On Monday, Carole pulled the bright-red scooter resting against the side of her trailer upright and paused, looking back at Julie. “Why don’t you go watch Cukor do the birthing scene? Huge moment, and he’ll get everything possible out of it,” she said.

Julie tried to smile, but without enthusiasm. The chatter all morning on the studio lot had been about Olivia de Havilland’s big scene to be shot today, one of her most important. Julie remembered it vividly from the book: Melanie, carrying Ashley Wilkes’s child, goes into labor just as the Yankees march into Atlanta, and there is no one to help her except a reluctant but determined Scarlett. It would be a harrowing scene, and it had to look authentic.

The actress had never given birth, but Cukor had been working with her for days, calming her, encouraging her. The plan was, he would sit at her feet, out of camera range, and when she needed to scream with labor pains, he would pinch her feet. Hard. It would hurt. And she had agreed.

From what Julie was hearing, Clark wasn’t wrong when he said Cukor favored actresses, and they bloomed under his tutelage.

“I don’t know—” Julie began.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you can keep an eye on Clark for me. Don’t let the girls flirt with him. If Lana Turner sneaks onto the set, let me know.” Carole tossed this over her shoulder with a grin as she swung one leg over the scooter, sat down on the seat, and prepared to take off. Julie wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.

“But he won’t be on the set for this one—”

“I know that; it doesn’t matter. I’m just giving you an excuse to think you’re working. And you’ll see some good directing. Cukor could pull a good performance out of a giraffe, I swear. Anyhow, it’s a better way to spend an afternoon than signing pictures of me, right? And you need some cheering up.”

She gave Julie a wink and threw the scooter into gear. “Oh …” She paused, a slight wrinkle on her brow. “Don’t tell Clark I praised George.” Then she took off, hair flying, dodging pedestrians and delivery trucks, waving at everybody.

Julie, watching her go, managed a wave herself. Carole on that scooter was a familiar sight now on the Selznick lot, and everybody waved back at her. She could also sniff out trouble in a swift minute, and had known instantly this morning that Julie was depressed.

“So what terrible thing did Andy do?” she had demanded, while applying a sloppy coat of red nail polish, repeatedly thrusting the brush deep into the bottle and then dabbing it in the general direction of her fingernails. Precision and patience were not Carole’s style.

Julie scanned the array of bottles on the dressing table, hoping to find nail-polish remover, but saw none. “It isn’t anything he did, it’s what he didn’t do,” she began. Recounting the incident, describing Andy’s stubborn withholding of an explanation for what happened, felt somehow flat and pedestrian, like shaking out wrinkled sheets in the light of day. She couldn’t quite muster the level of indignation she had felt initially.

Carole listened closely. “You are upset because he didn’t explain why someone would toss a drink at him? Things get pretty dramatic in this town, dear. Isn’t that up to him?”

Julie felt jarred. “But why would he withhold unless—”

“Unless it was something he isn’t ready to talk about?”

“He treated me like a child.”

Carole had a thoughtful look on her face, as if she was weighing choices. “He’s a decent type, from all I know,” she said. “But he’s got a history. We all do. And it sounds like he’s not ready to talk about it.”

“But it puts a rift between—” Julie began.

“Honey, would you expect a list of all the women he’s slept with?”

“Of course not. I …” She reached out and pushed back the bottle of red polish as it teetered on the edge of Carole’s dressing table. She shouldn’t have to defend a perfectly logical reaction.

“Then my advice is to leave it alone for now.”

“So why did no one seem surprised?” Maybe that’s what was truly bothering her—everyone knew something, and she was being kept in the dark.

Carole shrugged. “I think I know who she was, actually. She’s pulled that stunt before.” She had lost interest in her nails. “If you want him, go after him. He’s respected and liked by everybody.”

“I don’t know if I do. It’s all too fast.”

“Hurry up and figure it out. Or he’ll get away.”

“You make him sound like a fish.”

“Honey, he is. And it’s a small pond with lots of women fishing, so make up your mind. Whoops, I’m late for the shoot.” Carole jumped up, this time sending the open bottle of polish over the edge, glancing casually as it dribbled down the table’s white eyelet skirt. “Never liked this pouffy white thing,” she muttered. “Looks like something Scarlett O’Hara would wear.”

“Your nails—”

“Makeup will fix them. They don’t really belong to me anyway—they belong to the character I play.”

“I’m probably expecting too much,” Julie said under her breath now, watching Carole chug breezily away. She turned in the opposite direction and trudged off to the soundstage in an increasingly glum mood. That scene at the Mankiewicz party would not have happened in Fort Wayne. But she was in Hollywood now, and the rules were different. Back home, she would have every right to expect a full explanation. Maybe here she was being childish.

She thought back to her conversation with Rose last night. Both of them were in pajamas, each on her own bed, as they talked. She told her eager friend about the dazzling array of guests at the dinner party, about meeting Frances Marion. About swallowing her anxieties and trying not to care about Andy’s refusal to explain. In this setting, she had felt uncomfortably like a college girl again, sharing confidences with a friend in her college dormitory. She had found herself wondering, wasn’t she growing beyond that?

Until Rose brought her wandering thoughts up short. “I think you’re scared of him, and you care more about him than you want to,” she’d said.

“I’m not scared of anybody, certainly not Andy.”

“Oh, don’t bristle. You just need to figure out what you really want here.”

“Have you?” Julie asked. Things were happening fast for Rose. She was about to sign a contract now with Selznick, earning fifty dollars a week and taking diction lessons to scrub away her Texas accent. Every six months she’d get an extra twenty-five dollars a week. Officially, she would soon be a starlet, and pretty soon she’d be able to afford something better than this rooming house. Acting lessons were next, but Julie found it puzzling how unexcited Rose seemed about all her good news.

“Yes, I have,” Rose replied.

Said so calmly. Julie saw the invited question in her friend’s eyes. “You’ve met someone, haven’t you?” she said.

Rose blushed and nodded.

“Is it serious?”

“Oh, I think so. I’m sure he’s ready to propose, and I think I’m going to marry him.”

“Oh my goodness, so soon? How can you be sure?”

“I am,” Rose had answered calmly, lifting her head high. “I knew from the first day we met.”

A sudden stab of envy. “But how can you be so sure?”

“We’re very alike, and he’s from Texas. He’s starting his own construction firm here, like my father,” she said with a contented smile. “I know it’s fast. But I think you will understand when you meet him.”

“What about your career?”

“He’s fine with that, you know, for a little while.”

“Until you get pregnant?”

Rose blushed, but answered soberly: “I’m having fun, and I like what I’m doing, but—you know what Selznick told me? He said my name was all wrong. That it sounded like the name of an Irish scullery maid, and I have to change it. That the minute anyone called me ‘Rosie’ I was finished.”

“They do that a lot, I guess,” Julie said.

“I told Jim—that’s his name—and he said my name was beautiful, that he wouldn’t change anything about me. And I knew then that, well”—she was struggling to find the right words—“most likely, even if I changed my name, I would always be doing tryouts, putting on still-warm dresses that other girls wore.” She added softly, “I can see, that’s the way it works in Hollywood.”

Julie scrambled for words that wouldn’t show her surprise. “I guess I’ve seen you as more like me—” she began.

Rose shook her head. “You’re more ambitious,” she said. “Can we still be friends?”

“Of course we can.”

“You want to be a screenwriter, and I want that for you. But it’s not going to be easy.”

“I know.” Julie couldn’t say the rest of what she was thinking—that she wasn’t ready to give up, not in the least; that she didn’t see herself in Mayer’s writing stable, pounding aimlessly on a typewriter; no, she saw more than that ahead.

Rose gently broke her train of thought. “When I say you’re ‘scared’ of Andy, do you know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You know—that he might dissuade you from doing what you want. Think about it.”

Julie pondered that question—so engrossed in her thoughts, she almost walked by the soundstage. But there was George Cukor, hurrying up the steps, hands in his pockets, head down. He waved at a gaffer who gave the well-liked director a shout of greeting. Julie hurried in behind him, unsettled by her own distraction. A few moments later and the massive soundproofed doors to the stage would have been locked; she wouldn’t have been able to get in.

She blinked as she entered, disoriented by the sudden darkness of the building’s vast interior, and grabbed for something to hold on to until her eyes adjusted. Those miraculous new boom microphones hung high, ready to move with the actors when filming began. Such a simple technological development, these movable mikes, Andy had told her—but they made it possible for the actors’ movements to look natural on film, a seismic shift in film drama. The set was eerily quiet. All sound seemed sucked away into some sort of vacuum tube as she moved toward the set.

Below the booms, the staircase of Aunt Pittypat’s house. Julie drew in her breath with surprise—this was no façade, it was the believable interior of an elegant home. The banisters were intricately carved. The tall window on the staircase landing was swathed in heavy olive-green velvet draperies. The lighting, the carpeting—everything seemed inviting yet oddly somber, fitting the tense scene about to be played. A person could walk into this re-created entry hall and believe herself in a real room.

There was a restlessness on the set. Crew members fiddled with equipment, casting wary glances at the figure of a woman sitting alone on the staircase landing. Julie had to glance more closely to recognize Vivien Leigh. The actress looked tight and distraught, rocking back and forth, whispering to herself.

Right then, Cukor emerged from the shadows and walked slowly up the stairs to where she sat. He was not a tall man, somewhat settled and rounded, with dark-rimmed glasses that kept falling over his nose. But when he knelt down before Leigh, took her hand, and began talking, she seemed mesmerized: Listening, nodding. Finally, smiling.

“There he goes, working his magic again,” whispered a cameraman. “That guy knows women.”

After a few moments of Cukor’s soothing assurances, Leigh stood and smoothed down her gown and slowly took position at the foot of the staircase. Her expression changed. She leaned into the banister, exhausted and defeated.

It wasn’t the actress standing there, it was Scarlett; Vivien had once again disappeared.

Cukor signaled for silence, and the cameramen crouched behind their cameras. A technician lifted the clapperboard high and looked to Cukor. He nodded. The sharp sound of the boards hitting made Julie jump.

Scarlett, her dress both torn and dusty from the streets, starts up the staircase, her shoulders heavy with the weight of the horror she is witnessing. Atlanta is falling. Melanie is about to give birth, but the busy doctor has refused to come. Scarlett tells the maid, Prissy, they will have to deliver the baby themselves.

Playing Prissy, Butterfly McQueen reacts with horror. “Oh Lordy, Miss Scarlett! We’ve got to have a doctor!”

Scarlett grabs her, sweat glistening on her face. “What do you mean? You told me you knew everything!”

“I don’t know why I lied!”

Scarlett is furious. Propelled by despair and fear, she raises her hand high to slap the boastful maid. Her hand comes down with a swift swing to Prissy’s bandanna-covered head. The girl lets out a spiraling, frantic scream.

“Cut,” ordered Cukor loudly. “Good, deep-throated yell, Butterfly. We’ll dub in the sound of the slap later.”

Butterfly McQueen nodded, patted her bandanna back in place, and sat down in a canvas chair off set. Vivien Leigh said something to her, lowered herself into the adjoining chair, and took a glass of water offered by the script girl. She and Butterfly began chatting about the weather.

It was such a switch to normalcy, Julie felt a bit dizzy.

“So did you think Scarlett was really going to whack Prissy over the head?”

A familiar voice. Julie turned, suddenly flustered. Andy stood next to her, looking his usual wry, relaxed self. His shirt was rumpled, unbuttoned at the neck, with no tie. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his eyes steady on hers.

“I thought she was about to.”

“McQueen told Cukor flat out that she wouldn’t scream if she really got slapped. She hates the weak-minded part of Prissy anyway, and she wasn’t going to stand for suffering that indignity, even for the role. Easy call, don’t you think? Especially when Cukor will redo this scene another dozen times or so. Poor girl wouldn’t have a brain left in her head—and right now, I’d say she’s one of the smartest people on the set.”

“Andy—”

“I know. Maybe you’re thinking you overreacted?” He raised a finger to stop her from responding. “Okay—I accept your apology. Will you accept mine?”

She looked into his eyes and saw a flicker of something—humor? She wasn’t sure. Andy had a way of dancing around with jokes when he was totally serious.

“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t overreact.”

“Okay, I’ll concede that. It just makes my apology more sweeping than you might expect. It’s for everything that I have done or will do in the future to embarrass or hurt you. Is that covering enough ground?”

He reached out his hand and touched her cheek.

“I don’t see a loophole in that contract,” she said, heart thumping.

“There is one out—I may well make you angry, even furious. Neither hurt nor embarrassed, you may still at some point want to kill me. You okay with that?”

She nodded; no words seemed needed right now.

A cameraman whistled in their direction, then laughed.

His hand dropped away. “I can’t kiss you here, Miss Crawford,” he said. “But I will tonight, if you let me.”

His house, all dark wood and sweeping glass, sat perched on a cliff in the Hollywood Hills, overlooking the night lights of Los Angeles. It had a stark, almost spartan façade, but Julie had been out here long enough now to know many homes balanced on the cliffs were deliberately built to vanish visually into the hillside.

She stepped inside, onto a sleek marble floor, curious to see what Andy’s home might say about him.

It was small and spare, but arrestingly furnished—a black suede sofa, a dark oak writing desk, lamps with bold geometric shapes. Julie was drawn to the desk, tracing its clean, polished outline with her hand.

“Le Corbusier dubbed the style ‘Art Deco,’ ” Andy said.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Very modern.”

“Thanks.” He moved across the room to a small, mirrored bar, looking a little uncomfortable, and took a crystal flask of brandy from one of the shelves. “You’ll have one with me?” he asked.

She nodded. Feeling less awkward in motion, she moved over to the window and stared out at the city below. She had imagined him in something like this: something touched with Hollywood sophistication; something that spoke of intellect and style; something different from the antimacassars pasted over the backs of chairs and the brocade drapes, hung so heavily they shut out light, that spoke of home. She glanced around for photographs, seeking something personal, and saw nothing except a strikingly beautiful painting of a girl in blue holding a mandolin. The lines were bold, spare, and yet sensual. “Who did that?” she asked, pointing.

“Tamara de Lempicka,” he said. “Polish, lives here. A Hollywood favorite. They call her ‘the baroness with the brush,’ so you can see, this little number of mine is already a Hollywood cliché.”

“Not to someone seeing it for the first time,” she said, taking the glass of brandy he was handing her.

His glance flickered. He liked that. As she looked around, she noted a very sober-looking magazine on a side table. It was clearly not a copy of Photoplay.

“Contemporary Jewish Record,” she read out loud with a touch of surprise.

“You don’t think it fits the atmosphere?”

“It fits this atmosphere if it reflects you.”

“It does. You do remember I’m a Jew?”

There was a slight challenge in his words, though spoken lightly.

“You don’t have to ask that.”

He picked up the magazine, flipped its pages, and put it down again. “It keeps me up to date on what’s happening in Europe.”

She thought of the grumblings at home, the rallies at Smith, all centered on the worries that the United States might be pulled into one more European war. “You’ve been there. You’ve seen more than most of us,” she said.

“I’ve seen only a quick glimpse of what’s going on.”

“What happened when you went back?”

He stared out the window, taking a moment before answering. “Something was slipping away and being replaced by something else,” he said. “You could feel it in the air—you couldn’t smell it or taste it, but it was behind all the smiling faces. Then it got plenty tangible.”

He was riding his bike on a sunny day in Berlin, he told her. Turning a corner; a group of Hitler’s storm troopers swaggering up the sidewalk. People moving out of their way. The bullies his grandparents deplored, the thugs in dirty brown shirts—they were always roaming the city, shoving people, mocking them, forcing them to give the Nazi salute. An old man approached, eyesight and instincts dulled as he blinked into the sunshine. They tripped him. And laughed. Stopping his bike, ready to confront the pack. Bullies, just bullies, his grandparents said. They don’t like Jews—stay out of their way. But they go after anyone with a big nose, so be careful.

“They had their sport, then laughed and walked on. I stood there, a stupid American.”

“Why didn’t—”

“Why didn’t I go after them?” He shot her a melancholy smile. “Because nobody around me reacted. Oh, I ran over and helped the man up, walked him home. People hurried up and down the street, barely glancing at what was going on. Including a few cops. Just a normal street scene. Nobody thought it unusual.”

“What about your grandparents?”

“I tried to get them to come back to the States with me. They said I was overreacting—the government was reining in the Brownshirts—and Berlin was their home.” He looked down at his drink. “They’re still there. And my brother said there was no problem like that in France, so he’s still there, too.”

She reached for his hand, remembering the friendly but fervent exchanges at the Mankiewicz dinner party and realizing that Andy had stayed silent during most of it. “What do you think should happen?”

“Look, I know you don’t mean it, but, please, don’t give me a politely guarded question,” he said quietly. “I’m sick of them. Jews are being evicted from their homes; they’re losing their jobs. The Nazis are ordering boycotts of their stores. Breaking windows, clubbing anyone out too late at night—the usual thing. It’s getting worse.”

“Are you saying Roosevelt should declare war on Germany?”

“Hell, yes. Hitler will take over Europe. I wish I could protect my grandparents.”

“Any chance of that now?”

He smiled a bit wearily. “Sweet Julie.”

“Please”—she was stung—“don’t dismiss my question.”

“I’m sorry. Okay, it may be too late. But I’m hoping to get my brother out of France. I can get bribe money to Vichy officials and sign affidavits of support for his family, but getting the United States to issue visas for Jews is tougher and tougher. Nobody wants to face what’s going on. What makes me angry are the Jews in this town who don’t want to talk about it. People like Mayer want to pretend they aren’t Jewish—might hurt business.”

“That’s shameful.”

“The sad part is that it’s pretty sensible. It’s not just the Jews in Europe who are disliked—we’re disliked here, too. Americans just hide it better.” He pulled a cigarette out of a pack in his breast pocket, lit it, and inhaled deeply. “And I’ll bet that doesn’t surprise you one bit.”

He wasn’t looking directly at her, which was just as well. She feared that her memories of all the comfortable jokes about Jews she had heard through her life, even at her family dinner table, might show on her face. She felt a sting of shame.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to give a speech.”

“You didn’t. You were just giving me facts I should know anyway.”

“Your parents wouldn’t approve of us, would they.” It wasn’t a question.

“Andy, please—I’m me, not my parents.”

He sighed. “Julie, Julie.”

They both fell silent for a long moment.

“Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to bring you here,” he said. He sank down into the sofa and took a deep gulp of his brandy.

She sat down next to him. “Why not?”

“Too much exposure.”

“Of what—or whom?”

“My house tells secrets I prefer to keep.”

Julie answered carefully. “It says you like modern living, and it says that you like simplicity, and”—she rubbed a finger over the black suede—“you like good fabric, and you don’t have a dog.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How do you know I don’t have a German shepherd sleeping in the kitchen?”

“No dog hairs.”

He laughed. They were both relaxing a little.

He added slowly, “It also says we’re different, and we live in different ways.”

“We’re not here to eat dinner, are we?” She could stop avoiding as well as he could.

“Would you be disappointed if we were?”

She didn’t want to keep playing; it was too tiring. “Andy, we’re not reading lines for a movie. Please, kiss me, and mean it.”

He let out a sharp sound, and pulled her close. His kiss was slow and searching, a leisurely invitation to a tantalizing and unfamiliar kind of lovemaking. When his hand slipped down her throat to her breast, cupping it, she wondered if he could feel her heart pounding. She wound her arms tighter around his neck and hoped he did.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Yes, yes. “You are so polite.”

“What happened to the proper girl from Indiana?”

“She packed her bags and left.” Julie arched her back, moving closer.

“Then who’s here in my arms?”

“Me.”

Gently he pushed her down into the soft pillows of the sofa, his hand moving inside her blouse. He was on top of her now. She could smell the sharp scent of his aftershave, feel the smoothness of his skin. Somehow her blouse was unbuttoned; she felt his mouth close over her nipple. He moved slowly, still inviting her consent, as she blocked out the echoed warnings of her parents and home.

His hand slipped farther down her body. She had no interest in objecting.

“Okay, I guess you mean it. Let’s go.” He stood and picked her up in his arms, and walked toward the bedroom.

Julie shut her eyes; her heart was pounding so hard now, she felt it trying to jump from her chest. This was Andy, and she knew what she wanted; it had been true since their first dinner at Chasen’s. Everything felt blazingly hot and delicious. Would it hurt? It didn’t matter—she didn’t want to be a virgin anymore.

The sound of the ringing phone slowly penetrated sleep, first as a buzz in her ear. Emerging to consciousness, she savored the feel and taste of Andy’s skin, the heaviness of his body on hers; slowly, slowly, rising from a peaceful fog.

“Andy, your phone is ringing,” she said.

“Sure.” Groggily, he reached out for the phone on the table next to the bed.

“Hello?” he said.

“It’s done,” a familiar voice replied, loud and clear enough so Julie could hear it, too. Doris? Suddenly Julie felt wide awake.

“Shit,” Andy said quietly.

“What’s done?” Julie whispered. She clutched the sheet tight to her naked body, feeling oddly vulnerable to that confident, harsh voice crackling over the phone line.

“Somebody with you?”

Andy ignored both questions. “What happens now?” he said.

“Production shuts down in the morning. There’s no way Gable didn’t know this.”

“Probably not.”

Andy was making no attempt to move the phone away from Julie. But he was making no effort to include her, either.

“Well, I’ve got a lot of work to do,” Doris said. “The Examiner will be on the streets with the story in a few hours, in time to spoil everybody’s breakfast. Then probably a slew of heart attacks at the studio.”

“To be expected,” Andy said with a shrug.

A sharp cackle from the other end of the line. “Selznick will have his next hire in pretty quick.”

“Firing is a habit of his,” Andy said with a quiet chuckle. “You and I know that. See you at the office.” He hung up the phone and stared for a second at the ceiling.

Julie sat up, flustered. He seemed to have forgotten she was here. “What happened?” she managed. “Why is Doris calling so late? Don’t you get any private time?”

He ignored her tone as he reached for a cigarette and lit it, then sat up next to her. “Cukor’s been fired,” he said quietly.

“Oh my goodness,” Julie said, genuinely shocked. “What happens to the movie?”

“We’re about to find out.” He touched her hair and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Let’s get dressed,” he said. “I’m taking you home, kid.”

She couldn’t sleep that night. Andy had been kind, but obviously preoccupied when he dropped her off. Rose was sound asleep. So Julie was left alone to think about her evening in Andy’s bed. She shivered with a mixture of delight and awe, remembering. When she shut her eyes, she could hear her mother telling her the perils of not keeping one’s virginity. When she asked, “What does sex feel like?” her mother had pursed her lips, obviously struggling to find an answer that would neither disgust nor tempt Julie, and finally said, “You will feel fully that you are a woman.”

So she had retreated to erotic novels about bohemians in Paris to find the answer instead.

What did she feel right now? Daring, fulfilled, delighted? Had she expected something glorious that would take her to heights of ecstasy? She buried her head in the pillow. Be honest—it hadn’t been like that. She felt admitted to some new place, but she must make her way in it awkwardly. The language was foreign. The thought of Andy holding her, the feel of him touching her body, that was wonderful, and he had been tender. But it had hurt—well, just a little. Had it lived up to those delicious descriptions of sex in the novels she read so hungrily in high school? Well, maybe not.

Maybe she could admit she was a little disappointed—not that she wouldn’t do it again, with Andy, in a minute. She tossed, then turned, wondering if her feelings about the first time were normal. The only person she could imagine talking to about that was Rose. But, then again, Rose might be shocked.

Whenever her thoughts turned to Doris, she forced them out of her mind. Too much. Dutifully, around six in the morning, she began thinking about George Cukor.