It’s a world, I thought.
“She kept threatening. What could I do?” He swung his arm toward the klieg lights. They swayed and crossed each other, the beams reaching so high they disappeared. They became their own galaxy. “Everyone out there,” he said. “There’s a whole world. They only know what we tell them.”
You’re a galaxy, I thought. “You killed Madge. You threw her down these stairs.”
He punched my face, and I fell against the door. My left eye blurred; blood hit the insides of my cheeks and behind my eyes in hard slams. “Couldn’t you just help her? Don’t you hit me. Couldn’t you write a letter, or call an embassy or something?”
“I deal with divorces.”
“I believe you. Then you killed her.”
“She fell.” He grabbed my arm, and I slid toward the stairs. My face bled, my nose bled. Blood in my mouth. I slid in a little pool of my own blood.
“Why can’t you listen? Rosemary, too, thinking I’d save her because Joe had tied her up in the shed. I followed Joe and Abbott to the tunnel, and they’d better be grateful I did. Abbott left, but where was Joe with Rosemary? They didn’t come out, so I went in. I found her climbing the back wall. But she wouldn’t shut up. Not screaming, not then. She’d gotten out of the wire Joe used to tie her, and the wire’s right there, she bled everywhere, it was disgusting, took me who knows how long to find her thumb, and you know what she’s saying?”
“You killed her. Oh, God, you killed Rose.”
“She’s yelling, ‘Penny saw you.’ What does that mean?”
Marty kicked me, and I hooked my free arm around a stair post. He kicked again.
“I can’t have her yelling ‘Penny,’ and that I was part of some theft ring. I couldn’t have Abbott come back and hear that story, no. I wrapped the wire around her neck. Joe had already used it to tie her up, and it was bloody already, wasn’t it? She’d found a way to get out of the wire, hadn’t she? With the work gloves right there. I had to stop her without cutting myself, didn’t I? And if she told you what she was doing in Beverly Hills, and I know she did tell you about me, then I had to get to you. But I didn’t know who you were. You were nothing. I could pick through the whole lot of you extras and never see you. Every one of you looks the same. But I knew you worked at the Gardens.”
“You buried her here.”
“It shut you up, didn’t it? And I burned her clothes. Mine, too, and the gloves. I couldn’t drag all that blood around. That’s why studios keep incinerators.”
“She didn’t tell me about you. There was nothing to shut up.” I balanced between the staircase and air, one leg sliding down, one leg swinging through nothing at all, my arm around the post but slipping a little each time my leg swung.
“Of course she didn’t. I never met her. I had nothing to do with those break-ins.” And his hand bunched, light from the stage door, lifting his fist, his arm winding up for a pitch, and I knew when his fist hit I’d sail over the edge, I’d lose, my arm flying from the post, I’d hit one stair then another. I knew because I saw it clear, through one eye. I saw his fist and the windup. He stood in hot light like we were on a sound stage. And the throaty, smoky, smooth, deep, fast and sharp voice:
“Go ahead, Marty. We’re filming. Throw her off the balcony.”
Marty looked down, and his fist stopped. On the ground, can lights angled up at us, and beneath the lights, tripods supported cameras. I heard the cameras sputter and wind, and Stany was there, too, hidden behind can lights, shouting directions. “Let’s get it on film: Marty Martin, lawyer to the stars, commits murder. I’ll make sure it’s in every newsreel across the country. Anyone at a theater will see you throwing a poor Farm Girl off a balcony, three stories down. I’ll add sound, you bastard. You want that on film, Marty? Go ahead.”
“I’m trying to stop her from jumping,” he said.
“That’s not what the film will show. Go ahead. Stop her from jumping.”
He looked back at me, his tuxedo perfect, bow tie splashed with my blood. He dropped his fist, then raised it. Here came the blow. I waited for his fist and for me to hit every stair like Madge had, to hear my neck bend and crack like Madge’s had. She must have heard her own neck break. Now she floated by the stairs, with Rose. I hadn’t seen them; I didn’t have to. I loved them so much, I knew they were there. Film time. I waited for Marty’s fist.
He didn’t hit me. The can lights bleached his face. He turned to the railing, threw his fist over the railing, and his whole body followed.
CHAPTER 43
Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, one persistently hears, have never gotten over the idea of adopting one of their own and have recently been glimpsed in a certain home for homeless babies.
—Photoplay, November 1940
Granny gave me hot tea and had me sit at a booth in the Zebra. He gave me raw sirloin for my eye. Stany sat across from me and drank gin martinis.
“We were getting in my car outside the Gardens, and I saw Marty go back in,” Stany said. “He looked sneaky, but he’s always sneaky, so it wasn’t that. He looked convinced, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t know what to do. Should I go to Ciro’s? After all, I was throwing a party for my own husband. Should I follow Marty? I couldn’t decide. I sent Bob to Ciro’s. And I thought, Penny needs me. After all, you’d been so forthcoming about breaking into my house and nearly kidnapping my son.
“I arrived just in time. I saw Joe carry you up those stairs, and there was Marty, and I knew that wasn’t going to end well, but if I ran up those stairs, he’d throw you off before I got there. I devised a plan.” She downed her martini. She signaled the waitress by waving her glass in the air. Another martini.
“I didn’t know he’d leap over the railing. What am I supposed to do with the film? Oh, my God.” She gulped the new martini and waved her glass at the waitress. “I had a good plan. It saved your life.”
She’d run through the Zebra to the Zanzibar Room. She’d gone for help and seen the film crew. She’d moved cameras and lights from the Hail the Bullfighters set. She’d brought the crew outside. They’d followed her and brought their equipment because she was Missy and she’d said, “Let’s stop a murder or at least film it, by God,” so they’d followed her and brought cameras, electrical cords, can lights, reflectors; and the light from the stage door opening, closing, opening wasn’t just light, it was Stany moving them all into position before the can lights snapped on and there we were, my only moment on film.
“Granny’s livid. I mean, he’s madder than I’ve ever seen. I interrupted his filming, but I think it’s for the best, because that poor girl in the horns was flat on her back with those spears dangling over her. Terrifying. I probably saved her life, too. Slide over my cigarettes.”
“What about my face? I hurt. I can barely open my mouth.”
“What about your face? I’ve never seen you look better. You look strong, battle-weary, you’re—”
“An Amazon,” I said.
“Let me drink to oblivion. Then we’ll go see Dr. Ostrander. I lied, something strange is happening to your face. What’s that dent in your cheek?”
“What will happen to Joe?”
“It’s time for Joe to enlist, don’t you think? He’ll make a fine soldier. Paramount will be so very proud.”
It’s hard knowing the truth. The thing is, you can know the truth and nothing big changes. Marty strangled Rose, and he pushed Madge down three flights of stairs. I knew the truth about both of my friends, but nothing big changed. I could sit in the Zebra, and Stany could drink martinis, and everything around me—Hollywood, Stany, the studio—would all stay the same whether I knew the truth or a Hollywood story.
The change was small, inside of me. The change made me scoot forward and wince and then kiss Stany’s forehead. She looked down, into her martini glass. Her hair shone gray in the candlelight.
“I still have questions,” she said.
“You told me not to ask questions.”
“Yes, but it’s different when you’re me. My question is this: On Halloween night, why did Rosemary leave the emergency room? She got there safely. She’d had her hand checked. All she had to do was stay there and get stitches. Why did she leave? Oh, and my other question: Why did she scream when she saw Bette? She leaves the emergency room, sees Bette, and screams. Nobody ever screams when they see Bette. Okay, Joan Crawford screams, but that’s all. I mean, Bette does have those massive eyes, but not worth screaming about.”
“Have you ever been like Bette, leaving from a hospital side door?”
“We’re not discussing your questions. We’re discussing mine. Do you have the answers?”
“Stany, remember our lunch at the Pig ’n Whistle?”
“You had tuna fish,” Stany said. “I’m getting you a martini so I can drink it. That way I’ll line up two at a time.”
“I had egg salad. You asked about Rose’s baby. We talked about it in the Pig ’n Whistle. The baby got adopted.”
“Of course it did. Otherwise, Rose couldn’t have come to Hollywood. Who’d hire an unwed mother? Except Loretta Young. I keep forgetting about her and Clark Gable. And with that kid’s ears, thank God for knit caps! But even Loretta had to adopt her own kid. People don’t like unwed mothers.”
“That’s it, though,” I said. “Rose wasn’t giving up her baby. She wasn’t planning to go to Hollywood or anywhere else. She wanted her baby, and she wanted to marry Will.”
But Will didn’t know Rose was pregnant. Neither had I, back then. Rose called me one day and said she was moving from Buena Park, and months later, when she came home, Aunt Lou was dead, her house sold, so Rose moved in with us. Will said, Now let’s get married, and Rose looked at him like she’d forgotten his name. And one day, when we sat under a huge, dying Washington navel and I told her I’d saved enough to move out, how I’d go to Hollywood and forget the scars on my back, she’d told me about her baby.
No, that’s not exactly what happened. First she said she was going to Hollywood with me, that she’d find the money somewhere. She danced and danced in a seersucker skirt. I remember the dirt flying when she scuffed her feet. I was mad! I didn’t want her to go with me. I was mad that she’d left Buena Park and come back, and I was mad that after my date with Teddy, she’d said, You act like it’s the worst that can happen. Then she sat and got quiet, and told me about her baby.
She said her aunt sold the house to pay for her trip to Pomona, six months in a mothers’ home. Seven hundred dollars plus chores. Rose said the birth was easy, too fast, she’d wanted to feel more pain. It was hardly worth being pregnant, she said, for two hours of bad cramps and a doctor saying, Shut her up, and twisting her insides with canning tongs. And why wrap the baby tight? She’d pulled off the blanket. If Aunt Lou could have lived to see. The nurse told her, Lie back, stay here, but give me your baby. So that’s what Rose did.
She said the baby was sticky and warm, and she handed it off. At the window, sun cut the room into two long pieces through twill drapes. The table next to her bed held a vase with old sea foam and dried hydrangeas. The nurse carried out Rose’s baby girl. When blood dried on Rose’s hands, she wiped them clean because she knew there’d be more: years of blood from all the ways a girl can bleed, and she’d see it all. She wanted it all. The nurse never brought back the baby.
Where’s my baby? she said.
Heavens, you’re not married. A young girl like you. How can you raise a child?
Where’s my baby? she said.
She came home different.
I know why Rose left the receiving hospital before Dr. Ostrander stitched her hand. The doctor was busy. Halloween night at the hospital, costumes and crying. He told the nurse to clean up Rose. The nurse—the one Madge and I talked to—she seemed nice, but Rose wouldn’t notice. Rose had held a rag on her own cut hand for nearly an hour. Blood dried on her fingers and clothes. Shock, it’s called. She’d see the nurse and her own bloody hands, and she’d know she wasn’t in Hollywood. She was in Pomona. It doesn’t matter that really she was in Hollywood and her daughter had been stolen from her arms almost two years before. It was Pomona to her, and grief picked her up, and she ran.
Outside, Rose would have leaned against the emergency room door. Let’s say she leaned on the wall, where the door starts and leads to the room filled with hurt people, screaming people in costumes with blood fake and real. Let’s say Rose can still hear those people, but she doesn’t care. She’s in shock. She’s holding one wrist and scratching the cut on her thumb so it opens and drips. She’s just seen a nurse like the one in Pomona, who smiled and seemed nice but lifted her baby from her arms. The worst that can happen. The baby-stealing nurse.
Our nurse in receiving is that same nurse to Rose. Outside the building, the wind hits Rose’s face, and her hair is loose from its pins. Little whips of hair hit her cheeks. Little hard whips. And down the brick wall she sees another door swing and bang, and here comes Miles Abbott and Dr. Ostrander, doctor, holding a woman’s arms. The woman limps like she’s played vaquero and ridden a horse for five days. Rosemary knows that limp, and I do, too. It’s the limp of something stolen.
Rose wouldn’t shut up. She’d scream and scream, and in the wind, maybe her screams reached the woman, and maybe they didn’t. Maybe Rose recognized Bette Davis, and maybe she didn’t. Bette Davis could be any woman with that same limp.
She’s not, though. She’s Bette Davis. At the curb, Joe is waiting to drive home Miss Bette Davis, and at the curb, Marty is waiting for Miss Rosemary Brown. And Rose is screaming.
“This stinking world,” Stany said. She lit a cigarette and sucked in hard. She flipped over one empty martini glass and slid its rim on top of the other. With my one eye swollen shut and the other eye watering from pain, the stacked glasses looked to me like a huge rose-cut diamond.
Stany blew a smoke ring at the diamond. “Does Conejos know?”
“I told him this afternoon.”
“Conejos is nice. Handsome, in a round way. I do believe he’s handsome. He’d make a good leading man if he lost fifty pounds. At the very least, he’ll keep you away from my husband.”
Picador Girls wandered in from the Zanzibar. I didn’t know their picador names. I knew them as Indians: Apache, Lakota, Paiute, and a Paramount Wallflower who hated me. They crowded the bar with nothing to do, the shoot postponed.
“I suppose now you’ll move back to the farm,” Stany said. “And here we’ve just become friends. Who will be my friend now?”
“I know someone who’d make a great friend,” I said. “I don’t know her real name.” I set my steak on the table, slid out, and walked to the bar. The girls at the bar stopped talking and watched me. They didn’t care that my face was beat up, an eye swollen, dried blood in my nose. We didn’t trust each other. We didn’t know any real names or each other’s real stories. Alive or dead, in Hollywood we were ghosts. I kicked off my Wallflower shoes. I leaned over and felt the blood pulse in my hurt face and reached under my chiffon; I picked up the shoes by their dirty heels, then held them out to the Wallflower. “You can have your shoes back.”
She frowned. By candlelight, the shoes looked grimy and scuffed. They smelled. By daylight, they’d look worse. Both toes were stained purple, and one shoe had loose threads between the crepe sole and leather. Wallflower reached out one hand and took the shoes. She held them away from her fluffy picador skirt. “Why give them to me now? They’re ruined.”
“They’re magic. See those stains? That’s Spencer Tracy’s dried blood. You’ll have Spencer Tracy’s blood on your feet.”
“Spencer Tracy? You’re lying.”
“No. Look at me. I mean, really look at me. Look. Am I lying?”
“Yes. Probably. Maybe not,” she said.
“You’ve got Spencer Tracy’s blood on your shoes. With those shoes you’ll rule Hollywood. You’ll wear Spencer Tracy all day. I’m telling you, those shoes are magic. Say, do you want to be hated? You wan
t all these girls to talk about you, and leave the room when you come in, and forget to tell you things and maybe push you and misplace your callbacks and block your way during rehearsals?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Come meet someone.” I brought Wallflower to the booth to meet Stany.
CHAPTER 44
Bette Davis will appear soon in her stunning new triumph The Great Lie.
—Photoplay combined with Movie Mirror, May 1941
Marty Martin, Esq., fell accidentally from a staircase. I sat on my mom’s front steps in Buena Park and read it in an old Hollywood Reporter. All Hollywood grieved; Joan Crawford said, “Hollywood has lost a friend, and I, personally, am sick with grief. He was a good lawyer.” Nothing was said about the film Stany made of Marty’s accident, and nothing was said about me. Just below that article, a short notice from MGM announced Spencer Tracy’s return from a much-deserved secret vacation but didn’t mention his split lip or seventeen stitches above his ear. Dr. Ostrander had had to shave half his head. At least I’d only needed three stitches, above my left eye.
On the third page, I read about Bette Davis’s upcoming trade to Paramount for the picture She Lost Them to Paris. Production would start early summer.
Miss Davis, having just returned from a short and much-deserved secret vacation, continues to shoot her current motion picture for Warner Brothers, All This, and Heaven Too.
“Can I sit?”
Teddy Marshall stood on the front walk in his deputy’s uniform, hat tucked under one arm. I’d seen his car slowing on Grand, and my throat hadn’t closed. I’d heard him walk up, and I hadn’t bothered to watch. I was an Amazon now. Teddy seemed boring compared to me.
“Pen, can I sit?” Teddy used to look funny. He had a weird-angled tooth and hair we couldn’t describe. He used to kiss me in the mock orange and cut my lip. In his uniform now, about three feet from my face, he could have been in the movies. A Cary Grant nose. He sat on the bottom stair. He leaned forward and set a long envelope on the steps, then set his hat on the envelope. “I had trouble finding you. I came here, then I went to Hollywood. Then I found out you’d come back here. I’m sorry about your face.”
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