Chapter 32 You Can’t Win if You Don’t Play the Game
You Can’t Win if You Don’t Play the Game
Palm trees line the path to the parking lot, fronds splayed against the blue dome of sky.
The box of Frankie’s belongings is under her arm, an announcement to the world that she’s now unemployed.
Even the word sparks fear into her heart, because it’s the state she’s sworn to avoid, the beginning of the end.
But somehow it doesn’t feel that way. Somehow it feels as though she already reached the end and is about to keep going.
At the parking lot, a group of executives avoids her eyes, sensing devastation. But then there’s one person, leaned against a car, smoking, who looks hard at Frankie and doesn’t look away.
“No,” Magda says. A cloudy wisp escapes her mouth, a smoky tendril. “I don’t believe it.”
Frankie hoists the box up on her hip. At the corner, a man in a Ford De Luxe Roadster pulls to the side to let out his passenger, a woman dressed in a ball gown. With one gloved hand, the woman holds up her jeweled hem as she hurries toward the path.
Frankie looks away. “Magda, don’t you know that anything is possible.”
Not a question but a statement. A slightly angry, sarcastic statement.
A laugh. “We didn’t always see eye to eye, but I respect you, Frankie. I do wish you the best.”
Instead of leaving, Frankie sets the box on the hood of Magda’s car. “Why?”
Surprise widens Magda’s face. “Why what? Why do I wish you the best, or why do I respect you?”
“The respect. What have I done to deserve it?”
“Oh, well. You work hard. You’re determined. I can tell you’re smart. Women don’t have an easy road here, so you must’ve done something right.” She glances at the box on the hood. “I’d venture to say you’re still doing something right, and it wasn’t taken kindly.”
Right; Frankie thought she’d been right, and was helping people. She saw the relief when she or Nico swooped in. She witnessed the happiness when she fixed things. “I don’t know what’s right anymore.”
Magda drops her cigarette on the ground. Grinding it with her heel, she says, “Good grief. Do I need to worry about you now?”
“No. Worry about all the people that you don’t . . .” She stops, searching for the words. “Worry about your part in this.”
Immediately Magda’s brows rise. “Boy, Frankie, I was trying to be nice.”
Behind Magda are the studio gates, the giant arches that dwarf the street.
A flock of birds twists and turns above, slipping like rope through the sky.
“I’m not trying to insult you. It’s that the stories you write, they’re stories.
And you see what’s wrong. You must. The studios own the actors, and they own the stories that come out about them, and everyone lives in fear of not being loved, and it’s impossible and it’s not real. ”
“Slow down, Frankie, the whole world’s not—”
“You, me, Nico, we’re all complicit. We’ve turned entertainment into reality and reality into entertainment, and somehow it’s all become a lie.”
“I write about movies. You’re saying you don’t like movies?”
“Are you kidding? I love movies. Movies saved me, more than once. What we do is important, but there’s more alongside it, isn’t there? How many articles do you really write about the actual movies?”
Magda purses her lips, defensive. Still, she considers her words before saying, “I give people what they want. If they want a gossip story, that’s what I give them. I don’t tell people what to want. I’m not good at making people want something. I’m good at figuring out what they want.”
In a way, Frankie agrees. But it’s more than what the people want.
It’s filtering what they believe is possible.
It’s pressure to be perfect. It’s thinking that perfection exists and should be aspired to.
She thinks of Virginia. How does it help if I spend my whole life thinking I could’ve had it better, because of a lie?
Because I believed in some impossible perfection?
Maybe it boils down to the fact that the dream can be great, but it’s a temporary fix.
The lie, however, can lead to a lifetime of heartbreak.
And if it’s up to people to sort through what’s what, then they need to have a chance at true understanding.
At last, she says, “Strategy relies on information. People need truth.”
Magda laughs. “You try your hand at a paper that only tells the truth. See how far you get.”
“That’s why you stopped, because it wasn’t easy. Isn’t that what you said?”
Magda sighs. “Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to get back on Nico’s good side, and from the looks of things, you know how important that is. So, let’s leave it at this: I respect you, and I wish you the best.”
With that, Magda walks onto the studio lot.
Leaving her life is easy. The five boxes are already packed, and Frankie loads them into her car, which she’ll ask O’Shea to return tomorrow.
Tonight, she just needs to get to Venice.
Someplace safe, a house that might be small and worn but reminds her of better times and all that’s right in the world.
She’ll talk to her roommates later, explain as much as she can. For now, she’s got what she needs and is readying to leave the apartment when the radio host follows up an advertisement with an excited trill and whistle.
“Folks, have I got a juicy rumor for you. I’ve just been handed the scoop of the century or, at least, the scoop of the week, because Hollywood’s moving fast these days.
But dare I say, one of Hollywood’s preeminent tabloid reporters just let me in on the possibility that RCO Studios may be admitting that Jack Sawyer’s alibi is suddenly not sure if he’s remembering things correctly. ”
Frankie stares at the radio, her car keys hanging in her hand, forgotten.
“You heard me. Not sure. How can this guy be confused? Don’t you remember if you play cards with someone like Jack Sawyer in a fancy Malibu house? All I know is things could get very interesting in the next few days.”
A song starts up, and Frankie switches off the radio, reeling. Heavily, she sits in the nearby chair, weighted with fear, because she knows this is Nico. Magda’s caved to his pressure, and he’s telling Frankie to back off. What she just heard was a warning shot.
Without thinking, she sets her keys on the table, picks up the phone, and calls Magda’s office.
The second the woman answers, Frankie says, “How could you?”
There is a beat of silence before Magda says, “Frankie. That wasn’t me.”
“The preeminent Hollywood tabloid reporter? After you just told me you were trying to get back on his good side? I thought you understood what I meant when I said we were all complicit. I thought you were listening and maybe even agreed, but then you went and—”
“Stop. Frankie, stop. It wasn’t me.” There is a loud sigh, and Magda continues. “I think they meant Dottie.”
Dottie. Of course. Nico’s playing the reporters against each other, and no doubt made Dottie promises in exchange for this favor.
The truth means nothing? Once upon a time, Dottie asked Frankie this question as they walked through the parking lot at the Ambassador Hotel.
It wasn’t even that long ago, but it feels like a different lifetime.
Worse, Nico’s sending the message that he can take down Jack, just like that.
You can’t win if you don’t play the game.
An idea is forming. A plan. But she can’t spell it out with the operator listening. “Magda. I can’t say much now. And you might hate me, and I don’t blame you. I hate me too right now. But somewhere deep down, you know things aren’t right.”
There’s no response, and Frankie glances at the clock on the wall.
She wants to get to Venice before it gets dark.
Maybe nothing she does will make a difference, but she thinks of Dede, who’s already hailed as the next June, and all the actresses who will follow, and of Jack, who will never be free from the studio’s grasp.
“If you want a chance to do what’s right, and you want to know more about that night, then I’ll tell you. ”
Magda’s voice emerges in a whisper. “That night? As in—”
“Yes. That one.”
“And you know more?”
Frankie thinks of the operator possibly listening in, and knows there’s no way the person would know which night she’s referring to, at least not definitively. “I know everything. Call O’Shea, Jack’s valet. Tell him Frankie wants you to join her beach day, and he’ll tell you where to go.”
It’s an extra step, but a different operator will connect that call, and that will ensure nothing could be pieced together.
Frankie picks up her keys. “Maybe you were right, and we only give people what they want. But I have to do something, because I’m not sure I want to live in a world where what’s real doesn’t matter.”