Picture Perfect Read online

  "It's a good thing we came here," Alex said. "If you're overwhelmed by the apartment, I can't imagine what you'd think of the house."

  On the way to the Malibu Colony, Alex had tried to jar Cassie's memory with descriptions of their three homes: the house in Bel-Air, the apartment in Malibu, and the ranch just outside of Aspen, Colorado. He said that they spent most of their time at the house, but that Cassie had always preferred the apartment because when they were married she'd redecorated it.

  "What's it like?" she had pressed, eager for some detail that would shake free her past.

  Alex had just shrugged. "It's little," he said.

  But when the Range Rover pulled up to the towering whitewashed building, Cassie had stared at the rounded edges, the princess's turrets, the tiers and tiers. The last thing it was waslittle . "It looks like a castle," she had breathed, and Alex had thrown his arms around her. "That's what you said the first time you saw it," he'd said.

  "Cassie?" She jumped now at the sound of her name. She hadn't even heard the telephone ring, but Alex was holding the receiver, mouthpiece covered. "Herb says he won't sleep until he sees that you're all right." He took a step closer to her and laid his palm against her cheek, his eyes darkening. "Well, I don't give a damn," he said. "You've got to rest."

  He lifted the telephone to his ear. "No, Herb," he said. "Five minutes is too long. No--"

  Cassie stood up and put her hand on his arm. It was the first time she had actually reached out to touch Alex, instead of him touching her. He turned to her, the telephone forgotten, his eyes locked onto her own. "It's okay," she said quietly. "Tell him to come over. I'll be fine. I don't want to rest."

  He murmured something into the telephone and she watched the way his lips formed the words. She waited for him to hang up, but he didn't. He cupped his hand over the receiver again and moved closer, until they were separated by the space of a breath.

  Cassie did not close her eyes as Alex kissed her. Her hand fell away from his arm to hang at her side, and she tasted faint traces of coffee and vanilla. When he pulled away, she was still leaning toward him, her eyes wide and waiting for the flood of memories she was certain would come.

  But before that could happen, Alex gestured helplessly at the phone. "I have to talk to him. I leftMacbeth mid-scene, you know, to get you. Poor Herb has to clean up the mess I made." He ran his hand over her hair. "Why don't you poke around a little? I promise, no more than five minutes."

  As Alex turned away and started rattling questions into the telephone, Cassie moved downstairs to the middle level of the apartment. She wondered if she should change her clothes before Herb arrived. She wondered who Herb was.

  She started toward the master bedroom, where Alex had showed her, earlier, a closet full of silks and rainbow cottons that belonged to her. She reached the arched hallway Alex had pulled her through before. This time, she stopped to look at the pictures that hung against the stark white walls. There was one of Alex on the beach outside the apartment, buried up to his chest in sand. Of Cassie herself, grinning, her arm thrown casually around the shoulders of a skeleton. There was a picture of a dog she did not recognize, and one of Alex on a rearing horse. Finally came a photo of Cassie in bed, white sheets pulled just up to her breasts, a lazy smile across her flushed face.

  She thought of the pressure of Alex's kiss. She tried to imagine his hands tracing their way down her spine.

  She looked at the picture again, and she wondered if Alex had taken it.

  HERB SILVER WAS FIVE FEET TALL, BALD, WITH A HANDLEBAR MUStache and pointed ears that made Cassie think of a Munchkin. He met Alex at the door of the apartment and shoved a greasy brown paper bag into his arms. "So, I figure it's lunch and what's agoy like you going to have in his kitchen?" His eyes darted behind Alex's substantial height, searching for Cassie, pushing Alex aside as he began to rummage in the bag. "There's pastrami on rye with sauerkraut for you, and three knishes and for God's sake, don't eat all theforshpeis by yourself this time. Ah!" He held out his arms to Cassie. "You were trying to give me my third heart attack?"

  Herb Silver was Alex's agent at CAA. He had moved to L.A. over twenty years earlier, but he told everyone that even though you could take Herb Silver out of Brooklyn, you couldn't take Brooklyn out of Herb Silver. Cassie reached out and hugged him, his head coming under her chin.

  Herb kissed her on the mouth. He ran his hands lightly down her arms as if he were checking for broken bones. "So, you're fine?"

  Cassie nodded, and Alex stepped forward, offering her half of a paper-wrapped knish. "She's perfect," he said with a full mouth.

  Herb raised an eyebrow. "Does the girl have a voice of her own?"

  "I'm fine," Cassie said. "Really." She looked from Alex to Herb and then back at Alex again, silently thanking the little man for forcing his entry this afternoon. With Herb added to the mix of her mind, Alex couldn't help but seem more familiar.

  Alex clapped an arm around Herb's shoulders and led him upstairs to the dining room. "Cassie--can you get the plates? All right, Herb, tell me what Joe's doing in Scotland."

  Cassie wandered into the kitchen, grateful for something to do. Somehow the ordinary things, like finding plates, or cooking, or watching the shower steam up the bathroom, made her feel at home. Alex had seemed so much less threatening that morning when they were doing things together--him pouring juice and her finding the ice, standing side by side and chopping peppers for an omelette, picking up a stack of papers the wind had scattered to the floor. There was an intimacy to simple tasks, things everyone knew and everyone did, that formed a floor of false comfort and security beneath even two strangers.

  Herb and Alex were talking in the dining room, a running river of syllables she caught from time to time. Cassie looked from one cabinet door to the next, wondering where the dishes were. She opened the door closest to her. Tablecloths, and a breadbasket. The door beside it revealed wineglasses.

  "Joe's filmed the six lousy scenes that don't revolve around you--the witches, and something or other with Banquo. He says Melanie did a tour de force with the hand-washing bit." Herb watched Cassie open a third and fourth cabinet, bite her lip, and then check beneath the sink. "What's with her head?" he whispered to Alex. "She's still a littlemeshugge ?"

  Alex shrugged. "The doctor told her it's going to take some time for her to remember who she is, and what the hell knocked her out." His eyes followed Cassie as she finally opened the cabinet that held the dishes. "In the meantime, I figure I'll just keep her near me. Safe." He grinned at his agent. "Shit. IfI can't bring back her memory, I don't know whatcan ."

  Cassie brought back three plates and a stack of paper napkins. She hovered at the edge of the table, the outsider. "I could only find wineglasses," she said.

  Herb waved toward her chair. "Just sit. We can drink out of the bottles." He unwrapped a sandwich with a colossal amount of meat jammed between the slices of bread, and Cassie watched his mouth contort to seal around the bulk of it. "I hope you've thanked your lovely wife, Alex, for the free PR." Herb pinched Cassie's cheek. "Nationwide coverage of the heartbroken Alex Rivers shielding his wife isexactly the kind of pre-Oscar coverage we need." He held his sandwich inches from his mouth. "It can't hurt all your buddies at AMPAS to see you being a family man before they cast their Best Actor and Best Director votes. You know, I'm going to call Michaela this afternoon and see if we can't milk this onOprah . You can plugTaboo , maybe we can get Cassie on for the last five minutes--"

  "No." At that last word, Cassie jumped. Alex hadn't spoken particularly loudly, but he'd slammed his fist on the table so forcefully that he had cracked one of the hand-painted tiles that made up its surface. Cassie watched a tiny line of blood trickle down Alex's wrist, but he did not bother to wipe it away. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned across the table toward Herb, upsetting a bottle of soda. "You will not exploit my wife on television to stack my odds for the Oscars."

  Herb blotted his mouth with a napkin, as if he w