Eve in Hollywood (3 page)

Did he miss it? she asked at last. Did he miss the silver screen?

—Pah, he said with a wave of the hand.

What he missed was
the stage
.

—For the viewer, Evelyn—for the sales girl or senator, for the rogue or Rothschild—the cinema is the ultimate entertainment. It is an overflowing font of romance and danger. But for the performer, Evelyn, the romance and danger reside on the stage. When shooting a close-up, the movie camera must have you to itself. Thus, when you perform the most charged of cinematic scenes, you are likely to deliver your lines alone.
Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear
 . . . Or so you proclaim to the cold, black eye of the camera before being excused to your dressing room, so that Juliet can implore in your absence that you
Swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon
 . . . Wherefore art thou Romeo, indeed!

Prentice paused briefly to serve the tea before it over-steeped.

—But on stage, my dear, on stage it is in the very interstice between the full-blooded physical forms of the actor and actress that the spark is struck. It is in that space between two gazes which search each other out, between two fingertips which nearly touch . . . And danger? For the actor, every dram of it is in the theater. Not because of crocodiles and sabers, you understand, but because the edge of the stage is a precipice! For there are no takes in the theater, Evelyn; no second chances. One false move, and the actor plummets through the pitch toward the craggy bottom of his own self-indictments.

Her appreciation for his argument almost instinctual, Evelyn's cheeks betrayed a rosy flush.

—Then why, she asked almost breathlessly, why did you stop acting?

—You're sweet, my dear.

But in her perplexity, she seemed genuine. Genuine!

—My rotundity, he explained.

And before she could express her shock (or God forbid, her sympathy), he raised a stalling hand.

—Don't pity me for it. Are there elements of stardom that I miss? Why, there are elements of boarding school that I miss. There are elements of my most catastrophic romances that I miss. So let us agree, that missing is not at the heart of the matter.

A
T THE TOLL OF
one in the morning, the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel had been empty for almost an hour. There were no more guests checking in; no gilded affairs assembling or dispersing. Through the doors of the bar drifted the tinkling of piano keys at the hands of a capable straggler who had presumably been thrown from his apartment and who now finally fell asleep, having made the G Major 7 with his weary head. While behind the desk, the night clerk Michael stood alone, fending off sleep.

Under the circumstances, it was quite natural for him to welcome a chance to chat.

So, after marveling at the business of the season, and remarking on a handful of recent arrivals, Prentice and Michael agreed that Miss Ross was a delightful young woman. But from where and when and how did she arrive? Well, it seems that she arrived by taxicab from the railway with a single red valise. And was she here to see old friends? It was hard to say, for she had placed no phone calls and received no visitors. On her first night, she did entrust two items of jewelry to the hotel safe: a sizable engagement ring and a diamond earring without its pair; although (as Michael noted sotto voce), on the very next morning, she had taken the earring from the safe and returned in the late afternoon with a selection of dresses and three pairs of shoes.

An excellent use of a young woman's wherewithal, the two gentlemen agreed.

Prentice wondered out loud if she was the same Miss Ross, friend of a friend, who lived on Gramercy Park . . . ?

No, replied Michael, turning the registration card so that Prentice could read.

—Ah, Prentice said. Well. Goodnight, my fine fellow.

Then he ambled down the hall with a smile on his lips. For Miss Evelyn Ross, lately of Manhattan, had apparently resided at 87 East 42nd Street. Or, as it is more commonly known: Grand Central Station.

At room 102 he put his key in the door, eager to cast off his shoes and recline with a square of Spanish chocolate and the pages of Mr. & Mrs. Lamb. But as his door closed behind him, his heart skipped a beat. Across the sitting room, a curtain billowed once before the open terrace door. For a minute Prentice stood stock-still under the grip of his accelerating pulse. He considered backing into the hallway and dialing the house phone for security. But Devlin was on duty tonight, and Prentice had called him not two weeks before, only to suffer the humiliation of having empty closets opened one by one.

Prentice attempted to steel himself to the task.

—Who's there? he called out.

He moved sideways to spy into the bedroom and then eased open the door to the bath with his cane. After circling once and finding nothing out of place, he locked the terrace door and sat relieved on the edge of his bed. And that is when he saw it: There, beside the turned down sheets and the fresh pillowcase, sat Mr. & Mrs. Lamb with an unfamiliar bookmark. With a tremble of the hand he opened the pages and felt a wave of nausea.

It had been a year since he had purged his room of memorabilia: the gaudy posters with their imperial fonts and faraway gazes; the playbills; the overtly staged studio stills; even the candids—like the shot of him and Garbo addled at Antonio's. Into boxes they had all been thrown, and sent to the hotel's cellar.

But here, marking the title page of
Hamlet
's retelling, was a ticket to the premiere of his acclaimed run as the Danish Prince at the Old Vic in 1917.

Prentice Symmons slid from his bed to the floor and wept.

P
RENTICE SPENT MUCH
OF
the following day in his room. When he woke, he neither showered nor shaved. When his regular breakfast was served, he left half the potatoes uneaten beside the remnants of egg and did not ring for the service to be cleared. He sat on the couch in his robe as the room filled with the odor of the unfinished breakfast and as the minutes dismantled the hours. In the early afternoon, he heard the chambermaids knocking on doors and pushing their linen-laden trollies. When they knocked upon his, he fully intended to call out that they were not needed. But when he heard Bridie's voice, from some force of habit he invited her in.

A professional young Irish woman and mother of six, Bridie did not display the slightest surprise to find Prentice in his robe. But within the instant she had whisked his plates into the hall, drawn the curtains, and cracked the terrace window to admit fresh air. When she went into the bedroom, he watched her through the open door. He watched as she returned his shoes and jacket to their closet. He watched as she made the bed with efficiency and care, snapping the fresh sheets and tucking them tightly into place. He watched as she rinsed his unused shaving brush and hung it on its golden hook to dry. And when she had finished, he roused himself from the couch and thanked her as one who thanks a chance apostle for the telling of a timely parable.

It was after three o'clock.

He bathed and dressed in a three-piece suit with a well-wound watch in his vest and set out for tea. Evelyn did not appear, but she had been kind enough to leave a note of regret on his chair and a promise to see him anon. This unnecessary gesture (coming in concert with the rare treat of cranberry scones) completed the revival of his spirits. And it was this revival, no doubt, that led him to play the part of a fool.

For when his tea had been cleared, Prentice happened to notice that lingering by the front desk was a certain actor-of-the-moment—an actor whom as a younger man had played a supporting role in one of Prentice's finest films. And rather than keeping his counsel, Prentice strolled across the lobby with his cane in hand, calling out the actor's name.

Exhibiting a touch of surprise, the actor remarked how pleasant it was to see Prentice. Then he made a friendly inquiry into Prentice's welfare (an inquiry that is best met with a generous affirmation and the word
adieu
). But in his elevated spirits, Prentice leaned upon his cane and began to harken back; at which point, this actor-of-the-moment played the part of someone who had forgotten his billfold in his car, stranding Prentice in the lobby with his days of yore.

At the front desk, it was evident from the attention that Simone and Christopher paid to the shuffling of papers that they had heard every word—as had the young socialite who stood by the elevator doors with her dog.

Prentice felt his face grow flush.

—I am expecting a package, he heard himself proclaiming to Simone, in the manner of one for whom packages urgently arrive. When it appears, send it to the pool!

•

A
S
P
RENTICE PASSED
THE
elegantly scripted sign that pointed the way to the pool, he unleashed a spate of acrimony—not toward his old supporting cast member, but rather toward himself. For what had he expected? To be embraced and invited for supper? So that they could speak of olden times—when their positions were reversed? At the peak of his fame, had not Prentice been strolled upon and cornered in lobbies by fading acquaintances? And had he not performed stage-left exits of his own?

Having descended the twenty-six steps at too quick a pace, Prentice found that he needed to catch his breath, so he headed toward a chair at the pool's edge. Gratefully, the terrace was empty. The cool October air had driven the starlets and cabana boys into their respective retreats.

But just as Prentice was about to reach his chosen port, from the corner of his eye he glimpsed a figure slip behind a hedge. Feeling his heart rate leap, Prentice bypassed the chair and made for the rear gate. But the shadow, having deftly crossed the terrace, now ducked behind an adjacent cabana. In a state of panic, Prentice looked for a fellow guest or chambermaid, and failed to see the ice tea table directly in his path. He tripped and fell to his knees. The force of impact tore his pant leg. He began to heave, knowing that above all else, he must regain his footing. With a flash of single-mindedness, he stood to his full height, but the terrace wheeled around him. And when upon the breeze he heard the whispering of his name, Prentice Symmons finally acknowledged the unacknowledgable—that it was time.

On this day, on this terrace, at this Trafalgar, they would meet. Without the exchange of a word, a single hand would extend into space and topple Prentice into the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel where, hapless, he would thrash for a sliver of eternity, before sinking at last to the depths.

Oh, fateful day.

Oh, ignominious—

—Prentice?

A gentle hand took hold of his elbow.

—Evelyn, he gasped.

—Jesus, Prentice. You're white as ghost. Are you all right?

—Ohhh, he moaned from the bottom of his soul; and then began to sob.

She led him to a chaise. She sat at his side and took his hands in her own to still them from trembling.

—What is it, Prentice? What's happened?

—Evelyn. He was almost upon me.

—Who?

—Like a minion of the devil, he's haunted me. Hunted me. Waiting for the perfect moment to bring me to my end.

—Who, Prentice?

—A shadow.

—What shadow?

Silence fell around them. A silence as unvaultable as time. The silence from which all things spring, all things good and evil. With a great effort, Prentice raised his gaze and looked her in the eyes.

—The shadow of my former self.

It was a pitiful admission. A
comic
one. It had been written in the pages of Prentice's personal history to elicit guffaws. But young Evelyn, so prone to beautiful laughter, remained sober. Sympathetic. Unflinching.

—In 1936, Prentice confessed, on a crowded avenue he shoved me in front of a tram. And last New Year's Eve, he nearly succeeded in throwing me from my own balcony to the flagstones below. That is why I moved to the first floor.

—But why, Prentice?

Casting his gaze downward again, he saw that she was still holding his hands. And he could feel how her innermost temperature was transferring itself through his skin and coursing through his veins, bringing warmth to his core in the manner of a potent drink. And in this state of intoxication, the words spilled forth: how it all began, even as a boy at his grandmother's; lemon squares, with a shortbread crust and a bright yellow curd; the bacon sandwiches, so fatty and savory and divine; and later, the ingenuity of the profiterole!