Fleming all but rolled his eyes. “Right. Of course. Thank you, Mrs. Baum. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Carry on there, fellows. I need that whole wall painted green, and get it done quick. Time’s a-wasting.”
Maud raised her hand to say more, but Fleming was already walking away. Undeterred, she chased after him.
“White!” she repeated. “The Emerald City was white.”
Fleming ignored her.
“Mr. Fleming! I absolutely must speak to you about this!”
Fleming turned impatiently. “My good woman. We are on a tight schedule here. What is it that you want to say?”
“In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Emerald City is white. The Wizard is a humbug—a faker—and he creates the illusion that the city is green by making all of the inhabitants wear green spectacles, you see, because the Wizard isn’t what he says he is. And that is the magic of Oz—the magic is that it isn’t magic at all.”
Fleming pressed his lips together, and his shoulders tensed. “This is a fascinating insight, but we’ve got a set to paint. How exactly do you propose that we get the audience to put on green spectacles?”
“But it’s not the audience—it’s…well, you see, the Emerald City was white because the White City was—”
“Right. Got it.” Fleming turned his back to her. Maud realized that her audience was over.
“No, young man, you haven’t got it. The Yellow Brick Road stops right here, at this gate.” She pointed to the ground. “But what happens next is the heart of the story.” Unfortunately, she realized that he was no longer listening.
As she turned to leave, she saw the painter rolling the bright green hue across the big expanse of white plywood flimflam they had constructed to serve as the Emerald City.
Maud was walking back to the parking lot when a voice called out to her.
“Mrs. Baum!”
Maud turned to see the young actress coming up behind her. “Judy!”
“Could I speak to you for a minute?”
Maud looked at her with concern. Her eyes were unusually bright, and she was chewing on her lower lip.
“Is everything all right? No more hat-pin trouble?”
Judy blushed. “No, it’s nothing like that. I just wanted to thank you for helping me out the other day.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you, but I didn’t do anything I wouldn’t do for one of my own children.”
Seeing Judy hesitate as if wanting to continue their conversation, Maud put her hand on the girl’s arm. “Wait,” she said. “Do you have time to go to lunch?”
“I’d love to, but not here,” Judy said under her breath. “Everybody is watching every bite I eat.”
Twenty minutes later, Maud and Judy sat in a wood-paneled booth inside the shadowy interior of Musso & Frank’s. Maud noticed again the unusual brightness in Judy’s eyes, and the way she fidgeted in her seat. Even her hand shook a little as she grasped her water glass. She tried to hide the tremor by steadying it with her other hand, but she saw that Maud had already spotted it.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Maud asked.
Judy frowned. “It’s the diet pills. They make me shaky, and I can’t sleep.”
Maud peered at the girl. “You don’t sleep?”
Judy sighed and traced a drop of water that had splashed on the scarred-up hardwood table. “If I can’t sleep for a few days, they put me in the infirmary and give me pills to help. The studio doctors can do anything with pills—speed you up, slow you down.” She sounded half-bored, as if all this pill taking were in the natural order of things.
Maud reached a hand out and placed it on the girl’s arm. “Forgive me for prying, but does your mother know about this?”
“Ethel?” Judy said. “She’s the one who told the studio doctors to do it. She calls them my bolts and jolts.”
Maud thought of her own mother—her horror of patent medicines, her belief that they were a scourge for women. And she thought of Julia, and the medicine that had ruled her life.
“I would recommend that you be cautious,” Maud said. “Medicines have a way of exerting a power that you would not expect.”
Judy shrugged. “I really don’t get that much choice in the matter.”
“Let me tell you something right now. You may be young and you may be a girl, but I pray that you will remember that you always have a choice in any matter.”
Judy sighed. “It sure doesn’t feel like that.”
A red-jacketed waiter stopped at their table. “Are you ready to order?”
Judy flipped open the menu.
“Everything is good,” Maud said. “But I recommend the French dip sandwich. It comes with French fries. Two?”
“That sounds delicious!” Judy said.
The waiter nodded curtly and picked up their menus.
“Oh no,” Judy said, ducking her head down a bit. “It’s Yip Harburg, the lyricist. He’s going to see me!”
A moment later, Harburg approached their table. “Why, if it isn’t Miss Judy Garland. And Mrs. Baum.”
“Why don’t you join us?” Maud said. “I’m assuming you are not among those who are spying on what Judy eats for lunch.”
“You kidding me?” Harburg said. “Half the writers in Hollywood who aren’t supposed to be drinking are in the back room right now. Nobody’s business what people want to do in their own free time, far as I’m concerned.” He turned to Judy. “Don’t worry, I’m not following you. I was browsing at the Stanley Rose bookstore when I saw you walk by.” The bookshop next door was a popular gathering place for screenwriters.
“Well, it’s perfect timing,” Maud said. “Have a seat. I need to talk to you.”
Harburg hung his fedora on the hook next to their booth. “May I?” He slipped into the spot next to Judy. “What can I help you with, Mrs. Baum?”
“It’s the Emerald City,” Maud said. “They are painting it green!”
One side of Harburg’s mouth slanted upward. His eyes twinkled behind his horn-rimmed glasses. “The Emerald City green? You don’t say!”
“You’re laughing,” Maud said, not amused. “But it’s not funny. In the book, the Emerald City is white and people only think it’s green. It’s one of the Wizard’s tricks.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I do realize that. We talked about having the characters put on spectacles, but we decided to do it a different way. If you think of it differently, you might not mind as much.”
“Differently?”
“What is Technicolor but a pair of green-tinted spectacles? Technicolor is more vibrant than the real world—it’s a fever dream of color that someone could only invent in his mind’s eye.”
“You’re suggesting that the Technicolor is the tinted spectacles?” Maud tried to grasp what he meant.
“That’s right.” Harburg grinned. “The wizardry begins when you sit down in the theater. There’s magic in the whole crazy movie-making process. I don’t know how it works, but it does. You start with cardboard, spray paint, chicken wire, and plywood, and you end up with—”
“The Land of Oz!” Judy said.
“Exactly!” Harburg said.
“Hmm,” Maud said. “Sounds like Frank talking when you put it that way.”
Harburg grinned and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Wait until you watch the picture,” Harburg said. “You’ll see what I mean. I’ve gotta go.”
He jumped up, grabbed his hat from the hook, and tipped it toward them.
“Nice talking to you ladies!” he said.
“Wait a minute,” Maud said. “I’ve been wanting to ask you. What’s going on with the rainbow song?”
“Judy.” Harburg smiled. “That girl was born to sing that song.”
“Judy? Yes, of course,” Maud said, aware that he was avoiding her question. “But I mean the words. Have you finished them?”
“Don’t worry about the words, Mrs. Baum. You said yourself it’s in the manner. There just has to be enough wanting in it. Judy’s got it just right. It’s going to be a big hit.” He tipped his hat to Judy again. “You’re gonna knock ’em dead, kid.”
When Harburg was gone, Maud noticed that Judy had left her plate of food half-finished.
“You didn’t like it?”
“I’m just not that hungry. I guess the pills are working,” she said with a brittle smile.
Even in the dim restaurant light, Judy’s hair glinted with coppery highlights, her lips were plum-colored, her skin luminous and sun-kissed with a sprinkle of freckles, and her brown eyes, fringed with thick, dark lashes, reflected a wisdom greater than her years. By every measure, this girl was brushed with something special—and yet, Maud always sensed the vulnerability in her.
As they gathered up their things to leave, Judy turned to Maud.
“You know, I really don’t like the Wizard,” she said.
“You don’t like the Wizard?”
“What kind of a man would send a little girl to kill a witch?” Judy said. “Why wouldn’t he just help her?”
Maud thought of the day she and Frank had left Magdalena on Julia’s homestead. It had been the hardest day of Maud’s life.
“Sometimes,” Maud said, “I was also angry at the Wizard. But the Wizard was right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You always need to fix your own problems. Nobody else is going to fix them for you.”
CHAPTER
22
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS