Starstruck (20 page)

Amanda grinned. “Not-so-secret admirer?”

“Oh, no,” Margo said, startled. “Nothing like that.” She swallowed hard. Her parents were about the last thing she wanted to discuss with Amanda Farraday. “It’s sort of an heirloom, I guess.”

“That’s right.” Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “You’re supposed to be some kind of heiress or something, aren’t you?”

“I … what?”

“You’re Margo Sterling, right? I read all about you in
Picture Palace
. They made you sound terribly top-drawer. Where are you from?”

“I … um … I grew up in Pasadena.”

“Well, la-di-da. And how did dear old mum and dad feel about daughter dearest going into the pictures?”

“Well …”

There was a deafening flush as Gabby, looking exhausted, emerged from the stall, wiping her mouth with a sheet of toilet tissue. Margo was grateful for the interruption. Surely Amanda hadn’t meant any harm, but getting this unexpected third degree had unsettled her.

“Feeling better?” Margo asked Gabby.

Gabby nodded, pointing a damp finger. “What’s
she
doing here?”

“Helping you, you ungrateful little bitch,” Amanda said cheerfully. “Come on, let’s get her out of here.”

With the stains on Gabby’s dress hidden by Amanda’s strategically draped fox-fur stole—“It belongs to the studio anyway,” Amanda said, when Margo protested—they managed to get Gabby back to the table.

“Gabs, there you are!” Jimmy exclaimed, rising to his feet and taking her by the waist in a well-rehearsed move. “I’m
feeling a little worse for the wear myself. What say you take me home? All right with you, chief?” He grinned at Larry.

“Sounds good to me.”

Jimmy led Gabby away. Margo turned to Amanda to thank her for her help, but she was already snaking a path through the palm trees to Oscar Zellman’s table. Her glittery black train trailed behind her like the fin of a mermaid’s tail.

“Well, kiddo, I guess it’s just the two of us,” Larry said. “Have a drink.”

“I’m not much of a drinker,” Margo said. “You don’t want two sick girls on your hands in one night.”

“Just a little one. People are watching, you know, and it’ll get that look off your face.”

“What look?”

“Terror.” Larry chuckled. “Abject terror.”

Margo took a small sip of champagne. It had gone warm and flat while she was in the bathroom. Larry reached over to freshen her glass. “So,” he said pleasantly. “I see you made a new friend.”

“She helped me get Gabby cleaned up.” Margo glanced over at Zellman’s table, where Amanda was chatting animatedly, a generous expanse of cleavage spilling from the top of her black dress. Oscar Zellman couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Will I ever hold a man’s attention like that?
“She paid off the bathroom attendant and everything. To keep her from talking to the press, she said.”

“Really?” Larry looked impressed. “Smart girl. How much?”

“Twenty dollars.”

Larry whistled. “Big spender. I guess I’ll have to put that on my tab.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “Let’s dance.”

Margo suddenly felt very tired. “Maybe later.”

“It’s not a request,” Larry said. “You’ve got to be seen.”

The band struck up a lively version of “It Had to Be You” as Larry led her onto the floor, guiding her expertly to a clearing in the palm trees where the cameras could get a good shot.
It’s like I’m a new car he wants to show off
.

“Smile, duchess,” Larry muttered. “Come on. People are watching.”
People are watching
. It sounded like something her mother would say.
Maybe nothing bad happened to Diana Chesterfield at all
, Margo thought suddenly.
Maybe she just needed to escape
.

The song ended, and the orchestra began to play a slow, romantic number.
“How Deep Is the Ocean,”
Margo thought. The Irving Berlin ballad had always been one of her favorite songs. The last time she danced to it was with Phipps McKendrick at the infamous Christmas dance. She’d worn a blue dress then too, she remembered, with the corsage of tiny pink roses she’d saved afterward. She wondered if it was still drying to dust in Pasadena in her top dresser drawer. Phipps had looked awfully handsome that night, with that soft lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead when he’d bent to pin the roses on her dress. It seemed like a lifetime ago.…

“Larry Julius,” said a familiar male voice. “Aren’t you the luckiest man in the room.”

Startled, Margo spun around and found herself directly in front of Dane Forrest, looking devastatingly handsome in his dinner jacket and tie. She felt her stomach make a peculiar leap, as though it had suddenly decided to throw itself off the edge of a cliff.

“Dane.” Larry scowled. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”

“I didn’t expect to be here. In fact, I was about to settle in with a good book and a glass of warm milk when I had the sudden and irresistible urge to dance with a beautiful girl. So I put on this monkey suit and came down here, and lo and behold, I see you’ve got the most beautiful one of the bunch all warmed up for me.”

“Kiddo, I believe you’ve met Mr. Forrest,” Larry said grudgingly.

“Oh, I’ve met the ravishing Miss Sterling. Although she was calling herself something different then. Lady Olivia, I think it was?” Gazing into Margo’s eyes, he gave her a long, slow smile. Margo’s head was spinning.
Oh God
, she thought.
What if I really am going to be sick?
“So what do you say?” Dane continued. “Mind if I cut in?”

Larry looked concerned. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Oh, come on, Julius. You can’t possibly keep her to yourself all night. They’ll be scraping the remains of the brokenhearted men off the Hollywood sign come morning.”

Larry’s eyes darted toward the cadre of reporters hovering at the edge of the dance floor, notebooks and cameras poised to commit to press even the slightest hint of tension between publicist and star. “All right. One dance.
One
.”

“In that case, Margo, we better hurry.” Dane smirked. “Or it’ll be over before it’s even begun.”

Trembling, Margo moved wordlessly into Dane’s arms. It was overwhelming to be so close to him again. She took a few deep
breaths, feeling the weight of his warm hand on her back, inhaling the clean, musky scent of him from the collar of his jacket.

“Sterling,” Dane said. “Not bad.”

“I … Excuse me?”

“The last name. Certainly better than Funkhauser or Furgenbluger or whatever you started out with. And Margo. Very French, very marquee-ready. I wonder what genius came up with that.”

Margo laughed. “As a matter of fact, my housekeeper used to call me that when I was a little girl.”

“Housekeeper.” Dane snorted. “That’s right.
Picture Palace
made you sound pretty top-of-the-heap.”

If he read that story in
Picture Palace,
then he must have seen the one about Diana being declared officially missing
, Margo thought suddenly. But somehow, this didn’t seem like the time or place to bring that up. “That story may have been a bit exaggerated.”

“They usually are.” Dane chuckled. “My studio biography says I’m descended from a line of pirate kings and I tamed my first wild Arabian stallion at the age of seven. But of course, that’s all true, so maybe I’m not the best example. Anyway, it was a nice feature,” he continued. “Nice picture too. Pity it had to be overshadowed by Diana. But then, she’s always been good at that. Overshadowing people.”

Margo drew her breath in sharply. It was a shock, hearing Dane speak Diana’s name.
Of course
, she thought,
this must be horrible for him, unless …
Dane’s face was perfectly neutral, but there was something dark and unreadable in his eyes.

“Now, never mind that,” Dane said. “I want to hear all about you. How are you getting along?”

“Oh, fine, I guess …”

Dane smiled. “But?”

“Well, it’s all terribly exciting, naturally,” Margo said. “I mean, sometimes I wake up in the morning and just have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

“You don’t have to give the studio-approved speech to me,” Dane said. “I don’t have a notepad at the ready.”

Margo blushed. “Do you really want to know?”

“Sure. After your screen test, well … I’ve been thinking about you.” Dane looked almost shy. “I guess I feel a little responsible, that’s all. For getting you into this mess.”

“Well, in that case …”
He’s been thinking about me!
The very idea made Margo want to sing. “I guess it’s not exactly what I expected. So far, it just seems like a lot of self-improvement.”

“ ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’ and all that jazz? Or have they started bringing out the analysts?” He spoke in a fake German accent. “Vell, Miss Sterling, tell me about your saddest memories and zen I vill tell you how it vill help you cry on cue.”

“Oh, no.” Margo shook her head. “We haven’t even discussed any acting yet. Mostly, we talk about my hair. Center part or side part? Should the curl go on the right side or the left? And then, when the subject of hair has been exhausted, we talk about eyebrows. How thin, how high, how arched? And don’t even get me started on lips. The lips are an ongoing debate. Red or pink? Full or thin? Cupid’s-bow or straight across?”

“Lips are terribly important,” Dane said.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. But over the past four days I’ve gone from Clara Bow to Joan Crawford to looking like someone socked me in the mouth, and I still don’t think the question has been resolved to anyone’s satisfaction.”

“Well, they look all right to me.” His face was suddenly very
close to hers.
Dear God
, Margo thought, her stomach churning with a mixture of joy and terror,
is he going to kiss me?
“And are you making friends?”

It was the last thing she expected him to ask her. “Making friends?”

Dane smiled sadly. “It can be pretty lonely on the lot if you don’t have someone you can trust.”

He’s trying to tell me something
, Margo realized.
What?
“Well, Gabby Preston has been very nice. Larry Julius’s office sent over a big bunch of flowers when I first arrived. And there are so many people in and out all the time, and there’s so much to do, the photo shoots and the wardrobe fittings and the movement lessons and etiquette lessons …” Margo wrinkled her nose, remembering the funny little man who had tried very hard to convince her that she was holding her soup spoon incorrectly, having had no idea of what a rigorous bastion of proper cutlery handling the Frobisher dining table had been. “I’m hardly ever alone.”

“I asked if you were lonely.” Dane’s arms tightened around her, pulling her close. “That’s different from being alone.” Her cheek fell against his chest. To her startled delight, she realized his heart was beating almost as quickly as hers. For the first time in a long time, Margo felt safe. So safe and wonderful and warm that she didn’t notice anything else.

Not Amanda Farraday’s piercing stare. Not Larry Julius’s furious expression as he came storming across the floor.

And certainly not the blinding glare of flashbulbs that popped everywhere around them.

Dancing Duo Says: Diana Who?

T
hat was the headline all of Hollywood woke up to the next morning, trumpeted across the front page of
Variety
, from where it would trickle down to every two-bit gossip rag in town. In the movie business, bad news traveled at the speed of high-grade celluloid. By that evening, the consensus would be set: Diana Chesterfield was a vanished angel, a martyred saint. And Margo Sterling, a seventeen-year-old girl who barely two months ago was walking across a classroom in a girls’ school in Pasadena with a stack of books balanced on her head, was a cold-blooded home wrecker who had probably gotten rid of poor St. Diana herself.

Naturally, Margo’s newly installed telephone had been ringing off the hook.

Gabby, who seemed never to sleep, called at the crack of dawn promising to come by for “moral support and crisis management” just as soon as she could sneak away from the Tully Toynbee set. Next on the line was Amanda Farraday, which was more surprising, since one, she hadn’t struck Margo as a particularly early riser, and two, she couldn’t for the life of her think how Amanda had gotten her number.

“I think it’s just terrible,” Amanda had said, “the way these people twist the most innocent situations into something tawdry just to sell their lousy papers. It was bad enough when bottom-feeding scandal sheets like
Broadway Brevities
used to pull stunts like this, but
Variety
? They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I just want you to know I’m here for you, Margo. Anything you need to talk about, I’ll listen.”

She sounded so sincere that Margo was tempted to take her up on it. Dane’s words from the night before rang in her ear:
You need to have someone you can trust
. There was really only one person she wanted to talk to. She politely hung up with Amanda and placed a new call.

“Winthrop residence,” the familiar voice answered.