Detour (6 page)

“Hello, Raoul,” she said breathlessly. “Where're you been keeping yourself? We haven't seen you around here in a month.” Then she glanced over and spied me. The smile on her face faded a little.

“Why, Sue! What are you doing up at this hour? I thought you said you were going straight home.”

“Hello, Selma. I thought so, too.” Selma shot a sharp look at Raoul, who pretended to be occupied with the menu. “I get it,” she murmured. “You missed Gwen, you know.”

“What do you mean, I missed her?”

“Oh, didn't you know she was fired?”

“Fired!” That came as a shock. Gwen had worked for Bloomberg longer than any of us.

“Well,” explained Selma, “the boss found out today that she was married, and you know the rule. Gee, I hated to see her go-”

“I'll take coffee and a barbecued beef sandwich,” announced Raoul. “Save the chatter until later.”

“White, rye or wheat?”

“On a roll.”

“And you?”

“I don't know.”

“How about the same, Sue?”

“I'm not hungry.”

I was beginning to wonder about Selma. Was Raoul one of her old boy friends? She was acting strangely. Although I didn't know Selma any too well, this much I did know: she didn't say much and she controlled her temper. One night when a drunk tried to kiss her she had acted much as she was acting now—friendly in her speech, but cold in her stare. Now, as she leaned against the door of the car waiting for our orders, there was something about her that made me think she was jealous.

“Oh, come now. You've got to eat something. The panic isn't on, you know.”

“Really, Raoul, I'm not hungry in the least.”

To tell the truth, I was feeling a little uneasy in my stomach. While the liquor I had put away was all good stuff, there had been too many kinds of it.

“Well, have some coffee. It'll sober you up.”

That remark rubbed me the wrong way, but I let it go. When Selma brought the coffee I sipped it slowly, still thinking what an idiot I'd been ever to have allowed him to take me home—which he hadn't, as yet. The man was entirely without tact. The least he could have done was select another place to eat. Especially if Selma was one of his ex-girl friends. What was he trying to do? Give the help something to talk about? Parade his conquest of me before the late shift? Show them it had only taken him from midnight when I got of work, until... whatever time it was now?

“You might have picked another place to come,” I told him.

He turned to look at me blankly, every inch the fake Englishman. “What's the matter with this? The food's good. At any rate, there aren't many places open at this hour, you know.” He took out a package of imported cigarettes, tapped one of them on his thumb-nail and lighted it.

“There are plenty of places open along the Boulevard and on Vine,” I retorted sharply. “We could have gone to the Coco Tree.” It rankled me because he hadn't offered me a cigarette before lighting one himself. I didn't really want one, but who wouldn't be irritated to think that once somebody had you he was taking you for granted? Especially a person like Raoul Kildare, with his Hollywood-British accent and his installment plan Cadillac. A bit-player in the bargain. Ye gods, what was this town doing to me? With my looks I should have been working in the studios, not hopping cars in a Melrose Avenue hot-dog stand; going around with directors and producers and even stars, not with nobodies like Mr. Kildare. As jealous as girls usually are, even the ones I worked with agreed on that point. But what was there to do if the studios refused to test me? Two of them had promised they would, but, as I soon found out, in Hollywood promises don't count. The only person in town I could count on to get me in was Mr. Fleishmeyer, who was an agent, and fat, and old, but not too old. However, as anxious as I was to break in, I was not ready for Mr. Fleishmeyer.

Raoul had nothing more to say to me. When he finished eating he just sat there with the empty tray clamped to the door over his lap, running his fingers through his silky blond hair. He was only too well aware of the fact that he was handsome, so he affected this gesture of mussing himself up as though he didn't give a hang about his appearance. Nevertheless, I noticed that he was always careful not to ruin the part. Oh, I was on to him from the first and not one of his little tricks escaped me. The man was Hollywood personified; from the open-necked polo shirt and tweed sports jacket to the silk scarf knotted around his throat. There were thousands like him in town, each one trying terribly hard to be different, each one a Greek god, walking around and spilling glamour all over the streets for the benefit of the tourists.

It seemed scarcely believable, but only a few months before I too had thought Hollywood a glamorous place. I had arrived so thoroughly read-up on the misinformation of the fan magazines that it took me a full week before I realized that the “Mecca” was no more than a jerkwater suburb which publicity had sliced from Los Angeles—a suburb peopled chiefly by out and out hicks (the kind of dumbbells who think they are being wild and sophisticated if they stay up all night) or by Minnesota farmers and Brooklyn smart alecks who think they know it all. I soon saw that there were only two classes of society: the suckers, like myself, who had come to take the town; and the slickers who had come to take the suckers. Both groups were plotters and schemers and both on the verge of starvation.

There was also a third group which I'd heard about and read about but never seemed to come in contact with: those who were actually under contract. From what I understood, these fortunates barricade themselves in their magnificent Beverly Hills or Bel-Air estates for fear someone might want to borrow a dollar.

And Vine Street at Hollywood Boulevard, the so-called Times Square of the West, reminded me of the outside of an Eighth Avenue poolroom. There were more well-dressed young men (who obviously were bums) hanging around in front of the Owl Drug Store, the barber shop and the Brown Derby than any place I had ever been before. They made themselves obnoxious by whistling at the girls and passing crude, audible remarks. Also, they seemed to have X-ray eyes focused on strangers' pockets to count their change. I honestly believe that if somebody were foolish enough to drop a quarter on the pavement, twenty or thirty
Esquire
fashion plates would be trampled to death in the rush.

And where, I asked myself, were all the beautiful women the fan magazines raved about? I had expected to have very tough competition, but, frankly, most of the girls were nothing extraordinary. The ones I passed on the streets wore old slacks, cheap little sweaters and flat heeled shoes. Either they had too much make-up on their faces or none whatever. Nine-tenths of them ran around with bandannas tied over their heads, like immigrants stepping off Ellis Island, or as if they'd just finished with the hairdresser. A person could almost read Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska on their flat, countrified faces.

All told, the town was a disappointment. There was no glamour that I could see—unless twenty thousand or so kids scrambling for a dollar is glamorous.

Then that wave came over me, that sudden suspicion it was all a hoax, a frame-up plotted by the publicity-greedy studios and the Chamber of Commerce to lure people out here, away from their regular jobs, their families and friends. The lies of the movie magazine's, the lush literature of railroad companies and the exaggerated salaries the press agents announced, all combined to bait one of the foulest traps imaginable. And I was only one of the little mice it had captured. It hadn't taken very long. In less than six weeks time I was whipped and broke, ready to work as a waitress and darned lucky to get the chance. Oh, I still made the rounds, whenever possible; but it was without much hope, and each time with less confidence.

I sat there in the car, staring at the steady fall of rain, at the flimsily constructed drive-in, at the dark windows of a squat apartment house and at the illuminated Paramount Pictures water-tower in the distance. There was a heaviness in me which wasn't caused by the drinks I'd put away, a pressure that swelled up in my throat and threatened to burst. I was sick of it all, thwarted. What was the use?

I tried to pull myself together. Lately these spells were coming over me more and more often, making me wish I was back in New York, working at the club and living with Alex. I had been happy then—only I didn't know it. Back east something like this never would have happened. Alex would have been there. I turned to Raoul, trying to keep my thoughts in the present. I didn't want to think of New York; I didn't want to admit to myself that I was homesick; and I couldn't bear to think of Alex, especially so soon after I'd... “Come on. Please take me home,” I said to Raoul. “I've got an appointment tomorrow afternoon at three.”

“You mean today, don't you?”

“Today, then. What time is it, anyway?” He pulled up his sleeve and made sure I noticed his elegant gold wrist-watch.

“Five-ten.”

“Let's go home,” I moaned. “I'll never make it.”

“All right. But first I want another cup of coffee.” When Raoul brought the car to a stop in front of the bungalow he surprised me. He actually made a move to get out and see me to the door!

“Never mind, Raoul,” I said. “I can find my way in all right by myself. It's raining and there's no sense you getting drenched too. Good night.”

I reached for the door-handle quickly, lest he try to kiss me good night. I didn't feel like being kissed. The mood I was in, I could cheerfully have murdered someone—I didn't care who. I felt common and unclean.

Raoul caught me by the arm. “Wait a moment, Sue. We haven't made any arrangements about seeing each other again. I don't even know your phone number.”

I hesitated. I didn't want to start any arguments at that hour; I wasn't up to it. If I told him I never wished to see him again, that tonight was all a mistake and I didn't care pins for him, he would demand that I tell him why not, what had he done to deserve this treatment and so forth. On the other hand, if I gave him my phone number and said good night as though everything was quite all right and as it should be, the chances were he'd plague me to death in the future. I didn't want that to happen. I'd had quite enough of Mr. Raoul Kildare.

While I was trying to decide which was the better course to pursue, he was taking out his address book and a fountain-pen. He seemed so cocksure of himself, so confident I would want to go out with him again, that my temper was aroused and I brought him up short. I wanted to hurt him, to puncture and deflate that enormous ego of his. Thank God, I thought, there is one weapon a woman can employ, more effective than biting or scratching or any other form of violence.

“I'm sorry, Raoul. I didn't like you,” I said, swiftly. “I didn't like you and I don't particularly care to see you again, ever.”

“What was that? What...?”

Then it began to dawn on him and he was so flabbergasted that the pen with which he was writing my name slipped out of his hand and rolled away in the dark. “Why... why, what do you mean, Sue? I'm afraid I don't quite get you.”

“You get me, all right.” He started to open his mouth to say something but evidently found nothing he could say. By his expression I saw that he was trying to persuade himself he had misunderstood the implication.

“You're not a good lover,” I went on quietly, fully aware of the wound my words were inflicting.

“I don't have to make it any plainer, do I?”

There was a jubilance in me for the first time in ages. I watched him flinch and I knew I had struck home, into the most vulnerable spot in the man's armor. Most men, of course, think they are incomparable when it comes to making love; but Raoul even more so. The arrogant way he carried his head and the condescending air he had with me proved that only too conclusively. Honestly, I believe the man had actually considered he had done me a favor! Well, this would take some of the wind out of his sails for a long time. While I was conscious that it wasn't exactly ladylike for me to come out with bold statements of that nature, I couldn't resist the urge. In a way it helped to avenge poor Alex.

Raoul couldn't find his tongue. His mouth hung open and he stared blankly at me with perhaps the most astonished look on his handsome face I had ever seen. He appeared so forlorn that I felt a momentary touch of pity for him. What I had said, of course, was untrue, so absolutely false that I could scarcely believe he had swallowed it.

“Good night, Raoul,” I said sweetly, perversely driving in the nail deeper. “At least I enjoyed looking at your scrapbook.”

“Good night.” He breathed the words so mournfully that I almost relented and kissed him good night. He was dazed, like a prizefighter who has just been dealt one below the belt. I stood outside the door of the bungalow fishing in my purse for the latch-key and watched the violet tail-lights of Raoul's Cadillac disappear down the winding, rain-swept street. I could hear the musical note of his horn when he sounded it at the Beachwood corner. It was a gay sound, so out-of-place in the gloom of early morning, reflecting nobody's feelings at that hour, especially not my own.

It was rotten of me, I decided, to have said that to him. Certainly it was the last word in cruelty. Why, something on that order, coming from a girl, was enough to ruin a man for life—to instill a complex, a fixation, or whatever the psycho-analysts chose to label it. Yes, the man did need taking down; but not to that extent. Probably that superior air of his was not his nature, but merely a defense. In Hollywood a person has to think highly of himself—because if
he
doesn't, who will? In any event it wasn't Raoul's fault I had been weak or crazy...

What on earth had possessed me to give myself to a stranger when I was in love with Alex? It hadn't been sheer need. My physical make-up doesn't require much attention. Oh, I'm not emotionally cold, by any means, but... well, good lord, not with anyone!

The heavy fog that usually accompanies the California dawns was gradually lifting and the rain for the moment had stopped. I could barely make out the Hollywood sign erected on the mountain at the far end of Beachwood canyon. I remembered the story of the number of girls who had committed suicide from that sign and the legend of the onetime silent-picture star who had climbed to the top of the letter “W” and thrown herself off. A dramatic death, stagy yet suitable. It was a source of wonder to me that there weren't many more suicides, what with so many people coming out, burning their bridges behind them—only to find disillusionment and failure.