Script for Scandal

by Renee Patrick

  ‘That’s hardly fair. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m the one on the phone. And I have what they want, which is a job.’ She nodded at the counterman. ‘They’d just as soon holler at him if they had the money to come in here.’

  ‘It makes sense you’d want to be a writer.’

  ‘That’s letting myself in for a whole different set of disappointments. I don’t care. I know pictures are seen as silly, disposable entertainments. But they’re not. Movies are what people remember. When you’re sitting in the dark, you let yourself be vulnerable. You allow things in. And those things you carry with you.’

  She spoke with an earnestness that would sway any cynic. But then I already agreed with her. Movies had long held me in their thrall, which was why I couldn’t abide Fentress using that power to spread falsehoods about Gene.

  Provided they were falsehoods.

  ‘Besides,’ Sylvia continued, ‘a writer can work anywhere. All you need is a pencil, some paper, and an idea.’

  ‘Sounds like something Clyde taught you.’

  She smiled down at her coffee, the affection not directed at the skim of milk on its surface. ‘One of his pet phrases. He took me seriously when nobody else did. Can’t put a price on that.’

  I couldn’t resist steering the conversation to another topic. ‘You know lots of interesting people. Not only Clyde, but Virginia Hill. How’d you meet her?’

  ‘Happenstance. Virginia tends to pull people along in her wake. I got caught up, I guess.’

  ‘Easy to understand. She makes quite the impression.’

  ‘Virginia lives the kind of life I aspire to.’

  ‘I’ll say. Make me an oil heiress any day.’

  ‘I don’t mean money,’ Sylvia said sharply. ‘She’s carefree. Doesn’t put any limits on herself, doesn’t give a damn what people think of her. She’s like a character in a script.’

  ‘Maybe one you’d write,’ I said, aiming at flattery.

  Sylvia nodded, distracted. ‘Maybe. Whatever gets me away from the switchboard and telling stories drawn from real life.’

  Like Streetlight Story, I thought.

  I could sense Sylvia’s waning interest. I had to put my main question to her.

  ‘Do you happen to know a sometime-actor named Aloysius Conlin?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ she said, the sudden tension in her face providing the true answer.

  ‘He’s also called Nap, although he’s not billed that way.’

  Sylvia shook her head. ‘Doesn’t help.’

  ‘He was killed the other day. I saw him on the lot right before it happened. He mentioned he was registered with Central Casting.’

  ‘So are nearly ten thousand other actors.’ Sylvia’s words were hot enough to singe.

  ‘How many of them also know Clyde Fentress?’

  ‘Thanks for the coffee.’ Sylvia gathered her purse and left without a backward glance.

  I sat where I was, watching night gather on the far side of the window. A woman came into the drug store, her face several years too old for her gaily colored dress. She beelined for the telephone booth. I heard her ask for a Garfield number, which meant she was calling Central Casting. Her eyes tilted upward, as if trying to influence the operators a few floors overhead.

  ‘Hello? Lois Emery calling.’ She hung up a moment later without another word. I wondered who’d been on the hot seat breaking the bad news to Lois, now that Sylvia had gone home.

  TWELVE

  A new day dawned, with diligence as my watchword. I hurled myself into Addison’s social calendar, relieved he wouldn’t be hosting a party this weekend; only the Friday bash he’d been invited to loomed on the immediate horizon.

  ‘Hello, Lillian!’ My employer’s voice boomed so loudly I sprayed ink from my fountain pen across the envelope I’d just addressed. Addison took several ungainly steps into my office, then stopped and declaimed in an orotund voice, ‘How goes this fine day?’

  ‘No developments in the last hour. Are you all right?’

  He advanced again, a beleaguered expression on his face as if he were counting and feared losing his place. He paused next to my desk. ‘Why, yes. I am – actually, no.’ He returned to his normal tones and slumped slightly. ‘This acting business is playing havoc with me. Since you confirmed I’ll be in the movie, I’ve been working on my articulation – it’s vital, you know – and I wanted to practice it while walking. Only now I’m, well, thinking about it. Walking and talking simultaneously. Deuced difficult when you try to do it.’

  I didn’t have the heart to remind him he wouldn’t be delivering a single line. Instead I said, ‘I’ve seen you walk and talk before. You’re very good at it.’

  ‘Thank you, Lillian. I always thought so.’ He cleared his throat and resumed his sonorous timbre. ‘I also wished to inform you I have secured instruction in the dramatic arts. My lessons commence on the morrow.’

  With that, he exeunted. Curtain.

  Addison wandered about rehearsing for the better part of the morning like a ghost haunting his own house. He was moaning theatrically about Mabel, little Mabel, with her face against the pane when Edith telephoned.

  ‘I wanted to— Good heavens, what’s that caterwauling in the background?’

  ‘Some half-baked radio drama, I think.’

  ‘It should be taken off the air at once. George Dolan left a message, thinking you worked for me. He’d like you to come by his office.’

  I wanted to go at once, but I’d shirked my responsibilities at Addison’s enough. I told Edith I’d work through lunch and be at Paramount mid-afternoon. She asked me to visit her. As if I wouldn’t have done so anyway.

  After hastening through the day’s labors, I sought out Addison. ‘Fare thee well, dearest Lillian,’ he rumbled. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow.’ He bowed deeply and backed away into the shadows. I didn’t tarry for an encore.

  No sound came from Fentress’s shuttered office while Dolan’s door was ajar, his steady typing spilling out like music. I crept forward with fingers crossed.

  My breath caught as I saw Clyde Fentress sprawled in the chair opposite Dolan’s desk. He fired a plume of cigarette smoke upward as if the ceiling had wronged him. Dolan virtuosoed over his keyboard, eyeglasses down.

  I had to assume Fentress had badmouthed me to Dolan since he’d left his message. I wanted to back away, but at that moment Dolan stopped typing. They spoke to each other in a crackling cadence similar to their own scripts.

  DOLAN

  We have to get these guys out of the casino somehow.

  FENTRESS

  Doors are always good.

  DOLAN

  Whatever we do, it’s got to land them in the soup.

  FENTRESS

  They’re not already in the soup?

  DOLAN

  Yeah, but right now it’s cold soup.

  FENTRESS

  So they’re in the vichyssoise.

  DOLAN

  Or at Oblath’s. Say, listen to you with the vichyssoise reference. They ladle that out at Folsom regularly?

  FENTRESS

  (embarrassed)

  Josie likes it.

  DOLAN

  Something chilly and pale? Can’t imagine why.

  Fentress sat up to put some English on his retort and saw me. His expression hardened. ‘There she is. Who are you today? Reporter? Wardrobe girl?’

  Knowing I’d never win him over, I concentrated on Dolan instead. ‘Technically, I never said I worked for Paramount. Neither did Edith.’

  Dolan laughed. ‘Spoken like a lawyer or a fellow Catholic.’

  ‘She lied to me,’ Fentress said.

  ‘I have it on good authority you’ve done worse, old thing.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t want you talking to her.’

  Apparently I had become invisible. Which only angered me further. ‘Why not? What are you afraid of? If your information on Gene is good, why not tell
me where you got it?’

  ‘Because I don’t owe you a damn thing.’ Fentress grinned with indecent pleasure. ‘I owe Morrow and the LAPD even less. You think I give a damn if I hurt your boyfriend’s feelings?’

  Dolan scribbled on a notepad. ‘He hurts mine constantly.’

  ‘That’s because it’s easy to do. Look at the set of you, George. You went from hard-bitten newspaperman to California dandy overnight. Buying salmon-colored shirts for golfing. Coming in here every day smelling like a barber shop.’

  ‘Shirt. I bought one salmon-colored shirt. And I didn’t marry an heiress last time I checked.’ Dolan nudged his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose. ‘Just tell her what she wants to know, Clyde. It won’t hurt the picture. We’ve got MacMurray, for Pete’s sake.’

  ‘That lightweight. He’s all wrong. Morrow’s a heel.’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ I said with all the force I could muster. ‘And your picture’s helping to ruin him.’

  ‘George ruined it first. Watering down the whiskey.’

  ‘Here we go. It’s not our job to tell the truth. It’s our job to get paid.’ Dolan tore off the sheet he’d written on and crumpled it. ‘As for my writing, I’d give anything to see the scripts you pounded out while you were on parole.’

  ‘George.’ Fentress wielded the name like an icepick. Dolan, unconcerned, turned to me.

  ‘He was prohibited from writing about crime and criminal matters for two years when they set him free. I’d love to see how much truth was in those pages. Westerns where the cowboys talk like they’re on the yard at San Quentin. Costume pictures where Lady Wetherby has the vocabulary of a cooch dancer.’

  Sulking, Fentress pivoted so I was banished from his sight. ‘We gonna write this one? Let’s get back to work.’

  Dolan cocked his arm and made to throw the ball of paper at his partner. Fentress ducked. When he did, Dolan eyed me and tossed the paper in my direction. I bobbled it, then dropped it into my purse. Fentress had missed the exchange entirely.

  ‘You’d better go, Miss Frost,’ Dolan said. ‘Clyde gets fussy when the muse beckons.’

  ‘Shove it up your ass,’ Fentress said.

  ‘Lady Wetherby couldn’t put it better.’

  Two steps from the door, I uncrumpled the paper. Dolan’s neat handwriting proved he’d been to Catholic school.

  Meet me at Stanley Rose Bookshop after five. My reporter friend will talk to you.

  Behind me, Dolan’s typewriter started up again, as steady as ever.

  One of the many Costume Department assistants told me Edith had stepped out briefly and led me not to Edith’s office but the fitting salon next door.

  Inside I found a lithe brunette of about twenty pirouetting on the pedestal before a trio of mirrors. The outfit she wore, a pale green and tan checked dress with a matching jacket likely pulled from her own closet, did not warrant the treatment. But I understood her enthusiasm. I had taken a turn or two on that pedestal myself.

  The woman blushed when she spotted me and hopped down, determined to take possession of her own embarrassment. She had wide green eyes and a grin that gathered in the corners of her mouth.

  ‘I must have looked a fool,’ she said, her voice a touch husky. ‘But who cares? I can’t believe I’m in this room.’

  ‘It always feels like a dream to me, too.’

  The woman shot me a sly look. ‘You wouldn’t happen to be Lillian Frost, would you? Edith’s been talking you up all afternoon. My name’s Nora. Nora Hegerty.’ She peered at me, holding out a distant hope. ‘Edith says you’re from New York?’

  ‘I am. From Queens.’

  ‘No kidding! Where?’

  ‘Flushing.’

  ‘Sunnyside Gardens!’ Nora practically leapt in the air. ‘Finally, someone who doesn’t think I’m talking about darkest Africa when I mention those places back home.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Ever go to the Astoria Pool?’

  My smile blazed new trails, reaching almost to my ears. ‘You’re talking to Miss Astoria Park of 1936.’

  We fell on each other then, chattering about favorite shops. At one point our conversation was simply a list of fondly remembered streets on the other side of America.

  Edith entered, breaking up our babel. ‘As I predicted,’ she said. ‘I knew you and Brenda would get along splendidly.’

  ‘The bonds of our shared stomping grounds run thick,’ I declared. ‘Now who’s Brenda?’

  Nora slapped her forehead. ‘I keep forgetting. I’m Brenda. The studio renamed me when they put me under contract. Nora Hegerty sounds like someone who waited on tables at Tully’s Tavern in Woodside. Which I was very good at, by the by. But I’m Brenda Baines now. Brenda Baines. Come on, call me Brenda or it’ll never stick.’

  I laughed. ‘Glad to know you, Brenda Baines.’

  ‘An honor to dress you, Miss Baines,’ Edith chimed in.

  ‘Miss Baines! Miss Baines! May I have your autograph?’ I cried.

  ‘This is good. This is working. I’ll turn around when I hear that name now.’ Brenda planted both feet firmly and gazed at the trio of reflections before her. ‘I’m Brenda Baines, about to appear in Streetlight Story with Fred MacMurray and Robert Preston!’

  The world spun away from me. I felt dizzy and saw double, knowing the mirrors weren’t to blame. It took me a moment to form the question, another to croak it aloud.

  ‘You’re playing Arlene?’

  ‘Yes!’ Brenda – not Nora, never Nora, Nora was dead to me now – glowed with excitement. I felt myself grow cold, as if she were drawing all her energy from my body. ‘The biggest part I’ve gotten, and by far the best.’

  At least act happy for her, mermaid, my old roommate Ruby purred in my head. She’ll meet you on the way down, too. I couldn’t follow the advice. The smile kept falling off my lips, the paste on it dry.

  ‘Would you excuse me?’ I beckoned Edith into the outer office, not trusting myself to walk any farther.

  ‘Lovely girl, isn’t she?’ Edith said. ‘You two should have much to talk about. She reminds me of you.’

  ‘We’re nothing alike.’ I looked back into the salon. Brenda stood at the window, watching the traffic on Marathon Street. That’s how the world will see Abigail, I thought. While no one would be playing me at all. I hadn’t even been written out of the story, because I’d never been written in. I had no role, at least not on the screen. I’d be the fool out in the audience, shoveling popcorn into my mouth and rooting for Jim and Arlene to kiss, hoping to win a gravy boat at the intermission bingo game.

  Edith removed her glasses and gazed directly into my eyes. Her own had the distant compassion of a doctor’s. ‘You’re both bright young women who have traveled a long way and created opportunities for yourselves. I wanted you to meet her now. It will make matters easier when the picture comes out.’

  Yes. Because the picture would be coming out. Not due to spite, but because it had to.

  ‘I hate that I wish it wouldn’t.’ The words came out of me in a rush. ‘Normally I’m so excited about pictures. This one is bearing down on me like a train. It’s too much to take in. And now … Brenda.’

  ‘I understand. But she’s only doing her job, as am I. Max insisted on redoing her wardrobe now that we have additional resources, even though the picture starts shooting tomorrow. He’s asking for opulence.’ Edith darted into her office and returned with a sketchpad. The topmost sheet bore a revised illustration of Arlene’s nightclub dress, the one Luddy had dismissed. This new rendering had opulence in abundance. While the long skirt maintained the same lines, the simple bodice had been replaced by a beaded top with a jewel neckline and short sleeves. I yearned for it at once.

  ‘It’s unusual to make these changes so close to production, so we’re working non-stop,’ Edith said. ‘This while I’m fitting Paulette Goddard for her new film with Bob Hope, and preparing a dozen more pictures besides. Max is reading scripts, Mr Dolan and Mr Fentress are
writing another one. It’s all just so much sausage being made.’

  ‘Is that meant to make me feel better?’

  ‘Yes, it is. In a few months, Streetlight Story will be in theaters. If we’ve done our jobs properly, it will provide an evening’s entertainment. A few weeks later, it will be gone. It won’t change who Detective Morrow is, or how you feel about him. It’s only a movie. There’ll be another one to see the next day. And everyone will have worked very hard on it.’

  I thought of my uncle Danny, who’d painted backdrops at the old Paramount Studios in New York, and felt myself growing teary. But Edith had no time for such nonsense. She had opulence to organize. ‘Did you see Mr Dolan?’

  I relayed my plans for the evening. An assistant interrupted to hand Edith a slip of paper. She frowned as she read it.

  ‘Speak of the devil. Miss Goddard has taken issue with her wardrobe. Again. I must dash. Do call with the latest. And say goodbye to Brenda.’ She flew to her office, already girding herself for the next crisis.

  Brenda smiled when I returned to the salon, offering a preview of the pearly whites she’d flash at Fred MacMurray. ‘You don’t happen to know where a girl could get good pot roast, do you?’ she asked. ‘I could use a New York meal to celebrate.’

  I studied her, Nora effortlessly adjusting to the role of Brenda who would be playing Arlene, based on Abigail. While I regularly muffed my lines as Lillian Frost, a part some critics said lacked dimension.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I replied. ‘It was lovely meeting you.’

  THIRTEEN

  I’d been in the Stanley Rose Bookshop before, idling away a few minutes on a lively length of Hollywood Boulevard; Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was only a few blocks distant. On this visit, I took it in anew.

  It smelled dusty and close, that intoxicating perfume of all bookshops, but with an additional tangy note of furtiveness; a tome or two, I’d wager, had left the premises in a plain brown wrapper. The store had drawn a goodly number of customers for a weeknight. Virtually all of them were men, scholarly sorts equipped with eyeglasses and sportscoats of varying degrees of shabbiness. One paused in his perusal of the shop’s wares to point the stem of his pipe at a book as if posing for an academic catalog. A cloistered space at the top of a flight of stairs suggested an office. Chuckles emerged from an area at the store’s rear walled off by a shelf of colorful art books. Not seeing George Dolan anywhere, I began nosing around the stock.