Danielle Steel - The Ranch

“But what about the next one?” she said, blowing her nose. She knew the scenario much too well now.

“What next time?” She had succeeded in confusing Bennett for a minute. “Did you pick up another case? Were you just served?” He hadn't heard anything about it.

“No, but I'm sure I will be. It's only been a week since the last one. Give me a few days.”

“Don't be so cynical,” he said, but she was right, and he knew it. In her position, she was nothing more or less than a constant target. No wonder Tony had left her. At the moment, she hated her life as much as he did. “Anyway, let's talk about Leo,” Bennett went on, ignoring her current frustration over Tony's children. There was nothing he could do about it, and he didn't want to argue in court, inevitably in front of cameras, about whether or not Tanya was in the habit of walking naked around the house in front of bodyguards, or sleeping with her trainer. He was sure she did neither, but whatever she had done in her life would come out with a vengeance. And she was, after all, a grown woman.

“I don't want to talk about Leo,” she said bluntly. She was unhappy, and exhausted.

“He's willing to come down to four hundred and ninety if we jump on it now. And frankly, I think you should take it.” He said it matter-of-factly, and she almost jumped off the couch and hung up on him as she listened.

“Four hundred and ninety thousand dollars?” She screamed at him and he didn't bat an eye. “Are you nuts? The guy made the whole story up, and we're going to pay him half a million bucks for it? Why doesn't he just get a part in a feature?”

“Because no one's ever heard of him and he'd have to work in four or five movies to get that. That could take him a couple of years, if he's lucky. Hitting you up for it is a lot quicker.”

“That's disgusting.” But it was true, that was the worst part. “I can't believe this.”

“If we wait, he could double it again. May I call his lawyer tonight and say we agree? I want to make it contingent on confidentiality, of course. His attorney says he's already talking to one of the networks about a TV movie.”

“Oh, my God,” she groaned, and closed her eyes again. What kind of nightmare did she live in? No wonder Tony had left. Who could blame him? Tanya would have liked to leave too, but this was the only way she knew to make a living. “This is so sick, isn't it? What kind of business is this? How did I ever get into it, and why have I stayed here?”

“Would you like to see your tax returns for last year? That might offer some small comfort,” he said fliply but she shook her head sadly. It was all too much. Way, way too much. It was more slime and sleaze than she had ever dreamed she'd have to live with.

“You know what, Bennett,” she answered him. “It's not consolation enough for this kind of shit. This is my life these people are playing with. This is me they're telling lies about. I've become a thing, a cash register, an object.” Anyone who wanted an extra dime, a cool half mil, and was willing to either lie, cheat, or blackmail her, could have anything they wanted. For the first time, listening to her words, Bennett was silent. And he hated to press her, but he knew he had to.

“What do I say to Leo's lawyer, Tan? Give me a break here.”

There was a long, unhappy pause, and then finally she nodded. She knew when she was beaten. “All right,” she said hoarsely, depressed by all of it. “Tell him well pay him… the bastard…” And then, trying to push the horror from her mind, and the fact that she had just paid a man half a million dollars to tell vicious lies about her to the press, she asked Bennett another question. “What about Wyoming? Can you do something about that?”

“Like what? Buy it for you?” He was trying to tease her out of her gloom, but he knew he was not succeeding, and he didn't blame her. It was a difficult business being a celebrity, in spite of what people thought. From the out’ side, it looked great, from the inside, it was filled with heartbreak. And it was impossible not to take it personally. They were human, they all did.

“Can you get her to agree to let me take the kids with me? I'll cut it down to a week if that makes a difference,” although she had the reservations for two weeks.

“I'll try if you want, but I think it's pretty hopeless. And I think it's a fair bet that it'll hit the papers that you were turned down, which doesn't exactly make you look like a very moral person. And since we're pressing Leo on the confidentiality issue here, I'd rather not have all this crap dragged back into the papers.”

“Great. Thanks,” she said, trying to sound unaffected by all of it, but it was obvious that she was distraught over the entire conversation.

“I'm sorry, Tan,” he said somberly.

“Sure, thanks. I'll talk to you tomorrow.” She was crying as she said it.

“I'll call you. We have to go over the contracts on the concert tour. I'll call you in the morning.”

Her heart sank as she hung up. Her life had turned to shit over the years, and it was only at times like these that she really saw it. For all the adulation, and the thrill they talked about, the applause, the concerts, the awards, the money, this was what it really boiled down to. People making you look like a two-bit tramp, a husband who walked out without looking back, and stepchildren you never saw again. It was a wonder anyone in Hollywood could still hold their head up, or bothered to put one foot after the other.

She sat alone in her house in Bel Air that night, thinking about it, and wishing she were dead, but too unhappy and too scared to do anything about it. She thought of Ellie for the first time in years, and Mary Stuart's son, Todd. It seemed such an easy way out, and yet it wasn't. It was so totally the wrong thing to do, and yet it required a peculiar mix of cowardice and courage, and she found that she had neither.

She sat in her living room until the sun came up, thinking about all of it, wanting to hate Tony for as much as she could, and she found she couldn't do that either. She couldn't do anything except sit there and cry all night, and there was no one to hear her. And at last, she got up and went to bed. She had no idea what she was going to do about Wyoming, and she didn't even care now. She'd let Jean go and take friends, or her hairdresser, or Tony with a girlfriend. And then she remembered he was going to Europe with his girlfriend. Everyone had friends and children, and a life, and even a decent reputation. And all she had were a bunch of gold and platinum records, hanging on a wall, and a row of awards sitting on a shelf below them. But there was not much more beyond that. She couldn't imagine trusting anyone again, or even having a man willing to put up with all the garbage. It was laughable. She had made it all the way to the top, in order to find that there was nothing there that anybody wanted. She lay down on her bed, still thinking of it, and the children she would probably never see again, or not for more than a few minutes. It was as though she and Tony and his kids and their life had vanished into thin air, none of it had ever existed. Gone. In a puff of smoke… in a giant blaze… a whole life up in flames… with tabloids used as kindling.

When Tanya woke up later that day, she felt as though she had been beaten. She had hardly slept at all, and something about the settlement, the news about the kids, the fact of coming home and seeing that Tony had taken all his things, left her feeling bullied and broken. She got out of bed, and felt as though she had a hangover as she grimaced and looked in the mirror. She hadn't even had a drink the day before, but she felt rotten, and she had a dismal headache.

“God, I'm going to need another trip to the plastic surgeon after all this,” she said to her reflection once she walked into the bathroom. She ran a hot bath, and slipped slowly into it, and she felt a little better. She had a benefit to do that night, and it was a cause she really cared about, and she wanted to deliver for them. She had a short rehearsal that afternoon, and by noon she had to be on the merry-go-round again, chasing all her myriad obligations, She walked into the kitchen in her dressing gown, made herself a cup of coffee, and reached for the morning paper. For once, she hadn't made the front page, and neither had her soon-to-be ex-husband, or any of her employees, past or present. That at least was something. She turned each page gingerly, as though waiting to find a tarantula between the pages. But the only thing that caught her eye was a story about a doctor in San Francisco called Zoe Phillips. Tanya read it avidly, and when she finished it she was smiling. Zoe was one of her old college roommates. She sounded as though she was doing remarkably, not surprisingly. She had started the most important AIDS clinic in the city, and apparently ran it with an absolute genius for obtaining funds, and turning loaves into fishes. She was feeding homeless people with AIDS, housing them, treating them, and also large segments of the more affluent AIDS-infected population. The article made her sound like the Mother Teresa of San Francisco. And Tanya was so touched after what she read, that she reached for her telephone book, looked up the number, and called her. She hadn't talked to her in two years, but they always exchanged cards at Christmas. Tanya knew she was the only one still in touch with her. Mary Stuart had lost contact with her years before. They had never patched up the rift between them that occurred when Ellie died, and Mary Stuart didn't even like to hear about her. But Tanya was fond of both of them, and when a nurse answered the phone, she asked for Dr. Phillips.

At first, the nurse said the doctor was administering a treatment, and she asked if she could take a message.