“Somehow that’s the most wistful remark I’ve ever heard. ‘I used to live in the El Dorado’… So did we all, my darling. The golden place gives short leases.”
She shrugged. “You needn’t sound so plaintive. Looks to me like you’re just about to move in again. How’s Princess Jones going?”
“Very well, I think.” He put aside his plate, and lit a cigarette with a new silver lighter of a foreign make.
“I was awfully glad for you when I read about it.”
“Were you? You might have come by the theatre, or at least dropped me a note to wish me luck.”
Marjorie saw Milton Schwartz, with a glass in his hand, come to the door of the living room and peer in. The instant her eyes met his he turned and hurried off.
She said, “Oh yes, wouldn’t I have made a fine figure! Chasing after you, now that you’re in the limelight—”
“I thought we parted friends last time.”
“We did. I’m praying for your success, Noel. I’ll probably sit up late opening night to read the notices.”
“You can come to the opening night if you like. With me.”
“That’s very sweet of you, but no, thanks.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I just don’t think it’s the best idea I’ve ever heard.” She tried hard to be casual, though her throat was suddenly dry.
“I think it’s a pretty damned good idea.”
“Are you pleased with the production?”
“Amazingly so. Ferris isn’t exactly Max Gordon. But he did have a backer all lined up, and I thought, well, an unknown producer with all this enthusiasm is better than an old-timer who isn’t interested. He’s mounted the show brilliantly. I think we’ve got a fine chance.”
“It’ll be a smash, Noel.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s strange, you know. The music’s really permeated by you. I’ve been sitting in the dark theatre during rehearsals, thinking about you, and those long evenings in my rat hole on Bank Street—”
“It wasn’t a rat hole, Noel. It had a lovely fireplace.”
“Well, if it’s a hit, I daresay I ought to send you a mink stole or something. You encouraged me to keep working at that show. A dozen times I’d have thrown it in the fire, if not for you. In fact you’ve always had a bracing effect on me. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? The only girl I ever was all wrong for—”
“Noel!” The lady who called him was short, gray-headed, and plump. Marjorie had noticed earlier her thick diamond choker and diamond bracelets. She beckoned from the archway, and the diamonds sparkled. “Hurry. Some folks want to meet the famous author.”
“Okay, Mollie….” He said to Marjorie, jumping up, “Be back in a moment.”
“Who on earth is Mollie?”
“Mollie Lemberg. She’s a very good soul, really. She’s backing the show, so—” He winked, and strode off.
Marjorie rolled her forehead from side to side on the cold misted windowpane. The food had not quieted her giddiness in the least. She had hardly been able to eat. She picked up her plate again, and dug her fork into a piece of tongue; then she put away the plate and the fork. Her throat swelled at the thought of eating. She was very alarmed, almost in panic, at the way things were going with her and Noel. But it was a delicious panic. It was as though she had made one misstep, nearing the top of a long mountain climb, and had tumbled and rolled all the way to the bottom, only to sit up slightly bruised, dishevelled, and laughing. She felt very much like laughing out loud.
She knew that the one sensible thing to do now was to leave the party. In a few minutes, without persuasion, without drama, without argument, without any perceptible stages, the estrangement of almost a year was gone. She was open to Noel again, and she was slightly drunk. She walked out of the living room, careful of her steadiness.
Milton Schwartz was in the foyer. “Hello, do you still remember me?”
“Of course. Handball king, Ibsen fan, legal brain.”
“Right. You’ve been drinking champagne, haven’t you? Let me get you another glass.”
“One thing I don’t need at this point is more champagne, thank you.”
“Well, come with me while I get another highball, then. I want to talk to you, really I do. I’m dying to.”
“Why, sure, but it’s hardly worth dying for. I’m leaving in a minute, anyway.”
They passed Noel in a circle of guests, all talking at him, the women staring and smiling hungrily. Mrs. Lemberg had her arm through his.
Milton Schwartz said to the bar attendant, “One scotch and soda, and one champagne.”
“I said no.”
“Well, hold it in your hand, then. Marjorie, I—listen, maybe this sounds crazy but… well, the best way I can put it is, I have a feeling I’ve known you for a long time, and am going to know you a lot longer. I want to ask you whether you’ve had anything like the same feeling, or whether I’m off in the clouds. This is a very crazy and stupid question, I grant you.”
She wondered whether she was in some hyperamorous mood worked up by wine and a wedding. Schwartz seemed attractive to her, too. Two men could hardly have looked more different than Milton Schwartz and Noel Airman. Schwartz was dark, almost moon-faced, of middle height, and broad-shouldered. Marjorie had decided long ago that if ever she fell in love again, it would have to be with a tall lean blond man; Noel had made that figure the type of masculinity for her. On an impulse she drank half the champagne in her glass. “All right. It’s a leading question, and impertinent and unfair and all that. But I’ll answer it. I really don’t remember dancing with you. But I think I’ll remember you after this evening—”
“How well do you know that writer?” Schwartz inclined his head toward the living room.
“Very well, if it’s any business of yours.”
“I’m jealous,” Schwartz said. “Not that he scares me, but I surmise he’s had rather a head start.”
“Have you had a lot to drink? It seems so.”
“Quite a lot. Usually I don’t drink much. But I don’t think it shows. In fact, I listen to myself talk to you and I’m amazed. And pleased. I hope you are.”
“Well, I’m a bit flabbergasted.”
“Look, Marjorie, why don’t we get out of here? A good heart-to-heart talk between the principals is usually a sound idea. I’ll tell you all about myself. It suddenly seems interesting to me, my life story. Maybe we can—”
SCREEEEEEEEEE! A frightful sound blared through the apartment. Marjorie shivered from head to foot, and screamed at Schwartz over the noise, “My God! What’s that?” Almost at once the screech changed into a mixed hideous din, as of a zoo going up in flames—growls, squeals, shrieks, barks, groans, howls. The guests in the dining room, their eyes dilated with astonishment, swarmed toward the foyer, carrying Marjorie and Schwartz with them. He seized her hand, and pulled her deftly through the crowd, using his shoulders like a football player. “Let’s damn well see what it is,” he yelled; Marjorie barely heard him over the cataract of horrible clamor.
Schwartz broke through to the living room, taking Marjorie with him; and they saw at once what was happening. The maniacal bursts of sound were coming from the theremin. Around the black stand the three Packovitch girls were bounding and prancing like circus elephants, trumpeting with laughter, poking their hands at the pole and the loop; and with every motion of their hands the noise of the theremin changed. It whooped, it grunted, it screeched, it howled, it belched. Lou Michaelson was angrily fussing at the control panel of the machine, shouting in vain at the hysterical fat girls to stop. In the middle of the room, Marsha lay on her stomach on the floor, with her hat over one ear, beating the rug with her fists, kicking her heels, and laughing as though she would die. Mr. Zelenko stood on one side of her, doubled over with laughter, feebly trying to pull her up; her mother stood on the other side, obviously not at all amused, tugging at Marsha’s elbow, her orchids dangling crazily. “Marsha, for God’s sake, stop making
such a spectacle of yourself, get up—”
Marjorie bawled at Mrs. Zelenko, “Where’s Luba Wolono? Why doesn’t she turn it off?”
“Luba left. That idiot Patricia turned the blasted thing on somehow, and now—Marsha, will you get off the floor, you’re disgracing the whole family—”
“Funniest, funniest thing I’ve ever seen or heard. Oh, Lord, let me perish,” Marsha gasped.
HEEEEEEE, went the theremin—an unendurable scream, exactly like an ocean liner’s whistle, not two feet from Marjorie. She clapped her hands to her ears and ran out of the room, fighting her way through the guests crowding in from the foyer, and stood against the wall near the doorway, panting. Noel emerged for a moment from the mill of guests and laughed, peering into the living room. “Bloody idiots!” He disappeared toward the bedrooms.
The racket stopped, all at once. The excited laughing chatter of the guests, by contrast, was like a blessed silence. Marjorie heard Lou Michaelson sing out, “What happened? Who did that? What shut it off?”
Marjorie looked into the living room and saw Milton Schwartz crawling on his hands and knees from behind a sofa. Schwartz called, “Lou, the damned thing just plugs in the wall like a vacuum cleaner. I pulled the plug, that’s all.” The guests broke into raucous cheers; they clustered around Schwartz, shaking his hand and slapping his back, as he got to his feet and dusted his knees.
Noel appeared at Marjorie’s side, holding her coat and his own over one arm, and extending a package of cigarettes. “Here. No doubt you can use one of these.”
“What—?”
“Take it. And let’s get out of this crazy house before the walls fall in or the floor starts wobbling. I’m getting the horrors.”
She found herself out in the hallway, lighting the cigarette. He was ringing for the elevator. She was very glad to be out of the Michaelson apartment; then she thought of Milton Schwartz. “Now just a second, Noel. Where do you think you’re taking me? I didn’t say I’d go out with you—”
“I didn’t offer to take you out. I can’t. I’m busy. I presume you want to go home, however. And not alone, in this downpour.”
The elevator door slid open. She hung back, and he glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.
But she was too tired, too shaken, too giddy to take the trouble to argue with him and return to the Michaelson apartment. Milton Schwartz wasn’t important to her. He would probably be telephoning her in a day or so; and what difference did it all make, anyway? She hadn’t promised to let him take her home. She was very bored with the problems of being a girl. She stepped into the elevator.
Merely walking from the doorway of the El Dorado to the cab, they got wet; the wind was driving gusts of rain under the canopy. It felt very snug to settle in the back seat of a heated taxi beside Noel; snug, and familiar. The taxi smelled of rain, and their clothes smelled damp, too. The driver said, “Where to, Mac?”
Noel looked at her, then at his wristwatch. “How anxious are you to go home?”
“Extremely anxious. I’ve never been through anything so exhausting. Home, please.”
“If you’re interested, the final dress rehearsal of Princess Jones starts in half an hour. Why don’t you come and watch it for a while?”
Chapter 36. ANOTHER GLASS BREAKS
The cab lurched around a curve, came out of the black park, and headed down Seventh Avenue toward the misty sea of light at Times Square.
Marjorie felt very much as though she were on the horse which had bolted with her in Central Park when she was seventeen. She was with Noel Airman again, despite everything; with him again, and being carried along by events in the old uncontrolled way. Yet how could she have refused to see the dress rehearsal of Princess Jones? She took some comfort in observing that if it was a victory for him, he seemed unaware of it. He was sunk in abstracted silence. She said, “I guess I’ll never stop being amazed by you.”
“What now?” he said rather wearily.
“How can you be so unconcerned about your first Broadway show? Here it was the afternoon of your dress rehearsal all the time, and I didn’t know it. Nobody could have guessed. You were just ambling around that party, eating, drinking, carefree as a bird. You’re really one for the books, Noel Airman.”
He shrugged. “I’m not in the least unconcerned. I’d probably sing like a wire if you touched me. But what’s the use? We had a knock-down conference until four o’clock. There were three dead hours to kill, I knew you’d be at the wedding, so…” He sank into silence again, smoking. Rain flooded the closed windows of the cab, smearing and running almost like a thrown bucket of water.
After a minute or so she said, “I’m really terrifically tired. But this is one temptation I can’t resist. I’d like to watch the first act, anyway—see how you’ve changed it—”
“Stay as long as you like,” Noel said. “We’re running straight through. If it doesn’t bore you, I hope you’ll watch the whole thing. I’d like very much to know what you think of it.”
“My opinion isn’t worth anything.”
“On the contrary. You’re the New York audience in miniature. And you’re probably as familiar as anybody with all the different versions I’ve done. Your comments will be very valuable, I imagine.”
When the cab stopped at the stage door of the theatre, he turned to her with a slight wistful smile. “Well, here we go, darling. I guarantee you there’s no theremin in it, anyway.” She nervously laughed, and darted with him through the rain into the stage entrance.
Beautiful girls in frilly crimson costumes, with heavily painted faces like dolls, were bustling up and down the iron grille staircase. Noel led her to the dressing rooms and introduced her to the stars, who were fussing with their makeup at lamp-bordered mirrors. They all called Noel by his first name, chatted with him as equals, laughed at his jokes, and treated Marjorie charmingly. The leading lady, the best-known performer in the cast, was especially pleasant to her. She had a hard businesslike manner, but despite the heavy makeup she was marvelously pretty, with eyes inhumanly large and blue in rims of black paint. Marjorie was entranced. The excited chatter, the tension in the perfumed air backstage, the overpainted faces, the kindergarten colors of the costumes, gave her a feeling of walking in fairyland.
The theatre itself was dark and chilly, the rows of empty seats very bleak. A few people sat huddled in overcoats here and there in the orchestra. Musicians in sweaters or coats, most of them needing shaves, were tuning their instruments in the pit. Noel put her in a seat in the middle of the fifth row, and went off to talk to the producer in the front row. Marjorie sat working a handkerchief in her hands, contrasting this rare moment with the many times she had sat in this same theatre, one of a crowd of paying customers, looking at this same dusty gray curtain decorated with rococo knights and ladies, before the start of a play. She saw the others puffing cigarettes, so she lighted one. Smoking in the forbidden pale of a theatre orchestra heightened her dizzied sense of privilege. Mrs. Lemberg, in a bulky mink coat, came down the aisle and joined the producer.
The curtain suddenly went up on a quaint lovely setting of a European village square covered with snow and decorated for Christmas. Stagehands in dirty overalls were pushing an unsteady painted fir tree into place, hoarsely yelling at each other. For a few minutes Noel, the producer, the dance director, and the set designer took turns commenting on the placing of the tree. A decision was reached, the tree was secured in place, and the curtain came down.
“Like the set?” Noel said, returning to her.
“Why, it couldn’t be more beautiful. I never pictured anything so elaborate.”
“Ferris brought in a new kid from Hollywood to do the sets and costumes. They’re superb, I think.”
The musicians brassily struck up the overture; the curtain rose again; the setting was masked now by a gorgeous curtain, purple, red, and gold, in a cubistic pattern. Marjorie involuntarily touched Noel’s arm; she had not been so keyed up in her life. “Good luck,”
she whispered.
Three hours went by like so many minutes.
Princess Jones, from the first moment to the last, seemed to her a rich winning fantasy; a waterfall of color, splendor, laughter, and charm. Everything about it was magical: the elegant settings, the spill of lovely costumes, the swirling crowds of dancers, the melting music, the bright lighthearted comedy scenes. She knew the story, of course, and all the jokes, and all the songs. The show had not been changed very much from the last version Noel had showed her. But it was electrifying to see Noel’s brain child fleshed out and brilliantly alive—peopled, colored, danced, sung, a living thing, a Broadway show. The first dress rehearsal, according to Noel, had been very disorderly, but the troubles seemed to have been ironed out; the show unreeled as on an opening night.
When the curtain came down on the finale, a blazing whirl of color and sound—a waltz of the whole company in the grand ballroom of the palace, with the plot all unravelled and the lovers all paired off, a faintly mocking but gay end to the satiric fable—when the orchestra trumpeted a massive crescendo, and the descending curtain cut off the enchanting vision—Marjorie couldn’t contain herself. She seized Noel’s hand, and pressed it hard. He turned to her, his eyes glittering in the glow from the footlights. But before she could speak a word, in the first instant of silence after the final chord from the band, the producer called over in a bored voice, “Noel, did you do anything about the new duet?” Noel left her, with a nod and a smile to acknowledge her little applauding gesture with gloved hands.
He returned in a few minutes. “We’re all going up to my hotel to talk. Come along.”
“Oh no, thanks. It’s a great show, Noel, it’ll be a terrific hit. Thanks for letting me see it. I’ll go home—”
“Are you so very tired? Peter asked me to bring you along.”
“Well, if—who’s going?”
“Well, Peter, of course, and the dance director, and the dialogue director, and the orchestra leader—there’ll be about half a dozen of us. We have Chinese food sent up at these night sessions, and coffee. It’s fun. We get a lot of work done, too. You can leave whenever you want, I’ll put you in a cab—”