“It sounds lovely.” She smiled through her tears and the kindly old doctor put an arm around her shoulders.“Go home, Adrian. Have a good rest, and a good cry. It'll be all right. It's going to be just fine. And so will your husband.” He patted her shoulder then, and left the room so she could get dressed and go home, with her baby. She smiled to herself as she dressed, and she cried, and she felt as though something wonderful had happened. She had been spared, and she wasn't even sure why, except that her doctor had been smart enough to know that she just couldn't do it.
She started to drive home, and she decided suddenly to go to the office instead. She felt better than she had in days, and she wanted to go to work and lose herself in the piles of papers on her desk. She drove to the studio with the wind blowing in her hair, and she took a deep breath and smiled to herself. Life was suddenly so sweet, and she was going to have a baby.
She walked into her office with a spring in her step but feeling as though she had run a ten-mile race. It had not exactly been an easy morning, or an easy few days, and she still had to deal with Steven when he got back from Chicago. But at least now she knew what she was doing. She felt more relaxed than she had in days and the crushing feeling of depression seemed to have lifted.
“Hi, Adrian.” Zelda stuck her head in the door halfway through the morning. “Everything okay?”
“Fine. Why?” Adrian was looking distracted with a pencil stuck behind each ear, and it was unusual for her to come to work in old clothes and no makeup.
“Well, to be honest, you don't look so hot. You look as though you've been through the wringer,” and she had. “Are you feeling okay?” Zelda was more observant than Adrian had realized. She was right. Things had been pretty awful.
“I had the flu.” She smiled, grateful that Zelda had noticed. “But I'm okay now.”
“I thought you were taking the week off.” She was looking at her intensely, as though deciding whether or not to believe her when she said she was all right. But she seemed happy as she sat industriously amid the debris in her office.
“I decided I missed all this too much.”
“You're nuts.” Zelda smiled at her.
“Probably. Want to go out later for a sandwich?”
“Sure. I'd love to.”
“Come by whenever you're ready.”
“I'll do that.” She disappeared again then, and Adrian went back to work, feeling better than she had in days. The idea of a baby still scared her a little bit, but it was something she thought she could get used to. It was better than the alternative. She knew she couldn't have lived with that, and she still resented Steven for trying to force her to do it. She wondered how they would ever recover from the emotional bruises they had inflicted on each other in the past few days, or if they would ever forget it. She went back to work then, and tried not to think about him. She would have to think of what she was going to say to him later.
AND IN A STUDIO JUST DOWN THE HALL, BILL THIG-pen was sitting on a stool, talking to the director and groaning.
“How the hell do I know where she is? She checked out of her hotel room a week ago. I don't know who she's with. I don't know where she's gone. She's a grown woman and it's none of my business …until she starts screwing up my show. Now it's my business, but I still don't know where the hell she's gone to.” Sylvia Stewart had not come back from Las Vegas the previous Sunday night. She had checked out of her room there on Monday morning, exactly nine days before, the hotel said, but she still hadn't come back to work, and feeling awkward about it, Bill had gone to her apartment to check, and she hadn't been back there either.
They had written alternate scripts for the past week, but it was getting pretty desperate without her.
And in a few more days they would have to replace her. And Bill had just said as much to the director. By not calling in to at least explain to them what was going on, she was in clear violation of her contract.
“If she doesn't turn up before tomorrow's show, you've got to get me someone else,” Bill was saying to the director and one of the assistant producers. They had already called one of the agencies earlier that day, but it wasn't going to be easy to replace her without upsetting their viewers.
“Did everyone get the new material today?” the director asked, frowning at what Bill had just handed him. It was a whole new script, and it was obvious that Bill had the writers working night and day in Sylvia's absence. It was a heroic piece of work, and it kept the story afloat while she was gone. There were so many dramas occurring on the show at the same time that so far it seemed plausible that Vaughn Williams had not been seen for nine days, but barely. She was still in jail, being held for the murder of the man her brother-in-law had killed nine days before, on a Friday.
Bill stayed in the studio till they went on the air, and watched the entire show, satisfied that everyone was handling the new plot turns and the new script well, and when it was over, after congratulating everyone, he went back to his office. It was half an hour later when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom, and told him there was someone to see him.
“Anyone I know? Or are we going to keep it a secret?” He was tired from his long nights of work, but he was pleased that things were going well. It was mostly due, he felt, to a tremendous cast, two terrific writers, and an outstanding director. “Who is it, Betsey?”
There was a long pause. “It's Miss Stewart.”
“Our Miss Stewart? The Miss Stewart we've looked for all over the state of Nevada?” He raised his eyebrows with interest.
“The one and only.”
“Please show her in. I can hardly wait to see her.”
Sylvia walked in the moment Betsey opened the door. She came in like a frightened child, and she looked more beautiful than ever. Her long black hair hung down her back like Snow White's, and her eyes looking at him remorsefully seemed enormous. Bill stood up as she walked into the room, and stared at her as though he had just seen a vision.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked ominously. And for a moment she didn't know what to expect, so she started to cry as she watched him. “We've been going crazy, calling all over Las Vegas. The kids from My House said they left you with some guy. We were going to call the Nevada police and report you missing.” He had been genuinely worried about her for the past week, frightened by what might have happened to her.
She let out a sob and sat down on the couch as he handed her some tissues. “I'm sorry.”
“You should be. A lot of people were worried about you” It was like talking to a child, and he was suddenly relieved that in at least one way she was no longer his problem. “Where were you?” Not that it really mattered now, as long as she was back, and unharmed. That was what had worried him. Some nasty things had been known to happen in Las Vegas. Particularly to girls who looked like Sylvia Stewart. Especially when they slept with strangers.
But she was staring at him now, and started to cry again. “I got married.”
“You got what?” For once, he looked stunned. He had suspected everything but that as he had tried to figure out what might have happened to her. “To whom? The guy in your room the other night?”
She nodded and blew her nose again. “He's in the garment industry. From New Jersey.”
“Oh my God.” Bill sat down heavily next to her on the couch, wondering if he had ever known her. “What ever made you do something like that?”
“I don't know. I just …you always work so hard …and I've been so lonely.” Christ. She was twenty-three years old, drop-dead gorgeous, and she was crying about being lonely. Half the women in America would have given their right arm and more to look like her, and she had married a clothing manufacturer she didn't even know, and had spent a weekend with in Las Vegas. And Bill was suddenly wondering if it was his fault. Maybe if he hadn't neglected her, if he hadn't been so wrapped up in the show … it was a familiar refrain. In some ways, the chorus went all the way back to Leslie. But was he responsible for all of them? Was it really his fault? Why couldn't they adjust to the way he lived? Why did they have to run off and do something crazy? And now this foolish girl had married a total stranger. Bill looked at her in amazement.