a response.
Bill wasn’t deterred. “So what did Rupert Jackson want?” he asked with an amused grin.
So that was it! she thought. There it was: The old jealousy. Bill, who was married to a crazy woman and had two kids, had been her lover two summers in a row.
He would never leave his wife, but with typical male egotism, couldn’t stand her having other boyfriends, either. Last summer, Bill had nearly gone insane when he’d found out she was seeing Comstock Dibble, and sensing an opportunity to goad him, she said seductively, “What do you think he wants?” Instead of a jealous reaction, however, Bill laughed out loud. “I don’t know, but it’s probably not what you think he wants.”
“Oh really?” she asked, raising her eyebrows in disbelief.
“I’m just stating the obvious,” Bill said, with a triumphant grin. “Rupert Jackson is gay. Everybody in Hollywood knows it. The fiancée is a beard.” Janey gasped and then turned on him in a rage. “I can’t believe you’re this bitter, 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 28
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Bill. Just because your career is going nowhere . . .” She was about to continue, but he cut her off.
“In the first place, I just sold a screenplay to Universal. So my career is going great, thank you very much,” he said evenly. “And in the second, why can’t you stop being so defensive? Not everybody is out to get you all the time . . . As a matter of fact, I was just trying to give you a friendly warning. A little tip to prevent you from making a fool of yourself over Rupert Jackson, the way you did over Comstock Dibble last summer. As I recall, I was the one who told you he was engaged . . .”
“Married. You said he was married,” Janey said.
“What’s the difference? The point is, he was with someone else . . .” Well, she knew that, she thought, but stated so plainly, his words were like a little shock, reminding her of the unpleasant conversation she’d had with Comstock that afternoon. But she didn’t want Bill to see that he’d nailed her, and staring boldly into his face, she said pointedly, “So what, Bill? Haven’t you noticed that most of the men I’ve been with have been involved with someone else?” And then, as if sensing her unease and going in for the kill, Bill asked casually,
“By the way, whatever happened to that screenplay you were writing for him?” This was such an obviously nasty dig that for a moment, all Janey could think about was why Bill was being so mean. She’d always thought of Bill as being fucked up, but never inherently unkind. The surface of New York’s social interactions was as smooth and shiny as a sheet of ice, but underneath were water moccasins and snapping turtles—and while she knew of men who automatically became jealous of anyone else’s success, including a woman’s, she never thought Bill would fall into that category. For a moment, she soothed herself by feeling sorry for Bill, sorry that he’d become so pathetic. And then, shrugging off his comment as if it were of no importance, she said evenly, “What do you mean?” He crossed his arms and leaned toward her aggressively. “I thought the big plan last summer was to become a famous Hollywood screenwriter. Didn’t you tell me that Comstock paid you to write a screenplay?”
“As a matter of fact, he did,” Janey said, shrugging her shoulders as if she couldn’t understand what he was getting at.
“So did you finish it? Are they going to make it into a big Hollywood movie with you as the star?”
“Oh yes,” she laughed, trying to make a joke of it. But inside, she was reeling.
In the heady success of the last few months she’d managed to forget all about the fact that Comstock had paid her $30,000 to write a screenplay last summer—and while she had written thirty pages, she’d never been able to finish it. She couldn’t stand the idea that she had failed, especially at something that she’d always