Screenland (Nov 1944-Oct 1945)

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She was lucky enough to get a ticket on a train (she'd have to make several changes, nothing is ever simple in the Navy) for the following night. All right, so they didn't have a drawing room, or a compartment, or even an upper in a Pullman, she could sit up all night in the regular coach along with the other folks. In war times she might have to sit around for days waiting for a reservation, it happens even to movie stars, and she didn't intend losing any time. She ate her dinner out of a box, an Adrian box but a box, and she drank her milk out of a thermos. And she shared the chicken and the fruit with the numerous wailing kids who constantly scrambled up and down the aisle to the water cooler. When the Army wife she sat next to got off at her station, Claudette carried the baby, the baby's bottle, and the baby's pottie off the train for her. Claudette doesn't say much about that night's trip in the crowded coach, so similar to the one she made with Shirley Temple and Jennifer Jones in "Since You Went Away." With sleeping kids and exhausted mothers all around her she had lots of time to think. And — a lot of things that had seemed awfully important suddenly seemed awfully silly. I don't mean that Claudette "got religion" that night. I don't mean she ran out the next morning and got a welding job, the way she did in "Since You Went Away." I just mean she did a lot of thinking. Her husband met her while his ship was on a precommissioning detail before it was ordered to sail. The Navy wives, with their children, all eager to be as near their husbands as possible, as long as possible, had gathered together there from all parts of the United States. They all lived in a hotel some fifteen to twenty miles out from town. The hotel had been a famous resort hotel in the good old days, but had gone into bankruptcy and disrepair. Not long ago two enterprising Irishmen bought it, and turned it into a Navy hotel. The entire guest list was Navy. There, too, was the servant problem, even as in Hollywood and Keokuk. In that vast hotel, where once maids and waiters were so plentiful they stumbled over each other as they dashed around with fresh linen, champagne cocktails, fruit and flowers, there were only two maids to do the rooms, and three waitresses. But the Navy wives were so grateful to the Irishmen for keeping the hotel open at all, and saving them from the inconveniences of motels and trailer camps, that it would never have occurred to them to complain about anything. "They pitched in and helped with the Night to Claudette m page 24 work," said Claudette, "and I pitched right in too. The two maids were hardworking, efficient girls, but it was utterly impossible for them to clean all the rooms, so most of us did our own cleaning. The wives took turns at running the switchboard, and they lost no time in suggesting that I take a turn at it too. H'mmm, I thought, that should be fun. I can listen in on everybody's conversation. 'It's a little difficult at first,* one of the girls said, 'do you think you can catch on to the hang of it, Mrs. Pressman?' Well, really, I thought to myself, does she take me for a case of arrested development? You pull out a cord, and you plug it in a hole. That's all there is to it. "I was wrong. It isn't all there is to it. Well, anyway, they gave me a night shift to begin with because there aren't so many calls at that time, or so they said. I think maybe I was the freshman being initiated. I came in from the ship after having dinner with my husband, and was told that it was my turn. I had hardly settled myself comfortably (hoping no doubt to overhear a few juicy tidbits) when bedlam broke loose. I knew that when a red light flashes someone in the hotel is calling the operator, and when the green light flashes you have an incoming call. But suddenly that switchboard had more red and green lights than Fifth Avenue and the buzzer was buzzing loud enough to wake the dead. That switchboard really had me puzzled. After I had jammed up everything beautifully by . plugging all calls on the same line, a nice Navy wife from Chicago said she guessed she'd better take over." Well, after that blow to her pride Claudette knew she had to do something spectacular so those other wives wouldn't think she was stupid and incompetent. When she had arrived at the hotel she had noticed that the elevator had a "Do Not Use" sign on it. "AMiat's the matter with the elevator?" Claudette had asked. "Is it broken?" "Something's wrong with it," one of the wives had answered. "But the manager can't get an elevator boy to run it now anyway. Manpower shortage." Uh huh, Claudette thought, after the switchboard fiasco this is my chance. Claudette has always been very good at tinkering around machinery, especially if the machinery is greasy and oily, arid leaves big smudges. (If the switchboard had been greasy and oily she could have conquered it, I'm sure.) Claudette is the only girl I know, or have ever known, who can crawl underneath an automobile on her back, whack away at this and that with a wrench, and come out some minutes later looking like a fugitive from an oil explosion — -but the car works! If she hadn't been an actress .she could have made a damned good mechanic. Well, anyway, Claudette fussed around that elevator all morning, and 60 Screen LAND