When she arrived at the Villa Sanctuaire, Annabel found Jack Cabot sitting in a chair at a table by his private pool, under a sun umbrella. He was wearing blue swimming trunks and an open robe and dark sunglasses. He was frowning over papers, which were held down with ashtrays on the table beside him because an occasional breeze would rifle the pages. He had a red pencil and was making notes here and there.
“Mr. Cabot?” Annabel said. “I’m here to assist you.”
The actor glanced up sharply, then nodded. “Oh, hello. You must be the girl from the Grand Hotel.” He took off his sunglasses and smiled.
Annabel was not prepared for the effect of his gaze upon her. His soulful dark eyes revealed the lightning-quick vitality within him. On screen he could play a passionate lover or a ruthless killer, because of the fire in those eyes. His sensuous mouth indicated a ferocious hunger and that special thing that the movie magazines called “animal magnetism.”
Annabel, who thought of herself as worldly enough not to be silly over celebrities, now experienced an undeniable plunging sensation of pleasure deep in the core of her body, as if she had just dived off a cliff like the local pearl divers who performed for tourists, leaping from unfathomable heights into the rocky, foaming sea below. She actually had to recover herself before answering him.
“Yes, I was told to work with you in the afternoons,” she managed. She noticed that Jack had lustrous, curly dark hair and, unlike most men, did not use pomade to slick it back. It gave him a romantic, Byronic air, and Annabel couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to run her fingers through that beautiful hair.
“Have a seat,” he said rather absently. As she sat beside him on a white wrought iron chair covered with a blue cushion, she saw that he was reviewing a document on long legal paper, perhaps a contract. He put it aside with a sigh, yawned, and stretched, saying in a melodious voice, “They said you have a theatrical background. Tell me, have you ever worked on a movie set? Know anything about ‘lights, camera, action’?”
Annabel admitted, “I haven’t worked in motion pictures. But my parents ran a portrait studio—my father was a photographer. My mother did the lighting, and she taught me a lot about it. They are—were—very good at it; they truly loved their work.”
She had not spoken about her parents to anyone in France, except Oncle JP, and only once, when she’d just arrived. Having inherited some French reserve about personal matters, she’d developed a tacit agreement with her uncle not to speak any further of their shared loss.
But now the mention of her parents in the past tense was like finally admitting that they would never come back to her. She’d literally left them behind in a graveyard back in New York, without a proper mourning period; everything had happened so suddenly and required immediate action from her about the funeral, burial, and her own survival—overwhelming responsibilities, especially once she was booted out of Vassar and then dumped by her Harvard boyfriend.
Something in her voice must have reflected all her grief, because Jack suddenly lost his distracted air and his dark eyes were fixed on her. But unlike the screenwriter—who seemed to study her as a potential character for a story—Jack looked deeply sympathetic, as if some unhealed wound in his own heart made him especially sensitive to the suffering of others. His gaze seemed to say: Yes, I have known the kind of grief that never really leaves you.
But what he actually said was, “How lucky you were, to have had parents like them. Joy of living is something you have to see, in order to learn it for yourself.” His voice was deeply resonant, like a well-tuned instrument. Annabel nodded mutely.
Now Jack said more lightly, “And how lucky I am, to have you helping me this summer. An expert on lighting! An actor’s best friend. Without good lighting, we’d all look like waxworks. Maybe you can help me scout some locations while I’m here. I have an idea for a new film that will be set on the French Riviera. I’d like to see some of the authentic local sights. I have a car, so we can drive around and take photographs. Not today, of course. But soon.”
The thought of driving along the blue coast at this man’s side was unexpectedly thrilling. But all she said was, “Certainly. Any afternoon.”
“Great! Meanwhile, would you keep a diary for me, so I’ll know where I have to be? I can’t deal with all these messages. Some are in French, from local press and bigwigs. There may be some schedule conflicts we need to finesse. See if you can make heads or tails of it.”
He gestured toward his mail tucked beneath a dark-blue diary engraved with the studio logo in gold. “Please write the appointments in pencil so I can change my mind if I want to. And let’s schedule a meeting with Scott. I want his input on the script I’m writing; he said he’d help punch it up. You work for him, too, right?”
“Scott?” Annabel asked, puzzled, as she picked up the diary.
Jack looked surprised. “Weren’t you down there this morning at his cottage? He went for a walk after you left. He said you were great.”
“Do you mean—Mr. John Darcy?” she asked, bewildered.
Jack laughed appreciatively. “Yeah, right, he told me he’s submitting his next story without an agent, using a pseudonym so the magazine editors won’t know it was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald—they think he’s all washed up, and they say his new work is ‘too strong’ for their readers. Well, everybody’s looking for fluff these days. Mustn’t scare people and say anything bad about all the gangsters running Europe. Can you believe the world we live in?”
Annabel, her mind reeling, didn’t know what to say. Was he really telling her that John Darcy, the screenwriter in the Jasmine Cottage, was the famous author of the hugely successful This Side of Paradise and all those popular stories in the Saturday Evening Post?
Jack rose from the table decisively. “Do excuse me, I have to make a phone call to Paris.”
She said automatically, “Shall I place the call for you? It can be tricky here.”
He was already on his way back inside the villa, and he waved her off. “Don’t worry! I figured out how to do it.”
Annabel could still scarcely absorb what she’d learned. Rapidly she went over every bit of the conversation she’d had with the screenwriter, realizing now what it had all meant. She felt like an idiot, blithely discussing The Great Gatsby with the very man who’d written it.
Trying to recover her equilibrium, she forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. Jack’s correspondence was far more glamorous than Mr. Fitzgerald’s. The international social set who summered on the Côte d’Azur were clamoring for Jack to attend their parties. The world press was equally curious. Requests for interviews, screenings, lunches, cocktail parties, dinner invitations. They were all excited about the nascent Cannes Film Festival; every hostess and events manager was vying to get as many stars as they could snag for their events.
“Sounds like fun,” Annabel sighed wistfully as she opened each envelope and noted every appointment and time in the appropriate dates of the new calendar book. It all seemed like a delightful movie itself. Several parties and screenings, she knew, were scheduled to take place right here at the Grand Hotel, including a masquerade ball to benefit a children’s charity and the screening party for Love Isn’t Easy, the movie Jack had made out of Scott’s story; the last, biggest event of all here would be the Celebration of the Stars. She could not help feeling a rising hope that perhaps, by proxy, her own life, too, would become more exciting.
She checked to make sure that she had the correct times and the correct spelling of the hosts’ and hostesses’ names, as well as the addresses. She knew from experience that one little error could cause a catastrophe later. So absorbed was she that she barely heard the soft rustling sound of another guest who came out of the house from a side door, until suddenly Annabel inhaled the scent of attar of roses wafting toward her.
A tall woman went drifting by like a blown leaf, wearing a diaphanous silk caftan the color of her own flesh—a soft peachy pink. Her pale-blond hair was delicate and windblown. Her face was sphinxlike, with a luminous, otherworldly glow; her exquisite nose and mouth and brow and high cheekbones made her appear as if she’d been lovingly carved by a master sculptor. Her eyes were violet colored and had a veiled look from the natural droop of the eyelids and long lashes, in a sensuous, almost sleepy way.
The woman had moved directly past Annabel without even seeming to notice her. Now, poised at the edge of the pool, she dropped her hands to her sides, and the entire caftan, which was already see-through, just slid off her body in a soft sigh.
Standing there naked, poised, Téa Marlo raised one hand to her brow to shade her eyes as she scanned the sky, as if drinking in the brilliant blue view. This gesture made her look like a warrior goddess poised in the blazing sunshine. Her breasts were well set apart, like two perfect fruits. Even her pubic hair glinted in the sunlight, white gold, like corn silk.
And then she simply slipped into the pool with a soft splash.
Annabel glanced away, ashamed of what she was thinking—something catty that her girlfriends at Vassar had told her about pubic hair: When you see a girl naked in the shower, that’s how you know if she bleaches her hair or if she’s a natural blond.
Téa swam in long, languorous strokes, her slender arms and legs slicing through the water, making hardly a sound, her head turning rhythmically on each fourth stroke to come up for air. It was like watching a ballet performed in the water instead of the air. When Téa reached the end of the pool, she flipped over for the return. Her breasts were proudly firm as she backstroked to where she’d begun. Then she rolled over and swam face down again.
Annabel could not help being mesmerized; she truly understood all the fuss over Téa Marlo. You simply could not take your eyes off her. People had said, Something incredible happens when the camera sees her. But in person she was even more stunning.
“There is absolutely no reason why Téa should be in a hurry to sign their new contract.” Jack’s annoyed voice floated out from the open door of the villa. “Sonny just wants to lock her in his stable for seven years! Who knows what stupid pictures they’ll make her do? Yeah, yeah, that’s what they said to me, too, but in the end, they just shove you into one asinine role after another—and then when the picture tanks at the box office, they blame you, the actor. Look, she’s free and I’m free. We’ll never get another chance like this again to do what we want. The French are willing to put up some money for my next picture, if we shoot it in France instead of in Hollywood, which is fine by me. And I’ve got a potential American backer interested as well. I don’t care if Sonny won’t like it. He doesn’t own Téa.”
He paused to listen briefly. Then he said impatiently, “Of course I’ve discussed this with Téa. And I want to make her a partner in my company. Yes, I’m sure. Well, you’re the lawyer; you figure out the details. No, I don’t want Sonny to come anywhere near this picture!”
Annabel worried that Mr. Cabot had no idea how his voice carried outdoors. The less she heard about his business, the better; if Sonny quizzed her at the end of the week, she didn’t want to have to spill the beans that Jack Cabot was apparently planning to make another independent film, this time without Sonny’s involvement.
She was glad when Jack finally got off his call, rummaged around in the kitchen, and came back outside, carrying a champagne bucket full of ice with a bottle peeping out. He smiled at Annabel, and she again felt that delicious plunging sensation inside her.
“Your calendar is all ready,” Annabel said shyly, gesturing toward the open book. “Your first interview is tomorrow morning. I’ve noted the details in here.”
“Good,” he answered. But now his gaze followed the figure in the pool as he parked the champagne bucket beside the pool’s edge. “Well, thank you, Annabel. That’s all for today.”
He shrugged out of his bathrobe, looking strapping and suntanned in his blue trunks as he stood at the pool. Over his shoulder he said, “Before you go, could you grab some champagne glasses from the kitchen? Just leave ’em near the champagne, will you?”
She went inside and returned with a tray of two flutes. By then, Jack had already entered the pool and swum over to the far side, where Téa was resting. Annabel saw that he’d left his blue trunks on the ground by this side of the pool. So she quickly set down the tray with the two glasses beside the champagne bucket, and she backed off.
On the other side of the rippling pool, Jack and Téa were pressed close to each other’s body, nuzzling their faces and laughing softly. Annabel slipped quietly away.
* * *
When she returned to the hotel, the concierge was bustling about, trying to accommodate all his new guests’ urgent demands. He glanced up, saw Annabel, and waved an envelope at her.
“Do you think you could possibly help me out?” he pleaded. “All the bellhops are off on other errands, and I’ve got this telegram they say is urgent for Hans von Erhardt. Would you mind taking it up to him? I saw him go to his room about an hour ago. I’ll owe you a favor, I assure you!”
Raphael seldom asked for such help, so she said quickly, “Of course.”
She didn’t feel like going up in the service elevator today. Nobody was waiting for the guest elevator, so she took it, admiring its Belle Epoque charm; it was made of mahogany paneling and glass windows, with a wrought iron door that had a gilt-edged mirror on its exterior and a golden handle. Inside, the gleaming numbered buttons for the floors were embedded in a shining brass plate.
You could view your progress through the windows as the elevator ascended or descended in a glass shaft that was surrounded by a wide, sweeping marble staircase—for those who preferred to walk.
Annabel knew that the tennis player’s room was an especially good one, the kind with a small balcony and a fine view of the sea. She walked down the carpeted hallway, passing framed mirrors over tables with beautiful vases of freshly cut and carefully arranged flowers. Discreet lighting came from tulip-shaped fixtures with frosted glass in gold sconces.
When she reached the room at the end of the hall, she knocked on the door. After a pause, she recognized the male voice that said through the closed door, “Ja?”
“Telegram,” Annabel said. There was another pause. She heard a low murmur of voices but could not make out what was being said.
Down the hall, the English couple she’d seen doing the crosswords at breakfast was now coming up the broad marble staircase, laughing and talking, their arms full of wildflowers and blooming branches. They must have gone hiking, judging from their even-more-rumpled clothes. They arrived huffing and puffing at the landing just as the elevator doors opened and an elderly countess stepped out carrying a small black poodle.
The nervous pet reacted to the sight of the moving branches, and suddenly the poodle wriggled out of the old woman’s arms and made a mad dash down the hall, right toward Annabel, just as Hans von Erhardt opened his door.
He was standing there in his bathrobe, his blond hair slightly mussed. Annabel handed him the telegram and he opened it quickly, scanned it, and seemed to turn pale beneath his tan, just as the poodle streaked past his legs and dashed into the room.
“Ho!” Hans stepped back in confusion, and Annabel ran after the poodle.
She caught up with it in the small anteroom just beyond the door and made a quick grab. But when she straightened up, she could see, in the mirrored wall of the bedroom just ahead of her, a reflection of the bed.
A naked woman was propped up against the pillows, looking startled, her large breasts exposed, before she thought to grab the sheets to cover herself. As the woman reached to the night table for her eyeglasses so that she could see what was going on, Annabel got a better glimpse of her face.
It was the mousy little Polish secretary. She was actually quite pretty, with her russet hair tumbled all about her shoulders and her big blue, nearsighted eyes. But she looked so alarmed that Annabel instinctively pretended not to recognize her and retreated quickly with the excited poodle squirming in her arms.
“Excusez-moi,” Annabel said to the tennis player.
Hans was still clutching his telegram, and he appeared mightily preoccupied, then looked glad that she was leaving with the dog in tow. He shut the door hastily behind her.
The dog’s elderly mistress was slow moving, so she’d just caught up with her errant pet. The poodle licked Annabel’s face enthusiastically before it got handed back to its mistress.
“Bad dog!” the countess chided in a frail voice as she accepted the poodle. To Annabel she said with brief hauteur, “Merci, mademoiselle!”
Annabel sighed as she headed for the stairs this time, trying to make sense of this entire day. It had been a long one, and she was exhausted. For once, she’d be glad to go back to her little rooming house on the square, where she’d have dinner with the other tenants in a quiet dining room, and then she could tumble into bed.
She hadn’t been this exhausted since her first day on the job. After being so eager for excitement, she now hoped the guests would settle down and the rest of the summer would be, perhaps, just a little less stimulating.
For there was something about being in the midst of this circus-like atmosphere that, despite all its dazzling gaiety, gave her an apprehensive feeling of impending catastrophe—like a passenger in a speeding car whose driver was heedlessly hurtling toward one of the Riviera’s very dangerous curves.