Daddy

“So you're a grandfather then.” She suddenly looked at him with mischief in her eyes. They were the same green as his, though neither of them had noticed. “You didn't tell me that when we met.” Ollie laughed at the way she said it.

“Does that make a big difference?”

“Tremendous. Wait till I tell my folks that I went out with a grandfather. They'll really wonder what I've been up to.” It sounded as though she was close to them, and he liked that about her. He even told her about his father and Margaret.

“They're coming out in January to see the kids. She's the best thing that ever happened to him, although I didn't think so at first. It was a hell of a shock when he married her so soon after my mother's death.”

“It's funny, no matter how old we are, where our parents are concerned, we're still children. Don't you think?”

“I do. I resented the hell out of her at first. But he has a right to some happiness in his last years.”

“He could live to a ripe old age.” She smiled.

“I hope he does.”

“I hope I meet them,” she said softly.

They finished dinner then, and chatted on for a while over coffee, and then they went back to her car, and on the way out two people stopped her for autographs. But she didn't seem to mind. She was friendly and kind, and almost grateful. He commented on it as they got back in her car, and she looked at him with her wide green eyes and a serious expression.

“You can never forget, in this business, that those people make you what you are. Without them, you're nothing. I don't ever forget it.” And the beauty of it was that it hadn't gone to her head. She was amazingly modest, and almost humble.

“Thank you for having dinner with me tonight.”

“I had a wonderful time, Oliver.” And she looked as though she meant it.

She drove him back to the house in Bel Air and when they got there, he seemed to hesitate, not sure whether to ask her in or not, and then finally he did, but she said she was really tired, And then, suddenly, she remembered something.

“What are you doing over the holidays, with your kids gone?”

“Not much. I was going to catch up on my work at the office. This'll be my first Christmas without them.”

“I usually go home too. But I just couldn't this year. I'm shooting a commercial next week, and I wanted to study the next scripts. We have a new writer. Would you like to do something on Sunday?” It was Christmas Eve, and he was trying not to think about it, but her offer sounded much too appealing to decline.

“I'd love it. We could have dinner here.” Agnes was around, even with the children gone, but Charlotte had a better idea.

“How about if I make you a turkey? The real thing. Would you like that?”

“I'd love it.”

“We can go to church afterward. And there are some friends I always go to visit on Christmas Day. Would you like to join me for that too?”

“Charlotte, I'd love that. But are you sure there isn't something else you'd rather do? I don't want to intrude. I'll be fine, you know.” Fine, but very lonely.

“Well, I won't,” she said with a soft smile. “I'll be really disappointed if you don't come. Christmas is very important to me, and I like spending it with people I care about. I'm not into fake Christmas trees sprayed silver and all the garbage that goes with it. Your typical Hollywood Yule.”

“Then I'll be there. What time?”

“Come at five o'clock. We can eat at seven, and go to church at midnight.” She scribbled the address down for him, and he got out of the car, feeling dazed, as she thanked him again, and drove off with a wave. He stood for a long moment watching the little red car disappear down the hill, wondering if it had really happened. It was all like a dream. But Christmas with her was even more dreamlike.

She was waiting for him in a white hostess gown. The house was decorated beautifully. It was in the Hollywood hills, on Spring Oak Drive. And it had the cozy look of an old farm. And she laughed and said it reminded her of Nebraska. There were rough-hewn floors, beam ceilings, and huge fireplaces, one at each end of the room, and in front of them huge, overstuffed couches. The kitchen was almost as big as the living room, with another fireplace and a cozy table set for two. And there was a Christmas tree blinking brightly in the corner. And upstairs there were two handsome bedrooms, one which was obviously hers, done in pink and flowered chintzes. The other a cheerful yellow guest room, where her parents stayed when they came, which she said wasn't often enough. It didn't have one-tenth the sophistication of Megan's penthouse in New York, but it had ten times the warmth, and he loved it.