A Tender Thing

by Emily Neuberger

  Eleanor surveyed his friends. Should she give the address in front of them? Didn’t people say it was dangerous to do that?

  Tommy pulled out his wallet and thumbed bills onto the counter. “C’mon, I’ll walk you.”

  Her scruples dissolved along with their convenience; this young navy man could be as randy as the gossip said, but he wasn’t likely to leave them bleeding in an alley. She resisted the urge to turn to Rosie and raise her eyebrows to gloat.

  “Thank you, sir,” Rosie said. “Or should we call you something more professional?”

  “I’m a yeoman,” he said. “Tommy is fine.”

  He didn’t look like the type to push papers. Her mother would approve of a young man who did his duty but made sure he came home at the end of it.

  When they stepped out of the diner, they gave him the address and he offered his hand. “Which of you has the heavier suitcase?”

  “Rosie,” Eleanor said. “She always overpacks.”

  “Eleanor!”

  But she held on to her own luggage; if Rosie knew how much she’d shoved into it, she’d know that Eleanor had no intention of returning on the Thursday train.

  “I’m Eleanor O’Hanlon.” She nodded at Rosie. “This is my friend Rosie Hughes.”

  “How nice to meet you.” Tommy spoke so politely that you could hear the training behind it, as if his mother were manipulating the words right out of him. “Where are you ladies from?”

  “Wisconsin.”

  “Hmm. So which one of you wants to be an actress?”

  Eleanor’s heart flared. He would assume it was Rosie, because that was what people did.

  “How did you know Eleanor wants to be an actress?” Rosie asked.

  “Girls like you only come through here to visit family, get married, or audition for the shows.” He turned his head to check the traffic, and Eleanor caught a whiff of tobacco.

  “Girls like us?” Rosie said, her practiced flirt coming out.

  “Nice girls,” Tommy said, “with no idea what they’re doing.”

  “That’s not true,” Eleanor said. “Women must come here for other reasons.”

  “But you are auditioning for a musical, am I right?” He winked.

  Eleanor shut her mouth and focused on her surroundings. They were coming up on a park that was about a city block long on each side and surrounded by tall buildings. When they crossed the street, they entered to cut through it.

  “Don’t ever come here at night,” Tommy said.

  “Is this Central Park?” Rosie asked. “Because I know we’re not supposed to go there at night.”

  “Central Park is up farther,” Tommy said. “This is Bryant Park.”

  It was nice of him not to point out how obvious this was; Eleanor hadn’t known its name, but even she knew this place wasn’t big enough to be the famous Central Park.

  The Broadway theaters should have been just a block away. Eleanor felt their proximity. Would they be enormous or small? It would be lovely if they were small.

  “Can we keep going?” Eleanor asked.

  “We’re supposed to take Sixth Ave uptown,” Tommy said.

  “I know, but we’re so close. I want to see them.” He gave Eleanor a curious look, and she was impatient with his confusion. “The theaters.”

  “She okay?” Tommy asked Rosie.

  “You might have seen other girls audition for Broadway shows,” Rosie said, “but you haven’t met Eleanor. She lives for the theater.”

  Tommy acquiesced, and they continued walking and were soon coming up on Broadway. Eleanor felt the moisture leave her mouth. All down her arms, her skin prickled, and her hands went cold.

  “Look to your right, Eleanor,” Tommy said with a smile in his voice. “Times Square.”

  In the movies, the ingénue always lifted her arms as if she could take in the whole world. Eleanor herself had planned to spin and yelp when she reached Times Square. She’d directed her first entrance to New York dozens of times in her mind.

  But all she could do was stare. Her eyes filled with tears. She raised her hands to her mouth.

  It was the most colorful place in the world. There were painted signs covering every surface. A giant Canadian Club Whiskey billboard stared her in the face, but it was blocks away. Neon letters mounted on scaffolding advertised beer, cigarettes, Kleenex, televisions, clubs with names that made Eleanor blush. Enormous statues of Pepsi bottles sat on the roof of a clothing store. It was as if she’d walked onto the pages of a catalog. Then she looked at each of the storefronts and saw the marquees. Even just seeing the theaters, sleepy during the daytime, made Eleanor feel like she’d met her heroes.

  “The New Amsterdam,” Eleanor said. “That used to be where Ziegfeld had his Follies. It’s a cinema now.”

  “I thought you said you haven’t been here before.”

  Eleanor had quite forgotten Tommy was there.

  “I’ve read about it.” Eleanor’s feet wanted to move, and her skin itched. There was a tugging feeling in her stomach. She walked ahead and waved at her companions to hurry up and cross the street.

  “This one still operates,” she said, hustling them down Forty-First Street. “The National.”

  “I didn’t think anyone knew the names of these places,” Tommy said.

  “Eleanor knows all the names,” Rosie said, “and their intersections. She memorized the map when we were fourteen.”

  “I remember when I first learned that they weren’t all on Broadway.” Eleanor shook her head. “I couldn’t believe it!”

  “I never thought about that,” Tommy said.

  Rosie raised an eyebrow. “If you spend more time with Eleanor, you’ll hear buckets of things about theater you didn’t care about before.”

  Tommy smirked. “Or since.”

  Then Eleanor stopped in her tracks, suddenly quiet. “There it is,” she said. “A real theater.”

  The Broadhurst was an unassuming building to anyone else, but to her, it was holy. It was large and square, with a balcony lining the front top floor and a marquee hanging over four sets of double doors. Every night, a thousand people filed through those doors. What would it be like to go backstage? It must have thrummed with activity. The crew, the orchestra, the director, the wardrobe personnel, the actors. An entire building filled with people living their dream. Dozens of people who loved the theater as much as Eleanor did.

  Rosie reached for her hand and squeezed.

  They stood there for a long while before Rosie convinced Eleanor it was time to move. They turned west. Eleanor looked behind her, watching the bright colors slip behind the cold steel of the skyscrapers, until it was gone.

  Tommy walked them the rest of the way, growing more animated as they went. He liked being a tour guide. He told stories about fun nights with his buddies and pointed out places to get a cheap dinner or where they might find a kind shopkeeper if they ran into trouble at night. Eleanor felt a flurry at his words, at the idea that they would stay a lot longer than three days. Eleanor listened as if she were hearing a preview of her life. The thought of her parents gave her more than a pang, but she refused to bow to the guilt. When Tommy dropped them off in front of their hotel, he wished them both luck and kissed Eleanor on the cheek.

  “Next time I see you,” he said, “you’ll be a Broadway actress.”

  Eleanor watched him go. She’d convinced at least one person.

  Chapter Three

  Eleanor knew she had reached the Plymouth Theatre when she saw a line of girls wrapped around the block. Most of them stood in twos or threes chatting animatedly, even though it was seven o’clock in the morning. She stopped on the opposite street corner to take it all in. Many of these girls had what she imagined were Broadway legs—long and slim, made to wear those beaded leotards she’d seen in pictures of revues. In Eleanor’
s experience, there were pretty girls and plain girls, fat ones and thin ones, but that was the limit of the qualitative assessments. But in the face of her competition, she became aware of a hundred new ways to feel inadequate. Eleanor was neither fat nor thin; her body was strong and substantial. Her complexion was smooth but freckled. Her copper hair was all that distinguished her in this crowd of beautiful girls. She’d never been the loveliest girl, nor the plainest. But once in line, she felt the thickness of her thighs, the stubbiness of her hands, the roundness of her cheeks. As though her origins could be read on her face, Eleanor was sure she looked like one of the pigs on her farm. But none of these insecurities would hurt as much as whatever way she fell short against the girl who would win the part.

  Eleanor wished she didn’t want the role so desperately. It pushed her into fear and disquiet, out of the town where she had the best voice and into an audition with hundreds of others in New York.

  Eleanor thought of returning to Wisconsin—facing her father’s disappointment, listening to her mother recount every time she’d risen early to sell pies at the market to afford the bonds that Eleanor had taken in one selfish blow. She thought of John Plutz, who had been so tickled when she said she was auditioning for a Broadway show that she may have led him to believe she’d been personally invited. What would Pat think of her, giving up after she’d made it all this way? It wasn’t for me, he’d said.

  Eleanor needed this place to be for her. If she returned home, she would never live down the shame or regret. And then what was left? Managing Pat’s store, growing old with only the records as company? Dodging comments from the people in town who had always made fun of her ambitions and who now had even more of an excuse? Eleanor could not allow that to happen.

  The early morning air gave a touch of freshness to the otherwise smoggy Times Square. It was cool without humidity—back-to-school air. Eleanor let it work on her, then stepped across the street.

  Two girls beat her to the end of the line. For some reason, Eleanor felt more threatened by these two than all the rest, as if watching them assume her spot in line was foreshadowing for what would happen in the audition. One of the girls was a short redhead, her hair more brilliant than Eleanor’s, the other tall and reedy.

  “I hope they make us dance,” the redhead was saying. “Though you’ll be better than me.”

  Dance? Was that even an option? Eleanor had memorized the Charades audition notice. Dancing wasn’t mentioned. Sixteen bars of your best musical theater ballad, the ad had specified. Eleanor had brought three choices. In addition to “The Man I Love,” she’d brought a Don Mannheim selection called “Somebody” and a piece by a composer called Marc Blitzstein titled “I Wish It So.”

  The auditions began at ten. How early had the first girl in line arrived? Eleanor shuddered at the thought that there were girls here who might do more for a role. Vague images ran through her head of experience she didn’t have and games she didn’t understand. She had heard of the casting couch. She’d never done more than kiss a boy. In the privacy of her mind, she admitted she would do anything for the role if she knew how.

  After an hour, a young man holding a coffee in a cardboard cup came by with a sign-up list. Eleanor gave him her brightest smile.

  After another hour, the line began to move.

  “I thought the auditions were at ten?”

  The redhead in front of her turned. Eleanor noticed her whole face was freckled, in an uncommon but pleasing way. She held herself like she wasn’t even embarrassed about them, as Eleanor was about her own. This girl had the high-volume version of Eleanor’s looks: her hair flame, her eyes bright amber. She looked at Eleanor like she could not have been more bored with her question, shrugged, and resumed her conversation with her willowy friend.

  The line continued to move slowly. Eleanor was now even with the marquee. It wasn’t lit up because it was daylight, but she could see the bulbs. The logo was bright blue with yellow accents, and in the morning sun, the artificial colors and modern font clashed against the sky. Everything in Times Square did. Standing there, looking up at the blue and remembering she was on Earth, the same place that held trees and creeks and Wisconsin, she felt vertigo.

  The line moved again, and she was at the box office door. Through it she could see deep-red plush carpet, the walls beige with golden accents running along the bottoms. Behind another set of doors was the actual theater. Before she could stop herself, she began to cry.

  Crying was terrible for singers. Talking through tears was hard enough; sustaining notes was a trick, and controlling vibrato was next to impossible. Eleanor shut her eyes tight and tried to breathe, too loud. Once again she attracted the attention of the girls in front of her.

  “Are you all right? You look like you’re about to keel over.”

  “I’m fine,” Eleanor said. “Just overcome. I’ve never been to New York before.”

  The girls softened, as if she were a child. “How do you like it?”

  None of the words that came to mind were enough. “I want to live here.”

  The redhead touched Eleanor’s arm. “Darling, no you don’t. I’ve lived here my whole life and I can tell you Manhattan is on the way to the dump.”

  Eleanor thought the girl was lucky to be worldly enough to hate this place.

  “I’ve never been in a Broadway theater either,” she said before she could stop herself.

  The girls looked surprised at this. Eleanor didn’t know why—if she hadn’t been to New York, then she hadn’t been to a theater.

  “My name’s Maggie Carmichael, and this is Lisa.” Maggie, the redhead, nodded to her friend. “I grew up on the Upper East Side.”

  So close to where Don Mannheim lived. “Where are you living now?” Eleanor asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said you grew up on the Upper East Side,” Eleanor said. “Do you still live there?”

  “No. Two friends and I have an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, on the corner of Eighth and Forty-Third.”

  Something rang a bell, until she remembered Tommy’s warning about Eighth Avenue. “Do you like it there?”

  “Sure. A girl’s gotta audition, and the apartment’s close to the theaters. Where are you from?” Maggie’s eyes looked expectant. Something inside of Eleanor turned over and rose up, like an animal awaking from sleep. This girl was a predator, and Eleanor must not let her take a bite.

  “The Midwest. Near Chicago.”

  “I’ve always wanted to go there,” Maggie said.

  Me too, Eleanor thought. The line began to move again.

  * * *

  Eleanor alternated between checking her watch and lifting her aching feet off the ground, and panicking as she got closer to the front of the line. If she weren’t so nervous, she’d have been hungry; after four hours in line, she had left just once, to use the ladies’.

  Then the young man returned.

  “Name?”

  “Eleanor O’Hanlon.”

  He held out his hand. Eleanor shook it.

  He blinked in annoyance. “Headshot and résumé, please.” Maggie turned and giggled.

  Eleanor realized her mistake and pulled out her résumé, a typed-up list of her choir solos, with a photograph paper-clipped to the top, and handed it to him.

  The man scanned her paltry résumé but did not offer opinions.

  “You three can go in.” He indicated Maggie, Lisa, and Eleanor.

  Eleanor felt a twist. It was time. Don Mannheim was inside.

  She stepped through the box office doors, then to an open door off to the side.

  Backstage at the Plymouth. Her skin prickled with awareness. It smelled like sawdust. The hall was bright, with tile floors and beige-painted walls. Facing her was a cork bulletin board, where a sign-in sheet hung. She peered and saw scribbled initials of various members of the cast, st
arting yesterday and going back two weeks. Eleanor recognized some of the names from the newspapers.

  The stage, according to large white letters, was beyond a pair of double doors. All of her senses reeled. Despite her feelings about her companions, she couldn’t stay quiet.

  “He’s in there,” she said. “Isn’t that amazing?”

  Maggie smiled with half of her mouth, but in her expression was true excitement even she could not conceal. “It’s the scariest thing in the world, when what you want is so close.”

  Eleanor agreed so much that she couldn’t respond.

  “It’s so hard when the role is an ingénue,” Maggie said. “You know?”

  Eleanor didn’t.

  “Every girl thinks she’s an ingénue. Anyone under thirty or a hundred fifty pounds comes out for these auditions.” She rolled her eyes. “Some people don’t understand type.”

  Eleanor had not weighed herself in years and took in that number with some trepidation. “Type?”

  Maggie looked at her like she was an idiot. “You know. Ingénue. Soubrette. Siren. Matron. Et cetera.”

  Eleanor knew those words but hadn’t realized they were so ironclad. The roles themselves might have been confined that way: the beautiful young lover, the flirt, the very sexy woman, the comedic older-woman character. But were actresses, too?

  “Do you mean people can only play certain roles?”

  “Well, I mean, people can play whatever roles the director casts them in,” Maggie said. “But for the most part, directors look at a girl and know who she should play. For example, I always play ingénues.”

  Eleanor felt a rush so powerful that she clenched her fists. She smiled. “So do I.”

  She faced the wall so she could ready herself for the coming moment. This close to the stage, she could hear another actress’s audition. The girl was terrible. She pushed her voice past its comfortable point, so she yelled rather than sang.

  Maybe I have a chance, Eleanor thought. Her fear melted away in favor of bullheaded pragmatism. She turned to the young man with the clipboard. “Water?”