Page 8 of A Star is Scorned

The ocean frothed around Flynn as he lifted his head and gulped for air.

Though the days remained warm in the Southern California sun, the Pacific was starting to cool for the season.

It was bracing. The best cure for a hangover, or whatever was ailing you.

Which, this morning, was a telegram from his brother that had been waiting when he got home last night.

FATHER FADING FAST. STOP. PLEASE COME. STOP. HIS DYING WISH. STOP.

For the second night in a row, Flynn hadn’t been able to sleep.

His hatred for his father gnawed at him.

He couldn’t go to England now. Not even if he wanted to.

But if he didn’t, would he regret it one day?

For a moment, he wondered if the memory of his father and whatever had been left unsaid would haunt him.

But it wasn’t possible. His father was a monster.

Flynn had proof of what an unforgivable deviant Lord Banks was.

Proof even beyond the pain in his left wrist that flared when it rained, the memento of the time his father broke his arm for cheating at chess.

He had been eight years old. He plunged his arm into the water with gusto, trying to banish his disturbing thoughts.

If he swam hard enough, if he exhausted himself enough, he could master this.

Instead, Flynn called upon a memory of a bewigged, violet-eyed actress whose knees quivered when he touched her and who looked at him as if he were a rather curious insect.

Olivia Blount was a difficult maths problem, but one he was eager to solve—which was, frankly, the first time he’d ever been eager to do maths.

He plunged his head beneath the foam of a wave and dolphin kicked himself forward, trying to shake it off.

Olivia was a beautiful distraction, but he didn’t like this churning feeling that arose in his gut every time she came to mind.

He desperately wanted to call Dash Howard. In the old days, he and Dash would have gone out to one of their favorite Hollywood watering holes and drunk enough between them to drown a small army. But Dash was domesticated now and in bed with his wife by 11:00 p.m. every night. Bloody boring.

For the millionth time, Flynn thanked his lucky stars that he was not so foolish as to chase love or romance.

Look at his parents. They’d certainly proved that lesson.

“Choose joy,” his mother had written. And that’s what he’d done, avoiding commitment like it was a life sentence.

There were the joys of naked lust, and the rest was poppycock.

So why did Miss Blount have him feeling so topsy-turvy?

If anything would get his head on straight, it was a bracing hour of swimming laps back and forth in front of his cottage’s private beach.

Only he’d been out here for nearly three-quarters of an hour, and he still felt like he’d been turned inside out.

Thank God the regatta was this weekend. He wouldn’t have time to get down to the marina before then, and if anything could set him to rights, it was a day on his sailboat.

He lifted his head above water and noticed Hugh, standing on the deck waving at him.

Flynn swam toward the shore, standing and walking once he’d reached the shallows as the waves crashed against his knees, then his ankles. He let the morning sun hit his torso and reveled in the feeling of its warmth licking its way up and down his body.

“Hugh, what is it?” he called out.

“Harry Evets is on the phone for you. He’s been trying to reach you for the last half hour.”

Flynn swore loudly. Hugh didn’t blink; he was quite used to it.

While Joan and Dash had a familial relationship with the head of the studio and regarded him as a doting father figure, Flynn and Harry had a much more strained history.

Generally, if Harry wanted to talk to Flynn, it was because he wanted to reprimand him: “Don’t drag race down Hollywood Boulevard in the middle of the night!

Don’t borrow a horse from the Hollywood Turf Club and ride it through the canyons!

Don’t sleep with the wife of a rival studio head!

Don’t keep a pet goat in your trailer. It ate your costume!

Don’t replace the prop rum with real rum.

The extras got drunk and threw up on the gaffer! ”

The list went on and on; Flynn had heard it all.

But he had been rather good lately, if he did say so himself.

It had been at least a month since his last spot of trouble—when he’d found his face plastered on some rag that purported to know Hollywood’s secrets.

He had no idea what Harry might need to talk to him about.

He sprinted up the sand, the coarse, golden grit coating his feet as he went. He took the creaky, wooden stairs that stretched from the beach to his deck two at a time, narrowly avoiding the hole in the third step from the top that was rife with splinters.

Hugh was waiting for him with a towel, which Flynn hastily grabbed and wiped over his arms, torso, and legs.

“Hugh, can you go find my little black book? It’s in the breast pocket of the coat I wore yesterday.

” Hugh nodded in acknowledgment. The swim hadn’t managed to clear Flynn’s head, so he was going to have to revert to finding a dame to help him do it.

He reached for the forest-green terry-cloth dressing gown Hugh was holding open for him. Flynn tied it loosely around his waist, sat on his deck chair, and picked up the phone Hugh had helpfully placed on the round glass table.

“Hello?”

“Flynn. Finally,” Harry growled.

Flynn hugged the phone to his ear, pressing it between his head and shoulder while he used the towel to dry his other ear. “Sorry, old sport, was in the water.”

“That’s a word I’ve never heard for hungover and still in bed.”

Flynn bristled. Harry always expected the worst of him. Admittedly, that was usually with good reason. “It’s not a euphemism. I was taking a dip in the Pacific.”

“Brrrr,” Harry exaggerated on the other end of the line. “A bit late in the year for a morning swim, isn’t it?”

“It helps me clear my head. Look, Harry, I’m sure you didn’t call to discuss my swimming habits. What have I done now?”

“Nothing. Well, nothing new anyway. But you and I both know you’re not exactly a Boy Scout.”

“Would never pretend to be. What’s your point?”

Harry sighed heavily on the other end of the line, and Flynn could tell he was not going to like the answer. “Well, Flynn, we have a problem. The Legion of Decency and the Hays Code office are breathing down my neck.”

Flynn chuckled. “Those old ninnies. They’ve got their legs crossed so tight that not even sunlight can get through. Tell them you’ll say a couple Hail Marys and be done with them.”

Harry barked out a hoarse laugh and cleared his throat. “Old ninnies they may be, but our pictures live and die by their seal of approval. And it seems they’ve got a laundry list of your exploits that they object to.”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them all written in one place before.

Could you send me a copy?” Hugh came back out from the house with a cup of steaming hot coffee and Flynn’s black book and that morning’s papers tucked under his arm.

Flynn nodded at the table, gesturing for Hugh to set them all down.

He sipped at his coffee and let the caffeinated elixir warm him from the inside.

He started to leaf through the pages of his book, only half listening to Harry.

“It seems,” Harry continued, ignoring Flynn’s interjection, “that they’ve decided you are not a good role model for impressionable Americans.”

“Who ever said there was any fun in being a role model?”

“Would you let me finish?” Harry spluttered. “I’m not enjoying this any more than you are.”

“On the contrary, I’m enjoying it immensely.” Flynn looked through the double-paned glass window shaped like an arch and saw Hugh standing in the kitchen. He was holding up eggs, as if to ask how many Flynn wanted. “Two,” Flynn shouted out.

“Two what?” Harry growled.

“Not you, I’m talking to Hugh.”

“I know life is a grand joke to you, but I assure you this is no laughing matter.” There was a gravity in Harry’s voice, a sternness that Flynn had never heard before.

Not even when he had received his worst tongue-lashing, for scuttling an old-fashioned pirate ship they’d filmed on when he’d decided to take it out for a drunken evening sail.

Harry’s tone made him sit up straighter in his chair, the suffusion of comfort and warmth the coffee had supplied gone in an instant.

“Harry, you’re acting like someone’s died,” he said.

“Your career will be in significant rigor mortis by next week if you don’t listen to me and do exactly as I say.”

“Okay, fine, fine, what do they want?”

“As I was saying, the Legion of Decency and, by extension, the Production Code Administration are concerned about your effect on the youth of this country. The PCA office has informed me that they will refuse to give a seal of approval to any of your films unless you prove you’ve turned over a new leaf. ”

“Ah, come off it, Harry. Don’t let them threaten you. Joan confessed to a room full of people and to anyone listening on the radio that she’d made a stag film. I don’t see you calling her up to read her the riot act for violating the Hays Code.”

“Joan has also not made a picture since that night,” Harry replied coldly.

“We mutually agreed it was best that she take a year or two off and give people time to forget. She’s enjoying her new life as a married woman.

I have no doubt that when we do find her next project, it’ll take a lot of favors with Will Hays and his cronies to get them to even review it before condemning it outright. ”