Platinum Doll - Anne Girard MIRA

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      They held hands on the way back down to the car just as the afternoon air began to cool and the trees around them bristled.

      “I need a long hot bath when we get home. I’m sore from all this walking,” she said.

      “I’ll scrub your back.”

      “Chuck!” She gave him a slight smile.

      “The privileged life of a happily married man,” he declared, looking to her in that moment much older than he really was. Even when he smiled, there was always that deep sadness behind his eyes. Tragedy had a way of doing that to people, she thought, suddenly sorry she had never gotten to meet his parents. She had a feeling Chuck was a lot like them, and she found herself hoping they would have liked her.

      * * *

      Later that evening, after the dinner dishes were done, when Chuck himself surrendered to a bath she had drawn for him, Harlean had a moment to herself and picked up the telephone. While she had her mother’s aunt Jetty nearby out in Long Beach, who she could telephone from time to time when she got lonely, she had longed for days to make a call home.

      “Oh, Baby, it’s so wonderful to hear your voice.”

      “Yours, too, Mommie. You’ll never guess what happened, not in a million years!

      “It really was the strangest thing.” She lowered her voice and cupped her hand around the heavy black phone receiver as she explained about Dave Allen.

      In response, her mother gasped. “You’re joking! Why, that’s absolutely wonderful!”

      “No one will call me of course, but I had to tell you about it.”

      “Of course you did, my sweet baby girl. We tell each other everything. I’d have been hurt if you didn’t!”

      Harlean felt herself relax just hearing her mother’s voice and the urge to confess further grew.

      “I told them my name was Jean Harlow. I’m not sure why I did it. Maybe so Chuck wouldn’t have to know for now.”

      “Sounds like you’re dealing with the same jealous Charles,” her mother said flatly. The dig at Chuck notwithstanding, Harlean still felt a familiar surge of longing for her mother’s company. She never realized so fully until they spoke again after a few days’ absence, just how much she missed their tender mother-and-daughter confidences.

      Harlean could hear a sudden muffled exchange with a man on the other end of the line, her mother’s hand over the receiver. “You know, as it happens, Baby, Marino and I have been talking about taking a trip out to California ourselves, maybe staying awhile.”

      She could hardly contain her joy at the prospect. Her dislike of her stepfather paled in comparison to her overpowering love for her mother.

      Her father and slick Marino Bello were polar opposites. Mont Clair Carpenter, a prosperous dentist, had tried to give his beautiful blonde wife everything in order to keep her happy. As the marriage began to fall apart, he had worked hard just to keep her. In the end, no amount of money was able to do that. The fact that her mother had replaced her quiet, tenderhearted father with a huckster like Marino was as foul a thing as Harlean’s romantic mind could conjure. But her mother loved him, so Harlean had resolved long ago to keep her silence about him.

      “Well, that would be really wonderful. I mean, if it’s no trouble for Marino.”

      “Don’t be silly, Baby. Marino loves you as if you were his own daughter.”

      She didn’t believe Marino really loved anyone other than himself, but as usual, she resisted saying it for her mother’s sake.

      “And while I’m there, I can go with you on auditions. After all, I do know my way around the studios, so things will go so much more smoothly for you, my darling Baby. Fear not,” Jean Harlow Bello exclaimed, “Mother will be there soon.”

       Chapter Six

      Things were going so well between them that Harlean still hadn’t found the courage to tell Chuck about the impending visit by her mother and Marino. She and Chuck sometimes spent long, lazy mornings reading the newspaper together with breakfast in bed, and wonderful afternoons—when he wasn’t with the boys—ambling through quaint antiques shops in Santa Monica, hunting for special pieces to accent their home. She only wished it could be more often. In the evenings, they often played backgammon, or cards with Rosalie and Ivor. But her hesitation over revealing the visit sooner than she must was not without reason. Chuck found Jean Bello overbearing and controlling. And despite Harlean’s best efforts, he could not be swayed to see what it was that she loved so much about her mother.

      A yipping sound, a high-pitched bark, woke her very suddenly one morning, a few days after their hike through Griffith Park. Harlean struggled to see the clock on her bedside table. Half past eight. She could feel the bed was empty beside her. The heavy draperies on her bedroom windows blotted out most of the morning sunlight so she flipped on a Tiffany bedside lamp and sat up. On the floor beside her dressing table was a fluffy ginger-colored Pomeranian puppy, yelping at her for attention. A lover of animals, Harlean was delighted to see such a cute little dog mysteriously at her feet, however it had arrived there.

      “Well, now, who might you be?”

      She tossed back the covers, went across the room and saw a red bow and the note tied around the puppy’s small neck.

      Oscar will keep you company when I’m not here. He is the only other boy allowed access to your boudoir. Love, Chuck.

      Entirely charmed by the cute and unexpected gift, she placed her hands on her hips. “Oscar, is it?” The dog stopped barking now that she was paying attention and his tail began to wag. “You’re an awfully demanding fella, aren’t you, Oscar?”

      She bent down and scooped him up into her arms, which he quite happily tolerated with a whimper. Then he began to lick her cheek with his sandpaper tongue.

      “Let’s get one thing straight right from the start, Buster Brown. You might have access to my bedroom boudoir, but my husband is the only one allowed to kiss me in here, is that clear?”

      It felt like ages since Harlean had had a pet of her own. Back in Missouri, she’d had quite a menagerie to care for and keep her company while her mother was out. When she was a little girl, Grandpa Harlow had spoiled her with kittens, a Labrador puppy and even a parrot—as many pets as she could convince him to let her have. She owed her grandfather a letter, she thought, and she would reread his last one to her for how much she missed him.

      Her heart swelled with love that Chuck had thought to do this. She’d been so horribly homesick lately, but this gift made everything seem so much better. Especially with the blindingly dull day of bridge and shopping which lay ahead for her today.

      She stroked the puppy’s head and, once again, he lunged for her face to lick her. “I can see we are going to have to work on your manners, Oscar,” she joked as she took him into the kitchen to see if her very thoughtful husband’s gesture had extended to the purchase of dog food.

      * * *

      It had to be done. Harlean knew she had already put off too long telling Chuck about her mother and Marino’s visit, which was now only a few days away. In an attempt to divert an argument, she had decided to mention it just after Rosalie and Ivor arrived one evening for a game of cards. Earlier in the day, she had confided in Rosalie, who wasn’t particularly thrilled to be caught up in another potential scene, like on the cruise ship, over the subject of Harlean’s mother.

      “I owe you,” Harlean murmured to Rosalie in the kitchen as she stirred a pitcher of lemonade and set it on a tray.

      “Damn right you do. Have you even told him yet about Dave Allen?”

      “One battle at a time, Rosie, please.”

      They walked together

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