All the Stars in the Heavens (53 page)

Alda sat on the floor of Loretta's bedroom, stitching the hem of the evening gown Loretta would wear to the Academy Awards. The emerald-green taffeta confection, designed by Loretta's pal Jean Louis, had a series of dramatic ruffles on a full skirt, anchored by a matching satin medallion. The top featured a tight bodice and delicate straps. Jean Louis had designed a matching opera coat that was pure whimsy, with cascading ruffles that trailed behind her like waves.

“You could've been a professional seamstress, Alda.”

“Too late for that.”

“Why? Helen Rose, Edith Head, Irene—none of them are babies.”

“They're designers. Big picture. I'm good at the details. Beadwork? Embroidery, I'm your girl.”

Alda helped Loretta as she slipped into her gown.

“You know I'm going to lose. This is Roz's year.”

“It's an honor to be nominated.”

“That's what they say.”

Loretta was thirty-four years old and could feel the ground shifting beneath her. The starring roles were going to the younger girls, the movie business was changing, and she was determined not to settle for parts in movies she didn't believe in. She was too young to use the word
retirement
, but she was too old not to see that her world was changing. She had just a few years left in pictures. She could not compete with her younger self, when she was nineteen, nubile, and fresh. Loretta was a different kind of beauty now; she had lived, borne three children, and married a second time. She had a bit of wisdom, and that cannot be concealed from the camera.

Judy slipped in and watched her mother dress.

“What do you think, Jude?”

“I like it.”

Loretta sat down beside her twelve-year-old daughter, who had grown a foot in the last year. Her blue eyes sparkled; her heart-shaped face, in Loretta's eyes, was a work of art.

“Do you like the green?”

“It's nice.”

“It's symbolic. See, when I was a girl, the first movie I ever made was called
The Primrose Ring.
I played a fairy.”

“Did you fly?”

“Like a bird. In a leather harness. Anyway, the costumer put me in this beige shirt and stockings, and then she took emerald-green satin and tied it as a skirt around my waist and sprinkled glitter all over me.”

“You sparkled.”

“Exactly! Aunt Carlene played a fairy too—but she hated it. But I knew that was the job for me.”

“Mama, what if you lose?”

“Losing is easy.”

“It is?”

“All I have to be is gracious.”

“What if you win?”

“That's easy too.”

“Why?”

“All I have to be is gracious.”

“Judy, don't let the boys stay up late,” Tom said from the doorway.

“Yes, sir.” Judy looked at her mother.

“No monkey business,” her stepfather said firmly.

“I'll do my best,” Judy said glumly.

“Watch your tone, Judy,” Tom Lewis said as he left. “I'll be outside, Loretta.”

“He's not very gracious,” Judy said softly.

“No, he isn't. I'll talk to him.”

“It's all right, Mom. Sister Karol says everybody's got a cross. He's my cross.”

“That's a good way to look at it, but I won't tell him.”

“Please don't. He'll have me washing his car in the morning.” Judy rolled her eyes.

“Remember what Grandma says. No cross, no crown.”

Loretta entered the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on the arm of Tom Lewis. He was proud of his wife, but the scene, an industry hive, wasn't for him. He was raised to believe that a man led the household; if there was spotlight on the family, it should shine on him.

The cracks in the marriage were getting deeper. Tom had a terrible time with Judy. He questioned her, challenged her, and demanded perfection in her grades and deportment. Loretta didn't know how a father should behave with a daughter, since her own father had left when she was young, so she went along with Tom's approach to discipline. She didn't like it, but she acquiesced to keep Tom happy.

Loretta hadn't brought Judy to the Academy Awards that night
because she thought she would lose. When her name was announced, Tom Lewis had to pull her out of her seat and push her toward the stage.

In what Loretta would call an underwater moment, sound went away and the world went blurry when her name was called as Best Actress for
The Farmer's Daughter
. Loretta looked back in the theater and saw her sister Georgie jumping up and down in slow motion. Her sisters and their husbands were all there, in the audience. They stood and cheered.

Judy sat by the radio and listened as her mother's name was announced. She jumped on the bed, the sofa, the chair, and the table, elated. The audience laughed when Loretta said she was glad she'd overdressed. Judy beamed with pride.

Later, when Judy went off to sleep, she dreamed of her mother, but she wasn't an Academy Award winner. She was a fairy, sprinkled in glitter, flying through a silent movie in black and white.

Loretta stood on the set of
The
Key to the City.
Luca hollered at her from the grid above.

“Loretta! I just put the final touches on San Francisco!”

She looked up at a series of flats hanging from the ceiling.

“It's like the old days,” she hollered.

“I like old days,” Gable said from behind her.

“Me too.” Loretta gave her costar a warm hug.

“You think we still got it?”

“We got something. I don't know if it's an ‘it,' but it's something.”

Gable laughed. “You mind if Sylvia hangs around? She wants to paint us in action.”

Lady Sylvia Ashley, the ex-wife of Douglas Fairbanks and prior to him some nobleman in England, had married Gable hastily, in a way that worried his friends. She had already transformed the Encino home from an early American ranch to a chintz palace with a faux view of the Thames, a lot like one of Luca Chetta's backdrops.

Loretta got the feeling Gable was scared of Sylvia. She smiled at his wife. “Paint whatever you like, Sylvia.”

Sylvia nodded. Gable smiled and waved to her before she went outside.

“Yes, my current wife is a painter and a ballbuster.”

“Is she better at one than the other?”

“Hard to say.” Gable laughed. “Same old Gretchen.”

“Old. Hmm. I'm still younger than you.”

“You always will be. It's funny, isn't it?”

“The script, I hope.”

He laughed. “No, our lives. How they've worked out. Are you happy?”

“We have a job in a good picture. I'm happy.”

“With Tom.”

“Marriage is hard.”

“You're telling me. Would it have been hard for us?”

“Absolutely.” Loretta smiled.

“I don't think so.”

“I've grown up, you know.”

“I can see that. How's your girl?”

“Our girl is fine. She's fifteen.”

“Where did the time go?”

“Up in smoke.”

“What's she like?”

“Very sweet. Has a temper. She's pretty.”

“Like her mother.”

“Like her father.” Loretta blushed. “Would you like to see your daughter?”

“I remember holding her in that fleabag your mother owned in Venice.”

“It wasn't that bad.”

“It was not fitting for our child.”

Loretta blushed, remembering the moment she handed Judy to Clark the first time. “She had a humble start.”

“The best people do.” Gable shrugged.

“I guess.”

“Do you ever wonder about us?”

“Are you unhappy with Lady Ashley?”

“She's stealth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Changes things, one teacup at a time. I turn my back, and where there was wool, there's now a ruffle.”

“One of those.”

“Oh, brother, one of those.”

“Do you think it will last?”

“Until she finds a pack of matches with a phone number, or lipstick on my collar.”

“How long will that take?”

“That depends,” he said, flirting.

“Oh, no. No. No. No.”

“Not even a little?”

“The problem is, there's no ‘little' with us. It's all out or all in, for better or worse. It's just the way it went.”

“It's never over, Gretchen.”

Luca watched Loretta and Gable from the catwalk. The two stars stood together, having a deep conversation in the middle of the production circus as the crew rushed around, carpenters built the set, and costume racks careened through. Luca remembered how Loretta and Clark had stood in the middle of a blizzard on Mount Baker and had a similar conversation, as though they were the only two people on the mountain. Luca couldn't wait to get home and tell Alda what he had witnessed. It was exactly as Luca remembered, two lovers with so much to say that there wasn't enough time, so they took their portion, knowing it too wouldn't be enough. Nothing had changed. It was all there, everything but the snow.

Gable knocked on Loretta's dressing room door. When she hollered for him to enter, she was sitting cross-legged on her sofa, reading her script. He opened the door and found her in corduroy overalls and a turtleneck.

“You look like a kid.”

“I'm not.” She patted the seat next to her on the sofa. “Mother of three.”

Gable sat, and she offered him a cigarette. He took it. She handed him her cigarette, and he lit his own.

The years had given Gable gray hair at his temples. He was thicker through the middle, and his hands, once so genteel, were rough and spotted with age. Loretta liked Gable older, though when she looked at him, it was so easy to recall him in detail in his prime. He had grown into himself. The tiny flutter of lines around his eyes had deepened, as had his dimples. In his countenance he bore the scars of the losses in his life, and it pained her to think that she was one of them.

“Looking at this scene for tomorrow,” she said.

“The new one?”

“Yep. It's all right, don't you think?”

“It's fine. Fine.”

“Any way to beg Anita Loos to come and give it a rewrite?”

“She's long gone, Gretchen. She went to New York. She's in Paris with her books. I don't think we could lure her back with a sack of gold.”

“Good for her. See how obsessed I get over the script?”

“It's why you have a great career.”

“I'm in there slugging.”

“Would you like to go to dinner?”

“Where's Sylvia?”

“I thought I'd bring her. You bring Tom.”

“Let me call and see if he's free.”

Loretta reached for the phone, and stopped herself.

“There's something I want to talk to you about.”

“Sure.”

“I want you to get to know Judy.”

“Has she been asking questions?”