All for a Sister by Allison Pittman Read Free Book Online

smoothing her dress.
    “I didn’t think,” Dana said. “I don’t know quite what to do, I suppose.”
    She found herself looking in the mirror, Celeste peeking out from behind her.
    “That’s understandable. But I can teach you if you want. Just a little bit to pretty you up. Make you look more modern. Younger, even.”
    “Do I look that old?”
    “Sweetie, you’re thirty-two. You are old. But right now, we’re late. Come on.”
    Celeste took her hand in an inescapable grip and hollered something in Spanish before opening the door and pulling Dana outside, where an automobile waited at the edge of the short-cropped green lawn. It was the color of pale butter with bloodred leather upholstery and chrome trim that reflected the sun.
    Dana eyed the empty seat behind the steering wheel. “Who is going to drive?”
    “Silly-nilly.” Celeste broke free and ran ahead. “I am! I’m twenty years old, you know.”
    Dana followed reluctantly. “Are you sure?” She’d only known Celeste for a short time, and she knew even less of automobiles, but nothing she’d seen of either made it a good idea for them to be joined together. “What about Mr. Lundi? He drove us yesterday.”
    “Roland is otherwise engaged.” By this time she had started the car and was gripping the wheel. “Or that’s what his secretary told me. Otherwise engaged. The coward, unless he’s meeting with someone from Metro-Goldwyn. But we’ll see. Are you ready?”
    Before Dana could respond, Celeste pounced on the accelerator, and the two women careened into the street. Dana clutched her hat to her head, wondering how it was that Celeste’s remained so perfectly perched.
    “Tell me again how he seemed.”
    “Who?” Dana said, distracted by the neighborhood shrubbery that seemed far too close.
    “Funny. Who do you think? Ostermann. Did he seem interested?”
    “He listened quite closely.”
    “That’s not what I mean.” She steered the car around a corner, bringing it to a chugging near stop before roaring straight again. “The movie. Do you have any idea what it would mean to me if he went through with it? To have him write and direct a film specifically for me? What am I saying. Of course you don’t. You’ve practically been in a cave—”
    She took her eyes off the road and turned to Dana, reaching out to pat her leg. “You know what I mean, darling.”
    “It’s fine,” Dana said, pointing out the lorry come to a dead stop in front of them.
    “Honestly, it would be hard for anybody to understand—anybody not in the film business. Can you understand, though, how very much I want to be a star?”
    “Like that Mary Pickford?”
    It was the wrong thing to say, and Celeste expressed her disagreement with a sharp swerve to the left and a fresh acceleration. They were out of the neighborhood by now, practically flying down the open road en route to the studio. The speed picked up the gossamer scarf and sent it billowing back and away from Celeste’s neck, like the tail of a kite. Dana clutched at the door lest she fly with it.
    “America’s sweetheart, my aunt Pansy. She’s not even American, you know. She’s Canadian. Those sausage curls, like she’s some sort of stunted schoolgirl. And I swear, if Lundi books me to play one more wide-eyed farmer’s daughter—”
    The blare of an approaching vehicle’s horn kept Celeste from finishing the thought. Dana’s stomach flipped over, and since she couldn’t leap out of the car to save herself, she’d try to save the conversation instead.
    “I’ll tell him everything. And when I do, he’ll want to tell everybody.”

    By the time they arrived at the studio gate, Dana felt a thin sheen of sweat on the back of her neck, and she took the blessed moment when Celeste chatted with the guard to exhale the breath she’d been holding for most of the twenty-minute drive. As Celeste maneuvered the car through the studio grounds, a host of people either waved in greeting or dove out