Born To Be Wild

FORTY

Demi Moore spent some of her early acting days on General Hospital.

BORN TO BE WILD

Sunday Cavendish faces the man who’s her father. She studies him, says slowly, “You’re even more impressive in person than on TV.”

Phillip Galliard, in his fifties, tall, with silver wings in his dark hair and Sunday’s blue eyes, is immaculately dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, and black shoes. He inclines his head toward her. “Thank you.”

Sunday looks around his lavish office. “You’re certainly not a monk, are you?”

“No, not in any sense. This, though,” he says, waving his arms around the office, “is for show. People expect it. Years ago, my office, my home, my car reflected my own tastes-functional and spare are good words, I suppose. I never had a thought for anything outside of God’s works. I was what I was and I didn’t think it could matter. But it did. My staid surroundings did not go over well. People who wanted to believe what I preached also wanted me to be different from them somehow. They wanted to see me as special and so my surroundings had to be special-I suppose few in the modern world want to follow a man who looks like a beggar. I learned that the TV people, all the sponsors who make my work possible, wanted the trappings even more than my followers did. They wanted glamour and obvious signs of wealth. I think they were right-my audience grew, and it helped people to believe me, entrust their money to me.”

She wants to smile, but holds it in. He’s charming, she recognizes it, but she’s not about to let him see that. “You know my mother never told me about you.”

“I’m not surprised. She told me she wouldn’t.”

“Look, I don’t know you. Why, all of a sudden, do you want to know me?”

“Well, now, that’s a long story…”

He looks at her, his expression troubled-

“Clear!”

The shine was off Norman’s face three minutes later when Todd Bickly, the stage manager, shouted, “Okay, go!”

Sunday gives her father a sneer. “A long story? As in complicated? It seems simple enough to me. You decide you don’t want me and Mom, and you leave. She never wants to see you again, understandable after you cut out on us. You never contact us. She remarries and I have a step-father, not much of one, but at least he was there, at least until we got rid of him.”

“You mean after he tried to molest your half sister.”

“All he did was try.” She waves her hand at him. “Now that I’m grown, I’m successful, I’ve got money, you suddenly pop into Los Angeles, announce to my mother that you’re back, and you want to see me. I’ve been thinking about why you’d do that, Mr. Galliard. I’ve decided all this display of wealth is a sham. You need money, don’t you?”

Her father walks behind his desk, picks up a glass, and pours water into it from a crystal carafe. He drinks deeply, sets down the glass. He turns to face her. “You look like me. I’ve watched you over the years, Sunday, seen your photos in European magazines, read in the business sections of newspapers about how you’re running a huge corporation. You fascinate people, you know-you’re so very young, and yet you’ve managed to squeeze both your mother and your half sister off the board, you even landed one of your mother’s lovers in jail when he tried to hurt her. You’re on top now. You’re so very young and yet you’re on top of everything.”

Sunday laughs. “I guess my mother didn’t tell you about her latest attempt to ruin me, to climb back to control the board with my half sister at her side, did she?”

“No, she’d hardly tell me that, would she? What did she do?”

“She bribed one of my staff to drug me, and had me carried to a sleazy motel where she arranged for some mob guy to be staying. When the press got there, it looked like I was shacking up with a lowlife right out of Pulp Fiction. She wanted the board of directors to turn leadership back over to her. Susan would have been her CEO.”

“That couldn’t have been pleasant for you.”

“I won’t forget that headache for a long time, that’s for sure. As for the rest-” Sunday shrugs and gives him a cold smile. “It’s the cost of doing business with the likes of my mother.”

“You’re making light of it, but it was an evil thing for her to do.”

Sunday shrugs again, looks bored. “You married her. You must have guessed what she was capable of.”

He shakes his head. “Not really. She was young then, so full of possibilities.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t have become what she is if you hadn’t run out on us. Maybe if you’d stayed married, I wouldn’t have a half sister who’d shoot me if she had the guts.”

He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, only shakes his head.

“And you want to know what else, Reverend Galliard? For revenge against my half sister, I was thinking about sleeping with her husband, a real winner, that guy. Would that have sent me right to hell?” She gives him a patently false smile. “I was going to cut him off at the knees, of course, once I was done with him. But then you came along. You saved me from wasting my time on him.”

She stops, stares at him. “I can’t believe what just came out of my mouth. You’re good, you know that? You’re really good. A preacher, a shrink-you’re good at both.”

He looks at her steadily. “Maybe you feel on a gut level that you can trust me. No, don’t say you’d rather trust the devil. I hope to show you it’s true.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t even know you.”

“I never wanted to leave you, Sunday, never, but-”

“Yes, there’s always a ‘but,’ isn’t there? You know what, Reverend Galliard? I don’t want to hear it, although I’m willing to bet your delivery would be worthy of you.” She waves her hand around his office. “I bet you’ve come to love your trappings and your Italian loafers. I’ll bet you’d do anything before you gave them up. Good luck saving all those souls in exchange for their worldly goods.”

She flicks a finger at his suit. “Versace, right?” She turns on her three-inch black heels and walks out.

He doesn’t move, stands staring after her-

“Clear! Good scene, Norman, Mary Lisa. Just great. You’re on again right after lunch, Norman.”

Clyde came bounding onto the set. “Not bad, guys. We’re off to a good start. I gotta tell you I wasn’t sure when Bernie sold me this story line. But it’s going to grab our viewers. And it’s completely fresh, we’ll be working it for months.”

Mary Lisa patted his arm. “I’m glad you’re pleased, Clyde. So am I.”

Clyde was already trotting back to the booth where the director stood watching them, toasting them with his cup of black coffee.

“The powers that be are happy. Good for us.” Mary Lisa smiled at Norman Gellis, newly arrived to play her father from ATWT-As the World Turns-and patted his arm. “Welcome aboard.” What an incestuous business the soaps were. Norman had run out of enthusiasm for his character on ATWT and so they’d killed him off, shot by his jealous wife when he’d come home from a hunting trip late at night. Mary Lisa thought Norman Gellis was perfect for the role of Reverend Phillip Galliard, Sunday’s long-absent father. He was an experienced, accomplished actor, and he’d played off her very well in their initial scene. Amazingly, his eyes were nearly the same color as hers, and she actually resembled him quite a bit. Was it all a coincidence, or had the producers planned to bring him over all along?