Platinum Doll

by Anne Girard

  After she had agreed, he nodded to them both and said, “Good day, ladies,” before returning to his table.

  Rosalie lowered her voice. “Well, don’t you just have all the luck. It seems like fate means for the world to know who you are, no matter what you or Chuck do to the contrary.”

  * * *

  Jean was indeed amenable. In fact, she was overjoyed at the prospect.

  They headed to Hesser’s studio the next morning, chatting about what potential costume, setting and style of portrait the photographer might choose to employ for her. Neither of them were able to contain their excitement. Harlean had not told Chuck of her plans for the day. She wanted to be honest with him, but Jean countered with conviction.

  “Now, Baby, you know perfectly well that Charles is incapable of appreciating artistic photographs in spite of the boost they might give to your career. He will never see them anyway, unless of course you put them next to a glass of gin.”

  They pulled up at the curb in Harlean’s car.

  “I just don’t understand why you hate him so much.”

  “I don’t hate him, but he is certainly not good enough for you. He is holding you back and I won’t stand for that.”

  “We love each other, Mommie.”

  “But love will never be enough. You already know it isn’t.”

  As indelibly bound as she felt to her mother, and as full of conflict as she had been for months, Harlean could not yet force herself to agree to that. Nor did she feel safe admitting to her the tenuous state of her marriage. She was still clinging to the tether of her wedding vow, and doing so as if it were for dear life.

  After the terms were agreed to, they rode with Hesser and his wife, in a car stuffed with camera equipment and props, up to a vacant place in the vast, bucolic Griffith Park. The isolated spot to which he led them—tall pine trees, open sky and a small crystalline lake framed by craggy rocks—was an immediately familiar one. It was the very spot where Chuck had photographed her last autumn wearing her conservative little dress, cardigan, socks and respectable shoes. She shivered at the coincidence and tried to forget the vision that seemed very far away now.

  Hesser’s vision for the shoot was simple. As he prepared the scene and readied his equipment, his wife, Rhea, explained that he intended it to be reminiscent of ethereal Isadora Duncan studies with Harlean draped only in a flowing chiffon scarf, staged in various dramatic poses among the rocks. As her mother urged her with a firm nod to begin disrobing, Hesser’s wife detailed the soft focus lens her husband intended to use so that the final images would make her appear more like a wood nymph than a model, which sounded wonderfully creative.

  Harlean wanted to do it—or she had believed she did when she agreed to it, but as she removed her shoes and then began to unbutton her top, her mind flooded with misgivings. She suddenly felt shy. This was not a prelude to lovemaking with Chuck, where she could freely acknowledge her lack of modesty. Rather, this was the broad light of day in the company of strangers. Artistic photos or not, it suddenly felt rather risqué, even a little tawdry. That diaphanous scarf was going to leave very little to the imagination.

  “Do get on with it, Baby. They aren’t going to wait all day,” her mother urged her in a low voice.

  Slowly, Harlean stepped out of her skirt, and then she began to peel away her blouse, wishing she’d had more layers beneath.

  “I really don’t know about this, Mommie,” she whispered with desperation as Jean took her blouse and skirt and she tried to cover herself with the scarf. “Maybe it’s a mistake.”

  “Ready when you are!” Hesser called out.

  Jean moved a step nearer to her daughter and lowered her voice further. “Don’t be ridiculous. We need this job. Mr. Hesser is an important artist, one who has the power to jump-start your career. Everyone who is anyone in Hollywood follows his work, so he may well be our ticket to stardom!”

  “But maybe there’s another way—with my clothes on.”

  “If there is, I sure haven’t seen it these past weeks. Now for heaven’s sake, let’s act like professionals here. You’re eighteen years old. Don’t make Mr. Hesser sorry he hired you.”

  Then, with a sigh of resignation, Harlean padded barefoot toward the boulder, and reclined on top of it as Hesser directed. “Gorgeous. That’s it. Tip your head back just a bit more...” She could hear the click of his camera begin and she tried to focus on the sound as a way to steady her nerves. Click. Click. Click. She wanted nothing so much as for this to be over. “Yes, that’s it...utter perfection.”

  She shifted awkwardly then, as he continued to direct her movements. The chiffon slipped away from her breast and when she grabbed for it, a stray giggle slipped out. She touched her lips and caught her mother’s sharp stare, but Hesser only smiled before he continued. She so badly wanted for this to be at an end.

  “Young lady, your love affair with this camera cannot be denied. That is something to be enormously proud of,” Hesser declared as he worked. “It certainly places you far above your competition. Young Gloria Swanson tried these same poses here for me a month ago and it just didn’t work. Joan Crawford was all wrong for them, too. You absolutely sparkle.”

  That word again. How could Hesser have known? Perhaps it was an omen—a sign that she was meant to do this after all. From that moment on, she tried her best to breathe, to relax—to be the professional her mother wanted.

  As the small handheld Graflex camera clicked away, Harlean caught another glimpse of Jean standing behind Hesser, hands suddenly now poised prayerfully beneath her chin. She was biting her bottom lip and her expression was filled with so much pride that Harlean was suddenly just as proud of herself as her mother was. Work, determination and triumph further strengthened the bond between them. She felt her self-confidence begin to grow as she moved, smiled and posed.

  The odd sensation with which she had begun the photo shoot steadily slipped away in the face of Hesser’s thoroughly professional demeanor, and the businesslike presence of his wife. Since there had been little way out of it, Harlean resolved to learn from it. After all, she had read that the ability to seduce the camera was the key to success with all great movie stars. This was work. It was business, and she meant to become, not only an actress, but a businesswoman.

  After the photo shoot was at an end, Rhea Hesser asked her where she would like her copy of the photos sent. Thinking of Chuck, she said, “Could I come by and pick them up at your office instead?”

  “Certainly.” Mrs. Hesser offered her a polite nod. “We shall phone you when they are ready.”

  Harlean gave her the phone number for the Bello residence rather than her own.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon back at home, in the private sanctuary of a locked bathroom, she vigorously scrubbed the makeup off and watched her bare face gradually reappear in the mirror’s reflection. It reminded her of what she’d once read about a sculptor’s process, how the form beneath the marble gradually revealed itself.

  This was the young her revealing itself again in the mirror—the guileless naive self staring back at her. But she was so many more things now. She gazed for a long time at her reflection, the raccoon eyes, which warm water, soap and tears gave her—and she wondered in that private moment who she was really.

  Chuck pulled at her. Mother pulled the other way. She so wanted them both to be happy. She wanted to be happy, and she felt at the moment as if no one really was.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In June, everything in Harlean’s life changed. This, however, was a thing she could not hide from Chuck. She was pregnant. Since there were still no new acting jobs, she decided that fate had given an answer to her question; her future held motherhood, not a career.

  “Will you finally stop thinking of working now, and make our family your dream?” he asked her
with tear-brightened eyes after she had told him.

  Part of her wanted to be a smart businesswoman and sparkling actress, one whose success made her capable of helping her mother and Marino, of building that dream home on a hill, and being known around the world. She still longed to be that girl who had posed for Hesser, feeling as if she was about to take Hollywood by storm. But another part of her wanted the child she was carrying and the domestic experience of motherhood that went with that. Inconvenient though the timing might be, this child had been conceived in love, and would live its life engulfed in it. She hadn’t so much chosen which of those two directions her life would take, it seemed to have chosen her.

  “Our family means everything to me, Chuck,” Harlean replied, and she so dearly wanted to feel every syllable of her declaration, in spite of their problems and her hesitation about their marriage.

  Things had been better lately, they both were trying. She just hoped and prayed now that it would continue, especially for the baby’s sake.

  That afternoon, he insisted on taking a picnic lunch up to Griffith Park because it was nearby, and they both loved it for how pristine and secluded a place it was right in the middle of the city. It was one of their favorite spots. Harlean felt a little shiver of guilt as they passed the spot where she had posed for Hesser, but she shook it off. Everything was different now, or it soon would be.

  They sat down in a field of wildflowers, framed by enormous trees. He just gazed at Harlean silently for a while as she plucked a flower and absently twirled it between her fingers. Together then they watched the mazy path of a butterfly fluttering beside them.

  “I really hope it’s a girl. And I just know she will look exactly like you,” Chuck said.

  “And what shall we name this daughter of ours?”

  “I would like to name her after my mother, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  She moved over to him and matched the length of his body with her own. Then she kissed him gently. “I think that’s a lovely idea.”

  “But I wouldn’t want a son to be called Charles, too daunting to be Charles Fremont McGrew III. I would rather name him Mont Clair, for your daddy, because I know how much you miss him. We could call him Monty for short.” He smiled and brushed back a wisp of hair that the wind had pushed across her cheek. “I know we’ve had our problems, doll, but those are all over now. You believe me, don’t you?”

  She wanted so desperately to do just that. “I want to, and I do love you, Chuck McGrew.”

  “Likewise, doll.”

  Afterward, they went to a shop on Sunset Boulevard that carried baby clothes. Harlean chose a white silk and lace christening gown and Chuck picked out two yellow pairs of booties.

  “These will work for whatever we have,” he said happily.

  The next morning, Jean and Marino stood at Harlean’s front door like two stone pillars. Neither of them were smiling. Jean wore a black turban, sedate black suit and pearl earrings. Marino was in a dark suit and tie. They looked like they were on their way to a funeral.

  Harlean smiled anyway as she held the damp dish towel she’d been using.

  “Is Chuck in?” her mother asked in a clipped tone.

  “He left for a tennis date about an hour ago. Why?”

  “Get your handbag.”

  Her smile began to fade as she looked back and forth at each of their faces, and an uneasy feeling took the place of her calm. Their demeanor frightened her. “Where are we going?”

  “Marino made you an appointment. I will not have all of our hard work and sacrifice ruined now when we are one role away from stardom.”

  Her words came with more cold calculation than Harlean had ever heard, and a chill tore through her. “Mommie, my career is over.”

  “Like hell it is. I said, get your handbag.”

  Harlean did not move. “Where are we going?” she asked again, feeling a sudden rush of fear warm her face.

  “It’s all arranged. At eleven, you are having a miscarriage.”

  * * *

  Her mother and Marino had needed to force her into the car as she shouted in protest, resisting Marino’s firm forward press at the small of her back. She had struggled against them both at first, urging them to listen to reason, but Jean had barked at her not to make a scene for the neighbors before they each took an arm and drew her down the brick walkway.

  “This is insanity! I really want my child, Mommie! I won’t do it, I tell you!”

  “You are a child, you have no idea what is good for you yet. Thank heavens I do.”

  As Marino drove, Jean sat with her in the backseat and held her hand.

  “Let me out of the car this minute!” Harlean angrily cried as she began to struggle against the grip her mother had on her.

  “You should know by now that there is no use arguing with your mother,” Marino tepidly offered without turning around as he drove. “Besides, there will be other children. Now just isn’t the right time.”

  It hadn’t been the right time when she was conceived, either, but her mother had made that work, and now here she was—something different, a girl who was told she sparkled. But a child changed everything, and hers was threatened by her inability to know how to fight fully for it because she had always trusted her mother’s advice. Career or not, approval or not, the ramifications of the act they were proposing were as horrendous to her as the procedure itself seemed. From this day forward, the knowledge that she had not lost this life inside of her, but that she had allowed it to be taken, would be a thing she could never escape.

  Harlean reached down and pressed her free hand against her abdomen in a vain attempt at protecting the life within. When the car door opened, she would bolt. Yes, she would dash away from the car and give her mother time to come to her senses. This plan of theirs was madness. In time, her mother would see that. Harlean darted an anxious glance up at the front seat, then back at her mother.

  “Please, let’s just talk about it. This is your own grandchild.”

  “It isn’t anything of the sort. You mustn’t think of it that way, Harlean. I certainly won’t.” Jean Bello stared unflinchingly ahead, her gaze fixed on the road.

  “God, let me out of this car!” Harlean cried out in vain, but her mother remained focused and unyielding.

  “Turn left here, Marino. The route is faster,” Jean directed him.

  Harlean struggled again, and again her mother restrained her with that one firm hand. How could she fight this and win? A kaleidoscope of competing thoughts whirled through her mind. If she ran away from the hospital once the car door was open, and later she told Chuck about this, the already tumultuous fissure between her husband and her mother would be permanent. She wasn’t certain she could live without either of them—her child and its father—or her mother. There was no one in the world whose opinion she valued more than her mother, no one who calmed her more surely, or made her laugh more quickly. Jean knew what she was thinking before she said it, and Harlean trusted their bond implicitly.

  She whimpered and laid her head against the window glass.

  “I am well aware that you are a fine actress but do stop with the dramatics for the moment, Baby. You really are making this much worse than need be. It’s a simple procedure on something that hasn’t had time yet to become anything at all.”

  She tried to lean forward, hoping to reason with Marino. Her heart was in her throat and a new wave of nausea was rising inside of her. “Marino, please, you understand, don’t you? You like Chuck, I know you do! This is our child, conceived in love!”

  He forced a grim sigh, and she watched him shake his balding head. “Well, I hate to say it, my dear, but lately the two of you have fought more like cats and dogs than like anyone in love. I’m not certain it would be right to bring a life into the world only to become a child of divorce. You should
know that better than anyone.”

  She felt herself crumble against the car door. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.

  Her mind spun now with a new barrage of questions as the car slowly approached the hospital driveway then began the slow incline. What if she did find the strength to run, to keep the child she carried, and her marriage did fail as her mother predicted? Or worse yet, what if Chuck’s drinking worsened, along with the violence and she was forced to leave, what then? She had not been willing to consider that before San Francisco.

  At least the McGrew Trust would still be required to support the child, wouldn’t it? Oh, God...wouldn’t it?

  Perhaps it wouldn’t be if she was the one to walk away from the marriage seemingly in order to return to a career. She could only imagine how a high-powered law firm could spin that fact against her. If they did, at eighteen years old, was she equipped to support herself, and a baby?

  Tears welled in her eyes. Just run! a voice inside her urged. What then? another voice challenged. It sounded more like her mother. As much as she hated to admit it, there were some circumstances in life just too complex to outrun. Perhaps this was one of them.

  * * *

  Challenging Jean Bello would have been like trying to thwart the power of a great wave. The magnitude of what was happening did not fully hit Harlean at first. But later, as she lay at home alone in her bed, her guilt was overwhelming. She wept, lying curled up and alone, arms wrapped around herself, until there were no more tears, and the trembling ceased from sheer exhaustion.

  In the end, shame overcame her for how easy it had been to make Chuck believe the lie of a miscarriage. She had summoned up her best acting skills to convince him, for both of their sakes. She could not lose him now, too, when they had both been trying so hard to make things better between them.