Genuine Lies

and let Drake slide limp to the ground. Knowing words weren’t needed to get the point across, he walked away in silence.
    Drake struggled to breathe as hot tears swam down his face. Breathing was agony. He didn’t understand this kind of pain, the kind that radiated out even to the fingertips. He vomited under the pear blossoms, and only terror that someone would come back to beat him again forced him up on watery legs to lurch to his car.
    Never again would Paul consider parenting a natural function in life. It was incredibly hard, exhausting, and intricate work. He may have been playing substitute daddy for only one evening, but by halftime he felt as though he’d run the Boston marathon on one leg.
    “Can I—”
    Paul merely lifted a brow before Dustin could finish. “Kid, if you eat one more thing, you’ll explode.”
    Dustin slurped at his jumbo Coke and grinned. “We haven’t had popcorn yet.”
    The only thing they’d missed, Paul thought. The boys had to have cast-iron stomachs. He glanced down at Brandon, who was holding his Lakers cap in his hands, studying the autographs he’d gotten on its bill before the game. Looking up, the boy flushed, grinned, and settled the cap back on his head.
    “This is the best night of my whole life.” He said with a simplicity and a certainty than men have briefly, and only in childhood.
    Since when did I get a marshmallow for a heart? Paul wondered. “Come on. We’ll hit the concessions one more time.”
    They watched the last half with their fingers greasy and their eyes trained on the action. The score seesawed, causing emotional outbursts from the crowd and the players. A basket missed, a rebound snatched, and the noise level rose like a river. One battle under the hoop resulted in a right cross, and an ejection.
    “He clothes-lined him!” Brandon shouted, scattering popcorn. “Did you see it?” Impassioned, he scrambled to stand on his seat as the boos echoed in the auditorium. “They threw out the wrong guy.”
    Since Paul was having such a good time watching Brandon’s reaction, he missed some of the pushy-shovy on the court. The boy was bouncing on the seat, slicing the Laker pennant through the air like an ax. Sprinkling his face was the sweat of the righteous.
    “Shit,” he said, then caught himself and shot Paul a sheepish look.
    “Hey, don’t expect me to wash your mouth out with soap. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
    As they settled down to watch the foul shot, Brandon hugged the small victory to himself. He’d said shit, and been treated like a man. He was awfully glad his mother hadn’t been around.
    Julia was working late. Through tapes and transcripts she was back in the postwar forties, when Hollywood had glitteredwith its brightest stars and Eve had been a blazing comet. Or as Charlotte Miller had stated, a ruthless, ambitious piranha who’d enjoyed devouring the competition.
    No love lost there, Julia mused as she leaned back from the keyboard. Charlotte and Eve had vied for many of the same roles, had been romanced by many of the same men. Twice they had been up for the Oscar at the same time.
    One particularly valiant director had guided them through a movie together, a period piece set in prerevolutionary France. The press had gleefully reported the squabbles over close-ups, dressing rooms, hairdressers, even the amount of cleavage to be shown. The Battle of the Boobs had amused the public for weeks—-and the movie had been a smash.
    The joke around town was that the director had been in therapy ever since. And of course, neither actress spoke
to
the other, only
about
the other.
    It was an interesting bit of Hollywood lore, particularly since when pressed, Charlotte wasn’t able to fault Eve’s professional skills. Even more interesting to Julia was Charlotte Miller’s brief involvement with Charlie Gray.
    To refresh her own memory, Julia replayed a portion of Charlotte’s tape.
    “Charlie was a delightful man, full of fun and excitement.” Charlotte’s crisp, almost staccato voice warmed slightly when she spoke of him. Like her beauty, it had hardened a bit with time, but was still distinctive and admirable. “He was a much finer actor than he was ever given credit for. What he lacked was the presence—the leading-man dash the studios and the public demanded in those days. Of course, he wasted himself on Eve.”
    There was a chorus of quick high barks that made Julia smile. Charlotte owned a trio of