Page 4 of The Lavender Bride

3

Rex Trent tells us about his favourite things: cars, surfing and dating the coolest girls in town.

MODERN SCREEN , NOVEMBER 1951

I tell Ginny as soon as she gets through the door on Thursday morning. She hesitates and then says, ‘Just be careful. Remember what we said about actors. Egos the size of California.’

‘Rex isn’t like that.’ I cross my arms, disappointed that she’s not living this moment with me. ‘He was adorable last night.’

‘Did Dirk talk to you about doing more at the agency?’ Ginny hangs her jacket on the coat rack before crossing to her desk.

‘No.’ I’ve almost forgotten about that in the excitement of being asked out by Rex. If Dirk did indeed engineer Rex and me meeting again then I feel a bit of an idiot for believing he wanted me to do more at the agency. I’m not sure I’m ready for Ginny to see that, though. I make a show of straightening the papers on my desk as I say, ‘I’m sure we’ll talk about it another time.’

But perhaps we won’t need to. If it goes well with Rex then maybe I’ll be leaving to get married in a few months and I can hang up my secretarial hat forever. Wouldn’t that be something!

I always knew I didn’t want to be rushed into matrimony as Father intended. Paired off with the suitable son of one of the influential members of his flock, going from schoolgirl to wife with barely a moment in between to find out who I am and what I want. But I’m twenty-three in January and plenty would say that’s getting a little long in the tooth. I don’t want to end up an old maid like Great-Aunt Violet.

And marrying Rex wouldn’t be like marrying someone back home. He wouldn’t expect me to turn into a boring old housewife. It’d be fun and parties, premieres and film shoots.

I float through Thursday in a perpetual daydream. But on Friday, nerves have kicked in. What will we talk about? Will I feel out of place in a swanky joint like Villa Nova? What if I don’t know which cutlery to use? I ask Ginny and she tells me, ‘Start on the outside and work your way in.’ Then I start worrying again about what to wear. How will I afford anything fancy enough?

I’ve precious little saved as the apartment eats up all of my salary. I bought a lot of clothes when I was in New York last year including a couple of evening dresses but, when I tried them on last night, neither the red that I last wore to Lindy’s with Dan or the blue floral one felt right for this evening.

He’s taking me to the joint where Vincent Minelli proposed to Judy Garland. I can’t go in any old dress. It needs to be absolutely perfect!

In my lunchbreak, I go to Saks. It’s far more expensive than where I usually shop. The whole atmosphere feels rarified as if it’s a temple to clothes and glamour. With the help of a very attentive shop assistant, I spend most of next week’s wages on a sapphire-blue dress with a portrait collar. Looking at myself in the mirror, I look older and feel almost glamorous enough to be stepping out with a film star.

Back in the office, I struggle to concentrate. What will Rex wear? I hope it’s a suit or a sports jacket. He looks really dandy in smart clothes. What will we eat? I like Italian food but it can be difficult to eat with dignity. Maybe I’ll avoid the pasta and have a salad. Salad is always good. After I realise I’ve typed ‘salad’ instead of ‘salary’, I give up and do the filing. I can’t seem to stop myself from glancing at the clock but every time I look up, the hands have barely moved.

My telephone ringing is a welcome distraction. I snatch it up. ‘Dirk Stone Agency. Audrey speaking. How may I help you?’

‘Gee, I’m real sorry, Audrey.’ I recognise Rex’s deep voice immediately. ‘But I can’t make it tonight. The studio has scheduled an interview with one of the fan magazines and I can’t get out of it. Can I call you next week?’

The bubble of excitement pops. My shoulders droop as disappointment sinks through me. I’m not going on a date with a movie star. I’ve been stood up by a movie star. Of course I have! Why would he want to go out with a girl like me? I’m nothing special. I’ve been a ruddy idiot getting my hopes up and now I’ve got to tell Ginny. She pretty much warned me this could happen.

‘That’ll be fine.’ My voice sounds choked. I clear my throat before I speak again. I don’t want him to hear how upset I am. ‘I know you’re a busy man.’

‘You wouldn’t believe,’ he says with a soft laugh. ‘You’re the best, Audrey.’ Then he’s gone and I’m listening to the dialling tone.

As I put the handset back on the receiver, I feel weighed down by loss. Not just of this evening’s date but of the dreams which have kept me company since I first met him. It’s as if there’s lead in my stomach now. All of the fairy dust has fled and I’m back to being plain old Audrey Wade, minister’s daughter.

‘Was that Rex?’ Ginny asks.

I nod as tears threaten. I feel utterly flat. Did Rex ever really mean to go through with the date? Or was it a joke to ask the English secretary out and see how desperate she was? Was that what those glances shared with Dirk were all about? Did they have some kind of bet to see if Rex could get me to say ‘yes’ to dinner? Oh, God, if they’re laughing about me behind my back then I’ll have to find another job. I can’t stay here to be ridiculed. I press my fingertips against the corner of each eye to stop the tears falling. Thank goodness Dirk’s out. He’d have a fit if he saw me crying in the office.

‘Oh, honey.’ Ginny gets up and crosses the room. ‘Did he say why?’

I repeat what Rex told me as I fumble for my handkerchief.

‘On a Friday night?’ Ginny says. ‘I didn’t think journalists were that dedicated.’

I twist the handkerchief around my finger. ‘Or movie stars.’

Ginny gives me a hug. ‘Forget about him. Put that fabulous new dress on and come dancing with Nate and me.’

Nate’s a junior architect at a firm Downtown who dotes on Ginny. I don’t want to put a dampener on their evening and I also don’t fancy playing gooseberry all night. ‘Thanks, but maybe next week.’ I rest my head against her shoulder. ‘I’d be no fun tonight and one of us should go out and have a good time.’

‘Seems a waste of a great dress but okay.’ Ginny pats my shoulder. The warmth of her sympathy makes me blurt out what’s really hurting.

‘I feel like such a fool for believing he’d go out with someone like me. I’m nothing special. I’m definitely not pretty or glamorous enough to date a movie star.’ My hands flutter with agitation. ‘I should have known?—’

Ginny pulls back and grips my shoulders. ‘Did he say that? Because if he did?—’

I shake my head. I don’t want her to think worse of him than he deserves. ‘He just said he couldn’t make it. Because of the magazine interview.’

Ginny tilts her head. ‘Right, then maybe I’ll hold off threatening him with my seven iron!’ I manage a weak smile at the image of Ginny menacing Rex with her golf club. ‘Honestly, honey, if he’s going to treat you like this, he’s not worth your tears. Come out tonight and we’ll find you a nice guy. He might not be a movie star but he’ll treat you right.’

I know she wants to cheer me up but it’s too soon. The dreams of Rex are still too vivid. I need time on my own to lay them to rest.

‘Ask me again next Friday.’ I’m touched by her support. This is what friends are supposed to do for friends. Not stab them with words like icepicks and shatter their dreams into a million pieces. I force a smile as I add, ‘I’m lucky to have a friend like you.’

She tilts her head as she lets me go. ‘Right back at you, honey. Now promise me you’re not going to sit at home on your own tonight?’

The idea of going home, hanging up my beautiful new frock and cooking myself a simple supper on the two-ring burner in my flat makes my stomach sink. Usually, I’d go to the cinema but, although the darkness always soothes, I don’t need movie stars this evening. The other place I retreat to is the darkroom, which is always a balm in times of trouble.

‘I’ll ring Rita,’ I tell Ginny as I take my address book from my handbag. ‘See if she’s in tonight and if I can use her darkroom.’ I’ve got a roll of film I took on Santa Monica pier last weekend that’s ready to be processed.

‘It wouldn’t be my choice for a Friday night but if makes you happy…’ Ginny, like many others, thinks my obsession with photography a little odd. Father told me it’d make me ‘unmarriageable’. Informing him that my heroine, Lee Miller, had been married twice didn’t help. He spat that he’d rather see me dead than a divorcee before sending me to my room without any dinner.

Rita answers on the third ring and is happy to let me use the darkroom. I promise to be with her at about six and she adds that she’ll cook for us both if I’ve no other plans. There’s a lump in my throat as I assure her that I’ve ‘no plans’.

The rest of the afternoon drags painfully but once it’s finished, I drive home to collect my roll of film. I can’t bring myself to hang the beautiful frock up. I shove the Saks bag to the back of my wardrobe. As I’m closing the door, I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror.

I look sad and pale, my complexion dull. There’s a world of hurt in my blue eyes and my dark-brown hair has lost its curl and lies flat against my head. Yesterday, I felt attractive and assured, brimming with confidence. Rex liking me was an elixir that transformed me from plain old Audrey to the glamorous and special someone I always hoped to be. This evening I’ve shrunk again. All of the old doubts have returned.

The urge to take off my girdle, put on my housecoat and eat cheese sandwiches with my feet up on the sofa is very strong. But I’ve promised Rita and, unlike Rex, I’m too well brought up to break an arrangement.

I put the roll of film in my handbag, pick up the car keys and force myself out of the door.

* * *

There’s a lot of time to think in a darkroom. It’s a process which requires time and patience. As I watch the image solidify in the bath of developer solution, it’s as if my feelings are going through a similar process. The swirl of emotions settle into a pattern I understand. Like the darkness of the cinema soothes and restores, the darkroom brings me to a better understanding of myself.

The date with Rex felt like a ticket into the world I’ve dreamed of since I was twelve. That’s ten years of daydreams and fantasies about this town.

For six of those years, the dream was shared with Freddie. We were going to come to Hollywood when the war ended. We’d buy lovely clothes and eat all of the foods that had been rationed for so long. We’d go to glamorous parties and dance with film stars. Freddie wanted to design sets. ‘I’ll be on the credits,’ he used to say as his hands sketched out a cinema screen. ‘ Set design by Fredrick Greenwood .’

Always at the end, I’d say, ‘And we’ll get married, Freddie.’ I’d imagined our house: a white-painted bungalow with a red roof and a rose-covered veranda.

‘Yes, we’ll get married,’ he’d reply.

‘And we’ll have four children,’ I always said next. I wanted two boys and two girls. I’d named them after my favourite film stars: Cary and James for the boys, Ingrid and Dinah for the girls.

‘At least four,’ he’d say.

I loved that daydream. When Father was in a rage, when he yelled at me so loudly that spittle sprayed my face, that’s where I took myself in my head. When I was sent to my room yet again, denied food or a fire until I mended my ways, I comforted myself with knowing that one day, I’d live with Freddie in Hollywood, we’d have a family and I’d be happy.

Then Freddie shattered the dream into a million pieces. It was only the words I’d uttered in anger and desperation that spurred me to make the dream a reality. ‘You wait, Freddie Greenwood! I am going to go to Hollywood and I’m going to be a success and I will marry a film star. And you’ll be stuck here in boring old England!’

That’s what had driven me to risk everything once Great-Aunt Violet’s legacy turned up. I’d show them! Father and Freddie would have to eat their words.

I peg the prints up to dry, cross my arms and sigh. But the reality of living in Hollywood isn’t glamorous. I have rent and bills to pay, a flat to keep clean and clothes that need hauling to the launderette. In that way, it’s not much different from life back home in England except it’s sunnier here. It makes me happy to be able to sit in a park on a March day or go to the beach at Santa Monica in the summer after I’ve finished work. But those are pleasures which have nothing to do with the dreams that brought me here.

What I didn’t realise until I got here is that Hollywood doesn’t welcome anyone with open arms. Those who have stardom or power hang on to it and those who want it have to work, hustle and pray for a bit of luck to get them inside the hallowed ground of the film studios. I learned that pretty quickly after I arrived. You see them everywhere in Los Angeles: waiting tables, tending bars, cleaning cars as they wait and hope for their lucky break.

I’d thought dinner with Rex was my lucky break. Now I’m just a secretary again. Waiting and hoping for something exciting to happen.

Once the prints are dry, I take them down and open the door. The smell of sizzling beef makes my stomach rumble. I walk through to the kitchen. Rita wipes her hand on her apron as she turns to me. On the outside, with her razor-sharp, grey bob, twinset and glasses on a chain around her neck, she looks like a comfortably off grandmother. Inside, I’ve learned, beats the heart of an artist which only since her children have left home has she been able to set free.

‘Let’s see them then.’ I hand the prints over and she slips her glasses onto the tip of her nose. The photographs are candid shots from an afternoon on the pier at Santa Monica, snapping women as they talked to their friends, ate an ice cream, walked their dog.

She flips through them and then stops. She studies the print for a long moment. My stomach does an uncomfortable little flip. Rita’s got a great eye and I value her opinion.

‘This one,’ she says, holding it up to me. It’s a girl about my age with her boyfriend. He’s got his back to the camera and is slightly out of focus. I took it because I liked her dress: the swirl of her skirt as she moved, the way she’d accessorised it with a matching necklace, gloves and sunglasses.

‘Look at her face,’ Rita says. I peer at it, trying to see what she’s seen. The lens has zoomed in on the look of desire and hope written on her features. That’s how I felt this morning, lit up by anticipation and aspiration. On top of the world because Rex Trent liked me and wanted to take me out. I hope this girl didn’t have it ripped away as cruelly as I did.

‘There’s a whole story in that shot,’ Rita continues. Then she nods. ‘This one goes in the exhibition.’

I blush with pleasure and relief. The exhibition is in early February at the Biltmore Art Salon which sounds very grand indeed. I’ve been really worried I wouldn’t have anything good enough, that I’d be the only member of the club whose work didn’t make the grade.

Rita smiles at me as she hands it back. ‘Now,’ she says, ‘are you going to tell me why a pretty girl like you isn’t out on a date on a Friday night?’

My face crumples. I dig my fingers into my palms to try to stem the tears. Rita won’t want to hear this. My parents were always appalled if I cried. It always resulted in a lecture followed by being required to read the Bible alone in my room until I’d got my emotions back under control.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say as scrub at the tears on my cheeks.

‘Hey now!’ Rita pats my back, slightly awkwardly. ‘Whoever he is isn’t worth it if he makes you cry like this.’

My voice is lost in the torrent of emotion spilling out of me. The patting is calming. She’s not angry with me for crying. That’s a surprise. ‘He’s Rex Trent,’ I manage to say. ‘I was supposed to be going out tonight with Rex Trent.’

‘Gee! That hunk of beefcake?’ Rita guides me into one of her kitchen chairs. A cocktail glass is pushed in front of me. ‘I was making gimlets to drink before dinner. Start from the beginning and tell me everything.’

I take a sip of the cocktail. The lime cordial is sour on my tongue and then the gin kicks in. It’s unsettling to be treated as if I’ve a right to have these emotions, that it’s all right to cry when I’m upset.

Rita nods encouragingly. Slowly at first and then as the gimlet eases the lump in my throat, the words fall over each other as I tell her about Rex’s invitation and this afternoon’s cancellation.

‘Here’s what you’re going to do,’ Rita says when I’ve finished. ‘He might be a movie star but it sounds to me as though he doesn’t know when he’s got a good thing going. You’ve got to make him see that. Men think with one part of their anatomy and I ain’t talking about their stomach!’

I’ve had so little experience of men. I’ve dated but nothing has ever been serious. After Freddie let me down, I’ve found it hard to trust.

‘Do you really think he’s interested? That he’ll ask me out again?’

Rita tilts her head and looks at me as if I’m a photograph she’s assessing. ‘You’re a good-looking girl, with a nice figure and you’ve got more about you than most of the airheads in LA.’ The praise is unexpected and to hear it from Rita means a lot. She’s a straight-talking woman and wouldn’t flannel me. ‘Sometimes, men need a little push in the right direction,’ she continues. ‘And that’s what we’re going to give him.’ As she lists her advice, my heart lifts because if Rita thinks there’s still hope then I’m not giving up. I’ve left everyone and everything I knew behind to get here and create a life for myself. My dreams cannot die because of one cancelled date.