Dazzle - The Complete Unabridged Trilogy

by Judith Gould

  She released his sweater and took a stagger backward. Hands on her hips, she sighed hopelessly, rolled her green eyes, and shook her head. 'Tamara, my dear,' she said aloud, 'sometimes you can be a first-class bimbo.'

  Chapter 6

  'Cut!' Louis Ziolko roared malevolently into his megaphone as he shot up from his director's chair. 'Cut-cut-cut!' He stamped around noisily, muttering curses under his breath. He interrupted his pacing just long enough to throw a withering glance in Tamara's direction.

  What have I done wrong now? Tamara wondered in dismay. She stared at Ziolko. This was the twenty-eighth time he had had her repeat this simple scene, and once again he had brought filming to an abrupt halt. She could sense that his perfectionist's patience was beginning to wear dangerously thin.

  He lifted the megaphone to his lips. 'Kill the lights!'

  Instantly the blazing-hot klieg and spotlights high in the catwalks faded into crackling darkness, and Pearl Dern and the skeleton crew of fourteen seasoned technicians who were casually dressed and wore their boredom with the same casual ease with which they performed their various duties turned away and took the opportunity to light cigarettes.

  Tamara instantly felt the humid, biting chill of the unheated soundstage raising gooseflesh along her arms. Shivering, she rubbed them briskly with her hands. A girl from wardrobe hurried over to carefully drape a blanket around her shoulders, and Tamara managed a grateful smile as she exchanged the white feather boa for the blanket, clutching it tightly around her. Involuntarily, her teeth began chattering, which was not in the least bit surprising. The moment the blinding lights were switched to maximum wattage on her, she would break out into a sweat so that her face and shoulders had to be dusted with an absorbent powder; invariably, as soon as the lights dimmed, the chill would take hold of her again. Hot, cold. Hot, cold. She had seldom had to endure such temperature extremes, and she feared that if she wasn't careful, she would come down with pneumonia, or pleurisy at least. Her otherwise splendid costume, a short, skimpy white silk bodice dress, heavily sequined, with two rhinestone-studded spaghetti straps looped over her shoulders, ostrich-plume fan attached to her waist, and feathered headband, did as little to keep her warm as the two long strands of pearls hanging low from her neck and the paste diamonds around her wrists and on her fingers.

  Tamara turned away as Ziolko bore down on her, so that he wouldn't see her blinking back tears. 'What did I do now?' she asked in a timid voice, as though addressing the wall in front of her. For obviously she must have done something wrong again; why else would he have stopped the cameras from rolling? Still, she was almost certain she had been playing the scene perfectly.

  'This time it isn't anything you've done wrong,' he said in a voice of weary resignation. 'It's those damn spots.'

  'Spots?' She turned to face him. 'What spots?'

  He slid the blanket off her shoulders. 'Those.'

  She looked down and inspected her shoulders. A little whimper of surprise escaped her lips. Everywhere the feathers of the boa had touched her skin, red splotches rose up into ugly raised welts.

  She was allergic to feathers.

  Damn. This was a fine time to discover that.

  He leaned close into her face. 'What I want to know is, why didn't you say something about having allergies?' he demanded, his voice none the less threatening for its low tone.

  'How was I supposed to know?' she shot back angrily. A rivulet of tears slid out of one superbly made-up eye, damaging the exacting makeup with a streak of black mascara. 'It's not as if I dress up in chicken feathers all the time!'

  His expression softened as he sighed. 'Okay, okay. Just don't cry, huh? It's ruining your makeup.' He motioned Pearl over to repair the damage. 'Put enough makeup over her back and shoulders to hide the welts,' he said irritably. 'That'll do it, don't you think?'

  Pearl nodded and looked at Tamara sympathetically.

  Ziolko clicked his fingers at the wardrobe mistress. 'Exchange the boa for a white fur wrap.'

  The wardrobe mistress hurried off.

  Tamara looked at Ziolko in surprise. 'But won't the makeup ruin the fur?'

  He shrugged and looked at her steadily. 'Maybe, but what's the alternative? Who cares about a piece of fur as long as the scene works out?'

  Fifteen minutes later they shot the scene again. 'Take twentynine,' Ziolko boomed through his megaphone. 'Silence on the set!'

  The assistant cameraman leaned in front of Tamara. His wooden clapper snapped together like two noisy jaws, and the camera began to roll yet again.

  'Action!'

  Tamara clutched the fur stole casually around her and ignored the sudden blazing heat of the lights. For all of thirty seconds she walked slowly toward the camera, her face registering the haunted, faraway look of a person whose life was over. Then her footsteps slowed, she paused, and caught her breath. Though she did not know it, the lights shimmered on her sequined dress like molten silver. Her breasts rose and fell.

  Her breathing quickened. Her eyes gleamed and held a look of disbelief, and her lips parted in a hint of a smile. And then her ever-quickening footsteps brought her rushing toward the camera, a look of hope imprinted on her exquisite features. The assistant cameraman caught her just before she could collide with the camera.

  'Cut!' Ziolko's reverberating voice yelled through the megaphone. 'And print!'

  He grinned at her. The twenty-ninth take was a charm.

  Still, in the end the entire five-minute screen test was to take two-and-a-half days of shooting, and this was only to prepare her for the final test, a scene with dialogue and dancing with none other than Miles Gabriel, IA's leading man. The green-eyed young hopeful was more terrified than ever.

  Chapter 7

  'T'mara! It's fer you!' Jewel shrilled excitedly. She held out the telephone receiver and did a series of feverish hops. 'It's that Silko guy you been waitin' to hear from!'

  'Ziolko?' Tamara said blankly. She finished refilling the big chrome coffee urn and plonked the lid down on it. She wiped up the spills. She glanced at the hatchway and then checked the customers hunched over the counter. The two orders she'd given José weren't ready, and the customers were either busy sipping their coffees or eating. Only then did she slowly approach the phone.

  'Sweetie!' Jewel hissed. 'What the hell's the matter with you? The suspense is killin' me!' She thrust the receiver at Tamara and did another impatient little dance, her fists clenched.

  Tamara lifted the receiver to her ear. 'Mr. Ziolko?' she said tremulously.

  For a moment she could only hear the static and rushing sounds on the line. 'Louie,' he finally said. 'I thought we agreed you'd call me Louie.'

  'Louie.' Her voice sounded as weak, indistinct, and faraway as his.

  Jewel was gesturing frantically. 'What's he say?' she mouthed silently.

  Tamara turned her back on Jewel and tightened her grip on the receiver. 'It's bad news, isn't it?' she said into the shiny black instrument.

  There. The dreaded fear had been spoken aloud. It hung like a poisonous snake in the air.

  'Bad news?' Ziolko's voice came back. 'What's bad news?'

  She could have strangled him. Why was he toying with her like this?

  'The screen test,' she found herself saying. 'What else?'

  He sounded surprised. 'What makes you think it turned out badly?'

  Her heart was going bam . . . bam . . . bam, like a sledgehammer steadily pounding away at an anvil. She could almost see the sparks fly. 'Then . . . how did it turn out?'

  'I'll let you see for yourself. What are you doing day after tomorrow, at seven?'

  'In the morning?'

  'Evening. Seven pm. We're invited to O.T.'s for dinner.'

  'O.T.'s? You mean Oscar . . . Skolnik's?'She couldn't trust her ears. 'The head of IA?'

  'Don't know of any other.' He laughed easily. 'It's a date then, I take it.'

  'But what about the screen test?' she cried in anguish.

  '
O.T.'s house has a screening room. You'll see it then. Afterwards we'll talk about it.'

  'But we're talking now!'

  'Listen, there's no point in discussing it over the phone.' He paused. 'It's a little complicated.'

  Complicated! Oh, God, she could see her world crumbling already.

  'Where do I pick you up?'

  Her voice was subdued. 'Paterson's Mortuary.'

  He laughed. 'Paterson's Mortuary?'

  'That's what I said.'

  'Well, just don't go killing yourself in the meantime. We want you alive, not dead.'

  Her heart gave a hopeful surge. Was that to be construed as a positive sign, that they wanted her after all? She was dying to ask, but she said instead, 'I live there.'

  'Okay.' He didn't sound surprised. 'I'll pick you up at six-thirty.'

  And with that he clicked off.

  'A new dress?' Inge asked at dinner that night. 'Well, ja, I suppose we can afford it. I manage to put aside a little money. Why not? Is not every day my actress is invited to a studio Mongol's home.'

  'Mogul,' Tamara corrected without malice. Inge herself had demanded that she be corrected each time she misused English. 'A Mongol's from Mongolia.'

  Inge waved her soup spoon airily. 'Mogul, Mongol, is all the same to me. We go tomorrow to Goodwill.'

  Tamara's face fell. Somehow she managed to get the ungrateful-sounding words out before they strangled her. 'I'm not trying to be an ingrate, Inge,' she pleaded, 'but can't we get something new? Just this once?'

  Inge fell silent and looked thoughtfully down at her soup bowl, where a large white dumpling floated in fatty yellow chicken broth. Then she managed a smile. 'Why not? We find you something nice to wear to your Mongol's.'

  Tamara's eyes lit up. 'It's got to be something smart, though,' she said slowly.

  'Smart?' Inge asked. Her eyes flicked suspiciously sideways. 'How a dress can be smart? It thinks, huh?'

  'It's an expression. You know, like chic. Elegant. Classy.'

  Inge shook her head. 'Glassy clothes. Smart clothes. What will they think of next?'

  Tamara let the 'glassy' slide. All she had thought for was her new dress with the strand of pearls shimmering around her throat. She loved those pearls, and took every opportunity to wear them. That they were inexpensive fakes from Woolworth's didn't matter one iota. What did matter was that she'd had her eyes on them ever since she'd seen a photograph of Constance Bennett wearing pearls. That had done it. And the Woolworth pearls made her feel right up there along with Constance Bennett.

  At two-thirty the next afternoon they entered Dorothy's Dress Shoppe, Inge looking out of place and older than her thirty-seven years in her dowdy, shapeless grey coat, heavy, sensible brown shoes, large frayed handbag, and the shapeless little black hat she wore whenever she stepped out-of-doors. Tamara set her magnificent chin firmly and refused to be intimidated by the elegant surroundings of the emporium she had, until now, only been able to gaze longingly at from outside. Dorothy's! she thought ecstatically, taking in its hushed, almost ecclesiastic silence. What incredible luxury! She looked around the shop in wonder. Why, there was even plush carpeting on the floor!

  'Oh, Inge! Isn't everything too divine?' she breathed, dancing along an aisle, her fingertips rippling the glorious dresses hanging from racks on either side. She paused, breathless, and danced back toward Inge, rippling the dresses again. 'Isn't it all to die for?'

  Even Inge had to admit that while the clothes at Dorothy's were certainly not worth the price of death, they were very fine indeed.

  A patrician saleslady in a well-tailored dove-grey dress and immaculately coiffed silver hair approached them, revealing only for a fraction of an instant her unqualified disapproval of Inge's hopelessly frayed outfit before a mask of inscrutable professionalism slid smoothly over her features. 'Madame is looking for something?' she inquired with only a modicum of disdain.

  Inge shook her head and lowered her eyes shyly. 'Not for me, sank you.' She touched Tamara's shoulders and pushed her gently forward. 'Is for her,' she said proudly, lifting her shiny eyes. 'She needs a glassy dress.'

  The saleslady raised her eyebrows. 'A glassy dress?'

  'She means elegant,' Tamara explained.

  Inge nodded and lowered her voice confidentially. 'She is invited to dinner at film Mongol's house in the Beverly Hills! I want her to look nice, like she belong.'

  'Here at Dorothy's we pride ourselves on helping our customers look their best,' the saleslady sniffed. 'The finest people in the city patronize us. What did you have in mind?'

  Inge gave an expressive, helpless shrug. 'Tamara, she know. She read all the magazines.'

  The saleslady looked Tamara over to gauge her size. 'Is it to be formal?'

  'I ... I don't know, ma'am.'

  'I see.' The saleslady pursed her lips thoughtfully. 'I suggest a dress, then, not a gown. You have a good figure and very nice legs. There's no need to hide them. You'll also be able to wear it both days and evenings.'

  'That sounds goot,' Inge declared, nodding.

  'And the, er, price range you have in mind?' The saleslady looked at Inge.

  Inge steeled herself. 'Ten dollar?' she ventured, naming what was to her an astronomical sum.

  'I see.' The saleslady sighed. 'That limits our selection, I'm afraid. However, we do have a few rather nice sale items left over from last year. One in particular should suit the young lady quite nicely. I'll go get it and she can try it on.'

  'It must be decent,' Inge warned. 'I want her to look a lady.'

  'Of course,' the woman said, 'and she shall.' She strode off to find the dress, and when she returned, Tamara took one look at it and uttered a swift, fervent prayer that it would fit her. And it did. Standing in front of the three-way mirror, turning this way and that to catch her reflections, she could scarcely believe her eyes. It was a body-hugging sheath that came up to the armpits and reached to mid-calf, was made of tightly gathered satin the colour of perfectly ripe raspberries, and had thick black velvet straps which looped over her shoulders. It could be worn with the extravagantly gargantuan matching satin bow pinned near the hem on one side for formal wear or without it for a more casual look. Her face was flushed with pink excitement at the anticipation of acquisition. She looked, she knew, in a word, sensational.

  She was enchanted, bewitched, in love with the dress.

  Even Inge knew a sight for sore eyes when she saw it. She nodded her approval. 'Ja, that looks goot. How much it will cost?'

  'It's a beautiful dress,' the saleslady praised lavishly. 'Handmade, not mass-produced. Originally it was priced at twenty-four dollars.'

  'So much!' Inge looked horrified.

  'It has been reduced to twelve.'

  'Twelve dollar,' Inge muttered, the corners of her lips twitching.

  Tamara was crestfallen. She knew that look of Inge's only too well; equally well, she knew how far Inge could stretch those twelve precious dollars.

  After a thoughtful silence Inge asked, 'Do you have something else nice for less money?'

  Tamara silently offered up another, even more fervent prayer. She had to have this dress, this extravagant fantasy which made her look and feel beautiful. She couldn't bear the thought of having to part with it.

  The saleslady shook her head. 'I'm sorry, this is the least expensive, I assure you.'

  Tamara held her breath, staring at Inge's reflection in the mirror. This was the moment of reckoning. She could see Inge's fingers tightening on the handbag. Another bad sign.

  'You like it, Tamara?' Inge softly asked at long last.

  Tamara nodded swiftly, too shaky to speak.

  'Then you shall have your glassy dress,' Inge announced under a sudden fusillade of happy hugs and noisy kisses.

  'Damn!' Tamara wailed as the unmanageable stray curl escaped her newly coiffed hair and spiralled down the middle of her forehead. Disgusted, she tugged it back up with the tortoiseshell comb. 'Why does it have to come undone now, o
f all times?'

  It was nearly six-thirty and she was still planted in front of the bathroom mirror, comb in one hand, bobby pins sticking out from between her lips like a mouthful of spiky porcupine quills. She had draped herself with a bedsheet to protect her precious new dress from water spots or stray hair, and longed, not for the first time, that instead of this mottled, distorting, cracked mirror she had an honest-to-goodness sit-down vanity with a large, well-lit mirror. She would give her eyeteeth for one.

  She raked the comb through her hair again and then shook her head. The shoulder-length waves bounced as easily and naturally as springs. Aha! Triumph at last! The recalcitrant curl had finally been tamed.

  She put down the comb, spat out the bobby pins, and let the bedsheet slide off her shoulders. She rumpled it into a ball and shoved it under the sink. Then she rubbed her bare arms briskly while experimenting with various seductive poses in the mirror. Damn, it was chilly. No matter now cold it got, Roland J. Paterson's bathroom in this apartment was never heated; still, she was grateful to have it.

  'He is here!' Inge burst excitedly into the bathroom. 'I never seen such a giant car!' Then she gasped, stepped back, clasped her hands in front of her, and shook her head. 'Du bist so schön!' she marvelled admiringly in disbelief, reverting to her native German as she always did when something frightened, shocked, or impressed her unduly. 'So schön.'

  'You're sure I'm all right?' Tamara asked worriedly. 'You're not just saying that to please me?'

  Inge smiled and tilted her head. 'Ja. I'm sure,' she said gently, her eyes glowing warmly with love. She placed the palm of her hand on Tamara's cheek and held it there. She shook her head sadly. 'Mein Liebchen. Already you go out into the world. Soon you have use no more for your Inge.'

  'Of course I will!'

  Before her emotions could overcome her, Inge drew back and said gruffly, 'Leave everything be. Later I clean up here.' She thrust a crocheted black stole into Tamara's hands. 'It is cold out. Put around you.' She paused. 'Now, go. Go.'