West of Sunset

by Stewart O'Nan

  Will consider, Eddie replied.

  Though Scott hadn’t told anyone he was leaving, Friday Dottie and Alan and Benchley and Oppy took him out to Stern’s Barbecue for a proper send-off. They joked about him raiding the supply closet.

  “What are you going to do with all of your free time?” Dottie asked.

  “What I came here to do,” he said. “Write.”

  They raised their glasses as if he were the lucky one.

  In his office he watched for Mr. Ito, and was gratified to see him a final time, stalking through the weeds beneath the billboard, tail twitching. He would miss the boulevard with its trolleys, and the drugstore, even the dusty parking lots, each car, including his own, carrying its mystery. He left Nostromo for the next resident, and his marked copy of Gone with the Wind. When the siren blew, he packed up his briefcase as if it were any other Friday, took the elevator down and wished the guard a pleasant weekend.

  He spent it with Sheilah, putting off going home until Monday, and then was stuck there when his car died, completely and finally, a mile short of the gate, forcing him to pay a tow truck and take out a bank note at extortionate interest to buy Sid Perelman’s old Ford. He called Ober, who called Swanie Swanson in the Hollywood office to scare him up another job.

  Compounding his bad luck, he came down with a rattling chest cold. As Sheilah predicted, he’d worked himself sick, and took to bed again, sketching a short story on his lapboard—a fired screenwriter trying to sneak back on the lot.

  By design he’d avoided spending time at Belly Acres. Now he knew why. For whole days he spoke to no one, padding to the bathroom and the kitchen in his house slippers. The quiet was unearthly, dispelled by only the trains calling across the valley, the occasional plane headed for Glendale. He wished he were at Sheilah’s but didn’t dare presume.

  Wednesday he met Magda’s housekeeper Luz, not a girl at all but a tiny, graying Filipina who muttered to herself in her mother tongue as she cleaned. He apologized for his whiskers and his robe and the wastebasket full of balled tissues.

  “Is okay,” she said, nodding, and kept dusting.

  According to Swanie, Scott was on Selznick’s short list for Rebecca. Sheilah brought him a copy from the library, and he started blocking out a treatment. The novel felt like a gloss on Jane Eyre—a humble heroine marrying into a landed family. He saw echoes of Thornfield Hall and Tara in Manderley, and there was some genius in having the first Mrs. DeWinter hover over the proceedings like a ghost, though how he would suggest that on-screen he had no idea. Selznick would line up a dozen hacks behind him anyway. As with Three Comrades, he’d have to build his draft to withstand their chisels if he wanted a credit.

  He calculated his wages on paper. At the least he’d get six weeks at twelve-fifty, enough to stake him for the summer and part of the fall. If Selznick paid him what he was worth, he’d be able to start his novel, though if Rebecca was a success, he could choose his next two or three jobs and put away a serious nest egg. He was aware—as he was aware of his dwindling savings—that he was counting on the man who’d just let him go to hire him back again, but ascribed the irony to the madness of the business. Like a starlet, he waited for Swanie to call.

  I wish you could go to Havana with the group too, he wrote Zelda. If I had the means, you know I would happily pay your way, but currently I’m between engagements, which is a polite way of saying Metro has decided they can survive without me. I’m again that sorriest of species, the freelancer. I have prospects but must stand ready to snatch whatever chance is offered me. The good news is that Scottie is planning to come down there for Easter, so you at least have that to look forward to.

  Out of obligation more than any real desire, he wanted to say he’d try to visit her soon, but knew she’d take it as a promise and dun him with it later. Better to be honest than feed a false hope.

  As the days passed, his own fluctuated between the grandiose and the desperate. He was deciding which of his old friends he could appeal to for a loan when Swanie called with a job—not Rebecca but a college picture for United Artists starring Ann Sheridan. Six weeks at fifteen hundred.

  “What happened to Rebecca?” Scott asked. What happened to Marie Antoinette?

  “Hitchcock wanted his own guy.”

  “Did you show him the treatment?”

  “You’ll like UA,” Swanie said. “It’s cake compared to Selznick.”

  Winter Carnival. There was no point arguing. It was only after he said yes that Swanie told him he had a cowriter, a kid named Budd Schulberg. It was his treatment. The picture was set at Dartmouth; he’d graduated just a few years earlier.

  “Schulberg as in B. P. Schulberg?” The head of Paramount.

  “Nice kid.”

  Not surprisingly, he was. When Scott met him the next day at the studio he was polite and earnest, telling Scott how much he admired Gatsby. Like a fledgling prince, from birth he’d been raised to rule with equanimity. Though his profile belonged to the ghettos of the Old World, like Scottie’s dance partners from Choate and Andover he possessed a courtliness that spoke of money. He was tweedy, affecting a pipe, but stubby as a bulldog, a shorter version of Stromberg. He’d majored in English and wanted to know Scott’s opinion of Malraux, and was pleased to hear he was a fan of The Trial. Europe was falling, the war was just a matter of time. And what about the Screenwriters’ Guild? Could the unions work with the studios? Though they’d just met, he was forthright to the point of being unguarded. Scott thought his confidence came from being born into royalty. No one had ever told him to shut up.

  Their producer, Walter Wanger, was a Dartmouth man as well, making the picture feel like a vanity project. They had nothing besides a muddled ten-page treatment. Passing through Hanover, Ann Sheridan gets caught up in Winter Carnival. Scott’s first job was to figure out how, and to what end.

  As at Metro, the most imposing structure on the UA lot was the front gate, a triumphal arch of plaster meant to resemble white marble. Despite its blatant fakery, every time he pulled in and flashed his pass at the guard he was comforted by the fact that he had a job. The commissary was cheap and filling, and all day, in return for Scott’s recollections of Ernest and Gertrude Stein in Paris, Budd regaled him with tales of growing up the son of a mogul. His godmother was Clara Bow. Gloria Swanson had been his babysitter. As Scott concocted a reason for Ann Sheridan to enter the Queen of the Snows pageant, he stockpiled notes toward his novel. He was almost ready to start when Wanger announced they were all going to Dartmouth for the carnival.

  While a camera crew scouted backgrounds, he and Budd would roam the campus soaking up local color, as if that might inspire them. It was a fool’s errand, an excuse for the producer to return to his alma mater the conquering hero, but Scott couldn’t refuse.

  Sheilah’s syndicate was based in New York. Taking advantage of her growing celebrity, she arranged a visit to the home office to interview the stars on Broadway and be seen around town. Once he was done in New Hampshire, they’d rendezvous in the city. The prospect struck him as complicated and maybe unwise. Wanger had made it clear the trip was strictly business—spouses weren’t welcome—and while she’d already met Ober, and Scott wanted to take her to 21 and the Dizzy Club and the Montmartre, the thought of showing her his old haunts seemed a betrayal of Zelda. At the same time he couldn’t discourage her without hurting her feelings, and played along, feigning anticipation.

  There were only so many flights a day, and by chance the syndicate’s travel agent booked her a ticket for the same one he and Budd were on. The usual subterfuge obtained. She sat in the back of the plane as if they were traveling separately, incognito behind her sunglasses.

  It was Budd’s first assignment, and his father had brought two iced magnums of Mumm’s to see him off. The zaftig bottles reminded Scott of La Coupole, the wide-shouldered jeroboams and balthazars and nebuchadnezzars ranked by h
eight between the booths, representing endless plenty. Once they were airborne, Budd popped the corks and helped the stewardess serve the cabin. In his blue blazer and white turtleneck, he presided over the festivities like the junior commodore of a yacht club. Tomorrow morning they were meeting Wanger at the Waldorf for a story conference, and they still hadn’t nailed down the third act. The plan had been to brainstorm as they crossed the country. A glass or two of champagne seemed the perfect stimulant, though a glance back at Sheilah earned him a pursed-lipped warning. He gave her a shrug as if it would be rude to refuse.

  “She needs to win the money for her train fare to Canada,” Budd said.

  “If she wins, her picture will be in the paper, and they’ll find out where she is.”

  “So how does she get the money?”

  “She needs to be in the pageant. That’s our whole set-up.”

  “How does she get the money?” Budd asked, stumped.

  Scott finished his paper cup and motioned for a refill. “Okay. She wins. They see her picture in the paper and come after her, but she’s already on the train. It’s a race to the border. Scratch that. She’s got to lose, I don’t know how exactly. The topper is that the kids save her out of the goodness of their hearts.”

  “I can see you’ve never been to Dartmouth.”

  “At the end they all sing the school song on the quad by torchlight. The snow’s falling. We go close on her as she joins in, her eyes are filled with tears of gratitude. And curtain.”

  “How does she know the words?”

  “You get the idea.”

  “What about the daughter?”

  “Haven’t figured that one out yet.”

  Rather than let it go to waste, they split the second magnum between them. Somewhere over New Mexico they stopped working and took up Lawrence and Dos Passos and raised a toast to poor Tom Wolfe. The champagne was still cold but the first giddy lift had worn off, and he was having trouble following Budd, who was telling a rambling story about Valentino showing up at a childhood friend’s birthday party, the point of which had something to do with Gatsby and decadence and the Decline of the West. Budd stuttered, tripping on his consonants, and Scott was relieved to see there were only a couple of inches left.

  At the stopover in Kansas City, Sheilah waylaid him while Budd was in the john. In her headscarf and dark glasses and pea coat she might have been a spy. She leaned close so no one could hear.

  “Please be careful.”

  “We’re just having a good time.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  “He’s in worse shape than I am.”

  “I don’t care about him.”

  “We’re all done anyway.”

  “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

  “Yes.” He tried to steal a kiss, but she shied away, glancing around.

  “Get some rest,” she said. “You look tired.”

  Aloft again, the stewardess prepared their berths like a nurse. Budd gave him the choice. Scott took the lower, drawing the curtains as if they might keep out the noise. He didn’t expect to sleep, despite the champagne. His mouth was sour and the pillow was thin, so he was shocked, hours later, to wake in the fusty, buzzing darkness with a stiff neck.

  He didn’t get to say good-bye to Sheilah in Newark. A company car was waiting for her, a limo for them. It was Thursday and raining; the Lincoln Tunnel crawled. They had an hour before their meeting at the Waldorf. Last night they’d almost solved the third act, but now Budd couldn’t make sense of his notes. His stutter had returned, and his face was puffy, his eyes slits, as if he’d lost a fight. Like soldiers, they’d slept in their clothes and gave off a vinegary musk. Scott feared that Wanger might blame him for corrupting the lad, when it was the opposite.

  They checked in, showered and met back in the lobby, clean-shaven but still bleary.

  “Let me do the talking,” Scott said in the elevator.

  The producer greeted them wearing a forest-green Dartmouth tie, and Scott knew he had the right ending, with the firelight playing over the ice sculptures and the whole student body and their dates singing the school song. What he didn’t have was the motivation for the other girls to give their kissing booth money to Jill, beyond her need and innate nobility. In his pitch he made the case that as a mother and a woman of the world she’d helped each of them in some way backstage, dispensing wisdom as well as beauty secrets. She wasn’t a professor with a fancy degree, she taught from humble experience, and as he followed his conceit to its logical conclusion, he convinced himself. When her rival won, it made sense that the others crowded around Ann Sheridan in sympathy, leaving the winner to storm off, leading to the big finale, fire and ice, the crane pulling away to show the whole quad as the song finished. Roll credits.

  “It’s nothing like the treatment,” Wanger said, addressing Budd. “I like the mother angle. But do me a favor, both of you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Lay off the sauce. I’m serious. I’m not paying you to go to Carnival, I’m paying you to write. I’m only going to say it once.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In the elevator, Budd shook his head in wonder. “Where’d you come up with the mother stuff?”

  Scott tapped his temple. “Old Metro trick. L.B. loves his mother.”

  To celebrate they repaired to the Oak Room for brunch and Bloody Marys, and then a brief interlude at McNulty’s on Third Avenue to show Budd the booth where Ring used to hold court, and then a quick one at the Algonquin for Dottie and Benchley. By late afternoon when they met the train at Grand Central they were fully resuscitated.

  The Winter Carnival Special was a rolling sorority party rocking along the Hudson in the dusk, stopping at forlorn stations to pick up the red-cheeked daughters of Barnard and Vassar loaded down with skis and skates and snowshoes. Besides a few lucky frat brothers from Columbia and New Haven, they were the only men onboard. Wanger had reserved them a first-class stateroom between his own and the camera crew’s, who’d gotten their shots and, now that the light outside was dying, had packed away their lenses and settled into an endless poker game, openly handing around a pint of bourbon.

  It was Budd’s idea that they should go mingle and take notes, a valid if transparent excuse to ditch Wanger. Scott went along with it, though as they made their way through the cars, he was intimidated by the profusion of youth and beauty. The girls were Scottie’s age, fresh from Ethel Walker and Miss Porter’s, abounding with health and raucous as an infantry company on leave, taunting Budd for being short and making fun of Scott’s jacket. As the only men, they were objects of curiosity. When they stopped, a circle gathered around them like a mob.

  “Does Daddy go everywhere with you, or do they let you out by yourself?”

  “He’s actually a very famous writer,” Budd said.

  “Is that right?”

  “I’m not,” Scott said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

  “You’re right, you’re not.”

  Someone pressed a flask on him, and they laughed as if he might be offended. He raised it to the car.

  “‘O for a draught of vintage that hath been cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth.’”

  “‘Tasting of Flora and the country green,’” a jet-haired girl in a red sweater answered, “‘dance, and Provencal song and mirth.’”

  “Now that’s a famous writer.” Scott took a pull—cherry brandy, sweet as cough syrup—reached across the seats and handed her the flask.

  “Give us another one.”

  “No, no.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “‘She walks in beauty, like the night,’” the girl began.

  “‘Of cloudless climes and starry skies.’”

  They tried to pass the flask back to him. He held up bo
th hands as if it were a grenade, tipping his chin at Budd. “You must know something by heart.”

  “‘The boy stood on the burning deck,’” Budd declaimed, and took a slug.

  “There’s your first note,” Scott said when they’d moved on to the next car. “Cherry brandy. Bleh.”

  Like the children they were, the girls of the Winter Carnival Special were partial to sweets and campfire songs. As Scott and Budd ventured deeper into the coaches, they ran across isolated bands swilling blackberry and peach brandies and peppermint schnapps, the sugar coating their teeth like lollipops. What he’d give for a simple fifth of gin.

  Budd was proving to be the perfect accomplice. Like Ring, he had a genius for finding a drink. Long after midnight, when they stopped in Springfield, he led Scott to an all-night drugstore across from the station to buy a pint. The rain had changed to a blowing snow, and Scott had left his overcoat in their compartment. As they trudged back through the slush, bareheaded, flakes swirled beneath the streetlamps and landed on his cheeks, making him blink. The train seemed to be moving, though with the wind it could have been an illusion.

  “Is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  The yellow windows kept sliding along the platform, and now he could hear the engine, and the clanking of the trucks, picking up speed. The red lights of the caboose slipped behind the stationhouse.

  “We missed it,” he said.

  “It’s not supposed to leave till a quarter to.”

  It was too dark for him to read his watch.

  “Hell,” said Budd, and looked around.

  Scott laughed. It was exactly what happened in the script.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “This is how she misses her train. We should be taking notes.”

  “Let me get my pen out.”

  There were no cabs, but the stationmaster called a wrecker that would take them to the next stop. The driver wore a fur hood like an Eskimo and apologized for the heater being broken. In the dash he had a bottle of applejack, and as they plowed through the darkness, racing the train, the snow buffeting the windshield like a process shot, Scott shivered, keenly aware they were having an adventure.