A Touch of Stardust (5 page)

They reached the dressing room next to the soundstage where Lombard was wrapping up her movie
Made for Each Other
. Sitting on the trailer steps was an impatient-looking reporter in baggy pants who made a point of staring at his watch as they walked toward him.

“Our appointment was one o’clock,” he said. “It’s five after. I’ve been waiting for you studio people, but I do have a deadline and—”

The door to the dressing room burst open, and there was Carole Lombard. She wore a shimmery satin gown that all but slithered across her body, barely covering her breasts. It could have been a nightgown—Julie wasn’t sure—but it took her breath away to see how confidently Lombard wore it. She looked amazingly beautiful.

“Oh, quit complaining,” Lombard said brightly to the reporter, beckoning them all in. “I saw you out here and figured you could toast your heels for a while. You’ll get a good interview.” She laughed. “For starters, I’m wearing nothing under this dress; want that for your lead? Where are you from?”

“The
Reading Eagle
, Pennsylvania,” he said, brightening considerably. “I hear you’re signing for a new movie?”

“In negotiation,” she said. “But I’m signing a helluva lot of autographs. When I think of the bunk I’ve written on them, I get sick.”

It was too late for Julie to clear her throat.

Lombard’s sitting room was simple but quite elegant. Not that Julie had ever been in a star’s dressing room, of course. But the carpet, a deep forest green, looked lush and expensive. The sofa and two chairs were covered with a muted brocade fabric, and the coffee table was sleek and white. Screens hid the makeup room, but she could see past them to an array of mirrors over the dressing table. Large bouquets of ivory-cream roses were everywhere.

The reporter—his name, he told them with a certain huffiness, was Jeff Malone—settled on the sofa. Julie and Rose perched on the chairs, trying to look businesslike.

“First time doing chaperone duty, girls?” Lombard said, flopping down on the sofa next to Malone. “Good luck—nobody shuts me up.”

The phone on the table beside her rang. She picked it up, listened for an impatient second or two, then rolled her eyes. “Me, play a violin? I’d look like a screwball. Now, if you want someone who can shoot a .410 shotgun, I’m your woman.” She hung up.

The reporter said quickly, “I didn’t know you hunted …?” The phone was ringing again.

“Skeet shooting,” she said as she picked up the receiver. “Clark likes to kill birds; I prefer to kill clay disks. Less blood. Though I wouldn’t mind taking shots at producers.” She listened for a second to the new voice on the phone. “Can we please get these details wrapped?” she said. “Yes, I definitely want the fucking house; sweetheart, I’m planning on giving a party there next week—you’re invited. The guest of honor is going to be either a bear or a lion. Haven’t decided.” She all but tossed the phone into its cradle this time.

“You and Gable are officially a couple?”

She laughed. “Of course,” she said. “Okay, let’s get to it—you want me to talk about sex. I think sex is wonderful and therapeutic, and girls here in Hollywood should quit being obsessed with losing their virginity. And no double standard. Men who stray should be forgiven, and I want the same freedom for myself. That cover it for you?”

Malone’s jaw dropped. He nodded.

Rose glanced at Julie, clearly horrified. Julie kept her face serene, but her thoughts were spinning. Were they supposed to do something? Did Lombard mean all that? Wasn’t her relationship with Gable still sort of a secret? Then again, how could it be, since they were so openly and exuberantly a couple?

“Miss Lombard reserves the right to make that off the record,” Julie blurted out. “It’s, um, required for the interview.” She had
no idea what she was doing, other than trying to protect the actress somehow. Probably more like stepping in front of a speeding truck.

Lombard looked at her with interest. “That’s all right, kiddo,” she said. “Thanks, though, for putting your fists up.”

Malone was in a daze. He scribbled away for half an hour, his questions interspersed with Lombard’s phone calls, before Lombard told him briskly, “Time’s up. You satisfied?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Send us copies,” she said, and then glanced at the younger women with amusement. “That’s what you’re supposed to say, girls.”

“Of course.” Julie flushed. “Please send copies to our publicity department.”

“Sure.” Malone got up, opened the door, and started to leave. He turned around with one last question: “Do you ever get tired of the pace?”

Lombard didn’t respond immediately. The phone was ringing again, but she didn’t seem in a hurry to answer it this time. “Let me put it this way,” she said. “I want to live a natural life before I’m an old lady.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Eventually, I’d like to get off the pogo stick.”

“How do you do that?”

And her answer, which stuck somewhere in the recesses of Julie’s mind: “When I make my last movie, I’m going to tell them to bill it as ‘Lombard’s farewell appearance,’ ” the actress said matter-of-factly. “And I tell you, when they put that on the billboards, it will be true.”

Malone left, a very happy man with a full notebook.

Lombard started to close the door after him, and stopped. She peered down the path and let out an impatient sigh. “So here comes another visitor,” she said. “Have you girls met Jerry Bryant yet?”

“Who is he?” Julie asked.

“Unofficially? He’s head morality cop for Selznick International
Pictures and the Legion of Decency, rolled into one.” She smiled at Julie’s confused look. “He’s the head studio publicist. His job is to keep trouble and scandal out of the papers, and right now I’m not one of his favorite people.”

The man climbing the stairs to the door was buttoning a suit jacket that strained across an ample belly. His hair, a bald patch at the crown, was gray. He didn’t look happy. But as he stared up at Carole, his round face took on an expression of rehearsed cordiality.

“Well, well, Carole, another unsupervised interview? Why didn’t you call me, sweetheart? Remember me? I’m here to keep you out of trouble.” He flashed a stiff grin, revealing a mouth of unusually small, sparkling teeth.

“Actually, my dear Jerry, you’re here to keep Selznick International out of trouble. Too late. The world’s most scandalous interview is over, and now we can all cower, waiting for the deluge. How can I help you?”

“What did he ask you?”

“My opinion, of course, on whether that handsome Mr. Roosevelt is sitting in the White House plotting ways to drag us into a European war. Well, I told
him
a thing or two.”

Jerry hesitated. Then, “You do like your jokes,” he muttered as he stepped into the trailer—and noticed Julie and Rose for the first time. “Who are these?” he said.

“Really, Jerry. Where are your manners? ‘These’ are the two young women your girl Doris sent over to supervise the interview. They did a fine job. Anything else? I’m shooting a scene in a few minutes.”

Uninvited, Bryant sat down, ignoring the pair. “This must be Doris’s idea of a joke, sending two copying room girls to supervise. They’re as green as Hollywood grass,” he said, irritated. “But that’s not important. I’m here on another errand—it won’t take too much of your time.”

“And what is that?”

He pulled a notebook out of his pocket. “Routine information,” he said.

Carole remained standing, folding her arms. “What?”

He flipped open the notebook, pulled a pen from his breast pocket, snapped it open, and said, “I need to know your menstrual cycle.”

“
What?
You can’t be serious.”

Julie and Rose looked at each other in astonishment.

“Carole, let’s not make a major issue out of this. Your menstrual cycle, understand? That should be easy enough. We keep records on all the actresses; every major studio does.” He tapped his notebook with his pen and waited expectantly. “It’s important, sweetheart. For water scenes, cramps, mood problems—those things.”

Carole started to laugh, a from-the-belly laugh. “Jerry, you dirty dog—do you want to fuck me?”

Bryant paled, then blushed scarlet before recovering. “I’d love to, dear, but I know I haven’t got a chance,” he said. “This is just routine. What if we have to shoot an ocean shot? Claudette Colbert had no objections. For heaven’s sake, we don’t need shooting schedules ruined—that would be a disaster.”

Carole was laughing so hard she could barely speak. “Jerry, you’re just doing your job, though the mandate seems a bit twisted, but how convenient this information must be for the studio brass. Somebody’s planning for fucking, and I know it. Sorry, my menstrual cycle is privileged information. I wouldn’t even give it to President Roosevelt.”

Bryant didn’t protest. “This will go higher up,” he warned.

“I don’t care.”

Resigned, he closed his notebook and sighed heavily. “You are not easy, sweetheart.”

“You’re damn right.” She leaned close as he prepared to step out of the trailer and kissed him on the forehead. “You’re not a bad egg,” she said. “Thanks for giving us a good laugh.”

He worked hard trying to rearrange his face, but it wasn’t quite in place as he hurried away.

Lombard’s energy seemed to leave her as abruptly as air from a balloon. She sat on the sofa, swung her legs up, and plopped her
head into the pillows. She reached for a cigarette. “Don’t look so shell-shocked, girls,” she said with a grin. “It’s okay. They call me the Profane Angel, right? It’s a smoke screen. It keeps men a little scared of me. I assume you both want to be in pictures?”

Julie shook her head in the negative. “Not acting,” she said.

“I do,” Rose allowed. She said it quite calmly, and Julie was struck by how large her friend’s eyes were. Her mouth, full and pink, was parted in an uncertain smile.

Lombard nodded slowly, looking Rose up and down. “You are gorgeous, dearie—so why not?”

Rose blinked. “Why not?” she repeated weakly.

“I’ll see what I can do. What’s your name?”

“Rose Sullivan.”

“You’ll have to change that, of course. I shed mine as fast as I could when I got out of Indiana. Who wants to drag around a dreary moniker like ‘Jane Alice Peters’?”

“I’m from Indiana,” Julie volunteered.

Lombard looked at her with a curious smile. “You’re the messenger Andy Weinstein took a shine to. Where in Indiana?”

“Fort Wayne, just like you.”

“Well, well. We tend to speak our minds, we girls from Fort Wayne. Did you think that reporter could harm me?”

“I didn’t know. I wanted to tell him he couldn’t just write anything he wanted to.”

“And what drew you to Hollywood?”

“I want to write movies.”

“Like Frances Marion?”

“Yes.” There, she had put herself with one word in the company of her role model, someone who was brilliant and had made it here, and she was thrilled that Lombard knew her name. Nobody at home did. And for just an instant something shimmered in her mundane connection with the star. Maybe it was because she had already decided she really liked this casual, profane woman who said what she wanted and did as she pleased.

“Are you any good?” Lombard asked.

“I don’t know. My college English teacher thinks so.” It was restful, just stating it that way. She sensed Carole wouldn’t laugh.

“That plus a helluva lot of determination might get you somewhere someday.”

“I hope so.” She felt almost giddy. In a world of make-believe, maybe she had met a woman at the top who was real.

“Your friend Rose got touched with a magic wand this afternoon,” Andy said, walking up behind Julie in the publicity office as she was stapling the last press releases of the day. “Lombard got her an interview—and a tryout for Scarlett.”

“That was fast,” Julie said, surprised.

“Selznick is auditioning every promising actress he can find. Your friend from Texas will be lacing up a corset in a couple of days. Want to watch?”

“Yes, I would love to.” Could it really work like this? Did it mean Rose had a chance?

“Any feeling of being left out?”

Julie thought about it. “No,” she said. “I would if I had the same ambition for acting that Rose has, I guess.”

He smiled; she liked his smile when it came from the warmth of his eyes.

“A nonglamorous dinner with me as a booby prize?”

She nodded. Why had she been so prickly earlier? Two amazing days in a row, and a sanity check with Andy Weinstein after each one. That really wasn’t a booby prize.

“I’ve got another piece of news for you,” he said later, as they settled into a booth at a cheerfully noisy place on Wilshire with red linoleum and greasy menus.

“Something good?”

“Carole Lombard wants you to work as her personal assistant.”

Julie dropped her menu, which landed dangerously near the flickering candle in the middle of their small table. “She does?”

“She told Doris late this afternoon. Said she liked the idea of having a hometown girl on her staff. Especially one with the guts to speak up.”

“Oh my goodness, she makes fast decisions.”