on the list!”
Peg lit a cigarette and handed it to me, then lit another one for herself. “What are you working on out there in Hollywood?”
“A bunch of nothing. Everything I write is proudly stamped NSA—No Significance Attempted. I’m bored. But they pay me well. Enough to keep me comfortable. Me and my simple needs.”
Peg burst out laughing. “Your simple needs. Your famously simple needs. Yes, Billy, you’re quite the renunciate. Practically a monk.”
“I’m a man of humble tastes, as you know,” said Billy.
“Himself, who comes to the breakfast table dressed like he’s about to be knighted. Himself, with his house in Malibu. How many swimming pools do you have now?”
“None. I just borrow Joan Fontaine’s.”
“And what does Joan get out of that arrangement?”
“The pleasure of my company.”
“Jesus, Billy, she’s married. She’s Brian’s wife. He’s your friend.”
“I love married women, Peg. You know that. Ideally, happily married ones. A happily married woman is the most solid friend a man could ever have. Don’t worry, Pegsy—Joan is just a pal. Brian Aherne is in no danger from the likes of me.”
I could not stop looking from Peg to Billy and back again, trying to imagine these two as a romantic couple. They didn’t look like they belonged together physically—but their conversation flickered so bright and sharp. The teasing, the jabs of knowing, the fullness of the attention they gave each other. The intimacy was more than obvious, but what were they, within that intimacy? Lovers? Friends? Siblings? Rivals? Who knew? I gave up trying to figure it out and just watched the lightning flash between them.
“I’d like to spend some time with you while I’m here, Pegsy,” he said. “It’s been too long.”
“Who is she?” Peg asked.
“Who is who?”
“The woman who just left you, which has caused you to feel so suddenly nostalgic and lonely for me. Come on, spill it: who was the latest Miss Billy to leave your side?”
“I’m insulted. You think you know me so well.”
Peg just gazed at him, waiting.
“If you must know,” said Billy, “her name was Camilla.”
“A dancer, I boldly predict,” said Peg.
“Ha! There’s where you’re wrong! A swimmer! She works in a mermaid show. We had a pretty serious thing going for a few weeks, but then she decided to take another path in life, and she no longer comes around.”
Peg started laughing. “A pretty serious thing, for a few weeks. Listen to you.”
“Let’s go out together while I’m here, Pegsy. Just you and me. Let’s go out and allow some jazz musicians to waste their talents on us. Let’s go to some of those bars we used to like, that close at eight o’clock in the morning. It’s no fun going out without you. I went to El Morocco last night and I found it so disappointing—filled with all the same people as ever, making all the same conversation as ever.”
Peg smiled. “Lucky for you that you live in Hollywood, where the conversation is so much more varied and engaging! But no, no, no. We shan’t be going out, Billy. I don’t have that kind of durability anymore. That kind of drinking isn’t good for me, anyhow. You know that.”
“Really? You’re telling me you and Olive don’t get drunk together?”
“You’re joking, but since you asked—no. Here’s how it works around here now: I try to get drunk and Olive tries to stop it from happening. It’s a good arrangement for me. Not sure what Olive gets out of it, but I’m awfully glad she’s there to be my guard dog.”
“Listen, Peg—at least let me help you with the show. You know that this pile of pages is a long way from being a script.” Billy tapped a manicured finger on Mr. Herbert’s dismal notebook. “And you know Donald can’t get it any closer to being a script, no matter how hard he tries. You can’t squeeze this out of him. So let me go at it with my typewriter and my big blue pencil. You know I can do this. Let’s make a great play. Let’s give Edna something worthy of her talents.”
“Shush.” Peg had put her hands over her face.
“Come on, Peg. Take a risk.”
“Hush,” she said. “I’m thinking at the top of my lungs.”
Billy hushed and waited her out.
“I can’t pay you,” she said, finally looking up at him again.
“I’m independently wealthy, Peg. That’s always been a talent of mine.”
“You can’t own the rights to anything that we make here. Olive won’t stand for it.”
“You can have all of it, Peg.