Cowboy For Hire

by Duncan, Alice

  She smiled graciously and peeked at Karen, who was grinning like Mr. Carroll’s Cheshire Cat. Amy climbed down from her high horse fast and grinned, too, sensing that Karen had the right idea. This was sort of like a little girl’s dress-up party, and she and Karen were playing at being sophisticated and worldly grown-up ladies out for a night on the town—even if the town was El Monte.

  Martin took Karen’s overnight bag, and Charlie took Amy’s. They put the bags in the tonneau of the big car and returned to open the doors for the two ladies.

  “You’re both looking pretty swank yourselves,” Karen told the two men as she lifted her skirt and allowed Martin to assist her into his automobile, a Pierce Great Arrow, which was about the most splendid motorcar Amy had ever seen, much less ridden in.

  The flickers, as Karen liked to call them, were certainly a profitable enterprise. Karen was adept at slang. Swank and flickers were but two of the new words Amy had learned since being in Karen’s company. Why, she might go home to Pasadena having learned a whole new language.

  Vernon would never stop scolding her if she ever forgot herself and spoke her newly acquired vocabulary in his company.

  She heaved a huge sigh—almost as big as the Pierce Great Arrow—and realized how boring life with Vernon was going to be. Why, he probably wouldn’t even approve of Amy taking their children to the park, but would assuredly prefer having a nanny for them. Amy had always rather looked forward to the prospect of caring for her own children.

  Not that she’d ever wanted to be one of those pitifully poor creatures she’d read about in Mr. Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives. That would be too ghastly. But surely there must be a happy medium.

  Perhaps, in fact, life as a rancher’s wife.

  Oh, dear, there she went again.

  “You look good enough to eat this evening, Miss Wilkes,” Charlie said softly after he’d settled in next to her.

  She and he were in the backseat, Martin and Karen in the front. Amy had been a shade disturbed by this arrangement at first, thinking it would have been more seemly for her and Karen to share the backseat. On the other hand, she and Karen—and Martin and Charlie—were all adults. They could be trusted to keep themselves in line.

  “Thank you.” Feeling nervous, Amy blurted out, “Karen found this gown in a rack of clothes that are going to be used in Wilma Patecky’s next picture.” She felt silly afterward and wished she’d left her remarks simply at thank you.

  “Is that so?” Charlie sounded impressed. “That’s sort of swell, isn’t it?”

  Swell. There was the awful word again. Amy tried not to be disappointed that Charlie had used it.

  “Er, I don’t think I know who Miss Patecky is, though,” he added after a moment.

  Amy turned to stare at him. Well, wasn’t that something? Charlie Fox had never heard of Wilma Patecky. It had by now become perfectly plain to her that she wasn’t the only person in existence who didn’t understand the sophisticated life. Of course, Charlie was a cowboy, which explained a lot. He had more of an excuse than she did, if it came to that.

  “She’s a Broadway actress who’s been working in some of the recent motion pictures,” Amy explained. “I’ve read about her in magazines and newspapers.”

  “Ah. So she’s sort of like Mr. Huxtable.”

  Silence bloomed like a spring blossom in the car. Amy thought it was interesting that the mere mention of Horace Huxtable’s name should produce such a numbing effect on four grown people. She made an effort to dispel the uncomfortable atmosphere. “I’m sure Miss Patecky is nowhere near as awful as Mr. Huxtable.”

  “No,” Charlie concurred quickly. “She couldn’t be. Nobody could be that bad.”

  “He’s in another machine,” Martin muttered. “I wasn’t going to have him cutting capers in my Pierce Arrow.”

  “No, indeed,” said Karen. “Anything but that.”

  Amy didn’t think it was funny, sine Horace Huxtable had given her a very bad time lately.

  Martin chuffed impatiently and said, “I’m sorry, Miss Wilkes. Karen. You know, I’m sure, that we’ve had to set guards on him.”

  “Yes,” Amy said, her voice clipped. “Unfortunately, they can ‘t always be around on the set when the camera’s running.”

  She thought she heard a growl from Charlie but couldn’t be sure because the engine in Martin’s motorcar was louder than the growl. Overall, Amy thought, automobiles were interesting, but if she were to go for a romantic ride somewhere, she’d as soon go in a buggy—as long as the gentleman with whom she was being romantic didn’t have to drive the vehicle too.

  “I can’t apologize enough for his behaviour, Miss Wilkes,” Martin said.

  All at once, Amy felt a totally unfamiliar recklessness overcome her stodgy Pasadena attitudes. She burst out, “Oh, please, everyone, call me Amy! I’m so tired of being the only ‘Miss” on the set.”

  She saw Charlie’s white teeth gleaming, Karen whooped and clapped her hands. “I wondered how long it would take you to unbend enough to allow us mere peasants to call you by your Christian name.”

  “Goodness, I’m not that bad,” Amy muttered, then added a somewhat horrified, “Am I?” She hoped she wasn’t. Although she didn’t care to be taken for a loose woman, she didn’t want to have a reputation as a prissy miss, either.

  “You’re not that bad,” Charlie assured her, picking up her hand and kissing it. The memory of the kiss they’d shared earlier in the day came back to Amy in a rush, and she felt her face flame. Fortunately, it was too dark for anyone to see. “You’re wonderful, in fact.”

  Wishing she could fan herself, Amy muttered in a smothered voice, “Thank you.” She wanted to add, I think you are, too, but couldn’t make herself say such a telling truth aloud.

  “I think Amy is a very pretty name,” said Karen. “I wish my parents had named me Amy instead of Karen. I’m named after my Norwegian grandmother, though, and had no choice in the matter.”

  Martin laughed. “I’m afraid nobody has much of a choice when it comes to their own name.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Amy, beginning to recover her composure. “Actors seem to take great liberties with their given names. And the Peerless Studio didn’t seem to care for my name, so they changed it. Without even asking me if I preferred Amelia.” She feigned outrage so well that Karen actually turned to peer at her over the motorcar’s front seat. Amy grinned at her to let her know she was fooling.

  “That was Mrs. Lovejoy’s idea,” said Martin uncomfortably. “She seems to think Amelia will be accepted more readily than Amy. She thinks it’s more romantic.”

  “I don’t know why,” Karen grumbled. “If she wanted a romantic name, she ought to have picked something like Rosalie or Celeste or something.”

  “Celeste Wilkes.” Amy shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Rosalie’s kind of nice.” Charlie didn’t sound sure of himself.

  “Well, you can call me Rosalie if you like,” offered Amy. “But chances are I won’t know who you’re talking to and won’t respond.”

  With a laugh, Charlie squeezed her hand. Amy knew she should withdraw it, but couldn’t make herself do it. Her hand felt so good in his. And nobody could see, so it wasn’t as if her reputation would be damaged.

  It occurred to her that if her reputation remained undamaged through the remaining few scenes of One and Only, it would be a miracle. Surely, sooner or later, Horace Huxtable was going to try again to injure her, and she wouldn’t allow him to get away with it. And probably Charlie wouldn’t, either. Her mind’s eye pictured the bloody battle that might ensue between the two men, and her heart swelled with appreciation. Charlie was so gallant.

  “I’ve always wanted to hear my name on your lips, Amy,” he murmured into the palm of her hand, which he’d lifted to his lips.

  Amy nearly fainted. “You have?”

  “I have. I love the name Amy.”

  “Charlie’s a nice name, too,” she
said, hoping Karen and Martin weren’t listening. They didn’t seem to be. Amy thought she heard something from the front seat about a version of The prisoner of Zenda that Peerless wanted to film. Amy hoped they would film it. Amy hoped they would film it, because she loved the book.

  Merciful gracious, she was trying to distract herself from being made love to by Charlie Fox! She recognized the symptoms. Why was she doing that? She thought Charlie Fox was the most wonderful man she’d ever met. Why would she want to distract herself?

  She supposed it was only that she was unused to feeling these tumbled emotions about a fellow. The good Lord new she felt no particular emotional intensity when she dealt with poor Vernon.

  Oh, dear, whatever should she do about poor Vernon?

  Charlie didn’t press her, however. He kissed the palm of her hand, seemed to sense her level of discomfort, and replaced her hand on the plus upholstery of the backseat. She shot him a quick, grateful smile, but wasn’t sure if he saw it. Night had fallen, and the lamps affixed to the front of the motorcar, which didn’t shed much light on the road, didn’t shed any light at all inside the vehicle.

  * * *

  “I reckon Martin was right about this place,” Charlie murmured to Amy as the car approached the portals of the Royal El Montean, a rambling facility that contained a hotel, restaurant, and nightclub. “You’re much too pretty for it. You should be in a fancy nightclub in a big city somewhere.”

  “I’ll run inside the hotel, check us all in, and bring back the keys,” Martin said as he parked the motorcar. Charlie got out and held the door for Amy.

  Charmed, Amy smiled up at him as she descended from the car and said, “Thank you. I believe you’re exaggerating. After all, I’m a simple working girl from Pasadena. The closest thing to elegance I’ve ever been to is the Green Hotel.” She sighed, recalling the night she and Vernon had gone to a dance there. “Now, that was something special.”

  “Is the Green Hotel in Pasadena?”

  Amy noticed that Charlie’s smile had faded, and she hoped she hadn’t given him the impression that she was accustomed to the elegancies of life. She might become accustomed to them in the future, if she married Vernon. Marrying Vernon, however, was becoming ever more remote a goal for her. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a very, very bad one.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s where all the Eastern swells—you know, from New York and Boston and so forth—come to stay for the winter.” Recalling that Mr. and Mrs. Catesby, Sr., of New York City, she added, “If, of course, they don’t already on their own winter home in Pasadena.”

  “Be right back,” said Martin, and sped off into the dark.

  “I’ll go with you and help hold the keys,” Karen said, taking off after him. Amy barely noticed they were gone.

  “I don’t expect there’s anything as fancy as that anywhere in Arizona Territory.”

  Charlie sounded glum, and Amy took his arm as they began walking over the uneven ground to the front door of the building. “I shouldn’t imagine the lack of elegant hotels would be much of a hardship for a rancher.”

  She peeked up at him, hoping her facial expression conveyed the look of a woman whose greatest aim in life was to set up with a rancher in Arizona Territory and raise a brook of children. And cows, of course. She was pleased that Charlie didn’t seem enamored of ostriches, because she wouldn’t know what to do with an ostrich even more than she didn’t know what to do with a cow.

  She was disappointed when Charlie seemed to twist her words into something disparaging. “No, I reckon we’re not awfully fancy in the territory.”

  His voice sounded cool, and she sighed. When one shoved all the romantic nonsense about a union between herself and Charlie aside, the fact remained that she and he were from two different worlds. Sometimes those two worlds appeared not so very far apart. But sometimes, like right this minute, for instance, she and Charlie seemed to belong on two entirely unrelated continents separated by oceans of un-navigable water.

  “I don’t much care about elegant living myself,” she said as he held the door for her to enter the restaurant. The mouth-watering aroma of spicy, well-cooked food greeted them as they entered. “It’s fun to dress up sometimes. Like tonight.” She shrugged, trying to give her words the light edge she wanted him to hear.

  “Is that so?”

  She didn’t get to answer because Martin and Karen walked up to them, Karen smiling and holding out a fistful of keys. “Here we are,” she said. “Number four for Charlie, number six for Amy, and number eight for me. Martin already has his.”

  “Thanks,” Amy said, putting the key in her small beaded bag. She saw Charlie drop his key into his trousers pocket.

  Martin sniffed the air appreciatively, rubbed his hands together, and said, “We have reservations in the restaurant’s main dining room. The rest of the cast and crew will be seated in a banquet room in back. Huxtable wasn’t happy about that, but I don’t care.”

  “You got Horace Huxtable to sit in a banquet room with other people?” Karen looked as if she might burst out laughing, restaurant or no restaurant.

  “Yes. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to come, he had to sit at a separate table in the banquet room with Gus and Sam, both whom have been sworn to absolute sobriety the whole night long, and Eddie, who doesn’t drink anyway. But I thought the four of us should sit together in the restaurant. There will be dancing in the nightclub afterwards. It’s right over there. “ He indicated a door on the other side of the dining room.

  Amy didn’t hear any music yet. She was eager to try the new ragtime steps Karen had taught her, and she hoped she’d been able to test her skill with Charlie. Unless he was one of those clumsy men who didn’t dance.

  As if he’d read her mind, Charlie asked, “Do you like to dance, Amy?”

  “Oh, yes. And Karen taught me some ragtime steps.”

  He smiled. “Great.” Amy was happy to hear the enthusiasm creep back into Charlie’s voice. “My sisters use me to practice on all the time, so I know los of ragtime. And waltzes and polkas and stuff.”

  “I love to waltz.” Amy sighed happily, and a feeling that the evening was destined to be a memorable one crept over her. She continued to hold on to his arm as they followed a waiter to a table. For such an out-of-the-way place, the Royal El Montean didn’t have such a shabby appearance. Amy had expected something more along the lines of a tumbledown chophouse.

  But the tables in the restaurant were covered with white cloths that were not too badly stained, there were barely wilted flowers residing in vases at each table, and the waiter looked as if he’d had a bath recently. Amy considered these circumstances indicative of an enterprise that was at least trying to achieve something in the way of style.

  “Here, let me take your wrap,” Charlie said as they drew up at the table to which the waiter had directed them.

  “Thank you.” She hated to give up the gorgeous gray silk shawl because it went so beautifully with Wilma Patecky’s gorgeous gray chiffon dress. Since it was all pretend and dress-up and , in effect, the coach would turn into a pumpkin at midnight, she grinned to herself and relinquished the shawl. Then, after Charlie hung it on a nearby rack and came back to hold her chair for her, she noticed Charlie eyeing her as if she were some rare and succulent delicacy, and felt herself flush. She sat down in something of a flurry.

  The waiter handed nicely printed menus to each member of their party, and Amy was glad she had something to concentrate on besides her acute awareness of Charlie Fox. Now, what, she wondered, should she order? She’d need to take the tightness of her corset into consideration, blast it.

  “Oh, look!” Karen said, grinning. “They serve Mexican food. What a treat.”

  Amy noticed Charlie blink at Karen’s enthusiasm and look uncertain. She eyed him over her menu. “Don’t you care for Mexican food, Charlie?”

  He turned her way. “What? Oh, no. I like it fine. It’s just that we eat Mexican food al
l the time on the ranch.”

  “You do?” Karen’s hazel eyes grew as round as pie plates. “Oh, my goodness, are there any jobs for dressmakers in Arizona Territory?”

  Everyone laughed, and Amy’s sense that this was a practically perfect gathering of friends grew ever larger. She hadn’t experienced much of just plain fun in her life, but she expected this would be it. She was determined to enjoy herself.

  “I wonder if they serve wine,” Martin said, looking around for the waiter.

  “I sort of doubt it,” Karen said. “Although you never know about these places. I think there are some vineyards around here somewhere.”

  “Really? I thought they were all up north,” Amy said in surprise.

  “Ha! That’s what the people up north want you to think. I’m originally from San Francisco, you know, and I know all about these things. They’re real snobs up there when it comes to their part of the state.”

  Amy gazed across the table at Karen and felt something akin to awe for her new friend. “You are? From San Francisco, I mean?” It sounded romantic to her.

  Karen nodded. “Yes, indeed. But when the movies began to move into Southern California, and I decided I wanted to be part of them—it seemed like the most enjoyable and profitable way to use my skills—I moved down here.”

  “Goodness, that was … well, awfully daring of you.” Amy felt small all of a sudden, as if she didn’t deserve to be seated among all of these interesting people who had done so much more than she with their lives. Her primary objective since early childhood was to achieve some kind of security for herself. That ambition seemed paltry in the face of this table full of adventurers.

  “Daring?” Karen appeared truly startled. “Good heavens, no. I have family down here, and I had already secured a position with Madame Dunbar before I moved.”

  “Oh, I see.” That didn’t take much of the gloss off Karen’s story for Amy, who greatly admired her friend for her adventurous spirit. Before she knew what she was doing, she blurted out the only interesting piece of her own personal history that she could think of. “Actually, I’m originally from the gold country. In Alaska, I mean.”