Authors: Phoebe Matthews
When Graham reached my building, he stopped in front but kept the engine running. And then I was saying goodnight, and no, of course I didn’t mind, that sort of garbage.
“I’m sorry, I have a splitting headache,” I heard myself say.
“Yes, I thought you looked a bit tired, darling. You get to bed early and sleep in tomorrow.”
But when I reached the lobby door and began the search for my keys, Graham’s words came back, recent and clear, what he’d said earlier when we were sitting in the restaurant. “Eat your dinner. Then we’ll take a run out to the cottage and I will drive you so crazy, you won’t be thinking about anyone else.”
Halfway through dinner when I started knocking over wine glasses and drifting in my own thoughts, he’d changed his mind.
In-laws, I don’t think so.
CHAPTER 15
The flashes of memory didn’t come in chronological order. Sometimes they probably followed my own expanding awareness and sometimes they filled in information I’d been wondering about. The next time I was Silver was all about the first time I met Laurence.
“Let’s cut out,” Laurence said one afternoon when the cast had all been standing around the set too long.
A camera had broken down and the star was throwing a tantrum and everybody left the set except the extras. We always hung in there, hoping to get another take.
I swung around at the sound of his voice behind me and almost knocked us both over. He laughed and caught my elbows to steady me.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He looked deep into my eyes and smiled.
Later, remembering, I wasn’t sure he’d been talking to me. He’d never spoken to me before. Maybe he was trying to get someone else’s attention. Then our eyes met and we did this ohmygosh recognition because of course I knew who he was, an actor with several scenes. He would get his name in the credits.
He surprised me when he said, “You’re the one they call Silver, am I right?” When I nodded yes, struck dumb, honest to God, he added, “How about we get out of here? That’s it for the day, believe you me.”
We ended up at a Mexican place, an outdoor dining area on a patio, color tiles and wrought iron tables and a gang from the studio and everybody talking. I’d never spent much time with the rest of the cast off the set. They were all so witty, said clever things and laughed at each other’s jokes and I felt like a stupid farm girl until I felt his hand on my arm and heard his low voice introducing me and then including me.
“Silver, you’re way better than an extra,” he told me, “gonna be a star someday.”
“Do you think so? My friend Ruth says we all look too much alike. A girl needs to be different to get noticed. Like that Gloria Swanson. Have you seen Carol Dempster in the new Griffith picture?”
“You’re much prettier. You’re the prettiest girl in screenland.”
We stayed on the patio with its warm night scent of nicotiana and the sky slowly going dark and then the stars out and people slowly heading home. He walked me back to my rooming house. At the end of the sidewalk he followed me up to the porch stairs and said good night, and then he leaned in and surprised me with a quick kiss.
“Been fun,” he said. “Again sometime.”
Right then I should have asked around, found out exactly who Laurence was. At least I could have asked the other girls if he had a girlfriend, but if I did, they’d all say, “Why do you care?” I knew they would ask and I didn’t want to explain. Because I was absolutely certain that handsome blond Laurence, with his magic smile, was not going to bother with Millie Pedersen from Minnesota.
I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t so much as glance my way the whole next week.
Could have knocked me off my heels when he showed up at my rooming house Friday night, waiting out front on the sidewalk when I dragged home dead beat from work.
“You look like a girl who needs a cold glass of something,” he said.
I was so startled, I blurted, “I could drink a whole pitcher of lemonade.”
He laughed as though I had said something really clever. “Sure, Silver, if that’s what you want.”
Should I have said, “Before I go anywhere with you, can I ask if you have a girlfriend?”
Yes, I should have. One of those smart girls would have. Instead I told myself that a nice fella wouldn’t be asking me out unless he was free. So it wasn’t until a couple nights later, when we went out driving an automobile that he’d borrowed from a pal, that I found out.
We were having such a good time.
We were driving out toward the ocean when he asked if I knew how to drive.
“Sure I do.”
“Really? Most girls don’t.”
“My brother taught me. This is such a swell automobile. I bet it’s a treat to drive.”
“Want to try?”
“Can I?” I guess I sounded excited because he laughed at me and then he pulled over to the side and we got out and changed places.
So there I was, driving the kind of car that would have made my brother’s eyes pop, and heading toward the ocean. We had the road to ourselves and stars coming out and the air all fresh and salty.
Maybe one of the happiest times of my life, that night was. Right up until he told me.
We parked down near a beach and through the open windows I could smell the ocean and hear the waves. I could see that pale line of light that sometimes shines along the top edge of the breaking waves. I told him it was fairy light and he said it had something to do with some kind of shellfish and I told him that wasn’t very romantic. We were all wound around each other in the front seat.
“Careful, I’ll be getting lipstick on your shirt,” I said.
He laughed, didn’t seem worried, and then all at once he moved away from me. “You’re right. I do need to be careful.”
“Yes, it’s a nice shirt.”
“The shirt doesn’t matter. Silver, you do know I’m married, don’t you?”
My breath caught in my throat and for a minute I thought I might die right there. When I managed to speak, I whispered, “How would I know that?”
He reached out and hooked my hair behind my ear and then leaned close until our faces were almost touching. In the shadowy darkness I could see the glitter of his eyes. “There’s no secrets in this business. Only I don’t talk about it because the studio is getting strict about scandal. I mean, I don’t talk about my wife.”
I moved away from him, closing my blouse where he’d undone a couple of buttons. “It’s not a scandal to be married. Oh, you mean me.”
“No, I mean her. She’s, uh, you know what an addict is?”
Sort of, not really, though I’d heard the other girls whispering in the dressing room about some of the parties. I didn’t go to that kind of party and so I tried not to listen. Sometimes they talked about things I didn’t really want to know.
He said, “Golly, you’re sweet. Like you hatched yesterday. Guess I was, too, because I didn’t know until after we were married. Anyway, that’s how it is and there’s not much I can do for her.”
I didn’t know what to say. Then he said it for me.
“Nice girls don’t date married men. I should have realized that you didn’t know. I guess I better take you home now.”
He did, he took me home, walked me to the front door, kissed my cheek, gave me a smile and said good night. And I couldn’t think of anything at all to say until I made it upstairs into my room. After closing the door, I spent the night on my bed with a pillow over my head to muffle the sound of me sobbing his name.
We avoided each other on location after that. As our parts never put us both in front of the camera at the same time, that was how it went. Horrible. The days were horrible. I stood wherever I was told to stand and wait to be called, and it’s a miracle I ever heard directions because all I could think about was Laurence. My eyes ate him up, from his looks to his clothes to the way he moved and then occasionally, I heard his voice.
He was talking to a director and the words weren’t clear, but that tone carried, low and beautiful, and that voice belonged on stage where people could hear him. He looked good on the big moving picture screens, maybe better than he would on a stage, but it seemed a waste not to hear him.
If he watched me, I didn’t see it. Only I guess he did. Because a week later he was waiting on the sidewalk when I returned to the rooming house. He smiled and stood there and waited until I reached him. My heart wanted to burst it was so happy and for a minute I forgot why we couldn’t be together.
“Silver,” he said, “I miss you.”
All I could do was nod.
“Trouble is, I’ve fallen hard for you.”
Nice girls don’t date married men, he’d told me, and he was right. I never would. I’d practically grown up in Sunday school. Okay, I ran away but that’s not to say I forgot everything my parents taught me.
He said, “I’m going to leave her.”
I managed to ask when and how.
“As soon as I can. But divorce isn’t easy, it takes time. And we have to keep it quiet and keep us a secret. The thing is, those gossip reporters don’t care about a quiet divorce. The story they always want is the triangle. And that’s what the studio doesn’t want.”
And then he said, “When this is all straightened out, I want to marry you, Silver.”
CHAPTER 16
Dates who spill wine on the restaurant table cloth and lose track of the conversation are only intriguing the first time around when they are unexplored territory. I could write a Guide on How to Lose a Man, damn, I wasn’t surprised when Graham cut the evening short. Little April strikes out again. Hmm. That could be a chapter heading in a Dummies Guide to Recognizing the Signs.
I thought he’d get over it, hey, I got over it. The evening was a bummer, with Graham echoing Laurence’s words, not something I could explain to him, and besides. When he dropped me off, I’d apologized. Blamed the spilled wine and wandering attention on a headache.
“Thanks for a wonderful dinner,” I’d said. “Now I need to hit the aspirin bottle because my head is splitting.”
Everybody gets a headache occasionally and I certainly wouldn’t expect him to stumble through a migraine making nice. Or is it only women who are forgiving?
A few days of silence, maybe. Although Mac or Tom would have been phoning every half hour to see how I felt. Still, we had planned to spend the weekend at his cottage.