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“Albert Einstein,” Ling said, and pushed forward on her crutches.
“I don’t think he counts,” Mabel said, following after.
“He does in my book.”
Outside, a swarm of Erasmus Hall High School girls milled in front of the studio gate. They were doing their best posing, but trying not to look too obvious about it.
“Look at that,” Evie said, and Theta knew whatever came next would be a little catty and probably true. “They all hope if they pose and sigh and bat their peepers, they’ll be picked out of the crowd to become the next Norma Talmadge. I’ve got news for them: Not everybody is Norma Talmadge. Excuse us, please,” Evie announced with a circus barker’s flair as she parted the girl-throng. “Miss Theta Knight of the Follies coming through for her screen test. Excuse us, please, thank you, thank you.”
A guard waited at the front gate. He frowned. “Only Miss Knight is expected.”
“Oh, but I’m her sister and her chaperone,” Evie bluffed, putting a hand to her chest as if the idea of Theta going into the Hollywood viper pit unaccompanied was unthinkable. “And this lovely lady is her secretary, Miss Ling Chan, and this is her personal seamstress, Miss Mabel Rose.”
“I’ve made all of Miss Knight’s costumes for the Follies,” Mabel said, falling right in. “I love to sew.”
The guard eyed Ling suspiciously. “And I love to… secretary.”
“Fine. Go in,” the weary guard said, ushering them inside the gates of Brooklyn’s famous film lot.
“I love to secretary?” Mabel whispered to Ling.
“We’re in, aren’t we?” Ling groused.
Theta gawked at the many painted sets and the tall, bright lights, the movie cameras perched like giant birds around the lot. They passed a shop where carpenters hammered away at sets and a costume shop where the sewing machines revved. Actors milled about, drinking coffee, smoking, and going over their lines. A tall, somber-looking man walked past.
“Oh, jeepers! That’s Boris Karloff!” Mabel said excitedly. “I loved him in Flaming Fury!”
“For a socialist, you sure do know a lot about movie stars,” Ling said. She’d stopped to examine a recording machine of some sort. She couldn’t help but fiddle with the gears to see how it worked. A man in a pair of plus fours came racing toward her, his ridiculous puffy trouser legs waffling like a bellows. “Say, what are you doing? Now, come on, sweetheart, come away from there!”
“I like machines,” Ling said quietly.
“She’s very good with machines,” Mabel confirmed.
“That’s no place for ladies,” the man said. “We have a wonderful costume shop if you’d like to visit.”
Ling narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps you could see them about a pair of proper pants, then.”
“I think you might’ve made him angry,” Mabel said with a glance over her shoulder as they walked away.
“Good. Do you know why I like machines?” Ling said.
“Why?”
“They’re not nearly as annoying as people.”
They caught up to Evie and Theta.
“I’m sorry,” a cameraman told them. “But you ladies will have to wait out by the gate until the screen test is over.”
“Good luck, Theta!” Evie called. The girls waved as the cameraman showed Theta onto a stage decorated like a living room, where a camera and several lights had been positioned.
“Doesn’t she look just like a star?” Mabel said wistfully.
“Have a seat right here, sweetheart,” the director said, ushering Theta to a chair beside a table displaying a photograph of a handsome soldier. “You know Warner Brothers owns this whole kit and caboodle now. Do well here, and you’ll be out in Hollywood in no time, kid.”
“Swell,” Theta said, swallowing down her nerves.
“You know what’s coming next, don’tcha?” the makeup man said, touching up Theta’s powder. “Talkies. Warner Brothers—they’ve got us experimenting with sound out here. I hear Al Jolson is gonna sing in a picture!”
