Acts of Love by Judith Michael Page B

to the casting session; didn’t want to spring her on you, but she’s the greatest, Abigail Deming, you know her, wait ’til you hear her, I am crazy about her, she absolutely is Lena, wait ’til you—”
    Luke’s frustration, still churning, exploded. “You damn fool, you promised it to her, didn’t you?”
    â€œHey, hold your horses, you didn’t hear me say—”
    â€œDid you promise it to her?”
    â€œChrist, what’s eating you this morning? Well, not exactly. I said I thought she was perfect and I was sure you’d agree. I guess I shouldn’t have done that—”
    â€œYou know damn well you shouldn’t have done that. We talked about this—remember? We agreed—”
    â€œI know, I know, but, damn it, Luke, I took her to dinner last night and she’s got a way with her, you wouldn’t think so, a woman that old—”
    â€œYou were drinking.”
    â€œNo, it’s not that. You know, she’s tough, and she’s no beauty, but she’s got this way of putting her hand on your arm, just this little touch, and looking straight at you and all of a sudden she’s gorgeous and you’re melting. I know that sounds crazy, but she really pulls it off and I know she could pull off Lena, too.”
    â€œFor God’s sake. I’ll see you at ten.” He slammed down the phone and stood at the wall of his terrace, trying to control his anger. Far below, traffic inched through narrow streets on hot asphalt, pedestrians darted between the cars, often walking across two bumpers so close they seemed locked together, and the cacophony of horns rose with angry volume to Luke’s celestial terrace, enveloping him in its stridency. Everyone is angry, he thought. He imagined the anxiety of pedestrians, wilting as they hustled to meetings where they were expected to look alert and unwrinkled, and the frustration and rage of drivers beating tattoos on their steering wheels as they moved forward a few infuriating feet at a time, and his anger began to dissolve into humor. It could be worse: instead of dealing with Monte and Kent, I could be driving a cab.
    Martin stood in the doorway holding out a sheaf of telephone messages. “None of them seemed urgent, so I didn’t interrupt you.”
    Luke flipped through the slips of paper. “Call Miss Delacorte; tell her I’ll pick her up a little after seven for a play and dinner afterward. Tell the Neals no; I never go to costume parties. And this one, from Renaldi, about the sale of the villa . . .” He paused. “Tell him to call about midnight New York time; we can talk about the buyer then.” He scanned the remaining messages. The last one was from Fritz Palfrey, stage manager for The Magician. “Need to talk to Luke; set designer has peculiar ideas, not workable. Call me.”
    Suddenly Luke wished himself in his library, sharing the silence with Jessica’s letters, far from backstage squabbles and clashing egos, the adolescent storms of Kent Home, the thousands of mediations and decisions that stretched before him. Then he shrugged. What had he told Kent? You chose it. This was his job, it was his life, and it was the only one he wanted. Jessica Fontaine, if he found time for her, was a minor diversion at best.
    And he forgot Jessica, and almost everything else, as soon as casting began in a theater Monte had gained permission to use for the day. Luke loved this early part of the production where, for the first time, the lines of the play were spoken aloud, at last taking wing from a typescript and beginning to soar. The theater was as silent and empty as a ghost town, with a single spotlight illuminating the center of the stage, leaving the rest of it, furnished for that evening’s play, almost invisible. In the spotlight, the actors stood alone or in pairs, reading parts of scenes, and Luke, sitting in the sixth row, felt