Chapter 20 1964
In the turret, without a whiskey glass in hand, I realize I’d been so seduced by Theo—is that what he intended?—that I didn’t probe more. About the fire. About the person who’d tried to come into my room. The person who’d laughed that cold, cruel laugh.
I go over everything that happened, stopping when I remember the way Theo spoke before he left the penthouse—almost as if he knew where he was going and who he was about to face.
Did Theo lie? It seems like a big risk for the builders to take, sneaking into the room of the person who’s paying them, even if they were drunk.
And it’s not the first lie Theo’s told. When Adele asked where he went, he didn’t mention his witching-hour visits to the bungalow, which I’ve seen him make at least once. And now that I have occasion to question everything, I remember that on the night of his party he told me about two wives.
Flitter said he’d had three.
Flitter. Who I saw coming down from the seventh floor last night. Who looked like the woman riding off just now with Theo. Who said, Can you imagine being the wife of the owner of the Chateau Marmont? Now that would give me power.
But what does that have to do with bungalows and builders and fires?
Occam’s razor, a horror-movie title for a dull hypothesis, says that the simplest solution is usually the right one.
Maybe Theo was just shaking my hand last night and my imagination ran away with itself.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe Flitter went up to the seventh floor because she wanted to experience Theo’s eyelashes for herself, but then she’d been scared off by a pack of drunk builders in the corridor.
But why would the builders rattle my doorknob?
The only person I’ve ever crossed is Bob Ashenhurst and that was so long ago.
Or…
Oh no.
I’m running downstairs, this time to the fifth floor. There’s Miss Devine Rey on the couch. I pick up her hands, inspect them for burns, look for any evidence that she was wandering the halls.
But there’s nothing.
I sit back on my heels, grind my knuckles into my eyes.
“Aria? Is that you?” My aunt’s voice. “I told you to keep out of my sight in the afternoons.” Her voice is mean, intent on getting rid of the child so she can lie back and enjoy her valium dreams. But the dreams ceased long ago to be the reason for her insensibility.
Addiction is the reason. Addiction to pills.
To approval. To seeing your name in the magazines.
To sex and false eyelashes and a life with no edges so there’s nothing to throw yourself off—instead you just dive right in.
She’s asleep the next second. And I do something I’ve never done before. I go into her bedroom and search through her things.
A solidified lipstick from fifteen years ago. A peignoir stained with fluids that even Maisie’s determined scrubbing hasn’t been able to budge. A pair of sparkling red shoes like Dorothy’s. What looks like dried vomit.
I back away. Take a breath. Resume searching.
I find them in the bottom drawer. A stack of notebooks, their pages covered in handwriting. I open one and realize that just as I keep a daily record of my life, so had my aunt, once upon a time. And in those pages, she’s a person I don’t know.
Toni and I crept down to the garage at two in the morning and persuaded Isaiah to give us the keys to a purple Bugatti.
We drove to Malibu, singing along to the radio playing “Swinging on a Star,” and “I’m Making Believe.
” There was nobody at the beach so we took off our clothes, threw ourselves in the water, and swam.
Such a small thing, but it felt like I took my whole self off and was the woman I might have been if an agent hadn’t seen me walking down Broadway and sent me to Hollywood.
I liked that woman splashing in the water, singing out of tune. No, I LOVED her. She felt so free.
But then the wind picked up and we got cold so we drove back and now I can’t sleep because I’m wondering if maybe the only reason I loved being that woman for a half hour was because she’s the one part I can never play.
Tomorrow is the premiere of Tangiers and I’ll walk down a red carpet wearing a black Adrian gown with a bright orange horse painted on one side and everyone will want it, but I’m the only one in the world who’ll ever have it.
Most of those people will still be lining the red carpet when the movie’s over, hoping to see me one more time, wanting to take my picture or get my signature on a napkin they’ll keep by their bed.
Whereas the woman in the water, the only thing she can do is put her swimsuit back on and wait for someone to marry her. Or else, I suppose, she can drown.
The pages turn faster as I’m drawn into the story of a smart and often funny woman who became a star before she even knew if that was what she wanted, but who also had the self-awareness to know that in a world of limited choices, it was perhaps better to be the one with the designer gown.
The movie parts get bigger, the accolades grow, her humor stays intact, until one night, fourteen years ago, when she writes:
I usually write in the morning. But I’ll write properly tonight instead.
Because this morning I’m just wishing that when I give Bob back his ring, I’ll be able to walk away to my lawyer’s office and have him break my contract with Bob’s studio and get me another contract with Bronte Bros.
, ACE, or even Millennium Wolf. Whereas tonight, I won’t just be wishing, I’ll have really broken it off and I’ll know for certain how hard I’ll have to fight to make the second part come true.
There’s only one more entry after that. It’s wordless.
Doesn’t say what happened, whether she went to the lawyer; if Bob fought against her breaking off her engagement and her contract.
It’s just a photo clipped from a magazine.
It shows my aunt and Toni Ashenhurst, Bob’s sister.
They’re smiling, standing between three men, who have their arms draped over the women’s shoulders.
The caption identifies them as the men who, that same night, signed the contract to sell Golden Mare to Bob Ashenhurst.
The only other thing in the drawer is an enormous diamond engagement ring, the one I’ve seen on my aunt’s hand in Photoplay, the one Bob gave her. It’s a weighty thing. Why does she still have it? Did she never break off the engagement?
My head starts to ache.
I pick up the phone.
“It’s Aria,” I tell Doctor Foster. “Can you come to my aunt’s room?”
I take the photograph out to the kitchen.
And there in the light, I notice something else.
Toni Ashenhurst is wearing a ring. It’s a gothic-looking thing.
The etching on the band and the way the two stones are set into it makes it look like the head of an owl with its two large round eyes upon you.
It’s one of the objects that’s always been in my library.
Doctor Foster lets himself in. “What happened?”
“It’s me who needs the doctor.”
“You?” He’s so incredulous I almost laugh. Because Aria never needs the doctor. Aria is the one who takes care of everything.
“I’m worried she’s walking around the hotel at night,” I blurt.
I expect the doctor to examine my aunt or examine my head—at least one of us is going mad.
Instead, he opens his bag and takes out a box of Tender Leaf tea.
There’s a teakettle on the stove—there always has been—a once-elegant silver teakettle with a dragon’s head for a spout.
The outside is tarnished almost to black, but the doctor fills it up, puts it on the stove, then opens a cupboard.
“There’s nothing in there besides glasses,” I say.
From the back, he pulls out two china cups. “I used to have tea with your aunt every week when you first arrived. I hoped it might…” He sighs. “Help.”
I blink. The doctor, coming each week to help a woman and a child figure out how to live together. Did we?
He passes me a cup and I tell him, “Someone’s roaming the halls at night. They set fire to Theo Winchester’s bed. They laughed outside my door. Is it her?” I indicate my aunt.
“Aria!” Miss Devine’s voice is shrill. When she tries to sit, it’s like she’s a marionette saying, “He will never forgive you.”
As fast as the animation begins, it’s over. Miss Devine Rey slumps back into sleep.
“See?” I whisper. “What if she can somehow walk—”
“Up to Win’s penthouse?” The doctor covers my trembling hand. “Impossible. Even for Hollywood.”
I show him the picture, point to the men. “Who were they?”
The doctor sighs again. “Hollywood’s had ties to the mob for decades.
Those men were criminals at the least, Mafia at the worst. They owned Golden Mare for years, but maybe they found out that racketeering was more profitable than movies.
Whatever, Bob persuaded them to sell to him.
Everyone was relieved they were getting out of Hollywood.
” He pauses. “Can you imagine a scenario where Bob Ashenhurst seemed like a savior?”
My teacup stops halfway to my mouth.
I’ve always wondered, each time I call Doctor Foster up to the turret to help one of the starlets, what he suspects. I’ve never asked. Because what do I know really? Only one thing for certain—the rest is just suspicion or, any man in Hollywood would say, my overwrought imaginings.
Everyone believes Bob is a savior.
Maybe I’ve just found someone else who doesn’t.
But it isn’t enough. One girl and one doctor and a pile of questions add up to nothing at all.
“Who owns all the things that I moved to the turret?” I ask.
“Toni Ashenhurst.”
Bile rises in my throat. That makes it even worse, what Bob did that day in the library with his dead sister’s things all around him.
But it also makes me more certain than ever that the reason my aunt is like this is because of Bob.
He did something. I’ve misjudged her all these years and now I owe her.