Stars will Shine

Lois dreamed of fame – but she was learning that not everyone could be trusted in the City of Angels

- Andrew Shaw

Marilyn Monroe just came in!’ one of the waitresses shouted excitedly, bursting into the serving area. Lois looked at Alice, then they both grabbed their trays of food and drinks and rushed into the restaurant.

‘Where is she?’ Lois whispered as they headed to their tables.

‘On the terrace, I think,’ Alice replied, nodding towards a group of people seated outside. Among them was a young woman, her blonde hair dazzling in the sunlight. She was laughing and throwing back her head, her generous mouth slick with scarlet lipstick.

Serving her customers distractedly, Lois strained to get a better look at the blonde. She was the only woman at the table – the men she was with looked like studio executives.

‘May I have my coffee, miss?’ a man at Lois’s table asked.

‘I’m so sorry, sir,’ she replied, placing his drink in front of him before slowly edging her way back through the tables, still trying to get a glimpse of the girl on the terrace.

Approaching the kitchen door, she could see Alice peering through its porthole window. ‘Well, is it her?’ Alice babbled, stepping back to let Lois in.

‘It looks like her,’ she replied. ‘Do you think Carmel will tell us after she’s taken their order?’ Alice’s face fell. ‘I doubt it,’ she said flatly. Carmel was the head waitress at Frank’s Place, and the best tables were her responsibility. The restaurant was close to a number of the big Hollywood studios and it was a popular daytime haunt for film people. Starlets, hoping to be seen, would sit by the pool on its broad terrace. Men in suits would do deals in shaded corners, their faces striped by the shadows of the venetian blinds.

But Carmel never shared stories about the famous people she waited on. And she guarded her area like a tigress.