Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls Read Online Free PDF

Hollywood restaurant, and now she was invited to his house! Neely was starting to get the hang of how these summer places worked. People were much friendlier here than in New York or Los Angeles. If only someone had told her this fifteen years ago, when real estate cost a fraction of what it did now. Just think of all the connections she could have made.
    Everyone at the party was dressed casually. It seemed to Neely that the more money someone had, the less they cared about their clothes. It was a form of showing off, really. Faded polo shirts, unpressed chinos, well-worn deck shoes: an arriving stranger might have guessed this was a group of suburban bankers or, even worse, college professors.
    Neely spent the first hour with Dave, moving from group to group. Everyone loved Dave, and everyone loved his televisionshows, which had just enough sophisticated technical touches and narrative twists to keep the critics happy. Lawyers were always coming up to them and offering plot ideas for the show set in a law firm, and doctors were always suggesting situations for the show in a hospital.
    That was another thing she had noticed about the Hamptons. People had opinions about everything under the sun: television, movies, books, politics, fashion, music, and most of all the stock market. For people who considered themselves artistic, Neely had never heard so much talk about the stock market.
    When the conversation turned to the price per share of a major computer manufacturer, Neely drifted away, toward the bar.
    “Will you sing a little, later?” the hostess asked. “We rolled the piano out by the pool.”
    “I never sing at private parties,” Neely replied. In California, people would have known better than to ask.
    “Just one song. Did you know my husband studied music in college? He can play anything, in any key. He’d be thrilled, he has all your records.”
    “I’ll think about it,” Neely said, which they both knew meant no. She regretted it instantly—what a great story it would make when she got back to California, that she had sung while the director George Dunbar played the piano for her, right in his own backyard.
    The party rolled on as the sun set behind the house. The lawn was ringed with scented candles to keep away the mosquitoes. George Dunbar made a speech about the importance of protecting wildlife, someone gave a toast to endangered species, a woman from the environmental organization announced how much money the party had raised, people clapped.
    “And,” George announced, “I will write another check, in the amount of twenty thousand dollars, right here tonight, if NeelyO’Hara will do us the immense honor of singing just one song for all of us.”
    What a bastard, Neely thought. Dave put his arm around her and squeezed with pride. Twenty thousand dollars for a bunch of birds! For a second she wondered whether there would be some way to split the money, fifty-fifty. Twenty thousand dollars, and she wouldn’t see a penny of it.
    The crowd began to clap in rhythm. “Song! Song! Song!”
    Neely smiled. She pictured herself back in California, hanging out with the Dunbars, just her and Dave and George and Sandy on a Sunday night, George getting out some old sheet music, Neely seated beside him on the piano bench. Maybe they’d cook a little pasta together in the kitchen. Maybe they’d watch a video of one of George’s movies, just the four of them in their stocking feet, sharing a big bowl of popcorn. Once word got around that she was in George Dunbar’s inner circle, everything would change.
    And so she sang. It was one of her old torch songs, in an easy key that wouldn’t give George any trouble. She gazed at Dave for the first few bars and then worked the crowd for the rest of the number. On the last three notes, the breathtaking high notes that she could still hit with confidence, she stared right into George Dunbar’s eyes.
    Then she made a star’s exit, not waiting for the applause to