City of Girls

by Elizabeth Gilbert

  “She was correct!” said Edna. “This is why I take such care with my costumes. I hate it when an impatient director says, ‘Nobody will notice!’ Oh, the arguments I’ve had about that! As I always tell the director: ‘If you put me in a spotlight with three hundred audience members staring at me for two hours, they will notice a flaw. They will notice flaws in my hair, flaws in my complexion, flaws in my voice, and they will absolutely notice flaws in my dress.’ It’s not that the audience members are masters of style, Vivian: it’s merely that they have nothing else to do with their time, once they are held captive in their seats, except to notice your flaws.”

  I thought I’d been having adult conversations all summer, because I’d been spending my time around such a worldly group of showgirls, but this was truly an adult conversation. This was a conversation about craftsmanship, and about expertise, and about aesthetics. Nobody I’d ever met (except Grandmother Morris, of course) had ever known more about dressmaking than me. Nobody had ever cared this much. Nobody understood or respected the art of it.

  I could have stayed there talking to Edna about clothing and costumes for another century or two, but Arthur Watson finally burst in and demanded that he be allowed to go to ruddy bed with his ruddy wife, and that put an end to it.

  The next day marked the first morning in two months that I did not wake up with a hangover.

  TEN

  By the next week, my Aunt Peg had already begun creating a show for Edna to star in. She was determined to give her friend a job, and it had to be a better job than what the Lily Playhouse currently had to offer—because you can’t very well put one of the greatest actresses of her age in Dance Away, Jackie!

  As for Olive, she was not convinced this was a good idea in the least. As much as she loved Edna, it didn’t make sense to her from a business standpoint to attempt to put on a decent (or even halfway decent) show at the Lily: it would break formula.

  “We have a small audience, Peg,” she said. “And they are humble. But they are the only audience we have, and they are loyal to us. We must be loyal to them in return. We can’t leave them behind for one play—certainly not for one player—or they may never come back. Our task is to serve the neighborhood. And the neighborhood doesn’t want Ibsen.”

  “I don’t want Ibsen, either,” said Peg. “But I hate seeing Edna sitting about idle, and I hate even more the idea of putting her in any of our draggy little shows.”

  “However draggy our shows may be, they keep the electricity on, Peg. And just barely, at that. Don’t chance it, by changing anything.”

  “We could make a comedy,” Peg said. “Something that our audiences would like. But it would have to be smart enough to be worthy of Edna.”

  She turned to Mr. Herbert, who had been sitting there at the breakfast table in his usual attire of baggy trousers and shirtsleeves, staring sorrowfully at nothing.

  “Mr. Herbert,” Peg asked, “do you think you could write a play that is both funny and smart?”

  “No,” he said, without even looking up.

  “Well, what are you working on now? What’s the next show on deck?”

  “It’s called City of Girls,” he said. “I told you about it last month.”

  “The speakeasy one,” said Peg. “I remember. Flappers and gangsters, and that sort of fluff. What’s it about, again, exactly?”

  Mr. Herbert looked both wounded and confused. “What’s it about?” he asked. It seemed that this was the first time he’d considered that one of the Lily Playhouse shows should be about something.

  “Never mind,” said Peg. “Does it have a role that Edna could play?”

  Again, he looked wounded and confused.

  “I don’t see how it could,” he said. “We have an ingénue, and a hero. We have a villain. We don’t have an older woman.”

  “Could the ingénue have a mother?”

  “Peg, she’s an orphan,” said Mr. Herbert. “You can’t change that.”

  I saw his point: the ingénue always had to be an orphan. The story wouldn’t make sense if the ingénue wasn’t an orphan. The audience would revolt. The audience would start throwing shoes and bricks at the players if the ingénue wasn’t an orphan.

  “Who’s the owner of the speakeasy, in your show?”

  “The speakeasy doesn’t have an owner.”

  “Well, could it? And could it be a woman?”

  Mr. Herbert rubbed his forehead and looked overwhelmed. He looked as though Peg had just asked him to repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

  “This causes problems in all aspects,” he said.

  Olive chimed in: “Nobody will believe Edna Parker Watson as the owner of a speakeasy, Peg. Why would the owner of a New York speakeasy be from England?”

  Peg’s face fell. “Blast it, you’re right, Olive. You have such a bad habit of being right all the time. I wish you wouldn’t do that.” Peg sat in silence for a long moment, thinking hard. Then suddenly she said, “Goddamn it, but I wish I had Billy here. He could write something smashing for Edna.”

  Well, that caught my attention.

  This was the first time I’d ever heard my aunt curse, for one thing. But this was also the first time I’d ever heard her mention her estranged husband’s name. And I wasn’t the only one who snapped to fullest attention at the mere mention of Billy Buell’s name, either. Both Olive and Mr. Herbert looked as though they’d just had buckets of ice poured down their backs.

  “Oh, Peg, no,” said Olive. “Don’t call Billy. Please, be sensible.”

  “I can add whoever you want me to add to the cast,” said Mr. Herbert, suddenly cooperative. “Just tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll do it. The speakeasy can have an owner, sure. She can be from England, too.”

  “Billy was so fond of Edna.” Peg seemed to be talking to herself now. “And he’s seen her perform. He’ll understand how best to use her.”

  “You don’t want Billy involved in anything we do, Peg,” warned Olive.

  “I’ll call him. Just to get some ideas from him. The man is made of ideas.”

  “It’s five A.M. on the West Coast,” said Mr. Herbert. “You can’t call him!”

  This was fascinating to watch. The level of anxiety in the room had risen to an undeniably hot pitch, merely with the introduction of Billy’s name.

  “I’ll call him this afternoon, then,” said Peg. “Though we can’t be sure he’ll be awake by then, either.”

  “Oh, Peg, no,” said Olive again, sinking into what looked like leaden despair.

  “Just to get some ideas from him, Olive,” said Peg. “There’s no harm done with a phone call. I need him, Olive. Like I say: the man is made of ideas.”

  That night after the show, Peg took a whole lot of us to dinner at Dinty Moore’s on Forty-sixth Street. She was triumphant. She had spoken to Billy that afternoon and wanted to tell everyone about his ideas for the play.

  I was there at that dinner, the Watsons were there, Mr. Herbert was there, Benjamin the piano player was there (first time I’d ever seen him out of the house), and Celia was there, too, because Celia and I were always together.

  Peg said, “Now, listen, everyone. Billy’s got it all figured out. We’re going to put on City of Girls after all, and we’re setting it during Prohibition. It will be a comedy, of course. Edna—you will play the owner of the speakeasy. But in order for the story to make sense and be funny, Billy says we’re going to have to make you into an aristocrat, so that your natural refinement will make sense onstage. Your character will be a woman of means who ended up in the bootlegging business somewhat accidentally. Billy suggests that your husband died, and then you lost all your money in the stock market crash. Then you start distilling gin and running a casino in your fancy home, as a way of getting by. That way, Edna, you can keep the gentility for which you are known and loved, while at the same time being part of a comic revue with showgirls and dancers—which is the kind of thing our audience likes. I think it’s brilliant.
Billy thinks it would be funny if the nightclub was a bordello, too.”

  Olive frowned. “I don’t like the idea of our play being set in a bordello.”

  “I do!” said Edna, shining with glee. “I love all of it! I’ll be the madam of a bordello and the owner of a speakeasy. How pleasing! You can’t imagine what a balm it will be for me to do a comedy, after so long. The last four plays I’ve been in, I was either a fallen woman who murdered her lover, or a long-suffering wife whose husband was murdered by a fallen woman. It wears on one, the drama.”

  Peg was beaming. “Say what you want about Billy, but the man is a genius.”

  Olive looked as though there was a lot she wanted to say about Billy, but she kept it to herself.

  Peg turned her attention to our piano player. “Benjamin, I need you to make the music exceptionally good for this show. Edna’s got a fine alto, and I would like to hear that voice filling up the Lily properly. Give her songs that are snappier than those mushy ballads I normally make you write. Or steal something from Cole Porter, the way you do sometimes. But make it good. I want this show to swing.”

  “I don’t steal from Cole Porter,” said Benjamin. “I don’t steal from anyone.”

  “Don’t you? I always thought you did, because your music sounds so much like Cole Porter’s music.”

  “Well, I’m not quite sure how to take that,” said Benjamin.

  Peg shrugged. “Maybe Cole Porter’s been stealing from you, Benjamin—who knows? Just write some terrific tunes, is what I’m saying. And be sure to give Edna a showstopper.”

  Then she turned to Celia and said, “Celia, I’d like you to play the ingénue.”

  Mr. Herbert looked like he was about to interrupt, but Peg impatiently waved him into silence.

  “No, everyone, listen to me. This is a different sort of ingénue. I don’t want our heroine this time to be some little saucer-eyed orphan girl in a white dress. I’m imagining our girl as being extremely provocative in the way she walks and talks—that would be you, Celia—but still untarnished by the world, in a way. Sexy, but with an air of innocence about her.”

  “A whore with a heart of gold,” said Celia, who was smarter than she looked.

  “Exactly,” said Peg.

  Edna touched Celia’s arm gently. “Let’s just call your character a soiled dove.”

  “Sure, I can play that.” Celia reached for another pork chop. “Mr. Herbert, how many lines do I get?”

  “I don’t know!” said Mr. Herbert, looking more and more unhappy. “I don’t know how to write a . . . soiled dove.”

  “I can make up some stuff for you,” offered Celia—a true dramatist, that one.

  Peg turned to Edna. “Do you know what Billy said when I told him that you were here, Edna? He said, ‘Oh, how I envy New York City right now.’”

  “Did he?”

  “He did, that flirt. He also said: ‘Watch out, because you never know what you’ll get with Edna onstage: some nights she’s excellent, other nights she’s perfect.’”

  Edna beamed. “That’s so sweet of him. Nobody could ever make a woman feel more attractive than Billy could—sometimes for upwards of ten consecutive minutes. But, Peg, I must ask: Do you have a role for Arthur?”

  “Of course I do,” said Peg—and I knew in that moment that she did not have a role for Arthur. In fact, it was pretty clear to me that she’d forgotten about Arthur’s existence entirely. But there was Arthur, sitting there in all his simpleminded handsomeness, waiting for his role like a Labrador retriever waits for a ball.

  “Of course I have a role for Arthur,” Peg said. “I want him to play”—she hesitated, but only for the briefest moment (you might not have even noticed the hesitation, if you didn’t know Peg)—“the policeman. Yes, Arthur, I plan for you to play the policeman who’s always trying to shut down the speakeasy, and who’s in love with Edna’s character. Do you think you could manage an American accent?”

  “I can manage any accent,” said Arthur, miffed—and I instantly knew that he absolutely could not manage an American accent.

  “A policeman!” Edna clapped her hands. “And you’ll be in love with me, dear! What larks.”

  “I didn’t hear anything before about a policeman character,” said Mr. Herbert.

  “Oh, no, Mr. Herbert,” said Peg. “The policeman has always been in the script.”

  “What script?”

  “The script you’ll commence writing tomorrow morning, at break of day.”

  Mr. Herbert looked like he was about to be afflicted with a nervous disorder.

  “Do I get a song of my own to sing?” asked Arthur.

  “Oh,” said Peg. There was that pause again. “Yes. Benjamin, do be sure to write that song for Arthur, which we discussed. The policeman’s song, please.”

  Benjamin held Peg’s gaze and repeated with only the slightest sarcasm: “The policeman’s song.”

  “That’s correct, Benjamin. As we’ve already discussed.”

  “Shall I just steal a policeman’s song from Gershwin, perhaps?”

  But Peg was already turning her attention to me.

  “Costumes!” she said brightly, and scarcely had the word left her mouth before Olive declared, “There will be virtually no budget for costumes.”

  Peg’s face dropped. “Drat. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’ll buy everything at Lowtsky’s. Flapper dresses are simple.”

  “Brilliant, Vivian,” said Peg. “I know you’ll take care of it.”

  “On a strict budget,” Olive added.

  “On a strict budget,” I agreed. “I’ll even throw in my own allowance if I have to.”

  As the conversation continued, with everyone except Mr. Herbert getting more excited and making suggestions for the show, I excused myself to the powder room. When I came out, I almost ran into a good-looking young man with a wide tie and a rather wolfish expression, who’d been waiting for me in the corridor.

  “Say, there, your friend’s a knockout,” he said, nodding in the direction of Celia. “And so are you.”

  “That’s what we’ve been told,” I replied, holding his gaze.

  “You girls wanna come home with me?” he asked, dispensing with the preliminaries. “I gotta friend with a car.”

  I studied him more closely. He looked like a piece of very bad business. A wolf with an agenda. This was not somebody a nice girl should tangle with.

  “We might,” I said, which was true. “But first we have a meeting to conclude, with our associates.”

  “Your associates?” he scoffed, taking in our table with its odd and animated assortment of humanity: a coronary-inducingly gorgeous showgirl, a slovenly white-haired man in his shirtsleeves, a tall and dowdy middle-aged woman, a short and stodgy middle-aged woman, a stylishly dressed lady of means, a strikingly handsome man with a dramatic profile, and an elegant young black man in a perfectly tailored pinstripe suit. “What line of business yous in, doll?”

  “We’re theater people,” I said.

  As if we could have been anything else.

  The following morning I woke up early as usual, suffering from my typical summer-of-1940 hangover. My hair stank of sweat and cigarettes, and my limbs were all tangled up in Celia’s limbs. (We had gone out with the wolf and his friend, after all—as I’m sure you’ll be flabbergasted beyond all reason to hear—and it had been a strenuous night. I felt like I’d just been fished out of the Gowanus Canal.)

  I made my way to the kitchen where I found Mr. Herbert sitting with his forehead on the table and his hands folded politely in his lap. This was a new posture for him—a new low in dejectedness, I would say.

  “Good morning, Mr. Herbert,” I said.

  “I stand ready to review any evidence of it,” he replied, without lifting his forehead from the table.

  “How are you feeling today?” I asked.

  “Blithesome. Glorious. Exalted. I’m a sultan in his palace.”
>
  He still hadn’t lifted his head.

  “How’s the script coming along?”

  “Be a humanitarian, Vivian, and stop asking questions.”

  The next morning, I found Mr. Hebert in the same position—and several of the following mornings, too. I didn’t know how somebody could sit for so long with their forehead on a table without suffering an aneurysm. His mood never lifted, and neither—at least not that I saw—did his skull. Meanwhile, his notebook sat untouched beside him.

  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked Peg.

  “It’s not easy to write a play, Vivian,” she said. “The problem is, I’m asking him to write something good, and I’ve never asked that of him before. It’s got his head all screwy. But I think of it this way. During the war, the British army engineers always used to say: ‘We can do it, whether it can be done or not.’ That’s how the theater works, too, Vivian. Just like a war! I often ask people to do more than they are capable of—or I used to do, anyway, before I got old and soft. So, yes, I have full confidence in Mr. Herbert.”

  I didn’t.

  Celia and I came in late one night, drunk as usual, and we tripped over a body that was lying on the living room floor. Celia shrieked. I switched on a light and identified Mr. Herbert, lying there in the middle of the carpet on his back, staring up at the ceiling, with his hands folded over his chest. For an awful moment, I thought he was dead. Then he blinked.

  “Mr. Herbert!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

  “Prophesizing,” he said, without moving.

  “Prophesizing what?” I slurred.

  “Doom,” he said.

  “Well, then. Have a good night.” I turned off the light.

  “Splendid,” he said quietly, as Celia and I stumbled to our room. “I will be certain to do just that.”

  Meanwhile, as Mr. Herbert suffered, the rest of us went about the business of creating a play that did not yet have a script.