“Stop,” he said. Norma turned around.
“Come back and do it again. I don’t like the way you did that. It wasn’t graceful.”
“No,” she laughed. “I’m cold.” Norma hugged her body.
“I said ‘again.’” He twirled his finger and took out a cigarette to light it. “Men look at your ass for a living, sweetheart. I just deserve to see a little more of it since I pay for it.”
Norma turned and walked slowly to the door, pausing when she heard him inhale his cigarette. He was satisfied for now. Norma exhaled a little.
In the beginning, she’d pretended she enjoyed herself—it was hard to admit to herself what she was doing, so she convinced herself that she liked—even loved—Clint, but now, she saved the performances for the stage. Her distaste for sleeping with him seemed to excite him all the more and—mixed with the dulling effects of the three whiskeys he’d drunk—made for a very long night and several “attempts” at sex that seemed endless.
She handed him another drink and was ready to get into bed when he shook his head. “Stand there,” he commanded. “I never get a good look at you.”
Norma stood in front of him and gazed out the window. “You aren’t so bad.” He maneuvered his cigarette and his drink. “Your tits are too small and you’ve got a small bump on your nose that I see you try to cover, but your ass and legs are good, at least for now.” Norma was humiliated that he was assessing her like a Pimlico horse. “You’d have never made it big in Hollywood. I know you think you would have, but you wouldn’t have. You think you’re better than me, but I saved you from a worse fate, you know. An average-looking girl like you. If not for me, you might be one of those girls in the clubs.”
“You mean a whore?” Norma raised her voice. This was a dangerous move.
“It’s what you really are, though, anyway,” he said, laughing. “You know that, don’t you? I could do better than you, you know.”
“I know you could.” And Norma thought that in this town filled with poor and desperate women, he probably could.
“Then convince me that I shouldn’t toss you out of here.”
Clint put the drink on the nightstand and Norma crawled under the sheets. She knew that she needed to be smart right now. He’d just opened himself up, in a way. He was bothered by her aloofness and needed to even the score. This was where things could escalate. Clint crawled on top of her and in one movement, the cigarette came down on her cheek and he held it there, the weight of him on top of her. He held her mouth to muffle any sounds. Norma knew the burn would cause a scar; that had been the point. And then Norma felt the hardness of Clint.
It was going to be a very long night.
Norma was the ideal type of dancer, not a smaller girl; nor was she so tall as to be intimidating or gangly. Her auburn hair made her eyes pop from the stage. From years of dancing, she also was able to pick up the more technical, complicated steps that eluded a good percentage of the girls. Plus, everyone was afraid of Clint and it was known that she was his girl, so she rose quickly. But unlike the other girls who leveraged their beauty by entertaining promising businessmen backstage following the show, Norma was off limits. On more than one occasion, Clint had knocked her around and she’d had to use pancake makeup to go out in the daytime. This time it was a burn. She parted her hair on the side until it healed, but the damage wasn’t lost on Marvin Walden, the theater director, and although he said nothing about it, he slipped a card in her jacket.
She pulled it out and studied it. It was a card for a Monumental Films talent scout.
“You’ve got a screen test on Wednesday at two P.M.” Walden pulled back her hair. “See if Bettie can get that covered for you. Don’t let Clint know about your test. I don’t need the trouble.”
“Thank you,” she said to Marv.
“If that bastard finds out, you won’t be thanking me.” Marv walked down the hall, his hands in his pockets.
And Norma knew he was correct. If Clint found out, he’d kill her.
The stage was one thing, but Norma hadn’t been used to the camera with its harsh lights at her screen test. The test was quick, no more than twenty minutes, and it amounted to her saying her name and turning on the chair so the camera could pick up different angles. The camera guy seemed to spend more time with her than the girl before her, though, and the scout had asked her a lot of questions about Akron. Did she know how to sing? Yes. Could she dance? Yes. Who was her favorite actress? Norma Shearer.
Within a week, Norma received a letter from Monumental with an offer for eight weeks of work for $1,250. Norma had eight weeks to impress the producers at Monumental. If she didn’t, she’d be sent home. She’d saved up enough money that she would be able to take care of herself for another two months, but if she couldn’t get something in that time period, she’d come back here or go back to Akron—somewhere on her own terms and not subject to someone like Clint. Norma vowed she would never find herself with someone like Clint again.
She was wary of him finding out, though. She had to hide the offer from him until she’d left New York. Her hope was that he’d move on from her quickly. Already, he was out “scouting” regional dancers again, so she might be replaced. Clint enjoyed shocking someone new with his proclivities. Naive women under the age of nineteen were his favorite targets, but there was something about her that he continued to crave. Just to be safe, Norma decided she’d change her name—she would be going to Hollywood not as Norma Westerman, but as Nora Wheeler. She liked the name. People often called her Nora by mistake, and it always thrilled her. The name was more confident than Norma—she was shedding Norma and walking into Nora. The name Wheeler had been her mother’s maiden name. Two days before her departure, she bought a train ticket. The trip by train would take four days, first to Chicago and then through Kansas City and then El Paso, Tucson, Phoenix, and on to Los Angeles. Nora needed to be there in five days. She was cutting it close.
It was February and the entire East Coast had been gripped by a harsh winter, so Nora packed two suitcases, wearing a long overcoat that she would really only need through Kansas City. She looked through her wardrobe and picked out several spring dresses and jackets that she would be able to wear. Nora heard the lock on the door and her heart stopped. She shoved the open suitcase under the bed. Clint was supposed to be in Atlantic City tonight, and her train ticket was lying on the table. What was he doing here? Nora scurried to the table to grab the ticket and hide it in her winter coat pocket by the door. Clint emerged through the door, shaking melted snow from his coat.
“I thought you were in Atlantic City?”
“I changed my mind.” He shrugged and then coughed. “What? You not happy to see me?”
“Of course I am.” Nora wrapped herself around him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
“What? You got a fella in here?” He laughed, placing his hat on the coatrack. Nora could see the ticket peeking from her coat pocket so she steered him away, getting him a whiskey. “If you do, he’s a dead fella.”
Clint’s unexpected arrival could mean problems for Nora’s plan. She had to be on the seven forty-three A.M. train, but if Clint slept over—and he often did—he wouldn’t leave for the theater until late morning. Clint took his drink and pulled her by the arm into the bedroom, and despite the fact that no one was in the apartment, he kicked the bedroom door shut behind them.