Page 50 of In a Far-Off Land
“Honey and lemon juice. But mostly whisky.”
I sank back down on the bed. “Why are you here?” My voice sounded like a frog caught in a drainpipe.
He didn’t answer. Not then or later. But he didn’t leave either. He stayed, and as my head cleared and the aspirin took my headache to a more reasonable thumping, he told me about the show he’d seen the night before at the Chinese. I was too tired to wonder much whether he’d taken Julia or one of the Dorises, and he didn’tsay.
“Feeling better?”
I sniffed. “This isn’t how you wanted to spend Christmas Eve.” Max was a good guy. He probably felt sorry for me and that’s why he was here.
“Says you.” He smiled his sweet, slow smile. “Besides, I have to take care of my best client.”
“You mean your only client.”
“That too.”
I got the notion that Max just might be as lonely as I was, but maybe that was the fever talking. He spooned me the rest of the medicine and my eyes got heavy. I’m not sure, but I think he leaned forward and brushed his warm lips over my cheek, whispering, “Merry Christmas, Mina.” Or maybe I dreamed it. When I opened my eyes again, he was gone. But on the table beside my bed was a tiny tree, decorated in tinsel and gold, with a silver star shining at the top.
I didn’t know what to make of it at all.
——————
By New Year’s Day, I was back on my feet and working the morning shift at the Derby, where a few desultory patrons slumped over their coffee and eggs, nursing hangovers. The studios had shut down over Christmas and wouldn’t open until the big shots came back from their jaunts to Reno and New York. Max sloped in around noon, looking like a walking headache. His usual clean-shaven jaw was shadowed. Instead of his neat suit, he wore slightly wrinkled chinos and a shirt that looked like it had spent the night on the floor.
I asked Cook for a prairie oyster. He cracked a raw egg into an old-fashioned glass, covered it in Tabasco, Worcestershire, salt, andpepper, and pushed it across the counter. “How was your date last night?” I set the glass down gently in front of Max, who drooped over a corner table, and poured him a coffee chaser. I’d spent New Year’s Eve at home, washing my hair, taking a blissfully long bath, and thinking about Max. But he didn’t have to know that.
He threw back the prairie oyster in one go and set the glass on the table with a grimace. “About as bad as I expected.”
“The date or the remedy?”
A smile flickered back at me. Max didn’t stay down for long. “Both.”
I laughed and secretly exulted. Maybe he’d figure out those girls weren’t right for him. “Thanks for the tree.” I looked down at the menus in my hand instead of at his handsome face. “You really shouldn’t have.”
“I do plenty I shouldn’t,” he said in a voice that sent a rush of heat to my cheeks. When I started to my next table, he caught me by the elbow. “Hey, Mina, let’s get out of here.” His hand was warm, and the midmorning light turned his eyes to amber. You know that feeling when you take a misstep off the curb? How it knocks you a little breathless and it takes a second to recover? That’s what it felt like sometimes with Max.
I managed to play it cool. “To do what?” We’d seen every picture in town except the foreign ones, which Max said weren’t worth it.
“Dusty’s place in Laguna. I need to check on it.”
That’s the first I heard of Laguna.
“It’s a nice drive.” He fiddled with his fork, lining it up with his unused napkin. “I’ll buy you dinner.”
What about the mysterious Julia? Didn’t she like a drive down the Pacific Coast on a bright winter day? “I’m on until six,” I hemmed.
He shrugged and stood up, still not meeting my gaze. “Suit yourself.”
I watched him saunter to the door, then ran to catch up. “Give me five minutes.”
A day with Max was better than serving hangovers at the Brown Derby, Julia be sunk.
I had a heart-to-heart with Norb, promises were made, and it was fixed. I quick-changed out of my uniform and into a peacock-blue day dress with a drop waist and flutter sleeves.
Outside, Max leaned against the roadster. The top was down, and his smile warmed me faster than the thin sunlight battling with the chill breeze. Before I knew it, we were heading toward the coast.
Max didn’t launch into a lecture on Louis B. Mayer as we roared past Culver City with its acres of studio lots—or mention again how funny it was that the biggest studio in Hollywood wasn’t even in Hollywood—and I was grateful. I didn’t want to talk business.
My hair blew wild and caught on my lipstick as we sped through the oil fields of Long Beach, pumps bending up and down like the dinosaurs I’d seen in encyclopedias back in Odessa. Max pointed to a small compartment in front of me. In it, I found a pair of dark sunglasses and a silk scarf. Julia’s, maybe, but I didn’t care. I turned my new peepers on him. “Looks good on you,” he shouted over the wind and roar of the engine.
