BY SATURDAY, HARLOW HAD CONTINUED TO IMPROVE. THE DOCTORS even helped her out of bed and let her walk around the room. Mostly she wanted to read. In bed, as well as sitting in the chair beside the bed, the Baby, as she had been called by her close friends, focused her attention on Margaret Mitchell’s epic of the Old South. The mint second-edition novel, secured at a rare-books store, had set Boyer back $856.78. It was the only copy the store had that had been printed in 1936 or 1937. There had been no other choice or any bargaining.
As Harlow read, Gould and Boyer met in the study. Though the sun shone through an open window and a June breeze hinted at the summer that was sure to follow, the two men failed to notice. Their countenance gave hint to the problem that had plagued them for almost a week.
“The charade must end!” The reporter’s tone was resolute. “Even if she didn’t have a right to know, we cannot continue to fool her for much longer. She’s catching on.”
“I agree,” the doctor sighed. “But how do you tell her? And it has to be you. She trusts you. In the absence of her family, she has come to lean on you.”
“I know,” the writer agreed. “And I wouldn’t want her to find out any other way than from my lips. But even if I tell her, at first she’s going to feel betrayed, then completely overwhelmed. Consider the grief that’s going to visit this woman. In one moment, we’ll be killing off her friends and family. Everyone she knows and everything on which she relies. She’s not going to have anyone, and she will not have a place in this whole world where she belongs—no place except in history books, that is.”
“So how do you start?” Gould asked.
Shaking his head, Boyer answered, “With the truth. There’s no other place to begin. I just hope the truth will not bring us to the place where Jean Harlow ends.”
Gould got up from his chair and stepped around to his desk.
“We’ve got the clothes you requested in the right sizes. The fabric, styling, and colors all look as if they come from the thirties. We cut all the tags out as you instructed. We also found the appropriate makeup. There’s nothing to give away where the stuff came from or when they were made.”
Boyer had been so overwhelmed by the issues at hand that he had really lost contact with the world. He was unaware that a new leader had come to power in Germany, that another attack on a school bus had threatened the peace in the Middle East, and that President Fulton had nominated a virtual unknown to a major cabinet post. For the moment, he was trapped and stifled in a world where Roosevelt was president, Hitler was shaking up Europe, and Guy Lombardo’s “September in the Rain” was the number one song in the land. Still, as confining as 1937 was, he wished he could stay there, or at least leave his new friend there.
Dr. Feller’s voice called from an intercom. “Tell, Ms. Harlow’s ready for her walk.”
He got up and slowly made his way to the hidden room. As he opened the door, the patient announced, “The inmate is ready for parole.”
For an instant, Boyer froze. In front of him sat a heavenly vision. Outfitted in white slacks, a red sweater, and deck shoes, Harlow was every bit a star. Radiant, confident, and glowing, she was a vision—not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but certainly the most alluring.
Catching his breath, Boyer finally managed, “Never has a warden been given custody of such an alluring prisoner!”
“Go on,” Harlow laughed. When he didn’t immediately reply, she added, “No, I mean it. Go on!”
“I could, believe me”—Boyer grinned—“but maybe it’d be best if we simply continued the discussion outside. It’s a beautiful day!”
“I’m more than ready!” she replied.
“Mr. Boyer,” Dr. Gould cut in, “I think it would be best if you took Ms. Harlow up the back way—through the secret door in my lab. That way, she won’t disturb any of the other patients.”
Nodding to indicate he understood the subterfuge, Boyer tucked his right arm through the petite woman’s left and led her out of the room, past the desk, and through the opened panel. He practically dragged her to the garden, hurrying up the stairs and out a back door. Even as she railed at him to slow down, he pulled her harder. He didn’t want to take a chance she might get a glimpse of anything, from a phone to a computer, that would seem foreign to her world. It was only after they arrived at a bench in front of the huge fountain that he allowed her to catch her breath.
“I thought I was the one who needed sunlight and exercise,” she laughed, trying to catch her breath. “Are you in training for the Olympics?”
“No.” He shrugged. “Just wanted to get to something far more beautiful than the world you’ve had to call your own since the operation.”
“Fine, but now let me take things at my own speed,” she begged. “I’m a little stiff.”
Boyer sat on a concrete bench while Harlow spent five minutes waltzing from flower to flower and bush to bush. Only after she had chosen a red American Beauty rose, breaking it off at the bud, did she join the reporter.
“This place is magnificent,” she exclaimed. “First, they save your life. Then they show you why you wanted to live in the first place. If only the entire world was this peaceful and beautiful!”
Lifting the rose to her face, she breathed in its fragrance, then giggled like a schoolgirl. “A week or so ago, I was so sick my mind was blurred. Now look at me. I’m a bit sore, but I feel like a million bucks. It’s amazing how quickly things can turn around!”
She glanced up at the blue sky, as if to memorize the shapes of the clouds, before continuing, “Tell? What do you suppose Scarlett O’Hara would think if she were suddenly dropped into this world? Imagine for a moment this woman from the Old South being confronted with motion pictures, cars, and radio. Would she survive? Do you think she could squeeze what she wanted from 1937 like she did from 1865?”
The irony of the observation and question was not lost on the writer. “Baby, what do you think? You just finished the book. You probably have a better perspective than I do. It’s been a while since I picked up Gone with the Wind.”
Leaning back, Harlow turned toward Boyer. With pure joy etched on her face, she shook her head. For a second, she seemed childlike, as innocent and as fresh as the morning dew. The writer could see in those green eyes a desire to run, to play, to squeeze every bit of joy she could find out of this moment. It had been many years since he had seen that kind of unbridled enthusiasm in anyone. How he wished this moment could go on forever, at least for her sake.
“Scarlett,” Harlow explained as she looked up at the sky, “would have made it here and now, maybe even better than she did back then. She wasn’t afraid of challenges. She would’ve learned the new rules and then beaten everyone using them. I think she would’ve liked all our luxuries too. I can see her driving an Auburn or a Duesenberg. I can see her walking into the Cocoanut Grove or the Brown Derby. Think of the clothes she would have worn! She would have been the center of attention wherever she went, and she would have taken full advantage of every facet of her beauty and intelligence. Yet I believe she would have missed Rhett. Men like Rhett are hard to find. Maybe she could have charmed Clark. He’s close, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure she would have missed Rhett,” Boyer agreed. “But like you, I think she would have thrived in any world she found herself tossed into, even if she didn’t meet Clark. I do believe she would’ve complained a great deal until she came out on top.”
For the next thirty minutes, except when Harlow pointed out a scurrying squirrel or a rose of another color, the two sat quietly and took in the garden’s beauty. As the sun’s rays began to play on the rippling water, Harlow got up from the bench and strolled over to the pool beside the fountain. Boyer observed the Baby studying the huge goldfish for five minutes, before standing up and walking over to where she stood.
“Do you have a coin?” she asked as his shadow crossed between her own and the fountain.
Boyer reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter and handed it to her. Clenching it tightly in her hand, she closed her eyes and made a wish. She then turned and flung her arm toward the middle of the pool. After hearing the splash, she spun around and smiled at him.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“What?”
“What’s that behind your ear?”
Harlow’s hand shot up from her side and cupped the writer’s left ear. Grinning, she brought her hand back to a point just in front of her breast.
“Why, it’s a quarter,” she laughed. Then holding it up in front of Boyer’s face, she added, “And it was right behind your—”
She never finished her sentence, and the whimsical expression on her face turned to one of puzzlement. She studied the coin for a moment and then looked to Boyer for an explanation. Only then did he realize how he had slipped.
Reaching out, he softly plucked the quarter from Harlow’s fingers. He flipped it over in his palm and sighed. Under the image of the Statue of Liberty was the date stamped 2001.
“What does it mean?” she whispered, confusion written on her face. “What kind of funny money is that?”
Boyer looked into her bewildered eyes, then closed his own, made a wish, and tossed the quarter in the fountain. When he opened his eyes again, he knew his wish had not come true. Harlow was still there, and a look of betrayal was still etched across her brow.