Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (65 page)

     Andrea made her way back to the Chinese Room and took a seat in the leather wing chair. She had brought Marion's diary with her.

     "Talkies arrived," Marion had written, "and Hollywood was thrown into a panic. The unspoken question everywhere was, Who is going to make it, and who is not? Many of us had bad voices, many of us simply could not act. So many big-time actors and actresses were big-time solely because they looked good on film, not because they could act. My darling Dexter kept telling me not to worry, that I would do fine in talking pictures. He told me he was developing a special feature, just for me, with sound and talking and everything. It frightened me. I was twenty-two years old and still not sure of myself.

     "But I survived, I did make it into talkies. Not all of us did. Poor John Gilbert—I do wonder if he was the victim of sabotage, as some claim. And my sweet Rudy. Valentino would never have survived talking pictures; his Italian accent was too thick, no one could understand him. I mourned with the world when he died. He had been such a dear friend, and a polished lover. After his death, Rudy was branded by men who called him a 'pink powder puff.' But it was their own insecurities and jealousies speaking, because they couldn't have been more wrong. Darling Rudy was a consummate sensualist, and he knew—oh, he
knew
—how to please a woman.

     "But I made it into talking pictures. In fact, the public went wild for my voice.
Variety
said that it reminded one of mink. In 1929, Ramsey produced and directed the biggest-budget movie of all time,
Queen of the Nile
, and I was the star. It was for this movie that he made me perfect the head toss that was to become my signature. When
Queen of the Nile
came out, it caused a sensation.

     "It also made me the highest-paid actress in the world and such a phenomenon in Hollywood that Ramsey calculated it was time for us to become lovers.

     "There was no romantic buildup, no getting into the mood, none of the atmospheric devices he used in his films. We had just finished dinner one night and he said, 'Let's go to bed.' Looking back, I wonder if he had been building me up so that I would be worthy of him. A man like Dexter Bryant Ramsey didn't go to bed with just any woman. He had romanced ladies of title and distinction. Gertrude Winkler, the daughter of a Fresno shoe salesman, did not match up to Ramsey's high standards. But now I was Marion Star; now I could grace his bed.

     "How strange to think that, after all the men I had been with, that I should be nervous that first time with Dex. I was bashful, like a bride, and almost reluctant to remove my nightgown. So Dexter did it for me. Actually, he ripped it off my body. Literally. It startled me and frightened me a little. And when we made love—could one call what we did making love?—it was more like an assault. I was too young and, despite my bedroom experiences, too naïve to understand at the time that, after having such Svengali-like power over me for five years, Ramsey still needed to exert his dominance.

     "We became the king and queen of Hollywood after that. Everyone worshiped us, there was nothing we could not have. We ruled the world from our love retreat on Mount San Jacinto, and we held parties to which only the very specially chosen could come.

     "It was there, at Star's Haven, that I bore our love child. Dexter had made me abort my other pregnancies, but since this one was his, he let me keep it. I named her Lavinia, for the character in
Her Wicked Ways.
"

     Andrea closed the book; it was the last page of the diary. She stared at the blown-up photograph that dominated the room: Marion's face, dark and smouldering, smoky eyes that swam with sensuality and sadness.

     And suddenly Andrea wondered: Marion Star had disappeared in 1932.
Was it possible she was still alive?

     "How is your project coming?" Carole asked as she watched Larry dive into the pool. They were not swimming in one of their private bungalow pools but in the giant indoor pool at the Castle, where guests sat on marble islands out in the water or walked across the romantic bridge that was a replica of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice.

     "What project?" Larry said when he surfaced, flipping glistening black hair out of his eyes.

     She laughed. She thought he was joking. "The Marion Star project!"

     "Oh, that." He pulled himself out of the pool. This was his fifth dive; he was doing it not for his own pleasure, but to show off his muscles to Carole, as if to say, Can you just imagine what this body can do in bed? He climbed out and sat next to her, reached out and touched her throat. "Do you wear these
all
the time?" he asked, meaning the pearl necklace Sanford had given to her before she had left for Star's. She was wearing a bikini, hardly a pearl necklace outfit.

     "All the time," she said.

     He grinned. "Even in bed?"

     "Come on, Larry, about your new screenplay. Who are you thinking of casting in the role of Marion?"

     "Why? Are you interested?"

     As she ran her hands through her ash-blond hair, she saw his eyes flicker to her breasts. "It could be a challenging role," she said.

     "For a twenty-five-year-old."

     "Well," she said, "with the right lighting, makeup..."

     "And George Lucas on the special effects."

     She stood, gathered up her towel and lotions, and walked to one of the private changing rooms; she shut the door but didn't lock it.

     "Hey!" Larry said, running after her. "I was only joking!" He knocked. "Come on, Carole. Lighten up."

     "Go away!"

     He forced his way in and pressed up against her. "Is it that important to you? Do you really want the part?"

     She put her hands on his chest and gave him a shove. "Get out!"

     "Listen," he said, reaching for her. The cubicle barely had room for two people; he had no trouble getting an arm around her. "I said I was sorry. I thought you could take a joke."

     "I was serious, Larry," she said, trying to twist away from him. "I could do that part."

     "Okay," he said, "so you were serious." He pinned her against the wall and began to kiss her.

     She pushed him away again, but halfheartedly.

     He pulled at her bikini top and it fell away. "All right. Let's talk about it," he said thickly.

     Carole knew she had him then, but this was not the place. She had to get something in writing, a signature...

     "Not here," she said breathlessly.

     "Yes—"

     "Larry, I'll have to scream."

     He laughed. "What do you want? Champagne and roses?"

     
I want my husband.
"Why not? If I'm going to have my first affair, don't I have the right to want it to be perfect?"

     He gave her a long look, his hand squeezing her breast. "Okay," he said. "We could make a night of it. Just you and me."

     "Tomorrow night," she said. "After the Christmas ball, come to my bungalow..."

     Andrea had the bungalow to herself, since Larry, she assumed, was off somewhere trying to seduce Carole Page. She was at her typewriter, working up the proposal she and Larry were going to show to Mr. Yamato when he arrived day after tomorrow—a story line that Andrea was making so delicious that she knew Mr. Yamato would love it.

     The deal with the Tokyo businessman had been her idea, even though Larry thought it had been his. After the humiliation of the awards ceremony, in which Larry had not acknowledged Andrea's contribution to his work—hell, her entire responsibility for his supposed work—her first impulse had been to march backstage, tell him off in front of everyone, and then walk out. But as she had watched Larry preen for the cameras and frankly tell
everyone that, yes, he
was
a gifted writer, Andrea had decided to hold off and bide her time.

     She pretended everything was as usual while she searched for just the right way to take her revenge. It came to her a few weeks later, when she read about Mr. Yamato, listed as the fourth-richest man in Japan, who had a thing for Marion Star. He was an avid collector and often amazed guests at parties by reciting all the dialogue from one of her movies, straight through without making an error. When Andrea recalled hearing that Marion Star's diary had been found during some remodeling at Star's Haven, her plan for revenge was born. That was when she began her campaign to get Larry interested in the Marion Star story, planting in his mind the suggestion that he might want to write that screenplay and get Yamato to back the movie. After engineering a meeting between the two men, which again Larry had somehow thought was his own doing, she then convinced Larry that, since it was sure to be such a box office hit, he would be wise to put some of his own money into the project.

     She wasn't aiming for simple public humiliation; she wanted Larry's financial ruin as well.

     Andrea went to the bar and poured herself a drink. It went down as deliriously as her anticipation of the look on Larry's face tomorrow night, when she gave him his Christmas "present" at the ball. Everything was in place, her plan was set in motion.

     In just over twenty-four hours she was going to be a free woman, on her own for the first time in seventeen years. She knew exactly what she was going to do with that freedom. The first thing was to explore whether Marion Star might still be alive, and also find out what became of Lavinia, her love child.

     And then she was thinking of seeing if she could find Chad McCormick, whom she hadn't seen since their brief but magical affair in New Mexico eleven years ago. She had heard that he was living in L.A. now and that he wasn't married...

     
Beverly Hills, California, 1975

T
HE MANSION ON THE HILL WAS SO AUDACIOUSLY ILLUMINATED
that it looked like the Parthenon ready for tourists. A stream of cars entered the massive wrought-iron gates; at the front door, maids greeted the arriving guests, taking coats and wraps and giving the ladies small corsages of winter roses. The party was being held in the terraced garden at the rear of Philippa's new house where, under a striped awning, a band was playing. As newly arrived guests emerged onto the flagstone terrace and into the cool evening air, they saw a breathtaking view as the hillside sloped away from the house down into the canyon. Fairy lights twinkled in the trees; spotlights hidden in the grass cast upward beams on statues and bushes; the enormous swimming pool glowed with shimmering pale blue water. Under a magnificent canopy a feast had been set out: long tables with hams and roast beefs, each with a white-coated chef in attendance, carving knife ready; crystal bowls of artistically arranged salads; and
chafing dishes of steaming delicacies. Young men in red jackets and tight black pants circulated through the crowd with platters of hors d'oeuvres.

     Everyone ate and drank without reserve, because this was not exactly a "free" party—it was an event to raise money for Philippa's personal charity, Vietnamese war orphans. People were willing to write large checks for the opportunity to dance under the stars and hobnob with celebrities on an extravagant terrace that was said to have been patterned after the one at Versailles.

     Philippa moved among her guests, wearing a simple long pale yellow gown with a white fur wrap because of the chilly evening, stopping to talk with people she knew and to be introduced to those she didn't—movie people who lived in estates nearby, politicians, bigwigs from universities and medical centers, the heads of corporations, doctors, lawyers, artists, and writers. A mix, but a wealthy mix. Being the president of such a large corporation as Starlite Industries, which was now traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Philippa enjoyed at last holding an A-list party.

     As she stood with the mayor and his wife beside the pool, where fountains splashed at both ends, her gaze moved up to the third floor of her Tudor mansion, where a light glowed in one of the bedroom windows. She was filled with an almost unbearable yearning. That was where she wanted to be—up there, where her heart had already gone.

     Philippa had learned, during her gradual rise in success and wealth, the art of appearing interested while her mind was really on other things. Smiling at the mayor and his wife, she drew her gaze from the bedroom window and took another quick look at the French doors opening onto the terrace, where guests were coming and going; she searched for the face she most wanted to see tonight. He hadn't arrived yet. He had promised he would come, but he wasn't here yet.

     When she returned her attention to the mayor's wife, who was praising her, Philippa experienced one of the strange flashes she had been having lately. It wasn't a physical phenomenon, but a mental one, in which, quite out of the blue, she was suddenly ripped out of herself and taken to the edge of the crowd, where she observed the scene with an objective eye. And it would amaze her, in that split second before her self came flying back into her body again, to think that all this—the mansion, the guests, the waiters-was
all hers. She had fulfilled her vow that someday she was going to be somebody. What would Johnny Singleton think of his little Dolly now?