Star (1989)

by Steel, Danielle

  She seemed to get more beautiful each year, and by that summer, Harry thought she had never looked better. There was a luminous quality about her as she sang that made the whole room go quiet. And there was a gentleness and a sweetness about her that made her more beautiful still. Harry was curious, too, about why there was no man in her life, and he wondered sometimes if there was someone she was seeing quietly, but Crystal never talked about her love life, and Harry never asked her.

  In Washington, Elizabeth had gone to work, assisting with the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigations. She was deeply committed to her work, and she had a prestigious job. They were single-handedly changing the course of several lives in Hollywood, and in May, Elizabeth was particularly enraged by the testimony of the well-known playwright Lillian Hellman. She refused to testify on the grounds that although she might not be a Communist herself, her testimony might affect the lives of the people she worked with and liked. Elizabeth had long talks with her father about it at night, and she wrote about all of it in letters to Spencer, explaining to him about what she was doing, and how she felt about McCarthy. He stayed off the subject when he answered her, and inquired about her health and her parents, but not her job. He hated everything she was doing. She knew he disapproved of it, but she had to do what she believed in, and she liked the job. And she wouldn't have given it up for anything, except if Spencer came home and went back to work on Wall Street. But she was intending to talk him into moving to Washington anyway. And in the fall of 1952, she decided to give up his apartment for good. She bought a house on N Street in Georgetown from the money from her trust fund, and put most of Spencer's belongings in brown boxes. It was a pretty brick house, and it suited her perfectly. It was near Wisconsin Avenue's better shops, and she bought antiques with her mother when she had time, and that winter there were photographs of the house in Look magazine, which she sent to Spencer. And as he looked at the article, it struck him that none of the photographs included anything of his. He wondered what she had done with all his belongings. And suddenly he felt as if he had no home to go to when the war was over. He didn't even know where they lived, he couldn't visualize it, except for the photographs in the magazine. And it all looked so sterile and perfect. He couldn't even imagine making love to her in the fussy little bedroom where she'd posed. And seeing it only made him lonelier for Crystal, and her room at Mrs. Castagna's, which only made him feel crazy again about what he was going to do when the war was over. Did he have an obligation to Liz? Or to himself, to do what he really wanted?

  Elizabeth spent Christmas in Palm Beach with her parents, as usual, that year, and after that she flew to Tokyo again to see Spencer for R and R. He had dreaded seeing her this time, and he had reminded himself that she was his wife, after all, but as they lay in bed side by side, he could hardly bring himself to touch her. All she did was talk about her job and Joe McCarthy.

  Why don't we talk about something else, he said politely. He looked tired and thin and he didn't want to hear about the war she was waging on imagined Communists in McCarthy's name. All she had was an investigative job, but listening to her one would have thought she was McCarthy's avenging angel, and hearing her depressed him even more. He knew who the real Communists were and he was tired of fighting them. He had been in Korea for more than two years and he wanted to go home, but the current truce had been violated again, and he was beginning to feel he would never get out of Korea. And all he wanted from her was a little warmth and comfort. But she was the wrong woman for that, as he was beginning to see very clearly. She hardly seemed to notice him, all she thought about was her work and her friends and her parents. It didn't even seem like a marriage to him, and yet she was his wife and not Crystal.

  And when he tried to talk to her about the war and his disillusionment, she brushed him off, and made it seem unimportant.

  You'll be back on Wall Street before you know it . He didn't answer her at first, but later he told her what he had been thinking, just to test the waters.

  I don't think I'll go back. She nodded, pleased. That fitted in well with her plans. She wanted to move to Washington permanently anyway. She had come to love it.

  There are plenty of good law firms in Washington. You're going to love it, Spencer.

  I want to rethink my life when I get home. He eyed her seriously, tempted for a moment to tell her about Crystal. The charade had gone on too long, and it was exhausting. But now was not the time. Instead he suggested they go out and wander the streets of Tokyo and enjoy the luxuries of the Imperial Hotel.

  Most of the men on R and R stayed on Lake Biwa but her father had made their reservations. He wanted them to go first class. Elizabeth loved to talk about her father's generosity. She was constantly telling him about the antiques her father had bought them for the new house, the little French chandelier, the Persian carpet. Spencer was sick of hearing about it And he felt like a fraud as he listened, pretending to be interested or pleased or grateful. He had signed on for a lifetime of gratitude, he realized now, and he knew that wasn't what he wanted. It diminished him and made him feel unimportant because he didn't have as much money and power as they did. That was all that mattered to them, Elizabeth and her parents. And he had no desire to compete with them. He wanted a life of his own in a world where he was respected. But he couldn't begin to tell her that, not in a few days before he went back to the war in Korea. Everything she talked about seemed so unimportant now. He had seen women and children die, he had cried over dead babies he had found by the roadside and buried. He had lived with shattered ideals and distant dreams for too long now. And when he tried to say that to her, she didn't even want to listen, or hear him. She was totally self-centered and totally unaware of the agonies he'd endured in the past two years. And in the end he was sorry he'd gone to meet her. He vowed to himself not to do it again if the war went on. He would wait and resolve their differences when he got back to the States. Here, it was too unreal, too strange, and in an odd way too painful.

  He went back to the war even more depressed this time. He felt alienated from everyone, and he had developed a passionate hatred of Korea, and the miseries he had to endure there. He tried to write to Crystal about it at first, but when he reread the letters, he always decided not to send them. They sounded whining and cowardly, and unmanly. So what she got instead were long silences interrupted occasionally by a brief letter that told her only that he was still alive, and said tersely at the end that he still loved her. He was unable to communicate with anyone anymore, even Crystal. He couldn't describe how brutally tired he was, how sick with dysentery, how demoralized by the constant killing, how angry at the death of his friends. And eventually it all boiled up inside him, until finally he was silent.

  When that happened, Justice Barclay had military connections check on him, and they said he was fine, just busy winning the war. But Crystal had no connections to turn to. All she knew was that he had stopped writing to her, and at first she thought he'd been killed but when she checked, his name appeared on none of the casualty lists of those wounded or killed or missing in action. He was alive somewhere, and he was no longer writing to her. It took months for it to sink in, that he wasn't dead, the letters weren't getting lost, he simply wasn't writing. And she assumed that it meant their love affair was over. It was hard to believe at first, after all they'd said and shared, but there was no hiding from it after several months, it was over. After years of her waiting for him, he had simply decided to stop writing. He had probably seen his wife again, and decided to stay married. But he could have told her at least, he could have said something, instead of simply disappearing into silence. It hurt terribly at first, and left alone with her own confusions, she mourned him. She mourned him almost as she would have if he'd died, and it felt like it for a while. She even took two weeks off and went by herself to Mendocino. She did a lot of thinking there and when she came back, she knew she had to move on, with or without him.

  She called the
agents then, the ones who had approached her months before, and after a brief conversation, she agreed to go to Hollywood for an audition.

  She told Harry the night she went back to work, and he was surprised at first, but he had always known it was only a matter of time before someone found her and gave her the chance she'd waited for all her life and deserved. She had nothing else to wait for now. The moment had come and she knew she had to grab it.

  Who are these guys? Harry was suspicious of everyone, and for years now he had protected her like a father, keeping drunks away, and the men who constantly tried to harass her. Do you know anything about them?

  Just that they're agents in L.A., she said honestly. There was still an aura of innocence about her.

  Then I want you to take Pearl with you, she can stay as long as you need her. And if it doesn't work out, you come right back here with her. Another chance will come along one of these days. I want you to wait for the right offer.

  Yes, sir. She grinned at him, looking like a kid again, and thrilled that Pearl was going to go with her. The prospect of Hollywood still scared her, but she knew more than ever that it was what she wanted. People had been telling her for years that she'd be a star one day, Boyd, Harry, Spencer, Pearl, and now she wanted to try it.

  Harry gave her a farewell party before she left, and he gave them money to stay at a decent hotel, and she spent most of her savings on a new wardrobe. It was hard leaving Harry. It was a little bit like leaving home. She had made friends and found safety there, and now she was going out in the world to find fame and fortune. It would have terrified her if she hadn't wanted it so badly.

  It was hard leaving Mrs. Castagna too. She left a bag there, but she gave up her room. And the old woman had cried and offered her one last glass of sherry. It tore at Crystal's heartstrings to leave her, but she promised to write from Hollywood and tell her about the stars she met there.

  You see Clark Gable, you give him my love! she admonished over the last glass of sherry. And you take care of yourself! You hear me! Crystal had kissed her when she left, and she had cried openly when she left Harry.

  If you need money, kid, you call me! But he'd been too good to her already. She wouldn't have dared ask him for more, and she was determined not to. Besides, if her screen test went well, maybe she'd get a part soon. She had high hopes as she and Pearl left on a Thursday afternoon, by train because it was cheaper. They had already reserved a hotel room in L.A., and Crystal had an appointment with the agents the following morning.

  She walked into their office with trembling knees, wearing a plain white dress and white shoes, with her hair pulled back off her face and very little makeup. She looked clean and pure, and incredibly beautiful. At twenty-one, she was even better-looking than they remembered. And as they stared at her, they were overwhelmed by their good fortune.

  But what Crystal didn't know, and Pearl smelled, was that they were ranked among Hollywood's least successful agents. Still, they were able to arrange a screen test for her the next day, and set up an appointment with someone they wanted her to meet. He was someone who could be extremely useful if he chose to.

  The last twelve girls they had sent him had been rejects. But even Ernesto Salvatore would agree, this one was a beauty.

  The screen test almost frightened her to death, but it was exciting, and after she started to relax, she did well. She and Pearl spent the rest of the day visiting the sights. They took the tour of the movie stars' homes, and went to Grauman's Chinese Theatre. They walked up and down Sunset, and stood at Hollywood and Vine as Crystal laughed and let Pearl take her picture. And she and Pearl giggled as they noticed passersby staring at her, wondering if she was a starlet. She was suddenly noticeable here, and two little girls asked for her autograph, convinced that she was someone, and Crystal loved it.

  They went back to the agents' building. At the end of the day they had asked her to return to their office, but they hadn't explained further. She wore a black dress Pearl had picked out for her, shiny black patent high heels, and she wore a stiff petticoat that made the dress stand out. The dress was strapless and it revealed the creamy pink satin of her shoulders. There wasn't an inch of spare flesh on her. Everything was smooth and silky and perfect. And Pearl had insisted she wear a big picture hat, and showed her how to tuck all her hair in with one graceful twist. And she had instructed her exactly how to take her hat off.

  When Pearl and Crystal arrived at her agents' office again, the man the agents had talked about was already waiting for her. He was tall and dark, and good-looking. He wore a dark, well-cut suit, a white shirt, and a narrow tie. And everything about him suggested that he was someone important. Crystal guessed him to be about forty-five, and the moment he looked at her, he knew he'd found a gold mine.

  He had already seen her screen test early that morning. She was unpolished certainly, and unsophisticated in terms of the business, but her voice was good, and with her looks she could have been a deaf mute for all he cared. The agents were right for once. This one was a beauty.

  He liked her smile, and the way she moved, and as the stiff black skirt swirled, he admired a glimpse of the legs that were going to make her famous. And then as she glanced at him, Crystal took the hat off, exactly the way Pearl had taught her. With a graceful gesture, her blond mane tumbled down, and the three men almost gasped as it fell like angels' wings over her shoulders. The man in the dark suit smiled, and rose to introduce himself. This girl was worthy of Ernesto Salvatore. He walked slowly toward Crystal, and she saw something intriguing in his eyes, as though he could look through her and deep into her and see her innermost secrets. But she had nothing to hide from him. Nothing and no one.

  Hello, Crystal, he said quietly, My name is Ernesto Salvatore. But you can call me Ernie. He shook her hand, and glanced at Pearl, wondering if the aging redhead was her mother. She had good legs, too, he noticed as she crossed them carefully, but they weren't half as good as Crystal's. Hers were long, and she reminded him of a long-stemmed rose. And he liked the innocent look she had. All she needed was more makeup and some training. A voice coach, someone to show her how to move, some acting lessons for a while, and then Zoom! To the top! But he said nothing to her or the agents. Crystal was watching him nervously, wondering just exactly who he was, and why he had wanted to see her.

  Could you be in my office Monday afternoon? She paused for a moment, wondering if she trusted him, and then she nodded.

  I think so. Pearl smiled at how cool she was, and she noticed the look of approval in Salvatore's eyes as he watched her. He told her where the office was, and handed Crystal his card, with a nod of satisfaction at the agents. This time they had finally done it. After dozens of losers, and several recent truly bad ones, they had finally come up with a real diamond.

  Salvatore was a well-known personal manager, some very big stars had started with him, although not many. And there had been a few very unsavory scandals. Two much publicized suicides of women he'd handled and had affairs with. And other incidents he chose not to remember. But more importantly, Ernie Salvatore was the tip of an iceberg that frightened some, but he had some very important connections. And just looking at him, one sensed that. But not Crystal. She was too naive to sense anything odd about Ernie Salvatore.

  Can you move to L.A.? He looked into Crystal's eyes. He was wondering just exactly who she was and where she had come from. She seemed so young and innocent, and he wondered who she had to protect her, other than the aging redhead who had come to the meeting. But he didn't really care where she was from. He was going to make her over. He was going to turn her into what she had always wanted to be. A star. And a big one.

  If she would let him.

  Yes, I can move to L.A. All her life she had dreamed of coming to Hollywood, and now she was going to do whatever she had to. Within reason. She had no one to answer to now, except herself ' not even Spencer.

  Salvatore had a deep, sultry voice, and an aura of command, and she watched
in fascination as he approached her for a closer inspection. But he loved what he saw. She was flawless. How old are you?

  Twenty-one, she answered calmly. I'll be twenty-two in August. She wasn't even a minor. It was perfect.

  She was innocent, she was pure, and she was exactly what he'd been looking for, for ages. And he was going to play it for everything it was worth. He even knew of the right picture for her. All he had to do was call the director and have the star kicked off the picture, but for Ernesto, it was a small feat, and he had every intention of making the call the following morning.

  He told her what he wanted her to do. He wanted her to go shopping, buy some clothes, a lot of them, he said as he peeled off a roll of bills. And come to his office on Monday morning. He was going to have the director there, he could see for himself, and by that afternoon she'd be working on a picture. He just prayed she could remember lines, but the acting coach would teach her some tricks to help her. He wondered if the other woman would stick around, too, and he turned and asked Pearl finally if she was Crystal's mother.