful, I started composing the closing chapter, with pen and paper. It was hard, since I was used to a typewriter. I looked up when a car scrunched the gravel on the road beyond the cottage. It pulled in next door, at Brad’s place. I got up, curious to see who it was, not really thinking it was he. The white Mercedes glinted in the sun as Brad unfolded himself from the door, looking frazzled and hot and angry, with a lock of hair hanging over his forehead. He carried his jacket in one hand, and unlocked the trunk to pull out his bag. Before he went to his own cottage, he gave one long scowl at mine, but I was well hidden behind the curtain.
Some treacherous corner of my heart urged me to run out that door and go to him. It was an irrational, physical, instinctive thing. The anger still burned below, but it was quiescent now, diluted by the joyous lifting of my heart. I wondered with disbelief if I had gotten over Garth already. There was some vicious, insidious charm lurking in Brad’s wrinkles. It lit sparks in his eyes, and entranced me, even when I was hating his arrogance and showing off.
Just my luck to fall in love with a man I hated. I stood
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