Chapter Eight Fran

Chapter Eight

Fran

Manhattan, New York

1959

"So it's true? The scene with the curtains is true?" Fran is aware that she's talking far too loudly in the dining room of the St. Regis, but she honestly can't help herself. She had assumed the scene where Maria had turned her curtains into playclothes for the children was an invention of the scriptwriters.

"Oh, it was real." Maria looks pleased with herself. "And a few weeks later the children all had matching outfits in yellow and green damask."

Fran has completely forgotten about her food. "And the Baroness? What did she say?"

"Nothing." Maria gives a little shrug. "It was already done."

"She didn't threaten to fire you?"

Maria chuckles. "The moment she saw them, she was shocked into silence. By the time she recovered, the only thing she could think to tell me was that she hoped the Captain had a strong sense of humor."

Fran sits back and smiles. "I wish I could see a picture of the Baroness. She sounds formidable."

"She was certainly set in her ways." Maria sighs, and Fran can see that her thoughts are somewhere else. "So what is to be done about the play?"

Fran has been waiting for this. "Well, I don't feel as if I've heard anything that's terribly different from what's written in the script."

Maria stiffens. "Because I haven't told you yet about Georg, or Father Wasner, or what happened to us when the Nazis came to power. And I can tell you, none of that is in the script."

Fran clears her throat. It's twelve o'clock, and Mr. Hammerstein probably has a pile of papers ripped from his yellow legal pad on her desk, waiting to be typed. "You're here for a week, is that right?"

Maria dabs her lips with a napkin. "Until Sunday."

"What if we meet here tomorrow at the same time and you finish telling me what concerns you? Or we could try somewhere new."

"We can meet wherever you like. The St. Regis. Central Park. Alfredo's Italian restaurant. What concerns me is the script, and almost all of it is bockmist, Miss Connelly."

Fran isn't sure what bockmist means, but it probably isn't German for wonderful. "Please," she reminds Maria, "it's just Fran."

"Well, Fran, the beginning of the script may be fine, but I can tell you that the rest bears only the remotest resemblance to my life."

"I'm going to read your autobiography tonight," Fran promises. She motions for the waiter and quietly tells him to place the bill on Hammerstein's tab. Then she rises. "We all want this to be something you're proud of." She leads the way across the lobby and back out into the sun. "Why don't we meet in the park tomorrow?" No point in wasting such glorious weather.

Maria gives a pointed glance at Fran's heels. "For sitting?"

Fran smiles. "Walking. I'll bring a change of shoes. We can start at the Bethesda Fountain."

At the office, everyone is getting ready for lunch.

"She returns!" Peter exclaims, grabbing his jacket off the rack while Fran takes hers off. "Well? What was she like?"

"Maria?" Fran settles behind her desk and takes a moment to think. "Like that stern grandmother you're slightly afraid of."

Peter laughs and the sound fills the office. "Really?" He looks like he wants to hear more, but Jack's face is stone.

"Don't tell any of this to Hammerstein right now. He's on a roll."

Fran looks at the closed door. "Writing?" she asks eagerly.

Peter snaps his briefcase shut. "Rodgers was in here earlier. Pretty sure there's going to be a new song."

"Shall we bring you back lunch?" Jack asks, buttoning his suit jacket.

"I had lunch with Maria, but thank you."

Jack hesitates. "She didn't mention wanting to put a stop to the play?" he asks, lowering his voice.

Fran glances at the closed door. "She's upset. But the rights don't belong to her."

"She could still be bad press," Jack warns. His father is a congressman. Bad press is even worse than bad policy.

"I'm meeting her again tomorrow morning," Fran says.

"I doubt Hammerstein wants this to drag on," he warns. "Tell her whatever she wants to hear, then he can keep her away from the premiere, let the reviews roll in, and that will be that." When he sees the look on Fran's face, he leans across the desk and briefly kisses her cheek. "It's the kindest thing to do. You sure you don't want anything?"

She shakes her head, and when the office clears out, she starts on the pile of yellow papers neatly arranged in the corner of her desk. Most are letters to various journalists, reminding them about the premiere in six weeks. Another batch of the same letters will go out in three weeks, then three days before opening night. It takes over an hour to type up the reminders, and Fran is finishing the last one when a door creaks.

"Miss Connelly!" Hammerstein looks as surprised as he sounds. "You must let me know if I've given you so much work that you have to skip lunch."

Fran laughs. "I'm not being as industrious as it looks. I just returned from the meeting with Mrs. von Trapp."

Hammerstein's face grows serious. "The author." He nods, as if he's steeling himself for some very bad news. "What did she say?"

"Well, the script doesn't seem to deviate much from the beginning of her life. She told me about her whistling in the nunnery and the curtains."

"Ah, yes." Hammerstein breaks into a smile, and Fran suspects that he admires Maria's impudence.

"However, she's asked that I see her tomorrow so she can finish her story. And I'm guessing this is the point where there will be some…deviation."

Hammerstein shoves his hands deep into his pockets. "When Lindsey and Crouse wrote this script, they based it on the German film because it had been so successful. Perhaps I should've had a hand in the script," he says defeatedly. "Let me know what she tells you."

Hammerstein looks tired, pale even, and suddenly it occurs to Fran to ask, "Is everything all right?"

The front door to the office swings open and Hammerstein's assistants come piling in, all big energy and noisy feet.

"Just a little stomach pain," he says quietly. "Nothing that won't right itself," he adds with a smile. Then he grabs his jacket and is gone.

As soon as the door clicks shut, the assistants crowd around Fran's desk.

"Is he leaving?" Peter asks. "Did he just say he's sick?"

"Stomach pain," Fran whispers.

The office goes quiet, then Jack says, "He'll be fine. Look at him. He's built like a tank."

A few of the other guys agree. Nothing has ever stopped Hammerstein, and in six weeks he'll be sitting at the opening of his forty-second show. Everyone has stomach pains now and again. Most of the assistants disappear into their offices, but Peter lingers next to Fran's wooden desk.

"He's been working on a new song," Peter says. "He gave it to us yesterday. Did Jack tell you what it's called?"

Fran shakes her head.

"?‘So Long, Farewell.'?"

Fran can feel the color drain from her face. Perhaps she's overreacting, but the title feels ominous, and she can tell that Peter senses it, too. "Hammerstein hasn't been himself, has he?"

"No." Peter slips his hands into his pockets. "And he's not working like he used to. He said there's still another song he wants to write, but it's not coming to him. So he's waiting."

Fran turns toward him. "For what?"

"I don't know. But he's never waited this late to finish lyrics. And now he's going home."

"Maybe he's just getting older," Fran says hopefully. "He has to be almost sixty-five."

Peter shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it on the rack. "I guess he has to slow down at some point."

"Hey." Fran thinks of something more cheerful. "Don't you have tickets for the Yves Montand Show tonight?"

Peter pauses on the way to his office and the corners of his mouth turn down. "Nah. Eva has rehearsals."

"I thought she was finished?"

"Ah, you know. Broadway…"

But Fran is certain Eva told her that rehearsals were finished when she passed her in the lobby last night.

"Anyway, I gave the tickets to Freddy. He and Sue really wanted them."

Fran makes a mental note to ask Eva about this the next time she sees her, then continues with her work. At five o'clock the grandfather clock in the hall begins to strike and there's a mad rush to the rack for jackets and hats, then a wait for a cab under the neon lights.

"So how did it really go this morning?" Jack asks.

"I'm not sure." A cab pulls over and they get inside.

"West Fifty-Fourth Street," Jack tells the driver, then turns to Fran. "You don't think she'll make trouble, do you?"

"She's upset, and I can't tell if she has reason to be yet. I'm reading her autobiography tonight, then we're meeting in the park tomorrow morning. So no need to pick me up."

Jack glances at Fran. "You're really into this."

Fran isn't sure what that's supposed to mean. "Hammerstein asked me to interview her. He wants me to take notes."

"I wouldn't put too much effort into this, Fran. You know he's just going to throw them away."

"Why would you say that?"

Jack looks surprised. "Because he doesn't actually want to know what Maria thinks. It's like asking your constituents how they feel about some new building project." He gives a hollow laugh. "It's going to happen anyway."

Lately, Jack's cynicism has begun to annoy her. "Hammerstein wouldn't waste my time like that. He'll read the notes."

Jack gives her a long look. "Fran, Hammerstein may write about happiness and kittens, but this is business. You don't think he's the most successful lyricist on Broadway because he changes his scripts every time there's a complaint?"

"And how many of his plays are based on someone's autobiography?" she challenges.

Jack slides his arm around her shoulders. "Look, I'm just saying I wouldn't waste too much time."

Fran leaves the cab feeling upset, and when Jack reminds her of their date tomorrow—"Keens, six o'clock"—she has half a mind to cancel. She walks through the lobby and tries to remember all the reasons she fell in love with him. How patient he was when he taught her to drive, how encouraging he used to be about her writing. She's still reminding herself of the things she loves about him when an "Oh, hello" in front of her makes her stop.

"Eva." Fran is shocked. Her friend is dressed for the evening in pink satin, with matching pink pumps and a sparkling handbag. "Peter said you had rehearsals."

Eva giggles. "Change of plan."

"But the tickets—"

A gloved hand waves away the question. "Do you see that out there?"

Fran turns. A car is waiting, long and sleek and red. Fran doesn't know much about cars, but she thinks it might be a Ferrari.

"That's Mack Russell," Eva confides.

Fran wonders if she's supposed to recognize the name, but before she can say anything, Eva gives her shoulder a friendly squeeze and walks out. She watches through the lobby's double doors as a tall man with broad shoulders and too wide of a grin holds the car door open. But it's not until they're gone that Fran feels she can move again.

Upstairs, she sits at her desk and tries to make sense of what just transpired. She's not sure why she's shocked. Eva had never shown more than a slight interest in Peter. But knowing what Eva is doing without his knowledge is so upsetting that she can't focus on her writing.

—

Fran is still thinking about it the next morning as she puts on her sneakers and walks over to Central Park. When she reaches the Bethesda Fountain, however, all thoughts of Eva and Peter vanish.

Maria is already there, surrounded by more than a dozen women. They've obviously recognized her from her bright green dirndl and giant crucifix. One has a baby buggy with her, and Maria is holding up a laughing toddler. After working for several years near Broadway, Fran has gotten to know actresses who are like alcoholics, who can't put down the act, and she wonders if perhaps Maria is one of these.

She approaches the scene slowly, listening from the back as the women tell stories about seeing the von Trapps for the first time. Fran remembers her parents talking about them, and seems to recall hearing them sing over the radio at Christmas when she was very young. But these women all seem to have heard her in person, and Maria is beaming. She bounces the little girl on her knee for some time, only giving the baby back when she catches sight of Fran.

"Excuse me," she announces. "I have a meeting with Oscar Hammerstein's office."

Fran takes a step back as everyone turns to look at Hammerstein's office, giving the women a little smile. But as the crowd disperses, Maria's smile falters.

"Do you know what I did in my hotel room last night?"

Fran shakes her head, trying to clear it.

"I reread the script that Mary Martin was kind enough to share with me. And it made me more upset than ever. They've changed everything!" she exclaims. "Who is Max? There was never any Max. And where is Father Wasner?" She starts walking, but this time Fran is prepared to keep up. "And that scene in the churchyard where everyone is hiding? Total fabrication!" Maria continues. "There were years between that Salzburg Festival and the Nazi Party coming for us!"

Fran waits for Maria to finish. "It sounds like a great deal of your story has been changed. But you were telling me yesterday about the playclothes," she reminds her.

"Oh, yes." Maria finally smiles. "The clothes…"