Claire rose. “Most unusual, Mr. Ayers,” she said, smiling icily. “I do wish we could continue this stimulating discussion. But I am so sorry, I do have an early call on the set tomorrow and . . .”
“Keep this, Miss Nash,” he said, rising, “as a little memento of me. You have made your career. I do not ask how you made it. You are famous, great, admired. You are considered one of the world’s geniuses. But you could not make a
second career.
”
Claire stopped; looked at him; walked back to him.
“A second career? What do you mean?”
“Just that. If you were to start at the beginning now, you would see how easy it is to get your talent recognized. You’d see how many people would notice it. How many people would be eager to notice. How pleasant they would make it for you. How many of them would give a damn!”
“Sit down,” she ordered. He obeyed. “What are you driving at?”
He looked at her, and his eyelids narrowed. And he explained exactly what he was driving at. Claire Nash sat before him, her mouth open, her eyes swimming in fascinated terror.
“Well?” he asked.
She hesitated. But there was one thing to Claire Nash: she believed in her own greatness, deeply, passionately, devotedly. Her belief was the warm glow that greeted her when she awakened each morning; that filled her days with radiance; that rose over the set, brighter than the arc lights, and drove her to her best scenes; that shone, as a halo, over her head when she passed other women in the street, those women who were not like her. It was true that she had married a producer’s nephew many years ago, at the beginning of her career, and divorced him since; but that had been only a shortcut and it proved nothing. Her genius alone could open the gates of Hollywood again and as many times as she wished. Besides, there was the tall man with the narrowed eyelids before her. She liked him—she hated to admit it—yes, she liked him definitely. Most definitely. She knew suddenly that she wanted to see him again. What triumph there would be in making him retract all those words, in seeing him bow, him, like all those countless others!
“Well?” he repeated.
She raised her head and laughed suddenly.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
He looked at her and bowed graciously.
“Miss Nash,” he said, “I admire you—for the first time.”
She was angry at herself for the senseless pleasure these words gave her.
“Well, then, remember,” he continued. “You are starting all over again, at the very beginning. You are taking your real name—Jane Roberts, isn’t it? You allow yourself no more money than an average extra girl can have. You know no one in Hollywood. No one has ever heard of you. I wish you luck.”
“I shan’t need it,” said Claire gaily.
“Then, when you have seen what you shall see, you can return to your stardom and bring Claire Nash back. I hope she will enjoy her fame in a somewhat different manner then.”
“We’ll see.”
“And to prove to you the other side of my theory, Miss Nash,” he said, “while you try to break into the movies, I’ll make a star out of an extra, any extra, the first one we choose—say, out of that little Heddy Leland who was here.”
A burst of ringing laughter was the answer.
Claire Nash was leaving for Europe. She had finished her last picture and was going to take, as the newspapers had explained, a much needed vacation.
When the hour came for her to enter the luxurious car of the Chief, a mob of fans was there to see her departure. She appeared, slow, regal, radiant as a sunrise. She crossed the platform through the waves of flowers and worshipers. Newsmen snapped pictures of her, one thin pump poised gracefully on the car step, a huge bouquet hiding the rest of her, all but the blond head bent wistfully to one shoulder, a trim little French hat pulled low over one eye, the lips smiling sadly and gently. Three reporters asked questions she could not hear through the roar, and wrote down answers they never heard. A sob sister rammed her spectacles into Claire’s ear, and screamed demands to know Claire’s opinion on the European war situation, which Claire gave solemnly and which the woman wrote down in mad haste not to lose a single precious word. The fans fought for a rose that had fallen from Claire’s bouquet. A woman fainted. It rained. Policemen worked hard to maintain order. Six citizens were hurt.
The train moved. Standing on the observation platform, Claire Nash bowed graciously to right and left, smiled sweetly and waved a tiny lace handkerchief. . . .
No passenger paid any attention when, at the first stop, a slender little woman in gray slipped quietly from the train. When the train moved again, no one knew that behind the forbidding locked door of Claire Nash’s compartment, there was no star left, but only a prim, slightly bewildered secretary going on alone for a much needed vacation.
The slender woman in a plain gray coat took the first train back to Los Angeles. Claire Nash was gone, was far away on her journey to Europe. Jane Roberts was coming to Hollywood to break into the movies.
“The story will be ready in two weeks, Mr. Bamburger.”
“Oh, Mr. Ayers!”
“One hundred thousand dollars?”
“Yes, Mr. Ayers.”
“We sign?”
“Yes, indeed, yes, Mr. Ayers.”
Mr. Bamburger pushed the papers forward, thrust a fountain pen toward the hand of the man before him, as if fearing that the hand might change its mind, missed, dropped the pen to the floor, and saw a gurgling spot of blue spread on the rug. Mr. Bamburger plunged down for it, jammed the pen into the man’s hand, and mopped his forehead, adding streaks of blue to the shining glow of perspiration. Mr. Bamburger prided himself on his self-control, but here, in his office, at his desk, sat the great Winston Ayers in person, and the great Winston Ayers had surrendered!
“I supervise the production of the story?”
“Certainly, Mr. Ayers.”
“I choose the director?”
“Yes, Mr. Ayers.”
“And remember, Mr. Bamburger: I choose the cast.”
“Yes, Mr. Ayers.”
“Can’t promise anything. But we might be using crowds later. Drop in next week.”
Heddy Leland repeated to herself the words of the casting director in his short, indifferent voice. “Next week . . . for the sixth time,” she added in her own voice, soft and tired.
She was walking home from the studio, from the seventh studio she had visited that day. The answers in the others had been the same. No, not quite the same. She had waited for two hours in one of them, only to be told that the casting director would see no one else today. In another, an assistant, a skinny boy with a dripping nose, had said: “Nothing today, sister,” and when she had tried to remind him of his boss’ promise, he had snapped: “Who’s running this place? Get going, sister.”
Six weeks without work. Forty-two days of getting up in the morning, dressing herself like a Parisian doll—while being careful that no one should notice the tears in her silk stockings, hidden by her pumps, the tears in her lace blouse, hidden by her trim jacket—walking into a casting office, asking the same question with the same smile and the same sinking of the heart; and hearing the same answer, always, each day, for all eternity.
She reached the little hotel she was living in. “Did the Henry Jinx Films call me, Mrs. Johns?” she asked at the desk, her voice trembling a little.
“Miss Leland? . . . Let’s see . . . the Henry Jinx Films—yes. They called. A message: they are sorry, but they have nothing right now. They hope that next week . . .”
Heddy was sitting on the bed, in her room, her elbows in the pillow and her chin in her hands, in a dark meditation, when the telephone rang, with a dry, sharp noise.
“Hello.”
“Miss Leland?”
“Yes.”
“This is Wonder Pictures. Mr. Bamburger wants to see you at once.”
“Mr. Bamb—”
“Mr. Bamburger, yes. At once.”
“Miss Leland—Mr. Ayers.” Mr. Bamburger introduced them. Winston Ayers looked at her with his slow, cold, curious look. She looked at him with her calm, dark, resolute eyes. He opened his eyelids slightly wider. Hers remained motionless.
“I am very glad to meet you, Miss Leland,” he said in his slow, charming voice, a smiling voice from serious lips, “and I am sure that I could not have found a better interpreter for my story.”
“I am very grateful for your choice, Mr. Ayers,” she answered evenly, “and I shall try to live up to it.”
Winston Ayers looked at her again. He knew that only a few minutes ago, Mr. Bamburger had told this girl that the great author himself had chosen her for the part which Hollywood’s biggest stars dreamed of playing. She seemed too calm, much too calm. He shrugged his shoulders and turned away, his eyes narrowing indifferently, as Mr. Bamburger resumed his nervous, hurried speech; but he found himself looking again at the strange, thin profile, the long lashes, the hard, set mouth. It isn’t indifference in her, he thought, it’s something else. He wished suddenly to know the something else, even if he had to break the arrogant little creature to learn it.
The tips of her fingers pressed to the edge of Mr. Bamburger’s desk, the only thing to keep her from swaying and falling before them, Heddy Leland had the strength to stand still, to listen, to hear Mr. Bamburger saying: “. . . for this one picture only . . . three hundred dollars a week . . . as a beginning . . . the future depends on your work. . . .” Then Winston Ayers’ slow voice: “You’ll have the script at once, Miss Leland, and you can get acquainted with the part of Queen Lani.”
Her round cheeks rouged delicately, her blond curls fluttering in the wind, under the brim of her cheapest little hat (she was being honest about it, for the hat had cost a mere thirty dollars and it was most becoming!), a huge round collar of blinding white lace billowing under her chin, Claire Nash was the very picture of sweet girlhood on its way to see the casting director of the Henry Jinx Film Company.
She had a hard time trying not to smile and she lowered her eyes modestly, to keep from looking at the passersby and from betraying in one laughing glance her whole mad adventure. She had been bored in Hollywood for so many months, and she did not remember such a thrilling morning for a long, long time.
She saw the Henry Jinx Studio rise before her, white, majestic, and royally welcoming, as she turned a corner. With her brisk, assured, graceful little step, she walked up the broad, polished steps to the glittering entrance. A sign stopped her. It was a dirty little cardboard sign with crooked letters drawn by hand: CASTING OFFICE AROUND THE CORNER. It hung there as a silent insult. She made a little grimace, shrugged gaily, and walked obediently around the corner.
The thing whose narrow door carried the faded sign CASTING OFFICE was not a building, was not even a shack. It was a dump heap of old boards, upon which no one had wanted to waste the precaution of beams or the courtesy of paint. It seemed to announce silently for whose entrance it had been designed and what the studio thought of those who entered here. Claire had not turned that corner for many years. She stopped, because she thought unreasonably that someone had just slapped her in the face. Then she shrugged, not quite so gaily, and entered.
The room before her had a floor, a ceiling, four walls, and two wooden benches. All these must have been clean sometime, Claire thought, but she doubted it. Without looking left or right, she walked straight to the little window in the wall across the room.
A blond, round-faced, short-nosed youth looked at her and yawned.
“I want to see the casting director,” said Claire; she had meant to say it; she commanded, instead.
“Gotta wait your turn,” the youth answered indifferently.
She sat down on the corner of a bench. She was not alone. There were others, all waiting for the casting director. A tall, red-haired girl in a tight black dress with flowing sleeves of blue chiffon, tomato-red lips, no stockings, and a slave-bracelet on the left ankle. A tall, athletic young gentleman with dark, languorous eyes, a very neat haircut, and a not so neat shirt collar. A stout woman with a red face, a man’s overcoat, and a drooping ostrich plume on her hat. An assortment of short, plump little things who remained determinedly “flappers,” with fat legs squeezing out of shoes many sizes too small. A sloppy woman with an overdressed child.
Claire pulled her skirt closer to her and tried to look at nothing but the window. She did not know how long she sat there. But she knew that time was passing, for she noticed the flappers producing their compacts and remaking their faces several times. She would permit herself no such vulgarity in public. She sat still. Her right leg went to sleep, from the knee down. She waited.
A door banged against a wall like an explosion. She saw the flash of a man’s heavy stomach and above it the face of an angry bulldog, which, she realized in a few seconds, was the man’s face after all. “Who’s first?” he barked.
Claire rose hastily. Something streaked past her toward the door, hurling her aside roughly in its progress; the door was slammed before she realized that it had been one of the flappers and heard consciously the angry words left in its wake: “Wait your turn, sneak!”
Claire sat down again. She felt damp beads on her upper lip. She took out her compact and remade her face.
Her turn came an hour later. She walked into the next room slowly, conscious of the precise grace of each moving muscle, timing her entrance as carefully as if she were advancing toward a grinding camera.
“Well?” snapped the bulldog behind the desk, without raising his eyes from the papers before him.
Well, thought Claire, what did one say here? She was suddenly, utterly blank. She smiled helplessly, waiting desperately for him to raise his head; no words would be necessary then. He raised his head and looked at her blankly. “Well?” he repeated impatiently.