A Touch of Stardust (34 page)

Then again, this being Hollywood, they might have been rehearsing a movie scene.

Julie was sitting alone at the table in Room 632 when Abe Goldman arrived, Sammy trudging wearily behind him. Goldman’s eyes widened in surprise as he entered the room.

“What are you doing here so early?” he asked.

“I wanted to talk to you before the others arrive,” she said. She saw in his face the fast sequence of thought—maybe she was accepting his invitation—no, shading into irritation—she had something else in mind.

He took his seat, pushed back from the table, and folded his arms. “What’s up?” he said crisply.

“When I first came here, you talked about movies that were so bad they were unreleasable,” she said. “It made me curious. I would love to see some of them.”

“What the hell for?”

“Well, I was remembering something Frances Marion said in her speech at Smith: she said a good editor can save a film, even a bad one. So I began thinking—maybe there are ways to remake some of them. A good editor has to know how to build a story, and I think I’m a good editor.”

He slapped his thigh and grinned. “For your college yearbook?”

She nodded, not backing off. “Plus other things.”

“Come on,” he scoffed. “Look, are you kidding? Heading off for glory with a pair of scissors and a jar of paste? That’s a waste of time. I’m giving you the chance of a lifetime with this movie—”

Julie took a deep breath and plunged to where her instincts would normally tell her not to go. “I’m not offering any good ideas for your prison script, you and I both know it. There is no female perspective. But right now I would love the challenge of salvaging something and making it worthwhile. Let me try this, Abe. Then it’s up or out, and I know it.”

His eyes turned cool and calculating. She sensed him assessing his own advantage. If she succeeded, it might help his career; nobody was ever completely safe at MGM. “Okay,” he said shortly. “I’ll send a few of our crap films over to the projection room. You can go over there now—it’s clear—and watch them. Waste your day, hey. You’re making a mistake.”

Julie smiled, relieved, and looked down at old Sammy. She rubbed his head. “I’ll miss you, pal,” she said. She picked up her purse. “Thanks, Abe. I’ll do my best.”

Goldman looked a bit befuddled as she exited. The other screenwriters began drifting in, casting her a few wary glances. Was she up or out? Sideways, she answered silently. For now.

The projection room was gloomy and cold, and the seats here were not as plush as the ones in the
Gone with the Wind
screening room, where tension stayed high—and the seats warm—all the time. Julie settled in, pulling her sweater tight, and waved to the projectionist to start the first movie of the four Abe had sent over. It would be a long day.

Hours later, freezing fingers tucked inside her sweater, she stared at the finally—mercifully—blank screen.

“One more to go. Hate to tell you, but the last one is the worst of all. I’m taking a lunch break—you ready for more when I return?” the projectionist bawled cheerfully. Julie had no idea what time it was. She simply sat, stupefied by the impossible plots, the terrible writing, the clumsy scene-cutting of what she was watching. It was as if these movies were expected to be terrible from the very beginning. What had she been thinking? These weren’t salvageable, not at all. And one more to go.

“Go ahead, I’ll watch the last one when you get back,” she called to him.

She thought of strolling out into the sunlight and getting some lunch herself, but it seemed like too much effort. So she sat in semidarkness, waiting.

A door opened behind her, letting in a sliver of light from the hall. She turned. Andy was standing silhouetted against the light.

“Julie …” He stopped, said nothing more.

She stood and slowly walked toward him. There would be no careful banter today. She knew it; she sensed he did, too.

“I’m sorry for turning away from you yesterday,” she said. “I know what you thought. And you were right: I lost the courage to be honest around my parents.”

He gave her a sheepish grin. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. I looked at myself in a mirror after you left the soundstage. I saw why you didn’t want them to meet me.”

“Please don’t be kinder than what you really believe,” she said.

They were standing close now. He lifted one hand and tenderly smoothed back her hair. “Did I come off presentable enough?” he asked quietly.

Thank you, she thought. Thank you for not making it bigger than it was.

He wasn’t finished. “There’s more, though. We both know that, don’t we.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. And I’ve never been more sure than I am right now that I love you,” she said.

He gently kissed her forehead, every movement still slow, restrained. “I don’t know where we’re going, but I love you, too,” he said.

“Don’t say, ‘but,’ ” she begged. “Don’t start your next sentence with ‘but.’ ”

“Funny about this whole insider/outsider thing,” he said, his voice muffled by her hair. “When it comes to the movie business, you stand outside; I am inside. In your parents’ world, you are inside; I am outside. Look”—he stepped back, cupping her head in his hands—“you’re doing your best to get into my world and show what you can do. If you can push against that, then maybe I can push a little against what holds you back from me.”

“That’s why you showed up last night?”

“You bet. Carole gave me one of those get-your-ass-moving lectures she’s good at. Are your parents still here?”

“They left on a noon plane.”

They turned their heads at a sudden scramble of noise from overhead. “Hey, I’m off at four o’clock, and if you want to see this last movie, you’d better sit and watch it now!” yelled the projectionist.

“Yes, I want to see it,” Julie yelled back.

“Mind if I stick around and watch with you?” Andy asked.

Really, with an audience of one peering down on them, she couldn’t say what she truly wanted to say, which was, sure—and let’s take our clothes off and make love right here, because the movie will be so terrible, we’ll need diversion.

“I’d like it if you did,” she said.

“What’s the name of this one?”

“
Madhouse Nightmare
,” Julie said.

Andy winced. “I remember that dog. L.B. had a niece acting in it; when he saw how terrible it was, he pulled the plug. MGM took a big loss.” He settled into the seat next to her and kissed her hand. “So what did your father say?”

“He asked if you were Jewish.”

“And …?”

“I told him all the smart people here were. Don’t you want to hear what my mother said?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“She said Jewish men are good to their wives.”

“An old canard if ever there was one.”

She laughed, at ease.

The lights went down. The screen lit up.

The closing credits rolled, over an hour later—a very long hour. “Jesus,” Andy muttered, “there’s nothing anybody can do with that.”

But Julie kept staring at the now black screen. Yes, it was terrible—a melodrama set in an insane asylum, and the worst movie of them all. Absurdly overacted. Yet she had an idea. “I think I can do something with it,” she said slowly.

Andy shot her a puzzled glance. “What the hell can you do with
that
?” he said.

She was scribbling notes and didn’t answer right away. “Do you think those actors would be available for a few scenes?” she asked.

“Probably. They can’t be getting much work.”

She frowned, nibbling on the eraser of her pencil. Melodrama, horrible melodrama, that’s what it was. Obviously unsalvageable. But what if it were turned into a comedy? How could she do that? Her mind was dancing. She scribbled some more.

“You’re looking absorbed, kid.” Andy gazed at her thoughtfully.

She looked up. “Andy, I know what I can do,” she said with a rush. “I’ve got to work on it right away. I really think I know what to do.”

“Where shall I take you?” he said quietly.

“The boarding house. I’ve got a typewriter there; I don’t want to work on this in the Writers’ Building. I want to have it ready by tomorrow.”

“No dinner at Chasen’s?”

She tried to make her voice a little apologetic, but she was too excited. “Not tonight; I’ll probably be working late.”

He smiled, a slow-spreading quizzical smile. “Familiar words,” he said.

Julie hadn’t expected to be climbing the stairs again up to Room 632 quite so soon, but she couldn’t wait the next morning to show Abe Goldman what she had figured out. Once again, she was there first.

Goldman walked in, eating a doughnut, bits of powdered sugar clinging to his upper lip. He looked almost resigned when he saw her.

“Okay, what’s your bright idea this morning?”

“I think I—” She stopped. “Where’s Sammy?” she asked.

“Too old,” Goldman said shortly. He avoided her gaze. “Spit it out, will you? I’ve got a busy day.”

She put a stack of papers on the desk, taking a deep breath. Time to sell.

“This can be saved as absurd comedy,” she began. “I’ve written a prologue and an epilogue which could be filmed with very little additional cost.”