The Ranch

“What did I say to him? Are you crazy? Do you think I said anything to him? I told him where the studio was and what time I had to be at rehearsal. That's what I said to him. How can you even ask me?” There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, and Tony seemed uncomfortable as he took a sip of coffee.

“I just wondered if you said anything he could build this on, that's all. I mean, hell, the guy certainly tells quite a story.”

“So does everyone,” she said sadly, her eyes never leaving Tony's. “It's no different than anything else. It's just plain greed and envy. He saw money, and he wants it. He figures he can embarrass me into paying him to shut up.” She'd been through it before, not just with discrimination suits, but with unlawful terminations, real estate claims, accident claims from previous employees. Everyone hoped that by suing her they would get a piece of the action. It was old news in Hollywood, and other places these days, but it still wasn't pretty when it happened. And although he understood the reasons for it, Tony had never gotten used to it, and he didn't like it. He said it was hard on his kids and his family, it made him an object of ridicule and even gave his ex-wife something to complain about. He just didn't need it. Tanya knew only too well how Tony reacted to these stories. First he pretended they didn't bother him, then he got increasingly more disagreeable as the plot unfolded, and eventually he put as much pressure on her as the lawyers did to just get out of it, and settle. But through it all he acted like the injured party. And eventually, after he had made her pay for it for a while, he decided to forgive her. It was becoming an old familiar story, and she didn't enjoy it.

“Are you going to pay him off?” Tony asked, looking anxious.

“I haven't even talked to my lawyer yet,” she said, looking annoyed. “I just read it in the paper this morning, like you did.”

“If you'd handled it right a year ago, when you fired him, this would never have happened,” he said, putting a jacket on and looking at her from the doorway.

“That's not true, and you know it. We've been through this before. It just goes with the territory, no matter what you do.” She had always been so careful, and so circumspect, but no one ever gave her credit for it. She had never been promiscuous, behaved badly, used drugs, treated her employees badly, or got drunk in public. But no matter what you did, or didn't do, in her kind of life, people made outrageous claims, and in most cases, the public believed them. And sometimes so did Tony.

“I'm not sure I know what you do anymore,” he said, looking angry. He hated the embarrassment he said she caused him. And then he turned on his heel and left. And a minute later she heard his car speeding down the driveway.

She dialed her attorney, Bennett Pearson, almost as soon as Tony had left, and her attorney apologized. They had received the papers late the day before, and hadn't had time to call her and warn her.

“It sure made a nice surprise this way, over breakfast,” she said, sounding very Texas. “Next time, it might be nice to have a little warning. You know, Tony is not exactly crazy about these things.” Last week the trainer in the Enquirer, now the bodyguard. On top of being a target for lawsuits and blackmail of varying degrees, she was also a sex symbol, and the papers loved honing in on anything they could about her. There were tears in her eyes when she hung up from the lawyers. The bodyguard was insisting that she had propositioned him, embarrassed him, and that he had suffered emotional distress over it. And he had some quack psychiatrist who was willing to testify for him. According to her attorneys, the claim wasn't particularly unusual, but Tanya remembered that the guy was a real sleaze and would probably really stick it to her. In earlier days, she would probably have sat and cried over it. But after over twenty years, it was all too familiar, and she knew why it happened. She was successful and powerful, and had managed to stay on top of her career with hard work and an incredible amount of determination, and people were willing to line up ten deep to try and take it from her. In Hollywood, like anywhere else, there were armies of frustrated people who were only too happy to take what they could from anyone else. It was an unusual work ethic certainly, but it was by no means unheard of.

She had asked her attorney what he wanted her to do about the case, and he told her to just forget it. He would handle everything, and he was sure that after the initial public blast, the gentleman in question was going to be anxious to settle. He was sure that that had been his intent anyway, and warned her that settlements in harassment suits these days were easily up in the millions.