Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
MAZELLE’S brOWN SKIN SANG AGAINST ripples of seawater in shiny emerald green.
The full-length cocktail dress she wore was exquisite: strapless with long slits in the legs, spun of rare wartime silk instead of rayon, with matching arm-length gloves fit for royalty.
It was the finest dress Mazelle had ever worn—or dreamed of wearing.
Her premiere dresses had been store-bought, not made by a designer hired to suit her every curve.
Mazelle radiated in the dress, the perfect accessory to her dark skin.
Rose Morgan, a hairdresser the studio flew in from Harlem, had washed, pressed, and styled Mazelle’s hair like a delicate crown pinned atop her head, with perfect curls brushing her ears.
Mazelle and her mother were standing side by side in the full-length mirror on her old childhood closet door.
Her old Cracker Jack prizes, three washboards, lay at arm’s reach in her windowsill, untouched.
Mazelle had moved back home after that night with Lorenzo, unable to sleep in her marital bed.
Richard was due back from Philly tomorrow, but Mazelle dreaded returning to their house.
Part of it was Lorenzo, but that wasn’t all of it; Lorenzo just made the rest pinch harder.
In the mirror, their reflection twinned their eyes, but Mazelle’s skin was darker like her father’s, and Mother’s face was starting to sag with frown lines even when she smiled.
“You are a sight,” Mother said. “He’s finally investing in you like he has some sense.”
Even hearing Mother praise Lorenzo couldn’t dampen Mazelle’s pleasure in her dress.
Her father wheeled himself to her doorway to watch the unveiling. She did a turn to model for him, and his delight erased ten years from his face. She was Cinderella in a storybook. “I remember when you were just a baby trying to keep up with us,” Daddy said. “Riding in those dirty train cars.”
“Oh, it’s not so different,” Mazelle said. “Same piss pots and coal smoke. It’s only prettier on the outside. But it pays better, at least.”
Beyond the memory of Lorenzo’s shocking acts in his office, a few of his words that night had stuck: Better than Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, Hedy Lamarr, any of them.
Before now, her highest aspirations had been to play a schoolteacher or pastor’s wife or fallen woman like Lena’s Georgia in Cabin in the Sky—anyone who wasn’t a maid.
But in the mirror, Mazelle saw herself the way Lorenzo had painted her that night, knowing how she would be transformed by the war chest of the biggest stars.
And he had kept his promise, sparing no expense.
She was a leading lady. She was the one who had gotten away, the one who, given a chance, would break Clark Gable’s heart.
Mazelle couldn’t stop staring at her own cheekbones, regal beneath Mother’s specially blended makeup to complement her complexion.
She had the bosom. She had the legs, smooth and well-defined.
She was a knockout and she could do stunts.
No other woman in Hollywood was like her.
“Maybe times really have changed,” Mother said.
She stole the words from Mazelle’s soaring thoughts.
Lorenzo played his role of Prince Charming when the limousine arrived at their gate. Instead of sending the driver to fetch her, he knocked at the door himself with a bouquet of two dozen white roses, in a matching white dinner jacket and black bow tie like Humphrey Bogart.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered when he saw Mazelle. Naturally his first words were blasphemy. She was glad that Mother and Daddy hadn’t heard him. She had not seen him since the night in his office, and she wondered if the flowers were meant as an apology, or just a prop.
Lorenzo leaned over to shake Daddy’s hand in his wheelchair, telling him about a new surgery he’d heard about that might help his back.
And complimented Mother for keeping a lovely home after a glimpse at the living room.
While he chatted, he rested his hand on the small of Mazelle’s back, and she and her parents noticed before she pulled away from him.
“This party is just the first step,” Lorenzo said. “Mazelle already knows this, but I’ll do things for her that no one else will. And I mean no one.”
His smirking glance made Mazelle’s cheeks burn.
“The silent treatment, is that it?”
Mazelle had sat far across from Lorenzo in the cavernous rear of the limo.
She stared out her window, looking at the bustle on Wilshire Boulevard.
As they passed the Arthur Murray studio, a billboard proclaimed LET’S ALL RAISE FOOD FOR VICTORY—MAKE THIS VICTORY GARDEN GROW.
She calmed herself by thinking of Mother’s backyard garden of collard greens, spinach, and tomatoes.
Lorenzo let his window down and lit his cigar. She would reek of his stink by the time they arrived. “I did what I promised, didn’t I? What do you want from me, Mazelle? I’m only human. Look at you. Holy bejeezus, you’re a vision.”
Mazelle was tired of the sound of his voice, so she turned to face him.
“Touch me again,” she said, “and I’ll fucking kill you.” She had rehearsed that line for nearly a week, reserved for the next time she saw him alone. This would have to do.
He whirled away from his window to look at her as if he thought she had a pistol aimed at his temple. She wished she did.
Lorenzo sighed, eyebrows raised. “Mazelle… you’re too smart to play dumb.
Be nice to people and they’re nice to you.
That’s the way of the world. When you talk like that—or you go whining to Sharpe—you act like someone who doesn’t know how this business works.
Trust me, Sharpe can’t even run his own pathetic career. He can’t do a thing for you.”
If Sharpe had spoken to him, Mazelle expected at least a perfunctory apology.
Instead, Lorenzo sounded like he was only promising to touch her again.
Mazelle wished Sharpe had punched him, or she had.
Or both of them. She relished the fantasy of tackling Lorenzo with Brother, kicking his teeth out.
She imagined Scout tearing at Lorenzo’s throat like it was a raw steak.
Too bad Brother was in the army and Scout was gone.
“Stop this car!” Mazelle screamed out, surprising herself.
The driver tilted up his black cap to glance in the rearview mirror, but Lorenzo gestured for him to keep driving.
Mazelle flinched when Lorenzo raised his hand, expecting him to hit her.
He saw her brace and paused, poised between compassion and menace.
As the limousine sped on, he slowly lowered his hand.
“Here’s what you’re gonna do…” Lorenzo said calmly.
“You’re gonna watch that foul mouth and smile like pure sunshine.
When I introduce you to Zanuck or whoever is there, you’re gonna gaze in their eyes like they’re the only person in the room.
And you’re gonna walk like a queen, like when Mazy is poking fun at those rich party guests. Swing your hips.”
“I know how to fucking walk,” Mazelle said.
“This is what you said you wanted, Mazelle.” Lorenzo sounded almost hurt.
“I’m laying out a red carpet for you. It may be one chance in a million, but it’s the best chance you’re ever gonna get.
Tonight. Right now.” He slid closer to her, his face inches from hers.
That shampoo smell again. “So get your head straight, or you’re gonna be thinking back on this night the rest of your life saying, ‘I coulda been somebody, but I pissed it away.’ ”
He grabbed her gloved hand. She tugged back, but he held tight with firm palms. “When I look at you, it makes me feel like a schoolboy,” he said. “I bet you can feel my heart beating.”
His palms pulsed with his heartbeat, enclosing her hand, the intimacy nearly as galling as her visit to his office.
She itched to pull her hand away, but if he didn’t let go, they would be fighting.
She didn’t want to fight in this dress. She didn’t want to muss her hair.
She didn’t want her lip bloodied the way Richard had once split her lip when he slapped her. Not tonight.
“Yes,” she said. “I feel it.”
Finally, he released her hand. She was glad she was wearing a glove, but perspiration coated her hand from his trapped heat. “Then stop giving me so much shit. Can’t you tell I’m crazy about you? Let me keep some of my dignity. And a little gratitude would be nice.”
“Thank you so very much,” she said in her sweetest voice. Drowning him in her sarcasm.
“See there? I always knew you were a hell of an actress.” His sappy eyes said he wished she really meant it.
Wounding him granted her some satisfaction, at least. Lorenzo had a wife and kids just like Sharpe.
His professed affections were only vanity and dominion. He was a child who wanted a happy toy.
The limousine snaked its way through traffic toward the lights of the Ambassador Hotel, a Mediterranean building set far back on its property beyond rows of palm trees, as if a moat separated it from the city. Flashbulbs popped from the distant motor lobby.
“Negroes can’t go in there,” Mazelle said. Hattie had received her Academy Award in this hotel, but it was still segregated. Had Lorenzo been so caught up in his big plans that he’d forgotten something so basic as her skin color?
“Relax. You can go wherever I say you can go,” Lorenzo said. He called to the driver. “Take this first left, drive to the back.”
“Yessir, Mr. Lorenzo,” the driver said. Mazelle only realized the driver was a Negro when she heard the deep timbre of his voice.
She looked up at the rearview mirror to meet his eyes.
He was about fifteen years older, with a white-frosted beard prominent on his dark skin, and he was gazing back at her with concern.
Nearly imperceptibly, he nodded to her. I see you, sister.
Be strong. You’re not alone in this car that feels like a hearse. His nod was a litany. A sermon.