Whenever Jill was able to put a little money aside, she sent it to her mother with long, glowing letters about how well she was doing. In the beginning, Jill’s mother had written back urging Jill to repent and become a bride of God. But as Jill made occasional movies and sent more money home, her mother began to take a certain reluctant pride in her daughter’s career. She was no longer against Jill’s being an actress but she pressed Jill to get parts in religious pictures. “I’m sure Mr. DeMille would give you a role if you explained your religious background to him,” she wrote.
Odessa was a small town. Jill’s mother still worked for the Oil People, and she knew that her mother would talk about her, that sooner or later David Kenyon would hear of her success. And so, in her letters, Jill made up stories about all the stars she worked with, always careful to use their first names. She learned the bit players’ trick of having the set photographer snap her picture as she stood next to the star. The photographer would give her two prints and Jill would mail one to her mother and keep the other. She made her letters sound as though she was just one step short of stardom.
It is the custom in Southern California, where it never snows, that three weeks before Christmas a Santa Claus Parade marches down Hollywood Boulevard and that each night after that until Christmas Eve a Santa Claus float makes the journey. The citizens of Hollywood are as conscientious about the celebration of the Christ child as are their neighbors in northern climes. They are not to be held responsible if “Glory Be to God on High” and “Silent Night” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” pour out of home and car radios in a community that is sweltering in a temperature of eighty-five or ninety degrees. They long for an old-fashioned white Christmas as ardently as other red-blooded patriotic Americans, but because they know that God is not going to supply it, they have learned to create their own. They festoon the streets with Christmas lights and plastic Christmas trees and papier-mâché cutouts of Santa Claus and his sled and his reindeer. Stars and character actors vie for the privilege of riding in the Santa Claus Parade; not because they are concerned about bringing holiday cheer to the thousands of children and adults who line the path of the parade, but because the parade is televised and their faces will be seen coast to coast.
Jill Castle stood on a corner, alone, watching the long parade of floats go by, the stars on top waving to their loving fans below. The Grand Marshal of the parade this year was Toby Temple. The adoring crowds cheered wildly as his float passed by. Jill caught a quick glimpse of Toby’s beaming, ingenuous face and then he was gone.
There was music from the Hollywood High School Band, followed by a Masonic Temple float, and a marine corps band. There were equestrians in cowboy outfits and a Salvation Army band, followed by Shriners. There were singing groups carrying flags and streamers, a Knott’s Berry Farm float with animals and birds made of flowers; fire engines, clowns and jazz bands. It might not have been the spirit of Christmas, but it was pure Hollywood spectacle.
Jill had worked with some of the character actors on the floats. One of them waved to her and called down, “Hiya, Jill! How ya doin’?”
Several people in the crowd turned to look enviously at her, and it gave her a delightful feeling of self-importance that people knew she was in the Business. A deep, rich voice beside her said, “Excuse me—are you an actress?”
Jill turned. The speaker was a tall, blond, good-looking boy in his middle twenties. His face was tanned and his teeth were white and even. He wore a pair of old jeans and a blue tweed jacket with leather-patch elbows.
“Yes.”
“Me, too. An actor, I mean.” He grinned and added, “Struggling.”
Jill pointed to herself and said, “Struggling.”
He laughed. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
His name was Alan Preston and he came from Salt Lake City where his father was an elder in the Mormon Church. “I grew up with too much religion and not enough fun,” he confided to Jill.
It’s almost prophetic, Jill thought. We have exactly the same kind of background.
“I’m a good actor,” Alan said ruefully, “but this is sure a rough town. Back home, everybody wants to help you. Here, it seems like everybody’s out to get you.”
They talked until the coffee shop closed, and by that time they were old friends. When Alan asked, “Do you want to come back to my place?” Jill hesitated only a moment. “All right.”
Alan Preston lived in a boardinghouse off Highland Avenue, two blocks from the Hollywood Bowl. He had a small room at the back of the house.
“They ought to call this place The Dregs,” he told Jill. “You should see the weirdos who live here. They all think they’re going to make it big in show business.”
Like us, Jill thought.
The furniture in Alan’s room consisted of a bed, a bureau, a chair and a small rickety table. “I’m just waiting until I move into my palace,” Alan explained.
Jill laughed. “Same with me.”
Alan started to take her in his arms, and she stiffened. “Please don’t.”
He looked at her a moment and said gently, “Okay,” and Jill was suddenly embarrassed. What was she doing here in this man’s room, anyway? She knew the answer to that. She was desperately lonely. She was hungry for someone to talk to, hungry for the feel of a man’s arms around her, holding her and reassuring her and telling her that everything was going to be wonderful. It had been so long. She thought of David Kenyon, but that was another life, another world. She wanted him so much that it was an ache. A little later, when Alan Preston put his arms around Jill again, she closed her eyes and it became David kissing her and undressing her and making love to her.