Starstruck - Love Me Part 9

G.o.d, it was good. Heartfelt and gripping, so different from all the anemic little efforts he'd been making since. Too good to sit gathering dust in a drawer, Harry thought. But what to do with it? When the studio first commissioned the screenplay from him, they had intended it to be a musical vehicle for Gabby Preston. Was that still possible? After her incredible performance last night at the Governor's Ball-a performance that had, quite frankly, shocked Harry, who had always thought of her as no more than a bratty little kid-the producers were certain to be looking for a project for her, and fast. But the best scenes of the script didn't seem to lend themselves to big production numbers. They were intimate scenes between characters who talked pa.s.sionately about their hopes, their dreams, their ideas about the world, their plans for the future.

Just a few people in a small room.

Suddenly, Harry had an idea. An idea that, if executed properly, could solve everything. He lunged for the phone and dialed the switchboard.

"Operator, I need to place a long-distance call to New York City. Right away."

There was a brief pause as the operator hesitated. "I don't know if I'm authorized to place long-distance calls from Mr. Gordon's office."

"Dammit, this is Mr. Gordon."

"Oh, Mr. Gordon, of course! I do apologize. What's the number?"

Harry flipped frantically through his address book. "Gramercy 5-7349." He rubbed his thumb excitedly over the gilt edges of its pages as he waited for her to connect the call.

"Group Theater, Harold Clurman's office. How can I help you?"

"I need to speak to Har-Mr. Clurman, please. Right away."

"I'm afraid Mr. Clurman's in a meeting, sir. May I ask whose calling?"

"This is Harry Gordon, in Los Angeles."

"Oh!" The secretary's little gasp gratified him more than was perhaps seemly. "I see. Shall I ... shall I go and get him?"

"No need." Harry grinned to himself. "Just go in and tell him I have a play for him. Then come back and tell me what he says."

"Yes ... yes, sir. Right away."

There was a rustle of static as she hurried away. Harry slid a stale cigarette from the crumpled pack on his desk and inserted it into his mouth unlit, chewing on the filter until she came back.

"Mr. Gordon?"

"Yes?"

"He asks how soon he can see it."

Harry pumped his fist in triumph. "Tell him he can have it, and me, by the end of the week."

"You?" The secretary sounded shocked. "But aren't you in Hollywood?"

"Not for long I'm not."

Now there was only his agent to call. For this one, he actually needed to light the cigarette.

"Harry, baby," came the familiar garrulous voice over the phone. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm going back east for a while, Myron," Harry said matter-of-factly. "You're the first to know. I need you to take care of my affairs while I'm away."

"Now, sweetheart, come on." A note of concern, or more likely, panic, crept into the agent's voice. "If this is about last night, believe me, it's no big deal. It sounds like a cliche, but it really is an honor just to be nominated. We'll pick it up one of these years, you'll see."

"It's not that. It has nothing to do with that. It's business."

"And may I ask what business?"

"Of a personal nature," Harry said coolly. "Don't worry, Myron, I'll be back. It's only for a few months. The Gla.s.s Key can go into production without me. I'll send any rewrites they need through the wires. In the meantime, please see that all my other correspondence gets forwarded to the Waldorf Astoria."

"Anything else?"

"Only one thing." Harry blew a smoke ring. It quivered nervously near the tip of his nose before dissipating into the air. "It doesn't matter how you do it, but it's very, very important, and it needs to be done by the time I get back."

"Anything," the agent said. "Just tell me what it is."

Harry crushed the glowing ember of his cigarette against the desk.

"By the time I get back, I want you to have fixed it that I never b.u.mp into Amanda Farraday again."

ELEVEN.

All o Hollywood Is Asking:

Who Is Diana's Duke?

The large storybook letters of the Picture Palace headline swirled and twined in and around each other, like something out of a medieval illuminated ma.n.u.script. They'd even gone so far as to top the purple W with a delicate engraving of a crown last seen during the coronation of George VI two years before.

Olive Moore took a long, restorative sip of sherry from her Waterford crystal gla.s.s. Then she smoothed the pages back against the dark leather blotter on her desk and began to read.

In case you've been living under a rock in the two weeks since the Oscars- or, like sore-loser screenwriter Harry Gordon, just boo-hoo-hooed yourself all the way back to Broadway-here's the big scoop on the lips of all the usually nonspeaking Tinseltownspeople: Diana Chesterfield is back! That's right, America's Number One Female Box-Office Star, mysteriously missing from our screens and hearts these past twelve months without so much as a postcard to her forlorn fans, has made her triumphant return to the Hollywood stratosphere, and in a fas.h.i.+on appropriate to a thespienne of her caliber:

Thespienne. Olive had to smile at that.

a dramatic surprise entrance to present the Academy Award for Best Actor to her frequent costar and erstwhile paramour Dane Forrest. Spectators worried the tongue-tied Mr. Forrest was about to double over from the double shock (believe us, we didn't expect him to win either!) as he stammered his way through a much-abbreviated acceptance speech in which he failed to thank anyone, most conspicuously his (conspicuously) unnominated and current paramour, Miss Margo Sterling, who may have been swathed in peac.o.c.k blue but looked like she was all in lemon. Had just swallowed one, that is.

But the real question is just where has our darling Diana been? Speculation has been ripe among Hollywood's cognoscenti, and by that, we mean the people who think they know everything about everyone. But there's only one place that knows the truth, dearest reader, and that's your own humble Picture Palace, which has the most exclusive of exclusive interviews with the dazzling Miss Chesterfield herself! Turn to page 14 for the whole scoop!

With an impatient sigh, Olive flicked through the pages, past ads for lipstick, hand cream, and a bizarre kind of vibrating belt that promised to reduce the waistline through the magic of electricity, until she found the page with a silvery black-and-white photograph of Diana in full evening dress, lounging incongruously beside an outdoor pool, with an accompanying wall of text. She skimmed the first few paragraphs, which summarized Diana's beauty, achievements, and all-around star quality, until she found an actual quote.

"I suppose it sounds terribly silly," says Diana shamefacedly, a blush creeping into her usually porcelain-pale cheeks. "But I really thought I was going to quit the movie business for good, and for the oldest and best reason there is. For love."

But let's begin at the beginning, shall we? It seems the madcap Miss Chesterfield decided to take a spontaneous holiday to the Continent just days before she was due to start shooting The Nine Days' Queen, the hit picture that would eventually star her alleged on-screen successor (and romantic rival?), Margo Sterling.

"I had to see about some gowns in Paris," she murmurs demurely. After all, what's Olympus Studios when Coco Chanel is waiting?

It was on the Atlantic crossing, however, that she met a das.h.i.+ng English duke lingering just outside the door of her lavish first-cla.s.s cabin. "He was quite certain it was his, you see," Diana says, "and perplexed by how his key didn't seem to fit in the lock. I think he'd had rather a lot of whiskey just before the dressing gong rang." When the screen's most luminous G.o.ddess emerged from her chamber to see what all the fuss was about, the tipsy toff thought she was something out of a dream. He insisted on escorting her to dinner, of course. ...

"Of course." Olive sniffed, refilling her brandy gla.s.s.

One thing led to another, and by the end of the evening, he declared his intention to make Diana Chesterfield his d.u.c.h.ess. "He said he'd throw himself overboard if I refused," Diana says. "He actually had one foot over the railing. How could I say no?" Madly in love, she disembarked with his lords.h.i.+p in Southampton and in a matter of days was ensconced in his magnificent family seat, ready to begin a new life among the creme de la creme of society ... with one condition: that they keep news of their engagement absolutely secret.

Her caution proved to be prophetic. Still reeling in the wake of Mrs. Simpson and the abdication, British society has in recent years become unfairly hostile to plucky young American girls, and pressure from the duke's family (ever a lady, Diana discreetly refuses to name names) made marriage between these star-crossed lovers out of the question.

So why didn't the heartbroken Diana come home to lick her wounds? She casts her lovely eyes down toward the white hands trembling in her lap. "To tell the truth, I was too embarra.s.sed. You see, I'm an old-fas.h.i.+oned girl at heart. All I've ever wanted is a home and a family of my own. I've always said I'd give up the pictures in a second for love, and that's just what I meant to do. And when it didn't work out"-she glances up, her sapphire eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears-"well, I suppose I was just too ashamed at what a silly little fool I'd been."

And what of Margo Sterling, the new blonde on the block, who slotted so neatly into her place, both on- and offscreen? Don't look for a catfight here. "I truly admire her work in her pictures very much," Diana says sincerely, "and I'm so pleased to have the chance to get to know her better. I'm just sure we'll be the best of friends."

"Olive?"

Startled, Olive lunged for her open ledger book and covered the magazine with it.

It's so silly, she thought, but she didn't want any of her girls seeing her read this kind of frivolous picture trash. It might make them think their boss was just like them.

"Yes, Lucy," she said, beckoning the bottle-blonde standing slouched in the doorway with a brisk wave of her hand. "What is it?"

"I just wanted to know if I'm working tonight. Else I thought I'd go out to the pictures. There's that new picture with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer playing at the Egyptian. Mitzi saw it last night and said it was just dreamy."

Olive flipped through her alligator-skin appointment book. "As a matter of fact, you have got a date. It's that fellow who calls himself Mr. Peterson."

"Oh no!" Lucy cried. "Not him. Not again."

"I'm afraid it can't be helped, dear. He called up and asked for you personally."

"But his breath is always so terrible. Honestly, he smells like he swallowed a dead rat." Lucy's narrow shoulders shuddered. "And he gets so drunk at dinner, and then he gets mean."

Olive sighed. "Try to bring him back here, then, dear. Or have him take you to the Roosevelt. The bellboys know enough to keep an eye out for you there, and you can always call Raymond at the front desk if you get into a jam."

"Just once, I'd like to be pleasantly surprised. One of these guys calls up with a fake name and it turns out he's Charles Boyer." She smiled wistfully. "I bet Ginger's met Charles Boyer, don't you think so?"

Olive's head snapped back up sharply. "Ginger?"

"On account of her being in the picture business now," Lucy said. "I bet she's met all kinds of stars."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Now get dressed, and tell the maid to bring up another bottle of sherry. The decanter was barely half full. Go on."

Nodding, the girl did as she was told. Olive leaned back in her chair and pulled the magazine back out from underneath the ledger book.

It was a good story, all right. Not a word of it was true, obviously, but she had to hand it to Larry Julius and the Olympus press office for constructing something so deliciously sophisticated and romantic, so dizzyingly daffy-indeed, rather like the plot of a Diana Chesterfield picture. In fact, Olive wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a Diana Chesterfield picture just like it very soon. Olympus had even fixed it so Diana wouldn't have to go back to Dane Forrest and their sham of a romance. Olive was happy about that, at least. She knew what a strain it had been on them all those years, having to pretend. Now Dane, at least, could have some happiness.

But the woman he'd chosen to have his happiness with was going to pose a problem.

Margo Sterling.

"I truly admire her work in her pictures very much, and I'm so pleased to have the chance to get to know her better. I'm just sure we'll be the best of friends."

If that wasn't a warning shot over the bow, Olive didn't know what was.

Instinctively, her hand flew up to the collar of her blouse, where she used to wear her gold-and-pearl pin, the one she'd parted with all those months ago.

At last, it was time.

"Oh, my little Margaret," Olive murmured, reaching for the last of the sherry. "You're going to need me more than ever now."

"Oh, give me a break," Margo groaned, hurling the latest issue of Picture Palace off the side of the bed. "I've never read a bigger load of garbage in all my life."