Charlotte-Anne looked up quickly. Her pale eyes were curiously veiled. 'I-I'd love to come, but I've got . . . I've got exams today, too,' she lied.
Elizabeth-Anne glanced at Larry. 'Perhaps we should wait a while longer,' she suggested. 'Then we can plan the wedding to coincide with everyone's schedules. It doesn't have to be so hurried.'
'Absolutely, definitely, certainly not. I won't hear of it,' Charlotte-Anne cried quickly, turning to them with an expression of sheer, utter disappointment. Her pulse was racing. The success - or failure - of her plan depended on her being left to her own devices. The marriage played into her hands, and their being gone an entire week was manna straight from heaven. It had to take place.
'You two go ahead and tie the knot,' she said forcefully. 'I won't hear of the marriage being put off on account of any of us. Not, that is, if you want my blessings.' She eyed them shrewdly and added, 'If you're willing to wait, then you can't be absolutely sure you really want to marry each other, can you?'
'Oh, but we are,' Elizabeth-Anne assured her.
'Then prove it.'
'Well, if you insist,' Elizabeth-Anne said doubtfully.
'I do. And I'm sure everyone else feels the same way.' Charlotte-Anne looked down at her plate, lowering her eyes lest anyone caught the triumphant gleam in them. She felt a surge of anticipation coursing through her. On her way to school this morning she would stop by the hotel office on the second floor under the pretext of typing up an article for the school newspaper. She'd done that on fifteen or twenty occasions already this past year. Except that there had never actually been any articles. Instead, she had been typing notes on Hale Hotels letterhead. Just like all the others, the note she typed this morning would beg that she be excused from the second half of the school day for a doctor's appointment. Then she would forge her mother's signature. Much practice had made it near perfect.
She smiled, thinking what fools her teachers were. And how they worried about her fragile health! She constantly had to fight to keep from laughing out loud, they were so solicitous of her. The truth was, she hadn't been near a doctor's office in close to a year. She was the very picture of perfect health.
What was it Mickey Hoyt had told her that last afternoon they had spent together?
'No sacrifice is too much.'
That was it. No sacrifice is too much.
Not for what she wanted.
2
The perfect morning turned into a rotten afternoon.
By one o'clock, the Manhattan sky was awash with boiling gray clouds. Charlotte-Anne glanced up at the sky and cursed herself for not listening to the weather report, not arranging to be excused from school at noon sharp instead of twelve-thirty, and refusing to take an umbrella. She should have listened to Dallas, who'd warned her that it would rain. But she was sick of having to listen to Dallas. If you weren't careful, she would mother you to death. And if you didn't obey, she'd rat on you in no time.
Well, today she wouldn't. The happy couple was off to get married, far from any worries about what Charlotte-Anne was up to. And who, she asked herself, had the time to worry about something as mundane as the weather when the rest of her life was at stake?
She hurried down the crowded sidewalk, pushing and shoving as the first fat, cold raindrop splattered on her shoulder. Scowling and holding her book over her head with one hand, and hanging tightly onto her bulging briefcase with the other, she began to run, ducking to avoid the masses of umbrellas which, with the first drops of rain, sprouted up everywhere like a forest of giant, black mushrooms. She reached Madison Avenue, had to wait for the light to change, and then hurried across the street, heading east on Forty-Second Street at a run. One more block and she'd be inside Grand Central Station.
The cloudburst soon became a deluge and her tan, camel's hair coat was soaked by the time she got inside the dry, cavernous warmth of the station. Now she was sure she'd catch hell from Dallas later. She stopped to shake off the excess rain and catch her breath. She was drenched through and through, and her teeth were chattering.
Well, right now that was the least of her worries. She was here to change in the ladies' room anyway. Whenever she had a rendezvous with Mickey Hoyt, she carried a change of clothes instead of books inside her ample briefcase. After all, she couldn't show up to meet him looking like a frumpy schoolgirl, not after all the stories she'd made up about herself.
She'd told him she was twenty and unhappily married to a very jealous man, which was why she had to meet him so furtively. She'd even bought a cheap wedding band, which she always slipped on her finger before she met him. No detail was too minute, as long as it added credibility to her ruse. She had the strong suspicion that if he should ever find out the truth - that she was actually seventeen and living at home with her family - she'd be in a real pickle. He was too well known in this city, too famous to walk away from it untarnished. His career, which meant everything to him, could only suffer so many scandals. If his reputation were threatened he'd drop her like a hot potato. And if that happened, then all her glorious, glamorous hopes would be dashed.
Well, it wouldn't happen. She simply wouldn't let it.
She rushed into the ladies room, to any observer a frantic schoolgirl, but emerged fifteen minutes later an entirely different person. Walking with stately grace, she was a radiant breathtaking beauty, a stylish, modern young lady from the top of her head to the tips of her shoes.
Striding through the shopping concourse on her way to the baggage lockers, she caught sight of her reflection in a darkened store window. She felt the first real thrill of pleasure since it had started to rain. Soaked or not, she looked terrific.
She had dried her hair as best she could, then pinned it up so she looked even taller and more mature. She topped it with a tiny, forest green flannel hat, rather like a bellboy's, with a long scarf attached that she tied at the back of her head. The matching jersey blouse was the same green, too lightweight for this cold, atrocious weather, but it had been the only thing she could find to match the skirt, which was of a circular cut, of heavy-weight flannel. Her tan colored accessories - a foulard neckerchief, a belt of calfskin, and lisle stockings - contrasted wonderfully with all that green. The gloves she wore were soft, supple suede, just a shade of green lighter than the blouse and the skirt.
The clothes belonged to her mother who, thank God, was nearly the same size she was, and she'd had to sneak them out of the apartment. They didn't quite go with her sedate, schoolgirl's coat, but she had no choice but to wear it. Trying to sneak out one of her mother's bulky coats past Dallas's eagle eyes was more than she could manage. She just thanked her lucky stars that she'd been able to sneak out as many clothes as she had on so many occasions thus far. But she'd been careful. After she wore them, she sent them down to the hotel dry cleaners, and then intercepted them on the way back and hung them up.
When she reached the baggage lockers, she found one which was empty and locked her satchel and sopping wet school uniform inside it. She dropped the key into her miniscule, pale tan calfskin handbag. All physical evidence of the schoolgirl was gone. Even her mannerisms had changed. Her walk was charged with a disturbing sensuousness, at once fresh and arresting, and she gave the impression of being curiously remote, yet fully secure in the effect she projected. Her pale eyes glittered with brilliant lust, her creamy, smooth skin bloomed with an anticipatory flush, and every gesture she made was swift and fluid.
This was the adult in her which struggled constantly to break through the schoolgirl mold, but at home, around family and friends, she kept this grown-up part of herself locked away. She was afraid of ridicule, of being teased and condescended to. But now, she felt deliciously free and unburdened. Men turned to stare appreciatively, and women appraised her with envious glances. She pretended not to notice, to be aloof from it all, but she savored every moment of it.
As soon as she got back outside, she shivered. It was raining even harder than before. If she waited around for it t
o let up, she would be late, and Mickey wouldn't like that. Like her, he was stealing these precious hours, and every minute counted.
She turned up the collar of her coat. She hated getting drenched again, but she saw little choice. She mustn't do anything to irritate Mickey, especially not after the promise he had made her the last time they had been together.
She began to dash west across Forty-Second Street. The Algonquin wasn't that far, and with any luck, the rain would taper off.
Which, of course, it didn't.
While she rushed through the storm, her mind was not on the rain but on her career and Mickey Hoyt - in that order.
As far as she was concerned, her fate had been sealed the moment the curtain had risen on her first Broadway show nearly a year earlier. Sitting in the audience, thrilling to the excitement of what was unfolding onstage she knew then and there where she wanted to be. Not in the audience, but on the stage. She hungered to become a star, like the ones who were captivating her. She wanted to become a great lady of the American theater, an actress who reveled in applause. But, even more important, she would become that rarest of the rare, a truly great actress. With her own emotions, she would milk her audience of theirs. She would manipulate them to laughter and tears, to love and hate. It didn't seem all that far-fetched. She had the talent. Everyone said so.
In school the previous year, she had joined the Dramatic Society and had tried out for a play. The role she had won had been a minor one, but she had applied herself so diligently that she'd managed to stand out and steal the show. She had been so good that this year, there had been no contest. She had been cast in the starring role of a short, brilliant drawing room comedy by James M. Barrie.
She had let her studies slide as she threw herself into her part with such abandon that her teachers felt compelled to send a caustic note to her mother.
'If Charlotte-Anne would only apply herself as diligently to all her school work as she does to her acting . . . ' the note had begun. She had seethed with fury. Couldn't they see, the fools? Were they blind? It was acting she had to learn about, not economics or endocrine glands.
But the night of the play, at the final curtain call, she knew that all the aggravation, and her failing grade in geometry, had been worth it. She was inundated with so much intoxicating applause that she'd had to take deep breaths to keep from getting dizzy.
She had played the role so perfectly that the incredible had happened. As the play progressed, she had actually become the character. The rounds of applause she had earned catapulted her to the loftiest heights she had ever known.
Everyone in the school suddenly admired her. She was told time and again that nobody had ever noticed how beautiful she was. Even classmates who had once snubbed her or who had never spoken to her before, and especially boys who had ignored her up until now, finally clustered around her. She was asked out for dates, her advice was sought. She had never been so popular in her life, and she'd never realized just how powerful that would make her feel.
Her fate, which had revealed itself so clearly to her when she'd sat through that first Broadway show, was now truly sealed. She would become an actress. She was determined to see her name in lights.
Even her mother and sisters had congratulated her profusely on her performance, although none of them took her acting ambitions very seriously. 'Someday,' she promised them softly as they drove home after the play, 'I'm going to be an actress.'
'That's lovely, dear,' her mother had said. 'You were really very good. For a while, I actually forgot it was you up there on the stage.'
They were flattering words, the very compliment any actress was dying to hear. Yet she could sense that no one, especially her mother, greeted her announcement with the seriousness it was due. No one seemed to understand that beside acting, everything else paled in significance.
Her name in lights.
She didn't need to study history and mathematics. She needed to study dramatics, theater.
She even went so far as to try to discuss this with her mother one night. Elizabeth-Anne had smiled at her. 'But, darling, everyone needs to learn the fundamentals. After you've conquered the basics, of course you can go to college and study theater. No one is trying to stop you.'
'But . . . you've often told me that you didn't get much formal schooling,' Charlotte-Anne pointed out, hoping to somehow wheedle out of attending Brearley and being able to take acting lessons from a coach instead. 'It hasn't hurt you any.'
'That's true,' Elizabeth-Anne had replied. 'But believe me, there are many times when I wish I'd have been able to learn a lot more.' She sighed. 'But in Texas, things were different. There, school wasn't nearly as necessary as it is here.'
Charlotte-Anne had nodded silently. Somehow, she just couldn't get her point across. Oh, her mother understood about her wanting to do something . . . But what she couldn't seem to get her to understand was how important it was to stop wasting time on useless learning and to concentrate wholeheartedly on the career she had chosen. She had gone to bed with a leaden heart. She couldn't even close her eyes. She thought all night about acting, and it consumed her.
Then suddenly, in the wee hours of the morning, just before dawn, the idea had occurred to her. Why hadn't she thought of it before? She was right here, in Manhattan, for God's sake! Why didn't she just go to auditions? Then, if she got a part, nobody would dare stop her. Not if she proved herself.
Of course, she did have school to contend with.
If necessity was the mother of invention, then ambition was the father of deceit. The idea didn't so much germinate, as explode in her mind.
There was something she could do about school! She would simply play hookey. There was no reason she shouldn't be able to get away with it. She was an actress, wasn't she? And if she was caught, then too bad. It was worth the risk for the chance to see her name in lights.
And so it began - the conniving, the typing of her 'mother's' notes excusing her from school, the 'suffering' from a multitude of ailments for which she had to 'consult the doctor,' the painstaking practice and forging of her mother's signature, the changing clothes in the ladies room at Grand Central. She called herself Carla Hall, since she hadn't dared to use her real name. The Hales were becoming too well known in the city. And every actress needed a stage name, she rationalized. Carla Hall was an easy name to remember; she was going to make sure no one would ever forget it.
She scoured the papers. Each time she saw an ad for an open audition somewhere, she resurrected one of her ailments and spent the afternoon trying out for whatever show it was. All the auditions seemed to be held in dingy lofts or dirty, rickety rehearsal halls on the West Side.
It had been a rude awakening. She had expected something very different, but there was nothing remotely glamorous about auditioning for a show. Most of the time she didn't even get a chance to see the script before it was handed to her to read aloud. It was simply sink or swim. She was made to feel like an insignificant steer in a huge herd of cattle.
She didn't exactly know how, but she persevered, although there were countless times when she thought she might as well give up and go back to school. The competition was stiffer than she had ever imagined. She had never guessed that there were so many beautiful girls in this city, all far more talented than her. And they all seemed to have one thing in common: they all wanted to become actresses.
It wasn't long before she could recognize her fellow aspiring 'theater trash,' as they called themselves. They all looked hungry, starved for food as much as for success. Without fail, they tended to downplay their beauty, as though trying to prove they were mere putty, malleable for any role. Their clothes were rather seedy and very casual. They didn't seem to care at all how they dressed. All that mattered was the greasepaint they were certain flowed in their veins. At each audition, Charlotte-Anne was only too painfully aware that she was too finely dressed and glowing with good health.
If the auditions were grueling, then the reacti
ons she provoked from the other aspiring actresses were even more torturous. She could feel the waves of open hostility rolling toward her. One girl would poke another in the ribs and gesture at her; yet another would mimic a lady, haughty chin in the air, hands adjusting the flounces of an imaginary gown. She caught whispers of the nickname they had dubbed her with, 'Miss Rich Bitch.'
Their icy expressions were all the same, and she could read them with no difficulty: What's she doing here? Who does she think she is? Does she really think wearing a hundred dollars on her back will get her a part?
She felt so alone, and there was no one she could turn to for encouragement. Only two things kept her going: hope that an opportunity to showcase her talents would arise, and the belief that she was special. That she was one of the chosen few. But whenever she looked at the others, her heart would sink.
If they only knew! she cried to herself. She didn't want to look different. She would have given anything to blend in with the crowd. It was ridiculous, but the crux of the problem was that she didn't have anything suitable to wear. Her school uniform was definitely out of the question. Nor could she wear her own clothes, which made her look too young, too girlish. She had had but one option - trying to look older than her mere seventeen years. As she saw it, she had no choice but to sneak out with her mother's clothes.
The only trouble was, all her mother's outfits were now expensive, extremely well cut, and very ladylike.
It's just another necessary sacrifice, and a damn strange one, she told herself over and over. Let them all laugh behind my back. Let them call me 'Miss Rich Bitch.' I don't care. I'll show them. I'll make it.
Audition followed audition, and she always heard the same words repeated over and over. They might as well have been a recording. 'Thank you. If we decide to use you, you'll hear from us. Next!'
For weeks, she didn't dare audition for a musical or any show which required dancing. She knew she could neither carry a tune nor perform the simplest dance step. But finally, out of desperation, she decided to try it. It couldn't hurt, she told herself. What could they do other than turn her down?
LoveMakers Page 17