They almost always got around to sex, but not before they talked for a couple of hours. They would sit around her glass coffee table, snorting tiny amounts of cocaine and drinking neat vodka. It was not at all like Janey to snort cocaine, but then again, since she'd met Comstock, she felt like she was discovering parts of herself that she didn't know existed.
He was opening her up. To life. To sex. To the realities of her own possibilities.
It was dizzying.
They talked about his movies. "What did you think of that one?" he asked her again and again. "What’s your opinion?”
"I like the way you don't think you're too smart or too good to talk to anybody/' Janey said.
He told her about his success—how he'd imagined it, struggled for it, finally won it—and how it was important to do something that had meaning, not just for yourself but for others as well.
"You're the only person who understands me," Janey said. "Who doesn't put me down for what I'm about and what I think.”
"If s important for people to feel free even if they're not free," he said.
Then he'd lean over and put his hand under her shirt, pinching her nipples until she thought she would scream in agony.
He would watch her, his breathing getting heavier and heavier.
And then he would come at her from behind, spreading her cheeks and ramming her asshole with his penis. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you," he'd say.
Luckily, it was small, so it didn't hurt too much. Even her sister was impressed.
"Why didn't you tell me you knew Comstock Dibble," she squealed into the phone one morning at the beginning of summer.
"Why didn't you ask?" Janey said. A light rain was falling, slowly darkening the dirt in the flower beds outside her door.
"Gosh, Janey. He's only the man I want to meet most in the world.”
Janey couldn't help rubbing it in a little. "Why?" she asked.
"Because I'm a producer? Because I want to make movies for him?”
Janey moved around her little house, plumping up the cushions on the couch. "But I thought you were a television producer," she said. "Isn't it ... I mean, it's my understanding that those two things are completely different animals.”
"Goddammit, Janey. You've only known that I wanted to be a movie producer since I was eight!" Patty screamed.
Janey smiled, picturing Patty gritting her teeth in frustration, the way she had when she and Janey were kids and they would fight, which was basically every minute they were in a room together.
"Oh, really?" Janey said. "As a matter of fact, I didn't know that.”
"Christ, Janey. I've only been working my butt off for five years. I need a break. I've been trying to meet Comstock Dibble for-ever ... Janey," she pleaded, "if you told him I was your sister ...”
Janey went into her tiny bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. "I don't mind introducing you, but as a matter of fact, he's already helping me.”
"He is?”
"I'm writing a screenplay for him." There was silence.
"You're not the only smart one in the family," Janey said viciously.
"I think that's ... awesome," Patty said. She spoke to someone else in the room. "Hey Digger," she said. "Janey's writing a screenplay for Comstock Dibble." Digger got on the phone. "Janey?" he said. "That’s way cool.”
"Thank you," Janey said primly.
"Hey," he said. "Why don't you come over to our house for dinner.”
"I'm in the Hamptons," Janey said patiently.
"So are we. We've got a house here. Where's that place we have a house?" he called to Patty. "Sagaponack," Patty yelled back.
"Sagaponack," Digger said. "Shit, who can keep up with these Indian names?”
Janey winced. Sagaponack was only her favorite area in the Hamptons. How had Patty gotten a house in Sagaponack?
"Come this Saturday," he said. "I've got the guys from the band staying here. Oh, and, hey, if you do this thing with Comstock, you should think about making Patty a producer. And bring Comstock on Saturday night too.”
"I'll try," Janey said. She should have been pissed off, but she was actually pleased.
Janey wrote twenty-five pages, then thirty, then thirty-three. She wrote m the morning, and in the afternoon, around one o'clock, she would hop on her bicycle and pedal to the beach. She knew she made a pretty picture cycling down the tree-lined streets with her blond hair flying out behind her and her bicycle basket filled with books and suntan lotion. One afternoon she ran into Bill Westacott. He was standing in the middle of the beach, looking troubled, but then again, that was probably his normal state. Janey tried to avoid him, but he spotted her anyway.
"Janey!" he called. She stopped and turned. Christ, he was good-looking. He was wearing a wet suit, tied around his waist; he certainly kept his body in good shape. He'd behaved stupidly the summer before, but on the other hand, he was a screenwriter. A successful one. He might be useful down the road.
"Hello," Janey said.
He marched over, looking sheepish. "I should have called you. After last summer. But I didn't have your number, and I didn't want to ask Redmon for it—I called information and you weren't listed—”
"How is Redmon?" Janey asked.
"He hardly talks to me, but that's okay. We've had these things before. Over women. He'll get over it." He moved closer and Janey felt the heat between them.
"How's your wife?" she asked, swinging her hair over her shoulder. "Will she get over it?”
"She hasn't gotten over it for fifteen fucking years. And I suspect she won't get over it anytime in the future. I could be a fucking monk and she wouldn't get over it.”
"That’s too bad," she said. "Janey," he said.
"Yes?”
"I ... I haven't stopped thinking about you, you know?”
"Oh Bill." Janey laughed. "I've definitely stopped thinking about you." She began to turn away, but he grabbed her arm.
"Janey, don't. Don't do this, okay? I'm pouring my heart out to you and you're stomping all over it. What is it with you women? You want us to fall in love with you and then we do and then you kick us in the teeth and won't stop kicking.”
"Bill," Janey said patiently. "I am not kicking you in the teeth. You're married. Remember? Your wife is insane?”
"Don't torture me," he growled. "Where are you staying?”
"I have my own house. In Bridgehampton.”
“I have to see you. In your house.”
"Don't be ridiculous," Janey said, laughing and pulling away. "You can't come over. I have a boyfriend.”
"Who?”
"Someone famous.”
"I hate you, Janey," he said.
She finally agreed to meet him later, at the bar in Bridgehampton. When she turned up, he was there, waiting. He was freshly showered, wearing a worn yellow oxford-cloth shirt and khakis. Damn, he looked good. He was talking to the bartender. Janey slipped onto the barstool next to him.
"Hiya." He kissed her quickly on the mouth. He lit up a cigar and introduced her to the bartender. "So. What do you do?" the bartender asked.
"I'm a writer," she said.
"Puh! A writer," Bill said, choking on his drink.
"I am," Janey said, turning to him accusingly. "I'm writing a screenplay.”
"For whom?”
Janey smiled. She'd been waiting for this moment. "Oh, just for Comstock Dibble.”
Bill looked relieved. "Comstock Dibble? He'll hire anyone to write a screenplay.”