Days were long. Becker had them working from early morning until sundown. Boxes filled with fashions for next spring had been shipped from New York, and the girls dutifully worked their way through every blouse and skirt, jacket and hat, as Becker barked his orders.
At night, after work was done, the girls went back to their hotel and got dressed again, this time for dinner. In their silk and satin cocktail dresses and long gloves, they made their way downstairs to the hotel dining room. Not long after they arrived in Tucson, Carolyn noticed a new guest at the hotel. He was leaning on his elbows against the main fireplace in the lobby, watching her come down the stairs via her reflection in the mirror above the mantel. She recognized him right away—he was Howard Hughes, the film director. Hughes was unmistakable from the magazines, tall and gangling, his black hair slicked back on his head. Carolyn caught his eye in the mirror. Hughes gestured to her to come over, and over she went.
He looked her up and down.
“Are you one of the models?” he wanted to know.
Carolyn nodded.
“Where you from?”
She told him.
It turned out Hughes was in Tucson scouting for talent. He’d just paid close to 9 million dollars for RKO Studios, and he was looking to sign new starlets to his books.
“What would you say if I told you I wanted you to come to Hollywood for a screen test?” he asked.
Carolyn paused.
She warned Hughes that she didn’t have any training as an actress.
He told her that if she wanted to take a screen test, he’d arrange for acting classes as part of the deal.
Carolyn thought, Why not?
The next day, after shooting was over, she found herself at the Tucson airfield, clutching her overnight bag, the sole passenger aboard one of Hughes’s private airplanes en route to Los Angeles. Hughes had a reputation for scheduling meetings at unconventional hours, and by the time Carolyn landed in L.A. and the driver dropped her at the RKO lot, it was very late at night. The driver told her to walk to the back of the building ahead; tentatively, she stepped into what looked like an aircraft hangar. Ahead of her, she could see a series of storage areas, with sets and props leaning against the walls. Her chest was tight with nerves, and it occurred to her to go back and get in the car again. Instead, she kept walking until she reached a door at the very back of the hanger.
Carolyn took a breath, knocked on the door, and waited. She heard a voice telling her to come in. She cracked the door. On the other side, there was Hughes, sitting with his feet up on a giant desk. He was wearing a striped knit sailor top and long duck pants, with scuffed boat shoes, as if he’d just come in from sailing. Carolyn stood quietly in the middle of the room while Hughes looked her up and down again, appraising her silently with stealthy eyes. Behind him, there was a life-sized picture of the actress Jane Russell, in the movie The Outlaw, directed by Hughes during the war. Russell’s breasts were barely covered in a peasant blouse that had fallen seductively from her shoulder.
Finally, Hughes spoke up.
“Pull your bangs over to one side,” he told Carolyn. “I want to see your forehead.”
Carolyn did as she was told.
“We will do the screen test tomorrow,” Hughes said.
Carolyn thought for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and told Hughes that no, she didn’t think she wanted to do the test after all. She turned around and ran back out the door, through the maze of sets and props, until finally she was out on the lot again and free, her heart pounding in her ears. Carolyn knew the signs. She had grown up with a stepfather who leered at her that way. She knew a threat when she saw one.
In the future, she decided, she would leave the acting to Grace.
* * *
WHEN THE SHOOT in Tucson was finally over, Carolyn returned to New York with relief. It was blessedly cold in New York and comforting to be back at the hotel, with Mrs. Sibley behind her usual counter and Oscar ready to tip his hat whenever she came and went. Although Carolyn had been given a new room, on another floor, the green bedspread on her twin bed was the same, the curtains identical to the ones in the room she had left behind. In its own way, the hotel felt like home. She also returned to Malcolm. In a short period of time, it had become hard for Carolyn to imagine New York without her new beau, as if Manhattan had suddenly switched to Technicolor and there was no going back to black-and-white. Malcolm was so attentive, so kind. He always knew exactly where to go and what to order once they got there. He loved good food and wine, friendship, conversation. “Never stop laughing or loving” was his motto, and he lived by it.
What’s more, Malcolm took care of her—and this made Carolyn feel safe. Ever since childhood she had known that her looks had singled her out for male attention, and while the way she looked might have been her salvation, it also put her at risk. When she worked at the department store in Steubenville, there had been an older man who used to come in and buy clothing for his daughter. Everyone called him “Jimmy
