Page 120 of Mazywood

Despite the way she had adopted her mother’s aversion to cigarette smoke, Mazelle moved closer to Sam. Her heart was pounding hard, an unpleasant burr from deep in her chest. Don’t tell me, she thought. She almost said it aloud. She hadn’t seen Jerry Lorenzo in ten years, and she didn’t have room for new rage about old slights.

“Sure,” she said instead, hoping she sounded casual. “Water under the bridge now.”

“When Ava Gardner told me the story, I almost called you on the spot,” Sam said. “You kept the doors open at Lorenzo Studios, you know. You saved his ass.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

He turned to wave his cigarette at her. “He burned you bad, Mazelle. Ava heard him bragging about it at a party, drunk out of his mind.” Mazelle’s heart thumped at the idea that so many people had heard gossip about her and Lorenzo. “You know the party. Lena was there too. They snuck you in and then you took off early. Ava told me she never told Lena what she heard, but it made her so damn mad.”

You’ll always be Lazy Mazy, Lorenzo had said. Mazelle thought about that party more than she wanted to admit, and probably more than was healthy. After the first five years, Mother had told her she needed to stop talking about it.

“What about it?” Mazelle asked. “What did he do?”

“He was bragging about how he tricked you into signing your contract. He needed a smash bad—probably drowning in mob debt again, although he never said that part—and he knew Lazy Mazy was a sure hit, but you’d never go for it. So he found some other script…”

Mazelle’s breath choked her throat. “Reaper,” she whispered.

“Yeah, the one Lena was after too. At the party, he was bragging about the bait and switch so he could get you on the hook. Wouldn’t stop talking about it after you left, Ava said. She was disgusted.”

Mazelle had been wrong: She did have room for new rage. Her nails clawed into her palms from the sudden tension as she curled her hands. She’d pieced most of it together from her conversation with Lena in the bathroom and her reflections on Sharpe’s late-night call. (Had he been trying to warn her away or seal the deal?) But instead of going after her to make sure she made it home from the segregated hotel he had smuggled her into, Lorenzo had stayed behind to mock her in front of the biggest names in Hollywood, trying to look like a big man.

Aunt Ruby and Jeff Meek had only mildly annoyed Mazelle compared to the way she wanted to kill Jerry Lorenzo.

If not for the stain of Lazy Mazy, studios might have sought her out for the bigger opportunities finally opening up for actors like Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. But Lorenzo had been right—she would always be Lazy Mazy—and both progressive whites and Negroes had cast away her public image like a demon they wanted banished. In audition after audition, casting directors chuckled with memories of her performances, but never hired her.

“I shouldn’t have told you,” Sam said, seeing her face. “And before you ask me—no, I won’t make a call to Chicago to teach him a lesson. Those guys don’t mess with Hollywood.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you that,” Mazelle said, although she realized she might have thought of it eventually. Her temples were throbbing. Her dinner had calcified in her stomach.

“Baby, I’m just a fella who wants to dance and sing and needs loans from time to time,” Sam said, shrugging his wiry shoulders. “But I thought you had a right to know.”

She gave him a wan smile, the best acting job of her life. She really wanted to cry or scream, or both. “Sounds like Lorenzo, all right,” she said lightly. But her voice cracked.

The living room door gusted open, and they both jumped, startled, when Grady walked in. Snow was falling outside. He hung his damp cap on a hook and carefully wiped his shoes on the mat after he closed the door. Snowflakes powdered the shoulders of his black suit coat.

“You needed a better coat in all that weather,” Mazelle said. “Everything all right?”

He raised his eyes to hers, which said, Hell no, everything isn’t all right.

“Fine, ma’am,” he said instead, clipped. “Took a walk.”

“We’ll talk more tomorrow,” she reminded him.

“Yes, ma’am. Good night.” He nodded to Sam. “G’night, Mr. Davis.”

“See any bears?” Sam asked Grady as he started to climb the stairs.

Mazelle tensed. Grady hadn’t heard her impromptu cover story when she discouraged Diahann from going outside. Grady glanced at Mazelle and saw the alarm in her face.

“No, sir,” he told Sam over his shoulder. “If there was any bear out there, it’s long gone by now. And it durn sure won’t be coming back.” He directed that last part to Mazelle.

He knew. Maybe he didn’t know it all, but he knew enough. Mazelle couldn’t guess whether the glumness in Grady’s eyes was related to the task she had asked him to perform or because he somehow sensed her kiss with Sam. Either way, his eyes made her deeply sad too.

Who had she become? Who would she turn Grady into?

Or Scout?

At least she’d been right about Scout: He would never hurt Grady. Scout knew better.