John D. MacDonald

He Knew a Broadway Star

On that epic evening Ellis Morgan found the newspaper singularly devoid of anything resembling news. He stowed it under his thigh and stared for a time out the train window at the too-familiar commuter landscape. He tried his mad game of pretending he was racing a bicycle against the train, but that adventure bored him after he came to quick grief against a culvert.

So when he suddenly discovered a magazine abandoned by a previous passenger, Ellis was delighted. Even if it were printed in Arabic, there would be pictures.

It was one of those sleek little magazines of the arts and the theater, with invaluable information about who was writing what in North Africa. Ellis found an article, a profile of sorts, about a certain Vania Derrold who, after much success in London, had begun what seemed to be an even greater success on Broadway in the new Kingsley Loomis play.

As Ellis vaguely remembered hearing his wife Janet’s enthusiasm about Vania Derrold’s acting ability, he began to plow his way through the article. Vania, it appeared, had experienced a remarkably unremarkable childhood — public schools in an upstate city. Like me, Ellis thought.

He looked at her picture again. A rather strange and interesting face. Derrold. Certain unused cogs in the back pastures of Ellis’ mind disengaged and began to whir. He placed his thumb over the glamorous hairdo and examined the face carefully, moving the magazine closer to the window. He squinted just enough to soften the outlines of the face.

“Well,” he said aloud. “Well!” And after a little thought he said, “What do you know!”

When the train arrived beside his station platform, Ellis Morgan collected hat and newspaper, folded the magazine inside the newspaper and disembarked, nodding more distantly than usual at his fellow passengers of the past eleven years.

His home was in a ranch-type development within walking distance of the self-consciously rustic station. The winding roads were named after colonial utensils and his house was the last one on Trivet Lane.

Except in the very worst of weather, Ellis walked it. And this was a rather pleasant April day, full of the better smells. As he walked he slapped the paper lightly against his leg, wondering exactly how he could best deliver himself of this entrancing morsel.

“Say, by the way, Janet. Found out today I happen to know Vania Derrold. In fact I once...” No. For best effect it would have to be inserted into the conversation quite casually. Deftly, in fact. And that involved either waiting for, or engineering, the proper opening.

As he walked into the kitchen he had the beginnings of a plan. It so delighted him that he clutched Janet a bit more enthusiastically than usual as he planted his evening kiss.

“Well, you must have had a good day!”

He knew that her questions about the office were largely routine. The functioning of the trust department of a bank meant as much to her as a discussion of batting averages.

“A fine day. Chops?”

“Lamb. And frozen com. I let Sandy go to the movies after school, but she’ll be back in time for dinner. And Dick is off on his bike.”

She had laid out the implements for the evening drink. Ellis washed up quickly, changed to a flannel shirt, came back and mixed the carefully measured ingredients, poured Janet her portion. He was thinking of how different life might have been. He’d had quite a crush on Mary Jane Derrold.

“What in the world are you grinning at?” Janet demanded.

“I guess I just feel good.”

She accepted that a bit dubiously. She had time for a quick drink with him, and then she had to go back out to keep control of things in the kitchen. Dick slammed in, all feet and empty stomach, to help watch the TV news program. Sandy got home a few minutes later. Ellis watched her talk out of the comer of her mouth and decided it must have been a B picture she saw.

At dinner when he had the proper opening he said to Janet, “It’s funny, isn’t it, the way you slip away from people you used to know. People in high school, for instance. You thought you’d be friends for life, and you can hardly remember how they looked.”

Three sets of blue eyes focused on him, and there were three almost identical puzzled frowns. “So?” Janet said.

“Nothing. I just happened to be thinking of that today. That’s all. Of course I didn’t meet you until after college, darling. But I... ah... remember the competition. Wonder what happened to them. A Paul something, wasn’t there?”

“Paul Blakely,” Janet said, narrowing her eyes, “and you remember dam well what happened to him. Mickey wrote me last year that she saw him driving a coal truck.”

“Well. Steve then. The big one.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, Ellis Morgan. Maybe you just want to humiliate me in front of the children. Steve has been in an institution for years.”

All three sets of blue eyes looked coldly at him. Ellis felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t going the way it was supposed to go. “I was only...”

“Maybe, dear,” Janet said icily, “you’re anxious to have me see what a lucky person I am. Okay. I’m a lucky person. Terribly fortunate you condescended to marry me. Oh, thank you, thank you.”

“You know it wasn’t that way,” Ellis complained.

Sandy and Dick were eating with heads bowed in that look of excruciating embarrassment they always adopted when even the faintest of spats started.

“You are always seeing those dreadful cartoons,” Janet continued, “where the awful wife is telling the poor henpecked little guy about the man she should have married. Would you feel better if Paul was President of General Motors and Steve was the Secretary of State?”

“No, but...”

“They were nice boys and they had bad breaks, both of them. And I don’t think it’s fair of you to rub it in that way. But I wasn’t in love with them. I fell in love with you.”

“Please. Mother.” Sandy said with distant distaste.

“Why didn’t you continue the list, Ellis?” Janet demanded. “How about Bob? There’s a good prize for you. He went to jail. He’s out now, I guess.”

“Darling,” said Ellis solemnly, “I’m sorry I brought the subject up.”

He could see that her anger was cooling. But there was still a trace of Bunsen flame in her eye.

“I will have to do some research on your old girls some day,” she said. “Then we can find out how beautiful and glamorous they are, and how unlucky you were when you married me. That Connie person in college, for example. I’ll bet she weighs as much as a pick-up truck by now. And who was that dream child you used to bleat about? The high-school one.”

Ellis licked his lips. He said, uncertainly, “Mary Jane?”

“Yes. Your precious Mary Jane. The poor man’s Peter Pan, from what you used to say about her. What do you suppose she’s doing, darling?”

“As a matter of fact...” he said stiffly, holding himself more erect. He paused.

“Oh, then you have kept in touch,” Janet said bleakly.

Ellis looked at his wife. A very splendid wife, indeed, and even when she was angry there was a nice sheen to her. A nice warm pride. He saw himself at a train window, waving good-by to Vania Derrold. She seemed to be riding a bicycle into a culvert.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, grinning, “Mary Jane probably married an elderly pin setter. She no doubt lives in Tasmania, knits doilies and has seven kids, not counting the two-headed ones.”

Dick made a slightly choked sound, and both children looked warily out from under their defensive wall as the tension visibly diminished.

Janet was smiling at him. She said, softly, “Which all goes to show we both did pretty well, honey.”

“I did a little better than you did,” Ellis said warmly.

“How was the show, San?” Dick asked his sister, his voice too loud, his face agleam with the shame of hearing his elders get sloppy, his blue eyes fixed on a far high corner of the small dining room.

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John D. MacDonald
He Knew a Broadway Star