Underfoot In Show Business by Helene Hanff Read Free Book Online

all night in a railroad station!”
    And I thought: You won’t get any argument out of me, mister, there’s no place I wouldn’t rather sit.
    “Wouldn’t it be much better,” he said, “to go across the street to the Governor Clinton Hotel and get a good night’s sleep?”
    I don’t know why I couldn’t tell him I only had thirty-five cents, but I couldn’t. And since I was wearing my good suit and silk blouse he couldn’t guess it.
    “How will it be,” he suggested jovially, “if I escort you there myself?” And he bowed and offered his arm.
    I stood up and he took my arm and we left the station and walked across the street to the Governor Clinton, where the stationmaster explained to the desk clerk that this charming young lady had missed her train and needed a room for the night.
    And don’t think he didn’t stand there at my side till the desk clerk gave me a little cellophane bag with a nightgown and toothbrush in it and summoned a bellhop to take me up to my room.
    The bellhop took me up and unlocked the door and switched on the lights for me, and I tipped him a quarter—leaving me a total capital of ten cents, minus the cost of the room (and the nightgown and the toothbrush), which I hadn’t had the courage to ask about.
    I undressed, decided it was a lovely hotel, crawled into bed at quarter to four and slept like a baby till eleven-fifteen next morning.
    At eleven-sixteen I phoned Maxine. It was Saturday and I prayed her rehearsal wasn’t scheduled till noon, which was usual on a Saturday. God heard me and Maxine herself answered the phone.
    “You have to come down and get me out of here,” I said. “I’m at the Governor Clinton in a room I can’t pay for. I don’t even know how much it costs.”
    “Hang up, the operator may be listening in,” said Maxine. “I’ll be right down.”
    And she came down and paid the hotel bill. Since her play had been in rehearsal for three weeks and was due to open the following Tuesday (and close the following Saturday), Maxine was in funds and bought me a lavish breakfast before we had another weepy farewell and I went back to Philadelphia.
    My mother brushed aside the bad news about the play.
    “You’ve got a job!” she said. “In the press department of Life With Father. It’s on the second floor of the Walnut Street Theatre, you start Monday. A man just called an hour ago.”
    Oscar Serlin had given the press agent’s assistant a paid vacation for the remaining six weeks of the play’s run in Philadelphia—just to make room for me, so I could earn my way back to New York.
    Oscar and Charlie were only the beginning. During my two months in the Life With Father press office, through the two summer months when I worked as prop girl at a summer theatre in Philadelphia and on through September when I finally moved back to New York, I was positively besieged by producers. If producers Nos. 1 and 2 had conformed to Flanagan’s Law, the rest of them positively shouted it.
    Producer No. 3 was elderly and semiretired but he’d had a legendary career in his day.
    “Yours is the first play he’s been interested in in five years,” said my agent, impressed. “He wants to take you to lunch.”
    I met the legendary producer for lunch at the Algonquin, where for two hours he talked of his producing days, the great stars and playwrights he’d discovered and the contrasting sorry state of the contemporary theatre. When we parted, he wished me every success and certainly hoped one of these younger fellows would have the sense to produce my play. (Agent’s translation: “I guess he’s broke.”)
    Producer No. 4 telephoned me at midnight. I’d never heard of him but what did that matter?
    “I’ve just read your play and I’m so excited I can’t sleep!” he said. “Can you lunch with me tomorrow?”
    We lunched. He was an attractive young man and I gathered he had a private income. I asked what plays he’d produced.
    “None yet,” he said.