Design for Dying Read Free

glad to know anybody.”
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    THE SCREEN TEST didn’t pan out. At the end of my allotted month to be discovered, Ruby asked me to share her room at Mrs. Lindros’s boardinghouse. By then I’d grown accustomed to navigating Los Angeles by streetcar and bus, as well as to the city’s near-constant sunshine. I traded in my return ticket. New York would be waiting when I finally tired of California’s weather.
    I soon fell in with the other girls, several of whom had already tried rooming with Ruby, and initially had a ball. Casting calls, late-night gab sessions, trips to the beach on the Western Avenue streetcar. Ruby ruled the roost, the queen bee who deigned to share her secrets with us. What sob story to tell Mrs. Lindros when you were late with the rent, how daubing Vaseline on your eyelashes before bed made them grow more lustrous. Once I overheard her consoling a weepy housemate who feared she’d “gotten in trouble” by giving her a doctor’s name. “He can take care of it if it comes to that,” she’d said. “I’ve seen him a time or two myself.” Being around Ruby was exhausting and exhilarating. We sought her approval even as we feared her judgment.
    Her romantic entanglements with a procession of men claiming to hold sway at one studio or another were a reliable source of entertainment. “No more swimming for me, mermaid,” she’d say as she dolled herself up before the cracked mirror in our room. “My ship has come in.” She always wound up back in the water soon enough. Ruby would simply reapply her war paint and target her next prospective meal ticket.
    A gift-wrapping position at Tremayne’s Department Store during the Christmas season led to a permanent job offer. I accepted, with vague plans of someday being promoted to buyer. I didn’t weep for my stillborn acting career. You can’t give up a dream you never really had.
    My newfound sense of responsibility blew a chill into my relationship with Ruby. I couldn’t help her anymore, even if only by faring worse than she was. I was merely a warm body taking up the other forty percent of the room.
    Ruby had made a science of persevering. She landed a few chorus or background parts thanks mainly to her dancing. Our Miss Johnnycake could cut a mean rug. In the meantime she had the typical stints as waitress, stenographer, switchboard operator. For a few days, she’d give the position her all. Then she’d start slipping out early for auditions or sneaking in late because she’d been gallivanting with her current beau until 2:00 A.M. Sooner or later, usually sooner, she’d be out of a job.
    About two months after I moved in with her, Ruby met Tommy Carpa. Too Much Tommy, we called him, everything about him excessive. His stocky frame, his profusion of black hair forever tumbling into his hooded eyes, his cashmere overcoats and extravagant gestures. He owned a second-rate nightclub called the Midnight Room and kept unsavory company. He never claimed to have pull at any studio. Ruby didn’t care. Tommy gave her entrée to swanky Hollywood parties.
    I didn’t like Tommy, and made the tactical error of telling Ruby so. She called me jealous. Maybe she was right. Maybe I wouldn’t have objected to being squired around town by a sharpie in an almost-new Packard. But I still didn’t trust the guy.
    Tommy was the first substantial rift between us. The next one was personal, portable, and irreparable.
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    THE BROOCH WAS a simple piece, nothing special. Two intertwined gold circles set with garnets. Paulette Goddard would have turned up her perfect nose at it.
    But for me, it had worth beyond measure.
    My uncle Danny presented the brooch to me on my sixteenth birthday. We were sitting at the kitchen table after dinner. I was itching to leave for my friend Peggy’s house but Uncle Danny asked me