Authors: Nina Berry
“Are you okay?” Pagan cast one last look at the double doors and then scurried after Mercedes. “I'm so sorry. They heard me following them, and as I ran out, you ran right into them.”
Mercedes did not look at her. She was walking too fast for Pagan to catch up. “I came here to see a telescope,” she said. “Not to participate in a rumble.”
“I know. I'm sorry.” Pagan held her hands out helplessly. “It was an accident, but I promise it won't happen again.”
“No.” Mercedes stopped dead and stared at her. Her normally rosy brown skin looked ashen. “It won't. I told youâno more violence, and I meant it. You will never involve me in your nonsense again. I was stupid enough to go with you last night. That was my fault. Today was an accident, you say. All right. But no more accidents, Pagan. I can't bear it.”
Mercedes, she of the ironclad nerves and deadly fists, looked like she was ready to faint. It made Pagan queasy.
“I...” Pagan gulped to get ahold of herself. The ground was dropping away beneath her feet. If she didn't have her friendship with Mercedes, she was lost. She had no other family. “I didn't realize how important it was to you, M. I'm sorry.”
“I feel sick,” Mercedes said. “I hate this, don't you see?” She swallowed hard and sucked in a breath. “I hate myself when I'm like this.”
“But you were defending yourself!” Pagan said. “You had every right...”
“I didn't use to,” Mercedes said, interrupting. “This... It takes me back to the way life was for me. Back when I had no right to do what I did. To so many people.”
Then Pagan understood. She hadn't been a gang enforcer the way Mercedes had. But she'd been a drunk, and she'd messed up a lot of days of shooting movies for hardworking people, and killed her father and her sister because of it. She never wanted to be that again. Never.
“Okay,” she said. “Maybe after you see the stars and planets, you should get on a plane and go home. Hold down the fort and read the
Fabulous Four
or whatever. What do you think?”
Mercedes managed a small laugh and nodded. “
Fantastic Four.
Yeah. I think you're right.”
She turned and started walking again, but this time she let Pagan walk next to her all the way back to the movie set.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
January 11, 1962
AFICIONADO
An enthusiastic follower or fan, in this case, of the tango.
Somehow Pagan made it through her remaining scenes after lunch. Victor switched to a side scene where Dave's character has a heart-to-heart with his best friend, and Pagan was done for the day. When Carlos got her back to the hotel by 4:00 p.m., she stripped off everything and crawled into bed.
A few minutes later, Mercedes breezed in, back from sightseeing, as the phone started ringing. She picked up the receiver. Pagan listened drowsily from her bed.
“Oh, hello,” Mercedes said, her tone cool. “One moment and I'll get her...oh, you want me? Why?”
Pagan sat up as Mercedes set a bag down on the sideboard.
“The observatory said yes?” Mercedes's tone warmed. “Tonight at 10:00 p.m.? I guess the sun sets pretty late here in the summer. That would be wonderful. Thank you.”
A brief pause as Pagan smiled to herself. It had to be Devin on the phone. He'd made sure the professor Mercedes had met with earlier had said yes to her coming back to look through the telescope.
“I think she's napping,” Mercedes said, and her voice froze up again. “She had a very late night on top of jet lag and a busy day of shooting, among other things.”
She paused again. Her tone wouldn't have given away today's adventure to anyone who didn't know her, but the implication was there. Pagan sat very still.
“The ankle wasn't painful for her this morning, but I haven't spoken to her since she got back from the set.” Another pause. “Ask her yourself.”
A longer pause. “What do
you
think she'll do? You know her plans for the evening better than I do,” Mercedes said, and added, a little scornfully, “You know this isn't high school, and that I'm not going to give you any dirt, if in fact there was dirt to give. Did you go see her on set today? Maybe you should have.”
Another pause.
“I have only one thing to tell youâtake better care of her.”
Pagan's hands were clasped together, fingertips white, as she listened hard.
Mercedes voice was soft when she spoke again. “Don't make promises you can't keep, Devin Black.”
And she hung up the phone.
* * *
By 6:00 p.m., Pagan had taken a shower, put thoughts of Devin Black in a cordoned-off corner of her brain and donned her most comfortable slim-leg black trousers, a crisp white collared shirt and white sneakers. Time to head out to Emma Von Albrecht's house. Time to meet the man she'd come all this way to see. She couldn't help wondering whether Dieter would be there, too.
It took no more than five minutes for Carlos to reach the Von Albrechts' brick building on Adolfo Alsina Street, older and shorter than its surrounding neoclassical edifices, across the street from a pretty park. Pagan told Carlos not to wait. She had no idea how long she'd be, and Mercedes might need him later to get to the observatory.
Von Albrecht's name was nowhere to be seen on the entrance, and when Pagan lifted the brass door-knocker, Emma herself answered the door, beaming, her cheeks flushed pink.
She'd dressed up in a pretty but slightly dated navy skirt and jacket over a silk shell. An elaborate bouffant hairstyle rose above her heart-shaped face, giving her more height, and her eyeliner had changed to mimic exactly how Pagan had drawn hers last night.
Pagan gave the outfit an appreciative smile that made Emma flush, then completed her delight by leaning in to kiss her on the right cheek. She'd heard that kind of kiss was typical when greeting friends in Buenos Aires. And Emma seemed to enjoy it. Was it flirting? Probably, but might as well keep the girl happy.
“I brought us some candy necklaces!” She pulled on the stretch cord that held the brightly colored candy “jewels” together to put it around Emma's wrist. She spoke English, since that was the language they expected her to know best. Pagan's German was excellent, but it had been to her advantage in the past to conceal that she knew the language, so she was keeping the information secret for now. “We should invent candy earrings or something and make a fortune!”
“Thank you! Come in!” Emma said in her German-Argentine-accented English, and backed up to let Pagan into the foyer of their apartment. “Please excuse the mess. I try to keep it clean since Papa fired the maid, but Dieter keeps messing it all up again.”
A long hallway funneled back into the building, with stairs both up and down to Pagan's right. A dusty hall table held trays for keys and piles of mail, with shoes shoved underneath it. The Persian rugs on the creaking wooden floor were thin and threadbare. The air smelled like unwashed men.
And Von Albrecht had fired the maid. If he were a Nazi war criminal, he might not want people coming in very often to scrub things, replace carpets or snoop.
“Anyone else at home?” Pagan said, following Emma down the hall. To the left, two closed wooden doors. Ahead, a dining room with a dusty dark wood dining table and four unpolished chairs. They passed through it into a large, echoing kitchen.
“Dieter had something to do after school, but Papa's here. He's always here these days.” She opened up the door of a mint-green refrigerator that had been new ten years ago. “Want a Nehi? We've got grape and orange.”
“Grape, thanks.” Pagan scanned the scantily stocked pantry and peered out the window on the back door, which overlooked a small alley. “I'd love to meet your dad if he's home.”
Emma gave her two bottles of grape soda and the bottle opener. “Papa works in the afternoons. And the mornings and the evenings. He does
not
allow interruptions.”
Nothing was ever easy. Pagan popped the caps off the bottles. She handed one to Emma. “Cheers.”
Emma clinked hers against Pagan's.
“Salut.”
“What does your father do?” Pagan asked, oh so casually.
“He teaches physics at the Colegio San José, close by.” Emma opened a cupboard and pulled out a box of crackers called Tostos. “But he's on sabbatical this semester, researching something. We barely see him. You might meet him at dinner. We eat around eight. He does need to eat, after all! Dinner will be good. I made pot roast last night, and it's even better the next day.”
“That sounds delicious,” Pagan said, inwardly singing with relief. If his own children barely saw Von Albrecht these days, she needed every chance to meet him.
“Let's go up to my room,” Emma was saying, grabbing two plates, the crackers and some cheese. “I forgot I also have that new song by the Tokens on 45. Have you heard it yet?”
“âThe Lion Sleeps Tonight'?” Pagan trailed after Emma back down the hall. “Just on the radio. What's down there?” She pointed at the descending march of stairs.
Emma wrinkled her nose. “The basement. Papa has a laboratory down there. Dieter helps him sometimes. I'm not allowed, and it's probably for the best.” She leaned in and whispered, “Sometimes the worst smells come out of there!”
“Ew!” Pagan made a face. Dieter and his pals had been going down to a basement earlier, a few blocks away at the Colegio. They had spoken about animals, and tunnels, and tomorrow night. She stared down the unlit staircase, but the darkness there was not forthcoming. She inhaled deeply, but no terrible scent hit her nose. How disappointing. Nothing but dust and carpet layered with old sweat.
She needed to snoop down there, alone if possible. If Dieter's tone of voice earlier was anything to go by, something bad was in the works, down in basements and tunnels.
“And that's Papa's office.” Emma kept her voice low as she pointed to the second door in the hallway as they passed it. “We try to keep the noise down on this floor while he's working.”
Pagan wondered if the door was locked. “But we can blast the music upstairs, right?” she asked in a whisper.
Emma grinned. “Right!”
Emma had the room upstairs in the back, the smallest of the three bedrooms on that floor, overlooking the alley. She'd cleverly covered up the peeling paint on the walls with posters of Elvis and Pagan's own film
Beach Bound Beverly
.
“Sorry,” Emma said, glancing at the poster of a smiling fifteen-year-old Pagan in a gleaming white one-piece bathing suit seated on the shoulders of her two hunky shirtless costars. “But you knew I was a fan of yours when you agreed to come here.”
“Oh, my God!” Pagan set the bottles of soda down on the floor and flung herself melodramatically onto the neatly made twin bed, the back of one hand to her forehead. “I shall never forgive you!”
Emma laughed, and flopped down next to Pagan on the bed, her hands in prayer position. “Oh, pleaseâyou must forgive me!”
Emma's calf was pressed against Pagan's. It didn't feel accidental, and it didn't exactly bother Pagan, but it wouldn't have been her choice under the usual circumstances. If she continued to allow it, she would be misleading Emma pretty horribly.
But then she'd been misleading Emma about everything from the start. This was just one more lie.
You've played plenty of love scenes with costars you liked but didn't want to see naked.
Pretend this is one more.
Teasing. That would do for starters. Pagan steepled her hands thoughtfully. “You must make amends.”
Emma frowned, caught for a moment outside of their playacting. “Amends?”
Not exactly good movie dialogue.
Oh, she didn't know the word. “Amends. It means you have to make it up to me, compensate me.” She lowered her voice suggestively. “You owe me.”
“Oh!” Emma's face cleared. Her eyes were searching Pagan's. Pagan did her best to reflect that eagerness right back.
“I like your lipstick,” Emma said.
Pagan pursed her lips. “Lournay. Coral Fire, I think.”
Emma was staring at Pagan's mouth the same way Nicky used to just before he kissed her. Pagan considered Emma's lips and planting a kiss there. They were thin, slick with pink lipstick and slightly parted. She'd never kissed a girl before. How bad could it be? But with two people each wearing lipstick, did it get kind of waxy?
“I like the color you're wearing.” Pagan leaned toward Emma, her own mouth slightly open, and rubbed her thumb lightly across the other girl's lips. “Max Factor?”
Emma's cheeks flushed pinker than her lipstick. “Yes.” Her voice was husky; her eyelids fluttered. She leaned in closer to Pagan, their noses almost touching. “How did you know?”
Pagan smiled, waited a heartbeat, then ducked her head away and got to her feet. “Hours in the makeup chair, remember? Hollywood nonsense.”
Emma actually gulped. She was breathing fast. Poor kid. It was weird to have this kind of power over another girl. Although why it should be any different from toying with a boy, Pagan really couldn't say. Maybe it was harder to deceive someone so like herself.
Emma was having trouble forming a coherent thought, so Pagan babbled for her. “I've worn every brand and every shade of lipstick on the face of the earth, I bet you. And I remember that photo shoot.” She pointed at the
Beach Bound Beverly
poster. “I was horribly tipsy, and Scotty James had this painful sunburn on his shoulders, and I had to sit on it. What a nightmare!”
Emma's eyes were traveling up and down Pagan's body. Pagan was used to that, from boys, but God, it was so much safer with a girl like Emma than it ever would have been with the evil Dieter, or any other boy, really.
“Did he hate you sitting on his sunburn?” Emma asked. She was able to form complete sentences. Good.
“Scotty was a trooper. They kept oiling us up, you know, to make us look good.” Pagan pointed at the bare chests of Scotty James and Robert Torkelson, gleaming above their bathing trunks. Pagan's legs were also as shiny as cellophane.
“We were all slick as seals. And then Scotty and Bob would lean down so I could sit on their shoulders and Scotty would groan in agony as they stood up with me. As soon as we got it almost perfect, I'd slip and fall over backward, and Scotty would scream! That happened, like, eight times. I think they dropped me on my head once.” She rubbed the spot where she'd landed.
“Sounds like fun!” Now that Pagan was keeping a little distance between them, Emma got ahold of herself, sat up and pulled a pack of Winston cigarettes out of her dresser. “And the movie is so fun. How long did it take you to learn how to surf?”
Pagan waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, they weren't going to waste time teaching us to surf. All that footage of us hanging ten is done with Hollywood magic.”
Emma moved to the open window, tapping the pack of Winstons against the sill. Winston had been Pagan's brand when she drank and smoked. Had Emma bought that brand because she knew Pagan was coming over? “But there were waves all around you, and water splashing.”
Pagan reached into her purse, fishing for her trusty Zippo lighter. “They filmed each of us on a surfboard in the studio and added the waves in later using optical effects,” she said. “We were up on a platform, so a guy could crouch below us and throw buckets of water up into our faces on cue. It was freezing cold.”
Emma drew a cigarette out of the pack and tapped it on the sill. “Want one?”
“No, thanks. For me, smoking goes with a cold martini like Hope goes with Crosby, bacon with eggs. And I can't have the eggs, so I don't eat the bacon.” Pagan offered the lighter to Emma, flicking on the flame. It was a romantic gesture, used in thousands of films to get the hero and heroine in close proximity. She was hoping Emma would take it that way.
Emma smiled coyly and placed the cigarette between her lips. “Thanks. This is perfect. Lighters don't make as much smoke as a match, and I don't want Papa to sniff us out.” She put her hand, shaking slightly, around Pagan's and leaned in to touch the tip of the cigarette to the flame, sucking in her cheeks.