A Touch of Stardust (20 page)

One thing she knew as she reached for the doorknob: she wouldn’t be going back to Indiana. No one who came here would go back home. It wouldn’t happen.

Rose looked up from her perusal of the latest issue of
Photoplay
as Julie came in the door. “Carole called,” Rose said. “She bought a tractor for Clark, a bright-yellow one, and wants you to help her get it gift-wrapped. A tractor, can you believe it? She’s the wackiest—” She stopped, eyes widening at the sight of her friend’s face.

“What’s wrong?” she said as Julie sat heavily on her bed.

“I’m trying to decide if something broke in two today with Andy,” Julie heard herself say.

“What happened?”

Julie told the story, quoting word for word the tirade of the man sitting in back of them at the game. It sounded worse when she heard herself repeating it.

“What you said wasn’t so terrible,” Rose said. Absentmindedly, she twisted the brand-new diamond ring on her left hand, stroking it from time to time with a caressing motion. “It sounds to me like Andy overreacted a little.”

“It’s more that I underreacted. I looked around and saw people averting their gazes as if …” Julie struggled for the right words. “… as if they wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. And I was one of them.”

“Do your parents know he’s Jewish?”

“No.”

“They won’t approve, will they?”

Rose had a knack, in her own direct way, of getting to the heart of things.

“No.”

“Do you want to marry him?” Rose’s words were matter-of-fact, her voice casually inquiring.

“I don’t know,” Julie said.

“Are you saying that because you really don’t know, or because you don’t know if he wants to marry you?”

“Rose—”

“I understand: you want a career.”

“Yes. Why does it always have to be marriage?” She sensed Rose’s kindly pity, and it made her uncomfortable. She knew they both had grown up with the same fears—warnings, really—stories about dried-up spinster cousins left alone and impoverished, and all those other terrible things, like losing one’s virginity to a cad. Well,
that
part was done, which Rose probably suspected, but she wasn’t going to mention it. And Andy was no cad.

“It doesn’t, of course. But it is a natural outcome for two people who love each other.”

Again, that vague pity. It made her defensive.

“Well, love gets made up. Somebody gets pregnant and rushes to the altar while her friends count off the months on their fingers until the baby is born. And if you don’t get caught, you feel superior.”

“I don’t feel superior, and I am in love.”

“I know, I certainly didn’t mean you. But love gets made up.”

“Oh, stop it, Julie. All right, sometimes love is made up. But security is real, and maybe that’s better.”

“So you’re switching from being a romantic to a pragmatist?” Julie knew she was flailing.

“I can be both.”

How could Rose be so content and sure of herself? Julie put her head in her hands, unable to spar anymore, letting the confusion of the past months wash over her. She was here to explore, to write, to fly. She was too absorbed with Andy. If a barrier like this could separate them so suddenly, what was at the core of their relationship? And even if she felt a gravitational pull toward imagining a life with him, what security could there possibly be with a man she had realized today she barely knew?

Rose reached out for Julie’s hand. “You’re coming to dinner with Jim and me tonight,” she said firmly. “You need a change of scenery, something new to think about.”

She couldn’t decline; it would hurt her friend. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Julie closed her eyes after sinking into the back seat of Jim’s car, listening as he and Rose chatted, grateful for the respite from her own uncertainty; she blinked once in a while as she watched the blur of street and city lights roll by. It was now past twilight, into the early-evening hour when beautiful women in fur wraps and handsome men in snappy hats strolled the sidewalks of Highland or Vine toward their favorite restaurants. The better dressed they were, the more delectable and discreet their destinations, which were often tucked behind softly lit palm trees and lush hedges. What was that poem she remembered? “The Children’s Hour,” that was it. Here it was the cocktail hour. It tantalized, made her wistful. She rolled down the window and breathed in the air. She always felt she could smell the ocean at this time of night, which was ridiculous: it was too far away.

She came out of these drifting thoughts with a jolt when she saw Jim was pulling into a parking place in front of Chasen’s. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. It was too late, too ungrateful, to protest that this was the last place in Hollywood she wanted to be tonight.

The host, giving her a swift, slightly surprised glance, escorted them to a booth near the back of the restaurant. Rose, chatting brightly, slid in from one side, and Julie from the other, as Jim, a bluff, takecharge man who clearly adored Rose, signaled for the waiter. Wine was swiftly delivered, and as Julie lifted her glass, she looked over Rose’s shoulder. Her hand froze in midair.

Andy was at the bar. He sat with his back to her, staring down at what looked like his usual martini, which the bartender had just placed before him. He was hunched forward, his jacket bunched at the shoulders. He looked drained of energy.

She blinked. Sitting next to him was Doris Finch. Sitting very close.

Julie brought her glass to her lips, took a measured sip, and slowly put it down. As she watched, Doris reached up an arm and softly stroked Andy’s neck, whispering rapidly.

Julie forced her gaze away and stared at the tablecloth. So her adolescent jealousies were not unwarranted. He had not wanted to be with her tonight. Why couldn’t he have just said so? Was that too much to ask? She felt a tingling sensation spread through her body, from her scalp down.

“Are you all right?” Rose asked with concern. She had not yet seen Andy and Doris.

“I’m fine,” Julie replied with a quick smile. She needed to get out of here. She quickly excused herself, saying something inane about powdering her nose. As she slid from her seat, she hoped Andy would not turn around. She wasn’t ready to face him—not here, and not in front of Doris or Rose and Jim. She headed for the ladies’ room, keeping her shoulders straight, grateful she knew the way.

She shouldn’t be embarrassed; she hadn’t done anything. But she was. Was she just impossibly naïve? The cozy little reality she had built in her brain for the two of them had not housed them both, only herself. He kept himself outside of their relationship, visiting—oh yes, with many visiting privileges, but holding back, always holding
back. She kept thinking that one of these days she would find the key to opening him up, and now here she was, running to hide in the ladies’ room. The door to the ladies’ lounge was just ahead. What a cliché she was. The wronged girlfriend? She didn’t even have that status. No promises had been offered, just a sweet, loving intimacy she had believed in.

Her hand was on the doorknob. Made of fancy cut glass. Don’t cry. The door, tufted and plump, pushed quietly open.

Let the lounge be empty. Let there be no prying ears collecting morsels of gossip to buy favor with Louella or Hedda or to help tip the balance of power at a studio for a favored director. Why was she so fevered? She didn’t matter to anybody here.

It was empty. Minus even the attendant in the starched white apron who usually stood silently, handing chattering women tiny linen towels to dry their hands. Julie took a deep breath, feeling oddly hidden in this sleek, modern room with its muted lighting and adroitly positioned mirrors that gave each primping woman multiple views of herself. All she had to contend with now, coming from every direction, was the sight of her pinched white face. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the mirror and took a deep breath.

The lounge door suddenly opened, its tufted leather interior thumping against the wall. Julie ducked her head, trying to dodge the mirror’s reflections.

“Nursing your hurt feelings, just as I thought,” a voice said.

Doris stood inside the doorway, arms folded, offering a small, taut smile.

“You don’t know what I’m feeling.” She was trapped for the moment.

“And maybe you don’t know what he’s feeling, either. Really, you are quite young. What are you hiding in the bathroom for?”

“I’m not hiding, for heaven’s sake.”

Doris let out an impatient snort. She opened the latch on her handbag and pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes and a matchbook. A cigarette went swiftly between her bright-red lips. One snap of
her bright-red fingernail dislodged a match, and she lit the cigarette. It occurred to Julie she had never seen Doris without one.

“Did you follow me in here just to gloat?” Julie managed.

Doris inhaled, looking at her with a world-weary expression. “I figured this would play out like some movie scene. Can you spare us both that? There are a few things you should probably know. Are you ready to hear them?”

Julie wanted to push her away, but all she could do was step back. “Does Andy know I’m here?”

Doris shrugged—a loose, lithe movement of her shoulders that was part of her casual sensuality. “He hasn’t noticed,” she said. “I made no mention of the fact that I spotted you coming in the door. Generous of me, don’t you think?”

“He told me he was working late tonight, and obviously that wasn’t true,” Julie said with as much coolness as she could muster. “Whatever is happening between the two of you isn’t my business. But I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t want to talk to him.”

Doris looked amused. “You are something of an ice queen, aren’t you? He has an unfortunate tendency to be attracted to your kind.”

Suddenly Julie felt tired, almost overwhelmingly tired. She wasn’t going to play this game. “I don’t know what that comment is supposed to mean,” she said. “And I’m not interested in finding out.”

Doris seemed abruptly at a loss. A large ash hung perilously from the tip of her cigarette. “He wanted company tonight, and I’m the one he asked,” she finally said. For just an instant, something uncertain showed through her careful makeup. “Look, he’s been involved with someone like you before, and it didn’t work out.”

“Someone like me?”

Doris hesitated. “I don’t want to see him hurt.”

“And you are so sure I will be the one to do that?” Julie felt a flare of anger.

Doris leaned forward, crushing her cigarette out in a crystal ashtray next to the soap bowl. Still looking uncertain, she stretched her mouth into something approaching a smile, turned, and started
to walk out of the bathroom. She stopped. “Oh, two other things. Yeah, you shocked him with your reaction at that ballgame. And he heard a couple of hours ago that the Nazis have arrested his grandparents.”

The door swung open again; Doris was gone.