Love Me

by Love Me (ARC) (epub)

  With an impatient sigh, Olive flicked through the pages, past ads for lipstick, hand cream, and a bizarre kind of vibrating belt that promised to reduce the waistline through the magic of electricity, until she found the page with a silvery black-and-white photograph of Diana in full evening dress, lounging incongruously beside an outdoor pool, with an accompanying wall of text. She skimmed the first few paragraphs, which summarized Diana’s beauty, achievements, and all-around star quality, until she found an actual quote.

  “I suppose it sounds terribly silly,” says Diana shamefacedly, a blush creeping into her usually porcelain-pale cheeks. “But I really thought I was going to quit the movie business for good, and for the oldest and best reason there is. For love.”

  But let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? It seems the madcap Miss Chesterfield decided to take a spontaneous holiday to the Continent just days before she was due to start shooting The Nine Days’ Queen, the hit picture that would eventually star her alleged on-screen successor (and romantic rival?), Margo Sterling.

  “I had to see about some gowns in Paris,” she murmurs demurely. After all, what’s Olympus Studios when Coco Chanel is waiting?

  It was on the Atlantic crossing, however, that she met a dashing English duke lingering just outside the door of her lavish first-class cabin. “He was quite certain it was his, you see,” Diana says, “and perplexed by how his key didn’t seem to fit in the lock. I think he’d had rather a lot of whiskey just before the dressing gong rang.” When the screen’s most luminous goddess emerged from her chamber to see what all the fuss was about, the tipsy toff thought she was something out of a dream. He insisted on escorting her to dinner, of course. …

  “Of course.” Olive sniffed, refilling her brandy glass.

  One thing led to another, and by the end of the evening, he declared his intention to make Diana Chesterfield his duchess. “He said he’d throw himself overboard if I refused,” Diana says. “He actually had one foot over the railing. How could I say no?” Madly in love, she disembarked with his lordship in Southampton and in a matter of days was ensconced in his magnificent family seat, ready to begin a new life among the crème de la crème of society … with one condition: that they keep news of their engagement absolutely secret.

  Her caution proved to be prophetic. Still reeling in the wake of Mrs. Simpson and the abdication, British society has in recent years become unfairly hostile to plucky young American girls, and pressure from the duke’s family (ever a lady, Diana discreetly refuses to name names) made marriage between these star-crossed lovers out of the question.

  So why didn’t the heartbroken Diana come home to lick her wounds? She casts her lovely eyes down toward the white hands trembling in her lap. “To tell the truth, I was too embarrassed. You see, I’m an old-fashioned girl at heart. All I’ve ever wanted is a home and a family of my own. I’ve always said I’d give up the pictures in a second for love, and that’s just what I meant to do. And when it didn’t work out”—she glances up, her sapphire eyes brimming with tears—“well, I suppose I was just too ashamed at what a silly little fool I’d been.”

  And what of Margo Sterling, the new blonde on the block, who slotted so neatly into her place, both on- and offscreen? Don’t look for a catfight here. “I truly admire her work in her pictures very much,” Diana says sincerely, “and I’m so pleased to have the chance to get to know her better. I’m just sure we’ll be the best of friends.”

  “Olive?”

  Startled, Olive lunged for her open ledger book and covered the magazine with it.

  It’s so silly, she thought, but she didn’t want any of her girls seeing her read this kind of frivolous picture trash. It might make them think their boss was just like them.

  “Yes, Lucy,” she said, beckoning the bottle-blonde standing slouched in the doorway with a brisk wave of her hand. “What is it?”

  “I just wanted to know if I’m working tonight. Else I thought I’d go out to the pictures. There’s that new picture with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer playing at the Egyptian. Mitzi saw it last night and said it was just dreamy.”

  Olive flipped through her alligator-skin appointment book. “As a matter of fact, you have got a date. It’s that fellow who calls himself Mr. Peterson.”

  “Oh no!” Lucy cried. “Not him. Not again.”

  “I’m afraid it can’t be helped, dear. He called up and asked for you personally.”

  “But his breath is always so terrible. Honestly, he smells like he swallowed a dead rat.” Lucy’s narrow shoulders shuddered. “And he gets so drunk at dinner, and then he gets mean.”

  Olive sighed. “Try to bring him back here, then, dear. Or have him take you to the Roosevelt. The bellboys know enough to keep an eye out for you there, and you can always call Raymond at the front desk if you get into a jam.”

  “Just once, I’d like to be pleasantly surprised. One of these guys calls up with a fake name and it turns out he’s Charles Boyer.” She smiled wistfully. “I bet Ginger’s met Charles Boyer, don’t you think so?”

  Olive’s head snapped back up sharply. “Ginger?”

  “On account of her being in the picture business now,” Lucy said. “I bet she’s met all kinds of stars.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now get dressed, and tell the maid to bring up another bottle of sherry. The decanter was barely half full. Go on.”

  Nodding, the girl did as she was told. Olive leaned back in her chair and pulled the magazine back out from underneath the ledger book.

  It was a good story, all right. Not a word of it was true, obviously, but she had to hand it to Larry Julius and the Olympus press office for constructing something so deliciously sophisticated and romantic, so dizzyingly daffy—indeed, rather like the plot of a Diana Chesterfield picture. In fact, Olive wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see a Diana Chesterfield picture just like it very soon. Olympus had even fixed it so Diana wouldn’t have to go back to Dane Forrest and their sham of a romance. Olive was happy about that, at least. She knew what a strain it had been on them all those years, having to pretend. Now Dane, at least, could have some happiness.

  But the woman he’d chosen to have his happiness with was going to pose a problem.

  Margo Sterling.

  “I truly admire her work in her pictures very much, and I’m so pleased to have the chance to get to know her better. I’m just sure we’ll be the best of friends.”

  If that wasn’t a warning shot over the bow, Olive didn’t know what was.

  Instinctively, her hand flew up to the collar of her blouse, where she used to wear her gold-and-pearl pin, the one she’d parted with all those months ago.

  At last, it was time.

  “Oh, my little Margaret,” Olive murmured, reaching for the last of the sherry. “You’re going to need me more than ever now.”

  “Oh, give me a break,” Margo groaned, hurling the latest issue of Picture Palace off the side of the bed. “I’ve never read a bigger load of garbage in all my life.”

  “Margo, I can’t hear you. Come in here if you want to talk to me.”

  With another groan, Margo gathered up the rumpled magazine and carried it into the bathroom, where Dane stood shaving in front of the mirror. “It’s about Diana.”

  “There’s a surprise.”

  “Just read it,” Margo insisted as Dane shaved. “I mean, are you kidding me? An English duke. And they couldn’t get married because his family didn’t approve? That doesn’t even make any sense! There’s no title higher than a duke except a royal prince, and they’re all already married. If he’s supposed to be a duke, he would have already inherited and he could marry whomever he wanted. It just doesn’t add up.”

  “It doesn’t add up,” Dane said, “because it’s a lie.”

  “Right, but they could at least have gotten the story straight. Made him a viscount o
r something. This is just so easy to disprove, it’s ridiculous.”

  Dane wiped his face with a towel. “Luckily, I don’t think most of Photoplay’s audience is familiar with the exact pecking order of the British peerage.”

  “It’s in Picture Palace.” Margo pouted. “And some of them will. British people.”

  “Honey,” Dane sighed. “I don’t know what you’re getting so worked up about.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are.” He turned away from the mirror to face her. “Believe me, Larry Julius has thought this out better than you ever could. And frankly, you should be grateful to Diana for going along with it and selling it as well as she did. It’s good for her, it’s good for the studio, and most of all, it’s good for us.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  Dane gave her a hard look. “Please don’t do this.”

  Margo looked down at the wet floor. She knew what Dane meant. By having Diana so publicly repudiate their “romance,” Larry had set it up so that Dane could hardly ever be expected to “take her back.” Their romantic lives, constantly rearranged at the whim of the studio as if they were chess pieces on a board, would remain as is for now. “She ‘can’t wait’ to get to know me better,” she muttered. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Maybe exactly what it says,” Dane said. “She is my sister, after all. Even—maybe even especially—if we’re the only ones who know it. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that she might want to be your friend.”

  “Yeah,” Margo said. “Such a friend she stepped right in and took my part.”

  Dane let out a sigh. “What part?”

  “In the Madame Bovary picture Raoul Kurtzman is doing.”

  Dane frowned. “I thought they were borrowing Claudette Colbert from Paramount for that.”

  “They were, but she and Zukor asked for some ridiculous salary, and I was next in the running.” At least, I was hoping I was.

  Dane’s eyes lit up. “But they gave it to Diana?”

  “You don’t seem very disappointed for me.”

  “Margo.” Dane’s voice carried a note of warning. “Come on. You’re too young. It’s a perfect role for Diana, with everything she’s been through. Are they really giving it to her? Where’d you hear that, anyway?”

  “Where else? From Gabby.” Scowling, Margo snatched a washcloth from the side of the tub and began to wipe up Dane’s stubbly little hairs from the lip of the sink. It was his bathroom, but still, it drove her crazy how he just left them there like that. “She seems to know everything lately.”

  “Anything else interesting?”

  “Not really. Mostly she just goes on and on about that bandleader. Eddie Sharp. The one she sang with at the Governor’s Ball. Sounds like she’s crazy about him.”

  Dane snorted. “That’ll end well.”

  “I don’t know,” Margo said. “It sounds different this time. Like he really respects her … I don’t know … her talent. She thinks he’s going to offer her a contract to record with him.” She picked up Dane’s comb, still oily with Brylcreem, from the ledge in front of the mirror and ran her fingers absently over the teeth. “What do you suppose that’s like?”

  “To be respected for one’s talent?”

  “No, to be under contract to just one person like that. Like Paulette Goddard was with Charlie Chaplin. Or all those girls who sign with Howard Hughes.”

  Dane rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s rather stifling. Like a kind of marriage.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Margo, please. I don’t have time for this. I’m due on set in an hour. The car will be here any minute, and I haven’t even gone over my lines yet. Look.” His tone softened as he reached for her hand. “Why don’t you get dressed and ride along? You haven’t been to the studio in weeks. You can drop in on Raoul Kurtzman, maybe a couple of the writers. Have lunch with Gabby.” He grinned. “Hell, maybe you’ll bump into Jimmy Molloy and figure out some way to try to make me jealous. That always cheers you up.”

  Dane meant well, Margo knew, but there was such self-satisfaction in his tone, such condescending, knowing smugness, that she couldn’t stem the swell of anger bubbling up inside her, any more than a kettle on the stove could keep from boiling over. “And who are you planning to make me jealous with? Some extra behind the backdrop? Or should I be prepared for a cozy photo op with darling sister herself?”

  “Stop it.” Dane seized her by the shoulders, his face dark as a thundercloud. “That is enough. I swear, Margo, say one more word about Diana, just one, and I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” Margo shouted.

  The doorbell rang before he could answer her. Dane had it rigged to sound through the telephone in every room of the house. Now it echoed through the walls of the bedroom, high and shrill as an ambulance siren, seeming to echo the alarm Margo felt.

  “Goddammit,” Dane muttered, releasing her. “George! Answer the door! George!”

  “He’s probably in the guesthouse, listening to the radio and drinking Coca-Cola,” Margo said bitterly. “That’s all he ever does these days.”

  Pushing her aside, snatching his shirt from the back of the chair, Dane rushed toward the front door.

  With a stab of real fear, Margo followed close on his heels. She couldn’t let him leave like this. Not after a fight. Not when he was off to a studio full of girls. Bored dancing girls parading around in no more than a few scraps of net and a couple of spangles; ambitious chorus girls who would do anything to see their name in the papers; vulnerable, starstruck girls who would trail him around like a puppy for so much as a friendly word. Girls not so very different from how Margo had been when Dane had first laid eyes on her, slouched on the bench outside soundstage 14 and weeping as though her heart would break.

  Never mind the fight, Margo thought suddenly. I may never let him go to the studio without me ever again.

  “Dane, wait,” she pleaded helplessly as he opened the door. “I’m sorry. Darling, I’m so sorry. I want to come with you, I do. Tell Arthur to wait just a minute and I’ll get dressed right away.”

  Only it wasn’t Arthur standing on the front porch, chauffeur’s cap in hand.

  It was Larry Julius. Dane and Margo gasped in unison, as cleanly as if they’d been cued.

  “Hello, Dane.” Larry smiled pleasantly, his ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips. If he was at all surprised by the state they were in—Dane’s disheveled hair and unbuttoned shirt, the freshly tearstained Margo in her lace peignoir with nothing underneath—he certainly didn’t look it. “And darling Margo. Well, well. How convenient to find you here. Two birds with one stone.”

  “Larry.” Dane found his voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “Studio business, what else?” Larry said cheerfully. “I’ve got orders to bring you both straight to Mr. Karp.”

  Dane and Margo exchanged a look, instantly back on the same side. As Gabby Preston always said, at Olympus, there were only two reasons for a summons from Mr. Karp: Oscar or firing squad.

  And the Oscars were over.

  “Can’t … can’t it wait?” Margo squeaked.

  “Do you think I’d have schlepped all the way out to Malibu if it could? And wipe that look off your face, duchess,” he added. “It’s not like I’m the Gestapo. From what I understand, the Gestapo gives you five minutes to get dressed and come quietly.” Larry grinned. “I’ll give you three.”

  Twelve

  Gabby Preston’s heart was pounding, and for once, it wasn’t the pills.

  It had been like this ever since the crashing ovation that had greeted her after her performance at the Governor’s Ball had lifted her higher than any pill ever had. A steady thrum, a quick succession of triplets, like a waltz you were dancing too fast. Only instead of its usual panicky rep
roach—“go faster” or “not enough”—it beat out a new and infinitely more delicious phrase:

  Eddie Sharp. Eddie Sharp.

  Barely a day had passed since their mutual onstage triumph before a huge pink stuffed cat had appeared on the front porch of the house on Fountain Avenue, with a note attached to the ribbon collar around its neck. Viola had automatically reached for it, but Gabby had jealously snatched the note out of her mother’s reach and carefully read it herself, her lips moving silently, patiently sounding out the words until she was sure she’d gotten them right: Hey, Kitty Cat: Here’s hoping we make more beautiful music together soon. Eddie.

  Truth be told, Gabby might have preferred a more grown-up gift, like jewelry or perfume, but she was hardly going to complain. In all their weeks—months?—of fake dates, that cheapskate Jimmy Molloy had never given her anything the studio hadn’t picked out and paid for, and she knew it had been the same when he was fake-dating Margo. And yes, maybe it would have been a teensy-tiny bit more flattering if he’d written Love, Eddie or Yours, Eddie or even “Anything” Eddie, but what did it matter? Boys probably didn’t think about things like that anyway.

  She put the note away carefully in the blue velvet pouch she’d inherited from Viola, with the ripped-up pieces of her sister Frankie’s goodbye letter and her father’s old pipe. When she called Eddie to thank him, his secretary told her that Mr. Sharp had gone to Palm Springs for the week.

  For a wild moment, she wondered: what if she drove out there and surprised him? Wouldn’t that be a hoot! It was a simple-enough operation to throw some clothes in her old cardboard suitcase, still littered with stickers and stamps from the vaudeville days, and sneak the keys to the Cadillac out of a napping Viola’s handbag.

  She only made it as far as the driveway when her hands started to shake. It wasn’t that she couldn’t drive, Gabby told herself, but taking the car to the market or even the studio was one thing; driving to the middle of the desert a hundred miles away without being sure where she was going was quite another. She thought she’d just go back to the house and have a drink to calm her nerves and get her courage up before setting out, maybe with a map.