A Touch of Stardust (24 page)

Julie took the last available seat, trying to keep the cup of tea now in her quivering hands from rattling in its saucer. She smiled cautiously at the woman closest to her, who had lively gray eyes and seemed to be doing the best job of all in balancing her tea.

“Hi, I’m Emily,” the woman announced in a normal voice. Her hair was almost black, and cut in a short, somewhat out-of-date bob, but it gave her a casual air that Julie wished she could emulate. “Can you believe where we are? Should we be pinching ourselves to see if we’re awake? We’re sitting in Frances Marion’s living room! How did we all manage to get
here
?”

Two of the women looked shocked. The others pretended not to have heard. Julie, without thought, started to laugh.

“That’s very flattering,” a strong, musical voice responded from the archway leading to the front hall. “Let’s be clear, ladies—not everyone these days would be so impressed. You’re all here because you are talented, you want to be in the picture business, and I want to help you. Greetings.”

Frances Marion walked into the room and reached out a hand to each of them in turn. She was dressed in a gray wool-crepe dress with white cuffs and collar that clung naturally to her body, managing to convey both sophistication and sensuality. She had a warm smile, but her handshake held brisk professionalism as well as graceful hospitality.

“Let’s start with some perspective.” She strode over to the mantel and picked up a familiar gold-burnished statue.

“May I introduce the glory object of Hollywood?” she said, eyes dancing as she thrust it aloft. “Meet the inscrutable, perfectly
shaped gentleman we all call Oscar. He’s much heavier than you would think. Here, see for yourselves.” She tossed the statue to the woman named Emily, who grabbed it in surprise. “See what I mean?”

“Oh my,” managed Emily, hoisting it with some difficulty. “Yes,” she said, turning to hand it to Julie.

As Julie’s fingers closed around the cold metal, she felt a shiver travel down her spine.

“What I want you all to know first is that Oscar is a perfect symbol for the movies,” Frances Marion said. “He’s a man with a powerful athletic body, clutching a gleaming sword, right? But half of his head, the part which held his brains, is completely sliced off. In other words, my dear ladies, this place called Hollywood is run by men, and they’re not always smart. So don’t be too much in awe of them.”

They all glanced at each other, smiling, relaxing. This would not be a standard seminar. For the next forty minutes, Marion asked the women about their work and told them she would read whatever scripts they had to offer. “But to work here, you must understand—this isn’t the world of literature. Writing a script is like writing a bugle call—there are just four or five notes, and you have to keep repeating them.”

There was more, much more. Julie tried to frame the question foremost in her mind and finally voiced it. “We all admire you,” she began, “because you’ve done such wonderfully creative scripts for Mary Pickford and just about everyone else in Hollywood. You aren’t saying these didn’t amount to much, are you?”

“No,” Marion replied. “But this isn’t the place for a novelist. Not if you require a symphony to tell your story. It will save some heartache. Cary Grant said it best: ‘We have our factory, which is called a stage. We make a product, we color it, we title it and we ship it out in cans.’ ” She looked full at Julie and gave a small smile. “Even when it’s a movie like
Gone with the Wind
,” she said quietly.

A full tea was served in the garden. Julie sat next to the woman named Emily and discovered she had offered a script to Selznick and heard nothing back. “Me, too,” piped up a comfortably rounded woman, munching on a scone dipped in Devonshire cream. “They could at least have the courtesy to say no, don’t you think?”

The response to that was a collective sigh.

The afternoon sped by. When it came time to leave, Julie put her script down on a table, letting go of a part of herself, hoping it would live and thrive. She looked at the others, each similarly leaving a script, knowing they all felt the same way. She felt oddly thrilled, not anxious. There were other women like her, and they weren’t all deluded, starry-eyed females trying to have a voice in a man’s industry. And as she drove down the hill, after saying goodbye to the others, she laughed out loud, thinking of Marion’s Oscar. With half his head cut off.

“Heard anything yet? I’ve got champagne if you have; a stiff Scotch if you haven’t.”

Carole could make her inquiry sound casual, but, then, she was an actress. She and Julie were measuring the dining room at the ranch for a bear rug Carole had dragged home from an auction, besotted with what she called “the noble head” of the beast.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” she enthused as they pulled and shoved the dead bear to the middle of the room. “It will fit, of course it will. I want his head—look at those teeth—facing Clark when we’re eating dinner; he will love it. This place is almost getting crowded! Okay, which is it, champagne or Scotch?”

“Scotch.” Julie sighed.

Rain was falling outside. Julie could hear it tapping on the windowpanes, followed every now and then by a sleepy roll of thunder, echoing from somewhere off in the fields surrounding the house. Beyond the rain, on the horizon, a thin ribbon of fading light still glowed.

She looked around. Indeed, the rooms were filling up. Much of the furniture was Early American, mixed with Western notes—in one room, Clark’s rifles were mounted all over the walls. As soon as Clark finished shooting the last principal scene of
Gone with the Wind
, they would be moving to Encino. Carole had two movies completed for the year now, including
In Name Only
for RKO,
which meant no more opportunities to tease Cary Grant over his real name—“Poor man, Archie Leach? Everybody should be given a second chance on what to call themselves.” She could pour her energies into scouring shops and secondhand stores for treasures sometimes only she valued. Like the bear rug, Julie thought.

Julie plopped down on the soft fur, avoiding contact with the bear’s eyes. Spending time with Carole was like breathing in crisp, bracing air, sometimes too much at a gulp. But they were friends now. Just today, they had packed Carole’s things on the Selznick lot, stripping away all the glamorous white sofas and lavish lamps in her dressing room, leaving it once again just a trailer. Even though she had finished filming
Made for Each Other
, that trailer had allowed her a presence on the Selznick lot—and, as far as Selznick was concerned, anything that made Carole happy made Clark happy.

“Poor David, I’m sure he thinks I’m not leaving a moment too soon,” Carole said to Julie, surveying the cheap-looking ordinariness of the empty space. “That bright idea of mine yesterday was about as smart as my turning down the lead in
It Happened One Night
.”

That “bright idea” had involved launching a few hundred balloons at yesterday’s picnic for the cast and crew on the Selznick International front lawn. Unfortunately, they floated out over the Atlanta sets, stopping the filming of a scene. The sun was bright and hot, and the balloons began to pop. Maintenance crews fanned out, frantically looking for all the bright pieces of latex scattering everywhere. Selznick had not been pleased. That Carole thought it was funny and didn’t apologize hadn’t helped. Clark later reported the hilarious sight of a cursing Selznick pacing the set, picking up balloon fragments himself.

“Only you would get away with that one,” Clark said to his wife, chuckling.

“I wish I’d hear something,” Julie said now. She flexed her fingers, which felt stiff from lack of use. They hadn’t had a workout on the typewriter in what seemed like an eternity—in truth, more like two weeks.

“Sure, I understand. Creative people live in mortal fear of tossing their seed on barren ground.”

Julie couldn’t help it—she laughed.

“So I mangled the Bible this time?” Carole grinned. “Well, that’s what happens when you leave school at fifteen.” She leaned over the bar, belly first, and surveyed the various bottles, which were lined up like soldiers on duty. She picked up an already opened bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. “This is Clark’s favorite—a bit strong, but you need it today,” she said. She turned her attention back to the shelves of glasses on the other side of the bar. “Cut crystal or jelly?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“We’ll go fancy.”

Carole picked up two crystal glasses with the bottle and sat back down on the rug. She poured a healthy-sized drink and handed the second glass to Julie. “So—what was it like to go to a high-toned college like Smith?” she asked. “Does everybody ride bicycles and wear walking shorts? Nobody to do your makeup before class?”

Memories of the wooded landscape, the tidy, carved paths, the sense of containment that marked her college life surged back. Julie blinked, suddenly nostalgic for all those middle-aged teachers in dark dresses and Peter Pan collars who laid out study plans, gave weekly tests, graded precisely. In college, rules were clear. “It was fun, but … it hugged too tight,” she said. “Margaret Mitchell actually went there for a while, a long time ago. I heard she hated it and dropped out.”

With a sympathetic chuckle, Carole handed her the bottle. “You stuck with it, and she’s the one making a million dollars. It’s okay to toss the first one down.”

Julie filled her glass and took a big gulp, swallowed fast; then took another and started to choke.

“Drinking correctly does not seem to be a skill they taught you at Smith,” Carole said, taking the bottle from her. “I’ve watched Clark do it, one healthy swig at a time. It builds fortitude.” She poured her drink to the brim and drank, then handed the bottle back to Julie.

“When did you know you wanted to be an actress?” Julie asked.

“I didn’t really; it just happened. I used to play baseball in the street with the boys after school, and a producer visiting his mother was out on the porch one day and saw me.…” She shrugged. “I never got to geometry.”

“Am I bragging if I tell you I got straight A’s in geometry?”

Carole flashed a fake wicked smile. “Let’s get to the important stuff,” she said. “Did you ever play ball as a kid?”

“I couldn’t hit,” Julie confessed. In her neighborhood, the boys ran the night games out on the street. A girl who couldn’t hit had to watch from the sidewalk.

“I loved it,” Carole said dreamily. “I loved the feel of the bat, the sound when it hit the ball, that fabulous crack. And I could run; damn, I was a good runner. I was the best runner on my block. There were nights when I felt I could fly if I just ran a little faster.” She lifted her arm, observing her muscles with detached curiosity. “I wonder if I could still do it?”

“I’ll bet you could do anything you wanted to do.” Julie meant it.

“Okay, here’s my question.” Carole frowned. “What the hell is a hypotenuse?”

“It’s the longest side of a triangle.”

“Well, we know a lot in this town about triangles. I’d guess the longest side is the guy.”

Julie giggled as she poured another drink. “Are we really doing this? I feel like we’re in some Western movie.”

“Saloon scene,
Peril at Noon
, take one!” Carole gulped down a mouthful of Scotch and let out a whoop. “Good shooting, partner, we got ourselves a bear!” Her nose was getting pink.

“I’ve gotta ask you something,” Julie began.

“Well, hurry up, we’re both going to be too drunk to string two sentences together pretty soon,” Carole said cheerfully.

“I think of you as fearless. Are you afraid of
anything
?”

“Live bears,” Carole said. “I like dead ones.” She patted the head of the bear lying so tamely beneath them.

“How can you be fearless unless you don’t care what happens?”

“Honey, how can you be fearless unless you
do
care? I care like hell about some things, and the things I don’t care about don’t rank on any fear scale at all.” Her forehead puckered into a frown. “Did that make sense?”

Julie wasn’t sure now whether it did or not. The bottle was passed again. “I want to sell my script and I want Andy,” she said. “Maybe I’m asking for too much.”