Free American Dreams by John Jakes Page A

you say that? You're the one who gave me permission to join the Mortmain company.'
    'Touring the South -- a section of the country far safer than New York.'
    He hooked a finger in his collar and jerked, a sign of his agitation. 'I thought a year or two on the road would cure your ambition. You'd see the Obligatory Scene
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    sordid lives of actors, most of whom fail to achieve anything significant.
    You'd endure wretched conditions for a while, and then your eyes would open and you'd give it up.'
    'You really thought that when you let me go?'
    'Yes.'
    'You didn't support me? You deliberately sent me out to fail?'
    He took hold of her red satin sleeves. 'Please calm down.'
    1*
    She wrenched free. 'I'm not a child, to be patronized and pacified. You
    '
    keep making that mistake.' Her color was high, her forehead hot, her stomach unbearably painful.
    'No, you misunderstand. I repeat, I want nothing but the best for you.
    When you left, I thought you were foolish, misguided. But I felt that trying to reason with you was futile. I did not send you out to fail, only to get the theater out of your system. It appears I'm the one who failed. I must try again. I beg you not to go. New York is a cesspool of criminals, radicals, pseudo-intellectuals with their Ivy League noses in the air. And those damned new women with their short hair! I've seen photos of them strutting in trousers and neckties and derby hats. Some of them even flaunt cigars and pipes. In public! I don't want you going that way'
    'Papa, that's ridiculous. I won't.'
    'You're a lovely girl' - she avoided his eyes - 'but emotional. At this moment I would say slightly hysterical. Let me be plain. If you persist with
    ¦
    this mad idea, you'll incur my deep displeasure.'
    But she already had, it was evident in the set of his mouth, the crow's feet around his eyes. She marched to him in two quick strides, confronted him without blinking.
    'Then what, Papa? You'll disown me?'
    'I dislike your tone of voice.'
    'I'm sorry, I'm a grown woman. I'll always be your daughter, but I'm not your slave.'
    'I forbid you to go. I forbid it!'
    The office had grown dark as a cave; the last red light was gone, and the stars were strewn high on the other side of the glass, which vibrated in the lake wind.
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    'You have nothing to say about it, Papa. Goodbye.'
    Fritzi was almost in tears. She dashed out, giving the office door a mighty slam. It was a splendid curtain cue, for a play. The difference was, when a play ended, there were no consequences.
    46 )
    Dreamers
    10 Eastbound
    QT iebchen, don't do this,' lisa said. Fritzi threw stockings and underjLJ
    wear into the muslin-covered tray of her steamer trunk. It was a fine old trunk, basswood covered in canvas and reinforced with top, bottom, and side slats. It bore the scars of her years of one-night engagements: grease marks that wouldn't surrender to repeated scrubbing, deep dents in the brass corner bumpers.
    'I'm going, Mama. He despises me.'
    'You're wrong, it's only the acting. And the thought of you alone in New York.'
    'What's the difference? That's what I am, an actress. Actresses belong in New York.' She stuffed a pair of shoes into her brown leather bag on the bed. A slot under the handle held a wrinkled card she'd inscribed with care, in ink, in 1901:
    Miss Frederica CROWN
    mortmain's
    Royal Shakespeare Combination
    Birmingham, ALABAMA
    lisa wrung her hands, clearly desperate for a new avenue of argument.
    Outside Fritzi's window the sunless sky had a murky, menacing look.
    'Papa hasn't said three words to me since the party night before last.
    He's avoided me around the house. 1 never spent a worse Sunday. I'll be on the four o'clock train.'
    'Fritzi, it's Heilig Abend. Christmas Eve. We gather together, Papa lights the candles on the tree--'
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    'I'll celebrate by myself. He can't change, Mama. Or grant me the right to live my own life -- to fail, if that's the outcome. Which it will not be, I promise.