Chapter 20
Chapter 20
It was odd, wasn’t it, how once you got everything you thought you wanted, fate—or whatever—threw a wrench into it, so that you were left reevaluating your life once again? Things were never settled, never clear, never what you thought they would be for more than a day at a time. When Lena woke the next morning, squinting at the fierceness of the light screaming into her eyes, realizing in the next moment that it was the morning sun flashing through the diamond of her ring, joy and excitement surged through her—followed immediately by fear. How exactly was she to tell Paul that she had lied to him about her past?
Paul treasured honesty. As a writer, he took pride in reading people well. She had no idea what he would say or do if she told him that the Lena Taylor he knew and loved was an invention, that she was already married. The thought brought panic. As for Italy and everything that had happened there ... only Harvey and Charlie knew the truth, and she knew they would never tell. It was a long time ago, and far away, and nothing had come of it after all. There was no reason for Paul to ever know.
She disentangled herself from Paul’s arms. He made a sound in his sleep and she kissed his temple and went to the shower. It was the first time she’d stayed overnight, but she’d told Paul she’d wanted to. She hoped she wouldn’t regret it. They were engaged now, so maybe that would calm the gossips if they discovered she’d spent the night. Besides, she had more important things to worry about this morning.
When she came out of the bathroom, Paul was awake, sitting up in bed, smoking. She wiggled her hand at him, showing off the ring, and he grinned and said, “Looks like I’ve made an honest woman of you at last.”
Her smile faltered, but before she could answer, the phone rang. Paul reached over to answer it. “Hello?” A pause. “This is Paul Carbone.”
Lena finished dressing in her usual beige ensemble, today a beige-gray sateen suit with a bit of a conquistador flavor, a take on one of her early sketches, as Paul’s one-sided conversation rumbled in the background. She went to the mirror over the dresser to apply mascara, brows, Elizabeth Arden Oriental Red lipstick—though nothing really mitigated the beige and she didn’t try. That was the point.
Lena finished pinning up her shoulder-length hair just as Paul hung up the receiver. “Well,” he said.
“What was that about?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m wanted at Lux for script changes.”
Lena tensed. “What kind of script changes?”
“I’m not quite sure. Apparently Braxton’s made some kind of agreement with the government. They want pictures for overseas that promote the American way of life.”
“Why should they change it for that?”
Paul shrugged and threw back the covers to climb out of bed. “You’ll have to ask your boss. I’m supposed to be there at ten.”
He blew her a kiss and disappeared into the bathroom. A few minutes later, she heard water running. The clock on the bedside table said she had to hurry if she meant to be at the studio on time, and given her tardiness to the meeting with Runyon yesterday, she did. She scrawled a quick note telling Paul she’d see him later, and then hurried into the warmth of the Los Angeles morning, and her car.
When she reached the studio, she found the costume design shop in its usual state of controlled panic. Connie had the costumes for The Doom of Medusa , still of course with their Club Medusa tags, hanging and ready for Michael Runyon’s inspection, and Shirley offered Lena coffee the moment she came through the door. When Lena pulled off her gloves and reached for the coffee, Shirley gasped and let out an eek , setting the coffee aside before Lena could take it.
“Oh dear God, what is that?” Shirley asked. She grabbed Lena’s hand. “Paul proposed!”
“Ssshhh! You’ll alert the whole town!” Lena joked.
“Well, of course! Everyone’s been waiting and waiting! Tell me everything. How did it happen?”
Connie stepped out from the wardrobe room. “Did I just hear what I think I did?” She took one glance at Lena’s hand. “Paul proposed?”
“Last night. At Flavio’s birthday party.”
“It’s about time!” Connie snatched Lena’s hand from Shirley. “That’s quite a ring. How big is that diamond, do you think? A carat? I wonder what it cost him?”
“I don’t think it’s that big.”
“Of course it is.” Connie offered her hand with her wedding and engagement set. “This is half a carat, and look—yours is easily twice that. I think it’s a carat and a half. Look, Shirl, don’t you think?”
Shirley nodded. “Oh yes. I didn’t think writers made very much money.”
“Well, he did sell the screenplay for Club Medusa ,” Connie noted.
“That’s true. And I guess you’re worth the investment.” Shirley laughed. “When’s the wedding?”
Lena pulled her hand back, feeling uncomfortable again. “It just happened. We haven’t had time to discuss it.”
“When Jeremy proposed to me, I had the whole wedding planned within the hour,” Connie said. “I nearly had the hall rented before we left the park.”
“You’d been waiting for Jeremy to propose for a year,” Lena pointed out. “I think you bought the ring for him, didn’t you?”
Connie rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been waiting for Paul. I’ve seen the way you look at him, and how you go all moody if he doesn’t call. You’re as bad as the rest of us, even if you are the head costumer at Lux Pictures.”
Lena said nothing. “Speaking of which, Mr. Runyon should be here any minute. We should get to work.” She led the way into the wardrobe room, where the costumes she’d designed for Ruby Dennison, the actress playing the role of Helen, the heroine of Paul’s script, hung waiting. The character was a naive young woman who became a brilliant leader and businesswoman when she inherited her uncle’s café and was truly on her own for the first time. Lena’s costumes reflected the burgeoning of Helen’s personality over her coming of age and growing confidence as she formed the all-woman team that turned the café into the most popular nightclub in the city, Club Medusa.
Lena picked through the costumes, preparing for Michael Runyon’s arrival. She didn’t have to wait long before he came inside with a charm that had Shirley smiling and trailing after him with a cup of coffee. “Cream or sugar, Mr. Runyon?”
“Black is perfect, thank you, miss,” he said, smiling back in a way that made Shirley blush and stand there until Lena raised an eyebrow at her.
Lena introduced Connie.
“Delighted to meet you, Miss Spencer. Should I assume you’ve both been informed of the latest changes?”
Lena asked, “Something beyond the title change?”
Runyon sat down, unbuttoning his suit coat, sipping his coffee, like a man comfortable with the world. Lena noted the way he put Connie at ease, but Lena herself remained wary.
He said to her, “Braxton is bringing in the writer. I’ve been told you know him?”
Lena found herself easing her left hand behind her back. “Paul Carbone. Yes.”
“We’ll be changing the nightclub to a jazz club.”
“A jazz club? But ... Pa—Mr. Carbone had imagined it as something like the Mocambo.”
“We’re looking for something that communicates American ideals overseas,” Runyon said. “Jazz is prohibited in Russia, but it’s got a big, illicit following. We want to show that you’re free in America to enjoy it, and that it’s not only for Negroes. The Soviets think we’re racists. The clubs show that’s not true.”
Lena stared at him in surprise. Once, maybe, that had been so. “Which clubs allow mixing now, Mr. Runyon?” she asked. “No one white goes to Central Avenue anymore.”
“Who’s at Ciro’s? Nat King Cole.”
But of course, Ciro’s wasn’t a jazz club. It was a nightclub. With dancing and dinner. And you didn’t see many Negroes there, except on the stage. It wasn’t the same. But she didn’t say it.
“The Medusa will have a great jazz band. A Negro one,” Runyon went on.
“It had that when it was a nightclub,” Lena said.
“Yes, but is it really plausible that women could run something as large and complex as the Mocambo?” Runyon shook his head. “It makes more sense that Helen tries something a bit smaller.”
Lena struggled to understand the change. “You’re saying—”
“She struggles with the club and ends up borrowing money from a mob boss, who takes it over.”
The Doom of Medusa. It was beginning to make more sense now. “And the other women? The friends she engages to help her?”
Runyon rose without answering. He went to the rack of costumes, casually flipping through the hangers, barely affording any of them more than a cursory glance. “All those costumes will have to be changed. The colors aren’t right. None of them. We don’t want all those pale colors. And no gold.”
“Shooting starts next week. There isn’t time.”
“We’ll need to rebuild some sets, so you have two weeks.”
Connie put in, “But our budget ... that gold with all the embroidery cost ...”
Runyon went thoughtful. “Yes, I see. Well, do what you can to save money. You can dye that blue to a darker shade, I’d think. The film’s being shot with black-and-white stock, so ... whatever works for the others. Just dark. I want these women to be down on their luck at first, and then, when Helen brings them all in, they dress better, but like ... like—” He made a curvy motion with his hands, a figure eight. “The club corrupts them. They aren’t good women. Not until they’re saved at the end. Well, some of them.”
Lena did not believe what she was hearing. “That’s not the script.”
“Not yet,” he admitted.
Lena hesitated. Connie gave her a bewildered look. “Mr. Runyon, I don’t wish to offend you or ... or disagree with you really, but ... but Mr. Gardner has already approved these, and I don’t feel comfortable changing all this without a new script to follow and the director’s instruction, or the producer, for that matter—”
“I see. Yes, yes, of course.” Runyon smiled, but Lena saw the force behind the charm now. “You may be right. I have a meeting with Carbone at ten. What do you say we meet again at two and go over the changes for the character of Helen first? The others we can get to once Carbone has them written. We’ll start over, as it were.”
Lena stared back at him, disconcerted, uncertain.
Connie said, “Should I have Shirley clear your schedule, Lena?”
“Yes,” Lena managed. “Yes. Two o’clock.”
Runyon nodded. “I’ll ask Carbone to send notes as soon as he has them. Until then ... Miss Taylor. Miss ... Spencer.”
He left the room without another word.
“What the hell was that?” Connie asked. “These aren’t just changes, they’re ... it’s a whole new film! How are we supposed to costume it in two weeks? Please, please, please tell me we don’t have to do this.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” Lena headed for the door, and Higgy Braxton’s office.
She stormed into Higgy’s office, where his secretary, the venerable Adele, stopped Lena in her tracks. “He’s meeting with Eddie. It’ll give you time to calm down. Want some coffee?”
Eddie Jackson was one of the studio executives, and Adele’s comment about calming down did not go unheeded. By now Lena knew that Higgy Braxton hated tempers and he hated scenes, though he loved being the cause of them. She shook her head at the offer of coffee and sat down in one of the cheap moss green upholstered chairs, and then decided that coffee would be a good idea after all.
“Has Higgy said anything to you about Michael Runyon?” she asked, taking a cup from the secretary.
Adele shook her head, shivering the dark curls of her poodle cut, and turned back to her typing. “He’s the new guy from the production office, isn’t he?”
The coffee was stale. Lena should have known it would be. Higgy didn’t drink coffee and didn’t care about catering to anyone who waited for a meeting with him. In fact, he liked them as unsettled as possible. Thus the uncomfortable cheap chairs. Lena put the cup aside. “I wonder if he’s ever worked on a film before.”
Adele made no comment. Her fingers pounded on the typewriter keys with stern, quick precision. Uncomfortably, Lena contemplated Higbert Braxton’s closed doors, Adele’s rapid-fire typing filling her ears, and Lena wondered if she was being naive to think that she had any say at all about Michael Runyon. If what Paul had been told was true, that Higgy had made some agreement with the government about overseas films, then this was truly a waste of time. Higgy was a member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and had been since its founding. If this had to do with the MPA, he would be intractable, and he’d be backed by too many important people. Not only that, but Lena would only hurt her own position by complaining. She was the head costume designer, yes, but she was also a woman, and lucky to be here. She knew that, in Higgy’s eyes anyway, she was replaceable. Connie could replace her. Sam in the sewing room had an excellent eye. Lena knew her strengths: she was good at making stars look their best; she could make a size fourteen look like a ten. She knew that the right skirt and shaded hose could make stubby legs look long. She could make an actress happy with her appearance even when she played the role of a charwoman. It was tailoring and color and fabric, yes, but it was also her gift for listening and a bit of persuasion.
Lux’s stars would miss her, and they would complain if Braxton fired her. But their complaints wouldn’t save her if Higgy decided she was too much trouble.
Lena crossed her legs and rested her hand on her knee, and the movement caused her engagement ring to catch the light. There was that too. Once Higgy saw it, and realized, as he must, who it was from, he would only think she was defending Paul, who was perfectly capable of defending himself. Higgy would just consider her a typical woman standing up for her man. This would weaken not only Lena’s position, but Paul’s, too, and he would not want that. Paul more than anyone knew how much she loved her job, how lost she’d be without it. But this was Paul’s first big script, and she loved it. She was letting her emotions get in her way, which she knew better than to do.
Lena rose.
The typing paused. Adele turned. “Decided you didn’t need to see him after all?”
“Eddie isn’t in there, is he?” Lena asked.
Adele shook her head.
“Thank you, then. For saving me from myself.”
“It’s myself I’m saving,” Adele told her. “I’m the one who has to listen to him scream after.”
“You’re a pearl,” Lena said with a smile.