The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [195]
“And what now?” he asked at last. “You have put Azaylee back together, but what about yourself? Maybe you should have talked to Dr. Jung too?”
She shook her head. “I’m the strong one,” she said with an attempt at a jaunty smile. “Besides, I had Rosa to talk to, I didn’t keep it all locked up inside the way Azaylee does. That’s why I hesitated about letting her become a movie actress. What if she is no good? I’ve seen the hatchet jobs critics can do, and I don’t know if she’s strong enough to take that sort of rejection.”
“And how will she ever know if you don’t let her try? She may be a great success. You can’t go on protecting her from life, Missie. You have to let her live it.”
“I suppose you are right.” She sighed. Nevertheless, always wary of discovery, she insisted that Azaylee use a screen name, and after a lot of thought the studios decided on “Ava Adair.”
They wandered into the big drawing room with its view through the avenue of palms leading to a midnight-blue swimming pool, and Zev ran his fingers over the keys of the ebony grand.
“I used to play this piece every time I saw you,” he confessed as the soft crystal notes of a Chopin étude filled the room. “I would go home after those evenings in the Ukrainian café and dream about you. My whole life changed when I met you, Missie.” He stared down at the ivory keys. “I meant it when I said I did it all for you. I was in love with you in New York but I asked myself, What could I offer a girl of such refinement, a baryshnya, a lady? Two rooms behind a pawnshop and a husband who lent quarters on other men’s Sunday shirts? When I sold my business and came out here to Hollywood, I was determined to become a success, to be someone who counted, someone you could look up to. Then I would return and ask you to marry me. When I read about your marriage to Arnhaldt, I wanted to kill him.” He laughed mockingly. “Instead I took that anger out on a man who thought I was a sucker and tried to fleece me. Of course I beat him, and that was the beginning of Magic Studios.”
“And now you are C. Z. Abrams, one of Hollywood’s most important men,” she said, coming to stand beside him. “But it makes no difference to me. I always respected you, Zev. You were always my actual.”
She had stayed for a long time as afternoon drifted into evening and evening into dusk while they sipped champagne and poured out their hearts to each other like old, intimate friends, the way they used to over a bottle of rough red wine in the Ukrainian café.
That had been eight months ago and their courtship had progressed slowly, along with the making of Marietta. Now the movie was finished and tonight he was to give her a private showing. Not even Dick was to be there.
The house smelled divinely of beeswax and roses, not the stiff formal arrangements from before, but big silver bowls of garden roses spilling their petals onto polished surfaces in a last tender gasp of fading beauty. His borzoi, Juliet, sprawled on a sofa in the hall, and the doors and windows were flung open to catch the evening sunshine. The heavy brocade curtains were gone and simple cream silk ones hung in their place; the formal dark furniture had been banished and now comfortable sofas and chairs were grouped cozily. Books and magazines were scattered around and a dog-chewed leather slipper lay unnoticed under the table. Under Missie’s influence the house had changed its personality and so had Zev. He looked different: relaxed, smiling, and casual.
“It’s all set up,” he said excitedly, “and I think I can promise you a surprise.”
“Good or bad?” she asked, kissing him.
He grinned. “I’ll leave that for you to decide.” After taking her hand, he led her onto the terrace, where supper was set on a white table beneath a blue awning. There was nothing he did not know about her, nothing that she did not know about him, and now their lives had become intertwined. As they sat at the