With Howie away to photograph Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s appearance at Planet Hollywood, Stephanie opted to stay at home and have a good cry. Three months had passed since the tragic incident, and, contrary to her outward show of bravado and indifference, she was still deeply disturbed by Jack’s death. Despite what Stephanie had told Howie, or even herself, she’d never hated Jack. She couldn’t. He was the only man she ever genuinely loved, and the idea of having played a part in his death was devastating.
Still, a small part of Stephanie was almost relieved that Jack was dead. Her relief was rooted in the knowledge that with Jack’s death she would finally be released from this dungeon of unrequited love. Losing Jack through death seemed much more tolerable than losing hirn to Gabrielle through marriage. The pain of constantly being reminded that Jack had never loved her in any way that even remotely resembled his feelings for Gabrielle was much erueler than knowing that she’d never see or speak to him again.
Stephanie cracked open a bottle of tequila and put the tape of “The Craig Arthur Show” in the VCR. She wanted to see Jack alive again and for one last time relish the memories of when the two of them were together. Stephanie fast-forwarded the tape to the part where Craig signaled Jack to join him and Gabrielle on stage. As Jack walked out onto the set, Stephanie’s tears began to flow. He looked so handsome, so vibrant, so alive. It was hard to believe that he was gone.
She let the tape run, blocking out Gabrielle and focusing on Jack. In her tequila-induced fog, Stephanie allowed herself to fantasize that she was on the show plugging her book and announcing her marriage to Jack. Stephanie replayed Jack’s entrance several times before acknowledging Gabrielle’s presence. She decided to watch Craig Arthur’s entire interview with the model. Eight minutes later, she turned off the television in disgust.
“What a crock she’s feeding these people. ‘I wasn’t looking for just any man. I was looking for the right man.’ Like Jack, you bitch. Being with me made him the right man, didn’t it? ‘I can’t read those cards … I don’t have my contact lenses in.’ Blind bat—Wait a minute,” Stephanie interrupted herself. “Gabrielle doesn’t wear contacts. That witch has twenty-twenty vision. Why would she lie about wearing contact lenses and then say she couldn’t read the cue cards? This just doesn’t make sense,” Stephanie told herself.
Stephanie jumped up and turned the VCR and television back on. In the search mode she quickly rewound the tape to the bantering right before the break. She paused the machine again right after the host had requested that Gabrielle take them into the break.
She could see the fear in Gabrielle’s eyes. It was clear, if you were looking for it. Gabrielle was petrified. But why? Stephanie turned her attention from Gabrielle to Jack. He looked strange as well. Almost as if he were frightened for his wife. I smell a rat.
All the man had asked was for Gabrielle to read the cue cards. What about such a simple request would scare her into lying on national television? Was it stage fright? Was she worried about screwing up her lines on live TV? It’s not as if Gabrielle hadn’t done a million of these stupid shows before. Stephanie had booked most of them herself.
“So what are you hiding, Gabzilla? What has you looking like you’ve seen a ghost?” Stephanie rewound the tape again and watched the interlude for a third time. This just didn’t make sense. Nothing was requested or said that even an idiot like Gabrielle couldn’t handle. So what’s the deal? Unless … Could it be she really can’t read?
“Nah,” Stephanie said, answering her own question. She got up and paced the room. I’ve seen her reading books and commercial scripts. How could she not be able to read?
Barclay hopped off his perch on the windowsill and sauntered over to the couch. He stretched and began rubbing himself up against Stephanie’s legs. “Barclay, cut it out. I’ll feed you in a minute,” she told him.
“But Bea is always helping her learn her lines,” she thought aloud as Barclay continued to distract her. “Barclay, I said I’ll feed you in a minute—Feed the cat! That’s it!” Stephanie shouted as she picked up the cat and made her way into the kitchen and began going through the cabinet.
She pulled out a tin of Barclay’s food and examined the label. The brand name, Amoré, dominated the sticker, but there was no picture or drawing of a feline to distinguish it as cat food. Still, anybody who could read the words “tuna and ocean whitefish entrée for cats” would know that the contents of this can were not meant for human consumption.
“She was making lunch out of cat food!” Stephanie informed Barclay. Stephanie recalled the very first time she and Gabrielle had met in the kitchen of Beatrice’s brownstone. In her mind she could see the condiments lined up on the kitchen counter and Gabrielle’s shocked expression as Stephanie had thanked her for feeding the cat.
“Remember how weird she got? She just ran out of the room in the middle of our conversation.” The more she thought about it, the more occasions Stephanie could point to in which Gabrielle had very slickly avoided reading—like how she drew pictures on her shopping lists. She never wrote down phone messages, or read the newspaper, or did any of her own paperwork. “Barclay, I don’t think that stupid, man-stealing bitch can read!”
Stephanie finished feeding the cat and flew into the bedroom to change her clothes. She searched through a pile of back issues of Star Diary and grabbed the last edition that featured Gabrielle prominently on its front cover. She stuffed the newspaper into her bag and, with one final shot of tequila, ran downstairs to hail a cab. Stephanie was 97 percent sure that her hunch was right. Gabrielle was hiding something big, and she was going to get to the bottom of this mystery.
“Send her up, John,” Gabrielle instructed the doorman. It was after 10 P.M., and she assumed that Stephanie was here on an errand for Felicia. She certainly couldn’t be making a social call. Following Gabrielle’s marriage to Jack, their relationship had become visibly strained. Though she took great pains to camouflage it, Stephanie’s resentment was apparent. And now, after Jack’s death, Gabrielle found it particularly difficult to be around her.
“So, Gaby, how the hell are you?” Stephanie asked when the door opened, purposely using the one nickname that Gabrielle absolutely despised. Uninvited, she swept past Gabrielle into the apartment, nearly knocking her over with her large leather tote bag. Usually, on the rare occasions that she did see Gabrielle, Stephanie showed much more deference, but tonight, thanks to her discovery and half a bottle of tequila, she just didn’t give a damn.
“Do come in, Stephanie,” Gabrielle said, after the fact. “Can I take your bag?” she asked, disregarding the woman’s obvious attempt to annoy her.
“No thanks.” Stephanie wanted her ammunition close by in case their impending conversation didn’t yield the desired results. “You’re huge,” Stephanie observed rudely. “Are you sure you haven’t got twins in there?”
“I’m sure. What exactly can I do for—”
“Where’s Mother Superior?” Stephanie interrupted, ignoring Gabrielle as she sat down and made herself comfortable.
“I guess downstairs in her own apartment. Look, Stephanie, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have lines to learn.”
“And you’re going over them by yourself?” she asked, her voice full of manufactured surprise.
“Excuse me?” Gabrielle asked, her bewilderment obvious.
“It’s just, well, I know Henny Penny always helps you learn your lines.”
“Well, tonight I’m on my own. So, if you’ll tell me what you’re here for, I can get back to work.”
“I see,” Stephanie said, continuing to ignore Gabrielle’s obvious attempts to get her to move on. “Say, I saw a story on you in both Vanity Fair and Vogue this month. You’re all over the place.” Stephanie said, not expecting or receiving a reply. “Felicia certainly is earning that big fat retainer you pay her.”
“Felicia does a great job, and she works hard for me. You do, too,” Gabrielle added in an obvious afterthought.
“I’m glad you realize that I’ve helped you, too,” Stephanie responded, jumping at the opportunity to use Gabrielle’s words to her own advantage. “You have to admit that because of me you not only met Felicia but Miguel Reid and Jack,” she said with a sweet-and-sour smile.
“I’m grateful for any help you’ve given me.”
“It’s good to hear that, because I have, in the infamous words of the Godfather, an offer you can’t refuse.”
“And that would be?”
“You and I have been friends for a long time now. We practically grew up together with Beatrice in the brownstone. There’s nobody better—”
“Stephanie, where is this all going?”
Irritated that Gabrielle had interrupted her carefully prepared recitation, Stephanie blurted out, “I want you to authorize me to write your biography.”
“Haven’t we been through this already? For God’s sake, Stephanie, I’m only twenty-two years old. My life is a short story. I haven’t lived long enough to fill an entire book.”
“Are you kidding me? Madonna, Michael Jackson—they both had several biographies on the bookshelves before they were thirty. All the big celebrities do.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Gabrielle, don’t you get it? The whole world has an unquenchable thirst when it comes to you. This book could make you even bigger than you are now. And to be honest, it would really help me, too.”
“Look, I’d like to help you, but the answer is no.”
“Just like that? You won’t even take time to consider it?”
“I’m sorry.” There was nothing for her to consider. Gabrielle knew that there was no way she could allow anyone, let alone Stephanie Bancroft, to write her life story. She couldn’t afford to have some writer flinging open the closets of her past and finding the skeletal remains of a life she was desperately trying to put behind her.
Outwardly Stephanie was fighting hard to keep her cool, but inwardly she was seething. She was holding a first-class ticket on the bullet train to success, and she wasn’t going to let Gabrielle derail her now. If Felicia Wilcot could ride Gabrielle’s coattails to the top, so could she. “Time to pull out the big gun,” Stephanie said under her breath as she bent down and pulled the paper out of her tote bag.
“Pardon me?”
“I said time for me to run, but before I go, have you seen this? It’s the early edition of tomorrow’s paper,” Stephanie lied, holding up the newspaper. Gabrielle recognized it as one of the more popular supermarket tabloids. Her face was on the cover, as it had been countless times these last few years.
“I really don’t have time for this.”
“Maybe you should make time. You won’t believe what they’re saying about you.”
“I don’t pay attention to those rags.”
“Go ahead. Read it,” Stephanie insisted, pushing the paper into Gabrielle’s hands. She watched the model closely, looking hard for any sign that might confirm her suspicions.
“You of all people know I don’t read this crap,” she said, throwing the paper to the floor to emphasize her point. Gabrielle felt a sick, tingling feeling spread through her body. Stephanie was on some sort of fishing expedition, and that stupid newspaper was her bait.
“According to this, you don’t read much of anything.”
Gabrielle froze. Her stomach felt like a cement mixer, churning its contents into a concrete mass that weighed heavily in her belly. How did she find out? What else does she know?
“Since you won’t read it or can’t read it, let me read it for you,” Stephanie continued, pronouncing the word “read” with wicked emphasis. “ ‘Illiterate Supermodel Has Secret Past.’ ” With pleasure, Stephanie watched the undeniable look of dread flicker ever so briefly in Gabrielle’s eyes. It’s true. The bitch can’t read. Now it all made sense—the books on tape, always memorizing everything, never writing anything down, the ignored notes and lame excuses. They all made perfect sense. “I told you you’d be amused.”
“I can’t believe you came here to show me a story some reporter made up to sell papers,” Gabrielle raved on, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt.
“So, it’s not true. You can read.”
“Of course I can. I have to read things like scripts, speeches, and contracts all the time. How could I do my job if I couldn’t read, Stephanie? In fact, I have a script for a commercial right here I need to learn—”
“Don’t you mean a storyboard? I think instead we sit down and start going over your biography—the one I’m going to write.”
“For the last time, you’re not writing my life story. Not now. Not ever.”
“You listen to me, Gabrielle Donovan. I’ve spent the last three years of my life promoting you into a fucking superstar. Well, now it’s your turn. You, whether you like it or not, are going to help me finally realize my dreams.”
“I think you give yourself too much credit.”
“You know, Gaby, I always thought you were kinda dumb, but now I realize you’re just plain stupid.”
Gabrielle’s face stung just as if she’d been slapped. “I am not stupid,” she said defiantly.
“Oh, yeah? Well, that headline—pure bullshit. I made it up, and you fell for it. But now you’ve really got my interest piqued. You can’t read. What else are you hiding?”
“Leave.”
“Fine. I’m gone. But understand this, Gabrielle: With or without you, I’ll write this book. Now, with you, it’s sure to be a kinder, gentler story. In fact, who says we even have to mention this whole little reading thing? Without you, well, that’s an entirely different story. I can’t guarantee complete accuracy, because—I have to tell you—unauthorized biographies are so much more of a pain in the ass to write. I’ll have to dig up childhood friends, old teachers, and enemies, too. It’s an incredible amount of work.”
“Get out of here, Stephanie.”
“I’ll give you a few days to come to your senses, and then I take matters into my own hands,” she replied, turning to leave.
Gabrielle sank slowly to the floor. Her head was reeling, and she felt as if she was going to vomit. How could she possibly allow Stephanie to blackmail her into writing her biography? But if she didn’t agree, Stephanie would seek her revenge to the fullest, investigating every dark corner and putting her own evil spin on each story or nuance of a story she found. And that would not be the end of it. The media vultures would get into a feeding frenzy over the multitude of stories that would contradict the web of lies Gabrielle had so carefully woven throughout the years.
How would people react when they found out that the famous Gabrielle Donovan, supermodel and successful businesswoman, was nothing more than an illiterate sham? A more terrifying thought occurred to Gabrielle: What if Stephanie found out about Tommy? If that story ever got out, the ramifications could be unthinkable. What if, based on that tragic incident, the authorities deemed her an unfit mother and took her baby away?
Stephanie had to be stopped.