Love Me (7 page)

“Aw, you know it.” Almost as though he could sense her frustration, the guy broke easily into song.
“First you put your two knees, close up tight … then you swing ’em to the left and you swing ’em to the right.”
Lifting his horn to his lips, he played the next couple of bars.

“Ballin’ the Jack,” Gabby snapped. The knowing look in his eyes was getting on her nerves. “Of course I know it. Why would I want to sing that old thing? It’s kid stuff.”

“Maybe, but so is ‘A-Tisket, A-Tasket,’ and Ella Fitzgerald did pretty well for herself with that. Eddie thinks you sound like her.”

Gabby pulled herself up to her full four feet eleven inches. “Watch it, buddy. I’m Gabby Preston. I don’t sound like
anyone
.”

He laughed.
Why the hell is he so damn smiley?
“Believe me, if someone says you sing like Ella, I’d take it.”

“Where is Eddie?” Gabby said. “I want to talk to him.”

“Oh, Eddie never rehearses with the guest vocalists. That’s my job.”

“Oh. Well, who are you?”

“Dexter Harrington,” he said, tipping his hat. “Lead horn, side man, and second in command, I guess you could say.”

“Well, I want to talk to Eddie,” Gabby demanded. “If I have to sing with Eddie Sharp, then I want to rehearse with Eddie Sharp.”

“I told you, baby, Eddie’s not here,” Dexter Harrington said. “Eddie’s gone.”

Baby?
Gabby was furious. Just who did this Eddie Sharp character think he was, anyway? First he wanted to make her sing that stupid song, and then he didn’t even have the decency to be there to sell her on it.

Figures
. Just when you got your hopes up about a guy, he turned out to be a louse like all the others. And as for this Dexter Harrington, well, no side man was going to call her “baby” and get away with it. Not at her studio.

“Fine,” Gabby said. “Then I’m gone too.”

Turning on her heel, she started to march toward the door, kicking over a music stand for good measure. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud, practically crushing the feet of a couple of trombone players standing nearby.
Good
, Gabby thought meanly.
Maybe now they’ll notice I’m here
. She kicked
over another one, scattering paper and pencils all over the floor.

“All right,” Dexter called after her. “I get the point. But suppose this: before you rip the place apart any worse than you already have, suppose you tell me what you want to sing.”

In her fury, the reasonableness of his request took Gabby by surprise. “Is this some sort of trick question?”

He held up his hands, sax and all. “No trick, I swear. Come on. What’s your favorite song to sing? If you could sing anything in the world.”

Gabby blinked. “I don’t know. ‘I Got Rhythm,’ maybe. Or ‘Someone to Watch Over Me.’ ”

“Gershwin.” Dexter nodded seriously. “Now we’re talking.” Without taking his eyes from Gabby’s face, he sat down at the piano and, betraying not even the slightest hint of hesitation, brought his hands down into the first crashing chords of Gershwin’s famous
Rhapsody in Blue
. In spite of herself, Gabby closed her eyes for a moment as the music enfolded her, letting the sensual yearning of the familiar melody shut out everything else.

“Poor George,” Dexter said sadly, shaking his head. “I felt like they ripped my heart out when I heard he passed. They don’t make ’em like that anymore. And the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet.”

“Wait—wait a minute,” Gabby stammered. “You knew George Gershwin?”

“Sure.” Dexter’s fingers never left the keys. “That’s tragedy for you. Tumor of the brain. Cut down in the prime of life. Sure, look at everything he accomplished, but there could have been
so much more. And like I said, that cat was the genuine article. A genuine Grade-A genius. But I guess I don’t have to tell you.”

“Where did you know him from?”

“Paris,” Dexter said easily. Without missing a beat, his fingers tripped seamlessly into the opening of
An American in Paris
. “You know.” He winked. “That city they keep over in France.”

“You were in Paris? With George Gershwin?
George Gershwin was in Paris?
”

“Of course. Where do you think he wrote this?”

He had skipped ahead a bit now, to the part of the opening movement that reminded Gabby of a bunch of forgetful soldiers scrambling to their places on patrol—da-da-da-da-da-dee
-duh
, da-da-da-da-dee
-duh
. “So what do you say, Gabby Preston?” Dexter continued. “How about we put these lazy bums here to use and give ‘Ballin’ the Jack’ a try? Okay?”

Okay
, Gabby wanted to say. The other musicians had slowly advanced on the piano, instruments in hand. What was it she’d heard that British actor say on the radio, about music having charms that could soothe the savage beast? Gabby knew she could be a beast, all right, and she also knew that if Dexter could play this way, she wanted desperately to hear the rest of them. She wanted to sing, to let loose and match them note for note, to really show them what she could do.

And maybe she would have. If she hadn’t at that moment turned her head toward the window and seen a gleaming white limousine pull up outside the wardrobe department across the street. A uniformed chauffeur hopped out to open the passenger door, and out came Miss Margo Sterling herself, wearing a beatific smile and about a thousand bucks’ worth of blond fox
fur that perfectly matched her golden hair. Rex Mandalay, the temperamental genius behind the Olympus fashion machine, leapt out of the doorway to greet her, practically kneeling before her custom-made alligator pumps as he bent to kiss her hand.

Like she’s a goddamn princess
, Gabby thought. Viola’s words swam into her head, the very ones Gabby had repeated so many times herself, not least of all to Margo Sterling herself on her very first day at Olympus:
If you want to be a star, you’ve got to act like one
.

She turned back to the hopeful face at the piano. “No dice, Dexter,” she said regretfully. “Tell Eddie Sharp I’ll see him at the Oscars. Until then, I’ll be in my dressing room. Don’t forget. I’m a star.”

T
he splendor of Rex Mandalay’s domain on the top floor of the Olympus wardrobe department rivaled that of any couturier’s atelier in Paris.

The walls were painted the most delicate shade of lavender, decorated with snow-white moldings as ornate as the lacy trim of a gingerbread house. The enormous three-way gilt-framed mirror was designed to look like the unfurled petals of an orchid; the special pink lightbulbs in the antique chinoiserie lamps emitted a flattering rosy glow. Scattered across the plush lilac carpet were the famous tufted sofas and ottomans, upholstered in bright yellow velvet, upon which the maestro would sometimes be photographed for publicity purposes, displaying his latest round of sketches to an appropriately appreciative star.

This was the inner sanctum, the Holiest of Holies. Rumor had it that even Mr. Karp had never been allowed inside to see
exactly the kind of luxury his money—or rather, New York’s money—was financing. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with Rex Mandalay and his process of creation.

And what creations! There on a rack in the middle of the room hung some of the most beautiful vestments known to God or man. A ball gown of Vermeer-blue silk with a bouffant skirt of thousands of tiny individual petals, like an enormous hydrangea blossom. A shimmering halter gown as sinuous and liquid as though it had been fashioned from molten gold. Hooded white crepe with jet beading; rich red lace; a shocking-pink silk taffeta column with a matching capelet held in place with a hand-shaped clasp sporting an enormous—and very possibly real—diamond ring. All gorgeous, all virtually priceless, all one-of-a-kind.

Margo couldn’t fit into any of them.

“Come on, darling!” Rex commanded, tugging at the zipper of a bejeweled forest-green satin, grunting like a man trying to push a boulder up a steep hill. Wardrobe assistants in white gloves pushed the emerald-encrusted bodice together on either side of her. “Suck in!”

“I’m sucking!”

“Suck harder! Come on!”

Margo felt her face turn purple as she tried valiantly to expel every last puff of air from her lungs. The wardrobe assistants threw their entire weight against her, pushing so hard Margo was sure they were going to crush her ribs.

“No,” Rex groaned finally. He released his grip on the zipper, flinging himself on a yellow divan, his face flushed with exertion. “It’s no use. For God’s sake, Margo, you’re going to have to reduce.”

“Me?” Margo yelped. “I haven’t gained an ounce. You must have made them too small, that’s all.”

“Darling.” Rex flipped a curling lock of hair, bleached to an almost platinum shade of blond, back into place. “In my atelier, I have a dressmaker’s dummy custom made to the exact proportions of every important Olympus star. And every creation you see before you was fitted to the one marked
Miss Margo Sterling
. Believe me, her measurements haven’t changed.”

“And I’m telling you, neither have mine.”

“Well, you’ve got exactly two weeks to prove it. Unless you want to wear a burlap sack to the Oscars.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway,” Margo muttered darkly. “I mean, it’s not as if I’m going to be onstage, am I? Nobody will be looking at me.”

“Don’t be defeatist, darling. It’s very ‘supporting player.’ ” Rex snapped open a gold cigarette case, took out one of the slim black cigarettes he smoked, and inserted it into a carved ivory holder. The scent of its distinctive tobacco, a kind of perfumed musk tinged with apple, filled the room.

“Can I have one of those?”

“You
may
not,” Rex retorted. “They’re imported from Egypt, and if Europe persists in this idea of having a war, who knows how many more I’ll be able to get.”

He took a deep drag and blew a couple of languorous smoke rings before he turned back to Margo, his voice all business. “Now. Don’t look so glum. Black coffee and grapefruit until the ceremony, a couple of cleverly placed hooks and eyes, and we’ll be back in business. Unless … there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“Like what?”

Rex narrowed his eyes. “Well, you’re not pregnant, are you?”

Margo’s mouth fell open.
Pregnant?

“Darling, it’s hardly an unreasonable question. Everyone knows you’ve been shacked up in Malibu with Dane Forrest. Oh, don’t look so horrified. This is Hollywood, not Hicksville. I’m not exactly going to start sewing a scarlet
A
across the fronts of your dresses. I just want to make sure you’re being careful, that’s all. Careers have been ruined by less, you know. Just look at what happened to the last one.”

He’s talking about Diana
, Margo thought with a stab of horror.

So much time had passed since the scandal of Diana Chesterfield’s mysterious disappearance that Margo had almost forgotten how a lot of pretty important people had believed that Dane had had something to do with it. Maybe they still did. After all, to most of the world, Dane and Diana were the Great Star-Crossed Lovers of the Silver Screen, cruelly driven apart by forces and passions greater than themselves. Only Margo knew that Dane and Diana had never been in love at all, that it was all a show for the cameras and the magazines.

But if people knew that, they’d start to ask why, and if the truth ever came out, it could ruin Dane. Picture people, fans and professionals alike, might tolerate a lot from their stars, but acting for years as though you were passionately in love with your own sister might be a little too much for them to take. It might not exactly be incest, but it wasn’t wholesome either.

“Diana was sick,” Margo said stubbornly. That was the official studio line, and she was sticking to it.

“Yes,” Rex mused, “but sick with what, exactly?” Deep in thought, he blew a few more smoke rings and waved them into
a perfumed cloud. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Out of sight is out of mind, I suppose, and rightly so. In the meantime, you’d better run along and leave me to my labors. I’ve got some rethinking to do, just in case the black coffee and celery doesn’t work.”

“You said grapefruit,” Margo said, grateful for the change of subject.

“I reserve the right to change my mind. Now shoo. But leave the fur,” Rex instructed. “Maybe I’ll get inspired and whip up some kind of Russian evening stole.” He arched an eyebrow as he poked the end of his ivory cigarette holder into the soft golden pile. “You never know. It could be fabulously … 
concealing
.”

“Whatever you say,” Margo said.

And I’ve got to do it
, she thought as she walked down the stairs and back out to the car.
Just like Dane said. If I want to stay at Olympus, I’ve got to be exactly the girl they want me to be
.

“Duchess! Over here!”

Squinting through the bright sun—she realized, too late, that she’d left her sunglasses along with the fur—Margo instantly recognized the small man bounding toward her, his gait as cheerily choreographed and expertly spontaneous as if it were backed by an entire studio orchestra.