Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 123, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 751 & 752, March/April 2004

To Catch a Falling Star by Barbara Callahan

This story gave its author, Barbara Callahan, “a chance to attempt to tell how much movies meant to viewers during World War II, and how much the fashions in the films influenced women.” It was also inspired, she told EQMM, by the sadness she felt when she learned about a star of the ’forties who had a problem similar to that of the actress in this tale. Ms. Callahan makes her home in New Jersey and is a longtime contributor to this magazine.

Stella Stanley came into the boutique last month, the Stella Stanley, the movie star whom I adored in my teen years, the movie star who answered my fan letter by sending me a black-and-white glossy photo of her dipping a toe into her heart-shaped swimming pool. I still have the photo, and I still have the memories of watching her so long ago on Saturday afternoons at the Logan Theater.

In the dark, impersonally intimate movie theater I admired her as the crusading reporter who broke the story of the capture of the Essington kidnappers; I sighed as she lifted her petticoats to skip down the winding staircase into the arms of returning Civil War hero Jonathan Wainwright; I wept when in prison stripes she vainly proclaimed her innocence on the way to the electric chair in Innocence Denied.

At my vanity table with the pink tulle skirt, I hopelessly willed my mirror to transform my besieged adolescent skin into the creamy, rose-tinted complexion of Stella Stanley. My eyes teared as I painfully plucked eyebrows to achieve the perfect arch that enhanced her green eyes. My fingers burned from dipping wads of cotton into peroxide to simulate the luster of her golden hair. My entire body ached from the exercise routine I believed would sculpt me into the size of the costume Stella wore in Slave Girl of Sparta.

Nothing worked. I remained me, plain un-Stellalike me, but nevertheless loved for forty-one years by my husband George. Last year, during the final battle with his illness, he and I watched videos together, mostly starring Stella, that reminded us of our teenage years holding hands in the Logan Theater.

To ease the loneliness of widowhood, I took a job as a sales associate at Be a Star Boutique — Clothes for Making an Entrance. Mostly I worked by myself, except for the few hours a week the owner, Derrick Breen, spared from his jaunts to the casinos. Having inherited the shop from his mother, he enjoyed the income but not the interaction with the clientele, women of a certain age — my age — who, like me, got their fashion sense from the films of the ’forties. No denims or tees in the boutique, but plenty of flared organzas, sequined taffetas, fur-trimmed collars and hemlines, tiny pillbox hats with wisps of veils, large-brimmed hats that dipped coyly over an eyebrow, boalike scarves, fake alligator purses and shoes, and jewelry boxes overflowing with rhinestone chokers, earrings, and bracelets.

Aware of the importance of set design, Derrick’s mother had the walls painted shocking pink and installed black vinyl banquettes to serve as props for discarded mink stoles tossed there in casual neglect by customers imitating the stars of the ’thirties and ’forties. A tape of romantic ’forties songs softened up sales resistance from husbands wrenched from the golf course. On the walls, life-sized posters of stars dressed in outfits from their films gazed haughtily down on the wannabes who came to the store. The Stella Stanley poster featured the actress dressed in a mid-calf cocktail dress with fishtail peplum. Since the poster was in black-and-white, as was the film, I never knew the color of the dress — until she stood last month under her poster wearing the same dress. Fuchsia, it was fuchsia.

When I saw her across the room, I had to stop tallying the day’s receipts and sit down on a banquette. For a moment, I was at a movie, staring at a clever special effect, that of a woman who stepped out of a poster, then turned around to study her likeness. The illusion abruptly disappeared when she moved away from the wall toward the rack of silk lounging pajamas: Time had not stopped for her as it had for that portrait-gazer Dorian Gray. Only her lovely green eyes had been spared. Unnerved by the shock of seeing her so different from her video perfection, I fumbled with the jewelry on the nearest counter and did not gush over to her.

After a few minutes in recovery mode, I straightened my shoulders and started toward her, then stopped to watch a graceful scene. Miss Stanley was draping a long green silk scarf dotted with gold sequins around her neck. To catch the effect, she tilted the three-sided mirror on the accessories counter, pulling both sides inward to view the scarf from all angles. She’s still lovely, I thought, retaining the bone structure and flair of long ago, and I decided to tell her so — until she unwrapped the scarf from her neck and let it slide to her shoulder, then guided it slowly down her arm to her tote bag like a herpetologist returning a pet snake to its carrying case. I backed up to the cash register and waited for her to pay, but she fluffed up her blond bob, swept past me in queenly style, and murmured, “Nothing today, but I will be back.”

Aghast, I realized I had been an audience of one to a role I had never seen Stella Stanley play. Was she really a shoplifter? Could someone of her prestige and wealth — a long career and alimony from three rich husbands — not afford a scarf? Of course she could. She must be one of those sad people afflicted with kleptomania. Reporting her to the police was out of the question. I could not do that to the woman who had brought such blessed forgetfulness to George and me last year.

Nor could I relate the incident to Charley Sutton, the thirtyish gossip columnist who writes the sleazy The Dis List for the local paper, mostly about residents picked up for Driving Under the Influence. He frequently hangs out at the coffee shop next-door to the boutique in the hope of spotting a star shopping for a copy of a dress she wore in a movie. Several of Charley’s items, fed to him by his friend and my boss, Derrick, made it to the tabloids, such as “Former bombshell Dixie Lane was seen at Be a Star Boutique trying to squeeze her size-sixteen bod into a slinky black number like the one she wore in Rhapsody. She burst into tears when the zipper popped, then ran half-clothed out to the street to her patient hubby who waited in his car. He paid for the dress before they sped off to a local watering hole. I hope it had a supply of Twinkies for Dixie.”

Charley slammed into the shop minutes after Stella Stanley left. Meticulously unkempt, most likely to show he was involved in more important things than personal hygiene, he propped his elbows on the counter and stared at me through wire-rimmed lenses flecked with dandruff.

“Well, what have you got for me?” he demanded, wetly transferring a toothpick from east to west.

“Not a thing, Charley.”

“Hey, don’t give me that. I just seen Stella Stanley sashay outta’ here, looking smirky, like she just pulled off something. I read somewhere that she was once picked up for shoplifting but the charges were dropped. So did she make off with some loot?”

“Charley, you’ve got a ketchup stain on your shirt. Try some club soda.”

Rubbing at his shirt, he looked around the shop.

“Derrick in today?”

“No.”

“Okay, but I’ll be checking around regularly. I think the old broad lives around here.”

“Get out, Charley.”

Grinning, he saluted, then deposited the toothpick on the counter. For occasions like Charley’s visits, I keep a box of moistened Steri-wipes on hand.

Derrick just laughs when I complain about him.

Determined to protect Stella from punky predators like Charley, I wrote out a sales slip for one green scarf, $75, cash transaction. I took $75 from my wallet and put it into the cash register to cover a one-time aberration. I owed her that.

When she came in the next day, she smiled at me with the warmth formerly shown to headwaiters and doormen in her movies. I believed that Stella knew that I had done her a service.

“And what is your name, my dear?” she asked in a voice only slightly huskier than in her screen roles.

“Vera, Miss Stanley,” I answered in a little-girl voice.

“Ah, you’re a fan.” She smiled. “And if you’re a real sweetie, I’ll give you my autograph before I leave.”

“S-super,” I stammered, exhuming the word from my teenage lexicon.

“Now, I’ll just toddle over to the racks and see what other lovely fashion knockoffs you have.”

“S-swell. I’ll be glad to help you.”

“Oh, no, sweetie, that’s not necessary. Trying on clothes is such a private thing, except when one has one’s dresser with her. And I, alas, do not.”

Dismissing my help with a wave, she advanced on three-inch heels toward the Size 6 rack. Most likely, I thought, she doesn’t want anyone to see a body not as taut as it used to be. Since no one else had arrived at the store, I enjoyed watching her for a while fingering the selections and draping three dresses over her arm until she sent me a look worthy of her annoyance with her maid in Rich Girl, Sad Girl. Embarrassed, I turned away.

Fortunately, Eunice McGovern, a good customer, came into the store looking for mauve sling-back shoes and gloves. I busied myself with her, going into the back room for her size. While I was ringing up the sale, Stella breezed by, blew me a kiss, and said, “Next time I’ll give you the autograph. Sorry I didn’t find anything today.”

But she did. As I watched her leave the shop, I noticed a periwinkle fabric that had slipped past the flowered print skirt of the dress she was wearing. Miss Stanley hadn’t wanted me in the dressing room because she had put her own dress over one of ours.

“Oh, goodness,” sighed Eunice. “That was Stella Stanley. I loved her pictures. I’m so glad she said she’d be back. I’ll have to tell my bridge club.”

After Eunice left, I went to the rack and saw that the periwinkle silk sheath was missing. Price tag: $745. I didn’t have that in my purse.

Dejectedly, I waited on more customers until a very plain woman in her fifties, dressed in a brown polyester pant suit, came in and followed me around the store. Not at all in the mood to cater to someone who obviously needed a major fashion makeover, I snapped, “I’m very busy right now.”

“I’d just like a word with you, please. Somewhere private.”

She moved toward the door marked Employees and I followed, certain that she was police and that she knew about the green scarf. I was going to be arrested for aiding and abetting a crime. Charley Sutton, I thought, had watched the whole episode. He had probably drilled a spy hole in the wall of the next-door coffee shop so he could truck more garbage to the tabloids. By the time we reached my office, I was ready to hold out my wrists to be cuffed.

“Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger stuff.” She smiled, extending her hand. “I’m Brenda Miles, Stella Stanley’s Girl Friday, Saturday, Sunday, et cetera. I noticed a new green scarf on her bureau last night with the tag from your store. Tell me, did Miss Stanley pay for it?”

“No, she didn’t.”

Ever the fan and not revealing the star’s latest acquisition of the silk dress, I offered, “Perhaps an oversight?”

“Hardly. Stella has a shoplifting problem. Although she’s had treatment, she can’t give it up completely. She has latent periods, but I suspected there’d be a flare-up after we moved into our new place and I saw your shop.”

“The poor woman. I suspected kleptomania.”

Brenda brushed a limp strand of hair from her eyes. “Either that or a deep-rooted sense of entitlement. For so many years, husbands or studios or the designers she publicized picked up the tabs. Now they’re gone and she tries to delude herself into thinking she still deserves star privileges.”

“That’s so sad.”

“Sad also for you. I try to go shopping with her, but yesterday and this morning I was too busy with the new place. The best I can do is track down the items and pay. You paid for the scarf, right?”

“Yes.”

“And she lifted something else even more expensive today, right? Something you can’t afford to pay for?”

“Yes. I’ve been trying to think what to do.”

“Thanks for not going to the police. Just call me if it ever happens again.”

After writing a check to me for the scarf and one to the store for the dress, she handed me a card with her new number penciled in.

To take my mind off the sad plight of Stella Stanley, I plugged in the vacuum. A tap on my shoulder sent a shiver down my spine. When I turned around, I saw Eunice McGovern and Muriel Harvey, another of our regulars.

“Sorry if I scared you,” Eunice twittered, “but I told Muriel about seeing Stella Stanley here and we’re dying to know if she comes in regularly at any set time so that we can discreetly arrange to be here.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Muriel set her still-pretty face into a pout. “Oh, fudge. Well, then maybe you could call either Eunice or me when she does come in and we could rush right over, after we call the rest of the bridge club, of course.”

“Sorry.”

I believe “withering” aptly describes the looks they gave me as they flounced out of the store. So properly withered was I that I flipped the Closed sign on the door and headed toward my office for an aspirin and a bit of a rest. Stella Stanley had entered my life not as a fading star but as a flaming meteorite that was pocking my landscape. Because of her, Charley Sutton would be lurking, as would Eunice, Muriel, and the others in the bridge club.

Someone will surely spot the shoplifting, and I can’t let that happen to Stella, I thought. What a movie: me, Vera Lyons, starring in The Rock and the Hard Place Boutique! If I fend off Charley, I might find myself in The Dis List, as “Boutique Manager, V.L., high-wired on espresso from Le Cafe, insults noted local journalist.” If I don’t alert the bridge club about Stella’s visits, I might lose thousands of dollars in sales. And the worst choice of all, if I tell Stella Stanley that I know her secret and refuse to allow her in the shop, I might destroy her fragile ego.

I put my head down on my desk and within minutes my headache was gone and I had the solution! No, I didn’t hear tinkling from Jimmy Stewart’s angel, Clarence. I’m sure my husband George had sent me an inspiration. We’ve always been on the same wavelength, although it’s quite a bit longer now. I’m going to arrange a Stella Stanley night. She can model the fashions she loves for my regulars, by invitation only, along with wine, hors d’oeuvres, and autograph signing. Once again, Stella will be a star, and I will let her choose any outfit she wants as her fee. My plan will even make an honest man of Charley Sutton. I’ll invite him to cover the event for the newspaper. And Eunice, Muriel, and the bridge club can spend time with the star and get autographs.

“Thank you, George,” I sighed, and immediately called Brenda Miles, who loved the idea and knew Stella would, too.

Even the arrival of Derrick, bellowing about the Closed sign on the shop door and my coolness to his buddy Charley, didn’t dampen my enthusiasm.

“I closed the shop for ten minutes to do some marketing, Derrick.”

“Marketing,” he sneered. “What do you know about marketing?”

“Enough to bring us in lots of money.”

That got his attention.

Slowly he warmed up to the idea of a fashion show with coverage by Charley and narration by me. I should have stopped there, but giddy with success, I made a proposal to seal the deal that was definitely not inspired by my late husband.

“And, Derrick, many fashion shows feature a male escort for the model. Someone young and attractive,” I mentioned coyly.

He blushed and looked almost likable. After studying him for a few seconds, I decided he was attractive in a punk-rocker sort of way.

“I was thinking of you, Derrick, but you most likely wouldn’t want to walk down the runway — which needs to be built, by the way — with an old movie star, even though Charley would insist on taking pictures, which might even be carried nationally in one of those entertainment papers you always read.”

He didn’t answer immediately; he must have needed time to visualize himself smiling out at supermarket shoppers everywhere. Cracking his knuckles to signal the arrival of a decision, he said, “I’ll do it.”

We set the date for the show for the Tuesday before Christmas, a month and a half away, when our clientele would be in a holiday mood for buying. I handled the invitations and chair rentals and Derrick ordered the construction of a portable runway and a renovation of the dressing room. He even hired the most expensive caterer in town to prepare the hors d’oeuvres and select suitable wines.

“This is going to be a classy operation,” he beamed. “And it’s going to be the real deal. I’ve been renting Stella Stanley videos and taping those dentist-office old-time songs for background music for the show. I’m ordering a tux like the one Cary Nelson wore in that high-society flick. And my hair stylist is going to give me an authentic ’forties Hollywood do.”

Delighted with Derrick’s enthusiasm, I couldn’t say no when he told me he had invited Charley to sit in on the preparations. After all, it’s Derrick’s shop.

“Charley wants to do a whole spread for Flash, USA, the paper that goes all over the country,” he said. “He wants to chronicle the great event from start to finish. And he’ll take pictures the night of the show.”

“Okay, but he has to stay out of the way.”

“He will. He’s just going to be taking notes for the article.”

I had a bad feeling about the Charley situation, especially about sending the article to Flash, USA, a notorious tabloid. When Charley came in, I mentioned my concern about that paper. He smiled, ran his hand through his newly shampooed hair, and oozed smarmy charm to reassure me.

“You’re looking lovely today, Vera, and may I put your fears to rest? Derrick must not have told you, but I will be sending the article to The Lamplighter, that snobby arts weekly.”

I was so relieved I offered to buy him an espresso.

When Stella arrived with Brenda after-hours to choose dresses and accessories for the show, Charley took the hand she offered for a handshake during their introduction and kissed it.

“What an honor to be in the same company as a star of your magnitude!” simpered Charley.

“Oh, my dear, how gallant of you,” Stella answered. “Tell me, which of my films was your favorite?”

“Well, um, that’s hard to say,” Charley stammered. “So many good ones.”

Adept at rescuing little white liars, Brenda said, “Come now, Stella. We’ve got work to do,” and gently ushered her toward the dressing room.

Before the door closed, Stella blew Charley a kiss. “Please stay, dear boy. As a connoisseur of my films and a reporter for The Lamplighter, I’m sure you’ll love the previews of these outfits I’ll be modeling.”

Charley grinned and settled back into the catbird seat, where he stayed throughout Stella’s “rehearsals,” offering opinions on jewelry, hats, and gloves, as well as jotting down notes for his article. The “dear boy” almost displaced Brenda as Stella’s dresser. An inveterate flirt, Stella requested his help with zippers, clasps, buckles, and snaps before entering the dressing room. She was cool to Derrick, however, in their two pre-show meetings. Because of his lack of deference to her, he never achieved “dear boy” status, but nevertheless he reveled in his role as escort to the star.

To prepare for the color newspaper spread, he went to the tanning salon. To slash his waist to swashbuckler’s fighting trim, he joined a gym. For the smile that would dazzle millions of readers and ultimately lead to a film career, he pressed whitening strips to his teeth. To achieve perfect modeling posture, I suspect that he paraded in his condo with the shop’s missing Yellow Pages phone book on his head.

On the night of the fashion show it was only fitting that he and the other star arrive in a white limo and walk on the red carpet set on the sidewalk past two strategically placed strobe lights as Charley clicked madly on his camera. Derrick had justified the expense beforehand by reminding me that our shop’s motto was “Make an Entrance.”

Dressed in a shimmering gold-sequined sheath, her blond hair in a vintage upsweep, Stella strode into the boutique on gold sandals with three-inch heels to the cheers and applause of the forty invited guests. Radiant, she paused for a minute before walking up the ramp to model the dress. Before I started my narration, I saw Brenda peeping out of the dressing room, and a tear — I know it was a happy tear — slid down her cheek. After describing the dress, I motioned for Derrick to move away from Stella. Showing off his beautiful smile, Derrick mugged for the audience on both sides of the runway until Stella firmly lifted his hand from her arm and did several pirouettes to display the dress and her still-beautiful legs. Stella insisted that Derrick sit the next eight outfits out.

“The tuxedo does not go with these scenes, darling, but you’ll be in the finale.”

The lights dimmed and Eunice’s husband, who had generously offered to put together a slide show, flashed a slide of Stella wearing a dress similar to the one she modeled next in the film Table for Three. I handed the mike to Stella, who quoted her lines from the movie. “Reginald, Reginald, I implore you,” she breathed, “believe me. I had only one drink with Philip as I was waiting for you. It’s you I love, you, only you.”

“We love you, too, Stella,” yelled Muriel’s husband.

Stella dimpled and blew him a kiss. The audience applauded loudly as she kicked up her heels and sprinted into the dressing room. “Oohs and aahs” greeted each outfit, and appreciative murmurs accompanied the slides and Stella’s reenactments. I heard comments like, “Mark and I saw that picture on our first date,” and, “Lord, going to the movies was the only thing that kept me sane when my brother and cousin were fighting in the South Pacific.” I noticed couples holding hands and widows lost in reverie. I felt George’s presence intensely, and I told him that I didn’t care if the shop lost money on this evening, if no one bought a single thing. For a short time, our Stella Stanley Night brought back youth, with its dreams and heartaches, for the guests — and for the star.

Stella didn’t simply wear the clothes; she emoted them. Wrapped in a faux ermine coat like the one she wore in Viva Les Showgirls, she clutched the belt as if she needed something to hold on to when my narration referred to Jasper Carrington’s refusal to divorce his society wife. “No, Jasper, no,” she gasped and staggered on the runway, before recovering with a mischievous grin and showing off the coat.

In the tidy little business suit with the fur collar, she paced impatiently as if awaiting a verdict, as she did in Scandal in Soho. As a fearless reporter she dodged bullets and daggers to bring to light a conspiracy to defraud investors. “And in high heels, too,” she ad-libbed to the delight of the audience. Her sense of humor also sparkled when she wore the long off-white, candlelight-satin dress with the hand-sewn beaded jacket. Although she had never worn anything like it in a movie, she had insisted on modeling it. Since I knew the dress would make a striking finale to any show, I agreed.

“It will fit with the theme,” Brenda assured me. “It’s a role she’s played often. You’ll see. They’ll love it.”

And they did.

After strolling sedately down the runway, her arm draped in Derrick’s, Stella took the mike from me before I could describe the dress.

“And this, dear ladies and gentlemen,” she announced, “is the perfect dress for the mother of the bride.”

She whirled around.

“Or for the bride herself, the second or third time. I believe I wore this type of dress when I married Harold, my second. Or was it Lawrence, my third? Or will I wear it for Charley, my fourth?”

She winked and everyone laughed, except Charley, who clicked away.

She whirled around again, then stood on tiptoes, and planted a kiss on Derrick’s cheek. “Or will it be worn for Derrick, my fifth?”

Derrick gulped audibly before backing away.

“Not to worry, silly boy. Now just go sit in the audience with all those jealous men that I’ll kiss later. Stella has a big surprise for everyone.”

Delighted, the men whistled and the women applauded.

I shrugged and looked over at Eunice’s husband, who had turned off the slide projector. He shrugged back. Brenda came out of the dressing room and handed me a note.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I announced, “Miss Stanley is going to model one of the costumes she actually wore in a movie. It’s from one of her finest, most moving, most dramatic roles, as Anna in Innocence Denied. Ken Keefer, the motion-picture critic for National News, dubbed it ‘Oscar-worthy,’ but alas, Oscar went to another. Tonight, you can judge for yourself if she was robbed.”

Slowly the dressing-room door opened and Stella shuffled out. She was wearing a black-and-white-striped prison costume. Head down, she transformed the runway into the last mile. When she reached the end of it, she lifted her head, thrust out her chin, raised her fist, and shouted, “As God is my witness, I am innocent of this murder and I should not be going to the electric chair...” and continued to deliver an impassioned monologue from the film.

She was superb. Many of the women wept and some men dabbed at their eyes. After a full minute’s silence, the shop erupted into thunderous applause. Shouts of, “You get my vote, Stella,” and, “That Academy of Something-or-Other was crazy not to give you the Oscar,” and, “We love you, Stella.”

She curtsied and accepted the bouquet from Brenda that Derrick was supposed to present. He sat frozen to his chair. Before returning to the dressing room, she hushed the audience. “I have a message for all of you, something from the heart that says how I feel about you. It was given to me by the film crew of Innocence.”

She reached down into her shirt and pulled out a small placard on a chain that read “Prisoner of Love.” Laughter rippled through the shop, followed by more appreciative applause. During the long ovation that followed, Stella shed many, many years, as did her audience. Finally, she took a deep breath, blew one final kiss, and trotted to the dressing room.

For a few moments I basked in the afterglow of Stella’s triumphant performance and my role in initiating it — until Derrick, the consummate spell-breaker, poked my shoulder.

“You’d better get those cards and pass them out,” he ordered, “before the geezers get too trashed on the free booze and forget the reason they came here.”

For Derrick, the reason being, of course, to sell merchandise. Obediently, I resumed my role as shopgirl and passed out the cards that listed the twelve outfits and their prices. The Muses of Commerce went to work.

“Oh, I must have that adorable magenta sheath, Bucky. It’s only nine hundred and ninety-five dollars.”

“You’d look terrific in that shiny silver number, Gloria, like my personal mermaid. Let me buy it for you.”

“Jimmy, I will simply sulk for weeks if I don’t have that wedding dress Stella wore.”

“Not thinking about getting married again, are you, sweetheart?” quipped Jimmy as he pulled out his checkbook and averted a prolonged pout.

The sound of ballpoint pens clicking didn’t satisfy Derrick. Grimly he surveyed the room, then charged over to me.

“Where the hell is Charley?” he demanded.

“I guess he left.”

“What a jerk. Look around. There’s more money to be made.”

As soon as Stella came into the room, all kinds of cameras immortalized her entrance. Swarming toward her, the guests became instant paparazzi. Usually reserved clients were shouting, “Over here, Miss Stanley, be in a picture with Herbert and me,” and, “How about one with our bridge club?” Graciously, she fulfilled every photo request.

Ungraciously, Derrick muttered, “We could have made some big bucks if Charley had stayed around to take pictures. Charged a hundred dollars a shot. These fans would have paid that much or more.”

Although not a fan of Charley’s, I offered an excuse to get rid of Derrick. “He’s a journalist with a national audience now. He must have a deadline.”

Brightening, Derrick straightened his shoulders and his bow tie. “Hey, you’re right. Flash, USA comes out on Thursday. It’ll have my picture all over it. I’ll have to tell Trish down at the News Nook to save me at least ten copies.”

I corrected him. “Not Flash, USA, Derrick, he’s doing the spread for Lamplighter, the newspaper of the arts.”

“You must have heard him wrong, Vera.” He grinned.

Speechless, I watched as he resumed working the room, looking over shoulders to tally up the sales. I rushed to my office to connect with my late husband George. When I lifted his picture from my desk, I shivered, which is not my usual reaction to his treasured face. Slowly, I put the picture down.

“George, you are not reassuring tonight.”

Chilled, I wrapped an old shawl around me and probed my discomfort. Okay, so Charley lied to me about his assignment from The Lamplighter. Maybe he thought that Stella would refuse to allow him to photograph the before-and-after of the show for Flash, USA, the tabloid that had reported her shoplifting arrest years ago and had thoroughly humiliated her during her third divorce by publishing photos leaked by a legal secretary of Stella with eye blackened and nose swollen.

But — and this was a very improbable but — the tabloid might want to atone for its past sins by displaying a radiant Stella at the boutique. Of course, attributing a conscience to Flash, USA was like claiming that Dracula’s altruistic acts saved his victims from the disgusting practice of bloodletting by leeches.

But — and I thought this was a better probability than the first but — there was no way that Flash, USA and Charley could distort the actuality of the rehearsals and the fashion show, which showed Stella at her best. Although Stella had never sued about the earlier photos, perhaps a deluge of other lawsuits was making Flash, USA clean up its act.

Cheered, I went back to the party. Cameras were still flashing. Brenda hovered over Stella, offering her mineral water, trying to lead her to a chair, advising her to rest a bit, and being shooed away by her boss, who had burst through the cocoon of age and was thoroughly enjoying her recovered youth. At midnight, no pumpkin arrived. It was well after two when Brenda led her to the car, followed by a mob of adoring fans. Stella gave a regal wave, then covered an unqueenly yawn.

Thrilled by the success of the evening, I stood outside accepting the praise and thank-yous of the shop’s clientele.

“Promise you’ll have another Stella Stanley Night, Vera,” implored Eunice.

“Yes, do, do,” echoed the bridge club.

“Perhaps when the spring collection comes in,” I answered.

“Wonderful.” Eunice smiled. “Start planning now.”

And plan I did, all the next day, flipping through catalogs — visualizing Stella in a flared lavender organdy garden-party dress; Stella in turquoise sundress and lacy stole; Stella in wide-brimmed straw hat; Stella in long seersucker bathrobe trimmed with white satin. Visualizing Stella in the bathrobe reminded me of last night when Brenda tucked her into the car. Perhaps the show was too much for her. Nearly eighty years old, she literally performed for six straight hours, a feat daunting even to a much younger person. At one-thirty, I called her house.

“She’s asleep,” Brenda said. “She might sleep all day, but that’s okay, and we’ll spend all night reliving that beautiful show. Thanks, Vera.”

Since Brenda sounded tired herself, I didn’t mention the possibility of a sequel, a word that gave me pause. Like any successful producer, I feared the jinx of the sequel.

I needn’t have worried. There will be no sequel. Flash, USA saw to that.

On Thursday, Derrick bounded into the shop, a stack of newspapers under his arm.

“Keep the phone lines open, Vera. Hollywood agents will be calling any time now after they see my face and bod plastered all over Flash, USA.”

My heart sank as Narcissus thumped the tabloids down on the counter and moistened his fingers to hasten their arrival at the middle spread. What he saw did not please him. In fact, what he saw enraged him, and I can’t repeat the words he shrieked. They were directed at Charley.

In the montage of eight pictures, Derrick appeared only once, a shot of him on the runway being kissed by Stella, the back of her head almost completely obscuring his face. As Derrick raved about “double-crossing,” I held my breath, hoping desperately to see tasteful pictures of Stella, but when Derrick moved his arm away, I saw Stella not in ageless glory, but in a most pitiful state.

Under the headline “To Catch a Falling Star,” Flash, USA had assembled seven pictures of Stella dressed only in a slip, furtively concealing items. The only photo showing her fully clothed and not shoplifting was the one of her kissing Derrick. Its caption read, “Still on the prowl for young men.”

The single paragraph of text under the headline explained the other photos as “gotchas” — Stella caught in the act of stealing from a friend.

Derrick stormed out of the store, vowing to dismantle Charley limb by limb. Too upset to join him in the dismembering, I forced myself to study the photos. Had Charley, I wondered, equipped his camera with a zoom lens and taken them outside Stella’s home? If so, why was Stella concealing her own things? That made no sense.

Heartsick and perplexed, I stared at the photos and noticed in all of them a familiar Spanish vase with trailing ivy on the wall of the room in front of Stella. And then I knew — the photos came from our dressing room. They were taken during the rehearsals for the show, but not by Charley, who during that time innocently focused his camera on Stella only when she practiced modeling on the runway. I rushed into the dressing room and immediately found the hidden camera above the vase. And I remembered Derrick insisting that the dressing room be renovated for the star. Charley knew about Stella’s shoplifting habit and enlisted Derrick’s aid to record her weakness. He believed she couldn’t resist taking things when no one was looking.

But someone was looking. Brenda was in the dressing room with her at all times, acting as her dresser. I never saw her leave. And there was nothing missing from the shop. Were the pictures staged, and if so, how? My head was spinning. I picked up the paper to try to make sense of it.

The pictures showed Stella in varying attempts at theft: tying elbow-length gloves around her thigh; clipping a rhinestone necklace onto the strap of her slip; hanging a feathery boa on a hook and covering it with her own jacket; slipping a lame turban into an umbrella propped against the wall; tucking a pearl-studded evening bag into her black clutch bag; sliding gold hoop earrings onto her ring finger; and clipping a sunburst brooch inside her own hat. But all those items made it into the show and most were purchased. There had to be a solution and it had to be in the pictures.

I took a magnifying glass from my desk and scrutinized each one, stopping at the earrings. A vague outline of another hand appeared in back of Stella’s arm. Brenda’s! After the faithful Girl Friday replaced the clothes from the show on hangers, the star was trying to steal the accessories. Undeceived, Brenda had retrieved them and returned them with the outfits. How Charley must have despaired about the possibility of his hidden camera scheme being thwarted by Brenda’s presence! But when he saw the first two films and realized Stella was still shoplifting and trying to hide her attempts from Brenda, he must have rejoiced to realize he simply had to crop out Brenda’s taking back the items.

With dread, I punched in Stella’s number. I had to warn Brenda that the pictures were in Flash, USA. It was too late. After a night of rehashing the show, Stella asked Brenda to get The Lamplighter and made her promise that they would look at it together. When nothing about the show appeared in that paper, Brenda believed the spread would appear the following week. Disappointed but handling it well, Stella went to the front door to bring in the local paper, thinking something might be in there. Flash, USA was propped against the door with a note to open the paper to the center spread. I’m sure Charley hand-delivered it to her door.

“I’m waiting for the doctor,” Brenda said. “Stella’s in shock. She just sits on the floor hugging herself and rocking. How could you have done this to her?”

“I didn’t know about the hidden camera, Brenda. Honestly. I’d never hurt her. Derrick and Charley planned this horror together.”

“It’s a horror all right,” she answered and ended the call.

As I did at many of Stella’s movies, I started to cry, and only stopped when Charley burst in screaming that Derrick had slashed his tires and broken his windshield, demanding to know where “the creep” was hiding. I beat him into the dressing room, ripped out the camera, and threw it at him. I missed him, but scored a direct hit on Derrick’s forehead as he was charging through the front door. A brawl ensued between the two conspirators. I called the police, who were quite busy that day handling phone calls from my irate fashion-show guests. An avid reader of Flash, USA, Eunice saw the pictures and recognized the vase in the dressing room. Her husband and other husbands believed that their wives were being photographed while changing in the dressing room, frequently trying on the shop’s undergarments, and would be blackmailed.

They were right. Charley had a pile of photos to supplement his income from the tabloid. Derrick was hauled in on invasion of privacy issues because Charley fingered him as authorizing the installation of the camera. No charges were brought against Stella for shoplifting after Brenda explained putting the items back and I confirmed her story. Flash, USA is issuing an apology. Derrick is facing a barrage of lawsuits, which will effectively put Be a Star out of business and me out of a job, but I don’t care. I’ve got another job to do.

Flash, USA is sputtering out explanations about Charley’s lying to them about the location of the photos. Charley told them he had gotten a tip from one of Stella’s rich friends about her habit and she’d allowed him to take zoom photos of her stealing jewelry from the hostess’s bedroom. When I had read the statement in Flash, USA about Stella stealing from a friend, I thought it was a reference to me.

Brenda apologized to me for thinking I had anything to do with the photos. The following week, we had a glass of wine together after Stella fell asleep. The lateness of the hour and the warmth of the wine called for confidences.

“I’m going to tell you something that nobody else knows,” Brenda said. “Stella is my stepmother. I was part of the package when she married my father, her second. I was ten years old and so homely and awkward that my real mother, also a movie star, didn’t want me. Stella told me I was beautiful and would always be with her. After the divorce, I went with Stella and she gave me a good life. Lots of warmth, excitement, glamour. I love her and I will always try to protect her.”

We both cried, me for the poignancy of the story and Brenda for failing to shelter Stella from Charley and Derrick. When we heard Stella moving about upstairs, we quickly dried our tears. I shooed Brenda to bed. It was my turn to comfort Stella as best as I could.

Holding on to the stair rail and refusing help, she slowly descended, graceful and stoic in her prison stripes. Since her appearance in Flash, USA, Stella refused to wear anything but her costume from Innocence Denied. When she reached the next to last step, she recited her lines from the ending of the film. “As God is my witness, I am innocent,” she cried. Then, as she has done so many times since she saw those awful photos, she plunged into my arms.

“You won’t let them put me in the electric chair, will you?” she sobbed.

I stroked her hair. “No, Stella. Brenda and I won’t let them do it.”

That assurance soothes her for almost ten minutes until she repeats it as if performing a retake on the old studio lot. I’m going to stay here until Stella recovers. Brenda needs me to spell her during the long nightly replays of Innocence Denied. However long it takes, one of us will be here at the foot of the stairs to catch a falling star.