Missing Reels (36 page)

“I’m, um, I know I got impatient back there,” he said. “He gets on my nerves.”

“It’s all right.” She didn’t want Fred mad. “I just wanted to talk to him some more, that’s all. He’s interesting.”

“He is?” She’d made things worse.

“Of course he is,” she said. They were on the sidewalk. She tightened the belt of her coat. “It’s different for you, this is what you do for a living. Me, I work in a store all day and at night I go see these movies and nobody wants to come. And then nobody wants to talk about them, either.”

He shifted the bag. “What about your project with, um, you know—”

“Matthew?” Shit, she’d forgotten the phony project again. “He’s mostly focused on his math. He likes this sort of thing, but …” Fred was just standing there. “He, I don’t know …” Still not moving. “Maxes out?”

“Yeah. I get that from people too.”

Something was nagging at her, and she’d better ask while he was still there. “Fred … that woman up in Vermont. Did they save everything she had?”

He shook his head. “No way. About half of the nitrate was, um, shot. Couple of them disintegrated before they could even get them out of the canister. Um, do you mind if I—” He paused. “Never mind. Bad idea. Smoking around nitrate.”

“You’re right,” she said, though she was dying for a cigarette too. “I guess,” she continued, sounding a little off even to herself, “you wouldn’t even know which ones were there.”

“Oh, we knew all right. They were labeled.”

Labels. She had never thought about labels. She swallowed hard. “So which ones? Are we talking a movie that had been lost?”

He inhaled, rose up on his toes, then rocked back on his heels. “Are you ready for this? Like, ah, really ready? Because it’s bad.” Oh god. “
Flaming Youth
.”

She breathed out. She didn’t know that one. “That was the one with—” She groped. Fitzgerald. “The flappers?”

“Yep,” he said. “Colleen Moore.” He breathed deeply and shook his head, like he was recalling a death in the family. “Couldn’t salvage a frame. I wasn’t there. It was, ah, before my time, you know. But they told me Bixby put his head down on the table and cried.”

She felt like crying herself, and she’d never even heard of this movie. Obviously she needed to stay away from vodka. She settled for shaking her head slowly, like he had. “Was that the only lost film there?”

“Yep. That was it. Except, you know, the Arnheim fragment. That was just one reel. Kinda weird.” She was so relieved she figured she’d better clam up for a minute. He put the bag on the ground and started rifling his pockets. “Okay. So, um, right. I gotta get back to the Brody.
Not
because I’m afraid of the nitrate.”

“I understand. Isabel.”

“Yeah.” He took out a card. “And, um, to be honest, it’s gonna be, ah, crazy for a while. But um, look, here’s my card. And, you know, in a couple of weeks, when the weather’s warmer, if you want to come up and, I don’t know, look around and, um, talk about Roscoe Arbuckle or whatever, give me a call.”

She took the card, though she had one already. This card felt more sincere.

S
HE STAYED UP LATE, TRYING TO DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT
L
AUREN
Reifsnyder was a dead end. The woman had the screen test, but not the movie print. How on earth did that make sense? She overslept and made it to work just in time. For once exhaustion worked in her favor. Lily eyed her and said she hoped Ceinwen wasn’t still throwing up.

As she showed people jewelry, she found herself thinking about the jewelry, which she hadn’t done in ages.

When she came home that night, she opened the street door and saw Miriam, getting the mail. That’s the ticket, she thought. Bet you anything Miriam is still holding out on me.

“Hello,” said Miriam, and began to climb the stairs.

“Oh hey, Miriam,” she called. “I was hoping to run into you.” Miriam turned and tucked her mail under her arm. She decided to answer the question Miriam was refusing to ask. “That’s because there’s a new coffee shop over on Fifth Street. I thought we could go and try the coffee.” Miriam tilted her head slightly. “Or the doughnuts.”

“Why would we do that?”

“To see if it’s any good?” ventured Ceinwen. Miriam climbed off the bottom step and walked over.

“No, I mean why would we go together.”

It suddenly occurred to Ceinwen that she spent a big chunk of every day dealing with people who refused to act like normal human beings. The elderly, the English. Retailers. “To be sociable?”

Miriam folded her arms. “You can’t be much more than twenty.”

“Twenty-one.”

“I thought so. And yet you keep attempting to, what’s the term, hang out with me. I’ve got more than half a century on you. I’m ancient. I bought a cemetery plot seven years ago.”

“Really? Whereabouts?” Next to Emil, or Jack?

Miriam’s hand flew to her forehead, then dropped. “Ceinwen. Do you realize that most girls your age would not hear that I’m preparing to die and promptly ask me where I plan to get planted?”

Miriam was implying she was weird. She was not weird, any more than she was obsessive. This she wasn’t going to let stand. “I’ve always related well to old—er people.”

“You don’t say,” said Miriam, flatly. “Why?”

The street door opened and a middle-aged woman came in, holding her child by the hand. They moved to let her pass, and despite the extra time the procedure gave, Ceinwen couldn’t come up with anything good. When mother and child had disappeared beyond the first landing she said, trying to sound casual, “They’re interesting.”

“No. They’re not. They eat bland food and check their blood pressure and worry about whether Reagan is going to cut Medicare. They watch CNN and go to bed early.”

“You don’t do any of those things.”

“Oh yes I do,” laughed Miriam. “Don’t you see what I’m saying? Go to a punk-rock club. I’ve been past that one on the Bowery. The famous one.”

“CBGB.”

“Yes!” said Miriam, sounding pleased for the first time. “Go there!”

“I’ve been there,” said Ceinwen, morosely. “I didn’t fit in.” She’d worn a good dress, too.

“All right then, find another place. Have Matthew find another place. Dye your hair a different color. Find a girlfriend your own age. What’s so great about old people?”

“They’ve lived through history.” That was what Granana always said.

“So have we all,” was the crushing response.

“And,” said Ceinwen, trying to salvage something, “they like the same movies I do.”

“I suspect”—Miriam held up a finger—“we have the heart of the matter right there.” Miriam didn’t want to talk to her again. Especially not about movies.

“You’re telling me you’re going upstairs to watch CNN?”

“
Nightline
. Since you ask.”

Out of patience and with her tact nowhere to be found, she lashed out: “Why the hell do old folks want to watch the news all the time?”

Miriam gave a very slight smile. “It makes us glad we won’t be around much longer.” She turned to go and said, “Maybe some other time.”

“Sure.” It was never going to happen.

Monday morning, she made a list. Talk to Gene at Bangville and see if Lauren ever sold anything. Steve said she didn’t, but maybe he didn’t know. Talk to Steve and see if he knew more about where collectors got things. Both of those ideas involved calling Fred to get the phone numbers, and she better have a good story ready for that. Go back to the library and start working through the Times, to see if Norman Stallings had ever been mentioned.

When she’d finished, she stared at the page for a bit and decided to go to the movies to clear her head. Up to the Thalia for
Waterloo Bridge
and
The Red Shoes
. Tragic ballerina double feature: first the prostitute, then the suicide. The Thalia’s floor sloped down, then up. She sat near her favorite spot on the upper slope, a good way down from the inexplicable pillar that blocked the view from some seats. She concentrated on Shearer’s hair; that red had to be natural. Just like Kelly at the Brody.

She had some time before she went over to Matthew’s apartment. She looked down the street and thought, I have enough clothes, I don’t want to look at any more. The Strand is too far away, I’ll go tomorrow. She went into a drugstore and strolled to the L’Oréal shelf. Almost time to touch up her roots. She put her hand on the box and paused. It was just hair. Hair grows. Why not try something different.

When she arrived at Matthew’s place she put her bag on his counter and he pointed to the Duane Reade logo. “Not getting sick, are you?” She pulled the box out of the bag and showed him.

“Light Auburn?” he asked, as though the box said “Turquoise.”

“Change of pace,” she said. He was reading the back of the box. “Besides, I’ve got redhead-type skin. I even get freckles sometimes.”

“It says here,” he said, “that if you put this over blonde you’ll get Bright Light Auburn. You want bright red hair?”

“I’m young and it’s good to experiment, don’t you think?”

“I think I like it the way it is,” he said, and slipped the box back into the bag.

He didn’t ask about where she’d gone the night she stood him up, and despite his expectant looks over dinner, she didn’t offer. He was trying to teach her to play chess. Or, rather, she already knew how to play chess; Matthew was trying to teach her how not to be terrible at it. Some way into their first game she shifted her castle. He contemplated the board for a moment, then said, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

Uh-oh. “That means I shouldn’t?” He was looking at the piece as though it had insulted him. She said, “If I don’t move it, your pawn is going to take it.” More silence. “I don’t want you to take my castle. It’s my favorite.”

That got his eyes on her. “It’s called a rook. Why is it your favorite?”

“It’s the prettiest one.”

“See here, Greta Garbo. Sentiment has no place in chess. Look, I’ll show you. Now I move my bishop. And then you get your knight out of the way, because you like those too—no, don’t deny it—and then what happens?” She looked hard at the board. “What have you left open now?”

“My rook,” she said. Rook, not castle. I can do this.

“Sod your rook. Look again.”

She got it. “My queen.”

“Correct.” He put the pieces back, including her rook. “Try again. I’m giving you this one.”

This game wasn’t nearly as reasonable as he’d made it out to be. “How the hell am I supposed to know what’s going to happen two or three moves out?”

“You’re supposed to conjecture. It’s strategy.” She didn’t have the slightest idea what she should do now. She glared at her queen, who was forcing her to sacrifice her pretty rook, and she heard Matthew say, “It’s not a bad way to approach life in general, you know. Trying to think ahead.”

Tuesday, after a second look at her list of ways to figure out the Reifsnyder question, she went to the Strand. She was halfway to the movie section when she stopped to reconsider, and a leather-clad, shaven-head kid with a backpack almost collided with her as he stalked to the “Sell Your Books” desk. She shifted out of the way, then walked to the “review copies” table. Twenty minutes later she walked out with a half-price copy of
Money
, by some English writer named Martin Amis. She’d spotted the paperback on Matthew’s desk and taken a look, because the cover had film rolls on it. Matthew said she shouldn’t borrow
Money
unless she understood that it was definitely not her kind of movie the characters were making. She started it that night and had to underline the slang she didn’t know, so she would remember to ask when he got back.

Wednesday morning she went down to the bodega and bought a
Voice
. She spent lunch hour looking at the Help Wanted ads. If she wanted to take the
Waterloo Bridge
career path she was all set. The other ads, the legitimate ones—what did “front office appearance” mean? She didn’t know, but she suspected she didn’t have it. And why did so many places want a degree? Did she need college to answer the phones at a magazine?

Thursday, the day after Matthew left, she realized as she drank her coffee that she didn’t want to go to the library. She didn’t want to pore through a movie book or try to call anyone. She didn’t want to do anything.

She’d told Jim and Matthew that she wanted to make sure
Mysteries
survived for the sake of the people who made it. She said she wanted to bring back a bit of Emil for Miriam. It wasn’t true, or at least it was only partly true. She wanted to see the movie. But how could she know if it was any good? What was so special about this film, when you got right down to it? No one knew anymore if it had been something great, or “quite dreadful,” in the words of Lucile Pierrepoint. Even Miriam said she wasn’t sure. No one knew if Emil had talent, or if he was just another German with a bad attitude. And a drinking problem. Don’t forget that.

She took her notes and stacked them neatly on top of her bookshelf. She spent Monday and Tuesday reading
Money
. It was funny, and mean, but it was also extremely strange to name a main character John Self, and have her thinking for a couple of hundred pages that this was obviously a self-portrait, and then have the writer put himself in the book, with his own name. Martin Amis, right there. She made some more notes in the margins.

Thursday night she came home and was walking toward her room when Talmadge intoned, “Doesn’t she remind you of somebody? Somebody we used to know?”

“Vaguely. Such a long time ago, very long ago and far away, and we were all so young and innocent.” Jim had the back of his hand to his forehead.

“I’ve got it, that little blonde we used to live with. Such a sweet young thing. Whatever became of her?”

They were standing next to each other, like a vaudeville act. “My dear, didn’t you hear?” said Jim. “She became involved with”—a big pause, then a stage whisper—“a foreigner.”

“No! Please tell me—he wasn’t—he couldn’t be—English, could he?”

“He was. And what happened, it breaks the heart. He imprisoned her in the Tower. And that’s where she must live, to this day. She has to stand by the case and when the royal family wants to wear something, she says ‘May I help you?’”