Page 75 of Mazywood

She kept that smile pasted on, rushing to move from the stage back to her dressing room, carefully stepping over cables and excusing herself past the lingering crew and their laughter that had gone on far too long.

She angled herself to avoid Lorenzo, but he crossed the room to intercept her.

“Come to my office once you’ve changed,” he said.

Mazelle didn’t slow, forcing him to match her pace. She should have been home hours ago. “Can it wait?”

“You won’t want this to wait.”

She looked back at him to try to gauge his sincerity, or if he just wanted to throw back a few drinks and gossip about stars because she could keep a secret. When he found her on set late, he’d started treating her like an occasional confidante. “You looked terrific up there,” he said. “Truly fucking terrific—as always. Come talk to me.”

They had reached the narrow hallway, out of earshot of Sharpe and the staring crew, although she could feel Sharpe’s eyes watching her through the wall. “You think tossing me a compliment makes me forget I’m tired? And my back hurts like hell, Jerry.”

Lorenzo’s smile never wavered. Any other actor would jump to meet with the studio head, but he looked bemused when she said things to him that no one else would dare, even Sharpe. Hell—especially Sharpe. Considering that he had built his studio around her since his start in the business, she figured she could talk to him any way she damn well pleased. She had reinvented her relationship with Lorenzo once she started working for him again, deliberately calling him “Jerry,” although he was still “Mr. Lorenzo” in her head. Besides, it kept the crew in line if they thought she had the boss wrapped around her finger. She could share his power.

“I’ll give you ten minutes,” she said. “Just please don’t waste my time.”

Lorenzo laughed. “You’re a piece of work with that mouth of yours. When have I ever?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

He looked over his shoulder and grinned as he walked away, shaking his finger at her.

After she showered and rinsed out her hair, Mazelle traded her maid’s costume for her thirty-five-dollar Enka rayon designer dress from Saks that draped over her like cool satin. She didn’t have time to tame her damp hair, so she covered her head in a matching scarf. Then she threw on her fox-fur wrap and walked quickly in the flat shoes she kept in her dressing room, not the heels she wore for her daily entrance. She could have called for a golf cart, but she preferred her own company, waving past security guards who had learned to recognize her. Lorenzo’s office was close enough for the brisk walk she needed to soothe her irritation at him. What the hell did he want at this hour? She hoped he hadn’t been drinking. When he’d put away a few drinks, he lost track of time.

Back in the old days, Lorenzo had been the ruler of a kingdom in her eyes, although he had just owned a dusty lot with a couple of warehouses mortgaged to the hilt. Lorenzo Studios looked more like a true palace these days. The studio sign glittered over the front gate to half a dozen soundstages, one street with saloons for Westerns, another mimicking modern New York City alongside it, another fashioned after Old London. Lorenzo recently had told her that he thought his career was finished after he lost his Li’l Gumshoes catalog in that suspicious fire—and to this day, he blamed Hal Roach for destroying his empire of children’s reels. Our Gang would live forever after MGM bought it, but no one would remember Li’l Gumshoes. “Farewell to a pale imitation,” Roach had said in an infamous interview.

Mother was still angry about Lorenzo’s unfair business practices she believed had stunted Mazelle’s earlier career, especially his prohibitions against making other pictures with Scout. Mother would never let that go to her dying day. And on the set of Cabin in the Sky, Richard had the thrill of playing with Ellington’s orchestra for an all-Negro cast, but Lorenzo hadn’t allowed Mazelle to audition for Lily, the part that had gone to Butterfly McQueen. He said the only maid she should play was Lazy Mazy, no matter how much Mazelle argued that a more dramatic part in a high-profile MGM picture, even as Ethel Waters’s maid, would give her career a boost.

Jesus, Mazelle, you’re a star! You can’t get lost in an ensemble like that, come on. His most devastating directives always came wrapped in praises. Screaming at him had only won her a sore throat and that bemused grin, like the cat who ate the canary—and she was the canary.

But Lazy Mazy was a financial godsend, so Mazelle tried to swallow the anger she’d felt since Cabin opened in April and was such a hit for MGM, while she was stuck in such an insipid role.

Lorenzo’s pitch for Lazy Mazy had been simple: Since Reaper was temporarily stalled, she could star in her own “franchise,” which Lorenzo presented to Mazelle and her parents in his new lavish studio office.

They all hated his pitch. Not only would she play a maid, but her character’s name was a stereotype that reminded Mazelle of Stepin Fetchit, a portrayal that had gone out of fashion in the thirties. Jerry had reminded them that Stepin Fetchit’s creator, Lincoln Perry, had just become the first Negro actor to earn a million dollars. But Mazelle was still stung from classmates calling her a “coon,” and now the NAACP and Negro newspapers were making a fuss about Black actors playing maids and servants in Hollywood, particularly targeting Hattie. Lorenzo had scoffed and said that until there were any other kinds of roles for Negro actors, Mazelle could make four or five Lazy Mazy pictures and reinvent her career when the times were more progressive.

Lorenzo had presented it to Mazelle as if she had a choice, although she and her parents knew she didn’t. If she broke her contract, he could sue her—and then it wouldn’t be long until she was struggling again. Struggle was her worst nightmare. She would do anything to avoid those too-realistic nightmares about digging up her backyard again.

The first picture, Lazy Mazy Goes to the Kentucky Derby, was a weak effort and it might not have been noticed if Clark Gable hadn’t been at the track during the shoot and recognized Mazelle, so Lorenzo snuck his profile into a crowd scene. The second picture, Lazy Mazy Meets a Zombie, was funnier because Lorenzo hired better writers, and casting Mantan Moreland helped him court the audience that loved him in King of the Zombies, both whites and Negroes. Lorenzo was a businessman to his toes.

In only two years, Mazelle was Lorenzo’s biggest star, his promise kept. She hadn’t earned a million dollars, or even close, but she had learned that she didn’t have to scrape and starve in Hollywood. The path wasn’t always comfortable, but it was a path.

Lorenzo’s office had separate desks and rooms for his receptionist and personal secretary, who were both gone for the day. The two outer chambers looked gloomy with most of the lights off. Mazelle hated dark, empty rooms, which reminded her of the too-big house Richard had encouraged her to finance. When Richard was touring, she often went back to sleep in her childhood bed under her parents’ roof instead of feeling small and lonely in a house that did not feel like home. (She wished she could sleep away even more when Richard was back.) The receptionist’s walls were crammed with framed posters celebrating Lorenzo’s pictures, and Lazy Mazy Meets a Zombie was at the center of his collection of Westerns and comedies. Mazelle almost recognized herself in the face leering back.

Light crept into the room as the polished oak door to Jerry’s office opened in the rear, silhouetting him in the doorway. Benny Goodman’s sultry clarinet played behind him from a phonograph. Jerry cradled a whiskey tumbler near his chin, ready for his next sip.

“There you are!” he said. “Thought you skipped out on me.”

“Maybe I should have.”

“You’ll eat those words in a minute. Let me pour you a drink.” When she canted her head to object, he held up a finger. “Just one. I’ll mix it.”

Mazelle wasn’t much of a drinker, but Lorenzo had introduced her to mint juleps from his elaborate office bar and they didn’t taste half bad. The buzz was fine too, but a buzz with her boss was a waste of a good buzz. “Just one. Like I said, I’m tired.”

He took her wrap and hung it on the coatrack near the door. Lorenzo was in his mid-forties and had lost some of his curly hairline at his forehead, but he had the same unshaved, boyish face from fifteen years ago. He bounced like a kid when he walked too, a stride that seemed more like an affect now that he was older. Enthusiasm was a commodity in the picture business, so Jerry was in a perpetual state of excitement.

“You want to sell me on something,” she said. “Tell me before the drink.”