Chapter 21
Arlene stopped cold in her tracks as she came out of the ladies’ room. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Don was right where she’d left him, but he wasn’t alone. He had another woman in his arms. And he was stroking her back and kissing the top of her head. The woman in question leaned away from him and looked up at Don, and Arlene knew her in an instant.
As Don had promised, there hadn’t been many people here she recognized. A few stars from other studios across the smoky casino, as determined to mind their own business as she was. Then there was the Black woman she’d just met in the bathroom, Alice B. Russell, who’d seemed vaguely familiar. When she’d introduced herself, Arlene had realized she’d seen her in several pictures.
But Arlene would know the face of the woman in Don’s arms anywhere. She’d seen her in Don’s trailer only a few weeks ago. Before that, she’d read about her in a hundred newspaper stories and seen her photo plastered everywhere. It was Eleanor Lester, Don’s dancing partner. The one he’d long been rumored to have a romance with. A romance Don had told her was all an act. But it didn’t look like an act. Not the way Don was holding Eleanor so tenderly and pressing kisses to the top of her head. Or the way Eleanor was now kissing his cheek!
Arlene leaned against the wall and sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and middle finger. God, she had told herself this was a terrible idea. That Don was perilous to her heart. That the one stolen night they’d shared had to be the end of it. Had she been a complete fool? Maybe Don made love to all of the women he worked with, and one was as good as the next. He’d abandoned her once. What would stop him from doing it again?
When she opened her eyes, Eleanor was gone and Don stood alone, a new tension in his shoulders. She crossed the casino floor and popped out the side door, welcoming the burst of fresh night air. She didn’t say anything, but merely placed her hand on his back and started massaging the knot at the base of his neck. He jumped.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.” This was how he was going to play it then. “You startled me, that’s all. I was thinking it’s getting late and we should probably head home. You were gone longer than I expected.”
She didn’t smile. He hadn’t seemed remotely interested in heading home before. She had no idea what time it was, but Don had seemed content to while away the night until the sun rose. Now, he was possessed with a sudden urgency to leave? Why? To go be with Eleanor?
They’d been having such a lovely evening too. Arlene had been skeptical when he’d first suggested the casino ship. But it had been fun. Getting to know him as the man he was now and not the boy she’d loved. Learning how to gamble. The tenderness with which he treated her. She didn’t want to burst the bubble of this magical night. But she hadn’t been the one to puncture it, had she? What type of romantic scene would she have interrupted if she hadn’t lost track of time talking to the nice lady in the bathroom who had offered to button her dress? “I got to talking with someone…”
Don gave her a knowing look. “You always were a little sponge, soaking up anything you could from those around you. What was it this time?”
The words made her heart hurt. He knew her so well. But did she know him at all? Or was everything he told her, showed her, promised her, a lie? “Her name was Alice B. Russell.” She should be giving Don a cold shoulder, interrogating him. But she was excited about the conversation she’d had. “Have you ever heard of Oscar Micheaux?” Don shook his head. “He’s a director and has a production company. A Black man who makes films about Black people. Alice is his wife and his producer. She even acts in his films sometimes.”
“Sounds like quite the team.”
Arlene couldn’t suppress a wistful sigh. Until a few moments ago she’d allowed herself to hope that they were a team too. “They are. I’d like to have that someday. A creative partner. Control over what I make, what my films say.” She eyed Don, willing him to tell the truth, to have some simple explanation for what she’d witnessed.
Instead, he took her hand, entangling his fingers with hers. His hands were cold and trembling, clammy even. Not at all the firm, loving grip he’d caressed her with all evening. “I want that too,” he said. “But these people, Oscar and Alice, they do that out of necessity. You’re already making change from inside the system. Hollywood won’t give them a place, so they’ve made a company of their own. You don’t have to.”
“I might if this film fails.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. His face blanched and she regretted her words. “Don, I was kidding. You’re brilliant. It’ll be a hit.”
She meant that too. She wasn’t merely stroking his ego. Don may be a cad, but he was also a natural on-screen once he’d moved past his early jitters. He was creating dance numbers the likes of which audiences had never seen before. And she knew in her bones that she was a good director.
“I really need this,” he murmured. She removed her hand from his and wrapped her arms around her, shivering in the cold on the deck. Funny how she hadn’t noticed it before.
“So do I,” she replied. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come here tonight. I told you it’s too risky.” He looked crestfallen at her words and came to lean on the railing beside her, his shoulder leaning against her bare arm.
“It was a risk,” he admitted. “But I still think it was worth it.” She searched his face and found no trace of guile there. No suggestion that he didn’t mean what he said. Her mind wandered back to Alice—how poised, how self-confident she’d seemed. How freely and enthusiastically she had spoken of her and her husband’s plans.
Arlene wanted to feel that way. To let every naysayer or narrow-minded remark roll right off her back. To know that her partner would be there with her every step of the way. Through the highs and lows of this ridiculous business that treated you like a genius one day and chopped liver the next for reasons that seemed completely arbitrary.
“What are they doing out here?” Don asked. It startled her, his uncanny ability to seemingly read her mind.
“Alice and Oscar?” He nodded. “Same as us, I suppose. Having a night out where they can be alone in a crowded room. Where no one begrudges their mere existence. Where they can be themselves and not worry who’s watching them.” Her words set Don on edge. She studied him as he clenched his jaw tightly and tugged at his tie, as if it was suddenly suffocating. There was a stain on it now. One that hadn’t been there before she’d gone to the powder room. Was it Eleanor’s lipstick? To hell with it. She needed to know what was going on, and if he wasn’t going to tell her, she would ask. “Though it looked like maybe you weren’t so ‘alone’ out here after all.”
He coughed and had the decency to look abashed. “You saw that then?”
She nodded. “Mm-hmmm.” She stayed calm, ever the pragmatist. Her heart could be breaking and her face would still remain a serene mask. Joan called it her superpower. But right now, she wished she wasn’t so damnably even-keeled.
“It wasn’t what it looked like.”
“Then what was it exactly?” Her voice held nothing accusatory. She merely asked him for the truth.
“I can’t tell you.”
She dropped his hand and put space between them. She scoffed. “You can’t expect me to accept that, can you?”
He grabbed her hands and pulled them to his chest. Against her better judgment, she let him. “Please, Lena. I promise it was me helping an old friend. Nothing more. I need you to believe me. But I can’t explain right now. It’s too risky.”
He seemed truly, deeply frightened now. She’d never seen him this way. Even when his father had been in one of his moods. That stark look of urgency in his eyes was so genuine that she couldn’t help but believe him.
“Are you in danger?” She leaned close and took in every inch of him. This boy she’d once loved, now a man. A man she could love more deeply, more wholly, with all the maturity and knowledge of the world that she’d gained since she’d put him on a train that had carried away a piece of her heart.
She noted the appearance of two lines between his eyebrows. Since he was a boy, that had been a sign that he was anxious about something. He nodded, and she gulped at the grave look on his face. “I am in danger…”
“Oh, Don.” She pressed her head to his chest, wanting to be his shield.
“Of getting carried away by the influence of the moonlight.” He had not just done that. Used a terrible line on her when she was afraid something was deeply wrong? She lifted her head and looked at him, irritated in the extreme.
“If I wrote that in a script, Harry would make me cut it for being too on the nose.”
“Not if I delivered it right.” He winked at her and brushed a kiss to her cheek. Her body betrayed her and leaned in to the touch of his lips against her skin. Pressing his cheek to hers, he held her tight and whispered in her ear. “Please understand that when I can tell you more, I will. The situation is not ideal. That’s all I can say. But I promise you that no harm will come to you. I care for you too much for that.”
Her heart raced at the words. It wasn’t I love you . But it was something. Did he care for her? Or was it merely a line? As empty and tawdry as the joke about falling for her? Something he tossed off as easily as a two-step.
She bit her lip, throwing her head back and looking up at the night sky. It was late and many of the lights in the distance along the shore had gone out, throwing the stars into even starker relief against the night sky. Another line from Romeo and Juliet came to mind: “I defy you, stars.” She chuckled, a sad, humorless laugh. Look how that worked out for Romeo.
She had a choice. She could believe Don. Take him at his word and continue with…whatever this was. Love? Dare she let herself believe that possible?
Or she could cut her losses now, refuse to let him hurt her again. She was sure her heart still had cracks in it from the first time. But it was those cracks that made her want to try, to believe that he was as good a man as she’d always thought he was. That made her want to believe he’d finally found his way back to her.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
She took a breath, met his eyes, and said, “Yes.” A broad smile spread across his face, brighter even than the moon. She reached forward and caressed the dimple that divided the scar on his cheek into two parts. He placed his hand over hers and drew her to him with the other, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her forward until there was no air between them. He kissed her gently and tenderly, his lips grazing hers as lightly as a summer breeze. She deepened it, moving her hand behind his head and tangling her fingers in his dark hair. She pulled him down toward her to get better purchase on his mouth and kissed him until she saw stars.
Apparently, he’d had a similar experience because when she broke away, he looked vaguely stunned, absentmindedly rubbing at his jaw where she’d grazed him with her teeth.
She giggled, a little hysterical after the ricochet of emotions she’d experienced. The late hour weighed on her. “What time is it, anyway?” She felt dazed.
He looked at this watch. “Good God, it’s two thirty in the morning. I didn’t realize we’d been here that long.”
No wonder he wanted to go home. The hours had slipped away while they’d tried their hands at the different tables, sipped drinks at the bar, and danced to the band. It scared her how easy it was to not notice time passing when she was with him. She looked up at him from under her eyelashes, feeling a bit ridiculous as she played at giving him her come-hither look. “Take me home?”
As an answer, he kissed her full on the mouth, sucking her bottom lip between his teeth until a little moan of pleasure escaped from her unbidden. He curled his arm around her bare arms, still dotted with goose bumps in the cold sea air, and steered her toward the bow of the ship, where the water taxi waited to take guests back to shore.
***
Once they were back at the pier, they made their way to the street to find a taxi. After three cabs drove past them without even slowing down, Don finally managed to flag one. He opened the door and extended his hand, helping her climb into the back seat as she maneuvered the long, glittering skirt of her dress, careful not to drag it in the street. He tucked the hem of the skirt onto the seat beside her and kissed her on the cheek. “Get home safe, my love.”
“You’re not coming?”
Don looked pained. “I can’t.”
Arlene tried to suppress her hurt. “When I said, ‘Take me home,’ I thought you knew I meant…”
Don leaned down so his head was inside the cab door. “I did. Believe me, doll, there’s nothing I’d rather do right now. Let me show you how much.”
He held himself steady with one hand and cupped her cheek with his other, bending forward to kiss her like his life depended on it. His hand slid under her jaw, and he turned her mouth so he could use it as he saw fit, sucking at her bottom lip before grazing her with tongue and teeth. She reached out and caressed his jaw, holding him close as he explored her mouth, kissing her harder than he ever had before.
She bit at his lip and he answered her with a bite back, deepening the kiss further. His hand at the back of her head held her firm, as if he were stealing her soul with his ministrations. It was a bruising kiss, one that would’ve left her weak at the knees if she’d been standing up. She couldn’t suppress a small moan of pleasure, and seized by desire, she reached for his lapels and began to pull him into the car. The taxi driver coughed, and it broke the spell as Don ended the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers.
“Consider that my IOU,” he murmured before kissing the tip of her nose, straightening his jacket, and closing the door. Still in a daze, she heard him knock the side of the cab, signaling to the driver that he could leave.
At this time of night, it was a quick drive from Santa Monica to her bungalow, but she would scarcely have noticed the time passing anyway. She leaned back against the bench seat and brushed her fingers to her lips, the ghost of Don’s touch still haunting her. She wanted to know where he’d learned to kiss like that. Or maybe she didn’t. He had his secrets. So did she. Including whatever this was between them. Perhaps Don Lamont’s secrets weren’t so bad then—so long as she was one of them.