Missing Reels (7 page)

About a week after the dinner she went to the benches in front of Courant to smoke her cigarette after lunch, and she watched the people filing in and out. A lot of Asians. Not a lot of women. A lot of men, young and old. None of them Matthew. As she ground out the cigarette she reflected on how embarrassing it would be if he found her there, looking at the building like Edward G. Robinson keeping vigil for Joan Bennett in
Scarlet Street
, and she resolved not to go back.

Tuesday afternoon she trekked uptown to a silent movie at the Thalia, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert showing off their love affair in
Flesh and the Devil
. When the ladies room cleared out, she took a stab at a Garbo smolder for the mirror. Only Garbo, she thought, could smolder while she was taking communion. She wished she didn’t always have to go to the movies by herself.

That evening it was her turn to buy coffee, and she had enough money to upgrade from Cafe Busted. She was about to turn into the bodega when she spotted Miriam, carrying a pocketbook and walking down the avenue. Ceinwen paused a moment, then followed.

Now here was behavior Talmadge could justifiably call obsessive, but maybe she’d spot Miriam meeting someone and get an idea of where she was always going. She kept following until Miriam turned into the Key Food near Fourth Street. Ceinwen stood on the sidewalk, dumbfounded. Grocery shopping. How’s that for boring. Served her right for being so nosy. She was about to turn and go back to the bodega, when it occurred to her that while she’d always been afraid of the big, ill-kept, funny-smelling Key Food, the coffee selection might be worth the risk.

She didn’t know how she was going to translate groceries into a conversation about Jean Harlow’s underwear, but she’d at least get a chance to try. And what else did she have to look forward to? More books. Recording more movies off the TV. More cigarettes, more planning her outfits. Tomorrow maybe lunch with Roxanne and a long talk about how Roxanne’s boyfriend never wanted to go out anymore because he was studying for the bar. She pumped on her toes in front of the automatic door for a minute, trying to get the sensor to sense her and thinking, I’m not
that
short, when a man swept around her and pushed it open. She followed.

How did Miriam find anything here, wondered Ceinwen, as she surveyed the sad-looking produce and the large, malformed root vegetables she’d never seen or even heard of before. She turned to walk down the back, checking each aisle for Miriam. Lots of mothers with fussy kids, a number of tired-looking men, nobody her age. She turned into the coffee aisle and grabbed a can of Melita, then walked back again and checked another aisle. Back in Yazoo City the Winn-Dixie was huge and spotless, and the aisles were so wide you could fit four or five carts across each of them. Everything in this place was narrow and dirty. So was the bodega, but at least it was manageable: you didn’t have to waste all this time trying to figure out where everything was.

There was Miriam, a basket over her arm, running her finger down a row of canned goods. Ceinwen checked the aisle sign to prepare her make-believe shopping mission. Soup. She hadn’t bought canned soup since she’d cooked for Granana, but it wouldn’t kill them to have some around the apartment. She breathed out, which was what Talmadge always told her actors did to warm up, and walked behind Miriam.

“Hey, Miriam.” Miriam didn’t jump. It was a good question as to what would make her jump. She turned and gave the slightly friendlier look she’d been giving for a couple of weeks now, the sides of the mouth almost going up, but not quite.

“Hello,” said Miriam. And went back to the shelf. Ceinwen checked the cans beyond Miriam’s arm.

“Excuse me, I’m trying to reach the”—she scanned—“minestrone.” She hated tomato soups.

“Please,” said Miriam, and stood aside. Then, “I’m trying to pick out a stock. Do you have a favorite?”

Stock? What—wait, that was a cooking word for broth. She’d heard Jim use it.

“I always get what’s cheapest,” said Ceinwen. “My grandmother used to say they were all the same.”

“She’s probably right,” said Miriam. She took two cans off the shelf and put them in the basket, next to a quart of milk, onions, and greens. An old lady shouldn’t have that much on her arm.

“Let me carry that for you,” said Ceinwen.

“Thank you, but I’m fine.”

“No, really,” insisted Ceinwen, putting her hand on the handle, “we’re going the same way, and all I needed was coffee. And soup,” she remembered to add.

Miriam hesitated, then handed it over. “That’s very kind of you.” Ceinwen tossed her coffee and soup in the basket—maybe Jim liked minestrone—and they started toward the checkout line.

“I was talking to my roommate Talmadge the other day.”

They’d reached the line, which wasn’t long, but the lady ahead of them had a full cart. Miriam turned her head, looking interested for the first time. “Talmadge, did you say? Is he the blond?” Ceinwen nodded. “There were a couple of silent movie stars with that name.”

“Norma and Constance,” she said. Miriam didn’t look impressed. If Ceinwen had brought up Norma and Constance at dinner, Harry would have been floored.

“Yes.” It didn’t matter that Ceinwen had learned of the Talmadge sisters only a week ago from one of Harry’s books—she wasn’t getting nearly enough credit here. “Is your roommate related?”

“I asked.” Last week, but still. “He doesn’t think so. It’s just his middle name. He likes it better than Albert.” They were close enough now for Ceinwen to start unloading the basket. “Anyway, Talmadge and I were wondering if you knew Jean Harlow.” She concentrated on piling Miriam’s groceries so they wouldn’t get mixed up with the other lady’s items. “Because you were telling me about what she wore.”

“Yes, I knew her.”

How could someone say “I knew Jean Harlow,” then, silence, as if that was all the information a normal person would want?

“Did you work with her?”

“In a manner of speaking. I worked on her clothes.”

At last, the motherlode. “You were a costume designer?”

“I was a seamstress. At MGM. No, that’s separate.” The cashier was about to ring Ceinwen’s coffee in with Miriam’s groceries.

She better not ruin things by blurting out a bunch of questions. Better to ask bit by bit. She’d start easy. “Nice woman?”

“Who, Harlow? Why yes, very. She was always playing tramps, but she came from a good family, and she’d been well brought up.”

Except she didn’t wear underwear, but this seemed like a bad moment to remind Miriam of that, strategically speaking. Miriam was paying. Ceinwen told her to wait and she’d carry the groceries back to the apartment. She paid for her two cans, and they started back.

A seamstress. I’m an idiot, thought Ceinwen. All I could imagine was actresses and stars. MGM was a huge studio, full of people doing all kinds of jobs. Carpenters. Set decorators. Prop managers. And the seamstresses. And they probably all had stories. “Was it a fun job?”

“If you like sewing.”

God forbid Miriam should throw her a bone here. “Do you? like sewing?”

“I suppose. I’m good at it. I make my own clothes still.” Ceinwen’s eyes darted down to the skirt hem that hit exactly where it should. Of course. You couldn’t be old, with every part of your body in a different place from where it was, and have clothes that fit well, unless the clothes were made for you.

“Did you stay there a long time?”

“Until I got married. Right after the war ended.”

“And then you moved to New York?”

“Oh no, not then. My husband was a stage manager. We traveled around to regional theaters for a long time. I sometimes did costumes. He got a job here in 1962.” They paused for the light.

“What made you pick Avenue C?”

Miriam gave a little half-smile. “It was cheap. You didn’t grow up here, did you?”

“No,” said Ceinwen. Do I sound like I’m from Avenue C? “I’m from Mississippi. You ever been there?” People who had usually didn’t ask why she moved.

“Yes, just once. We did a season outside of Jackson.”

“Did you like it?” Miriam, for once, seemed to be searching for words. “It’s okay, I never liked it much myself.”

“In the fifties … the hiring practices were troublesome. So was the seating. Of course it was like that almost everywhere. But in Mississippi they were more … enthusiastic about it, I suppose you could say.”

That was good news, at least. Miriam was a liberal. Seems like we all wind up in New York sooner or later, she thought. They’d reached the building. The street lock was still broken. Ceinwen stood to one side to let Miriam go up the stairs ahead of her. When they got to Miriam’s door, Ceinwen was more worn out than usual because she hadn’t gone at her own pace. Miriam unlocked the door and held it open. Ceinwen got a few feet into the hall and stopped.

The layout seemed the mirror image of their apartment, but it was as though she were in a different building, a different neighborhood. The walls were completely smooth, the wood trim was stripped and polished, and she realized that underneath all that paint their molding was probably oak. There was an Oriental runner down the parquet floor of the hall. The transoms were clear glass, and there was a glass-paned door at the end of the hall.

Miriam moved past. “I’ll just put this in the kitchen. You can step in for a moment.” Ceinwen recovered, continued to the living room and stopped again.

She’d gotten glimpses of other apartments in the building: worn linoleum and bumpy walls painted beige or white. No difference. Miriam had gold wallpaper with a Chinese print, and carpet—old people did like their carpet—that was spotless and still plush. She spied full-length drapes and sheers at the windows, and in front of them was a tufted sofa, with all its legs. Next to that a high-backed chair like in men’s club scenes in English movies, and in front of the sofa a low coffee table with an inlaid top. On a sideboard sat a hurricane lamp with a landscape painted on both glass globes. Set by a wall was a china cabinet Granana would have killed for.

“This is beautiful.” Look at that, there used to be French doors between the two living rooms in these apartments. We were robbed.

“Thank you,” said Miriam. “Wait here, I’ll put it away.”

“I never knew any apartments on Avenue C looked like this.” Since Miriam hadn’t told her to leave, maybe she would offer her a drink—sherry? Cognac? Ceinwen walked over to a round table, covered with a thick damask cloth that had a tassel weighing down one corner. On the table were a bunch of photos. Mostly vacation shots, it seemed.

“I’ve had plenty of time to decorate,” Miriam called from the kitchen. Ceinwen didn’t reply. She was peering at a large photo in the back, sepia, in a silver frame with leaves and flowers twined around the edges. She leaned in to get a better look, and suddenly the picture was in her hand, so fast she wasn’t conscious of picking it up.

It was Miriam, she knew it was. Same features, but young, full makeup, dark hair half up and half down, a glittery ribbon wound through it. She was wearing a high-waisted dress and a pearl necklace, and her hand was posed delicately under her chin.

Ceinwen might not know all that much about silents, but she knew a publicity shot when she saw one. This was Miriam in period costume, sometime in the late 1920s, from the looks of the hair and makeup.

Seamstress, my ass.

Down at the bottom she could see writing, in a high-styled, hard-to-read hand. She held the picture closer. “To my darling Emil—All my love, always—” The “all” and “always” were underlined. And under that, a row of xoxoxos, and the name, Miriam.

“I wanted to thank you for helping me with my groceries.” She almost dropped the frame. She put it back and turned around in dread. Miriam was standing there with a face that made Ceinwen feel like a burglar.

“Oh, you’re welcome.” Should she apologize for looking at the picture, or would that make it worse?

“I don’t want to keep you.” The same kiss-off she’d gotten in the lobby. Man, Miriam was furious. Why have pictures out if you didn’t want people to see them?

She tried to think of a way to say she had nothing to leave for, and said, “Have a good evening.”

“Thank you. You too.”

She was out in the hall and listening to the snick of the deadbolt almost as soon as the sentence was finished. She’d never been so thoroughly eighty-sixed in her life.

Jim was in the living room, dusting. Talmadge was in the kitchen getting his ice cream. She started to tell him about Miriam, but he didn’t seem to care. Marlene was the only old star Talmadge really wanted to hear about, and she’d been at Paramount. Forget it, then. She was going to figure the whole story out by herself and spring it on them. They’d both realize she’d been right: finding out more about Miriam was worth the time.

The news about the French doors, however, was huge.

“How do you like that,” huffed Jim. “I bet those junkies sold them.”

“The ones before us? How do you know they were junkies?”

“Wax in the sink,” said Talmadge. Ceinwen nodded, wondering what a junkie needed wax for. She’d find out some other time.

Jim was running his hands over the molding and muttering about laziness and philistines. “This must have been a nice building once. It’s still got the jets.”

“The what?”

He led her to the hall and pointed to something poking out of the wall, like a small faucet. “Gaslight,” he said. She reached up and felt the bottom—a key that would have turned, before it was crusted with paint. She pictured herself as Ingrid Bergman, twisting the flame up and down while she listened to Charles Boyer’s footsteps above.

She went into her room early and started consulting Harry’s books. Her first job was to find out who this Emil was. Maybe the man Miriam married? The name Emil Gibson sounded kind of ridiculous (assuming Miriam had changed her last name), but then again she’d heard a lot worse in Yazoo City.

She went through the indexes. Precious few Gibsons, none of them named Emil. Could be a middle name. Or a nickname. No, it probably wasn’t Gibson at all. You didn’t go all ice-cold over someone seeing a photo you gave your husband, did you? You got upset if it was something you didn’t want to discuss. And not like a creepy relative, either. Like a lost romance. Ceinwen decided to go with that assumption, mostly because it improved the plot.