Page 11 of His Girl Hollywood

Don gave him a look and Eddie raised his hands in surrender. “Eddie, c’mon, you know I need to save every penny for this to work. That hotel money is going straight into my pocket now. Frankie can’t know about it.”

“He won’t, he won’t. You’re gonna be great, Don. You’re a star. Evets Studios could see that. Before you know it, you’ll have your own bungalow at the Chateau and Frankie will be out in the cold. It’s all gonna work out. You’ll see.”

Don clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth might crack and nodded, the vein in his neck pulsing. “But what if it doesn’t?What if the picture flops and Evets Studios realizes they’ve made a bum investment? Worse, what if Frankie finds out? This is my last chance, Eddie.”

He didn’t say the other part. When Walter Nebbs had told him Lena would be the one directing the picture, Don thought he’d struck gold. Lena and Don, together again. It was a sure bet. It had never occurred to him that she might not want him here, might even be looking for an excuse to kick him off the picture. She’d been his biggest fan once. Watched every dance he’d devised in their shared backyard. Encouraged him to chase his dreams. But it sure as hell didn’t seem like she was his number one fan any more.

“That gal wants this picture to be a success as much as you do,” Eddie told him, seeing right through him. “Probably more.”

“But you didn’t see her today, Eddie. She was, I don’t know, impenetrable. Not at all the Lena I used to know.”

“Are you the same Don she used to know?”

The truth hit him like a sock in the gut. No. He wasn’t. He’d done everything he could to scrub himself of the boy who’d been Don Lazzarini. Hell, he’d even changed his last name the moment he got to New York. The idea of his father being connected with any of his success made him physically ill. That man didn’t deserve a scrap of credit, not even the recognition of a shared surname. The Lazzarini name and all of its potential had ended with his father’s death. Because he was Don Lamont now. An orphan, like Athena sprung from Zeus’s temple. He had erased any connection with Michael Lazzarini and his father’s sad little life.

Eddie smiled. “That’s what I thought.” He scrounged some change out of his pocket and tossed it on the counter. “Now, let’s go. You look like you could use some sleep.”

Don was bone-tired. And yet, somehow, he didn’t think he could sleep. His mind was whirring a thousand miles a minute,every possible scenario racing through his head, all of them ending in disaster. But he should at least try. He shoved his hand in his pocket and absentmindedly rubbed the penny tucked there. Arlene had brought him luck before. Maybe she would again.

Tomorrow, he would get to start over and try to make it as a Hollywood song-and-dance man. Start earning back some of what he’d lost. Tomorrow, for the second time in his life, he could be a new man.

Chapter 5

Arlene pushed her plate away, having barely eaten the shepherd’s pie her mother had made. Pauline, dish towel in hand, emerged from the kitchen and looked aghast.

“What’s the matter? It’s no good? I made your favorite.” Her mother’s brow dripped with sweat, and a damp dishcloth hung at her waist, the telltale signs of how she’d labored over their weekly family dinner each Sunday. Arlene had only missed a handful in her lifetime. Mostly when she had been in Reno with Joan.

Arlene sighed. “I’m just not hungry, Mama. Send it down the street to Bill and the kids.”

Her mother clicked her tongue in frustration. “No, Nancy will be insulted. She and Bill and the boys are eating with her parents tonight. They’ll think that I think her parents can’t feed them properly.”

“Well, can they?” Arlene gave her a look.

A twinkle entered her mother’s eye. “No, but I’ll not be telling them that either.” Arlene couldn’t help but laugh. She reached out and plunged her fork into the shepherd’s pie, taking a small bite. It tasted a little better. But her heart still wasn’t with her plate.

Her mother wiped her hands on her apron. “What’s wrong, Lena? Tomorrow is a big day for you. You need your strength.”

“I have a lot on my mind.” Arlene looked at the dining table, theone her mother had brought with her from Ireland as part of her dowry. She rubbed her hand over the wood, taking in places where the grain had smoothed to a lighter color from its dark cherry. Thousands of memories over thousands of meals had been made right here at this table. Hers, her parents, and the ones of the generations before her.

But tonight, she wished she wasn’t so good at remembering. That the scar tissue in her heart hadn’t seared with fresh hurt when Don surprised her on the soundstage earlier that evening. She’d vowed never to cry another tear over Don Lamont. But that was before he’d been named the star of her directorial debut—before he’d quite literally waltzed back into her life, full of bluster and presumptions.

She cast her eyes at her father’s chair, steadfast in its place at the table, but now empty. Not just for tonight, but every night until the end of time. Her mother followed the direction of her vision and pulled up a chair on the other side of her, wrapping her arm around Arlene. Arlene laid her head against her mother’s shoulder. It reminded her of being a little girl and feeling as if nothing bad could happen as long as she was wrapped in her mother’s embrace.

“I know you miss him,a stór,” Pauline said, stroking her fingers through her daughter’s hair. Arlene blinked back tears at the sound of the Gaelic words that meant “my treasure.” Her father had always reserved them solely for her. “I do too. But he would be so proud of you.”

Arlene sighed. “He would. I know it.” A memory of her excitedly telling her father on the trolley ride home from seeing Cinderella how she was going to direct pictures filled her with fresh hurt.Of course you will, a stór, he’d said, kissing her on the forehead. Never questioning his little girl’s dreams for a moment.

As much as it pained her that her father wasn’t here to see herrealize those dreams, it wasn’t his empty chair that had her disinterested in her favorite supper.

Her mother patted her hand. “You will be magnificent. I know it.” Arlene didn’t answer and hugged her mother tighter. “You’re nervous to see him again, aren’t you?” Somehow mothers always knew.

“Who?”

“Ach, don’t play dumb with me, child. Don. It’s been a long time.”

Arlene sat up and tangled her hands in her lap. “It has, but that doesn’t have to mean anything. I’m the director. He’s the star. We don’t have to be anything but that.”

“You could never be only that,” her mother replied, giving her a knowing look.

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