All the Stars in the Heavens Read Free

lied.
    â€œNot on a frame this small. They’re freaks of nature. Look at ’em.” Mae twirled her foot in a full circle. “Canoes.”
    â€œThese shoes are too small,” the dresser admitted. “But they’re all we’ve got.”
    â€œYou don’t see the shoes.” Robert Leonard handed Mae her script.
    â€œIf I wasn’t married to the director, I’d demand shoes that fit,” Mae teased.
    â€œDarling, you know about budgets.”
    â€œYeah, yeah. Kiss me, Bobby.” She puckered her lips. Her husband kissed her. Mae flipped through the script. “Lot of weeping and wailing here.”
    â€œMr. Leonard? We need you to choose the background.” Ernie Traxler, the assistant director, an energetic young man of twenty-four, eager to impress the boss, handed the director a list of names.
    Robert scanned the list and handed it back to Ernie. “You choose them for me. You did well with the town-hall scene.”
    â€œThank you, Mr. Leonard. I’ll take care of it.” Ernie smiled.
    â€œSee you on the set, hon,” Robert said to his wife.
    â€œMiss Murray. Your lunch.” A runner approached with a tray.
    â€œWhat’ve we got today?”
    â€œHam sandwich and lemonade,” the boy said as he hooked a tray onto the arm of the slant board. The costumer draped a large, starched linen napkin over Mae’s costume to catch any crumbs.
    â€œI should be eating a rare steak and raw tomato. That’s how Mary Pickford stays slim.”
    â€œB-but you ordered . . . ,” the boy stammered.
    â€œTeasing ya. Ham for the ham, honey.” Mae smiled as she lifted the bread and removed the meat. She ate half a slice of the bread sparingly buttered.
    The crew dropped a row of leather harnesses covered in beige velvet and attached to long ropes secured with iron bocklebee clasps from the overhead grid. Ernie Traxler led a group of extras dressed as fairies onto the set. The men wore thick green leotards with chest armor made of silk leaves; the women, pale green tulle skirts with satin vests.
    Four little girls dressed in taupe undershirts and leotards, with a flounce of green tulle tied at the waist, were led to the dangling yokes. One girl began to whimper fearfully, and two cowered away from the harnesses. But the fourth girl raised her arms eagerly.
    â€œUncle Ernie!” She smiled. “Up!”
    â€œYou’re a good girl, Gretch.”
    Ernie helped hoist his four-year-old niece into her harness. Gretchen grinned, extending her legs behind her and her arms to her sides, as though she were in flight. Gretchen began to swing in the harness as the crew loaded the rest of the girls into theirs. Two of her fellow fairies began to cry, the first rumbles of a revolt.
    â€œLook at Gretchen, girls. She doesn’t cry.”
    Gretchen was a few feet off the ground. “Higher!” she commanded. The stagehand guided the rope on the pulley heavenward as Gretchen made her ascent. The higher the girl went, the happier she was.
    Gretchen’s cousin Carlene, emboldened by her cousin’s courage, raised her arms. Ernie hoisted his daughter into the harness. She did not smile, nor did she extend her arms; instead she kept her eyes on Gretchen, gripping the straps with her hands as though she were under a parachute.
    Mae Murray looked up at the children as they hovered over the crowd. Mae’s highest dream was to become a mother, but it hadn’t happened. Doctors had advised her to adopt, believing that she could not have a child, but she was only in her early thirties, and she held out hope that there would be at least one baby for Robert and for her.
    Gently the crew raised the children in the harnesses to meet Gretchen, who was now about ten feet in the air. The first assistant director placed the extras beneath the fairies as the cameras pushed in to film the dream scene.
    Gretchen dropped from the sky in a flourish.