Alis was staring at the screens. The careful, intent look was gone, and she was smiling delightedly.
“Anything else?”
“Shall We Dance,” she said. “The title number. Frame 87-1309.”
I set it running on the bottom row. Fred in meticulous tails, dancing with a chorus of blondes in black satin and veils. They all held up masks of Ginger Rogers’s face, and they put them up in front of their faces and flirted away from Fred, their masks as stiff as faces.
“Any other movies?” I said, calling up the menu again. “Plenty of screens left. How about An American in Paris?”
“I don’t like Gene Kelly,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, surprised. “How about Meet Me in St. Louis?”
“There isn’t any dancing in it except the ‘Under the Banyan Tree’ number with Margaret O’Brien. It’s because of Judy Garland. She was a terrible dancer.”
“Okay,” I said, even more surprised. “Singin’ in the Rain? No, wait, you don’t like Gene Kelly.”
“The ‘Good Mornin’ ’ number’s okay.”
I found it, Gene Kelly with Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor, tapping up steps and over furniture in wild exuberance. Okay.
I scanned the menu for movies that didn’t have Gene Kelly or Judy Garland in them. “Good News?”
“ ‘The Varsity Drag,’ ” she said, nodding. “It’s right at the end. Do you have Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?”
“Sure. Which number?”
“The barnraising,” she said. “Frame 27-986.”
I called it up. I looked for something with Ruby Keeler in it. “42nd Street?”
She shook her head. “It’s a Busby Berkeley. There’s no dancing in it except for one background shot of a rehearsal and about sixteen bars in the ‘Pettin’ in the Park’ number. There’s never any dancing in Busby Berkeleys. Do you have On the Town?”
“I thought you didn’t like Gene Kelly.”
“Ann Miller,” she said. “The ‘Prehistoric Man’ number. Frame 28-650. She’s technically pretty good when she sticks to tap.”
I don’t know why I was so surprised or what I’d expected. Starstruck adoration, I guess. Ruby Keeler gushing, “Gosh, Mr. Ziegfeld, a part in your show! That’d be wonderful!” Or maybe Judy Garland, gazing longingly at the photo of Clark Gable in Broadway Melody of 1938. But she didn’t like Judy, and she’d dismissed Gene Kelly as airily as if he was an auditioning chorus girl in a Busby Berkeley. Who she didn’t like either.
I filled out the array with Fred Astaire, who she did like, though none of his color movies were as good as the b-and-w’s, and neither were his partners. Most of them just hung on while he swung them around, or struck a pose and let him dance circles, literally, around them.
Alis wasn’t watching them. She’d gone back to the center screen and was watching Fred, full-length, swirling Ginger weightlessly across the floor.
“So that’s what you want to do,” I said, pointing. “Dance the Continental?”
She shook her head. “I’m not good enough yet. I only know a few routines. I could do that,” she said, pointing at the Varsity Drag, and then at the cowboy number from Girl Crazy. “And maybe that. Chorus, not lead.”
And that wasn’t what I expected either. The one thing the faces have in common under their Marilyn beauty marks is the unshakeable belief they’ve got what it takes to be a star. Most of them don’t — they can’t act or show emotion, can’t even do a reasonable imitation of Norma Jean’s breathy voice and sexy vulnerability — but they all think the only thing standing between them and stardom is bad luck, not talent. I’d never heard any of them say, “I’m not good enough.”
“I’m going to need to find a dancing teacher,” Alis was saying. “You don’t know of one, do you?”
In Hollywood? She was as likely to find one as she was to run into Fred Astaire. Less likely.
And what if she was smart enough to know how good she was? What if she’d studied the movies and criticized them? None of it was going to bring back musicals. None of it was going to make ILMGM start shooting liveactions again.
I looked up at the arrays. On the bottom row Fred was trying to find the real Ginger in among the masks. On the third screen, top row, he was trying to talk her into a pop — she twirled away from him, he advanced, she returned, he bent toward her, she leaned languorously away.
All of which I’d better get on with or I was going to flash with Alis still sitting there on the edge of the bed, clothes on and knees together.
I asked for sound on Screen Three and sat down next to Alis on the bed. “I think you’re good enough,” I said.
She glanced at me, confused, and then realized I was picking up on her “I’m not good enough” line. “You haven’t seen me dance,” she said.
“I wasn’t talking about dancing,” I said, and bent forward to kiss her.
The center screen flashed white. “Message,” it said. “From Heada Hopper.” She’d spelled Hedda with an “a.” I wondered if Hedda’d had another revelatory flash and was interrupting to tell it to me.
“Message override,” I said, and stood up to clear the screen, but it was too late. The message was already on the screen.
“Mayer’s here,” it read. “Shall I send him up? Heada.”
The last thing I wanted was Mayer up here. I’d have to make a copy of the paste-up and take it down to him. “River Phoenix file,” I said to the computer, and shoved in a blank opdisk. “Where the Boys Are. Record remake.”
The dancing screens went blank, and Alis stood up. “Should I go?” she said.
“No!” I said, rummaging for a remote. The comp spit out the disk, and I snatched it up. “Stay here. I’ll be right back. I’ve just got to give this to a guy.”
I handed her the remote. “Here. Hit M for Menu, and ask for whatever you want. If the movie you want isn’t on ILMGM, you can call up the other libraries by hitting File. I’ll be back before the Continental’s over. Promise.”
I started out the door. I wanted to shut the door to keep her there, but it looked more like I’d be right back if I left it open. “Don’t leave,” I said, and tore downstairs.
Heada was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. “Sorry,” she said. “Were you popping her?”
“Thanks to you, no,” I said, scanning the room for Mayer. The room had gotten even more crowded since Alis and I left. So had the screen — a dozen Fred and Gingers were running split-screen circles around each other.
“I wouldn’t have interrupted you,” Heada said, “but you asked before if Mayer was here.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Where is he?”
“Over there.” She pointed in the direction of the Freds and Gingers. Mayer was under them, listening to Vincent explain his edit program and twitching from too much chooch. “He said he wanted to talk to you about a job.”
“Great,” I said. “That means his boss has got a new girlfriend, and I’ve got to paste on a new face.”
She shook her head. “Viamount’s taking over ILMGM and Arthurton’s going to head Project Development, which means Mayer’s boss is out, and Mayer’s scrambling. He’s got to distance himself from his boss and convince Arthurton he should keep him instead of bringing in his own team. So this job is probably a bid to impress Arthurton, which could mean a remake, or even a new project. In which case…”