City of Flickering Light

by Juliette Fay

  Henry had spent many days in his zayde’s shop doing the “child’s play,” as the old man liked to joke: the popped buttons, the split seams, the ripped hems. Henry couldn’t create an entire suit from mere fabric and thread as his zayde could, but he could mend a seam with his eyes closed.

  “Very nice, very smooth,” said Albert, running a finger across the right side of the fabric when Henry was done. He hung the dress on a hanger and hooked that onto the pole that ran from one end of the small room to the other. “Nineteen dollars a week,” he said. “And you start right now.”

  Nineteen wasn’t bad. Henry knew he could do worse. But sewing wasn’t the only thing he’d learned from his multitalented grandfather. “Twenty-six,” he said. “And a lunch break.”

  “Well, la-di-da,” said Albert. “Shall I pour you some tea, Your Majesty?”

  Henry sat very still and didn’t blink. He let a little smile play across his mouth, as his grandfather always did when he went to buy fabric in the garment district. That unblinking smile said, I’m a nice guy, but I’m prepared to haggle you into a stupor.

  Albert crossed his arms and glared. “Twenty-one and you spend your first week’s salary on decent clothing.”

  “Twenty-three,” said Henry. “And I start right now, spend my first week’s salary on clothes . . . and I get a lunch break.”

  “Oh for godsake, what’s the obsession with lunch!”

  “I like lunch. And I like you, Albert. You seem like a smart guy and a good tailor, and I’d like to work for you. For twenty-three dollars a week. And a lunch break.”

  Henry found his way to the hiring office on the opposite side of the lot and got the paperwork completed, then returned to do the diminutive man’s bidding for several hours. When it was almost noon, he asked for his hard-won lunch break and hustled out across the lot, hoping he had enough time to make it to Mama Ringa’s and back.

  10

  You’re too little and too fat, but I might give you a chance.

  D. W. Griffith, director, writer, producer, to a then unknown Mary Pickford

  He’s got a head like a cantaloupe and he can’t act.

  D. W. Griffith, referring to Douglas Fairbanks. Griffith, Pickford, Fairbanks, and Chaplin, four of the most successful people in the industry, formed United Artists in 1919.

  “Henry!” called Millie suddenly as they walked sore-footed up Hollywood Boulevard. When they’d gone to the YMCA to meet him, no one had seen him all morning. Wandering around looking for him, they’d ended up at the other end of Sunset, at Chaplin Studios on La Brea.

  After searching the Chaplin lot for some time, they had finally been pointed in the direction of the little window where the extras were supposed to register, but the man there shooed them away. “We’re full up for girls,” he’d said.

  “But couldn’t we just put our names on the list?” Irene had asked.

  “Listen, sister, have you ever been to a Charlie Chaplin movie?”

  “Yes, of course!”

  “Well then you know that it’s mostly fellas, with one or two dames thrown in. We just don’t need ya.”

  The night before, as they were washing dishes, Mama Ringa had told them that dancing was the best way for a girl to get noticed, and suggested a little too enthusiastically that they go to The Hollywood Harem and apply. “My brother owns it,” she’d said, “so I can put in a good word.”

  Now trudging back down Hollywood Boulevard toward Ringa’s, it wasn’t the bountiful shop windows or the fancy cars Irene noticed, it was the multitude of other girls just like them, bright faced, dressed in their best, and heading to the studios . . . and those wearing hard looks and shabby clothes loitering on the side streets.

  “Maybe we should try that Harem place,” said Millie, as if reading her mind.

  “It’s taxi-dancing, Millie,” said Irene. “You think anyone’s going to notice you making ten cents a dance while some sweaty man runs his hands all over you?”

  It had been that kind of morning.

  Irene had been about to vent her anxiety and frustration on Henry with “Where in the hell have you been!” but Millie’s excitement at seeing their errant friend reminded her that he was, in fact, a friend, and one she needed. She let out a huff and muttered, “Nice of you to turn up.”

  He was breathing hard, as if he’d been running. “I’m so sorry!” he said, “I don’t have much time, but I had to get here and tell you: I got a job!”

  “That’s fantastic!” said Millie.

  “Where?” said Irene.

  “Olympic, down on Sunset and Bronson. Just as an assistant tailor in costume, but it’ll pay my bills, so you two can make that tea set money last longer. And it gets me in the door. Then maybe I can get you in the door with me.”

  Irene felt relief surge through her.

  “See, Irene,” he said, gently. “It’s going to work out.”

  She nodded and looked away to hide the gratitude in her eyes.

  “How do we get in, Henry?” said Millie. “What do we do?”

  “You still have that wedding gown, right?”

  “Oh, Henry,” said Millie, taken aback. “That’s very . . . I mean I’m flattered, but isn’t that a bit . . . extreme? Shouldn’t I take more than a morning to try and make it on my own?”

  Henry’s mouth dropped open slightly. “I’m not offering to marry you, Millie!”

  “Oh! Oh my gosh! I thought . . .” Her hands flew up to her mouth, and Irene wondered for a moment if Millie was disappointed, or at the very least embarrassed. Then a howl of laughter burst out of her that made birds fly out of the trees nearby. “Henry!” she gasped. “You and me . . . and that dress!” She doubled over laughing, and soon Irene and Henry were laughing, too.

  At Olympic Studios, Henry helped them find the registration office, where they waited in line for an hour just to be interviewed for two minutes. After name and address, questions began with age and weight. They watched as many a heavyset thirty-year-old shaved those numbers down quite nicely. Bust and waist measurements were also adjusted accordingly, though Irene saw the skepticism on the registrar’s face and the small notes she made next to the “official” numbers that prospective extras reported. There were also questions as to whether the girl could ride a horse, drive a car, climb a rope, dance, fence, swim, and whether she owned any costumes.

  When it was Millie’s turn she smiled sweetly. “I’m nineteen years old, five-foot-three, a hundred and fourteen pounds, thirty-four bust, twenty-eight waist, and I grew up on a horse farm, so I can ride any horse at any speed, drive a car, truck, or tractor, and climb a rope. I can dance and swim, but I can’t fence—yet! And I’ve got this.” Millie slid her hands over the lace bodice of the wedding dress she wore.

  The woman actually laughed. “Well if we have any pictures with bronco-busting brides, you’ll be the first girl we call!”

  Irene’s responses were shorter, unfortunately. “I’m twenty-one, five-foot-five, a hundred twenty-two pounds, thirty-four bust, twenty-nine waist, and I can’t do any of those things except dance. I do have widow’s weeds . . .” and she gave a little half-hearted smile. The registrar responded with a sympathetic look and set her gaze on the next girl in line. Irene noted, however, that she had made no additional notes.

  At least she knows we’re not liars, she thought.

  The rumple-suited assistant director stopped short when he saw Millie in the wedding gown, the veil arranged artfully in her hair, as she sat next to Irene on one of the benches. “You come straight from the ceremony?” he asked.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Millie, widening her eyes at him until she could think of the next thing to say. “I’m heading there after I work for you.”

  His stony face broke into a quick grin.

  “And who’s this? Your poor old widowed mother?”

  “My dear friend whose husband died in a . . .” She looked at Irene. “How did he die?”

  “It was a . . . a train wreck.” I
rene looked sorrowfully up at the assistant director. “He was the engineer, and the brakes went, and he had to stay on the train and try and keep it from derailing in the middle of a crowded depot. And he did, but it derailed anyway a mile outside of town.” She had read a story like this in the newspaper a couple of months back.

  “Jesus, sorry kid,” said the man and continued walking down the bench of extras.

  “So much for the milk of human kindness,” muttered Irene.

  “At least it wasn’t true,” said Millie. “It’s not, right?”

  “Don’t you think if I had a dead train engineer husband, you’d know about it?”

  Millie considered this for a moment. “No, I don’t think I necessarily would. You’re not the type to tell your secrets, Irene.”

  Irene shifted on the bench, feeling the heat of the sun as if it were a physical weight on her head and chest. “I don’t really have any,” she said.

  “I guess they’re not secrets then,” said Millie. “I guess they’re just things you don’t tell anyone.”

  Irene had to admit there was some truth to that. She’d spent three years avoiding her past, only to find it was like trying to outrun your shadow. No matter how far or fast you ran, there it was, attached to you.

  Not unlike Millie, Irene mused, though Millie was no shadow. More like one of those little birds that rides along happily on the back of a rhinoceros. Which makes me the rhino.

  Irene sighed. “What would you like to know?”

  Millie blinked at her a moment, her face placid, but Irene got the strange sense that Millie was carefully sifting her thoughts. “Well, everything I guess,” she said finally.

  So much for sifting. Irene laughed. “Blue.”

  “Blue? What’s blue?”

  “My favorite color.”

  “Jeepers, who cares about that?” said Millie. “Tell me about your family.”

  Irene knew Millie would pester her until she said something. “Well, I lived with my aunt and uncle.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “My mother died in childbirth. Two at a time was too much for her. And I suppose our father was overwhelmed at having two little babies to care for, so he gave us to his sister. He didn’t even name us. She did. She always used to say, ‘I gave you both names that start with I because I want you to be individuals.’ But there was no ‘I,’ really. It was always ‘we.’ ”

  “A twin!” Millie clapped her hands together.

  “Identical, in fact.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Ivy.”

  “Ivy and Irene. Is she just like you?”

  Irene chuckled. “Not at all. My uncle used to say, ‘Ivy’s got the talent; Irene’s got the grit.’ ”

  “Talent for what?”

  “Singing, dancing. Making people smile. Just general happiness, I guess.”

  “She’s a performer.”

  “We both were. My uncle took us on the road. On the vaudeville circuit. We were Ivy and Irene, The Sweet Sister Songbirds.”

  The Sweet Sister Songbirds. Irene had thought she would never be able to say those words aloud again. But sitting here with Millie, who listened patiently and didn’t seem to have a judgmental bone in her body . . . it wasn’t as soul bruising as she’d thought it would be.

  “I’ve never heard you sing.”

  “Because I’m not very good at it. I always had to sing the melody because I never could figure out how to harmonize. That was Ivy’s job. She was a better dancer, too. So I danced and sang my best, and no one ever knew she was the one making the whole thing work because we looked exactly alike. I got half the credit, but I should only have gotten a quarter—if any, really.”

  “Why was it your uncle who took you?”

  “Our aunt had a good, steady job as a secretary, and she thought we’d be safer with a man to look out for us.”

  It was more information than she’d given out about herself in years, and she had the feeling that she was rattling on like some shut-in desperate for company. She’d said enough, she decided. But there was Millie, gazing at her placidly, neither shocked nor pitying.

  “And now Ivy’s—?”

  Irene looked away. What was Ivy now? An angel? A cloud? Just another set of bones buried in the dirt?

  “We had the Spanish flu. And God chose her.”

  A current of sorrow passed over Millie’s face. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  Irene would’ve given anything to erase the memory of that hotel room where they’d faced death side by side. The Montvale in Spokane. They’d been playing The Empress Theatre when Irene had collapsed onstage. Ivy had taken ill soon thereafter.

  “My name was the last word she said. I’ve often thought of that. How a person’s last words can sort of . . . I don’t know . . . sum it all up. Like ‘The End’ when you finish a story. I summed it all up for her. But I’m still here, and I don’t really know what my summary will be. It should have been her. But now it can’t be, because I’ve lived three whole years without her. My story went on.”

  “I’m glad of that.”

  “I guess I’d be gladder if I knew what I was here for. I always thought I was here to be Ivy’s Irene. But that job’s over.”

  “You’re my Irene, now.”

  It was a sweet thing for Millie to say, and Irene smiled indulgently. She wished she believed it, but it was hard for her to fathom that she would truly belong to anyone ever again. She hoped she would someday. And maybe that was the difference. Before she’d jumped off that train, she hadn’t even wanted to.

  “Why didn’t you go home?” asked Millie.

  “I just couldn’t.”

  Millie nodded. “Because it was too full of Ivy.”

  “I knew if I saw our home and our town and all the places we went together, I was sure I would’ve just . . .”

  “Started crying and never stopped.”

  “It sounds silly, but I couldn’t—”

  “It’s not silly. You were sad, Irene. Just too sad.”

  “My aunt never forgave me for not going home for the funeral, but my uncle understood. He knew the I in our names never meant individual.” Irene sighed. “So he let me join up with a chorus line, but when the show disbanded . . . I didn’t really have the talent to get much better than back row. And then I ran out of money . . .”

  “And then Chandler found you. He has a knack for getting a girl at her low point.”

  “Does he ever.”

  Millie snuggled closer on the bench and whispered in Irene’s ear, “Thank you for telling me all this. It means the world to me.”

  They sat there the rest of the afternoon with the fake cowboys and fake Indians, fake society girls and fake farmers. At least they thought they were fakes. Some of them seemed quite realistic. A tan-skinned man in a wide-brimmed black hat sat on a bench across the walkway. In his lap lay something folded up, made from soft leather. On top was something black—was that hair?—and a colorful strip of fabric. By the very fact of his not wearing the costume, he seemed more authentic than the man a couple of benches down who wore fringed pants and stripes of paint on his face that were streaked with sweat.

  By mid-afternoon, with the heat of the day baking through her dark clothes, Irene was thirsty and tired. Millie had pulled the veil over her face to shade herself from the sun’s rays, and every once in while a soft little snore whispered from behind it. Irene was about to pat her arm and suggest it was time to go when the assistant director made another round.

  He stopped in front of the man with the black hat. “You a real Indian?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m real.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Stars Lying Down.”

  “Not Running Bear or Dancing Elk or something?”

  The man scrutinized the assistant director for a moment. “What are you looking for?” he said. “Because I just need work.”

  “Doesn’t matter a whit to me. We just don’t want so
me guy holding up the shot because the face paint ain’t right.”

  “I won’t hold up the shot.”

  “You got any other names? What do your friends call you?”

  “Depends on the friends.”

  The assistant director chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, me, too.”

  “Dan,” said the man. “Dan Russell.”

  This seemed to reassure the assistant director immeasurably. “That your costume?”

  “I don’t wear it on the bench. There’s not much to it, and I don’t like to alarm the ladies.”

  He stood and tucked the leather bundle under his arm. He was a little shorter than Henry, slightly shy of six feet, Irene gauged, and his shoulders weren’t as broad. But there was something quietly powerful about the subtle yet efficient way he stretched his spine to get the kinks out from sitting so long. As he strode down the walkway toward her, he held his shoulders back, and she couldn’t help but watch the elegance of his gait.

  Too late, she realized she’d been caught gawking. He gave her a brief smile and nod of acknowledgment as he passed. She glanced away quickly, then looked up again once he’d walked on, and wondered what stars looked like lying down, here on Earth. Apparently they looked like him.

  11

  I’m sick of Cinderella parts, of wearing rags and tatters.

  I want to wear smart clothes and play the lover.

  Mary Pickford, actress, producer

  “You two,” said the girl with the tomato-colored hair when they straggled in to Ringa’s at the end of the day. “Want to make some dough?”

  “Yes!” said Millie.

  “Doing what?” asked Irene. This girl—Louise or Lorraine, Irene couldn’t remember which—was often out at night, probably working at that dance hall.