Indiscretions - Elizabeth Adler [39]
The cameras again followed the Haven daughters as they left the church and got into their car, and then focused on the hearse that held their mother’s coffin.
“Today Hollywood said its farewells to possibly one of the most loved and one of the most envied women of our time.”
Fitz switched off the television set, walked across to the table, and poured himself a bourbon. Swirling his glass he stared at it moodily. Who would have thought that the youngest one—Venetia—would look so like Jenny? It was uncanny seeing that familiar wide blue gaze staring at him like that of a stricken doe. The eldest girl, Paris, was a sophisticated beauty, very chic and with some of Jenny’s proud, steely quality. India was a curly-haired gamine in her severe suit.
He knocked back his drink and poured another. Well, it was over now. And so, at last, was his long, solitary romance with Jenny Haven.
4
Bill Kaufmann’s red Porsche was, for once, well under the speed limit as he drove along Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu. The sun felt hotter than it had any right to at this time of year and, closing the windows, he turned on the air conditioning. He was still sweating. Goddamn it, he wasn’t looking forward to this meeting one little bit! Why the hell did Jenny have to do what she did? Accident or not, it was goddamn thoughtless of her to leave it all to him and Stan Reubin. What were they going to say to those girls? She’d pampered them all their lives, doling out the luxuries until they’d left school, and then just left them to get on with it alone. He’d argued with her about that, saying she couldn’t just abandon them. “But I haven’t abandoned them, Bill,” she’d replied calmly, “I’ve provided them with all the assets they need in the world and now I’m giving them their freedom.”
She’d been sitting in the makeup chair at Burbank Studios while the girl fussed with blushers and lip-gloss and he’d known it was the wrong time to discuss it, and somehow after that there never seemed to be a right time. “Don’t worry, Bill.” She’d laughed. “I’ll always be around to catch them if they fall.” Yeah? Well look at them now, Jenny, they’re falling and where the hell are you?
He and Myra had been puzzled when she sent them off to Europe. Almost everyone they knew had grandparents who had fled Europe for a better life in America and Jenny had wanted to reverse the process. Where in the world, he and Myra had asked each other, could you find a better place to raise kids than easy, affluent Beverly Hills? Half the world wished they could be so lucky as to live in Beverly Hills! And she had the beach house. Wouldn’t those girls have been better off there at weekends than at those fancy schools?
Bill Kaufmann had been a Hollywood agent for twenty-five years, during which time he had, with some justification, earned himself the reputation of being “a killer.” He didn’t like being stuck with that reputation but privately admitted that there had been times when ruthlessness had meant winning, and Bill Kaufmann was destined to be a winner. As a young man with ambition, and street-wise, beat-up good looks, he had maneuvered himself into the position of confidant and friend to the young Jenny Haven, ultimately undermining her relationship with her manager. He had taken over from there as her manager and agent. That is, until three years ago.
Hell, it had been a relief not to have to go through the same endless scene over and over again … why hadn’t he got her the part in the Hofmann movie and why, when she’d expected the lead in the multimillion-dollar TV miniseries, had he come back with an offer of the part of the older mistress who gets killed off in the first forty minutes?
Bill lit another cigarette and swung the Porsche smoothly through the gates into Malibu Colony,