The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [166]
Meanwhile, she worked at the drugstore and earned her own money. Of course it wasn’t enough, but under this wonderful California blue sky and warm sunshine, good fortune was always just around the next corner. Hollywood bred hope in a thousand hearts, and Rosa’s was one of them.
She rocked slowly on the porch, enjoying the peace. Occasionally an automobile would stutter past but mostly there were only the bird songs and cicadas to disturb her. Sonia was studying and the other two were playing with the kids from next door, probably racing illicitly around the gravestones in Hollywood Cemetery’s four acres. The sun dropped low in the sky, sending a dusty golden light through her closed lids as she drifted contentedly, feeling a million miles away from Meyer and the Lower East Side. And from Missie, whom she missed like crazy. But she was thousands of miles away now—as far away as the stars. Her own life might not be the fairy tale Missie’s was, but she had found a sort of peace.
She barely heard the sound of footsteps approaching, and she thought she must be dreaming when Missie’s voice said, “There you are, Rosa. At last!”
But it wasn’t a dream and Missie wasn’t as far away as the stars. She was right there, with her back to the sun so she couldn’t see her face properly, but she knew she was smiling.
“Missie!” she cried, leaping up and holding out her arms. “Such a surprise! Oh, am I glad to see you!”
They hugged each other tightly, tears of joy mingling as they stumbled through their stories….
“You first,” Rosa said, laughing. “Tell me all about your wonderful new life. And what are you doing here?”
“But it’s not wonderful,” Missie exclaimed. “It was a nightmare! I’ve run away, and that’s why I came to find you. The woman at Meyer’s place told me you had come to Hollywood. I knew the children would be in school so I went to each one and asked if they had any Perelmans on their student roster.” She grinned. “I’m getting quite good at detective work.”
“Then you know what happened to me,” Rosa said bitterly. “So? Tell me all.”
Missie nodded. “But first, what news of Zev? Is he here in Hollywood?”
“No one seems to have heard of him.” She shrugged. “No news is bad news, they say. Maybe he went back to New York and pawnbroking.”
“I would have liked to have seen him,” Missie said wistfully, surprised how disappointed she felt. Zev had been part of her life, like O’Hara, and now it seemed she had lost them both.
“Very well,” she said, “now I’ll tell you what happened. But this time I’ll tell you everything from the beginning. No more secrets.”
Rosa listened in silence and then she said practically, “Okay, so now what?”
Missie eyed her doubtfully. “I don’t know. All I knew was I must find you. I have just over two thousand dollars left—I thought I could get a job.”
“Two thousand dollars! Why, you could buy this house for a lot less than that!” A thoughtful expression crossed her face as she considered what she had just said. “Missie,” she exclaimed excitedly, “I think I have just found us an answer.”
The Rosemont Rooming House was on Fountain Avenue between La Brea and Seward. They had chosen it because there were a dozen movie studios nearby, and therefore it was handy for aspiring actors and actresses to do their daily rounds. The ramshackle weatherboarded house had been patched up and given a coat of paint with green trim at the windows and doors, and it now offered half a dozen freshly decorated double rooms and two singles, with board extra for those who wanted it.
Missie and Rosa had worked hard to make it the sort of clean, airy place they wished they could have found when they had needed a room, and the big central hall had been turned into a sitting room filled with comfortable secondhand chairs, a card table, a tea table, a piano, and a Victrola. The chairs spilled out onto the wooden porch overlooking the white and pink stucco houses opposite, and the tree-lined street was as peaceful as a country lane.
The bungalow in the back garden became their own living quarters, where the girls slept two to a