Celia, Harry, and I decided to go together. I would never have gone with just Celia, not with that many eyes on us. But Harry was a perfect buffer.
That night, the air in L.A. was cooler than I had anticipated. I was wearing capri pants and a short-sleeved sweater. I had just gotten bangs and had started sweeping them to the side. Celia had on a blue shift dress and flats. Harry, dapper as ever, was wearing slacks and a short-sleeved oxford shirt. He held a camel-colored knit cardigan with oversized buttons in his hand, ready for any of us who were too cold.
We sat in the second row with a couple of Harry’s producer friends from Paramount. Across the aisle, I saw Ed Baker with a young woman who appeared as if she could be his daughter, but I knew better. I decided not to say hi, not only because he was still a part of the Sunset machine but also because I never liked him.
Mick Riva took the stage, and the women in the crowd started cheering so loudly that Celia actually put her hands over her ears. He was wearing a dark suit with a loose tie. His jet-black hair was combed back but just slightly disheveled. If I had to guess, I’d say he’d had a drink or two backstage. But it didn’t seem to slow him down in the slightest.
“I don’t get it,” Celia said to me as she leaned in to my ear. “What do they see in this guy?”
I shrugged. “That he’s handsome, I suppose.”
Mick walked up to the microphone, the spotlight following him. He grabbed the mic stand with both passion and softness, as if it were one of the many girls yelling his name.
“And he knows what he’s doing,” I said.
Celia shrugged. “I’d take Brick Thomas over him any day.”
I shook my head, cringing. “No, Brick Thomas is a heel. Trust me. If you met him, within five seconds, you’d be gagging.”
Celia laughed. “I think he’s cute.”
“No, you don’t,” I said.
“Well, I think he’s cuter than Mick Riva,” she said. “Harry? Thoughts?”
Harry leaned in from the other side. He whispered so softly I almost didn’t hear him. “I’m embarrassed to admit I have something in common with these shrieking girls,” he said. “I would not kick Mick out of bed for eating crackers.”
Celia laughed.
“You are too much,” I said as I watched Mick walk from one end of the stage to the other, crooning and smoldering. “Where are we eating after this?” I asked them both. “That’s the real question.”
“Don’t we have to go backstage?” Celia asked. “Isn’t that the polite thing to do?”
Mick’s first song ended, and everyone started clapping and cheering. Harry leaned over me as he clapped so Celia could hear him.
“You won an Oscar, Celia,” he said. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”
She threw her head back and laughed as she clapped. “Well, then I want to go get a steak.”
“Steak it is,” I said.
I don’t know whether it was the laughing or the cheering or the clapping. There was so much noise around me, so much chaos from the crowd. But for one fleeting moment, I forgot myself. I forgot where I was. I forgot who I was. I forgot who I was with.
And I grabbed Celia’s hand and held it.
She looked down, surprised. I could feel Harry’s gaze on our hands, too.
I pulled my hand away, and just as I corrected myself, I saw a woman down the row from us stare at me. She looked to be in her midthirties, with a patrician face, small blue eyes, and perfectly applied crimson lipstick. Her lips turned down as she looked at me.
She had seen me.
She had seen me hold Celia’s hand.
And she had seen me pull it back.
She knew both what I had done and that I had not meant for her to have seen it.
Her small eyes got smaller as she stared at me.
And any hope I had that she did not realize who I was went right out the window when she turned to the man next to her, probably her husband, and whispered in his ear. I watched as his gaze moved from Mick Riva to me.
There was a subtle disgust in his eyes, as if he was unsure if what he suspected was true but that the thought in his head made him nauseated and it was my fault for putting it there.
I wanted to slap both of them across their faces and tell them that what I did was none of their business. But I knew I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t safe to do that. I wasn’t safe. We weren’t safe.
Mick hit an instrumental part in the song and started walking toward the very front of the stage, talking to the audience. Reflexively, I stood up and cheered for him. I jumped up and down. I was louder than anyone there. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wanted to make the two of them stop talking, to each other or to anyone else. I wanted the gossip game of telephone that had started with that woman to end with that man. I wanted it all to be over. I wanted to be doing something else. So I cheered as loudly as I could. I cheered like the teenage girls in the back. I cheered as if my life depended on it, because maybe it did.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” Mick said from the stage. He had his hand over his brow, shading the spotlight from his eyes. He was looking right at me. “Or is that my dream woman right there in the front?”
Sub Rosa November 1, 1961
EVELYN HUGO AND CELIA ST. JAMES SLUMBER PARTIES
How close is too close?
Girl-next-door Celia St. James, with her Oscar win and her trail of hits, has been a longtime friend of honey-blond sexpot Evelyn Hugo. But lately we’re starting to wonder if these two aren’t up to something.
Insiders are saying the two are quite a pair of . . . thespians.
Sure, plenty of girlfriends go shopping together and share a drink or two. But Celia’s car is parked outside Evelyn’s home, the one she used to share with none other than Mr. Don Adler, every night. All night.
So what’s happening behind those walls?
Whatever it is, it certainly doesn’t sound like it’s on the straight and narrow.
I’M GOING OUT ON A date with Mick Riva.”
“Like hell you are.”
When Celia was angry, her chest and her cheeks flushed. This time, they’d grown red faster than I’d ever seen.
We were in the outdoor kitchen of her weekend home in Palm Springs. She was grilling us burgers for dinner.
Ever since the article came out, I’d refused to be seen with her in Los Angeles. The rags didn’t yet know about her place in Palm Springs. So we would spend weekends there together and our weeks in L.A. apart.
Celia went along with the plan like a put-upon spouse, agreeing to whatever I wanted because it was easier than fighting with me. But now, with the suggestion of going on a date, I’d gone too far.
I knew I’d gone too far. That was the point, sort of.
“You need to listen to me,” I said.
“You need to listen to me.” She slammed the lid of the grill shut and gestured to me with a pair of silver tongs. “I’ll go along with any of your little tricks that you want. But I’m not getting on board with either of us dating.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“We have plenty of choices.”
“Not if you want to keep your job. Not if you want to keep this house. Not if you want to keep any of our friends. Not to mention that the police could come after us.”