Chapter 10 Admission to the Battle #2
“We could charge admission just to look at her,” Nico says.
Every move beams light. The jewels, the shimmer of her green satin dress.
When June waves to the crowd, the necklace flares even brighter, as if sparked by the shock of its audience.
“That’s from the guy in New York?” Frankie asks, referring to the necklace and a new jeweler who’s taken the world by storm.
Nico nods, watching the car now, because Jack should be getting out too, but he’s not.
“Harry Winston. You know how he started? Pawnshop. Twelve years old, and he bought a ring for twenty-five cents that turned out to be a real diamond. He had the eye, even then. He got married the week I talked him into this. Must’ve been distracted by the big day or he’d never have let something like that out of his sight. ”
“At least without a security guard. We sure we want to send her home with that thing?” Frankie tries to laugh as she watches Jack slowly swing his legs out of the car.
Nico pushes in closer, glancing at the people nearby. “Frankie.”
It was stupid to say and not even true—O’Shea always carries a gun, and June has security and a safe at home.
Frankie was trying to make light of a situation that’s grown heavy with Jack’s arrival, and she starts to offer the correction when she sees that Jack has frozen.
It happened once before; the flashing lights suddenly bothered him, and he had to slip into a premiere through a back door, both the crisis and the chance for publicity missed.
“Come on, Jack,” Frankie says.
“Goddamn it.”
The expression is so uncharacteristic of Nico that Frankie whips toward him, alarmed, only to see him staring not at Jack but across the street, where a huge man stands, watching June. Tank Adams, June’s ex. Smiling almost proudly.
“I got it,” Frankie says, but Nico’s shaking his head.
“No, I got this. I’m not sending you over to deal with that lunatic. Just make sure Jack gets out of the damn car.”
The second he leaves, there is a flash. And then another. Frankie blinks as a barrage of lights stuns her, all the reporters turned her direction as June approaches. Voices clamor for attention, but June ignores them all. “Frankie. My sister said she was going to look for you. Can you find her?”
Nico mentioned June was in a bad mood, so Frankie leads with something pleasant. “Of course. Did you tell her about the rumors about The Last Chance? The Oscar talk?”
For a second it looks as though Frankie’s brought up a negative rumor, something June would like to forget. But then she smiles widely. “I did. She couldn’t believe it.” Her eye twitches. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so proud.”
And then she’s gone.
The crowd is cheering for Jack, louder, shouting his name in unison as if understanding it’s their job to draw him out.
More voices, more calls, and it must be irresistible to be wanted like this, to be loved like this, because in an almost clumsy move, he steps out of the car and slowly straightens to his full height, tall and sturdy and facing his fans.
Frankie’s heart pulls. Jack in a tuxedo.
Handsome and refreshing and surprising. A rugged softness.
But he turns and she sees a knot in his jaw and the set of his mouth.
He’s not happy. Soon he’s swallowed into a throng of press, and when he smiles, it’s with an almost vicious charm.
Then he’s beelining toward her. Again, everyone’s eyes are on her, and she wants to shake her head no, to make him turn around, but she recognizes this reckless determination, the way he gets when he no longer cares.
The second he’s in front of her, he says, “Don’t bother asking about what we read.”
She smiles broadly. “I already talked to Nico, and it’s fine. It was to protect you and not upset you and—”
“And you believe them?” A returned, gritted smile. “Don’t forget who we’re up against. They lie.”
Without giving her a chance to respond, he leaves to join June, whose hand flutters to her forehead as if feeling for a fever. Already exhausted, Frankie follows the crowd into the lobby, where Ida immediately spots her.
“She’s been bad the last week,” Ida says.
Demure in an unadorned navy-blue dress, she has the appearance of someone who doesn’t believe in folly or fun, and something about the perfume she wears makes Frankie think of an Alpine lake, cold water and flowers.
“She’s barely spoken to me recently. I think she knows. ”
Ida’s right; for someone who’s supposed to be glowing, June looks pale and anxious.
But then Frankie hears what she said. “Knows what? Did you have a fight?”
Now Ida examines Frankie as if for the first time. Frankie realizes she’s overstepped, and starts to backtrack, when Ida clears her throat.
“What I meant,” she says, “is that I’ve got two people outside who don’t have tickets.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Frankie forces a smile. Then, trying to distract with something good, she adds, “What’d you think of June’s news, about the rumor?”
A cloud passes over Ida’s face.
Frankie clarifies. “The rumor that she’s a shoo-in for an Oscar, for The Last Chance.”
“Until a statue can pay the bills, does it matter?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so proud.
The twitch in June’s eyelid, her tic. The tell that she was lying.
Ida is the one person whose approval June needs, Nico told Frankie when she first started working for him.
There’s some older-sister reverence there, so tread carefully.
Ida’s response must have broken June’s heart.
Then Frankie sees Dede Domenico across the room, standing by Nico at the bar, wearing a red dress that looks painted on. Awkwardly, the girl pulls up on the strap, clearly uncomfortable, as the bartender mixes some powdered lemon-lime Kool-Ade into a glass of water.
Ida stares disapprovingly. “A fifteen-year-old shouldn’t be wearing that dress. Who’s looking out for her?”
When June was younger, Ida was reportedly the epitome of a protective older sister, taking drinks away and running interference when men got too close. “I think she’s doing all right,” Frankie tries.
Ida shakes her head. “Do you know what that girl said the other day? That she came to Hollywood because she loves acting. Little does she know that being talented is nothing more than admission to the battle. And no one should fight alone. Which is why I need to see to June. Excuse me.”
Frankie leans against the wall.
“Got rid of Tank,” Nico says when he joins her.
“I’m ready for this to be over.”
“You’re telling me. And Jack’s got a flask in his pant leg. Mr. I Don’t Drink is fixing to tie one on while standing in the spotlight.”
“They need rest. Everything is too much right now.”
“Agreed. Let’s bow out of the party—no way I’m letting them drink in public in this state, and neither one of them wants to be there anyhow. Then sure, a couple days of rest.”
Frankie remembers the twitch in June’s eye when she spoke of how proud her sister was. “I think June needs a break from Ida. She was going home tonight, but maybe that’s not good. Jack can be in Venice, but let’s put June at the bungalows.”
“As long as the press doesn’t know where to look, I don’t care where they are. Get O’Shea to take the decoy limousine to Malibu. Then have two other drivers separate our ticking time bombs. Malibu Protocol tonight.”
Malibu Protocol. The studio’s sleight of hand.
A claim that both stars are at a beach house that the studio owns, and the lovebirds request their privacy.
Witnesses will attest to spotting them in the windows, and the grocer will recognize the orders.
Photographers wait at the corner of the driveway, and now and then a car will go in and out, curtained windows rolled all the way up, O’Shea, recognized and known, at the wheel.
The butcher drops off Jack’s favorite cut of meat, Nico long ago explained, and even though he doesn’t see Jack, he tells ten people Jack Sawyer’s in Malibu by dinner.
The truth is the shapes in the window are just that—shapes, the silhouettes of Frankie or Betty or any longtime, trusted employee—but the power of suggestion goes a long way.
A maid who’s under orders to not disturb the couple in the master suite will bring in the groceries, and because she will find much of the food in the trash the next day and will take home what she can, she won’t say a word.
Shame, the great silencer, will keep that detail unknown.
Witnesses, testifiers, corroborators. Soon, an entire army will back up the story of the lovebirds hiding out in Malibu together, belief like a snowball that builds as it goes, and Jack and June will have gotten rest elsewhere, undisturbed and alone.
At first, it felt strange to perpetuate the lie.
But breaks are necessary, and the only way the stars can get them is with a little subterfuge.
Or that’s what Frankie told herself until she saw it differently: The public wants the lie.
They don’t want June without makeup, and they don’t want Jack reading a script on the front porch of a cottage in Venice Beach.
Though they love the humble beginnings for the proof that anything is possible—Clara Bow, after all, was born in a tenement, and Valentino was processed through Ellis Island and slept on the street before his big break—no one wants reality to intrude on the fantasy.
They want the glamour, and they want a mansion.
They want what they don’t have, and the last thing they want is to see themselves within their stars, because they need the promise that life can be different. They need the dream.
“Malibu it is,” Frankie says to Nico. “Ida wasn’t so pleased with you talking to Dede.”
Nico laughs. “Dede was on roller skates the other day. Can you imagine the powers that be finding out? Their next starlet flying around on wheels? God bless her. To be young and not afraid.”
Jack and June stand side by side, and though Frankie can see only their backs, when June says something and laughs, Frankie notices Jack’s grip, the way he squeezes her hand. A signal for her to stop whatever it is she’s done. June yanks her hand from his grasp.
Nico must catch this as well. “We gotta get Jack away from her before he kills her.”
It’s only when they turn around that they see Dottie, the tabloid writer, standing with her back to them, studying a program in her hand. Or pretending to study a program. Did she hear?
Nico takes Frankie’s arm and leads her away, shaking his head. “This night is gonna be the death of me.”