Chapter 52 1966
When I get off the plane in LA, I race over to the newsstand. It’s on the front page of the Los Angeles Times: “Hollywood Legend Dead.”
Oh god.
My aunt? Calliope?
Theo?
Who?
The subheading reads: “Male Corpse Identified.”
I sink into a chair, newspaper clutched in my hands.
Two ghostly figures dressed in silver were seen on the roof, the paper reiterates.
Guests have long believed the turret of the Chateau Marmont to be haunted by Toni Ashenhurst, the sister of Hollywood studio boss Bob Ashenhurst. Miss Ashenhurst was wearing a silver dress when she jumped to her death from the roof of the Chateau Marmont fifteen years ago.
I stop reading. I didn’t know what she was wearing when she died. But ghosts don’t light fires. Ghosts don’t exist.
Then how to explain the screams at the Chateau Marmont, the fire in Theo’s room?
I drop my eyes to the next paragraph. You’re listening to people who make stuff up for a living, the police sergeant in charge of the investigation has told the newspaper. The smoke from the fire is most likely what people saw on the roof.
Yes. There’s no such thing as ghosts.
But the next paragraph says that a source close to the investigation has revealed exclusively to the Los Angeles Times that the bones of a woman have also been discovered in the ashes.
And Calliope Burns is missing.
I drop the newspaper onto my lap. Stare at a plane taking off into the sky. Going up higher and higher, past the clouds, up to where all the brightest lights are strung. Did she plan this? Was this her way of, quite literally, going out in a blaze?
But Calliope wouldn’t choose fire. She knows how I feel about fire.
I try to breathe more slowly. To be rational. The article says only that Calliope is missing. It doesn’t say that the bones—if there really are any—are hers.
I start to feel a little better. Except that the next sentence begins with the words, A male victim has officially been identified.
I don’t breathe at all as I read on.
During the fire, Bob Ashenhurst, owner of Golden Mare, reportedly jumped from the roof to his death, which some are saying is an admission of guilt—that he is indeed the studio executive named Ben Coles in the bestselling novel, Helen Burns—and that he’s also guilty of the allegations made against him by the legendary Miss Devine Rey.
Some speculate that he lured Miss Calliope Burns up onto the roof in the hopes of making her fall to her death, but that the plan backfired.
Bob is dead.
He’s the one who’s been burned up by fire. The Fates have finally given the right person the terrible future he deserved.
Oh, the relief! The beautiful, glorious relief.
I push myself onto my feet, stride out of the airport and hail a taxi.
“Take me to the Chateau Marmont.”
Smoke is still rising from the ruins of the castle where I spent seven years of my life.
The turret stands, as do the bungalows, but a large part of the main building is gone—the part that housed Theo’s penthouse.
Above me, the sky is almost white, the charred chateau stark against it like black bones.
I think I can hear it weeping.
God, this place. I swipe my hands across my cheeks, fight back an almost uncontrollable urge to wrap my arms around the nearest pillar.
I know this feeling. It’s why I wrapped my arms around Theo when he told me about his childhood; why I wrapped my arms around Calliope when she told me she was dying; why my aunt hugged me the night I showed a film of Bob Ashenhurst on a sofa in a library with Calliope.
Love. I love this place.
I don’t want it to be dead too.
Then a figure appears from out of the smoke.
It looks so much like the romantic hero striding through the mist toward his beloved that everything freezes—my body, my tears, time itself.
Theo! I’m about to cry out.
Then fantasy dissolves. The figure becomes a policeman.
One hour back in Hollywood and I’m already deluded.
Or perhaps I’m just human. Hopeful. Because to not hope means you don’t believe in the future. And how do you make yourself get out of bed in the morning if the present you haven’t yet changed into something better is all you have?
The policeman takes his cap off and rubs his forehead.
I recognize him. A friend of Jupiter; the cop who always responded to calls from Marmont guests who thought a party had gotten a bit out of hand—guests who didn’t understand the rule that you always call reception first.
“James!” I call from the sidewalk.
He makes his way over. “What a mess.”
“What happened?”
“We’re still figuring that out. All I know is that the fire started in the penthouse.”
The penthouse. Theo. Adele. She’ll be sixteen now. I bet she’s smart and beautiful. I bet she goes out at night for a ride around the city with her dad and then they sit down and play songs together. I bet she even has her own guitar now.
Please God, let her have her own guitar. Please don’t let her be just white sky and black bones too.
And Theo. Please let him still be Theo Winchester of the cool voice and hot lips.
“What about…” My voice wobbles. “What about the people in the penthouse?”
“Dead,” James says.
He catches me before I drop to the ground.
“Jeez,” he says. “Come and sit down.”
He helps me through the colonnaded entry, which still stands, and into the lobby and onto the velvet sofa. It isn’t damaged at all, just carries the faint smell of smoke. The piano sits there waiting for Judith Crown to stun us all into silence.
“I didn’t know you were friends with Bob Ashenhurst,” James says.
“I hate Bob Ashenhurst.”
James frowns. “But he lived in the penthouse.”
A whisper. Not my own. It’s coming from the turret, the Marmont breathing the words, It will all be okay, Aria. You’ll see…
I stare at James, hope flickering. “Theo Winchester lived in the penthouse.”
“Nah. He and his kid moved out a while back. Bought some fancy place in Topanga Canyon. So you can stop fretting.” James winks. “My missus digs him too. Sings along to his records while she’s cooking dinner. I can’t see the attraction—he looks more like a car thief than a heartthrob.”
I giggle. Stupidly, wildly, unrestrainedly. “He does look a bit like a car thief. But he has the heart of a prince.”
James grins. “Sound like you have yourself a crush.”
Oh, yes I do. Theo’s alive! He’s in Topanga Canyon with Adele.
And hope, that most Hollywood and also human thing, silvers my soul.
But James is saying something else now. I force myself to pay attention.
“Calliope Burns. You wrote that book about her.”
“The bones,” I say, remembering the newspaper.
“Damn newspapers,” James grouches. “The only bones we found were from a bird.”
He barely gives me a beat to enjoy more sweet relief.
“You’re her friend, right?” he says. “My wife sings along to Win, but I’m the one dragging her to see every Calliope Burns movie. Man, she was something.”
“She is something,” I insist, fear catching up to me again.
“Yeah, but she’s missing. Vanished. Poof.
” His fingers open into stars. “Every guest has been accounted for. ’Cept her.
Some people say they saw her go up to the turret with your aunt.
That it was the two of them on the roof.
Which is kind of unreal, isn’t it? I mean, didn’t your book say she set this place on fire?
And then there is a fire and she vanishes. ”
“A story isn’t real,” I tell James. But my voice is quiet. Because so much of my book was real. It was only the ending that I invented. But stories can’t become real.
Except they do. Just look at the story everyone used to believe about Bob.
And James said that people saw my aunt and Calliope going up into the turret. Two people who wanted more revenge than my book offered.
“I found something kind of weird,” James says.
I lean forward, don’t need the Marmont to hiss at me to pay attention.
“Because I have this huge crush on her, I don’t want her to get into trouble, you know?” James continues.
I stand up. “Show me.”