Red Letter Days

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Red Letter Days Page 2

by Sarah-Jane Stratford


  “Deadline, you know how it is. Drop your stuff off Sunday night if you can, okay?”

  “Sure,” he said, but still looked crushed. Phoebe wondered why men always seemed to think they could get a certain girl, even though she obviously didn’t like him. Too many damn movies, probably.

  She rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter and stared at it. The next scene would be back with the detectives who were the stars of At Your Service. Now the audience would learn the detectives had woven an intricate plot whereby they could capture both the woman delivering papers to her crime lord boyfriend and the rival gang leader preparing to kill her with her own shoe. The detectives had hoped to keep the woman alive for the sake of her testimony, but another dead gangster’s moll was nothing to cry over, and the censors preferred it when a bad girl was killed if there wasn’t time for her to reform before the commercials ran.

  Phoebe picked up her knitting and knit several rows of a cardigan, thinking about the final few minutes of the script. The music and chatter outside, even the screeches of Mrs. Pocatelli, who must have seen Jimmy putting out his cigarette, faded as the sharp heel of the moll’s shoe flew toward her neck before the scene cut abruptly to the detectives’ dingy offices.

  The phone rang, jolting Phoebe back to her bright apartment, where everything was painted green and pink and nothing went more than three days without polish. She took a breath, composing herself. It was important to answer the phone at just the right moment, with just the right tone. It might be someone offering work, and so you mustn’t sound desperate, or too available. Serene, composed, unruffled, that was the only way a lady writer was allowed to come across. It was not unlike what women on the dating market went through, or so Phoebe was given to understand.

  She picked up just as the phone stopped ringing. “Well, of course you would do that,” she grumbled, slamming it back down again, taking little pleasure in the tinny bing that echoed off the walls.

  “You should get an answering service,” Anne called through the door. Phoebe flung open the door to admit her paint-spattered friend. “I was about to knock,” Anne said. “Got a cigarette?”

  “What am I, the corner store?” Phoebe asked, handing Anne the last of a pack. “Here, finish these and buy the next ones, all right?”

  “Sure thing.” Anne grinned, producing a match from the depths of her coveralls and striking it on the bottom of her work boot. Phoebe shook her head, smiling. Even with no makeup, her red-gold curls bound under a bandanna, and oversized denim coveralls hiding her Marilyn Monroe figure, Anne was a head-turner.

  “It’s ten years since we stopped building fighter jets,” Phoebe said. “And here you still look like the world’s prettiest model for Rosie the Riveter.”

  “Now I’m covered in acrylic paint, not grease,” Anne pointed out, poking Phoebe’s shoulder. “Going all right?” she asked, jerking her head at the typewriter.

  “Fresh piping-hot justice will soon be served,” Phoebe said.

  “That’s how we know it’s fiction,” said Anne. “Sure would be something if just once the criminals got away clean.”

  “Fantasist,” Phoebe chided her. “Go on, get back to the masterpiece.”

  “Peggy Guggenheim will open a new gallery just for me,” Anne promised. She and Phoebe pointed at each other, an old gesture that meant this was a promise that would be kept, and shut their doors.

  Ten years. Phoebe didn’t miss building planes, and she certainly didn’t miss the war—but she missed the easy camaraderie of the women working on the assembly line. The day Phoebe’s first sketch aired on the radio, Anne and Dolores Goldstein had rounded up the whole crew to listen. Anne decreed the fifteen-dollar check from CBS “a glorious thing.” “Not so glorious that I won’t hightail it straight to the bank to let them worship it,” Phoebe rejoined. Anne kept her old Brownie camera in her locker and insisted on taking a photo of the check. Though Phoebe protested against making a relic of her first pay for writing, the photo lived in her keepsake box, and she couldn’t imagine it ever being anywhere else.

  Dolores Goldstein, their forewoman, claimed she was going to be the manager of a factory within seven years. Instead she’d married within one and had three children. Possibly more, but she’d stopped answering letters over a year ago. Most of the women at the airfield were married now. Only Phoebe and Anne had pursued their dreams all the way to Greenwich Village. “I bet they envy us,” Anne liked to say. Phoebe hoped not. If there was one thing all those women deserved, it was happiness.

  The phone rang again. Phoebe took a long, deep breath and answered in her most mellifluous tone, “Adler residence.”

  She heard a crackling, a vague buzz, almost like the hum in a meadow’s air on a hot summer afternoon, but nowhere near as soothing.

  “Hello?” Phoebe asked, trying not to sound uneasy. “Is anybody there?”

  If they were, they didn’t say. After a few moments, Phoebe hung up.

  It was the third time in ten days. It was getting to the point where she had to stop pretending it was nothing. But she couldn’t. Not yet. She just couldn’t.

  * * *

  • • •

  Monday morning, Phoebe got up early so she could enjoy her breakfast before she went to her meeting with Hank. She soft boiled an egg and thought how nice bacon or sausage would be, but such things were treats, only allowed one morning a month, after a check cleared. She switched on the radio, listened for half a minute to a news report about Communists in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, then clicked through the stations, hunting for a new comedy she could send a submission to. The only female voice she heard was that of Hedda Hopper, the vitriolic Hollywood gossip columnist whose nose for scandal earned her a radio program along with her much-slavered-over nationally syndicated newspaper column. “Everyone in Hollywood knows,” she purred in her affected mid-Atlantic accent, “there are Reds under the bed!”

  “Attention, housewives!” Phoebe intoned in her deepest boom. “The newest-model Electrolux will suck up those Reds with just one swipe!” Ah, I oughta be an announcer. She shook her head, wondering if kids were actually frightened of Communists, if the specter of them under the bed had replaced the bogeyman. She flipped away from Hedda Hopper before the woman could reel off a list of Closeted Homosexual Actors of the Week whose careers she would promptly ruin, and settled on Jimmy Witherspoon singing “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” as she finished her coffee and went to put on her makeup.

  Hank’s tiny office was on the top floor of the Linwood Theatre, which housed the studios where At Your Service and several other shows on the Adelphi Network were filmed. The Linwood was on Sixth Avenue, just within sight of the heart of television: Rockefeller Center. “Greatness adjacent,” Hank labeled the Linwood. Phoebe rather liked the sleek structure, made of all the glass and steel that was her shiny dream of Manhattan. Staff entered through a side door and went straight upstairs, so as not to interfere with the soundstages on the ground floor. Only the head writers on Adelphi shows had permanent offices on-site, but Phoebe knew that on better television shows, on the big three networks, there were staff writers who came in every day and had assigned desks. Phoebe was sure there could be nothing greater in life than walking through an office door with your name on it. Hanging up your coat and hat, and settling yourself at your very own desk. From there she would have no world left to conquer.

  She took the bus to Midtown. The subway was faster, but it was more fun to watch the people in the streets, and the progression of the buildings as they grew taller and grander the farther uptown they went.

  Phoebe liked to imagine the stories her fellow passengers told themselves about her as they traveled. A career girl, through and through. Plenty of women wore suits to go out in New York, and plenty were sentenced to glasses, but Phoebe knew her attaché case and air of purposefulness set her apart. One or two me
n flicked her an approving look she knew well—the one that said she wasn’t pretty enough to marry, so good for her, making something of herself. Then they turned away and forgot her. She didn’t care. It was much easier, not being noticed. It meant she could study people openly, wondering who in the crowd was the kleptomaniac, the con man, the workplace scofflaw, the would-be romantic—who would start romancing his secretary after his wife had their third child.

  She nodded as she turned ideas over in her head, smiling, not caring if anyone watched and thought she was off her rocker. Let them watch. Let them remember that smile for the day she won an Emmy Award.

  Outside, a messenger ran in front of a taxi, and there was the usual jazz trio of brakes, horns, and howls. The bus passengers with the best views rated the show, bringing to bear all their knowledge and expertise. Then came the inevitable: “Awful shame for a lady to have to hear language like that.”

  You fellows are lucky you weren’t with me at the airfield. If a shipment was late coming in, we ladies used language that would have shamed sailors.

  Her stop was next, and she took a deep breath, readying herself for the excitement to come. The bus had fallen silent again, the men’s eyes back on their newspapers, Phoebe’s eyes on the most story-worthy men. She almost didn’t notice the tingling in her neck, her own realization that she, too, was being scrutinized. Probably by someone who regretted calling her a lady, if she was the sort who ogled men. She glanced behind her, but only saw hats peeping over newspapers.

  She alighted in front of Rockefeller Center so she might give it a salute, remind it she existed and was heading its way, before strolling down to the Adelphi offices. It might have been the lingering effects of her character studies, or all those mysterious phone calls, or simply that all the women in her scripts endured it, but she felt sure someone was following her. She whirled around into another sea of hats, and a massive man in a pinstriped suit plowed right into her.

  “What’s the big idea, sister, you trying to break my neck or something?” he shouted at her.

  “What neck? I only see chins,” Phoebe muttered. More passersby stormed around her, offering their opinions on people who stood right in the middle of Sixth Avenue and where they ought to stand instead.

  Been reading too many crime stories, Phoebe decided. Oh well, they say heightened sensitivity is the mark of a true artist. She put her nose in the air and marched to the side door of the Linwood Theatre, congratulating herself on not being a glamour-puss. Those women had to live with being stared at and followed all the time. No wonder some of them end up empty-headed. That sort of thing can drive a gal to distraction.

  * * *

  • • •

  Half an hour early, Phoebe indulged in her usual twenty-minute coffee in what was optimistically called the staff canteen. She settled at her favorite table with the morning copy of Variety.

  “Phoebe! Good morning!”

  Geraldine, the actress who played the secretary to the detectives on At Your Service, hovered by the chair opposite Phoebe. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Phoebe didn’t. She liked Geraldine, who made good use of her own glamour-puss status to play the game of Being Seen. She would do better in a chic little bistro in the shadow of Rockefeller Center, or Sardi’s if she was aiming for Broadway, but you never knew who was preparing for meetings with whom, and reminding everyone present that she was a model of wit and vivacity was all to the good. Phoebe was glad to help, not least because she might work in a few good jokes. Together, they could help each other into the big time.

  “I simply adore your latest script!” Geraldine gushed in her well-trained voice. “It’s such fun to rehearse.”

  “Gosh, thanks,” Phoebe answered in the boom she’d honed on the streets of the Lower East Side. “Writing for you is a dream, there’s nothing you can’t make even better.”

  “They taught me well at the Actors Studio, but truly, I never know what you’re going to throw at me, and I know the boys feel the same.”

  Phoebe doubted “the boys” felt any such thing, but Geraldine was awfully convincing. Her personal gratitude, at least, was no act. Phoebe was the only writer who gave her lines beyond “Let me get you some more coffee.”

  “Well, I like to keep things interesting,” Phoebe said. “I’m working on what might be a real doozy for next time.”

  “What fun! Can you spill a bean or two?”

  Phoebe glanced at her silver watch, her only good piece of jewelry and the only grand present her parents had ever been able to give her (“So you’ll never miss a shift at the airfield,” her father had said).

  “I’d better get up to Hank. He panics if I’m not five minutes early.”

  They bestowed their prettiest air-kisses near each other’s cheeks, and Phoebe headed for the elevator.

  Hank’s door was ajar, but Phoebe knocked anyway.

  “I don’t know why I don’t just set our meetings five minutes earlier,” Hank greeted her. He was a reedy, sandy-haired man with huge tortoiseshell glasses who always pumped Phoebe’s hand like he was hoping to produce water.

  “It’d likely ruin Miss Ebbs’s appointment book,” Phoebe said, wringing out her sore fingers behind her back. Miss Ebbs was the lone, and long-suffering, secretary shared among head writers.

  “Who?” Hank asked. “Oh, of course. All right, always ready for one of yours, let’s have a look at it. The gal isn’t too tough now, is she?”

  “Just tough enough,” Phoebe said, smiling. Hank never seemed to realize they had this exact exchange every time.

  Hank flipped through her pages. “People like soft ladies,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  Phoebe knew what he meant, but never understood it. She supposed she presented as rather “soft” herself—a shortish, plumpish woman with a big bust and hips, though her big bust and hips had nothing like the effect of Anne’s. Hurrah for girdles, she thought, ignoring her frivolous desire for regular deep breathing.

  “They may like soft ladies, but everyone loves a bad girl,” she pointed out.

  “Long as she gets hers in the end,” Hank rejoined.

  “Painful spot to get it,” Phoebe said, “plus the censors would die of apoplexy.”

  Hank ignored this. “All I mean is, I think some folks get squirrelly about a gal writing hard-boiled gals.”

  “Lucky for us no one ever reads credits, huh?” said Phoebe.

  Hank sighed. “I’ll get your check sent out today,” he said, and Phoebe knew she’d won. He settled down to business. “Whatever you’re cooking right now, back-burner it—I want you to do one about a star ballet dancer who gets iced. Try to include a lot of background dancers, all right?”

  “Lots of leg, I get it. Why me?”

  “All girls like ballet, right? You know the lingo.”

  Phoebe didn’t have the heart to remind him she’d grown up about as far from the sort of New York girls who like ballet as Genghis Khan had from Bonnie Prince Charlie. One trip to the library would give her enough lingo to seem like an expert.

  “That’s super, Hank, thanks so much. Oh, and I brought my neighbor’s stuff for that fella who wants someone cheap and quick.” She handed him Jimmy’s samples. Anne couldn’t understand why Phoebe didn’t ask Hank to help her get more work elsewhere, but it wasn’t the done thing. Hank considered Phoebe his discovery. He knew she’d done other work and needed more—and he knew she needed that work for Mona, more than for herself, but he didn’t want to share her. Phoebe nominally had an agent, a man much more focused on his film-writing clients and who would be hard-pressed to remember Phoebe’s name. He was only for show. Phoebe had always gotten work on her own and saw no reason to change that as she forged her path upward.

  Hank dropped the script on a pile and grinned indulgently at Phoebe. “Say, want to come down and watch your latest magnum opus start rehearsal?”


  “Are you kidding?” she cried, bounding to the door. “They won’t mind?”

  “So long as you don’t bawl if you hear a line altered, no, they won’t mind. Won’t even notice, most likely.”

  Hank chose a quiet corner of the empty auditorium for them to sit and watch the rehearsal. Phoebe held her breath, expecting to be transported by the magic of watching actors bring her own words to life, trying them out in different intonations before finding the delivery that would be filmed before the audience on Friday as it was aired on television sets throughout the country. Instead, she was disappointed to find the director more focused on blocking and lighting. No one tried to make any of it come alive. She kept a pleased look on her face for Hank’s sake, wondering how long she could wait till she could make an excuse to go home. Then Geraldine spoke her line: “Well of course the letter’s in code, the woman is saying you’re handsome.” And everyone, even the actor playing the maligned detective, chuckled.

  “She’s good, isn’t she?” Phoebe whispered.

  “You give her good stuff and she knows what to do with it,” Hank said.

  Off Phoebe went into a fantasy of a show written by her and starring Geraldine. It became a bigger and bigger hit, so that when she vaguely heard someone ask if Phoebe Adler was there, it was no surprise. Until Hank said, “What the hell does Kelvin want you for?”

  Kelvin was the producer, and Phoebe had never laid eyes on him. Now, apparently, he knew where she was and had sent Miss Ebbs to bring her to his office. Phoebe’s heart swelled. Producers only met with the best writers, meetings that usually resulted in the offer of more work. No wonder Hank was miffed. Phoebe might slip through his fingers after all.

  “I’d better come with you,” he said, taking her elbow.

  “It’s all right, I won’t trip,” she said, attempting to free herself. His hand tightened, and she followed his stunned gaze to see what must be Mr. Kelvin, standing by the stage manager’s table at the back of the auditorium. A short, barrel-chested man clasping and unclasping his fingers, he wagged a playful finger at Hank.

 

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