Marjorie Morningstar (78 page)

“Every damned actor in the show would walk out, my dear. They’re a lot of money-mad
hogs, these actors. There isn’t a true artist in Equity. Soon there won’t be any on
Broadway. It’s all dying, strangled by Equity and the stagehands’ union. They’ll be
sorry, those two boa constrictors, when they find themselves constricting a rotten
corpse. Then maybe they’ll constrict each other to death, and the theatre will be
born again. Ah, but that’s far from little Margie Morningstar and her problem, isn’t
it? My dear, I’m terribly, terribly sorry, I truly am.—Now, no sniffles, put away
the handkerchief, child. This isn’t the end for you. I hope it’s the beginning, and
a glorious beginning. You haven’t gone unnoticed, dear.”

She raised her bowed head and blinked at him.

“Frankly, Margie, you never have fitted the part. If I hadn’t disliked upsetting you
I’d have let you out the second day you rehearsed. You just don’t look like a prostitute,
my dear. You’re much too fresh and sweet. That underwear you had on was really exquisite,
by the way. Trouble was, it made you look less a bad woman than ever. I’m afraid you
looked like a nice Vassar girl fresh out of the shower, dear, in the middle of getting
dressed for a big evening. Now, don’t pout, don’t you realize what a precious quality
that is? There are a million girls on Broadway who can look like strumpets. Where
did you get that slip, my dear?”

“B-Bergdorf’s.”

“Bergdorf’s, eh? What does your father do, Margie?”

“Why… he’s an importer, Mr. Flamm,” Marjorie said, with a dim incredulous suspicion
of what Flamm might be getting at.

“Marjorie dear, would it be a consolation to have a star part in a brilliant comedy,
instead of a walk-on in a trivial farce? Because between you and me, dear—and we can
be frank now—that’s all
The Bad Year
is. Now
this
play is something else again, believe me!” And to Marjorie’s mingled disgust and
amusement, he brought out of a drawer an extremely worn script of
Down Two Doubled
—it might have been the same one Marjorie had been handed two years ago, the cover
was a scuffed faded red—and slapped it dramatically on the desk.

He had had his eye on her from the first tryout day, he said, for a star part in this
play, the most massive opportunity any young actress could ever hope for; and now,
just this evening, the very charm which had disabled her for a whore’s part had practically
convinced him that Clarice was Marjorie’s destined break into Broadway. He ordered
her to absorb Clarice into her very soul, and then come to see him the day after
The Bad Year
opened. It seemed utterly beyond belief to Marjorie that he should fail to remember
her, even at this point. She sat staring passively at him while he gyrated through
the Clarice discovery scene, complete with whirls and eye-poppings, waiting for him
to recognize her and collapse into embarrassment. She could recall every detail of
that first encounter with him; he had even commented on her name, Marjorie Morningstar!
How could it have passed so totally from his mind?

But the fact was, it had. The old faker had done this, or things like this, so often
with so many girls that she was no more to him than a face in a parade; and she was
still trying to think of a devastating way to denounce him when he shook hands and
ushered her out of the office, thrusting the script into her hand as he opened the
door. “This isn’t an end, Marjorie, believe me it isn’t. Something tells me, deep
down, that it may be the start of the road, for both of us. The golden road, my dear,”
he exclaimed, his eyes all but starting from his head, “the glory road!”

She went to her dressing room and gathered up her few belongings, including an advance
copy of the Philadelphia theatre program with her name in it. Stolidly enduring the
sympathy of the girls, she turned off their questions about the red script with a
shrug, and put it in her little valise. She said goodbye to the silent whores and
the talking whore, all of whom shared the dressing room. The talking whore evinced
a surprising sentimental streak, sobbing wildly and kissing Marjorie. Dane Voen was
lying in wait for her just inside the stage door. He told her not to be discouraged;
she was a great actress, and he would like nothing better than to meet with her evenings,
and coach her in methodology. He offered to take her out then and there, and help
her forget the setback with a little fun and drinking. She declined, pleading a headache,
and she was very glad she had done so when she came out on the street. Dane’s mistress
was waiting in the alley of the stage entrance, with red reflections from a nearby
neon sign dancing in her eyes.

It was a little after midnight. Marjorie bought a morning
Times
at the corner and noted wryly that it was April Fool’s Day. She walked up Broadway
in a cool foggy night. Light seemed to be dissolved in the air all around her, brilliant
yellow; she was walking in a great effulgence, a universal bath, of electric light.
There was no plan in her walking, she simply walked, enjoying the cool air on her
hot face. After a while she passed out of the blazing square, and after another while
she was standing in the misty gloom on Central Park South, the valise at her feet,
staring up at the hotel where she had given her virginity to Noel Airman a year ago.
She stared so, dry-eyed, for perhaps a quarter of an hour.

Then she walked up to the Fifty-ninth Street subway. At Columbus Circle she stopped
beside a trash basket, opened her valise, and took out the script of
Down Two Doubled
. She glanced at the battered red script with a smile which, for complexity and secret
sadness, might have rivalled the Mona Lisa’s, had a painter caught it. The script
fell in the basket with a dry rustle and disappeared under tumbling loose newspapers;
and the girl went down into the subway.

“Papa, I’d like to work for you. Is the job still open?”

The business section of the Sunday paper fell out of Mr. Morgenstern’s left hand to
the floor, and he put down the coffee cup in his right hand very shakily, squinting
at his daughter as though she shone too brightly. “What?”

Mrs. Morgenstern, placidly pouring coffee for herself, said, “Nazimova is in a humorous
mood this morning.”

Marjorie said to her father, “I’d like to go to work. Tomorrow if I can. My typing
and shorthand have improved. I think I can be useful to you. I want a steady job.”

Seth paused in buttering a piece of toast. “Margie, what are you talking about? You
have to go down to Philadelphia this afternoon with the show.”

“I’m not going to Philadelphia, Seth. I’m out of the show.”

She told her family the facts lightheartedly, but she was watching their reactions.
The father seemed stunned. Seth was first angered, then downcast. Mrs. Morgenstern
took the news with good cheer. “I’m sorry, darling. You must be very disappointed.
But from everything you’ve told us it was a rotten show. Something better will come
along. It wasn’t very nice, anyway, that part they gave you. I was almost ashamed
to tell people.”

“I agree with you, Mom,” Marjorie said. “I shouldn’t have taken it, and I’m well out
of it.”

“What goes on? Is Broadway composed entirely of morons?” Seth said, his jaw thrust
out. “I’ve seen a bunch of plays this year, and I haven’t seen a young actress yet
who looked any better than you. Most of them don’t look half as good. I’ve seen you
act. You’re better than any of them.”

Marjorie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “That’s a loyal brother.”

Seth turned red, pushed his chair back from the table, and went through several grotesque
gestures intended to show that he felt quite at ease. He was seventeen, he had grown
another two inches, and his complexion was somewhat spotty. Often, as now, he seemed
to have an indefinite number of elbows, legs, and hands. “Well, hell, I mean it. I’m
not saying it because you’re my sister. I don’t think you’re any world-beater by a
long shot. But isn’t it the truth?”

Marjorie said, “I’ll tell you, Seth, you mustn’t be fooled by my amateur work. Naturally
I looked pretty good in
Pygmalion
and
A Doll’s House
. Those are just about the best parts in the world. Mama could look good in them.”

“No, thank you,” said Mrs. Morgenstern. “I’m not ambitious like you.”

“The girls you’re talking about have a few dull lines in a Broadway play to create
a character with,” Marjorie said to Seth. “There’s not much they can do, usually,
with such thin stuff. If they get the jobs, they’re pretty good actresses, most likely.”

“Aw, if the truth were known, it probably just depends on who you sleep with,” Seth
said.

The mother said, “Look, smart boy, talk that way at college. Not at this table.”

“I don’t care,” Seth said. “If you ask me, that’s the one thing that’s been holding
Marjorie back. She’s probably the only virgin on Broadway.”

In the short awkward silence, a glance passed among the two parents and the daughter,
while Seth lit a cigarette. Marjorie and her father both started to talk at once.
The girl laughed. “Sorry, Papa—”

“Are you serious? Do you want to go to work? Because it happens I can use a girl very
much right now. I just laid off my secretary, I was going to call the agency Monday.”

“I’m serious. I’ll start today, if you’re going to the office.”

Mr. Morgenstern’s shoulders straightened, and a happy smile came over his tired pale
face. “Well, as a matter of fact my desk is piled to the ceiling. I had no girl, so—I
don’t want to spoil your Sunday—”

“You won’t spoil it. Let’s go right now.”

“Nothing doing.” Mrs. Morgenstern’s tone to her husband was stern. “How many doctors
do you need to tell you no more Sunday work? Tomorrow’s plenty of time. If you’re
so full of pep, we can go this afternoon and visit Aunt Dvosha. It’s a nice drive
to the sanatorium.”

Marjorie said, “Sanatorium? What’s the matter with Aunt Dvosha?”

“She got a blood condition, from eating nothing but vegetables,” the mother said.
“She’s got to stay in bed for two months, and get injected with liver, and eat nothing
but hamburgers, heart, tongue, stuff like that.”

Marjorie burst out laughing, then checked herself. “Is it serious?”

“Not at all, not now,” the mother said, smiling. “She’s eating like a lion in a zoo.”

Mr. Morgenstern said peevishly, “Since when is dictating letters work? It’s less work
than driving a car forty miles. For the first time in her life Margie wants to work
for me, and you—”

“No working on Sundays, that’s all there is to it,” said the mother.

Marjorie said, “Papa, how much will you pay me?”

Mr. Morgenstern pursed his lips, trying to look businesslike, but warm delight radiated
from his face. “Well, nowadays they start a girl at seventeen a week. But you can’t
get a girl worth a two-cent piece for less than twenty. Are you any good?”

“I think I’m not bad.”

“Well, I’ll start you at twenty. If you’re no good I’ll fire you. I don’t want useless
relatives hanging around the office.”

“Fair enough.”

Mrs. Morgenstern said, “Don’t tell me we’re really getting another wage earner in
this house. It’s too good to be true.”

“Well, it’s true,” the girl said.

“I’ll believe it after you’ve been doing it three weeks,” Mrs. Morgenstern said. “More
power to you, darling, but it’s very hard work in that office and very dull.”

“I know.”

“Can it be that she’s growing up?” the mother said to the father.

Determined as Marjorie was to keep a pleasant manner—this conversation was the result
of a sleepless night in which she had come to some hard decisions—this last remark
of her mother’s pricked her. She said, “Mom, what’s our rent here? Eighty a month,
isn’t it?”

“Eighty-two, why?”

“I’d like to pay my share. If I keep this job, I’ll pay in twenty dollars a month.
All right?”

Mrs. Morgenstern stared at her daughter, and for the first time her amused look softened.
“You mean that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. That’s overdue, too, I think. I’m sure you think so.”

“Marjorie, as far as I’m concerned the main thing is that you want to do it. I’m very
glad to hear you talking this way. We don’t need your money, thank God, and—”

“We certainly don’t,” the father broke in. “If the time ever comes that I can’t put
a roof over my children’s head—”

“It’s all settled,” Marjorie said. “I’m paying my share of the rent starting next
week. Five dollars a week, twenty a month. If I keep the job.”

Seth said, “She’s having a soul crisis, that’s what.”

“It’s a lot of foolishness,” the father said. “What are you doing, Margie, getting
ready to move out?”

“I’m twenty-two, Pa, that’s all.”

“As long as you’re single this is where you stay.”

“I want to stay.”

“All right. As long as that’s understood.”

The mother said, “Margie, it’s all very fine, and you can do it, of course, if that’s
what you feel like doing. But you’re not being practical. You only use one room and
a bath. Twelve a month is more like it.”

“Fine,” Marjorie said promptly, “I’ll pay twelve then.”

The mother smiled. “Well, good for you. Always grab a bargain.”

“I think it’s a bargain. But you named the price,” Marjorie said. “I’m glad to have
the extra eight dollars, believe me.”

“Marjorie, what’s all this about? Why are you coming to work?” the father said.

“She’s seen the light,” Seth said. “It’s a conversion phenomenon. We’re studying these
things in psychology. The shock of losing the part in the play did it, It needs a
shock to set it off, but underneath it’s been coming a long time—”

Marjorie wrinkled her nose at him, and said to her father, “Isn’t it high time I made
myself somewhat useful in the world? Anyway, I want to save some money.”