She narrowed her eyes. “No one would believe it.”
Who cared what anyone believed so long as they paid to see it, I thought.
I said, “I can make people believe anything.”
Then the crew was filing back in, and the director wanted to see her, so I let her go.
I stayed all afternoon to watch her backstage-at-the-contest scene (I was a better director than the music man), and to think how best to go about getting hold of that moment again.
She was too caught up in the thrill of it to remember who had given her the first shot; she didn’t understand how I had built up her audience, that was all.
At least she didn’t have much of a part in the musical. When she came back to me for her next contract, I thought, we’d have another talk about who makes a star.
The weekend the musical opened, the Reporter wrote her up as “Eva with the Ruby Throat” (I laughed—what were the odds?), and the studio sent her to the Trocadero alone, without telling me.
Turns out they had engineered a romance for Eva with Paul Maitland over at Atlas Pictures. He was marquee material—his last gig had been Ivanhoe, and they were talking about him for Robin Hood next. He was light in his loafers, though, so someone at Atlas had struck a deal with Capital to get curvy little Eva on his arm but quick.
They had arranged for Maitland to be waiting just under the canopy, so that when Eva slid her arm into his, an enterprising photographer could get a decent shot before they ducked inside.
And plenty did.
The Reporter ran two pictures of them on the front page: one of them arm in arm, and one of him kissing her goodnight at the curb, his arms around her. The gossip column squealed—“Sultry Spanish Siren Seduces Arch Aristocrat!”—and wondered when they’d have the pleasure of seeing them together on the screen.
She really was good at what she did. The way she looked at him in those pictures—if you didn’t know, you’d think she’d loved Paul for years.
But now I knew better, and all I could do when I got the paper was stare at Maitland’s arms around her waist and wonder what he was going to do when she turned into a flock of birds and vanished.
She didn’t vanish.
The contract she signed for the Maitland affair must have been stellar, because her next two pictures went to other directors, and every time I picked up the Reporter there was a picture of her, her jewelry shimmering in the flashbulbs.
At first it was always with Maitland, and I didn’t like it, but I could understand. There were terms in her contract she had to fulfill.
But sometimes she was alone. Those I hated, those snaps of her standing in the doorway of the Brown Derby or the Trocadero like she had sprung up there all by herself, like she knew something the world didn’t know, like she had made this happen all on her own.
I knocked out two movies that year: a detective picture and a turn-of-the-century romance. The romance took off (“Starmaker Strikes Again!”), and soon I could get into the Trocadero no matter who I had on my arm.
I never went alone; when you had as many movies under your belt as I did, it wasn’t hard to find a woman who would appreciate it.
(Eva rarely appeared where I was going. I suspected the studio had arranged things that way.)
I read up on the ruby-throated hummingbird, just on a whim. Turned out she wasn’t lying; the Aztecs had used them as talismans because of their power. Maybe that really was just something you were.
I saw the scene unfold in front of me: an ancient stone temple, a hundred wailing warriors, a human sacrifice loved by the gods who exploded into glittering birds. I’d have to put in some explorers (for moral perspective, the Code was pretty clear on that), but it could be a spectacular movie if only she’d agree.
Capital called me in. They wanted a historical epic, and they wanted me.
Right there in the office, I pitched them Lord of the Birds. Exotic siren, cast of thousands, dancing girls and bloody battles and history coming to life.
“I have an effect no one’s ever dreamed of,” I said. “People will wonder about it for a hundred years.”
They upped my budget on the spot, asked me who I wanted most.
“Eva,” I said.
The office men loved it, of course. They knew who made a star.
Lewis called from Legal. He told me Eva had a competing contract offer from Atlas Films that she was willing to take rather than be in a movie of mine.
“We don’t want to make waves,” said Lewis. “You can find another leading lady—they’re a dime a dozen, you know that.”
Eva wasn’t some leading lady, she was a star, but I didn’t have to tell Lewis. They knew it. That’s why they were cutting me to keep her.
I didn’t tell him that she was the key to the whole movie. Best case: he’d think I was out of my mind. Worst case: he’d believe me, and pull my funding.
“I’ll look around,” I said. “Where should I go?”
I ended up at the Sidewalk Café, watching Eva dancing with a string of men, and hating her.
When she saw me she looked a little upset (I wasn’t proud of how happy it made me, but I’d take anything I could get). She sat for three songs, and then she got a light from Maitland and vanished through the crowd.
I went outside after her.
When she saw me she shook her head, ground out her cigarette underfoot, and turned to leave.
“Just hear me out,” I said. I hated her for making me beg. I was above begging.
“When I move to Atlas,” she said, “you can tell your friends at Capital why.”
“You have to understand,” I told her. “I promised the studio a special effect like they’ve never seen. Without your hummingbird trick, the whole movie’s a bust.”
She raised her eyebrows nearly to her hairline. “My trick?”
“If you don’t do it, the studio will make me a laughingstock!” I saw her face and added, “And you! If this doesn’t happen, it’s going to come back to you, you wait and see.”
“I’ll live,” she said.
And then (just to spite me, I know it) she broke apart, flashes of green and red and the whir of birds disappearing into the dark, and nothing left of her but glimpses of white at the edges of my vision like a scattering of teeth.
A good director films a story that’s set in front of him.
A great director can make a story out of nothing.
I stood in the dark outside the club, watching as a straggler fluttered up into the dark, and the rest of her story came to life in front of me.
The next morning I called Lewis and told him that I would find another leading lady.
“I saw Eva last night,” I said. “She’s not doing very well for herself, it looks like. Looking old. I was thinking we’d do Marie Antoinette instead of that Aztec crap. Everyone loves the French costumes, and then we don’t have to worry about making the Code happy.”
I was scrabbling, and I knew it, but the only way to get ahead in this town is to lie like you mean it, so I went on, “We can use that blonde instead—you know, the one who can sing?”
(Turned out there were several; that phone call took a while.)
Then I called the publicity office and told them I wanted to offer Eva a part in my new movie; did they know if she was meeting Maitland tonight?
When she left her house that night I was waiting for her, leaning against my car.
Eva was in white silk that looked nearly green in the moonlight, and now I couldn’t look at her without looking for a flash of red near her throat.
I knew her so well; it stung that she wouldn’t give me credit for it.
“You ruined my movie,” I said, casually. “Without you I had to change the whole thing. If that doesn’t work, Capital is out a lot of money, and I’m sunk.”