Love Me

by Love Me (ARC) (epub)

  Margo straightened her spine, trying to coax her body into the regally fatalistic posture she had assumed when she approached the execution block in the final scene of The Nine Days’ Queen. What was it Raoul Kurtzman had whispered in his tortuous English into her ear before the cameras rolled? Cutting off your head, you can’t stop them. But you can stop them from the satisfaction of seeing you afraid.

  “Of course,” Dane said quietly. “It’s a great relief.”

  “And such a surprise!” Mr. Karp crowed. “If I hadn’t known about it already, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I would have dropped dead of a heart attack right there.”

  “Diana’s always known how to make an entrance.”

  “That she has.” Mr. Karp smiled benevolently. “Now, Dane, I want you to know, I appreciate what she’s put you through.”

  “What she’s—”

  “She’s quite contrite, believe me, and eager to befriend you both. I told her to give it time. But I hope you’ll soon be able to forgive her.” He looked at them both with pleading eyes. “For the sake of the Olympus family. A father wants all his children to get along.”

  Who, exactly, Margo wondered, is this performance for? Surely Mr. Karp was aware that everyone in the room knew that the story Diana had parroted to the magazines was a total fiction, concocted by none other than Larry Julius himself. Surely he knew, and knew that they knew, where Diana had been all along, that until recently the role she’d been playing had not been so much “prisoner of love” as “inmate at the asylum.”

  And while he might not exactly have known the extent of the bargain with the devil Dane and Diana had made in their joint thirst for stardom—Dane was sure that nobody, not even Larry Julius, knew that—he must have suspected that behind closed doors, their relationship may not have been quite what it seemed.

  Yet once an official studio version of a story had come over the wires, you could put Mr. Karp to the rack and he would never admit it was anything less than absolutely, one hundred percent true. Nobody had any choice but to play along with the script he had provided. Not for the first time, Margo wondered whether of all the great actors who had passed through Olympus’s gates, Leo F. Karp wasn’t the greatest of them all.

  “Still, just to make sure we don’t have any”—Mr. Karp paused to think of a suitably neutral, and therefore meaningless, phrase—“any unnecessary misunderstandings, I’ve put her straight back to work on the new Raoul Kurtzman picture. Madame Bovary, written by some French fellow. It’s a closed set, and as you know, Kurtzman’s a real taskmaster when he wants to be. You’re not likely to see her in the commissary or out on the town for a while. When it makes sense to get the three of you together, Mr. Julius will orchestrate it as he sees fit, isn’t that right, Larry?”

  Larry coughed. “You bet, boss.”

  “So you see.” Mr. Karp gave a satisfied nod. “It’s the best thing for everyone.”

  The best thing for everyone. Diana in Madame Bovary. So the rumors were true. Margo had expected as much, but still, hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth felt so terribly final. She stared at her lap, willing herself not to cry.

  It was as if Mr. Karp could read her thoughts. “Margo, dear, I know you’re disappointed,” he said, his tone gentle. “If it makes you feel any better, Kurtzman did mention you for the part. But in the end, it wasn’t his decision to make, and in time, you’ll see I was right. A part like this, playing this kind of woman, this Emma Bovary, an unfaithful woman, an impure woman”—he moved his hand through the air as though waving away a particularly bad smell—“that isn’t for you. Especially not under the circumstances.”

  Under the circumstances?

  “What circumstances?” Margo finally found her voice. “What are you talking about?”

  Mr. Karp nodded solemnly at Larry Julius, who produced a briefcase from behind his chair. From this he took several pieces of paper and placed them carefully on Mr. Karp’s desk. They were magazine pages, or rather, they were the mock-ups magazines made of their pages, showing how things should be laid out before they were sent to the printer. Margo recognized the familiar typeface of Picture Palace in the headline that marched across the top:

  Is There No Decency?

  Yet Another “Wholesome” Hollywood Couple Discovered Living in Scandalous Sin!

  And then beneath it all, there were pictures of Dane and Margo. Not the usual film or publicity stills the magazines usually ran, but a grainy photograph that looked like something you’d get from a private investigator. Margo leaving the house in Malibu in the early-morning light; Dane bare-chested under his dressing gown, watching her go. The two of them half dressed, caught in an intimate moment on the small strip of sand behind that house that was supposed to be Dane’s beach.

  Dane’s private beach.

  Margo’s head was spinning. Wildly, she scanned the close-set type, but the smudged letters seemed to swirl together in a crazy jumble. All she could make out were a few phrases:

  Malibu love nest … Hotbed of immorality … What must her parents think?

  “Oh no,” Margo gasped. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

  Mr. Karp was shaking his head. “Personally, I don’t understand why the public wants to see this trash. In the old days, the magazines kept out of the gutter. All of a sudden, it’s a race to the bottom, ever since that disgraceful story in Photoplay last year.”

  “Hollywood’s Unmarried Husbands and Wives.” Already it was one of the most notorious articles ever to hit the movie colony. A roundup of virtually every major player living illicitly—or even more scandalously, extramaritally—with a lover, it had ruined careers, angered the Hays Office (the Hollywood censors who took it upon themselves to make sure stars stayed pure enough for Middle America, on- and offscreen), inspired “moral” boycotts all over the country, and destroyed more than one marriage to a formerly pliant partner who had been more than happy to look the other way, as long as affairs weren’t made public. It’s the knowing that’s the problem, Margo thought. Look at Vivien Leigh. She’d been living for ages with Laurence Olivier, and nobody minded a bit, even though they were both married to other people. Then David O. Selznick picked her to play Scarlett O’Hara, the tabloids started sniffing around, and all of a sudden, Olivier got shipped off to New York to do a play and poor Vivien had a twenty-four-hour armed guard posted around her house, just in case he should somehow manage to slip away. Everything’s fine as long as no one knows who you are.

  Margo looked back down at the pictures of her and Dane. Of their life, their most private, most intimate life splashed across the pages for millions of strangers to pore over, leer at, disapprove of. Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, she thought of that horrible night at Doris’s coming-out party all those months ago, of Phipps McKendrick pushing her down on the lawn, of his fury and confusion when she tried to fight him off, as if he thought she was supposed to be there for him to do with whatever he wanted. As if she had no right to any feelings or desires of her own.

  As if I were a thing.

  Margo felt like she was going to be sick.

  Dane, however, was all business, his voice urgent and low. “What’s to be done?”

  “There’s only one thing to do in a situation like this.”

  Larry Julius seemed to have taken over, and in a way, Margo was relieved. Larry could give her the bad news straight, without couching it in a lot of meaningless sentimentality or guilt about how disappointed he was that she hadn’t turned out to be such a nice girl after all. Larry Julius didn’t think anyone was a nice girl. “Thanks to my guy on the inside, we have a week before this is due to go to press. Plenty of time to change the story.”

  Margo braced herself. No tearful scenes. No special pleading. He’d tell her she’d have to give Dane up, and she’d take it like a man. They both would.

  Larry smiled. “Congratulations, y
ou two. You’re getting married.”

  “Married?”

  It was so different, so totally, utterly, wonderfully different from what she’d been expecting that Margo couldn’t help but scream. “We’re getting married?”

  “Sure, duchess.” Larry laughed. “What’d you think? We haven’t had a big studio wedding in a long time, and there’s no time like the present. It’ll be a gas to plan. And we’ll have the press along every step of the way: the ring, the bridesmaids, the dress, and of course the ceremony. We’ll have to throw it all together in a hurry, but nobody can do it like we can. Shouldn’t take more than about six weeks.”

  Six weeks! Margo’s heart leapt in her chest. True, it wasn’t exactly the proposal of her dreams, but what did that matter? The familiar images she hadn’t even dared to think of over the last several months started rushing into her mind. Banks and banks of gorgeous flowers, all in shades of lavender … no, palest pink would look better in the photos. An audience full of the most glamorous movie stars in the world—maybe even a world leader or two!—staring at her in awe and admiration as she floated down the aisle in a diamond tiara and gorgeous white gown, clutching her father’s reassuring arm … and Dane Forrest, still the most handsome man Margo had ever seen, whose picture had once hung above her bed in the olden days in Pasadena, waiting for her at the altar, the light of love shining in his eyes.

  “Oh, Dane,” she murmured, gazing up at him in adoration.

  And suddenly it hit her like a ton of bricks.

  It only lasted a moment, the slack look of horror that she saw there. A split second before his face regained its practiced equanimity. That amused nonchalance that set racing the hearts of women all over the world.

  But a split second was enough.

  He doesn’t want to marry me. And he never has.

  Larry Julius was opening a bottle of champagne he’d mysteriously produced out of nowhere. “Congratulations, you crazy kids.”

  “Mazel tov.” Leo Karp was beaming. “And let me be the first to kiss the bride.”

  Fourteen

  There was plenty of stuff to do at Olympus when you had an afternoon to kill. In fact, the whole place had been designed specifically—and rather creepily, if you really thought about it—so that you never had to leave.

  After Amanda failed to turn up for lunch in the commissary, which was either a very good sign regarding the redhead’s future prospects at the studio or a very bad one, Gabby had wandered for a while around the studio’s Main Street, looking at the penny postcards for sale in the specially zoned Olympus post office and leafing through the magazines at the newsstand. She ducked into the movie theater and caught the beginning of the old print of An Affair of the Heart they were screening in honor of Diana Chesterfield’s triumphant return. After a while, she noticed Margo Sterling sitting in the back.

  At least, Gabby thought it was Margo. It was hard to tell in the dark, with the heavily veiled hat she was wearing. Whoever it was, she was all alone and, from the sound of the faint sobs welling up from behind the veil, seemed about as eager for company as Greta Garbo, so Gabby beat a hasty retreat through the side door, which handily deposited her on the sidewalk right in front of her favorite place on the whole studio lot: Dr. Lipkin’s office.

  After she’d gotten all her prescriptions refilled—and scarfed down some of her medicinal bounty right there in the waiting room—she felt so good she thought she’d walk all the way up to the hills behind the back lot and visit the horses. But the stables were closed on account of some Western they were shooting that day, so she scrapped that plan and stopped by the little yellow schoolhouse in the orange grove where Olympus’s younger stars had their mandatory three hours of schooling every day. When Gabby had first arrived at Olympus she had sat in the classroom for three afternoons before Viola had managed to produce some official-looking and almost certainly one hundred percent fake paperwork stating Gabby was sixteen and therefore exempt.

  But Gabby had liked it in there: the smell of the chalk, the neat white strokes of the cursive alphabet marching across the tops of the blackboards. It was a pleasant place to sit and listen for a while—at least, until Miss Higgins started asking people to read out loud and Gabby fled in the humiliating and very real terror that she might be called on next. Another couple of pills, along with a healthy swig or two from one of the bottles Jimmy Molloy kept in his unlocked bungalow, soon restored her equilibrium.

  But nothing could compare with the sight of Eddie Sharp leaning over the car door and the knowledge that he had come for her.

  Nothing, Gabby thought, nothing could make me feel better than this.

  “Yoo-hoo, Eddie! Over here!”

  He waved at her, frowning slightly. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  Gabby ran her hands anxiously over the sides of her dress. A tight-fighting burgundy crepe with a white lace Peter Pan collar, it was the same one she’d been wearing all day, although she had added a pair of white kid gloves and a little velvet evening jacket with a fox collar she’d smuggled out of the wardrobe department that afternoon when Sadie’s back was turned.

  “What’s the matter? Isn’t it smart enough?”

  “Smart enough?” Eddie laughed. “Honey, where we’re going, you’re going to look like Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We can stop by your place if you want to change. Or something.”

  His tone was casual enough, but there was a twinkle in his eye—a twinkle that seemed to say that Gabby Preston changing clothes was something he might very much like to see. Gabby was tempted to say yes. She imagined Eddie sitting on the canopied bed in her pink bedroom, watching as she unzipped her dress, slowly stepped out of her slip …

  Quickly, she pushed the thought aside. They couldn’t run the risk of going to her house. Viola would probably be there, and if she was, Gabby would never get out again. That was the reason she hadn’t gone home to change in the first place. “It’s out of the way,” she said quickly.

  “You don’t even know where we’re going.”

  “Well, I know what traffic is like,” Gabby insisted. “And besides, I’d rather be overdressed.” She struck a dramatic pose, her hand to her forehead like a silent film actress. “Remember, I’m supposed to be a movie star.”

  Eddie laughed. “That you are, peanut. Well, suit yourself. Now come on.” He opened the passenger-side door and patted the seat. “Get in.”

  Gabby slid across the smooth leather, feeling the knot in her stomach tighten painfully and deliciously as Eddie’s lips carelessly brushed her cheek in greeting.

  This is it. My first real date. Tonight there would be no hairdresser tying up her corkscrew curls with little-girl hair ribbons, no packs of photographers or sour-faced studio chaperones or flacks murmuring instructions into her ear: “Smile, Gabby. Now look surprised. Now hold his hand, now kiss his cheek.” Tonight, she was just a regular girl going out with a boy for the simple reason that she wanted to.

  And, she thought, as she inched closer to him on the seat, just until she could feel the warmth of his thigh kiss her own, because he wants to go out with me.

  Eddie lit a cigarette and offered her a drag. Gabby usually didn’t smoke, since Viola was sure it would damage her voice, but this time she eagerly accepted.

  He must want to kiss me, she thought excitedly, or at least, the thought doesn’t totally disgust him. That’s what it means when a boy offers you something his lips have touched. To be honest, she wasn’t completely sure this was a hard and fast rule, but she liked the sound of it. It seemed like something Amanda would say.

  “Thanks,” she said, suppressing a cough as she handed the cigarette back to him. “I needed that.”

  Eddie looked amused as he turned the key in the ignition. “Glad I could help.”

  They drove down through the hil
ls. The scenery was changing now. The Hollywood Gabby knew, with its palm-lined boulevards and pale stucco palazzos, was falling away. The houses were smaller here, crammed together like cans on a grocery store shelf, the carefully irrigated and manicured green lawns replaced by arid patches of gravel and cement. Then the houses disappeared completely and they were suddenly driving slowly down a bustling city street alight with neon signs and flashing lights. People spilled out the doors and onto the sidewalks as though they’d been pushed, the men in baggy suits, the brightly dressed women laughing loudly as they teetered on too-high heels.

  “Oh my God,” Gabby marveled, looking around at the crowded vibrancy that surrounded them, so different from Southern California’s usual outwardly placid sprawl. “Is this still Los Angeles? I feel like we’re in an actual city!”

  Eddie grinned. “Welcome to Central Avenue, sweetheart.”

  He pulled up outside a large brick building on the corner. The sidewalk was swarming with people. Gabby tried to read the large sign dangling over their heads, willing the letters to stay put instead of flipping around in backward circles in her head the way they usually did.

  D, she thought firmly, remembering her sister Frankie’s patient voice in her head: “You can always remember D, Gabby, because it looks like a sail and it rhymes with sea.”

  D-U-N-

  “The Dunbar Hotel,” Eddie said before Gabby could finish. He seemed to have mistaken her concentration for speechless wonder. Thank God. “You ever been here?”

  “No.”

  Thrillingly, Eddie slipped a proprietary arm around her waist as he led her through the door. “You’re going to love it. It’s like the Cotton Club of the West Coast.”

  Gabby had never been to the Cotton Club either—the most she’d seen of Manhattan was a glimpse of the skyline over the Hudson River the time that sleazy booking agent with the bright red mustache and what seemed like about eight hands every time he touched you had booked the Preston Sisters into the Palace Hotel, Newark. But from the way she’d heard sophisticated New York types talk in hushed tones about what fun it was on 125th Street, she expected it to be, well, naughtier. Red lighting, people reclining on brocade couches smoking opium pipes, scantily clad long-limbed beauties writhing hypnotically on the stage, like that picture she’d seen in one of Viola’s magazines of Josephine Baker in Paris wearing a skirt made of bananas and nothing else.