All the Stars in the Heavens (21 page)

“We had that in Italy,” Alda said.

“And we have it every Sunday after mass.” Loretta smiled.

“And I never had it,” Gable said. “Never had that kind of family life growing up. It must be great.”

“It is,” Luca said. “But that doesn't mean you can't have it now.”

“You have to have a wife who wants that sort of thing, I guess.”

There was an awkward silence. Alda looked down at her plate, and Loretta slowly twirled her spaghetti.

“I want a ranch. A big ranch with a little farmhouse,” Gable said.

“Why the small farmhouse?”

“So I can find the one I love. Big houses, those Beverly Hills mansions, might as well be airport hangars. They're so big, you can't find anybody in them.”

“Maybe people live in them so they can't be found,” Alda offered.

“You need to have Gladys Belzer decorate your mansion—she makes them cozy,” Loretta said.

“I'm not talking about wallpaper. I'm talking about sharing your life with someone who wants to be with you—just because they love you. A couple of rooms, a kitchen, that's all you need.”

“I have a big dream too. I want to buy a house and have enough land to grow my own grapes to make my own wine.”

“And will your wife stomp the grapes?”

“She'll have to.” Luca looked at Alda. “A man can think clearly on a mountaintop.”

“And what is the man thinking?” Loretta wanted to know.

“Alda?”

“He's thinking he has all the answers, and I think he's rushing things.”

“There's no such thing,” Luca said. “Why don't you believe me?”

“Now, Chet, if you want to win Alda's heart, you need to listen to her. You don't want to rush a lady. Her feelings are more important than yours in this situation—if your goal is winning her heart, of course,” said Gable.

“That's my goal.”

“Then slow down.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gable.”

“What's your dream, Alda? We know Chet's, and we know mine—what's yours?”

“Since I left Saint Elizabeth's, I haven't had time to think about it. I know I want to go home and see my family in Italy.”

“No vineyard, no farm?”

She shook her head. “I don't know.”

“And how about you, Gretchen? What's your dream?” Gable asked.

“A simple life.”

“I never met a leading lady who didn't want a simple life. And then they break through in pictures and live everything
but.”

“And since you know every leading lady, we'll take that as gospel,” Loretta said.

“Just my opinion, kid.”

“I dream of a house with a fence covered in roses. A husband who loves me. A baby or two or three . . . maybe more.”

Loretta cut her birthday cake, placing ample slices on the dessert plates.

“This is bad luck. You didn't blow out candles,” Gable said.

“Because we don't
have
candles,” Loretta reminded him.

“Make a wish anyway.”

Loretta closed her eyes and made a wish.

Alda, Luca, and Clark applauded when she opened her eyes.

“You want to know what I wish for?”

“Let me guess. That you get William Powell in your next picture,” Gable joked.

“I wouldn't mind that. I wished that we would all stay as friendly as we are tonight.”

Luca held up his glass, and they toasted one another in honor of Loretta. As she sipped her wine, she decided that this had been her best birthday yet.

The wind howled as the couples trudged back to the hotel.

A half moon glowed overhead through the black sky and onto the white snow. They gripped the rope the management stretched from the dining hall to the hotel entrance. The wind was so fierce, it kicked up an icy dust that stung their faces. Gable pulled Loretta close and Luca held Alda tightly until they made it inside the hotel.

“Thank you for a delicious meal.” Loretta gave Alda and Luca a hug. “And thank you Mr. Gable for coming to the party.”

“May I see you home, Miss Young?”

“Yes, you may, Mr. Gable.”

“We're going to warm up by the fire,” Luca said. “See you in ten years. That's how long it will take me to defrost.”

“Good idea.” Gable winked at him.

When Loretta reached her room, she fumbled for her key. Gable took it and unlocked the door.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

“It was fun.”

“Why did you invite me?”

Loretta blushed. “I like you.”

“You do. At long last. The Miracle of Mount Baker.” He leaned against the doorframe. “What do you like exactly?”

“You've got guts. I like that. And you're kind to everyone. And you look out for me.”

“You make me sound like a crossing guard.”

She laughed. “I don't mean to.”

“I feel like a sap.”

“Don't.” Loretta placed her hands on his face and looked into his eyes. She ran her fingers through his hair. “Good night.”

“You'd rather not kiss me?” he whispered.

“Where'd you get that idea?” Loretta put her arms around him. He lifted her off the ground, and with tenderness, their lips met. She relaxed into his arms. After all, it was her birthday, and she had been so lonesome that the thought of letting it go by without a kiss made her feel worse. Besides, she could file this tender moment under “rehearsal.”

Clark Gable was strong, and whatever he held dear, he protected. She let him protect her. His lips traced her nose, and he kissed her again. This time he didn't stop and she didn't let him. She buried her face in his neck. His skin, his scent, were familiar to her. He made her think of home.

“May I come in?” he said softly.

“No.”

He smiled. “Why not?”

“I need eight hours of sleep with my retainer.”

“Let's make it a late morning.” Gable kissed her neck.

“You can be late. I can't. I promised Wellman.”

“It's unprofessional,” Gable agreed.

“Terribly.”

“You should never fall for a costar.” He kissed her hands.

“That advice is the best birthday gift I ever received.”

“I thought you said it was the spaghetti,” he teased her.

“If I'm being honest, the See's chocolates were the best.”

Gable put his arms around her. Loretta looked up and down the hallway, making sure that they had not been discovered.

“We can be friends, but that's all,” she said firmly.

“Right.”

“I don't kiss friends.”

“Absolutely not.” He softly kissed her cheek, her eyes, and found her lips again.

“That was just rehearsal.”

“Right.” He tried to kiss her again.

She pulled away. “I think we've mastered the kiss for now. Good night, Mr. Gable.”

“Happy birthday, Gretchen.”

Gable made his way down the hallway to his room. He opened
the door to be met with a dusting of snow blowing into his face. He rushed across the room and closed the window, catching his hand under the sash. He cursed and pulled the window shut.

He stoked the fire, which was down to orange and blue embers, crackling softly in the grid. He added a log, and soon the dry wood was engulfed in flames, throwing heat. He leaned against the mantel and looked into the fire as a terrible sense of dread came over him.

At first he thought it might have something to do with work, but soon he was thinking about Ria. The life she had made for him was precisely as she had promised. She made a lovely home: cushions covered in brocade, draperies of fine silk that rustled in the breeze, a dining room that was a stage setting for important guests, set with so much silverware and cutlery, it might as well be Buckingham Palace. Queen Ria served dishes made by a staff, based on menus she had crafted from books she read about the living habits of the crowned heads of Europe. Her typical fare was duck in aspic, pheasant, and trifle—the food of royalty, or Ria's view of what that might be.

There was never hearty food or plain food, the kind he grew up on. Gable longed for simplicity—for flapjacks, chicken pot pie, and mashed potatoes. He imagined chairs wide and deep enough to accommodate his height, covered in fabrics that could take a whiskey spill or the ash of his pipe. He preferred baseball on the radio or the occasional mystery theater, not the Philharmonic playing the classics. Gable's life was filled with music that put him to sleep, food that didn't satisfy him, people that bored him, and a wife that sparked neither his libido nor his intellect. He was stuck in a private life that offered none of the comforts he required.

Gable wanted out.

Gable had relished the spaghetti that night, and not just because it was delicious. He'd enjoyed the conversation, the jokes, the ease and camaraderie of friends. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a home-cooked meal with people whose company he enjoyed. Ria would have taken one look at the Italians and hightailed it out of the room. Working people were of little interest to her, the things they made, even less. Ria would think a rum cake was common, and homemade wine a poor substitute for any with a label in French.

Gretchen took delight in the very things Gable treasured. Gretchen thought of others and their needs. She was a girl who took an entire day to bake pies for the crew, the kind of pies he grew up on, the kind of dessert the men appreciated because it reminded them of their mothers, of home.

Ria loved the idea of Gable and his potential stature in Hollywood. She was a career-building architect, trained in the grand Texas style, which she'd invented from the scraps of her meager childhood. Ria went big and wide with her ideas. Ria may have cared about Gable as a part of her aspirational vision, he was certain of that, but there was no romance. At first there had been. When she was in a bad marriage, she'd been hungry for him. He'd obliged, and he'd shared his dreams, which she promised to make come true. She swore she knew how, and Gable had been grateful as she took him from a player in a stock acting company and moved him to Hollywood to become a star. Never mind that his first wife, his acting coach Josephine Dillon, twenty years his senior, was punted in the process. Gable took care of Josephine financially, buying the home they had lived in and willing it to her. Upon his death, she'd own it outright. It was the least he could do.

Of late the second Mrs. Gable and Clark had put on an act in public as phony as a publicity still—“a Hollywood two-step,” Gable called it—but he could as easily have acted the part of chauffeur or gardener as he did the part of husband in the moving picture of their marriage. He wondered if he had bollixed up the works, the entirety of his life, with a home that was strictly symbolic, a wife who was one in name only, meeting his needs outside his home by working the kick line of chorus girls who graced the MGM musicals. Sex was as easy to get as ice cream, and about as filling.

Loretta sat in the window of her room at the inn.

The moonlight made the rolling fields of snow look like layers of chiffon. She couldn't sleep, which was unlike her.

She couldn't shake Gable's kiss.

Loretta had been kissed onscreen by every type of actor. Granted, they were acting, but none could compare to Gable. Her chaste
kisses with Spencer had been so guilt-ridden that not only were they not much fun, they were loaded with all the drama that comes from being with a man who belongs to another woman. It's impossible to stake a claim on a man who is already taken.

Loretta hadn't known that Spencer Tracy was married when she met him. Gable was different. Perhaps she had too much information; his romantic dalliances had been chronicled in every fan magazine since 1930, and what she didn't know from reading about him, Sally was happy to fill in. Loretta knew of him—but what she'd discovered in person did not square with the fan magazine narrative or the public's perception. He was much more handsome and goofy than he appeared in print. “Fun-loving” wasn't a phrase often used to describe him, but in her mind, he was. Gable was a he-man; he could hunt and shoot with the best and make love with anyone he chose whenever he wanted to, which also appealed to her young heart. He liked her, and it seemed he was choosing her; how could she not be flattered by the attention?