Starstruck (14 page)

“She’s developing expensive tastes out here too,” Gabby continued rapidly, seemingly oblivious to the food. “Just the other day, she shows up at my dance rehearsal wearing yet another new mink stole she bought for three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars! For her trip to Palm Springs, she says, also undoubtedly paid for by the sweat of my little brow. You look shocked. You should be shocked! Who the hell wears fur in the desert?”

“No …,” Margaret began, although the truth was she was shocked by so many things about Gabby that she hardly knew how to separate them. “I think they brought you the wrong meal.”

Gabby finally glanced down at her soup. “Oh, that!” She laughed. “Don’t mind that. You see, Tully Toynbee—you know, the director?—got Mr. Karp to tell the commissary to serve me nothing—and I mean nothing—but chicken soup until I lose twenty pounds.”

“Twenty pounds?”
Margaret’s mouth fell open. Even with the bulk added by her oversized bathrobe, Gabby looked like the kind of delicate fairy you’d see tiptoeing over the petals of a flower in a Victorian picture book, with a snail shell for a hat and a needle for a sword. “From where? Are you supposed to cut off your head?”

“Spoken like one of the naturally slender,” Gabby muttered. “I know it sounds like a lot, but it isn’t really. The cameras put
on at least ten, and I was at least ten too big to begin with. Anyway, it’s fun to order the most outrageous things I can think of, just to get a rise out of the waiters. Yesterday, I asked the fellow for an entire roast beef, two dozen scrambled eggs, and a New York cheesecake with strawberry sauce on top. And then I asked him if he would bring me the bucket of fat drippings out of the kitchen to wash it all down with.”

“And they don’t say anything?”

Gabby’s eyes twinkled. “Not a word. It’s company policy. They’re not supposed to ask any questions, or even so much as crack a smile. I heard that Garbo got a waiter fired for asking if she wanted him to leave the dressing off her salad, and frankly, I think he got off easy. I mean, really, offending Greta Garbo? At MGM? Mayer could have had him executed for that. No, go ahead, don’t wait for me! Eat! You must be starving.”

Reluctantly, Margaret picked up her sandwich. “Don’t you get hungry?”

“Not a bit. Not with these marvelous little pills Dr. Lipkin gave me.”

“Dr. Lipkin?”

“The studio doctor. Absolutely the nicest, cleverest man in the whole wide world. All you do is go into his office and tell him you need to lose some weight. First he gives you a shot, just to kick-start the process, and then he gives you these darling little pills. You swallow one down whenever you get the teensiest bit hungry, and presto, not hungry anymore! I’ve lost six pounds already and it’s only been a week.”

Margaret frowned. It sounded awfully dangerous. “What does your mother think?”

“Did you not listen to anything I told you about Viola? She’s
thrilled. She says her only regret is that I didn’t start taking them three months ago, when I lost that big part at MGM to Deanna Durbin.” Gabby snorted. “They said they were ‘going in a different musical direction,’ but really it’s because they thought I was a big fat pig. Now Viola’s practically shoving the pills down my throat. And the best part about them is not only are you not hungry, you’ve suddenly got gobs of energy, like you could practically take on the world. The only teensy tiny problem is that sometimes they make it a little hard to sleep, but Dr. Lipkin has some pills for that too, not that I have much time for sleeping. Honestly, it all works a treat. Dr. Lipkin told me that Diana Chesterfield was practically the size of a garage when she first came to him.…”

“And now she’s disappeared altogether.” The words were out before Margaret could stop them.

Gabby’s eyes flew open as she lunged across the table “Why? What have you heard? Did Kurtzman say something?”

“Oh, no!” Margaret backpedaled furiously. She couldn’t help feeling as though she’d spoken out of turn. “Nothing like that. It’s just that—”

“Because he’s supposed to be directing her new picture, you know.
The Nine Days’ Queen
. Big costume drama. It was supposed to be his first big project since Europe. The studio spent a fortune on it, and now it’s on hold, and nobody … 
Oh God
.” Gabby’s gaze drifted suddenly across the room. “Not her. Just look at her.”

“Who?”

“Her.”
Gabby pointed a finger toward the entrance. Snaking a path through the commissary floor, leaving in her wake a trail of tables full of awestruck men with half-chewed food
visible in their open mouths, was the most extravagantly beautiful girl Margaret had ever seen. Her hair was a radiant shade of red, like that of a nymph in a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and cascaded luxuriously down her shoulders in glossy, sensuous waves. Even from across the room, her large hazel eyes emitted a vivid glow. Her magnificent figure was encased in a tight black bombazine suit that hugged her in all the right places and set off her pale skin and fiery hair to glorious effect. Only when she had finally reached her table—the absolute farthest from the commissary door, clearly selected solely for its ability to afford her the longest possible procession—where she was partially hidden by an enormous bunch of emerald balloons, did the hush lift from the room and the diners return to their previously scheduled activities of eating, gossiping, and complaining.

Gabby shook her head in disgust. “Honestly. Who the hell does she think she is?”

“I don’t know. Who
is
she?”

“She calls herself Amanda Farraday,” Gabby sneered. “I suppose she’s some kind of
actress
, although I’ve yet to see her do much acting—that is, in the traditional sense. All I know is that no one had ever heard of her, and then all of a sudden she shows up on the lot with a private dressing room and an umpteen-dollar Packard convertible and a bunch of clothes straight from Paris. All black, for some ridiculous reason.”

“Maybe she’s in mourning.”

“Yeah, for her virtue.”

“Gabby!” Margaret was startled by the visible change in her new friend. The bubbly, mischievous Gabby of just a few minutes earlier had transformed into a hard-eyed girl with an unnerving edge of bitterness in her voice.

“Oh, come on. Not a single credit to her belt, and she waltzes in with all that?”

It hit Margaret like a flash. “I’ve seen her before. I mean, I
saw
her. Early this morning. Going into the office of a young man, a writer, I think. I only saw her from the back, but I’m sure it was her.”

Gabby nodded smugly. “There you go. Covering all the bases. It takes an awful lot of guys to keep a girl like that.”

“You mean there are others?” Margaret whispered.

“I’d bet my bottom dollar on it. Agents, producers. Maybe Mr. Karp; wouldn’t surprise me. Sure, he puts on that whole kindly grandpa act, but he’s a man, just like any of them. Maybe even Hunter Payne.”

“Hunter Payne?”

“The big moneyman in New York,” Gabby said. “He runs the corporation that owns Olympus. Put it this way, if Karp’s the king, Payne’s the Pope. They say the only thing he cares about is the box office, but believe me, he has other interests. And I guarantee you that Amanda Farraday knows all about ’em.”

She held up her tiny hand before Margaret could interrupt. “Listen, Margo, there’s no point in defending her. Girls like that just make things harder for the rest of us. You think it doesn’t happen? Listen, when I was ten years old, playing the Palace Theater, some pervert producer told my mother he’d make me the headliner if she’d let him have a couple of hours alone in a room with me. To my continuing surprise, Viola was actually horrified. Even she has her limits, I guess. But the next thing I know, I’m off the bill, and another girl, even younger than me, is at the top of the marquee. I guess her mother wasn’t so easily shocked.”

Margaret suddenly felt desperate to change the subject. She didn’t want to hear about this. Hollywood was supposed to be a fairyland. The Dream Factory. Gabby made it sound more like a nightmare. “Tell me more about ‘Zing Went the Strings of My Heart.’ ”

Gabby looked at her incredulously. “What do you want to know?”

“Well …” Margaret thought frantically. “What do you think made it … so … so good?”

“Well,” Gabby said, sitting back in her chair with a satisfied look, “with a song like that, you have to act it. You have to think about how it relates to your life and put that emotion behind the words.”
Just like Dane said about Lady Olivia
, Margaret thought. “You’ve got to think about the person your heart goes ‘zing’ for.” She leaned forward mischievously. “So I thought about Jimmy.”

“You? And Jimmy?” For a moment, Margaret forgot all about Amanda Farraday. Wait till Doris heard about this. “Are the two of you … going together?”

Gabby smiled mysteriously. “Not technically. But I imagine it’s only a matter of time until we’re allowed to announce.”

“Announce?”

Gabby laughed. “Well, it’s not as though Jimmy and I are just ordinary kids. These things have to be considered. But we’re starring in the new Tully Toynbee picture together, for Pete’s sake. And we’re the same age, same image, same kind of properties. It makes perfect sense.”

“It doesn’t sound very romantic.”

Gabby giggled. “Don’t be silly. I couldn’t dream of falling in love with someone who wasn’t in everyone’s best business
interest. But as it happens, I think Jimmy Molloy is the sweetest, dearest, handsomest, funniest, cleverest, most wonderful boy in the whole world.”

But Margaret wasn’t listening to Gabby anymore.

Dane Forrest had just entered the commissary.

He’d changed clothes since she’d seen him last, into a gray flannel suit. His dark hair was freshly slicked back from his face. His eyes gleamed with that
look
. The smoldering ballroom look from
That Kensington Woman
.

Gabby grinned. “Hmmm. Ring-a-zing-zing.”

Margaret’s heart was pounding. As he drew nearer, she thought it would leap right out of her chest and land in Gabby’s untouched soup.

But without so much as a nod in Margaret’s direction, he passed her completely and walked straight over to Amanda Farraday. Grabbing the beautiful redhead’s hand, he leaned in close to whisper something urgently in her ear. She whispered something back, through glistening parted lips. He gave her the tiniest of nods as she took her hand from his and slipped out the back door. He stood at the table for a moment, looking around anxiously, before he stealthily followed her out.

“Covering all the bases,” Gabby snorted. “Diana Chesterfield, how quickly we forget.” And with that, she picked up her spoon and helped herself to an enormous mouthful of chicken soup.

S
he was exactly where she said she’d be, in the small, shady orange grove behind the commissary, leaning against a tree studded with bright fruit. The dark green leaves cast a lacy pattern of shadows across her perfect face. Dane started toward her, his arms outstretched. “Ginger. What are you doing here?”

She raised a pale hand, holding him off. “It’s Amanda now.”

“Is that your real name?”

“Real enough. As for what I’m doing here, it just so happens I’m under contract.” A proud smile played across her lovely face.

“As an actress?”

The smile faded from her lips. “Don’t look so surprised.”

“It’s just I never knew that was part of the plan.”

“Oh?” She raised her chin defiantly. “What did you think the plan was?”

He struggled for a moment, trying to think what to say.
Dane Forrest was used to beautiful girls, but this one, Ginger, or Amanda, or whatever she wanted to call herself, had always unhinged him somehow, made him feel young and callow and ill-equipped, as if he was always about to say the wrong thing. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I guess I figured some man would come along eventually and take you away from all this.”

“As it so happens, one has.”

“Anyone I know?”

“I imagine so,” she said seriously. “His name is Harry Gordon.”

“Not the
screenwriter
?” Dane felt as if he were going to choke.

“Again with the shock. You really have to work on that, Dane. It’s terribly ungallant.”

A writer. And not just any writer.
Harry Gordon
. Dane shook his head. Someone like Harry might be fine in Greenwich Village, but in Hollywood all that radical idealism tended to turn to rot. Either you destroyed it or it destroyed you, and it was too early to tell which way Harry Gordon would go. “I always had you down as a practical sort, Gin. Thought you were more of the type to go for an agent, or a producer—”

“Or an actor?”

His eyes bored into her. She returned his gaze. He knew they were thinking about the same thing. The same night. It had been two years earlier. He’d been a bit player then, of the sort Los Angeles was teeming with. Just another handsome, hungry young man on the make. Hardly the sort to come around Olive Moore’s place, but Olive had been awfully good to him over the years. Dane was a sentimental sort.

That evening Olive was out. It was one of those hazy blue nights, the kind where sadness and beauty seem like the same
thing. That was how being with Ginger had felt. Very sad, and very beautiful, and all the more so because they both knew it would never last. And they’d been right: Dane became famous, and he couldn’t be seen at a place like Olive Moore’s anymore, or with a girl like Ginger. Not in a million years.