Golden Girl by Sarah Zettel

Mrs. Brownlow got to her feet.
    “Oh, but, Mama, you’ve got that meeting with Mr. Raymond in publicity, don’t you?” Ivy said. “You were just telling me about it.”
    Mrs. Brownlow frowned, thinking hard. “Oh, yes. Of course. Mrs. Tully, have you seen my bag?”
    “Here it is, ma’am.” Mrs. Tully went to the hall table, picked up a little beaded purse that had been dyed to exactly match Mrs. Brownlow’s suit, and handed it over along with a pair of white gloves. “Sumner will be waiting for you out front.”
    “Yes. Thank you. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on my shoulders. Don’t be late for school, Ivy.”
    “I won’t, Mama.” Ivy skipped over and planted a kiss on her mama’s cheek. I watched Mrs. Brownlow leave and Mrs. Tully close the door behind her. Memory poked at me. It was trying to tell me something important, but Ivy was talking again.
    “Mama has to meet with a lot of people. She manages my career.” Ivy grabbed Jack’s and my hands as she breezed past and pulled us into the dining room. A long table, complete with lace runner and silver candlesticks, stretched right down its middle. You could have sat a baker’s dozen guests here and still had room in case any family dropped in at the last minute. This morning, only one end was set with blue willow pattern dishes, crystal glasses, and grapefruithalves in glass bowls. There was a funny wire rack in the middle with toast triangles stuck in it.
    “Please sit down.” Ivy sounded at least as grown-up as Jack. “Orange juice?”
    “Yes, thank you,” said Jack. I nodded. Ivy made a little gesture to Mrs. Tully, who came over and filled all our glasses. My stomach still felt kind of queasy, but I’d never had orange juice before and didn’t want to miss my chance. It tasted sweet, tart, and bright all at the same time, and before I knew it, I’d finished the whole thing. Mrs. Tully gave me the fish-eye, but she filled my glass again. She was looking at my hair and how browned up my skin was. Mrs. Tully backed away to stand next to the big sideboard, but she didn’t stop watching me from behind her horn-rimmed glasses. She saw. She knew. The brightest little star in Hollywood was sitting down to breakfast with a black girl, and Mrs. Tully most definitely did not approve. My spine stiffened right up. Who was she to be looking down her nose at me?
    “I’m sorry there’s not more food,” Ivy was saying to Jack as she dug a spoon with a jaggedy tip into the big pink grapefruit. “I can only have grapefruit and toast in the mornings because I have to watch my figure, for the camera. They’re awfully strict about my health,” she added in an undertone. “Once I snuck a whole box of gingersnaps into my room. Tully about had a fit when she found the crumbs in my bed!”
    Jack laughed like this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, and Ivy giggled.
    I drank some more orange juice. “Must be hard going to school and being in movies at the same time.”
    “Oh, no. The school’s on the lot. Right next door, as a matter of fact. All the studio kids go there. Miss MacDonald, she’s even stricter than Tully, so none of us get out of line.” Ivy giggled again. I wondered what it was like to find every little thing so funny. “Where do you go to school, Callie?” she asked.
    “I’m done with school.” She didn’t need to know I’d only gone for a couple of years back in Kansas before the dust storms closed the school, and the entire town of Slow Run, for good. Jack was rolling his eyes toward Ivy. I swallowed. The orange juice suddenly tasted sour. “Actually, I’m, uh, looking for work.”
    “You are?” cried Ivy. “Movie work? You’re so pretty, I bet the camera loves you.”
    Me?
Pretty?
Nobody ever called me pretty. Maybe the giggling wasn’t so bad after all.… I stopped that thought in its tracks. If I started letting Ivy Bright flatter me, I’d be looking as goofy as Jack before long.
    “Um, no,” I