“I think I’m engaged to Jesús!”
“That’s such great news! Congrats!” Jane gave Lindsey a big hug.
“Yeah, I am, like, so elated.”
“How did he propose?”
“He didn’t! I did!” Lindsey said proudly. “I was thinking, I know what I want, and it’s hard for him to make decisions—you know how people in recovery sometimes are so cautious—but we’d just had another great night out, then a great night in, and the next morning I woke up and thought, ‘This guy is so sweet, and so cute, and I want this forever’ so I asked him if he wanted to get engaged even though obviously I didn’t have any rings or the traditional stuff.”
“I love all that agency, all that taking control, good for you.”
“Yeah, I know, it felt great! And even if he hesitated, I didn’t take that personally, because I know he was so shocked and he hadn’t even had his coffee yet.”
“What did he say?” Jane asked.
“He said, ‘I think that sounds like a good idea.’ ”
This sounded rather tepid to Jane. “Are you getting rings?”
“I’m getting one for him, and we’ll see how he does for me. I don’t want a big diamond or anything, it’s not about that. If we do make it to the altar, Jane, it’s all due to your great work at Trader Joe’s that day, so you’ll get a major shout out at our wedding!”
“That’s so sweet. Unnecessary, but very sweet.”
“Anyway, I’m not going to get ahead of myself, I mean, let’s see if he comes up with a ring. So that’s my news!” Lindsey looked at the house, taking it in for the first time. “Oooh this house is so cuuuute, total Old Hollywood, I love it!”
A housekeeper wearing a smock answered the door.
“Please, come in. I will get Mr. Bert for you,” she said in lightly accented English as she motioned them toward the living room off the foyer.
Seated beside Lindsey on a plush white sofa, Jane scanned the room. The house was immaculate but had a slightly musty smell. French doors opened onto the backyard, flooding the room with light, making it feel sunny and warm. The decor, mostly black and white, had unexpected pink and peach accents, which somehow worked and even seemed elegant. A Steinway dominated one corner of the room: it was lacquered the shiniest of blacks, and on it perched an Emmy, a Grammy, some other trophies, and photos of Julie Robin throughout the years.
“So old-school, right?” Lindsey whispered.
“It’s like a time warp,” Jane replied.
The art was eclectic: some muted, delicate Japanese paintings on parchment, some blurry Impressionist paintings that may well have actually been Monet and Degas. A large glass bowl with a delicate botanical filagree, probably Steuben or Lalique,sat on the large glass coffee table. A chrome and glass étagère—very seventies—was filled with other fine glass pieces. A sleek bar cart, made of Lucite, laden with brandies, cognacs, and Waterford crystal decanters and highballs, might have been from the fifties. The large flat-screen television was the most modern object in the room, and though she couldn’t see one (it was probably tucked into a cabinet), Jane felt certain that somewhere there was a VCR plugged into it. There were artifacts that looked like they dated all the way back to the thirties, when the house was probably built, up to the nineties, at which point the house seemed to have been frozen in time. If time stood still here, at least all the different decades coexisted harmoniously.
“Hello, ladies, I’m Bert.”
Jane snapped out of her reverie and rose to her feet as Bert entered the room. He was tall and broad-shouldered, in his eighties but still very spry, with a full head of thick, steel gray hair and a mischievous gleam in his warm brown eyes.
“This is a big job and I’m very glad to have you both here to help me out.”
Jane, having done her usual due diligence on Wikipedia and IMDb, knew that Bert had been married to Julie for over fifty years. Their lifelong marriage was a feat so rare in Hollywood that it was almost transgressive. They’d met when Julie was starring in a movie he was producing, and quickly started a torrid affair. There may or may not have been some overlap with Bert’s first wife and with Julie’s Method-actory boyfriend, and as soon as they were each disentangled, they got married. Bert became her manager, somehow avoiding the usual pitfalls of a husband shepherding the career of his wife—there were no stories of squandered money, foolish choices, or matrimonial acrimony. The fact that there weren’t spoke volumes: Hollywood was suspicious ofmatrimonial harmony, but Burt and Julie seemed like such a solid partnership on all levels that they were impervious to gossip.
“We’re happy to be here,” Jane said. “Show us what you want us to organize, and we’ll get to it.”
“All the things we need to sort out—they are very personal. So I’ll probably stick around,” Bert told her.
“Of course, you absolutely should if you want to,” Jane said emphatically.
“I’ve been putting off dealing with it so my daughter, Jenny, is pushing me. She insisted on hiring you to force me to start.”
“Please don’t worry,” Lindsey reassured him. “We’ll do as little or as much as you want.”
Bert smiled at her gratefully. “Wonderful. Guess I can’t put this off forever, can I?”
“Well you can, but I wouldn’t recommend it,” Jane responded.
