Stars Over Sunset Boulevard - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Susan Meissner is a former managing editor of a weekly newspaper and an award-winning columnist. She is the award-winning author of A Fall of Marigolds, Secrets of a Charmed Life, Stars over Sunset Boulevard, A Bridge Across the Ocean, As Bright as Heaven, and The Last Year of the War, among other novels.

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Praise for the Novels of Susan Meissner

Other Novels by Susan Meissner

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

1938

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

1939

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

1942

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

1962

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Acknowledgments

Readers Guide

Special Excerpt from A Fall of Marigolds

Special Excerpt from Secrets of a Charmed Life

About the Author

Hollywood

March 9, 2012

Christine unfolds the tissue paper inside the pink-striped hatbox and the odor of lost years floats upward. She is well acquainted with the fragrance of antiquity. Her vintage-clothing boutique off West Sunset overflows with stylish remnants from golden years long since passed.

“I thought you were going to hold off estimating that lot until this afternoon,” her business partner, Stella, says as she joins Christine in the shop’s back room. The two friends are surrounded on all sides by the wearable miscellany of spent lives.

“Mr. Garceau, the man who brought this stuff in last night, just called. There’s apparently a hat in one of these boxes that wasn’t supposed to be included. He told me what it looks like. I guess the family is anxious to have it back.”

Christine withdraws a paper-wrapped lump from inside the box, revealing at first just a flash of moss green and shimmers of gold. Then she pulls away the rest of the layers. The Robin Hood–style hat in folds of soft velvet, amber-hued fringe, and iridescent feathers feels ghostly in her hands, as though if she put it to her ear, it might whisper a litany of old secrets.

She has seen this hat somewhere before, a long time ago.

“Is that it?” Stella asks.

“I think so. He said it was green with gold fringe and feathers.”

Stella moves closer, brow furrowed. “That hat looks familiar to me.”

“It does to me, too.” Christine turns the hat over to inspect its underside for signs of its designer—a label, a signature, a date. She sees only a single name in faded ink on a yellowed tag:

Scarlett #13

1938

ONE

December 1938

A brilliant California sun bathed Violet Mayfield in indulgent light as she neared the soaring palm tree and the woman seated on a bench underneath it. Legs crossed at the ankles, the woman rested her back lazily against the skinny trunk. She held a cigarette in her right hand, and it was as if the thin white tube were a part of her and the stylish smoke that swirled from it an extension of her body. The woman’s fingernails, satin red and glistening, were perfectly shaped. Toenails visible to Violet through peep-toes winked the same shade of crimson. The woman wore a formfitting sheath of celery green with a scoop neckline. A magazine lay open on her lap, but her tortoiseshell sunglasses hid her eyes, so Violet couldn’t tell whether the woman was reading the article on the left page or gazing at handsome Cary Grant, whose photograph graced the right. A wad of wax paper lay crumpled on the bench beside her handbag and a bit of bread crust poked out of it. She sat in front of the Mansion at Selznick International Studios, the stunning white edifice that moviemaker Thomas Ince had built back in the twenties to look like George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

The woman under the tree didn’t look at all like a fellow studio secretary, but rather a highly paid actress catching a few quiet moments of solitude between takes on the back lot. Violet glanced around to see whether there was someone else sitting outside the Mansion on her noon break. But the woman in front of her was the only one eating her lunch under a palm tree, and that was where Violet had been told she’d find Audrey Duvall. She suddenly looked familiar to Violet, which made no sense at all. Violet was two thousand miles away from anything remotely connected to home.

“Miss Duvall?” Violet said.

The woman looked up drowsily, as though Violet had awakened her from sleep. She cocked her head and pulled her sunglasses down slightly to peer at Violet over the rims. Her luminous eyes, beautiful and doelike, were fringed with long lashes she couldn’t have been born with. The casual glance was the wordless reply that she was indeed Audrey Duvall.

“My name’s Violet Mayfield. I’m new to the secretary pool. Millie in accounts payable told me you are looking for a roommate. I was wondering if you’d found one yet.”

Audrey smiled and her painted lips parted to reveal moon-white teeth. “Good Lord,” she exclaimed, her voice rich and resonant, almost as deep as a man’s. “Where are you from?”

“Pardon me?”

“You’re not from around here.”

“Um. No. I’m from Alabama. Originally.”

Audrey’s smile deepened. “Alabama. Never been to Alabama.”

Violet didn’t know what to say. Had the woman not heard what she asked?

Audrey patted the empty space next to her. “Have a seat. What did you say your name was?”

“Violet Mayfield.” She sat down, and the cement beneath her was warm from the sun despite it being early December.

Audrey lifted the cigarette gently to her mouth and its end glowed red as she inhaled. When she tipped her head back and released the smoke it wafted over her head like a feathery length of gauze.

“Want one?” She nodded toward the pack of cigarettes peeking out of her handbag.

“No, thanks.”

“Don’t smoke?” Audrey puffed again on the cigarette and smiled as the smoke drifted past her lips.

Violet shook her head.

“My last roommate didn’t, either. She was always leaving the windows open to let the smoke out.”

“Did you not like it when she left the windows open? Is that why you need a new roommate?”

Audrey laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

Violet said nothing.

“She got married.”

“Oh.”

Audrey pushed the sunglasses up onto her head, fully revealing shining tea-brown eyes that complemented her shimmering brunette hair. She seemed to study for a moment Violet’s navy blue dress with its plain white collar. Violet’s mousy brown hair—far less wavy than Audrey’s—was pulled back into a beaded barrette she had bought in a five-and-dime on the day she started heading west.

“So you just moved, then? From Alabama?”

“I came by way of Shreveport, actually. I’ve been working for my uncle the past year. He’s an accountant.”

“And how long have you been here?” Audrey asked.

“Two weeks.”

“And you found a job that quickly?” Her tone held a faint edge of sly admiration. “Good for...