by Anne Girard
Chuck had surely laid down the gauntlet by sending her word through his attorney this afternoon. He had declared that it was officially over. Separation was one level, divorce was quite another. The finality of it shook her.
He had his problems, they had their history, there were those things he could never take back having done...but if only they could talk, just the two of them, to make absolutely certain that the final step of divorce was what they both wanted... If they both did, then perhaps saying so in person was a more mature way of parting than through attorneys and cold legal jargon.
She had no idea at all what she would say to begin a conversation. Harlean only knew that she needed to be the bigger person and find out.
Knowing Chuck would be there packing since he would be moving out in two days, she drove back to Linden Drive for the first time in weeks. She turned the engine and headlamps off next door and let the car coast to a stop in front of the home they had shared, not quite ready to be seen until she steadied herself.
Suddenly, a young woman who Harlean did not recognize passed before the window. It was almost as if she had come on-screen in a film for the deliberate way she moved, paused, turned toward Chuck. Then she stopped, lingering beside him. She was speaking to him and he did not move away from her. An imagined conversation filled Harlean’s mind. She let out a heavy sigh. There would be no final conversation, no resolve. But suddenly it didn’t seem so important after all.
* * *
She drove back to the Maple Drive house after that and fell exhausted into bed. Tomorrow was another day, she told herself, and who knew what lay ahead, but now she was more excited than ever to find out. Tonight she would allow herself a bit of melancholy over the death of her marriage. That much seemed deserved. Then tomorrow it would be onward, and with a renewed zest for the future which she was more determined than ever now to make bright.
* * *
After the shoot for The Saturday Night Kid had concluded, true to her word, Clara Bow posed for a publicity photo with the female cast members, one that would be released to the press. Clara made certain Harlean was prominently positioned beside her and she even put an arm around her. Clara’s one note to her own vanity was making sure that Edith Head put Harlean in a sedate black dress with a demure white lace collar.
“I’m a good friend, but I’m no fool,” Clara chuckled as she glanced at the lace collar. “You hafta make it the rest of the way on your own talent. But I know that’s gonna happen.”
Mother had taught Harlean to value smart women and to study and emulate their ladder to success. She couldn’t feel anything for Clara Bow but enormous respect, and a growing desire to make a place for herself, one just like Clara’s, in the motion picture industry.
Chapter Seventeen
For all of her hope that The Saturday Night Kid might have finally signaled a career change, provide more substantial work and lead to her big break, the jobs her mother promised would come still eluded her.
As the days wore on, Harlean began once again to doubt everything she believed was meant to be. She felt increasingly adrift, and as if the decisions she and her mother had made were one mistake after the next—insisting that a career take prominence in her life, walking away from her marriage to a boy she so loved, and then how she had handled her pregnancy.
She kept people around her all of the time in order to avoid thinking about any of it. There was dinner with Ivor and Rosalie, a tennis date with Irene Mayer and shopping with her mother. She meant all of the activity as a cushion for her wounded heart, and yet she had never felt more alone.
Harlean saw Roy two more times and then she simply could not continue.
He was a complete gentleman about it, embracing her before he pressed a kiss onto her cheek. “Chin up, kid,” he said with a smile. “It’ll all work out for the best.”
The only problem was, Harlean had no idea anymore what “the best” for her actually was or how to get it.
* * *
“Where do you want this box, hon?” Ivor asked, as he and Rosalie trooped in the front door at the Linden Drive house.
Their arms were laden with Harlean’s things that they were bringing back for her.
She had gone in first an hour ago, half thinking she would find Chuck there and that they would finally be forced to talk. Her heart squeezed at how vacant the house felt now. All of the furniture was still there, but no essence of the two of them lingered.
The only reminder came from a large bouquet of cut orchids left on the dining room table that stunned her. There was no note, but that was not needed. She knew what it symbolized, and who had left them. For a moment, Harlean surrendered her face to her hands to catch her breath, allowing the flowers to speak for him where words could not. There was still love between them but it just wasn’t enough for either of them just now. Despite misgivings, she had decided to move back in because Chuck was giving her the house and also, after all of his volatility with her, a defiant side of her felt she deserved it, as well as this opportunity to begin living on her own and making her way as an adult. Once again, though, with the symbolic flowers, he had managed to make her feel a spark of tenderness for him.
“Oh, that lout makes you sad even when he’s not here! I’d clock him if he walked in that door right now!”
“Hush!” Rosalie snapped at Ivor.
“He’s not coming back,” Harlean said as Rosalie wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She hadn’t realized her expression had conveyed to them the dolefulness she felt today.
“Do you want me to dump those things in the trash for you, honey?”
“Thanks, Rosie, but I want to keep them for just a little while longer. I know it’s odd, but it helps me remember the good things.”
“Tough break,” Ivor weakly offered, not knowing what else to say as he paused and stood awkwardly between the two women. “But there’ll be someone else.”
Harlean simply could not imagine that.
For now, Chuck’s grandfather, the relative who oversaw his inheritance, had grudgingly agreed to temporary alimony payments to Harlean while he pushed details of a divorce forward. Unfortunately, Mother and Marino quickly spent the first $375 installment. She had tried many times to steel herself enough to confront her mother on her free spending ways. The indignant reaction and flares of temper she got in response, however, were never worth the stand. Harlean had faced more than enough volatility during her marriage, and even if it meant she saw little of the money she earned, for now at least, it felt worth it to her.
In the face of that, she was relieved to have gotten another bit part in a film that began shooting tomorrow. She not only needed the money, she welcomed the distraction—she was going to summon her courage yet again and keep on trying to make a real and lucrative career of this, no matter what.
* * *
Weak But Willing was another comedy being shot at Metropolitan Studios on Las Palmas Drive in Hollywood. Harlean had found work only as an extra in it but she was more determined than ever to let her spirit shine through. Her part took place in a ballroom, the irony of which was not lost on her after the setting for her first extra role. She may not have found her big break yet, but Harlean believed she had already learned a great deal about the movie business, just by watching and listening, and when a chance came her way she knew she would be ready for it. As she sat now, waiting for her part, Harlean heard the cast and crew talking about the war epic Hell’s Angels being filmed across the lot by a man they called the young “hayseed” multimillionaire. It was the picture James Hall had told her about.
She hadn’t spoken with Jimmy since their evening at the Cocoanut Grove, but she remembered his story about the trouble they’d had shooting the film because of Hughes. She was happy to hear, for Jimmy’s sake, that apparently the picture was back on track. She only wished she could say the
same for her own career, and for her swiftly dwindling finances.
The electric company and the phone company were barraging her with letters of nonpayment because most of the money she’d earned, or gotten grudgingly from Chuck’s family, only went so far each month. With herself, her mother and Marino to support, it seemed to go more quickly than she could earn it. Harlean tried not to feel resentful about being the only one working because she knew it would have changed nothing anyway. Besides, her mother made regular declarations that helping her daughter find suitable roles to audition for was a full-time job that took the effort of both her and Marino. While she didn’t know if that was true, Harlean knew that she could trust them to support and encourage her career and, to her mind, that at least was something.
To make ends meet, she had recently sold two fox stoles Chuck had bought for her and decided her engagement ring had to go, as well. In spite of her pride, and the belief that she deserved it, the house would be the next thing to go if things didn’t improve.
She wore sunglasses and a big hat onto Sunset Boulevard to a pawnshop there. Not that anyone in Hollywood would recognize her without them, nor was the ring anything of particular value, yet still Harlean was ashamed of what she felt driven to do.
“Seventy-five dollars.”
“But it’s worth twice that,” Harlean argued.
“Sorry, lady, but this ain’t a jewelry store, you know?”
Someone else entered the shop behind her and ushered in the traffic noise from the busy street beyond. Harlean watched the owner, in his torn cardigan, finger her ring, the white-gold band and tiny diamond chip as if it meant nothing. She hated having to do this.
But going back to Missouri was not an option.
Pride pushed her shoulders back a tick for her. She thought of how good Rosalie was at this sort of thing. “Eighty, sir, please.”
“Push me, doll, and I’ll make it sixty.”
“Don’t ever call me that,” she growled.
“Look, sweetheart, whatever you want to be called, that ring is basically junk. I’m doing you a favor buying it, as it is.”
She was no longer anyone’s doll, and she certainly didn’t feel like the Baby at the moment—even if people still called her that. There was no one to take care of her, like a baby or a doll, both precious fragile things. She needed to be stronger than that, tougher, and she believed she was becoming both.
“All right, seventy-five,” she said and turned away from him.
She couldn’t look at the ring, or him, a moment longer.
* * *
“Hey there, good-lookin’, remember me?”
She was startled from her thoughts as she sat outside of the soundstage with the other extras all in evening wear, all of them intent on getting a breath of fresh air between scenes. Her own costume was a figure-hugging, black satin gown with tiny rhinestones.
She closed the novel she was trying to read while everyone else drank coffee and chatted around her, and glanced up into the smooth-skinned face of Ben Lyon, Jimmy Hall’s costar and friend. He was standing with another, slightly older, man right in front of her.
“Of course I remember you, Ben,” Harlean replied as she tucked the volume onto her lap and offered up a smile.
“Oh, sorry, this is my agent. Arthur Landau, I’d like you to meet Jean Harlow.”
“You’re not an extra. Not a gal who looks like you,” Landau declared.
His long nose, heavy chin, slicked-back hair, wire-rimmed glasses and two days’ growth of beard gave him a somewhat unkempt appearance.
“Afraid so.” Harlean shrugged, comforted in the moment by the compliment. “So, how’s the picture coming along? Has Mr. Hughes got all the wrinkles ironed out?”
“Afraid not by a long shot. We’re all left to cool our heels a lot of the time, and shoot out of sequence, while he searches for a new dame for the lead. I think he’s tested every actress in Hollywood and then some.” There was a short pause before his eyes suddenly lit. “Say listen, how would you feel about playing the lead in Hell’s Angels?”
Harlean gave him a scowl. “Don’t kid around, Ben. I’m not really in the mood for a joke like that.”
“No, seriously. What time is your lunch break?”
“Twelve thirty, why?”
“Hughes can’t use Greta anymore because of her accent. Now he wants a beautiful unknown and he’s at his wit’s end over it. How ’bout I get you an interview with the boss man?”
Harlean was too stunned to reply. The papers were full of what an epic picture it was shaping up to be. It was the buzz all over Hollywood. In the silence, Arthur Landau gave Ben a nod of approval which convinced her suddenly that this was not a joke.
“All right, well, I’ve gotta get back to the set or Mr. Hughes will have my head on a platter! Why don’t you get to know Arthur a little better and I’ll see you back here at twelve thirty sharp.”
“Have you got an agent, kid?” Arthur asked once they were alone.
“I have my mother, which is kind of the same thing, if you knew my mother.”
“Not if the best she can get you is work as an extra.”
Harlean had to agree as he sat down on the bench beside her and they both gazed out at the group of actors trooping back and forth in front of them. “You really should have actual representation if you’re going up before a studio boss.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she conceded, shrugging again, and she knew her tone was wary. Her mother was so much a part of her life and work.
“Look, kiddo, I’ll be honest with you. I could use another client, and if Ben is right about you having some earning potential, you’ll need an agent who knows his way around this crazy town. I’d like to be that man.”
“I can’t afford a real agent, Mr. Landau. I’m barely scraping by as it is.”
“Another reason you could use me. You need someone to teach you how this business works. I only get paid when my clients get paid. I’d like an opportunity to help you get a real pay day, Jean, and not just a couple of nickels to rub together from work as an extra.”
She liked the way that sounded and she felt herself softening to the prospect. “Do you think Ben was serious about actually getting an interview from Mr. Hughes?”
“I know he was. You need a job and Hughes needs a star. Listen, could you use a couple of bucks to help tide you over? A loan, mind you, not a handout. I have a good feeling about you and this war picture so I’d like to help out a nice kid like you if I can.”
“I couldn’t possibly...”
“It was Ben’s idea so he’d be in on it, all strictly legit. I loaned him a few bucks last year so he’d vouch for the kind of man I am.”
“I don’t know...” She was mulling it over.
“Look, it’s not all noble on my part. Clients with star potential are hard to come by. I agree with Ben that you have it, so a temporary loan of a few bucks would start a working relationship between us, and help me out as much as you.”
Harlean wanted to say no. She meant to. The words were on her lips. But so many bills were past due and, after Double Whoopee, her grandfather had made it clear that she could no longer come to him for money if she meant to remain in Hollywood. She hadn’t pleaded with him or with Chuck, and she wasn’t going to. She was going to make her own way in this town somehow, or she would die trying.
Borrowing money was different, however.
“Okay, thanks, Mr. Landau, I’ll think about it. But if I do, I’m gonna pay you back, with interest.”
He smiled at her. “I know you will, kiddo,” he said. “I only gamble when it’s a sure thing.”
* * *
Jimmy was waiting for them outside the door of Howard Hughes’s office when she and Ben arrived on the other side of the lot. Seeing her, Jimmy gave
a happy hoot before he drew her into a hug.
“Wow, when ol’ Benjie here said he found a girl, I had no idea he meant you! He’s right, though. You’d be perfect for the part. Come on, we’ll introduce you to the boss.”
It was ten minutes before one when Harlean was shown into a bungalow that was the private office of Howard Hughes. The tall, dark-haired and intimidatingly handsome Hughes sat hunched over behind the desk, shuffling papers as she stood shifting awkwardly back and forth, waiting for him to look up and acknowledge her. He appeared quite uninterested in being disturbed. An oiled forelock of ebony hair fell forward. He didn’t seem to notice. His brow was furrowed far too much for his age. He was clearly a no-nonsense sort of man.
“Give us some privacy,” Hughes finally grumbled.
Jimmy indicated with a toss of his head that he would be just outside as he and Ben walked out and closed the door.
The office was enormously cluttered. There were precarious piles of books and manuscripts stacked on the floor around his desk. There were several coffee cups and a full ashtray on the desk. Harlean lingered near the door, nervously twisting the handles of her small handbag. She was uncertain if she was meant to sit or simply stand there waiting to be acknowledged.
At last, Hughes glanced up in an entirely perfunctory manner, looked at her for only a moment, and called out to his secretary in the next room. “Phone Tony. Tell him to make a test of her tonight,” he instructed, speaking past Harlean as if she weren’t even in the room. Then almost as an afterthought, he said, “You don’t have an accent, do you?”
“I don’t think so. I’m from Missouri, sir.”
