U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [454]
. . ." Then she sat up and shook her finger at Agnes. "I can tel you right now why he likes to come here Sundays. He gets a free meal and it don't cost him a cent." Jerry Herman, the yel owfaced bald shriveledup little castingdirector, was a man al the girls were scared to death of. When Regina Riggs said she'd seen Margo hav-ing a meal with him at Keene's Chophouse between per-formances, one Saturday, the girls never quit talking about it. It made Margo sore and gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach to hear them giggling and whispering behind her back in the dressingroom.
Regina Riggs, a broadfaced girl from Oklahoma whose real given name was Queenie and who'd been in the Zieg-feld choruses since the days when they had horsecars on Broadway, took Margo's arm when they were going down the stairs side by side after a morning rehearsal. "Look here, kiddo," she said, "I just want to tip you off about that guy, see? You know me, I been through the mil an'
I don't give a hoot in hel for any of 'em . . . but let me tel you somethin'. There never been a girl got a spoken word by givin' that fourflusher a lay. Plenty of 'em have
-260-tried it. Maybe I've tried it myself. You can't beat the game with that guy an' a beautiful white body's about the cheapest thing there is in this town. . . . You got a kinda peart innocent look and I thought I'd put you wise." Margo opened her blue eyes wide.
"Why, the idea.
. . . What made you think I'd . . ." She began to titter like a schoolgirl. "Al right, baby, let it ride. . . . I guess you'l hold out for the weddin'bel s." They both laughed. They were always good friends after that.
But not even Queenie knew about it when after a long wearing rehearsal late one Saturday night of a new num-ber that was coming in the next Monday, Margo found herself stepping into Jerry Herman's roadster. He said he'd drive her home, but when they reached Columbus Circle, he said wouldn't she drive out to his farm in Con-necticut with him and have a real rest. Margo went into a drugstore and phoned Agnes that there'd be rehearsals al day Sunday and that she'd stay down at Queenie Riggs's flat that was nearer the theater. Driving out, Jerry kept asking Margo about herself. "There's something dif-ferent about you, little girl," he said. "I bet you don't tel al you know. . . . You've got mystery."
Al the way out Margo was tel ing about her early life on a Cuban sugarplantation and her father's great town-house in the Vedado and Cuban music and dances, and how her father had been ruined by the sugartrust and she'd supported the family as a child actress in Christmas pantomimes in England and about her early unfortunate marriage with a Spanish nobleman, and how al that life was over now and al she cared about was her work. "Wel , that story would make great publicity," was what Jerry Herman said about it.
When they drew up at a lighted farmhouse under a lot of tal trees, they sat in the car a moment, shivering a little in the chil y mist that came from a brook somewhere. He turned to her in the dark and seemed to be trying to look
-261-in her face. "You know about the three monkeys, dear?"
"Sure," said Margo. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." "Correct," he said. Then she let him kiss her. Inside it was the prettiest farmhouse with a roaring fire and two men in checked lumberman's shirts and a couple of funnylooking women in Paris clothes with Park Avenue voices who turned out to be in the decorating business. The two men were scenic artists. Jerry cooked up ham and eggs in the kitchen for everybody and they drank hard cider and had quite a time, though Margo didn't quite know how to behave. To have something to do she got hold of a guitar that was hanging on the wal and picked out Siboney and some other Cuban songs Tony had taught her. When one of the women said something about how she
ought to do a Cuban specialty her heart almost stopped beating. Blue daylight was coming through the mist out-side of the windows before they got to bed. They al had a fine country breakfast giggling