TIL MORNING

Part Eight

Dorothy

            The Voice of Broadway, 1956. “Elvis Presley just released his first gold album, and everyone knows it isn’t going to be his last. His hip movements on The Milton Berle Show caused a frenzy. Marilyn Monroe legally changed her name, although no one thinks of her as Norma Jean Mortenson. And when will she become Mrs. Arthur Miller? Soon, I’d wager.”

             Marilyn did marry Miller, the most unlikely of her unlikely matches. Grace Kelly gave up her film career for Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis broke up their comedy act. Johnnie did come back to Dorothy.

            Their continuous partying only added to her joy, a desperate joy at times to be sure, but one unlike any she had known before. On What’s My Line?, she continued wearing the mask in more ways than one. Her answers were quick, her questions clever. In The Voice of Broadway column, she reported the gossip as she always had and longed to write more serious pieces.

            She and Johnnie attended My Fair Lady, the musical based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. The Mark Hellinger Theatre appeared packed to capacity that night, probably fifteen hundred people ringing their applause and laughter through the place. Poor Johnnie kept fiddling with his hearing aid as if trying to dial out the static on a radio.

            Afterward, they stood in the rotunda lobby with its fluted Corinthian columns and debated about whether the play were a true love story. Johnnie appeared oblivious to the stares from other theatregoers.

            “It was perfect,” he said. “Henry Higgins realized he had loved Eliza all the time.”

            “That’s so like you,” she replied. “Ever the romantic.”

            “Better ever than never. I had tears in my eyes at the end of the play, and I know they’ll get married.”

             “Because Henry told her to fetch his slippers?” she asked.

            “He was just kidding.”

            “What about the age difference?” She baited him a little. “Henry Higgins is old enough to be Eliza’s father, and he’s pretty bossy.”

            “We both know age doesn’t matter, Dotty. Neither does bossy.” He grinned. “And remember, Higgins panicked when he thought the girl had left for good. Couldn’t live without her. He’d grown accustomed to her face.” He sang that line softly and touched Dorothy’s cheek. “She almost makes his day begin—”

            “Shaw would be rolling in his grave,” she cut him off, “if he had to witness what Broadway has done to his beautiful play.”

            “Well, Miss Kilgallen.” He faked an expression of disapproval. “You’re sounding about as cold and put-offish as some people say you are.”

            She knew what they said about her and wished he hadn’t tried to tease her about it.

            “Is that what you believe?”

            “You know better.” He grabbed her hand. “It was a bad joke because you hurt my feelings. I really do want Henry Higgins to marry Eliza.”

            “Well, maybe he will.”

            They left the theater and began walking down West 51st. The fall air barely turned their breaths into plumes, and they braved the climate coatless.