Marjorie Morningstar (56 page)

Marjorie faltered, “I thought he was doing pretty well….”

Rothmore looked at her over his thick glasses. “Let’s go get some coffee.”

Over exquisite cold salmon in a small French restaurant, he told her the story of
Noel’s career at Paramount. She was at once fascinated and repelled by the disclosures,
and her nerves were shaken. Rothmore was not bitter, but he was not kind, either.
This was the other side of Noel’s sarcastic anecdotes. After the glimpse of the desk
drawers, Marjorie could hardly hide from herself where the truth probably lay. According
to Rothmore, Noel had been lazy and insolent from the first day. He had been rebellious
before there was anything to rebel against; and his resentment had been directed not
at anything in his own job, but at the entire process of business. “I mean, Margie,
the man would say things like, ‘Naturally, we’ve got to make sure our pictures show
a profit,’ in a sneering tone. As though it were some goddamn guilty secret that a
business has to make a profit. Childish, you know, unless a person’s a communist,
and he’s no communist, I managed to make pretty sure of that. But I’m damned if I
know what’s eating the man. I mean
why?
Why the petty lies? Why the inefficiency? He’s one of the cleverest fellows I’ve
ever met, but he couldn’t hold a job as a twelve-dollar-a-week file clerk, his methods
are so disorderly. He’d lie about the most trivial things, get me in silly jams—you
know, saying he’d answered a letter, or sent back a set of galleys, when he hadn’t.
When it caught up with him, he’d say in the airiest way that the thing had slipped
his mind, or some stupid answer like that. Totally irresponsible. Why, today I found
in his desk letters, important letters, he should have showed me, weeks old. It isn’t
normal, Marjorie. No man is that lousy. He had to work at it, to be that bad. Now,
why?”

Marjorie said miserably, “Maybe he isn’t cut out for business, that’s all. He was
very efficient at South Wind, staging shows. A lot of creative people just can’t stand
business.”

“Well, my answer to that ought to be, why did he take Paramount’s money? But I’ll
skip that. Margie, he’s very valuable when he wants to be. He’s got a fine grasp of
pictures, and I mean a business grasp. For some perverse reason he kept taking the
high artistic tone, I guess because that made it easy to insult me, but I’d put him
up against anybody to analyze a story property—a musical, a novel, a farce, anything—for
its basic values. Why, he pulled a story out of an obscure magazine that we bought
for twelve hundred, and I’m bound to tell you if he didn’t do anything else all year
he earned his keep with it. We’re making a big A picture of it. And I told him so,
and gave him a bonus. Maybe that was my mistake. But I was trying everything, you
see. I tried being tough. I tried being nice. I tried giving him his head. I tried
riding him. Hell, all I was after was to straighten him out. Nothing helped. From
the day he came to the day he left he was the same mess. Pouting one minute, charming
the next, smart as a whip today, stupider than the most idiotic clerk tomorrow, fast
as a snake, slow as molasses, blow hot, blow cold, the most aggravating man I’ve ever
encountered. I’m a pretty stubborn customer, Marjorie, and I don’t as a rule start
anything I can’t finish, but this has beaten me. I’m all through with Noel Airman.”
Rothmore sipped his coffee, lit a cigar, and sat staring at her from under his brows,
taking little gulps of air. He seemed to be waiting for her to plead Noel’s case.
She found nothing to say. There was a panicky undercurrent to the speed and hunger
with which she went on devouring her food, shaking her head gloomily at Rothmore’s
story. He said after a while, “Well what do you think? You must know him better than
anybody.”

“Sam, he’s a total enigma to me, a black mystery. He has been, since the first day
I met him.”

“It’s none of my business, but have you been giving him a bad time? A girl can mess
up a man’s work, like nothing else.”

She faced him. “That’s not it. Take my word for it.”

“Well, maybe he’s just no good, as he keeps saying. I can’t say he hasn’t pretty well
proved his point.”

“What do you think of his songs, Sam, really?”

“His songs?”

“That’s what he’s really interested in, after all.”

Rothmore said, “There’s no comparison, none at all, between where he could go as an
executive and as a songwriter.”

“But obviously he doesn’t care about being an executive.”

Rothmore puffed at his cigar. “Look, he’s past thirty. He’s a competent songwriter,
pretty competent, but frankly they’re a dime a dozen. And they’re not like Noel, you
know, the Brill Building crowd. They’re ignoramuses, lowbrows, neurotic bums, these
fellows who write an occasional hit song. I’m not talking about a Johnny Mercer, a
Cole Porter. He isn’t that, or he would have shown the form long ago. If you ask me,
he writes songs with his fingertips, the way he does everything else. I don’t know
what the trouble is. I’m no psychoanalyst. Maybe he’s so afraid of being a failure
he won’t put his back into anything, so he can always tell himself that he’s never
really tried. I have a brother like that. I started him in four different businesses.
He was always my mother’s darling, but he’s never earned an honest dollar. He can
whistle all the themes from Beethoven’s quartets. My brother Leo. Never married. Hangs
around with the Philharmonic musicians.” Rothmore motioned to the waiter for the check.
“More coffee?—I’ll tell you, I think he’s got a hit in that
Old Moon Face
. What ruins him, probably, is these occasional hits. If he’d only fail completely
at it, he’d concentrate on something with a future. But your friend’s curse, Margie,
I’m afraid, is that he never fails completely at anything. He’s got too much ability
for that.”

“I’ve told him over and over he’s got to concentrate on one thing.” Marjorie could
not keep the heartsickness out of her voice. “Has he showed you his musical comedy,
Princess Jones?
”

“No.”

“Well, I think it’s brilliant, Sam, I really do. He’s had awful luck. I’m not trying
to excuse him, but—” She told Rothmore of the misfortune with the producer Kogel.

He moved a shoulder disparagingly. “That’s the theatre business. You’ve got to be
able to take such knocks. Still, if you say this show’s good, maybe it is. He has
remarkable ability, I know that.” Rothmore’s eyes flickered at her. “He talks a lot
about you. Pretends to laugh at you, but—he’s damned selfish, but I do think he’s
in love with you. You’re his hope, if he has any.”

“I can’t imagine what’s happened to him, Sam. I’m going to find him, one way or another.”

Rothmore helped her from her chair. “Margie, I said I’m stubborn, and I am. If you
can get him to promise you that he’ll start afresh, and really try, I’ll forget about
this little vacation, and take him back. It’s got to be a promise to
you
. Otherwise—” He shrugged. “He’s an attractive young man, God knows, but there’s just
so much time you can waste trying to straighten out one bent pin.”

When they parted on the street, Rothmore said, “He owes me money. Not much, but he
was supposed to pay it back this week. If that’s what’s bothering him, tell him to
come back and stop being such a damned baby. We’ll work out an easy way to pay it
off, five dollars a week deducted from his check, or something.”

This upset her more than anything else he had told her.

Noel’s window was open slightly at the bottom, and the Venetian blind was drawn up.
This was as much as Marjorie could see from the street. She rang the outer bell. Surprisingly,
there was an immediate answering buzz, and the hallway door yielded to a push. She
went up the dimly lit stairs, full of an indefinable fear. She seemed to be seeing
the torn blue linoleum on the steps, and smelling the incense odors from the ground-floor
apartment, for the first time. Every detail of the staircase stood out—the old-fashioned
molding along the wall, the dirty Victorian balustrade, the extinct gas jet near the
top, below the single dim light bulb. She rounded the top of the stairs with a slight
effort, dreading what might confront her, but his door at the end of the hallway was
shut. She walked to it and rang the bell.

The girl was taller than Marjorie, and dressed in a blue housecoat. She seemed pretty,
but it was hard to tell because the light of the window was directly behind her. She
said, “Oh!” and then, “I was expecting a boy with groceries.”

The two girls looked at each other. Marjorie could hear water drumming in the bathroom.
She said in a pleasant calm tone, “Is Noel Airman here?”

The girl said, “Are you Marjorie?”

“Yes. I’m Marjorie.”

“Well, come in. He’s taking a shower. He’ll be right out.”

The bed was neatly made, and the room looked as it always did, except for the new
calfskin suitcase open in the corner, overflowing with pretty white and pink lingerie.
The girl went to the bathroom, pounded a fist on the door, and shouted, “Hey! Your
friend Marjorie’s here.” She smiled at Marjorie with easy good humor. She was redheaded,
and lusciously attractive. The water stopped running, and Noel’s voice called, “What?”
The girl said, “Marjorie’s here, I tell you.”

There was a silence. Then Noel shouted cheerily, “Fine. Give her some coffee. I’ll
be right out.” The water gushed again.

“Sit down, honey, and take your coat off. Coffee’s just hotting up. I’m Imogene Normand.”

The girl stood with her hands in her housecoat pockets, smiling down at Marjorie,
who was tensed in the armchair, her coat flung back from her shoulders. “Don’t start
throwing things at Noel when he comes out. I landed in New York without five dollars
to my name, and Noel let me park here. He’s been staying on the fourth floor with
his painter friend, the fellow with the beard, Van something. He comes down to shower
because all his things are here.”

Imogene said this with such offhand pleasant sincerity, with such utter absence of
embarrassment or guile, that Marjorie’s muscles relaxed slightly, and she even smiled.
“Well, I’m glad you told me. I was going to stab him with the bread knife. You’re
awfully pretty.”

Imogene threw her head back and laughed. “Thanks, but you’re one girl who has nothing
to fear.” She glanced appreciatively, professionally, at Marjorie. “Well, he has good
reason. You’re terribly sweet.” The boiling over of the coffee interrupted Marjorie’s
answer. Imogene called from behind the screen that hid Noel’s tiny pantry and gas
burner, “Cream? Sugar?”

“Black.”

“Ah, a coffee lover, like me.” She brought out two steaming cups.

Marjorie noticed that there were no rings on the girl’s bony hands. “Are you—are you
the Imogene Noel told me about? The one who married an oil man?”

Imogene’s lips twisted cynically. “Oil man, of sorts. We’ve busted up. I’m back looking
for work.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. One of those things. Fun while it lasted, and all that,”
Imogene said gaily. She sipped, crouching over the cup. She had slant eyes and a charming
slow smile; one of those lucky girls, Marjorie thought, who walked around inside a
body like jewelers’ work, every detail perfect, and none of it her own doing. It was
like being born rich. Her legs through the slit in the housecoat were dazzlingly long
and lovely. She had minimized her one defect, a big jaw, by piling the beautiful red
hair full on the head, rouging the cheeks high, and broadening the mouth a bit beyond
the natural line. There was a faint coarseness about Imogene. Perhaps it lay in the
very excellence of makeup, the shrewdness of hair arrangement. Marjorie’s eyes kept
moving to the open suitcase full of underwear. Imogene said, “I’m getting out of here
tomorrow, so friend Noel won’t be dispossessed any more. I didn’t want to get involved
in hotel bills, you know, before I was sure I had work.”

“I suppose you do modelling.”

“Well, I’m more a singer, really, but the modelling pays the bills, you might say.
Gosh, things are
awful
in this town. I thought Roosevelt was supposed to fix the depression. Why, I’ve never
seen it so dead. Will you excuse me, honey, while I finish dressing? I’m late.”

“Go right ahead.”

Imogene’s slip, her shoes, her stockings, were all expensive and smart. Nothing could
have been more conservative, yet more designed to set off her voluptuous figure, than
the hand-tailored black suit and the mannish black hat. She put on her clothes with
little waste motion, chattering about her singing career, the unreliability of coaches,
the high price of vocal arrangements, and the miserable state of the night-club trade.
Dressed, she somehow looked coarser than before. She rapped at the bathroom door.
“Hey, have you drowned? I’m off.”

The door opened and Noel looked out, unshaven and pale, dressed in moccasins, corduroy
pants, and his old black turtle-neck sweater. He said, “What are you going to do about
breakfast? Hi, Marge.”

“Oh, I’ll get a bite uptown. I’m late. That kid never did come with the butter and
eggs. I thought that’s who Marjorie was, but it wasn’t.”

“Had I known, I’d have brought some,” Marjorie said. She was watching them like a
detective, trying to guess from inflections, gestures, and looks what had really been
happening in this apartment for four days. She was sick with tension. Her arms tingled;
her fingers were cold as a dead man’s.

“It’s just as well,” Noel said, yawning. “I don’t feel the least bit like eggs, and
I know exactly what I do want. I want some whiskey and oysters.”

Imogene laughed. “You! I thought you’d gotten over those habits. Whiskey and oysters!”
She turned to Marjorie. “How about that for a breakfast?—By the way, Noel, I’ve already
explained to Margie that you’re sleeping upstairs with Van Renheim while I use your
place. So she won’t be breaking the crockery over your head.”

Noel grinned, glancing at Marjorie. “Why did you do that? You should have let her
stew. Jealousy’s good for some girls.”