Everything and More (20 page)

Her enameled fingernails pressed into the flowered print over her thighs. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Why? It’s the finest, most sensitive work to come out of this war, and I am quoting Cerf.”

A balding young man had come over: he was Johnny Kaplan, the second assistant director. “Hi, Marylin,” he said.

“Johnny.”

“Be another fifteen minutes.” Johnny Kaplan smiled.

When he had returned to the hollow, clattering activity, Marylin
said, “Those were Linc’s personal observations about the men on the
Enterprise.”

“That’s why he fictionalized.”

“He never intended them to be published.”

“If there is one thing I am damn well certain of on this earth, Marylin, it is that every writer hungers for his words to see light of day, either in print or on a screen.”

“Not Linc.”

“How are you so positive, so richly positive? Tell me how you know what an extremely complicated young man with an IQ of over one-sixty would want. I sure as hell don’t, and,” Joshua added bleakly, “I was his father for twenty-four years.”

Those stupid tears again. She inhaled deeply, as she did to calm herself before the cameras.

He rested his arm around the back of her chair. She could feel the faint emanation of his body heat, smell his cologne and sweat. “You’ll get the royalties,” he said.

“That means the book is mine?”

“Legally and morally, yes.”

“I won’t sell it.”

“Oh, Christ! Those huge sea-colored eyes accusing me as if I had horns and a pitchfork. Listen to me, Marylin, this is not an act of necrophiliac despoilment. This is a fine and beautiful book that Linc wrote with his heart’s blood. His legacy to the world. He had no child . . .” Joshua halted abruptly, saying quietly, “Erase that, forget I said it. Don’t, Marylin.”

“I’m . . . all right.”

“Your eyelashes will come unglued, you’ll run streaks in that mucky Pan-Cake.” His arm moved around her and he clasped her padded shoulder. “No crying allowed on Magnum time—not until we make you a star.”

She managed the saddest little smile. “That’ll be the day,” she murmured, shifting from his grasp.

“We’ll discuss it at lunch. Ever been to Lucey’s across the street?”

“That’s very kind, but—”

“Stop saying no, Marylin, I say goddamn stop saying no.”

“I promised to have lunch with Johnny Kaplan, you just met him.”

“O.K., so then I’ll drive you home when the shooting’s over.”

“My car—”

“It can stay in the lot. I’ll bring you in tomorrow morning.” He got to his feet. The intense desert tan somehow increased the dictatorial power of the large, thickset body.

“All right,” she sighed.

He smiled. “See you at the main gate at five.”

*   *   *

She waited in the cold twilight, half-blinded by the headlights of cars streaming out the Magnum gate, the damp January wind slashing against her legs in their wartime rayon stockings.

I may send some of my stuff from time to time. It’s just for you.

Your writing?

It’s just for you.

Expecting Joshua either in the big Packard that had belonged to Mrs. Fernauld—Linc had used it—or his own Lincoln Continental, she did not focus on the odd, foreign-looking car that honked so insistently until the familiar gravelly voice boomed, “Marylin!”

Joshua was pushing open the door of the low-slung two-seater.

As they roared forward, she said, “I’ve never ridden in a sports car.”

“A handmade custom job. It’s a Delahaye one-thirty-five. Been working on Ronnie Colman for months to sell me this sweet hunk of perfection.”

His enthusiasm for the English racing car lulled Marylin’s tense determination to keep Linc’s last wishes.

At the apartment, Joshua walked her up the unlit wooden staircase.

“My mother is home, so we won’t have a chance to talk,” Marylin said. “But, Joshua, I want you to know I’m really serious about protecting Linc’s privacy.”

“You sweet little Mary-linn you.” Joshua’s teasing was gentle. “I’ve been holding off until we got here. Your mama’ll be on my side.”

Marylin halted, turning to him. Her soft brown hair, released from its upsweep, blew around her white face.

“Why the surprised outrage?” he asked. “Linc told you I obtain my ends by fair means or foul, didn’t he?”

“Those stories are mine, you said so.”

The large fingers clenched the rail. “Look at it from my point of view. I have a something, call it a gift, call it a goddamn albatross I carry on my back, but it’s me, my identity—you’re an actress, I don’t have to explain to you what creative work means. Now. I have an only son. He inherits my nose, my eyes, as well as my accursed gift—my blessed curse. He goes off to fight, but he sends back part of his soul, part of him as real as his eyes or his nose, then he’s goddamn killed. This book is a continuation of me, yet finer than anything I can conceive of doing. Now, I ask you, how can I allow that to be buried?”

Marylin sighed. “Joshua, Linc would have said if he intended publishing those stories.”

“He was hedging—it’s common enough with writers. He was afraid, Marylin, afraid that his work would be found wanting and rejected.”

The door was flung open. NolaBee stood outlined by the light behind her, turbaned head tilted to one side. “Marylin, is that you? We’ve been waiting. I thought we’d drive on over to the Ranch House and eat hamburgers—who’s that with you?”

“Me. Joshua Fernauld.”

“Joshua! My, what a time it’s been! Why are you standing out there in the cold? Marylin, where’re your manners?”

In the warm, messy apartment, NolaBee’s condolences washed over Joshua with a certain widowly warmth, a sharing commiseration that said “welcome to the ranks.” Roy, the makeup heavy on her freckled embarrassment, mumbled that she, too, was sorry about Mrs. Fernauld.

“Why don’t you come along with us to the Ranch House?” NolaBee asked.

“What about BJ?” Roy asked.

“She’s still in Palm Springs with her grandmother,” retorted Marylin, who had already asked this of Joshua. “Mr. Fernauld must have dinner waiting for him at his house.”

“It so happens that I’m at loose ends.” Joshua paused, looking at NolaBee. “Before we go, there’s something Marylin and I have to finish hashing out.”

NolaBee’s expression was alive with curiosity. “About Marylin’s work over at Magnum?”

“Indirectly,” he said.

“It’s about publishing Linc’s stories,” Marylin said in a beleaguered tone. Her head ached across the brow. “Nothing to do with my acting.”

“But it
is.”
Joshua sat at the old round table where a nearly empty grape-jelly jar centered a scattering of crumbs. “I hadn’t told you the best part, Marylin. I’ve finished a script of the novel.”

“You mean Linc will have a movie credit?” cried NolaBee. “Why, Joshua, I reckon you’re giving him something much better than the medals.”

“Mama,” Marylin sighed. “Those stories were never intended for publication.”

Joshua and NolaBee ignored her.

He said, “I really had two scripts. The first I outlined to sell Paramount
on the idea. Jesus, you should have heard me spinning the top dogs the story they wanted, every wartime cliché in the book. The second was the version I always intended. An honorable adaptation.”

“Aren’t you the sly one,” admired NolaBee.

“In my business, seduction’s a necessity. Paramount has plans to make it as a big-budget A. I’m counting on Leland to convince them to borrow Marylin for the part of Rain.”

NolaBee gasped. “No!”

“Wowee!” cried Roy.

Marylin stared reproachfully at Joshua, and went to pour herself a glass of water, holding her wet fingers against her painful brow. “The book belongs to me,” she said sharply. “It’s not going to be sold.”

NolaBee said, “Marylin, you’re being right silly. Linc would have wanted this movie—”

“No, NolaBee,” Joshua interrupted. “The book yes, the movie no. But I’ve been working at Paramount long enough to know their publicity is tops.
Island
would be promoted in the grand style. Big drums banging all the time, à la
Gone with the Wind.
The hoopla would be the making of Marylin.”

“This is your chance, darlin’,” cried NolaBee. “If you don’t grab it, you’ll be playing tacky little bits forever.”

“Linc wouldn’t want it,” Marylin said stubbornly.

“But this is what all I’ve worked and slaved for.” NolaBee’s voice was heavy with blackmailing maternal reproach.

“I’m starved,” Roy put in. “Can’t we discuss this at the Ranch House?”

They sat at one of the Ranch House’s barbecue tables eating oblong rare hamburgers, salad, and crusty hash-browns. Marylin, whose headache had resurged violently, toyed with her food. Joshua watched her reflexively, his obsidian eyes unreadable.

When NolaBee, perky and bright-eyed next to him, brought up the matter of Linc’s book, Joshua derailed the subject. When you were with Joshua Fernauld, he dominated. They did not speak of
Island
again that night.

*   *   *

The next few days, NolaBee worked ceaselessly on Marylin. Though desperately unhappy and prey to uncontrollable weeping fits, the girl nevertheless steeled herself to resist her mother, an unspeakably difficult task when being bombarded with veiled reminders of personal self-abnegation, of sacrifices and unending toil aimed toward this precise chance.

In the end it was Marylin’s own clamoring memories that broke her. She would question herself over and over whether Linc’s ambition had been to make it as a writer. The answer always came up the same. He had. If only to prove something to his father. It would be harshest inequity to doom his work to the eternal darkness of the drawer of her bedside table.

Angels
came in on its twelve-day shooting schedule, and Joshua dropped by for the wrap party. It was a low-budget film, so the refreshments were simple: Coca-Cola, potato chips, and cookies. Offering him a soft drink, Marylin told him in a low stammer, “Go ahead with the publisher and the script, Joshua.”

He spiked his drink, gazing over the paper cup at her. There was an intensity in his look that caught her like a lasso, and she could do nothing but gaze back at him, wondering at the thoughts behind the craggy features. Suddenly she shivered.

  
18
  

This, from
Saturday Review,
April 7, like all other reviews, blessed
Island
for its gem-perfect detail, lyrical clarity, its understated wartime drama, and concluded with an elegiac paragraph for the loss of so great a talent as Lieutenant (jg) Lincoln Fernauld.

Random House advertised nationally, the Book of the Month Club selected
Island,
but it was the massive studio publicity campaign about the search for Rain Fairburn, the beautiful, tenderly young heroine, that put the novel across. For three months,
Island
fever swept the country.

John Garfield, borrowed from Warner’s, was cast as Lieutenant Nesbitt. On June 6, 1944, D-Day (when Allied soldiers slogged through the surf, fought, bled, and died on Normandy beaches rechristened with the un-Gallic names Omaha, Utah, Gold, Sword, and Juno), shooting began on
Island.
As yet no Rain Fairburn had been found.