Rick slumped. “All right, I’ll see him, but I won’t take his credit off the film without his agreement. I’ll resign, first.”
Eddie went and put a hand on Rick’s shoulder. “I’ve been over this a hundred times, Rick, and this is the best thing to do for all of us, including Sid. Please believe that.”
“I hope you’re right, Eddie.”
“I’ll dictate a one-page addendum to his contract and have a check cut,” Eddie said. “See you tomorrow, kiddo.”
Rick took his drink back to his office and sat in the darkening room, wondering how he could ever say to Sid what he had to say.
27
When Vance Calder arrived at Centurion after the trip from Wyoming, a letter was awaiting him at the front gate.
Vance,
We’re delighted with your work on Bitter Creek,and it seems appropriate that you have better accommodation on the lot. Accordingly, we’ve moved your things to the bungalow at 1 A Street; I think you’ll be more comfortable there. Also, your agent already has a bonus check from us for ten thousand dollars, and your price for the next two pictures will be fifty thousand dollars each. Your contract has been amended accordingly.
We’ll be working very quickly on the interiors, so plan on working straight through the weekend. I’ll tell you why when I see you and the rest of the cast at nine o’clock tomorrow morning at the ranch house set on Stage One. Again, you have the thanks of everyone here for a very fine job.
Warm regards,
Vance, a grin on his face, drove to A Street and made a right. There on the corner was number 1, the bungalow that had been Clete Barrow’s dressing room. He guessed that this meant he was now the number one star on the lot. Then he remembered Susie.
He drove quickly to his old half-bungalow and found her waiting on the front porch. “Get in your car and follow me,” he called out, then he led her back to his new digs, and they got out of their respective cars.
“This is the old Clete Barrow bungalow,” she said. “What are we doing here?”
“The landlord has upgraded me,” Vance replied, holding up the key. “Come on, let’s get your stuff.”
“Wait a minute. You mean your stuff, don’t you?”
He put his arms around her. “Listen, why should you go on sharing that tiny apartment in Hollywood, when I have all this room? Anyway, I’ve grown accustomed to sleeping with you in my arms. You don’t want to make an insomniac of me, do you?”
“Let’s take a look inside,” she said.
Vance opened the door and switched on some lights. The place had been newly painted, and the furniture looked new, too. There was a big living room, with a kitchenette and bar in a corner, a bedroom, lots of closet space and a makeup room with a barber’s chair and a lighted mirror.
“Wow,” Susie said.
“How about it, Hon?”
She smiled and kissed him. “You’re on.”
He went to their respective cars and hauled in their things, then he picked up the phone and called the studio commissary and ordered dinner for two. “We’ll be dining in an hour,” Vance said to Susie. He opened the fully stocked bar. “In the meantime, let me fix you a drink.”
“I’ll have a Scotch and water,” she said.
He handed her the drink and made himself one, on the rocks. “To a mutual new era of stardom,” he said.
They drank.
“When did they tell you about this?” she said.
“There was a letter waiting for me at the front gate.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, going to her purse, “there was one for me, too.” She opened the letter and giggled. “They’ve given me a bungalow, too — your old one — and I got a bonus!”
“I don’t want you to feel that you have to occupy it,” Vance said.
“Well, I’ll occupy it some of the time. After all, we don’t want to become an item in the columns.”
“I think we’re going to have to get used to that sort of thing,” Vance said.
She giggled. “Let’s hope so.”
Dinner arrived in a van, and a waiter set Vance’s dining table, opened their wine, poured some and left them alone. Vance held her, chair, then sat down.
“You know,” Vance said, “we’ve been so busy working and...”
“Fucking,” she said, finishing his sentence.
“Well, yes, fucking, and it’s been wonderful. I want it to go on and on. But my point was we don’t know much about each other.”
“You want my studio bio?” she asked.
“I’d like the unexpurgated version.”
“All right. I was born in a little town in Georgia called Delano that neither you nor anybody else has ever heard of. Its claim to fame is that it’s five miles from Warm Springs, where Mr. Roosevelt had his Little White House and died.”
“Did you know him?”
“Of course not. Did you know Winston Churchill?”
“I met him once, when he came to a performance of a play I was in in the West End and visited backstage.”
“Well, I saw Mr. Roosevelt drink a chocolate milk shake, once, while sitting in his car outside the City Drug Company. He used to drive himself around the county and stop for refreshments.”
“So we’re both politically well connected. What were you like as a little girl?”
“I was bright, pretty, got good grades and studied dancing from the time I was three, because my mother had a dance studio. I got all the best parts in the school plays, and then I went to college at the University of Georgia and got all the best parts there, too.
“After college I went to New York and got into the Neighborhood Playhouse, which got me a couple of supporting roles on Broadway; then a talent scout spotted me, offered me a screen test and I came out here nine months ago. I had a small part in a picture at RKO; then I got Bitter Creek. The rest will be history.”
“It certainly will.”
“Now you.”
“I was born in London, but since my father was an Anglican vicar, we moved around the southeast of England several times, mostly in Kent. My mother would take me to the theater in London sometimes, and I was enthralled. When I was fourteen, I made up a fake résumé and ran away from my boarding school, joining a repertory company that was passing through town doing She Stoops to Conquer.
“I painted scenery, ran errands, ran the lights, pulled the curtain then finally started getting juvenile roles. I looked older than I was, so I was playing early twenties. I was also taken into the bed of the leading lady, who was instructional.”
“So that’s how you got so good in the sack!” she said, delighted. “I thought maybe you had worked as a gigolo!”
“I never gave up my amateur status,” Vance said. “Anyway, I went to London to audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, failed to get in, but instead someone who saw my audition offered me a supporting role in a new play. We had a good run in London, then the Schuberts brought it to New York, where we had only a middling run. The rest of the cast went back to London, and I stayed on in New York, where I — not to put too fine a point on it — starved.
“Finally, in the dead of last winter, I hitchhiked to L.A., got a job with a construction crew and found a room in a boarding house in Santa Monica. One of the jobs I worked on, fortunately, was the beach house that Rick and Glenna are building in Malibu. Glenna came over to talk to me, introduced me to Rick and the next day I had a screen test that got me Bitter Creek. I believe you are acquainted with the rest of my résumé to date.”