Everything and More Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Before the war, you were going to . . . Stanford?”
    “Right.”
    “What were you going to be?”
    “The same as I am now. A man.”
    “I meant, what were you majoring in? Medicine? Law? Or do you want to be a screenwriter like your father?”
    “Oh, yes. Sure. Absolutely.” His face darkened into an expression of bitter unhappiness; she had to control herself from reaching over to touch
his
hand. He said, “All right, I’ll ’fess up. There’s something I’ve always wanted to emulate. Publish two good, meaningful novels then sell out to do Hollywood garbage.”
    She knew many who professed to despise or disdain their parents as parents, but to dismiss Joshua Fernauld (about whom there hovered the aura of sinful glamour invariably tethered to high-living men of vast talent in show business) as a hack shocked her to the core. “He’s a fabulous writer! He’s got an Oscar to prove it.”
    “From a jury of his peers,” Linc said acidly.
    “His dialogue jumps to life.”
    “I can see that one semester in high-school drama has turned you into a fine critic.”
    “This snobbishness about the movies really gets me!” Marylin cried. Her outspoken anger completely bewildered her. What had catapulted her, Marylin Wace who avoided every unpleasantness, into this brouhaha? “Why must people assume it’s slumming to write a fine movie script, while writing crummy books or a trashy play is something sacred?”
    He jerked as if she had probed a raw nerve. “Would you admit,” he asked with heavy vitriol, “that your lack of understanding might emanate from a certain . . . shall we call it immaturity? Oh, hell! I should know better than to talk seriously to a high-school kid!”
    Marylin’s heart was galloping, sending a wild charge through her body. “Millions of people see his work,” she heard herself say. “He has a chance to influence them, to make them better or kinder. I’ve gone to
After the Fall
and
Lava Flow
four times each, and they always leave a kind of glow.”
    “Why not take Fleischmann’s yeast? That gives the same results.” His sarcasm was loud, brutal.
    The counter girl and soda jerk were staring at them.
    Marylin knew she must stop. She could not stop. “Whether you want to admit it or not, if Shakespeare were writing today, he would be under contract to MGM or Paramount.”
    “Thank you for that surprising insight.”
    “He’d be like your father, earning Oscars, and I don’t think this idea is coming as any surprise to you.”
    His tanned hands clenched into fists on the tabletop, and there were lines on either side of his mouth. “Listen, you movie-struck bobby-soxer,don’t try to psychoanalyze
me.
Don’t think you can figure out what’s in
my
mind. Just because you’re a gorgeous, gorgeous eyeful with a fantastic little body doesn’t mean you’re Sigmund Freud. Stick to the stuff below the beltline, that’s more in your line. All you know about me is that I’m hot to make you.”
    To her horror, Marylin felt tears welling in her eyes. If she were an actress with the least modicum of talent or technique, wouldn’t she be able to hide these idiotic tears? He’s only out to make me—that is the hidden complexity in his eyes, she thought, and put her shaking hand over her forehead.
    “Hey,” he said quietly.
    She took out a handkerchief, bending her head, and under the pretext of blowing her nose, dabbed surreptitiously at her eyes. She glimpsed his tanned fingers clenching and unclenching, and guessed suddenly that shouting matches like this were as alien to him as to her.
    “Allergy,” she mumbled.
    Money clinked on the table. Marylin hurried outside ahead of him and saw that dusk was turning the sky purple.
    Linc put the key in the ignition of the big Packard, but did not turn on the engine. After a minute he said, “I’ve been away too long. Forgotten the polite art of male-female conversation.”
    “It’s okay,” she said listlessly.
    “I