Chapter 11 Ingrid
Ingrid
If anyone catches her reading the gossip rags she picked up in the hotel lobby, Ingrid will never show her face in public
again. Do people actually read this nonsense by choice?
The things Ingrid does for her investigation.
Today The Dish, the paper written by that Minnie Musgrave woman Ada mentioned, features her sister. She reads the article again, jotting
relevant information onto a notepad. She writes the name Abe Sternberg, the director Archie is investigating, then adds Communist and underlines it.
According to various articles, Sternberg has never denied his affiliations, and a recent exposé in The Hollywood Reporter included his name and party number—the article mentioned naming names, which reminded Ingrid of the Orpo officer who had
come to Opa’s office with a similar tactic. The fact that the Reporter had so readily exposed others sent a chill through Ingrid’s blood. Fighting Communism and defending democracy can be done
with respect to basic rights and freedoms. It’s the approach Ingrid has always taken—the proper one.
How anyone could favor a government that will inevitably lead to suppression will never make sense to her.
Then again, others have never fled from such a government.
She has. Which is precisely why her firsthand experience makes her qualified to caution against such views.
Still, Sternberg’s beliefs will only make Crenshaw and Stieber more convinced of Ada’s, although Ingrid will not allow anyone’s views to influence her own opinions of her sister.
She looks to the photographs—Ada speaking, then posing with the studio head, the director, and her strikingly handsome costar.
Ingrid scrutinizes them as she taps her pen against the paper.
Working alongside a Communist does not make Ada a Communist. Nor does it prove she is not one. Pinpricks traipse across Ingrid’s
skin until she dismisses the sensation. Nothing is proven, and this is a start. She has the photographs and notes she took
at the announcement party too, plus her recording and her position as Ada’s assistant. Still, something directly from Ada
about her political loyalties and the Star Society’s purpose would reassure both Ingrid and her employer most of all. She
looks from her notes to The Dish, an idea taking root. One her sister will hate, so Ingrid will simply have to convince her. She calls the phone number listed
at the bottom of the article, encouraging readers to place anonymous tips.
“What have you got for me, love?” comes the middle-aged woman’s voice on the other line. Abrupt, as if she’s in a hurry, yet
cloying in a way that makes Ingrid’s teeth clench.
“Mrs. Musgrave, I presume? I have a question regarding—”
“Dish it or ditch it, doll. This is a tip line, not a fact checker, so give me something to print or I’m hanging up in five . . .
four . . .”
“Regarding your interest in a proposed piece,” she finishes, already more than a little irritated. “An exclusive interview—”
“Three . . . two . . .”
Can this woman not allow her to finish a sentence? “As I was saying, an interview with—”
“Listen, doll, you don’t get to be where I am by falling for every actress who calls this line thinking she can give me false promises in exchange for payment.
I don’t pay until I have a story in my hands, and since you already called this a ‘proposed’ exclusive, that tells me you have nothing, so you don’t get to continue wasting my time and I don’t get my gossip.
Do call back if you come up with anything useful.
” Yet she allows Ingrid no time to come up with anything useful, to speak, to comprehend that this conversation is over. “One.”
“With Ada Worthington-Fox! I work for her, and I can get you an interview.”
The anticipated click on the other end doesn’t come.
“The most private woman in Hollywood hired—what? An assistant?” Although the question is dubious, she seems intrigued enough
to stay on the line. A muffled clatter and ding, evidence of a typewriter. “Prove it. Do you know what happened between her
and Vince Hart? Or is she as red as Sternberg?”
“I just started with her, so I can’t speak to either matter, but I can tell you—” Ingrid stops.
Everything she wants to say to prove she knows Ada are things Ada would never reveal to the press. She’s a trained ballerina
who raised funds for the Dutch resistance. She always requested her favorite dessert—chocolate cake—on their birthday. She
once challenged Ingrid to a bicycle race, proposing the loser would do everything the winner said for an entire day, then
complained of her unjust fate when she lost. At boarding school, she improvised a spontaneous one-woman play, leaving a room
full of homesick girls doubled over in laughter with their sorrows forgotten. When the headmistress reprimanded them for the
noise, not even the punishment that befell the instigator dulled the spark in her eyes. Such memories are ones Ingrid cannot
share, the facets of Ada no one else knows.
“I can tell you something soon, once I know her well enough to convince you,” Ingrid tells Mrs. Musgrave instead, her voice tight as she fights the lump in her throat.
Swallowing hard, she stares at the words Communist and Sternberg in her notes. If Ada will be working with him, what of her sister’s reputation should the film come under criticism for its
director’s views? She’s here to help Ada, isn’t she? Crenshaw and Stieber need confirmation that she isn’t a threat, so Ingrid
will uncover undeniable proof.
“If you’ll give me some time, would you be willing to publish an interview with Miss Worthington-Fox? About her opinions on
Communism in the entertainment industry?”
Mrs. Musgrave laughs. “You don’t read my paper, do you? That girl never talks about her private life or personal opinions.”
“I’ll try to convince her, and I think it’s important for her to make her position known. This is not an effort to sell you
a fake story. I’m not asking for payment in advance, only your patience.”
A beat of silence. Ingrid feels both her own anticipation and the columnist’s desire for such a story seeping through the
receiver. “Convince Ada Worthington-Fox to give me an exclusive, and I’ll run it. Disappoint me, and I won’t play nice.”
Then the line clicks dead.
Ingrid updates her notes, and seeing it in print makes her breathe more easily. A published article for the world—and Ingrid’s
superiors—to read. A public profession of Ada’s views printed by a columnist who is a known anti-Communist. Just the thing
to discredit any talk of Ada participating in subversive behavior. And if Ada is indeed running a Communist front organization,
well, this gives Ingrid plenty of time to dissuade her before the interview.
After putting away her work, Ingrid checks the time—nearly three o’clock in Washington.
If she were home, she might meet Lars for dinner later at their favorite tavern, dine on roast beef, then walk to their apartment.
There she would kick off her black oxfords and open a window, allowing in the late August breeze smelling of impending autumn, while he would mutter about needing to inspect that window since it squeaks too much.
Then they would listen to the radio before falling into bed.
A rather boring night by certain standards, compared to the one she could be having here, where nightclubs teeming with celebrities promise raucous music, bodies slick with sweat and spilled liquor, evenings of revelry and mischief.
Except on this or any night, it’s not about what she is or isn’t doing. It’s the spark in his eyes brought on by his incessant
need for projects. The way he’s chosen restaurant tables by the window ever since their first date in Arnhem, when she mentioned
those are her favorite. It’s offering him a lighter before he’s even reached into his coat pocket for a cigarette. The way
she traces her finger along the narrow scar on his shoulder, brought back from the war. It’s about who she is with him, who
he is with her, who they are together.
She glances at her bare ring finger. With it comes the ache from all those years ago, awaiting her mother’s approval of her
relationship, though she never expected it to be granted—nor was it. Awaiting cherished moments of privacy with Lars. Awaiting
him after he joined the Dutch Army and Ingrid assured him her affections would not fade in his absence, then wondering when
or if he would come home.
The ache is different now, somehow heavier.
She can’t call him, not when he isn’t permitted to know where she is, what she’s doing, or when she’s coming home. A fact
both understood and accepted, though it makes the separation no easier. When she picks up the telephone, she does not call
Crenshaw or Stieber either. She’ll mention the possible exclusive to them once she has been here longer and can use the assistant
job as proof of established trust between her and Ada.
Moments later, the operator connects her with her sister.
“Are you busy?” Ingrid asks. “Or do you have time to come by?”
“Better. I’m sending a car.”
A car? Whatever for? Ingrid opens her mouth to ask, but Ada has already hung up—meaning she knows Ingrid will object to whatever
she has in mind, so she’s leaving no opportunity for refusal.
The car takes Ingrid along a winding journey up a steep hill, where she steps out at the top. In the distance, a large white
building stands sentinel, its three dark domes glinting in the sunlight. And a familiar figure in a headscarf is already climbing
out of a second car and hurrying to meet her.
“What are we doing here?” Ingrid asks.
“Being tourists, because that’s precisely what you are.” Ada gestures to their surroundings. “Welcome to Griffith Observatory.”
A public tourist attraction, where anyone might see them? Even if Crenshaw hadn’t warned Ingrid to keep her face out of the