A Touch of Stardust (32 page)

Jerome Crawford allowed himself to gaze with some respect at the vast paraphernalia necessary for filming a movie—the cameras, the spotlights, the electrical equipment, cables threading back and forth—and the dozens of people—assistant directors, wardrobe heads. This, he acknowledged, was a small army.

Clark—surely under orders from Carole—made a special effort to come over and meet her parents, walking a bit woodenly, of course—though not many people knew it was because of those tight-fitting pants he had to wear. Victor Fleming did a quick handshake, prompted by Clark. And Jerry Bryant provided a cheerful welcome, winking at Julie on the side.

As she turned to guide her parents to their seats, Julie saw Andy. He stood with arms behind his back, staring at her. She hadn’t expected him back from Sacramento yet. He didn’t move in her direction. He obviously hadn’t shaved. His shirt was wrinkled and loose, with dark crescents of sweat beneath the armpits. Maybe he was waiting for her to act first.

She hesitated.

“Who is that rather unkempt-looking man staring at you?” asked her father.

“An acquaintance,” she said. The words, packaged into her long ago, fell out of her mouth. As she heard her voice, she wondered how she could slip so quickly into such airy neutrality. But why today, of all days, did Andy have to look like
this
?

“Quiet on the set!” bawled an aide to Fleming.

They settled into their seats, and the lights began to dim. A tightness was beginning, spreading down to Julie’s toes and up to her ears. She scrambled to figure out what she was feeling. Embarrassment? Relief? She was a coward; that was why she hadn’t made introductions. Was she so bound to convention? Though she looked away, she could still sense Andy’s stare. He wouldn’t be shocked at her act of avoidance. He might even laugh and flip off some version of “I told you so.” It confirmed his claim that she could move in his world but he wouldn’t fit in hers. No matter how often she protested against that, what she just did—or didn’t do—was what counted.

She hadn’t focused on the scene being filmed this morning. But when she saw the magnificent, red-carpeted staircase of Scarlett and Rhett’s home being slowly wheeled into place, her heart sank again. Of course, this was the one that some of the crew members laughingly called the rape scene. She squeezed her hands together, digging nail into nail. This wouldn’t go down too well with her father—of that she was sure. One chance to charm him, and this was the sampling of Hollywood being served up today.

A sudden unexpected thought: here she was, once again, her father’s daughter, dancing around the Maypole.

Both of her parents jumped visibly at the sharp sound of the clapper.

Vivien, a tiny figure dressed in Scarlett’s red velvet gown, slowly descends a massive, graceful staircase. The rich burgundy carpet glows softly in the flickering gaslight. Scarlett looks toward the study, and hesitates.

“Come in, Mrs. Butler.” Rhett’s voice is heavy with drink and contempt. “Sit down.”

She obeys
.

“Observe, my dear,” he says slowly, cupping her head with his hands. “I could tear you to pieces with my hands, and I would do it if it would take Ashley out of your mind forever. But it wouldn’t.”

“Take your hands off me,” Scarlett snaps. “You drunken fool.”

He does. She stands, turning to go, marching from the room, reaching the bottom of the staircase
.

Rhett follows her, grabs her, and kisses her. “This is one night you’re not turning me out.” He lifts her into his arms and strides up the staircase; the figures of the two actors vanish into the dark
.

“Cut!” bawled Fleming. “Let’s do it again!”

Groans from the actors, but they obeyed. Another confrontation, another sweep up the stairs to the unseen bedroom.

“Once more!”

“Victor, that take was perfect,” complained Vivien. But she took position as Julie wiggled in her seat. How many times would her father watch this scene without marching out?

“That’s it!” yelled Fleming after the third take.

“Damn, I need a drink,” Clark grumbled, heading for a chair. He cast a glance at his costar. “You don’t weigh much, my dear violated Scarlett, but I wouldn’t be hauling you up those stairs every night in real life.”

“You sure wouldn’t,” Vivien Leigh said teasingly. “My Larry would shoot you dead.”

Julie’s father looked shocked and stupefied. He stood in full dignity, frowned at his daughter, and suggested lunch. A quick glance
at Edith Crawford gave a different story: her eyes were unnaturally bright.

“Oh my,” she breathed. “How handsome Rhett Butler is.” Her face was pink.

As she guided her parents off the set, Julie looked quickly around for Andy, but he was gone. The three of them walked back into the relentless, cheerful sunlight as her mother chattered about what a lovely dress Scarlett had worn for the scene, and what a treat to see a movie being made, and you know, dear, I’ve heard quite a lot about this wonderful Bullocks Wilshire store you have here, what a treat it would be to peek in, we could find you some new clothes for the trip home.… And Julie kept nodding, not even registering her mother’s last words, thinking about Andy, relief slowly sinking into shame.

“We can visit there this afternoon,” she said.

“What a grand idea! Your father wants to look into buying up some orange groves somewhere. It’s always business, business.”

It was Julie’s first visit to the famed department store. “Isn’t it splendid?” her mother murmured, peering from the car up at the graceful tower sheathed in green-tarnished copper as they turned into the motor court. “If I lived in Hollywood, I would shop here all the time.”

“A lot of actresses do,” Julie said, as she pulled up to the curb, where an alert-looking valet in livery waited to take the car, a sturdy Ford her father had rented at the airport. It was not quite as fancy as most of the ones she saw in the parking lot, but renting cars was a brilliant idea, her father had proclaimed as he gave her the key. The man who founded the company, John Hertz, was ahead of his time. He, Jerome Crawford, just might make a small investment himself.

They walked through the entry into the Perfume Hall, which was cupped between walls of marble three stories high. The floors were of highly polished travertine. Women in soft, sheer wool suits
gazed at flacons of perfume arranged under counters of sparkling glass, murmuring to each other from beneath wide-brimmed hats.

Edith Crawford smiled in appreciation and floated through, with Julie dutifully following her to the elevators in the center of the store. The elevator doors, closed, were stunning. Julie couldn’t resist; she ran a hand over the paneling, which consisted of alternating vertical strips of ebony and brass.

“We don’t have anything like this in Fort Wayne,” her mother gasped. “Look, isn’t that Greta Garbo at the lipstick counter?”

Julie glanced at the sultry-looking woman with long, dark hair peering critically into a makeup mirror as she tried out a lipstick. Yes, the famed actress.

“Mother,” she said, a bit startled, “I think you see more movies than you admit to.”

For the next hour, Julie wandered in her mother’s footsteps as the older woman explored the store. Live models strolled through the aisles, silent and queenly in fur boas and jersey dresses and evening gowns of pale-pink silk. Edith Crawford was burbling with excitement. None of it caught Julie’s interest; not today.

She was hiding Andy from her parents. If she had kept looking at him on the set, if the lights had not dimmed, she would have seen his sardonic smile; that look of: Oh yes, just what I expected, proper Midwestern girl. Forget her protestations of liberation from convention, propriety, and all that. When it comes down to a scruffy hungover Jew, she doesn’t know him. Her cheeks burned. If she could write his dialogue in her own mind, she was acknowledging something. She felt a vague, meager sense of gratitude that her mother liked to shop, that she was enjoying this fanciful glide through Hollywood. She wasn’t ready for the moment of reckoning that her parents, sooner or later, were surely poised to push.

“Julie, it’s time for tea. Nobody comes to this place without visiting the tearoom,” Edith Crawford said finally.

“How do you know that?” Julie asked, surprised.

“My hairdresser subscribes to
Photoplay
.” Edith, her lips firmly together, put a striped cotton blouse back on its hanger. “This is far
too expensive. Amazing, people willing to pay such prices—that’s Hollywood for you. And here we are, barely out of the Depression.” She clucked dutifully, then brightened.

“I love everything here, and I’m sure they have delicious sandwiches upstairs. Maybe we’ll see some more movie stars. What do you think, dear?”

Julie smiled and said something innocuous. They entered one of the elevators. The doors closed silently in place behind them, and they rose to the fifth level of the store.

When the doors swept open, they stepped into a room as delicately appointed as a French boudoir. The walls were pale green, the chairs upholstered in a supple shade of salmon. So serene, so calming.

Julie followed the hostess behind her mother’s erect, cheerful figure, wondering, How does she manage to make herself at home here when I can’t? Maybe the answer wasn’t so difficult. Edith Crawford was used to immediate entry into any world her husband’s position and her own lineage unlocked. She brought her proper Fort Wayne identity with her when she traveled, snapped carefully and tightly into her purse. She was using it now.

Julie nibbled at tiny triangle sandwiches flavored with cucumber and sipped at tea that had barely changed color when the waitress filled her cup, wishing she could laugh with someone and say it tasted like hot water and nothing more—but very
good
hot water, of course.

“You don’t know whether you’re happy here or not, do you, dear?”

Her mother’s calm question slid silkily through her thoughts, yanking her straight.

“You said one year—” she began.

Her mother waved her hand, the flutter of a butterfly. “Let’s not talk about deadlines. That is such an awful word, isn’t it? And you don’t have to answer. I really do know what I see in my daughter’s face.”

She took a tiny bite of her sandwich. “That handsome, unkempt
man this morning who was staring at you—he matters, am I right?”

Surprised, Julie began to stutter. “Mother—”

They were looking fully at each other now. No side glances. Julie saw the deep creases around her mother’s eyes, the thinning hair, the loosening skin of her neck.

“No confessions are necessary; I saw what I saw. I saw it on his face, and I saw it on yours.” Her mother was sitting achingly straight, bright in demeanor, so beyond language in the message she was sending.

“It’s all mixed up,” Julie managed. She wanted to say more, but the arc of connection between them was already wobbling.

“We’ll discuss it later,” her mother said briskly. “Shall we share a piece of cream pie? Or would that be spoiling the dinner your friend—amazing, my goodness—Carole Lombard is cooking tonight?”

“It won’t spoil it,” Julie said. She managed a smile, uncertain what was going to happen next.

Carole was dressed for the evening in black velvet sailor-style pants and a white cotton shirt tied in front, leaving her midriff bare. She opened the front door with full theatrical exuberance, sending out a wave of energy that seemed capable of lifting anyone off his or her toes, even as a new large German shepherd and a small, yapping terrier threw themselves at Julie’s parents in a sloppy, hysterical welcome. They took an involuntary step back.

“Down, dogs; who taught you your manners? Well, hello, Jerome! Hi, Edith! Welcome to our home!” Carole gave Edith an exuberant hug, bussed Jerome Crawford on the cheek, leaving a bright smear of lipstick, and guided them into the house. “Don’t stumble over the frigging packing boxes—we’re moving as soon as that damn movie is finished.”

Julie’s mother handed her a box of Whitman’s chocolates, tied
in a red bow. “It’s called the Sampler,” she said. “You know, meaning samples of all their chocolates? It’s all the rage at home, and my favorite, and I was delighted to find it here, too.”