“Of course I do. He works inLabor and Delivery, and I deliver babies.”
“No need to get smart.”
We walked side by side across the street to the bar like an old couple who did this every weekend.
I yanked open the door and she held up a finger, mouthing,Tell you in a second.
Turning toward the bar area, we found a booth in the corner and slid in opposite one another.
I took in Betsy as she slid onto the bench in her skinny jeans, white blouse, and wild auburn curls. She resembled Julia Roberts without the height and movie-perfect face. And she was smart. The type of woman my coworkers assumed I’d date and marry. But I had unrealistic expectations or I didn’t know what when it came to choosing women.
“Gary tells me he’s being prepped to deliver a baby in the Conway Suite. He said one of the Conways is having a baby later this year. It’s hush-hush, of course, but you know the nurses…they’re like a bunch of piranhas with gossip. And the Conway Suite isn’t where babies are typically delivered.”
“And you aren’t?”
“What?”
“A piranha when it comes to gossip?” I raised an eyebrow.
Thank God the server interrupted, and Betsy ordered a red wine and I asked for a scotch, straight up. From the sound of this story, I wasn’t going to like this new direction after all.
“I only know one doctor who would deliver a Conway?”
She said it like a question, but her attitude and cocked left eyebrow suggested she knew she was correct in her assumptions.
“And here you are, having tickets to see a Billy Conway movie…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Has to be Billy. She’s pregnant! Maybe that’s why I didn’t think she looked herself.”
I felt my pulse speed up, and my palms grow clammy. It wasn’t my position to share Ford’s news, but I also didn’t want rumors spiraling around Billy.
I needed a moment to think, and like a miracle the server was back with our drinks.
Taking a large gulp, I realized I wasn’t cut out for this. Celebrity-status friends were not my calling. Practicing medicine and dealing in hard facts was what I did—I had zero experience when it came to making up stories or fibs. I was an ordinary guy. “Look, it’s not Billy, but I’m not at liberty to say. How’s that? Will that satiate you?”
“Well, then I’m guessing Scott is growing his political brood. Ford is too old…although Billy’s no spring chicken herself.”
“How’s your new PA?” I almost fist-pumped the air when my question got Betsy started onto a new mountain of misery. Her physician assistant was awful when it came to charting and consulting… The rest of her problems I tuned out while telling myself this thing or non-thing with Billy had run its course.
Until I got home and felt the need to text her.
Loved the movie. Thank you. Beautiful seeing you on the screen, but only second best to seeing you in person.
My text was still unanswered when I went to bed around midnight. I told myself it was only nine on the West Coast, so I could wake up to a response. Unsure why I had to play this game with myself, I had a fitful night’s sleep, wondering and tossing and turning.
Billy
September
Iwaited at a table for two despite the entire back patio being closed off—just for me. Frank was in a state after a fan had sat down at my dinner table last week in Santa Monica and wouldn’t get up. The man kept saying how I was the love of his life and asking me to use a Boston accent for him. He’d heard me recently on a morning show use the accent I’d perfected forThe Tide, and he was obsessed—his word, not mine.
Frank, trying not to make a scene, mostly in an effort to keep the paps from noticing, requested the man get up. Nicely at first and a little more harshly the second time. By the third asking, Frank nudged the man up and took him over to the bar and set him up with a tab on us. Of course, he didn’t know the tab was limited to two drinks and that the bartender was going to toss him out.
Anyway, after telling the interloper to have fun, Frank was back and escorting my actress friend and me out the rear of the restaurant, fuming and ready to get me home.
Shar, my longest friend in the business, had laughed all the way to her place in the back of my SUV. “The love of his life,” she kept repeating.
