B00C4I7LJE EBOK (16 page)

They tried it several different ways—first, with a little pause before the word “instantly,” then with more emphasis on the word “soup,” then switching the emphasis to the word “cup,” and on and on. It seemed that they had just begun when the script girl announced the lunch break. At that point the entire group adjourned to a restaurant across the street, where reservations had been made. I was beginning to be concerned about the wisdom of breaking for a long lunch when the first of the two commercials hadn’t even been taped. I needn’t have worried, however. Everyone came back from lunch refreshed and the atmosphere in the studio, which had started to get a bit tense, was a lot more relaxed.

The commercials were finished on time.

“That went smoothly,” I heard the grip tell one of the cameramen as everyone packed up. I hated to think what a difficult commercial would be like if those two thirty-second spots took an entire day’s shooting.

When we reached the Rolls, Phyllis and Warde slid into the back seat while Karen stowed the suitcases in the trunk and I fished for the keys. Karen and I both hated driving the Rolls. Karen didn’t like to drive at all, and I wore glasses to drive but hadn’t carried them with me since I only used them in my car and that’s where I kept them. Usually Warde drove, but that night he didn’t want to. Karen and I held a brief conference across the trunk of the car and Karen lost. Triumphantly, I tossed her the car keys and climbed into the passenger seat. As she got behind the wheel, she stuck her tongue out at me.

It had been a long day, but things had gone well and everyone seemed satisfied. However, the spots would not be shown on the West Coast. I hoped to catch it on TV when we traveled to another city. I never did see it.

21

N
ext stop, Philadelphia. I’d never been there and looked forward to seeing the sights even though I knew we probably wouldn’t have much free time. Phyllis had a one-day appearance in New York first, then a free day in between before she opened in the City of Brotherly Love. She used that time to visit her daughter Sally, who had mental problems and had been institutionalized for most of her adult life. A few people knew about this, but we were instructed to answer any inquiries about her with “Sally is in school in the East.” Many years passed before Phyllis acknowledged Sally’s problem publicly. When I worked for her, it was a secret.

After the New York visit, Phyllis, Warde, and Karen drove to Philadelphia in a rental car. I flew directly from L.A. and met them there.

It was the first time since I started working for Phyllis that I’d traveled without her and felt positively exhilarated at being on my own. The morning of the trip I got up and went straight to the airport without having to fret about meeting them, or having to prod Warde into being on time. There would be no passenger service representative to contact and none of the usual hassle of preboarding. I didn’t have to worry about riding herd on a score of suitcases or filling out “tip slips,” which Phyllis kept for tax purposes. I could just check in like any other passenger. I felt like a kid on holiday.

I arrived in Philadelphia in the early evening and took a taxi straight to the hotel. I had expected them to be there, but they weren’t.
This is good. It will give me time to get settled before they show up
. I registered the three of them and, as usual, got an extra key to each room.

It was snowing in Philadelphia, and anyone who has been raised in Southern California will understand how exciting that was to me. I sat in my room with the lights off and watched the large flakes drift down. As the hours went by, however, I began to get apprehensive. The plan had been for them to get there about the same time I did. The next day Phyllis had two radio interviews and a rehearsal before the opening performance. It would be hectic at best, and if they didn’t arrive soon, I knew Phyllis would be tired and grouchy in the morning.

I finally heard a commotion in the hall close to 9:00 P.M. Sure enough, the bellman was wheeling a large cart piled high with bags. I spotted two fur-draped people and Karen following them. (Phyllis had given Warde a full-length black mink coat. She said it was just like the one Elizabeth Taylor had given Richard Burton, and if Richard Burton could wear a mink coat, so could Warde. I must admit that he carried it off well.)

I ignored Phyllis and Warde, who were clearly in a bad mood, and fell in step beside Karen, who had already yanked her single bag off the top of the cart and was heading for her room just past mine.

“Why are you so late?” I asked as we stepped into her room.

“Oh, you know Warde,” she replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

“I thought you’d be here hours ago.”

“We got lost.”

“How could you get lost between New York and Philadelphia? Isn’t there a turnpike all the way?”

“He took a wrong turn.”

By then Karen had slung her suitcase onto the bed and was studying the room-service menu.

“Have you had dinner?” she asked.

“No, I was waiting for you.”

“Room service is probably going to take an hour.” She tossed the menu aside. “I wonder if the dining room is still open.” She called the hotel operator, who told her the dining room was closed but that she could order from room service.

We agreed to order something that they could fix in a hurry and settled on sandwiches and milk. A far cry from the nice dinner I’d been looking forward to after my two airline meals.

“So, how could you get lost?” I asked when Karen returned to her unpacking.

“After Warde took the wrong turn, he wouldn’t pull off for directions. Phyllis kept telling him he was going the wrong way, and all he said was ‘But, Ada, we’re making such good time.’ ”

“That’s an old joke, Karen.”

“It’s no joke!” she said with such vehemence that I immediately shut up.

I sat in silence and watched her arrange everything in her meticulous way and wished the food would get there. When it came, the sandwiches were neatly cut into fours, like a club sandwich, and arranged around a pile of potato chips accompanied by olives and pickles. It took us all of four minutes to devour everything.

“What time do we have to leave here tomorrow?” Karen asked as she stacked the empty plates on the tray.

“The first interview is at noon. We should leave here at eleven thirty.” I’d asked at the desk when I checked in for directions to the radio station and the approximate driving time. “I’ll call you when I get up.”

“Don’t make it early.” Karen was more than just tired. Things had obviously not gone well the past couple of days. She and Warde got on each other’s nerves, and it was always worse when they were together for any amount of time, especially in close quarters. Driving from New York to Philadelphia in the snow and the dark and getting lost had probably been the
coup de grâce
.

I realized I hadn’t checked with Phyllis to give her our morning departure time.

“Do you suppose they’ll still be up?” I asked Karen.

“Probably. They haven’t had dinner, either.”

I rang their room and Phyllis answered. “Just wanted to let you know we have to leave here at eleven-thirty tomorrow for the twelve o’clock interview.”

“Call me at ten-thirty,” she instructed.

I hung up and said to Karen, “We’re set.”

“Call me for breakfast,” she said, handing me the tray of empty dishes to set outside in the hall.

Before I went to bed, I called the hotel operator to leave a wake-up call, then set my alarm. I never entirely trusted either one of them, especially because everyone else relied on me to wake them up. I made a few notes on the pad beside my phone:

1. Call radio station to confirm interview and travel time.

2. Call second radio station to confirm 3:00 P.M. interview.

3. Call club to confirm rehearsal time.

4. Call Phyllis at 10:30.

The next day was as hectic as I had anticipated. With two interviews and a rehearsal, then the show, we were all totally drained. Fortunately, Phyllis had only one show opening night. We were back at the hotel by midnight. With no interview scheduled for the next day, things looked like they were going to smooth out.

On the way back to the hotel, Phyllis mentioned that she and Warde had friends coming up on Saturday, so Karen and I could take the day off and have the car. I turned to Karen, grinning and silently clapping my hands.
Just what I’d been hoping for!
I wanted to visit Independence Hall and the Betsy Ross House and some of the other historic sights.

The next two days went well. Phyllis and Warde kept to themselves, so Karen and I saw them only when it was time to leave for the theater. On Saturday, Phyllis had several little errands for Karen to run before we took off with the car. It was after lunch before we finally got away from the hotel. We had to be back by 5:00 so it didn’t make for a very long day off. Nevertheless, we did see Independence Hall and the Betsy Ross House, so I was content. I knew that if I had an ordinary job, I would have never even gotten to Philadelphia.

We left on Monday, and the trip home was uneventful but seemed unusually long. We got back to Phyllis’s at six o’clock, and I was surprised to see the staff still there until I remembered it was only three o’clock California time.

I took the office bags upstairs and set them in the corner to unpack in the morning.

“How did it go?” Maria asked.

Briefly, I told her about the theater, Warde getting lost on the way from New York, and our truncated day off. “I saw Betsy Ross’s house, though,” I told Maria. Her blank stare reminded me that she was from Mexico. Maria then clucked over the fact that I had given out all the books she had packed. “We’re going to have to order more,” she noted as she shook her head at the dwindling stack.

“I suppose,” I said. She always managed to keep a good supply on hand, and I never questioned when or how many she should order as long as we had enough to take with us. I was just getting ready to leave when Val came in wide-eyed and breathless.

“Karen just quit!” she announced.

Maria and I both began talking at once: “She quit?” “Are you sure?” “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Val answered. “I heard her and Warde fighting, and then Phyllis joined in, then Karen came out of the bedroom and used the phone in my office to call a cab.”

I picked up my purse and headed for the stairs. I found Karen on the front porch.

“What’s going on? Val said you quit.”

“I did. I’ve had it up to here!” she said, raising her hand to her forehead.

“Well, let me drive you home.”

“I’ve already ordered a cab.”

Karen was single-minded, and when she set her mind to something, there was no point in arguing. “At least tell me what happened.”

Just then the cab pulled through the wrought-iron gates. Karen picked up her suitcase. “Tell Phyllis I’ll get her suitcase back to her,” she said as she jerked opened the cab door.

I couldn’t imagine what the fight had been about. Nothing outstandingly bad had occurred during the week—just the usual irritations. I’d call Karen at home that night, or better yet, the next day. I hoped it was just temporary.

For the next couple of days the atmosphere in the house was strained. No one wanted to bring up Karen’s leaving, but several times Maria and Val asked if I’d talked to her. I called her several times but got no answer. On the weekend, I drove over to her apartment in Hollywood. She opened the door almost as soon as I knocked. “Hi,” she said, but her voice was icy, and for a moment I thought she might be mad at me. She waved me in.

“What’s going on?”

“You don’t know?”

“No. Everyone at the house is pussyfooting around, afraid to say anything. Val says you had a fight with Warde.”

Karen plumped the cushions on her couch, punching each one thoroughly before she set it back in place.

“He wanted me to give him a permanent. At four in the afternoon, after eight days on the road, after getting up at the crack of dawn to get to the airport, and after sitting in a plane for five hours, he wants me to run down to the drugstore and come home and give him a Toni!” She punched the final cushion viciously.

I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Whatever I said would only make it worse. I still hoped she would cool down and agree to come back to work.

I tried an oblique approach. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’ve already got another job.”

“What?”

“And I’m going to be earning decent money for a change.”

I’d made inquiries here and there, and discovered that the low salary Phyllis paid was about the norm in show business. Working for a celebrity was no way to get rich. I knew that Karen would be better off in a lot of ways if she left, but I couldn’t imagine a more amiable or capable traveling companion, and it looked as if Phyllis would be going on the road again soon.

“It’s not just the perm, Robin,” she added after a few minutes of silence. “It’s the whole thing. Being treated like a piece of furniture, never having time to yourself, having to do constant errands and menial tasks without so much as a ‘thank you.’ I guess I’ve just let them take me for granted too long and now I’m done.”

Her mind was made up and I had to accept it. Phyllis did finally call Karen, even going so far as to offer more money, but Karen had closed that door.

22

I
hated the first trip after Karen left. Phyllis had two appearances back-to-back in Texas: one at the Sunflower Festival in El Paso, and the next night, New Year’s Eve, a concert appearance with the Dallas Symphony.

We left L.A. the morning of the Sunflower Festival and arrived in El Paso shortly after noon, in plenty of time for her appearance at dinner. We didn’t even stay overnight but caught a late plane immediately after the show. We didn’t have a minute to spare between the end of the show and the time the plane left. Phyllis came offstage, stepped out of her costume and in one nearly continuous motion pulled on the white outfit I’d laid out. I dropped the dress, shoes, and gloves into the suitcase and zipped it shut while Phyllis put her wig into the wig box. One quick look around the dressing room to make sure we’d left nothing, and we were out of there. The limousine driver had been watching for us and stashed the bags in the trunk. By the time he got behind the wheel, Phyllis, Warde, and I were settled inside.