Starstruck - Love Me Part 12

Six weeks! Margo's heart leapt in her chest. True, it wasn't exactly the proposal of her dreams, but what did that matter? The familiar images she hadn't even dared to think of over the last several months started rus.h.i.+ng into her mind. Banks and banks of gorgeous flowers, all in shades of lavender ... no, palest pink would look better in the photos. An audience full of the most glamorous movie stars in the world-maybe even a world leader or two!-staring at her in awe and admiration as she floated down the aisle in a diamond tiara and gorgeous white gown, clutching her father's rea.s.suring arm ... and Dane Forrest, still the most handsome man Margo had ever seen, whose picture had once hung above her bed in the olden days in Pasadena, waiting for her at the altar, the light of love s.h.i.+ning in his eyes.

"Oh, Dane," she murmured, gazing up at him in adoration.

And suddenly it hit her like a ton of bricks.

It only lasted a moment, the slack look of horror that she saw there. A split second before his face regained its practiced equanimity. That amused nonchalance that set racing the hearts of women all over the world.

But a split second was enough.

He doesn't want to marry me. And he never has.

Larry Julius was opening a bottle of champagne he'd mysteriously produced out of nowhere. "Congratulations, you crazy kids."

"Mazel tov." Leo Karp was beaming. "And let me be the first to kiss the bride."

FOURTEEN.

There was plenty of stuff to do at Olympus when you had an afternoon to kill. In fact, the whole place had been designed specifically-and rather creepily, if you really thought about it-so that you never had to leave.

After Amanda failed to turn up for lunch in the commissary, which was either a very good sign regarding the redhead's future prospects at the studio or a very bad one, Gabby had wandered for a while around the studio's Main Street, looking at the penny postcards for sale in the specially zoned Olympus post office and leafing through the magazines at the newsstand. She ducked into the movie theater and caught the beginning of the old print of An Affair of the Heart they were screening in honor of Diana Chesterfield's triumphant return. After a while, she noticed Margo Sterling sitting in the back.

At least, Gabby thought it was Margo. It was hard to tell in the dark, with the heavily veiled hat she was wearing. Whoever it was, she was all alone and, from the sound of the faint sobs welling up from behind the veil, seemed about as eager for company as Greta Garbo, so Gabby beat a hasty retreat through the side door, which handily deposited her on the sidewalk right in front of her favorite place on the whole studio lot: Dr. Lipkin's office.

After she'd gotten all her prescriptions refilled-and scarfed down some of her medicinal bounty right there in the waiting room-she felt so good she thought she'd walk all the way up to the hills behind the back lot and visit the horses. But the stables were closed on account of some Western they were shooting that day, so she sc.r.a.pped that plan and stopped by the little yellow schoolhouse in the orange grove where Olympus's younger stars had their mandatory three hours of schooling every day. When Gabby had first arrived at Olympus she had sat in the cla.s.sroom for three afternoons before Viola had managed to produce some official-looking and almost certainly one hundred percent fake paperwork stating Gabby was sixteen and therefore exempt.

But Gabby had liked it in there: the smell of the chalk, the neat white strokes of the cursive alphabet marching across the tops of the blackboards. It was a pleasant place to sit and listen for a while-at least, until Miss Higgins started asking people to read out loud and Gabby fled in the humiliating and very real terror that she might be called on next. Another couple of pills, along with a healthy swig or two from one of the bottles Jimmy Molloy kept in his unlocked bungalow, soon restored her equilibrium.

But nothing could compare with the sight of Eddie Sharp leaning over the car door and the knowledge that he had come for her.

Nothing, Gabby thought, nothing could make me feel better than this.

"Yoo-hoo, Eddie! Over here!"

He waved at her, frowning slightly. "Is that what you're wearing?"

Gabby ran her hands anxiously over the sides of her dress. A tight-fighting burgundy crepe with a white lace Peter Pan collar, it was the same one she'd been wearing all day, although she had added a pair of white kid gloves and a little velvet evening jacket with a fox collar she'd smuggled out of the wardrobe department that afternoon when Sadie's back was turned.

"What's the matter? Isn't it smart enough?"

"Smart enough?" Eddie laughed. "Honey, where we're going, you're going to look like Eleanor Roosevelt."

"Oh. I didn't know."

"It doesn't matter. We can stop by your place if you want to change. Or something."

His tone was casual enough, but there was a twinkle in his eye-a twinkle that seemed to say that Gabby Preston changing clothes was something he might very much like to see. Gabby was tempted to say yes. She imagined Eddie sitting on the canopied bed in her pink bedroom, watching as she unzipped her dress, slowly stepped out of her slip ...

Quickly, she pushed the thought aside. They couldn't run the risk of going to her house. Viola would probably be there, and if she was, Gabby would never get out again. That was the reason she hadn't gone home to change in the first place. "It's out of the way," she said quickly.

"You don't even know where we're going."

"Well, I know what traffic is like," Gabby insisted. "And besides, I'd rather be overdressed." She struck a dramatic pose, her hand to her forehead like a silent film actress. "Remember, I'm supposed to be a movie star."

Eddie laughed. "That you are, peanut. Well, suit yourself. Now come on." He opened the pa.s.senger-side door and patted the seat. "Get in."

Gabby slid across the smooth leather, feeling the knot in her stomach tighten painfully and deliciously as Eddie's lips carelessly brushed her cheek in greeting.

This is it. My first real date. Tonight there would be no hairdresser tying up her corkscrew curls with little-girl hair ribbons, no packs of photographers or sour-faced studio chaperones or flacks murmuring instructions into her ear: "Smile, Gabby. Now look surprised. Now hold his hand, now kiss his cheek." Tonight, she was just a regular girl going out with a boy for the simple reason that she wanted to.

And, she thought, as she inched closer to him on the seat, just until she could feel the warmth of his thigh kiss her own, because he wants to go out with me.

Eddie lit a cigarette and offered her a drag. Gabby usually didn't smoke, since Viola was sure it would damage her voice, but this time she eagerly accepted.

He must want to kiss me, she thought excitedly, or at least, the thought doesn't totally disgust him. That's what it means when a boy offers you something his lips have touched. To be honest, she wasn't completely sure this was a hard and fast rule, but she liked the sound of it. It seemed like something Amanda would say.

"Thanks," she said, suppressing a cough as she handed the cigarette back to him. "I needed that."

Eddie looked amused as he turned the key in the ignition. "Glad I could help."

They drove down through the hills. The scenery was changing now. The Hollywood Gabby knew, with its palm-lined boulevards and pale stucco palazzos, was falling away. The houses were smaller here, crammed together like cans on a grocery store shelf, the carefully irrigated and manicured green lawns replaced by arid patches of gravel and cement. Then the houses disappeared completely and they were suddenly driving slowly down a bustling city street alight with neon signs and flas.h.i.+ng lights. People spilled out the doors and onto the sidewalks as though they'd been pushed, the men in baggy suits, the brightly dressed women laughing loudly as they teetered on too-high heels.

"Oh my G.o.d," Gabby marveled, looking around at the crowded vibrancy that surrounded them, so different from Southern California's usual outwardly placid sprawl. "Is this still Los Angeles? I feel like we're in an actual city!"

Eddie grinned. "Welcome to Central Avenue, sweetheart."

He pulled up outside a large brick building on the corner. The sidewalk was swarming with people. Gabby tried to read the large sign dangling over their heads, willing the letters to stay put instead of flipping around in backward circles in her head the way they usually did.

D, she thought firmly, remembering her sister Frankie's patient voice in her head: "You can always remember D, Gabby, because it looks like a sail and it rhymes with sea."

D-U-N-.

"The Dunbar Hotel," Eddie said before Gabby could finish. He seemed to have mistaken her concentration for speechless wonder. Thank G.o.d. "You ever been here?"

"No."

Thrillingly, Eddie slipped a proprietary arm around her waist as he led her through the door. "You're going to love it. It's like the Cotton Club of the West Coast."

Gabby had never been to the Cotton Club either-the most she'd seen of Manhattan was a glimpse of the skyline over the Hudson River the time that sleazy booking agent with the bright red mustache and what seemed like about eight hands every time he touched you had booked the Preston Sisters into the Palace Hotel, Newark. But from the way she'd heard sophisticated New York types talk in hushed tones about what fun it was on 125th Street, she expected it to be, well, naughtier. Red lighting, people reclining on brocade couches smoking opium pipes, scantily clad long-limbed beauties writhing hypnotically on the stage, like that picture she'd seen in one of Viola's magazines of Josephine Baker in Paris wearing a skirt made of bananas and nothing else.

The Dunbar, on the other hand, seemed like a standard-issue supper club. Sure, the stage was a little shabbier, the tables a little closer together, the dress code not quite so strict-although Gabby, spying quite a few evening gowns and even a white dinner jacket or two in the crowd, couldn't quite understand why Eddie has made such a fuss over her dress. Otherwise, it was pretty much like the Cocoanut Grove or the Trocadero or any other place she'd been stuffed in a stupid pink tulle dress and sent with Viola and Jimmy and a phalanx of Olympus operatives to make sure she was seen by the right people and laughed at the right jokes and didn't have too much cleavage showing in any of the photographs. It had the same hum of ambient noise and clouds of cigarette smoke, the same uniformed waiters balancing precarious trays of drinks, the same candles sunk into the same gla.s.ses casting the same shadows on the same white tablecloths.

But there was one difference. One very, very big difference.

"They're all Negroes," Gabby whispered across the table to Eddie. A furtive glance around the room confirmed it. From the lowliest busboy to the corner table of elegantly attired grandees sitting behind a velvet rope, she and Eddie were the only white people in the place. "Everybody here. Every last one!"

Eddie lit a cigarette. "I wondered how long it would take you to notice. It's not a problem, is it?"

"No, of course not," Gabby said, although she had never been around so many black people before. There was that nice Arthur, of course, and some of the other studio drivers; the odd session musician; a handful of Olympus contract players who played domestics and kept to themselves on the lot, although most of them were currently on loan to Selznick for Gone with the Wind. Back in her vaudeville days, she'd once shared a bill with a torch singer whom she'd found changing into a sequined Madame Vionnet evening gown in the middle of a frozen, garbage-strewn alley behind the theater. Gabby had asked her why on earth she was doing such a ridiculous thing, and the singer had replied that she wasn't allowed to use the same dressing room as the white acts. Gabby had been appalled at the time, but otherwise, she had never given the matter of race much thought one way or another. Suddenly, she found herself thinking of Dexter Harrington. Maybe he was here somewhere, blending in with the crowd, while she was the one sticking out like a sore thumb. "It's just that, I mean ... are we even allowed to be here?"

"Fortunately, they're pretty fair-minded about things down here. If you can pay your check, you can stay." Eddie grinned. "And lucky for you, I'm paying." He signaled for the waiter. "Rusty! Over here!"

The red-jacketed waiter made his way smoothly toward the table and clapped his hand into Eddie's outstretched one. "Eddie. How you doing, man?"

"Not bad, not bad. Just here to catch the show."

"Well, you won't be disappointed. It's going to be a hot one."

"That's what I hear." Eddie smiled. "Oh, Rusty, I want you to meet a good friend of mine from the studio. Gabby Preston."

A good friend. It didn't quite have the ring of girlfriend, but it was better than nothing. Give it time.

"Oh, sure." Rusty nodded easily. "I've heard you on the radio. Nice set of pipes. Can I get you something to drink?"

"Scotch," Gabby replied, too quickly, and immediately flushed. Why did she have to do things like that? Margo Sterling would never do something like that. Margo Sterling would daintily sip a single gla.s.s of champagne, and even then, only if her date positively insisted. Eddie's going to think I'm some kind of drunk.

But Eddie just laughed. "I guess you'd better bring us a bottle of J and B. And ice?" Gabby nodded. "And a bucket of ice for the lady."

"Got it. You hungry?"

Gabby shook her head, her magical little green appet.i.te suppressant already in her hand. Maybe she'd blown it with the drink order, but she wasn't going to make things worse by stuffing her face in front of Eddie. On this point, sources as diverse as Amanda, Viola, and Scarlett O'Hara's Mammy were absolutely agreed: you were never, never, never supposed to eat in front of a man.

"Well, I'm starving," Eddie said. "I think you'd better bring us a basket of fried chicken. One of the big ones, with waffles. Mashed potatoes and collard greens with ham hocks on the side. And for dessert ... sweet potato pie."

"You sure? We got coconut cream tonight too."

"What the h.e.l.l, bring us one of each." Eddie turned to Gabby. "Promise me you'll at least try everything. You won't be sorry. They've got the best soul food here outside of the South."

Gabby nodded, having taken the distraction of Rusty's departure to surrept.i.tiously shove the green pill in her mouth. "Whatever you say," she said, once a couple of practiced gulps had forced the dry tablet down her throat. "You're the bandleader."

"That's what I like to hear. Now," Eddie said, stubbing out his cigarette. "What was that thing you just took?"

"What?" Gabby felt a sudden stab of panic. "What are you talking about?"

"Whatever you just swallowed. It looked like some kind of pill."

"It's just something from the studio," Gabby said quickly. "To give me energy. It's mostly just vitamins."

"Oh, believe me, I know all about those kind of vitamins. Everybody takes them on the road."

"Even you?"

"Are you kidding me? How else are you supposed to play four shows a night, seven days a week? Only thing is, though, they make you awful jumpy."

Gabby shrugged. "I don't mind."

"Maybe you don't, but some of us need our beauty sleep. So then you've got to find something else, something stronger to calm you down."

"I guess that's what Scotch is for," Gabby said.

Eddie raised his eyebrows. "I guess so. Among other things."

He looked like he was about to say something else, but then the lights dimmed and the band came onstage.

The band. This, Gabby thought, was the real way the Dunbar was different from all the other places. She had never heard anything like the music that was coming out of the horn of the tenor saxophonist.

It started out as "Body and Soul," a song she'd heard hundreds of times, but after the first four bars, the familiar tune fell away as the saxophone played around it, taking the music through twists and turns she'd never imagined. And yet, somehow she still heard the melody through it all, haunting and clear, and she realized it was all in her mind. The saxophone's making harmony in my head, Gabby thought. It was like ...

"Magic," she whispered.

"You like it?" Eddie asked when the music stopped.

"Oh yes." Gabby's eyes shone with tears. "It's just ... I don't even know what to say."

"Good." Eddie grinned. "I knew you had taste. They'll take a break now. Come on, let's go backstage. I want to see if they'll let me sit in on the next set."

"You?"

"Yes, me. I do happen to play a little trumpet, or have you forgotten? Besides"-he shrugged-"how else am I going to figure out how to copy what he's doing in my session tomorrow?"

Gabby frowned. "Eddie, you can't ... you wouldn't ... borrow someone else's music, would you?"

"Borrow?" Eddie snorted. "Certainly not. Good artists borrow. Great artists steal. And I'm the greatest thief there is."

He held out his hand to her. A little s.h.i.+ver went up Gabby's spine at his touch. Obediently, she followed as he pulled her through the crowded room and out into the crush of people hanging out on the sidewalk. Eddie steered her expertly around the corner and through a side door, into a kind of anteroom cluttered with the usual musicians' detritus: the stacks of instrument cases, the discarded reeds. At the far end was another door, half open, through which Gabby caught a glimpse of the miraculous saxophone player and a couple of his side men sitting around mopping their foreheads with their rolled-up s.h.i.+rtsleeves.

"Wait here," Eddie said, suddenly all business. "I'll just be a minute."

He disappeared behind the door, closing it tightly behind him.

Alone, Gabby felt awkward and out of place. This is why people smoke, she thought, slouching against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. So they always look like they have something to do.

"Gabby?"

"Dexter. Hi."

"I thought that was you." Wherever Eddie was, it seemed Dexter couldn't be far behind. He looked at her with a quizzical expression. A slightly battered cornet dangled from his hand. "What are you doing on Central Avenue?"

"I came to see the show. With Eddie," she added importantly. "He asked me this morning, at the studio, remember?"

"Oh, that's right." Dexter looked amused. "I don't know how I could have forgotten."

Frankly, Gabby didn't either. Eddie's invitation-even if she had had to give him just the teeniest little nudge-had been such a momentous occasion she could hardly believe that even Dexter Harrington would fail to understand its import. "Have you been here the whole time?"