All for a Song (29 page)

“Relax, sweetheart. I know this place like the back of my hand.”

He’d been gracious enough to put up the top on the car, which she appreciated on behalf of not only her hair but also her body, which was given scant protection against the autumn chill. Still, the confines made her restless; she twisted and turned in her seat, trying to get a feel for the landscape. “It’s so dark.”

“Is it?” he said, and directed her attention out the passenger window. Two beams of light lit up the sky, moving and crossing one another in pillars that touched the stars.

“Back home we just put a candle in the window,” Dorothy Lynn said, not quite sure herself if the wistfulness in her voice was due to nostalgia or awe.

“What’s the use of having an exclusive party if you can’t tell the whole world about it?”

At that point those searching lights were beckoning
her
, and
she leaned forward in the car seat as if doing so would speed their arrival. “Whose house is it we’re going to?”

Roland laid a finger to his lips. “You’re not in the circle yet, sweetheart. You’re a pretty girl on the arm of a quasi-invited guest. It’s my job to know the details. You just need to show up and smile, smile, smile.”

“That’s all I’ve ever been, isn’t it?”

“What are you saying?”

“Instead of ‘smile, smile, smile’ it was ‘sing, sing, sing.’ You used me.”

“And here you are, unless you somehow think you got yourself out here.”

His smile stopped just short of smugness, and she dropped back against the seat, pouting. She gave a sidelong glance at the first of what would be a dozen mansions filling the view through her window and chewed the inside of her cheek to keep herself from making any other ill-fated retort. He was right, of course. She’d used him, jumping on the opportunity to find her brother, selling her dignity for this slim chance of finding a man who didn’t want to be found in a city full of people living a facade. Maybe Brent was right to step away. Hadn’t she made her priorities clear?

She laid her head against the cool glass. “I need to go home.”

He mumbled an exasperated something, turning the car not-so-smoothly down a wide, tree-lined street. “Tell you what, sweetheart. When we get to the party, I’ll hop out, hand you the keys, and if you can find your way, you can drive yourself back.”

“I mean
home
. To Heron’s Nest.”

“Well, if you think you know your way, just keep driving. I don’t know what was going on inside your pretty head when you signed on, but you’re not going to make me feel like I’m some
sort of matinee villain throwing you over my shoulder. As a matter of fact—ah, what’s all this?”

At some point, she’d started crying, silent tears that ran unchecked down her face. “I can’t,” she said with a hitch in her voice. “I’ve never driven a car, and I don’t know where to go. I can’t do anything. I’ve ruined absolutely everything, and now I’m trapped.”

“What, ruined? Nothing’s ruined.”

“I telephoned, when you went to get the car.”

“Your sister?”

She shook her head. “I wanted to talk to him. To tell him—everything. And where I was going tonight.”

“The fiancé. Let me guess. He didn’t approve.”

“Worse. He wouldn’t talk to me. Not a word. It’s over, I suppose.”

“Well, then,” Roland said, bringing the car to a stop behind a long line of others, “at least it’s one less thing for you to worry about.”

She twisted in her seat. “How can you be so heartless?”

“Heartless? No. Glib, perhaps. You just don’t see things the way I do.”

“I’m glad I don’t.” Dorothy Lynn wiped her tears with the back of her hand, horrified at the black smudges left on her wrist. “Why would I want to? Why would I want to risk becoming what you are? Pathetic and alone. I’ve let you do this to me, bring me here where I don’t belong.”

“You don’t know where you belong.” He spoke calmly, facing forward, as he inched the car along. “You think you belong in some godforsaken forest because it’s the only place you’ve ever known, and you think you belong to that preacher because he’s the only man you’ve ever known. Can’t you consider, for even
one minute, that God has had other plans for you all along and you’re just finding the strength to see what they are?”

“Was it God’s plan for you to leave your wife?”

“I couldn’t follow him with her.”

“No, you couldn’t follow Sister Aimee with her. They aren’t one and the same, you know.”

He tightened his jaw and took one hand off the wheel to pat his breast pocket. She reached out and stilled his fidgeting with a hand on his sleeve. “Don’t you want that? Someone to share your life?”

“Sure, someday. Maybe. But tonight—”

They’d come to a full stop, and somehow the narrow road they’d been inching along had become a broad, circular drive in front of a structure that was bigger than the county courthouse back home. Roland fiddled with the car, setting the brake, and stepped out. The next thing she knew, a strange man in a short wool jacket and pillbox hat had taken his place behind the wheel, and her door was opening behind her.

“Miss?”

A young man in an identical uniform stood with his hand outstretched, giving Dorothy Lynn no option but to take it. She stepped into the cool night air and immediately pulled the silk shawl around her shoulders, grateful for Roland’s foresight.

Dozens of people, bathed in the golden light pouring from countless windows, littered the lawn. They were beautiful, every last one of them—the women like a multitude of birds, dressed in bright silks and feathers and jewels. Dorothy Lynn could see herself fitting in among them, easing up to any little klatch and, in her dress, at least, fitting right in. What she would say, of course, she hadn’t a clue. But her job wasn’t to speak. What had Roland said?
Smile, smile, smile.
With lingering tears growing cold on her cheeks, such a feat seemed impossible.

“Let me see.” At her hesitancy, Roland took her by the shoulders and turned her around. The house, the people, the lawn, the lights—all disappeared. “Now, stick out your tongue.”

“What?”

But she obeyed, as he must have known she would. Roland brought a corner of the shawl up, touched it to her tongue, then, with a firm grip on her chin, went to work wiping the tearstained makeup from around her eyes.

“Perfect,” he said, giving her chin a tug. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“I’ve got everything to worry about.”

“No.” He drew her closer. “You’ve got nothing. Not a single soul here knows about your past, and nobody’s got a hand on your future. Tonight—for the first time in your life, maybe—you’ve got no one to answer to. No one but God, and I think we’ll both find a day when we’re clinging to his mercy. Seems he has a lot more of it than your boyfriend.”

“Don’t talk about him,” she said. All that independence he was talking about made her dizzy, like she was standing on a beam, alone, above a pit filled with her family, and she clutched at him for support. “I can’t think about him, not here.”

He kissed the tip of her nose and tucked her under his arm. “Best idea you’ve had tonight.”

Roland handed the gilded, engraved invitation over to a beefy, disinterested man in a brown suit who guarded the front door. Doors, actually—massive and double. On the other side was a room equal in elegance and size to any castle of Dorothy Lynn’s imagination, not that she’d spent much time imagining castles. The floor was made of marble, and the whole space
echoed with conversation and laughter. The ceiling was at least two stories high, and as they moved through the room, she saw that a staircase carpeted in red velvet spiraled up to a balcony that spanned the entire length of the wall.

Dorothy Lynn tugged for Roland’s attention. “Who lives here? A movie star?”

“Stars don’t make this kind of green,” he said. “This place belongs to the head of a studio.”

“And you know him?”

Roland gave an enigmatic smile and patted her hand. He appeared to be on intimate, friendly terms with many of the party’s population, shaking hands with men, blowing kisses to women, and returning shouts of “How are you, fella?” from one end of the room to the other.

It didn’t take long to notice that many of the guests carried champagne glasses filled with golden, sparkling liquid, and others meandered holding short, squat ones filled with ice and amber. They walked with ambling gaits and spoke with animated, flushed faces. After a few silent conversations involving pointing fingers and jerking thumbs, Roland brought her into a more private, paneled room, where a gentleman in a white jacket presided behind a black lacquered bar.

“What’ll it be, sir?” he asked. “Bubbly, or the house stock?”

“Ginger ale,” Roland said, and when the man behind the bar looked confused, Roland leaned forward, smiled, and repeated himself. “The real stuff, like what you’d give your kid sister.”

“You don’t know my sister,” the barman said, smirking, before producing a dark-green bottle and dispensing its contents into two short, squat glasses.

Dorothy Lynn thanked both of them as she brought the
fizzing drink up to take a sip, wrinkling her nose as the bubbles jumped up to touch it.

“They’re serving alcohol?” she said, keeping her mouth fixed in a smile as she spoke. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“Only as far as the law is concerned,” Roland said. “And when you have money, the law doesn’t go very far past your front door.”

“What next? Will we get to meet Buster Keaton? Where do we see the movie?”

Roland took a sip of his drink and looked at it wistfully before taking another. “That’s the thing about a premiere. It’s more about the schmooze and the booze than the film. See? Sure, somewhere in this place there’s a big room—a couple dozen seats and a projector. But did you come here to sit in the dark with me? Or have we got other plans?”

He started to move away, so she gripped her drink and tucked her free hand in the crook of his arm. “I’ll do whatever you say, Mr. Lundi.”

He pulled her close. “Don’t say that to anyone but me if you’re wearing a dress like that. Come on, sweetheart, let’s mingle.”

As they worked their way from room to room, Dorothy Lynn recalled an ancient conversation with her sister. Dorothy Lynn had been certain she’d never attend a smart party. But look at her now. In her wildest dreams, Darlene wouldn’t believe the excess of fashion, wealth, and intoxication; she could hardly believe it herself. Some of the women’s dresses trailed behind them, sweeping the floor with silk, while others barely came to their wearers’ knees. There were gowns cut deep and low both in the back, where sharp spines jutted out of pale skin, and in the front, where rib cages poked between sequins and fringe. In comparison, she could see that her own dress hit the perfect note
of fashion and modesty, and she made a silent promise to thank Celine for both her taste and her stubborn nature. She would tell Roland as much, but for now conversation was out of the question, as a twenty-piece band struck up a jazzy tune. A collective cheer went up among the guests, and the entire room erupted into dance. Roland lifted his eyebrows in quizzical invitation, but Dorothy Lynn shook her head.

“I don’t know how,” she shouted and was amused at his obvious relief.

He was steering her through pockets of people and sound when a voice rang out. “Lundi!”

A big, red-faced man with thinning hair and a rumpled tuxedo held a drink in one hand and extended the other, greeting Roland with a vigor that looked strong enough to catapult him across the room.

“H. C. Bendemann,” Roland said, “how did you get in here?”

“Same as you, I suppose. Swiped an invite.”

Roland laughed.

“And who is this?” the man wanted to know.

Roland made the introductions, explaining that Bendemann was the owner of this mansion and host of the party, and referring to Dorothy Lynn as a sweet songbird from the mountains, causing Bendemann’s eyes to widen beyond the rims of his narrow spectacles.

“Here I was thinking you were attached to the
goyeh
.”

“Not at all,” Roland said. “I’m finding myself less and less attached every day, so if you’ve got word of any new opportunities for an enterprising man, I’d appreciate your handing my name around.”

“Will do.” He continued to eye Dorothy Lynn, who grew increasingly uncomfortable under his gaze.

She stepped closer to Roland, tugged on his sleeve, and whispered, “Ask him about Donny.”

“Not yet.” Roland spoke out of the corner of his mouth, barely moving his lips.

“But you said—”

“Later.”

“Have I stepped up to a lovers’ quarrel?” Bendemann interjected. “Come around with me,
pitzl
, and let’s see what we can do.”

The next thing Dorothy Lynn knew, her arm was captured in his moist, clammy hand, and she was being pulled away from Roland, who seemed unable—or unwilling—to do anything to keep her.

“It’s my brother,” she said, bending her arm in an effort to keep the man’s body as far away from hers as possible. “I’m trying to find him.”

His grip went slack. “Is he in some sort of trouble?”

“No, not at all. At least, I don’t think so.”

Bendemann dropped her altogether and took a sweeping look around the crowded room before moving menacingly toward Roland.

“What’s this, Lundi? Bringing this
mazik
to a party you’re barely invited to yourself. What’s she hiding?”

“Relax,” Roland said, lighting a cigarette with a nonchalance Dorothy Lynn especially appreciated. “Kid’s working construction at one of the studios. She wants to pay him a surprise visit from back home. That’s all.”

“At Metro?”

Roland shrugged. “I don’t know. Neither does she. Out in the sticks, Hollywood is Hollywood.” He gathered her back to his side, gently, like some sort of mother duck. “I said if she’d dress up and be a good girl, I’d do what I could for her. That a problem?”

“Look around. Does this look like the party for a carpenter?”

“I didn’t think it would do any harm to ask around.”

“Just be careful how you ask—and careful who you ask. Some people don’t like to be bothered with minutiae.” He looked at Dorothy Lynn. “No offense, sweetie.”