“I haven’t done anything yet,” my mom says. “It’s still in the idea phase. But I’m thinking I want to come visit.”
I don’t say anything for a moment, weighing the pros and cons, as I chew the massive chunk of cheese I just put in my mouth. Con: she will critique every single outfit I wear in her presence. Pro: she will make macaroni and cheese and coconut cake. Con: she will ask me if I’m OK every three seconds. Pro: for at least a few days, when I come home, this apartment will not be empty.
I swallow. “OK,” I say finally. “Great idea. I can take you to a show, maybe.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” she says. “I already booked the ticket.”
“Mom,” I say, groaning.
“What? I could have canceled it if you’d said no. But you didn’t. So great. I’ll be there in about two weeks. That works, right?”
I knew this was going to happen as soon as my mom partially retired from teaching last year. She spent decades as the head of the science department at a private high school, and the moment she told me she was stepping down and only teaching two classes, I knew that extra time and attention would have to go somewhere.
“Yeah, that works,” I say as I cut up the tomatoes and pour olive oil on them.
“I just want to make sure you’re OK,” my mom says. “I want to be there. You shouldn’t—”
“I know, Mom,” I say, cutting her off. “I know. I get it. Thank you. For coming. It will be fun.”
It won’t be fun, necessarily. But it will be good. It’s like going to a party when you’ve had a bad day. You don’t want to go, but you know you should. You know that even if you don’t enjoy it, it will do you good to get out of the house.
“Did you get the package I sent?” she says.
“The package?”
“With your dad’s photos?”
“Oh, no,” I say. “I didn’t.”
We are quiet for a moment, and then my mom gets exasperated by my silence. “For heaven’s sake, I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up, but I can’t wait any longer. How’s it going with Evelyn Hugo?” she says. “I’m dying to know, and you’re not offering anything!”
I pour my Pellegrino and tell her that Evelyn is somehow both forthright and hard to read. And then I tell her that she isn’t giving me the story for Vivant. That she wants me to write a book.
“I’m confused,” my mom says. “She wants you to write her biography?”
“Yeah,” I say. “And as exciting as it is, there’s something weird about it. I mean, I don’t think she ever considered doing a piece with Vivant at all. I think she was . . .” I trail off, because I haven’t figured out exactly what it is I’m trying to say.
“What?”
I think about it more. “Using Vivant to get to me. I don’t quite know. But Evelyn is very calculating. She’s up to something.”
“Well, I’m not surprised she wants you. You’re talented. You’re bright . . .”
I find myself rolling my eyes at my mother’s predictability, but I do still appreciate it. “No, I know, Mom. But there’s another layer here. I’m convinced of it.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I guess so.”
“Should I be worried?” my mom asks. “I mean, are you worried?”
I hadn’t thought about it in such direct terms, but I suppose my answer is no. “I think I’m too intrigued to be worried,” I say.
“Well, then, just make sure you share the real juicy stuff with your mother. I did suffer through a twenty-two-hour labor for you. I deserve this.”
I laugh, and it comes out, just a little bit, like an old man. “All right,” I say. “I promise.”
* * *
“OK,” EVELYN SAYS. “Are we ready?”
She is back in her seat. I am in my spot at the desk. Grace has brought us a tray with blueberry muffins, two white mugs, a carafe of coffee, and a stainless-steel creamer. I stand up, pour my coffee, add my cream, walk back to the desk, press record, and then say, “Yes, ready. Go for it. What happened next?”
Goddamn Don Adler
LITTLE WOMEN TURNED OUT TO be a carrot dangled in front of me. Because as soon as I became “Evelyn Hugo, Young Blonde,” Sunset had all sorts of movies they wanted me to do. Dumb sentimental comedy stuff.
I was OK with it for two reasons. One, I had no choice but to be all right with it because I didn’t hold the cards. And two, my star was rising. Fast.
The first movie they gave me to star in was Father and Daughter. We shot it in 1956. Ed Baker played my widowed father, and the two of us were falling in love with people at the same time. Him with his secretary, me with his apprentice.
During that time, Harry was really pushing for me to go out on a few dates with Brick Thomas.
Brick was a former child star and a matinee idol who honest-to-God thought he might be the messiah. Just standing next to him, I thought I might drown in the self-adoration cascading off him.
One Friday night, Brick and I met, with Harry and Gwendolyn Peters, a few blocks from Chasen’s. Gwen put me in a dress, hose, and heels. She put my hair in an updo. Brick showed up in dungarees and a T-shirt, and Gwen put him in a nice suit. We drove Harry’s brand-new crimson Cadillac Biarritz the half mile to the front door.
People were taking pictures of Brick and me before we even got out of the car. We were escorted to a circular booth, where the two of us packed ourselves in tight together. I ordered a Shirley Temple.
“How old are you, sweetheart?” Brick asked me.
“Eighteen,” I said.
“So I bet you had my picture up on your wall, huh?”
It took everything I had not to grab my drink and throw it right in his face. Instead, I smiled as politely as possible and said, “How’d you know?”
Photographers snapped shots as we sat together. We pretended not to see them, making it look as if we were laughing together, arm in arm.
An hour later, we were back with Harry and Gwendolyn, changing into our normal clothes.
Just before Brick and I said good-bye, he turned to me and smiled. “Gonna be a lot of rumors about you and me tomorrow,” he said.
“Sure are.”
“Let me know if you want to make ’em true.”
I should have kept quiet. I should have just smiled nicely. But instead, I said, “Don’t hold your breath.”
Brick looked at me and laughed and then waved good-bye, as if I hadn’t just insulted him.
“Can you believe that guy?” I said. Harry had already opened my door and was waiting for me to get into the car.
“That guy makes us a lot of money,” he said as I sat down.
Harry got in on the other side and turned the key in the ignition but didn’t start driving. Instead, he looked at me. “I’m not saying you should be dallying around too much with these actors you don’t like,” he said. “But it would do you some good, if you liked one, if things progressed past a photo op or two. The studio would like it. The fans would like it.”
Naively, I had thought I was done pretending to like the attention of every man I came across. “OK,” I said, rather petulantly. “I’ll try.”
And while I knew it was the best thing to do for my career, I grinned through my teeth on dates with Pete Greer and Bobby Donovan.
But then Harry set me up on a date with Don Adler, and I forgot why I would ever have resented the idea in the first place.
* * *
DON ADLER INVITED me out to Mocambo, without a doubt the hottest club in town, and he picked me up at my apartment.
I opened the door to see him in a nice suit, with a bouquet of lilies. He was just a few inches taller than me in my heels. Light brown hair, hazel eyes, square jaw, the kind of smile that, the moment you saw it, made you smile. It was the smile his mother had been famous for, now on a handsomer face.
“For you,” he said, just a bit shyly.
“Wow,” I said, taking them from him. “They’re gorgeous. Come in. Come in. I’ll put them in some water.”
I was wearing a boatneck sapphire-blue cocktail dress, my hair up in a chignon. I grabbed a vase from underneath the sink and turned the water on.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” I said as Don stood in my kitchen, waiting for me.
“Well,” he said, “I wanted to. I’ve been hounding Harry to meet you for a while. So it was the least I could do to make you feel special.”
I put the flowers on the counter. “Shall we?”
Don nodded and took my hand.
“I saw Father and Daughter,” he said when we were in his convertible and headed over to the Sunset Strip.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, Ari showed me an early cut. He says he thinks it’s going to be a big hit. Says he thinks you’re going to be a big hit.”
“And what did you think?”
We were stopped at a red light on Highland. Don looked at me. “I think you’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Oh, stop,” I said. I found myself laughing, blushing even.
“Truly. And a real talent, too. When the movie ended, I looked right at Ari and said, ‘That’s the girl for me.’ ”
“You did not,” I said.
Don put up his hand. “Scout’s honor.”
There’s absolutely no reason a man like Don Adler should have a different effect on me from the rest of the men in the world. He was no more handsome than Brick Thomas, no more earnest than Ernie Diaz, and he could offer me stardom whether I loved him or not. But these things defy reason. I blame pheromones, ultimately.
That and the fact that, at least at first, Don Adler treated me like a person. There are people who see a beautiful flower and rush over to pick it. They want to hold it in their hands, they want to own it. They want the flower’s beauty to be theirs, to be within their possession, their control. Don wasn’t like that. At least, not at first. Don was happy to be near the flower, to look at the flower, to appreciate the flower simply being.
Here’s the thing about marrying a guy like that—a guy like Don Adler, back then. You’re saying to him, “This beautiful thing you’ve been happy to simply appreciate, well, now it’s yours to own.”