by Sandra Kitt
Savannah understood exactly what Rae Marie was referring to. It was at the center of her friendship with her father. It was, quite frankly, at the core of Rae Marie’s life. Her identity. Who she was, or who she wanted to be.
“Yes, I know. Yours is an amazing story. It must have been so hard for you.”
“It was. It was a terrible burden not to be found out.” Her chuckle was hoarse. “I made fools out of a lot of Hollywood folks. I was estranged from my family for years because of what I was doing. Lord, if I didn’t have Will…Tell me about Will. He was my only friend in those days. The one person who knew everything, and didn’t hate me for what I did.”
“Ms. Hilton, I have a lot of things I want to tell you. There are hundreds of questions I need to ask. I was wondering if it’s possible for me to come over to Kauai to meet you? I already have a place to stay, and—”
“When can you come?”
Savannah and McCoy landed at Lihue Airport on Kauai late on a Thursday night after a six-hour flight from L.A. McCoy had taken care of everything: arranging for a rental car, getting directions to the house in Princeville and driving the two of them, in near-pitch-black darkness on one-lane roads, to the north side of Kauai. He’d done most of the talking and calming of nerves, reassuring her that the arranged meeting with Rae Marie would be a good thing. It would answer questions and perhaps provide closure for both of them.
But Savannah had not admitted to Mccoy that one of her greatest fears had been that the woman who was her father’s friend had had her private history trolled for the benefit of a film script and might reject her if she knew. While it hadn’t been completely self-serving, it had been an invasion. Savannah wasn’t sure if Rae Marie would or could forgive her for that.
The split-level house belonging to McCoy’s friend was set back about fifty yards from the road. In the dark, as they unpacked their luggage from the car, Savannah could hear the ocean breaking on the shore behind them in the night. They had to walk down one set of stairs from the parking area, and then up another to the front of the house. Inside, the common spaces were on the first level: the kitchen, dining alcove, living room and lanai or outside terrace. There were two bedrooms on the lower level, one with its own bathroom and walk-in closet. Savannah and McCoy chose this master suite to use during their stay.
They’d brought no food with them, as McCoy’s friend had recommended, opting for the adventure of eating out locally. They finally settled down in the king-sized bed together, snuggling close under a lightweight comforter. With the lights out and the quiet outside wrapping them in a safe blanket of peace and comfort, Savannah listened to McCoy’s resonant voice as he reminded her that she now had a chance to set the record straight by reaching out to Rae Marie. It was she who was now keeper of keys to the kingdom that was her father’s rich history. She was the remaining conduit of his connections to Hollywood and of his loyal friendship to a woman who had needed it.
Savannah curled herself against McCoy, letting his voice lull her into a safe place where she could sleep—and dream.
With McCoy at the wheel of their Jeep, Savannah was free to sightsee and fill her eyes with the incredible color and lush landscape of Kauai. It was a very small island, dominated by Waimea Canyon in the middle and the nearly inaccessible Na Poli coast on the north. The towns and villages hugged the coast, connected by one main highway. But that continuous line was broken at the start of the Na Poli coastline, discouraging development of any kind.
She had a sense of why the island might have appeal to Rae Marie Hilton. In some ways, like L.A., it was possible to become anonymous here, to fade into the slow and easy lifestyle. She’d been told that people either fell in love with it or could only stay for a limited period of time before running back to what a larger community might offer. Those who stayed embraced the laid-back daily life of few demands and little stress.
The small towns seemed like a throwback to the slapdash hippy days of the sixties, and, indeed, there was plenty of evidence that the sixties sensibilities were alive and well here.
The next morning Savannah thought she was still dreaming when the distinctive crowing of a cock woke her up at dawn. It was such an unexpected sound that she got out of bed to peer out a window to see the majestic bird, feathered in red and black, strutting along the walkway next to the house.
But her amusement quickly gave way to nerves as she and McCoy prepared for their drive to meet with Rae Marie. She had given Savannah precise instructions on how to find her house, saying she was not easy to find, and that had been by design.
While McCoy maneuvered the winding narrow roads, Savannah sat with a box balanced on her lap. It was the one she’d found in her father’s closet with all of Rae Marie’s secrets.
“It’s going to be all right, Vann,” McCoy said, sensing her excitement and anxiety.
“I know. I just don’t want to say the wrong thing to make her uncomfortable or bring back bad memories.”
“Relax. She’s probably a little scared of you, too. You know her secrets. She knows nothing of you, except that you’re Will Shelton’s daughter. I think you’re going to find that Ms. Hilton is a tough survivor. She’d have to be to live the life she has.”
They found Rae Marie’s paradise hideaway near Ha’ena. The small cottage was off a dirt road, obscured by thick shrubbery and trees, bird-of-paradise, plumeria and hyacinth growing wild around it.
“Oh my God, it’s beautiful,” Savannah whispered, not realizing that she’d spoken at all.
The house was painted green and faded easily into its surroundings. It seemed almost magically tucked away.
There was an ancient Volvo parked under a tree on one side of the house. Three steps led to the front door, the landing of which was the start of what seemed to be a wraparound porch. Mac turned off the engine, and they just sat in the car staring through the windshield at the setting. The house gave the impression of being just a few hundred feet off the beach, but it was actually built on a plateau or shelflike flat rock about thirty feet above the rugged beach. The surf could be heard breaking against the shore.
Despite the roar of the ocean, it seemed a quiet setting. There were the sounds of the land and the woods and the beach, of birds and the incredible throaty crowing of another rooster. Savannah and McCoy got out of the car, feeling very much as if they had stepped back into the forest primeval. Savannah caught a movement from the corner of her eye and turned to find an older woman dressed in dark loose pants and a light tunic top with a mandarin collar, coming from the side of the house where the Volvo was parked. She carried a basket laden with fresh-cut flowers and greens. Accompanying her, the way the family dog might follow its owner about, was a black cat, its yellow eyes questioning their presence but showing no fear of them.
“Hello. You made it. I thought I heard a car come up. Sorry it took me so long to get here. Not as fast as I used to be,” the woman said, calmly accepting her limitations brought on by age.
To Savannah, however, her movements appeared brisk and energetic and far more youthful than aged.
“I’ll take that,” McCoy said, jogging forward to relieve her of the large basket.
“Oh, it’s not all that heavy, but thank you. You’re McCoy.” She stopped and stood glancing between them. “And you’re Savannah, of course.” Making her own assessment, she nodded finally in approval. “Come inside. I made some lemonade and shortbread cookies with macadamia nuts.”
Despite all that she knew about her, Savannah was still taken aback by Rae Marie’s appearance. If she didn’t already have the knowledge she’d gained from reading the letters and journals, she could never have mistaken the woman for anything but white. The once-thick dark hair was cut bluntly at the nape, and was now almost all silvery gray. The texture was still wavy, as in her youth, and was now made even more so by the constant humidity of a small island with its own rain forest. Her eyes were an inquisitive green, clear and bright in a face that was still beautiful despite exposure to damaging su
nlight, ocean air, wind and probably a lack of respect for any skin care regimen.
But one thing was clear, at least to Savannah. Whatever demons had once ruled Rae Marie’s life had been banished. She saw only an aging woman who’d finally made peace and settled with grace into being exactly who and what she was.
“Out back I’ve been experimenting with growing some of the smaller orchids. The air is perfect up here for that. I also have some white ginger and frangipani. I know a young man from the Kauai Nursery and Landscaping on the west side who’s been promising to build me a little greenhouse.”
“So, when do you have time to sleep?” McCoy asked, making her laugh.
“Well, you know what they say. There’s plenty of time to rest when you’re dead.”
She sat in a worn chair that was angled to take in the view out her window overlooking the ocean to her left, and her guests on the inside to her right. The cat jumped up on the arm of the overstuffed chair, not to sit in Rae Marie’s lap, but to lie along the back of the chair just behind her shoulder.
“You seem happy here,” Savannah observed.
“Oh, I am,” Rae Marie said. “But it took a while, and it wasn’t easy. I fought it tooth and nail, as if I didn’t have a right to be happy. Believe it or not, things actually got easier after a local accused me of being another mainlander pretending to be a native. I got angry and said I am a native. I’m not Hawaiian but my existence is rooted in the culture of brown and black people. Of course I had to explain that, but it turned out to be true what we were taught—the truth will set you free.”
Savannah exchanged a look with McCoy who, finally seeing Rae Marie, had an intuitive sense of how unsettling and confusing her life must have been. His gaze was filled with respect, as if he recognized just how her life had finally come full circle.
Rae Marie grew reflective, her eyes distant and wistful as she let her past creep back.
“I was the lightest one in a family of high-yellow blacks. I think even my parents were shocked at how I looked. You could see all my family in my face, my eyes and mouth and laugh. But I was so white. Don’t know how to explain that. I do know it made my life and the life of my family very stressful. We were accused of all kinds of things I still can’t talk about. I guess I was fifteen when I decided what I was going to do to make it better.”
Savannah could see the pain that still surfaced to haunt the older woman.
“If you read my letters and journals you understand what I’m talking about. But instead of coming to Hollywood and finding myself, I got lost there. Keeping a secret as big as the one I had was tiring and very dangerous. Will Shelton was the one who kept me on track so I wouldn’t go out of my mind. He never judged me. He was just my friend. I don’t know what I would have become without him during those years.”
The black cat stretched and arched its back, and then jumped carefully into her lap, walked in a circle and settled down in a ball to sleep. Rae Marie stroked its glossy fur absently.
“I know a lot of people would have vilified you passing,” McCoy spoke up. “But I think you were pretty gutsy to attempt what you did. In a way, it was a great feat of acting, pretending to be someone you’re not, on and off the screen. It was a great performance that no one really saw except for Will Shelton,” McCoy commented thoughtfully.
“I never looked at it that way. I just wanted to be accepted. I wanted to fit in. The whole time I was in Hollywood I kept thinking of that movie, Pinkie. A beautiful young Southern girl who is black passes for white. Then she comes back home to face the music and the humiliation from both blacks and whites in town. It was quite a movie for its time. Very daring. Very true.
“Where I fell into trouble, I think, was believing that Hollywood could validate me, make me real. I put too much store in the whole becoming-a-star dream. I was lucky to realize before it destroyed me that becoming a star wouldn’t save me. That trying to be white wouldn’t either.” She squinted at Savannah. “Did your father ever marry Carrie?”
“You know about her?”
“Oh, yes. And I know she knew about me, but we never met. I also knew she and your father were in love. I told him to marry her.”
“He never did,” Savannah acknowledged.
“Fool,” Rae Marie lamented, her voice quiet and sad. “He wanted to fix everything for everyone, but could never quite see how to fix his own life. He told me if I wanted to save my soul I better get out of town. Take up another career. I ended up here. No career, no husband or children, but hundreds of dear loving friends. I think now on how silly it all seems, to chase after those celluloid dreams. It took me all my life to learn I am responsible for my happiness. I can choose to be happy. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?”
McCoy glanced at Savannah and she knew what his silent look meant. She lifted the box from the floor where she’d placed it after sitting down.
“I have something for you.”
“Oh, no gifts, please,” Rae Marie chuckled. “I don’t have room for another thing in this house. Not if it needs to be dusted.”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” She got up to carry the box to Rae Marie and held it out to her. “These belong to you. I thought you’d want them back.”
Rae Marie lifted the box top and found inside all her letters and journals left in Will Shelton’s keeping.
“Will kept all of this?” she asked Savannah. “I wonder why? I always thought that after I left California he would just throw it all away. Writing was a way for me to vent, since I had only your father to talk to. These letters and journals aren’t important anymore.”
“The thing is, I think they are,” Savannah said.
“Me, too,” McCoy added.
“Well, what do you think I should do with all of this?”
“I have a confession to make,” Savannah began. She saw that she had Rae Marie’s attention and rushed on. “When I first found the box I read through just about everything. Afterward, your life and what you went through in Hollywood as an actress gave me an idea for a story. I sat and wrote a film script.”
“You wrote my life story?”
“No, not at all. I didn’t know where you were, or if you were even still alive. I didn’t know if you’d approve of having your life exposed, so I wrote a story about a character who goes through some of the same things that you did when you came to Hollywood. Then, just when she’s about to make a real breakthrough in a major project and will be promoted as the next big star, she’s found out. She’s pulled off one of the greatest acting feats there is, and no one sees it. The studio execs only see that she’s not what she said she was, instead of seeing her true talents. Etc., etc.”
Rae Marie stared at Savannah wide-eyed for a long time. “How clever. It sounds like a daring idea to me. What happened to your script?”
“Vann got an agent who got her an option deal that fell through just two weeks ago.”
“My agent is still trying to sell the idea, but I think what I’d really like to do is write your life story. I could fictionalize it, if you like, or maybe interview you over a period of time and put together a biography. What do you think?”
“I don’t think my life’s interesting enough, but I’m flattered and honored that you’d want to take the time. Let me think about it.” She replaced the top on the box and rested her hands there. “And thank you for returning this to me. I might read these letters and journals again.”
“Vann and I would like to take you to dinner,” McCoy said.
“That would be lovely. I know a nice little place in Poipu if you don’t mind the drive.” She started to get up and suddenly settled back down in her chair. “Wait. I have some questions of my own to ask.”
“Of course. Anything,” Savannah offered.
“Do you know that your father has a theater named after him somewhere in L.A.? I forget where.”
“Yes, McCoy took me to see it a few months back. I met some of the theater troupe.”
“Good, good. And
do you know that Will and I did a movie together that was never released? The movie hinted at a love story between the two of us that the press made a big thing out of. That’s not what was happening in the story but a lot of people missed the bigger picture.
“Mac had a copy and we watched it together. I thought it was very good,” Savannah said.
Rae Marie stared at McCoy, her gaze thoughtful. “What do you think of Savannah’s film-script idea?” she asked him.
“It’s surprisingly good. I’d only suggest one change.”
“You would?” Savannah responded, surprised.
McCoy looked at her. “I think you should write into the script a role that’s very like your father. It would be a nice way of honoring who and what he was.”
“I like that idea. Would you mind if I see a copy?” Rae Marie questioned.
“There’s one inside the box,” Savannah said, pointing. “I’d love to hear what you think.”
“Oh, I’ll be honest with you,” Rae Marie said dryly. “So, are you two an item?”
Savannah glanced quickly at McCoy, but she could tell that Rae Marie’s question had caught him off guard as well.
“Savannah and I haven’t talk—”
“Okay, here’s a simple, straightforward question. Are you in love with her?”
McCoy gave his full attention to Rae Marie as if they were the only two in the room. But then he took so long to answer that Savannah felt disheartened. She knew what he had been going to say before he was interrupted: that the two of them had not discussed anything personal involving a future, let alone marriage. She’d never before seriously considered getting married, knowing she was perhaps overly influenced not only by her parents’ failed relationship, but by her father’s lack of action on his love for Carrie Spencer.
Her relationship with Mac was a surprise to her. It seemed to have evolved naturally, but in a way that had already led Savannah to the conclusion that she was falling in love with McCoy Sutton. It was happening, so what was there to talk about?