Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
February 2025
Los Angeles, California
T o Henry’s surprise, he was able to fly from Boston back to Los Angeles with the help of the producer, who told him that he needed to start listing his expenses for travel, food, and accommodation. “We’ll take care of all of it,” Barry said. “We don’t want you to go broke working on the Untitled Bianchi Script.” Henry was floored. Never in his life had he been paid to do something creative.
According to Greta, this kind of thing was a necessary next step. “It means you’re a legitimate scriptwriter now.”
On the airplane, Henry didn’t opt for business class, though. He didn’t want to go overboard. But he did buy a glass of wine as he flew across the continent, his hands crossed on his lap as he watched the night enfold them. Across the aisle was a woman around his age who kept glancing over at him. Henry wondered if he seemed special or important. Maybe it was just because he’d begun to think of himself in a certain light.
“People can sense all kinds of things about you,” his grandmother had said. “As long as you believe them.”
“I’m sorry to bother you. But…”
Henry turned to look at the pretty woman across the aisle. Her hand was raised as though she were trying to grasp at something, and she put her third finger and thumb together in half a snap. Henry raised his eyebrows and his glass of wine.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” the woman finished.
Henry was surprised. He tried to fit the girl within the context of his ordinary life in Los Angeles—the coffee shops he wrote at, the grocery stores he frequented, and the bars where he bought the cheapest drinks available. He snapped his fingers.
“I’m not sure,” Henry said finally, feeling disappointed in himself.
The woman’s blue eyes were the color of the Nantucket Sound on the brightest of summer days.
“It’s on the tip of my tongue,” the woman said, smiling in a way that showed all of her pristine teeth.
“Maybe I just look like someone you know.”
The woman shook her head so her red curls bounced across her shoulders. It was endearing. “The longer I look at you, the more I’m sure I know you.”
Henry took a sip of wine. He wasn’t sure what to say. But for whatever reason, he wanted to continue this conversation. He didn’t want her to look away.
“My name is Henry,” he said.
“Henry what?”
“Henry Crawford.”
The woman wrinkled her freckled nose. “I don’t know that name.”
“What’s yours?”
“I’m not sure I should say,” the woman said playfully. “What if I don’t really know you? I’m not in the habit of giving away personal details to strangers.”
“I’m not a stranger. I told you. I’m Henry Crawford. You can look me up online,” Henry said.
The woman chuckled. “I’m not going to pay for airline internet just to look up your name.”
Henry felt a funny mix of frustration and joy. It had been ages since he’d flirted with anyone, and maybe even longer since he’d felt genuinely attracted to someone.
“You don’t think I’m worth the cost of the internet?” Henry asked.
“It’s not that,” the woman went on. “It’s just that I really enjoy these hours in the sky without internet. Nobody can email me or call me or send me a DM. I can’t see a single meme. They’re hours of joy difficult to recreate elsewhere.”
“You could always turn off your phone.”
The woman raised her shoulders and smiled wider. “That sounds too easy, Henry Crawford.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Do you live in LA?”
“I do,” she said. “But I hate it.”
Henry laughed. “I haven’t been there long, but I think I know what you mean.”
“I can’t keep up with all the status chasing,” she said.
“I like to stay in my room and write,” Henry agreed.
The woman looked at him with squinty eyes. “I still can’t figure out how I know you.”
Henry was getting frustrated. His hands were clammy. Was she really not going to tell him her name?
“Tell me this, Henry,” she said. “What are you chasing in LA? What brought you there?”
Henry pressed his lips together and hunted through his catalog of answers to find the one she might like the best. “I want to make something that’s truly artistic. Something truly great.”
“A film?”
“Anything,” Henry offered. “But right now, I’m a scriptwriter, yeah.”
“Are you working on anything I might have heard of?”
Henry blushed and palmed the back of his neck. He wanted to say she hadn’t heard of it yet. But soon. But that felt overtly arrogant.
So he said, “I’m working on something. It’s in the early stages, but I have a producer, which feels like something.”
“That is certainly something,” she agreed. “I wish you luck, Henry Crawford.”
Henry realized his chance with her was slipping away. “You still won’t tell me your name?”
“I’ll tell you when the time is right.” The woman winked.
Henry could only drop his head against the seat and laugh. Again, he filled his mouth with wine and imagined another scenario: he and this strange woman exiting the plane together, getting into his car, heading back to her place or his to order Chinese food and talk about everything.
It suddenly struck him how lonely he felt now that he’d left Nantucket Island. During his visit, he’d been surrounded by love and good food and beautiful conversation. And now, he was headed back to his shoddy apartment and his strange roommates.
Was this really the right way to live a life?
After the flight landed in LA, the woman said goodbye and whisked off the plane and out of sight. Henry was genuinely impressed at her walking speed. After two glasses of wine and hours of sitting, he felt drowsy and uneven. Goodbye, Dream Girl , he thought, then laughed at himself. He didn’t believe in romantic meetings like that. He was a twenty-first-century man. He was a realist.
Waiting at the baggage claim, Henry checked his emails and discovered that his request to meet with a Hollywood historian had been approved.
The Hollywood historian’s name was Debra Hollow. In her email back to Henry, she wrote:
I think I’ll be able to help you find what you’re looking for. Let’s meet at the Frances Howard Goldwyn Library at one o’clock tomorrow.
Henry wrote back quickly to confirm.
On the drive back to Echo Park, Henry got caught in traffic. No surprise there. That was the Los Angeles experience. But as he waited, listening to the honk of horns around him, honks from people who were sure they’d get through this faster if they showed how angry they were, he engaged with the beauty of the bright pink sunset, the orange horizon line, and the impressive eruption of enormous buildings downtown. He let himself realize just how much he loved both realities—his world back in Nantucket and his life here.
Chicago is in my past , he realized now, perhaps for the first time. I have to let go and move on.
The next day, he met Debra Hollow at the library located three blocks from Hollywood Boulevard. Just as she’d looked in her photograph online, Debra had chaotic bleached-blond curls, thick horn-rimmed glasses, and a wacky outfit that suggested she liked to meditate and practice tarot. That was pretty typical in LA, but not so typical in a library environment. Henry appreciated the juxtaposition.
Over coffee in the middle of the library, Debra hauled several folders from her bag and positioned them between them. They looked to be filled with old newspaper clippings and photographs. Debra wagged her eyebrows. “It took me five hours last night, but I tracked it all down.”
Henry’s heart jumped into his throat. “Five hours? Gosh, I’m sorry.”
“This is literally what I love to do most in the world,” Debra told him. “When I figured out their connection, I was heartbroken because it meant the search was over.”
Henry laughed. It was a little like finishing a script. You were exhausted and bleary-eyed and pleased with yourself, but you were sad that the journey was through.
Maybe everything really wonderful in life was like that.
Debra flipped open the first folder. Here, they found an old headshot from the late seventies or early eighties, based on the hairstyles. The headshot showed a very beautiful woman who might have sold out every movie theater and Broadway stage, given the chance. It was, of course, Natalie Masterson—the woman who’d died.
“I’m shocked this story hasn’t been dug up before now,” Debra said, rubbing her palms together. “My guess is that Francis Bianchi’s PR agents have been working overtime since the eighties to keep things under wraps. No, he wasn’t convicted—but most people who look at the facts are surprised about that. There should have been a trial, at least. Don’t you think?”
Henry nodded furiously.
“And that’s what your script is about?” Debra asked.
“I’m not really allowed to talk about it. Not legally, anyway,” Henry said.
Debra’s eyes flickered with interest. She flipped the headshot over to reveal another headshot underneath. Here was yet another beautiful woman in the late seventies, but this was one Henry knew well.
“And here, of course, is Sophia Bianchi,” Debra said. “The wife of Francis Bianchi. The wife who, according to several sources, never saw Francis again after the night of the Nantucket Gala. Why didn’t they get divorced? There’s the question of the hour.” Debra looked ravenous.
Henry laughed nervously. He considered telling Debra that he knew Sophia personally but thought better of it. Stop telling everyone everything, Henry! he scolded himself.
“Your question to me was did Natalie Masterson and Sophia Bianchi know each other before Natalie was cast in The Brutal Horizon ,” Debra recounted. “And I have my answer.”
Henry’s heart pounded. Debra hunted through her folders, her photographs, her newspaper clippings. Out poured photographs of Natalie during the early years of her career: performing on stage, doing stand-up, singing in a choir. Frequently, she was photographed with her arm slung around another actor or actress, smiling as though she was doing everything she ever dreamed of. She looked truly sensational, like the personification of sunlight itself. Henry felt himself fall in love with her. He felt within himself the great tragedy of her death.
And then from Debra’s pile popped a photograph of Sophia and Natalie—together.
Henry’s jaw dropped.
There they were: maybe twenty years old and wearing outfits and hairstyles that placed them in the 1940s. They were grinning madly as though they’d both had a little too much to drink, and Natalie had her arm linked to Sophia’s and her head on Sophia’s shoulder. It almost looked as though they were sisters.
“The year was 1977, and both Sophia and Natalie were fresh-faced actresses, trying to make it big. But they needed cash, and badly, which meant they auditioned for just about everything. That included this war-era student film. They were cast as sisters and rivals after the same man who ultimately died in the war.”
Henry gaped. “Did you find the film?”
Debra laughed. “Of course I did. What kind of historian would I be if I couldn’t find the film?” She pulled a floppy disk from a folder and set it between them. “You can watch it if you like. I have several other copies.”
Henry wasn’t sure how he would find a machine to read his floppy disk. It was 2025, and floppy disks looked like technology meant for the stone era. But he would have to try.
“But this means that Sophia probably introduced Natalie and Francis,” Henry breathed.
“I did some digging on that,” Debra stated. “It looks as though Sophia’s and Natalie’s careers fizzled after this student film. Both had been rising stars, but then—as it sometimes goes in Hollywood—something fell apart. Sophia had a gig as an extra in one of Francis’s films, and suddenly, she had that affair that changed her life.”
It changed Francis’s life, too, Henry wanted to say. He wouldn’t have had the same career without her.
“It’s likely that Sophia introduced Francis to Natalie in 1983,” Debra said, rifling through her folders to pull out newspaper clippings from parties at the Cannes Film Festival the same year. In them, Francis, Sophia, Natalie, and a handsome stranger were drinking champagne on a glorious French beach. Sophia was reaching for Natalie’s hand, and Francis’s eyes knew only Sophia.
“Who’s the guy?” Henry asked.
Debra pointed at the caption and read, “Dean Chatterly. He was Natalie’s fiancé. Incidentally, he died later that year.”
Henry’s eyes widened. Suddenly, a conspiracy came alight in his mind.
Had Francis killed Dean in order to get closer to Natalie? And then, had he had to kill Natalie because she wanted to ruin him?
Henry was speechless. Debra smiled proudly at her handiwork.
“You’re worth every penny, Debra,” he said after a long time.
Debra laughed as she gathered up the photos and clippings. “I like hearing that. Sometimes people hate me for telling the truth. But I suppose these aren’t your truths or your story. That makes all the difference.”
Henry put his face in his hands. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
But then a thought occurred to him.
“Who made the student film?”
Debra raised her eyebrows. “It was a female director, if you can believe it. Back then, they weren’t exactly common. Her name was…” Debra flicked through the files to remind herself. “Cindy Saucer. Cool name, right? Anyway, I already looked her up. She lives in Santa Monica.”
Henry took a breath. “Do you think she’d want to talk?”
“I don’t see why not,” Debra said. “Everyone likes to gossip about the past.”
When Henry left the library a half hour later, he had Cindy Saucer’s phone number and address listed on his phone. Within his heart, he felt the alienating sensation he was trodding through territory nobody else had before.
A strange voice said, “ You aren’t going to like what you find.”
But he shook it out. He was a storyteller. Nothing could frighten him.