Her exclamation was loud enough that it caused a small crowd to gather around them, some people wearing costumes and makeup, others in paint-splattered coveralls, others carrying clipboards. Some of the cameramen had clambered down from their high stools. Toward the back of the group, Maud caught a glimpse of the young actress playing Dorothy.
“The costumer sent an assistant to look for old jackets in a local secondhand store. She bought up a whole rack of them. We’ve been testing costumes for Mr. Morgan.”
Maud recognized the actor cast to play the wizard, Frank Morgan. She had kept up with the casting decisions by reading Variety. He pushed toward the center of the circle, bringing with him the scent of whiskey.
“There was a hole in the front pocket,” he said. “And when I pulled the lining out…” The actor appeared quite shaken, his face white around the edges of his makeup.
The publicist was now groping along the outside of the jacket, a huge heavy garment made of faded black broadcloth so aged it had acquired a greenish tinge.
“Here!” she said. “This is what we found. What Mr. Morgan found, to be precise.”
“I pulled out the pocket,” Morgan went on, seeming to have regained his composure. He now spoke in his booming theater voice: “And at once, I beheld the name….A name I would never forget, mind you, as it graced the cover of the most delightful Christmas present I ever received when I was but a lad, a gift from my father, a brand-new copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. When I saw the tag, I realized, to my utter amazement, that this jacket had once belonged to the great author himself.”
He pointed to a faded name tag stitched onto the breast pocket lining.
“As you can see, it reads L. FRANK BAUM!” Morgan pronounced triumphantly.
“L. Frank Baum?” Maud was bewildered. She leaned in closer, close enough to catch the jacket’s scent, hoping to pick up a trace of Frank there, but all she smelled was mothballs.
“Says so right here,” Morgan repeated, holding the garment out for Maud’s inspection.
Maud reached out, rubbing her finger over the tag, turning it so that one of the bright spotlights shone more directly upon it. She could make out an L and an F and a B, but not much else. And the jacket—now that she saw it up close, there was something familiar about it. It was a turn-of-the-century style, a long Prince Albert jacket—it was true, Frank had once worn that style. A wave of confusion suddenly washed over her. Closing her eyes, she could clearly imagine him standing vividly beside her. How could this old garment compete with the bright memories that still danced in her mind?
“It’s startling, isn’t it?” the publicist said, looking at Maud with round blue eyes.
Maud stared at the faded tag. Most of the printing had been rubbed off—seeing her husband’s name required a squint and a good bit of fill-in-the-blanks. More clear was the tag that read, BOSTWICK & SONS, the name of a large Chicago haberdasher.
“I remember Bostwick & Sons…”
“So did it belong to your husband?”
Maud reached out, feeling the cloth in her hand. Many men had worn those Prince Albert jackets around the turn of the century. Bostwick & Sons had been a popular haberdasher—half the salesmen in Chicago had probably had a jacket like this one at that time.
She looked up at the publicist, trying to read her expression. What did she want from Maud?
“We were hoping you could authenticate it,” the publicist insisted.
The rest of the faces gathered around her were looking at her expectantly. Maud tried to think.
Then suddenly it was as if Frank himself were standing there before her in their Chicago kitchen, his face gray with fatigue but his countenance still lit up with a sunny smile. He was back from a two-week trip selling china, and on his last stop, in Galena, Illinois, he had set the heavy trunk down on a street corner as he awaited the arrival of his livery carriage, just for a minute, and a mule had kicked it over, breaking all of the fine china inside. The cost to replace the samples was twenty cents more than he had earned during the entire trip.
She could see this scene, more than forty years past, as if it were just earlier that day, the way the light was filtering in from the window behind him so that a shadow fell across his face.
“I’ve got a hole in my pocket,” he had said, flipping out the two waist pockets at the same time as if performing a magic trick. Several folded bits of paper flipped out, too, skittering across the floor like the secret notes kids passed in grammar school. Maud bent over to pick them up.
“And what is this?” she had asked, uncrumpling one. She flattened it out against the table where her mending basket sat.
“Nothing,” Frank had said. “I’m just scribbling a few lines. It gets so dull sitting on the train that I make up stories.”
“Made-up stories and holes in your pockets! That’s all you’ve got to show for yourself, Frank Baum?” Maud’s mother had called from the other room.
A moment later, Matilda had come into the kitchen with a swish of heavy skirts; she’d leaned over, plucked one of the crumpled pieces of paper from the floor, and read the words that Frank had scribbled there.
“You are clever, Frank. You should write some of these down.”
Standing in that kitchen in 1892, Maud had had more important things to worry about than made-up stories and writing things down—she’d needed to get supper on the table.
“Mrs. Baum? Would you like to sit down?”
Maud snapped back to the present, noticing that everyone was staring at her.
By this time, Judy had jostled her way to the front of the assembled group. The last time Maud had seen her, she’d been wearing no makeup. Today, her skin was covered by a layer of foundation with darker lines of contour visible on each side of her nose. Her brown eyes, highlighted by heavy eyeliner and fringed with false eyelashes, glowed brightly. The layer of thick cosmetics made her look older, but her hopeful expression made her seem even younger.
“The coat belonged to the man who wrote the book?” She stared wonderingly at the jacket. “How did it end up here? Did you bring it?”
“Bring it?” Maud looked out at the small knot of people clustered around her. She peered over her glasses. “I most certainly did not. I’m seeing it for the first time right now.”
“But what about the tag?” people were murmuring. “Does it really say his name?”
Mary Smith was looking expectantly at Maud. “It does say his name, doesn’t it?”
It was starting to dawn on Maud what was going on here. Did they think that because she was old she was dim-witted?
“You know, I’ve been in Hollywood for thirty years now,” Maud said. “And in the theater even longer…” She paused for effect. “You call me to the studio to see an old coat. You want to make me believe that you just happened upon an old coat that once belonged to L. Frank Baum?”
The young publicist nodded.
“Well, I think I know a publicity stunt when I see it,” Maud said. “I’ll allow that it’s clever. The book and its author have millions of fans. If you connect the jacket to the author and the author to the moving picture, it should make for some nice press. Well done, I say.”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Baum.” The blonde shook her curly head like a retriever just emerged from a swimming pool. “I assure you, this is no stunt. The costumer’s assistant went to a secondhand shop. She brought back a pile of old men’s jackets.” She gestured to a motley rack of coats of all shapes and hues. “This was just the only one that fit Morgan.”
Maud tried to imagine how this would be going if Frank or her mother were here. Their worlds were full of mystical connections and wild coincidences—beautiful twists of fate that unfolded to give one’s life a shape as graceful and parabolic as a perfectly plotted book. But it was Maud’s blessing—or her curse; she’d never been sure which—that she could usually see the pedestrian facts behind the seemingly wild coincidences, the ropes and pulleys that held up the sets, the actors’ makeup that covered age and fatigue, the dreams of lighted marquees that ended in half-filled theaters in tiny two-horse towns.
She remembered her days with the Baum Theatre Company, when it was her job to give out news—sometimes good, like payday, though other times disappointing, like a canceled show. Back then, she had decided that it was an occupational weakness among theater people to be quick to believe in magic. But, perhaps as a consequence of the hard life they all led, they were also quick to become cynical once the slightest bit of humbug was exposed. Indeed, the assembled group now looked at Maud with expressions of eager hopefulness admixed with suspicion.
But not Judy. Her brown eyes glowed. “It must be some kind of sign, don’t you think?”
The young star was wearing a brown wig, curled into ringlets. Her lips, painted with red lipstick, were parted. She had an open quality, full of childlike wonder. It was not unlike the chief characteristic Maud had seen in Frank himself.
“Oz itself has a magic to it,” Maud said, following her instinct to tread lightly on this girl’s openhearted hope.