The last thing Rose needed in her life was another self-centered, workaholic egomaniac in her life. But the right girl can change a man. And I'm the right girl for Bobby. I just have to find a way to make him see it.

Chapter 20 - New York City 1962

MEANWHILE, SOMETHING STRANGE was going on with Lu. For years her schedule had been the same. She'd open a musical, play it on Broadway for a year, take it on the road for a half a year, do a season in London, and then come back to New York for a couple of months of rest before going into rehearsal for her next show. It was a routine that everyone thought was etched in stone. But suddenly she'd announced that she wanted to take some time off.

Lu's last show had been a bit of fluff called All the Boys, in which she had played a girl who masqueraded as a cowboy to follow the man of her dreams on a cattle run. It was standard Lu Lawson fare, starring her as a wisecracking ugly duckling who tried to get the attention of the boneheaded leading man by engaging in a series of adorably tomboyish antics—until he finally noticed how fabulous she was in time for the third-act finale. There was nothing wrong with All the Boys. Yet for some reason Lu had refused to take it out on the road. She'd also announced that she wouldn't be going to London with the show. Lu's agent and her producer panicked. They asked if she was sick, and they ordered their secretaries to look up the names of doctors.

George said she was exhausted. “I told you not to let her ride that damn machine,” he said to the agent and the producer over an emergency dinner at Sardi's. The first act of All the Boys had opened with a plucky Lu being thrown from a mechanical horse, and even with the special harness that was supposed to protect her when she fell, she'd spent most of the show's run swallowing aspirin and running to the chiropractor's office. “She's beat,” George scolded.

But Rose knew the truth. Mother's bored.

And that was when Rose realized that she'd gotten to know Lu better than anyone else—even loyal, devoted George.