Chapter 10 Admission to the Battle
Admission to the Battle
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is chaos. Lush and tropical but frenzied and packed. A gray and menacing sky appears to be on the verge of bursting, a dark background for the towering queen palms that line the entryway. The pagoda, with its roof of oxidized copper, appears slick in the humid air.
Frankie stands near the three sets of double doors, by a flame made of punched-out metal that Nico said represents the enduring spirit of creativity.
Voices surge, commands are barked, people hurry with cameras and reflectors, crates of bottles and boxes of glasses and trays of food.
A long canopy leads from the street to the door, and dragons are stenciled on its side.
Usually Frankie loves chaos and the subsequent thrill of ordering the disordered, but this is different.
The hectic frenzy of anticipation, which often feels like that moment a magician reveals the woman he’s just cut in half is, in fact, fine, has changed.
Tonight it feels as though the magician has other plans.
She messed up. She was careless with the telegrams and reckless with their star, fighting with him on the worst day possible, essentially sending him into an important night with even more reason to be mad.
Whew, Betty said when Frankie returned earlier with the tin. We squeaked by that one, didn’t we?
The wind picks up, scraping leaves against the sidewalk.
Elaborately dressed ushering staff hurry past her, and a man with a broom stands on a ladder, sweeping off the top of the canopy.
Frankie stops just in time before walking into a billow of dust that clouds like smoke from the stenciled dragon’s mouth. Above, the sky is a cold fist.
She will admit it: Though Jack is the one who made the mess in the first place, the studio should never have filtered what he knows of his own life. She needs to talk to Nico and get the details. There must be something she can say to Jack to calm him down.
“This is a cave,” she says to a man setting up for interviews. “Face them that way. Use the diffused light, don’t work against it.”
Behind him, a woman Frankie doesn’t know waves to her. “Nico’s been looking for you. In the lobby.”
“Finally,” Nico says when he sees her, as if she’s just arrived.
A boss is like a three-year-old who believes a room doesn’t exist until they’re standing in it, her mother once said.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but Ida and June are fighting, and June’s in a foul mood, and for all I know Jack’s gone off the rails, and holy Christ, we need this movie, Frankie, we need it to do well. ”
Always catch a person off guard, Nico has told her, before they can rehearse. “Nico. The telegram. From the PI. Why didn’t you tell Jack you knew where Donna was?”
He tilts his head, studying her. “It’s nothing to worry about. But what I’m curious about is why you think this moment is the right time to bring it up.”
He’s turned it around on her. “I know there’s a reason for everything you do. You’re always ten steps ahead. But right now, all I can think of is you lied to him about his own life, and I don’t want that to be true.”
“Fine, fine. Let’s go somewhere quiet.”
Somewhere quiet is Mr. Grauman’s private box on the balcony level. From here, the projector room is on their left, the source of banging and whirring and a loud voice swearing. Below them, the empty seats curve like ripples from a stone.
The moment they sit, Nico dives right in.
“We’re not monsters. The wedding, I know you don’t agree with it, but Jack was a bachelor who didn’t want a real relationship when we set him up with June.
He didn’t lose anything. It was the opposite.
His career soared. And it’s only going higher with this wedding, which also happens to solve a million other problems.”
“For the studio.”
He looks at her steadily. “For the studio, yes. And for June. After everything we’ve done for Jack, all we’re asking for is a modicum of discretion, and then, after a while, when it’s safe, the two of them can explore other options. If they need to.”
She feels herself blush, and quickly says, “So Donna.”
“Donna. When Donna first saw Jack on screen, she reached out to him at the studio, and he was upset but took it in stride. He owed her. He knew that. Lots of guilt. So we arranged for their divorce, made it official, kept it quiet, and paid her a nice sum. A divorce settlement—for what was apparently the most expensive marriage ever, because she keeps getting more and more. Every time she’s in a bad mood or wants a new toy, she fires off another threat. ”
“That’s blackmail.”
“Sure is. And the money’s not even the kicker.
After Jack made headlines for dating June, Donna claimed she had more expenses and needed to hock her wedding ring if he didn’t bump up the payments.
Jack flew off the handle. Not about the money, mind you, but the ring.
It was his mother’s, and Donna made some promise way back when to keep it safe.
So Jack was not happy. Even threatened to come out publicly if he had to, just to be done with her.
Imagine that scandal—America’s most desired bachelor left a wife high and dry?
A bride who waited faithfully for her husband to return from war, only to be ditched?
No. This was an impoverished woman when he left her—and he’s got houses, plural.
We talked sense into him, but he was furious.
So when he demanded to know where she was, we lied.
Seemed safest. We told him we send money to her, care of whatever post office or bank she asks us to, because she moves around.
All in all, she’s got him by the balls, excuse my language. ”
Frankie shrugs, and Nico continues.
“But I’m not an idiot. I hired a private investigator so I know what I’m up against. My guy’s got someone in records; marriage, birth, whatever we need, he can get.
And lo and behold, she’s remarried. Lives in a nice house.
I mean, a nice house. She never needed to sell his mother’s ring. She’s bleeding him because she can.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Right. And you want him to know that? And know where she is? I don’t. He’d flip out. So we lie about where she is, and we pay—I mean, the studio pays. Not even just him. And we do it because you don’t piss off a bull.”
“Jack’s the bull?”
“No, she is. She calls the shots. Make her mad, and she could destroy him. And hey, like I said, I’m not done with her.
At some point I’ll catch her on something—I’ve got her letters, telegrams. I’ve got everything in my safe because everyone slips up.
Give them enough time, they slip. And when she does, the tide will turn. And I’ll get Jack free.”
Frankie absorbs this. “You didn’t tell me.”
“Maybe I should’ve.”
As soon as she can, Frankie will explain this to Jack. Let him know that he’s confused his enemies. Then she thinks about what Nico said, that his PI knows someone in records. “Birth certificates list your parents, right? And adoption records, your guy can get those too?”
He smiles. “Adoption records are usually private, but my guy’s good. And failing that, if you had a birth certificate, then they list whatever parent they know about. But not many people had birth certificates then.” A pause, then he continues. “This might be one of those times.”
“One of what times?”
“I don’t know what you’ve told yourself over the years about your birth parents—that they didn’t have money or that they got sick or whatever it is that made it feel better—but I can almost guarantee that it’s not that.
And once you know, you can’t unknow. Sometimes the truth hurts worse than the lie. ”
While everyone else exists on solid ground, roots strong and definitive, Frankie’s felt as though her life floats on a current.
A sense of connection always missing. She remembers an older sister, an older brother too.
Maybe a younger sibling as well. Rainy days and being happy inside, never once eyeing the ceiling for stains or shoving newspapers or old rags at windowsills.
The dinner table was an impossibly shiny oval where they all sat and held hands before they ate, and not once was anyone instructed to drink a glass of water first. She has no memory of leaving.
Were they sad? There is an entire stretch of time that her heart blotted out.
She tells him she still wants to know, and he smiles sympathetically. Once you know, you can’t unknow.
The red carpet is swept and spotless, the marquee blazes, and searchlights sweep the sky. Miraculously, even the rain has held off. Frankie stands with Nico at the sidewalk, watching the crowd push against barricades, when Jack and June arrive.
Nico’s gaze focuses on the line of limos. “Banks are heading to a shutdown.”
She forgot to take out money but lies so he won’t lecture her. “I didn’t get much.”
“All you need is enough for groceries and gas. Your car and rent are covered, so you’re good there. And you know we’ve got you, if you need anything.”
Frankie watches a dark-burgundy limousine pull up. She can’t think about this.
“I mean it.”
Now she glances at him.
“If you had to move in,” he continues, “you know you could. We’re there for you. Not just for Sunday dinner.”
She’s never had this before, someone who holds a net beneath her should she need it. Suddenly she wants to cry—an infuriating feeling. As she thanks him, she hears the emotion in her voice.
He only looks at her a second before turning away, as if needing a moment for himself as well. “Here we go,” he says.
June starts to emerge from the limo, bent over as she ducks out. When she straightens, Frankie’s breath catches.
“A beauty, ain’t it?” Nico says.
Diamonds shine, an emerald the size of a child’s fist at June’s throat. Frankie’s never seen anything like it. When June turns, the necklace flashes like stars bursting from existence.