They were coming down.
Ralph caught his breath, certain the field would be covered with snow, no matter what anybody said. The descent seemed very rapid, they never did it this way in Los Angeles. The stewardess was hurrying down the aisle again, he wondered what her name was, too fast, this damn plane was coming down too fast.
"Miss?" he said.
"I'm sorry, sir, I have to take a seat now," the stewardess answered.
"Aren't we coming down too fast?"
"No, sir."
"What's your name?"
"I have to take a seat now."
"I'll talk to you when we land."
"All right."
"You've got great knockers," he whispered.
"I know," she whispered back, and then walked forward to take a seat in the lounge.
This was the worst part of any flight, it scared him senseless. Closer and closer to the ground, he could see buildings capped with thick snow now, were they sure none of it was on the field, everything blurring as the plane leveled, the bump of the wheels, and then the noise of the jets as the engines were reversed, the sudden lurch of the plane slowing, "We have landed at Kennedy International Airport," the stewardess said, "please remain seated until we have taxied to the terminal building and all engines are stopped. The temperature in New York is thirty-seven degrees, and the local time is twelve-seventeen a.m. Thank you for flying with us. We hope to serve you again in the future."
I hope to serve you in the very near future, Ralph thought, and kept watching her as the plane taxied. Before he left the aircraft, he asked her what her name was and where she stayed in New York. She told him her name was Sylvia Mott, and she was engaged to a boy in Pasadena, and she never dated anyone else, but it had been a pleasure flying with him, nonetheless, and she really hoped she could serve him again in the future.
"Thanks a lot," Ralph said, and went down the steps and walked to the baggage pickup area.
Sam Genitori was waiting there for him, small consolation.
By one o'clock that morning, the snow had stopped completely, and Hester Miers took off her shoes and went walking barefoot in the plaza outside the Seagram Building, parading past the pools and the small lighted Christmas trees. Arthur was not terribly surprised.
He was not surprised because she had been exhibiting all through supper this same phony joie de vivre, the single identifying characteristic of any actress he had ever met. The quality was deceptive at first. He had recognized it only belatedly in Eileen Curtis, the young lady who had played Lieutenant Diane Foster in Catchpole. There had been a curiosity about Eileen, a vitality, an intense concern that was contagious and inspiring. He could never be in her presence without feeling a pang of envy — God, if only he could be as concerned with life and living, if only he could bring such minute scrutiny to matters large and small, finding everyone interesting and alive, glowing with excitement at each suggested idea or phrase or isolated word, taking up the banner for any worthy cause, burning with energy, searching and working and learning and living, secure in the knowledge that this was the chosen profession, humbly grateful for the opportunity to be allowed to carry on this illuminating, sacrificing, enriching, and dedicated work.
He learned later on the Coast — where he was surrounded day and night by an intolerable army of actors and actresses — that Eileen Curtis's seeming love affair with life had merely been a love affair with herself. The same enormous ego and delicately executed phoniness were evident in Hester Miers, who squealed in delight over the crispness of the seeded rolls and smacked her lips over the "summer sweetness" of the butter, and then secretly asked him to observe the magnificent topaz brooch on the old lady at the next table, and then flirted with the waitress (the waitress!), using her humble and ingratiating Famous Actress smile, and then cooed over the marvelous glowing green of the Heineken bottle, and then asked Arthur if he believed in astrology, and then put five lumps of sugar in her coffee ("I adore it sweet, but I never stir it") and then asked the doorman outside whether it was still snowing, and to his respectful, "It stopped a half-hour ago, miss," replied in mystic meaningfulness, "Good, because it's only fair, you know," and then of course took off her shoes and hiked up her skirts and went running barefoot in the snow, "Oh, Arthur, it's deliciously cold."
This is the girl, he thought, who is supposed to play Carol, the simple daughter of an honest Bronx mailman. This is the girl.
He would have said good night to her then and there — oh, perhaps he would have helped her dry her feet, he was after all a gentleman — were it not for the fact that the presence of Hester Miers in his play would insure the capitalization. Had not Oscar Stern himself, cigar compressed between his lips, shivering in the alley of the Helen Hayes, replied only yesterday in answer to a foolish question, "Because if we can get Hester Miers to take this part, we'll raise all the money for the play immediately," had not the unquestionable Oscar said those very words only yesterday?
Yesterday was yesterday, of course, dead and gone. Yesterday the trial had begun, and by Thursday or Friday it would be concluded — but who knew when the judge would give his decision? If the judge said, "Why, yes, my son, you have been wronged, good Arthur Constantine," then he could tell Selig and Stern and even Hester Miers — who was romping in the snow now with her skirts up, fully aware that her legs were long and excellently shaped but trying to give the impression nonetheless of a six-year-old abandoning herself to her first wintry experience — he could tell all of them to go straight to hell because he would be in actual possession of, or at least in loan-acquiring promise of, ten million dollars or more. His hands began trembling.
Don't think about it, he told himself. You may lose this damn trial, stranger things have happened, don't even think about it. If you get Hester Miers, you get the money for the play, the play goes on, that's all you have to know. Don't think about the other, there's no fairness in this world, you learned that the night the critics killed Catchpole and Freddie Gerard began crying like a baby, "Why can't I bring in a winner, Arthur, why can't I ever bring in a winner?" Don't think about winning the trial, think only about getting Hester for the part. Think only about getting Hester.
She had admitted to being twenty-five years old, but Arthur suspected she was something closer to thirty. She was a tall, slender girl (she claimed she ate only one meal a day) with blond hair cut very close to her head in a haphazard coiffure, deliberately unkempt, and lending a look of overall unpredictability to her face. She was not a beautiful girl, nor could he even find anything terribly attractive about her, except perhaps her coltish legs. Her face was an elongated oval, her eyes brown and highlighted with black liner, her lipstick a pale orange on a mouth too generous for the rest of her features. A nose job had apparently been performed on her some time ago, but it was beginning to fall out of shape, and it gave her face a faintly lopsided look. She was definitely not pretty, and he was disappointed by her looks, but he kept reminding himself that she possessed a vibrant, almost luminous quality on stage, even though she looked like some kind of a jackass now, galloping around in the snow that way.