Love Me (4 page)

“What time is it? Oh God, they’ve already started!”

With a shriek, Margo leapt out of bed and ran out the door and down the long corridor to the kitchen. For reasons that had never quite been made clear to her, Dane insisted on keeping the only wireless in the house in the pantry “for George to listen to.” Dane padded behind her, still looking stunned as he pulled on his robe.

George jumped in astonishment at the sight of the house’s nominal mistress bursting into the pantry unannounced in a transparent nightgown, her hair standing on end like a wild woman’s.

“Marg … I mean, Miss … Is there something …”

“The radio,” she croaked. “I need the radio.”

She shoved him out of the way, wrenching the dial from the sedate breakfast program he liked to listen to in which a couple of British people bickered pleasantly over the merits of marmalade versus jam, until the static gave way to the familiar voice of Frank Capra, the director who was currently serving his final term as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“And now, for the acting nominations.”

Mr. Capra’s voice was ebullient as usual, but it hit Margo like a splash of icy water to the face. She drew her breath in sharply.

“For the Academy Award for Best Actor, the nominees are as follows,” he continued. “Spencer Tracy, for
Boys Town
. Charles Boyer, for
Algiers
. James Cagney, for
Angels with Dirty Faces
. Dane Forrest, for
The Nine Days’ Queen
.”

“Mr. Forrest!” George jumped about three feet in the air. “My God! We have to celebrate! I’ll make a special breakfast; we’ll open a bottle of champagne—”

“George! Be quiet!”

The house manager’s face fell.

“Sorry, pal,” Dane said in a loud stage whisper, shooting him an apologetic look. “The dame’s a little antsy, what can I tell you?”

“I said, be quiet! That goes for you too.”

“…  and Leslie Howard, for
Pygmalion
. And now, the nominees for the Best Actress award.”

Margo felt her blood run hot and cold all at once, like a tornado was going to start swirling inside her. Dane reached for her hand, but she swatted him away.

“Bette Davis, for
Jezebel
.”
No surprise there
. The whole town had been saying Davis was a shoo-in for a nomination, if not the big prize itself, for more than a year, since Margo was still mooning over movie magazines at the soda counter at Schwab’s.

“Fay Bainter, for
White Banners
.” That was more unexpected. Bainter was a character actress with the kind of face, as studio bigwigs like to say, that had “Best Supporting” written all over it. Usually cast as kindly mothers and spinster aunts, she was hardly the kind of glamour puss for which the Academy liked to reserve its highest honor.

“Wendy Hiller, for
Pygmalion
.”

“That’s the British girl,” George chimed in knowledgeably. “I thought she made a spectacular Eliza Doolittle. She played the role on the West End as well—they talked all about it on
Breakfast with Irene and Roger
. Apparently, she’s a special protégée of the great Mr. Shaw himself.”

Well, bully for Wendy Hiller
, Margo thought. Anyone could be swell in a part they’d already played before. And George Bernard Shaw might be the Greatest Living Writer in the English
Language, but after a grueling semester listening to Mr. Over-street, the frustrated former actor who taught English literature at Orange Grove, read
Caesar and Cleopatra
in a phony British accent, Margo found his work a little pedantic for her taste. Caesar and Cleo didn’t even wind up together, or come to a tragic end.
Give me Shakespeare any day
. At least
he
knew how to write a proper romance.

“That’s good.” Dane squeezed Margo’s hand, in spite of her earlier rebuff. “Howard got the nod too. It means they’re putting up costars this year. It’s a good sign.”

“Norma Shearer, for
Marie Antoinette
.”

“Well, of course,” Margo said aloud. They couldn’t let the year go by without heaping accolades on Irving Thalberg’s widow, even in a part she was at least fifteen years too old for in a movie that was dull as dirt. It was time for some fresh blood at MGM, all right. Garbo, Crawford, and Hepburn, their three other huge female stars, had all been labeled “box-office poison” last year. As for Shearer, well, Sainted Irving, the boy genius, had been dead since 1936. How much longer was it going to take for Louis B. Mayer to admit to himself that the woman simply could not act?

“…  and Margaret Sullavan, for
Three Comrades
,” Frank Capra finished. “Now, onto the supporting categories. For Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Walter Brennan, for …”

Quietly, Dane reached over her shoulder and switched off the wireless.

They didn’t pick me
.

It hit Margo like a bucket of ice water in the face. She’d been so sure. Everyone had been so sure. Larry Julius’s office had already written her gushing, tastefully tearful “it’s an honor just
to be nominated” statement for immediate release to the press. Rex Mandalay himself had begun preliminary sketches for her gown. The studio had spent thousands of dollars ordering and distributing prints of
The Nine Days’ Queen
all over town, so every Academy member could have the luxury of watching Margo Sterling’s star-making performance in the comfort of their own private projection rooms. It didn’t matter. It hadn’t worked.

Except
, Margo thought darkly,
except for Dane
.

And somehow that made it all so much worse.

Margo felt her face flush. Her vision grew blurry, and a moment later, the fat, hot tears spilled down her face, slowly at first, then in floods. Before she knew it, she was wailing, sobbing like a baby denied its bottle.

Dane’s arm was around her. “George,” he said quietly, “please fetch Miss Sterling’s robe from the bedroom. Margo, come with me.”

The house manager gratefully fled. Still blinded by tears, Margo obediently let Dane lead her out of the kitchen and down the hallway to his small, dark study. He settled her on the leather chaise and poured a glass of brandy from the cut-glass decanter set carelessly on a pile of important-looking documents on the paper-strewn desk. “Drink it,” he commanded Margo.

“Dane, we haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

“I don’t care. Drink it. All of it.”

Margo drank. The brandy burned a fiery path down her throat, spreading warmth through her chest.

“Better?” Dane was watching her closely. “Need another one?”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid I’ll be sick.”

“Fine.”

Running a hand through his mussed hair, Dane briskly paced the length of the room before coming back to stand in front of Margo on the chaise.

“Now listen carefully, sweetheart, because I’m not going to say this twice. This is
one
year.
The Nine Days’ Queen
was your first picture. You’ll have plenty of chances. The studio picked up the option on your contract, you’ve got two pictures in the can …”

“Girlfriend parts.” Margo sniffed. “Silly schoolgirls, simpering debutantes. And nothing on the horizon. They’re talking about that
Madame Bovary
remake that Kurtzman wants to do, but …” She shook her head furiously. “I swear, Dane, it’s like I’m going backward. One minute I’m playing the lead role in one of the biggest dramas of the year, the next I’m standing around in some snowball of an evening dress, batting my eyes at Jimmy Molloy while I tell him how swell it is he wants to put on a show in Grampa’s barn. Not that there aren’t plenty of good parts around, but they’re sure not giving them to me. David Selznick wouldn’t even see me for Scarlett O’Hara. My God, he must have tested every hatcheck girl and taxi dancer in town, and he wouldn’t so much as let me read!”

“And why should he have?” Dane asked. “Because you hit the jackpot the first time you played the slots? That makes you lucky, Margo. It doesn’t make you good.”

“You don’t think I’m good?” Margo felt her eyes start to swim again.

“Of course I think you’re good. We wouldn’t be here if you weren’t good. You don’t think I let the lousy actresses stay for breakfast, do you?”

Dane grinned. Margo didn’t crack a smile.

“But we both know you’ve still got a lot to learn,” he continued, “and because you’re lucky, you’re going to get a chance to. A chance a million girls would kill for, and not metaphorically either.” His tone softened. “I’m sorry, baby. I know how much you wanted this, but you’re going to have another chance. This just wasn’t your year.”

Margo wiped her nose. “Do you think the studio is terribly disappointed?”

Dane gave a short grunt. “I don’t think, I
know
. That’s why everything you do from now on is so important. No matter how you feel, Margo, you’ve got to go around for the next four weeks with your head held high. You’re going to go out every night, laughing and dancing as if you were the happiest girl in the world. When the reporters ask you, you’ll tell them how thrilled you are for all the nominees, and how you can only dream of one day even being considered to join their august company. You’re going to float into that ceremony at the Biltmore on my arm looking so gorgeous that no one is going to give a second glance to Shearer or Davis or whatever dried-up bag of bones they give the goddamn statue to. And you’re going to do whatever Rex Mandalay or Larry Julius or Leo Karp tells you to. You’ve got to keep them all on your side.” Gently, he took the empty glass from her hand. “The clock had to strike for Cinderella sometime, Margie. You’ve been in Hollywood long enough to know that all the real acting happens offscreen.”

Margo’s mind felt fuzzy. On her empty morning stomach, the brandy had gone straight to her head. She nodded carefully, as though she were trying not to dislodge anything that ought not to move. “I understand.”

“Good.” Dane walked behind the scarred mahogany desk. “Look. There’s something else, something I wanted to …”

He trailed off, looking down at the piles of papers. The blind over the single window was closed, but even in the dim light Margo thought she saw a blush creeping up over his neck.

“I don’t know if this is the best time,” Dane continued, “but what the hell. Maybe it’ll cheer you up.” He slid open a drawer and retrieved a small object. Smiling shyly, he held it out to Margo.

It was a square velvet jewelry box.

The kind that only meant one thing
.

Margo’s mouth flew open. Could it be? Had he been planning this all along?

“Oh, Dane …”

“Open it,” he urged. “Go on.”

With trembling hands, Margo caressed the little box, wanting to make the moment last as long as possible, imagining the tears that would spring to her eyes, the delighted gasp she would make as she caught her first glimpse of the diamond that would sparkle on her finger for the rest of her life—or a good chunk of it, anyway. She lifted the lid.

It sparkled, all right. But it wasn’t a ring.

It was a brooch, no more than an inch square, of pavé diamonds in the shape of the Imperial State Crown of England. A minute gold cross set with pearls emerged from the top. A cabochon sapphire gleamed from the center, where the Black Prince’s Ruby would be, and when Margo looked closely, she could just see the faint shimmer of the star winking in the center.

“Oh,” she said numbly. “What a lovely thing.”

Dane beamed, clearly mistaking her confusion for genuine awe. “I’ve been hanging on to it for ages. I ordered it especially from Cartier; apparently they do all the ice for that Mrs. Simpson, the one who married the king of England. I thought maybe it could replace that little one with the pearls that you always used to wear, the one that got lost?”

The pin that got lost
.

The little gold-and-pearl circle pin had been her favorite, a family heirloom given to her by her parents for her sixteenth birthday. She’d worn it as sort of a good-luck charm whenever she needed to feel particularly brave—which in Hollywood was a
lot
—until it went missing on the lawn of the Pasadena Country Club that horrible night at her former friend Doris Winthrop’s coming-out party when Phipps McKendrick, her former beau, had tried to force himself on her.

Luckily, she’d been rescued in the nick of time when her driver, Arthur, heard her scream, but there had been a terrible scene. The crowd had rallied around Phipps—who after all was the son of one of Pasadena’s most prominent families, while Margo had shamed her family by running off to become an actress, which as far as they were concerned was no better than being a whore—and Margo found herself cast out of the world into which she had been born once and for all.

It was sweet of Dane to recognize how much the pin had meant to her, but what he didn’t know was that it wasn’t lost at all. It had been anonymously returned to Margo, tucked into a blank envelope along with a brief, cryptic note, unsigned and in an unfamiliar hand. Margo had never found out who sent it. Even the thought of making inquiries dredged up memories of things she’d just as soon forget. As for the pin, she’d never
worn it again, could barely even look at it. It was too potent a reminder of her old life, of a world in which she was no longer welcome. Any good luck it had held for her was gone. Still in its mysterious envelope, it now lay—along with her old school tie and unused yellow autograph book—out of sight in the back of her closet in the studio bungalow, buried in a shoe box like a little cardboard coffin.

“I wanted to give it to you at the premiere,” Dane said, “but it wasn’t ready yet, so I figured I’d wait until a special occasion. Now’s as good a time as any, I guess. Do you really like it?”

It’s a funny thing about letdowns. They’re always so much worse than never expecting anything at all
. “It’s lovely,” Margo repeated. “Really lovely.”

“Good.” Dane beamed. “Now let’s have a real drink. I just got nominated for an Oscar!”