The Property of a Lady (54 page)

Dick told them over supper exactly how his jaw had dropped, and repeated exactly what C. Z. had said to him and what he had said to C. Z., and accepted their congratulations warily. “It’s only a test,” he warned.

After a sleepless night he was at the studios at six. This time the guard dropped his wisecracks and told him politely he was to go to Studio B.

Mitzi Harmoney was already there, having her makeup applied, and a couple of dozen extras were eating sandwiches and waiting around. The producer shook his hand and said, “C. Z. says you’re to take over this set today. He says just to do it your way.”

Dick gulped. No foolin’, this was his big chance; his first day on the set and he was directing a star. Jeez, he’d just better not screw up, that’s all. He glanced through the shooting script and quickly made a few amendments. Then he checked the shots with the cameraman, telling him precisely what he wanted, and then he spoke to Mitzi.

As he described what he had in mind, she nodded approvingly. At twenty she was a shrewd professional who had been working in movies since she was fourteen. She came from a family of vaudevillians and knew exactly how to construct a gag, and she knew he did too.

“Let’s go,” she said, sauntering outside into the sunshine.

They finished at seven that night. Though it had been a long, grueling day, Dick wasn’t the least bit tired and he
just hated to leave. When he was told to report again tomorrow for another test he couldn’t believe his luck. He was called back the next day and the next—six in all, working on different movies or bits of movies and loving every minute of it. At the end of the week they handed him a pay packet containing a hundred dollars and told him they would let him know.

Two days went by, then three, a week … that weekend was the longest he had ever known. He knew he had screwed up and C. Z. wasn’t interested in him anymore. Then on Sunday night Beulah called him to the phone. “Some man says he’s C. Z. Abrams,” she said, thrusting the receiver at him.

“Abrams!” Dick grabbed the phone to his ear. “Yes, sir?” he said, his voice suddenly squeaky with nerves.

“I have been viewing your films here at my house,” Abrams said quietly. “There is something I would like to discuss with you. Please be at my office tomorrow at nine.”

“Nine! Yes, sir, I’ll be there!” he yelled, but Abrams had already put down the phone.

The office was cool, the white walls bare, the big solid desk immaculately tidy. And C. Z. Abrams, dark, cleanshaven, and unsmiling, in a cool gray suit and pale-blue shirt, looked tanned and rested and powerful.

“I have a deal to make with you,” he said, leaning forward across the desk and clasping his hands together. “And I will tell you why. I am a man who acts on instinct, a gut reaction to circumstances and people around me. You may have heard that I fire men I cannot trust. Now my instincts tell me I can trust you. I liked what you did last week. All of it was good, some of it brilliant. I am offering you the job as director of
Scheherazade.”

Dick gulped. “Jeez,” he whispered, taking off his glasses and polishing them agitatedly, “but that’s gonna be one of the most expensive movies ever made!”

“So it is,” C. Z. said coolly. “And you had better do a
helluva job on it because both your future and mine will rest on its outcome.” He stood up and said briskly, “My lawyers will discuss the terms of the contract with you. It will be fair, you can be sure of that. I will be producing the movie myself and we will assemble the cast together. My secretary will escort you to the attorney’s office. Good day, Mr. Nevern.”

Dick turned at the door and said, “Why me, C. Z.? When you could have anybody you wanted?”

Abramski smiled. “When I was just beginning someone asked me how I knew I could be a moviemaker. I told him ‘I just know I can.’ That man believed me. You answered my question the same way, and now I believe you.”

Dick walked out of the office on air, barely hearing what the lawyers said to him and caring even less. He was to direct
Scheherazade
and C. Z. was to produce. He had died and gone to heaven.

O’Hara bought four magnums of the best French champagne for the celebration. “A young buck like you directing a grand picture like
Scheherazade,”
he marveled, slapping Dick on his puny back with a mighty hand. “Sure and this C. Z. must be some kinda special guy, picking you off the streets like that.”

“He’s special all right,” Dick said, edging away from him, coughing, “and you got it in one, Mr. O’Hara. He told me yesterday that he’d picked himself off the streets more than once and that’s why he felt good about giving an unknown a chance.”

“What is he like?” Missie asked curiously.

“Like? Oh, medium height, thick black hair, dark eyes that can be cold as ice or soft as a roe deer. Handsome, I’d say—
and
he’s the best-dressed man I’ve ever seen. Immaculate from top to toe, even in this heat. But he’s a real mystery man. No one really knows him. They say he pays fair and that he’s just—and that he knows where every last buck is spent. Nothing gets past C. Z.—he even knows how much last week’s postage stamps cost. And yet he sends everyone big bunches of flowers and buys his stars real big presents. Yeah, he’s some kinda guy all right.”

“Well, here’s to C. Z. then,” O’Hara said as Rosa, Missie, Beulah, and the boarders raised their glasses in a toast. “And to young Dick Nevern’s grand success with
Scheherazade.”

“I expect you’ll be leaving us now you’ve come into
money,” Rosa said resignedly, thinking that would always be the way it was; as soon as the young hopefuls made some money and at last she could be sure of her rent, they would move on to a grand apartment of their own.

“The fact is I’ll be working early till late and I’ll have to move nearer the studio,” he confessed, “but I’m keeping on my room, Rosa. Just in case.”

“Oh, but you’ll never come back,” Azaylee wailed suddenly. “I just know you won’t. It’s all going to be different again.”

Tears stood in her eyes and they glanced at her, alarmed.

“It won’t change, Azaylee,” Dick said gently, “I’ll still have my room here, with my things in it. And I’ll come and see you all as often as I can. You know what?” he added with a grin, “I’ll even get you a little part in
Seheherazade
—if you’re a good girl, that is.”

“You will?” Her eyes shone with excitement, all tears forgotten. “Can I dance in it?”

“We’ll see,” he promised. He looked around at their beaming faces, at Marshall and Millie, Lilian and Mary, Ben and the others. “In fact, you will
all
have a role in
Scheherazade.”
His fair-skinned face was red with excitement and champagne. “The kids too. It’s my thanks to Rosa and to Missie for letting me owe my rent and to all of you for putting up with my dreams.”

As the cheers went up O’Hara refilled their glasses. “Hold it, hold it,” he bellowed. “I have something important to say to you all. I have known Rosa Perelman and Missie O’Bryan for a long time, and for years I’ve been askin’ one of them to be me wife. All I’ve ever gotten is a ‘maybe’ or ‘ask me again in a year.’ A lot of water has gone under all our bridges since then and it’s just this week that I’ve found the woman I love again. And I love her more than anything on God’s earth.” Turning to Missie, he said quietly, “Missie, I’m telling all these people that I loves you, but what I really want to do is to tell the
world. I’m asking you to marry me, Missie, and I’d be obliged if this time you’d give me a straight answer.”

Missie’s eyes linked with his and it was as if there were no one else in the room, just Missie and O’Hara. His big handsome face shone with anxiety and he looked as if he were holding his breath, waiting for her answer. He looked so rock solid and honest and was so blatantly in love with her that he was not ashamed to show his feelings in front of a roomful of people. “O’Hara,” she said, “I only wish I had said yes a long time ago….”

“Then you
will
marry me?” he demanded.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she whispered.

“B’jaysus,” he bellowed, clasping her in his arms, laughing and crying as the others cheered. “You’re mine at last, Missie!”

After planting a big kiss on her mouth, he pulled a box from his pocket. “I went to the classiest jeweler’s in New York and got you this—just in case,” he added with a broad wink to the others as he opened the box and showed her a large brilliant-cut diamond from Cartier. “And a matching wedding band,” he said excitedly. “What d’you think of that, me darlin’?”

“Oh, they’re beautiful, just beautiful,” she murmured, “and far too grand for me.”

“Nothing
is too grand for the wife of King O’Hara,” he exclaimed fiercely. “Why, I’d give me very life for you, Missie O’Bryan. The future Missie O’Hara!” he added with another wink. And then Winona sat down at the piano and thundered out the wedding march and he whirled her round and round in his arms. And in the flurry of excitement and congratulatory kisses no one noticed that Azaylee had disappeared.

It was dark on the porch and she lay down beside Viktor, burying her blond head in his neck so that her tears disappeared into his fur. “It’s all going to change again, Viktor,
milochka,”
she muttered, “I know it. They’ll want to leave here and go live somewhere else.” Her thin
arms clutched at him and he licked her face comfortingly. “But you and I will never leave,” she promised fiercely. “Never, never, never.”

Golden lamplight spilled out across the grass and the music grew even gayer and the pop of champagne corks and the sound of laughter stole across the quiet street. But there was no joy for Azaylee as she sobbed herself to sleep, curled up next to her beloved dog.

The wedding was arranged for eleven-thirty the following Saturday morning at the Little Brown Church on Hollywood Boulevard, and everyone was invited. Azaylee was to be a bridesmaid and Rosa the matron of honor.

“I’ve never set foot in a church before,” she confessed to Missie, “but since there’s only one God then yours and mine must be the same.”

Dresses were bought quickly, flowers ordered, and a wedding breakfast arranged at the Hotel Hollywood. When the big day dawned, calm and clear and blue as all the others, O’Hara put on his silver-gray morning suit and silk top hat. He added a large gray pearl stickpin to his cravat and a purple carnation to his lapel and departed for the church half an hour early.

The boarders dressed in their finest, borrowing hats and pinning on each other’s corsages, leaving in a flurry of excitement, and taking Rosa’s girls with them.

“Nu
, Azaylee,” she said, inspecting her critically, “did anybody ever tell you you are a beauty? Because it’s for certain you are lovely enough to be a movie star already.”

Azaylee’s long golden eyes opened wide and she touched her ruffled lemon-yellow organza skirts shyly as she said, “Do you really think I could be a movie star, Rosa?”

Rosa grabbed her close and kissed her. “This very day, if Mr. C. Z. Abrams ever saw you,” she replied firmly, looking relieved when the girl laughed. Azaylee had been too quiet these last few days and it worried her. The child
didn’t seem jealous because Missie was marrying O’Hara; she just didn’t know what was the matter and Azaylee wasn’t saying. Azaylee gasped and Rosa swung around and stared at Missie, framed in the doorway.

She was wearing creamy lace, tight-waisted and long-sleeved, with a fichu neckline and full skirts. A coronet of fresh orange blossom was perched on her piled silken-bronze hair and she carried a spray of tiny, perfect yellow roses. But it was her eyes that dazzled them, dark and shining with happiness.

“I love you, Missie,” Azaylee exclaimed, running to her.

“And I love you too,” Rosa murmured wistfully, watching as Missie kissed the child, whispering something in her ear.

“I’ll never leave you,” she whispered to her. “Remember, you will always be my little girl. You are more important to me than anything in this world. Please be happy,
milochka
.”

Azaylee nodded bravely. “I’ll try,” she promised.

Dick Nevern poked his head around the door. “Your car is waiting, Rosa,” he said, and they all laughed as Azaylee darted onto the porch and came back with Viktor on the end of a length of yellow ribbon, a rose tucked into his collar.

“Viktor comes too,” she said, eyeing Missie hopefully. “Of course,” she replied calmly. “Viktor always comes too.”

Dick, who was to give her away, cleared his throat and said, blushing, “May I say, Missie, I have never in all my life seen any lady look so beautiful?”

She smiled. “Then you’ve never been in love. Just wait until you see your own bride on her wedding day. Then you’ll know you’ve seen a beautiful woman.” She remembered with a shock that she was not much older than Dick, only twenty-four, but compared with his untouched youth she felt like a woman of the world.

O’Hara’s face beamed at her as she walked down the
short aisle. Candles glittered on the silver and gold ornaments, heavily perfumed roses spilled from hundreds of vases, and swags of orange blossom looped every pew. The service was slow and beautiful, the choir sang, and as he took her hand in his and placed the ring on her finger, Missie felt that finally she had found true happiness with a man she loved.