Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Mysterious Rising Star at Lux —“Lena Taylor is the biggest talent I’ve seen in years,” says Flavio, but Tinseltown wonders how such a young woman climbed to protégé status so quickly. There are ladders and there are ladders . Is it talent? Or something else?
Harvey finished reading the item in Hedda Hopper’s gossip column out loud and tossed the paper down with a sigh. “This decides it, I’m afraid.”
“I’m afraid it does,” Charlie agreed.
Lena scrambled to grab the paper and shook it out to stare at the words. “I can’t believe it. How can she say such things?”
“You’ll notice that she didn’t say anything. She only implied.”
“But it’s not true, whatever she’s trying to say.”
“Which is nothing,” Harvey noted. “She’s only bringing you to people’s attention.”
Charlie poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her, then motioned for her and Harvey to follow him onto the front porch. Lena knew by now what that meant, a conversation away from any possible listening device.
When they were all outside, Charlie said, “You’re on the list now.”
“What list?” she asked.
“The list of notable people,” Charlie said. “Hedda will probably have a private investigator tailing you within days. If she doesn’t already.”
“Which means it’s time for you to go,” Harvey said sadly. “Long past time, honestly, honey. We’ve loved having you, and we don’t want you to leave, but you can’t keep sleeping on the couch of a couple of fairies.”
“Don’t say that. I hate it when you say that,” she said.
“But it’s true,” Charlie told her. “We haven’t wanted you to go, so we’ve said nothing, but Lena ... What do you think will happen if they find out where you live? Or frankly, if they find out you’re going to Larry Lipton’s every Sunday?”
It was all true, she knew.
“They’ll destroy you. You can kiss your future as head costumer goodbye before it starts.”
Harvey gave her a sorrowful look. “You should find an apartment in Hollywood and never visit again.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Lena, we’re on the FBI watch list,” Charlie said. “We’ve been arrested as communist organizers and we’re still radicals, if not in the same ways. You can’t be seen with us, and you can’t be seen going to Lipton’s. For the same reasons you can’t reveal your connection to Rome. Just because you haven’t been found yet doesn’t mean you won’t be, and it doesn’t help at all to have Hopper blabbing on about you. Please don’t tell me you’re going to take a stand on this. Everything we’ve done for you will be for naught.”
“I can’t just forget you’re my friends,” she said.
“For a while, you can,” Harvey told her. “In this climate, you can. We know the truth. That’s enough.”
Lena’s vision blurred. “This is horrible. I don’t want this.”
“You’re going to be famous. You’re going to make a million dollars. When we’re old and crippled, you can pay our pension—will that make you happy?” Harvey asked.
“You’re my best friends. I’m not putting you in a slum. I’ll buy you a house.”
“That would be fine,” Charlie said, smiling. “We’ll hold you to it. But no more Sundays at Lipton’s. Starting now.”
“Oh, but ...” Lena blinked away tears. “I have to go once more.”
“No—”
“Paul. I have to tell Paul.”
“Let me tell Paul,” Harvey said.
“One more Sunday,” Lena insisted. “I have to tell him myself.”
As she and Harvey walked that Sunday to Larry’s, Harvey kept looking over his shoulder. “Don’t turn around, but have you seen that car before that’s behind us?”
They stopped, and Lena bent as if she meant to take a pebble from her shoe. The car went past, a dark Ford that frankly looked no different from a hundred other cars.
Harvey let out his breath in relief. “I’m wrong. Not following us. Sorry, I’m afraid I’m always on alert now.”
Somberly she said, “Do you think it’s true what Charlie said? Do you think those men are looking for me?”
“The CIA questioned you, right?”
She nodded.
“Then yes, they’re looking for you. Someone is. Whatever it was you got mixed up in there ... it’s not over.” He sighed. “It’s never over. Don’t come back here.”
“How do you live like this?” she asked quietly.
Harvey shrugged. “You’d better get used to it, my dear.”
“I don’t want to.”
He squeezed her hand. “Let’s take the back way to Larry’s.”
Harvey turned up the street, away from their usual route. Then he cut through an alley, between buildings, through a gate into a backyard, and out the gate on the other side. It wasn’t just a back way, it was a roundabout. He took her through the Jewish bakery where he worked and out another alley, and all in all they must have traveled a good mile out of their way before they arrived at the back door of Larry’s house, where Paul’s Oldsmobile Dynamic was parked.
Harvey said, “Look, don’t go inside. I’ll send Paul out. Tell him you won’t be coming back. Even if that means you won’t see him again.”
“It would be better if I don’t see him again anyway,” she said.
He gave her a look. “That’s not what I mean.”
“I can’t get involved with him. Or anyone.”
Harvey sighed. “We disagree about that. This is just about the meetings.”
“I know.” She knew things couldn’t stay the same. A part of her hadn’t really believed this would be her last Sunday. But after the article in the paper, and the things Harvey and Charlie said, she knew it had to be. Her time at Venice Beach was over. She could not risk it.
Harvey went inside. When he opened the door, the talk floated out; Lena stood tensely waiting, not very long, it turned out. Paul appeared so quickly she knew he’d been waiting for her to arrive. He stepped out, already frowning—she wondered what Harvey had said to him—and then came quickly down the stairs to where she stood by his car.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“Waiting for you.” She ran her fingers across the hood. “This is quite a car for a poor screenwriter.”
“It’s my one indulgence.”
Funny, how her body seemed to lean toward him—or no, it approached, it advanced, it tried to bridge the space between them while at the same time it didn’t move at all. She didn’t know how to say what she needed to say, mostly because she feared that maybe she had imagined something between them, that maybe he would shrug off her goodbye and say, Nice to know you . But then again, wouldn’t that be best? She could not pursue a relationship with him. It couldn’t go further than this. She was married. She was still a part of whatever had happened in Rome. She was not who she said she was.
She said, “I’ve got to tell you about Ciro’s. Flavio and Sheila took me there Wednesday night, and it was wonderful. Have you ever been?”
He shook his head. He came to stand beside her and leaned against the car. They weren’t touching, but he stood close enough that she felt him. “Too rich for my blood.”
“You simply have to go. It was so elegant. And the music! You know, I’ve never asked you: What kind of music do you like?”
He regarded her curiously. “All kinds, but if I had to pick, I guess I’d say I like jazz the best. When I was in Rome, there were all these little clubs I used to go to. They were amazing.”
Lena’s heart thudded hard in her chest. She struggled to keep her voice even. “You were in Rome?”
“I was there at the liberation. With the army.”
“Oh.”
“It was a mess, but you know, I loved it. I’d love to go back someday. Have you ever been?”
She had already lied to him once, about being unattached. She didn’t want to lie again. But this was more important, and she heard Harvey and Charlie’s warning. She shook her head.
“I think you’d like the clubs. Small and steamy. Great music. Full of bohemians. The real thing, not the pretenders.”
“The pretenders?” she managed.
“Not like these guys,” he said, gesturing back to the house. “They talk a good game, but it’s all talk.”
“Then why do you come to these meetings?”
“At the beginning I thought they’d turn out to be real. Now ... isn’t it obvious?”
Again, the rapid thud of her heart, but Lena was afraid of herself, she couldn’t answer his question, or acknowledge it. “How long were you there? In Rome?”
“Not long enough. I was sorry to leave it. But I’ll go back. It would be more fun to go with someone, though.”
“Oh?”
“To stroll through the Colosseum in the moonlight. Sit on the Pincio Terrace and look out at the city. Dance the night away in a little club near the Veneto.”
Lena swallowed hard. “You sound like a writer.”
“Rome is made for romance.”
“It would be just like a movie.”
“It could be.” He was suddenly intent. Those eyes ...
Lena could not keep his gaze.
“Why are you out here, Lena?” he asked.
“I wanted to tell you I’m not coming back.”
“Because of Hedda Hopper’s column?”
She looked up in surprise. “You read that?”
He laughed lightly. “I think everyone reads it, don’t they?”
“Harvey thinks I’m now on the list of important people, and they’ll start watching me, and I ... you know, I can’t risk it, not for—”
“Pretenders,” he finished.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “But I wanted to tell you, because I didn’t want to just stop showing up and I’m going to miss our conversations, and I wanted to say it was nice knowing you—”
Before she knew it, he was right there. His hand came to her jaw, anchoring her, and then he kissed her. Gently at first, testing, then more deeply when she didn’t pull away, when she kissed him back because it was what she’d wanted from him from the moment she’d seen him in Larry Lipton’s living room, clashing with her memories of Rome, and she did not know how to be otherwise.