Platinum Doll. Anne Girard

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the boys,” Harlean quipped in a low voice.

      Lula Hanford chuckled. “You’re sharper than you look.”

      “Thanks...I think.” It was quickly becoming her standard response. She knew she could use more confidence, and she meant to work on that.

      “Relax, it was a compliment. A talented girl who looks like you could go far in pictures.”

      “If one of them doesn’t poison my water.”

      They both glanced at the next table where four sour-faced women were seated together. Each of them shot Harlean a foul glare before they looked away.

      “Or trip you on your way to the toilet. That happened to me once when I was much younger, so you gotta watch out.”

      “I’ll have to remember that.”

      “It can happen just as easily when you’re older. I worked on a picture with Lillian Gish once and played the second lead. Beautiful girl, sweet, too, but she was always trying to steal my scenes, which I never understood since I was playing her mother.”

      Harlean found herself thinking that she could learn a thing or two from this woman as the work to set up the scene continued around them. Two of the actors in white dinner jackets were being instructed on how to hold the trays. Harlean hadn’t realized before now about the details—every hat, every necktie—all needed to be in place. There was something fascinatingly meticulous about it.

      “Still, that must have been so gratifying to see your name on a marquee.”

      “Not another feeling in the world like it, honey,” Lula said.

      “Places, everyone!” the assistant director called out. “Quiet on the set!”

      Suddenly chatter, mimicking the sounds in a restaurant rose up naturally at the director’s signal. Harlean leaned forward as though she were speaking to the other woman seated across the table. Her heart was still racing, even though she struggled to look exceedingly nonchalant. She tried to imagine being a worldly young woman, and conveying it, so that if the camera caught her it would pick that up.

      Being in the middle of this was certainly more exhilarating than she had expected. The dare had become a surprising pleasure.

      The scene took several hours to shoot. It was shot and reshot before the slim, gaunt-faced man sitting beside her injected himself into her conversation with Lula Hanford.

      “Say, weren’t we in that picture with Buck Jones a few years back?” he asked Lula.

      “I love Buck Jones!” Harlean interrupted, sounding every bit seventeen, even if she didn’t look it in her gown and makeup.

      “Bit pompous for my taste, but handsome enough,” said the man seated on Harlean’s other side. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands were shaking. He looked like he could use a drink. Lula looked more closely at him.

      “Lloyd Bradshaw, as I live and breathe.”

      “At your service,” he said with a nod.

      “My, my, well, it has been a while.”

      “Haven’t won many roles lately. Honestly, I’ve been struggling a bit.”

      “Haven’t we all, Lloyd, haven’t we all. They’re saying talkies are about to change everything. They seem to be looking for different types now than they were when you and I were working a lot.”

      “Change would be good, if there is a paycheck to be had. When I audition now, though, they keep saying my accent is too distinctive and isn’t right for the part. My voice, my accent...all we ever cared for even a couple years ago was our facial expressions and how that came across on-screen. Don’t get me wrong, though, work is work.”

      Harlean thought how Lula’s dignified tone matched the image she projected, Lloyd Bradshaw’s high-pitched Bronx tenor did not. That could not bode well for his future in talking pictures.

      They shot the scene again and then someone shouted out, “Take ten, everybody.”

      Harlean stood to stretch her legs. She had a cramp in one of her calves. Lula stood beside her. “Not a fan of brassieres?” Lula asked as she glanced at Harlean’s chest.

      “I loathe them, actually. Anything constricting makes me want to run the other way,” she admitted, and then she felt herself blush. “I was ill with scarlet fever when I was a child, and confined to my bed. After a while, it began to feel like a cage, the bedding felt like prison bars. It made me panic. Ever since then, I’ve been kind of a free spirit, I guess you could say.”

      “Good thing you’ve got a small bosom, then, beauty that you are. I’d cause a riot if I tried that.”

      They had a chuckle together at that. It was easy speaking with her. There was something about Lula that reminded her of her mother. Not her looks, it wasn’t that. Rather, it was seeing a gutsy woman’s more human side, a hint of vulnerability. The monotony of sitting there for all those hours had created a bond, as well. Women could talk of just about anything when that happened. This surely was not the glamorous side of Hollywood.

      Harlean’s gaze then landed back on Lloyd Bradshaw who was cautiously swilling from a silver flask, then stuffing it back in his coat pocket.

      “Poor Lloyd. I knew who he was the moment I saw him. We go way back. You might have guessed he’s a bit overly fond of the drink.”

      As Harlean sat back down, waiting for them to call an end to the break, she noticed an extra across from them whose auburn hairpiece had slipped just slightly, revealing coils of gray beneath. He quickly adjusted it and then pridefully tipped up his chin. She had been struck by others in the group of extras, too, but to her he symbolized the struggling young actors, hopefuls and has-beens that permeated the movie industry. Perhaps she could relate more to these people than she had initially thought—they had their own insecurities, just like she did. There was weakness and pride, such dimension to all of them, once she really looked.

      Filled with the newfound realization, Harlean sank against the chair as, once again, crew members began adjusting the lighting. Lloyd’s hands had stopped shaking, no doubt courtesy of the contents of his flask.

      “Since it looks they’re going to be a while, tell me about the picture you did together,” Harlean asked Lula and Lloyd with genuine interest.

      “It was Hearts and Spurs with that cute young Carole Lombard, if memory serves.”

      “Why, yes, that was it!”

      “I played a gambler. You ran the saloon,” he recalled with a broadening smile.

      “We shot it in the Santa Monica Mountains. I had my own trailer on that picture.”

      “We both did.” He let out a nostalgic sigh. “I thought I was really on my way to being somebody back then.”

      “All right, everybody, places!” the assistant director finally called out on his bullhorn again.

      For Harlean the tedium of the process was balanced by the entertaining company surrounding her. She was fascinated by the stories they began to tell, and she felt СКАЧАТЬ