Genuine Lies

eyes glittered with tears, then with rage. She remembered her line only because it so completely suited her own feelings.
    “You bastard. Do you think that’s all it takes to have a woman fall at your feet?”
    He grinned, but it didn’t diffuse the passion or the violence in the air. “Yeah.” Now he shoved her. “Sit down and shut up.”
    “Cut—print it. Jesus, Vic.” The director was up, striding onto the set. “Where the hell did that come from?”
    Bending, Victor picked up the smoldering cigarette, took a drag. “Just seemed like the thing to do.”
    “Well, it worked. Christ almighty, it worked. Next time the two of you get a brainstorm, fill me in. Okay?” He turned back to the cameras. “Let’s shoot the close-ups.”
    She got through another three hours of shooting. That was her job. Not by a flicker did she reveal how shaken she was. That was her pride.
    In her dressing room she exchanged Susan’s clothes for her own. Shed Susan’s problems for her own. Her throat was raw so she accepted the tall glass of iced tea from her on-set assistant.
    “Susan smokes too much,” she said with a half laugh. Go on home. “I’m just going to sit for a while and quiet down.”
    “You were terrific today, Miss Benedict. You and Mr. Flannigan are wonderful together.”
    “Yeah.” God help her. “Thanks, darling. Good night.”
    “Good night, Miss Benedict. Oh, hello, Mr. Flannigan. I was just saying how well things went today.”
    “That’s good to hear. Joanie, isn’t it?”
    “Oh, yes, sir.”
    “Good night, Joanie. See you tomorrow.”
    He stepped inside, and Eve remained seated and braced, watching him in the dressing table mirror. She relaxed fractionally when he left the door open. It wasn’t, she realized, going to be a repeat of her initiation with Tony.
    “I thought I should apologize.” But there wasn’t a hint of regret in his voice. Eve kept her eyes on his reflection, wondering when she’d get over this weakness for cocky actors. Casually she lifted a brush and began to pull it through her shoulder-length hair.
    “For your brainstorm?”
    “For kissing you when it had nothing to do with acting. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since the first day we met.” “Now you have.”
    “And now it’s worse.” He dragged a hand through his hair, hair that was still dark with only the faintest hint of gray at the temples. “I’m a little past the age for playing games, Eve.”
    After setting the brush aside, she reached for the glass again. “No man ever is.” “I’m in love with you.”
    The ice clinked together when her hand shook. Very carefully she set the glass down. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “I have to be because it’s true. The first minute we were together.”
    “There’s a difference between love and lust, Victor.” She sprang up, snatching the canvas bag she habitually carried to the studio. “I’m not terribly interested in lust at the moment.”
    “How about a cup of coffee?”
    “What?”
    “A cup of coffee, Eve. In a public place.” When she hesitated, he grinned—and the grin was nearly a sneer. “You’re not afraid of me, are you, sweetheart?”
    She had to laugh. It was Richard challenging Susan. “If I was afraid of anything,” she said, in character, “it wouldn’t be a man. You’re buying.”
    They sat for almost three hours, eventually ordering meat loaf to go with the coffee. Victor had chosen a harshly lit diner with laminated tables and hard plastic booths that turned the average derriere to stone in ten and a half minutes. The floor was a dingy gray that would never bleach white again, and the waitresses talked in shrieks.
    Obviously, Eve thought, this wasn’t going to be a seduction.
    He talked of Muriel, of his marriage, of its failure, of his obligations. He did not, as she had half expected, start with the line that his wife didn’t understand him, or that his marriage was an open one. Instead, he admitted that in her way, Muriel loved him. That more than love, there was a desperate need in her to pretend the marriage was intact.
    “She’s not well.” He toyed with the blueberry pie he’d ordered to top off the meal. It tasted like something his mother might have baked—a million years ago in the stifling kitchen on the fifth floor apartment on East 132nd Street. His mother, he thought fleetingly, had been an incredibly bad cook. “Not physically or emotionally. I’m not sure she’ll ever be, and I can’t