Marjorie Morningstar (33 page)

And it was a wholly new kind of conduct for Marjorie. It had nothing to do with her
personal preferences, her tastes, her ideas, her inclinations. It was like another
identity, a strange will that proceeded outward from the fleshly recesses of her body.
It was a more insidious arguer than Noel. It was taking on more and more the sound
of her normal inner voice, the familiar vigilant friend of a lifetime whose job it
was to suggest that it was time to eat, or that the yellow dress would be more becoming
than the green, or that she had better freshen her lipstick. In the same comradely
tones this new voice kept suggesting ways and means of being alone with Noel. At eleven
o’clock at night, when she was undressing for bed, she would suddenly think that she
would love to read a new novel. It would then occur to her that she had seen the latest
best seller in Noel’s room. She would have to fight with herself, exactly as with
another person, to keep herself from going to visit him.

She was getting used to the thought of having an affair. It no longer was something
that couldn’t possibly happen to Marjorie Morgenstern, like becoming a drug fiend,
or killing herself. She pictured what it would be like. She imagined her frame of
mind afterward.

She was in a distracted and highly nervous state. Twice she packed her bags late at
night, only to unpack them sheepishly in the morning. She sought out Samson-Aaron
and spent long evenings with him reminiscing about her childhood, trying to make her
slipping anchor catch and hold in the old realities. Marjorie had long ago told everybody
that Sam the dishwasher was her uncle, having become thoroughly ashamed of her first
hostile reaction to finding him at South Wind. Nobody thought the less of her for
it. The Uncle was, in fact, rather popular as a “character,” a legendary eater and
spicy Yiddish philosopher. Often she thought she would confess her heart to Samson-Aaron.
But the gulf of years and language and background was too wide; he was only the Uncle,
after all, coarse and comical, fat and old. There was something too humiliating in
appealing to the dishwasher for help in her love affair. She couldn’t do it.

Samson-Aaron seemed to sense trouble. He was very patient and tactful with her. Only
once did he try in a clumsy way to open the subject. “So, vot is vit Mr. Airman? Maybe
ve have a vedding yet? All the time you are together, no?” Marjorie laughed and said
she was just having fun with Noel; he wasn’t the marrying kind. “Dot’s vot I think,
Marjorie. A gentleman, I think he is. A serious fella, I don’t think he is. You’re
a good girl, you know vot you’re doing, so vot’s the difference? So long you know
vot’s vot, so have fun. Listen to me, giving advice to a college girl.”

“There are some things they don’t teach us at college, Uncle.”

“Your mama writes is Modgerie got a steady fella? I answer nothing. I say is good
veather in South Vind. I say I catch plenty fish on my day off.”

“You’re a sweetheart.”

“Vot do I know? I’m in the kitchen vashing dishes.—So, but next veek Mama and Papa
come here, no? Then vot?”

“Well, let them come.”

Marjorie had been thrusting the impending visit of her parents out of her mind. They
were going to arrive Saturday evening and leave Sunday afternoon to drive on to Seth’s
camp, a hundred miles farther north in the Adirondacks. Somehow, she thought, she
would slide and stumble and dodge through those twenty-odd hours, and hide from her
parents what was happening.

The night her parents were watching the show Marjorie stumbled and fell, dancing out
on the stage with the chorus. It was the first time it had ever happened to her. Before
the laughter in the audience could spread she was on her feet again, kicking nimbly
and smiling. When she came prancing off into the wing Noel was there, lounging with
a hand on the curtain rope. “Are you all right? You must have scared your folks.”

“Oh, I’m fine. My big feet suddenly got all tangled up, that’s all.”

He smiled. “Not according to Papa Freud. That fall was heavy with meaning.”

“No doubt. Why don’t you write a book about it? Excuse me, I’ve got to change.”

As the show went along she was embarrassed at the spate of sex and bathroom jokes.
It had not seemed to her at rehearsals that the show was particularly coarse. But
tonight Puddles Podell’s skits made her blush, and it struck her that Wally’s lyrics
and sketches were especially vulgar. The hit of the evening was Wally’s number in
which three actors representing Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, wearing nurses’ uniforms
and carrying prop babies, sang of the methods they were using to increase the birth
rate. She had laughed till the tears came the first time she heard it at rehearsal;
but now she realized how dirty the jokes were.

She removed her makeup and dressed in great haste after the show, oddly eager to talk
to her parents. She found them sitting on the sideline of the dance floor on folding
chairs, watching the couples. They looked old, after a month of not seeing them. The
father was almost all gray, and Mrs. Morgenstern had deep wrinkles that her daughter
had never before been aware of, her neck in particular showing the corded look of
age. Of course, they were both past fifty, Marjorie reflected. She couldn’t expect
them to go on looking forever as they had in her childhood.

The father said, “I never knew till now what a beautiful daughter I had. You looked
better on that stage than any movie star I ever saw. All the fellows here must be
in love with you.”

Marjorie laughed. “They’re committing suicide right and left, Papa.”

“Did you hurt yourself when you fell?” said Mrs. Morgenstern.

“No. That stage is hollow, makes a big boom. It was nothing. Hot night, isn’t it?
How about something to drink?”

They settled in a small booth of the bar. She saw her parents exchange a look when
she ordered ale. Her father asked for the same. Mrs. Morgenstern hemmed and hesitated
and at last ordered lemonade. They exchanged another look when she pulled out a pack
of cigarettes and lit one. “Ale, cigarettes,” said the mother. “All grown up, aren’t
you?”

“We may as well face it, Mom, I’ve gone to the dogs, just as you predicted.” Marjorie
blew a smoke ring, and was annoyed that it came out ragged. She blew another one,
a smooth one.

“That’s not what the Uncle tells us,” Mrs. Morgenstern said. “He says everyone thinks
you’re the only good girl on the social staff.”

“Oh well, Mom, I put up a good front. I’m an actress, you know.”

“You’re our daughter, so you’re good, that’s all,” said the father. “It doesn’t surprise
me, and don’t be ashamed of it. People may make fun of you, but they’ll respect you.”

The drinks came, and Marjorie drank off half her ale at once, glad to observe that
this startled her mother. “Ah! Could anything be better on a hot night?” She dragged
at her cigarette, squinting like a man.

The father said, “Tell me, Margie, don’t you feel a little—I don’t know, a little
funny—acting in such a show? I mean, I’m not so fussy, I’ve heard a lot of dirty jokes
in my time, but—”

“What do you expect in Sodom?” the mother said. “Hamlet? That’s what the crowd wants,
so they give it to them.”

“Mom’s right, Dad. I think tonight it was a little worse than usual, but after all,
with this crowd—Hello, Noel, come over and meet my folks.” He was walking past with
a highball, wearing a rust-colored corduroy jacket over the black turtle-neck sweater,
and she was glad to see that he was freshly shaved and his hair well groomed. On Saturday
night he often looked like a skinny tired tramp. Noel said, with a faint lift of the
eyebrows, “Hi! Sure, Margie, love to.”

“Mother—Dad—this is the social director—you know, he writes the shows and puts them
on—Noel Airman.”

Noel was gracious and easy in the exchange of greetings. “I hope you weren’t scared
when Marjorie fell. That wasn’t part of the dance, she thought of it herself.”

“We enjoyed your show,” said the father. “A little bit on the rough side, but naturally
you expect that here.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Do you think our daughter has any talent, Mr. Airman?” said the father.

Noel looked down at her and smiled. “That’s hard to say, Mr. Morgenstern. Frankly,
when an actress is as attractive as Marjorie, the question of talent isn’t easy to
decide. Good looks are a camouflage. But I think she has talent.”

“Why, thank you, dear.” Marjorie patted his arm and smiled at her parents. “Well,
I’m glad you came. That’s the first time he’s been forced out into the open on the
subject. Ordinarily he won’t pay me a compliment to save his soul.”

“It’s a compliment to say you’re attractive,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, sipping her lemonade
and regarding Noel over the rim of the glass.

“Not when I’m trying to find out if I can act, Mom. It’s like saying a doctor is attractive
when you want to know if he can take out an appendix.”

“Are you from New York, Mr. Airman?” said the mother.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Manhattan?”

“Yes. The Village, at the moment.” Noel lit a cigarette. His eyes flickered to Marjorie’s
for a second. He slouched back, his arms folded, looking at the mother with his head
aslant.

“Oh, the Village. Do you put on shows in the winter also?”

“I’m a songwriter, Mrs. Morgenstern.”

“Oh, a songwriter.”

Marjorie said, “Noel’s had skits in Broadway shows, and he’s had dozens of songs published,
Mom. You remember
It’s Raining Kisses
, that big hit.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well, I don’t know how on earth you could have missed it. It was the biggest smash
hit of 1933.”

Noel said, “Well, not quite.”

Marjorie said, “Dad, you heard it. It was always on the radio, all the orchestras
everywhere played it—”

The father said, “I guess the days when Mama and I followed the popular songs are
far behind us.”

“Well, what’s the difference?” said the mother. “A hit song is something. Listen,
Irving Berlin isn’t poor.”

Noel grinned. “One hit song doesn’t quite make me Irving Berlin.”

“You’ve had lots of hits,” Marjorie said.

“Well, I’ll have to start looking for your songs,” Mrs. Morgenstern said. “How do
you spell your name again?”

Noel spelled it.

“Noel Airman, eh? That’s an interesting name. I didn’t catch it before. Well, so you’re
not Jewish. I didn’t think you were.”

Marjorie said, “Good Lord, Mom, what difference does that make? It happens he is Jewish,
but for that matter most of the staff isn’t, and—”

“But
Noel
,” said the mother, peering at him. “Noel means Christmas, doesn’t it? Nobody calls
a Jewish boy Noel. You might as well call a Catholic boy Passover.”

Noel threw back his head and laughed. Marjorie gnawed her lips. He said, “Mrs. Morgenstern,
I couldn’t agree with you more, but I’m stuck with Noel.” He waved at the waiter.
“I must buy you a drink.”

“Thanks, I’ve had all the lemonade I want,” said Mrs. Morgenstern.

But Noel ordered another round for everybody. Then he explained that he had given
himself the name when his first song was published.

“Oh, then it’s a pen name, that’s what it is,” said the father. “Like Mark Twain,
or Sholem Aleichem.”

“Well, I wish the resemblance were closer, but that’s the idea, Mr. Morgenstern.”

The mother said, “What is your other name then, if I may ask, your real name?”

After a tiny pause Noel said, “Saul Ehrmann. Not so very much of a change, you see.”

“No, not at all,” said Mrs. Morgenstern. “Ehrmann… I know a Judge Ehrmann. But he
spells it with two
n’s
.”

Noel expelled a sigh, and shrugged. “So did I, Mrs. Morgenstern. He’s my father.”

“What? Judge Ehrmann is your father?” She turned on Marjorie. “He’s Billy’s brother!
Really? For heaven’s sake, why didn’t you say so?”

“Mother, you’ve been so busy asking questions nobody could possibly have gotten a
word in.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Well! Judge Ehrmann’s son!” Mrs. Morgenstern looked at Noel
with more friendliness. “Of all the coincidences! Why, we have a great many acquaintances
in common. I know your mother quite well from the Federation, and—don’t you have a
sister Monica? Married to the older Sigelman boy? The Sigelmans of the Snow Maiden
Dry Cleaners?”

“That’s my sister.”

“Of course. Well, Mrs. Sigelman, that’s your sister’s mother-in-law, happens to be
the best friend of one of my oldest friends, Belle Kline. I know them well. Lovely
family, the Sigelmans. What’s your sister’s husband’s name? Horace, isn’t it?”

“Horace,” said Noel.

“Very good-looking boy. Very bright. He’s in business with his father, isn’t he?”

“He’s in business with his father.”

Marjorie said, “I think I’d like to dance.”

“Well, and you a songwriter!” said Mrs. Morgenstern. “Come to think of it, Belle did
tell me once about the older Ehrmann boy writing songs—I just never connected your
name—with your father a judge I should think you’d be in the law.”

“Well, you see, Mrs. Morgenstern, I flunked out of law school with the lowest marks
in the history of Cornell University.” Noel was sitting up straighter, hugging his
elbow.

Mrs. Morgenstern laughed, then looked uncertainly at Marjorie and back at Noel. “Don’t
tell me that. Not in your family. Too much brains—”

Marjorie slid out of the booth. “If you won’t dance with me, Noel, I’ll find someone
who will.”

Noel said pleasantly to the parents, “Will you excuse us?”

“Go ahead,” said the father. “Have a good time. Don’t sit around talking with a couple
of old fogies.”

“But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.” Noel stood. His smile was warm and candid. “Maybe
later we can chat some more about the Sigelmans, and all.”

She clung to him in the dance, fearing a chilliness in the way he held her. She waited
a long time for him to speak. One dance ended and another began. She said, “You can
certainly be poisonous, can’t you?”