Calling the Shots (12 page)
Authors: Annie Dalton
I
t was the week before Christmas and twinkly fairy lights had gone up all along Sunset Boulevard. But instead of beaming peace, good will and whatever to humankind, I was in the depths of despair.
My mission was about to go pear-shaped. Lenny had got himself mixed up with rum-running racketeers. If I didn’t find a way to help him, it was more than likely he’d be thrown in jail, Honesty would go back into zombie mode, and the cosmic scoreboard would read PODS: two, Mel Beeby: absolutely nada.
As I washed the endless dirty glasses at the club, I racked my brains, trying to think of a solution. Maybe I should confront Lenny, tell him I knew what he was up to and advise him to clean up his act, before it was too late? That’s definitely what the human part of me wanted to do. But my inner angel told me to wait just a little longer.
One night, Honesty and I were up in the projectionist’s box at the Golden Picture Palace. Harold Lloyd was doing his mad stunts outside the top-floor window of a skyscraper, while Grace frantically kept up with the action on her piano. But that night neither of us was really in a laughing mood and I suddenly heard Honesty give a deep sigh.
“What’s up?” I whispered, as Harold Lloyd almost, but not quite, plummeted to his doom.
“It’s Mama,” she whispered back. “She’s worried she’ll be out of a job now the talkies are coming in.”
I’d heard customers discussing the new-style ‘talking pictures’ in the Top Hat a few days ago. I’d had to try to hide my smiles. They’d been talking like awestruck little kids, as if movies with soundtracks were some wildly futuristic invention! I’d wondered what they’d make of Dolby surround-sound! To me, the ‘talkies’ (as Honesty called them) were totally inevitable.
But like with all new scientific advances, there were going to be casualties. Once films had their own soundtracks, movie houses would no longer need pianists to supply dramatic mood music.
I carefully divided my Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup into two and gave Honesty half. I was now addicted to this rather weird American sweet.
“Your mother is a born survivor,” I comforted her. “She’ll find a job which pays heaps better, I know she will.”
Honesty looked grateful. “You’re always so positive, Violet. No matter how low I’m feeling you always make me feel better. I used to feel low all the time.” She went on saying really sweet, flattering things, but I couldn’t take it in. I was suddenly being distracted by some weird disturbance in my energy field.
It’s Lenny!
I thought, and I jumped to my feet.
Honesty stopped in mid-compliment. “What’s wrong?”
I pulled Honesty to her feet. “I’ve had one of my psychic flashes,” I gabbled. “We’ve got to go to the club. Lenny’s in danger.”
We were just a block away when I saw the prohibition agents.
OK, so I’d never seen a prohibition agent in my life, but I had watched no end of Sky TV, so a fleet of parked cars full of guys in raincoats and slouch hats immediately made me suspicious. Not to mention the humungous number of cops warily making their way towards the Top Hat.
“There’s going to be a bust,” I told Honesty.
She gasped. “But if the cops raid the club they’ll put everyone in jail!”
We’d been working at the club for a few weeks now, and we knew all its unofficial exits and entrances. Honesty and I dived down an alleyway, and managed to sneak in through the Top Hat’s cellars without being seen.
We arrived just as Ruby was just coming out of her dressing room. I could hear her murmuring a prayer in Spanish, psyching herself up to do her act.
When she saw us, wide-eyed and gasping for breath, she looked startled. “What’s up? I thought this was your night off?”
“You and Lenny have to get out of here!” I panted. “There’s like, an
army
of cops and agents outside.”
Ruby wasn’t the kind of girl who needed things spelling out. “We’ve got to find Lenny!”
We found him in the kitchens, lighting about a zillion sparklers on a customer’s birthday cake. When we broke the news, Lenny looked agitated, but not for himself. “This is terrible. Harold Lloyd is in the club tonight with his friends. We’ve got to get him out of here.”
He peered through the swing doors into the club and gave a moan of despair. “He’s right down by the stage. It’s jam-packed in there. The cops will be all over us like a rash, before I can get anywhere near him.”
“Honey, there’s two of us!” Ruby reminded him softly.
She and Lenny exchanged glances.
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” he asked.
Ruby kissed her fingers to him, and without a word, they ran up the steps and burst through the swing door into the club just as someone was doing a raunchy dance routine to Second Hand Rose.
Honesty and I arrived in time to hear all the musicians stop playing in a jangle of discordant notes.
The Top Hat Club had a high church-like ceiling. A double row of chandeliers hung over the tables, their crystal drops trembling and tinkling with the tiniest vibration. With breathtaking confidence, Ruby and Lenny leaped on to a table and made a perfectly synchronised leap for the chandeliers. The customers gasped as Lenny and his sweetheart soared high over their heads, using the chandeliers for their trapeze!
“This is totally luminous!” I said excitedly. “See what they’re doing!”
Suspended from the Top Hat’s ceiling was an enormous net, containing thousands of party balloons, which were due to come bobbing down at the end of the night’s entertainment. As Lenny and Ruby swung crazily from one chandelier to another, they gradually pulled the net with them, in the process releasing brightly coloured balloons, streamers and glittery confetti over the astonished and delighted customers. Everyone began to clap and whistle, obviously thinking it was all part of the show.
At last, they reached a startled-looking Harold Lloyd. When they were performing, Lenny and Ruby were so in tune with each other that they read each other’s minds. Without exchanging so much as a glance, they both hooked a foot around a chandelier and flipped upside down. Still dangling like a bat, Lenny whispered something in Harold Lloyd’s ear.
I saw the movie star’s expression change as he took in the news. He nodded. Lenny and Ruby held out the net with a flourish, and the star sprang into the air and clung on to the meshes for dear life.
Honesty’s brother and his girlfriend swung Harold Lloyd back across the club at electrifying speed. The trio did a graceful dismount, waved cheekily to the customers, and made a lightning getaway through the swing doors and out of the back of the club.
We caught up with Lenny and Ruby just as Harold Lloyd dived into a cab and went screeching off in the totally opposite direction to the advancing law enforcement agents. I couldn’t believe I had come
this
close to meeting a world-famous, Nineteen Twenties movie star!
Lenny was staring at a business card with an incredulous expression.
“Was he really grateful, Lenny?” Honesty asked.
“Oh, yeah,” said Lenny in a stunned voice. “Yeah, he was.”
“He was only drinking root beer,” said Ruby dreamily. “But it would have looked bad for the studios if one of their big stars was involved with a bust.”
“So what did he say to you?” Honesty asked eagerly.
Lenny still seemed overwhelmed. “He said, erm…” He cleared his throat. “He said we were the hottest stunt duo he had ever seen, and he told us we had to call him at the studios tomorrow.”
I actually screamed. “Omigosh, he
didn’t
! That is SO fabulous, Lenny!”
“Just as well really,” Ruby said with a grin. “After tonight, it looks like we’ll be out of a job.”
I saw that the Top Hat Club was now totally surrounded by law enforcement agents. Violent battering sounds came from the front of the building. A cop was bellowing through a megaphone, ordering everyone to come out with their hands in the air.
I put my mouth to Honesty’s ear. “Do you think Mo and Izzy are in that crowd somewhere, in a couple of cheesy disguises?”
At the same moment we bleated, “Dere’s
sa-ad
news!”
We all linked arms and walked away from the mayhem, still laughing.
It was Christmas Eve, and I was helping Honesty stow the last of her luggage in the back of a rented car.
Honesty, Rose, Clem and their mother were finally travelling on to San Francisco, where Grace was going to run a boutique for her scandalous cousin Louella. I’d got Honesty to give me the juicy details by this time, so I can tell you that by the standards of my century, Louella was disappointingly tame. Know what her big crime was? She had the nerve to marry a really dishy Chinese guy!! I’m serious! Unfortunately in the American south of the Twenties, this was enough to give her a reputation as a serious scarlet woman. But something told me she was going to be an excellent friend for Grace.
Rose was going to find work in San Francisco until what I called the autumn, and she called the fall. Can you guess what little Miss Smarty Pants was going to do then? Yess! She was actually starting college, just as she’d always dreamed. Like Michael said, things have a way of working out.
Honesty squished in the last bag and shut what she called the trunk and I called the boot. “And you’ll really be all right?” she asked me for the tenth time.
“I keep telling you, I’ll be fine,” I said softly.
She shifted her feet, suddenly shy. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to Christmas in Los Angeles. Don’t you think it feels unnatural, Violet? I mean, sleighs and Santas, when the temperature is in the upper nineties?”
I smiled to myself. I had a different take on Christmas to Honesty’s. I knew that this City of the Angels was Christmassy in every way that mattered. I could feel every sleazy glitzy inch of LA tingling with joyful cosmic vibes, like peals of bells only I could hear.
“I almost forgot,” I said. “I’ve got something for you.” I handed Honesty the Christmas present I had bought for her with my wages from the Top Hat. “Go on, open it!”
She carefully unwrapped all the tissue paper layers and gasped. “Ohh, Violet! It’s the most beautiful notebook I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, well make sure you use it, Bloomfield, OK?” I told her. “Stick everything down, the hobos, hoodlums and holy rollers, the bootleggers, rum-runners and speakeasies; the whole shebang!”
The tingling Christmas vibes had grown so intense that it was completely overwhelming, even for an angel.
I saw Honesty’s eyes suddenly fill with fearful awe. “Who are you?
I mean who are you
really
?” she whispered.
I kissed her on the cheek. “I’m your friend, nutcase. Any time you need me, just call, OK?”
A beam of heavenly light strobed down, and as Honesty watched, dazzled and amazed, I stepped into it and went home.
A
few days after I got back from my GA mission, I dragged my soul-mate along to the school library.
“I want to see if I can find any mention of a hotshot news reporter called Honesty Bloomfield,” I explained to Lola. “I want to know if things turned out OK.”
She just looked at me with her knowing brown eyes, and I sighed and owned up. “I suppose, what I really want to know is if I made the grade as a guardian angel.”
Lola gave me a hug. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me, girl,” she said. “Being a guardian angel is pretty intense. You can’t switch off and stop caring just because your assignment is over. You need closure!”
“Hey, that’s right! I do, I need closure!” I realised.
I needed to know that I’d made a genuine difference to Honesty Bloomfield. After her dad died, her life was like this scary movie, scripted and directed by the PODS. With the Agency’s help, she’d found the courage to break free. Now I wanted to know what happened next. Did Honesty get to direct her own life movie? Did she finally become the kind of person who called the shots?
So my understanding best friend patiently helped me with my search. Can you believe that we found about a
zillion
mentions?
We could see that we were in for a long session, so we got comfortable on the floor between the stacks, and updated ourselves.
Lola gave a low whistle. “Your girl really got around, didn’t she!”
She wasn’t exaggerating. Honesty went everywhere. She was over in Europe covering some of the major events in the Second World War. She also went to Singapore and Cairo and sent back some brilliant reports.
It was Lola who found the old-style photographs, black and white and slightly out of focus. In one a taller, skinnier Honesty was posing in front of the Pyramids. She wore her long hair in that brushed-back Thirties style, looking amazingly elegant in her army camouflage gear, screwing up her eyes against the sun.
In another picture, Honesty was at an old-fashioned typewriter. Tropical sunshine streamed through a slatted window. She wore her camouflage shirt open at the neck and her sleeves rolled up. She wasn’t doing one of those cheesy celebrity smiles, just looking coolly back at the camera, with that interested gleam in her eye.