“Now why would an old woman like me try matchmaking?” With that, she skated off.
“Yeah, I hear you.” Harlow glanced back at Immanuel, who seemed remarkably and unrealistically alive for a painting. “Hey, are you going to help me learn to skate or what?”
First Tuesday got her into skates, and now she had her talking to a wall. Still, for a split second, she felt him smile. But since he wasn’t real—she didn’t care what Tuesday said—it had to be in her imagination.
For the next hour, she inched around the rink, arms like wings, braving a move away from the wall only to go down hard. All the while, Tuesday Knight skated freely around her.
Two women facing the end of everything they’d lived and worked for were leaving it all on the rink.
By the time they’d removed their skates, shut off the music and lights, and headed into the Starlight’s parking lot, Harlow hadmade it around the rink a dozen times without falling or reaching for the wall.
“You did well,” Tuesday said.
“Did I?” Harlow rubbed her butt bone. “I’ll be bruised in the morning.”
Tuesday glanced at the night sky, dotted with the stars, like a celestial Morse Code, then juggled her old pocketbook for a set of car keys. “What more evidence do we need than this night sky? God is with us, and that’s a great, great comfort.” She walked toward her car. “Are you going to watch Matt on Letterman?”
“I stopped watching late-night talk shows when I became a punch line.”
“Matt wouldn’t allow that to happen, Harlow.”
“Even so, good intentions can get lost. Matt can tell me about it when he gets home.”
“Well, you know best. Can I give you a lift?”
“Thank you, but I’ll walk. It’s a beautiful night.”
Harlow waited until Tuesday was in her car and driving off before making her way across the Starlight’s parking lot toward Sea Blue Way, feeling lucky, even a bit proud, to have skated with Tuesday. Wouldn’t Matt be surprised when he got home?
She’d just walked through the door when the phone rang. “Harlow, it’s Matt.” He sounded funny, like he was weak and far off. “I have to tell you something.”
23
MATT
He arrived home early Thursday evening, and as he made his way down the hall to drop off his bag, Dad greeted him from the kitchen.
“Did you mean to say that stuff on Letterman? About Harlow?”
“What do you think?” He changed from jeans to shorts and exchanged his button-down for a T-shirt. “Have you seen Harlow or Granny? Is there any buzz in town?”
“Not that I can tell. Saw Granny this morning and Harlow walking toward the rink this afternoon. How’d your movie meeting go?”
“I don’t remember half of what they said. I’ve not slept since the taping. I called Harlow, Dad. Warned her.” Matt retrieved a cereal bowl and joined Dad at the table.
“That was smart. What’d she say?”
“Nothing. I apologized, and I think she thanked me for the heads-up, but . . . Dad, she told me that stuff about the breakup in confidence.”
The producers not only kept the Harlow segment in the show but also used a clip of it as a teaser during prime time. Wired with guilt, Matt had monitored the news. Checked the newsstands outside his hotel and at the airport, but so far the headline of the day was the USSR’s nuclear testing, Wayne Gretzky breaking the all-time scoring record, a seventh-inning comeback for the Yankees, the upcoming premiere ofBeverly Hills Cop II, and a British MP being charged with gross indecency.
Then he saw a daily tabloid headline in the airport newsstand.THE BILLIONAIRE LOCKED OUT THE BEAUTY.
“You have a bunch of messages on the machine.”
“Do I want to hear them?”
“One of these days you’re going to have to figure out what gives you diarrhea of the mouth, Matt. Didn’t you listen to yourself?”
