A Map to Paradise

by Susan Meissner

Genres: General Fiction; Friendship; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

1956, Malibu, California: Something is not right on Paradise Circle.

With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation.

Then one early morning Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone?
 
As they try to find out if something has happened to him, unexpected secrets are revealed among all three women, leading to an alliance that seems the only way for any of them to hold on to what they can still call their own. But it’s a fragile pact and one little spark could send it all up in smoke…

Release date: March 18, 2025

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 352

Sample

1

The last thing Eva Kruse wanted to do was risk drawing attention to herself, and yet she'd done it anyway.

She'd stayed overnight at Melanie Cole's house. Spent hour upon hour there instead of leaving at three in the afternoon as she usually did. Slept in the guest room bed as if an actual guest and not a paid-by-the-hour housekeeper who'd vowed to spend zero extra time at the actress's house.

Zero.

Yet there she stood, at daybreak in a borrowed nightgown.

When Melanie had told Eva she needed her to arrive that morning at six a.m. instead of nine, Eva had explained the best she could manage was a few minutes before eight. The two-bus commute from Los Angeles to Malibu was well over an hour. There was only one bus earlier than the one she picked up in Santa Monica, which still wouldn't get her there in time.

"It's just this once," Melanie had pleaded, as though Eva had said instead that she didn't want to start her workday when it was still dark. "I've an important call from the East Coast at seven thirty. I need my breakfast and a good pot of coffee and my dress ironed-even if no one is going to see me. I need to look and feel confident and poised, Eva. It's an extremely important call. I need you to come at six. Please. Just this one time."

"I am sorry, Miss Cole. The other bus does not come to my second stop until after seven." Eva had enunciated each word carefully so that her accented English couldn't be misunderstood.

She'd hoped the actress would call Marvelous Maids and at last, at last, ask for a different housekeeper-one who had a car or a husband who could drive or who lived closer or who had access to better bus routes. She was being paid at the top level for this posting-the most she'd been paid for any housekeeping job since arriving in America four years earlier. No one quits a plum posting without it raising questions. But if Melanie had asked for another maid, it would've solved all Eva's problems.

The most pressing one, anyway. The one that often kept her up at night.

"Then just stay over tonight," Melanie had said. "You'll already be here when my alarm goes off in the morning, so you can make sure I get up. It's a very important call."

"I don't know . . ." Eva's mind had spun with possible excuses. Staying over was a bad idea if Melanie was being watched. It was probably a bad idea even if she wasn't being watched. Sometimes Eva cried out in her sleep. And not in Polish.

"What don't you know?" Melanie had asked, brows knitted. "Is it the money? I'll pay you for the extra hours, even though you're not going to be doing anything while you're sleeping."

"No, it is . . ." Eva's voice had fallen away as words for the reason for her hesitancy fought to take shape in her mouth; a reason she had no intention of giving.

She shouldn't be working for Melanie Cole, plain and simple. The Hollywood starlet had been suspected of communist ties six months earlier and been blacklisted. No studio, big or little, would hire her now. Melanie Cole didn't need anyone in her orbit who might reinforce the idea that she wasn't a patriot. The actress hadn't been singled out; Eva knew that. There were plenty of other Hollywood people caught up in the long and ongoing hunt to rout out socialist sympathizers, including that famous actor Melanie had starred alongside and who was paying the rent on this house.

And who slept over when he was in town.

That film with heartthrob Carson Edwards had apparently been Melanie's first big role, and audiences had adored her. This Eva had learned from her landlady, Yvonne. Eva herself hadn't seen the movie. Fans and the tabloids had loved even more that Melanie and Carson were "an item," but when he'd been named a suspected communist and summarily blacklisted, Melanie had been, too. Guilt by association. The adoration of the public had evaporated as quickly as morning dew. Yvonne had told her all of this, too.

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 talk about 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. It was just 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's widow, 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.

Melanie had been telling Elwood she'd gotten a letter from Washington laying out for her what the government's expectations were if she wanted to prove her innocence.

"I'm not un-American!" Melanie had been shouting up to the window. "I was a Girl Scout, for heaven's sake. I sang the National Anthem at my high school football games! I have done nothing wrong, Elwood. Ask anyone at the studio! Anyone."

"But this isn't about what you have done or not done, Melanie," Elwood had said, his voice gliding down unhurriedly to Melanie's side of the fence. Eva got the impression he didn't often raise his voice. "It's about who they think you are. And who you associate with."

"You mean who I sleep with," Melanie had shot back, and only slightly less loudly.

"Especially who you sleep with." His voice had still been gentle.

"Even if Carson is a communist-" Melanie had begun, but Elwood cut her off.

"You should probably just assume for the moment that they know something about him that you don't. I would."

"Why? Why should I do that?"

"Because word gets around in Hollywood, especially in the writers' circles, where there once were quite a number of Party members. And because you're only on the list because he is."

"But even if Carson is a communist, that doesn't mean that I am one!"

"I think perhaps those men in Washington suspect that you're not."

"Then why is all of this happening to me?"

"They suppose, if you are guilty, that you must know a great many people who are communists. Because you are in an intimate relationship with one. And that must mean you sympathize with a communist and what he believes in. Communist sympathizers are as great a threat to national security as communists. Maybe worse. That's how they see it."

"That's not what I am!"

"But this is what they see."

"They are wrong!"

"I am inclined to agree with you. The problem is not that they are wrong but that they are in a position to make your life difficult because they think they're right. They have power that you do not."

Eva had stopped shaking the rug but was glued to the spot as she listened.

"So I should do nothing?" Melanie had sounded on the verge of tears. "Is that what you're saying?"

"You can only do what is in your power to do, of course. That's all any of us can do about anything. But you can begin to do something by adjusting what they see."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"Well, for one thing, you can stop sleeping with a man they say is a communist."

"But I don't think-"

"They think he is. That's what you need to remember."

"He's paying my rent."

"And you don't see that as an additional problem here?"

"I can't afford this place without his help."

Elwood had sighed. He'd sounded tired to Eva, very tired, and it had been only a little past ten in the morning.

"And he's not even here right now," Melanie added.

"But he'll be back at some point, right? Don't you have family in Nebraska?" Elwood had asked wearily but still kindly.