But Annabel got no farther than the Villa Sanctuaire when Téa flagged her down.
“Darling!” she called out, as if she were truly glad to see Annabel. Téa seemed lonely here without Jack. She’d changed into a pink-and-white dress that buttoned down the front.
“I knew you wouldn’t forget me,” she said with a soft, touchingly eager smile. “I’ve already been mixing up Jack’s favorite cocktails. He’s on his way down here, and he wants to talk to you. Come, dear Annabel, come sit with me.”
It was hard to resist being wanted so much—like having a queen bestow her shining light of approval—and the ethereal Téa could be very forceful when her mind was set on you. She took Annabel by the arm and hauled her determinedly into the villa. It was dark and cool inside, a welcome relief from the burning August sun.
“Would you like a martini or a champagne cocktail?” Téa inquired, busily going behind the counter of the kitchen area and tying an apron around her waist. She looked as if she were enjoying playing house.
“Champagne cocktail,” Annabel relented. This might be her only chance to find out who exactly had stopped her from being Jack’s assistant. Maybe he would show up while they were sipping drinks, and she’d see what he really felt about all this.
Téa busied herself pouring drinks into two stylish cocktail glasses. Then she took off her apron, and carrying one glass in each hand, she floated over to the sofa and set them down on the low table. She went back to fetch the champagne bottle to bring to the table, then plunked herself down chummily beside Annabel on the sofa.
Seen this close, Téa was incredibly beautiful. Her skin was like peaches and cream, her lips plump and moist as berries, and her eyes sparkled with fun.
“What lovely, delicate hands you have, Annabel. Such long, slender fingers!” Téa observed admiringly, seizing one and holding it this way and that. Then she ruefully raised her own hand. “Mine are as big and wide as a man’s. Good for chopping wood. The wardrobe ladies always give me gowns with long, dramatic sleeves to hide them.” She paused, looking so intently at Annabel that her violet eyes seemed to darken with pure energy.
“Tell me,” Téa purred. “How long have you been in love with Jack?”
Annabel quickly took a fortifying gulp of her drink and attempted to be lighthearted about it. “Goodness, I’ve just met him,” she said lamely. “I mean, he’s very nice and handsome and all, but, well, he’s a movie star.”
“Yes, yes. But you are in love with him,” Téa said, her sensual lips caressing the word love. “You are sensitive enough to see how good and sweet a man he is. Perhaps too good for this world.” She added softly, “And he is a bit fond of you, I think.”
Annabel allowed herself one brief moment of delight before alarm set in. She didn’t like this game of cat and mouse, and she wasn’t about to confess to anything, so she said with a modest expression, “Jack talks about you all the time and says you are made for each other.”
Téa sighed. “Well, yes, of course. We are soul mates. But you are young. You have it all ahead of you. You can give a man all the adoration and children that he wants.”
Annabel was surprised to hear the genuine wisp of pain behind Téa’s matter-of-fact tone. Feeling rather guilty now, Annabel said delicately, “You’re not—too old—”
Téa squeezed her hand with a grateful expression. “No, I’m not old. But when I was a girl, I had to have a—surgery,” she said simply. “So there will be no children for me.”
It took Annabel a moment to recall such code words that she’d learned at Vassar for the one word that women still hesitated to say aloud, even among themselves. Abortion.
Téa recovered and said lightly, “Oh, but men are so bossy when they’re in love. They want you to do this, sign that. And they insist, Don’t do what he wants; do what I want. They always like to put a harness on you, like a horse. But I think it’s more important for a woman to be free, don’t you agree, chérie?” She reached for the champagne and topped off their drinks.
Annabel decided to be direct. “Did you ask Sonny to stop me from working with Jack?”
Téa looked truly shocked. “Of course not! Did Sonny do that? Well, don’t worry about it. Jack loves working with you. When he returns, we’ll get him to deal with Sonny.”
Annabel suspected that Téa’s interrogation was at an end; had she taken her rival’s measure and concluded that Annabel didn’t pose any real threat regarding Jack?
Sure enough, Téa changed the subject, speaking of clothes and fabrics and fashion. Or perhaps Téa truly didn’t care if there was something between Jack and Annabel. It was almost as if Téa was giving them permission to be happy. Jack had basically said that Téa didn’t form attachments to people, jewelry, clothes. It must be true.
“You should wear pink, blue, and red,” Téa was saying affectionately. “Those are the colors for you.” Listening to Téa’s reassuring tone as they sat together companionably sipping their drinks, Annabel was beginning to feel calm, peaceful, as she hadn’t been for some time in the company of men. She’d missed having smart and sophisticated girlfriends to talk to.
And something about Téa’s soothing voice was reminding Annabel of a poignant memory, long ago buried, of her own lost mother. Annabel had pushed aside all those feelings of adoration, loss, and grief. The memory of her mother as alive and busy at work in the photography studio was already fading.
But now an earlier, physical memory was insistently pushing its way to the surface, refusing to be suppressed any longer, from when Annabel was a little girl—the wonderful, comforting feeling of her mother’s arms around her, her mother’s hands undressing her for bed, brushing her hair away from her face before she went to sleep on hot summer nights. Her mother’s lovely scent and soft body holding her close, rocking her to sleep. Her mother’s lips kissing little Annabel good night, caressing her face.
Annabel sighed deeply and closed her eyes as this sweet, intimate memory seemed to envelop her like a soft, protective blanket. She felt herself getting drowsier, slipping off into the most serene, sublime sleep of a contented baby. She even thought she heard her mother’s voice saying, That’s a good girl. You’re such a dear, good little girl.
Like an infant, she felt hands bigger than hers stroking her face, her throat, her shoulders. Dimly she felt her blouse being unbuttoned and peeled away, her skirt being gently hitched up, and then she was being kissed all over, by soft, loving lips that caressed her breasts, her thighs, her belly, even the tips of her fingers and toes.
That’s it. Good girl. Yes, my sweet.
Something soft and smooth and heavy and warm brushed against Annabel’s mouth, and she felt a surge of emotion, kissing it as if she were sucking at her mother’s breast.
Aren’t you a hungry little baby! Tell me all your secrets, little one; don’t hide anything from me. Do you have something for me? Tell Mama.
And now Annabel felt as if multiple pairs of hands were stroking and caressing her entire body everywhere at once, eternal and all-encompassing. But in some places these hands were soft and soothing, and in others they felt rough and scratchy.
Annabel’s eyelids fluttered open, but all she could see were dark shadows at the foot of the sofa. Everything felt so blurry, cocooned in cotton wool. She closed her eyes again.
Then suddenly the rough hands grabbed Annabel hard by the shoulders, shaking her. Téa’s voice sounded strangely shrill, and she was saying something that was both furious and wheedling at the same time, yet Annabel had a hard time making out the words. It sounded like, Would you like coffee?
“No,” Annabel whispered. Confused and fearful of Téa’s inexplicably angry tone, Annabel made a monumental effort to force her heavy eyelids wide open.
In the darkness of the room, with only small shafts of sunlight peering around the edges of the drawn curtains, she could just make out Téa’s face looming at the foot of the sofa, her expression distorted into something harsh, her mouth twisted with fury; yet the voice that emerged from it now sounded oddly desperate, even pleading, as if her life depended on it: Would you like coffee? It was all the more terrifying because it made no sense.
Annabel gasped, “I said no!” as in her foggy haze she glimpsed Téa coming closer now, stark naked, revealing her slim figure—with a man’s genitals. She smiled in a strange way as she pushed Annabel back down on the sofa.
Annabel screamed out, “Leave me alone!” Immediately a rough hand clapped over her mouth to silence her. She could hardly breathe, but she bit at the hand, which quickly withdrew with a cry of pain before it returned to slap her across the face.
“Stop it!” Annabel cried. Still reeling from the blow, she summoned every fiber of her strength to shove the figure away from her, just long enough to get off that sofa. Stumbling to her feet, and clutching her open blouse and unbuttoned skirt to her body, she made a furious dash for the door and plunged out of the dark villa, into the liberating evening air.
* * *
She could tell by the night sky that she must have been with Téa a lot longer than it had seemed. Scott was just now strolling down the path from the direction of the hotel and moving toward his cottage, smoking and looking deep in thought. He was all dressed up, as if he’d been to a reception. But when he heard Annabel’s cry, he looked up sharply, just in time to see her burst onto the path, her expression terrified.
He threw down his cigarette and came rushing toward her, quickly guiding her to the Jasmine Cottage and banging the door shut behind them.
“Sit down,” Scott said, alarmed. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”
Annabel was gasping for breath, as if she’d run a marathon instead of taken the few steps to get here. She sank onto the sofa, trying to get her bearings. Then she looked down at herself and hastily buttoned up her clothes.
“Did Jack do this to you?” Scott demanded incredulously as he returned with the glass of water.
She shook her head firmly, but her hand trembled as she raised the glass to her lips and sipped the cool water. Every time she tried to tell Scott about it, her voice got stuck in her throat. Finally she cried out, “I don’t know what happened! Téa gave me champagne cocktails, and the next thing I knew—I felt I was floating out of my body. I saw—Téa—doing strange things I can’t even talk about.” Lamely she concluded, “Téa kept wanting to give me things to drink. Champagne . . . coffee . . . and—I saw her—changing—shapes—” she quavered. “It—it was like un cauchemar.”
“Ah. That’s one French word I learned, from my wife’s doctors in Switzerland,” Scott said dryly. “Nightmare. A demon that comes into your bedroom and sits on your chest.”
At the mention of Swiss doctors, Annabel recalled that, according to that ledger she’d seen with the hospital bills, Scott’s wife had been consigned to an asylum.
“Am I crazy?” she whispered fearfully.
“No, no, no,” Scott said. “You’re the healthiest, sanest person I’ve ever met. A nightmare? Sounds more like a hallucination. I think Téa slipped you a Mickey Finn.”
At her blank look, he sized her up and said, “I think you’re under the influence of some drug she sneaked into your cocktail, probably. I’ve heard of people doing that to their housemaids, just for kicks.” He added quietly, “And I’ve heard the stories about Téa, but I chalked them up to vicious Hollywood gossip. She’s a morphine addict, they say. She pals around with others who like the stuff. They claim that Coco Chanel introduced her to it.”
Annabel could scarcely comprehend any of this. Scott said, “I think she was trying to get revenge on you. Jack gets a certain light in his eyes when he sees you.”
Annabel groaned. The love between her and Jack—did everyone on earth suspect it?
Scott said cautiously, “Shall I call that Dr. Gaspard, just to make sure you’re okay?”
“God, no! I don’t want to tell anybody else about this!” she cried out.
Scott said, “Okay, okay, take it easy. Look, you can’t go walking around the hotel in this condition anyway. Do you want to just lie here on the sofa and sleep it off?” he advised, going to the closet for a blanket. “When you wake up, you’ll feel better, and you’ll figure everything out. Nobody can bother you here. I won’t let them in; I’ll guard you like a faithful old dog. I’ve got some more writing to do. But holler if you need anything.”
* * *
Hours later, Annabel awoke, feeling strangely calm. The room was in darkness, except at the far corner, where a faint light spill from the bedroom indicated that Scott was working there. It was so quiet that she could hear his pencil scratching against the pages of his pad of paper, as if he were a devoted monk transcribing in his cell.
She did not want to disturb him, so she lay there silently on the sofa, trying to sort out what had happened to her. She still couldn’t make any sense of it. What she thought she’d seen was simply unimaginable. What could it mean? Was Téa really a man?
She sat up, slowly and cautiously, testing her equilibrium. She felt that what she really needed was some fresh air. Tentatively she rose to her feet, went to the front door, and opened it, breathing in the cooler night breeze, redolent with the spicy scent of the pine trees.
She walked a little way down the path, in the opposite direction of Jack’s villa. Beyond the Jasmine Cottage was a small outcropping with a glimpse of the sea and a path leading down to a tiny pebbled beach below. People who stayed in the cottages sometimes launched small boats from here, to take them to the big yachts anchored out farther.
As the salty sea air filled her lungs, Annabel felt her mind clear. She was remembering the very first day she’d seen Téa, wearing a diaphanous caftan and drifting out of the house to the pool, dropping her clothes to swim naked, with that golden skin and her blond hair glistening wet in the sunlight, with even her pubic hair as gold as corn silk.
At the time, Annabel had been reminded of something catty that her girlfriends at Vassar had told her: When you see a girl naked in the shower, that’s how you know if she bleaches her hair or if she’s a natural blond.
“I saw everything that day! Therefore, I could not have seen otherwise tonight; I must have imagined the whole thing,” Annabel murmured to herself. “Maybe that’s what those drugs do—they make you hallucinate all kinds of strange images.”
Perhaps, too, that little episode when Alan had exposed himself to her in Sonny’s tent had upset her more than she’d realized. She must have conflated the way he’d menaced her with the way that Téa had just punished her for loving Jack.
From the other side of the cove, the lighthouse was casting its beam around the rocky coast. As its light swept the little beach below, she could now see a man standing there. Then all went dark again, as the lighthouse beam swept to the other side of the cove. But now the man on the beach was waving a lantern at a yacht that was anchored some distance away. The yacht, as if in response, flashed a blinking light.
“What is that all about?” Annabel muttered as she ducked into the shadows.
Moments later she could hear the man with the lantern coming up from the cove, breathing hard with the effort. He went right past her as if in a great hurry. She did not raise her head until she was sure he’d moved on. Then she went out on the pebbled path and cut through the trees to follow the man, who had veered away in the direction of the wide main path that led straight up to the hotel.
That path was well lit, and now Annabel, peering through the trees, could see clearly that the signaling man was Rick, the hotel heir.
He was moving with a quick, long stride and a pensive expression, but as he drew closer to the hotel, he smiled as if in preparation to greet the other guests who were out on the terrace drinking and laughing after a party.
“Hey there, Ricky!” A few guests straggled somewhat tipsily down the path to meet Rick halfway as he waved and then joined them.
Annabel retreated, back to the Jasmine Cottage. Scott was standing in the doorway, looking worried. His face cleared when he saw her.
“Lord, I was getting ready to call security,” he said. “I thought you’d been abducted by an opium ring. Feeling better?”
She nodded, but she still felt so confused. He peered at her. “You look upset,” he observed.
“I just saw Rick signaling a boat,” she said, a little breathless. “Scott, I think you were right when you said that this hotel is crawling with all kinds of spies this summer.”
Scott chuckled. “Oh, I saw Rick do that once, too. He says he’s signaling his valet to get the cocktails ready. He’s probably planning to head out there soon with a girl.”
Annabel snorted. “You believe that?”
“Yes! That guy is not the sharpest pencil in the box, and he’s definitely too lazy to be a spy.”
All this talk of spies reminded Annabel that she had a task awaiting her. “I have to put that weird typewriter in a safer place. I can lock it up in my uncle’s office so he can take a look,” she said, heading for the closet to retrieve the Polish girl’s valise. “But I don’t want to go past Jack’s villa again,” she added with a shudder.
“I don’t blame you,” Scott said. “Not a good time to see Jack. Tonight was the big screening for Love Isn’t Easy, Jack’s first—and last—independent film. I stopped in earlier, before I ran into you—long enough to see that the whole thing is a disaster.”
Annabel had forgotten all about it. “What do you mean, a disaster?” she demanded.
“The entire international press was there. And by all accounts it was a big, fat flop.”
“But—but—no, that was a good script—” she objected.
“Yeah, it was, thanks. And a good film, too. But apparently Sonny and Alan got their fat little fingers into the editing room, and they cut the picture to shreds—they say they did it to please the German distributors, ‘to save the film.’”
“Baloney!” Annabel said indignantly.
“Yes. So Jack accused Sonny of deliberately sabotaging his film. Jack was already in a lousy mood, because Téa didn’t show up for the screening. So when he saw how the studio butchered his movie, he actually punched Alan in the face. Which I must say was quite satisfying to see, even if it means my screenplay is now an equus mortuus.”
“But why would Sonny and Alan sabotage a film that they are distributing?” Annabel asked, confused. “They care so much about profits—”
“They did it to kill two birds with one stone. First, to satisfy Herr Hardass and his band of Nazi censors. Second, to break Jack, who’s been the thorn in Sonny’s side all along. Sonny and Alan don’t want Jack around anymore. He’s too much trouble. Sonny thinks Jack is the reason that Téa hasn’t renewed her contract, and that’s probably true. And Jack is a stallion who can’t be tamed; he wants independence—which means there’s always a chance that Jack can lure Téa away, if he makes a deal with another studio like Warner Brothers or MGM. So Sonny’s out to ruin Jack Cabot’s reputation, so that he’ll never make any other picture with anybody else.”
It all sounded horribly feasible to Annabel. Hollywood people were ruthless.
Scott concluded, “See, Sonny’s gambling that Téa may love Jack but she won’t throw her whole career away for love. Like, maybe that’s why she didn’t come to the party to support Jack. She may be betting against him.”
Annabel felt as if everything she’d thought of as solid fact was actually only a dream. It was like being in her father’s photography studio and staring at a negative of a picture—where black was white and white was black.
She turned her attention back to the closet. When she opened the door, she saw only the empty floorboards where the Polish girl’s valise had been.
“It’s gone!” she exclaimed in panic.
Scott took a moment to realize what she was talking about. Then he said, “Oh, that. Not to worry. I locked it in my trunk of books and manuscripts when I went out.”
He went over to his bedroom, took a key from his pocket, and opened his trunk. He reached in calmly and picked up the Polish girl’s valise. Annabel breathed a sigh of relief.
“You want me to go with you to the hotel?” he inquired. “Just to make sure you don’t get ambushed by some international spies?”
“Yes,” Annabel agreed, taking a deep breath. Oncle JP would know what to do.