Marjorie Morningstar (64 page)

There were evenings during the month that followed when she almost believed that she
had come to the happy end of the long rough road; there were times when she sat at
her desk in the admitting office, idly scrawling on a pad,
Mrs. Morris Shapiro
.

Noel seemed to spring up out of the pavement.

This time it was Noel, all right. She had seen him coming at her in crowds a thousand
times in the past months, but he had always melted into a tall stranger as he came
close. This was Noel. He stood on the corner opposite her, waiting for the green light,
looking back and forth at the traffic. His hands were thrust in the pockets of a camel’s
hair topcoat; his blond hair stirred in the wind. The lift of his long jaw, the imperious
turn of his shoulders, were unmistakable. He was very brown.

The light changed. He came striding toward her. His unconcerned eyes fell on her,
and the abstracted look blazed into recognition and excitement. He seemed to lunge.
The long arm swept around her waist and he pulled her up on the sidewalk. “Don’t get
killed, please, in the middle of Lexington Avenue. You’re still precious to me.”

“I’m trying to get a cab. I’ve just come from the hairdresser. My hair’s damp,” Marjorie
said idiotically.

“Right now you’re going to get a drink. With me.”

“Noel, it’s impossible, I swear it is. I haven’t got a minute to spare, not a second.
Help me get a cab, if you want to make yourself useful.”

He looked around and waved an arm, and there was a cab. He bundled her in and dropped
beside her. “Waldorf, driver.”

“If you’re going to the Waldorf that’s perfectly all right, Noel. I’m taking this
cab on from there, straight home.”

“Of course.” Noel sat back comfortably. His eyes shone at her, brilliant and seeming
more blue than ever in his tanned face. “Ye gods, it’s no illusion, it never has been.
All you are is the most beautiful living thing. How are you?”

“The old palaver,” she said, wishing that she didn’t sound so shaken and hoarse. “Obviously
the Masked Marvel hasn’t changed. I’m fine, thank you.”

“Why are you in such a hurry? Won’t you have one drink with me—five minutes? I have
a lot to celebrate, if you haven’t, and—”

“I can’t, Noel. I’m terribly late as it is.”

“It’s only a quarter past five.”

“I’m late, I say.”

“I’ll admit I’m an evil wretch, and all that, but—”

“Noel, I have an appointment at six, and I have to go home and change, it’s that simple.”

“Will you have a drink with me tomorrow?”

“Well, I don’t know, I guess so, I can’t remember at the moment what I’m doing tomorrow—anyway,
tonight is just out of the question—”

“So’s tomorrow.”

“What?”

“I wanted to see how determined you were. Tomorrow I’ll be in Hollywood. Or piled
up in the Rockies, if my luck runs out.”

“You’re—what? Hollywood?”

“My plane leaves at nine tonight. I have to go back to the hotel and pack and clear
up some business. I don’t have any more time than you.”

“Are you staying at the Waldorf?” He nodded. “Dear me, Noel. Hollywood, Waldorf-Astoria…
Riding high, aren’t you?”

“On the foaming crest, kid. Healthy, relaxed, loaded with money, happy as a lark.
And how are you, really? Take off those gloves. I’d like to see your pretty hands.”

“You crazy fool, I’ll do nothing of the kind. We’re almost at the Waldorf, and—what
are you going to do in Hollywood?”

“Take off your gloves and I’ll tell you.”

She stripped off her gloves in two hasty gestures. “I’ve never known such an imbecile
and I never will. There.” She made her fingers into claws. “Pretty enough?”

“Excellent.”

“What?”

“No rings. I take it Dr. Shapiro isn’t making good time.”

“The hell he isn’t,” she said, and was instantly angry at herself. She covered as
best she could with a mysterious subtle smile.

“Is he your date tonight?”

“Here’s the Waldorf. Goodbye, Noel. Have fun in Hollywood.”

“You’d kick me out of your cab and just ride off, would you?”

The cab stopped. She said, “That’s exactly right, dear. ’Bye.”

“How do you think I’m looking?”

“Thinner. But all right.”

“I’ll ride home with you.”

“Oh no! Nothing doing.”

“Margie, I may never see you again. You’ll marry Dr. Shapiro and it’ll be impossible.
I’d rather look at you for five minutes than spend a lifetime in Hollywood. Please.
One drink. I’ll put my watch on the table. When the five minutes are up I’ll vanish.”

“You devil, you don’t care a snap whether you lay eyes on me again or not. You’ve
been staying at the Waldorf for weeks probably, and I haven’t heard a peep from you.”

“I got in from Mexico day before yesterday, Margie. I knew you didn’t particularly
want to hear from me. However, you’re right about the whole thing, as usual.” His
face gloomed over. He got out of the cab. “I’m being a grovelling ass. Goodbye.”

She held her hand out to him through the open cab door. “I didn’t mind seeing you.
You’re making me feel like a pig. I do have this date, Noel—”

“Margie, I honestly believe you. Goodbye and God bless you. You look wonderful. I’ll
write you.” He shook her hand, his countenance pleasant and friendly again.

She was out of the cab before she quite realized it, saying, “You’re not going to
put me in the wrong like this. Five minutes is absolutely all. It’s too much.”

The cocktail hour was at full blast. It took more than five minutes to get a waiter,
and more than five additional minutes for the drinks to come. Marjorie watched the
creeping clock hands over the bar as she chatted with Noel. At a quarter to six she
abandoned the idea of changing her clothes; she would take a cab straight to the hospital.
She had undertaken to carve the turkey and help prepare the buffet for the doctors’
Thanksgiving party. Morris was going to act as bartender. It wouldn’t matter, she
thought, wearing her street clothes to the party; most of the nurses would be dressed
that way. The decision made her feel less harried.

Noel said he was going to Hollywood to write the score for a second-rate movie, with
his old collaborator, Ferdie Platt. “Ferdie’s fallen on sad days working for a quickie
outfit like Panther Pictures. Too much golf, booze, and girls, I guess. I wrote him
a postcard from Mexico, just for the hell of it, and his long air-mail special-delivery
letter came back. Obviously he’s using the temporary notoriety of
Moon Face
as a handle. I don’t care. I’ll have a chance to see the lay of the land. Two hundred
fifty a week is a comedown for Ferdie. For me it’s not a bad start.”

The cocktails came. She picked up her shallow brimming glass, and a little champagne
spilled coldly over her fingers. “Well, here’s to the Masked Marvel, on his way to
the top at last,” she said. “I wish you every success, Noel. I always will.”

“Well, let me drink to the one shining deed in my disorderly little life,” Noel said.
“To Marjorie, loveliest of the lovely, sweetest of the sweet. God bless her. And let
her thank her lucky stars I was such a bastard to her.”

Marjorie muttered, “Well, I don’t know about all that. Let’s drink.”

She hadn’t had champagne since the breakup with Noel. Morris habitually ordered scotch
for both of them. The yeasty bubbling on her tongue reeled time backward half a year.
“You vile dog, who and what are you laughing at?”

“Was I laughing?”

“I don’t know what else you call baring those fangs at me. They certainly look white
in that face of yours. You’re black.”

“Well, two weeks ago, dear, I was climbing pyramids in Yucatan. How much time left?
Two minutes?”

“Don’t be funny. If I gulp it I’ll get hiccups. Don’t remind me how late I am.”

“I like the way you’re wearing your hair.”

“Oh, is it different? I don’t remember.”

“Marjorie, it’s very pleasant seeing you, honestly it is.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you in such good spirits, Noel. Last time I saw you, you looked
like the devil. I really thought you might be heading for a nervous breakdown.”

“And so you decided to help a man in distress, by knocking his teeth down his throat.”

He said it with good humor, but her nerves stung. She drained the glass and picked
up her purse. “Well, let’s let sleeping dogs lie, shall we? This has been fun, and
I guess—”

“Margie, look at the time. You’re hopelessly late for a six o’clock date. Make a phone
call and have a cigarette and one more drink with me.”

“Oh no, you fiend, none of that. You swore, five minutes and you’d vanish, remember?
Don’t add perjury to your crimes.”

“I’ll keep my promise, but I think you’re making a mistake. You’ve been haunting me,
and if I haven’t been haunting you I’d be surprised. Melodramatic breakoffs are no
good, Marge. They’re like dominant seventh chords. If they’re not resolved they hang
on and on in the mind, for years, for decades—”

Marjorie said, “What on earth do you want? You’re leaving in a couple of hours, and
I have a date—”

“Postpone it for an hour or so and have dinner with me.” He overrode her protesting
gesture. “Good Lord, don’t you know this is the end? Before I’m bald and you’re gray?
I’m never going to telephone you. I know you don’t want me to. As long as we’re run
into each other like this we ought to talk a bit, and part friends. My teeth still
hurt.”

“I’m very sorry, it’s a dinner date—”

The waiter brought change. Noel helped her into her coat, saying cheerfully, “Well,
okay. This glimpse of you has been something, anyway.”

Walking out, Marjorie saw that the bar clock stood at almost twenty-five past six.
It was too late now to help with the buffet. A cab straight to the hospital wouldn’t
get her there much before seven. There were plenty of other girls to attend to the
food; no great harm had been done. But there was no longer any real need to rush.
Morris was tending bar until nine. She couldn’t eat with him before then; and eating
and drinking by herself in a mill of gay interns and nurses was not an inviting prospect.
Morris would probably be so busy, serving out liquor to that hard-drinking crowd,
that he would hardly notice her if she did come before nine. Granted that she would
have to apologize for not helping with the food, did it much matter if she dined first
with Noel? He could not possibly keep her longer than another hour, since his plane
was leaving at nine.

She stopped at a telephone booth in the lobby and called the hospital. The switchboard
took a long time to answer. The operator was a new girl, irritable and clumsy. Marjorie
very explicitly gave her this message for Dr. Shapiro:
Sorry I’m late. I’ll be there about eight-thirty or nine and I’ll explain then
. There were continual loud buzzes in the background, and voices breaking in on the
line. The operator said nervously that she would deliver the message as soon as she
could get the switchboard clear.

Noel, lounging against the wall with his coat over his arm, said, “Well? Is he in
a flaming rage?”

“Just your dumb luck, if you call this lucky,” Marjorie said. “If you really want
to feed me, you can do it. Providing you’re quick about it.”

His eyes narrowed. “And you were in such an all-fired hurry—Margie, the date wouldn’t
have been a fiction to get away from Jack the Ripper, would it? And this phone call
a dainty covering gesture?”

“Noel, you’d just as soon lie as breathe, but everyone isn’t like you. I was supposed
to help prepare the food for a buffet supper. You fixed that, all right. Now it doesn’t
matter if—” She broke off because he was laughing.

“Margie, turn off the lovely frown, or I’ll fall in love again. I never knew one like
you for rising to the bait.”

“Oh, shut up. I think I’ll go home.”

“Not a chance. I’d throw myself under the wheels of your cab. Come along.”

Despite herself, she was impressed at walking through the lush Waldorf lobby with
a man who was actually registered there. He picked up his key and some letters at
the desk, and glanced at the envelopes. “I think the best idea is for me to bang out
a letter or two and pack, and check out. Then we can have our dinner in peace. Will
you trust yourself in Bluebeard’s chamber? I’ll be ten, fifteen minutes.”

“I—well, I guess I’ll come up. I’ve never seen a Waldorf room.”

It was a two-room suite. The sitting room had heavy pink drapes, curlicued gilt furniture,
and pretty Watteau-like paintings. A black portable typewriter stood open on a frail
gilt table, flanked by overflowing ashtrays and piles of yellow paper. “Relax,” Noel
said, tossing his coat on a chair. She heard him snapping luggage and sliding drawers
in the bedroom. She picked up a couple of magazines printed in heavy black type, on
stock almost as coarse as paper towels. “Good heavens, the
New Masses
,” she called into the bedroom. “Don’t tell me you’re turning communist now, just
when you’re starting to make money.”

Noel came out in his shirtsleeves, laughing. He picked up books, manila envelopes,
ties, and shirts scattered around the room, and carried them into the bedroom as he
talked. “Phil Yates, this sculptor I was travelling with, was a communist. Some of
his junk accumulated in my bags. Boring as hell. We had some gala arguments over communism.
Phil’s a slow-thinking sort, so I usually tied him up. He’s one of the few communists
I’ve ever been able to stand. They’re like the abolitionists. Their cause may be just,
but their personalities are repulsive. I don’t really know whether they’re right or
not, and I don’t care. Economics puts me to sleep. All I care about is my own few
years above the ground. I’d rather spend them with the pleasant doomed people than
with the seedy squawking heroes of the future. Which makes me, in the jargon, an anarcho-cynical
deviate of the lackey intelligentsia. A louse, that is.” He dropped into a chair by
the typewriter. “Guess I’ll bang out those letters.”