Lana.
Nikos blinked. He sat up, suddenly wide-awake.
Lana was standing there, in the doorway. She was there, in reality, not his imagination. She looked beautiful, dressed all in white. She looked like a goddess. But a sad goddess. A frightened one.
“Nikos,” Lana said in a whisper. “I need your help.”
17
Jason, Kate, and I were left alone in the living room. I waited to see who would speak first. It was Kate, sounding chastened.
“Jason. Can we talk?” Her voice had an emptiness. Her anger had gone, burned out—nothing left but ashes. “Jason?”
Jason glanced at Kate—and looked right through her. A chilling look, I thought. As if she didn’t exist. He turned and walked out of the room.
Kate suddenly looked like a little girl, about to burst into tears. I felt sorry for her, despite myself.
“Do you want a drink?”
Kate gave a brief shake of the head. “No.”
“I’m making you one anyway.”
I went to the drinks cabinet and made us a couple of drinks. I made small talk about the weather, to give Kate a chance to pull herself together. But I could tell she wasn’t listening.
I held out the glass in front of her for a good twenty seconds before she saw it.
“Thanks.” Kate took the drink, absently placing it on the table in front of her. She reached for her cigarettes.
I rubbed my neck. It was sore from where Jason had grabbed it. I frowned. “You know, Kate, you really should have come to me. I could have put you straight. I could have warned you.”
“Warned me? About what?”
“He will not leave Lana for you. Don’t delude yourself.”
“I’m not deluding myself.” Kate tapped the unlit cigarette violently against the table. She planted it in her mouth and lit it.
“I think you are.”
“You know fuck all about it.”
Kate smoked for a moment—I noticed her hand was trembling. Then she suddenly stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray. “The question is”—she turned on me, with a spark of her old anger—“why do you care? Why are you so invested in Lana’s marriage? Even if they split up, she’s hardly going to marry you.”
Kate was joking. But then she saw the flicker of hurt in my eyes. She gasped. “Oh, my God. Is that what you think? You really think … that you and Lana—？”
Kate couldn’t finish her sentence—she was overcome by laughter. Unkind, mocking laughter.
I waited until she had stopped laughing. Then I said, coolly, “I’m trying to help. That’s all.”
“No, no, you’re not.” Kate shook her head. “Can’t fool me, Machiavelli. But you’ll get your comeuppance in the end. Just you wait.”
I ignored this. I was determined that she hear me. It was important.
“I mean it, Kate. Don’t put Jason in a position where he has to choose between you. You’ll regret it.”
“Fuck off.”
But her rebuke was only half-hearted—her mind was clearly on Jason. Her eyes were on the door.
Then she made a sudden decision. She got up and hurried out.
* * *
Alone in the living room, I tried to imagine what might happen next.
Kate had obviously gone to find Jason. But Jason wasn’t interested in Kate—he had made that quite clear just now.
Jason’s priority was Lana. He would try to win her back. He’d comfort her; reassure her that nothing was going between him and Kate. He’d lie, insist upon on his innocence, and swear he had never been unfaithful.
And Lana? What would she do? That was the key question. Everything hinged on it.
I tried to picture the scene. Where were they? On the beach, perhaps? No, by the ruin—a more romantic setting—a midnight meeting by the moonlit columns. I had a sense of how Lana might play it. Come to think of it, I felt sure I had seen her play a similar role in one of her movies. She would be stoic and self-sacrificing—what better way to appeal to her leading man’s better instincts? To his sense of honor and duty?
She’d give Jason a chilly reception at first, then slowly allow her reserve to weaken. She wouldn’t admonish him. No, she’d blame herself—fighting tears as she spoke; she was good at that.
Finally, she would gaze at Jason with her special look; the one she saved for close-ups: widening those huge hypnotic eyes, vulnerable, full of pain, yet tremendously brave—“mugging for camera,” Barbara West called it—but extremely effective.
Before he knew it, Jason would be bewitched, swept along by Lana’s performance, on his knees, begging for forgiveness, promising to be a better man—and meaning it. Kate would fade into the background of his mind. The end.