I Don't Know How the Story Ends (4 page)

“It's called the panorama—they just finished it a couple months ago,” Ranger explained. “The platform here stays in the same place, but the background moves. Just the opposite of a carousel.”

I couldn't see the point. “What's it for?”

“Shooting road scenes and chases. If you put an auto right here”—landing on the platform with a hop—“and a camera there”—pointing to the ground beside us—“you can shoot the car in place while the background rolls along behind it. So it looks like the car's moving. Sennett used to shoot all his car chases on the real street, but he kept getting in trouble with the natives.”

“It's
delicious
,” Sylvie said breathlessly, quite overwhelmed.

I was skeptical. “It's too big to move.”

“Oh yeah? I've made it move by myself—that is, me and a bunch of the neighborhood kids. One night we snuck under the platform and lined up along one of the struts inside and started pushing. It takes a little muscle, but once you get it started… I'd show you now if I could, but I've got something important to do.”

He jumped off the platform. “Wait here.” With no more instruction than that, he ran around the curve of the panorama and disappeared.

“Well!” I exclaimed. “How do you like that?”

Sylvie seemed to like it fine. “He's the wonderfulest boy I've ever met.”

We found a pair of orange crates to sit on and were debating that point a few minutes later when the wonderful boy reappeared in the company of an older fellow. The stranger appeared to be about fifteen or so, with a bony face and straight brown hair that might have been cut with a pair of garden shears. He carried a broom over one shoulder.

The two of them stopped about ten feet away from us. Dragging on a cigarette, the older boy looked me up and down with gray eyes as pale as dimes. It was the height of rudeness, which I was just about to mention when Ranger asked him, “Well?”

“Yep,” the other boy said. “Good eyes, good hair. Can she act?”

“Haven't asked her yet.”

That did it for me. I jumped up and folded my arms and stamped my foot like an overtired child who's been told she can't have the last cookie. “What is this about? Tell me
right now
, or I'm leaving this instant and taking Sylvie with me, no matter where we end up.”

“She can act mad,” the stranger observed.

Ranger turned to me with eyes so animated that they could have jumped out of his head. “This is about art,” he told me, “and life, and truth and beauty too, if we can pull it off.” He paused for effect. And then:

“How would you girls like to be in a picture?”

Truth, Beauty, and Flickers

Being in a picture was the last thing I could think about wanting in my life, but to Sylvie, it was the best idea since corn plasters. “Can I be in it too?” she begged Ranger. “Pleeese?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “We'll need you for the pathos.”

“More like the pathetic,” his friend observed—ironically, I suppose.

“What do you need me for?” I asked Ranger. “And”—turning to the friend—“what did you mean about my eyes and hair?”

“Oh,” he said, condescending to take the cigarette out of his mouth, “they're dark. Dark shows up better on the film we have to use. Blue eyes just looks spooky.”

Like his, if he ever bothered to open them all the way. And if
dark
was all I had to offer, they'd be better off with a weasel. “Excuse me,” I said politely, “but we haven't been introduced properly.”

He shrugged. “Ain't been introduced any way that I recall.” His voice had a slight rasp, with flat vowels that sounded more East Coast than West.

“This is Sam,” Ranger explained.

“Samuel Patrick Service.” The tall boy stuck out his hand in my direction. “At yours.”

“Isobel Ransom,” I replied with a very quick shake. “And this is my little sister, Sylvie.”

“Nice to meetcha 'n all that,” he mumbled. Then, to Ranger: “Maybe you'd better cue some people.”

“We're making a picture,” Ranger told us. “Sam's the cameraman, I'm the director, and you girls… Oh, come on, say you'll be in it.” His face broke out an unexpected smile, bright as the white crest on a wave. “Please?”

“What's it about?” Sylvie piped up. “Do we get to be Bablionians?”

“No Babylonians.” He sighed regretfully. “But other than that, we're not sure. Depends on who's in it.”

“But we just met,” I protested. “What makes you think I'd be any good in pictures?”

“Because you've got a camera face,” he said.

That took me aback, I can tell you. “What do you mean?” I asked, blushing in spite of myself. “Pretty?”

“More than that. But yes, that.” He smiled again, even wider this time.

“What am I?” Sylvie demanded.

“You're lively,” Ranger assured her.

“We still don't know if they can act,” Sam reminded him.

“Leave that to me. A good director can get a rock to act.”

“Sure. 'Long as it's acting like a rock.”

“Trust me—I've got a hunch. So what do you say, Isobel?”

My head was spinning. I
could
act—everyone said my portrayal of Beth in our school production of
Little Women
was the soul of the play. And it was fun too. But this was uncharted territory, and I could also hear my father saying,
You're the responsible one,
Isobel
.

“Let me think about it,” I said.

Sam made a little snort, as though thinking was only for sissies—and girls, of course.

“
I'll
do it,” Sylvie volunteered.

“Not without me,” I told her. “And you know Mother doesn't approve of the pictures.”

Both boys rolled their eyes, and Ranger even groaned, bending almost double in frustration. “She doesn't
understand
. Some people think film is just Keystone Cops crashing cars or somebody's pants falling down. But it's a lot more. It's the new art: telling stories with light and motion. This”—he waved his arms grandly, taking in the Keystone lot with its fabulous panorama—“is going to be bigger than the Sistine Chapel. D. W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille—they're the new painters, as great as Michelangelo.” He was now soaring on wings of exaggeration, in my opinion. “And someday, R. A. Bell.”

He meant himself, I supposed. “What's the
A
stand for?”

He waved away the question. “Doesn't matter. I was named for my grandfather.”

“But ‘grandfather' starts with a
G
,” Sylvie pointed out.

“Never mind! What I'm saying is, we've got a chance to get in at the beginning of something really big. It's the opportunity of a lifetime—”

“So what do you say, girlie?” Sam interrupted as he ground the stub of his cigarette underfoot. No romantic, he.

Sylvie was tugging my jacket. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, we can.”

“Stop pushing me! We just got here, for heaven's sake!”

“How about tomorrow then?” Ranger suggested. “You give us an answer by noon tomorrow.”

“Well, I suppose…”

“Peachy. Just a minute.” He grabbed Samuel Patrick Service's elbow and pulled him aside, where the two conferred in knife-sharp whispers. One insisted, the other resisted, while Sylvie whined to me that we
had
to do it because it was the chance of a lifetime, bigger than a chapel, and so on.

Finally, the boys came to terms, and Ranger strolled back with a casual air that didn't fool me for a minute. “Right,” he said. “We'll take this up again tomorrow. Oh, and, Sam?” He bit his lip, abashed. “Do you happen to have a couple nickels for the streetcar?”

• • •

Ranger escorted us home, only to desert us at the head of the drive. His explanation was so hasty I barely caught it: “Tell-Buzzy-I've-got-an-important-errand. I'll-be-back-in-time-for-supper. She'll understand.”

Sylvie objected, but as Ranger raced off down the street, I found myself grateful for the breathing room. He had a certain dash—not “dashing” like Mr. Rochester in
Jane Eyre
, but “mad-dashing,” like Mr. Toad in
The Wind in the Willows
. Life appeared to slow down with his sudden departure, which was a good thing because even though Sylvie had made up her mind about him, my mind was rather quandarified.

Aunt Buzzy had company. Two ladies from the San Fernando Neighbors Association (whatever that was) had stopped by to ask for her signature on a petition of complaint against Thomas Ince (whoever he might be). As we paused in the entrance hall to assess the situation—some might call it “eavesdropping”—I learned that Mr. Ince was a director of Westerns.

Pictures again! Didn't anything else happen in this town?

One of the ladies was waxing very indignant about an outlaw band that had trampled her carrot patch twice in the last month while staging a shootout. “Don't these movies understand
No Trespassing
? I declare, Mrs. Bell, something must be done. And that is why…”

“I'm hungry,” Sylvie complained, pulling me into the front room.

Aunt Buzzy jumped up as we entered and, after brief introductions and curtseys, offered to show us to the kitchen. That left Mother in the company of Mistresses Busy and Body, but she didn't seem to mind.

Aunt Buzzy led us through the left-side door, which opened to a long hallway with windows on one side and storage closets on the other. At the end of the hall, she pushed open a black swinging door into a huge kitchen gleaming with chrome. The gramophone was playing “Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers” while Esperanza sat at the counter shelling peas and swaying to the music.

“Please don't get up,” Aunt Buzzy told her, then took her time getting Sylvie happily perched on a high stool with two ladyfingers and a bowl of strawberries. “Do you want anything, Belladonna?”

When I said no, she motioned me back into the hallway. “Now I must figure out how to graciously not sign that tiresome petition,” she confided as we walked slowly toward the front room. “Every few weeks they bring another one by. Everybody's up in arms, but if you ask me, the movies are the best thing that ever happened to this poky little town.”

“What are ‘movies'?”

“People who work in the moving pictures. They've certainly livened things up around here. Did Ranger come back with you?”

I shook my head. “He said to tell you he'd be here for supper.”

“Did he take you to Babylon?” I nodded. “He'd live there, if he could. And I'm sure he told you all about
Intolerance
? For someone who wasn't allowed to see it, he can certainly hold forth on the subject.”

“Um.” She asked me no questions so I told her no lies. “Aunt Buzzy? Did he really burn down the school gym?”

She stopped. “Oh no, dear. He only tried to. Pretty much gutted the broom closet, but that was all. Between that and painting black prison bars on the classroom windows and setting off firecrackers during the awards assembly, he's had a difficult year.”

It sounded to me like the school had had a difficult year. “Why?”

“I expect it was hard to adjust after all those years being taught at home, but his father decided it was time for Ranger to get out of his own little world. And I agreed, but it appears that process will take some time. He's very bright, but he doesn't think like other boys, and he's not good in sports, and he can't sit still…” She tapped a windowpane hesitatingly. “He may tell you this, or he may not. But it will help you understand: his mother was Indian. Not red Indian, the other kind from India. That's why he's so dark, and…well, it's not easy, looking different.”

I blinked in surprise. The boy was so different in numerous ways that I'd forgotten he
looked
different. “But there's something else I'd like to tell you in confidence,” Aunt Buzzy continued. “Ranger is on probation at the moment. After the firecracker incident, his father was ready to ship him off to military school for some discipline. I mean
at once
.” She shook her head, frowning at the memory. “Such a battle of wills going on around here! I'm surprised the walls aren't pitted. I've known only one person more stubborn than Ranger, and that's his father.”

Then the worry lines between her eyebrows disappeared, and her natural sunny countenance returned. “Fortunately, he's settled down quite a bit since April. Has a new hobby. I'm sure you noticed!” She seized both my hands in hers. “I was
so
excited to hear you were coming, Belladonna. You could be a real friend to Ranger. I'm not sure he's ever had one.”

I wondered if she knew about Sam or the extent of Ranger's new hobby, or if I should say anything about either. But she settled that last question for me: “Back to the fray! I'm so glad you girls had a pleasant afternoon—the first of many, let's hope.”

Then she squared her shoulders and marched into the front room, the back pleat on her skirt swishing like a pheasant's tail. I didn't recall mentioning a pleasant afternoon.

• • •

In fact, within five hours of meeting Ranger, I'd embarrassed myself on a studio lot and had been thrown off a streetcar, chased by vigilantes (or at least my sister had), and propositioned to be in a motion picture. “Pleasant” was not the word. Nor was I especially fond of motion pictures.

My memory of the first I'd seen flickered like the screen in the stuffy little nickelodeon with creaky chairs, where Rosetta had taken me while we were supposed to be shopping for shoes. The story was something about policemen chasing robbers and continually falling down until the robbers got caught almost by accident. I was so confused by the end that I could hardly tell who was chasing whom, but Rosetta laughed uproariously all the way through. Even though she got in trouble later when we came home without shoes.

The next picture I saw was with Father—
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
, featuring wholesome Mary Pickford. I liked her just fine, but the film was so jerky the people on the screen looked like they were being poked with sticks.

“The projection speed is all wrong,” Father kept muttering. “I'm
that
close to lodging a complaint with the management.” But of course he didn't. Father would have to be on fire before lodging a complaint with the management, as Mother has said more than once.

And last fall, Millie Kemp and Alice Russell and I skipped a French lesson to catch a matinee at the Variety: a Western picture followed by a comedy called
Coney Island
, with Mr. Roscoe Arbuckle (better known as Fatty).
Coney Island
was rather amusing. In fact, we nearly had unfortunate “accidents” from laughing so hard, especially when Mr. Arbuckle dressed up in a lady's bathing costume and… Well, anyway, it wasn't worth the switching I got when Millie's mother telephoned mine.

“If a story is not worth reading, it's not worth seeing,” Mother said. And given other factors, like a burned broom closet and a sleepy-eyed, cigarette-puffing partner, Ranger's new hobby sank lower in my estimation the more I thought about it.

The next morning, as Esperanza served broiled grapefruit, scrambled eggs, toast, and fresh-squeezed orange juice in the sunroom, Ranger nudged me with an elbow.

“The answer is
no
,” I said. My mood was shaky after a restless night during which I dreamed about the battlefield again, complete with ravaged earth and a body on its side and light flashing behind a pair of broken lenses.

“Firm and flat?” Ranger didn't seem disappointed. He even smiled a little as he shook Heinz 57 Varieties on his eggs over easy.

“Yes, firm and flat.” It's a good thing Sylvie was at the other end of the table getting her nose wiped, or she would have raised 57 Varieties of Cain right then and there.

“We gave you until noon to make up your mind.”

“But if my mind is already made up—”

“Do me a favor.” He leaned forward earnestly. “Go on a little excursion with me.”

“But—”

He raised his voice. “Say, Sylvie? How 'bout an adventure after breakfast?”

The sneak! Mentioning “adventure” to my sister is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, even though Mother immediately said no: “We need to go shopping for summer clothes.”