The Traitor's Wife

by Sarah Steele

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Thrillers

Synopsis

Naples, 1943. Luisa Giordano has faced many losses: her mother to a deadly illness, the man she loved to the Nazis, her unborn child at the hands of her husband. All Luisa has left is her voice, and when she learns her husband is colluding with the enemy, she knows she must use it to fuel the women of Naples with fire. Los Angeles, 1962. Hollywood starlet Lola Hart has come a long way from the backstreets of Naples, the glamorous parties a way to dull past pains. When she is offered the role of a lifetime portraying a heroine of the Italian resistance, she knows returning home means confronting old ghosts. But seeking out the story behind the film, she realises there are many in Naples with secrets, and that the woman she is to play held the greatest one of all. . .

Release date: August 1, 2023

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

Naples, September 1943

Her lungs screamed in pain as she ran, the hot air thick with cordite and dust as Naples entered the endgame of years of war. Luisa followed by instinct and muscle memory the maze of narrow, deep alleys, dodging burning trucks and small skirmishes. All around, gunfire crackled and explosions shook the ground, rumbles of thunder indistinguishable from the sound of battle as storm clouds bubbled overhead.

If he had imagined locking her up could keep her from fighting, then he was even more of a fool than she already took him for. She had called upon the women of Naples to show the Germans they were as powerful as any tank or machine-gun. She had roused an army of lionesses, and it was to these women that she now ran.

She reached the main street, smoke from a burning German tank hovering so that it seemed for a moment as though Mount Vesuvius, visible in the distance, had played its part in the drama. From the steps of a church, a dust-drenched elderly priest stood exposed to the violence of the Naples sun, arms wide and eyes closed as he intoned the words of a psalm: ‘He has turned their wickedness against them,’ he cried out. ‘He will destroy them because of their sins.’

Further along, a tank had been blown off its tracks and its gun port crushed by a marble sink thrown from an overhead window, an angry crowd closing in as Germans scrambled from the bowels of the overturned metal beast. Their officer grabbed a young freedom fighter, holding a pistol to the boy’s head as he negotiated safe passage for the besieged soldiers.

She had paused too long, she realised, for she had been recognised by one of the women, her name now rippling through the crowd. The officer turned at this new distraction, his gaze whipping around until it landed on Luisa. ‘Halt!’ he shouted, and she began to run once more. She risked a brief glance back, in time to see him fire off a few threatening shots as he took up chase, quickly gaining on her before she darted into a side street.

Luisa slipped into the dark courtyard of a once grand palazzo, where homeless mothers had made a makeshift camp. No one spoke as she picked her way through dirty mattresses and buckets, looking over her shoulder to make sure the German had not followed her. He knew who she was, and he knew the price on her head. She pressed herself into a doorway in the far corner of the courtyard, forcing herself to breathe slowly through her nose as she held a finger up to silence a small child watching her. She waited for thirty seconds, a minute, two minutes, before she finally allowed herself to close her eyes and let out a long breath.

When she opened them again, it was to see the barrel of a German revolver inches from her face. She straightened her shoulders and stared directly into the soldier’s pale blue eyes, her hand around the tiny pistol deep in her pocket.

And then, just as he released the safety catch, the heavens opened with a thunderous crack that shook the ground and caused children to scream. The street outside was drenched instantly with the rain that had threatened to fall for days, torrents of filthy water bursting into the courtyard as families scuttled to rescue their belongings.

She tightened her finger around the trigger of the hidden pistol. ‘Do it,’ she said to the German, her voice a rasping whisper. ‘Shoot me if you dare. I am Maddalena.’

Hollywood, 1964

Lola prised her eyelids open, the lash-framed burst of light making her believe for a moment that she was stepping out of a Cadillac on Rodeo Drive, her hourglass figure poured into a cocktail dress that hinted at more than it revealed, photographers shouting at her to smile, to pout, to give them the shot that would pay the mortgage for a month. That would all come later, but for now she lay beside the pool paid for with the glossy black hair and almond-shaped eyes that graced sultry romances and quirky comedies.

The poolboy quietly sifted the rippled surface of the water as a cooling sea breeze rolled in from the Pacific. She had no idea how long she had lain here in her tiny yellow bikini, but as she ran her hand along her thigh, it was hot to the touch. She could stay here all day listening to the cicadas and the distant growl of traffic crawling along Sunset Boulevard far below, if it weren’t for Johnny telling her not to darken her Latin skin too much. ‘They like you exotic,’ he’d warned, ‘but not so much that you could be their maid.’ It was a tough lesson, but one she had learned the hard way. She might have hit the A list now, but Lola had been mistaken for the hired help too many times when she had first arrived in Hollywood.

The heat of the Hollywood hills did not bother Lola. She had grown up a stone’s throw from the streets of Naples, its tenements as tall as palm trees, and where sailors, grandmothers and priests scurried from bar to bakery to confessional. The alleys latticing the city were dark fissures whose life-sapping cauldron heat was as dangerous as the shadowed doorways where flashing knife-blades patiently waited.

She’d done well for a girl from the rough part of town, whose father had banished her to the other side of the world. What became of you, Papa? she wondered now. Still sitting in your cramped fourth-floor apartment while your wife waits for you to die so that she can live? She had come to thank him for deporting her to the cheap-veneer Little Italy restaurant in New York, where the only tips she received were the wandering hands of the customers and a free pizza each shift. Every penny left over from her meagre wages went on night school, where Lolita took English classes twice a week, studying for the other five nights. In no time she could tell any sleazeballs who tried it on with her to back off in their own language. If she hadn’t been waitressing in that grimy dive, though, she would never have met Stanley Goldmann, the Hollywood producer who dropped by one night and spotted the starlet behind the cutesy apron and big green eyes. The rest was history, and this white cube of glass and marble she called home was a symbol of just how far she’d come.

Lola pulled herself up from the sunlounger and positioned herself at the edge of the pool. For a moment she imagined she was on the rocks at Posillipo, a short bus ride from Naples city centre, nut-brown semi-naked boys daring her to dive. One of them folded his arms, more interested in watching than shouting. It was for him that she took a deep breath before plunging into the sea, willing him to admire her young, lithe body. It was to him that she eventually yielded her carefully guarded heart that sultry summer, before she learned to pack it away once more, bruised and battered. Occasionally the lid on the box of her former life cracked open unbidden, and she felt once more the pain and shame of her last months in Naples, but always she slammed it shut again.

Lola lifted her arms above her head and reached up on crimson-painted tiptoe, softening her knees before launching herself fingertips-first into the pool. The splashes from her entry into the water evaporated instantly on the hot ground as her former life was washed away in this daily exercise of rebirth and of reconstructing the fragile carapace protecting her.

She gasped as she surfaced, chlorinated water streaming down her face, her hair a black cloak floating behind her. Lolita Vaccaro had been shed once more, and in her place was Lola Hart, queen of Hollywood.

‘Hey, baby, you look great.’ Johnny slid behind her as she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, clipping clusters of diamonds to her ears. He clasped his hands around her waist, nuzzling her neck.

‘Stop it,’ she laughed. ‘It took two hours to put my hair up.’

‘Well, if you will bare that long neck of yours, don’t be surprised if people want to kiss it.’

Lola turned and slipped her arms around him. ‘You can do that all you like later, honey, but right now you need to put me down. We’re leaving in ten minutes.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips, tasting his early-evening Jack Daniel’s. ‘Make yourself useful and do me up, will you?’ She turned around, hands on hips and breathing in as he pulled the zipper up to her waist, where it was concealed by a huge bow marking the lowest point of the strapless gold brocade gown.

He patted her on the backside and frowned. ‘Someone been sneaking out to the milk bar?’

‘You saying I’m fat?’

‘I’m not saying anything. Only that if you’re going to be in that new Rock Hudson film, you’ll be spending a lot of time in a swimsuit.’

She looked at her profile in the mirror. There was not a spare ounce of flesh on her, except where the public demanded flesh, and where her breasts and hips balanced each other perfectly, her waist was tiny, her arms and legs toned by her daily swims. But maybe Johnny was right: perhaps she’d skip dessert tonight.

‘Hey, if it were up to me, I’d let you eat ice cream all day.’

She smiled. ‘You know me. You can take the girl out of Italy . . .’

He turned her to face him. ‘You’re perfect, babe. And I can’t wait to get you to myself later.’

Why did he have to be so goddamn irresistible? she wondered, as she looked at his jaw carved from the rugged Texas desert, the oiled blond hair. Never had a man looked better in a tux, and if his tongue was a little sharp sometimes, he compensated for it in other ways. During those early days after she was signed by the studio, it was Johnny who was always by her side, helping her learn to swim in the strange waters where she knew none of the rules, and where all the night-school language classes in LA couldn’t help her keep up with the gossip and banter across the movie lot. He had been her tour guide, chaperone and interpreter, and she would always love him for making her feel a little less like the outsider. Besides, if there were an Oscar for best-looking movie couple, it would be sitting on her mantelpiece right now.

She noticed the slight tremor in his fingers as he fiddled with his bow tie. He was nervous. The dinner with the Goldmanns that evening was a big deal, potentially literally if Johnny could get on to Stanley’s new picture. Recently Johnny had been spending more time shooting pool than shooting movies, and he needed a new project of his own. She would never say anything, of course, but things had shifted, and Johnny Jones’s star would be firmly in the descendant if it weren’t for Lola. A couple of expensive flops had been enough to chink the armour, and there was nothing Hollywood could sniff out as keenly as an actor on the back foot.

But now Stanley Goldmann wanted Johnny to read for his new movie – or at least that’s the line she had asked her old friend to take. Things were looking up.

The new project was a war movie about Naples, and Lola had already made it clear to Stanley that she didn’t want to be involved: the only way she would revisit the place of her birth was by watching the rushes. She had worked hard at burying her skeletons, and she wasn’t going to start digging them up any time soon. Johnny was welcome to this one, even if she worried how he would cope with the subject matter. He was one of the many Second World War veterans whose ghosts only reared their heads during their troubled sleep, and Lola had spent enough nights with Johnny to know some things stayed with you for ever, like it or not. Damn it if she didn’t know it herself.

‘You’re coming back here tonight?’ she said, running her fingers down the satin lapels of his jacket. All Stanley’s talk of Naples had unsettled her, and she didn’t want to be on her own that night. ‘Or shall I come to yours?’ She didn’t mind staying over at Johnny’s, although she preferred her own home, where there was a maid, clean sheets, a pool that was not just a repository for cigarette butts and dead flies, a fridge full of food not booze.

‘I was thinking about that, honey.’ He frowned, and she quelled the panic that she had said something wrong, that he would abandon her just as she needed him.

‘You don’t want to come back here?’

‘Of course I do, babe.’

‘Then what is it?’ she said, adjusting his bow tie.

‘It just seems crazy, us keeping two houses.’

Lola often thought that having two houses was exactly what kept them together. ‘It works, though, doesn’t it?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not good at this “feelings” stuff, but you know I love you?’

‘Of course. I love you too.’

‘And we’re only getting older . . .’

She laughed. ‘You might be about to hit forty, honey, but I’m still the right side of thirty.’

‘For now. And then what? You think you can keep playing the sexy señorita for ever?’

‘Signorina. I’m Italian, not Spanish.’

‘You know what I mean.’

Sometimes she wasn’t sure she did know what he meant, but sometimes she knew exactly. This was not the moment to challenge him, though, while he was licking his lips like a busboy on his first shift at Musso & Frank’s. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying maybe it’s time we made it official. Tied the knot.’ He smiled his lopsided smile and she felt the Pavlovian twist in her gut that kept her coming back for more.

‘Johnny, what are you doing . . . ?’

He knelt at her feet, and while half of her wanted to scream at him to get up, the other yearned for the life they could have if he sorted himself out.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a velvet-covered box. ‘Lola Hart, I love you,’ he said. ‘Will you be my wife and the mother of my children?’

‘Children?’ she said, instinctively leaning back. She hadn’t seen that one coming, had put thoughts of making a proper family one day firmly out of reach.

‘Lola, don’t make me beg.’ He held the box out towards her, and there were tears in his eyes as she took it from him.

‘Jeez, did you break into Liz Taylor’s closet?’ she said, opening the box to reveal a diamond the size of her thumbnail.

‘You like it?’

Damn him, she thought. He knew she was a sucker for a bit of sparkle – what former street kid wasn’t? – and that despite the brittle exterior she was a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl when it came to romance.

And so she let him take her hand and slip the dazzling rock of a contract on to her finger.

Mrs Johnny Jones. She tried it out in her head. It didn’t quite fit yet, but she would make sure it did.

*

‘Hey, drive round the block once more, would you?’ Johnny asked the driver of Lola’s fresh-off-the-production-line candy-pink Cadillac.

As the man shrugged and pulled away, Lola turned to Johnny. ‘Why’d you do that?’ she said. ‘We’ll be late.’

‘Didn’t you see who was just getting out of that Pontiac?’ he said, gesturing back towards the scrum of photographers and popping lightbulbs outside the Art Deco façade of Perino’s, the hottest spot in town.

‘Does it matter?’

‘That was Audrey Hepburn. Want to be eclipsed on our big night? Hey, why don’t you put on those long black gloves in your handbag? That diamond will show up nicely against them.’

Lola looked at the ring, which already felt too heavy. ‘Baby, you didn’t ask me to marry you just so we could get our picture in Variety, did you?’

He turned to face her, hurt written all over him. ‘Babe, really? I just want the world to see how much I love you.’

She leaned against him. ‘I’m sorry. I know you do.’

Johnny banged his fist on the roof of the car. ‘Hey, you can pull over now,’ he said as they approached once again the stream of luxury cars.

The photographers hanging around outside the restaurant scrutinised the rear window of Lola’s car, a buzz of excitement spreading as they spotted her. She should love this part of the job, but still she felt like the upstart immigrant. Would she ever believe she had earned her right to be here? She took a deep breath then wrapped her mink stole around her shoulders and set her smile as the chauffer opened the door and Johnny climbed out. To a flash of popping lightbulbs she emerged legs-first, letting Johnny lead her on to the red-carpeted pavement.

They paused beneath the restaurant canopy whilst she posed coquettishly for the cameras, left hand cupping her chin, Johnny’s arm around her bare shoulder peeping beyond the mink that had slipped just far enough to show off her long neck and the swell of her breasts.

‘Hey, Lola, you got a new ring?’ one of the photographers shouted, tipping his trilby back on his head.

A murmur spread amongst the men. ‘Lola, is he making an honest woman of you at last?’ one of them shouted.

She responded by giving them exactly what they wanted, looking up at Johnny and planting a kiss on his lips.

‘I sure am,’ Johnny said as he waved then placed his hand on her bare lower back, allowing the doorman to show them inside.

It was hard to make themselves heard over the hubbub of chatter and music in the packed restaurant, diners dressed as though for an Academy Awards ceremony. She looked around: there was Cary Grant, Natalie Wood, Jayne Mansfield in a barely decent lowcut gown. Class, Lola wanted to tell her, was what kept you in this room; cleavage was soon yesterday’s news.

As a white-tuxedoed waiter led them to their party, Lola was aware of being watched by men and women alike. Half the room lusted after her, their women looking at her as if to say ‘Make the most of it, honey. It won’t last for ever.’ There was little love lost within a sisterhood whose survival depended on being the youngest, slimmest, richest.

The Goldmanns were deep in conversation with a young man Lola had never seen before, and Stanley stood as he saw them approach. ‘Johnny, good to see you,’ he said, his white bow tie tucked beneath countless double chins and the buttons of his dress shirt straining. ‘And Lola, honey. Looking gorgeous. Didn’t I tell you she can give Sophia Loren a run for her money, Joe?’ he said to the young man seated on one side of him.

‘Stop embarrassing her,’ Betty Goldmann said, cuffing her husband then exchanging cheek kisses with Lola. ‘Or Joe,’ she added, seeing the young man’s pale, freckled complexion burst into a light blush.

‘Joe Murphy here is my new writing talent,’ Stanley explained as Johnny and Lola took their seats. ‘We’re lucky to have him on board for this project.’

The young man appeared ill at ease in his shiny new dinner jacket, glancing an awkward half-smile at Lola. She imagined he would rather be sitting in a smoky piano bar somewhere with other equally clever-looking young men, laughing at the sort of people he instead found himself with. Part of her wished she were in that piano bar too.

‘This is Johnny Jones,’ Stanley went on. ‘He’s trying out for the male lead.’

Joe raised an eyebrow. ‘The best-looking resistance fighter in Naples? I thought we were going gritty, Stanley.’

‘You write it, and I’ll cast it, Joe.’ Stanley smiled at Lola. ‘And this is the young lady who served me the worst pizza in New York and ended up being my best actress.’

‘Lola’s also my fiancée, as of about an hour ago,’ Johnny interrupted. Lola noted a flash of surprise cross Betty’s face, the indifference in Joe’s expression.

‘Congratulations are in order, in that case.’ Stanley turned to snap his fingers at a passing waiter. ‘Champagne,’ he called out in his New Jersey drawl before ordering a table’s-worth of devilled crab and filet mignon.

‘I’ll have the salad,’ Lola said, adding as she saw eyes turn to her, ‘I’ve got swimsuit scenes next week.’

‘Nonsense.’ Betty leaned across the table to pat her hand. ‘You need feeding up. How about you come over one evening for my meatloaf, sweetheart?’

‘If only,’ Lola laughed.

‘You don’t get to decide what you eat?’ Joe said in a soft Irish accent.

‘Young fella, you got a lot to learn. If the studio is paying Lola, then she eats what they damn well tell her to.’ Stanley turned to the others. ‘Fresh as a newly dug potato, but Joe’s one of the best writers I’ve come across.’

‘Then I hope it’s worth it for you,’ Joe said to Lola, who felt a childish urge to needle him.

‘I reckon Love Boulevard was worth four months of starving.’ She was on shaky ground, she knew: the box office takings for her latest movie would keep her in Cadillacs and furs for a good couple of years, but it was hardly high art.

‘Afraid I missed that one.’

Stanley leaned back as he lit a fat cigar. ‘Not highbrow enough for you, eh, Joe?’ he chuckled.

‘Romance is not really my thing, but I’ve seen you can act,’ Joe went on. ‘Why do you keep doing these second-rate movies? I mean, I know the money must be good—’

‘Hey,’ Johnny cut in, leaning across the table and pointing at Joe, ‘show some respect.’

Joe held his hands up. ‘No offence intended.’

Lola sensed Johnny tensing beside her, and so she pulled his arm around her and leaned against his shoulder. ‘It’s fine, Johnny. Joe’s new in town. As Stanley said, he doesn’t know how things work around here.’

Joe shrugged. ‘I just think some of Lola’s films are way beneath her.’

Stanley clapped him on the shoulder. ‘OK, son. That’s enough. If you want off this picture, then you just carry on like that.’

‘He’s right, though,’ Lola heard herself saying. She was bored playing the busty barmaid to John Wayne’s gunslingers, bored of being cast so that husbands wouldn’t mind being dragged along to see ninety minutes of romantic drivel. ‘Most of the films I’ve made are pretty goddamn awful. Sorry, Betty,’ she added.

‘They’re the films that made your name,’ Johnny said, squeezing her thigh just a little too hard. ‘I think Lola’s trying to say that she’s real grateful for the parts she’s had. Isn’t that right, baby?’

‘Sure. Anyway, tonight is about Johnny, and what he can do for this new movie.’

‘Thanks for considering me for this role, Stanley,’ Johnny said, and Lola heard the fragility in his voice.

Lola looked at Stanley, shaking her head almost imperceptibly as she willed him not to let on that Johnny was only being considered because Lola had begged for the chance.

‘No promises, Johnny,’ Stanley said, holding up one hand, ‘but I’m open to discussion.’

Johnny pulled his hand away from Lola. ‘I like the sound of this film. You know I was in France in the war? You want someone who understands what it was like back then.’

‘Well, it’s Naples, not France . . .’ Stanley said.

‘And I know I could do a good job.’

‘I’ve no doubt you’d make a great lead. And you’d have your own Neapolitan coach, hey, Lola?’

She shook her head. ‘Not me. I’ve not been there for years.’

‘You’re from Naples?’ Joe asked.

‘Near Naples.’

Did she detect a look pass between Stanley and Joe, a subtle nod as though a cue had been given?

‘Hey, Joe,’ Stanley said, ‘maybe there’s a part for Lola in this new movie?’

And there it was. This dinner wasn’t about Johnny at all: it was a setup to get her on board.

‘But it’s a war film,’ said Johnny. ‘Not exactly Lola’s style.’

Stanley leaned back, stabbing the air with his cigar. ‘It’s not such a bad idea, you know? Lola here is from the city – and she’s just proved she didn’t leave her Italian temper behind when she left. Is there a part for her, Joe?’

‘No . . .’ Lola’s heart raced with panic. She had worked hard talking Stanley into trying out Johnny for the film – he hadn’t been the first choice, but Stanley wondered if she’d consider reading for it too. She’d refused, but it seemed Stanley wasn’t giving up.

‘Sure,’ Joe said. ‘Johnny’s reading for the part of the guy who headed up an insurrection against the Germans. Maybe he had a wife. Or we could write one in for him.’

‘But Lola’s busy,’ Johnny said. ‘Once she’s finished shooting The Good Things, she’s reading for the new Rock Hudson movie. He’s asked for her specifically.’

‘You leave him to me.’ Stanley smiled across the table, popping on his cigar.

Lola sat up straighter. ‘Stanley, please, you know I can’t go back to Naples . . .’ she said quietly.

‘Besides, I don’t see Lola in a war movie,’ Johnny added, his voice a little louder. ‘Far as I recall, when we landed in France and worked our way across Europe, none of the women was prancing around in a bathing suit. No, this is a part for a heavyweight actress.’

She sat up straight. How dare he? She remembered those desperate war years when her mother had struggled to feed Lola, her older brother away fighting in the mountains, never to come back. No other actress in Hollywood would play this role like she could. But then no other actress would find it as difficult to return to Naples as Lola might.

‘I reckon it’s just what Lola’s career needs,’ Stanley said.

‘Come on, Stanley.’ Johnny sat back, his arms spread wide. ‘And Joe – you know it too. Lola’s a wrong fit for this movie.’

‘She’s also sitting right here,’ Lola snapped.

Betty leaned across towards her. ‘Well said, honey.’

‘Thing is,’ Stanley said, ‘I need this movie to make money. And if it’s going to do that, I got to have faces the public want to see. And right now they can’t get enough of Lola.’

‘Did you know about this?’ Johnny asked Lola.

‘I told you, I don’t want to go back to Naples, and I don’t want to be in this movie.’ Lola glared at Stanley. ‘I mean it.’

Stanley sat back, watching her with narrowed eyes. ‘But Lola, you know Naples, you know what happened there, you know the women. The part is made for you. Imagine: the resistance fighter and his beautiful wife?’

Betty smiled. ‘Well, wouldn’t that just be adorable? The two of you together?’

Johnny tapped his knife on the table. ‘You saying I only get the gig if Lola comes too?’

Stanley shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’

‘Well, that’s how it sounds.’

‘Listen, kid, I can cast someone else if you don’t like it.’

Lola felt the champagne churn in her stomach. Johnny needed this job, and unless she agreed to do the movie, he would be out of work pretty soon.

Johnny turned to her, his eyes already burning for the oblivion he would find in a bottle of Jack Daniel’s as soon as they got home. ‘You want to take the part?’

‘No, but I want you to be in this movie. And so I guess I have no choice, do I?’

Stanley looked across the table at Johnny. ‘Whaddya say, Johnny? Golden couple playing side by side?’

Johnny let out a heavy, loaded sigh that told Lola this wasn’t over yet. He picked up his champagne, downing it in one and refilling it instantly. ‘Who am I to get in the way?’ He looked at her. ‘But only if you don’t get the part in the Hudson movie, right?’

‘Sure,’ she said quietly.

It was a victory only Stanley seemed to celebrate as he ordered another bottle, Betty watching Lola from across the table with the look of a mother who’s about to send her child off to a summer camp run by convicts, and Joe unable to meet her eye as he played with the cuff of his dinner jacket.

Beside her, Johnny’s anger prickled tangibly, so that she wanted to scratch at her bare arm. She had found herself the perpetrator of an accidental and unwished-for crime.

Lola loved this part of the day, when the setting sun turned the dusty, scrubby hills into something magical and directors across the city wrapped up the Martini scene so that movie folk could melt away from the studio and into bars across the city. Beverly Hills for the highest paycheques; downtown LA for the runners and the extras.

Her own scene nearly done, Lola was desperate to get out of the corset-tight swimsuit, until finally the director called time and the whole set breathed a collective sigh of relief. It had been a long day’s filming, and the six a.m. call the next morning had already been brought forward an hour after Rudi Jackson’s two-hour tantrum about Lola literally stealing his light. Lola gave it six months before Rudi’s good looks were drowned out by a greasy uniform in the twenty-four-hour diner of movie history. The young Italian would soon learn, as Lola had, that kids from the wrong side of the tracks were only tolerated if they learned their place and stuck to it.

She would be glad to see the back of this movie, truth be told. The more she found out about Stanley’s new picture, the more she felt reluctantly drawn to the Italian hero’s wife, despite her resistance to bringing Naples back into her life. Most of the movie could be shot in Hollywood, however, Stanley insisted, promising he’d look out for her.

Right now Lola just wanted to get back to her honeywagon and change into the white Capri pants and tie-front shirt she had arrived in before the sun had even risen. And when she’d taken off the make-up and driven herself home, she might even give her daily swim a miss. The last thing she could face was another swimsuit, and the hairdresser would kill her if she did anything other than stick her hair in curlers overnight. She could do a little callisthenics instead. Maybe. Or lie out flat on her new white settee, eating contraband Twinkies.

A few crew members still hung around the fake East Coast mansion and pool with its Grecian columns and urns full of flowers shipped in fresh each morning. As the lighting rigs were shut down for the night, the set suddenly loo