Starstruck - Love Me Part 7

"Is that right?" Eddie sneered right back. "Hey, Dex! C'mere for a second."

Reluctantly, the piano player tore himself away from the keyboard. "What is it?"

"Little Miss Maestro here doesn't think your arrangement is going to work for her."

"Really?" Dexter's tone was cool, but Gabby thought she saw a flicker of what seemed like genuine concern in his dark eyes. "What's the matter with it?"

"Oh, it has nothing to do with the arrangement!" Gabby exclaimed. "The arranging is fine, musically."

Dexter raised his eyebrows. "Fine?"

"No, it's good," Gabby amended. "The problem is the song itself. 'Ballin' the Jack' is a dance number."

Eddie shrugged. "So let them dance."

"Don't you ever bother listening to the lyrics?" Gabby rolled her eyes about as far back in her head as they could go. These jazz guys might know an awful lot about musicians.h.i.+p and notation and all the things that made her practically throw up with boredom when Walter Gould went on and on about them, but none of them had the faintest idea what it took to put a song across. "It's not that kind of dance. It's a lyric dance for me to do. An ... instructional lyric, if you know what I mean."

Eddie shook his head. Oh brother, Gabby thought. This was going to be even harder than she thought.

"Fine. I'll show you." Sighing, she pushed away the small area rug covering the ground where she stood and hiked up the skirt of her evening gown, tucking it firmly under each garter so her legs showed. "So the way you have it, it starts out instrumental," she said. "The easy opener. Very Tommy Dorsey. Nothing wrong with that. Go on," she commanded the musicians, who had begun to gather curiously around. "Play."

Dexter was the first at the piano. He was joined by an intrepid clarinetist and a bald guy with a trombone; the rest of them simply stood and stared. And no wonder, Gabby thought. I probably look like I'm wearing a big pink diaper. "Okay, good," she said. "So you keep up that vamp, maybe there's a little bit of a trumpet solo, if we're really going for the Dorsey." She gestured encouragingly to a cornet player, who, with a glance at Eddie, hesitantly joined in. "Then it's quiet, and then I come up front and sing. First you put your two knees close up tight ... then you swing 'em to the left and you swing 'em to the right ... "

It wasn't really such a bad song, she thought as she sang. The melody wasn't anything to write home about, but her voice felt clear and powerful and so supple that when the second chorus came, she ignored the insipid lyrics entirely and let go with a torrent of hot scat that seemed to take on a life of its own, ending on a big belted high note. Not bad.

"Then the trumpet takes over again," Gabby continued hastily, gesturing again to the cornet player, "and picks up where he left off. The piano comes in, maybe the trombone-that's up to you guys. You get faster, but how much of this can you listen to, I mean, really? And you know it too, because then you put in this piano vamp"-she pointed at Dexter-"which is the natural place for me to come in with the time step."

On the downbeat, Gabby started to tap. Nice and slow at first-what Jimmy liked to call leisurely-throwing in a couple of extra little changes and syncopation to keep it interesting to herself, then faster, then double time. The musicians followed the rhythm of her feet, racing to keep up. The sound was filling out; more musicians were joining in. They reached the last instrumental crescendo. I need a big finish, Gabby thought. Wildly, she flung herself into four devilishly difficult b.u.t.terfly turns, the acrobatic backward rotating leaps so beloved by Tully Toynbee (and the reason Gabby no longer had any cartilage in her left ankle), took a last deep breath, and belted out the last line of the song, her voice ringing from the rafters: "And that's what I call Ballin' the Jack!" The horn section blared as she held the last note, arms outstretched, falling to her knees like Al Jolson, waiting for an ovation.

No applause came. Eddie stared at her, his mouth half open. The rubber ball of nasal spray fell to the ground with a forlorn little bounce or two before it came to rest by the leg of the piano.

"Well?" Gabby panted. "Say something."

"That ... that was incredible," he stammered finally. "Why can't you just do that?"

Crabbily, Gabby tugged her unruly skirts back down over her newly sweat-dampened thighs. "One, because solo tap numbers look ridiculous from anyone who isn't Fred Astaire. Two, I don't have any tap shoes or a short dress. Three, even if I was willing to go out there with my skirt bunched up and dance around looking like some kind of swami who just dropped a load in his pants, the stage is about eight inches too high for anyone to see what I'm doing. Four-and finally-that song won't do anything for either one of us."

"What do you mean?" Eddie asked.

"I mean, I can sell a cutesy dance number, sure. You can take some tired novelty number, jazz it up, and make it hip. And Leo Karp knows it."

"Of course he does," Eddie said smugly. "That's probably why he signed me to a seven-year contract."

"With a six-month option, right?" Gabby was getting irritated. "Olympus has five thousand people on the payroll. It's no skin off Karp's nose to pick a few extra horn players for what ... one fifty a week?" Looking around the room, Gabby saw from the men's faces that it was probably a whole lot less than that. "For all you know, he signed you just to make sure n.o.body else did. And then in six months, maybe a year, he'll drop you again, and there won't be any more contracts, or any more magazine covers, or any more checks waiting at the studio post office. Unless you show him you can do whatever Artie Shaw or Glenn Miller or Tommy Dorsey can do-or do it better."

Eddie snorted. "I was asked to give a performance, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm all through auditioning."

"Oh, give me a break." Gabby was getting mad. "Of course you're auditioning. You're never done auditioning. Never. I'm auditioning. You're auditioning. Everybody upstairs who just lost one of those little gold men is auditioning to get one next time, and everyone who won one is auditioning for the part that will get them another. For G.o.d's sake, even the studio bosses-even Leo Karp is auditioning."

"Oh yeah? For who?"

"For the money guys in New York who could pull the plug on the whole operation at any minute!" Gabby was shouting now. "For Jock Whitney and Nick Schenck and Hunter Payne. For the new talent they need to attract, and the old talent they need to stay. You want to be in the picture business, you better get used to auditioning every day. Every single day. Until you die, or you're the last man on earth, whichever comes first. Otherwise, you can pack up your horns and go back to the Savoy to back whatever girl singer is coming up next."

The room was silent. The only sound Gabby could hear was her own short breath. Eddie Sharp stared at her, his face hard, his lips white. Defiantly, she brushed a sweaty chestnut curl off her forehead and stared right back. Go ahead, she thought furiously. Walk out. You know I'm right.

It was Dexter who spoke first. "What do you think we should do?" he asked quietly.

It's now or never. "Do you know 'I Cried for You'?"

"The Billie Holiday song?" Dexter said, stealing a glance at a stony-faced Eddie. "Sure."

"Well," Gabby said quickly, "it's actually the Arthur Freed song. He wrote it. Arthur Freed, who is sitting out in the audience tonight. Arthur Freed, who has just been tapped to head up a new musical unit at MGM."

Eddie frowned. "But we're at Olympus."

"Do I have to explain everything? These guys are only interested in having what they think somebody else wants. It's the first rule of Hollywood! Why the h.e.l.l do you think people get divorced so much out here?"

A couple of the musicians looked like they were about to laugh, which somehow just made Gabby madder.

"I'm serious!" she shouted. "If Karp thinks Mayer might have a use for us, he'll do anything to keep us. The sky's the limit!"

Eddie Sharp wasn't laughing. "How would you arrange it, Dex?"

"You open it slow," Gabby blurted out before Dexter could answer. "Show them we can do a good old-fas.h.i.+oned torch song." She sang a couple of bars a cappella to demonstrate. "Then, just when everybody's so heartbroken they're practically killing themselves, we suddenly bring it up tempo. Just like that. Remind them there's something worth living for. They're going to go crazy."

"Torch, then swing," Eddie gave her a wry smile. "Like Judy Garland's doing with 'Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart'?"

"No," said Gabby, lifting her chin. "Like Gabby Preston doing 'I Cried for You.' "

Eddie looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Okay," he said finally, with a decisive nod. "Let's do it."

"Really?" Gabby squealed.

"We'll run through it a couple of times first. A-flat, right?"

She nodded, speechless.

"Thought so. It needs an instrumental solo in the intro. Trombone."

"I was thinking clarinet, actually."

"Clarinet." Eddie snapped his fingers. "Better." He turned to the waiting crowd. "All right, fellas, you heard the lady. 'I Cried for You' in A-flat. Make me cry."

It's all happening, Gabby thought jubilantly, watching as the musicians scrambled to their places around her. I won. Somebody actually listened to her for a change. It was a thrilling sensation.

Also new, and even more thrilling, was the way Eddie Sharp was looking at her. Not just with desire, the way she'd seen men look at other girls and longed for them to look at her that way. There was something else in his admiring expression, something even better. He's looking at me with respect.

"Gabby!"

Oh no.

At the friendly trill of that familiar voice, Gabby's heart sank like a stone. Standing in the doorway, as though conjured from midair by some vengeful fairy G.o.dmother, was Amanda Farraday, looking ... well, pretty much looking the way Amanda always looked, only more so. She was wearing a dark green velvet gown that clung to every dangerous curve, cut low to expose a generous swath of decolletage. Her red hair, s.h.i.+ning like satin, tumbled loosely over her creamy shoulders in a way that somehow seemed positively indecent outside of the boudoir.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

"Jimmy said you were down here," Amanda said breathily. She seemed not to hear the low wolf whistles coming from the horn section. If you looked like Amanda, Gabby thought, after a while you probably just stopped noticing. "I just wanted to tell you to break a leg."

"Thank you," Gabby said stiffly. "I didn't know you were going to be here."

"Oh, it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing," Amanda replied. In her flushed face, her eyes looked uncharacteristically, almost unnaturally bright. Something was lighting her up inside. If I didn't know better, I'd think she'd been at the green pills. "Say, you haven't seen Harry anywhere, have you?"

Gabby shrugged. "Not since the ceremony."

"Oh." Amanda's face fell, which somehow made her look even more gorgeous. Like some kind of tragic heroine, Gabby thought. G.o.d, I hate her sometimes.

"Well, I didn't mean to interrupt," Amanda continued. "I just wanted to say hi, and that I hope you knock 'em dead out here. And, um ..." She leaned forward slightly, giving everyone a nice view. "If you do happen to see Harry, don't tell him I asked about him, okay?"

The men seemed transported as she turned and walked away. So predictable.

"Friend of yours?" Eddie asked when everybody's tongues were safely back in their mouths.

"Why? You want me to call her back in here?"

"That depends." A small smile played across Eddie's beautiful mouth. "Can she sing?"

"Not a note."

"In that case, tell her never to interrupt rehearsal again. Now come on, boys. Let's take it from the top."

NINE.

Amanda knew Gabby Preston about as well as anyone could. After living-or rather, existing-in her spare room for months with a ringside seat to the rages and tantrums and equally frequent fits of wild jubilation that most people experienced only at moments of life and death but that for Gabby were just another day. Amanda didn't think there was much her mercurial friend could do to surprise her.

But she'd never seen Gabby the way she was onstage tonight. She was absolutely on fire.

It wasn't that she was doing anything particularly special-Amanda had heard "I Cried for You" sung dozens of times, sometimes even by Gabby herself. It was something about the way she was singing it. The lyrics were addressed to a faithless lover, telling him that the singer was over him, thank you very much; she'd found somebody else, and now it was his turn to cry. But Gabby's rendition-the velvety throb of her voice haunting yet powerful, her huge dark eyes glistening with unshed tears-made it all seem like a lie. Like she was putting on a defiant front while she was falling apart inside. The wounded bravery made it all the more heartbreaking, so much so that when she suddenly gave a little stamp of her foot and the band broke into a joyful up-tempo Dixieland swing, the audience gasped with relief. Maybe her heart was broken, but she was going to be okay. And if she was lying about how happy she was, at least she was doing it with style. It was the kind of lie Hollywood could appreciate.

Gabby belted the final, glorious note, and the audience leapt to its feet, roaring its appreciation. Cheering along with the others, Amanda looked reflexively toward Mr. Karp's table, to see if he was paying attention to her friend's triumph, and caught a glimpse of a familiar figure leaning against the doorway. His hands in his pockets, a thoughtful expression on his face. The person she'd been searching for since she came in.

Harry.

Feeling her gaze on him, he looked up, and their eyes locked. Amanda's heart stopped, just as it had that afternoon at the Brown Derby that had filled her with such desperate hope. She gave him a small smile, lifting her hand in the tiniest of greetings.

Harry turned and fled.

I have to go after him, Amanda thought. I have to talk to him.

It was the whole reason she'd come here, to this party where she didn't quite belong, in this dress she definitely couldn't afford. She couldn't let him slip away. Not this time. Not like this.

Wildly, she searched the room, trying to see if anyone had noticed the silent scene between them, but all eyes seemed fixed on Gabby, who was basking in the attention with the graceful delight of a great star. For once in Amanda Farraday's life, no one was looking at her. It couldn't have happened at a better time.

Gathering up her skirt, she bolted through the door and down the hall. The black flap of a slightly too-large tailcoat disappeared around the corner.

"Harry!"

If he was trying to get away from her, he wasn't doing a very good job of it. The hallway he had chosen came to an abrupt dead end. Harry stood against the wall, scratching his head and staring at an enormous potted rubber plant with such a quizzical expression that Amanda had to laugh.

"What are you going to do? Hide in that plant?"

Harry studied the dark green leaves, as though he expected them to spring to life and give him instruction. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Well, don't. You'll get dirt all over your tailcoat and the rental place will charge you extra."

At the mention of his legendary frugality, even Harry had to smile.

"You're right," he said quietly, looking at her for the first time. "h.e.l.lo, Amanda."

"h.e.l.lo."

"h.e.l.lo."

They laughed again and stood staring at each other, unsure of what to say next. "Wasn't Gabby terrific?" Amanda tried, feeling awkward.

Harry scratched his nose. "I only caught the very end. I was ..." He pushed his gla.s.ses back up. "I was putting my mother to bed upstairs."

"Your mother," Amanda said. "I thought that must be her."

How many times had Amanda dreamed of being introduced to Harry's mother? Of Harry ushering her into the cramped but fastidiously clean Brooklyn sitting room he had always described in such vivid detail? Of him saying, "Ma, this is my girlfriend, Amanda. This is Amanda, my fiancee. This is Amanda, the girl I love"? In these fantasies, Amanda always imagined Harry's mother-a squat black-and-white blur, from what she'd seen in photos-wrapping her plump arms around her in a lilac- or lily-of-the-valley-scented embrace before pulling out the cracked leather photo alb.u.ms of Harry as a baby. Together, as allies, they'd laugh over his tightness with a dollar, his irrational hatred of mushrooms, the way, like Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs, he seemed to leave a trail of crumbled tobacco and crushed potato chips wherever he went.

"And have you noticed," Amanda would say, "how when he's nervous, he plays solitaire, only without any cards?"

"While whistling 'G.o.d Bless America' over and over again?" Mrs. Gordon would say. "Absolutely!"

"I flew her in," Harry said now, not without a modic.u.m of pride. "She wanted to see the ceremony."

"Did she have a good time?"

Harry grinned. "You can say that again. Little old Jewish ladies are not exactly accustomed to unlimited champagne. G.o.d knows what she would have been like if I'd won."

"You will," Amanda said fervently. "Someday."