Love Me (32 page)

“Good! Good!” the director bellowed. “Let’s explore the ambivalence. And remember, ambivalence is not the same as apathy. It’s merely an acknowledgment of conflict: the very essence, the absolute foundation of all dramatic art, of life itself. Without conflict, without that great chasm between what we want and what we have, without yearning, would we be human? I propose not.”

Around Amanda, the pens were scratching away, sounding like an army of rats was scuttling between the walls. Her head
was spinning. Never had she heard a director make a speech like this. In the pictures Amanda had worked on, she had rarely received direction with any more depth than “That’s fine. Let’s do it again with a little more leg.”

But this guy … this guy sounded like a college professor, or a philosopher, or … 
Harry
, she thought, looking at the head bent over the script on the table. He was writing something down. With the lights on, she could see the back of his neck just above his collar, that sweet patch of skin that had always felt so surprisingly soft against her lips.

“So, this ambivalence,” the director continued, pressing his palms together thoughtfully, “this
conflict:
is it arising organically from the situation of the character? Or is some part of your preparation coming into contradiction with the demands of the text?”

“Um … I think it’s a problem with the text, actually.”

Amanda could see the glint of Harry’s glasses as his head snapped up.

“Good,” the director said. “What about the text?”

“Well, it’s really just the last line of the last speech. ‘For a girl like me, that’s the only American dream.’ It feels like it wants to be a declaration, a
manifesto
, if you will. A statement of intent. That’s the beat I’ve prepared, but in the moment …” She twisted her hands. “In the moment, my impulse is to play it smaller. An intimate moment, a confession of sorts, between my scene partner and me.”

“A confession. Interesting.” The director stroked his chin. “Why don’t we ask the playwright? Harry, what was your intention with that line?”

“My intention?” Harry’s voice, softer than the others, seemed to pierce Amanda’s heart like an arrow. “My intention was for it to be a joke.”

“A joke?” Off to the side, a small, wiry man with a receding hairline and a fierce expression jumped to his feet. “A joke? But that requires an entirely different preparation. It changes the entire emotional honesty of the scene.”

“It’s not a laugh-out-loud, ha-ha joke, Lee,” Harry said, with more than a hint of irritation. “I’m not talking about Laurel and Hardy. It’s meant to be ironic, sardonic, whatever you want to call it. There’s a disappointment there, a kind of fatalistic bitterness. But it’s not entirely without humor.”

“Bitterness.” The man, Lee, rolled the word around in his mouth. He gave a terse nod. “We can find our way to bitterness.”

“Good.” The director was back in control. “Very good. Lee, you and Frances take a few minutes to find your way back into this, and then we’ll start playing with the external physicality.” He turned to address the group. “Everyone else, let’s take five. Good work. Very brave, admirable work.”

Lee vaulted up onto the stage, hustling Frances off into the wings. The group of note takers—the students of the mysterious Stella, Amanda had deduced—began filing into the lobby in pairs, pulling out cigarettes and lighters, talking in hushed, serious tones. Harry stood near the table, huddled with the director, jabbing his finger at something in the script.

I have to talk to him
, Amanda thought, but she was nervous to interrupt. She dragged her sore feet along the carpet, waiting for the men to finish. She was halfway down the aisle before she mustered the courage to call out his name.

“Harry.”

“A-Amanda.” His face went pale with shock. “You … you … What the … what the hell are you doing here?”

Harry’s fingers felt rough against her carefully bared sliver of skin as he grabbed her arm and steered her toward the side aisle and out of sight. It wasn’t quite the welcome she had hoped for, but Amanda was determined to make the best of it.
He’s surprised
, she reminded herself.
You knew he would be
.

She strove to make her voice as light as possible. “Haven’t you heard? I’m one of Stella’s students.”

“Stella … you. You’re studying with Stella Adler?”

“Well, that was the plan. Although, as it turns out, she says she has nothing to teach me. Apparently, I’m a genius. She’s actually asked
me
to teach
her
, how do you like them apples?”

Harry’s puzzled face relaxed into something that was not quite a smile. “You’re joking.”

“Of course I’m joking. I thought Stella Adler was out in Hollywood, anyway. Wasn’t she making pictures for Paramount?”

“
Was
being the operative word. Now she’s come crawling back to Broadway and is setting herself up as a teacher. She’s been to Paris and studied with Stanislavski himself, and has been going around saying she alone knows his techniques as they were
meant
to be taught.” His eyes wandered to the stage, where Lee, the man with the receding hairline, was saying something to Frances with a look of utmost concentration. “Naturally, it’s been causing some tension with Lee.”

“Naturally,” Amanda said. She’d read an article once in one of the newspapers Harry used to have sent specially from New York about Lee Strasberg and the new acting technique he was inventing, all based on dredging up the most horrible things that had ever happened to you and reliving the experience
onstage. He called it “the Method.” The idea seemed equal parts fascinating and terrifying to Amanda. On the one hand, it was comforting, even magical, to think that the awful memories that haunted you at night could somehow be repurposed into something beautiful. On the other, if she had to think about them more than she already did, Amanda was sure she would go raving mad. “Seriously, maybe I
should
see if she’d take me on. Apparently, I could use the lessons.” She swallowed hard. “Olympus released me from my contract.”

Harry looked away. “Yes, I heard about that. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I mean, it has been a bit difficult, but”—Amanda forced the note of gaiety back into her voice—“it’s certainly freed up quite a lot of time. So I thought I’d treat myself to a little trip. I’ve never been here before, you know. I thought I’d see the sights, do some shopping, maybe take in a show or two. And then when I happened by and saw the title on the marquee outside and the door open, well, naturally my curiosity was piqued. Can you blame me?”

If Harry doubted the veracity of this flippant little monologue, he was too polite to say so. “I suppose not.”

“Obviously, I didn’t realize you’d be in rehearsal or I’d never have dreamed of interrupting like this,” Amanda said. “But I thought as long as I was here, it would be terribly rude not to say hello.”

Harry sighed. “Where are you staying?”

Victory was in sight!
“The Waldorf Astoria.”

“The Waldorf.” He sighed again. “Of course you are. Is there anyone with you?”

“Not a soul,” Amanda declared. If he could ignore her obvious fib about just happening to find herself outside his theater
in the middle of a rehearsal, she could ignore his insinuation. “I’m all by my lonesome, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I suppose we should talk.”

“Yes.” Amanda looked up at him, her eyes full of meaning. “I’d love that.”

“How about tonight? We can go have a drink at Twenty-One. Do you know it?”

“Only from the radio. It’s where Winchell always seems to be, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. It’s on Fifty-Second between Fifth and Sixth. You can’t miss it, it’s got all those lawn jockeys out front. Say eight o’clock?”

“Eight’s fine.”

“I’ll be at the bar. I’ve got to go, we’re about to start again.” Awkwardly, he planted a quick kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Amanda spent the rest of the day in a cloud of preparations. First, a trip behind the legendary red door of Elizabeth Arden on Fifth Avenue, where solemn cosmeticians in awfully scientific-looking white smocks smoothed creams over her skin, set her hair in soft waves, and lacquered her nails in the latest shade of Jungle Red.

Clothes were next. She’d packed so quickly she didn’t have anything that Harry hadn’t seen her in before, and the Mainbocher waist cincher was only going to work for so long.
Not to mention it’s pretty hard to take off
, she thought, with a wicked flicker of hope.

At the famous Hattie Carnegie boutique on Forty-Ninth Street, she selected day dresses, blouses, and suits, and, because she couldn’t help herself, a red crocodile evening bag with a gold
knot clasp, a pair of black-and-silver evening sandals, and some of the adorable little saucer hats with the built-in snood that had been the couturier’s trademark back in her salad days as a Lower East Side milliner, in unexpected color combinations that would have made the old Amanda—the
sad
Amanda—blanch: violet and mustard, scarlet and shocking pink, Kelly green and robin’s-egg blue.

Sure, it meant dropping a pile of money, but when she casually mentioned she’d like it all delivered to one of the penthouse suites at the Waldorf, the salesgirl was more than happy to let her have it all on credit. Besides, Amanda reasoned, it wasn’t like she didn’t
need
these things. In another month or so, she wouldn’t be able to squeeze into anything she owned. Like most well-made clothes, Hattie Carnegie’s creations had generous seams that could be let out as needed—hell, with a good seamstress, Amanda could make this new little wardrobe last months.
In the long run, I’ll actually be saving money
.

And besides, when everything was all settled, Harry would want to take her to meet his mother. Maybe even in the next couple of days. She had to look respectable.

All settled
. With that promising phrase in her heart, Amanda quickly added to the rapidly growing pile an ivory silk suit with a draped-front jacket and a cunning little matching hat with a blusher veil that looked as though it were made out of tiny flowers.
You never know. Better safe than sorry
.

For tonight, though, she needed something really special. After all, it could very well be a night she remembered for the rest of her life, a story she’d tell their daughter—it was going to be a girl, Amanda was sure of it—one day: how Mother came
to New York to find Daddy, how he was suddenly so overcome with love he proposed right then and there. She’d leave out the part about the rather … 
premature
conception, let alone how she’d gotten the money to make the trip; no need to confuse a nice, well-cared-for little girl like the one Amanda was going to have with a sordid detail like that.

To tell the story properly, she’d have to describe what she’d been wearing, so it had better be something worth the effort.

The salesgirl brought her an evening gown of ocean-green silk overlaid with black tulle. Artfully ruched, the tulle shrank her thickening waist and hips down to nothing. Above the silk, it looked like a shadow rising from the sea. The neckline was square, with delicately ruffled flutter sleeves of the same black tulle.

“You look stunning,” the salesgirl said. “Absolutely stunning.”

Amanda frowned. “Do you have a seamstress here?”

“Yes, miss, of course.”

“Get her to take off one of the sleeves.”

The salesgirl widened her eyes. “One sleeve? But that will throw off the symmetry.…”

“Yes, that’s what I want. It looks like it’s just set in. She can easily open the seam and close it back up again.”

“But …” The salesgirl looked helplessly from Amanda to the vast pile of finery on the counter and back to Amanda again. “I can’t just let you do that. Not unless you’re buying the dress.”

“Don’t worry, I’m buying the dress. I just want to see what it looks like. If I hate it, the seamstress can put it back in.”

The effect was everything she’d hoped for. The single exposed creamy shoulder set off her waist even more and made
the graceful line of her neck seem to go on forever. She looked like some kind of seductively regal Greek goddess, invitingly sensual, half in and half out of her gown.

Amanda gave a little groan of pleasure. As earlier that day, with the little sliver between sleeve and glove, she felt a delicious tingle on her bare skin, as though it was already anticipating Harry’s touch. “It’s perfect.”

The salesgirl agreed but insisted on fetching Hattie Carnegie herself from her atelier upstairs to give the final sign-off.

The famed milliner-turned-couturier was a tiny woman dressed in black, her hair parted majestically in the center like a wall painting of a Roman matron. An enamel cuff with a bejeweled Maltese cross adorned each wrist. She examined every inch of Amanda, poking at the bodice here, adjusting the line of the remaining sleeve there. In the crook of her arm, she cradled a fluffy black toy poodle with a gaze that seemed every bit as critical as that of his mistress.

Finally, Hattie Carnegie spoke. “You are a fashion designer?”

“N-no,” Amanda stammered. “I just … like clothes, that’s all.”

“Well,” said the couturier with a smart snap of the head. “If you decide you want to be, you know where to find me.”

And she disappeared back up the stairs without another word.

After a day of such glamorous preparations, Amanda couldn’t help but be a little disappointed by the ambience at 21. The exterior had been so promising, all wrought-iron balconies and colorful lawn jockeys standing in a row, like a sort of Manhattan version of an antebellum Charleston town house. But the inside bar area to which the maître d’ guided her looked
like any other saloon where a nightclub act or an insomniac writer might grab a burger and a beer in the wee hours after a night’s work, all scarred wood paneling and red-checkered tablecloths, like a cheap Italian restaurant, with an enormous fire roaring in a glazed brick fireplace off to the side. An assortment of odd items hung precariously from the ceiling, which was low enough to make you feel that at any moment you might get knocked in the head with a wooden ice skate or a dented old horn.