B00AZRHQKA EBOK (2 page)

2

I am now going to describe myself. Although I am no more than a minor character in the story I have to tell, I feel that the reader should know something about the writer. It makes for a more congenial relationship.

I have three superlative assets. (Four, really. But there is one I prefer not to go into at this time.) First, my legs. Looking at them objectively—as I often do—I consider them as good as any. They are outstanding right from the pelvic region to the toes. Thighs, knees (back
and
front), calves, ankles, feet, toes—all have been the subjects of spoken as well as unspoken praise.

I first became aware of them fourteen years ago. I had just turned twelve. I was sitting alone in a booth in Tillie and Mac’s Coffee Shop in Pebble Beach, California, where my family had taken a cottage for the summer. I was waiting for Betty Winkler, my best girlfriend. We were going to ride out to Seal Rock on our bikes.

From the booth behind me, I heard my name spoken.

“Who?” asked a cracking voice.

“Midge Maghakian. That how you say it?”

“You don’t say it. You
sneeze
it!”

Raucous, adolescent laughter.

They had not seen me because I was still, at that time, small. 5’1”. Sitting there, my feet touched the floor only when I extended my toes. I scrunched down and turned my ear to the separating partition.

“Midge. Yeah. What’s about 'er?”

“You ever get a load of those gams on 'er?”

The sound of a two-note wolf whistle through teeth.

I shivered and went damp. By “gams,” I assumed that the speaker meant my almost-new breasts, which were at that time a cause for daily concern. First thing each morning, last thing each night. From the day of their initial protuberance, I had begun to rub them, pull them, force them into more. Then Betty, staying over one night, had warned me against touching them at all.

“There’s nothing you can do, chum,” she had said solemnly. “It’s like the color of your eyes. So as far as chests go, whatever you’re going to have there, you’ll have there. In time. Sub-nubbins, nubbins, boopers, or super-droopers.”

I made her repeat the categories until I had committed them to memory.

“Where on
earth’d
y’ get
that
?” I asked.

“From my dirty brother, where else?”

“He’s
super
!”

“That’s what
he
thinks. But listen, don’t
ever
rub 'em, or even touch 'em. You’ve heard of breast cancer, haven’t you?”

“Yes!” I was properly terrified. “But eventually,” I said, “
somebody
’s going to touch 'em. I mean, isn’t that part of the
foreplay
—the way it says in our book?” (We had skillfully swiped a copy of
Human Sexual Response
from Newbegins.)

“Sure,” she replied uncertainly. “But
they
have to be careful, too. And also—I don’t think they do foreplay every
day
!”

“Oh.”

I continued to examine my treasures daily and nightly, without touching them, except when I used a tape measure. They seemed to be developing, but I could not be sure.

Now here, today, in this odd place, in these unlikely circumstances, I have learned that they had at least been
noticed
.

I touched them gently as Betty arrived, then put a finger to my lips, and indicated the next booth. Tillie brought us our customary black-and-whites and left. Betty and I whispered for five minutes.

The boys pounded out.

I told Betty what I had overheard and said I was going to tell it to my mother to prove to her that I did
so
need a bra.

Betty choked on her soda.

“Oh, you
goop
!” she spluttered. “Wait’ll I
tell
everybody! What a goop!
Gams
. 'Gams,’ they said. Gams are legs, not tits, you goop!”

“Gams?” I echoed. “Oh. Listen, Betty. Cool it, will ya? And
don’t
tell.”

“I won’t,” she said magnanimously.

She went on talking, but I stopped listening. My concentration was divided between my ice-cream soda and my growing understanding of the attention my lower extremities had been getting for some time. I had been aware of glances and—yes—of hard, uninhibited looks, but had assumed that my
shoes
were the objects of interest. I decided not to mention this to Betty. What I still could not fathom was why my legs—my gams—should be of interest to anyone. In the weeks that followed, I studied my legs, studied others, and began to learn how to use them.

Now, after fourteen years of practice, I am an expert. I know how to shave them and dress them and display them. I know—have learned—about skirt lengths and evening gowns (always transparent or clinging) and ankle-showing. I know when to cross them and when not. I can judge the angle and intensity of a voyeur’s gaze and can supply more or less as the mood strikes me.

So I would say that my legs are probably my best feature.

My bosom comes second. Betty was right. It is all in the luck of the game. My sub-nubbins became nubbins and remained torturingly so until the summer of 1968, when (with the help of a certain amount of expert foreplay) they blossomed or burgeoned into fine, firm boopers. I felt as though I had been graduated and given a diploma.
Two
diplomas.

What a curious broad this Dame Fashion is! For years, my mother and I fought The Battle of the Bra. She would not permit me to wear one. Then, at last, yes. But now, for the past few years, she
insists
that I wear one—at least when I am at home visiting—and will not listen when I try to explain that the bra is passé for people like me. So I keep one in my bag and slip it on when I go to see her.

Otherwise, I do feature my second feature.

Last (or next to last) there are my eyes. They are large and green and piercing and, I find, powerful when I want them to be.

An art student I dated last fall told me that what made my eyes interesting was the fact that they were a “unique spectrum balance” with my light-red hair.

Which brings me to my favorite (and last) good point. I suppose having gone
this
far, I may as well continue. It is my pudendal area, which has been much admired. The silken pubic hair there is somewhat lighter than that on my head, which means that it is sort of a reddish gold. Fletcher—the art student—called it Henna until I made him cut it out. Then he said he thought it was more like Cardinal, but for some reason that embarrassed me.

One morning he said, “I was wrong. In this light, true light, it’s Mandarin. Definitely.”

He was so pleased to have found the answer that he kissed it.

I settled for Mandarin, although when I looked it up on the Winsor and Newton color chart and compared it, it wasn’t even close. Fletcher is no longer an art student. He has switched to electronic-tape editing.

There is more to the phenomenon than the color, however. Something about the composition and dynamics of the whole region is extraordinarily decorative, even to me. The skin tint changes with the seasons: White in winter, Burnt Amber in full summer. The shape of it is unusual, as well. From my navel down to the tops of my thighs, the lines are flowing and symmetrical. At least, that is what I was told many times while I was modeling in Life Study at The Art Students League on 57
^th
Street—a job that Fletcher got me and that finally broke us up—but that is another story entirely. Thirty dollars an hour for standing still was not bad at all, and left me plenty of time for acting classes and interviews and auditions (I was still an aspiring actress in those days, God help me). Further, it was blessedly quiet in there, and I could think. And I did.

One of the problems of living in New York is the noise. It is worse than the air. For twenty-four hours a day, one’s ears and nerves and senses are assaulted by unnatural and inhuman sounds. Someone once said that Marcel Marceau, the pantomimist, was such a hit because where else could you go for two hours of quiet?

When my brother Vartan came to spend Christmas with me, we went to a bar to talk. The jukebox was going.

Vartan said, “Why don’t they have one slot where you throw in a quarter and get five minutes of silence?”

Apart from the four exceptional features I have described, there really isn’t a hell of a lot to me—physically, that is. I am fairly tall (5’8”); I wear my light-red hair long, so that I can provide variety: bun, pony tail, top of head, down; I keep my weight at 118, which is neither thin nor fat—my first Jewish beau, Maxie, at the Academy, called me “zoftig.” And now I know you’re all waiting to hear what I think of my face. Well, it’s hard to say. It changes all the time. When I’m menstruating, it gets all puffed and sort of blotchy and is generally unattractive. When I drink too much, the same. At other times, it is—what can I say?—not pretty, certainly not beautiful or handsome or striking. But wait, I think I have it—appealing. That’s it. I have an open, friendly, pleasant,
appealing
face. So women seem to like it because it doesn’t challenge them. And men do because it gives them an edge. Beauties are scary, a lot of guys tell me.

Anyway, about Fletcher and me and my modeling job at the ASL—the night he stubbornly made it a question of the job or him, I kept the job.

Not for long.

Professor Lowdermilk sent for me one day on a ten-minute break. He is a dizzyingly attractive, rugged, abstract painter from Maine, who teaches during half of every year and paints up there during the other half.

He asked me to sit down, offered me a cigarette, and told me he was thinking of letting me go.

“Why?” I asked, naturally.

“My dear,” he said, “you are simply too unsettling to the male students.”

“How?”

“There’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing. That absolutely stupendous middle of you. You’re
you
, that’s all.” He reached over, stuck his right hand inside my robe, and cupped my right breast expertly. “A model should be, you see, insofar as possible, an object. You, I’m afraid, are anything but that. You create, as the kids say, 'wild vibes.’” He smiled warmly. His adroit fingers were at work. As my nipple stiffened to his touch, he put his left hand on my belly and began to move it downward, slowly, tantalizingly.

I stood up and said, “Well, if I’m fired, I’m fired.”

He stood up. There was action in the area of his fly.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “not so fast. Maybe we can work something out.”

“What you mean is you’d like to work something
in
,” I said, and wished to hell it had come out better, classier. He laughed hard, and that irritated me. I said, “Look, you bastard. Either I can do this job or I can’t. But don’t proposition me. What’s one thing got to do with the other? If you’d come on straight—like a man, not like an operator—I think you’d’ve made it.”

“You’re terribly exciting,” he said.

“Goodbye,” I said.

“Hold it. You’ve got a class to finish.”

“No. The middle of me is too unsettling for the male students.”

“Cup of coffee?” he asked. “After all, this
is
a coffee break.”

“No, thanks.”

“A drink?” he asked, sort of reaching for a cabinet.

“Don’t con me.”

“I rescind the discharge,” he said.

I had to laugh at this idiot locution. When I stopped, I said, “I quit.”

“You
can’t
quit.”

“Watch me.”

I started out.

“You’ve got a class to finish!” he yelled.

“No. I’m through,” I said at the door. “Because you want to make a sleazy deal—like a goddamn businessman. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You’re an artist. A fine artist.”

“Sit down a minute.”

“And if you
want
to make it a deal, Professor, it’s worth more than thirty dollars an hour.”

I opened the door.

“If you don’t finish the class,” he said, “you won’t get paid.”

I drew myself up and spoke from high above him with the greatest possible dignity—but the words that came out were: “Shove it.”

That ended my career in modeling. But I learned a lot about life up there in Life Study.

If I had stayed with Fletcher, it would have ended badly. He is rich and spoiled and flighty. Also, he was never so much a lover as he was a performer. He always made me feel like an audience for his feats. Watch this, he seemed to say. And at the end, each time, he expected more than appreciation. He wanted applause. Goodbye, Fletcher.

And if I hadn’t quit or been fired from ASL—what? I certainly wouldn’t have this fascinating, glamorous, absorbing job that I have now: Production Secretary on the biggest Broadway musical of the year,
Shine On, Harvest Moon
.

SHINE ON, HARVEST MOON

Company Bulletin

Tuesday, August 14

BULLETIN
: This bulletin will be issued daily to the cast (so far) and crew and is for your use as well as mine. If you are looking for a roommate, for a used car, want to borrow money, or give away a cat, please feel free to use this means of communication with your colleagues. Please send in theatre quotes: Nora Bayes, Everleigh Club material, etc. Midge Maghakian, the editor (among other things), can be reached at 586-9191.

CASTING
: We are still looking for an actor-singer to play the part of Claude Gordon. A physical resemblance to the original is desired, but not mandatory. He should be about forty or younger. The main requisites: elegance and authority. Please communicate any suggestions to Clay Botsford or Midge Maghakian.

OPEN CALL
: Auditions for dancers will be held at The Imperial Theatre on Monday, August 20 from 10-1 and 2-6. The open Equity call for principals will be held at the Imperial on Tuesday, August 21 from 10-1 and 2-6. Call-backs will be Wednesday at 9:00 A.M.

SCRIPT
: The final script to date is dated from July 27 through August 3. A complete First Act should be in the hands of those concerned by Wednesday evening. Also, we would greatly appreciate the return of all out-dated scripts.

OUT-OF-TOWN HOTEL RESERVATIONS:
In the course of the next week, all information with regard to out-of-town hotels will be posted on the Call Board at The Imperial Theatre.

DRESSING ROOMS:
Your rehearsal dressing-room assignments are posted on the bulletin board. Please note that Dressing Room #2 is the Production Office and is to be used by members of the Production Staff.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP: CLAY BOTSFORD
(Production Supervisor)

Born August 10, 1932, Santa Barbara, California. Music major, USC.

First employment, NYC, Boosey-Hawkes. Night jobs playing piano in bars of Hotel Carlyle, The Drake, St. Regis.

Met Cole Porter and life began. Rehearsal pianist and musical assistant. KISS ME KATE; CAN-CAN; SILK STOCKINGS; LES GIRLS (MGM).

Into stage management for David Merrick, Alex Cohen, Theatre Guild.

No aspirations other than to be the best Production Stage Manager in the business.

DIRECTORY
: Midge has sent each of you a Cast Directory and Rehearsal Schedule. There have been changes made in the latter and a new one is enclosed.

QUOTE TO REMEMBER:
      An interviewer
: “Tell me, Monsieur Guitry, do you find acting difficult?”

      Lucien Guitry
: “No, Madame, I find it impossible.”

SHINE ON, HARVEST MOON will open at The Shubert Theatre, Boston, on October 19.