Til the Real Thing Comes Along (19 page)

For the next three weeks Rand Malcolm stayed in Los Angeles. There was lots of talking. And there were long dinners and walks
in Griffith Park, and an evening spent with Lily’s mother and brothers carefully looking him over.

“I’m a damn good man,” Rand Malcolm told Colleen Daniels. “The right man for Lily.” Above his bed at the Rainbow Orphanage,
where he had lived until he was fourteen, he’d had a sign, a quote from Emerson:
DO WHAT YOU’RE AFRAID TO DO.
He’d lived by that and been successful because of it. Now when he realized he was nearing forty and that maybe he hadn’t
married because he was afraid of
that,
he decided to find the right woman. Lily was twenty-six; Rand Malcolm was thirty-eight. Colleen was worried about that.

“Means I have more experience,” he said. “More time to get situated.” Indeed, he had done that very well. His paper company
was the largest in the world. “No partners and no ex-wives.” He’d never been married, though lots of women had tried. He was
“not interested and too busy.” But the memory of that little Irish girl he’d met at San Simeon had stayed in his mind.

“Fred,” he had said, calling in Fred Samuels, the associate who had been his childhood friend, “find me that girl Lily. The
one who’s in movies.”

“Boss,” Samuels had said, using the term that was more of a nickname for Rand Malcolm than anything else. “She’s starring
in a double bill at the Bijou. Why don’t I come by and get you later, and the popcorn’s on me?” By the time the first reel
of
Woman on the Run
was over, Rand Malcolm was in love.

The home offices of the Rainbow Paper Company were in Chicago. Lily’s mother was worried about her only daughter moving away.

“I’ll move my company here,” Malcolm said.

Lily watched her mother respond to him. Colleen usually liked men with more of a sense of humor, but Lily guessed that her
mother noticed, the way
she
had, that even though Rand Malcolm’s words were serious, there was an unmistakable twinkle in his eye. As if there were someone
inside longing to be helped out. This was the man she had waited for. And he had come out of the sky to marry her, as if life
were a fairy tale.

That night, when her mother and brothers had excused themselves and she and Rand sat alone, Lily looked around
at the shabbiness of the house. The tiny living room, where the arms of the sofa and of every chair were frayed down to the
stuffing. She had begged her mother for the last few years to please let her buy or rent the family a newer, better house,
some better furniture, but Colleen Daniels always refused. So even now, Lily Daniels the movie star still slept in the same
tiny bedroom she’d slept in all through grade school and high school.

“Will you marry me, Lil?” he asked, and when she looked up, she saw him next to the chair where she sat, on one knee. He took
her hand in his and looked into her eyes.

Lily had always known what she would answer a man when he finally said those words to her, so now she gazed deep into Rand
Malcolm’s eyes and said, “For me that would all depend on how you feel about children.”

“I want twenty of them,” he said. He knew he’d given the right answer when Lily’s beautiful arms went around his neck and
she kissed him sweetly. And her big green eyes, which always looked wet, looked even wetter when the kiss broke and she said,
“Then I accept.”

Julian Raymond sat in his office reviewing the latest box office figures. Jack Welles and Lily Daniels were like magic. The
grosses for
Woman on the Run
were the highest he’d ever seen in the history of Hemisphere Studios. Christ, he was the smartest son of a bitch in the movie
business. And he had three more scripts in the works that would be just perfect for the two of them. His biggest problem—and
this thought made him laugh out loud, breaking the silence in his high-ceilinged, elegantly furnished studio office—was which
one of the three to make first, since they were all sure-fire hits. A tap on his office door made him look up from the numbers.

“Yeah?”

The door opened and there was Lily Daniels herself.

“Lily!”

“Sorry,” she said, “but your secretary was out so I…”

Still so humble. If she ever figured out how she had him and the whole world by the balls, she’d probably become a bitchy
prima donna like the rest of them. Or maybe not. Now he and Vera had known Lily for nearly
seven years—Christ, was it that long? That meant her contract could be up any time now. He’d have to remember to have his
secretary check that as soon as Lily left.

“Lily,” he said, jumping to his feet, seating her in a chair. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Raymond. I—”

“Lily, what is it? Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Far from it.” And then she blushed. She actually blushed. Julian Raymond had been in Hollywood so long,
he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen anyone who was still innocent enough to blush. “It’s just that I… I’m coming
to remind you that my contract with Hemisphere is up next week.”

Is that sweet, Raymond thought. Lovable and naïve and sweet. She probably was afraid that the studio wouldn’t pick up her
contract and she was coming in to talk about it.

“It’s hard to believe,” she went on, “that it’s seven years since that day we met in Dr. Beeler’s office, and you said that
I would meet the man of my dreams at Hemisphere Studios. Well, I’ve met him and I’m leaving. In fact I’ve spent the morning
emptying my dressing room, so that you could move someone else in there right away… and, well… I’m so happy… and I wanted
to come by and thank you for making it possible for my dreams to come true because you were absolutely right. If I had stayed
in Dr. Beeler’s office, this certainly never would have happened.”

Raymond’s mind was racing. This wasn’t possible. The biggest asset this studio had was saying this to him?

“Lily,” he said. “I have three pictures lined up for you and Jackie to make back-to-back. The first one starts shooting next
month. You can’t just walk out on me to get married because your contract is up.” God, how had he forgotten? How had everyone
in the legal department let this get by? It didn’t matter. He would talk her out of this guy anyway, whoever he was. Who could
he be anyway to get her to give up the best career any movie actress could ever wish for? Some gigolo, some hotshot producer—maybe
Jack Welles was looking to make her his fourth wife. He was about due for a change, and a vulnerable little girl like Lily
might get roped in by a guy like that. Why was he worrying?

There wasn’t a man around who could offer her what this studio could—the money, the glamour—and Julian
Raymond couldn’t wait to sit back and start explaining that to Lily. To tell her what he’d give her in a
new
seven-year contract. The kind of deal a star like her was eligible for now. She wouldn’t be able to resist, and instead of
marrying whoever this clown was, she’d just do something smart, like secretly move in with the guy.

“Lily,” he began, “I don’t know where you met this guy or who he is but whoever he is he can’t—”

“You won’t believe who it is!” Her face, glowing with love, was more beautiful than usual. “His name is Rand Malcolm, and
we all met him together in San Simeon.”

“Rand Malcolm from Chicago?”

Lily nodded. “Yes,” she said.

“The guy from Rainbow Paper? Vera said she thought his
face
was made out of paper because we never saw him for two days behind
The Wall Street Journal.
That’s who this is about?”

Lily nodded.

“Oh, shit,” Julian Raymond said, then added, “Excuse me,” when he realized by Lily’s face that she was offended by his language.
“Lily, you can’t leave me. The studio. Surely Rand Malcolm knows how important your movies have become. He’s not going to
deprive you of making one or two more. Okay, maybe three.”

“Rand has nothing to do with this decision,” Lily said. “It was all mine. And I made it long ago. When I was a little girl.”
Lily stood to leave and extended her hand. “You’ve been very good to me, Mr. Raymond, better than almost anyone, except my
parents and Dr. Beeler, and I want you to know I’m grateful.”

Julian Raymond’s face was pale with defeat. If she were a man he’d be threatening right now to sue her ass. A man, hell. If
she were marrying someone he thought he could beat in a court case, he’d threaten to sue her ass. But with Rand Malcolm’s
money… Lily was at the door now, looking at him expectantly, as if she thought he was going to give her his blessing or something.

“Good day, Lily,” was all Julian Raymond said, as Lily Daniels Malcolm bounced happily out the door. It had been all she could
do to keep from pouring out every detail of the tiny but perfect wedding which had taken place in her mother’s living room
only the night before. And how afterward, in their room at the exquisite Ambassador Hotel,
Rand had held her gently, and kissed her sweetly and told her: “I’ll give you everything, Lil,” and she told him that just
by loving her he had already done that.

But though both of them had meant what they said, they soon discovered that he couldn’t give her everything she wanted, and
what he
could
give to her would never be enough. Because after a year of trying they discovered that Lily couldn’t, and probably would
never be able to, become pregnant.

For the next five years every attempt they made was futile. They flew all over the country seeking advice, hoping against
hope that this doctor or that might have the answer. From medications to unique positions in their lovemaking to potions of
herbs and flower petals. Lily even went secretly to a psychic healer, knowing Rand would think it was nonsense. But nothing
worked. And each time Lily would get her “monthly,” as she called it, she wouldn’t allow herself to cry, because that “didn’t
solve a darn thing.” It would just serve to make her more determined to find an answer.

Their life together was filled with love and great excitement. The opening of the Rainbow Paper Center in Los Angeles. The
day they found their dream house in Hancock Park. The huge parties they threw to celebrate each event. Rand insisted on having
Lily with him on every business trip. She would chatter gaily to all the wives, thrilled to be in Rand’s world, which was
populated by such fascinating people. Rand Malcolm’s friends and colleagues. Not only politicians and princes but giants in
the business world. And as dazzled as Lily was by meeting all of them, they were more dazzled to be in the company of Lily
Daniels, the stunning former movie star all of them had seen and fallen in love with on the screen. And she was even better
in person because she sparkled when she was on the arm of her beloved Mal, as she and his close friends called Rand Malcolm.

And there were many close friends. Each wanting to tell his beautiful young bride tales about the many years of Mal’s life
when he hadn’t had Lily around.

“Mal’s a man of few words,” someone had said. Had it been General Eisenhower who told her the story about how when you played
cards with Mal he didn’t talk all night, just concentrated on his cards? Then at the end of the night
he’d say, “I win and you lose,” rake in his chips, and go home.

Fred Samuels, who had been his friend since college, said that at Stanford, Mal had been known as Mister Five Words Or Less.
“Mal figures if it takes more than five words to make his point, why bother?” Fred enjoyed telling Lily how changed Mal was
since he’d married her. “Now sometimes he gets up as high as ten words.”

Lily Knew it was true. Mal had changed. Laughed with her, and was playful. The other morning in the shower he had sung to
her. “Lucky in Love,” his favorite song.

Mal. He was so patient and giving with her. Gazing at her across the dinner table, “I’m a goddamned lucky man,” he’d say.
But always she could see the pain in his eyes when a fertility experiment didn’t work, and his increasing disappointment when
each passing year made it more and more clear that he would never father a child. At least not with her.

Not with her. Mal. How she loved him. More every day.

“Maybe we should adopt,” Lily said one morning, after awakening in a hotel in Paris with a heavy period that was eight days
late. The lateness had given her such false hope, she had already been thinking about where she would send their child to
school when he was five. Now she felt depressed and weepy.

Mal was shaving and she saw the reflection of his furrowed brow in the bathroom mirror.

“We have to keep trying,” he said.

“But there are so many homeless babies out there who would be lucky to have us and—”

“I want a blood relative,” he said, turning to look seriously at her from the bathroom. Five words or less. She never mentioned
adoption again.

Late one night, after Mal was asleep, Lily sat looking out the bedroom window of their Hancock Park home. She hadn’t been
able to sleep properly for weeks. Earlier, Mal had made love to her, but it seemed halfhearted, as if without even the shred
of possibility that they might create a child together, some part of the passion was gone. The moonlight streaming in the
open window shone on Mal’s face, and when Lily’s eyes followed its path and looked at him she shook her head in disbelief,
the way
people do when they can’t believe their own good fortune. More than good fortune. This man, this extraordinary creature. Could
she even hope to give him back a small percent of the joy he gave her?

Of course she knew he loved her, was proud of her beauty, her charm at dinner parties, but almost any pretty girl with any
sense could look good and say the right things in a crowd. She wanted to be more. To give more. Mal had turned forty-four
last week and was still without a child. Dear God, if Mal had married someone else, he’d probably have at least four children
by now. Married someone else.

The night was warm, and while Lily watched, Mal, turning over in his sleep, moved the sheet from his upper body and Lily could
see the pattern of golden-red hairs on his hard naked chest, that chest that she loved feeling against her own. And the tears
came. Married someone else. In the silence of the night, Lily walked into her closet and began to pack her things.