Chapter 12 #2
“Yes, you’re right.” Inez lifted the hand without the shell to shield her eyes, taking in the dark blue waves.
“It reminds me of God, and faith. That no matter what else happens, what else is taken from us … what other troubles mankind may invent, near or far, surely this will remain. The sun, the sky. This wide ocean and the blessed air.”
And us, Rita added silently, studying her sister, her somber grace, her delicate beauty, undimmed even beneath the Southern California sun. Surely, Lord, save this, save us, her and me. Or just her, only her and our family and Giuseppe, and whatever else is good in the world.
Amen.
THE NEWSPAPERS STILL routinely referred to her as an ingénue, as in, lovely Miss Rita Jolivet, ingénue of Broadway, but more and more the words moving-picture actress were beginning to appear beside her name.
Charles Frohman was busy working his usual behind-the-scenes magic on her behalf; gossip sheets dropped pieces of her life into the open maw of the public’s appetite for anything shiny and tinseled and larger than life.
Ingénue Rita Jolivet, a moving-picture actress of royal French descent, is testing her skills here in the good ole U.S. of A., courtesy of Mr. C. B. DeMille, director of Brewster’s Millions, that runaway success …
Popular moving-picture actress Rita Jolivet has been snapped up by the Lasky Feature Play Company. Expect to see her on your hometown silver screen sometime next spring, where she’ll be playing heiress Delight Warren in a spectacular new romance …
Actress Rita Jolivet has been a busy bee! Not only has this bewitching young lady been seen of late in the company of her delectable costar House Peters, it’s rumored she keeps her own Italian nobleman on a gilded leash, at her beck and call …
Say Adieu to the War Blues! Sultry pearl Rita Jolivet (Rita supposed they’d unearthed that little gem when following up on the tittle-tattle about Giuseppe), Lasky’s beguiling new photoplay actress, has been a welcome sight in town along with her sister, famed violinist Leigh Vernon, fresh from her smashing success at the Met (New York, darlings, for those of you not in the know).
These glamorous gals have lent our humble hills some serious sparkle!
Mrs. Vernon is said to be a favorite of Tsar Nicholas himself, who supposedly gifted her a diamond the size of a quail’s egg upon her marriage …
“WHEN DOES IT stop?” Inez tossed the broadsheet to the glass-and-granite table that separated the hotel suite’s dining area from its reading and writing area.
“It never stops.” Rita lifted her cup of coffee to her lips, her feet propped on the pouf in front of her chair. Inez, seated at the table, began to pick apart a blueberry muffin with her fingers. “Nor do we want it to.”
The hotel was nestled in the hills above the city proper, plain on the outside, splendid on the inside, well known for its discretion regarding its distinguished guests.
Maids and page boys were always pleasant and smiling, no matter the task; the servers in the madly expensive café and restaurant were never tipped—too bourgeois—yet would do practically anything to satisfy their customers, even if it meant ordering some special meal from a rival establishment and presenting it under glass.
The air always smelled of irises, from the many vases lining the halls, and the view from the windows showed the living city sprawling below, streets and buildings and houses forever.
At night, the land glinted with electric lights, like countless silent fireflies hovering just above the earth.
Rita had been given a two-bedroom suite, but Inez was the first person to use the second bedroom.
Maman and Papa remained ensconced at Winter Queen, no doubt attempting to dissuade their son from doing anything rash, and Giuseppe hadn’t yet had the chance to wrap up any of his affairs for a visit.
Crossing the Atlantic had become an increasingly perilous notion these days, anyway.
The Germans were holding back attacking neutral-flagged ships (including American and Italian ones, since neither country had entered the war), but it seemed everything else was fair game for the U-boats.
As the subject of salacious articles herself, Rita was the last person to lend automatic credence to the pressmen’s stories, but paper after paper described the Unterseeboote in uniformly ominous terms: sleek, highly advanced, dark and deadly.
For years, Kaiser Wilhelm had lavished funds on his navy, his favorite pet project, and his fleet of submarines were physical proof of the success of his ambitions.
They were iron sharks beneath the water, always moving, always hunting.
Los Angeles, with its golden people and golden beaches and hills, seemed a dreamy universe apart from dark things.
Only the papers reflected the faraway truth.
Ships torpedoed, trenches filled with mud and men, battle lines shifting.
There were days Rita couldn’t bear to glance at anything beyond the headlines.
California dazzled her eyes, and the movie busied her body and mind.
Maybe it would be different once she returned to Manhattan. Maybe the East Coast, sharing that vast Atlantic with the shores of Great Britain and Europe, felt the bite of war more keenly.
It was the second Sunday of Inez’s visit.
Last night they’d stayed up too late playing poker with House, his wife, Mae, and Alvin, the movie’s sharp-eyed cinematographer, who’d cleaned them all out.
(Despite what the gossip sheets implied, Rita’s relationship with House Peters was as platonic as could be; anyone could see he was devoted to his pretty wife.) The evening had ended in clouds of cigarette smoke and laughter and too much champagne, so instead of rushing to the beach or museums or anywhere else this morning, Rita and Inez had slept and slept, rising only when the brunch tray Rita had ordered the night before arrived.
She stirred another spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “The moment the press begins to lose interest in us, either of us, the public loses interest in us.”
“The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. Regarding the gossip columns, at least.”
“Fine, then. Nor do I want it to stop.”
“Even when they print such things about Giuseppe?”
“Giuseppe wholeheartedly supports my career. He’s aware of Charles’s wily publicity campaign, the teasing leaks of information that link us together.
He promised to come to New York for the premiere of The Unafraid in April, and then everyone will know we’re a couple.
We’ll be deliriously, openly in love. Americans adore an aristocratic romance, and ours will complement the movie quite nicely. ”
Inez dropped her forehead into the palm of her hand with a groan. “That is not what I meant when I said I hoped you’d love him.”
“I know. But this is what love feels like for me, and I like it. He likes it. We’re both happy enough, so where’s the harm?”
Inez returned to the remains of her muffin, pushing crumbs across the plate with her thumb, not meeting Rita’s eyes.
“What?” Rita said, alert.
“Nothing. I’m glad you’re happy.”
“Yes, I can tell. You sound immensely glad. If you have something more to say, say it.”
Inez plucked a fresh muffin from the basket on the table—this one cranberry—and began breaking it apart too.
“Sissy …”
“All right. I’m not supposed to tell you, but he bought you a ring.”
Rita’s mouth went dry. A ring, she wanted to say, but couldn’t, because her bravado had dried up too. So? He’s wealthy, he’s devoted, he’s already given me jewels, brooches and necklaces and bangles. Also, what kind of a ring?
Inez abandoned the muffin, shoved both the plate and the basket away with impatient hands.
“He wrote to ask me what your favorite gemstone was, and whether I thought you’d like platinum better or gold.
I told him emeralds and platinum. So I imagine he’s bringing a nice, fancy emerald ring to New York with him, set in platinum, probably sprinkled with a few diamonds for good measure, because it will be, after all, an engagement ring.
For this romance of yours that the papers will adore. ”
Disaster. Elation. She was swooping up and down inside, excited and scared and worried and yes, even a little bit angry, because he said he’d wait for her, wait for her to decide, and now he wasn’t.
He was taking matters into his own hands, carving their path forward by himself, and she still wasn’t ready to hear that word. Contessa.
Wife.
Inez narrowed her eyes at her from across the table. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“You love surprises.”
“Only the proper kind. Ones of my choosing.”
“Then how could it be—never mind. The point is, he’s coming with a ring. So, I suppose, act surprised, whatever else you do.” A pause. Then: “Are you going to say yes?”
“Honestly,” Rita answered slowly, “I don’t know.”
Outside the pristine glass windows shone a sky so blue it was nearly painful to behold, and a slope of vivid manicured lawn that ended in a long hedge of bush anemone, thick with white flowers. Just in Rita’s view, a rabbit sat very still in the shadow of the hedge, small and brown and brave.
“I’m going to think about it,” she said. The rabbit took a single hop forward, briefly lit with sun, then leapt back to the shadows again. “Just as I have been for months. I promise I have been.”
Inez stood, came to press her hand to Rita’s shoulder.
“Did I get the ring right, at least?”
Rita reached up, covered her sister’s hand with her own. “Heart of my heart, soul of my soul, of course you did. How wise he was to ask you.”
“I rather thought so, too.”
ALVIN THE CINEMATOGRAPHER, he of the very sharp eye, had taken one look at Inez as they were introduced on poker night, clapped a hand over his heart, and exclaimed, “Those peepers! I’m slain!”
It was Alvin who convinced Cecil to cast her as an extra, for just a single day of shooting—all right, two, probably; she was promised the time would fly by—and it was Rita who convinced Inez to accept.
Right before she left sunny California to head back to snowy New York, Inez was hustled to the movie set, a convincingly gothic interior of a Montenegrin castle, painted backdrops of jagged mountain peaks visible through the windows.
A solitary staircase climbed up one wall before ending abruptly, and a bit dangerously, beyond the camera’s view, three stories high among the light rafters.
A half hour after Inez went into Costumes, she emerged as a maid in a long gray dress only slightly too large, a square apron, a frilled cap covering a falling mess of curls.
She sat beside Rita as the makeup artist transformed her face, a pale cream foundation to even everything out, and then her eyes and cheekbones and brows and lips returned, redrawn with kohl and rouge and tinted powders.
She seemed both fascinated and appalled by what was happening, staring at herself in the mirror with round eyes.
“I don’t know …” she began at least three times, and each time Rita would laugh and tell her it was so simple, so fun, so easy.
All she had to do was curtsy to Rita and House (playing the Montenegrin prince who kidnaps Rita’s American heiress) when they passed and stare after them with something like curiosity, or longing.
And then do the same thing when handing a bouquet of flowers to the prince to give to the heiress.
And again when the prince bends his knee to propose, with the maid caught breathless in the background.
“This is what Alvin meant by your eyes,” Rita told her. “Your beautiful, expressive eyes. Literal pools of light, I swear. The camera’s going to love you. Maybe we’ll have to start filming photoplays together from now on.”
“Oh, no! This is it! You’re a madwoman! I’m a madwoman to even consider this.”
But of course, even through the takes and retakes, the hours spent waiting for the perfect light adjustment, the perfect camera angle to be decided, the perfect edit or addition to the script, it was fun.
House and all the other actors were so kind to the sister of their star, so patient.
Cecil told her exactly where to stand, where to look, and for how long.
At one point, after their third take of the proposal scene, the famed director wove his way around the set furniture to Inez, leaned close and whispered something into her ear that had her dissolving into laughter.
That was what Rita would always remember about their last good day together, what she would cherish: her sister in that maid’s outfit and cap, holding her arms together over her stomach, bent nearly double with mirth.
She laughed so hard she cried, and the makeup artist had to come and retouch everything around her eyes.
But Cecil’s ploy worked, and after that, Inez’s stiffness melted away, her uncertainty, her cumbersome shyness.
Just as Rita had predicted, Inez shone on film. She was luminous, always so luminous, even in the background.