Finally he said, "Tess?" as if she might have gone somewhere.

"I'm glad," she admitted.

Then she heard him release a breath as if he'd been suffocating, too.

Plans began racing through her head. "I'll get you rooms at the Beverly Wilshire, where Casey and I will be staying. It's an hour's ride in to L.A. from Anaheim, but I want to show you Rodeo Drive and take Momma to lunch at Ivy-if I can get her to say she'll come-and buy you something exquisite at Battaglia. I'll have my road manager take care of everything-limos, tickets, backstage passes, everything. Kenny, I'm so happy."

"So am I," he said. "And I'll work on Mary."

"Yes, do. Well, listen... it's late."

"Yeah."

"I guess we should say good night, shouldn't we?"

"Yes, we should."

"Well... good night then."

"Good night."

"Kenny, wait!"

He waited. "I'm here."

"About Faith..." She felt obliged to add, "Just make sure."

"I'm sure."

"All right, then. See you soon."

"Good night again."

" 'Night, Kenny."

At last they hung up, reluctantly, as always.

The days flew between then and the Anaheim concert. Tess spoke to her mother almost daily, trying to

convince her to come with Kenny. Mary kept saying, "Well, I'll see how my hip feels. That's a long plane ride, you know."

"Momma, please?" "Well, Tess, now, I told you, I'll just have to see." She was still saying the same thing the day Tess headed for L.A. on her private Hawker-Sidley jet, taking Casey with her, because she was still having fun thrilling the kid and showing her what her future could hold if she worked hard enough and got the big breaks.

On the night before Kenny flew to L.A., he and Faith were scheduled to play cards, their regular Thursday-night game. The bridge group had met at Faith's house, and Kenny had played poorly. Though Faith had not chided him, sometimes she'd looked up over her cards with wry disapproval at his absentmindedness, bitten the inside of her lip and stared at him corrosively. At ten o'clock she served warm peach pie a la mode and by ten forty-five everybody had left except Kenny. He was helping her clean up the kitchen and put away the card table and folding chairs. He stuck the four metal chairs behind the coats in her small entry closet and returned to the kitchen to find her storing away her good forks and spoons in a silverware chest. He picked up a stack of dessert plates and put them in the cupboard.

"Kenny," she said, examining each fork before putting it in the velvet-lined box. "Maybe we should talk about this mistake you're making."

"Mistake?"

"I wasn't born yesterday, Kenny. I know why you didn't ask me to come along to L.A. with you." She shut the silver chest and looked at him, her hands curled over the edges of the box.

"She's sending me the tickets, Faith, and there are only two."

"Kenny... please," she said, as if he'd insulted her intelligence. She carried the chest away into another room and he waited, chastised, for her return. She came back removing an apron, opened a drawer, tucked it away, then stood looking down at the drawer instead of at him.

"I guess I realized it within two weeks after she got home. I know you well enough that I could tell the minute you started to fall for her. But, Kenny, think..." She turned to him, slightly imploring, resting one hand on the cabinet top. "What is she going to do with you when it's over?"

He thought for a moment, and answered honestly, "I don't know."

His admission of guilt, coming so soon, quite stunned Faith. Her expression flattened and her chin drew back an inch. She had expected him to deny any involvement with Tess. When he did the opposite, it left an emotional gap in the room.

Faith said, "You're willing to give up everything we have to pursue this hopeless affair?"

"Everything we have? What do we have, Faith?"

"We have eight years of loyalty!" she replied, sounding a little panicked. "At least, I've been loyal to you."

"And how many times have we talked about getting married, and how many times have we both decided not to?"

"I thought you liked our situation the way it's been."

"We've become a convenience for each other, admit it, Faith."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" she snapped, irritated.

He hung his head and wobbled it from side to side without answering.

She moved a step closer, her hand still extended on the countertop. "I don't want to lose you, Kenny.

And that's what will happen if you go to L.A. and go to bed with that woman again."

He showed a first hint of anger. "Let's get one thing straight, Faith. I've never been to bed with her."

"No, but you're planning on it, aren't you?" When he refused to answer she demanded, louder, "Aren't you!"

"Faith, did you ever stop to think that we've been head-ing toward this day for eight years, and neither one of us could find the courage to end it? I don't want to be a seventy-year-old man who's been dating you for half of his life. Don't you realize how ridiculous that would be?"

She retracted her hand and straightened her spine. "Well, I can see you're not going to change your mind." She crossed the room and switched off the overhead fluorescent light, leaving a smaller one on over the sink.

"No," he said quietly, remaining where he was. "I'm not."

"You're going out there, and you're... you're going to start an affair with her."

"I think I love her, Faith."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" she retorted in the most disparaging voice she'd ever used on him.

"You think I'm ridiculous?"

"Believing she'd fall in love with you? Doesn't that sound a little ridiculous, Kenny? A woman like that-rich and famous-how can you help but suspect her motives?"

Faith was not by nature a cruel person, but her remarks cut deeply. Did she see him as a man who would have no permanent value to another woman, especially one like Tess McPhail?

Faith continued badgering him. "And have you stopped to ask yourself why she's taken such a sudden interest in Casey, if she might be using Casey to get her hooks into you? It sure looks like it, doesn't it?" She paused a beat for effect. "So when she's done with you, will she be done with Casey, too? Oh, Kenny, don't you realize how that girl could get hurt? She's fallen under Tess McPhail's spell even harder than you have."

Anger boiled up in him suddenly. He kept it under tight control as he told her, "You know, Faith, you and I have been together all these years and hardly ever had a fight... but you're really pissing me off right now. So before I say something I'll regret, I'm getting out of here." He headed for the door, informing her over his shoulder, "I'm going to L.A. tomorrow and I'll be there for three days. Maybe while I'm gone you should take your extra clothes out of my house and leave the spare key on the kitchen table."

She watched him in stupefaction as he broadsided her screen door with both hands and let it slam behind him.

"Kenny!" she called, bolting after him. "Kenny, wait!"

Outside she changed her mind about chasing him down the sidewalk and stopped on the steps, bent urgently toward his disappearing form as it was swallowed by the night shadows. "Kenny, please, can't we talk about this? Don't go."

"I have to, Faith," he called without turning back.

"Kenny, this is silly! We can't end it like this without even talking about it!"

"The neighbors are going to hear you, Faith. Go on back inside."

Some time later, when he'd driven away and left her standing on the steps pleading, she wandered inside feeling dazed and somewhat dizzy with the sudden shift her life had taken in such a few short minutes. She should have let him go without saying a word. Should have let him fly off to L.A. and get it out of his system without ever finding out she suspected.

Touching her lips, she looked around the kitchen as if searching for something. But everything was in its place, everything put away neatly, everything in order.

"Oh, Kenny," she whispered, wilting back till her hip bumped the cabinets. "You're going to get so hurt." But what she really meant was I'm going to get so hurt.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

The Anaheim concert was scheduled to begin at eight the following night. At seven, backstage at Arrowhead looked like backstage at NASA-confusion to the untrained eye, complexity within order to the trained. The sound check had been done that afternoon, but technicians darted everywhere, stretching cables and communicating on walkie-talkies. The floors looked like jungles, twisted with electric cables that resembled tree roots, some as thick as a man's arm. The curtains were closed. Dim canister lights dropped blotches of illumination from the gridwork of metal that hung from the blackened ceiling. On the stage wings immense black speakers were piled like tall buildings, and everywhere in the dimness small red lights peppered the scene. Members of the band gave their instruments one last tuning. A faint electronic buzz could be heard over all, punctuated by the hollow thud of footsteps hurrying over the elevated wood floor. Some people wore headphones with mouthpieces fixed before their lips, like telephone operators. Some people wore tool belts. Some wore suits and ties. Some ran around with flashlights, shining them into dark corners.

On stage right, beyond the circuitry and circus, a corridor between the curtains led to a large windowless room completely curtained in white. Ceiling to floor, the drapery covered every wall. Against one, a long table held a bouquet of enormous white lilies. The lilies-dozens, arranged with pure white snapdragons and clouds of airy sprengeri-filled the room with an overpowering fragrance. Beside the table black-clad members of the caterer's staff stood awaiting requests for anything not already provided. There were cold drinks on ice, bottled water, a variety of sodas, fruit juices and milk, but nothing alcoholic. There were a dozen kinds of finger foods, including specific favorites of Tess and the band, from salmon sandwiches on dilled bread rounds to miniature quiches. There were berries and cubed fruit and a tray of gooey brownies and hot coffee.

But no one was eating a thing.

A half dozen reporters milled in a corner where torcheres spread rosy light onto the draped wall above their heads. Two long white sofas were unoccupied, but near them stood the executives of the MCA record label and their spouses. Yet another group of top DJs waited around while a pair of uniformed, armed guards stood with their hands linked at their stomachs just inside the door. A woman with a clipboard came in and glanced around and went back out, remaining just beyond the door. A different woman-younger, dressed in a black leather off-the-shoulder dress, high black spiked heels and a rhinestone belt slung low on her hips-approached the woman with the clipboard, and said, "Hi."

The woman smiled. "Hi, Casey."

"She in there?"

"Yes. Go right in."

"Thanks."

Casey passed between the guards, who smiled and nodded and relaxed their knees a little. "Hi, how's it goin'?" she said to them nervously, then, scanning the table as she passed, "Hey, this is really somethin', isn't it?" She veered over to the food and pointed. "Is that pizza?"

One of the caterers, happy to see any interest shown in their handiwork, answered, "Yes, mushroom and sausage miniatures... please, help yourself." "Oh, I couldn't eat a thing." She pressed a hand to her stomach and made a face. "Too scared. But thanks anyway. Maybe afterwards."

The curtained walls were interrupted by a single door. Affixed to it was a small brass plaque that said Mac, in the same signature typeface as that used on her album covers. Casey knocked and stuck her head inside.

"Okay if I come in?" Tess was sitting at a dressing table having finishing touches put on her hair. Her face had been illumined by stage makeup-a thirty-five-minute application that Cathy Mack had done with brushes and a palette, like an artist doing an oil painting. The freckles were gone, covered by an alabaster base. The lipline was perfect, enlarged slightly, and flattering. The lips themselves had been darkened to plum. Her eyes, shaded and mascaraed to appear larger, became vibrant with welcome as she caught sight of Casey in the mirror. "Of course. Hey, you look sensational!"

"So do you."

They truly did. Casey's hair was done in shiny loose locks, drawn back behind one ear. Tess's was a

longer version of the hairdo on her upcoming CD photo, a sexily disheveled shag that was made to look unstyled but had-in fact-taken Cathy another thirty minutes to arrange.

Cathy said, "Hold still...just one more minute."

Complying, Tess followed Casey with her eyes. "They taking care of you okay?"

"Everybody's been just great."

"The dress looks fabulous."

"Now I know what Rowdy feels like when I've got him saddled." She put a hand on her trembling stomach where the leather dress clung.

"Scared?" Tess asked, smiling a little.

"Shitless."

Tess laughed, relieving a little of the tension. "That's all right. When you get on that stage you forget all

about it." "I know. Hey, have you seen anything of Dad and Mary yet?" "Not yet." Where are you, Kenny, where are you?

"Gol, you don't suppose they missed their plane, do you?"

The tension was back, full force, greater than ever before in Tess's life. She hid it for Casey's sake. "If they did they'd have called." But inside, her stomach trembled, and every time anyone came to the door her heart jumped into her throat.

"Do you think Mary will be with him?"