Marjorie Morningstar

  All magic was leaking out of South Wind, like air out of a punctured tire. She liked Samson-Aaron; no, she loved him, shabby old glutton though he was. But the injection into South Wind of a family face soured the very light of day. South Wind had been, in Marjorie’s visions, a new clear world, a world where a grimy Bronx childhood and a fumbling Hunter adolescence were forgotten dreams, a world where she could at last find herself and be herself—clean, fresh, alone, untrammelled by parents. In a word, it had been the world of Marjorie Morningstar. The shrinking of the camp’s glamor, her own lowly status, the mischance with the name, were bad enough. And here came the Uncle, dragging behind him the long chain of all the old rusty realities. She could feel the weight of that chain; she could feel the clamp, cold on her ankle, fixed there by the invisible far-stretching hand of her mother. It was unendurable.

  “Rain again, for Christ’s sake!” grated Mr. Greech, making her jump. He stood directly behind her, scowling at the black sky, slapping the flashlight on his palm, looking fully as satanic as he had last year. Being on South Wind soil did something to Mr. Greech. “When in the name of hell am I going to get these buildings painted? Do you realize we’ve had rain for fourteen straight days?” He bellowed this last observation directly at Marjorie.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He looked at her with a blink, as though a stone had spoken. “What? What did you say?”

  “Mr. Greech—pardon me, I hate to trouble you—it’s a small matter—”

  “What, what?”

  “My uncle—he’s washing dishes, I see.”

  “Who? Oh yes, old Sam. Well, sure, he’d rather make twenty-five a week than nothing a week. So would I, by God, and it doesn’t look as though I will this season.”

  “It’s just—well, it’s hard work.”

  “Of course it is. That’s why I pay him.”

  “He’s—well, he’s an old man—”

  “What’s all this, now? See here, your mother told me he’s stronger than I am. He’s not chained in the kitchen. He jumped at the job. He seems to be thriving. In fact, the cook tells me he’s eating like ten men. I’m going to talk to him about that, by the way, I’m not running a hog-fattening farm in that kitchen. Now, what exactly are you fussing about? What’s eating you?” He thrust at her with the flashlight on each you.

  She withered under his tone and his stare. “Well, I just thought—I don’t know—I suppose if it was his own idea…” She trailed off. Greech was walking away from her into the office.

  In a few minutes the telephone call went through. As Marjorie waited, receiver in hand, to hear her mother’s voice, this thought flashed through her mind: When I object to her sending the Uncle here without my knowledge she’ll say, “What’s the matter, are you planning to do something up there you don’t want us to know about?” She was trying to think of a crushing answer when her mother came on the line. After assuring her that she was well and the camp was splendid, Marjorie said, “Quite a surprise you prepared for me!”

  “What surprise?” said Mrs. Morgenstern blandly.

  “Samson-Aaron.”

  “Oh. The Uncle. Well, how is he?”

  “Just fine.”

  “That’s good. Give him my regards.”

  After a little pause Marjorie said, “Don’t you think you might have told me he’d be here?”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “Well, that’s right, I guess it was the week when you were so busy with exams. Well, you have no objections to his being there, do you?”

  “It’s a little late to be asking me that, I would say.”

  “What’s the matter,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, “are you planning to do something up there that you wouldn’t want us to know about?”

  “I’ve already done it,” said Marjorie. “I’ve been having an affair with Mr. Greech since March. How do you suppose I got the job?”

  “Don’t be smart.”

  “He’s washing dishes.”

  “Who?”

  “The Uncle.”

  “What! No, he isn’t. He’s a caretaker.”

  “Not any more. He makes money washing dishes. Wants to buy a nice present for his grandchild.”

  There was a silence. Mrs. Morgenstern said, “Well, I can see that’s not too nice. Your uncle washing dishes. I’ll write him to go back to caretaker.”

  “Let him alone! You’re hopeless, Mom.”

  “What are you so touchy about? One of these days you’ll be glad the Uncle is there.”

  “I’m sure that’s why you did it, Mom—to accommodate me.”

  “What do you want of me, Marjorie? Why did you call? Do you want me to write him to come home? Say so, and I’ll do it, that’s all.”

  Several seconds went by, while Marjorie weighed the neat impasse. It would have been hard for her under any circumstances to force the Uncle out of South Wind, once he was there. Now that she had seen his pride and pleasure in earning money, it was impossible. “Thank you, Mama, I don’t want anything. I thought you might be interested to know that he’s all right, and that I’m all right, and that everything couldn’t be lovelier.”

  “It fills me with joy, dear.”

  “Fine. Give my love to Papa.”

  “I will. Goodbye. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Thanks, Mom, that gives me plenty of rope. ’Bye.”

  Another round lost.

  But once Marjorie became used to two unpleasant and very unwelcome facts: that she was still Marjorie Morgenstern, and that she was not likely to fascinate Noel Airman (at least not straight off), she perked up and began to enjoy South Wind. She hardly ever saw the Uncle; and if they did come on each other by accident they smiled and exchanged a few quick pleasant words, and that was all. It was still gratifying to look across the lake to Klabber’s camp on a fresh sunny morning, and to realize how far she had come in a year. It was fun rehearsing in the shows, even if she did nothing but kick her legs in a chorus of office girls. She began to find a certain arid pleasure in the office work. Keeping her desk clean and severe, getting her work done on time, drawing a grunt of praise from Greech for letters typed up swiftly and without errors—however petty, these things were satisfying.

  Every day the look of the camp improved. The weather turned fine, too. By the first of July, after a week of continual sunshine, the fountain was flowing, the grass was velvet-neat, the buildings were dazzling white and gold, and the grounds were alive with noisy merry people in summer clothes of carnival colors. They were a helter-skelter group of ordinary young New Yorkers; a few girls spoke with comic Brooklyn and Bronx grotesqueness, and a few of the men were excessively crude, but most of them were just like the young people she had known all her life. They ate, danced, drank, and played at all the sports with great gusto. Gaiety and freedom were in the air. The food Greech fed them was a curious mélange of traditional Jewish delicacies—gefilte fish, stuffed neck, chopped chicken liver—and traditional Jewish abominations, like shellfish, bacon, and ham; the guests devoured the delicacies and the abominations with equal relish. Marjorie had to comb the bacon off her eggs for the first week or so, until the waiter became used to her old-fashioned ways.

  If South Wind was Sodom, it seemed to be a cheerful, outdoors sort of Sodom, where tennis, golf, steak roasts, and rumbas had replaced more classic and scandalous debaucheries. Marjorie did notice a lot of necking in canoes and on the moonlit porch outside the social hall, but there was nothing startling in that. Perhaps terrible sins were being committed on the grounds; but so far as her eyes could pierce there was nothing really wrong at South Wind. All was jocund and fair to see. She lost her curiosity about the guests after the first week or so. They were a blur of similar faces; part of the background—like the lake, the trees, the clouds—to the real life that went on among the people of the staff.

  For the Fourth of July weekend, a crooner named Perry Baron came to South Wind to add glitter to t
he entertainment. He was a sort of second-class celebrity, good-looking but flabby, about thirty-five, with a yellow Cadillac convertible, a voluminous camel’s hair coat with white pearl buttons, and rather strikingly limited intelligence. For some reason Baron took a strong fancy to Marjorie, from the first moment he saw her at the registry desk in the camp office. All weekend long he paid court to her, dancing with her, canoeing with her, driving her here and there in his yellow Cadillac, and requisitioning her from Airman as a girl to sing to when he performed. His most spectacular gesture was sending to New York for two dozen roses, which were delivered to Marjorie Friday evening by a truck which drove more than a hundred miles. If she had not been so desperately infatuated with Airman, Marjorie might have been overcome by all this; as it was, though flattered, she was bored. But since Baron treated her courteously, and since it was obvious that her stock in the camp was rising by the hour, she was pleasant to him, and put up with his extravagant antics as gracefully as possible.

  Wally Wronken was the real sufferer in this turn of events. He mooned, he gloomed, he glared, he glowered, he got drunk, he stopped writing, he left rehearsals. Embarrassed by this display, Marjorie tried to make it up to Wally by praising his writing, asking him to dance with her, and so forth; but he snubbed her with proud Byronic agony.

  At the end of the Saturday afternoon rehearsal, Airman came strolling up to her as she was pulling a sweater over her head. “Rushing off to dinner? How about a drink first?”

  “Love a drink.” She was glad that the sweater hid her face and muffled the excited tones of her voice. Until this moment he had paid no attention to her whatever, even at rehearsals, beyond moving her around the stage like a chair, or giving her directions prefaced with the meaningless “darling” which he used in addressing all the office-girl actresses.

  They sat in a booth by the window. The sun was setting in immense smears of red and yellow on the purple lake. The floodlights had not yet been turned on, and a violet haze darkened the lawn and the white buildings. “Best time of the day,” he murmured after a long pull at his highball. He was silent for a while, looking at her with his characteristic ironic smile. He was so far above her, she thought; yet his deformed elbow, resting awkwardly on the table, warmed her with pity and tenderness.

  He seemed to notice her eyes on his elbow. He leaned back, folding his arms, ghost-thin in the black sweater. “I suppose you know that Wally’s eating his heart out.” She said nothing. He added, “I live next door to him. He comes shambling in and I have to listen to his moans. It’s kind of repetitious, after brother Billy.”

  Marjorie pulled a cigarette out of his pack on the table and lit it with a moment’s yellow glare in the gloom.

  “Not talking, Marjorie?”

  She puffed at the cigarette, looking straight at him.

  “You will admit,” he said, “that a yellow Cadillac and roses from Trepel’s sent a hundred miles are crushing competition for a college boy. But it’s all wrong, you know. Wally’s worth ten Perry Barons. Baron’s a faded carbon copy of Crosby. Wally has talent. You mustn’t be dazzled because that oaf throws around the few dollars he earns. Singers are like that.”

  “Noel, pardon me, but what business is it of yours?”

  His eyes widened and gleamed. “Question of staff morale. I like Wally. Furthermore, he’s writing some fine material and making my life much easier. I don’t want him demoralized.”

  “I see.” After another silence she said, “It would probably help if I set you right on a notion that seems fixed in your mind somehow.” She took a slow drag on her cigarette. He did not unnerve her any more; he stimulated her. She felt that she had come to a tight turn in life, and that she was going to round it smoothly and well. “I like Wally too. I also know that he has a crush on me. It’s too bad, but I’ve gotten over many a crush in my time, and I’m sure Wally will get over his. What puzzles me is your impression that there’s some kind of romance between him and me. It’s a bit annoying. I’m more than a year older than Wally, Noel. He’s eighteen and a half and I’m nearly twenty. Now as for Perry Baron, he has nothing but the nicest things to say about you. That being the case, I’m not quite sure which of you is the oaf.”

  He looked surprised; then he laughed, a low, pleasant laugh. “Okay. Wally’s eighteen and a half and you’re nearly twenty. From your viewpoint I suppose you and he belong to different generations. But look here, you were at the opening of Wally’s show with him—”

  “Certainly. He asked me, and I was proud to go. I admire him just as you do, he’s extremely clever. I’ve seen him a few times since. I can envy the girl he’ll really fall in love with and marry some day, but I know perfectly well it isn’t me. So will he, one of these days. Maybe next week, for all I know. I’ve snapped out of crushes faster than that.”

  He nodded approvingly, hanging his elbow over the back of the chair, and running a knuckle along his upper lip. “Good, Marjorie, I’m glad I talked to you. I’ll be less sympathetic now when Wally starts languishing. In fairness to him, though, you’ve grown up terrifically in the past year, you know, while he’s still pecking his way out of the egg. Girls do hit this time when they grow like mad. I won’t annoy you any more by bracketing you with Wally, and I apologize for the comments on Perry Baron. Okay? Let’s go to dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  As they stood he said, “I can’t help hoping, all the same, that you won’t decide, in the mature insight of nearly twenty, that Baron is the storm god come to earth. Such things happen, Lord knows, only too often. He really is just a slimy slug, you know, an overgrown jellyfish that shaves and sings. I hate to see a nice girl run over by a rented yellow Cadillac.”

  They were walking past the bar piano. He stopped at the keyboard and rippled a chord; then he sat on the stool and moved his fingers idly, making soft chiming waves of sound. “I’ll tell you something, Margie—the prettiest and cleverest girl I ever knew threw herself away on an imbecile, a four-footed animal posing in human clothes, because he could do two things—rumba well, and treat her badly. Every other man she’d ever met had fallen at her feet. His indifference was a piquant novelty. He was so dull, and his tastes were so gross, that he actually didn’t think much of her. So she pursued him, and forced him to marry her, and now his father supports them both, ostensibly by letting his son manage a few dry-cleaning stores. She might have been the wife of an ambassador, a playwright, a senator, with elegance and distinction. She did this in the wisdom of nearly nineteen. The wisdom of nearly twenty is another matter, to be sure.”

  He struck a clashing dissonance; then, after a silent instant, he began to play one of his own waltzes, a sentimental tune that Marjorie loved. She stood behind him for a few moments, listening. Then she said softly, “She must have been someone you liked pretty well.”

  “Oh yes, she was,” Noel said, playing on and not looking up, “in fact I still like her pretty well. My older sister, Monica. She’s thirty-two now and has three children. She’s as pretty as you, and looks as young.”

  When Marjorie glanced back, from the doorway of the bar, Noel was stooped over the piano, playing on in the amber gloom. He did not seem to know that she was leaving. But just as she was stepping through the door he said, “Wait.” He broke off his playing, came to her, and leaned against the doorway. “Am I wrong, or when you were here last summer did you utter several bright sayings about my lighting effects?”

  “Well, I remember saying they were brilliant and marvelous, and so forth.”

  “I see. No wonder I retained the impression that you showed precocious good judgment. Well, come clean, do you really know anything about lights?”

  “I—well, you know, kid-camp stuff. But I did read up on it a lot.”

  “Wally wants to do some directing, and he’s carrying a big writing load. That may be one reason he’s overwrought. I’d like to take him off the switchboard, and it occurred to me that you might help—”

  Marjorie broke in, “I
accept the job. I’ll do anything you say. Look, I can’t pretend to be blasé. I’m crazy about lighting, I love this idea—”

  “You still have to do your office work. And dance in the chorus. This is just extra labor without extra pay.”

  “When do I start?”

  He hesitated, smiling a little at her eager tone. “Well, Marjorie, let’s say we’ll try you out Sunday evening after the storm god leaves, okay? That is, if he doesn’t carry you off to the cave of the winds, forever and a day.”

  During the dancing on Sunday evening he came to her. “Ready? Let’s go backstage.”

  She had been restraining herself with some difficulty from speaking to him first. “Why, sure. As you see, I’m not off to the cave of the winds.”

  He nodded, with a small grin.

  They went through the stage door and were alone together in total darkness. “Give me your hand,” Noel said. His touch in the dark thrilled her. “Damn, my orders are to leave one light burning at all times. Greech keeps sneaking back here and turning it out—” He groped along, tugging her cautiously. A rope roughly brushed Marjorie’s face. “Watch out, don’t get hung in these damned lines—here’s the board. If I touch the wrong switch send my body to brother Billy.” Light drenched the stage, streaming through the curtains on them. “Ah, that’s better.” He released her hand, but his grasp remained palpable on her skin for a while like a warm soft glove. He began to demonstrate the switches and rheostats for her, and he let her execute some black-outs, dim-outs, and fade-ins. He told her to improvise a morning effect and a night effect, using the labelled color switches. “Well! Not bad at all.”