She saw that McEsters was nowhere in sight. A Hollywood caterer and his employees were handling the service. Through the open door to the sun parlor she could see a young man playing the piano, quite oblivious to the blaring music of the ensemble in the foyer. A young woman in a wet bathing suit was sitting on the piano, watching him.
A youth in sweat shirt and slacks, backing through the door way carrying a nude statue from the garden, bumped Kay.
“I beg your pardon,” Kay said.
He gave her a brief glance. “Shove off, witch. You hit the wrong landing strip. Nobody here but human beings.” He strode on out of the house to one of the sports cars, giggling at his own humor.
A girl moved by Kay, simpering. “Where’s Bunny?” the girl kept calling. “I want to dance with Bunny.”
Walking slowly, Kay followed the girl into the foyer and beyond into the library. Several couples were dancing in there with the lights lowered. After a moment her gaze grew accustomed to the shadowy lighting. She saw Stuart standing alone at the windows, staring into the darkness.
She felt a terrible sadness and at the same time a rage she felt would have matched Ruth’s if she’d walked in and found creeps making a shambles of her home. She wanted to slap Clay’s face, slap it until reason returned to his head. But at the same time she felt the way an indulgent parent feels toward a spoiled child. She would rather let him ruin everything than alienate him.
Kay sighed. With her it was different from the way it was with anyone else. She knew Clay Stuart better, had known him longer, understood him. He’d denied himself a lot during the past thirty years; he was a mixture of his early environment, his own inner emotions and the later years of self-denial. She hated to see him let them wreck his home, but he deserved a good time, even this late, even if it took such destructive turns.
She owed him too much ever to deny him anything. She had been one sort of person before she met him — a thin girl in glasses and stringy hair and a passion for the theatre. She became a set designer — props, costumes and hot coffee for the principals — as near as she ever came to the stage. She gravitated toward Hollywood for no good reason, became the secretary of an artist’s agent, and one day in that agent’s office she met Clay Stuart.
Clay Stuart walked in, and from that moment she was a different woman. She quit her job in the agent’s office, took Clay Stuart over. He had great potential, but he needed a plan, a direction, someone to keep him moving on it. This she did. In the silent pictures his walk, manner of speaking, way he did whatever they told him, came out on the screen with vigor and excitement. When the talkies came his voice suited the image the silent screen had created and he was greater than ever, a lonely, emotional young man with a flat, handsome Nebraska exterior.
In those years the legend grew that Stuart owed everything to Kay Ringling. Only she knew better; the debt was hers — a terrible debt, one she had to repay, no matter what it cost. From the moment he walked into her life, and later when he took her to bed with him, he made a complete human being out of her — and she would never love anyone else, never need anyone else. She owed the direction, the only good in her whole life to him — she wanted to repay him.
And right now was the time to be gentle with him, understanding and patient, no matter how urgently she longed to jerk him back to reality.
“Clay,” she said.
Clay Stuart turned, smiling, a stranger in an alien land finding a familiar face.
“Hello, there. God, am I glad to see you.”
“Dr. Livingstone, I presume,” Kay said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Several people have already asked me that.”
He took both her hands. She said, “I might even ask what you’re doing here?”
“I live here.”
“This is living?” She moved her head, looking the place over.
His voice remained flat. “We can’t have everything, Kay. One of the first facts of life I learned. We can’t ever have everything … I’m an elderly gent … I’ve learned to compromise … Hell, I’ve been compromising all my life. Now I’m doing it because I want to.”
“How nice for you.” She watched a drunken couple dance for a moment near the divan and then topple on it. They did not move. “Isn’t there some place we might talk?” she asked.
“Sure. There must be one room in this place that isn’t occupied.” He touched her arm, guided her through the dancers. Some glanced at Kay and Stuart, grinning crookedly at Clay. “Swell party, baby. Really a blast.”
“Where’d you round up so many juvenile delinquents?” Kay said as they climbed the stairs. “Looks like the parking lot outside Schwab’s.”
He did not answer. Kay paused before the room that had been Ruth’s, glanced questioningly at Clay. He shrugged. “Meenie’s as good as minie,” he said. “Try it.”
She pushed open the door, snapped on the light. She stood in the doorway, her mouth forming a startled o. Clothes were thrown about, cosmetics littered the vanity, most of them open, some cartons sprouting kleenex like tufts.
“Good heavens!” Kay said.
“Joanne’s using this room.”
“She raising rabbits in here, or hamsters?”
“Ruth was never tidy.”
“Oh, Clay. For hell’s sake. There was breeding in Ruth’s kind of disarray. You could make the place immaculate in three minutes. You’re going to have to call in exterminators and repair contractors.”
“All right.”
She turned and closed the door, studying him. “What are you trying to do, Clay?”
“Let’s talk about you,” he said in irony. “Why’d you want to see me?”
“I need a reason?”
“You’ve become a stranger around here.”
“Yes.” She walked across the room, stepping with exaggerated caution. “Dick Creek called. Just a while ago. Said he had reason to hope you were going to agree to the role in Man of the Desert. They can’t hold it forever.”
“I may take it.”
She nodded. “Why don’t you get back to work, Clay? This all started out as fun. I’m sure it must have. But my God, these animals downstairs are weirdos. They come out of the cracks in Sunset Boulevard. Are you trying to destroy everything you’ve built up in thirty years? You think fooling around with tramps like those can’t tear you down in one dirty headline?”
“I’m doing what I’ve got to do, Kay, believe me.”
“Oh, stop being a fool. Is that girl — that Stark woman — do you think what she can do to you is worth all this?”
“I think so.”
“You’re not thinking at all. She’s nobody, Clay. A real nothing, a nobody, a carhop for God’s sake — I mean inside that’s what she is.”
“How do you know so much about her?”
“I know about everything that concerns you, Stuart. And I have since that unfortunate day thirty years ago when I could have gone on a honeymoon with Brad Walman and never seen you again.”
“You should have gone.”
She smiled. “I know that now. But at the time, I didn’t believe it. I knew where you were at that moment — at the place where you could win or lose in this racket. It was tough. Too tough for you. But I was tougher than it was. I knew you’d be lost without me. I stayed with you — all those years, while you learned to act, while you learned everything that you are.”
“I wanted something — always — something I never had.”
“A wild broad? An angelic-looking hellion to arouse you? To appeal to the part of Stuart that’s in every man, but in you more than most? You think I didn’t know this? A dozen times in all these years you could have wrecked everything, walked out on Ruth and Sharon for some actress that had the hots for you. You think we managed to get them roles in pictures being shot on European locations just for laughs? Well, I thought I knew you. The angel-devils appealed to you, but it was the quiet, gentle ones who really lasted with you. That’s what I
thought when I located Stark — ”
“What?”
“Are you surprised? We love you, Stuart. We all agreed you needed something to pull you out of the apathy you were in. I asked around, did some checking, came up with Stark. Who’d you think gave her your unlisted number?”
He shook his head. “It never occurred to me that you — ”
“Oh, yes. Ringling the brilliant. Ringling knew what really appealed to you. A diamond-bright virgin would do fine for you… . A couple weeks with her and you’d be glad to get back to work.” She shook her head and laughed without mirth. “Boy, can I ever be wrong.”
“I love her, Ringling. I may as well tell you the truth.”
She winced. “It won’t work, Clay. It won’t work. Not for you. Not for her.”
“I hope you’re wrong.”
“You know I’m not. Already the newspapers are talking about the redhead in Clay Stuart’s life. Soon the fan magazines will start digging into it. Clay, this sort of thing is bad. It leaves a bad taste.”
“What should I do?”
“You know what you should do. You should get back to work. If you must date, there are plenty of women nearer — ”
“You and I, Kay? We’re of an age … we could live together in dullness and in emotional poverty. Is that what you mean?”
“I might never make you happy — but I wouldn’t ruin you… . Luckily, there are other women besides me. But not this one. I was so sure it would be a quick roll, quickly forgotten. But I was wrong. She’s taken over. Even you must have sense enough left to see that — a girl no older than Sharon.”
“Yes.” He spoke slowly, voice very low. “I know all that. I’ve thought about that.”
“All right. Be a little smart, baby. How long do you think a young girl like this will stay with you?”
He sighed. He stood with his fists taut at his sides. “All right, Kay. All right. There’s your answer. You said it. So stop worrying about it.”
chapter fifteen
KAY GLANCED at Joanne across the white-clothed dining table. The noises of the restaurant seemed distant. She sipped her Martini.
“Hope you didn’t mind having lunch with me like this?” she said.
Joanne looked up, met her gaze. The diamond hardness showed in the eyes; the smile was sweet and soft. “Why, no. Anyway, Clay thought I should come.”
Kay bit at her lip. “Oh? I thought this was going to be between us.”
“I tell Clay everything.”
“Do you?”
Joanne nodded. “Everything he wants to hear.” She picked up a roll, chipped caraway seeds off with her fingernail. “I’m happy with Clay. He’s happy with me. I don’t want anything to happen to it. I won’t let anyone destroy us.”
“I’m sure you won’t need any help,” Kay said.
Joanne drew a deep breath. “Look. We can call this off, right now.”
“I think you better hear what I have to say.”
Joanne’s voice lowered. She leaned forward slightly. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Kay shrugged. “If you knew Clay Stuart nearly as well as you think you do, Joanne, you wouldn’t have to ask me that.”
“You may have meant something to Clay before. I’m sure you did. But I’m with him now. I’ll be with him — when none of the rest of you are.”
“A lot of people have thought that.” Kay made a placating gesture. “I’m not saying that as a warning of any kind. It’s simply a fact. Clay has desires. He has needs. There is a wide difference between them.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”
“Because I’ve been doing it for thirty years, child. Ten years at least before you were born. It’s a habit with me. Please don’t underestimate me. Believe that I might have learned something about Clay Stuart in those years — that I might have met you — your kind — many times.”
“What do you know about my kind?”
“I knew all about you before I came to see you the first time. But because I sent you to Clay, don’t push it — ”
“Why do you think I agreed to go to him?”
“Because I paid you.”
“Don’t be foolish. I was getting along all right. I agreed because I wanted to meet Clay Stuart — because I’ve known all my life what I wanted… . And I took your money because you wouldn’t have accepted me if I hadn’t — you thought you knew one thing — the kind of girl Clay Stuart wanted. Well, you were right. You found her. Me. Now why don’t you butt out?”
“Because I won’t let you destroy him. It’s that simple.”
“I’m not trying to destroy him.”
“No. You don’t give a damn whether you do or not. You’re all wrapped up in you — your own immortal importance. That’s all you’re thinking about. You don’t give a damn what you do to him.”
Joanne shrugged, making an impatient gesture of it. “Go ahead. Tell him to get rid of me. See what it’ll get you. He’ll throw you out.”
Kay smiled. “I’m still with him, girl. After thirty years. Remember that.”
Joanne was completely confident. “Thirty years is a long time. You remember that.”
• • •
Three days after the luncheon with Kay, Joanne came running into the library where Clay was sprawled on the divan trying to wade through Man of the Desert.
He heard her running across the foyer, calling him. The exultance in her tone made him grin, feeling warm. He hurled the battered script aside, turned to swing to his feet. She landed on top of him, forcing him back on the couch.
She bubbled with laughter and lay on top of him, her hair tumbling down about his face, kissing his cheeks and his eyes and his throat and the top button of his shirt.
It was late afternoon. Joanne still wore the make-up from her screen test. There was the look of unreality about her that he’d lived with so long that he accepted as natural.
“I don’t think I’ll ever take it off,” she said. “The people in make-up wanted to take it off for me. I wouldn’t let them. I wanted you to see how I look as a movie star.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
She kissed his face hungrily, nodding. “It was so wonderful. Everybody was so nice to me. The gateman when I got there. He was expecting me. He smiled at me and said, ‘Hello, Miss Stark. Come right in, they’re waiting for you.’ He’d never seen me before — but he knew me.”
“It was the look on your face. That I’m-going-to-have-a-screen-test look.”
“Do I? Oh, but everybody was so lovely. They took me up to the make-up department. Looks like a hospital, doesn’t it? With a lot of little operating rooms — ”
“If you say so — ”
“Then they took me over to the sound stage where everything was set up, with a whole crew, just waiting for me, all of them trying to do the very best they could for me. I felt like a queen, only I can’t really tell you how wonderful I felt, because no matter how good I felt, the way they treated me made me feel that much better. And — Richard Creek was there himself. Imagine. The producer, Richard Creek. Why, he’s made some of the biggest pictures ever — ”
“Yep. He’s almost as important as I am.”
“Nobody’s as important as you are… . But since you wouldn’t go over there with me — I was glad he was there. So nice and so patient. He directed the scene himself. Richard Creek himself. It was like something I might have dreamed.”
She lay against him, exhausted. “I wish you had been there.”
“You did all right.”
“When will I know? Can I see the test? Will they call me or something?”
“Hell. We’ll call them. We’ll have them send a print of the test over here and we’ll run it every hour on the hour. Would you like that?”
“You think you’re kidding. It’s what I would like. I’m dying to know how I was. I’ve got to know.”
“Look. It doesn’t matter how you are in a test. Who cares? If you photograph well, if s
ome of this excitement of your personality hits out from that screen, that’s all that matters. You can act like Barrymore, but if there’s something missing on that screen — ” he shrugged.
“I won’t be like that — flat, will I?”
“You don’t feel flat.”
She pressed her heated face against his. “You don’t know how important it is to me, Clay. I know you got it for me. I know. But this is the break I’ve needed. I’ve had a kind of inferiority, Clay, ever since I can remember. Never enough education, never enough money. I — why, I was working in a restaurant as a waitress when I was thirteen. I told them I was sixteen and I looked it and they didn’t care anyway.” She shivered and he felt tears splash hot on his cheek. “It was hell. I can’t remember anything good about it. That’s why I can’t ever go back — now — after all this — with you. Because I won’t go back. It was always men and trouble, and I hated it and I ran away and I can’t go back. Nothing that could happen to me now could be so terrible that I could ever want to go back there. Home? Where is it? What is it? I grew up hating it and I won’t go back. Nothing can ever make me go back to the way they treated me. They treated me like — ” She stopped talking, sniffling. “You know what I used to dream about — what I wanted more than anything else? I wanted people to look up to me, to know my name — to know I really am somebody.”
“It’s all right, Joanne.”
“No. Because I know. Inside. I know how much I belong here — in this house, in your arms. Or even that studio. They treated me like — oh God, like I’ve wanted to be treated all my life. But that’s it — it’s not going to last. I’m jinxed. Nothing good in my life has ever lasted. The next time I go there, they won’t let me in the gate. They’ll laugh at me and tell me to go back to the drive-ins and guys who want a date with every two-bit tip.”
“You’re just tired.”
“No, you can say that because you don’t know what it’s like — you’ve had everything all your life. You take all this for granted. You never had people treat you the way they’ve treated me.”
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