When she got back to her room, Billy was on the terrace drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. His mood was pensive, and he seemed annoyed with her. “Where have you been?”
“Out walking. You were sleeping. I didn’t want to bother you.”
He tapped his cigarette in the ashtray. “Some of the guys are coming down tonight to gamble.”
Nora snorted.
“What?”
“It’s our honeymoon, Billy.”
Snuffing out his cigarette, Billy sank lower in his seat. As his bathrobe gaped open, Nora for the first time saw the outlines of his body, which had been hidden from her until now. There was a familiarity to his body that shouldn’t have been possible—a strange déjà vu of sorts of a different man, outtakes of a different life that she couldn’t quite understand. Sitting there, she had the feeling that while their marriage was only beginning, she was losing him. Nora was never good at silences, always looking to fill them, but this time she was at a loss for words. She let the uncomfortableness sit between them.
“I can’t, you know.”
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t sleep with you the way you want. I had measles as a kid and things don’t work like they’re supposed to work for me.”
“What?” Nora thought she’d misheard him.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you. I can’t sleep with you.”
Nora exhaled. So that was it? All of the crisp kisses on the cheek as he deposited her home each night. She thought about what she should say next, stopping and starting her response a few times. “Yes. You should have told me.” Nora sat down in the chair opposite him. “It isn’t like you can help it.” As she said the words, Nora contemplated a life of never being with Billy in that way. Suddenly she felt sick. This entire thing—the wedding, the honeymoon—was a sham.
“I’m ashamed,” said Billy. “You’re perfect and yet I can’t do anything. You should have known before we were married. It would have changed things.”
It was the nonchalant way he presented this to her that infuriated her. She could tell he wasn’t sorry. Nora considered this. “I would have liked to have been married knowing everything.”
He held his coffee cup in his hand and studied it. “Halstead thought it was best—”
“I bet he did,” she interrupted him. What a fool she had been. An overwhelming sense of betrayal washed over her. She remembered the first day she met Billy in Halstead’s office. She’d felt then that there was a strange undercurrent between them; some part she was auditioning for. So this had been it?
In the afternoon, Nora took a golf lesson to try to keep her mind off what to do next. She wasn’t sure she could stay in a loveless—let alone sexless—marriage, but she needed to be smart. Personally, marrying Billy had been a stupid move; she’d always known he would break her heart. But professionally, she was now the wife of Monumental Studio’s most powerful director, so she decided she wasn’t going to be stupid with her career. Right now, it was all she had. Never would she go back to living in a dingy one-room apartment with a man like Clint, nor would she be shuttled around town to parties to serve as entertainment again. She was now Monumental’s version of Norma Shearer.
When she got back to the room, Billy had left her a note to join “them” in the casino. Nora took her time getting dressed, wearing a copper silk gown with copper beading at the shoulders. Taking a cue from Jean Harlow, Nora decided to forgo a bra and made her eye makeup smokier—a look less innocent, more vamp. As she gazed in the mirror, she thought it was fitting. She felt less innocent. Ironically, she had never looked more beautiful, and yet her beauty was lost on this man and this moment.
As Nora walked down the hall to the casino, she caught the smell of a flower sitting on the table. She shook her head. Something about the smell pulled her back to another room with another hall table and another man and another copper dress. Something was swirling around her, like events already set in motion. She gripped the hall table to steady herself. It had to be the stress. She straightened her dress and as she kept walking down the hall, the scent of the flowers became fainter and released its grip on her.
With their elaborate dark-wood-beamed ceilings, each room at Agua Caliente seemed to outdo the other. Nora heard them before she spied them at the bar, drinking martinis. The sight of them confirmed what she could hear. They were drunk. Billy was leaning off his chair like he did when he was about three or four martinis in. Next to him stood the lanky frame of Ford Tremaine. Ford faced out to the casino and leaned in close, talking to another man, whom Nora recognized as the cameraman from Train to Boston, Zane King. Nora could hear Ford repeating everything to Zane; although he was standing close, he was shouting so loudly that his voice could be heard as far away as the center chandelier. As Nora crossed the Gold Bar, Ford’s gray eyes lit up when he spied her. Zane turned and Billy tottered around to face her.
“Billy, your bride has arrived.” Ford leaned back against the bar. When he wasn’t on set, Ford had the deep Southern accent of a boy born in Oxford, Mississippi. At least he could still stand. “Billy here thought you’d abandoned him for the night.”
“Did he?” Nora looked down at Billy, whose glassy eyes showed he’d been drinking since she’d left him earlier. “Glad you boys could join us for our honeymoon.”
“Yes, indeed. She’s pissed, William.” Ford smiled. “William here thought you were pissed. I told him you couldn’t possibly be pissed at him.” Ford’s smile had dipped. He was used to turning on the charm for the cameras and the press, and it left him as soon as he had no use for it. His comments were a warning. There was something to Ford’s cool tone and barbs. Ford didn’t like her. Billy had seemed to have known that would be the case.
“Surely Billy knows I’m not angry at him about anything.” Nora tried to catch the bartender’s eye. She needed a drink.
Billy looked up at her, but he couldn’t focus on her face.
“I think he needs some coffee, boys.” Nora could feel Ford’s eyes watching her as she ordered coffee for Billy and finished his martini in one swift motion before sliding the empty glass back across the bar. “Another, please.”
“Did you know about Phar Lap?” Billy appeared to be talking to his reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
Zane interrupted him. “He’s been going on about Phar Lap all night.”
“What is a Phar Lap?”
“A horse—known as the Red Terror.” Ford came and put his arms on Billy’s shoulders. “Isn’t that right, Billy?”
Billy nodded and uttered something unintelligible about a ghost.
“That’s right.” Ford turned to Nora. “Phar Lap was the world champion Australian horse who came here to the States to race, but died under mysterious circumstances.”
Nora looked at Zane, who shrugged and shook his head. “He’s been going on about the fucking ghost of Phar Lap all night, even when he was half sober.” Nora smiled at Zane. A handsome blond linebacker type from Indiana, his face lacked the angles Ford had with his slight, thin build.
“Billy and I saw Phar Lap race—what was that, in ’32 or ’33?”