Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (top 50 books to read .TXT) 📕

critics as socialist propaganda. He’d had trouble raising money in Hollywood for his next script, a collaboration with Bertolt Brecht, but found backers in New York, where money was more familiar with Brecht and less afraid of his politics.

Lizzie didn’t mind Joe’s politics. Her view was that writers ought to be nonconformists, and she was happy to be free of her first husband’s sniffy conventionality. Her Westwood wedding to Joe had had nothing in common with her sister’s temple event except being the second for each. Miss Adelaide didn’t mention it. Joe had worked for the Times, and Lizzie still worked there, which created a newspaper conflict. Joe was controversial in Hollywood, but had the good taste to put his politics into his writing, not his conversation.

The reception started at five, and sharply at seven Bach gave way to Cole Porter. The genius of Lester Lanin is that his music brings onto the dance floor people who normally would never leave their seats. The Lanin two-step is a little like a march, but happier because the champagne is flowing and the men are holding onto something softer than a rifle. Part of his genius is that Lanin can put almost any music into a two-step. There is never any excuse, aside from exhaustion or too much champagne, not to be dancing.

Morton was tickled about getting Terry Heyward as a brother-in-law. The two had nothing in common except being generally good-natured guys. They’d bonded on their first meeting, when Maggie brought Terry to dinner at Brentwood. They were smart enough to talk about things they had in common, not things they didn’t. As a dancer, Joe was more enthusiastic than talented, and as the evening wore on danced with every woman at the table but the one smelling of coconuts and wearing plumeria. He detested champagne, which he regarded as something for christening ships, but found the Ambassador’s bourbon acceptable. He’d had a few drinks, but held his liquor well, always had. He’d found over the years that liquor stimulated his creativity, as if he needed an excuse.

When the orchestra launched into a Jerome Kern medley he found himself awkwardly alone at the table with Howard, who did not dance anymore, and Gabriela, who did. Glancing at her, he wondered what was in it for the girls—sex, publicity, a mention by Miss Adelaide, a role in his next movie? Who’d ever heard of Jane Russell before The Outlaw? He considered that he might have had Howard instead of Terry for a brother-in-law, sharing holiday turkeys with him at Nelly’s place in Bel Air. Not that Howard was unattractive, but he was not convivial, not at all like Terry. What would they talk about? Certainly not movies. Not much of a drinker, not much of a dancer, not much fun. Plus he was deaf. Did all his business on the telephone because it was the only place he could hear. One thing they had in common was draft deferments: one who couldn’t hear, one who couldn’t see. After a moment, Joe switched his musings from Howard to Gabriella and smiled across the table. She smiled back. He took a swig, rose and circled the table; it seemed the gentlemanly thing to do. Appropriately, the orchestra was playing “I Won’t Dance.”

“Sit down, Joe,” commanded Howard as Joe inclined himself toward the lady.

Gabriela was half out of her seat, but sat back down. Joe sat beside her. “How are you doing, Howard?”

“I hear you’re having trouble raising money.”

Hughes was not good at small talk. “Who isn’t?”

“You’re a good writer, Joe, just write the wrong stuff.”

“And what would you say is the right stuff?”

“What’s that?”

Joe leaned across Gabriela, which was not unpleasant, and repeated the question.

“It’s not the moment for your peace drivel,” Howard responded. “The Bolshies are in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary. Do they have to take Paris before you wake up?”

“I am awake, Howard. I rarely sleep.”

“I hear you’re working with Brecht, something about teaming up on an allegory.”

“All good writing is allegorical.”

“How’s that again?”

A dialogue with Hughes was essentially a monologue: He heard only his own voice.

He leaned across Gabriela again. “I said: ALL GOOD WRITING IS ALLEGORICAL.”

Hughes retreated. “What kind of allegory?”

“You interested in seeing the script?”

“Brecht’s a Bolshie.”

Morton looked up into his eyes, strangely luminescent and opaque at the same time, too many crashes, probably. He had a strange ostrich-like head, a neck too long for it. Deafness isolates people, especially those too arrogant to get a hearing aid.

“Brecht is brilliant, Howard. It is an honor to work with him.”

“Going to be subpoenaed just like you.”

“I expect you to be back there, too, Howard.”

Hughes hesitated. He was reading lips.

“Oh, I’ll be there—but it won’t be under subpoena.”

“Maybe we can discuss this another time.”

The music stopped, the players went on break and the dancers returned, Maggie with Terry, Nelly with Marco, Lizzie dropped off by a Times colleague, Cal with Angie.

“If Terry doesn’t stop stepping on my feet,” said Maggie, reaching for a shoe.

“Light, light,” said Marco, holding Nelly’s hand and executing a mincing little pas. “As if you are floating. Maggie you must bring Terry to the studio.”

“What are you three talking about?” said Lizzie, looking suspiciously at Howard and Joe crushing in on poor Gabriela.

“Waiting for you to come back,” said Howard. “I’m ready for a talk.”

Finally, it was quiet, which might have had something to do with Hughes’s previous reticence. Terry went off to the buffet to bring back plates of food. The cake had been cut long ago, and the toasts were over but no one seemed to have left the party. A waiter passed to refill flutes and spike Joe’s bourbon. Angie left to greet some Soldiers.

“What’s on your mind, Howard?” said Maggie.

“Those Venice oil wells.”

“What here . . . on the dance floor . . . you want to talk business?”

When he smiled, which wasn’t often anymore, you could see traces of the boyish charm, the impishness that once radiated. “Why not? I want to make