Damn, why did he always have to drink so much?
She thanked them with a believable smile and, after they’d gone, she dutifully tucked him into bed, kissed his forehead and turned out the light.
An unsettling concern pressed in on her again as she leaned against the closed door and let out a heavy sigh. She needed for him to stay just as content as he had been at first. Everything for her depended on that. They were alone here after all, and with Chuck gone so often lately, she had begun secretly to feel the greater pull of homesickness every day. Of course, she couldn’t tell Chuck that because he always said they were each other’s family now. For his sake, she tried very hard to make that true.
A few moments later, she went to the telephone and quietly dialed the number, hoping he was too sound asleep to hear. It wasn’t Sunday yet but, tonight especially, she just needed to hear her mother’s reassuring voice on the other end of the line.
* * *
Once the house was fully furnished, Chuck insisted on organizing another party. He planned on inviting everyone they’d met so far in Beverly Hills. It seemed a huge undertaking, but helping him gave Harlean a way to keep busy as the shine of the housewives’ world was fading by the day for her.
He planned to grill hot dogs, since he knew they were Harlean’s favorite food, and he had a florist fill the house with orchids and fragrant roses.
“I’ve put out the rest of the hootch we brought with us from Chicago. I hope it will be enough,” he said as he set clean glassware onto the kitchen counter next to bootleg bottles of gin and whiskey.
“Will you stop your worrying? Everything will be great.”
“So many of them have houses that are so much larger than ours. Maybe we should have bought a bigger place.”
Harlean went to him and twined her arms around his neck. She was wearing her favorite unstructured beige trousers, sneakers and a crisp white polo shirt, the way she had seen Joan Crawford do. Although, she didn’t think she could look quite as chic as the young star it was certainly fun to try.
She pressed herself against Chuck’s taut chest, and tenderly kissed him. In response to the gesture, he took her face in his hands.
“I love you like this, without makeup or anything. You have such lovely skin,” he said as he reached around and pressed his hands against her spine, drawing them closer together. “But I do wish you would wear a brassiere.”
She turned her lip out in a pout. “You know how I hate them, and my breasts are so small no one notices anyway.”
“Oh, they notice, all right.”
“Just to make you happy, I’ll put one on, then,” she said with a seductive half grin. “And I was going to do up my face for the party.”
“Then good thing that’s not for a while, because I have plans for you first, Mrs. McGrew.”
He pulled her more tightly, murmuring the words into her hair, and she felt a delicious shiver of anticipation. “Do you now, Mr. McGrew?”
“Oh, yes, indeed I do.”
“Anything I should be warned about?”
His smile was fox-like and adorable to her. “Not a chance. That would ruin all the fun.”
An hour later, the house pulsed with the sound of boisterous laughter. Music rolled and spilled out into the backyard where one of the guys was just lighting the BBQ. Harlean allowed herself a gin and soda with some of the girls. Then they wanted her to play the upbeat Louis Armstrong tune, “Weather Bird,” on the gramophone so they could dance.
She went back inside to change the music and paused at the kitchen window. She glanced out, and was surprised and happy to see Chuck looking like the life of the party, a real part of the group as he told a story, and everyone looked rapt.
She turned back around and saw Rosalie and Louis B. Mayer’s dignified and rail thin daughter Irene dancing the Charleston in the living room. Rosalie proudly explained earlier that she had met the MGM boss’s daughter one afternoon after she had weaseled her way into the studio commissary after a casting call and they had become friends. Irene brought her boyfriend David Selznick with her tonight and was intent on showing him off since he was an up-and-comer in the industry.
The story of how Irene and Rosalie met hadn’t surprised Harlean after their escapade at the Brown Derby. Clearly, Rosalie had perfected the art of looking like she belonged, and Harlean could stand to take chances like that, as well. Harlean had gone to school with Irene when she was in California the last time, but if Irene remembered her, she didn’t show it.
“Come over and dance with us, Harlean!” Rosalie called out to her happily.
“Yes, come on!” Irene seconded, her face already glistening as they all did the animated steps of a flapper.
Harlean finally joined in and shimmied to the end of the tune, when they all collapsed back onto the sofa. Irene introduced her friend then, a dark-eyed and exotic-looking girl named Katie. Her father was a powerful director, Cecil B. DeMille. As they were introduced, Harlean tried hard not to gape at the two spirited girls whose fathers practically owned Hollywood.
“Well, there are certainly no dance stars among the lot of us!” Katie DeMille sighed as she dabbed her face with the back of her hand.
“Probably no stars at all,” Irene added.
“I don’t know if I’d say that’s true,” Rosalie countered. “Last week, Harlean here got a personal letter of introduction written to the head of Central Casting from two Fox executives, and she wasn’t even trying. She was just sitting in the car waiting for me to check the rolls. They said she had ‘the look.’”
“They did not!” Irene exclaimed.
“Dave Allen is the head of Central Casting, I know him quite well. He’s a close friend of my father’s,” said Katie DeMille as her smile gave way to a more measured expression. “Dave is not easily swayed. What’d he have to say when you got there?”
“I didn’t go.”
“What do you mean, you didn’t go?” Irene Mayer gasped. She perked up and sat forward on the sofa. Her eyes grew wide. “That’s absolutely crazy!”
“He wouldn’t hire her right off the street like that anyway,” Katie blandly countered.
“I bet you wouldn’t have the nerve to go and see,” Irene added. “Especially since you’ve waited all this time, it would just be awkward now.”
“That’s probably true,” Rosalie chimed with a laugh. Harlean could tell she was trying to keep things light. “And casting offices are busy places. They’ve probably forgotten all about you by now.”
Harlean huffed in response to being ganged up on. Faced with condescension, it ignited her fighting spirit. “What would you like to bet?” she asked Irene.
Katie and Rosalie exchanged a glance. “We were only teasing,” Rosalie said.
“You mentioned a bet, let’s bet.”
Even though Harlean was smiling she could tell that they all felt the shift in her tone.
“All right,” Irene cautiously replied. “What do you want if I’m wrong?”
She glanced up at the lovely pearl brooch attached to Irene’s collar. “How ’bout that?”
Mayer’s eyes widened just slightly. Beyond that, she hid her surprise well. “You’ll never go through with it, so sure. But the brooch it is. And if I’m right and you don’t find the nerve, one of those beautiful orchids, hand delivered by you to my doorstep once a month for a year.”
Harlean fought a smile. Irene didn’t know what a poor choice it was to bet against her. She wouldn’t really take personal jewelry even after she had won the wager, she wasn’t