The Slipper (52 page)

“It's late, Miss Hammond, and I think perhaps—'”

“Set 'em up, Joe. I have an innocent, virginal quality like young Jennifer Jones in
Song of Bernadette
and it shines through no matter what role I may be playing, and that's why the studio doesn't want the public to know about my son. I have a son, his name is Danny, he'll be four years old in January, and it'd blow my image if the public found out about that, found out their virginal, luminous Julie had been married for over five years and fucked by her husband for four and a half of those five years and gave birth to a son. We have to keep it hush-hush, and that's why Danny isn't here with me, too many people from the press snooping around film locations. Hedda knows, of course, and so does Louella, but Hedda and Louella are well paid by the studios to keep their mouths shut about certain things. I miss him, Joe. We've only been here for two days, and I miss him dreadfully and he can't understand why Mommy's in New Hampshire and he's still in Hollywood with Hannah. Just one more. Don't be a bastard. I know I'm a little tipsy, but I'm not disturbing anyone, am I? Am I making a spectacle of myself? Am I driving away your paying customers with my obnoxious behavior and foul language?”

“Of course you're not, Miss Hammond, but—”

“You're supposed to be open until one o'clock and it isn't one yet so set 'em up, Joe. I need some rest, I told them, I need a couple of months off before I start another film and they said you gotta contract, sweetheart, you're gonna play Valerie Novack or you're gonna go on suspension startin' right now. Look at all we've done for you. You're a fucking star. One movie in release and you're already a fucking star. Thousands of girls'd give their left boob to be where you are so stop bitching and show a little gratitude. Pour me my drink and make it snappy, big boy. I love that line. I used it in a play I did in New York, off Broadway. I played a raucous hooker. Nobody was worried about my image back then. Nobody cared whether I'd been married or was living in sin or selling it on the street corner. My performance was all that counted. I hate Hollywood. I don't want to be a fucking star. I want to be with my son. I want to rest. I need some rest, Joe. I need another drink, too, so be a sweetheart and pour me just one more.”

“Please, Miss Hammond—”

“Problem, Steve?” someone asked.

“She's had a little too much, Mr. Jensen. I don't think she needs another one. She hasn't made any ruckus or caused any problems but she's been drinking steadily since eight o'clock. All those other Hollywood folks went up to their rooms over a couple-a hours ago, but I can't persuade Miss Hammond to call it a night.”

Julie whirled around on her stool to see who Joe was talking to and looked up into the bluest pair of eyes she'd ever seen. The man was very tall and had a lean, muscular physique and thick dark-blond hair and looked like some Viking warrior incongruously dressed in gray corduroy slacks and a powder-blue sweater with white-and-gray patterns across the chest.

“When'd they hire you?” she asked. “You're not playing Anson Wentworth, you're not playing the high school principal, and, don't take offense, but you're a bit too old to be playing one of the football players who rape me. Oh, I bet you're one of the stuntmen. There's that big fight scene in the gymnasium, they're going to shoot it next week, and—”

“Why don't you let me take you up to your room, Miss Hammond?”

“Jesus, you're just like all the rest of them, aren't you? You think just because a girl works in the movies she's got the morals of a mink. You're gorgeous, Mr. Stuntman, but I don't fuck strangers. I don't fuck anyone. Haven't you read
Life
magazine? I'm an old-fashioned girl. If you want to get laid, I suggest you go knock on Loni Danton's door. She may be a bit long in the tooth but she's still a glamorous star and I understand she'll fuck anything that isn't nailed down. I'm surprised she hasn't appropriated you already.”

The man smiled. Those blue, blue eyes were full of amusement. He wasn't as young as she had first assumed him to be. That ruggedly handsome face had a battered, lived-in look. He must be pushing forty, but he was in superb condition. He'd have to be to be working in stunts.

“Tell you what,” she said, “I won't fuck, but I will buy you a drink. I could use a little company. Joe's all right, but, well, to be perfectly frank, he's a crashing bore. No fun at all. Stingy with the drinks, too. He thinks I don't know he's been watering them down.”

“You'd better let me take you up to your room.”

“You don't give up, do you? I might be a little tipsy, but don't think I don't know what you're after. Shove off, sweetcakes. If you keep bothering me I intend to call the manager of this dump.”

“I
am
the manager of this dump,” he told her. “Lund Jensen, at your service.”

“Lund Jensen? What kinda name is that?”

“Norwegian,” he said.

“You're Norwegian?”

“My grandparents were. I'm one hundred percent American, Yale graduate, served my country valiantly in Korea, found I wasn't cut out to be an engineer, went back to school, took a course in hotel management, came back home to South Medford and became manager of this dump. The former owners decided they couldn't take another New Hampshire winter and retired to Florida and made me a good offer and I now
own
this dump as well.”

“You expect me to remember all that?”

“I don't expect you to remember any of this, Miss Hammond.”

“I'm not that drunk, Mr. Lund.”

“Jensen,” he corrected her. “Lund's my first name.”

“It's a very silly name,” Julie told him. “So you're throwing me out of the joint?”

“I'm graciously escorting you to your room, as befits mine host. Are you going to come peacefully, or do I have to sling you across my shoulder and carry you?”

Julie drew herself up with great dignity. She climbed down off the stool, stumbling quite badly. Lund Jensen caught hold of her arm, holding her up. He had very large hands. He was a very large man, very muscular, but he was lean, and he looked wonderful in his sweater. He looked kind, too. She decided to be friendly and let him help her up the stairs. Nothing so modern as an elevator at Meadows Inn. The stairs were very old and there was a tricky turn halfway up and she didn't want to fall flat on her ass.

“I'm not really a lush,” she confided as he led her out of the lounge.

“I'm sure you're not, Miss Hammond.”

“I'm just so unhappy, you see. My little boy's back home in Hollywood and I—I miss him dreadfully. I don't get smashed like this very often, I promise you.”

“I'm sure you don't.”

They started up the stairs and her legs suddenly felt like water and everything began to blur. Edges and outlines seemed to grow fuzzy and colors seemed to melt together and grow hazy. He held her arm firmly and curled a strong arm around her shoulders, holding her, and she grew dizzy and knew she wasn't going to make it. They neared the tricky turn and Julie closed her eyes and felt his arm tightening and the haze turned black and the next thing she knew she was in her bedroom, sitting on the bed, and he was standing there in front of her holding her shoulders.

“We made it,” she said.

Her voice seemed to come from a long distance. He was standing there beside the bed, yes, and he was holding her shoulders, she could feel his fingers digging into her flesh, but he looked all fuzzy, a blur of blue sweater, a blur of dark-blond hair, a face with fuzzy features and blue, blue eyes peering down at her with grim intensity.

“I guess I'm out of it,” she said.

“I guess you are.”

“You must think I'm awful, an awful person. I'm not. I'm not, not really. I miss my son, I miss my Danny, and I didn't want to do this movie. I get very involved with every role I play, you see, that's the way I work, I have to identify very closely, it has to come up from within me, and Valerie's going to be very demanding. She has an affair with her illegitimate half brother without either of them knowing they're related and she gets pregnant and her mother makes her get an abortion and then she's raped by two football players, and—I have to
feel
all those emotions, I have to experience all that—”

“I don't think you'd better talk anymore, Miss Hammond. You'd better try to get some sleep.”

“Sleep. Yes. Bathroom.”

He helped her to her feet. She stumbled into the bathroom and pulled open the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet over the sink and groped for the bottle of pills and the pills rattled as she tried to pry off the lid and suddenly he was there beside her, so big, filling the room it seemed, and he grabbed the bottle out of her hand and cursed and shook his head and then saw the other bottles on the shelf and cursed again and took them, too, and Julie began to pound on his chest with her fists.

“I've got to have my pills! I can't sleep without them! You've no right to take them!”

“I don't intend to have a corpse on my hands in the morning,” he informed her.

“I've got to sleep!”

She was sobbing now, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close and tight and rocked her and she rested her cheek against his broad chest, feeling the soft nap of the sweater, feeling his warmth, feeling secure as his arms tightened even more and he murmured words that were very gentle and came from a long, long distance. He took her back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed with her, holding her still, and she tried to talk, tried to tell him how sorry she was for causing so much trouble, but the words were trapped in a black void and she couldn't make them float to the surface. He continued to murmur soothing words she couldn't understand. He was so warm, so strong, so gentle, a wonderful man, not a stuntman, no, he wasn't with the picture. He was … Julie couldn't remember who he was but he was there and she was safe and that was all that mattered.

Julie woke up the next morning feeling like death. She knew now just what the expression meant. She had never drunk so much in all her life and, oh God, she never would again. She promised herself that as she struggled into a sitting position. She was under the covers. She was wearing her thin blue nightgown and nothing else at all. How had that come about? There had been a man. He … he had brought her up to her room, and … Julie frowned, trying to remember, and then she groaned as someone knocked loudly on the door. The door opened and a plump, cheery maid came bustling in with a tray holding coffeepot and cup, cream and sugar, a rack of buttered toast and a slim crystal vase with a single pink rose.

“Who—” Julie moaned. “I didn't—what time is—”

“It's seven-thirty,” the maid said brightly.

“Seven-thirty? Oh Jesus,” Julie said. “I was supposed to be downstairs an hour ago.”

The maid nodded briskly. “That director fellow, Mr. Stevens, he was downstairs in the lobby with Loni Danton and them other Hollywood folks. They were waiting for you. Mr. Jensen told Mr. Stevens you were feeling a bit under the weather this morning and would be a little late.”

“Jensen?”

“Lund Jensen, the manager. Mr. Stevens wanted to send a doctor up here to your room but Mr. Jensen said he'd already attended to that, said you'd be fine in a couple of hours and would join them then.”

“Lund Jensen,” Julie said.

She began to remember, and she felt even worse.

“He's the one sent me up with the coffee. The rose was his idea, too. We all of us love working for him. Couldn't ask for a better boss, though he can be stern when he has to be. I remember the time that new bellboy stole a watch from one of the guests' rooms, and—”

“Thank you,” Julie said. “You may go now.”

“My pleasure, Miss Hammond.”

The maid departed and Julie drank the whole pot of coffee, remembering everything, and the humiliation was almost as bad as the throbbing headache. He must think she was one of those stereotype Hollywood basket cases living on alcohol and pills. He had sent a rose. The rose was his idea, the maid had told her. Julie set the tray aside and went into the bathroom. All the bottles of pills were gone. He had taken them with him, the bastard. No problem. They'd be easy enough to replace. But what was she going to do this morning? She had to have something to get her started. Didn't she? Did she? There was a time not so long ago when she never even took an aspirin unless it was absolutely necessary. She could use an aspirin right now. She could use several. She took a long hot bath and somehow, God only knew how, she was able to report for work by nine-fifteen.

Although it was only four short blocks away, a studio car drove her to the location. They were shooting in front of the lovely old white clapboard church with its tall gray steeple and narrow windows. Four huge aluminum studio vans were parked nearby and there was a crowd of onlookers. Everything was set up, the area around the church a veritable jungle of cables and cranes and cameras. The extras were in costume. Loni Danton was wearing her yellow linen dress and smoking impatiently, her blonde hair carefully coiffed and lacquered with spray. She shot Julie an angry look. Loni Danton had been a big, big star throughout the forties and early fifties, a rotten actress but the personification of Hollywood glamor, as celebrated for her scandalous love life as for the glossy MGM epics in which she appeared. There had been too many scandals, too many innocuous Technicolor bombs, and her star had long since begun to tarnish. Loni was bitter about playing a mother role, bitter about her billing—“And Loni Danton as Martha Novack”—and bitterly resented the young actress who was getting all the attention
she
used to command.

“Here the little slut is!” she snapped. “Glad you could make it! We've been waiting for over two hours.”