Praise for Amanda Skenandore and Between Earth and Sky
“Gripping and beautifully written, Between Earth and Sky tugs at the heart with its dynamic heroine and unique cast of characters. Though this novel brings alive two historical American eras and settings, the story is achingly modern, universal and important.”
—Karen Harper, New York Times bestselling author of The It Girls
“Intensely emotional.... Skenandore’s deeply introspective and moving novel will appeal to readers of American history, particularly those interested in the dynamics behind the misguided efforts of white people to better the lives of Native Americans by forcing them to adopt white cultural mores.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A masterfully written novel about the heart-wrenching clash of two American cultures . . . a fresh and astonishing debut.”
—V. S. Alexander, author of The Magdalen Girls and The Taster
“By describing its costs in human terms, the author shapes tension between whites and Native Americans into a touching story. The title of Skenandore’s debut could refer to reality and dreams, or to love and betrayal; all are present in this highly original novel.”
—Booklist
“A heartbreaking story about the destructive legacy of the forced assimilation of Native American children. Historical fiction readers and book discussion groups will find much to ponder here.”
—Library Journal
“At its heart, this luminous book tells a Romeo and Juliet story. But Skenandore’s book is so much more than a simple romance. This novel examines the complex relationship between love and loss, culture and conquest, annihilation and assimilation.”
—Historical Novel Society
Books by Amanda Skenandore
BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY
THE UNDERTAKER’S ASSISTANT
THE SECOND LIFE OF MIRIELLE WEST
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
THE SECOND LIFE OF MIRIELLE WEST
AMANDA SKENANDORE
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Praise for Amanda Skenandore and Between Earth and Sky
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2021 by Amanda Skenandore
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
The K logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2652-0 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 1-4967-2652-9 (ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2651-3
For Kristin,
Because you asked,
And because I would have anyway.
CHAPTER 1
Los Angeles, California
1926
Such fuss over a little burn. Some salve and a gin rickey, and Mirielle would be right as rain tomorrow. But Charlie had insisted on ringing the doctor. Look how it’s blistered, he said. Off in the nursery, the baby was crying. Mirielle’s head beginning to pound. She didn’t have the energy for another quarrel.
Dr. Carroll had set Mirielle’s broken arm when she was six. Delivered all three of her children. Cared for her after the—er—accident. So she knew well how to read his expressions. The affable smile he wore when he greeted her in the great room and asked after the baby. The shrewd glance when slipping in a question about her moods.
But his expression upon examining her hand made her insides go numb as if she were sixteen again and trussed up in a corset. The way his lips clamped shut and pushed outward, causing his graying mustache to bunch and bristle. The furrow that deepened between his eyebrows. The slow, deliberate way his features reset themselves.
Mirielle pulled her hand away. She’d seen his face morph that way before. But this was just a little burn. Mirielle wasn’t dying.
“The spot on the back of your hand,” he asked. “How long has it been there?”
She glanced at the pale patch of skin at the base of her thumb. What the devil did this have to do with her burned finger? “This little thing? Can’t say I remember.”
“And when you scalded your finger curling your hair, you didn’t feel any pain?”
She shook her head. It was the smell that had alerted her. Like meat in a frying pan. She ought to have let the hairdresser give her a permanent last week when she’d bobbed her hair. Then Mirielle wouldn’t have had to bother with the iron. Or the doctor. “It’s just a burn. A trifle. I thought you might prescribe some ointment. Maybe a little whiskey while you’re at it.”
Still that serious expression.
She reached out and batted his arm. “Oh, come on. That was a joke. You know I can’t stand that cheap medicinal stuff.”
He mustered a weak smile while brushing off the sleeve of his jacket where she had touched him. “Is your husband home?”
“He ran off to the studio. Be glad you missed him. Charlie’s been in a bum mood ever since hi
s last picture. That reviewer at the Times sure did—”
“Mirielle.” His eyes fixed her with unsettling intensity. “I’d like you to go to County General.”
“The hospital? Whatever for?”
“There’s a dermatologist there, Dr. Sullivan. I’d like him to have a look at your hand. Perhaps your driver can—”
“Of course.” Her insides squeezed all the tighter.
“I’d take you myself but . . .” His steady gaze became skittish.
“I’ll ring for the driver as soon as I finish making my hair.”
“No, best go right away. I’ll telephone ahead so they’ll expect you.” He gave her arm a hesitant pat and forced another smile. “Perhaps I should give them an alias when I call.”
Mirielle almost laughed. It’d have to be an awfully slow day in the newsroom for anyone to care about her going to the hospital for a silly little burn. But then, maybe Dr. Carroll was right. She and Charlie had been fodder enough for the press these last few years. She drained what remained in her highball and glanced at the framed posters hung about the great room. Every one of her husband’s motion pictures was displayed, from his very first to his latest flop. “Tell them to expect a Mrs. Pauline Marvin.”
* * *
The dilapidated county hospital on Mission Street bustled like a hash house on a Sunday morning. Nurses and orderlies in starched white uniforms scudded from bed to bed in the vast ward beyond the admitting desk.
“Miri—er—Pauline Marvin,” she said to the nurse at the desk. “I’m here to see some doctor or another. Sullivan, maybe? He’s expecting me.”
The woman didn’t look up but waved a hand toward the crowded waiting area. “Have a seat.”
Mirielle clutched the lapels of her fur-trimmed coat, skirting the coughing, groaning masses. Children squirmed on their mothers’ laps. Farmers picked at the dirt beneath their nails. Off-duty waitresses and shop clerks and telephone operators hunched over scandal magazines. CINEMA STAR DENIES PLASTIC OPERATION! one of the headlines read. THREE MEN DANCE CHARLESTON TWENTY-TWO HOURS STRAIGHT!
She stood against the far wall and glanced at the clock. Ten thirty-five. She’d wait until ten forty and not a minute longer. Already she’d wasted too much time on this silly errand.
Another nurse soon arrived at the admitting desk. She whispered something to the first, who looked up in alarm and pointed at Mirielle.
“Mrs. Marvin,” the second nurse called. She wore the same uneasy expression Dr. Carroll had donned after examining her hand. “Follow me, please.”
The nurse escorted Mirielle down a long hallway to the back of the building, up three flights of stairs, and into a small room with a single bed. “Wait here.”
She filled a washbowl with liquid and placed it on a rickety metal table outside the door. The sharp smell stung Mirielle’s nose from clear across the room. “What the devil is that?”
“Disinfectant.”
* * *
Dr. Sullivan arrived shortly after and examined her hand, glancing but a moment at the burn before focusing on the back of her thumb. “How long have you had this lesion?” he asked.
Lesion? Mirielle flinched at the ugliness of the word. It wasn’t a lesion at all, only a lightened blotch of skin.
More questions followed. Had it appeared gradually or suddenly? Had she noticed other lesions on her body? He bade her undress and prowled around her. She was used to men looking at her, but not unclothed and not in this way—lips flat and eyes narrowed as if she were a vexing word puzzle in the Saturday Evening Post. Raise your right arm. Raise your left. Sit down. Hold out your feet.
She complied until he hollered to the nurse for a scalpel and specimen slides.
“Hold it right there.” She reached for her stockings and chemise. “Just what do you mean to do?”
“Don’t dress. You’ve got other lesions too. One on your back, two on the medial aspect of your thigh, one on your—er—derrière. I need samples to examine under the microscope.”
She craned her neck to see the offending spots. “Are you sure it isn’t just poor circulation?”
“Stand still,” he said by way of answer. He scraped the edge of the scalpel over a small, irregularly shaped area of pale skin on her thigh.
Mirielle felt nothing. Not pain or discomfort. Not even a tickling sensation. Had she not been watching, she wouldn’t have known the blade was on her at all. He smeared the flecks of skin and tissue onto a glass slide, then moved to the next spot.
“Is it cancer?”
“I’d rather not speculate. But you’ll have to remain here until we have a definitive diagnosis.”
“At the hospital?”
“Yes, here in the isolation ward.”
“That’s impossible. I’ve got children. A ten-month-old who’s teething.”
He passed the slides off to the nurse, then rolled up his shirtsleeves and scrubbed his hands and forearms in the basin of disinfectant by the door. “Better for them that you remain here.” Then, he shut the door, locking her inside.
* * *
Morning passed into afternoon and afternoon into evening. Mirielle’s mouth was sticky with thirst. Her head throbbed anew. Were she at home, at least she’d have a softer bed to lie on. Curtains to blot out the light. A record on the phonograph to drown out the noise. She closed her eyes, and the din rising from the wards below became that of the cook bustling in the kitchen, her daughter returning from school, the baby babbling in the nursery.
Mirielle got up from the lumpy hospital bed and rattled the doorknob. She banged and yelled for the nurse. How worried Charlie must be. Perhaps Dr. Carroll had telephoned. Set his mind at ease. With any luck, Mirielle would arrive home just as the cook was finishing dinner. She’d find Charlie in the parlor, drink in hand after another long day haggling with Mr. Schulberg to cast him in another picture, and the girls already tucked in and asleep. Surely, Charlie would be a dear and fix her a drink too. Light ice and a heavy pour.
But the sky outside the small, unwashed hospital window darkened, and still the doctor didn’t return. The cawing seagulls quieted. The palms and eucalyptus turned from green to bruised purple to black. The distant HOLLYWOODLAND sign faded to shadow against the disappearing hills. She tried to open the window to stir the room’s stale air, but the sash had been nailed shut.
An orderly brought her a newsprint-wrapped sandwich and paper cup of water, setting both down on the dirty floor just inside her room as if he dared not come inside. She hollered after him, but he knew nothing of her tests, or when the doctor might be back.
Hours later, Mirielle wrapped herself in her coat atop the narrow bed and tried to sleep. Thoughts of cancer and smallpox ran rampant in her mind. Would she wake in the morning with boils covering her skin? Or to news that a tumor was eating her from the inside out? She felt fine. Tired, yes. And certainly in need of a nightcap. But not ill. She twisted the silver bracelet around her wrist. Funny now that death might truly be at hand how Mirielle found herself wanting to live.
CHAPTER 2
Mirielle did her best to smooth and style her hair when she awoke at dawn. No one had bothered to hang a mirror, as if a fresh face and neat coiffure were somehow unimportant. Luckily, she had a compact stowed in her purse for such emergencies. The sink water tasted of rust, but she filled her paper cup and choked down a few sips. Her hands trembled for want of a real drink. Noise rose from the floors below—the click-clack of footsteps, the creak of wheelchairs, the rattle of gurneys—but the rooms around her were quiet. She perched on the edge of the pancake-thin mattress, coat on, hat and gloves at the ready. Whatever her diagnosis, she was going home as soon as it was delivered.
When her door finally opened, it was her husband accompanied by a nurse, who didn’t follow him inside.
“Charlie, thank God! You won’t believe the night I’ve had.” She stood and pulled on her gloves. “Not a wink of sleep. And these nurses, dimwitted as oysters and just as common.”
&
nbsp; His lips grazed her cheek in a perfunctory kiss. “Calm down, dearest. I’m sure the doctor will explain.”
“You don’t know anything?”
“I couldn’t get more than a few sentences out of the fellow who telephoned. Only that you were here pending some test or other, and I should come first thing in the morning.”
He tossed the newspaper he’d been carrying under his arm onto the bed, and they sat. The mattress sagged beneath their weight. A smudge of shaving cream had hardened beneath Charlie’s ear. She wiped it away.
“Helen didn’t sleep?”
He shook his head. “Wailed like a banshee until after midnight. The nanny finally got her to suck on a brandy rag and fall asleep.”
“And Evie?”
“Off to school as I left.” Charlie’s gaze cast about the small room, his upper lip curling and nose wrinkling. “This place is filthy. Why did Doc send you here? California Lutheran is in far better shape.” He pulled out his hankie and wiped the corners of his mouth. A habit of his when his patience grew thin. “And closer to the studio.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t thinking of what would be convenient for you. And never mind me. I had to sleep in this place last night.”
“I’ve got a meeting with Mr. Schulberg at ten o’clock.” He pulled out his pocket watch and burnished the glass face against his coat after glancing at the time. “Ten sharp.”
The bedframe creaked. The patient in the room below hollered for his bedpan. The nurse who’d escorted Charlie to the room splashed fresh disinfectant into the bowl by the door.
“We’ve got the Gleesons’ dinner party tonight, don’t forget,” Charlie said.
“Can’t you beg off? I’m certain I won’t feel up to it. Not after this ordeal.”
The Second Life of Mirielle West Page 1