Love Me (11 page)

And then Diana Chesterfield had to come back from the dead and steal the whole goddamn show.

God, look at her. It’s like she’s holding a press conference at her own table
. The regal, ermine-caped star was barely visible through the scrum of press and well-wishers alike, not to mention the phalanx of slavering photographers gleefully shooting away, blinding anyone who had the bad luck to be seated nearby.
How the hell did they get here so fast?
Even from several feet away, Gabby could see that the heat from the flashbulbs was melting one of the giant marzipan Academy Awards covered in edible gold dust that served as centerpieces on every table at the ball.

“Poor Oscar,” Gabby murmured to Jimmy. “His face is caving in. He looks like that painting you showed me in that book, the one you said was a portrait of Tully Toynbee.”

At the mention of Tully, Jimmy groaned. He had always been fond of the dictatorial director whom Gabby had hated on sight. But when an errant exploding flash pot had badly burned the leg of a chorus girl on the set of their most recent
picture and Tully had fired her on the spot when she’d asked to be taken to the doctor, even a trouper like Jimmy had to agree enough was enough. “You mean
The Scream
?”

“That’s the one. Where do they keep it, Sweden?”

“Norway.” Jimmy sighed, shaking his head. “Boy, you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to be Margo Sterling right now.”

“You already have a million dollars.”

“You know what I mean. Just get a load of the mug on her. Poor kid looks like she just lost her best friend.”

Squinting through the flashing light, Gabby spotted Margo, a shadowy blue figure sitting decidedly out of the camera’s range, watching quietly as two men knelt reverently before Diana with a box of portable recording equipment.

“What do you think they’re asking her?” Jimmy wondered.

“Probably where the hell she’s been for the past goddamn year.”

“Language, duchess, language.”

“I thought Margo was duchess.”

“You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. But look, I think both Your Highnesses are being usurped.”

Bathed in the glow of the flashbulbs, Diana was saying something into the mike. Gabby couldn’t hear what it was, but from the look on Margo’s face, it was clear that the lovely Miss Sterling wasn’t buying any of it.

There was one person who was, though, or at least appeared to be: newly minted Academy Award winner Dane Forrest, who was gazing at the coolly beautiful face of his long-lost paramour with undisguised rapture.

“Poor Margie,” Gabby said. “I guess the clock had to strike midnight sometime.”

“Oh, honey,” Jimmy murmured, “I think it did that some time ago.”

Suddenly, Gabby felt a sharp pang of sympathy for her friend. What must it feel like to see it all go up in a puff of smoke like that? Now that Diana Chesterfield was back—with a vengeance, it appeared—what was going to happen to Margo Sterling, the plucky, lucky girl who had swept in to replace her? Well, she could forget about whatever big classy property the studio had her set to star in this year; as far as Leo Karp was concerned, any qualities Margo Sterling might bring to a role would be wiped clean away by the box-office potential of Diana Chesterfield’s glorious comeback. Margo would be demoted to what she looked like now: a glorified stand-in.

And as for her love life, well … if the look on Dane’s face was any indication, Gabby would say the odds were a probable twelve to seven that Margo Sterling would be going home alone tonight.

Jimmy seemed to read her mind. “How long do you think they’ve got until Larry Julius decides a Dane and Diana reunion is just what the gossip columns ordered?”

“He wouldn’t do that.” Gabby sounded more convinced than she felt. “Not after everything that’s happened.”

“But we have no idea
what
happened, do we?” Jimmy mused. “The heck of it is, the kid’s really nuts about him. First love and all that.”

“And what about him?” Gabby asked. “Doesn’t he love her? He’s certainly made a big show of it.”

“Sure he does, but not nearly as much as he loves being Dane Forrest. Believe me.” A faraway look came into Jimmy’s eyes. “I know the type.”

Suddenly, Margo glanced toward them, as though she knew they were watching. Her miserable gaze met Gabby’s for a long moment before she abruptly jerked it away.
She’s embarrassed
, Gabby thought. “I should go talk to her.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Jimmy warned. “The last thing she needs right now is gloating.”

“Give me a little credit,” Gabby protested. “Who’s gloating? I just don’t think she should be sitting there all by herself, that’s all.”

She was starting toward Margo when she suddenly felt a hand on her elbow. She turned to find a man in the red uniform dinner jacket of the Biltmore Hotel. “Miss Preston,” he said, “I’m so sorry, but I’ve been asked to fetch you. It seems you’re needed immediately backstage.”

“By who?” Gabby asked.

“By Mr. Sharp,” the man said. “I can see you’re busy, but I’m afraid I really must insist. He said it’s most urgent.”

“Don’t worry,” Jimmy said, grinning. “You go ahead. I’ll find a handkerchief for Margo.”

Yeah
, Gabby thought crossly,
I just bet you will
.

Gesturing her through a side door, the man in the red jacket led her down a long corridor and a flight of stairs into the orchestra greenroom beneath the stage. A large, windowless room with a dirty linoleum floor, it bore a tableau virtually identical to the one in the rehearsal room at Olympus, sans the Viola-repelling gorilla at the front door. Musicians in matching midnight-blue tuxedos stood around smoking, noodling on their instruments, swearing cheerfully as they searched for matches and mouth reeds in untidy stacks of monogrammed instrument cases.

Across the room, she noticed Dexter Harrington jotting some notations down at a music stand. He nodded a quick greeting, and she smiled back, trying to hide her surprise at seeing him there. Integrated big bands might fly at some of the more sophisticated venues in the Northeast, but she’d never thought of the Governor’s Ball as a bulwark of racial progressivism. Even if most of the people in the room
had
voted for Roosevelt.

A voice yelled over the din. “Preston! Over here!”

Following the voice, Gabby got her first look at the great bandleader Eddie Sharp.

It’s the right name for him
, she thought. The long, thin nose, the dark brilliantined hair scraped cleanly back, the square shoulders of his fitted jacket—everything about him seemed angular and exact, with two visible exceptions: the undone bow tie draped carelessly around his neck, and his full, sensual mouth.

A trumpet player’s mouth, which turned down at the corners in a slight pout that seemed a little bit arrogant, a little bit mean … and
undeniably
sexy.

Get a grip
, Gabby ordered herself.
So he’s not terrible-looking. Big deal. You’ve got to keep it together. Show him who’s boss
. “Mr. Sharp,” she purred. “I hope that’s not how you play.”

It was a good opening line, one she’d thought of beforehand, and the twinkle in Eddie’s eyes told her he knew it. “Only if you sing flat,” he said.

He was holding in his hand a rubber ball with a kind of funnel-like spout sticking out the top. This he suddenly thrust up his nostril and squeezed, inhaling deeply.

“Amphetamine spray. You want some?”

“No, thank you.”

“You sure? It opens the lungs and sinuses. Very good for singers.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself.” Still squeezing the rubber ball, Eddie raked his shrewd black eyes over her, lingering, Gabby was pleased to note, on her décolletage. “Say, you look older than in your pictures.”

“Funny,” Gabby said smartly. “I don’t remember ever seeing a picture of you at all.”

Eddie laughed. “All right, kid. I got your number. Now, whaddya say we run through this sucker a time or two before they throw us to the lions?”

“Oh. So now you want to rehearse.”

“I had somewhere else I needed to be that afternoon,” Eddie retorted. “Someplace important. I don’t need to be there to run through a simple song with a girl singer.”

“Well, this girl singer doesn’t run through so much as ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ without the bandleader.”

Eddie gave his nose spray a thoughtful squeeze. “You know Ella Fitzgerald?”

Gabby smiled witheringly. “Rings a bell.”

“Well, I just played a week with her up at the Savoy in Harlem.” He smiled wistfully. “She was practicing all the time. Never joked around, never sat around with a flask drinking with the boys. You needed her, you had to go find her in a corner somewhere where she was running through scat, trying out changes, making up harmonies. Finally, I said to her, ‘Ella,’ I said, ‘you’re great. Better than great. You’re a genius and you’re going to be a big star. What do you need to practice so much
for?’ She said to me, ‘Eddie, it doesn’t matter if I’m better than everybody else. I have to be better than
me
.’ ”

He looked at Gabby expectantly, as though he’d just said something deeply profound. Well, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means if you want to be great, you
never
give up a chance to rehearse. Even if it is only with the arranger. Who happens to be the best in the business, by the way.”

“What arranger?”

“Dexter.” Eddie nodded toward the scarred rehearsal piano, where the man in question was softly thumping out a vamp.

“He’s the
arranger
?” Gabby gasped, looking at the tall figure hunched over the keyboard, a pencil clamped in his mouth. His eyes were half shut, and for the tiniest moment, Gabby noticed how his long eyelashes cast little shadows on the curve of his cheek. “I thought he was a side man.”

Eddie shrugged. “He’s both.”

Gabby leaned forward, whispering. “And you think … you think the Biltmore is honestly going to let him play?”

Eddie gave her a challenging look. “Only if they want the rest of us to. Now, are we going to stand here all night or are we going to run through ‘Ballin’ the Jack’?”

Here we go
. “Oh, we can run through it if you want,” she said airily. “But we’re not going to perform it.”

“Really.” Eddie’s tone was carefully amused, but his face was not. “Don’t tell me, you don’t deign to learn music sent over by arrangers.”

“Please,” Gabby sneered. “I didn’t have to learn it. I knew it, just like everyone else and their mother.”
And I do mean mother
, she thought. That song had to be at least twenty years
old. Viola knew it, for God’s sake. “But I looked at your arrangement, and I’m telling you, it’s not going to work.”

“Is that right?” Eddie sneered right back. “Hey, Dex! C’mere for a second.”

Reluctantly, the piano player tore himself away from the keyboard. “What is it?”

“Little Miss Maestro here doesn’t think your arrangement is going to work for her.”

“Really?” Dexter’s tone was cool, but Gabby thought she saw a flicker of what seemed like genuine concern in his dark eyes. “What’s the matter with it?”

“Oh, it has nothing to do with the arrangement!” Gabby exclaimed. “The arranging is fine, musically.”

Dexter raised his eyebrows.
“Fine?”

“No, it’s good,” Gabby amended. “The problem is the song itself. ‘Ballin’ the Jack’ is a dance number.”

Eddie shrugged. “So let them dance.”

“Don’t you ever bother listening to the lyrics?” Gabby rolled her eyes about as far back in her head as they could go. These jazz guys might know an awful lot about musicianship and notation and all the things that made her practically throw up with boredom when Walter Gould went on and on about them, but none of them had the faintest idea what it took to put a song across. “It’s not that kind of dance. It’s a lyric dance for
me
to do. An … 
instructional
lyric, if you know what I mean.”

Eddie shook his head.
Oh brother
, Gabby thought. This was going to be even harder than she thought.

“Fine. I’ll show you.” Sighing, she pushed away the small area rug covering the ground where she stood and hiked up the skirt of her evening gown, tucking it firmly under each garter so her
legs showed. “So the way you have it, it starts out instrumental,” she said. “The easy opener. Very Tommy Dorsey. Nothing wrong with that. Go on,” she commanded the musicians, who had begun to gather curiously around. “Play.”

Dexter was the first at the piano. He was joined by an intrepid clarinetist and a bald guy with a trombone; the rest of them simply stood and stared.
And no wonder
, Gabby thought.
I probably look like I’m wearing a big pink diaper
. “Okay, good,” she said. “So you keep up that vamp, maybe there’s a little bit of a trumpet solo, if we’re really going for the Dorsey.” She gestured encouragingly to a cornet player, who, with a glance at Eddie, hesitantly joined in. “Then it’s quiet, and then I come up front and sing.
First you put your two knees close up tight … then you swing ’em to the left and you swing ’em to the right …
”

It wasn’t really such a bad song, she thought as she sang. The melody wasn’t anything to write home about, but her voice felt clear and powerful and so supple that when the second chorus came, she ignored the insipid lyrics entirely and let go with a torrent of hot scat that seemed to take on a life of its own, ending on a big belted high note.
Not bad
.

“Then the trumpet takes over again,” Gabby continued hastily, gesturing again to the cornet player, “and picks up where he left off. The piano comes in, maybe the trombone—that’s up to you guys. You get faster, but how much of this can you listen to, I mean, really? And you know it too, because then you put in this piano vamp”—she pointed at Dexter—“which is the natural place for me to come in with the time step.”

On the downbeat, Gabby started to tap. Nice and slow at first—what Jimmy liked to call leisurely—throwing in a couple of extra little changes and syncopation to keep it interesting
to herself, then faster, then double time. The musicians followed the rhythm of her feet, racing to keep up. The sound was filling out; more musicians were joining in. They reached the last instrumental crescendo.
I need a big finish
, Gabby thought. Wildly, she flung herself into four devilishly difficult butterfly turns, the acrobatic backward rotating leaps so beloved by Tully Toynbee (and the reason Gabby no longer had any cartilage in her left ankle), took a last deep breath, and belted out the last line of the song, her voice ringing from the rafters:
“And that’s what I call Ballin’ the Jack!”
The horn section blared as she held the last note, arms outstretched, falling to her knees like Al Jolson, waiting for an ovation.