Chapter 14
Chapter 14
That next week, Lena plunged into learning the role that Jonny was giving up. The steady older man had been Flavio’s assistant for only a year, and he was returning to New York City and stage design. Jonny viewed Lena’s inexperience as a liability. Lena overheard him saying to the secretary, “I hope he knows what he’s doing.”
Lena planned to make sure that Flavio did.
They had a going-away party for Jonny on Friday. On Saturday, Lena went to the studio to set up her own tiny space—an anteroom next to Flavio’s office. Flavio was due to return Monday morning, and Lena was so nervous she couldn’t stay still. Sunday, she went to the meeting at Larry Lipton’s, and when she saw Paul Carbone, the first thing she said—even before hello—was “Flavio made me his assistant. Me! It’s unbelievable.”
“You don’t really think that,” he said with a smile.
She laughed. “I’m nervous. He’s been in Rome and he gets back Monday.”
“He’s a smart man. He wouldn’t have lasted so long in this business if he wasn’t. He knew what he was doing when he picked you. You’ll do great.”
His words were like a warm blanket; she wasn’t sure why he could soothe her when no one else had been able to, or why his confidence in her should matter when he hardly knew her. But his were the words she thought of when Flavio came back, and his confidence was what bolstered hers.
As the weeks went on, and she grew more and more busy with work, she didn’t give up Sundays at Larry’s, though she knew going was stupid. The truth was she didn’t care about the artists, or their talk, and she thought too much about Rome and Julia and the dangers she wasn’t sure she’d left behind. She knew Harvey was right; these artists weren’t like the ones in Rome. They talked, but she didn’t see any evidence of doing .
Still, talk was more dangerous than ever these days, and every Sunday she told herself not to go. But she always did and her stomach was tight when they arrived; the memories of La Grotta and Julia were too strong and she never stepped onto that porch without wanting to turn around and leave again.
But then she would see Paul and tell herself One more Sunday. Just one more. He was the only reason she came. She had friends at work, though fewer since her promotion to Flavio’s assistant, and she had Harvey and Charlie, but Paul was different. He never failed to ask about her work at the studio; he appeared fascinated about the inner workings of the costume department. He loved the stories about Elizabeth Taylor and her menagerie of pets, and how Lena had seen young Natalie Wood at a party flirting with older men as if she were a thirty-year-old woman, and how Flavio sometimes asked Lena to do a sketch on her own and then asked her to consider it and rework it for different body types. Paul seemed genuinely interested in how much she was learning and her struggles with the jealousy of the other sketch artists who’d been there longer and had hoped to win the position. Mike, for example, could barely look at her now.
In some ways, Paul reminded her of Julia, in the way he listened to her and encouraged her. Lena liked, too, that Paul shared his own struggles. She knew he was having trouble with a screenplay, that he had written a few B movies that had been produced but hadn’t made much money.
“ Invasion from Venus ,” he told her with a laugh. “You know it?”
“No,” she confessed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I wrote it on commission. It wasn’t very good. Lizard creatures and a maiden needing rescuing.”
“Ah. I can see how that’s changing the system from the inside,” she teased.
He sighed and shrugged, a little smile. “I’m working on it slowly. It’s not easy, you know, with the blacklist, and the Motion Picture Alliance almost as bad as HUAC in their hunt for subversives. You have to be more subversive than the subversives.”
The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals had Cecil B. DeMille and Hedda Hopper as members, and to Lena’s eye they almost reveled in the fear and ruin they caused. Lena smiled. “Did I ever tell you about having to change the Queen of Sheba’s costume from red and black to pink because they thought we were signaling that she was a Red?”
Paul snorted. “Was that the censor or the MPA?”
“The production censor, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the MPA had a hand in it.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t change it to red, white, and blue.”
“Too obvious.”
“I don’t think anything’s too obvious for them,” he said glumly. “But I’m determined to write what I want to someday. Or die a very poor man.”
She never saw him beyond those gatherings. She didn’t even have his phone number, and he’d never asked for hers. He never attempted anything. He didn’t have to. His smiles were as confusing as a touch; sometimes they left her speechless. His presence prickled her skin. She couldn’t deny the connection between them.
“You should be going out,” Harvey told her one night as she helped him clean out the closet. “You should be dancing the night away. Why are you here doing this boring stuff?”
She pulled out a tennis racket. “Which of you plays tennis?”
“I did once. Not for years,” Charlie said. “Harvey’s right. You’re so young. You should be dating.”
“Call Paul. I’m sure he’d love to take you out,” Harvey said.
“I’m too busy and I don’t have his phone number.”
“Why not?” asked Charlie.
“The two of you spend more time talking at those meetings than Larry,” Harvey said. “It’s obvious he’s interested in you.”
“Harvey, I’m married .”
“Are you really? I mean, is Lena Taylor?” Charlie picked up the tennis racket they’d thrown on the couch and took a couple of practice swings.
“I don’t know. That seems a technicality, doesn’t it?” Lena asked.
“Better not to rattle cages,” Harvey noted. “What do you have to do to get a divorce? Aren’t there papers he has to sign? Don’t you at least have to serve him? And what happens if you don’t and you marry someone else and he finds out?”
Lena winced. “Exactly. I don’t want to do anything that would bring attention. Not from anyone. Especially him. He wanted to be an actor. What do you think he’d do if he knew I was working at Lux? All he ever talked about was being in Photoplay with me on his arm.”
Harvey pulled out a bag. “What the hell is this? Charlie, do you know what this is?”
“Oh, that’s mine.” Lena grabbed the bag away from him. “That’s the bag I packed for Venice when Julia and I were going to go. Before she ... before.”
She opened it and rummaged through, taking out clothes she hadn’t seen in more than a year. A polka-dot sundress, dungarees, sandals, the Grand Hotel magazine ...
“An Italian magazine? Do you read Italian?” Harvey picked up the magazine she’d thrown aside, and when he did, a record slipped out. “What’s this?”
The Duke. Lena stared at it, the memories clashing, a lapse in time, and she was back in Rome, the kiosk, the boy putting the record inside the magazine. One of the many pickups she’d done for Julia. Lena had no idea who the record had been intended for, or what importance it had, but the sight of it spurred a sick, regretful, sorrowful feeling deep inside her. She didn’t want to think of it now, not now, not ever again.
“What is it?” Charlie asked. “Why are you looking like that?”
Waiting at the train station. The train doors shutting, the groaning huff of the train pulling out. Everything after. “It’s all gone wrong ... Hide ... I’ll find you.”
“It is time for you to leave Rome, signora.”
“Lena?”
“You must never tell that story again.”
It was over. It was done. She didn’t know what this record held, and she didn’t care. It had nothing to do with her life now, there was no reason to share what it had been.
Lena forced the memories from her head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Duke Ellington.” Harvey got to his feet, the record in hand. He went to the phonograph behind the sofa.
Lena went still, not knowing what to expect, but no, it was just a record, nothing more. She watched as Harvey put it on the turntable and flicked the switch to turn the player on. He put the needle on the record. Static, buzzing, the bump of the needle on a well-used record, and Lena froze again, half expecting a spate of Russian, or some other language, some kind of code.
But it was just music. Just big-band Duke Ellington. Scratchy—really scratchy. Hard-to-listen-to scratchy.
Charlie winced. “You brought this all the way back?”
“Sentimental, I guess. You two can have it if you want.”
“Hmmm.” Harvey let it play, but the scratchiness didn’t improve, and finally he took it off. “It’s in pretty bad shape.”
Lena went back to her bag and took out everything else, piling it on the floor. “I’m going to give all this away. I’ll never wear this stuff again.”
Charlie said, “Be careful, Lena. You don’t want to give away good memories too.”
“There aren’t any,” she told him.
Lena twisted to see better in the full-length dressing room mirror. Her gown—a Flavio design of chartreuse silk—was the most beautiful thing she’d ever worn. She was serving as a mannequin of sorts for Eleanor Parker, because the actress would be at the Marie Limerick gala tonight, and Flavio wanted Miss Parker to see a sample of the gown he planned for her to wear in her next movie for Lux Pictures, because she objected strenuously to the green, and Lena had her same coloring.
“She’ll see how it looks on you,” Flavio said, “and she’ll understand.”
This was Lena’s first gala, and she was going with Flavio and his wife, Sheila. She felt both excited and nervous. She wasn’t who she said she was, and her instincts screamed to stay hidden, to shy away from any limelight, and it wasn’t just because of those men in Italy, but because of Walter too. This was the dream Walter had for the both of them when they’d left Zanesville for LA, but it wasn’t Walter she wanted beside her now, helping her dress, telling her she was beautiful.
Maybe Charlie was right. Maybe it was time to find Walter, to get a divorce. But Walter was her only remaining link to Elsie Gruner in Hollywood, and she didn’t trust him. Also, there was no need. She and Paul were only friends. He’d never made a single move toward anything more—besides asking her if she were attached. He’d never tried to touch her. Or to kiss her. All they did was talk.
It was better that way, she told herself. She was devoted to her job. She’d never told Paul about Walter—how would she bring him up now? Oh, by the way, I’m married ...
Flavio’s chauffeured car waited for her out front. It was gleaming and gorgeous, and Lena shimmied with pleasure when she got into the back seat with Sheila while Flavio sat in the front.
“You look perfect,” Flavio told her.
“Oh, you do,” Sheila agreed. Sheila was beautiful, almost regal in her bearing, his perfect foil; and she never for a moment made Lena feel lacking. They arrived at Marie Limerick’s home in the newly popular, ever-growing neighborhood of Beverly Hills to such a glare of lights and music and pure glamour that Lena was blinded. But she avoided the photographers, and when Flavio insisted she be in a photo with him and Sheila, Lena dropped her head to let her hair hide her face.
The evening was like nothing she’d ever known, and she spent it speechless, stunned by the candlelit pool and the band and Eddie Fisher singing and the fact that she actually ran into— ran into , nearly spilling her glass of champagne—Cary Grant. That was Ava Gardner chatting at the bar, more beautiful and strangely more buxom in person, and when Flavio called her over to show Eleanor the dress she wore, Eleanor Parker took up the skirt and fingered the fabric and spun Lena around as if she were a model. She said, “The color becomes you. You’re Flavio’s new assistant? What’s your name?”
But Lena detected tension in the air. Flavio frowned and leaned down to whisper, “Get lost, my dear,” and she felt that she’d done something wrong, though she’d done exactly what Flavio had told her to do.
Once again, she did what he said. She stayed as far away from Eleanor Parker the rest of the night as she could.
After that, nothing was quite the same. Lena felt an imposter, surrounded by too many men in dark suits. More than one of them watched her with a ravenous, curious stare, so that she was thrown back into the Piazza dei Cinquecento, and over there ... was that a flash of chestnut hair?
But God no, it was a ghost. Nothing real. It was all gone. It had all gone wrong.
Lena was exhausted by the end of the evening. The champagne had gone straight to her head, and it was the first time she’d ever tasted caviar, or lobster. Flavio told the driver to take his wife and Lena home; he still had some celebrating to do, he said.
The chauffeur let her off in front of the bungalow, and she shivered when she got out and couldn’t help the involuntary glance behind her to see—what? A pursuing car? Another ghost? The car’s strong headlights sent rainbows into the fog. Lena went inside, longing to talk to someone, but Harvey and Charlie were asleep already—it was after 2:00 a.m. Lena sank into the couch and wondered where Paul Carbone was, and if he was still awake, and what he would think of Hollywood parties and the lovely chartreuse gown.
The next day was busier than usual; they had four fittings that afternoon, and it was Lena’s job to coordinate with the wardrobe assistant. One of the fittings was with Sylvia Vayne, who was known to be picky. Flavio was good with actresses like that; he would just give them this steady dark stare where it seemed he was contemplating the problem they’d complained about, while at the same time making it seem insignificant, and suddenly the actress would change her mind and declare that she was just being silly.
But that day he’d come in late, in one of his darker moods. Lena assumed he was hungover from the night before; she had a headache herself. A cup of coffee would help. She brought him one and he gave her a grateful smile, but he looked drawn and tired, and as the day wore on, he seemed even more so. At Sylvia’s fitting, nothing he did appeased the actress. The gown for the lunch scene was too tight; did he really think that blue was the right blue? Wasn’t it too green for her coloring? The cut of that jacket was too frivolous for the character. She had, of course, already seen the sketches for all the costumes, which had been approved.
Everyone was in a mood.
“I don’t know,” Sylvia said. “I think we should start over.”
The vein in Flavio’s forehead stood out. He looked undone. Lena couldn’t remember seeing him that way before.
A bit desperately, she said, “Lucy is meant to show her happy side in that scene, isn’t she, Miss Vayne? I should think the jacket would help you get into character. It’s such a happy piece of clothing, don’t you think?”
The actress’s expression lightened. “Hmmm.”
“We could maybe put a flower there in the lapel? Something ... pink, maybe? To highlight your beautiful coloring?”
“Oh. Well yes, I think that might help ...”
Flavio said, “Lena, I left my glasses on my desk, would you mind fetching them?”
She’d overstepped. She should have stayed quiet and left it to him. For all she knew, a pink flower in the lapel clashed with the set design. She remembered the night before at the gala, when he’d told her to get lost, and she’d squirmed in his displeasure. Two days in a row. Not good. She felt she was on a tightrope, but she wasn’t sure how to make things better, or even if she could. He might fire her. He was in that kind of temper.
Lena hurried back to his office. She found his glasses sitting on the desk. She picked them up. Lying beneath them, half-crumpled as if he’d meant to throw it away and forgotten, was a receipt. The name on it was very clear.
Moxy’s.
Moxy’s was a bar near the beach that was notorious for its gambling and badger girls—young women who had come to Hollywood hoping for stardom and who found instead a life of pimping for the mob, sleeping with the famous for blackmail purposes, and urging customers to bet more and more. That Flavio had a receipt could mean only one thing, and she remembered last night, him saying that he wasn’t done celebrating, Sheila’s indulgent little smile.
Lena was surprised at how unsurprised she was. Since she’d been in LA, nothing startled her anymore. She knew that this wasn’t something Flavio could possibly want known. The gossip columnists would have a field day. Hollywood’s most famous costume designer ... it would destroy Flavio’s career.
Lena picked up the receipt and slipped it into her pocket.
She brought him his glasses. Sylvia had changed her tune. The jacket was perfect, and she’d misjudged the blue and she’d been slumping when she tried on the dress. It fit beautifully; she wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking.
When she left, Flavio lit a cigarette and offered Lena one. She inhaled and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything to her. I won’t do it again.”
He said nothing for a minute. Instead, he blew a smoke ring. “I’ve made some tactical errors lately. More than a few. I don’t know what it is. I’ve grown old, perhaps. There are times lately when I’ve found placating spoiled women and arrogant men to be boring. Because of that, I’ve lost discernment.”
She was unsure what he meant. She remained quiet.
“Sylvia Vayne changed her mind because of what you said. When you reminded her what a costume is for. I’ve been out of sorts all day. You brought me back to myself. You saved the fitting session.”
Lena felt herself grow hot beneath the praise. “I learned from the best.”
He waved off her words. “I’ve made too many mistakes. Last night, for example. I should have known not to put you in that dress. Eleanor Parker will never wear it now.”
“But she said it was beautiful.”
“On you . She was jealous. She sees you as competition now. There’s a reason I only wear black and white, with the exception of my cravats. I do not compete with the stars. I have failed to tell you this. You’re young and pretty, my dear. Movie stars are the most insecure people on earth—this is always true. You should disappear when you’re fitting them or showing them sketches. Whenever you’re around them, in fact. One day, you’ll be the head costumer here. You must never let them think you are in any way competing with them.”
The other words faded away. One day, you’ll be the head costumer shouted in her head. “What did you say?”
“Never compete.”
“No—I mean ... the head costumer part.”
“I’ve decided you’re my protégé. You’ll take my place when I retire.”
“Me? But ... why me? And what do you mean? You’re not planning to retire, are you? Not anytime soon?”
“No, not soon,” he said. “But my time is coming. I’ll admit it: my days are becoming boring and my nights are catching up with me.”
She thought of the receipt in her pocket.
“Don’t do what I’ve done, Lena. Don’t develop a taste for risk and excitement. Not in this industry.”
“I won’t disappoint you.”
“You haven’t yet,” Flavio said.
She reached into her pocket and handed him the receipt without a word.
He gave her a look. In it she saw questioning; what did she mean by it? What would she do?
“I didn’t know if you meant to throw it away. They search the trash, you know. I—I didn’t want you to get in trouble.”
He squashed the receipt in his fist. “Thank you.”
She gave him a short nod. She had done right. “Well, I’ll get these costumes back to the seamstresses. Should I have them let the luncheon dress out?”
He sighed and nodded. “I’ve made the markings. You know, Lena, that I made the right choice when I picked you. Never forget that. I’m never wrong when it comes to talent.”
“Well, it was me or Mike,” she joked. “And he can’t draw hands.”
“No,” he said. “He hasn’t a spark of genius.”
That would sustain her for a long time.