“Why, hello there—Mrs. Baum, isn’t it?”
“How nice to see you again.” As she had hoped, a copy of the paperbound script was tucked under his elbow. “How is the script coming along? All finished now?”
“Hardly,” he said. “It’s a work in progress.” He flipped it open, revealing a page crisscrossed with strike-throughs in blue pencil.
“Mind if I take a look? I might have some insights—coming from the book, you know.” Maud reached toward it.
Just then, the red light flickered off, and the stage door burst open. Out came Jack Haley, the Tin Man, in full uniform—his silver makeup blinding in the sunny alley.
Maud took her eyes momentarily from the script, only to find that Langley was slipping it into his valise.
“Afraid not, Mrs. Baum. Script is embargoed. Short list of people outside the cast are allowed to see it—and that list comes straight from the top. But do let me know if you think of something important. I’d be happy to take it under consideration.” Langley nodded to the Tin Man, spun on his heel, and bounded away. Maud stood, arms akimbo, wishing like all hellfire that she weren’t old, that she were wearing short pants and could tear off after him and steal the script, as she would have done as a young girl. Alas, Maud was attired in a floral A-line dress, stockings, and sturdy pumps, and Langley had a good head start. Going after him would be futile.
It took a moment for Maud to notice that the costumed Tin Man was looking at her with interest.
“Hello there,” the silver fellow said affably. He flicked his head in the direction Langley had disappeared, then stuck a cigarette between black-painted lips. “Writers. They’re all one-eyed sons-of-bitches—beg pardon, ma’am.” He stretched out a silver-gloved hand. “Jack Haley.”
“Mr. Haley. You must be the fellow who replaced Buddy Ebsen? How’s he doing, do you know?”
“Poor guy. Got an allergic reaction to the makeup and ended up in an iron lung. Now, that’s what I’d call a tin man.”
“Oh dear. I hope you don’t have a similar problem.”
“Makeup mixed up the aluminum powder with grease so I don’t breathe it in. Maybe I’ll end up in the hospital, too. Who knows? Wouldn’t mind,” he said, taking a long, satisfied drag on his cigarette. “I get so hot in this costume. Fella wouldn’t mind ending up in the hospital, some days.”
“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Haley. I’m Maud Baum. My late husband—”
“Wrote the book?” he said. “Yeah, I know. I’ve seen you around.”
“Is your costume really made out of tin?”
“See for yourself. Bang on my chest if you want.”
Maud tentatively stuck out a finger and tapped. Not metal.
“Leather,” the tin man said. “It’s buckram covered with leather and spray-painted. Looks real though, don’t it?”
The stage door pushed open, and a young man with a clipboard appeared. “Back to work, Haley.”
“Aww, my heart is breaking. Except, of course, that I don’t have one,” he laughed. He flicked the black-smudged cigarette onto the asphalt and ground it out with his giant silver, rivet-covered foot, pulled open the door, and gallantly held it until Maud had passed.
Maud found her way to the rear of the dimly lit sound stage and took a seat on the viewing platform. Transformed again since her last visit, the set was now crowded with lifelike trees studded with artificial bright red apples. A segment of painted yellow road ran along a post-and-rail fence. Behind it was a rough brown fa?ade that Maud recognized as the woodcutter’s house. With dismay, she realized that this scene corresponded to chapter 6 in the book. Chapter 6! With each dancing step the characters took along the road to Oz, more of the spooling roll of film was in the can. For all of these visits to the set, what had Maud accomplished?
The Tin Man took his place as the set decorators draped him with ivy and adjusted his stance just so. After some time, Judy emerged from the shadows. Two women in pink smocks trailed her, one brandishing a comb and the other holding a makeup sponge. At last, the director signaled and the camera clicked into action. Maud watched Judy get down on her hands and knees, find two bright red plaster apples at the Tin Man’s feet, and rap on one foot before she looked up and realized she was beholding a man made of tin.
“You’ve got to be more surprised,” the director scolded. “It’s not every day that you run into a tin man. The characters are imaginary, but you’re a real girl. Act astonished, Judy!”
This kind of direction went on through several takes. From what Maud could tell, this part of the script hewed pretty closely to the original scene in the book. She watched anxiously as Judy tried again and again to get it right. No one let up on the girl just because she was young. The director and producers bossed her about, the male actors constantly tried to upstage her, and her mother sometimes darted onto the set to tug at her daughter’s dress or make some whispered judgment. But Judy remained at all times professional, unflappable, calm.
After a while, the men stopped to solve a camera problem and the action ground to a halt. The actors lounged about while a makeup artist fiddled with the Tin Man’s face. Blue-covered scripts were scattered here and there on the stage, some splayed open. Maud’s yearning to hold one in her hands, to leaf through it at her leisure, was so intense that she could hardly concentrate as the director adjusted tiny aspects of the lighting and the camera’s angle. Maud had been trying to catch Judy’s eye, but the girl was not looking her way.
A young man hurried through the back door and straight up to the director.
Fleming turned to the actors and said, “I’ve got to take a telephone call. Ten-minute break.”
Judy seemed to have disappeared somewhere into the set. The rest of the actors were streaming toward the exits, no doubt for smoke breaks. The door swung open and shut several times, and then stayed shut, leaving Maud alone on the viewing platform. The sound stage, bustling just a moment earlier, was now empty and silent.
Maud looked again at the empty stage—the painted Yellow Brick Road, the trees made of chicken wire and foam rubber, the fa?ade of the woodcutter’s house. She reached into her purse to pluck out the paperback she was reading, but then, on second thought, put it back as she realized what was right in front of her. Scattered on makeshift tree stumps and abandoned on director’s chairs were several copies of the script. Maud drew a sharp breath inward and stood up slowly.
Would she?
She pictured her own mother, Matilda Gage, in 1876 when she and Auntie Susan and the rest of the officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association had stormed the dais at the nation’s centennial celebration to present a Declaration of the Rights of Woman directly into the hands of the vice president of the United States. Certainly, her mother had not raised her to shy from a challenge.
Maud slipped her purse over the crook of her elbow.
The heels of her pumps sounded like a cannon fusillade in the silent room as she hurried across the wooden floor, her eyes fixed on the director’s chair. Swooping in, she grabbed the closest copy of the script and tucked it under her arm. None too soon. A crack of light had appeared at the back door. Without thinking, she rushed away from the light—hoping there was a back door somewhere so that she could duck out unseen.
The first possible route of escape was a door marked WARDROBE. She tried the doorknob, found it unlocked, and slowly pushed it open.
“Oh!” Maud said.
“Oh!” Judy replied.
The young actress was swamped inside a giant black cloth garment—the Wizard’s coat.
“What are you doing?” The girl looked alarmed.
“What are you doing?” Maud said. She held the script tucked under her arm, but Judy, whose face was beet red with embarrassment, wasn’t paying attention to that.
“You must think I’m an old fool!” Judy said.
“I don’t think you’re a fool—and certainly not old,” Maud answered, turning her body at an angle to hide the pilfered script. “But what are you doing? Isn’t that the Wizard’s jacket?”
Judy was already wriggling out of it, her face still crimson.
“Don’t tell anyone! Don’t you dare!”
“I won’t breathe a word,” Maud said. “But I have a funny feeling I know what you were up to.”
Judy raised a single eyebrow.
“You were hoping for a little bit of magic?” Maud asked gently. “A sign from your father?”
Judy shook her head and wiped a tear from her now-brimming eyes. “I just thought…I miss him. He used to stick up for me. Now nobody does.”
“You don’t have to explain. We all need a little bit of magic from time to time.”
Maud reached out to embrace the girl, forgetting that she was trying to conceal the script. At the same moment, someone called out, “Judy! You’re needed on set!”