Pam Ella Trent breezed into the ornate
lobby of the Hotel Savoy in downtown Kansas City, Missouri at noon on the dot.
She planned her appearance to coincide with the rush and bustle of luncheon
diners who made their treks through the lobby at that time en route to the
hotel’s elegant eatery. Scribbling her signature on napkins, scraps of paper,
and porter cards, Miss Trent received her fans, women and men, who recognized
her instantly.
Spending nearly half an hour wrapped in the glow of her
admirers, Miss Trent finally and reluctantly excused herself to join two men
who were waiting for her outside the main entrance to the Savoy. On the
sidewalk stood an earnest, rail thin, bespectacled, twenty-something reporter
for ‘Hollywood Chatterbox,’ Handy Weather. Calmly watching the rookie scribe
rock back and forth from leg to leg, was the aging chauffeur at Miss Trent’s
service on that part of the circuit, a sharecropper’s son and the grandson of
slaves. Currently called Clyde, the old fellow used various monikers at
different junctures in his life.
A full hour earlier, Clyde had double-parked a bluegray
Packard in front of the hotel’s entrance, during which time he simply ignored
the blooming wrath engendered by the hefty motorcar blocking the
trafficway.
Quite like a peppy mongrel pup, Handy Weather was on Pam
Ella Trent’s heels the moment she set foot onto the sidewalk fronting the
Savoy.
“Miss Trent?” Handy blathered.
Spinning around to face Handy, Miss Trent prepared to
autograph another paper scrap for a fan.
“I am,” she boasted, batting her heavily made up eyes.
“Oh, Miss Trent, I’m Handy Weather.”
Pursing her lips, Miss Trent did not understand what the
reporter said, unable to hear over the din of yet another horn of a passing
auto bearing still one more driver delayed by the offending Packard.
“The weather? Is what?” she asked, plainly
irritated.
Cupping his hands over his mouth to form a makeshift
bullhorn, Handy Weather repeated his introduction.
Improvidently screaming when the passing motorist ceased
laying on the horn, Handy Weather bellowed: “I’m a reporter from ‘Hollywood
Chatterbox’.”
Pam Ella Trent’s eyes popped wide open, her face looking
quite like a quickly uprighted ceramic doll with movable lids.
“Reporter?” Miss Trent cooed.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m to go with you to Topeka
today.”
“Oh my, yes,” she replied, having no idea what Handy
Weather was talking about.
No longer particularly listening to the cub reporter she
asked: “‘Hollywood Chatterbox’, then?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Delicious,” she exclaimed, turning to
Clyde the chauffeur. “Floyd, let’s be off.”
Clyde courteously tipped his driving cap, ignoring the
misnomer, used to being called many names.
Handy followed Miss Trent into the broad, leather rear seat
of the Packard. Clyde wasted little time in maneuvering the auto into the flow
of traffic. “Now, tell me, Randy …” “Handy,” he corrected.
Miss Trent believed he referred to the ever-ready reporter’s
notepad that he held rather than correcting her abuse of his name.
“Oh, yes, handy,” she replied. “Now, Randy, tell me, will
this be a cover story?”
“It’s Handy,” he repeated.
“Yes, love. It’s a handy little pad you have there. So
Randy, will this be a cover story?”
Resigned, Handy advised the actress that the piece on her
was intended for the cover.
“Delicious,” she enthused as Clyde pointed the automobile
west towards Topeka.
“My editor and your manager agreed that I can stay with you
through your show tonight, backstage, even.”
“Of course,” Miss Trent firmly responded despite lacking
any prior recollection of anything Handy discussed.
The mid-July afternoon was a scorcher. The plains’ inferno
took a toll on the corn crops. As the Packard sped towards the Kansas capital
city, fields on each side of the roadway featured weather weary sentinels:
drooping, drying, stalks of corn.
Handy scribbled here and there on his narrow notepad as he
chatted with the actress during the seventy-mile motor trek to Topeka.
“So, Miss Trent, you began the circuit in
New York?”
“Yes, Andy, we did. We began at the Apollo. It was a
delicious start.”
“And, you end in Hollywood?”
“Yes. And that will also be
delicious.”
“And you play thirty cities in between?”
“That’s right, Andy.”
Miss Trent diverted her attention from the reporter and on
towards Clyde in the front seat. “Bradley,” she sounded, not getting the
driver’s attention immediately because of the error in name. She patted on the
front car seat to get Clyde’s attention.
“Bradley, how long ’til Topeka?”
“About forty-five minutes, Miss Trent,”
Clyde replied. “Your show is a revue?”
Handy asked.
“Yes, a delightful revue. A revue of Broadway tunes from
’27, ’28, and ’29.”
“But not this year?” he asked.
“None from 1930, that’s right. But all the divine show
tunes from ’27, ’28, and ’29.” Miss Trent bubbled in her seat, sounding more
like a teenage schoolgirl than a sixty-year-old songstress.
“Will you do any films anytime soon?” Handy earnestly
inquired of the actress.
With pursed lips, nearly a frown, Miss Trent responded with
a terse, “Films?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Films?”
“Yes, ma’am. Any new films coming up?”
Miss Trent sat motionless, as if a brittle frost had
infiltrated the auto and chilled her stony solid. “No,” she replied, hardly
over a whisper.
“I love your films,” Handy noted, with a glowing
smile.
Warming up promptly, Miss Trent grabbed onto one of the
reporter’s hands with both of her own. “You do?” she beamed.
“Oh, yes, Miss Trent. I’ve seen them all,
every one.”
“Oh, my, Andy, that’s so kind.” She feigned embarrassment,
held her breath hoping her cheeks would flush.
“You’re my favorite, Miss Trent.”
“Oh, you’re a divine young man.”
“I bet your revue is packing them in, Miss
Trent.”
“Packing … them in,” she hesitated. “Well,
yes.”
Pam Ella Trent and Handy Weather continued to chat. Handy
occasionally scribbling a note or thought on his reporter’s pad. Within what
seemed like little time to the Packard’s passengers, they reached the outskirts
of Topeka.
“You know, Randy, the Governor will be at my performance
tonight.”
“The Governor?”
“Yes, Alf Landon, the Governor. You know, in nearly every
state I’ve performed, the Governor has come.”
“I’m not surprised,” Handy fawned. “You’re just the
best”
“Randy, you’re so lovely.”
Clyde interrupted the conversation between Miss Trent and
the reporter for the first time since the auto trip commenced. “We’ll be at
your hotel in a few minutes, Miss Trent.”
“Marvelous. I could use a nap.” Turning to Handy, she
fluffed her hair and added, “Beauty sleep, you know.”
Handy bowed his head, like a shy schoolboy laying an apple
on the teacher’s desk. “Aw, Miss Trent, you’d be beautiful with no sleep at
all.”
“You’re spoiling me, Andy,” she swooned. “I’ll never be
able to sit for another interview again. Not ever, ever.”
“Rupert!” Miss Trent called out to the driver. “Rupert!”
she repeated.
“Oh, yes ma’am,” Clyde finally replied, realizing he was
being called upon.
“Rupert, how far is the hotel from the
theater?”
“Right next door, ma’am. Actually connected. Plus, the
theater has refrigerated air.”
She giggled with delight. “And they say everything’s up to
date in New York City.”
Within a few minutes, the Packard pulled up to the Hotel
Jayhawk.
Clyde hurried to open Miss Trent’s door and then that of
her ride-along guest. She strutted into the lobby with Handy shuffling behind,
Clyde hoisting her luggage out of the trunk.
Pam Ella Trent looked obviously disappointed to find the
lobby empty except for a bald reservation clerk and a bellman sound asleep on a
chair near the main entrance. She snorted, clearly displeased.
“Franklin!” she shouted, again for Clyde. He was quicker on
his feet in that instance.
“Ma’am?” he replied, weighed down with the lady’s
luggage.
“There’s no one here,” she snapped.
Clyde scoured the lobby, spotting the desk clerk and the
dozing bellman. He wondered who else would be necessary. He only wished the
bellman was alert and not snoozing. He needed help with Miss Trent’s traveling
packs.
Handy knew to what Miss Trent referred and shuttled up to
her side. “Miss Trent, the folks here obviously didn’t know when you were
scheduled to arrive or this lobby, this whole city block, would be filled with
your people … your fans.”
Handy’s exuberant style made Miss Trent’s face beam.
“Oh, Andy,” she gushed, shortly stopping and bestowing full
attention on the eager reporter. “You’re such a dear.”
Handy blushed, scraping the tip of his left shoe across the
terrazzo tile floor. Clyde, in the meantime, had reached the reservation
service desk and advised the clerk of Miss Trent’s arrival. The desk clerk
fumbled about clearing some loose papers off the counter. He then licked his
fingertips and slid them across the wispy ring of hair on each side of his
balding head.
Handy and Miss Trent reached the reservation desk at the moment
the clerk finished fiddling with his thin mane.
“Miss Trent,” he greeted, his nasal, high pitched, nearly
whining voice causing Pam Ella Trent and Handy Weather to actually wince.
“Good afternoon,” she replied with
flourish.
“I’m so excited to have you here,” the clerk went on.
Miss Trent raised her arm and bent her hand
forward at her wrist: “Go on.”
“Really. And I have a ticket for your show. I got a ticket,
I did.”
“How wonderful! I am so glad you will be
there.”
“Me, too! Me, too!” the desk clerk bounced as he
spoke.
The clerk turned his attention towards Handy and
frowned.
“Do you have a reservation?” he snapped, acting as if Handy
Weather invaded his domain.
Handy nodded, grinning. Miss Trent spoke extolling Handy’s
praises. “He’s a reporter for ‘Hollywood
Chatterbox.’ He’s doing a story on me … a
cover story.”
In a condescending way, the clerk snorted: “Oh, a reporter.
The press.” He wholly refocused on Miss Trent and told the actress the hotel
set aside the best suite for her stay.
“Delightful,” she replied.
Looking down his nose, over the top of his glasses, the
clerk told Handy he would find a room for the reporter. Once he had Miss Trent
registered, he clapped his hands sharply twice, bringing around the dozing
bellman who moved to the desk as if waiting a command to service and not as a
man lumbering in sleep.
The clerk announced Pam Ella Trent as if boasting of a
newly obtained and precious possession. “The Jayhawk Suite,” the clerk
concluded, after which the bellman placed Miss Trent’s luggage on a porter’s
cart.
“Will you need me any more this afternoon?” Clyde
diligently inquired.
“No, Emerson. Be back tomorrow in time for me to get to
Kansas City and the airfield.” Turning to the clerk, she spouted that her next
show was the following night in Denver. Facing Handy, Miss Trent rattled: “Then
off to Salt Lake, Boise, Seattle, San Francisco, and Hollywood.”
“It’s great,” Handy enthused.
“Yes!” Miss Trent agreed.
“What about my room?” Handy asked of the clerk. The clerk
responded by waving him off.
“Take Miss Trent to her suite,” the clerk directed the
porter, pointing towards the elevators. “If you need anything at all, Miss
Trent, you just ring on down. I’ll be on duty until your show.”
“Wonderful.”
The desk clerk asked for Miss Trent’s autograph, which she
scribbled on a guest ticket. She started off towards the elevators; two double
sets of golden doors, the bellman following closely behind.
“Miss Trent,” Handy called after the
actress.
She spun around, her dress easily twirling.
“Yes,
Randy?”
“My interview …” his voice trailed
off.
“Oh, of course dear. You meet me here in the lobby, say, at
six tonight. Then we’ll go off to my dressing room at the theater and you can do
your interview there.”
“Great,” he eagerly agreed.
Miss Trent stepped into the elevator, leaving the clerk and
Handy Weather standing in the lobby with longing eyes like two whelping pups.
Clyde grinned wryly and slightly shook his head, making for the door and the
shiny Packard.
Ensconced in the heavily appointed suite, Miss Trent
quickly abandoned her day clothes and slipped into a lavender silk dressing
gown. She poured herself a gin with a spritz of tonic and took a seat on an
emerald plush chaise.
Handy
was ushered to a simple room on the hotel’s second floor. He spent the
afternoon sketching penciled pictures of cats, dogs and ducks. The reservation
clerk spent the afternoon doodling ‘Pam Ella Trent’ on guest cards and bellman
receipts.
Miss Trent’s revue’s staging director arrived in Topeka
nearly two hours behind the star, stuck in Kansas City dealing with a
frustrated costumer who needed to be coaxed, cajoled and finally cleanly bribed
to continue with the circuit. He was frantic and irritable when he reached the
Jayhawk Theater.
The Jayhawk Theater, nearly ten years old, was a graceful
venue. The elaborate décor and resplendent lighting created the perfect
environment for traveling vaudevillians, play actors, and other sundry
performers who trooped across the heartland. When opened, at a festive gala
still well recalled in the Midwestern city, the State Theater of Kansas proudly
proclaimed its refrigerated air and fine facilities as making the Jayhawk a
‘haven for performers and audiences alike’.
By the time Hartford Wayclocks, the staging director,
arrived in Topeka, late, he was so disorganized, perturbed, he stormed into the
gaily elegant theater barely taking in any of the accoutrements and trappings.
The chilled air, however, braced him like an icy splash.
The Jayhawk Theater’s manager nervously waited at the main
entrance, a post he maintained for over ninety minutes, anxiously expecting the
well-overdue director of Pam Ella Trent’s revue. He dramatically gasped, with
theatrical relish, when Hartford Wayclocks finally appeared at the show
palace.
“Where have you been?” the theater manager asked, trying to
hide his anger behind a flat, even Midwestern drone.
“Problems,” the life-long New Yorker, with matching accent,
snapped.
“Follow me,” the theater manager, resigned, prompted. He
led Hartford Wayclocks through the plush, dimly lit auditorium up to the stage
where redfaced and tiring hands busied themselves setting up for the revue.
“Things seem to be getting in order,” the manager remarked, doing his best not
to sound snide.
“Thank God,” Hartford exclaimed, relieved. He imagined the
stage and house to be in disarray because of his tardy appearance. “Did Miss
Trent stop in?”
“No.”
“No?” Hartford, somewhat surprised,
asked.
“No.” The manager’s voice remained as level as a Kansas
plain, leaving Hartford unable to determine how the chap felt.
“Is she here?” Hartford asked, meaning in
Topeka.
“No,” the manager replied, an edge of frustration inching
into his voice.
“No?”
“I’ve told you that, Mr Wayclocks.”
“I mean, is she in Topeka?” Hartford
clarified.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t.”
Muttering to himself, Hartford decided to dash next door to
the hotel to see if the leading, indeed the show’s only lady, had arrived. Without saying another word to the manager,
Hartford dismounted the stage and started plodding through the empty house. He
turned when he reached the back rows and asked how the house looked for the
night.
The manager replied by sticking his arm out straight, hand
flat, and tipping his hand slightly from side to side. “So-so,” he
replied.
“Damn!” Hartford shot, slapping his own thigh before
exiting the theater.
While Hartford Wayclocks bustled over to the hotel, Pam
Ella Trent poured herself another gin with a dinky dash of tonic water. She
opened her cosmetic bag, sifting around until she found a vial of lavender
bubble bath, the color matching her silken dressing gown. Making her way to the
bathroom, tiled in powder blue, she twisted on the tub’s faucet to draw herself
a steaming bath. Directly before she plunged into the tub, as she dangled her
toes in the water, the telephone in her room clanged to life.
“Rats!” she blurted, quickly retreating from the bathroom,
snatching the phone.
“Yes?” she answered.
“Miss Trent?” Hartford Wayclocks asked, phoning from the
lobby.
“Yes?” She still did not recognize the director’s voice
even after several months of rehearsals and performances.
“It’s Hartford … Wayclocks,” he
sighed.
“Love, how are you?”
“What’s the matter with the costume for the finale?” he
bluntly asked, referring to his battle that morning in Kansas City with the
seamstress who almost abandoned ship.
“That’s correct,” she snipped back.
Not understanding, he asked Miss Trent what she meant.
“Hartford,” she purred, “it looks like a costume. It should
look like … no, no … it should be a
gown … a delicious, beaded gown.”
“Miss Trent,” he sighed, tightly shutting his eyes and then
jabbing his eyelids with two fingers. “It is the same dress you’ve worn in
every show since we started the circuit. Why now? Why change now?” “Hartford,” she cooed.
“But Miss Trent …”
“Hartford …” she interrupted.
“I’ll stay on it,” he surrendered.
“You’re delicious.”
At precisely six o’clock, Pam Ella Trent descended on the
lift and entered the lobby like a grand dame, gowned in white silk and velvet,
bejeweled in dazzling sapphires. Handy Weather stiffly sat on a couch in the
lobby, the reservation clerk outside his post scurried across to meet Miss
Trent. The bellman, again asleep, lightly snored. A half dozen others, five
hotel guests and a lost visiting minister looking for the First Presbyterian
Church some five blocks away, idled in the lobby until Pam Ella Trent appeared.
They all, including the black clad preacher, swept up to the actress.
Miss Trent spent several minutes taking their praise and
writing her name on snips and snatches of paper. She caught sight of Handy,
smiling, on the sofa.
“Oh, dear,” she told her clutch of fans. “I must go. The
press is here, you see. A reporter from ‘Hollywood
Chatterbox’ covering my revue.”
She sashayed across the lobby to join
Handy.
“Randy!” she greeted, beaming ear to
ear.
“Miss Trent,” he replied, quickly
scrambling to his feet. “You look … fantastic.”
She giggled like a teenaged girl before a summer cotillion.
Together they left the hotel and walked to the theater. “We’ll visit in my
dressing room,” she explained to the earnest scribe.
The theater manager, dutifully flitting about the house,
escorted Miss Trent and the young reporter backstage to the actress’ designated
dressing room. A spray of two dozen white roses sat in a crystal vase on a
mahogany table in the center of the smallish room. Miss Trent made a beeline at
once for the blooms, inhaling a healthy dose of their fragrance.
“Delicious,” she sighed.
At the time she arrived, the room was softly lit; the more
garish roundabout of white light bulbs surrounding a large makeup mirror
remained unlit. Miss Trent graciously asked Handy to join her, to sit with her
on a loveseat-sized sofa of burgundy chintz. He propped his ever-present
reporter’s notepad on his knee and began to interview the star.
The couple spent over an hour discussing Miss Trent’s
various films and then drifted into a discussion of her early life.
“I’m from West Virginia, you know,” she remarked at one
point. Handy, in fact, did not.
“Oh, it’s true,” she said, her gaze drifting off to the
white roses and away from Handy Weather.
“I never heard that before,” Handy remarked, suddenly
flipping through his pages of notes as if the information on Pam Ella Trent’s
birth and early life might instantly appear in the midst of his
scratchings.
“My father …” she continued, staring at the roses and in a
gentle, mellow tone of voice Handy had not yet heard. “Papa … he mined
coal.”
Handy stopped flitting through the sheets of notes, put his
pen on the sofa, down at his side.
“Mama … Mama …” Handy thought, for a fleeting moment, that
Miss Trent’s eyes nearly pooled in tears. “She passed … Mama passed on when I
was thirteen. I had six older brothers, Andy, and one younger sister.”
Miss Trent smiled, a misty look, as if lost in the tender
white rose petals.
“Poor … we were, of course, poor … lived in a small house,
really only two rooms. We lived not so far from Virginia … that end of West Virginia,
in a small town called Galaxy Falls.”
“I’ve never heard any of this,” Handy mumbled. “The studio
says … well, there’s nothing of this in what the studio writes about you.”
“I imagine not,” she knowingly smiled.
“I thought you were from California.”
Miss Trent shyly grinned. “For the past twenty years,
Randy, I almost believed I was from
California myself.” “How’d you get
there, Miss Trent?”
Sadly, slowly, she explained that her father was killed in
a mine fire when she was fifteen. “My brothers were just old enough to be on
their own. My sister was just young enough to be terribly innocent, needy you
see. But, there I was … lost, really, in the middle of it all.”
In Handy’s eyes, Miss Trent – Pam Ella – suddenly appeared
differently. She seemed vulnerable, gentle, kindly, soft.
Before either Handy or Miss Trent spoke further, a stern
rapping came from the other side of the dressing room door.
“Miss Trent?” the man’s voice called
out.
Once more not recognizing the voice of her show’s director,
she panned: “I wonder who that could be?”
Just as quickly as her expression and features had become
delicate and fragile, she bloomed fully back into Pam Ella Trent, the
indomitable star.
She moved to the door with a flurry that belied the rather
tight quarters. Popping the door open, she found Hartford Wayclocks standing in
front of her.
“Hartford!” she exclaimed, as if not having set eyes on the
man for years, rather than hours.
“Miss Trent,” he responded, far more
subdued. “You know,” she puffed, “the
press is here.”
Hartford looked confused. “Here?” he
asked.
“Here,” she enthused, gesturing at Handy Weather. “Randy
Winter,” she incorrectly continued, “my director, Hartford Wayclocks.”
Hartford moved towards Handy, who stood and flushed
crimson.
“You’re with ‘The Tattler?’” Hartford asked, referring to a
scandal rag.
Handy meekly shook his head. “No.”
Hartford barely paid attention to Handy’s response,
focusing on Miss Trent, who he believed had concocted a story to cover the
young man’s presence in her dressing room.
“I thought …” Hartford said to Miss Trent in a paternal
tone. “I thought ‘The Tattler’ reporter met up with us tomorrow in
Denver.”
“Oh, no, Love, the press is here now,” Miss Trent grandly
replied, gesturing magnificently at Handy Weather. “He’s with ‘Hollywood
Chatterbox,’ Hartford.”
Hartford
frowned, displeased. Nonetheless, he carried on and asked if everything in the
dressing room was satisfactory.
“Aren’t the flowers delicious?” she asked. “I’ve never seen
anything like them.”
Hartford rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Miss Trent always
insisted on two dozen white roses in her dressing room and the buds and
blossoms always looked the same. “Right,” he muttered.
“Are we sold out again?” she asked.
Pam Ella Trent’s revue had not sold out one night during
the circuit, Hartford obviously knew.
“No,” he tersely responded.
“Well, fiddle-dee-dee,” she replied, waving a hand in front
of her face. “I’m sure by show time the house will be filled.”
She asked Hartford what the time was for curtain.
Throughout the entire circuit, curtain was set for eight o’clock each night.
Mouthing “eight” directly to Miss Trent, Hartford exited the dressing room, the
door slamming behind him.
“I really must prepare,” Miss Trent advised when they were
left alone.
Handy looked bruised, hurt like a boy child who misplaced
his baseball mitt.
“Can we finish this later?” he meekly asked the star.
“Of course! We’ll celebrate the show – with Champagne.” She
directed Handy to return to her dressing room when the curtain fell.
The doors of the Jayhawk opened to the public at seven
o’clock. By show time the house ended up threequarters full, a respectable
turnout with unreserved arrivals.
The petite orchestra traveling with the revue struck
up the overture directly after eight
o’clock. As the curtain rose, a solitary spotlight with a blue gel cast a soft
circle of light center stage. There stood Pam Ella Trent, resplendent in a
sleek satin gown, rose colored, with a blood red boa wrapping her neck and
falling down her front and back.
Accepting the applause of her faithful fans with a regal
thrust of both arms, hands upward, she then greeted: “Good evening.”
The dutiful orchestra struck up the opening tune, which
Miss Trent belted out with vim and flare. Fortyfive minutes later, she wound
down the first half of her show with a bluesy medley of songs from a Broadway
cabaret of 1928.
The curtain fell as the audience stood in ovation. Miss
Trent stood center stage with folded hands and head bowed, a prayerful stance.
She remained frozen in that position for over ninety seconds after the curtain
fell and the house lights went up. She then whisked off stage to her dressing
room, lightly moving between crew and props like a dainty sprite.
Hartford Wayclocks waited for Miss Trent directly outside
her dressing room door.
“Isn’t it a divine night,” she gushed, swirling past
Hartford into her space. He had to admit the show progressed well, the audience
pleased.
A dressmaker’s dummy stood square center in the dressing
room with a new, replacement gown hanging neatly.
“Better?” Hartford asked, referring to the
gown.
“Delicious,” she broadly smiled, waving the stage director
off so she could re-garb. She wasted no time in putting on the new gown, a
crepe and beaded creation in ivory.
During intermission, the gathered theatergoers milled
around the lobby, pleasantly discussing their approval of the show.
“She’s so elegant,” a plump, merry lady of Topeka society
remarked to recognized folk time and time again.
“Her gown … majestic,” commented another similarly situated
woman.
“Her voice, like an angel. Two angels, in fact,” the city’s
Mayor crooned.
“Time of my life,” the bare crowned hotel desk clerk told a
handsome couple who attended his church.
Within twenty minutes, the lobby lights flashed, the house
lights began to dim. The patrons hurried back to their thickly upholstered
seats, cool refrigerated air swirling about the theater despite the mid-summer
night and the gaggle of the formally dressed.
The musicians in the pit mounted the overture for the
second act, a lightly tuned lead in to Miss Trent’s reopening number. The
curtain rose with Miss Trent center stage, resplendently illuminated and
perfectly poised.
Her performance for the final half of the evening’s show
was flawlessly made, a perfect presentation in all respects. She rounded out
the revue with a finale featuring a rousing showstopper from the hit musical of
1929 on the Great White Way. After the initial curtain call, Miss Trent took
three more before the jocular crowd gave way, ending their steady ovation.
Miss Trent retired to her dressing room, awaiting Handy
Weather to conclude his interview for the ‘Hollywood Chatterbox.’ Ten minutes
passed before she heard a knock at the door. Expecting the reporter, she
instead found Hartford Wayclocks, the Jayhawk Theater manager, and the hotel
desk clerk standing beyond the threshold.
Hartford wore a queerly satisfied expression while the
manager and the clerk shifted nervously from side to side.
“We have news,” Hartford piped up.
“Entrez,” Miss Trent graciously invited. “The press will be
here soon,” she added. Hartford smiled at the remark.
“Your reporter friend …” Hartford said slyly, turning to
the theater manager. “What’s his name?”
“Weather … Handy Weather.”
“Delightful man,” Miss Trent interjected. “And a wonderful
reporter. Very successful.”
The same impish smile swept over Hartford’s face. “Yes,
well …” he replied. “That’s our news.”
“Oh, Miss Trent,” the reservation clerk from the
neighboring Hotel Jayhawk blathered. “It’s horrible, just terrible.”
A baffled look crossed Miss Trent’s face. “Yes?” she asked
tentatively.
“Your reporter friend,” Hartford stated, with definite
relish.
“Is Randy all right?” she asked.
“Your reporter friend,” Hartford continued as if Miss Trent
had not spoken. “He isn’t a reporter at all,” he said, savoring the
moment.
Miss Trent furrowed her brow, raised a finger to her ruby
lips.
“It’s just horrible,” the clerk muttered his earlier
mantra.
Hartford chuckled heartily. “Turns out,” he stated, almost
in a boast, “turns out your friend the reporter, this Handy Weather … turns out
Handy Weather, he walked off from the State Insane Asylum a few days back.
Walked away, ended up in Kansas City, ended up playing reporter.”
Miss Trent let out a short whimper, quickly covering her
mouth fully with the previously poised hand. The desk clerk solemnly shook his
head, grieving that the film star had been duped. Trying to boost Miss Trent,
he remarked that he “was certain that young fellow was up to no good.”
Having almost savagely struck with his news, Hartford
casually announced that he and his temporary cohorts would take their leave.
Left to herself in the dressing room, Miss Trent methodically changed out of
the new gown.
She departed her dressing room, walked across the lonely
stage where a man was busy sweeping. Their eyes met and for an instant she
brightened like a star. Taking the steps at stage left, she walked through the
empty house, through the lobby and out onto the street.
As Pam Ella Trent walked back to the hotel, light rain
began to fall.
Mike Broemmel
www.mikebroemmel.com
