Stars Over Sunset Boulevard (15 page)

“What do you mean? Who told you this?”

But Audrey seemed not to have heard her. A weak laugh escaped her. “And here I thought that I was invisible while I was waiting for my second big break. That people had forgotten all about me. That I could come sneaking back into the spotlight and no one would remember that when was I eighteen I almost had it all.”

She laid a finger delicately on the bird's brown head, as if it were a real bird that would fly away if it was startled.

“I'm a fool, Violet,” Audrey murmured.

Violet leaned forward and covered Audrey's free hand with hers. “No, you're not. You're beautiful and talented and smart. It's everyone else who's an idiot.”

Audrey seemed to think about Violet's response for a moment. “I wish that were true, Violet. I really do. But I'm beginning to think it's Peg Entwistle who was the smart one.”

Violet had no idea what Audrey was talking about. “Who's Peg Entwistle?”

Audrey looked up languidly. For a moment she did not answer. Then she rose from her chair. “No one.”

She reached for the nightingale and took it gingerly into her hand. Then she turned from Violet, walked to her bedroom, and closed the door gently behind her.

Hollywood

March 10, 2012

T
he bungalow seems oddly shrunken with most of its contents packed away in boxes. It should look larger, but to Elle, who stands inside the living room with a broom in her hand and a sheen of sweat on her brow, the little house appears smaller without its furnishings.

Her granddaughters run past, chasing the three-year-old shelter dog they named Jacques. The animal was a consolation present from Daniel and Nicola for uprooting the girls from all their friends in France and moving them to the States.

“Careful around all the boxes,” Elle says.

The older girl turns back.

“Nous pouvons le prendre pour faire une promenade?”

Elle smiles at her granddaughter. “In English, Michelle.”

The girl huffs. “May we please take him for a walk?”

“You may only go in the direction of the Hollywood sign and only for ten houses up. Then you turn back.
Oui?
”

“In English, Mamie!” The girl laughs as she and her sister scoop up the dog and his leash and take him outside into the late-afternoon sunshine.

The bungalow is instantly quiet without the girls. Daniel and Nicola are running errands, and Elle is alone.

She inhales, breathing in the scent of the passage of time. The bungalow is nearly a hundred years old, and while it has been updated in terms of wiring and plumbing, the aura inside is still tangy with nostalgia, as if at any moment strains of Glenn Miller might suddenly fill the room.

Inside her pants pocket her cell phone vibrates. She pulls it out to read a text message from Daniel.

Running late. Will text the resale-shop owner and tell her I'll pick up the hat tomorrow. Traffic is terrible. Can we meet you and the girls back at your condo around 7? We'll get Thai takeout.

Elle is disappointed that the hat will be away from the bungalow another night, despite having nearly forgotten it existed. Her mother had kept it squirreled away in a cedar chest in the attic for decades, hidden from renters during the years they'd all lived abroad.

She had told her mother—a long time ago—that she could probably sell that hat and get a lot of money.

And her mother said she didn't feel right about selling something that didn't belong to her.

August 1939

T
he moviemakers, half a dozen of them, were seated around a meeting table on the second floor of the Mansion at Selznick International. Cups of hot coffee sent tendrils of steam upward to join a heavier layer of cigarette smoke and the unmistakable atmosphere of fretful purpose. Audrey, taking notes for the art director, William Menzies, was seated just to the right of Selznick's executive secretary, Marcella Rabwin. She was glad when Miss Rabwin leaned over and told her to crack open a window. The men didn't notice when she rose from her chair, set her steno pad down on the seat, and headed to the row of windows. When she raised one a few inches, a welcoming ribbon of morning air wafted into the room and trifled playfully with the weightiness of smoke and decision making.

“The picture's nearly five hours long,” one of the men said as Audrey retook her chair. “It's an impossible length. No one will sit for five hours to watch it.”

“I'm not going to release a movie that is five hours long,” Selznick said easily. “We will edit it down.”

The man shook his head as a lopsided grin spread across his face. “You say that like you think it will be easy. What can possibly be cut?”

“We'll find a way.” Selznick didn't seem worried in the least from what Audrey could tell.

The talk turned then to updates on the musical score and the sound effects, the painstaking task of matching everything to the Technicolor reels, the making of the prints, and whether it was even possible to have it all done for an Atlanta premiere in November that could coincide with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the burning of the city.

While the men went over the mounting particulars of the upcoming premiere, Audrey permitted herself a mental break while keeping her pen poised above her notepad.

She'd been relieved beyond words to get away from the monotony of the secretary pool and the scores of letters Selznick still got on a daily basis from those who wrote that
Gone With the Wind
was un-American, reactionary, pro–Ku Klux Klan, pro-slavery, and even pro-Nazi. Audrey had lost count of how many times she had sent the standard letter that was sent to anyone who lodged a concern. She could recite the verbiage in her sleep. . . .

We are in receipt of your letter concerning our imminent production of
Gone With the Wind
. We urge you to believe that we feel as strongly as you do about the presentation to the public of any material that might be prejudicial to the interests of any race or creed, or that might contain any anti-American material. We respectfully suggest you suspend judgment
until the completion of the picture, which we can assure you will contain nothing that possibly could be offensive to you. In particular, you may be sure that the treatment of the Negro characters will be with the utmost respect for this race and with the greatest concern for its sensibilities.

The letter was always closed with a tailored response, a sentence or two about the writer's specific grievance.

Violet had told her that she didn't like the way the letters of complaint made her feel, and there was no way to type the needed response without reading them. But Audrey admired the people who had the courage to be honest and state their opinion. She wasn't bothered by their comments. If people couldn't be honest with one another, then life was just fluff and pretense. Audrey had told Violet that she could pass any of those letters on to her if Violet didn't care to respond to them.

Her roommate had seemed distracted during the past few days. Bert, too. Audrey saw him only in the mornings when he came for them in his truck, and then again when they met for the drive home. His department was busy disposing of the massive
Gone With the Wind
wardrobe in preparation for the influx of all new costumes for the filming of
Rebecca
, and for some reason that Audrey couldn't imagine, Violet found that extremely interesting. Most of the conversation in the truck centered on what Bert was doing or not doing in wardrobe. And while it was nice not having to ride the streetcar and bus to work, Bert and Violet seemed separate from her. As if she were being pulled away from everything that used to hold her fast.

She was torn from this reverie when Mr. Menzies said her name, apparently not for the first time.

“I beg your pardon!” Audrey said, her cheeks blooming crimson.

Mr. Menzies rattled off a list of things to be taken care of that afternoon and Audrey dutifully recorded them.

The meeting ended shortly after that and Audrey headed back to her desk, feeling strangely detached from the hum of the activity in the room full of secretaries. She had just begun to type her first memo when the phone at her desk rang.

“You've got a call,” the switchboard operator said when Audrey picked up.

“This is Audrey Duvall.”

“Audie, it's Vince. Can you be at Paramount at two thirty?” He sounded tense.

“Why? What for?”

“I think I got you a screen test for the role of Mima in
Road to Singapore
.”

Audrey heard every word. Her mind refused to embrace their meaning. “What?”

“I said, I think I got you a screen test for
Road to Singapore
! But you have to be here by two thirty. Can you get away?”

A screen test. For a major motion picture.

“Audrey, did you hear me?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Can you make it?”

She willed her pulse to stop its pounding.
Stay calm. Stay focused.
“I can.”

“This might be it, Audie!”

Yes.

It might be.

“I'll be there,” she said.

Audrey hung up the phone. For several seconds she stared at it, unable to decide what to do first. She looked at
her wristwatch. A few minutes before noon. She had to get back to the bungalow and change, redo her hair. She would need to take a taxi there and back again. She had a little over two hours to do it. She rose from her chair and headed for Violet's desk. Her roommate looked up from her typewriter.

“I need to take off early,” Audrey murmured. “Can you cover for me?”

“Where are you going?” Violet's hands hovered motionless above the typewriter keys.

“Vince called me. I need to be somewhere in a little bit and I've got to look like a million dollars.”

“You already look like a million dollars.”

Audrey smiled. “If anyone asks, just tell them I was called out to one of the stages.”

Before Violet could respond, Audrey turned from her and headed for the door.

The sun was bright and hot as she stepped outside, warmer than she thought the sense of heaven would feel, but she was sure of its presence just the same. The magic was happening all over again, just like it had before. She had been patient. She had played by the rules of Providence. She had kept her head this time. And now her angel mother was smiling down on her finally, finally.

Finally the tide was turning.

When she raised her hand to signal a taxi she felt as if she could fly.

V
iolet took the dictation she had been working on that afternoon and readied the memos and letters for the mail room and interoffice mail courier. No one had asked her about Audrey, much to her relief. Everyone apparently had enough on their minds with postproduction for
Gone With the Wind
and preproduction for
Rebecca
to notice. Audrey had seemed excited but also nervous when she stole away. Audrey hadn't ever seemed the type to get nervous, not even when she took Violet home to the farm for Christmas. Violet couldn't imagine what could have called Audrey away in the middle of the workday and so unsteadied her. The oddity of it reminded Violet that a few days earlier, Audrey had mentioned a name Violet hadn't heard before: Peg Entwistle.

What had Audrey said—Peg Entwistle had had the right idea? Violet had forgotten to ask someone else who that woman was. She'd ask Bert on the way home if he knew.

A few minutes after quitting time, she met him at his pickup truck.

“Audrey had somewhere she had to be,” Violet said as soon as she was near him and before he could ask.

“She doesn't want us to wait for her?”

Violet was fairly certain he was asking more from politeness than genuine interest. Fairly certain. “No, she snuck away at lunchtime. Something came up.” She climbed into the truck.

It was the first time in many days that they had been alone in the truck and Violet wished she didn't feel so awkward. She asked about Bert's day as they pulled onto Ince Street and he returned the favor by asking about hers. But it was all such superficial talk. Violet didn't know how to get back to the place they'd been two weeks ago when he'd kissed her. She was pondering this when Bert cleared his throat.

“Would you like to go get some dinner?”

She wanted to squeal that she would absolutely love to, but managed to smile and accept his invitation with far less volume.

He grinned and Violet scooted nearer him. He looked down at her.

“You don't mind if I sit here, do you?” she asked.

“I don't mind,” Bert said easily. “I don't mind at all.”

Sitting close to Bert felt natural and right, like they were already a couple and he already loved her. She didn't want to think about what she would have to tell him at some point. Right now it didn't matter. How could it matter right then? It was too soon to talk about something as personal as that. Far too soon. Light conversation was in order, not the intimate details of her flawed body.

“Say, do you know who Peg Entwistle is?” she asked.

Bert crooked an eyebrow and looked away from the road for a second to peer at her. “You don't?”

“No.”

“What brings her up?”

“Why? Who is she?”

“You mean who
was
she.”

“Oh. So she's deceased, then?”

“I'd say that's putting it lightly.”

“What happened to her?”

Bert sighed lightly. “It's very sad what happened to her. Peg Entwistle killed herself.”

A slender stab of alarm pierced Violet. “When? Why?”

“A few years back. She was an actress trying to make it here in Hollywood but it wasn't working out for her, I guess. Her last film got such poor reviews that she climbed to the top of the H on the Hollywoodland sign and jumped.”

Violet couldn't breathe. Surely Audrey had been joking when she'd said what she did. She had to have been. Had to.

“I was still living at home then,” Bert went on. “I didn't get the job at MGM until a couple of years later. Audrey would have been here, though. Peg Entwistle didn't live far from Audrey's bungalow. Her name doesn't come up much anymore. Did someone in the secretary pool mention her?”

But Violet barely heard him. Audrey had been speaking sarcastically, surely.

“Violet?”

“Oh. No. I mean yes. Someone in the pool brought her name up. Just in passing. As a joke. Sort of.”

“A joke?'

“Sort of. Never mind. We don't have to talk about her anymore.”

It was a name Audrey had mentioned by way of simple exaggeration. That was all.

When Bert brought Violet home a few hours later, the bungalow was dark. He walked her to the door and leaned in to kiss her lightly, tentatively, as though he was still getting acclimated to letting his affections drift to another woman.

Violet listened for Audrey's return as she lay in bed, but Bert's kiss lingered on her lips and lulled her into dreamless sleep.

•   •   •

At seven fifteen the next morning the temperature read eighty degrees and a thin ribbon of sweat circled Violet's neck and forehead as she finished her breakfast. The past few days had been sweltering, like it got in Montgomery, but there was no moisture in the air. It was as if someone had turned on an oven and everyone in Los Angeles was roasting inside it without so much as a tablespoon of sauce for basting.

Violet poured the rest of her coffee down the sink and dabbed at her moist skin with a tea towel. She looked at her wristwatch, even though she knew what time it was. Bert would be coming for them soon and Audrey still hadn't emerged from her bedroom.

Violet tossed the towel onto the countertop and headed down the hall. She listened at Audrey's door but heard nothing.

“Audrey?” Violet knocked gently.

When there was no response, she knocked again. “Audrey?” she said again, this time louder.

“What is it, Violet?”

The words from beyond the door sounded weighted by more than just the timbre of a sultry voice. Violet turned the knob, slowly cracked open the door, and peeked inside. The room was swathed in rust-colored light created from
the closed curtains. Audrey, in her bathrobe, sat in an armchair, smoking a cigarette with the cat on her lap.

“It's getting late. Bert will be coming for us,” Violet said.

“I'm not going to work today.”

Violet stepped in fully and Audrey looked up at her. Even in her nightgown, with her hair tousled about her shoulders, Audrey looked lovely. But her expression was one of cool disinterest. She brought the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled.

“You're not?” Violet said.

Audrey exhaled and tapped the cigarette on the ashtray on the bedside table next to her. The little nightingale was on the table, too.

“No. I think a girl should get to do whatever she wants on her birthday.”

Violet, surprised by this news, took another step inside the room. “It's your birthday? Why didn't you tell me?”

“I told you when you moved in when my birthday was.”

“Audrey, that was ages ago.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

Bert hadn't said anything, either, about Audrey's birthday coming up, which meant he likely had overlooked it. They shouldn't have forgotten it. Violet walked over to the armchair. “I'm sorry I didn't remember.”

Audrey shrugged and took a drag on her cigarette.

“We can do something fun later,” Violet said.

“I like what I'm doing right now.”

Violet sat down on the unmade bed, her knees touching Audrey's knees. “Are you sure skipping out on work is a good idea, though?”

Audrey laughed and even with her dark mood it sounded like music. “You do have a way with words, Violet. It is
quite possibly a terrible idea.” Audrey stroked the cat, and he lifted his head and meowed lazily.

“Then get dressed and come with me.”

Audrey put the cigarette to her mouth again. “No,” she said when she pulled it away. Smoke wafted out of her pursed lips like it had somewhere to be and was late.

“But what if . . . what if Mrs. Pope—”

“What if she fires me?” Audrey finished for her. “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.” She tipped her head back and laughed at her comical reference to Rhett Butler's last line in the current version of the
Gone With the Wind
script. Valentino jumped off her lap and strolled away.

“But, Audrey—”

Audrey leveled her gaze back to meet Violet's. “I honestly don't care, Violet. I've given this studio the best years of my life, and what has it given me?”

“Yes, but—”

“I've ingratiated myself before every assistant producer, director, writer, idea man, and talent scout who's had even a modicum of influence. I've done everything they've asked of me and then some. I may as well have been a fifty-year-old grandmother, for all the good it's done me.”

“But maybe . . . maybe they don't know how to see past the fact that you're a secretary. Do any of those people know what you'd really like to do?”

For a second Audrey didn't answer. “You go on to work, little busy bee Violet. Go on,” she finally said.

A truck pulled up to the curb outside the house. Audrey heard it, too.

“Go on.” Audrey crushed out her cigarette.

Violet stood up. “I'll tell Mrs. Pope you're not feeling well.”

“Tell her anything you want.”

Violet made one last appeal. “I can tell Bert to wait for us. Or I can tell him to go ahead and you and I will catch the streetcar. I'll help you get ready, Audrey. Come on. Please?”

Audrey smiled at her. “You're a peach. But I need to think. I can't think at work. Go on. Bert's waiting for you.” She turned her head to the curtained window where, on the other side of the glass, the truck idled at the curb. “Dear, sweet Bert,” she said in a faraway voice that sounded heavy with regret.

At first Violet could only stare at Audrey. “I'll tell Mrs. Pope you have the flu,” she said a few seconds later.

“You do that.” Audrey leaned back in the chair and rested her head on its rounded back.

Violet walked back out into the main room, grabbed her purse, and headed for the front door.

When she climbed into the truck, Bert looked past her to see if she was alone.

“Where's Audrey?”

“She's . . . she's feeling under the weather.” Violet shut the passenger's-side door.

Bert put the truck into gear and pulled away from the curb. “After deciding out of the blue to leave early yesterday? She's going to lose her job if she's not careful.”

“I actually don't think she's too keen on staying at Selznick much longer.”

“Getting fired from one job is not the way to go looking for another.”

“That's pretty much what I told her. She won't listen to me.” Violet scooted closer to him. “But I think she's always been the kind of person to do what she wants.”

Bert shrugged. “Well, I don't know about that.”

The subject of her roommate fell away, and Violet finally relaxed next to the man she was falling in love with. She'd tell Bert later that it was Audrey's birthday and they should take her out for a malt or a movie. If Audrey was even amenable to that.

Half an hour later, when Violet told Mrs. Pope that Audrey had the flu, the woman regarded Violet with unmistakable doubt in her eyes.

“The flu?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“She couldn't call in herself? She's that sick?”

“Oh. I told her I would tell you.”

Mrs. Pope cocked her head slightly. “You're a good worker, Violet. One of the best we have here in this office. You do yourself no favors by lying for your roommate.”

Blood rushed warm to her face. “But Audrey is—”

“I know exactly what Audrey Duvall is.” Mrs. Pope lowered her gaze back to her desk. “She is someone who left without permission yesterday and abandoned a pile of unsent dictation that has caused no small amount of trouble this morning.”

Violet sensed that not only was Mrs. Pope aware of Audrey's absence yesterday afternoon, but she also knew why she'd slipped away.

“She just wants a chance!”

“What she wants is to be a star. What she is is a secretary. It's what she was hired to be. Nobody forced her to take up a steno pad.”

“Please don't fire her, Mrs. Pope.”

“That decision has already been made.” Mrs. Pope did not look up. “We're finished here.”

Violet returned slowly to her desk, numb with worry and unease. Her wire basket of incoming correspondence
was brimming, and she was glad. She didn't want to think about what had just happened and the work would keep her mind from it.

She sought out Bert at lunch and told him the news that as far as she could tell, Audrey had lost her job.

“What do you think she'll do?” she said.

“I don't know. She owns that house and I think she might still have some of the inheritance Aunt Jo left her. I know she's been careful with it.”

“But it will be so strange not going to work with her each day.”

Bert crumpled up his napkin. “Things are already strange. Maybe it's time she did something different. She doesn't want to be a secretary, anyway. She's wasting her time here. It's all been a waste.” His attitude seemed forced and abrupt.

“Surely it hasn't all been a waste,” Violet said, hoping to lighten his mood.

“Maybe.” He was quiet for a moment. Then he turned to her, a different look on his face. “So you want to go bowling with me and some friends tonight? We can go out for hamburgers first.”

It sounded like a date. She was about to say she'd love to when she remembered it was Audrey's birthday. She pondered for just a moment what to do. Audrey probably wouldn't be in much of a mood to celebrate turning thirty-one. She'd say nothing until Bert took her home to change out of her work clothes. If Audrey was home, she'd ask her to join them.

Before the day was over, Violet was called out to the Forty. The opening scene on the porch with Scarlett and the Tarleton twins was to be shot again, for the fourth time. Miss Leigh was back on the set for it, and Violet
was to stand in for Miss Myrick, who was now at home in Georgia. This time, Miss Leigh didn't wear the dress with the green sprigs. She wore the ruffled white dress from the evening prayers scene. Mr. Selznick wanted her to look naïve and innocent when she complains that she doesn't want to hear one more word about some silly war.