Love Me (15 page)

“Olive?”

Startled, Olive lunged for her open ledger book and covered the magazine with it.

It’s so silly
, she thought, but she didn’t want any of her girls seeing her read this kind of frivolous picture trash. It might make them think their boss was just like them.

“Yes, Lucy,” she said, beckoning the bottle-blonde standing slouched in the doorway with a brisk wave of her hand. “What is it?”

“I just wanted to know if I’m working tonight. Else I thought I’d go out to the pictures. There’s that new picture with Irene
Dunne and Charles Boyer playing at the Egyptian. Mitzi saw it last night and said it was just dreamy.”

Olive flipped through her alligator-skin appointment book. “As a matter of fact, you have got a date. It’s that fellow who calls himself Mr. Peterson.”

“Oh no!” Lucy cried. “Not him. Not again.”

“I’m afraid it can’t be helped, dear. He called up and asked for you personally.”

“But his breath is always so terrible. Honestly, he smells like he swallowed a dead rat.” Lucy’s narrow shoulders shuddered. “And he gets so drunk at dinner, and then he gets
mean
.”

Olive sighed. “Try to bring him back here, then, dear. Or have him take you to the Roosevelt. The bellboys know enough to keep an eye out for you there, and you can always call Raymond at the front desk if you get into a jam.”

“Just once, I’d like to be pleasantly surprised. One of these guys calls up with a fake name and it turns out he’s Charles Boyer.” She smiled wistfully. “I bet Ginger’s met Charles Boyer, don’t you think so?”

Olive’s head snapped back up sharply. “Ginger?”

“On account of her being in the picture business now,” Lucy said. “I bet she’s met all kinds of stars.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now get dressed, and tell the maid to bring up another bottle of sherry. The decanter was barely half full. Go on.”

Nodding, the girl did as she was told. Olive leaned back in her chair and pulled the magazine back out from underneath the ledger book.

It was a good story, all right. Not a word of it was true, obviously, but she had to hand it to Larry Julius and the Olympus
press office for constructing something so deliciously sophisticated and romantic, so dizzyingly daffy—indeed, rather like the plot of a Diana Chesterfield picture. In fact, Olive wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see a Diana Chesterfield picture just like it very soon. Olympus had even fixed it so Diana wouldn’t have to go back to Dane Forrest and their sham of a romance. Olive was happy about that, at least. She knew what a strain it had been on them all those years, having to pretend. Now Dane, at least, could have some happiness.

But the woman he’d chosen to have his happiness with was going to pose a problem.

Margo Sterling
.

“I truly admire her work in her pictures very much, and I’m so pleased to have the chance to get to know her better. I’m just sure we’ll be the best of friends.”

If that wasn’t a warning shot over the bow, Olive didn’t know what was.

Instinctively, her hand flew up to the collar of her blouse, where she used to wear her gold-and-pearl pin, the one she’d parted with all those months ago.

At last, it was time.

“Oh, my little Margaret,” Olive murmured, reaching for the last of the sherry. “You’re going to need me more than ever now.”

“Oh, give me a
break
,” Margo groaned, hurling the latest issue of
Picture Palace
off the side of the bed. “I’ve never read a bigger load of garbage in all my life.”

“Margo, I can’t hear you. Come in here if you want to talk to me.”

With another groan, Margo gathered up the rumpled magazine and carried it into the bathroom, where Dane stood shaving in front of the mirror. “It’s about Diana.”

“There’s a surprise.”

“Just read it,” Margo insisted as Dane shaved. “I mean, are you kidding me? An English
duke
. And they couldn’t get married because his family didn’t approve? That doesn’t even make any sense! There’s no title higher than a duke except a royal prince, and they’re all already married. If he’s supposed to be a duke, he would have already inherited and he could marry whomever he wanted. It just doesn’t add up.”

“It doesn’t add up,” Dane said, “because it’s a lie.”

“Right, but they could at least have gotten the story straight. Made him a viscount or something. This is just so easy to disprove, it’s ridiculous.”

Dane wiped his face with a towel. “Luckily, I don’t think most of
Photoplay
’s audience is familiar with the exact pecking order of the British peerage.”

“It’s in
Picture Palace
.” Margo pouted. “And some of them will. British people.”

“Honey,” Dane sighed. “I don’t know what you’re getting so worked up about.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” He turned away from the mirror to face her. “Believe me, Larry Julius has thought this out better than you ever could. And frankly, you should be grateful to Diana for going along with it and selling it as well as she did. It’s good for her, it’s good for the studio, and most of all, it’s good for us.”

“I don’t see how.”

Dane gave her a hard look. “Please don’t do this.”

Margo looked down at the wet floor. She knew what Dane meant. By having Diana so publicly repudiate their “romance,” Larry had set it up so that Dane could hardly ever be expected to “take her back.” Their romantic lives, constantly rearranged at the whim of the studio as if they were chess pieces on a board, would remain as is for now. “She ‘can’t wait’ to get to know me better,” she muttered. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe exactly what it says,” Dane said. “She is my sister, after all. Even—maybe even especially—if we’re the only ones who know it. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that she might want to be your friend.”

“Yeah,” Margo said. “Such a friend she stepped right in and took my part.”

Dane let out a sigh. “What part?”

“In the
Madame Bovary
picture Raoul Kurtzman is doing.”

Dane frowned. “I thought they were borrowing Claudette Colbert from Paramount for that.”

“They were, but she and Zukor asked for some ridiculous salary, and I was next in the running.”
At least, I was hoping I was
.

Dane’s eyes lit up. “But they gave it to Diana?”

“You don’t seem very disappointed for me.”

“Margo.” Dane’s voice carried a note of warning. “Come on. You’re too young. It’s a perfect role for Diana, with everything she’s been through. Are they really giving it to her? Where’d you hear that, anyway?”

“Where else? From Gabby.” Scowling, Margo snatched a washcloth from the side of the tub and began to wipe up Dane’s stubbly little hairs from the lip of the sink. It was his bathroom,
but still, it drove her crazy how he just
left
them there like that. “She seems to know everything lately.”

“Anything else interesting?”

“Not really. Mostly she just goes on and on about that bandleader. Eddie Sharp. The one she sang with at the Governor’s Ball. Sounds like she’s crazy about him.”

Dane snorted. “That’ll end well.”

“I don’t know,” Margo said. “It sounds different this time. Like he really respects her … I don’t know … her
talent
. She thinks he’s going to offer her a contract to record with him.” She picked up Dane’s comb, still oily with Brylcreem, from the ledge in front of the mirror and ran her fingers absently over the teeth. “What do you suppose that’s like?”

“To be respected for one’s talent?”

“No, to be under contract to just one person like that. Like Paulette Goddard was with Charlie Chaplin. Or all those girls who sign with Howard Hughes.”

Dane rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s rather stifling. Like a kind of marriage.”

“And what’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“Margo, please. I don’t have time for this. I’m due on set in an hour. The car will be here any minute, and I haven’t even gone over my lines yet. Look.” His tone softened as he reached for her hand. “Why don’t you get dressed and ride along? You haven’t been to the studio in weeks. You can drop in on Raoul Kurtzman, maybe a couple of the writers. Have lunch with Gabby.” He grinned. “Hell, maybe you’ll bump into Jimmy Molloy and figure out some way to try to make me jealous. That always cheers you up.”

Dane meant well, Margo knew, but there was such self-satisfaction in his tone, such condescending, knowing
smugness
, that she couldn’t stem the swell of anger bubbling up inside her, any more than a kettle on the stove could keep from boiling over. “And who are you planning to make me jealous with? Some extra behind the backdrop? Or should I be prepared for a cozy photo op with darling sister herself?”

“Stop it.” Dane seized her by the shoulders, his face dark as a thundercloud. “That is enough. I swear, Margo, say one more word about Diana, just one, and I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Margo shouted.

The doorbell rang before he could answer her. Dane had it rigged to sound through the telephone in every room of the house. Now it echoed through the walls of the bedroom, high and shrill as an ambulance siren, seeming to echo the alarm Margo felt.

“Goddammit,” Dane muttered, releasing her. “George! Answer the door!
George!
”

“He’s probably in the guesthouse, listening to the radio and drinking Coca-Cola,” Margo said bitterly. “That’s all he ever does these days.”

Pushing her aside, snatching his shirt from the back of the chair, Dane rushed toward the front door.

With a stab of real fear, Margo followed close on his heels. She couldn’t let him leave like this. Not after a fight. Not when he was off to a studio full of girls. Bored dancing girls parading around in no more than a few scraps of net and a couple of spangles; ambitious chorus girls who would do anything to see their name in the papers; vulnerable, starstruck girls who
would trail him around like a puppy for so much as a friendly word. Girls not so very different from how Margo had been when Dane had first laid eyes on her, slouched on the bench outside soundstage 14 and weeping as though her heart would break.

Never mind the fight
, Margo thought suddenly.
I may never let him go to the studio without me ever again
.

“Dane, wait,” she pleaded helplessly as he opened the door. “I’m sorry. Darling, I’m so sorry. I want to come with you, I do. Tell Arthur to wait just a minute and I’ll get dressed right away.”

Only it wasn’t Arthur standing on the front porch, chauffeur’s cap in hand.

It was Larry Julius. Dane and Margo gasped in unison, as cleanly as if they’d been cued.

“Hello, Dane.” Larry smiled pleasantly, his ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips. If he was at all surprised by the state they were in—Dane’s disheveled hair and unbuttoned shirt, the freshly tearstained Margo in her lace peignoir with nothing underneath—he certainly didn’t look it. “And darling Margo. Well, well. How convenient to find you here. Two birds with one stone.”

“Larry.” Dane found his voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Studio business, what else?” Larry said cheerfully. “I’ve got orders to bring you both straight to Mr. Karp.”

Dane and Margo exchanged a look, instantly back on the same side. As Gabby Preston always said, at Olympus, there were only two reasons for a summons from Mr. Karp: Oscar or firing squad.

And the Oscars were over.

“Can’t … can’t it wait?” Margo squeaked.

“Do you think I’d have schlepped all the way out to Malibu if it could? And wipe that look off your face, duchess,” he added. “It’s not like I’m the Gestapo. From what I understand, the Gestapo gives you five minutes to get dressed and come quietly.” Larry grinned. “I’ll give you three.”

G
abby Preston’s heart was pounding, and for once, it wasn’t the pills.

It had been like this ever since the crashing ovation that had greeted her after her performance at the Governor’s Ball had lifted her higher than any pill ever had. A steady thrum, a quick succession of triplets, like a waltz you were dancing too fast. Only instead of its usual panicky reproach—“go faster” or “not enough”—it beat out a new and infinitely more delicious phrase:

Eddie Sharp. Eddie Sharp
.

Barely a day had passed since their mutual onstage triumph before a huge pink stuffed cat had appeared on the front porch of the house on Fountain Avenue, with a note attached to the ribbon collar around its neck. Viola had automatically reached for it, but Gabby had jealously snatched the note out of her
mother’s reach and carefully read it herself, her lips moving silently, patiently sounding out the words until she was sure she’d gotten them right:
Hey, Kitty Cat: Here’s hoping we make more beautiful music together soon. Eddie
.

Truth be told, Gabby might have preferred a more grown-up gift, like jewelry or perfume, but she was hardly going to complain. In all their weeks—months?—of fake dates, that cheapskate Jimmy Molloy had never given her anything the studio hadn’t picked out and paid for, and she knew it had been the same when he was fake-dating Margo. And yes, maybe it would have been a teensy-tiny bit more flattering if he’d written
Love, Eddie
or
Yours, Eddie
or even “Anything”
Eddie
, but what did it matter? Boys probably didn’t think about things like that anyway.