During the next few days, in a whirl of shifting moods touched off by Marsha’s casual words, “You’ve got a case on Noel Airman,” she gave way to a desire to think about Airman, and thought about nobody and nothing else. She went over and over every moment of the evening at South Wind, piecing together his words, his actions. She daydreamed about him through her classes, her meals at home, her Vagabond rehearsals at night.
Marsha gratefully phoned the next week to tell her that she had a job in the corset department at Lamm’s. “My specialty, sugar bun, I’ve been studying for years how to squeeze a mass of living putty into the shape of a woman. Won’t bother you again till I work up to corset buyer, then I’ll phone you the good news. Give me two years.”
Marjorie, whose heart leaped when she heard Marsha’s voice, asked a lot of questions to keep the conversation going, hoping fiercely that Marsha would in some way come to talk of Noel again. But Marsha said at last, “ ’Bye, sugar bun, enjoy life,” and hung up. Marjorie fought against telephoning her in the days that followed, the way a man who has quit smoking fights against taking a cigarette. Once, late at night, she actually dialled the number; but when she heard Mr. Zelenko’s voice she crashed the receiver on to the hook.
Gradually her emotional turmoil subsided, though she never entirely stopped thinking about Airman. On her nineteenth birthday, a bitter snowy day, she did a very queer thing. She went downtown to Bank Street after school hours, and for twenty minutes stood across the street from the shabby red brick house where he lived, staring at the windows, while snow caked on her beaver coat and caught in her eyelashes. It occurred to her, as she stood there in the blizzard with her breath smoking, that she was hardly better than the squealing simpletons who gathered in fan clubs to worship an actor. Noel Airman was as remote from her as Clark Gable, and as unaware of her existence. But though surprised at herself, and ironically amused, she somehow was not really ashamed. She went home half frozen but obscurely satisfied, and she did not do it again.
The best result of this strange period was that she discovered in herself a capacity for keeping silent and holding a cheery appearance no matter what her mood was. She was on gossipy terms with some of the Vagabond girls, who picked over their love tangles by the hour, but she said not a word about her own. As for her family, the man who was occupying her thoughts did not even exist for them. All during the winter, and into the spring—while she dreamed of him, and wrote letters she never intended to mail and tore them up, and scribbled Mrs. Noel Airman on loose-leaf sheets which she instantly shredded into a wastebasket, and planned and plotted to make her way to South Wind, and finally made the appointment with Greech and won the job—all that time, for anything her parents or her brother knew, Marjorie was a girl without an aim or a care in the world.
Into this same reservoir of silence she dropped the tremendous news that Greech had hired her to work at South Wind. That very evening at dinner, as it happened, a discussion of summer plans came up. Mrs. Morgenstern dismally observed that, while the rest of them might have to sweat it out in the city, Marjorie at least was assured of fresh air and sunshine at Klabber’s camp. The girl let it pass. She knew that in June she would have to fight a wild battle with her mother, and saw no point in starting hostilities in March.
The phone rang in the middle of the discussion. It was Wally Wronken. He said breathlessly, “Marjorie, my Varsity Show has its opening night at the Waldorf next Thursday. Will you come with me?”
“What! My gosh, Wally, you take my breath away. It’s awfully sweet of you, but—no, ask someone else—that’s an important evening for you, you hardly know me—” But he would not be argued out of it. Astonished and flattered, she finally agreed to come; then his joy made her uneasy.
When she arrived home from school on the evening of the show there was a massive white orchid nesting in green tissue paper in a box on the kitchen table. Mrs. Morgenstern, peeling potatoes at the sink, said, “Who is this Wally Wronken, a gangster?”
Marjorie was smiling over the card: Only four more hours until I see you. I may live. She said, “Oh, a crazy kid,” and she told her mother about the Varsity Show.
Mrs. Morgenstern said, “He must be talented. And from the looks of that flower, not badly off.”
“Unfortunately, Mom, he’s an infant. Put away the wedding invitations.”
Wally appeared at her door at seven-thirty in a skyscraping opera hat, a flowing white silk muffler, white kid gloves, and a coat with a black velvet collar; he carried a black cane with a white ivory handle. Marjorie managed with a great effort to keep from laughing. His words of greeting when he saw her rather stark halter-neckline evening dress were, “Holy cats.” In the taxi he sat gnawing the head of his cane, smiling foolishly at her. Walking into the buzzing Waldorf ballroom, hailed and congratulated on every side, he stumbled and grinned like a drunkard.
His family, already seated in the box, looked Marjorie over very critically. One glance at the dresses of the mother and sister told Marjorie that the Wronkens were well-to-do. “I feel very odd,” Marjorie said to the mother and father. “I told Wally he ought to give this great honor to a girl who knew him better—”
“I don’t see how he could have picked a prettier partner,” the father said.
Mrs. Wronken merely smiled.
Marjorie was a little surprised by some of the wit in the show. The actors were ungainly and smirking, and she was not amused by the knobby knees and hairy legs of the dancing chorus, which constituted the main charm of the evening for the audience. She had seen too many Varsity Shows. But the songs rhymed well, and there were excellent jokes sprinkled in the book, an otherwise foolish business about dictators, Greek gods, and Hollywood. From time to time she glanced at Wally beside her, his face a dim white triangle in the shadows of the box, his glasses glittering toward the stage, and wondered where he buried the sense and sophistication these lines showed.
When the lights went up at the end of the first act Mrs. Wronken, her eyes agleam, took her son’s hand. “It’s brilliant, brilliant, Wally. Where did you ever learn to write like that?”
“Pretty off-color, some of that humor, son,” said his father.
Marjorie said, “Really, Wally, it’s awfully good—”
A fat young man in a tuxedo came through the curtains of the box. “Well, Wally, it’s going great, don’t you think?” It took Marjorie a moment to realize that this was Billy Ehrmann. She had stopped making dates with him, as with the other West Side boys, in her preoccupation with Marsha. He was heavier, especially in the face, and looked much older.
Wally said, “I think it’s coming off all right.” He introduced Ehrmann to his family as the manager of the show. “Billy, I guess you know Marjorie Morgenstern—”
Billy turned. “For crying out loud! Marge!”
“Hello, Billy—”
“Say, you look marvelous. Gosh, it’s been a year, hasn’t it? Why, if I’d dreamed you felt like seeing this show, why, I—” He became aware of his babbling tone and looked around sheepishly. “Margie and I are old friends—Say, Wally, I didn’t mean to crash your party, the thing is my brother Saul came after all. He doesn’t want to just barge in on your box, but if you feel like—”
Wally was on his feet, seizing Marjorie’s hand. “He did come? Let’s go, Marge. I’ve got to hear what he thinks.”
Half dragged, Marjorie followed him out of the box. Leaning against the wall in the corridor, hugging his elbow and smoking a cigarette, was Noel Airman. Marjorie actually staggered; she had to hang on to Wally’s arm. There wasn’t the slightest doubt that it was Airman. In a rather worn greenish tweed suit and a tan sweater, pale and a little tired, he appeared among the chattering pimply collegians in tuxedos like an eagle among sparrows. “Wally, it’s good to see you. Congratulations.” He held out his hand and came forward with the charming smile that Marjorie had been seeing for months in her visions. “You’re not a college boy after tonight. Welcome to the ranks of un
employed writers.”
Wally said, “It’s all a lot of kid stuff, isn’t it, Noel?”
“Wally, this is your first piece. Nobody’s looking for Of Thee I Sing. It’s all right, and you’re going to be all right.” His look wandered to Marjorie, and rested on her without recognition. Marjorie could not imagine what was keeping her from fainting. She was quite numb, quite stunned.
“This is Margie Morgenstern, Noel,” Wally said. “Don’t you remember her? She came over from the kids’ camp with Marsha one night—”
Noel’s face livened. “Why, sure. The girl in the purple dress. The dramatic counselor. Hello.”
“Hello.”
“How’s Marsha? Haven’t seen her in a long while.”
“Neither have I.” He didn’t seem quite so fantastically tall, she was thinking, when she wore high heels.
Billy Ehrmann said, “Saul, I told you about Marjorie long ago.”
Noel turned and smiled at him. “What, Billy, is this Marjorie?”
“That’s Marjorie,” said Billy with a sad shrug.
“Well. I see. I can hardly blame you.”
Marjorie blurted, unable to help herself, “Is your name Saul, or Noel? Or am I being very stupid?”
“Surely Billy told you about his black-sheep brother, one time or another?” Noel said with a laugh. “He told me all about you, God knows.”
Marjorie recalled now, as one recalls pieces of an old dream, that Billy when drunk had once spoken of an older brother who had flunked out of law school, changed his name, and become a writer. He was saying to Wally, “That patter song of Mars and Aphrodite is funny, Wally. Let’s use it in the Decoration Day show.”
Wally beamed. “Really? Is it that good? Say, you’ll stay around for the second act, won’t you, Noel? There’s another pretty good number next to closing.”
“Wouldn’t miss it, Wally. See you later.”
Marjorie could not have recounted afterward a single detail of the second act of Wally’s musical comedy. She sat in the dark box, digesting in a daze the startling news that Noel Airman was Saul Ehrmann, Billy Ehrmann’s rascally older brother. She concentrated on trying to recall exactly what Billy had said about his brother, but she could dredge up few additional facts from her memory. He had talked about him only once, in a conversation on the sofa of the fraternity house, at the weary end of a Thanksgiving dance two years ago. She had been arguing with him about popular songs, and to bolster his authority he had drunkenly declared that he knew more than she because he had a brother in the business. He had then poured out an incoherent tale of a brilliant scapegrace who had deliberately failed at school, revelled around Europe for years, and drifted at last into Tin Pan Alley. She remembered that another time when she asked Billy to tell her more about his brother he became ill at ease and changed the subject.
She was struggling with the impression that there was something odd in Airman’s appearance tonight, something abnormal, which she had not noticed at South Wind. He was as handsome as ever; and in city clothes he looked, if anything, more elegant than he had at the camp. What was wrong? She began scrutinizing the audience, and saw him sitting on the far side of the ballroom, slouched low in his seat, his arms folded, watching the play with his head aslant. From then on she mainly watched him.
After the show the ballroom floor was cleared for dancing. Noel was waiting at the foot of the mezzanine stairs, topcoat over his arm, to congratulate Wally. In a moment, giddily, she found herself in his arms, dancing; for Wally took his mother out on the floor, and Noel at once tossed his coat on a chair and held out his hand to Marjorie.
They danced in silence for a while. Marjorie lacked the strength to utter a word. She had danced with a great many young men, but never before had she felt so weightless, so skimming. He was, as Marsha had said, a perfect dancer. After a while Airman said, “You’ve been rather hard on my brother Billy, haven’t you?”
“Why, not at all.”
“He was shattered last year. And he’s all shaky again tonight, just from seeing you. He says so.”
“Oh, he just likes to talk that way,” she said. “I’m very fond of Billy.”
Noel leaned away and looked down at her. “Fond, eh? Sounds fatal.”
“Well, I’m not picking and choosing words. You know what I mean.” The blood was tingling in her face.
“I certainly do. If you’d said that you hated him, that he was a swine, a cad, I’d advise him to persevere. But if you’re really fond of him—”
“Don’t tell him to persevere, please.” After another silence she said, “How did you like Wally’s show?”
“Very inventive and gay.”
“Marsha used to play and sing your South Wind numbers all the time. I loved them. Wally’s a long way from writing things like that.”
He cocked his head at her wryly. “I’m a little older, you know.”
“Are you going back to South Wind this summer?”
“It looks that way.”
“I guess you’ll be my boss, then. I’ve got a job on the social staff.”
“Have you now?” He held her away from him, and his look was detached and amused. “That’s fine. Going to be one of Greech’s office slaves?”
“Also do a little acting, I hope. It seems like a perfect place to learn.”
“You can learn a lot at South Wind. I’m not sure about learning to act, but—Well, Wally must be in heaven, eh? He went over to your camp half a dozen times last summer to try to see you, and always got thrown out.”
“I never knew that.”
“I suppose he’s too shy to tell you.” He held her close again and they danced. There was nothing in his dancing but easy politeness. The music was ending, and sadness came flowing over her. What a botch it was turning out! He classed her as a girl for Wally or Billy. The way he held her, the way he talked to her, told her that. Nothing, nothing she could decently say or do would change it.
Wally was waiting for them at the ballroom door beside the chair where Noel’s coat lay. As Noel bowed, his arms at his sides, saying goodbye, Marjorie suddenly saw what it was that had seemed odd to her before. It was his left arm, the one he usually held bent, hugging the elbow. When it hung straight down it appeared a little shorter than the other arm; and unless she was mistaken, it was a little crooked.
Chapter 13. A KISS UNDER THE LILACS
Billy Ehrmann telephoned her a few evenings later, saying plaintively, “As long as you seem to be in circulation again, I thought I’d try my luck.”
When he came he looked around at the elaborate furnishings from the El Dorado, crammed and jumbled in the new apartment, and said politely that it was a very nice place. He made her more self-conscious about her family’s comedown than she had ever been before. “Don’t take off your coat,” she said. “We’ll go somewhere. Maybe Old Casablanca.”
Billy protested, begging her to let him take her to the Stork Club. But she felt guilty about going out with him, and was quieting her conscience by suggesting the cheapest place she knew, so to Old Casablanca they went. It was a decayed restaurant on Broadway, only a couple of blocks from her home, where three shabby musicians ground out gloomy music every night for collegians short of funds. The walls, irregular and jagged plaster simulating a grotto, were painted dead blue, and the lights were blue. The dance floor was full of skinny boys in threadbare jackets and dirty white shoes, clutching dowdy girls with sagging hemlines, all shuffling and swaying in the sepulchral light. Marjorie and Billy chatted over beer and rubbery hamburgers, and she casually mentioned that she was going to spend the summer at South Wind.
“South Wind? My brother Saul’s the social director there!”
Marjorie nodded. “I knew Noel Airman was. I didn’t know he was your brother Saul until the other night.”
Billy smiled crookedly, grunted, and tossed his head to one side. In that fugitive moment Marjorie saw the brotherly resemblance. “Noel Airman. Great name, isn’t it?” He began to play w
ith the ketchup bottle.
“You hardly ever mentioned him.”
“He’s kind of a sore point in the family, Marge, with one thing and another.”
“What’s the matter with his arm?”
“Oh, you noticed that? He covers it pretty well. It’s a thing they call Erb’s palsy. He’s had it from birth. Comes from a forceps delivery. Lots of people have it. You’ve seen ’em with arms all short and bent. Well, Saul’s wasn’t too bad, and he exercised like a fiend and got it corrected more or less. That’s another thing he blames on my father. Claims Dad got in this doctor who was no good just because he was an old school pal—”
“He and your father don’t get along?”
“Well, you know, Dad being a judge and all, he wanted Saul to study law. Saul wanted to be a philosophy teacher, or so he says now, but I think he wanted to be anything but a lawyer just to spite Dad—Well, the hell with Noel Airman, do you mind? Take an old friend’s advice and just steer clear of him this summer, that’s all.”
“Have no fear.”
“Look, I’ll say this for Saul, it’s not that he’s bum or anything. If women fell down right and left wherever I walked I’d take advantage of it the same way, I’m sure—Come on, there’s a rumba, let’s dance.”
Billy telephoned her two or three times after that. She was as pleasant as possible, but she had a legitimate excuse in the Vagabond rehearsals, and he soon became discouraged.
It was different with Walter Wronken; he was persistent and disarming. “Look,” he said once over the telephone, “let us assume I’m too young for you, and too funny-looking. It doesn’t follow that you should cut me off. We’re still interested in the same things, and I’m not disgusting company. You can’t imagine what capital you’re accumulating in heaven by seeing me occasionally. You’re keeping me alive. You’d give a pint of blood to me if I were dying, wouldn’t you?”