Love Me (23 page)

Now she just felt nothing.

Maybe it was the stress of the wedding. It had all happened so fast, and from the proposal on, nothing had been at all the way she had imagined it would be. Despite their differences, no matter what had happened between them, she had always expected her mother to be by her side as she puzzled over all the delicious little decisions she had always daydreamed about making: the pink flowers versus the white, the lamb chops versus the lobster. Whatever maternal failings Helen Frobisher might have had, you could count on her knowing precisely the way things ought to be done. She’d have known just how to handle Diana Chesterfield that afternoon at the bridal shop, matched her icy stare for icy stare, withering put-down for withering put-down. “Wallis Simpson?” her mother would have thundered. “Do you really propose to appear at my daughter’s wedding in the raiment of a known adulteress?”
And a knockoff, at that
. Poor Florence Pendergast would have melted in a puddle on the floor. Gabby and Amanda would have been lucky to escape with their lives.

So absorbed was Margo in imagining this amusing scene that she hardly noticed Perdita Pendleton, the most senior and consequently the most feared gossip columnist in town, sweep down upon her table. She wore a vivid orange turban with a single dyed feather affixed to the front, making her look like a particularly frivolous bird of prey.

“If it isn’t the gorgeous Margo Sterling!” she exclaimed.
“Hollywood’s favorite blushing bride.” Perdita spoke as she wrote, in captions.

“Perdita,” Margo said. “Hello.”

“Don’t tell me I just saw the divine Dane dash out on you? Not a lovers’ quarrel, I hope?” Her beady eyes glittered in anticipation of a scoop.

“Not at all,” Margo cooed. “He simply had to run. He’s playing cards with Clark Gable tonight at the Clover Club.”

“Without you? The beast.”

“Not really. I’m relieved, honestly.” Margo tried to laugh gaily. “You know what those boys can get up to.”

“I certainly do.” Perdita nodded sagely. “Well, I’m here dining with Gary Cooper. William Powell is supposed to meet us. Still licking his wounds over the Gable-Lombard union, poor thing.” Her lipsticked mouth stretched in the customary wide smile that somehow never seemed to reach her eyes. “You’re welcome to join us.”

“That’s ever so sweet of you,” Margo said, “but I’ve just finished, and anyway, I really must go.”

“Of course. You need your beauty sleep, after all. Have a good night, dear. We’re all looking forward to next week. Imagine, a real Pasadena society girl marrying one of our gypsy breed.” The smile widened into a grimace. “Your lovely parents must be so proud.”

“They are,” Margo said firmly. “Bursting.”

The white stretch limo was idling by the curb, waiting for her.
Say what you will about stardom
, Margo thought, sliding across the rich leather seat as the uniformed chauffeur closed the door smartly behind her,
it certainly does have its perks
.

“Going back to the studio, Miss Sterling?” the driver asked.

“Actually, no,” Margo replied. Her heart was pounding from the thought of what she was about to do. “I need you to take me to Pasadena.”

In the rearview mirror, she could see his eyes go big with surprise. “Pasadena, miss?”

“Yes. Forty-Six Twenty-One Orange Grove Boulevard. Just go east and I’ll show the way.”

“Very good, miss.”

God, she was nervous. She had to have something to help her calm down or she was going to be sick. If only she’d ordered a Scotch of her own before she left. “You’re new, aren’t you?” she called out to the driver, her voice trembling slightly. “What’s your name?”

“Saunders, Miss. And yes, just started driving for the studio about a week ago.”

Saunders
. Margo smiled to herself.
Leave it to Dane to snag a proper English chauffeur for himself
. “Did Mr. Forrest leave anything to drink in the car, Saunders?”

“Try the bar, miss. He likes to keep it stocked.”

“The bar?”

“Under the divider, by the floor. It’s a hidden panel.”

Margo ran her hands over the highly polished wooden panel in front of her. The baseboard sprang open at her touch, revealing a neat row of cut-crystal decanters filled with liquids of varying shades of brown. She picked up the one that looked like brandy, poured a generous amount into a heavy tumbler etched with the Olympus logo, the thunderbolt encircled by a wreath of laurel leaves, and took a steadying sip.

“Find it all right, Miss Sterling?” Saunders called.

“Yes, thank you. It’s quite cleverly hidden, isn’t it?”

“This is an old car, miss. Mr. Julius had it fitted with the bar back during Prohibition. Designed it himself.”

Of course he did
, Margo thought.
Nobody can hide something better than Larry
. “Well, he did an awfully good job. I never would’ve guessed it was there if you hadn’t told me.”

“Apparently—or so Mr. Forrest tells me—there used to be a special button to press that could dump the whole thing out onto the road at a moment’s notice, decanters and all. But that’s since been removed, of course.”

“Yes, I can see how that would be impractical.”

Margo drank the rest of her brandy in one gulp and reached forward to pour herself another very small one. She was beginning to feel better. Settling back in her seat, she peered out the tinted windows at the familiar landscape. The lights of Hollywood receded as the limo began the slow climb into the hills. Margo had made this trip only once since she’d first come to Hollywood for good, and yet it felt so familiar, so inescapable, the way the first day back at school used to feel.

Like the summer never happened
, Margo thought.
Like you’d never been gone at all
.

They were beginning to make their way downhill again, back toward a world of green lawns and palm trees.
It looks so much like Beverly Hills
, Margo thought, yet the two towns might as well be separated by an ocean, for all the people had in common. “Stay left,” she told Saunders. “This road will turn into Orange Grove, and then you just keep going straight.”

“Yes, miss.”

It was too dark to see past the tinted glass now. Margo rolled down the window to watch the familiar houses. The
Pierreponts’ sedate redbrick colonial. The big California Tudor where Timmy Mulvaney, the little boy she used to babysit, lived. The Winthrops’ Spanish-style mansion with the red tile roof, where she and Doris used to creep out on clear nights to look at the stars.

Doris
. Margo felt a little pang in her heart at the thought of her former friend. Whenever she’d fantasized about planning her wedding with her mother, in her heart of hearts she’d always imagined that Doris would be there too. Doris, her maid of honor, the sister Margo, a lonesome only child, had never had.

But Doris and all the others were gone now. Margo Sterling had never met them. They were just a bunch of people Margaret Frobisher used to know.

Saunders pulled up at the curb of a large white house half hidden by a pair of wildly flowering jacaranda trees. “Is this it, miss?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like me to wait outside?”

“Actually, would you mind terribly circling around for a bit?” A white stretch limo was terribly conspicuous. She didn’t want to run the risk of anyone noticing it out front.

“Very good, miss.”

Margo climbed out of the car. The night air was chilly for April. The fresh outdoor scent she had always associated with her childhood, of orange blossom and freesia and something else, something indefinable and grassy, flooded her nose. Anxiously, she looked at the walkway to the house, wondering what to do next. Should she walk straight up to the front door and knock?

Better not
, she thought. Her father had a tendency to answer the door himself on his nights in, and she couldn’t handle him slamming it in her face.

Slipping out of her shoes, she crept silently around the side of the house, ducking behind the hedges and flowering trees to be sure she was out of sight. When she was safely at the back of the house, she rapped on the kitchen door, tentatively at first, then louder, until she rattled the blinds that hung down over the panes of latticed glass.

“All right, all right,” a familiar voice called. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

“Emmeline,” Margo whispered, holding her arms out tentatively, half to protect herself, half longing for an embrace.

“Miss Margaret.” The housekeeper had turned white as a sheet. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you.” Margo gulped, blinking back tears. The mere fact of Emmeline’s presence, the sight of the broad face, the strong hands that she had watched so many times iron dresses and pull cakes from the oven and wipe away tears, was almost too much for her to bear. “And I need to talk to my parents.”

“I’m afraid they’re out tonight, Miss Margaret. At Mr. and Mrs. McKendricks’ house—Miss Gamble, what was. They’re having some supper party, on account of their housewarming.”

“Oh. I see.”

A gust of wind blew through the yard. Margo, who had left the Polo Lounge in too much of a hurry to claim her coat, shivered.

“It’s freezing,” Emmeline said. “Hurry, hurry. You’d best come in before you catch your death of cold.”

The kitchen was the same as ever—same black and white linoleum tiles forming a checkerboard pattern on the floor; same collection of heavy copper-bottomed pots hanging above the oven, as though waiting for a single blow to send them clanging—yet Margo found that her eye was drawn to the tiny things that had changed since the last time she’d seen it: Geraniums sticking out of the blue willow pitcher instead of hydrangeas. The yellow dish towels swapped out for white. The remains of a chicken on a serving tray instead of the bones from a roast. She blinked several times, as though her eyes were the lens of a camera, capturing a memory.

“You want a glass of milk?” Emmeline asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

“No, thank you. But I’d take a cup of coffee if you have some on.”

“When do I not?”

Emmeline had bustled over to the stove, flicking switches, fetching cups, filling jugs with milk and sugar with impossible speed. In less than a minute she managed to get the whole mess, along with a plate of freshly baked shortbread rounds, onto a wooden tray. Margo watched her with the same fascination she held for unusually adept dancers who could learn a whole routine after watching it once. It was wonderful to watch someone at the top of their game, and Emmeline was no less a master of her domain than they were.
How did I never notice it before? Why did I always take her for granted?

“Thank you.” Margo picked up the warm cup.

“Can I get you anything else? I’ve got one of my special lemon meringue pies in the icebox.”

Emmeline’s lemon meringue pie
. It had been one of Margaret
Frobisher’s favorite things in the world, the surefire remedy for any hurt. It was under a plated slice of lemon meringue pie that Emmeline had secreted Larry Julius’s salvaged business card, after Mrs. Frobisher had ripped it to pieces in a rage.
The business card that changed my life
, Margo thought.
All this is because of Emmeline
.

“I’d better not,” she whispered, her voice choked with the threat of tears.

“Just as well,” Emmeline said. A sharp note had crept into her already anxious voice. “I’m afraid you can’t stay long, anyway. They could be back any minute.”

Margo barked a short laugh. “Oh, please. Mother’s finally invited to one of Evelyn Gamble’s parties and she comes home early? I don’t think so.”

Emmeline shook her head, pushing a gray curl back over her forehead with a roughened hand. “With the way your father has been lately, who knows?”

The coffee cup seemed to jump in Margo’s hand. “He’s not been ill, has he?”

“Just some stomach misery when he eats rich food and drinks too much. It’s nothing serious, Miss Margaret,” Emmeline said in a voice that was thoroughly unconvincing. “Nothing to worry yourself about.”

They’re not getting any younger
, Margo thought.
They aren’t going to be around forever
. This knowledge, which at various points in her life might have seemed like a kind of relief, hardened her resolve about what she’d come to do. “Emmeline,” she began, setting down her coffee cup firmly, “I have something to tell you.”

“That you’re getting married?” Emmeline was suddenly very
busy pouring coffee into her own cup and stirring with a small tin spoon.

“You knew?”

“She won’t allow picture magazines and the like in the house, but I look at them sometimes while I’m waiting on line at the drugstore. So I’ve seen a headline here and there. I’ve got to keep an eye on my Margaret, you see.” She glanced up from her coffee, looking almost shy. “I guess that’s the ring.”

“Yes.” Margo held out her left hand for the housekeeper to see.

“Well,” Emmeline said, giving the glittering diamond a little tap with her callused thumb. “Isn’t that something. May it bring you real happiness, baby.”

“Thank you.” Margo was feeling bolder now. “They were supposed to send an invitation here.”

“Oh?” Emmeline was busy with her coffee again.

“Yes,” Margo said firmly. “I gave them the address myself. We haven’t heard anything back.”

“I can’t speak to that. Your mother handles her own correspondence.”

“Emmeline, please.” Margo grabbed the housekeeper’s hand and squeezed it roughly. The cold, heavy band of her engagement ring dug painfully into her finger. “Did it arrive? Did she see it?”

Emmeline sighed, pulling her hand away. “I put it on the tray with all the other mail, just like I always do, and brought it to her in the morning room. When I came to take the tray away again, it was still there.”

“It was.”

“Yes, miss. All the other post was gone except that one envelope. She just left it sitting there, all alone.”

“She didn’t even open it?”

Emmeline busily began to tidy up the coffee things, her answer implied by her silence.

“She didn’t,” Margo said dumbly, shaking her head. “She didn’t open the invitation to my wedding.” She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.