Free Lillian and Dash by Sam Toperoff Page A

characters speak true. He does it better than any of us. By far.”
    Edmunds said, “Alas.”
    Myra said, “Don’t be so fucking willing to acknowledge his talent. He’s an overblown arrogant shit, fatuous, second-rate, and incredibly derivative. I despise him profoundly and resent his success absolutely.”
    Myra’s outburst drew laughter, even though she had been dead serious. Phil said, “Please, dear, tell us how you really feel about the guy.”
    Lillian realized anew why she liked Myra Ewbank so much and disliked most other Hollywood women she knew. Not only could Myra outwrite and outthink her husband and most everyone else, she could outcook, outtype, outwit, andin a fairer world, outearn him as well. Lilly could count on two fingers of one hand the other women she knew like that.
    Lillian asked Myra if Hemingway were a woman would she still dislike the work as much. “That’s my point, Lilly. A woman couldn’t get away with half the bullshit Hemingway gets away with, on and off the page. And a woman wouldn’t write that crap to begin with.”
    “But look at our spouses,” Lilly said. “They’re both writers, both as virile as Turks—I believe I’m correct in surmising—and they don’t write that garbage.” Of course she was really talking about Hammett, since Phil would write anything Selznick asked him to, a wet-hankie for Bette Davis or a Jack Oakie college romp with fart jokes. And probably there was more he-man, stoical Hemingway in Hammett than she was comfortable with.
    Hammett rose and blunted his cigar in a tray. “There you have it—the importance of being Ernest.” He knew this was about the time when Lilly usually went up to and then over the line. “C’mon, Miss Broadway, no one here is bending spoons, no one here is beating their chests. Can’t you see, they just want to go to sleep.”
    Lillian didn’t stand up. “I want to stay. I want to tell the whole world that was the best damned meal since I had a rhino roast at the foot of Kilimanjaro.”
    Hammett finished his drink while standing and lifted Lillian’s hand.
    “Jesus,” said Phil, “it’s not even one. This isn’t like you people.”
    “Lillian’s brain is still on Eastern time.”
    “It’s not.”
    “One more drink then.”
    Myra moved everyone to the living room. Phil set cognac snifters on small tables. The couples sat across from one another on matching sofas. Myra turned down the lights and said, “There.”
    Silence matched the change of mood until Edmunds said, “I didn’t want to bring this up earlier.” His altered tone matched the new subject. “It would have been unseemly to bring up business before … We really did invite you to celebrate Lilly.”
    Lilly muttered, “Unseemly. Some word.”
    “It’s not business,” Myra corrected her husband. “It’s politics.”
    Phil glared at his wife: “Then you do it.”
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
    “We’re thinking of trying to organize the writers.” He let the words sit there while he looked at each of them. Hammett smiled. Lillian frowned. “It’s all preliminary, very preliminary. We’re just feeling people out, good idea, bad idea, what? The technical people—electricians, sound and camera guys—seem to be way ahead of us on this. In fact, they want us to be a part of what they’re doing …”
    Myra interrupted: “Word is the studios are getting together to fund a fake writers’ union.
Screen Writers Association
, they want to call it. They want to control all the talent at bargain basement prices. If we want a real union, we’ve got to act, we really can’t be screwing around.”
    “As you can see, my wife gets passionate. But she also happens to be right. We have to figure out what sort of association we want and when we want it.”
    “Union,” Hammett said, stopping Edmunds short, “not association, not organization—union. It’s important to call a thing what it is.”
    “Fine,” Phil said. “So you think