had decreased from this “episode.” Lili was shocked. She had never equated her “value” to the husband she would marry. Idella told Lili she was “spoiled merchandise.”56
Idella spoke with Jimmy’s family, who forbade Lili to see Jimmy anymore. There was a fight among the families about who corrupted whom. Lili felt as if everyone was judging her. “Ruined” was continually being thrown at her. Ruined for what? she wondered. She would harden herself against the screaming judgmental women around her. Lili was more determined than ever to get out of Pasadena and away from the disapproving faces. She was going to show her family exactly what she was worth. It was around this time Lili dropped out of school.
She had discovered love wasn’t like a Hollywood movie. Love wasn’t giving her a happy-ever-after ending. Love was something that had a consequence. Love would never be as innocent and pure for her again.
For the first time, she decided that if she was going to be told she was a “bad” girl, then she would become one. All the way. She would be a femme fatale that wouldn’t disappoint. Bad was coming, she thought, just you all wait.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cordy Milne was a slim, nineteen-year-old motorcycle speedway rider when he met sixteen-year-old Marie Van Schaack in 1933. Born in 1914 in Detroit, Michigan, Corydon Clark Milne attended John Muir and the two probably at least knew of each other before they started dating. He lived on Winona Avenue four miles from Alice’s bungalow.57
If there was something Lili knew nothing about—and cared not a whit for—it was motorcycle racing. Cordy Milne and his older brother Jack raced, he explained when he visited Lili, who was still working at the Chinese restaurant slinging chow mein and ripping open fortune cookies looking for something to change her destiny. As a now ardent fan of Charlie Chan movies, Lili would part the bamboo curtain separating the kitchen and dining room with red manicured nails and “enter” her set dramatically.
She never bothered to read the papers—nor would she—or she would have known about Cordy’s growing fan base. Cordy Milne was a hugely successful scratch rider. Scratch riders competed in races that lasted no more than a blink of an eye, four laps that were typically won in a minute. Cordy was winning big “flat track” races in front of crowds that held thousands.58 In the seconds they flew over the dirt, it looked as if they were clinging to their bikes for dear life.
A sports paper favorite with his blond tousled hair, a shock of which fell over his forehead, and rugged good looks, Cordy was, despite his small size, attractive, and Lili was interested. She could see the girls sniffing around yet had no interest in becoming one more notch on his well-tooled belt.
CORDY PERSISTED IN WOOING LILI, COMING AROUND EVERY FEW DAYS and asking her out. Finally she relented. She didn’t plan it, but she began to see this older, seemingly financially set boy as her ticket out of Pasadena.
From Lili’s scrapbook
Nothing had become of the professional photos Jack Powell had taken, despite his wild promises that she would soon be “discovered.” She was still practicing barre, running to the restaurant, flipping through Vogue magazine, and watching endless double matinees, immersed in the tap-dancing Gold Diggers of 1933 humming along to “We’re in the Money.” There was Mae West’s I’m No Angel with a dreamy and sophisticated Cary Grant. And of course Garbo shone in Queen Christina, swaggering around in men’s clothes, a style Lili would one day adopt.
But not even the movies could soothe her restlessness, her desire to be something. She needed a diversion and Cordy Milne seemed to be the perfect one.
She experienced her first taste of having her person in print. A local paper wrote that Cordy and a rival rider, Bo Lisman, were competing for Lili’s affections as she sat in the stands.
Alice didn’t approve of Cordy—probably because he engaged in a dangerous sport—and she worried for Lili, as she always did.
He didn’t push himself on Lili, believing her to still be a virgin. They spent time in the safety of a group of his friends. She avoided being alone with him though he persuaded her to call in sick to work and join him at meets, sometimes as far away as San Diego.
She was shocked by the screaming fans who shouted his name. She sat among four thousand hyper men and women who whooped and hollered as Cordy tore his motorcycle around the oval-shaped track. His brother Jack stayed in the lead as his “blocker,” clinging to the handles as he drove at a sharp angle, the bikes sliding sideways around the track, the rumble of the engines, mud shooting off the wheels, feet scraping along the ground. Cordy explained they raced without brakes and in only one gear. For Lili it was thrilling and jarring. She was a nervous wreck watching him.
Lili couldn’t believe it when the race ended at one minute and 7.4 seconds. Before she was barely settled in her seat with her Vogue it was over. And Cordy had won. Though it seemed somehow common to her, the sport and the people, she was impressed by his celebrity. Fans tore at Cordy, asking for his autograph, pushing her aside to get to him. In her eyes his stature grew.
Cordy would hold her to his side, making it clear she was with him. She liked his possessiveness. At first. That didn’t mean she wasn’t above trying to improve him.
She complained about the tight riding breeches that the entire motorcycle club wore. She thought they were ridiculous. And they were filthy postrace.
What did the team name “Short Snorters” mean? She didn’t like it. She tried to class him up, as she would with all her working-class men. She would attend to their details, while they attended to her.
Cordy wasn’t interested in changing. He loved the intense competitiveness of his sport. He loved having his beautiful Marie waiting for him after a race. He liked his uniform and he liked it dirty and no one was closer to him than his team, a boisterous, close-knit crowd of thrill seekers who experienced a rush as they raced for their lives. Cordy and Jack were constantly in the papers, though not always positively.
In 1934 a competitor claimed Cordy, the national champion, “deliberately attempted to kick him off his machine.” The competitor also accused Jack of illegal blocking. A rematch was called and Cordy lost.59
Though satisfied with his career, Cordy was ready to add a beautiful girl who would watch him from the stand and start a family. Cordy told her he wanted lots of babies. Lili smiled and didn’t tell him what she wanted was “adventure” and “limousines.” There was no room for babies in her future.60
She loyally stood by Cordy during various injuries. The following year he would be thrown fifteen feet in the air, his bike landing square on his face, knocking out his front teeth, which gave his already charming smile—his best feature, Lili thought—a sweet vulnerability. Truthfully, the ruggedness and the danger of the sport was what excited her and she felt a growing respect for her boyfriend. Soon she too was screaming in the stands as the riders dragged their feet behind to slow down and stop. The Milne brothers revolutionized the sport by riding “foot forward.” Cordy would badly burn his legs on an exhaust pipe and the following year Jack would get hit by another rider and break his back.
Idella complained to Lili that staying with Cordy provided no “financial stability.” She thought Lili was “wasting her time.”61
The
