“Elegant. Lovely. Perfection.” Echavarria pronounced approval, eyeing me as though he were Leonardo and I the Mona Lisa. I found it hard to keep from laughing at his forgivable grandiosity.
“You look cool, Mom,” was Jennie's assessment.
“Give me a few minutes alone,” I finally said. “I just need a little time to take it all in.”
“Sure,” Jennie said matter-of-factly.
“C'est ça, everyone out,” said Echavarria, clapping his hands like a ballet master.
They left, but I held Jennie aside. “Thanks for putting up with me these past few weeks,” I told her. “Now go get pretty. Only not too much prettier than the bride, okay?”
“Don't worry about that. That couldn't happen even if I wanted it to, which I don't.”
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you even more, Mom.”
“Couldn't.”
“I do. Get it? I do.”
The wedding list read like a who's who. Will's manager and friend, Winnie Lawrence, would be there, of course. Nathan Bailford, Barry, my friends from Bedford, my sisters and their families from upstate, musicians and singers, soccer world people. And reporters and photographers from all the metropolitan papers, the local TV stations, the networks, People, Time—I swear, there almost seemed more strangers than friends.
One of the final cars to arrive, I found out later, was a gleaming burgundy Maserati. Behind the wheel sat Peter O'Malley.
Somehow, Peter had gotten an invitation.
The door to the back bedroom suddenly swung open without so much as a knock. Now who could—
“Will, you're not supposed to be—”
“—Getting married so young?” Will smiled. He looked gorgeous in a black Brioni tuxedo, but he also looked refined. “True, but with a woman as beautiful as you, I couldn't resist. Do you know how much I missed you last night? I could probably show you.”
He took a step toward me. “Out. Don't you dare.” I started to laugh. He could always make me laugh. “Out. I mean it.”
He continued on undaunted, and took me in his arms. His hand gently touched my breast. Nothing too provocative—and thus very provocative.
“Ummmm,” he said. “You are an eyeful. A handful too.”
“Will!”
“Yes I am.”
“I love you so much. Now, go.”
“Enough, enough. I respect your wishes. I shall honor and obey, from this moment on.”
Obediently, he left the room, humming “Always.” I smiled and thought it was the perfect prelude.
CHAPTER 59
A YOUNG PIANIST from Juilliard sent the first notes of “The Wedding March” crescendoing across the picture-book back lawn. The music, everything, sent a shiver up my spine. I loved my wedding day even more than I thought I would.
Latecomers were hurried to their seats. Pesky radio and TV station helicopters whirled through the blue skies overhead, while television cameras never seemed to stop shooting. What seemed like a thousand photographers snapped photographs of the guests and the groom.
I finally appeared.
The bouquet of white calla lilies that I carried trembled in my arm.
I was used to large crowds, but I felt a little nervous here. I spotted my few remaining relatives from upstate, smiling tentatively. Jennie, my bridesmaid, stood solemnly near the altar. Mrs. Leigh sat in the front row, holding Allie, who wriggled in her arms. Will's aunts were there, Eleanor and Vannie, one matronly, the other strikingly attractive.
I did a double take! Will was standing next to them instead of at the altar … no, it wasn't Will, but Palmer. A smudged carbon copy.
I was escorted down the flower-strewn grass aisle by Barry. He looked somewhat rumpled in his tuxedo, his flower already drooping from his lapel.
“You're so beautiful. You actually have a glow,” he whispered as he let go of my arm and turned to find his seat in the front row.
I lifted my eyes to the white altar trimmed with pink and white roses. It was a bit too much, but it was beautiful. Will stood beside his best man, Winnie Lawrence. He was smiling at me.
Never, for a single second, had I thought of turning back.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister said. Will lifted my veil and gently kissed me. I could feel him through the tux. He always felt so good to me. The guests applauded. Camera flashes popped like yellow daisies all over the cascading lawn. Helicopters fluttered overhead. What an unforgettable scene!
Stiff, comically correct Day Dean waiters burst from the rear of the main house, with silver trays bearing glasses of champagne. Others circulated iced shellfish and caviar, canapés of crabmeat, tea sandwiches, cheeses, fruits, pâtés. A great orchestra led by Harry Connick Jr. began to play from a highly polished pine-wood platform installed at the entryway to an enormous yellow-and-white-striped tent, which would later serve as the ballroom.
Maybe not the wedding of the decade—but quite the blowout, I had to admit. I smiled, felt incredibly warm and fulfilled inside, and started to get into it.
A huge, striped tent shaded half an acre of lawn between the main house and the duck pond. Inside, bands of children ran between the dining tables covered with pale yellow linen cloths, and graced with wicker centerpieces filled with bachelor's buttons, baby's breath, and yellow rosebuds.
The music ranged from Strauss waltzes to Carly Simon to Patsy Cline. After a formal, sumptuous sit-down dinner, and just before dessert, Barry got up and sang his “Light of My Life” to a standing ovation from the guests, Will, and me.
Then my friend Harry Connick spoke, his voice cutting through the continuing murmur of the crowd: “The bride will now cut the cake. Maggie, get your butt up here. C'mon, shy girl. Time to be the center of attention again.”
Waiters arrived bearing three gargantuan wedding cakes. On each stood a marzipan man in a soccer outfit and a marzipan woman leaning against a piano. Will and I mashed cake into each other's mouths, photos of our messy bites eventually making the covers of People and Paris Match, and all sorts of other ridiculous magazines.
After dinner the tables were quickly removed. The band began to play. Will and I danced the first waltz (to “Starglow,” one of my songs), then the other guests joined us.
I was dancing with Barry when a man cut in, and two-stepped me away. “Are we finally happy now?” Peter O'Malley said. His speech was thick, whiskey-slurred, and he was as gray-faced as Patrick had been in death. Physically, he was a caricature of Patrick: recognizable features, but small beads for eyes, and fifty pounds heavier than his father had been.
“Let go of me,” I said. “Please, Peter.” He was holding my arms so tightly I could feel his nails digging into my flesh.
He was actually like a madman. “You cheap slut. Think how much you hurt me. You had my father, now you've got his house, his money, his death on your hands, a handsome new husband.”
I tried to pull away from the drunken man, but I couldn't. He wouldn't let me. “What do you mean, ‘his death on my hands’?” I finally said as quietly as I could.
He shouted in my face. “You know fucking well what I mean!”
“You think I killed him?”
“I think his death was convenient for you. Let's leave it at that. Let everyone draw their own conclusions. I know I have, and I'm not alone.”
“He died of a heart attack, Peter. Please leave. You're drunk.”
“A heart attack induced by who? What did you do to him, Maggie? Fuck his heart out?”
I pulled my right arm from his grasp and hit Peter as hard as I could. An open-hand slap. A wake-up call.
His dark eyes blazed in thin slits. “Quite the little bitch, aren't you?” He suddenly let go of my arm. “You're nothing but a whore! Then you're probably used to this!”
Red wine from a crystal goblet sprayed my face, blinding me momentarily. “And Shepherd's nothing but a stud. The whole world knows it.” I heard Will's roar of rage, but I didn't
see him throw himself at Peter, knocking him to the ground. He punched Peter again and again. Will was all over my tormentor.
Winnie Lawrence finally pulled him off, separated the two interlocking bodies like a referee.
“Maggie! Oh Christ, poor Maggie!” Will cried. “Are you all right?”
Peter was struggling to his feet. His face was coated with blood, one eye already half-closed. “You took my father's money. His hotels. Everything! He was my father, and you killed him,” he yelled.
Two security men finally led him from the tent. Peter went unprotestingly, too weak to fight back. I could already imagine tomorrow's news headlines. Damn.
Will took me in his arms, and gently wiped my face with his handkerchief. “Oh, Maggie, I'm so sorry,” he whispered. “Forget about Peter O'Malley. We have a life that's just beginning. I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, Will.”
I really did.
CHAPTER 60
WILL? IS IT you? The old married man? The reformed ex-bachelor?”
“ ‘Tis indeed, Winnie. What's the good news from the Left Coast? Do I have an acting career or not?”
“You're not going to believe this, but Michael Caputo said yes. He loves your ass, and your mind. He thinks you're a natural.”
The Thrill. It returned in an exhilarating rush for Will. He sprang from his chair with a loud whoop, though there was no one home to hear it.
“Tell me everything,” he said.
“Well, for starters, it's the lead in Primrose. That's right, the lead. The character's named North Downing, but despite that it's an okay script. More important, it'll be a huge hit at the box office.”
Primrose was the country's number one best-seller, a hundred plus weeks on the Times list, a saga of passionate love set in the early part of the century. Michael Lenox Caputo was the director who had bought it for a small fortune; he was producing it himself. As Selznick did with Gone with the Wind, he had instituted a very noisy, nationwide search for an unknown to play the lead, this time a male. Box-office draw was guaranteed by the novel's phenomenal popularity and also its female star, Suzanne Purcell, a tempestuous actress whose on-screen fire was reportedly matched in her private life.
“Good going. Jesus,” Will said. “I didn't think we had a chance. Maybe I am an actor, after all.”
“It was you. You look hot on film, and you can act. Caputo saw it instantly. Even the novel's asshole author likes you.”
“Still, if you hadn't pushed me, I'd never have had the nerve to screen-test for the great Caputo. When does the damn thing shoot? Where? I'm stir-crazy anyway.”
“Australia. And it starts soon, very soon.”
“Australia? For an American epic? What's that all about?”
“It's winter in Australia when it's summer here,” Winnie said, as though that explained anything.
“So what?” Will asked.
“So … welcome to Hollywood!”
CHAPTER 61
THE CAST OF Primrose had been assembled, all except for Suzanne Purcell, who was not to appear in the first scene and would make her own entrance, in her own style, on her own time schedule. She was, after all, the star. It was 5:30 a.m. on the gentle, rolling plains of Perth.
This was the start of principal photography: scene one, take one; cameraman, Nestor Keresty; director, Michael Lenox Caputo. Everyone had huge hopes for the film. Maybe four hundred million, worldwide. The novel was still number one.
Will, Caputo, and several technicians were huddled inside the poorly heated trailer that served Will as a dressing room. They were all waiting for the temperamental genius Nestor Keresty to settle on his lighting—the proper play of fill, and front and back lights, to capture the feeling of early morning in a Texas farmyard. High art, indeed.
In the film's first scene, North Downing was to deliver a baby mare, by lamplight, inside a dilapidated barn. The scene had hooked book readers, apparently by the millions. North Downing was the “last American cowboy,” but a sensitive lover and husband as well.
“I want you to make me a promise,” Will said, drawing Caputo aside. “This is a serious fucking promise, Michael. I'll hold you to it.”
The director frowned. He had been asked to promise weird things by actors, and this boy was a neophyte. Still, he was a very large and powerful neophyte, who reportedly had quite a temper. “Shoot. Anything at all, Will.”
“I want you to make me grunt and sweat bullets out there today. When I carry that baby horse, I want it to look hard, as though I'm in as much physical pain as the mare was. I want you to turn me into an actor.”
Caputo smiled, and tried not to laugh. He bit his lip, hard. No one had ever asked him anything like this before. “So you don't think good looks are enough?”
“No. Not even close. Christ, Tom Cruise looks good.”
“That's all the audience will care about, Will. Trust me. Style is reality these days.”
“I don't give a damn about the audience, never have. I was the best there is in football. Now I want to be the best there is on the screen. I will be too. Count on it.”
Michael Caputo stared at Will, stunned by his preposterous, naive request. He's like a boy, Caputo thought, but all he said was “I'll try my best.”
“That's all I ask. I'll do the rest. You're going to eat that condescending smile you gave me a minute ago.”
“I'll be happy to do it,” Caputo said, then he smiled again. Actually, he liked Will Shepherd, and wanted to see him do well.
The very first scene called for North Downing to deliver the foal, then carry it across the barnyard to his young wife, Ellie. This morning, they would shoot only the birthing sequence and North's walk across the farmyard. Later, they would film the actual presentation to Ellie.
It took them twenty-two takes. Will was awkward at first, despite numerous rehearsals, concentrating more on Caputo's instructions than on the subtle emotion necessary for the potentially mawkish scene.
Caputo drove him mercilessly, trying to pull out real feeling, and Will found himself sweating so much he had to have new makeup after every take. They got it right on take twenty-one; they got it perfectly.
“One more time,” Caputo said. “For insurance.”
Will stood behind the horse, delivered the foal with a grunt of pleasure, and, smiling, picked it up lovingly in his arms. Staggering, he left the barn, made his way across an icy patch, and entered a door in a facade meant to simulate the front of the Downing house.
Will stopped. He started to smile, then to laugh out loud. Jesus, this was rich. This was the best.
There was a woman standing at the back of the facade, just out of range of the cameras. When Will entered, carrying the foal, she ripped open her blouse, exposing her breasts to him.
He nearly dropped the foal. There was incredible amusement and invitation in her eyes.
Maggie, he thought. She'll never forgive me. Screw this woman, and you're screwing yourself. She'll ruin your life.
But he couldn't stop looking at her. She was beautiful. Breathtaking, actually. And he had seen enough of the world's famous beauties to know.
“Welcome,” said Suzanne Purcell, “to Primrose.”
CHAPTER 62
I COULD STAY with Will in Australia for only a week. Barry kept pleading with me to finish the new album, and eventually I had to agree to come back to work.
As my car pulled up to 1311 Broadway, I thought back to a storm-blown morning years before. Look how far you've come, I told myself, and I had to smile. A singing star. Happily married. Occasionally a sex junkie. Not bad. And not the same unsure and frightened Maggie who came to Barry for a job, any job.
Today, Barry popped out of his office to greet me. He brought me coffee. “Come across the street with me to the studio. I've been working on several arrangements for ‘Just Some Songs.’ Wait till you hear them.”
“Barry, I've got two new songs. From Australia.”
“The arrangements first,
then I'll listen. You look great, Maggie. Still glowing. Marriage is obviously agreeing with you.”
“I'm happy, Barry. Really happy,” I told him. Of course, Barry would never admit that he might have been wrong about Will, or anything else, for that matter.
Once in the studio, it was business as usual between the two of us. Nothing had changed; we loved our work and the chance to be together. The tough challenge was to make each album—each song in each album—different and better. We didn't always succeed, but we always tried like hell.
The work went extremely well that day. I was pleased with Barry's arrangements (I almost always was, though I was far more critical than I had been when we first met); he loved one of my songs and liked the other. The album was going to be a very good one.
It was midafternoon by the time we knocked off, and I decided to do some shopping. A reward. A splurge. Then home to the kids. I was cooking tonight. Then we planned to watch Forrest Gump, on video. We'd seen it only six times already. Maybe I'd make Bubba's Shrimp for dinner. That would give Jennie a laugh.
I found a little doodad I wanted at Bergdorf Goodman and left the store a little after three-thirty. Fifth Avenue was filled with taxis, buses, the usual pedestrian parade. I didn't see my car and driver right away.
Then, trouble.
A TV camera suddenly surfaced like a submarine scope out of the street crowd. Two young bearded apes from Fox News jockeyed up to me. Bad-looking guys. Real neanderthals from the look of them.
“Maggie. Maggie Bradford,” one of them shouted. Instinctively, I moved away, desperately searching for my car.
“Maggie. Over here, Maggie. Is it true you and Will were having difficulties in Australia? Is that why you came home?”
I could hear the whirr of a camera. Pedestrians stopped to look at us. Oh, damn these TV people, I thought. Get a life. Let me live mine.
“No.” I was curt with them.
“We hear he's gotten real close to Suzanne Purcell. That's the buzz. Know anything about that?”