Bells of Avalon (15 page)

It wasn’t like they all hadn’t done what Dan was doing. It was just that he had stayed doing it a lot longer. They’d stayed neck to neck with the partying until the accident. When Katie got hurt, it seemed like a natural stopping point. What happened to Katie scared Albert more than anyone. Maybe it was the big brother hang-up. Katie seemed like someone who needed saving and Albert always took the job when Danny fell short. He often fell short where she was concerned.  At least he had in the end. 

Danny disappeared after his marriage fizzled out. There were stories here and there, ugly stories. Stories he pretended not to hear. One bothered him so much he’d finally tried to get in touch with Danny’s mother, but she said she hadn’t heard from him in months. After that, it was just easier to forget. To not remember certain things about Daniel.

Max stayed in L.A. as long as he could, but times were lean—and Albert’s not-so-subtle urgings for him to help out with the club were starting to wear him down. When his father got sick, he’d no choice but to toe-the-line. The family business had dwindled from three restaurants and two nightspots to one lonely club. They sunk every last dime into the place. Every bit of sweat equity went into keeping the joint above water. They had just begun to turn a decent profit when their father had a stroke.

Max only planned to stay on until things smoothed out, until Dad got well. He figured his father would be raring to come back, but that never happened. Ma said the club caused the stroke. She wouldn’t send him back just so he could have another one. So there it was: his bed was made. He had no choice but to lie in it. They kept in business but Max learned quickly that there was no brass ring in the hospitality racket, no journey’s end. Only frantic work to keep in favor with fickle café society. Still, they were losing steam. Every day they lost out to the a-go-go’s and discotheques springing up like a bad rash along the East Village.  One year at the club turned into three, and three to six.

A few years back, Katie came to the city for work. It wasn’t anything at first. He rang her up to ask if she would sing at the club. She’d thrown them a bone and got the ball rolling. She and Albert chummed up again as they always had. It was like old times, except with Dan gone things were less complicated.   Katie took Albert’s wife on shopping trips and bamboozled her with everything glamorous. She pulled some strings and got their kids into the right schools, made appearances at the club for little or no pay. She moved to the city for good just before Christmas. By the New Year, there was little she did that went unnoticed by him. There were other women, but they all seemed to drop further and further down the list until they fell off completely. She broke it off with some director she’d been seeing, and there he was waiting in the wings. He fell absolutely for her that night on the Madison Avenue Bridge.

He’d never been timid around women. But with Katie, there was a stockade of something delicate he was afraid to breach. That evening she let him take her hand, but she said nothing as they walked. The silence sent his nerves on the fritz. They stopped at the center of the bridge and watched the water below. The sun was low and set everything around them to a firebrand glaze. She was a tall girl and—even slouching against the iron railing—she hadn’t needed to glance up to look him in the eye. Her hair frapped against her face as the wind pitched up then ceased to a breathless halt.

A bold, possessive thought pummeled through him. He shifted his weight to one side and took a step closer. 

“Tell me your real name,” he said.

Her eyebrows ticked up as though it was the last thing she expected to hear.

“My name?”

“Yes,” he said and moved a step closer. She laughed, but he didn’t.

He reached out for her, half expecting she’d pull away—but she didn’t. He unbuttoned the front of her coat and circled his arms around her waist. 

“Tell me,” he whispered.

She tilted her head and, for a moment, he thought maybe she would. He thought he saw a bit of relief in those eyes at the possibility of revealing herself.

“Not a chance.” She smiled.

He gave her a quick, cocky grin before moving in to kiss her.

Chapter 14

Los Angeles, California

1956

The air was warm and humid, and Katie was grateful for the small amount of breeze that the convertible top provided. A smoggy glow hung like a ghost over the dark sky as she pulled her car by stage 16. She ground the gear shift, attempting to find park. The hair on her arm stood up when Max placed his hand on hers.

“Press the clutch, don’t pump it,” he said, and glided her hand over the gear until it locked smoothly in place.

“I haven’t got that part quite yet,” she mumbled.

“It’s not that bad, really.” Max smiled. “The stick isn’t so hard—you just need the basics. Didn’t anyone ever teach you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, walk you through the nuts and bolts?”

She sighed and looked down at the steering wheel. A few men in caterer’s aprons ambled in and out of the commissary, carrying supplies. Apart from that, they were alone.

“Danny tried once but he always got so…” she glanced up at Max’s kind eyes. No. She didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole. Not tonight. “No, no one ever taught me.”

Max cleared his throat, “Well, if you want. I could give you a lesson—teach you, I mean.”

She smiled—but didn’t accept or refuse the offer.

“You look different, Max.” She turned in her seat toward him.

“Different? How?” he asked with a hint of a smile.

“I don’t know, just different.”

“Is that bad?”

“No—it’s just different,” her voice ended softly. She hadn’t seen him in a year, and he seemed taller than before. More tanned, more blonde—and a few other things that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“Why the frown? Dinner at Romanoff’s couldn’t have been that bad.”

“No,” she laughed, “it was wonderful—thank you.”

She still felt the warmth of the bottle of wine they’d shared on her skin—and it
had
been wonderful. He’d insisted on going after their first day of shooting together had gone horribly bad. A way to wipe their terrible day off the books.  They’d sat in a rounded corner booth and she watched the tired waiters in thick glasses and wide white lapels. The same uniforms they’d worn when she’d gone there with her father as a child. Something about the listless way they moved, the stale ambiance, and the food—while good, nothing like it had been in its heyday—made her think the place would be out of business within a year. Max said he’d heard the owner was in trouble…heard it from his father that the guy was swimming in debt. Hearing that gave her a lump in her throat. Her father had known the owner well. He’d once brought her a soda and grenadine from the bar, patted her on the head, and they had all laughed. 

“The woman who fixes my makeup says she thought we’d be finished by the end of the month. I don’t think I’ve ever worked on a picture that lasted less than three months.”

“Well, what did you expect from a film with
blackboard
and
baby
in the working title?” he laughed. She gave him a sheepish smile and pulled her hands into her lap. The director, a man with bright auburn hair in cord pants and horn-rimmed glasses, hadn’t even shown up until after lunch. He’d acted dazed, disoriented, and kept telling her to
loosen up baby, stop bogarting the vibe.
They were shooting the big party scene that day, which also meant they were shooting the dance number. She’d been so nervous she’d barely slept the night before. She shouldn’t have worried, though. She flubbed her steps three times and no one noticed. They took four takes and it was all over.  She’d heard a rumor that Max had a small role in the picture. When he’d finally shown up on set, she thought she’d cry at the sight of a familiar face.

“I know, I know. I should have guessed that. Was it this terrible for
Jazz Jungle
?” she asked. His legs made a rippling sound against the upholstery as he moved slightly towards her.

“How did you know about that?” He smiled and gave her a light pinch against her bare shoulder.

“An agent I had for about five minutes put me up for it. The one the Meltsners left me with. I just couldn’t go through with it, though. I panicked and found another agent and Berg-Allenberg. They told me over there that
Jungle
got the plug pulled a few weeks into the shooting schedule.”

“Yep. There’s a film can somewhere with my lost moment of celluloid gold.”

“I’m sorry.” She smiled.

“Well, we’re in it together now,” he said.

“Yes, I guess we are. You know, Tilda told me something before she left. She told me to get away for a while and do something else. She said it would be better after that. The jobs, I mean. Maybe she was right. Nothing about this makes sense to me anymore. It used to be that the studios made up their minds if you worked or not. Now there are a dozen agents and production companies to complicate what was once so simple.”

“I’m not sure any of this was ever simple,” he said. She thought for a moment as her eyes followed one of the caterers carrying a silver chafing dish. The artificial light from the commissary reflected off the dish in bright bursts until it was packed neatly into the back of a van.

“Maybe not,” she said

“Well did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Get away…to do something else?”

“Oh that. Not really. I took some college classes, did some theater out east. Nothing seemed to fit though. I guess I don’t really know how to do anything other than this. Isn’t that a scary thought, Max?” she asked and looked down.

“I guess it is. I don’t know—I suppose I try not to think about it,” he said.

“I wish I could do that.”

“Wish you could do what?”

“Afford not think about it,” she replied.

The sad sound of her words draped over the moment. The upholstery rippled again as Max reached closer than he had before. But this time, he didn’t playfully pinch at her. He didn’t touch her at all. He looked at her like he wanted to split apart her strange thoughts, if not for his good manners. He hunched forward, resting his elbows on either knee and bringing his hands together.

“You can afford to do anything you want, Katie.” he said in a low voice. She looked at him and shifted a bit so that she faced him fully.

“How do
you
?”

“How do I what?”

“Not think about it?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just think whatever happens will happen. Wherever I end up, I’ll find some way to be alright with it.”

“I suppose you’re right…tell me, how is Albert?”

“A pain in the ass. He’ll be out next month sometime, bringing his girl. I’ve barely seen him since he started at the club full-time. We should get together, the four of us.”

“I’d like that. I’ll write down my number.” She fished in her shiny red purse for something to write with. She found nothing but her checkbook, a tube of lipstick, and a book of crossword puzzles.

“Here,” Max said, pulling something from his pocket.

When she looked up. she saw the outline of a pencil. Even in the poor light, she could see the waxy yellow finish, read the metallic turquoise words that spelled out Dixon No 2 and 5/10.  Her face went pale as she stared at it between his thumb and index finger. She swallowed the tears in her throat before Max could notice. She took the pencil from his hand and tore a piece from her crosswords book. She wrote down her number, folded the paper, and gave it to him. Max frowned.

“Hell, Katie,” he told her, “don’t worry so much. This movie’s not so bad.  A girl like you will stay around so long as she wants it—damn, you’ll probably shake the dust off this town and marry some oil sheik—have a small country like Grace Kelly. After that, it won’t matter what a circus this all was.”

She laughed at the extravagant idea and shook her head. She looked straight ahead to see that the catering van was gone, as were any signs of life on the studio lot. The haze of the night cleared, and Katie could see the buds of stars glancing out from the mist.

“You’re a regular riot,” she smiled, “besides…I don’t think I’m the type someone marries.”

“What do you mean? Of course you are, Katie,” he said in a soft, bewildered voice.

Her head craned to look absolutely up at the sky. She sighed and turned her head to look at him over her bare shoulder.

“But I’m not though…am I?” she said, her full lips moving in a sad, half-smile. Max didn’t answer, but she’d known he wouldn’t.

“Here,” she said, handing back the pencil

“No keep it—for your crosswords,” Max said.

She shook her head, “I think I’m getting to old for puzzles.” She placed the pencil back in his hand. He looked at it oddly before putting it in his pocket again. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but said nothing. His hand went to the door handle.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” she said and started the ignition again. He shut the door behind him. Katie sat for a moment, unable to quell the knot in her stomach. She took a deep breath and pressed the clutch gently with her foot. To her surprise, she navigated the gearshift smoothly into drive. Max was a good teacher, she mused. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the tall outline of his body watching her as she drove away in the night.