The Bette Davis Club (31 page)

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Georgia says. She waves her hands in frustration. “I’ve given up screenwriting. I’m giving up the movies. Ricky has tons of money—more than Mom, more than anybody! And anyway, now I’m into songwriting. It’s super easy. Ricky says whenever you can’t think of any words, you just throw in ‘baby, baby, baby.’”

“The dress is all you want?” I say.

“And the matching shoes.”

“Oh, the shoes.” I picture Mommie Dearest chasing Tully and me out onto the sidewalk, frantically calling after us that he had the matching shoes, not to mention Marilyn Monroe’s underwear. “I’m afraid the shoes went on walkabout in Palm Springs.”

Georgia shrugs. “The dress is the main thing.”

I pull the box containing the wedding dress out from where I shoved it the night before, under Finn’s desk. I hand the box to Georgia. She lifts the lid. When she beholds the gown inside, she squeals. “You’re a doll, Auntie Margo! A living doll! Thank you!”

Still holding the box, she peeks over the mezzanine railing at Tully below. “In spite of what everybody thinks,” she says, lowering her voice, “I’m not a total bitch. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about the dress in front of Tully. Didn’t want to rub his face in it. You were worried I hurt him, I know. But he’ll be okay.”

I, too, glance over the railing at Tully. He’s standing at the kitchen table, holding a mug of coffee and making short work of a chocolate biscuit.

“You like him, don’t you?” Georgia says, watching me.

I don’t reply. I just go on observing Tully.

“Well, he’s more your age than mine. Listen, Auntie Margo, you were nice to me when I was little. I always liked you. I love you even.” She lays the box aside. She gazes at me closely. “So, look,” she says, “I never slept with Tully, okay? He has kind of a drinking problem, and whenever we were together, we partied so hard, one of us always passed out before anything could happen. Usually him.” She gives a wink. “Thank God that doesn’t happen with Ricky!”

Georgia raises up on tiptoe and kisses me on the cheek. Then she snatches up her box and makes for the stairs.

“Wait!” Dottie says. “What of the terrible Boone? What if he goes Rambo
encore
?”

Georgia pauses at the head of the stairs. “Boone’s in Chicago, he won’t bother you. Kelsey says he’s recovering from head trauma. He does that a lot.”

“What about my sixty thousand dollars?” I say.

“Go ahead and tell Mom you found me. I won’t say different.”

“But to hear you tell it,” I say, “the two of you have already made up. Besides, I was supposed to persuade you to go home to LA. If I don’t do that, I only get half.”

“Sorry, can’t help. Baby, come to London! You’re right, though, Mom and me are best friends again. We had dinner last night at her hotel.”

“Charlotte’s in New York?” I say, bewildered.

“I know!” Georgia says. “It’s like a family reunion! Turns out she’s got something in the film festival. Which is all the more reason for me to get going. Even when we’re BFFs, Mom and me do it better from a distance. Plus, she’s mad at me for stealing Juven.”

Juven. It dawns on me what
juven
means in Spanish: youth. It’s not Charlotte’s husband, Donald, that Georgia stole. It’s her butler, Juven. Juven is Charlotte’s lost youth.

“You took your mother’s butler?” I say.

“Yes! He’s a gem. I called him from Chicago and offered him more money than Mom ever gave him. She kept promising him a raise, but then she’d just hand him some used luggage and a couple of discount coupons for liposuction. Anyway, he’s coming with Ricky and me to England. And I’ve got a plane to catch. Wish me luck, ladies! I’m off to the land of Will and Kate! Cheerio!”

Still gripping her box, Georgia hastens down the mezzanine stairs. She looks young and beautiful and utterly free. She glides past Tully—who ignores her—and hurries out into the street.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SOHO

A
fter Georgia leaves, Dottie keeps me company while I slip behind a Chinese screen and get dressed. Then the two of us go downstairs.

Tully is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and checking e-mail on his phone. He looks up. “I have to see my agent,” he says.

I must look surprised because Tully adds, “Won’t take long. It’s important.” He grabs his jacket from a chair, but when he reaches the door, he pauses. “When I come back,” he says, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Tell me now, if you like,” I say.

“Later. It’s kind of a story.”

“All right,” I say, mystified as to what the story could be.

Before Tully goes, I make sure to give him a spare key so he can let himself back in. Then he leaves. Soon after that, Dottie departs as well.

I’m once again alone in the shop. By now it’s lunchtime, and I’m hungry for something other than chocolate biscuits. I pour myself a glass of gin, then get out a pan and a couple of the eggs Tully purchased. I’m about to break an egg into a bowl, when the cell phone rings.

“Miss Just? Margo?” a voice on the other end says. “Malcolm Belvedere. We met at your sister’s house in Malibu.”

I remember sitting with Malcolm on that marble bench overlooking the Pacific. I picture his straight back and winning smile. “Hello,” I say.

“I’m in town for the film festival,” Malcolm says. “And lo and behold, a little bird tells me that not only are you here, but also you have something that might interest me. Something that—well, why don’t you come round and we’ll discuss it?”

I contemplate this invitation for a moment. Now that Georgia’s eloping with Ricky Wallingford, there’s no way I’ll get my sixty thousand dollars. The most I might hope for is half—thirty thousand. Though I’m not sure I trust Charlotte to come across with even that. Despite what Veronica said last night in her shop—that no one would ever make an Orson Welles movie in today’s market—perhaps I could pitch Malcolm
An Innocent Lamb
. Perhaps he’d be the one person left in Hollywood who might be interested in a script cowritten by Orson Welles and my father.

So I tell him, Yes, I’ll come over.

I down the rest of my drink. I put the eggs back in the refrigerator. I scoop up my leather tote from where I dropped it the night before in the kitchen. I take a taxi to Malcolm’s.

Malcolm’s loft is in SoHo. It’s on the same street where Tommy had his birthday party, the night I met Finn, all those years ago.

SoHo has changed greatly from when I first knew it. Back then, it was all raw space and artists’ studios. Now it’s chockablock with expensive boutiques and restaurants. No longer home to impoverished artists, it’s the upscale habitat of wealthy businessmen, bankers, and people like Malcolm Belvedere.

The taxi lets me out in front of a landmark cast-iron structure built in the 1870s. I go upstairs. Malcolm himself greets me at his front door.

“How pleasant to see you again!” he says. He takes my hand. “Cocktail?”

While Malcolm mixes martinis, I put my bag down on a chair and look round his place. It has corner windows and high ceilings supported by white columns. The polished wood floors are so broad you could use them as a bowling alley. The furniture is European modern. Huge contemporary sculptures line the walls. I stop and study one.

Malcolm brings me a large drink. “Cheers,” he says.

“Cheers,” I say. We clink our glasses together.

“You like this?” he asks me about the sculpture. “I look at it for hours sometimes.” His gaze drifts off the artwork and onto me. “You know,” he says, “that day we first met, I was thinking you might have had a film career.”

I smile. “I think not,” I say.

“I think yes. You’re a handsome woman. It’s only too bad you and I didn’t chance upon each other years ago. Though perhaps we can still do business.” The light in his eye makes me not altogether certain what type of enterprise he means.

“Business of what sort?” I say.

“Ah. I’ll tell you. The day before she was to be married, your niece telephoned me—”

“She found out you were getting divorced,” I say. “She intended becoming the next Mrs. Malcolm Belvedere.”

“You’re joking!” Malcolm says. “I wondered what she was up to!” He puts his index finger to his lips, thinking. “When you and I were chatting the morning of the wedding—remember? There was an odd feeling to the day. I was wondering even then if Georgia had jilted poor Tully. Still, me marry that intellectual dot? I make movies for girls like her; I don’t wed them.”

“Georgia seemed to think you might,” I say.

He laughs. “I’m no saint, it’s true. I’ve had women in my day. But dearest Margo, dear girl, when it comes to matrimony, when it comes to
relationships
, credit me with some discernment.” He gestures at the expensive sculptures surrounding us, as if their presence proves his high standards in women as well as in art. “As I say, Georgia Illworth called to tell me she was writing a screenplay. Out of respect for my business dealings with her mother, I said I’d take a look. But I was headed to Europe for a few days, so we agreed to rendezvous here in New York, during the film festival.”

“And did you?” I say. “Rendezvous, I mean?”

“No, because not one hour ago, she telephoned again. Today, in what I gather is a soul-cleansing confession coupled with the joys of young love—”

“Baby, come to London?”

“Precisely. Today, she gives me to understand said screenplay was actually penned by her grandfather, Arthur Just. Which, I confess, piques my interest enormously. She also says this long-lost text is now in your possession.”

I sip my drink, which is strong. On an empty stomach, it feels even stronger. “I have two scripts by my father,” I say. “One of them he cowrote with Orson Welles.”

“Orson Welles!” Malcolm laughs heartily. “Now you’re going back! That would be—what would that be? An artifact, a museum piece!” He laughs again. “I was acquainted with Welles. Immensely entertaining at parties, but a quirky and unreliable man in business. No, I’m not interested in anything by him, even if your father coauthored it. I’m interested in something your dad came up with all on his own.”

“
Spy Team
,” I say.

“That’s the one,” he says.

“Trouble is, I’m rather tired of
Spy Team
.”

Malcolm smiles. “All the more reason for me to take it off your hands.”

“So tired,” I say, “that in the last few days, I’ve considered tearing it up.”

Malcolm lowers his drink. “Dear me. In my opinion, that would be a mistake.”

“It’s what my father would have wanted.”

“Interesting you say that. Because by my way of thinking, if Arthur Just had wanted his work destroyed, he would have done so himself. But he didn’t. He left it behind.”

“That was unintentional,” I say. “
Spy Team
meant only one thing to him: a paycheck.”

“That’s what you believe, is it?” Malcolm says. “Myself, I knew a writer—not your father—who once told me his worst day writing was better than his best day not writing. You follow my train of thought?”

“Not really.”

“I’m merely pointing out that perhaps your old man took more pride in
Spy Team
than you credit. He created that series, after all. Years later, it still has a great many fans.”

Why do people insist on telling me about my own father? What can they possibly know or recollect about him that I don’t already know?

“
Spy Team
’s fans don’t matter to me,” I say. “What matters is that my father was made miserable by the demands of Hollywood. And by the demands of his estranged wife, Irene. Writing that ludicrous television series was the last straw. It killed him.”

Malcolm gazes into his glass, frowning. “When I was a young man, I knew your father slightly. From what I saw at the time, I’d say it was drink that killed him.”

I shake my head. “He drank because Hollywood drove him to it.”

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm says, “I disagree. Arthur Just drank because he was an alcoholic. Everyone in the entire industry knew that about him.”

I move to a window and look across at the building where Tommy used to live, the building where he threw his thirtieth birthday party. Admittedly, I never actually met Tommy. But I’m aware that people like him were driven out of SoHo by people like Malcolm. I take a last swallow of my martini.

“A fondness for drink runs in the family, doesn’t it?” Malcolm says. “They say your mum—” He stops himself.

My glass is empty. I set it on a table. I reach for my tote bag and pull out the
Spy Team
script. I take out my cigarette lighter as well. I stand there, script in one hand, cigarette lighter in the other. I begin flicking the lighter on and off, off and on.

“Careful there,” Malcolm says. He puts down his drink and spreads his hands, as if attempting to keep his equilibrium. “Miss Just . . . Margo. Just Margo. Be reasonable.”

I flick the lighter on and leave it on. The orange flame glows like a tiny candle. My hands tremble a little.

“Steady,” Malcolm says. “That’s a worldwide box-office potential of half a billion dollars you’re holding there.”

I move the lighter closer to the script. The paper is old and thin.

“Dear girl,” Malcolm says, a note of command in his voice, “I’m serious. I couldn’t
be
more serious. Stop and think what you’re doing.”

“I have thought,” I say. “I’m happy with my decision.”

“Well, I’m not!”

The truth is, I’m not sure
what
my decision is. I don’t know what I want to do with
Spy Team
. All I know is I’m tired of people with money, people with power. I’m tired of being pushed around. And I’m tired of being told what’s of value in my life and what’s not.

“Domestic ticket sales alone of two hundred and fifty million dollars,” Malcolm says. “That’s more money than your father—”

“Don’t say one more word about my father!” I cry.

Whether panicked by the emotion in my voice, panicked by the flame I’m holding, or simply unhinged by the prospect of all those domestic ticket sales, Malcolm lunges at me, grabbing for the script. But when he does that, it throws me off-balance. In a blur, all I can think is to keep Malcolm from getting the script. Instinctively, I jerk both hands to my chest. The next thing I know, Malcolm backs off, an odd look on his face. I’ve won! I’ve got the script and the lighter!

Only thing is, I’m holding them next to each other.

For a nanosecond, I clutch a ball of flame. Then I feel the heat and drop everything to the floor. A throw hangs from an armchair. The ball of flame skitters under it. The throw catches fire.

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” Malcolm says. “You’ll burn the place down!”

He tears off his suit jacket and steps forward, beating at the flames. Ash and smoke fly about. I watch, immobile, as Malcolm hits at the fire. It’s not a large blaze and he soon succeeds in smothering it with his jacket. When the fire is out, when all danger is past, he stomps on the few remaining embers.

“You all right, dear girl?” he says. He glances my way. “Not burned or anything?”