Prologue, Pages 1–3
STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT, Copyright © 2023 by Heather Webb.
Every important moment of my life could be measured in notes and captured by a song. That was never truer than the first night I saw her across the room, belonging to someone else.
As the brass finished and the lights went up, I stepped away from the mic. Cheers and whistles peppered the audience in the smoke-hazed room of the Hollywood Palladium. I mopped my brow and drank deeply from a water glass, parched after the set.
“Alright, boys, see you in twenty,” Tommy said, bandleader and boss. He laid his trombone on his chair.
The orchestra wiped down their instruments, put them carefully in their cases before seeing about a refreshment or two. I ordered a drink from a cute waitress who batted her eyes at me and asked for my autograph. I obliged. I was never one to turn away a fan, never would be.
Whiskey in hand, I skirted the room, saying hello to those I knew and to anyone important, but really wasn’t I the most important person here? They’d all come to hear me sing, after all. I’d taken Tommy Dorsey’s Band to new heights and no one could deny it, not even Tommy, who still acted as if I should be kissing his ring in gratitude for the chance to tour with them. But it was my name the bobby-soxers screamed while waiting in a line that wrapped the building of every club or concert hall—not his.
I spotted Mickey Rooney across the room, Hollywood royalty and MGM’s number one star, and headed toward him. One of these days I hoped to be taken seriously as an actor, too.
“Hiya, Mickey,” I said, extending my hand. “Good to see you.”
“If it isn’t Frank Sinatra.” Mickey shook my hand firmly. “That was some set. Dorsey’s band is a favorite of mine. You were pretty alright, too.”
I laughed good-naturedly. I liked this guy. “Good to hear man, thanks.”
And then I saw her, perched beside him in a white dress: dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, cleft in her chin. She wasn’t just beautiful—I’d seen plenty of women that fit that description—she was a goddess sculpted of the finest marble. The kind of woman that knocked the air from your lungs.
She also wore a ring on the wrong finger.
I cleared my throat. “Say, you’ve got yourself a real beauty of a wife.” I gestured at her. “If I’d seen her first, I would have married her myself.”
Mickey laughed, put his hand on her back. “Frank, meet Ava Gardner. She’s one of Mayer’s love goddesses.”
Louis B. Mayer was the head of MGM and an all-around prick, but we put up with him to land a role in his pictures. It didn’t surprise me that he’d snapped up this hot little number.
“I’ll bet she is,” I said, noticing the graceful neck and the ivory swell of her bosom. As she took me in, a sharpness framed her expression. I guessed too many people underestimated her intelligence—I wouldn’t underestimate her in anything. She was a femme fatale of the highest order. There was no denying that, even at first glance. “Hello, Ava.” I gave her my most irresistible smile.
Her eyes flashed with some imperceptible emotion. “Hello, Mr. Sinatra.” She turned then, giving me her back, and signaled to a waiter to bring her a drink.
I stiffened at the slight but tried again. “It’s going to be a good night, I can tell.”
This time she reached for Mickey’s hand. “It already has been.”
My smile froze on my face. She hated me for some reason, couldn’t care less who I was, and it was clear I should scram. “Fine, fine,” I said, waving my hand as if to get on with things. “That’s what we like to hear. Well, folks, I hope you enjoy the show.”
I shook off the odd exchange and stopped to make plans with Lana about where to meet when the show was over. After, I continued through the room, shaking hands with members of the audience before making my way back to the stage. It was a packed house, an energetic crowd, their voices rumbling, their glasses clinking in celebration, and more than a few cigars glowing in the murky light of the club.
When the band moved into place and the familiar strains of the piano floated through the room, a hush draped the audience. All eyes fixed on me, and a familiar rush of satisfaction rolled through me.
On cue, I began to sing.
The music washed over me, filled me up until I brimmed with it, the emotion of the lyrics carrying me as if I’d written them myself. As my gaze drifted over the crowd, I found myself looking for that face: the one that had stopped me in my tracks, the one that had dismissed me almost instantly and left a lingering sting.
I locked onto a pair of vivid green eyes—Ava’s eyes—to find them already intent on mine. A flame flickered to life inside me. She sure was something. I sang as if the song was written for her, and it was, at least for tonight.
If I’d known what she would come to mean to me, maybe I would have done things differently. Maybe I would have tried to change. How often would I grasp at time in a desperate attempt to hold it close, to rewind the clock to the moments I’d spent with her only to find they had slipped through my fingers like water, leaving me nothing but memories? Happy days and terrible ones, and the chasm left by her absence. I had regrets—plenty of them—but loving her wasn’t one of them. Loving her was one of the things I’d done right, even if I hadn’t done it well.
As the lyrics poured forth like molten lava and every part of me ignited, at last, I detected a smile on her lips.
We might have been strangers that night, but her smile told me all I needed to know. It was only a beginning.
A Novel of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner
It was the tumultuous romance that scandalized the world: Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner fought, loved, and lived life to the hilt. Now their unbridled story is brought vividly to life by Heather Webb, the bestselling author of Meet Me in Monaco and The Next Ship Home.
In the golden age of Hollywood, two of the brightest stars would define—and defy—an era…
She was the small-town southern beauty transformed into a Hollywood love goddess. He was the legendary crooner whose voice transfixed the world. They were Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra. Separately they were irresistible; together they were an explosive combination.
Ava’s star is rising just as Frank’s career—and public image as a family man—is taking a hit. Gone are the days of the screaming bobbysoxers and chart-topping hits. Ava, however, finds herself gracing the front page of every tabloid in America. Jealousy and cheating abound, and when the two succumb to their temperaments and their vices, their happiness is threatened at every turn.
As the pair ride the rollercoaster of success and failure, passion and anger, they both wonder if the next turn will be the end of their careers, and most devastating of all—the end of all they’ve shared.
A captivating novel with a star-studded cast spanning continents and decades, Strangers in the Night brings to life the most riveting love story of the twentieth century.
Fiction [William Morrow Paperbacks, On Sale: March 21, 2023, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063004184 / eISBN: 9780063004191]
Heather Webb is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of eight historical novels. In 2015, Rodin’s Lover was a Goodread’s Top Pick, and in 2018, Last Christmas in Paris won the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award. Meet Me in Monaco, was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Goldsboro RNA award in the UK, as well as the 2019 Digital Book World’s Fiction prize. Heather’s upcoming release is a novel of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner called Strangers in the Night. To date, Heather’s books have been translated to seventeen languages. She lives in New England with her family, a mischievous kitten, and one feisty rabbit.
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