Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“Do you think I’m insane, Gilly?” Amanda asked. “Wanting to live in Talmadge?”

“No, it’s a lovely town,” Gillian answered. I wonder if I got the part, she thought. They must have liked me. They wouldn’t have made such a fuss otherwise. And I heard them laughing at some of the things I said. They liked me from the very start, even before I read for them.

“I always loved it,” Amanda said. “And it’s really only an hour and a half from the city.”

“When the New Haven’s on time,” Gillian said.

“Yes. Anyway, I’m going up with Matthew this weekend. Just to look around.”

“That should be fun.”

“Would you like to come along?”

“I’d love to,” Gillian said. “But I work on Saturdays, and I have a rehearsal at the Y this Sunday.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

Gillian nodded and looked at the phone booth again. Come on, she thought, get out. Get off the phone!

She shoved her chair back suddenly. “Amanda, will you excuse me? I promised I’d call my agent.”

“Go right ahead,” Amanda said. “Shall I order another drink?”

“Yes, fine. Yes, do that. Excuse me.”

She rose and walked away from the table, aware that two men at the bar turned to watch her as she shoved back her chair. She went directly to the phone booth and stared fixedly through the glass doors at the fat man. She turned to look at the clock again. It was six thirty-one. Oh now really, she thought. The fat man continued to grin into the mouthpiece. Oh, you unctuous thing, she thought, you’ll be in there all day, and the booth will smell of you after you’re gone. She crossed her arms over her breasts and began tapping her foot, scowling at the fat man. Now relax, she told herself. They probably didn’t even call. They probably didn’t like me at all.

The doors to the booth opened. The fat man grinned at her apologetically, and she gave him a frozen smile in return, and stepped instantly into the booth. She deposited her coin, dialed, closed the doors, and then opened them again immediately.

“Lewis Agency,” a voice said.

“Dot, this is Gillian.”

“Just a second, Gilly. Did you call your exchange?”

“No. Why?”

“Miss Lewis was trying to reach you there.”

“Anything?” Gillian said.

“I don’t know. Just a second, she’s free now.”

Gillian waited impatiently. At the table, the waiter was depositing the fresh round of drinks before Amanda.

“Gilly? Is that you, sweetie?”

“Marian, for God’s sake, did they call?”

“Did who call, sweetie?”

“Well, the Theater Guild people, who do you—?”

“Oh. No, darling, they didn’t. How did it go?”

“Oh.”

“Did they like you?”

“I thought so. They asked me who my agent was.”

“Did you tell them?”

“Of course I told them! Marian, when you ask stupid questions like that, I could...”

“Sweetie,” Marian said softly.

There was a silence on the line.

“They didn’t call,” Marian said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Yes, maybe,” Gillian answered.

“About that appointment with Kraft?”

“Yes.”

“On Friday?”

“Yes.”

“It’s with the producer-director, a man named Stanley Quinn. At WNBT. You know where that is.”

“Yes.”

“Four o’clock,” Marian said.

“Marian, I have to be at work at four.”

“This is important.”

“So is eating, damn it!” Gillian said.

“Sweetie,” Marian said softly.

“I can’t afford to lose my job. Make the appointment earlier. Or cancel it. I don’t care either way.”

“That’s no way to talk, Gilly.”

“I guess it isn’t. How many readings do you suppose I’ve been to since you took me on two years ago, Marian?” She paused. “I’ll be at class tonight. If anything happens, call my exchange.”

“All right.”

“I gave a better reading than anyone else, Marian.”

“I’m sure you did, sweetie.”

“They asked me how tall I was.”

“Did you tell them?”

“Marian, goddamn it...”

“Yes, sweetie. I’m sorry.”

The line went silent.

“You’ll be a big star, Gillian,” Marian said.

The line went silent again.

“I’ll call in tomorrow,” Gillian said. “Just... just in case.”

“All right, sweetie. Good night, now.”

“Good night,” Gillian said, and she hung up. She felt automatically for her coin in the slot, left the booth, and walked back toward the table.

For the first time in two years, she felt very tired.

The acting class conducted by Igor Ivanovich Vodorin was held in a loft on Sixth Avenue. To the left of the building’s entrance was a small bookshop, the window of which exhibited the latest best sellers together with a discreet display of silk-stocking photos. Gillian looked at the book titles — she had already read The Moneyman and House Divided and East Side, West Side — and then studied the photos, fascinated. She went into the kosher delicatessen to the right of the entrance, bought a hot pastrami sandwich and a celery tonic, and then went into the building. The stairway leading to the loft was steep and dimly lighted, but after climbing those rickety steps for nearly four years, she could have navigated them in total darkness. She did almost that now, reading from an open script as she climbed the steps, reaching the landing by blind instinct, turning right into the small cloakroom where she hung up her coat, and then walking into the large pipe-riddled room that was the studio itself. As she crossed the room to take a seat near the wall, someone said, “Hi, Gilly,” and she nodded briefly and mumbled an answer, absorbed in the script. She sat without looking up from the script, unwrapped the pastrami sandwich, stuck the soda-bottle straws into her mouth, and, still not looking up, continued with her memorizing.

Her method of memorization was simple. She would read a sentence and repeat it over and over again in her mind until she knew it. Then she would commit the next sentence to memory, and then repeat both sentences together. She could never understand why anyone had the slightest trouble learning a part. In fact, she couldn’t understand why anyone with a bad memory would want to become an actor. But she’d certainly met plenty of actors who couldn’t even remember the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” who were always searching for a new gimmick that would make the task easier. She could not abide sloppy memorization. She held a vast respect for playwrights and the printed word. If someone misread a line, it infuriated her.

She could remember criticizing a student’s performance once, and the argument that had followed it. The boy had done a scene from The Eve of Saint Mark , and after Gillian had commented on his particularly annoying mannerism of constantly stroking his hair into place, she had said, “And the line is supposed to be ‘The host with someone indistinct converses at the door, apart.’”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, you said, ‘The host with someone interesting .’”

“Well...” The boy shrugged. “What difference does it make?”

“I imagine it makes a great deal of difference to Maxwell Anderson. And probably to T. S. Eliot, whom he’s quoting.”

“I was trying to get the character over,” the boy said. “I don’t see where one word—”

“Private Marion is not a person who would quote poetry incorrectly,” Gillian said.

Igor, who had been listening to the exchange silently, suddenly said, “Of course, he is supposed to be a cultured man, and the mistake is unforgivable. But would you have made the same objection, Miss Burke, if the character had not been quoting from a poem?”