Marjorie Morningstar (72 page)

“Like the set?” Noel said, returning to her.

“Why, it couldn’t be more beautiful. I never pictured anything so elaborate.”

“Ferris brought in a new kid from Hollywood to do the sets and costumes. They’re superb,
I think.”

The musicians brassily struck up the overture; the curtain rose again; the setting
was masked now by a gorgeous curtain, purple, red, and gold, in a cubistic pattern.
Marjorie involuntarily touched Noel’s arm; she had not been so keyed up in her life.
“Good luck,” she whispered.

Three hours went by like so many minutes.

Princess Jones,
from the first moment to the last, seemed to her a rich winning fantasy; a waterfall
of color, splendor, laughter, and charm. Everything about it was magical: the elegant
settings, the spill of lovely costumes, the swirling crowds of dancers, the melting
music, the bright lighthearted comedy scenes. She knew the story, of course, and all
the jokes, and all the songs. The show had not been changed very much from the last
version Noel had showed her. But it was electrifying to see Noel’s brain child fleshed
out and brilliantly alive—peopled, colored, danced, sung, a living thing, a Broadway
show. The first dress rehearsal, according to Noel, had been very disorderly, but
the troubles seemed to have been ironed out; the show unreeled as on an opening night.

When the curtain came down on the finale, a blazing whirl of color and sound—a waltz
of the whole company in the grand ballroom of the palace, with the plot all unravelled
and the lovers all paired off, a faintly mocking but gay end to the satiric fable—when
the orchestra trumpeted a massive crescendo, and the descending curtain cut off the
enchanting vision—Marjorie couldn’t contain herself. She seized Noel’s hand, and pressed
it hard. He turned to her, his eyes glittering in the glow from the footlights. But
before she could speak a word, in the first instant of silence after the final chord
from the band, the producer called over in a bored voice, “Noel, did you do anything
about the new duet?” Noel left her, with a nod and a smile to acknowledge her little
applauding gesture with gloved hands.

He returned in a few minutes. “We’re all going up to my hotel to talk. Come along.”

“Oh no, thanks. It’s a great show, Noel, it’ll be a terrific hit. Thanks for letting
me see it. I’ll go home—”

“Are you so very tired? Peter asked me to bring you along.”

“Well, if—who’s going?”

“Well, Peter, of course, and the dance director, and the dialogue director, and the
orchestra leader—there’ll be about half a dozen of us. We have Chinese food sent up
at these night sessions, and coffee. It’s fun. We get a lot of work done, too. You
can leave whenever you want, I’ll put you in a cab—”

“I’d be in the way.”

“Nonsense. Peter wants to hear your reactions. Come on, we’ve got a limousine waiting
outside.”

“Is Mrs. Lemberg going?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I won’t be the only female, anyway, then. Sure, I’d love to.”

With five men and Mrs. Lemberg crowded in the limousine, Marjorie felt fairly safe
going to Noel’s hotel. Peter Ferris, the producer, was a remarkably handsome man,
younger than Noel. His grace and his smooth manners reminded Marjorie of her actor
friends; but unlike them he seemed to possess sharp intelligence, and a high charge
of energy. Mrs. Lemberg frankly doted on him. He cross-examined Marjorie about the
show in a good-humored brisk way, and her answers pleased him. “This girl’s not only
charming and pretty, she knows the theatre,” he said to Noel. “You’d better marry
her.”

“That’s what she says.”

Marjorie blushed to her ears, everyone laughed, and Noel gave her a hug. The discussion
of the show went on, and Marjorie was surprised at the sophistication of Mrs. Lemberg.
She looked like one of her mother’s temple sisterhood friends in her puffball of a
mink coat, and her voice sounded like theirs, but she was bright and hard-boiled.

Marjorie made a much-appreciated contribution early in the conference at Noel’s suite.
A new comic song was needed, everyone had agreed, shortly before the end of the second
act. The men were trying to think of a topic for the song; they were sprawled around
the room—on the couch, across chairs, on the floor, in their shirtsleeves, some with
shoes off. Mrs. Lemberg meantime placidly played solitaire on a coffee table, her
diamonds winking in the lamplight. The silence grew long. Marjorie worked up her courage,
and bashfully remarked to Noel that he might be able to use a certain duet from one
of the old South Wind revues. Noel frowned, then jumped up and walked to the spinet
piano. “By God, I’d completely forgotten that one. Listen to it, Peter. It might work,
at that. Do you remember the words, Marge?” Marjorie remembered every word of every
song of Noel’s. She went to the piano and sang, acting out both parts with gestures
and dance steps from Noel’s original staging.

They gave her a little round of applause. “Gad, let’s put her in the show, she’s better
than the leading lady we’ve got,” Ferris said. “Noel, I think it’s good. The words
need some work, but let’s try it. Marjorie, I appoint you permanent staff consultant
on the contents of Noel’s trunk. Let’s have a drink on it.”

Noel had just finished pouring very dark-looking highballs when the Chinese food came.
They all drank up quickly, while the Chinese messenger dished the food. It was quite
a supper. A plate of sliced pink pork was part of the buffet, along with egg rolls,
chow mein, fried lobster, and rice. Marjorie had become quite free about the food
she ate; but she had never yet deliberately helped herself to pork, though she had
suspected more than once that she was eating it, and had gone on eating. It occurred
to her now, when she saw little Mrs. Lemberg piling pork on her plate, that it was
high time she shrugged off these hypocritical little distinctions of hers. She took
a couple of pork slices; and by dipping them completely in mustard sauce she got them
down without any trouble. Eating the pork gave her an odd sense of freedom, and at
the same time, though she suppressed it, a twinge of disgust. She asked Noel for another
highball.

After the Chinese food the conference grew long, and rather blurry. Marjorie wandered
around the suite, washed her face in cold water in the bathroom, and glanced through
heavily blue-pencilled scripts of
Princess Jones
lying scattered in the bedroom on the double bed. There was also a worn volume of
W. S. Gilbert’s librettos. She took the book into the living room, and scanned the
pages of
The Mikado
while the talk went on, thinking of her stage debut at Hunter, and of her early friendship
with Marsha Zelenko. After a while, she put aside the book and went to the window.
Noel’s suite was on the twenty-sixth floor. Far up the park she could see the twin
towers of the El Dorado. The rain had stopped, and the low clouds were breaking up.
A blue-white full moon, almost overhead, was sailing rapidly through the clouds.

Marsha’s wedding at the El Dorado seemed to Marjorie to have happened not a few hours
ago, but last week or last month. The whole business already was fading: the gray-headed
little husband, the theremin, the Packovitch girls, Milton Schwartz, and Marsha’s
wild tirade before the ceremony. The present moment, here in Noel’s hotel suite, meshed
smoothly with the old days—before the break over Imogene, before the brief era of
Morris Shapiro. It was so natural and right to be back with Noel! The period of estrangement
was a queer isolated fragment of her life. She did not feel at all drunk, only a little
tired, and more than a little exhilarated and tense.

The conference broke up at ten minutes of two. Ferris offered to drive Marjorie home.
Noel, shoeless, in shirtsleeves and with his collar open, said, “Thanks, Peter, I’ll
throw on a tie and take the lady to her door myself.”

“You needn’t bother. I’ll go with them,” Marjorie said, starting to get out of a low
armchair.

“Nonsense, stay where you are. I’ll get a reputation as a cad,” Noel said.

The others said goodbye. Mrs. Lemberg was the last to go. She hesitated a moment in
the hallway, looked from Noel to Marjorie, then laughed and said in a kind but faintly
metallic tone, “Don’t work too hard, Noel. Goodbye, Marjorie dear.” The cynical twang
in a voice so much like her mother’s stung Marjorie. She pushed herself out of the
chair, but Mrs. Lemberg had already closed the door.

Noel went into the bedroom, and came out a few moments later sliding a maroon tie
under his collar. He said nothing. He seemed embarrassed. He knotted the tie at a
mirror in the hallway. Marjorie walked up and down the living room, not very aware
of what she was doing. The walls were papered with a design of yellow and green flowers
on gray. Her image moved back and forth in a large oblong mirror between the windows.

Noel said from the hallway, “Well, was it fun?”

“I loved it. Thanks for inviting me.”

“You were very helpful.”

“That old duet just crossed my mind. Lucky.”

“Tired?”

“Not at all, strangely. I suppose I’ll collapse once I take my clothes off.”

“Like another drink before we go?” He was putting on his tweed jacket.

“I—no, thanks, I’d better not. I swear I’m becoming a drunkard.”

“Sure? There’s plenty of soda and ice.”

“No, thanks. I’d better go home.” She glanced at her watch. “Ye gods. How did it get
to be this time?”

He said, “I’ll probably work on that number when I come back. I’ve never been more
wide awake. How about writing down the words for me before we go?”

“I’ll be glad to, but look, Noel, I can go home by myself after that. You have too
much to do—”

“Forget it. I like your company, you fool, don’t you know that?” He took a pencil
and a yellow pad from the piano. “Will you dictate the words? It’s marvelous how you
remember that junk. I’ve written reams of it, but the words never stick with me, just
the melodies.”

Marjorie sat beside him on the sofa. He poised the pencil over the pad. She stared
at him, and after a second or two she said, “What on earth is the matter with me?
It’s gone clean out of my head.”

“What!”

“Every word of it. Clean gone.”

“Margie, you sang it from beginning to end an hour ago.”

“I don’t know what’s happened. Amnesia, I guess.” She shook her head violently. “Nothing
like this has ever happened to me before. Is it nerves? Or what? I can’t even think
of the first lines, Noel.”

“Well, I remember those—

Marjorie stammered and groped for the words. “Maybe if you play the music again—”

Noel went to the piano, giving her the pencil and pad. As soon as he played a few
measures, the verses came to her in a rush. She shouted them aloud in relief, and
scribbled them down, laughing. “Whew! I was beginning to think I’d lost my mind.”

“You’d better have that drink, after all.”

“I believe I will.”

She lounged at the piano, picking out the melody with one finger. He brought the drinks
and sat beside her on the bench. “Not a bad little piano, is it? Rented.”

“It reminds me of the one in Sam Rothmore’s office.”

“Dear old Sam. Let’s drink to Sam.” He raised his glass. “Pity it isn’t twenty-year-old
brandy in his honor, but here’s to the fine old bastard anyway.”

She said, “Do you ever see him?”

“Sam’s pretty sick, Margie. He lives in Florida the year round now. He’s pretty much
been put out to pasture.”

“One of the few real friends you’ve ever had.”

“I know. Worse luck for him.” Noel put his drink on the piano, and played the love
song from the show in an idle way. “Do you really like
Princess Jones
, Marge?”

“You know I do. I always have. I can’t help liking it. It’s superb, Noel, truly it
is.”

“Maybe I’m too close to it. Tonight—and it’s happened a couple of times before, during
rehearsals—it all seemed a bit thin and banal. Beautiful production, not much show.
I’ve told this to Peter. He says if I didn’t have these depressions I wouldn’t be
a healthy author.”

Marjorie laughed.

Noel said, “Well, we’ll have a few weeks with audiences out of town for polishing
and tightening. The
Variety
write-up will be useful.” His fingers rambled into the tune Marjorie had suggested.
“This melody’s really not bad, do you know?” he said. “Probably a lot of the South
Wind stuff will be salvageable some day.”

“It’s a treasure house, Noel, I’m telling you.”

He began to play the old songs. She leaned on the piano, humming, sipping her drink.
She closed her eyes. Scenes of their summer days together came sharp and clear in
her mind—dancing in the darkened social hall at the end of an evening’s canoeing in
the moonlight; eating lunch at hot noonday in a dining hall full of noisy guests,
with the perspiring band playing these songs in a cockloft over the kitchen; walking
with Noel through fragrant woods at night; making up on Saturday night for the show,
in the dressing room with the windows painted streaky blue, at the mirror cracked
like a spider web… She opened her eyes, and laughed. “What’s that one?
Moon Madness
, isn’t it?”

“Right.”

“First song of yours I ever heard. You were rehearsing it the night Marsha and I sneaked
over from the girls’ camp. Remember?”

He looked up at her, grinning as he played. “I thought you were a pleasant-looking
child.”

“I thought you were Apollo. Do you still have that black sweater? I hated the blonde
who sang that number, because Marsha said she was your girl. Now I can’t remember
her name.”

“Neither can I.”

She reached down and struck his hands from the keyboard, as he modulated to another
melody. “Don’t play that.”

He was wryly amused. “Really? After all this time?”