Lauri Robinson - Stolen Kiss With The Hollywood Starlet

Under his name it said The Russell Firm . She wasn’t sure what that meant, but there was also an address and a phone number on the card. A phone was very expensive. Not even the Swaggerts could afford one. They sure as heck didn’t have calling cards, either.

One of the other girls, Alice, rolled over, and Shirley quickly tucked the card beneath the one and only cover on the bed, a scratchy wool blanket.

Alice didn’t open her eyes, but she did pull her blanket over her head to block the light shining in through the window.

It was the middle of the night, but the city, so full of lights, was never dark. The building next door had a big cigarette billboard on top of it, and the lights on the billboard lit up the room all night as brightly as the sun did all day.

Alice had been tricked into working at Cartwright’s, too; so had Rita and all the other girls sleeping on the cots.

Shirley pulled her arm out from under the blanket and stared at the calling card again. It was him. The same man who’d almost run her over. She’d felt as if he had run her over tonight when she’d recognized him sitting at the table with a man that was as skinny as a match. The second man at the table not only had hair the color of a carrot, but he looked like one, too. A big one. Wide at the top and skinny on the bottom.

Walter wasn’t skinny or fat. Just somewhere right smack in the middle. He was nicer to look at than the other two, too. Actually, he was nicer to look at than any other man in the room. Any other man she’d met since arriving in California. Mayhap in her whole life.

His eyes. There was something about them that made it hard to look away from him. It was as if they were sad or lonely. No—lost. That’s what they looked like. Like he was lost.

She felt that way herself. Lost. With nowhere to go. All the fancy talking Roy Harrison had done turned out to be nothing but baloney. He’d hoodwinked her, that’s what he’d done. It hadn’t taken long to figure that out, but it had been too late.

Oh, he’d gotten her an audition where she’d sung her heart out, and had jumped with joy when she’d been given the job. Roy had even given her a fancy dress to wear and had shown her an apartment. Not this one. That one had been a real apartment. With nice furniture and a bathroom complete with tub, right next to the kitchen with a stove and refrigerator. This one, the one she was staying in, only had two rooms, and both of those rooms had nothing but cots in them. This apartment dang near packed in as many people as the Swaggerts’ bunkhouse had during harvest time.

After all that, him showing her that apartment, giving her that dress and then the audition where she’d sung her heart out, Roy had left. She’d spent that first night in that fancy apartment, dreaming about the days to come. Believing her dream had finally come true, until morning.

That’s when she’d met Stella.

Stella took away the dress, gave her the skimpy red dress and hideous white tray, showed her this apartment and then led her downstairs to work.

Shirley wasn’t about to schlep drinks, and had said so. Also said she was here to sing, and had headed for the door.

Stella said she could leave right after paying the breach of contract amount.

Shirley’s stomach had sunk all over again. She had signed a contract, and evidently hadn’t read it closely enough because she hadn’t known about a breach of contract, nor had she known the amount of money that had been listed. That any amount had been listed. She’d had nowhere near that amount in her purse. Not then or now. Weeks later.

Her options had been to work it off or go to jail.

Jail.

So here she was, working off a debt that grew rather than shrank each day.

Some of the other girls said she had a good chance of being discovered here. Rita claimed lots of famous people came to the basement. Stars and producers, radio jockeys and singers. She took that to heart the first night, but soon thereafter figured out no one visiting the basement was looking for a singer.

The only person who had discovered her was Walter Russell.

The one person she wished hadn’t seen her. He’d been right about too many things, and she didn’t want him to be right about one more. He’d told her to go home, but she didn’t have a home to go to. Hadn’t for years.

The wage she made schlepping drinks was less than the Swaggerts had paid her. It had taken her four years to save enough to leave there, and at the rate she was going right now, it was going to take that long to pay off CB’s.

Not only did she owe for the dress and the night staying in that fancy apartment, with a real bed and sheets, she had to pay for her lodging in this room. And the meals they fed her. At first, she’d decided she just wouldn’t eat, until she was told she had to pay for the food whether she ate it or not.

The air in her lungs grew so heavy she had to push it out, but she refused to let the sting in her eyes get to her. She would not cry. Would not. She’d told Walter that not everyone could start at the top, but that they had to start. That’s what she’d told herself, too. She had managed to make it to California, and somehow, she would become a singer. Make a life for herself, one where she didn’t have to answer to anyone.

It would just take a little longer than she’d first thought.

Nothing was going to change her mind about that.

She took a final look at the calling card and then tucked it beneath her pillow.

That was the good thing about dreams. No one could take them away. She’d lost everything else. Her family. Her home. But not her dream. Not her hope.

No one could take that away from her.

* * *

Shirley was at work by ten the next morning. Schlepping drinks. She figured that by working all day and night, she’d make money faster, pay off her debt and get out of Cartwright’s.

The morning and afternoon crowds were nothing like the evening and night ones, but she worked them because every penny counted. Every single cent was one step closer to getting out of here. She hadn’t felt this trapped at the Swaggerts’. She may have thought she’d waited on them hand and foot, but it hadn’t been anything like this. Here, she didn’t have any sort of a life of her own. At times, like now, when her feet were hurting and disgust rolled in her stomach, she felt her determination slipping, but that couldn’t happen. She couldn’t give up on herself. She was all she had. That had been easier to accept four years ago, because she’d had hope then. Now, she had to dig deep to find that. Partially because of the other girls—those who had been here for months. They were so downtrodden, so lifeless, as if they’d completely given up. Given in to Mel and his contracts.

She wouldn’t do that. Give in.

If she’d been on the other side of this tray, the place might be considered fun. Besides the piano player, two men played trumpets, and another pounded a huge drum, filling the room with jazz music that had women in bright-colored dresses and men wearing striped shirts and bow ties dancing, laughing and carrying on. It was a sight to see. The feathered headbands, strings of pearls and fancy hats were like the ones she’d seen in magazines back in Nebraska. Like the ones she wanted to wear. She would. Someday. Although the people appeared friendly—it was only to each other. She’d quickly learned very few wanted to know anything more than what was on her tray, and the number of them that tried to stiff her for their drinks was more than not.

She wasn’t about to take that. Not from anyone.

While things were slow during the late afternoon, she took her break, ate a bowl of chili that was sure to leave her with a good bout of heartburn and then hooked her tray over her neck and headed back into the main room of the speakeasy.