I Don't Know How the Story Ends (11 page)

“Not your fault. By the way, I asked him not to tell your mother. It was all my idea, and you didn't want to go along. He said he wouldn't.”

“Oh—well, thank you.” This was a relief, though getting off scot-free didn't feel entirely comfortable. Especially when I hadn't been such a good guardian… But wait. Why should a twelve-year-old girl be given charge over a thirteen-year-old boy anyway? My thoughts were becoming thoroughly scrambled. “Did you get a licking for it?”

“Not this time—the school's my licking. The school's going to make me ‘grow up.' He didn't even seem all that mad about the scout episode. That makes it even worse, that he can be so blasted
jolly
about the whole thing.”

He gave the bench another savage backward kick. “If I could only finish the picture, it might… It might be my ticket to somewhere else. But without a camera, I don't have a bat's chance in hell of finishing anything.”

“Snowball's chance,” I murmured.

“What?”

“A snowball's chance in the flames of Hades is what you don't have.” As bad as I felt for him, Sam's problems seemed greater. “School might not be as awful as you think. Only a year or two of your life.”

He made a strangled cry and jumped to his feet, just as laughter burst from the front room. Through the gauzy curtains on the glass door we could see Mr. Fairbanks dancing a fox-trot with Aunt Buzzy—on the table.

“Is that what you call grown up?” Ranger demanded rhetorically. “It's a game to them. They just want to have fun. I'd like to know where their parents were when
they
needed discipline.” His eyes narrowed as he stared through the window, and his next words sounded like they were directed at a single person. It wasn't hard to imagine who. “I'm not going.”

“You have to.”

“I'm not! I'll go down to San Pedro and stow away on a China freighter before I'll get packed away to any puking military school.” He nodded fiercely to himself before he turned and took a running leap off the porch. I could hear him whacking hydrangea bushes on the way to his room.

The air stirred agitatedly at his leaving, then drifted soft as petals while music and chatter fell in bright patches at my feet. At least with our motion picture on the trash heap and our director shipping off to China, the rest of the summer would be a good deal more peaceful. But quiet days on the window seat with a stack of library novels didn't have quite the appeal they would have had a few weeks ago, before Ranger had dragged me into the world of picture-making.

I stood up to go back to my room, pausing by the window for a last look. The party had broken up into smaller groups. One clustered around the piano where Aunt Buzzy was playing ragtime tunes, while another listened to Titus Bell explain how he acquired the jade Buddha on the mantel shelf. Three couples were dancing in the cleared space at the far end of the room.

Constance Talmadge was up for a round of charades. With the back of her hand to her forehead, she cried, “Ay me! All the perfumes of India…” until someone called out, “Sarah Bernhardt!” Then a man jumped up to imitate some equally celebrated ham.

I waited to see if Mr. Fairbanks would swing from the ceiling fans. Perhaps he would have—I wouldn't put it past him—but something else happened first.

The door to the porch opened, and my heart jumped up to my tonsils. There was no time to run and very little place to hide. With a pounding heart, I backed against the wall, shielded by darkness and twining vines, hoping that the intruder had only come out for a breath of fresh air.

“Ah, smell the roses,” said a man's voice. “Pity I hate roses.”

Then a woman's laugh, with a comment I couldn't make out. To which he replied, “We'll fix that. Smoke?”

Though he spoke softly, there was a vigorous quality in his voice that strode out from under the arbor. It strode with an accent, which I could not place until the sudden flare of a match picked out the piercing dark eyes of Charles Chaplin. The flame glided to a woman's soft lips with a small, vertical scar, pursed lightly around a cigarette.

I didn't even know Mother smoked!

My heart was beating so hard that I couldn't hear anything else at first, but gradually their voices came clearer to me, especially when Mr. Chaplin burst out: “Mack Sennett? He's low class. Barnyard comedy. I worked at Keystone until I couldn't take any more. What's a lady of your quality doing in a Sennett picture?”

“Oh my.” My mother's voice had a peculiar lilt that I could only describe—with a squirmy feeling on my insides—as flirtatious. “What kind of ‘quality' are we speaking of?”

“Mrs. Ransom…may I call you Matilda?”

“No, Mr. Chaplin.”

“Or not yet?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Then allow me to say, as your disinterested admirer, that you're too good for Keystone.”

“And allow
me
to say that you're making far too much of it. It was only in fun. And you won't see any more of me than my hat.”

He muttered a response, and she laughed. The banter went on in light tones that seemed to mean more than I could figure out. It reminded me of some of those long conversations between Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester (which I usually skip), where more seems to be going on than meets the eye or ear.

Then he said, “Here's what I'm thinking. Come down to the Triangle studio next week. See what I'm working on. I have an idea about a part for you.”

(Gasp from Mother.) “What do you mean, ‘a part'? I'm a doctor's wife on holiday, Charlie, not an actress.”

I was relieved to hear “doctor's wife,” but the “Charlie” didn't sit well, and his answering voice had a peculiar warmth that pricked like walnut shells: “I don't need an ‘actress,'
Matilda
. I need someone with regal bearing and a quiet center. There's something about you: a vulnerable strength. That little scar—how did you get it, may I ask?”

“You may ask, but I will not tell.” Her cigarette glowed fiercely, and the scar seemed to pulse in the limited light. I had never been brave enough to ask that question, but I'd put it to Father once while he was gently rocking a photographic portrait of her in his developing tank. He had cleared his throat and changed the subject.

“A woman of mystery, eh?” Mr. Chaplin teased. “Who could blame you? But about the part—it's just a small bit in couple of scenes. Come on, do say yes!”

No, no, no!
I was saying for her. I felt a certain nervous quiver in the air and hoped it was Mother's discomfort with the situation. She tossed down the cigarette and ground it out among the geraniums.

And when she spoke I could hear my mother again, using the same tone that might be asking Sylvie how she had mistaken rouge for finger paint. “You're a silly man. And I'm a chilly woman, or fast becoming one. Shall we rejoin the company?”

His teeth flashed in the dim light. They were a bit large for his face. On the screen, I recalled, he showed them only in an occasional smile that was smarmy and cocky at the same time. “I don't give up so easily, you'll find.”

He extinguished his own smoke and held the door open for her. Once they were inside, I let go of a long breath, feeling dizzy and only partly relieved. For she hadn't said no.

Chips and Blocks

After a restless night, unsettled by dreams of being chased through the Keystone Studios by the Little Tramp, I was still in bed at eight fifteen the next morning. But not for long, for that is when a resolute set of knuckles rapped on my door. “Who—?” I called out irritably.

“Me,” came the reply. “Can I come in?”

I sat up and reached for my wrapper. “You
may
. If you must.”

Ranger flung open the door and flopped down on Sylvie's empty bed without ceremony. “Sam just phoned. He wants us to meet him in the projection room at Vitagraph, eleven sharp.”

“What?”

“No, the question is
why
, not
what
. He didn't say, but he sounded just a little bit excited, and if you know Sam, that means a
lot
excited.”

I pulled my hair out from under my collar, trying to wake up. “Do you think it's about the picture?”

“Sure, it's about the picture. What else?”

“Well…a lot has happened since last we met, as you recall. And last night—”

“I know. But something's up. I don't know what it is, but I've got a hunch it could change everything.”

Never was a hunch more totally proved out. When we arrived at the stuffy little projection room off Prospect and Talmadge, Sam answered our knock with his eyes almost all the way open.

“What's up?” Ranger demanded without even saying hello.

“Not much,” Sam lied. “Just some film I wanted you to see. Have a seat.”

Inside that placid exterior was a barely contained, jackrabbity excitement. There was also, I noticed when he turned toward the projector, a rather livid bruise high up on one cheekbone. I took a seat in the front row, and Ranger dropped next to me while Sam flicked a lever on the projector.

Scratches of light appeared on the screen and then, so overwhelmingly that it knocked us back in our seats, the picture thronged with marching men. They seemed to keep coming on and on. The Lasky Home Guard wasn't that large, but the camera made it seem like legions.

“Sam!” Ranger exclaimed. “How'd you manage to loop the film?”

“Not now,” Sam replied. “Watch this.”

Looping the film (whatever that meant) was not all he'd managed to do. We watched with growing amazement as the camera caught hordes of feet swinging smartly around a corner, rows of helmeted heads swinging by the reviewers' stand, and even a view from above, booted feet striding proudly out from under the helmets in a way that reminded me of Mr. Chaplin's roll dance.

Then Ranger himself appeared on the screen, a rifle on his shoulder and a face like flint. It was as if the camera had crouched on the sidewalk, lain on the street, dodged near, backed away, and popped up like a hovering dragonfly, all in the space of a couple of minutes. Ranger had been popping up with exclamations the whole time, but I nearly fell out of my chair with the next scene—it was
me
! Weeping into a handkerchief in front of the broken-down picket fence on the way to Daisy Dell. I'd forgotten that scene, but here it was, smoothly “cut” into the rally.

Before I had fully taken myself in, the camera jumped back to the Home Guard, just as Ranger turned his head with a rueful glance. It looked for all the world as though he'd spotted me over by the fence. The Home Guard marched out of sight and the film came to an end.

Ranger jumped up, pulled the light cord, and attacked the cameraman, pounding him on the back. “You sly dog, you! That was
bully
! You cut those scenes together as slick as butter. But how'd you get past your old man?”

That was my question. Had Sam escaped from his house in the dark of night, developed all the film, and stuck the pieces together all by himself?

“Didn't have to get past the old man,” he explained while rewinding the film. “He helped me do it. And one of those shots—the one looking down on the helmets? That was cut from a picture he worked on last winter. He gave it to me.”

Ranger and I gulped in unison. The little room was stifling by then, so I turned on the ceiling fan. As we stood in the scissored light, Sam explained:

“Sure, he was mad—he yelled himself hoarse once we got home.”

“Where did that bruise on your face come from?” I asked.

“This?” Same touched it and shrugged. “Got in the way of a fist, I guess.”

“So how did you get him to come around?” Ranger asked.

“Well…once he was through yelling about the camera, he started yelling about me stealing the tripod. So I yelled back, ‘I didn't steal it! I made it!'”

“You did?” It never occurred to me that the tripod hadn't come with the camera.

“Sure he did, right down to the panning crank,” Ranger said proudly. “Sam can make anything.”

“Shook the old man up a little,” Sam remarked. “Had to take another look at the tripod. Then he finally got around to asking what the Sam Hill I thought I was doing with all this, so I what the Sam Hill told him.”

Ranger jumped. “You
what
?”

“Don't get in a lather. Your secret's safe. He wanted to see the film, is all.”

And once seeing, Sam went on to tell us, Mr. Service was rather taken with our efforts, especially the ingenious shot of marching feet that his son got by lying on the corner curb of Hollywood and Main.

“Did you tell him who you were working with?” Ranger asked, making it sound as though R. A. Bell were an up-and-coming Hollywood figure.

“Nope—just ‘some friends.'”

Ranger punched the air. “Terrific! The mind reels!”

My mind was revolving in circles too. I'd spent the previous weekend viewing Sam as a tragic figure, a motherless, misunderstood boy with a heartless father who drank too much. He didn't stay in the miserable hole I'd dug for him. But neither did his father—a few hours with noxious chemicals and film, and all was forgiven.

I'll never understand boys—or men either, for that matter.

“Speaking of reels,” Sam remarked, “I've got another one here.”

Piecing together military scenes wasn't all that occupied his time over the last few days. It seemed that father and son had collaborated on a picture project featuring Jimmy Service himself, which Sam now mounted on the projector and set rolling.

It didn't amount to much, in my opinion: a man goes to an outdoor café where he's greeted by his chums, flirts with his bosom pal's best girl, and exchanges a few stagy, fake-looking punches with the pal. The flirtatious female brought hostilities to an end by pouring two mugs of beer on their heads—a twist that didn't seem to be part of the scenario. The image became very jumpy for a few seconds.

“Couldn't help it,” Sam admitted. “Laughing too hard.”

While I tried to imagine what Sam's laugh would sound like, he hurried on. “But here's the beauty part.” He rolled the film back and stopped it at a point before the punch-trading and beer-dousing, with Mr. Service cheerfully lifting his mug while seated at a table. He had a long bony face, a little like Sam's, that didn't seem to go with a short torso and the restless legs of a boxer.

“I changed reels and rolled the film camera for a few minutes longer after he combed out his hair and called for another beer. He didn't notice I'd put a half-mask over the lens. Wasn't noticing much of anything by then. Before we develop it—”

Ranger caught his drift. Unable to contain himself any longer, he leaped up and pulled the overhead light cord. “A double exposure—you
genius
!” He attacked the genius again, with an embrace instead of a pounding. “Do you know what I'm thinking right now?”

They stared at each other with an identical gleam in their eyes, that precipitous look just before someone yells
Eureka
!

“Let me guess,” Sam drawled, and together they shouted:

“
We've got our
villain
!
”

It took me somewhat longer to understand what had lit such a fire under them. Sam had—very cleverly—taken advantage of the father-son project to solve one of our most persistent problems. With Jimmy Service on the left side of the frame, the undeveloped film could be shot again with his part masked and Sylvie and me on the right side. That would turn Good-time Jimmy into a heartless father mocking his poor daughters who are pleading with him to come home. There might even be enough film for Ranger to confront the old man, in a manner stern but just.

Ranger jumped up and threw some gleeful punches at that idea. “We're back in business!”

I suddenly remembered we were supposed to bring Sylvie home from her friend's house an hour ago. Before leaving, Ranger could not resist throwing his arms around Sam once more. “I'll say it again: you're a genius. But this is going to take lots of camera time. Is the old man good for—”

“He thinks the picture's finished, because that's sorta what I told him.” Sam looked less than smug for the first time that day. “And he didn't exactly say I couldn't use it, but…better not take a chance on his mood next time. It's kind of…unpredictable.”

• • •

On our way back to Hollywood, Ranger was over the moon. “I'm going to finish this picture, and D. W. is going to see it, and it'll be so brilliant that he'll take me under his wing. Bobby Harron wasn't much older than me when he started as a messenger boy for Fine Arts. After a few years, Mr. G put him in front of the camera. So he can put me behind one. Sooner or later.”

His plan seemed as far-fetched as ever, but still I was rather glad to see the old Ranger back—and even gladder that we wouldn't have to give up the picture. Though for the life of me I couldn't say why.

When we reached the Coopers' house, Sylvie was hustled out with her hat and coat and satchel in hand, as though her hosts had been eagerly watching for our arrival and didn't intend to waste a minute. This made me suspect Little Sister had outstayed her welcome, but I didn't ask. And she did not tell—all she wanted to know was how late we'd stayed up the night before, and did Mr. Fairbanks sword fight with anybody.

“Not much happened,” Ranger kept saying. “A dull party, really.”

His thoughts were elsewhere. I'd almost forgotten the party myself, in light of this new frontier in picture-making that Sam had opened up, but I was abruptly reminded of it as a light tan roadster approached us on the drive. I didn't recognize the auto, but Ranger did, snapping his head around as the vehicle passed with a half wave from the driver. “That's Chaplin's Pierce-Arrow. Wonder what he's up to?”

I didn't wonder at the way my heart seemed to tighten, as though someone were pulling its corset strings.

The ladies were having tea under the grape arbor in the courtyard. “What was Chaplin doing here?” Ranger asked first thing.

“My, you're abrupt,” Aunt Buzzy remarked, busily waving a palm-leaf fan. “He came to see your father—about money, of course. Oh, and he dropped off a scenario for your aunt Mattie to look at.”

My mother was elaborately
not
looking at the large, white envelope lying on a corner of the glass-topped table. “A scenario?” I repeated.

Mother waved a careless hand. “He has an idea about a part in his next picture. He thinks I have the perfect
maternal
quality.”

“Which is a
silly
notion, of course,” Aunt Buzzy said.

“Well, it
may
be, and it may not,” Mother countered. “I haven't looked at it yet.”

The stress they were putting on certain words made me think of rival boys drawing lines in the sand. Was there some sort of falling-out between them over Charlie's silly notion?

“You aren't going to do it, are you?” I blurted out.

“For heaven's sake.” Mother sighed. “Will everyone stop behaving as though I'm about to run off to Cuba with the encyclopedia salesman? All is well, whether I decide to do it or not. How was your night, Sylvie? Did you have a good time?” Thus, by sticking an elbow in the conversation (Sylvie being the elbow), she turned it away from herself and a certain most-famous-man-in-the-world.