I walked out of thecolonia, putting Oscar and Lupita, Roman and Angel and Sanchia behind me. I hadn’t thanked them for all they’d given me. I hadn’t done anything but harm. And for the first time since I’d stepped off the bus in this far-off land, I didn’t have a plan. I walked aimlessly, cold, wet, oddly disconnected from the danger I guessed I was in. From Hearst and Louella. The police.
I’d stepped into Roy Lester’s party five days ago like the leading lady just before the happy ending. But now I knew I wasn’t playing the heroine. I was the villain of this story, and this was the part where the villain got what was coming to her. Sure, I had reasons—good reasons—for everything I’d done. But didn’t all villains think that?
The rain reached cold fingers under Lupita’s scarf and down my back. The hem of my skirt was sodden, sticking to my barelegs. I didn’t even try to avoid the puddles forming along the road. I deserved this and much more.
It was full dark now, and I walked from streetlight to streetlight, the sodium glare throwing my shadow long and dark beside me one minute, the next fading it into the surrounding blackness. Cars splashed through the street, people rushed past, everyone intent on getting out of the rain, not looking twice at me.
Max, I pleaded in my mind. Max, please try to understand. But how could a man understand how desperate a woman could be? How could a man understand how I didn’t have anywhere to turn?
Max had told me at Roy Lester’s house that everyone in Hollywood was looking for something. Maybe we were too, that night on the beach. Maybe the real me and the real Max were looking for each other. We tried. We reached out, but we missed each other. Not by much, but what was it they said? A miss by an inch is a miss by a mile.
Now I stumbled across Temple and turned north along Echo Park, numbly putting one foot in front of another. My head pounded like a timpani drum and the streetlights flickered and swung like a kaleidoscope I saw once in a glassmaker’s shop.
Desperation rose inside me, cutting off my breath. A child. Mine and Max’s. How could I take care of a child? I couldn’t even take care of myself. I was alone, freezing, with nowhere to turn. I didn’t even have a dime for the bus.
Plenty of girls got in this kind of trouble, I’d heard.
Mary Astor, Tallulah Bankhead, even Gloria Swanson. Max had told me plenty, on one of his tirades against the studios. “They say it’s a ‘therapeutic solution,’ that they’re seeing their actresses through a rough time, as if they’re sending these poor girls to butchers like Docky Martin out of the goodness of their hearts.But they don’t want to lose jack on their investments.” He looked mad enough to spit. “It’s all about the dollar signs.”
At the Rose, everyone knew Bert was the man to see. “It’s like having a tooth pulled,” I’d heard one of the women say. “It hurts for a while, sure, but then you don’t even miss it.”
Would it only hurt for a while? A child with Max’s eyes, Max’s smile?
I suspected hurt like that would last a lifetime.
Bert might have dodged the newspapers when Lana told her story, but if I was going to jail, I could put him there, too. He’d get me to somebody like Docky if I put it to him that way. All I’d need was a hundred dollars and a way to live with myself.
A bench emerged from the gloom, the curb labeled in bright white letters: Sunset Boulevard. I sat, the icy cold seeping through my skirt. The rain was ebbing, the glow of the moon struggling through the dark clouds. Weariness washed over me and I swayed, dizzy with hunger and cold and despair.
A man approached, armed with an umbrella and a trench coat. “Miss?” I heard him as if from a long distance. “Miss, are you all right?”
I wasn’t all right. And maybe never would be.
“Streetcars stopped running an hour ago,” he said. “You lost?”
I’d been lost for a long time.
The man stood, shifting from one foot to another in the rain. Any minute now, even with the scarf covering my hair, he’d recognize me from the papers.
I thought about who I was and who I wanted to be. About Papa and Penny. What I’d done and what had happened to me. About what Max meant to me and what he deserved. And finally, I thought about our child. Our baby.
The man was still waiting.
Don’t be a sap, Minnie. There was only one thing to do, and I knew what it was. I stood on shaking legs. “I know where I’m going,” I said to the man. “Thanks just the same.”
Papa always said my greatest strength was my determination. Once I made a decision, I saw it through no matter how tough. Trouble is, I don’t know anymore if determination is my strength or my fatal flaw.
OSCAR
Oscar stared at his empty glass. A thousand dollars.
But... Minerva Sinclaire was innocent of the murder. He knew that, at least. He remembered her curled up and asleep like a child this morning. His responsibility and his penance. Could he betray her trust? If he turned her in to Hearst—even to save his brothers—if something terrible happened to her, like Feng... could he live with himself?
Show her mercy, Padre had said. Mercy wasn’t turning her in to Hearst.
Before he could straighten his muddled thinking, thesociedadeshushed once again, as when Brody had come through the door. This time, it wasn’t agringodetective, but a person even more shocking. Lupita rushed toward him—her hair uncovered, her wet dress clinging to her—oblivious to the outraged murmurs of the men in the room.
Caramba. What now?
