“Mr. Mayer?”
“Bring that box of letters in here, will you?”
A moment later, the secretary deposited a large box on the desk.
“Be a doll and read us a couple.”
She sifted through the box for a minute and pulled out an envelope, from which she extracted a letter.
“Go on,” Mayer said.
Mrs. Koverman began to read in a high-pitched singsong: “?‘Dear Mr. Mayer, please make sure that you don’t change anything in the book. Sincerely, Mrs. E. J. Egdemane, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.’?”
Maud sat up straighter in her chair. “Ah yes, the mail. We used to receive it by the wheelbarrowful. The fans are so passionate. Did you know that my husband used to incorporate suggestions from children into the storyline whenever he could?”
Mayer sat impassively, hands folded on the desk in front of him. Maud couldn’t decipher his expression.
Mrs. Koverman rummaged around and plucked out another, as if picking numbers for a game of Bingo. “This one’s from, let’s see…Edmonton, Washington. ‘Dear Mr. Mayer, Nobody can play the scarecrow like Mr. Fred Stone from the Broadway show. Please see to it that he is cast in the movie.’?”
Mayer grinned. “No matter that old Fred Stone has hardly been able to walk since he got wrecked in that airplane stunt, never mind dance.”
“Stone is quite recuperated,” Maud said tartly, but Mayer was still nodding for Mrs. Koverman to continue with her recitation.
“?‘Dear Mr. Mayer, My name is Gertrude P. Yelvington. I’ve been reading the Oz books since I was a young girl. Judy Garland does not look like Dorothy. P.S.: Please see to it that the characters look like the illustrations done by W. W. Denslow…I like those the best.’?”
She dropped it, fluttering, back into the box.
“You see what I’m up against,” Mayer said. “Everyone has an opinion. I’ve been told that more than ninety million people have read one or more of the Oz books. Of course I don’t need to tell you that, Mrs. Baum. Oz is one of the best-known stories in the world. That’s both our blessing and our curse. So, you have opinions about how the movie should be? Well, take a ticket and stand in line.”
Maud tried to keep her composure. She had not known what to expect from Mayer, but she had not contemplated such an abrupt and thorough disregard.
“But, Mr. Mayer—”
“Is that all, Mrs. Baum? I’m a very busy man.”
Maud looked at him steadily, her mother’s daughter, even now. “No, Mr. Mayer, I’m not finished. Please hear me out. You need to understand that you have an obligation. To many people, Oz is a real place….And not just a real place—a better place. One that is distant from the cares of this world. There are children right now who are in difficult circumstances, who can escape to the Land of Oz and feel as if—”
“Of course, of course.” Mayer waved his hand dismissively. “The story is in the best hands. You have nothing to worry about, Mrs. Baum. Thank you so much for visiting today—if something comes up we’ll call….Ida, take Mrs. Baum’s phone number, would you?” He had already disengaged.
So much was riding on this encounter, Maud found herself grasping to explain. She wanted to say that she was the only person who could help them stay true to the spirit of the story, because she was the only one who knew the story’s secrets. Yet it was difficult to articulate such an imprecise thought, especially to such an abrupt and dismissive little man. So, instead of making a reasoned argument, Maud defaulted to the truth.
“I’m here to look after Dorothy.”
Mayer regarded her skeptically.
“Dorothy?”
Maud nodded. “That’s right.”
Mayer chuckled. “Judy Garland has a mother, Ethel Gumm, I’m sure you’ll find she’s quite involved in taking care of her daughter. I’d suggest you not get in her way. She’s a real fireball, that one.”
“Well, it’s not the actress I’m concerned with…” Maud said. “It’s Dorothy.”
“The character?”
“Without Dorothy, the story is nothing.”
“Mr. Mayer––” Ida Koverman interrupted, glancing at her watch. “You wanted to see Harburg and Arlen? They’re working in Sound Stage One. If you leave right now, you can catch them.”
Mayer jumped up and spun from behind the desk. “Why don’t you come with me, Mrs. Baum?” he said. “I’ll introduce you to our star. One look at our Dorothy and I’m sure your mind will be set at ease. I’m telling you, she’s divine.”
CHAPTER
2
HOLLYWOOD
October 1938
Maud could barely keep up with the small man as he bounded onto the elevator. When the twin doors slid open, she raced after him as he crossed the polished lobby floor. They emerged into a crowded alleyway where the air was, thankfully, a bit warmer than inside. After waiting for so many weeks, rehearsing her speech in her mind, she had clearly not gotten through to him. How could she explain that she wanted to be a governess to Frank’s unruly ménage of fictional creations and to fulfill her long-ago promise that she would look after Dorothy?
But she didn’t have long to dwell. Mayer was ducking in and out of the throng, striding past four costumed centurions carrying shields and swords, darting around a group of jaunty sailors, and whizzing past two ballerinas walking flat-footed in their ballet slippers and pink leotards, their pointe shoes slung over their shoulders. Soon Mayer led Maud to a large building with STAGE ONE emblazoned on the door.
“The girl is going to sing,” he said. “Big star, big star. Biggest voice you’ll ever hear. She’ll knock your socks off.”
On a stage at the far end were two men. One held a pad of paper in his hands and had a pencil stuck behind his ear; the other sat at a piano tapping out chords.
Mayer showed Maud to a seat near the back—there were rows of empty chairs, each faced by an empty music stand. He then hurried up the three steps onto the stage. He looked over the shoulder of the piano player, fidgeted with some papers on top of the instrument. He did not take a seat. His sudden appearance in the building seemed to fluster the musicians. The piano player fell silent and his head sank down on his neck, a half-submerged vessel between the oceans of his shoulders.
At first Maud thought they were alone in the room—piano player, pencil-behind-the-ear man, Louis B. Mayer, and herself—but then her eye was drawn to one corner of the stage, where a bored-looking teenage girl straddled a stool, one arm tightly folded across her chest, as if she were embarrassed by the suggestion of breasts that showed through her blouse. Could this really be Dorothy?
“Shall we take it from the top then? A one, two, three…”
The piano player warmed up with a few bars, and the girl squinted at a pad of paper she held in her hand, then put it down on her lap. The man with the pencil behind his ear looked up and caught Maud’s eye—as if he had not noticed the old woman’s presence until now—then turned back to his notepad as the piano player continued.
For a small girl, she had a big mouth, and when she opened it, the sound she made was twice as big as she was.
The notes started low and then took flight, showcasing the girl’s voice as it ascended. Maud could feel it vibrating deep within her chest, an emotion as much as a sound. She was so struck by the tone that at first she didn’t think about the words, but as she tuned into the lyrics, her face flushed. The song was about a rainbow? Where on earth had those lyrics come from? There were no rainbows in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Nobody knew about the rainbow—besides herself and Frank. She felt a momentary flicker—that there was something familiar in this girl, in this tune—but the piano hit a false note, the girl frowned, and the sensation faded.
The piano player stopped, trying out several chord progressions. Maud looked around the room, half-expecting to see Frank. Wouldn’t that be just like him? Popping his head out from behind a doorway, eyes a-twinkle. Maud loosened her collar, slipped off her sweater. Of course, Frank was not going to appear here, at Metro, in 1938. He’d been gone for almost twenty years; Maud knew that perfectly well. She was not crazy. Her mind was sharp as ever. She shifted in her seat, corrected her posture, folded her hands in her lap.
After several false starts, the piano player went on, sounding out complex, resonant chords that shifted through elegant progressions. The girl’s big voice effortlessly filled the room. When she stopped singing, the silence that followed seemed like the plain sister of a beautiful girl.
Peering at Mayer from under her dark fringe of lashes, the girl was clearly hoping for a note of affirmation.