Hello fans of golden-era Hollywood and Turner Classic Movies! Last week I revealed the title, cover art, and description of my upcoming novel, Selznick’s Girl Friday.
I’ll be releasing that novel in June 2024. But until then, I can now share with you the first chapter which, I hope, will leave you wanting more.
Selznick’s Girl Friday
by
Martin Turnbull
Book 1 in the Hollywood’s Greatest Year trilogy
~oOo~
CHAPTER 1
Santa Catalina Island
California
August 1938
As Polly Maddox stood at Catalina’s highest overlook, she discovered the blistering August heat had rendered the telegram in her hand a damp relic.
Oh dear.
Thankfully, it wasn’t meant for the mayor of Avalon or the town’s police sergeant, or even Mr. Wrigley, scion of the chewing-gum dynasty who owned most of the island. Papa wouldn’t relish the sight of his soggy dispatch, but a heartfelt “Sorry!” and a quick kiss on the cheek would fix that.
Polly laid the telegram on her flattened hand. Perhaps in the ten minutes she had before setting out on the trail back into town, the sun might bake it dry. The ink had bled into the paper, blurring the words, but they were still legible.
TO: ELROY MADDOX
FROM: JUDD HARTLEY
AMELIA ARRIVES ON SS AVALON AUGUST TEN STOP
THANK YOU FOR TAKING HER IN STOP
LOIS AND I APPRECIATE YOUR HELP STOP
In the two years Polly had been working for Pacific Wireless as one of Catalina’s telegraph operators, she had developed an ability to read between the lines.
If Judd and Lois Hartley were such good friends of Papa’s, how come he had never mentioned their names in the sixteen years he and Polly had lived on the island? Polly supposed Amelia was their daughter, but if the girl needed to be sent away, was she in trouble?
The telegram wasn’t drying fast enough. Polly grasped the top corners between her thumbs and forefingers and waved it in the warm breeze. The telegram was none of her beeswax, of course, but if she didn’t work in the telegraph office, how would she have known what was going on under her own nose?
What if she hadn’t been the operator on duty? When might her father have told her about this newcomer? When the girl was standing in their kitchen, clutching her battered cardboard suitcase?
Papa was as jovial as a puppy and candid as an open book; it wasn’t like him to be so secretive.
She gingerly slipped the telegram into her pocket. It was time she delivered it to him.
* * *
Polly and her father, Elroy, lived in a bungalow down the tranquil end of Sumner Avenue, but his office was on Metropole, smack-dab in the heart of Avalon. He was the accountant for the Santa Catalina Island Company, through which Wrigley administrated all public works, private ventures, and philanthropies he and his wife oversaw.
Elroy beamed when he spotted his daughter. “Doodlebug!” He detected the telegram sandwiched between her fingers. “Why, Miss Maddox. A personally delivered telegram?” He made a show of patting his pockets for a nickel tip.
Before she reached his orderly desk, she smelled the rich, rosy aroma of his Carnaval de Venise cologne steeping the air. She slid the almost-dry telegram toward him. “I have questions.”
He picked it up. “Dropped this in Avalon Bay, did we?”
“I hiked up to Three Palms, but hadn’t counted on getting so sweaty.” She studied her father’s face as he read the message, but saw nary a twitch to interpret. “Who’s Amelia?”
“Judd and Lois’s daughter.”
She flopped into his guest chair and slung a leg over the armrest to feign nonchalance. The chances were good Polly would have been the one to take down the message, so why was Papa being uncommonly tight-lipped? Some sort of monkey business was going on here. “And they are . . .?”
He dropped the telegram onto his blotter. “You were only five when your mother died and we moved here. Before that, I used to work for—”
“City of Angels Distillery.”
Okay, now he’s chewing his lower lip, which means he’s trying to buy himself some time. If I sit here long enough, silent as a gravestone, he’ll come clean.
It didn’t take long.
“City of Angels is owned by Judd Hartley.”
“He was your boss?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve never mentioned him. What gives, Papa? Did you leave on bad terms?”
“No, no, nothing like that. You see, Doodlebug, I was heartbroken over your mother’s passing and needed a fresh start. The Hartleys were part of what I wanted to leave behind. That’s all. And would you at least try to sit like a lady?”
Polly slid her leg off the armrest and demurely crossed her legs at the ankles, although she wasn’t sure why she needed to act all prim and proper. Catalina Island’s eligible bachelors certainly weren’t lining up outside. Still and all, Hartley’s telegram gave her the heebie-jeebies. “After sixteen years, they contact you out of the blue?”
“I couldn’t have been more surprised myself.”
“And they’re sending this Amelia to Catalina—why?”
“The girl’s gotten herself into a pickle. It’s easy to fall prey over there on the mainland. You know what I’ve always told you.”
“Bad Los Angeles. Dangerous Los Angeles. Treacherous Los Angeles.”
“I don’t recall describing it as treacherous.”
“I was extrapolating.”
A quiet smile surfaced. “You and your vocabulary. All those books you read.”
What else was she supposed to do with her time? Nobody had offered her even so much as a token of friendship. Not at high school. Not during the pottery classes at Catalina Clay. Not in typing school.
The Avalon townsfolk hadn’t been outright rude to her, but polite nods and the occasional bland “Good morning” here and there were as far as it went. She used to wonder if it was because she was the only freckled-faced, pale-skinned redhead on Catalina. But she had long since given up trying to figure out how to make them see she was an amicable, affable, agreeable girl who didn’t deserve their cold shoulders. Meanwhile, she had evenings to fill.
“This pickle Amelia’s gotten herself into—” she began, but her father cut her off.
“Day after tomorrow, I’d like you to meet her at the pier and take her to the Hotel St. Catherine, where she’ll be working as a housekeeper. Listen to me, Doodlebug. Be friendly and welcoming, but not too friendly and welcoming.”
In other words, Polly wanted to say, treat this girl the way people have treated me for as long as I can remember. Nobody deserved that, but she trusted her father enough to accept that he had a good reason for sidestepping every question she’d asked him.
“Can do,” she said, rising from the chair. “I thought I might see Marie Antoinette at the Casino Theatre tonight. They say Norma Shearer is quite marvelous. Care to join me?”
“I wish I could.” He laid a hand on the half-dozen ledgers stacked to his right. “But this’ll be a late one for me.”
* * *
Stepping onto Metropole Avenue, she felt a slight cooling of the air as the sun burned an orange hole into the late afternoon sky.
The girl has gotten herself into a pickle.
As everyone past the age of puberty knew, this was a euphemism for a girl prematurely finding herself in the family way. Polly had only heard about such girls or read about them in books. She’d never encountered one in person.
How scandalous! Her heart beat a little faster at the thought of encountering a—a—what would they call someone like Amelia Hartley in the movies? Polly stretched a hand across her mouth.
You’re about to meet a fallen woman.
~oOo~
Here is an aerial shot of the town of Avalon, on Avalon Bay, Santa Catalina Island, California, taken on June 26, 1936. That circular building in the foreground is known as the Casino Building, which had opened in 1929.
~oOo~
~oOo~
I hope that sneak peek has whetted your appetite for Selznick’s Girl Friday. And thanks for your interest in my work. I do appreciate it so very much.
All the best,
Martin Turnbull
~oOo~
ALSO BY MARTIN TURNBULL:
The Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels
Book 1 – The Garden on Sunset
Book 2 – The Trouble with Scarlett
Book 3 – Citizen Hollywood
Book 4 – Searchlights and Shadows
Book 5 – Reds in the Beds
Book 6 – Twisted Boulevard
Book 7 – Tinseltown Confidential
Book 8 – City of Myths
Book 9 – Closing Credits
Chasing Salomé: a novel of 1920s Hollywood
The Heart of the Lion: a novel of Irving Thalberg’s Hollywood
The Hollywood Home Front trilogy:
Book 1 – All the Gin Joints
Book 2 – Thank Your Lucky Stars
Book 3 – You Must Remember This
~oOo~
~oOo~
Connect with Martin Turnbull:
~oOo~
Official blog of Martin Turnbull, author of the Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels 
very nice
>