Love Me (29 page)

“What?” Margo asked mystified.

“All that dance rehearsal,” Gabby said knowingly. “It makes things … you know, stretch down there.”

“
Oh
. I see.”

“Maybe you should have tried it,” Gabby said cheerfully. “But I guess it’s too late now.”

“Too late?”

“Well, did you bleed an awful lot your first time with Dane? I mean, I’m
assuming
it was with Dane.”

“Oh.” Margo said again, paying very close attention to the complicated curlicues she was tracing on the bedspread with her finger. “I guess I … I don’t remember.”

“Don’t remember?” Gabby cried. “How is that possible? The whole thing was pretty damn memorable, if you ask me. Unless you were really, really drunk. Or …” Suddenly, she clapped her hands over her mouth.

“Or what?”

“Oh my God.
Oh my God
. You haven’t, have you?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t done it yet.” Gabby’s eyes, always as wide as saucers, seemed to have grown to the size of dinner plates. “You and Dane haven’t done it. You’re still a virgin.”

“No!” Margo exclaimed. “We have! Only … I mean … we just …”

Gabby leaned forward. “You just
what
?”

If it was possible to die of embarrassment, I’d be dead already
, Margo reasoned, although she took significantly less comfort than one might have expected from this demonstrably true fact. “We
did
. At least, I think we did. Sort of. But it didn’t … it didn’t go very well.”

That was all it took. If there was one thing Margo knew about Gabby Preston, it was that she took to the scent of trouble like a bloodhound on a trail. “What does that mean? Can’t Dane …”

“No, no, Dane is just fine in that … in that department.” Margo sighed. Did she really want to talk about this with Gabby? Did it matter? The door was open, and Gabby was going to charge through it whether she invited her in or not. “It’s just … well, we tried one time, and it was just so hard, and it hurt so much … I guess I’ve just been too scared to do it again.”

“Margo,”
Gabby said urgently, grabbing her arms. “You
have
to.”

“I know.” Margo looked back down at the bedspread, tracing her initials with her index finger.
M.F.:
Margaret Frobisher, her real name. She wiped them away as though the flat of her hand were a chalkboard eraser. “I know. But it’s just … well, I didn’t think it would be like that. That it would hurt that much. I mean, I don’t know if it even really happened. If I’m still a virgin or not. Dane says …”

“What does Dane say?”

“Never mind.” Margo colored. “It’s just … I didn’t think it was supposed to be like that, Gabby. What if there … what if there’s something
wrong
with me?”

“You’re going to go to Dr. Lipkin first thing in the morning,” Gabby said firmly, “and you’re going to have an examination. You’re getting married, so it doesn’t matter what he tells Karp. He’ll take care of whatever it is. He can give you pills for the pain, muscle relaxants, whatever, so you won’t feel a thing. Or sometimes …” She bit her lip. “Sometimes they can do sort of a little surgery, I guess. Right there, right in the office. There was this girl, Thelma, who had a tap act back when I was playing the Chicago Theater. She was awful young, maybe sixteen, seventeen, and she was going out with this wiseguy, one of those old bootlegger types. Well, it turned out she had kinda the same problem you have, I guess, and believe me, those Sicilian guys from the Outfit aren’t inclined to be quite as understanding as someone like Dane Forrest. So she went to this doctor on the South Side, and he did a little bit of something in his office, I don’t know what, and voila! The next time I saw her she was
wearing a silver fox, and she said the whole thing took fifteen minutes and hurt about as much as a paper cut.”

“Really? And what happened to her?”

“Oh, last I heard she wound up dead,” Gabby said airily. “Two bullets through the head in a car trunk. But that’s what happens when you get mixed up with guys like that; it’s nothing you have to worry about, Margo. The point is, you have to get this taken care of, and quick. Otherwise, Dane is going to start looking for comfort elsewhere, if he hasn’t already.”

“Dane is just fine,” Margo said hotly. “There’s plenty of things you can do that aren’t … that aren’t
that
.”

“But it all comes down to that, doesn’t it?” Gabby asked. She sounded almost sad. “You’ve got to be realistic. You can barely expect a man like Dane to be faithful as it is. Don’t look at me like that, you know it’s true. What’s he filming now, some Western?” Margo nodded. “Well, no matter how much he loves you—and I’m not saying he doesn’t—every morning when he gets onto the set there’s about a hundred gorgeous dames in saloon girl outfits who would give their eyeteeth to lure him behind a piece of scenery for a coupla sweaty minutes. And that’s just the extras. When it comes to the leading ladies, that’s a whole other ball of wax. You can’t be in every picture with him. And the thing about pretending to be madly in love with someone five days a week, eight hours a day is that it can start to feel awfully close to the real deal.”

And I know that better than anyone
. Margo shivered, remembering her first screen test, when Dane’s unexpected appearance had saved her from certain disaster as surely as if he’d ridden in on a white horse. The corny love scene they’d played had felt so real, the trite dialogue so imbued with genuine emotion,
that it had cast a spell over her that lingered to this day. It was the moment Dane had gone from an untouchable idol with his picture hanging on her wall to a real living, breathing man she knew she had to have.
I can’t lose him
, she thought.
Not now
. “So what do you think I should do?”

“I just
told
you,” Gabby said. “Get it worked out.” She shook her head from side to side, her dark ringlets bobbing prettily against her flushed cheeks. “I have to tell you, Margie, I’m still kind of in shock. I mean, everyone knows you’d been practically
living
together till the studio put the kibosh on it. I figured you must have been doing it all over the place.”

“Gabby.” There was something eating away at Margo, something she had to know. “If I ask you something, will you promise to tell me the absolute truth?”

“Sure. If I can.”

I guess that has to be good enough
. Margo steeled herself with a deep breath. “Was there anything to that gossip item about Dane and Amanda? Do you honestly think there’s anything between them?”

Gabby leaned back against one of the shell-shaped pillows, looking thoughtful. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t think there is. They’re old friends, I know that. And Amanda’s never said anything to me, but I can’t promise there isn’t some history there. Two people who look like they do, how can there not be? But now? No. Besides, that girl is still so hung up on Harry Gordon it’s almost funny. When she was staying with Viola and me, she used to lock herself in her bedroom every night and cry herself to sleep. I know she may look like bad news, but believe me, Amanda Farraday is a one-man woman.” She chewed her lip. “I’d keep an eye out for Diana Chesterfield, though.”

It was all Margo could do not to make her whole body recoil at the thought. “Why do you say that?”

“Oh, I don’t think she’s after him, exactly. In fact, there was always something a little fishy about that love affair, if you ask me. A little too perfect, you know what I mean?”

Oh boy, do I
. “I guess so.”

“But she did seem to make herself awfully comfortable at the bridal shop,” Gabby continued. “It’s like she’s the first runner-up at the Miss America pageant. If for some reason you are unable to fulfill your duties …”

“No,” Margo said. “Dane would never. Not after everything that’s happened.”
And not least
, she thought,
because Diana is his sister
.

“If you say so. Maybe you should talk to her, though.”

“About what?”

“About your little problem.” Gabby shrugged. “I mean, if nothing else
she
must know the way to keep Dane Forrest happy between the sheets. Plus, you’d be marking your turf. And maybe making an ally at the same time.”

Talk about Dane that way with Diana
. It was too, too terrible to think about. Margo suppressed a gag. She was desperate to change the subject. “Why do you care so much anyway?” she asked.

“Well, you know me, I love gossip,” Gabby said. “And this is pretty damn good. Plus, we’re friends, aren’t we, and friends worry about each other.”

“Even in Hollywood?”

“Who knows, maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.” Gabby grinned. “But you know, I feel like I just want you to have what Eddie and I have. To be so in love with someone and be able
to express it to each other like that, it’s just …” Her eyes went dreamy. “All the pills, all the dope, that’s nothing compared to this. I don’t need any of it anymore if I’ve got Eddie. As long as I have him, I’ll be all right. It’s just the best feeling in the world.”

Thankfully for Margo, Miss Perkins clattered back into the room before Gabby could go off on another unnervingly poetic reverie about the joys of lovemaking in the backseat of a Lincoln.

“A million apologies,” the realtor said breathlessly, looking as though she were about to scatter the sheaf of paper affixed to her clipboard all over the floor. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting for so long. Unfortunately, the key to the dressing suite is nowhere to be found, and I haven’t been able to reach the owner anywhere. I’ve already called the locksmith, though, and he should be here in a jiffy.” She smoothed her hands over her smart green tweed suit. “While we wait, may I suggest another tour around the gardens? I’d love for you to take another look at the koi pond. And there is some statuary in the formal gardens that personally I’d have moved poolside, for a look of classical Roman decadence.…”

The realtor droned on, chattering about hydrangea bushes and artificial waterfalls, but Margo had stopped listening. She was filled with a sudden urge to do something, to
act. Everyone’s done everything for me
, she thought.
Just like Dane said, it’s like I’m a child. They tell me what to wear, where to live, whom to marry, what to say
. Walking out of her parents’ house that night with Larry Julius was the last autonomous decision she had made.

Maybe that’s what’s been holding me back with Dane
, Margo thought, looking around the gorgeous room at the oyster bed,
the canopy of pearls.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with me. It’s that I can’t be a woman until they stop treating me like a little girl
.

“…  and of course”—Miss Perkins was still talking—“the fact that the house is west facing means that you’ll have a gorgeous view of the sunset during evening entertainment—”

Margo cut her off unceremoniously. “It doesn’t matter. Call the locksmith and tell him he doesn’t need to come.”

“But the dressing suite—”

“Never mind about the dressing suite. I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll take the house.”

Miss Perkins let out an audible gasp. “You … you will? But don’t you … I mean, perhaps you’d better speak with Mr. Forrest.…”

“Mr. Forrest has perfect faith in me,” Margo said smartly, thinking of the no-nonsense tone that had crept into her formidable mother’s voice when she felt some tradesman or mechanic was trying to take advantage of her. “Besides, I’m buying this house myself. You can put all the paperwork in my name and send it to my bungalow in the morning. I’ll be waiting.”

She accepted the realtor’s effusive thanks and excitement with gratification. It was time, Margo thought. Time to get out from under the thumb of the studio and have a house of her own, the way a woman, the way a
movie star
, should. Somebody had to make the decisions, and from now on it was going to be her. She’d make the house over in her image. Rip out that atrocious ballroom. Build a waterfall into the pool. Plant a privet hedge and flowering bushes all around until she felt as if she were living in a secret garden, like the book she’d loved as a
child. She was going to have a home, and a life, of her own. She glanced back at the oyster bed.

And Dane is just going to have to learn to love it
.

“Margie!” Gabby squealed as they made their way back outside. “This is so exciting! What a gorgeous house! We have to celebrate.”

“Later.” Margo glanced at her delicate diamond watch. It was almost five o’clock. “Right now, I’ve got to be at Schwab’s.”

“Oh, Margie, again?”

“Again,” Margo said. “Every day until she comes.”

“Who? Not Diana?”

“No.” Margo felt filled with a new strength.
No more lies
, she thought.
From now on, I tell the truth to everyone about everything
. “My mother.”

Helen Frobisher was an orderly woman.

Upon rising each morning, she washed her hands, then her face, in the blue willow pitcher-and-washbasin set that had stood on her dresser since her marriage, and on her mother’s dresser before that. She combed and pinned her fading blond hair into a smooth and unvarying chignon with a marcasite comb as its only adornment, put on one of the fastidiously correct silk crepe dresses hanging in her wardrobe, daubed her wrists and temples with the lavender-scented eau de toilette the doctor had suggested could help alleviate her headaches, and put the stoppered bottle back in exactly the same position on her silver vanity tray.

In her drawing room, to which she retired at exactly
nine-fifteen a.m., after supervising Emmeline’s clearing of the breakfast things and seeing her husband out the door to his club or his mistress’s house or wherever it was he went when he pretended he was going to the office, she sorted through the household documents at a secretary with a neatly labeled row of cubbyholes: one for bills, one for invitations, one for personal letters. Everything had its place, from the comb in her hair to the feelings bundled neatly in her heart.

But the message Emmeline had relayed last week, along with her mistress’s breakfast tray and a nervous curtsey, as though the old fool thought she was about to be fired on the spot—well, Helen Frobisher wasn’t sure where she was supposed to put that.