Don't Speak to Strange Girls Read Free Page B

loudly,” she said. “I don’t mind getting old, but I hate for you to.”
    She was a tall woman, almost as tall as he, almost as lean. She could have played Cassius without make-up. He seldom looked at her now, though thirty years ago he’d been violent in bed with her, and he seemed to have forgotten, but Kay never had. He’d employed Kay Ringling as his personal manager, and she’d tossed aside everything else and had yet to regret it, except infrequently over a fourth martini — and everybody regretted something with more than three martinis in them. That early violence had simmered into something unusual, even in Hollywood. She stood between Clay Stuart and anything that might harm, annoy or deplete him.
    “Old? I’m not old, Kay, you are,” his low voice teased. “You were an elderly lady the first time I set eyes on you.”
    She stared down at him, remembering his ferocity in that faraway bed. He’d been so wildly needing, you’d have thought it would last forever, but it hadn’t. Something had happened to end all this between them, and she supposed he’d forgotten all about it. Now she put an edge into her voice.
    “I hate to say this, but I was several years younger than you — even then. I still am.” She tightened her arms across the blue-covered script. “Don’t get up,” she added in irony.
    Clay laughed, gesturing toward a lounge chair, catching it and drawing it nearer his.
    “Sit down, Kay. Sit down. We’ve been enemies too long to be polite to each other.” He watched her in a detached way as she sat beside him. “Age is a matter of the mind, my dear Kay. You were an elderly lady when I met you. I hate to insist. But it was true. Elderly. An old maid.”
    “You’re full of lies,” she told him, voice heated. “I was engaged to be married when you came along — ”
    “Now don’t start that again,” he said in a lazy tone. He lay back in his chair, watching the eucalyptus leaf. “Don’t start that romance talk again … You were engaged. An engaged old maid. It would never have worked. You’ve been far happier with me, Kay, than you’d ever have been with that character — whatever his name was.”
    “That isn’t the point,” she said. “That isn’t the point at all.”
    “Admit it, you can’t remember his name, either.”
    Her lined mouth twitched slightly. People said Clay Stuart owed her much, but she knew better. She owed him a terrible debt, one she felt obliged to repay. She was on guard for fear he’d see the way she felt on her face, and this was foolishness, because he never looked at her that closely any more. Just the same, now when Clay glanced at her, teasing her, Kay averted her face. Clay didn’t suspect what was on her mind, but she knew.
    Her voice remained vinegary. “I remember his name quite well, but I’m not going to bandy it about in this atmosphere.”
    “Because you’re a lady,” he mocked her.
    “The point is that every woman needs a man — ”
    “My God, Kay, you’ve had a man. Better than that, you’ve had me. Thirty-odd years — ”
    “Very odd. Yes. For thirty years I’ve been Clay Stuart’s doormat, secretary, armor, weapon — ”
    “And you’re complaining? Who are you kidding? It’s made you one of the most formidable women in Hollywood, and you know it. People who hate your guts send you Christmas gifts, open doors for you, fawn over you at parties. Could what’s-his-name have given you all that?”
    She changed the subject abruptly. “Have you read it?”
    “What?”
    She gestured with the blue-covered script. “You know what.
Man of the Desert.
Warners wants an answer. You have a commitment. There’s Grant, you know. Jimmy Stewart. There’s Wayne — ”
    “Yeah. And there’s Tab Hunter, too. Tell them to get Tab Hunter.”
    “Have you read it? I told them as far as I was concerned, you would do it. They’ve got Dick Creek to direct. They’re lining up a supporting cast that will strain marquees. Ed