Connie Willis - At The Rialto

At seven-thirty the phone rang. It was Darlene.

“What happened?” I said. “Where are you?”

“At the Beverly Wilshire.”

“In Beverly Hills?”

“Yes. It’s a long story. When I got to the Rialto, the hotel clerk, I think her name was Tiffany, told me you weren’t there. She said they were booked solid with some science thing and had had to send the overflow to other hotels. She said you were at the Beverly Wilshire in room ten-twenty-seven. How’s David?”

“Impossible,” I said. “He’s spent the whole conference looking at Deanna Durbin’s footprints at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and trying to talk me into going to the movies.”

“And are you going?”

“I can’t. Dr. Gedanken’s giving the keynote address in half an hour.”

“He is?” Darlene said, sounding surprised. “Just a minute.” There was a silence, and then she came back on and said, “I think you should go to the movies. David’s one of the last two charming men in the universe.”

“But he doesn’t take quantum theory seriously. Dr. Gedanken is hiring a research team to design a paradigm, and David keeps talking about the beacon on top of the Capitol Records building.”

“You know, he may be onto something there. I mean, seriousness was all right for Newtonian physics, but maybe quantum theory needs a different approach. Sid says — ”

“Sid?”

“This guy who’s taking me to the movies tonight. It’s a long story. Tiffany gave me the wrong room number, and I walked in on this guy in his underwear. He’s a quantum physicist. He was supposed to be staying at the Rialto, but Tiffany couldn’t find his reservation.”

Forest Lawn closed at five o’clock. I looked it up in the Hollywood brochure after Darlene hung up. There was no telling where he might have gone: the Brown Derby or the La Brea Tar Pits or some great place near Hollywood and Vine that had the alfalfa sprouts John Hurt ate right before his chest exploded in Alien.

At least I knew where Dr. Gedanken was. I changed my clothes and got into the elevator, thinking about wave/ particle duality and fractals and high-entropy states and delayed-choice experiments. The problem was, where could you find a paradigm that would make it possible to visualize quantum theory when you had to include Josephson junctions and passion and all those empty spaces? It wasn’t possible. You had to have more to work with than a few footprints and the impression of Betty Grable’s leg.

The elevator door opened, and Abey Fields pounced on me. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said. “You haven’t seen Dr. Gedanken, have you?”

“Isn’t he in the ballroom?”

“No,” he said. “He’s already fifteen minutes late, and nobody’s seen him. You have to sign this,” he said, shoving a clipboard at me.

“What is it?”

“It’s a petition.” He grabbed it back from me. “ ‘We the undersigned demand that annual meetings of the International Congress of Quantum Physicists henceforth be held in appropriate locations.’ Like Racine,” he added, shoving the clipboard at me again. “ Unlike Hollywood.”

Hollywood.

“Are you aware it took the average ICQP delegate two hours and thirty-six minutes to check in? They even sent some of the delegates to a hotel in Glendale.”

“And Beverly Hills,” I said absently. Hollywood. Bra museums and the Marx Brothers and gangs that would kill you if you wore red or blue and Tiffany/Stephanie and the World’s Largest Oil Painting Incorporating a Religious Theme.

“Beverly Hills,” Abey muttered, pulling an automatic pencil out of his pocket protector and writing a note to himself. “I’m presenting the petition during Dr. Gedanken’s speech. Well, go on, sign it,” he said, handing me the pencil. “Unless you want the annual meeting to be here at the Rialto next year.”

I handed the clipboard back to him. “I think from now on the annual meeting might be here every year,” I said, and took off running for Grauman’s Chinese.

“I want a ticket to Benji IX,” I told the girl at the box office. Her name tag said, “Welcome to Hollywood. My name is Kimberly.”

“Which theater?” she said.

“Grauman’s Chinese,” I said, thinking, This is no time for a high-entropy state.

“Which theater?”

I looked up at the marquee. Benji IX was showing in all three theaters, the huge main theater and the two smaller ones on either side. “They’re doing audience-reaction surveys,” Kimberly said. “Each theater has a different ending.”

“Which one’s in the main theater?”

“I don’t know. I just work here part-time to pay for my organic breathing lessons.”

“Do you have any dice?” I asked, and then realized I was going about this all wrong. This was quantum theory, not Newtonian. It didn’t matter which theater I chose or which seat I sat down in. This was a delayed-choice experiment, and David was already in flight. “The one with the happy ending,” I said.

“Center theater,” she said.

I walked past the stone lions and into the lobby. Rhonda Fleming and some Chinese wax figures were sitting inside a glass case next to the door to the restrooms. There was a huge painted screen behind the concessions stand. I bought a box of Raisinets, a tub of popcorn, and a box of jujubes and went inside the theater.

It was bigger than I had imagined. Rows and rows of empty red chairs curved between the huge pillars and up to the red curtains where the screen must be. The walls were covered with intricate drawings. I stood there, holding my jujubes and Raisinets and popcorn, staring at the chandelier overhead. It was an elaborate gold sunburst surrounded by silver dragons. I had never imagined it was anything like this.

The lights went down, and the red curtains opened, revealing an inner curtain like a veil across the screen. I went down the dark aisle and sat in one of the seats. “Hi,” I said, and handed the Raisinets to David.

“Where have you been?” he said. “The movie’s about to start.”

“I know,” I said. I leaned across him and handed Darlene her popcorn and Dr. Gedanken his jujubes. “I was working on the paradigm for quantum theory.”

“And?” Dr. Gedanken said, opening jujubes.

“And you’re both wrong,” I said. “It isn’t Grauman’s Chinese. It isn’t movies either, Dr. Gedanken.”

“Sid,” Dr. Gedanken said. “If we’re all going to be on the same research team, I think we should use first names.”

“If it isn’t Grauman’s Chinese or the movies, what is it?” Darlene asked, eating popcorn.

“It’s Hollywood.”

“Hollywood,” Dr. Gedanken said thoughtfully.

“Hollywood,” I said. “Stars in the sidewalk and buildings that look like stacks of records and hats, and radicchio and audience surveys and bra museums. And the movies. And Grauman’s Chinese.”

“And the Rialto,” David said.

“Especially the Rialto.”

“And the ICQP,” Dr. Gedanken said.

I thought about Dr. Lvov’s black and gray slides and the disappearing chaos seminar and Dr. Whedbee writing “meaning” or possibly “information” on the overhead projector. “And the ICQP,” I said.