Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1940)

Want a Divorce (Continued from page 69) was sick at our house when the family doctor stopped in yesterday. But he was tired out and came in to rest before his next call. Then I had an inspiration. "Here's your medicine," I cried, handing him a stick of Beeman's. "Take this and relax." "Beeman's!", said he, "my favorite chewing gum. It's mighty good medicine for tired tastes. I'm really rested now. Send me your bill— your treatment is a treat." "I'm not going to wait a minute. It's been the same all the time lately. Oh, maybe not staying out all night, but never thinking about me — " "Jerry, will you listen a minute? I'm trying to tell you I had to fly to Reno in a hell of a hurry to talk to — " "Don't they have any telephones in Reno? See?" Jerry picked up the telephone, waving it at him. "One of the greatest little inventions. You give a number and get your wife and explain little things like that to her so she won't worry. Only takes a minute, just a tiny little bit of decent consideration!" "Didn't you get my message?" "What message?" "I told the porter at the airport. I told him to call — " "So you told the porter? With a phone in every drugstore in Reno — " She made a wide gesture with the telephone and Mac, his goaded temper running rampant, shouted, "Quit waving that thing at me!" He snatched the waving telephone from her hand, tore it loose from its moorings and threw it through the plate-glass window. Jerry regarded him with a cool stare. Then she started again for the door. "Jerry," Mac said. "You've got to hear me out. I had to go to Reno for Brandon on a divorce case that — " This was the red rag. When Jerry : turned she was hot with fury. "Divorce cases! Brandon! You do anything he tells you to do — " "When it means six thousand dollars in my pocket, I sure do." "Six thousand dollars for whose broken heart this time?" "What'd you mean? Are we going back over all that again?" "Yes, we are," said Jerry, and this time it was her voice that shook with fury. "I'd get up and yell it from the top of the roof if I could. I'd tell everybody how I hate all this divorce — divorce — all the rotten way you and Brandon take every little tiny divorce case and boom it up — " nE closed himself against her. He had to. He said, haughtily, "I don't know what you're talking about. You're hysterical, that's all. You better get wise to yourself." His voice was raw with hurt, with disappointment. "I'm going places, Jerry. This is just the first step — " "It's the wrong first step," said Jerry. "You're nuts," said Mac bluntly. "You heard me," said Jerry. "It's simple. You can go your way — yours and Brandon's and all this divorce mess — or you can go mine and get out of it— but I don't see from here how you can go both." "You're crazy!" said Mac. "You said that before," Jerry reminded him. "I don't like this racket you're in. Tonight was the last straw. I've been warning you for a long time. Now — I'm telling you. Either you're coming my way and do the things we planned to do when we got married — or you can go on with this punk racket — by yourself." "You want me to throw away the reputation I've made? You want me to kick the chance to make enough dough so we can do the things we want to do right out the window? I've sweated and worked and broken my back building it up — we're young, we can wait for the chance to do the other things when I've got a fifty thousand dollar a year reputation. If you think I'm going to toss all that away and go back to being scared to death every time anybody knocks at the door for fear it's the landlord, you're plain wacky." "So that's it," Jerry said, low. "Plain as I can make it," Mac said, in a high forced voice. "All right," said Jerry and picked up her coat. KlANDA wasn't asleep. She didn't sleep much, nowadays. Staring at the ceiling in the darkened room, she remembered how she used to think it would be pleasant to sleep alone, not to have to bother about David getting up in the morning, hearty and noisy. Now — A noise in the outer room startled her and she sat up on her elbow. Jerry stood in the doorway, gray in the morning light. "What — " Wanda snapped on the light, "Jerry. What happened?" "Got an extra pair of pajamas for me?" Jerry said defiantly. Wanda swung back the bedclothes and sat on the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?" she said sharply. "Was Mac sore?" "Mac?" said Jerry. "I've left Mac." Wanda's bare arm reached for the telephone. CAST Geraldine Jerry Brokaw . Joan Blondell Alan MacNally . . . . Dick Powell Wanda Holland . . . . Gloria Dickson Jeff Gilman . . . . . . Frank Fay Grandma Brokaw . . . Jessie Ralph Grandpa Brokaw . . Harry Davenport David Holland, Sr. . . . Conrad Nagel David Holland, Jr. . . . Mickey Kuhn "Peppy" Gilman . Dorothy Burgess Erskine Brandon . . Sidney Blackmer Screen Play by Frank Butler Directed by Ralph Murphy "What's that for?" Jerry said. "I'm going to call Mac and tell him to come and get you this minute," Wanda said. "You can't — " Jerry moved swiftly, took the telephone, held it hard against her. "Look, Wanda, don't do that. This is between Mac and me — the way it was between you and David. We've got to work it out. If he won't — it'll never be right — I didn't interfere with you — " "Why didn't you?" Wanda said wearily. "Why didn't somebody beat my ears off and teach me a little sense and a little tolerance? Jerry, I've lost my husband and my son and everything else that's strong enough to hang onto. Don't be such a fool, Jerry. Hang onto it — fight for your marriage — fight for it — " "I am," said Jerry, steadily. "This is my way of fighting. I won't live with him if he — goes on this way. Don't talk, Wanda. He'll have to come to his senses — you'll see." Wanda made a strange, helpless gesture with her hands. She sat there staring while Jerry took a suit of pajamas out of the drawer and went slowly out. The weeks went by, strange, utterly unreal weeks. Weeks of surface thought, held tensely, stubbornly against deep thought, against the pitiful emotions underneath. Jerry played bridge with Wanda's friends, went shopping, went to the movies, had her hair done. Her mind was as stiff with stubbornness as her back and her back was like a poker. When "she thought about Mac, when the ache way down inside her was loneliness and despair and wanting him, she set her teeth and said, I'm right. I'm right and he knows it. It's for him, for his sake I'm trying to make him see. But he doesn't care any more, that's all. If he cared even a little bit, he wouldn't stay away, he'd come and get me. Mac worked eighteen hours a day, flinging himself into his work with a sort of insane determination not to think. If you didn't go home until midnight and you were so exhausted your teeth ached, you wouldn't feel that other awful ache because the whole house cried for Jerry. Inside himself he said, she ought to understand. If she loved me she'd know I'm just doing all this until I get enough dough so we won't ever have to go through all that again. But she doesn't care any more, that's the answer. If she did she'd come on home. The house finally got him. Can't stay here, he thought. Can't keep on coming home every night and hoping she'll be here. I'll go nuts myself. So he moved to the club. He telephoned and got Wanda. "I'm moving to the club," he said. "I'll send the keys over. Tell Jerry she can do what she likes with the house." "Mac," Wanda said hurriedly, "don't you want to talk to her? She's — " But Mac had gone all sore and hurt inside. He knew all about Wanda. Wanda, he thought, was against him, she had always been against him. So abruptly he said, "No, what's the use?" and hung up. Wanda put down the receiver and turned to Jerry. "That was Mac," she said. "He's moved out of the house." "Why, didn't — didn't he want to talk to me?" Jerry said. "He said — he didn't," Wanda told her. I HEY were silent a moment, both of them aware instantly of small Davey, staring at them. Jerry went on helping Davey to pack his suitcase. It seemed to her that Davey was always a little strange when he was here with his mother. Certainly, right now, he looked a little confused and not at all at home in the smart modern apartment. Jerry said, "Everything packed, feller?" "Mostly," said Davey. "My dad ought to be here pretty soon, to take me home." Sharply, Wanda said, "This is your home, too, Davey." Davey looked around. "Oh yes, sure," he said politely, "only it's all sort of for ladies here, isn't it?" As the child wandered out, Wanda said sharply, "David does it on purpose." Her voice broke. "He knows I don't know anything about baseball and horses — he tries to make Davey think this is just some awful tiresome place he has to come to. I don't understand children very well — when you only see them once in a while — boys — " "When he gets older — " Jerry said helplessly. The doorbell buzzed and David came in. There could be no doubt about Davey's joy at sight of him. "Have a good time with the ladies, son?" David said. "In case you've forgotten," Wanda said, "I happen to be his mother." "Get your duffle bag," said David. "We got to go." While the boy was gone, David said, "You don't look very fit, Wanda. Better slow up a little." 78 PHOTOPLAY