Girl About Town

by Adam Shankman

  “More like from the lean times to the leaner,” Frederick said.

  But with Ben’s knowledge of the hobo life to guide them, they didn’t fare too badly. Ben could find edible plants on every roadside and even in the cracks on city sidewalks. And they didn’t always have to live off the land. Many of the larger towns had soup kitchens and breadlines.

  “They’re so kind to feed us,” Frederick said at one charity kitchen at the edge of a prosperous neighborhood.

  “It ain’t kindness—it’s a kind of bribe,” Ben told him. “Poor people are scary. Rich folks think if they give us a little food, we won’t break into their homes.”

  Frederick gulped. “You never did that, did you?”

  “No need,” Ben assured him. “Plenty of people will invite you into their houses if you know how to ask the right way.”

  And so, Ben taught Frederick the noble art of the grift.

  “It’s a funny thing about folks,” Ben said. “They won’t be satisfied with a true sad story, no matter how pathetic it might be. Riding the rails for months, hacking my lungs up, not a soul to give me the honest work I ask for? Not good enough. But if I concoct a story of starving babies, or a father who lost his legs in the war, or pretend to be blind and cry that my seeing eye dog was just hit by a car, why, there’s a mess of suckers who will fork over cash or food. Just for the story.”

  “But it isn’t right to lie to them!”

  “Why not? Anyway, it’s not a lie—it’s entertainment. These farm folks, they can’t get to the movies. Give them a humdinger of a sob story and they’ll be talking about it for weeks.”

  Frederick wasn’t sure he believed Ben and vowed he’d stick to the truth. Well, maybe not the entire truth. He had to hide his real identity. Still, the truth of his current circumstances should be enough to persuade someone to give him a chance, or a meal.

  They’d left the city behind and were walking along a dry, dusty road heading roughly westward. They didn’t have an actual destination in mind, but like so many that year, they found themselves traveling toward the sunset. Dreams had died and hope had been crushed in the East, so now the West beckoned, singing its siren song.

  “Why don’t you try that one?” Ben suggested, pointing to a lone farmhouse set back from the road. It was a ramshackle place, but there was a lush garden along the side filled with carrots and cabbages. A cow with a heavy udder paced slowly in a movable pen of stakes and barbed wire.

  Frederick had never actually asked for a handout before. He’d approached similar farmhouses to ask for work, and sometimes even if there was no work to be had, a farmer—or more often the farmer’s wife or comely young daughter—would invite him in for a sandwich and a cup of milk. But Ben told him they had to be on the move. This middle part of the country was dangerous, he said. Drought and dust and despair; no jobs, no hope. They needed one coast or the other. They didn’t want to stop for work along the way if they could help it.

  Frederick walked up to the farmhouse. His back was straight from years of dancing and fencing lessons and from the pride and confidence in himself that had been instilled from birth. It was not the bearing of a beaten man, whatever his shabby seams, dirt, and leanness might say otherwise.

  He knocked at the door, and after a time a woman in a faded cotton dress answered. She gave him a quick once-over and declared, “I don’t want no insurance.”

  “Wait!” he said as she tried to slam the door in his face. “I’m not selling insurance.”

  “Whatever it is you’re selling, I don’t want any.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have anything to sell, ma’am. That’s the problem. You see, I’ve lost all my money. . . .” That was one way of putting it. “ And I’m heading to California, looking for work.”

  “No work for you, neither.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I’m hungry. I don’t have any money, but I was hoping that you might, out of kindness, you know . . .”

  “If you aim to rob me, there ain’t nothing left to rob.”

  “No, I only need food. Please, anything will do. The merest crust of bread. A stale canapé. A questionable oyster.”

  She squinted at him, and he was struck with the absurdity of it. Why, without a thought he could buy this woman’s house. All of her possessions would cost less than his last pair of shoes. He looked at the scrawny woman, middle-aged with graying hair springing out of its makeshift bun. He could leave all this hunger and poverty behind and reclaim his vast fortune. Wouldn’t that be better? He could give this poor, suspicious woman a thousand dollars without feeling it. He could give ten thousand such women a thousand dollars each, and it would still be less than his father gave to the Metropolitan Opera Company last year. She could buy a pump for her well and expand her garden, buy more cows. . . .

  He’d left his home, his father, his fortune in disgust. But had he cut off his nose to spite his own face, as that horrible expression went? If the money had been earned through greed and evil, couldn’t he redeem the filthy lucre by putting it to charitable use?

  “I know what you are,” the woman snapped suddenly. “You’re a bank agent, aren’t you? Come to see if I’m hiding any money. Tell your manager I done gave him all I can. I don’t have a cent nor a crumb of food for nary man nor beast. If he means to take the farm, he can take it, but I swear I gave him all I can.” Her anger dissolved and she started to weep, her tears making faint tracks in the layer of dust on her cheeks. “If he can just wait a bit, the cabbages are getting bigger, and . . . I can sell Bessie, what I raised from a calf. Please tell him I’m trying. Please ask him to give me just a little more time.”

  How many women like this had his father destroyed? Oh, not directly. He’d never been asked for mercy and refused it. He’d never bulldozed a house or led away a milk cow with his own hands. But he owned the banks that took back farms the minute a person got a little behind on payments.

  Dirty money can’t be cleaned, can’t be saved, Frederick decided. All I can save is my own soul.

  He bent down and slipped off his shoe, realizing only now that his clothes, however worn, were still better than any she might see in a year. No wonder she’d thought he was a salesman, a banker, an enemy.

  “Here,” he said, handing her the Morgan silver dollar that had been nestling in his arch for the last few weeks. A rich child out shopping with his mother, a regular Little Lord Fauntleroy in velvet and curls, had dropped it, and Frederick had retrieved it and run after them. After her initial alarm, thinking he meant to rob them, the mother was so surprised by his honesty that she told him to keep it. The child had gotten a dozen shining silver dollars for his birthday, and this would be a lesson for him to be more careful.

  Frederick had kept it safe all the while, partly in case of dire need, but also to remind himself that however hungry he might get, he was still a gentleman. He’d never steal, not even from the rich.

  Now he pressed the warm silver dollar into the woman’s hand. She tried to give it back.

  “It’s for you,” Frederick said. “I wish it could be more.”

  “I won’t do nothin’ unnatural for it,” the woman protested hotly. “I’m a good woman, I am!”

  “No, I didn’t mean . . . Never mind. Have a pleasant morning, ma’am.”

  “How’d you make out, mister?” Ben asked as Frederick rejoined him on the road. “Did she give you any food?”

  “No.”

  “What happened, then?”

  “I gave her my life savings.”

  “Hoo-boy!” Ben doubled over, slapping his thigh. “You do beat all, youngster. Here, I see a chimney a piece up. Follow me and don’t say a word. Just keep a grin on your face.”

  At the next house, if anything, poorer than the last, Ben told a pitiful tale about how his wife died of consumption, leaving him with a half-wit son who had been kicked in the head by a mule as a boy. “Say hello to the pretty lady, youngster.”

  Frederick just smiled.

&nb
sp; “Poor mite,” the woman said. “Yes, you can tell he’s simple just to look at him. You’re a good father. Set a spell and let me get you a mess of soup. Can your son feed himself? Does he drool? Here, I have a bib for him. There’s a good boy!” She patted Frederick on the head. It was mortifying . . . but the soup was delicious.

  NINE

  After a lunch of green turtle soup and crab gratin that came to an astonishing two dollars per person (paid for, apparently, by telling the waiter, “Lux Studios, darling”), Veronica took Lulu shopping. It was completely unlike any experience of a similar name she’d had at home. All her life, shopping had meant pawing through secondhand stores or nipping in the waist of one of her mother’s old dresses. Never before had it meant having a stylish woman with a French accent say “oui ” and “non” as lovely young models paraded in samples of the latest couture. A dozen items were selected for Lulu to try on.

  Between them, the Frenchwoman and Veronica settled on two lightweight summer dresses, one in flirty polka dots, the other white and blue, faintly reminiscent of a sailor suit. Both of those fit perfectly. They also selected a skirt suit in deep amethyst with exaggerated shoulders and attached gold-chain accents, and a black silk gown that made Lulu stammer and protest she could never possibly wear it.

  “What would I wear under it?” she gasped.

  “Rien,” the dressmaker said. “Nothing.”

  Lulu was relieved to learn that the last two outfits had to be altered. By that time, she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if Veronica had insisted she actually put on the black gown and flaunt herself in the street with absolutely nothing underneath.

  “There,” Veronica said as assistants bundled two big dress boxes into the Lux Studios car. “If we do that every day for two weeks, you’ll have enough to wear for this season.”

  “We do this again?” Who could need so many clothes?

  “You live by your looks, kiddo. Your face and figure are lovely—the men will enjoy that. But it’s the women who buy the most movie tickets and give you a boost in the Hollywood and glamour mags. They can’t hope to have your face and form, but they can all dream about having your clothes. You’ve got to be dressed to the nines every time you leave the house. Makeup, too. Even if you’re just taking a walk or repotting your geraniums. Always be camera ready. And don’t let them see you in the same outfit twice.”

  “But how will I ever pay for all those clothes?”

  “You don’t pay for them,” Veronica said.

  “Then who does?”

  “Nobody does, you booby. Madame Defarge there gives you the clothes, and you wear them and do your best to be seen and photographed in them. If you’re successful, in a few months you can go back and get another few suits and frocks. If you get a magazine spread and tell the world who you’re wearing, you might get free clothes for life. You’ll bring them business, you see. Women will want to dress like you.”

  “But I’m not famous yet. I might never be. I’m nobody!”

  “Lulu, you’ve been in this town three days and you already got a contract with a big studio and a cute role with a couple of actual words. You might not be anything much yet, but you’ve blown into town like Marion Davies riding a hurricane. Someone wants you to win. And when certain someones want it that badly, it happens. I love that you’re modest, honey, but face facts. You landed in the gravy and make no mistake—plenty of people are going to kiss up to you. Girls would kill for what you’ve got.”

  Lulu shuddered.

  Veronica noticed, but misread her emotion. “It’s a big deal, I know. If you play your cards right, you’ll be the toast of the town. I mean, you still have to earn it, more or less. You can’t have all the emotive skill of a potato, and a body to match. But if you have the right people behind you and a little natural talent, our studio trainers can do the rest. Here we are.”

  They had pulled up to a modernist home on the edge of town, a low building with unexpected angles and a lot of windows overlooking a wild landscape behind the house.

  “Is this one better or worse than Mrs. Wilberforce?” Lulu asked nervously.

  “Well . . . he won’t hit you with a stick. But he might make you even more uncomfortable in his own way. Vasily Anoushkin is considered one of the best acting and dialogue coaches in the business. He does at least a little work with everyone Lux hires on contract, and then if you’re any good, he’ll keep you on for advanced classes. A good word from him to the executives and you can get the plum roles. He’s the one to please. Just do whatever he says, no matter how ridiculous or unpleasant it may seem.”

  “Whatever he says?” Lulu asked, her eyes wide with alarm. Was he going to be one of the men her mother warned her about?

  Veronica looked at her for a long incredulous moment, then burst out laughing. “Oh, kid, plenty of people are going to try to get into your undies, but believe me, Vasily ain’t one of them. Though you might wish all he wanted out of you was a quick cuddle when he has you hunched over making believe you’re an old babushka for three hours, or lying on the ground until you’ve captured the convincing essence of a worm. Go on. I’ll pick you up later for dinner and take you back to your apartment.”

  When Lulu knocked, the door swung open on soundless hinges. Hesitantly, she let herself in and followed the sound of a deep, compelling male voice speaking in an accent she didn’t quite recognize. She’d heard many different languages and accents in polyglot New York, and this one resembled what she’d heard around the Yiddish theater district. It wasn’t Yiddish or Hebrew, though. Russian, maybe?

  She crept around a corner and found a tall, slender, elegant man who seemed designed to wear cashmere. He was declaiming before a small group of young men and women sprawled in decoratively serious attitudes on sofas, chairs, and even the floor.

  “As my personal mentor Konstantin Stanislavsky said, you must live the role. Where the actor can become the person he is portraying, there is no need for technique.” His emphatic verbal italics were accompanied by expressive hand gestures. He paced as he talked. “Even among the greatest actors, this may only happen in one role, or two. For the rest of you, you must train your body and mind and emotions until you can understand with exactitude the depth and breadth of the human experience. Because your audience will know when you lie! They will know and they will not give their dime to see you. What have we here? An ingénue?”

  Though he hadn’t turned to face her, he seemed to suddenly become aware of Lulu’s presence. “Do you see, students, if I cast this one as a timid fawn, a dying child, a heartbroken girl, she will shine. She will win the sympathy of the audience because that is what she is—a creature designed to win our sympathy. She needs no technique for that. But when I am through with her, she can also play the vixen, the harridan, the conqueror, and the queen. She will understand what it is to have steel deep inside one’s self, and she will not be lying when the script calls for her to shoot her lover and she squeezes the trigger without remorse. They will believe her!”

  He turned to Lulu at last. “Come forward. Who are you?”

  “Lucille . . . I mean Lulu.” What was her new last name again? “Lulu Kelly.”

  “Lulu,” he said. What a fascinating accent, the way he seemed to swallow her name. His speech was slower than she was used to, and heavy, somehow, as if each word had a gravity of its own. “Step forward, Lulu, and show us the depth of your emotional well.”

  Relieved, at least, that he didn’t have a riding crop, she crept up to stand beside him. She felt the eyes of the other students on her, sharp and curious, and tried to smile at them. The boys all grinned at her, except for one serious fellow in the back who was making notes in a calfskin book, and some of the girls did, too. One dark-haired beauty sitting practically at Vasily’s feet scowled briefly at her and then turned her adoring gaze back to Vasily.

  “Although not all of us have been murderers or victims in our lives, we may play murderers or victims on-screen. An actor must draw upo
n similar experiences in his own life in order to capture the emotional resonance of his role. Lulu!”

  She automatically stood up straighter, and some of the girls giggled.

  “Suppose you had to play a woman who was menaced by a gun-wielding criminal.”

  Lulu felt her chest tighten, her breath come in gasps. Control yourself, she whispered in her mind. He doesn’t know.

  “Of course this hasn’t happened to you. But you have no doubt been afraid of some little thing—a mouse, a noise in the night. Recall that time now. Relive the sensation of being afraid. Feel it utterly.”

  She saw the black hole of the gun barrel. She smelled the tang of blood, metallic and sweet in the air.

  Lulu shook her head and did her best to wipe her mind clear.

  “You must stand here before us until we are convinced you are feeling afraid. Do not act; do not force yourself to tremble. Just feel the fear inside you, and it will show on your face. We will know when it is true.”

  I can’t let myself think of that, but I have to think of something. When have I been afraid? When my father has his dreams and wakes me from sound sleep with a scream? No. Her father alarmed her, but she was never afraid of him.

  But she tried, closing her eyes and summoning up a safe kind of fear.

  “You are lying to us,” Vasily said. “You are not thinking of something that truly scares you. It must be real, inside you. If I tell you to say ‘cat’ and all the while you think ‘dog,’ then only ‘woof’ will be on your face.”

  Lulu combed her mind for another truly terrifying experience. All the while, Sal, the gun, the blood stalked her memory, waiting to pounce. Closer and closer the memory came. She couldn’t fight it anymore. . . .

  “She fainted!” a girl cried.

  The next thing Lulu was aware of was the rushing thrum of her heartbeat in her ears, rumbling and watery like a fitful river over rocks. Then other sounds came to her, voices of the students: