Tuesday

YOU sit back in your seat and try to look relaxed. The pressure in your ears grows heavier and heavier and you get a tight knotty feeling in the pit of your stomach. The lights in the cabin are low and you strain your eyes to see how the other people in the plane are acting when suddenly the wheels touch the ground. Without realizing it you have been chewing the gum faster and faster and now suddenly it tastes bad in your mouth.

I took a Kleenex from the container and wrapped the gum in it and put it away. The wheels bumped along the ground and slowly the plane came to a stop. The hostess came down the aisle and unfastened the safety belt.

I stood up and stretched. My muscles were tight from the tension. I couldn't help it. I was afraid of flying. No matter how many times I did it, I was always afraid.

The motors cut and died away, leaving a hollow, empty ringing in my ears. Unconsciously I listened for it to stop, for when it stopped I knew I was back to normal.

There were a man and a woman in the scat in front of me and they had been talking as the plane came down. While the engines were roaring I could hardly hear them, and now they seemed to be shouting.

"I still think we should have let them know we were coming," the woman was saying, when she realized she was talking loudly. She stopped in the middle of her sentence and looked back at me as if I had been eavesdropping.

I looked away and she resumed her conversation in a lower voice. The hostess came down the aisle again.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Nine thirty-five, Mr. Edge," she answered, v I took off my wristwatch and set it and walked toward the rear of the plane. The door had been opened and I walked out it and down the ramp. The floodlights hurt my eyes and I stopped for a minute.

I began to feel chilly and was glad I had worn my topcoat. I pulled the collar up around my neck and walked toward the gate. Other people were rushing past me, hurrying toward the exit, but I walked slowly. I lit a cigarette as I walked and dragged deeply on it, my eyes wandering over the crowd. And there she was. I stopped for a second and looked at her. She didn't see me. She was puffing nervously at a cigarette; her face was pale and luminous in the glaring light. Her eyes were deep blue and weary, with circles under them; her mouth was tense. Under the loose camelhair short coat flung over her shoulders her body was taut, and her free hand clenched and unclenched.

She saw me. Her hand lifted as if to wave and then hung there still in the air in front of her as if caught on an invisible rang. She watched me as I walked through the gate to her. I stopped a foot in front of her. She was all wound up like a tight spring. "Hullo, sweetheart," I said.

Then she was in my arms, her head on my chest, crying: "Johnny, Johnny!"

I could feel her body shaking against me. 1 dropped my cigarette and stroked her hair. I didn't talk. There was no use talking, it wouldn't help. I just kept thinking the same thing over and over. "I will marry you when I grow up, Uncle Johnny."

She was almost twelve when she said that. I was just going back to New York with the first picture Magnum had completed in Hollywood and we were having dinner at Peter's house the night before I got on the train. We were all very happy and nervous. We didn't know just what was coming. The picture that was in the can would either make us or break us and so we all tried to joke and act lighthearted and not let the others see how apprehensive we were. Esther had laughed and said: "Don't let some pretty girl on

the train talk you into marrying her and go away and forget the picture."

I had reddened a little. "You don't have to worry. There isn't a girl that would marry me."

It was then that Doris spoke. Her face was serious and the blue of her eyes was deep and her voice was much older than her years. She came toward me and took my hand and looked up into my face.

"I'll marry you when I grow up, Uncle Johnny."

I don't remember what I had said, but everybody laughed. Doris still held on to my hand and looked up at me with a let-them-laugh look in her eyes.

Now I held her head tight against my shoulder and the words kept going over and over in my mind. I should have believed her. I should have remembered. There would have been less pain in our lives if I had.

Slowly her body stopped its trembling. For a few seconds she stood still against me, then she stepped back.

I took out my handkerchief and wiped the tears from her cheeks and the corners of her eyes. "Better now, sweetheart?" I asked.

She nodded her head.

I fished cigarettes out of my pocket and gave her one. As I lit her cigarette the glow from the match illuminated the cigarettes we had dropped on the ground. They lay there close together, the lipsticked end of her cigarette not quite touching mine. I put a fresh one in my mouth and lit it.

"We were held up in Chicago," I said. "Bad weather." "I know," she answered, "I got your wire." She took my arm and we started walking. "How is he doing?" I asked.

"He's asleep. The doctor gave him a sedative and he'll be sleeping till morning." "Any better?"

She made a small gesture of helplessness with her hands. "The doctor doesn't know, he says it's too soon to tell." She stopped and turned to me; the tears came welling to her eyes again. "Johnny, it's terrible. He doesn't want to live. He doesn't care any more."

I pressed her hand. "Hold it, sugar, he'll make out."

She looked at me for a moment; then she smiled, her first

smile since I saw her. It looked good even if it took effort to make it. "I'm glad you're here, Johnny."

She drove me to my apartment and waited while I bathed, shaved, and changed my clothes. I had given the servants a few weeks off because I hadn't expected to be back for a while, and the place had an empty look about it.

When I came back into the living-room she was listening to some Sibelius records on the phonograph radio. I looked at her. Only the light from the table lamp near her chair was on. It threw a soft glow over her face and she looked relaxed. Her eyes were half-closed and her breathing came soft and even. She opened her eyes when she felt me standing there.

"Hungry?"

"A little," she answered. "I haven't really eaten since this happened."

"Okay, then," I said, "let's go to Murphy's and wrap ourselves around a steak." I started back to the bedroom to get my coat when the phone began to ring. "Get it, will ya sweetheart?" I called back through the open door.

I heard her move and pick up the phone. A second later she called me. "It's Gordon. He wants to speak to you."

Gordon was production manager at the studio.

"Ask him if it'll keep till morning; I'll drop in at the studio," I told her.

I heard the murmur of her voice, then she called to me: "He says it can't keep, he's got to talk to you."

I picked up the phone in the bedroom. "I'm on," I said. I heard the click as she put down her phone.

"Johnny?"

"Yeanh, what's up?"

"I can't talk over the phone. I got to see you."

That was Hollywood. The federal government and the state government pass laws against wiretapping and people worry about talking over the phone. It's a fetish you don't fight; whenever something really important goes on, you can't talk over the phone.

"All right," I said wearily. "Where are you? Home?" "Yes," he answered.

"I’ll drop in on you after I eat some dinner," I said, and hung up.

I picked my coat off the bed and went back into the living-

room. Doris was putting on some lipstick in front of a mirror.

"I gotta make a stop after dinner, honey. Do yuh mind?"

"No," she said. She knew Hollywood too.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when we got to the restaurant. It was nearly deserted. Hollywood is an early town during the week. Everyone who is working is in bed by ten o'clock because he has to be on the job at seven in the morning. We were given a quiet table in a corner.

We ordered old-fashioneds, steak, french fries, and coffee. She was more hungry than she had realized. I smiled to myself as I watched her eat. Say what you like about a woman's diet; hungry or not hungry, put a steak in front of her and watch it disappear. Maybe it was because some smart press agent planted the rumor that steak was not fattening. Anyway, she did it justice. I did too, but then, I always did.

Her plate was empty and she pushed it away from her with a sigh. She saw me smiling at her. She smiled back. A little of the tension had gone from her face. "I'm full," she said. "What are you smiling at?"

I took her hands across the table. "Hullo, sweetheart," I said.

She held my hands and looked at them, I don't know why. They were funny hands no amount of manicuring could make look presentable. They were square and the fingers were short and covered with thick black hair on the back of them. She looked back at me. "Hello, Johnny." Her voice was soft.

"How's muh baby?" I asked.

"Better since you're here."

We just sat there smiling at each other until the waiter came and took the empty dishes away and brought us a fresh pot of coffee. It was half past twelve when we left the restaurant.

We drove over to Gordon's house. He lived over in Westwood; it was about a half-hour drive. The lights in his living-room were on as we drove up the driveway.

He had the door open almost before we were up the steps. His hair was rumpled and he held a drink in one hand; he looked nervous. He was surprised to see Doris with me.

We said hello and followed him into the living-room. Joan, his wife, was in there. She got up when she saw us. "Hello,

Johnny," she said to me, and then went over to Doris and kissed her. "How is Peter?" she asked.

"A little better," Doris answered. "He's sleeping."

"That's good," Joan said. "If you can get him to rest, he'll |be all right."

I spoke to Gordon. "What's all the shootin' fer?"

He finished his drink and looked at Doris. Joan picked up the hint. "Let's make some coffee. These men want to talk business," she said.

Doris smiled understandingly at me and followed Joan out of the room. I turned back to Gordon. "Well?"

"The rumor's all over town that Ronsen's tying a can to you," he said.

The two greatest products of Hollywood were pictures and rumors. From morning to night they manufactured pictures, from night to morning they manufactured rumors. There were several arguments as to which was the more important, but I don't believe it was ever settled to anyone's satisfaction.

"Tell me more," I said.

"You had a fight with him in New York. He didn't want you to come back here to see Peter. You did. He got in touch with Stanley Farber the minute you left and he's flying out here tomorrow to meet him."

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Isn't that enough?" he asked.

I grinned at him. "I thought it was important."

He was pouring himself another drink when I told him that. He almost dropped it. "Look; I'm not joking, Johnny. This is damned serious. He hasn't kept Dave Roth on the lot for love."

Gordon wasn't wrong about that. Dave was Farber's right-hand man, and Ronsen placed him on the lot as Gordon's assistant to act as a psychological threat to me. It added up too. Farber wouldn't let Roth stay there if he wasn't sure that something would come of it.

"What's Dave been doing?" I asked.

"You know Dave," he answered, shrugging his shoulders. "Tight as a clam when he wants to be. But he seems pretty damn sure of himself." He held out a drink to me. I took it and sipped it reflectively. Maybe Ronsen was

coming out to see Farber, but I was the guy that knew the whole organization. I knew the weak spots and the strong spots. I knew what had to be done, and until I finished the repair job, my position was good.

"Look, Gordon," I said, "stop worrying. I'll be at the studio in the morning and we'll go over the situation."

He looked at me doubtfully. "All right, but I hope you know what you're doing."

Joan came into the room with a pot of coffee. Doris followed her with a tray of tiny sandwiches. Hollywood wives and 'diplomats' wives have to develop a sense of timing. They have to know just when to excuse themselves and just when to reenter a room. I often wonder how they know just when to come back.

Doris and I were too full to eat, but we had some coffee and left. It was almost two thirty when we got to her house. The house was quiet; only a small light was lit in the living-room. Doris threw off her coat and went upstairs. She came down a moment later.

"He's still sleeping," she said. "Mother is too. The nurse told me that the doctor gave her a sedative. Poor thing, she just can't comprehend everything that's been happening. It's been one shock after another."

I followed her into the library. There was a big fire going in there. It felt good; the night had turned cold, with a sudden frost that would have the smudge pots going in the fruit groves. We sat down on a couch.

I put my hand around her shoulder and drew her head toward me. I kissed her. She put both hands on my cheeks and held my face close to hers.

"I knew you'd come, Johnny," she whispered.

I looked at her. "I couldn't stay away even if I wanted to."

She turned around and rested her head against my shoulder and we looked into the fire. After a little while I spoke. "Feel like talking about it, sweetheart?"

"You know a lot, for a man," she said, her voice low. "You knew I didn't want to talk about it before."

I didn't answer.

After a few minutes she spoke again. "It started yesterday. A telegram was delivered and the butler took it. I was near the door when it came, so I took it from him.

"It was from the State Department, addressed to Father. I read it first. It's a good thing now that I did, for it read: 'We are informed by our Embassy in Madrid that your son, Mark Kessler, was killed in the fighting near Madrid.' It was as plain as that. I stood there for a moment, my blood running cold. We knew that Mark was in Europe even though we hadn't heard from him for almost a year, but we never thought he'd be in Spain. We thought he might be in Paris with some of his old cronies, but we weren't worried. Not really. We knew Mark. When he was up against it, we figured we'd hear from him. Meanwhile Papa figured it was a good thing for him to be away for a while after what had happened.

She took a cigarette from the end table near her and leaned forward for me to light it. Then she settled back again, letting the smoke drift slowly from her mouth. Her eyes were dark and troubled.

"You know," she said, "it is something I’ll never understand. Mark was one of the most self-centered, egotistical men that ever lived, he never gave a damn what happened to the other gay. And yet he went to Spain and joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and died fighting for a cause he never truly believed in and against a way of life that he might have admired if he hadn't been a Jew. My first thought was for Mother—how she would take it. She hadn't been well since Mark went away. He was her baby still and she was never quite the same after Papa threw him out of the house. She was always after Papa to get Mark to come back home. I think Papa wanted him to come home too, but you know him—he got his Dutch stubbornness up and kept putting it off."

She fell silent, looking into the leaping flames of the fire. I wondered what she was thinking. Peter had always favored Mark and she knew it. But she never complained. She never talked much either. I remembered the way we found out she could write. It was the year she graduated from college. She hadn't said anything at all about her writing until her book had been accepted by a publisher. Even then she had used a nom de plume, not wanting to trade on her father's name.

She had called the book Freshman Year. It was the story of a girl's first year in college and away from home, and it was very successful. It was a story of warmth and homesickness and a girl's growing up. The critics made a great deal of fuss over the book. They were all amazed at the depth of

understanding and perception of the girl who had written it. She was just twenty-two at the time it came out.

I hadn't paid much attention to it. Matter of fact, I hadn't even read it at the time. The first time I saw her after the book came out was when I brought Dulcie to Peter's home the day after we were married.

They were all seated at breakfast when Dulcie and I came in the room. Mark was about eighteen at the time; he was a tall, thin boy with the acne of adolescence still clinging to his face. He took one look at Dulcie and whistled.

Peter had cuffed him and told him to mind his manners, but I just laughed proudly and Dulcie blushed a little and I could tell she didn't mind. Dulcie liked people to look at her, she was a born actress. Even then, as she stood there blushing, I knew she was acting and I loved it.

That was part of Dulcie's charm for me. Wherever we went, heads turned to look at her. She was the kind of a woman men wanted to be seen with. Tall, slim, and full-breasted, with a tawny look, she gave an impression of latent sexual savagery that carried every man back about five thousand years.

Esther got to her feet and had chairs brought out for us. Up to that moment I hadn't told them we were married. I began to feel awkward, wondering how I could tell them. I looked around the table and saw Doris looking at us curiously. There was a question in her eyes.

I had a bright idea. I spoke to Doris. "Well, sweetheart, you won't have to worry about your old Uncle Johnny any more. He finally found a girl that would marry him."

Doris's face turned a little pale, but I was too excited to pay any attention to it. "You—you mean you're getting married? she asked, her voice shaking a little.

I laughed. "What do you mean, 'getting married'? We were married last night!"

Peter jumped up and came around the table and shook my hand. Esther had gone over to Dulcie and put her arms around her. Only Doris sat there in her chair looking at mo, her face still pale, her blue eyes dark and wide, her head tilted to one side as if to hear better.

"Ain't you comin' over and kiss your Uncle Johnny?" I asked her.

She got up from her chair and came over to me. I kissed her, and her lips were cold. Then she went over to Dulcie and took her hand. "I hope you'll be very happy," she said, kissing Dulcie's cheek.

I looked at them as they stood there. They were about the same age, but there were other things about them that suddenly struck me. Doris's skin was pale and her hair was cut short. Standing next to Dulcie, she looked like a schoolgirl. Dulcie was studying her, too. I knew the look on her face already. To most people it seemed a fleeting glance, but I knew Dulcie well enough by then. She could tell more in a few seconds than most people in hours.

Esther turned to me. "She's lovely, Johnny. Where did you meet her?"

"She's an actress," I had answered. "I met her backstage at a theater in New York."

Peter had turned to me. "Actress, did you say? Maybe we can find a part for her."

Dulcie smiled at him.

"There's time enough for that," I had said. "We've got to settle down first."

Dulcie didn't speak.

When we had left, Dulcie said to me: "Johnny."

I was busy driving. "Yes, dear.

"You know she's in love with you."

I took a quick look at her. She was watching me with an amused look in her tawny eyes. "You mean Doris?"

"You know who I mean, Johnny," she said.

I laughed. "You're wrong that time, honey," I said uncomfortably, "I'm only Uncle Johnny to her."

She laughed too, a knowing laugh, full of amusement at male ignorance. "Uncle Johnny," she said, and laughed again. "Did you ever read her book?"

"No," I answered, "I haven't had time."

"You ought to read it, Uncle Johnny," she said with a faint mockery in her voice. "You're in it."

Doris began to speak again. Her voice was low. "I thought of calling the doctor for Mother before I showed her the telegram, and then I thought I'd tell Papa first. He was in the

library. I went to the door and knocked. There was no answer, so I went in. He was seated at his desk there, the phone in front of him. He was looking at it. I often wondered why he didn't have it taken out. You know the one I mean—the direct wire to the studio."

I knew the one she meant. Involuntarily I looked at it. It stood there on the desk with a lonely unused look about it. In the old days, when the receiver was picked up, a blue light would flash on the studio switchboard. It meant that the president was calling. The call took precedence over anything else on the board at the time.

"He was looking at it, a vague longing in his eyes.

" 'Papa,' I said. My voice began to shake a little.

"With an effort he brought his mind back to me. "What, liebchen?' he said.

"Suddenly I didn't know what to say. Wordlessly I handed him the telegram. He read it slowly, his face turning white under his tan. He looked up at me unbelieving for a moment, his lips moving, then he read the telegram again. He got to his feet, his hand trembling.

" 'I got to tell Mamma,' he said, his voice dull. He took a few steps, and then he seemed to stumble a little. I caught his arm.

" 'Papa,' I said, 'Pap!' Suddenly I was crying.

"He held on to me for a minute, his eyes searching mine. There were tears in his eyes too. Then he crumpled. It happened so quickly that he fell from my grasp. I tried to lift him, but I couldn't. Then I ran to the door and called the butler. Together we placed him on the couch. I ran to the desk and picked up the telephone. By mistake I picked up the wrong one. I picked up the studio phone. The operator's voice came on immediately. There was a question in her voice. 'Magnum Pictures,' she said. I hung up the phone with a feeling of shocked surprise. 'Magnum Pictures,' I was thinking. I began to hate the sound of those words. I had been hearing them all my life, it had turned all our lives inside out. Why did we ever have to go into the picture business?"

She looked at me. Her eyes were wide and strange, filled with flickering lights. "Why couldn't we have stayed in Rochester and missed all this? Mark dead and Papa lying on the floor with a broken heart. It's your fault, Johnny, your

fault. I heard Papa say many times he wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for you. He would never have come to Hollywood if it hadn't been for you. If you hadn't kept talking we could have spent our lives quietly and missed all this."

Suddenly she was crying again; then she came against me, her hands striking against my chest. "I hate you, Johnny, I hate you. Papa could have lived out his whole life and never missed the picture business. But you couldn't. You were born for it. And you couldn't do it alone, so you had to use Papa."

I tried to grab her hands but I couldn't. They were moving too fast.

"You're Magnum Pictures, Johnny, you always were. But why couldn't you stop when you got to New York? Why did you have to bring him out here and make him think he was so big that when the bubble burst, it took his heart with it?"

I finally caught her hands and held her close to me. She was crying now. Hard, bitter tears came from her eyes. She had 'been hitting me for many more things than she realized. For all the years I had been so blind.

At last she was quiet, her body still trembling slightly against mine, and when she spoke I could tell the effort she made to control her voice. It was low and husky, but it still I shivered a little through the sheath of restraint. "I'm sorry, Johnny," she whispered so low I could hardly hear her, "but why did we ever come to Hollywood?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know what to answer. I looked over her head toward the window. The faint gray streaks of day were already beginning to cut up the night. The clock on Peter's desk read four thirty.

She was eleven years old and Peter was thirty-five and I was twenty-one when we came here. And none of us wanted to, we had to. There was nothing we could do about it.