Her Leading Man

by Duncan, Alice

  As for the future . . . Well, she didn’t want to think about that right now. She was sure they could work something out. The university and Peerless were both located in Los Angeles, so there was no reason they couldn’t continue to conduct a discreet alliance without too much bother.

  As much as she loved Martin, she wouldn’t give up her dreams for him.

  His attitude about her ambition bothered her, although he, unlike most of the men she knew, seemed willing to consider her point of view. Bless his heart.

  She felt like waltzing through the door to her room, but since her grandmother lurked on the other side, she didn’t. She was glad for her caution as soon as she opened the door.

  “So there you are.”

  Christina turned and saw Gran eyeing her critically. Oh dear, had she troubled to fix her hair before she’d left Martin’s room? She couldn’t remember. She didn’t have to wonder long.

  “You’re a complete, mess, Christina Mayhew. What have you been doing with yourself? If you’ve given yourself to that slimy actor fellow, I may just have to thrash you.”

  The notion of her tiny grandmother thrashing the tallish Pablo Orozco would have been amusing if Christina didn’t feel so guilty. Although why she should feel guilty, she had no idea. Lifting her chin, she reminded herself that men had sexual affairs all the time. Even married men conducted affairs on the side, the rats.

  Determined to brazen her way through this encounter, she said in a voice that might have been a little louder than it needed to be, “I would never touch that actor fellow, as you like to call him, in a million years.”

  Her grandmother’s eyes shone like black glass beads. Christina felt like a coward when she turned to close the door and say, “Martin Tafft and I have decided to—” To what? She really ought to have prepared a speech for this; she should have known she’d need one. “We’ve decided to . . . to see each other.”

  “See each other? You see each other all the time. You didn’t need to decide to do that. Are you having an affair with him?”

  As much as Christina admired her relatives, both male and female, and as much as she appreciated their open-minded attitudes toward women’s suffrage and other feminist issues, she sometimes wished they were a trifle less plainspoken. However, she wasn’t ashamed of her dealings with Martin, and she shouldn’t be shy about explaining them. Turning again and looking at her grandmother with as beady a stare as she could come up with, she said simply, “Yes.”

  After no more than a second or two, her grandmother nodded and seemed to relax. “I thought so. Well, then, that’s good, as long as you don’t succumb to that Orozco person’s vile advances. But I have to talk to you, Christina.”

  Good heavens, was that it? Was that all Gran was going to say to the news that Christina was carrying on an illicit love affair? Was Gran so little moved by her only granddaughter’s loss of maidenhood as that?

  “I received a telegram from Miss Paul today.”

  Gran waved a sheet of yellow paper at Christina, who blinked.

  By heaven, she was going to leave it at that!

  Christina took back all the equivocal thoughts about her family that had just raced through her brain. She loved them all dearly and only hoped she’d prove herself to be worthy of them. “Oh? What does Miss Paul have to say?”

  Alice Paul, a militant feminist, organizer, and champion of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, was in more or less constant touch with Gran. Gran, an ardent feminist herself, was a staunch supporter of Paul, who had broken with the Women’s Suffrage Organization, considering them too conservative for her tastes. Anyone who advocated aggressive action for any good cause was aces-up in Gran’s book. Christina watched her fondly.

  “There’s going to be a march this weekend.”

  Gran’s eyes glittered like polished onyx. She loved a good, pugnacious, picket-sign-waving, pro-suffrage march above all things.

  “Oh? Where?” She cast a glance at her grandmother’s cane. No matter how much she liked a good fight, Gran’s physical complaints precluded some of the more vigorous forms of protest that she used to enjoy.

  “Los Angeles. And I want to go.” She assumed a belligerent stance and glared at Christina as if she’d voiced a protest. “I can still walk, even if I do use a cane.”

  Christina knew better than to argue. She also knew Gran was right. She’d probably insist upon participating in marches in a wheelchair in another ten years. “I see. Of course. Let me ask Martin. I should think there would be no objection. As far as I know, they’re still trying to figure out how to shoot around Pablo, and will probably use the weekend to schedule the revised plans.”

  “They ought to shoot him,” Gran said.

  Christina agreed, although she didn’t say so. She imagined she shouldn’t ask, but she cared about her grandmother enough to brave her possible wrath. She ventured, “Are you sure you’re up to a march, Gran?”

  She watched her grandmother straighten, lift her chin, and assume a soldier’s stature—a very short soldier, to be sure, but still a soldier. “I’m always up to a march, Christina. Never forget the words our leader, the sainted Susan B. Anthony, taught us. ‘Resistance to tyranny’—”

  Christina joined her in reciting the last part of the quotation. “ ‘is obedience to God.’ Yes, I know, Gran.”

  Mrs. Mayhew sniffed. “Truer words were never spoken, child. It’s only unfortunate that neither Miss Anthony nor Mrs. Stanton lived long enough to see their cause and right and justice prevail.”

  Gran might not live that long, either, although Christina opted not to mention it. Christina herself was a steadfast suffragist, and she’d gladly join in a march for so worthy a purpose. She’d been marching and picketing and had been involved in all sorts of other suffrage-related work since before she even knew women were oppressed.

  That state of ignorance hadn’t lasted long. By the time she was five years old, she knew that men ruled—unfairly—the world and everything in it. Christina would gladly support any movement that would allow all citizens the rights to which white males were entitled from birth.

  She ate dinner with Martin that night. Martin had managed to secure a secluded table in the resort’s screened-in dining patio. Christina assumed he’d had to pay a hefty tip to the serving staff in order to accomplish the feat, because the patio wasn’t generally in use at night.

  He listened, nodding, to her weekend plans. She wasn’t altogether pleased with the expression on his face or the tepid nature of his approval thereof. Still, he didn’t object to her proposed participation in a march for women’s suffrage, and she knew she shouldn’t repine.

  It was a rare man who understood the nature of the fight her grandmother and thousands of likeminded women had been engaged in for more than sixty years. Perhaps Christina could educate him if they stayed together long enough.

  She didn’t like the sound of that thought and shelved it at once.

  “I shouldn’t think it would be a problem,” he said after chewing and swallowing a bite of delicious roast lamb. He sounded neither enthusiastic nor disapproving, and Christina fought off a frown with some difficulty. “The makeup people are going to have at me over the weekend, and I’ll be getting my hair dyed and so forth. We won’t be able to get any real work done, as far as the filming goes.”

  His grimace of distaste amused Christina and effectively wiped away her doubts about his attitude toward women’s suffrage. “I’m sure you’ll look wonderful as an Egyptian, Martin.”

  He reached for her hand and gazed into her eyes as if—well, as if he loved her. Or, she amended, not wanting to set herself up for too great a fall, as if he cared about her.

  “Thanks, Christina. I hope you won’t dislike me with black hair. They’re going to cut my hair like Pablo’s.”

  She laughed. “As long as you don’t start acting like Pablo, I won’t mind at all.” She almost added that she’d adore him no matter what he looked like, but caught herself before making such
a perilous declaration.

  “Good.” He squeezed her hand. “If you want to get a head start on your trip, you can leave tomorrow. Phin’s coming out, and we’re going to redo the shooting schedule. We’re already behind.”

  He shook his head and sighed, and Christina’s heart tugged painfully. “It will be all right, Martin. I’m sure you’ll do every bit as good a job as Pablo ever could.”

  “I hope so. I wished we looked more alike.”

  “If they save the close-up shots for him, I think you’ll look just fine.”

  They made love again that night, before Christina went back to the room she shared with her grandmother. Although she wouldn’t have believed it possible before it happened, this time was even better than the first. To herself, she acknowledged the depth of her love for Martin, even though she kept the truth locked inside.

  He asked her to marry him again. Again she refused. This time, they didn’t quarrel about her plans, and she appreciated his forbearance. And her own. It had occurred to her at the dinner table that she was sometimes a little quick to pick fights. It was probably a habit she’d picked up from her relations, but it was rather pleasant to exist in placidity from time to time.

  As Martin walked her to her door, she felt almost as though she were floating, her heart was so light She was glad her grandmother was already asleep. Although Gran, if anyone, understood and honored a woman’s right to govern her own body, Christina didn’t relish the thought of Gran’s knowing looks and barbed comments.

  After a good night’s sleep, she was sure, she’d be better able to fend for herself in a conversational battle with her wicked-tongued grandmother.

  Eleven

  “Good God.” Martin stared at the telegram in his hand in disbelief. And dismay. Perhaps horror. The weekend had been bad before the telegram arrived, but this was the capper.

  “What’s the matter?” Phineas Lovejoy looked up from his eggs, toast, and sausages. He’d arrived in Indio on Friday, shortly after Christina and her grandmother had departed for Los Angeles.

  He and Martin had spent the rest of Friday and all day Saturday going over shooting schedules and replanning scenes so that the change in actors wouldn’t be evident to the viewing audience. It was now Sunday morning, and Phineas aimed to leave Indio for his home in Pasadena as soon as the two men finished breakfast.

  Too astonished at first by the news contained in the telegram to answer Lovejoy’s question, Martin only glanced from the telegram to his friend and back again several times. He swallowed and shook his head—which was now covered with jet black hair cropped and curled to resemble the hair on Pablo Orozco’s head. “They’ve been arrested.”

  Lovejoy’s eyes narrowed, and he squinted at Martin as if he weren’t sure the dark-haired man seated across from him was anyone he knew. He popped another bite of sausage into his mouth before asking, “Who’s been arrested? Not another drug overdose or alcoholic fit of mayhem perpetrated by some blasted actor, I hope?”

  “Urn, no. No, it’s not that.”

  “Well, then, what is it?”

  The faint trace of annoyance in his friend and business partner’s voice jarred Martin out of his scandalized stupor. He pushed his chair back and stood abruptly. “Christina.”

  Lovejoy’s eyebrows shot up like larks soaring. “Christina? Christina Mayhew? The star of this picture? Good God, what’s she done?”

  “She’s been arrested.” Martin, who had been going to rush off and rescue her, caught his breath and tried to halt his stampeding heart from carrying his emotions—and him—away with it. “She and her grandmother.”

  “Her grandmother! Don’t tell me she’s a dipsomaniac, too!”

  Martin peered at Lovejoy over the yellow paper in his hand, puzzled. “A dipsomaniac? Who’s a dipsomaniac?” Enlightenment struck, and his eyebrows soared, too. “Good God, Phin! It’s not that!”

  Lovejoy heaved a huge sigh and took a big bite of toast. “Thank God. That’s a mercy anyhow. But it’s not good when our stars get arrested, Martin. Please tell me what happened and that we can bribe a police department or somebody else in power to keep it quiet.”

  Realizing at last that running around maniacally would do no good in this present circumstance, Martin sank back down into his chair. His appetite had fled, however, and he pushed his breakfast plate away from him. “There was a big march for women’s suffrage in Los Angeles yesterday. Hundreds of women blocked the entrance to the courthouse, and seventy-five of them were arrested.” He flapped the telegram in front of his friend. “Christina and her grandmother were two of the arrestees. That’s all I know.”

  “Good God.” Lovejoy snatched the telegram from Martin’s numb fingers. His brow furrowed as he read it. “This isn’t good, Martin.”

  “There’s an understatement for you.” Martin managed a grin, but it was a corrosive, twisted one.

  “What are we going to do? We have to get them out of there. At least we have to get Christina out of there. She’s got to be here tomorrow so we can start shooting again. We’re already behind schedule, thanks to that blasted Orozco.” He politely refrained from mentioning the part Martin’s unusual antics had played in the shooting delays.

  Standing again, Martin spoke distractedly. “I’ll drive to L.A. and bail them out.”

  Lovejoy eyed him doubtfully. “Are they bailable?”

  The notion that they might not be subject to bond hadn’t occurred to Martin until Lovejoy mentioned it. He stared at him in alarm. “They have to be!” He took a deep breath and told himself not to panic.

  “They’d better be,” Lovejoy agreed. “We can’t afford to lose any more shooting days, and I really don’t want to have to find another actress.”

  “Right.” It hadn’t been the Egyptian Idyll schedule that had troubled Martin initially, although he grabbed it as he might grab a lifeline. He was worried about Christina; the shooting schedule be hanged.

  Lovejoy went on thoughtfully, “I’m sure she’ll be let out on bail. After all, it’s not like she committed murder or robbed a bank or perpetrated a crime while drunk and disorderly or anything.”

  “Right.”

  “Did you say she was arrested with her grandmother?” Lovejoy frowned. “What kind of a family does that woman come from, anyway?”

  It was probably the only thing his friend could have said that could jerk Martin out of his befuddlement. In fact, the question startled a genuine laugh from him. “A very different kind of family,” he said. “A very different kind.”

  Lovejoy, who was smart and capable and every inch a conservative businessman, went back to concentrating on his breakfast after murmuring, “I should say so.”

  The drive to Los Angeles seemed to take forever. Martin was worried that he might not arrive there until too late to get Christina out of jail. After all, it was Sunday. Could people even get bail on Sundays? Never having had anything to do with the criminal-apprehension system—he left bribes of police officers and politicians to another contingent of the Peerless organization—he couldn’t imagine.

  At least he wouldn’t have to go through a bail bondsman, since he had plenty of money of his own to use. The thought of Christina in a bleak, dank prison cell made his heart freeze up and his blood run cold. Not that it would be especially dank, he supposed. The weather in Los Angeles wasn’t anywhere near as hot as that in the Indio area, but it was still full summer and hotter than blazes. Still, the mere notion of Christina suffering made him want to fly to her aid.

  An image of what Grandmother Mayhew would say if he tried to do any such thing made him laugh even as he worried. The Mayhew females weren’t the sorts to seek rescue from men. They liked to think they could take care of themselves.

  And they could, although Martin had been experiencing terrible urges to be of assistance to Christina almost from the moment he’d seen her. He admired her spirit. And he admired her beauty. And he thought she was totally splendid even if she did harbor the possibly insane noti
on that she, a woman, could become a physician.

  Still, the urge to shower gifts upon her plagued him. He wanted to take any burdens from her shoulders and heft them onto his own. He wanted to help her in any way, to make her life’s path smooth.

  Hell, he’d even vote for woman’s suffrage if it would please Christina. Martin guessed women had as much right to vote as men; he didn’t expect women could be much more foolish than men were. They might even bring a dose of honor to a dishonorable profession.

  He snorted. It was far more likely that politics would corrupt women than that women would clean up politics.

  Still, he didn’t care about that. If Christina wanted to vote, Martin would gladly drive her to the polls. He’d even drive her obstreperous grandmother along with her. He mostly just wanted to get her out of jail. And into his arms again.

  Christina sat hunched on her cot, her chin in her hands, her elbows propped on her knees. She felt very glum and not a little guilty. After all, she was supposed to be starring in a motion picture. It wasn’t fair to Peerless, who was paying her a good deal of money, for her to get arrested.

  The police had been polite, all things considered. They’d herded the marchers without undo jostling. Christina had read about suffrage marches in other parts of the country, where arrests hadn’t been handled so gently. She’d even read descriptions of women going on hunger strikes and being force-fed. She shuddered, trying to imagine what it must be like to have someone hold you down while someone else thrust a tube down your throat and dripped food into you. She wished she didn’t have such a good imagination.

  At any rate, the march had been peaceful. Not too many people had jeered at them. In fact, some folks had called out encouraging comments. A couple of young ladies who had been walking nearby on the street had joined them right then and there. Christina peered at them now and noticed they appeared to be as gloomy as she felt.

  It didn’t seem fair that the two newcomers should have been picked up with the rest of them, really. They weren’t the ones who had planned the rally. The organizers of the march had explained to all the marchers before they started out that civil disobedience was in the offing and that there was a strong possibility that they’d all be arrested. Christina hadn’t really believed it, although now she couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t. Women got arrested every day for demanding their God-given rights.