LITMIR.BIZ

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to be undone by the world, no matter the circumstance, and she understood now that her friend truly was the essence of an actress. She had promised yesterday that Harlean would see it, and she had delivered in spades.

      “It would look great on you,” Harlean said to Rosalie as the model paraded before them in a belted celery-colored dress with a lace collar and cuffs.

      “That’s an awfully expensive ensemble, my dear. Perhaps you would prefer to look at something a bit more...practical,” the middle-aged store clerk suggested.

      Rosalie lifted her chin a fraction as she turned around to face the clerk. “I’m the least practical person you’ll ever meet. So, no, I don’t think so. I’ll take this one. And you can wrap up the other one, too.”

      The woman’s mouth fell open. “My dear, have you any idea the cost of those two dresses?”

      “Since I have a rich husband who loves to spoil me, no, actually I don’t,” Rosalie replied breezily. “You are all on commission here at this shop, I assume?”

      Harlean watched the silver-haired woman’s demeanor change abruptly and her expression soften. “Why, yes, we are, but of course—”

      “Then today I’ll be buying them from that sales clerk over there. And next time I decide to shop here, you would be wise to leave your attitude in the stockroom if you plan to wait on me, since I almost always buy something expensive, but not from someone with a chip on her shoulder.” She met the woman’s gaze unflinchingly as she tossed a business card onto the countertop. “Charge the dresses to my husband’s account and have them sent to my home.”

      Both girls linked arms proudly once they had gotten a few feet away from the store outside. Harlean was fully realizing just how much she could learn from Rosalie, and she was duly impressed.

      “You really are amazing,” Harlean said with a zeal she could no longer contain.

      “Aw, thanks, honey, but it’s nothing you can’t pick up. No telling where a little ingenuity can take someone like you, too. You’ve got that something extra inside of you, I can tell.”

      Harlean thought that it might just be true since she was quite adept at wrapping her mother and Grandpa Harlow around her finger with ease. In spite of their blustering threats, they both had eventually given in on the subject of Chuck. Her gaze, her pout and her ability to summon tears always won the day. Until now, Harlean hadn’t fully considered the power potential in that. It reminded her of what her mother always said about star quality: it was as elusive as it was indefinable. If you had it you had it, and if you didn’t there was nothing in the world that could change that. Perhaps Rosalie was right.

      “You need to try it,” Rosalie said as they neared the car. “See what that smile of yours, and those brains, can bring you.”

      Men stared at them both as they passed. Some nodded and smiled, another tipped the brim of his fedora.

      “I’m not sure why I’d ever want to find out, since I’ve already got everything I want—Chuck, the new house, certainly plenty of beautiful clothes.”

      “A little adventure, maybe? Nothing against my sweet Ivor, he’s swell, but I just can’t sit around the house all day baking cakes and waiting to have a baby. That’s why I audition. When I get a walk-on or a part, I feel like I did something all on my own—that somehow for just a moment, I stood out.”

      Harlean looked over at her friend as they got in the car. “Chuck is enough adventure for me at the moment. Besides, I watched my mother try and try to get parts all over this town and all she ever got was rejection. You know the studios are absolutely crawling with gorgeous girls, one prettier than the next. For me, there wouldn’t really be any point in an adventure like that.”

      “I see what you mean.” Rosalie paused for a moment, and then she said, “But do you think tomorrow you could drive me over to Fox to check the casting-call roster? Ivor needs the car again.”

      “Sure. What else have I got to do?” But then she had an idea and suddenly she hopped out of the car.

      “Where are you going?”

      “I’m putting the top down. All of a sudden I feel like being a little crazy,” Harlean exclaimed with a carefree laugh. “To heck with my hair!”

       Chapter Three

      She had meant to stop and ask where to park but, to her shock that next day, with Rosalie beside her, the uniformed guard waved her car in past the imposing scrolled Fox Studios gates. He even had a smile for them as he tipped his navy blue cap.

      “What the heck just happened?” Harlean gasped in amazement as she kept driving, afraid even to glance back.

      “See what beauty and confidence will get you?”

      “But that wasn’t meant to happen! I’ve been here before and this place is like Fort Knox!”

      “Well, honey, I’ll go out on a limb and say he assumed you were someone else. Clearly, he thought two well-dressed knockouts belonged here. Or maybe you reminded him of someone’s demanding girlfriend who he was afraid of offending,” Rosalie opined on a tinkling little laugh. “Either way, we’re in.”

      Nothing like this had ever happened when she had come here with her mother. Back then, extras had been herded onto the lot like cattle, lined up and made to wait.

      “You can park right over there by the soundstage.” Rosalie pointed with an authoritative air. “I won’t be long so that’ll be fine.”

      Harlean brought the car to a stop against the curb and raked her tousled hair back from her face with both hands.

      “How do you do that?” Rosalie asked.

      “Do what?”

      “Get all wind-blown and still manage to look like a million bucks.” She brought a comb and hand mirror out of her handbag and glanced at her own face. “I’m sure I’m an absolute wreck.”

      She thought Rosalie was a classic beauty, with her lustrous mahogany hair, round cocoa-brown eyes, perfectly arched eyebrows, small mouth and flawless olive skin.

      In contrast, the white-blond hair of Harlean’s childhood had deepened to a more muted shade of ash blond and her glass-blue eyes and a ruddy blush over porcelain cheeks gave her the look of a China doll.

      “I’ll be back in a flash,” Rosalie declared as she strode, hips swaying, toward the door across the street marked Casting Office.

      Suddenly, she stopped and pivoted back. Her brown eyes were shining as she stood there, holding her small, white gloves, and wearing one of the expensive new dresses she had bought the day before.

      “How do I look now?”

      Harlean cupped a hand around her mouth and happily called out, “A real stunner! I think today is gonna be your lucky day!”

      Then she watched Rosalie join the long line of girls wrapped around the casting building. It was a sight she remembered all too well. She could never tell Rosalie, but after only a moment, she lost sight of her friend as she faded into the sea of other hopefuls.

      She sat for a moment, taking in the activity of the back lot. Huge props were being wheeled past groups of actors, and other workers were pushing stuffed racks of costumes. Harlean was fidgeting with her wedding band and finally growing restless, after almost thirty minutes of waiting, when a man in a gray three-piece business suit and a felt homburg walked briskly past the car, and then he did a double take.

      Panic set in because surely he was going to ask her to leave. As he approached the car, she tried to think of something clever to say, a plausible reason why she was parked here so he wouldn’t insist that she move along.

      “Say, don’t I know you?”

      “I

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