Maud gasped. She looked over at Judy’s mother, who still stood near the director, expecting her to say something or rush to her daughter’s side. Ethel, however, did neither. She was smiling.
Maud stood up, marched down the stairs from the viewing platform, and pushed her way past the cameraman until she stood directly in front of Victor Fleming.
“Shame on you! How dare you slap her? You’re a grown man, and she’s just a little girl.”
Fleming spun, glowering. “Excuse me? Mrs. Baum. You need to leave the set immediately. We’re trying to work here.”
“She’s not a little girl,” Judy’s mother interrupted. “She’s a professional actress, and she’s expected to act like one. I gave him my permission to slap her, if that’s what it takes to keep her in line.”
Maud could feel anger welling inside her. Speaking in a low voice, she shook a finger at Fleming. “Don’t you ever strike that girl again, or I promise you I will make you regret it.”
To Maud’s added fury, Fleming seemed amused. “And what are you going to do to me exactly?” He turned away from her. “Who let her on the set?”
“Now, now there.” Mervyn LeRoy had appeared out of nowhere. “Mrs. Baum,” he said, nodding Maud’s way, “what seems to be the problem?”
“He struck that poor child. Since when does a grown man hit a child?”
“Now, Victor,” LeRoy said, slipping his arm around Fleming’s shoulder. “You can’t hit the girl.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” Fleming said. “I was just trying to get her attention. It was her mother’s idea.”
Maud looked around for Ethel, but Judy’s mother had chased after her daughter and was nowhere in sight.
“If you ever lay a finger on the girl again,” Maud said, “I’ll contact every newspaper in the country and I’ll tell them that you’ve ruined The Wizard of Oz.”
“Well now, Mrs. Baum, I don’t think you’d do that,” LeRoy said soothingly. “That’d be cutting off your nose to spite your own face, wouldn’t it? If this picture does half as well as we think it’s going to, you’re going to sell a million more copies of that book.”
“You think it’s money I’m after? A man does not lay a hand on a woman in my presence,” Maud said. “I’m not speaking as a businesswoman here. I’m speaking as a mother and a human being.”
A moment later, Judy came back, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, accompanied by the assistant producer, Arthur Freed, who had his hand on her arm and was speaking to her softly.
“All right. All right,” Fleming said. “I shouldn’t have hit the girl. Judy, come on over here and give me a big old punch. That will teach me a lesson.”
“I won’t hit you,” Judy said, sniffling. “But I’ll give you a kiss.” She stood up on her tiptoes, leaned forward, and kissed him on the tip of his nose.
“Truce?” Fleming said, sticking out his hand. Judy shook his hand, but Maud noted that the girl did not meet his eye.
The makeup crew rushed in and touched up her makeup, chalking out the reddish splotch on her cheek.
“Now, let’s get on with it.”
As Maud watched warily, the film started rolling again. This time, Judy made it all the way through without cracking a smile.
* * *
—
“MRS. BAUM!” AS SHE was heading home for the day, Maud turned to see Arthur Freed trying to catch up with her.
“I just want to thank you for what you did in there. We get so heated up, so involved, we forget sometimes that our actress is just a child. I’ll personally make sure that no one lays a hand on her. I don’t think Fleming meant anything by it—”
“Someone needs to look out for her. She’s just a girl.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he said affably. “I’ve seen you hanging around the set, Mrs. Baum. I’m a great fan of Oz, you know. Grew up reading those books. I’m the one who wanted to bring the book to the studio.”
“That’s nice to hear. But the success of your picture depends on the role of Dorothy, so I suggest you treat her well.”
“You have my word, Mrs. Baum.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card.
“We want to get this right.” He handed her the card. “If you think of anything, just let me know.”
Maud studied the man, trying to gauge how sincere he really was. “If you truly want to get this right, there is something you can do.” She paused, to give him a chance to understand the seriousness of her request. “I made a promise to my husband, Mr. Freed. Long before this film got started, I vowed to protect Frank’s story, to ensure that Oz stayed true to Oz. You just said yourself how much you loved the books as a child, so you of all people should understand. Oz must be Oz. Dorothy must be Dorothy. I understand Oz better than anyone. Yet I’ve not even had a chance to read the script.”
Freed looked quizzically at Maud. “Read the script? It’s not even finished yet. It’s a work in progress. I don’t think a layman would get much out of it.”
“I know the book backwards and forwards. I just want to make sure you stick to the facts.”
Freed laughed. “Facts? But Oz is a fantasy!”
Maud squinted at him as if he were a slow-learning child. “Of course Oz is a fantasy. But it’s true to itself.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “Just remember, there are millions of children out there who believe that Oz is a real place. Who need to believe that Oz is a real place. Because Oz is hope, and children can find themselves in dark places.”
Freed rubbed his chin. “When I was a kid, I had all of the Oz books lined up on a shelf in my room. That first one was always my favorite.”
Maud nodded.
“Listen,” he said. “This is Hollywood, and Hollywood works on one rule and one rule alone. Do you know what that rule is?”
Maud shook her head.
“Never promise anything!” He chuckled, then mock-punched her arm. “Talk about a fantasyland.”
“You’ll get me a copy of the script?” Maud said, not laughing.
“No promises,” he said, then winked. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
—
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Maud presented herself to Freed’s secretary.
“Mr. Freed has promised me a copy of the script for The Wizard of Oz.”
The secretary looked at her skeptically.
“I spoke to him yesterday,” Maud said, extracting the card he had given her as proof.
The ginger-curled secretary took her time, languidly regarding the card.
“Mr. Freed is not in,” she said. “You’ll need to come back another time.”
“I’ll wait until he returns,” Maud said.
The secretary cast a nervous glance at the closed door that bore a plaque with Freed’s name on it.
Maud distinctly heard rustling from beyond the door.
“Perhaps you should just call him, in case he happened to return and you didn’t notice.”
A loud scrape followed by a bump was clearly audible behind the closed door.
The secretary’s eyes darted back and forth between Maud, Freed’s door, and her phone. Eventually, she pressed her intercom’s button with a reluctant jab.
Maud heard a tinny voice through the speaker: “I told you I was taking no calls!”
“Sorry, sir, it’s just that a Mrs….?”
“Baum,” Maud supplied.
“Baum is here. She said you ‘promised’ her a copy of The Wizard of Oz script?”
The tinny voice sounded again through the intercom: “Tell Mrs. Baum to come back in a couple of weeks. Script’s still being polished right now.”
“Come back in a couple of weeks,” she parroted.
Maud did not even answer. She darted around the desk, grabbed the doorknob, and flung open the door to Freed’s inner sanctum. Freed sat behind his desk. A shapely brunette ingénue, not a day over seventeen, was seated on his lap.
Freed stood up so quickly that the girl almost tumbled to the floor. His face was a mottled purple, his eyes flashing. Under his suit jacket, his shirttails were untucked.
“Mrs. Baum, I’m in the middle of a meeting,” he said, his voice tight. “If you could excuse us please. Hazel?” he called to his secretary.
She popped her head through the doorway. “Mrs. Baum?”
“Meeting!” Maud muttered to herself as she strode out the door. And this was the man she’d trusted to stand up in the teenager’s defense!
* * *
—
A FEW DAYS LATER, Maud ran into Judy just outside the sound stage door, where she was lighting a fresh cigarette from the end of another.
Leaning back against the door, Judy pulled from the cigarette with alarming ease. “Good morning, Mrs. Baum,” she said, exhaling.
“You really shouldn’t smoke,” Maud said.
“The studio doctor wants me to smoke eighty cigs a day.”
“Eighty?” Maud said, unable to believe she had heard correctly.
Judy nodded, taking a puff. “It helps me lose weight. But it’s hard to get enough time when we’re filming all day.”
Judy took one last drag and pulled the door open for Maud, blowing twin streams of smoke out of her upturned nose.