A Touch of Stardust (17 page)

Andy, looking puzzled, nodded. “I thought—”

“Right, you’re going to a wedding. Did I forget to tell you where?” She threw on a coat and grabbed a suitcase, then beckoned to Clark, who was right behind her. With no makeup on and her hair tied in pigtails, she looked like a Girl Scout.

“Okay, where?” Andy said.

“Kingman, Arizona,” Carole said. “Don’t worry—we’ve been fixing sandwiches, and my cook filled a couple of Thermoses with coffee. Let’s go; the clock is ticking.”

Clark looked a bit abashed as he grabbed his coat and followed Carole out. “It’s about eight hundred miles round-trip, and I’ve got to be back on the set Monday morning. But we’re doing this our way—you two with us?”

Andy started to laugh. He looked at Julie and shrugged his shoulders. “Up for it?” he said.

“I’ll have to ask my boss for time off,” Julie said, straight-faced.

“You’ve got it,” Carole said with a snap of her fingers. “And don’t worry, when we have to stop for gas, we can squeeze in front and Clark will hide in the rumble seat so nobody recognizes him. I’ll tuck my hair up and pull a hat over my head.”

Night gave way to sunrise as they drove. Carole spelled Andy at the wheel first, then Julie. Clark pored over a map. “We should get there by afternoon,” he said, yawning. “Ma, pass me that coffee.”

Julie could still hardly believe her own presence in this bizarre, totally unglamorous elopement. She stared out the window as she took her turn driving inland, past San Bernardino, through Apple Valley, then into the heat of Barstow. Andy was dozing; she could hear him snoring faintly in the rumble seat, and see through the mirror the wind blowing his hair. A crazy picture flashed through her mind: Andy asleep in the rumble seat, she on top of him, waking him up. Surprising him. It made her smile.

“God, this place is flat and dry. We could’ve shot scenes for
The Painted Desert
here,” Clark said at one point. He was sitting by the door, next to Julie and Carole in the front, ignoring the fact that one well-muscled shoulder was squeezed tight against the half-opened window. He tried in vain to stretch his legs. His face was covered with dark stubble. “Maybe not such a bad place to live, though. I like driving through the country, wondering about what living in different places would be like.”

“Where did you grow up?” Julie asked.

“Ohio. Neither bad nor good. Got out of there as soon as I could and eventually got to Hollywood. Bad teeth, afraid to smile. Yeah, an instant hit.”

“Tell her the story, Pa,” Carole said.

“Sure. Jesus, this car is cramped.” He groaned, managing to roll down the window to give his arm more room. “I tested for
Little Caesar
, which would’ve been a great part to land. Zanuck didn’t waste any words. He told me my ears were too big and I looked like an ape.” He sat there for a moment, saying nothing. Then, “Most of us start from nothing, with plenty of rejection. I remind myself of that whenever I get to feeling too important.”

A giggle from Carole. “Honey, face it. Those ears of yours still make you look like a giant sugar bowl.”

He turned his head to look at her. “I’m a lucky man,” he said, almost somberly. “I got you, even though I can’t act worth a damn.
You know what I want on my tombstone? ‘He was lucky and he knew it.’ ”

Andy was banging on the back window now. “Okay, Miss Crawford, pull over—I’ll take it from here,” he shouted.

“Should we stop in Vegas and give your ex-wife a hug, sweetie?” Carole asked as she tied the strings of a sunbonnet on her head and took Andy’s place in the rumble seat.

“Sure, if she gives back the money.”

On they drove, as the sun rose high. They sang songs, with Andy belting out an impressive baritone leading them all in “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” Carole and Clark harmonizing on “Sweet Rosie O’Grady,” shouting themselves hoarse, laughing to the sky. When they tired of singing, they dozed, stopping from time to time to change places in the rumble seat. Julie knew she would long remember the lazy hours of that trip—the jokes, the songs, the scraps of talk as they chugged along the edge of the Mojave Desert, bouncing over tired roads toward Needles, a town that straddled the borders of California, Nevada, and Arizona. A place called Needles? What a wonderful, crazy name!

“Goes up to a hundred and twenty degrees here in the summer,” Andy said, swinging the wheel, pushing hard on the accelerator. “Even the rain is hot. You’re getting quite a tour of the neighborhood, kid.”

“How’s the gas?” Carole yelled.

Andy looked at the gauge. “Low,” he said.

“Okay, Pa, we’ve gotta stop at the next station. Time for you to hunch down in the rumble seat.”

With Clark curled head-down, out of sight, they stopped at a dingy gas station boasting one tired-looking pump.
DAN’S GAS
,
HIGHEST OCTANE EVER
, read a faded sign on top of the station. The attendant, who had a tanned and weathered face, hitched up his grease-stained trousers, looking bored as he slowly approached the car.

“There better be gas in that thing,” Andy muttered.

It was the only moment of worry. And when it turned out there was plenty of gas, they roared off, releasing Clark after the gas station
was safely out of sight. From there, they began climbing; soon Julie could see the lower elevations of the Hualapai Mountains. Another hour ticked by.

“Almost there,” Carole said encouragingly.

Around one in the afternoon, after making their way down a flat stretch of straight, dreary road, they saw a tall, ungainly water tower emerge from the horizon.

On it was a sign:
WELCOME TO KINGMAN
.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Clark said, squinting at the sign. “But you can go anywhere from here.”

“Pull over,” Carole demanded unexpectedly.

Andy obeyed. “Where to?” he asked.

Carole folded her hands almost primly, pulling herself straight. “The courthouse, and then the church. But brace yourselves, gentlemen—I want flowers first.”

“Flowers?” Clark sounded flabbergasted. “Here?”

His astonishment was understandable. Looking at the terrain could make anyone wonder whether flowers actually grew here.

“I’m getting married, and I want flowers.” Carole’s voice was quite calm. “Pink roses, please.”

They all looked at each other. Carole was not joking. Her chin was thrust forward, her hands were still folded, and she looked quite determined.

“That makes perfect sense to me,” Julie said finally. She peered ahead at the tiny town, hoping she wasn’t promising too much. “Andy and I will find a florist; stay here.”

“Pink roses,” Clark mumbled. “God help us if they only have red ones.”

The hunt for a florist in a town the size of Kingman was astonishingly easy. Either it would be on the main street or there wouldn’t be any at all, but there it was: a small shop with a white-and-black sign over the front door saying
FLORIST
—with some straggly-looking
daisies in the window. Amazingly, they had pink roses. After a second of hesitation, Julie ordered a carnation boutonniere for Gable. That would please Carole.

From there, everything went smoothly. Signing the documents at the courthouse didn’t take very long, though the clerk on duty in the marriage bureau blanched when she recognized Clark, who gave his age as thirty-eight. Amused, Julie noted that Carole shaved a year off her age—declaring she was twenty-nine—on the wedding license.

The next stop was the First Methodist Episcopal Church. A solemn-faced minister with graying hair greeted them calmly at the door. There were no widened eyes, no stuttering, no surprise. Of course, Carole would never have left the details to chance. This seemingly madcap trip was not just a lark, it was tightly planned. Carole might be funny and a little crazy, but she was smart.

“Come help me get dressed,” Carole whispered to Julie. Her eyes were very bright, and her skin was flushed. “I can’t wear white, but damned if I can’t wear a really pale gray.”

The two of them, hauling Carole’s suitcase, entered a changing room off the church vestibule. Carole opened her case and pulled out a beautiful dove-gray suit of soft flannel, fashionably padded at the shoulders. Julie reached out to stroke the supple wool as a beaming Carole held it up for appraisal. “Irene made it for me, and never asked a question,” she said. “She’s wonderfully discreet. Do you like it?”

A suit made by Irene Lentz, the fabled designer of magical gowns for the movies?

“I love it,” Julie breathed.

Carole stepped out of her rumpled clothes, tossing her shirt and pants and her chemise and panties into the now empty case. She stood naked for a moment, totally still. Julie had never seen the constantly mobile actress silent. In those few seconds, she could have been a goddess carved from marble. There was almost a look of wonder on her face.

“This is truly happening,” Carole said, breaking the spell. Suddenly
she was tugging on fresh underwear, snapping the tops of her hose into her garter belt, wiggling into the suit skirt, and grabbing from the pile of clothing on a chair a gray-and-white polka-dotted vest in the most delicate of silk fabrics. Then the jacket.

“How do I look?” she asked.

“Beautiful,” Julie answered sincerely. “And so happy.” She handed her the bouquet of fragrant pink roses.

And for just one brilliant moment, she saw another girl from Fort Wayne, Indiana, looking back at her, her heart in her eyes—no artifice, no humor.

“I truly love him,” Carole whispered.

The ceremony was brief. Carole cried. There were no lines to memorize, no rehearsed cues; maybe that was what made it so tender and real to Julie. And Clark, rattled, gave the minister the platinum wedding band instead of slipping it on his wife’s finger.

“Ah, Mr. Gable,” said the unflappable cleric, handing the ring back to him, “it goes to her.”

“Yes, of course.”

“You’d think you hadn’t been married before, dear,” Carole teased, eyes dancing.

Later, what Julie remembered most was the feel of Andy’s hand holding hers. The strength of his grip said more than words, though it almost made her wince. For those moments in that church, watching that marriage take place between two stars who could dazzle the world, anything seemed possible. A bubble of happiness surrounded them, and she and Andy were part of it. She wondered if he felt the same way.