Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“Anything to pass the time. Can I buy you boys a drink?”

She was surprised by her ease and familiarity with the press. Well, why not? That was Hollywood. They were all part of the same culture, weren’t they? Others didn’t understand what it was like out there. The weather was beautiful. It seldom rained, although the bougainvillea and orange trees seemed to bloom year-round. The actors and producers and directors and news reporters and the army of people behind the camera were guests at a party that never ended, one that began with a mist-shrouded sunrise over the Santa Ana Mountains and at night was domed with the constellations and rimmed by waves that created a sensation like an erotic kiss when they surged around her thighs.

The two journalists sitting on the pale blue vinyl couch seemed like pleasant and considerate men, not lighting cigarettes without asking permission, the man with the Graflex dropping his used flashbulbs in his coat pocket so the porter would not have to clean up after him, both of them smiling good-naturedly. She particularly liked the older man. He said his name was Jimmy Flynn and that he had worked for several of the studios as a publicist and had been a correspondent during the war at the Battle of Monte Cassino and a friend of Ernie Pyle’s. He was handsome and dignified and wore a wedding band and addressed her as Miss Pine.

“Actually, I’m married,” she said.

“Out here, all actresses are eternally Miss,” he said. “What profession is your husband in, Miss Pine?”

“Do we have to go into that?”

“Not

if you don’t want to,” he said.

“He’s from an old plantation family in central Louisiana. But he’s in the oil business these days. He has his own company.”

“How do you like being with Warner Brothers?”

“It’s wonderful. Everyone has been very nice, Mr. Warner in particular.”

“I think I remember reading about your husband,” Jimmy Flynn said. He set down his pen. “He created a big breakthrough in natural gas technology, didn’t he? Something to do with welding machines.”

“That’s correct, he did.”

“His business partner is a man named Holland?”

“Yes, that’s true,” she said.

“They call themselves the Dixie Belle Pipeline Company.”

“It’s not what they call themselves. It’s the name of their company.”

Outside the window, she could see the headlights of the vehicles on Highway 66 veering angularly into a stretch of desert that was white and cratered and devoid of vegetation, even cactus.

“It’s quite a story, if I remember it correctly,” Flynn said. “They were in the war together. Mr. Holland brought back a girl who was a prisoner of the Nazis. She’s related to Rosa Luxemburg. Her father was a Communist.”

Linda Gail’s smile had faded. “I don’t know anything about that,” she said.

“Her name is Rosita. To your knowledge, is the wife of your husband’s business partner a Communist?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me this. I don’t know her.”

“Not at all?”

“I have met her, but I do not associate with her. Does that answer your question?”

“You didn’t know she was a Communist?”

“If I knew that, I would have reported her to someone.”

“Really?” Flynn said. “You’re a tough lady. She’s tough, isn’t she, Quinn?”

“Real tough,” the photographer said, blowing his cigarette smoke out the side of his mouth. “One more before we go, sweetheart. You don’t mind, do you?”

He didn’t wait for her answer or let her recover her composure. He popped the flashbulb three feet from her face. Even after they were gone, her eyes were filled with receding rings of red light, as though she had stared too long at the sun.

I WENT BACK TO work on the pipeline down in the Louisiana wetlands close to Grand Isle, and took Rosita with me. We stood on an oil platform at the southern tip of the state and gazed at the slate-green surface of the Gulf, the wind cold and smelling of salt and leakage from a well. Winter was on its way; the sky was black with thunderclouds and empty of pelicans and gulls. In the distance, I could see gas flares burning on three wells and lightning striking the water on the southern horizon, like gold wires without sound. Behind me was the largest and grandest watershed in North America. I wondered how long it would remain as such. Not far away was one of the channels our company had cut from the Gulf into freshwater swamp and marshland. The deleterious consequences had not been instantaneous, but their growing presence couldn’t be denied.