Free A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott Page A

“Not easy. Are you writing now?”
    “Not yet. But as soon as I find a typewriter, I will be.”
    “You sound determined. When you have something to show, come see me.” Marion’s words were warm and she smiled againbefore turning away to chat with the easily recognizable actress Helen Hayes.
    Julie instinctively felt the invitation was real.
    So she was flushed with pleasure as she turned to look around the room, now rapidly filling with guests. Andy was in his element here. Introductions were casual, but there was the editor of the
New Yorker
magazine, in deep conversation with Mankiewicz, who jumped up and exuberantly shook hands with Andy. Standing by the fireplace was a restless man with a gaunt, worried face who she soon learned was Scott Fitzgerald. And she caught the name of Bennett Cerf, who had started Random House, the book-publishing firm. Other introductions blurred—there were two other writers from the East Coast—but when Julie saw David Selznick, she figured he was the reason this evening seemed especially important to Andy.
    Selznick actually looked genial tonight, laughing at someone’s joke as he tipped a glass of Scotch to his lips. Julie, cradling a drink in her hands, tried to imagine how victorious he must feel about the Gable deal right now. She began talking to the woman with him, who turned out to be his regally elegant wife, Irene—a lady with a cool smile and reserved eyes who warmed up perceptibly when she learned Julie was a graduate of Smith College.
    “I would have liked to go to college,” she said matter-of-factly. “But Father felt it was bad for girls, that it would expose me to outside influences.”
    “Where did you live?” Julie asked innocently.
    “Here, of course.” The woman’s eyes had widened slightly. “Ah, I see, you are new to Hollywood. My father is Louis B. Mayer. He always said other girls
had
to go to college: they didn’t have my advantages.”
    Julie almost giggled; if only her parents could hear that. She glanced over at Andy and saw him and Scott Fitzgerald in sober conversation with Selznick. She strained to hear.
    “So what do you think of Mitchell’s writing?” Selznick was asking.
    Fitzgerald shrugged his shoulders almost wearily. His left hand was shoved deep into the pocket of his rather shabby jacket; his right hand cradled a glass of bourbon. “It’s okay. Not very original,” he said. “Workmanlike.”
    “So you’re polishing it up, right?” Selznick said.
    “I’m using her own words mostly,” Fitzgerald said. He did not seem intimidated by Selznick’s brusque tone. He was only one of many writers Selznick was bringing in to work on the script, and he knew it.
    “Andy, you’ll stay on top of this?” Selznick said.
    “Of course,” Andy replied. He saw Julie and grinned, then winked. She smiled back and turned away; she would tell him what Irene Selznick had said later. She knew now from studio gossip that Selznick valued Andy highly—that his ability to keep track of all the elements and egos of this massive project had made him invaluable. She felt wonderfully proud.
    What she didn’t notice right away was a tall, dark-haired woman with long, graceful fingers curled tightly around a crystal glass, who was staring at Andy. Only when she strode forward in Andy’s direction, her expression stony, did Julie register that she was quite beautiful.
    Julie remembered later that Andy looked up, saw the woman approaching, and appeared first startled, then resigned.
    “You bastard,” the woman said. She took her drink and threw it into his face. Bourbon dripped from Andy’s hair as ice cubes clattered against a glass coffee table on their way to the floor. The woman put down the glass and stalked toward the front door, followed by a small, nervously apologetic-looking man with a very flushed face.
    The room went silent for a brief moment before the murmur of conversation resumed. Andy took a napkin offered by a maid and wiped his