The Celebrity

by Laura Z. Hobson

  Suddenly she felt tired. At the corner, the wind flung itself upon her and she shivered again. She had been casual about Gerald’s talk of a nap, but now she wondered whether excitement could support you very long after so little sleep. If you were young, yes; but not if you were growing old. Her blood seemed lukewarm, her bones huddled together. She walked more slowly.

  She turned into Main Street, already crowded and bustling though it was still early. Cars honked irritated horns, people went by with blank eyes, even the traffic cop was a stranger. Freeton was growing old too. When Gerald and she had first moved out here, a year after Thorny’s birth, it was scarcely more than a village, with meadows and fields just back of the houses and stores, with sandy gravel roads that had to be tarred each summer, and with so few families you knew everybody. The Long Island Rail Road station was a long wooden platform instead of the concrete and brick slab it had become and there was only a two-story grade school. When boys and girls were ready for High, they had to go to Mineola or Jamaica, and the first talk of building a big high school right in town had seemed like the talk of radicals. And yet, ten years later, when Freeton High was ready, pupils swarmed to it from every direction and it seemed only a matter of months until the building which had seemed so spacious began to be called inadequate. The war had done the usual trick to Freeton’s population. The first war. She always forgot, these days, to specify the number when she said “the war,” but it was that earlier one which would, for her, always remain The War.

  Geraldine shook her head, and tried to recapture her earlier mood. Long before there was even a hint of gray in the sky, she had waked with a kind of bubbling-up in her mind. My own child, she had thought again and again, my own son. Gregory. Not Thorn, who had always been successful at everything, in school, in college, in business, but Gregory. The one who had always been—if she had to admit it, which she had never done to one solitary soul all her life—her favorite son. Parents should never have favorites, and among the girls she had none. But from the instant they had put Gregory into her arms nearly forty years ago, so puny, with such a weak little cry—from that moment, something fierce had welled up in her heart. And when Gerald had looked at him and said, “He’s good and long, like his brother was, but no husky bruiser, is he?” she had burst into tears.

  Gerald kept right on comparing the two of them, even when Gregory was old enough to understand. She had often gone at Gerald about it, but he was forever getting the two of them to “make a muscle,” talking about Thorny’s husky build and how much he weighed. Thorny would barrel out his chest like a boxer and absolutely shine with conceit while poor skinny Gregory would look on and marvel.

  Anyway, it was Thorny’s turn to do a little marveling, now, and that was only right. This thought had in it so much—Geraldine hesitated, searching her heart—so much spite that she was shocked. She was being unfair, really, for Thornton was as happy last night as the rest of the family; his delight and excitement had been a beautiful thing to see. You might have thought, watching him, that this great good luck was happening to him—

  “Deeny, oh, Deeny.”

  It was Fanny Heston’s voice, somewhere behind her, and she turned quickly, but couldn’t see anybody. Gerald didn’t like “Deeny” for a nickname but all her close friends went right ahead with it, and Fan was one of her closest. Just then, Fan came in sight, stepping out of the recessed entrance to Smith’s Hardware, and they went toward each other eagerly, both calling out, “Hello, stranger.” This they always regarded as a delectable joke, since no more than three days ever went by between visits. Fan and Jim Heston were the Johnses’ oldest friends and neighbors; even after the Hestons had moved to the outskirts of town, they had never lost touch and presumably never would as long as telephones and cars existed. Fan’s arms were loaded with bundles, but, Geraldine thought, she’s as straight in the back as a woman of fifty.

  “You were going to phone me.” Fan stopped short and added, “Deeny, are you sick?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  “But you look worn out.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? I never slept a wink all night.”

  “Why not?” Fan immediately set her parcels on the sidewalk, and said urgently, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why couldn’t you sleep a wink?”

  “Nothing bad, I meant.”

  “Something good! What was it?”

  Geraldine couldn’t help smiling. Just running into Fan, just chatting idly this way—her spirits had already risen to the level they’d been on before seeing Amy. She was considering this phenomenon of the emotions when Fan said, “Deeny, what?”

  “I can’t tell you, not just yet.”

  “A secret? About what?” Fan moved closer.

  “I’ll tell you in a few days.”

  “That’s not fair! Teasing me, when we’ve always—”

  “I’m not trying to tease you, honestly, Fan.” She was flustered. How on earth had this started? “It’s just something that happened last night and I never closed my eyes. Gerald didn’t either.”

  Fanny Heston cried, “What kind of thing?”

  “Just something about Gregory.” That far she could go but wild horses couldn’t make her go further.

  “About Gregory?”

  “About his new book.”

  “Has it come out?”

  “No, but it’s—” She bit her lip and again thought of the breakfast table.

  “I won’t tell a soul, if you say not to. You know I won’t.”

  Geraldine sought frantically for some skill which might help her deflect this conversation to other matters, but her mind refused her. And Fan was so concerned, so worried-looking. “Promise? Not a word to anybody?” Her own words startled her.

  “Promise. Oh, Deeny, come on.”

  “Well, it’s just earned over a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “It what?” Fan almost screamed it.

  “It’s just been taken by Best Selling Books, that book club, you know, and they pay over a hundred thousand dollars down and maybe more later on.”

  “A hundred thousand—you’re fooling!”

  “Remember, you promised—”

  “A hundred thousand dollars?”

  “To start with.”

  “Why, he’ll be rich for the rest of his life!”

  “Can you blame me for not sleeping?”

  “It’s just too marvelous—how proud and happy you must be! Oh, Deeny, I am too. Imagine having your own child—” She could not go on.

  The breathless admiration in Fan’s voice sent strong shivers of joy through Geraldine. Telling her couldn’t have been avoided, she decided firmly; somehow things had taken a turn which had led inevitably on, with no turning back, with no side path to duck into. It was, almost, like fate. Nobody could fight against fate.

  And since this was true, there was no reason to hold back any of the rest of it. She suggested going somewhere for coffee and then she told Fan the entire story, starting with their arrival at Thorn’s and ending with the way she and Gerald had watched the sun come up. It was wonderful to have somebody stare at you and hang on each separate word; your fatigue and chills vanished; you felt new, reborn. “Oh, let me,” Geraldine cried when the counterman brought the punched tab-ticket; she wished it were for more than twenty cents. When she and Fan finally parted, they each said the same thing: “I’ll call you soon.”

  Geraldine went straight to the A. and P., marched up to the meat counter, and ordered briskly, as though she had never laid eyes on the butcher before. “Fine day, Mrs. Johns,” Bill said, “and you’re looking fine too.” Almost coldly she answered, “I was just told I was looking rather ill.” Bill stared at her but she ignored him. That was what had started it, she suddenly thought, that remark of Fan’s about her looking all worn out and ill. She had had to answer that, hadn’t she? And anyway, everybody had the right to one confidante, and Gerald need never know.

  Considerabl
y cheered by these reasonable reflections, Geraldine paid for the chops and started toward the vegetable and fruit counters, but a few feet away, she halted. Edith Markham was there, in front of the oranges and grapefruit. Edith was almost as close a friend as Fan, but it might be wiser not to stop even to say hello. Casually, yet soundlessly, she moved backwards, away from the counters. Edith turned around.

  “You look so well, Deeny.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? I had the most marvelous news last night.”

  “What kind of news?”

  Geraldine thought, Oh, dear.

  The effect on Edith Markham was just as electric as it had been on Fanny Heston. Geraldine again felt her spirit expanding, filling with new sap and juice, like a tree in the spring sun, and as she talked, a delicious vision appeared to her mind’s eye, of other friends even now doing their marketing and destined by fate to cross her path on the way home.

  Shortly past noon of that same day, the cash register of the Johns Pharmacy at the corner of Main and Church had already rung up a larger daily total of dollars and cents than had ever been amassed in the entire history of the store, with the single exception of the day the deadly influenza epidemic of 1918 had hit the town. Such a purchasing of tooth paste and aspirin and shaving creams had never been known, of cold cream and cleansing tissues and soaps and nail polish, of baby talc and cough lozenges and bicarbonate of soda, and virtually everything else that could be had without a prescription.

  The heavy plate-glass door was scarcely still, and each separate customer, the moment her purchase had been made—her, because it so happened that all the customers were female—each and every one had congratulations to offer and questions to ask. Was it really possible for a book club to pay two hundred thousand dollars? Was it really going to be a Betty Grable picture? Was it true that Gregory was flying out to Hollywood to write on the picture himself for ten thousand dollars every week? And was Abby going out with him, or was she going to let him attend all those parties with movie stars alone, as if he were a bachelor?

  If Gerald Johns had had a moment of confusion over the first of these smiling purchases and questions, the moment was short-lived. As was his habit, he had glanced at his watch while a Mrs. George Simmons was offering her happy felicitations; it was half past ten. That meant that today Geraldine had begun her marketing at about nine. He thanked Mrs. Simmons heartily and thought without rancor, Well, I might have known. Aloud he said, smiling as he did so, “Did you run into Geraldine?”

  “No, I haven’t seen her yet, but I’ll call her the minute I get home. Perhaps you two could come to dinner soon and—”

  “We’d love to. But how did you hear it? I’m just interested.”

  “From Beth Martins, you know, lives up on the hill?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And she’s a sister-in-law, or maybe sister, I forget, I’m so excited, of the Pecks, and Linda Peck told her.”

  “Linda Peck?” He searched his memory. He couldn’t quite place the Pecks. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I just wondered.”

  “Why, is it a secret?”

  “Lord, no.” He paused and added, “Not any more.”

  “I thought not. Why ever should it be, anything so wonderful?”

  “Why indeed.”

  The moment Mrs. Simmons departed, Gerald Johns, never one to cry over spilled milk, beans, or apple carts, called out, imperatively, “Say, Hiram.” From the back of the store where Hiram Spriggins, his assistant, was unloading the remaining cartons a deep bass “Yes?” answered him. “Better leave the cartons for tomorrow; we’re in for a busy day.”

  For Thornton Johns, it was already a busy day. He had waked before the alarm went off, to find Cindy propped against her pillows, smoking a cigarette, and smiling at him.

  This was unusual. Everything about it was unusual. Cindy never awoke until after he had left for the office, Cindy never smoked before breakfast, and Cindy, until she had had her black coffee, never smiled at anybody.

  Now, however, she said, lovingly, “Good morning, darling, did you sleep well?”

  “Mmm,” Thorn said, and then remembered. He had not slept well. Long after Cindy had gone to sleep, he had lain awake thinking, and even after he slept he had apparently been hurrying somewhere. Now he sat up in bed, stretching. “Not really. I was making plans all night.”

  “What sort of plans? Thorny, do you really think there’ll be a movie sale?”

  “No. That’s one of the things I thought over after you went to sleep. I shouldn’t have said that to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I finally pinned Gregory down to telling me more about the book. He does write the damnedest stuff.”

  “Oh, Thorn. I had my heart set—” She stubbed out her cigarette but at once lighted a new one. “You’re not going to give up in advance, are you? The book club must think it will appeal to people, so why not the movies?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t say ‘why,’ I just have a hunch they’ll think it’s too mental, not enough action, all that. Gregory does too.”

  “Even so, the book club—”

  “Its name is B.S.B.” He was surprised to sound so testy, but Cindy did not appear to notice.

  “Yes. As I was saying, B.S.B. thinks—”

  “Look,” he said reasonably. “Would you go to a movie about electing the first President of the World?”

  “There’s lots in it beside world government, Gregory said.”

  “And about armies demobilizing? And nations giving up the right to make war, and agreeing to live under world law, and a world constitution? Can you see yourself standing in line at Radio City to see that?”

  “Oh, Thorn.” She looked at him beseechingly. “It has a love story too.”

  “Not what the movies call a love story,” he said. “Of course they’d probably jazz up that part of it, but fantasy just isn’t right for pictures.”

  “That old one about Mr. Jordan was fantasy, you know with, I think, Cary Grant going to Heaven after an airplane smash.”

  “It wasn’t Cary Grant; it was Bob Montgomery.”

  “Anyway,” she said triumphantly. “And what about The Bishop’s Wife, and let’s see—”

  He got out of bed. “Cindy, I’m going to read it myself. After that, I might have certain ideas. I told you I lay awake making plans.”

  “About trying to sell it to the movies?”

  He frowned. “What were we talking about, if not the movies?” He closed his eyes. The down-slanting folds at their corners felt stiff and thickened. He blinked rapidly, several times, and said, “Hangover.”

  “Won’t the publishers try?”

  “They have a fifteen per cent cut in any movie money. Of course they’ll try.”

  “I thought you didn’t remember if they had a cut or not.”

  “I remembered perfectly.”

  “But suppose it was you who sold it, not the publishers?”

  “If God sold it, they’d still get their fifteen.” He began to dress, thinking, If I go on with the idea and it does work, she’ll be sure she put me up to it. And if it flops—

  He went to the bathroom to shave. If only he had some good contacts in Hollywood. Or if he knew more about how these things were done by professional agents, what approaches were used, what prices asked. He thought again, as he had done so many times during the night, of seeking out Jim Hathaway once more. For a moment his brush paused in mid-air, dripping lather; then he slapped it to his face in discouragement. This was not something he could do without telling Gregory, like that other visit to Hathaway, and if he asked permission, Gregory would flatly refuse, saying he wouldn’t be “pushy” about his own book. Even the suggestion about dropping in on his publishers this morning had met with resistance—could anyone in his right mind think that would be pushy? Was Gregory going to be extra-mulish now about things that everybody else would take as a matter of course?

  Thornton Johns reflected, as so many others
had done before him, that he would never understand authors. Admire them, yes, observe them, study them, discuss them, sometimes envy them—yes and again yes, but understand them, never. Even his own blood brother could baffle him a hundred times a year. If he, Thorn, asked, for authorization to take any bold steps about a movie sale, Gregory would have forty reasons for sitting back unless a movie company initiated the courting. But that old fox in Chicago would not be so coy.

  Lather, forgotten and unattended, quickly cakes, and now Thornton Johns found his nose twitching. He began to shave with nervous rapidity. It was a shame about Hathaway. The firm of Storm, Goldberg, Miller and Hathaway were specialists in the affairs of radio, movie, and theater actors, producers, playwrights, novelists, and directors. They knew every studio in Hollywood and could arrange—

  The hell with it. There was plenty for him to do in the next few days and that was all he wanted anyway. He would never stand in his brother’s way for the long pull; perhaps this very morning when Gregory phoned he’d start him thinking about the need to sign on one of the best Hollywood agents while the news was hot. If the suggestion didn’t issue from him, it would most certainly be forthcoming from Digby. Thorn nicked his jawbone and cursed.

  Cindy pushed open the bathroom door. “Thorny, if you did help with a movie sale, would you get—” She hesitated. He stopped shaving and looked at her in the mirror.

  “Get what?”

  “Any commission? Or I mean, any part of the commission?”

  “Cindy!”

  “I only thought that with a movie—”

  “You don’t take commissions from your own brother.” He rinsed the razor vigorously under the tap.

  “Don’t be so superior,” Cindy said. Then, placatingly, “I’m sorry, Thorn. You did say you’d be giving lots of time to things now, and it just seemed perfectly ordinary business, even on the book-club money—”

  “It’s not.”

  She left and he was suddenly impatient to get to the office, refresh himself on other points in the contracts, and get going. Women were grasping creatures, at times nearly immoral; Cindy probably would have thought it only fair if he had deducted an agent’s commission of a hundred and ten dollars from the eleven hundred that Gregory’s last book had earned him for two years of work! Well, he had never made money on his own brother and he never would, no matter what it came to. Ten per cent of fifty-two thousand was—