Charlie, armed with a drink, came to greet Shirley.
“Thanks for not minding the whole Morrison clan,” he said, gesturing toward the boys. “Little monsters. I keep telling Bobby the blacklist will be over soon and we’ll be back with the sunshine and starlets before he knows it.”
Will joined them to top off everyone’s drinks—he enjoyed being the host. “A teacher involved with the NAACP went to renew her US passport to visit her mother in Canada. The request was denied, which is how she found out she was accused of Communist sympathies. I shouldn’t count on seeing that sunshine anytime soon.” He kissed his wife’s cheek and returned to the throng.
“It must be unconstitutional,” Hannah grumbled. “And anyway, you’d think the government would want to be rid of all the Communists.”
“I guess they figure, keep ’em at home, the pinkos turn yellow, then turn themselves in?” Charlie said. “It’s a nutso time, all right. Better here than there, even with not much going on. You, ah, hear of anyone needing my sort of talent?”
Hannah looked at him. Joan had done an admirable job patching his clothes, so he looked distinguished rather than downtrodden.
“I’ll let you know,” she promised. “I’m always ready to read something,” she added, though reluctantly. Charlie specialized in huge, sprawling Westerns, the sort that sent Hannah into a sleep not even gunfights could disturb.
“Yeah, I’m trying,” he said. “I’m not much for television, though. Can’t get myself to think that small.”
Hannah suspected he meant no offense, though it was hard to tell with Charlie.
“Door’s always open,” she told him. He headed off to talk to the men with the air of a man who had done his duty and could now have fun.
“I bet he doesn’t want to work for a woman,” chimed in Olivia, whose husband Ben was writing a French film.
“Oh no, that’s not the case at all,” Joan cried. “He’s just a movie man through and through. He practically lived at his local picture house in Williamsburg.”
Olivia raised a brow and glided away—she was a minor actress and liked to circulate through rooms, reminding everyone of the character type she was.
“Why don’t you write me something, Joanie?” Hannah asked. “You’re so good with short stories.”
“Those cream puff things?” Joan pealed with laughter. “Silly romantic nonsense. It was all right for Woman’s Day, not the sort of television you want to do.”
Hannah sighed. She’d attempted this tack with Joan before.
“What about trying for the magazines again?” Hannah suggested. “You could at least bring in something.”
“No, no, no. The boys keep me far too busy.”
Hannah knew Joan included Charlie in that grouping. Probably more than Bobby and Alvie.
“To London!” Will boomed from his corner, raising his glass. “To freedom from persecution!”
“Is it time for the toasts already?” Shirley glanced at her watch. “I’d better get another bottle.”
“To telling HUAC and the FBI to stuff it!” Charlie shouted.
“To getting to work without that damn Production Code!” Ben cried. This was met with huge cheers. Working abroad wasn’t easy, but the screenwriters who got to write for the French and Italian industries waxed lyrical about the artistic freedom. The irony escaped no one.
“To better days ahead!” Will called again, and this was echoed several times.
“To London,” Hannah whispered into her own drink. “To getting to call my own shots and fight back from exile.” Her eyes wandered to her bag.
“No more scripts for you, young lady,” Shirley scolded, flitting by.
“No, I’m behaving,” Hannah said. “Though I almost forgot—Rhoda sent a drawing for you.” She retrieved it—a startling likeness of Rhoda as a pirate, engaged in a sword fight. “She says she’s fighting J. Edgar Hoover,” Hannah explained.
“She’s the one to do it,” Shirley said, raising her own glass to the picture.
Joan admired Rhoda’s work. “It must be lovely, having daughters, though don’t you worry she doesn’t play with dolls?”
“Paul’s mother sent her a doll when she was three. Within a day, the head was floating in the sink and each limb was in a different room,” Hannah said. “I much prefer her as a pirate.”
“Oh my.” Joan was horrified. “Though I suppose she’s only little. I’m sure she’ll grow up to be more like other girls.”
Hannah and Shirley, who had never been like other girls, said nothing. Hannah felt sorry for Joan, struggling so hard to keep her family afloat. The Morrisons always needed more help than anyone else. Of course Joan craved conformity. It was so safe.
“Rhoda knows Hoover sees us as outlaws,” Hannah said at last. “If kids didn’t love the idea of that, the Saturday matinees and adventure books would go the way of the dodo.”
She saw Joan restraining herself from insisting such things were for boys. Instead, she excused herself to minister to her own boys, assuring them the tedium would soon be at an end. Will waved Shirley over to join the conversation, and Paul raised his brows at Hannah and gave her a wink. Her heart zinged and she winked back. Years of marriage, two children, and still the sight of his eyes across a room made her want to dance.
She lit a fresh cigarette, thinking how much she enjoyed the word “outlaw.” It made her think of highwaymen on horses, and pirates on the seas.
She looked again at Rhoda’s drawing. Sometimes outlaws were really only outliers. Because sometimes it was the law that was wrong.
Hannah reeled and stopped breathing. The people, the room, all disappeared. She spun back through time, into the deep woods, where the pirate’s sword became a bow and arrow. Where a group of outlaws were men fighting to restore justice in a world gone mad.
“That’s the show,” she whispered, stroking the picture like it was Rhoda or Julie’s cheek. “Robin Hood. It’s perfect.”
She well remembered the Errol Flynn film—as though she could forget Errol Flynn in anything, especially tights—but as episodes tumbled through her head, she knew this would be better. The Adventures of Robin Hood. It would be intelligent, it would have a point of view, it would be like nothing else on television.
“And it will be terrific fun.”
Shirley returned with the empty cookie plate and studied Hannah in bemusement.
“You look happier than a cat in a cream-filled birdbath.”
Hannah gazed at her with shining eyes. “I’ve got it. An idea so good it’ll set television on fire.”
“Well. I suppose I’d best stock up on long sticks and marshmallows.”
Shirley didn’t ask any questions and Hannah was grateful—the train of thought needed to build steam. The show must look like a film, with no expense spared on costumes and sets, to say nothing of the best actors they could hire.
And it would be the best-written show on television. Sweat pooled under Hannah’s arms as she realized what she was going to do. This Robin Hood would be about a group of men unjustly labeled outlaws, chased from society, and their leader determined to create a more equal world, where the rich didn’t get to eat everyone else. If anyone looked too closely, they would see just how subversive this was. If they really looked too closely, they would discover the entire writing staff comprised blacklisted writers. It was a huge risk, but Hannah wouldn’t have the show written by anyone else.
She downed her drink in one gulp. Tomorrow she would begin to build a legacy, and, she hoped, salvage a lot of careers as she was truly launching her own.
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
Phoebe sprawled across the top of the footed bathtub, reaching her hand through the space between the tub and the wall. She ran her fingers under the tub’s curved rim, easing her way down to the end. Nothing untoward. She seized the m
irror she’d tied to the broom handle, positioned Anne’s big work light, and lay on the floor, double-checking the underside of the rim and scanning underneath the tub for anything that looked like a listening device.
Anne came in with coffee.
“Well?”
“Next apartment, I’m having a fitted bathtub,” Phoebe announced from the floor. “Assuming the FBI can’t disguise a microphone as a spiderweb, the bathroom is clean.” She sat up and readjusted her bandanna. “They can’t really bust in and plant something, can they?”
“That’s what I’ve heard,” Anne said, wrinkling her nose. “Though I’d give something to see the agent who could sneak around Mrs. Pocatelli.”
“You’re right, no one would ever have come in here. I should stop looking,” Phoebe said, going into the living room to scan under the love seat.
The phone rang. Phoebe’s head snapped up, smacking the coffee table.
Anne answered. “Oh, hiya, Jimmy,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Let me get you Phoebe . . . What? Oh, sure, things are super, you know me, work, work . . . No, I really don’t have any free evenings until—”
“Just tell him I passed his stuff along and if the man likes it, he’ll be the first to know!” Phoebe shouted, aiming the mirror above the wall sconce. Anne relayed the message and hung up before Jimmy could say more. The two women waited, watching the phone. It rang again. Anne glanced at Phoebe, picked it up, listened a moment, then put it back down.
“I don’t know if there’s anything listening to you in here, but the phone’s definitely still being tapped.” She put on the Anything Goes album and turned up the volume. “The important thing is not to get paranoid,” she instructed Phoebe.
Phoebe stuck her head out from under her lampshade. “Paranoia is the only thing keeping me going.”
“You should try to work. You’re always happiest when you’re working.”
Phoebe lit a cigarette and glanced at the typewriter. “Even if I could think, what would I write? What’s the point? Who can I try to sell something to?”
Anne pulled her closer to the record player and lowered her voice. “You’ll slap a fake name on it and submit to radio, just like you did back when.”
“‘Back when’ I used my own name.” Phoebe sulked. She knew Anne was right. She should forget she’d been selling work as Phoebe Adler since the war and start all over as someone else. But every time she thought about it, fury and sadness balled her fingers into fists, and she couldn’t bring herself to try typing, or even knitting. It was her name, and she was proud of it. She’d never wanted to be “P. B. Adler” to hide her gender in the hopes of more work. No, she was Phoebe Adler, and that was the name she was going to make big. But she had to do something, and soon. Maybe ask Floyd and Leo at the Coffee Nook if they needed a waitress. She knew what happened to women who ran out of money.
“What about Mona’s suggestion?” Anne whispered, then mouthed: “Going abroad?”
“I . . . I don’t know. It seems so extreme. I don’t even know how—”
“You should at least be packed. The rest we can handle.”
Phoebe beckoned Anne into the bedroom and showed her the timetables and her ready passport. “But I can’t. Even if I had the money.”
“Tourist class is about a hundred bucks, we can get it,” Anne said, ignoring Phoebe’s snort. “So long as you keep your passport safe.” She paused, lips pursed. Then she picked up Phoebe’s leatherette handbag and examined the lining.
Phoebe heaved a gusty sigh. Anne was right, and anyway, it wasn’t a very good bag. She took her manicure scissors, slit open the lining, and tucked her passport and the timetables behind the cheap satin. Anne glued the tear shut.
“Keep the scissors in there, so you can open it easily,” Anne instructed.
“Assuming my passport’s not on a list somewhere to be seized if I try to leave the country,” Phoebe said. She had no idea if such a list existed, and didn’t want to find out.
Phoebe looked into Anne’s enormous dark eyes. They’d each always known what they were doing and where they were going. Being stripped of that knowledge was almost worse than being stripped of her good name.
Almost.
* * *
• • •
Much too early on Saturday, Phoebe got ready to meet Hank. She spent a long time patting the puffs under her eyes, using every trick she’d ever learned from a magazine to brighten her features. When she was fifteen she’d looked at her frizzy hair, doughy face, and glasses, and decided she was never going to blossom into a beauty. Right then, she also decided not to care. Today was different, though. She had to put a good face on things. She applied her makeup liberally, wrestled her hair into place, and put on her good suit. She concentrated on keeping her shoulders back and head high as she marched down Perry Street toward the restaurant.
Desiree’s was as pretty as she hoped, and another time, Phoebe would have been thrilled to walk into such an elegant little room, with dark tables and flocked wallpaper. But she only had eyes for Hank, who pumped her hand with his usual force and pulled out a chair for her. She saw his gaze flit around the room.
“Worried you’ll be seen with a Red?” she asked, hoping it sounded like a joke. His smile was tepid, and she realized she might be closer to the truth than she thought. Her eyes went around the room as well, seeing only couples, which seemed a good sign. Though who could tell?
“Must be a good life, being a G-man,” she said. “Spend your days hanging about, watching people do not much of anything, going to nice restaurants on the taxpayers’ dime.”
“Stop it, Phoebe,” Hank scolded. “They work damn hard trying to keep the country safe.”
She recoiled. It wasn’t his words so much as his tone. He sounded rehearsed. Protecting himself, maybe? No, then he’d keep away from her altogether. So maybe he believed it.
He reached out and caught her wrist. She hadn’t realized she was half standing, preparing to run out. She sat down again, sliding her hand away, resisting the urge to wipe it. Whatever game he was playing, she had to believe Hank was still her friend. She had to.
“Listen, Phoebe, do you know how to find someone who’d put their name on one of your scripts and take it for the rounds, pretending it’s theirs?”
“They’re called ‘fronts,’ Hank. I know the lingo,” she said. “People mutter.”
“So?” he pressed.
She considered. Perry Street was full of hungry writers who would take a percentage of a fee for performing that service. Jimmy, she was sure, would do it. The thought came and went. She couldn’t. Not where she was known for being a produced writer. She knew the way they’d look at her. Better to scrub toilets.
“I thought I’d submit stuff directly, using a pseudonym,” she said. It still galled her, but was better than anyone else knowing her shame.
“You can try,” Hank said. “But you’d have to provide a body if that name gets called in for a meeting,” Hank said. He poured wine. “No matter how it gets sliced, Phoebe, it won’t be easy. People a lot bigger than you are all washed up, even if they never get subpoenaed.”
“What part of this is meant to make me feel better?” she demanded.
“Phoebe, you’re a nice girl, you’ve got a lot to offer. Wouldn’t it be easier if you were married?”
“Well, my schedule has just opened up.”
“I’m serious. Maybe this is a sign it’s time to move on to the next stage of your life. You should be able to find yourself a nice fellow.”
“Even if that’s true, it won’t happen before I run out of money,” she said, fiercely glad she’d ordered the most expensive item on the menu, even if she couldn’t pronounce it and had no idea what she was eating.
“I know it won’t be easy, but—”
Phoebe slapped down her knife and glared at him.
&
nbsp; “Look, I could move into a fleabag room in a women’s hotel, take a job cleaning up crime scenes. But you were the one who agreed with me back then, saying I had talent, and that I was going places. You meant up. Not down, and not out. This isn’t right.”
“No, it’s not, but it could be worse. Most of the men on the blacklist, they’ve got wives, kids. People depending on them.”
Phoebe bristled. Hank knew all about Mona.
He had the grace to look abashed. “All right, sure, but you know it’s not the same thing. You said yourself Brookside would keep Mona just to study her. They’re not going to boot her now. You can’t compare your situation to a man with a wife and kids. You know that.”
“Apparently I know all sorts of stuff,” Phoebe said. “A miracle for a gal who never got to college.”
“Answer me straight, kid. Who’ve you been working for besides me?”
Phoebe looked down. Hank was the first man to ever hire her, and though she worked the rounds as dutifully as any other writer, her other radio bits never panned out into anything regular. She refused to believe it meant she wasn’t good. Hank wouldn’t use her so often if that were true. Possibly it was a woman’s name on her scripts that kept her from getting ahead. Which was an argument for the front, if everything about it didn’t make her want to tear apart the FBI headquarters with her bare hands.
“Look, if you’re determined to keep on with writing, I’ve got a lead,” Hank whispered. “No guarantees, though.” He slid over a piece of paper: Hannah Wolfson, Executive Producer, Sapphire Films. Cadogan Square, London. Hannah. A woman. Hank smirked, seeing Phoebe’s bemusement. “Used to be sort of a high-flying journalist, apparently. Married, if you can believe it, with two kids.”
“Like all those men so much worse off than me,” Phoebe said.
Red Letter Days Page 6
