A Touch of Stardust (10 page)

“You have beautiful copper-colored hair,” Rose had said admiringly. “And that blouse is perfect with it.”

Andy opened the car door with an elaborate bow, clearly in a good mood, as he surveyed the neighborhood. He looked strikingly handsome tonight, Julie thought. His suit was one she had not seen, a fine wool, polished and crisp. Just looking at him made her heart beat faster.

“If you’re looking for glamour, Oscar Hammerstein lives next door,” Andy said, nodding at an elaborately large home partially hidden by high hedges. “If you’re looking for intellect, you find it here.”

“Maybe a mix? Being dazzled is fun,” she teased as they walked up to the front door.

“You dazzle me.” He bent swiftly and kissed her on the forehead, obviously in high spirits. “I’ve got a girl who reads, and I’m giving her more than movie glitz.”

Before they even knocked, a maid in a starched white cap and apron opened the door and ushered them inside. To Julie’s left was a spacious living room, dominated by an ebony grand piano. The sofas and chairs—precisely placed—were plump and inviting, covered in a calm floral print, with ruffles at the bottom. They weren’t Hollywood, they were Fort Wayne, which was a relaxing thought.

To her right, through glass doors, the house opened onto a patio. Beyond that was a languid pool, the water a vivid blue, fed by a lazy waterfall. All the doors were open, and a soft evening breeze flowed through the house.

Guests were gathering—some in conversation by the fireplace, others flowing onto the patio, strong masculine hands as well as polished, tapered fingers lifting from time to time a glass of wine from the silver trays passed by the butler.

“Look at the pool,” Andy murmured. “What do you see?”

She peered. “It’s shaped like a frog,” she said, surprised.

Andy chuckled. “Good, you noticed. That’s one of Herman’s jokes. He can’t take this town seriously. Would you like to hear the one he’s threatened to pull on his wife? Say yes.”

She laughed. “Yes.”

“Sara’s crazy about Clark Gable, thinks he is the handsomest man in the world. Herman’s threatened to invite Gable to dinner and then have him play a joke on her by taking out his false teeth at the table.”

“Oh, Andy, Clark wouldn’t do that,” she said.

“You can be a bit literal,” Andy chided gently. “No worry—most
actors don’t get invited to dinner in this house anyhow. Herman doesn’t think they’re smart enough—with exceptions.” He nodded in the direction of a tall, handsome woman who had just arrived and was slipping out of a camel-hair coat with easy, sinuous grace. “There’s someone you might want to see,” he said, smiling.

Julie glanced curiously. The woman at the door was chatting now with Sara Mankiewicz, her face animated, her attention focused. Her eyes were not swiftly surveying the room, the standard gambit for party newcomers. A tingle traveled down Julie’s spine. It was Frances Marion. How could she be fifty? Her skin glowed as if scrubbed for a Noxzema ad.

“Go claim your destiny, Miss Crawford,” Andy urged with a wink. “Or at least take a peek at a living, breathing version of what you want to be.”

Julie wondered later at how easy it had been. Did she walk over to talk to her heroine? No, she floated. Something like that. At first she stood there awkwardly, not sure what to say to get the screenwriter’s attention. She felt like a schoolgirl again, but she was no longer part of an eager crowd, thrusting forward her autograph book for a precious signature.

She cleared her throat. If she didn’t say something quickly, she would look like a fool. “Miss Marion, I met you briefly at Smith College last year. I would love to know what you think the future is here for women writers,” she said.

The screenwriter turned in her direction and smiled. “The realistic one or the ideal one?” she said.

“I’m hoping there’s a way of combining the two,” Julie replied.

“If there is, maybe you’ll be able to find it,” Marion said, looking at her now more closely. “Not easy. Are you writing now?”

“Not yet. But as soon as I find a typewriter, I will be.”

“You sound determined. When you have something to show, come see me.” Marion’s words were warm and she smiled again
before turning away to chat with the easily recognizable actress Helen Hayes.

Julie instinctively felt the invitation was real.

So she was flushed with pleasure as she turned to look around the room, now rapidly filling with guests. Andy was in his element here. Introductions were casual, but there was the editor of the
New Yorker
magazine, in deep conversation with Mankiewicz, who jumped up and exuberantly shook hands with Andy. Standing by the fireplace was a restless man with a gaunt, worried face who she soon learned was Scott Fitzgerald. And she caught the name of Bennett Cerf, who had started Random House, the book-publishing firm. Other introductions blurred—there were two other writers from the East Coast—but when Julie saw David Selznick, she figured he was the reason this evening seemed especially important to Andy.

Selznick actually looked genial tonight, laughing at someone’s joke as he tipped a glass of Scotch to his lips. Julie, cradling a drink in her hands, tried to imagine how victorious he must feel about the Gable deal right now. She began talking to the woman with him, who turned out to be his regally elegant wife, Irene—a lady with a cool smile and reserved eyes who warmed up perceptibly when she learned Julie was a graduate of Smith College.

“I would have liked to go to college,” she said matter-of-factly. “But Father felt it was bad for girls, that it would expose me to outside influences.”

“Where did you live?” Julie asked innocently.

“Here, of course.” The woman’s eyes had widened slightly. “Ah, I see, you are new to Hollywood. My father is Louis B. Mayer. He always said other girls
had
to go to college: they didn’t have my advantages.”

Julie almost giggled; if only her parents could hear that. She glanced over at Andy and saw him and Scott Fitzgerald in sober conversation with Selznick. She strained to hear.

“So what do you think of Mitchell’s writing?” Selznick was asking.

Fitzgerald shrugged his shoulders almost wearily. His left hand was shoved deep into the pocket of his rather shabby jacket; his right hand cradled a glass of bourbon. “It’s okay. Not very original,” he said. “Workmanlike.”

“So you’re polishing it up, right?” Selznick said.

“I’m using her own words mostly,” Fitzgerald said. He did not seem intimidated by Selznick’s brusque tone. He was only one of many writers Selznick was bringing in to work on the script, and he knew it.

“Andy, you’ll stay on top of this?” Selznick said.

“Of course,” Andy replied. He saw Julie and grinned, then winked. She smiled back and turned away; she would tell him what Irene Selznick had said later. She knew now from studio gossip that Selznick valued Andy highly—that his ability to keep track of all the elements and egos of this massive project had made him invaluable. She felt wonderfully proud.

What she didn’t notice right away was a tall, dark-haired woman with long, graceful fingers curled tightly around a crystal glass, who was staring at Andy. Only when she strode forward in Andy’s direction, her expression stony, did Julie register that she was quite beautiful.

Julie remembered later that Andy looked up, saw the woman approaching, and appeared first startled, then resigned.

“You bastard,” the woman said. She took her drink and threw it into his face. Bourbon dripped from Andy’s hair as ice cubes clattered against a glass coffee table on their way to the floor. The woman put down the glass and stalked toward the front door, followed by a small, nervously apologetic-looking man with a very flushed face.

The room went silent for a brief moment before the murmur of conversation resumed. Andy took a napkin offered by a maid and wiped his face, then dabbed calmly at the stains on his shirt. He looked up at Julie and walked over to her.

“Who was that?” she asked, stunned.

“You might say a former colleague,” he said. “We’re not on good terms.”

“I could tell,” she managed. She tried to keep her voice calm, not quite sure what to say next. Irene Selznick had quietly drifted away to the other side of the room.

“I’m sorry you saw that—it’s the postscript to an old story,” he said.

“Please, tell me.”

He sighed. “Julie, it’s all old news.”

Was she supposed to stand there and pretend nothing had happened? She glanced around the room and was suddenly struck by a realization. “No one seems surprised,” she said. “Please, explain.”

His face seemed to close up. “I’ll tell you later. I assure you, it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Don’t bother my pretty little head, is that it?” She mustn’t cry. She mustn’t look dismayed or scared or confused, all of which she was. Andy. What made her think she actually knew this man, knew his character, in not much more than a month? She couldn’t stop her voice from trembling. Tears were forming in her eyes.

The stiff expression on his face softened slightly. “Okay, I’ve shocked you enough. I’ll take you home.”

She looked around. They were being serenely ignored. No tension, just life as usual. She knew this might likely end up as an anonymous tidbit in Louella’s column tomorrow—anything about anyone connected with
Gone with the Wind
was fair game now—including something tongue-in-cheek about the clueless girlfriend who stood there barely holding back her tears. How was she supposed to act?

“Dinner is served,” Sara Mankiewicz announced at that moment, with what appeared to be a quick, sympathetic smile in Julie’s direction.

That did it. Julie straightened, lifted her head high. Through the dining-room doors, she could see a table glistening with silver and crystal. A maid was lighting tall cream-colored tapers. “Not at all, Mr. Weinstein,” she said calmly. “We’ve been invited to dinner, and we will stay.” She turned and preceded Andy into the dining room.

She peered at the place cards, each name in elaborate script.
Would they have remembered hers? There it was. She was seated between Ben Hecht and a magazine editor from London whose name—she peeked at his place card—appeared unpronounceable. Elegant bone-white china, succulent prime rib; jokes, laughter. Conversation. Ben Hecht, blowing smoke rings to the chandelier between courses. Easy engagement. The magazine editor (“Call me Bernie, forget the last name”) chatty and pleasant. Sparring over the possibility of war.

“Roosevelt is trying to get us into it,” Mankiewicz declared, slicing vigorously into his meat. “It’s Europe’s war, not ours.”

“Mank, the Germans are out to own the world,” argued the magazine editor. “For God’s sake, they won’t show any of your movies in Germany unless your name is taken off of them.”

“They don’t like me, I don’t like them,” Mankiewicz retorted.

“Hitler isn’t going to invade the U.S.,” Hecht broke in. “No reason American boys should go over there and get killed by the thousands.”

A producer from RKO growled, “We’ll have to get in it sometime,” he said, waving his fork.

The conversation stayed juicy and lively, bouncing from topic to topic. Julie felt energized just listening. From across the table, Frances Marion smiled and lifted her glass, that small, universal gesture that held various meanings. And then dessert, a berry tart with ice cream; coffee; after-dinner liqueurs served in tiny crystal glasses. The mood was mellowing. From her seat at the table, Julie could see the lights shimmering blue in that jaunty frog-shaped pool. David O. Selznick, usually intense and focused, lounged back in his chair, chortling over one of Herman’s jokes.

And when dinner was over, goodbyes said, coats donned, and she and Andy stepped from the house and out into a Hollywood night complete with a crisp midnight-blue sky and sparkling stars, Julie realized—to her pleasure and astonishment—she had had a good time. Even if Andy seemed weighted down with gloom.