Everything Melanie Cole was doing or had done was now being scrutinized. Or so Eva surmised.
An overnight stay would draw unwanted attention to both of them if anyone were in fact spying on Melanie, taking notes on who she spent time with. And if those government men poking into Melanie’s personal life pried next into Eva’s, they might discover she wasn’t, as she claimed, a displaced Pole who refused after the war to return to what was now communist Warsaw. They would discover who she really was and instantly assume the worst, because that’s what people did.
Eva would not only lose her job with the agency, but she’d likely be deported for having lied on her immigration papers. And Melanie? The actress would probably never work in Hollywood again, which was Melanie Cole’s worst nightmare. Eva had heard her talkabout it with that screenwriter Elwood who lived next door. That man never came out of his house, but Eva had heard the actress talking with him—both through an open window and also on the telephone. Eva knew all Melanie Cole had ever wanted was to be a film actress. She had finally made it as one, and suddenly that life had been taken from her.
Melanie was no communist; Eva was certain of that, and she would know better than anyone. But she also knew it didn’t matter what a person said about themselves; it mattered only what others said about them.
Eva hadn’t learned of Melanie’s predicament until two months after she started working for her, and it wasn’t until a full month after that she came to understand Melanie’s associations—that is, who she spoke to, spent time with, had over to the house—were likely being scrutinized, too. People like her. Eva had known then she needed a different posting. Producing a good reason for asking for one was tricky, though. She had a highly desirable assignment. When she’d asked her supervisor, Lorraine, for a change due to the hour-long commute each day—a rather good excuse, she thought—she was told that Mr. Edwards had expressly chosen Eva. She was the preferred Marvelous Maid for Melanie Cole, and so she’d now be compensated for the two hours on the bus each day as well as for her bus fare.
Lorraine had beamed when she’d said this. No Marvelous Maid had ever earned the hourly rate while riding a bus to get to work, let alone been reimbursed for bus fare.
“I have extra nightgowns, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Melanie had added, her tone having warped from expectant to annoyed. “And it’s just one night. I really don’t think I’m asking too much, Eva. I will pay you the extra in cash. The agency doesn’t have to know.”
In the end Eva had agreed. Itwasjust one night. There was at that moment no stray car on the cul-de-sac with a strange driver sitting inside it, peering at the house. And the extra money? If she was going to need to start over again with a new job, the extra money would sure help.
She’d slept fitfully in Melanie’s spacious guest room and risen before the sun to make the requested coffee and breakfast and to rouse the actress if she slept through her alarm.
But when Eva emerged from the guest room, the actress was already up. Melanie stood now in the dark at the slightly open sliding door that led to the back patio, smoking a cigarette.
“Oh! Good morning, ma’am,” Eva said, startled.
The actress turned to her. Dawn was only just beginning to steal across the sky, and the actress looked beautiful in the gleaming light of the still-visible moon. Melanie Cole had all the features a camera surely loved. Golden brown hair that fell in soft waves past her shoulders. Eyes the same verdigris green as meadow grass in springtime. Slender legs and a small waist and nicely proportioned everywhere else.
Even with her hair tousled and no cosmetics on her face, Melanie was stunning. Eva had the same build and nearly the same hair color, but she knew she was merely pleasant-looking.
“I couldn’t sleep,” the actress said, as though replying to a different comment than Eva’s morning greeting.
“I…Would you care for your coffee now, ma’am?” Eva asked.
“Can’t you just please call me Melanie? I feel like an old woman every time you call me ma’am. I’m only twenty-five.”
“Certainly, ma’am. I mean…”
“Melanie.”
“Yes. Melanie.”
Eva waited for an answer about the coffee, but there wasn’t one.Instead, the actress brought the cigarette to her lips as she turned back toward the glass doors. A dry breeze instead of the usual morning coastal mist was ruffling the sheer curtains. Melanie tipped her head back, drew in a breath, and then exhaled. Smoke swirled above her head and out the narrow opening at the door like a streamer made of gauze.
She pointed to the neighbor’s house with her cigarette. “Elwood’s sister-in-law is out there digging up his roses. Why in the world is she doing that?”
Eva fumbled for an answer. “You mean, so early in the morning?”
“No. I mean, why would June tear up his rosebushes? Elwood is very fond of them. He told me so. They’re not hers.”
“I…I don’t know, ma’am. I mean Melanie.”
“Come look.”
Eva closed the distance between them and looked out toward the neighbor’s backyard. The patio lights were on, and Eva could see the head and shoulders of Melanie’s neighbor, June Blankenship, just over the fence, bending out of view every few seconds as she drove a shovel into the ground. The woman lifted what appeared to be a rosebush, took a few paces, and then disappeared from sight as she bent forward with the bush and lowered it to the dirt.
“I think…I think she might be planting rosebushes,” Eva said. “Or moving them around maybe?”
Melanie shook her head. “Elwood is going to flip. He is very particular about those bushes. I don’t think she should be doing that.”
Eva didn’t know what to say to this. She’d never actually met the next-door neighbors, though Melanie had told her that the writer who lived there, Elwood Blankenship, had been in a bad accident some years back and now never came outside. His twin brother’swidow, June, lived with him and did his grocery shopping and laundry and all that. Eva also knew that when Melanie had been blacklisted and Carson Edwards moved her from Hollywood to Malibu to get her away from the press and prying eyes, she’d found a friend and unlikely confidant in Elwood Blankenship. Elwood was an accepted member of the Hollywood universe Melanie had been kicked out of, and therefore on good terms with all the people who now refused to hire her. He was additionally, near as Eva could tell, good at giving advice. She hadn’t meant to overhear their telephone or over-the-fence conversations, but Melanie wasn’t one to whisper. Especially when she was upset.
The last conversation Eva overheard had been a little over a week ago when she’d been in the backyard, shaking out a rug. Melanie was at the side of the house, talking with Elwood across the fence as he stood at an open window on his upper story. It would have been impossible not to hear them.