Chapter Text
They called it a prop shop, but in truth it was a warehouse. Newly built, the rough-hewn pine shelves smelling of Christmas trees, it was already stuffed to the gills with goods of every kind, shape, and size imaginable. It was as if, Nelly thought, someone had upended the entire contents of Marshall Field’s into the place. Clothing racks held miles of costumes, separated by sexes. Shelves in the same chamber as the costumes were filled floor to ceiling with hat boxes. Another door led to an open floor that seemed to be the size of a football field where furniture that had been delivered by truck and train stood in neat rows. Other rooms held baby buggies, oil lamps, vases and ceramics galore, bedclothes, books, barrels, china sets, coffee grinders, cuckoo clocks with tangled chains. And though there was enough stuff for at least seventy-five families of four to comfortably set up house, Buster apparently wanted more.
When she thought back to the Vista’s prop room, stuffed with paper mâché masks, costumes increasingly moth-eaten with every month, and beaten-up props, and little larger than a closet, she felt dizzy.
The prop master, Bert, seemed not to notice her overawe and she was grateful. When she’d arrived in Sacramento two mornings prior and been told by the Chamber of Commerce that she was late and all 1800 slots for extras had long since been filled, despair had threatened to overtake her. She’d already let a room in a house on 22nd street, fibbing to the young married couple who owned it by saying she had a part in the film. She’d spent the afternoon of the 19th and the 20th haunting the edges of River Junction, that strange half-city out of Reconstruction America, looking for someone who could give her a job. Man after man laughed her down. Most were just hired help themselves. “You and all the other damn dames,” they’d say, shaking their heads.
She hadn’t been anywhere near ready to declare defeat, but running into Bert was nonetheless the lucky break she needed. She’d spied him getting into one of the fancy cars that lined a lot outside the larger-than-life set and asked for a chance, any chance, to be part of the picture.
“Well,” he’d said with the doubting half-smile she’d recognized from the other men’s faces, “we do need some help right now in the prop shop. We could use someone to help with the books.”
Beaming, she’d declared it was just the opportunity she’d been looking for and when could she start. Breaking into pictures was what she intended to do and if this was the path forward, so be it.
As Bert gave her the tour of her new environs, she learned that she was expected to help choose props for sets and, more importantly, manage the inventory. Each prop that went out into a set had to be returned, so each one that was on a set had to be noted. Bert would handle the broader picture stuff, the hired men the props, and she would be in charge of the small, boring details. She was thrilled to be in charge of small, boring details.
If the scale of the prop shop was jaw-dropping, it was still nothing compared to the size of the city. There weren’t words for the size of the city. Gargantuan didn’t do it. Humongous was a little closer to the mark, but still not right. She’d expected the sound stages you saw in magazines, not whole entire buildings, not full-sized steamboats of the type she’d only glimpsed in books, not paved streets lined with cars. Most of the buildings were just optical illusions, their fronts fully fledged and their backsides unfinished. This fact did nothing to make the city less impressive when she considered that almost none of it had existed three weeks ago. She knew from the magazines, of course, the huge money Buster had spent to make The General historically acceptable, so perhaps she shouldn’t have been as surprised as she was.
Still. It was one thing to read that there was big money in pictures. It was another to see it up close for yourself. It was quite another still to know that you were going to be a cog in this giant piece of machinery.
It was thrilling, it was daunting, she was pretty sure she was the luckiest girl in the world. There were so many people to watch, too. Workmen, gag men, and beautiful young girls, none of whom, she quickly was told, were the leading lady. Their only job was to stand in the background and look gorgeous. It honestly relieved her that she’d wound up in the prop shop. She wasn’t so modest that didn’t know she was easy on the eyes, but her looks seemed positively average in comparison. Clearly there was work to be done before she made her screen debut.
“Are you clear on it all?” Bert said.
“Sure I am,” she said, feeling not the least bit clear.
For the rest of the day, she sat at a kind of workbench in the prop shop going through a list of businesses like Hale Bros., Inc. and the John Breuner Company and ringing them to see if they could ship her a mysterious array of things, including a ventriloquist’s dummy and an escritoire. She had a delightful time imagining how the various and sundry props might be used for laughs and what they could possibly have to do with steamboats.
She didn’t actually see the star of the picture that day or even the next, but it didn’t matter. As she rode her bicycle back to the room on 22nd Street, exhausted but proud, she felt that she had finally arrived.
Buster didn’t remember her name, which meant that she wouldn’t be a steady.
It bothered him.
Not that he didn’t remember her name, not that it wouldn’t be an affair to remember, but it bothered him that it no longer bothered him that he couldn’t remember her name. It pricked him so much that after he got up to take a leak and pour himself a glass of water, he moved to the opposite side of the bed from her. Slightly more awake than he had been just two minutes ago, he fished for her name. No luck. It slithered trout-like out of his grasp.
Call it an instinct, a hunch, a premonition, but he knew he was in for rough waters ahead. Not a week went by that the papers didn’t mention talkies. The Villa had made Nat happy, but not nearly as happy as he’d hoped. It all added up to trouble on the horizon. Even though he’d always known that what goes up must come down, he didn’t have it in him to be cheerful about it.
Just before he went back to sleep, he closed the gap between him and his paramour on the bed, deciding to sleep next to her after all. He laid a hand on her naked bosom as he drifted off. This season of Bacchanalia would come to an end, one way or the other, probably sooner rather than later. May as well enjoy it while he still could.