City of Girls (12 page)

Receiving this compliment, Olive’s face was suddenly lit
up by the most unusual expression. By my stars, I do believe it was
happiness.

“Edna was performing bits of Shakespeare for the men,” Peg said to me. “I remember thinking it was a terrible idea. I thought Shakespeare would bore them to tears, but they loved it.”

“They loved it because they hadn’t seen a pretty little English lass in months,” said Edna. “I remember one man shouting, ‘Better than
a trip to the whorehouse!’ after I gave them my piece of Ophelia, and I still think it’s the best review I’ve ever received. You were in that show, Peg. You played my Hamlet. Those tights really suited you.”

“I didn’t
play
Hamlet; I just read from the script,” said Peg. “I never could act, Edna. And I detest
Hamlet
. Have you ever seen a production of
Hamlet
that didn’t make you want to go home
and put your head in the oven? I haven’t.”

“Oh, I thought our
Hamlet
was quite nice,” said Edna.

“Because it was
abridged,
” said Peg. “Which is the only thing Shakespeare should ever be.”

“Although you did make an awfully
cheery
Hamlet, as I recall,” said Edna. “Perhaps the most cheerful Hamlet in history.”

“But
Hamlet
isn’t meant to be cheerful!” chimed in Arthur Watson, looking puzzled.

The room paused. It was quite awkward. I would soon discover that this was often the effect that Arthur Watson had when he spoke. He could bring the most sparkling of conversations to the most grinding halt, just by opening his mouth.

We all looked to see how Edna would react to her husband’s stupid comment. But she was beaming at him fondly. “That’s right, Arthur.
Hamlet
is not generally known
for being a cheerful play, but Peg brought her natural buoyancy to the role and quite brightened up the whole story.”

“Oh!” he said. “Well, jolly good for her, then! Though I don’t know what Mr. Shakespeare would’ve thought of
that
.”

Peg saved the day by changing the subject: “Mr. Shakespeare would’ve rolled in his grave, Edna, if he knew that I’d been allowed to share a stage with the likes
of
you,
” she said. Then she turned to me again: “What you have to understand, kiddo, is that Edna is one of the greatest actresses of her age.”

Edna grinned. “Oh, Peg, stop talking about my
age
!”

“I believe what she meant, Edna,” corrected Arthur, “is that you are one of the greatest actresses of your
generation
. She’s not talking about your
age
.”

“Thank you for the clarification, darling,”
replied Edna to her husband, with no trace of irony or annoyance. “And thank
you
for the kindness, Peg.”

Peg went on: “Edna is the best Shakespearean actress you’ll ever meet, Vivian. She’s always had a knack for it. Started as a baby in the cradle. Could recite the sonnets backwards, they say, before she learned them forwards.”

Arthur muttered, “You’d think it would’ve been easier to learn
them forwards first.”

“Many thanks, Peg,” said Edna, ignoring Arthur, thank God. “You’ve always been so good to me.”

“We shall have to find something for you to do while you’re here,” announced Peg, slapping her leg for emphasis. “I’d be happy to put you in one of our terrible shows, but it’s all so beneath you.”

“Nothing is beneath me, dear Peg. I’ve played Ophelia in knee-deep mud.”

“Oh,
but Edna, you haven’t seen our shows! It’ll make you miss the mud. And I don’t have much to pay you—certainly not what you’re worth.”

“Anything’s better than what we could earn in England—if we could even get to England.”

“I just wish you could get a role in one of the more reputable theaters around town,” said Peg. “There are many of them in New York, rumor has it. I’ve never stepped foot in
one myself, of course, but I understand that they exist.”

“I know, but it’s too late in the season,” said Edna. “Middle of September—all the productions have been cast. And remember—I’m not as well known here, darling. As long as Lynn Fontanne and Ethel Barrymore are alive, I’ll never get the best roles in New York. But I’d still love to work while I’m here—and I know Arthur would, too. I’m versatile,
Peg—you know that. I can still play a youngish woman, if you put me at the back of the stage, in the correct lighting. I can play a Jewess, or a gypsy, or a Frenchwoman. At a pinch, I can play a little boy. Hell, Arthur and I will sell peanuts in the lobby, if need be. We’ll clean out ashtrays. We only wish to earn our keep.”

“Now see here, Edna,” declared Arthur Watson sternly. “I don’t think
I’d much like to clean out
ashtrays
.”

That evening, Edna watched both the early and the late performances of
Dance Away, Jackie!
She could not have been more
delighted with our awful little show if she’d been a twelve-year-old peasant child seeing theater for the first time.

“Oh, but it’s
fun
!” she exclaimed to me, when the performers had left the stage after their final bows. “You know, Vivian,
this sort of theater is where I got my start. My parents were players and I grew up around productions just like this. Born in the wings, five minutes before my first performance.”

Edna insisted on going backstage and meeting all the actors and dancers, to congratulate them. Some had heard of her, but most hadn’t. To most of them, she was just a nice woman giving them praise—and that was good
enough for them. The players bubbled up around her, soaking in her generous ministrations.

I cornered Celia and said, “That’s Edna Parker Watson.”

“Yeah?” said Celia, unimpressed.

“She’s a famous British actress. She’s married to Arthur Watson.”

“Arthur Watson, from
Gates of Noon
?”

“Yes! They’re staying here now. Their house in London got bombed.”

“But Arthur Watson is
young,
” Celia said,
staring at Edna. “How can he be married to her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s quite something, though.”

“Yeah.” Celia didn’t seem so sure. “Where we going out tonight?”

For the first time since meeting Celia, I wasn’t so sure I
wanted
to go out. I thought I might prefer to spend more time around Edna. Just for one night.

“I want you to meet her,” I said. “She’s famous and I’m mad about the
way she dresses.”

So I brought Celia over and proudly introduced her to Edna.

You can never anticipate how a woman is going to react to meeting a showgirl. A showgirl in full costume is intentionally designed to make all other females look and feel insignificant by comparison. You
need to have a considerable amount of self-confidence, as a woman, to stand in the lavish radiance of a showgirl
without flinching, resenting, or melting away.

But Edna—tiny as she was—had just that kind of self-confidence.

“You’re
magnificent
!” she cried to Celia, when I introduced them. “Look at the height on you! And that face. You, my dear, could headline at the
Folies Bergère
.”

“That’s in Paris,” I said to Celia, who thankfully did not take note of my patronizing tone, distracted as she was by the
compliments.

“And where are you from, Celia?” Edna asked—tilting her head with curiosity and shining the spotlight of her fullest attention upon my friend.

“I’m from right here. From New York City,” said Celia.

(As though that accent could’ve been born anywhere else.)

“I noticed tonight that you dance exceptionally well for a girl of your height. Did you study ballet? Your carriage would suggest
you’d been properly trained.”

“No,” replied Celia, whose face was now aglow with pleasure.

“And do you act? The camera must adore you. You look just like a film star.”

“I act a bit.” Then she added (quite archly for someone who had only ever played a corpse in a B movie): “I am not yet widely known.”

“Well, you shall be known soon enough, if there’s any justice. Stay at it, my dear. You’re
in the right field. You have a face that was made for your times.”

It’s not difficult to compliment people in order to try to win their affections. What is difficult is to do it in the
right way
. Everyone told Celia she was beautiful, but nobody had ever told her she had the carriage of a trained ballerina. Nobody had ever told her she had a face made for her times.

“You know, I’ve just realized
something,” said Edna. “In all the
excitement, I have not yet unpacked. I wonder if you girls might be free to help me?”

“Sure!” said Celia eagerly, looking like she was about thirteen years old.

And to my wonderment, in that instant the goddess became a handmaiden.

When we arrived upstairs in the fourth-floor apartment that Edna would be sharing with her husband, we found a pile of trunks
and parcels and hatboxes on the sitting-room floor—an avalanche of luggage.

“Oh, dear,” said Edna. “It gives quite the impression of density, doesn’t it? I do hate to trouble you girls, but shall we begin?”

As for me, I couldn’t wait. I was dying to get my hands on her clothes. I had a feeling they’d be splendid—and indeed they were. Unpacking Edna’s trunks was a lesson in sartorial genius.
I soon noticed that there was nothing haphazard about her clothing; it was all in keeping with a particular style that I might call “Little Lord Fauntleroy meets French salon hostess.”

She certainly had a lot of jackets—that seemed to be the elementary unit of her aesthetic. The jackets were all variations on a theme—fitted, jaunty, slightly martial in tone. Some were trimmed in Persian lamb,
others had satin details. Some looked like formal riding jackets, but some were more playful. All of them had gold buttons of different design, and all were lined with jewel-toned silks.

“I have them specially made,” she told me, when she caught me searching the labels for information. “There’s an Indian tailor in London who has come to know my taste over the years. He never gets bored of creating
them for me, and I never get bored of buying them.”

And then there were the trousers—so many pairs of trousers. Some
were long and loose, but others were narrow and looked like they would hit above the ankle. (“I got used to wearing these when I studied dance,” she said of the cropped variety. “All the dancers in Paris wore trousers like that, and heavens, did they make it look chic. I used to
call those girls ‘the slim ankle brigade.’”)

The trousers were a real revelation for me. I’d never been a firm believer in trousers on women until I saw how good they looked on Edna. Not even Garbo and Hepburn had yet convinced me that a woman could be both feminine and glamorous in pants, but looking at Edna’s clothes suddenly made me think that it was the
only
way a woman could be both feminine
and glamorous.

“I prefer trousers for daily wear,” she explained. “I’m small, but I have a long stride. I need to be able to move about freely. Years ago, a newspaperman wrote that I had a ‘titillating boyishness’ to me, and that’s my favorite thing a man’s ever said about me. What could be better than having a bit of the titillating boy about you?”

Celia gave a puzzled look, but I understood
Edna’s point exactly and loved this idea.

Then we came to the trunk filled with Edna’s blouses. So many of them had quaint jabots, or ornamental ruffles. This attention to detail, I grasped, is how a woman could wear a suit and still look like a woman. There was one high-necked crepe de chine chemise in the softest pink you could imagine, and it made my heart ache with longing when I touched
it. Then I pulled out an elegant little ivory number of finest silk, with tiny pearl buttons at the neck, and the most infinitesimal sleeves.

“What an
impeccable
blouse!” I said.

“Thank you for noticing, Vivian. You’ve got a good eye. That little blouse came from Coco Chanel herself. She gave it to me—if you can imagine Coco ever
giving
somebody something for free! It must have been a weak moment
for her. Perhaps she had food poisoning that day.”

Celia and I both gasped, and I cried out, “You know Coco Chanel?”

“Nobody
knows
Coco, my dear. She would never allow for that. But I can say that we are acquainted. I met her years ago when I was acting in Paris and living on the Quai Voltaire. That was back when I was learning French—which is a good language to learn as an actress, because
it teaches you how to use your mouth.”

Well,
that
was the most sophisticated combination of words I’d ever heard.

“But what’s she like?”

“What’s Coco like?” Edna paused, closed her eyes, and seemed to be searching for the right words. She opened her eyes and smiled. “Coco Chanel is a gifted, ambitious, cunning, unloved, and hardworking
eel
of a woman. I’m more afraid of her taking dominion
over the world than I am of Mussolini or Hitler. No, I’m teasing—she’s a fine enough specimen of a person. One is only ever in danger from Coco when she starts calling you her friend. But she’s far more interesting than I’m making her sound. Girls, what do you think of this hat?”

She had pulled from a box a homburg—like something a man would wear, but not at all. Soft and plum colored, and dressed
with a single red feather. She modeled it for us with a bright smile.

“It’s wonderful on you,” I said. “But it doesn’t look like anything I’m seeing people wearing right now.”

“Thank you,” said Edna. “I can’t bear the hats that are in style just now. I can’t endure a hat that substitutes a pile of miscellany on the top of your head for the pleasing simplicity of a
line
. A homburg will always
give you a perfect line, if it’s specially made for you. The wrong hat makes me feel cross and oppressed. And there are so many wrong hats. But alas—milliners need to eat, too, I suppose.”

“I love
this,
” said Celia, pulling out a long, yellow silk scarf, and wrapping it around her head.

“Well done, Celia!” said Edna. “You are the infrequent sort of girl who looks
good
with a scarf wrapped around
her head. How fortunate for you! If I wore that scarf in that manner, I would look like a dead saint. Do you like it? You may keep it.”