Was

by Geoff Ryman

  To imagine she was back with her mother would remind Dorothy that something was wrong. Aunty Em was wrong. And Dorothy loved her Aunty Em. She had to love her. Everything depended on Aunty Em now. Her mother may have been beautiful and kind and sometimes terrible, but she couldn’t help Dorothy. She wasn’t there.

  Dorothy would have to divide and find different places to keep things within herself. Memories here, love here, hate there, dreams here, school there. And hope?

  She talked to Toto as she swept the floor, as she told Aunty Em she loved her, as she greased Uncle Henry’s boots.

  “Toto, you bad, bad dog,” she would tell him, in imitation of Aunty Em. She would whup him, and he would cower in the corner, shaking. She would beat him mercilessly with the broom, kick him in the ribs and out of the door.

  “Sit up and beg,” she would tell him, and he did, feet pumping helplessly in midair, waiting for an answer that never came.

  On the wall, there was an old sample, slightly charred in one corner. It was signed in needlework: Millie Branscomb, aged 8, 1856.

  “There is no place like home,” it said.

  And there wasn’t, not anywhere.

  Culver City, California

  February 1939

  We have also seen, that, among democratic nations, the sources of poetry are grand, but not abundant. They are soon exhausted: and poets, not finding the elements of the ideal in what is real and true, abandon them entirely and create monsters. I do not fear that the poetry of democratic nations will prove insipid, or that it will fly too near the ground; I rather apprehend that it will be forever losing itself in the clouds, and that it will range at last to purely imaginary regions. I fear that the productions of democratic poets may often be surcharged with immense and incoherent imagery, with exaggerated descriptions and strange creations; and that the fantastic beings of their brain may sometimes make us regret reality.

  — ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE,

  Democracy in America

  If I only had a heart, lamented the Tin Man, close on half a century ago. In our contemporary fantasies, the androids are made of sterner stuff…

  — SHEILA JOHNSTON,

  in a review of the movie Robocop,

  from The Independent, February 4, 1988

  It was five-thirty when Millie got to work. Five-thirty in the morning, that is. Took the bus. Knew most everybody on it. They all worked for the studio too. She said Hello to them; they murmured back. She got a couple of minutes’ shut-eye, forehead on hand. She could feel the cough and throb of the bus through her elbow as it rested on the edge of the window.

  A few minutes before they arrived, Millie put a fresh piece of Wrigley’s Spearmint in her mouth, gathered up her bag and thermos flasks, and got up. She stood by the middle door, early, to avoid the exodus. Practically the whole dang bus got off at MGM.

  The morning smelled of unburned gas and it was dark. There were pools of light around the studio. Millie said hi to Joe at the gate. She always brought him a thermos of coffee.

  “Hi, Joe. Boys here yet?” she asked him.

  “Yup. They’ll be in the chair. Most of the kids are here too.” He thanked Millie for his coffee and passed her yesterday’s empty thermos.

  “Welp. Off to work,” said Millie. “Say hello to Joyce for me.”

  Millie had been over to their place. Lived in Santa Monica, right near her. Nice, ordinary people. Most of the people working at Culver were nice, except for the bigwigs and some of the actors. Even most of them were okay. So how many folks are wonderful at five-thirty in the morning?

  Sometimes actors were. There were some of them who were just never offstage. They’d talk to you and keep you entertained while you worked. It was one of the many good things about this job.

  Millie’s shoes clicked on the concrete as she walked to the trailers. Cold this hour of the morning. Her gum clicked too. Millie liked the sound of punctuation and of process. She liked things to move, for herself and other people. Why she was so good at her job. Lots of people around who could do makeup. But there was more to the job than that.

  Millie managed the team when Jack Dawn wasn’t around. She would check out her boys and girls, get them all lined up, schedules ready. They were good kids, hardworking. This danged picture is made of makeup, Millie thought, hours of it every morning. Latex and fur and all of that stuff.

  But nothing ever again, Millie thought, could be as bad as those darned Munchkins. One hundred and twenty-four of them all lined up in Rehearsal Hall 8, moving from chair to chair like it was an assembly line. Hard work, but the Little People were fine to work with. Millie had no time for the stories. Millie told her crew to treat them as adults, call them Mr., Miss, or Mrs. and to watch out for knives. Only one or two of them had knives, the real deadbeats, the drunks. Most of them were sweet and looked kinda lost. Like they woke up in the wrong world. But all this sexual business that people were saying. That was just their own dirty minds. The Little People were sweet as could be and as innocent as lambs. Heck, a lot of them had to be. There was something wrong with their glands. A lot of them had foreign accents and got totally lost in the studio. Had to be led around like a class of schoolchildren.

  Humiliating for them really. Dressed up in those horrible clothes that pansy had designed for them. Get you, sweetie. Put them in big collars, loose sleeves, to make them look even smaller. Costumes were so bad, they had to have people help them out of them when they had to pee. People were just so mean. One minder used to carry them to the john, one under each arm. “What am I, a nursemaid?” Insulting. They didn’t like it either, Big Man. That poor little fellow who fell into the john and couldn’t get out? We put big ugly red spots on their cheeks. Supposed to look like they were made of porcelain. Big deal. I just told the kids to treat them with respect.

  Lights on inside and warmer.

  “Hi, Millie.”

  “Hiya, Tony.”

  “Storm last night.”

  “Yeah, big wind. Any damage to your place?” Millie asked.

  “No. But we got a lot of sweeping up to do. Lots of eucalyptus, and you know how they shed bark.”

  “Not a problem we ever had in Missouri. Got all your gear?” Tony had been new, brought in to help handle the Munchkins. Jack had him stay on to train. “Got your pencils, spirit gum?” Millie asked. Her fingers rattled through the box.

  “Mmmm hmmm,” said Tony, sharpening an eyebrow pencil.

  “You mix this today?” The spirit gum.

  “Uh, no, that’s yesterday’s.”

  “Well it looks like it. That stuff’s murder at the best of times. You better mix it new.”

  “Okey-dokey.”

  Nice ordinary people.

  Millie looked at the schedule. “How come you’re doing Frank?”

  “Jack and Harry and me switch.”

  “Oh, sorry, he did tell me. Slipped my mind this hour of the morning.” Millie thought of Frank Morgan. “Don’t light a match,” she warned the kid.

  Tony smiled. “I know.”

  Frank Morgan liked his tipple.

  “See you later.”

  “See you.”

  Just a quick hiya to the old hands. They knew enough to mix their gum fresh. Hi Tommy, Hi Mort, Hi Bill. Bad storm last night. Drains on our street’s all blocked. This city is not designed for rain.

  Millie got to her own locker and hauled out her kit. Looked like a toolbox. My little pirate’s chest of goodies, thought Millie. All kinds of colors, hard to get. If I lose this, I might as well close up shop for good. Now let’s see. Bit of mascara, eyebrows. Today is black-and-white, isn’t it, so the lips are going to have to be even lighter than usual or she’ll end up looking like Theda Bara. There now. Take all this over, have it ready, and pull back the Technicolor stuff so I don’t make a mistake.

  Millie loaded it all into a bag and walked down the hall away from the dressing rooms. She walked down the corridor, stepped outside. Everything was a beautiful blue color now, coo
l with quite a wind blowing. It whipped the back of her coat up. She walked onto Stage 27. Monkeys were all over the rafters, fixing lights. Paint was still drying on the Kansas backdrop outside the window. Twelve-foot-wide moat between the wall and the set, filled with a bank of lights. Thank God those lights were off for once. Millie was cold, but not that cold. She went to the stars’ dressing room, a trailer they had wheeled on to the stage, and opened it up. Millie had a key. She opened it up and laid the makeup out on the table.

  Millie never talked about the people she worked with. If people asked her, she’d just say, oh, so-and-so’s really nice. Millie would have a thing or two to say about the Kid, if she had a mind to. Oh, she was charming and all that. Went out of her way to be charming. But the stories she told. Like the story she told everyone about the dressing room. Stood outside it crying, saying that they hadn’t given her the key. Just had to be the center of attention. Make a little drama out of anything. And as for that graduation business. Told Margaret Hamilton that she would have to miss her high-school graduation because the studio was making her tour. Said it was Hollywood High. Well, she goes to University High, which is clean across town from Hollywood, and she doesn’t graduate until next year. So I know better than to believe anything Miss Judy Garland says. There now.

  Millie, chewing her gum, locked the door behind her. Better go see about the boys.

  Millie went down along the stage, into the next room. Six o’clock, there was Ray Bolger, getting a shave.

  “Howdy, Ray.”

  “Oh, hello, Millie,” he smiled, his mouth ringed with shaving soap. She liked Ray Bolger. Quiet and nice.

  “Everything okay?” she asked Bud, who did Ray.

  “Yup,” Bud answered, looking up, smiling. “For once Ray’s out of that mask. Just a standard paint job now.”

  “I feel like a used car,” said Bolger, hugging himself. “The only thing I’m going to remember about this picture, Millie, is sitting in this chair. Even a dentist’s appointment doesn’t take as long.”

  “Well, at least today you’re out of that mask.”

  “And it’s black-and-white.” He pretended to sob with relief. Black-and-white meant cooler lights.

  “Jack’ll be able to sit down,” said Bud.

  Jack Haley’s Tin Man suit dented. He couldn’t sit, for eight, ten hours, so he had to lean on a board.

  “Bert’ll have to find something else to worry about.”

  “Yeah.” Ray chuckled. The boys were a pretty swell team, actually.

  “When’s the Kid due?” asked Bud, wiping the last of the suds off Ray’s face.

  “Not till six-thirty,” said Millie. “I’m going to the canteen, get some breakfast. You boys want anything?”

  “Had mine, Millie, thanks. I’ll just—”

  “Sit around and wait, and sit around and wait some more.” She, Bolger and Bud said it in unison.

  “See you,” she said.

  Millie loved working in movies. Never wanted any other job. Because of the people. It wasn’t glamorous. There was nothing glamorous in it at all, really. She hated the whole concept of glamour. It was more than glamour. It was people working together to make something good, and when you worked for a class act like MGM, you knew you were doing something worthwhile. There were times when Millie could feel the whole giant enterprise ticking away. The sets, the lights, the makeup, the costumes. Like this morning. One set finished with yesterday, it gets struck overnight, painted again, and a new one put up. People working around the clock on something that reached out and got to people. That was what Millie liked. The sheer sociability of a lot of it. She looked at the rafters and the Monkeys, whipping wire. Been there all night probably. Wouldn’t even know the story of the picture. But they could go and see it and say, I put that set up. You wouldn’t have believed how phony it looked, either, but it looks good on film.

  With a small, contented smile, Millie went to have her breakfast.

  Mind you, she thought, listening to her shoes, feeling the delicious California chill again, this one’s shaping up pretty poorly. I mean, doing a fairy tale as vaudeville is pretty risky. You got two different elements. Lahr and the other boys are great, but there is no getting away from it, what they do is pure vaudeville. The Kid, too, she’s pure vaudeville. But the sets, the whole works is Viennese operetta stuff with a little bit of Hollywood Hotel thrown in. And there is just no script. Everybody keeps adding lines. The songwriters add lines. Lahr and Harley throw in old stage routines. They had God knows how many writers on it. And God knows how many directors. Thorpe. He went. Tried to make the Kid into Shirley Temple, and with the best will in the world, she’s not curly-haired and cute. Brought in Cukor, who got her out of the wig, and then Fleming, who at least gets things done, then King Vidor. Picture will be a mess if they aren’t careful. Black-and-white here, color there. And some of the filming really is sloppy. Like that Monkey, flipping a wire out of the way, right in shot, and they went and used it anyway. I just can’t believe that.

  Millie sighed, shook her head. Well. Ours not to reason why.

  More coffee. Doughnut. Bacon and eggs. Long day today and it’s cold. Millie remembered farm breakfasts in Missouri.

  “Hi, Hank,” she said to the man in the white cap.

  Our own little world.

  Millie sat by herself. Not many people in for breakfast just on six. She carefully unloaded things from her tray, like she was setting the table at home. She sat down and sighed. Bushed already.

  Still, things sometimes come together for a picture. Like that coat.

  Frank Morgan says he found it, him and Hank Rosson. They went looking for a coat for the black-and-white stuff. Found it in a second-hand store and showed it to Vic. They wanted something that would look shabby but genteel. The Wizard wears it when he’s Professor Marvel. Vic turns out the pockets and the label says “L. Frank Baum.” Man who wrote the book. He used to read it out loud to kids on his porch, lived in L.A. and that was his coat. Got an affidavit from his tailor, they say. Mind you, they’ll say anything. Too good to be true, like most things around here.

  Millie thought about the Kid. She was nice really. But funny-looking. She wasn’t pretty at all. Our little hunchback, Mayer called her. And her expressions were peculiar. He smile would sort of twist around and look a bit sour sometimes. Then she’d pull herself together for the camera, stand up straight, look like a different person.

  A lot of them could do that. That weaselly little private-school boy who played all the tough guys. Tiny, ropy-looking little thing until he had to act. One star Millie could name looked like an effeminate toad, until the lights came on. Then suddenly his toad neck looked burly, his hands developed wrists, and his voice went deep. Women all over the country swooned. Thought he was the epitome of beefcake.

  Funny about the Kid. She liked guys like that. There she was, the world at her feet, going to premieres, the whole bit. And you’d see her hanging around with all the little fairies from the offices or from Wardrobe. Being real nice to them, nice to everybody, why not? Still it’s funny. It’s like she wants something from them. That little light in her eyes. Odd.

  Millie lit a cigarette.

  God, this hour of the morning, who wants to think about anything?

  Numb.

  Oh. Is that the time? Better move on.

  Millie put everything back on the tray, carried it over to the rack, took out a fresh piece of gum.

  Mind you, Millie Haugaard, who are you calling ugly? Tall, big hips, thin shoulders. Nice tan and nice hair, but thirty-seven is no spring chicken. They say they keep the Kid on some kind of diet. Seems to work. Wish they’d tell me. Millie could feel weight around her midriff move as she walked. Well, there’s no way I could get any more exercise. There just isn’t any time. She decided to check out her own makeup before doing the Kid’s and swept into the powder room. Better get it all over with. It’s a long day till lunchtime.

  Millie got back to the trailer and
waited outside it. Kid was late again. She’d be in, all breathless and apologetic. Millie watched as the lights were adjusted. One patch lighting up, then going dark, gels and overlays being tried. It’s like being in a stage show, she thought. Only you constantly set up, hang around, and no one ever gets to act.

  Only sometimes they do act up.

  Millie looked at her watch. Six forty-five. It’s cutting it fine, Kid, starting this late anyway. Too late, you hold people up.

  Then she saw her, the Kid, in a plain cloth coat, hugging herself, looking at the floor as she walked. She walked head bowed as if her shoes were the most interesting things in the place. That, thought Millie, is one unhappy girl. Millie stood up, put out her cigarette and said, “Hiya, Kid.”

  “Hiya, Ma.”

  Kid called her Ma.

  “Anything wrong, honey?”

  The Kid was wrestling with the key to her trailer. “Naw,” said the Kid in a downward-turning drawl. She sighed and stepped inside and turned on the lights and slumped into her makeup chair.

  “You sound like it,” said Millie, fetching the foundation among the line-up tubes and tins. Panchro No. 23.

  “I don’t sleep, Ma,” said the Kid, her voice and her face somehow puffy.

  “Should go to bed earlier then.” Briskly, Millie applied the greasepaint in short dabs over the face and neck.

  “I do,” the Kid whispered.

  Kid looked forty. The Hollywood life. At least you’re not drinking. Yet. I’d smell it on your breath. Actors smell like skunks in the morning. Millie looked at the Kid’s face in the mirror. Always was a funny face. Looked pinched and plump at the same time. Gonna have to put some white stick over those bags. Good thing I brought some along case I had to tone the colors down. Usually only have to use it on someone older.