She left her feet bare, the polished toenails peeking out from under the floppy hem of the silk pants. Her face was expertly made up with smoky purple and lavender shadows highlighting her wide blue eyes, and a rose-tinted gloss accentuating the curve of her lips. She let her long coppery hair flow freely down her back, its wild curliness confined only by the enameled comb that held it up and back on one side.
She dressed Stephanie up for the party, too. Not in one of Teddie's lacy little gifts, but in a minuscule pair of buttercup-yellow cotton pajamas purchased for less than five dollars in San Francisco's Chinatown. They had little red frog-type closings down the front and red piping around the cuffs and sleeves and a tiny mandarin collar.
"Pretty enough?" Desi questioned.
She stood framed in the living-room doorway, a slim young woman with all the grace of a dancer, in pink and lavender silks. The beautiful baby in her arms was gurgling delightedly as she tangled one chubby fist in her mother's flaming hair.
"Lovely," said Dorothea sincerely, and then, almost to herself, "I do pity the man who's missing all of this." She made a sweeping gesture that took in the warm, inviting room and the even more inviting glow of the beautiful mother and child.
"He doesn't know," Desi said, coming into the room. "And what he doesn't know won't hurt him. Or me."
Dorothea obviously did not agree, but before she could voice her opinion the doorbell rang; a triple chime that echoed throughout the apartment.
"Let them in, will you?" Desi put the baby on her quilt on the floor. "I'll go get the
nachos
."
Some ESP must have been working because Teddie and Larry had dressed for the occasion, too. Larry, as always, was the more conservative of the two in soft tan slacks, a burgundy cashmere sweater and no jewelry except for the ring on his left hand. He looked very much like the soft-spoken, high-school music teacher that he was. Teddie, however, with his flair for the dramatic and his faultless taste, was resplendent in pale-gray suede slacks topped by a midnight-blue velvet blazer. A silk ascot in a paisley print of blue and gray, with just the right touch of dark red, was tucked into the collar of a pale-blue shirt that was the exact color of his eyes. It was secured by a diamond stickpin. Desi thought he looked like a young English lord from some silly romantic novel.
For once he seemed to approve of how Desi had dressed herself and, more importantly, Stephanie.
"She looks gorgeous," he complimented Desi when she came back into the room with the tray of nachos. "Just like a little princess. Don't you, my precious?" he cooed at the baby as he bounced her in his lap, totally unconcerned about the damage she might do to his immaculate suede slacks. Desi smiled at him indulgently and went to get the champagne.
Stephanie was put to bed about an hour later after being duly petted and praised, but the grown-ups stayed up much longer. It was, in fact, almost three in the morning by the time the party broke up. They had long since stuffed themselves with the plates of
nachos
and miniature tacos and Desi's homemade
chili rellenos
made with mild Monterey Jack cheese and served with fluffy Mexican-style rice. Dorothea had been right about the champagne. It went perfectly with Mexican food. They had polished off nearly four bottles.
Teddie and Larry moved with exaggerated care down the stairs to their apartment, giggling drunkenly as they went. Dorothea, however, was none the worse for wear. She had amazing stamina for a woman of her age—the short time it had taken her to convalesce from her rather bad cold attested to that fact. She was up at her usual time the next morning—just after the crack of dawn—and when Desi stumbled into the sunny kitchen a couple of hours later she found Dorothea and Stephanie happily communing over soft-boiled eggs and mashed bananas.
Desi poured herself a cup of coffee. "Dorothea, how
can
you?" She grimaced in the direction of the table and the revolting mess of food that the older woman was spooning into the baby's open mouth.
"She was hungry." Dorothea shrugged, pausing to sip her mimosa, a mixture of champagne and fresh orange juice.
"No, I mean the champagne," Desi came to the table, smiling a good-morning at her daughter as she tickled the baby's bare tummy where it protruded from under the already too-small T-shirt. "I should think you couldn't even stand the smell of the stuff after last night."
"
I
wasn't one of those who overindulged," Dorothea reminded her.
"Hmm. You drank as much as anybody. More."
"Ah, yes, but I can handle it." She looked over at Desi and smiled smugly. "Apparently you young people can't."
Desi smiled back. "I'm beginning to think we young people can't handle half of what you do," she said, complimenting the other woman. She meant the words sincerely.
In the past few months Dorothea had succeeded in surprising her more than once, most especially during these three weeks when she had been sharing Desi's home. Not only had she gotten over her cold in record time and not only could she drink an unbelievable amount of champagne without ever seeming to feel the effects, but she had quickly become a favorite with Teddie and Larry, she had utterly charmed Desi's mother over the phone, and she was wonderful with Stephanie, too. She handled her as easily as Desi did, with none of the hesitancy or impatience that might be expected of a woman over eighty years old. And she hadn't said a word to anyone on the set about Desi's daughter.
"Have I told you how much I enjoy having you here?" Desi said impulsively, her hand reaching out to cover Dorothea's.
"A lot of bother," Dorothea responded quickly, coloring a little at Desi's warm words.
It was the first time Desi had ever seen her blush.
"No, I mean it," Desi hastened to assure her. "You've been wonderful with Stephanie. And you haven't told Jake—I mean, anyone on the set about her. I appreciate that. It's hard enough to maintain a professional image as it is, but if he ... if they knew..." Her voice trailed off as Dorothea caught and held her eyes.
"Jake is Stephanie's father, isn't he, Desi?"
Desi stared back for a long, considering minute. "Yes," she said, then added, "Is it so obvious?"
Dorothea shrugged and spooned another mouthful of mashed bananas into Stephanie's open rosebud mouth. "No, not obvious. At least, not to just anyone. It's a lot of little things. Her name... I happen to know Jake's middle is Stephen," she explained. "Her eyes. But that didn't really click until recently. Mostly it's the way you look at him with your whole heart shining in your eyes. Even when he's bellowing at you like a maddened bull you look at him that way. I'm not so old that I can't recognize a woman in love when I see one." She paused reflectively. "Or a man, either, for that matter."
"Oh, no." The words were out before Desi could think. "He doesn't love me."
"Nonsense," snapped Dorothea. "That man devours you with his eyes every time he looks at you. He's possessive, too." She chuckled. "Doesn't even like Eldin to come too close. If that's not a man in love, then I don't know what is," she declared. She looked up. "I thought, that day on the set a few weeks back, that you had both come to your senses."
Desi looked at her blankly.
"You spent a considerable amount of time in Jake's trailer, dear girl, and his makeup wasn't done when you came out."
"That's not love. It's lust." Desi attempted a brave, self-mocking smile and failed miserably. "Pure, old-fashioned lust... well, maybe not
pure
," she amended with a small smile, her sense of humor, as always, coming to her rescue.
"Lust can sometimes be the start of love," Dorothea said gently. "It was that way for my Richard and me, you know. He
wanted
me long before he
loved
me."
"Not in this case." Desi was horrified to find herself starting to cry. "I'm sorry, Dorothea. I'm not usually a crybaby." She wiped ineffectively at her eyes. "It's over with, anyway." She stood up and went to the sink, patting at her teary face with a cool cloth. She wrung it out and came over to the table to clean up Stephanie's face and hands after her breakfast.
"I have Stephanie, and I'll always be grateful to him for that even if he doesn't know it. But it
is
over," she said firmly, smiling down at the baby through her tears, "if you can call something that never really started over." It was a brave speech, but her hands trembled and her voice shook.
"It's never over, dear girl. Not if you still love him that much." She reached out and grasped Desi's hands, pulling her back down into her chair. "It might help if you tell me about it," she urged.
And suddenly Desi found herself pouring out the whole story. She told Dorothea about the first time she had seen Jake, so mesmerizing on the set of
December Fire
, and how she must have fallen in love with him then without fully realizing it. She told her how she had followed his career, almost obsessively, all those years and about the meeting on the plane, about going to his hotel room, about his tenderness and sensitivity and her own overwhelming passion...and about her loneliness that Sunday morning, with only his brief note for company.
She talked unable to stop, it seemed, now that she had started, about how very much she had wanted the baby, how joyously she had looked forward to the birth, how rapturously happy she had been when Stephanie was put into her arms for the first time...and how desperately, how very desperately, she had wanted Jake by her side as she welcomed their daughter into the world.
She tried to explain why she had let Eldin talk her into working on Jake's film, what it would mean to her career and their future—hers and Stephanie's—and why she was now finding it so much more difficult to work with him than she ever imagined it would be. How hard it was to look at him each day and not tell him how much she loved him. To not just blurt out the news that he was a father.
And, finally, how important it was to protect Stephanie from any of the publicity that would surely result if it was found out that she was Jake Lancing's illegitimate daughter. The one thing Desi would
not
do, she told Dorothea over and over again, was to subject Stephanie to the wrath of a father who didn't want her.
"How do you know he doesn't want her?" Dorothea asked when Desi's torrent of impassioned words finally ceased.
"His views on children are public knowledge," she said, in a voice still husky with tears, "those two paternity suits and his reaction to—"
"Nonsense," snapped Dorothea. "They obviously weren't his children. Just as Stephanie obviously is. Those paternity suits are completely irrelevant."
"Maybe." Desi unwillingly acknowledged the validity of Dorothea's argument. "But the main thing—the
relevant
thing—is that he doesn't love Stephanie's mother. I think maybe he still
wants
me but—"
"Of course he wants you!" Dorothea interrupted.
"But he doesn't
love
me," Desi went on as if there had been no interruption, "and I won't subject Stephanie, or myself," she added truthfully, "to any kind of half life."
Dorothea's expression asked her to elaborate.
"I know enough about Jake to know that he's what you and Eldin would call an honorable man. Eldin told me that he supported Lisa Kendall's child until she got married, even though the baby wasn't his because it
could
have been. I don't want that from him, Dorothea. I couldn't take it if he ended up feeling about me the way he must feel about her. And even if he did believe that Stephanie was his, well..." she said stubbornly, her chin up. "I wouldn't marry a man who didn't love me, even for the sake of my child." She looked at Stephanie. "Especially for the sake of my child."
"How do you know that he doesn't love you? He certainly acts like a man in love. Angry and jealous, certainly, but definitely in love."
"That's not jealousy, Dorothea," she said almost bitterly, "not in any real sense. He's just watching me to make sure that I can do my job. He doesn't—or didn't—think I could, you know. He thinks—thought—oh, I don't know!" She looked up, her blue eyes swimming in tears again. "At the kick-off party he actually suggested—no, he
said
—that Eldin was my lover. Eldin! Can you believe that? Eldin's like a father to me. But Jake said that if Eldin had hired me for other than my so-called artistic talent that he'd fire me so fast that my head would spin. Does that sound like a man in love to you, Dorothea? It doesn't to me."
The older woman hesitated, looking for the right words, and Desi took her silence as an admission that she had no answer for that.
"I'm really sorry, Dorothea. I didn't mean to cry all over you, but thanks for listening." She picked up Stephanie from her infant seat, cuddling the tiny, precious body to her breast. "Thanks for feeding Stephanie, too. I'd better get her dressed." She glanced at the old gilt wall clock. "Me, too, if we're not going to be late for work. Jake," her voice faltered slightly as she said his name, but she squared her shoulders, visibly struggling to control her tears, "Jake wants to finish up this week in San Francisco as soon as possible."
Dorothea reached up and tenderly touched Desi's arm. "I still think you should tell Jake, my dear. He's been under a lot of strain lately, you know. This film is terribly important to him. Terribly. He's trying to prove that he's more than just a magnificent male animal, trained to do tricks in front of the camera. Not that Jake would put it that way, but you know what I mean. I think you should overlook his bad behavior and give him a chance. Tell him about Stephanie," she urged.
"No." Desi's voice was firm and her eyes, though red-rimmed, were dry and clear. "No. I can't and I won't. Oh, please don't look at me like that, Dorothea. I know he's been under a lot of strain. You only have to look at his eyes to see—" She had a sudden stomach-wrenching thought. "You have to promise not to tell him either, Dorothea."
Dorothea nodded hesitantly.