She appreciated his audacity. Nobody could ever accuse Orson Welles of thinking small. But at the same time, she knew she could never really trust him. When she thought back on the conversation they’d had outside the Roosevelt Hotel, she realized he hadn’t actually denied this Hearst movie to her the way he denied it to Hedda Hopper. It left her wondering if he lied to her by omission.
In her time at the Hollywood Reporter, Kathryn had encountered enough people like him to know that their view of things like truth and facts was, at best, elastic. Theirs was not a world of absolute moral certainty or unbreakable do’s and don’ts. To them, everything was perpetually fluid. What was true this morning may not be true this afternoon, and what is accurate tonight might not be the same tomorrow.
It took a couple of Marcus’ stiffest scotch-and-sodas to realize she didn’t hold any of this against the guy; it was just the way he was built. But, Marcus pointed out, if she couldn’t trust what Orson said, could she ever really trust him emotionally? She couldn’t, she decided. At least not in the way she could trust Roy. When Roy said something, he meant it. And he’d still mean it five years from now. Seeing Roy drive to the Siegel place forced her to conclude that although she and Orson had fun together and she’d grown awfully fond of him, Roy had never left her heart.
“Missed a birthday?” Kathryn asked. “What do you mean?”
Orson shrugged. “Are we not talking for some reason I fail to grasp?”
Kathryn considered her options and opted to play offense. “I gave up on you round about the time I learned you got a new project on the boil after RKO nixed Heart of Darkness. I know what you’re like when you’re focused on something. The rest of the world fades away.” Orson smiled meekly, tacitly agreeing. “You’re doing the Hearst movie, aren’t you?”
“Depends on who’s asking.”
A typical Wellesian response if ever I heard one, Kathryn thought. “It does?”
“Is it Kathryn the journalist, or Kathryn the charming dinner partner and discerningly shrewd listener?”
She was flattered that he called her a journalist and not just a gossip columnist, but she knew she was in trouble when she could feel herself melting in his presence, so she rallied with a jab. “So it is the Hearst movie, then?”
Before Orson got a chance to reply, three tall cowboys sauntered into view. The one in black wore a tall cowboy hat and a grey kerchief pinned around his neck with a silver clip. It was Roy in his duplicate Hopalong Cassidy costume.
“Is that the stuntman?” Orson asked.
“The who?” Kathryn pulled her eyes away from Roy and realized what a dopey expression she must be wearing.
Orson shot her a look: Don’t play games. Not with me. He showily stepped aside and swept his hand in a wide arc toward the Hopalong Cassidy soundstage. “Unfinished business deserves to be finished.”
“Orson, I—”
He gently pushed her in Roy’s direction.
Roy was entering the soundstage when she called his name. He stopped but didn’t turn around. He said something to the other two men and they went inside. Soon, she was standing behind him. “Hello, Roy.”
He turned around. “Hello, Kathryn.”
“It’s nice to see you,” she ventured.
“That was Orson Welles, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. We just bumped—”
“I hope he’s treating you like a lady. Because if I hear he’s not—”
“You’d pop Orson Welles on the nose? For me?”
“I just want to know he’s treating you with more respect than I did.”
The pained look in his eye told her she’d struck a nerve. She didn’t know what to say, so she kept her trap shut.
“That night, down in Riverside,” he said. “I think about it a lot.”
“We both said things we didn’t mean.”
“I didn’t mean any of it.” His eyes were guarded but steady. “I was just frustrated as hell.”
“I’d give anything for the chance of a do-over,” she said.
Memories of that night never failed to overwhelm Kathryn with a mudslide of regrets. She deeply regretted choosing Gone with the Wind over Roy. And having seen it, she regretted writing about it. Nobody had said it to her face, but she flinched to think how few people really bought her story about being at the right place at the right time. It simply served to reinforce the idea that Kathryn Massey was only capable of scoops related to Gone with the Wind, and now that the movie was out, the girl ain’t got nothin’.
A harried-looking young man holding a clipboard chose that particular moment to approach Roy. “The lighting guys are ready for you. We need you inside.”
Roy nodded and waited until the assistant was out of earshot. “My wife never came back from Phoenix.” Kathryn gasped. “The one-week holiday was an excuse to leave the marriage. It took boneheaded Yours Truly here more than a month to figure it out.”
“You’ve been single all this time? Why didn’t you call me?” This changes everything!
He let out a long, controlled breath. “I’ve got to go. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.” He turned and disappeared through the soundstage door before Kathryn could ask if he was driving a bright yellow Packard.
CHAPTER 19
Chuck leaned against the Cocoanut Grove’s well-polished bar and said, “So tell me, Gwendolyn, exactly where are the Philippines?”
Technically, Gwendolyn was still in the running for Face of the Forties, but she figured the chances of winning it were about a trillion to one. “Halfway between Australia and Japan.”
“It sounds like an awful long way away.”
“That’s the whole point.” Since her close call with Bugsy Siegel, she was keen to get as far from LA as possible. The papers were full of predictions that Hitler was on the verge of invading Belgium, Holland and France. “Monty’s there. It’s not like I’m going to land in Manila all on my lonesome.”
Chuck’s focus shifted to the door, where a glamorous creature in a white fur wrap and a shimmering floor-length gown of gold bugle beads was making her entrance.
“Pouring it on a bit thick, wouldn’t you say?” Chuck commented. The woman pretended to spot someone in the crowd and waved. Nobody seemed to be waving back. She threaded her way through the crowd with some tuxedoed guy trailing behind her. “Isn’t that your friend Alice?”
Alice must have been professionally put together to look this sophisticated. Whether it was an unfortunate choice of color, or shoes that didn’t quite match her handbag or lipstick, Alice never seemed to get it quite right. Until tonight.
Intrigued, Gwendolyn hefted her cigarette tray off the bar and started to make her approach. Alice’s face lit up.
“What’s all this?” Gwendolyn asked. “Your dress, it’s—”
Alice held up a finger, indicating that Gwendolyn should stop speaking, and dove into her purse. As Alice retrieved an envelope, Gwendolyn glanced at her escort. She automatically gave him a smiling nod before it hit her who it was: Eldon Laird, the square-jawed, barbershop-shaved, French-cologned, sleek-suited talent agent fink Gwendolyn had dated for a while until he revealed himself as another Hollywood louse on the make.
At least he’d tried to make amends by negotiating an itty-bitty contract for her cameo in The Women. Despite his morals, he must have been good at his job, because his efforts had doubled her pay and allowed her to keep the gown.
“Nice to see you again, Gwendolyn,” he said with a bow of his head. Gwendolyn nodded silently. “I saw The Women and was sorry I didn’t get to see you up on the screen. Alice told me you were an unfortunate cutting-room victim.”
“You know each other?” Alice asked. A telegram dangled from her fingertips. She thrust it toward Gwendolyn. “Get a load of this!”
“TO MISS ALICE MOORE STOP CONGRATS STOP YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN IN TOP TWENTY FIVE OF WARNER BROS FACE OF FORTIES COMPETITION STOP FULL LETTER TO FOLLOW SOON STOP”
“Arrived this morning,” Alic
e gloated. “The Western Union guy got me out of bed. I wasn’t happy—until I read it!”
Gwendolyn teetered on the fine line between disappointment and relief. Face of the Forties was her last shot at getting noticed, but no telegram had arrived for her this morning. She sighed.
So, it’s the Far East for me after all. Not such a bad consolation prize. An exotic life in the Orient, filled with smoky opium dens and inscrutably wise old philosophers. A girl could do a whole lot worse. At least I’ll be the only blonde.
Gwendolyn offered the telegram back to Alice. “That’s so exciting.”
Alice snatched it out of her hand. “Imagine if I win!”
Eldon leaned over and stroked Alice’s arm.
“Eldon is my agent!” Alice announced in a voice loud enough to carry to the neighboring tables. She leaned in close enough for Gwendolyn to smell the makeup she’d trowelled on. “Can you believe I got me an agent now and everything?”
Eldon’s face held a superior look that Gwendolyn wanted to slap clean out of his eyeballs. “I’m surprised you didn’t enter into Face of the Forties,” he said.
“Imagine if you had!” Alice exclaimed. “We might be archenemies right now, vying for the title!”
Winning Face of the Forties was such a long shot that Gwendolyn had barely told anyone, and now she was glad she hadn’t. She said she had to get back to work and wound her way through the crowd, but soon found herself back at the bar telling Chuck about Alice’s telegram.
“Don’t take it too personally,” Chuck told her. “Thousands of girls must have entered.”
Gwendolyn pulled back the tears fogging her eyes. This time she really had come to the end of the road. She wasn’t as ready for it as she’d supposed.
Before she could say anything, the Grove’s manager walked up to them. “What is this? Some sort of union meeting?”
“Mr. Grainger.” Gwendolyn faced her boss. “I have something I need to talk to you about.”
“What is it?” Grainger asked.
Gwendolyn glanced back at Chuck. He mouthed the words No! Wait! with such insistence that she lost her nerve. “It’s these shoes. Would you mind if I wore a lower heel? It’s hard to walk around all night in these things.”
“You’ve been here for how long? The higher the heel, the bigger the tip, sugarcakes.” He marched back to his office.
“Gwendolyn, honey, you need to sleep on this,” Chuck said.
She looked at him with indignant eyes. “I don’t want to be sixty and still hanging around Hollywood waiting for my big break.”
“But look at Marie Dressler. Her career didn’t take off until she was nearly sixty.”
Her tray felt heavier than a sack of bowling balls. “My brother is right. I’ve spent too many years peddling cigarettes to drunkards and letches. I’ve had it.”
“Don’t do anything in the spur of the moment,” he told her. “All the Columbia execs are in town for their big powwow, and Harry Cohn himself is bringing them in. You know how Grainger fusses over the studio lugs. He’ll just be distracted. If you’re going to quit, pick a good time. Tonight ain’t it. Promise me you won’t.”
The thought occurred to Gwendolyn that if she picked the right time to tell Grainger she was leaving, she’d have a better chance of choosing her last day. She crossed her heart. “I promise.”
As she began to circumnavigate the nightclub, she saw it through new eyes. The place suddenly looked dingy, so smoky and tired. The decorative palm trees looked dusty and outmoded now. Of course she’d miss Kathryn and Marcus and the camaraderie around the Garden of Allah, but, she decided, when your time arrives, you have to recognize—
“Gwendolyn?”
To most people, Gwendolyn was just the cigarette girl, someone of little more consequence than a box of matches. At best, she had a vaguely familiar face; she was rarely called by name. So she was floored when she spotted Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier at an intimate table for two. Vivien had won an Oscar and Laurence’s Rebecca had opened to rave reviews; anyone else would have made the sort of entrance Alice had just attempted. But there they were, just the two of them, enjoying each other’s company.
Gwendolyn couldn’t believe Vivien remembered her name. “I’m sorry,” Gwendolyn said, “but I haven’t yet learned which brand you smoke.”
Vivien laughed. “No, no, you sweet thing,” she said. “I called you over to make sure you were okay. The night of our premiere, you passed out on the sidewalk outside the Trocadero in one of my Scarlett gowns. I almost feel responsible!”
Laurence laid a gentle hand on Vivien’s arm, as if to say, Don’t be silly, Vivien, darling, that was hardly your fault.
“It was the corset,” Gwendolyn confessed. “I sat through Gone with the Wind a second time just to see how you could possibly act in one of those things.”
Vivien slapped her cheeks in horror. “Heavens, don’t remind me! By the end of filming, I’d vowed to burn that infernal death trap.”
Laurence laughed. “She’s not joking. At least twice a week she declared she’d make a bonfire out of it.”
“There was only one good thing about that corset: it made the tutus I wore in Waterloo Bridge feel like pajamas. When I heard you’d fainted, I wasn’t the least bit surprised.” Vivien frowned with what seemed genuine concern. “You didn’t hit your head on the way down, I hope?”
Gwendolyn smiled. “Just my pride.”
“I heard Ben Siegel came to your rescue,” Laurence said with a grimace. “He’s one character I wouldn’t want to get involved with. I avoided him all night.”
Vivien rolled her striking green eyes. “We never were able to fathom why David insisted on holding the party at a gangster’s club. I mean really, of all the places he could choose from.”
Laurence’s eyes darted away, then back at Gwendolyn. “You’re being paged.”
Gwendolyn glanced over to Eldon and Alice’s table. Eldon was waving a ten-dollar bill like it was a semaphore flag.
Vivien groaned and looked at Laurence. “Isn’t that the awful agent who was wooing you for months? What a slimy beast he is.”
Gwendolyn pictured the glorious MGM gown hanging in her closet. “He’s not all bad,” she said, then pictured the gloating smirk on Alice’s face. “On the other hand, his date is something else. Unfortunately, she won’t go away no matter how much I ignore her, so you’ll have to excuse me.”
As Gwendolyn approached their table, Alice gave Eldon a halfhearted thwack across his shoulder. “Don’t wave your moolah around. It ain’t classy.”
“I need cigarettes,” Eldon said, then turned to Gwendolyn. “Viceroy. Cork-tipped, if you have them.”
“Say, wait a minute!” Alice was now ruffling around in her handbag. “Did you gimme back my telegram?”
“I haven’t seen it, dear.”
“I don’t mean you.” She glared at Gwendolyn. “Did you gimme back my telegram?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then how come it ain’t here? I woulda put it in my handbag, nice and safe—Say, you’re not planning on using it, are you? Passing yourself off as me?”
Honestly, Alice, Gwendolyn thought, you really shouldn’t drink. It just brings out your ugly side. “Maybe you dropped it on the floor?”
“Maybe you dropped it in your tray,” Alice snapped. “Or maybe you have it stashed in there someplace.” Alice pointed to Gwendolyn’s ample cleavage.
People were starting to stare. The feet of Eldon’s chair scraped against the carpet as he pushed his chair back, saying, “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you should have no objection to me searching your tray.” Gwendolyn took a step back. “You see that, Alice?” he said. “She won’t let me near her. I think it’s time to call the manager.” He shot a sharp whistle through the smoky air.
Gwendolyn looked at Eldon, more disappointed than anything. It was obvious now that he was staging this scene for Alice’s benefit, playing the big-deal, protective manager in f
ront of half of Hollywood. Maybe you really are just a skunk from hell’s cellar, she thought. You and every stinker like you are the reason why I want to get the heck out of Dodge.
Gwendolyn saw Grainger approach from the far side of the dance floor, his eyebrows pulled together into his typical grimace.
Here is where I get off this cockamamie train, Gwendolyn told herself. Just because Grainger always takes the customer’s side doesn’t mean I have to. Not when perfumed evening breezes of the exotic Far East are calling me.
When Grainger arrived at the table, he didn’t even attempt the professional smile he reserved for customers too drunk to think straight.
“Hey, Grainger,” Eldon said, “your cigarette girl here—”
“Come with me, Gwendolyn.”
“Mr. Grainger, I have something I must say.”
Grainger leaned in and said to her in a low, growling voice, “Follow. Me. Now.” He grabbed her arm and yanked her through the tables, but not toward his office at the back of the nightclub. Instead, they headed for the dance floor, where Harry James’ orchestra was playing “I’ll Get By As Long As I Have You.” Grainger led Gwendolyn up onto the platform, where he motioned for James to halt the music, then turned to the microphone.
“Miss Brick,” he announced, “please remove your cigarette tray!”
Gwendolyn felt the fire of humiliation reach up her throat as she pulled the strap from behind her neck and lifted up the tray. The pianist took it from her as Grainger addressed the hushed crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen, standing beside me is a lovely lady, familiar to our regular Cocoanut Grove patrons who find themselves short of tobacco. But perhaps for not much longer.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was Alice’s lost telegram. “I have something here, which I would like to read to the crowd.”
Gwendolyn looked across to Alice, who wasn’t slouching anymore. “Mr. Grainger,” she whispered, “I don’t think—”
“Incidentally,” Grainger added, “this telegram was received by our Miss Brick’s roommate a short while ago, who rushed right over here as soon as she realized its contents.”
Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3) Page 14