Starstruck - Love Me Part 17

"Well, now we have to pick Jimmy up, don't we?" Gabby said irritably. Leave it to Viola to make you as grumpy about lying as telling the truth. "And he's all the way at the studio, so we better leave now. You know how Jimmy hates it when you're late."

"Wait a minute." There was a suspicious look on Viola's face that Gabby didn't like at all. "May I see you in the kitchen, please, Gabrielle?"

"There's no time," Gabby whined.

"It'll only take a minute," Viola insisted. "Mr. Sharp, you'll have to excuse us."

When Viola got that tone in her voice, it meant she was about ten seconds away from causing a major scene. Unless Gabby wanted to risk being led away by the ear like a naughty little kid-in front of Eddie!-she had no choice but to obey.

"I don't like this," Viola hissed when the kitchen door had swung closed behind them. "I don't like this one little bit."

"And I don't see what you're getting so upset about," Gabby replied, trying to keep as calm as possible. "It's just a change of plan. Big deal."

"Big deal?" Viola's eyes, fringed with their usual layer of ineptly applied false lashes, were practically popping out of her head. "Big deal? I knew it. I knew you'd been sneaking around with that punk behind my back, and now you're dragging Jimmy into it?"

"Keep your voice down!" Gabby begged. "He's right outside."

"You think I care? You think I care what he thinks of me? You know what I do care about? I've heard stories about that kid, about the people he spends time with. I care about what Larry Julius is going to say. What Leo Karp is going to say when he finds out you've been hanging around that"-she sputtered, trying to think of just the right word-"that degenerate. That drug addict."

"Yes, I'm curious about that too," Gabby said coolly, "since they were the ones who made me into the same thing. With plenty of help from you, of course."

Viola began to shake with rage, so hard that one of her errant eyelashes came loose and fell to the floor. It lay on one of the white linoleum tiles, curled up like a hairy bug. "I will not be spoken to that way." She was trembling. "You will not speak to me that way in my own house."

"Only it's not your house, is it?" Somehow, the more upset Viola got, the calmer Gabby felt. "It's my house. I pay for it, and for everything in it." She looked down at the eyelash, resisting the urge to crush it with the toe of her shoe like the smoldering b.u.t.t of a cigarette on the sidewalk. "You're living under my roof, not the other way around."

"Gabby," Viola implored. "You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what's best for you. You're just a child."

"Only I'm not, am I? A child is looked after by others. A child isn't expected to be responsible for feeding her family, or clothing them, or keeping a roof over their heads or," she added, unable to resist, "a Cadillac in their driveway. So since I'm not a child and this is my house, I think that from now on I'm going to do whatever I want. And what I want right now," she said, pus.h.i.+ng casually past her gobsmacked mother, "is to go out with Eddie Sharp. Don't wait up for me."

"So that's your old lady," Eddie said when they were safely in the car, Viola's forlorn figure in the front yard growing comfortingly smaller as they drove away. "She seems like a handful."

"Tell me about it," Gabby said, reaching into the glove compartment for the fifth of Scotch he always kept there.

Eddie held up a neatly rolled joint. "Mind if I spark it up? I kind of need it after all that."

"Oooh, yes please."

He took a drag and pa.s.sed it to her. She sucked the smoke, careful not to swallow so much that it set her throat on fire this time. Let it never be said I'm not a fast learner, she thought happily, pleased with her expertise. Old One-Take Gabby. More like One-Toke. She started to laugh, the smoke billowing from her lungs and settling around her in a sweet-smelling fog. Green pills, Scotch, and reefer, she thought happily. The c.o.c.ktail of the G.o.ds.

"So where are we going?" she rasped, hoa.r.s.e from the smoke. "Wherever it is, I hope it has a pay phone so I can call Jimmy and tell him not to come get me. I don't want him getting stuck as Viola's shoulder to cry on."

She giggled, but it wasn't actually a joke. Jimmy had always been a soft touch for Gabby's mother. If she got him in the right mood, she might talk him into telling Mr. Karp on Gabby, and that could be real trouble. Leo Karp didn't like to hear about anyone disrespecting what he referred to as "the sanct.i.ty of motherhood."

Still, Gabby thought, motherhood is one thing. Mothers are quite another.

"That's the thing, kiddo," Eddie said softly, steering the car up toward the hills. "We've only got a couple of hours."

"Why?"

"That's the thing. I meant to tell you ... I've got a train to catch tonight."

A train? "What ... what are you talking about?"

Eddie sighed. "Just hang on a second, okay?"

Eddie pulled the car over into a small, secluded dirt drive hidden from the main road by a cl.u.s.ter of cypress trees. They were looking out over the canyon now. The buildings of Hollywood spread beneath them looked as small as toys. Shadows from the tree branches played over Eddie's face as he leaned over to gently take the bottle of Scotch from the crook of Gabby's arm. He took a long drink and wiped his beautiful lips with the back of his sleeve.

"Where?" Gabby whispered. "Where are you going?"

"To New York," Eddie said simply. "We've got a gig at El Morocco, and then one at the Stork Club. The studio set it up. Big money, big exposure. Most of the guys left yesterday, but I stayed behind to tie up some loose ends."

"Like me."

"In a way." She'd never heard Eddie sound so earnest before.

Gabby swallowed hard. "Weren't you going to tell me?"

"I haven't known that long myself, and there was so much to do. I was going to tell you over the phone, but that ... well, that didn't seem right." Eddie took another drink. "They've got me booked late tonight on the Super Chief to Chicago. I'll spend a night there with my folks and then hop the Twentieth Century to New York City and start rehearsals right away."

Gabby looked down at her hands. They were shaking slightly, as they always did from the pills. She clutched the right one in her left, trying to make them stop. "I didn't know your family lived in Chicago."

"Well," Eddie said, looking straight ahead, "now you do."

This little intimacy, however small, pleased her. She allowed herself a tentative smile. "I suppose Dexter is going with you?" Odd, she thought. She didn't know why Dexter Harrington should pop into her head just now. I guess it's just something to say.

"Dex?" Eddie snorted. "Who knows? He's supposed to be finis.h.i.+ng up with Hawk at the Dunbar and then heading out, but I'll believe it when I see it. He's in and out like the wind, that guy."

"Aren't you all."

"Gabs, come on," Eddie said, laying his big hand over her trembling ones. "It's no big deal. It's just a gig. I'll be gone a couple of months, and then I'll probably be back."

"Probably?"

"As far as I know," Eddie said. He was getting a little impatient now. "That's the plan. And anyway, it's not like I'm going off to war. Nothing's going to happen to me. There's no need for the grand scene."

The grand scene. Gabby didn't need to channel Margo, or Amanda, or even to hear her own mother's voice in her head to tell her that was what men like Eddie dreaded most of all: the hurt recriminations, the hot floods of tears that left them feeling guilty and confused and, above all, furious at the person making them feel that way.

Of course, in the movies, all the heroine had to do was cry and the hero would take her in his arms and promise her the moon and the stars and that he would never leave her. Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer and Diana Chesterfield and Margo Sterling turned on the waterworks, and Clark Gable and Robert Taylor and Dane Forrest wiped them away with vows of undying love. But when was real life ever like the movies?

Gabby looked up at Eddie with a brilliant smile. "Oh no, I understand perfectly," she said sweetly, flas.h.i.+ng her dimples. "It's just that I want to give you your going-away present, that's all."

"Oh?" Eddie looked amused. "What's that?"

This is it, Gabby thought. Either he'd think it was devastatingly s.e.xy or off-puttingly forward, but she'd never know until she tried. Coyly, she looked up at him through her eyelashes, the way she'd seen Amanda do a million times.

"This," she whispered. Softly, she brought her lips to his, kissing him, pressing herself tightly against him so there could be no mistaking her intentions. She felt his body clench, and then thrillingly, start to respond. It's happening, she thought, dizzy with happiness. It's actually happening.

"Gabby," Eddie murmured, pulling away from her. "Wait."

"What's the matter?" she breathed. "Don't you want to?" It certainly feels like you do.

"It's not that. It's just ... well ..." He paused carefully. "I guess I don't know how experienced you are with this kind of thing."

"I'm not a virgin," Gabby lied. He won't be able to tell, will he? "And even if I was, it wouldn't matter. I want to."

"I don't mean that." Eddie looked pained. "It's just ... I'm a musician, Gabby. I'm going on the road. And life on the road, well, it has different rules than regular life. I can't make you any promises. I can't let you think this means anything that it doesn't."

She put her hand to his mouth to silence him, loving the feel of his warm breath under her fingertips. "Don't say another word. I know all about that. It doesn't matter. We can worry about tomorrow later. The only thing I care about is today. Right now. This moment."

Eddie smiled with his lips against hers. "You're the best, Gabby. Did I ever tell you that? You're the best girl."

I'm the best girl. And as Eddie's arms tightened around her, the soft swish of the cypress needles the only music they needed as his mouth moved against hers, Gabby almost thought she believed it.

NINETEEN.

"Ginger!" Lucy shouted over the blaring radio turned up so high you could probably hear it all the way to Santa Monica. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

Amanda's jaw clenched. Funny, she thought. I was just asking myself the same thing.

A year ago, she'd walked out of Olive Moore's house for what she thought would be the last time. She'd been so proud, so sure of herself, secure in her love for Harry and his love for her and her faith in the glittering, glamorous future that was finally hers.

And now I'm back with my tail between my legs. She remembered what Olive had said to her when she'd first told the older woman she'd won a contract at Olympus, and G.o.d willing, would never darken her doorstep again: "Seventy-five dollars a week? Seventy-five dollars a week isn't even going to keep a girl like you in lipstick and nylons."

And actually, it had been more like fifty dollars, all told. The concept of payroll taxes had never occurred to Amanda, who had spent her whole life working under the table-sometimes literally.

Not that the extra twenty-five bucks would have made a d.a.m.n bit of difference. If a girl with a picture contract wasn't going to actually be in the pictures-and Amanda, if she was being honest with herself, had to admit that the looks that had the power to stun a room into silence in person didn't quite seem to have the same power on camera-then the best she could do was get photographed, and to accomplish that, she had to make sure she was something to see. She needed the hair, the makeup, the jewels, and enough suits and c.o.c.ktail dresses and evening gowns to make a d.u.c.h.ess weep. If she wore the same outfit twice, she wouldn't be photographed, and if she wasn't photographed, she might as well stay home listening to the radio in her bathrobe and bunny slippers. And if you're going to be photographed, Amanda thought bitterly, you sure as h.e.l.l better be wearing the very best.

So she might have come by her expensive tastes honestly. That sure didn't make them any cheaper. She'd been braced-albeit lightly-for the eventuality of being unceremoniously released from her Olympus contract without so much as a penny to show for it. What she had not been prepared for was the letter she had received this morning by special delivery. It bore the postmark of the Olympus Studios post office, and she had a.s.sumed it was a check for her last two weeks' salary-a modest severance. It wouldn't do much in the way of clearing the overdue balances on her charge accounts at Saks and Bullock's Wils.h.i.+re, but it would at least ensure that she could pay the back rent on her room at Mrs. O'Malley's boardinghouse and keep a roof over her head for the next couple of months, until she figured out her next move.

Instead, Amanda opened the pale blue envelope to discover a letter on legal letterhead informing her politely that no such check would be forthcoming. In fact, official payroll records showed that she had taken out so many advances on her salary over the eighteen months she'd been under contract that she was currently in debt to Olympus Studios to the tune of one thousand dollars. She was advised to settle with a single lump-sum payment, if possible; if not, she should contact the financial office immediately to work out a monthly installment plan at a special rate of 4 percent interest.

A thousand dollars. They fired her, and she owed them a thousand dollars. On top of all the money she already owed.

It was so absurd that Amanda's first impulse was to laugh. So she did. She threw her head back and let loose with a big, ugly, unhinged cackle that quickly devolved into heaving sobs that racked her body as she crumpled into a fetal position on the unswept floor of her crowded little room. Images flashed through her mind, images of Chanel suits and Caroline Reboux hats and enough tens and twenties surrept.i.tiously slipped to buy the silence of hundreds of doormen and bellmen and lavatory attendants to form a pile for a gleeful gangster's moll to roll around in. "It costs a lot to be me," she used to say with a shrug when Harry or Gabby or Margo Sterling would question her extravagance, but she'd never stopped to think exactly how much.

It all seemed like such a good investment, Amanda thought, remembering the horrible day a decade ago when the stock market crashed and the cold gusts of the Depression began to blow. She'd been just a little girl then, no older than eight or nine. Her stepfather had gotten even drunker than usual that night. He hadn't yet started bothering her the way he would when she was older, creeping into her bedroom and trying to force his way under the covers before she woke up, but he could still hand out a beating when the mood struck him. That night, he seemed like he was in the mood to take a horsewhip to somebody, so Amanda-Norma Mae, as she was called then-had sneaked outside to sleep in the hayloft, figuring when he got back, he'd be too drunk to climb the ladder. In the morning, when she brought him his cold compress and his coffee with the slug of whiskey-"hair of the dog," he used to call it-she asked him what had happened that had made everyone so terribly angry.

"Bunch of d.a.m.n fools up in New York City," he growled, the odor of the previous night clinging to him as tenaciously as if he'd just had a bath in gasoline. "Lost their s.h.i.+rts, along with everyone else's. Now the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are jumpin' out windows rather'n face the mob. Black Tuesday, they's callin' it."

Well, today's my Black Tuesday, Amanda thought, and I guess I'm jumping out a window too. Here's hoping I land on my feet.

"I need to see Olive," she told Lucy.

"What?"

"I said, I need to see Olive!" Amanda shouted. "Is she here?"

"Hang on, hang on," Lucy said. "Let me turn down the radio."

The jade-green silk train of her lounging kimono trailed behind her like a dragon's tail as she shuffled across the scrolled carpet to a large rosewood cabinet inset with an elaborate pattern of mother-of-pearl.

"Isn't it swell?" she asked, making a big show of fiddling with the dial. "The cabinet is antique, but the radio is brand-new. Absolutely state-of-the-art. It's got, you know, the most powerful speaker in the entire world. It's a Zenith," she added proudly. "It's not even in stores yet. Olive had it s.h.i.+pped straight from the factory in Chicago. We might be the first people in California to even have one."

Olive must be doing well. "Is she here?"

"Who, Olive?"

"Who else?"

Lucy pouted. "Really, Ginge, you might at least try and make small talk before you go charging upstairs. Ain't I always been a friend to you?"

Amanda felt a pang of guilt. Not only had Lucy always been kind to her during their time together in Olive's stable of beauties, she'd never revealed the truth about Amanda's past to Confidential or Broadway Brevities or any of the sleazy gossip rags that would have paid a pretty penny for a scoop about how the girlfriend of the hotshot young screenwriter Harry Gordon could have once been your girlfriend too, as long as you had the dough.

"I'm sorry, Lucy," Amanda said. "We'll have a good catch-up soon, I promise."

Lucy wrinkled her pert nose. "That's what you always say, and we never do. You've never even come by here in all this time, let alone invited me over to your mansion."

"My mansion?"

"Sure." Lucy s.h.i.+fted her weight from one leg to another. "I've taken the bus tour of the stars' homes. Not to mention having seen quite a few of 'em from the inside myself, if you know what I mean."

Oh boy, do I. Amanda winced. This was hard enough without Lucy reminding her just what she was getting herself back into.

"I know how picture people live," Lucy continued, oblivious to Amanda's discomfort. "The least you could have done is had me over for a drink. Let me walk in the front door, like a lady. But I guess that's how it is in this town. You hit it big, you forget all your old friends."

"Lucy." As surrept.i.tiously as she could, Amanda glanced at her watch. Time was running out. "I promise, promise, promise we'll get together very, very soon. Maybe not at my mansion ..." She stopped herself. There was no need to go into any of that. "... but somewhere equally good. I just really, really need to talk to Olive right away. We'll make plans soon, okay?"

"I don't believe you," Lucy said, but she looked mollified. "Olive's upstairs. But I wouldn't go up there if I were you. Something's up. She closed the whole house up today; n.o.body who's got a date is supposed to bring them back here tonight."

"Good thing I don't have a date, then."

"All right, it's your funeral." Lucy shrugged, turning back to the radio. "But find me on the way out, will ya? I want to hear all about that sn.o.bby girl, Margo Whatserface, who got her hooks into Dane Forrest."

Amanda walked through the empty rooms to the big curving staircase at the back of the house. Devoid of its usual signs of lascivious life, Olive Moore's place looked more like a museum than ever. The flocked red wallpaper, the gaudy gilt sconces, the saucy Victorian engravings to put patrons "in the mood" on their way to "somewhere a little more private" were unchanged since she'd seen them last, as though they'd been preserved in amber. Foolish, she mused, her hand grazing the polished surface of the mahogany banister, to think that just because you try to forget about a place, it will somehow go away. It was like that French phrase Harry always liked to use when he'd had a couple of drinks and was feeling particularly urbane: plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

The door to Olive's office stood slightly ajar. Amanda rapped her knuckles against it lightly, calling out to her.

There was no reply.

Gingerly, Amanda pushed the door open a little farther and took a step inside. The lamps were lit. The big leather ledger books were spread open on the table. A cigarette smoldered in a cut-gla.s.s ashtray, and a mouthful or two of amber sherry glittered in a lipstick-marked gla.s.s.

"Olive?" Amanda ventured, her voice quaking. Why did it feel so spooky in here? "Are you there?"