Crystal Read online

  “He doesn’t want to be touched,” Crystal said. She noted that Sean wore elevator shoes.

  “I’m sure it’s going to be a wonderful evening for both of you,” Sugarman said. “Here’s the limousine now.”

  Crystal turned as Sean started for the car.

  “Is he angry at something?” Crystal asked.

  “Sweetheart.” Sugarman grinned. “You’re trying to make it, he’s already a star. He’s not here to entertain you. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

  Sean waited at the car. Crystal forced a smile as she passed Sean and settled herself on one side of the large, upholstered seat. Sean entered quickly behind her and in a moment the door was closed.

  “Whose idea was it?” Sean said, looking straight ahead of him despite the presence of Sugarman’s large head in the car window. “To get a white limousine?”

  “It’s what they sent over.” Sugarman’s eyebrows raised together. “It don’t make no difference.”

  “I guess it just happened to match her dress?” Sean said.

  “You want her to change it?” Sugarman asked.

  “I’m not changing anything,” Crystal said through her teeth.

  “Let’s go, let’s go.” Sean waved his hand impatiently.

  Sharo’s was one of the finest clubs in New York. It usually featured a well-known pianist who played a combination of old standards and new tunes in a way that seemed to blend with the endless tinkling of glasses and chatter that filled the main room. It was decorated in the style of the Gay Nineties, complete with brass ornaments and waiters with long sideburns. The club had become the “in” place to be seen in and to see the rich and the famous.

  Sean had not spoken to Crystal during the ride to the club. They had been expected, Loretta had taken care of that; a few minutes after they were seated, a waiter brought them drinks without taking an order. Crystal was surprised. Her drink came in a tall glass with a slice of pineapple attached to one side. It tasted like a milk shake.

  “You’re not exactly the friendly type, are you?” Crystal said. “I don’t know why you even bothered to come.”

  “I don’t think I need to be seen with some girl who hasn’t done a darn thing in this business or any other business,” Sean said. He sounded angry but his face never changed expression. Crystal liked that.

  “So why are you here?”

  “My agent thinks I need this kind of exposure. It’s time I got away from immature parts.”

  “Oh.” Crystal looked away from Sean and tapped her fingers nervously on the table.

  “You’re supposed to be looking at me,” Sean whispered.

  Crystal turned and Sean was looking right at her. He seemed taller when he was seated than he did standing. Crystal knew why he wanted to be photographed sitting. He had a long body but short legs.

  “What would you like to talk about?” Crystal said. “I can’t just sit here and look at you!”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing now?” Sean said. “Sugarman tells me you’re being considered for some part in a movie?”

  “Loretta’s mentioned something about movies, but nothing definite.”

  “You’re better off,” Sean said. “When they say things are definite in the movie business, what they really mean is that there’s an outside chance.”

  “You want to dance?” Crystal asked.

  “Are you kidding?”

  The piano player had left and a small group was playing a corny Baby Face song. It was a lovely place. Crystal was enjoying it, even though she wasn’t enjoying being with Sean.

  “I like this place,” she said.

  “Ever been to anyplace like it?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Sean said. “It’s all part of the life. You have to learn to enjoy it without letting it get to you. I don’t see how you can go that far. Most Blacks don’t really make it big.”

  “Thanks a lot!” Crystal turned away from Sean.

  A curl of blue smoke went up from another table, found its way through a shaft of light from one of the small overhead spots, and up into the darkness of the ceiling. Crystal imagined herself singing in the club, leaning against the piano.

  “Well, who do we have here?” A husky female voice interrupted Crystal’s thoughts. “Why, it looks like Mr. Sean Farrell—and a friend.”

  Rosemarie Montag stood in front of their table with a drink in one hand and a long cigarette holder in the other.

  “Well, New York’s favorite columnist.” Sean raised his glass to her. He looked, to Crystal, very mature.

  “Do I smell an item for my column here in the murky shadows of Sharo’s?” Rosemarie asked, leaning toward the table.

  “I couldn’t stand to be in that wicked column of yours, Rosemarie,” Sean said.

  “And who is your lovely friend?”

  “This is Crystal,” Sean said. He gently put his hand on Crystal’s. “She’s a rather special friend.”

  “Oohh.” Rosemarie sipped her drink and looked at Crystal as if she were completely surprised to meet her. “How marvelous! Hello, Crystal.”

  “Hello,” Crystal replied softly.

  “You are a lovely young thing,” Rosemarie said, slurring her words slightly. “Sean is very lucky.”

  “There’s nothing…official,” Sean said, relaxed.

  To Crystal, Sean looked exactly the way he had on Dawson’s Creek.

  “I’ll keep your ‘nonofficial’ status in mind,” Rosemarie said.

  “I’m really trying to relax before the series begins…,” Sean said. “We have to start shooting in—”

  “Oh, isn’t that…?” Rosemarie waved at someone passing by. It was Earl Morgan, the actor the movie magazines had labeled “the Black Hugh Grant.”

  “Earl!” Rosemarie waved him over.

  Earl Morgan threaded his way through a crowd of well-wishers, flashing the smile and the dimples that had made his reputation on the screen. He kissed Rosemarie lightly on the cheek.

  “Oh, I’m going to faint, you handsome brute!” Rosemarie put the back of her hand against her forehead.

  “Hello, lady,” Earl’s husky voice crooned.

  “Earl, why is it that all the handsome men only kiss me in public?” Rosemarie said with a smile.

  “If you’d leave a trail of crumbs, I’d gladly follow you to some private place,” Earl said.

  “Crumbs? I’d leave loaves of French bread if I was sure you’d be picking them up.” Rosemarie sipped her drink and then looked toward Sean again. “Earl, you have to meet my old friend, Sean. You’ve seen him a thousand times on the tube. His star is very high and still rising.”

  “Pleased to meet you, my man.” Earl extended his hand.

  “My pleasure,” Sean said, shaking the extended hand.

  “And this is his friend—what did you say your name was, honey?” Rosemarie asked.

  “Crystal.”

  “Well”—Earl took Crystal’s hand in his—“any new friend of Rosemarie’s is a new friend of mine, too. May I have this dance?”

  The band was playing an upbeat tune. Crystal couldn’t believe she was actually dancing with Earl Morgan. There were photographers all around them, and Crystal was only vaguely aware that they were taking pictures.

  Earl talked to Crystal as they danced, asking if she was from New York and had she ever been to Hollywood. Crystal wasn’t sure what she was saying in return. Earl’s voice was like a cat’s purr in her ear. He danced well, and she wondered if he could feel her heart beating against his chest.

  When the dance was over Earl Morgan took her hands in his and held them so the fingertips came together. And then, as he looked into her eyes, he kissed her fingertips and thanked her for dancing with him.

  When Crystal sat down next to Sean Farrell, he seemed annoyed.

  “I hope that Morgan’s not trying to cut me,” he said. “You know that part that Danny Glover played in Lethal Weapon was originally supposed to be for a
White guy.”

  “You think he’s trying to cut you?” Crystal asked.

  Another columnist, one that Crystal recognized, came over.

  “Hi, I’m Jim Carroll,” he said. “Wasn’t that Earl Morgan you were dancing with?”

  “Yes,” Crystal said. “It was.”

  “And you’re…?”

  “Crystal.”

  “Just Crystal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, Sean, how’s it going?” Carroll turned to Sean.

  “Not bad,” Sean said. “Got the series coming up and I’m considering a part in a Spielberg flick, so things can’t be too shabby.”

  “You and Spielberg?” Carroll looked at Sean and shrugged. “Could be, I guess, could be.”

  The rest of the evening Crystal spent looking into Sean’s eyes and thinking about Earl Morgan. People kept coming by their table and speaking to Sean, most of them asking who Crystal was. When Sean said that the evening was a success and it was time to go, she followed numbly to the waiting limousine.

  When Crystal got home, it was almost three in the morning. Her father was in his shirtsleeves in front of the house drinking a beer. The wooden box he was sitting on leaned at a precarious angle to the red-brick wall.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Crystal said.

  “Don’t ‘Hi, Daddy’ me, girl.” Daniel Brown turned his head away. “You know what time it is?”

  “The limo brought me home.”

  “The hell do I care about that?” Angry lines appeared on his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot and the smell of stale beer on his breath made Crystal nervous.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.” Crystal put her hands on her father’s. “I didn’t think I was going to be out this late.”

  “You have a good time being out here all hours of the damn night?”

  “It was okay.”

  “What you mean it was okay?”

  “It was really kind of great,” Crystal said.

  “You gonna tell me all about it, so I can eat my heart out?”

  “Yep, even the part about me dancing with Earl Morgan!”

  “Earl Morgan? Get out of here!”

  “Really!”

  “Well, let’s get on upstairs. You can tell me about it in the morning. I’m too mad to listen tonight.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “Ain’t no child looking as good as you supposed to be out this late, girl.”

  “You really think I look good tonight, Daddy?”

  “Crystal”—Daniel Brown turned and took his daughter’s face in his hands—“sometimes I look at you and see how good you look and it scares me. Being as pretty as you are and all, it may make you think it’s all too easy.”

  “It seemed pretty easy tonight, Daddy.”

  “Yeah, honey.” Daniel Brown and his daughter, Crystal, their arms around each other, started up the stairs. “But I still got to find out if Earl Morgan got frisky. I mean, if he did I’m going to have to go knock him out.”

  “He said he was going back to Hollywood tomorrow.”

  “That’s okay, baby, people get knocked out in Hollywood, too.”

  5

  BUT, EARL…

  Earl Morgan, hot from the movie set of A Matter of Love, was in Sharo’s last night. We caught the Torrid One with Crystal, the exotic and ravishing newcomer to the club scene. Which brings up two questions and a but…Question number one—Where was Denise Sarno, the Torrid One’s live-in throb? Question two—Is Crystal the Lady X that figures in Paramount’s planned pic? Now, for the but…Crystal’s gorgeous, Torrid One, and charming…BUT…didn’t she arrive at Sharo’s with none other than Sean Farrell???? Will this be just a cozy coffee klatch or do I smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E brewing?

  “Now you can tell me the truth,” Pat said, pushing a glob of Jell-O to one side of her tray in the noisy lunchroom. “How does he look up close?”

  “He’s really nice looking,” Crystal answered.

  “Really nice looking?” Pat frowned up her face. “What kind of talk is that? Is the fool as fine in person as he is in the movies, that’s what I want to know.”

  “I guess he is,” Crystal said. “I mean, like the article said, I did go with Sean, so I was a little worried when Earl asked me to dance.”

  “You were?” Pat’s attention drifted away to a dream world of her own.

  “Sean was furious!”

  “He was?”

  “Did you know that he was short?”

  “Earl?”

  “Uh-uh, Sean,” Crystal said. She had brought a plastic cup of fruit salad from home for lunch and was picking out the bananas. “He’s about my height.”

  “He’s got nice eyes, though,” Pat said.

  “They’re deeper blue than they look on television,” Crystal said, smiling at her friend. “You can really tell when he’s close and you look right into his eyes.”

  “How about Earl?” Pat wriggled in her seat. “Tell me about Earl.”

  “He’s okay, I guess,” Crystal said, pretending to examine her nails. “I mean, if you like chocolate pudding that’s six foot two, a mustache, pearly white teeth, black curly hair and dimples, then he’s okay.”

  “I think my heart just stopped,” Pat said.

  “I enjoy that kind of thing, but I don’t let it get to me,” Crystal said. “Not really.”

  “I’d let it get to me,” Pat said. “I showed Donald your picture in the paper and you know what he said?”

  “What?”

  “He said it wasn’t no big thing, because his picture was in the paper once. I asked him what his picture was in the paper for, and he come telling me about how he saved some kid from being bit by a dog, and it turned out the dog belonged to the guy that owned the newspaper.”

  “I don’t see why you even talk to him,” Crystal said.

  “He’s okay,” Pat said. “He’s so cute, and he knocks me out with his corny little love poems.”

  “Love poems?”

  “Uh-huh. The other day he come up with something about ‘Violets are blue, daisies are yellow/My love’s in bloom, since I been your fellow.’”

  “And you like that childish stuff?”

  “Love it to death, child,” Pat said. “Here he come now with Charlie Harris from the tennis team.”

  The two boys, Donald and Charlie, brought their trays and sat down with Crystal and Pat.

  “Yo, I got a new poem for you.” Donald had a wide, toothy smile.

  “Crystal doesn’t want to hear your poems,” Pat said.

  “She don’t have to listen,” Donald said. “But the world needs this poem.”

  “I heard it,” Charlie said. “It’s pretty good.”

  “‘My Love for You Is Like a Fire Hydrant, by Donald Evans.’” Donald was reading from a piece of theme paper.

  “‘My love for you is like a fire hydrant, gushing out to save you from the fire of time/It is steady, despite the dogs of war/And will last, now and forevermore.’”

  “That’s nice,” Pat said, glancing at Crystal, who looked up at the ceiling.

  “‘My love for you is like a fire hydrant,’” Donald went on. “‘Waiting on the sidewalk of your life/Marking off the No-Parking Zone of my feelings.’ The end.”

  “He wrote a poem about a fire hydrant?” Rowena was doing stretching exercises in front of the mirror.

  “They’re so silly it’s unbelievable,” Crystal said. She was waiting for Jerry to finish mounting a photo montage of her that they were going to take to Marc Everby’s office.

  “I had this boyfriend once that was just so together,” Rowena said. “I think I must have loved him more than anyone or anything else in the world.”

  “You broke up with him?”

  “Yeah, sort of.” Rowena sat up and rested her head on her knee. “Actually, I think he broke up with me. I used to get these real deep depressions. You know, like everything is just awful and you hate yourself. I don’t suppose you ever get that way, but I do.”

 
; “I think I know what you mean,” Crystal said. “You’re talking and no one seems to understand what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Rowena said.

  “Your boyfriend didn’t like that?”

  “Steve—his name’s Steve, and he’s this really big lawyer,” Rowena went on. “When I got really down, he didn’t have the time to deal with me. You know what I mean? At first I was hurt and everything, but then I figured that it takes a lot of time to deal with a person when they’re depressed. He said he didn’t have time.”

  “I think that’s lousy, Rowena,” Crystal said.

  “No, because most people don’t have a lot of time. Most people have to hustle around to make it and everything and they really can’t help you. If you want to be loved and everything, you got to be happy. You can’t come on to people sad and depressed all the time. They can’t handle it.”

  “Hey.” Crystal put her arm around Rowena’s shoulders.

  “Don’t touch me, I’m all sweaty,” Rowena said. “You have to be perfect for Everby.”

  “I’m trying not to be nervous,” Crystal said.

  “No, it’s okay, you can be nervous,” Rowena said. “Men like that. It makes them feel good if you’re a little scared.”

  “Then he should feel fine when he sees me,” Crystal said, “because my stomach is doing flip-flops.”

  “Are we friends?” Rowena asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m glad,” Rowena said. “Because I think you’re really nice. Sometimes in this business, you’re so into being something that somebody wants you to be, you don’t have time to be friends.”

  “We’re friends,” Crystal said. “We’ll make the time.”

  “Thanks.”

  The door to the studio opened and Jerry Goodwin started to come in just as Crystal knelt next to Rowena. Rowena wiped her hand off on her bare thigh and took Crystal’s hand in her own. The soft light from the frosted windows framed the two girls as they shared a silent moment. Jerry started to speak, thought better of it, then left the room in search of his cigarettes.