When we got into my dressing room, Veronica scanned and dismissed it with one scathing glance.
“I see you’ve moved up in the world.” She had retained just enough of her Southern accent that sarcasm had a knifelike effect as it rolled off her honeyed tongue.
“You have ten minutes,” I reminded her. “If you’ve got something to say, you should go on head and say it.”
She studied me for a second, then pulled out a check and handed it to me.
It was written out to Davidia Jones in the amount of fifty thousand dollars. “What’s this?” I asked her, even though I knew. Back in the eighties, this had been a common scenario in movies, to the point that actually taking part in this conversation not only felt unreal, but also real cliché.
“I’ve discussed this with my family and our attorneys, and that’s what we’re prepared to give you to go away and leave James alone.”
Leave James alone, she said. Like I was bothering him. The situation made me think of Erica London all of sudden. Had his family liked her? I wondered.
“James agreed to this?” There wasn’t really anything else I could say to a proposition like that. It was so much money, it almost didn’t seem real.
“James doesn’t need to know that this conversation took place,” she answered.
“Okay, then, it’s time for you to leave.” I tried to give her back the check.
But she didn’t take it. “He won’t marry you. You’ll never stand to gain more money than this from your association with him.”
“If, by association, you mean our relationship, then I guess I should let you know that I’m not with James for his money. I’m with him because he wants me to be, even after I told him it wouldn’t be a good idea, he insisted. Now, I’m sorry if that upsets you, but seriously, that’s the way it is. Fifty thousand dollars won’t change his feelings. Or mine.”
“Like I said. He won’t marry you. You’re just a phase he’s going through,” she said.
She really seemed stuck on this marriage thing.
“I’m not looking for marriage, Veronica.”
“Then what are you looking for?” she asked. “Because I want this over. As a matter of fact, I can’t believe it’s gotten this far.”
Veronica, like James, I could see, found it hard to fathom not getting her own way. She would talk me to death before she would let me just waltz away with her brother. And I didn’t have the patience for all of that. So I made my position real simple for her.
I ripped up the check and threw the pieces at her feet. “It’s time for me to get back to work.”
Veronica watched the dramatic fall of the check, now in pieces, floating to the floor, but she did not look impressed.
In the following silence, my dressing room suddenly began to feel hot and sticky, and it seemed like Veronica was the only source of cold air in the space. It was like we were back in Mississippi again.
But this is not Mississippi, I reminded myself. Los Angeles is warm and temperate and never humid. And Veronica Farrell no longer has any power over you.
Still, I had to resist the urge to turn tail and run again when her gray eyes went from the check pieces back up to mine. She looked absolutely livid.
“That was stupid,” she said. “Very stupid. I can’t imagine what you thought would be gained by that.”
I began to tremble, which was not a Stage Davie move. Accordingly, I ratcheted down my self-expectation from answering her with pithy one-liners and settled for just staying put. If I could just stay put underneath the icy stare of Veronica’s scorn, then I was doing okay, I decided.