She had not told him about the pills Audrey had given to her to dispose of. What would have been the point of that? Doing so would only have served to arouse Bert’s compassion, which Audrey didn’t need. What Audrey needed was confirmation that it was a good thing she had been let go from the studio. Being a secretary had been keeping her from pursuing her true goals rather than helping her meet them. Audrey hadn’t been making inroads with influential people because they never thought of her as anything but a lovely girl with a steno pad.
Audrey hadn’t brought up the matter of the pills, either. The morning after that disastrous night, Audrey had simply given Violet a cozy, one-armed hug in the kitchen and then headed for the coffee and aspirin bottle. That had been two weeks ago. There had been no more allusions to Peg Entwistle or the handing over of the little brown bottle, or tearful reminders of crushed hopes.
Violet didn’t know what Audrey was doing for money or how she was spending her ample supply of free time since her firing. Just as Violet had expected, everything was different now that Audrey no longer worked at the studio. Audrey was usually still asleep when Violet left in the morning and was gone when Violet got home from work. And yet Audrey still had food on her side of the Frigidaire, and Violet had seen a new pair of shoes on the bathroom floor a couple of days ago. When she did see Audrey, she seemed happy or at least determined, and with Audrey that was kind of the same thing. It was apparent to Violet that Audrey was no longer waiting around anymore for her angel mother to set everything in motion.
As she lay in her bed, contemplating last night’s kiss, Violet heard movement in the bedroom next door. It was a Sunday morning and still relatively early. Audrey had been out later than Violet the night before, and Violet was surprised Audrey was even awake. Perhaps she would make biscuits and gravy, and she could tell Audrey about last night’s screening—and that she and Bert were in love.
Violet rose from the bed, grabbed her robe, and opened her bedroom door. She found Audrey in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in one hand and the questionnaire from last night’s screening in the other. The morning newspaper lay unread on the kitchen table.
“What’s this?” Audrey asked without looking up from it.
“Oh. Selznick did a surprise screening in Riverside last night. Bert and I drove out for it and snuck in.”
Audrey turned to her. “Did you?”
Violet took a coffee cup from the dish drainer and filled it from the coffeepot on the stove. “It was amazing, Audrey. You should’ve heard the audience cheer when the title came up on the screen. And to finally see all those scenes that I had stood by and watched being filmed? It was marvelous.”
She turned back to the table. Audrey was staring at her, waiting for more.
“I think Selznick is going to be very happy with the responses he gets. Of course, Bert and I won’t be sending in our questionnaires, since we probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
Audrey looked down at the response sheet and then back up again. “It’s a thrill to do something you aren’t supposed to be doing, isn’t it? Though I don’t suppose you’ve had much experience with that.”
An image of the curtain hat filled Violet’s head and she mentally flicked it away. “It’s going to be the best film ever,” Violet prattled on, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down. “Though Mr. Selznick is still not happy with how the movie ends. The Hays Office won’t let him use the word ‘damn’ in Rhett Butler’s last line. Right now it’s ‘Frankly my dear, I just don’t care,’ and he hates it.”
“Not quite the same thing, is it?” Audrey took a sip of coffee.
Violet couldn’t read her tone. Something about it unnerved her. “That’s not the only trouble Mr. Selznick is having with the end,” she continued, keeping her own tone light. “After Rhett Butler leaves, there’s poor Scarlett, without the man she truly loves. There’s nothing at the end of the book to suggest Scarlett will get Rhett back, and everyone at the studio says audiences won’t like that for an ending. So there have been a bunch of different endings that the script people have written, and not one of them has seemed right. Mr. Selznick finally came up with one that I really like, though no one really cares what I think. He thinks Scarlett should say something about how she will just have to win Rhett back, and of course the audience will believe her, because, you know, when has Scarlett not gotten what she wanted? But she doesn’t yet know how and she doesn’t know what to do with herself while she tries to figure it out. And so she’s crying on the stairs of her fancy house after Rhett leaves, and then she hears in her mind the voices of the three men who’ve mattered most to her—Pa, Ashley, and Rhett—and they are telling her that Tara is where she has always gone when life handed her sorrow, and it was at Tara that she was always able to find the strength to overcome whatever opposed her. Home is where she will go to begin again. It’s not how Miss Mitchell ends the book, but I like it.”
Violet paused for breath.
“Sounds like the perfect ending,” Audrey said.
Violet knew Audrey was not talking about the movie anymore.
“Bert and I are seeing each other,” Violet said, and she held Audrey’s gaze.
“So I’ve gathered.”
“It just happened over time, Audrey. We both realized we love and want the same things. You’ve been so busy with your career and Vince and meeting new people. I hardly ever see you anymore. I was going to tell you before now.”
Audrey seemed to need a second to take this in. “You’ll be good to Bert, won’t you?” Her resonant voice was thick with neither anger nor resentment, but something closer to longing. “Promise me you will, Violet. He’s the kindest man I’ve ever known. And my first true friend. Promise me you’ll be good to him.”
“I . . . Of course I promise. I love him.”
Audrey closed her eyes just for a moment. When she opened them, a glistening sheen sparkled in both. “I’m so very happy for you both. Really.”
They regarded each other for a moment silently.
“You two won’t forget about me now, will you?” Audrey finally said, a sad laugh coating her words.
“Never in a million years!” Violet answered quickly. Audrey would forever be within the folds of Violet’s soul. She could already feel her weighty presence there. Things were coming together just as Violet had dared to hope they could, but it was as though everything she held was made of gauze and could drift away at the slightest breath of wind. If she wasn’t careful she could lose it all. Hadn’t she learned that already? Hadn’t Audrey’s sad life borne witness to this? What you owned one day could be snatched away from you the next if you didn’t find a way to hold on tight to it.
Audrey smiled a tired grin, as if Violet’s unspoken thoughts had been audible. “I think I might go back to bed for a while.”
She lowered the Gone With the Wind response sheet to the table, letting it fall onto the newspaper and cover up the headline that a world away, Adolf Hitler had just laid siege on Warsaw.
TWENTY
October 1939
A blanket of predawn mist shrouded the bungalow in ghostly white fog as Audrey slipped her key into the lock. She turned and waved at the man who had brought her home, and was now sitting in his sleek Packard at the curb. Desmond, the aspiring playwright who had wanted her to stay overnight at his place, had been playfully disappointed when she’d declined. They’d spent the evening dancing and drinking at the Trocadero, and then continued with impromptu festivities at a friend of Desmond’s whose Beverly Hills mansion easily accommodated the forty people that showed up. Desmond waved back and then sped away.
She liked Desmond. He was ten years older than she was, a confirmed bachelor—so he liked to say—and a gifted writer. Several of his plays had been produced in Los Angeles over the past few years; one had even caught Broadway’s eye. Glen Wainwright, Desmond’s longtime friend wit
h the Beverly Hills mansion and a passion for live theater, had funded the local productions. Vince had told Audrey weeks ago that Desmond was being courted to write screenplays for several movie studios. He was a good person to know. But what she enjoyed best about Desmond was that he wasn’t like the other men in Hollywood with whom she’d been trying to get close. Desmond Hale was hungry for fame, just like she was. He was further along than she in his pursuit of happiness, but he still craved what he didn’t yet have. It was of secondary importance to Audrey that Desmond had friends in well-appointed places.
She stepped inside quietly, so as not to wake Violet. Their friendship was different now that Audrey was no longer at Selznick International and Violet and Bert were a couple. She had acclimated to not going into the studio every day far more easily than she’d gotten used to the idea that Violet and Bert were in love with each other. In all the years Audrey had known Bert, he had always had a calming influence on her, and she’d been careful not to lead him on romantically or trample on his obvious affection for her. She had grown fond of his attraction to her and hadn’t realized just how much until she had misplaced that costume hat and almost gotten him fired. He had started to look at her differently after that. And then there had been that disastrous evening Bert came to the house after she’d lost her job. The way he had looked at her . . . If Violet hadn’t been there after he left, she surely would have swallowed every pill in that bottle. If there was anyone she might have given up her career dreams for, it would have been Bert.
Except that he deserved someone better than her.
And now he had fallen in love with Violet. And she with him. She wondered if he knew Violet could never give him children. It would be just like Bert to love her anyway.
Valentino sidled up to her as she closed the front door and kicked off her shoes. He meowed loudly and she shushed him. She scooped up the cat and lowered her purse and outer wrap onto the sofa as she walked past it. In the little hallway that led to the bedrooms she stopped. Violet’s door was open, her bed made.
Instinctively Audrey looked at her watch. Five twenty-two in the morning. Violet hadn’t slept in her bed. All night. Half alarmed and half shocked, Audrey set down the cat and walked into the kitchen. The hoped-for note lay propped up against a juice glass.
We will be home on Sunday! Don’t worry. All is well!
Love, Violet
Audrey frowned as she read the note a second time.
We. We will be home on Sunday. Had Violet actually gone with Bert on a trip somewhere? Just the two of them?
Were they sleeping together?
“I don’t believe it,” Audrey whispered.
“Meow,” said Valentino.
She stood there for a few seconds longer, unable to fathom the thought that sweet, innocent Violet was sharing a bed with kindhearted Bert Redmond.
Bert.
When at last she turned for her bedroom, she tossed the note back toward the table, but it wafted to the floor when she walked away.
Much later, after Audrey had slept a few hours, Desmond called to ask if she wanted to see a play that night. They went back to his place for drinks afterward and he asked her to stay.
She stayed.
• • •
Audrey had been home only for a few minutes late Sunday afternoon when she heard Bert’s truck pull up just outside the bungalow. From the armchair by the front-room window, she watched Violet get out of the truck. Bert got out, too, reached into the back, and pulled out a small suitcase, which he handed to her.
He said something to Violet and she shook her head, leaned up, and kissed him. Then she started up the short path to the front door. Violet had just opened it when Audrey heard Bert call out, “I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
“All right!” Violet said.
And then she was in the house, clutching her little suitcase, her cheeks flushed with excitement. And something else. At first Violet didn’t see Audrey sitting there with a cup of coffee and the unread Sunday paper in her lap. When she did see her, she jumped.
“Spent the weekend with Bert, did you?” Audrey asked, a knowing tone in her voice.
“Oh my goodness! Audrey! You frightened me!” Violet laughed like a schoolgirl who did not sound frightened at all. She set down her suitcase and unbuttoned her coat.
“Well, you surprised me.” Audrey smiled slyly and put the cup on the coffee table. “What would your sweet Southern mama say if she knew you had spent the weekend with a man?”
Violet giggled and plopped down on the couch. “I already told her.”
Audrey laughed. “You what?”
“I called home. Yesterday. From the hotel in Las Vegas. I told my parents where I was and who I was with.”
Audrey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Oh, really?”
Violet nodded happily. “Yes, ma’am. I did!”
“And were you sober when you did this?”
Again Violet chuckled. “Well, I’d had some champagne by that time. So not exactly.”
Audrey shook her head. “Violet, Violet. And what did your parents say?”
Violet leaned forward on the sofa. Her eyes were bright with mischievous glee. “Mama started crying and Daddy started yelling, and I had to tell them that if they both didn’t stop I was going to hang up. They simmered down, and then I told them what a wonderful man Bert is, that he comes from a wonderful family, that I love him very much. Mother kept saying, ‘But he’s not Southern!’ And Daddy kept saying, ‘What kind of future does a costume boy have?’ That’s what he called Bert—a costume boy.”
Words failed Audrey. “Violet, I must say, you have taken me completely by surprise. You and Bert both. I hardly know what to even say to you.”
Violet’s happy grin increased. “Well, how about congratulations?”
Audrey felt the air around her grow still.
Violet thrust her left hand forward. A gold band with a tiny diamond sparkled on Violet’s finger and happy tears shimmered in her eyes.
“We got married!”
The moment felt like make-believe, like a line in a script. “Married?” Audrey echoed.
Violet pulled her arm back to admire the ring herself. “It wasn’t like we planned it. Not really. We were just cuddling and kissing Friday night, very late, and we both just wanted to be together, you know, in the married way. And we started laughing about how expensive and complicated weddings are when it really is so very simple for two people who love each other to pledge their devotion and sign a paper. So very simple. Right?”
Audrey could neither nod in agreement nor shake her head to the contrary. After a second, Violet went on.
“So we just said, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s elope.’ And the next thing you know, we are heading out of Los Angeles in the middle of the night to drive to Las Vegas. Bert was a little nervous about doing something so spontaneous and he wanted to call his mother to tell her, but he didn’t when I said I wasn’t going to call mine until after. Once we got there and had breakfast, we bought two very simple rings and some white daisies at a roadside stand. Then we filled out some papers, and next thing you know we’re both saying, ‘I do!’ Bert kept saying, ‘I can’t believe we just did that!’ and I kept saying, ‘I know, I know!’ Then we found this sweet honeymoon cottage to stay the night in, and, well, you know!” Violet blushed crimson.
“And your parents?” Audrey said, numb with surprise and a strange sense of disappointment. “They are all right with this?”
“Well, Mama was sad that I hadn’t been married in a church and that she hadn’t been there. I can understand her melancholy about that. But Bert wouldn’t have wanted a big Montgomery wedding that would have put him in the center of all that attention. He’s a very private person, you know.”
Audrey nodded. “Yes, I know.”
“We will go home to Montgom
ery for Christmas—Mama and Daddy are insisting on it. They want to host a wedding reception for us. The premiere of Gone With the Wind will have taken place by then, so we won’t be so incredibly busy. I am so excited for all my Montgomery friends to meet Bert! He’s such a gentleman, everyone will think he was Alabama born and raised!”
“No doubt,” Audrey said.
Violet leaned across the table and took Audrey’s hands in hers. “You are happy for me, aren’t you?”
“I’m happy if you’re happy.”
Violet closed her eyes and squeezed Audrey’s hands. “I’m over-the-moon happy!”
“And you will remember what you promised me?”
Violet nodded. “Not to forget you.”
Audrey squeezed Violet’s hands in return. “To be good to Bert. You will be good to Bert, won’t you?”
Violet hesitated only a second. “Of course! I love Bert, Audrey. I do. And he loves me.”
“You got what you wanted,” Audrey murmured a second later, as tears stung her eyes. They would be happy together, these two. Life wouldn’t always be easy, certainly, but at least they would always have each other to lean on.
“Mostly,” Violet whispered in return, her eyes glassy as well.
“The love between you will be enough—I’m sure of that.”
Violet nodded, unable to say anything else.
It occurred to Audrey then that Violet would be leaving the bungalow that very night. “I guess I’ve lost you as a roommate,” she said.
“But not as a friend,” Violet said quickly. She stood up, reached over, and pulled Audrey up out of her chair and into an embrace. “Thank you for everything, Audrey.”
Audrey laughed lightly. “I didn’t do anything.”
Violet broke away. “You introduced me to Bert! I owe you everything.”
Then Violet pulled away and headed to her room to pack her belongings.
TWENTY-ONE
December 1939
Stars Over Sunset Boulevard Page 17