So Little Time (40 page)

Years later, when he was out in Hollywood working on a script for Paramount, he tried in vain to put those early impressions into words. The director was Hal Bliss who had a very good sense of pictorial drama, and Mae Jackson from the studio had written the script which he had been called from New York to rewrite. The electric fan was going and the Venetian blinds were drawn, and from the music department across the way he could hear the ceaseless tinkling of pianos.

“Good-by,” someone was calling outside, “good-by, you lovely people.”

It was obviously a new and charming phrase to the person saying it, because he called it out again.

“Good-by, you lovely people.”

Hal Bliss was sweating through a salmon-colored sport shirt and all the doors were closed. Mae was in blue slacks, and she did not look well in slacks, but then, none of them cared how they looked.

“Now, let's see if we can get away from it and get on top of it,” Hal said. “It's where they fall in love. I want to get the feel of it, where they fall in love.”

Hal made a grasping gesture at the air in front of him to show how he wanted to get the feel of it.

“Perhaps they don't meet cute enough,” Mae said.

You could not get away from the studio jargon. “Meeting cute” meant roughly that our hero did something like stepping on a banana peel, losing his balance and sliding on his behind up to the girl, though of course there were infinite variations.

“No,” Hal said, “I can't express it. I'm talking of reality.”

It made Jeffrey think of the stages outside and of the experts manufacturing cobwebs and artificial dust, but Hal was right, they had to talk about reality.

“They might meet with a little conflict,” Mae said, and she must have liked the idea, because she pulled at her slacks. “Suppose he says something—this is only very rough, of course—something that makes her think he's just a playboy, just Café Society, and that makes her mad and she says she only likes people who do something with their hands or brains, and he gets a little mad, too, so that he won't tell her that he's just that type. Then something happens, and she sees it, and then they come together.”

Hal rubbed his sleeve across his face.

“Is that real?” Hal said. “I'm just asking. Is it real?”

“It's just the old corn again,” Jeffrey said. “I don't think there's much conflict when people fall in love.”

“My God,” Hal said, “how do they do it, so you can see it in the pictures? Millions of people do it every day, but I ask you.
How
do they fall in love?”

“Well, how did you?” Mae said. “You boys ought to know.”

“Now,” Hal said, “don't leave yourself out of it. How about you, darling?”

“Yes,” Mae answered, “yes, I ought to know.”

It was a very curious conversation. They sat there like card players looking at the hands which had been dealt them by their private lives, thinking of things which they would never tell anyone, and no one said anything for a while. There was only the sound of the fan and the pianos from the music department.

“Good-by.” It was the same actor outside, trying it again. “Good-by again, you lovely people.”

“There isn't any trick about it,” Jeffrey said, “you just meet and you fall in love.”

No one answered. Jeffrey did not care what those other two were thinking. He was thinking about Madge, and they were in love again. He did not care what circumstances had brought them to it. They were in love again.…

He was waiting for her again in the downstairs parlor of that brownstone house between Lexington and Park. He was calling there, although she had told him it would be better if he didn't. He was standing waiting, not caring whether it was better or not, in one of those formal parlors which now had practically vanished along with the brownstone stoops of New York. Of course, the house was still standing and he had seen it the last time he had crossed through that street. Its windows were dull and dusty and litter was blown upon the steps, and it was for sale, like other Murray Hill houses which had been speakeasies in the late Twenties. That was the way it was now, but it was not the way he still saw it. It was December 1919, and the parlor smelled of soap and wax as a well-kept parlor should, and the electric lights were glowing in the chandelier. He was standing on the rose-colored Persian carpet, waiting. Then he heard Madge coming down the stairs in quick little jumps the way she used to run. He remembered the catch of her breath when she saw him.

“Darling,” she whispered, “it's all right. No one's here.” Then she was in his arms, and he heard her say, “Oh, darling.” It was better in the house. Half the time they could only make believe they kissed each other when they met outside.

He was holding her close to him. There were no years, no children, no servants, no illnesses, no boredom of being too much together to spoil it. There was no predictable future, nothing but the present. They were in love again. There was nothing to stand between them, no quarrels over friends, no divergence of taste or of ambition. He was young again, not cautious, not careful, not afraid.

“Madge,” he said, “you're beautiful.”

“So are you,” she said.

He knew he was not beautiful, but he knew what she meant. No one could change what they said or did; no one could take it away.

“Madge,” he said, “that play.”

“What play?” she asked.

It was like her, although of course he did not notice it at the time. She had wanted him for something else. She had never known that side of him.

“The play I wrote,” he said, and then he told her what had happened. He told her he had sold the option. He did not know exactly what an option was and neither did she, in those days. He told her he had sold it for fifteen hundred dollars. She drew away from him, but she still held his hand. They did not look at each other, but he knew what they both were thinking.

“Jeff,” she said, “I don't know much about it. Could you write one again?”

Of course, he did not know much about it, either. He had only written it in his spare time. If nothing more came of it, he could easily write another.

“All right,” she said. “Now they can't say anything.” Then before he could answer, she looked up at him quickly, the way she sometimes did, when he should have spoken.

“You want to, don't you, Jeff?”

“Yes,” he said, “I want to.”

“You can back out if you don't.”

“No,” he said, “I want to.”

“It's funny,” Madge said. “I don't care what they say. You'd better wait and we'll see them now. It's funny, I'm not afraid.”

He remembered that she said it again. She always had a way of making things sound simple, even when she did not understand them. He could recall the exact note of her voice. It was not as much a question as begging him to share something which was too much for her alone.

“I like it, don't you like it, Jeff?”

25

He Had to Call on Jim

It was always a gamble what sort of audience you would get in Boston for the tryout of a play. Sometimes it would be made up of groups that had the mistaken idea that it was going to be musical comedy; sometimes the audience would consist of students, and sometimes of the subscribers to the Watch and Ward Society. Thus the tryout, the only purpose of which was to get the reaction of the average theater public, was apt to have no value. Nevertheless, Jeffrey was very glad that they were going to try this play in Boston because it meant that he could take the time to go out to Cambridge to see Jim. He and Jesse had come up on the club car of the one o'clock and they got to the suite at the Ritz about twenty minutes before six. The big sitting room was already filled with the sort of people who appeared at a time like that, and waiters already were coming up with the bowls of ice, and milk, and tomato juice and sandwiches. Bill Lucas, who was doing the publicity, was there and Jesse's secretary, Hazel, and of course the cast and the stage managers and the property people. There were some reporters, piling their overcoats on the floor beside the chairs and hurrying over to the table to help themselves to whisky. The press photographers were setting up lights in the corner, crawling about on their hands and knees looking under chairs and divans for electric outlets in the baseboards and asking people please not to trip over the extension cords and asking Miss Rogers, please, if she would not sit on the sofa and talk intimately with Mr. Jessup, please, and if Mr. Fineman would not lean over the sofa behind them, please, and say something amusing so that they could look up and smile, please, and they might all be looking at a magazine or something, please. And then who was it that wrote the play? Oh yes, Mr. Breakwater. If Mr. Breakwater would just sit on the sofa with Miss Rogers, sir, and just hold a piece of paper like Mr. Breakwater was telling Miss Rogers about some hot piece in the play, sir; and could Mr. Breakwater maybe pull down his coat a little in front, sir? And it was just a suggestion, sir, but since Mr. Breakwater was not wearing garters, could he lower his trouser leg over his right sock, please? And at the same time one of the feature writers wanted to see Mr. and Mrs. Breakwater for just a minute to ask them if they were not excited and not glad they had come to Boston.

It was all the same, like any number of similar times. Dick Breakwater's eyes had the glazed look of the eyes of other playwrights, but when Jeffrey saw him, he felt a slight twinge of jealousy. He wished that he had stuck to writing his own plays instead of discovering that he was one of the few people who could rewrite and adapt someone else's work. He felt as coldly professional as a house physician. He found himself wondering how temperamental Breakwater would be and what would be the best way to handle him when they sat alone, as they certainly would, in the small hours of the morning, taking parts of the Breakwater work to pieces, cutting lines and writing in new ones. Actually, Jeffrey was doubtful about the play as he had seen it. He still did not know whether it had enough in it to open in New York, and he was the one who would have to decide.

“Dick,” he said, “how did they do this afternoon?”

It was only a question asked because he had to say something. A young playwright never knew how anybody did and Dick was saying that as far as he could see, they were horsing it. He had never liked Ruth Rogers and he wished that Jeffrey would speak to Ruth, and Marianna did not understand what he wanted, at all, although he had tried to make it as clear as he could without being rude. He did not know where Marianna was, just when it was very important to explain to her what he meant in the lines in the break-up scene—he knew that Miss Miller was a great artist, but he did want her to see what he meant, and then she could do what she wanted with it; but just when there was a chance to go over it with her she had gone away somewhere to tea. He did not think it was kind of Marianna. He thought the brutal truth was that Miss Miller did not like him personally. If Jeffrey would only talk to Miss Miller, Miss Miller might listen to him about the break-up scene, because he knew that he and Jeffrey felt the same way about it. It was just that piece where she put down the picture. She should not slam it down. She knew it was all over when she put down the picture, but there should be regret, a certain tenderness.

“And now if Mr. Fineman and Mr. Jessup will sit together on the sofa, please,” the photographers said.

“Dick, dear,” Mrs. Breakwater was saying. “Look at the orchids that Mr. Fineman sent me. Mr. Wilson, can't you get Dick to lie down?”

“Yes, Dick,” Jeffrey said, “just keep your shirt on, Dick.” Then he said that Dick Breakwater did not know what a good job he had done. He was too close to it to know. You had to butter everybody up and talk the strange double talk of the theater at a time like that, and it helped, even if no one believed it. But there was no reason for him to stay there indefinitely, building up uncertain egos and whistling in the dark, because his own work of surgery would not come till later. It was better to be out of that atmosphere and to maintain his perspective before he became emotionally involved and before he became deceived himself by that artificial optimism. He went farther down the hall to his own room facing Newbury Street and called up Jim at Lowell House in Cambridge. It was always hard for Jeffrey to remember that Jim and nearly everybody else had their own telephones in those houses, but then there was a great deal about Jim that was hard to remember.

“Hello,” he heard Jim say, “is that you, Pops?”

“Listen,” he said, “don't call me ‘Pops.'”

“Do you want me to come in town?” Jim asked.

Jeffrey supposed that Jim would have liked the excitement just as much as he had liked it once, but the last thing he wanted was to see Jim with all that crowd.

“No,” Jeffrey said. “Get me a chicken sandwich and a glass of milk. I'll have supper in your room.”

“You mean you want to have a quiet little talk?” Jim said.

He could tell that Jim was disappointed, for every tone of Jim's voice was completely familiar to him.

“Well,” Jim said, “okay.”

“In about twenty minutes,” Jeffrey said, and that was all.

When he put down the receiver, and when Jim's voice was gone, Jim seemed to have been more in his thoughts than actually speaking. He wondered whether this were so with other people's children, whether other people had them in their thoughts as he did, somewhere in the back of everything immediate. Jim had been away for years at school and college, and yet they had a sort of relationship that they could take up again, no matter where it was broken off.

Jeffrey was just picking up his overcoat and hat when someone knocked. It was Jessica, Marianna's colored maid, quite a character, like all theatrical maids.

“Mr. Jeffrey, Miss Marianna, she wants to see you.” Jessica lowered her voice although there was no one in the corridor who could possibly hear. “She's been asking and asking for you. It seems like all day, Miss Marianna—she's been asking.”