Kathryn walked up to the check-in desk of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and asked which room Mr. Gladwell was in.
The girl, a pretty brunette—or she would have been pretty if she fixed her unfortunate overbite—stared back as though she wasn’t quite sure what language Kathryn had spoken.
“Mr. Ellison Gladwell?” Kathryn pressed.
“It’s against policy to give out room numbers to just anyone.”
Kathryn cast a rueful eye toward Nelson. So it’s come to this? I’m now ‘just anyone.’ She was sorely tempted to play the ‘Do you know who I am?’ card even though she’d always considered it the point of no return after which you’re a narcissist whose future promises only remorse and isolation.
The obvious move was to ask if she could leave a message, but Kathryn had been doing that for months.
He was still at The Saturday Evening Post so she’d called Curtis Publishing in Philadelphia. He was in France to cover the nascent presidency of Charles de Gaulle, the Cannes Film Festival, and to interview the exciting New Wave director François Truffaut. Consequently, he wouldn’t be stateside until late February.
But that was okay. Even if Gladwell had something to offer her, Kathryn was still ambivalent about leaving the Hollywood Reporter. And if she did, was she prepared to move? Until she was sure, she felt no need to rush headlong into a decision she might regret later. Instead, an enforced sabbatical had stretched in front of her. Having worked virtually every day for the last 25 years, why not enjoy a paid month-long vacation?
She’d made a list of things she’d always wanted to try, and had attacked it with the zeal she’d always plowed into her career.
She taught herself to cook—who knew chicken fricassee was so easy? And veal scaloppini! Swedish meatballs! Baked Alaska! She also tried her hand at landscape painting. She wasn’t very good at it, but found it remarkably calming. During that time, her new next-door neighbor, a French woman named Claudine, started giving her French lessons. Kathryn was soon tossing “Mais oui!” and “Fantastique!” into every other conversation and reading the works of Simone de Beauvoir.
For Kathryn’s birthday, Claudine had given her with both the French and English versions of The Second Sex and together they waded through the text, sentence by sentence. It was an ambitious book that dealt with large themes, but without the burden of deadlines and office politics, Kathryn yearned to venture into uncharted territories. She soon discovered the work of Betty Friedan, an East Coast writer whose articles in Cosmopolitan magazine she particularly enjoyed.
By the time her month-long sabbatical was up, Kathryn wasn’t keen to jump back onto the merry-go-round, especially now that Window on Hollywood was no longer the Reporter’s first-stop column. But she couldn’t spend the rest of her days painting Malibu seascapes and cooking cassoulet, so back to work she went, albeit with markedly less enthusiasm. The only exciting part of this year’s Oscars had been Marcus’s win. And even that was short-lived; Marcus arrived home to find that Rex had moved out.
By lunchtime on her first day back, Kathryn came to see that Sheilah Graham’s gift hadn’t been her end-of-blacklist scoop—headline-grabbing though it had been—but rather the gift of seeing the future before it happened. But still, she wasn’t sure she wanted to move to Philadelphia, where the Post was based. But surely another chat couldn’t hurt?
When she had called Gladwell’s office again, the same assistant told her that he was en route to Los Angeles but he had a fear of flying, so he had taken the train and had planned business meetings in Chicago, Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff. “You’ll find him at the Beverly Wilshire after April eleventh.”
“So,” Kathryn said to the brunette with the bucked teeth, “it’s a ‘no’ on the room number?”
“Would you like to leave a message?”
“Returning messages is not Mr. Ellison’s strong suit. Is he in his room?” The girl consulted the bank of hotel keys behind her and said that it appeared he was out.
The hotel greeter stationed on the Wilshire Boulevard sidewalk was broad of chest and lantern of jaw, and filled out his quasi-military uniform with the aplomb of an admiral.
“Hello,” she said, pouring on the nectar. “I’m Kathryn Massey.”
“I know who you are, ma’am.”
I’m glad somebody does. “Do you know who Ellison Gladwell is?”
He rubbed his chin. “Can you describe him?”
“About fifty, curly brown hair going gray, wears thick-framed glasses that—”
The greeter snapped his fingers. “Magazine guy, right? He frequently stays with us. Good tipper, too.”
Nelson pulled out a five-dollar bill. “Did you see him this morning?”
“Got him a cab.”
“Did he mention where he was going?”
“The Fox lot.”
The security guard at the Twentieth Century-Fox main gate had a cornpone drawl but he meant business. “Without a specific appointment on my sheet, I can’t let you in. Gee willikers, Miss Massey, I’m awful sorry but I’ve got my regulations.”
Kathryn spotted a guy in his early fifties ambling past them. “Ben! BEN!” Ben Nye had been Marilyn’s makeup artist since Love Nest. Kathryn had met him a bunch of times, often as Marilyn gave her interviews from Ben’s chair. When she explained her predicament, he looked at the guard.
“What do you mean she’s not on the list?” he demanded. “She’s here to interview me. It was set up by whatshisname in the P.R. department weeks ago.”
“Whatshisname, huh?” the guard said.
“Yeah, yeah, you know, the one with the jacket and tie.”
Rolling his eyes, the guard jerked the boom gate upward, beckoning them forward. Nelson parked in the first space he came to. She jumped out and gushed her thanks at Ben.
“This new regime, it’s all rules, rules, rules, which most of us try to ignore, ignore, ignore. If you’re here to see Marilyn, I don’t think she’s around.”
Kathryn told him that she was on the trail of a guy by the name of Ellison Gladwell.”
“Henry King’s pal?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m working on the movie Henry’s directing; his pal’s been on set all morning. We just broke for lunch but last time I saw them, they were still there. We’re in number four.” He pointed up the road between a line of soundstages. “If not, try the commissary.”
The sliding door painted with a huge “4” was almost closed except for a gap just wide enough for an impatient columnist to squeeze through. Inside, the deserted stage was still lit. The backs of the set were stenciled with eight-inch letters:
“BELOVED INFIDEL”
NO ALTERATIONS
ALLOWED WITHOUT
PERMISSION FROM
MAURICE RANSFORD
Like most people in Hollywood, Kathryn had read Beloved Infidel when it had come out a couple of years before. Sheilah Graham’s account of her time with F. Scott Fitzgerald had been an interesting read, and was, in Kathryn’s opinion, a reasonably accurate portrayal of what had been a difficult romance. Some of the drama had played out at the Garden of Allah, and Kathryn had witnessed firsthand some of the incidents Sheilah had described.
She knew that Jerry Wald was making a movie of it, and that it was being shot on the Fox lot. So when she walked out onto the recreation of the Garden’s pool, it shouldn’t have rendered her speechless and lightheaded.
The nearest horizontal surface was the diving board. She wobbled toward it and flopped down with a pained whimper.
Nelson joined her. “You okay?”
“Look at it!”
“But you see the Garden of Allah every day.”
“This is how it looked in the thirties, when it was still so new and fresh. The jasmine. The bougainvillea. The music in the air. The bootleg gin. Oh my God, those parties! One time, Tallulah stripped down to her pearls and jumped off this diving board. But her necklace was so long, she got tangled up and just about drowned.”
She pointed to a villa on their right.
“That’s where Alla used to live. She preferred to keep to herself but this one night, Dorothy Parker coaxed her out. Somebody was in town—Robert Benchley, maybe. Could have been Hemingway. Whoever it was had brought Russian vodka back from Europe and demanded that she assure them it was genuine. We got utterly stinko on the stuff! Oh wait!” Long-buried memories were flooding back to her now. “It was Errol. He roomed with David Niven, who’d just received a whole crate from some crazed fan in Minsk. Nobody knew where that was so Marcus dragged out his atlas, which ended up in the pool. For some reason it was the funniest thing Dottie Parker had ever seen. She peed her panties, which she took off and threw into the pool as well!”
Ghosts of years gone past flew out of the windows and doorways. Harpo Marx telling the story of how he’d pissed off Sergei Rachmaninoff by playing the composer’s music over and over—and badly. Ginger Rogers showing Kathryn no mercy on the tennis courts. Garson Kanin and Katharine Hepburn emerging bleary-eyed from a five-day marathon writing The Philadelphia Story.
The memories were as vivid as a lightning storm, brilliant flashes sparking in every corner of her mind.
Mayo Methot screaming at Bogie. Kay Thompson rehearsing her nightclub act at the bar’s piano. Alexander Woollcott arguing with Louis Calhern. Charles Laughton cooling in the pool in his full Quasimodo makeup. “It’s been such a rollercoaster!” She pressed her hands to her face. “One look at this pretend pool and suddenly I’m Marcel Proust with his madeleines.”
“And now it’s time to make some new memories.”
Nelson sounded like he was being choked, but she was still struggling to grapple with this unexpected onslaught. Tallulah’s baritone laughter; Lucius Beebe’s high-pitched giggle; Ronald Coleman’s cultured vowels.
“Kathryn? Honey?” Nelson was now in front of her on bended knee, a hinged box in one hand. “My darling, we lost each other once, and I will not lose you again.” She had never heard his voice quiver. “We’re a perfect fit, you and me. It all works, effortlessly and naturally. And now that the Garden is closing, it’s time to move on. Build a future. Whether it’s in LA, or Philadelphia, or Timbuktu, I don’t care—just as long as I’m with you.” His eyes glistened as he pulled open the box to reveal a princess-cut diamond ring, glittering under the studio lights. “Kathryn Massey, will you please make me the happiest man in Hollywood?”
“YES!” she squealed. “Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!”
They rose to their feet. He pulled the ring out of the box and slipped it on her finger. They threw themselves into one another’s arms and smothered each other in kisses.
Nelson pulled away. “Will you marry me right now? Or at least as soon as is legally possible?”
Kathryn had never considered herself the marrying kind. She had always been a career gal lacking in the domestic skills it took to be a happy homemaker. But now she painted landscapes, her meatloaf was the envy of her neighbors, and she spoke French—sort of. She couldn’t begin to guess what the future might hold and discovered she couldn’t wait to find out. She thrust out her left hand and rotated her finger so that the diamond caught the key lights again. “Absolutely.”
The white tower of Los Angeles City Hall cast a shadow across the front steps leading up from Spring Street. Kathryn, Marcus, and Gwendolyn got out of the taxi and looked around. Nelson and Chuck were nowhere in sight.
“I thought the bride was supposed to arrive last,” Kathryn said.
“I think that only applies to church weddings,” Gwendolyn replied, “so let’s not kid ourselves.”
Kathryn let out a nervous giggle. The past couple of days had been a montage of marriage licenses, blood tests, celebratory drinks, and wedding outfit shopping, but now she couldn’t wait to climb those stairs and say I do.
Marcus said, “This feels weirdly familiar, doesn’t it?”
Kathryn scanned the street for approaching taxis. “It does?”
“Did our marriage mean nothing to you?” he deadpanned. “It’s like we never entered the sacred bonds of phony matrimony.”
Kathryn clamped her fingers on both sides of his face and squeezed them together, puckering out his lips. “There will forevermore be a special place in my heart for husband number one.”
Gwendolyn straightened the corsage of miniature roses on Kathryn’s lapel. “All I can say is that it must have been one hell of a proposal.”
A cool wind blew up Spring Street, whipping the skirt of Kathryn’s wedding outfit—a smartly tailored suit of black-and-white tweed. “It was,” she admitted. Where are those two? Our appointment is for one o’clock. “And not just because we were sitting in the middle of the Garden of Allah, circa 1937—although that probably helped set the mood.”
“Did you ever track down that Gladwell guy?” Marcus asked.
“I clean forgot about him until we were having dinner. I called the Beverly Wilshire but was told he was out so I left a message. It’s been two days, so I’m not holding my breath. Nor do I care. All I want is to get married.”
The three of them looked at each other, eyes bugged as though to say ‘I can’t believe that just came out of Kathryn Massey’s mouth’ as a yellow checkered cab careened around the corner and blasted its horn. The rear passenger door flew open before the cab had fully stopped at the curb. Nelson jumped out, looking nifty in his new light gray gabardine suit and maroon tie. Chuck followed him.
“Sorry to cut it so fine,” Nelson said, “but we had to make a pit stop.”
“You’re here now, so let’s—”
“We picked up a stowaway.” He extended his arm toward a hand encased in a cream kid glove. A foot appeared, clad in matching suede high heel, then a felted fur toque. The woman lifted her face and pulled away her sunglasses. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world!”
“Bette!” Kathryn exclaimed. “Aren’t you supposed to be flying to England for that picture with Alec Guinness?”
Bette pouted with feigned consternation. “What a shame my aircraft developed a faulty engine and my flight was rescheduled for tomorrow. Or at least that’s what I told them.”
The entrance to City Hall was a three-story atrium with a mosaic ceiling and the hushed ambiance of a European cathedral. The gentleman behind the information desk directed them to the marriage bureau, where they were ushered into a square area divided by a hinged Chinese screen.
A twelve-foot window of pearled glass softened the light slanting onto the checkerboard tiling. A vaulted ceiling arched high above their heads, decorated in symmetrical patterns of yellows, oranges, and greens.
When their justice of the peace smiled, he looked like that sympathetic uncle who could always choose the right story from his stockpile of anecdotes. He fixed Kathryn and Nelson into place, facing each other, their hands locked together, then encouraged the others to form a semicircle.
Kathryn gazed into those gray-blue eyes, the ones that saw her for who she was and loved her anyway. It was one thing to propose to Kathryn Massey at the top of her game, starring in her own radio show. But it was another to propose to the Kathryn Massey who was no longer top dog at the Hollywood Reporter and was about to become homeless once the Garden closed down.
“Are we ready?” the justice asked.
Nelson lifted his eyebrows as though to say, This is your last chance.
“Yes,” Kathryn said quietly. “Even Timbuktu.”