“That was clever of you, Mom. Thank you.” She was grateful for that at least, even if her mother thought she wouldn't hold Leslie's interest for long.
“It'll throw them off the scent for a while. When are you seeing him again?” Her mother was curious about them now.
“This weekend. In Bolinas. He leaves next Monday for Venice on location, he'll be gone for a month or two.”
“That may end it between the two of you. He'll be working with his costars all the time, and you'll be six thousand miles away. Hollywood romances don't usually survive that. Absence makes their hearts fonder of the people they're working with, not the ones they leave at home. Kind of like a cruise.”
“Thanks for the reassurance,” Coco said glumly. It was more of what she'd heard before.
“You have to be realistic about it, if you're going to date someone like him.” Coco wanted to ask her how realistic she was about her twelve-year-old boyfriend, but she didn't. She was always more respectful of her mother than Florence was of her. “Who's in the movie with him?” Florence asked with interest.
Coco reeled off the names of his costars, among them Madison Allbright. “She'll probably be the one,” her mother said. “She's a gorgeous girl. It would be hard for any man to resist her.”
“Thank you, Mom,” Coco said, sounding depressed again, and after thanking her mother for covering for her with the press, she got off the phone. She lay in bed awake for hours, thinking about what she'd said. And by morning Coco was in a total panic over Leslie's costar. She was too embarrassed to even say it to him, but she was seriously worried about it, and had a miserable week as a result. She never once mentioned Madison's name to him when they talked. And it was all she could do not to burst into tears when he walked into the house on Friday night. He let himself in with the keys he had kept, and found Coco in the bathtub with her freshly washed hair wrapped in a towel. He took one look at her, burst into a broad smile, took off his clothes, and got into the tub with her, as she grinned.
“Now this is what I call a homecoming,” he said with obvious delight as he kissed her. And within minutes of getting into the tub with her, they made love. And in spite of all her fears during the week, it was a perfect night. It was as though he had never left to go back to L.A. Everything felt as right as it always had.
They left for Bolinas with the dogs the next morning, and the weather was glorious. It was typical late-September weather and hotter than it had been all summer. The nights were warm and balmy, which was rare. And they had never been more in love with each other. There was no sign of his having fallen for Madison Allbright. But then again, they weren't in Venice yet. But Coco was no longer as worried. There was no doubt in her mind, as she lay in his arms on the deck under the stars, that he was as in love with her as she was with him. He said it to her over and over again, and she believed him. There was no reason why she shouldn't. He had begged her again to come to Venice, and she had promised him she would.
He had brought all the press clippings about them from that week. They had run a number of photographs of them, and there was no question now, the media were hot on their trail.
They talked about it over breakfast on Sunday morning.
“We knew it would happen sooner or later,” Leslie said philosophically. “Any new face on the scene snags their interest. They have nothing better to do than look for gossip and juicy stories.”
“I'm not very juicy,” Coco said as she glanced at their photographs again, in every paper, and sipped her tea. “Wait till someone tells them I'm a dog-walker. That'll really do it for them.” Instead they had latched on to who her mother was, which made her more interesting. She had already told him that they had called her mother.
“You're very juicy!” he assured her, and leaned over to kiss her. “What do you think Jane will say if they call her?”
“That I'm a hippie and a flake and a complete zero, or something equally charming,” Coco said, looking sad about it.
“If she does something like that, I'll kill her,” Leslie said with fervor. “You know, I really think it boils down to jealousy with her,” he said, looking pensive, as he glanced at the ocean and then at Coco. “I think she's pissed off that you're beautiful, do what you want, and you'll always be eleven years younger. I think she's just narcissistic enough to consider that an insult. Maybe she was always jealous of you as a little kid, and you just didn't know it. I don't think this has anything to do with your dropping out of law school, or moving to Bolinas. I think that's her excuse.
“I think, bottom line, she's mad at you for what you are and she's not, starting with younger. You're soft, kind, gentle, compassionate. People love you. Jane is tough as nails, she's had to be to get where she is. The only thing warm and fuzzy about Jane is Liz. She'd be unbearable without her. Everyone likes Liz better, and you. That must be tough for her to stomach. And on top of it, she was an adored only child until you came along when she was eleven. And you fucked it all up for her. I think underneath all the bullshit she talks about and accuses you of, she hasn't forgiven you for that yet. She always puts you down, and treats you like a five-year-old.” What he said had a ring of truth to it, even to Coco, and it shed light on her sister's negative attitude toward her, as long as she could remember. His theory certainly explained it.
“The worst part of it is that I act like I'm five years old when I'm around her. She scared me to death when I was a kid. She was always threatening to get me in trouble with Mom or Dad, or treating me like her slave. She still does.” Coco sighed then. “And I let her do it. I don't know what she's so pissed off about. She's always been Mom's favorite, and Dad thought she walked on water, especially when she started producing. And even before that, he was thrilled when she went to film school at UCLA. I don't think my going to Princeton impressed him half as much. He thought it was stuffy. I redeemed myself when I got into law school at Stanford. I don't think I even wanted to. I just did it to make him happy, and then I hated every minute of it. I set myself up to fail. All I really wanted to do was get a master's in art history and work in a museum. He said I'd never make a dime at it, and it was stupid.”
“Why don't you do that now then?” Leslie suggested, his eyes lighting up at the idea. “Either that or become a vet,” he teased her. She loved every dog she walked and treated them like children. But he knew she had a passion for art too. Her tiny house was crammed with art books.
“What would I do with that now? It's a little late to go back to school.”
“No, it isn't. And if it makes you happy, why not? You could go to UCLA, if you come down there to live with me. Or Stanford or Berkeley, if we move up here.” He was still trying to convince her to live with him. It would be easier for him in L.A., but he was open to moving to San Francisco for her.
“Maybe,” she said, looking pensive. “I've always been interested in art restoration. I took a class on it in college, and I thought it was fascinating.” She had never admitted that to anyone but him. Ian wasn't interested in art, only the outdoors, and she was younger then and it suited her too. And her father had thought that any kind of academic pursuit other than law school was a waste of time.
“Why don't you spend some time learning about it? You can decide what to do with it later. Maybe nothing, but I agree with you. I think it would be interesting to know.” She was an entirely different creature than her family, and it was obvious even to Coco that he respected that, and they didn't. He made her feel good about herself. And his theories about Jane's anger toward her struck a chord with her too. “Venice might be particularly fun for you, if you're interested in restoration. They've been fighting to keep the place from falling apart for years. It's an absolute gem of a city.” He had been there before, she hadn't. She had been to Florence and Rome, and Pompeii, and Capri once on a yacht with her parents, but never Venice.
“I'm not going there to see the art.” She smiled at him. “I'm coming to see you.”
“You can do both. I'll be working a lot of the time anyway. And if you're into churches, there are about ten million of them, one more beautiful than the next.” It sounded exciting, and she had promised him she would come when Liz and Jane got back. They hadn't solved the problem of where they would live eventually, or even if they would live together, but little by little they were making plans together, and Coco thought the rest would unfold, if it was meant to be. If she left San Francisco, she would have to close her business. Her father had left her enough to live on comfortably, but she always felt guilty if she wasn't earning a living on her own. And her dog-walking business had proved to be more lucrative than she'd expected, and supplied all her needs. It allowed her to save and invest the rest, which provided a nest egg for her future. She didn't want to be dependent on him. Her mother and sister were both big earners and made a fortune at their careers. Coco had never made a lot of money, but she had a far more modest lifestyle than either of them.
He pressed her several times that afternoon about when she was coming to Venice. All she could tell him was soon, hopefully in a few weeks. Jane and Liz hadn't given her the exact date of their return yet, but she had already warned Erin that she'd be needing her services to cover for her when she left. She wanted to stay with Leslie in Italy for a week or two, although he was hoping to convince her to stay longer.
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