Baker decided that he would hike a nonstop trip to Willie’s, and throw back a stiff one that cleansed, sanitized, and burned the Bernhardt humiliation right out of his system. He stood up and paced with the same thoughtful walk of his father, taking slow languid strides as though calculating the weight of the world, when in fact there was nothing much going on inside except the quest for solitude.
He patted his breast pocket for a smoke. Left his butts at the goddamn house. He thought about his sister Leslie still back in Phoenix and her daughter Jessie. He used to bounce Jessie on his knee. They called him Uncle Vince. He had always thought he was too young to be called Uncle. Jessie must be huge now. It would be okay if she called him Uncle Vince. He wouldn’t mind now, he thought, considering the idea that he now was old enough to be called Uncle.
He was about to leave when the sound of a woman’s laugh caused him to turn around. In the distance, heading over to the theater, he swore he saw Bernhardt with her escort (must be Mr. Klein). Her body swayed while she walked. Her footsteps hard and proud. A strange glow shone through the edges of her hair. If it was Bernhardt, she hardly looked the infirm that the desk clerk had made her out to be.
Baker charged back into the hotel to find that goddamn wiry Dolph and find out what was really going on. Everybody knows that you don’t stand up reporters in this town with bullshit excuses.
“Mr. Baker,” Dolph said. “You are back.”
“I want you to go up to her room again. I want to know when she thinks she will be feeling better.”
Dolph shook his head. “I just don’t…” And the way he hung indecisively on the empty phrase convinced Baker that his suspicions had been confirmed—he had been duped. She had kept him here for close to two hours, only to feign illness in order not to talk with him. Insult upon insult. Treated him like a child by employing such novice charades. Fuck this. He was walking from this story. Walking from giving her a fair shake. He could call on Dorothy O’Brien or Thomas Conaty, and then walk away with enough quotes to spill across the page like blood. And when Bernhardt woke up and saw the story in the morning edition, she would be horrified, and again stupidly wonder what she had done to deserve this wrath. And he wasn’t walking away without telling her. He asked Dolph for some paper to write down what she should expect and why. Bullshitters like her always thought they were untouchable.
Baker’s hand shook while he prepared to write the letter. He thought of about ten different openings, each time dropping the lead to the paper but pulling it up quickly in dissatisfaction. His self-esteem had weighted down his judgment, and his rage began to grow in place of reason and eloquence. Finally he let the pencil write:
DEAR MADAME BERNHARDT:
I assume that you are feeling better. I came prepared for our meeting at one o’clock, but had been informed that you had taken ill and would not be receiving guests. Mr. Klein has apparently fared better, as, at the time of this writing, you seemed to have found his company along the pier.
Please forgive the attention I have given to your side of the story, in hopes of writing a balanced account of your recent controversy here. Know that I will no longer try to take your time. Instead I will concentrate my efforts back on the bishop and his agenda.
Au revoir, Madame Bernhardt. And one suggestion: You might consider a regular suppository if you are often as sick as you are today.
Cordially,
VINCE BAKER, The Los Angeles Herald
He should not have hastened to send the note. Read it over once or twice, and then scratched out the impertinence. Instead he folded it four times and handed it to Dolph. “Please have this sent immediately.”
“Would you like me to wait for a reply?”
Baker shook his head no. And he turned around and left. With his first pure sense of direction of the day.
SARAH WAS BY NO MEANS HAPPY, even though she had been laughing while she walked toward the theater with Max. She had been imagining Alexandre’s expression when Max told him to change the set. Max had done a pretty good job describing the way Alexandre’s shoulders seem to puff with steam while his eyes looked as if they would leak a pair of oceans.
“You really should write for the stage,” she told Max.
“I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“Only those who have seen me at my worst but can still make me beautiful.”
She took his arm as they ascended the steps toward the arched wooden doors. The dusk felt fresh. It settled on their cheeks.
Max pulled the door open with a certain hesitancy, cracking just enough space for them to have slipped through, but then he closed it before they entered. Perhaps he sensed the reaction that she would have when faced with the theater. That the proclamation of changing plays and the newfound life that had reinvigorated her would quickly be diminished by the realities of the production. The charming image of Alexandre’s angst would easily give way to her frustration with his insolence. Or Ibé frantically combing out the new wigs while loudly complaining that a man of his reputation should not have to endure such utter unprofessionalism. It would all get to her, and the enthusiasm would reveal itself as temporary, and she would storm out of the theater, looking for some solution that would inevitably consider the positive results of a hit of opium.
But for the moment all was well. She was still smiling while picturing her lead carpenter’s face.
“At least you managed to curry Kinney’s support,” Max said. “It could have been much worse. Especially as he does not trust us.”
“He still does not trust us. But he does trust his patrons’ reactions.”
“Nevertheless, you did handle that well.”
“I didn’t handle anything, Molly. He is not so terrible.” While she was not necessarily any more partial to Kinney than the usual producer, she did concede a soft spot for him by the end of the brunch. Maybe it was due to a newfound understanding of him. Much in the way you can always literally see the perceptions change in the eyes of the audience as an unsympathetic character is made compassionate merely by the gathering of a few secret details or select thoughts revealed. During the small talk, Kinney was quite charming, and almost entirely forthright about his ambition to make, keep, and protect his money. He was not filled by wild theories or the rich man’s justifications, nor did he feel ashamed about his success and his drive to it. He had worked hard in the tobacco business, seen it peak and then watched it fall dangerously close to the point of shattering, which he said as a father and husband nearly scared him to death. If he were young and single he might not have cared—he had spent so much of his youth traipsing around Europe with a modest sum that seemed like a bounty—but when he looked into the fearless eyes of his children he knew that he would do anything in his power to keep them that way. In some respects, that’s what Venice of America was, a mixing of the dreams of his youth with a capital venture. He told her he was not that complicated, and she thought he was right. But she did not find him to be a particularly simple character either. The mark of the successfully ambitious.