Page 42 of His Girl Hollywood
“Oh, so it’s you who’s too good then.”
“Mama, stop it.” If Arlene could’ve vanished into thin air at that very moment, she would have. Why had she invited him here? She had thought if she invited him back to this part of the life they’d once shared, it would establish a détente between them, making everything smoother on set. But so far, it felt like she’d only made a bigger mess.
“Mrs. Morgan…” Don started. Her mother made a noise. “Er, Pauline. Arlene is my director and she has to be in a position ofauthority on set. Of course, I can’t go around calling her what I called her when we were kids.”
She could kiss Don right now. She really could. Out of gratitude. No other reason.
Her mother harrumphed and reached for her wineglass. “I suppose that makes sense. I don’t like it. But it makes sense.”
Don chuckled, but he stopped at a glare from Bill. “So if you thought you weren’t ever coming back, why did you?” Bill asked, a piece of food wriggling in his mustache as he spoke. Arlene wished very much that the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
“Well, it’s not every day a guy gets asked to be in pictures. And it’s even rarer to do it with his childhood best friend behind the camera.”
Arlene’s mouth went dry, and she struggled to swallow the bite of steak in her mouth. “Wait, you knew before you got here that I was going to be directing the picture?” She’d assumed he’d only figured it out when they’d written it up inVariety. That when he’d gone radio silent on all of them he’d stopped paying attention to Arlene or anything in her life.
“Of course I did. It was why I said yes. Well, and the money wasn’t bad either.”
The admission hit her like one of the sandbags they used to keep the lights secure on set. He had known when he’d signed his deal that she’d be directing the picture. Had known and agreed to do it because of her. What did that mean? Did it mean anything?
“I followed your career while I was in New York. Well, what I could. The papers don’t exactly write about the goings-on of movie stars’ assistants. But I read every inch of newsprint aboutReno Rendezvous. I listened to the Oscars on the radio in my Broadway dressing room. I shrieked so loud when you won that the stage manager thought someone important had died. I told you thatyou’d make it in the pictures someday. And I was right. I’m just the lucky mug who gets to witness it. So, when Harry’s talent scout mentioned you were directingThe ‘It Girl,’I knew it was time to come back to California.”
She suddenly wasn’t very hungry anymore. The solid ground beneath her feet that she needed as his director was crumbling under her as they spoke. The only thing that kept her from giving in to…whatever this was, was the reminder that Don had abandoned her. That he’d never looked back, never thought of her once in ten years. But now he was saying that wasn’t the case. That he’d been reading the papers for signs of her success. Celebrated her Oscar victory.
She didn’t know if her heart could take the sudden burst of hope this ignited in her. Because she and Don working together as a team was what she had wanted for so long. She’d been avoiding it, not wanting to fall back into her girlish fantasy because she had believed that Don had forgotten her. That he cared only for his own dreams—and once he achieved them, he couldn’t be bothered to remember who he’d left behind. But what if that wasn’t true at all? What if he had thought of her every day, the same way she had thought of him?
“Can I be excused?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but threw her napkin in her father’s old chair and sprinted through the kitchen and out the back door to get some air.
Chapter 16
Arlene had been outside for over a half hour, and Don hadn’t stopped thinking about her since. Something he’d said had flustered her. But he’d let her have the space she clearly needed. Now with the dishes done and her brother and his family saying their goodbyes, he stole out the back door, the memories of all the sunny afternoons and sleepless nights he’d crept out this very door flooding his senses.
Arlene was sitting in the middle of the grass in an Adirondack chair that looked like it hadn’t been painted since he’d left. She was wordlessly humming a tune and looking up at the night sky. Don stood in the shadows behind the house for a moment, watching her. She was perfect like this—still and serene in the moonlight, lost in her thoughts.
Why had he never noticed before? How beautiful she was. How alive. The fire inside her that burned steady and true. The way his had done. Until Frankie tried to douse it.
He wandered over and slid into the chair next to hers, hoping an unexpected splinter wouldn’t find its way into his slacks. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t move. Just whispered, “I’m sorry about them.”
He shrugged. Honestly, it hadn’t bothered him. The Morgans had every right to be upset with him. He’d disappeared from theirlives and never looked back. They didn’t know that he’d thought about them constantly, missing them, clinging to Arlene’s lucky penny like it was a talisman. He’d yearned for years to find a way to set things right. But at a certain point, everything had seemed too late.
“That’s all right. I’m lucky your mother had me over for dinner at all—the way I ran out on you all.”
Arlene did look at him then and swallowed. “They… I missed you.” He met her gaze and was startled to find a gloss of tears covering her distinctive green eyes.
“I know you won’t believe me. But I missed you too.”
Arlene didn’t look at him. Instead, she tilted her head toward her lap, and something inside him cracked as he watched a single tear slide down her cheek. He had made her cry. God, what a louse he was. He reached out and brushed the tear away with his finger. She still wouldn’t look at him. “You abandoned me. You abandoned us,” she whispered.
“I didn’t mean to.” He swallowed, struggling to find the words to explain. “I couldn’t come home. You know my parents thought I was a fool. They told me if I got on that train to New York to never bother coming back.”
“You really think they meant that?” She gave him a hard stare.
He wanted to say yes. But he thought of his mother, the care packages she’d sent to New York. He’d always wondered how she’d gotten to the post office without his father knowing.
“Even if they did, what about me?” Her voice cracked on the last word and it nearly broke his heart.
A wave of guilt rushed over him. All the times he meant to write, to give her a call, and he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He’d passed the Western Union office on his way to auditions every day for a year, each time thinking he should pop in, send a wire, let her know how things were in New York.
And each time he’d walked past without going inside, promising himself he’d write once he’d made good. The excuse had changed every time. He’d write after he got his first check for dancing. Once he had a manager. Once he was dancing full-time. The finish line never got any closer because things only got more complicated, humiliating, and dangerous as he went along. What should he write?Hey, I finally got a manager. He’s a bootlegger and he’s only booking me gigs at speakeasies.Work was work, he’d told himself. Frankie and his sketchy watering holes were merely stepping-stones. But they were filthy rocks that the folks he cared about back home didn’t need to know about.