I felt something then that was new to me, that was not respect or admiration or gratitude, though it encompassed all those things. I was reluctant to put a name to it, for fear that events to come would not justify this feeling. I might prove to be engaging in assumptions that were wishful thinking. What I felt was a condition that could bring great pain if not reciprocated, so the best course was to wait and hope. Of course the word waslove. For the first time in my seventeen years, I had someone to love, and I dared to think that she and Franklin loved me if just a little, or could in time come to do so.
Such was the fullness of my heart that I might have made a blubbering spectacle of myself if just then someone hadn’t knocked rapidly on the front door of the bungalow. Even as Loretta and I rose from the sofa, Marjorie Hollingsworth Merrimen threw open the door and entered without waiting for an invitation. “Bon après-midi, ma amie!The valet sped off to park my new Pierce-Arrow with such enthusiasm that it is no doubt worthless wreckage with him dead behind the wheel.” She stripped off her pale-gray gloves as she steppedout of the foyer and crossed the room. “Nothing excites young men of his benighted generation more than eight cylinders. Women come in a distant second on their must-have list, I’m afraid. The human race will, I swear, wither away altogether because of the automobile.”
I knew who our visitor was, because Loretta had told me she would be coming and had described her to me. A tall, slender woman of about fifty, she had a somewhat long but attractive face. She was at the same time brisk and graceful, attired in a shamrock-green suit, a white blouse, a silk scarf fashioned as a necktie, and a tilt hat. She looked very chic and worldly wise. She came straight to me and framed my face with her hands as if looking at me through a movie camera. “You divine child, you are the very image of Lillian Gish, who always has been and will always remain the most beautiful actress in the history of film. You also have eyes like hers, eyes that more than see. And that glorious hair! You must never cut it short. The bobbed hair of the past decade was an abomination, and yet we still see it everywhere on those flappers in their shapeless shirt dresses. The only garment I can condone from that period is the cloche hat. I adore cloche hats. Lillian Gish as I live and breathe. You look lovely as well, Loretta.”
On a few occasions, I’d been told I had a pretty face by those who would have called me a monster if they had seen me from the neck down. However, no one had ever before praised my appearance at such length as this or with such enthusiasm. Miss Merrimen put her purse on a small table and sat in the armchair beside it. The two women seemed calm, prepared to discuss the task at hand, but I lost my equilibrium. Although I was sitting on the sofa again, I felt as if I were in motion, adrift on a length of flotsam with ocean swells rising and receding under me. I couldn’t know if Miss Merrimen’s compliments were sincere or whether she knew everything about my deformities and, out of pity, chose to flatter me while she could, before the time came for me to reveal myself. I blush now to admit how much I delighted in her praise.Yet every time the thought of Miss Merrimen’s praise lifted me, I was reminded of the truth of my physical nature, whereupon the delight receded. Would the time ever come when, like a lowly caterpillar, I would turn into a butterfly?
Marjorie Hollingsworth Merrimen was a clothing designer and dressmaker of some renown. She worked for various studios, creating costumes suitable for the characters in the stories, for which she received screen credit. For those who could afford her services, she also made clothes for women who would never be on the silver screen but wished to look their best and make an impression. More than half of the clothes in Loretta’s wardrobe bore the Merrimen label. I was to be the designer’s special project.
Although it was clear that these two women were not merely business acquaintances but also good friends, I found it surprising that a person of the designer’s status would come on a Sunday to wherever Loretta might be, to consider the task at hand and take measurements. As I was to learn in time, it was not always or even primarily the Fairchilds’ fortune or their success in the motion-picture industry that earned them special treatment. They had made many friends who admired them and regarded them with affection that money and position could not buy. I would also eventually learn that such virtue was not common in the film world, where the sharks were numerous, voracious, and humorless.
For fifteen minutes we sat in the living room, making small talk. I understood that this was to allow me to get to know Miss Merrimen and be comfortable when she took my measurements. Early in the conversation, she opened her purse and withdrew a pack of Pall Malls, which she placed on the padded arm of the chair. I expected her to light a cigarette, but she did not.
Loretta hung aDo Not Disturbsign on the bungalow door, but she thought it best that we retreat to my bedroom before I removed my robe. Miss Merrimen brought a small notebook with a pen clippedto it, a yellow tape measure, and the pack of Pall Malls. She put the cigarettes on a nightstand.
“Now, dear Alida, with your lovely face and hair, there is no need for a hood. You might have an occasion to wear a hat, so we’ll provide you with a few options. A variety of cloche hats, of course, a few berets, perhaps a knitted balaclava with matching scarf.” I could not picture myself in a hat of any kind. I was certain I would look foolish, but I said nothing. “How tall are you, dear, and what do you weigh?”
“On a good day when things aren’t so heavy, I’m five feet tall. I stopped growing about five years ago, although I keep trying. I weigh ninety-three pounds.”
“Do you gain weight easily?”
“For the past five years, regardless of what I eat, I haven’t gained a pound or lost one. I seem to be stuck.”
“Darling, there are women who would pay a fortune to be so stuck. Now, if you will, I need you to undress to your underwear so I can make an accurate record of your proportions. Every woman I dress has to do this if the clothes are to be an ideal fit. I’ve seen Loretta in her skivvies perhaps as often as Franklin has. There’s no reason to feel uncomfortable.”
I thought it odd that Miss Merrimen and Loretta would imagine that I might be embarrassed to undress, considering that for years, day after day, I’d been put on display nearly naked. Loretta herself had seen me boldly presented on a stage. To my surprise, as I began to disengage the series of snap fasteners that held my robe together at the front, I grew self-conscious about how the dressmaker would react to my appearance. Loretta would have prepared her for what she would see, but there are things for which no amount of preparation is sufficient. My fingers trembled as I worked the metal snaps, and I realized that undressing in an intimate situation involved a much greater risk of mortification than parading nearly naked on a stage. An audience is a merething, a creature of many faces, none of which speaks to the heart as does theface of someone you love, as already I loved Loretta—or someone who might become a friend, such as Miss Merrimen. The sleeves of my robe were wide, but the sleeves of my long johns had been cut off because they were too tight and would not comfortably accommodate my arms. What remained of that knitted undergarment, which was a size too large for me, still concealed much of my tortured form. Nevertheless, I expected Marjorie Merrimen to be seized by horror or pity, the two reactions with which I was most familiar, the second being the worse of the two. I undid the last fastener. The robe slipped off and puddled on the floor.
Marjorie Merrimen, couturiere to the stars, neither gasped nor made that thin whimper of compassion with which I was so familiar. Her voice wasn’t strained when she said, quite businesslike, “Well, we can do a great deal better for underthings than this. What I’ll provide will be more comfortable and prettier. You’ll feel warm but fresh. I guarantee it. I do think dresses are not the way to go. A flowing robe, duster length, is more practical. However, there’s no reason why you have to be costumed like a dour monk on a penitential pilgrimage. They should be robes with shape to them, robes of quiet colors, perhaps with good lace around the collar and at the cuffs. Contrasting buttons, piping, all sorts of subtle flourishes, though not too many for any single garment. I’ll make you seven different robes, one for each day of the week, and seven more as backups, so you’ll always have the right choice to fit the occasion and your mood. Your gloves are—shall we agree?—rather less than elegant. May I see your hands, dear?”
I took off my gloves, and I could see at once that she was not entirely prepared for my hands. Until the night just passed, my life had been one of rigid routines, the same experiences repeated day after day, the same offenses, with no prospect of change. Therefore, I was not accustomed to surprises. Miss Merrimen’s reaction to my hands indeed surprised me. She went to her knees before me and took my left hand in both of hers and kissed it, and then my right hand. She did this withsuch tenderness that I feltmyeyes well with hot tears, and I required all my resources to repress them as she had repressed hers.
“Is there pain?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. It’s not arthritis, just how my fingers are. They don’t hurt. They work okay. And those aren’t bruises or fungus. That’s how my nails always are.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “I will design the most amazing gloves for you, Alida. The right gloves can make even the most ordinary outfit look special. Socially prominent ladies havecollectionsof gloves, and so will you. The clothes must be stylish and in good taste, but the accessories are every bit as important.”
Now that Miss Merrimen had seen the challenges my deformities posed when it came to clothing, she asked me to take off my shoes and long johns so that she could make precise measurements, of which there needed to be more than was necessary with her usual clients. I did so without shame, for I knew now I was in the company of people who regarded me not as a freak but as a girl. While she employed her tape measure and recorded her findings in the little notebook, I saw her glance repeatedly at the pack of Pall Malls on the nightstand. I asked if she would like to pause for a cigarette. “My dear,” she said, “when I leave here, I will quickly smoke the entire pack with pleasure. But although Loretta and Frank’s teetotalist attitude toward tobacco strikes me as ill-informed and downright silly, I adore them so much that I respect their request never to smoke in their home or office.”
“This isn’t either one,” I noted. “And ashtrays are everywhere you look.”
“All true,” she said. “But I’m certain Loretta will argue that the hotel is her home while she’s staying here, and I have learned that I lack the intellectual capacity to win an argument with your mother. However, in a few years, when you’re twenty-one, if you were to decide to indulge in the noble tradition of Sir Walter Raleigh, you and I will sneak out behind the garage and light up together.”
Loretta looked cross, but I could see that she was amused and that her indignation was a pretense. “I can think of nothing more obvious and incontestable than the claim that inhaling enormous quantities of smoke will ruin your lungs.”
Miss Merrimen sighed. “Darling, I will only remind you that the advertisements quote prominent doctors and scientists to the effect that smoking actually strengthens the lungs, improves circulation of the blood, and in numerous other ways improves your health.”
“That is all bullshit wrapped in humbug and served on a bed of flimflam.”
“I cannot believe,” said Miss Merrimen, “that physicians and scientists with impeccable reputations would lie.”
“Oh, now, Margie. When they see a main chance, ninety percent of them are as sly as movie moguls, just grifters in white coats, waving university degrees. For enough money, they’ll tell a long chain of lies and swear on their mother’s grave that every link is the pure truth.”
As Miss Merrimen measured my arms and took notes, accounting for the features that snagged and tangled ordinary sleeves, she said, “Alida dear, you should ruminate on this revealing exchange between Loretta and me. Participation in the motion-picture industry tends to make people cynical not just about the movie business but also about much else. You will be spending a great deal of time with my otherwise wise and wonderful friends, Franklin and Loretta, so you must guard against being infected by their cynicism.”
“Maybe it isn’t cynicism,” I said. “Maybe it’s just a clear-eyed understanding of how the world works.”
Putting on a mask of dismay, she said, “Child, I fear their influence has already led you onto a dark path.”
