Trust Me

to work in a new soap. The fact that he’s back after only three months means something probably went wrong. Launching a new soap opera is a very iffy project.”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    “Hollywood is a dreadful town for a true actor,” Desdemona confided. “Definitely no place for a Wainwright. Wainwrights are theater people, not movie or television people.”
    “There’s a difference?” Stark asked.
    “Of course.” Desdemona looked shocked. “For three generations Wainwrights have been on the legitimate stage. None of them has ever gone to Hollywood.”
    “Until Tony tried it?”
    “The whole family hated to see him get involved in television, but he wanted to take a shot at it.” Desdemona sighed. “And since nothing else has ever really worked for him, we all kept our fingers crossed that this time he’d find himself.”
    “In Hollywood?” Stark filled one tiny espresso cup. “That doesn’t seem very likely. I’ve always thought of Hollywood as a place where people go to get lost.”
    Desdemona wrinkled her nose. “That’s what Uncle Augustus said. Still, we had hopes. Tony has been growing increasingly frustrated for years. Nothing he has ever tried has succeeded. I worry about him. We all do.”
    Stark set the espresso cups down on the counter. “Did you ever take up acting as a profession?”
    “I tried. Lord knows I tried. Took courses in fine arts. Took acting lessons. But eventually I had to face the fact that I was the only one in the family without any talent. It was hard for me to accept. More than anything else in the world, I wanted to hold up the Wainwright family tradition.”
    “But you’re not exactly a true Wainwright, are you?” Stark pointed out softly.
    Her eyes turned fierce. “I most certainly am a true Wainwright. I’ve been a true Wainwright since I was five years old.”
    “Take it easy. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying to get the facts straight. Were you adopted?”
    “Yes.” Desdemona’s tone was frosty. “My name was legally changed to Wainwright.”
    “You said your mother married your stepfather when you were a little kid. Did your real father die?”
    “Before I was born.” Desdemona sipped espresso. “Car accident.”
    “So you and your mother were alone until you were five?”
    “No. Not exactly.” She looked down at the dark, rich coffee.
    Stark got the distinct impression that she was sidestepping the explanation. That only made him all the more curious. “Your mother remarried twice, then?”
    Desdemona hesitated. Then she shrugged. “A couple of years after my father died, she married his business partner, George Northstreet. He wasn’t right in the head, but she didn’t know that at first.” A drop of espresso spilled over the edge of her cup. “Not until he began to have violent outbursts. He went into therapy. The doctor said he was making progress. But then he started to hurt Mom.”
    Stark went cold. “And you?”
    Desdemona clutched the espresso cup so tightly that her fingertips blanched. “When he turned on me, Mom gave up on therapy. She packed me up, and we left in the middle of the night. I remember her telling me that we had to be very quiet. I was terrified.”
    “Sweet Jesus.”
    “I was so afraid of George Northstreet, afraid that I couldn’t protect my mother from him, afraid of what he might do to me. My only clear memories of that time in my life have to do with being afraid. I don’t like to think about it.”
    “Chaos,” Stark said quietly.
    “What?”
    “The sense of fear must have seemed like a kind of chaos to a small child.”
    “I suppose you could say that.”
    “Where did you and your mother go when you left Northstreet?”
    “California.” The shadows retreated from Desdemona’s eyes. She smiled. “Mom is a costume designer as well as an actress. She got work in a little theater down there that was doing a Shakespeare festival.”
    “Is that where you met the Wainwrights?”
    “Yes. They took us under their wing. Made us part of their family, mom and Benedick Wainwright fell in love.”
    “And you got a new name.”
    Desdemona nodded. “I wanted a whole new name to go with my new life. I wanted to be a real Wainwright. Everyone in the family has names from characters in Shakespearean plays, so I chose Desdemona.”
    “Any particular reason?” Stark asked.
    “I just liked the sound of it.”
    “This isn’t exactly my area, but wasn’t Desdemona an innocent,