Starstruck - Love Me Part 5

"Oh," Jimmy breathed. "Oh no."

Amanda's eyes were unnaturally bright. Two dark red spots blossomed on her pale cheeks as she shakily murmured some excuse-clearly inadequate, from the look on her lunch companion's face-and dashed toward the comforting oblivion of the ladies' room.

Margo, to her surprise, found herself reflexively scooping up her purse. "I'm going to talk to her."

"No, Margo." Jimmy reached out to stop her. "Leave her alone."

"But she's upset," Margo protested. "I can't just leave her. Remember how she helped us at the Cocoanut Grove that night Gabby was sick? It's the least I can do to return the favor."

"And I'm telling you, let her be. This isn't some drunk little girl throwing up in the bathroom, Margo." Jimmy seized her hand, looking gravely into her eyes. "This is a real broken heart."

A real broken heart. And there, in the corner, was the real Louella Parsons, gleefully writing every bit of it down.

SIX.

He cares.

The words thrummed through Amanda over and over again, like a heartbeat. Harry still cares.

Sure, maybe storming out of one of the most famous restaurants in town in front of a veritable t.i.tle sequence of Hollywood's Who's Who was not the usual way of showing it. But Harry had never been the sort to do things the usual way. Truth be told, if he had done anything else, she would have been worried. A "civilized" man, a suave Dane Forrest type-someone like that might have handled things differently. That man might have been able to nod a greeting from across the room, even pop by her table for a cordial, if impersonal, chat.

But Harry Gordon was not that man. Harry Gordon was no Dane Forrest. And thank G.o.d for that.

Harry could never hide his feelings or separate his heart from his head. It was one of the reasons why Amanda loved him. From the look in his eyes when he saw her, she could tell her feelings were far from unrequited. When she'd run to the bathroom crying-not her most poised moment, true, and one that had certainly p.i.s.sed the h.e.l.l out of that poor schmuck she'd been having lunch with, who'd disappeared while she was gone and stuck her with the bill-the tears streaming down her face had been ones of joy, not despair. She'd been crying with grat.i.tude, because Harry still loved her.

And now, right in front of her, was the evidence. Once again in black-and-white. Ink, that is.

Amanda took a long drag from her cigarette-smoking, she thought ruefully, being just one of the seemingly unbreakable bad habits she'd picked up during these last terrible months. Gingerly, she laid it still smoldering on the side of the cracked bathtub and reached for the newspaper on the floor. Careful to keep the precious pages from falling into the tepid perfumed water, she began once again to read the words she had by now practically learned by heart: Like Something Out of the Movies

The song says life is just a bowl of cherries, but lunch was much more than just a Cobb salad for Tinseltown's own Romeo and Juliet, Harry Gordon and Amanda Farraday. 'Tis in the fair Brown Derby that we set our scene, where the two star-crossed lovers held each other's burning gaze across a dining room filled with the grandest grandees in town. You could have heard a pin drop ... and you'd have wondered if that pin was from a grenade, the atmosphere was so combustible. They don't call it chemistry for nothing, chickens!

Alas, they went their separate ways with nary a word exchanged ... but to this humble observer, they might not be separate for long. Maybe we're sentimental, but nothing would make us happier than to see a happy Harry go home Oscar night with a s.e.xy little gold man in one hand and a s.e.xy little redhead in the other. This story isn't over yet, kids. But let's just hope Olympus's hottest scribe can come up with a happier ending than that mopey old Bill Shakespeare.

"Hey, sister!" There was an angry pounding on the bathroom door. "Open up in there!"

"Hold your horses, will ya?" Amanda yelled back. "I'm just finis.h.i.+ng up."

"You've been finis.h.i.+ng up for forty-five minutes. Open the door or I'm going to call Mrs. O'Malley."

Amanda sighed. That was all she needed, for the landlady to get involved, when she was already late on this week's rent. "All right, all right." Reluctantly, she heaved herself out of the water and, teeth chattering, pulled on her black lace peignoir. I really need to buy a nice thick toweling robe, Amanda thought, or maybe cashmere. Something warm.

Pulling the thin wrapping of silk tighter around her body, she lit a fresh cigarette and tucked the newspaper under her arm before she opened the door to find Mildred, her down-the-hall neighbor, tapping her foot impatiently, her wide mouth twisted into a snarl.

"Took you long enough." With her yellow hair wrapped up tightly in curling rags, she looked like Medusa with a head full of live snakes. Mildred has probably turned a man or two to stone in her day. "Thought I was going to have to take a leak right here in the hallway."

"I'm so sorry," Amanda said sweetly. "I left a bottle of Chanel Bois des Iles bubble bath in there, if you'd like to use it," she added.

Piggy eyes widening with greed, Mildred darted into the bathroom and slammed the door without so much as a thank-you, as though she was worried Amanda was going to change her mind.

Typical, Amanda thought, rus.h.i.+ng down the dirty corridor toward her own bare room to dress. This boardinghouse stuff was for the dogs. Nosy neighbors peeping into her room at all hours, sniffing among her things for whatever they thought she wouldn't miss. Stern-faced Mrs. O'Malley with trailing rosaries and endless rules about curfews and gentleman callers and "being respectable"-ironic in a house in which every tenant, to Amanda's practiced eye, at least, either used to be a professional or was about to be. Having to wait in line for everything: the bathroom, the pay phone, the enormous morning vat of sludgy Irish oatmeal that qualified as the second half of room and board.

Oh well, Amanda thought, deftly zipping up the back of her black crepe Chanel dress (might as well match the bubble bath, she figured) and pinned her velvet hat into place. Mrs. O'Malley's was relatively clean, for what it was, and the price was right-at least, it would be once she was a little more ... liquid.

And besides, it wouldn't be for much longer. She'd read in Variety that Harry had just renegotiated his contract with the studio; he must be making a mint by now. Once they were back together, he'd bail her out. Even if they didn't move in together right away, he'd find her a better place to live, maybe even talk the studio into giving her a bungalow like they did Margo Sterling. Harry would take care of her. She was sure of it.

Parked on a crumbling corner next to a broken parking meter licked with rust, Amanda's gleaming dove-gray coupe looked as out of place as her Parisian hatboxes and monogrammed trunks piled on Mrs. O'Malley's uneven floor. Slipping behind the wheel, Amanda breathed in the rich scent of the burgundy leather seats, which still smelled new after almost two years. She ran her hand over the gold initials embossed on the highly polished door of the glove compartment: A L F.

Amanda Louise Farraday. A name-a person-she had invented all by herself, out of nothing. If Harry and I get married, I'll have to change the monogram, Amanda thought with a giggle. Another name, another ident.i.ty to slip into as if it were one of her black silk gloves. She was sure it would fit her just as well.

Amanda drove. Slowly, the shabby buildings and crumbling streets gave way to neat little homes with orange trees in their well-kept yards, then gated mansions with sprawling emerald lawns dotted with palm trees, until the glittering paved expanse of Wils.h.i.+re Boulevard stretched out before her. She pulled into the long circular driveway of Bullocks, enjoying the luxuriant crunch of the gravel beneath her tires. A uniformed valet jumped out to greet her. She dropped her keys into his outstretched hand and smiled graciously at the doormen as they ushered her through the gla.s.s-and-travertine doors into the lobby.

Maybe it was silly, but Amanda thought there was no place on earth that made her feel as safe as the Bullocks Wils.h.i.+re department store. She loved the slippery floors of pale Italian marble, the immense art deco ceiling mural depicting planes, trains, and automobiles in a colorful paean to the steady thrum of optimistic American progress, the polished nickel columns and s.h.i.+ning gla.s.s countertops in which one could catch a rea.s.suring glimpse of oneself looking appropriately stylish and busy and important.

It was as if nothing bad could ever happen to you there, as though the cares and worries of the world were gone with a whisk of the revolving doors, like water past the rudder of a s.h.i.+p. A department store was beautiful and calm, filled with beautiful and calm people harvesting the beautiful fruits of their labor in the hushed reverent tones of visitors to an art museum.

With one important exception: in this art museum, everything was for sale.

"Miss Farraday!" the salesgirl exclaimed as Amanda stepped out of the polished mahogany elevator and into the designer salons of the fifth floor. "It's ... it's you."

"h.e.l.lo, Annette," Amanda said warmly. "How nice to see you. It's been a long time."

"It certainly has." Nervously, the girl's fingers flew to the ruffled collar of her starched white blouse. "Is there ... is there something I can help you with?"

"There is." Amanda graced the girl with her best haughty, impersonal smile. Somehow, the expression made her think of Diana Chesterfield, although G.o.d-and Amanda-knew that Diana was no more to-the-manor-born than she was. "I'm looking for a new evening dress. Something rather spectacular, if you can swing it."

"Any special occasion?"

Amanda examined her nails with studied nonchalance. "Oh, only if you consider the Oscars something special."

"I ... I see," Annette stammered. "In that case ... I'd ..."

"You'd what, Annette? Spit it out."

"I'd better get my manager," Annette said finally. "Just wait here."

Great. Amanda pursed her lips with impatience as the girl fluttered anxiously away. This is going to be trickier than I thought. Bracing herself, she tightened her grip around the packet of paper she clutched along with the slim patent-leather pocketbook in her left hand.

"Miss Farraday." Mr. Pierre, the designer department manager who seemed convinced that his spa.r.s.e pencil mustache made him a dead ringer for Ronald Colman, strode across the plush velvet carpet, stroking the white carnation tucked in the b.u.t.tonhole of his morning suit with long, manicured fingers. "A pleasure."

"And for me."

The manager let a terse smile play over this thin lips. "Annette tells me you're looking for something rather special."

"Isn't it silly?" Amanda clapped a small hand fetchingly to her collarbone, letting out a silvery peal of laughter. The modest hand flutter to the decolletage was one of Olive Moore's patented maneuvers. If only she could see me now. "The Oscars are just days away, and I've just been so busy running around like a chicken with my head cut off that I've completely forgotten to do anything about a gown. I mean, I don't suppose you even have anything left, do you?"

"That depends." Mr. Pierre sniffed. "Is there anything in particular you had in mind?"

"Well, now that you ask"-Amanda looked up at him through her eyelashes-"there was a ruched green velvet Molyneux in this month's Vogue I thought might do the trick."

"Not black?"

"I thought it might be fun to branch out a little." Amanda let her smile deepen. "And besides, it's a very deep green."

"I see." Having stroked his boutonniere to the point of disintegration, Pierre moved onto his mustache. "Miss Farraday, much as it pains me to say this, there is the small matter of an outstanding bill."

Come on, Ginger, Amanda thought grimly. It had been ages since anyone had called her by the fake name she'd used when she was working for Olive Moore, and even longer since she'd thought of herself that way. But an occasion like this seemed to call for all the duplicity she could muster. Show 'em what you're made of.

"Oh!" she gasped prettily, letting her freshly moistened lips fall open the Olive-recommended one inch. Not so far as to spoil the shape of your mouth, and enough to keep your bottom teeth covered. No one, Olive said, wants to see your bottom teeth. "My goodness! Mr. Pierre, I can't tell you how mortified I am. Like I said, I've just been so busy lately I've completely neglected my correspondence. I'll write you a check this instant for the full amount."

"Miss Farraday-"

"No, I insist! Just let me find my checkbook. ..."

Carefully, Amanda deposited the newspaper on the nickel counter, careful to make sure the headline about her and Harry at the top of Louella Parsons's column was clearly visible as she made a big show of rooting around in her pocketbook. Mr. Pierre's beady eyes flickered toward it immediately, like a moth drawn to a flame. Success!

"Miss Farraday ... ," he repeated, holding up his hand.

"Oh no!" Amanda wailed, like a woman who'd lost her best friend. Careful, kiddo, don't overdo it. "I can't believe it! I've left my checkbook at home. And this is the only day I have free until Oscar night." She let out a sigh, expertly strangulated, with just the barest threat of tears. "Oh well. I suppose I'll just have to wear an old gown, then. My escort will have seen it, of course, but maybe he won't remember."

Mr. Pierre's eyes were glued to the newspaper item. "And your escort is ... Mr. Gordon, I presume?"

"Well." Amanda dropped her gaze demurely to the counter, lowering her voice to a shy hush. "I'm afraid I'm not quite at liberty to say. You understand. But let's just say I'm relieved he's not ... materialistic. New York playwright and all that." She let one expertly shadowed eyelid fall in a slow wink.

That was all it took. "Miss Farraday, I believe we can help you."

"Really!" Amanda squealed with glee, clapping her pocketbook to her breastbone. "You will?"

"Certainly." Mr. Pierre let out a decisive grunt. "After all, you are one of our most valued customers. What's a few dollars and cents between friends?"

"Mr. Pierre, it's like you read my mind." Her voice was a feline purr.

"Good." The manager beamed. "Now, we do happen to have the green Molyneux you mentioned in stock, but if you have decided to consider color, there's a burgundy Mainbocher we've just got in that might be sublime. And of course, that's not to discount Madame Chanel, whose newest collection needs a lean silhouette. But of course, the Parisian designers don't come cheap-"

"Mr. Pierre," Amanda said happily. "I'm entirely in your hands."

The only thing that matters is that I look like a million bucks.

SEVEN.

The eleventh annual Academy Awards had no official host.

It was the first time this had ever happened, and n.o.body was quite sure how. Some spoke in hushed tones of a bitter intra-Academy feud; smug insider types were spreading stories about individual studios pus.h.i.+ng so hard for one of their stars to be named emcee that the Academy had finally thrown up its hands, King Solomonlike, and refused to choose anyone at all. Others, of the inveterate gossip variety, claimed the organizers had gone down a list of possibilities, each of which had proved too old, too boring, too unreliable, or too drunk to be trusted onstage.

Whatever the reason, it was abundantly clear that no one was steering the s.h.i.+p. The atmosphere in the ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel was practically anarchic. Whole categories were skipped. Confused-or tipsy-celebrities wandered across the stage, looking embarra.s.sed and desperate, as though they'd gotten lost on their way to the bathroom. At least three times the proceedings came to a halt so that the next presenter (and in one case, the recipient) could be tracked down at the bar.

For Margo, the chaos simply seemed to add to the surrealism, the sense that the whole evening was like something out of a dream. She thought she'd been in Hollywood long enough not to get starstruck anymore, but no red-carpet premiere or Holmby Hills wrap party could have prepared her for this.

This was the Oscars.

Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were here, getting the stink eye from Joan Crawford, who was hanging on the arm of Franchot Tone. Katharine Hepburn was whispering something in Spencer Tracy's ear, much to Mrs. Tracy's visible chagrin. Leo Karp was sitting with Louis B. Mayer, who wasn't drinking, and Harry Cohn, who was. Greta Garbo was there. True, she wasn't actually speaking to anybody, but she was there.

"If the Germans dropped a bomb on the Biltmore right now, they could wipe out the whole movie business, just like that," Gabby whispered across the table, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

Margo and Gabby hadn't been quite as close lately-the stunt Gabby had pulled last year making sure Margo caught her "boyfriend" Jimmy with his boyfriend in much more intimate circ.u.mstances than Margo had ever seen him made it a little hard to trust her-but Margo was glad she was there. She was glad they were all there, in their little Olympus enclave: Gabby and Jimmy; a preternaturally calm Larry Julius, his only concession to nerves the endless parade of smoldering cigarettes he kept inserting into the expressionless mask of his face; Dane, who was, of course, a shaking, trembling, nervous wreck; Gabby's mother, dressed to the nines in some sort of bizarre ensemble of ostrich feathers dyed a violent purple and-to Gabby's tremendous embarra.s.sment-flirting outrageously with Larry's (ironically) ostrichlike a.s.sistant, Stan. Harry Gordon, although he looked markedly downcast, even before he lost, and his mother, a plump gray-haired lady with a European accent who every few minutes proclaimed she was about to faint with pride-but impressively, never did.

And what about my mother? What would she be like if she were here? Helen Frobisher's pale image swam unbidden into Margo's mind. The blond chignon with not a hair out of place, the icy blue eyes, the slim, manicured hands that were always cool, yet strangely comforting ...

Her train of thought was interrupted by Dane's clammy hand squeezing hers. "You look beautiful," he muttered mechanically.

"So you told me."

"I did?"

"About a hundred times."

Poor Dane. His gaze looked almost haunted, fixed on something none of the rest of them could see. He'd barely even glanced at her when she'd floated down the stairs at the house in Malibu in the blue hydrangea dress two weeks of deprivation had finally let her squeeze into.

All that grapefruit for nothing, she'd thought. But it hadn't all come to naught. There'd been enough camera flashes in her vicinity to guarantee that, nominee or no, she'd have her picture in more than one newspaper tomorrow morning, and as for her effect on the players of Hollywood, Mr. Walt Disney himself had materialized before her, stroking his chin thoughtfully with an ink-stained finger and murmured: "Blue. Interesting. You look like a fairy."

"He's looking for inspiration," Gabby said. "Didn't you hear? He's notorious for it. Rex Mandalay practically had a fit when he saw Snow White and her dress looked exactly like one he designed for Olivia DeHavilland when he was at Warner Brothers. Rex wants to sue."

"Come on. You can't sue over a dress design on a cartoon."

"Oh please, Margo, this is Hollywood. You can sue someone who said they'd pay for lunch and then skipped out on the bill. You just have to decide if it's worth making a point. And the h.e.l.l of it is, Rex would win too, if Karp would let him take it to court. But he won't. The dreaded negative publicity."

Gabby's eyes were unnaturally bright tonight. Clearly, she had decided chemical intervention was the only way her Oscar night was going to be quite as peppy as she wanted it, and she was putting the booze away at a pretty impressive rate too. G.o.d help me, Margo thought, if she gets sick she's on her own. I'm not taking her to the ladies' room to wash the puke out of her dress. She's her mother's problem.

"Besides," Gabby continued, the words tumbling out at an increasingly rapid pace, "as long as Rex Mandalay is under contract, every single sketch, every sc.r.a.p of fabric, every G.o.dd.a.m.n thought in his head is the absolute property of Olympus Studios. Karp owns him, lock, stock, and barrel, just the same as he owns us. Rex just has a nicer dressing room."