Minnie Flynn/Chapter 15
THE following April, Hal Deane moved his company to Chicago to make some scenes in the giant packing houses and stockyards. He timed his departure so he left New York the day Minnie Flynn and her family left for their first trip to Hollywood. Old habits cling: Deane's introspective mind, always at work with its analyses, made him curious to get Minnie's reactions on her first transcontinental trip. He arrived at the Grand Central Station early, and kept well in the background. "Everything is running true to form," he said to himself as he watched Minnie's friends gathering for their conspicuous farewells. Hustle, bustle, laughter: Minnie's excited voice shrilling above the drumming echoes as she herded her friends around her so the studio publicity men could photograph the distinguished party.
Minnie wore an expensive traveling frock trimmed with silver fox, and a large corsage of orchids. Messenger boys with last minute telegrams were pushing through the crowd calling her name. Two enormous boxes of roses were set at Minnie's feet, a case of champagne added to the huge pile of luggage. Down the broad stairway came an eager, self-conscious group of girls, one of them holding a box of home-made cookies wrapped in mussed tissue paper and tied with a large red ribbon . . . Minnie's Ninth Avenue friends.
Shuttling in and out of the crowd could be seen Mrs. Flynn, dazed, but afraid that her daughter would miss a reporter. Michael Flynn stood near the iron gates holding the tickets in his trembling hand. Close to him was Lily, Minnie's colored maid, trusted with the jewel case and the Pekinese dog in a wicker basket.
Jimmy's girl friends were gathered in a chattering, colorful circle around him, Alicia enveloped in her new chinchilla coat.
Minnie was photographed with everyone except her Ninth Avenue friends. The last snapshot was carefully posed, for it was to appear the following morning under the caption, "June Day blowing farewell kiss to New York."
Deane was standing apart from the others, watching, smiling rather ironically when a friendly hand clasped his arm, and Sam Binns' voice saluted him. "This is luck, all right! I thought I'd missed you. They told me at the Lambs' you had gone to Chicago."
"Leave on the Century."
"So am I—on my way back to California."
"Wish I were going out with you. May get there for my next picture if we make the Western we're planning to. But you'll have company, Sam. Our little friend, June Day, will be on the train."
Sam Binns laughed. "Mineola Flynn!" he said. "I don't know why, but I always think of her as that. Lord, what a few years can do in this topsy-turvy business! Yesterday's shop-girls, high school kids, cabaret dancers, are today's stars. But who'd have thought that youngster would have made the grade so quickly. They tell me she's getting two thousand a week now."
"Something like that, and a three-year contract."
"I know she's signed up. The West Coast Company I'm studio manager for made her an offer, but her brother turned it down."
"Seen her new pictures?"
"Some of them—she's still got magnetism and personality, but they're putting her in the wrong kind of stuff. Why doesn't she stick to the type of picture you were making with her? Hasn't she sense enough to know her public by now?"
Deane shook his head. "She's at the stage where you can't tell her anything. She's the axis, the world revolves about her. What can you expect, surrounded as she is by drooling parasites? Look over there, Sam; pretty familiar sight, isn't it?"
Binns laughed again, but there was a note of pity in the timbre of his voice. "I've watched these little stars come and go for so many years I could write out the formula and I bet it wouldn't vary an iota—friends, orchids, brass bands, dogs in wicker baskets, colored maids, trunks and trunks, photographers, telegrams, champagne, the star wanting to cry but afraid to for fear the mascara will run down her cheeks. What a business! It's lots of fun, though, while it lasts. I've often wished I'd been fortunate enough to have a taste of that petty, personal triumph. I bet they get a great kick out of it. Look at that kid, how her eyes are dancing. Little Mineola Flynn!"
"Little Mineola Flynn," Deane repeated half to himself.
"Say, Hal, isn't that Al Kessler with her?"
"I suppose so. He's engaged to her sister, Nettie. Strange how two sisters can be so unlike—in type, I mean. And Nettie's uglier than ever in her beautiful, expensive clothes. She's the dark, full-lipped girl standing to the right of Minnie."
"Looks like a country mule in a city stable, as our Western cowboys would say," smiled Binns. "I suppose she's a movie actress by now. They're never content until the whole family is in the business!"
Deane nodded. "Her younger brother is drawing down a salary as publicity adviser, whatever that is. You know—same old story—enough rope"
"Don't I know it, though!"
Sam Binns had heard nothing of Deane's interest in Minnie. A man's fine, clean, serious love for a woman offers little to intrigue the scandalmongers. They dismiss such romances casually, but there had taken root in Hollywood the seeds of gossip linking Minnie's name with Gilbert Carlton.
"I don't see Carlton anywhere," Binns remarked, as he stepped forward to look over the crowd surrounding Minnie. "Any truth in the scandal that's going the rounds?"
"It's true, I'm afraid."
"Kind of a skunk, isn't he?"
"You know the type—selfish, playing her for all she's worth to him."
"And she's in love with him?"
"Pathetically so."
"I never knew she was even married until I read about her divorce. She was pretty broken up over that, wasn't she?"
This far-distant perspective made Deane smile. "Collusion," he said. "Bargain was made with MacNally, the husband."
"But the papers had it that she loved him and was heartbroken when he was caught in a Jersey hotel with another woman. I saw a two-column cut of her in the courtroom, all in black, holding a handkerchief to her eyes."
"The new company she's with doctored up that yarn. They wanted her to appear in a favorable light. Now they've persuaded Carlton to lay low for another year and not get his divorce until the gossip has worn itself out."
"The affair serious between them?"
"If it wasn't, it will be now. They've got orders not to be seen together in public. Meeting incognito gives them a great thrill. She was already beginning to chafe under a restless search for something new. They found it in opposition! Began exaggerating their own dangers and discovered that it lent flavor to the situation. You know the old formula—opposition has kept the fires burning under many a romance that might otherwise have perished from the cold."
"What's going to come of it?"
"Gossip is already beginning to hurt her. The stars can't get away with it like they used to."
"Where's Carlton?"
"He left for the West two weeks ago. He'll probably be her leading man in her first Western production—that is, if the part's big enough for him."
Binns was laughing heartily now, and he didn't see the look of dull pain in Deane's eyes. "I suppose Carlton's leaving first was to mask their movements—sort of throwing red pepper in the eyes of the world. I have to laugh—as if their every move wasn't watched!"
"Come on, Binns, let's get on the train before the June Day party."
"All right, but I'd like to see Mineola tripping down the chute to the tracks. Ever notice the glitter of the silica in the pavement?"
Deane nodded.
"Then watch the effect it has on that movie gang. Ten to one Mineola will have a sense of treading upon diamonds. She'll think the studded, sparkling silica is a compliment to her light footsteps. Rather symbolic, isn't it?"
If Deane thought so, his eyes didn't betray him. He was staring straight ahead as they plunged into semi-darkness where the long trains lay in parallel steel alleyways.
Minnie was glad to see Deane. His love had been a pleasant compliment, she felt that she could always depend upon his proffered friendship.
They sat in the flower-filled drawing room and discussed nothing but her future. As the door was open, she smiled and bowed to the procession of curious, appraising tourists who passed and repassed, while the porter shuffled smilingly in and out, making it obvious that he was always eager to serve any of the generous movie stars.
In the ladies' dressing room, Lily's color was forgotten in the importance of her position, being the star's own personal maid. She was surrounded by travelers who were eager to hear all about Miss Day's beautiful and expensive wardrobe and to be allowed to peek in the Pandora jewel box.
Pete had brought a portfolio of Minnie's photographs. He kept them with him in the smoker and came only to her drawing room when he wanted her to autograph them for the most prosperous-looking tourists with whom he had picked up a chance acquaintance. Deane noted her elaborate scrawl as she wrote: "Best wishes, from June Day." These messages of light cheer, filtering like sunlight through a sieve, were speckling America, since the custom had been to send out photographs to everybody who wrote and demanded one.
"Say, June," ordered Pete, "I want you to autograph a couple of nice ones for the President of the railroad and his wife."
"But we don't know the President of the road," in mild protest, "and we don't know if he's married or not. Why, it's absurd, Pete. We don't even know their names!"
He fumbled in his pocket for a piece of paper. "What do you think I am—a dumbbell? I got 'em from the conductor. The President travels around in his private car and sometimes it's attached to this very train. I tipped the conductor off, and he's goin' to slip the photos to him. Not a bad little idea, is it? A personal word to the boss of this outfit, and you'll be sure of nifty service. Do you get my idea?"
Minnie and Deane looked into each other's eyes and Minnie laughed. "Oh, Pete, how ridiculous!" she said at last. "If it were anyone else but Hal, I'd blush with shame. Imagine the President of the railroad caring whether he had a photograph of me or not!" But later, when she and Pete were alone, she autographed one of her most expensive photographs, and gave it to the conductor. Her first snap judgment had been wrong and Pete was partly right; wasn't she better known, after all, than the mere President of a railroad?
When the train pulled into Chicago, there was a delegation at the station to meet the star. Another stiff sheaf of flowers: "Chicago welcomes June Day." A prominent theater owner informed her that he was giving her a luncheon. Seeing Deane at the station, he invited him, and Deane accepted; he wanted to see Minnie at just such an affair, and listen to her speech.
The Flynn family was whisked in limousines from the station to the Blackstone Hotel. "What elegant, airy rooms! Do you suppose anybody would notice if we took one of these beautiful towels—or the letter paper?"
When Minnie looked out of the window, she saw it was a gray, drizzling early spring day. A lowering mist crouched over the leaden waters. So that was the Lake! She had imagined it would look like the lake in Central Park, only on a much larger scale, of course, but pretty—with lovely boats on it, and lots of cute little wooded islands. How disappointing—it looked just like a dirty ocean!
A pounding rhythm of music coming nearer and nearer to the hotel made her heart quicken. The family rushed to the window. When Michael Flynn opened it, the damp air reached in like a cold moist tongue and licked their faces. Mrs. Flynn threw the new mink coat around Minnie's shoulders. . . . Nearer and nearer came the music. Crowds were following. . . . Could it possibly be—of course it was! Chicago was sending a band to serenade June Day!
"Why under the sun did they give us a room on the seventh floor?" cried Mrs. Flynn hysterically. "Quick, Pete, run downstairs and see if you can't get an American flag for Minnie to wave! I think it would make a grand impression, her wavin' a flag, so patriotic. . . ." But the band swung down the boulevard and passed their hotel, and they lowered their windows with a bang. . . . Rotten, strident music! A band and a calliope! Barnum and Bailey Circus was in town!
During the long-winded luncheon, Minnie whispered to Deane that she was tired of listening to a lot of bearded men talk about the picture business being in its infancy; tired of hearing the producer lament the high cost of stars; and the theater owners lament the high cost of the pictures! At the conclusion of the luncheon, four of the guests who were invited from the Rotary Club sang a quartet, dedicating their song to the star: "Star Light, Star Bright." Mrs. Flynn, immensely touched, asked if they wouldn't sing that old favorite of hers, "Silver Threads Among the Gold." When they complied willingly and dedicated this song to her, she was so nervous that she upset a glass of water and had hiccoughs.
Minine's speech had been written by the press agent. It concluded with:
"Deeply touched by your great kindness to me, I will never forget your beautiful city. Seeing Chicago for the first time I am impressed by its fine American spirit. I shall never forget my thrill when I beheld, rising above the ant hill hubble of busy streets, the tall, magnificent turrets of its fine office buildings. Or that first vista of the giant lake, whose blue waters lap the very feet of one of the world's most magnificent boulevards."
Applause.
"Or the kindness of its people who have given so much of their precious time to poor, obscure little me . . ." (with a pleasant affectation of modesty).
Protests and cries of: "Oh, yes—obscure!" "I'd hate to open all of your fan mail, I bet I'd be muscle bound!" "Here's to the most charming star who ever passed through our fair city!"
The luncheon was a great success. That evening after the California Limited had pulled from the station, Deane glanced over the newspapers. June Day's photograph smiled happily at him. He was curious to know how she had impressed her interviewers. He smiled at the discretion of the reporters, "June Day is one of the most intelligent, charming and cultured stars," he read. Little Mineola Flynn!
At Albuquerque, New Mexico, the train stopped for forty minutes. Minnie came out of her drawing room looking very fresh and attractive. Lily had given her a mud pack, brushed and dressed her hair. It was quite warm, so she wore no hat and discarded the long mink coat in favor of the sports coat trimmed in gray fox. There were so many interesting things to see at the station: the Indians selling their wares; postal cards to be bought and mailed East; filigreed Mexican silver jewelry to be exclaimed over. The reporter from the Albuquerque Daily News brought a graflex to the station and paid old Chief Red Leggins to have his photograph taken shaking hands with the star. . . . A delegation of school children presented her with a gilded pine cone, and a box of shelled piñons, the fruit of the pine.
Sam Binns heard Minnie say to the conductor: "Whoever told me the desert was beautiful was certainly having a pipe dream. Nothing in the world but miles and miles of country without a single town to brighten it up. And flat-looking mountains without any trees on them. Nothing to compare with the White Mountains where I made a picture last summer. Why, you couldn't go five miles in those mountains without seeing a perfectly wonderful summer resort, filled with such stylish people."
When Binns asked her if she wasn't tired of the trip, she smothered a little yawn. "It is long, but then everybody is so good to me. Today the steward sent me a platter of the nicest fish I've ever eaten. He said they were mountain trout, and I replied that I was darned glad something good came out of those barren old mountains!"
Nettie's loud voice rose above the conductor's: "Say, where are those swell-looking cowboys with fuzzy trousers I've seen in the movies? I expected to fall in love a dozen times traveling through the West."
"They are in the movies," said the conductor with a dry smile. He pointed out of the window. The train was slowing into a station. "See those fellows on horseback?"
"Those whiskery old guys in overalls?"
"Yes, they are cowboys!"
"Gee, no! Then thank heavens the movies have got the pick of the bunch! I'll probably see the real thing in Hollywood."
Minnie laughingly said the descent into the California Valley was more perilous than the giant dipper at Coney. Sam Binns, who had been such an eager guide, who had pointed out Twin Sister Peaks, the Elephant Tusk, the prairie dog, the Giant Needle, Indian adobes, insisted the star's whole party view the descent from the platform of the observation car. It made Mrs. Flynn and Elsie dreadfully car sick. Pete, in a loud voice muffled by whisky, said the engineering job wasn't so much, it had nothing on the Horseshoe Bend in Pennsylvania where he had once taken Minnie's company to make a picture.
A huge box of flowers was carried aboard the train at San Bernardino for "June Day." Gilbert's note: "My darling: I am waiting impatiently for you. Three weeks away from you are three weeks gone from life. We can never make up our loss. I shall be at the station. In thoughts only shall I crush you into my arms, but I will be in your suite at the hotel long before you, because my heart and feet are on nightingale's wings, and will carry me there in swift and happy flight. Kisses from your lonesome papa, to his boofullest baby."
"How beautifully he expresses himself," said Minnie to herself. "No wonder I am so in love with him." She turned in languid ecstasy and looked out of the window. Spring had scattered her harlequin prodigality upon the meadows in a riot of golden poppies, lupins, buttercups and bluebells. The orange trees were lacy with heavy perfumed blossoms. Ambitious rose vines had climbed the eucalyptus to hide their red blooms among the oblique olive shafts of leaves. Sheer blue-toned hills stood like monuments over the valleys . . . etched in faint purple were the mountain ranges beyond, the sentinel crest of one snow-capped peak rising in silent majesty. Cloudless blue skies, deep and vaulted. All these wonders before Minnie's eyes, and she saw nothing, felt nothing, but the irksome slow march of the hours which held her from Gilbert. "How beautiful love is," Minnie was saying to herself, "and how it overshadows everything else. How colorless and uninteresting all else is compared to it. What could there possibly be in life worth living for if love were to be taken away?"
"Oh, heavens, conductor! When do we get there?"