LITMIR.BIZ

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      After the evening was at an end, and the guests happily stumbled out to their cars, Ivor and Rosalie followed Chuck and Harlean back inside. Chuck had invited them to stay for a nightcap. At least that had been his proposal before he realized they were out of alcohol. As Harlean and Rosalie took stock in the kitchen, they found that every last morsel of food, and every drop of liquor, had been consumed.

      “Man, those boys can drink,” Chuck sighed, turning over a bottle of wine left on the kitchen counter to see if there was even a drop left inside.

      “We held our own,” Ivor returned with a snicker as he slung his arm fraternally over Chuck’s shoulder.

      “You sure did,” Rosalie added. “You’re both more than a little drunk.”

      “Aw, don’t be a spoilsport, Rosie. We were all just havin’ fun,” Ivor replied with a smile as he smacked a breezy kiss onto her cheek. “Besides, Chuck and I can’t have those boys thinking we can’t keep up.”

      She frowned at him in response and pretended to wipe his kiss away but she did not try to conceal her real affection for him.

      Harlean walked back into the living room to begin cleaning up, and Rosalie followed her. There were dirty dishes and glassware scattered everywhere. The pungent odor of cigarettes was strong.

      “I can’t believe you started that whole thing,” Harlean said as she collected the plates and Rosalie gathered up the glasses.

      “Started what?”

      “The challenge.”

      Rosalie bit back a smile. “I didn’t. Irene did. But obviously that was an opportunity not to be missed. Besides, it’d be worth it just to see the look on Katie DeMille’s face if you went through with it, since she claims to know Dave Allen so well.”

      “You don’t think I’ll do it, do you?”

      “I don’t know. Will you?”

      “Chuck wouldn’t want me to, I know that. He always thought my mother had been foolish to try to break into Hollywood.”

      “Well, he wouldn’t even have to know.”

      Harlean took the plates back into the kitchen and set them on the counter. When she glanced through the window over the sink, she saw Chuck and Ivor on the patio now. They were looking up at the sky and talking. “You think I should lie to my husband?”

      “It’s not like he always tells you the truth. Weren’t you just telling me you have no idea what he does all day when he leaves the house?”

      “I assumed he was with Ivor.”

      “Not all the time.”

      “Chuck wouldn’t cheat on me.”

      “Of course not, honey. Any fool can see he’s crazy about you. I only meant, even married people have their secrets. It keeps things fresh.”

      She turned on the tap, feeling a sudden flare of anger and doubt. She was trying to learn from Rosalie but Harlean, who was still only seventeen, wasn’t as confident as she knew she could make herself appear, and she hated other people knowing it. Mother always said, Look confident, Baby, and you will be confident.

      “What’s the point, anyway? It’s not like I actually want to be an actress.”

      “There’s always a point to accepting a dare. Be bold, be daring!” Rosalie exclaimed, and her brown eyes glittered.

      Outside, Chuck and Ivor laughed suddenly about something the girls couldn’t hear.

      “They have their little secrets, we should have ours,” Rosalie declared.

      “All right.”

      “You’ll do it?”

      “Why not?”

      And that really was the point. Harlean couldn’t think of any good reason not to do it. She certainly didn’t have anything else interesting to do with her days. It was crazy, surely. But, who knew, maybe it would be fun. And it would be great to win a bet with Louis B. Mayer’s slightly condescending daughter, and shock the daughter of Cecil B. DeMille, both at the same time. But more than that, this might just be an occasion to see if a bit of Rosalie’s awe-inspiring self-confidence had rubbed off on her. Her proclaimed disdain for the Hollywood studio system was from her mother’s experience, her fear of what it did to young women belonged to Chuck. Having a secret for a while might just afford her the ability to challenge herself and, for the first time, decide on her own how she actually felt about it all.

       Chapter Five

      What are you staring at?

      Harlean felt a spark of indignation as she parked outside the Central Casting office at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue. More than a few people passing by gave her a double take. So the car was a bit flashy, and her white silk suit looked expensive, but all of the attention was unnerving. She was already starting to second-guess coming here. She clutched the key in a death grip as she emerged from the car. Her knees were weak. She should never have stooped to a bet like this. What was she thinking? That was precisely what she got for having had a drink last night.

      She should have asked Rosalie to come with her for moral support. But pride had gotten the better of her last night. And the same way Rosalie wanted to see Katie DeMille’s face, Harlean now wanted to see Rosalie’s expression when she announced that she had gone through with the dare when no one believed she would. She wanted to show them that no one should ever underestimate her. Oh, yes, Harlean McGrew could be downright daring. Those girls were about to see that!

      And above all, she meant to prove it to herself.

      All she had to do was present the letter and wait to be rejected. Then she would take a business card to prove she had actually been there, and be on her way, the wager handily won. She was meeting her old friend Bobbe Brown for lunch afterward which would soothe the rejection. Bobbe was a girl she’d met years ago when she and her mother had lived here the last time, and they had maintained a correspondence ever since.

      Harlean thought it would be fun to see someone who had known her before she’d gotten married, someone who remembered, and liked, the slightly pudgy, sometimes awkward Harlean Carpenter even though, like Chuck, Bobbe teased her in her letters about still being called the Baby at the age of seventeen. She was eager now to spend some time with a girl her age, one who hadn’t grown up so fast as the rest of her new crowd.

      The secretary looked up from a notepad on her neatly arranged desk. Beside 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

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