City of Girls

by Elizabeth Gilbert

  “Splintered to matchsticks, apparently” is how Peg described it.

  So now Edna and Arthur Watson were trapped in New York City. They were stuck at the Sherry-Netherland hotel, which is not such a bad place to be a refugee, but they couldn’t afford to go on living there, as neither of them was employed. They were artists trapped in America without jobs, without a home to return to, and without safe transit back to their besieged country.

  Peg heard about their plight through the theater grapevine, and—of course—she told the Watsons to come live at the Lily Playhouse. She promised that they could remain there just as long as they needed. She told them she’d even put them into some of her shows, if they needed income and didn’t mind slumming it.

  How could the Watsons have refused? Where else were they going to go?

  So they moved in—and that’s how the war made its first direct appearance in my life.

  The Watsons arrived on one of the first crisp afternoons of autumn.

  It happened that I was standing outside the theater talking to Peg when their car pulled up. I’d just returned from shopping at Lowtsky’s, and I was carrying a bag of crinolines which I needed to fix some of the “ballet costumes” of our dancers. (We were putting on a show called Dance Away, Jackie!—about a street urchin who is rescued from a life of crime by the love of a beautiful young ballerina. I had been tasked with the job of trying to make the Lily’s muscular hoofers look like a company of premier ballet dancers. I’d done my best with the costumes, but the dancers kept ripping their skirts. Too much boggle-boggle, I suppose. Now it was time for repairs.)

  When the Watsons arrived, there was a small flurry of commotion, as they had a great deal of luggage. Two other cars followed their taxi, with the remaining trunks and parcels. I was standing right there on the sidewalk, and I saw Edna Parker Watson exit the taxi as though she were stepping out of a limousine. Petite, trim, narrow-hipped and small-breasted, she was dressed in the single most stylish outfit I’d ever seen on a woman. She was wearing a peacock-blue serge jacket—double-breasted, with two lines of gold buttons marching up the front—with a high collar trimmed in gold braid. She had on tailored dark gray trousers with a bit of flare at the bottom, and glossy black wingtip shoes, which almost looked like men’s shoes—except for the small, elegant, and very feminine heel. She was wearing tortoiseshell sunglasses, and her short, dark hair was set with glossy waves. She had on red lipstick—the perfect shade of red—but no other makeup. A simple black beret sat angled on her head with jaunty ease. She looked like a teeny-tiny military officer in the chicest little army in the world—and from that day forward, my sense of style would never be the same.

  Until the moment I first glimpsed Edna, I’d thought that New York City showgirls and their spangled radiance were the pinnacles of glamour. But suddenly everything (and everyone) I’d been admiring all summer looked gaudy and glitzy compared to this petite woman in her sharp little jacket, and her perfectly tailored slacks, and her men’s-shoes-that-were-not-quite-men’s-shoes.

  I had just encountered true glamour for the first time. And I can say without hyperbole that every day of my life since that moment, I have tried to model my style after Edna Parker Watson’s.

  Peg rushed at Edna and pulled her into a tight embrace.

  “Edna!” she cried, giving her old friend a spin. “The Dewdrop of Drury Lane makes an appearance on our humble shores!”

  “Dear Peg!” cried Edna. “You look exactly the same!” Edna released herself from Peg’s arms, stepped back, and took a look up at the Lily. “But is all this yours, Peg? The entire building?”

  “All of it, yes, unfortunately,” said Peg. “Would you like to buy it?”

  “I haven’t a farthing to my name, darling, or I absolutely would. It’s charming. But look at you—you’ve become an impresario! You’re a theater magnate! The façade reminds me of the old Hackney. It’s lovely. I do see why you had to buy it.”

  “Yes, of course I had to buy it,” said Peg, “because otherwise I might have ended up wealthy and comfortable in my old age, and that would’ve been no good for anybody. But enough about my dumb playhouse, Edna. I’m just sick about what’s happened to your home—and what’s happening to poor England!”

  “Darling Peg,” said Edna, and she placed her palm gently on my aunt’s cheek. “It’s wretched. But Arthur and I are alive. And now, thanks to you, we have a roof to sleep under, and that’s a good deal more than some other people can say.”

  “Where is Arthur?” asked Peg. “Can’t wait to meet him.”

  But I myself had already spotted him.

  Arthur Watson was the handsome, dark-haired, movie-star-looking fellow with the lantern jaw who was, at that instant, grinning at the cab driver and pumping the man’s hand with altogether too much enthusiasm. He was a well-built man with a good pair of shoulders, and he was much taller than he looked on the movie screen—which is highly abnormal for actors. He had a cigar clamped in his mouth, which somehow looked like a prop. He was the best-looking man I’d ever seen at close quarters, but there was something artificial about his good looks. He had a rakish curl that fell over one eye, for instance, which would have been a lot more attractive if it hadn’t looked so deliberately cultivated. (The thing about rakishness, Angela, is that it should never seem intentional.) He looked like an actor, is the best way I can describe it. He looked as if he were an actor hired to play the part of a handsome, well-built man, shaking the hand of a cabdriver.

  Arthur marched over to us in great, athletic strides and shook Peg’s hand just as forcibly as he’d done to the poor cabbie.

  “Mrs. Buell,” he said. “Awfully good of you to give us a place to stay!”

  “A delight, Arthur,” said Peg. “I simply adore your wife.”

  “I adore her, too!” boomed Arthur, and he caught Edna in a tight squeeze that looked like it might hurt, but which only made her beam with pleasure.

  “And this is my niece, Vivian,” said Peg. “She’s been staying with me all summer, learning how to run a theater company into the ground.”

  “The niece!” Edna said, as though she’d been hearing fabulous things about me for years. She gave me a kiss on each cheek, wafting a scent of gardenia. “But look at you, Vivian—you’re simply stunning! Please tell me that you’re not an aspiring actress and that you won’t ruin your life in the theater—although you’re certainly pretty enough for it.”

  Hers was a smile far too warm and genuine for show business. She was paying me the compliment of her undivided attention, and thus I was instantly smitten.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not an actress. But I do love living at the Lily with my aunt.”

  “But of course you do, darling. She’s marvelous.”

  Arthur interrupted, to reach in and crush my hand in his. “Awfully nice to meet you, Vivian!” he said. “And how long did you say you’ve been an actress?”

  I was less smitten with him.

  “Oh, I’m not an actress—” I started to say, but Edna put her hand on my arm and whispered in my ear, as if we were dearest friends, “It’s quite all right, Vivian. Arthur sometimes doesn’t pay the closest attention, but he’ll get it all sorted out eventually.”

  “Let’s go have drinks on my verandah!” said Peg. “Except that I forgot to buy a home with a verandah, so let’s go have drinks in the filthy living room above my theater, and we can pretend that we’re having drinks on my verandah!”

  “Brilliant Peg,” said Edna. “How violently I’ve missed you!”

  A few trays of martinis later, it was as if I’d known Edna Parker Watson forever.

  She was the most charming presence I’d ever watched light up a room. She was a sort of elfin queen, what with her bright little face, and her dancing gray eyes. Nothing about her was quite what it seemed. She was pale, but she didn’t seem weak or delicate. And she was awfully dainty—with the tiniest shoulders and a slender frame—but she didn’t look fragile. She had a hearty
laugh and a robust bounce to her step that belied her size and her pallid coloring.

  I suppose you could call her a non-frail waif.

  The exact source of her beauty was difficult to place, for her features were not perfect—not like the girls I’d been romping about with all summer. Her face was quite round, and she didn’t have the dramatic cheekbones that were so much in vogue back then. And she wasn’t young. She had to be at least fifty, and she wasn’t trying to hide it. You couldn’t tell her age from a distance (she had been able to play Juliet well into her forties, I would later learn—and had easily gotten away with it, too), but once you looked closely, you could see that the skin around her eyes was crumbling with fine lines, and her jawline was getting soft. There were strands of silver in that chic, short hair of hers, as well. But her spirit was youthful. She was utterly unconvincing as a fifty-year-old woman—let’s just put it that way. Or maybe her age didn’t matter to her, so she didn’t project any concern about it. The trouble with so many aging actresses is that they don’t want to let nature do as it wishes—but nature seemed to have no particular vengeance against Edna, nor did she have a gripe against it.

  Her greatest natural gift, though, was warmth. She delighted in all that she beheld, and it made you want to stay near her, in order to bask in her delight. Even Olive’s normally stern face relaxed into a rare expression of joy at the sight of Edna. They embraced as old friends—for that is exactly what they were. As I discovered that night, Edna and Peg and Olive had all met on the battlefields of France, when Edna was part of a British touring company, putting on shows for wounded soldiers—shows that my Aunt Peg and Olive helped to produce.

  “Somewhere on this planet,” said Edna, “there’s a photograph of the three of us in a field ambulance together, and I would give anything to see it again. We were so young! And we were wearing those terribly practical frocks, with no waistlines.”

  “I remember that picture,” said Olive. “We were muddy.”

  “We were always muddy, Olive,” said Edna. “It was a battlefield. I will never forget the cold and damp. Do you remember how I had to make my own stage makeup out of brick dust and lard? I was so nervous about acting in front of the soldiers. They were all so horribly wounded. Do you remember what you told me, Peg? When I asked, ‘How can I sing and dance for these poor broken boys?’”

  “Mercifully, my dear Edna,” said Peg, “I do not remember anything I have ever said in my entire life.”

  “Well, then, I shall remind you. You said, ‘Sing louder, Edna. Dance harder. Look ’em straight in the eyes.’ You told me: ‘Don’t you dare degrade these brave boys with your pity.’ So that’s what I did. I sang loud and danced hard, and looked ’em straight in the eyes. I did not degrade those brave boys with my pity. My God, but it was painful.”

  “You worked very hard,” said Olive, approvingly.

  “It was you nurses who worked hard, Olive,” said Edna. “I remember the whole lot of you having dysentery and chilblains—but then you’d say, ‘At least we don’t have infected bayonet wounds, girls! Chins up!’ What heroes you were. Especially you, Olive. Equal to any emergency, you were. I’ve never forgotten it.”

  Receiving this compliment, Olive’s face was suddenly lit up by the most unusual expression. By my stars, I do believe it was happiness.

  “Edna was performing bits of Shakespeare for the men,” Peg said to me. “I remember thinking it was a terrible idea. I thought Shakespeare would bore them to tears, but they loved it.”

  “They loved it because they hadn’t seen a pretty little English lass in months,” said Edna. “I remember one man shouting, ‘Better than a trip to the whorehouse!’ after I gave them my piece of Ophelia, and I still think it’s the best review I’ve ever received. You were in that show, Peg. You played my Hamlet. Those tights really suited you.”

  “I didn’t play Hamlet; I just read from the script,” said Peg. “I never could act, Edna. And I detest Hamlet. Have you ever seen a production of Hamlet that didn’t make you want to go home and put your head in the oven? I haven’t.”

  “Oh, I thought our Hamlet was quite nice,” said Edna.

  “Because it was abridged,” said Peg. “Which is the only thing Shakespeare should ever be.”

  “Although you did make an awfully cheery Hamlet, as I recall,” said Edna. “Perhaps the most cheerful Hamlet in history.”

  “But Hamlet isn’t meant to be cheerful!” chimed in Arthur Watson, looking puzzled.

  The room paused. It was quite awkward. I would soon discover that this was often the effect that Arthur Watson had when he spoke. He could bring the most sparkling of conversations to the most grinding halt, just by opening his mouth.

  We all looked to see how Edna would react to her husband’s stupid comment. But she was beaming at him fondly. “That’s right, Arthur. Hamlet is not generally known for being a cheerful play, but Peg brought her natural buoyancy to the role and quite brightened up the whole story.”

  “Oh!” he said. “Well, jolly good for her, then! Though I don’t know what Mr. Shakespeare would’ve thought of that.”

  Peg saved the day by changing the subject: “Mr. Shakespeare would’ve rolled in his grave, Edna, if he knew that I’d been allowed to share a stage with the likes of you,” she said. Then she turned to me again: “What you have to understand, kiddo, is that Edna is one of the greatest actresses of her age.”

  Edna grinned. “Oh, Peg, stop talking about my age!”

  “I believe what she meant, Edna,” corrected Arthur, “is that you are one of the greatest actresses of your generation. She’s not talking about your age.”

  “Thank you for the clarification, darling,” replied Edna to her husband, with no trace of irony or annoyance. “And thank you for the kindness, Peg.”

  Peg went on: “Edna is the best Shakespearean actress you’ll ever meet, Vivian. She’s always had a knack for it. Started as a baby in the cradle. Could recite the sonnets backwards, they say, before she learned them forwards.”

  Arthur muttered, “You’d think it would’ve been easier to learn them forwards first.”

  “Many thanks, Peg,” said Edna, ignoring Arthur, thank God. “You’ve always been so good to me.”

  “We shall have to find something for you to do while you’re here,” announced Peg, slapping her leg for emphasis. “I’d be happy to put you in one of our terrible shows, but it’s all so beneath you.”

  “Nothing is beneath me, dear Peg. I’ve played Ophelia in knee-deep mud.”

  “Oh, but Edna, you haven’t seen our shows! It’ll make you miss the mud. And I don’t have much to pay you—certainly not what you’re worth.”

  “Anything’s better than what we could earn in England—if we could even get to England.”

  “I just wish you could get a role in one of the more reputable theaters around town,” said Peg. “There are many of them in New York, rumor has it. I’ve never stepped foot in one myself, of course, but I understand that they exist.”

  “I know, but it’s too late in the season,” said Edna. “Middle of September—all the productions have been cast. And remember—I’m not as well known here, darling. As long as Lynn Fontanne and Ethel Barrymore are alive, I’ll never get the best roles in New York. But I’d still love to work while I’m here—and I know Arthur would, too. I’m versatile, Peg—you know that. I can still play a youngish woman, if you put me at the back of the stage, in the correct lighting. I can play a Jewess, or a gypsy, or a Frenchwoman. At a pinch, I can play a little boy. Hell, Arthur and I will sell peanuts in the lobby, if need be. We’ll clean out ashtrays. We only wish to earn our keep.”

  “Now see here, Edna,” declared Arthur Watson sternly. “I don’t think I’d much like to clean out ashtrays.”

  That evening, Edna watched both the early and the late performances of Dance Away, Jackie! She could not have been more delighted with our awful little show if she’d been a twelve-year-old peasant child seeing theater for t
he first time.

  “Oh, but it’s fun!” she exclaimed to me, when the performers had left the stage after their final bows. “You know, Vivian, this sort of theater is where I got my start. My parents were players and I grew up around productions just like this. Born in the wings, five minutes before my first performance.”

  Edna insisted on going backstage and meeting all the actors and dancers, to congratulate them. Some had heard of her, but most hadn’t. To most of them, she was just a nice woman giving them praise—and that was good enough for them. The players bubbled up around her, soaking in her generous ministrations.

  I cornered Celia and said, “That’s Edna Parker Watson.”

  “Yeah?” said Celia, unimpressed.

  “She’s a famous British actress. She’s married to Arthur Watson.”

  “Arthur Watson, from Gates of Noon?”

  “Yes! They’re staying here now. Their house in London got bombed.”

  “But Arthur Watson is young,” Celia said, staring at Edna. “How can he be married to her?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She’s quite something, though.”

  “Yeah.” Celia didn’t seem so sure. “Where we going out tonight?”

  For the first time since meeting Celia, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go out. I thought I might prefer to spend more time around Edna. Just for one night.

  “I want you to meet her,” I said. “She’s famous and I’m mad about the way she dresses.”

  So I brought Celia over and proudly introduced her to Edna.

  You can never anticipate how a woman is going to react to meeting a showgirl. A showgirl in full costume is intentionally designed to make all other females look and feel insignificant by comparison. You need to have a considerable amount of self-confidence, as a woman, to stand in the lavish radiance of a showgirl without flinching, resenting, or melting away.