Aftermath of the Prodigal’s Return
OBVIOUSLY I wasn’t present to hear all of what came next. But Moira and Bill were there, and Moira told Slatter and Slatter told me, so I know it’s all true. Also, Bill told Derrick and Derrick told me, so I had verification.
After we’d gone back into the house, Moira looked at Bill and said, “You really surprised me, William.” But before she could continue, Bill fell to the ground and vomited. She didn’t move but simply stood and observed. She was a mother of two children—she’d seen people vomit before. And she was not inclined to help out this time.
Bill rolled onto the ground and groaned before heaving some more.
“You surprised me, and I’ve got to say, not many people surprise me anymore. I thought by now I was a pretty good judge of character.”
He lay on the ground and moved from vomiting to crying. “Moira!” he said through his tears. “I didn’t know about any of this! What’s happening? None of this is real! None of that stuff happened!”
She stood and studied him for a moment. “Come,” she said as she started to walk back to her house. He crawled to his feet and staggered along behind her and into her kitchen. Pointing at the sink, she said, “Wash your face. You’re a mess.”
He did as told. She made some tea and motioned for him to take a stool at the counter to join her when they were both ready to talk.
“All right, what happened? If everything we’ve been told isn’t true, then what happened?”
“It was awful. It was terrible. It was such a mess. We were in the middle of nowhere. It rains there like once a year—except for this year. It rained torrentially. Day after day after day. Rain, rain, and more rain. There were rivers everywhere. It was washing the soil away. The roads were out. No planes could get in. We couldn’t get out. We couldn’t work. We couldn’t film. We couldn’t do anything but sit. Day after day after day we had nothing to do and nowhere to go.
“The trailers they had trucked in for us to live in while onsite were ancient and started to leak. We were packed in tighter and tighter, trying to stay dry. When we got a day with no rain, everything was so wet that we couldn’t work. We’d try to go out and film something only to get stuck in the mud. Nothing worked. It was only getting worse.
“Tempers were short and got shorter day by day. It was the most horrible experience of my life. There was no escaping the rain, the mud, the angry, bored people. And when the rain stopped, the flies and mosquitoes came out. They were worse than any flies and mosquitoes I have ever seen anywhere anytime before in my life. They were everywhere. They attacked. They surrounded you. They were vicious. They were biting.
“I knew it was time for me to leave, but we couldn’t get out of there. Nobody was getting in and nobody was getting out. I wanted to walk out and try to get out that way, but we were hundreds of miles from anything. I had no idea that Australia had such a vast unsettled interior.
“Derrick stopped me from taking off one day. It had been horrible, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I tried to take off walking. It would have been suicide, I know now, but I had to get out of there, or at least try to get out of there. I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit anymore.
“The trailer I was sharing with six other guys was a mess. After one rough night that featured two fistfights, I finally just took off. Derrick came after me and got me back and into his trailer. Yes, I slept in his bed, with him, but it was not sexual in the slightest possible way. I swear to you that I did not have sex with him. I have not wanted to have sex with him, I do not want to have sex with him, I have not had sex with him, I do not want to have sex with him, I will not have sex with him. He has never suggested it, and I wouldn’t do it even if he had. Period. Mark is the one I want to be with. Period.
“The picture of me in bed with Derrick wrapped around me. Sure. That looked real. The other pictures, no way. Not remotely possible. There were no picnics. There was no place that was dry enough to have a picnic. There were no other people. There were no cafés and no candlelight—except for the week when the generators failed because we ran out of fuel.
“Those other pictures are completely made up. That’s all there is to it. I’m not Derrick’s boyfriend or boy toy. I’m not anything to Derrick like that. We’re friends. That’s it. Nothing more. Somebody is playing games.”
Moira sat back and took in everything he was saying. It was plausible. She had never misjudged anyone so hugely before, and she didn’t see how she could have misjudged Bill so badly. It also was out of character for Derrick. So she agreed that someone was playing games—a very high stakes game that seemed to be solely determined to bring down Derrick St. James.
After a long period of silent contemplation, she finally said, “Yes, someone is playing games. But we’re not talking fun games. Someone is out for blood. Someone is out to take that man down, and so far they seem to be doing a pretty effective job of it. At the moment I don’t think he could get a job making cat food commercials for late night TV.”
“Has it really been that bad?” Bill asked.
“You saw the newspapers. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. This town loves a good bit of gossip, but we’re way past gossip. We’re talking blood in the water with the sharks circling.”
“We didn’t know any of this back there. We were completely shut off from the outside world. I didn’t know any of this until you guys started telling me what was happening. What can I ever do to convince Mark that this is all just BS? He hates me! You saw the look on his face back there. He hates me!”
She nodded. “Yes. He does. No use trying to deny it. He’s been hurt—badly hurt. You disappeared—over the holidays—and so did I. And then you don’t come back as scheduled and neither he nor I can get any information out of the studio. And then you miss the start of classes and get kicked out of school.”
Bill broke down in tears again at that note. “I’ve ruined everything. My life is such a mess.”
“Yes, dear, it is. But we’re gonna work on it. But you should know right here and now that we can’t fix this overnight. This is gonna take some time. And a lot of work. And there are no promises. We may not be able to fix it.”
“Who was that guy with Mark?”
“Slatter. You should be grateful he’s been around. I don’t want to think what you’d find back here if he hadn’t been around.”
“Are they sleeping together?”
“Much like what you described with Derrick. They sleep in the same bed but are not having sex.”
“How do you know?”
“A mother knows these things. That, plus I’ve talked with both of them. And like I said, be grateful he’s been around. I don’t think Mark would have come back after their drunken weekend in Palm Springs if Slatter hadn’t been along. He left here so angry and hurt. He had just seen the first newspaper. He told me he was moving out and wouldn’t be back. We got him to reconsider. Slatter took him out.” She chuckled. “I’ve never seen anyone look quite so green as Mark when he crawled back home the next night. From what Slatter told me, Mark was in far better shape than he was. They’ve both sworn to me that they will never touch a drop of alcohol again as long as they both live. By all accounts, they were very popular at the gay resort in the springs. They drank and danced until they got thrown out when the party shut down.”
“I don’t like him.”
“I didn’t think you would. But you should still be grateful to him. He’s been here doing your job. We didn’t know where you were or even if you were alive. You might have been in hell, but so were we.”
“What do I do now?”
“You go upstairs, first door on the right, and go to bed. Bathroom is just off the bedroom. I’m gonna go out and try to talk to Mark a little. I don’t expect to get very far, but I’ll start laying the groundwork. So. Shower. Sleep. And let me work my magic.”