by Jill Zeller
All plans are meant to be changed at the last minute. Otherwise there is nothing to look forward to.
So in Houston, in our dusty hotel, Milo told me he didn’t want to go to New York. He wanted to go west with me, hoping to reunite with Dr. Doors again.
“But what about Nicanor?”
“That’s all arranged.” Milo stood near the window, garbed in his long-suffering nautical woolen coat. “I’ve telegraphed Chicago. There’s a doctor there, and they will meet Nicanor, put him up, perform the surgery, and help him with employment. It’s a charitable group Dr. Doors spoke about.”
Looking at Milo, his young, earnest face, chocolate-colored eyes still crusted with grief, I realized I was very glad he chose to go with me. I had already disappointed my parents, cabling them with the news that I was alive and well with stories to tell, but that I wasn’t coming straight back to New York after my ordeal with the rebels.
They would never hear the entire story.
But now I had a reason for going west, because Milo needed to get back to his ship somehow, and I decided I could help.
“Los Angeles is not much of a place, perhaps,” I said, sipping a cup of the strong thick coffee so loved in Houston. “Just a stop-over on our way to San Francisco.”
But I didn’t know then that my “stop-over” would change my life forever.
Part 3
Thirty Days in Hollywood
The sun was just up when Milo and I disembarked from the train. Coal dust coated the inside of my mouth and skin; my eyes burned as if they were on fire. Milo mirrored my soiled feeling; dust cratered his hair and the whites of his eyes were the color of pomegranates.
Now we inhaled the tang of automobiles, and above us was not a wooden train ceiling but a clear yellow sky. A shrill of steam from the engine, shouts from the conductors filled our ears.
The end of the line. I could go no further west. City of Angels, Los Angeles.
With our meager belongings, diminishing funds—mostly mine, and I knew it grated on Milo to have to depend on me but I insisted I would help him get back to the Leopardo or some other ship—we probably resembled runaway orphans. In borrowed poorly-fitted clothing, I carried a carpet bag of a few clean garments and a new notebook and pencils. Milo had only a canvas bag hanging from his shoulder; inside were food and items he had collected along the way, a red rock of the Arizona desert, the desiccated body of a tiny lizard, a thick leathery leaf of cactus. All the way from Texas he stared out our window—my parents had wired me money for a Pullman—spellbound by the dry, tortured and carved landscape around us.
Looking at Milo I shook my head and tried to smooth my rough hair as he returned my smile. A passing couple stared and a pang of embarrassment stung me. I still was not used to people staring at my shorn hair, now barely grown to my shoulders.
Generally I wore my hair tucked up inside a straw boater, but I had not put it on in my hurry to disembark. To hell with it, I tried to tell myself. Let them stare.
“C’mon, Milo. Let’s go find breakfast and inquire about a hotel.”
The train station was a huge Moroccan-style palace complete with an onion dome. Nothing like the Mexico City station, or even the de Castro hacienda with its blank stucco walls and heavy beams. I thought often of Colonel Robles; thoughts of the feel of his skin and his aroma of tobacco and horses helped me forget other things that crept into my mind when I woke up at night and couldn’t stop remembering.
Perhaps the towers and crush of New York would have helped soften these memories, but I didn’t want to go home yet, as much as my father begged me to.
The bright sun stung my eyes. Automobiles idled on the half-circle drive, filling the air with acrid smoke. The train had been packed with people; with bundles and suitcases piled on the sidewalk, they stood as if lost, looking for a ride or a cab as streetcars rumbled past. Across the street called Santa Fe I could see a cafe, and the imposing block that was the Atchison-Topeka-Santa Fe Hotel.
Milo took my arm. I didn’t realize until then that I had come to a stop, my walk slowed to a standstill by memories of Mexico.
“There she is!”
The crowd shifted; men with cameras on tripods came out of nowhere. I looked around, trying to see who they pursued—an actress from New York, coming out west to star in a motion picture?
But the men came toward me. They stopped, smiled, bowed, set up the cameras. Flash powder smoked the air.
“Miss Lynch, Miss Lynch.”
They shouted my name. Several of them held pencils to notebooks.
“How does it feel to be back home, Miss Lynch?”
“How do you feel about Mexico and the revolutionaries who held you prisoner?”
“Did you meet General Zapata?’
“Were you tortured?”
“Miss Lynch, over here! Is that Mr. Dudek with you?”
I shut my mouth, which had fallen open. No answers came to my mind. Beyond the reporters a crowd gathered, staring, shrugging at each other as if to ask Who is she, someone famous?
As the reporters crowded in Milo stayed close; exchanging a glance with him I saw the same shock in his face.
We are famous.
It had never occurred to me that the story of American hostages released by the Zapatistas in revolutionary Mexico would have taken the U.S. by storm. After our release we had been protected from the press by United States Embassy officials. Interviews with the Mexican government were supervised and coached by the Americans, as the revolutionaries in power asked pointed questions about Robles and Zapata.
And when we got to Houston, a busting-open oil town with a brand new deep-water port, we had come and gone almost unnoticed.
“Miss Lynch, what will you do now that you’re in California? Did you come to make a motion picture?”
There was no stopping them but to say something, anything.
Waving my hand, I said, “Well, I certainly didn’t expect a welcome like this.”
The reporters laughed politely, staring, notebooks ready, scribbling.
“And, as my friend Mr. Dudek and I have just arrived, perhaps you can recommend a good hotel with very hot water.”
“I can do better than that.”
A man pushed his way through the crowd. In a pale fedora, white shirt with no jacket, hatless and wearing riding trousers, he was tan and older, I thought, but not as old as Edison.
“Miss Lynch, I’m Dennis Purfoy. Please, Edison cabled me you were coming. I’m so sorry for this—” He waved his arm toward the reporters. “But somehow word leaked out that you were coming to Los Angeles.”
He smiled, his teeth straight and white against his bronze skin. “Did you know that you and Milo are famous?”
Not waiting for an answer, he scooped up my carpet bag and took my arm. I glanced at Milo, who shrugged, and appeared happy to follow this stranger if for nothing else than to get away from the press.
And so we went, reporters shouting “Mr. Purfoy!” as we pushed our way through the throng to a large yellow automobile nudged close to the curb. I had never seen such a bright and large machine before in my life.
In the front seat, lounging on red rolled leather, was a young woman smoking a cigarette, a curly-haired little white dog in her lap.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She wore a pair of dark, round glasses, a shield against the searing California sunlight. Her hair, drifting from under a wide-brimmed straw hat, was the color of flames and her skin distractingly milky compared to Mr. Purfoy’s deep tan. She had painted her fingernails a bright coral color.
Mr. Purfoy told us, as he threw my carpet bag in the back seat, “Miss Lynch, and Mr. Dudek, I’d like you to meet my wife, Loretta Carré.”
I had actually seen her beautiful mouth before, on the moving picture screen. And there it was, that same mouth, with a slight, almost shy smile. She turned in her seat, got onto her knees, offered a milky white, bare hand.
“Oh, my. How marvelous to meet you. You are t
he bravest woman in the United States right now, did you know that? And this must be Milo, the doctor who saved so many lives, the rebels, too.”
She leaned forward, her blouse open and the crease of her breasts visible for moments, her voice high and breathy. “Isn’t she beautiful, Denny? Just like Edison said she was.”
Mr. Purfoy looked across the hood of the auto, still smiling as he wrenched the crank. “Oh, yes, darling. I would say so.”
The auto’s motor growled to life, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke. Mr. Purfoy jumped into the driver’s seat without opening the door; Mrs. Purfoy lit a cigarette from the tip of her own and handed it to him.
I raised an eyebrow. Milo answered it with a smile. We had met our first citizens of the City of Angels.
I marveled at the landscape of this western city as Mr. Purfoy drove the great yellow car in the direction of a nearby ridge smudged with oaks and grass browned by the sun, veiled with a soft haze. Date palms lined the roadway. Traffic was fierce as he swerved around wagons drawn by stout horses, piloted by men in sombreros. There was the rumble of the trolleys and their bells sounded loud. Grumbling cars filled the street.
Los Angeles lay in the broad Los Angeles River valley. To our left, west, some distance away, was the Pacific Ocean. To the north and south stood long mountain ridges. Getting us here, our train had passed through vast orchards of palm, oranges, lemons, and avocados, dusty small towns of adobes and churches. We passed over aqueducts veining the land, carrying water to the orchards.
And now the city with a street named Broadway, but nothing like the one I walked in New York. This place was filled with squat stone buildings, parks of watered lawns. Everywhere there was light, speared from glass and white stone, sparking from water in canals and city ponds.
And the place smelled fresh, with the salty tang of distant sea. As we left the downtown, colors appeared. We passed small homes of adobe and tiled roofs, fronted by riotous gardens rich with brilliant exotics. A pang shot through me as I realized how much these resembled Paloma de Castro’s hacienda courtyard. I wondered if parrots shrieked in these tall palms above me.
Sometimes memories shoved me aside, like someone running up behind me and grabbing me. Sweat broke out on my skin, and my heart began to race. The last few weeks these episodes grew less frequent, but now I felt the shivering begin, as if I stood on a frozen lake.
Milo always knew. He took my hand, a thing we had been sharing lately, the touch of hands. If he suffered the same symptoms, though, he hid them well. But I knew, when he would disappear on a long walk alone, that his memories tortured him as well.
Loretta Carré turned to me, one arm, draped in yellow linen, lying across the back of her seat. “Edison told us you are a fantastic artist. We need good artists in Los Angeles.”
She flung her cigarette-laden hand into the air. “You must show me your work. An illustrator, he said. You can draw all of this, the city, the studios.”
“I don’t have any work now. It’s all been lost.”
A pout formed on her lips, and I could see her eyebrows raise in sympathy—a sympathy I wondered if she really felt. “My god, what happened?”
“Darling, she can tell us when we get home.” Dennis Purfoy reached for her, and she snuggled against him, her back to us again.
Milo smiled again, and I shrugged. Theater people.
Theater people with a lavish mansion dug into the ridge of hills just north of the little town called Hollywood. Around us other massive homes dotted the sage-blown hills. Winding drives reached them. The Purfoy home was a folly of towers and arches, designed as if a crazed Mexican architect had been hallucinating about Switzerland.
Dirt plumed the air as Dennis Purfoy skidded the auto to a stop at the front door of heavy dark oak, also arched like its opening foyer. Leaping out of the seat the same way he had gotten in, Mr. Purfoy rounded the hood and opened the door for Loretta. Carrying the dog, she slid out with grace while Mr. Purfoy opened my door as well and offered me a hand.
Inside was cool, and almost quiet, as Mr. Purfoy called out, “Merlin! Where are you?” Summoning a servant, I supposed. We stood in a dark wood-paneled vestibule. Loretta vanished through an archway where I could see a large room, richly furnished.
A big black dog bounded from the back hallway, planted his feet on Mr. Purfoy’s chest, and juiced my hand with his tongue. Is this Merlin? Milo stiffened, stepped away. I had not realized until then that he might be afraid of dogs.
But then an extraordinary man appeared from the hallway before us. Short, with white hair in a long braid down his back, he was Oriental, probably Chinese. In a black tunic, loose slacks, and wooden sandals, he approached and bowed.
“Merlin, these are the guests I spoke of. Miss Lynch is to have the south bedroom, Dr. Dudek the west-facing one, over the pool.”
Merlin looked at us each and bowed again. Picking up my valise, he moved his hand in the direction of the stairs.
“Then breakfast, on the patio. You freshen up—” He looked me up and down. “I think you can fit in those clothes. Loretta, what do you think? Can she wear your skirts and fussy things?”
Reappearing in the archway, Loretta had removed her hat. One long tress unraveled down her shoulder, and I saw that she had kicked off her shoes.
“Oh, of course. She’s very slender. Except here, of course—” Smiling she touched her breasts, gentle and small. “Might be a bit tight there for you, my dear.”
Heat lit up my face. I didn’t dare look at Mr. Purfoy, but I heard him chuckle.
The bath was hot and luxurious, in a jade-colored tiled bathroom with brass faucets. The Purfoys had money, obviously, and did I read somewhere that Loretta Carré was an heiress? I sank into the water up to my chin to consider my options. Beyond getting to Los Angeles and finding Milo a ship, if not Leopardo, which was to call here in the next few weeks, I couldn’t see a clear path.
My Grand Panama Tour had gone off course, and now I languished in an exotic city that some called Shangri La. After encountering Philip Picou and his sister on Leopardo and Colonel Robles and his treacherous brother in Mexico, my vision of landing in San Francisco to start a new exciting life paled in expectation. I’d had quite enough excitement thus far, I thought.
I couldn’t take advantage of the Purfoy’s hospitality forever, however. That would be rude, as much as I instantly liked both of them and the thought of staying on to draw and illustrate the “moving picture business” was appealing. Something to distract me, get me back on track. Heal the nightmares of Mexico still haunting me.
Perhaps I could get a job. Earn my keep. Find a place of my own for a while.
The Purfoys appeared to hold a similar view. At breakfast, served on a covered patio beside a topaz swimming pool, they talked of nothing else.
“Majestic is salivating to tell your story, Nola.” Dennis Purfoy waved his glass of orange juice. Before us was a spread of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, sliced fruit. Loretta dipped her spoon into half a grapefruit and sipped on black coffee. Milo and I heaped our plates. Food had not tasted so good for weeks.
Dennis spoke endlessly and I didn’t understand most of it; he knew the studio head at Majestic Studios who wanted to produce a moving picture about my plight in Mexico. He talked about a studio writer who already had a script. They would film it all right here—he waved his hand as if to include the brown hills above us.
Loretta, who had been so ebullient before breakfast was very quiet now. Edginess wafted off her like a scent, and I wondered if Dennis kept up his endless patter as a way of removing focus from her mood.
He leaned toward me. “Would you be up to coming down to the studio this afternoon? I want you to meet some people. Tell your story, kick some ideas around.”
“Denny, she doesn’t want to go anywhere. And don’t you have to go back to the office?” Loretta’s voice was sharp, a little loud. As if realizing this, she toned it down. “She wants to spend the day by the pool, with a lemonade
and her shoes off.”
Loretta’s shoes were off. I envied that, and vowed I would take mine off as soon as I had a chance.
A look of disappointment drew Dennis’s eyebrows down. “I suppose you’re right, darling. There’s plenty of time.” He bounced up, flinging his napkin into the air. “Water and power,” he said. “They never give a man a moment of peace.”
Loretta looked at him. She had slipped on her dark glasses. “Yes, darling, you should be going. I’ll see to our guests.”
“Don’t you have a call today?”
“No, not today.”
Dennis shrugged. I wondered if he saw anything in the way Loretta’s arms tensed as she brought her coffee cup to her mouth, as if trying to hide a tremor.
“I’ll call in on you all later.” He bent down to kiss her and she touched his cheek with her hand. The little dog jumped into her lap. “Here’s Cecil. He’ll keep you company.”
“He’s a lovely boy, but sometimes he just wears me out.” Putting down her cup, Loretta turned her head to watch Dennis leave the patio and we all listened to him whistle as he strode through the house, the big dog Duke trotting behind. I wondered if she meant the dog or her husband.
Turning back she looked at Milo. “Dr. Dudek, we must get you into some of Denny’s linen suits. You must be sweltering in that heavy coat.”
“Please, Mrs. Purfoy. I’m not a doctor,” Milo told her for the twentieth time. “I’m a Surgeon’s Assistant.” His cheeks reddened, but I couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger.
A slight smile on her lips, almost a pout, Loretta shook her head. “Oh yes, you told me. Some days I have a mind like a sieve. Although you should be a doctor. Edison said you saved so many lives, including himself.”
Not everyone. We couldn’t save Hammer. A chill traveled down my back, twisted into a knot under my ribs. The day began to turn from bright sun to gray. No! I instructed myself. I am not going to think of any of that today. Not today.