25
Derelict
1933
Alcohol-fueled parties could not assuage Leone’s fear. The darker the cloud grew in Europe, the brighter Hollywood glittered, but mere blocks away bread lines grew longer. Her savings exhausted and callbacks dropping off, Leone found herself one rent check away from joining that line. The thought of being dependent on a handout filled her with fury.
“Can’t you ask your family for help?” Rosemary linked her arm with Leone’s as they climbed the back stairs to a suite in the Chateau Marmont.
“I would die first.”
“Oh, I doubt it will come to that.” The two stood on the landing patting their hair into place and adding layers of lipstick. “We creative types always find a way.”
Down the hall, a door opened. A large man stuck his head out of the doorway and peered right and left. Spotting Leone and Rosemary, he beckoned to them. “Girls, come right this way.” Rosemary swept ahead, and Leone followed.
That worlds without money existed Leone could attest to, but there was always a price to pay. Hollywood was growing bawdier. Although Leone could count on free food and liquor at parties, where she was always welcome, the price of admission was acquiescence. Wasn’t that what she had left home to avoid?
Anything Goes was not just the name of a Broadway show set to open at the end of the year; it was the battle cry of the bohemians. Free booze, free drugs, free sex, and free artistic expression—and the purveyor of the last two services? Herself and her friends. Let them expect whatever they wanted. She would dress the part and accept the free food and drinks. Soon enough they would figure out that her spirit was not as free as Isadora Duncan, a modern dancer who, given enough scarf, broke her neck when one end of her signature wardrobe piece flew into the wheel of the convertible she was riding in and garroted her.
Does free spirit mean “Damn the consequences, full speed ahead?” From her perch on a settee where she sipped absinthe and sized up the other partygoers, Leone let her mind wander.
Or does it mean freedom to follow your inner wisdom? Her grandmother’s voice. Try as she might to silence that voice, what Grandmother would think always lurked in a closet of her mind.
And who informs inner wisdom? Leone asked, pleased with herself. She was holding up her end of this internal conversation quite well. Despite the muddle she was in over her future, she had not lost all reason.
God: some would say. Like a tiny bird suddenly alert to possible danger, Leone held very still, all ears. That was not her grandmother’s voice. What was that?
“A penny for your thoughts.” The party host leaned over the settee. He held a sugar cube nestled in a slotted spoon in one hand, and a pitcher of chilled water in the other. Leone lifted her Pontarlier glass and allowed him to pour chilled water over the spoon into her drink.
“They do this in Paris.” His voice was as smooth and cultured as the drink.
“Mmm.” Leone swirled the milky green liquid around in the glass, raised it to her nose, and breathed in the anise sweetness and tangy herbal undertones. Only in sophisticated cities like Hollywood could one appreciate a culturally iconic drink such as absinthe prepared in just the right fashion and served in just the right glass.
Her host put his lips to her ear. “If you want to light up your brain, see my man over in the corner. He’ll take you into the back room and fix you up.”
Leone looked up and spotted a young man standing apart from the crowd. He wore a suit much like the one she wore, loose pants and a two-button jacket with wide lapels. What set them apart was her makeup. She wore her party face; eyebrows extensively tweezed and defined with a thin pencil line, lips painted to look like they had been tattooed on her face.
“Mmm.” She slid her eyes up toward the man with the silver spoon and blinked once, slowly. This affectation of boredom lent her an air of mystery and excused her from conversations she did not care to have. Her host patted her shoulder and glided off.
A couple balancing glasses of champagne sat down across from Leone on a sculpted, cream-colored sofa with angora mohair seat cushions she had been admiring. The man extended his hand across the small cocktail table that separated the couch and the settee.
“Hi, I’m Dunham Thorp.”
His companion took the cue. “And I’m Marion.”
She was lovely. A little vacant, but that could have been due to something she had ingested.
“Actress.” Dunham jerked his head in his wife’s direction.
Leone dipped her chin toward Marion and took Dunham’s hand firmly in her own. “Dancer. Unemployed.”
“Writer. Same.”
Marion came alive. “And I paint and look after our daughter, Ella.” She slipped her forefinger along the sleek marble-top cocktail table until it stopped at the base of Leone’s glass. “And that looks delicious but dangerous.”
“Mmm. What do you write, Dunham?”
“Press releases. Scripts. I’m working on a novel, but I have a deal in the works that is going to get us out of here.” He put his hand in his pocket and came up with a lighter for the cigarette Leone had pulled from a pack sitting on the table.
“Why would anyone want to leave all”—Leone drew smoke into her lung and then gestured around the room with her hand—“this?”
Three sets of eyes surveyed the room. Ears inclined toward moving mouths; arms slipped around female waists; hands thumped male shoulders; hips caught sharp table edges; lips caressed cheeks; drinks spilled. Snatches of conversation could not be traced to their source. It was like a watching a movie with an out-of-sync soundtrack.
Dunham leaned in and rested his forearms on his knees. “I’ll tell you why. There’s no space for artists like us in Hollywood anymore.”
Leone sat up straight and leaned toward Dunham. “What do you mean? This room is crowded with artists.”
“Ah yes, but creating meaningful work requires solitude and a supportive community.”
Leone took a drag on her cigarette and leaned back. “Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
“You would think so, but we’ve found a community of people who support each other and give each other space at the same time. ‘Individuality within Community,’ that’s their motto.”
Marion laid her hand on Dunham’s knee and fixed her huge brown eyes on Leone. “It’s on the coast. A doctor lives there who can help our little girl. She had polio.”
“I’m so sorry.” Leone crushed out her cigarette in a cut-crystal ashtray. She turned toward Dunham. “So, what’s the deal?”
“I have a friend who is starting a magazine, a conversation in print, if you will, about issues of the day. He wants me to be managing editor.”
“A news magazine?”
“Definitely not. A monthly journal of ideas. We’ll recruit people with new and stimulating points of view. We’ll encourage friction among thinkers of all persuasions: political, religious, sexual—”
Marion broke in, “And artistic. Gavin wants a poetry section.”
“I write poetry.” The words slipped out before Leone could discipline her tongue. Who is Gavin? I should have asked.
Dunham leaned back and crossed his leg over his knee. “Do you type?”
R
Back in her dormitory, the rich food, strong drink, and stimulating conversation fueled vivid dreams that robbed Leone of badly needed rest. Because she could no longer afford lessons at Madame Smolina’s studio, she began sleeping late. When she woke, her body ached—whether from hard living or lack of exercise she wasn’t sure. She started a routine of stretching and strengthening exercises on her own, something she had seen her mother do when the ballet studio closed for holidays. Her resolve lasted a week. Her mother possessed a disciplined spirit that must come from something other than regimen. Despite her troubles, her mother had a wholesomeness about her that perplexed Leone, angered her even. What did she lack?
Leone began to dream of long walks on the beach. She longed for overcast skies to envelop and protect her while she figured out how much of her life was an act, and how many of her deepest desires she could satisfy without losing her soul. She pulled away from the party set and began attending rallies, lectures, and poetry readings, sometimes with Rosemary, sometimes alone. She met people like the Thorps who introduced her to intimate salons where the literati gathered.
In tasteful living rooms in Pacific Palisades, she met European artists who had fallen out of favor under Hitler’s looming shadow. Hollywood was an Ellis Island for emigrating writers, composers, painters, and filmmakers pouring in from Europe on every ship that crossed the Atlantic.
“Stay and be killed, or start over.” A bespectacled young man in his early thirties spoke in a thick German accent to a small group of graduate students who surrounded him. “My products are here”—he tapped his head—“in my mind. So, I will just set up shop in a bar.” He scanned the rapt faces who hung on his words. “Do you know of one?”
“Who is that?” Leone asked Dunham, who showed up often at the salons with Marion by his side.
“Bertolt Brecht. He’s a poet, playwright, and director. The Nazis just kicked him out of Germany.”
Marion stood next to her husband and stared off into space. The dark-haired, elegant woman often appeared to be in a trance. There were days, like this one, when a misbuttoned blouse or uncombed hair marred her physical perfection. “Everyone is looking for a haven.” She addressed the air.
“It’s true,” Leone said. “The entertainment industry may not provide the refuge a true artist requires. It is a business, after all.”
Dunham cupped his chin with his hand. “You know, Leone. Moy Mell may be just the place for you.”
“Is that the community you told me about?”
“Yes. Why live hand-to-mouth in Hollywood? Talent needs a big starry sky, and that we have out in the Dunes. We take our food from the ocean and the produce fields that stretch for miles. We do the work that pleases us, and we look out after each other. I could use your help getting our first issue of Dune Forum out.
An appealing idea. Better to fend for herself and find a way to contribute the fruit of her imagination to the betterment of mankind, than wait on Roosevelt to ladle soup into her bowl or employ her in the Professional Products Division of the Works Progress Administration.
“One of the Dunites knows about a hut on the cliffs above the ocean we could probably get for you. The old guy used to live there, but he prefers camping in the Dunes.”
“The Dunites? Who are they?”
“Free-thinking people who want to live a simple life.” Marion stared into her cocktail.
“All kinds of people, really.” Dunham took up Marion’s hand and patted it. “Hermits who wish to be alone with their demons dig in for years. Hobos wander through the community. They eat our clams and warm themselves by our fires. And Gavin’s friends. Gavin collects artists the way his grandfather collected books.”
“You have mentioned him before. Who is he?”
“Gavin Arthur is Chester Alan Arthur III, the grandson of our twenty-first president. You won’t be in a room with him for five minutes before he lets that fact drop.” Dunham laughed. “But he’s a great guy. There is a chair at his table for everyone, whether it’s John Steinbeck come by to read to us, or Upton Sinclair wanting help to eliminate poverty in California, or Leone Barry who writes poetry.”
Dreamy-eyed Marion stirred from her reverie. “Come with us and see for yourself.”