The Girl With No Name

The Girl With No Name: Part One

Author's Note: This story is a prequel to my book STARSTRUCK, currently out from Random House. It's the first in a glamorous tale of romance, mystery, and dark secrets set in the glittering world of classic Hollywood.

I'll be running an excerpt from STARSTRUCK in the next few weeks; in the meantime, you can read all about it on my profile page, or read about it and order it here! http://www.amazon.com/Starstruck-Rachel-Shukert-ebook/dp/B009C70BZQ/ref=la_B001JRYOS2_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391630248&sr=1-3

LOVE ME, the sequel to STARSTRUCK, hits stores 2/11. You can pre-order and read all about it here! http://www.amazon.com/Love-Me-Starstruck-Rachel-Shukert/dp/0385741103/ref=pd_sim_b_12

I'll be posting new sections of this story on Tuesday each week--and possibly more frequently! It's a good one: all about the tangled history of Amanda Farraday and Dane Forrest, two of STARSTRUCK's most mysterious--and irresistible--characters. How did they meet? What happened between them? And who are they behind all the glitter?

Hope you enjoy reading as much as I'm enjoying writing it!

September, 1935

Maybe this time, she thought to herself as she did every morning, hovering on the brink between sleep and wakefulness. Maybe this time I’ll open my eyes and see a ceiling above me. Maybe she’d roll over and find herself tucked up in a nice soft featherbed, underneath an eiderdown quilt and crisp sheets smelling sweetly of lavender and laundry soap. Maybe she’d twitch her nostrils and breath in the rich scent of fresh coffee perking downstairs, of bacon frying, of melting butter swirling luxuriously into a pool of maple syrup.

It was funny how you could feel your stomach growl even when you were sleeping.

Maybe, she thought. Maybe maybe maybe.

Her eyes fluttered open. No ceiling. Only sky. Although being that this Southern California, it was blazing blue and bright.

It could be worse. She pushed aside the tattered quilt that was serving as both her blanket and mattress these days. Cushy featherbeds are pretty thin on the ground, she thought ruefully, as she folded the quilt carefully and stashed it behind a nearby bush. And I should know, since I’m sleeping on it.

It had been nearly three months since she had left Oklahoma for good, with little more than the clothes on her back and fifty dollars, mostly in change, sewn into the lining of her old boiled wool jacket. It had seemed like a fortune at the time, but even if it hadn’t, it would have been time to go. That night her stepfather had come into her tiny bedroom in the back of their dilapidated farmhouse, stinking of whiskey. It was no different than any other night.

But something in her had changed. Something she couldn’t quite explain. Maybe it was the money stashed away in her bureau, accumulating slowly for so many months, making her feel that escape was so near. Or maybe she’d just finally had enough. But that night, when he roughly ripped her covers off the bed and heaved himself on top of her, she didn’t go limp and hopeless like she usually did, imagining she was one of the crickets chirping outside, the mouse she could hear scuttling around between the walls. That she was anyone, anything else, until the heavy bulk of him was off her and back in his own bed again.

That night, she fought back. She spit in his face. Clawed at his eyes. She saw his fists looming above her but didn’t actually feel them until she stood in front of the mirror later, gingerly prodding her bleeding lip, the bruise beginning to blossom around her eye like a poisonous flower about to burst from its swollen bud. No more, she said. Never again.

So that night, she left. She had no ticket, no plan, just an old farm jacket grown as heavy as a chain mail vest from all the coins she’d sewn inside the lining. She walked alone through night, paying no attention to any perceived danger, to whatever nasty things might be lurking in the woodsheds—both literal and metaphorical—of the neighbors whose doors had always been closed to her when she needed them. It didn’t matter anymore, whether she would one day triumphant found the to tell the tale or be found dead in the middle of a cornfield somewhere. Anything was better than this purgatory, this horrible state in between. Either way, she’d be free.

It was dawn when she reached the train station in Muskogee. There were precious few passenger trains around here anymore, given that there were precious few folks who could afford to go much of anywhere anymore, there was usually a station porter willing to accept a few dollars to look the other way while somebody hopped a freight train, and all the more willing if said hopper was a pretty girl. Secreted in a windowless car, a tower of hay hiding her as much from the hobos playing a rudimentary game of cards just a few feet away as from the scowling conductor prowling for stowaways, she peered through a knot in the rough wood, marking the signs of the stations they passed, the position of the sun. When she realized they were heading due west, and a little later, allowed hersel to actually believe it, she had to clap both hands over her mouth to stifle her cry of excitement. Heading west. Now, she had a plan. However long it took, whatever circuitous route she had to ford to get there, she was going to make it to the only place she knew where girls like herself, pretty girls without a penny to their name or a name that meant anything, could turn out to be someone that the whole world would know. Would care about. Would love.

            She was going to make it to Hollywood

            And so she had. At almost the exact moment her money ran out.

            But that was all about to change.

She reached into her pocket for the folded scrap of newspaper and smoothed it out on her lap.

WANTED:  Ladies’ Junior Salesgirl at Bullock’s Department Store, on Wilshire Boulevard. Must be young (18-25 preferable), attractive, slender. No previous experience necessary, but knowledge and feel for high fashions a must. Apply in person.

Reading it again, she felt her cheeks flush with excitement. She had to be exactly what they were looking for. She was young, and although still a couple of years away from 18, she’d never had any problem convincing folks she was older. God knows she was attractive; with her flaming red hair, creamy skin, and emerald eyes shot through with gold, she had never failed to make heads swivel in any room she entered since she was 13—not that it had done her any good until now. Slender, no problem; she’d hardly been plump before she’d been on the road for three months, eating one meal a day to make her money last. She had no experience, and as for high fashion, well, there hadn’t been a whole lot of that in Depression-stricken Oklahoma, but every time she’d ever been to the movies, ever since she was a little girl, she’d come home and drawn with colored pencils an exact sketch of what every movie star was wearing. Swirls of chiffon, draped gowns covered in beading. She’d had to guess the colors of course, since the pictures were black and white, but that was part of the fun. As for the rest of it, she was a fast learner. It’s my job. It has to be.

She pictured herself standing behind the cash register, smiling at the customers as they came in. She’d never seen a department store, but she imagined it must be a fancier version of the ladies’ counter at general store back home, with its jars of face powder and bolts of cloth stacked against the wall. Someone would see her working there. Someone important would notice her. They have to.

It was all there for the taking. A job. A life. All she needed was a place to change her clothes. And a nickel for the streetcar. And a hairbrush, a lipstick, and a cake of soap. And to find out exactly where this Wilshire Boulevard was.

But before any of that, she needed something even more important. She needed a name.