Starstruck

by Rachel Shukert

  God, it really was ridiculous. A man of his stature, second in command in all but name at the biggest studio in Hollywood, making an evening house call like some country doctor. But something had to be done. It had been almost a week now. A week of phone calls and messages and telegrams, and nobody had heard so much as a peep from this girl. Most of the hopeful young starlets counting on Larry to make all their dreams come true were not nearly so circumspect. Most of them, it was all he could do to keep them from stalking him at restaurants, or shipping themselves to his office in packing crates (which scared poor Gladys to death), or hiding in his shower to jump out unexpectedly the second he dropped his robe.

  In a way, he almost welcomed the desperation; at least it showed that they were serious, that Hollywood was what they wanted and they’d do whatever it took to make it there. There was nothing wrong with playing a little hard-to-get, but if you ran from the Big Bad Wolf too long, he just might get tired of the chase and move on. After all, this was Hollywood. If one Little Red Riding Hood slipped out of the wolf’s grasp, there was always another one coming down the path, brighter and younger and tastier than the one who came before.

  But this girl was different. Kurtzman and Karp and Forrest were all convinced she was the one they’d been looking for so frantically for the last three months. For Kurtzman, she was the key to the film that would allow him to reclaim the career the Nazis had stolen. For Karp, she was a way to keep things on budget, recoup costs, get Hunter Payne and New York off his back and out of his studio. And for Forrest … well, Larry was pretty sure he knew what Dane saw in Margaret Frobisher. But they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

  As for Larry, he was just happy to be proven right. He’d known the girl had something special from the moment he’d seen her sitting at that lunch counter. Even with the schoolgirl sweater and the too-red lipstick, there’d been a kind of light around her.

  There was a satisfying crunch of pebbled gravel under the wheels of the Rolls. Arthur was pulling into a long, curved drive.

  “We here, Arthur?”

  “I reckon so.”

  Larry stuck his head out the window and peered at the house. Standard California Arts and Crafts. Respectable, not palatial. Nothing to keep her down on the farm if she had a mind to leave. “All right, Arthur. I’m going in. Be back in half an hour, tops.”

  “Oh no. No, you don’t.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Respectfully, Mr. Julius, you ain’t leaving me here sitting alone in no Rolls-Royce Phantom in a driveway in this neighborhood, you understand me?”

  “For God’s sake, Arthur, we’re not in Mississippi.”

  “Respectfully, Mr. J., that’s easy for you to say.”

  “Fine. If anyone comes, honk the horn real loud. Loud as you can.”

  “And if that’s not good enough?”

  Larry climbed out of the car and narrowed his eyes at the name on the mailbox, half hidden under a spray of wisteria. Frobisher. And below that: Trespassers Beware.

  “If that’s not good enough, Arthur, frankly I think we’re both screwed.”

  “Miss Margaret, I’m coming in.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” Margaret moaned. The housekeeper ignored her, as usual.

  How many times over the years has Emmeline found me like this? she wondered. Sprawled across the bed, face streaked with new tears and swollen with old ones? They’d developed a standard operating procedure over the years: Emmeline wordlessly bringing up a tray of food, Margaret choking down bites until she was calm again, at which time Emmeline would mouth a couple of meaningless platitudes and put Margaret to bed. But this time the system had failed them. It was as though these latest developments—Evelyn’s betrayal, Margaret’s mother’s sudden lapse into icy violence—had ripped away a decade’s worth of bandages to reveal for the first time the unhealable wound that lay beneath it.

  “When God closes a door, he always opens a window.” That was one of the things Emmeline liked to say. But not this time, Margaret thought. This time, when the door had slammed shut, she’d been left out in the cold. Her mother had barely spoken to her since it had happened. Her father had mourned the social ruin of his daughter in his own way: he’d taken off for the beach hut with God knew which of his fake secretaries and had only returned that morning. Emmeline still brought the food, but even she seemed to realize that the despair of Miss Margaret’s current purgatory was at last out of her jurisdiction.

  “You haven’t touched your dinner.”

  “I told you I wasn’t hungry.”

  Emmeline clucked her tongue. “Three days of meals you turn your nose up at, when there’s children starving in Europe.”

  “Not anymore, there’s not.”

  An image of Gabby Preston looking wide-eyed at her sad little bowl of unadorned chicken broth swam into Margaret’s head. She buried her face in a pillow. She didn’t want to think about Olympus; she couldn’t bear it. “Is that why you came up here, Emmeline? To see if I choked down any of your meat loaf?”

  “No, miss. I came to tell you there’s a gentleman downstairs wants to see you.”

  “What kind of a gentleman?” In Margaret’s experience, Emmeline’s iteration of the term could apply to anyone from a colleague of her father’s to Timmy Mulvaney, the six-year-old boy down the street she sometimes babysat.

  “He didn’t tell me anything, Miss Margaret. Not even his name. But I overheard him say something about the movies.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Margaret left her bedroom for the first time in a week. The faint shadow of bruising around her eye had been carefully powdered away. Emmeline had fixed her part so that the small bandage over the cut on her temple was masked by the fall of her hair. She had changed out of her dirty pajamas into the simple gray dress with the little white collar that Doris said made her look like a French orphan. The idea was to descend the stairs looking beautiful and somber and unforgiving. Like Diana Chesterfield in Vengeance Is a Woman, when she realized her evil fiancé had secretly embezzled her inheritance while plotting to murder her. Except this is my own movie, Margaret thought. She could barely wait to see how it would turn out.

  Her father was seated stiffly on his usual horsehair chair, an empty glass of brandy by his side. Her mother hovered near the piano, refusing to meet her eye. And perched on the velvet settee her mother usually occupied, calm as could be, was Larry Julius.

  She had not seen him since that day at the lunch counter at Schwab’s. After the past few weeks, during which he had assumed almost mythic status in her mind, it was shocking to see him in the flesh, let alone in her house. Yet here he was, serenely blowing smoke rings as casually as though he dropped by all the time.

  “Margaret,” her father said, his voice tight with unexpressed rage. “This …”

  “Julius,” Larry prompted pleasantly. “Larry Julius.”

  “This man Julius would like to speak with you.”

  “Miss Frobisher,” Larry said warmly. “What a pleasure it is to see you again.” He gestured toward the brocade chair her parents usually offered to guests. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Her father pressed his mouth into a thin line. “There’s no need for pleasantries, Julius. Just say whatever you have to say to the girl.” The girl, Margaret thought. It’s as if he thinks I’m his servant.

  “I appreciate your bluntness, sir,” Larry said, “but where I come from, it wouldn’t be right to leave a lady on her feet.”

  Mr. Frobisher looked incredulous. “And where is that, may I ask?”

  “Oh …” Larry gestured vaguely. “Somewhere back east.”

  Her father sniffed. “The tenements, I suppose.”

  “A bit farther than that.” Larry was still smiling, but his voice had a hard edge to it. “But even Attila the Hun was known to offer a chair to a woman from time to time.”

  “Sit down, Margaret.” From halfway across the room, her mother’s voice was calm and clear, although she still avoide
d her daughter’s eye. Margaret sat.

  “Good girl.” Larry lit himself a fresh cigarette. “I have to tell you Miss Frobisher, you’re a very hard person to get a hold of.”

  “I … I don’t understand.”

  “We’ve phoned, dozens of times. We sent telegrams.” Larry shrugged. “No reply.”

  Margaret jerked her head toward her mother, who was looking at her at last, her blue eyes cold and defiant. She knew, Margaret thought. And she kept it from me. Her hand flew up to the small bandage over her eye as images of that horrible afternoon flooded into her mind. The raised hand. The pain of the blow and the wet, warm trickle of blood on her forehead. And worst of all, the terrible look in her mother’s eyes. Not anger, not concern, not even sadness: it was at once all of those and greater still, a dawning of the awful knowledge that something between them had been broken and could never be mended. “Oh.” It was all she could bring herself to say.

  Larry chuckled. “Now, if it was me, I would have just given up on you. ‘She’s not interested,’ I would have said. ‘Why try to buy what’s not for sale?’ But Leo Karp doesn’t think that way. He said, ‘Larry, I want to hear it from the girl’s own mouth.’ So here I am. To hear it from you. And then I can go back to Hollywood, and as God is my witness, you’ll never see the likes of me darken your beautiful doorstep again.”

  “Hear what from me? What are you talking about?”

  Larry looked surprised. “Why, about the contract, of course.”

  Her stomach lurched. “What … what contract?”

  “The one Mr. Karp wants to offer you.”

  Margaret felt faint. She was suddenly inordinately grateful to Larry for insisting she sit down. “Mr. Karp wants to give me—”

  “A contract, yes.” Larry nodded. “That’s Leo F. Karp, the president of Olympus Studios,” he added, presumably for the Frobishers’ benefit. “It’s very rare, you understand, for him to take an interest in a young actress, particularly one with no experience. But he was tremendously impressed with the screen test of young Margaret here, and he’d like very much to put her under contract. He’s offering our standard one-year exclusive, with an option to renew. She’ll have speech lessons, singing lessons, dancing lessons. The wardrobe, hair, and makeup departments will overhaul her image. Deportment coaches will teach her how to walk, how to sit, which fork to use at dinner—not”—he cast an admiring, if sardonic, glance around the lavishly appointed room—“that I expect she’ll need much help with that.”

  “And where is she supposed to live while you people are transforming her into this creature?” Mr. Frobisher interjected. “For it won’t be under my roof, I can tell you that.”

  Really? Is my father really prepared to turn me out? Margaret felt a little short of breath.

  “In that case,” Larry said quietly, “she’d be given a place at the studio. It’s hardly without precedent. Many families in a similar position turn guardianship over to us. She’ll be adequately housed and supervised until her eighteenth birthday, which I believe is not so very far away, and then she can live on her own if she likes. She can certainly set up housekeeping on seventy-five dollars a week. That’s what we’d be paying her for the first year.”

  “Seventy-five dollars a week? Seventy-five dollars a week?” Mr. Frobisher raged.

  “Only to start,” Larry said. “By the time her guardianship ends there’s every expectation she’ll be earning significantly more than that. More than enough for her to keep herself in the manner to which she is accustomed.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Mr. Frobisher sputtered. “You come in here, to my home, uninvited, offering to … buy Margaret from me for seventy-five dollars a week?”

  “No, not quite,” Larry said cheerfully. “Obviously, we’ll need you to cosign the contract, but Margaret’s salary is paid only to Margaret. If she chooses to share it with you, that’s up to her.”

  “Share it? With me?” Mr. Frobisher’s already florid face turned crimson.

  “Lowell, please.” Holding up her hand, Mrs. Frobisher strode commandingly to the center of the room, waiting until all eyes were on her before she began to speak. My God, Margaret thought, she thinks she’s giving a speech.

  “Mr. Julius,” her mother began, “just a few short weeks ago, such an offer would have been unthinkable. Apart from the obscenity of any respectable girl earning her own living, the idea of flaunting oneself in public, for the delectation of strangers …” She shuddered. “Let us just say for a girl like Margaret, a girl who has been raised a certain way, with certain expectations, it would be unimaginable.”

  How is that any different than a coming-out ball? Margaret thought furiously. How is appearing in the pictures worse than parading down a staircase for a bunch of rich men to stare at, while the women plot to sell me to the highest bidder?

  Her mother barreled on. “Times may change, Mr. Julius, but nice people do not. And something upon which all nice people agree is that a respectable woman’s name should appear in the newspaper but three times: when she is born, when she marries, and when she dies. A respectable woman is the soul of discretion. Her life is spent in the sacred service of her husband and her children—if she is lucky enough to have them—and in upholding the standards of her community. That Margaret seems to feel otherwise can only reflect badly on Mr. Frobisher and me. The only excuse I can offer is that she lived with us as an only child for seventeen years and that we indulged her.”

  Hardly.

  “While I have known for some time of Margaret’s vanity and … shall we say … unbecoming ambition, I told myself that this was simply a young girl’s fancy, and that when the time came she would put such childish, selfish things aside and do her duty to those who gave her a home. Instead, by consorting with you and others of your … your persuasion, she has severely jeopardized her future, and made a mockery of all that Mr. Frobisher and I have offered her.”

  “Hear, hear,” Mr. Frobisher said.

  “Quiet, Lowell.” Mrs. Frobisher turned to her daughter. “Margaret, I put it to you. You have heard Mr. Julius’s offer. If you want to go with him, we will not stop you, but we will wash our hands of you.” For a moment, the icy film over her eyes suddenly seemed to thaw, giving her a vaguely haunted look, as if she were looking at something terrible that only she could see. “You will be on your own, without support or family. Should you wish to return to us or to Pasadena at any time, you will find the door firmly closed.”

  “Or?” Margaret whispered. Her throat was dry.

  “You may stay,” Mrs. Frobisher said simply. “We will do whatever we can to repair your damaged reputation. We will bring you out in whatever way is available to us. In return, you will do your duty. You will behave like a respectable young woman. No movie magazines, no truancy, no late-night disappearances from dances with young gentlemen.” Margaret blushed. She hadn’t realized her mother knew about the Phipps McKendrick episode. “You will obey us unquestioningly,” Mrs. Frobisher continued, “until you are married to an appropriate young man. And you will put all thoughts of Hollywood”—her mother almost spat the word—“out of your head forever.”

  Here it was. The choice that a small part of Margaret had always known she would one day have to make: the choice between who she had always been, and who she had always longed to be.

  She thought of her life in Pasadena. Her house. Her friends. She thought of how her father used to push her so high on the rope swing in the backyard she could almost touch the branches of the eucalyptus tree with her toes, how her mother had held her in the water when she taught her how to swim. She imagined herself as the calm, smiling wife of Stephen Van Camp or Frederick Harrington or Phipps McKendrick, living in a beautiful house, arranging flowers in a crystal vase, receiving a chaste kiss from her tired husband as she greeted him at the door with his whiskey and slippers at the end of a long day. She imagined walking in the park with Doris, the two of them pushing their babies in carriages as they gossiped
about who was having an affair with his secretary, who was secretly living apart, who was soon to be blacklisted from the next benefit committee or party or ball.

  Then she thought of Olympus, of the magical world behind its shining gates. The hushed frenzy of the soundstages, the shady bungalows containing the secrets of the stars. Gabby Preston’s big eyes and infectious laugh and mysterious pills, and Raoul Kurtzman’s world-weary shrugs, and Sadie the Wardrobe Lady’s coral-stained cigarettes. She thought of Amanda Farraday slinking across the commissary floor in her black suit, like a black widow spider hunting her newest prey. She thought of Diana Chesterfield and the mysteries her disappearance held. And she thought of Dane Forrest, the most alluring mystery of all.

  “Well, Margaret?” Mrs. Frobisher cleared her throat. “What will it be?”

  No tears. Not a single one.

  Larry Julius had never seen anything like it. The day he’d left home you could hear his mama’s anguished wails all the way to Fourteenth Street. Sure, he knew these fancy-schmancy society types could be pretty cold fish, but disowning an only daughter without so much as a sniffle? As though it were all just an unfortunate inconvenience; as though they were getting rid of a cook who had burned the roast one too many times. And the words that woman used! Lived with us for seventeen years … those who gave her a home. Not once did she use the word daughter. Not once did she so much as mention the word love. It was all very upsetting, not to mention suspicious. When it came to smelling a rat, Larry Julius had the best nose in the business. And his nose was telling him that something was very, very rotten in Pasadena. He just didn’t know what.

  The girl sat beside him in the backseat of the Phantom, perfectly quiet, the glow of headlights and the shimmer of moonlight illuminating her soft yellow hair. Larry had to fight a sudden, wild urge to throw his arms around her and hold her tight. Not in a romantic way; he wasn’t a cradle robber, for God’s sake. He just felt as if someone should show the poor kid some affection.