Somebody once said—search me who, and I guess it doesn’tmatter—that a life lived without regret was a life not lived. Boy, did they have that wrong. Regret isn’t something to be proud of. It isn’t a one-shot deal like stubbing your toe. No, it’s a wound that doesn’t heal. You live with it, you keep it covered and try not to think about it, but it’s always there, aching.
Maybe Max hated me now and probably always would. Maybe now, he wouldn’t mind doing what I needed him to do.
But which place was his?
I’d left Echo Park and walked north through residential areas with modest houses guarded by towering oaks, the occasional mansion screened by black iron gates. I reached the familiar stretch of Sunset. Its garish red and yellow lights reflecting off the wet road threw my shadow first one way, then the other. Hotels, speakeasies, all-night cafeterias. Not many people walked the streets in the rain, but music and laughter—and the occasional drunk—spilled out of the open doors.
I was like a ghost drifting along the sidewalk. At the Sunset Tower Hotel, where Max and I had celebrated with clandestine champagne after my audition at Cosmo, a bored doorman barely looked at me. Farther on at a nightclub called the Kitty Kat—where we’d fox-trotted and tangoed until our feet ached—music and laughter swelled and ebbed.
Was this the person I was going to be now? Lost in this world of in-between. Neither here nor there. Not a bad person—not really—but surely not good. My regrets came visiting then—what I’d done to Papa and Penny, sure. But all the rest. Alex and Cal and Roy. Oscar and his family. And although I couldn’t see farther ahead of me than a few steps in the driving rain, I could see one thing pretty clear: I’d never be that girl from Odessa again. I’d never be the person Papa called his daughter. The woman Maxthought he loved. She was gone. But who had come to live in her place?
I crossed over Western. A Daimler splashed a curtain of dirty water as it passed by me, the marquee lights reflected on its rain-wet windows. Spotlights cut through the dark sky, throwing bright halos under the lowering clouds. At Vine Street, a right turn would take me to the Brown Derby, the Chinese, the Egyptian... the Tower Theatre, where Max had kissed me after the Chaplin film. All that was over now. I wouldn’t be breaking into film, wouldn’t be making a bundle of cash to bring home to Odessa and Papa. I pulled Lupita’s scarf over my hair and pushed my trembling legs on, block by block, leaving my past and my hopes behind.
After what seemed like ages, I spotted the sign:Garden of Allah Villas, illuminated in shades of gray as the moon came out from behind the clouds. A sprawling main house in alabaster stucco and black iron, a tiled roof that gleamed like wet charcoal, and the glint of an ink-dark swimming pool.
I stepped under a dripping cedar, hiding in the shadows. The bungalow windows were slate-colored eyes, waiting for something to see. No yellow roadster. No clue to who slept behind the various arched doorways and grated windows.
I couldn’t just go knocking on doors now, could I?
That’s when I saw the letterboxes. Each had a name stenciled like film credits in white paint.SwansonandHarlowon the first two bungalows on the left, on the other side of the street a place with a deserted air and the letterbox label ofMarx.A perfectly groomed lawn with a well-tended rose garden and large letterbox withBarrymorein small, precise print.
How long before someone saw me lurking and called the police?
Then I saw it, the faded print on the next letterbox.Clark.Thank heaven. I held my hand over the door for a moment, getting up the nerve. Finally, I knocked, my heart hammering in my throat, my mouth as dry as dust. He’d have every reason to throw me out, but I hoped he wouldn’t.
No answer. My pulse slowed a titch and I knocked again, louder. Nothing. No light. No footsteps. I tried the doorknob. It turned, and the door swung opened with a creak. I guess Max didn’t worry about burglars in a place like this. My hand found the light button and a dim glow filled a small hallway and spilled into the rooms beyond.
There was a reason Max didn’t worry about burglars. He didn’t have anything to steal.
The entryway held a brass coat tree with a gray wool overcoat I recognized. The walls were bare but for a few picture hooks and some holes in the plaster. I dripped down the hallway to what must be the sitting room—nothing to sit on but a few boxes filled with books. A white-tiled washroom. A bedroom with an unmade bed.
It felt so... personal, seeing this part of Max. Where he lived. The place he slept and ate and lived his life. This was the Max I wanted to know. The Max I would never have. I found the kitchen next. Newspapers covered the table, my shame splashed across every page. A half-empty bottle of gin sat beside a single tumbler. My legs wobbled and tears choked my throat.
Max, I’m so sorry.
I started to shake, the shivers coming from deep inside like an earthquake. I was so cold. I stumbled to the washroom and started hot water running in the claw-foot bathtub. With trembling hands, I stripped off my wet clothes, hung them on the clicking radiator, and stepped into the scalding water. I went all the way under, holding my breath and hoping that when Icame back up—somehow—everything would be all right again. It wasn’t.
When the water cooled and my limbs felt like melted wax, I dragged myself out of the bath and wrapped up in a towel the size of a bedsheet. My eyes were drooping as I rummaged through a bureau in the small bedroom. I ran my hand over the pressed white shirts. Max’s bright silk ties.
I don’t expect you to forgive me, Max, I just want...
What did I want? I wanted his help, one last time. Then I’d get out of his life for good. But for now, I just wanted sleep. I found a pair of men’s pajamas in dove-gray silk—miles too big, but I slipped them on. I lay down on the bed and buried my face in the feather pillow, breathing in the scent of Max’s hair tonic. Then I closed my eyes and wished and wished and wished things were different.
If wishes were horses—isn’t that what they say?
CHAPTER 9
Odessa, South Dakota
PAPA
It was a cold day for an auction.
Best get on with it, he figured. There was no point in griping. When the banker from Pierre had come to the house with the auction details, Penny had been downright hostile. Ephraim had to give Mr. Robert Thomas his due; he hadn’t let Penny’s ire get to him and had done his job like a real gentleman.
Ephraim rubbed his hands together and stuck them deep in his wool jacket pockets as he considered the collection of equipment lined up for sale. “Morning.” He nodded to Robert Thomas, who shivered in his fancy coat and city shoes. The boy should have known to wear something warmer. Everybody knew that February was raw in South Dakota, and this morning was worse than most. He checked his watch. Wouldn’t be long now before the bidders showed up.
The auctioneer, a good man Ephraim had met a time or two over the years, was dressed in heavy dungarees and a bulky wool jacket. He kicked the tires on the tractor and made a note with a stubby pencil. “1917 Fordson. That’s a good machine. How about the plow?”
