Prima Donna at Large

by Barbara Paul

  I tried not to laugh; that only encouraged him. “Shame on you, Rico!” I exclaimed. “Nobody must see that!” I reached for the drawing.

  But Scotti whipped it away before I could tear it up. “Oh, I like this, Rico! I like it assai molto! May I keep it?”

  “Sí, certo,” the tenor said expansively.

  I made a mental note to steal the drawing from Scotti the first chance I got. “Well, I’m going home now,” I announced. “I’ve been here all morning, and I want to get some rest before I start vocalizing.”

  Scotti wanted to see me home, but I knew better than to let him come with me just then.

  Jimmy Freeman’s first and last performance in Madame Sans-Gêne was … satisfactory. He made no mistakes, neither vocally nor in his stage movements. But he didn’t bring the audience to its feet either. The role itself simply wasn’t good enough to create that kind of effect, and Jimmy wasn’t seasoned enough a performer to make something more out of it. Pasquale Amato gave the role some personality when he sang it, but Amato had years of experience behind him. The overall performance of Madame Sans-Gêne was a rousing success, however, because I was marvelous. It’s a soprano’s opera; that’s why I was singing it.

  Jimmy was pleased with himself, however; he accepted everyone’s congratulations with a glow on his cheek and a sparkle in his eye. I gave him a light kiss and made a dinner date with him for the following evening.

  “Where?” he asked eagerly.

  I was going to suggest Sherry’s—but Sherry’s was right across the street from Delmonico’s, and I didn’t want to remind Jimmy of that time he’d behaved so badly in the other restaurant. “You choose.”

  “What about Sherry’s? I’ll reserve a table.”

  Osgood Springer was watching all the fuss being made over his pupil with a wry smile on his lips. I left Jimmy to some new congratulators and motioned his vocal coach aside. “All right, so it wasn’t a standard-setting performance,” I said. “But you’re not going to tell him that, are you, Mr. Springer?”

  “There’s no point,” he shrugged. “James will never sing the role again.”

  “It wasn’t a wasted effort, you know,” I lectured him. “Jimmy has more experience now than he did twenty-four hours ago. And exposure—don’t underestimate the value of exposure. The more the audiences hear him, the better off he’ll be.”

  “Yes, I understand all that, Miss Farrar. But what now? What comes next?”

  I had no answer for him.

  The next evening while I was dressing for my dinner date with Jimmy, David Belasco telephoned. “Morris did slip backstage before the first act of Carmen,” he told me, “while I thought he was in the gentlemen’s restroom. But he won’t tell me why.”

  “Well, well, isn’t that interesting,” I murmured.

  “He may be seeing another woman,” Belasco said darkly.

  “At the Metropolitan? Where everybody knows him? And with you in the building? David, that would be the last reason he’d sneak backstage!”

  He laughed. “Perhaps you’re right. So far as I know, Morris has always been faithful to my daughter. But there’s always a first time.”

  “Always? How depressing. But didn’t Morris even give you a hint?”

  “Nothing. The more I questioned him, the more nervous he became—but he just wouldn’t say.”

  I thanked him for letting me know and hung up. I suppose I should have felt relieved that Jimmy was no longer the only suspect, but it was like trading in one friend for another.

  About an hour later I arrived at Sherry’s to find Jimmy had booked a private room; so much for Scotti’s instructions to surround myself with hundreds and thousands of people. But I had no reason to fear Jimmy. Nobody had any reason to fear him, I was positive of that. Jimmy looked nervous and determined at the same time—oh dear, not a proposal, I hoped.

  We dined on salmon in aspic and beef à la périgourdine and artichoke hearts and endive soufflé and we drank far too much champagne. We’d both relaxed considerably by the time the waiters brought in the apricot tart. Jimmy’s eyes were glistening from the wine and maybe something else that I didn’t think was indigestion and I was feeling giddy and rather boneless and we both laughed all the time. I decided I liked detective work.

  When the waiters had brought us still another bottle of champagne (the third? the fourth?) and had discreetly withdrawn, Jimmy seized my hand and went through an elaborate throat-clearing process that I thought was hilarious. I laughed and laughed.

  “Don’t laugh,” he laughed, “I have something serious to say.” He hiccuped. “’Scuse me.”

  “You’re ’scused.” I had a rather bad case of the giggles. “How can you be serious at a time like this?”

  He cleared his throat again ha ha. “I didn’t feel I could say anything before ha ha,” he laughed, “but things are ha ha different now.”

  “Tell me hee hee how things are different now hee hee,” I giggled.

  “Ha ha now I, I am a princ’pal singer too, ha, and more ha ha worthy of your hand ha!”

  “Oh, you poor innocent lamb!” I sobbed.

  “Don’t cry. Don’t laugh either ha ha. Jus’ listen, ha.”

  “Somebody drank our wine hee hee.”

  Jimmy filled our glasses and lifted his in an unsteady toast. “To Geraldine Farrar—the mos’ beaushiful woman inna worl’. Ha ha I meannit.” He tossed off his glass; me, I couldn’t seem to stop laughing. Fortified, Jimmy said in his best forthright manner, “Will you gerry me, Mary?”

  That struck us both as uproarious and we went off into new gales of laughter. “I don’t believe hee hee I’ve ever gerried anyone before,” I hee-heed.

  “Then ha don’t you think it’s ha ha time you gave it a try ha ha ha ha?”

  “Hee hee why did you say you didn’t get into costume early for Carmen hee hee when you did hee hee hee?”

  “’Cause Misser Springer tol’ me to ha ha ha!”

  “Mr. hee hee Springer?”

  “You ’member ol’ Ossie Springer, doncha? Ha ha you dint answer my queshion ha ha may I call you mine, Gerry?”

  “Mine Gerry? That sounds like a funny name hee hee but you can call me Mine Gerry if you want to hee hee hee.”

  “Mine Gerry Farrar!” Jimmy sang—and slipped under the table.

  I waited three or four days but he didn’t come back up, so I pressed the button that summoned the waiter. When he came in I said, “We have a small problem,” and pointed to Jimmy sleeping peacefully under the table.

  The staff at Sherry’s was well used to dealing with such small problems. Fortunately Jimmy and I had arrived separately; the maître d’ fetched both our chauffeurs, and the two of them managed to get Jimmy out through a side door I hadn’t even known was there.

  Once Jimmy was safely on his way home, my chauffeur asked me, “Are you all right, Miss Farrar?”

  “Never better,” I said, managing to swallow the hee hee in time, and climbed unsteadily into the limousine. “Number eighteen West Seventy-fourth Street,” I told the chauffeur grandly, just as if the man hadn’t been working for me the past four years.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I was aware of was the chauffeur’s hand on my shoulder and his voice saying, “We’re home, Miss.”

  I declined his offer of assistance, because I didn’t want it all over town the next day that Geraldine Farrar had arrived home so drunk she couldn’t walk without help. I sailed into the building, trilled hello to the night doorman and one of the other residents standing there, and survived the elevator ride up without falling back to sleep.

  But the whole business of locks and keys was beyond me, and one of the maids was sure to be up. I couldn’t find the doorbell so I knocked at my own door, which was opened immediately—by Enrico Caruso.

  “Where have you been?” he shouted. “Do you know what time it is? For hours I am waiting! You find out something, yes? Tell me what happens!”

  “I think I’m e
ngaged to Jimmy Freeman,” I said, and collapsed into his arms.

  13

  Even when I do foolish things like stay up too late and eat too much and drink too much and flirt with intoxicated young men, I still can’t sleep late the following morning. The following morning—are there three more depressing words in the English language? So at my usual hour I dragged myself out of bed and told Bella to run a hot bath. But first she helped me navigate the hundred miles between my bedroom and the dining room; I sank down at the table.

  And found I had a guest. Across from me Caruso was heartily attacking a steak with two fried eggs on top of it. My stomach turned over at the smell. “Juice,” I told Bella. “Grapefruit, tomato, orange, even lemon if we have it.” I asked Caruso if he’d been there all night.

  “Certainly not!” He sounded scandalized. “I take care of you last night and now I come back to see how you are. How are you?”

  “My head feels twice its normal size and my stomach’s queasy and my arms and legs seem to be made out of rubber. Other than that, I’m fine, thank you. Why don’t you eat that in the kitchen?”

  “Here is satisfactory, grazie. I think perhaps you do not feel so wonderful this morning so I bring you a little something.” He stuck two fat fingers into his waistcoat pocket and drew out a small paper envelope, which he unfolded to reveal a mound of white crystals. He poured me a glass of water from the pitcher on the table and dumped in the medicine, which immediately started to bubble furiously. “Good for the head and the stomach. Does nothing, sfortunamente, for rubber arms and legs.”

  I waited until the noise of the bubbling had subsided to a tolerable level and drank down Caruso’s hangover remedy. Not that I had a hangover, you understand; I just wasn’t feeling too well. And after drinking the cure, I was feeling even worse. “I think I’m sicker,” I said. Just then Bella brought me a big glass of tomato juice with something added, and that helped.

  “Mr. Freeman telephoned earlier,” Bella said, “while you were still asleep. He said he’d call back later.” I thanked her and waved her away.

  Caruso polished off his steak and eggs and poured us both some coffee. “You are feeling better, yes? Now you tell me about your tête-à-tête with Jimmy?”

  “What day is it?”

  “Thursday. Why?”

  I groaned. “I’m singing Butterfly Saturday afternoon. I’ll never make it.”

  “Now, Gerry, you must pull yourself up with the bootstraps. We have nice long talk—”

  “Oh, Rico, I haven’t even had my bath yet.” I stood up, with effort. “I’m going to go soak for a while and then we’ll talk.”

  He pushed back from the table. “We talk while you soak—I come with you.”

  “You’ll do no such thing!”

  “I sit on nice chair in hallway and talk to you through bathroom door—which you leave open a little, yes?”

  Well, that sounded all right. I let him pick out his own nice chair while I went into the bathroom. Bella had poured bath salts into the water, but the scent that was normally so pleasing for some reason seemed sickeningly sweet just then. But when I got into the tub, it felt soooo good that I didn’t mind the smell. After a while I started feeling better; I could even feel my bones again.

  “So?” Caruso said impatiently from the hallway. “Do you ask Jimmy why he tells lies about getting into costume early?”

  “I asked him.”

  “And?”

  I would have preferred a little time to think about what it meant first. “He said Osgood Springer told him to.”

  There was a brief silence, and then a whoop that made my head ring. “Osgood Spring-er!” Caruso sang, inserting a little cadenza between the Spring and the er. “You were right, Gerry! Osgood Springer—he is our man!”

  “I never said Osgood Springer was guilty!” I snapped. “Why do you persist in saying that?”

  “But it fits, Gerry, it fits! Jimmy Freeman does everything his Mr. Springer tells him, no? Osgood Springer is behind it all!”

  Just then Bella came and tapped at the bathroom door. “Mr. Freeman is on the telephone, Miss Farrar.”

  Oh dear—I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. “Tell him I’m in the bath and I’ll call him back.”

  When she’d gone, Caruso asked, “What are you going to tell him?”

  “The truth. That we both had a little too much to drink last night and I’m not thinking about marriage just now.”

  “Ah, poor Jimmy! Another broken heart you leave behind you! Callous Gerry!” he laughed.

  “I am not callous,” I protested. “Things just got a little out of hand, that’s all.”

  Bella was back. “A Mr. Springer is here to see you.”

  I could hear Caruso gasp. His favorite suspect, right there in the next room! “I can’t see him now,” I objected.

  “But I can,” Caruso said eagerly. “Show him back, please. Che fortuna! Now we can ask him questions! Where is another chair …?” I could hear him moving something—and then there was a light crash, as of glass breaking. “Oh, scusi, scusi—I buy new one!”

  New one what? “Rico—”

  “Shh! He comes.” He greeted Mr. Springer and offered him a chair, and explained that he and I were talking through the bathroom door.

  Springer adjusted to the arrangement immediately. “I come to offer my best wishes, Miss Farrar. James tells me you and he are to be married?” Yes, definitely a question mark at the end of that sentence; he didn’t quite believe it.

  That made things easier. “I’m afraid there’s been a little misunderstanding, Mr. Springer. We’d been drinking champagne all evening and perhaps I didn’t make myself as clear as I should have. But I have no plans for marriage right now.”

  “Ah, I was afraid it would be something like that,” he sighed.

  Afraid? He wanted me to marry Jimmy? Well, being married to a star certainly wouldn’t hurt his pupil’s career any. Or perhaps he just meant he was afraid Jimmy was going to be hurt. “He thinks I said yes, then?”

  “He is definitely under that impression, Miss Farrar. I cautioned him not to say anything until he’d spoken to you again, but you know what young men in love are like. James does plan to call on you this morning.” A small laugh. “As soon as he is able to walk.”

  “This is all most unfortunate, Mr. Springer. But don’t say anything to Jimmy, will you? Telling him is my duty.”

  He agreed. Then a silence developed, a rather uncomfortable one. Caruso, who’d been so eager to question Jimmy’s mentor, didn’t seem able to think of anything to say. Springer was starting to make those sounds people make when they’re preparing to leave when a familiar voice shouted “Where is she?”

  Scotti! And he sounded angry. Had he heard …?

  He had. “Come out of there subito and explain yourself! What do you think you do, Miss Geraldine Farrar? You dangle me on the string and then marry little boy? Come out!”

  For a moment there I thought he was going to come bursting right into the bathroom, but I’d made it clear to him years ago that the one place in the world where a person was entitled to absolute privacy was the bathroom. “Toto, it’s all a mistake,” I called out. “Do calm down. I’m not marrying anybody.”

  “Not anybody?!” he roared.

  “I mean I’m not marrying Jimmy Freeman. How did you hear about it anyway? Just relax, Toto—I’ll be out shortly.”

  Caruso was talking to him in Italian and then Springer was working on him in English, and between the two of them they eventually persuaded Scotti there was no need to declare war on either me or Jimmy Freeman. I heard another chair being moved into place. It must be getting crowded out there in the hallway; ah well, the bathwater was beginning to cool anyway.

  “Gerry,” Scotti said in a more reasonable voice, “are you mad at Rico?”

  “At Rico? No, why?”

  “Oh, pieces of broken vase—all over the floor here.”

  I’d stepped out of the tub and was starting to
dry myself when Bella tapped at the door again. “Miss Farrar, someone from The New York Times is calling on the telephone. He wants to know if it’s true you are marrying James Freeman.”

  That set Scotti off again. “Tell him no it is not true!” he bellowed. “Per la vita mia! Now the newspapers! Eh, what next?”

  “Find out where he got his information!” I called after Bella.

  “I think I can tell you that,” Osgood Springer said. “James was so excited this morning that he started telephoning everyone he knew with the good news. I have no doubt they too told other people and … I finally persuaded James to stop, but by then the word was already out.”

  So Jimmy liked to kiss and tell, but in the end he still obeyed Mr. Springer. I covered my body with dusting powder and slipped into a robe, a lovely silk Oriental kimono, a gift from an admirer who’d been impressed by my Madame Butterfly. Madame Butterfly—Saturday afternoon. I was beginning to think I might make it after all.

  I heard a low murmur from the hallway, and then Caruso said, in a surprisingly small voice, “You have another visitor, Gerry—I think you come out now?”

  Guess who. I opened the door and said, “Hello, Lieutenant.” O’Halloran was standing facing the bathroom door; Caruso, Springer, and Scotti were seated in a row along the wall. Caruso looked anxious, Springer looked out of place, and Scotti looked like Mt. Etna. I could hear the telephone ringing. “An official visit, Lieutenant? Or have you taken to making social calls?”

  He grinned crookedly, his ever-present derby dangling from one hand. “Well, Miss Farrar, it’s like this. When my two favorite suspects announce they’re getting married, it seems only fitting for me to drop by and offer my congratulations.”

  Scotti jumped to his feet. “They do not marry! Misericordia!”

  Springer rose more slowly, looking shaken. “Your two favorite suspects?”

  Caruso placed himself between me and the police detective. “Lieutenant O’Halloran, that is not nice, saying thing like that,” he scolded. “Are you not ashamed?”