Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Los Angeles, California—1948

On the postcard she sent to her parents in Ohio, Elsie wrote, In Los Angeles, CA, living my dream! But ... not really, not yet. The duplex in Edendale was halfway up a hill, reachable only by a precariously steep street that ended at a narrow set of equally steep stairs. The Ford protested and backfired on every trip up the road, and they parked it at the bottom of the stairs, next to the house of a Mexican family who rented their dirt yard out to a flock of chickens. Mr. Evans, their neighbor in the duplex, had parties at his house every Friday that ended with loud music and people drinking in the yard. The house on the hill above them belonged to a Slavic couple, who were very quiet but whose dog was not, and at the very top of the hill was an architect’s house whose huge glass windows sent a blinding glare over everything on any sunny day, which was nearly always.

Elsie’s new husband, Walter, had picked the place because it was cheap but also because he’d heard it was close to some film studios. That had once been true, but most of the studios had moved out of Edendale by then. Walter thought it would be easy to visit them personally for auditions, but it turned out that wasn’t how it worked; he had to meet with casting agencies and agents and go to “open calls,” and so he and Elsie still spent every night at the pool halls, rotating between the venues to keep their faces “fresh,” as Walter put it.

Not fresh enough, Elsie feared. They’d been in LA only a month when she noted the whispers and frowns that greeted them more and more frequently. She mentioned it to Walter.

“It won’t be long before we won’t need the pool halls anymore,” he told her from the sagging sofa they’d rescued from the front yard of someone two streets over who’d left it with a sign saying Free . “I’ve got another audition tomorrow. I have a feeling about this one.”

He had a feeling about all of them, but she didn’t say that. He came back from that audition as he came back from all the others, dejected, snappish, an excuse ready in hand. “They were looking for a blond. I told them I’d bleach my hair, but ...” or “They wanted someone with more muscles. Maybe I should go to a gym. What do you think?”

She shrugged. Walter was tall and skinny; she wasn’t sure he could turn into a muscleman.

“I wonder if that’s the new fashion. Tough guys. Maybe I’ll try a few weeks at the weights.”

“We need money for that.”

He made a face. “Let’s go play some pool.”

“Walter . . .”

He grinned and pulled her close. “You just twinkle those pretty brown eyes at them and smile.”

But when they got to the hall, the owner met them at the door and said, “Not tonight, Walter. You and your hustle can go somewhere else. I don’t want to see either of you here again.”

Walter spread his hands in innocent dismay. “I can’t help it if I’m lucky.”

“A little too lucky a little too often,” the owner said. “I’ve gotten complaints. More than a few. You take your business elsewhere.”

“Fine.” Walter’s dark eyes flashed. “Fine. The Royal will be happy to take our money.”

“Don’t count on it. And don’t count on the Sun Court either.”

“What? You guys start a club or something?”

“Or something.” The owner hooked his thumbs through his suspenders. “We run legit businesses here, not scams. Get a real job, Walt, before someone breaks your skull with a pool cue.” He sent a hard look to Elsie. “You hitched your wagon to a loser, girlie. Don’t let him steer you to jail.”

Walter grabbed her arm and jerked her from the hall. “Goddamn ass,” he snapped when they were outside. “Who does he think he is?”

But Elsie was too disconcerted and embarrassed by the man’s last words to pay attention to Walter’s.

When he said “Let’s try the Royal,” she shook her head.

“No. You heard him.”

“He was lying.”

“I don’t think so.”

“We won’t know until we go there.”

“Walter, I’m not doing that,” she said firmly. “You can go if you want, but I won’t. That was humiliating.”

He looked surprised, but he relented. “Okay. Okay, baby. We won’t go today if you don’t want. But you can’t let people push you around like that. People lie all the time, you know, to get what they want.”

She nodded, but she was hardly listening, and she was relieved when he drove them back to the duplex, though he was moody and silent the rest of the evening.

She was twenty, and the way she’d managed to get out of her parents’ pig farm in Zanesville was by hitching her wagon to Walter Maynard. She thought she’d be in that town forever, helping her mother run her dressmaking business and trying in vain to convince anyone to order one of her own modern designs and stinking of her father’s pigs, until the night Walter showed up at the grange dance and complimented her dress—orange-red taffeta and her newest creation. That night he’d taken her to the pool hall, where she’d never before gone inside, and when every man in the place looked at her hungrily as if she were a steak dinner, she understood why her parents had never let her go.

When she stood at the end of the pool table to watch Walter, and the man he’d been playing botched his next three shots, Walter said, “You’re a pearl, baby! My good luck charm! You keep doing that and we’ll make a fortune!”

“Doing what?” she asked.

“That smiling thing. You’re a natural. Say, do you have another dress like that one?”

“Sure.”

“Can you wear it and meet me here tomorrow night?”

It was the first time anyone had asked her to wear one of her own designs.

Elsie stared at him in surprise when she realized what else he was asking. “Do you mean a date?”

“Yeah, a date.” He grinned. “Absolutely.”

It turned out she was a natural at helping him hustle pool.

“You look so sweet. Why, you’re my own Donna Reed, aren’t you?” Walter said.

She’d never been compared to a star before. She wore no makeup—only loose or married women did in Zanesville—and with her wavy brown hair and brown eyes, she’d never turned heads until she found her calling in the pool hall. Three weeks later, they’d eloped and were on their way to LA, where Walter meant to be a famous actor. Elsie had never been so happy to see anything as she was to see Zanesville recede in the rearview mirror. She told her parents via a postcard from Cincinnati, where she and Walter made two dollars at a pool hall the first night out, and afterward stumbled into a dark little shack of a place where music leaked from between the wooden siding into the night. The music sounded a little like the songs Elsie’s uncle played when he felt down, but it had a different rhythm, a twistier melody.

“Jazz,” Walter said, pulling her inside. The club was full, the light was low, some people moving sinuously on the dance floor but not many. Most sat listening and shaking their shoulders or gyrating their hips in their seats, and the ones dancing did so in almost obscene ways that Elsie had never seen before. Not only that, but there weren’t only white people in the club, but Negroes too.

Everyone danced in the same indecent way. One man had his leg shoved between the woman’s; they were so close there was no light between them. Walter’s hand went to the small of Elsie’s back as if he were trying to create that same kind of closeness. The music got into her head, winding, looping, hot and cool.

The music set her on fire, and when they got back to the hotel, she wanted him so much she could hardly control herself. Walter said, “You’re like ten different people in one girl,” and she drew away, stung, but he pulled her close again and said, “Don’t get all prudish on me, baby. Let’s try it this way.”

The next day he bought her a bottle of perfume at the drugstore, L’Air du Temps. He gave it to her with a sheepish grin, and though she took it with a smile, she wondered why he’d bought it, if it was because the smell of pigs was still on her skin. God knew she still smelled it, every time she opened her suitcase, no matter how many times she bathed; there had been nowhere to wash her clothes. She wondered if she could ever get rid of the scent, and wished she could throw away every piece of her clothing and start again. She had a new name now: no longer Elsie Gruner, but Elsie Maynard. She was ready for the new life that came with it. She threw herself into her role at the pool halls in a rush for that new life. The more Walter won, the sooner they’d get to LA, the sooner she could rid herself of Zanesville and the world she was still afraid might jerk her back. It seemed strange that leaving the city hadn’t changed her more completely, but it would, she was sure of it. Once they settled in LA and Walter was a famous actor, she would have all-new clothes, which would help. She spent the hours in the car drawing them, much to Walter’s amusement.

“When we’re rich, you can have that famous guy you’re always talking about design your stuff. What’s his name?”

“Flavio,” she said.

“Yeah, that guy. You said he does all the movie stars, right? What about movie stars’ wives?”

“He does their gowns too.”

“Then he’ll do yours,” Walter said with confidence. “But for now, baby, you just concentrate on what you do best. I have a good feeling about the pool halls in Joplin.”

But now, in LA, they couldn’t go back to the pool halls. Walter wasn’t getting any roles. “You hitched your wagon to a loser.” She wouldn’t believe that. It was only a matter of time before Walter got the part that would make him a star. Elsie had escaped Zanesville and come all this way, and she refused to believe it wouldn’t turn out the way she’d envisioned. They needed money and Walter needed to continue to audition, which meant it was up to her to make things work for now. It was just ... What could she do?

When she walked by the little café on Hope Street, only a few blocks from the house, and saw the Help Wanted sign in the window, she felt as if the universe was smiling down on her, because the woman who ran the place—a heavyset brunette with an overbite, named Anita Nelson—hired Elsie immediately.

“Can you start now?” Anita asked, which was how Elsie found herself in an apron and a hairnet and running dirty dishes to the kitchen and glasses of water to customers that very morning. When she went home, she felt accomplished and satisfied. Walter would be pleased that she’d taken the job. She’d bought him time if nothing else.

But Walter had other news.

“I got it!” He pulled her into his arms and swung her around. “I got the part!”

“You did!” Elsie laughed in relief. “What is it? Tell me!”

“It’s just a small part, but what do they say? There’re no small parts, only small actors? It doesn’t pay much, either, but it’s a start. An ‘emerging’ playwright. He’s going to be big someday, I know it. Of course, it’s just a little theater off Pershing Square. I wish it was someplace else.”

“Why?”

“Pershing Square?” Walter made a face. “How can I expect any movie producers to brave all the cruising fairies there to come see me?”

“Well, I—”

“I’ll be rehearsing almost every evening,” Walter went on. “I know you’ll miss me, baby, but it’ll only be a few months, and this way I can keep auditioning during the day.”

“I expect I’ll manage. I might get a—”

“Maybe you could clean or something.” He swept a bunch of her fashion sketches from the sofa.

“Maybe I could get a job. Maybe that little café down on Hope Street needs someone.”

Walter frowned. “Why do you need a job now? I just got a role. My career’s on the way up.”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts, baby. One day I’ll be in Photoplay , and you’ll be there on my arm, wearing a gown by Flavio.”

She didn’t tell him about the job that night. He had an audition the next morning, so she had no chance to tell him then, and she went to work. When she got home, exhausted, she realized that Walter had already arrived. She heard him before she saw him, slamming dishes around in the kitchen, a sound she had spent the entire morning listening to, but the noise Walter made didn’t have the benign and organized music it had at the café. She closed the door softly behind her. Walter charged out of the kitchen.

He was furious. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

“I got a job at the café,” she told him. “I’m a bus girl.”

He stared at her as if he had suddenly forgotten English. “A what?”

“They hired me yesterday. I didn’t have the chance to tell you. What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” His voice rose with every subsequent word. “I thought I told you I didn’t want you to do that!”

“What does it matter?”

“I’m going to be famous. I can’t have a wife who works in a café. It will look bad.”

“But you’re not famous yet,” she said reasonably.

Walter’s frown deepened. “I guess not.”

“In the meantime, I’ve got a job. It will help a little bit, don’t you think? It’ll make it easier for you to focus on your career.”

“At the café down the street?”

She composed her voice, gave him a smile. “Just clearing tables a few days a week. If it’s ... okay with you. I thought it would be, because you’re trying so hard and you can’t do everything. You know how I help you at the pool hall? This is just the same. Just helping. It’s only until you make it. Just to help out. You won’t have to worry then.”

Walter took a deep breath and nodded slowly, a bit uncertainly. “Sure. My lucky charm. Yeah ... yeah, you know, you’re right. It will help. But only until I get a part in the movies, baby. Then we’ll be rich enough that you’ll have a maid and a nanny and you can spend your whole day by our pool. I can make that happen for us. Do you believe me?”

He was so intense, and the dream was so hard in his eyes, and she understood it, that wish to be something, to be more than everything around you, that feeling that you were different, that you had to be, or what was the point? She wanted to dream his dream, too, despite that nagging little echo. “You hitched your wagon to a loser, girlie.”

“Of course I do,” she said.

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