All the Stars in the Heavens (57 page)

Her husband still did not know the truth. Tom had heard the rumors too, but chose to ignore them. When he married Loretta, he learned not to press her. He figured she was entitled to her privacy. If she wanted him to know something, he was certain she would tell him.

Loretta had successfully built a wall around the truth, sealed the windows, latched the door, and dug a moat. No one, if she remained vigilant, would ever get near it. She was determined to leave the story in the past—it could not possibly do anyone any good now. Besides, Gable was gone. All that was left behind was the legacy of his career, his fifth wife, and their only son.

Judy couldn't have a relationship with her father now; he was gone. No attempts that Loretta had made, or that Clark had initiated, had taken with their daughter. Gable's own words rang in Loretta's ears.
Judy is a great girl. Why upset her? Let it go.
As for her half brother, Judy had a daughter his age. John Clark Gable could hardly be a brother to her now. At every turn the situation seemed impossible, but then again, the truth deferred always is. With a revelation, an unveiling, an exposure, comes the regret, the wild river of emotions, for which there are no explanations or solutions that make sense, only more questions, only more bad dreams, worse nightmares and sadness. And of course, in the face of the truth, there would be accountability. Loretta, for all the energy she had expended on the matter, could not see what good would come by owning her mistakes to the world, her family, and Judy, when she had already sought and received forgiveness from her God.

Loretta thought about the gift of her daughter, who initially had been a challenge, but luckily grew out of her teenage years to become a practical and intelligent woman with a keen mind and a good heart. Could Loretta have wished for more for her? Loretta saw aspects of all the women in the Young family in Judy. Her daughter had inherited Loretta's sisters' creamy skin and her grandmother Gladys's dazzling eyes, like agates really, which sparkled when Judy spoke and
disappeared when she laughed. Loretta worried whether Judy loved her. She loved her daughter for sure, but she was a young mother, and young mothers have neither the benefit of experience nor the knowledge that a career, personal goals, and private dreams can wait. Loretta didn't know any of that at the time. All she knew for certain was that she had done her best, without the benefit of a husband, a true partner, and the father of her daughter, helping her navigate the perils of parenthood. She had longed for that and hoped for it with Tom Lewis, but the marriage had stayed on a plateau; there had been no deepening of trust to make her feel secure enough to reveal her deepest secret to him. It was his pain, and her loss. Maybe the truth would have made a difference in their marriage.

The secret had become a member of the family. It had its own space; each person bore a responsibility to it in their fashion. No one other than her sisters, her mother, and her secretary could ever know the truth. But the problem with any lie is that it is as transparent as the truth. Loretta had denied it for so long that she made the mistake of thinking it dead. But it wasn't.

As Loretta drove, she made a list of all the things she had given her daughter, starting with a close family: a loving grandmother, a slew of aunts and their wonderful husbands, and two younger brothers. Judy had grown up with a fine education, good friends, and a loving circle, an upbringing made complete by opportunities to travel and see the world in ways that Loretta had only dreamed of. Now that Judy was a mother herself, surely she understood the sacrifices Loretta had made—and even if she didn't, Loretta was confident that her daughter would understand them in time. Maybe everything would be made right by Maria, Loretta's granddaughter, who at six already had Judy's keen mind and curiosity.

Loretta had always worked, and when she thought about the past, it was to retrieve a memory about something that had happened on a movie set—whether it was being berated by the director George FitzMorris, or laughing so hard with Jean Harlow that the director had to yell “Cut!” until the girls “got it out of their system,” or kissing Spencer Tracy for the first time on the set of
Man's Castle
, the first kiss of her life that had meant something.

It was work that she thought about when she let her mind wander. Her children sustained her; they were the essence of her, as she and her brother and sisters had been for Gladys. Loretta did not question her devotion or the depth of her love for her children. It was the mighty river under the indestructible ship she had built by the labor of her own hands. Both the river and the ship belonged to her, and she to it. Her convictions about that were as deep as her faith.

Loretta ranked her achievements when she examined her conscience. The children were always first, then her career. Family and career, in that order, she believed. She had gotten into the movies to help her mother—but found bliss and challenge and artistic freedom and the integrity that comes from using one's gifts. She had done her best, but believed most of the time that she had not measured up to her own high standards. That, Loretta decided, was the Catholic in her.

Loretta drove and drove that morning, off the freeway and into Woodland Hills, a sweet village in the San Fernando Valley. She rolled down the window, took off her hat, and leaned back in the seat. She would drive slowly, and then speed up, and when a gentleman passed in a blue Pontiac and shot her a look that said,
You can't drive, lady
, she smiled back at him. He almost drove off the road when he realized who the bad driver was.

Loretta pulled off the road to a flower stand and purchased an enormous bouquet of gardenias and tuberoses. Somewhere in the fog of her deep memory, she recalled that Mae loved this combination. The woman who ran the stand recognized Loretta, and offered the flowers for free. Loretta paid anyway, and left her autograph on the canopy of the roadside stand.

Loretta drove past a manicured acreage, the sod was green and lush, hemmed by a fence. The entry drive revealed the Motion Picture Country House, a sprawling single-story Spanish-style building with a terra-cotta roof and a wide entrance, canopied from the sun.

It looked like a place that could easily accommodate a premiere, and the party that follows, but in fact this was a hospital and rest home for the folks who had worked in the movies—in front of the camera and behind it—during the silents, and then the talkies that
gave birth to the golden age of Hollywood. For every senior citizen gaffer and electrician, there was a screenwriter and a leading lady or man, sharing a room, side by side. It was as if the artistic collaboration had not ended but instead was slowly seeping away in a swirl of glorious memories that abide old age. The facade of the home had just enough swank to remind the tenants of the glamorous industry they had built with their talents.

Loretta put on her hat before getting out of the car. She pulled on her gloves. She checked her lipstick in the mirror, and, satisfied, got out of the car with the bouquet of flowers.

Loretta entered the lobby of the Motion Picture Country House. The walls were lined with residents in wheelchairs, chatting with one another, reading the newspaper, or doing nothing at all, just sitting. But they weren't alone; they were in the company of their peers. This comforted Loretta as she checked in.

As Loretta passed the old folks, one looked up and remembered her. She stopped and took the man's hand when he reached for hers, and spent a moment talking with him. She pulled a rose out of the bouquet, snapped the stem off, and placed the flower in the man's lapel. He beamed as he watched her go on her way.

She stopped at room 110 and peeked in. Sitting high in the bed, propped by pillows, was Mae Murray. Mae rested her hands on the half-moon hospital table that stretched across her bed. Her hair was white, as were the sheets, the blanket, and her simple dressing gown. Mae was almost eighty years old. She was completely made up, her bee-stung lips drawn on with orange pencil and filled in with pale coral lipstick. Her eyes were rimmed in the black kohl powder they used in the silents. Mae still possessed a version of that “it” quality. Loretta wanted to feast her eyes upon Mae and keep watching forever. Mae Murray was still a star.

Mae studied a yellow bird outside her window, fascinated.

“Mate-zee?” Loretta said softly.

Mae turned and looked at Loretta. She squinted, put on her thick eyeglasses, and studied her guest. “Gretchen?”

“It's me!” Loretta went to her and put her arms around her.

“Are those for me?” Mae asked.

Loretta handed her the flowers.

Mae inhaled the scent. “Jesse Lasky used to send me a bouquet every Monday when I was shooting. Wasn't that nice?”

“He was one of the good ones.”

“I'll say.” Mae handed the flowers back to Loretta. “Please put them in water.”

Loretta went into the bathroom to look for a vase. There were few personal effects there, just towels stenciled with the regulation MPH and a toothbrush. She opened the cabinet over the sink. It was empty.

“There's a vase in the closet there,” Mae said.

Loretta opened the closet. There were two cotton dressing gowns on hangers and a pair of foam bedroom slippers on the floor. Mae Murray didn't even own a sweater. Loretta remembered a different closet, the one in Mae's Beverly Hills mansion. It was deep, shelves on either side, drawers with crystal pulls, dresses hung in a row on velour hangers, arranged by color. Hooks draped with beads, satin shoes displayed on raked shelves, gowns made of tulle, and coats made of sable and fox. There was a carpeted runway made of plush silk wool in Mae's signature lavender, at the end of it, a full-length mirror with three panels and a velvet stool, overhead a skylight that beamed a funnel of light where Mae would stand after dressing and check her outfit from every angle.

It was bliss to play dress-up in Mae's closet at the height of her fame as a movie star. Carlene and Loretta would write plays, then choose their costumes from Mae's wardrobe. They wore gowns trimmed in marabou feathers, delighting Mae as they dragged the trains of the skirts behind them while teetering on sequin-covered high heels.

Loretta recalled pulling on Mae's evening gloves, which smelled as sweet as fresh gardenias. She used to snoop through Mae's evening bags after a night on the town. Loretta would find a small mirror, a pack of Camels, and matchbooks from all the glamorous places that Mae would frequent: Ciro's, Mocambo, Romanoff's
.
The boxes of matches were as artful as any memento from any fancy place, and sometimes Mae wrote on them—a phone number, the title of a script
going around town that she might consider, or the name of a new hairdresser, fresh from Paris, who was making the studio rounds to find a job.

Loretta remembered the opulence. She could picture Mae's bedroom suite, the satin bedspread with ruffles of palest lilac, so pale it was almost silver. She and Carlene had played hide-and-seek in the matching draperies and danced on the plush carpet dyed to match the spread and the curtains. She remembered Mae's organza dressing gowns in the same shade, and entering the bedroom to greet Mae in the morning, thinking she looked like a cream puff in the window of Gladman's Bakery in Beverly Hills.

Loretta was devastated for Mae, but did not show it. She found a thick, plain glass vase on the shelf and went to the bathroom to fill it.

“They're my absolute favorite flowers, Gretchen. Thank you.” Mae smiled.

Loretta took a seat next to Mae.

“Are you still dancing?” Mae asked.

“Not so much.”

“I believe in dance. It's the foundation for everything. If you can't move, you can't act, you know.”

“That's true.”

“Do you mind that I still call you Gretchen?”

“Oh, no. I love it. It reminds me of the days when we were girls.”

“I named you Loretta, you know.”

Loretta nodded. The actress Colleen Moore had actually given Loretta her new name, in a scheme hatched with the director Mervyn LeRoy. But if Mae wanted to take credit, that was fine with Loretta. She smiled, thinking success had many mothers in Hollywood, and credit was always there for the taking, even now. Still, Loretta was grateful to her benefactor. She took Mae's hand. “There would have been no Loretta Young without you. You gave me music lessons, dance classes. Carlene and I loved to stay with you at the house in Bel Air.”

“It was grand. You should bring Carlene by sometime.”

“I will.”

“Remember the swing?” Mae smiled.

“You had the only house in Bel Air with a swing in the front yard.”

“Why hide it in the back? We were players, weren't we? We knew how to play.”

“You taught me where to look when the camera was rolling.”

“Oh, you came by that naturally.”

“No, everything took practice.”

“Practice over time becomes skill, dear. That's why, as soon as I'm feeling up to it, I'm going to give Lew Wasserman a call. He's the cheese now, isn't he?”

“A very powerful talent agent.”

“I'm in the mood to work again. He'd be the man to call.”

“Absolutely.”

“My third husband, what a dreadful man, really scotched everything for me. Threatened L. B. Mayer. Can you imagine that?”

Loretta shook her head. No one had ever sued Louis B. Mayer and won.

“But that wasn't the worst of it. He's still an oozing sore. Took my boy. I only had the one child, you know. Imagine, after trying so hard for so many years, I lose him because of that thug. The court gave him to a foster family. Did you read about it?”

Loretta shook her head—but in fact, she knew all about it. “Mate-zee, we can't do everything right.”

“We don't. I haven't. But what would I do—given all that time, and all those choices once again, what would I do with it?”