Genuine Lies

smile, Gloria rose. “Since you’re right on time, you must not have had any trouble finding us.”
    “No trouble at all.” Julia turned sideways to scoot between a table and a footstool. “I appreciate your agreeing to see me.”
    “Eve is one of my oldest and closest friends. How could I refuse?”
    Julia accepted Gloria’s invitation to sit. Obviously, theincident at Eve’s party wasn’t going to be mentioned. But they both knew it gave Julia the advantage.
    “I received the message that you wouldn’t be able to have brunch, but perhaps you’d like some coffee, tea?”
    “No, nothing, thank you.” She’d ingested enough coffee that morning to wire her for a week.
    “So you want to talk about Eve,” Gloria began in the voice of a cheerful nun. “I’ve known Eve for, goodness, it must be thirty years or so now. I confess, when we first met she terrified and fascinated me. Let’s see, it was just before we began to work on—”
    “Miss DuBarry.” In a low voice directly opposed to Gloria’s bubbly bright one, Julia interrupted. “There are a lot of things I’d like to talk to you about, a lot of questions I need to ask, but I feel we’re both going to be uncomfortable until we get one point in the open.”
    “Really?”
    The only thing Julia had been sure of that morning was that she would not play games. “Eve told me everything.”
    “Everything?” The smile stayed in place, but beneath the desk Gloria’s fingers twisted together. “About?”
    “Michael Torrent.”
    Gloria blinked twice before her expression settled into pleasant lines. If the director had ordered mild surprise and polite confusion, the actress would have nailed the first take. “Michael? Well, naturally, as he was her first husband, she would have discussed him with you.”
    Julia realized Gloria was a much more skilled actress than she’d ever been given credit for. “I know about the affair,” she said flatly. “About the clinic in France.”
    “I’m afraid I’m not following you.”
    Julia picked up her briefcase to drop it on the dainty desk. “Open it,” she said. “Look through it. No hidden cameras, no concealed mikes. Off the record, Miss DuBarry. Only you and me, and you have my word that anything you want kept in this room stays in this room.”
    Though shaken, she clung to the defense of ignorance.“You’ll forgive my confusion, Miss Summers, but I thought you were here to discuss Eve for her book.”
    Anger, barely banked, flared again. Julia got to her feet and snatched the briefcase. “You know exactly why I’m here. If you’re going to sit there and play the baffled hostess, we’re wasting time.” She started for the door.
    “Wait.” Indecision was its own agony. If Julia left now, this way, God knew how far the story would spread. And yet … and yet how could she be sure it hadn’t already gone too far. “Why should I trust you?”
    Julia searched for calm but couldn’t find it. “I was seventeen when I found myself pregnant, unmarried, and alone. I’d be the last person to condemn any woman for facing that and making a choice.”
    Gloria’s lips began to tremble. The freckles that had made her America’s darling stood out in relief against her chalky skin. “She had no right.”
    “Maybe not.” Julia came back to the chair, set her briefcase aside. “Her reasons for telling me were personal.”
    “Naturally, you’d defend her.”
    Julia stiffened. “Why?”
    “You want to write the book.”
    “Yes,” Julia said slowly. “I want to write the book.” Need to write it. “But I’m not defending her. I’m only telling you what I know. She was greatly affected by what you went through. There was nothing vindictive or condemning in the way she related the story to me.”
    “It wasn’t her story to tell,” Gloria lifted her quavering chin. “Nor is it yours.”
    “Perhaps not. Eve felt …” Julia fumbled. Why did it matter what Eve felt? “Going through that with you altered her life, subsequent decisions she made.”
    The decision was me, she remembered. She was there, feeling all that pain, because of the misery Gloria had experienced thirty years before.
    “What happened to you went beyond that clinic in France,” Julia continued. “Because she stood by you throughit, it changed her. Because … because it changed her, the lives of other people were changed as well.”
    Me, my parents. Brandon. When emotions threatened to choke her, she took two