Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2003

Mr. Sandrich looked like he wanted to say something, but he swallowed the thought, shrugged, and said, “Cue the music. Take twenty-one. Cameras, action.”

Astaire came through the curtains, all movement and rhythm and timing. This was supposed to be a spontaneous routine. In the story, Marjorie Reynolds, his partner, doesn’t show up and two important Hollywood executives are in the audience. He grabs a handful of pocket torpedoes, and as he dances, he throws them against the ground, an explosive counterpoint to his own pyrotechnics. It’s the most amazing dance routine I’d ever seen.

He turns. Bam! He skips twice, does a half pirouette. Bam! Bam! He lights an entire string of firecrackers, then dances among the explosions. All to the music. All looking like he was making it up on the spot. It was stunning.

When he finished, he didn’t even appear to be breathing hard. Everyone applauded again. My hands stung with enthusiasm.

“No. It’s still not right. Let’s do it again.” He disappeared behind the curtains.

A familiar voice said over my shoulder, “Pop, he’s getting so thin, I could spit through him.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Crosby.”

He shook his head in wonder as he walked away toward the sound-proof practice rooms. Martha Mears, Miss Reynolds’s voice double, was with him. They’d been working on the harmonies for “White Christmas” since last week.

All in all, Astaire did the firecracker routine for the cameras thirty-eight times and it was late at night before he said it was good enough. Only the essential crew members were left in the studio.

“Go home, boys,” he said. “I want to get in another step or two.”

The lights shut down, except for the spot he’d danced to the night before. I checked the doors. In the year since she’d died, I’d never seen Lillian dance. She walked or stood. She found me, then locked her eyes on mine, straining to communicate a mute message from beyond her grave I never understood.

Tapping came from the stage again. One foot.

“Hey, Pop,” he said as I took a seat in the dark. “Let’s see if we can get a curtain call from our mystery dancer.”

He beat out his complicated, one-footed rhythm, hands deep in his pockets. “You know, my character in the film is searching for a dance partner.” He changed to the other foot without breaking the beat. It scraped, skipped, heel-toed, variation on variation. “I know what it’s like to look for a partner. One dance. One supreme dance to glory.” He sounded whimsical. “Sometimes when the music starts, it’s like... well, it’s like...” He trailed into silence, his eyes tracking offstage. “Ahh,” he sighed.

I couldn’t see her! Why couldn’t I see her? Astaire glided to center stage. Offered his hand. Curled the other around the small of her invisible back.

I’ve seen Astaire dance with Ginger Rogers, with Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth, and Grace Kelly. He’s redefined what a human can do with his body to music. But I’d never seen a dance like this. Not before. Not since.

And they danced. The room grew cold. Not just a spot, but the whole studio, thousands of square feet. My exhalations were frosty plumes. I found that I was crying, the tears freezing on my cheeks. I suddenly felt like an intruder, a peeping Tom. I left. I Walked through the Holiday Inn interior. The Christmas tree glittered in the little light. Bing Crosby’s pipe lay on the piano top. I could almost hear him singing, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas... where children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow.”

Then I exited. Now I stood in the Holiday Inn exterior. Impossibly, the snow machine above turned on. Oatmeal flakes tumbled down around me. I was freezing in a fake snowstorm while Fred Astaire danced with the ghost of a dead girl who never made it into the pictures.

I unlocked a north door. Crossed the alley. Leapt the low wall, then walked home through the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery. I never went back to the studio. I mailed my resignation.

They released Holiday Inn in August of 1942. A Japanese U-boat shelled a Santa Barbara oil refinery in January. Corregidor fell in May. We beat the Japs at Coral Sea and again at Midway, but the losses were terrible. I tried to enlist. The army wasn’t interested in a prematurely gray, heavy, flat-footed thirty-two-year-old ex-security guard.

In September, finally, I went to see the movie. Someone told me that they’d seen me in the film, and I remembered that on a lark they’d used me in one scene. Didn’t even change my name. I’m standing at a security door when the filming of the final Holiday Inn sequence starts, and I tell Fred Astaire and his agent they can’t come in. I have one line. Behind the door, Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds finally get together. If you watch the movie, you’ll see me.

But that’s not what’s important.

I settled into the theater seat. The movie was pretty popular. That song, “White Christmas,” just seemed perfect for our boys overseas, but this was a weekday matinee, and I almost had the house to myself.