That evening, Edna watched both the early and the late performances of Dance Away, Jackie! She could not have been more delighted with our awful little show if she’d been a twelve-year-old peasant child seeing theater for the first time.
“Oh, but it’s fun!” she exclaimed to me, when the performers had left the stage after their final bows. “You know, Vivian, this sort of theater is where I got my start. My parents were players and I grew up around productions just like this. Born in the wings, five minutes before my first performance.”
Edna insisted on going backstage and meeting all the actors and dancers, to congratulate them. Some had heard of her, but most hadn’t. To most of them, she was just a nice woman giving them praise—and that was good enough for them. The players bubbled up around her, soaking in her generous ministrations.
I cornered Celia and said, “That’s Edna Parker Watson.”
“Yeah?” said Celia, unimpressed.
“She’s a famous British actress. She’s married to Arthur Watson.”
“Arthur Watson, from Gates of Noon?”
“Yes! They’re staying here now. Their house in London got bombed.”
“But Arthur Watson is young,” Celia said, staring at Edna. “How can he be married to her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s quite something, though.”
“Yeah.” Celia didn’t seem so sure. “Where we going out tonight?”
For the first time since meeting Celia, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go out. I thought I might prefer to spend more time around Edna. Just for one night.
“I want you to meet her,” I said. “She’s famous and I’m mad about the way she dresses.”
So I brought Celia over and proudly introduced her to Edna.
You can never anticipate how a woman is going to react to meeting a showgirl. A showgirl in full costume is intentionally designed to make all other females look and feel insignificant by comparison. You need to have a considerable amount of self-confidence, as a woman, to stand in the lavish radiance of a showgirl without flinching, resenting, or melting away.
But Edna—tiny as she was—had just that kind of self-confidence.
“You’re magnificent!” she cried to Celia, when I introduced them. “Look at the height on you! And that face. You, my dear, could headline at the Folies Bergère.”
“That’s in Paris,” I said to Celia, who thankfully did not take note of my patronizing tone, distracted as she was by the compliments.
“And where are you from, Celia?” Edna asked—tilting her head with curiosity and shining the spotlight of her fullest attention upon my friend.
“I’m from right here. From New York City,” said Celia.
(As though that accent could’ve been born anywhere else.)
“I noticed tonight that you dance exceptionally well for a girl of your height. Did you study ballet? Your carriage would suggest you’d been properly trained.”
“No,” replied Celia, whose face was now aglow with pleasure.
“And do you act? The camera must adore you. You look just like a film star.”
“I act a bit.” Then she added (quite archly for someone who had only ever played a corpse in a B movie): “I am not yet widely known.”
“Well, you shall be known soon enough, if there’s any justice. Stay at it, my dear. You’re in the right field. You have a face that was made for your times.”
It’s not difficult to compliment people in order to try to win their affections. What is difficult is to do it in the right way. Everyone told Celia she was beautiful, but nobody had ever told her she had the carriage of a trained ballerina. Nobody had ever told her she had a face made for her times.
“You know, I’ve just realized something,” said Edna. “In all the excitement, I have not yet unpacked. I wonder if you girls might be free to help me?”
“Sure!” said Celia eagerly, looking like she was about thirteen years old.
And to my wonderment, in that instant the goddess became a handmaiden.
When we arrived upstairs in the fourth-floor apartment that Edna would be sharing with her husband, we found a pile of trunks and parcels and hatboxes on the sitting-room floor—an avalanche of luggage.
“Oh, dear,” said Edna. “It gives quite the impression of density, doesn’t it? I do hate to trouble you girls, but shall we begin?”
As for me, I couldn’t wait. I was dying to get my hands on her clothes. I had a feeling they’d be splendid—and indeed they were. Unpacking Edna’s trunks was a lesson in sartorial genius. I soon noticed that there was nothing haphazard about her clothing;