U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [420]
October was very warm that year. Margie was miserable hanging round the house al day, the steamheat wouldn't turn off altogether and it was too hot even with the win-dow open. She felt tired al the time. The house smel ed of frizzing hair and beautycreams and shavingsoap. The rooms were al rented to theater people and there was no time of the day that you could go up to the bathroom without meeting heavyeyed people in bathrobes or kimonos on the stairs. There was something hot and sticky in the way the men looked at Margie when' she brushed past them in the hal that made her feel awful funny.
She loved Frank best of anybody. Agnes was always
peevish, in a hurry to go to work or else deadtired just back from work, but Frank always spoke to her seriously as if she were a grownup young lady. The rare afternoons when he was in, he coached her on elocution and told her stories about the time he'd toured with Richard Mansfield. He'd give her bits of parts to learn and she had to recite them to him when he came home. When she didn't know them, he'd get very cold and stride up and down and say,
"Wel , it's up to you, my dear, if you want a career you must work for it. . . . You have the godgiven gifts . . . but without hard work they are nothing. . . . I suppose
-180-you want to work in a tearoom like poor Agnes al your life." Then she'd run up to him and throw her arms round
his neck and kiss him and say, "Honest, Frank, I'l work terrible hard." He'd be al flustered when she did that or mussed his hair and would say, "Now, child, no liberties," and suggest they go out for a walk up Broadway. Some-times when he had a little money they'd go skating at the St. Nicholas rink. When they spoke of Agnes they always cal ed her poor Agnes as if she were a little halfwitted. There was something a little hick about Agnes.
But most of the time Margie just loafed or read maga-zines in the room or lay on the bed and felt the hours dribble away so horribly slowly. She'd dream about boys taking her out to the theater and to restaurants and what kind of a house she would live in when she became a great actress, and the jewelry she'd have, or else she'd remember how Indian the chiropractor had kneaded her back the time she had the sick headache. He was strong and brown and wiry in his shirtsleeves working on her back with his bigknuckled hands. It was only his eyes made her feel funny; eyes like Indian's would suddenly be looking at her when she was walking along Broadway, she'd hurry and wouldn't dare turn back to see if they were stil look-ing, and get home al breathless and scared. One warm afternoon in the late fal , Margie was lying on the bed reading a copy of the Smart Set Frank had bought that Agnes had made her promise not to read. She heard a shoe creak and jumped up popping the magazine under the pil ow. Frank was standing in the doorway look-ing at her. She didn't need to look at him twice to know that he'd been drinking. His eyes had that look and there was a flush on his usual y white face. "Haha, caught you that time, little Margo," he said.
caught you that time, little Margo," he said.
"I bet you think I don't now my part," said Margie.
"I wish I didn't know mine," he said. "I've just signed
-181-the lousiest contract I ever signed in my life. . . . The world wil soon see Frank Mandevil e on the filthy stage of a burlesque house." He sat down on the bed with his felt hat stil on his head and put a hand over his eyes.
"God, I'm tired. . . ." Then he looked up at her with his eyes red and staring. "Little Margo, you don't know what it is yet to buck the world."
Margie said with a little giggle that she knew plenty and sat down beside him on the bed and took his hat off and smoothed his sweaty hair back from his forehead. Something inside