A Touch of Stardust (31 page)

“What?”

“They showed up a few hours ago. Rose called me, I called Andy. He’s been in Sacramento, didn’t know where you were. What the fuck is up with you two? He sounded pretty tense.”

“My parents are here?”

“Rose says they told her they intend to bring you home. And they’re quite determined.”

“What?”

“Honey, you said that already. Can we move the dialogue along?”

Julie leaned back in the chair, stunned. Her mother and father were taking charge again, just as they had always done. That bit of prosaic reality had faded in all the dazzling months since she came
to Hollywood. She tried to catch her breath. She felt as if she were shriveling inside, getting smaller, younger.

“Okay, you have to go back to the boarding house and at least pretend that you live there full-time. What do you want to happen?”

Carole’s voice sliced it, chopped it, served it to her, quivering, on a platter.
What did she want to happen?

The tears began. Julie felt like an idiot. Her nose was running; she wiped it on her sleeve—a new jacket, bought in a proud blazing shade of red, not torn, but now stained and ready for the cleaners. Carole, silently, handed her a handkerchief.

“I can’t face them. Everything is messed up; I can’t face them.”

Carole lit a cigarette and inhaled, oblivious to the blob of cold cream now quivering on her lip. “Sure, you can,” she said. “You’re no baby, or you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“Abe invited me to his place, and he’s not talking about work,” Julie said.

Carole let out a hoot, slapping herself on the knee. “It took him longer than I expected. Honey, he puts the move on every girl. Just blow him off; he’s not powerful enough to make the difference between success and failure, but he sure wants you to think he is.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“You have to find out these things yourself.” Carole sat back, looking at her thoughtfully. She drew deep on the cigarette. “It’s what you do after you find them out that matters.” She suddenly jumped up. “I’ve got an idea,” she exclaimed.

She went to the bottom of the staircase leading to the second floor, stepping carefully over packing boxes filled with dishes and bar stemware ready for the mover, muttering about all the damn junk that cluttered their lives and why didn’t she get rid of it all.

“Pa!” she yelled.

“What?” came the raspy, deep-voiced reply.

“Aren’t you doing a big scene tomorrow with Vivien?”

“Yeah, we fight and I sweep her up and all that. Why?”

“Julie has to keep her parents busy while she figures out her life; can we get them in to watch?”

Clark’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. “Sure,” he said. “At least I don’t have to do any dancing.”

Carole turned back to Julie. “Okay,” she said briskly. “Bring them to the set tomorrow morning; everybody is impressed watching a movie being made.”

“My father doesn’t approve—”

“Oh, honey, bullshit.
Everybody
is—I guarantee it—even your father.” She shook her head. “Funny, our parents are really different, aren’t they? When my mother got divorced and left Fort Wayne, she headed right for Los Angeles so she could set out to make me a star in pictures. Big cheerleader.”

“My parents consider everything here low-class.”

Carole’s face brightened. “You know what? We’re going to have them to dinner tomorrow night. Relax them, talk about good old, fucking Fort Wayne. Right here.” She looked around vaguely. “I’ll just shove these boxes aside and fix something.”

“Carole, you don’t cook,” Julie protested.

“Who said I’m going to cook? Now you’ve gotta get over there; my driver will take you. We can buy some time and keep them entertained while you decide what comes next in your life. And, honey …”

“What?”

Carole looked at her, and Julie saw in her eyes all that this other girl from Fort Wayne had mastered in herself: The sadness, the fear, the defiance, the strength to make it. And, always, the laughter.

“Toughen up,” she said. “And don’t cry.”

Jerome and Edith Crawford were seated stiffly on chairs that a flustered Rose had arranged for them on the front porch. Julie’s mother held a teacup carefully balanced on a chipped saucer, sipping gingerly, listening to Rose chatter about the weather, and how nice it was this time of year, especially in the early evening. The light, you know.

Her father sat, simply staring into the distance. He had always disdained small talk, and as she stepped out of the car and started toward the house, it was clear to Julie that he was making no exception for the soft twilight of Los Angeles.

He looked older. It had only been some six months since she last saw both of them. Her father’s paunch was larger, and her mother’s hair was now quite thoroughly gray. Oh, please, don’t grow old, she found herself thinking as she walked toward them. I love you both; go away and let me grow up; don’t make me feel guilty so I do what you want me to do; but promise you won’t grow old.

“Julie, darling.” Her mother was on her feet, first carefully depositing the teacup on the windowsill serving as a table. “Wherever did you get that jacket? Darling, red? Red isn’t your color, or—well—maybe it is now.”

Julie put out her arms. Her mother was trying. “What a surprise,” she managed, giving her a kiss.

Jerome Crawford was on his feet now, too. “This young lady gave us a tour of the boarding house,” he said in a low, rumbling voice. “It looks quite well run, on the whole. She assures me there are double locks on all the doors.”

Rose was smiling nervously. Chagrined, Julie remembered she hadn’t bothered to make her bed this morning. Worse, she had left her panties and bra hanging on the shower pole in the bathroom. She cast a quick, imploring glance at her friend.

“The maid came early today,” Rose said in a rush, reading her expression. “Did our room first, so your parents had a place to rest.”

There was no maid. Julie wanted to hug Rose.

Her father had already chosen a restaurant for dinner—nothing on Sunset or in Hollywood at all, but a steak house that a business partner had told him about where everybody seemed to be from the Midwest. A place where waiters gathered around different tables every ten minutes to sing “Happy Birthday” to a guest and present
the celebrant of the moment with a vanilla cupcake topped by a candle.

“We’ve got one like this now in Fort Wayne,” her mother said happily. “They are very much alike. It’s quite pleasant, don’t you think, dear?”

“Yes, Mother,” Julie replied.

She told them about her writing job. About Frances Marion. About Carole and Clark, and all the glamour, and how exciting it was here. She apologized for not writing very often. She did not tell them about Andy. She did not tell them about Abe Goldman.

“Three hundred dollars a week?” her father said with astonishment. “That’s insane. What work here can possibly be worth three hundred a week? What have you written?”

“Actually, I’m drafting a scene for a prison movie,” she said.

“You?” Her mother looked stricken. “What do you know about prisons?”

“Not much,” Julie said with a light, toss-away laugh that didn’t quite work.

“Then why are you doing it?” Her father was known for his direct, no-nonsense questions: a man who got quickly to the heart of things, her mother liked to say.

“It’s part of the tryout.”

“Tryout? This is temporary work?”

By the time their steaks arrived, Julie had a headache. These two rock-solid people had shaped her: molded her values and given her an education; bequeathed skin color, bone structure, blue eyes, even her taste for chocolate. She could feel herself slipping back to all of this, to all of what was safe.

She was tired. Oh, she was tired. The hell with it—she ordered a martini.

Her mother’s eyes widened. “That’s quite a strong drink, dear. Isn’t wine better? Or, I suppose, once in a while …” Mrs. Crawford looked helplessly toward her husband for aid.

Except there was something staged about her glance—something almost programmed for delivery—which gave Julie a jolt of surprise.
What made her see that? Was it the world she lived in now? She felt as if she were viewing her parents for the first time from an audience. They were performing. Did they expect applause?

Mr. Crawford smiled benignly. “Nothing wrong with our little girl trying something adventurous for a change,” he said, patting Julie’s arm. “Never could develop a taste for them myself.”

Julie smiled and took a sip of her martini, almost feeling it was the first one she had ever tasted. They were giving her permission to veer a little bit off-course. She found a twinge of contentment in that realization, which was insane: she was not a child.

Her father cleared his throat after the pear flambé, patted his mouth with a pristine white napkin, and started to speak. “Julie, we are here for a specific reason,” he began. “I think you know what it is.”

She wasn’t up to hearing the inevitable. “Please, not now,” she said, reaching for her father’s hand. She talked rapidly, telling them she was taking them onto the
Gone with the Wind
set tomorrow morning; that they would see Clark Gable and the glamorous Vivien Leigh, and wasn’t that exciting?

Her mother’s eyes did light up, but her father frowned. “We anticipated leaving tomorrow,” he began.

“No, no, you can’t miss this,” she said rapidly. “Plus, Carole—the actress, Carole Lombard?—my friend I told you about?”

Her father looked blank. She plunged on.

“She is having us over to dinner tomorrow night. It would be terribly rude to turn her down; I already accepted.…” She looked desperately at her mother.

“Jerome, it would be very impolite,” her mother cooed. “Remember, she’s from a good Fort Wayne family.”

Julie resisted the impulse to hug her. “It truly would be,” she pleaded. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a covey of waiters in white approaching their table—oh God, surely it wasn’t her mother’s or father’s birthday—but then they rushed past; the lucky recipients were seated behind them, by the window.

“All right,” her father said, giving her a keen look. “But don’t
think I don’t see your delaying tactics, dear. You’ve had your fun out here, and it’s time to grow up and get back to the real world. You won’t have to exist on tryouts back home.”

“We’ll talk about it, okay?”

“Of course we will.”

They all three smiled simultaneously.

She couldn’t seem to stop herself from nervously rattling on, but Julie was proud to be escorting her parents onto the
Gone with the Wind
set. Yes, what they
really
wanted was to pull her out of this so-called den of iniquity, but maybe she could divert them by offering them a peek into the dazzling world of the movies. Maybe.

It would have helped if her mother had read Margaret Mitchell’s book. But she listened shyly as Julie told her the plot of the Civil War tale of love and carnage that had enthralled thousands—and, through the magic of cinema, would soon reach millions. Julie got so into her description that she flushed when Jerry Bryant, standing nearby, cast amused glances in her direction. She must sound as if she were auditioning for his job.