Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust [40]
The happy grin on Homer’s face made him feel ashamed of himself. He was being unfair. Homer was a humble, grateful man who would never laugh at her, who was incapable of laughing at anything. Because of this great quality, she could live with him on what she considered a much higher plane.
“What’s the matter?” Homer asked softly, laying one of his heavy hands on Tod’s knee.
“Nothing. Why?”
Tod moved so that the hand slipped off.
“You were making faces.”
“I was thinking of something.”
“Oh,” Homer said sympathetically.
Tod couldn’t resist asking an ugly question.
“When are you two getting married?”
Homer looked hurt.
“Didn’t Faye tell about us?”
“Yes, sort of.”
“It’s a business arrangement.”
“Yes?”
To make Tod believe it, he poured out a long, disjointed argument, the one he must have used on himself. He even went further than the business part and claimed that they were doing it for poor Harry’s sake. Faye had nothing left in the world except her career and she must succeed for her daddy’s sake. The-reason she wasn’t a star was because she didn’t have the right clothes. He had money and believed in her talent, so it was only natural for them to enter into a business arrangement. Did Tod know a good lawyer?
It was a rhetorical question, but would become a real one, painfully insistent, if Tod smiled. He frowned. That was wrong, too.
“We must see a lawyer this week and have papers drawn up.”
His eagerness was pathetic. Tod wanted to help him, but didn’t know what to say. He was still fumbling for answer when they heard a woman shouting from the behind the garage.
“Adore! Adore!”
She had a high soprano voice, very clear and pure.
“What a funny name,” Tod said, glad to change the subject
“Maybe it’s a foreigner,” Homer said.
The woman came into the yard from around the corner of the garage. She was eager and plump and very American.
“Have you seen my little boy?” she asked, making a gesture of helplessness. “Adore’s such a wanderer.”
Homer surprised Tod by standing up and smiling at the woman. Faye had certainly helped his timidity.
“Is your son lost?” Homer said.
“Oh, no—just hiding to tease me.”
She held out her hand.
“We’re neighbors. I’m Maybelle Loomis.”
“Glad to know you, ma’am. I’m Homer Simpson and this is Mr. Hackett.”
Tod also shook hands with her.
“Have you been living here long?” she asked. “No. I’ve just come from the East,” Homer said.
“Oh, have you? I’ve been here ever since Mr. Loomis passed on six years ago. I’m an old settler.”
“You like it then?” Tod asked.
“Like California?” she laughed at the idea that anyone might not like it. “Why, it’s a paradise on earth!”
“Yes,” Homer agreed gravely.
“And anyway,” she went on, “I have to live here on account of Adore.”
“Is he sick?”
“Oh, no. On account of his career. His agent calls him the biggest little attraction in Hollywood.”
She spoke so vehemently that Homer flinched.
“He’s in the movies?” Tod asked.
“I’ll say,” she snapped.
Homer tried to placate her,
“That’s very nice.”
“If it weren’t for favoritism,” she said bitterly, “he’d be a star. It ain’t talent. It’s pull. What’s Shirley Temple got that he ain’t got?”
“Why, I don’t know,” Homer mumbled.
She ignored this and let out a fearful bellow.
“Adore! Adore!”
Tod had seen her kind around the studio. She was one of that army of women who drag their children from casting office to casting office and sit for hours, weeks, months, waiting for a chance to show what Junior can do. Some of them are very poor, but no matter how poor, they always manage to scrape together enough money, often by making great sacrifices, to send their children to one of the innumerable talent schools.
“Adore!” she yelled once more, then laughed and became a friendly housewife again, a chubby little person with dimples in her fat cheeks and fat elbows.
“Have you any children, Mr. Simpson?” she asked.
“No,” he replied,