Joan sighed in relief. At least she didn’t have to face that disaster. “I’ll call Harry and ask him to tell the mayor to award you a medal for your service.”
Joseph chuckled. “That’s not necessary. I’ll just see about getting this fella relocated.”
Arlene and Joan pressed themselves up against the railing of the steps leading to the dressing room, giving Joseph and the critter the widest possible berth.
“Oh, and this was tied around his neck.” He handed Joan a red silk bow tie with a small piece of paper affixed to it.
She thumbed it open and read it. Congrats to you and Monty on your engagement. Hope your marriage doesn’t stink! xoxo, Dash. Just as she’d suspected.
She crumpled the paper and stormed back into her now mercifully vermin-free dressing room. “The nerve,” she snapped. “Couldn’t even let me have one day.”
Arlene was right behind her, tiptoeing cautiously. “Dare I even ask who?”
“You know who,” Joan snarled. “Dash Howard. That loathsome, egotistical fool left that, that, that…thing in my dressing room as an engagement present.”
She thrust the piece of paper at Arlene as proof and crossed to the soft pink velvet armchair in the corner, tossing her robe aside and collapsing with a heavy sigh, dramatically swinging her arm across her face. The phone rang again, and she groaned. She couldn’t take any more surprise well-wishes. For all she knew, an opossum was calling with a special delivery.
“Arlene, would you answer that?”
Arlene nodded, gave one last suspicious glance at the rug to make sure it wouldn’t unexpectedly spring to life, and went to answer the phone on the side table. “Whoever it is, tell them I am indisposed from celebrating my engagement.”
Arlene shook her head and picked up the pale-pink phone from the receiver. “Hello, Miss Davis’s dressing room. Arlene Morgan speaking. Yes… No, no, I’m afraid Miss Davis is indisposed at the moment. I beg your pardon! I am certain that whatever it is can wait.”
“Who is it?” Joan mouthed, peeking out from the hand she still had theatrically flung across her eyes.
“It’s Leda,” Arlene hissed.
“Oh, well, she’s probably steamed we didn’t give her the exclusive engagement announcement. You know how she is. She thinks she owns me and Dash. Put her off.”
Arlene nodded and elevated her voice to its haughtiest tones. “Why, may I ask, are you calling?”
Joan grabbed the latest copy of Variety lying atop the stack of press clippings on the coffee table. BOFFO AT THE BOX OFFICE AND AS A BRIDEGROOM—MONTY SMYTH VIES FOR HOLLYWOOD GREATNESS, the headline read. No wonder Dash was in top form. It must’ve infuriated him to see Monty atop the headlines. Because of her. She had all the press she needed. More importantly, all the press she wanted.
There was no need to speak to Hollywood’s most notorious gossip columnist at a time like this. Leda had been riding Joan’s coattails for years, cashing in on Dash’s plot at the Cocoanut Grove. Joan didn’t know how she’d done it, if it was happenstance or if Leda had been in on it the whole time. All Joan knew was the next morning the front page of every gossip rag in town had been plastered with photos of her canoodling with Dash, then slugging him. And there in the Los Angeles Examiner had been Leda’s first byline where, ever since, she’d peddled her poison as a journalist. If you could call her that. Joan had a lot of worse names for her but she didn’t use them. Because somehow, someway, Leda had discovered Joan’s greatest secret. Harry had paid the reporter handsomely to keep quiet. But Joan still didn’t want to get near the woman with a ten-foot pole. So no, Joan would not be answering any of her questions today. Or ever.
“Well, Miss Price, I’m sure whatever you need to tell Miss Davis, you can share with me. I’ll be sure she gets the message.”
Joan looked up because Arlene had gone silent—and she was startled to see her former assistant’s face was ashen. Something was very, very wrong. Wordlessly, Arlene gestured for her to come to the phone, and Joan struggled to extricate herself from her seat, tripping on the as-yet-unhemmed skirt of her costume.
After what felt like an eternity but was likely only a few seconds, she pried the phone from Arlene’s hands. Her assistant was gaping at her like a goldfish, her lips moving, but no sound issuing forth. The only way to deal with Leda Price was to be equally as haughty as she was.
Joan cleared her throat and put on her best movie-star voice, the one she reserved for red carpets on opening nights at Grauman’s. “Leda, darling, what can I do for you?”
“Cut the crap, Joan. I’m not calling for a gushing pronouncement of your love for Monty Smyth.”
“Why are you calling, then? My latest picture starts filming on Monday, but you know all about that already. So my engagement is the only news about me there is.”
“Hardly,” Leda scoffed. Joan could imagine her eyes glittering and her mouth turning up at the corners, like the cat that caught the canary.
“Well, spit it out, then, Leda.”
“Oh, well now, I was just wondering what your fiancé, Mr. Smyth, thinks about bigamy?”
“I don’t know. Shall I ask him? I hardly see what that has to do with our engagement. What’s your point?” Joan knew Leda would stop at nothing to create a scandal.
“Oh, Joan,” Leda purred, drawing out the final n like she was sucking on a candy. “It has everything to do with your engagement. Considering you are already married—to Mr. Dash Howard.”
Joan laughed. “You and half the country wish!”
“I assure you this is no idle Hollywood fantasy, Miss Davis,” Leda said, an iciness entering her voice. “I have a marriage certificate from City Hall signed with both of your names sitting right here.”
“That’s not possible,” Joan spluttered.
Leda chuckled, a cold laugh devoid of mirth. “Oh, it is. And by tomorrow morning, it’ll be on the front page of every paper, starting with my column in the Los Angeles Examiner. You shouldn’t have neglected to tell me of your engagement, Joanie.”
Joan heard the line go dead, but it didn’t matter. The phone was slipping out of her grasp anyway. She crumpled to the floor alongside it, clutching at the satin ruffles lining her dressing table.
How was this possible? She wasn’t married to Dash. She detested him. They had spent precisely zero time in each other’s company off of a set since that horrible night four years ago. It wasn’t as if they’d had some drunken escapade she had forgotten. That was entirely not her style.
She heard Arlene whisper beside her, “Did she tell you?”
“Do you think I’d be on the floor if she hadn’t?”
“It’s not true,” Arlene insisted, as if saying it would make it so. Some color was starting to return to Joan’s face, and she returned the phone to its receiver. “How could it be?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But I’d bet my contract Dash Howard had something to do with it. Anyway, if Leda prints it, does it matter if it’s not true? God, how could I do this to Monty? This wasn’t part of the deal. He’ll hate me.”
Arlene knelt beside Joan and wrapped her arm around her. “No, he won’t, Joan. Not if he loves you.” That was just like Arlene. Believing in the knight on the white horse and happily-ever-afters. Joan knew better.