Star (34 page)

“I forgot to give you that this morning. I’m awfully sorry, Crystal. I don’t usually make mistakes like that.” He smiled, and he looked as though he was accustomed to being forgiven. He was accustomed to a lot of things, things Crystal had never even dreamed of.

“What is it?” She opened the envelope cautiously and was surprised to see a check, and when she took it out of the envelope, she saw that he had signed it. Why was he giving her more money, he had already given her five
hundred dollars for clothes, as an “advance,” but an advance on what, she wondered, and as she looked up, she saw that he was smiling.

“It’s the money I owe you for signing the contract. You don’t expect to seal a major business deal with just a kiss, do you? Although I must say, if that’s the case, I’d rather like it.” Crystal looked at him in embarrassment. She didn’t understand anything about their business arrangements.

“You owe me that?” She looked amused, and suddenly delighted. She hadn’t even started the picture yet and she was already making money. And living like a queen in the hotel where he’d set her up. Who ever said Hollywood was tough? They must have been crazy … but then again they didn’t know Ernie Salvatore. She’d rolled in right at the top, just as Pearl had told her.

“Actually, my dear, I owe you twenty-five hundred. But the five hundred for clothes was an ‘advance’ from me, as I mentioned, so I subtracted it from your check.” He didn’t want her feeling as though she owed him too much, not yet anyway, or it would scare her off. And that was not what he wanted. She had to feel as though she was earning the money from him, and she was. He had made a fat fee on her that afternoon, for her very first picture. And from that, he would pay her a small salary, and pocket the rest, which was the agreement she had signed in his office that morning. “I’ll set you up at my bank, Crystal. You can open an account tomorrow morning.” She had never had a bank account before, and the idea excited her, as she took another sip of the champagne he had poured, and then in a little while he stood up, and told them to have a good evening. He smiled down at Crystal as she walked him to the door, and he kissed her cheek before he left, but this time there seemed nothing strange about him, and she was even beginning
to like him. Who wouldn’t have, as Pearl said. He was so good to them. The fancy hotel, the suite, the champagne, and Crystal was grinning as she waved her first check after he left them.

“I’m not sure if I should spend it or frame it.” But the next morning, she decided easily on the former. After Ernie’s secretary called her that morning with the information, she went to his bank and then to a jewelry store across the street, and bought Pearl the charm bracelet she had been staring at earlier. She had been fascinated by it, because all the charms were related to the movies. Dark glasses, a megaphone, tiny klieg lights with a diamond in them, a gold director’s chair, and a little chalkboard that actually snapped open and shut like the ones they were going to use on the set of Crystal’s first movie. Pearl cried as Crystal put it on her, and they spent the rest of the afternoon laughing and talking and acting like tourists. Ernie had offered them the limousine again, and it never dawned on them that he had done it to keep track of exactly what Crystal was doing. It just seemed like an enormous kindness to them, and the driver was very pleasant.

The voice coach came to meet her that afternoon, and when she sang for him at the piano in the suite, he was surprised by how good she was. It was just too bad she wasn’t going to have a singing part in the movie. He was also doubling as drama coach for her, and he gave her several pointers about the script and told her not to worry. And before they knew it, the week had flown by and Pearl had left, with tears and hugs and promises to call her. And suddenly Crystal was alone in Hollywood. Her dreams had come true, she was starting work on a movie the next day, and as she went for a long walk in the cool night air, she suddenly found herself thinking of Spencer. She wondered where he was and what he was
doing and who he was with. If he was in Korea, or back home, and if he ever missed her. But no matter how hard she tried, she found she could never erase him from her mind, or forget the two magical weeks they had spent together. And no matter what else happened in her life, she knew she would always love him. He was still as vivid in her mind as he had been the day he left, and the days before … and as when she was fourteen and fell in love with him at first sight, at her sister’s wedding.

“My, my, that’s a serious face. You ought to remember that for a dramatic part.” The voice spoke just behind her, and she wheeled around in surprise, to find herself looking up at Ernie. She was only a few blocks from the hotel, but she had been miles away in her own mind and she hadn’t heard him approach. “I thought you might be lonely without your friend, so I dropped by to see how you are. And they told me at the desk you had gone out for a walk. Mind if I join you?”

“Of course not.” He had been so kind to her, how could she object to anything he did? And in truth, she had been feeling very lonely. And thinking of Spencer never helped. It was always a blow to remember how he had simply faded away into silence. It had happened between them before … between Becky’s wedding and the christening of their baby … and then until they’d met again in San Francisco the Thanksgiving he’d gotten engaged, and then again just before he left for Korea. But this time had been different. She hadn’t slept with him before. She hadn’t loved him as she did now. But there was no point thinking about it anymore. There was nothing she could do about it. He had given her up, he had stopped writing to her, or even answering her letters, and she knew he had lost interest long before that. From letters filled with love and telling her how much he missed
her they had drifted down to barely more than postcards and then nothing.

“Are you excited about tomorrow?” Ernie smiled down at her benevolently and reminded her about her movie.

“Very much so.” She was honest with him, and he liked her aura of fresh excitement. It was a nice change after the jaded starlets he usually went out with.

“You’re going to be very good. Maybe next time we’ll get you a singing part and really show them your stuff.” He had heard her sing on the screen test, and he knew just how good she was. But he had wanted to launch the face before he worried about the rest, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

“I’d like that a lot.” She missed singing, even in the few days since she had left San Francisco.

“Your voice coach says you’re terrific.”

“Thank you.” She smiled at him, and he could almost feel his body tremble as he watched her. And then suddenly he had a thought, as long as he was going to play father confessor to her, or benevolent tutor, he might as well take her to dinner.

“Have you ever been to the Brown Derby?” He asked innocently, but he already knew from his driver that she hadn’t. He got reports of her activities daily. He wanted to be sure that she wasn’t a little whore, sleeping around, damaging his and her own reputation. But so far she’d kept her nose clean, maybe because her friend from San Francisco was there. But he suspected she would anyway. He had even wondered once or twice if she was still a virgin. She was that kind of girl, and he liked that. It would make it that much easier to groom her.

“No, I haven’t.” She smiled at him, all innocence, and all startling beauty. In any light, in any outfit, dressed, combed, or in blue jeans, the girl was a knockout.

“Would you like to go there for dinner tonight? But I warn you, if we go, I’m going to bring you home very early. You have to get a good night’s sleep before you start work tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.” But her eyes had lit up like Christmas. “I’d really like that.” Her ingenuousness amused him. She was going to be a good one.

He glanced at his watch, calculated quickly, and offered to walk her back to the hotel and pick her up again in an hour. He was wearing gray flannel slacks and a light tweed jacket, and he wanted to change into a suit before he took her to dinner. “I’ll be back at eight o’clock. And I plan to have you back home and in bed by ten, come hell or high water.” And unfortunately, without him. But Ernie was much too smart to move on her too quickly. “Sound okay to you?”

“It sounds terrific!” She leaned over to kiss his cheek, as she would have a grandfather’s, and he was ashamed as he dropped her off and slid into his Mercedes. He had a number of cars, and he had left one of his limousines at her disposal for the entire week. He preferred the Mercedes anyway, and he wanted to be alone with her tonight in any case. And he was glad he was when he picked her up and saw the beautifully cut tight white silk dress she was wearing, with a little matching jacket. She looked absolutely stunning, and he was extremely pleased he had tendered the invitation. And so was most of the dinner crowd at the Brown Derby.

She walked in, chatting easily with him about her life in the valley as a child, and then stood rooted to the spot, aware suddenly that everyone was staring at her. And they stared harder and longer when they saw who she was with. He certainly had a knack for finding the prettiest girls in town. No one could deny that, and this one was the best yet. He seemed to know everyone in the
place, and Crystal almost fainted when she saw a man who looked like Frank Sinatra walk past her. Ernie walked her slowly toward their table, greeting everyone and introducing her to names she had only dreamed of.

“Don’t look so scared.” He spoke to her very gently, and smiled. He was delighted with everyone’s reactions, and she had done well. The white dress made people stop and stare, particularly once he made her take off her jacket, which offered a generous view of cleavage. It wasn’t something she usually played on, in fact she usually went to great lengths to hide it, but Pearl had insisted she buy the dress, and she had decided to wear it to dinner at the Brown Derby. And she was glad she had. Ernie said that he loved it. And as dinner progressed, he surprised her. She felt very much at ease with him.

He was pleasant and kind, and he had very good manners. There was nothing insinuating about the way he talked to her. He wasn’t a white slaver after all, he was only a manager, as he called himself. She confessed to him then that she’d wanted to be a movie star all her life. It was a story he’d heard before, but he smiled as though this was the first time. Cary Grant was at the bar, and Rock Hudson came in to meet someone briefly and stayed for quite a while, as Crystal looked around in amazement. It was all so much more than she’d ever dared to hope for. She felt tears sting her eyes as she looked at him, and he looked suddenly worried.

“Is something wrong?”

“I can’t believe this is happening to me.” He smiled. He liked them like that. Fresh, and young. He would have liked to keep her out later that night, to get to know her better, but he wanted her rested the next day for the movie. That was more important. She was more than just a girl to him. She was an investment.

They dawdled over coffee and he told her he wanted
her seen around town on the arms of the right men, and he discreetly mentioned to her a list of those who were going to call her. She recognized some of them, and for a moment she thought that maybe he was kidding, but as she looked into his eyes, she knew he wasn’t. “Why are you doing all this for me?” She still didn’t understand him. Why her? But he knew exactly what he was doing.

“You’re going to make us both rich one day.” He smiled as though he had found a diamond in his coffee. “You’re going to be very famous.”

“How do you know that?” Why was she different from the rest? She had no sense of how spectacular she was, particularly now with the dresses he had urged her to buy and the careful makeup. It was a long way from work shirts and cowboy boots, but for the moment she didn’t miss them.

“I’ve never been wrong yet,” he boasted quietly and patted her hand as he asked for the check, and then as they waited he asked her the question he’d been wondering about since he’d met her.

“How encumbered are you romantically?” She looked pensive and he smiled. “In other words, do you have a boyfriend?” She had understood him, but she’d been thinking it over.

“No, I don’t.” Her voice was quiet and her face was sad as she thought of Spencer.

“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. But you did?” She nodded. “And where is he now?” He wanted to be sure she was free and there wouldn’t be any trouble. He could handle it of course, but he didn’t like to.

“I’m not sure where he is,” Crystal went on. “In Korea, or back in New York. Either way, it’s no longer important.” But she had to fight back tears as she said it.

And then she sat back and watched Ernie greet his friends as they drifted past them. He was attractive and gracious and he had a certain style about him that was beginning to grow on Crystal. She had never known anyone like him. She noticed too that he wore a single ring, a heavy gold piece with a good-sized diamond. His suit was expensively made, and the white shirt he wore was made by a costume maker in Las Vegas, but it looked as though it had been made by a tailor in London. There was something stylish about the man, and it was obvious that he cared about the way he looked, and there was a raw sensuality that Crystal was aware of, but there was something else too, a forcefulness that still frightened her a little bit. He concealed it well but one sensed that Ernesto Salvatore was a man who always got what he wanted. But there was no sign of that, as he turned to her with a friendly smile.

“Ready to go?” He asked amiably as he got up and led her past at least a dozen famous faces. Some of them acknowledged him but this time he didn’t stop. He just walked her to the door pretending not to notice the people staring at her, and a few minutes later he dropped her off at her hotel. She thanked him, and he left, and she went upstairs to get a good night’s sleep before starting work the next morning.

But once she was in bed, she found she couldn’t sleep, and for once she wasn’t thinking of Spencer. She was thinking about her new manager, and although she had to admit he was charming, just as Pearl had said, Crystal didn’t know why, but he scared her.