His Girl Hollywood

Chapter 4

The bell rang as Don pushed the door open and stepped into the frenzy that was Schwab’s Pharmacy during the Sunday dinner rush. He peered over the crowded shelves packed chockablock with anything you could think of—from cigarettes and antiseptic to Jergens Lotion and Vicks VapoRub—and tried to spot Eddie.

A hand shot up from the back end of the soda counter and waved in his direction. “Don, over here!”

Don pushed his way past a housewife comparing the prices of two bottles of shampoo, squeezed behind two teenagers in sweaters loitering by the tobacco counter, and held back a laugh at the sight of a balding man staring perplexedly at a list of items that was clearly scrawled in a woman’s handwriting. Squeezing in between the counter stools and a display touting Monty Smyth’s favorite brand of cigarettes, Don grabbed the empty seat next to Eddie and murmured his thanks as Eddie slid a cup of coffee and a doughnut his way.

He dunked the doughnut and gulped down some coffee before taking a breath and finally looking at his friend. Eddie was Don’s opposite in every way. He had a thinning thatch of hair the color of dishwater and he was short and squat, built like a bulldog. But Eddie could move like no one else Don had ever met. He made the ballerinas in New York look like amateurs. He’d elevated Don’s work to a new level. If Don wanted to make a splash in Hollywood and secure his freedom for good, he needed Eddie by his side. But he’d already mucked things up.

He took another gulp of his coffee and drained the cup, placing it firmly on the counter. “They got anything stronger?”

Eddie quirked an eyebrow. “Not unless you consider a strawberry milkshake stronger.”

Don sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“Okay, what happened?”

“I messed up.” Don groaned. He lifted his head and looked at Eddie. “Lena, she was… She wasn’t what I was expecting. She’s changed.”

“Changed how?” Eddie winked, a twinkle of mischief in his eye.

“C’mon, Eddie, she’s like my kid sister.”

“Yeah, well, honorary kid sisters have been known to grow up into beautiful dames.”

Don sighed in frustration. “She isn’t,” he protested. “Shit, that’s not what I mean. She is beautiful.”

“Mm-hmm.” Eddie nodded.

Was that the trouble? Don had barely recognized her when he’d walked into the soundstage. When he’d last seen her, she’d had a pageboy haircut and her favorite piece of clothing had been her father’s hand-me-down work pants. Now her naturally wavy titian hair was shoulder-length, styled in a practical, unfussy cut that cottoned to contemporary tastes without being unduly influenced by fashion. Sensible yet attractive.

She still wore trousers, but they were stylish, the mark of a woman who knew her stuff and wanted to be sure you knew it too. He’d only known it was her by the clumsy ballet moves she was attempting. Her grace had always been reserved for other walks of life far from the dance floor. But it wasn’t so much her sudden maturity that had thrown him for a loop. He’d known plenty of beautiful women in his day.

No, it was something more intangible. “She’s lovely,” he admitted to Eddie. “The loveliest I’ve ever seen her. But it’s not that, she’s…harder somehow. More reserved. All business. I’ve never known her to be cold. But it was like my presence turned her to ice. She was almost cruel, even.”

Eddie took a deep sip from his coffee and looked thoughtful. “Well, the kid has to have the weight of the world on her shoulders.”

“She’s not a kid.” Don’s response was reflexive, out of his mouth before he had a chance to think better of it. Eddie raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “I just mean, she’s grown up.”

Eddie smirked.

“For one thing, she won’t even let me call her Lena anymore. It’s Arlene now.”

Eddie said nothing, just sipped significantly from his coffee cup once more.

“Christ, maybe I need that strawberry milkshake after all.” Don flagged down the boy in the paper cap behind the counter and ordered a milkshake and a hamburger. He was starving. He’d need his strength to start filming tomorrow.

While he waited for his food, his thoughts turned again to Arlene. “Maybe you’re right, Eddie,” he muttered. “Maybe she’s nervous. But it’s not as if she’s the only one under a lot of pressure here.”

Eddie sighed and patted Don on the back. “I know, pal, but think about it from her shoes. She’s getting the chance of a lifetime—one of the only women given the director’s chair on a studio film in years. Then, your ugly mug comes strolling back into her life.”

“Oh, come off it, Ed. I bet she’s barely thought about me in the last decade. She has an Oscar, for Christ’s sake.” Was that it? Did she think she was better than him? That she’d outgrown him? Did she resent that she was saddled with him instead of a proven entity, a movie star with legions of fans? Looking down her nose at people had never been Lena’s style, but he had scarcely recognized the distant, cold woman he’d met tonight.

His stomach turned as the pimply teenager working the soda fountain set his burger and milkshake down in front of him. Don pushed the plate away and leaned his elbows on the counter.

“You’re thinking about Frankie, aren’t you?” Eddie muttered.

“How can I not? I just ordered a meal I can’t afford to pay for because that backstabbing sonofabitch pockets every penny I nearly kill myself to earn. I can’t even look at a pretty girl without thinking about Mabel. Which makes me think of Eleanor and what she did. I start to see red. Frankie controls everything I do. Even who I love. And I was such a mug that I didn’t realize how deep in I was until it was too late.”

He didn’t say the other part. The part that was always on his mind. How he’d traded one tyrant for another in a quest to prove himself and his dancing to the world. He’d been so desperate to escape his father that he’d leaped into Frankie’s trap with bells on.

Eddie interrupted his thoughts. “You gotta stop beating yourself up over that, Don. Frankie’s the bad guy here, rigging your contract and using you to make money hand over fist. Putting you in illegal situations so that you were under his thumb before you could say Jack Robinson. It could’ve happened to anyone. Hell, throw a rock in this town and you’ll probably hit someone who’s been through something similar.”

“No. If I had been smart and not a bum, if I had more to my name than my old man’s stevedore hook and the inescapable stench of fish guts, I would’ve known better. Mabel would’ve achieved her dreams and we would’ve got married. She would’ve been safe. Eleanor and Frankie would have never targeted Mabel.”

Eddie downed the last of his coffee, which the soda jerk had been assiduously refreshing, and turned on his stool to face Don. “Look, I know nothing I say is gonna change your mind. But you can’t let the past haunt your future. What happened to Mabel was horrible. But it can’t be the only thing that defines you for the rest of your life. We are the people our history has made us, but we can make our own path too. Hollywood is a fresh start for you. For the both of us.”

Don set his napkin down and started to rise from the stool.

“Hey, where you going?” Eddie called after him.

“You got a nickel?” was his only reply.

“Ain’t you got one?”

Don put his hands in his pockets and pulled them inside out, holding out only a penny and some lint.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Sooner or later you’re gonna have to use that penny.”

Don winked. “Never. It’s my good-luck charm.” He breathed on it in the palm of his hand and shined it with the edge of his sleeve. He’d carried this around in his pocket for ten years, and if it was the only thing between him and utter starvation, he wouldn’t give it up.

Eddie sighed, fished a coin from his pocket, and handed it to Don. Don thanked him and then added, “What you said about my past haunting my future… I gotta call Frankie. If he doesn’t hear from me, he’s going to suspect something’s up.”

Eddie grinned, a shit-eating look that had his rough-and-tumble Brooklyn upbringing scrawled across his face. “To be fair, something is up.”

Don ran a hand down his face. “Yeah, but I don’t need him to know that right now. He thinks this picture is going to be his ticket to a foothold in Hollywood. This only works if Frankie doesn’t get wise to the fact that Evets Studios is cutting weekly checks to me. You know what happens when he gets wise to things.”

“I do.” Eddie rubbed his nose meaningfully. Last year, one of Frankie’s guys had broken Eddie’s nose. A stranger had cornered him outside the stage door and slugged him until his face was like mush. The next week, the extra choreography fee Eddie had tried to arrange for Don on Pal’ing Around was no longer in his contract. They’d never had any proof it was on Frankie’s orders. But a payment to Frankie Martino for “miscellaneous services” was listed in Don’s contract instead. What other proof did they need?

“So, I better check in. Keep him happy.”

Don sighed and found his way to the bank of phones against the opposite wall. “You could at least reverse the charges,” Eddie called after him. Don flipped the nickel over his shoulder and turned his head in time to watch Eddie catch it. They were a hell of a team.

He slid open the glass door to the phone booth, the only empty box out of the four, and took a seat on the wooden stool inside. The cold metallic gleam of the phone taunted him. He had to play this right or it was going to blow up in his face. He took a breath and closed his eyes, envisioning himself walking on a balance beam, an audience watching him intently.

He reached out and dialed zero. “I’d like to place a collect call to New York City. Offices of Martino and Associates,” he told the operator. Associates , what a joke. More like Martino and Goons. The whirring sound of the call connecting and ringing as the signal wound its way from California to New York brought him to attention. He cleared his throat and sat up straight.

“’Lo, this is Frankie, whadya want?”

Don shook his head. Classy guy, Frankie Martino.

“Frankie, it’s Don.”

“Don, my boy.” Don cringed at the address. He didn’t want to be Frankie’s boy. Not now, not ever again. “How’s sunny Los Angeles? You pick up any starlets yet? Why you calling me collect? You should be rolling in dough out there.”

Never mind that Don didn’t ever have any dough because Frankie pocketed it. Don coughed. “No, no starlets, Frankie. Just finding my bearings. Getting ready to jump into the work tomorrow. The train only got in this morning.”

“Of course, of course. But the studio’s treating you right, yeah?”

“Yep, it’s great. Just, er, forgot my wallet when I went out to dinner and wanted to call you before it got too late on the East Coast.”

Frankie seemed to accept the excuse as he breezed right ahead. “Where are you at again? The Beverly Hills Hotel? The Roosevelt?”

Don and Eddie were holed up at a seedy little SRO on Hollywood and Vine. But Frankie thought Don had accepted the studio’s offer to put him up at a hotel while he was in Los Angeles. The hotel they were actually staying at had seen better days.

But what had Walter Nebbs offered him when they’d made the deal for him to come to LA? Don racked his brain to try to remember if the talent scout had named anywhere specific. Don needed Frankie to think he was living it up out here. “The Chateau Marmont,” he replied. He had no idea where the studio was supposed to have put him. But the Chateau sounded good.

“Right, right. Well, don’t spend all your time at the bar.”

Don gritted his teeth. Frankie liked to pretend that Don was a smarmy gangster, wining and dining his way through life. But that was just the guy Frankie wanted to be seen as managing, his protégé. In reality, Don didn’t go anywhere or do anything he wasn’t told to do. A part of him wished he could savor his freedom while he was thousands of miles away from his manager. Instead, he spent every second looking over his shoulder, expecting something to go wrong.

“I won’t, Boss. They say the pictures are hard work. I’m sure I’ll be too tired.”

“Right, right,” Frankie muttered, clearly disinterested in the prospect of hard work. “That’s your specialty though.” In that respect, Frankie was right. Don had worked his tail off to get where he was.

“You know what they say about all work and no play though,” added Frankie, before pausing. Don swore he could hear him thinking through the phone. He could picture Frankie’s ugly mug, his brow furrowed, face scrunched up in the effort of having to use his words and not his fists. “Come to think of it, you do the work, I do the play.” He laughed.

“That’s the way you like it, Boss,” muttered Don.

Frankie’s voice turned to ice. “It is. And don’t you ever forget it. I built you. I can break you. So, twinkle your toes and smile for the cameras and bring home a generous Hollywood contract.”

“I will.” Don curled his fingers into a fist. It was a good thing Frankie couldn’t see him right now. He was practically snarling. He was itching for the day when he could present Frankie with a check, every cent stipulated in his original contract plus interest. He’d wipe that smug smile off his manager’s face and he’d be free at last. To dance for whomever he pleased. Hollywood. Broadway. Anyone. And there’d be nobody he had to prove anything to but himself.

“Good. And make sure you also remember our other rule—no dames.” Don’s stomach bottomed out. The memory of the one time he’d forgotten that rule, tried to transgress it, made bile rise in his throat. But Frankie kept right on talking. “If we get Eleanor out there, the two of you could make it as a real screen duo. But for that to work, the public needs to believe you’re madly in love.”

God, not this again. He was tired of pretending to be Eleanor Lester’s beau because it sold tickets. The two were dance partners, nothing else. With the success of Pal’ing Around and this upcoming picture, Don hoped they wouldn’t even be that for long. The day he never had to see Eleanor Lester again couldn’t come soon enough. Oh, her grating accent was tolerable. Even her misguided attempts to make their fake relationship real was something he could’ve stomached. But her blind devotion to Frankie, her role in Mabel’s accident, that he could not abide. When their manager said jump, she asked, “How high?” Being in hock to Frankie Martino never seemed to faze her. Worse, she seemed to relish it.

“Right, Boss. I understand. The dames they got out here ain’t my type anyway.” It was meant as a joke. Because what man in his right mind would turn his nose up at being surrounded by starlets? But he wasn’t here for romance anyway.

Frankie laughed. “I’m sure there’s at least one girl in California that meets your exacting standards.”

Don had a sudden memory of Lena’s face—the soft lines of her mouth and stylish lilt of her auburn hair. He banished the thought as quickly as it came. She was like a sister to him. Even if she’d grown into something he scarcely recognized.

“I gotta go,” he told Frankie. “Early start tomorrow and all.”

“All right. Get your beauty rest. God knows you need it.” Frankie cackled into the phone, and the last thing Don heard as he returned the phone to the receiver was Frankie’s cruel laugh turning into a choking cough. Too bad the guy couldn’t kick the bucket and make it easy for Don.

He took his hat from the hook in the phone booth and squeaked out the door, letting a mousy brunette have his spot. He tipped his hat at her and returned to Eddie, his burger cold on his plate.

“How’s the old cheat?” asked Eddie.

“Same as ever,” muttered Don, picking at the lukewarm french fries he had left. He took a bite out of his hamburger, and it tasted like sawdust in his mouth. He chewed anyway, washing it down with the sickeningly sweet strawberry milkshake. “Smug, vain, and too full of himself to think beyond the amount of money I can bring him.”

Eddie shrugged, looking longingly at Don’s burger. “You gonna finish that?”

Don pushed the plate in Eddie’s direction and reached for his milkshake again. The syrupy sweetness was cloying. He shoved it in Eddie’s direction too. Great, now he’d wasted money on a meal he didn’t even want to eat. Don leaned his elbows on the soda counter and raked his fingers through his hair.

“Did Frankie buy it?” Eddie asked, his mouth full of a disgusting mash of french fries and strawberry milkshake.

Don shrugged without lifting his head. “I don’t know. I think so.” He couldn’t suppress a bubble of a hysterical laugh. “He thinks we’re staying at the Chateau Marmont.” He turned his head to look at Eddie, who had nearly started choking on his food. Don clapped him on the back, trying to help him swallow. “Easy, easy, pal.”

“Sorry. You mean we could’ve been staying at the Chateau Marmont instead of the fleabag hotel you got us in?”

Don gave him a look and Eddie raised his hands in surrender. “Eddie, c’mon, you know I need to save every penny for this to work. That hotel money is going straight into my pocket now. Frankie can’t know about it.”

“He won’t, he won’t. You’re gonna be great, Don. You’re a star. Evets Studios could see that. Before you know it, you’ll have your own bungalow at the Chateau and Frankie will be out in the cold. It’s all gonna work out. You’ll see.”

Don clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth might crack and nodded, the vein in his neck pulsing. “But what if it doesn’t? What if the picture flops and Evets Studios realizes they’ve made a bum investment? Worse, what if Frankie finds out? This is my last chance, Eddie.”

He didn’t say the other part. When Walter Nebbs had told him Lena would be the one directing the picture, Don thought he’d struck gold. Lena and Don, together again. It was a sure bet. It had never occurred to him that she might not want him here, might even be looking for an excuse to kick him off the picture. She’d been his biggest fan once. Watched every dance he’d devised in their shared backyard. Encouraged him to chase his dreams. But it sure as hell didn’t seem like she was his number one fan any more.

“That gal wants this picture to be a success as much as you do,” Eddie told him, seeing right through him. “Probably more.”

“But you didn’t see her today, Eddie. She was, I don’t know, impenetrable. Not at all the Lena I used to know.”

“Are you the same Don she used to know?”

The truth hit him like a sock in the gut. No. He wasn’t. He’d done everything he could to scrub himself of the boy who’d been Don Lazzarini. Hell, he’d even changed his last name the moment he got to New York. The idea of his father being connected with any of his success made him physically ill. That man didn’t deserve a scrap of credit, not even the recognition of a shared surname. The Lazzarini name and all of its potential had ended with his father’s death. Because he was Don Lamont now. An orphan, like Athena sprung from Zeus’s temple. He had erased any connection with Michael Lazzarini and his father’s sad little life.

Eddie smiled. “That’s what I thought.” He scrounged some change out of his pocket and tossed it on the counter. “Now, let’s go. You look like you could use some sleep.”

Don was bone-tired. And yet, somehow, he didn’t think he could sleep. His mind was whirring a thousand miles a minute, every possible scenario racing through his head, all of them ending in disaster. But he should at least try. He shoved his hand in his pocket and absentmindedly rubbed the penny tucked there. Arlene had brought him luck before. Maybe she would again.

Tomorrow, he would get to start over and try to make it as a Hollywood song-and-dance man. Start earning back some of what he’d lost. Tomorrow, for the second time in his life, he could be a new man.