A Touch of Stardust (23 page)

He paused. His next words took all the fire out of her.

“She’ll break, too. Most do.”

“You are determined to believe that,” she said.

“Experience, that’s all.”

They sat in silence, as if fixed in place—prepared for an upcoming scene, hitting their marks, waiting for the next cue. But no matter how intently Julie listened, there was no cue to be heard. She would have to find the right one on her own.

Julie saw Jerry Bryant coming onto the set, and burrowed as deep into the flimsy canvas chair she occupied as possible. This was no morning for chatter—not in her dreary state. The soundstage felt chillier than usual this Monday, and she pulled her gray mohair sweater close, hoping for invisibility.

Too late. Jerry had spotted her and was on his way over, flashing a big, toothy smile. Ever since that first awkward conversation with Carole about her menstrual cycle, he’d adopted her as his “pal.” Julie figured he had a favor to ask. Somehow or another, he’d decided she was the conduit to the irrepressible Carole, who broke every rule he tried to enforce.

There was no use trying to replay the scene with Andy. He’d simply closed down. After a night of very little sleep, she was finally allowing herself anger. She would not beg anymore. She was ashamed of herself; she was not going to dissolve. She was going to keep writing. Now, if only Jerry would pass her by.

Beyond him, she could see Clark lounging in a canvas chair, waiting for shooting to begin. Victor Fleming sat next to him, the two of them laughing and drinking beer. He didn’t need her to run errands, obviously. And yet here she was, on guard against something, feeling uncomfortable. Was no relationship ever secure? Well, she was doing this for Carole; that was enough.

It struck her suddenly that the atmosphere on the set was not as jumpy as usual. Nobody seemed to be in any hurry, which was odd.

“Good morning, pretty lady,” boomed Jerry.

“Hi, Jerry, what do you need?” she said when the publicist stopped in front of her. He wasn’t such a bad sort, really. Just annoying.

“A little help with Vivien, okay? Come with me, please?”

She stood reluctantly. Jerry cradled her elbow with one hand and began guiding her toward a door in the cavernous studio that led to the wardrobe department.

“This breastwork situation is out of hand. It has her in a constant fury,” he explained, as if confiding something no one knew. “She’s permanently angry about it, but today is the worst.”

Julie needed no explanation. It was Jerry’s job to keep as many gossipy items about conflict on the
Gone with the Wind
set out of the papers, and the “breastwork situation” was proving one of the hardest to control. Vivien Leigh was not to be appeased. Selznick hadn’t helped matters by setting up a twenty-four-hour guard around her rented home on North Camden Drive. But with Clark and Carole finally married, he wanted no more “living in sin” stories, this time publicizing Vivien’s relationship with Laurence Olivier. That enforced secrecy was not making for harmony on the set.

They walked into the wardrobe department, and Julie caught her breath. She hadn’t visited here before. Everywhere she looked, costumes hung neatly on padded hangers—hundreds and hundreds of them, all made for
Gone with the Wind
. Under Selznick’s exacting directions, bolts of luxurious textiles had been produced by small mills over two continents and delivered here to be shaped into gowns that would dazzle the eyes of any viewer.

Julie walked slowly down one row, resisting the temptation to finger the silks and velvet she was brushing by. She couldn’t stop herself from touching a delicate lace petticoat that looked like gossamer, as silvery and fragile as a spider’s web. Just the slightest of touches, she told herself somewhat guiltily.

Slowly, she became aware of raised voices at the far end of the room.

“I’m going to quit—I
am
going to quit!” screamed a voice. “They sit out there, laughing and drinking beer, those two, and they don’t give a fig about this movie.”

It was Vivien.

“Now, sweetheart—” soothed Jerry.

“Don’t you ‘sweetheart’ me,” she snapped. “I’m a prisoner in my own house, and they’re binding me into these clothes every day, and I want it to stop.” A cluster of fitters and dressers stood helplessly around her, waiting for a calm moment. She saw Julie and burst into tears. “You’re Lombard’s girl, aren’t you?” she said. “Make those morons stop laughing at me.” She held up a book. Julie saw it was a well-worn copy of
Gone with the Wind
. “You know what Victor said to me when I argued again for this dialogue?” she demanded with tears in her eyes.

“He told me to throw the ‘damn thing’ away. You know something else? He hasn’t read the book, and neither has that mousy Leslie Howard. They don’t care, they really don’t care.”

Julie did what came instinctively. She put her arms around the tiny actress and hugged her. “That’s terrible,” she said, ignoring Jerry as he blanched, gesticulating madly. Was she supposed to go along with Fleming’s style of treating Leigh like a spoiled child? Not reading the book, indeed. Everyone knew the director was a rough-hewn man’s man, just like Gable—but it was shocking that Fleming had never read
Gone with the Wind
.

Vivien quieted down almost immediately. Sobbing lightly, she sank into a chair; one of the fitters handed her a handkerchief right away. She smiled wanly at Julie. “Thank you. It’s nice to have a non-patronizing response from somebody around here.”

That was all she had to do. Amazed, Julie watched Vivien lift her head, stand uncomplainingly to be trussed up once again, and march out onto the set.

She was, after all, an actress, and a professional one.

“Julie, anytime you want to think about coming back to work in my department …” an impressed Jerry Bryant began.

“Thanks, Jerry,” she said, mustering a smile. “I have other plans.”

A few nights later, she sat in Carole’s Bel-Air living room, twirling a glass of white wine in her hand, staring at the prisms of light breaking
and forming as she sipped, trying to look anywhere except at Carole. But she couldn’t block out the sight of Carole’s blond head bent forward as she silently read Julie’s manuscript.

I shouldn’t have given it to her, Julie thought. It’s too soon, it isn’t ready. This isn’t a college class. I’ll look like a fool.

Much of her time lately had been spent watching Clark and Vivien shoot and reshoot different scenes, take after take, for hours. At first it was fascinating. The two stars joked together off camera, feet up, swapping gossip, gulping coffee. But the minute the cameras rolled, the atmosphere around them crackled with tension and passion. How did they do that? How could actors step in and out of reality so brilliantly? Yet, by the end of this particular day, Julie felt locked in a vise as tight as Vivien’s whalebone corset. She wanted to do something to push forward. There had been no word from Andy, not a whisper. She couldn’t keep yearning for him to reach out; it was dangerous. If she didn’t challenge his certainty that she was fragile, she would never be sure of herself again.

Carole turned the last page. She put her hand on the manuscript and looked up at Julie with a curious expression on her face, “It’s good,” she said. “Like a short story. Is it about us?”

“Not really,” Julie rushed to say. “But built on the kind of lives the two of you want to live, I guess—with totally fictional people.” Was she babbling? The curious look in Carole’s eyes was still there.

“Is this what you want us to be?” she asked gently.

“No, no, it isn’t like that. This is just a story.” Or was it? Now she wasn’t sure.

“Honey, there’s nothing wrong with believing in fairy tales. And sometimes they do come true.”

They sat in silence for a long, almost dreamy moment.

Carole broke the spell. “My advice is, take this to Frances Marion,” she said briskly. “If nothing else, this is your admission card. Think of it that way; it will be easier.”

“Is it really any good?”

“Yes. And it shows
you
. I’ll give Marion’s secretary a call in the morning. Seeing her won’t be a problem. She likes helping young talent—unlike most everyone else here.”

That was all.

That night, back at the boarding house, Julie lay in bed with the lights out, hugging her screenplay. The thick stack of papers on her chest felt both comforting and heavy. Her admission card. To something. Something that would not include Andy, no matter how much she yearned for it to be otherwise.

It had indeed gone swimmingly.

“Yes, Miss Marion said to come to tea at her home on Saturday,” the metallic voice of Frances Marion’s secretary said over the phone a few days later. “Two o’clock. You do know the way, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” she said.

An indulgent little laugh at the other end. “Just come to the top of the Enchanted Hill; you won’t miss it.” The connection clicked off.

In a car borrowed from Rose’s fiancé, Julie drove up Angelo Drive, peering ahead, looking for what Jim and Rose assured her was one of the more spectacularly gracious homes in Hollywood. “It’s a true hacienda. It could’ve been plucked out of Spain whole and delivered to the top of that hill,” Jim said. “They’ve got a hundred and twenty acres up there. She and her husband built it; he’s dead now.”

The hill was cresting when she saw her destination. A home of creamy stucco rose gracefully to the sky. She drove through an archway into a court built of cobbled brick, curved around a fountain made of richly vibrant Mexican tile. Beds of exotic flowers and plants, most of which she had never seen before, gave the setting an almost tropical beauty. She pulled into a corner and switched off the ignition as an aide hurried over to give her a grin and open the door.

“Miss Marion is expecting you,” he said. “The seminar is about to begin.”

Seminar? Puzzled, Julie walked into the house.

Julie peered into a sitting room adorned with high arches and beautiful leaded windows.

Perched in high-backed chairs arranged in a semicircle, and looking as nervous as she felt, were half a dozen other women, each appraising the others with quick, darting glances. They sat in silence. A maid in starched white had poured the tea and passed a plate of sugar cookies, announcing that Miss Marion would be with them soon.