Love Me (21 page)

“But eet eez
très
delicate! Please be careful! Zat armoire eez worth more zan all of you put togezzaire!”

“Togezzaire,”
Gabby snorted, mocking the distraught woman’s heavy French accent. “You know she’s from Cleveland, right?”

“Not really?”

“That’s what Rex Mandalay says. He used to know her back when she worked the men’s counter at the old Hamburger’s Department Store. Salon Parisienne.” Gabby sniffed. “The closest she ever got to Paris is selling a necktie to Maurice Chevalier.” She maneuvered around Amanda, examining her reflection critically in the three-way mirror. “Get a load of this. Can you believe the size of this thing?”

Amanda reached behind to pat the huge bow at the back
of her own dress, its stiffened wings reaching inches past the confines of her waist. “It
is
going to make it kind of hard to sit down.”

“Sit down? Are you kidding me? We look like we could set sail.”

There was a sharp rap on the door. “Girls! Are you ready in there?”

Normally, a specialist operation such as this would require a senior-level flack such as Stan, Viola Preston’s on-again off-again beau with the unpronounceable last name, or even Larry Julius himself. But the aggressive femininity of Madame Nicole’s domain had proved too much even for seasoned pros such as they, and instead, they had Florence Pendergast running the show. A spare, thin-faced woman constantly exhaling cigarette smoke through the veil of her hat, making her look like some sort of horror-movie special effect, the ambitious Miss Pendergast was one of the few women in the Olympus press office and was determined to make a success of the awesome responsibility with which she had been entrusted if it meant keeping them up all night and smashing Madame Nicole’s shop to smithereens.

“I don’t know. Are we?”

“Very funny, Gabby. The lights are all set up and boy, are they hot. We’ve got to get the shot before they set the curtains on fire.”

“Zut alors!”
Madame Nicole made a strange whinnying sound.

“Now, we want to get a shot of you two coming out of the dressing room, when Margo sees you for the first time. Kind of a play on the first time the groom sees the bride. We’re using that as an image reference.”

Gabby rolled her eyes.

“So whenever you’re ready,” Miss Pendergast continued, “just come out the door and we’ll snap away. Side by side. Big smiles, please. Make it dreamy. As though you’re imagining what it’ll be like for you one day, when it’s your turn to walk down the aisle.”

Amanda looked doubtfully down at her enormous skirt, as wide and unyielding as a basketball cut in half. “I don’t think we can both fit through the door.”

“One at a time, then. Come on. Hurry, please.”

Gabby sighed. “Well,” she said, “I guess we can’t stay in here forever.”

Grimacing, the girls maneuvered themselves one by one out of the dressing room and into the blinding light of cameras, the metallic popping of the flashbulbs punctuated by Madame Nicole’s small shrieks as the shower of heated glass fell on her cream velvet carpet. Margo Sterling, looking fresh as a daisy in a lemon-yellow silk dress and a chic Marlene Dietrich beret, sat on a pale peau de soie tuffet, a teacup poised daintily on the way to her lips.

“Well?” Margo asked when the photographers stopped to reload. Miss Pendergast had set about comforting the now-hysterical Madame Nicole. “What do you think of the dresses?”

Amanda bit her lip, half trying to think of something nice to say, half trying to stave off the sudden wave of nausea. She’d been feeling sick to her stomach an awful lot lately.

Gabby, as usual, was not so reticent. “Margie, you can’t seriously be … 
serious
.”

Margo’s face fell. “What … what do you mean?”

“They’re huge, for starters. You saw, we could barely fit
through that door. How are we going to walk down the aisle? We’ll put someone’s eye out with these bows. It’s like we’re wearing wings. And the skirt? It’s so big a family of four could camp out in it. For all I know, they are. There’s so much room under here I’d never know they were there.”

Amanda stifled a laugh. Gabby was right.
I could rent out space under here
, she thought.
Make a buck or two as a landlady
.

Margo scowled. “They’re
supposed
to be big.” A hard edge had crept into her voice. “They’re modeled after the gowns Walter Plunkett is designing for
Gone with the Wind
. Madame Nicole says hoopskirts are going to be all the rage next year, after the movie comes out, and I’m going to be the first to have them in my wedding.”

“Well, hoop-de-doo,” Gabby said. “You’re not the one walking around wearing an open umbrella, Margie.”

Margo stiffened, preparing her response. Amanda watched the two of them anxiously. Normally, this was the point in any verbal disagreement when Gabby’s eyes would begin to shine with the unnatural brightness that meant she had taken one too many green pills and was spoiling for a fight, but today, her expression was glazed, her voice strangely calm.
What the hell is she on?
Amanda wondered.
And can I get some?

“Amanda?” Margo said coolly, her eyes never leaving Gabby’s. She seemed as perplexed as Amanda by Gabby’s mellow expression. “Do you feel the same way?”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Amanda lied. “Whatever you want, it’s your wedding. Only …” She trailed off, hesitating.

“Only what?”

“…  only I just wondered if maybe they came in another color?”

A muscle jumped in Margo’s jaw. “I already ordered pink flowers. And the studio likes Gabby in pink.”

Gabby groaned. “Tell me about it.”

“I know, I know that. I just wondered … if there was anything else you were maybe considering …”

“I’m not letting you wear black,” Margo said shortly. “It’s a wedding, not a funeral.”

“Of course, I know that. I just thought, maybe a lovely soft gray—”

“What, so you can match your car?”

“Blue, then. I thought you loved blue.”

“No good.” Margo shook her head. “The pictures in the newspapers will be black-and-white, and blue photographs as white. Didn’t you see Wallis Simpson’s dress? She was wearing that gorgeous dress in robin’s-egg blue, and then
Life
didn’t tint the pictures and everyone who saw it made fun of her for trying to pass herself off as some sort of virgin bride.”

“You’re wearing white, aren’t you?” Gabby said meanly.

Margo’s jaw took on a funny set. “
I’ve
never been married before.”

Amanda sighed. “Look, it’s your big day, Margo. What you say goes.” All three of them knew what a load of bull that was, but it seemed like the thing to say. “Maybe Gabby could wear this color, and I could do a soft lavender or something? It’d look the same in pictures. Pink is just such …” She paused, searching for the right words. “Such a difficult color for redheads.”

“You’ve worn it before,” Margo said crossly. “You showed up at Mr. Karp’s wrap party for
The Nine Days’ Queen
in that pink gown.”

That pink gown
. Amanda felt a fist tighten around her heart
at the memory. Harry had given her that dress, had chosen it himself to surprise her. She still remembered the sweet, scared look on his face as he presented it to her, eager for her to like it, hoping she’d understand what it meant.

“That was Mainbocher,” she muttered, unable to look up for fear of crying.

“Well, these aren’t. But they’re pretty damn close,” Margo said, gesturing for one of Madame Nicole’s frantic assistants to take her demitasse away. “Don’t worry, though. They’re going to give you both a really good price.”

“Price?” Amanda gasped.

Margo leaned forward, beaming as though she were about to give them a wonderful surprise. “Well, normally one of these dresses costs about four hundred dollars. But because of all the publicity we’re going to give them, Madame Nicole has agreed to give them to us for two.”

“Two … two hundred dollars?” Amanda stammered.

“Each,” Margo added. “Don’t worry. The studio will advance it. They’ll just deduct five or ten bucks out of your paycheck every week until it’s paid off.”

Now I am going to be sick
. Granted, this had hardly been an unusual feeling over the last couple of weeks, but this time, it felt serious.
I wonder if Madame Nicole has ever had someone throw up all over her fancy velvet carpet
.

“Well, just you wait until it’s my turn,” Gabby said, tugging at her enormous bow. “I’m going to get you back for this, Margo, and good.”

Margo snorted. “I’m not holding my breath.”

“You never know.” Gabby smiled a mysterious smile Amanda
knew she was copying from Barbara Stanwyck in
The Mad Miss Manton
. “It could be sooner than you think.”

“Really?” Margo perked up, suddenly interested. “Things have gotten that serious with Eddie Sharp already?”

“Well,” Gabby said, “we’ve been seeing an awful lot of each other. The magazines don’t even know the half of it. Three times this week alone. He’s been taking me everywhere. I’ve met all his friends. And not just on the Strip.” She grinned. “Downtown. Central Avenue.”

“Down
town
?” Margo looked at Amanda worriedly, as though searching for help. “Gabby, I don’t know. Isn’t it awfully dangerous down there? I mean, it’s full of—”

“Negroes?” Gabby said sharply, her chin tilted pugnaciously.

There she is
, Amanda thought.
There’s the Gabby we know and love
.

“I was going to say
drugs
,” Margo said. “Drug dens and dope fiends.”

“Well, I can’t speak to that,” Gabby said. “The most I’ve seen Eddie and his friends do is blow a stick or two of gage.”

“Gage?” Margo’s mouth dropped open. “Gabby, are you talking about
marijuana
?”

“I believe that’s another name for it.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve
tried
it?”

“Oh”—Gabby waved her hands in the air, as though batting away a fly—“I’ve done way more than try.”

“Gabby!” Margo’s eyes darted around the room, as though a fleet of policemen were going to arrive any minute. “How can you? People go crazy from that. Reefer madness is a real thing, you know. You could lose your mind!”

“You’re assuming I have one to lose.”

“And then it just leads to all kinds of other things,” Margo continued. “All sorts of pills and needles and powders …”

“Oh, Margie, please. Don’t be such a square,” Gabby said. “You think that’s anything I haven’t done before? What do you think the things the doctor gives you are? When Viola was a kid, you could buy cocaine by the gram right at the counter of the pharmacy, and she says those little green pills make you feel exactly the same. And opium? Morphine? Heroin? What the hell do you think is in those sleeping pills Dr. Lipkin hands out like candy? You want to see dope fiends, take a look around the Olympus commissary sometime. Reefer is kid stuff compared to that. All it does is make you feel kind of happy and silly and calm, same as having a couple of drinks does. And it makes you feel so sexy.” Gabby lowered her voice to a naughty whisper. “Apparently, it makes things
dynamite
in the sack.”

Now Amanda was interested. Gabby had been going on and on about losing her virginity since Amanda had known her, but Amanda had always assumed she’d spill everything the minute it happened. “Gabby, are you and Eddie
sleeping
together?”

“Not yet,” Gabby said. “But it’s just a matter of waiting for the right moment. He’s made it clear he’s
interested
, if you know what I mean. And don’t give me that look, Margo,” she added crossly. “I don’t expect him to get down on one knee and propose first. But he’ll want to. When it happens, it’s going to be so incredible he’ll never want to let me go. I’m going to knock his socks off, believe me. I’ve been studying all the pictures in those dirty books Viola keeps in her underwear drawer for ages.
I’m going to show him things he’s never even dreamed of. God knows I’ve been waiting long enough.”

“But, Gabby,” Margo said, her tone more plaintive than nagging, “what if you get into trouble?”

“Well, then I’ll call Larry Julius,” Gabby said. “That’s what he’s there for, isn’t it?”

“Girls!” Florence Pendergast’s smoke-belching cry brought them to attention. “We’re almost ready with the next setup. Now, for this one, Madame Nicole and her attendants”—she gestured to a couple of small women in white smocks, who looked absolutely terrified at the prospect of being photographed—“are going to attempt to show you some other options, but you’re going to act as though you love these dresses so much you couldn’t bear to consider wearing anything else. All right?”

“They don’t call it acting for nothing,” Gabby whispered to Amanda.

“I heard that. Now come on, girls, this is for the magazines.” The photographers raised their cameras as Gabby and Amanda smiled. “One, two, three …”

“Yoo-hoo! I’m here!”

The famous voice, sultry and strong, was unmistakable. Every jaw in the room dropped to the glass-covered floor.

Diana Chesterfield. In the flesh
.

She strode regally across the room, smiling graciously, as though surrounded by a coterie of adoring fans swooning over her every move. Amanda didn’t know whether it was because she was currently encased in a wearable cupcake or because Bullock’s Wilshire had
finally
cut off her last existing line of
credit, but she found herself eyeing the movie star’s up-to-the-minute clothing hungrily: the white raw-silk suit with the built-up shoulders and nipped waist that
Harper’s Bazaar
had deemed “the silhouette of the new decade”; the broad-brimmed flying saucer of a hat; the enormous diamond brooch in the shape of a panther, its single emerald eye winking brightly from its onyx-spotted face.

Cartier. Wonder who that came from
.

“There’s my blushing bride,” Diana cooed, swooping down to kiss the air on either side of the astonished Margo’s cheeks. “Darling Margo. A million apologies, I’m so sorry I’m late, traffic was such a
bore
, as usual. Now tell me honestly, how
are
you?”