Duchess (11 page)

But Rosie's gaze settled on Coco, the little girl with the auburn hair tufting out in curls, just like her daddy's. She wore a pair of britches, a floral shirt, a bonnet to shade her nose from the sun, and she played on the dirt and grass, holding a doll.

Always holding the doll.

Rosie had picked it up in a shop off Sunset Boulevard.

Her heartbeat quickened at the sight of the little girl, the sun kissing her nose as she laughed. Yes, she had Guthrie's blue eyes.

She was near enough now to— “Coco!”

She expected the little girl to raise her head. Maybe glance down the road. Rosie lifted her hand. “Coco!”

Lilly came down the steps. Sat on the end of them. Held out her arms.

Coco stood up, waddled toward Lilly, starting to run.

“Coco!”

But the little girl never turned. She picked up her pace then tripped.

She skidded into the dirt with a wail.

Rosie began to run toward her.

Lilly also came off the porch. She reached the little girl first, swooped her up in her arms. Held her close, soothing her.

Her sobs lifted into the sky, coiled around Rosie's heart, and squeezed.

Truman came up and lifted Coco into his embrace. Tall and lean, he looked like a flier, and now he raised Coco above his head, soaring her through the air.

Coco laughed, and he brought her back down, nuzzled her neck. She tried to squirm away, but Lilly tickled her.

She screeched and kicked.

“Not too high, Tru,” Lilly said.

He was making airplane sounds.

Maybe they didn't see her.

“Lilly!” She picked up her pace, could see now Lilly's expression, the softness on her face.

Neither of them looked up at her.

Lilly put her hand on his arm. “Dinner is ready,” she said. She reached over for Coco. “Wash up.”

Truman surrendered the toddler, kissed her on the cheek.

Then he got up and almost walked right through Rosie. She gasped, stepped out of his way, nearly losing her balance.

Lilly propped Coco on what remained of her hip and headed inside.

“Lilly!”

The sound of her voice woke Rosie, and she shook herself awake.

She'd fallen asleep on the lounger, the crickets serenading her in the darkness. Overhead, the stars sprinkled across the velvet sky, watching.

Seeing.

The dream felt so real, it might have been a memory. But she hadn't returned since that day she'd left her daughter with Lilly.

She'd only dreamed about it.

But she didn't belong there. Not anymore. Coco had a mother, and it wasn't Rosie.

If she started over, where would she go?

She closed her eyes, and too easily Rolfe appeared, the way he'd held her on the beach.

“I've waited this long. I guess I can wait until you're ready
.”

But he hadn't, had he? And even if he had, she couldn't give away her heart. Not anymore. Not when she had nearly nothing left to give.

No, she couldn't start over again.

Behind her, in the house, she heard sniffing, the sound of whimpering. She got up and turned to see Irene standing in the living room.

She held her infant, rocking him, her face shiny. “I—I didn't know where—they won't let me stay at the boardinghouse.”

Oh. Rosie spied the suitcase by Irene's feet. “I see.”

“I didn't know where else to go—”

The baby began to fuss, to squirm. No wonder she'd heard crying. Rosie walked over to them, cupped her hand over the baby's downy head. So soft. “What's his name?”

“Dash said he always liked the name Sammy.”

“He did. That was the name of his dog, growing up.”

Her expression fell.

Rosie watched the baby squirm, one tiny arm snaking out of the blanket, his hand fisted. “I think Sammy Parks is a fine name.”

Irene looked up at her, her smile trembling. “I didn't know you two were married until—until I got pregnant. And even then, I didn't tell Dash. I stayed away from him. And then that night at the premiere in New York City, I couldn't hide it anymore. He found out, and…he was so upset. I thought he was going to put me on a train back to Ohio. And then—then things changed. He told me we'd be together, but that he needed to get a divorce first.”

She didn't bother to wipe her face.

“I didn't know, Roxy. I really didn't know.”

Roxy stuck her hands into the tuxedo pockets. Nodded. “Dash has never loved anyone but himself. I think maybe you changed that.”

She bit her lip, bent to soothe the fussy baby.

“He looks hungry.”

She nodded.

“I'll show you to Dash's room. You can stay there.”

Irene's eyes turned on her, so needy, so afraid, that the crazy urge to wrap her arms around her rose up inside Rosie.

Instead, she picked up the suitcase. “It's a big house. And they can't evict me immediately.”

Irene followed her down the hallway. “What do you mean, evict you?”

“Palace Studios is broke. Lost everything in the stock market crash. We have to sell.”

“Why?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Because, although I can probably come up with a loan, I haven't the foggiest idea how to run a studio. Dash did all that.”

“
I
did all that.” Irene had stopped, the shadows half illuminating her face. “I was Dash's secretary for the last two years. I might be young, but I wrote every letter; I took notes on every business deal; I arranged every phone call; I went to every business dinner. Dash made the decisions, but I watched how he did it. I know the business side of Hollywood, Roxy.”

Roxy stopped at Dash's door. Opened it. The moonlight fell over his bed.

“I've never been in here before,” she said. “Dash always—well, he said this was your home. He didn't want you to feel betrayed in it.”

How thoughtful. But, oddly, she didn't feel betrayed. Not as she watched Irene walk in, set Sammy on the bed. He was sucking on his hand, rooting for something to eat.

Irene stood over him, unbuttoning her shirt.

“Irene, do you think you could help me run Palace Studios?”

The woman sat down on the bed, scooped up Sammy. He began to nurse. She looked at Rosie in the moonlight. Smiled. “You are everything Dash ever said about you.”

Rosie frowned.

“Brave. And gracious. And kind.”

Had Dash known her at all? “I don't think—”

“Dash loved you. And he loved me. And I think the fact that he'd betrayed us both is what killed him.” Irene ducked her head then swallowed and looked away, into the night.

No, what killed him was that, after everything he'd been given, it wasn't enough.

Rosie closed the door behind her then walked through the house, back out to the patio, onto the lawn. Her toes slid through the blades, cool against her bare feet. She walked past the pool deck, all the way to the edge of the pond.

The white swans had disappeared for the night. Only the moonlight parted the darkness, silver on the rippling, dark water.

“I don't know why you abandoned us, Dash. But I'm tired of starting over. I'm tired of running.”

She pulled the contract from the tuxedo pocket. Ran her thumb over her signature. The wind ruffled the pages, threatening to ease it from her grip, toss it into the darkness.

She tore the contract in half and dropped it into the pond. Let the fish eat it.

Then she looked at the stars, rubbing her arms against the gooseflesh. “My destiny belongs to me, thank You. I don't need Your help.”

And fantasy? Fantasy was for dreamers. For stars. For blond bombshells.

For Roxy Price.

Not for the heiress of the Worth Family fortune.

Not for the head of Palace Studios.

  P
ART
T
WO
  

1937
STARLET

If she could, Rosie would climb into her double bed, pull the gauzy white curtains around the four posters, pull the silk coverlet to her chin, and lose herself in the cloud of her sheets. There, she'd tuck herself into a quiet place, no sound stages with directors haranguing her, no klieg lights to burn her eyes. No diet masseuse to prod her into shape, no hairdresser to pencil in her eyebrows, no studio publicist to drag her to a cheesecake photo shoot, not even a lunch at the Brown Derby with one of Fletcher's newest Central Casting leading men to tempt her.

No, she'd close her eyes, maybe drift back to Paris, so many years ago, to her impressionable youth, to the moment when she stood in the window watching the funeral of actress Sarah Bernhardt, longing to live the life she'd left behind. In that moment, perhaps Rosie would whisper a different truth into the ears of that twenty-year-old flapper.

Maybe she didn't want to be famous. She just wanted to be happy.

But fame was what she'd procured after eight years and twenty-six films, two musicals, and an unauthorized biography. That—and a studio that could nearly pay its bills. A studio that she helmed.

A studio that might weather the storm of the Great Depression if they could hang on. MGM had already posted millions of dollars in losses this year, and she doubted the Warner Brothers, despite Jack Warner's legendary miser economics, fared any better. With the Depression in full swing around the country, people simply didn't have the income to flock to the theaters.

Despite the public's need to keep the fantasy alive.

B movies, budgeted down to the bare bones, with cut-rate extras and stars—like Roxy—who would work for the privilege of her name above the title on the movie poster, kept Palace Studios in business.

That, and the fact that Rosie wore two hats. She'd moved into Dashielle's office, added Irene to her staff, moved Fletcher to head producer, and given him the reins on the budget. She didn't blame him for his tight control of the directors, or the fact that he usually chose the cast. He'd cut production schedules down to seven weeks, worked the extras nearly around the clock, and made sure every costume landed back in the costume department. He even instructed Irene to bill actors for their bottled water consumption and made them appear at wardrobe and makeup by 7:00 a.m.

No MGM royalty at Palace Studios. Actors worked for their dimes, smiled when the cameras flashed, and belonged like cattle to the hand that fed them.

The fantasy life of a movie star.

Reality was the nuts and bolts that went into a movie. The reading of thousands of plays and books and treatments to discover a story, the rewriting into a script, then the selection of a director.

Rosie could barely keep up with the stack of material on her desk or the new faces sent over from Central Casting.

She should recommend to Fletcher the fellow who played Turkey Morgan in the new Curtiz movie,
Kid Galahad
. He had a rugged, almost wounded rawness about him that America would find appealing.

Okay, she could admit that, maybe, she should let Fletcher choose his cast, and she too often prowled the sound stages they rented from the nearby MGM lot to supervise the costuming, the lights, even the makeup on a current production.

And yes, occasionally, she might change actors' lines, handing them new pages mid-production.

But that's what it took to run a studio, even a tiny one. She didn't expect to ever host the grand star lineup of MGM or Paramount, but she still had to compete in the world of Jack Warner and Samuel Mayer.

Especially if she hoped to take Dashielle's place and keep their little production studio in the black.

She held out hope that, someday, she might stumble across a blockbuster script.

But first she had to nail her lines.

“Roxy, I hate to interfere, but you won't mind actually remembering your blocking and hitting your mark on cue, would you?”

She looked up, her eyes burning. Her scalp itched, and her skin blistered under the hot lights. It might be eight hundred degrees in here. They hadn't eaten since lunch. But no one would move until Fletcher got his shot.

And she'd thought Rooney had been a tyrant. He might have been reckless, but at least he'd fed her.

She blinked against the glaring lights, seeing spots. “Sorry.”

Fletcher came into focus, standing in front of the lights, a dark shape of anger. “Okay, that's enough for today.” He waved his hand, and the entire sound stage seemed to exhale, grips and gaffers, extras hanging around on the fringes, some playing bridge, others hoping for a line. Grayson leaned up from his perch on the café bar, where she was supposed to walk in and steal his drink.

He shot her a look, shaking his head, then headed over to the wings.

She followed him with her gaze, squinting at the woman waiting there. Stared. No—

Fletcher approached Rosie, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his tie loosened. He smelled of cigarette smoke and a bourbon lunch.

“What is Joan Crawford doing here?”

Fletcher said nothing, and she looked at him.

“It's a good role, and we're only a week into shooting.”

Her mouth opened. She glanced back at Joan, young and smiling up at Grayson, who'd only matured into the years, his dark hair lazy over his blue eyes, the way he smiled turning the average farm girl to a puddle of swoon.

Yes, he and Joan looked good together, her with her blond hair perfectly coiffed, those enormous brown eyes that stared up at him, her movie-star smile. He held out his arm, and she took it.

“This is my role, Fletcher.
A Man to Hold
is
my
movie.”

“I'm not giving it away.” But his frown suggested more.

“We can't afford her.” She cut her voice low. “She's temperamental and difficult to work with. And her last movie was wretched. Did you even see—”

“
Love on the Run
? Yes. It wasn't wretched and you know it. She and Grayson had real charm. Put them together again and we'll have a hit.”

She looked away. Heard laughter as Grayson led her away.

Fletcher held up his hands. “Do you want to make money, or do you want the adoration of the public?”

She drew in a breath. “I'll see you in the morning.”

“Don't you want to watch the rushes?”

She ignored him, her head pounding as she walked back to her dressing room, a tiny canvas-walled cubicle with a table and chairs, mirror, and dressing screen. She changed, leaving her costume, a blue pinstriped dress, hanging over the top of the screen, and headed to her office.

Irene had already left. But Sammy and his nanny, Myrna, were due home today.

No wonder Rosie couldn't think.

The sun hung over the lot, casting long shadows between the exterior props, the tall castle façade where Rooney shot his
Sherwood Adventures
epic, the cityscape where gangsters and cops fought out the uncensored ending of
Face of Scars
.

Across the lawn, the production crew from the other closed stage, 2B, began to emerge, grips and gaffers, the craft team, wardrobe, the cameramen, and sound team streaming into the June heat. They headed toward the cafeteria or out through the whitewashed gates onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

She walked into the offices of the producing units, the ground floor of the executive building. Their staff writers, Jacob and Harry Epstein, brothers from New York she'd discovered four years ago, lifted their heads as she passed their office. Jacob nodded at her. She'd heard he'd had a son not long ago. Harry and Grayson occasionally liked to leave a trail of headlines at the Coconut Grove.

She took the elevator up to her office, noticed that, yes, Irene had left, her own office dark through the glass, the door closed.

Rosie kicked off her shoes and let her stocking feet drag through the carpet of her office. Lamplight glowed upon a sheaf of papers on her oak desk. The daily production and progress reports of their other two movies. One of them was a B movie that Rooney was shooting out on location in Kauai.

She might have liked to work on that film. If Rooney hadn't signed up to direct it. She still hadn't quite unwound from the shoot in Lake Isabella, by the Sequoia National Forest, where Rooney had her covered in dust for a month as he shot, and reshot, and reshot yet another gunslinger showdown.

They weren't making
All Quiet on the Western Front
, for pity's sake. No one would nominate
Riders of the Sagebrush
for an Academy Award. But Rooney couldn't be deterred from his epic mind-set.

Even if he had to risk her life on the top of a runaway stage. Or nearly get her trampled by a cattle stampede.

No, she wouldn't mind a few months—maybe a year—away from Rooney Sherwood, and especially away from his idea that the fewer clothes she wore, the more tickets she sold.

Whoever heard of a rancher's wife cavorting around in a white nightie as she held off rustlers?

It wasn't the era of the bombshell any longer. America wanted morals, and with the “Motion Picture Production Code” passed down by Congress, a bombshell didn't have a place on the hometown theaters. Not in today's films.

And it wouldn't help to turn her into a redhead, regardless of how Fletcher and Rooney tried. She wanted a role that actually turned her into an
actress
. Something that, well…wouldn't it be nice if the new Academy noticed?

She'd settle, however, for something that America noticed. Something that changed lives. That made her an icon.

Unforgotten. Beloved. Brilliant.

She picked up a script on her desk, considered it a moment, then tucked it under her arm, grabbed her bag, and stopped by the mirror to tie a scarf around her head, her neck. She slipped her shoes back on and flicked off her light.

Tonight, she'd make it home before dark.

She lifted her hand to the studio security officer as she pulled out onto Palace Boulevard in her white convertible Rolls. The sun heated her face on its downward slide over the ocean.

The script lay on the seat beside her, the pages fanning up in the wind. She waved with a gloved hand at a couple of young girls camped out on the sidewalk, fans hoping for a peek at Grayson or any of the other studio actors.

They ran after her, however, calling her name, waving a studio photograph, wanting an autograph. She nearly stopped at the corner, but her throat ached, and she just wanted to get home.

To see Sammy. How he would have grown, his dark hair curly upon his head. And his blue eyes dancing for her, even if she couldn't quite surrender to picking him up, hugging him to herself, inhaling his little boy sweetness.

Maybe someday—when guilt loosened its grip.

She turned onto Rodeo Drive and let a summer breeze lift the day from her chest. The fight with Fletcher, the budget numbers on Rooney's latest film, the news from the trades of MGM's financial straits—if they went into receivership, then they'd certainly raise the rent on the Palace rentals.

Even the studio's masseuse had left Rosie more bruised than relaxed.

She wouldn't even think about Grayson's flirting with Joan. Not that she cared, but…

She pressed her lips together. Refused to remember their laughter.

At least he wasn't focusing his aim on yet another starlet who would be his mood of the weekend.

And, she didn't want a man like Grayson. A man at all, really. She had her fans.

But, Joan Crawford? “
She and Grayson had real charm. Put them together again and we'll have a hit on our hands
.”

Sometimes she hated this business and the jealousy it too easily churned inside.

Rosie turned down her street, oak-lined and shady, trapping the fragrances of summer among the ivy-lined homes, the plush lawns. Two miniature cedar trees flanked the marble pillars of her drive. She beeped, and Rogers opened the gate for her. She didn't stop as she drove up the brick driveway, seeing the gardener had finally tied up the hydrangeas and peonies that overflowed the bed by her front steps. The lilac tree dropped nearly all of its purple buds onto the lawn. Tonight, she'd open her window and savor the aroma.

She stopped and got out. Stood in the driveway, breathing in the smell of evening, the fresh-cut grass. She was reaching for the script as Louise came out.

“Are they home?” She handed the satchel to Louise, slipped her handbag onto her arm.

“Just thirty minutes ago. Shall I tell Cook to wait for dinner?”

“I'm not that hungry.”

But Louise had that look, the one that reminded her of her mother, Jinx, when Rosie had arrived home after Dash's funeral.

I need my trust fund, Mother. And a loan from Bennett
.

For a long moment, right then, with her mother's sad look, Rosie had considered staying. Considered rebuilding her life in New York, perhaps on Broadway. But she had promises to keep on the West Coast.

Now, with Finn grown at twenty and off at college, perhaps her mother would come west. Especially after Bennett's recent heart attack. Her stepfather could use life near a beach, something away from the pressure of his shipping company.

Louise closed the front door behind Rosie as she entered, and the house captured the stillness of a long day. The faintest scent of Dorian's cooking, parsley, chives, tarragon, and oregano drifted down the hall. Maybe lamb, or even ratatouille.

Her stomach growled, the Cobb salad delivered from the Brown Derby to Stage 1A long forgotten. Maybe she could manage some food.

She toed off her shoes, her stockings hot and sticky on her legs, the tile cool against her bare feet. She could hear laughter, high and sweet in the next room, and it filled her soul like a breeze off the ocean, deep and thick and salting every pore with a tangy heat.

She couldn't admit it, not really, but Sammy's laughter was what echoed in her heart, reeled her back home no matter where she wandered.