Sheri Cobb South (12 page)

There was one letter addressed to “Occupant” trying to sell her a set of encyclopedias, and one for Kathleen from someone with the improbable name of Harvey Mudd. It bore a West Virginia postmark, which surprised Frankie. She didn’t know Kathleen had any American acquaintances outside Hollywood. Now that she thought of it, Frankie couldn’t remember her roommate ever getting any letters from relatives in England, either. Maybe they couldn’t afford the expensive air mail postage or maybe her family, like Mama, disapproved of Kathleen’s ambitions. Frankie decided it was better not to ask, since it might be a sore point. She kicked off her shoes, peeled off her stockings, and curled up on the bed to read the latest news from home.

This was not all joy. Not only was there no five-dollar bill from her father, but Mama was full of the news that Charlie Compton, that nice boy who had escorted Frankie to her high school’s senior prom, had come home last weekend from the University of Georgia and announced his engagement to that Thompson girl who everyone knew dyed her hair. The wedding was set for December. This was related in a slightly accusatory tone, as if it were somehow Frankie’s fault and could have been avoided, had she been home to prevent it.

Chapter 10

Shall We Dance (1937)

Directed by Mark Sandrich

Starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

The next morning Frankie had the Studio Club all to herself, since most of her housemates were out earning their living. The lucky ones were off acting in bit parts or even minor speaking roles; the less fortunate, attending endless casting calls or, worst of all, waiting tables. Bored with her own company, Frankie wandered into the common room where the large wooden-cased radio held pride of place. She clicked on the knob and turned up the volume.

“—Cream of Wheat is so good to eat—”

Frankie made a face and twiddled the tuning knob.

“—
Ma Perkins
, brought to you by Oxydol—”

Another tweak of the knob brought her to the CBS station.

“—
The Romance of Helen Trent
, who sets out to prove that because a woman is thirty-five, romance in life need not be over—”

Frankie heaved a sigh of annoyance that the very mention of romance should bring Mitch Gannon to mind. There was absolutely no reason why she should cling to the possibility that Kathleen’s letter had been from a previously unmentioned beau back East. Just because Mitch had kissed her once on a train, it didn’t mean they were a couple. Kisses these days didn’t mean anything at all. Just look at the movies: actors and actresses who couldn’t stand one another in real life kissed with reckless abandon on the silver screen. Things had been different in Mama’s day, of course; back then, a kiss was tantamount to a proposal of marriage. But everything had changed since the War, and people were more sophisticated about such things now. Still, sometimes Frankie couldn’t help wondering if the new sophistication was really such an improvement.

She switched off the radio and picked up a tattered copy of
Variety
magazine. She flipped idly through the pages, pausing here and there to admire the glossy black-and-white photographs of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur, and wondering which of her housemates had torn out the picture of Errol Flynn that was supposed to be on page fourteen. She skimmed the articles detailing upcoming productions, until one item caught her attention.

“—Worldwide Studios announced Tuesday that filming will begin next week on
The Hawk and the Dove
. A swashbuckling costume drama set in Elizabethan England, the picture has a budget of almost two million—”

Frankie gasped, unable to believe her own luck. What were the chances that another studio was about to produce a film that so closely paralleled her only real acting experience? She flipped the magazine closed and checked the date on the front cover. It was last week’s issue, which meant that “next week” in the article meant this week in real time.

She hadn’t a moment to lose. Clasping the glossy publication to her chest, she leaped up from her chair and clattered up the stairs to her room. She descended half an hour later, clad in a floral georgette dress and a wide-brimmed picture hat which, she hoped, would conceal the fact that she hadn’t taken the time to set and style her hair. At the foot of the stairs, she rummaged through her handbag in search of loose coins. There were not as many of these as she would have liked, but she decided to splurge on a taxi anyway. It would be quicker than taking the bus, and time was of the essence.

“Worldwide Studios,” Frankie instructed the driver as she climbed into the back seat. “And step on it!” She’d always wanted to say that.

The cabbie needed no further encouragement. The ride that followed was the longest twenty minutes of Frankie’s life. Clutching the edge of the seat for support, she watched as the needle on the speedometer crossed forty. As it approached fifty, she closed her eyes and prayed silently for deliverance. With a screech of brakes, the taxi finally lurched to a stop.

“Here you are, Worldwide Studios.”

With shaking fingers, Frankie counted out the fare and breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the cabbie drive away. Then she squared her shoulders and followed the same procedure she’d practiced so many times before since arriving in California.

“Good morning,” she told the receptionist at the front desk. “My name is Frances Foster, and I’m an actress. I saw in
Variety
that Worldwide is starting to film a costume picture. I was working on
The Virgin Queen
over at Monumental, and now that filming there is in hiatus, I wondered if there might be a place for me here.”

The receptionist had that “don’t call us, we’ll call you” expression on her face, but at the mention of Monumental Pictures something sparked in her eyes. “Straight down the hall, third door on the right.”

Frankie followed the receptionist’s directions and soon found herself in a large room filled with actors and actresses of all ages, all of whom had apparently seen the same magazine article that she had. Glancing around the room, she recognized several cast members from
The Virgin Queen
. Seated along the opposite wall—and looking strangely out of character in a modern double-breasted suit and gray fedora—was the actor who had played William Cecil, and who had pronounced Arthur Cohen dead. In the far corner lurked two of her fellow serving wenches. They looked up at her entrance, then averted their eyes as if they had been caught in some shameful act.

A second door flew open, and a tall, powerfully built man regarded the company with a sneer.

“Take a look at this, Herb,” he called over his shoulder. “Rats every one of ‘em, rats deserting a sinking ship.”

Toying with the gold chain of his pocket watch, he strolled forward to stand before William Cecil.

“Fancy meeting you here, Jim! Where were you when I wanted you to play Cardinal Wolsey? Your agent wouldn’t even return my calls six months ago.”

“As I told you at the time, I was under contract to Monumental,” the actor replied with quiet dignity.

“And yet here you are. Contracts aren’t what they used to be, are they?” The producer shook his head in mock disbelief.

“The future of the picture is still in doubt. Even if Maury decides to continue filming, I would still be available to work for you, since most of my scenes are already in the can.”

“How convenient for you.” He scanned the rest of the company. “What about the rest of you?”

“We’ve got to find
some
way to make a living!” cried one of the serving wenches, close to tears. “How will I pay my rent?”

“Honey, you can peddle it in the street, for all I care. Old Artie knew I had an Elizabethan picture in the pipeline when he bought the script to
The Virgin Queen
. If he chose to work himself into an early grave trying to rush his film into theaters first, that’s his problem. I don’t feel any obligation to hire his castoffs—whether or not they had a contract.”

With this pronouncement, he left the room through the same door he had entered it, shutting it behind him with enough force to rattle the windows. The members of the Monumental cast sat there for a moment in dispirited silence, then rose to their feet and shuffled toward the exit. As Frankie reached the front door, one of her fellow serving wenches fell into step beside her.

“You’re an extra in the tavern scene, aren’t you? I thought I recognized you. My name is Patsy Miller. There’s another one of us here, too, Melinda Buford. Here she comes now.”

Introductions were made all around, then Frankie and her fellow serving wenches plodded down the sidewalk to the nearest bus stop.

“Well,” Melinda declared brightly, “I thought that sounded pretty promising, didn’t you?”

The other two girls stared at her in disbelief.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Patsy said, “but I seem to recall that he recommended you give prostitution a try.”

“Yes, but I’m sure he didn’t mean that,” she insisted with what Frankie felt was unwarranted optimism. “But the fact that he thought of sex at all just goes to show that he found me attractive, and that’s half the battle, right?”

Patsy shrugged. “If you say so. It looks like I’ll be going back to taxi dancing for awhile.”

“What’s that?” asked Frankie.

“You’ve never heard of taxi dancing? You know—ten cents a dance?”

Frankie’s eyes grew wide. “You dance with men for money?”

“You make it sound like something dirty! It’s nothing of the kind. In fact, there are bouncers on hand if the fellows cause any trouble.” Seeing Frankie was not convinced, she added, “The pay is pretty good, especially on the weekends, and since I only work in the evenings, it leaves my days free for auditions. The Starlight Ballroom is looking for dancers, if you’re interested.”

Frankie shouldn’t have even considered it. Mama would be appalled at the very idea, and Daddy probably wouldn’t be wild about it, either. But her cash supply seemed to be dwindling at an alarming rate, and who knew when—or even if—filming on
The Virgin Queen
would resume.

She took a deep breath. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.”

* * * *

Which explained how, at nine o’clock that evening, Frankie found herself being dragged around the dance floor in the enthusiastic, if not entirely sober, embrace of a sailor on shore leave. And to think she’d worried that her puff-sleeved, pink satin frock—a relic from her high school prom—might appear unsophisticated to the point of gaucherie among these cosmopolitan Californians. Cosmopolitan! She doubted if her partner would have noticed if she’d danced naked on the table. The same would
not
have been true of his predecessors, a boisterous trio of undergraduates from UCLA, who had descended upon the club flashing a wad of bills and paying rowdy court to all the prettiest girls until George the bouncer had threatened to toss them into the street. But even they had been an improvement over the sad sack who’d expounded at great length on how his wife didn’t understand him, while trying to stroke Frankie’s derriere, all to the tune of “Embraceable You
.
”

In fact, the only thing that made the evening endurable was the pleasant weight of the coins in her tiny beaded evening bag. She hadn’t had a chance to count these yet; she was proving to be very popular as a partner, and wasn’t quite sure whether to feel flattered or insulted by this discovery.

At last the fruity tenor at the microphone warbled to a close, and Frankie took a hasty step backwards, out of her partner’s embrace.

“That wash—was swell,” he said, enunciating carefully. “Want to give it another go?”

“Thanks, but I’d better sit down and rest for a minute.” She wouldn’t get paid for sitting one out, but Frankie was almost certain she was rubbing a blister on her toe.

“I’ll go see if I can scare us up something to drink,” offered her partner, jerking his thumb in the direction of the bar.

“That would be lovely.”

Privately, Frankie thought he’d had quite enough to drink already, but if she was lucky, maybe he would forget where he’d left her. She waited until he disappeared into the throng of dancers (mostly male) headed for the bar, then found a vacant spot at one of the small tables ringing the dance floor. The light cast by big rotating mirrored ball scarcely reached the dim perimeter, and Frankie took advantage of the relative privacy to pull off her silver sandal and rub her aching foot. Yes, there was definitely a raw spot beginning to form on her little toe.

“What’s up, Frankie?” asked Patsy, emerging from the darkness in a shimmery ice blue number that made Frankie despise her virginal pink all the more. “Popeye the Sailor Man stepping on your feet?”

“No, I have to acquit him of that much,” Frankie said, giving credit where credit was due. “He might even be a pretty good dancer if he was sober. But I rubbed a blister on my toe. All I want to do is sit here and rest my feet.”

“Better not get too comfortable,” Patsy said with a grin. “A fellow was asking for you earlier.”

“For me? He asked for me by name?”

“Mm-hmm. He wasn’t bad looking, either.”

It could only mean one thing: Mitch had found out about her new job. Frankie hadn’t told him, since she still wasn’t entirely convinced that it was as respectable as Patsy claimed. One of the girls at the Studio Club must have told him where to find her—Kathleen, maybe, or Roxie. Or Pauline. The thought of the Studio Club’s resident
femme fatale
knowing about her new job made Frankie cringe. Would Mitch tease her about it, or would he decide she was not a nice girl after all, and try to take liberties? Frankie wasn’t quite sure what sort of liberties boys took with bad girls, but they must be truly dreadful, if they couldn’t even be spoken of. And yet it sometimes seemed to Frankie that bad girls had more fun than their nicer counterparts. Take Pauline, for instance. The other girls at the Studio Club hinted that Pauline was not a nice girl, and yet she had more dates and fancier dresses than anyone else there.