Even though everyone seemed to know the director’s mantle was about to be draped around Victor Fleming, life at Selznick International Pictures stayed uncomfortably on hold until the end of February. Extras in Union and Confederate uniforms huddled together in the commissary, smoking furiously, scratching at unfamiliar beards, and laying bets on how long it would be before Gone with the Wind was back in production. They were at ease in their Civil War costumes—too much so, the costume manager grumbled. Ketchup and mustard stains from nonexistent Civil War food such as hot dogs were collecting on their jackets at an alarming rate. Sending everybody home wasn’t an option. Getting them all together to start up in a hurry would be like scrambling to rebuild and launch a battleship. That’s what Andy said. His tone was light, but—since he was Andy—his eyes were watchful.

“One, two, three, go,” Doris said on the first of March, grinning, looking at her watch. And, yes, a beat or two later, David O. Selznick came out of his office, beaming, his arm around a smiling Victor Fleming. Gone with the Wind was once more alive. It was all a bit too dramatic, but Julie was running errands at the studio for Carole that day and felt her pulse quicken as the lot exploded again with energy and life. Writers—pinched faces, furrowed brows—hurried back and forth with edits and script possibilities. Publicists in broad-shouldered, pin-striped suits chatted animatedly with the universally dingy press corps, and faceless “assistants to everybody,” as Andy described them, scurried from set to set. Only the camera crews looked bored.

“Want a verbal snapshot of the battlefield?” Andy said at the end of the first week of Fleming’s tenure. “Wardrobe is stitching and altering, schedules are being waved about, Fleming is already threatening a nervous breakdown, meetings are droning on, and our most British of British actors, Leslie Howard”—he rolled his eyes—“is yawning his way through his lines again, letting everybody know how bored he is with playing Ashley Wilkes.” He laughed, a full-throated laugh. “Could be the Mad Hatter’s tea party, but it’s working. So far.”

Julie laughed, too, delighted to see Andy so buoyant. They were at their favorite booth at Chasen’s on a rainy night, exchanging their news of the day in the comfortable manner of married people, or so she liked to imagine before pushing the idea away. This was enough right now. She gazed around at the familiar surroundings. Snack plates of tiny sausages, deviled eggs, and spoonfuls of black caviar on tiny triangles of toast were before them on the table. The crisp smell of sizzling steaks being delivered to other tables floated in the air, mixing with the always present aroma of Camels and Lucky Strikes. The photos of celebrities on the walls offered a sense of belonging somehow to an exclusive club. And on a chilly night like this—with people stomping their feet and shaking wet umbrellas when they came in the restaurant—she felt she could pull the warm ambience of the dark wood walls and deep-brown leather upholstery around her like a cozy wrap.

Her eye caught the lazy circling of the model airplane hanging over the array of liquor bottles above the bar. A man with the concentrated body of a prizefighter and the hands of a stevedore sat alone, under the plane, talking with the bartender. Once again, a vague sense of recognition—she didn’t want to ask.

“James Cagney,” Andy said, following her gaze. “Not as tough as he looks. Hates the Nazis, which makes him a great guy.”

She smiled. Andy cared about bigger things than who was playing what in the latest movie. In one way, he was her touchstone in this town; in another, he could be the first to disappear. Put that thought away, she told herself. She was her own touchstone; that’s the only way it could be. Because, if it wasn’t, then she had made this leap in her life for all the wrong reasons. Anyway, everything was going smoothly: Andy was back on the job, Carole had found the perfect ranch, Clark’s divorce decree would be final in a couple of days, and she was working on her screenplay every chance she got.

“So what’s happening at the House of Two Gables?” Andy asked.

She told him about exuberant shopping trips with Carole, delighted that she could make him laugh at stories of Carole’s one adamant rule for her decorating scheme: every piece of furniture for the new ranch had to be custom-made and giant-sized.

“Even the drinking glasses are the size of Mason jars,” she said. She ran her finger around the rim of her own glass. She had ordered something called a sloe gin fizz, and was feeling a bit light-headed already.

“I gather you’re glad that drink of yours isn’t in a Mason jar.”

“You don’t miss anything,” she said with a smile.

“When do I get to see the script you’re writing?”

His habit of switching gears always caught her unawares. “I don’t have it finished yet,” she said. “It’s still rough.”

He looked at her inquiringly. “I might be able to help,” he said gently. “I’m not going to tear apart anything you write.”

“I know.” Why was she hesitant about showing it to him?

“Is it funny? Sad? Scary?”

“It’s about two famous people in love who figure out how to live blended lives that don’t turn phony.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “A version of Carole and Clark?”

“Yes, a little. I haven’t tried a full screenplay before, and I have to get the dialogue right.” Talking about it felt a little like prancing naked onto Wilshire Boulevard. Even with Andy.

“Dialogue won’t save a story like theirs. People can say anything they want, but it’s what they do, not what they say. They may get away with it for a while.…” He stopped.

“Are you talking about a screenplay or real life?”

“I’m saying it’s only part of the story.”

“Without it, there’s no story.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you’ve worked in Hollywood too long.” Why was she angry?

“Remember, it hasn’t all played out yet,” he said.

Whether he meant Clark and Carole, Gone with the Wind, or the two of them, she wasn’t sure. But she had a sudden fear that Andy would not believe a story with a happy ending. It made her feel oddly lonely.

“I’ll have another drink,” she said, slipping what remained of the sloe gin fizz down her throat.

“Julie, sweet Julie—”

“Don’t call me that, I don’t like it.”

He sat back with a puzzled frown. “I should call you ‘nasty’?” he said calmly.

“I didn’t mean to snap, I’m just—”

“I know. You’re a writer and you’re feeling fragile and you’re not ready to talk about your work and I should shut up. Right?”

The lonely feeling was lifting. “Right,” she said.

With an easy, graceful gesture, Andy signaled for a waiter. “Let’s you and I skip the chili and chow down on some hobo steak tonight,” he said. “The wonderful thing about it? They burn it at your table.”

She laughed, easy again.

Whisperings. Julie stepped into Carole’s trailer and heard whisperings from behind the partition dividing the private section from the front room. She tried not to listen, but nothing quite alerts a person’s hearing more than the sound of whispers.

“I won’t do it.”

“Pa”—Carole’s voice took on the cajoling tone of a purring kitten—“it will work, you don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid, damn it. I know what my image is with the public, and I’m not jeopardizing it.”

“Look, you’re a very masculine guy, and everybody knows it. I—”

“It took me a long time to get there, Ma.”

Julie rattled papers, cleared her throat; they were too absorbed in their argument to care.

“So you had a father who didn’t mind you dropping out of school at sixteen, and who was a lot happier when you worked as a logger than when you read Shakespeare and played in the town band, right? Pa, let that stuff go.”

“I can’t. People will laugh.”

“Shit, honey.” The curtain separating the two spaces was suddenly swept back. “Hi, Julie,” Carole said. “What do you think? You know what we’re arguing about.”

Her sudden inclusion in the conversation made Julie stammer as she mustered her thoughts. Of course she knew. It was the latest gossip wafting out from the Gone with the Wind set. Clark Gable would not cry on camera, and Fleming was insisting he would ruin a key scene if he didn’t.

Impasse. Ordering, yelling, pleading—nothing so far had made Gable budge.

What did she think? Had she ever seen her father cry? No, not even when her grandmother died. Manly men didn’t cry.

“It seems natural in the book,” Julie began, then stopped. She could almost feel herself turning the pages again, reading once more how Melanie tries to comfort Rhett Butler after Scarlett has miscarried their baby. Inexorably, believably, Rhett’s crust of swagger and self-assuredness falls away as he blames himself. And then, in front of Melanie, he cries.

“I cried myself when I read that scene,” she said. “It was perfect.”

“See?” Carole said, spreading her arms, palms up. “Pa, the world is ready to cry with you.”

Clark looked tired. The sleeves of his fuzzy black sweater were too short, exposing knobby knuckles and calluses on his fingers, the legacy of his gardening efforts. There were spider veins under his eyes and a droop to his mouth. He looked exhausted, but adamant.

“Not my father.”

Julie remembered Carole telling her that Clark’s father used to laugh at his son’s high-pitched voice. Only years of training had lowered it. “That’s one thing he can thank Rhea for,” Carole had said of his second wife. “She paid for all the lessons.”

There was a sudden, sharp knock on the door.

“Here come the troops,” Carole muttered as she opened it.

Victor Fleming stepped in. A handsome man with high, arched eyebrows that gave his face a formidable, ironic frame, he could make his smile easy, lazy, or quick, as the need might be. He looked as if he would be equally comfortable at a black-tie dinner or tramping through fields hunting deer.

He knew the language of masculinity, Julie thought. If anyone could sway Clark, it would be him.

“Are you still resisting this, Clark?” he began. “This will be your most powerful scene ever.”

“I don’t believe that. Strong men don’t cry, goddamn it. They’ll laugh at me.” He sounded like a twelve-year-old.

“Honey, Victor’s right,” Carole said.

“Don’t get into this, Ma.” Clark’s voice had an almost desperate quality now. Some nerve was being touched.

The trailer was getting uncomfortably warm. Clark sat hunched over on the sofa, methodically punching one solid fist into the other.

Another knock on the door. Julie opened it this time, and stepped back as Selznick walked in. He stood in the doorway, glaring at Clark.

“Okay, Clark, here’s the deal,” he said slowly.

“Don’t make me do this,” Clark interrupted. “Rewrite the scene; I’ll walk off the movie if you don’t.”

Nobody spoke. Julie tried to squeeze back against a wall, to move away from the tension. It was as if an electric cord had flamed out and gone dancing around the room.

“You don’t mean that,” Selznick said.

“Try me.”

Silence.

Selznick glanced at Fleming, and the two shared an almost imperceptible nod. “We’ve got a compromise to propose,” he said. “We’ll shoot the scene two ways—with tears, and then with you turning your back and bowing your head. People can know you’re crying without seeing it. You get to choose after you see both versions.”

They all waited in silence as Clark surveyed them cautiously. His fingernails were digging into the palms of his hands.

“Is this on the level?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Fleming promptly. “But remember, I reserve the right to tell you what I think—and by God, people are going to feel deep sympathy for your character if they see his humanness. Tears won’t wipe out manliness, they’ll make it stronger.”

A small, wintry smile from Clark. “Okay, you’ve made your point.” He stood. “Let’s go.” He stopped at the door and turned to Carole. “Ma, I don’t want you there, okay?” His voice had a slight pleading quality.

“That’s okay, Pa,” she said, the bounce back in her voice. “I’m actually doing a scene today myself. See you at dinner.” As the men filed out the door, she swept up a manila folder from the lamp table and handed it to Julie. “These need to get over to Publicity right away,” she said casually. “Why don’t you hitch a ride with Clark and deliver them for me?”

Julie took the envelope and nodded a bit nervously. But at the studio, Doris handed the envelope back to her and said with exasperation, “There’s nothing in this. And we didn’t expect anything from Miss Flighty Bird, either.”

So she had nothing to do except go watch the filming of Clark’s scene. Which, obviously, was what Carole had intended all along.

The set was stiff and silent; the actors, standing on their marks, were as rigid as paper dolls. Olivia de Havilland, as Melanie, nervously pursed her lips, watching Clark. He was staring out of a fake window, waiting. Rhett Butler had not emerged yet, and everyone knew it.

“Waiting on lighting,” barked a crew member. “Get that glare off of Gable’s face.”

Victor Fleming leaned forward, watching Clark.

“Roll sound,” he ordered smoothly.

An instant later: “Roll camera.”

The paper dolls came to life.

Melanie walks toward Rhett, clutching her blue shawl close. She tells him Scarlett will survive. Rhett is bereft over the miscarriage that his actions provoked. He puts his head down and turns his back to the camera.

“Cut,” Fleming ordered.

“That worked,” Clark said, turning to walk off the set.

“Okay, Clark—our agreement, remember? Let’s try it the other way.” Fleming seemed to be doing everything he could to keep his tone relaxed.

For a few seconds, Julie wondered if Clark would back out of his promise. But Olivia stepped forward, walked up to Clark, and put her hands on his shoulders. “Clark,” she said. “You can do it, I know you can do it, and you will be wonderful.”

He stared at her, then looked past the lights to the shadowed figure of Victor Fleming. “Okay, Vic,” he said. “I’ll let it go.” He turned away from all of them for a long moment, then turned back.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Melanie tries to comfort Rhett. Rhett sits down, looking past her, his face devastated. His hair is falling onto his sweaty face, his shirt crumpled, his face worn. The tears begin to flow.

“Cut. Clark. That was magnificent.” Fleming’s voice was choked, then almost drowned out by the spontaneous applause from the cast and crew.

Olivia ran up to Clark and put her arms around him. “We all know that was hard,” she murmured. “But it might be one of the best scenes of your career.”

Clark gave a weak grin, looking at Fleming. “And it took this tough guy to pull it out of me,” he said.

Fleming looked abashed, then slapped Clark on the back. “Thanks,” he managed.

Julie quietly retreated from the set and stepped outside into the bright sunlight. It was only make-believe, of course, but she felt oddly thrilled, because she had witnessed something more than that. How hard it must be for an actor—lights blinding him, cameras so close he could hear the crew breathing, people watching his every move—to be able to offer something true. Clark had overcome the fears of the lonely boy with bad teeth who lived inside of him, always had, and always would. Carole loved that boy as well as she loved the King. That’s what made them real.