Kitty wondered who “they” were.
“It’s not that—I don’t want my little sister tagging along.”
The table exchanged looks, surprised by her honesty with Kitty present.
“I’m not a good dancer, anyway,” Kitty said.
“Me neither. I just go for the music,” Meredith said. “I’ll babysit her, Emma.”
“I said no,” Emma said.
The table quieted at the word of their queen.
After a moment, Meredith spoke. “So, how was your first day, Kitty?”
Kitty hesitated, feeling uncomfortable that she’d hated it so much.
They all nodded, reading her face. “This is why we say we have to be getting something out of it too.”
“I had another date with Sam.” When Judy started in on the details, Kitty started looking for their waitress. Her eyes passed over a Negro woman sitting in the corner near the door. Kitty watched her momentarily, wondering who she was, before their eyes met and the woman smiled. Kitty turned forward.
“How old are you, Kitty?” Meredith was asking.
“Almost eighteen.”
“We’re twenty-three, and I’ve never been in love. Daphne has.”
“Shattered my heart,” Daphne said.
Not knowing how to measure her feelings against the maturity of experience of the studio operators, she told them she loved Richard.
“If you did, you would have stayed,” Emma said, flicking her cigarette butt into the ashtray.
“That’s not true.”
“No? Go back.”
Kitty knew Emma was in character, but something about the way she said it rubbed her the wrong way.
“Do you miss him?” Daphne asked, misreading the emotion that crossed Kitty’s face.
“I still think about him sometimes.”
“You don’t talk to him anymore?”
“We write”—the truth came out easier than a lie—“from time to time.”
Kitty hadn’t seen any harm in mailing Richard the letter she had already written. She told herself she wouldn’t write again, but then he responded quickly, with confessions. Taking over his father’s business hadn’t been a choice: a teacher at the White high school had failed him to prevent his enrollment into the pre-med program at Central. He was miserable working with his father, and her return was all he was looking forward to. Kitty didn’t have the heart to tell him she wasn’t coming.
The girls giggled. “Kitty has a beau.”
“No, no, no,” Kitty said. “We’re just friends.”
Later, when Kitty and the others exited, she saw that the Negro woman in the corner was accompanied by a White man. Amazed that everyone filed out without a glance in their direction, Kitty stared. The woman stared back, as if asking this time, Do I know you? Kitty rushed to catch up with the others. They walked several blocks back to the lot, and when no one made mention of the Negro who had been in their space, Kitty fell in love with Los Angeles.
* * *
“I thought you broke things off with Richard.” Emma started the car and shut off the blaring radio.
“I did.”
“So why did you tell them you two still write each other?”
“It sounded more romantic. I wanted to have something to share.”
“Well, congratulations,” she said. “Now they’re going to ask you about him, and it’s going to keep coming up. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you not to mix the truth with a lie.”
“You’ve never said that before.”
Kitty wasn’t sure if Emma was jealous because of the others’ interest in her or because she knew she was lying about still writing to Richard.
“Haven’t you heard the stories about what happens to people caught passing?”
“I know what the risks are.”
“Then why do you keep doing dumb things?” Emma said.
They rode home in silence and didn’t speak for the rest of the night. Emma did a crossword puzzle, and Kitty read in her room. The next morning, Emma was up early and humming to the radio. She acted as though nothing had happened and even split her favorite chocolate-filled doughnut with Kitty in the cafeteria.
* * *
Kitty quickly became bored with the other operators. By the end of the second week, she was escaping during lunch for a walk alone around the lot.
Emma had promised her a tour, but they were always running late, and Emma was never willing to miss breakfast. “There’s not much to see anyway.” All film production was on hiatus, and only a couple of television shows were still in production.
Kitty didn’t care; she was simply curious to see how the sets differed from their projections. She followed the directional signs affixed to the top corner of the lot’s tan buildings to the soundstages. The entrance to stage C was the only door open.
Kitty entered the dark building to find herself in a maze of thick, black velvet curtains hanging from the warehouse-style ceiling. Hearing voices, she followed the path to the back of a crowd of about fifteen men. Peeking between their bodies, Kitty saw two women dressed in pants and button-up shirts performing a scene about who was cooking Thanksgiving dinner, on a stage outfitted as a dining room. The male crowd roared with laughter as the two began arguing. She was impressed. Neither woman was dressed in a corset or a frilly dress, yet they commanded the men’s attention with everyday housewife banter. Normally, women were the voluptuous sidekick or the youngish love interest, not the center of a scene.
After another five minutes, the actresses called for a break. Kitty retreated, breaking into a run once she exited the stage, unsure of how long she’d been gone.
No one noticed her return. They were all clustered around Lois’s station, eavesdropping.
“If we don’t resume filming before December, there’s no way we’ll be considered for the Oscars,” a woman’s voice said. “And I don’t have anything else on deck.”
“He won’t make any decisions until September,” a male voice responded.
“You have to talk to him.”
“Cora, we all have an investment in this. He won’t listen.” The man sounded tired.
“We have to make him.”
On the walk to Mitch’s, Emma explained that the woman on the call was Cora Rivers, the studio’s biggest actress. “She’s also Abner Tate’s mistress. Starred in the studio’s last four films. She was talking to Charles Mints, the director of her latest film, The Misfits. Abner wrote it for her. Everyone says the script is the ramblings of a crazy man; that, coupled with the expensive budget, proves that Abner has lost his mind.”
Nathan didn’t officially start for another two months but had put all production on hold until he could evaluate each project one by one. People were none too pleased about his decisions thus far. “The Misfits had already started filming when Nathan shut it down.”
They slid into the same end booth at Mitch’s, and the same waitress asked if everyone was having their usual. Kitty was the only one who ordered food with her vodka soda.
“We knew about Nathan’s succession weeks before the announcement,” Emma said. Whether it was a matter of hiring, firing, or a nasty habit, the phone operators knew all the secrets on the lot. Emma furthered her education with the daily trade papers and predicted firings. “The secretaries will be the first to go. They’re so old, they’ll never be able to keep up.”
“And we’ll replace them,” Judy said, high-fiving Emma.
“I thought you didn’t care about advancing at work?” Kitty asked.
Emma winked at her. “I do if it means marrying the new owner of Telescope Studios.”
“You know him?” Kitty was shocked to have missed that detail.
“She’s never even met him,” Daphne said.
“She’s obsessed,” Meredith said.
“I’m obsessed about what his taking over means for us. He’s really smart,” Emma said.
Meredith rolled her eyes. “And rich, and tall, and—”