“Well, at least you’ve moved off of Yogi and Boo Boo,” she said tartly.
“I sure do wish you’d let me take that one back.”
“Not even. You told me the truth. That’s what I need to hear if I’m going to get any better. Hell, that’s why I keep you around.”
“So that’s it.”
Des gazed at him steadily from across the table. “What’s going on, baby?”
“You first.”
“Me first what?”
“Something’s bothering you, too, isn’t it?”
“No way. You broke your diet-you go first.”
“Okay, I can accept that. But we have to keep this between us, okay?” Mitch leaned over the table toward her, lowering his voice. “Dodge Crockett dropped a neutron bomb on me this morning- Martine is having an affair.”
“My, my,” Des responded mildly. “Isn’t this interesting.”
Mitch frowned at her. “You’re not reacting the way I thought you would at all. You seem… relieved.”
“Only because I am,” Des confessed. “Real, Martine told me this morning that Dodge was having an affair.”
“No way!”
“Oh, most definitely way.”
“Well, who with?”
“She didn’t say. Why, did he?…”
“No, not a word,” Mitch said, electing to keep his hunch about Will to himself. At least for now.
“Well, this is certainly tangled up in weird,” she said, taking a gulp of her iced tea. “I wonder why they’ve dumped it on us.”
“Why pick the same morning?” Mitch wondered. “And why pick us?”
She considered it for a moment, her eyes narrowing shrewdly. “I hate to say this, but part of me feels like we’re being moved around.”
“Moved around how?”
“She told me about Dodge’s affair so she could get out in front of any rumors about her own. This way, if word leaks out that she’s seeing someone, people will say ‘The poor dear had no choice-Dodge has been cheating on her for months.’ ”
“You think he told me about her for the very same reason?”
“It’s a theory, Mitch.”
“But that would mean they’re expecting us to blab this all over town.”
“Not very flattering, is it?”
“Not in the least,” Mitch said indignantly. “Dodge told it to me in confidence. I’d never run out and tell everyone in Dorset that Martine is… Wait, what am I saying? This isn’t Dorset, it’s Peyton goddamned Place.” He paused, poking at the remains of his lunch with his plastic fork. “Do you think they’ll stay together?”
Des shrugged her shoulders. “This may be totally normal behavior for them. Some couples get off on the jealousy. It lights their fire. Hell, for all we know this whole business could be nothing more than air guitar.”
“As in they’re not really playing?”
“What I’m saying.”
“Is that what you think is going on?”
“Boyfriend, I wouldn’t even try to guess.”
“Neither would I,” said Mitch, who had learned one sure thing about Dorset since he’d moved here: no one, absolutely no one, was who he or she appeared to be. Everyone was fronting. That didn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like or admire people like the Crocketts, it just meant you didn’t know them. They didn’t let you. “The Crocketts seemed like the perfect couple, too.”
“There is no such thing,” Des said with sudden vehemence. “And there’s no such thing as the face of a dying marriage either.” She was drawing on her own painful breakup with Brandon, Mitch knew full well. “If they choose to, a couple like the Crocketts can hide what’s really going on from everyone.”
“So what are we supposed to do now?”
“Besides keep our mouths shut? Not a thing. Not unless they ask us for help.” She finished her salad and shoved her plate away. “I did me some hanging with Esme this morning.”
“What’s she like?”
“Sweet, childlike-at times it seems like nobody’s home.”
“That’s why they call them actors. They’re not like you and me. They’re instruments. When they aren’t performing they’re no different than the cello that you see lying on its side in the orchestra room, waiting to be picked up and played.”
“If that’s the case then why does everybody worship them?”
“They don’t. They worship the fantasy that’s up on the screen. The performers just have a bit of the stardust sprinkled on them, that’s all. It’s all about the fantasy. People vastly prefer it to reality, which is depressing and painful and filled with really bad smells. Reality they already know plenty about.” Mitch gazed at her searchingly. “Des?…”
“What is it, baby?”
“Let’s not play games like that with each other.”
“Games I can deal with. You sleeping with another woman, that’ssomething different.” She drained her iced tea. “Damn, I’m thirsty today.”
“Want me to get you a refill?”
“What are you trying to do, spoil me?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“Yum, I could get used to this idea.”
He grabbed her Styrofoam cup and climbed to his feet. “Excuse me, weren’t you going to say something?”
“Such as?…”
“Such as how lucky you are-you get to watch me walk away.”
Des let out her whoop. “Word, you are the only man I’ve ever been with who can make me laugh.”
“Is this is a positive thing?”
“Boyfriend, this is a huge thing.”
“Well, okay. Remember now, no wolf whistles.” He yanked up his shorts, threw back his shoulders and went galumphing back to the counter for a refill.
“Well, well,” Donna said to him teasingly. “The resident trooper certainly has you well trained.”
“Nonsense. We like to do favors for each other.”
“I think that’s very nice,” spoke up Will, who was working a baked ham through the meat slicer. “Don’t listen to my wife, Mitch. I certainly don’t.”
“I’m just jealous,” she said. “The last time Will fetched something for me was… actually, Will has never fetched anything for me.”
Mitch was watching her refill the iced tea when he suddenly heard it-the reverent hush that comes over a room when someone famous walks in. It was as if a spell had been cast over the entire food hall. The boisterous beachgoers and tourists all fell eerily silent, their mouths hanging half-open, eyes bulging with fascination. All movement ceased.
Mitch swiveled around, his own eyes scanning the hall. It was Tito and Esme, of course. They were walking directly toward the deli counter, hand in hand, with Chrissie Huberman running interference. The celebrity publicist wore an oversized man’s dress shirt, white linen pants, and a furious expression-because the three of them were not alone.
“A little space, guys!” Chrissie blustered at the herd of photographers and tabloid TV cameramen who were dogging their every step, crab-walking, tripping over each other, shouting questions, shouting demands as Tito and Esme did their best to pretend they weren’t there. Chrissie threw elbows and hips to keep them at bay. She was no one to mess with. She was a strapping, big-boned blond with a snow-shovel jaw and lots of sharp edges. Also the hottest client list in New York. Everything about Chrissie Huberman was hot, including her own image. She was married to a rock promoter who ran an East Village dance club. “Damn it, give us some room to breathe, will you?” she screamed, as the golden couple strode along toward the deli counter, just like two perfectly normal young people out for a perfectly normal lunch.
Hansel and Gretel, Dodge had called them.
Esme had cascading blond ringlets and impossibly innocent blue eyes. Her features were so delicate that Mitch had once called her the only woman on the planet who could make Michelle Pfeiffer look like Ernest Borgnine. She wore a gauzy shift and, seemingly, nothing underneath it. Her breasts jiggled with every step, the outline of her nipples clearly apparent through the flimsy material.
Tito Molina was not a big man, no more than five feet ten and a wiry 165 pounds. And yet his physical presence commanded just as much attention as that of his fantastically erotic young wife. Tito had the edginess of a pent-up bobcat as he made his way across the food hall, that same sexually charged intensity that Steve McQueen once had. The man smoldered. He was unshaven, his long, shiny blue black hair uncombed, and was carelessly dressed in a torn yellow T-shirt, baggy surfer trunks, and sandals. No different from half the young guys in town. And yet he looked like no other guy. No one else had his incandescent blue eyes or flawless complexion that was the color of fine suede. No one else had his perfectly chiseled nose, high, hard cheekbones, and finely carved lips. No one else was Tito Molina.