City of Girls

Peg rushed at Edna and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Edna!” she cried, giving her old friend a spin. “The Dewdrop of Drury Lane makes an appearance on our humble shores!”

“Dear Peg!” cried Edna. “You look exactly the same!” Edna released herself from Peg’s arms, stepped back, and took a look up at the Lily. “But is all this yours, Peg? The entire building?”

“All of it, yes, unfortunately,” said Peg. “Would you like to buy it?”

“I haven’t a farthing to my name, darling, or I absolutely would. It’s charming. But look at you—you’ve become an impresario! You’re a theater magnate! The façade reminds me of the old Hackney. It’s lovely. I do see why you had to buy it.”

“Yes, of course I had to buy it,” said Peg, “because otherwise I might have ended up wealthy and comfortable in my old age, and that would’ve been no good for anybody. But enough about my dumb playhouse, Edna. I’m just sick about what’s happened to your home—and what’s happening to poor England!”

“Darling Peg,” said Edna, and she placed her palm gently on my aunt’s cheek. “It’s wretched. But Arthur and I are alive. And now, thanks to you, we have a roof to sleep under, and that’s a good deal more than some other people can say.”

“Where is Arthur?” asked Peg. “Can’t wait to meet him.”

But I myself had already spotted him.

Arthur Watson was the handsome, dark-haired, movie-star-looking fellow with the lantern jaw who was, at that instant, grinning at the cab driver and pumping the man’s hand with altogether too much enthusiasm. He was a well-built man with a good pair of shoulders, and he was much taller than he looked on the movie screen—which is highly abnormal for actors. He had a cigar clamped in his mouth, which somehow looked like a prop. He was the best-looking man I’d ever seen at close quarters, but there was something artificial about his good looks. He had a rakish curl that fell over one eye, for instance, which would have been a lot more attractive if it hadn’t looked so deliberately cultivated. (The thing about rakishness, Angela, is that it should never seem intentional.) He looked like an actor, is the best way I can describe it. He looked as if he were an actor hired to play the part of a handsome, well-built man, shaking the hand of a cabdriver.

Arthur marched over to us in great, athletic strides and shook Peg’s hand just as forcibly as he’d done to the poor cabbie.

“Mrs. Buell,” he said. “Awfully good of you to give us a place to stay!”

“A delight, Arthur,” said Peg. “I simply adore your wife.”

“I adore her, too!” boomed Arthur, and he caught Edna in a tight squeeze that looked like it might hurt, but which only made her beam with pleasure.

“And this is my niece, Vivian,” said Peg. “She’s been staying with me all summer, learning how to run a theater company into the ground.”

“The niece!” Edna said, as though she’d been hearing fabulous things about me for years. She gave me a kiss on each cheek, wafting a scent of gardenia. “But look at you, Vivian—you’re simply stunning! Please tell me that you’re not an aspiring actress and that you won’t ruin your life in the theater—although you’re certainly pretty enough for it.”

Hers was a smile far too warm and genuine for show business. She was paying me the compliment of her undivided attention, and thus I was instantly smitten.

“No,” I said. “I’m not an actress. But I do love living at the Lily with my aunt.”

“But of course you do, darling. She’s marvelous.”

Arthur interrupted, to reach in and crush my hand in his. “Awfully nice to meet you, Vivian!” he said. “And how long did you say you’ve been an actress?”

I was less smitten with him.

“Oh, I’m not an actress—” I started to say, but Edna put her hand on my arm and whispered in my ear, as if we were dearest friends, “It’s quite all right, Vivian. Arthur sometimes doesn’t pay the closest attention, but he’ll get it all sorted out eventually.”

“Let’s go have drinks on my verandah!” said Peg. “Except that I forgot to buy a home with a verandah, so let’s go have drinks in the filthy living room above my theater, and we can pretend that we’re having drinks on my verandah!”

“Brilliant Peg,” said Edna. “How violently I’ve missed you!”

—

A few trays of martinis later, it was as if I’d known Edna Parker Watson forever.

She was the most charming presence I’d ever watched light up a room. She was a sort of elfin queen, what with her bright little face, and her dancing gray eyes. Nothing about her was quite what it seemed. She was pale, but she didn’t seem weak or delicate. And she was awfully dainty—with the tiniest shoulders and a slender frame—but she didn’t look fragile. She had a hearty laugh and a robust bounce to her step that belied her size and her pallid coloring.

I suppose you could call her a non-frail waif.