The person who fell in front of me must have seen me go off, and the person who hit me from behind as well. They had to know that I was in the woods. So I thought I’d wait until they came up with a snowmobile and then scream my head off. I probably waited an hour. Maybe more. No one came back up the mountain. It was night, the temperature dropping and the wind picking up. I got really frightened. If I stayed where I was, I might die of exposure. So I began climbing up the slope, trying to get back on the trail. I couldn’t put any weight on my foot, and getting traction in the snow was almost impossible. I dragged myself halfway up and then slipped back down. I tried again, and again slipped back. I was beginning to get desperate. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I probably struggled another hour, getting hysterical at times, until I got back to the trail. And still there was no sign of anyone searching for me.
I started sliding down. I was sitting on the snow, using my good foot and my hands to keep me in a straight line. But it was getting colder and colder, and my clothes were beginning to soak through. It was a slow, painful progress. To this day I don’t know whether I could have made it all the way down on my own.
But then I saw the lights of snowmobiles. My sister had finally told someone that I was missing, and they were coming up looking for me. I screamed and waved, and that’s how they found me. They
brought me down, thawed me out, and put one of those plastic casts on my foot. No one was too concerned: Why didn’t I get into some fresh clothes and catch the end of the party? I had to beg them to keep me in the hospital overnight.
You may wonder why I think my sister was responsible. There are lots of reasons. I knew she would try to get back at me for breaking the damn vase. I guess I thought she wouLd find some way to break something of mine. But later I learned that she had been doing a lot of looking into my side of the business. So then I knew. She wasn’t just out to avenge a vase. She was going to take over everything.
She was behind me, so she certainly could have been the one who pushed me. She might have paid the person who fell in front of me. And, of course, she would have had to report me missing. Otherwise she would have seemed completely indifferent. She might even have come under suspicion.
My guess is that she gave it a few hours, figuring that if I didn’t make it down by then, I was probably smashed against a rock or impaled on a tree. Then she sent the ski patrol so she would look concerned and could play the distraught sister.
But, as I’ve been saying, we both got very good at hiding our feelings. She was at my bedside when I woke up, all worried and solicitous. She brought a couple of specialists in to make sure I wasn’t badly hurt, and wanted to have me flown back to New York on a charter. You should have seen the show she put on when I finally made it back to the lodge. Her arm around me, supporting me. A pillow under my foot. Telling everyone what a narrow escape I’d had and how worried she had been. She fooled everyone, but not me. I knew that even if she hadn’t planned it, she would have been overjoyed if they’d brought me down in a body bag.
We never got any closer. If anything, there was more distance between us. I knew she was dangerous, and I gave her plenty of space. The idea of two sisters who were best friends was good copy for the trade press. But it wasn’t true.
JENNIFER’S DIVORCE was dragging on. The issues were simple and generally uncontested, but O’Connell’s lawyer seemed to be in no hurry. He reworded drafts, insisted on meetings to review the new language, then forwarded pages to Padraig in Ireland. Padraig, pleading that he barely had enough time to finish the movie, much less read “legal mumbo jumbo,” took days to respond. And then his response was generally a request for additional clarifications.
“What in God’s name is the problem?” Jennifer finally demanded. “An imbecile could understand it. I keep what I brought to the marriage and he keeps what he brought. Neither of us has any future claim on the other.”
“He’s distracted,” O’Connell’s lawyer offered. He proposed waiting until the movie was completed. Then they would have Padraig at the table, and any remaining issues could be hammered out to everyone’s satisfaction.
“He’s shaking you down,” her attorney responded, suggesting that O’Connell was dangling the divorce in case he needed Jennifer’s vote for more money from Pegasus. Conceivably he could trade his signature on the divorce agreement for Jennifer’s approval of further financing. Her lawyer threatened to seek a summary judgment that would impose the terms of the divorce whether Padraig liked them or not.
With the atmosphere deteriorating and the simple, no-contest divorce threatening to get ugly, Jennifer was startled to hear Padraig’s voice on the telephone. “I’m in town and I can be down
to your place in an hour,” he said. “If you’ve got those damn divorce papers, I’ll be happy to sign them.”
“I’ll arrange a meeting,” she offered.
“Fook the meeting, and fook the lawyers,” he said, turning on the brogue. “With all I’ve put you through, darlin’, I’ll sign any damn paper you put in front of me.”
“No! I don’t think—”
He cut her off. “I’ll be getting into a cab right now. It won’t take me a minute.” The phone went dead.
“Damn it!” Jennifer snapped. She didn’t have the papers. Her attorney had them. And the last thing she wanted was a useless visit from her cheating husband. She dialed the lawyer and got his secretary, who promised he would call back instantly. “Instantly” turned out to be twenty minutes.
“Can you get down here right away with the divorce agreement? Padraig is on his way and he seems to be in a mood to sign.”
“An hour,” he shot back. “There are still a few changes to be made, but I’ll have them done right now and be there in an hour.”
It seemed like only seconds before Padraig called up from the front door. Jennifer had no choice but to invite him up to her loft and hope she could keep him entertained until the lawyer arrived with the paperwork.
He seemed much smaller when she opened the door, and there was certainly less color in his face. His eyes were dead, like neglected windows, too opaque to look through. His mouth was tight, with no trace of the broad, mischievous smile. His shoulders were slumped, as if there wasn’t enough spirit left in him to inflate his chest. Jennifer had never seen him look so insignificant or so crushed. She invited him in, watching him walk lifelessly into the room and settle into a place on the sofa without even acknowledging her greeting.
“There’s still some of your single malt in the bar,” she said, inviting him to help himself.
“Just a dash over an ice cube,” he answered, expecting to be waited on.
She made his drink and then poured one for herself. She glanced at the clock. Somehow, she had to keep him involved for another forty-five minutes.
“Tell me about the picture,” she said as she set the glass in front of him. “How’s it going?”
He nodded. “Good. Better than you could expect, considering the hurry.” He sniffed at the edge of the glass and then wet his lips. It was clear that he wasn’t going to elaborate.
“And how are you?” she asked. “No more helicopter accidents. I hope?”
Padraig shook his head and sipped again. Jennifer didn’t know where to take the conversation, so she joined him in his morose drink.
Finally, he looked up at her. There was a flicker of his old self in his expression. “And how are you, Jennifer? I know I nearly destroyed you, though God knows I never meant to.”
Now she nodded. “Good. Pretty well recovered.” This would never do. They seemed to have exhausted their conversation in just a few seconds. She needed to keep him here for her attorney.
“Padraig, for what it’s worth, I know you didn’t try to kill me in Positano. I heard from the Italian detective who was handling the case.” She repeated the information she had received and explained how she had interpreted it.
“‘For what it’s worth’?” he asked. “Don’t you know that it’s worth everything to me?” His eyes filled with the emotion that seemed to be suddenly exploding inside him. “What do you think it’s been like, knowing that the woman I love thinks I tried to kill her? What do you think I feel doing business with the lying bastards who came between us?”
“Padraig, it wasn’t Catherine and Peter who broke my heart—”
“It was the two of them that broke mine,” he answered in an explosion of anger. “And now they’ve beaten me. All they ever
wanted was to keep us apart.” He shook his head in disgust. “So give me the damn divorce decree. Let me sign it and get out of your life.”
“That wasn’t what broke us apart, Padraig, and you know it. I never believed that you tried to kill me. Or if I did, I never admitted it to myself. It was those pictures. You and my sister. Of all the people you could have cheated with, my own sister.”
“You think that was something different? You think blaming me for the car and dragging me into bed were two different sins. For Christ’s sake, Jennie darlin’, don’t you see it was all one plan? ‘Let’s get rid of the stupid actor, and if that doesn’t work, then let’s drive him out of the family.’ You think your sister couldn’t find anyone else to screw her? Is it likely that with all the men fawning on her, she found me irresistible? Open your eyes, child! She didn’t love me. What she wanted was to stop you from loving me. And didn’t I fall right into her trap? Wasn’t I the total jackass? Here I was, thinking that she was making me play the lover to get money for my picture. And all she really wanted were those pictures so she could break us up.”
“You think she sent the pictures?” The notion wasn’t a complete surprise. She had weighed the possibility many times. He was telling her things she already knew; only now she was beginning to see them in a different light. Before she had just followed the obvious evidence. Why wouldn’t he want Catherine? Wasn’t she more attractive? More fashionable? More Hollywood? But why would Catherine have wanted him? She had no shortage of admirers. She had chosen Padraig just to take him away from Jennifer. And she might have sent the pictures so that there would be no doubt about her victory.
Suddenly, Padraig made sense. Neither Catherine nor Peter had wanted her new husband in the family, much less as a partner in the business. They had tried for a prenuptial agreement and, when that failed, for a marital agreement. And when neither she nor Padraig showed much interest in who might end up owning what, they had tried to kill him. Jennifer had come to believe that he was the true target of the automobile crash. It
was only afterward that her sister had taken a serious interest in producing the movies that Pegasus would distribute. That decision had put Catherine into bed with her husband. And then what had Catherine done? Had she tried to cover up Padraig’s indiscretion? Had she done anything to reassure her sister? No, she had documented the seamy affair in pictures. It was even worse than that. She had hired the photographer in advance. This hadn’t been an accidental moment of weakness. She had carefully planned to bring him down in full view of his wife. What other reason could there be but to destroy the marriage?
When she looked up, Padraig was pacing back and forth between the sofa and the huge industrial window that looked out onto the narrow street.
“What are you saying, Padraig? That none of this was your fault?
“Oh, it was all my fault,” he answered with irony in his tone. “But it wasn’t the fault that you’re talking about. You think I’m guilty of lust, but my real crime was stupidity. Your sister and your partner played me out and then pulled me back in like a yo-yo. First they fix the brakes, and I’m thinking that sure as hell you’re going to leave me. And then they come at me with money. More money than I ever could have raised on my own. And all I have to do is take down your sister’s pants. And, sweet Jesus, didn’t I fall right into it. I thought, Screw the lady so she can brag that she’s had the great lover of the big screen. Who cares? I’ll make my movie, and it will make money for their company, and then maybe they’ll leave Jennie and me alone. But you know what? It wasn’t just me, and it wasn’t just money. It was hatred, darlin’. They hate me, for sure. But someone hates you, too. Someone was out to trash us no matter how much it cost.”
She was staring at him, spellbound, when the doorbell sounded. Slowly, Jennifer got up from the sofa and walked past him to the intercom. “It’s me, Henry,” a voice said filling the room. Jennifer didn’t answer. She just pushed the button.
“Henry?” Padraig asked.
“Henry Harris,” she responded. “The lawyer handling my—our—divorce. He’s bringing over the document you wanted to sign.”
Padraig nodded. Jennifer sat, but instead of returning to his place on the sofa, Padraig walked around the coffee table and sat close to her. “You know,” he began, “I don’t want to sign this thing. That’s why I’ve been delaying. It’s not that you’re not entitled, and there’s nothing I want to contest. It’s just that this is the surrender document, and God, how I hate to surrender.”
“I don’t want your surrender,” Jennifer answered. “I just want my life back.”
Padraig sighed. “That’s exactly what I
don’t
want. I don’t want my old life back. It was just a game. Fakery. Seduction. Pretense. A big image on the screen and not a bit of light inside. All special effects. None of it real. With you, darlin’, it was a new life, with honest words and true feelings. I really was somebody. With you I had a chance. That’s what I want. A new life. Not the old one back again.”
There was a knock on the door. Jennifer hesitated for an instant, then braced herself and crossed the room to let Henry Harris in.
He was all spit and polish, a chalk-stripe suit magnificently tailored to fit his youthful, well-sculptured frame. Henry shook Padraig’s hand firmly, showed his best smile, and introduced himself. He looked around, spotted Jennifer’s desk in the office area of her loft, crossed to it, and spread out the papers from his briefcase. “Mr. O’Connell, this incorporates all the changes that your attorney requested. The wording is a bit different, but I’m sure you’ll find that the substance is—”
“Lend me your pen,” Padraig said, stepping up beside him.
Harris looked from Padraig to Jennifer, then back to Padraig. “I always advise my clients to read these things before signing,” he said, but he uncapped his fountain pen and handed it to Padraig.
“Do your clients have that much time to waste?” Padraig asked as he tossed through the pages to find his signature line.
“Padraig, take it with you,” Jennifer said. “Another day or two doesn’t matter. Make sure you agree with everything.”
“Why? You’ve read it, haven’t you? There isn’t anything in here that takes advantage of me, is there?”
“No,” Jennifer told him softly.
He found the line marked for his signature. He signed with a flourish and then handed the document to Jennifer. “You’re free, darlin’. Peter and Catherine get what they want. And you and I get …” He touched the edge of the divorce agreement. “We get this, which isn’t really what either of us want.” He stopped at the coffee table and tossed down his drink. Then he crossed to the door and let himself out.
They heard his footsteps fading in the hallway. “Not the worst person I’ve ever met,” Henry allowed.
“No, certainly not the worst.”
The lawyer went back to the desk, gesturing for Jennifer to join him. “All it needs now is your signature. Then I’ll take it back to the office and handle the filing.” He offered the same pen that Padraig had just used.
“Not now, Henry. I want to read it over a few times.”
He looked surprised, so she explained. “As Padraig said, neither of us are getting what we really want.”
Padraig and Catherine traveled to Hollywood for the premiere of their first movie and walked down the red carpet arm in arm with the film’s small cast. The actor playing the obsessive older man wasn’t really recognized by the crowd, and the young girl he was lusting after had yet to make a name. Padraig gathered most of the applause, and Catherine, in a plunging décolletage, was easily the most photographed. They partied at the bar of the Mondrian until the reviews came in, then partied longer when they read the critics’ raves. Padraig’s little movie was an artistic triumph, assuring that it would be picked up by nearly all the exhibitors. They were heady with success over the weekend at his beach house.
He was returning to Ireland for the final scenes of the boy-and-his-dog epic. The filming would end at the same moment as the money, which meant that he would need still more funding for editing and music. “Another ten million will absolutely lock it up,” he had told Catherine as she was dressing for her return to New York. When they parted at the airport, he suggested that $15 million was probably more realistic.