“But can we record her scream?” Max finally said. “That’s important according to Sydney’s notes.”
Fred shrugged. “I can rig up a microphone. If that’s what he wants. Waste of time. Waste of money. We would have to record the scream and then film her screaming.”
“He wants everyone to hear her scream in the movie.”
“They’ll hear the clatter of the camera if I record while we are filming,” Fred explained. “Old 242 is the darling of my heart, but noisy as hell. We’ll have to match the sound and picture later. It’s an effect that any big organ can do better.”
“But can you make it work?” said Max.
“One theater, one time, might be able to do that.” Fred looked a little more intrigued and asked to borrow some paper from my sketchbook. He started doodling notes with a stub of a pencil that he pulled out of a pocket along with a couple of screws, a toffee wrapped in wax paper, and a ball of string.
Max looked satisfied with Fred’s promise. Myself, I didn’t like the sound of how this was developing. As if Lulu’s scream was more important than anything else. As if she was taking top billing over Renee. I needed to talk to Renee about this, find out if she knew. We watched each other’s backs, that’s what we always did, because everyone knew that success only lasted until the next picture, the next darling embraced by an increasingly fickle public. If Sydney thought someone else could sell tickets better than Renee, then the studio might think that. And if the studio thought that, so much for roles that needed fantastic hats and fabulous dresses. I excused myself and went forward through the smoky sleeping cars. Betsy waved from her seat where she was holding court with a deck of cards, a pile of matchsticks standing in for chips. Paul and Jim, two other actors who worked in almost all of Sydney’s movies, were about to be parted from their money.
“Want me to deal you in?” Betsy giggled. “The boys need someone easier to bluff.”
I shook my head. Walking through the cars, I could still hear Betsy’s usual chatter about the next stop, and whether there would be time to get off and pick up something from the station. An older actress, Pola, was catching a catnap wrapped in her coat, head bobbing a bit with the swaying of the train. Watching cornfields made everyone sleepy after a while. Hal, one of my favorites, was reading a magazine that he’d picked up during an earlier stop.
“Hey, Jeany,” said Hal, whose rotund shape and balding head made him the perfect judge or doctor in Sydney’s films. “Seen the script yet?”
“Not yet,” I said, steadying myself against the back of his seat as the train creaked and rattled round a curve. “Just some notes on characters and how they are supposed to look.”
Hal chuckled. “That’s Sydney. Has to be the most mysterious man in Hollywood. Don’t know why we bother working with him.”
“The reviews?” I said. It was an old joke, shared among the crew and cast.
“Nope, the cash. Max always makes sure we are paid on time,” said Hal. “Got my eye on a chicken farm in Salinas. That’s the life for me.”
“What do you know about chickens?”
“Absolutely nothing! That’s the allure. I know too much about other things to try them.” He waved his farming magazine at me. “There’s always a need for chicken farmers. I’ll just buy some eggs, wait for them to hatch, and then have lots of more eggs.”
“I am not sure that it works that way,” I said.
“Everybody needs eggs. Chickens produce eggs. Seems like a sure bet.”
I wished Hal well with his dream, knowing that by the next picture he would be talking about buying an orange grove in Anaheim. It changed with every picture, but one thing stayed constant. Hal loved acting, and dreaming about not acting, more than anything else.
After the chatter of our cars, the private salon shared by Sydney and Renee seemed deathly quiet. Neither were in the parlor area but that wasn’t unusual. Sydney had barricaded himself in his room with loud orders that nobody but Max was to disturb him while he wrote.
I went to Renee’s door and knocked quietly. She called out and I entered. The bed had been converted into a long seat with a small table unfolded beneath the window. Another seat was opposite that. I slid into it.
Renee was playing solitaire, the red and black cards in a fan pattern taking up the small table.
“How much longer?” she asked me. She asked the same question every time I visited her, but she rarely came forward to the dining room or mixed with the others in the sleeper car. It was, she once said, part of her mystique. It was easier to maintain in Hollywood, where she could go straight from the apartment to the studio and home again. Nobody ever wondered there why she was always in full makeup or hidden under a hat and veil during daylight trips. On the train it was harder to stay out of the direct light and away from too many close looks. Still I never felt she had to hide. With this crowd, she had established her persona. Sydney’s beautiful muse. But Renee was firm. She kept her distance from everyone except Sydney and me, the two people that she trusted not to betray her secrets. But I was the only one who knew all her secrets. As far as I know, she never told Sydney her real name or where she came from. And, to be fair, he never seemed to care about that. As long as she was willing to be his inspiration, he was happy to accept whatever story she told to the press as her true biography.
“Less than two days until we are in Arkham,” I said. “We switch trains in Boston, and it is just a few hours beyond that.”
She sighed and flipped another card into a growing pile on the side. “Why did I agree to this? Mile after mile of boredom.”
“For the reviews?” I said again.
One eyebrow flew up. I always envied Renee’s ability to do that. She achieved that perfect lift from practicing with her reflection. She used to do it over and over when night turned the windows over the kitchen sink into murky mirrors. We spent a lot of time staring into those windows while washing dishes in the orphanage. From the time she was fifteen, Renee knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to be famous. She wanted to be rich. She wanted to arch her eyebrow at anyone and everyone who ever called us a dirty name. She wanted to make them feel small. My sister wanted us to be safe from them all.
I was jealous of her certainty then. Her ambition and her single-minded pursuit of her goals. At twenty-one, I still wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted. Not the way that Renee knew.
“Has Sydney given you the script yet?” If anyone had seen it, it would be Renee. He generally turned to her first, to sound out his ideas. She said it was because he loved her. I knew it was because she had a flair for adding the details that gave strength to a scene. Renee remembered small gestures that people made, the ways that they picked up and fidgeted with objects when they were angry or sad. Playing a lovely poisoner, she once rearranged a set of combs and brushes on a dressing table in a way that gave her “a chilling authority,” according to one review.
“I haven’t seen a scenario yet. Why?”
I picked up the discarded cards, running them through my hands, flipping them over to finish off Renee’s fan.
“Jeany, what is it?”
“You have a sister.”
Renee stopped dealing her own hand of cards. “Are we having this discussion again? You know I cannot tell anyone…”
“No,” I said. “Not that. In the script. A sister. It’s in Max’s notes about costumes needed.”
Renee cocked her head, a little intrigued. Sydney never gave her any family in his recent stories. She was always alone. “Is it Betsy?”
“No, he’s bringing someone from New York. The actress who can scream. Lulu something.”
Renee placed the ace of spades over the king of hearts. She looked up at me. “Lulu McIntyre. Sydney keeps talking about her. Some review or other caught his eye. And then there’s the divorce stories in the newspapers.”
“Whose divorce?”<
br />
“Hers. She married a banker and he decided that he didn’t want an actress wife. And he named Eleanor Nash as co-respondent.”
“A woman?” Such affairs were known around town but rarely mentioned in the press. The studios knew that it didn’t sound good in Peoria and worked hard to keep that type of story out of the newspapers. I wondered at Sydney daring to cast Lulu if she was that big of a scandal. With Taylor’s murder last year and Reid’s drug-related death in January all the Hollywood and New York studios and theater chains felt strongly about the morality of their players. At least the public perception of their morality.
“Sydney thinks the scandal will attract attention. He said that the first director to cast her after the divorce would see even more people flocking into the theaters.”
That sounded like Sydney. If there was any person more single-minded about becoming famous than Renee, it was Sydney. I thought it was the thing that they truly had in common. Perhaps terror pictures could be a bit more scandalous than love stories or domestic dramas. Certainly our studio wanted to sell tickets more than anything else, if Max’s account of meetings was accurate.
I finished up the tail of the fan; three of clubs and then two of hearts and then ace of clubs. Six, it added up to six, and that was a lucky number. Maybe this would all work out.
Renee also counted and sighed. “I was hoping for seven. That’s lucky.”
“Not for us. Mama always said people got that backwards. That six was luckier.”
“Maybe for you, little sister,” said Renee, naming the private relationship that we never shared in public. “Maybe six is your lucky number. But I’m not Mama’s daughter any more. Seven is my number now. And this is my seventh movie with Sydney. This is the one that will be lucky for me.”
“Perhaps. But I feel better with six,” I said. Something about Sydney’s secrecy bothered me. Renee was certain of his loyalty to her, but I had never felt so sure about him. Maybe this was the movie where he would replace Renee with another actress. That was our greatest fear, that someone would find out about Renee and me, that we were sisters, the daughters of a Chinese mother who could never marry our big Swedish immigrant father under the laws of California. All of which would make Renee a less desirable star with the studio’s new drive for toeing the line and conforming to how they thought the world should look.
“So I have six and you have seven. Maybe Arkham will be lucky for both of us,” I said, trying to quiet my own fears.
“Or at least not as bad as that circus pony,” Renee said. “I made Sydney swear that the only thing I will ride in this movie will be a motor car. Driven by someone else.”
“Oh, I’d like to learn to drive,” I said.
“Wasn’t Fred teaching you?” Renee asked.
“I only drove about ten feet before he decided to do something to the engine. After an hour of waiting for him to come out from under the hood, I left. But it was fun. Next time, he promises to have it tuned up before the lesson.”
“After we get back, I could buy you a car,” Renee said. “And some driving lessons.”
“Renee, you can’t. You know you can’t. People would ask questions if you gave me a gift like that.”
Renee shrugged. Pretending that we were just friends and occasionally admitting that we grew up in the same orphanage when pressed about how we became friends – that had all been Renee’s idea. I looked too obviously like our mother’s daughter for anyone to believe that I was white. But Renee was taller, thinner in the face, and her eyes were almost hazel in certain lights. With wigs, makeup, and later a good hairdresser to bob her hair and give her auburn highlights, she passed. Especially after we made up stories for the press about her descending from the family of a Hungarian princess. After all, Hollywood was all about the make-believe. Nobody really wanted to know that Theda Bara was the daughter of a Jewish tailor named Goodman. They preferred to believe that Bara was the half-French daughter of an Arab sheik or an Italian sculptor. Backgrounds and family histories were fluid in Hollywood, shifting with an actor’s current roles and needs.
“I may not tell people about who we were,” said Renee. “But I will never forget my responsibilities. I’ll always take care of you, Jeany. You know that.”
“I know,” I started to shrug too and then stopped. We tried very hard not to have the same gestures. She did take care of me. From her very first picture, she found work for me. Work that I loved, making her costumes and now the costumes for the entire cast. People came to me to tailor clothes or design outfits even when they weren’t connected to one of Renee’s movies. Whatever she had, Renee shared with me. Everything except her name. And why that would bother me now, after so many years in Hollywood, I didn’t know. It wasn’t smart, wanting to tell people, tell someone, anyone, that we were sisters.
“So, according to Max, what type of person am I? Sydney is being more mysterious than usual about this script.” Renee continued shuffling cards, trying a little too hard to sound calm. Sydney rarely kept secrets from her these days. But he had secrets, we all knew that, and sometimes Max was a more reliable source of information.
“Max doesn’t seem to know much as usual since Sydney abandoned the mesmerist idea,” I said.
“I’m glad he dropped that. There’s too many films about hypnotists. I don’t think we could make that truly frightening,” Renee said. “This picture sounds different.”
“So did Sydney say anything about your role?”
“Only that I am the catalyst of all terror.”
“He said that about your last two roles. What about the plot?” I asked.
“That it was terrible in its simplicity and irresistible in its truth.”
“What does that mean?”
“Absolutely nothing. At least to me. He probably stole the line. The man is a magpie when it comes to stories. He collects them from everywhere and never remembers where they came from.”
“Well, as long he remembers that you are the star of the picture.”
“Oh, I won’t let him forget that. I’m sure Lulu is just a casting stunt and a small part,” said Renee. “After all, what good is a screamer when you can’t hear a thing she says?”
We both laughed at that. Then, after a long chat about how Renee could show up Lulu in the first scene by carrying her white travel bag with the crocodile trim, we both felt better about what was to come in Arkham.
We were both wrong.
Chapter Three
For those who wonder, our deception began when we ran away from the orphanage in Oakland. Well, I ran away. Renee was eighteen and old enough to leave. I was barely fifteen and the nuns wanted me to stay in school. Since Renee wouldn’t leave without me and they wouldn’t let her take me with her, I climbed over the wall. We walked nearly a mile to the train station with Renee’s cardboard suitcase banging the backs of our legs as we switched off carrying it. The War was just starting for our boys in 1917. Soldiers and sailors filled the train to Los Angeles. Some were on leave, heading home and chatty about what they would do when they got there. Some were heading back to their camp and quick to tell tales of what they’d seen in San Francisco. Only the brand-new recruits were silent, too nervous in shiny crisp uniforms to talk much. We stood up part of the way until two older ladies got off. Then one soldier shoved another soldier in the aisle so Renee and I could sit together.
Several flirted with Renee. She flirted right back as if she’d been flirting with boys all her life. Watching her, I bet none of the sailors guessed that she spent the last five years of her life in a Catholic girls’ orphanage. Our landlady in Oakland, Mrs Ryan, sent us there after our mother died during an influenza outbreak. Our father had been dead for three years by then. “Better you have an education with the nuns than try to support yourselves,” the apologetic but firm Mrs Ryan said. “When you’re older, you’ll thank me.”
I’d b
een sick, same as Mama, and remained frail for weeks afterward. If I hadn’t been so ill, I think Renee would have run off then and there. But she agreed to the orphanage in 1912 and there we were for five bitter years. Bitter for Renee, at least. I never minded the nuns, but Renee disliked all their rules. She hated missing high school and high school dances, and snuck out whenever she could to visit dance halls and practice all the latest steps. That was how we knew about the window that didn’t latch properly and the best tree to climb to get over the wall when it came time for me to run away with her.
We never wrote to Mrs Ryan. Even after Renee did become famous in the pictures. We probably should have thanked her. Because we learned a lot from the nuns. At least I did. I used my education, especially art with Sister Theodora and sewing with Sister Dorothy Anne. I think Renee actually learned something too. After all, Renee developed her patience, her persistence, and her ability to raise one eyebrow. Without those years of doing dishes after being caught climbing back in the orphanage windows, she would never have gone so far, so fast, in Hollywood.
Of course, Renee’s tenacity started long before the orphanage. Mama always said that mountains should bend out of the way when Renee came marching toward them. If she couldn’t go over, she’d go straight through. But the orphanage sharpened her skills, especially when it came to winning fights with the other girls who tried to bully me.
Mask of Silver Page 4