A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

A big round moon leaped up, quivered a little, and then steadied itself, half of it bent flat on the boards, the other half upright against the backdrop. It glowed rose, tinted with yellow, perfect as a hot-house peach but more ideally round than any peach could ever have been. A girl came through the curtain.

It is impossible to characterize Zelda. To everyone in turn she represented something different. To that comfortable woman with the pearls in her ears sitting in the second row on the aisle, she was one of the lucky ones who weighed one hundred pounds and could climb stairs without seeing black spots in front of her eyes. To the woman’s husband she brought to mind that summer of 1923 when his wife had been away in Maine. He would have liked to meet her. He would also have liked to have his hair back and be President of the United States. To the wise gum-chewers up on the shelf, she was simply a good act, nothing more. To which their flour-faced friends retorted, not without acidity, that they had seen better. To the orchestra leader, she was someone who flew into rages at Monday morning rehearsals and who darted deadly looks at him under her long lashes if he began vamping an encore when she wasn’t in the mood for one. To the man in the wings, she symbolized drudgery, painting itself in bright colors and fooling the world for fifteen minutes each night but not fooling him.

Her method was not subtle. She had to score and score quickly, and she knew it. She began to sing something popular. She had all the mannerisms that went with it. Palms out in the direction of the audience as though pushing it away from her. She gave a sly little turn of the wrist, pointing with one finger, and the moon that had been following her about like a big cartwheel rolled glibly off the stage and perched obediently on one of the upper boxes.

There was only one person in the box. She had chosen it so there would be no division of interest on the part of the audience. He seemed turned to stone. In all that glare he never batted an eyelash. After a moment he let his chin sink forward until his jaw rested more comfortably on the back of his arm. He gave the absurd impression of taking the whole proceeding seriously. The audience by now was convinced he had been planted there for her act. They expected witty repartee, and when it failed to come, they could not understand why it was being withheld.

To cap the climax, when she remarked in a wheedling voice, “Darling, you do love me, don’t you?” (as part of the patter chorus) he nodded his head affirmatively, and the girl on the stage, more disconcerted than anyone guessed, almost forgot to gesture for a moment. She had expected almost anything but not this. Instead of wriggling adolescents stumbling over each other in a mad rush to get out of the light, or some jeering salesman sitting through it with an air of assumed bravado, she had unearthed an enigma.

She could efface him swiftly and at once. Lift her little finger and the moon would come floating back to her. But she didn’t. It wasn’t businesslike of her in the least. She knew that. She needed all the moon she could get in the short time she was out front, and yet she let it stay up there on him. Her nerves were crying for a well rounded performance, and she couldn’t get it. As intended comic relief he was no help at all, had simply ruined the number. A professional plant at least would have had a line of back talk ready to throw at her.

She began to work harder than ever, angrily determined. “Look at his eyes, folks. Aren’t they beautiful? Do you blame me, girls?”

She had to give in at last. With a limp gesture of farewell she finally called the moon off him and took her bows. It had gone over immensely if the smacking was any criterion, but she had that empty, that “all gone” feeling she had known she was going to get. She glared daggers at the leader and frightened him out of an encore. As it was, she had to feed them something about her gratitude.

She brushed by Jack in the wings on the way to the dressing-room. “Some fool up in one of the cages rattled me.”

“Maybe you’d like a screen around you,” he suggested uncharitably.

The next show she received a note in her dressing-room. This was no novelty, certainly. She put down the grease stick to look at it. Miss Zelda Grayson, care of Bandbox Theater. She opened it with a pair of manicure scissors.

“Sweet peas,” said Jack, sticking his head in at the door. “Going to open an undertaking parlor with them?”

“Yes,” she said crushingly. “Send your head around some time for embalming.”

After the show she thought it out. She would be very hard-boiled about this. That was the thing to do. And though she hated to admit it, she knew she wasn’t at all hard-boiled underneath and never would be. But she had acquired the manner to perfection and that helped some. She knew all the mean little stencils that could take the warmth and kindness out of things instantly like the cut of a whip.