Chapter 15 However I Have To
However I Have To
A Shining Star Snuffed Out.
Hollywood’s Unhappy Ending.
Heaven Just Got Brighter.
America’s Depressed Heart Breaks.
The evening headlines vary, but one thing is clear: The world, already shattered, is broken.
Fans have gathered in front of the studio, piling bouquets of roses by the gate.
All over the country, vases of flowers dot theatre sidewalks, and sobbing girls and devastated men stand alongside posters with June’s face.
In the car that night, driving home, Frankie listens to the radio host announce that in France someone’s painted a red heart around June’s face on a billboard.
It’s sick, Nico told Frankie when she was leaving, but I heard a costume jeweler’s started copying that necklace.
At home, Virginia is in tears. Tears that are a bit much, even for Virginia.
“She broke up with Fred,” Susan whispers. “She said she would’ve done it anyhow, that she wanted someone who looked at her like Jack looked at June, but then June is dead and life ends without warning and she didn’t want to wait. So, she ended it.”
The one good thing to come out of all this, Frankie thinks.
All night, she vacillates between a general shock and sadness over June and worry over Jack. What this must’ve done, what it must have triggered. When she manages to call his house, O’Shea says he’s sleeping. Frankie waits till the morning, and tries again.
Again, O’Shea answers, and when she asks him how Jack is, there is a long pause.
“I’ll come by,” she says.
“There’s no point, miss. He’ll be sleeping until the press conference.”
“That’s this afternoon.”
“The studio doctor was here last night.”
The implication being, of course, that the man left enough pills to help Jack sleep through the day, if necessary.
Driving to Pasadena, she passes through a lifting dark, her window down to try to clear her mind.
Now and then there are a few remaining orange groves and the scent of early blooms, that sweetness of flowers and leaves, a decadent green freshness.
By the time she reaches Jack’s house, half the sky is dusted with pink while mist still hangs in the Arroyo.
A couple of older Model Ts are parked on the street, one with a homemade sign hanging out the window. We love you, Jack. If Frankie had to guess, the people are living in their cars, not just here early.
She stops at the closed gate, waiting for Louis. A young girl, maybe thirteen, gets out of the nearest car and approaches Frankie’s window.
“Do you know him?”
The girl is thin. All angles and lines, a sharp chin and carved cheekbones.
The sleeves on her dress are too short—a mark of a hand-me-down.
By the fade of the fabric and varying thread in the seams, Frankie guesses at least three or four others have worn the dress.
Frankie herself was almost twenty-four years old before she owned something that was brand new and only ever hers.
A blouse and slacks. She kept the tags on for as long as possible, tucked just out of sight, until finally the paper softened and tore.
“I do know him,” Frankie says. She peers over her shoulder at the car the girl got out of. Three other shapes are inside, one slumped in the seat, a pillow against the glass.
The girl gives a closed-mouth smile. “You know him, really know him?”
“I do.”
“Do you know how he is?”
A girl who appears to be living in a car is concerned about a movie star.
“Time always helps with these things, and it’s worse now than it will be later.
” Then Frankie asks for her name—Agnes—and says she’ll tell Jack she’s thinking of him.
She’s about to pull through the gate when Agnes folds her arms across her chest and stares at the ground.
“How could she die?” the girl finally asks, looking up. “It didn’t seem like she could.”
Louis is waiting. The gate is open. “A lot of things happen that feel like they shouldn’t. To everyone. Even to someone who lives in a house like that.”
“I heard there’s a ballroom.”
“There’s not a ballroom, but there is a pond, with catfish. And he goes fishing, and cooks what he catches.”
Agnes smiles before thinking better of it, and Frankie catches sight of a hole where a front tooth is missing.
Inside the house, Jack sits in the chair by the living room window.
Hair wet, just washed. When he turns, she sees his eyes are red, his gaze loose and slightly confused.
Still, he gives a smile, and she can’t help it, she’s in his arms, hugging him.
The palm of his hand presses against her back, and she hears him breathing, the soft fury of his heart.
Then she stands back, aware they’re not alone in the house. “I thought you might be sleeping.”
“Doc also gave me something to wake up.”
“Jack.”
“My only goal right now is to get through today. However I have to.”
All she wants to do is hold him, to feel his comforting solidity, his presence that tells her everything will be okay.
And from the way he’s looking at her—with a sad sort of longing—she knows he feels the same.
Purposefully, she takes a seat in the chair opposite him.
“Today’s conference. We control the questions, and if anything goes too far, you can signal us. We’ll both be there.”
Between them is a little table that’s almost lost beneath an elaborate floral arrangement, dominated by white lilies. He wipes at a bit of pollen on the table, then looks at his skin, stained orange. “Someone told me she didn’t suffer. That it was quick.”
Death flowers, her mother used to call the lilies, back when she cleaned at a mortuary. If sadness has a smell, she once said, that’s it. “People always say it was quick.”
“You think the medical examiner was lying?”
She wants to say yes, that she knows he’s capable of lying since he had certain directives. But the fact is she’s tired of people claiming a fast death is a good death. “I just don’t think that dying fast is better.”
“You’d rather them be in pain? A long, drawn-out illness?”
“Of course not.” A pause. “But at least there’d be a chance to say goodbye.”
He nods, realizing whom she didn’t say goodbye to. “You know June made me mad, but she wasn’t supposed to die.”
In the hall, a housekeeper passes by with another bouquet. “There’s a girl in front of the house named Agnes. She’s worried about you. And she said that she didn’t think June could die.”
But Jack is staring out the window, his gaze on the treetops, his lashes tipped in light. “I heard that the president doesn’t eat in public so people can’t photograph him eating. Eating would make him human. And what would that do to our image?”
“That can’t be true. I saw a photo of Hoover eating a doughnut, I know I did.”
“True or not, I wasn’t allowed to be affected by war, and June’s not supposed to die.
Yet here we are.” Again, he looks at the pollen stain on his finger, then scrapes at it with his nail.
“O’Shea said I was yelling in my sleep. I did that when I got back from France.
They say you can have years that are good, then something happens and it’s bad again.
” He glances at her. “What if I was sober that night? Maybe you still would’ve taken me to the bungalows, but maybe I’d hear the shot.
And see the person. Stopped them. Or gone to her and helped. ”
“If you’d intervened or stopped the person, you might’ve been shot too.”
A half smile. “Two people who can’t stand each other, trapped together in life and then joined in death too? At least it’d be fast.”
“Don’t say that. Not even as a joke.”
He doesn’t close his eyes as much as he lets them close. As if up till now he’s forced himself awake. The morning light is soft on his face. “I wouldn’t want that. I’d take the pain if it meant I got to say goodbye to you.”
“Jack.”
Surprised at her anger, he opens his eyes. But she turns toward the window; she won’t let him see her cry. The bridge is in the distance, mist hanging at its sides. But then her eyes refocus, and in the reflection, she sees him reaching his hand toward her.
“Don’t.” He lowers his hand, and she wipes her cheek before turning back to him. “If anyone found out about us, it would call everything into question. If you lied about me, they’d think you could lie about anything. And they’d see us as motive. Tell me you understand this.”
He puts his hands together, pressing his thumb into his palm as if to work out a pain.
“When I woke up, there was this moment when I felt good. I felt that there was no wedding and no fake relationship, and I had this surge of happiness, because for one split second I knew I could have my life back—but I forgot why.”
“Jack, did you hear me? Nothing can happen right now.”
“I heard you.”
She stands up. “You’ll be all right?”
He looks up at her and gives her a slow, sad smile. “Do I have a choice?”