Chapter 8 Some Things Can’t Be Faked
Some Things Can’t Be Faked
Through the wall, she hears a neighbor run a bath, the pipe’s clang and pulse.
It’s a daily ritual Frankie could set a clock to, and it means it’s still early evening.
There are hours left before the day is over and she can escape with sleep—far too much time for second-guessing and regret.
She opens the book on her nightstand. Inside is an old note from her roommate Susan that she used as a bookmark.
Grant said to tell you “What do you say to a beach day?” He said to write it down exactly like that. What a weirdo.
What do you say to a beach day? Code for meet me in Venice.
Nights with both of them crammed into a little porcelain tub, sweating bottles of sodas hanging loose in their hands, a Jelly Roll Morton recording swinging music into the room while Jack told stories of seeing the jazz pianist and composer back in New Orleans.
Then walks on the beach, when it was late enough that everyone else seemed to have slid from the planet, the sand left glistening and empty.
Back then, the worst that would’ve happened had someone seen them was a slight scandal, most likely something they could’ve contained.
Now, everything’s changed. After the interviews, she tried to talk to him.
Let’s just get through today, he said stiffly, turning her earlier statement against her before walking away.
“We’re seeing a movie,” Susan says, grabbing her purse from atop the dresser. She’s about to walk out again when she turns to Frankie. “You’re not interested, are you, in The Mayor of Hell.”
It’s not said as a question. Maybe she’s upset that Frankie’s moving out in a couple of weeks.
Maybe she figures Frankie’s already in bed or isn’t interested in a film put out by competing studio Warner Brothers—known for tougher gangster and mob flicks, as well as animated short films—but there’s a note of presumption in her tone that, to Frankie’s ears, sounds like a gauntlet being thrown.
Frankie, always the first to accept a challenge, sits up. “I love James Cagney. Wish we’d gotten him.”
In the hall, Virginia laughs and appears in the doorway. “RCO does romance.”
“We don’t only do romance.”
“Fine. RCO’s known for romance, how’s that? Cagney’s weirdness is not sexy. At least not to me. I’ll stick to Jack Sawyer, thank you very much.” Virginia, who’s engaged to a man named Fred, and has the framed photo of Jack on her nightstand, adds the last part with a smile.
Frankie’s already standing, but it’s the mention of Jack that seals the deal. “I’ll go.”
The theatre has orange-and-red awnings and a marquee that glows purple in the dark. The second they pull in front, however, Virginia starts frantically pointing down the street to where RCO plays its films, the word Theatre a bright-yellow promise in the night.
“The Last Chance!” she’s saying. “I never saw it! Go, go, go!”
Susan, who’s driving, hits the gas—before Frankie can say she’s seen it or doesn’t want to see it or maybe can’t see it tonight of all nights, because it stars her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend and the woman he’s set to marry, and this is really, truly, the last thing she wants to do.
All she can do is look over her shoulder as they pull away from the theatre with the movie that’s safe, that would’ve been a true escape, and head toward one that will promptly hurl her into the very pit she’s trying to avoid.
With a jerk to the curb, they’re parked, and are getting out of the car when suddenly they’re lit up by spotlights. Frankie faces the white glare. “I think we just got pulled over.”
“We’re already parked,” Susan says as if this is a rule the police should obey. “We’re even out of the car.”
“Just be polite,” Frankie tells her. The three of them stand on the sidewalk, on the terrazzo sunray pattern that bursts from the theatre doors. As if lit from this low sun, their car is bright in the squad car’s spotlight.
The police officer who approaches holds back a laugh.
He’s in his fifties, padded around the middle, and has a scar on his cheek.
The fingers on his right hand look bent, arthritic, and painful.
But it’s the laugh that gets Frankie, as if they’re three girls who got caught trying on their mother’s clothes.
“Something funny, Officer?”
Beside her, Virginia shoots her a look.
“Never seen someone change their mind about a movie that fast, that’s all.”
“Was I speeding?” Susan asks, going for the innocent approach. Head lowered, she peers at the man from under her lashes. Frankie wants to kick her.
The officer scoffs. Everything about the man tells Frankie that he works hard and gets paid little and has no patience for Hollywood.
Some cops are old school and by the book, Nico once said, and they blame Hollywood for their forces’ corruption, and the fact that their bosses are in our pockets.
Not much we can do but watch out for them.
“Honestly, Officer,” Frankie says. Never lead with the word honestly, Nico likes to say. I’ll always know you’re lying. “I’m a writer and am working on a story about how Hollywood is just ruining this town. This movie, in particular, I’ve heard terrible things about it.”
He glances over his shoulder at the marquee. “Too many actors here. For one thing.”
Frankie nods as Susan watches her curiously and Virginia stares safely at the ground. “A dime a dozen. The whole article’s about how wrong it is that the people who make the most do the least.”
A laugh. He’s nodding. Agreeing with her. Telling them they need to pull away from the curb carefully before he wishes her luck with the article.
“You work with the people who make the most and do the least.” Susan laughs, when he’s gone and they’re safely standing in line.
Frankie opens her coin purse to find her money. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“The way your mind works,” Virginia says. “I don’t know if it’s admirable or frightening.”
Susan smiles. “Is scrappy a compliment?”
Twice Frankie started fights with a bully when she knew someone bigger and stronger was about to walk past and would get involved.
Once, she hid canned peaches and peas in her skirt pocket when the grocer was distracted by the front bell—and, in fact, she had arranged for the person to enter the store at that moment.
Many times, she’s cut in lines or trespassed or even figured out where to sit in class in order to catch the window’s reflection of the smartest kid’s test papers.
Being called scrappy is a compliment, as far as Frankie’s concerned.
Scrappy means she’s here, now, despite everything.
Frankie moves forward in line. “Surviving, when you have nothing, means getting creative. I’m not ashamed. But it’s not like I’d hurt someone.”
Walking past them, an older man catches this and shoots Frankie a dirty look.
“Unless they asked for it,” Frankie adds with a smile.
Ahead of them in line is a boy with thickly cuffed pants as if he’s rolled up a good six inches. Politely, he says to the cashier, “One, please.”
The ticket-taker leans forward as far as he can in his booth, attempting to look in both directions for anyone the kid might be with.
Frankie can see farther than the cashier can, and spots a group of older school-age children who wait until the boy in line has his ticket before disappearing around the corner.
“Quit your dreaming there,” Susan says, “and pay up.”
Inside, they settle into the middle of the theatre, and Frankie leans back, studying a ceiling that is plain but for crown moldings.
With so many working-class people seeking the escape of a movie, theatres have begun to shed their opulence, like an overdressed woman at a party who realizes the effort was unnecessary.
Now theatres exist in neighborhoods, and are intended for everyone.
Eighty million Americans see a movie each week, which, Nico has informed her, is the most ever, and translates to 65 percent of the American population.
In a world ravaged by economic despair, people find the money for a movie.
Or, Frankie knows, they find a way in.
Sure enough, the second the lights go down and the trailers—once trailing at the end of the movie, hence the word—begin, a wedge of light breaks into a corner of the theatre.
Frankie’s been waiting for this, for the kid who bought the ticket to prop open the door that leads to the alley.
In a bright flash, a tide of his friends rushes in, kids who have probably never left these immediate blocks, who’ve never been in the mountains or been ice-skating or even boarded a train, who will probably never do those things or claw past the boundaries of their lives.
Thanks to movies, however, they can. Briefly, these kids will lift above themselves and imagine and experience.
At least this is how it was for Frankie, the times she managed to scrounge up enough money or sneak into a theatre.
The first time she saw a farm was in a movie.
The first time she saw a giraffe, or a forest, or the inside of a boat.
To live a different life, it was worth every effort.
An usher storms down the aisle, but the room darkens as another trailer starts up, and as fast as the kids came in, they disperse and meld into the audience. They had their timing right.
The usher stands a few feet from Frankie, scanning the crowd.
“You reacted so fast,” she says, pointing to the other aisle. “They ran that way and out. I think you scared ’em.” Pay someone a compliment, and you win ’em over.