Lovers and Liars Read Free Page B

Oscar …
    She tried to picture Abe’s face. As he sat there in the audience while she received the silly little statue. Maybe just once he would tell her she was great. “Great job, kid,” he might say. No, he’d say, “Belinda, I’m so proud of you.” And he’d even hug her.
    Jesus, she thought, frightened suddenly. I still need his approval after all these years.
    The thought was so upsetting that she willed herself to the other extreme. I did it all on my own, she reminded herself. I did it without their support. That alone makes me a success, now, today.
    It had taken years to get an agent, by which time she had half a dozen screenplays ready but no one to handle them. It was a catch-22. You couldn’t sell without an agent, but you couldn’t get an agent without having sold something first. Then she had lucked out, meeting Lester at a bar, of all places. They had talked, and he had agreed to read one of her screenplays. And that was it. She hadn’t even slept with him.
    She had taken the hard way. She could have gone to her father. Abe Glassman had connections with everyone who was anyone on both coasts. He was close friends with several of Hollywood’s biggest moguls, including the head of Olympia, a studio that had been around since the days of Davis and Gable. Belinda knew she could have gone any one of several routes, from a direct loan from Abe to finance her own independent production of Outrage , to even an Olympia production. Not that her father had offered. But he would have just loved for her to come crawling to him, begging for his help. He loved wielding power—she had figured that out when she was thirteen. The worst part of it was, she had been tempted, out of sheer frustration, more than once. Thank God her pride had kept her from that.
    Thank God she hadn’t succumbed.
    It really couldn’t be a better start for her. North-Star produced quality films, and if they intended to make a first-rate star out of Jackson Ford, the odds were they would succeed. And he probably could act. Belinda didn’t watch television, but getting nominated three years in a row for anEmmy had to mean something. With him in her film, it probably would do well at the box office, even if the director and producer destroyed it.
    That should have given her confidence, but it didn’t. She didn’t want anyone to ruin her product. She wanted a good director, good cast, good technicians …
    The phone rang.
    “Hello, Belinda,” Abe Glassman said.
    Belinda almost dropped the phone. “Oh, hello.”
    “Rosalie says you called.”
    She was now thoroughly regretting that moment of foolishness. He didn’t care, wouldn’t care. And she wasn’t going to be soft; she wasn’t going to allow herself to be vulnerable, not when she knew him so well. He had never forgiven her for moving to California. He had never forgiven her for not marrying according to his wishes and giving him a male heir. He thought writing screenplays was an aberration. He thought she was an aberration.
    “I didn’t call,” she said smoothly. “Your secretary is mistaken.”
    There was a heavy pause. “Oh,” Abe said. Then, “How are you?”
    “Just fine,” she said.
    “Are you gonna get a chance to come east for a weekend this summer? There’s someone I want you to meet.”
    “I’ll try,” she lied. Thinking, Oh, no, not again. Because, of course, the someone was a man and eminently marriageable. Then before she knew what was happening, she said, “I sold a screenplay.” And she could have kicked herself.
    There was a moment of silence. “To who?”
    “North-Star.”
    “How much?”
    “Three fifty.”
    “Congratulations,” Abe said. “Now that you’ve proved you can write those damn things and sell them, why don’t you come back to New York and settle down? Dammit, I’m fifty-three, Belinda.”
    “No, thanks,” Belinda said on a deep breath.
    “You’ve proved yourself,” Abe said angrily, his tone louder now. “What more