Free West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan Page B

the audience curious, as well as adding a hint of mystery. The payoff would be the actress’s face, utterly fresh, since this was her U.S. debut. Like Sheilah she was a Brit, and irresistible in a dark way. He kept her headshot above his desk for inspiration—Vivien Leigh.
    His own curiosity was about to be quelled. His downstairs neighbor Eddie Mayer knew Sheilah’s agent, and through a complicated back-and-forth, arranged for the two of them to have dinner, with one condition: that Eddie play chaperone.
    To Scott, it was a victory. She could have just said no.
    He asked Bogie where they should go.
    â€œYou want to make yourself look good,” Bogie said, “take her to the Clover Club. It’s pricey, but the food’s swell and the band’s smooth, plus there’s always some action in back.”
    â€œShe’s not that kind of girl,” Mayo said.
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œShe’s a lady. She’s going to be a duchess or something.”
    â€œNot if our boy has anything to say about it. Ain’t that right, Fitz?”
    â€œWe’re just having dinner.”
    â€œSure,” Bogie said. “You just want to make sure everything’s gonna be hunky-dory, I know how it is. I been to dinner a few times myself.”
    Bogie offered him the use of his new pinstripe suit, and his car, a fat DeSoto, but he could see, with a writer’s built-in prescience, how that would eventually become a lie. Eddie said he could drive, but that too was somehow less than honest. As if the date were a test of his honor, Scott would drive his own car and wear his own clothes, and if they weren’t good enough for her, so be it. He was prepared for her to say that the most they could be was friends. Knowing he shouldn’t be seeing her in the first place, he’d already accepted defeat.
    Her place was up in the hills above Sunset, a salmon-tinted villa overlooking the bowl of the city, golden with the day’s end. They were early. Like the chaperone he was playing, Eddie accompanied him to the door, then let Scott ring the bell. Though the sun wasn’t quite down, the outside light popped on. She’d been waiting for him. Standing there empty-handed, he wished he’d brought flowers, a possibility he’d initially vetoed and still considered too pushy. He thought he should be doing this by himself, not attended by a familiar. He should have begged off, held out for a better chance. He should have given up completely. Faced with the fulfillment of his most tenuous, ill-conceived desire, he was second-guessing everything, and then the door opened and she smiled and gave him her hand and her cheek to be kissed and she was just as thrilling and regal as he remembered.
    â€œYou found me.”
    â€œWe did.”
    She wore a pearlescent silk blouse and dove gray skirt under a short black Oriental jacket, and in what might have been a concession to his height, flats. She still had her ring.
    â€œHello, Eddie,” she said, as if amused by his presence.
    â€œEvening,” Eddie said, then tagged along after them to the car.
    Scott opened the door for her and handed her up. The awkward formality of the situation appealed to the gallant in him, whose sense of etiquette harkened back to Miss Van Arnum’s and the ice cream socials of Buffalo.
    â€œWhy, thank you, kind sir,” she said, tucking in her skirt so he could close the door.
    His manners were learned, hers innate. Her every look, her every gesture was meant to put him at ease. He intuited that she’d grown up around money.
    â€œIs this your car?” she asked.
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œIt has character.”
    â€œIt has the indispensable quality of being paid for.”
    â€œI thought perhaps your Rolls was in the shop.”
    â€œSo you’ve had one then,” he said.
    â€œI can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”
Cahn’t.
    â€œWhat do