“You’ll find work again,” Mrs. M said, as I chewed on the night’s meal (pork chop, no longer rationed) and stared out the window as the late-evening sun splashed across the new cars whizzing by on the avenue. “Maybe once I cash in my war bonds, I can hire you to do some cleaning for me. Or I can check with the other ladies in my bridge club. . . .” She stirred her Ovaltine. “What about Francesca? Did she finally land a role? Maybe she could get you work as an assistant at the studio. . . .”
“Francesca’s not coming around anymore.” I dropped my fork. “Listen, Mrs. M, there’s something I have to tell you. It’s none of your business, but if I don’t tell someone, it’s going to eat me up.”
Her lips quavered. “Evie, dear, if you’re in any sort of trouble —”
“I was in love with someone, but it didn’t work out.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Another girl.”
Mrs. M didn’t say anything for a long time. Slowly, I opened my eyes to find her staring at me expectantly. “Well?” she asked. “Is that it?”
“You’re not going to — to kick me out?” I asked.
“Is it going to keep you from paying rent?” She took a sip of Ovaltine, leaving a chocolate mustache on her upper lip. “Dear, we all came to California in search of ourselves. Herbert and I wanted better weather for his illness, though it turned out it didn’t do him much good. You came here ’cause you have a story to tell. Might as well tell it.”
I ended up having to cash out most of my war bonds when a new job never materialized — no need to hire a dark-skinned girl like me when hundreds of vets needed work. I went to the movies — and walked right back out when one of the shorts in front of a Bogart show starred Francesca Miller in a Daniel Fiorelli production. I didn’t need to see those eyes watching me, that smile scrawled across the screen.
More important, I had time to write, and the first thing I tackled was a new draft of City of Angels, this time as a one-act play. I’d sit in a corner booth at the Shrinking Violet and sip on soda water while I reworked the story. I’d chat with Luisa and Madge when they had breaks, and while I never felt the same spark with them that had flared in me with Frankie, it was nice to have a few friends in this world who didn’t make me feel like I had to hide.
Plus, it was good to have their support for what I was about to do.
I climbed the stairs to Violet’s office with legs like gelatin, hugging my brown folio tight to my chest. Violet’s guard, the only man I’d seen in the whole club, ushered me inside. Violet lounged behind her desk, smoking a cigarette in a long holder, her creamy satin gown crisp against her dark skin. “Evelyn,” she said, my name streaming from her mouth in a puff of smoke. “The girls tell me you have a play for me. Something a little more serious to be part of our revue here at the club.”
“It’s called City of Angels.” I hesitated, then held the folio out to her. “In a city of women, all the men called off to war, a gun moll named Kitty Cohen decides to seize control of her old squeeze’s gang for herself. But she’s pursued by a clever young detective on the force, Mary O’Shea. Sparks and bullets both fly as they outwit each other, and fall for each other —”
“I get the idea.” She tapped away the ash from her cigarette as she flipped through the script. “Ha. ‘Looks like we’ll have to share this town.’ That’s cute, I like that.” She glanced up at me. “You got studios interested in this?”
“No, I didn’t think —”
“What’re you asking, a thousand? Two? I can give you two, but I can’t go any higher. I gotta pay my girls. Six months exclusive, you can revise it, then you can take it to the studios —”
Two thousand dollars! I could live another year off of that. Enough time to write another script. Maybe two — one for the studios and another for the Shrinking Violet. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”