Honor Thyself Read Free Page A

hers, it meant putting Carole's life first and her own second, or sometimes not having a life at all. Stevie loved Carole and her job, and didn't mind. Carole's life was far more exciting than her own.
    Stevie stood six feet tall, with straight black hair and big brown eyes, and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, as she stood in Carole's office doorway. “Tea?” she whispered.
    “No. Arsenic,” Carole said with a groan, as she swiveled in her chair. “I can't write this goddamn book. Something's stopping me, and I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just terror. Maybe I know I can't do it. I don't know why I thought I could.” She looked at Stevie, frowning in despair.
    “Yes, you can,” Stephanie said calmly. “Give it time. They say the hardest part is the beginning. You just have to sit there long enough to do it.” For the past week, Stevie had helped her reorganize all her closets, then redesign the garden, and clean out the garage. And decide to redo the kitchen. Carole had come up with every possible distraction and excuse to avoid starting the book, again. She had been doing it for months. “Maybe you need to take a break,” Stevie suggested, and Carole groaned.
    “My whole life is a break these days. Sooner or later, I have to go back to work, either on a movie, or writing this book. Mike is going to kill me if I turn down another script.”
    Mike Appelsohn was a producer, and had acted as her agent for thirty-two years, since he discovered her at eighteen, light-years before. A million years ago, she had been just a farm girl from Mississippi, with long blond hair and huge green eyes, who came to Hollywood more out of curiosity than real ambition. Mike Appelsohn had made her what she was today. That, and the fact that she had real talent. Her first screen test at eighteen had blown everyone away. The rest was history. Her history. Now she was one of the most famous actresses in the world, and successful beyond her wildest dreams. So what was she doing trying to write a book? She couldn't help but ask herself the same question over and over again. She knew the answer, just as Stevie did. She was looking for a piece of herself, a piece she had hidden in a drawer somewhere, a part of her she wanted and needed to find, in order for the rest of her life to make sense.
    Her last birthday had affected her deeply. Turning fifty had been an important landmark for her, particularly now that she was alone. It couldn't be ignored. She had decided that she wanted to weave all the pieces of her together, in ways she never had before, to solder them into a whole, instead of having bits and pieces of herself drifting in space. She wanted her life to make sense, to herself if no one else. She wanted to go back to the beginning and figure it all out.
    So much had happened to her by accident, in her early years particularly, or at least it seemed that way. Good luck and bad, though mostly good, in her career anyway, and with her kids. But she didn't want her life to seem like an accident, fortuitous or otherwise. So many things she'd done had been reactions to circumstances or other people, rather than decisions she'd actively made. It seemed important now to know if the choices she'd made had been the right ones. And then what? She kept asking herself what difference it would make. It wouldn't change the past. But it might alter the course of her life for her remaining years. That was the difference she wanted to make. With Sean gone, it seemed more important to her now to make choices and decisions, and not just wait for things to happen to her. What did she want? She wanted to write a book. That was all she knew. And maybe after that, the rest would come. Maybe then she'd have a better sense of what parts she wanted to play in movies, what impact she wanted to have on the world, what causes she wanted to support, and who she wanted to be for the rest of her life. Her kids had grown up. Now it was her turn.
    Stevie