The Girls in the Picture Read online

  “I don’t know, Fran, I just don’t know. They didn’t laugh at all! Not even at the scene where I accidentally drank the brandy and got drunk.” Of all the things that shook Mary, it was that—the dour silence that greeted this picture. “It was as if they decided ahead of time not to like it. I thought it was brilliant, really, even in rough cut. I—didn’t I do it convincingly, play a little girl? I thought—I mean, I worked so hard at it! I watched children, I practiced in the mirror!”

  “I’ve ruined your career!” Frances hid her face in her hands. “Oh, my God, I’ve ruined Mary Pickford’s career!”

  “Stop that,” Mary snapped. “I don’t want to hear that.”

  “What will we do?”

  “What do you mean, we? You’ll keep writing, because you can, because it’s not your face up there, only your name. You can change it, you can be Franklin Marion if you want, and nobody would care, and it would probably be better for your career, at that.” Mary was astonished by how easily this came out—almost as if she’d rehearsed it, and perhaps she had. Frances shrank away from her, and turned to stare out the window; she seemed stunned by Mary’s venom.

  “But I can’t do that,” Mary continued, more quietly; she felt drained, as if her veins had been opened up back there in the projection room, her life’s blood spilled on the floor for those vile men to step in and smear all over. “Because it’s my face, it’s my image, my name the public knows. I can’t change any of that—and I’ve worked so hard to achieve it, Fran. So hard—and now what? They’re all back there drinking whiskey and laughing at me for daring to take control. For talking to them like a man and not a little girl, for being smart and asking questions and simply wanting what’s fair, what’s right. What’s mine!”

  “I’m so sorry, Mary,” Frances whispered. “I thought—I thought what we were doing was magical. I really did. I thought it was perfect for you—I thought I could give you something, something you missed, something you needed. I don’t know how I can trust my instincts from now on, if I was so wrong this time.”

  “Well, you didn’t. You couldn’t. I should have known, though; I shouldn’t have gotten caught up in your excitement, because I’ve worked too hard to get here. I have to be smarter than that. And I don’t know how I can trust my instincts, either, after this.” While Fran began to sob quietly, Mary stared out the window; it was starting to snow. The streets of New York looked gray and dreary, and everyone seemed to be dressed in black.

  “I just don’t know,” she repeated dismally.

  —

  After dropping Fran off at the Algonquin—they couldn’t even say goodbye to each other—Mary went home. To Owen.

  Not to Mama, even though every nerve, every twinge in her battered heart told her to, to seek comfort where she’d always found it, to find wisdom, or at the very least loving, soothing arms.

  But she dutifully went home to her husband. She was a failure at her job; she couldn’t bear to be a failure at her marriage, too.

  “Well, well, well.” Owen greeted her, drink in one hand, a piece of paper in the other. His shirt was rumpled and stained, his eyes bloodshot, his skin sallow, but still, there was enough resemblance to the cocky young boy who had stolen her heart to make her catch her breath.

  “What, Owen?” Mary moved to hang her coat on the coat-tree. She felt infinitely weary; it was as if she was trudging against an ocean current. She unpinned her felt hat.

  “Zukor phoned. Or should I say Papa?” Owen sneered; he despised the relationship between Mary and Zukor; probably because Zukor could never remember Owen’s name, always calling him, instead, “Mr. Pickford.”

  “Did he?”

  “He did indeed. And left a message—rather a long message. I told him I wasn’t your secretary, but he insisted.” Owen had an odd gleam in his eye, and Mary knew that he hadn’t minded taking this particular message down, and her hand was trembling as she held it out.

  But Owen snatched his away, dangling the piece of paper above Mary’s head as if he expected her to jump for it, like a cat with a toy.

  “Oh, no. You’re not going to deny me this, my darling wife. You’re not going to take this away from me.”

  “Well, then.” And Mary sank into a chair, because she could no longer stand, and squeezed her eyes shut. And listened as Owen read the message in a rich, intense voice, imbuing it with more meaning than he had ever graced a line of dialogue.

  “ ‘Tell your wife’—that’s Zukor’s word, not mine—‘that she’s to report to my office first thing tomorrow. Tell her that she’s to think about what she’s done. That I paid Tourneur a fortune because she wanted me to—and Frances, as well. That Marion girl didn’t come cheap. Tell her that I did all she asked but she disappointed me greatly. So she needs to be ready to go to Los Angeles on the next train, because I’m having DeMille direct her next film, as he’s what I’ve determined she needs right now. A strong arm. Frankly, he’s hesitant to work with her now. So Mary’s to compose a telegram, to bring with her tomorrow for my approval, telling DeMille how thrilled she is to work for him and how she promises to be a good girl and not interfere, like she’s done in the past.’ ”

  Owen set his drink down on a table with a loud crack. Mary heard footsteps, heard ragged breathing, felt the warmth of his body, and she flinched, holding her arm over her face—always protect your face, Mama had told her the first time it happened—bracing for the blow. But it didn’t come, and after a moment, quivering with fright, she looked up.

  Owen was standing over her with the most grotesque smile on his face, and her blood ran cold. She’d never seen her husband happier. Not on their wedding day. Not after their first time together. Not ever.

  It had taken this—her abject failure—to finally make Owen Moore happy. Happy enough not to hit her, not to belittle her. Because he didn’t say another word; he didn’t rub it in. He merely stood there, grinning, before grabbing her under her arms, hauling her to her feet, shoving his hand up her blouse so that he was squeezing her breast, hard; his other hand reached down her skirt where he cupped her, just once. Then he kissed her; his lips tore at hers, he took what he wanted, what he needed, and then as she reluctantly felt herself stirring, felt herself rising up to meet him, her insides thawing until they started to melt, in a trickle, between her legs—

  He pushed her away.

  “You’re not what I want tonight, Mary.” Owen wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re never what I want. You’re not a real woman, and we both know why.”

  Then he left. But not before grabbing the leather album of clippings that Charlotte had so carefully compiled, and heaving it across the room; pieces of paper, photographs, flew through the air like ticker tape. “Find your comfort in these, tonight, dear wife.” And—odd, really!—he did not slam the door theatrically, like the bad actor he was. He closed it carefully behind him.

  Mary touched her breast, reaching into her chemise and gingerly patting her flesh. It should have ached, after the way Owen grabbed it, but it didn’t. She groped about for any mark or welt, but she couldn’t feel a thing, not even her own icy fingers against her flesh.

  Stumbling about the apartment in a trance, Mary found herself touching objects just to see if anything could penetrate her numbness. But nothing could. Not the little celluloid clock on an end table, not even the clippings she’d so carefully saved, now littering the floor: Mary Pickford Triumphant in New Film! Our Mary Now the Best-Loved Actress in the World! She knelt, touched, but couldn’t feel, so why not move on to the knives in the kitchen? The daggerlike letter opener on the desk?

  But then something caught her eye; it was snowing outside. And now she recalled it had been snowing when she left the office; her driver had made some remark about it, but she hadn’t really listened. She’d still been reliving the disaster in her mind, and Fran was clutching her and weeping. How long ago had that been?

  Mary walked over to a window and pressed her nose against the pane.


  The snow—oh, the snow! Fat, ungainly flakes falling swiftly by, and she remembered how she used to try to catch them on her tongue when she was a little girl. Even running to catch a train to some awful theater, knowing she couldn’t be late or someone else would take the job, she would sometimes stop, and quick as a lizard dart her tongue when Mama wasn’t looking, and try to taste the snow. But it always disappointed; there was no taste to it, no taste at all.

  And here it was, piling up so comfortably outside her window.

  She was several stories up—what was it? Seven? Eight?—and still she could see it so clearly, drifting on the sidewalk below. A sidewalk blessedly free of the usual New York activity. There wasn’t anyone out there; no footprints yet, no stuffy matron walking a dog, no newsboy lustily hawking his wares, no businessmen, heads bent against the wind, hands clutching their homburg hats to their heads as they shuffled along.

  The sidewalk looked so very soft, its undulating cover of snow still undisturbed.

  And Mary was so very tired. Weary to her bones, flattened by—everything. Zukor and the men and Owen, even Fran, dear Fran. She was tired of being responsible for everything, everyone. Placing her hand on the window sash she pushed it up, and knew that the cold air hit her in the face but she couldn’t feel it.

  Could she feel anything, would she feel anything, ever again? Except for the beckoning blanket of snow eight stories down, so absolute.

  So tempting.

  Who would miss her, if she fell?

  Certainly not Owen. Zukor would be glad to be rid of her. Fran would be fine. Her public—they’d mourn, but soon enough they’d find another darling to adore. All Mary had to do was look over her shoulder at the understudies waiting in the wings—Marguerite Clark, Mae Marsh, even Lillian, darling Lillian Gish. Who, then, would really miss her?

  No one. No one but—

  “Mama!” And Mary was surprised to hear her own voice, her own words finally penetrating the ice encasing her, and before she could change her mind, she turned away from the window and reached for the telephone.

  “Mama? Mama?”

  “What? What is it, dear?”

  “Mama, come. Come quick. I need you.”

  “What did he do? Never mind, stay right where you are. I’m coming.” It was almost as if Charlotte had been expecting a call like this, but how? How could Mama know how desperate she was, when she hadn’t had an inkling until this very moment? Because she was Mary Pickford, the most beloved movie star of them all! And Mary Pickford had the world, didn’t she? The world at her feet, as her oyster, and what could she possibly need?

  Her mother, that’s what she needed. She was twenty-five years old and she needed her mother like she was six again, a tiny girl whose feet couldn’t reach the floor from the seat of a train. She needed to remember she was loved, that was all. Loved, and respected, and forgiven.

  Mama came. Mama cried. Mama drew her a hot bath and bathed her as gently as she had when Mary was a baby. Mama put her to bed and told her not to think of those dreadful men, then she had the hotel kitchen bring up some hot milk, and Mary went to sleep, with Mama sitting, watchful, nearby.

  But the next morning, alone, Mary went to Zukor’s office as instructed. And in two weeks, she was on the train back to California, where not even Mama could help her face the formidable Cecil B. DeMille, who greeted her the first day on the set carrying a bullwhip.

  But Mary wouldn’t give him a reason to brandish it; she was the picture of docility. She smiled and nodded and showed up on time and stayed late. She saved everything for the camera, and DeMille could not break her.

  As soon as the filming was over, she packed her bags and caught the first train east. To Fran. And the opening day of The Poor Little Rich Girl.

  Mary had a feeling. Just a feeling.

  —

  “God, no, Mary! How can you want to go see it? I can’t bear to look at it! It almost ruined our friendship.” Fran still looked shaken; she was thinner, paler, almost as uncertain as she’d been the first time they’d met. She hadn’t recovered her poise, her élan. For that matter, neither had Mary.

  But Mary had to see the picture with Fran; she’d had to make sure they did repair their relationship. She had so few things left to count on now.

  “Fran, you have to understand. You have no idea what it’s been like with DeMille—those jokes were right about him! ‘The angels are worried, because God has been having delusions He’s Cecil B. DeMille!’ It’s true, Fran, all true!”

  “Does he really dress in riding breeches and carry a whip?”

  “And has someone on staff to carry a chair around for him, and the Great Man never even looks around before he sits. The chair is always there.”

  “Oh, poor Mary!”

  “The film—Romance of the Redwoods—will be fine, but, Fran, it’s been awful on the set. I have to be a good little girl—oh, I’m so tired of being told that! But Zukor has spies on the set, I’m convinced. If I misbehaved, he’d know. I had to come east, even for a couple days. I had to get away.”

  “I can think of better ways to spend those days than going to see our film. Mary, I’m heartbroken over it! I feel so responsible—”

  “No. Fran, no. I trusted you, you trusted me, and, well—we shoulder the blame. Equally.” Mary began pinning up her hair, the way she always did when spying on her movies. “I’ve made twenty-four films in three years, Fran. I’m tired. I have to make this other DeMille film, then—” Mary didn’t know what to say; she couldn’t see straight, couldn’t think, there was so much going on, so many roads to take, so many possible dead ends waiting for her in her career, her personal life. She couldn’t see them yet, but she knew they were there. They were always there. Lottie had just had a baby, a baby that Mary would need to feed and clothe and educate because Lottie couldn’t care for a mouse. But Mary didn’t want to care for a baby! It was too—too—

  And Jack was drinking more than ever and chasing starlets and doing such reckless things; flying in aeroplanes, having expensive affairs with married women. And Mama—

  Well, Mama was the same. Her rock. Her constant. The reason Mary didn’t jump, after all.

  “I need to go see a movie, my movie, surrounded by my audience. I need to remember why I do this—oh, please, Fran! Come with me!”

  “All right.” Frances shook her head. “But I feel a bit like Tom Sawyer going to his own funeral.”

  Mary finished pinning her hair up, donned her dark glasses, and they went to the Strand. There was a line around the block, but Mary knew better than to put much faith in that; no one had seen the movie yet nor read any of the reviews, had they, the poor souls? There was always a line at the first showings of the newest Mary Pickford.

  Frances bought the tickets, selecting seats in the very back of the main floor. The lights dimmed, the orchestra began to play, and the first title appeared—

  Normally Mary loved to watch herself on the screen. She was able to forget all the work and lose herself in the magical concoction of music and image and story. How did it happen, how did little Gladys, so short and dumpy in real life, transform into this darling, graceful sprite? It was wondrous, the movies were wondrous, in their ability to wrench an audience’s heart, pull it right out of them and manipulate it this way and that before returning it to them, better somehow, fuller, the moment the screen faded to black.

  She simply loved the movies, the whole experience; the movie palace like a modern cathedral—the Strand was especially ornate, with velvet curtains and frescoes and balconies—the musicians or organist in front, the plush seats, the sensation of being one with your fellow moviegoers, all ready, even eager, to be swept away.

  But this day, both Mary and Frances paid far more attention to what was going on around them than what was happening on the screen. It was the faces that Mary would remember the most. The faces that reflected all her hopes, her dreams, her instincts as she’d made the movie—faces that laughed, that cried, t
hat frowned, that smiled. Faces that reacted; so very different from those faces made of stone, of male privilege and disapproval, that had surrounded her in that screening room two months ago.

  Finally, when the Poor Little Rich Girl awoke from her coma to smile up at the worried faces of her parents—parents who had been too busy to pay attention to her until now—the entire audience sniffled. Audibly. Handkerchiefs were being removed from handbags at alarming rates.

  Then, as Gwen—or, rather, Mary—rose from her sickbed to walk hand in hand with her now repentant, grateful parents toward a rosy future full of love and freedom, the cheers began. The audience jumped to its feet, applauding and crying.

  And Mary couldn’t help herself; she did, too.

  “Oh, Fran!” She clapped her hands, and her hat fell from her head, exposing those golden curls.

  Frances, tears in her eyes, turned to her.

  “Mary! Mary, they were wrong! Zukor and Lasky and Goldwyn and all the rest—they were completely—miserably—wrong!”

  “Yes, they were! Oh, those men, I could just—”

  “There she is! There’s Little Mary!”

  Later she couldn’t remember who had shouted it, if it was someone seated next to her back in the last row, or someone down in front, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that the audience at the Strand Theater in New York began to turn its attention from the now-blank screen toward the very back row, where hands were suddenly grabbing at Mary, tugging, patting, jabbing.

  “It’s Mary herself! The Poor Little Rich Girl, right here!”

  “Mary! Oh, Mary!”

  Mary turned toward Frances, who’d gone pale, her eyes wide, pupils dilated—with fear, Mary realized. Yet strangely, she herself wasn’t afraid; all she felt was love, affection pouring out of every outstretched arm, every eager smile, every tear-filled eye. Love for her, love for what she—and Fran—had accomplished on the screen.