Stars Over Sunset Boulevard

by Susan Meissner

  She wasn’t in her bed.

  She wasn’t in her bedroom. And, for a moment, sleep returned to her.

  Then there was a voice, hoarse and anxious at her ear, and a hand on her shoulder, shaking her.

  “Wake up, Violet!”

  She peered up at the voice. Bert. He was in her living room. She lay sprawled across the sofa.

  “Where’s Audrey?” he said.

  Violet struggled to rise, and Bert helped her to a sitting position.

  “Where’s Audrey, Violet?”

  She reached for her forehead to silence the pounding inside her brain.

  “Where is Audrey?”

  “I don’t know. . . .” Violet muttered as she made an effort to get to her feet. Again Bert assisted her. She looked toward the hallway.

  “I’ve already looked in her bedroom!” Bert said, and then he cursed softly.

  Violet had never heard Bert use language like that. She’d never seen him angry.

  She suddenly remembered it was Wednesday morning. “What time is it?”

  “It’s eight thirty. Where’s her bag from last night?”

  Water and aspirin. Violet had to have them. She was already an hour late for work, but she couldn’t even begin to picture herself getting ready to go without either one. And she had no idea where Audrey’s purse was or why Bert was asking for it.

  “I need water.” She tottered toward the kitchen.

  “I have to find her!” Bert sounded desperate.

  Violet didn’t want to hear it. “If she’s not in her bedroom, I don’t know where she is. I have to get ready for work.”

  Bert reached out for her. “You have to help me, Violet! She has the hat! She took that hat!”

  His hand, tight on her arm, steadied Violet as the scattered memories of the previous night attempted to reassemble themselves in her mind.

  “Did she leave for work already?” Violet stumbled into the kitchen. A pot of coffee on the stove was still warm, and there was an open bottle of aspirin on the counter next to it. And a note. Bert snatched up the piece of paper and Violet read it in his hands.

  Vi:

  Left early. A lot to do today. The coffee’s strong!

  A.

  “I’ve got to go,” Bert said. “I’m sorry I can’t wait for you.” He turned and dashed out the front door before Violet could say a word.

  She poured a glass of water and washed down two aspirin before shuffling to her bedroom to change into fresh clothes and run a comb through her hair. Snippets of the previous night’s escapades started to filter back to her and she pushed them away. She didn’t want to think about what she had done or said or how much she’d had to drink last night.

  Her head was still throbbing, but thankfully less so than when Bert had shaken her awake, as she raced to hail the first taxi she saw.

  When she finally reached Miss Myrick on the set, she was more than two hours late and full of apologies for having overslept. The advisor, however, was distracted by another, more pressing detail and didn’t seem to care much about Violet’s tardiness. The curtain-dress hat was missing and no one in wardrobe knew where it was. Violet scanned the room for Bert, but none of the wardrobe people were on the set. They were all off looking for the hat, which was needed for the day’s filming.

  An oppressive foreboding enveloped Violet and she ached to speak with Bert to make sure that he hadn’t gotten into trouble, that he hadn’t been fired. She couldn’t remember leaving the studio last night. She couldn’t remember how she and Audrey had gotten home. Despite the aspirin and the coffee, her brain still felt as though it were full of cotton. She swallowed two more aspirin with another cup of coffee.

  When the hat could not be located, its spare, which wasn’t quite finished, had to be compared with footage from the day before to make sure that it would be an exact duplicate. The filming schedule was off now and the shooting of the scene with Scarlett walking down a dusty Atlanta street during Reconstruction had to be rescheduled for another time. Violet at last saw Bert when this announcement was given to the cast and crew. A supervisor was telling him he was damn lucky a spare had been made and that he needed to be more responsible or he would be let go; it was as simple as that. A wardrobe piece didn’t just disappear overnight. That hat had been Bert’s responsibility.

  Clearly, his supervisor didn’t know Bert had let two lady friends into the wardrobe building the previous night and then had proceeded to get plastered with them. Audrey should never have suggested they come here and get drunk. It had been a terrible idea. Violet’s heart ached for Bert as she watched him stand there and receive the reprimand. And as she kept her eyes on him and the second dose of aspirin began to take effect, bits and pieces of the previous night began to materialize in her head, as if a window shade were being slowly raised and light was spilling in.

  Audrey had had the hat on her head when they were arguing about why Scarlett married Frank Kennedy—no, about whether Melanie was just like Scarlett.

  Audrey had made them another round of drinks and then she had left to go find a restroom.

  Violet and Bert were still sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall and drinks in their hands. His gaze had lingered on the door after Audrey had gone and he’d looked a little sad.

  Violet remembered trying to find something to talk about that would cheer him up. So she told him about the time she and a childhood friend had found a nest of abandoned baby cardinals.

  Bert had turned his head slowly toward her and said how beautiful cardinals were and how he wished they lived in California. Violet tried to think of the names of some of the other birds that lived back home in Alabama. He had been staring at Violet with an odd look on his face, as if he was trying to figure something out. And then out of the blue he’d said, “You’re quite pretty, Violet. You’re actually quite pretty.”

  Just hearing it again in her head made Violet’s mouth drop open.

  She remembered that he’d spoken as if he had never really noticed her before, because up until then all he could see was Audrey. And now suddenly she wasn’t some invisible girl trailing along in Audrey’s shadow.

  Violet had answered back, “Do you really think so?” He’d brushed away a lock of hair that was resting just on her brow and said, “Absolutely.” His fingers on her forehead were as tender as any touch she had ever received from a man.

  It had been a long time since anyone had called her pretty. Franklin had been the last, but the surgery to remove the menacing growth inside her had changed the way he looked at her. And it had changed the way she looked at men. She’d been wondering since then if it was possible a man could love her in spite of her damaged body. The way Bert had looked at her when he told her she was pretty made her think that with him, it was possible.

  They had clinked their cups together and were drinking from them when Audrey reappeared and said she’d run into a few friends who were working late on the Atlanta mansion staircase, and they’d offered to drive them all home.

  The window shade seemed to stall a bit then, and Violet was not sure what had happened after that. She and Audrey had accepted the ride—she recalled that—and she remembered that Bert decided to sleep on the floor in the costume building. He had no doubt awakened early, stiff and sore, and noticed that the hat Audrey had been wearing was missing, and then had dashed to the bungalow in a taxi in his desperate search for it.

  Later, at lunch, she sought out Bert.

  “Did you find Audrey?” she asked, knowing full well it didn’t matter if he had. There was no hat.

  “I did. She doesn’t remember what she did with it,” Bert said tonelessly, plainly aching from more than just a hangover. “She thought she took it off before she left. I can’t believe she lost it.”

  “It’s not your fault this happened, Bert. I saw the look on your face when Audr
ey had that hat on. You wanted her to take it off. You were worried about it even then.”

  “I just wish I could remember,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  “Don’t you remember anything about last night?” Violet asked gently, wondering if he recalled telling her she was pretty.

  “I remember I got smashed. Look, I’d better get back. I’m lucky to still have a job after what Audrey did.”

  He gathered his tray and rose from the table. Violet reached for his arm. “Maybe the next time we go out to look for your nightingale, it can be just you and me.”

  Bert studied her for a moment. “You would want to?”

  She felt herself blush. “Very much.”

  Her reaction seemed to surprise him as much as her suggestion did. He had been under Audrey’s spell for so long, it seemed he’d forgotten there were other women on the planet. “Sure,” he said slowly, as if needing to reorient himself with the idea that someone other than Audrey might win his affections.

  Bert left her to head back to the wardrobe department. As he walked away, the shade on the window in her mind began to creep up again and she suddenly remembered that after Bert had passed out on the floor, she and Audrey had tottered over to Stage 11. Crew members that Audrey knew were working late to prepare for the filming of Mammy and Melanie’s long and sad walk up the stairs after Bonnie Butler’s death. They had offered to drive them home.

  Violet remembered Audrey singing “Blue Skies” on the way to the bungalow, and her vomiting onto the sidewalk after the men drove off, and Audrey sashaying into Violet’s bedroom, not her own, and insisting it was hers. She remembered Audrey collapsing onto Violet’s bed and her big purse and coat falling to the floor next to Violet’s slippers. She couldn’t remember why she had chosen the couch over Audrey’s bed, other than that Audrey’s bed was a perpetual mess of unmade sheets and discarded clothes.

  But the rest of the night was still a blur.

  Violet didn’t see Audrey at all that afternoon; her roommate had been summoned to take notes for one of the art directors in another building, and that was where she’d spent the day.

  Violet returned home alone, hoping to find that Audrey had arrived ahead of her, but the bungalow was dark when Violet unlocked the door. She fed the cat and then opened a can of tomato soup, hoping that the warm liquid would chase away the last residue of the headache she had fought all day.

  She went into her bedroom to change into her pajamas while the soup heated, and frowned at her unmade bed. Violet started to yank the sheets to pull them taut when her toe kicked something that lay under Audrey’s coat on the floor. She lifted the coat and her breath caught in her throat.

  Peeking just outside of Audrey’s oversized purse was a flash of gold fringe and green velvet.

  Violet knelt down and gently freed the hat from the purse’s confines. She rose quickly and turned toward the bedroom door. Bert would be home now, and she could already imagine the look on his face when she phoned to tell him she’d found Audrey’s bag and the hat was inside it. She had taken just one step when she stopped.

  Violet stood for several long moments, staring at the hat as other options began to formulate in her head.

  Was turning it back over to Bert the wisest thing to do?

  What was the kindest thing she could do for Bert?

  For herself?

  Even for Audrey?

  What made the most sense in the great scheme of things?

  Valentino wandered into the room and looked at the rooster feathers on the hat with keen interest. The cat meowed.

  “Go away.” Violet shooed him out of the room and closed the door. Her heart began to pound as she looked for a place to hide the hat while she contemplated the best course of action. Then she saw the box of winter clothes she was planning to send back home because she didn’t need them in California.

  A solution presented itself as she stared at the box. A terrible, brilliant solution.

  Violet pulled out half of the wool sweaters and pants and gently laid the hat atop the remaining clothes. Then she replaced what she had taken out. She taped the box shut, lifted it, and opened the bedroom door.

  “Meow?” Valentino sat inches from the door, his tail curled about his front paws.

  She hoisted the box in her arms and checked her wristwatch. The post office closed late on Wednesdays. If she called a cab, she’d just make it.

  While she waited for the taxi she penned a short note that she would mail separately, letting her mother know she was sending to the house a box of clothes she didn’t need in such warm weather and which could be taken directly up to her room to be stored until she came home for a visit.

  She sealed the envelope, turned off the flame under the soup, and grabbed her purse.

  A minute later she was standing at the curb, waiting for the taxi, telling herself over and over and over that what she was about to do was necessary.

  Right.

  Good.

  Hollywood

  March 10, 2012

  Elle Garceau awakens to the sound of her granddaughters’ laughter and the yipping of a little dog. She turns over in bed to look at her cell phone on the nightstand. It’s not quite six a.m., and they were all up past midnight. Elle sighs and half grins. The girls are still acclimating to Pacific Standard Time. It wasn’t that long ago that her body clock had to make the same adjustment. It will take time, as many adaptations do.

  Another voice, low in tone, is gently shushing the girls as they make their way past Elle’s closed door to the condo’s kitchen. Her son, Daniel, is also awake.

  She rises from bed, grabs a robe, and opens the plantation shutters in her bedroom, letting in the palest predawn light. Observing from ten flights up the arrival of each new day has been helping Elle come to terms with being single after fifty years of marriage, as well as readjusting to life in California, emptying the beloved bungalow, and learning to dream and think in English again.

  It has been a long time since she’s lived in a Los Angeles high-rise. The past few days spent dismantling the bungalow have reminded her just how long. So many fragments of yesteryear were tucked inside her mother’s old house, as well as a secret or two. Elle went to sleep the night before, hopeful that the hat her mother kept hidden away for decades would be found and returned without much notice. It was one of the few things in the bungalow that didn’t belong in the blazing light of an ordinary day.

  Until recently, Elle had hoped she might be able to continue putting off the emptying of the little house, but her son’s job offer with Disney changed all that. The little house will be the perfect place for Daniel, Nicola, and the girls to make a new start in America. The bungalow has always been a good place to begin a new life. She’s glad there will be a stretch of time when the rooms inside will again be inhabited by the young.

  By the time Elle uses the toilet and runs a comb through her hair, the condo is quiet again. When she enters the kitchen her son regards her apologetically.

  “Je suis désolé,” he says. “Nous t’avons réveillés.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t mind getting up early,” Elle replies in English as she looks about for her granddaughters. “Did you send the girls back to bed?”

  “Nicola took them down so the dog can pee.” He pours a cup of coffee from a French press carafe and hands it to her. “Oh. I got a voice mail yesterday that I didn’t see until this morning. The owner of the resale shop called and said she found that hat. I’ll text her that I’ll come around today or tomorrow.”

  Elle looks up from her cup. “I can swing by and get it.”

  “I’m the one who put it in the car with all the other stuff. Nicola and I will get it.”

  “But you have so much running around to do today. I don’t mind.”

  Daniel refreshes his own coffee cup. “You’ll have the girls and the dog
with you today, though. And there’s still so much to do at the bungalow. You’ve got plenty on your plate already.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “But what? It’s my fault it got mixed up with the wrong pile of boxes. I’ll take care of it. It’s just a hat, right?”

  “Yes.” Elle nods as she sips her coffee.

  It’s just a hat.

  TWELVE

  May 1939

  The soldiers in tattered and dirty uniforms lay in row after row on the back Forty. Some raised an arm in supplication as they called out, and some lay still as if asleep or dead. Some weren’t men at all, but rather dummies dressed in military garb. When one of these raised an arm, it was because a living man next to it was working a lever with one hand while reaching out for Scarlett O’Hara with the other as she walked through a train yard strewn with wounded and defeated Confederates.

  A camera attached to a construction crane borrowed from the Long Beach shipyard was pulled slowly back, more and more and more, as the lens took in the nearly one thousand extras sent over from Central Casting. Audrey had heard Selznick wanted fifteen hundred men, and was sent only nine hundred and seventy-seven because of a pay dispute, hence the nearly seven hundred dummies.

  The May sun was bright and brassy, and Audrey blotted away the sweat on her neck with a tissue. She didn’t mind being out in the heat of the day. She was glad that filming had picked up to such a frenetic pace that she and several other secretaries in the pool had been tasked with helping the team of assistant directors working six days a week to finish shooting on time. Victor Fleming had collapsed from exhaustion a few weeks earlier and had only recently returned. In his absence a third director, Sam Wood, had been brought in, and because the completion date was just a month way, he had stayed on. Scenes were being shot simultaneously all over the studio grounds and everyone was working ten-hour days, six days a week.

  Audrey watched Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara continue her search for Dr. Meade. She imagined herself in the drab calico dress, wearing a straw hat from happier days, picking her way through a thousand injured soldiers who embodied a thousand crushed dreams. She closed her eyes and could very nearly sense the hands of the dying reaching out to her, to speak of what they had lost.