Starstruck

by Rachel Shukert

  Harry held up his hands. “All right, all right, Gabby, just … just back up a minute, okay?”

  “Sure,” Gabby said quickly. “I mean, they’re only suggestions. Just some things I was thinking about. Obviously, if you’ve already finished the script—”

  “It isn’t that.” Harry suddenly looked grave. “It’s just that … well …”

  Gabby felt something tighten in her chest. “What?”

  “Just that we, well …” Harry looked down at the carpet. “We’ve decided to go in a different direction with An American Girl,” he said finally. “It seemed like there was a surplus of musicals already set for next year, so the studio thought, and well, I thought it might work better as a … a drama.”

  “Great!” Gabby said brightly. “I’d love to do a drama! Although you really should consider sticking in a song or two, if you can. Not for me, you understand. But having a hit record from a film really helps out at the box office.”

  “I don’t doubt you’d be fine in a drama, Gabby,” Harry said. “But for this, well, the script has changed so much, we all thought it would be better for everyone to move forward with another actress in the role.”

  Gabby felt as though Harry had dumped a gallon of gasoline over her head and then, very apologetically, flicked over the lighted match. “I thought … An American Girl was based on me,” she said, her voice cracking.

  Harry looked at her mournfully. “I’m sorry to have to tell you like this, Gabby. But it’s nothing personal, honestly. It’s all my fault. A failure of imagination. When I sat down to write with the idea of you … well …” Harry shook his head. “I just couldn’t connect. But when I started to think of Amanda—”

  “Amanda?”

  Harry nodded. “Somehow, when I imagined Amanda in the role, it all came together.”

  It was like being under a spell, Gabby thought. As though some evil witch had waved a magic wand over her, replacing all the warmth in her body with something hard and cold. “I’ll just bet.”

  Harry raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

  Gabby snorted. “You’re not exactly the first man Amanda Farraday has ‘come together’ with, and I highly doubt you’ll be the last.”

  Now Harry looked angry. “What?”

  “The casting couch,” Gabby said coolly. “Surely a wordsmith such as yourself is familiar with the term.”

  “You have no idea what you are talking about,” Harry said, his voice low.

  “You’re right,” Gabby said. “I don’t know that it was a couch. It could have been a bed. Or the backseat of a car. Or even the floor.”

  “How dare you!” Harry’s black eyes looked as though they could burn a hole right through her skin. “How dare you cast these kinds of aspersions on my character? Or Amanda’s! You don’t know the first thing about her!”

  “Neither do you!” Gabby cried. “What do you really know about Amanda? What has she told you about her past? You think she’s some kind of blushing flower? For God’s sake, Harry, she used to work for Olive Moore!”

  “Who the hell is Olive Moore?”

  God! Could Harry really be that naïve? “Let’s just say she’s a woman who’s bought herself a pretty fancy house ‘helping out’ girls like Amanda.”

  Harry’s face went scarlet as he lurched toward her. Gabby felt her heart pounding. For a moment, she thought he actually might hit her. “No,” he said, shaking his head. He took a step back. “No more. I’m not going to listen to any more of this. You’re upset, that’s all. I understand. You’re going to go away, I’m going to have another drink, and we’re both going to act like this conversation never happened. Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  “Do you understand?”

  Gabby did. And maybe that would have been the end of it. If only Harry had turned the other way. If only he hadn’t run directly into Hunter Payne, who was on his way outside with a bottle of champagne. And if only Hunter Payne hadn’t chosen that moment to clap Olympus’s newly anointed boy genius on the back and whisper into his ear, all jolly-jolly, man to man: “I see you’ve got Ginger tonight, Gordon. Guess we must be paying you writers a lot more than I thought.”

  “Harry! There you are!” Amanda called as she floated toward him on the terrace, enjoying the unaccustomed swish of her lacy fishtail gown along the smooth stone. She was glad she hadn’t chickened out on wearing the pink. It’s nice to be dressed up like a princess for a change, she thought happily. And it was even nicer of Harry to think of it. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been?” Playfully, she wrapped her arms around him from behind, nuzzling her face against the soft, sweet-smelling skin at the nape of his neck.

  He wriggled from her embrace. “Maybe I should ask you the same thing,” he said in a tone of quiet fury.

  “What are you talking about? I just went to the powder room.”

  “For over half an hour?”

  “It takes at least half an hour to walk anywhere in this house,” Amanda retorted. Sometimes Harry’s possessiveness was endearing, but this was not one of those times. “And then I stopped to chat for a few minutes with some friends.”

  “Friends of Amanda’s,” Harry asked in that same strange tone, “or friends of Ginger’s?”

  Amanda’s jaw dropped. She felt as though a giant vacuum hose had sucked all the oxygen out of the room. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even breathe.

  Her panicked silence was all the proof Harry needed. “So it’s true.”

  “Harry, no!” The air rushed back into Amanda’s lungs with painful force. “It’s not … it’s not what you think. I can explain.”

  “Don’t.”

  So this is what it’s like to be shot, Amanda thought. First the bullet, so swift and sudden you scarcely knew what had happened, then the slow, spreading stain of blood, and with it the knowledge that in some terrifying few minutes, “you” as you knew yourself would cease to be. “Please—”

  “Stay away from me.” He jerked from her grasp. “I can’t even look at you. I don’t even know who you are.”

  “Harry—”

  “Leave me alone.” He backed away from her slowly, as though she were a wild animal on the loose. “Whatever your name is, just leave me alone.”

  “Amanda,” she choked toward his retreating form. “My name is Amanda.”

  And Amanda was going to be sick.

  “Hello, Mr. Swan.” Margo stood at the edge of the lily pond as the regal creature drifted toward her. “Are you sleeping? Are you asleep?” She leaned over the water, reaching out a hand to gently stroke the soft feathers of his neck. The swan let out a horrible, high-pitched squawk. Margo pulled her fingers away from its gnashing beak just in time and giggled. “Whoops! Guess not.”

  I should really drink champagne more often, she thought, still giggling. It made everything—and everyone—so much nicer. Just look at Hunter Payne. At the studio, people talked about him as if he were a cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and Genghis Khan, but at the party, with champagne flowing, he was just about the nicest man she’d ever met. He’d be here any minute now. They’d have some more nice champagne, and go for a nice walk, and have a nice talk. He could be a nice friend for her. It would be nice to feel that someone was looking out for her. Someone powerful. Almost the way a father might do—the way her father was supposed to do, until he’d proven woefully inadequate for the job.

  And wouldn’t it just kill all the small-minded snobs in Pasadena, the Gambles and the Winthrops and her own parents, when they found out how wrong they’d been, that no one less than a Payne of the New York Paynes saw no reason why a nice girl couldn’t also be an actress.

  “Hey.” Margo leaned back over the water toward the reproachful swan. “I’m sorry I woke you up. That wasn’t very nice.”

  Suddenly, she felt the sudden pressure of a hand on her shoulder. Margo let out a little scream. “Hunter!” she squealed. “You scared me half to death.” />
  But it wasn’t Hunter Payne behind her.

  “Dane!” Margo cried. “What are you doing sneaking up on me like that?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Startle me? I could have fallen in the lake! And what are you doing here anyway?”

  Dane stepped out of the shadows, his tense face very pale in the moonlight. “I came to get you.”

  “What?” Margo shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  Dane took her by the shoulders. “Margo, you have to listen to me,” he said urgently. “You shouldn’t be here like this. Hunter Payne is not a man you should be with.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  His face darkened. “Believe me, Margo. I need you to come with me. And if you won’t come quietly”—he took a deep breath—“then I’ll have to carry you.”

  “What?” Margo staggered back from him. “Absolutely not!”

  “All right. You give me no choice.” Dane took a step forward and with a single swoop of his arms heaved her off her unsteady feet and over his shoulder like a very expensively dressed sack of potatoes.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Margo screeched, kicking her feet and pounding his shoulders with her fists. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “On the contrary, I feel saner than I have in years,” Dane said calmly as he carried her off into the night. “This is something I should have done long ago.”

  Gabby Preston ran.

  Past the ice sculptures and the champagne fountains, down the steps of the ivy-covered terrace, across the open-air dance floor, and out into the darkness.

  Because Gabby Preston was about to cry. And she was damned if any of them were going to see her.

  She saw the shimmer of the lily pond on the horizon, the glowing white heads of the swans cresting into view. Almost like an illustration from one of the storybooks her sister Frankie used to read to her when she was a little girl. Seems as good a place for a cry as any, Gabby thought, as long as she could resist the urge to throw herself in. Not that anyone would care. Margo hated her. Jimmy hated her. Now Harry hated her too, probably most of all. The only person who might miss her even a little was Viola, and that was mostly because without Gabby to pay for the house and the car and the food and the clothes, her mother might actually have to get a real job.

  But I won’t do it, Gabby told herself. I won’t give any of them the satisfaction.

  There was something on the ground beside the lily pond. In the darkness, it looked like a crumpled heap of fabric, as though the wind had carried a tablecloth away.

  It wasn’t until she got much closer that she realized it wasn’t a tablecloth at all.

  “Amanda?” Gabby whispered. “Is that you?”

  Very slowly, the girl turned her head toward Gabby. Her face was deadly white, sooty streaks of mascara running down from her bloodshot eyes. Her nose looked swollen, and when Gabby glanced over at the pond, she saw fresh globules of vomit still floating on the water. “Gabby,” Amanda croaked.

  “Are you all right?” Gabby asked cautiously.

  Amanda didn’t answer in words. Instead, she made a keening noise, like a wounded animal.

  Tentatively, Gabby put her hand on Amanda’s bare shoulder, half expecting her to push it away. “What happened?” she asked, although she was pretty sure she already knew. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hrrrree.”

  “Amanda, I can’t understand you.”

  “Harry.” Amanda hiccupped. “He … he found something out about me. Something …” She made that horrible noise again, a sound so pure and hopeless in its sorrow it sent shivers down Gabby’s spine. “Something bad.” She crossed her arms over her chest, rocking back and forth in a tortured lament.

  Gabby felt afraid. If Amanda was this unhinged, there was no telling what she’d do next. Desperately, she tried to think of something soothing to say. “He told me about the movie,” she said finally.

  “The movie,” Amanda repeated dully.

  “Yes,” Gabby said, forcing a note of brightness into her voice. “And I’m sure everything will be all right. Even if you two aren’t … together, if the studio still wants you—”

  “I don’t care about the stupid movie!” Amanda’s scream was terrifying, a primal wail of fury and pain. “I never cared about the movie! I only ever wanted him. The only reason I wanted any of this was for him. And now he’s gone.”

  She began to weep. The horrible, wrenching sobs of someone who felt utterly alone in the world. Gabby had cried like that the morning she woke up and her sister Frankie was gone. The morning she decided she was never going to cry again.

  Images of Frankie suddenly burst into Gabby’s mind: Frankie, sitting on the train, reciting aloud from one of the big thick books that only she could read; Frankie, patiently untangling Gabby’s unkempt curls with Viola’s ivory comb; Frankie, wiping the sweat from Gabby’s forehead when she caught the fever in Buffalo and they had to cancel three weeks’ worth of bookings.

  And suddenly, the images of Frankie seemed to melt into Amanda, that night in the powder room at the Cocoanut Grove. Amanda, paying off the attendant with more money than most people made in a week; Amanda, smoothing out Gabby’s mussed hair and washing her smeary face with a damp warm towel; Amanda, draping her beautiful fur stole over Gabby’s dress to hide the stains.

  Gabby Preston had never felt so ashamed in her entire life.

  She put her arms around the weeping girl as carefully as if she were a dainty china doll. “Come on,” Gabby said gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up. And then I’ll take you home.”

  Margo’s mouth was dry. Her head throbbed, as though some tiny blacksmith were using her forehead for an anvil. With great effort, she opened her eyes, squinting in pain from the blinding glare of the morning light bouncing off the windshield. Windshield? she thought groggily. Am I still dreaming?

  Gingerly, she eased her throbbing head out the window of the unfamiliar car. She was sitting in the middle of an empty parking lot. At its edge, next to a deserted highway, stood a tall sign spelling out GAS FOOD LODGING in faded neon.

  Before she could put this information into any kind of understandable context, Dane Forrest appeared. Dressed in a rough work shirt and flannel trousers, his dark hair slicked back with nothing but water, he was almost unrecognizable at first.

  “Good,” he said briskly. “You’re awake.”

  Margo was finding it very difficult to speak. Her tongue felt thick and unwieldy, as though someone had removed it from her mouth and replaced it with a dry sponge. “I … I don’t feel very well,” she managed finally, before falling back against the seat.

  Dane gave a little snort of laughter. “It’s called a hangover, Margo.”

  “No.” She shook her head, wincing at the resultant thudding of her brain against her skull. “That can’t be it. A hangover couldn’t possibly be this bad.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t die; you’ll just wish you would.” Through the open window, he handed her a paper bag containing a roll and a steaming paper cup of coffee. “Here. Breakfast. Eat up. You’ll feel better soon.”

  Margo was suddenly starving. “Where are we?” she asked between bites.

  “Just north of Santa Barbara,” Dane said offhandedly. “I think it’s called the Red Mountain Roadside Motel, but I’m not sure. These places all look the same.”

  “Santa Barbara!” Margo jerked upright in her seat. “But that’s hours away!”

  “Really only about two,” Dane said calmly. “I was going to explain everything on the way, but you passed out about three seconds after I got you in the car.”

  “Got me in the car? More like you kidnapped me,” Margo snapped, the events of the night before rushing back to her. “I would never have believed you were capable of something so ungentlemanly. And poor Mr. Payne! He must have been worried to death!”

  “Margo, cut the crap.” Dane spoke in a low voice, his face
very close to hers. “This isn’t a movie, do you understand? You don’t know Hunter Payne. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  “Because it’s the truth.”

  “Well, that’s a first!” Margo shouted. “You’ve never been honest with me about anything in your life!”

  “I know,” Dane sighed. “But that’s all over now. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  His acquiescence disarmed her. “Why … why did you bring me here?”

  Dane looked her straight in the eye. “Because I thought it was time for you to finally have some answers. Here.” He handed over a parcel wrapped in a length of wrinkled brown paper. “Some clothes,” he explained. “I bought them off the innkeeper’s wife.” Margo unwrapped the package and held up a dress, its calico fabric left faded and thin by numerous washings. It smelled like soap. “Not quite as stylish as you’re used to,” Dane said, “but it’s clean. And believe me, where we’re going, you don’t want to show up in an evening gown.”

  As soon as Margo had changed, they pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the open highway past the Santa Ynez Mountains, watching in silence as the craggy hills of Southern California slowly gave way to the verdant lushness of the north. Through the open window, the perfume of flowering trees mingled deliciously with the sharp, salty smell of the sea. She whispered to herself, “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes.” Margo hadn’t expected Dane to hear her. “It was important it be someplace beautiful.”

  At last, they pulled off the highway onto a long country road leading up to a large, Spanish-style mansion tucked away behind a set of elaborate wrought iron gates. A small sign said EDENS GROVE SANATORIUM. A guard opened the gates for them as they approached, and they drove up the gravel driveway to the house, where an older man in a light summer suit awaited them on the stone steps. At his side was a plump, sturdy-looking woman in a nurse’s apron and starched white cap.