Stars Over Sunset Boulevard (3 page)

She paused a moment and Violet could tell something bad had happened.

“But,” Audrey went on, “before they even started filming,
The Jazz Singer
came out. Do you remember that movie?”

Violet shook her head. She wasn't sure she did.

“It was the first movie with sound,” Audrey went on. “Suddenly, all the movie producers wanted to make talking pictures. The director of the Pocahontas movie quit to make a talking picture with someone else. The financial backers left the movie, too, to put their money into productions with sound. The movie was scrapped. Mr. Stiles tried to get screen tests for me for other pictures, but I had such a deep voice, no one wanted me. Stiles finally let me go, and that was that.”

The streetcar rumbled on for a few moments before either one of them spoke.

“But you stayed here,” Violet said.

“I wanted to get back what had been taken from me. For a very short while I had been treated like a queen. It's intoxicating to be treated like you're a rare gem. There's no other feeling in the world like it. I tried for a couple of years to get another agent and another part in a movie. It was . . . It was not a great time for me. And I'll just leave it at that.” Audrey shook her head as if to dislodge a cobweb that had
fallen onto her. “Then my sweet Aunt Jo got sick and died. She left me the bungalow, so it was even easier to just stay. By this time I'd figured out that I wasn't getting anywhere with my career and I was going to have to do something different. I decided to get a job at a studio, so that I could be visible to all those men who had the power to change my life. Those people all have secretaries. And they are all fiercely dependent on their secretaries. So I taught myself typing and stenography and got a job at MGM, and then when Mr. Selznick left MGM to start his own studio, I came with him.”

“And?” Violet said.

“And what?”

“Has it worked? Being around all those studio people?”

Audrey frowned slightly. “You mean, is it working?”

The streetcar squealed to a stop and a host of passengers jostled around them as they got off.

“I guess.”

“Of course it's working. Do you think I would still be there if I didn't think it was?”

Violet wished she hadn't asked. Words escaped her as she wondered if she had just blown her chance of rooming with this woman. And she liked Audrey. Something about her made Violet think old hopes could be given new shapes.

Audrey looked intently into Violet's eyes. “You don't just throw in the towel after a couple years here. This is not the kind of town to be in if you're going to give up easily.”

Violet felt her face bloom crimson. “Sorry. I didn't mean to insinuate—”

“No, I know what you meant. You want to know if working as a studio secretary for the past seven years has paid off for me. You're thinking it should have by now.”

“No, I just—”

“And I want you to know that you can't give in too soon here. You have to be smart. Clever. Patient. Do you hear what I'm saying?”

Violet nodded in assent even though she wasn't sure what she was saying yes to.

Audrey took Violet's hand and squeezed it. “Don't forget I told you this. This is the city where everything is possible if you are patient. Don't forget it.”

She sounded like a wise old sage giving counsel to a pilgrim preparing to embark on a difficult and harrowing journey.

“I won't,” Violet said, and she knew she would not.

The streetcar lurched forward toward the foothills and the Hollywoodland sign as the first two stars of the night sky pierced the lavender horizon.

D
usk had settled over the hills as Audrey and her potential roommate stepped off the bus. A chilling wind had also crept over Hollywood. They started down Franklin Avenue to walk the four blocks to Audrey's bungalow, and pulled their lightweight coats tight around their middles.

Audrey glanced at the woman who walked beside her. Violet Mayfield seemed nice enough. A bit naïve, but in a sweet, comical way. Pretty but not beautiful. Charming but not alluring. Funny without trying to be. And a bit of a risk taker to have come so far from home without knowing a soul. Audrey found that reassuring. And though Violet was a good eight years younger, she had hinted that she was hungry for success in life, just like Audrey was. Yet unlike Audrey, she had no desire to be an actress, and this, too, was comforting. Most of the single women in Hollywood looking for a room to rent
wanted exactly what Audrey wanted. A fellow aspiring actress would surely make for a terrible roommate.

Her previous renter, a former script girl at Selznick named Dinah, had gotten married in July to a dentist she'd met at the Cocoanut Grove. Audrey had been with Dinah the night her roommate met the man she would marry. Audrey and Dinah had gone to the fashionable nightclub—in satin and sequins—because Audrey knew that a certain assistant producer from Warner was a regular there on Friday nights. Audrey had met the dentist first and then had introduced him to Dinah so that she could subtly work the room without him on her arm. But the producer hadn't made a showing that night. Afterward, and as the months wore on, Dinah had been almost apologetic that she'd won the well-to-do dentist when Audrey had “had him first.”

Dinah had never quite understood that Audrey wasn't looking for a husband. She was looking for the man who would discover her the way Stiles had.

Audrey hadn't been in a great rush to replace Dinah. The rent checks had been nice, but since Audrey owned the bungalow free and clear—the nicest thing Aunt Jo had ever done for her, among a string of nice things, was will her the little house—the extra money wasn't essential. But it was a bit lonely out on the edge of the city. All the clubs, theaters, and restaurants were a good ten blocks away. Aunt Jo's cat, Valentino, was only so much company. And while Audrey invited friends over often enough, it was too quiet and subdued when everyone left, and there was no one to talk to in the morning or sit next to on the bus and streetcar.

She liked having companionship in the house.

Her closest friend, Bert, whom she had known since her earliest days at MGM and who had also come over to Selznick International when she did, would have been the
perfect roommate choice if only he wasn't a man. Not only was he polite and decent, but he would've also been able to tackle all the spiders, trim the bushes in the yard, fix the perpetually leaky faucet in the bathroom, and scare away would-be Peeping Toms. And since he worked in wardrobe at Selznick, he could have ridden the bus and streetcar with her. Bert was the most genuinely thoughtful person she knew in Hollywood, probably because, like her, he wasn't from there. He'd been born and raised in Santa Barbara. But a male roommate was out of the question.

If only appearances didn't matter.

She laughed out loud at the thought of steady Bert Redmond, the bighearted little brother she never had, explaining to his widowed mother that he'd moved to a new house and had a new roommate and her name was Audrey.

At the sound of her giggle, Violet looked over at her, surely wondering what she had missed.

“Sorry,” Audrey said. “Just thought of something funny. It's nothing.”

They walked in silence for a few steps.

“It's nice out here,” Violet said, taking in the lay of the quaint shops, the older couples walking their dogs, the grocers bringing in their sidewalk displays for the night, the teenagers on bicycles heading home for dinner. “Even if it is a bit out of the way.”

“You can almost forget that just a mile behind us are streets that never sleep,” Audrey said, nodding toward the lights of Sunset and Hollywood boulevards off in the distance.

They turned up a side street with stucco houses on either side. A mother stood on the doorstep of one of the homes with a toddler on her hip and a dish towel over her shoulder, calling out into the twilight for an older child to come in.

Violet's gaze seemed to linger on the mother, and then on the place where the woman had stood after she'd stepped back inside her house.

“So, did your aunt work in the movie business, too?” Violet asked when the house and the mother with her children were behind them.

“Not hardly,” Audrey answered. “She married a man from Los Angeles who was a professional gambler, for lack of a better word. She met him at a casino before I was even born. I think her job was keeping him out of trouble.”

“Oh.”

“Apparently Uncle Freddy habitually made a lot of money and habitually lost it. I never met him. He got himself killed when I was still little. Luckily for Aunt Jo, it was after he had just made a lot of money. She bought the bungalow with what he had hidden in their apartment and lived off the rest so she didn't have to worry about taking a job at the library that barely paid her anything. My father wasn't too impressed with whom his older sister had married. He's always resented the fact that when he expected me to come back home to him, I didn't. I stayed with Aunt Jo.”

“So why did he send you to live with her, then?”

“Let's just say it was convenient for him.”

Violet opened her mouth to say something else, but they had arrived at the bungalow and Audrey filled the momentary silence. They could have that conversation later, if they had it at all.

“Well, here's the house,” she said.

The bungalow, like many of the other houses on the street, was Spanish themed, one of the three architecture styles allowed in the bedroom community of Hollywoodland, with white stucco walls, a red tile roof, arched doorways, and terra-cotta pots of geraniums happily blooming
on the porch, even though it was December. She slipped her key into the lock and they stepped inside.

Audrey hadn't replaced any of the furniture since Aunt Jo's death six years earlier. There had been no need. Jo had bought only quality pieces with the money she had found hidden in the floorboards of the apartment. There was a long sofa, coffee table, two armchairs, a Victrola, and a dining room set Audrey never used. The yellow-and-white-tile, eat-in kitchen had a door that opened onto a shaded patio and a laundry closet in the corner with an electric clothes washer. Two bedrooms, a bathroom, and the ten-year-old tabby cat completed the interior.

“This would be where you would sleep,” Audrey said as she showed Violet the room that had been hers before Aunt Jo died. There was a bed, a dresser, and vanity inside. Lacy blue curtains hung at the windows. A hooked oval rug lay in the middle of the floor. A painting of the ocean decorated the longest wall. “It's fully furnished, as you can see, so it's a good thing you've only got a suitcase.”

“It's perfect,” Violet said, almost breathlessly.

“Not as big as your Southern plantation back home, though, right?”

Violet laughed. “I didn't live on a plantation. We lived in the city.”

“In a big house?”

Violet hesitated before nodding. “It was. But . . . but I don't live there anymore.”

Audrey sensed for a second time Violet's desire for something that for the moment was out of reach. This young woman from Alabama by way of Shreveport wanted something that life back home couldn't give her. She had come to the land of dreams to find it. “Do you have any bad habits I should know about?” Audrey said.

“Why? Do you?” Violet asked, and a tiny current of dread rippled across her face.

Audrey smiled. Violet didn't appear to be like any of the other Hollywood women she knew. Audrey liked her. “I tend to leave my shoes and clothes lying around. You?”

Violet smiled back at her. “I tend to put things away.”

“Do you want to think on it?”

“I don't need to think about it. I would like very much to rent from you if you'll have me.”

“Well, then. Shall we go get your suitcase?”

“Right now?”

“Why not right now? Do you want to go back to your hotel to sleep tonight?”

Violet shook her head.

Audrey moved away from the bedroom door. “C'mon. We'll catch a cab on Franklin and take the bus back.”

A moment later, the two women were heading west toward the glittering lights of the city.

•   •   •

Audrey awakened the next morning to the aromas of coffee, cinnamon, and toasted bread. For a moment she could almost believe she was a little girl again and it was Christmas morning and her mother had made sticky buns.

She closed her eyes to hold the image captive for just a few seconds longer, but Valentino had noticed she'd stirred. He now rose from where he had been sleeping curled up at her elbow and nuzzled his feline face into hers—his way of communicating that he wanted his breakfast.

Audrey pushed the cat away gently and sat up. Dinah hadn't been a coffee drinker. Audrey couldn't remember the last time she had awakened to the fragrance of a freshly brewed pot. She reached for a silky robe on the armchair
next to her bed and slipped it on. Valentino jumped down and meowed at the door. Audrey opened it, yawning as she tied the sash around her waist. After a quick stop in the bathroom, she walked into the kitchen, where her new roommate was sitting at the kitchen table in her nightgown with a cup of coffee, two slices of cinnamon toast, and Audrey's latest copy of
Variety
magazine open to the middle. The dirty dishes that had been piling up in the sink over the past few days had been washed and the countertops wiped clean of smudges, dried spills, and crumbs.

“I hope you don't mind that I made coffee for us. I found some Hills Bros. in the cupboard,” Violet said, her thick Southern drawl elongating every syllable.

“Mind?” Audrey grabbed a coffee cup from the dish drainer and poured a cup. “Smelling it was like waking up in paradise.”

Audrey pulled out a chair and sat down across from Violet. Valentino began to wind himself in and out her legs, meowing a reminder that he had not yet been fed. “I can't remember the last time I had cinnamon toast.”

Violet pushed the plate toward her. “Have one. It's your cinnamon. Your bread. I promise I'll get my own groceries today.”

“Don't worry about it.” Audrey lifted one of the pieces of toast off the plate, brought it to her mouth, and took a bite. Violet had been liberal with both the butter and the cinnamon sugar. It was divine.

“I am in awe of how great this is. I usually skip breakfast. You might have noticed there's hardly much to make a meal with here.”

“I like to cook,” Violet said. “I can make us breakfast in the mornings. I don't mind.”

Audrey took another bite. “You know how to make
biscuits and gravy?” she asked as she chewed. “I've always wanted to try that.”

Her roommate smiled wide. “Of course. Mama taught me how to make everything.”

Audrey broke off a piece of the crust and tossed it down to Valentino. “Word gets out among the single men at the studio that you can cook, and I'll be looking for another roommate.”

Violet laughed lightly.

Audrey looked up from the cat. “You think I'm kidding?”

Her new roommate shrugged. “I think men want more in a wife than just someone who can cook.”

Audrey arched an eyebrow playfully. “And it's a good thing they do! Can you imagine how terrible it would be if all a man wanted was someone to be his maid?”

Violet shrugged. “I don't know.”

“You don't know?” Audrey half laughed.

Her roommate chewed on her bottom lip for a second. “I don't think too much about stuff like that.”

“Stuff like what?” Audrey laughed fully now.

“You know. Stuff about . . . men.”

A new thought stole across Audrey and she gasped slightly. “Violet! Do you . . . do you prefer other women?”

Violet's face went crimson and a half bite of toast catapulted out of her mouth as she nearly choked on it. “What? No! No, I don't. I'm not . . . No!”

“All right! Okay!” Audrey said in a reassuring tone. “I just thought for a second that maybe, you know. . . . Most women
do
think about stuff like that, Violet. You can't fault me for wondering.”

Violet brought a hand up to her right cheek, as though to cool her discomfort with her palm. She exhaled heavily, forcing any remnant of toast from her windpipe. Her breath
was feathery with alarm and embarrassment. “All I meant was I don't like to think about that
right now
,” she said.

There was a trailing hint of sadness in Violet's words. Audrey felt a tug of kinship toward her. Violet had been hurt. Recently, perhaps. It was why she had come to Hollywood for a fresh start. Audrey understood that unspoken thought perfectly.

“What happened to you?” Audrey asked softly. Respectfully.

Violet studied the empty plate in front of her for a moment. “I'd really rather not talk about it.” She rose from her chair. “I'll make some more toast.”

Audrey knew as well as anyone that some wounds simply could not be spoken of easily. She would not press the matter. Not yet, anyway.

She stood as well and reached down to the floor for the cat's dish.