Kathryn patted his back and he could feel her nodding gently. “I understand,” she told him. “Really I do. I know what it’s like to be in love and still feel alone.”
Marcus pulled his head up and looked at her through tears that distorted her face. “You what?”
“Secret for secret?” she asked. Marcus nodded. “I’ve been sleeping with a married man for the past two years.”
“You haven’t!” Marcus straightened up, scandalized and amazed.
“Remember Roy?”
It took a moment, then Marcus exclaimed, “Mr. Long Beach?”
She nodded like a naughty little school girl. It was a look that rather suited her.
“Really? Two years? A married man?”
“I know, I know,” she sighed. “It’s so tacky, isn’t it? I can barely believe I’m doing it. But he’s such a good man. Honest, he is. A good man caught in a bad situation.”
“A situation called ‘married.’”
“He says they don’t get along at all; barely even talk.”
“Are there kids?”
“No.”
“So why not get a divorce?”
“Apparently, she’s a religious nut; one of those marriage is forever and ever, regardless types. Won’t even agree to a separation.” She attempted a light-hearted shrug that Marcus didn’t believe. “If his wife doesn’t want him, then I do.”
“As long as you know what you’re doing.” Marcus said.
“Who the hell said I know what I’m doing?” Kathryn looked at him, her chocolate brown eyes suddenly molten.
Her words caught in her throat the same way Marcus’ had in his. He pulled her into a hug just as her tears started to soak her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around his back and squeezed him hard.
“Oh, we’re a fine pair, aren’t we?” she laughed throatily. “You can’t get close to yours, and I can’t keep away from mine.”
They stayed in the hug for a long, wet minute until she mumbled something about needing to clear her nose. As she fished into her handbag, Marcus asked, “Two years, huh? You sly little fox, you. So, where do you meet up? Seedy little out-of-the-way hotels?”
“Please, Marcus, this affair is sordid, but it’s not that sordid. We meet here, mainly. Gwennie doesn’t get home from work until two or three in the morning, so the place is mine. Ours.” She sighed. “Aside from the fact that he’s married, this whole thing isn’t very sordid at all. He’s more of a romantic than I am, and I’ve never had anyone who shows the sort of affection for me that he shows. Oh, Marcus! The way he kisses me! I melt, every time!”
“I know how that feels,” Marcus admitted. “Unfortunately, that’s all I know.”
“So you and Ramon have never, you know, gone all the way?”
Marcus offered Kathryn a smile. “At least one of us is getting satisfaction.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m happy for you. That is to say, I’d be happier if he wasn’t married.”
“We’d all be happier,” Kathryn said. “But I want you to know that it’s been killing me that I haven’t been able to share any of this with you.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Gwennie does,” Kathryn admitted, “but she doesn’t pry.”
“So, why tell me now?”
Kathryn blew her nose and let out a deep sigh. “I spent the first year telling myself I didn’t care he was married. Then I spent the second year telling myself that I didn’t love him. Not really, really love him.”
“And then?”
“And then recently he surprised me with flowers and chocolates and perfume. When I asked him what the occasion was, he said, ‘Our second anniversary.’ That’s when I realized, Oh, sweet Jesus, I love him. I truly, truly love him and there’s nothing I can do about it. Married or not, he’s in my life and so I wanted you to know. You’re the last person on earth I want to keep secrets from. And I’ve been wanting to ask you about Ramon since that night he and I tangoed. When he asked about you, I thought about the Montfalcone and, I dunno, two plus two seemed to be adding up to four. Now seemed as good a time as any.” She hesitated a moment, playing with her handkerchief. “You don’t think any less of me, do you? Sleeping with a married man, and all?”
Marcus stared at his best friend, shocked that she would even think that. “Of course not. Are you crazy? Don’t forget, I’m the homosexual around here. I have it on good authority that we don’t get to have marriages or relationships or love, so I’m going to have to live vicariously through you. The only way I’ll think less of you is if you neglect to tell me all the details, all the time. Okay?”
They looked at each other for a moment, and both burst out laughing. Marcus felt like a matching pair of cannon balls had been lifted off his shoulders. That was the first time I’ve ever said the word ‘homosexual’ out loud, he thought. Who’d have ever guessed it could feel so freeing?
Kathryn sniffed at the air. “Do you smell anchovies? I’ve been smelling them all the time. Somebody must be cooking with them around here. It gives me such a craving for them. Do you have any?”
She got up from the bed and opened the cupboard next to the dresser where he kept his crackers and nuts. The edge of the cupboard door clipped Nazimova’s toy rocking horse. It wobbled back and forth a few times before it reached the edge of the dresser and fell to the floor with a crunch.
“Oh, Marcus!” Kathryn cried. “I’m so, so sorry!”
Marcus’ heart dropped. It was bad enough that Nazimova had walked out of his life without a word, leaving behind a hole in his life the size of the Hollywoodland sign, but now the one thing he had of hers was broken. He wanted to tell Kathryn it was okay but he couldn’t get the words out.
He picked up the horse and pinched the wooden tail with his thumb and index finger. When he tried to push it back to its upright position, it resisted, then he felt it move back into place with a distinct click. Suddenly the horse split into halves, one in each hand.
“Well, would you look at that? It’s hollow!” Kathryn said.
Inside the right half of the wooden toy horse, someone had taped a key. He pulled it out and turned it over. It was an old iron skeleton key, thick and heavy, with a thin purple ribbon tied to the end. He and Kathryn looked at each other in amazement. “What do you think it’s for?” he asked.
Kathryn took the key and weighed it in her hand. “Brophy has one of these in his office.”
The Garden of Allah’s manager held the key up to his own. “No,” he said. “It’s not mine. But it’s a safe key, all right. Perhaps it fits the one in Alla’s old bedroom.”
“She had a safe in her villa?” Kathryn asked.
“No, no, in her original bedroom here in the main house. She was rich back then. She needed someplace to stash her jewels. We can check, but if we find anything, it still belongs to her.”
“Of course. And if there is, I’d like to return it to her.”
Madame Nazimova’s bedroom was on the top floor of the house that she sold for a hotel. The Royal Suite was rarely rented out; anyone who could afford it preferred one of the villas scattered around the gardens. They were sunny and convivial, more private and closer to the Garden’s never-ending party.
The sprawling bedroom was shrouded in darkness. Brophy went to a bookshelf against the north wall and pulled on one corner to reveal a safe built into the brickwork. It was about the size of a small portrait, painted gray with a keyhole on the left and a handle at its center.
“May I?” Marcus said, and took the key from Brophy. He inserted it into the slot. Let this key work. Let me find her.
He turned the key and heard the tumblers inside the steel door drop as the key made its clockwise revolution. He brought it back home and pushed the handle down. There was a soft clack and the spring-loaded door opened toward Marcus.
Kathryn peered over his shoulder. “There’s something there.”
Marcus pulled a small book out of the safe and held it in the sunlight that seepe
d between the heavy drapes. The book was covered in black felt and worn around the edges, maybe a hundred pages long. He opened it and started to flick through pages covered with deliberate, delicate, slanted handwriting in green ink.
“They’re poems,” Marcus said. Each one was a page or two long, and dated in the early twenties. “Are they Madame’s?”
“No,” Brophy said. “I’d know her handwriting anywhere. It’s big and broad with dramatic loops and what-have-you. This is somebody else’s.”
Marcus turned to the front page. In the same handwriting it said, A Book of Poems for Madame Nazimova. He looked at Brophy. “Who is Rodolfo Alfonzo Guglielmi?”
CHAPTER 35
The clock on the wall behind the doctor’s desk sounded like a disapproving headmistress. Tick, tick, tick.
It’s okay, Kathryn told herself. Your appointment with Wilkerson isn’t until three o’clock — that’s more than an hour and his office is only half a dozen blocks away. So stop fidgeting, for crying out loud.
The examination room had been wiped clean with so much hospital-strength antiseptic that Kathryn felt a tad woozy. Would it be so hard if they mixed a little lemon juice in it? The meticulously organized medical supplies made her want to run screaming for the street. She longed to be among the madness of Hollywood Boulevard to pace off these nerves.
The doctor, a middle-aged man as stark as his office, walked in and closed the door with a slow click. He took a seat. “I’m not sure if my news is welcome, Miss Massey, but the rabbit definitely died.”
The words hung in the air like wet laundry. It took Kathryn a moment to find her voice. “Are you saying you performed a pregnancy test?”
“It’s standard procedure for female patients exhibiting your symptoms. You complained of strong cravings for salty foods, anchovies —”
“I wasn’t complaining. I merely mentioned it in passing.” Kathryn struggled to control her breathing. She had come in expecting to hear a lecture about blood pressure or roughage. She was not prepared for this. “You must be mistaken. I don’t have morning sickness, I haven’t gained weight.”
“Not all expectant mothers experience morning sickness,” he said. “Miss Massey, you are in fact pr —”
Kathryn jumped to her feet. “Even if your suspicions are correct, don’t you need a patient’s permission to perform a test like that?” She snatched up her handbag and thought about clocking him over the head with it.
“Miss Massey,” he said. “We need to talk about prenatal care and nutrition.”
Kathryn strode to the door and threw over her shoulder, “No, sir, we do not.” She ran halfway down the stairs to the lobby, then stopped to steady herself against the cool brick wall. She couldn’t be pregnant. That poor rabbit must have died in vain. She hurried out into the street where the din of car horns and construction on Highland Avenue welcomed her.
Half a block away, Max Factor’s new makeup studio was a cacophony of jackhammers and truck engines. She headed toward its chain-link perimeter and held on tight until her knees stopped quaking.
Pregnant.
She closed her eyes but the word appeared in ten-foot neon tubes. A baby. She had a baby growing inside of her. No, she told herself, it’s not a baby, it’s a pregnancy. What in the name of the hot hairy hounds of hell was she going to do?
The offices of the Hollywood Reporter were almost as loud as the Max Factor site outside, but this was a comforting, exciting noise. There was a hum and a throb to it; clattering typewriters, incessant telephones, people yelling out Hepburn, box office, Paramount, Bride of Frankenstein, DeMille. It was the kind of din that enfolded Kathryn like a hug from a hundred friends.
The receptionist pointed her toward Wilkerson’s office. His secretary’s desk was vacant, but the door behind it was open.
“Hello?” she called out.
“Hey,” a deep voice from the inner office called out, “What’s the name of that god-awful Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy operetta you made me go see a few months ago? The one about the runaway French princess.”
“Naughty Marietta,” Kathryn replied, and waited for a response.
Wilkerson filled his doorway, frowning. “Who are you?”
“Kathryn Massey,” she replied and offered her hand. He shook it. “We have a three o’clock appointment.”
“Oh?”
“You cabled me when you read my article on drive-in movies?”
Wilkerson’s eyebrows shot up. “Ah! The Graf Zeppelin. Come on in.”
Kathryn followed Wilkerson into an expansive, sunny room overlooking Sunset Boulevard. A pair of loveseats faced each other over a low table strewn with magazines and newspapers. A huge bookcase lined the far wall; its dusty contents looked like it had been shelved by Blind Freddie during an earthquake.
Wilkerson led her to an enormous desk, nine feet wide and made of dark, dull wood that badly needed polishing. It was a glorious madhouse of books, papers, magazines, telegrams, pencils, and ink pots. A monkey wrench lay on top of the Los Angeles Blue Book, the city’s social register. He rounded his monstrous desk and motioned for Kathryn to take a seat. “That article was the damndest thing,” he said.
“Thank you . . . I think.”
“No, I mean — well, it was good. Very good, in fact. But it appeared in my briefcase halfway across the Atlantic. You weren’t sailing on the Ile de France last month by any chance, were you?”
“No, sir, I was not, I’m sorry to say.”
“So I can’t accuse you of breaking into my stateroom and hiding it in my briefcase?
“No,” Kathryn replied carefully. “I’ve never been within a thousand miles of the Ile de France.”
Wilkerson started to sift through the small mountains on his desk for something. Kathryn let her gaze drift away from him to an oil painting behind him and her breath caught in her throat.
An aristocratic father with a long rifle stood next to a smaller, younger version of himself with a smaller rifle. At their feet was a dead rabbit.
Kathryn felt something crumple inside her. She pressed a hand to her chest. Wilkerson was looking at her expectantly, so she shook herself a little. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was distracted by that painting.”
Wilkerson beamed and spun in his chair to face it. “Ah, my Piermont,” he said. “Love his work. Have half a dozen now. This one is my favorite, although I suspect my secretary would prefer I burn it. It’s called Child’s First Kill.” Wilkerson swung his chair back to her. “A touch gruesome, I know.”
“It’s very realistic.” Kathryn could hardly breathe. She tried not to think of Roy.
“That’s why I like it. Writing about Hollywood, it’s trying to make something real out of the unreal. That’s what I liked about your piece. Everyone’s so damned gung-ho about drive-in movies, but you took a stand I wasn’t expecting. Drive-ins robbing us of our communal experience. When I saw your address, it made sense.”
The painting with the dead rabbit pulled at Kathryn’s eyes like a magnet. Look at me. LOOK AT ME. Of all things, did it have to be a rabbit hunt? The rabbit definitely died. “Why is that?” Kathryn asked.
“Everyone knows about the Garden of Allah! Talk about your communal experience. Boozy parties day and night. All those people moving to Hollywood and working their way up the ladder, in the meantime they’re all running around half-naked because they’ve convinced themselves nobody will remember what they did before they hit it big.”
“That’s what people really think about the Garden?”
“Everyone knows it’s where you take your current dish for a spicy afternoon.”
He made the Garden sound like a flophouse rife with drunken adulterers running around naked every night. The boozy parties were real, yes. And she had spotted more than one or two pairs of whoopee-seeking hedonists scuttling around the hydrangeas after midnight, but it always seemed to be in fun. The Garden of Allah wasn’t sleazy or cheap; just open-hearted and open-minded.
“P
erhaps you’re thinking of the Chateau Marmont,” Kathryn said.
Wilkerson shook his head. “The Chateau Marmont is where starlets go to sleep with their directors. The Garden of Allah is where girls who want to be starlets go to sleep with guys who want to be directors.”
Then again, Kathryn reflected, I am one of those people sleeping around with someone I’m not married to and look where it’s gotten me. What the hell sort of job interview is this, anyway? Is this what people talk about in business meetings?
She decided she’d better say something. “I can’t tell if you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I live at the Garden of Allah.”
“Oh, it’s a good thing,” Wilkerson assured her. “A journalist must protect her sources, and you can’t do that without a good poker face. You, my dear, have a very good poker face.”
CHAPTER 36
“That’s not for George, is it?”
Marcus turned around to find a man dressed all in black. He’d seen a ton of screen vamps dress solely in black — Theda Bara, Pola Negri and the like — but never a man. The guy had a square jaw and was turning gray in a way that Marcus hoped he might someday. He frowned at the potted orchid in Marcus’ hands.
“Yes,” Marcus replied. “It is.”
Marcus didn’t know George Cukor well, but he was clearly a man of class and taste. Despite its exorbitant cost, Marcus felt George would appreciate an orchid. His handwritten invitation to Sunday brunch had arrived out of the blue, and Marcus wanted to turn up with something special.
“Bad move,” the guy said. “George is ridiculously sensitive to the pollen of all genus Pleurothallis plants. The minute he spots that, he’ll have a goddamned fit.”
The guy took the plant from Marcus and placed it behind a weeping willow outside Cukor’s front gate. “You can pick it up on the way out,” he said genially. He stuck his hand out. “I’m Julian Johns.”
The Garden on Sunset Page 19
