Stars Over Sunset Boulevard

by Susan Meissner

  Violet now started for her closet and nearly tripped over a box on the floor that had arrived in the mail the day before. It was for Lainey from Audrey, and she had meant to open it earlier and had forgotten. She picked up the box, wondering what she should do with it. It felt heavy. There were probably several presents inside. It would be a little odd to add Audrey’s presents to the growing pile of gifts downstairs that would be opened during the party. Audrey had surely signed her card Love, Auntie Audrey. And since her brothers’ wives—Lainey’s actual aunts—would be at the party, that might be thorny. Perhaps she could open it tomorrow, after all the hullabaloo. But in the meantime, it was in the way. If she left the box in their bedroom, Bert would see it and ask what it was. He might not understand the awkwardness of trying to explain to a roomful of people who Auntie Audrey was.

  Still wearing only her slip, Violet opened the bedroom door and peeked out to make sure her father hadn’t come inside the house. Across the hall, Lainey’s door was open and there was no sound coming from it. Bessie had her downstairs.

  Violet dashed across the hall into Lainey’s room and opened its closet doors. The left side was full of Lainey’s clothes and toys. The other side contained boxes and books and trinkets that had been Violet’s when this room had been hers. She rearranged a few of the items to make room for Audrey’s package until she could decide when to open it.

  Her hands touched a box she had missed seeing when she had put Lainey’s things inside the closet. It had a California postmark and the mailing label was in her handwriting. The return address was that of the bungalow that Violet had shared with Audrey.

  Violet hadn’t thought about the contents of that box in a long time. A very long time.

  She put Audrey’s gifts down and knelt by the unopened box that she had sent home four years earlier.

  Clothes not needed in California was what she had told her mother were inside.

  Violet stared at the box for a minute before running her fingernail under packing tape that had lost much of its sticking power. It came away easily. She opened the flaps, pulled out three wool sweaters, and placed them on the floor. She reached in again and her fingers touched the tips of feathers and then braided cord and velvet. She put her hands around the hat—Scarlett #13—and lifted it out of the box. Her mind took her back to the night she and Audrey and Bert got drunk in the wardrobe building, the night Audrey put this hat on her head, and the night Bert told her she was pretty.

  The spell had broken that night. Audrey’s merciless hold on Bert’s affections had been wrested from her when that hat turned up missing. He had finally begun to see that loving Audrey Duvall would bring him only unhappiness.

  Audrey had been careless with what mattered to him.

  That was what Violet had let him think; it was what she’d needed him to think.

  He had almost lost his job and he’d believed it was all Audrey’s fault. What would Bert think of Violet now if he knew why she had this hat? Would he forgive her as he’d forgiven her for not telling him before they married that she couldn’t have children?

  He had understood that she had lied because she loved him and didn’t want to lose him.

  But this. This was different. She’d lied this time not to keep him loving her but to get him to stop loving someone else.

  An irritating pang of remorse started to shoot through her and she tamped it down.

  Everything was as it should be. Everything.

  Bert was meant to be with her, not Audrey. Audrey was meant to be with Glen.

  What she had done was all for everyone’s ultimate benefit. Sometimes a person had to do something drastic, like rip apart beautiful curtains to make a dress and hat, to bring about the better good.

  It had taken courage to do what she had done, just as it had taken courage for Scarlett to do what she had done. Even Melanie had understood that.

  Melanie had understood every harsh thing Scarlett did.

  The hat both condemned and commended Violet, just as it had for its fictional owner. Violet couldn’t risk Bert seeing it and she couldn’t just toss the hat away. The movie was still being talked about four years later. Anyone who saw the hat would recognize it, especially with the label on its underside. And the thought of taking it downstairs to the fireplace and burning it seemed wrong somehow.

  Violet reached up to the top shelf of her old childhood closet and pulled an old sewing basket toward her. Inside were hats from her high school days that she no longer wore but were special to her. She dropped Scarlett #13 inside, replaced the flannel sheeting over all the hats, and lowered the lid. She hoisted the sewing basket onto her arm by its black leather handle, lifted Audrey’s package into her hands, and then went back to her bedroom. She set the two containers on her bed while she put on a bathrobe over her slip for the quick trip up the attic stairs.

  She grabbed the sewing basket.

  A blast of chilly air met her as she opened the little attic door and ducked inside. The long, narrow, and low-ceilinged room was filled with crates of Christmas decorations that would soon be coming downstairs, plus old dress forms and extra dining-room chairs and an old phonograph and picture frames. She walked to the little window that provided the only light and opened the steamer trunk beneath it. The trunk had a broken lock but it was a good place to store things, as it kept the bugs and moths out. Violet had long kept in it her dolls and diaries and special memorabilia from years past. She lowered the sewing basket inside and let the lid fall shut.

  Violet headed back to her room. She took off the bathrobe and slipped into the new dress she had bought to meet Bert at the train station. It was salmon colored with ivory trim, and her mother had said she looked like a movie star in it. Violet pinned on the dress’s lapel the little rhinestone hummingbird that Bert had given her on her last birthday. She fluffed her hair and reapplied her lipstick. In the mirror she saw Audrey’s package still on the bed. She turned and pondered it for a moment.

  She could take Audrey’s gifts downstairs and put them with the other presents on her way out the door. Of course she could. She was making more of the situation than she needed to. How hard would it be to explain to the other guests that Auntie Audrey was Violet’s very good friend in Hollywood who didn’t have any children of her own?

  That wouldn’t be hard at all.

  Because it was the truth.

  Hollywood

  March 10, 2012

  Elle, her granddaughters, and the dog are out on the balcony when Daniel and Nicola finally make it back to the bungalow a few minutes before eight. In their arms are In-N-Out burger bags. The girls squeal with delight, and Jacques yips as they all make their way inside.

  Daniel rolls his eyes when Elle good-naturedly says she didn’t know cheeseburgers were now considered Thai cuisine. “After an hour stuck in traffic, we just went with something fast and easy that didn’t involve a bottlenecked freeway,” he says.

  Nicola sets one of the bags down on the kitchen counter. “And I thought traffic in Paris was bad.” Having been raised in Italy, Nicola has an accent that adds an a sound to the end of nearly every word. “That was insane.”

  Elle starts to get out plates.

  “Tell your mother about the woman at the shop!” Nicola says to her husband as she withdraws paper-wrapped burgers from a white bag.

  Elle turns to her son, a rivulet of disquiet zippering through her. “Something up with the hat?”

  “Not really. The shop owner says she lived next door to Grandma when she was little. She recognized the hat.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s true!” Nicola says. “Show her the texts.”

  Daniel pulls his phone out of his pocket. “So I texted her—her name is Christine McAllister—and told her I would be stopping by her shop sometime tomorrow, and this is what she said.” He hands the phone to Elle. “She knew Gran
dma’s last name and the street the bungalow is on. At first I thought maybe one of the boxes I took over there had an old mailing label on it, but that wasn’t it.”

  Elle takes the phone and reads the exchange of messages:

  Christine: May I ask if the house where all these things came from is on Beechwood? Is the last name Redmond a family name, by chance?

  Daniel: Yes! That house was my grandmother’s. Violet Redmond. How did you know?

  Christine: I used to live next door. Your grandmother babysat me when I was six. I’m happy to bring the hat by that house tomorrow, if that’s where you will be. I know right where it is.

  Daniel: That’s too kind. You don’t have to do that.

  Christine: I’d be happy to. Around 4 p.m. okay?

  Daniel: If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble. My mother, Elle Garceau, will be there if I am not. We’re still in the process of emptying it. I’m sure she’d love to meet you.

  Christine: And I would love to meet her. Your grandmother was a wonderful babysitter. She let me try on this hat once.

  Daniel: Small world, right?

  Christine: Small and lovely. I will have the estimate of your other items ready by then.

  Daniel: No rush. Thanks for bringing the hat by.

  Christine: My pleasure.

  The string of messages ends and Elle looks up from the phone.

  “Isn’t that amazing?” Nicola says.

  “Very,” Elle murmurs as she hands the phone back to her son. She wonders if this Christine McAllister is aware that the headpiece she will return tomorrow isn’t some ordinary accessory that just happens to smell of cedar and lost years. Surely she knows what it really is. Daniel said it himself.

  She recognized the hat.

  1962

  THIRTY

  July 1962

  Violet pulled the Plymouth into the driveway of the Santa Barbara house, happy to see Bert was home early from his lecture in San Luis Obispo. Perhaps Lainey was home, too, and the three of them could actually have dinner together—a rarity lately. Lainey’s part-time job at the record store was only one of the reasons. Their nineteen-year-old daughter was eager for change, to spread her wings and fly. She had recently applied for a transfer to UCLA and spent most evenings at the beach with friends, imagining a future that would take place far beyond the Santa Barbara horizon.

  Bert kept telling Violet that was what baby birds did. Eventually they flew.

  And Violet kept reminding him that learning to fly didn’t have to mean flying away.

  She set the brake, opened the car door, and reached for the grocery sack on the backseat. The bracelet Lainey had made for her when she was eight jangled at her wrist as she lifted the sack. The Peruvian beads and the image of Lainey running alongside little girls with long black braids and coffee brown skin made her smile and her heart ache a little.

  Violet missed the years when Bert traveled regularly to South America to take photographs for the Audubon field guides. They’d had such happy times, just the three of them, and the beautiful and exotic locales had been especially therapeutic for Bert after the war. The march across France to liberate it from the Nazis had left him longing to reconnect with the beauty of the earth and its birds, just as his father had done after the First World War. Bert had returned in the summer of 1945, whole but hungry for a repurposed life. The GI Bill had allowed him to finish his degree with a specialty in ornithology and complete his training in photography, and her father’s New York connections had indeed helped him get in with the Audubon Society. They had then spent the next six years in a charming Brooklyn brownstone, whenever they weren’t traveling the western side of the southern hemisphere to photograph and study birds.

  They’d returned to Santa Barbara primarily because Bert wanted ten-year-old Lainey to have a normal education, but also because his health had not been the same after returning from the battlefield. The long last winter of the war, which he spent in frozen foxholes, had been hard on his lungs and heart. Hearing of his mother’s death while his regiment chased the Germans across France and Belgium hadn’t been easy, either.

  They had been back in Santa Barbara for nine years, and Bert had settled in as a field agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He still spent the majority of the day outside, looking at birds or for birds.

  Audrey had been wildly happy about their return to the United States. Her career had at last taken off with the advent of television, just as Glen Wainwright had said it would. She had visited them in the field twice in the years they were away, once in Brazil and once in New York. But as the popularity of television grew and she was more and more in demand—usually, and ironically, to portray someone’s mother—she had less time for visits. Anytime a television show needed a woman in her forties with a deep, sultry voice, it was Audrey Wainwright they wanted. Audrey Duvall was all but forgotten.

  The return to Santa Barbara had made it easy for Audrey to see them again at holidays, and to invite Lainey, who had become starstruck of late, down to Beverly Hills for long weekends. Lainey adored Audrey and was far too enamored with her auntie’s Hollywood lifestyle, in Violet’s estimation.

  Lainey had assumed what Violet had wanted her to assume about Audrey: She was her mother’s childless best friend who lavished on Lainey what she might have on her own children, had she been blessed with any. As to the whereabouts of her true biological mother, Violet had told Lainey early on—with Bert’s somewhat reluctant consent—that her mother had been a single woman in a bad situation who couldn’t raise Lainey but who loved her enough to give her to two people who could. For most of her childhood, Lainey had been satisfied with that answer. It wasn’t until her early teen years that she’d starting asking questions about who her real mother was and how to find her. She’d even gone to Audrey to enlist her help in convincing Violet and Bert to help her in her quest. Violet had learned that Audrey had told Lainey to just keep trusting that people who had loved her when she was born loved her still and had done what they thought was best for her. Bert had been ready at that point to let Lainey know the truth, but Violet had assured him nothing good would come from that.

  And yet with each passing year, Lainey grew to look more and more like her beautiful birth mother. Violet often wondered if it was truly possible to keep Lainey protected from the truth when it seemed so obvious, especially when Audrey and Lainey were together, which these days was painfully often.

  Violet shut the car door and hoisted the grocery bag to her hip. Lainey’s adoration of Audrey coupled with Audrey’s mutual feelings for Lainey were a constant thorn that Violet had tried for years to pluck. She was envious of the affection that Audrey lavished on Lainey, and equally jealous of her daughter’s devotion toward Audrey. She hated feeling that way but she did not know how to slay her resentment. The older Lainey got and the more she set her sights south toward Los Angeles, the more it festered.

  Violet made her way into the house, stepping into a living room that bore little resemblance to its former appearance when the house was Delores’s. Framed photographs of macaws and caracaras and yellow-billed jacamars accented the modern furniture. Vibrant rugs, pottery, and artwork from their many travels to South America decorated the walls and floor. Field guides and coffee-table books that Bert had written or had provided photographs for were displayed on the end tables. A bronze agami heron stood in the far corner of the room where Delores’s armchair used to be.

  It was a room that shouted that the world was a big place begging to be discovered. Violet hadn’t realized just how loudly until that moment, as her gaze was drawn to an opened letter on the small table just inside the door. The table was the stopping place for their car keys and the mail and other little things that spoke of the world outside the house.

  The letter from UCLA lay on top of the rest of the mail, its envelope—bearing signs that it had been hurriedly opened—beneath
it. Violet set the grocery bag down on the floor by her feet and picked up the piece of paper. The letter congratulated Elaine Redmond for being accepted as a transfer student for UCLA’s fall 1962 semester.

  For a few seconds Violet could only stand and stare at the words on the page. Then she was aware that Bert was behind her. He put his arm around her waist.

  “You should’ve heard her shout when she opened it,” he said.

  No, I shouldn’t have.

  “I suppose she was overjoyed,” Violet said tonelessly instead.

  “That’s putting it mildly. She took off to tell her friends. I’m guessing we will be eating alone tonight.”

  “So what else is new?” The words tasted bitter in her mouth.

  “She wants this, Vi. You can’t blame her.”

  Violet let the letter fall back onto the table. “What does that even mean? That I can’t blame her? What does blame have to do with it?”

  She snatched up the grocery bag and strode into the kitchen. Bert followed her.

  “We can’t expect Lainey to live with us the rest of her life,” Bert said, a light laugh escaping him.

  “She’s only nineteen.” Violet withdrew a bag of carrots and slapped it to the counter.

  “Violet.” Bert was at her side again.

  She tossed a bag of rice next to the carrots. “What?”

  “Lainey wants to follow her dreams, just like any normal young person does. You followed yours. I followed mine. It’s what we do.”

  Violet put her hands on the counter as if to draw strength from the hard ceramic tile. She thought of the choices she had made, the things she had done when she had been chasing after dreams that often seemed elusive. “It’s such a big, cruel world.”