Starstruck - Love Me Part 10

"Margo, I can't hear you. Come in here if you want to talk to me."

With another groan, Margo gathered up the rumpled magazine and carried it into the bathroom, where Dane stood shaving in front of the mirror. "It's about Diana."

"There's a surprise."

"Just read it," Margo insisted as Dane shaved. "I mean, are you kidding me? An English duke. And they couldn't get married because his family didn't approve? That doesn't even make any sense! There's no t.i.tle higher than a duke except a royal prince, and they're all already married. If he's supposed to be a duke, he would have already inherited and he could marry whomever he wanted. It just doesn't add up."

"It doesn't add up," Dane said, "because it's a lie."

"Right, but they could at least have gotten the story straight. Made him a viscount or something. This is just so easy to disprove, it's ridiculous."

Dane wiped his face with a towel. "Luckily, I don't think most of Photoplay's audience is familiar with the exact pecking order of the British peerage."

"It's in Picture Palace." Margo pouted. "And some of them will. British people."

"Honey," Dane sighed. "I don't know what you're getting so worked up about."

"I'm not."

"You are." He turned away from the mirror to face her. "Believe me, Larry Julius has thought this out better than you ever could. And frankly, you should be grateful to Diana for going along with it and selling it as well as she did. It's good for her, it's good for the studio, and most of all, it's good for us."

"I don't see how."

Dane gave her a hard look. "Please don't do this."

Margo looked down at the wet floor. She knew what Dane meant. By having Diana so publicly repudiate their "romance," Larry had set it up so that Dane could hardly ever be expected to "take her back." Their romantic lives, constantly rearranged at the whim of the studio as if they were chess pieces on a board, would remain as is for now. "She 'can't wait' to get to know me better," she muttered. "What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?"

"Maybe exactly what it says," Dane said. "She is my sister, after all. Even-maybe even especially-if we're the only ones who know it. It's not out of the realm of possibility that she might want to be your friend."

"Yeah," Margo said. "Such a friend she stepped right in and took my part."

Dane let out a sigh. "What part?"

"In the Madame Bovary picture Raoul Kurtzman is doing."

Dane frowned. "I thought they were borrowing Claudette Colbert from Paramount for that."

"They were, but she and Zukor asked for some ridiculous salary, and I was next in the running." At least, I was hoping I was.

Dane's eyes lit up. "But they gave it to Diana?"

"You don't seem very disappointed for me."

"Margo." Dane's voice carried a note of warning. "Come on. You're too young. It's a perfect role for Diana, with everything she's been through. Are they really giving it to her? Where'd you hear that, anyway?"

"Where else? From Gabby." Scowling, Margo s.n.a.t.c.hed a washcloth from the side of the tub and began to wipe up Dane's stubbly little hairs from the lip of the sink. It was his bathroom, but still, it drove her crazy how he just left them there like that. "She seems to know everything lately."

"Anything else interesting?"

"Not really. Mostly she just goes on and on about that bandleader. Eddie Sharp. The one she sang with at the Governor's Ball. Sounds like she's crazy about him."

Dane snorted. "That'll end well."

"I don't know," Margo said. "It sounds different this time. Like he really respects her ... I don't know ... her talent. She thinks he's going to offer her a contract to record with him." She picked up Dane's comb, still oily with Brylcreem, from the ledge in front of the mirror and ran her fingers absently over the teeth. "What do you suppose that's like?"

"To be respected for one's talent?"

"No, to be under contract to just one person like that. Like Paulette G.o.ddard was with Charlie Chaplin. Or all those girls who sign with Howard Hughes."

Dane rolled his eyes. "I don't know. I suppose it's rather stifling. Like a kind of marriage."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Margo, please. I don't have time for this. I'm due on set in an hour. The car will be here any minute, and I haven't even gone over my lines yet. Look." His tone softened as he reached for her hand. "Why don't you get dressed and ride along? You haven't been to the studio in weeks. You can drop in on Raoul Kurtzman, maybe a couple of the writers. Have lunch with Gabby." He grinned. "h.e.l.l, maybe you'll b.u.mp into Jimmy Molloy and figure out some way to try to make me jealous. That always cheers you up."

Dane meant well, Margo knew, but there was such self-satisfaction in his tone, such condescending, knowing smugness, that she couldn't stem the swell of anger bubbling up inside her, any more than a kettle on the stove could keep from boiling over. "And who are you planning to make me jealous with? Some extra behind the backdrop? Or should I be prepared for a cozy photo op with darling sister herself?"

"Stop it." Dane seized her by the shoulders, his face dark as a thundercloud. "That is enough. I swear, Margo, say one more word about Diana, just one, and I'll-"

"You'll what?" Margo shouted.

The doorbell rang before he could answer her. Dane had it rigged to sound through the telephone in every room of the house. Now it echoed through the walls of the bedroom, high and shrill as an ambulance siren, seeming to echo the alarm Margo felt.

"G.o.ddammit," Dane muttered, releasing her. "George! Answer the door! George!"

"He's probably in the guesthouse, listening to the radio and drinking Coca-Cola," Margo said bitterly. "That's all he ever does these days."

Pus.h.i.+ng her aside, s.n.a.t.c.hing his s.h.i.+rt from the back of the chair, Dane rushed toward the front door.

With a stab of real fear, Margo followed close on his heels. She couldn't let him leave like this. Not after a fight. Not when he was off to a studio full of girls. Bored dancing girls parading around in no more than a few sc.r.a.ps of net and a couple of spangles; ambitious chorus girls who would do anything to see their name in the papers; vulnerable, starstruck girls who would trail him around like a puppy for so much as a friendly word. Girls not so very different from how Margo had been when Dane had first laid eyes on her, slouched on the bench outside soundstage 14 and weeping as though her heart would break.

Never mind the fight, Margo thought suddenly. I may never let him go to the studio without me ever again.

"Dane, wait," she pleaded helplessly as he opened the door. "I'm sorry. Darling, I'm so sorry. I want to come with you, I do. Tell Arthur to wait just a minute and I'll get dressed right away."

Only it wasn't Arthur standing on the front porch, chauffeur's cap in hand.

It was Larry Julius. Dane and Margo gasped in unison, as cleanly as if they'd been cued.

"h.e.l.lo, Dane." Larry smiled pleasantly, his ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips. If he was at all surprised by the state they were in-Dane's disheveled hair and unb.u.t.toned s.h.i.+rt, the freshly tearstained Margo in her lace peignoir with nothing underneath-he certainly didn't look it. "And darling Margo. Well, well. How convenient to find you here. Two birds with one stone."

"Larry." Dane found his voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Studio business, what else?" Larry said cheerfully. "I've got orders to bring you both straight to Mr. Karp."

Dane and Margo exchanged a look, instantly back on the same side. As Gabby Preston always said, at Olympus, there were only two reasons for a summons from Mr. Karp: Oscar or firing squad.

And the Oscars were over.

"Can't ... can't it wait?" Margo squeaked.

"Do you think I'd have schlepped all the way out to Malibu if it could? And wipe that look off your face, d.u.c.h.ess," he added. "It's not like I'm the Gestapo. From what I understand, the Gestapo gives you five minutes to get dressed and come quietly." Larry grinned. "I'll give you three."

TWELVE.

Gabby Preston's heart was pounding, and for once, it wasn't the pills.

It had been like this ever since the cras.h.i.+ng ovation that had greeted her after her performance at the Governor's Ball had lifted her higher than any pill ever had. A steady thrum, a quick succession of triplets, like a waltz you were dancing too fast. Only instead of its usual panicky reproach-"go faster" or "not enough"-it beat out a new and infinitely more delicious phrase: Eddie Sharp. Eddie Sharp.

Barely a day had pa.s.sed since their mutual onstage triumph before a huge pink stuffed cat had appeared on the front porch of the house on Fountain Avenue, with a note attached to the ribbon collar around its neck. Viola had automatically reached for it, but Gabby had jealously s.n.a.t.c.hed the note out of her mother's reach and carefully read it herself, her lips moving silently, patiently sounding out the words until she was sure she'd gotten them right: Hey, Kitty Cat: Here's hoping we make more beautiful music together soon. Eddie.

Truth be told, Gabby might have preferred a more grown-up gift, like jewelry or perfume, but she was hardly going to complain. In all their weeks-months?-of fake dates, that cheapskate Jimmy Molloy had never given her anything the studio hadn't picked out and paid for, and she knew it had been the same when he was fake-dating Margo. And yes, maybe it would have been a teensy-tiny bit more flattering if he'd written Love, Eddie or Yours, Eddie or even "Anything" Eddie, but what did it matter? Boys probably didn't think about things like that anyway.

She put the note away carefully in the blue velvet pouch she'd inherited from Viola, with the ripped-up pieces of her sister Frankie's goodbye letter and her father's old pipe. When she called Eddie to thank him, his secretary told her that Mr. Sharp had gone to Palm Springs for the week.

For a wild moment, she wondered: what if she drove out there and surprised him? Wouldn't that be a hoot! It was a simple-enough operation to throw some clothes in her old cardboard suitcase, still littered with stickers and stamps from the vaudeville days, and sneak the keys to the Cadillac out of a napping Viola's handbag.

She only made it as far as the driveway when her hands started to shake. It wasn't that she couldn't drive, Gabby told herself, but taking the car to the market or even the studio was one thing; driving to the middle of the desert a hundred miles away without being sure where she was going was quite another. She thought she'd just go back to the house and have a drink to calm her nerves and get her courage up before setting out, maybe with a map.

But one drink turned into three, and eventually she gave up altogether. Sometimes the green pills made Gabby want to do things that weren't necessarily the smartest when she thought about them later on. Even if she did make it to Palm Springs in one piece, maybe it wasn't the best idea, strategically, to just drop in on Eddie like that, unannounced. When Amanda had been staying with the Prestons, on the rare occasions she could be roused from her Harry Gordoninduced catatonia to offer the advice about boys that Gabby craved, she had mentioned that men liked it when you played hard to get.

So Gabby was playing hard to get. She'd waited a week, until she was sure Eddie would be back, and then she managed to hold out another three days. And it was worth it. When at last she broke down and telephoned that morning, she finally-finally-got something she could use.

"Oh, no, Mr. Sharp isn't in. He's recording on the Olympus lot today."

It was like music to Gabby's ears-beautiful music, the kind Eddie wanted to make together.

She hung up the phone, called the studio, and asked them to send a car for her, and an hour later, here she was strolling nonchalantly across the Olympus lot as though she'd planned to be here all along. Easy as pie. And if Eddie has been thinking about me even one-sixteenth as much as I've been thinking about him, Gabby told herself, he's going to be pretty d.a.m.n happy to see me.

The recording studios at Olympus were cl.u.s.tered behind the grand compound housing the administrative offices of Mr. Karp-supposedly because he liked to throw open his windows to listen to the beautiful music that came from them, but in reality, this was just a story the publicity department had fed to the movie magazines, designed to make the gullible public feel as if the second-most-highly-paid man in America were a fan just like them. Every last studio was completely soundproof.

Gabby took the shortcut around the garden of tropical flowers decorated with Greek-style statues depicting the twelve Olympian G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses in a rather more modest state of dress than was strictly cla.s.sical (the prudish Mr. Karp refused to have them any other way).

A gleaming studio limo pulled up in front of the grand building, and Gabby crouched behind an enormous magenta azalea bush to see who was getting out. It was Margo Sterling and Dane Forrest, accompanied by Larry Julius, looking so serious he could have been a prison guard walking them to the gallows. Jesus, Gabby thought. I wonder what they're in for.

She didn't have much time to ponder this delightfully fascinating problem before she saw a familiar black-clad, bright-haired figure in dark gla.s.ses trudging slowly down the cobblestone road. "Yoo-hoo!" Gabby called. "Amanda."

"Gabby," Amanda replied, stiffly returning her friend's proffered embrace. "h.e.l.lo."

"Did you get a load of those two?" Gabby asked, gesturing to the limo still idling by the curb.

"Who?"

"Who do you think? Our own Romeo and Juliet. Walking into Karp's office like they were going to their own funeral."

Amanda's lips were strangely white. She pressed them together tightly in a grim approximation of a smile. "I'm afraid I might be doing the same thing."

"You've got a meeting with Karp?"

"No, of course not. You think I've ever even met Mr. Karp? They've got me in with some underling."

Gabby gulped. "It's not about your contract, is it?"

"I don't know. They didn't tell me."

"What does your agent say?"

Amanda gave a short bark of a laugh. "He's either very busy or very busy pretending to be. I couldn't get him on the phone."

"I'm sure it's fine," Gabby said kindly. "He probably is just awfully busy. You know how they are. And you've still got weeks left on your contract. They're probably just checking in. You haven't exactly been out and about as much as you used to be. They haven't seen you in person in a while. Maybe they've got a picture they want to put you on and just want to make sure you didn't get fat or something."

"Maybe," Amanda said, but she didn't look convinced.

"Sure. And even if it ..." Gabby paused. Everyone in Hollywood was superst.i.tious. Saying certain unthinkable things out loud seemed to invite bad luck on the speaker and listener alike. "... if it isn't good news," she said finally, "there are plenty of other places to go. MGM needs new faces."

"MGM." Amanda snorted. "Yeah, right. Why don't I just apply to be the Queen of England, while I'm at it?"

"Columbia, then. Or you could sign with one of the independents. David Selznick is doing awfully swell things with those girls he keeps importing from Europe. Howard Hughes might take you on. Or Oscar Zellman, he's always been fond of you."

Amanda's gaze darted toward the neat row of stucco buildings at the end of the row, as though desperate to think about anything other than what an exclusive contract with Oscar Zellman might entail. "Are you recording today?"

Gabby shrugged. "I'm not sure yet. Maybe."

"With Eddie Sharp? You sounded marvelous together the other night."

"Do you really think so?" Gabby's heart leapt in her chest.

"Oh yes. It was the best thing I've heard in ages."

"I'm so glad! I wasn't sure you'd heard it. I didn't see you afterward." Gabby grinned mischievously. "Come to think of it, I didn't see Harry afterward either." Suddenly, she felt a painful stab of envy. Margo, living in Dane Forrest's house, sleeping in his bed, just like they were husband and wife; Amanda, off somewhere in the dark with Harry Gordon. Everyone's doing it but me, Gabby thought miserably. I'm just some stupid virgin singing "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart"; in the meantime, everyone else knows what it feels like. "I don't suppose you found him, did you?"

Amanda shut her eyes. "I have to go. I'm late."

I said the wrong thing, Gabby thought. "Amanda, I-"

"It's all right. I just really have to go."

"Okay, okay." Gabby gave her friend an apologetic smile. "I'll probably be in the commissary later, if you feel like coming by. We'll pig out on ice cream, if they'll let us."

A terse nod was all Amanda could manage before she scurried away.

Pus.h.i.+ng back her guilt-Why, why do I always say the wrong thing?-Gabby focused her attention on the task at hand. She knew Eddie Sharp's orchestra was in one of those studios. Nothing more than a wall of stucco (and fibergla.s.s, and a special state-of-the-art soundproofing rubber that the studio had discreetly ordered-at great expense to Mr. Karp's pocketbook and morality-from some scientists in n.a.z.i Germany) separated her from Eddie. Just the thought of it was enough to make a s.h.i.+ver of excitement run down her spine.