by Rex Baron
•••
As they arrived at the villa where the party was to be held, its rows of French windows were ablaze with festivity. The wind mounted, shaking the palm trees on their stems and groaning over the valley like a desert sandstorm.
Helen clutched at her hair when a gust of wind caught her as she climbed out of the car, throwing her sharply against the automobile, twisting her peacock blue scarf dress into a knot of clinging fabric.
Paulo called to her to get out of the wind. She waited for him to come around to her side of the car and took his arm.
As they fought the wind to get to the front door, a woman approached from out of nowhere. She was plain, wearing a thin coat of a nondescript color, holding a scarf around her head to ward off the pummeling wind. She extended a piece of cardboard to Paulo, the back of a waitress's order pad. He stared at it, not comprehending.
“Will you sign it for me?” she shouted above the wind. She held it patiently at arms length, waiting.
“The wind is tearing me apart, “ Helen shouted, tugging at his arm. “We'll be torn to bits if we don't get inside.”
Paulo reached for the scrap of paper and the pencil, but the wind tore the pencil from the woman's hands, carrying it a short distance to the ground. It rolled away into the darkness of the shrubbery. He turned his eyes away from the anxious gaze of the woman who searched the gravel of the drive on her hands and knees.
“I can't,” he said, “it's too windy.”
It was ludicrous to even think of having a writing instrument in the pockets of his tight fitting dinner clothes, but he patted the flanks of his body, searching for something to give her.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it up in the moonlight.
“It's monogrammed,” he shouted. “I have nothing else.”
He handed the handkerchief to the woman, as he helped her to her feet. Helen still clung to his other arm, pulling him impatiently toward the party.
Paulo looked back for a glimpse of the woman, holding the handkerchief to her mouth like a consumptive, as she disappeared into the darkness of the grounds.
“I didn't sign for her,” Paulo said, when they finally reached the safe haven of the front hallway. He stared off distracted, as if still seeing the unsettling little woman.
“It's bad luck that I refused to sign.”
“But you gave her your handkerchief. What more could she want?” Helen said, patting her hair into place. “They ought to have the dogs out to keep people like that away from the house.”
Helen's cruel comment went unnoticed. Paulo drew back the curtain of the narrow window flanking the door and searched the night for the plain shape of the woolen coat.
“Perhaps she's still out there,” he said reaching for his coat.
Helen grabbed him around the wrist and pushed her pretty face before him.
“I'm going to steal the evening by having the first dance with you, the handsomest man here,” she whispered.
“Something terrible is going to happen,” Paulo replied, his ashen face still turned toward the window. “It's bad luck not to sign.”
•••
The drawing room of the Lasky house was filled with expensive cigar smoke. Picture executives clustered around the bare space on the tiled floor, where the carpet had been taken up to allow for dancing, and chatted in superlatives about how successful they knew Lasky’s latest venture would be. It was a rarity, indeed, for Jesse to throw a party of this magnitude, and those present sensed their obligation to respond as if they believed they had been invited to witness history in the making.
The dark-beamed ceiling had been festooned with garlands of gardenias and the mantelpiece, which dominated the main wall, was almost entirely obscured by banks of flowers and floral wreaths of every variety. Above them, a large painting of a race horse hung, somberly looking down, adding to the mistaken impression that the flowers had been placed there in honor of some recent and fortuitous victory at the track.
Jesse Lasky stood at the entrance of the foyer, his hands firmly clasped behind his back. He surveyed his pandering captives with pride and drew on his cigar, adding to the great gray cloud that withered the gardenias overhead.
Helen's laughter from the hallway behind him was unmistakable. Lucy turned away from a polite conversation with a producer's wife to see Paulo and his dark companion enter arm in arm. She watched as Helen led him to the dance floor. Helen giggled and spoke to him as they danced, but his serious expression was noticeably out of synchronization with her gay mood. A warning went off in Lucy's head. She had not liked Helen from the first day she had laid eyes on her. She was one of the evil ones, as her mother would say. The words of warning came back to her: “Know who is in your world and what they are up to, and you will never have need to fear.”
Perhaps Helen possessed no more power than the ordinary ambitious girl, determined to use the leverage of her youth and good looks to assure herself a modicum of comfort and power in her old age. Surely, there could be nothing wrong with that, and yet, it seemed clear that she intended to start her climb by using Paulo as the first rung on the ladder. It was obvious that what she wanted most from Lucy's world was Paulo.
As the orchestra paused between dances, the lady’s man approached and took Lucy's hand. He kissed it amidst the clucking approval of a variety of screen matrons and newcomers.
“Beauty East meets beauty West,” one of the company was heard to say.
Lucy and Paulo danced, and Lucy found relief from the long tiring ordeal of the premiere. She wanted to tell him how handsome he looked, but he was pale and distracted, not at all the dazzling man she had seen with the crowd before the premiere.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. “You seem so distant.”
“I'm sorry,” he tried to smile. “I know it's silly of me, but I am from a small village. We have many superstitions and fears that others do not. We believe in spirits and omens. I was once told by a wise woman that I would be in this world as I am today, known by many with a great possibility of riches. But she told me that I must always realize that the fans are the ones who keep me there. I must always honor them. I must sign their books, if not, it will all crumble. My world will end.”
As he spoke, a commotion from the other side of the room drew their attention.
Mary Miles Minter was shouting at one of the serving waiters.
“I tell you, I want a drink. You can get one for everyone else, so you can get one for me too.”
The waiter reasoned with the girl in a tone that was out of earshot. He appeared to be sympathetic but firm in his refusal.
“I don't care what orders you have. If I'm old enough to make money for these hypocritical bastards, then I should certainly be allowed to drink with them.”
The waiter bowed slightly and backed away from the scene.
Mary was red-faced and swollen. It was apparent that she had been crying, and her little girl dress looked as if it had been thrown on in haste, without its high-waisted sash or the little bunch of artificial camellias that she wore as her trademark.
She surveyed the room angrily. She pulled the sleeve of a passer-by and shouted into his face as if he were deaf.
“Where's William? I need to talk to Bill Taylor.”
Mary's attention was drawn to Helen, gyrating on the dance floor to a fast and syncopated rhythm. Her saffron-colored stockings agitated in a kind of two-step. Kicking free from any conventional form of dance, she swung her legs up as high as she could, randomly, whenever it pleased her, inventing the dance steps as the spirit moved her.
All of Mary's attention was riveted on the dark beauty. She stumbled, unpartnered onto the dance floor and stopped in front of Helen.
“What are you doing here?” she shouted, causing the dancers around her to dwindle away, leaving a suitable arena for her anger to play itself out.
Helen ignored her for an instant, then stopped and fixed her eyes on the girl.
“
I thought this was supposed to be a party for people in the business. You're not in the business,” Mary slurred her words.
Helen tried to smile, searching the crowd for some assistance.
“I am,” Helen answered calmly.
Without provocation, Mary slapped Helen hard across the face.
“Since when?” Mary shouted. “This was supposed to be a classy party for stars. You're not a star. You're nobody. It's just like these snakes here to make their money on someone like me, and then not even invite them to this stinking party, or even give them a drink. They invite tramps like you, who'll never make them a dime, but can show them a good time.”
Mary started to laugh, the stammering nervous laugh of dementia.
“That rhymes… did you hear that? I want a drink, “ she shouted.
Jesse Lasky made his way through the silent throng and took Mary by the arm. She pulled away and jerked her head around to see who it was. Her face softened and a baby's voice was next heard coming from her rouge-smeared lips.
“They're being mean to me Mr. Lasky,” she chortled.
“Mary, you're drunk,” he said sternly.
“I'm not, I'm sick,” she insisted sweetly, rolling her eyes to one side in a grotesque parody of coyness. “Charlotte was angry and it made me sick, so I came here. She said I wasn't invited and that you were a pompous old stooge, but I said, Mr. Lasky could never forget Mary.”
Helen stood frozen on the dance floor, seething with hatred. Her eyes darted around at the glamorous familiar faces that turned away or offered a nervous twitch of a smile, as if what they had heard from Mary's lips might be true.
She had entered with Paulo and had been accepted by association, but now that was all changed. Her identity as one of them was in question, her standing dropped to intruder. She had to recover. She had to regain the precious ground she had gained before the unbalanced little has-been had torn away her flags of triumph.
She glowered as Mary was escorted to the door by Jesse Lasky, his arm draped paternally around her shoulder. She was handed over to a chauffeur and carried in his arms out to a waiting car. Helen stood alone, a pariah, in a room filled with her betters, who turned their eyes away in nervous discomfort as she searched the crowded space for an ally. She snatched a cocktail from the tray of a passing waiter and tried to appear as unruffled as possible. All at once, she spotted Richard Barthelmess, who, having just arrived, had not witnessed her humiliation at the hands of young Mary. She watched him gliding toward her, head and shoulders above the crowd, his brilliantined hair still flawlessly in place, in spite of the howling wind outside. He came up next to her, unaware of her sudden disrepute and engaged her with a beaming, perfect grin.
“Well, I see you’re way ahead of me,” he said, eyeing the half filled glass in her hand. “Because of you, not letting me ride with you, I’m way behind,” he added with a little boy pout that was designed to make her laugh. Helen took her cue and threw her head back with gaiety, more for the benefit of those around her than in reaction to his silly gesture.
“How did you get here?’ she asked with real interest, grateful to be seen talking to an undisputed star of the highest rank.
“I took a cab,” he answered in a low whisper, so as not to broadcast the lack of prestige in his lowly form of travel. “And I must tell you… damn hard to find at this time of night, downtown.”
Helen reprised her display of mirth and placed her hand on the shoulder of his shiny dinner jacket.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
Without reply, Helen placed her drink on a nearby table and glided onto the dance floor on Richard’s arm. She was determined to regain her ground by virtue of this dance and be reinstated, by all of those present, as a worthy and genuine inhabitant of their dazzling and rarified world. Once again, she took command of the dance floor as she and Barthelmess swept across its marble surface to the notes of a tango. Together they drew the attention of the very people who had turned away, only moments before, and Helen could see the smiles and looks of envy on the faces of those looking on. At one end of the room, Jesse Lasky winked at her in appreciation of her brilliant recovery from the ignominy of Mary’s insult.
“You know the more I look at you, the more familiar you seem to me,” Barthelmess said, as he dipped Helen backward to a spattering of applause from the guests.
“Maybe I just have one of those faces,” Helen replied with a smirk of mild contempt for his insulting forgetfulness. “I’m sure you’ve seen your share of girls…perhaps one of them looked just like me.”
Helen watched as her partner’s face clouded over for an instant in thought, as if he were racking his brain for a clue to the resemblance that his memory suggested. Suddenly, his face brightened.
“Well, there was a girl, a few years ago, back in New York, that you remind me of a little… but she was not nearly as pretty… and can I say… as dishy and smoldering as you. I gotta tell you… honey you singe me.”
She drew him close so that his cheek rested against hers, and Helen’s lips were mere inches from his ear.
“I still have the dressing gown with the dragon embroidered on the back,” she whispered.
Barthelmess pulled his head back to stare into her face in disbelief.
“What?”
“The other things you paid for were mildly tawdry, so I took your advice about looking cheap and threw them in the trash… to remedy the situation,” Helen replied, enjoying the expression of total confusion on his face.
Richard’s mind was overwhelmed by what he was hearing, and he missed a step in their dance. He recovered almost by instinct.
“I can’t believe it… you’re so beautiful now.”
“It’s amazing what the right clothes and a little money can do,” she informed him with a smirk. “And, if you remember, you were the one who told me I didn’t have a chance in the movies… well, look at me now mister big shot movie star.”
Richard stopped dancing and led Helen off the dance floor to a corner of the room that was still well within public view.
“Say, you’re not sore at me about that are you. I mean, how was I to know you’d turn out to be such a knockout?
Helen stared into his face and almost softened toward him, but she could not forgive his insults or the fact that he could have made her rise in the business so much easier. He might have spared her the grueling time spent as a lowly abused extra amidst the great unwashed, if he had only been generous enough to see her value and give her a chance. Barthelmess suddenly burst into agitation, as if his brain had opened up a whole new avenue of thought.
“Hey, do you mean to tell me that we… well, you know… buried the snake?”
Helen put her hands on his chest and gently pushed him away from her, ever mindful that they were under the scrutiny of anyone present at Lasky’s party.
“You’re a little old for all the college boy talk,” she reproached him. “You sound like an idiot. If you’re asking if we had sex… the answer is no. If you don’t recall the details, then all the better.”
Helen suddenly suspected that their conversation might be overheard by a matronly woman who was stout and unattractive, and therefore most certainly one of the producers’ wives. She gave Richard a friendly little shove and burst into a peal of cackle that was prompted by nothing, and performed solely for the benefit of their audience of one. Helen glanced at the woman with a timid smile and covered her mouth in a show of demureness for her uncontrolled amusement. The woman raised her glass to the glamorous young pair and returned Helen’s smile.
“Then you are sore at me,” Barthelmess said, finally drawing a conclusion from her actions. “Look, I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”
Helen glanced away from his apology for a second to see Paulo and Lucy standing not far away, staring in her direction. She was pleased to see that Paulo had what she hoped was a look that might be interpreted as jealousy on his face. She turned back to Barthelmess and patted h
is cheek with her hand.
“Will you make it up to me?” Helen repeated his words. “I’ll say you will. I’m not sure just yet how, but I guarantee… I’ll get my own back, one way or the other.”
With a wink, she walked away to get another drink, leaving the slick-haired lothario standing in the shadows, on his own.
“It is terrible… the things young Mary said about Helen,” Paulo sighed, as he watched her glide across the floor to engage with Jesse Lasky and his wife.
“Well, at least someone besides me finally sees Helen for who she is,” Lucy said half to herself.
“That's a rotten thing to say.” Paulo surprised her with the sharpness of his reply.
“Helen is starting much like I did. It is not easy for us, the way it was for someone like you, who has a talent that can be appreciated. We have our faces and that's all.”
They danced another dance to a slow romantic melody, but Paulo was sullen and cool. Lucy could feel the rigidity in his body, pulling him away from her.
“I'm sorry if I sounded uncharitable to Helen,” she said. “I can’t realize, after being here for only a few weeks, how hard it is.”
She took his hand and led him to a solarium off the ballroom, lined with murals, filling the walls with idealized landscapes in soft greens and the colors of twilight.
Paulo rested his elbows on the ledge of the French window and stared out past the palm trees, rattling their dry limbs in the unsettling wind. He brought his hand to his chest and felt the warmth of Helen's medallion beneath his starched shirt.
“It's all a game to you, being out here, doing this work in the films. Maybe I should not have brought you,” he said.
“Why do you say that?” Lucy asked anxiously.
“I thought you would respect me if you saw me in my world, but even now, you still think of me as a foolish man, perhaps even a stupid one. It was my mistake to think that we could ever meet on equal ground.”
He lit a cigarette and mindlessly blew the smoke against the cool glass, fogging the window before his face.