His Girl Hollywood

Chapter 7

Arlene sipped at her whiskey and closed her eyes. She was usually a gin girl, but when she needed to clear her head, she turned to Irish whiskey. Paddy’s to be exact. It was what her father had favored, and she’d learned to drink whiskey from him. Today had not gone the way she’d hoped.

Don was a mess and her crew barely tolerated her presence. Don questioning her authority openly, in front of a group of men who already disdained her, didn’t help matters. Then, what she’d said to him as he was leaving, about being better about his dialogue than his steps, God! That was the cruelest thing she’d ever said in her life. Another reason to wish this picture starred anyone else. Don was making her unkind, and that was the one thing she’d swore she’d never be as a director. She sighed and waved over the waiter, ordering a corned beef sandwich.

She looked around the room, at the cardboard shamrocks lining the ceiling and bearing the names of the bar’s more famous patrons that had frequented it since it opened on Wilshire Boulevard last year. The honey wooden paneling gave the entire space a homey feeling, and she let the heat of the whiskey pooling in her belly warm her from the inside while she soaked in the welcoming environs. The Horseshoe Tavern was the only truly proper Irish pub in the city, and it had become a fast favorite. When she needed comfort and didn’t have the energy to make the drive south to her childhood home, she came here. Their food wasn’t as good as her mother’s, but it was close.

A loud laugh from the back of the bar caught her attention. She stood and peered through the smoky pub to assure herself that she wasn’t hearing things. But damn it, no, that was Harry Evets all right. Smoking a cigar and sipping at whiskey. She’d assumed the Horseshoe was a safe bet tonight. Men like Harry usually rubbed elbows at Chasen’s, the Polo Lounge, or the bar at the Chateau Marmont. But no, to put a sour cherry on top of her rotten day, Harry had chosen the one restaurant in Los Angeles where she could drown her troubles in relative anonymity.

“Arlene Morgan!”

She ducked down. Nuts, he’d seen her. The only thing worse than being at a bar with her studio head after a disastrous first day on set was having him spot her there. She sipped at her whiskey and tried to figure out what to do. He’d clearly seen her; he’d called her name. But maybe after she’d ducked down, he’d realize he was wrong. Confused someone else for her.

Her waiter approached her. “Excuse me, miss? That man in the back. He wants you to come see him.” No such luck.

She sighed and nodded. “Can you send my sandwich back there then?” Without waiting to see if the waiter agreed, she rose and made her way to the back of the room to face Harry Evets.

The studio head grinned at her as she approached, and she prayed that maybe he hadn’t heard about her first day yet. “Miss Morgan, that was you! I knew it. Come, sit down.”

She did as she was told, pulling a chair up to the table. “Mr. Evets, hello, didn’t expect to see you in a place like this.” That was an understatement.

He chortled. “Love the food. Reminds me of my mother’s cooking.”

“Same here.” She smiled. Okay, this wasn’t so bad. Maybe she could say hello, exchange some pleasantries, and go back to her table.

“I hear things didn’t go well today.” Harry turned his head to the side to avoid blowing cigar smoke in her face.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Just some first-day jitters.”

Harry sucked on his cigar thoughtfully. “John Sidell told me it was a bit more than first-day jitters. That you didn’t even get a reel of usable footage. You sent Rita Carter home with an injured ankle and couldn’t seem to keep your leading man in line.”

Arlene silently cursed John Sidell. He was her cinematographer, and she’d known from the look on his face that day in Harry’s office that he was jealous. She was certain he was angry that she’d been given a chance to direct while he’d been passed over. She’d expected him to be a problem—to refuse to take direction. But he had done what she’d asked him. Even if he’d been cold and condescending. It seemed his tactic was going to be reporting every misstep she made back to Harry Evets instead.

What could she say? It was true they hadn’t managed to get a single complete scene in the can. That Rita was injured. That Don had openly questioned her authority. Sidell hadn’t lied. He didn’t need to. “Mr. Lamont is having some trouble adjusting to working with the camera.” There. That was something, at least.

Harry stroked his chin. “Hmm, I cast him on a talent scout’s advice and gave him a screen test. But maybe he’s not meant for the movies.”

That was not what she wanted. She was upset with Don. Annoyed at his presumptions, his arrogance. Frustrated that his failings reflected back on her. Sure, he could run back to Broadway as if nothing ever happened. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be a screen star. But if Don Lamont failed in Hollywood, it wasn’t going to be because of her. Not the least because they might throw the baby out with the bathwater and fire her too. “Oh, no, I don’t think that’s it.”

The waiter came and placed her sandwich in front of her, wordlessly. She wasn’t hungry anymore and pushed it to the side. “It’s a learning curve, certainly. But Mr. Lamont is a talented performer. I’ll make sure he gets things right tomorrow.”

Harry pursed his lips and nodded as if to say I don’t like it, but I’ll take it . “Tell me something, Miss Morgan.”

“Yes?” she squeaked, unable to hide the fear in her voice.

“Do you like pickles?”

“What?”

“Pickles? Do you like them? Or can I have that one sitting so forlornly on your plate?” Jesus Christ, she thought Harry Evets was going to fire her before she’d even had a chance to prove herself, and all he cared about was a stupid pickle.

She shoved the plate at him. “No, it’s yours. You can have the whole sandwich if you want. I’m not hungry.”

He gave her a queer look. “You know, Joan Davis insisted I wouldn’t regret this. That you were a born director. That you’d surprise me. But the day I told you I was giving you this chance, you fainted in my office. Now, I hear you’ve already wasted a day of your production budget, and all of a sudden, you’ve got no appetite. Miss Morgan, is everything all right? Is there something I should know?”

“No, Mr. Evets. I promise you things are fine.”

She didn’t like lying, but what choice did she have? She needed to find Don tonight. Apologize for being so casually cruel. Explain to him what was on the line here for her. Why she needed him to get his act together. He owed her this, at least. He might not have given her a thought in the last ten years, but growing up together had to count for something.

Harry Evets seemed to have a sixth sense for these things because then he asked her, “Is there a history between you and Don Lamont?”

She was shocked. That Harry had guessed. And that he would come out and ask her. She didn’t think he’d ask a male director if there was any history between him and his female star. But hell, probably most male directors didn’t cock up the entire first day and put the whole shoot behind schedule. “He was my next-door neighbor growing up. That’s all. Until today, I hadn’t spoken to him since he moved to New York a decade ago.”

That wasn’t the whole of it. Not even close. But it was all that Harry needed. Neither Harry nor Don would ever know what he’d once meant to her. That part of her life was over.

Harry gave her a hard stare and she gulped, wishing she hadn’t already finished her whiskey back at her table. But he didn’t question her. Instead, he reached for her sandwich and said, “Just do better tomorrow.”

“I will.” She meant it too. She would do better. She wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through her fingers so quickly. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to let Don Lamont be the reason it did.

Arlene said goodbye to Harry, leaving her sandwich in his hungry hands. She paid her bill and snuck to the pay phone at the front of the bar, nestled in a wood-paneled box as cozy as the rest of the place. She picked up the receiver and said, “Operator, Ida Kosterman at Evets Studios, please.” Harry’s secretary often worked late, staying long past the studio head’s departure for the evening. It was understood around the lot that without Ida, the entire enterprise would come crashing to the ground.

The phone rang only three times before Ida picked up. “Hello, Harry Evets’s office.”

“Ida, thank God you’re still there.”

She could feel the woman brighten at the sound of her voice. “Arlene, what a pleasure to hear from you. I heard you had a rough first day.”

Arlene leaned her head back against the phone booth. God, had everyone at the studio heard about their terrible day of filming? Studio lots were worse than knitting groups when it came to how quickly gossip traveled. She massaged the bridge of her nose. “I did, but listen, Ida, that’s not why I called. Can you tell me where Don Lamont is staying while he’s in town?”

“I think he’s handsome too,” Ida replied.

Arlene couldn’t help herself. She giggled. “Oh God, Ida, nothing like that. I need to talk to him. Help him get his head on straight so we don’t repeat today’s mistakes tomorrow.”

“Well, pity’s yours, ’cause he’s a hunk. Give me a second. I’m looking it up.” She could hear Ida paging through the files on her desk. “Here it is—he’s at a hotel on Hollywood and Vine, the Hollywood Starlight Inn.”

“The Starlight? That thing’s a dump. Why would the studio put him there?”

She heard Ida continue to rustle around in the stacks of paper on her desk. “Hmm, his contract says that we offered to put him up at the Chateau, but that he asked to handle lodging himself in exchange for the difference in his weekly pay.”

That didn’t make sense. Don had toured Europe. He’d met the King of England after a command performance. Or so the clippings tacked to her mother’s fridge had informed her. He was used to staying at places like the Ritz and the Savoy, not a seedy hotel that probably boasted more cockroaches than clientele on any given day.

“Okay, thanks, Ida.” Arlene hung up and waved goodbye to the waiter, fixing her hat to her head. The sun was starting to set as she climbed behind the wheel of her car and turned left on Wilshire.

She thought she’d made herself clear to Don last night. That this movie wasn’t about some touching reunion between old friends. It wasn’t even about fulfilling their childhood dream of making their art together. It was about taking this opportunity and knocking it out of the park. So that she could do it again. And then again. They were now a day behind schedule, thanks to Don. He had some starry-eyed idea that this would be a passion project for them, a way to show off his moves to a broader audience and hightail it back to New York if it didn’t work out.

But there was no plan B for her. This was it. Her one chance to get it right. And he needed to know that—to understand that after today, there was no margin of error. If it meant she had to corner him at his hotel and lay it out for him, then that’s what she was going to do. She didn’t want to yell at him on set. A power battle like the one they’d had today would only make things worse. So, she needed to see him tonight. Put her cards on the table. This wasn’t some fly-by-night production where he could do whatever he wanted. He’d said he wanted to get this right, that it was important to him. He needed to prove it then.

Before long, she’d made the few miles’ journey from the Horseshoe Tavern to the Starlight Inn. It was even worse than she’d remembered, missing three letters from the sign out front that now read Sarlit Inn . She searched for a place to park along Vine since there was no sign that a valet had ever existed at this SRO.

As she backed into a spot under a palm tree, she saw an unmistakable shock of platinum hair. Arlene craned her neck and looked again as the woman glanced over her shoulder before opening the front door to the hotel. She’d only seen the woman’s face in grainy black-and-white newsprint. But the red-lipped pout and peroxide hair of Eleanor Lester was instantly recognizable.

No wonder Don was a mess. He’d brought his girlfriend with him and was entertaining her on the side. He was already asking about Eddie Rosso. Hell, the next thing she knew, he’d be asking to replace Rita Carter with Eleanor. Maybe he’d stepped on her foot on purpose. Rita had been the only one on her team today. Even if the woman had to dance on one leg, Arlene wasn’t replacing her.

She rolled her eyes. Of course, this whole thing, this threat to her career, was because Don had his mind on a dame. The Don she’d known would have never let a girl stand in the way of his career. He’d given Arlene up, hadn’t he? Tossed her and their years of friendship aside the moment he’d arrived in New York. But Eleanor Lester clearly had something that she, and the entire Morgan family, did not. The way she swung her hips as she entered the hotel told Arlene just what that something was.

She couldn’t decide if she was more disgusted or disappointed. Either way, she wasn’t going in there tonight. The last thing she needed to end this terrible day was to interrupt some clinch between Eleanor and Don. Don claimed he wanted this picture to be a success, but did he really? Because if he did, he’d be running lines and rehearsing his steps right now. Not making whoopee.

It hit her then that her plan was pointless. Telling him what this meant to her, laying out what was on the line—what good would that do? He didn’t care about anyone but himself. And maybe Eleanor Lester. Why had she ever thought otherwise? He’d left on a train and never looked back. If that wasn’t selfish, she didn’t know what was.

Arlene sighed, knowing that this picture was going to be even more challenging than she’d expected, and put the car in drive. She pulled back out onto Vine, heading back to her little bungalow and bracing herself for a night of fitful sleep.