Page 24 of His Girl Hollywood
“It wasn’t like that, I swear. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get the love scene right, and I was trying to show him what I wanted. And then I don’t know, suddenly I was in his arms and he was kissing me. I don’t know what happened. I got carried away by the lights and the cameras, I guess. But Don and me—that’s not something that can happen. Not now, not ever.”
Joan’s mouth twisted into a moue. “Well, maybe not ‘not ever,’ but I can’t say that it’d be a good idea right now.”
Arlene groaned and slumped over the desk again. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I promised myself it wouldn’t! I’m not even sure I want to be his friend again. Not after so much…time. But now that it has happened, well, it simplycan’thappen again. I need to focus on this film, on making it the best it possibly can be. I’ve waited too long for this.”
“Darling, if I know anything, it’s that love comes at the most inopportune moments.”
Arlene laughed. “That’s an understatement.” She sighed and bit her lip, trying to explain the complications of this to Joan. “But I don’t love him. Not anymore. And I don’t want him to get the wrong idea, that’s all. I’m his director, his boss. Not his latest fling. Besides, he never looked twice at me when we were kids. I’m not his type. He’s involved with his dance partner. I saw her going into his hotel last night. The last thing I need is to be implicated in some love triangle.”
“Leda’s had her teeth pulled…for now. You’ll be all right.”
“Thanks to you and Dash.”
Joan smiled and got a dreamy, lovesick look in her eyes. Arlene’s stomach somersaulted. She was happy for her friend. That she’d found a man who loved her, who deserved her, and that together, they’d beaten the odds and the Hollywood machinery determined to keep them apart. “But what if someone else takes up Leda’spenchant for poisonous gossip?”
Joan squeezed Arlene’s shoulder. “It was one kiss, Arlene. And this town has a surprisingly short memory. Lay down the law and keep your distance from now on. Don will get the hint. If he doesn’t, he’s a cad and you should have him fired. If you stay the course, everyone will dismiss it as first-week jitters from an actor making his screen debut and a hands-on director.”
“That’s one word for it,” Arlene snorted. The retort sent the two women into a fit of giggles. Arlene was leaning against the desk, using her arm to keep herself upright as she doubled over. “Oh, Joan, what a mess.”
“You and I both know that everything in Hollywood is a bit of a disaster behind the scenes. If I had a dollar for every director that made a pass at their leading lady the first week, I’d be…well, even richer than I am now.”
Arlene wiped tears of laughter from her eyes and caught her breath. “Thank you for that. I needed it. But I’m afraid of myself. Of my own weaknesses. When Don left for New York and he never wrote, never called, it wrecked me. I worked as a clerk at the corner store down the block from my parents’ house for a whole year after he left. I’d been planning to apply for a secretarial job at a studio right away. But he took some part of me with him. Something it’s taken me years to get back. Because everything I thought about Don turned out to be a fantasy, and I told myself that my dreams were the same—the hollow imaginings of an immature child. But I finally have the thing I’ve wanted most in this world within my grasp. I’m not going to let him ruin it for me.”
Joan looked at her thoughtfully. “Do you remember what you told me when I thought Dash and I were finished?”
“To not forget we were all behind you?”
“Well, yes, that. But no—you refused to let me give up onhappiness. To keep living as a shell of myself, going through the motions. You taught me to fight for joy, Arlene. For the things I wanted most. If your happiness is directing, then you won’t give up on it. You’re too determined. Hell, you’re too damn good at it. And if you do decide you wanna screw your leading man, maybe not Don, but whoever comes after him, well, more power to you.”
“Joan!” Arlene shrieked. Though the bawdy joke did make her feel a little better. “You know better than anyone that the world is looking for a reason to count women out, to discredit our success. I’m not going to give them the room to do that. Not with Don, not with anybody. I want to remind people what women behind the camera can be in this industry.”
Joan patted her hand and picked her handbag up off the desk, pushing the Oscar on the corner of the desk meaningfully in Arlene’s direction. “And I have no doubt that you shall.” She tapped the statue on his head and winked. “You’ve already got this to your credit. They can’t take that away from you.”
Arlene looked from Joan’s face to the Oscar—the thing that had got her here. That had opened this door. She didn’t know if it was reassurance or a reminder of all the ways she might fall short. “I hope you’re right.”
“It sounds like you need that drink even more than I thought.”
Just then, there was a knock at Arlene’s office door. Joan looked at her as if to ask “Who’s that?” and Arlene shrugged. She didn’t have any appointments on her calendar for the rest of the day. Maybe one of the crew had a question. Maybe Harry was here to fire her. She had no doubts John Sidell had already gone to the studio boss’s office and ratted her out again. Whatever it was, better to face it and be done with it. “Who is it?” she called out.
The door opened and the last person she wanted to see poked his head through. “Lena—shit, sorry, Arlene.” He slapped his handto his forehead. “Miss Morgan, can I come in?”
Joan looked at Arlene and raised her eyebrows in a knowing way. Arlene wanted to tell her to shut up, but Joan hadn’t actually said anything. “I’ll see you next Friday, then?”
“Wait, Joan, don’t go… I can talk to Mr. Lamont on Monday.”
“I’d love to stay, kid, but I promised Dash that I’d meet him for dinner.”
Arlene found that excuse extremely convenient, considering that Joan had been the one to inviteherout for a drink. But it would only make things worse to point that out. Instead, she smiled and said, “Next Friday. Musso and Frank’s at seven?”
“See you then.”
Joan turned on her heel and sashayed her way out, strutting past Don in the way only a true movie star could.
“Come in, Mr. Lamont,” Arlene muttered, not seeing a way out of this now that Joan had left her with the one man that she absolutely should not be alone with.
***
Don could’ve sworn that Joan Davis winked at him as she brushed by. He was so starstruck that he half forgot what he was doing. “Huh?”