Remake

“Who?” Hedda licked her gloved finger and rubbed it in the powder the pills had left on her glove.

“The face over there,” I said, pointing. She had moved out of the doorway, over against the wall, but her hair was still catching the light, making a halo of her light brown hair.

Hedda sucked the powder off her glove. “Alice,” she said. Alice who? Alice Faye? No, Alice Faye’d been a platinum blonde, like everybody else in Hollywood. And she wasn’t given to hair ribbons. Charlotte Henry in Alice in Wonderland?

Whoever the girl had been looking for — the White Rabbit, probably — she’d given up on finding him, and was watching the freescreen. On it, Fred and Ginger were dancing around each other without touching, their eyes locked.

“Alice who?” I said.

Hedda was frowning at her finger. “Huh?”

“Who’s she supposed to be?” I said. “Alice Faye? Alice Adams? Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore?”

The girl had moved away from the wall, her eyes still on the screen, and was heading toward the baseball cap. He leaped forward, thrilled to have a new audience, and started into his spiel, but she wasn’t listening to him. She was watching Fred and Ginge, her head tilted up toward the screen, her hair catching the light from the fibe-op feed.

“I don’t think any of this stuff is what he told me,” Hedda said, licking her finger again. “It’s her name.”

“What?”

“Alice,” she said. “A-l-i-s. It’s her name. She’s a freshie. Film hist major. From Illinois.”

Well, that explained the hair ribbon, though not the rest of the getup. It wasn’t Alice Adams. The gloves were 1950s, not thirties, and her face wasn’t angular enough to be trying for Katharine Hepburn. “Who’s she supposed to be?”

“I wonder which one of these is ice,” Hedda said, poking around in her hand again. “It’s supposed to make the flash go away faster. She wants to dance in the movies.”

“I think you’ve had enough pill potluck,” I said, reaching for her hand.

She squeezed it shut, protecting the pills. “No, really. She’s a dancer.”

I looked at her, wondering how many unmarked pills she’d taken before I got here.

“She was born the year Fred Astaire died,” she said, gesturing with her closed fist. “She saw him on the fibe-op feed and decided to come to Hollywood to dance in the movies.”

“What movies?” I said.

She shrugged, intent on her hand again.

I looked over at the girl. She was still watching the screen, her face intent. “Ruby Keeler,” I said.

“Huh?” Hedda said.

“The plucky little dancer in 42nd Street who wants to be a star.” Only she was about twenty years too late. But just in time for a little popsy, and if she was wide-eyed enough to believe she could make it in the movies, it ought to be a piece of cake getting her up to my room.

I shouldn’t have to explain time travel to her, like the exec. He was talking earnestly to a Marilyn wearing black fringe and holding a ukulele. Some Like It Hot.

“See, you’re turning me down in this timefeed,” he was saying, “but in a parallel timefeed we’re already popping.” He leaned closer. “There are hundreds of thousands of parallel timefeeds. Who knows what we’re doing in some of them?”

“What if I’m turning you down in all of them?” the Marilyn said.

I squeezed past her fringe, thinking she might work out if Ruby didn’t, and started through the crowd toward the screen.

“Don’t!” Hedda said loudly.

At least half the room turned to look at her.

“Don’t what?” I said, coming back to her. She was looking past me at Alis, and her face had the bleak, slightly dazed look klieg produces.

“You just flashed, didn’t you?” I said. “I told you it was klieg. And that means I’ll be doing the same thing shortly, so if you’ll excuse me—”

She took hold of my arm. “I don’t think you should—” she said, still looking at Alis. “She won’t…” She was looking worriedly at me. Mildred Natwick in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, telling John Wayne to be careful.

“Won’t what? Give me a pop? You wanta bet?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head like she was trying to clear it. “You… she knows what she wants.”

“So do I. And thanks to your Russian-roulette approach to pharmaceuticals, it promises to be an unforgettable experience. If I can get Ruby up to my room in the next ten minutes. Now, if there are no further objections…” I said, and started past her.

She started to put out her hand, like she was going to grab my sleeve, and then let it drop.

The exec was talking about negative-matter regions. I went around him and over to the screen, where Alis was looking up at Fred’s face, the staircase, Ginger’s black-edged skirt, Fred’s hand.

She was as pretty in close-up as she had been in the establishing shot. Her caught-back hair was picking up the flickering light from the screen and her face had an intent, focused look.

“They shouldn’t do that,” she said.

“What? Show a movie?” I said. “ ‘You’ve got to show a movie at a party. It’s a Hollywood law.’ ”