He smiled wearily. “Talk about your extrasensory perception. I thought so, somehow. It’s perfectly all right.”
Then she explained: the unexpected meeting, the miscalculations of time, the taxi accident. He kept nodding. “Morris, it did me good, meeting him. I’d never have planned it, you know that. I’d have hung up if he’d telephoned. But it did me good. I realized for the first time how cured I really am.”
“That’s nice. You’re tired though, aren’t you? You seem tired.”
“Well, a bit. But I’m having fun.”
“Well, so am I. We’ll have another drink and a dance before we go.”
She tried to put more zest into her dancing. But he really was a dull dancer, and as luck would have it the orchestra played a long set of rumbas, at which he was especially clumsy.
So Dr. Shapiro took Marjorie home early that night.
She quit her hospital job a couple of weeks later, having saved nearly a hundred dollars. Dr. Shapiro had not asked her to lunch or called her since the night of the party; and while she was rather humiliated by this, she was also rather relieved. He was cordial when he happened to meet her in the corridors; and, encountering her as she was leaving the admitting office for the last time, he said goodbye cordially.
Chapter 33. PRINCESS JONES IS PRODUCED
The engagements and marriages of her college friends, girl cousins, and temple acquaintances went on and on. The attractive ones were nearly all married, and now the less attractive ones were going. Several of the girls had babies. A few like Rosalind Boehm had two; Rosalind herself was pregnant with a third. Rosalind seemed as remote in time and in attitude now, when Marjorie accidentally met her waddling bulkily in a shop or on the street, as a grandparent. Rosalind had a little smile of secret amusement in these encounters which greatly annoyed Marjorie. Since when, she thought, was a pretty girl not much past twenty-one a pitiable freak? Rosalind, barely twenty-three, was the freak, with her big stomach, big behind, sagging bosom, and busy contented air of a woman of forty, as she juggled bundles.
The arrival of each engraved invitation touched off a fresh dirge by Mrs. Morgenstern over Morris Shapiro. Marjorie endured a bitter siege. She couldn’t say that she had lost any hope of falling in love with the doctor, and that he had been wise enough to sense it and to drop her. There were no words for conveying this kind of information from a daughter to a mother. She was quite willing to concede that she was unworthy of Morris Shapiro, that he was better than a thousand Noel Airmans, that she should consider herself lucky to polish the shoes and mend the shirts of such a wonderful man. It was all true. What did it matter? Her heart had closed.
She had a multitude of dates, mostly to avoid evenings at home. She kept herself busy by taking roles with non-paying theatre groups. She even went back to her old friends, the Vagabond Players at the YMHA, and scored a real hit as Nora in A Doll’s House; but the experience was rather depressing than otherwise, even when she was bowing to the loud applause. The auditorium, the stage, the very curtain seemed to have shrunk, like a scene of her childhood. Romances bloomed and aborted all winter, as she rehearsed with one set of young actors or another. More than once she cold-bloodedly thought about having an affair. The handsome young drifters of the theatre fringe kept assuring her that no woman who was a virgin could possibly portray true emotion on the stage. She half believed it. But none of these fellows really tempted her; they seemed hollow toy men, after Morris Shapiro. In vain they lured her to their shabby little apartments, gave her cheap rye whiskey, dimmed the lights, read poetry aloud, and played slushy music on the phonograph. Marjorie fended them off, yawning.
In more than a year of loitering around the drugstore, she had seen one girl after another become embroiled in affairs with the would-be actors. Possibly this had qualified them to portray true emotion on the stage, but there was no way of knowing. Getting rid of one’s virginity was no immediate passport to a Broadway role; this was true even when the helpful man was a professional producer, as a few of the girls had found out. The visible effect on the girls was that they became tired-looking and red around the eyes, slept later, drank more, and acquired coarser speech and manners. Some became less reluctant to pose for underwear advertisements and nude pictures. Seeing all this, Marjorie concluded that if she ever did have an affair for the sake of learning to portray true emotion, she wouldn’t have it with an unsuccessful young actor or a vulpine producer.
Wally Wronken occasionally took her to dinner. He was out of college, living with his parents, dejectedly making forty dollars a week in the advertising section of his father’s office-furniture business. He worked on plays every evening from nine to twelve, and had already completed three farce comedies, which he had submitted without success to producers.
“Wally, you’ll never get anywhere writing in your spare time,” Marjorie told him. “You should devote your life to it.”
“Well, I’m an adult now, theoretically. I’d rather pay for my own ties and shirts. I still think I’ll get somewhere, if I can stick on this schedule. Of course it eats into my social life, but I don’t give much of a damn about my social life, tell you the truth. Dinner with you is something else, of course.”
The thought mischievously recurred to her at these dinners that if she were going to have an educational affair she would do well to confer the favor on Wally Wronken. He deserved it more than anybody for his fidelity and his reverence. He still made no effort even to take a goodnight kiss. Bashfulness wasn’t the reason any more; he had clearly learned his way around girls. But he had evidently struck, in his own mind, some philosophic equilibrium in regarding Marjorie as an untouchable divinity. He talked about the plots of his plays with her, and took her comments seriously. He always made her feel good when she saw him. It was refreshing to be treated like a goddess, especially after being treated more like a tackling dummy by some overhopeful young actor or director. But it was also rather dull. She played with the idea of having an affair with Wally mainly because she knew it was impossible.
Her mother liked Wally (having duly checked on the Wronken family), and often suggested that Marjorie could do worse than take him seriously, now that both of them were moving along in years. “He’ll probably get over the writing foolishness, and there’s his father’s business waiting for him,” she said. Marjorie shrugged this off, as she did most of her mother’s broadening hints about getting married.
She did feel guilty about living unproductively at home, so she tried to keep her temper. Once, being harried to go to a temple dance, she said mildly to her mother that at twenty-one she didn’t feel life had quite passed her by. “I’ll be married before I’m twenty-five, Mom, I promise you.”
“Who’s rushing you? It’s just that before you marry a man you’ve got to meet him, unless I’m mistaken.”
So she went to the dance. She met a Dartmouth senior there, a pink-faced short boy who fell for her insanely and implored her to come as his date to the Winter Carnival in February. His father was a wealthy manufacturer of stoves. Mrs. Morgenstern gave her no peace. “What harm will it do you to go to Dartmouth for a weekend? Will you freeze to death?”
“Mom, he’s a child, he’s almost two years younger than I am.”
“Maybe you’ll meet a professor you’ll like.”
“I’ll make a bargain with you, Mom. Stop nagging me about Morris Shapiro, never mention the name to me again, and I’ll go to Dartmouth.”
The mother, after a moment’s hesitation, said, “It’s a bargain.”
February came, and Marjorie had to keep her word. She remembered the Winter Carnival forever afterward as a whirling hallucination of red-faced drunken children in crimson, green, yellow sweaters, milling, yelling, dancing, necking, riding sleds, tromping knee-deep in snow; she remembered the scratch of wool, the wet chill of snow and the burn of raw whiskey; and aching wet feet, frostbitten fingers and toes, red running nose and horribly hurting ears. Worst of all was being jammed with a dozen
hideously young girls in the bedroom of a fraternity house, and feeling something between an old maid and a chaperone. Among these girls she was an object of side glances, whispers, and giggling politeness. They were mostly about seventeen. They had full breasts, they scampered around in fetching lingerie, and they talked among themselves with arrogant wisdom in schoolgirl slang Marjorie had almost forgotten. It was frightful. Even the pink-faced boy realized at last that she was suffering, and mournfully put her on an early train back to New York. Next day she went to the drugstore and bathed in the relief of being with attractive girls in their twenties, among whom she was still one of the young ones. For weeks there hung over her the nightmare scare she had had in the fraternity house at Dartmouth—the feeling of having passed overnight, unmarried, into the older generation.
She was amazed, one morning in mid-February, to read this note in the theatre gossip of the New York Times:
… An added starter in the Broadway spring calendar may be Peter Ferris’s production of a musical comedy, Princess Jones. The author, Noel Airman, an ambitious newcomer with a couple of popular song hits to his credit, notably the recent Old Moon Face, has written book, lyrics, and music. Shades of a certain better-known Noel? More anent all this when producer and author return from Hollywood stints in a week or two….
The shock and the thrill blew her habitual reticence apart. Housecoat and nightgown flying, she scurried from her bedroom to the kitchen. “Mom, have you seen this?”
Mrs. Morgenstern looked up from the eggs she was frying. “What now?”
Marjorie read the item aloud with an edge of triumph in her voice. The mother’s eyebrows went high. She dished up the eggs and poured coffee. “Well, sit down and have some breakfast, if you’re not too excited to eat.”
“I’m not excited at all,” Marjorie said. “But it is interesting, isn’t it? I always knew he had talent. Not everybody agreed with me, but of course I’m used to that.”
“Have you heard from him lately?”
“You know I’ve been through with Noel Airman for a year, but I certainly wish him well. Why shouldn’t I?”
“Who’s this Peter Ferris?”
“I don’t know. Some new producer, I guess.”
The mother picked up the paper and frowned over it. “Princess Jones, hey? Hm. You think it’s going to be a hit?”
“I think it will be. It’s brilliant.”
“How do you know?”
“Noel read the book and played the score for me, ages ago.”
“What’s it all about?”
Marjorie hesitated. But there was something too exhilarating about knowing the story of an incoming Broadway show. She talked as she ate her eggs, and the mother listened attentively to the story of the American heiress marrying a bankrupt young prince, and trying to reform the cheese-making industry of a sleepy little Balkan country on the pattern of American assembly-line efficiency. After a while Mrs. Morgenstern began looking confused and wrinkling her nose. Marjorie was getting all tangled in sub-plots. She broke off. “Oh, it’s impossible to tell the story of a musical show. If I told you Of Thee I Sing it would sound twice as crazy, and it won the Pulitzer Prize. It’s a light, gay, satiric fantasy, that’s all, with music and dancing.”
“Well, maybe it’s over my head.”
Marjorie made a face, and carried her coffee with the Times into her bedroom. She read the few printed lines over and over. Her own name in the theatre column could hardly have made her feel more excited and happy.
She took to pouncing on the paper at the door every morning, and opening it to the amusements section without glancing at the front page. For a couple of weeks there was nothing more; then a note appeared that Noel had returned to town with the producer to assemble a cast. She walked numbly through the next few days, seeing him every time she turned a corner on the street. But there are a lot of people in New York, and the chances of any two of them meeting by accident twice within a year aren’t high; she didn’t encounter Noel.
Soon the papers began reporting the signing of featured players for Princess Jones. Several of the drugstore kids tried out for the chorus and for bit parts, with the usual lack of success. Marjorie daydreamed of going to the theatre and turning up demurely in the tryouts. But in practical fact she was too short to be a show girl, she couldn’t sing, she couldn’t dance, and she knew there was no speaking part in the show which she could play. Had she been Noel’s girl, he might have written in a few lines for her; but it would be impossibly humiliating, she felt, to try to crawl to him now for favors. Chances were that he was entangled with some starlet or actress, and had forgotten her. And good riddance, Marjorie assured herself. She stuck to that.
Still, it gave her a secret elation to hear the drugstore crowd talking about Princess Jones as they did about any other incoming production. Some of the gossipers asserted that it was a sure smash hit, and that the brokers were already buying up huge blocks of tickets. Others said it was a threadbare old-hat piece which wouldn’t last a week. Such contradictory rumors inevitably sprang up about all new shows. One morning, a girl who had tried out for the chorus sang several of the numbers for the drugstore crowd. Marjorie sat quiet in a corner, her spine alive with thrills, as the girl piped the familiar words and tunes, and her memories woke of Noel’s Village apartment, the dying fire in the littered fireplace, the smell of beer, toasted hot dogs, and cigarettes, and Noel at the piano, singing with the remembered commanding lift of his jaw.
March 4, 1937
Dear Marjorie:
If you remember me—and if you have any use for me on the basis of your memories—would you have lunch with me one of these days? I’m engaged to be married. If I don’t pour it all out soon to some feminine heart I can trust, I’ll explode.
My phone number is EN 2–5784. I don’t want to startle you by calling you like a voice from the dead. I’m still very much alive and I hope everything’s wonderful with you.
Isn’t it exciting about Noel’s show?
Love,
Marsha.
Marjorie’s lip curled as she read this letter. The offhand reference to Noel’s show was the key, of course. Marsha wanted to pump her about Princess Jones. The show was in its first week of rehearsals, and Marjorie was having a hard time keeping herself from strolling past the theatre, so any distraction was welcome. She telephoned Marsha, thinking that it would be amusing to find out whether the engagement was another of her facile lies. Marsha seemed exceptionally wild and gay on the telephone. “Sugar bun, it’s heaven to talk to you. One o’clock is great, just marvelous. Where? Someplace glorious. Let’s have lunch at the Plaza.”
“The Plaza?”
“Why not? Nothing but the best for la Morningstar, n’est-ce pas?”
“Marsha, la Morningstar is an unemployed vagrant.”
“Nonsense.”
“I wish it were nonsense.”
“Well, darling, this is the chance of a lifetime then. I’ll treat you.”
“Nothing doing. If some fool man takes me to the Plaza that’s different, but—”
“Margie, I’m rolling in money. Wait till I tell you. I jingle when I walk. I clank. My one problem is getting rid of it, I swear. Pick me up at my apartment at a quarter of, and we’ll walk across the park. It’s a gorgeous day.” She told Marjorie her new address.
“I’ll pick you up, Marsha, but as for the Plaza—”
“Wonderful, sugar bun. ’Bye.”
Marjorie mustered up her best daytime clothes. Marsha sounded engaged, all right—engaged and triumphant—and Marjorie was in no mood to be triumphed over.
The new address turned out to be a shabby-genteel apartment house on West Sixty-second Street with a self-service elevator. Marjorie pressed the button, the red light flashed In Use, and the elevator whined down from a remote floor, making a noise with its cables that sounded like No don’t, no don’t, no don’t. It was still whining when the street door opened and a short man with white hair came in and
stood yawning beside her, holding a large brown paper bag in both arms. Marjorie smelled the spice of delicatessen, and took a second look at the tanned plump face of the man. “Hello, Mr. Zelenko! Remember me?”
The man glanced at her. His face brightened, and he extended a few fingers from the side of the paper bag. “Well! The great Morningstar! More beautiful than ever!”
Riding up in the elevator, Marjorie said, “I’m so happy to hear about Marsha.”
“Yes, Lou’s a wonderful fellow. You’ll have to meet him sometime. Lou’s quite a fellow.”
A Bach fugue was resounding through the apartment, played with all of Mrs. Zelenko’s old power and skill. It made Marjorie feel old to hear the Bach and smell the Turkish tobacco odor of the Zelenko home. The apartment, though larger than the one on Ninety-second Street, had much the same look. Coming into the living room, she recognized the African mask on the wall, the Chinese screen, the green Buddha and the hookah, amid some unfamiliar exotic hangings, statuettes, and lamps, and some new Grand Rapids chairs and tables. A little gray-headed man who looked like Mr. Zelenko, evidently an uncle or some relative, sat in an armchair near the window, with his face tilted toward the ceiling, his eyes closed, and the tips of his fingers pressed together. The mother broke off her playing sharply. “Margie! For heaven’s sake, why didn’t that fool Alex tell me you were here?” She came and hugged Marjorie. She was tan, too, and not quite as fat as Marjorie remembered; her hair was freshly waved and freshly blond. She said, “Well, you look absolutely wonderful as always, you’ve become just piercingly beautiful, dear, it does my heart good to see you—”
Marsha’s voice, jovial and muffled, called out, “Is that the divine Morningstar? Be with you in thirty seconds.”
The father came in from the kitchen, scratching his thick white hair. “Who bought all that other delicatessen in the kitchen, and why? We have enough to feed an army.”
“I did,” said the little gray uncle.