Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [186]
He didn't know if it was right or not.
'Mort, I've been so worried about you,' she said suddenly.
That snapped him back from his thoughts. 'Me? I'm okay.'
'Are you sure? When I saw you yesterday, I thought you looked ... strained.' She paused. 'In fact, I thought you looked like you did before you had the ... you know.'
'Amy, I did not have a nervous breakdown.'
'Well, no,' she said quickly. 'But you know what I mean. When the movie people were being so awful about The Delacourt Family.'
That had been one of the bitterest experiences of Mort's life. Paramount had optioned the book for $75,000 on a pick-up price Of $750,000 - damned big money. And they had been on the verge of exercising their option when someone had turned up an old script in the files, something called The HomeTeam, which was enough like The Delacourt Family to open up potential legal problems. It was the only time in his career - before this nightmare, anyway -when he had been exposed to the possibility of a plagiarism charge. The execs had ended up letting the option lapse at the eleventh hour. Mort still did not know if they had been really worried about plagiarism or had simply had second thoughts about his novel's film potential. If they really had been worried, he didn't know how such a bunch of pansies could make any movies. Herb Creekmore had obtained a copy of the Home Team screenplay, and Mort had seen only the most casual similarity. Amy agreed.
The fuss happened just as he was reaching a dead end on a novel he had wanted desperately to write. There had been a short PR tour for the paperback version of The Delacourt Family at the same time. All of that at once had put him under a great deal of strain.
But he had not had a nervous breakdown.
'I'm okay,' he insisted again, speaking gently. He had discovered an amazing and rather touching thing about Amy some years before: if you spoke to her gently enough, she was apt to believe you about almost anything. He had often thought that, if it had been a species-wide trait, like showing your teeth to indicate rage or amusement, wars would have ceased millennia ago.
'Are you sure, Mort?'
'Yes. Call me if you hear any more from our insurance friend.'
'I will.'
He paused. 'Are you at Ted's?'
'Yes.'
'How do you feel about him, these days?'
She hesitated, then said simply: 'I love him.'
'Oh.'
'I didn't go with other men,' she said suddenly. 'I've always wanted to tell you that. I didn't go with other men. But Ted ... he looked past your name and saw me, Mort. He saw me.'
'You mean I didn't.'
'You did when you were here,' she said. Her voice sounded small and forlorn. 'But you were gone so much.'
His eyes widened and he was instantly ready to do battle. Righteous battle. 'What? I haven't been on tour since The Delacourt Family! And that was a short one!'
'I don't want to argue with you, Mort,' she said softly. 'That part should be over. All I'm trying to say is that, even when you were here, you were gone a lot. You had your own lover, you know. Your work was your lover.' Her voice was steady, but he sensed tears buried deep inside it. 'How I hated that bitch, Mort. She was prettier than me, smarter than me, more fun than me. How could I compete?'
'Blame it all on me, why not?' he asked her, dismayed to find himself on the edge of tears. 'What did you want me to do? Become a goddam plumber? We would have been poor and I would have been
unemployed. There was nothing else I could fucking do, don't you understand that? There was nothing else I could do!' He had hoped the tears were over, at least for awhile, but here they were. Who had rubbed this horrible magic lamp again? Had it been him or her this time?
'I'm not blaming you. There's