The Garden on Sunset

by Martin Turnbull

  Over a megaphone, a deep voice said, “Extras, please take your positions. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you people that this is a one-take shot today. All other personnel, clear the set immediately.”

  Marcus shielded his eyes from the unrelenting light and looked around for another escape route. He spotted a door at the end of the long wooden bar. If he could get there and wind his way around the back, he could reach the exit. He headed for it, keeping up his checklist charade as stagehands cleared the set and extras found their marks. As he reached the door, the megaphone blared again.

  “Let’s go through this one more time. I will call ‘Action!’ and we’ll all wait a full five seconds. Then, strictly in this order: walls, chandeliers, dust, bricks, and windows.”

  Marcus made it through the door. He looked to his right — the exit was in sight. Just then, a hand clamped onto his upper arm so tight it cut off his circulation.

  “Gotcha!”

  “ROLL CAMERAS!”

  “You wouldn’t believe me, so I had to do something,” Marcus said. He tried to pull away from Buttface Hoolihan’s monstrous grip but the guard had five inches and forty pounds on him. Squirming only made Hoolihan’s grip hurt more.

  “We’re going to stay here until they’ve shot this scene.”

  “I’ve got paperwork —”

  “Shut the hell up. I am going to have you arrested.”

  “Fine! Do what you have to do,” Marcus whispered. “But can we just swing by the scenario building? If I don’t sign those papers by noon —”

  “AND . . . ACTION!”

  Marcus’ hand began to throb. He looked down at it and saw veins begin to pop out. He and Hoolihan stood with their backs against the soundproofing mattresses as the stagehands began to shake the set’s walls. The chandeliers started to tinkle, and grew louder and louder until an almighty crash filled the air. The extras screamed and shrieked as they fell about the bar, pretending the whole thing was being ripped apart. It reminded Marcus of being caught underground with Ramon during the Long Beach earthquake. That hadn’t worked out so great, either.

  Hundreds of papier mâché bricks fell to the floor with a rumble, and suddenly the air was thick with dust. Marcus looked around and spotted a loose wooden banister within easy reach. He curled his fingers around the end, and swung it as hard as he could around his body in one smooth arc. When it hit Hoolihan across the stomach, the guard let out an “Oooph!” and released Marcus’ arm. Marcus sprang to his left. He had his hands on the exit door when he realized he couldn’t open it without setting off the alarm and spoiling the entire one-take scene. All that time, effort and money — he just couldn’t do it.

  A grinding, wrenching noise erupted, and the two walls on either side of him started to twist and moan. He looked back at Hoolihan; the guy was clambering to his feet. The wall next to him started to bend toward breaking, and pushed a stack of wooden barrels back toward the stage wall. The grinding noise became almost deafening and the floorboards started to buckle and splinter. Dust choked the air. It was hard to see much of anything. When the barrels closed in on Hoolihan, the space between them and the soundproof mattresses narrowed to a handspan.

  Just give me a few more seconds, Marcus prayed. This can’t go on for much longer. Through the haze of whirling dust, Marcus could make out Hoolihan clearing the barrels like a gymnast.

  “AND . . . CUT!”

  Hoolihan made a grab for Marcus’ sleeve and missed, but caught the strap of his wristwatch with a fingertip and pulled it off. Marcus heard it clatter to the concrete floor as he threw himself against the door and sprinted out into the sunshine. He narrowly dodged a huge pair of horses pulling a covered wagon. One of the horses reared up and brayed. Marcus skirted the wagon and dashed down an alleyway.

  “GET THIS DAMN THING OUT OF MY WAY!” echoed after him.

  Marcus wasn’t sure which way the writers’ building lay, but he kept running. He brushed the dust from his suit as he sped past a row of soundstages. Just as he was starting to run out of breath, he spotted some signposts: Research . . . Camera Department . . . Advertising . . .

  Marcus rounded the corner and spotted the Scenario Department sign over a set of double glass doors at the end of a long building that looked more like a sawmill than the birthplace of the most glamorous motion pictures in the world. He ran to the doors, pulled them open and dashed inside.

  The woman behind the desk let out a little yelp and looked at Marcus like he was the long-lost Yeti.

  “You’re Dierdre, right? I’m . . . Marcus Adler,” he gasped. “We spoke . . . on the phone. You . . . have paperwork . . . for me.”

  “Oh, Mr. Adler, I’m so sorry.”

  Marcus gripped the edge of the reception desk so tight it hurt. “What?”

  Dierdre was a rather nice-looking girl with a long reddish braid down her back. She pointed to the wall behind him and he turned around. A clock big enough for a railway station read four minutes past twelve.

  Marcus stepped out into the sunshine. Earlier, that same sunshine had infused his every step with optimism and buoyancy. Now it seemed liable to give a guy sunburn. He sat on the steps of the scenario department and rested his chin on his hands. What a difference four minutes could make.

  He felt a shadow fall across his face. “It’s all right, Hoolihan,” he said, “I was too late by four lousy minutes, so nothing matters anymore.”

  Marcus heard a soft chuckle, then, “My dear boy, what are you doing?”

  CHAPTER 39

  “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I’ll be fine.”

  Gwendolyn looked from the approaching streetcar to her friend. Kathryn had been so pale all morning; more pale than usual. Gwendolyn couldn’t imagine how she must be feeling. “Really honey, I doubt this is something you want to do on your own.”

  The streetcar rattled to a halt. They climbed aboard and took a seat. Gwendolyn let a couple of stops go past before she stole a glance at Kathryn. Her eyes were glazed; Gwendolyn let her be for the moment. The twelve o’clock appointment loomed, and it was easier to think about business. She’d been rethinking her strategy lately, after she overheard Myrna Loy say to the Cocoanut Grove photographer something that Alice had been saying for years: an actress’ real job is to attract a talent agent. That was the only surefire way into the studios.

  The streetcar dropped them off at First Street and they headed into Chinatown, a part of Los Angeles Gwendolyn hadn’t been to before. They turned onto Dragon Road where a rusting iron dragon nearly five feet high was welded to the street light with its tail wrapped around the base. The dowdy late-Victorian buildings here were overlaid with red-tiled roofs hipped up at the ends, and neon signs in Chinese lettering: CHOP SUEY and SOO HOO IMPORT CO. The street was disconcertingly silent and empty of all but a few people.

  This Chinatown’s days were numbered. The city fathers had decided L.A. needed a new railway station that housed all three lines in one building, and the best place for that was on the spot where Chinatown had stood for decades. The neighborhood was relocating a mile or two to the north and, Gwendolyn thought, they were probably glad to. The buildings here were so rundown and dingy, and the streets strewn with deep potholes and covered in filth. Where they were going had to be better than this. Not that they’d been given any choice in the matter.

  “This is a heck of a way to spend your birthday,” Kathryn said. Gwendolyn shrugged it off. She hadn’t given much thought to her birthday; it was the lesser of the day’s happenings. “I’ll make it up to you,” Kathryn insisted. “Let’s go out to a really nice place for dinner afterwards. Maybe Victor Hugo’s.”

  Victor Hugo’s was a swanky new spot on Wilshire with white linen tablecloths, real palm trees, and an indoor fountain. Gwendolyn didn’t know which was more astounding — that they could extort two dollars for their fixed price menu, or that there were so many people willing to pay two whole bucks that you had to wait for a table.

  “Yo
u think you’ll be up for a swell meal . . . afterwards?” Gwendolyn asked.

  Kathryn smiled weakly. “Maybe in a couple of days.”

  They stopped to let a line of Chinese men jog by, their long black braids bouncing over enormous copper bowls slung on their backs. As the last one hurried past them, Gwendolyn caught Kathryn by the arm.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  Kathryn’s face was like stone. “What I want is for this never to have happened.”

  Gwendolyn tried to think of another way out. She was panicked at the thought of delivering her best friend to a back-alley butcher with tuna-stained clothes and spittle in the corner of his puckered mouth. “Well,” she said gently, “it has happened. So your options are to go ahead with today’s appointment or to —”

  “Or to what? Conjure up some invented husband that I’ve neglected to mention at the Hollywood Reporter for the past three weeks?”

  Gwendolyn took Kathryn by the hand. “I just want you to be sure that this isn’t something you’re going to regret later.”

  “GOD DAMN IT ALL TO GODDAMN HELL!” Kathryn’s outburst echoed off the ratty buildings. She lifted her handbag and whacked it against the brickwork as hard as she could. The force was enough to snap the ends off one of the handles. When she saw what she’d done, she let out a raspy grunt and slammed the bag into the dirt, then spun around to face Gwendolyn, her cheeks red with fury. “This!” she pressed a hand against her stomach, “is what I regret. I’m like you, Gwennie. I have no wish to be married or to be a mother. NONE! I want a career! I want stature! I want to talk about Hemingway and Edna St. Vincent Millay with painters and poets, to go shopping in London, and to learn to speak French. It was such a struggle to get out from under my mother. And it’s been a struggle to land a good job. And even though Wilkerson thinks all I’m fit for is a silly little gossip column, the timing of this,” she poked herself in the stomach again, “could not have been worse.” Tears glazed Kathryn’s eyes as she struggled to maintain what little composure she had left. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Look honey, I love that you want to be here for me, and I very much appreciate your support. But if this isn’t something you’re comfortable with, then that’s okay. I’ll see you back at home.”

  Dr. Walter Harrison’s office was across the street from Wong’s, the biggest Chinese laundry in Los Angeles. Six enormous frosted glass windows took up most of the block. At any other time it would have been a steaming hive with dozens of workers washing and pressing the linens of half the hotels downtown, but they had already moved to a big new warehouse half a mile north.

  Hettie had warned Kathryn that there was no sign for the office. They looked for a blue stained-glass window with 122 San Pedro Street painted in white lettering. Gwendolyn opened the door and motioned for Kathryn to go in. They took the staircase to the second floor; there was only one door at the top. A nurse with dyed black hair and a starched cap looked up and smiled. A lush painting of three figures stretched out at the edge of a pond hung on the wall behind her. Kathryn introduced herself as Lorelei Boothe.

  “Ah, yes, of course,” the nurse said in a soothing tone. She excused herself and disappeared behind a closed door. The clanging of Chinese drums started up in the street, beating a somber rhythm punctuated by the occasional clash of cymbals.

  Kathryn’s brown eyes darted back and forth across the nurse’s desk, never resting for more than a half second on any one place. Gwendolyn pointed to the painting on the wall. “Isn’t that gorgeous?” she said. Neither of them had said anything since Kathryn’s outburst on the street but her breathing was still jagged and shallow. “Look at those colors.” The scene was lush with dark apricot and soft rouge. The pond in front of the reclining figures was mirror smooth. “It’s so restful, isn’t it?”

  Kathryn’s eyes quit their manic wandering and rose to look at the painting. Her face broke into a smile. “Well now, isn’t that something? It’s a Maxfield Parrish.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tallulah has one. You know what this one is called?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Would you believe The Garden of Allah?”

  The nurse reappeared. “The doctor is ready to see you now. May I suggest you put your jewelry and your wristwatch into your handbag and leave it with your friend?”

  Kathryn took off her jewelry, grabbed Gwendolyn’s hand for an encouraging squeeze and crossed the threshold into the doctor’s office.

  The nurse had a kind face, wide and open, and a gentle smile. Gwendolyn looked at the name plate pinned to her chest. “Your name is Guinevere Brykk?”

  The nurse nodded.

  “Mine is Gwendolyn Brick! That’s almost close enough to make us cousins, or something.”

  “At least you spell ‘Brick’ the normal way,” Guinevere said.

  Gwendolyn pulled a face. “But ‘Brick’? Ugh! It sounds so clunky. What do you think of the name ‘Gwendolyn Barrett’? Can you see it on a marquee?”

  Guinevere assured her that she could, and poured them each a cup of coffee. They stood before the window while the Chinese paraded down San Pedro Street. A long dragon of green cloth and a carved wooden head zigzagged from one side of the street to the other.

  “They’ve been holding parades like this all week,” Nurse Brykk said. “Something about bestowing luck on those who will occupy the land after they leave. Damned decent of them, I think, seeing as how they’re being tossed out on their skinny little behinds.”

  Gwendolyn nodded but her mind was with Kathryn in the consulting room and wished she’d offered to go in with her.

  “Dr. Harrison is a fine doctor,” the nurse said, keeping her eyes on the scene below them. “He’s very gentle, and he believes in what he’s doing. Your friend is fortunate that she’s in such good hands. He went to Yale Medical School, so he’s not just some back-alley hack.”

  Gwendolyn felt her shoulders relax. “Where are you moving to?”

  “We haven’t found a new place yet.” Guinevere returned to her desk and wrote something on a piece of paper. Back at the window, she handed it to Gwendolyn. Dr. Clarence Yale. “The doctor uses a pseudonym for when he places a notice in the personals to announce that we’ve found new premises.” She gave a quiet little laugh. “We call it his stage name.”

  Gwendolyn put it into the pocket of her jacket and wondered if the good doctor knew of any talent agents.

  CHAPTER 40

  Kathryn changed her outfit three times before settling on her burgundy suit with the new cream blouse she’d bought with her first paycheck. It was a good investment–a cream blouse goes with just about every color–as was the hat she’d found at Kress department store. She knew she was taking a chance wearing anything from Kress–the place was barely a step up from Woolworth’s five-and-dime–but it was a darling little hat with black trim and the cutest little pom-pom on top that matched her suit exactly. It was just what she needed to impress Louella Parsons. Thank heavens she was finally starting to feel like herself again.

  The weeks following her appointment had been rough and, for the longest time, seemed to be without end. The nausea, the night sweats, the stomach cramps, the bleeding, the insomnia. The doctor had told her to expect some of these symptoms, but she hadn’t been prepared for all of them. If this was what it was like to get a relatively safe abortion, what must it be like for the poor girls who had their unwanteds extracted by medical school drop-outs crouched over grimy beds in dreary back rooms?

  What a kind man Dr. Harrison turned out to be. His clinic had been clean and organized — what more could she reasonably expect from an abortionist? But even so, he couldn’t tell her how to alleviate herself of the guilt that racked her. Not from having the operation performed, but keeping it from Marcus. It kept her awake as much as the cramps and the sweats. That night when he confessed that he was a queer and she admitted she was an adulterer, she felt the bond between them strengthen and tighten. They later made a pact–“No mo
re secrets, ever.”–and Kathryn had meant it. But an abortion? That was different. Too painful. Too shameful. So she decided not to tell him and prayed that he understood.

  But now that the whole sordid episode was behind her, she was free to make the best of the meager plate she’d been handed at work. Gossip column, indeed. It had the words “women’s work” stamped all over it. The meaty stuff — mergers, takeovers, box office analysis, censorship, unionization — was all done by men. Kathryn did her level best to ensure that she’d never be called a sob sister; she’d break another handbag over the head of the first guy who called her that.

  Laura Pettiford helped her track down Dr. Harrison, but there was something about the woman that Kathryn didn’t trust. When Wilkerson called Kathryn into his office, Laura stood silently in the corner with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Laura here has wrangled you an invite to the Hollywood Women’s Press Club’s monthly luncheon at the Brown Derby. This’ll be your chance to meet Louella Parsons. You only get to make a first impression once so wear something extra nice when you come in on Thursday.”

  It was a mystery to Kathryn how a frumpy, dumpy, bitchy, snitchy, ignorant, illiterate heifer like Louella Parsons had become the unassailable gossip queen of Hollywood and the most powerful woman in town. Between her newspaper columns, her magazine articles and interviews, and her Hollywood Hotel radio show, the woman was everywhere. If a cross-town bus hit Walter Winchell tomorrow, she’d be the most famous journalist in America.

  In fact, Louella’s success wasn’t much of a mystery. It could be explained in three words: William Randolph Hearst. To fall foul of Louella Parsons was to square off with the most powerful media tycoon in the country. It was important that Kathryn pass muster.

  Kathryn was blotting her lipstick when Wilkerson buzzed. He closed his door behind her. “I just wanted to check that everything was okay.” He used a gentle side of his voice that she’d never heard before, or suspected he possessed.