Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

  “I’m teaching him to play piano—and sing!” Frank said. “Listen!”

  Maud glanced at the clock. “He’s supposed to be napping! Please don’t get him too excited—he’ll never want to fall asleep.”

  “I asked him if he wanted to sleep and he said no—didn’t you, Bunting?” Frank tickled the boy’s cheek, making him giggle. “He said he wanted to dance. He’s helping me write a song.” Frank again started tapping out a melody with Bunting’s feet, and the baby, obviously delighted, cooed along with the music, which Frank was clearly improvising as he went along.

  “Little boy beauty, soldier, clown. Turn the baby—UPSIDE DOWN!” Frank did exactly that, which only made Bunting giggle louder.

  “Frank!”

  “He likes it!”

  Maud reached out her arms. “You go ahead and write your song. I’ll put Bunting to bed.”

  “You’re not cross, are you? It’s just that I’ve had a spark of inspiration, and I want to get it down. Before I lose it. Sometimes a tune worms its way into my ear and then crawls right out the other side…”

  “I’m not cross,” Maud said. “I just want the baby to get some rest.” She frowned without meaning to.

  “I’m sorry, darling—I feel like I have so little time now. I’m trying to get this new play written, and it’s hard to do it when I’m traveling all the time. I try to come up with words, and all that comes out is ‘Baum’s Castorine, best buggy grease you’ve ever seen…’ ” He looked dejected.

  Maud was patting Bunting on the back and rocking him, and his eyes were already drifting shut.

  Frank tapped out a few notes and the baby’s eyes flew wide open, then scrunched up as his mouth opened wide and he started to wail.

  “Can you just not play right this minute, Frank? Maybe after his nap?”

  Frank looked as if he was about to protest, but then his shoulders slumped a little. “Of course, darling.”

  As Maud carried the baby upstairs, she realized that they’d been having these kinds of exchanges more often. She knew full well that Frank was still pining for the theater. He scribbled new play notes, sketched out sets, and noodled new songs on the piano whenever he had a free moment. The bright notes filled their house, and then Frank, a pencil in hand, muttered to himself while he paced across the living room.

  But most of the time, his hours were taken up by business. Throughout the winter, Frank traveled across the depth and breadth of New York State. In the morning, as he buttoned his frock coat and waxed his moustache, she could see in his eyes the look of a chained-up dog that whimpered when you passed. After a long sales trip, it always took a day or two before he brightened; but always, soon enough, the house would fill up with his lightheartedness—he was always whistling a tune or glancing up from a pad of paper with an amused expression on his face. At the end of each week, Maud looked over the household accounts and tried to set a bit aside for Frank’s theater projects, though at the rate their meager savings were accumulating, she knew it would take years, not months, for them to save up enough to put up a new production—and what would they live on even if he could manage to debut a new play? Frank’s wages paid their bills. The Baum Theatre Company had never been more than a break-even operation, started with an infusion of capital from his then-flush father.

  For her own part, Maud had grown absorbed in her new life, full of caring for the baby, visits with family, and reading in the evenings. During the lonely spells when Frank was traveling, she had even returned to her childhood hobbies of fine embroidery and tatting lace, skills learned from her father’s mother. She was proud of the beautiful gifts she made. As the months passed, Maud began to notice that Frank, too, seemed less preoccupied with the theater. The piano in the parlor fell silent. In the evenings, he read the newspaper or chatted about his sales trips. Maud started to hope that he’d made peace with his new life, as she had. They had lived their adventure, hadn’t they? Which was more than most people ever did, and as Maud had learned at her father’s knee, when the numbers didn’t add up, wishing and hoping wouldn’t change anything, so you might as well be content with what you had. And who was to say that sometime in the future there wouldn’t be more adventures in store for them? After all, they were still young.

  “Let me hear one of your songs,” Maud said one Saturday afternoon when she and Frank were sitting in the parlor, with Bunting sprawled on the rug near the hearth, amusing himself with blocks. “I never hear you singing anymore.”

  Normally, Frank was quick to take a seat at the piano, but now he gazed at her balefully. “Not today, Maudie dear.”

  “Why not today?” Maud said. “I miss hearing you play. The house seems so quiet. Don’t you need to work on your play?”

  Frank’s gray eyes turned stormy; he stood up—so suddenly that his chair’s legs scraped on the parlor floor—and crossed to the window, where he paced in place, rubbing his hands together.

  Maud looked at her husband with surprise. Why had her simple request for him to play music upset him so? Sometimes this business of marriage still confused her. He had never reacted this way before.

  Frank whirled around, facing Maud. “You don’t understand, do you?”

  Maud gazed at him, bewildered.

  “To you, it’s just music…”

  “Frank dear, what ever are you talking about? I’ve upset you. I’m sorry. I just thought it would be nice to hear you play.”

  “See…” Frank said, now pacing across the parlor. “That’s not how it is. I’m not playing the piano just for fun. When I’m writing songs and lyrics, I want them to have some purpose—to be part of a play. I want that play to be real—not just spinning around in my mind, but actually created, staged, out in front of people. Lights, applause.”

  “But, dear, I know,” Maud said.

  “You don’t know!” Frank said, his voice now growing louder. “You don’t know how I feel.”

  “But, Frank—”

  Maud stood up and walked toward him, but as she tried to put her hand on his arm, he jerked it away.

  “You know, Maud, I try,” Frank said.

  “I know you try. You work so hard—”

  “Hear me out! I try not to have flights of fancy. I try to do as other men do. I watch them and see how they concern themselves with the mundane matters of this world. They think about train schedules and dinner menus, bank accounts and calendars, and their minds seem to settle contentedly on these things—like yours does, Maud—but it doesn’t work like that for me. These ideas come to me, they crowd up my brain, and they want to go somewhere—they want to be expressed!”

  “Of course, darling,” Maud said. “I do understand. I know who you are.” Tears welled up in her eyes. Did Frank really believe that she wanted him to be as dull as other men?

  “That’s why I fell in love with you,” she went on. “You bring light and color. You lift us up, the rest of us, whose lives are just a million shades of gray without you.”

  Frank turned to Maud. Resting both hands on her hips and drawing her close, he looked her straight in the eye.

  “Tell me now, Maud, honestly, do you think I’m going to succeed in putting on another play?”

  Maud nodded, but her eyes darted briefly away from his gaze.

  He let go of her and returned to the window, where he stared out at the empty street, now gray from a cold drizzle that had been falling all day, his shoulders hunched in a dejected slump.

  “It’s just the money,” Maud said. “I set a few pennies aside every week, but to mount a play—it’s hard to see where we’d get that kind of cash. You’d need to find a sponsor…”

  “Oh, it makes no difference,” Frank said. Without looking at Maud, he picked up his overcoat and umbrella. “I’m going to go for a walk now,” he said.

  Maud watched at the window as he retreated up the st
reet, rain dripping off his black umbrella.

  * * *

  —

  THAT NIGHT, UNABLE TO SLEEP, she watched the moon rising in the cloudy sky. She sensed that Frank was still awake, and she rolled back toward him. “You can go,” she said.

  She could feel him suddenly become alert beside her. “What do you mean?”

  “Back to Richburg. I know you won’t sleep right until you see Matches back on the stage.”

  “Maudie dear, you know I can’t do that. I’ve got my sales schedule all set. We’ve no money to put on another show. I’m not even sure we can find an audience.”

  “We’ll manage somehow,” Maud said. “But you need to do it or you just won’t be you.”

  “Oh, Maudie!” Frank said, his voice thick. “You won’t be sorry! And we’ll figure out how to make it not so rough for you and the boy on the road.”

  “Oh no, Frank. Bunting and I can’t go. We would just be in the way, and it would be too expensive. We’ll move in with Mother to save money. You know she’s lonely in the big old house all alone.”

  Frank rolled over and studied Maud’s face. She could see his shadowed features in the moonlight. “Would you really do that?”

  Instead of answering, she placed her lips on his.

  The next morning, Frank was already out of bed before Maud awoke. From the landing, she saw him alone in the parlor, dancing to some melody only he could hear. His eyes were closed, and he looked almost as if he were waltzing in a dream.

  Maud didn’t say a word. She descended the stairs and reached out her hand, and without missing a beat, he felt her presence, slipping his arm around her waist and drawing her close in a two-step. As they spun around the narrow parlor, the room, silent but for the shuffling and gliding of their feet, was filled with music.

  * * *

  —

  FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, whenever Frank was home he was in a fever of creation—playing songs, scribbling on his notepad, sketching out costumes and sets. But the evening prior to his departure, as soon as the door pushed open, she saw the look on his face, and she knew something was terribly wrong. He plopped heavily into one of the parlor armchairs, and stared up at her, his eyes so red that she thought he must have been crying.

  “Frank, tell me at once! What is it? Is someone sick? Has someone died?”

  “Yes,” he said mournfully. “Someone died. The actor Louis Baum died today.”

  “Frank!” She narrowed her eyes. “Have you been drinking?” She sniffed the air but smelled no whiskey, just his familiar tweedy scent.

  “It’s the Baum Theatre in Richburg. It caught fire and burned to the ground.”

  “No!” Maud said.

  “They salvaged nothing. It’s all gone.”

  “The whole theater?”

  “Everything!”

  “But surely the costumes, the scripts, the scenery…some of it was saved?”

  Frank shook his head, then sobbed aloud, burying his face in her bosom.

  A week later, Frank returned from a trip to Richburg with his worst fears confirmed. Every bit of property belonging to the Baum Theatre Company was gone. Every single copy of the script for Matches had disappeared in flames. All of the costumes and the elaborate sets for The Maid of Arran had turned to ash.

  A melancholy silence fell over their home as her husband stopped tapping out melodies on the piano. Week after week, Frank hit the road with his horse and buggy, loaded up with his tin-can samples. He tried desperately to make the dull business of axle grease seem more amusing, composing little songs and ditties about it and always remembering to bring Maud back an amusing tale from the road.

  Four months later, Maud realized that she was expecting her second child, and Frank rented a larger house in Syracuse for their growing family to live in. Their life was settling in. Their days on the road were clearly now behind them, and Maud was beginning to convince herself that Frank had adjusted to their new life.

  One day, some of Matilda’s relations came to visit, bringing with them several young children. Maud heard excited laughter coming from the parlor. She slipped quietly through the doorway to find that Frank had rigged up a curtain and was performing a one-man show. He had invented a character, a man made of tin who was left out in the woods and couldn’t move until all of his joints were greased up with Baum’s Castorine Oil.

  “But why is he made of tin?” one of the children piped up, eyes wide.

  Frank turned to the boy in utter seriousness. “Oh, he wasn’t always made of tin,” he said. “Once he was flesh and blood, like you and me.”

  “What happened?” another small boy cried out.

  “Well, you see, he was a woodcutter by trade, but unfortunately, he was clumsy. He kept accidentally cutting off parts of his body.” Frank mimed the hacking off of a leg, followed by an arm. “And each time he cut off a part, he went to the tinsmith, who made him a new arm or a leg out of tin. Until there was nothing left. He was entirely made of metal.”

  “What about his head?” one of the children asked.

  “His head, too!” Frank said. “Head, body, arms, legs—entirely made out of tin, just like a tin can. Was quite inconvenient when it rained, as he would start to rust. And the only thing that would save him was…”

  “Baum’s Castorine Oil!” they all cried together as Frank held one of the cans aloft.

  The oldest of the four children, however, looked skeptical and spoke up. “But if his entire body was made out of tin just like a tin can, then he was empty.”

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “As hollow as an old tree trunk that’s been struck by lightning.”

  “But that’s not possible,” she insisted.

  Frank bent down on one knee in front of the girl. “Not possible?” He mimed extreme surprise.

  “Because if he were hollow, he would have no heart!”

  “Indeed,” Frank said. “He had no heart. And, you know, a man who gives up his heart is little better than a tin can…and all the Baum’s Castorine in the world couldn’t make him better. That’s why he was so determined to find one. Sometimes, when the tin woodman leaves home, when he goes on the road, leaving his family to sell his chopped wood, he feels so hollow he bangs on his chest, just to hear the echo inside. That’s what it’s like to be a man of tin. It’s very lonely.”

  At that moment, Frank caught sight of Maud, and his face flushed crimson. He leapt to his feet, smoothing back a lock of hair that had fallen onto his face.

  “Well, there you are, Maud! We’re just having a bit of fun here.”

  Maud smiled, but right then she knew she had a heart, because she could feel it breaking. She remembered the image of Frank standing on the stage in Syracuse, bathed in luminous light, when he had seemed to be ten feet tall. The work of a traveling salesman was honorable and it kept a roof over their heads, but she knew it did not delight his heart.

  CHAPTER

  13

  HOLLYWOOD

  1939

  It had been weeks since the appearance of the mysterious coat, and Maud could say for certain that it had conjured no magic, at least for her. The long process of filming was well underway, and she had yet to get her hands on a script, or even get a peek at one, so she was no closer to knowing whether she had succeeded in protecting the Dorothy of Frank’s creation.

  She continued to show up on the M-G-M set day after day, in the hope that something would occur to her, or perhaps that she would find some elusive sign that could point her in the right direction.

  A few weeks after her lunch with Judy, Maud was waiting outside Sound Stage 27 for the red light to go off when a lanky form darted around the corner. Langley! He was about to disappear down another of M-G-M’s labyrinthine alleys when she called out to him.

  He turned in surprise, then bounded back toward her.


  “Why, hello there—Mrs. Baum, isn’t it?”

  “How nice to see you again.” As she had hoped, a copy of the paperbound script was tucked under his elbow. “How is the script coming along? All finished now?”

  “Hardly,” he said. “It’s a work in progress.” He flipped it open, revealing a page crisscrossed with strike-throughs in blue pencil.

  “Mind if I take a look? I might have some insights—coming from the book, you know.” Maud reached toward it.

  Just then, the red light flickered off, and the stage door burst open. Out came Jack Haley, the Tin Man, in full uniform—his silver makeup blinding in the sunny alley.

  Maud took her eyes momentarily from the script, only to find that Langley was slipping it into his valise.

  “Afraid not, Mrs. Baum. Script is embargoed. Short list of people outside the cast are allowed to see it—and that list comes straight from the top. But do let me know if you think of something important. I’d be happy to take it under consideration.” Langley nodded to the Tin Man, spun on his heel, and bounded away. Maud stood, arms akimbo, wishing like all hellfire that she weren’t old, that she were wearing short pants and could tear off after him and steal the script, as she would have done as a young girl. Alas, Maud was attired in a floral A-line dress, stockings, and sturdy pumps, and Langley had a good head start. Going after him would be futile.

  It took a moment for Maud to notice that the costumed Tin Man was looking at her with interest.

  “Hello there,” the silver fellow said affably. He flicked his head in the direction Langley had disappeared, then stuck a cigarette between black-painted lips. “Writers. They’re all one-eyed sons-of-bitches—beg pardon, ma’am.” He stretched out a silver-gloved hand. “Jack Haley.”

  “Mr. Haley. You must be the fellow who replaced Buddy Ebsen? How’s he doing, do you know?”

  “Poor guy. Got an allergic reaction to the makeup and ended up in an iron lung. Now, that’s what I’d call a tin man.”