Chapter Eleven. The Perfect Family

He’d put that song about chestnuts on the jukebox that everybody was already sick of but couldn’t help playing anyway.





Then Chinaski brought up Andy Hardy, and the rumors that the installment about to be released would be the last.






“Never was a better showcase for young starlets," Snyder said. “This, gentleman, is an outrage to the lover of the budding tit.”






“Well, things change quickly in this old town,” Young said.





“Where do you find inspiration for the all-American family?” Johnny asked. Then, in one voice, they yelled, “Carvel!”






“He said to let you in,” the guard at the MGM gate told them. “But he also said to tell you not even to think about any male hustlers on his backlot."






Already forgotten under a slate-gray December sky, the Carvel set was no more substantial than a ghost town.






“I’ve been watching the Hardys pulling their shenanigans on this street since I was eighteen," Ed said. "I swear to God I used to think it was a real town.”

He’d been carrying a torch for the Garland kid—more of a Zippo, really, but still a flame—since he’d first seen her in an Andy Hardy movie back when he and Ed were still cranking out pulp in the Big Apple.






“Yeah,” Lana said. “I grew up in a little town in Idaho, just like the Hardys."





"Until mother dear drove us to Hollywood to sell her little girl’s budding beauty to the movies.”






“Ah, that’s okay,” Lana said, turning a wicked grin on Judy. “Hollywood’s just full of kindly father figures dying to take care of a little girl."






Lana’s eyes turned to black coals.





Judy’s filled with tears.

Donna was a looker too, but somehow not as easy to needle as the other gals, like she was already more of a mom than a dame.





“That was your life, wasn’t it, honey? Raised by Ma and Pa on the farm? Gingham dresses?”

"It could've been worse," Donna said. "But it was also so damned boring that the minute I graduated high school I was on a bus to L.A. to become a movie star.”





They began walking through the great lot. From Carvel they cut through a Caribbean seaport, crossed Broadway, skirted Nanking, and came out in Tarzan’s jungle.






Hugh’s face provided a preview of the news the instant he opened the door.





"Fred says he’s awfully sorry, and he hopes this doesn’t stop you from going to see him in Suddenly It’s Spring, costarring Paulette Goddard.”






Rolling up the Garden of Edna’s driveway came a great Duesenberg glittering with a promise and elegance that neither automobiles nor Hollywood had seen since before the war.






"See, L.B.’s hearing isn’t quite what it used to be, and he thought he’d heard that you’d made a movie for Lasky Pictures."





“But boys,” Young said. “This is Hollywood. All anyone cares about is what you did last!”






Then Hugh got up, as quickly as he could without seeming to be in a rush, and went inside, leaving Ed and Johnny in the gathering gloom.



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