Eve in Hollywood (7 page)

How did it come to this? Marcus found himself wondering. As a young attorney, he spent a day in court for every day behind his desk. From season to season, in the upper gallery the fans would be waved or the sneezes stifled as he rose deliberately from his chair and walked toward the jury box to face the twelve of his fellow men who had been summoned to sit in judgment—each one fashioned in the Lord's image, yet no two alike. It was for that very moment that he had become a lawyer: that moment when the citizenry, intent on voicing its innermost concerns and meting out the full measure of its vengeance or mercy, was still prepared to listen.

And yet, Marcus had not entered a courtroom in more than three years.

In fact, half the very documents that were stacked upon his desk had been drafted to
avert
an appearance in court: stays; requests for summary judgment; terms of settlement. On top of the stack that Miss Ross was straightening at that very moment was a motion to dismiss—which had presumably begun its journey as a tree. Solitary and majestic, that tree had provided shade to some little patch of America: in a churchyard, perhaps, or a pasture, or along a bend in the river where Whistling Billy McGuire had cast his line. And then, after half a century of providing relief from the sun so reliably, this tree had been unceremoniously felled—so that a middle-aged man without a wife or children sitting in an office a thousand miles away could string his carefully qualified arguments together end-to-end.

Through words and clauses.

Paragraphs and pages.

Quires.

Reams.

Bales.

In just three years, Marcus must have caused the clearing of ten thousand acres of virgin growth—single handedly stripping the likes of the Ozarks as bare as might five generations of shipbuilders.

How it would have confounded his father to see it—his father, who for more than thirty-eight years served four hundred families six days a week, providing all manner of seed and feedstock by the pound and the bushel and the peck, and who left behind an unlocked iron box with a marriage license, a birth certificate, a balanced bank account, a cancelled mortgage, two pages of outstanding receipts, and a handwritten last will and testament—for a grand total of ten pieces of paper.

A ray of sunlight graced the paper-laden desk. Marcus followed its diagonal trajectory back though the louvered shades, out into the dusk of the whippoorwill's call, beyond Buildings Five and Six, beyond Stages Ten, Eleven, and Twelve to the farthest reaches of the lot where that well-stocked tributary of the Mississippi River flowed without effort or interruption.

Miss Ross politely cleared her throat.

She had resumed her place in her chair and was smiling. It wasn't a smug smile or a cruel one. It was knowing and sympathetic. It was the way his grandmother used to smile whenever he placed her gin card on top of the discard pile.

—Now, where were we . . . ? Marcus ventured a little half-heartedly.

—I believe we were talking about favors and jobs.

—Yes. So we were, Miss Ross. So we were. And what exactly did you have in mind . . .?

—I didn't have anything in mind, Mr. Benton. But as long as you're asking, I suppose I should take some time to think about it.

She stood and proffered her hand.

—It was a pleasure meeting you, she said and she seemed like she meant it.

Then she walked to the bookcase to collect her things. But as she was reaching for her hat, she paused to study the head of Caesar. She picked it up and tossed it lightly in one hand. She looked back at Marcus with the same knowing and sympathetic smile. She didn't say anything, but she didn't need to. For the question was implicit: How much does
this
weigh, Mr. Benton?

She returned the bust to its place with unnecessary care and picked up the rod and hat.

—Mr. Selznick on the line for you, said the electronic voice.

Miss Ross joined Marcus in looking at the intercom. Then rather than heading for the door, she came back toward him. She leaned the rod against his desk and dropped the hat on top of his motion to dismiss.

—I think you need these more than I do, she said.

And when she walked out, she didn't yank the door shut behind her. She closed it softly enough that Marcus's jacket swung at the pace of a pendulum.

A
S FAR AS
E
VE
was concerned, Chester's should have ushered in a brand-new era of city planning. Plunked on a small paved lot on the corner of Pico and Sepulveda, Chester's was a coffee shop in the shape of a giant coffee pot—complete with a ribbon of steam that twisted from its spout twenty four hours a day. Other than a bench bolted to the ground by the Sepulveda curb, there was no place to sit, and there was nothing for sale other than a twelve ounce cup of coffee brewed in cream. As the sign over the cash register made clear, the three ways you could get your coffee at Chester's were sweetened, unsweetened, and somewhere else.

A chatty panhandler once reported to Eve that Chester had come to California as a prospector in the 1880s. This was malarkey, of course, but Eve liked to believe there was some truth to the tale. She could just picture the old goat sitting by his campfire on the banks of a crooked crick, tinkering with the roasting of his beans, the granularity of his grind, the rapidity of his boil—until his brew was without flaw. So when he finally hit pay dirt, rather than recline in a claw-footed tub, he bought this corner, built this pot, and set about doing the only thing the Good Lord had ever intended him to do.

And what the Good Lord intended for others was their own goddamn business.

•

S
URE, AT FIRST GLANCE
Chester's style of commerce seemed a little crackers—Eve would give you that. But all you had to do was spend three bucks in an Automat to see that he was onto something. Because when all was said and done, no slinger of hash was going to master the subtleties of a lemon meringue pie
and
a tuna fish sandwich.

But on the corner of Pico and Sepulveda? There was no hint of the half-assed. Not in Chester's paper cup. With its caramel color and smoky aroma, his coffee was incontestably good. Indisputably good. Unassailably, incontrovertibly, indismissably good.

Come to think of it—you could make a similar claim about the donuts at that donut shop in the shape of a donut over on La Cienega!

In fact, if the Mayor of Los Angeles had any sense, he would immediately establish a new ordinance requiring that every purveyor in the city limits sell no more than one item and that he sell it from a shop in the shape of his merchandise. Like orange juice from a great orange orb, or whiskey from a bottle as tall as the Eiffel Tower. With that simple reform in place, thousands of Chesters from across the country would hear the call. They'd pull up stakes, load their wagons, and head west to this city, which not only approved of but applauded their cranky, intolerant artistry.

—One, please, Eve said to the girl in the window. Unsweetened.

—That'll be ten cents.

—Keep the change.

With coffee in hand and a few minutes to spare, Eve crossed the lot to take up residence on the solitary bench by the curb.

Whenever Eve came to Chester's in the morning or early afternoon, the bench was empty—like those benches you'd see out on the Hoosier highways, covered in dust and dreaming of Greyhound buses. But whenever she came at 5:30 p.m., rain or shine Chester's bench was occupied by a silver-haired banker in a Brooks Brothers suit. Seeing the old banker there on the corner of Pico and Sepulveda had always struck Eve as a little incongruous, even mystifying. But the minute she sat down, she could see why after a hard day's work he chose to come to this spot for one last cup of coffee before heading home: It was a privileged position from which to witness the motley splendor of the commonwealth. For as narrow as the menu was at Chester's, the clientele was just as broad.

Why, at that very moment, a pair of sleeveless Oklahomans fresh off an oil rig were sipping their coffees beside a posse of Mexicali grape pickers. And chatting up the girl at the window was a matinee idol-in-the-making even as the storefront preacher in the secondhand suit standing right behind him waited to place his order with the patience of Job. Denizens and drifters. The fabulous and the fallen. It simply livened the spirits to see so many different kinds of people dedicating a few unspoken-for minutes to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Eve leaned back against the bench and took a sip of her coffee thinking that she was certainly going to miss Chester's when she left L.A. And just as her thoughts were shifting to trunks and tickets and the other practicalities of intercontinental travel, as if on cue a dusty black Ford with a stack of luggage strapped to its roof pulled into a parking space a few feet away. Eve watched with interest as the doors flung open and a roly-poly pair of pensioners emerged. Before he could even stretch his back, the husband put his hands on his hips and took in the giant coffee pot from its wide blue base to the tippity top where its wisp of steam trailed toward the heavens unceasingly.

—Now, I've seen everything, he said.

Eve took another sip of her coffee and smiled at sudden thoughts of her great Aunt Polly. Clad in black from head to toe, her needlepoint never far from reach, proper Aunt Polly from Bloomington, Indiana, also liked to let people know when she had seen everything. What was it about that phrase, mused Eve, that made it so popular with those who had no business using it?

•

I
T WAS IN THE
Fire-cracking month of July that Aunt Polly and Uncle Jake would pay their yearly visit. And while they stayed, no matter how hellacious the heat, afternoon tea would be served in the sitting room without fail. For Aunt Polly loved afternoon tea as much as she loved Jesus Christ—and it was through constancy that she intended to prove her devotion to both. So, the day before Aunt Polly arrived, Eve's mother would take the fine china from the back of the closet (where it belonged), so that Maisy could sweep the dead flies from the cups. And every afternoon at 2:00, the ladies would convene around the teapot as Eve and her sister were shooed out the kitchen door.

At least until 1928, when Evelyn turned fifteen.

That fateful summer, Aunt Polly announced that henceforth the privilege of tea would be hers. (Naturally, this privilege came with a floral dress, barrettes, and the manners befitting a lady.) Since Alice was only twelve, she was allowed to wear pigtails and overalls and stick out her tongue as she zipped out the door in search of bullfrogs and the rest of her kin. While Evelyn, hands on her knees, was left to return the stare of the grandfather clock.

Aunt Polly recognized the infallibility of her Deity in all respects but one: He had made summer days too long. So to complete the perfection of His plan, Aunt Polly was intent upon fending off their influence.

How does one fend off the influence of a summer day? You start by serving tea at two in the afternoon. Then, having thanked the Good Lord for His bounty and passed the biscuits, you talk about relatives long since dead. You make sure to dredge up some story that you've dredged up before (having come to the comforting conclusion that the world will welcome as many dredgings as you can muster.) And when the chitchat flags, rather than adjourn like hummingbirds into the waning wonder of the vernal afternoon, you pick up a magazine.

For Aunt Polly, this was preferably a
Saturday Evening Post
that she had read before. Turning through the pages, she would occasionally stop at a photograph—say, of a short-haired Amelia Earhart preparing to cross the Atlantic by plane—in order to remark with a mix of indignation, wisdom, and finality:

—Now, I've seen everything.

•

F
OR GREAT
U
NCLE
J
AKE
(a harmless old broker of crop insurance who once shook the hand of Herbert Hoover) the headshaking phrase of choice was
If I had a nickel fer
. As in,
If I had nickel fer every time the papers called for rain
.

So enamored with this phrase was Uncle Jake that an
If I had a nickel fer
might well be the only sentence he uttered over the course of a family meal. Which was all the more striking when you considered that his solitary statement would linger forever unfinished.

For, whatever the recurring circumstance that was to conclude in this unprecedented rain of nickels upon Uncle Jake's head, he just couldn't seem to pin down
how
he'd put his windfall to use: Invest in a new pair of suspenders? Spring for a night on the town? Make a solo flight across the Atlantic, or as far from Aunt Polly as earthly geography would allow? Who could say?

Maybe Herbert Hoover, but not Uncle Jake.

One Sunday supper (after an exceptionally languorous tea), when Uncle Jake happened to observe:
If I had a nickel fer every time I heard Roozyvelt on the radio
, Eve simply couldn't stand it. She couldn't abide it. Not in good Christian conscience.

—What, Uncle Jake? she implored (after dropping her knife and fork on her plate). What is it exactly that you would do, once you had all those goddamn nickels?

Alice opened wide the translucent lids of her amphibian eyes.

—Young lady! said Evelyn's mother, her face as pink as her ham.

And Evelyn's father? He simply looked forlorn.

So, in order to spare him the discomfort of administering a reprimand, Evelyn pushed back her chair and sent herself to her room. But as she climbed the stairs, she smiled to hear Aunt Polly declaim:

—Well, I never!

Now
that
, thought Evelyn, was an expression that Aunt Polly had every reason to make use of.

•

A
S
E
VE FINISHED HER
Coffee, a dark green Packard pulled to the curb and its chauffeur leapt from the driver seat in order to open the passenger door.

—Sorry, Miss Ross, he said. I had to go to three newsstands to find it!

—No problem, Billy. Thanks for running it down.

Once in the car, Billy handed the latest issue of
Gotham
into the back, and Eve made herself comfortable. The lead story was an exposé on the knuckleheads who'd vied to build the tallest skyscraper in the world. The drawing on the cover showed the Empire State Building in a boxing ring with its gloves in the air as the Chrysler Building lay flat on its back—and Sigmund Freud looked on from a ringside seat.

Eve laughed out loud.

That image had Katey's fingerprints all over it!

As Eve turned through advertisements in search of the cover story, Billy gave three quick glances into the rearview mirror.

—Are you headed back soon, Miss Ross?

—What's that, Billy?

—I was just wondering if you're headed back to New York?

—Oh, I'm not much for heading back, Billy.

He gave what looked like a nod of understanding and then he stole another few glances in the mirror, apparently in the mood to converse.

Eve closed her magazine.

—How about you, Billy? How are things down at the Corral?

He pulled himself up by the wheel.

—Jim-dandy, Miss Ross. You know that niche I was telling you about?

—Sure, Billy. I remember.

—Well, I think I found it!

A sandy-haired kid with no idea of how good-looking he was bound to become, Billy was one in a million. The real McCoy. Having herded cattle with his pa back in West Texas, he had come to L.A. at the age of fifteen with a small-time rodeo and then stumbled into pictures when demand was on the rise for men who could fall off of horses. He was just getting his start, you understand (as he was the first to tell you), but he had already charged with the cavalry across a river, over a hill, and through a canyon on the way to the Alamo
and
the Battle of Bull Run.

An old-timer named Skilly Skillman had apparently taken Billy under his wing. He's the one who had advised Billy that he needed a niche. Something that would set him apart and get him front and center—right in the crosshairs of the camera. Skillman's route to the close-up had been through the saloon window. Sure, he could tumble down the stairs or get clocked on the noggin with the rest of them. But when it came to being thrown through a window, no one was his equal. He was the undisputed king of defenestrations.

Eve could hardly wait to hear what Billy's route was going to be . . .

—For me, he explained, it's gonna be the heel-hooker.

—The heel-hooker?

Billy nodded with enthusiasm as he veered around a cab.

—That's when you're ridin' at full gallop . . . And you get an arrow in the chest, see . . . And instead of fallin' clear of your horse, the heel of your boot gets hooked in the stirrup . . .

Billy passed his right hand slowly in front of the windshield, as if he could see his body being dragged through the dust toward the setting sun.

Heck. Eve could practically see it too.

—You can't beat a man who's found his niche, Eve admitted with a smile.

—No ma'am, said Billy. I suspect you can't.

Then he gave the rearview mirror a few more glances like he'd just had a notion.

—You know what, Miss Ross? Why don't you come down to the Corral? Then you can see it for yourself!

Now it was Eve who was sitting up.

—That's a hell of an idea, Billy. Why don't you hand me the book.

Billy leaned to his right, took the pad from the glove compartment, and passed it into the back.

Eve turned to the fourth page—the one which was titled
SIGHTS TO SEE BEFORE I LEAVE L.A.
Surveying the list from top to bottom and the little green checks that marked her progress, Eve felt a great sense of satisfaction—which, come to think of it, was pretty hilarious when you considered the aversions of her youth.

Eve couldn't pinpoint when her suspicion of lists began, but it must have been early. Maybe as early as seven or eight . . . In the basement of St. Mary's . . . where she and the rest of the second graders memorized the Ten Commandments in Latin as their parents dozed to Father O'Connor upstairs.

Soon after that came the Twelve Apostles—with the Thirty Presidents close on their heels. The Seven Deadly Sins. The Five Hundred Rules of Grammar. And that list of all lists: the forever unfurling one that Ol' Saint Nick used to separate the naughty from the nice.