I Lost My Girlish Laughter

by Jane Allen

  TYSON: It’s her Spanish blood, boss.

  BRAND: You’re telling me? Well, boys, that’s enough for today. We’ve gone a long way and Tussler, it’s been great having you here. You were invaluable and at the rate we’re going we’re bound to have a gorgeous script. See you all tomorrow at the studio. Have a pleasant week-end….

  6

  It’s Wonderful to Be a Mother

  December 3

  Dear Liz:

  I have just become a mother so if you ever have a relapse and decide you are fed up on being an independent woman of the world and think that you need the little patter of feet to make you complete, harken to me.

  It is a great joy but it is all very expensive. You begin payment from the moment you start losing your figure. Once however you have passed through this trying ordeal, the real payoff commences. The attending physician will guarantee to bring little Oscar into the world for not a cent under $2,000. But there are consultants. These are very superior gentlemen who go into conference with your own physician and corroborate his testimony that you are really going to have a baby. That costs $50 a visit. The suite at the hospital is a mere $35 a day. There are also nurses, day and night ones, and a little thing called extras which usually becomes the main item on your bill.

  Now we come to the layette. If you have a lot of relatives, it is fairly simple but since you are supporting most of them you buy your own layette. This layette consists of all sorts of dresses and didies (monogrammed) and cummerbunds and whatnots, to say nothing of a beautiful English bassinet all upholstered in satin with fleecy tidbits to cover. All in all you can’t get out under a round thousand even though your baby will grow out of these in a few months.

  Then there is a nursery. Oh, I know you and I didn’t have one when we were toddlers, but have you ever fully considered the importance of sunshine to a growing child? Just tossing it out into the back yard isn’t going to help because it might get sunstroke or a variety of germs. So you summon a flock of architects to draw you some designs for a nursery all encased in a special infra-ray glass that will let in the good rays and keep out the evil ones. If you are lucky, you will pick the architect who has a sister-in-law who knows she would be a wow in pictures so instead of charging you the usual cost plus ten per cent plus anything else he can collect, he will just charge you a paltry five grand and guarantee that your child will have the most modern, up-to-date, germ-proof, fun-proof and burglar-proof mausoleum. Of course, there is a starched femme who must come home with little Oscar and is very costly and haughty and won’t let you near him for fear of contamination. Sometimes the awful thought strikes me that it is pure dumb luck that you and I are still alive and apparently in possession of most of our faculties.

  Six A.M. this morning I am routed out of my bed and rushed to the hospital in order to hold Mr. Brand’s hand. It seems he is disconsolate what with the hospital staff in Mrs. Brand’s room and nobody around to cheer him.

  For a quiet half hour I sit beside Mr. Brand and permit him to clutch my arm, while doctors and nurses flit past us with very grave faces, relaxing only occasionally to give the anxious father an indulgent smile or two. But little Oscar after the first fright reneges, probably chuckling to himself that already he has put one over on the old man.

  Everyone relaxes in general now with the exception of Mr. Brand who proceeds to have a nervous collapse and yells hoarsely for an M.D. A sedative is administered to him by the chief of staff himself and after a gurgle or two and a flutter of his eyelids, he decides to live. This makes for a nice pause so that Dr. X can engage Mr. Brand in conversation and ask him why it is that producers are all the time making medical pictures that are not authentic? Now he can tell Mr. Brand some stories about experiences he has had that would make the most marvelous pictures. Someday he says he will maybe take time off to do just that little thing, dash off a story or two just to show the industry. He knows he can write for he has published quite a lot of stuff already in the medical journals.

  Mr. Brand wears a strained expression something like a man who has just come out from under fire and is trying to readjust himself to normal life once more but doesn’t quite contact. He doesn’t appear to hear what the doctor is saying, which perhaps is just as well because he might become violent. I stare at my somnambulent boss and become perturbed. Maybe he will not come out of this coma. I recall cases of shell shock and remember that cures have been effected by rousing the patient through further shock. I toy with the idea of taking desperate measures and ponder on going into a cataleptic fit myself.

  Then like a sleepwalker awakening, Mr. Brand shudders. He makes a few pathetic passes with a limp hand over his face. Is it possible, I think, that this man can really be deeply affected like other normal human beings by the primitive forces of life?

  Then bingo! The Brand body shakes itself into reality and we are off! “Get me Wardrobe! Call off my luncheon appointment with Tarn; get me Cahan on long distance; find a room here where I can work; find a room where you can work (meaning me) get a room where Tussler and Skinner can work. I want them here!” I do not stop to question him. I do not say, “Mr. Brand, this is a hospital and not a hotel.” I fly. For it seems that not only am I to cooperate in having Mr. Brand’s baby, but I also must assist in keeping the wheels of production humming so that Sarya Tarn, like Oscar, can be launched. I am at the door when he yells, “…and have Palmer here ready to send out announcements to the papers about the baby!” So you can see he still remembers that he is going to become a father.

  I hie me to the business office. I want some rooms, I say, nice quiet rooms where our production staff can operate. The business office looks at me peculiarly. Now, now, they calm me. You don’t need a lot of rooms. All you need is a nice quiet bed and we can fix you up very comfortably in the ward. I see they think I am a mental case. I explain who I am and why we have to have some rooms. The words “Brand” and “pictures” are magic. Unfortunately, however, it seems the hospital is full of a lot of patients. There is a lady in maternity, though, who will be leaving shortly and Mr. Brand can have her room. In the meantime we will have to use the solarium. It is pleasant and sunny up there. I put in some calls for the studio and report back to S. B.

  He is in a complaining mood. He doesn’t like the way the hospital is run. The floors are slippery. Why don’t they have carpets? What if a nurse fell while carrying an infant?

  I quietly point out to him that hospitals must be antiseptic and that rugs are nice warm breeding places for germs.

  I think it is a good point. He thinks they could do something about it.

  I search for an antidote and hit upon the brilliant idea that he may be hungry. How about some breakfast? He brightens. So I telephone the kitchen and they are very cordial and say they will send up a tray immediately.

  While we wait I take down a few letters and complaints. When an orderly comes in with a tray, I give one sniff and feel faint myself for it is full of appetizing ham and eggs. But Mr. Brand doesn’t react favorably. He sneers. He can’t eat that stuff. Call the Brown Derby, he yells at me, and have them send up a mushroom omelette. Remember to tell them it’s for Brand. What about this tray? I ask. Oh, you can have it, says Mr. Brand. So I do.

  I have barely finished my repast when a wild-eyed orderly bursts in. The telephone girl, he says, is going berserk. It seems that everyone at Super Films is on the phone all at once trying to get hold of Mr. Brand and they all say it is a matter of life and death.

  “Can’t a man have a baby in peace?” howls Mr. Brand.

  But it seems he can’t for there are a lot of other people who have babies and people who are ill and their friends have phones and would like to know how they are so the switchboard can’t all the time be answering calls for Mr. Brand. The orderly explains all this just as politely as he can. “My God,” groans Mr. Brand. “Do I have to worry about t
hat too? Get another switchboard,” he roars. “Get another telephone girl.”

  So it is up to me to take the orderly by the hand and lead him to the switchboard where we all go into a huddle. We have about completed negotiations when I sense an alien atmosphere in the room and look up to find Jim Palmer.

  “Hello, toots,” he says vulgarly.

  I am very pleased to see him, for somehow even if Jim Palmer is a screwball he has a soothing effect on me.

  No, my dove, it is not an amorous feeling he evokes. On the contrary. He is to me what a prairie oyster is to you after a big night—exotic to the taste, but very clarifying to the mind.

  “I am certainly glad to see you,” I say with the utmost cordiality.

  “This is a break,” he says. “It must be that hospitals have a sentimental effect on you. How about dinner with me tonight in the emergency ward?”

  “That will be very cozy,” I say, “for doubtless unless little Oscar chooses to make his debut shortly, we are going to take a long-term option on this hospital.”

  “So,” he snorts, “little Oscar is holding up production, is he? That must be a blow to Brand. Hasn’t he asked you to do something about it, Maggie?”

  “Darling,” I say sweetly, “I’d have the baby myself if I could to end this suspense, but in the meantime we had better present ourselves to the great man…”

  “Yeah, before he signs up all the nurses on the maternity floor.”

  In the solarium an old man in a wheel chair is fretting to his nurse, but otherwise the place is deserted. We make inquiries of the nurse but she says she hasn’t seen Mr. Brand at all.

  It occurs to me that perhaps he has been summoned to his wife’s room for the announcement of the main event, but all is quiet and serene there and inquiries to the floor nurse elicit no information.

  We make a grand tour of the hospital. We duck in and out of rooms; we dodge stretcher beds; wheel chairs, ether machines. All we gather in our wake are muttered imprecations and a load of anesthetics which are suffocating. There is nothing for it but to make our way back to the solarium.

  There we find Messrs. Tussler and Skinner. The former is looking more dazed than ever. Why, he queries, is his presence necessary because Mr. Brand is going to have a baby?

  “Relax, relax,” Skinner jeers at him, “and give yourself an eyeful of the girls in white. There was a honey that just came by with red hair. I’ll bet she knows why she was created and for what.”

  “You must be patient, Skinner,” Jim withers him. “Tussler has hardly been with us long enough to discover that we not only preoccupy ourselves with sex at the box office but feel we must live life as we see it on the screen for twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Aw hell,” says Skinner. “Even a comrade takes time out for sex.”

  “For the last time,” cries Tussler. “I’m not…”

  “Hy-yah, folks!”

  It is Rawley of the Art Department carrying a big folder of sketches. “Where’s the boss? Has the infant arrived? What goes on?”

  “Make yourself at home,” Jim invites. “This is a nice place to get the sun. Order up a chair and a drink and, Skinner permitting, you might get a pretty little nurse to hold your hand.”

  “Swell! Bring on your nurses.”

  The phone rings. I answer it. It is switchboard and she wants to know where S. B. is. Long distance is ready from New York besides a flock of other calls from the studio and, switchboard coos to me, “Do you know that Miss Tarn just called to ask about Mrs. Brand and she was the sweetest thing!”

  I muffle switchboard with a few curt orders to trace Mr. Brand in the hospital.

  Switchboard is more than willing. She can already envision herself ravishing an army of cameras with her profile.

  “The only thing that’s got her down,” I tell Jim, “is that she wishes she had worn her best blue instead of that old brown thing.”

  “Hollywood is a wonderful place,” he says dourly.

  And now Eric of Wardrobe is upon us waving a group of sketches.

  “Don’t you think, Mr. Tussler, this would be divine for Miss Tarn in that first sequence? It covers just enough of her to leave everything to the imagination.”

  “Hello, Madge,” he yoo-hoos at me, “has the little chap arrived yet?”

  “No! And the big chap has disappeared,” I say snappishly.

  “Yo—ho! Here we come!” Props…and three of them are crowding into the solarium carrying wigs, weapons and some jungle decorations.

  “This is just dandy,” cracks Jim. “Now we can settle ourselves to shooting the picture.”

  “Yeah, and where’s the script?”

  Roy Tyson is upon us. All we need now is Sarya and a few cameras and everything would be perfect.

  “Whatdoyoumean the script?” Skinner squares off—and the battle is on—yam-yamming about what the hell does Brand expect and they are already on the fourth sequence and who in hell can turn out an Academy winner in a week.

  Switchboard rings back to say she cannot locate Mr. Brand but is doing everything she can and in the meantime, will I take a few calls. I hang onto the phone for twenty minutes and finally get hold of Bud and implore him to see that no more studio calls come through to us at the hospital unless it is really important!

  “Okay,” says Bud. “I’ve got everything under control.”

  I can tell by the tone of his voice that he is in Mr. Brand’s office, his legs on the desk, playing his favorite game of movie executive.

  It is way past lunch time when I get away from the phone and everyone is howling for food. I telephone for a flock of sandwiches and coffee and by now am in my usual limp condition.

  Jim is sympathetic. “Let’s duck out of this racket,” he says, “and find a quiet place at the drugstore where we can have our lunch in peace.”

  I am very grateful to him and about to leave when switchboard rings. Mr. Brand is in Room 3B on the maternity floor and we are all to report there immediately.

  There is a concerted rush to the door. We all push out into the corridor. Props drops a few spears; Tyson lets fly a manuscript; and when we make the elevator, crash goes Skinner’s typewriter. He stops to pick it up while we pile into the elevator. “Hey,” yells Skinner. “Wait for Baby!”

  A nurse comes storming out.

  “What is going on around here?” she asks grimly. “Who are you people and what are you doing here?”

  Unfortunately she is neither young nor pretty, so Skinner does a casual, insolent take and shakes his head.

  “Sorry, sister, but I’m busy every night.”

  She does a slow burn but before she can answer there is an insistent buzz of the elevator bell and we shoot downward.

  We emerge on the third floor to face an elderly and very irate nurse.

  “I’m the superintendent,” she advises us crisply, “and I must ask you people to remember that this is a hospital and not a motion picture studio. You’ve managed to disregard that fact so far to say nothing of insulting the nurse on the solarium floor and turning the place into a bedlam. Mr. Brand is in the second room on the first left hand turning. Now let’s see how quiet you can be in getting there. There are babies on this floor and very sick women.”

  Even Skinner manages to subside at this, though when we turn in on the left he makes a very rude noise.

  The door of Mr. Brand’s room is open and we all crowd in to gape at a singular spectacle.

  Mr. Brand, looking very droll, is in bed with a clothespin on his nose. In his mouth is a sort of a funnel and a nurse stands by smiling encouragingly at him.

  “Gee, are you sick, Chief?” asks Tyson feelingly.

  S. B. makes vague gestures toward the clothespin and the funnel indicating he cannot answer.


  “Who’s having this baby anyway?” asks Skinner.

  “Mr. Brand is having a basal metabolism taken,” explains the nurse.

  S. B. nods vigorously.

  “I always say,” says Skinner, “that there’s nothing like a little basal metabolism taken twice a day.”

  Mr. Brand shakes his head violently.

  “Hello, everybody!” Monk Faye pushes his way through to the bed and takes in the quaint tableau, especially the nurse.

  “When do we test her, Brand?” he grins.

  S. B. starts to shake his head again. The nurse removes the pin and the funnel.

  “Whatthehell…” blusters Mr. Brand. “Can’t a guy be sick without a lot of cheap wisecracks? My doctor has been advising me for months to have my basal metabolism taken and as long as I had to stay here anyway I thought it was a good time to do it. But would I get any sympathy? No! When do I have time to get away from the studio and take care of myself? What would happen if I did? I suppose if I dropped dead all you’d say is, ‘Poor Brand. It’s too bad he had to work so hard.’ ”

  “Gee, boss…the studio would go pfff…without you,” soothes Roy.

  “Thanks, Roy.”

  I notice that the tray from the Brown Derby is by his bed untouched. I comment on this and Mr. Brand says they wouldn’t let him eat before he made the test. However, that reminds him he is hungry as a bear, so would I please telephone the Brown Derby and have a filet mignon sent up and some apple strudel? I do.

  The nurse procures some chairs; props Mr. Brand up with extra pillows and lopes out of the room with a studied angular stride. I have seen that lope somewhere before and suddenly remember it is peculiar to Katharine Hepburn.

  “Mr. Brand…Mr. Brand.” It is Eric waving frantically. “I’ve simply got to get an okay on these sketches and get back to the studio.”

  “All right, Eric. Let’s see them.”

  Eric flits over to the bed and spreads out his portfolio.