Hide & Seek - James Patterson [55]
Today, Barry popped out of his office to greet me. He brought me coffee. “Come across the street with me to the studio. I've been working on several arrangements for ‘Just Some Songs.’ Wait till you hear them.”
“Barry, I've got two new songs. From Australia.”
“The arrangements first, then I'll listen. You look great, Maggie. Still glowing. Marriage is obviously agreeing with you.”
“I'm happy, Barry. Really happy,” I told him. Of course, Barry would never admit that he might have been wrong about Will, or anything else, for that matter.
Once in the studio, it was business as usual between the two of us. Nothing had changed; we loved our work and the chance to be together. The tough challenge was to make each album—each song in each album—different and better. We didn't always succeed, but we always tried like hell.
The work went extremely well that day. I was pleased with Barry's arrangements (I almost always was, though I was far more critical than I had been when we first met); he loved one of my songs and liked the other. The album was going to be a very good one.
It was midafternoon by the time we knocked off, and I decided to do some shopping. A reward. A splurge. Then home to the kids. I was cooking tonight. Then we planned to watch Forrest Gump, on video. We'd seen it only six times already. Maybe I'd make Bubba's Shrimp for dinner. That would give Jennie a laugh.
I found a little doodad I wanted at Bergdorf Goodman and left the store a little after three-thirty. Fifth Avenue was filled with taxis, buses, the usual pedestrian parade. I didn't see my car and driver right away.
Then, trouble.
A TV camera suddenly surfaced like a submarine scope out of the street crowd. Two young bearded apes from Fox News jockeyed up to me. Bad-looking guys. Real neanderthals from the look of them.
“Maggie. Maggie Bradford,” one of them shouted. Instinctively, I moved away, desperately searching for my car.
“Maggie. Over here, Maggie. Is it true you and Will were having difficulties in Australia? Is that why you came home?”
I could hear the whirr of a camera. Pedestrians stopped to look at us. Oh, damn these TV people, I thought. Get a life. Let me live mine.
“No.” I was curt with them.
“We hear he's gotten real close to Suzanne Purcell. That's the buzz. Know anything about that?”
My stomach spasmed. “No.” Will and I knew there would be rumors about him and Suzanne. If there weren't, the studio would probably start them.
“So you didn't see this photograph?”
“No. No comment. Bye now. Nice sharing vicious rumors with you.”
I couldn't push through the crowd and get away from them. Where was the car, for God's sake?
“The photograph, Maggie.” A pushy, little bald man from Channel Five was shoving a microphone in my face. “It was in all the papers. Will and Suzanne Purcell. Very cozy. You didn't see it?”
I shoved him aside, pushing him back into the cameraman. I saw my car finally, and I ran and shut myself inside.
It wasn't until we were gliding through the green woods near home that I began to relax. The nerve of those insensitive bastards! It wasn't the first time I had clashed with a reporter. It had happened in Rome and once in Los Angeles. What happened to privacy? I asked myself. Who do they think they are?
I wished Will were home right now. In the car with me.
Oh, Will, forget about being a big movie star. Let's just disappear and be nobodies for the rest of our lives.
Will and Suzanne. The picture. Could it possibly be true? No, I didn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it. I felt that I knew Will by now. I was sure that I did. The picture was just more paparazzi crap. It wasn't the first, wouldn't be the last.
In the car, I dismissed the thought. But it came back to me when I went to bed that night. It kept me awake through