Stage 5, which had recently been dressed to look like Atlanta during the War Between the States, now appeared to have been overrun by time travelers from another era. Men and women were tipping back drinks, Glenn Miller played on a radio that someone had brought in, and there were laughter and noise and other unmistakable signs of the twentieth century.
The mood was relaxed and festive, and even though the mingling of cast and crew wouldn’t be out of place, Violet sensed there was still an atmosphere of quiet division between the two, not because one couldn’t appreciate the other, but because the Herculean effort to film the monstrous project that was Gone With the Wind had ended, thank God, and everyone was ready to slide back into the normal, easy lives they’d had before it had begun.
Violet, standing off to the side, felt very much like the spectator she had been from the beginning. Miss Myrick, comfortable with cast as well as crew, since both had relied on her expertise during filming, moved easily through the small clutches of people, posing for pictures, smiling, and saying her good-byes. She’d told Violet just as the party got under way that she would be leaving Hollywood for a much-deserved vacation before heading back to Atlanta, and she didn’t think she’d be needed for any of the post-filming. Violet could only assume that she would have to report back to the secretarial pool in the morning.
She sighed at this thought and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Audrey’s shoes were squeezing her toes, and she allowed herself a grimace before edging out from the wall on which she’d been leaning to again scan the crowd for Bert. This time she was rewarded. He stood among other wardrobe staff, off to the side. He wore his cap and jacket and had the look of one not planning to stay long. Violet tossed her paper cup into the trash bin and headed in his direction, her pained feet protesting every step.
“I hoped I’d see you here,” Violet said cheerfully when she was just a few feet from him.
Bert looked at her, taking in the sweep of her hair around her shoulders, the hue of the silk blouse, Audrey’s slimming skirt, and even the shiny charcoal gray shoes on her feet.
“Violet.” Bert said her name as though he wondered if that’s who she really was. The three coworkers he was with were all looking at Violet, too.
A grin tugged at her mouth but she reined it back to a polite smile as she said hello to Bert’s companions.
“Hey, Violet,” one of them said. “You’re looking nice tonight.”
“Why, thank you, Teddy,” she replied as demurely as she could, mindful that Bert was still staring at her.
“Who’s the lucky fella?” said another, winking at her almost as if he could read her thoughts.
“No one!” Violet tried to sound pleased and playful. “You’d think I’d dyed my hair green instead of just deciding to wear it down today.”
Bert’s friends laughed.
She turned back to Bert, who seemed less surprised now by her appearance, but he was not laughing with the others. He looked as though he was contemplating something.
“Are you not staying for the party?” she said.
Bert hesitated a second before answering. “I’m . . . I’m picking up my truck at my friend’s house tonight.”
“You finished it!”
“Almost. I was waiting on a part that came in yesterday. I just have to pop it in.”
“Maybe you’d like to bring Violet with you to get it,” the one named Teddy said slyly.
Violet pretended she didn’t catch the connotation. “I’d love to come with you,” she said to Bert.
The men laughed again and eyed one another.
An embarrassed smile pulled at the corner of Bert’s mouth. “I’m sure you’d rather be here at the party.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” she said quickly. “I don’t really know anybody here except Miss Myrick and she’s off saying good-bye to everyone. I’ve been bored out of my mind.”
“But you’re all dressed up.”
Violet looked down at the milky blue blouse and the white pencil skirt and then raised her gaze to meet his. “They’re just work clothes.”
“What kind of work would that be?” one of the men whispered to Teddy.
Before Violet could even think of a response Bert told the man to shut his trap.
The three friends laughed and stepped away, with one telling Bert to make sure he knew how to drive the thing before he took off down the street in it.
“Sorry,” Bert said as his friends moved out of earshot. “They’ve no manners.”
But Violet wasn’t pondering the offense. Bert’s quick and chivalrous defense of her honor was the only thing reverberating in her head.
“You honestly don’t have to come with me,” he said, when she didn’t reply.
“But I really do want to come.”
He studied her for a moment. “Okay.”
“I’ll be right back. Don’t leave without me.” Violet rushed away to say good-bye to Miss Myrick. As she returned to Bert she couldn’t help but limp a little. A blister on her right heel felt ready to burst. He looked down at her feet as she neared him.
“New shoes,” she said, dismissing her pain as if it was nothing.
Bert opened the door for her as they left Stage 5. “Maybe we should stop by your place so you can change?”
Violet was immediately stung by his suggestion. She didn’t want to be, but she was. She wanted to respond with, Don’t you realize I went to all this trouble for you?
Bert saw her veiled displeasure and quickly added, “Not that you don’t look great, Violet, because you do. But I’m going to pick up a truck, not a limousine. And those shoes are obviously hurting your feet.”
The sting was gone in an instant. “Do you really think I look great?”
“Sure. I mean, it’s a different look for you and all, but it’s . . . it’s a nice look.”
A nice look. She wanted to hear him say she looked beautiful. She wanted him to say she was as beautiful as Audrey was.
They walked for a few paces in silence.
“Audrey told me I’d be pretty with my hair down and this makeup on,” Violet finally said.
“You . . . you are,” Bert said, clearly unskilled in the kind of conversation they were having. “It’s just . . . you looked pretty before.”
“You think so?”
He averted his gaze. “Of course.”
She yearned to hear him say it again. Again and again. That he thought she was pretty. They walked for a few moments in silence.
“Thanks for letting me come with you,” Violet finally said as they neared the gatehouse to Selznick International and the streetcar stop that lay beyond it.
“Sure.” Bert shrugged her thanks away, as if such gratitude was truly not needed.
When they arrived at the bungalow, Violet was happy to see that Audrey was not home—most likely she was already on her way to her rendezvous with the talent scout from Warner. Bert also noticed Audrey was not there.
A tiny wave of disappointment seemed to wash over him when he realized he couldn’t ask her if she would like to join them to get his new truck.
“Audrey had plans for tonight, Bert,” Violet said, wanting him to know she alone saw the contours of his heart.
Bert seemed surprised that she so effortlessly read his mind. “Oh. I . . . I wasn’t . . .” But he couldn’t get out the words. Lying did not come easily to Bert Redmond. She took a step toward him.
“It’s okay, Bert. I know how much you like her. Of course you like her. Who doesn’t love Audrey?”
He said nothing.
Violet used his silence to bolster her courage. She longed to tell him the truth about how she felt about him, even though it could change everything between them. Violet felt strangely compelled to tell him, as though she might not get another chance like this one. She moved closer. “I really like you, Bert. I know I’m not Audrey—I will never be as beautiful and glamorous as Audrey is—but I do so very much want to be your friend and perhaps . . . maybe one day more than your friend.”
She was only inches from Bert now and she longed to lean forward and kiss him.
“I . . . I like you, too, Violet.”
But Violet couldn’t tell if he said it merely to be polite or if he meant those words the same way she did.
She stood silent for a moment, waiting to see if he would say something else that could clue her in.
“Do I stand even a chance against her?” Violet whispered.
Bert’s eyes widened as he realized the depth of Violet’s vulnerability before him. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“You deserve someone who will put you first, Bert.” Violet leaned forward, bent her neck slightly, and pressed her lips gently to his. She waited for him to respond in kind. He didn’t, but neither did he pull away.
She stepped back, hoping the kiss would linger as she headed for her bedroom to change into different clothes. She chose a pair of wide-leg slacks, flats, and a blue-checked blouse with eyelet trim. She left the hairdo and makeup undisturbed.
When she came back out a few minutes later, Bert was standing at the open door as the sounds of evening started to filter inside the bungalow. Birdsong filled the air as the day that was ending was lulled to sleep.
Violet braced herself for whatever Bert had been thinking about while she was in the bedroom. “Ready to go?” she said nervously.
He turned slowly. When he spoke, his tone was one of quiet resignation. “I think I’ve known all along that Audrey was never going to want to be anything more than just friends.”
Violet hadn’t rehearsed how to respond if Bert were to say something like this. Her mouth dropped open a little but no words came out.
Bert smiled, though it was not a completely happy grin. “I’ve just been kidding myself. Of course I’ve been kidding myself. What would someone like Audrey ever see in someone like me?” He looked away.
Violet placed her hand on his arm. “Don’t talk that way, Bert. It’s not you. It’s her. She’s just got one thing on her mind—that’s all. Her career. It has nothing to do with you. You are a wonderful, kind, good man. I could see that from the moment I met you.”
When he turned back to her, the aching look he’d worn a second before seemed to have diminished. He laughed lightly. “I’m apparently not too bright, though.”
She squeezed his arm. “Yes, you are.”
Bert considered her for a second and then placed his hand over hers. He looked as though he might kiss her this time.
You are as bright as the stars in the sky, Bert, that are at last, at last, at last smiling down on me.
And then he did kiss her. His lips on hers were light and restrained, a sweet tasting of what could be, what might be, when at last Audrey was expunged from within him. He broke away too soon, but Violet found that she didn’t mind. Audrey was still partially wrapped around his thoughts, but the old knots had been loosened. Bert extended his arm and they walked out into the twilight.
“Maybe we can grab a bite after we get the truck?” he said.
And it was as if the world was full of nightingales singing.
• • •
Two hours later, after a dinner of Reuben sandwiches and apple pie, Bert pulled up to the bungalow in his fixed-up truck, a nut brown, slightly-worse-for-the-wear Chevy Stovebolt. Violet could see from the passenger’s side that the kitchen light was on. Audrey was home.
Bert either didn’t notice or chose not to comment on it.
“Thanks for dinner, Bert. It was lovely.” They’d had a great time talking and laughing and eating at a popular diner just off Vine.
He seemed surprised that she was saying good-bye, perhaps almost relieved. He would need to take their relationship slowly, and she could easily pretend she understood this. She leaned forward on the seat to kiss him and the leather seat squawked.
Her kiss was soft and nondemanding. “This was fun,” she said when she pulled away.
“Maybe . . . maybe we can do it again?” His tone was hesitant but hopeful.
“I’d like that very much.” She opened the door to climb out.
“So. I’ll see you gals tomorrow morning?”
“If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.”
“Not at all. I’m happy to do it.”
Violet felt as though she were floating after Bert drove away. She hoped Audrey had had an equally wonderful night and that they would both go to bed happy.
But when she walked into the kitchen she found her roommate sitting at the table in her bathrobe, her face washed of its makeup, her hair down around her shoulders. A bottle of whiskey and a tumbler sat on the table along with an ashtray full of cigarette butts. As Violet approached Audrey, she saw that her roommate was working at something. She was gluing the little nightingale’s wing. Her eyes were red.
“What happened, Audrey?”
She looked up. “I knocked it off the windowsill when I was taking my makeup off. I didn’t mean to break it. I . . . I just didn’t see it.” Her eyes welled with fresh tears.
“I mean, I didn’t expect you home so soon. What happened with your meeting?”
Audrey laughed mirthlessly as she set down the bird, pressing on the part of the wing that now bore a tiny fissure and a creamy white seam of glue.
“My meeting,” she echoed. “Is that what I called it?”
Violet pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
Audrey reached for the whiskey bottle and tipped some of its amber liquid into the glass. “What happened, dear Violet, is time. Time happened.” She placed the bottle down and raised the glass. “Here’s to Father Time!”
She slung back the glass and the whiskey disappeared down her throat. She grimaced as she put the tumbler back down on the table.
“Please tell me what happened!” Violet said.
Audrey’s gaze rested on the bird between them. “This is a rotten town to have birthdays in, Violet. Before you know it, you’re almost thirty-one and everyone around you is ten years younger than you and ten times prettier. And all the while you’ve been fooling yourself into thinking no one has noticed that you’ve gotten older.”
“What do you mean? Who told you this?”
But Audrey seemed not to have heard her. A weak laugh escaped her. “And here I thought that I was invisible while I was waiting for my second big break. That people had forgotten all about me. That I could come sneaking back into the spotlight and no one would remember that when was I eighteen I almost had it all.”
She laid a finger delicately on the bird’s brown head, as if it were a real bird that would fly away if it was startled.
“I’m a fool, Violet,” Audrey murmured.
Violet leaned forward and covered Audrey’s free hand with hers. “No, you’re not. You’re beautiful and talented and smart. It’s everyone else who’s an idiot.”
Audrey seemed to think about Violet’s response for a moment. “I wish that were true, Violet. I really do. But I’m beginning to think it’s Peg Entwistle who was the smart one.”
Violet had no idea what Audrey was talking about. “Who’s Peg Entwistle?”
Audrey looked up languidly. For a moment she did not answer. Then she rose from her chair. “No one.”
She reached for the nightingale and took it gingerly into her hand. Then she turned from Violet, walked to her bedroom, and closed the door gently behind her.