Page 4 of His Girl Hollywood
Don bit back a laugh.Thatwas what made it unconventional? That a woman would direct the picture? This guy wouldn’t know unconventional if it bit him in the ass.
Nebbs kept going. “She recently won an Oscar, you see. And Mr. Evets has some cockamamie idea that she should be given a chance to direct. Says it’d be good to put her on something low risk, a project with new, relatively inexpensive talent that won’t cost us too much if it goes belly up.”
“Oh, careful now, Nebbs. If you call me inexpensive, I might get the wrong idea. Ask for more than what we’ve agreed upon.”
The man straightened and leveled Don with a piercing look. “I think we’ve come to quite generous terms, Mr. Lamont. Evenifyou have to take direction from a woman. Mr. Evets gave me some nonsense about giving the people who do good work a chance, no matter their sex. I’m not entirely sure why he can’t assign her another screenplay to write and be done with it, but he’s the studio head, not me.”
Nebbs was rambling now, but something he’d said had caught Don’s attention. A screenwriter who had won an Oscar last month. It couldn’t be. “What’s the lady’s name, Nebbs?”
“Arlene Morgan.” Nebbs said it as if he’d been sucking on a lemon drop, his lips puckering around the finalnin her name. “The dame doesn’t know it yet. Been off playing bridesmaid. But supposedly Harry’s meeting with her tomorrow.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Don whistled. “She did it.”
“Pardon?”
Don waved his hand. “Nothing, nothing, go back and report to your boss that as soon as you have a project set, I’ll be on the next train to Los Angeles.”
Don reached for the dressing-room counter that lined the wall below the mirror. It held his makeup case and a cup of water. Hepicked up a penny that he had left on a small tray next to his script. He rubbed it, the face of Abraham Lincoln almost erased by the number of times he’d run his thumb across it.For luck,she’d said. Luck had a funny way of making itself known in his life, and he often wondered if she’d have still said that if she’d known all the ways luck would complicate things. But hell, maybe it wasn’t luck’s fault. Maybe what he’d thought was luck was temptation and not luck at all. Now, though, for the first time in his life, he was going to make his own luck. Or try anyway.
He leaned back in the armchair, still sitting in his costume with his shirt unbuttoned, exposing his sweat-soaked undershirt. He looked at the dressing-room ceiling, the distinct outline of a water stain turning the cream-colored panels a dark brown. He turned the penny over between his fingers. He wasn’t only going back to Los Angeles then. He was going back to all of it. To Lena, who he’d left on a train station platform a decade ago with tears in her eyes. Maybe this was what the penny had been for all along—to bring him back to her. Back to the pledge that they’d made so long ago in a sunny backyard: that one day, they would make their art together.
Chapter 2
Arlene smoothed the skirt of her lilac suit and tried to calm her nerves. She’d served as a witness to Joan Davis and Dash Howard’s wedding in Reno two nights ago and returned to a message that Harry Evets wanted to see her right away.
She waited in the hall outside Harry’s secretary’s office, steeling herself. She had no idea what the meeting was about, but she had hopes. On Oscar night, fresh off her first win, Arlene had admitted to Harry that directing was her true dream. At Joan’s urging, Harry had agreed to think about it. He wouldn’t call Arlene to his office to tell her his answer was no, would he?
A grip wheeled a heavy light down the hallway, likely moving it to a soundstage. He looked at her and winked. “Hey, toots, what’re you up to tonight?”
“Busy,” she squeaked. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She was thrilled to be one step closer to her dream of directing, to calling Joan Davis her friend instead of her boss. To being known as Arlene Morgan, Oscar-winning screenwriter. But being Joan’s assistant had come with a certain level of protection. Now that Joan was away on her honeymoon, Arlene felt more exposed than ever. There were men on this lot who thought that any woman who set foot in Evets Studios was there for the express purpose of being their plaything.
She said a silent thank-you to the universe when the man kept walking and didn’t question her brush-off. Then, she exhaled, squared her shoulders, and opened the door that bore Harry Evets’s name on it in gold leaf. “Miss Kosterman.” She nodded at the secretary, at least thirty years her senior. “Arlene Morgan here to see Mr. Evets.”
The secretary, whose bejeweled cat’s-eye glasses hid a keen eye for bullshit, winked at her. “Miss Morgan, you don’t need an introduction.” Arlene blushed deeply and looked at her shoes.
Ida Kosterman pressed a button on her desk. “Mr. Evets, your latest Oscar-winning screenwriter to see you.”
Harry chortled over the crackling intercom. “Send her in.”
Ida nodded at the door to Harry’s office, and Arlene thanked her before turning the doorknob and entering. She was surprised to find the office packed. Harry Evets was surrounded by a passel of men who Arlene recognized as employees of the studio—John Sidell, a cinematographer; a man whose name she couldn’t remember who worked in the art department; Gary Clarence, assistant to the head of the wardrobe department; and in the corner, Sid Mannix, screenwriter. There was another man, sitting to the left of Harry’s desk who she didn’t recognize at all.
She stopped as the door swung shut behind her. “Oh, Mr. Evets, you’re busy. I’ll come back another time.” She turned to go.
He laughed. “Don’t go, Miss Morgan. These men are all here for you.”
She turned and resisted the urge to collapse against the door. “Me? Whatever for?” She surveyed the room again and found it hard to believe these men were here willingly. They all stared back at her stonily. Clearly, if they were here for her, it hadn’t been their decision.
“Well, to tell you the truth, since the night you won that Oscar,Joan Davis has not given me a minute’s peace. She calls me at least once a day to ask me if I’ve given you a picture to direct yet.”
Arlene bit her lip, trying not to laugh. Joan has always been her greatest advocate. God, she loves the woman. “I see.”
“And Joan Davis won’t be the only newlywed in town for long.” Harry laughed. Arlene remembered the peroxide blond on Harry’s arm at the Oscars. He’d moved quickly.
“Oh, congratulations.” She dipped into a little curtsy and then cursed herself for being so deferential. How would she ever earn Harry Evets’s respect if she acted like a little girl in his presence? She wished more than anything that Joan were here right now. She’d make some off-color joke about Harry’s number of marriages and break the tension in the room.
“Since I would like some time to enjoy my new state of connubial bliss, I need Joan to leave me alone. So, I’m giving you a picture to direct.”
Arlene’s heart pounded in her chest and fireworks went off in her stomach. Her mouth was suddenly very dry. “What?”