June spun away, opened the patio door, and stepped inside her house.
The air around Melanie instantly became hushed.
She suddenly remembered Eva was standing next to her. “I’ll take that cup of coffee now.”
The two of them went back into the house.
Melanie paced and smoked as she drank her cup of coffee, waiting for June to call her. She drained a second cup the same way. When she could no longer put it off, she hopped into the shower. Done only minutes later, she toweled off quickly, opened the bathroom door, and learned from Eva that June had stopped over with a note while she was under the spray.
“Of course she had to come then,” Melanie grumbled as she took the small, folded piece of paper from Eva.
She read it. She took a seat on the closed commode and read it a second time.
And then a third.
All I can tell you is the truth will reveal itself, Melanie. It always does. You can bring it into the open yourself now if you want or you can wait for someone else to do it. Right now it’s your choice. But in the end, it will eventually find its way out.
You must live with what you decide however, so be sure you can.
Elwood
3
The call from a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee lasted only ten minutes, if that. When Melanie phoned her lawyer afterward, Walt told her the interviewer had merely been fishing.
“Fishing? Fishing for what?” she’d asked.
“To see if you’d be helpful. The HUAC doesn’t have anything on you except for your close relationship with a suspected communist.”
“Of course they don’t have anything. Because there’s nothing to have.”
“Except for what you know and who you saw, Melanie. They’d like to have that.”
The interviewer hadn’t wanted to question Melanie on politics. What mattered was who she’d seen with Carson Edwards. Who were his closest friends? Who did he spend the most time with? And what did they talk about?
The conversation had been short because Melanie didn’t answer the man’s questions with specifics. She’d answered them the way Walt had told her to. With ambiguity.
“You were on a sailboat with Carson Edwards in April of this year. Who else was on the boat, Miss Cole?”
“I don’t recall. They were Carson’s friends.”
“You don’t recall?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“You’re an actress who routinely memorizes hundreds of lines of script and yet you plan to tell this committee you can’t remember a few names?”
“I remember what I want to remember. I want to remember my lines in a script.”
“Who was with you and Mr. Edwards at the Trocadero the last time you were there?”
“I don’t recall.”
“And would you give that same answer under oath, Miss Cole?”
She’d shivered before answering.“I don’t recall who was there, sir.”
The man had told her she had not helped her case. If anything she’d made her predicament worse. Walt had told her the interviewer might say something like that if she refused to name names. Her heart was pounding when she hung up.
