Hello? Who is this? Allegra said, furious for the intrusion at that hour, and terrified it would be something that would keep them from leaving for New York.
It's Malachi O'Donovan, darlin', he said with a brogue and a belch. He was roaring drunk.
Don't call me at this hour, Mai. It's four-thirty in the morning.
Well, top of the mornin' to you, m'dear. And wouldn't you know that I'm in jail. They said they'd let me call my lawyer. So here I am, and now you be a good girl and come bail me out of jail.
Oh, for heaven's sake. Another DUI? He collected Driving Under the Influence charges the way other people did tickets, and she kept warning him that one of these days he'd have to stay in jail. And lose his license. But so far, he had pulled every string he could, and he had been extremely lucky. His frequent stays in rehabs made them overlook his record, but Allegra was sure that this time his license would be pulled. This is really bullshit, she said.
I know, I know. I'm sorry. He sounded contrite, but he also expected her to come and bail him out. After all, she was his lawyer.
Is there anyone else who can come and get you, Mai? I'm in Malibu, and it's the middle of the night. Jeff was right. If she hadn't answered the phone at that hour, he would have just had to wait until the next morning for her to call. But she had answered, and now he expected her to come and get him. It was difficult getting out of it, and he was insistent that he wanted her to come down immediately to bail him out.
All right, she finally said. Where are you? He was in Beverly Hills. He'd been driving on the wrong side of the street down Beverly, and they busted him with an open fifth of Jack Daniel's between his legs, and a bag of grass in the glove compartment of the car. He was just lucky they hadn't found more, but they hadn't looked that hard either. The officers who had arrested him knew who he was. I'll be there in half an hour. She put down the phone, and looked at Jeff's still form. He looked as though he was asleep again, but she could sense that he wasn't. And as she started tiptoeing out of the room, she discovered that she was right.
If you don't make that plane today, Allegra, there won't be a wedding, he said calmly from under the covers, and she stopped to look at him with a worried expression.
Don't threaten me, Jeff. I'm doing the best I can. I'll be there.
Just see that you are. He didn't say another word then and she went to put on jeans and a white shirt. And as she drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, she was furious with all of them. Malachi O'Donovan, who thought he could do anything he wanted, and then expect her to bail him out. And Carmen, who used her as a crying towel day and night, and Alan, who kept calling her and asking her to take care of his wife, and even Jeff, who got so annoyed at all of it sometimes, as if he didn't have his moments too, between getting up at three A.M. SO he could be at the set before anyone else, or having to rewrite his screenplay night after night. Everyone expected her to be understanding, and to do just what they wanted. It was beginning to drive her crazy, and for some reason she was maddest of all at Jeff. Of course she would be on the plane ‘ she hoped ‘ unless Malachi had really pulled a major stunt. And even now, she'd have to deal with the tabloids. God, she was getting tired of that too. They all expected her to get them out of their jams, as though she had been born to solve their problems.
She slammed her car door when she got to the Beverly Hills police station, and when she went inside, she saw an officer she knew. She told him why she was there, and he nodded. He went inside to check, and a few minutes later he came out with Mai. She had to post bond for him, which was no problem, and this time he had to leave his driver's license with them. They gave him a court date, at which he had to appear, and Allegra was relieved to see it wasn't for another month, and then, with a stern expression, she drove him home. He reeked of booze, and he kept trying to kiss her to thank her for getting him out of jail, but she told him firmly to behave. His wife was asleep when they got to his house, and Allegra wondered why he hadn't called her. But as soon as his wife started shrieking at him when she heard what had happened, Allegra understood why he had called her instead.
Rainbow O'Donovan almost threw him into their bedroom, and she screamed at him so loudly, she must have woken up the neighbors. A few minutes later Allegra was on her way, and she was back at her own house again by seven. Jeff was in the shower, there was coffee on the stove, and she poured herself a cup, and sat down on their bed. She was absolutely exhausted, but she had a lot of nights like that one. That's what Jeff was complaining about, and she knew he wasn't wrong. But there wasn't much she could do about it either, and she needed him to understand.
He was drying his hair when he came out of the shower, and he was startled when he saw her. He hadn't heard her come in and it was easy to see how tired she was as she sat there.
How did it go?
Great. They took his license away, she said with a soft moan as she lay down on the bed, and he came over and sat next to her.
I'm sorry I got mad last night. I just get so tired of people pulling at you sometimes. It's as though they want to eat you up. It's not fair.
It's not fair to you either. I'm going to have to establish better boundaries. I realized when I took him home that he could have called his wife. I think he was afraid to.
Make them afraid of you, Jeff said, and leaned over and kissed her. He had to be at the studio within the hour, and then they were leaving on a two o'clock flight. You'll be okay? he asked as he left.
I'll be fine, she reassured him.
I'll pick you up at noon.
I'll be ready, she promised.
She got to her office at nine o'clock, with their bags in the car, and Alice had a stack of messages and paperwork for her. She got through all of it, and was just putting her files away, when Alice came into her office holding the latest copy of Chatter.
Please don't tell me I'm going to care about what that says, Allegra said, almost cringing. If it was going to upset one of their clients, maybe she'd never get out of town after all.
Alice set it down gingerly on her desk as though it might burn her, and Allegra could see why. The photographs were awful and the headline wasn't pretty. Carmen was going to go wild when she saw it.
Oh, shit, Allegra said, looking up at her secretary. I'd better call her. She had the phone in her hand when the operator buzzed her. Miss Connors was on the line. The operator didn't say she was hysterical. But Allegra knew it the minute she heard her. I just saw it, she said calmly. I want to sue them.
I don't think that's smart. But she could understand how she felt, and she knew Alan would be livid too. The paper said that Carmen Connors, Alan Carr's new wife, had gone to Europe for an abortion. And there were some grim photographs of her leaving the hospital. She looked as though she were sneaking out, but she was actually doubled over.
They're slandering me. How can they say that? She was sobbing and Allegra didn't know what to say, but suing the tabloids would only make it worse. They were the vermin of the earth, but they had good lawyers who told them how to protect themselves and they never failed to. Why do they do this to me? she wailed, and Allegra felt helpless. There was nothing she could do to change it.
To sell papers. You know that. Throw it away and forget it.
What if my grandmother sees this?
She'll understand. Nobody believes that garbage.
She does. Carmen laughed through her tears. She thinks eighty-seven-year-old women give birth to quintuplets.
Well, tell her they're a bunch of liars. I'm sorry, Carmen. I really am, Allegra said, and she meant it. She could just imagine how it felt dealing with the lies all the time. It was so painful.