Toby picked up Jill that evening to take her to a dinner being given for a celebrated English director who had just arrived in Hollywood. Jill had been looking forward to it.
She opened the door for Toby and the moment he entered she knew that something was wrong. “You heard some news about my test,” she said.
He nodded reluctantly. “I talked to Sam Winters.” He told her what Sam had said, trying to soften the blow.
Jill stood there listening, not saying a word. She had been so sure. The part had felt so right. Out of nowhere came the memory of the gold cup in the department-store window. The little girl had ached with the wanting and the loss; Jill felt the same feelings of despair now.
Toby was saying, “Look, honey, don’t worry about it. Winters doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
But he did know! She was not going to make it. All the agony and the pain and the hope had been for nothing. It was as though her mother had been right and a vengeful God was punishing Jill for she knew not what. She could hear the preacher screaming, See that little girl? She will burn in Hell for her sins if she does not give her soul up to God and repent. She had come to this town with love and dreams, and the town had degraded her.
She was overcome with an unbearable feeling of sadness and she was not even aware that she was sobbing until she felt Toby’s arm around her.
“Sh! It’s all right,” he said, and his gentleness made her cry all the harder.
She stood there while he held her in his arms and she told him about her father dying when she was born, and about the gold cup and the Holy Rollers and the headaches and the nights filled with terror while she waited for God to strike her dead. She told him about the endless, dreary jobs she had taken in order to become an actress and the series of failures. Some deep-rooted instinct kept her from mentioning the men in her life. Although she had started out playing a game with Toby, she was now beyond pretense. It was in this moment of her naked vulnerability that she reached him. She touched a chord deep within him that no one else had ever struck.
He took out his pocket handkerchief and dried her tears. “Hey, if you think you had it tough,” he said, “listen to this. My old man was a butcher and…”
They talked until three o’clock in the morning. It was the first time in his life Toby had talked to a girl as a human being. He understood her. How could he not; she was him.
Neither of them ever knew who made the first move. What had started as a gentle, understanding comforting slowly became a sensual, animal wanting. They were kissing hungrily, and he was holding her tightly. She could feel his maleness pressing against her. She needed him and he was taking off her clothes, and she was helping him and then he was naked in the dark beside her, and there was an urgency in both of them. They went to the floor. Toby entered her and Jill moaned once at the enormous size of him, and Toby started to withdraw. She pulled him closer to her, holding him fiercely. He began to make love to her then, filling her, completing her, making her body whole. It was gentle and loving and it kept building and became frantic and demanding and suddenly it was beyond that. It was an ecstasy, an unbearable rapture, a mindless animal coupling, and Jill was screaming, “Love me, Toby! Love me, love me!” His pounding body was on her, in her, was part of her, and they were one.
They made love all night and talked and laughed, and it was as though they had belonged together always.
If Toby had thought he cared for Jill before, he was insane about her now. They lay in bed, and he held her in his arms protectively, and he thought wonderingly, This is what love is. He turned to gaze at her. She looked warm and disheveled and breathtakingly beautiful, and he had never loved anyone so much. He said, “I want to marry you.”
It was the most natural thing in the world.
She hugged him tightly and said, “Oh, yes, Toby.” She loved him and she was going to marry him.
And it was not until hours later that Jill remembered why all this had started in the first place. She had wanted Toby’s power. She had wanted to pay back all the people who had used her, hurt her, degraded her. She had wanted vengeance.
Now she was going to have it.
27
Clifton Lawrence was in trouble. In a way, he supposed, it was his own fault for letting things get this far. He was seated at Toby’s bar, and Toby was saying, “I proposed to her this morning, Cliff, and she said yes. I feel like a sixteen-year-old kid.”
Clifton tried not to let the shock show on his face. He had to be extremely careful about the way he handled this. He knew one thing: He could not let that little tramp marry Toby Temple. The moment the wedding announcement was made, every cocksman in Hollywood would crawl out of the woodwork, announcing that he had gotten in there first. It was a miracle that Toby had not found out about Jill before now, but it could not be kept from him forever. When he learned the truth, Toby would kill. He would lash out at everyone around him, everyone who had let this happen to him, and Clifton Lawrence would be the first to feel the brunt of Toby’s rage. No, Clifton could not let this marriage take place. He was tempted to point out that Toby was twenty years older than Jill, but he checked himself. He looked over at Toby and said cautiously, “It might be a mistake to rush things. It takes a long time to really get to know a person. You might change your—”
Toby brushed it aside. “You’re gonna be my best man. You think we should have the wedding here or up in Vegas?”
Clifton knew that he was wasting his breath. There was only one way to prevent this disaster from happening. He had to find a way to stop Jill.