“Roy,” she said softly. “You’re married.”
He forced a gulp down his throat. “Yes,” he said. He was barely audible. “But not happily. If it was up to me we’d get divorced tomorrow, but she’s so Catholic she goes to Mass every single lousy day. Divorce is out of the question. Katey, my life was misery until the moment the Long Beach earthquake hit. You changed everything. And now you’re having our baby and I can’t . . . I can’t even . . .” He pressed the napkin to his face and breathed into it with staccato breaths. His body sagged over the edge of the table, his head slumped onto his chest.
She desperately wanted to touch him, but she kept her hands grasped around each other in her lap. For chrissakes, put the poor dope out of his misery. “I lost the baby.”
Roy’s face shot up. “What?”
“I was jaywalking across Wilshire, not looking where I was going. I got myself knocked over by a streetcar.”
“Jesus!” He sat upright, his torso now straight and pressed against the back of his seat.
Kathryn continued. “I pretty much got up and walked away. But the next day I knew something was wrong. And the day after that . . .” She gave an oh-well-what-can-you-do shrug. She reached out and grabbed Roy’s meaty hand. “Listen to me. We dodged a bullet, you and I. Leastways, that’s how I’m looking at it. So let’s quit while we’re ahead, huh?”
One of the advantages of working for Tallulah or Bob Benchley was that Kathryn could take an afternoon off and get drunk if she felt like it. Not that she often felt like it, but there was freedom in knowing she could. No such luck working for the Hollywood Reporter.
She dropped her handbag on her desk, peeled off her gloves and looked at her watch; it wasn’t yet three o’clock. Could she ever do with a drink. Her review for Stranded lay on her desk. A slash of red pencil ran diagonally across the page. Wilkerson had scrawled SEE ME over the whole thing.
She picked up her review and walked down the corridor to his office. “I told you it was just a first draft.”
“There was nothing wrong with what you wrote,” Wilkerson said.
“So what’s with this big red slash?”
“It seems I neglected to tell you our company policy about movie reviews.”
“There’s a policy?”
“We only write bad reviews when we’re feuding with the studio who made it. If we’re not feuding, we write a glowing review.”
“Even if the picture’s a stinker?”
“Sixty-nine percent of our revenue comes from advertising, and eighty-nine percent of our advertising comes from the studios. If we write scathing reviews of their movies, they’ll pull their advertising. Then where would we be?”
“Your policy is to trade good reviews for advertisement revenue?”
Wilkerson shrugged his shoulders. “We’re not called a ‘trade paper’ for nothing.”
“In other words, all movie reviews in the Hollywood Reporter are meaningless.
“Not to those who aren’t aware of our policy.”
Roy’s face still haunted Kathryn. She really didn’t have the strength to deal with this right now. All she wanted was a good slug of whiskey with a second one already lined up. Why did she have to go and lie about getting hit by a streetcar? Couldn’t she just have said she miscarried and left it at that? God, what she wouldn’t give for the chance to play that scene down at the Top Hat over again.
Kathryn nodded slowly and considered the pointlessness of punching holes in her boss’ logic. She picked up her review. “You want me to write a glowing review for the worst picture I’ve seen all year?”
“What I want is for you to follow company policy.”
She stood up and told him she’d start right away. At his doorway, she couldn’t resist asking one more thing. “But doesn’t this company policy make a mockery of that ‘You can count on Kathryn Massey for the truth’ persona you thought we ought to create?”
“Your column and this review are two completely different animals.”
Back at her desk, Kathryn inserted a fresh sheet into her typewriter and typed “STRANDED, starring Kay Francis and George Brent.” She stared at the word stranded and thought, Good thing the last movie I went to see wasn’t called Noose.
CHAPTER 44
Long before he typed the words THE END on the final draft of Ursula Goes Underground, Marcus decided that if nobody who saw it connected it with “Subway People,” then he was lucky.
God knows he had done his best to salvage his own story and make it into something approaching a halfway decent picture. However the result was a turgid and improbable piece of crap that had only one thing going for it: William Randolph Hearst liked it. And that meant Ursula Goes Underground would be Marion Davies’ next picture. He tapped out THE END just as Bud was putting on his jacket.
“The only thing I want you to do while I’m having lunch is come up with a name.”
“What sort of name?”
“Do you really want this picture on your résumé?” Bud asked. Marcus let out an involuntary groan. “If you get stuck, think about the two teachers you most hated in high school.”
By and large, Marcus’ high school years were a pleasant time. His outstanding ability to slice through the water of any swimming pool had made him McKeesport High’s star swimmer, and filled his father’s eyes with pride. But the teachers he hated the most? Mr. Jacobs in chemistry and Miss Pratley in French. Make a mistake in either class and they’d scream at you like you’d personally kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
Marcus tossed his original title page into the trash can. He inserted a new sheet and typed,
Ursula Goes Underground.
Original screenplay by Jacob Pratley
He pulled out the paper and laid it on top of the manuscript as the telephone rang.
“Cosmopolitan Pictures, writing department,” Marcus said.
“Hello there. I need to speak to the chap who’s writing Ursula Goes Underground.” It was a woman with a light, airy voice.
“I can probably help you there.”
“Your name?”
Marcus looked at the manuscript. “Jacob Pratley.”
“Mr. Pratley,” said the woman, “I’ve been asked to send for you by Miss Davies.”
“In that case, you probably want —”
“Immediately,” the woman cut in. “Can I assume you are acquainted with the whereabouts of Miss Davies’ dressing room?”
William Randolph Hearst had built his mistress a two-story, eleven-room bungalow on the lot after he signed a distribution deal between Cosmopolitan Pictures and MGM. Everyone knew where The Dressing Room was.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Marcus said.
“I’ll see you momentarily.” The woman hung up.
Marcus grabbed his jacket and straightened his tie. It wasn’t his lucky purple tie today; not a good omen. He grabbed Ursula Goes Underground and hurried across the lot to Miss Davies’ Spanish Mission bungalow, with its curved doorways and thick stucco painted a pastel shade of terracotta. He knocked on the heavy wooden door.
A short, pixie-like woman with a wild mass of blonde hair opened the door. “Pratley, I presume?” It was Marion Davies herself, in a jade-green silk robe and, from what Marcus could see, not much else.
“I’m from the writing department.”
Davies waved Marcus into a huge living room decorated with oil paintings in ornate gilded frames and masses of carpets in swirling turquoise and scarlet. A spray of peacock feathers sprang from an antique Chinese vase at the end of a marble fireplace that looked like it had never been used.
“Sit, sit, please, by all means,” Marion said. “I’ve just brewed myself up a pot of tea. Some limey concoction I’ve started to drink by the absolute gallon.”
Marcus looked around. Hearst was notoriously jealous of any man who even glanced at Marion, but Marcus saw no evidence of him — no hat, no cane, no lingering cigar smell. “Tea? That would be nice.”
“Lovely!” Marion ex
claimed with a clap of the hands. “We haven’t met yet, but I am Marion Davies.” They shook hands. She had a warm and surprisingly firm grip. She bustled into the kitchen. “Won’t be long!”
Marcus looked around the living room with its Tiffany lamps and crystal chandeliers, its enormous brass birdcage and its zebra pelt hung on the wall. It was just one of eleven rooms, but was twice the size of his whole space at the Garden of Allah.
“Here we go,” Marion singsonged a few minutes later. She set a tray down on the mahogany coffee table next to a gold letter opener studded with small rubies along the handle. It sat on top of a copy of BUtterfield 8, a recent bestseller that seemed out of place.
“Honestly,” she said, “I have so many people doing so many things for me these days, I can’t tell you the simple joy I get from making my own tea. It’s such an individual thing, don’t you find? Nobody makes it exactly right unless you do it yourself. Cream? Sugar? Lemon?” She giggled. “Call me greedy, but I like all three, which I’m sure simply horrifies my British pals.”
She poured the tea from an exquisite porcelain teapot with scarlet Chinese dragons painted on the side and handed a cup to him. She dumped four teaspoons of sugar into hers and sat back in her chair, crossing her legs. It divided the panels of her silk robe and they fell apart, revealing a creamy white leg all the way up to the top of her thigh.
“Now, about this Ursula Goes Underground drivel. Let’s be honest, it is the most terrible drivel, isn’t it?”
Marcus’ teacup hovered halfway toward his open mouth. On his very first day, Bud had impressed upon him that the steadfast rule was: William Randolph Hearst is always right. Whatever Hearst wants, likes or needs, Hearst gets.
“I wouldn’t say terrible drivel . . .” Marcus ventured.
“Oh, pish-posh!” Marion’s gold and diamond bracelets jangled as she fluttered her hand and then slapped the next-to-last version of the manuscript on the table in front of them. “Who but the most soft-headed simpleton is going to believe any of this?” She leaned forward and her pert breasts peeked out. “You look like an intelligent chap, Mr. Pratley. You can’t possibly be proud of this thing.”
Marcus looked at Marion Davies, repeating the mantra to himself: Hearst is always right. Nobody else’s opinion matters in the goddamned slightest. Most people preferred to write Davies off as a gold-digger rather than see her screen work on its own merits. Long before he came to Cosmopolitan Pictures, Marcus had thought Hearst was hindering her career. She was a far better comedienne than she got credit for, and was nearly always better than the movies Hearst saddled her with. I can’t let her think I like this movie, Marcus thought.
“Miss Davies, it’s my personal belief that you deserve better material than what you’ve been given.”
Marion laughed. It was a tinkling sound, like children on a playground. “W.R. keeps insisting it would make a terrific picture and I keep telling him no, no, no. It’s ludicrous what this woman goes through. Nobody’s going to buy it for a second. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
She put down her teacup, pulled Marcus’ out of his hands, and set it down next to hers. She leaned back and stretched out her legs, then landed her feet in his lap. “Would you mind rubbing my feet?” she asked. “I’ve been in the most diabolical heels since seven this morning.”
Marcus looked down at Marion’s feet. They were dainty, manicured in a jade green nail polish that matched her silk robe. He had never rubbed anyone’s feet before and wasn’t sure how to start — or, frankly, whether he should. If Hearst’s mistress complained about some writer on the Cosmopolitan Pictures payroll, that writer would be out of a job before he could say “pish-posh.” I have to get out of this job, he told himself. This can only take me down a dead end. Or worse. He grabbed a foot and started kneading it.
“Oh, that’s good!” She let her head fall back onto a quilted pillow. “W.R. has no feel for this sort of thing. But you do, don’t you, Mr. Pratley?”
Marcus looked up. She had pulled open her robe. Marcus had never seen a woman’s naked breasts before. From purely an objective standpoint, he was curious to see what the fuss was all about. They were lovely breasts, as far as he could tell, full and round and not the least bit lopsided, as he’d heard some were.
“Make love to me, Pratley,” she whispered. She whipped her feet out of Marcus’ lap. Before he could stop her, she loomed over him like a determined moth.
“Miss Davies!” Marcus exclaimed. He pulled back and felt the end of the sofa. “This isn’t appropriate.”
“Oh, never mind about ol’ W.R. He can’t get it up much these days. He doesn’t mind this sort of thing in the least! You like my breasts, don’t you, Pratley? I’ve been told they’re irresistible.” She pushed them closer to his face.
He grabbed Marion by her shoulders and pushed her back. “They’re lovely, to be sure, but they’re not irresistible.”
“Well, thank God for that!” Marion exclaimed, and suddenly backed off, rewrapping the robe around herself.
“Excuse me?”
“I had you pegged as queer from the moment you walked in, but I had to be sure.”
“What, just because I knocked back —”
“Oh relax, lovie. Your secret is safe with me. But I just had to be sure you weren’t going to jump me.”
“What made you think I was going to?” Marcus asked.
“Because you’re a man, lovie. Men have been jumping on top of me virtually my whole life. Not that I’ve minded most of the time, but I’m in a different situation nowadays. I need to be sure who and what I’m dealing with. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who sidle up to me, all cozy-like, when all they really want is to climb over me like I’m nothing but a footstool just to get to W.R.” She patted his arm. “I hope you understand, my sweet. If you had tried to jump me, I’d have knocked you flat with a left hook you wouldn’t have seen coming. And that would’ve been a shame, because I like you. You have the personal fortitude to be honest about this claptrap they keep shoveling at me. I’d have felt dreadfully let down if you’d grabbed at my girls. But you didn’t, because you’re queer as a duck, and that’s terrific news. More tea?”
She lifted the teapot and filled his cup before he could answer.
“So,” Marion said, “if we’re going to throw out this Ursula Goes Underground trash, we’d damned well better have something solid to replace it with. You must have a dozen stories bouncing around inside that queer little head of yours. Why don’t you pick me out the best one and tell it to me?”
Ordinarily, Marcus’ head was filled with a handful of stories colliding around inside his skull, and choosing one was as easy as picking a grape in a vineyard. But he was just now catching up with what had happened. Someone in this room made a pass at someone. Someone saw someone else’s breasts. Just who saw what and who did what was simply a matter of who is sleeping with the boss. You’d better come up with something, Marcus told himself, but panic had canonballed every story idea out of his head.
His eyes fell on the letter opener. “I do have one story I like,” he said slowly.
“I knew you would! Tell me!”
“It’s about a boy and a girl.” It was a safe start; that’s pretty much what most movies were about. He kept his eyes on the letter opener. “And they live in the same building. They keep getting each other’s letters because they have the same name. Samuel and Samantha, perhaps. Sam and Sam. Of course, they don’t know they’ve got the wrong mail until they open it and read each other’s letters.” He took an extra long sip of tea.
“Samantha keeps getting love letters from a potential beau she doesn’t like, but who is trying to woo her with bad poetry, which Samuel keeps reading and laughing at. In the meanwhile, Samuel is getting mysterious notes from a secret admirer who doesn’t want to reveal her identity.”
Marcus set his cup down in the saucer and looked up at Marion. “The story goes on a lot further, of course, but I’m a writer, not a publi
c speaker. I’d rather type it up and bring it back sometime, if that’s okay with you.”
“I love what I’ve heard so far!” Marion enthused. “I’d like you to run back to your office and start working on it immediately.”
When Marcus stepped out of the bungalow, the first dry Santa Ana wind of the fall hit him in the face. He let out a long breath and stared up at the enormous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios sign that stretched across four soundstages. Atop it sat a picture of Leo the Lion. The sight of Marion Davies’ breasts flashed before his eyes. “Oh, God, Leo,” he muttered, “you gotta get me away from Cosmopolitan Pictures.”
CHAPTER 45
Several months passed before Gwendolyn saw Eldon Laird again. He resurfaced at the Cocoanut Grove for the party Max Factor threw to celebrate the opening of his new salon around the corner from the Hollywood Hotel. The joke that night was that only Max himself knew the real hair color of every woman in the place. It probably wasn’t far from the truth.
As usual, Eldon arrived in a sleek suit that fit beautifully. This one was a midnight blue that he’d teamed with a stark white shirt and an impeccable burgundy silk necktie. But what was most striking was the company he kept. It was unusual to see him in the company of anyone, but when he walked in with three oddballs in cheap suits, it was like watching King George V arrive with the court jesters. They’d had a decent shave and haircut, but squirmed inside their tight collars. When Jean Harlow swept past in a white fox coat, they gawked and nudged each other like teenagers in a whorehouse.
What on earth, Gwendolyn had to wonder, was a class act like Laird doing with these three bumpkins? She straightened the cigarettes in her tray. Sooner or later everybody at the Cocoanut Grove got around to flagging down the cigarette girl, but not Eldon Laird. Not once, not ever. Does he smoke some rare brand I don’t carry?
She watched as they took a table much closer to the dance floor than Laird usually preferred. Then she made a long, visible circuit of the room, making sure her boss saw her, and cut back to the hat check. Terry had been working the booth for about a year. She was a nice girl with a cheeky smile that earned her more tips than any predecessors. “You know that party of four guys who just came in?” Gwendolyn asked her.
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