Susan Phillips - Glitter Baby

Flynn patted her knee. “You’re a sweet girl, Belinda. And a beautiful one. There’s something in your eyes that makes me forget how old I’m getting to be.”

She took the liberty of resting her cheek against his shoulder. “You mustn’t talk that way. You’re not old.”

He smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Sweet girl.”

By the end of the week Belinda had moved into Flynn’s bungalow at the Garden of Allah. A month flew by. At the end of October, he gave her a gold charm, a small disk suspended from a wishbone frame with “LUV” engraved in the center of one side and the letters “I” and “U” on the other. When she flicked the charm with the tip of her finger, it spun and the message “I LUV U” came together. She knew he didn’t mean it, but she treasured the charm and wore it with pride as a symbol to the world that she belonged to Errol Flynn.

In the reflected glow of his fame, her old feelings of invisibility vanished. Never had she felt so pretty, so smart, so important. They slept late and spent their days either on the Zaca or alongside the pool. They marked their nights in clubs and restaurants. She learned to smoke and drink, she learned not to stare when she met famous people, no matter how excited she felt inside, and she learned that famous people seemed to like her. An actor who was a friend of Flynn’s told her it was because she offered no judgment, only adoration. The remark puzzled her. How could she judge? It wasn’t up to ordinary people to pass judgment on the stars.

Sometimes at night she and Flynn made love, but more often they talked. It hurt her to see how sad and troubled he was beneath his devil-may-care facade. She devoted herself to making him happy.

She saw Rebel Without a Cause and thought that maybe her dream hadn’t died after all. She was meeting studio executives now instead of lowly assistant casting directors. She needed to take advantage of those contacts and prepare for the inevitable time when Flynn moved on to another woman. She had no delusions about that. She wasn’t important enough to hold him for long.

Flynn bought her a daring lipstick-red French bikini and sat by the side of the pool sipping his vodka while he watched her play. No one else at the Garden was adventurous enough to wear one of the new bikinis, but Belinda didn’t feel embarrassed. She loved watching Flynn watch her. She loved emerging from the water to be wrapped in the towel he held for her. She felt sheltered, protected, and adored.

Late one morning while Flynn was still sleeping, Belinda donned the red bikini and dived into the deserted pool. She swam several easy laps, opening her eyes under water to look at the initials of Alla Nazimova carved into the concrete just below the water line. When she came to the surface, she found herself staring at a pair of highly polished leather shoes.

“Tiens! A mermaid has taken over the pool at the Garden of Allah. A mermaid with eyes bluer than the sky.”

Treading water, Belinda squinted against the morning sun to see the man standing over her. He was distinctly European. His oyster-white suit had the sheen of silk and the immaculate press of a man who kept a valet. He was of medium height, slim and aristocratic, with dark hair that had been skillfully cut to disguise its thinning. Small, slanted eyes sat above a broad nose with a slight hook at the end. He wasn’t handsome, but he was imposing. The smell of money and power clung to him as tenaciously as his expensive cologne. She judged him to be in his mid-to-late thirties, French by his accent, although his features were more exotic. Maybe he was a European filmmaker.

She gave him a saucy grin. “No mermaid, monsieur. Just a very ordinary girl.”

“Ordinaire? I would hardly say so. Três extraordinaire, in fact.”

She accepted his compliment graciously, and in her best accented high school French replied, “Merci beaucoup, monsieur. Vous êtes trop gentil.”

“Tell me, ma petite mermaid. Is there a tail beneath that charmant red bikini?”

Amusement glinted in his eyes, but Belinda sensed something calculated about his audaciousness. This man did nothing, said nothing, by accident. “Mais non, monsieur,” she replied evenly. “Only two ordinary legs.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps, mademoiselle, you will let me be the judge?”

She gazed at him for a moment, then dived under and swam in long, clean strokes for the ladder at the opposite end of the pool. But when she climbed out, he’d disappeared. Half an hour later, she walked into the bungalow and found him talking to Flynn over Bloody Marys.

Mornings weren’t Flynn’s best time, and next to the immaculately groomed stranger he looked rumpled and old. Still, he was by far the more handsome. She sat on the arm of his chair and placed her hand on his shoulder. She wished she had the courage to plant a casual good-morning kiss on his cheek, but the sporadic nighttime intimacies that passed between them didn’t make her feel entitled to that kind of informality. He looped his arm around her waist. “Good morning, my dear. I understand the two of you met by the pool.”

The stranger’s eyes slid down the long suntanned legs extending beneath the terry wrap she’d tossed on over her bikini. “Not a tail after all.” He rose gracefully to his feet. “Alexi Savagar, mademoiselle.”

“He’s being modest, my dear. Our visitor is actually Count Alexi Nikolai Vasily Savagarin. Did I get it right, old sport?”

“My family left the title behind in St. Petersburg, mon ami, as you very well know.” Although Alexi sounded faintly reproachful, Belinda sensed he was pleased by Flynn’s use of his title. “We’re now hopelessly French.”

“And bloody rich. Your family didn’t leave their rubles behind in Mother Russia, did they, old sport? Not by a long shot.” Flynn turned toward Belinda. “Alexi is in California buying a few old cars to ship back to Paris for his collection.”

“What a peasant you are, mon ami. A 1927 Alfa Romeo is hardly just an ‘old car.’ Besides, I’m here on business.”

“Alexi is adding to the family fortune by meddling in electronics. What’s that gadget you were telling me about? Has something to do with vacuum tubes?”

“The transistor. It’s going to replace the vacuum tube.”

“Transistor. That’s it. And if it’ll make money, you can bet Alexi’s sitting on a truckload of the little buggers. You’d think he’d be willing to lend me some of his profits so I could produce my next picture.” Although he was looking at her, Belinda had the feeling he was really talking to Alexi.

Alexi regarded him with amusement. “I haven’t made my fortune by throwing good money after bad. Unless, of course, you’re willing to part with the Zaca. Now that would be quite a different story.”

“You’ll get the Zaca over my dead body,” Flynn replied, an edge to his voice.

“From the looks of things, mon ami, I may not have long to wait.”

“Spare me your lectures. Belinda, fix us two more Bloodys.”

“Of course.” She took their glasses and went into the kitchenette that opened off the living room. Neither man made an effort to lower his voice, and she could hear their conversation as she refilled their glasses from a fresh can of tomato juice. At first they talked about the transistors and Alexi’s business, but before long, the conversation became more personal.

“Belinda is an improvement over the last one, mon ami,” she heard Alexi say. “Those eyes are quite extraordinaire, A little old, though, isn’t she? Past sixteen.”

“Casting stones, Alexi?” Flynn laughed. “Don’t get any ideas of your own about her. You’ll only be wasting your time. Belinda is my joy. Rather like a faithful dog, but housebroken and beautiful. She only gives adoration. No nagging, no lectures about my drinking. She puts up with my moods, and she’s surprisingly intelligent. If more women were like Belinda, there’d be more happy men.”

“Mon Dieu, you sound as if you’re ready for another trip to the altar. Are you sure you can afford it?”

“She’s merely a diversion,” Flynn replied with a trace of belligerence. “And a damned pleasant one.”

Belinda’s cheeks were flushed as she brought their drinks to them. She didn’t like what he’d said about the dog, but the other things he’d said about her were nice.

“There you are, darling. I was just telling Alexi about you.”

She sensed a subtle tension between the two men she hadn’t noticed before.

“You’re a paragon, mademoiselle, if I am to believe the Baron here. Intelligent, adoring, beautiful-although my views of your beauty have been somewhat limited, so he may be lying.”

Flynn took a careful sip from the drink she handed him. “I thought you met her at the pool.”

“She was under water. And now, as you see…” He nodded dismissively toward the terry-cloth wrap.

A long look passed between the men. Was it challenge she saw in Alexi’s eyes? Belinda felt as though she were witnessing an old, familiar game between them, a game she didn’t understand.

“Belinda, darling, take that off, would you?” Flynn crumpled an empty cigarette pack.

“What?”

“Your wrap, my dear. Take it off, there’s a good girl.”

She looked from one man to the other. Flynn was putting a fresh cigarette in the amber holder, but Alexi watched her, a trace of something that might have been sympathy underlying his amusement. “You’ve embarrassed her, mon ami.”

“Nonsense. Belinda doesn’t mind.” Flynn rose and walked over to her. He tilted up her chin just as she’d seen him do so often to Olivia de Havilland. “She’ll do anything I ask. Won’t you, darling?” He leaned down and brushed a kiss over her lips.

She hesitated only a moment before she dropped her fingers to the sash on her wrap. Flynn touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Slowly she loosened the knot and let the sash fall away. Turning her body toward Flynn, she allowed the wrap to drop to the floor.

“Let Alexi see, if you don’t mind, my dear. I want him to have a good view of what his money can’t buy.”

She regarded Flynn unhappily, but his eyes were on Alexi, and his expression seemed vaguely triumphant. Slowly she pivoted toward the Frenchman. The chilly air brushed her skin, and her bikini halter felt clammy against her breasts. She told herself it was childish to feel embarrassed. This was no different from standing at the edge of the pool. But she still couldn’t bring herself to meet the slanted, Russian eyes of Alexi Savagar.

“Her body is lovely, mon ami,” he said. “I congratulate you. But your beauty is wasted on this faded matinee idol. I think I shall steal you away.” His tone was light, but something in his expression told her his words hadn’t been spoken casually.

“I think not.” She tried to sound cool and sophisticated, like Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. Something about him frightened her. Perhaps it was his air of power, the impression of authority he wore every bit as easily as the oyster-white suit. She bent to retrieve her wrap, but as she straightened, Flynn’s hand cupped her bare shoulder, preventing her from covering herself.

“Take no notice of Alexi, Belinda. Our rivalry is an old one.” His hand moved down the length of her arm and splayed possessively across her bare midriff. His little finger slipped in the hollow of her navel. “He can’t abide seeing me with a woman he can’t have. It goes back to our younger days when I stole them all away from him. My friend is still a very bad loser.”

“You didn’t steal all of them away. I remember a few who were more attracted to my money than to your pretty face.”

Belinda sucked in her breath as Flynn’s hand, warm and possessive, dipped lower and settled over the lipstick-red crotch of her tiny bikini. “But they were old. Not our type at all.”

Against her will she looked up and saw Alexi leaning back in his chair, a portrait of aristocratic indolence with one immaculately trousered leg crossed over the other. He lifted his eyes to hers, and for a fraction of a moment, she forgot Flynn was in the room.

Alexi cruised with them on the Zaca and took them out to dinner at the best restaurants in Southern California. Sometimes he bought Belinda gifts of jewelry, dainty and expensive. She kept them in their boxes and wore only Flynn’s small spinning charm on a chain around her neck.

Alexi berated Flynn for the charm. “What a vulgar bauble. Surely Belinda deserves better.”