The Chelsea Girls(19)
One window looked out west, across the roof of the synagogue next door, while the French door in the main room faced north. She turned the knob and stepped out onto the narrow, lacy balcony.
Five stories below, traffic zoomed along Twenty-Third Street.
With a start, she realized what was wrong with her play: the setting. It was far too specific and unwieldy. What if she set the story in a grand hotel, like the Chelsea, but one that’s crumbling away in a war zone, under siege, with only a handful of guests left? Forget nationalities, make it a war story that’s not tied to any particular war, so the characters are stripped down to their essence. They suspect there’s an enemy in their midst, an enemy who insists he works for the resistance. It would raise questions of patriotism and nationalism, faithfulness and betrayal, everything that had churned inside Hazel from her time in Italy.
Hazel reconsidered the strange person she’d observed in the lobby. What if one of the leading men was actually a leading lady, but her gender wasn’t revealed right away? Hazel thought of Shakespeare, who often had girls wearing drag in order to remain safe in a dangerous world—Rosalind, Viola. If she layered in a love story between the two leads, the whole thing would truly sing.
She practically skipped back to the desk and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter. Fingers poised on the keys, she considered how many other writers had stayed here, in this hotel. She could almost feel the ghosts of former guests pressing around her, encouraging her. This place was a living, breathing muse, one that coddled its guests and kept them warm while they scribbled away. Or, from the sound of the piano she’d heard in the hallway and the artwork in the lobby, composed or sang or painted.
She’d come this far, and her only goal over the next few days was to rework the play, following this new inspiration. That accomplishment might spur her on to pursue a different path, a way out of the grind of playing barn animals on the radio. Once the play was ready, she even might work up the courage to gather together some actor friends to read through it, and get a sense of what worked and what didn’t. For now, though, in the quiet of her room, she would take it page by page.
* * *
On Hazel’s second day at the Chelsea Hotel, a desk clerk called her over as she entered the lobby on her way back from a quick lunch at the corner Automat. She’d been up all night, fueled by coffee and the words that tumbled out of her fingers onto the pages, and was eager to get back to work.
“Miss Ripley? You have a message.” He plucked a piece of paper from one of the cubbyholes.
It was an invitation to a cocktail party later that evening, up on the seventh floor, signed Miss Lavinia Smarts.
The actress who knew Maxine. “I’ve never met her. How does she know who I am?” she asked the clerk.
The clerk laughed. “Mr. Bard, of course. He’s been talking you up all around the place. As our new writer in residence.”
Considering Mr. Bard had never read a page she’d written, his enthusiasm was certainly misplaced. Still, she couldn’t help but puff up a little.
She’d planned on writing all evening. Going to a party might disrupt the flow of creativity that had invigorated her the past two days, the clacking of the typewriter the only sound other than the honks from the cars far below. Her revisions were almost complete.
The clerk shook his head, as if reading her mind. “Best not to decline. There are rules of etiquette at the Chelsea, you know.”
“What rules?”
“One never knocks on the door of a room during the day, when the writers are writing or the artists are at work. Instead, messages should be left down here. Once evening falls, all rules are off and you’ll find folks tripping from room to room as if it’s Mardi Gras. Oh, and never turn down an invitation from Miss Smarts.”
“I won’t know anyone. I’m not sure I’ll fit in.”
“You do already, my dear.”
She wasn’t sure from his raised eyebrow whether that was a good or a bad thing, but she decided she must attend. It would give her a good story to tell, and who knows who she’d meet? A few hours later, after another furious bout of writing, Hazel reluctantly pulled herself away. She put on her favorite lilac dress and powdered her nose before taking the elevator up to the seventh floor.
The party was already in full swing. Miss Smarts’s apartment was similar in layout to her own, but in the center of the salon stood a grand piano, piled with sheets of music spilling onto the floor around it. A drink was placed in her hand without her asking—a martini—and she made her way to a velvet couch, hoping to observe the goings-on without having to interact.
No luck.
Two older women, identical twins wearing matching dresses and bright pink shoes, plunked down on either side of Hazel and introduced themselves as Winnifred on the left and Wanda to her right. “You’re the new writer Mr. Bard is talking about, right?”
“News spreads fast.”
“Sure does,” said Winnifred. “We’ve lived here for ages. Anything you want to know, just ask us.”
Hazel looked about. “Where’s Lavinia Smarts?”
“She likes to make a grand entrance once the party’s in high gear,” answered Wanda. “In the meantime, let me tell you who is here. That man over there is Virgil Thomson, the composer.”