City of Flickering Light

by Juliette Fay

  “I don’t know. What’s the point of keeping in touch?” she said. “But I just wish I knew if he’s . . .”

  “If he’s happy?”

  “If he’s alive.”

  33

  It was simply a case of California, the glamour of the Southern California moonlight and the fascinating lovemaking of the man . . . I honestly believe that Rudolph would have married any woman with an automobile.

  Jean Acker, actress, on marrying then little-known actor, Rudolph Valentino, while she was in a relationship with actress Alla Nazimova

  “If you don’t come out with me tonight, I’m going to go up into the hills and throw myself off the Hollywoodland sign.” It was two weeks into filming A Baby’s Cry and Jack’s penchant for flirting had been fully revealed.

  “Are you playing a cripple in your next film?” said Millie. “Because you’d only break your legs.”

  Jack was standing very close, his breath tickling against her hair. He smelled absurdly good. “Yes, but it’s so remote up there; it’d be too far to drag myself to food or water.”

  “A skinny cripple then.” The smell was outdoorsy, she decided, almost like a hayfield. She wanted to press her nose against his chest and inhale.

  The baby reached up and patted her mouth, and Millie kissed the soft little palm. This, too, smelled heavenly, so human but pure, without the body odor and bad breath of teenagers and adults. And that impossibly smooth skin. Millie took every opportunity to gently rub her nose against little Rosemary’s cheek, which made the baby giggle and snuggle against her.

  “Cut!” yelled Vanderslice. “I cannot get these close-ups if you two keep talking! And for the love of all that’s holy, could you please stop making that baby laugh, Mildred. She’s supposed to be on death’s door.”

  Millie looked down at Rosemary and whispered, “You don’t look like you’re on death’s door. You look like you’re ready to live a long and happy life, full of kisses and biscuits!”

  The baby gurgled happily. Vanderslice threw his megaphone on the floor.

  On Friday, Jack picked her up in a little black three-passenger Buick coup.

  “Well, my goodness!” said Millie, giving the hem of her silvery-blue dress an extra little swish around her knees. “Where on earth did you get this?”

  “Hop in, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  He began with the fact that he hailed from Manhattan in New York City.

  “You don’t happen to know our friend Henry Weiss?” Millie interjected. “He grew up in a neighborhood called the Low East.”

  “I think you mean the Lower East Side, and no I wouldn’t have known him. My neighborhood was a few blocks north of there.”

  “That doesn’t sound very far.”

  Jack smiled. “Doesn’t sound like it, but it is.”

  He’d been enthralled by the moving pictures since he’d seen his first at the age of twelve and had wanted to be a part of it in any way he could. His parents were of a different mind, however, refusing to pay for acting lessons or even let him get a job as a movie palace usher.

  “Why on earth not?” said Millie. “That’s a great job for a kid.”

  “My family was . . . comfortable. My brothers and I didn’t need jobs, and we would never have been allowed to, as my dear mama would say with her hanky at her brow, ‘receive the filthy nickels of the unwashed Bolsheviks.’ ” Jack chuckled. “And they wonder where I get my dramatic flair.”

  He had made them a bargain, however. If he completed his senior year of high school at the Collegiate School with straight A’s, he would be allowed to work in the film business. He had never studied harder in his life, before or since, and his father had held up his end of the bargain. His business connections had landed young Jack in the business office of Paramount-Artcraft Pictures down on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.

  “It was about as exciting as a spinster’s diary—except on the days the actors and actresses came in to renegotiate contracts and complain about directors.”

  His father soon offered him a new bargain. If he stayed for one year, he could try out for stage work in New York. “He was waiting me out, hoping I’d lose interest in the flickers.”

  “So you stayed for a year—”

  “Not on your life! I talked to anyone who came in the door, just to see what they were about—Mae Murray came in all the time—”

  “Mae Murray!”

  “The very same. Everyone said the movie business was moving to the coast, and I should come out here. So I told my old man, the deal’s off. I’m going to California with or without your blessing. I’d ride the rails like a hobo if I had to. Mother nearly cast a kitten, but in the end, they saw me off at the station and put some dough in my pocket, enough to buy a car and get along for a while.”

  “And now you’re starring in a picture for Olympic!”

  “And taking out the prettiest girl on the lot.”

  “Taking her where, I’d like to know.”

  “Mae Murray’s. She’s living at the Ambassador and throwing a party, and we’re invited.”

  Murray and her director-husband had rented a bungalow on the grounds of the hotel. The night was warm, and the party spilled out onto the meticulously manicured lawn, people drinking and laughing and drinking some more from the seemingly bottomless supply of gin and champagne as white-suited waiters carried trays on the pads of their fingers and threaded their way among guests.

  Mae herself flitted about in a formfitting, lemon-yellow sequined dress that matched her hair color and flowed down her body like sunlight. Yellow ribbons held it up—but barely. The low-cut neckline seemed to slip of its own accord across the landscape of her breasts. Champagne sloshed from the flute in her hand as she hailed friends and greeted guests.

  “Oh, now, you!” she said when she spied Jack. “I know you from New York, don’t I? You’re a handsome devil. Hold my drink—I’m off to dance!” And she strode away to the parquet boards that had been laid out on the lawn.

  As Millie’s gaze followed her, she saw a familiar face standing near the dance floor. “Jack, it’s Beryl Tate, the woman who played my aunt in my last picture. Let’s go say hello.”

  Beryl was delighted to see Millie again, and turned to introduce her to the fellow she’d been chatting with, who’d had his back to them as they approached. “This is Henry Weston,” she said, smiling broadly. “A real up-and-comer. You’ll see him on all the marquees soon enough!”

  Henry stuck out his hand. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he said haughtily.

  Millie burst out laughing and then leaped at Henry for a hug. He caught her up and gave her a squeeze, then dropped her back lightly onto her feet. “What are you up to, you little troublemaker?” he asked.

  “You know each other already!” exclaimed Beryl.

  “Oh, we go way back to the dark ages, don’t we, Henry?”

  He nodded. “Pretty dark, actually.”

  Millie smiled. “Dark as pitch, but we had each other.”

  He rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Still do.”

  Dear, dear, Henry. Oh, how she loved him!

  Suddenly a hand stuck out to interrupt their reunion. “Jack Dennis. Millie’s leading man.” His voice rang a few notes lower than usual, and the grip of his handshake lasted a half beat too long.

  “Take good care of her,” Henry told Jack, the barest hint of threat in his tone. “She’s like a sister to me.”

  Jack looked at Millie, and she sensed a slight shift, as if their acquaintanceship had taken a step from all lightness and fun to his fully absorbing that she belonged to people. People who loved her and looked out for her and would hold him accountable if things went awry.

  “I’ll treat her like gold,” he said simply, without all the manly bluster.

  “Now, tell us about your new picture!” insisted Beryl, oblivious to the nuance of the moment. They chatted a little longer and then Beryl wanted to show Henry off to someone else, and Jack and Millie m
ade their way onto the dance floor.

  His lead was muscular but not bossy, and she liked the way she felt in his arms. He liked to twirl her, making her silvery blue dress swing out around her thighs, but when she’d had one spin too many, she said, “Stop!” and he did, catching her up in his arms until the dizziness subsided.

  The record on the phonograph was changed to the romantic “Song of Love,” and he held her loosely, comfortably against his chest. She tipped her chin up and asked him, “Have you ever loved a girl?”

  He considered this, blinking down at her, and she suddenly regretted the impulse. It was practically an invitation to say something sappy or untrue, and she didn’t want that. She had simply wondered and spoken her curiosity aloud.

  “I don’t think I ever have. Did you ever love a fella?”

  She smiled. “Nope.”

  He grinned back at her. “We’re birds of a feather.”

  “And we’re flocking together,” she said happily and put her cheek against his shoulder, smelling that hayfield scent of his, even despite all the expensive perfume wafting around them.

  He’s nice, she thought. And handsome, charming, and good smelling, of course. But the nice part—that was the important thing, the part she hadn’t paid enough attention to with that monster, Wally. She was smarter than that now, and also smart enough to know that things could still go wrong, but the chances were at least better that they wouldn’t.

  They were driving back from the party at three in the morning when he said, “I’ll take you back to your apartment.”

  Hearing the question in it, she said, “Is the evening over so early?”

  “I could come up,” he offered.

  “I wouldn’t want to wake Irene.”

  “I could show you my house.”

  “I’d like that.”

  He reached over and slid his hand into hers, intertwining their fingers. His skin was so soft she knew for certain he’d never held a tool or leather reins in his life, and that all of his spoons had been silver.

  He’d rented a one-bedroom bungalow on the edge of the Hollywood Hills from a little-known actor who hadn’t gotten the breaks. The fellow had gone back to New York but couldn’t bear to part with the house “in case.”

  “In case what?” Millie asked.

  “In case a miracle occurs, and Hollywood suddenly regrets spitting him out.”

  It had its own tiny yard and several lemon trees obscuring the neighbors on either side. Inside it was tidy, except for the unmade bed she could see in the other room, and a chair covered in several articles of clothing—a green vest, some sock garters, and a gray silk bow tie. The closet door was open, and Millie was impressed at how full it was. Jack was no starving actor, and between his ambition and family connections, she suspected he never would be.

  He brought out glasses of lemonade, and they sat on the sofa, talking for some minutes before he said, “Would it be all right if I kissed you?”

  Would it be all right? Millie had known this would be the likely course of events, yet now, with the moment upon her, she felt an electric shock of fear that seemed to surge at her from out of the dark. Would it actually be all right?

  “I don’t want to be manhandled.”

  The seriousness of her usually sunny face made him sit up straight. “I am a gentleman,” he said, as if startled at having to affirm something so unassailably true.

  “I don’t need you to be a gentleman,” Millie said. “I need you not to grab me if I don’t want to be grabbed.”

  He blinked at her, trying to parse the meaning of her words. She took his hand and opened it, drawing her fingers across the palm, and then took it to her face and kissed it very gently. He tipped his head, his face softening at the tenderness of the gesture. She offered him her open hand, and he did the same. Then he let his lips graze the inside of her wrist. He raised his eyebrows in question, and she nodded.

  Yes, this might be all right.

  For a boy who was in such a hurry to get where he was going, Jack was remarkably unhurried in his lovemaking. When they were on the set together, she could sense him reacting to her, rather than simply pantomiming his half of the story. Their acting had a give-and-take to it, and this carried over to the bedroom. He listened, he paid attention . . . and then he ran those soft hands up her thighs and over her hips and slipped her dress right off.

  She had moments of anxiety: when he wanted her to sit on his lap, or later when he lowered himself on top of her in his bed. But she didn’t have to do anything more than give him a little push to make him reverse so she was on top.

  “Was that all right?” she asked afterward as she lay spent and warm on his stomach.

  He ran a finger down her spine and murmured, “I think that may now be my preferred mode of travel.”

  “I thought you were sleeping!” Irene looked up from the breakfast table when Millie came in the next morning. Her tablet of paper was, as usual, fighting for space with the plate of whatever meal she was eating. “Where’ve you been?”

  “With Jack.”

  “You two have been out roaming around all night?”

  Millie smiled. “No, not roaming around. Staying in one place.”

  “His place.”

  “It’s quite nice. He’s lucky he’s got family money.” Of course Millie had had family money, too, but that had been a long time ago. A lifetime ago.

  “Are you . . . are you okay?”

  Millie sank down into one of the kitchen chairs and took a piece of Irene’s toast. “I’m fine. Relieved actually. I didn’t realize it, but I’ve been smelling that bastard for almost a year, and now I don’t smell him anymore. I smell Jack.”

  Irene looked relieved, too. “What does he smell like?”

  “Hay.”

  Irene burst out laughing. “Oh, Millie, you’re part horse!”

  “I think I just might be.” She grinned at Irene. “What does Dan smell like?”

  Irene shrugged. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  “Come on now,” scoffed Millie. “You know what the man smells like.”

  “Tea, I suppose. Greenthread tea.”

  “I knew it. We both have men who smell like plants.” She took a bite of Irene’s toast, but then remembered something else and put her fingers to her lips to hold in the crumbs. “Henry was at Mae Murray’s party!”

  “Gosh, I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks. Was he there with anyone? I’ve been wondering if he might have a girl he’s spending time with, and that’s why he’s not around as much. I’m pretty sure it’s not Gert. They like each other, but there’s no real spark.”

  “I only saw him with Beryl Tate, and she’s twice his age. Maybe he’s got someone but he’s not ready to introduce us. We’re his family now, so that would mean it’s serious.”

  “Well, whoever it is, I hope she’s nice.”

  “And good enough for him. Henry’s just so good, isn’t he?”

  Irene smiled. “He’s wonderful.”

  34

  Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Your readers might like it.

  William Randolph Hearst, American newspaper publisher, whose chain of publications printed as fact many damning falsehoods about Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle

  “Have you seen this?” Irene asked Dan.

  They were up on newly built Mulholland Drive for a spring picnic. The spot was breezy but warm under the late-April sun, with a spectacular view of the burgeoning city. They had finished a lunch of roasted chicken, buttered beets, and tapioca, and Irene lay on her back perusing the latest edition of Ladies’ Home Journal; the short stories and serialized novels it printed were first-rate, and she always made sure to read and consider whether they would make good film scenarios.

  Dan dozed on his side snuggled up around her, arm across her waist, thigh against her hip. They often slept this way on the nights they stayed together, having determined by trial and error that this was the precise configuration that suited t
hem both best.

  In fact, Irene noticed she now slept fitfully on the nights when the warmth of his strong, sinewy body against her was absent, and this worried her. She didn’t like to feel dependent, and she wasn’t ready for the change that would place his comforting presence beside her every night.

  The name of that change was marriage, and as much as she loved him, she also loved her life just as it was: working hard, earning an enviable living, making her own decisions. Back in Ohio she would already be on the express train to spinsterhood, but here in Hollywood, the rules were different—mainly because there weren’t many. She could live with her best friend, sleep with her lover, and come and go as she pleased. The only thing that might one day change her mind was a desire for children. But she had no interest in that now, and Dan was quite responsible in his duty to ensure they always had prophylactic supplies. As a well-paid twenty-two-year-old with a job she adored, she couldn’t imagine a more ideal arrangement.

  She knew Dan was tired—he’d gotten a role as a cattle rancher in a western and spent his days chasing lost calves down ravines and hauling hay around a barn. He came home happy and exhausted. She hated to rouse him, but she knew he’d be interested. “It’s Zane Grey’s latest, called The Vanishing American. It’s about a Navajo boy.”

  She handed the thick magazine to him and watched his eyes trace the text.

  The boy, Nophaie, is kidnapped by white horse thieves and abandoned far from his tribe. He’s rescued and taken east by a well-meaning white woman who puts him in white schools. In college he falls in love with Marian Warner, a white student, then returns to his tribe and invites her to visit. In his letters he rails about how the white government agents bamboozle and intimidate the Navajo into giving away their best land.

  “Huh,” Dan snorted. “Well, it’s true to life, I’ll give him that.”

  Marian heads west and is finally reunited with Nophaie. He shows her his world, his hogan home, his place of prayer, and then admits a terrible truth: he has lost his faith. The white man’s education has made him question his Indian spirituality. Marian decides to stay and work at a school for Indian girls, and she tells Nophaie of the corruption of the white government workers and Christian missionaries, one of whom has licentious desires for a lovely Indian girl. Marian wants Nophaie to kidnap the girl to protect her from this hideous fate.