Platinum Doll
Anne Girard
Set against the dazzling backdrop of Golden Age Hollywood, novelist Anne Girard tells the enchanting story of Jean Harlow, one of the most iconic stars in the history of filmIt’s the Roaring Twenties and seventeen-year-old Harlean Carpenter McGrew has run off to Beverly Hills. She’s chasing a dream—to escape her small, Midwestern life and see her name in lights.In California, Harlean has everything a girl could want—a rich husband, glamorous parties, socialite friends—except an outlet for her talent. But everything changes when a dare pushes her to embrace her true ambition—to be an actress on the silver screen. With her timeless beauty and striking shade of platinum-blond hair, Harlean becomes Jean Harlow. And as she’s thrust into the limelight, Jean learns that this new world of opportunity comes with its own set of burdens. Torn between her family and her passion to perform, Jean is forced to confront the difficult truth—that fame comes at a price, if only she’s willing to pay it.Amid a glittering cast of ingenues and Hollywood titans—Clara Bow, Clark Gable, Laurel and Hardy, Howard Hughes—Platinum Doll introduces us to the star who would shine brighter than them all.“An engrossing look at a Hollywood icon. I couldn’t put it down.” - Karleen Koen, New York Times bestselling author of Through A Glass Darkly
Set against the dazzling backdrop of Golden Age Hollywood, novelist Anne Girard tells the enchanting story of Jean Harlow, one of the most iconic stars in the history of film
It’s the Roaring Twenties and seventeen-year-old Harlean Carpenter McGrew has run off to Beverly Hills. She’s chasing a dream—to escape her small, Midwestern life and see her name in lights.
In California, Harlean has everything a girl could want—a rich husband, glamorous parties, socialite friends—except an outlet for her talent. But everything changes when a dare pushes her to embrace her true ambition—to be an actress on the silver screen. With her timeless beauty and striking shade of platinum-blond hair, Harlean becomes Jean Harlow. And as she’s thrust into the limelight, Jean learns that this new world of opportunity comes with its own set of burdens. Torn between her family and her passion to perform, Jean is forced to confront the difficult truth—that fame comes at a price, if only she’s willing to pay it.
Amid a glittering cast of ingenues and Hollywood titans—Clara Bow, Clark Gable, Laurel and Hardy, Howard Hughes—Platinum Doll introduces us to the star who would shine brighter than them all.
Praise for PLATINUM DOLL (#ulink_3f3085e7-befa-5b8f-a0d5-2aa826c43f0a)
“A novel of glittering Hollywood, Platinum Doll will entrance readers as Harlow entranced the world.”
—Heather Webb, author of Rodin’s Lover
“A novel as brilliant as the star herself.”
—Marci Jefferson, author of Girl on the Golden Coin
Praise for MADAME PICASSO
“Girard creates a wonderful period piece [and]…successfully captures the essence of an iconic figure.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Gripping.… Written with…heartfelt passion.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Girard…ably marries history, art, and romance here as Eva remains broadly rendered and famous figures shine.”
—Booklist
“Early twentieth century Paris and Picasso’s lost love come to enchanted, vivid life. With a deft eye for detail and deep understanding for her protagonists, Anne Girard captures the earnest young woman who enthralled the famous artist and became his unsung muse.”
—C.W. Gortner, bestselling author of The Queen’s Vow
“A wonderful portrait of the complicated relationship between art, passion and love. Girard is a talented storyteller and historian, drawing readers into the world in which her characters live.”
—RT Book Reviews
Platinum Doll
Anne Girard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In memory of
Marlene Hanke
For more than words can express
Contents
Cover (#u44799206-6f10-5a63-a98b-d61d5af0bff4)
Back Cover Text (#u51bbc5fd-bc58-53fd-aea0-0de0db94eb01)
Praise (#u78388413-39a1-56ef-b82c-f28021d32304)
Title Page (#uc103574c-373f-5289-9170-f79aa3a46d07)
Dedication (#u1bb69abe-ca4c-5f65-94db-eb13b8a473f6)
Quote (#ucf0ab24a-3f0b-553c-a1b9-1f73ed729267)
Chapter One (#u119fe011-0a11-5a7c-9818-92bb94cafa6c)
Chapter Two (#ufea92f91-a391-5309-a73f-05abd1db186a)
Chapter Three (#u48a6bd6e-e534-5e5c-83b5-417b1bcf6685)
Chapter Four (#u47cfd0ca-0b8e-50c8-9f29-08d4ff2e896d)
Chapter Five (#uedf5158a-5ac5-52cb-8108-bdd681924451)
Chapter Six (#u8e4caa52-8d8a-59dd-b341-fcfa2e5c42eb)
Chapter Seven (#u1c10e65b-c7ee-5dd9-a682-ed1ca0727ad6)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Author Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Reader’s Guide (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
A Conversation with the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“I wasn’t born an actress, you know. Events made me one.”
—Jean Harlow
Chapter One (#ulink_42967a1f-f306-5273-b716-846637491d2f)
April, 1928
“Slow down, Chuck, or you’ll get us both killed!”
A giggle bubbled up through her as she clutched the scarf tied around her pillowy ash-blond hair. The ends of the floral silk flapped, billowing out like a sail in the warm sun.
In spite of her protest, she loved the speed. It brought the delicious sensation of being scared and excited at the same time. Giving in to the moment, she tipped her head back against the car seat of their convertible, tore off the scarf and let her hair fly away from her face.
Fresh air and sunshine could cleanse anything. Her mother always said it took the pockets of darkness away, and that seemed to be true in Hollywood especially. She said that very thing when they came here the last time, in 1923, when she was an impressionable child of twelve, and Harlean had never forgotten it. Mother still believed Hollywood was a magical place, even though she had been too old for that magic to turn her into a star.
Harlean felt the return of that old excitement as she entered this place again. Childhood memories flooded back as she and Chuck drove between endless orange groves beneath an arc of brilliant azure sky.
This impetuous trip was meant as an escape from the darker things they had left behind in the Midwest. The sudden way they had eloped last September, with Chuck twenty and she just sixteen, had only been the start of the turmoil. Then there were her grandfather Harlow’s reproving words, and her mother’s tearful charge that she had officially just ruined her life by marrying a spoiled boy, even though he had a trust fund. That had fomented Chuck’s rabid desire to arrange their escape—and Harlean had agreed. After all, she had turned seventeen a month later, and so she, too, felt ready for a grown-up adventure.
She squeezed her summer-blue eyes closed and tipped her face up toward the sun, refusing to think about any of that anymore. When she opened her eyes again, she glanced over at her young husband, his nose dusted with a pale coppery spray of freckles, the waves of his wind-buffeted cinnamon-colored curls spilling onto his cheeks over stylish horn-rim sunglasses.
Men didn’t have a right to be so appealing, she thought to herself. No matter who was angry with her back home for their impetuous trip to a justice of the peace six months earlier, she wasn’t sorry she had gone against them to marry him. Really, was there anything more important than being in love with a man who took her breath away?
“I’m gonna do right by you, Harlean. See if I don’t,” he had earnestly promised her two days before they’d eloped, as they lay across the front seat of this same green roadster, wound together, bathed in perspiration. He didn’t know it had not been her first time, but he had confessed it had been his. That had only made her love him more.
He gripped the steering wheel more tightly now as they finally entered the vibrant city and then turned onto Sunset Boulevard.
Hollywood, she thought, her heart soaring. I’m back! Harlean hadn’t a clue where they would sleep tonight, but she knew they were going to begin their married life here. They would work out the rest of the details later.
“So, does the place look any different to you, doll?”
“Oh, gosh, it hasn’t changed a bit!” she replied excitedly as they passed Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and a crowd of tourists milling outside looking for the footprints of their favorite motion picture stars. “Did I tell you we saw Miss Pola Negri there once before a picture show?”
“You’ve told me a few times,” Chuck answered with a wink, followed by an indulgent grin.
“Most beautiful, exotic creature I ever saw.” Harlean sighed wistfully at the memory of the dark-haired superstar, wrapped in ermine, waving and tossing kisses outside of the crowded theater.
“I’ve read everything about her in the movie magazines, you know. Mommie tried to get her autograph that day but it was too crowded. When the fans surged to close around her, Miss Negri ended up leaving without signing anything that day.”
“Your mother was hoping a bit of Miss Negri’s stardust would rub off on her, no doubt?”
Harlean heard the usual hint of sarcasm in his voice. It always showed up in discussions about her mother, who he knew perfectly well had tried everything to find her own stardom when they lived here last, but Harlean was determined to ignore it. Nothing in the world could ruin the excitement of today. “She tried to get the autograph for me. Mommie’s idol was always Clara Bow.”
“The ‘It Girl,’ hmm?”
“You knew people called her that?”
“Listen, doll, I’m not a complete dunce.” He chuckled and took off extra fast from the intersection at Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea.
The drive soon took them onto a gracefully curving avenue lined with palm trees. She had only been this way once when she was here as a child. It was an up-and-coming residential area called Beverly Hills, dotted with chic, new homes. They had driven here the last time because her mother had wanted to show her the outside of the grand Beverly Hills Hotel.
“Everyone who is anyone stays here these days. All of the stars,” Jean had told her daughter. “This is the place to be seen. If I catch a break, someday you and I won’t be stuck down here on the street. We’ll drive up and park beneath that big canvas awning, then sashay inside right along with the rest of them.”
Harlean fought a wave of nostalgia as Chuck drove the roadster right up the long driveway, past the distinctive green hotel sign with the elegant scroll lettering.
“Where do you think you’re going? We’re sure to get caught,” she gasped in a panic. “This is a private road, Chuck!”
“Yes it is, doll, only for the paying guests.”
“My mother said this place costs a fortune!”
“Then it’s a good thing I have one,” he returned with a wink.
Chuck didn’t like to talk about the accident that had left him wealthy, and he had only told her the story once. It was that night on this same car seat, with the top down, beneath a vast and sparkling canopy of stars.
“At least they died together,” he had said quietly. “Father never could have gone on without Mother. She was his whole world. Like you are to me, Harlean. You’re the best thing to happen to me, the only good thing since I lost them. Those were awful times and I never thought I’d be happy ever again until the night I met you.”
Her heart wrenched. She couldn’t imagine that sort of pain. “Oh, Chuck.”
“No, I mean it, and I’m gonna marry you. I want what they had. I need it, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make you feel like a queen.”
It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her. It had felt like a fairy tale that night, like being swept up in one of the romantic novels she read.
And it brought out the longing for a relationship with her own father, a man who she saw so rarely after the divorce that he too might as well have been dead. Her gentle side came from him.
“You don’t have to say that because of what we just did,” she had said with a nervous laugh.
“I’m saying it because I love you, Harlean Carpenter. I’m crazy about you, and I think you feel the same about me.”
“Of course I do, but I’m only sixteen, Chuck, and, jeez, you’re just twenty.”
“True, but I’m a rich twenty!” Pleased with the idea, he had smiled, his handsome face half in shadow from the moonlight. “Or I will be rich in November when I turn twenty-one and that trust fund is mine. Then I can take care of you in fine style. We can go anywhere in the world, do anything we want.”
“You know Mommie said I can’t get married before I’m eighteen.”
“To hell with your mommie,” he had snapped, but the vulnerable way he had just opened up to her about losing his parents in a horrific boating accident four years earlier, smoothed the harshest part of his tone.
“I’m sorry, doll. I shouldn’t have said that.” He gazed up at the sky for a long time and she knew he was considering what he was about to say. She could tell there was an internal struggle so she’d tried not to even move, fearing he would change his mind.
“It was the week after I turned sixteen. I was supposed to go out on the lake with my dad. He had it all planned. It was the thing we used to do together. He really loved that. ‘Time with my boy,’ he used to say. But I was being petulant that day, a real louse. I honestly don’t even remember why, but I told him I wasn’t going and that was that.”
In spite of his achingly quiet monotone, Harlean could hear the tremble beneath it. “He had the trip planned so my mother went with him instead.”
She watched a crystal tear fall from his eye onto the tip of his ear and disappear into a copper coil of hair. “She’d be alive today if I’d done what I was supposed to do.”
She knew that meant he would have died in her place, but she couldn’t bear to say what of course he already knew, and the guilt that must have been attached to that. Harlean touched his arm but he didn’t react to it. The moment was extinguished when he sat up, composed again. His willingness to allow more of the recollection had vanished.
“I’m sorry for what I said about your mother earlier, but you can’t let her run your life forever. Especially not once we’re married. Then we will have each other to depend on, just the two of us.”
It had never occurred to Harlean before that night beneath the stars that there might be a time she would want to avoid her mother’s powerful sphere of influence and her deep, abiding love for her only child. The two of them had been a team since the divorce and that first trip they had made to Hollywood together, one underscored by their hopes and dreams.
What an adventure that had been!
The rooming house on Gramercy Place, with the tiny sagging beds and the paper-thin walls, her mother’s auditions most days on the bustling Paramount and Fox studio lots, the parade of costumed actors that would pass by Harlean as she waited patiently outside on the curb with only a book to keep her company, and the promise of an ice-cream soda afterward... So many memories of that time would never leave her.
Harlean had known from an early age how much her mother relied on her as she tried to make it in the motion picture industry. They had become more like best friends than mother and daughter during those crazy, whirlwind days, and she had relished the sensation because it made her feel important to a mother she idolized.
Their bond became unbreakable, no matter what Chuck thought or felt about her. Harlean was determined to love them both, and have them both in her life, along with this exciting new chapter back in Hollywood. In time, she would convince him of that and they would learn to respect one another. The prospect of their future here was too thrilling for anything from the past to ruin it.
They pulled to a stop at the top of the incline before the monolithic white hotel. She nervously smoothed out the front of her skirt as she watched well-heeled guests coming and going through the main entrance. Women wore calf-length dresses, silk stockings, wide-brimmed hats or crocheted caps over stylishly bobbed hair set in tight finger waves. Men were turned out in expensive double-breasted camel-hair suit coats and fedoras. A bellman in a red uniform and white gloves rushed over to open her car door.
“We’re really staying the night here?”
“We’re paid up for the week. I wanted to surprise you,” he said with pride.
Love really was like a whirlwind, she thought. It could catch you up and carry you along so that nothing else mattered.
They were shown to a large, terra-cotta roofed bungalow overlooking an emerald-green lawn flanked by bougainvillea and hibiscus. The glistening new hotel swimming pool, surrounded by a ring of towering palm trees, lay beyond and gave everything a tropical feel. Harlean went to the patio door to take in the view past the painted wicker furniture while Chuck tipped the bellman and asked him to bring a bucket of ice. She knew it was for the bottle of bootleg gin he had buried in his suitcase. Never mind that Prohibition had made it illegal. Chuck always said that particular law didn’t apply to people with money, or an ounce of ingenuity, anyway.
When she heard the door close, Harlean turned around, awestruck. “Everything is so beautiful.”
“You are beautiful.”
He came toward her, tall and sinewy, then drew her into an embrace. He always smelled like sandalwood cologne and Ivory soap. The combination was intoxicating. Sunlight streamed in behind them, making all of the silk, rose and gold-colored chintz in the room shimmer.
This was an enchanted place, just like all of Hollywood.
“Are you going in for a dip, to wash off a bit of that road dust?” he asked as he pressed a featherlight kiss onto her cheek, then another and another.
“I have a better idea,” she said coyly.
“Oh?”
“Yes, much better,” she said as she drew the draperies and luxuriated in the warmth of the sun. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, closed her eyes and kissed him.
* * *
An hour later, Harlean dove gracefully beneath the surface of the sparkling turquoise water of the pool, then rose to the top with all of the finesse she had honed as an athletic tomboy not so long ago. After the way his parents had died, Chuck didn’t like to swim, but he seemed perfectly content to sit on a padded chaise beside the pool on the patio and watch his young wife.
He was the first image that came into view when Harlean rose out from under the water, his face with a halo of sunlight behind him. She loved the way he looked at her, always with adoration and lust. The combination meant love to her. Most of the time, he really did seem like a character out of one of her favorite novels, a wealthy and handsome young man, who had come into her life and swept her away.
Energized by the swim, she smoothed her wet hair back from her face, then propped her elbows up onto the edge of the pool. Chuck, relaxing in his khaki shorts and white polo shirt, smiled down at her.
“How would you like to go to the pictures tonight after supper? Lights of New York is playing over at Grauman’s.”
“Oh, could we, Chuck? That’s an actual talkie!”
“Your wish is my command,” he said and made a gallant half bow from his waist.
“I love Grauman’s. Mommie and I went there to see Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It’s beautiful inside. That was the same night I saw Miss Pola Negri.”
She came out of the pool and he wrapped her in the towel, then closed his arms around her.
After she dressed, they went to a cute little malt shop on Sunset Boulevard and sat in a red leather booth along the windows. Harlean loved the bustling city view.
She had changed into a conservative gray skirt, a short-sleeved rose-colored angora sweater, white socks and sneakers. He never liked the way men stared at her, even with her face freshly scrubbed, free of cosmetics, and her short blond hair brushed back from her face, yet they did anyway. She was as aware of their attention as he was, and she could feel Chuck bristle each time.
“Mommie always says it’s just my hair that makes them look since there aren’t many gals with my particular shade.”
“More likely, it’s the face and body that goes with it,” he said, but he wasn’t smiling.
She didn’t like Chuck to feel jealous, but having been a bookish tomboy not so very long ago, secretly she reveled in the sensation she had when men acknowledged her. Mother had always been the beauty of the family, tall and shapely, with a dignified air. It had been difficult growing up in the shadow of what had seemed to her like a very bright light. But things were changing. She wasn’t in that shadow at the moment. The sunshine belonged to her. Being back in an exciting city like Hollywood was only the beginning of a transformation that she could actually feel. It was exciting just to contemplate growing into her own version of womanhood here, and the things that might mean for her life with Chuck. She wished she could tell him about it, but she wouldn’t dare. At least not yet.
* * *
The theater was packed since this first full-length talkie was the hottest ticket in town and people sat chattering excitedly and then cheering as the house lights were lowered. Harlean loved not having to read the dialogue and she found the new style of film, hearing what she was seeing, entirely captivating.
After it was over, and the audience had applauded, Harlean and Chuck walked outside beneath the bright theater lights and into the cool evening air. There were more handprints and signatures here now than when she was last here. It was exhilarating even to contemplate that stars like Mary Pickford, her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, Tom Mix and Harold Lloyd, true Hollywood royalty, had stood in these very spots and pressed their hands and shoes into wet cement to the cheers of adoring crowds.
She found Clara Bow’s square and stood in those footprints for her mother’s sake. She shivered at the feeling of being so close to the impression of someone so famous. She would tell her mother all about it when she phoned her on Sunday. Teenage fantasy spurred her on, and her heart beat very fast as she wondered what it must be like to be so adored by legions of fans, or to step before a camera knowing your hairstyle, your outfits and even your lipstick shade, would be copied around the world.
“Here’s Pola Negri, doll!” Chuck called out. Then he held up his hands as if he were holding out a microphone. “Say a few words to your fans, Miss Negri,” he playfully bid her.
Harlean smiled, then lowered her head and lifted her eyes as she’d seen the exotic actress do in the magazines. Then, with just a touch of embarrassment, she read what Negri had written in the cement.
“‘Dear Sid, I love your theater. April 1928...’ Oh, gosh, Chuck, she just did these! That’s so exciting to think!”
“What is your favorite thing about being such a big star, Miss Negri, adored everywhere?”
Chuck’s prompting made her giggle.
“Going to bed with my interviewers, most definitely.”
“Why, you vamp.” He smiled.
“How would you like to be my next conquest...what’s your name again?” she asked, innocently batting her eyes and thoroughly enjoying the sudden silly role playing.
“McGrew’s the name, Chuck McGrew. But I’ve got to warn you, I’ve got a very jealous wife.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he said with a devilish grin as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “But what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“If I’m a vamp, you, sir, sure are a cad.”
“Admit it, that’s your favorite thing about me.”
“Not my absolute favorite thing,” she returned, happily playing along as they walked out onto Hollywood Boulevard toward their car.
“Time to get you to bed, doll.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she teased. He held the door and she climbed into the shiny green roadster.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“For Miss Negri, or your wife?”
“Why don’t you surprise me on that score?”
“A cad and a rake,” she said as he slid onto the seat beside her and started the great rumbling engine.
Chapter Two (#ulink_0f87d0f1-e1b4-5f87-aedc-6e8ed826bae9)
The next morning, Harlean couldn’t help but feel excited when Chuck told her the surprise he had in store was waiting for her here in Beverly Hills. She hadn’t seen much of this exclusive new residential area on her last trip to California, so that made the prospect even more enticing. It was still a relatively new neighborhood, one ornamented by curving lanes, vast stone or brick estates, a variety of charming Spanish-style bungalows and Tudor cottages—along with some still-empty wide, deep lots. Emerald lawns and rows of tall palm trees bordered lush parks and bridle trails. It was a true sanctuary from the bustling city nearby, and a world away from Kansas City.
“Now what do you think of this fine street?” Chuck asked her. “It’s called Linden Drive.”
“Very posh,” she said, as they pulled over in front of a white stucco house with a terra-cotta roof. There was a small palm tree in the front yard and two bird of paradise plants framing the door. “Why are we stopping?”
“Because we’re home. God, I hope you like it. If you don’t, I’m in big trouble since I put a hefty down payment on the place, sight-unseen, a few weeks ago.”
Her mouth fell open.
“You did what?”
“Married people need a proper home, doll. I wanted to give you that as a wedding gift. Since you liked it so much out here near Hollywood, it just seemed a good place for us to officially start our new life. The real estate agent told me this is one of the best streets in the area. Lots of stylish young couples, and movie types, are buying here right now.”
In her mind, movie stars were like royalty. She and her mother had excitedly combed through all of the Hollywood magazines every month for as long as she could remember. They had read and knew every word of gossip about their exciting lives and careers. Like her mother, Harlean, too, had placed those glamorous icons on pedestals they could see but never quite reach. The prospect of actually living here among them was too spectacular to fully fathom.
He shoved his hands nervously into his trouser pockets. “So, do you like the place?”
“It’s adorable on the outside, Chuck, but can I see the rest of it?”
Of course she would love it, but this was all so sudden. It was hard to know what to think, or even how to react, to his cascading generosity. Most new husbands bought their brides flowers or jewelry, not pretty houses in Beverly Hills. It seemed as if there was nothing he would not do to make her happy.
As they stood facing the house, he took the key from a pocket in his trousers. “Here, take it. It’s yours.”
“The key or the house?”
“Both. And all of my heart, too.”
She kissed his cheek, and then he led her up the brick walkway. After he opened the front door, Chuck scooped her up and whisked her across the threshold.
Harlean found the house too charming for words. After he put her down, she first took in the beamed living room with a fireplace inset with indigo tiles. It was bright and sunny, and smelled new, like oil soap and fresh paint. Her heart was racing.
Next, they went into the dining room and on to the kitchen overlooking the back of the house. There was no furniture in the place yet, except in the bedroom, where a mattress was made up on the floor with pillows and a patchwork quilt. At the foot of the bed, Chuck had somehow placed a carved satinwood table that had belonged to his mother. A huge crystal vase sat on top, brimming with white orchids. They had always been Harlean’s favorite flower for how delicate they appeared, but how hardy they were if tended to properly. Her hand went to her lips as she stifled a gasp of surprise.
“It’s all just so perfect,” she said in a whisper.
“Are you sure you like it?”
“Of course! I can’t believe you did all of this for me.”
“Who else is there, doll? You’re everything to me, so you’d better get used to your husband spoiling the daylights out of you.”
Harlean melted against him, then twined her arms around his neck and kissed him tenderly. Passion was never very far off after a kiss between them. “Touch has a memory. O say, love, say.” The words of John Keats threaded themselves back through her mind. She had loved that poem since the first time she had read it and feeling Chuck’s touch often brought it back to her.
“I’ll never get tired of the way you taste,” he murmured as their kiss deepened, and he pulled her more tightly against him. “I really am the luckiest man alive.”
“What do you say we christen the place?” she asked.
“Right now?”
“Why not? I don’t know how you did all of this without me finding out, and on top of everything you made sure we’d have a bed.”
“I’m discovering there’s not a lot money can’t buy.”
“I’m not sure if you’re more handsome or more resourceful.”
“As long as we christen this new bed right now, I don’t care which one of those gets first place,” he said in a low voice thickened by lust.
Afterward, Chuck fetched a hotel picnic basket from the trunk of the car and spread a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth on the living room floor in front of the fireplace. They feasted on ham sandwiches, a cluster of purple grapes and a wedge of cheese. Chuck had brought along a bottle of Champagne from his father’s secret wine cellar in Chicago. Harlean flinched with surprise as the cork popped and he filled two teacups with the bubbly French nectar to celebrate the occasion. He stretched out, propped his head on an elbow and gazed over at her as she sat cross-legged in her bathrobe.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he bid her.
“I just never thought life could be this good. If this is a dream, I never want to wake up. That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
“Are you sure it’s enough?”
“A husband I love and a home? Why wouldn’t it be?”
“There must be something more. When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Happy,” she said truthfully. “That was it. And I am.”
Harlean waited a moment to let that settle on him then, as it did, she watched his eyebrows knit together as his expression became a frown. “You don’t want to be an actress or anything, since we’re out here in Hollywood, do you?”
She could tell that the prospect was unsettling to him. They both knew that it was a difficult, demanding and largely disappointing dream for those determined to pursue it.
“Now, why would I want to go and do that? I saw how frustrating it was for my mother—the endless auditions and all those doors slammed in her face. That kind of rejection is for fools. No, thank you.”
Harlean may have inherited that stubborn streak from her mother, and an absolute iron will for getting things she wanted, but better to savor her books, her new home and her marriage, and to enjoy the glitter and glamour of Hollywood from a distance.
* * *
Late in the afternoon two days later, a group of their neighbors organized a party to welcome them. The neighborhood was comprised of a wealthy young society crowd. Fit, tan men wearing monogrammed oxford shirts, linen trousers and bow ties bantered with each other as they carried bottles of bootleg gin up Chuck and Harlean’s walkway. Beside them, their pretty wives and girlfriends wore a confectionary-colored array of cashmere sweaters and ropes of pearls. Each came bearing a casserole, a cake or martini glasses.
As the sun began to set behind the bristling palm trees outside, twenty people crowded into the living room, which was decorated so far with only a sofa, two folding chairs and a flea-market side table. Chuck whispered to her that he’d heard them talking, and two of the girls were heiresses, and one was the daughter of a studio boss.
Harlean herself had been raised in an upper-class group in Missouri and after her mother had remarried, she was educated at a posh private school outside of Chicago. But these people were a cut above that. There was a carefree air that surrounded them, and it was instantly intimidating. Harlean had a feeling that this party was actually designed more to size them up than welcome them.
Just when she was starting to think that this might’ve been a mistake, she saw someone she recognized. The mood lightened instantly as an old friend of hers came up the walkway carrying a bouquet of daisies. She wore a pretty floral dress cinched at the waist and a similar rope of pearls to the other girls.
“Rosalie McCray?” Harlean shrieked with surprise at the pretty, petite girl with the chestnut curls suddenly standing before her. “Gosh, what are you doing here? I remember you told us you lived near Hollywood, but I never imagined!”
“Who else do you think organized this little party?”
The girls embraced and Harlean took the flowers from her. “I wrote to your address in Chicago as soon as we all left the cruise, just like I promised I would,” Rosalie explained. Her accent was sugary sweet, and pure Texas.
“I suppose you didn’t receive it before you came out here? Anyway, Ivor heard that the two of you had moved in right down the street from us so we had to be the first to welcome you to our little corner of heaven.”
Chuck and Harlean had met Rosalie and her husband, Ivor, on their honeymoon cruise through the Panama Canal in January, and the two couples had quickly become friends. Rosalie and Harlean found they had a great deal in common since both of them had been teenage brides with rich young husbands.
“Good to see you again, Rosie,” Chuck said after he’d pressed a breezy kiss onto Rosalie’s cheek. “Like a toddy, kids?”
Chuck had solemnly promised Harlean just that afternoon that he was only going to drink a little today while they entertained their neighbors, but she could tell that he had already knocked back a couple of stiff ones. His voice always grew just a little louder when he was drinking. Knowing that he used alcohol to bolster his confidence, she could see that he felt well out of his league with these people, trust fund or not. Secretly, his drinking frightened her because she suspected his reason for it was deeper than just wanting confidence. She believed, probably subconsciously, it was to keep from confronting his grief over the death of his parents, but for now she tried to put her mind on happier thoughts.
“Gosh, I’m happy to see you,” Harlean exclaimed once Chuck had wandered off.
Rosalie glanced around the crowded bungalow. “Chuck sure got you a swell place here, honey. You know, last month Miss Clara Bow herself moved into the neighborhood, just a couple of blocks from here,” she said in a gossipy tone.
“No! My mother would die of envy!” Harlean squealed, and then they both giggled. “Think she’d mind if we popped over for a cup of sugar?”
“So, how have things been between the two of you since the cruise?”
Rosalie asked the question so suddenly that Harlean was thrown off guard.
“Things are great,” she answered, and she knew that it had been too quickly.
Harlean’s friendship with Rosalie had been cemented when Chuck had gotten so drunk one night that he had passed out at the dinner table and had to be carried to his stateroom by two waiters. Rosalie had helped her outside as she’d wept, and the two had spent the rest of that evening up on deck watching the stars and talking about their childhoods.
She hated having to make excuses for Chuck but she couldn’t bear to have anyone think poorly of him.
“Honestly, he’s doing great now that we’re here. That one night with you guys was just a fluke. We’d had that quarrel after he’d had too much to drink. That’s all it was.”
Rosalie followed Harlean’s gaze across the room to Chuck. At the moment, he was telling an animated story with great gesticulations.
“Of course that was it, honey. They’re all like that once in a while. So what do you say to lunch tomorrow, just the two of us girls? I’ll show you around town.”
“Gosh, that’d be great.”
“Can we take your car? Ivor has to take ours for an early tee off time with a few of the boys.”
“Sure, but do you suppose Chuck can tag along to the golf course? I’m not sure what else he’d do around here all day while I’m gone.”
She didn’t want to say that she was nervous he’d sit alone and drink.
Rosalie’s smile faded a degree. “Gee, honey, I’d really like to tell you yes, but since they play at the country club, there has to be an invite from one of the swells over there. Real obnoxious, blue-blooded, East Coast types control everything. Ivor only just got his invitation a couple of weeks ago so he’s still on thin ice till they decide if he’s all right or not.” Rosalie lowered her voice and leaned nearer. “Between you and me, we both hate having to kiss everyone’s posterior around here, but that’s just the way it is when you’re new in town.”
“That’s okay, I understand,” Harlean forced herself to say.
She didn’t really mean it, but she wasn’t about to lose this chance with a girl who could show her the ropes. She would need determination in the coming days to get ahead with this tony group. Besides, she really did like Rosalie. She had an infectious laugh and a sweet, sincere disposition. She hadn’t grown up with many girlfriends so this meant a great deal to her.
“Let’s go see what you’ve got to wear to lunch. The Brown Derby is becoming pretty exclusive, so we’ve got to look the part if we don’t want a table back near the kitchen.”
“I thought you were an actress,” Harlean said.
“For now I’m just an extra. If I’m lucky I get a walk-on here and there. But that sure as heck doesn’t mean I can’t act! You’ll see what I mean tomorrow,” she said conspiratorially.
Even though Harlean couldn’t imagine what Rosalie meant, she was certain lunch was going to be interesting.
* * *
Harlean and Rosalie drove to lunch just before noon the next day. Chuck had washed the car until it gleamed because he knew how important it was that his wife had a friend in California and they were going off to do something together. Even though it was a warm day, she decided not to put the top down so she wouldn’t ruin the careful wave she’d given to her usually fluffy blond hair.
The Brown Derby on Wilshire Boulevard looked just like its name: it was whimsically constructed in the shape of a huge hat. She had read all about the restaurant and the stars who dined there in Photoplay magazine, so she was almost as excited to see the building as to lunch there.
“Have you a reservation?” the maître d’ asked, using a slightly snotty French accent. Harlean knew enough French from her school days to know that it was fake. The tag on this lapel read “Francois.”
Rosalie met his gaze unflinchingly. “Lady Helen Crumley, table for two. My secretary phoned. As usual, we’ll have a booth.”
Harlean watched his reserve dissolve faced with Rosalie’s hauteur and her believable English accent. “Yes, of course, your ladyship, here it is right here. Lovely to see you again. Please, follow me.”
He fumbled nervously with the menus, and Harlean was relieved that he turned away to usher them inside, or her stunned expression would have given them away. They were shown to one of the coveted booths along the side of the restaurant. After he had bid them a “bon appétit,” Harlean looked at Rosalie over the top of her menu.
“Where’d you learn to pull that off?”
“You know what they say about necessity being the mother of invention.”
“Well, I certainly believed you, and so did he.”
“People believe what they want to believe, Harlean. I’ve seen him at auditions, so I know his name is Frankie, not Francois. It mattered more to him that he might have seated some distant royalty that he could brag about than the fact that I might be the same kind of struggling, out-of-work actor he is.”
Incredulous, Harlean shook her head and tried not to smile too broadly. “I can’t believe the table, either. We can see everyone coming and going from here, and most everyone has to pass right by us.”
“Speaking of that, you’ll never believe who just came through the door.” Trying not to show the awe she felt, Harlean lifted her menu again and carefully peered over the top of it. “Jimmy Cagney himself is coming our way.”
“I may just die,” Harlean said quietly.
“Indeed you will not. Lady Crumley and her sister are never cowed by lowly Hollywood players. We, after all, are from the land of Shakespeare and Milton.”
Harlean glanced up just in time to see the matinee idol pass right beside them. The spicy scent of his cologne lingered. “Jeez, he’s handsome! But not nearly as tall as he looks in the pictures.”
“That’s because directors have been known to stand him on a crate. I saw it for myself when I was an extra last year in a picture with him.”
Harlean wished she could order a drink with lunch to tame her open sense of awe and keep it from getting out of control. Her mother had taught her to have a love of gin, although hers was not Chuck’s great passion for it, certainly.
“Don’t look now,” Rosalie said. “But that’s William Powell sitting across from us. He was just in that picture called The Last Command. And I’m fairly sure that’s Greta Garbo and Irving Thalberg with him. Thalberg is a huge producer over at MGM, even though he looks like a kid.”
Harlean was certain that Powell was the most attractive man she had ever seen, far more so than on-screen. He had a thin, perfectly groomed mustache, a winning smile, and such strikingly bright blue eyes that she could not stop staring. There was something so debonair and sophisticated about him, not matched by any other Hollywood matinee idol.
When the waiter came to take their order, Harlean could only follow Rosalie by muttering, “I’ll have the same.” She had no idea what they had ordered, and she could not have cared less. She couldn’t quite believe she was actually here.
A few minutes later, the striking ingenue Joan Crawford was shown to a table nearby. Harlean would have recognized her anywhere for all of the magazine covers she had graced this past year. She was dressed casually in loose-fitting trousers and a cardigan. It was an easy style Harlean longed to emulate. Casual elegance, her mother called it. If she were a star like Crawford, she would dress just exactly like that. Though the idea of comparing herself, even privately, to a girl like Joan Crawford was slightly absurd.
Before today, her movie idols had seemed only fantasy beings. Yet here they were, real and wonderful, eating steak and salad, chattering away at lunch tables that looked just like hers. She was a part of it all.
After lunch, they went down to the Bullocks Wilshire department store, a luxury art deco palace. The display windows along Wilshire Boulevard were full of the latest styles from New York and Paris. Inside, Harlean found a temple to fashion, complete with travertine floors and crystal chandeliers. There were as many fashionably dressed sales clerks as customers, and more attitude than ambiance. She could hardly quell what she knew was her awestruck expression.
Rosalie led the way straight through the vaulted first floor Perfume Hall as though she absolutely belonged. Harlean hurried behind her, trying in vain to match Rosalie’s confident stride.
Upstairs in one of the showrooms, Rosalie selected two dresses from the mannequins and asked to see them modeled for her, as was the custom, since the store considered a clutter of hanging racks gauche.
She marveled at how Rosalie simply refused to be undone by the world, no matter the circumstance, and she understood now that her friend truly was the essence of an actress. She had promised yesterday that Harlean would see it, and she had delivered in spades.
“It would look great on you,” Harlean said to Rosalie as the model paraded before them in a belted celery-colored dress with a lace collar and cuffs.
“That’s an awfully expensive ensemble, my dear. Perhaps you would prefer to look at something a bit more...practical,” the middle-aged store clerk suggested.
Rosalie lifted her chin a fraction as she turned around to face the clerk. “I’m the least practical person you’ll ever meet. So, no, I don’t think so. I’ll take this one. And you can wrap up the other one, too.”
The woman’s mouth fell open. “My dear, have you any idea the cost of those two dresses?”
“Since I have a rich husband who loves to spoil me, no, actually I don’t,” Rosalie replied breezily. “You are all on commission here at this shop, I assume?”
Harlean watched the silver-haired woman’s demeanor change abruptly and her expression soften. “Why, yes, we are, but of course—”
“Then today I’ll be buying them from that sales clerk over there. And next time I decide to shop here, you would be wise to leave your attitude in the stockroom if you plan to wait on me, since I almost always buy something expensive, but not from someone with a chip on her shoulder.” She met the woman’s gaze unflinchingly as she tossed a business card onto the countertop. “Charge the dresses to my husband’s account and have them sent to my home.”
Both girls linked arms proudly once they had gotten a few feet away from the store outside. Harlean was fully realizing just how much she could learn from Rosalie, and she was duly impressed.
“You really are amazing,” Harlean said with a zeal she could no longer contain.
“Aw, thanks, honey, but it’s nothing you can’t pick up. No telling where a little ingenuity can take someone like you, too. You’ve got that something extra inside of you, I can tell.”
Harlean thought that it might just be true since she was quite adept at wrapping her mother and Grandpa Harlow around her finger with ease. In spite of their blustering threats, they both had eventually given in on the subject of Chuck. Her gaze, her pout and her ability to summon tears always won the day. Until now, Harlean hadn’t fully considered the power potential in that. It reminded her of what her mother always said about star quality: it was as elusive as it was indefinable. If you had it you had it, and if you didn’t there was nothing in the world that could change that. Perhaps Rosalie was right.
“You need to try it,” Rosalie said as they neared the car. “See what that smile of yours, and those brains, can bring you.”
Men stared at them both as they passed. Some nodded and smiled, another tipped the brim of his fedora.
“I’m not sure why I’d ever want to find out, since I’ve already got everything I want—Chuck, the new house, certainly plenty of beautiful clothes.”
“A little adventure, maybe? Nothing against my sweet Ivor, he’s swell, but I just can’t sit around the house all day baking cakes and waiting to have a baby. That’s why I audition. When I get a walk-on or a part, I feel like I did something all on my own—that somehow for just a moment, I stood out.”
Harlean looked over at her friend as they got in the car. “Chuck is enough adventure for me at the moment. Besides, I watched my mother try and try to get parts all over this town and all she ever got was rejection. You know the studios are absolutely crawling with gorgeous girls, one prettier than the next. For me, there wouldn’t really be any point in an adventure like that.”
“I see what you mean.” Rosalie paused for a moment, and then she said, “But do you think tomorrow you could drive me over to Fox to check the casting-call roster? Ivor needs the car again.”
“Sure. What else have I got to do?” But then she had an idea and suddenly she hopped out of the car.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m putting the top down. All of a sudden I feel like being a little crazy,” Harlean exclaimed with a carefree laugh. “To heck with my hair!”
Chapter Three (#ulink_08d42c6f-7179-5a78-b55a-3dfb1334b71d)
She had meant to stop and ask where to park but, to her shock that next day, with Rosalie beside her, the uniformed guard waved her car in past the imposing scrolled Fox Studios gates. He even had a smile for them as he tipped his navy blue cap.
“What the heck just happened?” Harlean gasped in amazement as she kept driving, afraid even to glance back.
“See what beauty and confidence will get you?”
“But that wasn’t meant to happen! I’ve been here before and this place is like Fort Knox!”
“Well, honey, I’ll go out on a limb and say he assumed you were someone else. Clearly, he thought two well-dressed knockouts belonged here. Or maybe you reminded him of someone’s demanding girlfriend who he was afraid of offending,” Rosalie opined on a tinkling little laugh. “Either way, we’re in.”
Nothing like this had ever happened when she had come here with her mother. Back then, extras had been herded onto the lot like cattle, lined up and made to wait.
“You can park right over there by the soundstage.” Rosalie pointed with an authoritative air. “I won’t be long so that’ll be fine.”
Harlean brought the car to a stop against the curb and raked her tousled hair back from her face with both hands.
“How do you do that?” Rosalie asked.
“Do what?”
“Get all wind-blown and still manage to look like a million bucks.” She brought a comb and hand mirror out of her handbag and glanced at her own face. “I’m sure I’m an absolute wreck.”
She thought Rosalie was a classic beauty, with her lustrous mahogany hair, round cocoa-brown eyes, perfectly arched eyebrows, small mouth and flawless olive skin.
In contrast, the white-blond hair of Harlean’s childhood had deepened to a more muted shade of ash blond and her glass-blue eyes and a ruddy blush over porcelain cheeks gave her the look of a China doll.
“I’ll be back in a flash,” Rosalie declared as she strode, hips swaying, toward the door across the street marked Casting Office.
Suddenly, she stopped and pivoted back. Her brown eyes were shining as she stood there, holding her small, white gloves, and wearing one of the expensive new dresses she had bought the day before.
“How do I look now?”
Harlean cupped a hand around her mouth and happily called out, “A real stunner! I think today is gonna be your lucky day!”
Then she watched Rosalie join the long line of girls wrapped around the casting building. It was a sight she remembered all too well. She could never tell Rosalie, but after only a moment, she lost sight of her friend as she faded into the sea of other hopefuls.
She sat for a moment, taking in the activity of the back lot. Huge props were being wheeled past groups of actors, and other workers were pushing stuffed racks of costumes. Harlean was fidgeting with her wedding band and finally growing restless, after almost thirty minutes of waiting, when a man in a gray three-piece business suit and a felt homburg walked briskly past the car, and then he did a double take.
Panic set in because surely he was going to ask her to leave. As he approached the car, she tried to think of something clever to say, a plausible reason why she was parked here so he wouldn’t insist that she move along.
“Say, don’t I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied, and her voice broke as she looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun.
“No, honestly, whose wife are you?”
“No one you know,” she returned with caution, but he was undeterred.
He looked down at her appraisingly. “You’re in a new picture then, that’s gotta be it.”
He seemed to be taking her apart with his eyes as he waited for her to reply.
Harlean was surprised at his insistence. She could feel herself trembling like a leaf. “I’m not an actress. I’m waiting for a friend, Rosalie Roy. That’s her stage name.”
“Rosalie, yeah, I know her. She’s a good kid. You sure you’re not an actress?”
“I’m sure.”
He glanced around, then back at her. He seemed hesitant suddenly. “Listen, could you, I mean, would you mind stepping out of the car just for a minute?”
Harlean looked at him as she tried to discern if he was flirting with her or about to call a security guard. But if he was flirting, he had a strange way of showing it. Not sure how to say no, she finally opened the car door and stepped out. His visual sweep of her went from head to foot and back again.
“Did you ever think of trying to break into pictures?”
Harlean softly chuckled as she shook her head at the absurdity of the question.
“I’m only here because Rosalie asked me to give her a lift, honest.”
As an afterthought, he finally introduced himself and reached for her hand. “I’m Bud Ryan, a casting director here.”
“Harlean McGrew,” she said as they shook.
“Can you wait here a minute?”
“I’ll be here till Rosalie comes out.”
“Okay, good. Don’t go anywhere!”
She watched him dash past the line of would-be actresses and inside the casting office, and then she sank against the car seat and slipped on her sunglasses, feeling entirely embarrassed by the encounter.
When she looked up again, the young man was hurrying back toward her car with Rosalie and two other men. They were older, serious looking, and they were staring at her with the most curious expressions, even Rosalie.
“See what I mean?” she heard the first one say to the others as they approached.
“So then, what is a dame who sparkles like you doing sitting here if you’re not trying to break into pictures?” one of them asked.
She glanced over at Rosalie, whose usually cheery smile seemed hidden behind something that looked like a glimmer of envy.
“I was just waiting for her, that’s all. Tell ’em, Rosie.”
Rosalie was silent.
“Well, miss, whatever your story is, I want you to take this,” the shorter of the two men said as he began to write something on his clipboard.
Harlean saw Rosalie look away.
“It’s a letter of introduction to the Central Casting Bureau. All three of us are gonna sign it.”
“That’s awfully nice of you, but, honest, I’m not—”
“Listen, sweetheart, everyone has a story, so you don’t need to sell us. Dave is definitely gonna want to see you.”
“Dave Allen is the top guy over at Central Casting. It’s at the corner of Hollywood and Western Avenue. Head over there right now and give his secretary this letter.”
She didn’t want to be seen. It was really the last thing she wanted but she had been raised always to be polite. “Thank you,” she said as she took the letter and pressed it into her handbag. “Are you ready, Rosalie?” she asked, then stepped back into the car and started the engine.
As they drove off the Fox lot and back out onto Sunset Boulevard, she could feel Rosalie’s reproving glare. “I’ve been trying to get that kind of attention in this town for over a year. All you do is sit there and they come to you like three foxes about to raid the henhouse.”
“I didn’t do a thing, Rosie, I swear.”
“I know. And that’s what makes it so damn frustrating! And where do you think you’re going? This isn’t the way to Central Casting.”
“You’re right, it isn’t. I’m going home. I told them I don’t want to be an actress, and that’s the truth.” It was certainly flattering to have been noticed like that, and to have had three studio executives see her as something unique. Secretly, it was even a bit enticing. However, the heartbreaking disappointment and struggle most actresses endured dampened any real enthusiasm she might have had.
“Well, what the hell do you want to do? Bake cakes and have babies?”
“Maybe write a novel.”
Rosalie stared at her. “A novel? You?”
“I know it sounds silly but I’ve always wanted to try.” She felt herself flush. “I love all kinds of books. I read everything, poetry, even some of the German philosophers—Hegel and a little bit of Nietzsche.”
Rosalie’s expression remained one of incredulity. “I’ve never even heard of those guys.”
“I read them but I didn’t really like it,” she amended and blushed. “I really love poetry, Shelley especially.”
“Now, him I’ve heard of,” Rosalie said, sounding relieved.
“I read his poems over and over when I’m sad or when I’m lonely. And Keats, I just love Keats.”
Rosalie shook her head. “Wow, who’d have guessed you were so well-read?”
Harlean had never told anyone about her love for Keats, her passion for reading in general, or about the novel she was starting to formulate in her mind. She wasn’t sure why she had confessed it now to someone she didn’t know all that well. Even Chuck did not fully understand the dear companions her books had become in the lonely hours of her childhood. They were both quiet for the next few blocks.
“So, a writer, hmm? Like Jane Austen or something?”
“More like George Sand. Now there was a gutsy woman.”
“George Sand wasn’t a man?” Rosalie asked, and Harlean could tell that she meant the question.
“No, Rosie, she wasn’t a man. But she did have to figure out how to make her way in a man’s world. Anyway, don’t tell any of our neighbors about me wanting to write, okay? They would have a real good laugh at my expense.”
“Now, why on earth would I tell those magpies anything, honey? At least you do want to do something with your life. You’ve got goals, anyway,” Rosalie said. “I don’t think I could stand it if I thought there was nothing more than washing Ivor’s dirty socks and cooking his dinner for me to look forward to.”
“There’s more to marriage than just that. Personally, I’m pretty fond of the more intimate parts.”
“Is that a fact? I already find those pretty damn repetitive,” Rosalie giggled.
“Then you sure aren’t doing something right.”
“Not everyone is as free-spirited as you, Harlean. You’re this stunning young gal with an amazing head on your shoulders. No wonder Chuck’s always all over you, and mad-jealous to boot. Especially after the awful way his parents died, he probably lives his life terrified he’s gonna lose you.”
Rosalie had been so kind to her on the cruise that night when she’d been so upset with Chuck’s drunkenness. When Harlean had told her about the tragic death of his parents, she had offered sympathy and advice.
“Well, that isn’t gonna happen,” Harlean declared. “Whatever you think I am, first and foremost I’m Harlean McGrew, now and forever.”
“What you are, honey, is a plain old-fashioned contradiction.”
Harlean felt a smile begin to lengthen her lips at the sound of that. “I don’t mind being a contradiction as long as I know my own mind. And I can write a book anytime as long as I have my husband with me. Chuck really is the only thing that matters to me when it comes right down to it.”
After she dropped Rosalie off, Harlean rushed home. She burst through the door and called out for Chuck, eager suddenly for the assurance of his arms around her again, but the only sound that came in answer was from Duke Ellington’s orchestra. Chuck had forgotten to turn off the radio before he’d gone out.
As she glanced around she saw that he hadn’t even left her a note. There was only the Saturday Evening Post spread open on the sofa and a half-empty cup of coffee on the floor in front of it. She worked hard to press back her disappointment. She wondered what he would think if she told him about what had happened earlier at the Fox studio but of course she had no intention of telling him. He wouldn’t be pleased, it might even make him angry because Rosalie was right, he did get jealous easily. He’d said more than once that he couldn’t bear even the thought of losing her, which made sense to her after the traumatic way he had lost both parents, so she tried to be understanding about it.
After all, that was the deeper reason he drank so much, wasn’t it? He hadn’t yet fully grieved their loss, or accepted that he was not at risk of losing her to some sudden pull of fate, too. She had tried so many times to talk to him about it since that first night, but he always swiftly changed the subject. She wanted desperately to help him, but she just wasn’t sure how to do it. Right now, the blissful calm between them seemed reason enough to leave it alone for now.
Since he wasn’t home, Harlean went into the bedroom and stuffed the letter from the studio executives into a hatbox in her closet, then closed the door. When she turned back she saw their silver-framed photograph of the two of them taken on their honeymoon cruise displayed next to the orchids. He must have set that out before he left, and the assurance that seeing them gave her was enough to bring a smile back to her face.
Yes, the letter was certainly flattering but it was going to stay right there where she had hidden it. Her marriage meant more than the momentary whim of a collection of casting agents.
Chapter Four (#ulink_d3d9001f-0bb0-5405-a91b-63aff50ddbf8)
“Breakfast in bed, milady,” Chuck said with a gallant nod as he set the tray on her lap one morning after they had been out late the night before with Rosalie and Ivor.
He was barefoot and wearing only a pale blue pair of pajama bottoms.
Harlean struggled to sit up as she brushed the hair back from her face. “What’s this for?” she sleepily asked.
“Just for being you. I brought all of your favorites—hard-boiled egg, orange juice, coffee and toast with marmalade. Look, doll, I know I’m not the easiest person sometimes, so I have to work that much harder at things.” There was a single pink rose in a bud vase beside her coffee. She leaned in to smell its sweet fragrance before she looked up at him.
“You’re perfect just as you are, Chuck.”
He drew back the draperies and morning light flooded their bedroom. His expression was calm and she could see that he was totally at ease. “If only that were true.”
Harlean pushed away all thought of the hidden note and pressed a happy kiss onto his cheek. “I’m starving.”
“I knew you would be.”
He sank onto the bed beside her and propped himself back against the headboard as she took a sip of coffee. “I have something for you,” he said.
And with that, he drew from his end table a small leather volume and gave it to her. He was awkward with it, this humble offering, one he did not fully appreciate, but it was an offering nonetheless to the woman he loved—an early volume of Keats’s poetry. Harlean gasped seeing it. Tears brightened her eyes.
“How did you know?”
“I’ve listened to every word you’ve ever spoken and I’ve heard them all. Read me one,” he bid her.
“Are you sure?”
In response he very tenderly said, “I’m not going to pretend I understand any of those poems, but read me a bit of something and I promise to try.”
And so she read him her favorite poem by John Keats, taking time with each exquisite line, because it was the one that had always reminded her of love, of marriages, and how they came apart sometimes, as her parents’ marriage had. It also made her the more insistent that her own never would.
Afterward, she kissed him again but more deeply this time. Her heart was so full of love for this complicated, tender young man, and it made her worry for him. She so wanted him to be happy here. Then she asked him about his new world here, and how his golf game with the others was coming along.
Chuck had been disappearing from the house for hours at a time when she and Rosalie were off shopping for furniture. She knew he was working to be included in the group of young men in the neighborhood. But for now the saving grace in Harlean’s mind was seeing him carefree, his demons hopefully put to rest. Winning them over was at least an objective and she decided that it was better for him to have some sort of goal than none at all.
As she had predicted to him over dinner one evening a few days earlier, he was eventually invited to the country club to join them for a game of golf and then for tennis. Their days of sporting routinely ended with drinks at the country club bar in a private room where a blind eye was turned to the dictates of Prohibition.
“I’m pretty pitiful at it really,” he said of his golf game. “But my aim at this point is to charm them sufficiently so that they don’t care.”
She pressed another breezy kiss onto his cheek, rose from the bed, then yawned and stretched in a long butter-yellow ray of sunlight. “If you haven’t won them over yet, you will soon enough.”
“You really do believe in me, don’t you, doll?”
“One hundred percent. I just want you to be happy. And thank you for the book.”
“You really like it, then?”
She heard the familiar catch in his voice, just a note—but it came from that fragile need for reassurance. “You knew I would. It’s incredible. It’s a very rare volume, you know.”
“I’d like to think I’ll always know what you like.”
“You sure don’t have to win me over like that with things, Chuck. You know I adore you already. I always will.”
He searched her face for a moment and when she saw him finally give away just a hint of a smile, she knew that he did.
Later that day they decided to go to the pictures. Harlean was thrilled that Chuck was willing to sit through a romantic comedy because she knew he disliked them. He didn’t even complain about this one, though, and he told her he actually enjoyed it as they walked back to their car. Marriage was give-and-take, and it was so good to feel that they were both doing their part. Harlean couldn’t imagine anything that could be better than what the two of them had together right now. She loved decorating their home, and learning to cook. Even thoughts of writing a novel began to fade from her mind. The only thing lacking was that she missed her family more every day, her mother most especially, but she tried her best not to think too much of that.
* * *
Over the next few days, Harlean relished seeing how happy Chuck was here in their lovely hideaway, and how at ease he was when they were together, cooking together, or when she was trying to teach him about poetry. Please let things stay just as they are, she found herself thinking. She repeated that to herself daily until it became almost like a mantra. Coming to California had been good for him. He had left everything behind in the Midwest just as she had. She said it to herself even that evening a few days later, when his new set of friends delivered him back home, propped up between them after an afternoon of carousing.
“Ol’ Chuck sure is the life of the party. He was dancing on tables over at Musso and Frank’s an hour ago.” Blake Kendrick who lived next door gave Harlean an apologetic shrug as he handed Chuck over to her.
Harlean did her best not to show her disappointment. Damn, why did he always have to drink so much?
She thanked them with a believable smile and, after they’d gone, she dutifully tucked him into bed, kissed his forehead and turned out the light.
An unsettling concern pressed in on her again as she leaned against the closed door and let out a heavy sigh. She needed for him to stay just as content as he had been at first. Everything for her depended on that. They were alone here after all, and with Chuck gone so often lately, she had begun secretly to feel the greater pull of homesickness every day. Of course, she couldn’t tell Chuck that because he always said they were each other’s family now. For his sake, she tried very hard to make that true.
A few moments later, she went to the telephone and quietly dialed the number, hoping he was too sound asleep to hear. It wasn’t Sunday yet but, tonight especially, she just needed to hear her mother’s reassuring voice on the other end of the line.
* * *
Once the house was fully furnished, Chuck insisted on organizing another party. He planned on inviting everyone they’d met so far in Beverly Hills. It seemed a huge undertaking, but helping him gave Harlean a way to keep busy as the shine of the housewives’ world was fading by the day for her.
He planned to grill hot dogs, since he knew they were Harlean’s favorite food, and he had a florist fill the house with orchids and fragrant roses.
“I’ve put out the rest of the hootch we brought with us from Chicago. I hope it will be enough,” he said as he set clean glassware onto the kitchen counter next to bootleg bottles of gin and whiskey.
“Will you stop your worrying? Everything will be great.”
“So many of them have houses that are so much larger than ours. Maybe we should have bought a bigger place.”
Harlean went to him and twined her arms around his neck. She was wearing her favorite unstructured beige trousers, sneakers and a crisp white polo shirt, the way she had seen Joan Crawford do. Although, she didn’t think she could look quite as chic as the young star it was certainly fun to try.
She pressed herself against Chuck’s taut chest, and tenderly kissed him. In response to the gesture, he took her face in his hands.
“I love you like this, without makeup or anything. You have such lovely skin,” he said as he reached around and pressed his hands against her spine, drawing them closer together. “But I do wish you would wear a brassiere.”
She turned her lip out in a pout. “You know how I hate them, and my breasts are so small no one notices anyway.”
“Oh, they notice, all right.”
“Just to make you happy, I’ll put one on, then,” she said with a seductive half grin. “And I was going to do up my face for the party.”
“Then good thing that’s not for a while, because I have plans for you first, Mrs. McGrew.”
He pulled her more tightly, murmuring the words into her hair, and she felt a delicious shiver of anticipation. “Do you now, Mr. McGrew?”
“Oh, yes, indeed I do.”
“Anything I should be warned about?”
His smile was fox-like and adorable to her. “Not a chance. That would ruin all the fun.”
An hour later, the house pulsed with the sound of boisterous laughter. Music rolled and spilled out into the backyard where one of the guys was just lighting the BBQ. Harlean allowed herself a gin and soda with some of the girls. Then they wanted her to play the upbeat Louis Armstrong tune, “Weather Bird,” on the gramophone so they could dance.
She went back inside to change the music and paused at the kitchen window. She glanced out, and was surprised and happy to see Chuck looking like the life of the party, a real part of the group as he told a story, and everyone looked rapt.
She turned back around and saw Rosalie and Louis B. Mayer’s dignified and rail thin daughter Irene dancing the Charleston in the living room. Rosalie proudly explained earlier that she had met the MGM boss’s daughter one afternoon after she had weaseled her way into the studio commissary after a casting call and they had become friends. Irene brought her boyfriend David Selznick with her tonight and was intent on showing him off since he was an up-and-comer in the industry.
The story of how Irene and Rosalie met hadn’t surprised Harlean after their escapade at the Brown Derby. Clearly, Rosalie had perfected the art of looking like she belonged, and Harlean could stand to take chances like that, as well. Harlean had gone to school with Irene when she was in California the last time, but if Irene remembered her, she didn’t show it.
“Come over and dance with us, Harlean!” Rosalie called out to her happily.
“Yes, come on!” Irene seconded, her face already glistening as they all did the animated steps of a flapper.
Harlean finally joined in and shimmied to the end of the tune, when they all collapsed back onto the sofa. Irene introduced her friend then, a dark-eyed and exotic-looking girl named Katie. Her father was a powerful director, Cecil B. DeMille. As they were introduced, Harlean tried hard not to gape at the two spirited girls whose fathers practically owned Hollywood.
“Well, there are certainly no dance stars among the lot of us!” Katie DeMille sighed as she dabbed her face with the back of her hand.
“Probably no stars at all,” Irene added.
“I don’t know if I’d say that’s true,” Rosalie countered. “Last week, Harlean here got a personal letter of introduction written to the head of Central Casting from two Fox executives, and she wasn’t even trying. She was just sitting in the car waiting for me to check the rolls. They said she had ‘the look.’”
“They did not!” Irene exclaimed.
“Dave Allen is the head of Central Casting, I know him quite well. He’s a close friend of my father’s,” said Katie DeMille as her smile gave way to a more measured expression. “Dave is not easily swayed. What’d he have to say when you got there?”
“I didn’t go.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t go?” Irene Mayer gasped. She perked up and sat forward on the sofa. Her eyes grew wide. “That’s absolutely crazy!”
“He wouldn’t hire her right off the street like that anyway,” Katie blandly countered.
“I bet you wouldn’t have the nerve to go and see,” Irene added. “Especially since you’ve waited all this time, it would just be awkward now.”
“That’s probably true,” Rosalie chimed with a laugh. Harlean could tell she was trying to keep things light. “And casting offices are busy places. They’ve probably forgotten all about you by now.”
Harlean huffed in response to being ganged up on. Faced with condescension, it ignited her fighting spirit. “What would you like to bet?” she asked Irene.
Katie and Rosalie exchanged a glance. “We were only teasing,” Rosalie said.
“You mentioned a bet, let’s bet.”
Even though Harlean was smiling she could tell that they all felt the shift in her tone.
“All right,” Irene cautiously replied. “What do you want if I’m wrong?”
She glanced up at the lovely pearl brooch attached to Irene’s collar. “How ’bout that?”
Mayer’s eyes widened just slightly. Beyond that, she hid her surprise well. “You’ll never go through with it, so sure. But the brooch it is. And if I’m right and you don’t find the nerve, one of those beautiful orchids, hand delivered by you to my doorstep once a month for a year.”
Harlean fought a smile. Irene didn’t know what a poor choice it was to bet against her. She wouldn’t really take personal jewelry even after she had won the wager, she wasn’t that cruel. But she might borrow it for a day or two just to make a point. One thing was sure, she reveled in the moment where Louis B. Mayer’s daughter couldn’t be quite sure.
After the evening was at an end, and the guests happily stumbled out to their cars, Ivor and Rosalie followed Chuck and Harlean back inside. Chuck had invited them to stay for a nightcap. At least that had been his proposal before he realized they were out of alcohol. As Harlean and Rosalie took stock in the kitchen, they found that every last morsel of food, and every drop of liquor, had been consumed.
“Man, those boys can drink,” Chuck sighed, turning over a bottle of wine left on the kitchen counter to see if there was even a drop left inside.
“We held our own,” Ivor returned with a snicker as he slung his arm fraternally over Chuck’s shoulder.
“You sure did,” Rosalie added. “You’re both more than a little drunk.”
“Aw, don’t be a spoilsport, Rosie. We were all just havin’ fun,” Ivor replied with a smile as he smacked a breezy kiss onto her cheek. “Besides, Chuck and I can’t have those boys thinking we can’t keep up.”
She frowned at him in response and pretended to wipe his kiss away but she did not try to conceal her real affection for him.
Harlean walked back into the living room to begin cleaning up, and Rosalie followed her. There were dirty dishes and glassware scattered everywhere. The pungent odor of cigarettes was strong.
“I can’t believe you started that whole thing,” Harlean said as she collected the plates and Rosalie gathered up the glasses.
“Started what?”
“The challenge.”
Rosalie bit back a smile. “I didn’t. Irene did. But obviously that was an opportunity not to be missed. Besides, it’d be worth it just to see the look on Katie DeMille’s face if you went through with it, since she claims to know Dave Allen so well.”
“You don’t think I’ll do it, do you?”
“I don’t know. Will you?”
“Chuck wouldn’t want me to, I know that. He always thought my mother had been foolish to try to break into Hollywood.”
“Well, he wouldn’t even have to know.”
Harlean took the plates back into the kitchen and set them on the counter. When she glanced through the window over the sink, she saw Chuck and Ivor on the patio now. They were looking up at the sky and talking. “You think I should lie to my husband?”
“It’s not like he always tells you the truth. Weren’t you just telling me you have no idea what he does all day when he leaves the house?”
“I assumed he was with Ivor.”
“Not all the time.”
“Chuck wouldn’t cheat on me.”
“Of course not, honey. Any fool can see he’s crazy about you. I only meant, even married people have their secrets. It keeps things fresh.”
She turned on the tap, feeling a sudden flare of anger and doubt. She was trying to learn from Rosalie but Harlean, who was still only seventeen, wasn’t as confident as she knew she could make herself appear, and she hated other people knowing it. Mother always said, Look confident, Baby, and you will be confident.
“What’s the point, anyway? It’s not like I actually want to be an actress.”
“There’s always a point to accepting a dare. Be bold, be daring!” Rosalie exclaimed, and her brown eyes glittered.
Outside, Chuck and Ivor laughed suddenly about something the girls couldn’t hear.
“They have their little secrets, we should have ours,” Rosalie declared.
“All right.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Why not?”
And that really was the point. Harlean couldn’t think of any good reason not to do it. She certainly didn’t have anything else interesting to do with her days. It was crazy, surely. But, who knew, maybe it would be fun. And it would be great to win a bet with Louis B. Mayer’s slightly condescending daughter, and shock the daughter of Cecil B. DeMille, both at the same time. But more than that, this might just be an occasion to see if a bit of Rosalie’s awe-inspiring self-confidence had rubbed off on her. Her proclaimed disdain for the Hollywood studio system was from her mother’s experience, her fear of what it did to young women belonged to Chuck. Having a secret for a while might just afford her the ability to challenge herself and, for the first time, decide on her own how she actually felt about it all.
Chapter Five (#ulink_dbbac44c-95d0-53a9-8a47-749b3af40d28)
What are you staring at?
Harlean felt a spark of indignation as she parked outside the Central Casting office at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue. More than a few people passing by gave her a double take. So the car was a bit flashy, and her white silk suit looked expensive, but all of the attention was unnerving. She was already starting to second-guess coming here. She clutched the key in a death grip as she emerged from the car. Her knees were weak. She should never have stooped to a bet like this. What was she thinking? That was precisely what she got for having had a drink last night.
She should have asked Rosalie to come with her for moral support. But pride had gotten the better of her last night. And the same way Rosalie wanted to see Katie DeMille’s face, Harlean now wanted to see Rosalie’s expression when she announced that she had gone through with the dare when no one believed she would. She wanted to show them that no one should ever underestimate her. Oh, yes, Harlean McGrew could be downright daring. Those girls were about to see that!
And above all, she meant to prove it to herself.
All she had to do was present the letter and wait to be rejected. Then she would take a business card to prove she had actually been there, and be on her way, the wager handily won. She was meeting her old friend Bobbe Brown for lunch afterward which would soothe the rejection. Bobbe was a girl she’d met years ago when she and her mother had lived here the last time, and they had maintained a correspondence ever since.
Harlean thought it would be fun to see someone who had known her before she’d gotten married, someone who remembered, and liked, the slightly pudgy, sometimes awkward Harlean Carpenter even though, like Chuck, Bobbe teased her in her letters about still being called the Baby at the age of seventeen. She was eager now to spend some time with a girl her age, one who hadn’t grown up so fast as the rest of her new crowd.
The secretary looked up from a notepad on her neatly arranged desk. Beside her was a row of chairs, each occupied by a very pretty girl. Many of them were blonde, though not as blonde as Harlean. Each had their long, slim legs crossed in the same direction.
On the wall behind them were posters for the hit films The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino, and Lon Chaney looking suitably frightening in character as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She had seen both silent films with her mother in Kansas City, which reminded her, yet again, how far from home she really was.
“Yes?” the secretary said as she lifted her arched eyebrows a tick higher.
Harlean opened her mouth to reply but no words came out. She heard one of the girls in the row of chairs snicker in response to the sudden sound that came from the back of her throat. She drew the letter from her handbag and silently laid it down on the secretary’s desk. Scowling, the woman gave the missive a cursory glance. Then Harlean watched her eyes widen as she actually read the letter of introduction.
“Wait here,” she instructed as she went to knock on the door behind her desk and entered the office.
Harlean could feel the looks of contempt being shot at her as she stood waiting, her hands both tightly clutching her small handbag. It would be over soon enough, just a few more minutes, and she could be out the door and on the way to lunch where she and her old friend would have a good laugh about this.
“Mr. Allen will see you now. Go right in.”
The secretary’s expression had dramatically changed. For the first time, a glimmer of a smile turned up her carefully painted lips as she directed Harlean inside.
Dave Allen was surprisingly young, probably under thirty, with suntanned skin, bright hazel eyes and an engaging smile. He was not at all what Harlean had expected of the head of Central Casting. He stood and held out a hand to indicate a green leather chair opposite his desk. He was staring at her.
“Have a seat.”
“Thank you, Mr. Allen.”
“Dave, please. I’d feel ancient otherwise. And with whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?”
Harlean Carpenter, she nearly said but Mrs. Charles McGrew fought past it. Both names tangled in her mind then, dueling in that split second with the idea that she would have to explain being someone’s wife at such a young age.
What if they contacted him? This was all just a silly lark anyway—her momentary adventure.
“Jean Harlow,” she offhandedly replied, managing a smile. It completely surprised her that she had blurted it out, but her mother’s name would suit for now.
“That gaze of yours alone is worth a million bucks. You are different, just like the letter says.”
“Thank you...” she tipped her head to the side and held her smile “...I think.”
“Just calling it like I see it, Miss Harlow. That’s my job. We’ll want to get you registered right away. Eleanor, my secretary, will get your information.”
“Don’t you need to know if I can act or anything?”
She was stunned that he was actually going to register her after less than a five-minute conversation.
“I have what I need. Just shine every time we send you out, like you have right now with me, and you’ll be in business, believe me.”
As she left the office ten minutes later, Harlean plucked a business card from the secretary’s desk and gave it a victorious tap against her cheek. She was too stunned even to wonder what “in business” would actually mean in the coming days, but it didn’t matter, she reminded herself. She had won the bet, and she couldn’t wait to tell the girls, and see their faces when she did.
* * *
The next day, Harlean and Chuck took a picnic lunch into the bucolic grounds of Griffith Park. Chuck brought his camera, intent on taking photographs of his wife amid the lush surroundings. The rocky setting was like another world in the middle of a bustling city. There pine trees mingled with huge, glorious sycamores and a periwinkle-blue stream wound through it.
“The camera loves you.” He smiled as he clicked away, instructing her to pose this way and that atop a huge boulder beneath the warm midday sun. “You take my breath away.”
“I look like a schoolgirl in this outfit,” she said as she gestured to the gingham dress, baggy cardigan and sensible white tennis shoes he had chosen for her that morning.
“Not to me, you don’t.”
“Well, gingham isn’t very sexy.”
“You are my wife, I don’t want you to be sexy, at least not for anyone else but me. Besides vampy women are pretty loathsome. In my opinion, disgusting.”
Harlean thought of Pola Negri, her dark eyes beneath a silk turban, the hypnotic stare. She could not have disagreed with Chuck more. She respected any woman who could have that kind of power through a camera lens. It didn’t have to mean she was loose.
She had wanted to tell him about the dare all day, and about Dave Allen’s reaction. But something stronger stopped her. She knew she should be able to tell her husband anything, especially something that was actually kind of exciting, but she certainly did not want to ruin such a lovely afternoon by setting off his jealous streak.
After he had taken a few pictures, they sat in the shade of a gnarled old oak tree and Harlean unpacked sandwiches and a thermos full of lemonade. It was quiet here, pristine. The only sounds were from the stream running nearby and birds trilling in the trees above.
Chuck propped himself on an elbow. For a moment, he just watched her sitting against a tree trunk, knees drawn up to her chest.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Think about what?”
“About being back in California. Is it everything you hoped it would be?”
She leaned over and pressed a kiss onto his cheek. “Being married to you makes it all a hundred times better than that.”
“Well, you’re still the best thing ever to happen to me, that’s for sure.”
He said it matter-of-factly because he said it to her so often, but now there was a richness in his tone, like the sound of a pledge, and it touched her. She understood that it helped him believe in what they had together, and to remind her what was in his heart. Life had made him such a serious young man, and filled him with demons Harlean wasn’t sure she could ever fully help him vanquish, no matter how fiercely she loved him—especially because he wouldn’t acknowledge his feelings about the past with her.
But if she could continue making him happy, that would be a start and, she hoped, distraction enough.
“How about you, are you happy here?” she asked him.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I just thought maybe you missed home.”
“You are my home.”
He leaned over to kiss her as if to underscore the declaration.
“Sometimes I think I might like something to do.”
He tipped his head, and she knew that he had heard the change in her tone. “Like what?”
“Oh, gosh, I don’t know, just something to do with my days, that’s all.”
He ran a hand behind her neck and gently pulled her close so that he could kiss her again. It was so tender and sweet between them just then that she felt badly admitting to him that she could ever need anything else but his love and their marriage.
“Something more than keep our home and cook those wonderful meals you do?”
“I’m a horrible cook.”
“You are not.”
“Well, you are biased.”
She smiled as he caressed her neck with skillful fingertips, but she pulled away from him suddenly, sat back up and busied herself with pouring a second cup of lemonade. This was not the place for them to get carried away with more than a few kisses.
“What do you do when you’re gone from the house?” Harlean asked.
“I just knock around with the guys here and there, whatever they’re doing. No big deal. Got to stay in their good graces, you know. What’s with the third degree, doll?”
“I’m just curious.”
But of course it was more than that. She didn’t want to believe he had a serious problem with drinking, but his behavior with his new friends, and what happened on the cruise, had startled her enough to put the thought into her mind. She couldn’t help but worry now every time he took a drink because she saw that it changed him.
After lunch Chuck took the picnic basket back to the car. Then they hiked along the trails up through the hills of the park where they talked about a bit of everything, and nothing, as young couples do. As they wandered, she told him the vision she had for decorating their house, and then he proposed the possibility of taking a trip up the coast to Santa Barbara. Later, she asked him whether he’d yet been convinced of the beauty of poetry through reading the Keats volume together in the evenings. Harlean loved how he could make her laugh one minute, and say something poignant the next. She liked to think they could talk about anything, yet she still could not make herself tell him about the dare. Besides, flattering as it was, it wasn’t going to come to anything. Dave Allen had been polite but there really had been nothing more to it than that.
They held hands on the way back down to the car just as the afternoon air began to cool and the trees around them bristled.
“I need a long hot bath when we get home. I’m sore from all this walking,” she said.
“I’ll scrub your back.”
“Chuck!” She gave him a slight smile.
“The privileged life of a happily married man,” he declared, looking to her in that moment much older than he really was. Even when he smiled, there was always that deep sadness behind his eyes. Tragedy had a way of doing that to people, she thought, suddenly sorry she had never gotten to meet his parents. She had a feeling Chuck was a lot like them, and she found herself hoping they would have liked her.
* * *
Later that evening, after the dinner dishes were done, when Chuck himself surrendered to a bath she had drawn for him, Harlean had a moment to herself and picked up the telephone. While she had her mother’s aunt Jetty nearby out in Long Beach, who she could telephone from time to time when she got lonely, she had longed for days to make a call home.
“Oh, Baby, it’s so wonderful to hear your voice.”
“Yours, too, Mommie. You’ll never guess what happened, not in a million years!
“It really was the strangest thing.” She lowered her voice and cupped her hand around the heavy black phone receiver as she explained about Dave Allen.
In response, her mother gasped. “You’re joking! Why, that’s absolutely wonderful!”
“No one will call me of course, but I had to tell you about it.”
“Of course you did, my sweet baby girl. We tell each other everything. I’d have been hurt if you didn’t!”
Harlean felt herself relax just hearing her mother’s voice and the urge to confess further grew.
“I told them my name was Jean Harlow. I’m not sure why I did it. Maybe so Chuck wouldn’t have to know for now.”
“Sounds like you’re dealing with the same jealous Charles,” her mother said flatly. The dig at Chuck notwithstanding, Harlean still felt a familiar surge of longing for her mother’s company. She never realized so fully until they spoke again after a few days’ absence, just how much she missed their tender mother-and-daughter confidences.
Harlean could hear a sudden muffled exchange with a man on the other end of the line, her mother’s hand over the receiver. “You know, as it happens, Baby, Marino and I have been talking about taking a trip out to California ourselves, maybe staying awhile.”
She could hardly contain her joy at the prospect. Her dislike of her stepfather paled in comparison to her overpowering love for her mother.
Her father and slick Marino Bello were polar opposites. Mont Clair Carpenter, a prosperous dentist, had tried to give his beautiful blonde wife everything in order to keep her happy. As the marriage began to fall apart, he had worked hard just to keep her. In the end, no amount of money was able to do that. The fact that her mother had replaced her quiet, tenderhearted father with a huckster like Marino was as foul a thing as Harlean’s romantic mind could conjure. But her mother loved him, so Harlean had resolved long ago to keep her silence about him.
“Well, that would be really wonderful. I mean, if it’s no trouble for Marino.”
“Don’t be silly, Baby. Marino loves you as if you were his own daughter.”
She didn’t believe Marino really loved anyone other than himself, but as usual, she resisted saying it for her mother’s sake.
“And while I’m there, I can go with you on auditions. After all, I do know my way around the studios, so things will go so much more smoothly for you, my darling Baby. Fear not,” Jean Harlow Bello exclaimed, “Mother will be there soon.”
Chapter Six (#ulink_3761f38c-a47e-5cdc-ac7e-5946fd2d3a97)
Things were going so well between them that Harlean still hadn’t found the courage to tell Chuck about the impending visit by her mother and Marino. She and Chuck sometimes spent long, lazy mornings reading the newspaper together with breakfast in bed, and wonderful afternoons—when he wasn’t with the boys—ambling through quaint antiques shops in Santa Monica, hunting for special pieces to accent their home. She only wished it could be more often. In the evenings, they often played backgammon, or cards with Rosalie and Ivor. But her hesitation over revealing the visit sooner than she must was not without reason. Chuck found Jean Bello overbearing and controlling. And despite Harlean’s best efforts, he could not be swayed to see what it was that she loved so much about her mother.
A yipping sound, a high-pitched bark, woke her very suddenly one morning, a few days after their hike through Griffith Park. Harlean struggled to see the clock on her bedside table. Half past eight. She could feel the bed was empty beside her. The heavy draperies on her bedroom windows blotted out most of the morning sunlight so she flipped on a Tiffany bedside lamp and sat up. On the floor beside her dressing table was a fluffy ginger-colored Pomeranian puppy, yelping at her for attention. A lover of animals, Harlean was delighted to see such a cute little dog mysteriously at her feet, however it had arrived there.
“Well, now, who might you be?”
She tossed back the covers, went across the room and saw a red bow and the note tied around the puppy’s small neck.
Oscar will keep you company when I’m not here. He is the only other boy allowed access to your boudoir. Love, Chuck.
Entirely charmed by the cute and unexpected gift, she placed her hands on her hips. “Oscar, is it?” The dog stopped barking now that she was paying attention and his tail began to wag. “You’re an awfully demanding fella, aren’t you, Oscar?”
She bent down and scooped him up into her arms, which he quite happily tolerated with a whimper. Then he began to lick her cheek with his sandpaper tongue.
“Let’s get one thing straight right from the start, Buster Brown. You might have access to my bedroom boudoir, but my husband is the only one allowed to kiss me in here, is that clear?”
It felt like ages since Harlean had had a pet of her own. Back in Missouri, she’d had quite a menagerie to care for and keep her company while her mother was out. When she was a little girl, Grandpa Harlow had spoiled her with kittens, a Labrador puppy and even a parrot—as many pets as she could convince him to let her have. She owed her grandfather a letter, she thought, and she would reread his last one to her for how much she missed him.
Her heart swelled with love that Chuck had thought to do this. She’d been so horribly homesick lately, but this gift made everything seem so much better. Especially with the blindingly dull day of bridge and shopping which lay ahead for her today.
She stroked the puppy’s head and, once again, he lunged for her face to lick her. “I can see we are going to have to work on your manners, Oscar,” she joked as she took him into the kitchen to see if her very thoughtful husband’s gesture had extended to the purchase of dog food.
* * *
It had to be done. Harlean knew she had already put off too long telling Chuck about her mother and Marino’s visit, which was now only a few days away. In an attempt to divert an argument, she had decided to mention it just after Rosalie and Ivor arrived one evening for a game of cards. Earlier in the day, she had confided in Rosalie, who wasn’t particularly thrilled to be caught up in another potential scene, like on the cruise ship, over the subject of Harlean’s mother.
“I owe you,” Harlean murmured to Rosalie in the kitchen as she stirred a pitcher of lemonade and set it on a tray.
“Damn right you do. Have you even told him yet about Dave Allen?”
“One battle at a time, Rosie, please.”
They walked together back into the dining room where Chuck was dealing the cards. “Five card draw?” he asked of which game they would play first. Ivor nodded in accord.
“So, you know how much I’ve been missing my mother since we’ve been out here,” Harlean began and, as she did, she felt her heart quicken.
She so desperately wanted this to go well and there were a dozen reasons that it wouldn’t.
“The mother you talk to on the phone every week?”
Everyone exchanged a glance before they picked up their cards.
“Sorry, doll, yes, I know how much,” he amended. “Why?”
“Well, she and Marino are coming out to California for a visit!” Harlean tried her best to make it sound like a wonderful announcement, but it took some effort with her heart racing as it was.
“Isn’t that great, Chuck?” Rosalie asked cheerfully before he had a chance to react. “After all, we girls are never too old to spend time with our mothers.”
“I’m really awfully happy about it,” Harlean added, her glance shifting from Rosalie back to Chuck.
In the silence that followed, she reached across the table and put her hand over his. She was relieved when he didn’t pull away, even though he kept looking at his cards. “If it’s what’ll make you happy, then I’ll welcome them to California,” he finally said. “How long are they staying?”
There was a note of humor in the way he had added the question, and how quickly. Or maybe it was just that the three of them were so relieved there wouldn’t be a scene that Ivor started to laugh. Then they all did. When he gave Chuck a light brotherly clip on the shoulder, Harlean felt herself finally exhale.
* * *
Jean Harlow Bello always entered a room as if she were driven inside by the force of a strong wind. There was a confidence and attitude that came with her as well as a mighty swirl of her favorite Shalimar perfume. Today was no different. Chuck held the front door open as his mother-in-law strode past him, swirling onto the scene in a smart burgundy traveling suit, with a fox-fur collar, pearl earrings, fashionable black turban and neat black gloves. Having been a teenage bride herself, and a mother at the age of nineteen, Harlean’s mother was still a beauty. But her overly strong personality made a far stronger impression.
Harlean watched Chuck roll his eyes as her mother was followed inside by her husband, Marino, with his oiled inky hair and waxed ebony mustache. He was wearing his customary tight-fitting pin-striped suit with white spats, and he was dutifully toting the luggage.
“Ahh, there’s my baby, at last!” Jean cried out as she drew Harlean to her chest and squeezed her. The gesture was theatrical, but she loved being caught up in her mother’s distinctive whirlwind embrace.
“Mommie is here now, Baby. All is right with the world when we Harlow women are back together.”
Harlean heard the subtle challenge to Chuck in that, as she knew he was meant to, but she refused to react, and she hoped he wouldn’t either to ruin their reunion. Besides, it had been cleverly worded as a compliment. Jean was an expert at that sort of thing. Harlean didn’t love facing that, and the sensation was unsettling, even mixed with the joy of being reunited.
“Hello there, Charles,” Jean said blandly as she tossed Chuck a cursory glance. “Provincial little place you’ve got here.”
It hadn’t been meant as a compliment but Chuck had been brought up well enough not to take the bait.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bello. We’re happy here.”
Harlean heard the unmistakable edge in his response. Jean had never forgiven Chuck for eloping with her precious only child and every look, every word, was meant to remind him of that. In particular, she had resisted inviting him to call her by her first name. But Harlean had gained such confidence these past months of their marriage, by taking chances and by watching Rosalie, that she had every intention now of finding clever ways to help the two of them reconcile their differences, and not allowing her mother to steamroller things this time.
If they spent enough time together, Jean would see what a wonderful young man she had chosen on her own. Going against her family to marry Chuck, when she knew that it was right for her, had only been a prelude to the bold choices she was beginning to make for her life, and she liked the way that felt. The independence she had begun to seek here in Hollywood was drawing her more strongly every day.
“Come on, Marino, let’s find the guest room. You do have one, don’t you?”
“Mommie, you and Marino take our room. It’s larger and much more comfortable.”
She didn’t have to look in order to see Chuck’s shocked stare. “You’re staying here? Harlean, why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Until we find our own place, where would you suggest your wife’s mother stay? In a hotel, Charles?”
Knowing how close she was to her mother, Harlean thought he would have assumed the Bellos would stay with them. It was what families did, after all, wasn’t it? But then again, as a young boy, before the death of his parents, perhaps they’d never had out-of-town family. How could she know that when he wouldn’t talk about any of it? Whatever the circumstances, there had to be a way to make everyone happy. If there was, Harlean was determined to find it. Family and loyalty, after all, meant everything to her.
* * *
As the Bellos were settling into the master bedroom, Chuck came to Harlean as she was making up the bed in the guest room.
“Listen, doll, I completely forgot a tennis date I agreed to at the country club in half an hour. I can’t miss it since I’m playing doubles. You understand, don’t you?”
“I just thought maybe we’d take my mother and Marino out to lunch?”
In response, he pressed a halfhearted kiss onto her cheek as he buttoned his tennis sweater. “Why don’t you give Rosy a call? She can probably finagle another table for you all at the Brown Derby. Who knows, that might actually impress your mother.”
Then, before she could object further, he chucked her under the chin and left the room.
When they heard his car engine begin to rumble out on the street, Jean came into the room, sank onto the edge of Harlean’s bed and held up a hand to her daughter.
“Come sit with Mommie and tell me absolutely everything. Have you been well? You look terribly pale and thin. Is he even feeding you?”
“I’d rather hear about Grandpa. How is he doing? I try to call him once a week but you know how he hates the telephone.”
Harlean sat down beside her, trying to press away her disappointment at Chuck’s sudden leaving, as they embraced again. Her mother always smelled like that powdery citrus fragrance and for Harlean it was a comforting scent. Despite the way she had phrased it, Harlean understood the comment. While she encouraged her daughter to keep her figure, Jean would probably always worry about her daughter’s health. The severe case of scarlet fever she’d endured as a girl had frightened them both. No one but the two of them truly understood how life-altering that episode had been. It was one of the many things that tightened the finely woven mother-daughter bond.
“Seriously, Baby, how are you?”
“I’m fit as a fiddle, I promise. And there really isn’t anything to tell. I registered with Central Casting. Rosalie, that’s the girl I was telling you about, didn’t believe I’d do it, so it was fun to see her face after I did it.”
“On the train here, after what you told me, I was thinking about getting you some elocution lessons, and a few ballet lessons couldn’t hurt with bearing before you get a call. Believe me, the cameras see everything. I could never quite make the camera see what others tell me they see of me in person. You know how people have always referred to me as a beauty. But you, you’re different, Baby.”
“Mommie, there were more than fifty girls there that day, lined up around the office, and one was prettier than the next.”
“The world is full of pretty girls, Harlean. You can’t let that deter you.”
“Deter me from what? It’s not like I’m actually going to get an audition. It was a dare I took. Now it’s over and done with.”
“We shall see, won’t we?”
Her mother smiled, and her flawless skin looked luminescent to Harlean in this light. She had always thought her mother was exquisitely beautiful, and she knew people thought they resembled one another. Harlean had always been so flattered by that, and she felt even more linked with her because of it.
“But in the meantime, it couldn’t hurt to be prepared. We will get you those lessons. So tell me, how did Charles take the news?”
Harlean grimaced. “Now, Mommie, you know perfectly well Chuck hates to be called Charles since that was his father’s name and it reminds him of his parents’ loss.”
“But Chuck just sounds so...pedestrian.”
“Well, I’m ordinary, too, you know.”
“There is nothing ordinary about you, Harlean Carpenter.”
Harlean sighed. “It’s McGrew now.”
Then it was Jean’s turn to roll her eyes. “Fine. What did your Chuck McGrew say about you going to Fox, then signing with Central Casting?”
“He doesn’t know, and he’s not going to right now, either, until I decide for myself what I think about it all. If he ever has to be told, I’ll be the one to do it. Can we talk about something more pleasant, like finding you and Marino a house to rent?”
Jean lifted a shapely blond eyebrow. “Baby, what in heaven’s name has gotten into you? This sort of contrary tone with me isn’t at all like you. On top of that we’ve only just arrived, and you’re putting us out?”
“I just thought you and Marino would want more privacy.”
“And you and Chuck?”
Harlean was eager to change the subject. “Well, I certainly am glad you warned me about sex, I’ll say that,” she said with girlish delight and, by it, sounding more like the teenager she was than a married woman. “I mean, you really kept nothing back when you explained.”
Jean put an arm around her daughter’s shoulder and drew her closer. “What would’ve been the point of anything else, hmm? I always told you, your body is nothing to be ashamed of, nor is sex. It’s actually quite splendid. Although I admit factoring you with Charles into that sentiment has somewhat dampened my zeal for it. And while we are on the subject of your husband, does he often go off like that so suddenly and just leave you alone?”
“He doesn’t leave me, Mommie. He’s making friends. It’s good for him.”
“Never entirely good to leave a beautiful young wife to her own devices.”
“I trust my husband and he trusts me.” She could hear a note of self-defense creeping into her own voice so she forced up a smile to mask it. But her heart was sinking further by the moment. It was certainly not how she had hoped this would go.
“Maybe he wouldn’t be so confident if he knew about the casting office.”
“I know you don’t like Chuck, but I love him, and if there is ever a reason to tell him I’ll do it in my own time and in my own way. You wouldn’t dare tell him about that!”
“Baby, it has nothing to do with liking him or not. You were too young and too impulsive when you married, and you have your whole life ahead of you.”
Harlean had longed for this reunion with her mother. For days she had excitedly imagined these first tender moments back together, where she would have a chance to share all that had been happening in her life more easily than on long-distance telephone calls. But this was not at all the encounter she had hoped for. It felt like her mother was attacking Chuck—and therefore attacking her, in that artfully passive way she had mastered—and Harlean could feel her defenses flare.
She was certainly hurt by it, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it to her mother. So far in her life, it had never been worth the price of Jean’s days-long, stormy tirades if she felt even the least bit confronted or questioned.
“You were young when you married my daddy.”
“And you see how that ended up.”
“Well, that won’t happen to us because we married for the right reasons.”
“Time will tell, I suppose.”
Anxious for a distraction, Harlean glanced down at her mother’s lovely silk-faille-covered shoes, ornamented with large square, silver buckles.
“Gee, those are awfully keen.”
She knew her mother well enough—better really than anyone else did—to know that this was the best way to divert a scene or end a problem. It was also far more clever than initiating a full-scale tirade so soon after her mother’s arrival. Harlean might not always be as forceful as she would like to be, but she did take pride in her ingenuity. For now that would have to do.
Jean glanced down at her own feet, the tense moment between them extinguished in the face of sudden fashion talk, which they both adored.
“Oh, good, I’m glad you like them because, as it happens, I brought you a pair just like them, so we can be twins!”
“Gosh, that’s great, thank you, Mommie. I just love them!”
Suddenly, Marino was standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, wearing his customary sly grin. He always reminded Harlean of a gangster, but that was another thing she would never tell her mother. Jean believed him to be the sophisticated savior of a floundering Midwest beauty. In reality, he was a smarmy, two-bit huckster.
“So what have you two gorgeous dames got in store for me today?”
As he posed the question, he touched his moustache. Harlean supressed a twinge of disgust in response. What her mother saw in him she would never know, and she certainly didn’t care to. But they were here now, and Harlean fully intended to take advantage of the visit in order to bring her mother and her husband together at last. She certainly didn’t want this turmoil, she didn’t like it, so that was about to come to an end. She would figure out a way. Being in Hollywood again had given her a new confidence she never knew she had, and finally Harlean felt up to the heady challenge.
* * *
Over the next few days, Jean and Marino settled into the house as if they meant to remain there indefinitely. Clothing was steadily being strewn and piled everywhere in the bedroom and the bathroom. A few pieces even found their way into the living room. Jean’s favorite tablecloth now covered the table in place of one Chuck and Harlean had bought on their honeymoon cruise, and the music on the radio was nearly always the Italian opera that Marino fancied.
As a clear response to their presence in his home, Chuck left early most mornings before Harlean awoke. When he returned at night, he was most often under the influence of more than a few drinks.
“I hate this damn guest room,” he grumbled in the dark as he flopped onto the edge of the bed and tried to remove his own shoes and socks without falling over.
Harlean pressed a hand onto his shoulder in a soothing gesture. “You’re only saying that because Mommie’s in the other room.”
“I’m saying it because I haven’t made love to my wife since her mother installed herself in my bedroom!”
“Shh, pipe down, or she’ll hear you!”
“This isn’t normal, doll, us being separated. I miss the feel of you, the way you taste. Not having you is driving me crazy!”
He pivoted on the bed and pressed her back into the pillows, then arched above her before she had a moment to object.
“I need you, Harlean. I need us. Your mother is gonna ruin everything, I know she will.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t know her like I do. She wants what’s best for me.”
“Not so long ago you told me that was me.”
His thighs anchored hers to the bed, his hands were tightly cuffing her wrists. Harlean pressed her hips into his, wanting the connection with him every bit as much as he did. But the walls in this house were thin, the two rooms separated only by boards and stucco. The springs on the bed frame creaked.
She could hear the muffled sounds of Marino and her mother talking in the other room.
Chuck kissed her again, one breast then the other. They were straining to hold back from what they both wanted.
“If we’re quiet...” he raggedly whispered.
“God, they’ll know, for sure!”
Harlean was meeting his kisses with anticipation. He pressed up her silk nightgown straining over her. “So what if they know? I need you, Harlean, you’re my wife!”
“Chuck! I can’t!”
Their heavy breathing fought the silence, though Marino’s muffled words still came through the thin walls. “I can’t go on like this!” Chuck growled.
“They’ve only been here a few days.”
He moved away from her and fell onto his back, his chest heaving. “Well, it feels like a goddamn eternity to me.”
Harlean nestled against him, the sound of his heart slamming in her ear. He was being petulant and spoiled. She waited for him to calm beneath her tender touch. “I love you, Chuck, with all my heart. You know I do.”
“Get them out of here, Harlean. I want my wife back.”
It was the last thing he said before he rolled away from her and pulled the covers up to create a barrier between them.
* * *
Harlean rose early the next morning so she could let the dog outside in the backyard. There was a light mist covering the lawn and the sunrise sky was all rose and vermilion. She stood watching it for a while before she went back in to make a pot of coffee, then sank onto one of the new kitchen chairs. She’d been awake most of the night, wanting Chuck as much as he had wanted her and struggling with guilt over refusing him. As glad as she had been about her mother’s arrival, it had changed things. The Bellos just needed their own house nearby and then everything would be fine.
Everything would get back to normal.
The ringing of the phone startled her. She lunged toward the dining room nook to answer it. She needed this bit of peace, time to herself. She certainly didn’t want Chuck to wake in a fouler mood than the one in which he had gone to bed.
“Hello?”
“Jean Harlow, please.”
“I’m sorry, my mother is still asleep and—”
Only then, as the words crossed her lips, did she remember the name she had given to Central Casting. She was Jean Harlow.
She cleared her throat. “Jean Harlow speaking.”
“Bring your best evening gown to the Paramount Pictures lot. Get here by nine and be prepared to spend the day.”
The voice was male, young and in a hurry. She heard the click on the other end before she had a chance to ask if she could bring her mother.
Stunned, Harlean set the phone back in the cradle, then sank against the wall. The spark of excitement she had felt faded quickly when she thought of her mother, asleep and unaware, in the next room. In spite of the enthusiasm she had initially shown, Harlean could not help wondering how the news would truly strike her. After all, Jean Harlow Bello was a beautiful woman who had struggled for years, then finally had given up on her dream only to have her young, pretty daughter called for work in a matter of days—and while using her mother’s name.
Harlean fought against the disloyalty and worry she felt. Not only was her mother likely to feel envious, Chuck would doubtlessly feel threatened that a group of men might want to use her in a motion picture.
Hollywood is no place for a lady.
The echo of her grandfather’s voice the last time they’d spoken moved through her mind now and added to what she knew would be a resounding chorus of discontent if she went through with this. A silly dare had very suddenly become something more. Harlean couldn’t help but feel as if she were on the cusp of some monumental thing, but she still wasn’t certain that finding out just what it might be was worth the risks with those she loved.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_ddf64ac8-2a08-55bd-ade3-6b7b507959cf)
She decided to leave a note for Chuck saying that she was going off for the day with Rosalie and she was taking the car. Then she left before anyone was awake. She didn’t trust herself with them about this yet—her mother would be pushing for one side and her husband would be dead set against it on the other. After all, she kept reminding herself, it was rare to actually be chosen for work from the huge pool of extras they called in. For luck, she had just pinned Irene Mayer’s brooch squarely onto the collar of her dress and, before turning from the mirror’s reflection, she had admired her ingenuity in obtaining it. Ah, Irene’s face when she had presented the business card to her and demanded payment had made the entire adventure worthwhile. Of course she would return it in time, but for now the brooch was a symbol of her having set out to prove something to herself, setting a goal and then achieving it.
Always finish what you start. It was another thing her grandfather regularly said, and the maxim came to her as she walked across the studio lot with a renewed purpose. She wondered, with a spark of amusement, if he would think that applied to his only grandchild trying to wade into the turbulent, highly competitive waters of Hollywood. She already knew the answer to that, of course.
Skip Harlow would be livid.
Two men in silk top hats and tails, each carrying scripts, walked by her with bearded men in plaid shirts and cowboy boots. A group of actresses in dance-hall costumes stopped them to talk. Others wearing ponchos, sombreros and great false mustaches passed her by as she made her way through the bustling Paramount back lot. There was such energy to the atmosphere that she hadn’t seen when she was younger, and there was a touch of mystery to it. Harlean hadn’t expected to be drawn in by any of it today, but being in the center of everything, and on her own, suddenly felt exciting.
After she checked in at the casting office with a hundred other extras, the women were all shown to a huge room, the walls lined with mirrors, where they could change into the evening attire they had brought with them. Most of the women kept to themselves as they primped, straightened and pinned themselves together. They ranged from stout-looking matrons to slim ingenues. Her mother and Rosalie had both told her that if the hopefuls received a nod in the next few minutes it would mean a day’s wages to actors who were more than a little down on their luck. She could hear several of them murmuring prayers and affirmations to themselves as they filed back outside to line up around the soundstage.
While they all waited together, Harlean began to feel as if she were trapped in a crushing jungle of competition and desperation. Most of it was costumed in stained, faded or mended satin, or taffeta and fake fur. The actresses around her gossiped, smoked cigarettes and cracked chewing gum to lessen the strain and pass the time.
Harlean fluffed the rose silk evening dress she had worn on the cruise. It was couture and had cost her grandfather a small fortune. She guessed that hers was the only dress that had actually come from a Paris designer as she compared it to the faded costumes around her.
A no-nonsense-looking woman and man, both in gray business attire, surveyed the long line. The man quickly assessed each hopeful extra and only occasionally said “you.” The woman wrote down the person’s name on the clipboard she carried, and they moved steadily on.
He had chosen at least thirty by the time he came to Harlean. To her surprise, she felt her heart begin to pound. Suddenly, she desperately did not want to be passed over. It was a curious sensation—one that felt unnervingly like a growing sense of ambition.
When he stopped in front of her, Harlean saw that he was a remarkably young and fresh-faced man for the job. However, his gaze held the critical stare of a professional who had been at this a while.
“You, what’s your name?”
“Harl... Jean Harlow, sir.”
“Quite a looker. The director will want you, for sure.”
She was uncertain whether or not she was meant to respond.
“Follow the others,” he said with no inflection in his voice. He moved along down the line and, just like that, her moment was over.
The chosen extras were herded inside a vast soundstage. Cloth-draped tables encircled a large dance floor and huge Georgian-style faux windows, covered with silk draperies tied back with claret-colored cords, gave the illusion of an elegant restaurant dining room.
There was a group of tuxedo-clad actors standing around joking as Harlean and the others came in. The extras were each told to take a seat, then wait for an assistant director to move them around in what felt to Harlean like a game of musical chairs. After everyone was settled, she found herself wedged tightly at a table beside a stout, white-haired woman wearing a rhinestone tiara and a long necklace of amber-colored glass beads.
“Any idea what the picture is called?” Harlean asked the older woman as she took out a cigarette and casually lit it with a gold lighter.
“Not a clue. But a paycheck is a paycheck. Lula Hanford,” she said in a slightly graveled, no-nonsense tone.
Harlean was struck by the unique name. It was lovely.
“Jean Harlow.”
“You’re new around the lot, aren’t you?”
“Does it show that much?”
She knew she probably sounded as green as grass, and looked it, as well.
Lula gave a raspy chuckle and exhaled a cloud of smoke as a production assistant began to fill water glasses on each of the tables, and another was shouting to the assistant director. “It only shows to an old broad like me. I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve worked with ’em all—Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, John Barrymore...”
“No kidding?”
“Sure. They put their pants on one leg at a time just like you and me.”
“Although I bet Miss Pickford wouldn’t like her public to think of America’s Sweetheart putting on her pants, just like all the boys,” Harlean quipped in a low voice.
Lula Hanford chuckled. “You’re sharper than you look.”
“Thanks...I think.” It was quickly becoming her standard response. She knew she could use more confidence, and she meant to work on that.
“Relax, it was a compliment. A talented girl who looks like you could go far in pictures.”
“If one of them doesn’t poison my water.”
They both glanced at the next table where four sour-faced women were seated together. Each of them shot Harlean a foul glare before they looked away.
“Or trip you on your way to the toilet. That happened to me once when I was much younger, so you gotta watch out.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
“It can happen just as easily when you’re older. I worked on a picture with Lillian Gish once and played the second lead. Beautiful girl, sweet, too, but she was always trying to steal my scenes, which I never understood since I was playing her mother.”
Harlean found herself thinking that she could learn a thing or two from this woman as the work to set up the scene continued around them. Two of the actors in white dinner jackets were being instructed on how to hold the trays. Harlean hadn’t realized before now about the details—every hat, every necktie—all needed to be in place. There was something fascinatingly meticulous about it.
“Still, that must have been so gratifying to see your name on a marquee.”
“Not another feeling in the world like it, honey,” Lula said.
“Places, everyone!” the assistant director called out. “Quiet on the set!”
Suddenly chatter, mimicking the sounds in a restaurant rose up naturally at the director’s signal. Harlean leaned forward as though she were speaking to the other woman seated across the table. Her heart was still racing, even though she struggled to look exceedingly nonchalant. She tried to imagine being a worldly young woman, and conveying it, so that if the camera caught her it would pick that up.
Being in the middle of this was certainly more exhilarating than she had expected. The dare had become a surprising pleasure.
The scene took several hours to shoot. It was shot and reshot before the slim, gaunt-faced man sitting beside her injected himself into her conversation with Lula Hanford.
“Say, weren’t we in that picture with Buck Jones a few years back?” he asked Lula.
“I love Buck Jones!” Harlean interrupted, sounding every bit seventeen, even if she didn’t look it in her gown and makeup.
“Bit pompous for my taste, but handsome enough,” said the man seated on Harlean’s other side. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands were shaking. He looked like he could use a drink. Lula looked more closely at him.
“Lloyd Bradshaw, as I live and breathe.”
“At your service,” he said with a nod.
“My, my, well, it has been a while.”
“Haven’t won many roles lately. Honestly, I’ve been struggling a bit.”
“Haven’t we all, Lloyd, haven’t we all. They’re saying talkies are about to change everything. They seem to be looking for different types now than they were when you and I were working a lot.”
“Change would be good, if there is a paycheck to be had. When I audition now, though, they keep saying my accent is too distinctive and isn’t right for the part. My voice, my accent...all we ever cared for even a couple years ago was our facial expressions and how that came across on-screen. Don’t get me wrong, though, work is work.”
Harlean thought how Lula’s dignified tone matched the image she projected, Lloyd Bradshaw’s high-pitched Bronx tenor did not. That could not bode well for his future in talking pictures.
They shot the scene again and then someone shouted out, “Take ten, everybody.”
Harlean stood to stretch her legs. She had a cramp in one of her calves. Lula stood beside her. “Not a fan of brassieres?” Lula asked as she glanced at Harlean’s chest.
“I loathe them, actually. Anything constricting makes me want to run the other way,” she admitted, and then she felt herself blush. “I was ill with scarlet fever when I was a child, and confined to my bed. After a while, it began to feel like a cage, the bedding felt like prison bars. It made me panic. Ever since then, I’ve been kind of a free spirit, I guess you could say.”
“Good thing you’ve got a small bosom, then, beauty that you are. I’d cause a riot if I tried that.”
They had a chuckle together at that. It was easy speaking with her. There was something about Lula that reminded her of her mother. Not her looks, it wasn’t that. Rather, it was seeing a gutsy woman’s more human side, a hint of vulnerability. The monotony of sitting there for all those hours had created a bond, as well. Women could talk of just about anything when that happened. This surely was not the glamorous side of Hollywood.
Harlean’s gaze then landed back on Lloyd Bradshaw who was cautiously swilling from a silver flask, then stuffing it back in his coat pocket.
“Poor Lloyd. I knew who he was the moment I saw him. We go way back. You might have guessed he’s a bit overly fond of the drink.”
As Harlean sat back down, waiting for them to call an end to the break, she noticed an extra across from them whose auburn hairpiece had slipped just slightly, revealing coils of gray beneath. He quickly adjusted it and then pridefully tipped up his chin. She had been struck by others in the group of extras, too, but to her he symbolized the struggling young actors, hopefuls and has-beens that permeated the movie industry. Perhaps she could relate more to these people than she had initially thought—they had their own insecurities, just like she did. There was weakness and pride, such dimension to all of them, once she really looked.
Filled with the newfound realization, Harlean sank against the chair as, once again, crew members began adjusting the lighting. Lloyd’s hands had stopped shaking, no doubt courtesy of the contents of his flask.
“Since it looks they’re going to be a while, tell me about the picture you did together,” Harlean asked Lula and Lloyd with genuine interest.
“It was Hearts and Spurs with that cute young Carole Lombard, if memory serves.”
“Why, yes, that was it!”
“I played a gambler. You ran the saloon,” he recalled with a broadening smile.
“We shot it in the Santa Monica Mountains. I had my own trailer on that picture.”
“We both did.” He let out a nostalgic sigh. “I thought I was really on my way to being somebody back then.”
“All right, everybody, places!” the assistant director finally called out on his bullhorn again.
For Harlean the tedium of the process was balanced by the entertaining company surrounding her. She was fascinated by the stories they began to tell, and she felt relaxed with them both. No one here knew who she was, that she had been so sheltered her whole life—or that, until she met Chuck, she had considered herself a loner and a bookworm. Nor did they care. They seemed to be taking her at face value. Today, she was just “Jean,” a new girl in the business, one who could use some advice, and camaraderie, from two seasoned professionals.
During the lunch break, as they ate bologna and cheese sandwiches and drank lukewarm coffee, she could hear a murmured conversation between the two assistant directors as they looked at her then looked away. She could see that Lula heard it, as well.
“Now, see that one, Harry, the blonde over there? I’m tellin’ you, the camera loves her. She jumps at you right through the lens. I saw it for myself when we were setting up the last shot.”
Even though they spoke in low tones, Harlean did not miss a word of their conversation. She drank it in, savored it and thought of how she might use it to her advantage. Touch the line without crossing over it—she was learning for herself that was the key.
“No fooling. Who is she?”
“How the hell should I know? She’s some extra, for now, anyway. But if she’s got an ounce of ambition, we’ll be seeing her again.”
Lula took a swallow of the cold coffee. “They’re talking about you.”
Harlean felt a sly grin turn up the corners of her mouth. Their compliment was flattering to her.
“I didn’t think I’d like this whole picture business, but I actually kind of do. Around here, no one is judging me.”
“My dear, everyone is judging you. It’s just that, for the moment, it’s in a good way.”
“How can I do what he said, come around again, get more work?”
“For that, you’ll need to be smart, and stand out for more than your looks.”
“But how can I do that?”
“To begin with, make sure your shoes are clean. Assistant directors always look at your feet first. And another thing, if you really want my advice, invest in a few smart-looking hats. You can fake clothes, but you can never fake a stylish hat.”
She thought for a moment. Those things would be easy. Her mother had given her a strong sense of fashion and her grandfather had long funded it. “Sure, I can do that.”
Lula reflected for a moment on her own advice as extras began to stand up and toss the remains of their lunch boxes into a garbage can at the end of the table. “And watch your makeup. You’ll never get a close-up if your skin isn’t flawless.”
“A close-up?”
“I assume you aren’t going to want to do extra work forever. That dress of yours alone is worth more than a lot of these folks earn in a month.”
“I hadn’t thought...”
“Well, you’ve got to think ahead. Believe me, your competition does.”
She hadn’t fully considered that it was a competition—but Lula Hanford was right, that’s just what Hollywood was—one great, big, tumultuous competition. But suddenly, the prospect actually seemed more exciting than frightening.
* * *
It had been a long day and Harlean was dragging by the time she arrived back at the house, toting her evening dress in a garment bag. Marino was making pasta and her mother was sitting at the kitchen table filing her fingernails. A lively Duke Ellington tune blared from the radio, threading through a conversation between Jean and her husband. Finally, at least it wasn’t opera she had to listen to.
Chuck came in a moment later and stood in the doorway.
“Where the devil have you been all day? I talked to Ivor and he said Rosalie hadn’t seen you.”
“No, I wasn’t with Rosalie,” she confessed.
The nail file stilled in her mother’s hand as she glanced up.
“Well, at least you’re not planning to lie now,” he grumbled.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Chuck, is that really necessary?” Jean sighed as she rolled her eyes. “Sit down, Baby, and tell us about your adventure today.”
“How the hell do you know what my wife was doing?”
“Best to watch your tone, my boy,” Marino interjected matter-of-factly as he stood stirring marinara sauce at the stove.
“A mother’s intuition, is how I know, and a mother is always right,” Jean replied in a curt tone.
Harlean sat down beside her mother as Chuck sulked around the kitchen. “It was an adventure, Mommie, an amazing one.”
“There, you see, Chuck? So, Baby, you got a casting call?”
“I went to Paramount. They called me in when you were all still asleep, and then I was chosen from a huge herd of people. Gosh, you wouldn’t believe the size of the crowd, people were everywhere and it took the whole day to shoot the one scene. It was for a picture they’re going to call Moran of the Marines. Richard Dix is the star. I saw him, Mommie, I was as close to him as I am to Marino! I made seven dollars all on my own, and they gave us a box lunch.”
“Insipid title. Sounds like Moron of the Marines.”
“Don’t be rude, Charles. Clearly, the directors could see how exceptional your wife is, the way I have seen it all along. She was picked from an enormous crowd,” Jean boasted with an overabundance of maternal pride.
“I can’t believe you went behind my back.”
“It was early, Chuck, and I just didn’t want to wake any of you, that was the only reason, honest.”
“Well, seven dollars won’t even buy a pair of those fancy buckle shoes you insist on wearing, so I sure as hell don’t see what all the fuss is about,” Chuck grumbled.
Marino set down the wooden spoon and pivoted away from the stove. His blue-black hair shimmered in the light from the milk-glass ceiling fixture. “Good gracious, boy, can’t you be happy for the Baby? She had herself an adventure. Why would you begrudge her that?”
“She’s not a baby, she’s my wife, goddammit, and I don’t see why either of you would want to get her hopes up. Particularly not you, Mrs. Bello, since you know how tough rejection is in Hollywood. You sure got enough of it yourself during your failed attempt at becoming a star.”
Jean shot to her feet. “Impertinent prig.”
“That’s enough, both of you,” Harlean said, trying in vain to run interference. “Come on, Chuck, take a walk with me till dinner’s ready.”
“Tell me this first, did you get another job?” Her mother interjected as Harlean walked over to Chuck and clutched his hand.
Harlean saw Chuck’s deep frown. His face had flushed crimson with pent-up frustration. She wanted to tell him first, and privately, once they’d gotten some fresh air and he had calmed down a bit. She knew he was already tolerating so much by having her mother and Marino here, and with her mother still needling him at every turn. Harlean was disappointed she had yet to take command of that, although she was trying.
“Well, did you?” Jean repeated anxiously.
“The assistant director took a liking to me and introduced me to a casting director before I left. Joe Egli.”
Jean gasped. “You actually met Joe Egli?”
“That’s how I got the next job. He called over to Fox where he knew they were hiring. I have a call tomorrow. It’s a prison picture called Honor Bound. It’s just another crowd scene, but it’s more work!”
“Oh!” Jean exclaimed as she drew her daughter to her chest and wrapped her into a tight embrace. “That’s my Baby! I knew if they could just see you this would happen!”
Harlean and Chuck walked outside after that and stood beneath a bright quarter moon in a breeze that was balmy and soothing. Chuck had tried to pull his hand away from hers, but Harlean had only clamped onto it more tightly, her determination overpowering his strength in the moment. She reached up and cupped his chin in the palm of her other hand. His jaw quivered at her touch.
“They’ll be gone soon. Mommie said she had an appointment lined up tomorrow to look at a house for rent.”
“God, how I hate when you call her that,” he groaned as he looked away.
“Listen, Chuck, you know how sorry I am about your mother but you don’t have to take it out on me because I still have mine.”
Harlean heard her own harsh tone the moment the words left her lips, and she was instantly sorry that she had allowed her frustration to lead her.
“I’m sorry, that was cruel of me,” she said. “There’s just so much inside you that you won’t share with me. Sometimes it’s difficult to know how to reach you, especially when it comes to that subject.”
“I don’t like you talking about her, or my father, either. I think I’ve made that pretty easy to understand.” She heard the sharp defensiveness in his tone, and she was even more ashamed of herself. She willed her next words to be spoken slowly and tenderly.
“But it might do you some good. People need to grieve, Chuck, or it’ll be like poison. It’ll tear your heart up inside.”
“How the hell would you know?” he snapped at her.
“I lost my daddy.”
“Mont Clair Carpenter is still breathing, doll,” he shot back. His tone was still harsh but now it was fragile, too. She hated how easily she could imagine him shattering. “You have no idea at all what my grief feels like.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “I’d like to, though. I want to share everything with you, even that.”
“Well, you can’t. No one can.”
“I can’t because you won’t let me.”
“Because I can’t let you! I refuse to feel that pain, or even think about it, because there’s not a damn thing I can do to change it!”
Harlean saw tears suddenly shining in his eyes. “Do you think maybe that’s why you lash out sometimes, though?” she asked very gently.
She hoped he wouldn’t lash out at her even more for suggesting it.
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