And even during dinner, as they all gathered around the table, they all told wonderful stories about how wonderful their lives were, but it seemed too Brady Bunch to Roz. They were all either in college, or working, and they all were doing incredibly well. Even little Shane said he couldn’t be better. But it seemed rehearsed. It seemed as if the older ones knew, and the younger ones were instructed by their mothers, to never upset Daddy.
And by night’s end, when they all said their goodbyes, and even Shane and Joey, in front of Mick, smiled at Roz and hugged her neck, she wondered if Mick saw the truth. Because he was still smiling as each one left him. He was still smiling as they boarded their respective limousines and went back to the undoubtedly wealthy world Mick had set them up in. He admitted he was a great financial supporter. But it was the emotional support, he said, that needed work.
Now they were all driving away. And Mick was smiling as he watched them leave. And Roz was certain he didn’t get it. She was certain he was completely content to see this charade through to the bitter end. It was a shame. But it was a shame too many years in the making for her to do anything about.
Until she turned to walk away from the door. Mick pulled her back, and placed his hands around her waist. Only it wasn’t his usual sensual moves. It wasn’t even sexy. Because Mick, to her shock, was on the verge of tears. Any other man would have already been crying, that was how deeply hurt he seemed, but Mick was not any other man. He was on the verge, but he did not go over. But even the fact that he was that close was remarkable.
Roz waited for him to talk to her. Maybe he got it after all, she thought. But it would be several seconds before Mick could find his voice. And when he did, he spoke with pure anguish in it. “I never saw it before I met you,” he said to her.
Roz stared at him. She understood what he meant, but she needed him to verbalize it. “You never saw what?” she asked him.
“The pain in my children’s eyes.” Mick looked into Roz’s eyes. His sleepy eye seemed wide awake at this very moment.
“Pain?” she asked him.
“Pain,” he said. “We used to gather around, and laugh, and talk about a lot of nothing. Then they would go back to their lives, I would go back to mine, and they would rest in the comfort of knowing that their sugar daddy was going to continue to plow them with sugar. That they were still in my good graces.”
“But you didn’t see that tonight?”
“I saw it,” Mick said. “But I realized I was seeing what I wanted to see. I thought about you, and how you never went along with anybody’s bullshit. So I decided not to go along with theirs either. I heard their happy words, and I saw their happy smiles, but I looked into their eyes. And there was no happiness there. There was no joy there. All I saw was pain. Some bitterness. But lots of pain.”
Tears finally welled up in Mick’s eyes. It was a sight to behold for Roz. “They’re strangers to me, Rosalind,” Mick said. “I have allowed my children, my flesh and blood, to become strangers to me.”
Roz wanted to pull him into her arms and comfort him, but this was beyond comfort now. He didn’t need to be comfortable. She saw their pain too. She saw that anguish in their eyes. Mick needed to understand his part in that pain.
“What are you going to do about it?” she asked him.
Mick stood there, like a man alone, and then he looked at her. “Change it,” he said. “Don’t ask me how. I don’t know how. But it’s got to change.”
It was the best answer, Roz thought, he could have given. She was proud of him for not pretending that the answer was easy and fast. She would not have believed him if he would have went that way. But he didn’t go that way. He settled on the truth. She pulled him into her arms. He had a tall order ahead of him. They had a tall order. But Mick was right. It had to change.
Four days later, when Roz was back in New York teaching at the actor’s studio, and Mick had just arrived back in Philly after a business trip to Florida, nobody would see this change coming. Young Shane, his mother, and her entire household were murdered, two of Mick’s operatives were murdered along with more than a dozen of his men, and Mick was rushing back to his private jet to get to Roz. Before his enemies could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“That’s not stage presence, Alice,” Roz said to one of her students as the others looked on. “You have to play big. You have to play to the back of the room, not the front row. Everything has to be over-exaggerated.”
“Everything?” the unconvinced budding actress asked.
“Everything,” Roz responded with even more vigor. “Your voice, your walk, the way you sashay your hips. You’ve got to bring it, or they won’t be bringing you back.”