Marjorie Morningstar (71 page)

“It’ll be a smash, Noel.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s strange, you know. The music’s really permeated
by you. I’ve been sitting in the dark theatre during rehearsals, thinking about you,
and those long evenings in my rat hole on Bank Street—”

“It wasn’t a rat hole, Noel. It had a lovely fireplace.”

“Well, if it’s a hit, I daresay I ought to send you a mink stole or something. You
encouraged me to keep working at that show. A dozen times I’d have thrown it in the
fire, if not for you. In fact you’ve always had a bracing effect on me. It doesn’t
seem fair, does it? The only girl I ever was all wrong for—”

“Noel!” The lady who called him was short, gray-headed, and plump. Marjorie had noticed
earlier her thick diamond choker and diamond bracelets. She beckoned from the archway,
and the diamonds sparkled. “Hurry. Some folks want to meet the famous author.”

“Okay, Mollie….” He said to Marjorie, jumping up, “Be back in a moment.”

“Who on earth is Mollie?”

“Mollie Lemberg. She’s a very good soul, really. She’s backing the show, so—” He winked,
and strode off.

Marjorie rolled her forehead from side to side on the cold misted windowpane. The
food had not quieted her giddiness in the least. She had hardly been able to eat.
She picked up her plate again, and dug her fork into a piece of tongue; then she put
away the plate and the fork. Her throat swelled at the thought of eating. She was
very alarmed, almost in panic, at the way things were going with her and Noel. But
it was a delicious panic. It was as though she had made one misstep, nearing the top
of a long mountain climb, and had tumbled and rolled all the way to the bottom, only
to sit up slightly bruised, dishevelled, and laughing. She felt very much like laughing
out loud.

She knew that the one sensible thing to do now was to leave the party. In a few minutes,
without persuasion, without drama, without argument, without any perceptible stages,
the estrangement of almost a year was gone. She was open to Noel again, and she was
slightly drunk. She walked out of the living room, careful of her steadiness.

Milton Schwartz was in the foyer. “Hello, do you still remember me?”

“Of course. Handball king, Ibsen fan, legal brain.”

“Right. You’ve been drinking champagne, haven’t you? Let me get you another glass.”

“One thing I don’t need at this point is more champagne, thank you.”

“Well, come with me while I get another highball, then. I want to talk to you, really
I do. I’m dying to.”

“Why, sure, but it’s hardly worth dying for. I’m leaving in a minute, anyway.”

They passed Noel in a circle of guests, all talking at him, the women staring and
smiling hungrily. Mrs. Lemberg had her arm through his.

Milton Schwartz said to the bar attendant, “One scotch and soda, and one champagne.”

“I said no.”

“Well, hold it in your hand, then. Marjorie, I—listen, maybe this sounds crazy but…
well, the best way I can put it is, I have a feeling I’ve known you for a long time,
and am going to know you a lot longer. I want to ask you whether you’ve had anything
like the same feeling, or whether I’m off in the clouds. This is a very crazy and
stupid question, I grant you.”

She wondered whether she was in some hyperamorous mood worked up by wine and a wedding.
Schwartz seemed attractive to her, too. Two men could hardly have looked more different
than Milton Schwartz and Noel Airman. Schwartz was dark, almost moon-faced, of middle
height, and broad-shouldered. Marjorie had decided long ago that if ever she fell
in love again, it would have to be with a tall lean blond man; Noel had made that
figure the type of masculinity for her. On an impulse she drank half the champagne
in her glass. “All right. It’s a leading question, and impertinent and unfair and
all that. But I’ll answer it. I really don’t remember dancing with you. But I think
I’ll remember you after this evening—”

“How well do you know that writer?” Schwartz inclined his head toward the living room.

“Very well, if it’s any business of yours.”

“I’m jealous,” Schwartz said. “Not that he scares me, but I surmise he’s had rather
a head start.”

“Have you had a lot to drink? It seems so.”

“Quite a lot. Usually I don’t drink much. But I don’t think it shows. In fact, I listen
to myself talk to you and I’m amazed. And pleased. I hope you are.”

“Well, I’m a bit flabbergasted.”

“Look, Marjorie, why don’t we get out of here? A good heart-to-heart talk between
the principals is usually a sound idea. I’ll tell you all about myself. It suddenly
seems interesting to me, my life story. Maybe we can—”

SCREEEEEEEEEE! A frightful sound blared through the apartment. Marjorie shivered from
head to foot, and screamed at Schwartz over the noise, “My God!
What’s that?
” Almost at once the screech changed into a mixed hideous din, as of a zoo going up
in flames—growls, squeals, shrieks, barks, groans, howls. The guests in the dining
room, their eyes dilated with astonishment, swarmed toward the foyer, carrying Marjorie
and Schwartz with them. He seized her hand, and pulled her deftly through the crowd,
using his shoulders like a football player. “Let’s damn well see what it is,” he yelled;
Marjorie barely heard him over the cataract of horrible clamor.

Schwartz broke through to the living room, taking Marjorie with him; and they saw
at once what was happening. The maniacal bursts of sound were coming from the theremin.
Around the black stand the three Packovitch girls were bounding and prancing like
circus elephants, trumpeting with laughter, poking their hands at the pole and the
loop; and with every motion of their hands the noise of the theremin changed. It whooped,
it grunted, it screeched, it howled, it belched. Lou Michaelson was angrily fussing
at the control panel of the machine, shouting in vain at the hysterical fat girls
to stop. In the middle of the room, Marsha lay on her stomach on the floor, with her
hat over one ear, beating the rug with her fists, kicking her heels, and laughing
as though she would die. Mr. Zelenko stood on one side of her, doubled over with laughter,
feebly trying to pull her up; her mother stood on the other side, obviously not at
all amused, tugging at Marsha’s elbow, her orchids dangling crazily. “Marsha, for
God’s sake, stop making such a spectacle of yourself, get
up
—”

Marjorie bawled at Mrs. Zelenko, “Where’s Luba Wolono? Why doesn’t she turn it off?”

“Luba
left
. That idiot Patricia turned the blasted thing on somehow, and now—Marsha,
will
you get off the floor, you’re disgracing the whole family—”

“Funniest, funniest thing I’ve ever seen or heard. Oh, Lord, let me perish,” Marsha
gasped.

HEEEEEEE
, went the theremin—an unendurable scream, exactly like an ocean liner’s whistle,
not two feet from Marjorie. She clapped her hands to her ears and ran out of the room,
fighting her way through the guests crowding in from the foyer, and stood against
the wall near the doorway, panting. Noel emerged for a moment from the mill of guests
and laughed, peering into the living room. “Bloody idiots!” He disappeared toward
the bedrooms.

The racket stopped, all at once. The excited laughing chatter of the guests, by contrast,
was like a blessed silence. Marjorie heard Lou Michaelson sing out, “What happened?
Who did that? What shut it off?”

Marjorie looked into the living room and saw Milton Schwartz crawling on his hands
and knees from behind a sofa. Schwartz called, “Lou, the damned thing just plugs in
the wall like a vacuum cleaner. I pulled the plug, that’s all.” The guests broke into
raucous cheers; they clustered around Schwartz, shaking his hand and slapping his
back, as he got to his feet and dusted his knees.

Noel appeared at Marjorie’s side, holding her coat and his own over one arm, and extending
a package of cigarettes. “Here. No doubt you can use one of these.”

“What—?”

“Take it. And let’s get out of this crazy house before the walls fall in or the floor
starts wobbling. I’m getting the horrors.”

She found herself out in the hallway, lighting the cigarette. He was ringing for the
elevator. She was very glad to be out of the Michaelson apartment; then she thought
of Milton Schwartz. “Now just a second, Noel. Where do you think you’re taking me?
I didn’t say I’d go out with you—”

“I didn’t offer to take you out. I can’t. I’m busy. I presume you want to go home,
however. And not alone, in this downpour.”

The elevator door slid open. She hung back, and he glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.

But she was too tired, too shaken, too giddy to take the trouble to argue with him
and return to the Michaelson apartment. Milton Schwartz wasn’t important to her. He
would probably be telephoning her in a day or so; and what difference did it all make,
anyway? She hadn’t promised to let him take her home. She was very bored with the
problems of being a girl. She stepped into the elevator.

Merely walking from the doorway of the El Dorado to the cab, they got wet; the wind
was driving gusts of rain under the canopy. It felt very snug to settle in the back
seat of a heated taxi beside Noel; snug, and familiar. The taxi smelled of rain, and
their clothes smelled damp, too. The driver said, “Where to, Mac?”

Noel looked at her, then at his wristwatch. “How anxious are you to go home?”

“Extremely anxious. I’ve never been through anything so exhausting. Home, please.”

“If you’re interested, the final dress rehearsal of
Princess Jones
starts in half an hour. Why don’t you come and watch it for a while?”

The cab lurched around a curve, came out of the black park, and headed down Seventh
Avenue toward the misty sea of light at Times Square.

Marjorie felt very much as though she were on the horse which had bolted with her
in Central Park when she was seventeen. She was with Noel Airman again, despite everything;
with him again, and being carried along by events in the old uncontrolled way. Yet
how could she have refused to see the dress rehearsal of
Princess Jones?
She took some comfort in observing that if it was a victory for him, he seemed unaware
of it. He was sunk in abstracted silence. She said, “I guess I’ll never stop being
amazed by you.”

“What now?” he said rather wearily.

“How can you be so unconcerned about your first Broadway show? Here it was the afternoon
of your dress rehearsal all the time, and I didn’t know it. Nobody could have guessed.
You were just ambling around that party, eating, drinking, carefree as a bird. You’re
really one for the books, Noel Airman.”

He shrugged. “I’m not in the least unconcerned. I’d probably sing like a wire if you
touched me. But what’s the use? We had a knock-down conference until four o’clock.
There were three dead hours to kill, I knew you’d be at the wedding, so…” He sank
into silence again, smoking. Rain flooded the closed windows of the cab, smearing
and running almost like a thrown bucket of water.

After a minute or so she said, “I’m really terrifically tired. But this is one temptation
I can’t resist. I’d like to watch the first act, anyway—see how you’ve changed it—”

“Stay as long as you like,” Noel said. “We’re running straight through. If it doesn’t
bore you, I hope you’ll watch the whole thing. I’d like very much to know what you
think of it.”

“My opinion isn’t worth anything.”

“On the contrary. You’re the New York audience in miniature. And you’re probably as
familiar as anybody with all the different versions I’ve done. Your comments will
be very valuable, I imagine.”

When the cab stopped at the stage door of the theatre, he turned to her with a slight
wistful smile. “Well, here we go, darling. I guarantee you there’s no theremin in
it, anyway.” She nervously laughed, and darted with him through the rain into the
stage entrance.

Beautiful girls in frilly crimson costumes, with heavily painted faces like dolls,
were bustling up and down the iron grille staircase. Noel led her to the dressing
rooms and introduced her to the stars, who were fussing with their makeup at lamp-bordered
mirrors. They all called Noel by his first name, chatted with him as equals, laughed
at his jokes, and treated Marjorie charmingly. The leading lady, the best-known performer
in the cast, was especially pleasant to her. She had a hard businesslike manner, but
despite the heavy makeup she was marvelously pretty, with eyes inhumanly large and
blue in rims of black paint. Marjorie was entranced. The excited chatter, the tension
in the perfumed air backstage, the overpainted faces, the kindergarten colors of the
costumes, gave her a feeling of walking in fairyland.

The theatre itself was dark and chilly, the rows of empty seats very bleak. A few
people sat huddled in overcoats here and there in the orchestra. Musicians in sweaters
or coats, most of them needing shaves, were tuning their instruments in the pit. Noel
put her in a seat in the middle of the fifth row, and went off to talk to the producer
in the front row. Marjorie sat working a handkerchief in her hands, contrasting this
rare moment with the many times she had sat in this same theatre, one of a crowd of
paying customers, looking at this same dusty gray curtain decorated with rococo knights
and ladies, before the start of a play. She saw the others puffing cigarettes, so
she lighted one. Smoking in the forbidden pale of a theatre orchestra heightened her
dizzied sense of privilege. Mrs. Lemberg, in a bulky mink coat, came down the aisle
and joined the producer.

The curtain suddenly went up on a quaint lovely setting of a European village square
covered with snow and decorated for Christmas. Stagehands in dirty overalls were pushing
an unsteady painted fir tree into place, hoarsely yelling at each other. For a few
minutes Noel, the producer, the dance director, and the set designer took turns commenting
on the placing of the tree. A decision was reached, the tree was secured in place,
and the curtain came down.