One Day at a Time

Also by Danielle Steel

A GOOD WOMAN MALICE ROGUE FIVE DAYS IN PARIS HONOR THYSELF LIGHTNING AMAZING GRACE WINGS BUNGALOW 2 THE GIFT SISTERS ACCIDENT H.R.H. VANISHED COMING OUT MIXED BLESSINGS THE HOUSE JEWELS TOXIC BACHELORS NO GREATER LOVE MIRACLE HEARTBEAT IMPOSSIBLE MESSAGE FROM NAM ECHOES DADDY SECOND CHANCE STAR RANSOM ZOYA SAFE HARBOUR KALEIDOSCOPE JOHNNY ANGEL FINE THINGS DATING GAME WANDERLUST ANSWERED PRAYERS SECRETS SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ FAMILY ALBUM THE COTTAGE FULL CIRCLE THE KISS CHANGES LEAP OF FAITH THURSTON HOUSE LONE EAGLE CROSSINGS JOURNEY ONCE IN A LIFETIME THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET A PERFECT STRANGER THE WEDDING REMEMBRANCE IRRESISTIBLE FORCES PALOMINO GRANNY DAN LOVE: POEMS BITTERSWEET THE RING MIRROR IMAGE LOVING HIS BRIGHT LIGHT: TO LOVE AGAIN The Story of Nick Traina SUMMER'S END THE KLONE AND I SEASON OF PASSION THE LONG ROAD HOME THE PROMISE THE GHOST NOW AND FOREVER SPECIAL DELIVERY PASSION'S PROMISE THE RANCH GOING HOME SILENT HONOR

To my beloved children,

Beatrix, Trevor, Todd, Nick, Sam,

Victoria, Vanessa, Maxx, and Zara,

who are the Hope and Love and Joy in my life!With all my heart and love,

Mom/d.s.

Whatever happens, has happened, or will happen,

I still believe in Love, whatever orthodox,

unorthodox, ordinary, or extraordinary form it takes.

Never give up Hope.d.s.

Chapter 1

It was an absolutely perfect June day as the sun came up over the city, and Coco Barrington watched it from her Bolinas deck. She sat looking at pink and orange streak across the sky as she drank a cup of steaming Chinese tea, stretched out on an ancient, faded broken deck chair she had bought at a yard sale. A weatherworn wooden statue of Quan Yin observed the scene peacefully. Quan Yin was the goddess of compassion, and the statue had been a treasured gift. Under the benevolent gaze of Quan Yin, the pretty auburn-haired young woman sat in the golden light of the sunrise, as the early summer sun shot copper lights through her long wavy hair, which hung nearly to her waist. She was wearing an old flannel nightgown with barely discernible hearts on it, and her feet were bare. The house she lived in sat on a plateau in Bolinas, overlooking the ocean and narrow beach below. This was exactly where Coco wanted to be. She had lived here for four years. This tiny forgotten farm and beach community, less than an hour north of San Francisco, suited her perfectly at twenty-eight.

Calling her home a house was generous. It was barely more than a cottage, and her mother and sister referred to it as a hovel or, on better days, a shack. It was incomprehensible to either of them why Coco would want to live there—or how she would even tolerate it. It was their worst nightmare come true, even for her. Her mother had tried wheedling, insulting, criticizing, and even bribing her to come back to what they referred to as “civilization” in L.A. Nothing about her mother's life, or the way she had grown up, seemed “civilized” to Coco. In her opinion, everything about it was a fraud. The people, the way they lived, the goals they aspired to, the houses they lived in, and the face-lifts on every woman she knew in L.A. It all seemed artificial to her. Her life in Bolinas was simple and real. It was uncomplicated and sincere, just like Coco herself. She hated anything fake. Not that her mother was “fake.” She was polished and had an image she was careful to maintain. Her mother had been a best-selling romance novelist for the past thirty years. What she wrote wasn't fraudulent, it simply wasn't deep, but there was a vast following for her work. She wrote under the name Florence Flowers, a nom de plume from her own mother's maiden name, and she had enjoyed immense success. She was sixty-two years old and had lived a storybook life, married to Coco's father, Bernard “Buzz” Barrington, the most important literary and dramatic agent in L.A. until his death four years before. He had been sixteen years older than her mother and was still going strong when he died of a sudden stroke. He had been one of the most powerful men in the business, and had babied and protected his wife through all thirty-six years of their marriage. He had encouraged and shepherded her career. Coco always wondered if her mother would have made it as a writer in the early days without her father's help. Her mother never asked herself the same question and didn't for an instant doubt the merit of her work, or her myriad opinions about everything in life. She made no bones about the fact that Coco was a disappointment to her, and didn't hesitate to call her a dropout, a hippie, and a flake.

Coco's equally successful sister Jane's assessment of her was loftier, though not kinder: Jane referred to Coco as a “chronic un-derachiever.” She pointed out to her younger sister that she had had every possible opportunity growing up, every chance to make a success of her life, and thus far had thrown it all away. She reminded her regularly that it wasn't too late to turn the boat around, but as long as she continued to live in a shack in Bolinas like a beach bum, her life would be a mess.

Her life didn't feel like a mess to Coco. She supported herself, was respectable, she didn't do drugs and never had, other than the occasional joint with friends in college, and even that had been rare, which was remarkable at that age. She wasn't a burden on her family, had never been evicted, promiscuous, pregnant, or in jail. She didn't criticize her sister's lifestyle, and had no desire to; nor did she tell her mother that the clothes she wore were ridiculously young, or that her last face-lift still looked too tight. All Coco wanted was to be her own person and lead her own life, in the way she chose. She had always been uncomfortable with their luxurious Bel-Air lifestyle, hated being singled out as the child of two famous people, and more recently the much younger sister of one. She didn't want to lead their life, only her own. Her battles with them had begun in earnest after she had graduated with honors from Princeton, went to Stanford Law School a year later, and subsequently dropped out in her second year. It had been three years since then.

She had promised her father she would try law, and he assured her there was a place for her in his agency. He said it helped to have a law degree if you were going to be a successful agent. The trouble was she didn't want to be one, especially working for her father. She had absolutely no desire whatsoever to represent best-selling authors, scriptwriters, or badly behaved movie stars, which were her father's passion, bread and butter, and only interest in life. Every famous name in Hollywood had come through their house when she was a child. She couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life with them, as her father had. She secretly believed all the stress of representing and indulging spoiled, unreasonable, insanely demanding people for nearly fifty years had killed him. It sounded like a death sentence to her.

He had died during her first year in law school, and she stuck it out for another year and then dropped out. Her mother had cried over it for months, still berated her for it, and told her she lived like a homeless person in the shack in Bolinas. She had only seen it once, and had ranted about it ever since. Coco had decided to stay in the San Francisco area after dropping out of Stanford. Northern California suited her better. Her sister Jane had moved there years before, but commuted to L.A. frequently to work. Their mother was still upset that both her children had moved north and fled L.A., although Jane was there a lot. Coco rarely went home.

Coco's sister Jane was thirty-nine years old. By the time she was thirty, she had become one of the most important film producers in Hollywood. She'd had a dazzling career so far, and eleven record-breaking box-office hits. She was a huge success, which only made Coco look worse. Her mother never stopped telling Coco how proud their father had been of Jane, and then she'd burst into tears again, thinking about her younger daughter's wasted life. Tears had always worked well for her, and got her everything she wanted from Coco's father. Buzz had thoroughly indulged his wife and adored his daughters. Coco liked to believe at times that she could have explained her choices, and the reasons for them to him, but in truth she knew she couldn't have. He wouldn't have understood them any better than her mother or sister did, and he would have been both baffled and disappointed by her current life. He'd been thrilled when she got into law school at Stanford, and hoped it would put an end to her previously extremely liberal ideas. In his opinion it was all right to be kind-hearted and concerned about the planet and your fellow man, as long as you didn't carry it too far. In her college days and before, Buzz thought she had, but he had assured her mother that law school would get her head on straight. Apparently it hadn't, since she dropped out.

Her father had left her more than enough money to live on, but Coco never touched it, she preferred to spend only what she earned, and often gave money away to causes that were important to her, most of them involved in ecology, the preservation of animal life on the planet, or to assist indigent children in Third World countries. Her sister Jane called her a bleeding heart. They had a thousand unflattering adjectives for her, all of which hurt. Coco readily admitted that she was a “bleeding heart,” however, which was why she loved the statue of Quan Yin so much. The goddess of compassion touched her very soul. Coco's integrity was impeccable, and her heart was huge and constantly focused on kindness to others, which didn't seem like a bad thing to her, nor a crime.

Jane had caused her own ripples in the family in her late teens. At seventeen, she had told her parents that she was gay. Coco had been six at the time, and unaware of the stir it made. Jane announced that she was gay in her senior year in high school and became a militant activist for lesbian rights at UCLA, where she studied film. Her mother was heartbroken when she asked her to be a debutante, and Jane refused. She said she'd rather die. But in spite of her different sexual preferences, and early militancy, essentially she had the same material goals as her parents. Her father forgave her once he watched her set her sights on fame. And as soon as she achieved it, all was well again. For the past ten years Jane had lived with a well-known screenwriter who was a gentle person and famous in her own right. They had moved to San Francisco because of the large gay community there. Everyone in the universe had seen their films and loved them. Jane had been nominated for four Oscars but hadn't won one yet. Her mother had no problem now with Jane and Elizabeth living as partners for the past decade. It was Coco who upset them all deeply, who worried the hell out of them, annoyed them with her ridiculous choices, her hippie life, her indifference to what they thought was important, and it made her mother cry.

Eventually, they blamed Coco's attitudes on the man she was living with when she dropped out of law school, rather than their effect on her for years before. He had lived with her during her second and final year of law school, and had left law school himself without graduating several years before. Ian White was everything her parents didn't want for her. Although smart, capable, and well educated, as Jane put it, he was an “underachiever” just like her. After leaving school in Australia, Ian had come to San Francisco, and opened a diving and surfing school. He had been bright, loving, funny, easy-going, and wonderful to her. He was a rough diamond and an independent sort who did whatever he wanted, and Coco knew she had found her soul mate the day they met. They moved in together two months later, when she was twenty-four. He died two years later. They were the best years of her life, and she had no regrets, except that he was gone, and had been for two years. He died in a hang-gliding accident, when a gust of wind crashed him into the rocks, and he fell to his death below. It was over in an instant, and their dreams went with him. They had bought the shack in Bolinas together, and he left it to her. His wet suits and diving gear were still at the cottage. She'd had a hard time for the first year after he died, and her mother and sister had been sympathetic in the beginning, but since then their sympathy had run out. As far as they were concerned, he was gone, and she should get over it, get a life, grow up. She had, but not the way they chose. That was a capital offense to them.

Coco herself knew that she had to let go of Ian's memory and move on. She had been out on a few dates in the last year, but no one came close to Ian. She had never met a man with as much life, energy, warmth, and charm. He was a tough act to follow, but she hoped that someday someone would come along. They just hadn't yet. Even Ian wouldn't have wanted her to be alone. But she was in no hurry. Coco was happy living in Bolinas, waking up every day, facing each day as it came. She was on no career path. She didn't want or need fame to validate herself, as the rest of her family did. She didn't want to live in a big house in Bel-Air. She didn't want anything more than she'd had with Ian, beautiful days and happy times, and loving nights, all of which she knew she would carry with her forever. She didn't need to know where her next steps would lead, or with whom. Each day was a blessing unto itself. Her life with Ian had been absolutely perfect and exactly what they wanted, but in the last two years since his death, she had made her peace with being on her own. She missed him, but had finally accepted that he'd gone on. She wasn't frantic to get married, have children, or meet another man. At twenty-eight, none of that seemed pressing, and just rolling along in Bolinas was more than enough for her.

At first, living there had seemed odd to her and Ian as well. It was a funny little community. The local residents had chosen years before not only to be inconspicuous but to virtually disappear, like Brigadoon. There were no road signs to indicate how to get to Bolinas, or even to admit that it was there. You had to find it on your own. It was a time warp that they had both laughed at and loved. In the sixties it had been full of hippies and flower children, many of whom were still there. Only now they were weather-beaten and wrinkled and had gray hair. Men in their fifties or even sixties, headed for the beach with their surfboards under their arms. The only shops in town were a clothing store, which still sold flowered muumuus and everything tie-dyed, a restaurant full of grizzled old surfers, a grocery store with mostly organic food, and a head shop that sold every possible kind of paraphernalia and bongs in all colors, shapes, and sizes. The town itself sat on a plateau that hung over a narrow beach, and an inlet separated it from the long expanse of Stinson Beach and the expensive houses there. There were a few beautiful homes tucked away in Bolinas, but mostly there were families, dropouts, older surfers, and people who, for whatever reason, had chosen to get away and disappear. It was an elitist community in its own way, and the antithesis of everything she had grown up with, and the high-powered family Ian had fled in Sydney, Australia. They had been perfectly matched that way. He was gone now, but she was still there, and she had no intention of leaving anytime soon, or maybe ever, no matter what her mother and sister said. The therapist she had seen after Ian died, until recently, had told her that she was still rebelling at twenty-eight. Maybe so, but as far as Coco was concerned, it worked for her. She was happy in the life she had chosen, and the place where she lived. And the one thing she knew for sure was that she was never, ever going back to live in L.A.

As the sun rose in the sky, and Coco went back inside for another cup of tea, Ian's Australian shepherd, Sallie, sauntered slowly out of the house, fresh from Coco's bed. She gave a faint wave of her tail, and headed off on her own for a morning stroll on the beach. She was extremely independent, and helped Coco in her work. Ian had told her Australian shepherds made great rescue dogs, and were herders by instinct, but Sallie marched to her own tune. She was attached to Coco, but only to the extent she chose to be, and had her own plans and ideas at all times. She had been impeccably trained by Ian, and answered to voice commands.

She bounded off as Coco poured herself a second cup of tea and glanced at the clock. It was just after seven, and she had to shower and get to work. She liked to be on the Golden Gate Bridge by eight, and at her first stop by eight-thirty She was always on time, and supremely responsible to her clients. Everything she had learned by association about hard work and success had served her. She had a crazy little business, but it paid surprisingly well. Her services were in high demand, and had been for three years, since Ian helped her set it up. And it had grown immeasurably in the two years since he died, although Coco diligently limited her clients, and would only take so many. She liked to be home by four o'clock every day, which gave her time for a walk on the beach with Sallie before dusk.

Coco's neighbors on either side of her shack were an aromatherapist and an acupuncturist, both of whom worked in the city. The acupuncturist was married to a teacher at the local school, and the aromatherapist lived with a fireman from the firehouse at Stinson Beach. They were all decent, sincere people who worked hard, and helped each other out. Her neighbors had been incredibly kind to her when Ian died. And she had gone out with a friend of the teacher's once or twice, but nothing had clicked for her. They had wound up friends, which she enjoyed too. Predictably, her family dismissed them all as “hippies.” Her mother called them dead-beats, which none of them were, even if they seemed that way to her. Coco didn't mind her own company, and was alone most of the time.

At seven-thirty after a steaming hot shower, Coco headed out to her ancient van. Ian had found it for her at a lot in Inverness, and it got her to the city every day. The battered old van was exactly what she needed, despite a hundred thousand miles on it. It ran fine, even if it was ugly as sin. Most of the paint was long gone. But it was still going strong. Ian had had a motorcycle they rode over the hills on weekends, when they weren't out on his boat. He had taught her to dive. She hadn't driven the motorcycle since he was gone. It was still sitting in the garage behind their shack. She couldn't bring herself to part with it, although she had sold his boat, and the diving school had closed since there was no one else to run it. Coco couldn't have, and she had a business of her own.

Coco slid open the back door of the van and Sallie jumped in with a look of excitement. Her run on the beach had woken her up and she was ready for work, as was Coco. She smiled at the big, friendly black and white dog. To those who didn't recognize the breed, she looked like a mutt, but she was a purebred Australian shepherd, with serious blue eyes. Coco closed the door, got in behind the wheel, and took off with a wave at her neighbor, who was coming back from his shift at the firehouse. It was a sleepy community, and almost no one bothered to lock their doors at night.

She followed the winding road at the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean as she headed to the city, with downtown shimmering in the morning sunlight in the distance. It was going to be a perfect day, which made work easier for her. And just as she liked to be, she was on the bridge by eight. She would be right on time for her first client, not that it really mattered. They would have forgiven her if she was late, but she almost never was. She wasn't the flake her family made her out to be, just different from them all her life.

She took the turnoff into Pacific Heights, and headed south up the steep hill on Divisadero. She was just cresting it at Broadway when her cell phone rang. It was her sister, Jane.

“Where are you?” Jane said tersely. She always sounded as though there were a national emergency, and terrorists had just attacked her house. She lived in a constant state of stress, which was the nature of her business and suited her personality to perfection. Her partner, Elizabeth, was far more relaxed, and tempered her considerably. Coco liked Liz a lot. Liz was forty-three years old and every bit as talented and bright as Jane, just quieter about it. Liz had graduated summa from Harvard with a master's in English literature. She had written an obscure but interesting novel before going to Hollywood to write scripts. She had written many since then and won two Oscars over the years. She and Jane had met working on a picture ten years before, and had been together ever since. Their relationship was solid, and the alliance worked well for both of them. They considered themselves partners for life.

“I'm on Divisadero. Why?” Coco asked, sounding tired. She hated the way Jane never asked her how she was, she just told her what she needed. It had been the nature of their relationship since Coco was a child. She had been Jane's errand girl all her life, and had spent a lot of time talking to her therapist about it, while she was still seeing her. It was hard turning that around, although she was trying. Sallie was sitting in the passenger seat next to Coco and watched her face with interest, as though sensing Coco's tension and wondering why that was.

“Good. I need you right away,” Jane said, sounding both relieved and harried. Coco knew they were going to New York soon, on location for a film she and Liz were coproducing.

“What do you need me for?” Coco sounded wary, as the dog cocked her head to one side.

“I'm screwed. My house-sitter just canceled on me. I'm leaving in an hour.” Desperation had crept into her voice.

“I thought you weren't leaving till next week,” Coco said, sounding suspicious, as she drove past Broadway, where her sister lived only a few blocks away in a spectacular house overlooking the bay. It was on what was referred to as the Gold Coast, where the most impressive houses were. And there was no denying that Jane's was one of the prettiest of all, although it wasn't Coco's style, any more than the Bolinas shack was Jane's. The two sisters seemed to have been born on separate planets.

“We have a strike on the set, sound technicians. Liz left last night. I've got to get there by tonight for a meeting with the union, and I have no one for Jack. My house-sitter's mother died, and she's got to stay in Seattle with her sick father indefinitely. She just called and bagged on me, and my flight's in two hours.” Coco frowned as she listened. She had no desire to connect the dots of what her sister had just said. This wasn't the first time it had happened. Coco somehow always became the backup for everything that fell through the cracks in her sister's life. Since Jane believed Coco had no life, she always expected her to step up to the plate and fill in. Coco could never say no to the sister she had been daunted by for her entire lifetime. Jane had no problem saying no to anyone, which was part of her success. It was a word Coco had trouble finding in her own vocabulary, a fact that Jane knew well and took full advantage of, at every chance.

“I'll come in to walk Jack if you want,” Coco said cautiously.

“You know that won't work,” Jane said, sounding annoyed. “He gets depressed if no one comes home at night. He'll howl all night and drive the neighbors nuts. And I need someone to keep an eye on the house.” The dog was almost as big as Coco's Bolinas house, but if need be, Coco knew she could take him there.

“Do you want him to stay with me until you find someone else?”

“No,” Jane said firmly, “I need you to stay here.” I need you to, Coco heard for the ten millionth time in her life. Not would you please… could you… would you mind… please, please, pretty please. I need you to. Shit. This was yet another opportunity to say no. Coco opened her mouth to say the word and not a single sound came out. She glanced over at Sallie, who seemed to be staring at her in disbelief.

“Don't look at me like that,” Coco said to the dog.

“What? Who are you talking to?” Jane asked in a rush.

“Never mind. Why can't he stay with me?”

“He likes to be at home in his own bed,” Jane said firmly, as Coco rolled her eyes. She was a block away from her client's house and didn't want to be late, but something told her she was about to be. Her sister had a magnetic pull on her like the tides, a force Coco could never seem to resist.

“So do I like to be in my own bed,” Coco said, trying to sound decisive, but she wasn't kidding anyone, least of all Jane. She and Elizabeth were going to be on location in New York for five months. “I'm not house-sitting for you for five months,” Coco said, sounding stubborn. And films ran longer sometimes. It could be six or seven in the end.

“Fine. I'll find someone else,” Jane said, sounding disapproving, as though Coco were a naughty child. That always got to her, no matter how often she reminded herself that she was grown up. “But I can't do that in an hour before I leave. I'll take care of it from New York. For God's sake, you'd think I was asking you to stay in the Tenderloin in a crack house. You could do a lot worse than stay here for five or six months. It might do you good, and you wouldn't have to commute.” Jane was selling hard, but Coco didn't want to buy. She hated her sister's house—it was beautiful, impeccable, and cold. It had been photographed for every decorating magazine, and Coco always felt uncomfortable there. There was no place to curl up, to feel cozy at night. And it was so immaculate, Coco was always afraid to breathe, or even eat. She wasn't the housekeeper her sister was, or even Liz. They were neat freaks in the extreme. Coco liked a friendly mess, and didn't mind a reasonable amount of disorder in her life. It drove Jane wild.

“I'll cover it for a few days, at most a week. But you have to line up someone else. I don't want to live at your house for months,” Coco said adamantly, trying to set boundaries with her.

“I get it. I'll do what I can. Just cover me for right now, please. How fast can you pick up the keys? And I want to show you the alarm system again, we've added some new features and they're complicated. I don't want you setting off the alarm. You can pick Jack's meals up at Canine Cuisine, they prepare them for him twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. And don't forget, we've switched vets to Dr. Hajimoto on Sacramento Street. Jack's due for a booster shot next week.”

“It's a good thing you don't have kids,” Coco commented drily as she turned the van around. She was going to be late, but she might as well get it over with. Her sister would drive her insane if she didn't. “You'd never be able to leave town.” Their bull mastiff had become a child substitute for them, and lived better than most people, with specially prepared meals, a trainer, a groomer who came to the house to bathe him, and more attention than many parents gave to their kids.

Coco drove up to her sister's house, and there was already a town car waiting outside to take Jane to the airport. Coco turned off the ignition and hopped out, leaving Sallie in the car, watching out the window with interest. She was going to have a good time with Jack for the next several days. The bull mastiff was three times her size, and they'd probably break everything in the house as they chased each other around. Maybe she'd let them use her sister's pool. The only thing Coco loved about the house was the enormous projection screen in the bedroom, where she could watch movies. The bedroom was huge and the screen covered one entire wall.

Coco rang the doorbell, and Jane yanked open the door with a cell phone pressed to her ear. She was giving someone hell about the unions, and hung up as she stared at Coco. The two women looked surprisingly alike. They both had tall, spare frames and beautiful faces. Both had modeled in their teens. The most noticeable difference between them was that Jane was all sharp edges, with long straight blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. Coco's long, loose auburn hair and slightly gentler curves made her look warmer, and there was a smile in her eyes. Everything about Jane screamed stress. There had always been a sharp edge to her, even as a kid, but those that knew her intimately, knew that despite the razor tongue, she was a decent person and had a good heart. But there was no denying she was tough. Coco knew it well.

She was wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket, and diamond studs in her ears. Coco was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans that showed off her long, graceful legs, and running shoes that she needed for work, and she had a faded sweatshirt tied around her neck. And Coco looked noticeably younger. Jane's more sophisticated style aged her a little, but both were striking women and looked noticeably like their famous father. Their mother was smaller and rounder, although she was blond like Jane. Coco's coppery mane was a throwback to another generation, since Buzz Barrington had had jet black hair.

“Thank God!” Jane said as her enormous bull mastiff came running up to them and stood up on his back legs to put his paws on Coco's shoulders. He knew what having her around meant, forbidden table scraps he would never get otherwise, and sleeping in the king-size bed in the master suite, which Jane would never have allowed. Although she adored her dog, she was a firm believer in rules. Even Jack knew that Coco was a pushover and would let him sleep on the bed at night. He wagged his tail and licked her face, which was a far friendlier greeting than she got from Jane. Liz was by far the warmer of the pair, but she was already in New York. And the relationship between the two sisters was always tense. However good her intentions, and her love for her younger sister, Jane never minced words.

Jane handed Coco a set of keys, and an information sheet about the new alarm. She repeated the information about the vet, the booster shot, and Jack's designer meals, and about fourteen other instructions, all delivered like machine-gun fire at her younger sister.

“And call us right away if Jack has any kind of a problem,” she finished.

Coco wanted to ask her “What about if I do?” but Jane wouldn't have found it funny. “We'll try to come back for a weekend sometime to give you a break, but I don't know when we can get away, particularly if we're having trouble with the unions.” She sounded harried and exhausted before she even got there. Coco knew she managed the most minute details and was brilliant at what she did.

“Wait a minute,” Coco said, feeling weak, “I'm only doing this for a few days, right? Maybe a week. I'm not staying here the whole time,” she repeated so they understood each other. She wanted no confusion about that.

“I know, I know. You'd think you'd be happy to stay in a decent house.” Her sister glared at her instead of thanking her profusely.

“It's your 'decent' house,” Coco pointed out. “Bolinas is my home,” she said with quiet dignity, which Jane ignored.

“Let's not get into that,” Jane said with a meaningful look, and then grudgingly, she looked at her sister and smiled. “Thanks for bailing me out, kiddo. I really appreciate it. You're a great baby sister to have.” She gave Coco one of her rare smiles of approval, which had kept Coco trying to please her all her life. But you had to do what Jane wanted to get those smiles.

Coco wanted to ask her why she was a great baby sister. Because she had no life? But she didn't ask the question and just nodded, hating herself for agreeing so quickly to house-sit for them. As always, Coco had given in without a fight. What was the point? Jane always won anyway. She would always be the big sister that Coco couldn't beat at any game, couldn't say no to, and who loomed larger than life, sometimes even larger than their parents.

“Just don't leave me stuck here forever,” Coco said in a pleading tone.

“I'll call you and let you know,” Jane said cryptically, and then rushed into the next room to answer two phone lines that were ringing at once, and as she headed for them, her cell phone rang. “Thanks again,” she called over her shoulder, as Coco sighed, patted the dog, and headed back to her van. By then she was twenty minutes late for her first client.

“See you later, Jack,” Coco said softly, and closed the door behind her. And as she drove away, Coco had the sinking feeling that Jane was going to leave her stuck there for months on end. She knew her sister too well.

Coco was at her first client's house five minutes later. She took out a lockbox that she kept in the glove compartment of the van, twirled the combination, and extracted a set of keys with a tag on them with a numbered code. She had the keys to all of her clients' houses. They trusted her completely to come and go. The house she stopped at was a large brick house that was almost as big as Jane's, with neatly trimmed hedges outside. Coco let herself in the back door, turned off the alarm, and whistled loudly. Within seconds, a giant silvery blue Great Dane appeared and wagged his tail in frantic delight the moment he saw her.

“Hi, Henry, how're you doing, boy?” She clipped his leash on his collar, set the alarm again, locked the door, and led him out to the van, where Sallie was pleased to see her friend. The two dogs barked a greeting at each other, and jostled each other good-naturedly in the back of the van.

Coco stopped at four other houses nearby, and picked up a surprisingly gentle Doberman, a Rhodesian ridgeback, an Irish wolfhound, and a Dalmatian, all from similarly opulent homes. Her first run of the day was always with the biggest dogs. They needed the exercise most. She headed out to Ocean Beach, where she and the dogs could run for miles. Sometimes she took them to Golden Gate Park. And when necessary, Sallie helped her herd them back into a pack. She had been dog-walking for the rich and elite of Pacific Heights for three years, and had never had an accident, a mishap, or lost a dog. Her reputation was golden in the business, and even though her family thought it was a pathetic waste of her education and time, it kept her outdoors, she liked the dogs, and she made a very decent living at it. It wasn't what she wanted to do for the rest of her life, but for now it suited her just fine.

Her cell phone rang as she was dropping the last of the big dogs back at his home. She had a group of medium-size dogs to pick up next, and always took the small dogs out just before lunchtime, since most of their owners walked them before they went to work. And she did a last run of big dogs at midafternoon before she went back to Marin. It was Jane calling her. She was already on the plane, speaking quickly before they told her to turn off her phone.

“I checked my records before I left, and Jack's not due for that booster for two weeks, not one.” Sometimes Coco wondered why her head didn't explode from all the minutiae she tried to keep track of. No detail was too small for Jane's attention, she micro-managed everything and everyone in her life, even the dog.

“Don't worry about it. We'll be fine,” Coco reassured her, sounding relaxed. The run on the beach had mellowed her as well as the dogs. “Have fun in New York.”

“Not with a strike going on.” Jane sounded like a wire about to snap. But Coco knew that once she was with Liz again, she'd calm down. Her partner always had a soothing influence on her. They were a perfect match and complemented each other.

“Try to enjoy yourself anyway. Just don't forget to find another house-sitter when you can,” Coco reminded her again, and she meant it, whether Jane cared or not.

“I know, I know,” Jane said, and sighed. “And thanks for bailing me out. It means a lot to me to know that the house and Jack are in good hands.” Her voice sounded gentler than it had all morning. They had an odd relationship, but they were sisters after all.

“Thanks,” Coco said with a slow smile, wondering why it always meant so much to her to have her sister's approval, and hurt so much when she didn't. She knew that one of these days, she'd have to unhook from that and have the guts to turn her down. But she wasn't there yet.

Coco knew that as far as Jane and their mother were concerned, being a dog-walker didn't count. In the scheme of life, and compared to their achievements as a best-selling author and an Oscar-nominated producer, Coco's business was an embarrassment to them. In their eyes, it was as though she didn't have a job at all. And even Coco was aware that on the Richter scale of accomplishments she had been taught to demand of herself, as a dog-walker she didn't move the needle at all. But still, whether they approved of it or not, it was an easy, simple, pleasant life. And as far as Coco was concerned, that was enough for now.

Chapter 2

It was six o'clock as Coco headed back into the city again. She had gone home to pack a bag with sweatshirts, jeans, a spare pair of running shoes, clean underwear, and a stack of her favorite DVDs to watch on her sister's giant screen. She had just passed through the toll plaza when her cell phone rang. It was Jane, she had just gotten to the apartment she and Liz had rented in New York for six months.

“Is everything okay?” Jane asked, sounding worried.

“I'm on my way back to your place now,” Coco reassured her. “Jack and I will have a candlelight dinner, while Sallie watches her favorite show on TV.” Coco didn't let herself think back to the time, more than two years ago now, when she and Ian would cook dinner together, walk on the beach at night, or fish off his boat on the weekends. The time when she still had a life, and wasn't preparing designer meals for her sister's dog. But there was no point thinking of that now. Those days were gone.

They had been planning to be married the summer he died, and had wanted a simple ceremony on the beach, with a barbecue afterward for their friends. She hadn't yet told her mother, who would have had a fit over it. And they'd been planning to go back to Australia eventually and open a diving school there. Ian had been a surfboard champion in his youth. Thinking about it made her wistful now.

Liz got on the phone while Coco was talking to Jane and thanked her profusely for staying at the house and babysitting their dog. Her tone and style were infinitely warmer than Jane's.

“It's okay I'm happy to help out, as long as it's not for too long.” Coco wanted her to hear it as well.

“We'll find someone, I promise,” Liz said, sounding genuinely grateful for Coco's help. She never took her for granted, unlike Jane.

“Thank you,” Coco said gratefully. “How's New York?”

“It'll be better if we avoid the strike. I think we may come to some agreement tonight.” She sounded hopeful. She was a peacemaker at heart. Jane was the warrior of the pair.

Coco wished them luck as she pulled up in front of their house. She envied them their relationship sometimes. They got along the way married couples should and often didn't. Coco had grown up knowing that her older sister was gay, and accepted her lifestyle without question, although she knew that sometimes others were surprised. What bothered Coco about Jane was the way she steam-rolled everyone to get what she wanted. Only Liz seemed able to humanize her, and even she couldn't manage it at times. Spoiled by their parents early on, and accustomed to adulation for her accomplishments, Jane was used to getting everything she wanted. And Coco had always felt second best, in her shadow. Nothing about that had changed. The only time it had felt different to her was when she lived with Ian. Maybe because she didn't care as much about what her sister thought then, or maybe because his presence protected her in some mystical unseen way. She had loved the idea of moving to Australia with him. And now, here she was, staying at her sister's house, and babysitting for her dog again. And what would have happened if Ian were still alive, and she had her own life? Jane would have had to find someone else, instead of using her baby sister like some sort of Cinderella to rush to her aid in every crisis. But what would it feel like not being there for her? Would it make her a grown-up in her own right, or the bad little girl Jane always told her she was when they were younger, and Coco didn't want to do what Jane said? It was an interesting question, to which she had not yet found the answer. Maybe because she didn't want to. It was easier to just do what she was asked, especially without Ian to protect her anymore.

Coco fed both dogs and turned on the TV. She lay back against the white mohair couch and put her feet on the white lacquered coffee table. The carpeting was white too, and made from the hair of some rare beast in South America, Coco vaguely remembered. They had used a famous architect from Mexico City, and the house was beautiful, but made to live in with perfectly combed hair, clean hands, and brand-new shoes. Coco felt sometimes as though if she breathed, she would leave a mark on something, which her sister would then see. It was a lot of pressure living there, and infinitely less cozy and comfortable than being in Bolinas in her “shack.”

She went out to the kitchen eventually to find something to eat. Since they had left earlier than planned, neither Elizabeth nor Jane had had time to stock the refrigerator for the house-sitter. All she found in it were a head of lettuce, two lemons, and a bottle of white wine. There was pasta and olive oil in the cupboard, and Coco made herself a bowl of plain pasta and a salad, and poured herself a glass of white wine while she was cooking. Both dogs started barking insanely, standing at the windows, while she was tossing the salad, and when she went to see what was happening, she saw two raccoons strolling across the garden. It was another fifteen minutes before the raccoons finally disappeared as she tried to calm the dogs, and by then Coco could smell something burning. It smelled like an electrical fire somewhere in the house, and she ran all over, upstairs and down, trying to find it, and saw nothing. Her nose finally led her back to the kitchen, where the water in the pasta pot had burned away, with the pasta in a thick black crust at the bottom of the pan, and the handle of the pot partially melted, hence the evil odor.

“Shit!” Coco muttered, as she got the pot into the sink and poured cold water on it, and an alarm sounded somewhere. The smoke alarm had gone off, and before she could call the alarm company, she could hear sirens, and two fire trucks were at the front door. She was explaining what had happened, somewhat sheepishly, as her cell phone rang, and both dogs were barking at the firemen. When she answered, it was Jane.

“What's happening? The alarm company just called me. Is there a fire in the house?” She sounded panicked.

“It's nothing,” Coco said, thanking the firemen as they got back on the truck and she closed the front door. She had to reset the alarm and wasn't sure she remembered how to do it, but didn't want to admit that to Jane. “It's no big deal. I burned the pasta. There were two raccoons in the garden and the dogs went crazy. I forgot I was cooking.”

“Christ, you could have burned the house down.” It was after midnight in New York, and the strike had been averted, but Jane sounded exhausted.

“I can always go back to Bolinas,” Coco volunteered.

“Never mind. Just try not to kill yourself, or set the house on fire.” She reminded Coco how to reset the alarm, and a minute later, Coco sat down at the island in the center of the pristine black granite kitchen and ate the salad. She was hungry, tired, and homesick for her own house.

She put the bowl in the dishwasher, threw away the pot with the melted handle, turned off the lights, and only when she got upstairs to the bedroom with both dogs following her did she notice that one of the lettuce leaves had stuck to the bottom of her running shoe. She lay on the floor of her sister's bedroom, feeling like a bull in a china shop, just as she did every time she came here, as inept as she always had whenever she was in her sister's orbit. She didn't belong here. Finally she got up, took her shoes off, and collapsed on the bed. As soon as she did, both dogs leaped onto it with her. Coco laughed as she saw them. Her sister would have killed her, but she wasn't there to see it, so she let them stretch out on the bed with her, as she always did.

She put a DVD in the player then, and lay in bed with the dogs, watching one of her favorite movies. The house still reeked of the pot she had burned beyond recognition. She'd have to replace it, and dreaming of Bolinas and Ian, she fell asleep halfway through the movie. She didn't wake until the next morning, and rushed out of bed to shower, dress, and get to her first client. She sailed past the kitchen on the way out, decided not to attempt tea, and took both dogs with her. And mercifully for once, her sister didn't call her.

After walking her usual round of dogs, in the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, and at Crissy Field, she was back at the house on Broadway at four o'clock, and sank into the Jacuzzi. She had already decided not to cook dinner that night, and while watching another of her favorite DVDs, she ordered Chinese takeout. Her mother called from L.A. as she was eating the spicy beef, and had just finished an egg roll. Jack was sitting eye level with the kitchen table, drooling, with Sallie right beside him.

“Hi, Mom,” Coco said with her mouth full, when she saw her mother's number come up on her caller ID. “How are you?”

“Fine, and a lot happier knowing you're in a decent house and not that firetrap in Bolinas. You're very lucky your sister lets you stay there.”

“My sister is very lucky I'm willing to house-sit for her on five minutes' notice,” Coco snapped back before she could stop herself. Jack snatched an egg roll off the table, and Coco pulled the plate away while he wolfed it down whole. Her sister would have killed her for that too.

“Don't be silly,” her mother chided her. “You have nothing else to do, and you're fortunate to be there. The house is gorgeous.” There was no denying that, but it was like living on a stage set. “You should look for a place in the city. And a decent job, and a man, and go back to law school.” Coco had heard it all before. Her mother and sister had a million opinions about her life, and never hesitated to express them. They were the arbiters of what was right. Coco the embodiment of all things wrong.

“So how are you, Mom? Everything all right with you?” It was always easier if she got her mother talking about herself. She was more interested in that anyway and she had far more to say.

“I just started a new book,” she said happily. “I love the subject. It's about a Northern general and a Southern woman during the Civil War. They fall in love, get separated, she becomes widowed, and her favorite slave helps her escape and gets her to the North to find him. She has no money left, the general is desperate to find her, and can't, and she in turn finds the slave's woman for him. It's kind of two stories in one, and it's fun to write,” she said gleefully, as Coco smiled. She had been hearing those stories all her life. She liked her mother's books, and was proud of her, although as a very young child she had been embarrassed by her mother's success. All she had wanted as a kid was an ordinary mother who baked cookies and drove car pool, not a famous one. But she had grown into it over the years. She used to have fantasies about having a mother who was just a housewife, and her mother was about as far from that as anyone could get. She was always either writing or giving interviews when Coco was a child. By the time Coco was born, her mother was a major star. She had always envied people who didn't have famous parents.

“I see your last one is already at number one,” Coco said proudly. “You never fail, do you, Mom?” She sounded almost wistful as she said it.

“I try not to, sweetheart. I like the sweet smell of success a lot better.” She laughed as she said it. Her whole family liked that smell, not just her mother, but Jane, and their father. Coco often wondered what life would have been like growing up among “normal” people, like doctors and teachers, or a father who sold insurance. She hadn't had many friends like that growing up in L.A. The parents of most of her friends were famous, or one parent at least. Most of the children she had gone to school with had parents who were producers, directors, actors, studio heads. She had gone to Harvard-Westlake, one of the best schools in L.A., and many of the people she had grown up with were famous now too. It was like living among legends, and a lot to live up to. The majority were high achievers like her sister, although some of the kids she knew then were dead now, from drugs, or car accidents while driving drunk, or suicides. Those things happened to poor people too, but they seemed to happen with greater frequency to the rich and famous. They lived on the fast track and paid a high price for their lifestyles. It had never occurred to her parents when she was growing up that she would refuse to play and simply bow out of the game. It made no sense to them, but it made a lot of sense to her.

“Maybe now that you're in the city, taking care of Jane's house, you could take some classes, and get ready to transfer down here and go back to school,” her mother suggested, trying to sound casual about it, but Coco had heard that before too, and didn't answer.

“What kind of classes, Mom?” Coco finally asked, sounding instantly tense. “Piano? Guitar? Macramé? Cooking? Flower arranging? I'm happy with what I'm doing.”

“You'll look a little foolish walking people's dogs when you're fifty,” her mother said quietly. “You're not married, you don't have children. You can't just fill time for the rest of your life. You need to do something that has some substance. Maybe an art class. You used to like that.” It was pathetic. Why couldn't they just leave her alone to do what she was doing? And why did Ian have to… but there was no point thinking about that either.

“I don't have your talent, Mom. Or Jane's. I can't write books or make movies. And maybe one day I will have kids. In the meantime, I make a decent living at what I'm doing.”

“You don't need to make a 'decent living.' And you can't rely on children to fulfill you. They grow up and go off to their own lives. You need something to give you a sense of accomplishment of your own. Children are only temporarily time consuming. And a husband can die or leave you. You need to be someone in your own right, Coco. You'll be a lot happier when you find that out.”

“I'm happy now. That's why I live here. I'd be miserable in the rat race in L.A.” Her mother sighed as she listened. It was as though they were whispering across the Grand Canyon—neither of them could hear the other, nor wanted to. It was almost funny how Coco being a mere dog-walker made both her mother and Jane feel insecure. It didn't have that effect on Coco at all. Sometimes she felt sorry for them.

Talking to her mother depressed her. It gave her the feeling that she had never measured up and never would. She didn't care as much about it now, but it still bothered her at times. She thought about it after they hung up, and she ate another egg roll. In Bolinas, she lived on salads, and bought fresh fish at the local market. She was too lazy to go to the supermarket in San Francisco, and her sister's high-tech kitchen, which looked like the inside of a spaceship, intimidated her. It was easier to order out. She was still thinking about her mother when she went upstairs to her bedroom and put a movie on. Jack happily climbed into bed next to her, without waiting to be invited, and put his head down on the pillow, Sallie settled at her feet with a moan of pleasure. By the time the movie started, both dogs were snoring, as Coco snuggled into the comfortable bed to watch her favorite romantic comedy, with her favorite actor and actress. She had seen the movie half a dozen times and never got tired of it.

She noticed only after the movie was over that someone had sent her a text message on her cell phone. It was from Jane. Coco was expecting it to be something about the dog again. She had had several messages from her in the past two days, with reminders about the house, the dog, the gardener, the security system, their cleaning woman. Coco knew that as Jane got busier with the movie, she'd stop sending texts every five minutes. This one was slightly more involved than the others. It was about a friend of theirs who was apparently going to be staying at the house over the weekend. Coco wondered for an instant if she could ask her to babysit the dog, so she could go home to her place, but she had a feeling Jane would be mad if she imposed on their houseguest and escaped.

It said only, “Our friend Leslie hiding from psychotic, homicidal ex-girlfriend. Will probably show up tomorrow or Sunday to stay for a few days. Knows how to find hidden key and has alarm code. Thanks. Love, Jane and Lizzie.” She couldn't remember meeting a friend of theirs called Leslie, and wondered if it was someone they knew from L.A. It sounded more exotic than most of their friends, who were intelligent and creative but generally a pretty staid group of middle-aged women, most of whom had been in long-term relationships like theirs, and not prone to psychotic homicidal lovers. Since the fleeing Leslie apparently had the alarm code and the key, she didn't need to worry about it. Coco put on another movie, and went to sleep around three a.m. She only had two dogs to walk the next day, and didn't have to show up until noon, so she was planning to sleep late.

She woke up to a brilliantly sunny day at ten a.m., and looked out to see a flock of sailboats on the bay, preparing for a regatta, and all she could think of was how much she wished she were in Bolinas. She was thinking about driving over to take the dogs for a run on the beach, and check her mail.

She stretched lazily, let both dogs out in the garden, and propped the door open so they could get back in. And then she went to the kitchen to make something to eat. She still hadn't had time to buy groceries in the two days she'd been there. She was trying to decide between the Chinese food from the night before, and some frozen waffles she'd found in the freezer, when she realized that she had left the Chinese food out. The containers were still sitting in the sink. So she opted for the frozen waffles and stuck them in the microwave. She found syrup in the fridge, and as she turned around to put it on the table, she saw Jack, standing, with both paws on the sink, happily eating the Chinese food. He had eaten most of it by the time she spotted him, and she had a feeling the spicy beef wasn't going to do him a lot of good. She shooed him away and he barked at her, and then sat down next to the kitchen table to watch her eat. Sallie sat next to him, looking hopeful too.

“You know, you guys are pigs,” she said, addressing both dogs. Her long coppery hair hung straight down her back, and she was wearing her favorite flannel nightgown with the hearts on it, with pink wool socks because her feet were always cold at night. She looked like a kid as she sat there, with both dogs staring at the waffles as they disappeared into her mouth. “Yummm!” she teased, laughing at them as Jack turned his head from side to side. “What? The Chinese food wasn't enough? You're going to make yourself sick,” she warned him. After she had finished the waffles, she walked back to the fridge to put the maple syrup away. Some of it had dripped down the sides, and she thought about wiping the bottle off, which was probably what Jane would have done, but Coco promised herself she'd do it another time. Jane wasn't coming home to check on her, and she wanted to shower and walk her two clients' dogs. She had almost made it to the fridge with the dripping bottle of maple syrup, when the scent of it overpowered Jack. He took a wild leap past Coco, and knocked the bottle from her hand. It spun across the granite floor, broke, and spilled the sweet-smelling syrup everywhere. Before she could stop him, Jack had leaped into it and was trying to gobble it up amid the broken glass, and she was pulling him away, as Sallie suddenly reverted to her shepherding origins and ran circles around them, barking. Coco was pulling Jack away by his collar when her socks slipped in the syrup and he knocked her down. She was sitting on the ground in a pool of syrup, fortunately with no glass in it, as Jack barked frantically at her. He wanted the syrup and she was determined to keep him away so he wouldn't cut himself on the glass. Her nightgown and socks were soaked by then, and she had even managed to get some of the syrup in her hair. She was laughing while both dogs barked, as she struggled to her feet and pulled the mastiff away. And as she did, she suddenly realized there was a man in the room watching them. In their excitement over the syrup, even the dogs hadn't noticed him, and they barked even louder as he took a step back, and Coco told them both to stay. It was a scene of utter chaos, and the man looked terrified of the dogs, and mystified by her.

“What are you doing here?” Coco asked sternly as she looked at him. He was wearing jeans, a turtleneck, and a black leather jacket, and he didn't look like a burglar, but she had no idea how he'd gotten in.

She was still standing in the maple syrup as she stared at him, and he was trying not to smile at the vision and the acrobatics he had just seen. She looked like a lion tamer, with her long, red hair wild around her head, her nightgown and socks soaked in maple syrup, and the huge dog barking in her arms, while the Australian shepherd ran rings around them, yelping frantically. He could smell the maple syrup and see it in her hair, glistening like spun glass. He couldn't help noticing that she was a very pretty girl and looked about eighteen.

“Did you have some sort of food fight?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. “I'm sorry I missed it. I love that sort of thing. I think I'm meant to be a houseguest here for a few days, or a refugee.” He held up the key to show that he entered the premises honorably, as Coco caught her breath. That couldn't be. Her sister had told her that a woman would be staying there. There had been no mention of him. Or had she also given access to someone else? And then suddenly, it all registered, the British accent, and as she stared at him, she nearly screamed. It couldn't be. This was impossible. She was dreaming it. She had watched him two nights in a row on her sister's enormous screen.

“Oh shit… oh my God… it can't be you…,” she said. But it all fit together now. Leslie. Not a woman. Leslie Baxter, the world-famous British heartthrob and movie star. How could her sister not warn her who it was? She blushed furiously as she looked at him, and his eyes laughed as he smiled, just as they did on screen. She had watched his movies a thousand times, and now he was here.

“I'm afraid it is me,” he said apologetically, and then he glanced at the mess around her. “I suppose we ought to do something about this.” She nodded, bereft of speech for the moment, and then she looked up at him again.

“Do you suppose you could get the dogs outside…” she asked, pointing to the open door to the garden, “so I can clean this up?”

“I would,” he said hesitantly, “but I'm terrified of dogs actually. If you do the dog thing, I'll find a Hoover somewhere and clean up.” She laughed at what he said, as much over the suggestion as the word. Ian had called their vacuum cleaner a Hoover too. Leslie Baxter was British, and no vacuum cleaner was going to suck up maple syrup.

“Never mind,” she admonished him, and commanded both dogs to follow her, which very reluctantly they did, as he shrank away from them. Coco was back sans dogs a minute later. She picked up the glass in paper towels, and peeled off her socks so she wouldn't slip again. It was a miracle none of them had gotten hurt with the broken glass. Then she soaked up the gooey mess with her sister's pristine, spotlessly white, seemingly brand-new kitchen towels, while he helped. He got some of it on his good-looking brown suede shoes, and she had it all over her, as he smiled and tried hard not to laugh.

“I don't suppose you're the housekeeper,” he said conversationally as they worked diligently to get it all up and the mountain of sticky towels grew. “Are you a friend of Jane and Lizzie's?” He had spoken to Jane and she hadn't mentioned anyone staying there, but clearly she wasn't a burglar either. Goldilocks maybe. Or an intruder who had spent the night in her funny nightgown with the hearts on it, and had decided to eat a hearty breakfast before ransacking the place.

“I'm dog-sitting for her,” Coco explained, getting more of the sticky mess in her hair, as he tried to help her pull it back. It was impossible not to notice how beautiful she was as he struggled to keep a straight face. By then, the ancient threadbare nightgown was glued to her, and the effect was very appealing. “She sent me a text message that a friend called Leslie was coming. She never said it was you, and I thought it was one of her gay friends escaping a homicidal ex-lover.” She looked up at him in embarrassment then, having said too much, and as she did, she noticed a nasty bruise on one cheek. “Sorry… I shouldn't have said that… I expected you to be a woman.”

“I didn't expect you at all,” he admitted, and by then he had some of the syrup in his hair too. He had dark brown, almost black hair, and startlingly blue eyes. He had already noticed that hers were green. “Well, you were half right. I am escaping a homicidal ex-lover, I'm just not one of their gay women friends.” He looked apologetic again. And then he gazed at her with a curious expression and the words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Are you?”

“Am I escaping a homicidal ex-lover? No, I told you, I'm dog-sitting. Oh…” She realized what he meant then. “No, I'm not one of their lesbian friends. I'm Jane's sister.” As soon as she said it, he could see the resemblance, but their styles were so different that it hadn't occurred to him at first, and he had been so stunned to see her, particularly sliding around in a pool of maple syrup in a funny old nightgown, with two big dogs going berserk. He had been as startled by her as he had been terrified of the dogs. This was more than he had bargained for when Jane had told him he could use her empty house. This was not his definition of empty, by any means. It was anything but.

“How did you get lucky enough to be assigned as dog-sitter?” He was intrigued by her, and by then they had cleaned up most of the mess, although their feet stuck to the now-sticky floor like Super Glue.

“I'm the family black sheep,” she said with a shy smile, and he laughed. She looked very young and very pretty, and he was trying not to look at the way the nightgown was glued to her.

“And what does a black sheep do? Drink to excess? Recreational drugs? A string of bad boyfriends? Drop out of school?” She looked like she was in high school, but he could tell she wasn't.

“Worse. I dropped out of law school, which is considered a capital offense, and I'm a professional dog-walker. I live at the beach. I'm considered a hippie, a flake, and an underachiever.” She said it grinning, in the face of his good-humored assessment of her, and suddenly it didn't seem so awful saying it to him. It sounded funny instead.

“That doesn't sound so bad to me. The law school thing sounds very dreary. The dog-walker bit sounds quite terrifying, and very brave of you. I was a black sheep too. I dropped out of college to go to acting school, and my father was very nasty about it, but apparently I make more money now than I would have as a banker, so he's forgiven me. You just have to wait a while, they'll get over it. Perhaps you should threaten to write a book about them, and expose all their secrets. Or sell embarrassing photographs you've taken of them. Blackmail might be a useful thing. And I don't see what's wrong with living at the beach. People pay fortunes for houses in Malibu, and they're considered quite respectable, even enviable. You don't sound like a very convincing black sheep to me.”

“I do to them,” she assured him.

“I can't tell if you're a hippie, in that thing.” He gestured toward her nightgown, and for the first time she realized how it was sticking to her and how much of her shape it revealed. “Perhaps you'd better take that off and change into your dog-walking clothes,” he suggested discreetly. “I'll find a mop and try to get this stuff off the floor.” He started opening closets and found one, as she turned toward him and smiled. He had a nice sense of humor, and he seemed almost shy as he looked at her. He didn't act like the movie stars she knew.

“Do you want anything to eat?” she asked politely, and he laughed.

“Presumably not anything that would require syrup. You seem to be fresh out. What was it, by the way?” he asked with interest.

“Waffles,” she said from the doorway.

“Sorry I missed them.”

“There's a half a head of lettuce in the refrigerator,” she offered, and he laughed again.

“I think I'll wait. I'll pick up some food later. I'll get you some more syrup.”

“Thank you,” she said, as he poured water into a bucket, and then she scampered up the stairs, leaving sticky footprints all the way up to the bedroom. She was back a few minutes later, in jeans, a T-shirt, and running shoes. Her hair was still wet from the shower, and he had made himself some coffee and offered a cup to her, which she declined. “I only drink tea,” she explained.

“I couldn't find any,” he said, looking tired as he sat at the kitchen table. He looked like he'd had a rough couple of days, and the bruise on his cheek seemed fresh.

“We're out of everything. I'll pick up some stuff on my way home. I have to go to work, but I've only got two dogs to walk on Saturdays.”

He looked fascinated, as though she had told him she was a snake charmer. “Have you ever been bitten?” he asked in awe.

“Only once in three years, by a crazed teacup Chihuahua. The big dogs are always sweet.”

“What's your name, by the way? Since your sister didn't introduce us. You know mine, but I don't know yours.”

“My mother named us after her two favorite authors. Jane was named after Jane Austen. Mine is Colette, but no one calls me that. I'm Coco.” She held out a hand and he shook it, with a look of amusement. She was an enchanting girl.

“Colette would actually suit you,” he said with a thoughtful expression.

“I love your movies,” she said softly, feeling stupid as she said it. She had met hundreds of celebrities and famous people in her lifetime, many of them actors and important stars, but sitting across the table from him in her sister's kitchen, she felt awkward and shy, particularly since she watched his films so often and loved them so much. He was her favorite actor, and she had had a crush on him for years. She would have felt incredibly stupid if she'd admitted that to him. And now they were both staying in her sister's house. That wasn't the same thing. Now she had to treat him like a real person, instead of gawking at him on the screen.

“Thank you for saying that, about my movies,” he said politely. “Some of them are awful, and some are all right. I never watch them myself. Too embarrassing. I always hate the way I look, and think I often sound ridiculous.”

“That's the sign of a great actor,” she said with conviction. “My father said that. The ones who think they're wonderful never are. Sir Laurence Olivier didn't like his performances either.”

“That's reassuring,” Leslie said, looking at her sheepishly as he sipped his coffee. The sleepless nights he'd had, thanks to his ex, were catching up with him, and he was dying to get to bed and sleep, but he didn't want to be rude to her. “Did you know him?”

“He was a friend of my father's.” He knew who her father had been, and who her mother was, since he knew Jane. And he could see why they'd be upset that she was a dog-walker and lived at the beach, but he could also see why she would want that too. They were a lot for anyone to contend with, and he was fond of Jane, but she was a powerful woman. This girl with the auburn hair and green eyes looked like a whole different breed. She was a gentler soul. He could see it in her eyes and sense it in her manner.

She could tell that he was tired and offered to show him to his bedroom. He looked grateful when she said it, and she walked him upstairs to the main guest room, which was next to the master suite. She knew that Liz slept there occasionally when she was working late on scripts. It was a big, beautiful room with a spectacular view of the bay, but all Leslie could see was the bed, beckoning to him. He wanted to take a shower and sleep for the next hundred years, and he said as much to her.

“I'll bring back groceries in case you're hungry when you get up,” she said kindly.

“Thank you. I'll just take a shower and go to bed. See you later then,” he said as she waved and bounded down the stairs. She let the dogs back in as she left, ran out the front door, and got into her ancient van. She drove off a moment later as he watched her from the window and smiled. What a funny, lovely, unspoiled girl she was. And what a breath of fresh air to meet someone like her after the nightmare he'd just been through.

Chapter 3

Coco picked up the toy poodle and the Pekingese she always walked on Saturdays. After that she went to Safeway and stocked up on everything they might need. She could live on lettuce leaves and takeout food, and had been for two years, but with a man staying at her sister's house, she felt some obligation to supply more substantial fare. She figured that Jane would expect her to. So far Leslie Baxter seemed like a very nice person. She still couldn't quite get over his staying at the house with her, and wished her sister had warned her who was coming, other than an anonymous “Leslie” who was fleeing a psycho ex-girlfriend. Who knew it would turn out to be him? At least it would liven up the house for a few days while he was there, although given his phobia about dogs, she couldn't leave Jack with him and go home for the weekend, which she had hoped to do.

It was three o'clock by the time she came back with the groceries, an early edition of the Sunday paper, and some magazines for him. She suddenly felt obliged to play hostess and not just house-sitter, although she'd gotten off to a bit of a rocky start with maple syrup and broken glass everywhere. She was impressed that he'd been such a good sport, and had even helped her clean it up.

The house was strangely quiet when she walked in. She assumed that he was still sleeping, and the dogs had apparently tucked themselves in somewhere to do the same. So she unpacked the groceries quietly in the kitchen, and gave a start when he walked in. He was wearing a clean white T-shirt and jeans, with his very elegant, very English-looking brown suede shoes. Ian had only owned Tevas and running shoes. He didn't need anything else except hiking boots. Everything he wanted to do was involved with the outdoors, and she had shared that with him. All her mother had ever worn when she was growing up were four-inch heels. And they seemed to get higher every year.

“You're already awake?” she asked, as she put the last of the food away, and turned to look at him with a smile.

“I never went to sleep,” he said ruefully, and she looked surprised.

“How did that happen?”

“Someone beat me to it.” He beckoned her to come with him, and she followed him up the stairs to his room, faintly worried. Maybe Jane had invited someone else too, without telling them, and they had taken over his room. But she laughed as soon as she stood in the doorway to the guest room. Jack had sprawled out on the bed when Leslie was in the shower. He had his head on the pillow, was spread across the bed, and was snoring loudly. Sallie was nowhere to be seen, but Jack had made himself totally at home. “I didn't want to argue with him about it. I checked out your room, out of curiosity, and the other dog is asleep in there.”

“She's mine,” Coco explained with a grin. “This is the lord of the manor, it's his house. His name is Jack, although my sister doesn't let him sleep on the beds. He only does that when I'm here. He knows.” She walked quickly toward the bed, patted the huge dog to wake him up, and pulled him off the bed. He looked very unhappy to be so rudely awakened, and headed toward the master bedroom to join Sallie. “Sorry.” Coco looked at Leslie apologetically. “You must be beat.”

“I dozed a little on the couch. But I have to admit, a real bed will feel good. I slept in my car last night. And hid out at a friend's the night before. L.A. is a little too small for both of us just now. She's nuts,” he added, instinctively touching his cheek. “She's rather a big star, and she packs a hell of a punch. She does her own stunt work in action films.” Coco knew who he'd been dating from the tabloids, but admired him for not saying her name. He seemed very polite. “I rented out my house six months ago, for a year. I've been living with her. I'm going to have to find an apartment, once I get my bearings. I've never been mixed up in anything so crazy in my life.” He grinned at her sheepishly. “First time I've ever been slugged by a woman. Then she damn near killed me with her hair dryer, she threw it at me. When she threatened me with a gun, I figured it was time to leave. Never argue with a psychopathic woman with a gun. Or at least, generally, I try not to.” He still looked a little shaken as he smiled.

“What got her so pissed off?” Coco asked cautiously. It was a lot more exciting than her life, or than she even wanted to imagine. Ian had been the gentlest man in the world, and their arguments had been brief, respectful, and harmless. She had had relationships that ended before him, but never badly. But she had heard plenty of stories from her father over the years of his famous clients being pursued by stalkers and psychopaths.

“I'm not sure,” Leslie said in answer to her question. “She wanted to know which of my costars I'd gone out with, and then she got into a jealous rage about it, even though I explained that they were over. She kept insisting that I was going to get involved with the next one, and then she went nuts. She had a little problem with the bottle. It was all a bit over the top, to say the least. She called me on my cell and said she was going to kill me. I believe her. So I left town.”

“Maybe you need to stay a little longer than a weekend,” Coco said seriously, although it sounded typical to her of the madness she hated in Hollywood and L.A. She couldn't have lived like that herself. It was too high a price to pay for fame. “Guns and alcohol aren't such a great mix.” He nodded. He hadn't figured out what he wanted to do yet. He had called Jane to tell her about it, since Jane knew her and had worked with her, and he had wanted her assessment of just how crazy the woman was, and how dangerous she might be. Jane had suggested he get out of Dodge, and go up to their place in San Francisco. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He didn't want to run into this woman anywhere right now, and in Los Angeles, he might. Jane thought she was even more dangerous than he feared.

“I've never had anything like this happen,” he said, looking embarrassed. “My past relationships have always ended on good terms. I'm friends with all of them. None of them ever wanted to kill me, or at least not that I know of.” He sounded incredulous as he said it.

“Did you call the police?” He shook his head in answer.

“I can't. If I do, it will be all over the tabloids and that will make it even worse.”

“My father had a death threat once, from a crazy client, when I was a little girl. He called the police and they gave him guards around the clock for a while. I was terrified the actor was going to kill him. I had nightmares about it for years,” Coco confessed.

“Yes, but she probably wasn't an ex-girlfriend. This is the kind of stuff the tabloids love. I don't want to be involved in a mess like that, or cause it. I've got a break between films now. I'd rather just stay away for a while. I might go to New York for a few months. I don't have to work again till October, so I've got time.”

“She'll probably find out you're there. And my sister and Liz aren't coming back for five or six months. You can stay here while you figure it out, and maybe she'll calm down.”

“I think it'll take a lobotomy for that to happen. I'm hoping she gets obsessed with someone else. In the meantime, I'm planning to lie low, and she'll never figure out that I'm here. I haven't been to San Francisco in twenty years. I always see Jane in L.A. We worked on a picture together.” Coco remembered that, although she had never met him with Jane before. But she was aware that they were friends.

“Well, you'll be safe here. And now that Jack is out of your bed, get some sleep,” she said with a friendly smile. It sounded like a nasty story, and he looked shaken up by it.

Leslie thanked her for rescuing him, and as she headed to her own room, he closed his door. She closed hers too. Both dogs were asleep on her bed, and she put the TV on with the sound low. She dozed off for a while herself, and around eight o'clock she went downstairs to make herself dinner. She took some sushi she had bought out of the fridge and made a salad. She was eating it and reading the Sunday paper when he walked in, looking sleepy, and more rested than he had before. He yawned and stretched as he sat down. They were like two shipwrecked people on a desert island. The house was quiet, and it was easy and pleasant. It was Saturday night, and neither of them had obligations or plans.

“Would you like some?” She pointed at the sushi, and he nodded as she got up to get more out of the fridge. And he was instantly on his feet to help her.

“You don't have to wait on me. I'm the interloper here. Thanks for buying food today. I'll get the next round.” They were like two roommates who had wound up sharing a house, and good manners prevailed. He was very English and obviously very nicely brought up. He helped himself to some sushi, and she gave him a plate, and made him a salad, as he thanked her.

“What part of England are you from?” she asked as they ate their dinner, and Jack sat watching them with interest. Sallie had smelled the fish and gone back to bed.

“A little town just outside London. I never got to London till I was twelve. My father was a postman, and my mum was a nurse. I had a very middle-class upbringing, and a very normal home life as a kid. My parents were horrified I wanted to be an actor, and embarrassed by it actually, at first anyway. My dad wanted me to be a teacher, or a banker, or a doctor. I faint at the sight of blood. And I thought teaching was too boring. So I took acting lessons and started out doing Shakespeare. I was bloody awful.” He grinned at her. “Good salad. No syrup?” he teased her.

“I bought more.” She laughed at him. “And waffles.”

“Perfect. I'll make them tomorrow. And what did you want to be when you grew up?” he asked her, looking as though he cared about the answer.

“I was never really sure. I just didn't want to be my parents. Or in film like my sister, she was so intense about it. She's that way about everything she does, but it didn't look like a lot of fun. I always hated writing. For about five minutes, I wanted to be an artist. But I don't have a lot of talent. I do watercolors once in a while, but nothing terrific. Just beach scenes and still lifes of flowers and vases. I studied art history in college. I probably would have liked teaching, or research of some kind. And then my father talked me into law. He said it was a good starting point for anything I'd want to do later, like go into his business and be an agent. I didn't want to do that either, and I hated law school. The teachers were mean to everyone, the students were nasty and competitive and neurotic. Everyone was trying to put everyone else down. I was terrified for two whole years and cried all the time. I was scared to death I'd flunk out, and then my father died and I quit.”

“And then what?”

“I was relieved.” She smiled at him across the table. “I was living with somebody then. My parents didn't approve of him either. He had dropped out of law school too, in Australia. He loved the outdoors, and he ran a diving school, so we moved to the beach, and I was never happier in my life. I came up with the dog-walking idea, just to tide me over for a while, and three years later I'm still doing it. It works for me. I'm living at the beach, and it's what I want to do for now. My whole house is smaller than this kitchen. My mother calls it a 'shack,' and I love it.”

“And the Australian with the diving school?” Leslie asked her with interest as he finished his salad, and sat back in his chair, looking at her. She looked like a normal, happy woman, except when she talked about law school. “Is he still around too?”

“No, he isn't,” she said, shaking her head quietly.

“That's too bad. Your eyes lit up when you talked about him.”

“He was a great guy. We lived together for two years, and then he had an accident and died.” Leslie looked at her more intently as she said it. She looked sad about it, but not distraught. She seemed as though she had made her peace with it a long time before. But he was startled by what she'd said, and sorry for her. She didn't look sorry for herself.

“Car accident?”

“Hang gliding. A gust of wind blew him into a cliff, and he fell. It was a little over two years ago. It was very hard at first. But I guess those things happen. It was rotten luck for us. We were planning to get married, and go back to Australia to live. I think I would have liked it.”

“You might.” Leslie nodded. “Sydney looks a lot like San Francisco.”

“He said that too. That's where he was from. We never got there. I guess we weren't meant to.” She sounded philosophical about it, and he admired her for it. There was nothing maudlin about this girl.

“Has there been anyone since?” He was curious about her.

She smiled at Leslie Baxter sitting across the table from her in her sister's kitchen. It was so weird, it made her laugh. Leslie Baxter was asking about her love life. Who would have thought?

“Just a lot of bad blind dates with boring guys. I tried for a while about a year ago, just so my friends and family would shut up. It just wasn't worth the effort, or maybe I wasn't ready. I've kind of given it a rest for the last six months. It's hard starting again with someone new. We got along really well.”

“You don't look as though you'd be difficult to get along with,” he said matter-of-factly “I was involved with a woman like that once. She was fantastic.” He looked dreamy as he said it.

“What happened?”

“I was stupid, and young. My career was just starting, and I wanted to stay in Hollywood and play for a while. She was in England and she wanted to get married and have babies. By the time I figured out that she was right, she had given up on me and married someone else. She waited for about three years, which was more than I deserved at the time. She has five kids now and lives in Sussex. Nice woman. I had another very good woman in my life. We never married, but we have a daughter. Monica got pregnant around the time the relationship had run out of gas, and she decided to keep the baby. I was pretty leery of the whole idea at the time. As it turned out, she was right. The relationship was shot, but my daughter Chloe is the best thing that ever happened in my life.”

“Where is she?” Coco looked surprised. He had a very Hollywood life, with women trying to kill him, broken romances, and a child with a woman he'd never married, but he seemed very normal and down to earth at the same time. Or maybe that was just an act he put on. She had met a lot of crazy actors through her father in her youth. Some of them seemed like normal people, but they weren't. In the end, they were as crazy and narcissistic as the others. Her father had warned her never to go out with an actor. But Leslie seemed different. He seemed real, and for the moment at least, not self-centered or arrogant, or impressed with himself. He seemed very willing to admit to his own mistakes, and wasn't trying to blame anyone else, except for his recent disaster, which didn't sound like it was his fault anyway. Lunatics did happen, particularly in his world.

“Chloe lives in New York, with her mother,” he explained. “She's a serious actress on Broadway, and a surprisingly good mother. She keeps her out of the limelight, and Chloe comes out to see me two or three times a year. I go to New York to visit her every chance I get. She's six, and the sweetest little elf on earth.” He beamed with pride when he spoke of the child. “Her mother and I are the best of friends. Sometimes I wonder if it would have lasted if we got married. I don't think so though. She's a very serious person and a little dark. She got involved with a married politician after we broke up. Everyone knew about it, but they kept it very quiet. And there have been a number of very rich, powerful men since. I was too boring for her. And too immature at the time. I'm forty-one, and I think I've only just started to grow up. It's embarrassing to admit, but I think that defines late bloomer. I think actors tend to be very immature. We're spoiled.” The way he admitted it so openly touched her.

“I'm twenty-eight,” she said shyly, “and I still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I wanted to be an Indian princess when I was a kid, and once I figured out that that wasn't going to happen, I haven't been able to come up with anything else equally appealing since.” She looked faintly disappointed and he laughed. “I enjoy my life the way it is. The dog-walking thing works for now. And even if it doesn't make sense to my family, I'm content the way things are.”

“That's all that matters,” he said gently. “Does your family pressure you about it?” But knowing Jane and who her mother was, it seemed obvious to him that they would.

Coco laughed out loud in answer. “Are you kidding? They think I'm a total flop and a disaster. They all have high-powered careers. My sister got her first Oscar nomination at my age. She's been a huge box-office success since she was thirty. My mother's been writing best sellers since she was in diapers. My father founded the agency himself, and represented every major star in Hollywood. And I walk dogs. Can you even imagine what they think of that? My mother got married at twenty-two. She had Jane when she was twenty-three. Jane and Liz have been together since Jane was twenty-nine. And I feel like I'm fifteen years old and in high school. I don't even care if I get invited to the prom. I'm happy living with my dog on the beach.” He didn't remind her that she would have been married by then if Ian hadn't died. And Coco was aware of that too. “I come from a family of overachievers, who knew what they wanted the moment they were born. I swear I was switched at the hospital at birth. Somewhere out there is a nice normal family who lives in a beach community, and would think it's great that I walk dogs, and wouldn't care if I never get married. And they probably wound up with a kid who wants to be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon or a Hollywood agent, and they don't know what hit them. Meanwhile, every time I'm around my family, or even talk to them, I don't know what hit me.” It was the most honest she had been with another person since Ian, particularly one she had just met, not to mention a movie star, and it worried her a little that Leslie was Jane's friend. He could see it in her eyes.

“I'm not going to say any of this to Jane, you know. So you don't need to look so worried.” He seemed to be able to read her thoughts, as though he understood.

“We just have nothing in common,” Coco said with tears in her eyes, and then felt silly about it, and embarrassed. “I get so tired of their telling me everything I do wrong, and everything I'm not. And in a funny way, it works for them. It makes them feel important, and my sister has been using me as her minion all my life. If I had a life, it might actually not be quite as convenient for them. Jane is a good person and I love her, but she's very tough,” Coco explained and he nodded.

“I know. Maybe you just need to say no,” he said softly, and Coco laughed again and wiped her eyes with her T-shirt, while he tried not to notice her pink bra when she did. She was completely unaware that she had exposed it, and it made him smile. In some ways, she really was a kid, and he liked that about her. She was so honest and so real, so gentle and so kind.

“I've been trying to say no to them all my life. That's why I moved to Bolinas. At least it puts a bridge between us. But you'll notice who's babysitting the house and the dog.”

“One of these days you'll surprise yourself and put your foot down,” he said kindly. “You'll do it when it's time and feels right. And Jane's not easy to turn down, even for me. She's a strong woman, and hard in a lot of ways, although I like her a lot, and she's so incredibly smart. Liz is too but she's a much gentler person. She mellows Jane out a lot, or at least she tries.”

“Jane's a lot like my dad. She's very blunt and direct. My mother is more manipulative to get her way. She cries a lot.” And then Coco laughed at herself as she looked at him across the table. “I guess I do too. I'm sorry. You didn't come here to listen to my sad stories about running away from a famous family in Hollywood to live in a shack at the beach. It's a pretty easy life.”

“Your stories don't sound so sad to me,” he said honestly “except for your Australian friend. That's sad for him, and for you. But you're young, you've got years and years and years ahead of you, to figure out what you want to do, and find the right person. And it sounds like you have a good time and a good life in the meantime. That's pretty enviable, if you ask me. I think you're doing better than you know. And they don't have to approve of what you do. My parents still worry about me. They think I missed the boat on marriage and kids, and they may be right. They love Chloe, but they'd love to see me married, with four kids, and back in England with all of them, where they think I belong. That's their assessment, not mine. This Hollywood thing comes at a high price. Sometimes you wind up giving up the wrong things. I've figured that much out myself.”

“It's not too late,” Coco reassured him. “You could still wind up married with ten kids, and probably will. There's no one to set the rules about when that has to happen.”

“It's a lot more complicated when you're famous,” he said thoughtfully. “The good ones are wary and figure you must be some kind of freak, or a player at best. And the ones that come like moths to a flame are the weirdos and groupies and some really bad people, like the one I'm running away from. Once you're famous, you stand out like a beacon in the darkness to them. And those are the ones that make me run like hell. Although this time, I didn't see this one coming. She hid her game pretty well at first, I thought she was a genuinely nice girl, and I thought maybe it would be easier because she's famous too. Big, big mistake. She turned out to be everything I don't want.”

“So you'll try again,” Coco said, smiling at him, and then got up to clear the table. She offered him some ice cream, and when he accepted with delight, she handed him a Dove bar from the freezer. She had bought half a dozen flavors for him that afternoon, since she didn't know what he liked. They were in effect strangers, and yet they were sharing their deepest secrets, regrets, and fears with each other, and they both felt comfortable about it.

“I get tired of trying again sometimes,” he admitted as the ice cream dribbled down his chin, and he looked like a kid himself.

“I felt that way when people were trying to set me up. That's why I stopped for a while. I figured if it's going to happen, it'll just happen by itself. And if it doesn't, I'm fine the way I am.” He laughed at that.

“Miss Barrington,” he said formally, “I can assure you that, at twenty-eight, it's not over, and you're not going to wind up alone. It may take you a while to find the one you want. But any man would be fortunate to have you. And I promise you, the right one will come along. Just give it time.”

She smiled at him then, “I am going to make you the same promise, Mr. Baxter. The right one will come along. I promise. Just give it time,” she repeated his own words back to him. “You're a terrific guy, and if you stay away from the psychos, a nice woman will find you. And that's a promise.” She stuck her graceful hand across the table, and he shook it. They both felt better for having talked to each other, and winding up in Jane's house at that time had turned out to be a blessing for them both. They each felt as though they had a new friend.

“What happens in this town on a Saturday night?” Leslie asked her with interest, and she laughed.

“Not much. People go out for dinner, and by ten o'clock everyone is off the streets. This is a small town, not like New York or L.A.”

“At your age, you should be out having fun on a Saturday night, not sitting around talking to an old fart like me,” he chided her, and she laughed again.

“Are you kidding? I'm sitting here talking to the biggest movie star in the world, in my sister's kitchen. Every woman in the country would give their right arm to spend Saturday night like this,” she said admiringly. It was heady stuff, even for her. She hadn't been around her parents' world in years, or even her sister's. “Not to mention what Saturday night is like in Bolinas, where I live. There would be ten old hippies sitting at the bar, if that. Everyone else would be home in bed by now, and me too, watching one of your movies.” They both laughed at that. He helped her put their dishes in the dishwasher, turned off the lights on the main floor, and he walked slowly upstairs behind her, as the dogs followed. It still made him nervous to be around the bull mastiff. Sallie was smaller and less imposing, and seemed less ominous to him. Jack could have knocked him down in seconds, although Coco knew he wouldn't do that. He was even gentler than Sallie. But he weighed more than Leslie did.

They said goodnight to each other on the landing, outside their respective bedrooms. Leslie asked what she was doing the next day, and she said she had no plans. She never worked on Sundays, although she would have loved to go home for the day, and was thinking about it.

“I wouldn't mind seeing that funny little beach town where you live,” he said hopefully. “How far is it from here?”

“Less than an hour,” she answered, smiling at him. She would have loved to show it to him.

“I'd like to see that shack of yours, and walk on the beach. There's always something so restorative about the ocean. I had a house in Malibu for a while. I was really sorry after I sold it. Maybe we can take a drive over to Bolinas tomorrow,” he said, stifling a yawn. Now that he was relaxing and felt safe again, he realized that he was exhausted. “I'll make you waffles when we get up,” he promised, and then kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks for listening tonight.” He really liked her. She was such a decent, honest person, and there was nothing she wanted from him. Not fame, not fortune, no press or publicity, she didn't even want dinner. He felt surprisingly comfortable with her, considering he had only met her that morning. One sensed easily that she was someone to be trusted, and she felt the same way about him.

He heard his cell phone ring as he walked into his room. The number that showed on his caller ID was blocked, but he was almost sure it was the psycho bitch from hell, trying to stalk him. He let it go to voice mail, and a minute later he got a text message from her, threatening him again. She had lost it. He deleted it and didn't answer. He closed his door, took off his clothes, and got into bed. He lay there for a long time, thinking about Coco and the things they'd said to each other. He loved her openness and honesty about herself. He had tried to be equally so with her, and thought he had been. He let his mind wander when he turned off the light, but he couldn't sleep.

An hour later, he decided to go down to the kitchen for a glass of milk, and saw that the lights were still on in her bedroom. He knocked softly on her door to ask if she wanted anything, and she called out and said to come in. She was lying between both dogs in a pair of faded flannel pajamas, watching a movie. He glanced at the screen and looked into his own face. It was like seeing himself in a giant mirror, as he stared at it in amazement, and Coco looked embarrassed to have been caught watching his film.

“Sorry,” she said, looking sheepish, and like a little girl again, “it's my favorite movie.” He smiled then. It was quite a compliment from a woman he had come to admire in a single day. She wasn't trying to flatter him. If he hadn't come in, he wouldn't even have known she was watching his movie.

“I liked that one too although I thought I was awful in it,” he admitted casually, grinning at her. “I'm going downstairs. Do you want anything?”

“No, thanks.” It was nice of him to ask. They felt like two kids at a pajama party, in Jane's very sophisticated house. Coco had left her clothes all over the floor of the bedroom. It made it look homier to her. Everything was so neat when Jane was around. Coco thought her mess added humanity to it, although her sister wouldn't have agreed.

“See you in the morning. Enjoy the movie,” Leslie said to her, as he closed the door, and went downstairs for the glass of milk he had wanted and another ice cream. He half hoped that Coco would come down and join him, but she was too engrossed in the movie. He went back upstairs after he finished the milk and ice cream. And this time, when he went back to bed, he fell into a sound sleep within minutes, and didn't stir until morning. He felt as though he had left all his worries behind in L.A., and he had found just what he had wanted when he came here. A safe place, out of harm's way, far from people who wanted to hurt him. And in the safe place, he had found something even more rare. He had found a safe woman. He hadn't felt that way since he had left England and come to Hollywood. And he knew that, tucked away in this house in San Francisco, with this funny girl and the two big dogs, nothing bad could ever touch him here.

Chapter 4

It was another perfect sunny day when they both woke up the next morning. The weather was warm, and the sky was a brilliant blue. Leslie came downstairs before she did, and had already made bacon to go with their waffles. He poured himself a glass of orange juice, and put the kettle on to make tea for both of them. He was pouring the water into two mugs when Coco walked into the kitchen. She had just let both dogs out into the garden. She was going to take them for a long walk after breakfast.

“Smells delicious,” she said, as he handed her a mug of green tea that he had found in the cupboard. He had helped himself to some English Breakfast tea, and drank it without milk or sugar. And a moment later he set a plate of waffles down on the table for her. The maple syrup was already on the table. They both laughed as they remembered the scene of utter chaos when he had walked into the kitchen the day before. “Thank you for making breakfast,” she said politely as he sat down across from her, with his own plate of waffles and bacon.

“I'm not sure I trust you in the kitchen,” he said, teasing her, and then glanced out at the bay through the enormous window. “Are we going to the beach today?” he asked, looking at the sailboats already gathering in race formations. There was constant activity on the bay and an endless flock of boats.

“Would that be all right with you?” she asked cautiously. “I can go by myself if you don't want to. I need to pick up some things, and I should check my mail.”

“Would you mind if I go with you?” He didn't want to overstep his bounds with her, or be a nuisance. She probably had things to do, or might prefer some peace and privacy at her cottage, or even a chance to see friends.

“I'd love it,” she said honestly. And how painful could it be spending a day in Bolinas with Leslie Baxter? “I want to show it to you. It's a crazy little village, but it's terrific.” She had told him about there being no signs, so no one could find them.

An hour later, they got in her van with both dogs, wearing jeans, T-shirts, and flip-flops. She warned him that it could get chilly if the fog rolled in, so they had both brought sweaters. And there was no sign of anything but blue skies as they drove down Divisadero toward Lombard, and joined the flow of traffic heading north to the Golden Gate Bridge. They chatted easily as he told her about growing up in England, and he admitted that sometimes he missed it. But he also confessed that it was different now when he went home. His fame had even changed the way people treated them there. No matter what he did to convince them otherwise, the ordinary people he had known growing up now acted as though he were special or different in some way, no matter how ordinary he still felt.

“Tell me about Chloe,” Coco said, as they drove across the bridge, and up the hill to the rainbow tunnel in Marin.

“She's delicious,” Leslie said, and his face lit up the moment he thought about her. “I wish I saw her more often. She's very smart, and extremely adorable. She takes after her mother.” He said it with a look of deep affection, not only for the child, but also for the woman who had been his girlfriend long before. “I'll show you pictures of her when we get to Bolinas.” He always kept a batch of them in his wallet. “She wants to be a ballerina or a truck driver when she grows up, apparently she thinks they're interchangeable and equally interesting professions. She says truck drivers get to dump things all over the road, which she thinks is extremely entertaining. She takes every imaginable kind of lesson. French, computer, piano, ballet.” He looked proud and happy whenever he talked about his daughter. He said his relationship with her and her mother was easy and straightforward and always had been. “Her mother had a serious boyfriend for a while recently, and I thought she was going to get married. I was a little worried. He was Italian, and Florence would have been even harder for me to get to than New York. I was relieved when they broke up, although Monica deserves to have someone in her life too. To be honest, I was jealous of him with Chloe. He got to see more of her than I do. I don't think her mother's seeing anyone right now,” he said as they took the Stinson Beach turnoff and drove through Mill Valley.

“Would you ever go back to her, because of Chloe?” Coco asked him with interest, and he shook his head.

“I couldn't, and neither could she. The trail is cold on all that now. It's been too long, and there's too much water under the bridge. It was really over for us before Chloe was born. She was just a wonderful accident that happened. Chloe is the best thing that ever happened to either of us. She makes everything worthwhile.”

“I can't even imagine having children,” Coco said honestly, “at least not now.” And even when Ian had been alive, she had felt too young to think about having kids, even with him. “Maybe when I'm in my thirties,” she said vaguely as they drove along. He admired the way she handled the curves in the road with the ancient van. It made some pretty scary noises, but it chugged along. Leslie mentioned that he loved working on cars. It was a boyhood passion he had never outgrown. He was impressed by the hairpin turns that followed the cliffs along the coastline, which she negotiated with ease. She seemed competent and calm and in control of her life to him, no matter what her mother and sister thought. He felt certain they were wrong. And the closer they got to the beach, the happier Coco was.

“I hope you don't get carsick,” she said, glancing over at him with concern.

“Not yet. I'll let you know.” The weather was gorgeous and the scenery fantastic. Both dogs were sound asleep in the back of the van, and after twenty minutes of sharp turns, the road dropped down to Stinson Beach. Half a dozen shops sat haphazardly next to each other on either side of the road. An art gallery, a bookstore, two restaurants, a grocery store, and a gift shop. “This has to be one of the lost wonders of the world,” Leslie said, looking amused at the quaint town, if you could call it that. It was over in two blocks, and they rounded a turn, passing some narrow roads with falling-down shacks.

“There's a gated community over there.” She gestured vaguely past a lagoon. “And a bird preserve on our right. It's pretty unspoiled here.” And then she smiled broadly. “Wait till you see Bolinas. It's a time warp and even less civilized than all this.” He loved the ruggedness of it, and the simplicity. This was no fancy beach town, and it felt as though it was a million miles from any city. He could see why she lived here. The feeling he had as they drove along the unmarked road was one of ease and peace. It was as though one could leave one's burdens far behind just by coming here. Even the harrowing drive over had relaxed him.

Coco took an unmarked left turn ten minutes later, and they rose onto a small plateau. There were houses that looked more like old farms, huge ancient trees, and a tiny church.

“I'll show you the town first,” she explained, and then laughed as she said it, “although that's somewhat euphemistic. It's even smaller than Stinson Beach. Our beach isn't as good, this is more rural, but that keeps the tourists away too. It's too hard to find and too hard to get here.” As she said it, they drove past a ramshackle restaurant, a grocery store, the head shop, and the ancient dress shop with a tie-dyed dress of some kind in the window. Leslie looked around with a broad grin.

“This is it?” He looked vastly amused. The stores were tiny and from another era, but everything around them was pretty and green. There were big, solid old trees, and they sat on a slight elevation above the sea. It looked like country more than beach.

“This is it,” Coco confirmed. “If you need incense or a bong, that's the place to go.” She pointed, and he chuckled.

“I think I can manage without, just for today.”

She drove past the cluster of stores then, and down the road dotted with old-fashioned mailboxes, picket fences, and the occasional wrought-iron gate. “There are a few really lovely houses here, but they're a well-kept secret and tucked away. Most of the homes are just cottages, or old surfer shacks. In the old days, a lot of the hippies used to live in broken-down school buses near the beach. It's more respectable these days, but not much,” she said with a look of peace on her face. It felt good to be back.

She left the van parked outside her house, let the dogs out, and they followed her and Leslie through the weather-beaten wooden gate. Ian had built it for them. She unlocked the front door and walked inside, as Leslie came in cautiously behind her and looked around. She had a perfect view of the ocean from her living room, although the windows were old and not particularly large, unlike the floor-to-ceiling picture windows in Jane's house in the city. Nothing here had been built for show, it was just a cozy place to live, and Leslie could see that. It looked like a dollhouse to him. There were books stacked up on the floor, old magazines on the table. One of her watercolors was propped up on an easel in the corner, part of the curtains had come unhooked. But despite the friendly disorder that resulted from her living alone, the place was inviting and looked well lived in. She used the fireplace every night.

“It's not much, but I love it,” Coco said happily. There were some framed watercolors on the walls, and pictures of her with Ian on the mantelpiece and on the shelves of the overstuffed bookcase. The kitchen was open and slightly in disarray but clean, and behind the living room was her tiny bedroom with a cozy comforter on the bed, and a faded old quilt she had found at a garage sale.

“It's wonderful,” Leslie said, his eyes lighting up. “It's not a shack, as you said, it's a home.” It had a hundred times the warmth of her sister's elegant digs on Broadway, and he could see easily why Coco preferred it. He glanced at a photograph of her and Ian looking happy and young in wet suits on his boat, and then he walked out onto the deck behind her. She had an extraordinary view of the ocean, the beach, and in the far distance the city. “I think if I lived here, I'd never leave,” he said, and meant it.

“I don't, except to go to work.” She smiled at him. It was a lifetime away from the mansion in Bel-Air where she had grown up, and now this was all she wanted. She didn't need to explain it to him, he understood it, and looked down at her with a gentle smile. He felt as though she had just shown him her secret clubhouse, her hidden garden. Being in the house with her was like looking deep into her soul.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” he said softly. “I feel honored.” As he said it, the dogs came bounding up to them, already dusted with sand, and Jack had a branch with some leaves on it tangled up in his collar. The big dog looked elated to be there, and so did Sallie, as Coco smiled up at Leslie.

“Thank you for understanding what this means to me. My family thought I lost my mind when I moved here. It's hard to explain to people like them.” Leslie found himself wondering if she would have stayed there if Ian were still alive, or someplace like it in Australia, and he suspected that she would. Coco was someone who wanted desperately to let go of her origins, the values she found fault with, and all the trappings of that world. This was the outer manifestation of all she had rejected when she came here. The falsity, the obsession with material goods, the fight to get ahead, the sacrifice of people for careers. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she offered, as he let himself down into one of the two faded deck chairs.

“I'd love it.” He noticed the old statue of Quan Yin then, which Ian had given her. “The goddess of compassion,” he said softly as she handed him a mug of tea a few minutes later and sat in the deck chair next to his. “She reminds me of you. You're a kind woman, Coco, and a fine one. I saw the photographs of your man. He looks like a good man,” he said respectfully. Ian was a tall, handsome blond, and the couple looked carefree and happy in the photo. For a moment as he walked by the smiling images, Leslie felt envious of them. He suspected that in his entire life he had never had what they had shared.

“He was a good man.” She looked out to sea and then turned to smile at Leslie. “Everything I want in the world is here. The ocean, the beach, a quiet, peaceful life, this deck where I watch the sun come up every morning, and a fire at night. My dog, books, people I care about in houses nearby. I don't need more than this. It works for me. Maybe one day I'll want something different, but not now.”

“Do you think you'll ever go back, to the 'real' world, I mean? Or perhaps I should say the unreal one, where you used to live?”

“I hope not,” she said firmly. “Why would I? None of that ever made sense to me, even when I was a child,” Coco said as she closed her eyes and turned her face toward the sun. Leslie watched her closely. Her hair shone like freshly polished copper, and both dogs had gone to sleep at their feet. It was a life one could get used to, an absence of complication and artifice. But he could imagine that it would get lonely too. It was a life for the most part without people, or strong attachments for her right now. But his was no better. He was hiding from a woman who was trying to kill him. Without question, this made more sense. Leslie loved everything he was seeing here, but he wasn't sure he could live here. Although thirteen years younger than he was, Coco seemed to have found herself long before he did. He was still looking, though closer to knowing what he wanted than he had been in years. At least he knew what he didn't want. Coco had figured that out sooner too.

“I have to admit…” He chuckled softly as Coco opened her eyes and looked at him again. Everything about her was centered, solid, and peaceful. She was like a long drink of pure water from a mountain stream. “I can't see your sister here.” Coco laughed at that too.

“She hates it. Lizzie likes it more than she does, but it's not their thing. They are women of the city. Jane thinks San Francisco is a village. I think they both prefer L.A., but they love their house here, and Lizzie says it's easier to write here than there. There aren't as many distractions.”

Leslie was still smiling. “I remember when I met Jane. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was in her mid-twenties and she was a knockout. She still is. I had a huge crush on her for about a year, I kept taking her out, and she kept treating me like a buddy. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I finally lost it completely and kissed her one night after we had dinner, and she looked at me like I was insane and told me she was gay. She said she had done everything she could think of to let me know, including wear men's clothes from time to time when we went out. I just thought she was eccentric and it made her look sexy. I felt like the biggest idiot you can imagine, but we've been great friends ever since. And I really like Liz. They're perfect for each other. Liz softens her somehow. Jane has mellowed a lot over the years.”

“That's a scary thought,” Coco commented. “She's still pretty tough. On me, anyway. As far as she's concerned, I never measure up. And I don't think I ever will.” The secret was to stop trying, but Coco knew better than anyone that she hadn't gotten there yet. She still tried too hard to win her sister's approval, even if she lived in Bolinas.

“She probably wants the best for you, and worries about you,” Leslie said reasonably, as they sipped their mugs of tea. Coco liked sitting next to him, staring out at the ocean, and talking about life.

“Maybe. But not everyone can be like her. I don't even want to try. I'm headed in the opposite direction. Away from all that. My mother doesn't understand it either. I'm just different. I always was.”

“I think that's good,” he said peacefully, relaxing in the deck chair.

“So do I. But it scares most people. They think they have to be the same as everyone else, and accept lives and values that don't fit. Theirs never fit me, even when I was little.”

“I can see that in Chloe, even now,” he said thoughtfully. “She doesn't want to be an actress, like me or her mother. She'd rather drive a truck. I think that's her way of saying she's who she is, and she's not us. You have to respect that.”

“My parents never did. They just ignored it, hoping it would go away. You're way ahead of the game if you already respect who she is at six.” Coco smiled as she thought about it. “My mother wanted us both to be debutantes. Jane had recently come out and was militantly into gay rights. She got off the hook because I think my mother was afraid she'd show up in a tuxedo instead of a dress. She got a lot more pissed off at me eleven years later. I said I'd rather cut my liver out with an ice pick than make my debut. I thought it was wrong and elitist, a throwback to another era where the whole purpose of it was to find a husband. I went to South Africa for Christmas that year instead, and helped build a sewage system in a village. I had a lot more fun than I would have had at the cotillion. My mother had hysterics and wouldn't talk to me for six months. My father was cooler about it. But he wouldn't have been when I dropped out of law school. I guess they each had their dreams for us. Jane doesn't quite fit, but they overlooked it because she's a big success, which was always the gold standard for them. I never bought into that and I never will,” she said, sounding sure of herself in a way that he admired.

“Your family will get used to it eventually,” Leslie said in a quiet tone, but from what she'd said to him so far, he wasn't sure they would. Coco was not someone who wanted to meet another person's expectations if they felt wrong to her. She was totally true to herself and all that she believed, whatever the cost to her. He respected that in her immensely. “I like your watercolor on the easel, by the way. It looks very peaceful.”

“I don't do those much anymore,” she admitted. “I usually give them away as gifts. They're just fun to relax with.” He could sense that she was talented at many things, and enjoyed them all, even if she hadn't yet discovered her final goal. In some ways, he envied her the exploration. He got tired of acting sometimes, and all the craziness that went with it.

They sat for a while in silence, lost in their own thoughts, and finally he dozed off. She took their mugs inside, and packed a few things to take back to the city with her. And when she came back out on the deck, he woke up.

“Does anyone ever swim here?” he asked, feeling lazy and sleepy in the sun.

“Sometimes.” She smiled. “There are shark attacks occasionally, which discourage the faint-hearted, and the water's pretty cold. It's better with a wet suit. I have one about your size if you want.” Ian was about the same height as Leslie, and a little broader and more athletic. She still had his old wet suits in the garage, and his diving gear. She had thought about giving them away, but never did. She liked seeing his things there, it felt less lonely that way, and he seemed less gone, as though he might come back and use them.

“I think the 'occasional shark attacks' just did it for me,” he chuckled. “I'm a devoted and confirmed coward. I had to dive with a shark in a picture once. It was supposedly trained and sedated. I opted to use a stuntman for everything except the love scenes. I was trained and sedated for those myself.” She laughed at what he said.

“I'm not very brave either,” she confessed with a shy look, and he instantly disagreed.

“Are you serious? I think you're extremely brave. About important things. You've flown in the face of tradition with your family, you've bucked the system. In fact, you've walked away, and done it with courage and grace. No matter how much pressure they've put on you, you've done what's right for you, and what you believe. You loved a man and lost him, and you're not lying here whining— you've gone on. You've stayed here. You live alone in a funny little community. You're not afraid to live alone, or be alone. You've created a job that works for you, even if those you love insult you for it. All of that takes courage. It takes a lot of courage, Coco, to be different. And you do it all with dignity and poise. I'm full of admiration for you.” They were lovely things to say, and she appreciated his recognizing who she was, without telling her everything she was doing wrong. Instead he was validating the decisions she had made and the life she had chosen. She smiled warmly at him after what he said.

“Thank you. I admire you too, Leslie. You're not afraid to admit it when you're wrong, or made a mistake. You're amazingly humble given who you are, what you've accomplished, and the world you live in. You could be a real jerk with all of that, and you aren't. You've managed to stay real in spite of it.”

“My family would disown me if I didn't,” he said honestly. “Maybe that's what keeps me true to myself. I have to face them, and myself at some point. It's very nice being a movie star, and having people fall all over themselves to give you what you want. But at the end of the day, you're still only a human being, a good one, or a bad one. It's embarrassing in my business to see people act like fools, and a lot of people do. I don't have a lot of patience with it. And most of the time, when I look at myself, I see all the things I do wrong, not the ones I do right. Maybe in that sense,” he said, looking at her seriously, “being extremely insecure on a long-term basis is a good thing.” They both laughed at what he said. “I'm impressed that you don't seem insecure.”

“I am. I'm just very stubborn.” She sighed then. “I'm always trying to figure out who I am, and what I want to do. I know how I got here, and why. I just can't seem to figure out where I want to go from here. Or maybe in the long run this will be what I want. I haven't decided yet.”

“It'll come to you. At least this way you have a lot of options. All doors are open to you.”

“I like the ones I've opened so far. I'm just not sure which ones I want to open next.”

“We all feel that way at times. Everyone else looks as though they have the answers. They're just faking it. They don't know any more than we do. Or they've kept their worlds very small. It's easier for them that way. If you're willing to look out in the world, it's a lot more exciting, but sometimes it's scary as hell.” He seemed very humble as he said it, and not afraid to show her his fears and uncertainties as well.

“You're right,” she agreed. “It is scary. What about you? What are you going to do now? Find an apartment and go back to L.A.?” And start all over again, looking for a new woman? She didn't ask the question, but it was on both their minds. She wondered how many times you could start again, meeting people, singling one out, giving fate a chance, moving forward, and then ultimately being disappointed and ending it again. At some point that had to get old. Even after two wonderful years with Ian, she was having trouble getting up the courage to try again. She wondered if it was harder for her because everything with him had been so right. But if you wound up with the wrong woman every time, how many times could you start again? She could only imagine how many failed romances Leslie Baxter had had. At forty-one, starting over had to seem like a very, very old game to him. It was precisely what he was thinking when she asked.

“I'll find something temporary, I guess. I get my house back in six months, and I start a picture in four. I'm going on location in Venice for that. The tenant will be out of my house by the time I get back. I could stay at a hotel now, but there isn't a lot of privacy there. And it would be a lot easier for Miss Psycho Ex to get to me in a hotel, if she even cares two weeks from now. My guess is that she'll find someone else to torture fairly fast. She's not one to be without a man for long. As far as all that goes”—he answered the question she hadn't asked but he had understood—“I'm more inclined to wait for a while. I need a bit of a break after all that. It was something of a shock, to have misjudged someone so totally and been so wrong.” Unconsciously, he rubbed his bruised cheek as he spoke. He had left his cell phone at the house in the city, in order to avoid her text messages for a while. Leslie never wanted to speak to her again, although he knew that eventually, in their world, their paths would inevitably cross. He wasn't looking forward to that. “I don't need romance in my life. Not for a while anyway. I'm beginning to think I want the real thing, or nothing at all. This passing fancy stuff, for a while, is a lot of work, and always turns into a mess. It's fun for about five minutes, and then you spend a hell of a lot of time cleaning it up. Rather like the maple syrup disaster when we met.” She smiled at what he said. “Cleaning up after a bad romance is like that, but not nearly as much fun. And a lot harder to clean up.” His ex-girlfriend had already told him that she was going to destroy everything he had left at her house. The text message after that had said she had. Nothing he had left there couldn't be replaced, but it was still a giant nuisance and a hell of an affront. He laughed then at his next thought. “I suppose I'm homeless, then. That's a novel experience for me. I don't usually live with women, and certainly not at their place. I was a bit too overconfident about this. She played an awfully good game at first. It turns out that she's a much better actress than I thought. She should be up for an Oscar for our first three months. It's a hell of a lesson to learn at forty-one. I guess one can be a fool at any age.”

“I'm sorry it worked out that way” she said sympathetically. She felt sorry for him. She had never had an experience like that. And she hoped she never would. In his Hollywood life, given who he was and the target he was inevitably, it was more commonplace. She remembered how many times her father told them stories of high drama among his clients, broken romances, assaults, people ripping each other off, cheating on each other openly or secretly, attempted suicides. It was all part of the life she didn't want and had fled, although bad things happened to people in the real world too, but not as publicly, and not as often. It was part of the territory for someone like Leslie Baxter. Movie star romances were usually short-lived, ephemeral, went up in a public display of fireworks, and ended in a mess. She didn't envy him. And even if he brought it on himself with the women he chose, it had to be discouraging for him. From the sound of it, he could have wound up with a lot worse than a bruised cheek.

“I'm sorry too,” Leslie said quietly, “sorry I was such a fool. And I'm sorry you lost your guy. You look happy in the photographs with him.”

“I was. But sometimes even good things come to an end. Fate.” It was a healthy way to look at it, and Leslie admired her for that too. There was nothing he didn't admire in her so far. She was an amazing woman, and he was glad he had sought refuge at Jane's. He might never have met her otherwise, particularly as she was the self-declared black sheep of the family, and Jane had barely spoken of her over the years. She was far more interested in herself. In Leslie's eyes, Coco was like a small, white peaceful dove in a family of hawks and eagles. He could only imagine how hard it must have been growing up in their midst. But Coco seemed to have come out of it unscathed. She wasn't bitter to have been set down in the midst of them, just surprised. And ultimately, she had flown away. She still had ties to them, but the threads that bound her to them seemed to be getting thinner every day. It was the impression Coco gave, not incorrectly, although she had nonetheless gotten tangled up in house-sitting for Jane. And Leslie was extremely glad she had, otherwise they might never have met.

They lay on the deck in the sun for most of the afternoon, and only spoke once in a while. Leslie slept and Coco finished reading a book. They made sandwiches from what she had left in the fridge and packed up the rest to take to the city with them, so it didn't go to waste. And after they locked up the house, she drove him to the public beach at Stinson, so he could see the spectacular stretch of smooth white sand. It went for miles, with smooth sand and shells spread out near the water's edge. There were birds wading in the surf, seagulls flying overhead, and small interesting rocks that Coco picked up and slipped in her pocket as she always did. They walked the length of the beach, sat at the point and looked at the ocean coming into the lagoon, and saw Bolinas just ahead of them across the narrow inlet, and then they walked back to the van, with the dogs running far ahead and then coming back to them. Twice, horses galloped past, and there were very few people on the beach. Leslie was surprised when Coco told him it was always that way. Only on rare days of intense heat did people bother to come to this beach. Most of the time there were only a handful of people on it, spread out over several miles. It was the perfect getaway and Leslie felt as though he had had a week's vacation as they drove back along the cliff again. The sun was just setting, and it had been an extraordinary day.

“I heartily approve,” he said as she handled the hairpin turns expertly again, this time on the outer edge of the cliff, which impressed him even more. She even managed to avoid the potholes and many places where the road was in bad shape, which kept most people from coming there. It was spectacular, but far from an easy drive.

“What do you approve of?” Coco asked. The dogs were sound asleep in the back, utterly worn out from their long run on the beach, particularly when they chased after the horses. Sallie had tried desperately to herd them, but they had gotten away. She had had to content herself with chasing birds, while Jack lumbered after her. He was so tired he could hardly walk by the time they left, and he was snoring loudly now. It made a soft, steady purr from the back of the van.

“I approve of your living here,” Leslie said comfortably. “In case you need to hear that from someone. In fact, I envy you.” She smiled at what he said. It was nice to hear.

“Thank you.” She liked knowing that he saw the beauty of it, and the value of the life she lived. He didn't think she was a hippie or a freak, and he didn't think her home was a dump. He had experienced it like a warm embrace, and loved seeing that piece of her. All the pieces of her fit seamlessly. She was just totally different from Jane, which was too difficult for her family to accept. They all fit into a single mold, Coco didn't, and she seemed far better to him for that.

They drove through Mill Valley quietly, and onto the Golden Gate Bridge in Sunday night traffic. She got off the ramp after the bridge into Pacific Heights, and asked him if he wanted to stop somewhere to pick up food. He really didn't. He was totally sated from the good feelings of the day, and relaxed after their long walk on the beach. He had even dozed in the car on the way home, as Coco drove in silence. In spite of who he was, which no longer impressed her as it did when she first met him, and the shock of seeing him in her sister's kitchen, they were totally at ease with each other. She was surprised at how comfortable she was being with him, and he had noticed the same thing and commented on it during their walk on the beach. He said that it was rare for him, and he usually protected himself from strangers. But she was no longer a stranger. They were already friends, even after two days.

“How about if I make you an omelette? I'm rather good at those, if I do say so myself. You could make one of your lovely California salads,” he said hopefully, and she laughed.

“I'm not much of a cook,” she confessed. “I live on salads, and the occasional piece of fish.”

“You look it,” he said as a compliment. She seemed healthy, strong, trim, and very thin. He could tell even in her T-shirts that she had a lovely body, but so did her sister, who was a good decade older. Leslie had to try harder, went to the gym every day, and worked out with a trainer intensely before every film. His livelihood depended on it, and so far so good. He didn't show his age, and his body hadn't changed in ten years. But it wasn't easy. And his penchant for ice cream was a curse.

“The omelette sounds delicious,” she said as the ancient van labored up the hill on Divisadero. They barely made it to the crest on Broadway and the dogs were still asleep when they got out. “Everybody out!” she called to rouse them, as Leslie picked up the groceries they'd brought back with them, and she carried in the big straw bag full of clean clothes. They looked no different than the rest of what she had at Jane's. She always wore the same things, in different colors, and more often than not white T-shirts and jeans. She had a closet full of them, and since losing Ian, she never bothered to dress up. There was no one to see or care what she wore. All she needed was to be clean, warm, and have decent running shoes for work. It was a simple life, and far, far less complicated than his. Every time he went out, he had to look like a star. He had mentioned that he had a whole wardrobe to replace now, and didn't really care about that at the moment either, since no one was seeing him, and he wasn't going anywhere. It was a relief not to have to think about it, and a blessing not to have to worry about paparazzi in L.A. No one knew he was in San Francisco, except Coco and her sister and partner. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Leslie Baxter had disappeared. It defined freedom to him, which was what Coco cherished in her life too. Freedom and peace. It was almost like a blessing he was catching from her, and he liked it. It was an easy way to live.

While Coco turned off the alarm Leslie turned on the lights in the house. She left her tote bag at the foot of the stairs, and they put the groceries away together in the kitchen, while the dogs stood around waiting for dinner. She fed them, and then set the kitchen table with some of Jane's impeccable French linen place mats and elegant silver, while Leslie got out the ingredients for their omelette. And Coco made the salad he had asked for. She made a Caesar dressing, and half an hour later, she lit the candles, and they sat down to a simple dinner. As promised, the omelette was delicious.

“What a terrific day,” he said, looking happy, as they chatted about nothing in particular. The day at the beach had been great for both of them, and they finished the meal with Dove bars again.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” she asked as they rinsed the dishes and he looked pensive.

“I think I'd like to take a swim. I checked the pool yesterday and it's very warm. I have to work out every day in L.A., but I'm too lazy to do it tonight,” he said with a grin. Jane had a very professional-looking gym, where she worked out daily with a trainer. Coco never bothered, nor did Liz, who always complained about ten extra pounds but did nothing about it. Jane was a perfectionist in all things, including her appearance.

“I get my exercise walking the dogs every day,” Coco said.

“After looking at the ocean all day, I really fancy a swim.” She smiled at the expression. Now and then he reminded her of Ian, with his very British expressions, that were the same as the Australian ones Ian had used. They were comfortable and familiar, and a little nostalgic for her. “I trust there are no sharks in the pool.”

“Not lately,” Coco reassured him, and he invited her to join him. She usually didn't bother to use her sister's pool, but it sounded like fun with him. “Okay,” she agreed.

They left the kitchen, went to their bedrooms, and five minutes later met at the pool, while Coco turned the lights on. It was spectacular, and indoors, since the weather in San Francisco was usually chilly. She knew that Jane swam in it daily and occasionally Liz.

They swam together for nearly an hour. Coco swam laps while Leslie watched her, and then not to be outdone, he swam laps alongside her. He was winded long before she was, but she was younger and in better shape.

“Good lord, you have the endurance of an Olympic swimmer,” he said in admiration.

“I was captain of the women's swimming team at Princeton,” she confessed.

“I rowed in my youth,” he volunteered, “but if I tried it now it would kill me.”

“I was on the crew team for a year, sophomore year, I hated it. Swimming was easier.” They were both relaxed and tired as they got out of the pool. He had worn plain blue swim trunks, and she wore a simple black bikini that showed off her figure, but there was nothing overtly seductive about her. She was a pretty woman with a good body, but she never flirted with him. She was coming to value their friendship.

They both put on the thick terrycloth robes Jane kept at the pool, and went back to their bedrooms to shower, dripping water on the carpet. He came to her bedroom a few minutes later, showered and clean, wearing the robe from the pool. She had on her flannel pajamas, and had just started a movie, not one of his this time, so as not to embarrass him. She knew it made him uncomfortable to see himself on screen, from what he had said the night before. “Want to watch? It's a chick flick. I'm addicted to them.” It was a well-known romantic comedy that she had already seen many times and loved. He said he had never seen it, and she patted the bed beside her. Jack hadn't taken his favorite place yet, and was passed out on the floor with Sallie. They had worn the dogs out totally that day, which Leslie considered a blessing. They still made him a little nervous when they got lively, particularly the bull mastiff, however gentle Coco said he was. He was still a two-hundred-pound dog.

At her invitation, Leslie settled back against the pillows to watch the movie with her. She disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a bowl of popcorn. She giggled and he smiled. It felt like being children again. Her cell phone rang as soon as she sat down. It was Jane. And he could hear Coco's end of the conversation. Yes, everything was fine. She gave her a full update on the dog. She assured her sister she wasn't bothering him, and Leslie suddenly realized that Jane was inquiring about him. It intrigued him to note that Coco did not tell her that they had gone to Bolinas, nor that they were comfortably ensconced on her bed, watching a movie together. The conversation was brief and more like an interrogation. There were no warm, intimate exchanges between the two sisters. Coco said yes about six times to what were obviously instructions, and hung up with a glance at him.

“She wanted to make sure I wasn't annoying you. Tell me if I am,” Coco said, looking hesitantly at him, and Leslie leaned over to kiss her cheek chastely to reassure her.

“I've just had the two nicest days I've had in years, thanks to you. If anyone is being annoying, it's me, intruding on you. And I really like this movie,” he said, grinning. “I usually stick with sex and violence. It's kind of sweet watching these two silly people bumbling around and falling in love. Do they wind up together in the end?” he asked hopefully and Coco laughed at him.

“I'm not telling. Wait and see,” she said, turning off the light, as they watched it on the enormous screen. It was like being in a theater, on a bed in pajamas. It was the perfect way to see a movie, as they shared the bowl of popcorn.

The movie turned out just as they wanted it to, as Coco knew it would. She loved seeing it again and again. It never bored her. The happy ending was always reassuring. She preferred those kinds of movies.

“Why can't life turn out that way?” he sighed, as he lay back on the pillows, thinking about the movie. “It makes so much sense, it's so reasonable and so simple. A few kinks to work out, a few minor dilemmas that can be resolved when everyone figures out what they have to do. They don't act like assholes, they're not mean to each other, no one is hopelessly screwed up by an abusive childhood, they're not out to get each other, they like each other, they fall in love, and they live happily ever after. Why is it so goddamn hard to have that happen?” He sounded wistful as he said it.

“Because people are complicated sometimes,” she said gently. “But maybe it can happen. It almost did to me. It happens to others. I think you just have to be smart going in, keep your eyes open, don't kid yourself about who you're getting involved with, be honest with them and yourself, and play fair.”

“It's never that simple,” he said sadly. “Not in my world anyway. And most people don't play fair. They're obsessed with winning, and if one of you wins, you both lose.” She nodded agreement.

“Some people do play fair. Ian and I did. We were very good to each other.”

“You were babies, and nice people I guess. And then look what happened. If we don't screw it up for ourselves, destiny does.”

“Not always. I know a number of couples in Bolinas who are happy. They don't lead complicated lives. I think that's part of the secret. In the world you live in and I grew up in, people complicate things, and most of the time they're not honest, particularly with themselves.”

“That's what I love about you, Coco. You are, and so straightforward. Everything about you is clean and good. It's written all over you.” He smiled at her as he said it.

“You strike me as honest too,” she said warmly.

“I am, but I fool myself about who I'm getting involved with. I think I did with this woman I'm running away from now. Maybe I knew she was wrong from the beginning and I didn't want to see it. It was easier to close my eyes, and much harder later to keep them closed. And now look at the mess I'm in, hiding in another city, while she sets fire to my clothes.” The image of it made them both smile, and he didn't look unhappy in his San Francisco bunker. In fact, he looked relaxed and totally at peace. He was a different man than the exhausted, stressed, anxious one who had arrived the day before. Their time in Bolinas had done him a world of good, and Coco as well. It had felt wonderful to be at home, on her own turf, for a few hours, particularly with him. He had appreciated everything it was about.

“Next time you'll be wiser and more careful,” Coco said quietly. “Don't beat yourself up. You learned something from it. We always do.”

“What did you learn from your Australian friend?” he asked gently.

“That it's out there, it happens. You just have to be lucky enough to find it, or have it find you. And it does.”

“I wish I had your faith in that,” he said, looking at her intently.

“You need to watch more chick flicks,” she recommended seriously, and he laughed. “They're the best medicine there is.”

“No,” he said softly, never taking his eyes off hers. “I've found an even better one.”

“And what's that?” she asked innocently, with no suspicion of what was coming, as she looked right into his eyes.

“You. You're the best medicine there is. The best person I've ever known.” And as he said it, he leaned toward her and kissed her, and held her in his arms. She was so startled she didn't know how to react at first, but he didn't let go of her, and she found herself with her arms around his neck, holding on for dear life and kissing him back. Neither of them had expected to do that, or planned it, and he had promised himself when he saw her in the bikini that he wouldn't make a pass at her. He respected her, he liked her, he wanted to be friends with her, and suddenly he wanted so much more than that. Not only from her, but he wanted to give her everything she had ever dreamed of, because she was such a good person and she deserved it. And for the first time in his life he felt as though he did too. There was nothing seamy or wrong about this, and he didn't give a damn that he had only known her for two days. He was falling head over heels in love with her, and she looked stunned when the kiss ended and she looked at him again. She didn't want this to be just sexual, but she had never wanted anyone so badly in her life. Leslie Baxter was in bed with her, and kissing her, but suddenly he wasn't the famous movie star, he was just a man, and their attraction to each other was so powerful that she had no desire to resist.

“Oh.” She made a tiny sound of surprise, and he kissed her again, and before either of them knew what had happened to them, their clothes were off, tossed onto the floor, and they were making passionate love. There was no way that either of them could have stopped. They didn't want to. It had been two years since Coco had made love to anyone, since Ian, and as he was making love to her, Leslie wondered if he had ever been in love before. He knew he was now with her.

They lay side by side breathless afterward, and Coco rolled over even closer to him and looked into his eyes. “What was that?” she whispered. Whatever it was, she knew she wanted more of it again. But not just yet. She had never experienced anything like it with any man, not even Ian. Their lovemaking had been easy and peaceful and comfortable. What had just happened with Leslie was earth-shattering and passionate. She felt like they'd just gone through a tornado together. The world had turned upside down and bells went off in her head. And the emotions they shared were so powerful that she felt as though she had been swept away on a tidal wave with him. And he felt the same.

“I think, my darling Coco,” he whispered back, “that was love. The real deal. Until now, I wouldn't have recognized it if it bit me on the ass, but I think it just happened to us both. What do you think?” She nodded in silence. She wanted it to be love, but she wasn't sure. It was so soon.

“And then what happens?” she asked, looking worried. “You're a movie star and you go back to your world, and I'm a beach bum in Bolinas, and I wind up alone here.” It was too soon to worry about it, but the handwriting on the wall was clear, and he had already admitted that he didn't look or think carefully enough going in. She did. It had taken her three months to sleep with Ian. And exactly two days to sleep with Leslie. “I've never done anything like this in my life,” she said, as a tear crept out of the corner of her eye. She was deeply moved by what had happened to them, and she didn't regret it. She was just scared.

“Neither have I, without meaning to anyway.” He had slept with lots of women the first time they went out, if they were willing. But he had never been taken by surprise like that before, and grabbed by the heart so fiercely that he was pulled along by forces he hadn't planned and couldn't resist. It was the most powerful feeling of his entire life. “And as for the movie star-beach bum story, it isn't really quite like that. You're not some poor little orphan who knows nothing about my world. And as for how the story turns out, we'll just have to 'watch and see,' as you said. Maybe this is one of those chick flicks you love… darling, I hope it is,” he said, and meant every word.

“I know about your world,” she whispered back to him, “and I hate everything about it… except you,” she said sadly.

“Let's just take it one day at a time,” he said wisely. But she was more afraid that they were on borrowed time. She didn't want to get attached to him, and then have to tear herself away when he went back to his world, and sooner or later he would. This was just a fantasy, a dream. But she wanted it as much as he did. And she wanted to believe that dreams do come true. Hers almost had before, and maybe this time they would. She wanted to believe that was possible, but this had happened so suddenly, and given who he was in real life, she didn't know what to think. “Will you promise me not to worry too much, and just trust this and me for now? I won't hurt you, Coco. That's the last thing I want to do. Let's give this, and us, a chance and see where it goes. We'll figure it out.” She didn't say a word to him, she just nodded like a five-year-old and burrowed deep into his arms. He held her that way for a long time, and then with all the gentleness of his tender emotions for her, he made love to her again. And the tornado they had felt for each other before hit them both for the second time.

Chapter 5

When Coco woke up the next morning, she wondered if she had dreamed everything that had happened the night before. She was alone in the bed. There was no sight of Leslie anywhere, and as she lay there, staring at the ceiling, thinking of him, he walked into the room, with a towel wrapped around his waist, carrying a breakfast tray for her, with a rose from Jane's garden in his teeth. She sat up in bed and stared at him.

“Oh my God, you're for real!” Or at least she hoped he was. There was nothing in the world she wanted to believe more. “And we weren't even drunk.”

“That would have been a poor excuse,” he said as he set the tray down over her legs. He had made her cereal, orange juice, and toast. And had even slathered the toast with butter and jam. “I would have made you waffles, but I figured Jane would kill us if we did the maple syrup trick again in here.” They both laughed at the memory of when they had met, and how. It would be a private joke between them forever. And Coco was relieved to see that it was only seven a.m. She had an hour to spend with him before she went to work. She wished they could spend the day in bed.

“Thank you,” she said, looking mildly embarrassed by the breakfast he had made for her, the lavish service, and what had happened between them the night before. He could see all of it in her eyes.

“I just want to say something to you, before you scare yourself to death. Neither of us knows what this is just yet. I know what I want it to be, and what I hope it is, and even though I've only known you for two days, I think I know who you are. I know who and what I've been, and who I want to be when I grow up, if I ever do. I've never lied to anyone intentionally. I don't mislead people. I may be a jerk at times, but I'm not a shit. I'm not trying to sweep you off your feet, twirl you around for a while, and then go back to Hollywood with another notch on my belt. I've had enough of those. I don't need another one, and especially not you. That's not who I want you to be in my life. I'm in love with you, Coco. I know that sounds crazy after two days, but sometimes I think you just know when it's right, and when it's for real. I've never felt that way before, or been this sure. I think I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and that sounds as crazy to me as it does to you. I just want us to give this a chance. We don't need to panic. There's no fire raging out of control here. We're two good people falling in love with each other. Let's turn this into a chick flick for our viewing pleasure, and hope it stays that way. Can we do that?” he asked, as he held a hand out to her, and she slowly extended hers toward him. He gently took her fingers in his and kissed them, and then he bent down and kissed her on the lips. “I love you, Coco. I don't give a damn if you're a beach bum, a dog-walker, or the daughter of the most famous agent in Hollywood and a best-selling author. I love you and everything you are. And with any luck at all, maybe you'll learn to love me,” he said, as he sat down next to her on the bed, and she turned to him with the same look of astonishment that had been in her eyes since the night before.

“I already do, not because you're a movie star, but in spite of it, if that makes any sense.”

“That's all I want. We'll figure the rest out, one day at a time,” he said, sounding humble to her again. He had never been as happy in his life.

He shared the toast with her, and half an hour later, he got in the shower with her, and looked like a mother hen as she left for work. She told him she'd be back for lunch, and he had calls to make that morning. He wanted to call his agent and tell him what had happened with the woman in L.A. and where he was now, and he needed to warn his PR man that she might pull some stunts. And he had realtors to call to find a new apartment, furnished, until his own house was free in six months. He had enough to do to keep him busy until she got back. And later on, he wanted to do some exploring around the city and get his bearings. He thought it might be fun if they went out to dinner that night. He had already told her he wanted to go to Bolinas for the weekend. He smiled to himself as he showered and dressed. This was a very, very nice life, particularly with Coco in it.

Coco felt as though she were in a daze as she walked her clients' dogs that morning. She loved everything he had said, and all that they had done. But in her rare moments of clarity and sanity, it was hard to believe that anything this wonderful could last, especially with him. He was Leslie Baxter, after all. Eventually, he would have to go back to Hollywood and make another picture. The tabloids would eat him up, and them. Famous actresses would fawn all over him. And where would Coco be in all that? In Bolinas, waiting for him to come home? And there was no way she would live in L.A. again. Not even for him. She took a deep breath as she returned the last of the morning's dogs to their homes and reminded herself of what he had said. One day at a time. It was the best they could do for now. And as he said, they'd figure it out. But she also didn't want to lose someone she loved again. And a happy ending at the end of this wouldn't be so easy to pull off, given the cast.

When she got home, with sub sandwiches she had picked up for them, he was still on the phone. He was talking to a realtor about a furnished house in Bel-Air that was available for six months, while a famous actress finished a film in Europe. Coco looked worried as she listened, and Leslie laughed when he got off the phone.

“Don't panic yet,” he reassured her. “She wants fifty thousand a month for it.” He had been thinking about her all morning, and how things might work out in the long run. “You know, maybe eventually I could live here. Robin Williams and Sean Penn do. It seems to work for them.” She nodded, still in a state of shock over what was happening to them. The cleaning woman had just left as she walked in. They forgot about the sub sandwiches and went back to bed, and made love until she had to go back to work, to walk the next group of dogs. She could hardly tear herself away from him. And when she came back at four, he was sound asleep on her bed. His agent had promised that morning to send him several scripts, and for now he was going to stay in San Francisco with her. Jane had told him he could stay as long as he wanted, and that afternoon they agreed not to say anything to her yet. They wanted to keep this miracle to themselves.

He got a call from his press agent late that afternoon. The actress who was stalking him had released a statement to the press that she had dumped him, and in thinly veiled terms, implied he was gay. Leslie said he didn't care. There was plenty of evidence to the contrary, and it just sounded like sour grapes. He was relieved in fact that she was telling the press she had dumped him. It could mean that she was ready to move on and stop torturing him. But he didn't trust the message yet. He wanted to wait and see before going back to L.A.

He had asked Coco to make a reservation for them at a quiet restaurant, under her name. She had chosen a simple little Mexican place in the Mission where she was hoping no one would recognize him. For sure, no one would expect to see him there. And after making love again in the shower, they managed to put their clothes on and get out of the house by eight.

He loved the restaurant when he saw it, and no one paid any attention to them, until he paid the check. The woman at the cash register had been staring at him all night. He paid in cash, so there were no credit cards involved, and she sent over a request for an autograph with his change. He tried to play dumb, but within minutes, people at several other tables had turned around, the waiter was chattering excitedly in Spanish, and without signing the autograph, which would have confirmed his identity, they tried to look nonchalant as they left, and then ran for the van.

“Shit,” he muttered as Coco started the van and then drove away. “I hope no one calls the press.” It was an element of life that Coco had never dealt with firsthand before. Life was complicated for him, and it meant that they couldn't go anywhere, or had to be extremely careful when they did. If he was recognized that easily in the Mission, he would be recognized anywhere, and neither of them wanted sightings reported all over San Francisco. They stayed home for the rest of the week, and Leslie went on long walks on the beach with her. And on Saturday after she walked her last dogs, they left for Bolinas, and spent the weekend there. They had no problem with anyone at the beach, and when Leslie ran into Jeff, the fireman who lived next door, when they were both taking out the trash, he stared at Leslie and then nodded, smiling broadly. He held out a hand and introduced himself and said that he was happy to see that Coco had a friend staying with her. He seemed to think the world of her. They saw him again on Sunday morning on the beach, with his dog, and he talked easily to both of them, and made no obvious sign of recognition or comment about who Leslie was. It was a community where people minded their own business, but still managed to look out for each other. Leslie said he had been a volunteer fireman in England when he went to college, and they talked about fires, equipment, and living in Bolinas. And from there, they somehow segued to fire engines, and then to cars. They discovered that they both loved to work on cars and rebuild engines. Leslie seemed to fit right in, and both men enjoyed talking to each other. Leslie and Coco were happy and relaxed when they drove back to the city on Sunday night. And Leslie mentioned again how much he had enjoyed chatting with her neighbor.

Coco was always a little worried that the fragile bubble of their hidden life would pop, but so far no one was bothering them. Jane knew he was still there, and didn't seem to mind it. She regularly admonished Coco to leave him alone and not to bother him, and Coco assured her that she wasn't.

It was the end of their second week of living together when Leslie's realtor in L.A. insisted that there were several houses and apartments that he had to see. He didn't even know if he wanted to bother, but he thought he should see his agent too, and just show his face in L.A. so no one thought he had gone into hiding over the rumors of his being gay. His ex was still at it, and the tabloids had run a couple of headlines that were no more shocking than their usual fare.

“Do you want to come down with me on Saturday?” he offered. “We could spend the night at the Bel-Air.” The hotel had always been extremely discreet, and no one knew who Coco was anyway.

“What'll we do with the dogs?” She had not only Sallie but her sister's dog, and she knew Jane would be furious if she left.

“What about one of your neighbors in Bolinas? Could we leave them at your place there?”

“Jane would strangle me if she knew,” Coco said, looking guilty, but she wanted to go with him. “Maybe we could. I'll call and ask.” In the end, both her neighbors agreed to look out for them, feed them, walk them on the beach, and one of them even agreed to drop them off on Sunday night when they came to a birthday party in the city. Everything was set, just as he had said. One day at a time. It all worked out. And they were getting along like two peas in a pod.

In the end, just to be cautious, they flew to L.A. on two separate flights, were met at the airport by two cars, and agreed to meet at the hotel. Just in case. It was a little bit like being in a spy movie, and they told no one they were coming down. Leslie took an earlier flight, and saw the apartments the realtor had for him before Coco arrived. He didn't like any of them, and his interest in renting anything in L.A. had waned since meeting her. He was happy in San Francisco for now. And Coco was relieved when he told her that at the hotel.

They had a beautiful suite at the Bel-Air Hotel. And Coco's presence was never acknowledged. The staff was used to handling situations like that with the utmost discretion. They went to dinner at a dive he knew in West Hollywood that had delicious Cajun food, and were happy and relaxed when they got back to the hotel. It was nearly midnight as they walked slowly back to their room through the gardens, and saw a couple holding hands and kissing near the swans that swam in the little stream that wended through the grounds. Coco smiled when she saw the couple kissing and thought there was something familiar about them, but everyone in L.A. always looked familiar to her. They were either well-known stars, or people who wanted to look like them. It was funny at times. The woman was a good-looking, well-dressed blonde with a good figure in a black cocktail dress and high heels, whom they could only see from the back, and the man with her was handsome and young in a well-cut black suit. They stopped and kissed again for a long time as Leslie and Coco approached, and moved away at the last minute on the secluded path that led to their suite. And as they did, the woman turned. Her face was lit by the subtle lights on the grounds, and she turned her face up to the man she was with. And then Coco gasped.

“Oh my God!” she said out loud, clutching Leslie's arm.

“What's wrong? Are you okay?” She shook her head and stood rooted to the ground. There was no question who the woman was, and once Coco realized who she was, she ran to their room, while Leslie followed with a worried look. Coco looked absolutely panicked and she was crying as she stood in the living room of their suite. Leslie came to put his arms around her, and didn't understand what had happened. It was just a couple kissing as they watched the swans. They were obviously staying there too, and looked very much in love. But Coco looked as though she'd seen a ghost.

Coco sat down with a thunderstruck look. She was in shock.

“What's going on?” Leslie asked as he sat down next to her with an arm around her. “Tell me, Coco. Do you know that man?” He wondered if it was an old love. The only one he knew about was Ian.

She shook her head in answer to his question, as tears rolled down her face. “It's not him… that woman is my mother,” she said, staring at Leslie, and he was so startled for a moment, he didn't know what to say.

“That's your mother? I've never seen her in person. She's very beautiful.” Coco looked nothing like her, although she was beautiful in her own right.

“He's half her age.” She was stunned.

“Not quite,” Leslie tried to reassure her, but there was no question, he was a lot younger than she was, and they had appeared to be very much involved. She had looked at her companion adoringly when she turned her face, and he looked very taken with her. He was a nice-looking guy, stylishly dressed in the manner of L.A., with relatively long hair, and a handsome face. He could have been an actor or a model, or almost anything for that matter. For a minute, Leslie didn't know what to say. “I take it, you didn't know about him.”

“Of course not. She always says she could never be with anyone after my father. You see what I mean!” she said, suddenly in a rage. “Everyone is full of shit here. Everyone lies, everyone's fake, even my mother, with all her holier-than-thou righteous crap about everything on the planet. She calls me a hippie and a flake, and what is she?” The implication in Coco's voice was not pleasant, and Leslie winced.

“Maybe a lonely woman,” Leslie said gently, trying to calm her. “It's not easy being alone at her age.” He assumed she was at least sixty, given Jane's age, but she didn't look it. She had looked closer to fifty in the light, and the man with her was clearly younger, but it hadn't shocked him. They looked nice together, and happy. If it gave them some joy and comfort, what harm was there in that? But he didn't say that to Coco, who looked as though she were about to have some kind of attack. He had to admit, he wouldn't have enjoyed seeing his own mother in that context either, and she was older and not as well preserved, and she was still married to his father, although they complained good-naturedly about each other and always had. But Coco's mother was younger, sexier, expensively dressed, widowed, and famous. She was fair game.

“She's sixty-two years old, and she's had more plastic surgery than a goddamn burn victim. It's just not right. How can she tell me how to run my life when this is what she does when nobody's looking? My father would never have done that to her.” But even as she said it, she knew that wasn't true. Her father had been a handsome man, with an eye for the ladies, and he and her mother had had their share of battles over his young, attractive clients. Her mother had kept an eagle eye on him, and a short leash. And if he had been the one to survive them, Coco suspected even now that he might have had someone too. She had just never expected it of her mother, and certainly not with a man that age.

“Maybe your father would too. Why do they have to be alone, just because it makes us uncomfortable to think of them as sexual? I hate to say it to you, but she has a right to a life too.”

“And what do you think a guy that age is after? Sex, at her age? He's after her money, power, connections, all the fallout from her fame.”

“Maybe,” Leslie said reasonably. She had calmed down a little, and she was no longer crying. But she still looked stunned. It had been a hell of a shock to see her mother kissing in the moonlight, and not even with a man her own age. Seeing that had rocked Coco's world, and not in a good way. “You left out one thing,” Leslie reminded her gently. “Love. Maybe she's in love with the guy. It may be more wholesome than it looks, despite their age. Men do it all the time, fall in love with women a lot younger than they are. I'm thirteen years older than you, and no one would be shocked by us. Why do we have to be so stereotypical about relationships? You don't seem to have a problem with your sister living with another woman and you respect their relationship, we all do. Why not your mother and a younger man?”

“I don't like to think of my mother that way,” Coco said, always honest with him and herself. She looked seriously upset.

“I probably wouldn't either,” he said, equally honest. “Why don't you ask her about it and see what she says?”

“My mother? Are you kidding? She never tells the truth. At least not about herself. She lied about having plastic surgery for years. First she got her tits done, when my father was still alive. Then her eyes. Then she had a face-lift. Then she had another one three weeks after the funeral, 'to cheer herself up,' she said later. Christ, maybe she was already seeing him!”

“Maybe not. Maybe he's just the end result. I just think you should reserve judgment until you talk to her. That seems more fair. The guy may be an asshole, and he may be after her fame and money, but maybe he isn't. At least hear what she says. They certainly looked in love.”

“She's just oversexed,” Coco said, glaring at him, and he laughed.

“I think that could be genetic, and I'm not complaining. If you look as good as she does, at her age, I'll be happy as a pig in shit. And you don't ever have to get a face-lift for me. I'll love you just the way you are, even if you melt.” Coco was a far more natural beauty than her mother, and more likely to age better, but there was no denying that her mother looked remarkable for her age. And if the old adage was true about seeing a woman's mother before you fell in love with her, he had done well.

Coco was still stewing about it when they went to bed that night, and at breakfast the next morning. It irked her even more to realize that she couldn't question her mother, as Leslie suggested, or tell her sister, since she was in Los Angeles in secret with him. If she told Jane, she would know they had left her dog, and her mother would want to know immediately why Coco was in L.A. and hadn't called. There were far too many secrets in the family these days, especially her mother's. She and Leslie had nothing to hide, except to protect him from his psychotic ex-girlfriend, and to stay out of the tabloids for as long as possible themselves, which would be no mean feat when the time came. But for now Coco's lips were sealed and her hands were tied. She had to keep this gigantic tidbit about their mother to herself, and it was eating her alive.

They flew back to San Francisco again on different planes, and went to Jane's house in separate cars. But it was the first thing they talked about as soon as Leslie walked in. He could tell this was a very, very big deal to her. She had taken a lot of heat from her mother for her life choices, and now Coco wanted a serious explanation for what she'd seen. She didn't approve of anything she had observed or could imagine. Neither the kisses, the romance, and most especially the age of the man her mother was with.

Jane happened to call her that night, and could hear all of it in Coco's voice. “What are you all wound up about?” she asked her immediately. Coco sounded as though she had been fighting with someone, or wanted to, and Jane was instantly suspicious.

“You're not picking fights with Leslie, are you? Don't forget he's my guest.”

“And what am I, other than just the house-sitter and dog-walker? Chopped liver?” Coco snapped at her, and Jane looked stunned at the other end.

“Well, pardon me. Just don't take that attitude out on my house-guest, Coco. And don't get smart with me. He may want to stay there for a while to get away from that lunatic and the press. So I'll thank you not to make his life miserable by acting like a brat!” She always treated Coco like a kid, and Coco almost laughed at her sister's remark.

“I'll try not to make his life miserable,” she said haughtily, faking it this time. She had their secret to cover too. Her mother wasn't the only one in the family with a secret now, and theirs was a lot more wholesome than her mother's. But neither she nor Leslie wanted to tell Jane yet. They wanted to protect the privacy of what they had, without dealing with other people's reactions to it, or opinions. As she thought that, she wondered if her mother was doing the same thing, and when she was planning to share it with them, if ever. If it was only sexual, she wouldn't, but if it was serious, she would in time. Maybe it was what she and Leslie were thinking too. “I hardly see him anyway,” Coco said pointedly, referring to Leslie, to throw her sister off the scent.

“That's a good thing. He needs peace and quiet. He's had a very rough time. First, she tries to kill him, and then she tells the tabloids that he's gay.”

“Is he?” Coco asked innocently, and almost laughed. She had had ample and constant proof that he wasn't in the last two weeks, and was enjoying it immensely. They were having a great time, both in bed and out.

“Of course he's not gay,” Jane snapped at her. “You're just not his type. He goes for very glamorous, sophisticated women, usually his costars but not always. I think there have been a number of British marchionesses and European princesses thrown into the group. Hell, he's the biggest male movie star there is. And he sure isn't gay,” she repeated. “He even tried to jump me once. The guy would screw anything that moves.” But not you, was the implication, which wasn't lost on her younger sister. In fact, Coco was depressed about it when she got off the phone.

“Did you tell her?” Leslie asked her, and Coco shook her head.

“I couldn't, because of the dog. She said you screw anything that moves, especially and almost always your costars, and far more glamorous and sophisticated women than me.” Coco looked as though she'd been slapped, or spanked.

“She said that?” He looked shocked. “What brought that on?” “I asked her if you were gay, to throw her off the scent.” “Terrific. And that was her answer? Yes, I have slept with some of my costars, but not in a long time. That's a younger actor's game. I've tried to be involved with real women, not just starlets. And you are the only woman I have ever really loved. And no, I am not gay.”

“Prove it to me,” she said, pretending to pout at him, and he burst into laughter.

“Well, if you insist,” he said, stopping as he unpacked his suitcase and advancing toward her on the bed. “Your wish is my command, and if you want me to prove to you that I'm not gay, I will.” And within minutes after that, he did. Again and again and again.

Chapter 6

By the end of June, Leslie's ex-girlfriend had stopped giving interviews to the tabloids about him, and issuing statements on Entertainment Tonight. She was even seen on the dance floor in an L.A. nightclub making out with a well-known rock star. It looked like Leslie was off the hook. He didn't want to push his luck, but she hadn't bothered him in weeks. He had to go back down to see his agent in L.A., to discuss some business with him, and he left for two days. As soon as he did, Coco slipped into a funk. It reminded her of what life had been like without him, how much she loved him, and how devastating it was going to be when he went back to his real life for good. Their fantasy life couldn't last forever. He was who he was, and she lived in a world far removed from his. She was reminded again that they were living on borrowed time. She was still depressed about it when he got back.

“What happened? Did someone die?” he teased her the night he came home. He could see how sad she was. He wondered if it had something to do with her mother. She had kept the secret to herself, and was still upset about it. It never occurred to him that she was upset about him.

“No, you went away. And it made me think about what it's going to be like when you leave.” He was touched by what she said, and he felt the same way. He thought about it constantly, and how they could make their future work. He wanted it to, more than anything.

“There's no rule written in stone that you can't come to L.A. with me. We could live together there.” She vehemently shook her head.

“My mother would drive me insane, the paparazzi would eat us alive, people would be going through our garbage, I know what all of that is like. I remember the stories about my father's clients. I can't live that way.”

“Neither can I,” he said, looking worried. He knew he'd never get her to live in L.A., and he needed to be there, at least some of the time.

“But you do live that way. It goes with the territory for you.”

“Then we can live here, and I'll commute when I have to. I'm on location half the time anyway. You can come with me there.”

“The paparazzi will drive us insane on location too,” she said miserably.

“What are you saying to me, Coco?” he asked, looking frightened. “That you don't want to share my life with me? That it's too hard to deal with paparazzi so you'd rather give this up?” He seemed panicked, and she shook her head.

“I don't know what to do. I love you, but I don't want all that garbage to ruin our life.”

“Neither do I. Other people get through it. You just have to put some thought and effort into it. At least you're not in the business too. That ought to help. And no one's bothering us right now, so we might as well enjoy it while it lasts.” They had been very lucky so far, and extremely careful about where they went. He didn't go downtown shopping, or turn up in local shops more than once. They bought groceries at Safeway late at night, with him wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses, and they spent every weekend in Bolinas, hiding out, and took long walks on the beach with no one around. He didn't have the luxury of being able to go out in public. It was a fact of his life. He had come here to hide from one woman, and was now hiding with another, trying valiantly to protect her and shield her and their love story from public view. Undeniably, it was a challenge, but he knew the drill, and as long as no one figured out that he was living in San Francisco with her, everything would be fine. As he said to her frequently, so far so good. But they both knew it couldn't last forever, and sooner or later they'd have to face the music and the fallout of his being a big movie star in love with a woman. It was all of that that Coco dreaded and abhorred, no matter how much she loved him.

“I just don't want this to end,” she said sadly, “I mean the way it is now.”

“It may not be quite like this in future, but we can manage to lead a very private life. And it won't end if we don't want it to,” he said sternly. “That's up to us.” And with that, he kissed her and told her again how much he loved her. The last thing he wanted was for their romance to fall apart. He wanted to be with her for the rest of his life and hers. Of that he was sure. How they were going to do it was another story. He was determined to work it out, whatever it took.

He never bothered to rent a furnished apartment in L.A. He had decided to stay in San Francisco with Coco until mid-September, two and a half months from now. He was starting his next film in October and he had to be back for pre-production and costume fittings in September. He had ten days of shooting scheduled in L.A., and after that he was going to be in Venice for at least a month, and by the time he got back his house would be vacant again. He didn't need a place in L.A. for now. All he needed was Coco and the life and house they shared.

He suggested they spend the week in Bolinas over the Fourth of July, and asked if she could get a replacement for her dog-walking, so they could spend the whole week at the beach. She gave all her clients two weeks' notice, and found one of Liz's young gay friends who was happy to fill in for her with the dogs. Erin was a nice woman, needed the work, and spent a week following Coco around to learn the job. It was going to be the first time Coco went away for a week in two years. And they were both looking forward to it. Once they were in Bolinas, Leslie settled in as though he had always lived there. He even borrowed Ian's wet suit and went swimming in the ocean, although he was terrified of sharks. But the weather had been hot and gorgeous and he couldn't resist. It was an odd feeling for Coco watching him come out of the water in the familiar wet suit. His body was slightly different and she knew it wasn't Ian, but until he took the mask off, her heart fluttered a little. And the minute she saw Leslie's face, smiling at her, it soared. She realized then how much she loved him, and that she had put Ian in a special place. It was Leslie who owned her heart now. They lay together on the sand for hours, looked for shells, collected rocks, went fishing, cooked dinner together, read, talked, laughed, played cards, and slept for hours.

He spent some time working on her van, and much to her amazement, got it purring like a kitten. Jeff came out and consulted with him on it several times. And Coco laughed when Leslie came back into the house. His face was streaked with grease, and his hands were black. He looked thoroughly delighted like a small boy who'd been playing in the dirt all day. Leslie looked like a happy man.

Her other neighbors invited them to a barbecue on the Fourth of July, and Leslie wanted to go.

“What if people recognize you?” she asked, looking worried. They had been so wise and careful so far, and it had paid off. They were living an idyllic life of total anonymity and peace.

“Your neighbors already know who I am. They've been very discreet about it.” He sounded confident and sure, a little too much so for her.

“The rest of the neighborhood may not be.”

“If it feels weird or gets out of hand, we can leave. It might be nice to be part of the local pageantry for a change.” In the end, she agreed.

They went late, so it was dark, and slipped in quietly, helping themselves to two beers. Leslie sat down on a log and started talking to a little boy who was about the same age as Chloe. Eventually, his mother came up to retrieve him and stared in astonishment the moment she saw Leslie. Word spread quickly among the group after that. Jeff made no comment, but there were about fifty people there. They reacted to the newsflash that Leslie Baxter was drinking beer in their midst, but no one asked for autographs, no one annoyed him, and finally their fellow guests settled down again. Leslie had a very pleasant conversation with three men about fishing, and children seemed to love him. He had a nice way with them. Jeff looked at her and winked, and then sidled up to her for a chat.

“I like him,” he said simply in a soft voice. “The first time we met at the trash cans, I was a little taken aback. But he's a nice, normal, regular guy. He's not full of himself the way you'd expect him to be. You look happy, Coco. I'm glad for you.” Jeff looked genuinely pleased for her and was enjoying his friendship with Leslie, conducted in the backyard.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. He hadn't seen her like that in years, and she had never felt this way in her entire life. So sure, so confident, so comfortable in her own skin, and of what she was doing and who she was with. It was a very grown-up feeling, and she loved it a lot.

“Are we going to lose you to L.A.? I hope not,” Jeff added, and she shook her head.

“No. I'm staying here. I think he might commute.” Jeff nodded, hoping that would work for him.

Leslie had talked about buying a house in the city at some later date, once word would be out about them and they figured out what they were doing. Nothing as fancy as Jane's, he had promised Coco, but something simple and cute, like an old Victorian. But he still wanted to spend time with her at the beach. It would just be an easier commute for him from L.A. to the city. It was too soon to tell, but he was keeping that option in mind. He was open to anything that would work. He was willing to invest a lot of time, effort, and money into loving her. All he needed was a little compromise in exchange from her, about his movie star life and its downsides, and the time he might have to spend in L.A. Coco still felt a little dazed.

The rest of the Fourth of July week went smoothly, and after the barbecue, a few people greeted him on the beach when they walked their dogs. No one focused on him unduly, tried to take his picture, or called the press. They were more respectful than that, and he just disappeared into the woodwork in Bolinas like everyone else. If he had looked for a place to hide out, he couldn't have found a better one.

Jane and Liz had been in New York working on their movie for six weeks, when Liz had to go out to L.A. to do some work. They still hadn't found a replacement house-sitter by then. They never mentioned it, and Coco suspected Jane hadn't even tried. But she was happy living with Leslie, so she no longer said anything about it either. Liz was planning to be in L.A. for a few days, and Jane couldn't leave the set. Liz called them from L.A., but had no reason to come to San Francisco, so she didn't. She knew that Leslie was still there, which was fine with them. It was company for Coco, if they even spoke to each other, which Jane doubted. She thought he was unlikely to befriend a girl her age, and there was no question in Jane's mind that she wasn't dating fodder for him.

Liz had suggested otherwise once or twice. They were, after all, both good-looking, intelligent, nice people, living in the same house. Jane had laughed.

“Stop inventing stories for screenplays and sitcoms,” Jane chided her partner, making fun of the idea. “Leslie Baxter isn't going to get involved with a dog-walker, even if she is my baby sister. Trust me. She's not his type.” Jane was so adamant about it that Liz backed off. But it struck her odd that now that his ex-girlfriend was living with a rock star and no longer threatening him, Leslie was still staying at their house. And she had more respect for Coco than Jane did. To Jane, Coco was still a child, and a rebellious one at that. Liz knew what lay beneath the surface. Jane never tried to find out. Maybe Leslie had. The thought had crossed Liz's mind.

And as she always did, Liz visited who she referred to as her “mother in love” when she went to L.A. It was a duty call, out of respect for her partner's mother, but one that she always enjoyed. And she was happy to find Florence in excellent form, and looking better than ever. It had not gone unnoticed by Liz, however, that as she arrived at the house in Bel-Air, a young man had left. He had smiled at Liz as they passed each other, and he looked about Jane's age. He got in a silver Porsche parked outside and drove off. Liz had no idea why, but she had the odd feeling that the young man was planning to come back as soon as she left. And there was a man's cashmere sweater hanging on the back of the door when she used Florence's bathroom, and two toothbrushes in the cup. She told herself she was too suspicious but teased Jane's mother about it anyway, over champagne in the garden, a ritual with her. Her new face-lift had finally settled in, and she looked fifteen years younger than she was. Her figure was better than ever.

“Is that your new beau I saw driving off in the Porsche when I arrived?” Liz teased her, and was stunned when she saw Florence go visibly pale and choke on her champagne.

“I… of course not… don't be silly… I… I…” She stopped talking in midsentence as she looked at Liz, and bowled over the younger woman as she started to cry. “Please don't tell Jane or Coco… we've been having such a nice time. I thought it was just a passing thing, but we've been together now for almost a year. I know it doesn't make sense. He thinks I'm fifty-five. I told him I had Jane at sixteen, which sounds awful, but I didn't know what else to say. He's thirty-eight years old, and I know it must sound disgraceful, but I love him. I loved Buzz while I was married to him, but he's gone. And Gabriel is a lovely man. He's very mature for his age.” Liz had to remind herself to close her mouth as she tried not to stare at her mother-in-law. Liz had always been more sympathetic and gentler than Jane, and Florence had often confided in her, but never about anything like this.

“If it makes you happy, Florence,” she began cautiously, not sure what to say, or what the man's motivations were for being with someone that much older. Liz was understandably worried about that. And she knew that Jane would have a fit, and more than likely Coco too. “What does he do? Is he an actor?” He looked like one, and was handsome enough to be, which made Liz suspicious of him too.

“He's a producer-director. He makes independent films.” She mentioned two that had enjoyed considerable success, so at least he wasn't a gigolo, only after her money. “We have a wonderful time together. It's lonely now that Buzz is gone, and the girls don't live here anymore. I can't write or play bridge all the time. Most of my friends are still married, and I'm always the odd man out.” Liz had understood for a while that it was hard, harder than Florence's older daughter wanted to admit. And Florence was still young enough to want companionship, and even sex, although it startled Liz a little to think about. And she knew Jane would want to hear nothing about that. “Are you going to tell Jane?” Florence asked her with a look of panic, as Liz thought about it.

“Not if you don't want me to.” Florence wasn't committing a crime, or doing anyone any harm. She wasn't mentally incompetent, or risking her health. She was having an affair with a younger man, twenty-four years younger in fact. But in the end, Liz thought to herself, why the hell not? Who were they to tell her she was wrong? Or that she couldn't? Or make her feel bad about it? Still, she was afraid that Jane would do all of the above. She could be very tough. Liz loved her anyway, but she was well aware of her weaknesses, flaws, and quirks, and acceptance of her fellow man had never been one of her strong suits. “I think you should tell the girls yourself,” Liz said gently.

“You do?”

“Yes, I do,” Liz said honestly. “When you think it's the right time. If it's a passing thing, it's none of their business. But if he's planning to stick around, you have a right to feel loved and accepted by your family. It's nice for them to know what's going on in your life.”

“I think Jane will have a fit,” her mother said miserably.

“So do I,” Liz said honestly. “She'll get over it. She has no right to tell you how to run your life. I'll remind her of that, if that helps.”

“Thank you,” Florence said gratefully. Liz had championed other causes for her before, successfully. But they both knew that this was going to be tough.

“I wouldn't worry about Coco,” Liz added. “She's a gentle soul, and not as critical as Jane. They both want you to be happy.”

“But they probably don't want me to have a young lover. There's no money involved,” she said, to reassure Liz, and indirectly Jane. “I told him he needs to get married and have children. But he's already been divorced and has a two-year-old. And we're very happy. I don't think we'd ever get married,” she said apologetically, as though she were doing something awful.

“You know, if you were a man,” Liz said, sounding suddenly angry on her behalf, and feeling sorry for her at her obvious embarrassment and shame, so much so that she had been lying to her daughters. “If you were a man, you'd be showing off a girl half his age at every party you could go to, you'd have her strutting her stuff at the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and bragging to your children, your barber, and your neighbors. You'd be married by now, and having a baby. In fact, if you were ten years older, and he were ten or twenty years younger, if your sexes were reversed, that's exactly what would happen, and everyone would stare at you with envy. Now that is what's disgusting, that double standard that makes you feel you have to slink around and lie and hide, and makes a man in exactly the same position feel he should shout it from the rooftops. Florence, this is your life. We only go around once. Do what makes you happy. I was married before I met Jane, and I probably could have stayed that way forever. I didn't want anyone to know or think I was gay. I was so busy being respectable and being who everyone wanted me to be that I was absolutely miserable. The best thing I ever did was leave my husband and move in with Jane. I finally have the life I always wanted. And you know, if Buzz were still alive, I'm sure he'd be doing exactly the same thing with an even younger woman.” She raised her glass of champagne in honor of the woman who was her mother-in-law by love if not by law. “To you and Gabriel, Florence. Long life, and only happiness ahead.” They both cried as she said it, and sat in a hug for a long time. And a moment later, Florence called him on his cell phone and told him. She wanted to introduce him to Liz, but Liz felt that it wouldn't be fair if she met him before Jane did. That smacked of a conspiracy to her, and she knew it would to Jane, although she could have reassured her. She promised to meet him next time, once Jane and Coco knew about him.

She left a little while later, and the two women embraced on the doorstep.

“Thank you,” Florence said, looking gratefully at her. “You're such a kind, decent person. My daughter is very lucky.”

“So am I,” Liz said, smiling at her, and got back into the town car that had brought her there. They headed down the driveway, as the Porsche was returning. Liz lowered her window as he passed them, and she smiled and waved, as he looked at her in amazement, and smiled back.

“Welcome to the family,” Liz thought to herself, as they headed toward the airport. She could only begin to imagine the explosion it was going to be when Florence finally got up the guts to tell Jane. Liz would do whatever she could to soften the blow, but she knew Jane. There was going to be hell to pay. For a while anyway.

Chapter 7

It was the end of July, two weeks later, when Florence finally got up the courage to call Jane. She decided to tell her first. And predictably, Jane went insane.

“You what?” Jane sounded incredulous. “You have a boyfriend? When did that happen?”

“About a year ago,” Florence confessed, trying to sound calmer than she felt. She had had three glasses of champagne before she called. “He's a very nice man.”

“What does he do for a living?” Jane growled.

“He produces and directs films.”