a hot towel. ‘I’ll just leave you these, and I’ll get out of your way. They’re all new,’ she said cheerfully, dumping a stack of fashion and gossip magazines into Sasha’s lap.
Sasha flipped through them idly. Vogue’s Ten Must-Have’s for Winter! Fashion had always bored her, and she found it bizarre the way that her own outfits were analyzed and commented on in the press. Most of the time her PA, Jeanne, shopped for her online. In winter Sasha wore whatever was nearest and warmest. Passing Vogue to her neighbour, she opened People magazine and immediately wished she hadn’t.
‘JACKSON DUPREE’S FAIRYTALE WEDDING TO LONG-TIME LOVE, CHARLOTTE GRAINGER!’ There were six pages of it. Six! Despite herself, Sasha turned to them immediately, skimming through shot after shot of Lottie smiling beatifically. Jackson looked happy too, feeding her wedding cake, holding her close for the first dance as every socialite in New York looked enviously on. It did look like a fairytale. Just not hers.
‘Excuse me.’ Sasha stopped the stewardess. ‘I don’t need these.’ She handed the magazines back to her. ‘Do you happen to have today’s Wall Street Journal?’
‘Of course. I’ll bring it right over.’
Work, that was what she needed. Tomorrow she’d be back in the office, back in the fray, with no more free time to think about things like Jackson and Lottie, or the St Michael’s Mastership, or what Theo Dexter was or wasn’t thinking.
Holidays were definitely over-rated.
‘Come on, baby. Harder! Do it like you mean it.’
Even in bed she wants to direct, thought Theo with a sigh. Putting a hand over his wife’s mouth – Dita wouldn’t mind, she liked it when he was masterful – he continued fucking her. But his heart wasn’t in it.
Yesterday he’d had a call from his accountant, Perry Margolis.
‘I’m just going to give it to you straight, Theo. You’re living beyond your means. Something’s going to have to give, and fast. I’m not kidding.’
‘But, Perry, how is that possible? My salary on Universe just went up. I’ve got the aftershave deal, Kenco coffee renewed. I know Sony haven’t signed on the dotted line yet, but …’
‘This is nothing to do with Sony. Your income’s healthy, that’s not the problem.’
Theo sighed deeply. ‘I know.’
The problem was four letters long, and it was lying beneath him now, sucking the very life out of him like a fucking preying mantis. Dita’s spending, always excessive, always impulsive, had recently become borderline pathological. It was as if there were a direct link between her self-esteem and the bills she ran up on her Amex card – one went down and the other went up. In the last six months, Dita had been passed over for two major movie roles, in both cases for younger actresses. The irony was that she still looked fantastic. But keeping her that way was like running a grand old stately home. It required an army of professionals, hair-dressers, stylists, personal shoppers, make-up artists, trainers, facialists, yoga instructors and therapists just to get Dita out of bed in the mornings, and all of them were on full-time payroll. That was before you got to the nannies, tutors and tennis coaches for the children, the French ballet instructress for Fran, the twenty-four-hour on-call allergist for Milo.
‘Your staff alone cost more than you’re earning for the new season of Dexter’s Universe,’ said Perry. ‘I’ve seen countries run more cheaply. You have to let at least a third of them go.’
Theo had broached the subject with Dita last night, and again this morning. ‘No,’ she said defiantly. ‘I’m not going to live like a pauper because you can’t manage our finances.’
Theo had lost his temper, pointing out that if it weren’t for his earnings they would have lost the house years ago. Dita shot back that without her stardom, he would never have made those earnings; that all his endorsement deals, not to mention his film career, such as it was, were a direct result of his marriage to her; that he was little more than a gigolo – a gigolo who, quite frankly, had become lazy and boring and no longer excited her in bed. Theo raised a hand to slap her, Dita grabbed his arm, and before they knew it they were making love, clawing at one another like a pair of wild animals in heat.
The sex had been great until Dita started talking, goading and taunting Theo (she called it ‘coaching’) until he could happily have ripped her head off with his bare hands. Now it was all he could do to finish the job, forcing thoughts of bills and unpaid IRS demands out of his head and fantasizing about Lorna Fox, the teenage actress who had ‘stolen’ Dita’s latest role, just to get himself to come.
Thankfully Dita came too, her nails digging painfully into Theo’s buttocks as she moaned and gasped beneath him. ‘Not bad,’ she said, lighting a cigarette as he rolled off her. ‘At least you’re making an effort.’
Ignoring her, Theo walked into the bathroom. Pressing a button on the wall, a torrent of hot rain exploded out of the ceiling in the far corner of the room. The ‘invisible shower’ was another of Dita’s extravagances, but in this case Theo wasn’t complaining. The hot jets of water felt wonderful on his back, invigorating and relaxing at the same time.
His depressing conversation with Perry yesterday wasn’t the only thing on his mind. Ed Gilliam had forwarded him an email, a news piece about his old Cambridge college, St Michael’s. Apparently, old Tony Greville was retiring and elections were being held for a new Master. Ed had only sent it as a piece of idle gossip, something it might amuse Theo to know. But the news had opened up a floodgate of feelings in Theo that he’d barely had time to process.
He could picture St Michael’s now, as if he’d never left. The ivy-clad, medieval courts, the formal gardens rolling down to the peaceful Cam, his rooms in First Court and all the exciting, intelligent, adoring young women he’d taken to bed there. He still had young lovers in LA of course, physically perfect specimens all. And Dita, to give her fair credit, was no slacker in either the looks or the lovemaking department. But it was a long time, a long time, since Theo had fucked a truly intelligent woman.
What would it be like to go back to Cambridge now? To return as the conquering hero? As a fantasy, it had a lot of appeal, though it was hard – impossible – to fit Dita and the children into that picture. Plus Perry had made it painfully clear that now would not be a good time for Theo to walk away from his lucrative endorsement deals, never mind jack in the TV show that had made him.
Drying and dressing in long shorts and a James Perse t-shirt, his LA uniform, Theo came down to breakfast in a thoughtful mood. Unusually, Dita was up already, wrapped in a silk robe and picking at a waffle with Milo on her lap when he came in.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Milo said shyly. It irritated Theo, the way the boy was always so nervous around him, clinging to Dita like Bambi to his mother, but he tried not to show it.
‘Morning, Milo. How’s that cough this morning?’
‘Better,’ he smiled wanly. ‘I think I can go to school today. I feel fine.’
‘That’s great,’ said Theo, but Dita shook her head.
‘Not today, honey. Rosetta said he was wheezing a lot in the night,’ she explained to Theo. ‘I want Dr Gray to see him before we make any decisions.’ She sprinkled powdered sugar into a square of waffle and fed it to her son, as if he were a helpless baby bird. Theo felt his anger building.
‘He just said he feels fine.’
‘Drop it, Theo, OK?’ Dita snarled. ‘You know nothing about how to care for Milo. You never have.’
Unwilling to be drawn into yet another fight in front of the kids, Theo changed the subject.
‘I heard something interesting yesterday,’ he said pouring himself a bowl of Kashi GoLean cereal and ruffling his daughter’s hair. Throughout her parents’ tense exchange, three-year-old Fran had continued happily stuffing her face with Cheerios,