CITY_OF_GIRLS_by_Elizabeth_Gilbert

SEVENTEEN

We had a hit on our hands.

Within the space of a week, we’d gone from begging people to come see our little play to turning them away at the gates.

By Christmas, both Peg and Billy had made back all the money they’d invested, and now the shekels were really pouring in—or so Billy said.

You might have thought that with the success of our show, tensions would have tamped down between Peg and Olive and Billy, but it was not the case. Even with all the accolades and the sold-out house every night, Olive still managed to be anxious about money (her brief experiment with celebration apparently having ended the day after opening night).

Olive’s concern—as she diligently reminded us every day—was that success is always fleeting. It is all well and good, she said, to have City of Girls bankrolling us now, but what will the Lily Playhouse do when the play closes? We had lost our neighborhood audience. The workingclass folks whom we’d humbly entertained for so many years had been driven away by our new high ticket prices and our cosmopolitan comedy—and how could we be sure they would return once we went back to business as usual? Because certainly we would be getting back to business as usual sooner or later. It wasn’t as though Billy would stay in New York forever, nor had he promised to write us any more hit shows. And once Edna was lured to a better theater company for a new production—which was bound to happen eventually—we would lose City of Girls. We couldn’t very well expect somebody of Edna’s prestige to stay in our slipshod little playhouse forever. And we couldn’t afford to attract other actors of her caliber once she left. Really, all this abundance had been built on the talents of one woman alone, and that’s an awfully shaky way to run a business.

And on and on it went from Olive—day after day. So much gloom. So much doom. She was a tireless Cassandra, constantly reminding us

that ruin was right around the corner, even as we were all intoxicated with victory.

“Be careful, Olive,” said Billy. “Make sure you don’t enjoy a minute of this good fortune—and don’t let anyone else enjoy it, either.”

But even I could see that Olive was correct about one thing: our ongoing success with the show was all due to Edna, who never stopped being extraordinary. I watched that play every night, and I can report that she somehow managed to reinvent the role of Mrs. Alabaster each time. Some actors will get a character right and then freeze the performance, just repeating the same rote expressions and reactions. But Edna’s Mrs. Alabaster never stopped feeling new. She was not delivering her lines, she was inventing them—or so it seemed. And because she was always playing with her delivery and changing the tone, the other players had to stay attentive and vibrant, too.

And New York City certainly rewarded Edna for her gifts.

Edna had been an actress forever, but with the wild success of City of Girls, she now became a star.

The term “star,” Angela, is a vital but tricky designation that can only be bestowed upon a performer by the populace itself. Critics cannot make someone a star. Box-office receipts cannot make someone a star. Mere excellence cannot make someone a star. What makes someone a star is when the people decide to love you en masse. When people are willing to line up at the stage door for hours after a show just to catch a glimpse—that makes you a star. When Judy Garland releases a recording of “I’m Considering Falling in Love” but everyone who saw City of Girls says that your version was better—that makes you a star. When Walter Winchell starts writing gossip about you in his column every week, that makes you a star.

Then there was the table that came to be held for her at Sardi’s every night after the show.

Then there was the announcement that Helena Rubinstein was naming an eye shadow after her (“Edna’s Alabaster”).

Then there was the thousand-word piece in Woman’s Day about where Edna Parker Watson buys her hats.

Then there were the fans, deluging Edna with letters, asking questions like “My own attempt at a career on the stage was

interrupted by the financial reversals of my husband—so would you consider taking me on as your protégée? I believe you will be surprised to find out that we have much the same style of acting.”

And then there was this incredible (and very out of character) letter, from none less than Katharine Hepburn herself: “Darlingest Edna—I have just seen your performance, and it drove me insane, and of course I shall have to come and see it about four more times, and then I will jump in a river, because I shall never be as good as you!”

I know about all these letters because Edna asked me to read and respond to them for her, since I had such nice handwriting. This was an easy job for me, now that I didn’t have any new costumes to design. Given that the Lily was running the same production now, week after week, there was no further need for my talents. Aside from mending and maintenance, my duties were over. For that reason, in the wake of our show’s success, I more or less became Edna’s private secretary.

I was the one who turned down all the invitations and pleas. I was the one who arranged the Vogue photo shoot. I was the one who gave a reporter from Time a tour of the Lily for an article called “How to Make a Hit.” And I was the one who escorted around that terrifyingly acerbic theater critic Alexander Woollcott, when he profiled Edna for The New Yorker. We were all worried that he would savage Edna in print (“Alec never takes a nibble out of somebody when a chomp will do,” said Peg), but we needn’t have been concerned, as it turned out. For here was Woollcott on Watson:

—

Anthony was becoming a bit of a star, too, thanks to City of Girls. He’d got cast in some radio dramas, which he could record in the

afternoons without interfering with his performance schedule. He’d also been hired as the new spokesman and model for the Miles Tobacco Company (“Why sweat, when you can smoke?”). So he had good money coming in now, for the first time in his life. But he still hadn’t upgraded his living arrangements.

I’d started leaning on Anthony, trying to convince him to get his own place. Why would such a promising young star still be sharing quarters with his brother in a dank old tenement building that smelled of cooking oil and onions? I was pushing him to rent a nicer apartment, with an elevator and a doorman, and maybe even a garden in the back—and definitely not in Hell’s Kitchen. But he wouldn’t consider it. I don’t know why he so resisted moving out of that filthy fourth-floor walk-up. All I can guess is that he suspected me of trying to make him look more marriageable.

Which was, of course, exactly what I was doing.

—

The problem was that my brother had now met Anthony—and needless to say, he did not approve.

If only there was a way to hide from Walter the fact I was dating Anthony Roccella at all! But Anthony and I were pretty obvious in our lust, and my brother was far too observant to have missed it. Plus, since Walter was now staying at the Lily, he was easily able to see what was going on in my life. He saw it all—the drinking, the back-and-forth flirtations, the rowdy repartee, the general depravity of theater folk. I’d hoped that Walter might get pulled into the fun (certainly the showgirls tried to lure my handsome brother into their embraces many times), but he was far too straitlaced to take the bait of pleasure. Sure, he’d have a cocktail or two, but he wasn’t about to cavort. Instead of joining us, he seemed to monitor us.

I could have asked Anthony to tone down his carnal attentions to me so as not to stir up Walter’s disfavor, but Anthony wasn’t the sort of guy who was going to change his behavior to make anybody feel more comfortable. So my boyfriend still grabbed me, kissed me, and slapped my bottom just as much as ever—whether Walter was in the room or not.

My brother watched, judged, and then finally delivered this condemning analysis of my boyfriend: “Anthony doesn’t seem very marriageable, Vee.”

And now I couldn’t get that weighty word—marriageable—out of my mind. I should say that I had never before even thought of marrying Anthony, nor was I sure that I would ever want to. But suddenly, with Walter’s disapproval hanging over my head, it mattered that my boyfriend wasn’t seen as marriageable. I felt insulted by the word, and maybe a little challenged by it. I felt that I should take this problem on and solve it.

You know—clean up my man a bit.

With this in mind, I had started making suggestions to Anthony— not too subtly, I’m afraid—about how he could boost his status in the world. Wouldn’t he feel more grown-up if he didn’t sleep on a couch? Wouldn’t he be more attractive if he wore slightly less oil in his hair?

Wouldn’t he seem more refined if he wasn’t always chewing gum? How about if his speech was somewhat less slangy? For instance, when my brother, Walter, had asked Anthony if he held any career aspirations outside of show business, Anthony had grinned, and said, “Not so’s you’d notice.” Might there have been a more cultivated way to answer this question?

Anthony knew exactly what I was doing—he was no dummy—and he hated it. He accused me of trying to get him to “turn square” in order to make my brother happy, and he wasn’t having it. And it certainly didn’t endear him to Walter.

In those few weeks Walter stayed at the Lily, the tension between my brother and my boyfriend grew so thick you could have busted it up with a sledgehammer. It was an issue of class, an issue of education, an issue of sexual threat, an issue of brother versus lover. But some of it, too, I suspect, was just a matter of unfettered, competitive young

The next day, Walter took me out to lunch at the Colony so that we could “have a talk.”

I knew exactly what (or, rather, whom) this talk was going to be about, and I dreaded it.

“Please don’t tell Mother and Dad about Anthony,” I asked Walter as soon as we sat down at our table. I hated to even bring up the subject of my boyfriend, but I knew that Walter would, and I figured my best bet was to start off with a plea for my life. My biggest fear was that he was going to report my misdoings to my parents, and that they would barrel right down upon me and clip my wings.

It took awhile for him to answer.

“I want to be fair about this, Vee,” he said.

Of course he did. Walter always wanted to be fair.

I waited, feeling the way I often did with Walter—like a child who has just been called before the headmaster. God, how I wished he was my ally! But he had never been. Even as a boy, he’d never kept a secret for me or conspired with me against the adults. He’d always been an extension of my parents. He’d always behaved more like a father than a peer. Moreover, I’d treated him as such.

Finally he said, “You can’t fool around like this forever, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” I said—although my actual plan, in point of fact, was to fool around like this forever.

“There’s a real world out there, Vee. You’re going to have to put away the balloons and streamers at some point and grow up.”

“Without a doubt,” I agreed.

“You were raised right. I have to trust in that. When the time comes, your breeding will kick in. You’re playing the bohemian now, but eventually you’ll settle down and marry the correct kind of person.”

“Of course I will.” I nodded as though this were my plan precisely.

“If I didn’t believe that you had good sense, I would send you back home to Clinton right now.”

“I don’t blame you!” I cried, in fullest agreement. “If I didn’t believe that I had good sense, I would send myself back home to Clinton right now.”

Which didn’t particularly make sense, but seemed to mollify him. I knew my brother well enough, thank God, to know that my only hope for salvation was to agree with him completely.

“It’s kind of like when I went to Delaware,” he said, softening a bit, after another long silence.

This stopped me up. Delaware? Then I remembered that my brother had spent a few weeks the previous summer in Delaware. He’d been working at a power plant, if I recalled, learning something about electrical engineering.

“Of course!” I said. “Delaware!” I wanted to encourage this positivesounding track—although I had no idea what he was referring to.

“Some of the people I spent time with in Delaware were pretty rough,” he said. “But you know how that is. Sometimes you want to rub elbows with people who weren’t raised the same way as you. Expand your horizons. Maybe it builds character.”

Well, that was pretentious.

Encouragingly, though, he smiled.

I smiled, too. I tried to look like someone who was busy expanding her horizons and building her character through intentional fraternization with her social inferiors. A difficult look to master in a single facial expression, but I did my best.

“You’re just having your kicks,” he decided, sounding as though he were almost convinced of this diagnosis himself. “It’s innocent enough.”

“That’s right, Walter. I’m just having my kicks. You don’t have to worry about me.”

His face darkened. I’d made a tactical error; I had contradicted him.

“Well, I do have to worry about you, Vee, because I’m starting Officer Candidate School in a few days. I’ll be moving to the battleship uptown, and I won’t be around to keep an eye on you anymore.”

Hallelujah, I thought, while nodding gravely.

“I don’t like the direction I see your life heading in,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you today. I don’t like it at all.”

“I can certainly understand that!” I said, going back to my original strategy of absolute accordance.

“Tell me there’s nothing serious for you about this Anthony fellow.”

“Nothing,” I lied.

“You haven’t crossed the line with him?”

I could feel myself blush. It wasn’t a blush of modesty, but of guilt. Still, it worked in my favor. I must have looked like an innocent girl, embarrassed that her brother had mentioned the subject of sex— however obliquely.

Walter flushed, too. “I’m sorry I had to ask,” he said, protecting my perceived guilelessness. “But I need to know.”

“I understand,” I said. “But I would never . . . not with that kind of guy. Not with anybody, Walter.”

“All right, then. If you say so, I trust you. I won’t say anything to Mother and Dad about Anthony,” he said. (I took my first easy breath of the day.) “But you have to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If you get into any trouble with this fellow, you will call me.”

“I will,” I swore. “But I won’t get into any trouble. I promise.”

Suddenly, Walter looked old. It could not have been easy, being a twenty-two-year-old elder statesman on his way to war. Trying to uphold his familial duties and his patriotic duties all at the same time.

“I know you’ll end this thing with Anthony soon, Vee. Just promise me you’ll be smart. I know what a smart kid you are. You wouldn’t do anything reckless. You’ve got too good a head on your shoulders for that.”

My heart broke a little in that moment—watching my brother dig so deep into his pristine imagination, desperately searching for ways to think the best of me.

EIGHTEEN

Angela, I don’t want to tell you this next part of the story.

It’s painful, this next part.

Let me stall a little while longer.

No, let me get it over with.

—

Now it was the end of March 1941.

It had been a long winter. New York had been hit with a murderous snowstorm earlier in the month, and it took the city weeks to dig out from under it. We were all sick of being cold. The Lily was a drafty old building, you may be amazed to learn, and the dressing rooms were better suited to storing furs than warming human beings.

We all had chilblains and cold sores. All of us girls were longing to wear our cute spring frocks and to show our figures again, instead of being mummified in overcoats, galoshes, and scarves. I’d seen some of our dancers going out on the town with long underwear under their gowns—which they furtively took off in the bathrooms of nightclubs, and then just as furtively put back on again at the end of the evening, before braving the freezing night air. Believe me, there is nothing glamorous about a girl in a silk gown and long underwear. I’d been feverishly sewing new spring clothes for myself all winter—in the irrational hope that if my wardrobe was more summery, the weather would be, too.

Finally, toward the end of the month, the weather broke and the cold spell lifted a bit.