Platinum Doll. Anne Girard

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СКАЧАТЬ her was a row of chairs, each occupied by a very pretty girl. Many of them were blonde, though not as blonde as Harlean. Each had their long, slim legs crossed in the same direction.

      On the wall behind them were posters for the hit films The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino, and Lon Chaney looking suitably frightening in character as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She had seen both silent films with her mother in Kansas City, which reminded her, yet again, how far from home she really was.

      “Yes?” the secretary said as she lifted her arched eyebrows a tick higher.

      Harlean opened her mouth to reply but no words came out. She heard one of the girls in the row of chairs snicker in response to the sudden sound that came from the back of her throat. She drew the letter from her handbag and silently laid it down on the secretary’s desk. Scowling, the woman gave the missive a cursory glance. Then Harlean watched her eyes widen as she actually read the letter of introduction.

      “Wait here,” she instructed as she went to knock on the door behind her desk and entered the office.

      Harlean could feel the looks of contempt being shot at her as she stood waiting, her hands both tightly clutching her small handbag. It would be over soon enough, just a few more minutes, and she could be out the door and on the way to lunch where she and her old friend would have a good laugh about this.

      “Mr. Allen will see you now. Go right in.”

      The secretary’s expression had dramatically changed. For the first time, a glimmer of a smile turned up her carefully painted lips as she directed Harlean inside.

      Dave Allen was surprisingly young, probably under thirty, with suntanned skin, bright hazel eyes and an engaging smile. He was not at all what Harlean had expected of the head of Central Casting. He stood and held out a hand to indicate a green leather chair opposite his desk. He was staring at her.

      “Have a seat.”

      “Thank you, Mr. Allen.”

      “Dave, please. I’d feel ancient otherwise. And with whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

      Harlean Carpenter, she nearly said but Mrs. Charles McGrew fought past it. Both names tangled in her mind then, dueling in that split second with the idea that she would have to explain being someone’s wife at such a young age.

      What if they contacted him? This was all just a silly lark anyway—her momentary adventure.

      “Jean Harlow,” she offhandedly replied, managing a smile. It completely surprised her that she had blurted it out, but her mother’s name would suit for now.

      “That gaze of yours alone is worth a million bucks. You are different, just like the letter says.”

      “Thank you...” she tipped her head to the side and held her smile “...I think.”

      “Just calling it like I see it, Miss Harlow. That’s my job. We’ll want to get you registered right away. Eleanor, my secretary, will get your information.”

      “Don’t you need to know if I can act or anything?”

      She was stunned that he was actually going to register her after less than a five-minute conversation.

      “I have what I need. Just shine every time we send you out, like you have right now with me, and you’ll be in business, believe me.”

      As she left the office ten minutes later, Harlean plucked a business card from the secretary’s desk and gave it a victorious tap against her cheek. She was too stunned even to wonder what “in business” would actually mean in the coming days, but it didn’t matter, she reminded herself. She had won the bet, and she couldn’t wait to tell the girls, and see their faces when she did.

      * * *

      The next day, Harlean and Chuck took a picnic lunch into the bucolic grounds of Griffith Park. Chuck brought his camera, intent on taking photographs of his wife amid the lush surroundings. The rocky setting was like another world in the middle of a bustling city. There pine trees mingled with huge, glorious sycamores and a periwinkle-blue stream wound through it.

      “The camera loves you.” He smiled as he clicked away, instructing her to pose this way and that atop a huge boulder beneath the warm midday sun. “You take my breath away.”

      “I look like a schoolgirl in this outfit,” she said as she gestured to the gingham dress, baggy cardigan and sensible white tennis shoes he had chosen for her that morning.

      “Not to me, you don’t.”

      “Well, gingham isn’t very sexy.”

      “You are my wife, I don’t want you to be sexy, at least not for anyone else but me. Besides vampy women are pretty loathsome. In my opinion, disgusting.”

      Harlean thought of Pola Negri, her dark eyes beneath a silk turban, the hypnotic stare. She could not have disagreed with Chuck more. She respected any woman who could have that kind of power through a camera lens. It didn’t have to mean she was loose.

      She had wanted to tell him about the dare all day, and about Dave Allen’s reaction. But something stronger stopped her. She knew she should be able to tell her husband anything, especially something that was actually kind of exciting, but she certainly did not want to ruin such a lovely afternoon by setting off his jealous streak.

      After he had taken a few pictures, they sat in the shade of a gnarled old oak tree and Harlean unpacked sandwiches and a thermos full of lemonade. It was quiet here, pristine. The only sounds were from the stream running nearby and birds trilling in the trees above.

      Chuck propped himself on an elbow. For a moment, he just watched her sitting against a tree trunk, knees drawn up to her chest.

      “What do you think?” he asked.

      “Think about what?”

      “About being back in California. Is it everything you hoped it would be?”

      She leaned over and pressed a kiss onto his cheek. “Being married to you makes it all a hundred times better than that.”

      “Well, you’re still the best thing ever to happen to me, that’s for sure.”

      He said it matter-of-factly because he said it to her so often, but now there was a richness in his tone, like the sound of a pledge, and it touched her. She understood that it helped him believe in what they had together, and to remind her what was in his heart. Life had made him such a serious young man, and filled him with demons Harlean wasn’t sure she could ever fully help him vanquish, no matter how fiercely she loved him—especially because he wouldn’t acknowledge his feelings about the past with her.

      But if she could continue making him happy, that would be a start and, she hoped, distraction enough.

      “How about you, are you happy here?” she asked him.

      “Why wouldn’t I be?”

      “I just thought maybe you missed home.”

      “You are my home.”

      He leaned over to kiss her as if to underscore the declaration.

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