Stars Over Sunset Boulevard

by Susan Meissner

  Bert pulled her close. “It’s big, but it’s not always cruel. Not always, Vi. And it’s not like she’s taking off for New York or somewhere else faraway. It’s only Los Angeles. Just down the road, really. And Audrey will be right there.”

  Violet stiffened in his arms as if he’d pierced her with a blade.

  When Lainey had first started talking about changing her major from communications to theater and transferring to UCLA, Violet had phoned Audrey to ask for help in getting Lainey to see reason. She’d asked Audrey if she really wanted Lainey to go into acting, when she—of all people—knew what kind of life that would mean. And Audrey had answered that the best thing they could do for Lainey was to let her know they trusted her and loved her and would stand with her no matter what she decided to do.

  What that really had meant was Audrey was tickled pink that if Lainey was at UCLA, she would be only a taxi ride away.

  Audrey would then have what she’d wanted since she’d tossed Lainey away: to have her back.

  Violet spun from Bert and dashed for the hallway and their bedroom. Bert was not far behind.

  She sat down hard on their bed as hot tears of anger slid down her cheeks. “She’s our daughter! Ours!”

  Bert sat down next to her. “Of course she’s ours!”

  “Audrey’s always wanted to steal Lainey’s affection away from us!”

  Bert took her hand. “That’s not true. You’re just upset at the thought of Lainey moving away. You’re—”

  She snatched her hand away. “Stop telling me what I am! I know what I am! And I know what Audrey is!”

  “Violet. Look at me.”

  Several seconds passed before she turned her head to face him.

  “You can’t expect Audrey not to have feelings for Lainey that are going to rub up against yours. You had to know it was going to be like this. Audrey is your best friend, not some stranger you never saw or never knew.”

  For a fraction of a second Violet wished Audrey was some stranger she had never seen again. But the black thought skittered away, back to the dark place where it belonged. She could not entertain that dreadful image.

  “Audrey doesn’t deserve her,” she said, her voice like a child’s. “She gave Lainey away.”

  Bert wrapped an arm around her. “She gave her to us. Because she loves us and she knew we would love Lainey. Maybe . . .”

  She looked up at him. “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe it’s time Lainey knew the truth. That we all love her and we always have.”

  Violet stared at him. What he was suggesting was a terrible idea. “She already knows that.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  The sound of the front door being opened pulled their attention away from each other. Violet stood and wiped her eyes. She did not want Lainey to see that she had been crying. “She already knows what she needs to know, Bert.”

  A voice called out. “Anybody home? Mom? Are you here?”

  “I’m here!” Violet turned to Bert and offered her hand. He took it as he rose from the bed.

  THIRTY-ONE

  November 1962

  Audrey sipped from a Limoges coffee cup on her patio as she perused the script that her agent had sent over that morning. She had told Rodney on the phone that she had a busy day ahead, with Lainey’s twentieth birthday party to host, but he’d been adamant that CBS needed an answer right away. The role called for her to play the mother of a murdered twenty-eight-year-old librarian, and filming was to start next week.

  “A twenty-eight-year-old? I’m only fifty-two!” Audrey had growled.

  “Don’t look at it that way,” Rodney had said. “Hair and makeup can have you looking as old or as young as they want. You know that.”

  “I’d rather play the twenty-eight-year-old, then.”

  Rodney had laughed and told her to get back to him by noon.

  Audrey had lost count of how many times she’d portrayed someone’s mother, beginning with the first television role she’d landed, a cameo on The Lone Ranger in 1949. In the past decade she’d become the woman every TV-show director wanted when they needed a medium-profile actress to play the lead’s mother, or the lead’s lover’s mother, or the lead’s enemy’s mother, or the lead’s best friend’s mother. She’d been in episodes of everything from Gunsmoke to The Twilight Zone to Dennis the Menace. She was never cast in the lead, never given a role that lasted for longer than a season, but yet she was always having to choose among scripts. It was strange the way the directors competed for her. They all wanted her, but only for minor parts. At first she had resisted, preferring to hold out for lead roles, but Rodney and Glen had both told her she excelled at what she did and that was why they all asked for her.

  “Playing a mother?” she had said.

  “You’re good at it,” Rodney, who knew nothing of her past, had repeated.

  And because being sought after was what she had always desired, she had stayed the course.

  But she had been feeling restless of late. Perhaps it was time to think about getting out while she was still in demand. The last thing she wanted was to start getting scripts to play someone’s grandmother. Maybe she needed to seriously think about taking her bows while she still felt she had control of her career. It was better to be wanted than to have been wanted. Better to decline a role than to beg for one.

  She would have more time for Lainey if she wasn’t so busy all the time. It had been so wonderful having her just a short drive away at UCLA the past couple months. Lainey had already spent several weekends with her and Glen, had brought over for dinner her new boyfriend—a French exchange student named Marc—and had been asking Audrey for advice on everything from romance to how to care for cashmere.

  Having more free time for Lainey—and Glen—would be wonderful, actually.

  Hollywood was different now, and had been since right after America’s troops came home. When the dust of war settled and people returned again to pursuits of happiness, television became the new form of entertainment. The golden age of Hollywood had come to an end while the war was being won, and no one was truly ready for the change.

  MGM’s Sam Goldwyn had said back in 1949 that just as in the early days of motion-picture history, it would now take brains instead of just money to make films, and that a great many people who had been enjoying a free ride on the Hollywood carousel would now find themselves flung off of it. People wouldn’t pay to see poorly made movies when they could stay home and watch something that was no worse. Newsreels and cartoons and short films, which used to be shown before and between movies at the theater, migrated to television. To draw the audience back to the theaters, moviemakers started crafting longer, better-acted, more expensive films, which meant fewer were being made.

  Rodney had told Audrey time and time again that she was lucky she had gotten in with television from the start instead of languishing in the wings with the hundreds of nameless film actresses who could no longer get work.

  All of her old Hollywood friends, including Vince, had either moved on to become part of the entertainment revolution that was television, or had been forced to fight for a toehold in the thinned-out, more selective studio system. Some tried their luck at independent studios that finally had a chance after the big five studios were forced by a court order to sell off their theater chains. And of those, some succeeded. Some did not.

  Glen, who had amassed his wealth in real estate long before the war, simply went on with life as he had before. The changes in the entertainment industry had not affected, impressed, or annoyed him. He simply kept buying the next television set, writing checks to keep live theater functioning in Los Angeles, and spending money on whatever made Audrey happy. His health had begun to diminish since his seventy-fifth birthday a few months earlier. It was hard for Audrey to see him age so suddenly.

  He stepped onto the patio
now, looking wan. “Who was that at the door?”

  “Darling, have a seat.” Audrey pulled out a chair and moved her coffee cup.

  “You promised you wouldn’t fuss over me today,” he scolded, but he sat down anyway.

  “I’m not fussing. I just want you to feel well for the party later. You said you were going back upstairs to rest.”

  “I did rest.” He leaned back in the chair. “I got bored. Who was that at the door?”

  “Messenger service. Rodney sent over a script.”

  “Like it?”

  Audrey tossed the thin sheaf of papers to the patio table. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Then don’t do it.” He pulled her bare feet into his lap and started to massage her toes.

  “It’s Perry Mason, though.”

  He shrugged. “Make them beg for you.”

  She smiled at him. Audrey had never known anyone as genuinely good and kind as Glen, with the possible exception of Bert Redmond. It had not taken her long to love her husband. In fact, she liked the fact that she had fallen in love with Glen after they married. It seemed more romantic somehow. She didn’t regret agreeing to marry Glen after Violet announced she was moving back to Alabama and taking Lainey with her. Glen’s devotion to her was what got her through the first year Violet and Lainey were gone. Her father hadn’t liked it that Glen was so much older than Audrey—only three years younger than he was—and while Audrey didn’t like to dwell on the fact that Glen would likely fly away to heaven well before she did, it had warmed her heart that her father was worried she’d end up alone. It had taken a few years after her wedding for Audrey and her dad to fully reconnect, but in the end she had learned that her father expressed his love in understatement. A person would miss it if she was not careful, but that did not mean his love was not ardent. He had been fragile inside, as she was, and he protected what had been broken in the past, just as she did.

  Leon Kluge had passed away in his sleep two years earlier, and Audrey still missed him.

  And now as she looked at Glen, an ache filled her soul to realize that he was weakening before her eyes, just as her father had.

  “We could always have the party at Chasen’s instead of here,” she said impulsively.

  He frowned. “Nonsense. You’ve already paid the caterer. I want the suckling pig on a spit.”

  She laughed. “I went for the pulled pork in a pan. Less show-offy.”

  “Same thing.”

  Inside the house, the phone rang. She pulled her legs away to stand.

  “Let Beatriz get it,” Glen said.

  Audrey touched his shoulder. His white hair, like fine gauze, wisped as she moved past him. “It will be Rodney.”

  As she walked away, Audrey decided she would take the part. It was Perry Mason, after all.

  • • •

  By eight o’clock, the house and patio, which had been decorated with garlands of plumeria and flickering tiki torches, were filled with Lainey’s new UCLA friends; a few old chums from Santa Barbara; the new boyfriend, Marc; and Bert and Violet. A long banquet table of Hawaiian-themed food had satisfied the guests, and now there was a break between the main course and the cake. The young people played billiards, cards, and Yahtzee in the giant game room on the first floor.

  Audrey could tell as Glen mixed drinks for the four of them that Violet was not happy. She hadn’t been truly happy since Lainey had transferred to UCLA three months earlier—a development for which Audrey had secretly cheered. Lainey was finally living close to her and outside of Violet’s intensely watchful eye. Audrey had spent the past twenty years agonizing over the distance she was beholden to keep between herself and Lainey, and it hadn’t been easy. Lainey was clearly fond of her, and while she quietly basked in that affection, she knew it rankled Violet, even though Violet tried to pretend it didn’t.

  But there was something else on Violet’s mind as Glen handed out the martinis, something else besides Lainey’s recent move to Los Angeles. Audrey had a feeling she knew what it was.

  For her birthday, Lainey had asked Audrey for a plane ticket to Paris for the coming summer, after Marc graduated and returned home. Violet had given Audrey a stern look earlier that evening when Lainey had opened Audrey’s gift and then squealed with delight at the promise of airfare to France come June.

  Violet crossed the expansive living room now with her drink in hand and asked if she could have a moment with Audrey.

  “Of course,” Audrey said, and then turned to Glen. “We’ll be right back.”

  They went into Glen’s study, a richly paneled room with shiny leather couches and built-in bookshelves. French doors looked out onto the pool and patio area, dark now except for the light of the tiki torches.

  “Do you want to sit?” Audrey motioned to one of the sofas.

  Violet nodded, her lips pursed together. They both sat down and the couches squawked hello. Violet sipped her drink and then set the glass down on the coffee table in front of them.

  “This has been a very lovely party for Lainey,” Violet said, a strained smile on her lips. “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”

  Audrey smiled back. “It wasn’t any trouble. Glen and I were happy to do it. We love Lainey. You know that.”

  “Yes. Well . . .” Violet seemed to search the Persian carpet at their feet for the words she wanted next. “I know for you it wasn’t any trouble to throw this party and have all these special luau decorations put up and such, but Lainey is used to a simpler life. You’ve been giving her too much, too soon, since she’s moved down here. You are overwhelming her with too much generosity.”

  A thinly veiled reprimand lay beneath Violet’s words; it was a lecture that was wholly unneeded. If anything, Audrey had exercised tremendous restraint.

  “We really haven’t given her that much, Vi. And she seems fine to me,” she said politely.

  Violet bristled; Audrey had inadvertently struck a nerve. “But you don’t know her like I do,” Violet said coolly. “You have given her too much. First all those new clothes you bought her for school, and this party, and then that ridiculous promise of a plane ticket to Paris—”

  “Excuse me?” Audrey interjected. “She asked for that plane ticket. It is the only thing she asked me for.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you had to give it to her.”

  Audrey set down her own drink. It was clear Violet had been harboring these thoughts for a while. Audrey wondered how long. She wondered, too, if Violet knew Audrey had her own pent-up emotions when it came to Lainey. The conversation would get ugly if they were not careful.

  “Violet,” she continued in a gentler tone. “Lainey just wants to go to Paris this summer. It is no trouble for Glen and me to help her get there. It’s our pleasure to help her.”

  “Just because it’s easy for you to do something doesn’t mean you should do it. You should have asked Bert and me first, for one thing.”

  “She’s twenty years old.”

  Violet reacted as if Audrey had slapped her. “You don’t have to tell me how old my daughter is,” she said evenly.

  This was nuts. Violet was inflating every word Audrey said. “Why are you taking this personally? It has nothing to do with you. It’s just a plane ticket to Paris, for God’s sake!”

  Violet’s chest was now rhythmically heaving in short little bursts. “Really? Is that really all it is?”

  Audrey now saw envy, desire, and resentment in Violet’s eyes—three old friends she realized she knew very well, especially with regard to Lainey. Violet was jealous.

  “It’s not my fault she likes being here in Los Angeles, Vi. It’s not my fault she likes being here at this house.”

  Violet narrowed her eyes. “Of course it’s your fault. You wanted her to transfer. You wanted her to be here in Los Angeles, close to you and away from me.”

>   “That is not true.”

  “You know it’s true. You wanted her here so you could spoil her with things Bert and I could never give her.”

  A pall seemed to drop over the room, as if a black curtain had fallen and the deepest, darkest longings of their souls were now slithering out of their hiding places. What Violet was saying was ugly, heavy, and yet not completely untrue.

  “Violet—”

  But Violet’s eyes were glistening with angry tears of determination. “Are you forgetting who gave Lainey a home these past twenty years? Have you forgotten that? Have you forgotten who held her when she cried and when fever ravaged her body and when nightmares woke her? Have you forgotten who taught her to swim and ride a bicycle and sew a button and make a cake? Have you forgotten who stayed up waiting for her to get home at night and who dried her tears when friends betrayed her and when boys broke her heart? Have you forgotten who took her in when you tossed her away like she was a dog you didn’t want?”

  The blade found its home in Audrey’s chest and she flinched as the accusation sliced through. For a second she could say nothing.

  “I can’t believe you said that,” Audrey finally whispered.

  Violet looked petrified, as if she couldn’t believe she had said it, either. No words came out of her mouth.

  “It killed me to give her away,” Audrey said. “Even to you. You know it did.”

  “How did you even do it?” Violet said, her voice now coated with disgust. “How could you even do it?”

  “I had nothing to offer her! Nothing!” Audrey shouted, tears now streaming down her face as well.

  “You had what all mothers have to give! You had love! And you gave her away!”

  “It was because I loved her that I did! How can you not know that? You, all of people, know how much I loved her and how much I love her still.”

  Violet’s gaze was livid. “And now you’re trying to buy her love in return when you could have had it from the beginning.”