Dedication

For Molly, Naomi, and Frances Louise

Acknowledgments

One of the pleasures of writing this book was taking a trip back in time, remembering what it was like to grow up in Beverly Hills. A special thank-you to the folks in the “Beverly Hills in the 50s & 60s” Facebook group for sharing their remembrances, as well as to friends Jodyne Roseman and Ellen Kozak. For a sanity check on Hollywood and the movie business, thanks to my sister Delia Ephron.

Thanks to Lee Lofland for help on police procedure; to Deb Duncan on insurance fraud; to Paula Shelby on the workings of a Harley dealership; to Susannah Charleson on arson investigation; to Clarissa Johnston, MD, on trauma; and to Michelle Clark on death investigation.

For help working my way out of plot holes, thanks to generous fellow writers Paula Munier, Roberta Isleib, Hank Phillippi Ryan, and Jan Brogan.

I am deeply indebted to my agent, Gail Hochman, and my editor, Katherine Nintzel, for their clearheaded critiques and encouragement. Seriously. Thank you. Thanks to assistant editor Margaux Weisman for help shepherding this manuscript through to publication.

Thanks to Joanne Minutillo, Danielle Bartlett, Tavia Kowalchuk, and the other amazing folks in publicity at HarperCollins for their talent and enthusiasm launching this book.

Thanks to Jim and Anne Hutchinson, whose generous donation to Raising a Reader purchased a character name for their son Jack.

And finally, thanks to my husband, Jerry. Without his patience and forsaken weekend outings, this book never could have been written. He, more than anyone, was glad to see it finished.

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Friday, May 23, 1985

Chapter 1

Saturday, May 24, 1985

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Sunday, May 25, 1985

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Monday, May 26, 1985

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Tuesday, May 27, 1985

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Wednesday, May 28, 1985

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Almost Two Years Later, Wednesday, March 11, 1987

Chapter 44

Author's Note

About the Author

Also by Hallie Ephron

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

FRIDAY,

May 23, 1985

Chapter 1

Arthur Unger slides open the glass door and steps out onto his flagstone patio. He’s had a few drinks but he doesn’t feel them. It’s late at night, and though the sky is clear and there is no moon, there are no stars, either. There never are. Between ambient light and air pollution, he’d have to drive to Mount Baldy to see Orion’s Belt.

The sky is . . . He gazes up at it. Opaque? Inky? Like warm tar? His ex-wife would have nailed it. She was great at narrative description and dialogue. And of course, she could type. He was the plotmeister. Arthur takes a final drag on his cigarette, the tip glowing in the dark, and stubs it out in one of the dirt-filled, terra-cotta planters in which Gloria once cultivated gladiolus. Or was it gardenias? Something with a G.

He picks up one of three cut-glass tumblers sitting on the table on the patio, left over from tonight’s unpleasantness. Why does he have to rehash what was agreed on and settled years ago? He did what he promised. DEBT PAID IN FULL should be stamped across his forehead, and he has the paperwork to prove it.

He raises the glass in a toast. To the end of old debts and life without gardenias. He knocks back lukewarm, scotch-flavored ice melt, then reaches into the house and flips a light switch. The water in the pool—it’s just twenty-five meters long, not the size to which he feels entitled, not what he expected to have earned by this point in his life—glows radiant turquoise against a row of coral tiles above the waterline.

Arthur imagines his yard is a movie set. A camera dolly backs up in front of him as he strides across the lawn in terrycloth slippers, an open Hawaiian shirt, and bathing trunks. A pair of amber-tinted swim goggles hangs loose around his neck. He reaches to unlatch the gate in the utilitarian chain-link fence surrounding the pool, but it’s already open. Careless. He once had to scoop a neighbor’s Chihuahua from that pool, and he has no desire to fish another dead animal from the water.

He slips through the gate and latches it behind him. Tosses a towel over a chaise longue made of aluminum tubing and white vinyl strapping. Takes off his shirt and drapes it there, too.

Arthur is in his late fifties, conscious of once taut muscles in his chest that sag if he exhales and relaxes at the same time. Even alone in his own backyard he tries not to let down his guard. Tonight he looks tired, the dark pouches under his eyes echoing the flab in his gut. He needs his thirty laps to drain away anxiety, get his blood flowing, and make him feel sufficiently worn out to fall asleep without a Valium and another scotch.

The pool has been skimmed, at least. That’s supposed to be his son’s job, but Henry rarely notices that it needs skimming. Rarely notices much at all, in fact. Henry seemed stunned when Arthur told him the house has to go on the market, though this would be patently obvious to anyone living here and even minimally aware of anyone’s needs but his own.

Time to grow up, baby boy.

That’s a line from a musical comedy Arthur and his wife wrote. Show Off was supposed to star Judy Holliday and Dean Martin, but she dropped out to have throat surgery. And then, of course, there was the breast cancer. Tragic for her. Tragic for audiences to lose such a brilliant comedic talent.

Arthur first met Judy way back when . . . He closes his eyes and tries to remember. He must have been working as assistant stage manager at the long-ago razed Center Theatre in Manhattan, a gorgeous art deco ark at Forty-Ninth and Sixth. Late nights, after the show, he’d take the subway down to the Village where Judy performed a cabaret act with Betty Comden and Adolph Green, accompanied at the piano by fellow unknown Leonard Bernstein. They were all so young. So talented.

Show Off could have been big. Should have been big. Would have kicked his and Gloria’s career back into high gear. Plus he’d have scored a producing credit and points on the back end. Even with the studio’s creative bookkeeping, eventually it might have earned him a decent-sized pool and enough in the bank that he could have offered to help out his kids when they needed it.

But he’s not out of the game yet. His book could catapult him back onto the A-list. It’s the quintessential Horatio Alger story. He’ll write the screenplay. Direct the film version. Cast a great actor in the lead. Someone capable of nuance. Subtlety. A little comedic flair. Maybe he’ll give himself a walk-on cameo.

Arthur runs his fingers back and forth through his hair, still dark and thick and curly, about the only good thing that both he and Henry inherited from Arthur’s father. Then he stretches, arms wide, fingers splayed. Inhales deeply. Coughs. He tries to imagine his girls, ingenues as they were once called, perched around the edge of the pool. He sees the camera panning from one to the next, sliding appreciatively across cleavage and shapely leg, then over to him as he smiles benevolently back at them.