Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Mazelle gave him a small, private smile to prevent a pool of tears.
“It’s showtime,” Lorenzo said.
A uniformed white doorman in a dark coat waited by a loading door at the rear of the hotel, shrouded in shadows stripped of glamour.
A tall beast of a garbage receptacle stood beside him.
Fitting, Mazelle thought. After the driver parked, he rushed out and opened the door on Mazelle’s side.
Unsteady in overly tall heels, Mazelle grasped the driver’s gloved palm to climb out of the car. His gentle smile was oxygen.
“Evenin’, miss,” he whispered. His breath was sweet coffee. “Knock ’em dead.”
She couldn’t remember ever being so grateful for words from a stranger.
So often when she was in the company of the wrong man, she chanced upon evidence of better men like Daddy; hard workers with sterling hearts.
Mazelle gifted the driver her sunshine smile, from her heart.
The man’s eyes glowed as if she’d lit his soul afire.
“What’s your name, mister?” she asked.
“Grady, ma’am.”
“Good to meet you, Grady.”
His eyes glowed again when he heard his name from her lips. This stranger saw her as a queen, so Mazelle vowed to perform queenliness tonight. Not for Lorenzo—for Grady.
Lorenzo slipped cash into the doorman’s hand.
Of course. Then the doorman produced a large man’s trench coat that Lorenzo draped across Mazelle’s shoulders as if it could make her invisible.
The three of them walked in a tight huddle through the rear entrance to a large service elevator with wide-open doors ready to swallow her, their clandestine delivery in the bowels of the hotel.
Mazelle felt claustrophobic between them, watching the numbers glow with the elevator’s slow climb until it stopped on the seventh floor.
“We’ll take a right and go straight down the hall to Suite 700, sir,” the man told Lorenzo. He turned to Mazelle and said bluntly, “Keep your head down.” He didn’t hide the distaste in his face. He wouldn’t turn down a few extra bucks, but he wasn’t happy about it.
Mazelle kept her head down. As she was shuttled in the hallway by the two men, each of them guiding one arm, the doorman’s grip too tight, she watched her glittering green shoes march across the patterns of the golden carpet, Dorothy’s slippers on the Yellow Brick Road.
The floating feeling returned. She was flying across the ceiling, watching herself below.
She heard the din of the party before they reached the suite’s double doors. The doorman swept the trench coat from her shoulders.
“Remember,” Lorenzo said. “You belong here.”
Lorenzo’s hand was planted across the small of her back as he opened the door.
The bright lighting in the room made Mazelle blink, and the only colors she saw were red, white, and blue. Flags and decorative baskets in the national colors crowded every corner.
“What is this?” Mazelle said between her smiling teeth.
“War bond fundraiser,” Lorenzo said. “Everyone wants to be a patriot.”
About thirty people were already in the large suite, which showcased a white baby grand piano beside the picture window overlooking the Los Angeles night sky.
Some men were in uniform. Most of the women were in white or black dresses, so her emerald dress would have caught anyone’s eye even if she had not been the only Negro in sight.
The guests openly stared. The din quieted.
Since she had accidentally commanded the room, Lorenzo said, “This is my rising star, Mazelle Washington. You’ve seen her in my pictures.”
A couple people openly gasped, then a warm murmur enveloped the room.
A few people applauded as if her transformation were a circus trick.
Two men near her raised their champagne flutes in a toast. The closest to her was tall and broad-shouldered, although she didn’t recognize him at first with gray in his sideburns and in an army dress jacket.
It was Clark Gable! Seeing Clark felt like running into an old friend, as if she’d conjured him.
“Of course. Mazelle Washington!” Clark said.
“If memory serves, we’ve already been in a picture together.
” He gave her a courtly bow and kissed her hand.
The gasp from the far end of the room was thin this time, but Mazelle’s ear didn’t miss it.
Clark’s face turned stern as he eyed Lorenzo, who had run afoul of MGM by using his likeness in Lazy Mazy Goes to the Kentucky Derby.
The courts had forced him to trim it out after the premiere.
“I’m just back from England,” Clark said to Mazelle, pointedly ignoring Lorenzo.
“Thank goodness you’re safe,” Mazelle said.
She couldn’t think of a thing else to say.
So this is what it means to be tongue-tied, she thought.
She wanted to give Clark her condolences on the tragic loss of his wife, Carole Lombard, but it didn’t feel like her place to bring up such a painful topic, especially when his eyes were so soft on hers.
“I’ll tell Hattie I saw you,” she finally blurted. Hattie was their only bridge.
“Please do.” Clark’s smile lingered. “The home front looks better than ever.”
Mazelle felt breathless the way she did when she listened to the King Cole Trio.
Clark raised his glass again and walked away with a measured stride that reminded her of a general who could lead men to war.
Star power. He had walked to her and bestowed her with some of his.
He had done it deliberately. A slender, dark-haired woman slipped her arm into Clark’s as he returned to her side, her gaze on Mazelle heavy and wondering.
The guests were deeply curious, some of them enchanted.
More of the men were smiling, and a few of the women.
A woman touched her own bobbed hair as if she wished hers were piled as splendidly as Mazelle’s.
And there stood dark-haired Olivia de Havilland!
The seasoned actress raised her glass to greet her in welcome, as if entrance to this exclusive club granted them instant sisterhood.
Mazelle smiled an acknowledgment and kept up her slow, steady walk.
Queenly. Head high. Trying not to gawk at the legendary faces and sparkling jewelry.
“What the fuck just happened?” Lorenzo whispered as they glided through the crowd. “Jesus fucking Christ. She walks in and Clark Gable jumps like she whistled. Where are the reporters when you need ’em?”
“Hush,” Mazelle said. “You’re embarrassing. Act like you belong here.”
Lorenzo grabbed a whiskey from a passing waiter’s drink tray, not breaking his stride.
“Always gotta make an entrance, huh, Jerry?” a man said, brushing past Lorenzo.
“You’re just jealous,” Lorenzo said.
“I’ll say!”
The names and faces were a blur as Lorenzo guided her through the knots of plain and beautiful white people, every guest ostentatiously wealthy.
A young man sat at the piano, tinkling out standards in a choppy, mechanized style Aunt Ruby would not have approved of.
He played “That Old Black Magic” with no swing to it, grinning at her.
Some guests moved to far reaches of the room as if Mazelle had a bad smell, but most others moved in closer.
“How are you enjoying our little soiree?” a man’s voice asked her. “I’m guessing it’s not the kind of party you’re used to?”
Mazelle turned and came face-to-face with a balding man with bushy eyebrows and a pencil mustache who matched her height in heels. Fiftyish. Not an actor, but maybe a producer. Lorenzo patted her arm: Answer him.
“Oh, it’s a marvel, all right,” she said. “But shouldn’t my dress be red, white, and blue?” Laughter. She hadn’t realized that so many people were listening, or that her answer had been amusing. Her green dress did clash with the patriotic displays.
“Don’t worry—from where I’m standing, your dress is perfect,” he said, flitting his eyes to her cleavage.
More laughter in agreement. Rows of teeth shined at her. The floating feeling tickled at Mazelle, but she brushed it away. Instead of shrinking under the stares of strangers, she raised her shoulders higher and gave him her best smile.
“That’s a relief!” she said. “I’d hate to stand out here like a sore thumb.”
More people laughed now. The man looked at her carefully. Was she being ironic? Did she have the capacity for spontaneous wit?
“I’ve got Mazelle under contract doing slapstick,” Lorenzo said. “But she does it all. Sings, dances, acts. She’s that new breed to help get Willkie and the NAACP off our backs.”
The man nodded, appraising Mazelle. “I can think of a few ways to put her to good use. Call my girl to bring her in for a screen test,” he said. “Four o’clock on Monday.”
Mazelle thought she had heard wrong. Was this all it took to get ahead?
Getting smuggled into the right parties to get the right introductions?
She forgot to thank the man before he drifted away, but he hadn’t been addressing her at the end; he’d been talking to Lorenzo. Bargaining over his property.
“Who was that?” Mazelle whispered to Lorenzo.
“Christ, you’re a babe in the woods,” Lorenzo whispered.
“Jack Warner. Warner Bros.? He put out Casablanca. Sweetheart, you’re batting a thousand.
Just like I knew you would.” His hand rubbed her lower back.
She didn’t mind his touch this time. “He almost put Hazel Scott in Casablanca instead of Dooley. Just think: That could’ve been you. ”
Mazelle couldn’t rival pianist Hazel Scott, who had been trained at Juilliard, but she could carry a tune as well as Dooley Wilson.
Richard told her that Dooley had only mimed playing the piano, and at least she could play that tune.
The possibilities in this glittery room were dizzying.
She didn’t have the exposure and experience of Dooley and Hazel, but why stand in the long line?
Lorenzo had brought her to the short line.
A party like this was worth almost anything.
A little gratitude would be nice, he’d said.