“Diva XVI”

The room was dark, womblike, and comfortable with the familiar scents of her perfume, cigarette smoke, and sex. Ellie lay on her back, staring toward a ceiling she couldn’t actually see, and one word slurred into the next as she spoke to no one in particular.

“I was almost married, once.”

He answered drowsily from the sheets next to her. “You mean to someone else?”

“His name was Alfred.”

“I’ve never heard you mention him before.”

“Couldn’t talk about it.”

“Do you want to talk now?”

She took a deep drag on her cigarette and let the smoke out through her nose. “I’d rather have another Scotch.”

“We’re out.”

“Shit,” she said before she took another drag.

Movement on her left suggested that he’d propped himself on an elbow to peer in her direction, though the dark was as impenetrable from his side of the bed as it was from hers. “Tell me what happened,” he coaxed. “Did you dump him?”

“He died,” she said.

“Jesus, Ellie ... I’m sorry. That was stupid.”

“It sure was,” she replied, though she wasn’t referring to his ill-timed joke. She took another puff and started to ramble, lapsing without realizing into her childhood drawl. “We were both really young and my aunt wasn’t crazy about me marryin’ a cowboy, so Alfred enlisted to give her some time. He reckoned joinin’ the army would make him respectable to my folks, and I’d be old enough to wed when he got back from his postin’. I was scared to death they’d send him straight into the war, but when they sent him to Hawaii instead, I thought my prayers had been answered. I prayed a lot back then; I sorta had to under the circumstances, but I really meant it when I prayed for God to keep Alfred safe. When he told me where he was goin’, I thought, Lord Almighty, you’re the best! You know? Hawaii was on the other side of the world from where the action was; it seemed a sure thing he’d come back and we’d be married soon as he stepped off the train. But two months after he left, the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour ... an’ that was that.”

Silence from the other side of the bed. She wondered if he had fallen asleep, until she felt his lips form a soft kiss on her shoulder. “Jesus, Ellie,” he repeated in a low voice, “I’m so sorry.”

She shrugged, grateful for the numbing amount of booze in her bloodstream. “I wasn’t good enough for him, I guess.”

“Not good enough? Who told you that?”

Immediately, Auntie’s voice echoed in Ellie’s head though she chose not to answer the question. “It’s as well,” she said instead. “If I’d a-married Alfred then, I wouldn’t be a movie star now.”

“That’s probably true, but did you want to be a movie star?”

“Hell, yeah. Doesn’t every girl?”

“I thought every girl wants to be married.”

Laughter mingled with the smoke she blew from her nose. “Now that’s stupid. Why be married when I can do whoever I want?”

“Is that why you’re not marrying Seward?”

She said nothing, just lay and smoked until ash scorched her fingers.

“Bond? Does he have any idea where you are?”

Ellie rolled away to grind her cigarette into the bedside ashtray, then rolled back again, into his arms. “Shut up, Swain,” she drawled, coiling one leg around his hip. “Shut up and fuck me again.”

“Diva XV”

Watching Dane sleep made the truth impossible to ignore any longer:

He reminded her of Alfred.

Ellie had never slept with Alfred, of course. He had been too gentlemanly to go that far, even after the engagement and plans for the wedding night that had been destroyed with Pearl Harbor. Dane hardly resembled Alfred, either; aside from having blond hair and grey eyes, there wasn’t much similarity to recommend him.

And yet, he reminded her so poignantly of her lost love that he woke to find tears in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, immediately.

She shook her head with a smile that felt only slightly strained. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

He had pushed onto an elbow to put himself at eye level, so Ellie was able to see his face relax without fear of shedding those tears. Still, something in his look warned of disbelief. He would let it go for now, but she might have to explain herself later.

He wasn’t like Alfred at all, she thought afterward. Only he was, especially when she wasn’t looking. Sometimes his voice took on Alfred’s east coast lilt. At other times, his hand on her arm or at the small of her back recalled those sweet Saturday nights between dances, when they had walked and talked and dreamed of their future. Ellie had talked with Alfred. It was startling to discover that she hadn’t really talked with any man since ... except Dane.

Not that she bubbled and gushed as she’d done in her teens. She kept her cards close as an adult, not exactly mistrusting but reluctant to reveal too much. Vee would blame such reticence on a deliberately cultivated poor taste in men, and Ellie might agree with her—trusting any man had grown increasingly more difficult with experience, and working in Hollywood hadn’t helped.

“Are you worried about Tony?” Dane asked over cocktails. Ellie’s most recent castoff had been telling tales to the press; Vera was doing her utmost to defuse the worst of it, but scandal and slander sold more papers than the truth. Besides, some of what had been printed was the truth.

Ellie inhaled the perfume of her Scotch and made a derisive noise deep in her throat. “He’s a bit player making the most of a walk-on,” she replied. It bothered her, though, that Dane’s reputation had suffered some, being so clearly besotted with the most duplicitous woman since Jezebel. His acting couldn’t be faulted, so the rags were questioning his romantic judgment after dumping the unsullied Julia Miles for the infamously fickle Eleanor Bond.

Dane was unconcerned. “I didn’t love Julia. I love you.”

“Tony’s point,” Ellie retorted, dryly. She leaned over to feel in his pocket and they both smiled when she extracted a cigarette.

Dane lit it for her. Alfred would have refused. He and every other man in town had smoked, but ladies didn’t exhibit such behaviour. Ellie took a deep drag and released the smoke through her nose. Dane watched with furrowed brows, then his face brightened in the way that always coaxed a smile. “Let’s go to Europe,” he said.

Ellie choked. “What?”

“Let’s go to Europe,” he repeated. “We’re between films, and you could use a change of scene. What do you say?”

She had no idea what to say, so she said, “I’ve never been to Europe.”

“I have,” he said, once more the confident man in charge. “You’ll love it, I promise.”

She smiled to humour him. “I’m sure I will.” And the more she thought about it, the more she realized he was right. It would be good to get out of town and clear her head, maybe to fall in love with Paris or London or Madrid.

Dane handled the arrangements, leaving Ellie with nothing to fret over but her wardrobe. They’d be gone for three months and travel the Continent by train. The closer their departure drew, the more excited she became—and Dane was positively manic. She began to laugh out loud at his enthusiasm, and during the hectic days before they left Hollywood, hope bloomed that, in Europe, she would finally be able to say the words he deserved to hear.

“Diva XIV”

Naturally, Auntie disapproved. “What kind of church encourages dancin’?”

“I reckon one wantin’ to attract the younger folk,” Uncle Fred replied from behind the Gazette.

Ellie bit her lip at the sour expression on Auntie’s face. It wouldn’t do to laugh when the old lady was hemming her new dress. Already suspicious of Alfred’s motives, she was liable to put a stop to the rest of the summer if her niece disrespected her opinion. “Jesus is our chaperone,” she said instead, quoting the pastor who acted as the Lord’s proxy at the church dances.

The newspaper spoke again. “You’d think the Almighty’d have somethin’ better to do than mind a bunch of kids havin’ fun.”

“The Almighty don’t believe in anybody havin’ fun,” Auntie shot back. She put out her open palm. “Give another pin, Ellie.”

Ellie obliged from the pincushion clutched in her hand. “I really appreciate you sewin’ me this dress, Auntie.”

“It was supposed to be for Sundays.”

“I know.”

Uncle Fred, who had taken a shine to Ellie’s new beau because they shared a Christian name, put down his paper with a crack. “Vi, leave the girl alone. Lord knows there ain’t no fun in her doin’ chores from dawn ’til dusk. Besides, I’ve talked with Ike Rudd. The boy comes highly recommended—better than any of those other scraps who came sniffin’ around once word got out of a new girl in town.”

“Hmph,” Auntie grumbled.

Ellie flashed a grateful smile at Uncle Fred. He seemed to understand her struggle, relocating from the city to the farm after her first year of junior high. Now she was schooled in the community hall with a bunch of other kids as diverse in age as they were in their learning. She was helping the younger ones with their ABCs when, back home in Beaumont, her one goal had been aiming to be the homecoming queen in her senior year.

Alfred sometimes tested her on their outings together. He was smart (“Then why is he settlin’ to be a cowboy?” Auntie had groused) and recalled his lessons better than Ellie did. Still, she’d impressed him with her grasp of grammar and history almost as much as she’d impressed him with her kisses. He wouldn’t take advantage of her, though. No, sir. Ma Baynor had raised a gentleman, and though he turned Ellie’s knees to toffee, he never let her fall.

It was a little disappointing.

“Diva XIII”

Alfred Baynor wasn’t the boy next door. He was the stranger down the road, a ranch hand at The Poplars whom Ellie met when she dropped by to watch the horses graze. She was so crazy in love with the animals that she hardly noticed the fella noticing her until a shadow moved in the corner of her eye.

“Do you ride?” he asked, sauntering over to where she perched on the paddock fence.

She glanced briefly at him, caught the twinkle in his eye, and promptly lost her confidence. “No,” she mumbled, shyly. “I just like to watch them.”

“You don’t belong here, do you?”

She shook her head. “My aunt owns the farm up the way. My name’s Ellie.”

He smiled and the summer day got brighter. “I’m Alfred,” he said, sticking out a hand. “Pleased to meet you, Ellie.”

She tentatively took it, unsure what to expect since she’d never shaken a boy’s hand before. She reckoned on a tight grip, but the yielding skin surprised her. He gave her fingers a friendly squeeze, then let go.

“Have you got a favourite?”

Ellie was intrigued by the ghost of his hand around hers and didn’t answer right away. Alfred pretended not to notice and pointed at a piebald paint set apart from the other horses.

“She’s mine,” he said.

“Your horse?”

“My favourite. I don’t have a horse.”

“You don’t live here?”

“I live here, but I don’t have a horse. These all belong to the Rudds. You know the Rudds, right?” he asked when she looked puzzled. “They own the ranch.”

“I’ve only been with Auntie for a few weeks,” she confessed.

“School vacation?”

“No,” she replied before she thought the wiser. “You?”

His eyes were grey and sparkling. “What?”

“You on school vacation?”

“No, no. I graduated in June.”

Ellie’s heart sank. That meant he was at least seventeen. She couldn’t imagine Auntie permitting her to see a boy so much older than she was, particularly one so easy and charming. And handsome—too handsome, she thought, like one of those travelling charlatans who came by the farm to try and sell them things they didn’t need. Auntie had nothing good to say about any of those fellas and she’d likely not approve of her niece talking with this one, especially as he was out of school and Ellie was only starting junior high.

She hopped off the fence. “I have to go.”

“There’s a dance at the church hall on Saturday night,” Alfred said. “Maybe I’ll see you there?”

Ellie looked up at him. Oh, boy. He was taller than she thought, and lean and lightly tanned, and probably blond under his cowboy hat because his eyes were so pale. She hadn’t a clue how to dance and she didn’t think the church was the same one Auntie attended, so the chances were pretty slim she would be there, but ... “Is that an invitation?” she asked.

He stuck his thumbs into his belt and rocked a little on his heels. “It wouldn’t be proper to ask without meeting your aunt first. I just figure if you happen to be there and I happen to see you ...” His smile rose higher on one side, at once mischievous and hopeful, and Ellie felt a funny tug in her chest.

After that, going down to watch the horses was just an excuse.

Diva XII

The couch in her dressing room was cramped but served the purpose. Ellie lay entangled with her leading man and waited for the inevitable. The awkwardness, the elusive gaze, the mumbled apologies. She tried not to think of her rumpled Chanel suit or what Edith would say when she had to launder it. She tried not to imagine the faces of her colleagues, of Hamilton’s studious ignorance, of Swain’s wry smirk or the narrowed eyes on Margie Hunter. She glanced at the telephone on the vanity, half-expecting it to ring with a frantic Vera on the end of the line.

Everybody knew. Somebody would talk. It would be in all the rags by morning.

What had she done?

Dane’s weight shifted. The cue for remorse. Ellie gave him a shove and set about straightening her skirt. His unkempt costume didn’t look much different. His character’s hair wasn’t as tidy as his eight-by-ten’s either; it just figured that her appearance had suffered more from their tawdry tussle. Her hair was mussed, her jacket torn open—and an earring was missing.

Shit shit shit.

She sat up to feel for it between the cushions. His back was to her while he rearranged his clothes. Ellie kept her face averted, unsure which of them was the more embarrassed.

“Milady?”

While her head was down, Dane had knelt in front of her. One of her black patent pumps was in his hand; she’d heard it hit the floor just as her back had hit the couch. Bewildered by his courtly tone, she frowned at him. He brandished the shoe with a naughty twinkle in his eye.

“If this slipper fits, you’re the girl I’m looking for.”

Ellie’s laugh emerged as an unladylike snort. Clearly, she was the more embarrassed. It was an unusual reversal of roles. Overcompensating made her sound belligerent. “Are you always this gallant after sex?”

“Only if I want a repeat performance,” he answered, frankly. He caught and cradled her stocking foot in his free hand, reclaiming his chivalrous demeanour. “May I?”

She couldn’t keep the colour from flooding her face. “If you insist.”

Her foot slid into the shoe as easily as he had slid into her. She felt something come loose deep inside and she swayed on the point of a mortifying swoon. Dane smiled as if he had half-expected the shoe not to fit, then bent his head and kissed her ankle. Ellie forced herself to speak, to keep the rising tide at bay while she unscrambled her wits.

“They’ll talk about us, you know.”

“Let them talk.”

“You don’t know what they’ll say.”

“Maybe I don’t care.”

“You should,” Ellie said, sadly.

Dane raised his head. “Why?”

His face was open and earnest. His hair tumbled, unruly with spent passion, over his forehead, and in that moment Ellie understood why she was so attracted to him.

Dear God, I could fall in love with this man.

She put a hand to his cheek, ran her fingertips over the angled bone and down to caress his lips. Her touch lingered there, her thoughts teetering against the urge to push him away before either of them got hurt. Dane studied her with his soft grey eyes, and when she finally slid off the sofa, he gathered her into his arms.

“Diva XI”

A rumour spread that she wanted to reconcile with Tony. Vera called to offer a chance for rebuttal.

“Tony is a drunk,” Ellie said, her eyes on the printed snippet in a rival gossip column. “I deserve better.”

Swain caught her having lunch in her dressing room and couldn’t resist telling her that Dane Seward had been looking for her in the commissary. “What’s the matter, Bond? You avoiding something?”

For a man, Swain could be discomfortingly perceptive.

Then Hamilton decided to shoot the confrontation scene first.

They rehearsed for two days, blocking for camera angles and lighting. Ellie maintained an aloof composure throughout, despite the tremor in her vision from the force of her hammering heart. Dressed in street clothes, Seward retained his college boy appeal and constantly used his fingers to comb his hair from his eyes. Ellie watched him when no one else was looking, wondering why he so upset her rhythm. Handsome but not remarkable and charming without being a sleaze, he respected her boundaries as they walked through the scene. Ellie was immediately perfect in hitting her marks. Dane’s theatre experience served him as well, but it also had the director telling him to scale it back a bit, as gestures and facial expressions meant to reach the back row translated to ham acting on film. The result was a stilted performance clearly marred by every move being over thought.

He apologized to Ellie. “You’re perfect.”

She waved the compliment aside. “Hamilton broke me years ago.”

The look he gave her warned that she may have been misinterpreted.

He knew his lines better than she knew hers. Though the dialogue between the characters was meant to be heated, neither actor nor actress wasted energy on delivering that heat before the cameras rolled. Rehearsal stopped short of the scripted kiss.

Was he as relieved about it as she was?

Ellie’s character was a senator’s wife and costumed accordingly. Detective Sullivan was rough around the edges, so ragged on paper that the role seemed outrageously miscast—especially as the struggle continued to fit preppy boy into the south side mongrel’s skin. On the morning of dress rehearsal, Ellie emerged from her trailer in a silk Chanel suit and full length fur coat, tarted to a café society degree that looked completely natural on her. She walked on set in her black patent pumps and bared her teeth when Hamilton voiced his approval. “Ellie, you’re as beautiful as a tiger in the wild.”

“High praise,” someone remarked.

Ellie produced a cigarette and was immediately presented with a light. “Well deserved,” her leading man added with a confident smile.

She nearly choked on her first drag. The man standing before her was the eight-by-ten glossy she had seen in Bernie’s office, he of the firm jaw, slicked hair and stormy grey eyes. In costume, he wore a suit that looked slept in though he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, and his voice, so smooth and precise reciting his lines, had dropped in pitch and perfection. Gone was the star-stricken prep student she had avoided all week, replaced by a veteran cop whose hands would doubtless be as bold as his shrewdly discerning gaze. Instantly, Ellie summoned the senator’s duplicitous widow and began the dialogue.

“ ‘What are you doing here? What do you want’? ”

Dane responded beautifully as Sullivan. “ ‘The DA has a case. I’ve come to arrest you for the murder of your husband’.”

Her eyes narrowed. “ ‘Arrest me? Are you sure you didn’t come to warn me’?”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her closer than they had blocked. “ ‘You lied to me! You lied to the District Attorney, to the papers—maybe even to yourself’.”

Genuinely fighting for breath, Ellie gasped in character. “ ‘Is that why you’re here, Sully? To warn me from my’—? Shit. Sorry; Ted, I muffed it.”

The director was unperturbed. “Nice work, you two. Better than I hoped, in fact. Let’s take it to the set and start at the top.”

Ellie didn’t—couldn’t—move. She bravely met Dane’s fierce dark eyes and spoke with her character’s edge. “You can let me go now.”

Slowly, his fingers relaxed. He dropped the façade and smiled a little sheepishly, though something wolfish lingered in his gaze. Ellie stepped away from him to follow Hamilton’s direction, but as she turned her back she felt that gaze between her shoulderblades and had the unsettling notion that being let go would be harder than either of them imagined.

“Diva X”

She expected the brooding intensity of the eight-by-ten she had seen in Bernie’s office, so when her leading man arrived at the table reading, Ellie didn’t recognize him.

Nobody dressed up for the table read, of course. Ellie herself was in a blouse and pedal pushers with her hair in a casual twist (this after a handful of costume changes with “unaffected” in mind) and hardly stood out as the secretive siren she had been hired to play. She hadn’t a clue that the cast was complete until the director called everyone to order and chairs around the folding table were gradually filled.

She took one beside Patrick Swain and leaned in to accept the light he offered on seeing the cigarette in her hand. “Dinner’s at my place,” he said.

“What?”

“Unless you’d rather cook for me at yours.”

Ellie deliberately blew smoke into his face. He fanned at the cloud and tipped her a grin that earned a smirk in return. An old acquaintance—they had worked together more than once—he was always flirting with her and couldn’t possibly have heard about her split from Tony the previous night.

“Okay, everyone, let’s get started.” The director stood to address the cast. “Most of you know me. For the few who don’t, I’m Ted Hamilton, the guy you’ll hate most in the world by the time we’re done shooting. Introduce yourselves, please, and include the part you’re playing in the film. Eleanor, you’re up.”

Ellie obliged, tapping ash into the nearest tray, her gaze fixed on the end of her cigarette rather than meeting the eyes of anyone else at the table. Pat went next, then Margie Hunter—another familiar face—and a couple of others who made no impression before she heard his name and realized the error in feigning nonchalance. She caught her lashes flicking upward, dipped them too quickly, and wondered what the hell she was doing, behaving like a schoolgirl with a secret crush. Seward was a Hollywood nobody. She was the star of the film, for God’s sake; hers shouldn’t have been the panicking heart.

She made herself wait through another name before she lifted her gaze, this time to touch politely on the actor directly across from Swain. Since Dane Seward sat next to him, it seemed completely natural for her gaze slip one over except that when she made her move, she found him staring straight at her and it was almost impossible to conceal her disappointment.

He wasn’t a smoking gun at all. The man in the chair next to whomever was younger than his publicity shot suggested, handsome in a monied Gold Coast manner, with a shock of light brown hair falling across his brow, and he wore a crew neck sweater that belonged on an Ivy League campus rather than a cavernous soundstage in Los Angeles. Not Ellie’s type in his wildest dreams, he looked frankly amazed at finding himself in a room with a goddess of the silver screen.

As the thought crossed her mind, Seward smiled at her. It was sweetly boyish and utterly charming. Vera would have lunged across the table. Ellie fought the giddy swoop of a heart catching itself before it hit bottom.

Bernie Goldblatt, I am going to kill you.

Outwitting Myself

I’ve discovered a trick to keep Diva from becoming a full-fledged writing project.

Okay, a couple of tricks. One, I write one scene over a series of twenty minute bursts, picking up where I left off and blasting things onto the screen as they occur to me so I end up with a longer-than-normal exercise that is, in fact, more than one exercise. It’s sorta kinda working in one instance, but I’m not completely happy with the method because I still hang up on detail. The longer a scene becomes, the harder it is to keep it raw and fluid—I’m working on a resolution, but that’s what happens at present.

Trick number two is to take twenty minutes and write a scene-within-a-scene. For instance, in Diva IX, where Dane and Ellie are building their relationship, I was sorely tempted to expand on the dialogue, which threatened (again) the spontaneous purpose of the exercise. So instead, I marked my e-copy with an asterisk so I know where more detail is required. I’ll transcribe the conversation or elaborate on the narrative in a different exercise and drop them into the applicable scene when I start organizing the parts into a greater whole. It’s like writing a patchwork quilt, I suppose, creating a bunch of little works that will eventually form a larger one.

So where I was almost stalled, I’ve found a way to keep this particular project—because who am I kidding? There’s a good story here—fun to write and the momentum flowing.

More to come!

“Diva IX”

On location, an equipment failure put the cast on hiatus while repairs were underway. Dane rented a convertible and drove north with Ellie into wine country, where he booked a room in a heritage inn and paid extra to ensure there were no other guests. They registered as Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Pinkerton, but Ellie was certain that the desk clerk recognized them.

“Not me,” Dane said, dropping their bags inside the door. He was dressed in the same pants and pullover he had worn at the table read, his hair falling soft and light brown into his eyes, and didn’t look like his Hollywood persona at all. Catching Ellie by the hand, he drew her in for a kiss and smiled when they parted. “You could at least try to be a little less gorgeous, though.”

“I could,” she allowed. She slipped free to explore their home for the next couple of days. The room was crammed with clunky Victorian furniture, including a horsehair loveseat in the window bay and a cherrywood four-poster that squeaked when she sat on it. Mildly alarmed by the discovery, she bounced once or twice and the springs merrily responded. “Great,” she remarked, then shrieked with laughter as Dane threw himself full length across the mattress and got a rhythm going with his hips.

They went to bed early and slept late. Breakfast was delivered to their door in the morning, and a picnic lunch arrived shortly before noon. Dane loaded the basket into the car and they ate in a roadside meadow shared by three companionable horses. They walked barefoot in the grass and skinny dipped in the stream, making love in dappled sunlight before sneaking up the backstairs to their room.

He washed her hair while she reclined in the deep claw-foot tub and she fed him strawberries from the garden. “You’re not trying hard enough,” he chided as she dressed for dinner.

Ellie tossed him a puzzled glance. “Hard enough for what?”

“To not be gorgeous.” He lipped at her bare shoulder, his breath lingering over her skin.

She suggested skipping dinner, but he insisted on being seen with her in candlelight. By then she could deny him nothing, though five courses proved excruciating when all she craved was the taste and touch of him.

They talked deep into the night, sipping cognac and smoking the same cigarette. Ellie felt unsteady when she looked into his eyes, though she had never felt so certain of a lover’s affection.

“Do we have to go?” she asked, languishing in the rumpled sheets on their last morning. “The bed has finally quit squealing.”

“Beaten into submission,” Dane cracked from the bathroom. He emerged half-dressed and clean-shaven, a borderline movie star with his hair slicked wet from the shower. “So,” he said, “what do you think? Am I the guy for Eleanor Bond?”

Diva VIII

A round of applause broke along with the kiss. Too mortified to acknowledge it, Ellie opened her eyes on Dane. “That wasn’t in the script,” she said, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt.

He smiled. “I was improvising.”

She was about to inform him that one didn’t improvise in the movies when Hamilton called for a lunch break. “Take it offset,” he suggested as he passed.

Dane’s smiled widened. “Shall we?”

Ellie didn’t know what to say or how to act. That she was attracted must have been obvious, and it would have been fine had he chosen to test her in a less public forum. She normally spaced her romances a few months apart—a sobering truth, now that she thought of it. She had dumped Tony the night before starting this film, less than a fortnight ago.

Was she building a reputation?

Whatever Dane saw in her eyes, it rattled his confidence. The smile vanished, replaced by a boyish uncertainty beneath the overdone-for-the-camera makeup. He dropped his lashes and stepped back to clear her path.

Ellie braved a glance around the set. The cast and most of the crew had taken Hamilton’s direction and departed for lunch. The remaining few were focused on their equipment—lights and cameras—trying to ignore the awkward moment in their midst.

Why the hell had the director chosen to shoot this scene first?

“The fact is,” Dane said, solemnly, “I’ve wanted to kiss you from the day we first met.”

Ellie’s heart thumped clumsily in her chest. She said nothing, and after a few beats, Dane continued.

“I thought—hoped—you might have felt the same way.”

She was completely unprepared for him to lift her hand to his lips in a Shakespearean plea for forgiveness, and she was so befuddled by the whole incident that honesty seemed the only sure way out of it.

She heard herself say, as if at a distance. “You were right.”

Diva VII

(Postcards from abroad)

Vera,

Europe is definitely better travelled by train. So far I’ve only seen France through the window, but it’s nothing like home. Everything is so old, and there’s a strange fatigue as if the countryside itself is still recovering from the war. People are friendly, though I’d be completely lost without Dane. He speaks four languages, all of them Romance (wink). It helps that he’s been here before; his parents sent him on a tour of the Continent instead of university and he couldn’t wait to return. Don’t expect us back any time soon, ha ha.

Will write when we reach Paris.

Love, Ellie

Dear Vera,

Spent two days and too much money in Paris. Now back on the train and writing from the dining car. Last night’s dessert was strawberries and champagne. You wouldn’t believe the power in those little bubbles! American champagne is soda pop by comparison. I think I said something stupid under the influence but Dane won’t tell me what it was.

He’s spoiling me rotten, I’ll be quite impossible when I get back to work. If you see Bernie, say nothing!

A bien tôt, Ellie

Dear Vee:

The Alps are amazing. I’ve never seen anything like them. Switzerland is far happier than France. The air is fresher and the fatigue I sensed in northern France is lacking. Did the Nazis not get this far? I don’t remember and I don’t want to look dumb by asking anyone here.

We have one night in a hotel at Lake Geneva—isn’t that where Frankenstein was written? My ignorance is showing more and more as this trip progresses. I could stay here forever and still learn something every day.

Dane sends his love. He doesn’t miss Hollywood at all.

Kisses for now, Ellie

Dearest Vee:

All roads might lead to Rome, but it’s easy to get lost once you arrive. There are so many museums and galleries and fountains and statues! I was quite dizzy at the end of our first day, though that may have been the amount of wine I consumed. It’s practically all they drink in Italy. If it’s not wine, it’s espresso. Dane has taught me to say “I love you” in every language he knows, including the fourth one that doesn’t actually use words (think about it).

Venice is our next stop. He says it’s more romantic than Paris or Rome. I’m just worried that I’ll throw up in the gondola when he takes me for a ride!

Wish me luck, Ellie

Vee:

Dane asked me to marry him.

I said no.

Be home soon.

Ellie.

“Diva VI”

Once, just once, she would have liked to be seduced; to melt like ice cream under warm butterscotch into a silky, sensuous puddle.

“That’s nice,” Vera observed, “but ice cream is always shocked when the butterscotch first hits.”

Ellie sucked thoughtfully on her spoon, thinking that her friend was absolutely right but missing the point nonetheless.

“He’s butterscotch, huh?”

A slow smile formed around the spoon in Ellie’s mouth. She sucked a little more, then let it slide free. “I should not be talking to you about this. You write a gossip column, for God’s sake.”

“Yes, but I’ve read enough ‘Dear Abby’ to qualify as advisor to the lovelorn. You don’t quite fit ‘lovelorn’, though. Don’t tell me you regret sleeping with Dane Seward.”

“Of course I don’t,” Ellie scolded. She drew the tip of her spoon through the dregs of her sundae, threading caramel through vanilla swirls. “I just wish … Vera, do you think I’m too easy?”

“Compared to whom?”

“I don’t know.” She hedged, making it seem like a struggle to answer the question. After a minute of faking it, she took the plunge. “Julia Miles.”

Vera’s pencilled eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “The ice princess?”

“Dane’s last girlfriend,” Ellie amended.

“Hell, El, the Pope’s mother was easy compared to her. Why do you think Dane—I mean, I doubt that romance got much hotter than your butterscotch leftovers, there. Oh, I know what you’re doing, Eleanor Bond. You want to know what I know.”

“What do you know?” Ellie asked.

“About Dane and the ice princess? Not much,” Vera admitted. “She’s obsessive about her privacy. She was dating him for weeks before any of us got wind of it.”

“How long do I have with him before it becomes public knowledge?”

“Too late,” Vee replied. “I knew about it before you told me. Don’t look so betrayed, kiddo. That kiss on the set got more tongue than you did. I had three phone calls before happy hour. You’re lucky I like you, else I’d have gone to print the same day.”

“You’re a good friend, Vera.”

“Only because I know you’ll give me the real scoop.”

Eleanor smiled as her unlikely confidante brandished a last spoonful of ice cream for emphasis. Her agent had advised early on that she establish a good relationship with Hollywood’s premier gossip reporter. He had arranged their first meeting, never imagining that the two would hit it off like gangbusters from their introduction. Vera had taken immediate liking to the fledgling actress, recognizing in her the same promise of stardom that Bernie had sensed, and Ellie was nothing if not loyal. At the start of Ellie’s career, Vera had often thwarted the competition when rumours began to stir and now, with Eleanor’s orbit firmly established, she enjoyed the right of first refusal. She had a good reputation with the studio, as well, though Ellie was the only actress on contract who was considered a friend.

“Diva V”

Exterior shot: a brownstone near Central Park. A taxi is parked by the curb. The trunk is open and the driver is loading expensive luggage into it. An unmarked police car pulls up behind it. SULLIVAN gets out, apprises the scene and starts up the brownstone stairs. Halfway up, he stops. DARLENE, in hat and coat, has appeared in the open doorway. Seeing him, she freezes.

SULLIVAN:    Going somewhere?

DARLENE:     To the market.

SULLIVAN:    With suitcases?

DARLENE:     That’s not my cab.

SULLIVAN bounds up the stairs and grabs DARLENE’s arm. He hustles her into the house.

Interior shot: the shadowy foyer of DARLENE’s house. SULLIVAN drags her through the open doorway and backs her into the wall.

DARLENE (protesting): What are you doing here? What do you want?

SULLIVAN:    The DA has a case. I’ve come to arrest you for the murder of your husband.

DARLENE:     Arrest me? Are you sure you didn’t come to warn me?

SULLIVAN (angrily): You lied to me. You lied to the District Attorney, to the papers — maybe even to yourself.

DARLENE:     Is that why you’re here, Sully? To save me from myself? I don’t need you to save me. I don’t need your help.

SULLIVAN:    Without it, you’ll need a good lawyer.

DARLENE:     What are you going to do, Detective? You want to help me? Let me go. Help me by letting me go!

SULLIVAN (shaking her): I can’t let you go, Darlene, do you hear? I can’t let you go; I can’t—

(He suddenly kisses her. She resists briefly, then gives into the kiss.)

* * *

“Cut!” Hamilton yelled.

The cameras stopped rolling. The lights came up. The set technicians shuffled uncertain feet and murmured between themselves. The film crew stayed still, their attention glued to the star couple kissing in the spotlight. Her eyes were closed. His were not.

“We can’t use this,” the producer complained.

The director tried again. “I said, ‘Cut’!”

Dane didn’t heed him and Ellie didn’t care.

The kiss continued.