A Touch of Stardust (40 page)

The MGM commissary was even noisier and smellier than usual. It was like college, Julie thought, as she pushed her metal tray along the tubed railing, past tired-looking beef stew bubbling in a warming tray, past chopped-up chicken mixed with corn, past custards turned dry and brown. This was leftover day, a good day to settle for a ham sandwich on rye. It didn’t go stale as fast.

A week now since Denton wrapped the remake. No word from anybody about anything. Nobody seemed unhappy, nobody seemed happy. What did she do next? She felt a bit like a wallflower, standing around trying to look confident.

“Julie?”

She looked up. Denton had ambled over to the lunch line, a curious smile on his face.

“Heard the news yet?” he said.

“No, what news?” There was a sudden fluttering in her chest as she tried to tune out the clatter of lunch trays and loud voices in the crowded lunchroom.

“We got a distribution deal last night for
Madhouse Nightmare
. Sold for a twelve-thousand-dollar profit. You’re gold, kid.”

“That fast?” She could hardly get the words out. People in back of her were clearing their throats more or less politely, their message clear: Move on, lady, whoever you are; we’re hungry.

“Mayer pushed it through. One screening for distributors, then up or back in the trash bin.” His smile was kind. “Didn’t know it, did you? You were going to be either dead in this business today or a star.”

“And I—”

“Get a good agent. You’re in.” He turned away, but then stopped. “Oh, and you’ve got my thanks, too: this helps me. I wasn’t doing much lately—and it’s hard to come back in this business when you start slipping.” He strolled away.

She stood, frozen. Disbelieving. Then giddy.

“Hey, honey, some of us have to get back to work,” a voice yelled out. “Can we move on?”

Julie mumbled an apology and stepped out of line. She caused a few heads to turn as she walked, dazed, with a grin on her face, still holding the empty tray, out of the commissary into the hall, a busboy running after her to retrieve the lunchroom property.

“Myron. We’ll get you Myron,” Carole said with a whoop of laughter when Julie gave her the news. “Oh my God, you are
discovered
! I get a percentage of your millions, okay? About fifty sound right?”

Julie laughed. “Who’s Myron?”

“David’s brother; he’s my agent. He’ll take you on. This is great news; you’ll end up being the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood! Close, anyway.”

Nothing ever seemed to tamp Carole down, for which Julie was fervently grateful. They sat together in Carole’s upstairs bedroom suite, across the hall from Clark’s. The suite was immaculate—gleaming marble floors, a dressing table swathed in white silk with mirrored walls, and even a mirrored ceiling. That surprised Julie at first—the Carole she knew scoffed at the pretentions of glamour, so why make her private bedroom a movie set?

“I think it’s the most elegant shithouse in the San Fernando Valley, don’t you?” Carole said with a happy grin, plunking down on the bed, sinking deep into its cushioned depths. “Clark likes it, he finds it sexy, which means more sex. He needs all the atmosphere I can provide to keep fucking a lot.” She sighed. “Poor Pa, he isn’t exactly the greatest lay in town. He’s too shy. Those ex-wives of his didn’t teach him much; they were too old for him. Have you told Andy your good news yet?”

“I didn’t want to bother him today,” Julie said after a startled pause. “He’s coming out here in a few hours.”

“Why wasn’t he first, hon?”

Julie’s answer felt like a betrayal even as she said the words. “He’s been pretty sad. He’ll be happy for me, but he’ll have a hard time pretending he thinks it matters much. He’s struggling with whether or not what we do here means anything now that the world is at war.”

Carole pulled herself to a seated position; she didn’t answer right away. Then:

“That’s kind of playing dirty, deciding ahead of time how he’ll respond.”

She cut to the heart of most everything. “I think I wanted your enthusiasm first. Is that terrible?”

“Oh hell, no,” Carole said. But her voice was flat. She reached for the bedpost of the four-poster bed and gripped tightly, her face draining of color.

“What’s the matter?” Alarmed, Julie reached for her friend’s hand. Carole was sweating profusely, her body shaking. She winced, threw her head back, and clutched at her belly. Julie glanced down and saw a trickling of blood make its way over the white satin bedcover, then, drip by sluggish drip, to the white marble floor.

“Oh God, no,” Carole gasped. She reached for Julie’s hand. “Help me, please, I think I’m miscarrying.”

“Of course I will. Don’t worry, I’ll get you to a hospital.” Julie, stunned, ran to the bathroom for towels and tried to stanch the flow, then grabbed the phone by the bed and with trembling fingers dialed Information. An ambulance, she told the operator who answered. Send an ambulance.

Carole was crying. “I wanted this baby so much,” she moaned. “Don’t let Louella find out.”

Julie cradled her head, smoothing back her hair. A memory flashed—a scene, long ago, in a darkened bedroom; her mother moaning; she, maybe nine years old, standing there, a little girl, smelling the sharp scent of blood before being hustled from the room. Her mother had cried, too.

“I’m so very, very sorry,” she said.

“I can’t believe it; I was so sure this time,” Carole whispered. Her eyes were filled with tears. “Honey, don’t give them my name; tell them I’m Jane Peters.”

“I did. Help will come soon, really soon; they’re just down the hill.”

Carole lay still now, like a broken doll, her white hostess gown smeared and crushed. Julie raced back to the bathroom. A washcloth—she needed a cold, wet washcloth to wipe Carole’s face.

“Feels good,” Carole whispered when Julie laid it across her forehead. She mustered a flash of humor. “Isn’t glamour wonderful?”

The emergency room at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital was pitilessly bright as the ambulance attendants wheeled Carole through the
crowd of hurrying nurses and health aides to the relative privacy of a cubicle ringed with drab blue curtains. Julie pulled the sheet up over Carole’s face as she followed alongside, trying to shield her from recognition.

“I’m not dead, honey,” Carole said, trying to grin as she pushed the sheet off her face inside the cubicle. “I’ve just lost a baby. There, I’ve said the word.” Her eyes began filling with tears again.

The curtain was suddenly yanked open. Clark stood there, his hair wild, eyes wide with fear, as he moved inside and reached for his wife. “Oh, Ma,” he said in a shaky voice. “I thought—when I saw—” He sank to his knees next to her and pulled her into his arms.

Julie stepped outside; her own eyes were moist as she tried to make her way through the crowd of people to a quiet corner somewhere. Carole, open about everything, had kept her pregnancy a secret from everybody. The ambulance had arrived quickly enough—Yes, for a woman named Jane Peters; hurry, please—and then she couldn’t reach Clark, and the housekeeper promised to send him to Cedars as soon as he got home from the studio. And now she stood in a corner of this raw room of accidents and sickness and cries of pain and rushing doctors, remembering the sight of that tiny morsel of lost life slipping out, how the ambulance attendants had quickly wrapped it in newspaper and put it in a bucket; how Carole had cried; and she thought of how overwhelming a loss was when it caught you unexpectedly and bit you in the neck.

And then Andy was there beside her in a corner of this weirdly lit room which did not allow shadows, his arms encircling her, his breath warm, no words; thank you, Andy, no words; just hold me and now please, tell me you love me.

And he did.

Keeping a secret in Hollywood? Impossible.

But maybe not.

Two days went by. Each morning and evening, Julie grabbed the papers from the doorstep of the boarding house before anybody could reach them. She had a plan; Andy had kindly not pointed out its absurdity. She would open the
Examiner
and the
Herald Express
, leaf through the inky pages for Louella’s and Hedda Hopper’s columns, and scan them, poised for action—any mention of Carole’s miscarriage and she would dump the papers promptly into a trash barrel. That was her muddled plan.

But in the gossip columns there were no hints dropped, no lachrymose accounts, no intrusive, coy reports; nothing. She began breathing easier.

“Carole’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself,” Andy pointed out gently. “Are you off guard duty now?”

“She was devastated. She’s my friend.”

“Clark is right by her side.”

“Do you see what I see, finally?”

“That they’re really in love—and not running out the Hollywood marriage clock in the usual way?” he said with a smile.

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s say I’m considering some adjustments in the standard script.”

“Ah, a reluctant concession?”

“Impossible. Don’t you know a man always has to be right?”

She laughed. She was delighted with every lighthearted moment they shared these days—anything that cut through the aura of sadness that seemed to hover over him. It wasn’t as if he was indifferent to the excitement of each frenetic day spent preparing
Gone with the Wind
for its launching. But there was no escaping the drumbeat of war news now. She would catch him staring into the distance, not quite here, somewhere else. He would be with her, so close—and then gone. By early September, Selznick was finally ready to let the fifty-four cans of film be “pried from his hands,” as Andy put it, to be carted off in boxes, stowed in a truck, and taken to the Fox Theater in Riverside for the time-honored practice of presenting a “sneak preview.” Expectations were high. An unsuspecting theater full of people was about to be told they were not going to see the movie they came to see, they were going to see
Gone with the Wind
, the movie they had been anticipating for years.

“We haven’t told Selznick what theater we’re going to. He thinks of nothing else but this movie, and he’s totally capable of inadvertently tipping off some reporter,” Andy said, wiping his brow, watching as the truck pulled away from the studio. It was searingly hot. He and Julie started to climb into one of the black limousines lined up to follow the van for the two-hour drive.

Publicists and assistant directors and various Selznick aides joined the caravan, joking that they felt like part of some secret initiation ceremony. No actors—that would have given it all away. But Irene Selznick was getting into the auto in front of Julie and Andy’s, looking as cool and elegant as ever, unlike her husband, whose jacket was off and whose shirt was already stained with sweat.

It must be hard to be married to such a frenzied perfectionist, Julie thought. Maybe it was her imagination, but there was something sad in the other woman’s eyes.

When Julie spotted Doris, looking quite fashionable in sleek pants and a red sweater that might have been molded to her body, she half wished she hadn’t agreed to come along. But she had, and
if Andy wanted her here, she would be here, even though it meant pulling away for the day from polishing a comedy that the director told her needed some “sparkle.” It was another rewrite, yes, but that was okay. The story was fun; it was working. She liked the attention she was getting at MGM; who wouldn’t? There were no mornings now when she lay in bed staring at the ceiling; she had too much to do—story conferences, directorial meetings. And Andy
was
happy for her; if anything, news of her workingwoman days at MGM lightened his mood, and that was a relief.