Eighteen

The Muse

The jet black pantyhose were calling to him. The feet of the pantyhose, to be precise. He knew he shouldn’t look. Knew it would only encourage her. But he folded the edge of the newspaper down, giving in that much.

“Bee-yoll.” Her voice was childlike, crooning. Her puppeteer voice.

“I’m not in the mood for this, Ellie,” Bill said.

“Oh, Beeeeee-yoll.”

Her hands were all he could see of her, and not really much of her hands. The makeshift pantyhose puppets were “looking” at each other.

“He’s very angry with you,” the right hand admonished the left.

“No, he’s not,” the left answered, then they both looked at Bill.

“I’m not angry,” Bill said to the hands, giving in a little more. Addressing the puppets now. “Not really angry. Just tired.”

“Quit distracting him. He’s on an important deadline, and he has writer’s block,” the right said.

“He never has writer’s block,” the left replied. “He’s upset about Mir.”

“The prospect of a visit from Miriam is an unpleasant one,” he agreed.

Ellie’s head emerged above the edge of the breakfast table. He saw that she had cut the crotch out of the pantyhose, and was wearing them over her head.

“You are the strangest woman I know,” he said, causing her to smile. Ellie considered this a grand endearment. Bill knew that.

Her head tilted a little to one side, as if studying him for a portrait. “It’s fine now. Not even my evil twin can stop you.”

“She is your younger sister, not your twin,” he said, but she was leaving the table, pulling the pantyhose off.

Ellie was right, as always. Not about the twin business, of course, but about the novel he was working on. He got up from the table feeling invigorated, and went straight to the computer. He had a new slant on a passage he had considered unworkable until a moment ago. This was the effect she had on him. Ellie was his Muse.

He had known she would be from the moment he first saw her. Seven years ago, well past three o’clock in the morning on a hot summer’s night, at a gas station on Westwood Boulevard. Bill supposed he would forget his own name before he forgot that night.

He had been uneasy, at loose ends. It wasn’t insomnia: it’s only insomnia when you’re trying to sleep. He had been trying to write. It was his best kept secret then, his writing. None of his professors at UCLA, who knew him as a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, would have ever guessed it. Well-written papers and a flair for creative problem-solving didn’t make him stand out as more than a good student. His friends, although from varied backgrounds and majors, held the same prejudices as the few women he had dated: they assumed that engineers were unlikely to read novels, let alone write them. His father, who expected him to come to work for the family company in September, was also unaware of Bill’s literary aspirations.

In those days, Bill thought that was for the best. If he was going to fail, he preferred not to advertise it. And while he had faith in the basic idea for his novel, he had to admit it wasn’t working out. Frustrated when he stalled in that place in the manuscript where he had stalled no fewer than ten times before-where the boy ought to get the girl back again-he stood up and stretched. He needed some fresh air, he decided. At least, the freshest he could find in L.A..

And so he had restlessly made his way down to Westwood Boulevard, head down, his hands shoved down into his pockets, his long-legged gait taking him quickly past record stores and restaurants. He glanced up just to keep from running into parking meters and lampposts, glancing at but not really seeing the boutiques and movie theaters closed for night. The gas station was closed, too, but the sight that greeted him there made him slow his stride.

A lithe young woman was tugging on one of the water hoses most people would use for filling radiators. She was using it to wash a gold Rolls-Royce.

He came to a halt on the wide sidewalk, fascinated. She looked up over the hood, used the back of her hand to move her bowl-cut, thick, dark hair away from her eyes. Big brown eyes.

“Want to go for a ride?” she asked him.

He nodded, but didn’t move forward.

“You’ll have to give up hesitating if you’re going to ride with me,” she said, opening the driver’s door. But Bill was distracted from this edict when he saw an elderly man sleeping on the front seat.

“Wake up, Harry,” she said, gently nudging the old man, who came awake with a start. “We’re taking…” She looked over her shoulder. “I’m Ellie. What’s your name?”

“William. William Gray.”

She turned back to the old man. “We’re taking Bill here for a ride on Mulholland Drive. You can sleep in the back.”

The old man reach for a cap, rubbed a gnarled hand over his face and quickly transformed himself into a dignified chauffeur, moving to hold the passenger door open for Bill, waiting patiently as Bill finally moved toward the car. Harry gave a questioning look to Ellie, now behind the wheel.

“No, you need your rest.”

Harry nodded and climbed into the back, asleep again before Ellie had started the car.

They had traveled Mulholland and beyond that night, climbing canyon roads that twisted and turned.

She was a good driver; calm and assured, not crazy on the winding roads. At first, he was afraid, wondering if he had made the biggest-and perhaps the final-mistake of his life. He started envisioning bold headlines: “Missing UCLA Student Found Dead,” or “Still No Suspects in Topanga Canyon Torture-Murder Case.” Perhaps he wouldn’t be missed much. Maybe he would only rate a small article on a back page, near a department store ad: “Boy Scout Troop Makes Grisly Discovery in Canyon.”

“Either you just had a big fight with your girlfriend or you’re a writer,” she said, not taking her eyes off the road. “I’m betting you’re a writer.”

He hesitated, then said, “I’m a writer. Or I want to be one. How did you guess?”

“The time of day, the way you were walking. You looked frustrated, I suppose.”

“Anyone can be frustrated. Why would you think I’m a writer?”

She shrugged, then smiled a little. He waited, hoping she would answer, but she startled him by saying, “You’re also a bit of a romantic.”

He laughed nervously. “That’s an odd thing to say.”

“I am odd. But there’s nothing odd about knowing a romantic when you see one. At three-” She glanced at the clock on the dash. “At approximately three-twenty-five in the morning, you agreed to get into a Rolls-Royce with a sleeping old man and a woman you had never met before.”

“Perhaps I just needed an adventure.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps both. So, what’s your favorite movie of all time?”

“Rear Window,” he said without hesitation.

“Wonderful!” she said, laughing but still not taking her eyes from the road. “Whose work in it do you admire, Hitchcock’s or Woolrich’s?”

He smiled. Many people knew that Hitchcock directed Rear Window. Fewer knew that it was written by Cornell Woolrich. “Both, really,” he answered. “I’m a fan of both. I’ve seen every Hitchcock film, with the exception of a few of the very early British ones.”

Soon they were discussing Hitchcock and Woolrich, and Bill forgot all about Boy Scouts and headlines. She had seen most of the films he had seen, read more Woolrich.

He eased back into the passenger seat, studying her. She didn’t make a move toward him, didn’t reach across the seat, didn’t even look at him much. Every so often, finding a vista she liked, Ellie would stop the car. The first time she stopped, Bill expected her to turn her attention to him. But she didn’t do more than glance at him. “Just look at it,” she said, gesturing to the carpet of city lights below. Soon he realized that was all she would ask of him-just to look at it.

At one of these turnouts, she kicked off her shoes and rolled down a window, resting her bare feet on the sill. She drove barefooted the rest of the night.

She asked him questions. He talked more that night than he had ever talked in his life. About his writing, his family, his childhood, his love of Woolrich stories and Hitchcock films and chocolate and on and on, even describing the furniture in his apartment.

“And you?” he asked. “Where do you live?”

“Somewhere in these hills. Perhaps I’ll take you there someday.”

As many questions as she asked, and as few as she answered, somehow she still managed to make him feel that he was of vital interest to her, not in the way some questioners might-as scientist studying an insect-but as if she cared about him from before the time she had met him. He was wondering at the trust he had placed in this stranger just as the sun was coming up over the hills. She had parked the car on a ridge. Harry was snoring softly.

“I’ll take you home,” she said.

“I’m not sure I want to go home,” Bill answered, then quickly added, “Sorry, I don’t mean to be pushy. You’ve been a great listener. You’re probably tired and-”

She reached over then, and laid a finger to his lips. She shook her head, and he stopped talking, unsure of what she was saying ‘no’ to.

She took him back to his apartment, leaving Harry asleep in the car.

“Do you want to come in?” he asked on his doorstep.

She shook her head, an impish smile on her lips. “I know exactly what it looks like-I’m sure you’ve described it perfectly. Besides, you’re very busy. You’ve got to get a little sleep, and then you’ll wake up and write your book. It’s going to be terrific, but no one will ever find that out until you write it.”

She turned and skipped back to the car.

“Will I see you again?” he called out.

“Stop worrying,” she called back. “Write!”

And he had. He slept about three hours, woke up feeling as if he had slept ten, and wondering if he had dreamed the woman in the Rolls-Royce. But dream or no dream, he suddenly knew how to get around that problem in his story, and went to work.

Harry appeared a few hours later, a picnic basket in hand. “Miss Eleanor sends her regards, and provisions so that you need not interrupt your work.”

“You can talk!” Bill exclaimed.

“When necessary,” Harry said, and left.

Bill searched through the basket, and found an assortment of small sandwiches, a salad, a slice of chocolate cake and several choices of beverages. He also found an old-fashioned calling card:

On the back she had inscribed her phone number. “Delicious,” Bill said, holding it carefully, as if it might skip away, disappear as quickly as she had.

And so he went back to writing. Bill saw little of Ellie during the first few weeks which followed their ride through the hills, but he called her often. If he found himself staring uselessly at the place where the wall behind his computer screen met the ceiling, unsure of how to proceed, a brief chat with Ellie inspired him. They played a game with Hitchcock films and Woolrich stories.

“A jaguar,” he would say.

“Black Alibi,” she would answer. “A name scrawled on a window.”

“Easy-The Lady Vanishes.”

And his writer’s block would vanish as well.

When Bill completed his manuscript, Harry brought him and the manuscript to her home for the first time. Bill, trying (and failing) not to be overawed by the elegance which surrounded him, handed her the box of pages. She caressed the corners of the box, looking for a moment as if she might cry. But she said nothing, and set it gently aside without opening it. She held out her hand, and he took it. She led him upstairs.

Later, waking in the big bed, he found her watching him. “Did you read it?”

“No,” she said, tracing a finger along his collarbone. “I don’t want there to be any mistake about why you’re here. It’s not because of what’s in that manuscript box.”

He savored the implications of that for a moment before insecurities besieged him. “Maybe you’d hate it anyway.”

“I couldn’t.”

It was the last time they talked about the manuscript for three days. At the end of those three days, he mailed it to an agent, called his father to say he’d found other work, packed up his belongings and moved in with Ellie.

The agent called back, took him on as a client, and sold the book within a week. Bill was already at work on his second novel. The first one was a critically acclaimed but modest success. The second spent twenty-five weeks on the bestseller list. When Bill got his first royalty check, he asked Ellie to marry him.

She gently but firmly refused. She also refused after books three, four and five-all bestsellers.

Today, as he finished the chapter he was working on, he wondered if she would ever tell him why. Ellie could be very obstinate, he knew. If she didn’t want to give him a straight answer, she would make up something so bizarre and absurd that he would know to stop asking.

“There was a clause in my parent’s will,” she said once. “If I marry before my fiftieth birthday, the house must be turned into an ostrich farm.”

“And the courts accepted this?” he played along.

“Absolutely. The trust funds would go to ostriches and Mir would be very unhappy with you for putting an end to her healthy allowance.”

“Your parents would have left Miriam a pauper?”

“She thinks she’s a pauper on what I give her now.”

“A pauper? On ten thousand dollars a month?”

“Pin money for Mir. We grew up rich, remember?”

“Hard to forget. Why not give it all to Miriam and live on my money instead?”

She frowned. “I’d be dependent on you.”

“So what? I was dependent on you when I first lived here.”

“For about four months. And you had your own money, you just didn’t need any of it. Do you want to be married for more than four months?”

“Of course.”

“So now you see why we can’t be married at all.”

He didn’t, but he resigned himself to the situation. She probably would never tell him why she wouldn’t marry him, or why she allowed Miriam, who often upset her, to come to the house on a regular basis to plead for more money.

“Where’s Harry?” Miriam demanded when Bill answered the doorbell.

“On the phone,” Bill explained as he took her coat. “He’s placing ads for a cook and housekeeper.”

“Not again,” Miriam said.

“The last ones managed to stay on for about six weeks,” Bill said easily.

Miriam turned her most charming smile upon him. She was gorgeous, Bill thought, not for the first time. A redhead with china blue eyes and a figure that didn’t need all that custom tailoring to show it off. What was she, he wondered? A walking ice sculpture, perhaps? But he discarded that image. After all, sooner or later, ice melted.

“I don’t know why you stay with her, Bill,” Miriam purred, misreading his attention.

Bill heard a door open in a hallway above them.

“If you’re here for a favor,” he said in a low voice, “you’re not being very kind to your benefactor.”

Miriam stood frowning, waiting until she heard the door close again. Still, she whispered when she said, “Even you must admit that she drives the entire household to distraction.”

“Yes,” he said, thinking back to the night he met Ellie. “But distraction isn’t always such a bad place to go.”

“She’s crazy,” Miriam said scornfully. “And a liar!”

“She’s neither. What brings you by this afternoon?” They were halfway up the stairs now, and although Bill thought Ellie was probably past being injured by Miriam’s remarks, he didn’t know how much longer his own patience would last.

Miriam pointed one perfectly-shaped red fingernail at him. “How can you say she’s not a liar? She once told you Harry was her father.”

“She knew I wouldn’t believe it. She never tells me any lie she thinks I might believe. Come on, she’s waiting.”

Bill had heard Ellie cross into one of the upstairs staging rooms. This meant, he knew, that she had staged some clues for him, placed objects about the room intended to remind him of specific Hitchcock movies. It was an extension of the old game they played, and one of the reasons that housekeepers didn’t last long. The last one left after finding a mannequin, unclad except for Harry’s cap, sitting in the bathtub. (“The Trouble With Harry,” Bill had said, earning praise from Ellie even as they tried to revive the fainting housekeeper.)

Ellie, knowing Miriam hated the game, always had one ready when her sister came to visit.

Wearing a pair of jeans with holes in the knees, Ellie was sitting cross-legged on top of large mahogany table, passing a needle and thread through colored miniature marshmallows to make a necklace. She smiled as she moved the needle through a green marshmallow.

“How much this time?” she asked without looking up.

“Ellie, darling! So good to see you.”

Ellie glanced at Bill. “Too many Bette Davis movies.” She chose a pink marshmallow next.

“What on earth are you doing? And why are you wearing those horrid clothes?”

“Shhh!” Ellie said, now reaching for a yellow marshmallow.

Bill was looking around the room. As usual in a game, there were many oddball objects and antiques in the room. The trick was find the clues among the objects. “How many all together?”

“Three,” Ellie answered.

“Oh! This stupid game. I might have known,” Miriam grumbled.

He saw the toy windmill first.

“Foreign Correspondent,” he said.

“One down, two to go,” Ellie laughed. “How much money this time, Mir?”

“I didn’t come here to ask for money,” Miriam said, sitting down.

Bill looked over at her in surprise, then went back to the game.

Searching through the bric-a-brac that covered a low set of shelves, he soon found the next clue: three small plaster of Paris sculptures of hands and wrists. A man’s hand and a woman’s hand were handcuffed together; another male hand, missing the part of its little finger, stood next to the handcuffed set. “The Thirty-Nine Steps.”

“Bravo, Bill. Of course you came here for money, Mir. You always do.”

“Not this time.”

“What then?” Ellie asked, watching as Bill picked up a music box from a small dressing table.

“I want to move back home.”

Ellie stopped stringing marshmallows. Bill set the music box down.

Don’t give in, Ellie, he prayed silently.

“No,” Ellie said, and went back to work on her necklace. Bill’s sigh of relief was audible.

“Ellie, please. I’m your sister.”

“I’ll buy you a place to live.”

“I want to live here.”

“Why?”

“It’s in the will. I can live here if I want to.”

Ellie looked up. “We had an agreement.”

Miriam glanced nervously toward Bill, then said, “It’s my home, too, you know. You’ve allowed a perfect stranger to live here. Well, I don’t deserve any less.”

“Why do you want to come back, Mir? You haven’t lived here in years.”

“I think it’s time we grew closer as sisters, that’s all.”

Ellie only laughed at that. Bill was heartened by the laughter. Ellie was protective of Miriam, held a soft spot for her despite her abuses. But if that sister plea didn’t get through to her, maybe there was a chance…

“Look, you’ve been living up here in grand style,” Miriam said petulantly, “and I just want to enjoy a bit of it myself.”

Bill saw Ellie’s mood shifting, saw her glancing over at him. He felt awkwardness pulling ahead of his curiosity by a nose. He decided to leave this discussion to the sisters. It was Ellie’s house, after all. She could do as she liked. He started to edge out of the room, but Ellie said, “This concerns you, too, Bill. Don’t leave.”

He wasn’t put off by what others might have taken to be a commanding tone. In seven years, he had never heard the word “please” come out of her mouth. Although he thought of few things as certain when it came to Ellie, one certainty was that she rarely asked anything of others. Knowing this, he treated any request as if there were an implied “please.”

“This isn’t his house!” Miriam shouted.

“Lower your voice. He is my guest and welcomed here.”

Bill turned away, forced himself to look again at the objects on the dressing table.

Ellie went on. “You spent all of your inheritance in less than two years, Mir. Grandfather knew you were like our parents.”

Bill knew this part of the story. Their grandfather had raised the girls after their parents-wild, spoiled and reckless, according to Ellie-were killed in a car wreck. While Miriam received a large inheritance, Ellie’s grandfather had left the house and most of his money to Ellie, thinking Miriam too much like his late daughter.

“Don’t start speaking ill of the dead,” Miriam protested to Ellie.

“All right, I won’t. But the fact remains…”

“That you’ve made money and I’ve lost all of mine. Don’t rub it in, Ellie. Now I’ve even lost the condo.”

“I know.”

“You know? Then you understand why I want to live here.”

“Not really. But forget living here. I’ll help you buy a home, free and clear. But this time, I’ll keep the title so that you can’t mortgage it endlessly.”

“I want to live here. This is my home!”

“Fine. Then you won’t get another dime from me.”

Bill watched in the dressing table mirror as Miriam swallowed hard, then lifted her chin. “All right, if that’s what you want to do. My bags are in the car. Harry can pick up the rest of my things-”

“No!” Ellie interrupted sharply, clenching her hands, smushing part of her marshmallow necklace. She shook her head, then said more calmly, “You won’t badger that man. I swear you won’t be allowed to live here if you do. I’ll sell this place first.”

“All right, all right. I won’t cause trouble, Ellie. You’ll see. I’ll even bring my cook and housekeeper with me. That will save Harry a lot of work.”

Bill was hardly paying attention by then. He was nettled. So nettled, he didn’t offer to help Miriam with her bags as she left the room. He kept his back to Ellie, pretending to caught up in the game again.

My guest. It was accurate enough, he supposed. Not “my lover”. Not “my friend.” Not “the man I want to spend my life with.” My guest. He picked up the music box again.

“You’ve got a burr under your saddle, Bill. What is it?”

He ignored her for a moment, lifting the lid of music box. It played “The Merry Widow Waltz.”

He heard Ellie sigh behind him. “I’m not happy about it, either, “she said, “but there’s nothing I can do. Perhaps having Miriam here won’t be so bad.”

He closed the lid of the music box. “Shadow of a Doubt,” he said, and schooled his features into a smile before turning toward her. “Thank you for all the effort, Ellie. It’s always an amusing game.”

She looked puzzled. He hadn’t fooled her, of course. Belatedly he realized that she must have watched him in the mirror. But if she could be obstinate, well, by damn, so could he. He excused himself and left the room.

As he paid the tab in a bar that evening, Bill had to acknowledge that the slight had escalated into silent warfare, and much of it was probably his fault. He had not yet managed to tell Ellie how she had given offense. In one moment, it seemed of so little importance that he was ashamed of himself for thinking about it at all. In the next moment, it seemed to stand as a perfect symbol for everything that was wrong between them. There were several drinks between moments. But in the end, he had firmly resolved to talk to her, not to let one comment ruin all that they had shared until then.

Bill looked up to see a familiar figure coming toward him. Not the one he most wanted to see, but close enough. Harry had come to fetch him.

“Did she send you for me, Harry?” Bill asked, allowing Harry to lead him outside.

“No, sir.”

“You came on your own?” he asked in surprise. Harry had never indicated approval of Bill, a lack Bill took to mean disapproval.

“No, sir,” Harry replied, but Bill noticed that the old man actually seemed a little embarrassed to admit it. Harry gently guided him into the back seat of the Rolls.

Bill waited until Harry got into the car. He felt as if he might be sick, but he fought it off. “Why’d you come after me?” he persisted.

“Miss Miriam suggested it. She has many suggestions, sir.”

Bill signaled him to wait, opened the door and spared the upholstery.

Harry drove him home, windows down. But even over the long ride, Bill had sobered little. He made it into the house under his own steam, and began the climb the stairs. He swayed a bit as he reached for the bedroom doorknob, twisted it, and found it locked. He stared at it in his hand, as if somehow he were just doing it wrong, this simple act of opening a door.

Harry came in then, and quietly coming up the stairs, asked in a whisper if Bill might need some assistance. Bill was hanging on to the knob, staring dumbly at the door. Harry reached and tried the knob, then murmured, “It’s locked, sir. Perhaps…” but his voice broke off as they heard another door open.

Miriam, clad in a nightgown that seemed to offer little difference from sleeping in the nude, smiled and called out, “Ellie left some things for you outside the bedroom off your office downstairs. I guess you’re in the dog house tonight, Billy Boy.”

“You seem happy to hear it,” Bill said, trying to stand up straight. Having this greedy woman in the household would sorely try him. Harry stepped aside as Miriam came closer. Miriam tried to put an arm around Bill, giggling when he clumsily pushed her hand from his waist. She stepped back.

“Why do you two stay together?” she asked. “Ellie doesn’t seem interested. I could see why you tried to win her over at first, but now-well, why bother? You’ve got plenty of money. Most women would consider you quite a catch.”

“For your information,” Bill said, his drunken state not obscuring her intentions, “I wouldn’t make any money without your sister. If I leave her, I can’t write. She’s my Muse.”

Whatever reply Miriam might have made was lost when a loud crash sounded against the other side of the bedroom door.

“Ellie! Are you all right?” Bill called frantically.

“Go to hell!” came Ellie’s voice from the other side.

Bill heard Miriam giggle behind him as she closed her bedroom door.

“Don’t do this, sir.”

Bill was so taken aback by Harry’s plea that he stopped packing for a moment. But he shook his head and latched the suitcase.

“Sorry, Harry. I can take the silent treatment, and finding out that she threw a portrait of me against the door that night. I can even take the blame for starting this. But I can’t stay here if she doesn’t trust me.”

Until that afternoon, Bill hadn’t heard a word from Ellie in three days. After that first morning, when Harry brought Bill’s clothes into the bedroom adjoining Bill’s office, Bill hadn’t tried to go back to the room he had shared with her. He had heard her move about in her office, just on the other side of the wall. Each day, she had gone from her room to her office and back again, speaking only to Miriam or Harry. Miriam, suddenly the solicitous sister, would take meals to Ellie in her room. Bill tried to ignore it, told himself her temper would cool, and he would be able to tell her just how much she meant to him, that she was much more to him than the means to an end. Until then, he would keep his distance.

But this morning she had ventured outside the house, asking Harry to take her for a ride. They had been gone for about an hour when Bill heard someone rustling papers in her office, and went to investigate. Miriam was bent over some documents on Ellie’s desk, pen in hand.

“What are you doing?” he asked, startling her.

“None of your business.”

He moved closer, and she snatched one of the pages off the desk and wadded it up in her hand.

“Why are you in Ellie’s office?” he asked, glancing at a contract Ellie had signed, the document Miriam had been studying.

“I said, none of your business.”

He reached out and grabbed the hand with the paper in it. She clawed at his face, struggling furiously, but he caught both of her wrists and squeezed until she let the paper drop. He bent to pick it up even as Miriam ran crying from the room.

He sat down at the desk, ignoring the sting of the scratches. The contract was nothing unusual, he noted, as he smoothed the paper out. Ellie’s signature was on the scrap. But as he studied it closer, he realized it was almost Ellie’s signature.

A tearful voice took his attention from the paper. “I caught him trying to forge your signature. I grabbed the paper he was practicing on and he attacked me!”

He looked up to see Ellie staring at him in disbelief.

“Ellie…“he protested, standing up.

“Did you do this to her?”

She held out Miriam’s wrists. There were dark red marks on them.

“Yes, but Ellie…”

“I don’t want to hear it!”

She led Miriam from the room, consoling her.

And so he left the house in the hills. He had no trouble finding a house to rent. He told himself he only rented one because he was too busy finishing his manuscript to do serious house-hunting. Never mind that he was finished before his deadline. While waiting for his editor’s response, he began outlining another work, writing character sketches. He told himself this productivity was a sign that he was readjusting, living a new life.

But he knew that wasn’t the truth. The truth was, he wrote because writing was all he had left. He felt closer to her when he wrote, even as he told himself he didn’t miss her. But that was the biggest lie of all.

When his editor proclaimed the new manuscript Bill’s best work, Bill didn’t feel the sense of elation such praise might have once brought. Ellie wasn’t his link to writing after all. It wasn’t inspiration he missed; it was Ellie herself.

He found himself on Westwood Boulevard at three in the morning, staring at the place where the gas station had been. It was gone, transformed into a parking lot. But as he stared, a gold Rolls-Royce was pulled into the empty lot.

For a moment, his heart leapt. But then he saw that Harry was driving.

Alone.

It wasn’t the first time he had seen Harry. Harry kept tabs on him, he knew. In the beginning, he thought that she might have asked Harry to do so, then realized that Harry only appeared on his day off. Harry seldom spoke to him, and never mentioned Ellie. But it seemed to Bill that Harry was looking older each time he encountered him.

“Evening, sir.”

“Hello, Harry.” And then, breaking a promise he had made to himself, he asked, “How is she?”

Harry seemed to perk up a bit. He studied Bill’s face, then seemed to make up his mind about something. “She’s not well, sir.”

“Not well?”

“No, sir.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

Harry was silent.

“Harry, did she put you up to this? Is she trying to get me to come back? Because I’m doing just fine on my own now.”

Harry shook his head. “You disappoint me, sir.” He stepped back to the car.

“Harry, wait.”

Harry waited.

“Does she know you watch over me?”

“No, sir. But for some time now she has…I mean to say sir, that whatever has gone before, at present she may be too ill to contact you herself.”

Bill frowned. “I don’t like hearing that she’s ill.”

Harry stayed silent.

“I know she dislikes doctors. Has she been to a doctor about this illness?”

“Miss Miriam has supplied a doctor, sir. He often comes to the house to care for Miss Eleanor.”

“Oh.” He looked away from Harry’s studying gaze for a moment. “Well, I don’t suppose…that is, if Miriam has found a doctor who will make a house call, I don’t suppose Ellie needs me for anything.”

Harry hesitated, then said, “Permit me to say, sir, that I’m not certain Miss Eleanor has done well under this physician’s care.”

“Tell her that you saw me,” Bill said. “Tell her that you saw me here. She’ll know what that means. Tell her to-to let me know if she needs me.”

Bill didn’t sleep at all that night. If she were seriously ill…

He hesitated until late the next afternoon, then called the house. Miriam answered.

“Miriam, this is Bill.”

“Bill the caterer? Terrific. About this evening…”

“No, no. Bill Gray. Let me talk to Ellie, please.”

“Oh, that Bill.” After a long pause, Miriam said, “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Let me hear her say that herself.”

“Listen, she has a new man in her life. One who doesn’t cause so many problems. We’re having a dinner party tonight and he’s the guest of honor. So I really don’t think you’re someone she wants to talk to.”

The line went dead.

A new man. He half-believed it. If the wrenching in his gut was any indication, he believed it more than half. But Harry said she was ill, seeing a doctor. Why would she throw a dinner party if she wasn’t well? Why would Harry look for him if she was seeing someone else?

Not much later, he heard a car pull into his driveway. Bill looked out the window to see the Rolls. He hurried out the front door when he saw the look of worry on Harry’s face.

“Is she all right?” Bill asked.

“Sir, I’m to give you this.”

Harry pressed a key into Bill’s palm.

“There is a dinner party tonight, sir. I believe the persons in attendance are interested in acquiring the house and surrounding properties.”

“Ellie is selling the house?”

“No, sir. But there now exist documents which say Miss Miriam is given power of attorney over the sale of the house, due to her sister’s ill health. And indeed, her sister is ill.”

Bill looked down at the key.

“She said you could win the game, sir. Do you know what she means?”

“The game? The Hitchcock game. It must be Notorious.”

“The game is notorious, sir?”

“No, Harry. Notorious is a Hitchcock film. Claude Rains plays one of the leaders of a group of Nazi scientists living in Brazil. They’re trying to build an atom bomb. Ingrid Bergman has married him, but as he discovers, she’s an American spy working with Cary Grant.”

“Does the key give you some clue about her health, sir?”

“No,” Bill said absently, “but in a Hitchcock film, the story is always larger than the objects which become the focus of the suspense.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

Bill continued to stare at the key, but answered easily. “The key is to a wine cellar, where an important secret is kept. But the film isn’t really about spies and secrets. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are in love, but misunderstandings and mistrust stand between them. It isn’t until the end of the film, when he realizes that…” Bill suddenly looked up at Harry. “Harry, when you said she was ill…oh, no. Get me to the house at once! Drive like a bat out of hell!”

Harry complied. As they drove, Bill asked him questions that made Harry wonder if the young man had somehow spoken to Miss Eleanor, even though Miss Miriam had taken the phone out of Eleanor’s room long ago. Bill asked about Miss Eleanor’s symptoms, and every time Harry said, “Yes, sir. She’s had terrible stomach cramps,” or “Yes, sir, very dizzy,” Bill seemed to grow more frantic.

“Keep the motor running,” he said as they pulled into the drive. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Bill burst through the front door, nearly knocking a startled maid off her feet. He could hear voices in the dining room, but he didn’t bother with the dinner party in progress. He ran up the stairs.

“Sir!” The maid called. “You can’t go up there!”

He ignored her.

His only moment of hesitation came as he stepped inside Ellie’s bedroom and saw her for the first time in months. He had expected to find Ellie’s bedroom door locked, but quickly realized why it wasn’t.

She was too ill to run away.

He forced himself to move again, came quickly to her side. Her skin was jaundiced and she was so thin, almost skeletal, he thought, then pushed the thought away. Her hair, her beautiful hair, was dull in color and missing in patches. Her breathing was steady but rasping. He put his hands beneath her and lifted her frail body from the bed, keeping the blanket wrapped around her. He told himself that self-recrimination must wait.

Her big brown eyes were open now, watching him.

“Good to see you,” she whispered.

“My God, Ellie.” He tried to gather his wits. “How long has she been poisoning you?”

“Little at a time,” she said, wincing as she spoke.

“Don’t talk now, not if it hurts. Has it just been since I left?”

She nodded, the effort seeming to wear her out.

A month. A month of arsenic. “I’m not leaving again, Ellie. Except to take you with me.”

She continued to watch him, but now the barest smile came to her lips.

He had started down the stairs when Miriam, dinner party in tow, entered the foyer.

“What are you doing?” Miriam screeched.

“I’m taking her to a hospital. To see a real doctor. You had better pray to God that I’m not too late.”

Miriam tried to block his way. “She’s too ill to move! You have no business…”

“Careful, Miriam,” he said in a low voice. “She’s awake and lucid. Shall we discuss this in front of your guests, or do you want to wait until after Harry describes your so-called doctor to the gents at the sheriff’s office? Ellie’s bloodwork will probably give them all they need to go after both of you.”

Miriam paled, then stepped out of the way.

“What’s going on here?” one of the guests demanded.

“My sister’s…”

“Fiancé,” Bill supplied, as he reached the front door. “Her fiancé is taking her to a hospital.”

The group followed him toward the car. He wasn’t watching them. He was watching Ellie. She moved her hand, covered his with it. Her skin was cool and paper dry. “You’re safe now, Ellie,” he told her.

“I’m coming with you!” Miriam said, hearing the guests murmuring behind her.

“No you aren’t, miss,” Harry said, helping Bill into the backseat.

“She’s her sister!” one of guests protested.

“Her sister will remain here with you,” Bill said. “She wants to tell you about a Hitchcock film.”

“What are you talking about?” another man asked.

“Notorious,” Bill said, closing the car door.

“You’ve won, sir, haven’t you?” Harry said as they drove off.

“I’ve had help,” Bill replied. “All along, I’ve had help.”

Ellie squeezed his hand.