“Great! Perfect, Melvin.” And the skinny singer stood, patting me on the arm, flashing me his charismatic if shopworn smile. “We’ll talk soon…. I gotta try to catch up with that crazy broad.”
And he was gone.
“He seemed nice,” Vera said.
“He can be. You ready?”
“It’s too late for me to go back to the dorm. Can I stay at your place?”
We went out the glass doors and walked arm in arm under the Sherry’s canopy, with Vera leaning against my shoulder.
“You know a lot of famous people, don’t you?” she asked. Her spike heels clicked on the sidewalk.
“That’s part of my business, Vera. You want to be famous?”
“Oh, yes. My parents brought me to Hollywood on vacation, when I was a little girl—about ten. I stood on the corner of Hollywood and Vine and I just knew this town would belong to me someday.”
We walked around and up the incline into the parking lot.
“And here I thought you were just a college girl,” I said.
“I’m a college girl studying to be a movie star.”
“Careful what you wish for, Vera….”
We were approaching the Packard when he stepped out from between two cars: Paul, his army uniform looking stained and rumpled. His fists were clenched, but he did not charge at us or anything—just stood with his weak chin high. The wild look was out of his eyes: despair had taken its place.
“Keep your distance, mister,” he said to me.
Poor bastard had been following us all night—first saw me take his girl to the hotel, then to Sherry’s….
I said, “Paul, that’s good advice—keep
His voice quavered, but there was strength in it, even some bruised dignity. “I just want to talk to my wife.”
I glanced sharply at Vera.
She swallowed and avoided my eyes, though still hugging my arm.
To the solider, who was maybe ten feet away, I said, “You’re her husband, Paul?”
Traffic sounds from the Strip provided dissonant background music for this second sad confrontation.
“That’s right,” he said. “And Jaynie’s afraid I’ll tell the Miss California people she’s married, and a mom, and they’ll toss her out on her sweet behind.”
I winced at Vera. “Jaynie?”
Paul answered for her: “Her name is Vera Jayne, mister. And Palmer’s just her maiden name. Our little baby girl, just a few months old, is home with Jayne’s mother.”
Mildly pissed and vaguely ashamed of myself, I turned to the coed. “This boy is your husband? And you have a baby back in Texas?”
She still wasn’t looking at me; but she nodded.
“Go talk to him,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “I’ll wait— I’ll still drive you back to your dorm, if you want. But first talk to him.”
I leaned against the Packard while they talked. I didn’t eavesdrop, and anyway they kept their voices down. Finally they hugged. Kissed, tentatively.
Vera came over and said, “Paul’s been called up to active duty—he’s going to Korea. He wants me to be with our little girl, back home in Dallas, and be with him as much as possible…. When his hitch is up, he says he’ll bring me back out here, and let me take my shot at stardom. That’s two years. You think I’ll still be pretty enough, in two years, to try again?”
“Sure, Vera.”
Her eyes shimmered with desperation. “Can I call you, then? For a reference to the studios?”
“Sure—me or Fred, either one of us will help you, Vera.”
“Really, it’s Jayne. And my married name’s Mansfield.”
She kissed my cheek and trotted over to rejoin her soldier-boy husband. That motion in her caboose—side-to- side as she moved forward—was worth watching.
They were still standing there talking when I pulled the Packard out of Sherry’s parking lot, heading for the Beverly Hills Hotel.
But let’s face it: I was on my way to Chicago. Far as Hollywood was concerned, my roll in the hay with Vera Jayne Mansfield had been the last straw.
Lake Shore Drive’s majestic mile—once an endless array of magnificent mansions—was now a row of high-rise tombstones; grand residences survived here and there, as a privileged few stubbornly clung to the city. Starting at the crossroads of the Gold Coast, where Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue met, posh hotels and plush shops lined the avenue, serving their wealthy, discriminating and oh so exclusive clientele.
Minutes away, on Clark and Rush Streets, proprietors weren’t so fussy—anyone with five hundred bucks could
