The Jane Austen Society(10)

It would be only a matter of time before she met Jack Leonard, who made even more money than that.

He had been watching her box-office ascension from a rival up-and-coming studio with a degree of patience for which he was not usually known. His own success had been less linear and much more questionable. With generations of family money from the garment industry behind him, he had counter-bet the Depression, picking up any stock that looked as if its final days had come, then buying up any surviving competitors. As FDR’s antitrust teams moved in, Jack started moving abroad, cultivating alliances with steel and weapons producers in Europe, and becoming both financially and diplomatically indispensable to them as various countries started assembling munitions factories for the increasing military demand. He had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly where things were heading, and for isolating the most critical weaknesses of his opponents, who were many. For Jack Leonard, life was a constant battle.

He possessed not one ounce of introspection and instead directed his total energy at summing up the people around him. Understanding himself was not important because there was nothing there to understand. He knew that, and he knew that no one else would ever believe it. After all, he walked and talked and acted like a normal person, yet he won, again and again, in a way that few others consistently could. If everyone else had had the capacity to imagine how much he was focused on beating them, they might have stood a chance. But even then, they would not have been able to live with the terms of success. So Jack Leonard continued to win, and destroy others, and make money, and he convinced himself (because when one is devoid of a soul, it takes little work to convince the self of anything) that his success was due to his own superiority in having figured all of this out.

The more he made money, the more he needed to make—it was a compulsion that he made no qualms about. If you weren’t moving forward, you weren’t winning—and if you weren’t making money while you were at it, you were losing even more. So when a few business associates from New York decided to invest in a new studio venture out West, he hopped on—what better way to meet beautiful young women with little expense or effort. Plus there was no better time to enter the movie business, with so many prominent producers, actors, and directors off fighting the Nazis.

Now, in the spring of 1945, with America fully in the war, and his steel and weapons contracts worth millions, and his studio putting out a film a week, Jack Leonard stood towering down over Mimi Harrison as she lay on a lounge chair in her purple one-piece swimsuit.

Mimi opened one eye against the sun, now partially obscured by Jack standing there, and said simply, “You’re blocking my sun.”

“Your sun?” he asked with one eyebrow raised.

She sat up a bit, peering at him from underneath her sunglasses, then placed them back down on her still slightly freckled nose. “Well, I have it on loan from our host today.”

“Loans. I can give out those. Jack”—he held out his hand to her—“Jack Leonard.”

No glimpse of recognition passed over her face, and he could feel the back of his neck start to tighten in irritation.

“Mimi Harrison,” she replied, shaking his hand. He noticed that she had a strong, assured grip for a woman. He also noticed her hands were bare of any jewellery and slightly calloused.

She looked down at her hand still resting in his and added, “I ride.”

“And you act.”

“When I’m not riding.”

“Or reading.” He casually picked up the book on the unoccupied lounge chair next to her and flipped it over to see the cover.

“Northanger Abbey,” he read aloud, then looked at her inquiringly.

It was a test, in a way—at least in L.A. They so rarely knew the books, the studio men—they were numbers guys. The actors—they were the outdoorsy types, always in motion, always too bored to have sat still in school. She had lost count of the number of two-seat airplane, motorcycle, and sailboat rides she had been taken on over the years; the golf courses, the canyon hikes, the one-room fishing cabins.

“Jane Austen,” she said with a nonchalant shrug. “You’re not familiar with her?”

He put the book back down and sat on the edge of the lounge chair facing her. “For a role?”

“I wish. No, just relaxation.”

“Relaxing’s overrated.”

He was the most confident man she had ever met. She knew he must know who she was, although she genuinely had no idea about him.

“What rates with you then?” she asked, reaching for a glass of iced tea from the tray now being held out to her by one of the household staff.

“Winning.”

“At all costs?”

“Nothing costs more—or is worth more—than winning. Look at the war.”

She sighed, and the sudden look of boredom on her face made the irritation start creeping down his spine and right back up to his temples. “Why do you men have to make everything about the war?”

“Why not? We’re all in this together.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you shipping out soon?”

Now it was a full-on migraine. Jack stood back up. “Look, I’m not going anywhere. Not my style. I don’t think it’s yours, either. I think—well, anyway, it was nice to meet you.” He paused, and something almost yearning appeared in his hazel eyes. “I always hoped we’d meet.”