Tomorrow, Lake Union is due to publish the latest novel by Emily Beeker: When We Chased the Light. A new novel set in Golden Age Hollywood, here’s the synopsis:
A Hollywood legend. A legacy of secrets. An epic and emotional novel about forgiveness, fame, family, and truly unconditional love by the bestselling author of When We Were Enemies.
Christie’s auction house, Beverly Hills. The effects of Hollywood icon Vivian Snow are up for bid. In the collection is a set of hand-drawn postcards spanning six decades. The sender is Antonio Trombello, a soldier, POW, priest, and Vivian’s confidant. Each postcard sheds new light on a deeply private woman the public only thinks it knows.
It’s World War II. Vivian is a USO showgirl traveling the world when her husband goes AWOL, disappears, and is presumed dead. Facing increasing suspicion, she leans on her dear friend Father Trombello for support. He’s her confessor, her savior, the elusive love of her life, and when it comes to her husband’s death, the keeper of Vivian’s secrets.
As Vivian rises from canteen dream girl to starlet to bona fide legend, she navigates the highs and lows of Hollywood, new romances, and tumultuous family relationships ― all in the shadow of her past and the guilt, unmet longing, and buried truths that could still upend the lives of everyone she loves.
*
August 23, 1943
Camp Perry
Port Clinton, Ohio
“You’re on in five.” Betty, our stage manager pops her head into the dressing room and waves a handful of fingers at me.
“I’m ready. Just a quick touch-up.” I slather on another layer of red lipstick.
“Rouge too. You’re looking a little pale.” Her comment isn’t said out of concern. All business, that’s Betty on a show day. And she’s right. Though I usually try to cover up my naturally olive complexion, the past few weeks I’ve been feeling the wear and tear of the road. I haven’t been home to Indiana since immediately after Archie Lombardo said yes at my audition six weeks ago. I had one day to pack up my belongings, resign from my position as interpreter for the Italian POWs at Camp Atterbury, and say goodbye to everyone I’ve known and loved my entire life.
Papà was furious, which I guess is his default emotion. He ordered me to stay home, but by then he’d found out that I’d eloped with Tom, so there wasn’t much he could say or do to force a married woman to comply with his wishes. My sister Aria, on the other hand, was heartbroken. Her tears and pleading nearly convinced me to cancel my train ticket and pack away my suitcase forever.
“You promised you’d never leave me,” she said, a piece of grass stuck in her hair from her garden. It was a hot day, officially summer, just two weeks since I’d said “I do” to Corporal Tom Highward, the same day I’d assured Aria I’d always be there for her.
At fifteen, with Papà still recovering from his accident at the plastics plant and with Mamma in the sanitarium permanently, I know she must feel abandoned. But truly, I left to save her. I make a good wage on the road with the USO Camp Show, and I send most of it home. Plus, signing with Archie Lombardo from Music Corporation of America is an incredible opportunity. After the war, whenever that may be, Archie can open doors I’d likely never even know existed.
And while I’m on the road, I can rub elbows with the established Hollywood elite.
I’ve already sung backup for the Andrews Sisters and danced behind Danny Kaye. My voice isn’t as strong as it used to be, not since the horrific night in the gymnasium when my life changed forever, but it’s improving every day. One day—when it’s back to normal—Archie says I have a solo waiting for me somewhere on the road. I’m hoping to be promoted to the Foxhole Circuit, which could take me into the war zones of Europe or the South Pacific.
I rub some reddish-pink cream onto my cheekbones and blot my lips to even the coloring. I look like a typical chorus girl: long lashes, dark hair pinned back, figure-hugging leotard. Unlike at home in Indiana, on tour we have nylons: thick, flesh-colored tights that give the appearance of long, bare legs without breaking the morality clauses plastered all over our guidebook. The bruises on my neck are long gone. At first I hid them with scarves and then with greasy foundation and now, no one would ever guess someone had grasped my pale throat so hard I felt like it might snap. As I run my fingertips down my unmarred neck, I can’t help but feel the invisible clutch of Tom’s fingers even now, two months later. It’s a choking sensation I’ll never forget, just as memorable as our first dance or the first time we made love in the back seat of his borrowed car. Each moment was life-changing for different reasons, and I’m growing to regret every one of Them.
I toss my makeup into my vanity kit and blink away the tears that always seem to surface when I let my mind time travel. Father Theodore says it’s better to focus on what’s to come than what’s in the past. I try to remember his counsel while I’m away from home and away from the confessional of Holy Trinity, my hometown church. Holy Trinity is the only place I feel safe anymore. There and with Trombello.
Antonio Trombello is so many things—an Italian soldier, a prisoner of war, a colleague, a confidant, a savior, and a priest. While I’m traveling across the country, he’s still behind gates of metal and barbed wire.
His postcards come sporadically with a hand-drawn image on one side of the cardstock and a brief message in Italian on the other. I’m not sure how his cards find me on the road or how they make it through rigorous censorship on the base, but I’m guessing my former boss, Lieutenant Colonel Gammell, has something to do with it.
Trombello’s most recent card has a pencil sketch on the front of a nearly completed chapel at Camp Atterbury, a boxlike structure with tiny portraits inside the open front wall and a simple altar along the back. It’s beautiful, what he and the other POWs built. A place of worship inside a place of confinement. “God is the only true freedom,” I remember Trombello saying as the committee met to plan the chapel.
If Aria was filled with sorrow and Papà filled with anger when I told them I was leaving to tour with the USO Camp Show, Trombello seemed filled with joy. Not that I’d be leaving, no. But Trombello knew better than anyone why I needed to run away.
Tonight, I’m onstage with Danny Kaye, playing a part in his comedy number. It’s a small role, I’m mostly a human prop, but Mr. Kaye chose me out of the whole crew of twenty girls. He saw something in me he hadn’t seen in anyone else. And that makes the cheesy material and minuscule stage time priceless.
I stand and straighten my glittering uniform and tilt the matching top hat pinned into my hair, but just as I get to my feet, my stomach rolls like I’m going to be sick.
I’ve never had nerves like this, not back at home at the USO on Main Cross Street. There I’d take off my Vivian Santini persona, the quiet, dowdy daughter of Italian immigrants, and put on my Vivian Snow persona, vibrant, full of life and confidence, to fill the role of every young soldier’s dream girl. But now that I’m Vivian Snow onstage and off—the frailties of Vivian Santini find ways to make themselves known.
I take a swig of coffee, quickly pop a peppermint in my mouth, and swallow down my nerves. I try on a smile. A family portrait tucked into the frame of the mirror smiles back at me. And the latest postcard from Trombello. Just as I get my nerves under control, a knock comes at the dressing-room door.
In the mirror, I watch as two men in uniform push open the door and walk in without waiting for an invitation. Both wear MP bands on their left arms and stand in a ready position. Military police. My heart nearly stops. I know exactly why they’re here.
“Excuse me, miss.”
A trumpet trills in the background. I spin around, away from the mirror, and smile at the Officials.
“Sorry, fellas—that’s my cue,” I say, checking the buckles on my shoes and making eye contact so I don’t look guilty.
“Are you Vivian Highward?” the taller of the two men asks, his hand resting casually on his gun. I shiver at the sound of my married name. I haven’t heard it since leaving Edinburgh, Indiana. Archie and the performers here just call me Snow.
“I . . . I am.”
“You were married to Tom Highward June seventeenth in Edinburgh, Indiana. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” I answer, my smile dragging at the corners. An explosion of applause and a rush of heavily breathing girls flood into the room, their makeup dripping from perspiration. The first performer to cross the threshold, Margie, gasps.
“Oh no. No,” she whispers, reaching back for Carol’s hand, creating a bottleneck. The chatter quiets, and a reverent silence spreads through the crew. I know what they think—they think the military police are here to tell me the worst thing any of us can imagine: my husband is dead.
“Snow. Snow. Where are you? The band’s been vamping for over a minute now. Get your ass on sta—” Betty cuts off her snarky comment as soon as she sees the uniformed men in the middle of the dressing room.
“Oh. Well. I see,” she says, curling her lips over her cracked tooth, the closest thing to empathy I’ve ever seen from her. “I’m sorry, doll. Need me to send out Barb?” Barb’s second on the list for the part; she’s rehearsed once or twice but always with a cardboard smile on her face and a scared look in her wide eyes. I can hear her shuffling around in the background, ready to take my spot.
“No, I can do it,” I say, keeping my gaze steady on the officers. “If it’s all right with you, that is,” I say calmly, placing the wrapper from my peppermint onto my dressing table and putting the half-dissolved candy on top of it, licking the slightly sticky residue off my fingertips.
The tall officer nods and steps back to let me through.
The girls in the room watch in hushed awe as I calmly walk past. The show must go on, as they say. And I must find a way to perform knowing some of these young soldiers in the audience have wives who, sometime soon, will face uniformed men giving them news that’ll change the course of their lives.
“You know you don’t have to do this,” Betty says, escorting me to the stage where I can hear the music playing and Danny talking to the men in the audience. Betty’s husband is overseas already. They have a little boy who’s at home with her mother while she’s on the road. She writes to her soldier every night, long letters, multiple pages. Betty’s usually jealous of the women in the group, the long, slender dancers, the rich-voiced soloists, and the charismatic comedians. But for once Betty isn’t jealous. No one wants to be me right now.
“I know.” I rub my lips together and focus on the stage lights. “But I need to.”
And I step out into the intense heat of the spotlight. Danny Kaye welcomes me warmly.
“You good?” he asks, giving me an extra spin and holding me a moment longer, searching my face for a clue. I’m sure he can see it, the worry, the stress, the fear in my eyes.
Onstage I forget the outside world. Under the lights, energized by the applause of the watching servicemen, I can’t think about Tom, the MPs, or even angry Papà and tearful Aria. It’s just me and Danny and a world we’re fashioning out of thin air.
“Of course,” I say. He nods and spins me out into the middle of the stage. From the corner of my eye, I can see the rest of the USO showgirls lined up in the wings with concerned looks and crossed arms, hugging each other more for their fears than my pain.
As he introduces me, the crowd laughs. A whistle comes from the mass of male faces as I wink at the audience. A few soldiers call out phrases I’m glad I can’t entirely hear.
I say my next line without flinching, making sure to avoid any further glances at the wings.
The next ten minutes go by in a blur. It’s not my best performance, but it’s good enough to get not just one round of applause but two.
We usually give a brief encore, and tonight is no exception. The music starts up again in a short reprise of the little comedic ditty. As it closes, we take a bow and I escape to stage left before any impromptu numbers can be added. Danny doesn’t know about the military police waiting for me in the dressing room. He will soon, though. I can already see the assistant stage manager talking to him offstage. I turn away, refusing to see his response, his pity. I don’t deserve it. Not a whit.
The girls touch my shoulder as I pass through on my way backstage. They’ve all changed into their closing number costumes, which I’m supposed to rush and do as well, but not today. The MPs let me dodge them once, but I shouldn’t push for twice.
The girls march out to center stage, and I take each of their gentle well-wishes with me as I return to the dressing room. They think they’re giving me privacy to receive my bad news in solitude, but they’re all wrong. I already know what message I’m about to receive.
These men, these military police, are not here to tell me my husband, Corporal Tom Highward of the Eighty-Third Infantry, is hurt or injured. They are here to tell me he’s missing. And not missing in action in some respectable way. No. Tom is gone. Tom has been absent without authorization for more than thirty days.
That means—Tom is a deserter.
I unpin my hat as I step through the dressing-room door. The officers are talking quietly by my mirror, holding Trombello’s postcard between them as though they’re trying to decipher his message written in Italian.
I’m not surprised. I knew the military police would show up eventually.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been interrogated. The first round of questions came when Tom didn’t report to duty at Camp Atterbury. The MPs came to my house, asked me questions, and asked Papà questions. It was from those military men Papà found out I’d eloped with the young GI he’d met only once. When the men left, I lied to my father like I’ve become far too accustomed to doing. I told him that Tom was off at training and the MPs were mistaken. Because Papà speaks very little English, he didn’t fully understand the MPs’ questions, making it easier for me to spin a story. After that, I heard nothing more from the military police. Lt. Col. Gammell waved away any suspicion of me, his secretary, thinking me incapable of misdeeds and having nothing but bad things to say about my missing husband. But Gammell is all-powerful only at Camp Atterbury. He can’t protect me anymore. Tom is supposed to be at Ranger training in Tennessee, and because he didn’t show up, I’m guessing that’s why the MPs tracked me down.
“Mrs. Highward. We’re sorry for the intrusion but we have a few questions for you. Would you mind if we found somewhere more . . .”
“Private?” I finish his sentence, slipping into a long robe. They watch me, this time greedily rather than suspiciously, like they want to know what my body looks like beneath the silky Material.
Betty clears her throat and grabs the MPs’ attention.
“There’s an office just around the corner if you’d like to wait there while Miss Snow gets changed into something more . . . appropriate.” She holds out her hand like she’s going to escort the officers herself if they don’t stop gawking.
“Oh, of course,” the shorter of the two men stutters, looking at his shoes like he’s been scolded by his first-grade teacher. They follow Betty out of the room, still holding Trombello’s postcard.
As soon as the door shuts, I unzip my unitard and wrangle off my tights, then slip a casual skirt and blouse on over my highly structured strapless bra and silken panties. I want to get my interrogation with the MPs over with before the inquisition starts with my castmates.
I’ll tell my friends Tom is missing—no further details are needed. They’ll make assumptions, and I won’t correct them.
I wipe off as much of my stage makeup as possible before sliding on the low heels stored in my cubby. I look at myself in the mirror one last time. There’s still enough rouge on my cheeks to make a priest blush, but I can’t do anything about it at this point. I step away from the mirror, ready to face the moment I’ve been dreading.
I’ll answer as many of the officers’ questions as I can, and I’ll tell the truth—I don’t know where my husband is. After they question me I’m sure they’ll talk to Tom’s family, and they’ll say the same thing. Eventually, everyone will find out what I already know.
Tom Highward is a ghost.
And I should know—I’m the one who made him that way.
*
Emily Bleeker’s When We Chased the Light is due to be published by Lake Union Publishing in North America and in the UK, on October 22nd.