Mr. Arnold Springwald was a prematurely aging man of about forty-seven with two green shoes and a purple suede umbrella.
Nancy Adelman was a spry sixty-two-year-old with a talent for rouge and recitation.
Tucker Adelman was a poleman for the Carmalita Lot who lived with his mother.
Chloe Caportni hated lemonade.
Mr. Arnold Springwald was the proud owner of three homes and six wet bars.
Nancy Adelman was in love with a much younger man, who, in turn, was ambivalent to her affections.
Tucker Adelman had weak pectorals.
Chloe Caportni, despite her elite stature, never actually graduated high school.
And so, on this fine morning in early autumn that might as well have still been summer, Tucker suggested the four of them go down for a drink at the Goose’s Club.
The white-washed tavern overlooked Goldman Park, a common congregation site for geese and pedestrians alike, centered around a square lake that had been constructed after a particularly devastating earthquake in 1933. The Goldman Sachs had collapsed, and it had been cheaper to finish the job, flood the hole, and write it off as a Parks and Recreation donation than rebuild. Twelve years later, the grass was sparse but green, the air clear, and in all it offered a slight reprieve from the honks and hassle of Hollywood. The Goose’s Club, perched on its green, was as white as a goose’s down inside and out. The décor was dingy, but the smell was new, and, most vitally, it was one of the few bars open at such an early hour. Tucker sat between Nancy Adelman, his mother, and Mr. Arnold, the producer down at the Carmalita Lot.
Tucker patted his tie. He had donned his best pinstripes for this meeting with Mr. Arnold and gelled his dark hair back in a manner he thought made him resemble Gregory Peck. The two women had also dressed for the occasion: Nancy Adelman in floor-length satin, her greying hair tied elaborately under a magenta headscarf; Chloe in an hourglass sundress and loose blonde ringlets looking stamped from a headshot. Mr. Arnold, on the other hand, wore his regular maroon three-piece, the one with pants wider than his waist, and a plaid emerald necktie he thought spotlighted his green oxfords: they were new.
Tucker waved the barman over.
“Hello!” said the bartender, “Welcome in.” Chloe looked up at the familiar voice: Oswald. He was an old beau of Chloe’s, though she would not admit it. Because of this, Oswald firmly refrained from offering her any sort of discount, not even the “buy 9 get 1 free” coupon he displayed on his counter. Chloe, in response, made sure she never had to pay for her own drinks.
“Go ahead and make yourselves comfortable,” Oswald continued, “what would you like?”
Tucker smiled, “I think probably a round of vodka sodas and a large bowl of peanuts and those little pretzel sticks you put out on the weekends. Say, you still have that subscription to The Dewey Times?”
“Yes, would you like to read it?”
“Not me, no, but,” Tucker clapped Mr. Arnold Springwald’s shoulder, “you won’t find a better crossworder on this side of the Mississippi!” Mr. Arnold, who would have been annoyed if Tucker had said Jupiter, found himself insulted at this short radius.
Oswald fetched the newspaper. Tucker accepted it and placed it on the table in front of Arnold with a dramatic kneel. Tucker remembered, the last time they were here, Mr. Arnold jumping atop that very table and shouting that very proclamation. The vodka sodas had prevented Arnold from recollecting that night, but Tucker had made sure to buy The Goose’s Club a subscription to the paper the weekend before: an investment.
Mr. Arnold Springwald begrudgingly accepted the newspaper and asked for the pen.
Chloe eyed Tucker’s successful grin and tried to imagine what their current situation would be like if she and Tucker’s stations were reversed, if she instead of he, had been the one with her job on the line, and realized there would be no meeting in the first place. She’d be out on her rear on Sunset, her incompetence the talk of the industry. How dare Tucker live a life where a midmorning cocktail and perfunctory apology earned him four figures a year. Because he was a man? Because his mother was Nancy Adelman?
Nancy Adelman, meanwhile, was watching Arnold. This morning would be a test of his affections, or perhaps, of her own power. She may be older than she used to be, but she was still the Nancy Adelman. Global icon and star of the silver screen! And that name carried a certain weight in this town, especially among its bigwigs, its executives, its septuagenarians. Arnold was younger than her usual devotees, but perhaps a fresher man on her arm was precisely what her image needed. She’d win him over this morning and fix that silly drinking habit of his is the process.
Oswald delivered the vodka sodas.
“No,” said Nancy calmly, “No, I don’t think I’ll drink today after all.”
Tucker’s smile wavered, “But why?”
“It’s better this way for a woman of my moral constitution.”
“But Ma, we drank here just last week.”
“And I shan’t ever again!” Nancy crossed her legs pointedly. “To refuse the devil’s tonic within his own walls is an act of restraint a girl will not forget.” She glanced pointedly to Mr. Arnold, but he seemed oblivious the line was directed to him.
Tucker rubbed his face, sighed, and turned back to Oswald, “Oswald, some lemonade, please.”
“Not for me, I don’t like lemonade,” said Chloe. Oswald pretended not to hear. But he did hear and made a note to bring two lemonades instead of one.
With the orders placed, the company simultaneously recognized it was time to discuss the business at hand, and all eyes slowly turned toward Tucker.
One week before, Tucker had committed the cardinal sin of a poleman. Not only had he dropped the boom mic into frame during filming of West Over the Nile, but he had dropped the boom mic entirely. Right onto Chloe Caportni’s blonde head, knocking her to the floor and costing the studio a half hour of daylight while she redid her make-up. He’d been on probation ever since.
Oswald returned with the lemonades. Mr. Arnold downed his vodka soda and took the interruption as an excuse to return to his crossword.
“Four letters for ‘in good health,’” sad Mr. Arnold.
Chloe started as Oswald plopped the lemonade in front of her. He seemed to be waiting for a response, so Chloe took a tiny slurp from the rim. Oswald returned disappointed to the bar.
The party sat in silence. Tucker wrung his hands, knowing he could stall no longer.
“Well,” Tucker began.
“No, it starts with an ‘A’,” said Arnold. He gestured to Oswald. Tucker, too, ordered a refill. Chloe did not.
Chloe figured now that the talk of the morning had begun, and she was a set piece more than anything else, there was no real need to pay attention. Nancy Adelman would make a plea, Tucker would apologize, it was all very routine. So instead, Chloe stared at the bleached interior of the bar, her lipsticked mouth dangling in a small “o” that made it resemble a cherry. She wondered how one ended up whitewashing bars for a living, what kind of man they might be and the dreams they might have had, and eventually decided on two characters:
The first she called Clyde. He had icy eyes, icy blond hair, and an altogether Aryan appearance. He was the first son of a family of politicians who had fled Germany under mysterious circumstances, and, upon arrival in America, had dispersed. His sister, Marie, was now a painter as well, with several gallery exhibits and an invitation to a show in Paris. His younger brother was to be personally apprenticed by the Carnegie household. Clyde, meanwhile, had managed only to find temporary work as a day laborer and faked his death rather than admit this to his family. It turned out for the best, what with the Nuremburg Trials beginning this month.
The second was Tobias. Tobias was a strong name, fit for a vagabond, and she had grand plans for him that would likely involve being plucked from obscurity by a burgeoning princess, but here Mr. Arnold snapped his fingers in front of her face.
“Pay attention.”
Chloe blinked. “Able,” she answered. Mr. Arnold paused then scribbled.
“Five letters,” this time he addressed Tucker, “capital of Sweden.”
“Oh,” said Chloe, “I thought it was Stockholm.” Stockholm would have been a wonderful city for Tobias.
“Well, you’d be wrong,” said Arnold, “Does Stockholm have five letters? Did your school not teach you basic arithmetic?” Chloe quieted. Arnold wheeled towards Tucker. “You see what you’ve done? Girl can’t even count anymore.” He had just received another vodka soda and now required the next.
The color had been steadily draining from Tucker’s face until he had all but vanished into the décor around him. At this return to the conversation, despite its negative connotation, he revived slightly. They were back on topic: surely, that counted for something.
So, for Mr. Arnold’s benefit, Tucker shifted in his chair, clasped his hands together, and turned to Chloe.
“Miss Caportni, I know I am just a lowly stagehand, and you deserve to be spending your morning with men far grander than myself, but I would just like to take this time to reiterate my apologies and shame in having harmed you in this way. To drop a boom mic on your fragile head? It was grievous and unprofessional, and I swear to you it will never happen again. I hope, to the dear lord above me, that whatever is afflicting you now will be transient and that I will personally see you are well taken care of until you are fully recovered. And, if that day is never to come, I swear to you—with God as my witness!—that I will be there for you until you take your last dying breath.”
Chloe had to admit, it was a better apology than expected.
Oswald, at the opposite end of the empty bar, overheard just enough of Tucker’s soliloquy to understand that he had just declared his undying love for Chloe. The barman spit into the next round of vodka sodas. Both of them, just to be sure.
“Listen, Tucker,” said Mr. Arnold Springwald, “You have not just dropped a mic, but our trust. My trust, the studio’s trust. Miss Caportni’s trust—”
Nancy realized her cue had come. She thrust herself forward, placed her hand on Arnold’s thigh, and infecting her throat with every ounce of emotion—felt and unfelt, known and unknown—in the way her fifty years of projection had taught her, implored, “Please, Mr. Springwald, wouldn’t you keep him on? You’d do it, won’t you? Consider it a personal favor—” and here she scooched her hand up Mr. Arnold’s thigh, “to me?”
Tucker froze. This was not scripted. If Oswald had returned the vodka sodas a moment sooner, Tucker would surely have choked on the first sip. This would have sent the guilty bartender into a panic: he’d have confessed to the saliva—as well as to having burned Chloe’s first callback letter four years before—and be out on his derriere in Griffith Park before nightfall.
As it was, Tucker received his drink a second after hearing these words and swallowed in one go, not tasting a drop. This was not unnoticed by Mr. Arnold Springwald who appreciated a man who could handle his alcohol. And, really, Tucker wasn’t too unpleasant a looking man at that, in a scrawny sniveling way.
Mr. Arnold Springwald extracted himself from Nancy’s grip. “My dear, how very…unnecessary. The studio knows that you and your son are a package deal. We have simply called you here for an apology and to inform you, of course, that Mr. Adelman will be having a significant pay cut. Which should come to no surprise.” Tucker had hoped this would come as a surprise to his mother, especially having been rebuffed, but she had fallen silent, her hands in her lap. He waited a long moment, but there was no cavalry.
“I do understand,” said Tucker, “Thank you, sir.” He lacked a vodka soda to sip and didn’t think it right to order another, so he fiddled with his hands for a moment and glanced out the window, then at the bar.
Chloe watched him. How old was Tucker? Twenty? A bit older than her, surely. She had come to Hollywood from nothing: he had been born into it. She got by with luck and struggle, he by pedigree, to which he now clung just to stay afloat. She’d so often wondered how much easier her life would have been if she had been here from the beginning—if Nancy Adelman had been her mother, if she never had to work at all, if the cameras chased her and the screen called her. If an international audience had cheered her first steps and saw all of her potential way back when. But how difficult might life have been if, having all those eyes trained on her, she’d walked too late? Or too slow? Or, she flicked her cornflower eyes towards Tucker, simply in a body that wasn’t a starlet’s? She suddenly wished she had treated Clyde with more respect and, retroactively, decided he wasn’t a Nazi after all. She made his hair dark, his mother an actress, and the chip on his shoulder an imprint from the boom microphone he carried.
“I forgive you,” said Chloe, “No pay reduction necessary.”
Mr. Arnold Springwald’s head shot up. “Excuse me?”
Chloe ignored him and faced Tucker, who had also shot up at her words. “It’s alright. I’m fine. No harm done.”
Mr. Arnold Springwald spluttered and turned red, but how much was emotion and how much was from proof was impossible to know. “But—but he hit you! He hit you with a fucking boom mic!”
Chloe jumped slightly and looked down. “Yes,” she said. She watched a drop of condensation leak down her lemonade onto the white tablecloth.
But Mr. Arnold knew that he was not really angry at Chloe, or Nancy, and no, not even Tucker. No, Mr. Arnold Springwald was angry with himself, Tobias Flynn and, to a lesser extent, Gregor Huntington.
It had all started almost twenty years before when Nancy Adelman first identified the supreme mediocrity of her son. It was not his fault—he’d had an impressively mediocre father and there was only so much her flapper physique, velvet voice, and cultivated continence could do. But, nonetheless, he remained unremarkable. While many other mothers might have hidden this fact beneath layers of self-denial, Nancy Adelman strategized. A middle-aged divorcee with a six-year-old surely wouldn’t last long in the public sphere, so she embraced it. She employed Tucker as her “adorable little assistant” when he was six by writing him into her own contract.
“I find myself needing the extra help these days,” she’d told the columnists, “for I am getting long in the tooth…and he’s got spares coming in by the hour!” The studio had eaten it up, of course assuming this to be a temporary arrangement.
Nancy Adelman had no such plans: Tucker remained contractually employed. Quite inconvenient for the studio who now supported a man whose only virtue in life was being the hire and heir of Miss Nancy Adelman. But—and this is the most important aspect for the four men and women gathered in this fine early autumn morning in the Goose’s Club—the studio paid one bill. One bill with “Nancy Adelman” on the dotted line, deposited into one joint checking account.
This had not been an issue. A begrudging inconvenience? Of course. But Tucker worked hard if not well, and it was decided it would just be best to let it slide without fuss and keep a lawyer on hand the next time a waning leading lady decided to give birth to an altogether unimpressive son.
But Mr. Arnold had grand plans for his newest film. And “grand plans” meant Gregor Huntington. Gregor Huntington, Chloe Caportni, and the aging Nancy Adelman splayed upon the same silver screen. Produced by Mr. Arnold Springwald. God, what a headline.
The complication (because there always was one) was that Tobias—unassuming duplicitous Tobias; sweet, supple, secretary-to-Mr-Huntington Tobias—had somehow found himself in Mr. Arnold’s bedroom, quasi-dressed and quasi-supervised. He’d shoved a receipt into his shoe, and the next day Gregor Huntington demanded the studio match Adelman’s price.
And then, Chloe Caportni gave that one serendipitous “Oof!”
Tucker did not know about this. About any of this. His life was filled with the dread that one day his façade would fall, and everyone would see the supreme insipidity that dwelled beneath. Tucker considered himself a showman. He had no idea how but thanked God each night that no one had yet discovered his mediocrity. He was what one might call an optimist.
The drop of condensation seeped into the whiteness of the table.
“It’s ‘Krona,’” said Chloe. She didn’t look up.
“What?”
“The capital of Sweden,” she said. Oswald walked up to the table, collected the empty vodka soda glasses, as well as the lemonade, and rinsed them in the sink behind the bar.
“You’re a little late, my dear.” But Mr. Arnold took note. He rubbed at a splash of vodka soda that had stained the suede of his umbrella and readdressed Tucker. “Unfortunately, my boy, Miss Caportni does not have the authority in this matter that she thinks she does. The studio has made up its mind to cut your wages to a third of what they currently are. You will retain all your benefits and perks you have now on the Carmalita, not to mention your bungalow and meals, and I think we all will find this new arrangement particularly suitable.” Upon seeing the collective expressions around him, he added, “For the time being.”
“Why?” asked Chloe, “I said I press no charges.”
“My dear, someone has to pay—”
“Yes, you. His wages.”
Mr. Arnold Springwald rubbed his forehead. He felt as though each individual drop of vodka soda had declared a personal campaign against his left temple.
“I suppose…” said Mr. Arnold. Some region of his brain managed to buzz long enough for an idea to creep into his head. He could spread the losses between the three of them, have them all take a cut—cuts that aggregated to more than he could have reasonably taken from Tucker alone. He did some quick mental calculation. Unfortunately, Mr. Arnold’s faculties were not quite up to snuff at present, and he forgot to carry the one. Had West over the Nile not been such a runaway hit, he and the rest of the Carmalita would have succumbed to debt. As it was, he nearly melted his Oscar to cover expenses—and that was after perpetually switching to happy hour.
“I suppose,” repeated Mr. Arnold, “I could split the difference between the three of you.”
Chloe paused. She knew what she should do: throw out her hands, martyr herself to save another. But for Tucker?
Tucker’s head shot up at these words like a Labrador. “Yes sir! Thank you, sir! That’s very generous: I so appreciate it.”
And like that, Chloe realized that she was out $500. She narrowed her eyes at Tucker. What an absolutely Clyde thing to say, she thought, a Nazi indeed, and turned him over to the Feds.
“Oh, no!” Said Nancy. She waved her hand so as to recoup the reigns of the conversation. She felt thirteen again, playing Ophelia in the royal troupe’s performance of Hamlet and catching a glimpse of Queen Victoria snoring during her pivotal moment of madness. This is how they get you, she thought. First, they refuse you, then they expect you to lie down and let them take advantage of you. A woman must stand up for oneself: one cannot claim victory if they are defeated in the process, and Tucker was surely proud enough to understand that. “I don’t think so. No, my rate has been the same for forty years. I may be old, but I have self-respect, Arnold. Don’t expect me to be doing any more favors for you, no, oh no, oh no.”
“Ma!”
“Fine,” said Arnold, and Chloe realized she was out $750.
The quadruplet fell into a settled silence in the Goose’s club. Oswald clinked behind the counter, bottles of tonics and beers diffusing emerald and amber light across the canvas of the bar. Tucker registered birdsong outside for the first time since… well, since the morning before he’d booped Miss Caportni on the head.
“Well, thank you very much for meeting me, sir,” said Tucker to Mr. Arnold, “and for your unparalleled generosity. I do so appreciate it and, believe you me, will not forget it. Nor, of course, yours Miss Caportni.” He bowed his head at her, but Chloe had returned her focus to the window, so Tucker continued speaking to Mr. Arnold. “You will not regret this; I promise you that. I won’t so much let an inch of the boom mic into the screen, you’ll see.”
Mr. Arnold Springwald was admittedly swimming at this point, but to him that sounded like the bare minimum expected from a poleman. He blinked slowly at the narrow-chested boy in front of him, then turned to face Chloe.
“I’m sorry my dear, what’s a Krona?”
“It is the capital of Sweden, it’s money.”
“Ah. How fascinating.”
“Yes, sir,” nodded Tucker to Mr. Arnold, “A very clever answer, sir. Well done.”
Chloe decided that Clyde the Nazi’s artwork deserved to be overlooked. An artist should paint for the love of it, she thought, not because his famous family left him an inferiority complex. Tobias, whoever she’d make him be, would be a true artist. A man who saw the changes in the world moment to moment, who jumped on opportunity as soon as he recognized it. How wonderful must it be, she thought, to live life on one’s toes like that.
Chloe was suddenly pulled to her feet.
“We are leaving,” announced Mrs. Nancy Adelman. Chloe blinked and looked at the table in front of her. It was empty. Indeed, the other two men appeared to be waiting by the door.
“Oh,” said Chloe. She pulled her wrap from the chair. Mrs. Nancy Adelman threaded her arm through the young star’s, and Chloe did not miss her cue to lead the aging starlet from the table.
“Oh, barkeep.” Mrs. Nancy called, not quite loud enough for the other two men to hear. “You will of course be charging the tab for the morning to that of Mr. Arnold Springwald.” Chloe kept her gaze on some indiscriminate spot of the wall lest it affect Oswald’s response. Oswald responded that he would, before adding something about doing the same for The Dewey Times on Tucker’s. Nancy, who didn’t want to know why Oswald had a shared investment with her son, nodded sagely before pulling Chloe out the door.
Three separate cars waited outside, to the relief of each. Mrs. Nancy Adelman shed herself of Chloe and entered the open door of the first, followed by Tucker. Mr. Arnold Springwald fumbled at the handle of the second for a moment before disappearing inside, his purple suede umbrella conspicuously absent. Chloe took the third.
They left, giving Oswald a full hour alone to prepare for the lunch crowd. Tucker returned the next day, mooching free hooch as he recounted and rehashed his narrow escape to all who would listen, blissfully unaware that Oswald’s paper still arrived on his (newly truncated) dime. Mr. Arnold Springwald returned as well, to toast his cleverness and frugality at the site of his victory. He continued to return nightly, even after Oswald disqualified him from coupons.
Chloe, however, did not return. Oswald took to scouring his new Dewey Times, reading gossip columns and tabloids for the first time in his life, probing for mentions of the burgeoning star. And then, one day about eight months later, an envelope arrived.
It contained an invitation to the wedding of Miss Chloe Caportni and one Tobias Flynn, as well as a handwritten note from Chloe. They had met over the course of filming West over the Nile, Chloe wrote him. The tabloids had been so sure that the one-and-only Gregor Huntington would be the man to finally sweep Chloe off her feet that the public’s gushing response to her choosing his secretary instead had made her an immediate idol.
Tobias, according to Chloe, was the first man she ever found who did not just love her for her looks. In fact, even when alone together, all he ever did was regale her with stories of England and the Andes, regularly recounting the most momentous moments of cinema that only occurred because of his proficiency in shorthand. He did not mind her flights of fancy, her hours of dazed silence. And (“if I’m being honest with you, Oswald,” she’d said) she was certain there was some looming secret deep within Tobias that so intrigued her she decided she would be perfectly happy never to discover it.
Oswald attended the wedding. He drank as only one who buys wholesale liquor can. He hurled a champagne flute to the floor, yanked Chloe out of her chair for a dance, and was ejected from the venue so publicly that The Goose’s Club was never empty again.
Tucker returned to his post as poleman. He remained without disgrace or promotion until Nancy Adelman passed away at the ripe old age of eighty-nine wherein he promptly retired. He cashed his inheritance—not quite as much as expected; it turned out Nancy’s salary had been affected by her thirtieth birthday after all— and made the sacrilegious decision to elect square-footage over address. He coasted through his remaining years in a two-story Victorian fifteen minutes further south of Sunset that his mother’s living friends thought suitable.
All the while, Mr. Arnold Springwald’s movies flourished. It was soon unnecessary for him to make them at all