Page 79 of Mazywood

Lorenzo sighed, eyebrows raised. “Mazelle… you’re too smart to play dumb. Be nice to people and they’re nice to you. That’s the way of the world. When you talk like that—or you go whining to Sharpe—you act like someone who doesn’t know how this business works. Trust me, Sharpe can’t even run his own pathetic career. He can’t do a thing for you.”

If Sharpe had spoken to him, Mazelle expected at least a perfunctory apology. Instead, Lorenzo sounded like he was only promising to touch her again. Mazelle wished Sharpe had punched him, or she had. Or both of them. She relished the fantasy of tackling Lorenzo with Brother, kicking his teeth out. She imagined Scout tearing at Lorenzo’s throat like it was a raw steak. Too bad Brother was in the army and Scout was gone.

“Stop this car!” Mazelle screamed out, surprising herself.

The driver tilted up his black cap to glance in the rearview mirror, but Lorenzo gestured for him to keep driving. Mazelle flinched when Lorenzo raised his hand, expecting him to hit her. He saw her brace and paused, poised between compassion and menace. As the limousine sped on, he slowly lowered his hand.

“Here’s what you’re gonna do…” Lorenzo said calmly. “You’re gonna watch that foul mouth and smile like pure sunshine. When I introduce you to Zanuck or whoever is there, you’re gonna gaze in their eyes like they’re the only person in the room. And you’re gonna walk like a queen, like when Mazy is poking fun at those rich party guests. Swing your hips.”

“I know how to fucking walk,” Mazelle said.

“This is what you said you wanted, Mazelle.” Lorenzo sounded almost hurt. “I’m laying out a red carpet for you. It may be one chance in a million, but it’s the best chance you’re ever gonna get. Tonight. Right now.” He slid closer to her, his face inches from hers. That shampoo smell again. “So get your head straight, or you’re gonna be thinking back on this night the rest of your life saying, ‘I coulda been somebody, but I pissed it away.’ ”

He grabbed her gloved hand. She tugged back, but he held tight with firm palms. “When I look at you, it makes me feel like a schoolboy,” he said. “I bet you can feel my heart beating.”

His palms pulsed with his heartbeat, enclosing her hand, the intimacy nearly as galling as her visit to his office. She itched to pull her hand away, but if he didn’t let go, they would be fighting. She didn’t want to fight in this dress. She didn’t want to muss her hair. She didn’t want her lip bloodied the way Richard had once split her lip when he slapped her. Not tonight.

“Yes,” she said. “I feel it.”

Finally, he released her hand. She was glad she was wearing a glove, but perspiration coated her hand from his trapped heat. “Then stop giving me so much shit. Can’t you tell I’m crazy about you? Let me keep some of my dignity. And a little gratitude would be nice.”

“Thank you so very much,” she said in her sweetest voice. Drowning him in her sarcasm.

“See there? I always knew you were a hell of an actress.” His sappy eyes said he wished she really meant it. Wounding him granted her some satisfaction, at least. Lorenzo had a wife and kids just like Sharpe. His professed affections were only vanity and dominion. He was a child who wanted a happy toy.

The limousine snaked its way through traffic toward the lights of the Ambassador Hotel, a Mediterranean building set far back on its property beyond rows of palm trees, as if a moat separated it from the city. Flashbulbs popped from the distant motor lobby.

“Negroes can’t go in there,” Mazelle said. Hattie had received her Academy Award in this hotel, but it was still segregated. Had Lorenzo been so caught up in his big plans that he’d forgotten something so basic as her skin color?

“Relax. You can go wherever I say you can go,” Lorenzo said. He called to the driver. “Take this first left, drive to the back.”

“Yessir, Mr. Lorenzo,” the driver said. Mazelle only realized the driver was a Negro when she heard the deep timbre of his voice. She looked up at the rearview mirror to meet his eyes. He was about fifteen years older, with a white-frosted beard prominent on his dark skin, and he was gazing back at her with concern. Nearly imperceptibly, he nodded to her. I see you, sister. Be strong. You’re not alone in this car that feels like a hearse. His nod was a litany. A sermon.

Mazelle gave him a small, private smile to prevent a pool of tears.

“It’s showtime,” Lorenzo said.

A uniformed white doorman in a dark coat waited by a loading door at the rear of the hotel, shrouded in shadows stripped of glamour. A tall beast of a garbage receptacle stood beside him. Fitting, Mazelle thought. After the driver parked, he rushed out and opened the door on Mazelle’s side. Unsteady in overly tall heels, Mazelle grasped the driver’s gloved palm to climb out of the car. His gentle smile was oxygen.

“Evenin’, miss,” he whispered. His breath was sweet coffee. “Knock ’em dead.”

She couldn’t remember ever being so grateful for words from a stranger. So often when she was in the company of the wrong man, she chanced upon evidence of better men like Daddy; hard workers with sterling hearts. Mazelle gifted the driver her sunshine smile, from her heart. The man’s eyes glowed as if she’d lit his soul afire.

“What’s your name, mister?” she asked.

“Grady, ma’am.”

“Good to meet you, Grady.”

His eyes glowed again when he heard his name from her lips. This stranger saw her as a queen, so Mazelle vowed to perform queenliness tonight. Not for Lorenzo—for Grady.

Lorenzo slipped cash into the doorman’s hand. Of course. Then the doorman produced a large man’s trench coat that Lorenzo draped across Mazelle’s shoulders as if it could make her invisible. The three of them walked in a tight huddle through the rear entrance to a large service elevator with wide-open doors ready to swallow her, their clandestine delivery in the bowels of the hotel. Mazelle felt claustrophobic between them, watching the numbers glow with the elevator’s slow climb until it stopped on the seventh floor.

“We’ll take a right and go straight down the hall to Suite 700, sir,” the man told Lorenzo. He turned to Mazelle and said bluntly, “Keep your head down.” He didn’t hide the distaste in his face. He wouldn’t turn down a few extra bucks, but he wasn’t happy about it.

Mazelle kept her head down. As she was shuttled in the hallway by the two men, each of them guiding one arm, the doorman’s grip too tight, she watched her glittering green shoes march across the patterns of the golden carpet, Dorothy’s slippers on the Yellow Brick Road. The floating feeling returned. She was flying across the ceiling, watching herself below.

She heard the din of the party before they reached the suite’s double doors. The doorman swept the trench coat from her shoulders.