It was the same guard at the gate of MGM as before, peering out at her on this drizzly Monday morning. But when she smiled tentatively, he gave back only a blank stare.

“Name?” he barked.

“Julie Crawford. I’m supposed to get my badge from you.” I work here now, she wanted to add, but restrained herself.

He shuffled papers, shaking his head. “No badge here with that name,” he said.

“I’m sure there is,” she said. “Frances Marion told me—”

“Oh yeah, you’re one of her girls.” He shuffled some more, then, almost reluctantly, pulled out a bright-red-and-blue badge with her name typed on it in uppercase letters. “Don’t lose this,” he warned. “You’ll be thrown out in a minute if you do.”

She assured him she wouldn’t, pinning it to her jacket. It was her own jacket this time, not one cut as fashionably as Carole’s, maybe even a bit staid, but at least it looked serious. She smiled to herself, thinking of Andy’s advice this morning, when she pulled it from her bag.

“Wear it without a blouse. Abe Goldman would like that,” he teased.

She’d laughed, touched at his effort to relax her. A whole weekend, most of it curled up with him in bed, not wanting it ever to end. But now it was Monday. Stockings; be careful, only pair; snap them into the garter belt. Wiggle into skirt; button blouse; don jacket. Buttoned or unbuttoned? Buttoned. Comb hair. Eye makeup. Rouge. Coral lipstick—or did the color look too bright?

“Go for it, Julie girl,” Andy said quietly as she picked up her purse and gave him a smile. He yawned, reached for his trousers, and pulled them on. “If I can find my shirt somewhere in the bedding, your chauffeur is ready.”

And now here she was, blinking at the red-and-blue badge, which had just torn a hole in her jacket.

“Don’t you know how to put that badge on?” the guard barked again. “Jesus. Women.”

“Where do I report?” she asked, putting a snap into her voice. She wasn’t going to cringe before this bully.

“Same. Room 632, Writers’ Building. That’s where all you writers go.”

As she turned away and walked through the MGM entrance, she consoled herself with the reminder that she didn’t like the jacket anyway, and the badge would hide the tear.

The main street into the studio was almost deserted this morning, probably because the dreary rain falling from dull skies seemed to have no intention of stopping soon. She took to watching her feet after stepping into an unexpected puddle. She reached the Writers’ Building, climbed the stairs to Room 632, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open. She wasn’t late—in fact, she was early—but every seat at the table except one already held an occupant, and the haze in the air and the butts in the ashtrays confirmed they had been there for some time.

“Come in, come in, Julie, not to worry, we’ve been getting a little bit of a head start,” boomed the voice of Abe Goldman. He leaned back in his chair, hooking his thumbs around a pair of bright-green suspenders pulled tight over his paunch. He wore no jacket. A large black dog lay curled at his feet, eyes closed, muzzle tucked deep into its thick fur. On a back table, Julie noticed for the first time an array of typewriters lined up and spaced precisely a foot or so apart, looking like soldiers at attention. “Okay if I call you Julie? We’re all family here, hon. Right, Bill?” He looked to his left. Bill, the doleful one she had dubbed the coroner last time, nodded.

She sat down, to Goldman’s left, folding her hands together on the table before her, not knowing what else to do with them.

“This is thinking-cap time, Julie,” he said. “We need your ideas for our movie. Bill, hand this girl a notebook and pencil, will you?”

“What movie?” she asked, quickly taking the proffered equipment. She felt fully alert and ready.

“The one you’ve been hired to work on,” Goldman said with a tiny tinge of impatience. “Gangsters, a sure bet.”

Bill spoke up with a croak. “If we time it right, we can get Wallace Beery for this one.”

Julie could almost hear Andy chuckle: this was just what he had predicted.

“He’s too tough to work with,” chimed in a new face at the end of the table.

“We can center it on a prison riot,” said Bill.

“But wasn’t that The Big House?” Julie asked, puzzled. That was one of Frances Marion’s big successes years ago, and Wallace Beery had starred in it. Would they really be considering the same plot device and actor again?

“Nothing at all like that one,” broke in Goldman, with a wave of his hand. “We’ve got something totally unique in mind. A breakthrough movie. Forget Beery—we’ll get Jackie Cooper. This will be great; you’re lucky to be working on this one. You can’t imagine how many films made around here are so bad they’re unreleasable. We just stash them away. So let’s get some ideas.” He looked at her expectantly; she noticed his nose had a greasy shine.

Julie took another deep breath. Four of the men at the end of the table were scribbling fast on their tablets, glancing up periodically, brows furrowed. Was she supposed to be doing the same?

“Well, I’ve been thinking, given what’s happening in Europe, isn’t it a good time for a war movie?” she said.

She saw their jaws drop, saw the glances shot in Abe Goldman’s direction.

“Just what do you have in mind?” he said, his voice suddenly frosty.

“Nothing specific. Something on the Nazis, maybe from the perspective of an American caught there or with relatives there, maybe an updated version of I Was a Captive of Nazi Germany—”

Goldman cut her off. “That ’36 disaster? The Hollywood girl caught by the Nazis? You think we’re crazy? Heads rolled over that one. Look, the Nazis leave us alone; we leave them alone. Hey, honey, we need better than that.”

She tried again. “I saw in the morning paper—”

“Look, let’s get back to the real world. The papers deal with Hitler, not the movie industry. No war news.” His eyes were narrowing.

“Okay,” she said with a twinge of desperation. “So it’s a prison movie. Maybe not just about bad guys, but there could be somebody unjustly convicted who is trying to get better treatment.…” Just throw it out; you can do this, she told herself.

“That’s great,” Goldman said. He looked at his watch. “Good. Just one favor before you get to work?” He smiled widely at Julie. “Old Sammy here needs to do his business. There’s a path and bushes out the back door—mind taking him for a quick walk? Make sure he doesn’t poop on the sidewalk.”

Julie, flustered, looked at the dog, whose ears had pricked up at the sound of his name. He looked gentle enough. What could she say? “Okay,” she managed.

Goldman pointed to the typewriters, nodding at the line of scribbling men before him. As one, they stood and moved over to the typewriters on the back table. The clatter of keys began almost instantly.

“See the end machine? That’s yours,” he said. “Let’s get brainstorming; then we’ll pound out the details.”

Julie nodded silently. She leaned down, touching the dog’s neck, feeling for the collar—hoping for a leash. The dog looked up at her with melancholy eyes. As if to apologize.

By the time Julie sat down in front of her designated typewriter half an hour later, the others were pounding away as if inspired. They’re way ahead of me, she thought, feeling a rise of panic. What was she supposed to do? Somebody unjustly convicted. Her idea, right? Tentatively she tried a paragraph: Joe—that’s a good enough name—Joe O’leary is in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. She paused. Maybe he was put in solitary after—after a food fight? She didn’t know much about prisons or gangsters; she had to keep trying. If she sat here staring at the almost blank page, she would look like an idiot. Write something.

“Okay, gang, let’s take a look.” It was Goldman, who had disappeared for a long lunch and was now back in the room. He glanced at Julie as he petted the languid Sammy, again curled beneath his chair. “Sammy get his business done?” he asked.

She nodded.

Goldman started collecting the script drafts, chatting cheerfully, joking with the men as they rose and headed back to the main table. She handed him hers, which was barely three pages long.

He raised an eyebrow. “A master of brevity?” he said.

She managed a smile and took her seat at the table again.

“Okay, let’s look at our little lady’s first offering here; fine with you guys?”

The men all nodded.

“So we’ve got Joe O’leary in jail for murder, getting into trouble after a food fight.…” He frowned. “Not sure about the name ‘O’Leary.’ The Irish all want to see themselves as priests these days. Food fight? Wouldn’t a knife fight be better?”

A man at the end of the table—with a round face scorched an unhealthy shade of red—spoke up. “I envision a gang; they break out through an old sewage tunnel. They get caught—who ratted on them?”

Goldman smiled. “I like that.”

Another voice from the end of the table: “Look, we’ve got a rogue guard who kills his best buddy from grammar school—he’s in for robbery, and—”

It went like that for the next three hours. Two more trips to the typewriters. By the time the afternoon was waning, the idea intriguing Goldman the most involved three ex-convicts opening a grocery store in Abilene, Texas. Tomorrow they would probably be two cops.

It didn’t feel like a job, it felt like a game. And maybe it was, she thought as she walked slowly out beneath the grand MGM arch. Maybe they were all acting, and Goldman knew the outcome already, and what was her role in all this, anyway?

She couldn’t talk to Andy, not tonight. They had a date for Friday, but the pace on Gone with the Wind was growing faster and more fraught with tension every day. She was on her own for a while.

Julie climbed up the streetcar steps and was grateful to find an empty seat among the tired-looking commuters alternately dozing and staring out the window. The bell clanged; they were off. At least she was in a real world. Anyway, Rose would be eager to hear all about the enthralling start of her job as an MGM scriptwriter. So how would she respond?

That was easy: old Sammy had been the best part of the day. And for some tucked-away reason, that tickled her so, she almost had to laugh.

Andy arched an eyebrow and rolled his eyes. “Julie Crawford, screenwriter—whining about your chosen profession already?”

Friday night, her first week over—she had been looking forward to this. And here, finally, was Andy—she could tell him everything as they sat together in a Chasen’s booth. One week now of learning how to read Goldman’s mind and give him what he wanted. It was so crazy, wasn’t it? She was trying to speak up in good old Room 632, but they all looked baffled when she threw out an idea. Sometimes she wondered if anybody except Goldman actually saw her; besides, she didn’t quite get the point of the constantly changing bad-guy script.

And now Andy was challenging her. “I’m not whining,” she protested.

Andy swallowed the last of his martini and signaled the waiter. “Sounds like it to me. Look, it’s been a rough week for me, too. Remember, you wanted this.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “That’s your third martini,” she said.

“Oh, I can do better than that. At least they’re not doubles.” He shot her a jaunty grin. “Sorry, but this movie is a bitch.”

His rough-edged tone was new. Julie looked closely at him, realizing he had a twitch under one eye. His hand holding the martini glass was shaking slightly. She knew from Carole that everybody was expecting Selznick to fall apart any day, that only drugs and liquor were keeping him stitched together. Andy, too?

“How much longer until it’s finished?” she asked.

“We’ll wrap retakes by the end of August, I think.”

She reached for his hand, wanting to still the tremor.

“Look, I’m not good for you,” he said. “You shouldn’t waste your time—”

“Don’t say that again,” she interrupted. “You get tired and depressed and then you think that I’m going to fall apart on you, and that’s not going to happen.”

The waiter was now hovering. Andy lifted his glass. “No doubts? Even if I order another one?”

It was a challenge, and it startled her. “I’m not crossing swords with you on this,” she said.

The waiter took his empty glass and hurried away.

“You deserve better. You’ve had a rough first week, and you should be getting some sympathy, and I’m not giving it.”

“Well, why don’t you try?”

He looked her full in the face now, his eyes steady on hers. “Ah, a gauntlet thrown. Okay, I will, starting right now.”

“Well?” She felt a nervous smile tugging at her lips.

“My dear Julie”—he reached out with his hand and cupped hers—“Abe Goldman is a jackass for not knowing how to use your talents best. And it will get easier as you get grounded. Honest.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The fourth martini arrived. He stared at it and then deliberately set it aside. “Would you like to come watch filming tomorrow? It’s a big scene for Vivien,” he said. “They won’t have the theme music dubbed in yet, but it’s going to be spectacular.”

Julie nodded, feeling somewhat breathless. Being with Andy sometimes felt like swinging on a trapeze quite high above the ground.

Saturday morning, sunny, with a bite in the air. Appropriate. Once again, if Julie inhaled deeply, her throat constricted with the tension reverberating across the soundstage at Selznick International Pictures. It was only eight o’clock, earlier than most shoots, but Selznick was relentless in keeping up the pace—as everyone knew.

Andy’s eyes lit up as he saw Julie slip into a chair. A dip of his head his only acknowledgment.

She spied Vivien Leigh standing aside, bedraggled, her clothes limp and dirty, her hands cupped over her mouth, eyes cast down. Behind her, a comforting hand on her shoulder, stood Vivien’s lover, the dark-eyed, stunningly handsome Laurence Olivier. So Selznick had allowed him on the set this once; that’s how important getting the right performance from Vivien was today.

Off to the side, Hattie McDaniel waited, arms crossed, staring at the floor. The set was a mix: a shambles of a wrecked house and, a few steps away, a flat piece of earth. A broken, skeletal fence. A stark, naked tree against a backdrop. Electricians were fumbling with floodlights.

“Move those spots; she’s got to be in complete silhouette,” Fleming ordered. The electricians hurried to obey. They tested the color.

“Intensify it,” growled Selznick. “Make the light of that sun the color of fire. Flames, flames—everything has been destroyed. It’s a sky of anger, the sun setting on a way of life. Get it right.” The electricians nodded, adjusted again. Nobody questioned the orders of these two masters.

The hum of voices quieted. Fleming took his director’s chair; Selznick, next to him, sat in rigid form, straight up, staring at the set. Julie knew what everyone was praying: Don’t find anything wrong, not now.

“You ready, Vivien?” Fleming’s voice, though not relaxed, was calm.

“Yes,” said the drab, worn woman in the shadows.

The clap: SCENE: HUNGER, TAKE ONE—VIVIEN

Scarlett has escaped from the burning of Atlanta and made her way back to Tara. War has ruined everything. Her family and the remaining servants are all sick and starving. Dazed, she moves out to a barren stretch of land, a field scorched by war. The light glows behind her, casting her into stark silhouette. She leans down and pulls a root from the ground. A carrot, a turnip—withered, unedible. She crumbles, broken, her head down above the land, crying—finally, crying. And then she stands.

Vivien’s voice cries out from the soundstage, filled with torment and ferocity. “I’m going to live through this. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill, as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”

“Cut,” commanded Fleming.

For a long moment, no one said anything. Vivien was still standing in the makeshift field, breathing hard, and tears streamed down her face. She took a deep breath; wiped them away.

“Don’t ask me to do that again, David,” she said calmly, staring at Selznick. “You’ve got everything I have to give.”

Selznick was motionless in his canvas chair. Olivier stepped forward, his arm around Vivien, staring at Selznick, silently daring him to try demanding his usual multiple retakes.

The set was very quiet as Selznick picked up the unnecessary bullhorn by his side and put it to his mouth.

“That’s it for the day,” he said. “Great job.”

Vivien strolled off the set with Olivier, walking in the direction of her dressing room. Even with scraggly hair and a dirty face, she was beautiful. As she passed Julie, she winked. She was breathing deeply, almost defiantly.

Of course. As moved by the scene as she was, even with tears in her eyes, Julie couldn’t help smiling: Scarlett’s cry of defiance had come from a body unrestrained by a tight corset—and there were no tapings squeezing her two perfectly respectable-sized breasts together. You win this one, Vivien, she told herself.

Andy was at her side, looking tired and relieved. “We’re getting there, we’re actually getting there,” he said. His shirt was damp with perspiration. “Pretty good, right?” He looked at her almost eagerly.

“It was terrific,” she said.

“Wait until you hear the music. Max Steiner is working night and day; the one for this scene is called ‘Tara’s Theme.’ Pretty damn good.”

“How can he score the whole movie so fast?”

“He’s got a couple of top composers helping, but if we run out of time, we’ll take some scores from the MGM library,” he said. “Look, we’re done for today. We’ll watch dailies after dinner. I hope there are no scratches on the film—I wouldn’t relish the job of getting Vivien to do it again. Victor invited a few of us out for a couple of beers. Will you come?”

In the middle of the day? Fortunately, she bit her lip to keep from saying the words. God, maybe she was a wimp. A puritanical wimp.

The main street leading to the Culver Hotel at Washington and Culver Boulevards was dusty and hot. Such a strange, made-up town, Julie thought as they trudged toward the hotel. A faded sign hung high over the intersection, proclaiming in large red-and-black letters: THE HEART OF SCREENLAND. It was no idle claim. With two major studios in this town of nine thousand people at the foot of the Baldwin Hills, the movie business was both salvation and identity. The hotel—without its rotating glamorous guests—wouldn’t have survived long.

“The Wizard of Oz gang finally cleared out of here. I’m told the Munchkins took their sweet time doing it,” an engineer observed as the clearly exuberant Fleming beckoned them to follow him into a bar next to the hotel—a dark, narrow room with eight high bar stools covered in worn leather, lined up in a row, facing a mirrored wall half obscured by liquor bottles. Covering the window was a blinking neon sign for Schlitz beer. About ten people, all men except for Julie, had been invited along—a couple of electricians, another assistant director—male buddies clearly used to sharing the noisy camaraderie Fleming was famous for.

The bartender greeted the group with rigorous cheer; obviously, they were good customers. Andy helped her onto a stool, looking a little sheepish.

“Okay, we should be taking some kind of healthy hike along the beach, but, damn, everybody is tired as hell,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I don’t begrudge you this,” she said quickly.

“We’ll stick around for just one beer.”

Julie stared at the clock above the bar. It was already four o’clock. Andy and Fleming were in a long, slurred argument about whether Cukor should get any directing credit for the movie, which Fleming rejected out of hand. And what about Sam Wood, who took over for a while when Fleming was sick? “This is my movie,” Fleming yelled at one point. The bartender turned up the radio to drown out their voices, but the two men still argued. The others had drifted over to a pinball machine, where they whooped and cheered whenever one of them won.

Julie kept a smile on her face, but her mouth was beginning to ache. She took a few bites out of a dry hamburger Andy had ordered for her; there was no ketchup to put on it, and just a darkened mass in the bottom of a mustard jar that looked as if it had been sitting on a shelf for a very long time. People didn’t eat very often in here, the bartender confided. Sorry, lady.

“Can we go now?” she said to Andy, smiling brightly so the others wouldn’t see her as trying to be pushy.

He patted her shoulder, and kept talking. Boxing now; they were talking about some boxing match.

“Well, look at all you bastards getting drunk,” said a loud, familiar, cheerful voice. “Clark said he knew where you would be, and he’s right! Anybody up for a game of darts?”

It was Carole, standing in the doorway, with Clark right behind her. She had a bright-green turban tilted rakishly across her forehead and wore a pair of beach dungarees that most women would scorn. On Carole, they were perfect.

“I am,” Julie called out, sliding off the bar stool. She didn’t have to sit here patiently waiting until Andy remembered she was with him.

The bartender handed her a box of darts and pointed to the dartboard. Ignoring Andy’s startled glance, she joined Carole, and the two of them started a game.

“I was only planning to drop Clark off to toss a few with Fleming,” Carole murmured to Julie. “But I saw you through the door, and you looked kind of bored. Everything okay?”

Julie threw a dart, keeping her hand steady. Bull’s-eye. “Can I get a ride home with you?” she said.

Carole peered at the dartboard, impressed. “You’re either really good at this game or mad at Andy,” she said.

“Right,” Julie replied. She already felt better.

Carole threw a dart. Again a bull’s-eye. “Ready to go? Clark’s settling in, and I’ve got stuff to do,” Carole said, eyeing her husband. Clark was leaning jovially across the bar now, holding a beer, joking about Olivier’s surprise presence on the set today.

“Sure.” She was going home. Julie tried to muster some of Carole’s lightness of being. So Andy drank too much; who in this town didn’t? She walked back to the bar and tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m leaving,” she said as casually as she could. “Big week coming up, and I’ve got things to do.”

He looked befuddled, but showed a vestige of concern. “I’ll drive you,” he said.

“No, no, I’ll go with Carole.”

“I’ll call you later.”

She felt strangely serene. “Not tonight, Andy. I’m busy.” And as she walked away, she felt some tangled threads loosening in her heart. Maybe she would be busy for longer than just tonight.