Anne Girard - Platinum Doll

“Very posh,” she said, as they pulled over in front of a white stucco house with a terra-cotta roof. There was a small palm tree in the front yard and two bird of paradise plants framing the door. “Why are we stopping?”

“Because we’re home. God, I hope you like it. If you don’t, I’m in big trouble since I put a hefty down payment on the place, sight-unseen, a few weeks ago.”

Her mouth fell open.

“You did what?”

“Married people need a proper home, doll. I wanted to give you that as a wedding gift. Since you liked it so much out here near Hollywood, it just seemed a good place for us to officially start our new life. The real estate agent told me this is one of the best streets in the area. Lots of stylish young couples, and movie types, are buying here right now.”

In her mind, movie stars were like royalty. She and her mother had excitedly combed through all of the Hollywood magazines every month for as long as she could remember. They had read and knew every word of gossip about their exciting lives and careers. Like her mother, Harlean, too, had placed those glamorous icons on pedestals they could see but never quite reach. The prospect of actually living here among them was too spectacular to fully fathom.

He shoved his hands nervously into his trouser pockets. “So, do you like the place?”

“It’s adorable on the outside, Chuck, but can I see the rest of it?”

Of course she would love it, but this was all so sudden. It was hard to know what to think, or even how to react, to his cascading generosity. Most new husbands bought their brides flowers or jewelry, not pretty houses in Beverly Hills. It seemed as if there was nothing he would not do to make her happy.

As they stood facing the house, he took the key from a pocket in his trousers. “Here, take it. It’s yours.”

“The key or the house?”

“Both. And all of my heart, too.”

She kissed his cheek, and then he led her up the brick walkway. After he opened the front door, Chuck scooped her up and whisked her across the threshold.

Harlean found the house too charming for words. After he put her down, she first took in the beamed living room with a fireplace inset with indigo tiles. It was bright and sunny, and smelled new, like oil soap and fresh paint. Her heart was racing.

Next, they went into the dining room and on to the kitchen overlooking the back of the house. There was no furniture in the place yet, except in the bedroom, where a mattress was made up on the floor with pillows and a patchwork quilt. At the foot of the bed, Chuck had somehow placed a carved satinwood table that had belonged to his mother. A huge crystal vase sat on top, brimming with white orchids. They had always been Harlean’s favorite flower for how delicate they appeared, but how hardy they were if tended to properly. Her hand went to her lips as she stifled a gasp of surprise.

“It’s all just so perfect,” she said in a whisper.

“Are you sure you like it?”

“Of course! I can’t believe you did all of this for me.”

“Who else is there, doll? You’re everything to me, so you’d better get used to your husband spoiling the daylights out of you.”

Harlean melted against him, then twined her arms around his neck and kissed him tenderly. Passion was never very far off after a kiss between them. “Touch has a memory. O say, love, say.” The words of John Keats threaded themselves back through her mind. She had loved that poem since the first time she had read it and feeling Chuck’s touch often brought it back to her.

“I’ll never get tired of the way you taste,” he murmured as their kiss deepened, and he pulled her more tightly against him. “I really am the luckiest man alive.”

“What do you say we christen the place?” she asked.

“Right now?”

“Why not? I don’t know how you did all of this without me finding out, and on top of everything you made sure we’d have a bed.”

“I’m discovering there’s not a lot money can’t buy.”

“I’m not sure if you’re more handsome or more resourceful.”

“As long as we christen this new bed right now, I don’t care which one of those gets first place,” he said in a low voice thickened by lust.

Afterward, Chuck fetched a hotel picnic basket from the trunk of the car and spread a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth on the living room floor in front of the fireplace. They feasted on ham sandwiches, a cluster of purple grapes and a wedge of cheese. Chuck had brought along a bottle of Champagne from his father’s secret wine cellar in Chicago. Harlean flinched with surprise as the cork popped and he filled two teacups with the bubbly French nectar to celebrate the occasion. He stretched out, propped his head on an elbow and gazed over at her as she sat cross-legged in her bathrobe.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he bid her.

“I just never thought life could be this good. If this is a dream, I never want to wake up. That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“Are you sure it’s enough?”

“A husband I love and a home? Why wouldn’t it be?”

“There must be something more. When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

“Happy,” she said truthfully. “That was it. And I am.”

Harlean waited a moment to let that settle on him then, as it did, she watched his eyebrows knit together as his expression became a frown. “You don’t want to be an actress or anything, since we’re out here in Hollywood, do you?”

She could tell that the prospect was unsettling to him. They both knew that it was a difficult, demanding and largely disappointing dream for those determined to pursue it.

“Now, why would I want to go and do that? I saw how frustrating it was for my mother—the endless auditions and all those doors slammed in her face. That kind of rejection is for fools. No, thank you.”

Harlean may have inherited that stubborn streak from her mother, and an absolute iron will for getting things she wanted, but better to savor her books, her new home and her marriage, and to enjoy the glitter and glamour of Hollywood from a distance.

* * *

Late in the afternoon two days later, a group of their neighbors organized a party to welcome them. The neighborhood was comprised of a wealthy young society crowd. Fit, tan men wearing monogrammed oxford shirts, linen trousers and bow ties bantered with each other as they carried bottles of bootleg gin up Chuck and Harlean’s walkway. Beside them, their pretty wives and girlfriends wore a confectionary-colored array of cashmere sweaters and ropes of pearls. Each came bearing a casserole, a cake or martini glasses.

As the sun began to set behind the bristling palm trees outside, twenty people crowded into the living room, which was decorated so far with only a sofa, two folding chairs and a flea-market side table. Chuck whispered to her that he’d heard them talking, and two of the girls were heiresses, and one was the daughter of a studio boss.

Harlean herself had been raised in an upper-class group in Missouri and after her mother had remarried, she was educated at a posh private school outside of Chicago. But these people were a cut above that. There was a carefree air that surrounded them, and it was instantly intimidating. Harlean had a feeling that this party was actually designed more to size them up than welcome them.

Just when she was starting to think that this might’ve been a mistake, she saw someone she recognized. The mood lightened instantly as an old friend of hers came up the walkway carrying a bouquet of daisies. She wore a pretty floral dress cinched at the waist and a similar rope of pearls to the other girls.

“Rosalie McCray?” Harlean shrieked with surprise at the pretty, petite girl with the chestnut curls suddenly standing before her. “Gosh, what are you doing here? I remember you told us you lived near Hollywood, but I never imagined!”